Pics

• ~1988 - My first band (PIC). Weren't we cool? I'm not sure if we ever recorded (or even played) a song, but we had our album cover ready. I'm thinking this was 7th or 8th grade. From left to right ... Josh Weston, Roy Hamilton, me, Ted Benice. I've seen Josh twice since high school, last I knew he was at UCSC. Roy vanished at Harvard and Ted in Oregon at Lewis and Clark.
  
• ~1991 - Rock Climbing at Joshua Tree in July. I went with Quinn and his family. Quinn is in Wisconsin now working on his PHD. I still see his family some as they live within 2 hours of me. Unfortunately, I don't get out rock climbing near as much as I should. I even have enough gear to support two people. If your interested and live in the sacramento area drop me a line. I'm comfortable climbing in the 5.7-5.9 range mostly. Here (PIC) is a closeup of me on the Dairy Queen Wall (5.7), and here (PIC) is one from a little farther out.
  
• ~1995 - My sister Elisabeth (PIC) back when she went to UCLA before she became a granola girl at UCSC
  
• August 1995 - The Mt. Clark trip. Mt. Clark stands at 11,522' in Yosemite. Its pretty remote and requires multiple days of cross country travel (through heavy brush and thorn bushes) to get to the base of it. It is also a fairly technical climb and most of the team members elected to rope up for the last bit (not me though of course, being young and invincible). The top is only about as big as a picnic table, and there are sheer drop offs on all sides. This was my first real mountaineering trip. I was very out of shape (not just out of shape, but overweight as well), and really struggled during the first two days. I was definitely the slowest party member. I was also having problems with the altitude despite our relatively low height of 10000'. But, that didn't stop me. Here's a PIC of the North Face (~2000' verticle) the morning of our summit day. We would hike up the middle and then climb onto the ridge on the left and head up from there. Now here we are (PIC) on the left ridge (or arete if you want to get technical). Still looking at over 1000' verticle to go. Here's me (PIC) with the stupid 8 lb. climbing rope getting ready to hit the snow section, and here (PIC) I am leading the way up the snow. The Summit Photo (PIC) - me standing on the top (really is picnic table sized) while Greg belays up the rest of the group. Heres the view (PIC) from the top looking out towards glacier point and yosemite valley. The back of halfdome can be seen in the right of the photo, some 10 miles off and 1/2 a mile down.
• August 1996 - The ill-fated first Mt. Lyell trip. Lyell is the highest spot in all of Yosemite at 13,100'. It also has a glacier covering most of it. I got really sick two days before the trip and stayed sick the entire time. We were also caught in unexpectedly bad weather (snow in august at 8000'). It rained on us the first night at tuolumne meadows, and then it started snowing on us the first day as we were hiking. One member abandoned the trip after two hours on the trail. Here I am (PIC) at camp the first night sitting around the campfire (its a bad picture of me, but you can see it snowing). The next day only three of us (out of 5 left ) attempted the summit and none of us made it. Here we are before splitting up (PIC). We were turned back by nasty ice conditions on the glacier, a lack of proper gear (ice axes and crampons) and a lack of sunlight. We actually made it to within 1000' of the top before we turned back since the sun was starting to set.
  
• September 1-7 1997 - Another attack at Mt Lyell. Absent this time around were my sister and her boyfriend. New recruits were my aunt barbara (Peter's wife), Carla (my friend from HP and Mitch's wife), and Matt (my dad's former boss). We decided to take an extra day and actually hike in to a low camp and then a high camp and attempt the summit after another day of acclimitization. First shots (PIC PIC) are me sitting at high camp (~10500') on the second day. Now a group PIC of us that afternoon (left to right - Mitchel, Barbara, Peter, Jim, Matt, Me, carla is taking the photo). Summit morning PIC (me, matt, mitch, and Jim) freezing our gonads off. Here is a great PIC of us going up the glacier (you really get a sense of the size of it). I am the black spec in the upper right conveniently labelled). My dad is in the upper left, Matt is trailing me, and Peter and Barb are in the middle. We would all summit except for Matt. The conditions were great this year. Instead of icy sun cups there had been enough snow so that it was just packed snow all the way up. Here is a PIC of me on the summit (I know I look like a dork, but it was frickin cold and windy up there and my baseball hat blew off), and here is a PIC of the view from the summit. The trip was marred by the unexpected birth of Matt's 3rd child. His wife wasn't due until mid-december, but gave birth 4 months early. Thanks to the wonders of cellular phones he found out about it the day it happened. He and my dad hiked out all night and then took off with my clean clothes and wallet in the back of their car. Thankfully, and despite miserable odds, the baby is alive and well. You can read about baby Julie's story here. I know you have all been wanting to see the full andrew, so here I am (PIC) getting ready to take a bath on the way out. I don't know what specifically Carla found picture worthy about this but its worth a chuckle (this is not a joke, follow the link at your own risk). Last two (PIC PIC) are of me and Mitch hiking out Tuolemne meadown after our successfull summit. Mt. Lyell is clearly visible in the background above and in between us.
  
