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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 17, 1999)
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Hall Mortgage Broker President's Club 503-624-1513 GLE 80°-345-9,9() MR 503-301-1941 $ G Atoa: Pager i’PZW'TPA MONICA HUGGETT / ARTISTIC DIRECTOR / r Guest director Eric Milnes and an expanded PBO team up with the Trinity Choir and four guest soloists to present a Messiah for the millennium. Friday, Dec. 17, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 18, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 19, 3 p.m. Monday, Dec. 20, 7:30 p.m. Tickets start at just $19 ($ 14 students/seniors). Subscribe and save! All performances at Trinity Cathedral TICKETS: (503) 222-6000 www.pbo.org ___ WILLAMETTE WEEK Concert Sponsor 5 Crf- iti Ti*f^ A Season Sponsor PORTLAND BAROQUE ORCHESTRA Finally, shortly before noon, we reach the he mountain rose up before us, taunting summit —8,363 feet. We’ve done it! Triumph us, challenging us, making faces at us, of the human spirit! Proudly, we plant our rain daring us to scale its treacherous slopes. bow flag atop the peak and watch it unfurl to We faced a grueling 4,500-foot elevation gain in less than 5 miles. Straight up into thin snap and wave in the wind, right next to the happy face banner of the team from the Gold- air. Each one among us knew the risks; each endale Senior Center. had weighed his chances. Man pitting We stand on the thin, knife-edge narrow himself against mountain. Epic stuff. rim of the crater, gazing out into the vast We were up to the challenge. We laughed in grandeur and majesty of the northern Cas the face of danger. cades. There are few thrills that can match There were six on our climbing standing atop a mountain peak—I can think of team: Nordquist, Hilary, Mallory, only five or six, and most of those are illegal. Whitaker, Shackleton and myself. Nordquist points out the surrounding peaks: (Note: Names have been changed Mount Hood, Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, to avoid messy lawsuits.) Mount McKinley. (Too late we realize Nordquist is the leader of the Nordquist’s poor sense of geography.) expedition. The success and safety of the climb is going to rest on his Looking thousands and thousands of feet cool head and clear thinking. The down into that immense crater, beholding the very epitome of the mountaineer, rising lava dome with its fissures and steaming he inspires confidence in the rest of vents, I am overwhelmed by one powerful real us. Dressed in his mountain boots ization: “We’re standing on a live volcano!” and gaiters, his Kelty pack We break out our provisions. I share my bedecked with ice ax, ropes, pitons, orange with Hilary, who had been under the carabiners, oxygen canisters and a mistaken impression that there would be vend dome tent that can comfortably ing machines at the summit. Nordquist offers a BY accommodate 20, he carries piece of beef jerky that was dried and seasoned ALAN enough food to have kept the last century. Mallory shares his high-tech high- Donner party alive. I feel slightly carbo-protein bar, which contains enough ROSE unprepared with only my sneakers energy to fuel a small city. Shackleton, mean and a space blanket. Hilary is still laughing in the face of danger. We real ize the altitude is already getting to him. Since we haven’t left the parking lot yet, this is not a good sign. We may have discovered our weak link. It is a clear and cloudless morning as we set out, yet each of us knows how fickle the weather can be. (Cer tainly not as fickle as last night’s date, but still...) It would be a race against time. We would have only a narrow 12-hour window to reach the summit and get back down off the peak before happy hour at Scandals. Nordquist orders us to rope up. We appreciate his concern for safety. Still, we feel a little foolish being the only ones roped together as we leave the parking lot. The climb soon becomes grueling. We break out of the trees into the vast and barren lava fields. We are on our own now, cut off from the outside world— except for our three cell phones, one laptop comput er and Mallory’s high-tech palm-size television-radio with satellite relay. while, is dining on gazpacho soup with a crisp We are soon scrambling over boulders and Caesar salad and barbecued lamb in a tahini traversing the scree slopes. Hilary is having a marinade as he lets his bottle of merlot particularly difficult time. (Note for future breathe. (Shackleton’s also a member of the expeditions: High heels should be strongly dis Cooking Club.) couraged.) An hour later we begin our descent, each of It is a warm day on these hazardous and us quietly proud of our achievement. We had unforgiving slopes, and Nordquist orders a halt risen to the challenge and triumphed. Forever for the expedition to rest and rehydrate. (Real more we would be counted among the coura mountaineers don’t drink water, we rehydrate.) geous few (13,000 each year) who had reached Mallory keeps us informed of the altitude the treacherous summit of Mount St. Helens with his new razzle-dazzle high-tech watch with and returned to tell of it. built-in barometer, altimeter and can opener. At 7,000 feet we come upon a sensitive geo ■ A lan R ose is a member of Portland Gay Men physical seismic sensor. It is great fun jumping Writing and contributes regularly to the OutWord up and down around it, wondering if there will column. be anything in tomorrow’s papers. T