Jack Kerouac: "Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing the lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”
June Meeting
Date/Time: Wednesday, June 5, 2019, at 7:00 p.m.
Location: The Burlington Public Library, located at 820 East Washington Avenue, one block south of Fairhaven at the corner of Washington Avenue and Holly Street.
Program: “Multi-pitch Rock 101: The Art, Science and Geography” Kurth Veldhuisen will de-mystify and exemplify the virtues of easy and hard multi-pitch climbing. If you’re looking to expand your climbing beyond cragging or if you love alpine mulit-pitch and are looking for new areas or routes to check out, this is if you!
Old Business
The club is getting new shirts! If we order at least 20, they will only cost $21.00 for sizes small to extra large. The material is standard pre-shrunk jersey T-shirt fit (no women's cut). The SAC logo will also be featured in black and white on the left sleeve. Concerned about sizing? We are going to try to have a sample order of each size at the April meeting for you to try it on before committing to a size. If you have any further questions, you can reach Holly at holly.lynn26@gmail.com.
Upcoming Events
Mazama / Fun Rocks work party and actual party and auction
June 1 Fun Rocks and Mazama Community Center. Bring your hardwork, money and party hats!!!
Park Butte Lookout Work Party
August 17-18 (Weather alternative August 24-25)
The main goals are to replace the south side shutters and paint the exterior. If anyone wants to haul loads in beforehand, that’d be much appreciated!
Conservation Committee
The WDFW will continue to translocate mountain goats from the Olympic Peninsula to the Cascade mountains this summer and is looking for volunteers. Yes, this means you can be involved in an actual goat rope and driving mountains goats across the state! If interested, you can e-mail goattranslocation@wdfw.wa.gov.
Skagit Alpine Club Meeting Notes: May 5, 2019
Holly sent out a last minute reminder to put in orders for SAC T Shirts.
SAC’s annual campout/climbout in Leavenworth (which hadn’t yet happened) was an amazing success! (Side Note: I, the editor, have zero pictures of it, because I (jwpq49@gmail.com) was sent zero photos.
The Park Butte Lookout signage has been updated to encourage sharing the lookout with everyone. While you’re not required to share, if I find out any SAC members are not sharing, I’ll find Samuel L. Jackson to correct your inappropriate sharing behavior.
Our annual Picnic Party is July 10 at Bowman Bay! Plan a dish to share and some awesome stories (true or not) to share as well!
Rachel Mallon presented on the Living Snow Project which is analyzing the spatiotemporal diversity of snow algae throughout the Pacific Northwest. For more details, check out https://kodnerlab.wordpress.com/citizen-science/
Trip Report from J Fro:
After fueling up on blueberry pancakes and several pounds of bacon, a crew of eight enthusiastic SACsters left the Bridge Creek camp Saturday morning and headed east for an all-day mountain bike adventure outside of Wenatchee. The team arrived at the Sage Hills trail head early in the day and began pedaling their way up switchbacks to the top of the 3,600" ridge.
The weather was perfect for cycling and the views from the ridge were positively stunning. But the true highlight of the ride was the impeccable timing -- the hills were absolutely awash in a writhing sea of wildflowers in full bloom. Around every turn the riders found themselves wallowing in wave after wave of vibrant purple and yellow. The springtime explosion so dominated the landscape that the bikers struggled to focus on the zippy single track that wound its way steeply down the ridge to the valley floor.
More than one rider was lured off trail (and OTB!) by the visual siren song of sage and lupine, only to find themselves rubber-side-up, drowning in the ocean of inflorescence. But the crew pulled together and successfully sailed down the full length of the ridge to return to the safe harbor of the trail head, where beers and tales of the flowery tempest were shared by all.
