Red River Gorge, Kentucky

The first two weeks in June were spent adventuring around Oregon with my parents, and the last two weeks in June were spent adventuring in the jungle of Eastern Kentucky with my East Coast Climbing crew!

Pat Tracy, more cartoon character than human, made the long drive from Vermont to climb. I told Pat a year or so ago that for his graduation present I would climb with him at the RRG... talk about a self serving gift!

Joe Talarico and his Wife Jackie and their newborn Mia were there from E-town PA to throw down (Mia, only a few months old did some climbing, but only from the firm grip of Joe. Keep your eye on the mags... I have a feeling that Mia will probably be a spotlight climber in the not to distant future.)

Bruce Stick from Lancaster PA made the journey down with this wife Heather (all of the photos from the trip - 800+ - were taken by him). He also provided my personal supply of beer for the entire two weeks, which was above and beyond the call of duty.

My lady, Katy, made the trip out from our home in Oregon for the second week of the climb, and showed that being, as she calls, "out of shape" for her is potentially the best shape to be in! She climbed very strong and very confident throughout her week there.

John Rutter also made the journey down from PA to test himself on the best sandstone in the East.

Currently I'm working on a story of the trip that will be published on www.greatoutdoors.com, and although it isn't finished yet, I will post it here as soon as it gets published by the editors over there. The trip was excellent, with punnishing sport climbing and a good crew to keep the scene motivated. I'll wait to describe the trip in words.... but here's a few images from the journey to keep you motivated..... If you're digging the blog, let me know!

Drew Peterson on Reilquary, 5.12b

Pat Tracy on Ro Shampo, 5.11d/12aKaty Van Dis throwing down on Velvet, 5.12a

Joe Talarico redpointing Tic Tec Toe, 5.12b. Joes's daughter, Mia (a few months old) was watching from the ground as Joe cruised the crux on this classic.

Thanks Bruce for all the photos! For more photos, check back when I publish the story to the blog.

South Sister

For my latest adventure, I chose to go solo. Solo of any kind has its risks and rewards, and I thought deeply about both. The mountain and route that I chose were low risk, somewhat non-technical, but still enough of a challenge (solo) to keep things interesting and inspiring. I chose to go it alone to gain perspective, and to experience the mountain 1 on 1. My feet, its slopes... the understanding that the mountain made with me and I with it... Its a delicate relationship where I have to stop and think more than usual.

South Sister, the third tallest mountain in Oregon, stands at 10,358 feet above sea level. It hosts numerous glaciers and vistas that lie to cameras.

The specific route that I chose (which is commonly referred to as the South side) is roughly 11 miles from car to summit to car, and it gains around 6,000 feet in elevation... the last mile of walking is roughly 3,000 of those feet.

I started out the day before memorial day, and I walked in the woods alone on the approach. Footprints and intuition set me on my bearing. I was following a topo map, and all I had to do was travel uphill and shoot between two butte's in the forest. Easy terrain led me past huge, 600+ year old Hemlocks and fir's. As I kept moving, I ascended a large, snow-covered plateau which led to the shoulder of the mountain. The plateau was mostly treeless, and was about 2.5 miles long. It was nearing 4:00, and the tent in my backpack was telling my shoulders to think about setting up camp soon.

South sister was shrouded in clouds, which is somewhat typical for spring in the cascades. Just last weekend I had attempted Mt. Hood and visibility was about 20 feet the entire way.... more on that in my next post.

I worked for another hour, chugging my way up the shoulder of the mountain, all the while trying to find an appropriate spot for my near 13 hour sleep tonight. Finally I stumbled upon a wind-blown flat area behind an island of trees. I was about 300 feet below the cloud line, and the wind was steady but not violent. I set up camp, and hastily began freezing my ass off. I stripped off my wet climbing clothes and layered up with long underwear, insulating layers and a down parka. I was still shivering and my toes were starting to get uncomfortable. It was only in the 40's (so I thought) until I took my altimeter/compass out and saw that the temps were in the upper 20's. I had only brought a 20 degree down sleeping bag with me, so at this point I was hoping and praying that my bag was going to be warm enough. I cursed out loud remembering standing in my living room with my -5 degree bag and my 20 degree bag in my hands. Light and fast..... that's what I got.

After shivering through a dehydrated meal, I zippered out the cold air in my Bibler tent and cocooned myself in my sleeping bag for the night. The clouds were still moving just above my head and the wind was whispering as the zipper's of my tent. Slowly I dozed off into alpine sleepy land.

