Too Much Driving...

Hawaii Trip... Something a little different.

2011-10-17T21:57:00.000-07:00

So... Here is a small (kinda) selection of pics from our Hawaii trip. All in all it was a pretty great time, and something I'm glad we finally did. We saw a LOT of stuff over the course of two weeks, and pretty much got our fill of swimming in the 80+ degree ocean. Photos don't do justice to how much time we spent just floating around, and really don't do justice to a lot of other stuff we did (like snorkling, binging on shave ice, a luau, rainforests, lots of tasty food, and beaches beaches beaches). I just got tired of flipping through them all so this is what I figured I'd share. Enjoy!

The first beach (Gillian or something) on the S. end of Kauai

The first place we stayed at had a great view... And tons of roosters!

End of the longest beach on the island and start of the Nepali coast.

Waimaia canyon on a showery afternoon.

Overlook of the Nepali coast and Kalalau beach, where we'd be staying later in the trip.

Hiking down to some waterfall in Waimai. Cool arches.

One of the few shots we are both in.

Amazing sunrise at our first rental.

Incredible trees at the National Tropical Botanical Garden

Neat bamboo bride.

More cool stuff at the garden...

We had the place mostly to ourselves and there was tons of stuff to see.

Sunset at the second place we stayed.

We dubbed this the "hippy house". This was our home for three days.

These things were EVERYWHERE! And they'd tee off every morning around 3:30...

This is pretty much what we did all week. I don't remember what beach this was...

The narrow part of the Kalalau trail

Don't fall!

Looking back NE along the coast.

The second half of the trail is pretty open and exposed to the (HOT) sun.

More of the amazing trail.

Wow...

More

This is the beach that sits at the end of the trail (later in the day)

That evening was one of the coolest sunsets I think I've ever seen. The clouds on the horizon were casting shadows across the sky making the "beams" you can see

The evening view from our campsite, just back from the beach.

The next morning we explored some sea caves.

...pretty neat!

Early morning cruise on Kalalau beach.

This is the waterfall that we got water from (and showered in)

This is pretty much what we did all day.

Talk about an amazing setting. This is around sunset on our second night at Kalalau.

After the backpacking trip we stayed at the Marriot in Lihue. Interesting contrast!!!

And then in the Sheraton...

Each one of these flowers represented a Mai tai. And that was before it got dark...

Now over to the Big Island: this is the glow of lava in the crater at Kilauea.

Seeing the sights in Volcanos Park.

Pretty amazing. Quite a contrast from Kauai (which was also amazing, just different).

Neat to walk across the lava flows.

Sea arch near where the road is closed.

Me demonstrating how a tree becomes a lava cast...

These is where the lava cooled around trees. Trees rot leaving a cool rock tower.

There was a whole mess of these things together in one place, pretty neat.

This is the place we stayed in Hawi town... Probably our favorite.

North part of the island, real close to where we stayed at the end of the trip.

The rainshadow of Mauna Kai/Loa made some awesome open vistas. Could see Maui from here.

More north shore stuff.

Neat little geko. Supposedly they eat the cockroaches, and this little guy was wicked fast!

Mookini Heaiu, one of the temples where the polynesians first settled.

This rock has some major history...

Last sunset!

PS. I didn't "post-process" any of these pictures... That's actually the color of the water there. Pretty crazy, huh!?

Humphreys Basin

2011-09-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

This Labor Day the Sierra's tradition of the past few years was kept alive... We met up with our friends Chris and Amy (and Bella's friends Milo and Otis), and made the "Too Much Driving..." trip down to Bishop. No ketchup explosions this year (see previous reports for inside joke), but I did manage to cover a good part of my leg in bbq sauce (ya know, gotta keep traditions alive) on the drive down. Our destination was Humphrey's basin, which looked to be a pretty cool high elevation granite bowl behind an iconic peak seen from Bishop... The trailhead was at 9,500', so the "awesome" started up pretty quick. We spent a few day hiking around the area, and I've got to admit, the scenery was some of the best I've seen. Of course there was the obligatory whining about how "hot and dry" it was, but despite all of our "horrible suffering" we had a lot of fun and took about a half million photos. So grab another cup of coffee cause here's another epic photo onslaught:

Paiute Lake on the hike in

Our camp spot for the first night, just below the pass (we got a late start!)

Nice relaxing start to the morning...

