Party Like a Rock Star Party Like a Rock Star

The other day I was reminded of a rescue that my teammates and I went on a few months ago. It was along the Pacific Crest Trail, and a woman and her dog had gone missing. There were many aspects of this that seemed off to us- she had been traveling the PCT for months at that point, so it's not like she didn't know what she was doing. She had her dog and a "friend"- some guy she had blogged about who had joined her for the last 100 miles along for the ride. She had logistics support, and had already returned to a hotel to wait out a snowstorm at one point. So our guess was that she was out along the trail somewhere, Barry White crooning away in her tent with her and her "friend" blissfully unaware of the rescue effort under way to save her. Scott and I headed out to Snoqualmie Pass, and the entire way were confused about exactly what we were doing out there, but still happy to do our part.

Upon arrival at search base, we were asked if we could travel down the PCT. Yeah. From Snoqualmie Pass to Stevens Pass, the PCT is close to 70 miles long and we had no interest in an endurance hump, or overnighting in the field that evening. The weather was starting to sock in, and as it turned out I HAD to be back in Seattle the next morning to hop on the phone and deliver a brief I was working on for our US Coast Guard project. While not in the cards, the search administrators did a good number on peer pressure to see if we could in-fact stick around and were fairly disappointed when we had to politely decline.

Still, we were assigned to the PLS (Point of Last Sighting)- a campground roughly 10 miles in from where we could pick up a side trail in order to save a long and tedious hike along the PCT. Driving I-90 out and around, we passed through the town of Ronald- where the TV show Northern Exposure was filmed. Funny how a show based in Alaska was filmed in a little town outside Seattle, but there it was and you can still see the houses that the moose walks right by in the trailer.

Stressed out by the deliverable and several telcons that I had first thing in the morning, we stepped off onto our side trail just as it got dark. Off Scott and I go, hunting for them until the wee hours of the morning. Breaking trail and pressing through thick brush, we searched along the snowline and admired the stars which were clear enough that we could make out the Milky Way and even an occasional meteorite. When we came up empty handed, the team decided it was time to return to base and finally popped out by our car and drove home.

Returning to my loft at 03:30, I finalized a powerpoint, made the telcons from 07-10:00 and then proceeded to work the rest of the day as if nothing had ever happened.. surely not as if the ~20 miles of speed hiking and lost hiker hunting had occurred. No weird post-allnighter buzz, lagging exhaustion, shakes, etc etc. How, you ask? Four Rock Star Energy Drinks. Seriously. Four. That stuff is like liquid speed. How it works is beyond me, but I'm telling you that maybe either a SMR teammate or a guy with newborns invented it. I swear to you, they scare me. I didn't even feel like I had been up for close to 40 hrs including a rescue through the backwoods of Washington, worked on some dry-ass powerpoint and then talked for an eternity on a telcon by the time I crashed that next night. The only side effect I noticed? I thought it was great to TM everyone I knew with "party like a rock star, party like a rock star" .

Scary..

So there. I have now done my part for mankind and passed this hidden gem of information on to the world. A day later, the woman was discovered quite literally in her tent with Barry White going. Not surprisingly, she was confused about why exactly this rescue had been called out on her despite being a day overdue. Seems that after a few months alone along the PCT, it was pretty exciting to spend time with a guy that she was digging on and who had come to see her. Crisis averted, she was safe and doing well. And in the process I learned a valuable lesson- when you need some fast energy in a way that will keep you up despite the level of energy exerted, Rock Stars the way to go. It may require a biohazard label and I'll only drink it on heavy exertion occasions because of that, but it has worked like a charm for our team on more than one occasion now. Driving back from a Mt Olympus 30 hour nonstop summit climb, several of us drank Rock Stars and were able to get safely home.... man that stuff is crazy.

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The Lucky Christmas Dodge

On December 23rd, I went to LAX with my sister for our flights back to DC in time for Christmas. We had to beat feet because part of our Christmas tradition is to celebrate something called "Little Christmas". Our family opens presents on Christmas Eve (24th), but Little Christmas is more or less an authorized event to open one present each, a day early. Barbara's nonstop flight into Washington Dulles from LAX on the newly founded Virgin America would have her into DC sometime mid-afternoon. But given that this was a last minute trip to see Sgt Hawes' Basic Reconnaissance Course graduation, it would have cost me close to $700 to pick up a round trip ticket. Not being made of money, I used frequent flier miles to hook up a United Airlines round trip costing a whopping $7.50. Tough call on that one.. frequent flier miles and $7.50, or $700.. hmm. The catch was that on the return, my flight would take me through Chicago instead of nonstop into DC. At the time of purchase, I couldn't have cared less. At the time of flight, I couldn't have cared more.

