The Tooth (Fiction)

The Tooth, WA
WAC Class Climb
May 10, 2002

We arose early Friday morning and after shooing away the mice from our food, Todd cooked up a marvelous breakfast consisting of hearty dishes that we affectionately named the George Washington and the Paul Revere. There was a third he offered to prepare called the Mickey Mouse, but our skepticism won over and none of us tried it. For the herbivores, he displayed a dazzling ability to flip flap jacks while simultaneously separating egg whites and frying soy bacon. Rob skipped breakfast in favor of a shower. We inquired as to why, but he merely replied, "Trust me," then muttered something about "damn hot sleeping bag" or something.

Energy stores topped off, we piled into Pat's king sized Yugo. Fred had to be strapped to the bumper and Maria rode on the roof with the chickens as we drove up to the Alpental parking lot. Once there Pat lit up and passed around a fatty. Mike declined in favor of good old fashioned tobacco. With our new outlook on the day, we headed across the footbridge, whereupon we discovered the gate locked. Angela shed some light onto her "time" in Walla Walla as she promptly picked the lock with the pick of her ax.

The next order of business, we decided, was to get the ski lifts running. This decision was made not because we were intimidated by the distance and grade of the slope, but because after performing a Rorschach test on a section of snow, I determined that there was genuine concern of a slab avalanche occuring. It was pointed out to me later that a Rorschach test isn't nearly as effective for assessing avalanche danger as a Rutschblock test, but nonetheless, it was agreed that the lifts would be the safest means of transportation. After Mike hotwired the lifts, most of us rode them up to the bench to begin the traverse. However, we asked Rob to slog up the slope in the hopes that his perspiration would lubricate the crusty layer six inches below the surface, effectively sabotaging any Mountaineers groups that might attempt to follow us.

As we approached the avalanche gullies, I could feel the tension heighten within the group. The instructors huddled. The students huddled. The instructors tried to assess the danger. The students pondered how much worse the danger was getting as we stood and waited. The instructors debated whether Kirstin Dunst's Mary Jane character in Spider-Man was too helpless when contrasted with the Mary Jane of the comic book, who we all know was a strong independent woman. There was general disagreement, but they all agreed on one thing, the movie kicked ass. Janice meditated on the certainty of death, chanting "the jewel is in the lotus. the jewel is in the lotus" repeatedly. Tim meditated on why the hell he packed his tent, sleeping bag and cooking gear.

Finally we were all snapped back to the moment when Todd remembered he left the stove on back at the cabin. Angela volunteered to go back and turn it off. We all speculated that she actually wanted to go back to see if she could find some of Jonathan's powdered marmot meat soup.

At this point we spread out and crossed the gullies one by one. Hoping to gain a little leverage, Tim duct taped a ski pole to the head of his ice ax, fashioning a stilt/pogo stick, upon which he hopped across the danger areas. I had the intriguing experience of following second behind Maria through the mushy snow, where I discovered that steps kicked by someone half your weight are relatively devoid of meaning as they simply provide a deeper starting point for you to post-hole waist deep.

Once through the avalanche danger, we paused for lunch. At this point we realized Angela had taken all the mustard. It was Angela, guys! Oh the tragedy. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, Fred poured out some liquor, and Pat tore out his hair in grief.

As we ate, we noticed a pair of climbers heading up the basin in front of us. Pat convinced us that following in their steps wouldn't be sporting, so we all kicked our own steps up the final steep ascent to the pass. During the short climb over the moat/cornice, Janice attempted to pull herself up the hand line hand-over-hand without the aid of any footwork. We tried to tell her that wasn't necessary, but she insisted that using feet on technical rock and snow wasn't sporting.

Once the technical climbing began, it all went smoothly. Tim left a nice trail of tobacco spittage on the route, but it was quickly washed away by the sweat-bath from Rob. Janice managed to climb the final pitch with her eyes closed. In a classic set-up, Pat chose not to inform me of the "manly" route up the face of the final pitch, instead informing me that I am a wimp for taking the catwalk route after Mike did the face while smoking a Camel. But I'm not bitter.

Up on the summit, Maria disappeared for a while. When she returned, she bummed a smoke off Mike.

