Five Days

Here we go again.... only five short days until I find myself bundled up at the bottom of a big ass mountain with nothing to do but put one foot in front of the other and climb it. Although I'm not really expecting the freakout that I had a few days before Rainier. No - this time around it's just a little bit of stress about the timeline (exactly when am I going to pack between work and school this week?). I suppose I could be packing at this moment, instead of sitting in front of the computer. But that's just not like me.

I'm super excited, though - the weather report seems to change every day. On the summit today, the air temperature is 18 degrees with a windchill of -2 degrees. Last year on Feb. 2 (our climb day), the air temp was 8 degrees and a windchill advisory for temps below -40 was issued. So who knows? I can handle the 18/-2 degrees so if it stays like that - no problem.

Gear-wise, I'm all set. I'm planning on renting a pair of double plastic mountianeering boots once I get out to New Hampshire since I don't think my leather La Sportivas will do the job. Otherwise, I've got my own crampons, ice axe, base layers, outer layers, and a sweet new pair (although they're pink.....) of Smith goggles (many thanks to the Smith rep for Ada Bike Shop).

My training has really only consisted of lots of hours on my bike trainer so I'm hoping that's sufficient since there's nothing I can really do now. I've got a little bit of a soreness issue in my neck after this weekend's Snow Cross race - a few nasty falls where my head sort of bounced on the ground - but it's nothing a little Advil can't take care of. I hope.

So that's where I'm at. Wish me luck - I know it's going to be a great and exciting time whether we make the summit or not. Oh - and I've had a few questions about the new blog title. I'm not really ready to disclose what the FABG stands for as of yet but I'll accept some guesses.......