Chapter 13: 6,000 hours?

You find heroes in the damnedest places.

I found one July 29, a hot Friday afternoon on Tiger Mountain, where the parasailers glide. On our previous Tiger Mountain Climb my friend, Terry, and I had hoped to see paragliders because he has 100 flights under his belt. But the weather was bad and none showed up. This time the sky was almost crowded with them.

My original reason for climbing Tiger Mountain was conditioning for Peru. But after the Rainier experience last week, I needed something lighter, and this was going to be fun.

In places, the trail up Tiger Mountain from the parasailing landing field on the Issaquah-Hobart road almost looks like it was laid out by a landscaper. There are places where irregular stones are positioned almost mosaic-like. There are virtual staircases of stone, and retaining walls that keep the banks from collapsing and keep the path even. That’s helpful for the parasailers, who pack their 45-pound loads of flying equipment up that path, ascending 1,700 feet in two miles. These guys (and an occasional woman) are tough, buff and adventurous.

Terry and I hiked the trail and were rewarded with a beautiful day and a sky full of fliers. Their photos are below. But one of the most memorable experiences for me happened on the descent, when I saw what I thought was an elderly man struggling on his knees on the trail. In fact, he WAS struggling – with a stone that I would have had trouble lifting. He was maintaining the trail – all by himself.

Here he is, accommodating my request to take his photo:

His name is Mike McKillop, owner of A+ Pest Control and A+ Structural Inspections. He lives in Carnation, and in his spare time he has maintained the trail that the parasailers and hikers climb to reach the summit of Tiger Mountain. Mike said he has 6,000 hours into trail maintenance. I mentioned him to people I passed on the way down, and two different parties affirmed that they knew of him from prior climbs.

Despite my curiosity, for some reason I failed to ask Mike why he maintains a route that’s likely used by hundreds if not thousands of people every year. I couldn’t detect an ounce of boastfulness. He’s gentle, friendly, and unassuming. He reminds me of a Vachel Lindsay poem:

The mouse that gnawed the oak-tree down,
When that tough foe was at his feet—
Found in the stump no angel-cake
Nor buttered bread, nor cheese, nor meat—
The forest-roof let in the sky.
“This light is worth the work,” said he.
“I’ll make this ancient swamp more light,”
And started on another tree.

If you have a hankerin’ to parasail, you can get in on a $50 savings on an introductory “tandem” flight Sunday, Aug. 28. Go to www.nwparagliding.com for details.

This could be you:

 

 

Love,

Robert

Chapter 12: Altitude Lessons

You undoubtedly have seen that novelty toy—teeth that chatter when you wind them up. The same clattering sound echoed in our tent about midnight near the 8,000-foot level of Mount Rainier Thursday, July 21. The point of hiking up Rainier again was to acclimatize to the elevations around Cuzco, Peru, which is situated at 11,000 feet, 4,000 feet higher than our last hike. Our objective this time was Camp Muir, which is at 10,000 feet. We would hike part-way Thursday, camp on snow, and then complete the hike Friday morning, returning to Maple Valley by 7 p.m. Friday evening.

Well, that was the plan.

 When Roger, Ron and I arrived at the Paradise parking lot Thursday, we were confronted with a gray setting, a chilly mist and a light drizzle. But Roger was as undeterred as Charlie Brown of the Peanuts comic strip, who insisted it was “only a little rain” while the rest of the baseball team scrambled for home in a deluge. The fact that others were gearing up for a climb made what we were doing seem, uh, sane.
The mountain makes its own weather, and this time it whipped up a chilly treat for us. That’s Ron on the left, being photographed by Roger.

We hiked up snowy switchbacks. A line of Fort Lewis soldiers overtook us and gradually disappeared in the mist ahead on their way to the summit. On one of the switchbacks along a 50 degree slope, it became clear that prescription eyeglasses which darken from ultraviolet rays are not the best eye wear on a gray day characterized by different shades of white. We guessed that the wind was gusting to to 40 mph at times.
At about 8,200 feet we decided to camp behind a rocky outcrop, chopping out some snow to make a level area for our tents, and then wrestling them into position against the wind gusts. Roger had packed silicon ear plugs to help us sleep through the loud pops the wind would make as it buffeted our tent. They worked, but that wasn’t the only problem.

