Field Reports Around Mt Hood: How To Make Pizza and Beer Taste Better than Ever

(upbeat music) - Hi again, everybody. Welcome back to the Miles Pat cast. The flagship podcast of playing real-life rocker across real-life cricks and streams and rapids and rivers. It was a lot. In case you missed it, I just, what I just did this week was I did the Timberline Trail, which is essentially a 41 mile loop around Mount Hood, the big volcano in Northern Oregon, about an hour east of Portland. I finished it in a day. Most people, what they'll do is they'll go and they'll camp for, you know, they'll break the trail up into two or three days and they'll camp along the way, which seems to be like a smart choice. I chose to do it one day kind of as a substitute for what I wanted to do with the Grand Canyon. It was long, it was hard, it was exhausting. And I knew at the end, when people would ask how it was, I would struggle to kind of sum it up other than saying, oh, it was long and it was hard and it was up and down and there was variety and there was cricks and streams you had to cross. I knew I wouldn't be able to capture it. So what I did instead was I did like a series of little like sit reps, like little field reports, kind of like an avatar, like when they're, like they film themselves and like, all right, day one, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's what I did here instead of being on different days, I did it over like several hours, or like whenever I hit like a major milestone or whatever something would happen. I have a series of them and how this podcast is gonna work 'cause I'm gonna stray away from the usual format, the usual different segments. And it's just gonna be basically from once I stop talking just a ton of those like little recordings. And they kinda, they, I listened to 'em back, they actually did a better job than I expected them to be of kind of summing up the day. Like they're pretty regular throughout the day, throughout the 14 hours of doing this thing and they, I feel like they do a pretty good job of capturing what it was like, especially capturing how like energetic and like kind of peppy I was at the beginning and then how exhausted and done I was by the end. Because it was, it was all the elevation gain that I would have got the Grand Canyon. It was nearly 11,000 feet of elevation gain, which means not only that I climb 11,000 feet and then these 41 miles, I also dropped 11,000 feet, which by the end of that believe it or not, like it is harder to go downhill than it is to go uphill. Like 'cause your legs just get so exhausted from going down that I, I knew I had to run going downhill and there's spots where I just couldn't and it made it take forever really, really long. But there's also the spurs, like there's all these streams I had to cross because you're kind of going up and down over this like these little mini mountains, like you climb up beside of it and you drop down, you go across the stream and you do that over and over again and there's a lot of variety. There was meadows and cricks and streams and like rocky barren landscapes and dead forests. It was really cool, it was really varied but holy smokes, 41 miles in one day. That is a long, long ways and my legs are still feeling it. Like I still feel like I, it's gonna hit me. I'm kinda hanging on but I haven't hit the real fatigue yet and I haven't hit the real hunger yet. I think I burned, it was like over 6,000 calories which is just absurd and I've gotten nowhere close to that. Also, not lost on me is the fact that as I talked to Nazim about Rick Rez retired on Sunday, his unofficial mariners number is 41 'cause he did 41 years with the mariners, not lost on me that I just did 41 miles days after that which honestly, I expected this to be 39 miles so that extra two miles, not fun. Actually, it's like 41 and a half, which that last half mile was brutal. Anyways, I get into all that. A whole bunch of reports coming up. Thank you all for listening. I hope this is entertaining. I listened to them all back and I found it entertaining like they brought back the memories throughout the day. Hopefully you find it the same. So again, Nora podcast back next week. Here are a bunch of little reports throughout the day of what the experience is like as of trying to do 41 miles in one day, going up and down and cross streams in sanity. I don't know if I, I don't think I could possibly recommend this to other people 'cause it's long and last year, I thought I would never do what I did last year again and now I think I'd be okay with it so maybe after this reads a little bit, I'd want it through to Kim, but right now, man, I'm grateful that I'm done. So here it is. I tend to do little reports. I'll jump in at the end one more time but Nora podcast next week, blah blah. I still see it, here we are, can't talk. Normal podcast back next week and here's my day. All right, I'm just getting ready to start. It's dark, it's a little after six. It's way better than what I was yesterday though. I was up here yesterday and it was foggy. It reminded me of going up to Switzer in the middle of like winter when you're just, all you could do is fog and the beautiful view would be obstructed, but fog's starting to clear. I can see the sky, I can see the moon. There's clouds down