• Late September 1997 - Two shots of me near the summit of Mt. Tallac (~10000'). First PIC has Fallen Leaf Lake in the backgroun, the second PIC has Lake Tahoe is visible in the background. This was just a day hike with a group from work.
  
• November 1997 - The disasterous Bear Creek Spire trip. Talk about having a mountain beat the crap out of you. No pictures from this trip. I never even took my camera out. This was just me, peter, and barb. They brought their dog Mischa, and I brought Annie. At 3PM I was still waiting for them in the parking lot sitting around in a pair of shorts and nothing else. It was maybe 70 degrees. Two hours later it was dark and the temperature was plunging into the teens. I am guessing that it was sub 0F that first night. I thought Annie was going to die she was so cold. She kept trying to crawl in the sleeping bag with me. I'd brought a blanket for her but she tracked water on it and it froze solid so I couldn't wrap it around her. She decided she didn't need to sleep and would keep warm by running around and playing all night long (she does this a lot). I hadn't brought a tent so I was just sleeping outdoors on a mat. This worked fine until it started snowing (not wussy snow like at Lyell in 1996) I mean really snow like you couldn't see more than 20'. We will be returning this year. We will be successful and there will be pictures.
• November 1997 - Me and my sister (PIC) at my grandparents house for Thanksgiving
  
• February 1998 - Snow hiking with Annie and Mehul. Mehul is a friend of mine who lives in New Hampshire (maybe Maine, not sure, right on the border near Portsmouth). We drove out of Auburn on Foresthill road until it got closed and then just hiked the road (now a cross country trail). Here (PIC) is Annie and Mehul, and here (PIC) is Annie by herself. Annie loves snow hiking. And she loves wearing her doggie backpack. She refuses to wear her booties though, they trip her up too much and she pulls them off. I think she missed her calling as a sled dog.
• March 1998 - Half Dome in Winter!?!?! I know, what were we thinking. Well, it went like this. Mehul was out here again from Maine and really wante to see yosemite and possibly Half Dome. We were drinking 151 shots at a party on friday night when he made up his mind that he was going to go climb it on saturday. He was scheduled to return to Maine on sunday. Not wanting to see him go off and get himself killed (I had climbed it once time years prior in the summer, but I know my way around yosemite at least) I went with him (not sure how big a factor the 151 was in all this). So, we sobered up for a couple of hours, packed, and left. We drove all night and made it to Happy Isles at 7AM. We were making great progress and were at the top of Nevada Fall by 9AM. This is were things started to get difficult. Within a half a mile we had completely lost the trail and were in crusty ankle to knee deep snow. Without a trial to follow we just cut straight up the mountain side towards the back of half dome. We were alternating between crap snow or slush or just loose dirt/pine needles for the rest of the morning. Here is a PIC of me posing with Half Dome in the back, and here I am (PIC) struggling up the steep part (It went on like this for several hours). This put us to approximately the base of the lower dome at 11 (this is were the rock stair switchbacks normally start if you are familiar with the trail). I mistakenly guessed that we would be on the top by 12. In reality, it would take us more than 4 more hours to get to the top. We were now on a northern ridge, and the snow was very deep (PIC). Mehul was in to his ankles or knees, and I was in to my knees or waist (we are about the same height but I outweigh him by 50lbs). Mehul also had to hike with his eyes closed since he had forgotten sunglasses and had gone basically snow blind. I was even having vision problems since this was just after my eye surgery and the even with shades I was bothered by the sun. It was very slow going. It would take approximatly 15 seconds of step kicking to move up maybe two feet. We finally made it to the top of the lower dome and received another shock. The upper face of half dome (normally jammed full of people going up the cables) was basically a river (PIC) . There were patches of melting snow, and freezing water just pouring down it. The cables are always on half dome, its just during the off seasons they are not lifted from the rock. Here, they were buried in most places, or if not pinned to the ground covered in freezing water. As we traversed to the upper dome I almost fell to me death we I fell completely through the snow to my armpits. When I extracted myself I saw that I was on top of a tiny snow layer over a 20' dropoff to a hidden room. I crawled back and went another route. Here's the view from the lower dome looking north (PIC). We struggled up the last 800' and finally made it to the top. There was no indication that anybody else had been on the summit in recent weeks. Here is a PIC of me on the summit, and a PIC of Mehul with Yosemite Valley visible, and here is a PIC of the two of us together on top. Our return trip was no less exciting. Netiher of us expected it to take so long and we had both run out of food. I was in pretty bad shape and started hallucinating. I went into auto pilot mode and let mehul lead and he got us lost be heading too far west too soon. I eventually pulled it together and we backtracked several miles and got to the top of nevada again. When we finally made it back to the car it was after 9PM, and we had hiked the last couple of hours in darkness. Mehul tried driving at first but was too exhausted too. I tried but was having a very difficult time seeing, and was also too tired to do much. I got us back to the 99, and then mehul got us home finally at 3AM, over 24 hours after we had started. Despite wearing SPF 45 sunblock I had gotten horribly sunburnt, and I couldn't walk straight for two days after.
• Spring 1998 - Me, my dad, and my dog annie out for a walk (PIC)
  