I awoke at 3:00 AM to a pounding in my bladder. I unzipped my bag into the cold, still air of my tent and noticed a startling figure standing shrouded in light on the wall of my tent. I quickly grabbed my glasses (as I'm blinded without them) and heart throbbing.... looked at the shadow cast on my tent. It was a Fir bough gently moving in the wind in the light of a nearly full moon. Nothing to be scared of.... but it did mean that the clouds must have moved on. Like a child getting up for Christmas morning, I threw off my sleeping bag and unzipped my tent and stared into the glory of a bright cascade moon. The summit glowed above me, and I was happy to know that my morning would be clear and crisp.

The climb the next day was quiet, bright and alone. Walking on steep ridges and near corniced edges my boots made a solid crunching noise in the snow. The sun was quickly warming the mountain, and slushy mashed potato snow was on the way. The climbing was uneventful.... South Sister via the South side is more of a back country commitment than an alpine test piece. About 9:00 am I had summited, alone on the third tallest peak in Oregon in utter and complete blaring sunshine. South Sister is a volcano, so the top is flat and acts as the perfect solar collector. I went to the tallest point in the crater and I could see from Washington state all the way down to California. Being at a summit alone in a remote area is an exhilarating experience, and it went perfectly as planned. I felt strong, confident, and elated that I made the joinery on my own.

On the decent, I passed by many parties that were going for the summit. When I got back to camp, I cooked up the rest of mt food and packed up as the day's heat creeped up the mountain.

The rest of the walk out was uneventful, and I made it back to my car in one piece. It felt good to sit down in my car and have that one under my belt.

Mt. Hood -- Attempt Anyway

Not much to say about this one... The attempt was up the standard route of Mt. Hood in Oregon up the south side.

Mount Hood's snow-covered peak rises 11,249 ft (3,429 meters) and is home to twelve glaciers. It is the highest mountain in Oregon and the fourth-highest in the Cascade Range. Mount Hood is considered the Oregon volcano most likely to erupt, though based on its history, an explosive eruption is unlikely. Still, the odds of an eruption in the next 30 years are estimated at between 3 and 7 percent, so the USGS characterizes it as "potentially active". The mountain is sometimes informally described as "dormant".

Dormant my ass! That mountain was wild that cold morning. It would have been cool too see Mt. Hood, but the blizzard/wind storm that rocked us allowed us to only see the ice on our jackets and the ground immediately in front of us. The photo below pretty much explains it all. That's me, and notice the "horizontal snow". The winds probably had gusts around 70mph.
We started at 12:45 am..... yes AM.... to make sure that the mountain stayed cold enough to prevent ice and rockfall higher on the mountain. If it was sunny, that would've been a concern but the weather gods were taking a dump on us big time, so we didn't see much. I thought the sun had burned out at one point as I squinted toward the sky looking for it while ice missiles plastered themselves around my grimaced face and squinting eyes.


We climbed through the weather for about 4 hours and then "flipped a bitch" (a west coast term for "make a U-turn") right below a popular feature on the mountain called the "hogsback". The decent was a navigational nightmare.... crevasses and drop-offs that we hadn't seen on the way up were now becoming apparent and were rather disorienting. With map and GPS, (last resort) we made it back to where were were comfortable hauling ass straight down the mountain.

My buddy Tom Holt and I then ate breakfast at the Huckleberry Inn in Government Camp Oregon (just below the mountain) at 6:00 AM.... but it felt like it was late afternoon to us.

Thanks Tom, for buying breakfast. Always a pleasure.

First Post

Not exactly sure what I'm going to do with this... but I've been excited to write lately and I figure since I have friends and family across the country it may be easier to write in a blog instead of calling everyone every week, which I have a terrible time remembering to do anyway. This is just an effort on my part to stay in touch, and let others know of my adventures. It's also partly shameless self-promotion, but at least I can admit it.

So, thanks for tuning in and I'll get down to posting when I can. The subjects will mostly be surrounded by genre's of adventure and climbing, so if you get bored easily by daring adventures, ridiculous alpine ascents, finger splitting rock climbing and mind numbing mountain biking, then you probably shouldn't check back and see what I have to say.

If you're stoked on that kind of thing... I'll do my best to keep you stoked.

Cheers all,

-Drew