below so I can't see the horizon but it's clear skies above which is so much better than what was last night. It was brutal last night. I can look up and I can see the top of Mount Hood which is, you know, it's just always amazing when I'm mountains that freaking high. I'm not getting anywhere close to the top but I'm gonna circumnavigate it and it looks cool. I'm excited for this, I feel like I'm ready to go. I think I got some like stuff running down my throat but I think I threaded like a needle of not being sick perfectly which is good. And all systems go, we're ready to rock. Hopefully I can be done before the restaurant closes that I wanna go to and we'll see how it goes. All right, I'm about ready to start. I'm just, I had to climb up this like this short ledge to get to the actual trail. It's dark but I got my head light on and I can see like specks of water flying by like a drain. But you can't really feel it. I'm starting at like six o'clock of Mount Hood and I'm gonna go around clatter clockwise or in the mountain and then right behind me and anywhere you look, it's clear skies you can see the moon which is awesome but there's like a fog big grip below. So I'm hoping that clears. I'm sure the views are beautiful. All right, here we go. Got my pack, I'm ready to go. Don't need my jacket, I don't need my gloves which is great, it's warm enough. Sky's starting to clear. And yeah, let's get this thing going. All right, the most interesting part of this thing was always gonna be these little river crossings, little cricks. I made it to the first one. People said that they're not as bad this year because there hasn't been as tonne as snowfall. Or last year, as there was a lot of snowfall last year and it's been pretty dry and first crick looks pretty easy to jump across. It looks like the crick that kind of runs by our house back home, it's not big so I can make it across and it won't get wet. But it's a cool spot. I've made it, I'm two, two and a half miles in. I'm now like, it's seven o'clock probably on the Mount Hood. If I could look at it, it's rooted on that dial. I feel like I'm in a giant, massive rock pit. Like all I can see is rocks, it's just open rocks everywhere. Probably where like, this is volcano. So maybe this is where like lava came down 'cause it looks like a big long trail through here and there's no trees, except for like on the tops of the ridges. It's cool, it's a totally different landscape. I went from Alpine to now like just giant rocks everywhere. Again, like giant rock pit. Mark would appreciate it. All right, time to cross the crick. All right, there was a surprise second crick. That was a lot worse. But as I went across, kind of navigate this giant, giant riverbed of full of rocks and find the trail again. I'm just kidding 'cause it's gonna get a map. 'Cause yeah, the trails usually pretty defined here, not through these areas, not when you're crossing a crick. So we made it back on track. I got like a one mile climb and then like eight mile stretch and then a three mile climb and then it's a lot of downhill from there. Before a gnarly 10 mile uphill climb to finish the whole 40 miles. So we'll see how it goes. All right, fast forward. A lot has happened. I'm now around six miles. I've crossed every more cricks. Sun's come up, it's beautiful. I've got some water. I use like these little, got my water bottle filter thing that worked out great. Water was so cold. I've seen no wildlife, not gonna wood. Tree, knock, I'm like last time, which all those ramps wasn't fun. But the trails like a mix of running through like, I don't know, like trees in the northwest and kind of what you'd expect a trail to be up in the mountains. But then it breaks out into these beautiful meadows where it's really, really pretty. The trail's really narrow. It's like a maybe nine inches wide. Like it's oddly narrow and like sunk in. The problem is you're running along it and the grass kind of hangs over the size and the grass is still wet and do we? Sun's helping a little bit, but it's getting, it's getting your feet all wet. And it's, I don't know, I don't want blisters, man. And we're just getting started. I feel my legs, I can feel them getting tight. But I've ate, I've drank. I feel like I'm in a good spot. We're kind of going downhill to a, I don't know, we're heading down into like, there's like a giant mountain of rock in front of me which is odd. Tribes would appreciate it. And I know the problem, I love going down there with the problem is them. I'm going to pay the stead off. And when we get to the bottom and about a mile and a half, I know it's going to be a three mile trek straight up. Not looking forward to that. Everything's good though. I'll see some to go. We're getting close like nine o'clock of about hood, around nine o'clock. I think the person in the map would call it West, but we're working our way around it. All right, I am 11.2 miles in. And I think I've reached the top of this like last climb. It's been brutal. Last three, eight, three miles or so. I knew it would be somewhere around 11 that I get out of it. I think I'm out of it. I now have hopefully it should be like a relatively long, rolling decline. I mean, it's rocky up here right now. I go through forest areas now. I'm in a rocky area and it's kind of hard like to