• June 1998 - Hitting the hole (PIC PIC)at Satan's Cesspool on the South Fork of the American River in early Spring. Flow was 7900 that day. This was the all-HP boat. Other people included Mike (Mitch) [front right of the raft] and his girlfriend Diana (D) [middle right], Stacie [middle left], and Herman (Hank) [back] our guide and his girlfriend Mel [back right].
  
• June 28 1998 - Feather Falls (PIC). From left to right - Joe (summer worker at Intel), Bill (summer worker at Intel), Stacie (summer worker at HP), Henry (summer worker at Intel), my good friend Steph (summer worker at HP), and yours truly. If somebody wants to tell me how to fix the link to steph's page so that it takes up the whole browser instead of just the frame we are in I'd appreciate it.
  
• August 15 1998 - Luke (HP summer intern from MIT), Andrew, and Perry in front of Half Dome (PIC) taken from Glacier point. I had climbed Half Dome the previous day with Herman and Mel in 6 hours up and down (big difference from the 15+ hour marathon earlier this year).
• October 2 1998 - My Birthday bash. Here's a PIC of me, my sister, and emily. Here's a PIC of me and my friend Jen.
  
• October 30-31 1998 - Halloween Madness. Here I am in my halloween costume (PIC). And here I am in a PIC posing with Tom (party host), and a PIC of me and Jen again. Here is a PIC of Mitch and D in their costumes.
• November 7-8 1998 - The not very triumphant return to Bear Creek Spire. OK - So we went once again and once again were unsuccessful in our summit attempt. Actually, we were less successful this year than last. It ended up only being two of us, me and my volleyball friend jeff. Basically, it dumped snow on us the enitire trip. We didn't attempt to summit on our scheduled day because we were afraid we would come back and find the car buried. Here is a PIC of me and jeff (i'm in blue pants and green jacket with a red backpack on the left if you can't recognize us) getting ready to head off. Here I am (PIC) at camp freezing my butt off waiting for water to boil. And now, in the "how stupid is andrew" category, here is a PIC of me foot skating across a partially frozen lake. It was jeff's idea, really. Last PIC (also a stupid contender) is me standing topless in 20 degree weather in strong wind while it was lightly snowing. Just for laughs. :) Take note of what happens to your hair when you wear a balaklava for 2 days straight.
  
• November 15 1998 - My first road trip to Chico. No pictures of us doing a bar crawl (sorry) but here is a PIC of us (me, Mitch, D, Tom) at Upper Bidwell Park.