The Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000

It is 5:30 AM on Saturday, July 16th, 2011. Richard and Aaron, who arrived about 30 minutes earlier, are sitting in the living room while Ryan is scrambling to pack some last minute gear. I’m seated at the dining room table, talking to Aaron and Richard, enjoying a glass of juice. A specific kind of anticipation permeates the room at this early hour; the kind of excitement that arises on the brink of an ambitious adventure like the one we are about to undertake. Richard’s phone rings. “Oh, hi Gus.” On the phone is Gus Radcliffe, the fifth member of our climbing team. He’s on the other side of Seattle with Katy, the sixth member, preparing to rendezvous with us for the ride to Mount Rainier.

“Hold on, Gus. I’m going to put you on speaker phone.” Richard addresses the room, “Gus wants to talk go/no-go right now.”
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This winter I was lucky enough to ski about 40 days. The season began on Thanksgiving Day at Crystal Mountain in Washington, charged through an Easter spent at Whistler and ended, well… it’s not actually over. This film covers ski outings through the end of April at Table Mountain in the Mount Baker backcountry, but rest assured, there’s still snow in the Cascades as I write this in late May. (continue reading…)

This weekend the folks at Seattle’s Bold Hat Productions staged the seventh annual Hop Scotch Spring Beer and Scotch Festival in Fremont. Over 50 microbrews and imports, along with Scotch and Tequila samples were featured at the event. The tasting is a benefit for the Seattle International Film Festival.

So to summarize:
Lots of beer.
Fremont.
Cool charity.

Of course The Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000 was there.
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