The dogs were pretty stoked to play in the snow. Apparently Chris was too...

Paiute pass and our first look at the lakes of Humphreys Basin

We decided to head towards Humphrey's to check out some of the lakes in that direction

Pretty cool to see what NH looked like 10000 years ago.

The basin is awesome... Cross country hiking on granite slabs.

Bells finds a snowpatch. It was pretty warm out for 12,000'

Milo and Otis showing off their packs. Bella wasn't too jealous.

"Hey, is that yet another lake over there??"

All dogs on their best behavior when treats are involved.

As you can see from the 2 stage cold activation, the beer was neither cold or super cold. Was a little contradictory to be enjoying the taste of the rockies (in the middle of the sierras)

Relaxing at what was to become our second campsite.

Chris scouting the route up Mt. Humprey's with a photo

Filtering water from the lake next to our camp

Bella wore herself out running in every direction on the hike in, so she pretty much passed out for 2 days.

I'm not sure if we ever found out if this lake was even named... Lots of lakes just like it...

Our lake, with Checkered Demon on the left skyline and Mt. Emerson just left of center.

Looking North from our campsite

Looking up from our campsite.

Detail shot of the upper route, which basically follows the left hand skyline.

There was NO shade up there, so rain jackets doubled as sunscreen

A rare photo of your's truely

Group shot at the granite dinner table that Chris constructed using only brawn.

A nice hidden spot for camp

Lake just N. of us at sunset. Pretty awesome.

We went for an evening stroll as the sun was going down... Got cold pretty quick!

Sunset panorama

Bella hunting little granite rodents, she was obsessed.

Team "Headache", also known as team "Sea Level to 12,000' Causes Syncope"

Sunset view looking S. towards "Glacier Divide"

Right at sunset all of the lakes were reflecting the sky but everything else was dark... Was REALLY cool.

Nighty night shot of camp.

Up early the next morning on the 30 minute approach to the route...

Oh, so this is Humphreys lake (up until then we were all confused)

Awesome, windless morning.

Fast forward about an hour or two and we were scrambling towards the summit.

Short section of exposed 4th class climbing...

Careful here...

Awesome position, right on the ridge crest.

...

...

Okay, stand up, take breath, look down either side... Wow!

View South from the summit

Aerial photo-type view of one of the lakes close to the base of the mtn.

Desolation Lake, which was clearly the big one of the area...

Looking just south of the peak towards the cool looking geology of Checkered Demon

Obligatory summit photo, ~13,985 feet.

Looking down the E. Ridge route, where we turned around in 2008 due to a lightning storm. If you look closely, you can see the clean fin of rock that is where we were standing in this photo:

Goethe Lakes...

This is an "all-the-way-zoomed-in" view of our tents... See if you can find them!

Panorama from South to North. I think we could see pretty much most of the sierras...

One more photo of the basin...

Celebratory buds back at camp

Who can resist a reflection shot!?

Looking back down the valley on the hike out.

Yours truely, still smiling. What an awesome area.

Another shot of Paiute Lake.

Paiute lake with a bear swimming in it (actually, it was Milo)

Paiute Crags (the red colored rock on the right)

I was digging on this pine tree... Looks like it's been here a while!

Chris on the 4th class section

Summit panorama

Detroit Area Campout

2011-09-08T18:15:00.000-07:00

Wanted to add a few pics from an old fashioned car camping trip mel and I took a couple of weeks ago. Most of the shots are in the Detroit Lake area...

I forget the name of this, but it was pretty neat basalt plug we came across...

Pinnacle peak

OMG! What does it mean!!!

:) After a thunderstorm blew through camp we got some really neat light.

A bunch of flowers popped out, and so did Jefferson!

Little view of Oregon's Crown Jewel (in my opinion anyway)

The fireweed looked like it caught fire.

See what I mean!? Cool, huh?

More (there are about a hundred shots like this I had to go through, so I had to pick a least a couple...)

Twas an agressive sunset, very nice.

And an awesome sunrise too, little smoke on the air from some of the first cascades fires of the season (since then fire season has really kicked it up a notch!)

Majesty

Bella and Dakota chillin on the deck. Dakota wore Bella out!

Thought I'd put up a couple shots from a weeknight ride over to the coast. Just north of depot bay.

My usual photo point on the otter crest loop.

Cool marine layer working in.

