September 8

The past couple weeks since my last post has been time well spent, full of adventures and fun. I have fallen in love with this state. The only competition that Ohio has with Oregon is Middle Bass


I have done some crazy things in my life. Some things my parents don't know about and some They would rather not hear about. One day when I was on the phone and mentioned something  about cliff jumping and
my mom pleaded for me to not say anymore. Althugh I have kept my cliff jumping to a minimum doen't mean I have not been able to pull off some crazy things.


A few days back I was able to take the Crater Lake boat tour to Wizard Island. Wizard Island is the little island in the Middle of Crater Lake. Its not really little once you get down there, so the day I was able to go on the tour and extensive hiking turned out to be a big day of touring and extensive hiking. The day began with vicky and becky who are both international and Janelle who was my first roommate,hiking down the caldera to the bottom of the lake. After stomping straight down the hill trying not to fall we got to take a hour boat ride to the island. This is what I mean when the day turned out to be BIG adventures. I never knew that it would take an hour to get to Wizard Island, everything looks so close when your looking down into the crater from thousands of feet above. All four of us hauled ass up the summit which is the top of the crater and then wandered down fumerale bay to see some tide pools. These two hikes are not suggested to be done on the same trip because of the extensivness but we where rebels and went for it. I was exhausted when the boat finally came around to pick us up. I am pretty sure that I feel asleep on the boat. The day ened with a jump into the freezing water ( about a 20 ft jump off a ledge) and the climb back up the cleetwood trail. I was exhausted. Cleetwood alone is tiring. there is a running joke that it is one mile down and eleven miels up. But over all it was one of the most beautiful things i've ever had a chance to do. Even though the day consisted of 7 miles hiking up and down elevation it was all worth it.


Another thing that I have managed to pull out of my sleeve was hiking to the top of Mt. Scott. Mt. Scott is the tallest mountain in the entire park. With the help of my roommate chelsey and dax, who works in the cafe' with me,we all successfully made it to the top. The climb up was hefty, there was times where I thought I was going to have to stop and turn around. Climbing up the elevation like that really creeps up on you. There was this whole mental battle thing that was happening as I was trying to get to the top. But I made it, and it was all worth is because the view was amazing and the pictures rock. We started the hike a little later in the afternoon so by the time we got to finishing out drive from mt. scott the sun was setting. This was another cool thing I got to see and I feel so privledged for it. I have seen a lot of sunsets, but not one that was setting over the mountain and turning the mountains a purple color because of the forest fires that are burning the park right now.
its been a while, but yes there has been some crazy lightening storms up here which are awesome but have created forest fires. There are 11 forest fire in the park right now but are all being controlled by the national park service. They are letting the trees burn which create a lot of smoke to help control the parasites that kill off some of the evergreens.
Getting back to the the sun set after climbing Mt. Scott. It was awesome, pictures don't really do much justice for the sunset but the colors where amazing. purples, oranges  and reds all in weird shapes .i've never been able to associate what I saw with sunsets after watching this one.


The trip to San Francisco was pretty insane. I didn't expect to get to go since colin decided that coming out here was not going to be a possibility. It was in the plans to go for a day or two but I had to do some modifications to my plans after leaving the mountain since i'll be doing it alone now. Anyways, Anne and I borrowed one someones old ford explore to pack her apartment up in and move her back to S.F. We lefted at about pm and got into Kfalls to pack her car up by 10. we managed to fit a dresser, sterio, tv, a few boxes and a queen size serta mattress all into the back of the poor old explore. we looked like sardines.  We lefted K.falls at about 11pm and got to S.F. at 6am. we drove the entire night, I even got to give my dad a wake up call when we where driving through sacramento ( since after all there is a 3 hour difference in ohio). After getting to her parents house we passed out until about 11 am until we where woken up by her little nephews to go swimming. It was nice to have slept in a normal bed and be in a home. We hung out there, i got to meet her llama named tina and jump into the cold pool to wake up. We made a game plan and set out to go down town for the rest of the day. Down town San Francisco it a pretty cool place, however, the golden gate bridge is not gold its a rust orange and its impossible to get as good as pictures as you seen online in person because there is ALWAYS FOG. It was ok though, I still got to walk across the golden gate bidge and eat some clam chowder. After anne and I where tourists around the city we headed back and had dinner with her parents and left san francisco like a bunch of crazies and made it back to the mountain by 6:00 oclock the next morning. So pretty much we drove two nights straight back to back and made it back to the mountain in one piece surviving on red bull.