run in, but I think it's doable. I've seen two people so far. I think they were together. There was one dog with them. They're kind of separated, but they had to be together. Two girls in the trail otherwise. I've seen a couple of squirrels. I saw one bird. I don't know if you've gone hunting and you're like walking along and you're looking for deer, all of a sudden, like a pheasant flies out and makes jump out of your skin, that's what happened. It was in like this dark forest area and a bird flew out last second, nearly jumped out of my skin. I've, I'm at like seven to 7,200 feet elevation, which also makes it harder to catch your breath, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be. I've, I've, do, do, do. I'm trying to eat regular intervals of so far. It says I've burned like 1,500 calories. And the other thing is, if you ever done one of these, you don't get hungry. Like I'm not hungry at all, but I have to eat. 'Cause if you follow too far behind that thing, you're really crash, and I don't wanna crash. Too early for that. But so far so good. I think I'm about, again, a little of our quarter will away through, and about three hours in. I'm on pace to finish, kind of the way I've hoped to be, but I'm hoping to get really ahead of that pace. 'Cause I know the last nine miles is gonna take forever. So we gotta make some hand on this descent. And what was great? Blue skies, I couldn't ask for more. Like I can look out now over a ton of stuff, and just see for miles and miles and miles. Like the clouds have cleared. There's no fog that I was worried about, and it's beautiful. It's really, really nice weather. It's not too hot, probably 50 to 53 degrees. I feel like I really know, it's not hot. It feels good. But here, finally for a decline. My one regret with clothing. I should have wore long socks. I keep kicking my ankles, and I feel like they're gonna be bleeding by the end of this. 'Cause it's such a weird track, and we're good though. We're good, everything's good. Couldn't, you know, hope for a better spot right now. Let's go. All right, it's about 10, 18. I just crossed a 15 mile mark. So I'm five miles away from half, which is good. I'm coming up the first, on a long like decline. There's two little dips in it. I'm coming up the first one. So I just had to cross a creek. I dropped my way down into a ravine. Crossed. There's, cricks, cricks putting in very lightly. So definitely like a Russian kind of like a rapid situation. And harder to get across. There was two different spots I did to kind of jump across. Got my foot a little bit wet in one of them, but we're okay. It was, I don't know, it was a little bit more dangerous. One of the more dangerous ones I've seen. 'Cause I had to go like right to where there's like, a little waterfall. 'Cause I figured that was easy place to jump. Hey, things were gone. Sideways, it wouldn't have been good. I'm glad no one was watching. But I made it across. I actually got water down there. I didn't look at the next spot. But run track, everything's good, weather's good. I got like a blister I think pouring on my left foot. Hoping it stays away. This kind of happens always. That's where I was in the prone to it. And they don't always happen. So I'm hoping it's just, just pretending for now. All right, you gotta climb out of here. Hopefully, hopefully I can hit 20. My goal is to hit 20 miles by about noon. We're 12, 30 to late, so we'll see that goes. All right, I've made it to the halfway point. Made my goal by about 10 minutes. I got it, it's 11, 54. I just made it a couple of minutes ago, so. We're doing good, run track. I'm climbing out, I got like a mile climb. And it starts to drop down for quite a ways. And I think at that point, they'll be about 18 miles or so left, somewhere in there. And 18, 19, I don't know, I'm starting to lose it. I'm going to probably last a long time ago. At that point, it'll be down for like nine. And then there's like more or less like a nine mile climb to come and simplify it a little bit. It'll be a tale of two halves. I'm just trying to focus on getting up this and then getting down a whole bunch. And then worry about that last chunk when we get there. But just fill up my water, just date. And it wasn't really hungry, but it's like I have to, man. I've been at this for a long time, and I got to stay up. Can't fall behind. That's beautiful. This guy's blue, haven't seen anybody. Haven't seen a new wildlife. And yeah, we're just kind of in the grind at this point. OK, I think I climbed out of that. Or we had 21 miles. I'm standing in like this beautiful meadow where there's like little creaks that are kind of flowing through. There's like little red flowers spread throughout. And there's trees. And I can be like a look up. I can see Mount Hood. It's like right there. And then if you were to continue that clock analogy, it's like 11, I'm at like 11.55 on Mount Hood. And I started at six o'clock. So I've kind of made it all the way around. We're on the downhill side for lack of a better way of putting it. I'm tired. I would love nothing more than just like to sit down. Better yet, just like lay down in this grass. It's just really nice grass. But I knew if I do that, my legs are going to call today. They're going to tighten up. And they are not going to want to go