On the descent from the summit, around the third belay station, Pat mumbled something about saving his sister on K2 and took a flying two-footed leap across the gap between the tooth and the pineapple, planted his ice tools firmly in the supple rock of the pineapple and landed but a few inches above the ground. No one could figure out how his entire thoraxal region didn't cave in upon impact or how his arms didn't pull from their sockets. We all just chalked it up to artistic license granted to the director.

Back down to the pass, we sent Rob to glissade down the snow slope. In a fascinating chemical reaction, his body heat and moisture combined to make a wet tube that quickly froze behind him. It was amazing to watch as he went from the tooth, down the basin all the way to the parking lot in three minutes. Thrilled at the prospect of following in his tube, we were quickly turned away as marmots, deer, and a herd of elk moved in and licked away all the salt-saturated trail, then tragically succombed to the toxic levels of sodium they ingested.

We arrived back at the parking lot around 6. We engaged in a discussion of whether or not we had made the right decision. In the end we agreed that forging on without mustard for the sandwiches was within a reasonable range of risk and that on future trips, we must divide the mustard stores up among several members lest another situation like this repeat itself.

Railay, Thailand

Railay Bay, Thailand
sport climbing trip
Jan 24 - Feb 5, 2002

I'm sitting in a rental car at a rest stop somewhere between Eugene and Roseburg, Oregon. After being back in Seattle for two days, I had the pleasure of leaving town again, this time on business. Just kind of a dirty trick the good folks at work played on me. Ha ha. I came down yesterday, and on the plus side I got to visit Sonya in Eugene last night, and it was coincidentally Lizzie's 21st birthday. Strangely though, somehow I woke up about half an hour earlier than I meant to, and as the client I'm visiting doesn't get to the office until 7:30, I have some time to kill.

We left Seattle at 12:50 pm on Thursday the 24th and arrived in Bangkok without a hitch at 10:45 pm Friday. Paid $20 each for rooms at the four-star Mandarin Hotel in Bangkok, getting 4 hours of sleep before flying out to Krabi early Saturday, the 26th. After arriving in Krabi, we took a longtail boat to Railay Bay. Railay is absolutely stunning. Hopefully you will all get a chance to see at least a couple pictures of it, if not several, and if not at least some of the several hours of video tape we have. I'm working on cutting a version down to about 2 hours by picking out the highlights.

Saturday afternoon we went swimming at Phra Nang Beach and were immediately struck by the soothing respite the 80 degree water provided in contrast to the 95 degree air and by the different apparel (or lack thereof) that the Europeans rock at the beach. Also of interest was a shrine at one of the caves on the beach. Striking fabric colors, wooden carvings, and flashes of gold ornaments were clearly visible inside the cave. I first thought very reverently, "Wow, a buddhist shrine. The people here are so spiritual." So I walked over to the cave to check it out. Upon closer inspection, all of the wooden carvings were falicly shaped objects ranging in length from several inches to several feet. A placard on the wall of the cave explained that the shrine had no relation to Buddhism or Islam, but instead was the result of the superstitious fishermen of the area who believed a goddess resided in the cave. If the fishermen have a good day on the seas, they thank the goddess by placing a falic symbol on the shrine. Not quite what I expected.

Later in the afternoon we did a little climbing. My first lead was on a 6A+ at Hidden World. They use the French grading system -- the most widely used system around the world, and a 6A+ would be around 5.10b in the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS) -- the system used in the States. That is an aggressive warm-up grade for me normally. We had been told a few times that the routes in Railay are on average a little soft for the grades they are given. But I was completely stymied by the crux topping out over this bulge, even taking a small whipper at one point -- on my first route! Not a good way to start the trip. I was thinking, "What is this soft route bologna?!" A Canadian at the wall assured me that this route was unusually stiff and not representative of other climbs of that grade. Looking at the guide book later I discovered the name of the route was "Satanic Alliance." Ahhh, it's a bit more clear now.

The next day, Sunday, we went to Tonsai Beach where the most overhangiest of the overhangs, which Railay is famous for, are. Some of these routes rise up 10 feet or so, then extend out almost parallel to the ground for 20 feet or so. They were just a bit beyond our ability. We did a few routes next door on Dum's Kitchen, and I was still a little frustrated by the routes, but I started to figure out that most of the cruxes seemed to consist of big, long, reachy moves. Then, finally, I flashed a 6B+ (5.10d YDS) on top rope, and felt like I was getting the hang of it. Mike, by the way, on-sighted that route, in what was an impressive display of persistence, at one point taking a rest by literally sitting down on a ledge (that would normally be considered bad form, but in some situations who cares).