When I arrived into LAX on Thursday night, the place was an absolute zoo. That was the first sign that this seasons rush compounded with an already crappy travel year would be a challenge. So when Barbara and I arrived at LAX somewhere in the neighborhood of 08:45, we found that Virgin America and United were conveniently located right next to each other but the airport was already a mad house. Barbara's flight was to depart at 10:40, and mine wasn't heading out until 2pm but given my ambivalence in being laid over in LAX thanks to some of the best people watching in the nation, I was completely fine with that and agreed to get there early with her.

Immediately after getting to the United Checkin line, my stress level started to spike. One woman told me that I couldn't check in until after 10:00, since my flight departure time was over four hours distant. Great. I didn't have any interest in wheeling around two suitcases for another hour so instead I opted onto the standby list to get the bags checked in. This proved to be both a burden and a Godsend down the road. We made our way through security, had some breakfast, and then Barbara went to her gate while I milled around between terminals and gift stores for some last minute Christmas shopping.

At 2, my flight was delayed until 2:30. Looking at all other Chicago-bound flights, they were delayed across the board which definitely raised an eyebrow or two. So at 2:30, we finally received our boarding announcement and jumped onto the plane. To sit. And sit. At 3:00, we were told that United needed our gate, so we would taxi out onto a remote part of the flightline until we received our takeoff approval. Again at 3:30, the pilot came on and informed everyone that the weather in Chicago was so bad that only one runway was operating. As such, we were held in LAX until ORD was ok with us flying in that direction and we were again being pushed back to 4:15. So long, connecting flight. But then at 3:40, a very anxious pilot comes on the intercom and gave us 2 minutes- we received our takeoff green light and if we missed this extremely narrow window, we wouldn't have another one for a whole hour. Flight attendants scrambled, people shut down laptops and tried to get off one last text message before we were airborne.

The flight was extremely quiet, and other than some light chop didn't get sketchy until we were almost into Chicago. Then the clouds rolled up to greet us, the bumps started, and the snow flying by windows was super-thick. The pilot managed a smooth landing and then there we were, at O'Hare. I had received a few updates before we left LAX letting me know that my ORD-DCA flight had been delayed also, so by my watch I had 20 minutes to get from Terminal C to Terminal B and on to that plane before it's now 9:50 departure to Reagan National. I quite literally ran to the first terminal monitor I could find- to read "delayed" or "canceled" on almost every departing flight listed. There were three remaining flights to the DC area that evening and even with the lateness of the hour you could tell that everyone was putting on a last-ditch effort to get people home for the holidays. My flight- the last of the 3, was now listed as departing at 10:55. Guess I can take my time getting to Terminal B, after all. As I made my way, I passed the longest Customer Service line I have ever seen. Passengers were asleep on gate couches. The Red Carpet Room lounge was overflowing. Talk about a worst-case scenario. On December 23rd at the height of the Holiday travel crush, one of United's key mid-country hubs is forced to a slowdown because of weather.

Over the next two hours, I had to change gates 3 times. One of the DC flights was able to get out and one was canceled. The one scheduled to depart O'Hare 2 hours before mine now showed a departure time 5 minutes ahead of ours, now 11:15pm. Then, the gate agent came on and gave us some news.. our crew was stranded in Idaho somewhere. Immediately after that announcement, the Departures monitor showed no scheduled depart time- just "postponed pending airport operations". More and more, it looked like I was going to be sleeping in O'Hare on Little Christmas, picking some random couch seat to call my very own. United EasyUpdate called for the 10th time with an automated update: "Good news! You have been rebooked on Flight XXX departing Chicago O'Hare on 24 December at 9am" I'm screwed.

But then in a rare feat of jointness, the Gate Agent who hadn't left us the entire time came onto the intercom and told passengers that in-fact, United was calling another crew in. The Gate Agent informed us that the DCA flight before ours hadn't departed yet, and depending on how things went in the next half hour we would either have that planeload of passengers merge with ours, or we would all truck down to Gate B-10 and merge with theirs. Then out of the blue, an airplane arrived at our gate and passengers hurried off. A pilot showed up.. and then two. The cleaning crews ran onto the plane and then they disappeared. Several extremely tired looking flight attendants jumped on board. We were told that all we needed was one last flight attendant, and then we were golden. She appeared at 30 minutes past midnight along with a mob of people who had just gotten word down at B-10 that their new plane that would take them to Reagan National was waiting for them at B-16 and had beaten feet to get on line for boarding passes.