any further. And I know that I simply came and sit down at this point because I know things are going to cramp up. Already, I'm just like in the back of my mind, it's like my left leg is feeling real tight. And it's like, holy smokes. We're barely halfway. Like I got a, I still got a long way to go and the legs already. Must have already tightened up. So it's going to take my, my, my, my mouth at this point. It's, it's still really early. I'm on pace to finish right where I want to. And, you know, that's good. I've been eating, drinking, we're in a good spot. It's just things are cramped up, but I am tired. The boy's beautiful. I go through like these sections. There's like the section where I must have, fire must have come through forever ago, because it's a ton of just dead white trees. It had been dead forever, like the fire was centuries ago. But the problem is like there's down trees over the place. So I'm constantly crawling over trees and crawling under trees. And it's, it makes it hard to egg at like any kind of pace going. But I think I'm out of that. I'm more like into the timber and the nice little trail and I guess it's like the meadows and such. That's how it stays this way because holy smokes. It's gonna be a grind. Two things I've realized. First, should I be across the rocks? And he's like cricks and streams and we're going fast. I'm saying a crick is just not getting any injustice. I can't help but think. It reminds me of jumping, like running after a buck or for any other reason that you might be in a plowed field. But jumping from like dirt clotted, dirt clotted, 'cause one wrong move in your twist and ankle, that's what it feels like. It's all about weight shifts. And I feel like I've got some experience with that. Two, I feel like Samwise Gamgee. I'm walking. I've got my coat that I don't think I'm gonna need. God forbid, not something that happens. I'm stuck out here. It's just banging against my waist and you can hear it. I got my poles kind of clanking against each other. I just can't help but feel like I'm Sam. Not Frodo. Sam has always got it carried everything. That's kind of what it feels like. His pack was much heavier than mine. I'm going very light, but things just kind of moving around. I keep thinking that over and over again. I just made it. I set my goal for myself at by two o'clock. It's 156. I want to get the marathon distance. 26.4. I've done that two times in my life. Well, marathon's anyway. And I've now just passed that point, which means there's only one thing I've ever done further than this. Only one time I've cared about the further. Which is at 30 miles, so we're going to hit there pretty soon. It's got a lot more busy. All of a sudden, there's seen 20 people now. There was this holder guy. He must have been 75. And we're pretty deep into the trail. He's by himself and he's working on his backpack. And he's standing there. He's got like his button up shirt on and looks good. Kind of like how grandpa used to wear to coffee, like a button up purl snap shirt. His hair looks good. It's like, what, how did you get here? And maybe there's like a road here or some of that. He got in here quicker. But it wasn't good and he's, I had some of his backpack because it was really cool. It was at a great color scheme to it. It was like orange and blue. And he started talking about, he must talk for three minutes. He was so proud of his backpack. And looked like a cool backpack. Like it hit the lower back to stride. And he said, it's really good for like single day. And it doesn't throw you around. And he was so proud of it. So proud of his backpack. Okay, I've got like five or six more miles to go relative to downhill. I'm very relieved, by the way, because initially it's just steeped down hill. My leg was not handling it. And I've got to cover this ground really, really quick. If I want to get to the part where I start climbing, it's going to get really slow. But it leveled out a little bit so I could run because it was looking bleak. Because I was thinking man if I can't run this downhill spot, I'm going to lose all the time. But it's leveled out a little bit so I've able to run it. And hopefully I can keep doing that until we get to the bottom. And then we're going to start hiking out of here. But it's two o'clock. Got five hours of daylight left. Oh, I can't wait to be done, man. This is fun. It's beautiful out here, but it hurts, man. Lower body hurts. All right, I'm past 30 miles, like 30 and a third. I'm still descending. I think I hit the bottom and like two miles somewhere in there. And then I start climbing out. My thing says, we've got like 11 miles left, which seems like more than what everybody was saying. If they'd been like 30 and a half miles, that'd be 41. But man, I'm ready for the uphill 'cause I just can't handle the downhill anymore. I'm just walking and it seems slow. And I'd rather like hey, let's get to the point where it's, we're hitting that vinyl. I sent, I met more people. I met, it was horrible. I met the same people that I passed. Well, they were coming at me. Like I passed them, you know, probably half an hour earlier. And then I said, I turned the corner. There they are and they're coming at me. And then I think you turn around and it's like, well, no. And then I realized there's like a cut