The best part of the evening was pouring boiling water into our freeze-dried food packets from REI. The worst part was realizing that our sleeping bags weren't up to the cold. No, wait, the worst part was having to get up at midnight, clamber out over slippery frozen snow, and search through several layers of clothing for that shivering body part that had absolutely no empathy about my need to relieve myself.
The good news about the night call was that moving around warmed me up – briefly. I took the opportunity to measure my pulse. 60. Normally it is 51. It had been 48 when I awoke at Roger’s the night before and measured it. A quick Google search has shown that the 20 percent increase was likely due to elevation.

 After a night of fitful sleeping, I awoke at 4 a.m. for a peek out of my tent at the mountain.

When I re-awoke at 6, a mist had hidden everything, But eventually the sun began to burn it off.

  When we finally rose for breakfast, we found tracks, left by a fox who  prowled around our tent before the snow was completely crusted over the night before. Above us we could see our next objective, Anvil Rock. That’s the pokey little promontory on the left side of the photo below. On the right is Little Tahoma, which qualifies as the third highest peak in Washington. Anvil rock is at 9,000 feet, and it was a good three hours away.

From our camp we could see two other magnificent peaks. One is Mount Adams, shown below.

The other is Mount St. Helens. This view shows the massive wound in her side, where she blew out on May 18, 1980, covering, among other things, the third house from the summit, which our friends had constructed there. This angle is the one that David Johnson enjoyed from what he thought was a position of safety. (Last words: "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!” He said a mouthful.)

Closer-in peaks would stick up through the clouds from time to time:

We smeared on more sun block, making sure to place it inside our nostrils, and set out. Others were already ahead of us. Before we had even started breakfast, two young men in shirtsleeves were walking by – they had left Paradise about 6 a.m. and were crossing the crusty snow without those spikey devices you attach to hiking boots called crampons. Below us strings of hikers came into view.

I didn’t think 8,000 feet would be so much to endure. But what we discovered was how tired we were, and how exhausting it was to climb, even though we were packing lighter loads. Every 20 steps I stopped to take several breaths. A video I shot of Roger showed him taking 12 steps in 20 seconds. Walking around my condo afterward, I paced myself at 30 steps. I think the chill of the night and lack of sleep were a major contributing factor, but clearly altitude had its impact. We never reached Camp Muir. We never even reached Anvil Rock. But we did get to the base of it, at the 8,700 foot level, where Roger peered down a “bergschrund”, the highest crevasse on a glacier. In the photo below, from the left, are Anvil Rock, Roger, the bergschrund, and Little Tahoma.

At that elevation, and with all the snow around, you might think it would be cold. But it felt like 70-80 degrees. The sun block worked fairly well, except for my wrists, which I hadn’t covered well.
 The descent took about 5 hours, assisted by occasional glissades and a remarkable technique called the “plunge step” which takes you down snowy slopes pretty briskly. That little dark area in the photo below is me glissading down a bank on our previous hike.

When we reached Paradise at 8 p.m., there was a treat awaiting us: A fox was scampering around the parking lot, looking for his next meal.

It’s one month until I leave for Peru. Do I really want to hike to the summit of Mount Adams (12,300 feet)?

Love,

Robert

Chapter 11: Prepping for Mount Adams

July 7, 2011

My hiking buddy, Roger, thinks it would be a good idea to climb to the top of Mount Adams as a way of getting conditioned for the thin air of Cuzco, Peru. Cuzco is slightly above 11,000 feet; Mount Adams is about 12,300 feet. Of course, you have to walk up Mt. Adams, while you only have to fly into Cuzco, so I’m not sure about his reasoning. Couldn’t we just helicopter onto Mount Adams and walk around a bit?

The warmup involved a climb up Mount Rainier Tuesday, July 5. Not all the way—just as an orientation for what it will be like to hike on snow. That’s Roger in the foreground, below, coming up a rather steep snow bank, and Mount Adams, over there in the background.