Okay, I had to go to work, but now I'm waiting for a large email to download over an incredibly slow modem connection so I'll continue...

All of the walls we climbed at had their own unique asthetic beauty. At Tonsai/Dum's Kitchen you're on the beach. At Eagle Wall the approach takes you through a tropical grotto with palms and massive plants. At Escher Wall you have a large cave with gigantic stalactites hanging down to your left and on the right there are a couple very cool routes inside a smaller cave. At The Keep you hike up a steep slope then descend fixed ropes to a ledge next to the wall where you're pretty much isolated from the rest of the climbing areas and climbing high up with a view of the entire Bay behind you. One of the most impressive walls appearance-wise and situation-wise was Hueco Wall. The wall is littered with huecos (Spanish for "holes") and stalactites, and at high tide, the water crashes up against the bottom of the wall. This doesn't present a problem for climbing, however, because you begin several of the routes by walking through a short tunnel out to the middle of the wall above the water level (you belay from there too). One route involved stepping about 4 feet from the opening of the tunnel out onto a stalactite, then climbing up the stalactite. Quite unique!!

On Tuesday we took the day off. Craig, Jen and I went snorkeling while Steve and Mike went scuba diving, but Sean had to stay behind because he got pretty sick. The seas were pretty rough that day, which made the boat ride out in those small longtail boats pretty exciting, if not completely unnerving. My left collar muscle was balled up in a knot from gripping the side of the boat so hard, and I actually put my mask and snorkle on because of the constant stream of water spraying in my face. The snorkeling was pretty nice--lots of fish and coral. After dinner, when it became clear that day had shifted into night, we decided that the rest day was officially over, so Mike, Steve, and I went to 1-2-3 Wall and did some night climbing. It was actually quite nice because that's one of the most crowded walls during the day. It's where all of the guides take beginners because it's close and there are lots of easy routes, but there was no one there at night. The tide came in while we were climbing and we ended up walking back to the resort in knee-deep water. It took my shoes two days to dry out.

On Thursday, Craig, Mike and I (Sean was still sick) went to The Keep, where I think we did our best climbing. All of the routes were really long (all around 30 meters) and high quality (most of them are rated 3 or 4 out of 4 stars). Genghis Bond, a 4 star 6B that we warmed up on, was 32 meters long! We use a 60 meter rope, so the only way the route is doable is because of rope stretch. Mike and I both onsighted 6C's (5.11a YDS) there, which is my best onsight (or even redpoint for that matter) ever! I was psyched! Onsight means you successfully lead the route with no falls or hangs with no prior knowledge of the route. Craig lead a 7A (5.11c YDS), he didn't get the onsight, but it was impressive nonetheless. It had an extremely difficult, runout crux -- about 12 feet between bolts. In fact, Mike lead it again after Craig and took about a 20 foot whipper at the crux (I got that on tape). That says something about the route because Mike generally does everything he can to keep from falling. That solidified my decision to top rope it. It was so rad though because you have this EXTREMELY pumpy crux section, it lets up BARELY, then suddenly you're finessing a traverse across this little ledge with super thin handholds, then you're going vertical again and getting totally pumped again! So much character! We were toast after that. As far as quality of climbs go, The Keep was definitely my favorite.

Sean was feeling better by Friday, thank goodness. He had gotten quite sick -- bad fever among other things. For example, on Wed, he met us out at Escher Wall. It's about a 25 minute hike, and he did it in the 95 degree heat and humidity with full length pants, shirt, and a hat and never even broke a sweat. That's not good.

After The Keep, we pretty much took it easy, doing fewer climbs per day, although generally harder climbs. We also did some easy routes at various places like Hueco Wall. Sunday morning we went to Tonsai and worked a 7A+ (5.11d YDS). It pretty much ate us for breakfast, but it was really cool working something that was that hard, but still doable. We were inspired to do it when we watched two hot-sh_t climbers warm up on it! Bastards. Later in the day we went up to Fire Wall and climbed Groove Tube, a 4 star 6A. The name is very descriptive, imagine a 20+ meter section of luge or bobsled tube standing on end -- that's what it was like. Adding to the enjoyment were a few families of monkeys foraging around in the trees within 15 to 50 feet of us the whole time. You'd be hard pressed to find a situation like that around here.