We jumped on board and took off at 01:30am, arriving into Reagan National at 3 am. The crew were pleasant and I thanked them profusely for making the effort that they did. With all the canceled flights, and crappy weather they put forth a massive effort given the time of year and desperation of passengers who wanted nothing more than to be with family and friends in time for the holidays. Working in the air industry in this country is a thankless job right now and it's important to recognize those who go the extra mile as much as point out those who don't. But it's amplified time and again when you throw in the tight quarters and high dollar figures associated with air travel. Because of that, I can't express enough how thankful I was to this crew for pressing on at that time of night and under those conditions. Thanks to my name on the standby list in LAX 15 hours earlier, both bags were waiting in the baggage area with no wait- just grab them and go meet Dad and Barbara. "Well, hello! Haven't seen you in a while"

I was extremely lucky and I'm sure the envy of several thousand people who were still stranded in Chicago- and I know it. To drive home the point to me even more, I turned on my phone when I landed and found one voicemail waiting for me- from United EasyUpdate: "Your original flight, scheduled to depart Chicago O'Hare at 9am has been canceled. You have been rebooked on Flight XXX departing Chicago O'Hare on 24 December at 5pm". Lucky dodge. I was in DC in the wee hours of the morning on December 24th but with all the last minute Christmas shopping, present wrapping and other miscellaneous chores that needed to be done before our celebration started, there's no way I would have been able to make Christmas without that crew pressing on like they did.

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Ugg Lemming Parade

Today my sister and I did some quick last minute shopping before Christmas and ended up walking around Santa Monica's 3rd Street Promenade, a unique blend of shops, restaurants, and boutiques settled along a four block stretch of the city and within sight of the Pacific Ocean. In addition to the stores on 3rd Street, walking down the street provides one with a unique opportunity of seeing a healthy collection of the most bizarre and self-absorbed people in the United States. Among my perennial favorites are the Psychic Cat, who for a simple donation can read your mind and your future. Thanks to the help of a translator who just happens to speak cat, Psychic Cat then communicates its amazing prediction to a breathless audience. Then there are the living statues- you know the ones, people who paint themselves up silver or white, throw on sunglasses, and then move to a new pose when someone throws some coins into their basket. How would you like to go on a date with one of those people? Their skin a silver pallor from not quite cleaning up all the way and wondering in the back of your mind if all that makeup is going to lead to cancer one day. And among the other goofy people, you have throngs of those that can't be seen outside of the home unless they have on their designer shirts, $500 shades, and Ugg boots. In many ways, I'd rather spend time with the Psychic Cat than this crowd.

It's been a little while since I was last in LA and this trip came at an opportune time to hang out with my sis and also make a quick trip down to Camp Pendleton where Sgt Hawes, one of my Marines from 4th LSB was graduating from Basic Reconnaissance Course- a lifelong dream of his and something that I am extremely proud of him for. Landing in LAX, I immediately remembered what LA means to me- lots and lots of plastic people who don't seem to know how to place Moscow on a map but definitely are in-tune with the latest and greatest on K-Fed & Britney's drama. Not everyone for sure- there are definitely plenty of people who I know who live in the greater LA area who are genuine, friendly and close friends and who would give their shirts of their backs for someone in need. But it doesn't take a great deal of effort to find someone who would gladly take your your friends shirt, then turn around and sell it along with their soul to see themselves on TV. That being said, I definitely don't mind the International Airport at all- the fashionista people watching there is among the best in the country. If I'm ever laid over at LAX or DFW thanks to weather or mechanical problems I'm never that upset. It's just so damn entertaining. But there is a downside and Thursday evening, walking through the secured area of the airport en route to the baggage carousel I couldn't believe my eyes. Waiting just past the bored TSA agent guarding the secured area exit was a mass of humanity on a Mumbai scale. It took 45 minutes to get my bag, and that was only after I fought my way back and forth between Carousel 1 where UA #976 was listed- then heard a woman on the overhead 20 minutes later announce that 976 bags were coming out on Carousel 3. After another 15 minutes a UA rep told me it was actually Carousel 1 and then again 10 minutes later I finally found it on 3. What a mess. Barbara was waiting to pick me up and asked if she should drive through again while I scared up my bag. I told her yes, but when I walked outside the snarl of traffic made it clear immediately that it was going to be a long, long time before she made it to where I was standing. And it did. Almost an hour later she pulled up through the maze of stopped buses, hotel shuttles, bitchy women and toughguy dudes who would randomly cut off others and then stop before some bored and frustrated traffic cop shooed them on. And there's word that the massive Airbus A380 superjumbo, capable of carrying over 800 people and recently unveiled by Singapore Airlines is soon to be introducing even more passengers into this mess. That'll be fun. Hope my bag isn't the last one out of the hold with those numbers.