 

We were on snow from the time we left the parking lot at Paradise. We climbed for seven hours, then descended in two. The climb involved our feet and ice axes for support. The descent frequently involved our butts, as we slid down some chutes carved by the butts of previous climbers who glissaded down the steepest parts of the mountain. One 45-degree slope took 45 minutes to an hour to ascend and one minute to descend. Here’s a young Estonian woman we met who used the quick way down:

 

Check out the smile. She was lovin’ it.

 

Hiking like this is pretty much a drudge, but there some high points:

• Viewing four volcanoes at once: Adams, Hood, St. Helens, and Rainier.
• Knowing that I was sustaining a 120 bpm pulse for 30-45 minutes at a time as I climbed through snow.
• Listening to the rock falls from this part of the mountain where there had been a major landslide a week earlier:

 

•  Seeing a marmot that had come out of hibernation:

 

• Looking behind me and watching Mr. Smartie Pants—the guy who suggested climbing these mountains—pant to keep up and then afterwards perform the sorriest plank I have ever seen. (For more exemplary planks, allow me to suggest this link: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/the-60-best-planks.)

 

• Finding a solar out-house at the 7,000 foot level. It was an odorless composting toilet. Why couldn’t they have one of those at Mount Si?

 

Altogether, we only ascended about 1,600 feet, getting to the 7200 foot level on the route to Camp Muir. Nothing to write home about. But the view was splendid.

In looking over my past postings, I think they were a little too wordy, so I hope you like the photos better. Thanks for reading.

Love,

 Robert (Oh, that's Smartie Pants on my right.)

Chapter 10: Google Earth

July 3, 2011

 In the 1990s the government was suing Microsoft because Internet Explorer was part of its Windows operating system, and they called that a “tie in” sale that forced people to use their browser. This had nothing to do with logic, it had to do with power. Microsoft was getting too big, and government officials wanted to reign them in, so they invented an argument that flew in the face of logic. It made sense for IE to be part of the operating system, because the purpose of that system was to access the resources the computer used, such as speakers, printers, the keyboard, and networks. These are called “peripherals.” And the reality is that everything that isn’t part of the chip in the computer is a peripheral, including other computers, no matter where they are. For all practical purposes, Zimbawbe is no farther from me than my neighbor down the street, if we are connecting via internet. So why shouldn’t a server in Zimbawbe be a peripheral? And why shouldn’t a browser be part of the operating system?

 For the past half hour I’ve been looking at the geography of Urubamba and the sacred valley, where our Global Impact team of 10volunteers will be staying for a couple weeks in August. I’ve been doing this using Google Earth, which uses maps, Geographic Information Systems data, and photos to create realistic images of the sites and topography of the earth. I installed this on my computer after a few insistent nudges from my pool and hiking buddy, Roger. This is software that is easy for you to install and pretty easy to use.

 I’m getting to know the Sacred Valley around Cuzco a lo better. And with these virtual maps are imbedded photos that give an inkling of what to expect. Here are some of them:

Condors of Colca Canyon

Llama's in Peru

Urubamba Street Scene

Urubamba Street Scene

Mercado Urubumba

CAPILLA DEL CEMENTERIO (a cemetery facility)

Huacahuasi pass, facing  south

Salt drying in Peruvian Andes

Inca's agricultural  experiment

Let's Fall In Love!

Uh…wouldn’t you know there would be some wise guy with  a camera. Oh, well…

Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love


40 years ago, I had the incredibly good fortune of marrying a bright wonderful woman who had a master’s degree in social work administration. She cared about people. She was a VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America—the domestic “Peace Corps”) who was assigned to a place in Appalachia called Hayter’s Gap, and her first duties were to drive up narrow dirt canyon roads to deliver library books to isolated people. They were isolated because they were poor, and they were poor because they didn’t have a good education. They skipped school because they didn’t have good clothing to wear, got married, had a brood of kids, and continued the cycle of poverty.