Clearly, I thought the climbing was phenomenal. I wasn't super excited about Thailand itself, though. It's just so touristy. I guess you have to take the good with the bad though. It certainly was nice to have a toilet and a shower, even if there was no hot water. But seeing how their culture has been changed by the tourism industry was a little disappointing. All the boatmen that taxi people around the area used to be fishermen, but gave it up because there was more money in ferrying around tourists. Like a lot of places, everywhere you went nearby the resorts, locals were trying to make a living by walking around selling food, drinks, and trinkets. I had heard that learning some Thai was a necessity because English isn't spoken very much there, and I was a little excited about being forced to pick up a bit of another language. Garbage. All I learned while I was there was how to say "hello" and "thank you," but I didn't even need to learn that much because all the locals knew enough English to make it unnecessary.

One thing I found cool was all the Europeans that were there. It was nice to be on vacation and not be spending the entire time with the same type of people you're constantly around when you're not on vacation. I'd say that Germany had the strongest representation there. The food was fantastic. I had Thai for every lunch and dinner we ate. And a typical meal was about 80 baht, or about $2. All the restaurants served bottled Coke! Mmmm...

Finally, on my last day in Railay, Monday, Steve, Craig and I got up at 6 in the morning and went to the Ya Ya Bar and watched the Super Bowl live. That was a really cool experience. Pretty good game too.

To wrap it up, I loved the climbing, loved the scenery, loved the food, and enjoyed all the interesting people. The unrelenting heat and psychotic mosquitos got to me quite a bit by the end. I'm very glad I went, but I don't have a burning desire to go back anytime soon. That's just a long freaking plane ride, man. If I did go back, I would want more time and I would plan on doing more touring around the country.

Tatoosh Traverse

From: Riensche, Nathan (US - Seattle)
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2001 11:47 AM
To:
Subject: TR: Tatoosh Range Traverse, 8/26/2001

What: The Tatoosh Range is the first range of peaks south of Mt. Rainier, just inside Mt. Rainier
National Park. Our goal was to summitt seven of the peaks in one day -- a goal for "aggressive,
overachieving types" according to the guide book. It is considered a scramble, no class five rock
climbing.

Who: Mike and Sean, two of my usual climbing partners, and Mike's friend, Gary, who was visiting from Wales. There was a bit of concern about Gary because he was not in stellar shape.

Prelude: We drove out to Rainier National Park Saturday evening, arriving at Cougar Rock Campground at 9:30. We called too late for reservations, so we drove out there counting on no shows or at least being able to find a spot to crash at the trailhead. By a stroke of luck, there was an RV spot open and the Ranger was getting ready to start opening up the no shows. So we got the RV spot. There was a half moon in the south and we could see the top couple thousand feet of Rainier basking in the moonlight; the mountain's glaciers seeming to glow in the night sky. It was an inspiring vision, as if Rainier were a guardian watching over us, and it made me think of Mt. Everest's Tibetan name, Chomolungma, which means, "Goddess Mother of the Earth," and how that seemed like such an appropriate name for Rainier at the moment.

The Adventure: We dropped Mike's car off at the Longmire parking lot, at the west end of the traverse, and drove Sean's car up to Reflections Lake at the east end. We hit the Pinnacle Peak trailhead at 8:55 AM. The first mile and a half was well maintained trail up to the saddle (elev 5,920 ft) between Pinnacle Peak and Plummer Peak. The maintained trail ended there, and from this point on it was navigation skills and boot paths. We scrambled up Pinnacle Peak (elev 6,562 ft), reaching the summitt at 10:00 AM and feeling good, with the exception of Gary, who was already a bit knackered. The scramble up Pinnacle was quite fun. There was a bit of loose rock and some potential exposure upon reaching the summitt ridge in the form of a thousand foot drop straight down the north face, although ascending directly up the ridge was not an option so we were never in any danger. We returned to the saddle at 10:35 AM and continued up to the summitt of Plummer Peak (elev 6,370 ft) at 11:00 AM.

We went back down and traversed the ridge over to Denman Peak (elev ~5,800 ft?). With some light, fun scrambling and nearly zero exposure, we summitted Denman at 11:45 AM. Denman was the least spectacular peak on our list, looking more like a bump along the Tatoosh ridge than an actual peak. We were very optimistic at this point, having bagged 3 of the 7 peaks in less than 3 hours.