So after spending time with Sgt Hawes yesterday and a good night sleep for the first time in many days, Barbara and I headed into town. The weather was nice, the sun was out for the first time in two weeks, and even the antiwar protesters were in a good mood. And then I saw them. Uggs everywhere! Per-capita, I think that one out of every four women in the greater Los Angeles basin are proud owners of Ugg boots and make up 85% of Ugg Corporation operating profits. And soooo glamorous! As clearly displayed from the picture at right, wearing Ugg boots make a person incredibly happy, stylish, and reflexively strike poses that remind one of constipation. Pink ones, brown ones, tan ones, blue ones. Tall tops, furry tops, low rider types, clog versions. They. Are. Everywhere. And, they look STUPID. Oh, hey everybody! I'm so cold down here in LA! I need to wear my Uggs to keep my toes from suffering frostbite. If the temperature drops below a balmy 65, it might snow here in Southern California, and I want to be ready. Sure, I'll still have on my tank top and mini skirt, but thankfully I'll be able to wade through the snow from where I parked my H2 to get back to my home safely in time to watch Entertainment Tonight without losing my feet.

Whatever. To me, it's just plain dumb. It's not like those of us that run around the mountains decide that it's fashionable to jump onto a crowded Tokyo subway during rush hour with an ice axe and crampons. Oh wait.. yeah we did do that. Ok, so maybe a shirtless Matthew McConaughey and Pam Anderson wandering around with them on make plenty of star-struck fans think that they have something in common if they just go out and buy a pair for themselves. But seriously. To me, they just look ridiculous. If we were wandering around a sub-zero Anchorage in the depths of a January winter hunting down a Wooly Mammoth and I saw some girl wearing them it probably wouldn't even make me blink. But when I'm wearing a polo and the woman wearing the Uggs has on barely enough clothes to recreate a napkin it just doesn't make sense to me. Aren't her feet sweating like crazy in there?

In LA, Ugg boots are so ingrained into the popular culture that toy stores even sell dolls wearing different versions. I swear that I'm not making that up. So what's up with Ugg wearing dolls? It's in the data, actually. Some dude with too much time on his hands did a quick evaluation of Uggs website, revealing that most hits are coming from 25-40 year old females that earn between $60 and $100k, reside in the New York and California areas (read: affluent urbanites) and was kind enough to have the foresight to know that I needed his research for this blog. If you cross reference his data with anecdotal articles dealing with footwear (I didn't) and web searches that reveal ad targeting strategies (I didn't care enough), from what other people tell me most Ugg purchasers are women and parents of Tween girls that have Uggs on their Christmas wish lists. And that's why Little Barbie is dressed out in Uggs and why if I have a girl one day she'll remain locked in her room until she's married if Uggs ever appear on her wish list.

Oh, Barbara found this pic taken in NYC thereby confirming transcontinental anti-Ugg sentiment while assisting with the detailed research that went into this blog. Seems to imply that I'm not alone in thinking that Uggs are ridiculous outside of the Arctic Circle.

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Bullion Basin & Frustrating Pilots

This past weekend my Seattle Mountain Rescue (SMR) teammate and I ended up heading out on a Search and Rescue (SAR) mission close to Crystal Mountain Ski Resort, located in the foothills east of 14,410' tall Mt Rainier. The storms that hit over the week while I was in London for training managed to unexpectedly dump several feet of new snow and then trigger several avalanches across the Cascades. As a result, when I returned to the US and turned my cell on, about 50 text messages came rolling in dealing with several unrelated groups that had managed to get themselves into trouble, requiring SMR to head out to extract them and provide care starting as early as Tuesday. By the end of the week, one particular group who had headed out into the back country for a snowboarding trip up and over from Crystal Mountain continued to be lost with no trace.

So on Saturday, my teammates and I headed out at 05:30 in our fully loaded Expedition, arriving at search base around 07:30. After receiving our assignments and designating who would go with what team, we were inserted two ranges away by UH-1 helo to a remote and high angle search area. As we flew in, I was surprised to see the sheer number of avalanche that had hit this particular area over the last few days. Just about every slope and exposed run across several bowls showed some form of avalanche result, so given how long these three men had been missing coupled with all those slides made their chances of survival seem pretty slim. Holding on to hope, we learned that one of the three had just purchased an avalanche beacon the day of their disappearance.. so if he picked up batteries at the same time, they would have been the most fresh and possibly still capable of a charge. If we could pick up a signal, we would be able to vector in on any one of them and hopefully find them alive somewhere holed up and ready for evacuation.