Betty was living with a school principal, and sewed her own clothing. So she wrote a grant, obtained some sewing machines and held classes for the parents. I firmly believe there are kids graduating from high school today because Betty taught their mothers – or grandmothers, perhaps – to sew. Something as simple as that.

The summer after she died I visited Thelma Henderson, the school principal she had lived with, and we drove down some of those back roads and up Lick Skillet Holler, the gully that led to an isolated home Betty had visited. It is paved now, and on the way down I noticed that one of the homes along that road had a swimming pool. An in-the-ground swimming pool. And the school where Thelma taught was turned into a community center, with computers that were connected to the Internet. Even in Appalachia, these folks are connected.

This puts into perspective how much we can accomplish by installing clean cooking stoves and water filters and painting kids’ teeth with fluoride. I’m kind of excited. This trip is barely six weeks away.


Love,

Robert

Chapter 9: Global Health Workshop

June 28, 2011

 Notice regarding donations: In an earlier e-mail I made it possible for readers to help defray costs for my two weeks of public health service in Peru. I was inviting modest participation, but one donor was particularly generous – and has graciously resisted my protestations that the gift was too large. So, if there are others who want to participate, allow me to suggest a maximum: Any participation is appreciated, but please no gifts greater than, say, the price for a dinner out for two – about $50. 

 Last Saturday, at a workshop at North Seattle Community College, a volunteer with Global Impact described the building of a clean burning stove for one Peruvian family: The man of the house took off his footwear, then mixed up some mud with his feet. Into that he threw straw, pig hair and llama dung, as he continued to stomp around in the mixture. Then, because there is a limited supply of tools and containers, the volunteers picked up the mixture with their bare hands (the clay-like mud tends to tear rubber gloves up) and packed it around the tiles that make up the cook stoves we install in the small homes of indigenous Peruvians. (“You work with what you have.”) You do this while trying not to step on the guinea pigs which are both pets and a source of protein for the villagers. Sometimes as you smack the goop between the tiles you end up with freckles. Yum!

The tile stoves are pretty inexpensive (estimates range from $3-$15) and are preferred over shiny metal stoves. The reason: The natives hate to dirty up those shiny stoves by actually using them, and sometimes when they are pinched for money there is a temptation to sell them for cash!
 When the installation is complete, it’s not unusual for the lady of the house to cook potatoes for the volunteers. Peru is where the potato originated, and there are many varieties there to choose from. And while it would be rude to turn down the offer of hospitality it’s important to remember to just eat the inside of the potato and leave the cooked skin behind.

 If that sounds a little challenging, consider this recollection of a senior citizen volunteer who was an experienced traveler before he became involved in Global Impact. His prior travel experience had many comforts.  He misted up as he told the story of a group of villagers dancing around him and singing because they appreciated so much what his group was doing for their village. He learned the song and later on he sang it for them. He shared his memory of walking past a five star resort on one of his trips and feeling sorry for the tourists inside: they had no idea what they were missing.

 For six years, Seattle’s Community Colleges have been involved in Global Impact, a program to deliver health-care services to the most vulnerable populations in four countries: Vietnam, Tanzania, India and Peru. Pity the volunteers to India, where they may be working in 100-degree heat under humid conditions. In Peru, the temp will vary from freezing to about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Instead of worrying about the heat, we’ll be dealing with dirt and darkness. We will wear headlamps, because the homes we will be working in may be as small as a one-car garage and quite dark. Some of us likely will rely on disposable coveralls or Valu-Village clothing we’ll simply leave behind.

 Peru has fairly good public health for 90 percent of the population. But the childhood mortality rate tells a story: 93 deaths per thousand live births for the poorest segment of the population, 18 for the upper classes. (In the United States in 2011 it is approximately 6.7 for males and 5.4 for females.)
 Not all the Peruvian work will involve installing clean burning stoves. We’ll also be making some ingenious water filters: You break up clay, mix it with water, and squeeze it into a mold, then bake it. Then you place that mold in a plastic bucket. The clay is porous enough to allow water to pass through, but fine enough to trap parasites.