Then when we reached the bottom of the saddle between Denman and Lane Peak, the first bad sign materialized in the form of a 2-inch diameter blister on Gary's heel. We slapped some moleskin on it, and like a trooper, he carried on with not a word of complaint.

Lane Peak (elev ~6,200 ft?), presented us with our first technical challenge. The routes up the first 3 peaks were pretty obvious, but we saw a few options on Lane, and the guide book warned that it has a lot of loose rock. Sean and Gary chose to ascend a couloir up the south face, while Mike and I choose to go up the eastern ridge. Very quickly we realized the eastern ridge would be a highly technical scramble, and we were pretty excited about it. Mike went up first and about 15 feet up, he prepared to shift his weight around a suitcase sized rock that he was hanging onto with his left hand and left foot. Suddenly the rock blew, nearly barn-dooring on his right hand and foot, he managed to stay on while the rock crashed down below causing a thunderous rock slide about 500 feet down the mountainside. Luckily I was to the right of Mike, so the rock missed me by about 10 feet.

We, especially Mike, were pretty spooked by this, and without hesitation, backed off and found another route up the ridge. Even this was borderline to a class 5 climb, and while the rock was more solid, there was definitely the occasional loose one that instilled a bit of fear in us. We finally reached the summitt at 12:55 PM. We lost a bit of time ascending Lane, but we were still in pretty good shape having bagged 4 peaks in 4 hours. It was a beautiful, clear day, and we had lunch at the top and marveled at the view of Rainier, which was its usual beautiful, enormous self to the north, and Mt. Adams, Mt. Saint Helens, and Mt. Hood to the south.

After lunch, we were anxious to get off that pile of loose, chossy rock, which we unaffectionately
nicknamed "Chossy Peak." We wisely descended via Sean and Gary's route, and upon reaching the base, bitterly gave the peak the finger.

The next peak was Wahpenayo (elev 6,231 ft). To get there was a long traverse across massive scree slopes and slippery grass slopes, all at a steep angle of course. The guidebook said to cross the ridge between Wahpenayo and an unnamed peak. Well, there were 2 unnamed peaks between Lane and Wahpenayo, and subsequently we discovered that there was another one to the west of Wahpenayo. We first crossed the ridge before reaching the unnamed peaks, attempting to traverse along the north side of the ridge, but after an hour of miserable scree, brush, and mosquitos, we determined that this route was impossible. To top it off, Gary had a couple additions to his blister collection and he was running on fumes. He was having trouble keeping his balance on decent terrain, every step looked agonizing, and he frequently fell on tougher terrain.

At 2:30 PM, after much debate, we decided that 2 of us could finish the traverse on our own, but Gary and someone else would have to go back, as we were about half way and the route back was certain, but we still were very uncertain about the route forward. Sean volunteered to assist Gary back, while Mike and I went on.

Mike and I decided that we would cross back to the south side of the ridge, then traverse up to the gap between the first unnamed peak and the second unnamed peak, which we think actually might just be a subsidiary peak of Wahpenayo, and cross back over the ridge to the north side. After more miserable, painful, frustrating, demoralizing scree and grass slopes, we made it to the gap, and descended down around the second peak, crossing more of the same terrain, plus a 50 foot long snow block that actually was a relief to our feet and joints. We made it up a couloir on the northwest ridge after more God-forsaken scree, and after more scanning, analyzing, map and compass-reading, were left clueless. We didn't know exactly where we were in relation to Wahpenayo's summitt; we could see the saddle between Wahpenayo and the 5th peak, Chutla Peak, but had no confidence that we could get there; the route up the ridge we were on looked pretty technical and mossy to boot; the route down and around the northwest ridge over to the western ridge looked completely demoralizing; and we were demoralized and nearly tanked by the route getting to where we were.

Finally, at 4:45 PM, after nearly 4 hours of trying to navigate a way up Wahpenayo, we made the decision to turn around. This meant crossing the same horrible terrain we had crossed on the way over, and perhaps it was fatigue and dehydration, but I allowed myself to nearly lose all hope at this point.

I had all these scenarios running through my mind like what if we had to bivy for the night. We had no camping gear with us, just raincoats and an extra pair of socks. After an exhausting ascent back up the north face, we made it back up to the gap, then slid on our butts all the way down all the talus and grass down to the basin, where there was actually a trail of sorts heading back in the general direction of Pinnacle Peak.