Our team of 6 hit a very small LZ nestled in between pine trees and after breaking up assignments into teams of two (there were two SMR, two SPART and two Central Washington Mtn Rescue in our team) ranging from the base of an avalanche to straight up the center slope of an 800' face riddled with avalanche debris, we used our beacons and walked zig-zag to see if we couldn't find any trace of the missing snowboarders or pick up an emitted signal. We searched and searched with no results but occasionally one of us would pick up a ghost ping where our beacon would ping, we would look at each other with worried expression, and then spend 10 minutes combing that area with wands and cadaver dogs. All things considered, it seemed downright eerie. We came across the snowboarders "hut", a home made shelter carefully built by the three deep in the treeline and perfectly placed to take advantage of all these pure runs without having to worry about lift lines or other boarders. They had spent literally months working on this hut, complete with moss to plug holes in the wood sides for insulation, a cast iron stove (try considering that in your pack), tarps to cover the door and a well constructed and leakproof roof. It was well camouflaged to keep NPS Rangers from finding it given that the structure wasn't exactly authorized and it was located on National Park land. But given the level of complexity (the cast iron chimney even had a little home made roof to keep snow out of the top) and obvious frequency of visits (found a cord of evenly sawed wood and canned food with a receipt from November) for them to have missed their shelter as they traveled enroute didn't make sense. And yet there was no trace. So the more likely scenario was that they had triggered an avalanche on the way in, and through the week's storms likely had another one drop on top of them. If that had happened, it would be spring before any trace revealed itself. Grim, I know. But very strange and one of the reasons that we all spent so much time focusing on the ghost pings and probing of fields where it seemed likely they might have been.

It is funny how even in the darkest of times there comes a moment where you can truly relish life and where even simple, little things often overlooked when caught up in the day-to-day rush of things just pass you by. It happened in Iraq all the time. At the end of another day, every once in a blue moon my buddies and I would ascend to the top of a tower somewhere, smoke a cigar in the blast furnace heat and stare wistfully at an absolutely beautiful orange arabian sunset. There in Bullion Basin, thrown straight into this grim day where the odds of finding the boarders alive came a moment where Scott and I ascended straight up a 45 degree slope through chest deep snow to pop out on the very tip top of an icy ridgeline that held a stunning view of the east face of Mt Rainier. On an afternoon of mild temperature, no wind and blue skies, it seemed odd to be looking out at this beautiful scene staring awestruck at the magesty of a massive volcano so close, yet hear the constant clatter of search helicopters scouring the treeline 1000' below us and radio chatter of search teams coming up empty handed. Throwing down a handfull of Sour Patch Kids, Scott and I moved on, descending back into the trees and reenergized to continue along our search path.

Toward the end of the day we were told that the search was called off and we had 10 minutes to quickly descend to our LZ for pickup. We moved pretty quick, arriving at the LZ and calling the helo to let them know that we were ready to head back to base. That's when we heard another rescuer acting as relay who told us sorry, the pilots decided they were done and were heading home. I just stared at Scott in disbelief and shook my head, asking our SPART teammate to reconfirm what we had just heard. Thanks, pilots. So, as it turns out, pilots are the same all over the place! Not just in the Marines. How many times have I found myself on the short end of a helo ride where I ended up having to use black cadillacs for egress while the pilots were hanging out in the O Club hitting on nurses. Apparently at least once more.

Scott ended up laughing as I bitched and complained about pilots for the next 4 hours as we broke trail and post holed over 7 miles through hip deep snow to navigate 1,000' up, then across and over two mountain ranges to get home. In the fading light of day, I reached the final ridge and looked down into the new valley. Way, far off in the distance, about as large as an N gauge train model set sat the ski lodge bathed in orange glow. From where we stood in the dark, the trail wound down down down through tree stands and additional avalanche fields to the ski area and it took our collective team close to 5 hrs to get back to base. Chowing down on a meal that Steve had kindly saved for us, we packed up, loaded on board the truck, and headed home.

Ultimately, I don't know what happened to the three boarders. Scott and I talked about it and speculated as to what had happened to them, but with additional winter storms inbound and at least three more months of solid winter weather it may be late spring before anyone knows. Hopefully, in a remote long shot the three are holed up in a hotel somewhere sleeping.

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