 There will be about 10 of us in the Peru contingent. Part of the time we will be setting up a health clinic. Some of us will be responsible for controlling the crowd that lines up for examinations while others will be varnishing the teeth of 6-8 year olds with fluoride to “remineralize” those teeth. And some members of the team will be performing triage by taking vital signs – blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate. Sometimes the clinics have wound stations. Sometimes a small tabletop pharmacy is created to dispense medicines with the help of an interpreter. Sometimes the clinics are in schools, but not always. We find out when we get there.

 Global health doesn’t just deal with disease. It deals with “changing outcomes” by paying attention to “social determinants”—the network of interacting exposures that put people at risk. Examples are unclean water, insufficient food and insecurity—whether people are safe in their own home and in their community. For example, while no-one has died from measles in the Americas so far in 2011, 190,000 children have died elsewhere – not from measles itself, but from the conditions that prevented them from fending off the disease. In Burundi, of five children born, one will die in the first year and the average life expectancy for the group will be 50. In Sweden, the youngest to die will be 63.

 Altogether, eight goals have been identified to improve global health. Several of them apply to Peru:

• Eliminating hunger and poverty
• Gender equality
• Reducing childhood mortality
• Improving maternal health and diminishing risk from childbirth
• Environmental sustainability and water sanitation

 The changes that address those goals can seem pretty inconsequential. In Rajastan, India, a 5-hour drive from Delhi ,Global Impact will show the locals how to create composting worm bins. In Tanzania, where ox-drawn plows are still in use on half the arable land, Global Impact teaches locals the benefits of “double-dug” beds that increase crop yields 2-6 times, while reducing the use of pesticides. Other changes involve teaching children to wash their hands and brush their teeth – and the fluoride painting program.

More to come…

Love,

Robert

Chapter 8: Diseases, etc.

June 17, 2011


 In H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, Martians attacking humans have the upper hand until the humblest organisms on the planet –microbes, do what mankind’s mightiest military weapons fail to accomplish –they annihilate the aliens right down to the last Martian. They take no prisoners.

 Which raises the question: Why didn’t Columbus come down with some exotic disease that wiped out 90 percent of his crew, after which the survivors would have  promptly been enslaved by the Taino people of Hispaniola and forced to grow tobacco and sugar cane for export to Europe?

 Why is it that the locals didn’t have a Western Hemisphere equivalent of smallpox, or measles that could have been carried back to Europe, wrecking havoc worse than the Black Plague and depopulating the continent so that Native Americans could sail east and pick up the pieces?

 For whatever reason, the Western Hemisphere natives lacked the disease firewall that could have kept out the next wave of immigrants before they could go viral and multiply like rabbits.

 But they do now.

 Before our group of medical and lay people head to Peru we have to get protected against a variety of maladies, that await visitors,including:
 Polio
Hepatitis A
Hepatitis B
Tetanus
Rabies
Malaria
Typhoid
Altitude sickness
Severe sunburn
Diarrhea

 And you have to have supplemental health insurance thatcovers emergency evacuation and repatriation of your remains, should you die.

 Wow. They make it sound scary.

 Actually, it’s not as bad as it looks, if you exercise some precautions. If you have an HMO, the first four items on the list should be pretty well covered already, as a matter of routine. And if you are dumb enough to pet a stray dog and get bitten, the rabies treatment isn’t as painfully awful as it used to be.

 Also, although the city of Lima is right on the coast,Cuzco is in the mountains at 11,000 feet, and there aren’t any mosquitoes buzzing around there, so I don’t need to worry about malaria as long as I stay above 8,000 feet.

 For $72 I picked up typhoid-prevention medication that will give me protection for five years; altitude sickness medication to take before I travel; and diarrhea medication along with antibiotics. I should be in good shape, as long as I stick to bottled water, wash my hands, and carry a hand sanitizer. There is also altitude sickness medication I take ahead of time to reduce the symptoms: lethargy, shortness of breath, nausea, headaches, or trouble sleeping.

 In a little less than two weeks, our group meets for its first orientation. We received a packet to study, and there will be a quiz!

