John's Report

This is from fellow climber John Bennett, who tried to meet up with us on the Snow Creek trail. Considering his generosity to these climbers, and the time that took, it wasn't meant to be. But he saved the day with an interesting tale and a restorative hike to the Snow Creek Wall.

All text by John Bennett.

It all started when I decided to get up really early and head out to Leavenworth from Seattle. Unfortunately I didn't leave Seattle until 9:30. I was on my way to a trailhead up Icicle Creek when I noticed three hitch hikers, one going down the canyon and two going up. They looked pretty tired and I said to myself, "man I'm glad I'm not those guys". Upon reaching the trailhead I saw a sign that said you needed a trail head park pass and noticed that I the gazillion passes I have wouldn't work and I would have to go to the store and buy yet another pass. For a moment I sat in my car thinking gee, I really need to develop a project plan with milestones, critical path, key activity drivers, sponsor list, process flow, budget, and of course a RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) chart to maintain all the different passes I need to acquire in a year to go outside on a weekend and not think about work. I never knew how complex it is to go for a walk. Finally I decided the right thing to do is to buy another pass.

On my way down the canyon I decided to pick up one of the hitch hikers, he said he needed to get to a phone because is party was a day late in checking in. During the ride he mentioned that he was coming back from Prussik Peak and I told him I was going to hook up with some of my buddies just below Prussik and camp out with them. The hitchhiker perked up and said his group had met up with another group and it was probably my friends. I was really psyched he met up with my friends until he said, "Man do those guys have a long day in front of them"! Just then every lazy cell in my brain perked up and thought "long day, no one said anything about a long day".

By noon I was on my way back up the canyon and was rolling into the parking lot when I saw the other two hitchhikers and realized they were in the same party with the guy I picked up earlier and I decided to give them a ride as well. They needed to go back to Colchuck Lake trailhead and my hiking brain cells were saying, "we really need to start hiking" of course my lazy brain cells we saying "we're doing a good deed and the trail can wait" (convincing little brain cells aren't they). During the ride back to Colchuck trail head they were discussing how light my friends were going and how the crux on the last pitch is well understated in the Beckey guide. By the time I made it back to the lower trail head it was closer to 1:00 and figured there was no way I would catch up with Michael and the gang until very late and decided to hike a few miles, have lunch and mosey on back to Seattle. Not very exciting but I had a wonderful time helping out some climbers and enjoying the beautiful weather.