Chris Grantham
Friday, 2/3/06
Nuthouse to Nordhoff

Finally got a day off and was going to take a break and vegetate for a bit but the weather this morning looked so good I couldn't resist.  Put out the TXT msg call at 8:45 and had a crew of 3 others by 9.  Andy Keller, Pauline, and Ben Haug showed up by 10 and you could already feel that it was going to be a hot one.  None of them had been up the nuthouse and thought it was going to be a quick walk-in-the-park style hike.  I got used to saying "just a little farther, we're almost there".

Cycles on launch were relatively light but building.  Andy, the first one off, went up right away.  Pauline followed and Ben and I brought up the rear.  Nobody was below launch for more than a few seconds.  It was tough moving up the spine.  Good lift to be had but we had a slight East component that tore things up a bit.  We were able to struggle to 3k fairly consistently but the east killed us on the glide and we had to run back to the NH spine a few times.

I finally got 32 just East of the spine and ran for the big one before the Pyramid.  Immediately hit 4600 and ran for the Pyramid.  The smoother stuff at the last spine was replaced by a rodeo ride at the Pyramid and after hitting 4400 decided I'd had enough.  It had taken us an hour to get this far.  Sweet glide out to the HS with Ben in hot pursuit.  Andy and Pauline were not far behind.

It was a great day to get out and have a little fun.  It's not every day that everyone makes the NH to NHS run, especially on a day as challenging as this.

Hey Chris, thanks for showing us the ropes at the Nuthouse. Had a great time and look forward to doing it again.

Ben