Methow Valley WashingtonToday im sharing a few pro-tips to throwing your dead great grand mother’s ashes off a mountain.  Maybe one day these will come in handy, use any great grand relative you have on hand. Preferably the deader the better. And I highly suggest using a relative that had a sublime, sassy sense of humor that found the joy in the best and worst of things. That is my great grandma Addie through  and through.

1) Hike to the top of a really tall mountain that has a magnificent vista.

2) Wear a pair of steel toed work boots that are definitely too tight in the toe. Naturally you would have just recently thrown out your other pair two weeks earlier in the move where you purged everything not touched in a year.

And lastly…now this is the most vital of tips…

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3) Check the direction of the wind prior to throwing said relative off of said mountain. not doing this is known as Lebowski-ing it. And clearly I am a champ. At least I got one more hug from Gram…

My dad and I went up on the deer stand early Saturday morning seeing every woodland creature except one we could shoot, and then as the sun rose and everything earmed up we threw our packs back in and hoofed it up the hill to the old hunting camp of years gone by, where all those memories of Gram were made.

Life is a beautiful thing and sharing it with your loved ones can make it all the more grand. Last weekend was one I had been looking forward to for two years, not because we don’t see each other but because this weekend in particular is a part of our family tradition and we were sending someone very special on her way. A couple of years ago I went up to the weekend faily opening weekend hunt intent on throwing my great grandma off a mountain…her ashes not her in the traditional sense.  but last time it rained, a lot. And my dad and I were perfectly content to stay in our tents and not hiking up a hill for what would seem like an embarrassingly long time and getting drenched in the process. This year we tried again and trucked it up the mountain to the place Gram loved.

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Besides the Palouse, Winthrop is one of my favorite places on earth. It’s a tiny town tucked away in the north central part of Washington state decked out to resemble an old western town. But besides the quaint town, it’s the hills I love. Even if hiking up them in steel toed boots is the devil.

My family always has a good time together, and we share lots of laughs around the campfire. Above is my brother and bonus mom, and below is my dad and long time family friend Dave.

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And even though I wasn’t able to make it to the One skin bar in town for a post hike and ash dousing pedicure, I did have a great time withe family I – as always. Three generations of our family came together for hunting camp, and it always makes me think back that it started with that sassy great grandma of mine. How lucky weare that she was the catalyst for so much of our lives.

We should all be so lucky.

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