We come back from Sierra Camp, and then immediately need to get ready for a Goodbye Party for Anya — tomorrow she leaves for boarding school on the East Coast. Anya’s grandmother Lyn comes over, as do Anya’s close friends Kaila, Rena, Sophia, and Ananya. They have fun over a pizza dinner, then chat and play Mario Kart like old times. We have to shoo everyone out at 10:00 pm so that Anya can get finish packing and get some sleep.
Jan and Anya leave for the East Coast. In lieu of our traditional Back-to-School photos, Jan snaps a photo of the girls and Angela. Angela, Liya, and Bree drive Jan and Anya to the airport, then the three head back to a quiet house.
Anya registers at Choate Rosemary Hall, where she’ll do her last two years of high school. She’s living in McCook House with 25 other girls in the 10th and 11th grades, plus two house advisors and their families. The registration process goes fairly smoothly, and there are tons of seniors (in the school’s traditional registration day uniform: bright yellow t-shirts with the words, “May I Help You?”) to help Anya move in. Jan drives Anya over the mailroom to pick up the stuff we shipped or ordered online, and the many boxes barely fit into the rental car.
Anya meets her roommate, Meagan, who’s from Barbados. Both girls are living on their own for the first time, so they don’t have much to unpack, and at this early stage they have little in the way of decorations to put up.
Jan sticks around with Anya for an afternoon set of welcome-to-school meetings, and then around 4:30 pm says goodbye. Anya is very excited to start her new school life.
Bree spends a lot of time designing and building custom extensions to her Harry Potter Hogwarts Lego kits. She creates a full bedroom/dormitory diorama, and attaches it to the store-bought Great Hall set.
Jan goes on a crazy long walk around the south 2/3 of Lake Washington. He wants to try something that some of the ultra long-distance hikers do: eat a full day’s worth of calories while walking. For this to work, most of the food has to be energy bars, energy gels, energy gummies, and other high-calorie pseudo-food.
He gets up at 6:00 am and is out the door by 6:20. He walks south along Lake Washington Boulevard, past Seward Park, around Renton Airport at the south end of the lake, north through Gene Coulon Park, along the rail-trail on the east side of the lake, through the Mercer Slough, across Bellevue, west across the new 520 bridge to Seattle, south through the Arboretum on the new Loop Trail, and finally back along Madison Street to arrive at home around 4:40 pm.
Total distance: 32 miles, in about 10.5 hours, or roughly 3 miles/hour for the whole day.
Jan’s friend Chris Zimmerman takes him on a day hike up Mount Pilchuck. Once the two climb above the clouds, they have a great view. They eat lunch at a wonderful old fire lookout at the very top of the mountain.
Jan and his friend John Tippett do a 3-day / 2-night backpacking trip down the Icicle Divide: a 42-mile hike from Stevens Pass in the middle of the Cascade Mountains, all the way down to Leavenworth at the eastern edge of the Cascades.
The hike is described in a hiking book as “strenuous”, and it is: over the 42 miles, it gains 14,000’ of elevation and loses 17,000’ of elevation. The long descents turn out to be as hard as the ascents, especially the final 6200’ descent along Icicle Ridge into Leavenworth. By the time the two reach the trailhead in Leavenworth, they can barely walk.
See photos and more descriptions on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10155580466236541&type=1&l=c758a0914a.
Liya’s cross-country running team participates in a Tough Mudder event near Black Diamond, WA. The team — including the coaches — go through a series of obstacles and challenges. As the “Mudder” name implies, they get very, very muddy. Angela cheers on Liya and her teammates. Afterwards, Liya says the event was really fun.
All of Jan’s recent hiking catches up with him a bit: his doctor diagnoses a likely stress fracture in his right foot. It should heal fine on its own in 6–8 weeks, but that sidelines Jan for the rest of the backpacking season. At least the injury came near the end of the season instead of the beginning.