One of my new years resolutions was to start working on a cookbook of all my favorite foods. I'm not sure what I am going to call it yet. Right now I'm leaning towards, Confessions of a Picky Eater or I Like Left Overs. I'm sure I'll change my mind a hundred times before I get around to printing it. Anyway, I've decided to make and photograph one new recipe for my cookbook each month. This month I'm going with a long time favorite....(that I picked up from my cousin Eden)
STRAWBERRY CREAM CRUMBLE
Crust
-2 cups flour
-1/2 cup brown sugar
-1/2 cup softened butter
Mix flour, brown sugar, and butter in a mixing bowl. Pat mixture down into a 9X13 pan. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes. Crumble!
Filling
-8oz package of cream cheese
-2 cups heavy cream
-1 cup powdered sugar
-2 tsp vanilla
Whip the heavy cream and blend in the powdered sugar and vanilla. In a separate bowl beat the softened cream cheese until smooth. Mix the whip cream into the cream cheese.
Topping
-Package of Danish Dessert
-4 cups sliced strawberries
-2 cups cold water
Stir content of Danish Dessert package into 2 cups cold water in a medium sauce pan. Bring to a full boil. Boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. Cool slightly then fold in the strawberries.
Layer it
Crust on the bottom, then filling, then topping. Chill 4 hours and then serve.
Makes 12 large servings :)
Nutritional Info..Coming soon (Pete's New Year Resolution Goal!)
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I love a good family tradition and this is one I look forward to all year long. 
The Liberty Bell is the large spire on the right. In typical style we didn't leave Portland until about 7:30 p.m. on Friday night, which meant that we didn't get to Washington Pass until 2:30 a.m. We had heard that many climbers fix the first 3 pitches the day before so we wanted to get an early start to ensure that we were the first on the wall and ahead of any slower parties, so we got up around 4:30 a.m. and we got to the base of the wall just after first light. Luckily we just beat a slow party to the base of the wall who had fixed the first couple of pitches. We had great weather and the climbing was very fun, with the exception of one pitch that involved climbing over and belaying on a completely rotten block that had the consistency of popcorn (scary). We topped out around 3:00 p.m. and had great views of the entire North Cascades Range. 
Trevor aid climbing the Lithuanian Lip on pitch 2 of the Liberty Crack. 
Trevor and I on the summit of the Liberty Bell. The next day we drove down to Index, WA to do some cragging. I was good to get some last minute mileage on granite before my Yosemite trip.
Here I am ascending a fixed line on the "Death Slabs" approach to Half Dome with the 2,000+ foot NW face of Half Dome in the background. The "Death Slabs" approach is one of the most horrendous hikes I have ever done. I had imagined that they would be scary due to the name, but the hike wasn't too scary and in reality the "death" in the name must refer to death by overexertion. We started climbing Half Dome at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday (9/24). The first several pitches were very casual and fun. Jake and I swapped leads on every pitch and were free/French free climbing every pitch. 
Here I am on the belay ledge at the top of pitch 7 with the valley in the background. We continued to cruise the route until it started to rain while Jake was climbing the chimneys starting at pitch 13. Before long we were caught in a full on thunder/hail storm. I was belaying at the base of the chimneys which acted like a vertical river dumping water directly on my head. I had made the big mistake of leaving my rain jacket back at the car and wearing a cotton T-shirt so soon I was completely drenched and freezing. Luckily Jake found a Patagonia jacket in the chimney which helped keep him a little warmer. The thunderstorm ended up lasting about 4 hours. Since we didn't have a good spot to stop and were freezing we just continued to climb which became more difficult due to the wet rock, and we started to move much slower. Eventually we made it to a big ledge on pitch 17 and the sun came out for a little bit before sunset. This was key as it gave us an opportunity to dry out a little bit before we needed to start climbing in the dark and it started to get colder. 
Here's the thunderstorm in the distance. We ended up topping out on the climb at around 11:00 p.m. We were a little bummed since we climbed the most famous pitch, "the Thank God Ledge," in the dark and didn't get to experience the the position in the daylight - it is actually much less scary to climb in the dark since you can't see how far up you really are. When we were on the last pitch we heard some of the craziest rock fall either of us had ever heard, it lasted about 30 seconds and sounded like a fighter jet was circling half dome, we never found out where it occurred, but it was definitely a spooky experience to be on the side of a wet big wall while a major rock fall is occurring somewhere close. We ended up hiking off the top of Half Dome and stumbling our way back to camp at the base of the wall and bivying for the night. The next day (Sunday 9/25) we woke up late and slowly worked our way back down the "Death Slabs" to enjoy another rest day in the valley. 