The inherent problem with our plan was that Sean and Gary were 2 hours ahead of us, and upon reaching the trailhead, they would take the car back down to Longmire to meet us at the other end. That meant, because they knew nothing of our turning around, that we would reach the trailhead with no vehicle waiting for us. Except for one thing, we knew that Gary was in such a bad state, that we might actually have a chance of catching up with them. We hauled ass. Every step was agony at this point. When going up, every muscle in my legs had that horrible heavy, burning sensation of fatigue, and my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest. When going down, the ligaments in my knees screamed with pain and my feet felt like they were on fire. The trail frequently disappeared, and we would be left following animals paths through more miserable terrain. When we reached the vicinity of Denman, I ran out of water. I have never emptied my 3 liter hydration pack before. Mike was getting low as well, so we had to ration
the fluids.

Finally, dirty, exhausted, scratched up, dehydrated, heartrates at about 150 bps, and overheated, we reached the Pinnacle Peak Trail. We only had a mile and a half to catch up with them, and at this point, I was completely skeptical of any chance of catching them. I don't know what inner forces were at work within Mike to cause him to do this, but he began running down the trail. I followed about 20 feet behind him the whole way. It was actually kind of a nice change, despite the overwhelming desire to just stop because of the misery I was feeling. We just kind of floated down the trail, getting odd looks from people we passed along the way (the first people we had seen since about 10:30 AM). Finally after running a 10 minute mile and a half, we reached the trailhead at 6:30 PM.

I threw my hands in the air, and if I had the strength, I would have yelled something along the lines of, "Auugghgh!!!!" or "Yeahhhhh!!" as we saw Sean and Gary standing next to the car getting ready to go. They beat us by only 5 minutes. They were just planning to linger around long enough to eat a snack, then head down to Longmire. You can imagine the looks of shock on their faces when they saw us. You can imagine the overwhelming relief Mike and I felt. You can imagine how good the burgers at the Highlander restaurant and bar tasted on the way down. You can imagine how exhausted and sore I am today. You can imagine how ridiculous getting stressed out by a job seems to me. Finally, you can imagine how potent the taste of vengeance is in my mouth, especially after re-examining the maps and finding what must be the true route up Wahpenayo. We'll be back (although maybe we'll skip Lane (aka "Chossy") Peak.

-Nathan

Mount Si

Mount Si
4,167 feet
Evening Hike

One of my climbing partners, Sean, and I arrived at the Mt. Si trailhead at 6:00 pm last night
and started up the trail at 6:10.  After huffing and puffing a bit through the first mile while
we warmed up and tried to catch our second wind, we cruised up the remaining 3 miles to the top
of the trail.  Then we ascended the hundred or so foot scramble up to the summit, arriving at
8:10.  It was a fairly nice hike up the trail.  It is 3,650 feet of elevation gain over 4 miles
through alternating new and old growth forest.  We caught a few nice glimpses through the trees
of the setting sun bathing the forest below with a bright, gold glow.  The scramble up the
haystack was very nice as well.  I'm not very familiar with scramble grades, but it felt like
it was fairly technical.  A scramble is defined as terrain which requires use of all fours, and
this almost felt like a low grade rock climb in some places.  Anyway, there was some very nice
exposure near the top where the route circles around to the north side with quite a drop below
your feet.

We were the only ones up at the summit (quite a feat for Mt. Si), and we sat up there for 20
minutes and watched the sun going down over the Seattle skyline some 30 miles away.  After our
perspiration was good and frozen from the cold wind at the top, we donned our headlamps and
headed back down.  There was enough sunlight left to make the scramble descent fairly easy
going, but as soon as we got under the tree canopy, it was lights out.  After stumbling,
tripping and slipping the 4 miles down the trail, we arrived back at the car at 10:30.  Yes, our
descent took precisely as long as our ascent (2 hours on the dot), but considering our wimpy
knees and the rough terrain we had to negotiate with just our headlamps, that wasn't bad time. 
In fact I was quite happy with the fact that it didn't take longer to descend.  Interesting
sidenote: about half-way down we actually passed a pair of hikers on their way up! 

We barely made it to the North Bend McDonalds before it closed, just in time for a Big n' Tasty
meal.  And boy was it big & tasty. 

All in all, good, fun, quick trip.  And if you don't mind hiking in the dark, it is actually
possible to do Mt. Si and still experience a little solitude.