Let's look at the bright side............by Chad E. Boyd

Okay.  So my boys will be able to pull the, "but you did it when you were young," card on me for a lot of things. Lots of things! Now just to be clear, I don't have a criminal record (if you take out the traffic infractions) and I didn't ever do the drug thing. So boys, don't even think about it! However, I have felt the sting both literally and figuratively from many a poor decisions.  Or shall we call them adventures.  For example, cliff diving successfully and then cliff front flipping unsuccessfully. Motorcycle racing and also motorcycle crashing. I once woke up in the ambulance after crashing during a race. It was the first and only race my mother attended. Jumping out of a ski boat while traveling at full speed (yes, it hurt...a lot). Scuba diving at night in a 14 foot boat in the Puget Sound after the local law enforcement strongly suggested that I shouldn't. When he passed by later to find that I had not yet returned, he called my parents (it was my Dad's boat and trailer) to let them know.....this didn't go over well. I got my two wheel drive truck stuck many miles from civilization on private, posted land. I had to hike out to a phone, and worse?  Call my dad to come get me and my truck. Did I mention it was stuck miles deep on private, well posted land? I rode a street bike for a couple years and use to pride myself at hitting 100 mph on my way to work daily....you get the point. Lots of “you did it” for the boys to use as ammo.

Fast forward to last weekend. My good buddy Aaron asked me weeks ago if I wanted to go caving up on Snoqualmie pass. Now I love the outdoors and so any adventure that includes packing into a location that the general public will never see and having to live on what you have in your pack will usually get a quick "yes" from me. This was no exception, however, I did tell Aaron that I'm not real fond of tight places.....one might say that I'm a touch claustrophobic. Of course Aaron assured me that it was lots of fun and would be no problem at all.

So we packed our packs and headed up to the pass. You park at the Alpental ski area which sits at about 3100 feet of elevation. You then hit the trail and start the short (1.5 miles) but steep (2000 feet) trek up to Cave Ridge which sits at about 5200 feet of elevation.

Here's Aaron admiring the waterfall as we took a breather about 2/3 of the way up to camp.

After about three hours of hard hiking, we finally arrived at the summit of Cave Ridge and set up camp.

Two other friends of Aarons and now mine arrived a bit later in the day due to later start.  Here is the whole Cave Ridge 2010 crew.  Aaron, Dave, Joe and I.

Saturday morning after breakfast we all donned gloves and helmets (think old time miners) and headed to the caves.  Now I had looked around the area a bit and had not seen anything that I would call a "cave".  As we got close to the "cave" I quickly realized that what Aaron might call a "cave" I generally refer to as a "hole".  A very small hole in the earth.

Aaron and Dave quickly disappeared into the hole in the earth and I got down into a seated postion and shimmied my way into the entrance.  It was at this point that I realized that I'm more than a bit claustrophbic.  My pulse had doubled and all I could think of was why in the name of all that is good would I even consider going down in the hole I was now perched upon.  The knot in my stomach was surely God telling me that I would soon be buried alive if I took one more step into this impending doom.  I quickly weighed the scorn and ridcule I would have to face against the growing desire to run from this certain death...and running won, hands down.  This was the start and end to my caving career.  The real men headed down into the bowels of the pacific northwest while I donned my pack and headed out into the wild with its wide, wide open spaces!  Here are some of my favorite shots of this beautiful area.  Not one of them will show you the inside of a cave, and even the shot of the cave mouth above is one I got from the internet.  It's hard to take a picture of a cave mouth when you're heading away from it at a good pace.

I took these next couple of shots for my son Cole as he loves to find creatures (and so do I).

The weather was great and we had a full moon so I thought this shot was cool.

I did do my best to salvage some "street cred" after running from the caves like a little girl.  Here are my attempts.

I took the route straight up the face...it was a bit sketchy.

You can see that the climbers of the area have put two permanent rope anchors in this rock....does that mean I should have also had a rope?

So here is Aaron on the same peak at the boulder above.  Just off the tip of his finger is camp.  If you look closely you can see our tent.  The summit in the background in Guye Peak.

Here is my self portriat from the summit of Guye Peak.  I tackled this one when the guys headed back down to middle earth that afternoon.

All in all, it was a great trip and lots of fun.  I can also take some small solice in the fact that if my boys are ever poised at the mouth of some "cave" and they question themselves "did my dad ever think this was a good idea?", the answer for once will be NO!  I hope they run and go climb the nearest mountain :-)