Rdub woke up early but refreshed. 'I slept so good,' he said mid stretch. Honestly, I did too. For me, the time prior to leaving on a trip is often filled with a ton of work, late nights and early mornings (the absolute worst). One of the best things about starting an expedition, I feel, is that I get to catch up on my sleep.

Of course, Ryan may be taking the whole sleep thing to the extreme limit when he asked shortly after dinner tonight, 'is it too late to go into the tent for the night?' I laughed for quite a while until I realized he was serious.

We are both seasoned outdoor travelers and have developed very specific ways of doing just about everything on the trail. While Ryan's inability to stay awake past 8 pm provides me nearly infinite amusement, the fact that I poured my freeze-dried dinner in my Stanley mug and started eating it after only two minutes got the better of his inner backcountry chef.

'There's no way that isn't crunchy,' he stated flatly.

Overall, we had a pretty uneventful day. I only took one (maybe two) wrong turns on the way to the trailhead and we only fumbled for a few minutes trying to find the slot for our climbing fees (the ranger had just told us where they were supposed to go). In our defense, it was a little confusing.

At the trailhead, we unloaded quickly and started up. We had decided on the Mazama Glacier Route on Adams as it would be a fairly easy hike with the opportunity of hanging out in a scenic high camp.

We managed to make pretty good time throughout the afternoon - although I can't tell you exactly how good as I really didn't check the time at all. It was a sunny day and we were in no rush. Later in the week, we have tentatively decided, will time for more difficult challenges.

Side note: I am carrying a Delorme inReach beacon so for those of you that are interested you can track our progress on my website.

Personally, I haven't spent much time traveling in the Pacific Northwest and the landscape here is incredible. Today, I was most surprised by the variety of lava flows and igneous rocks poking out of the snow. I spent a summer in Hawaii (go figure) many years ago and this terrain is identical to much of the area there. That Hawaii and Washington are so far apart yet so similar is not lost on me and I spent the better part of an hour reviewing my geology and plate tectonics lessons in my head.

Tomorrow, we'll wake up early and hopefully summit from the Mazama and then head back down the normal route with all our gear.

Image: RDUB and I all smiles!