 Gringo Culture

 Part of the training has to do with culture shock. The packet laid out 13 characteristics about Northern Americans that set them apart from other cultures and which can lead to conflict. I found it interesting to see the list of our “virtues” that other cultures don’t necessarily share. Here are some of them, tersely stated:
Americans view bad fortune as personal failure.
 We think change is good.
Unlike 7/8 of the world, Americans believe all people are created equal.
Americans value “privacy,” a word that “does not exist in many non-Western languages.”
Americans believe competition brings out the best in people.
Americans believe action is superior to inaction; relaxation should be limited so we can get back to being productive.
Americans are not subtle.
 Americans give higher priority to obtaining,maintaining and protecting material objects than developing and enjoying relationships with other people.



 Here are the kinds of surprises to anticipate:
 Peruvians may be shy. On the other hand, they may affectionately refer to you by your physical characteristics – like calling you“fatty” or “chino”, which they may consider affectionate flattery.
Don’t expect to find toilet paper where you expect it;carry your own.
We may show up to do a project and find out an entire village has taken off to bring in the crops. Most homes in the villages don’t have phones, so calling ahead may be a problem.

 More to come...


Love,


Robert

Chapter 7: The cost of serving: $185 per day

  June 9, 2011


On Sunday, I got a glimpse of what it means to install clean cook stoves in the homes of indigenous people—which is what I will be doing this August in Peru.

I caught that glimpse while ascending Mount Si. We encountered an Australian lady who was descending. She was in the same profession as my hiking buddy, and they instantly recognized each other. So they talked. She said she had been involved in one of those events that raise money to fight cancer. My friend explained that I was going to Peru on a public health project that included installing clean-burning cook stoves.

We didn’t need to draw her a picture. The Australian had traveled in Asia, and she was familiar with home kitchens that are full of cooking smoke.  In the brief time she had been exposed to them she had developed severe breathing problems.

Her experience was gratifying to hear, because performing this community service comes with a hefty price tag: $1,850 for two work weeks. In other words, I’ll be paying $185 per day for the privilege of helping people breathe clean air. That doesn’t include the air fare.

Here’s how the program works at this end: There are three community colleges in Seattle that have 15 allied health programs. The medical and service communities and lay people team up to deliver medical and volunteer serves in four developing countries, including Peru. The “Peru Quest” program includes delivery of health care and education, installation of water filters and the clean cookstove program. At the other end, an organization called ProWorld Service Corps coordinates our service when we arrive.

The $185 per day it costs for me to participate covers preparation, training, food, housing, in-country transportation, support and development of specific volunteer sites, supplementary health insurance and staff support. Volunteers be packing some of the supplies in their luggage.

The stoves that are installed are quite inexpensive: they cost $15. They are made of materials familiar and acceptable to native families: mud and brick, along with a chimney. According to ProWorld, they eliminate 90 percent of indoor air pollution and decrease carbon emissions by a ton (!) in a year. (For more information: http://cleanburningstoves.blogspot.com/ and http://www.seattlecolleges.edu/international/documents/globalimpact/ProWorldProjectProfile_CleanBurningStove.pdf.)

Using these figures, if you credit me with only one installed stove per day for each day I work, the cost for that stove would be about $200, with my labor accounting for most of the cost. I presume I’ll be more productive than that. But if I only install one a day, the cost for that single stove would average out to 55 cents a day. Over 10 years, 5.5 cents per day. When you consider the impact this will have on the lives of these people in reduced health issues, reduced deforestation and more time for other activities, I think it’s a pretty good return on investment.

Global Impact, the program sponsored by community colleges in Seattle, has an answer for how to cover the cost for this public health project: Ask people to help. Ugh. I hate to ask for money. Instead, I’m using this chapter of the Inca Diaries to offer you an opportunity to “participate” with a contribution, if you are so inclined. You should know that I’m going regardless of whether I obtain outside support. But if you want to be part of this, consider this your invitation.

I’ll be covering my own airfare, immunizations, special medicines for tummy problems and altitude sickness, and personal supplies such as a personal water filter and other incidentals. That’s approximately half the cost of going. The other half is the cost of providing the service, which is what your donations would apply to.