Jake leading one of the amazing hand crack pitches on the Rostrum. The next day (Wednesday 9/28) we rested up for our attempt of the Nose the following day. The original plan was to start the route at 12:00 midnight and try to finish before midnight the next day, but neither of us could sleep during the day so in the afternoon after virtually no sleep all day we decided to start the route earlier so that we could get it over with. We ended starting the Nose at 8:45 p.m. on Wednesday (9/28). We decided to break the climb up into large blocks to enable the leader to stay in leading mode and the follower to stay in jugging mode so that we would be more efficient. I got the first block from the base to El Cap Tower on pitch 14. The climbing started out with us making good time and getting to the top of Dolt Tower (pitch 11) in a little over 5 hours (we shaved more than an hour off our previous attempt). The daily high temperature was going to be in the high 80's and since El Cap is south facing we wanted to get as much climbing done as possible in the cool of the night. Climbing at night is actually much more enjoyable than I had imagined, the only bummer is that you can't tell how high up you are or how far away your last piece of gear is so the exposure is less dramatic. I lead the Stove Legs cracks in the dark without realizing that I had only placed a few pieces of gear on each 200+ long pitch (I would never do this in the daylight!). We swapped leads after pitch 14 and Jake lead the famous Texas Flake, Boot Flake, King Swing, and Great Roof pitches. We started to climb in the daylight just as Jake was completing the King Swing. We started to slow down a bit after the King Swing because I am very slow at jugging (sorry Jake). Something about jugging, especially traversing pitches, really freaks me out. But Jake continued to do great and lead some of the hardest pitches on the route despite being in the full sun. We didn't want to weigh ourselves down too much so we decided to only take about 6.5 liters of water. Luckily there was water stashed low on the route, but at that point we were still climbing in the cool of the night, so we definitely started to get dehydrated climbing in the sun. 
Here I am somewhere high on the route thirsty and ready to fall asleep. 
Tom from the El Cap Report took this photo of Jake leading the Pancake Flake pitch and me belaying with the Great Roof to my left. We ended up swapping leads a final time at Camp V (pitch 24) so that I could lead the remaining pitches. At this point it was looking like it would be close whether or not we would be able to finish in a day. Luckily the upper pitches were more straight forward and I was able to French free most of them. The exposure near the top of the route gets pretty crazy as the rock gradually gets steeper and steeper. For me, the exposure climaxed at the Changing Corners (pitch 27) where I was belaying from a hanging stance and was watching Jake jug with almost 3,000 feet of air below as the rope was crossing across a very sharp corner. I had the irrational thought that the rope could get cut on the sharp corner, Jake would fall, and I would be stuck on the wall with only a few feet of rope. Thankfully this didn't happen and we were totally safe all the way to the top. We ended up topping out at 8:05 p.m. on Thursday (9/29), 23 hours and 20 minutes after we started and just within our goal of climbing the Nose in a day! This may not be super impressive since the speed record for the Nose is just over 2 hours, but we felt a very big sense of accomplishment since it takes most parties about 3 days to complete the route.
Jake jugging like a machine with 3,000 feet of air below. We had hoped to top out on El Cap in the daylight so that we could descend the East Ledges (an exposed route back down the valley via a series of gullies and rappels), but since it was dark, descending that route was out of the question. We ended up meeting a couple of climbers at the top who had built a campfire and we decided to spend the night on top and to descend the East Ledges the next day. Even with a campfire next to us, we ended up freezing after trying to sleep for a few hours (we didn't have sleeping bags and the weather is significantly colder at the top of El Cap). Since neither of us could sleep we decided to hike back to the valley floor via the long unexposed 8 mile hike down the Yosemite Falls trail. In order to save weight during the climb, Jake and I had only brought one pair of approach shoes for jugging and I had brought a pair of flip flops for the decent. This meant that I had to hike 8 miles in the middle of the night wearing my flip flops (my feet are still bruised and sore almost a week later!). We ended up getting back to our campsite at Camp 4 around 5 a.m. on Friday (9/30) morning, roughly 46 hours since I had any sort of decent sleep, talk about a marathon day! 
We had a wonderful time! The hike passes 5 water falls. My favorites were...Punch Bowel Falls which has an awesome swimming hole at it's base. (We'll have to go back on a hot day some time and go for a swim.) 
Tenas Falls
And Tunnel Falls where they literally tunneled behind the falls. 
(I couldn't fit all of Tunnel Falls into one photo, so here is my best photoshop attempt at combining 2 photos) 
After hiking nearly 13 miles I hurt all over and Pete had a few aches of his own but we couldn't resist the delicious blackberries scattered along the trail head. We stayed an extra 30 minutes or so to pick blackberries in the rain. I'm glad we did because the French Toast and Blackberry Breakfast Pete made for me this morning was out of this world.
Each nigh around sunset thousands of Swifts gather and circle the chimney before crowding in for the night. Thousands of Portlanders also gather on the lawn to watch. It was quite the event. Pete and I packed a little picnic and had a great time bird/people watching. We sat at the top of a little hill were there were over 70 little kids (yes, I attempted to count them) sliding down the side on card board boxes. The hill was not large enough for 70 kids so there were a lot of collisions but for the most part everyone seemed to be having a blast and we thoroughly enjoyed watching. 
As the sun began to set more and more Swifts started circling the chimney. It was really neat to watch. They circled for a while andd then in unisen began to swarm into the chimney. 
At one point a hawk, which must have been hiding nearby swooped in for the kill and scattered all of the swifts. Everyone booed at the hawk. I guess he makes an apperance each night to grab some dinner and each night the crowed booes. It was very entertaining.