through, kind of like a shortcut. If you wanna go through shortcut, I didn't. I'm assuming they did, but they also don't seem to know what they're doing because they're eventually gonna have to backtrack. So I just double check my map. I was so worried. It's like, oh no, what happened? I don't need that any miles of this thing anyways. But, hell's good. and you have to turn it to the bottom and then climb it out. I have made it to the part where I'm climbing out. I think I've got somewhere on halfway maybe through the first like little hump of it and there's a little bit of a decent and there's one more I think shorter in line. I haven't had service for a while now like this is a lot of trees look I'll generally it's darker like it's it's so weird because it's what four o'clock I think four thirty-three it feels so much later because there's so much tree cover but every now and then a person to something it's so nice I need that but I think I'm somewhere around seven miles left and I got the poles out I'm just hiking up I get a little delusional just keep thinking man this is I'm so close just so many more miles and it's easy to remember to where I was at when I did this last year at cactus four o'clock I thought I was close I had a long way to go I didn't finish like eight thirty or nine I know I'm a lot closer than that but just try to make it sounds corny but I'm just thinking of him and gab's and kendallan they're about I don't think it's got home but it has to be there and around the center tomorrow maybe not quite but I'll be close to there but at least I don't think I'm going to walk hi that's all right man obviously it's just the legs feet are doing great feet are shockingly doing great oh look it opens up maybe all the service here all right gotta keep going it is six 20 what is for over 12 hours I so professional what a good podcaster breathing into the mic I have I just classed my last quick I think success didn't fall in any and then the way to cross any I got my foot what what that's a wrap I got my foot wet once but I tried really quick I'm actually surprised by that I never really had to worry about uh I've got less than three miles left I'm climbing up like the final incline stretch I don't know how long it is I think it's like two miles then maybe there's like a level spot until the end we're getting close since I'm gonna go down my hands are freezing my Ray nods is kicking in like my middle my hands look just ghostly white I can't really feel middle fingers anymore there's no oxygen it shouldn't be that cold but I think it's just my body says man it's really it's tiring I already know when I get back to my room I'm gonna get in the shower when I get out I'm gonna be shivering it's it's just it's like you have a fever all of a sudden how's that figure dinner okay this town this town there's a restaurant that I really want to go to close at seven it's literally right by the hotel just it's right there it's like some brewery looks really good close at seven just not gonna make that reality is set in second year in a row where I find a cool restaurant that I want to eat at and celebrate and come get down the town you gotta learn oh yeah I don't know I'm gonna zero I do what I'm gonna do for dinner at this point I just goal is just to finish and we'll go from there one thing out of time climb this hill trying to get a little bit more into the sunshine maybe a little bit warmer there but we're getting close less than three months all right about a mile left boy we are moving slow I told the fam for somewhere around 730 kind of counting like a 20-minute mile been nowhere close to that so in the last mile oh by the way it's like seven seven nineteen so yeah we're not finishing a mile 11 minutes not today half about half miles uphill and the other half is I think downhill or level and I'm hoping I can see a lot because man it'd be nice to see home man I mean nice I can see I got a glimpse of like a chairlift because others are over here but that's it so far one mile left I just made back to the car is 753 I am very excited with hot tub and hot shower and the recovery boots and some food but mostly just sit down man I haven't sat down all day and I just am done man who's experience it was it was it was a lot it was everything I did just to finish it because man it's it's it's dark out right now I need my light it's getting cold but we did it just before it to clock almost 14 hours out there right math is hard six yeah eight yep 14 hours almost okay I gotta go thanks for listening and there you have it uh it was a long long day and also that text that I thought I sent at seven thirty never sent which wasn't great caused a lot of worry and a lot of angst that restaurant was in fat clothes but I was able to go I there's like this it's like a ski town and I there's like a there's a little ski town dive bar that I went to and got a beer and pizza the beer was called cloud cap which is cool because that was one of the camp sites long the way cloud cap and pizza I don't know that pizza would be good today I gave it was just like a dive bar pizza but holy smokes did it hit the spot pizza and beer after that kind of thing was as good as it got but yeah there you go thanks y'all for listening normal podcast back next week and we'll talk to y'all then bye