When I travel, I keep a spread sheet on all expenditures, and this will be no exception. Inca Diary readers will get a full report for two reasons: Accountability, and because some of you may want to take the plunge someday, and this will give a realistic picture of what’s involved. This is a learning experience for me, and I’m going to be taking notes, and sharing what I learn during or immediately after the trip.

The deadline for coming up with the $1,850 is July 1, less than a month away.

How to Donate:
I have created a special account at Columbia State Bank in Seattle to hold the donations. Checks can be made out to:

Robert Smith Peru Quest and mailed to my Seattle address: 

1136 13^th Ave, #201
Seattle WA 98122.

Each donation will be acknowledged.

For those of you who want to support me in this endeavor, thank you.
Love,
Robert

Chapter 6: Training for Altitude: Planking Si

June 13, 2011

Some of you may not know what planking is.  People lie down like a plank in the damndest places – atop poles, inside glass cases that hold bags of ice, atop police cruisers. You name the place, they’ve done it. One guy recently died in a planking fall. That’s me on the right, planking next to a cliff, during last week’s conditioning climb. And yes, that is a Tilley Hat.

Last week, as part of my conditioning climb for my Peru service in August, I planked Little Si. Not Mount Si, but Little Si, the runt mountain next to the real Si.
I did this because of my friend, Roger, who didn’t set his alarm clock right, and so arrived at our rendezvous site late. This gave me time to read a  a Wall Street Journal article that alerted me to the fact that photos of planking have gone viral on the Internet, but the fever has broken  and the fad is dying out. Sunday might be my last chance to catch the wave.
 There have been too many critical things I've missed in life. Like the time in the 1960s when I got to Haight-Ashbury. The free-love flower children had all left, and instead I got picked up by a guy who took me to a meeting of gay maoists,. Being in the Air Force with a secret clearance, I naturally felt uncomfortable, particularly after he shared his vision of how he wanted to spend the night.   Having missed the flower children, I definitely didn't want to miss planking.
 Roger, being out of shape and all, had already negotiated me down to a wussy hike up Little Si instead of the real Mount Si, and now he was late. So  I decided I would recover the momentum by planking my way up Little Si. And to recover his reputation, Roger spent a good deal of the time convincing me he’s not a wuss by suggesting we climb Mount Adams in July. At 12,300 feet, the summit of Mount Adams is 5,000 feet higher than I’ve ever hiked. It’s higher than Cuzco, Peru. You can do it in one day, but Roger suggests two. So maybe I’ll try it to see what I’m in for.

 Anyway, the photos that follow pretty well tell Sunday’s story.

I’ve seen photos of plankers teetering on pokey light standards. I prefer smooth flat services like this rock.  I forget – what do you do with the arms?

That rock proved to be too little a challenge. Then I spotted a fence. Now that was more like it—Until I tried it.
You know that saying,  “easy as falling off a log?”

Gotta get those legs up, Uh..uh…

Roger, this hurts! Shoot the damn picture!

Those fence logs were a little narrow. Finally I found one that was a little broader and flatter. Keeping in mind what the hoods of old DeSoto’s looked like, I decided to imitate the carvings on the bows of old sailing vessels – the maidenhead. No, wait. I think that’s called the figurehead.

It was at this point that I realized that I hadn’t missed the wave. I remembered planking more than 40 years ago in McMahon Hall at University of Washington. A dorm mate placed two chairs facing each other. I rested the back of my skull on the seat of one chair and my heels on the other. Using my abs, I raised my middle until I was suspended flat between the chairs, just like the image below: Sorta. That’s big Mount Si in the background.

This is the position we used in the dorm room. I call it the reverse two-point supine plank. Note how impressed those kids are at my ability to do this 40 years later.

Here’s a better image of the reverse two pointer:

“It’s a plank so sublime that you do it supine.” I think of it as the Max Plank.

Oh, incidentally, this is a photo of a guy who was screwing off while I was doing the heavy lifting:

Well, next time the Inca Diaries will focus on something more relevant – the diseases you can get in Peru.

 Love,
 Robert