Ya, I gotta admit, I like living near the coast.

Upper Menagerie - 8/21/11

2011-08-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

Had a fantastic exploratory day in the upper menagerie with some of the CMRU folks... I'm a little embarrassed to say I have never visited a lot of the features in this (relatively local) area, and even more so after seeing how spectacular it is. We spent most of the day exploring the pinnacles around "the bridge" group, trying to sort out which routes were which and how they could possibly have put up so many routes with so little protection. Clearly the folks who developed this area were not afraid to "run it out". We did get a couple really nice pitches in... Just enough to make us want to go back for more. After the day ended, we helped some folks get their boat unstuck from a gravel bar on the willamette... It was pretty disorganized, and our solution wasn't very elegant, but at least in the end their boat was unstuck and I think our being there helped a lot... I'm fairly confident that the boat would still be out there if we hadn't shown up... :P

Panorama point and the Rabbit Ears

First looky look at the bridge

The bridge up close. You can walk across the top of it, but the whole formation seems pretty precarious...

Bridge shadow.

The view from the top

This week's "incredible tree".

View from the alcove below the bridge.

Bridge from below. Doesn't appear that there is much holding this up...

Cusk and Hoy after the first (mossy) pitch

Monkey face v2.0?

Bridge from the top of p2.

Same, 'cept with Aaron.

Jerry all grins on the jetboat.

Already getting dark and we aren't there yet.

"Stuck" stuck...

Before we got started, the Marine Patrol folks had the sense to take some of the family back to the boat launch. Really good call cause it was after dark before we even got started on freeing the boat...

Carl Lake 8/13/11

2011-08-14T14:24:00.000-07:00

Mel and I took advantage of the full moon on a trip into Carl Lake in the Jefferson Wilderness last night. Was rather scenic in there, although a little dusty in the burned over area. Pretty darn cold in there for August, and still a lot of snow up higher. Enjoy!

Middle Santiam - 8/6/11

2011-08-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

Had an awesome trip into the Middle Santiam with Mel, Mark, and Sarah this past weekend. This little gem has been sitting basically in our back yard and I only recently realized that it could be a great way to get away from the summer heat and higher elevation mosquitos. We basically "endured" countless miles of beautiful and amazingly diverse old-growth, an "exhausting" camp out session next to a lake with man-eating plants, and "heart wrenching" views of Cascade Volcanos that look way too beautiful for this late in the year. Seriously though, one of our team's smallest members suffered some incredible blisters for all of this... I think she'll be able to keep her toe, but even if not it may(?) have been worth it.

The super neat Shedd camp

Mark styling a rather interesting crossing on the Middle Fork

Pyramid Creek

Lot's of awesome little swamps along the way.

Amongst all kinds of interesting vegetation we found a few lonely sugar pines!

"On the count of three, everyone duck!"

Swamp creek

Mark scoping out one of the boardwalks along the way. Bella crashed and burned trying to follow...

A little known fact is that Sarah is part human part tree frog...

Pretty much an average sized tree along the way...

Our first glimpse of Donaca Lake

Awesome carniverous Sundew that Sarah located on a floating log.

Upon closer inspection you can see the dried up carcases of other humans who tried to camp here.

The little lady following a cold-assed swim

Pretty typical camp activity

Beautiful Donaca lake, the site of a few failed swimming attempts, a few successful swimming attempts, and at least two "fall ins".

Pretty amazing to camp sandwiched among giant cedars

Apparently I was the only one to not have a colorful tube for my head.

I think you get the point... It was beautiful.

My only half assed attempt at a night shot. Not too bad given that I didn't even aim.

Chimney Peak, our elusive goal for the weekend.

Wee scramble right before the top. Some of the trail was amazingly exposed.

Jefferson

Some members of the summit party were pleased we didn't attempt to camp at this rather uneven location.

The Middle Santiam drainage.

Das Hoody

Nice little Cascades lineup.

Mark and Sarah enjoying the views that had been obscured pretty much the whole way.

What is wrong with this picture!!!???

If you guessed "the 'snag' behind Mark is really a huge spear that broke off the adjacent tree" 10 points!

I have about 100 photos like this so I had to put one in.

"seriously guys, screw you, I'm staying here"

Lot's and lots of stuff like this.

End of the day.

Weddin!

2011-08-04T17:58:00.001-07:00

Okay, so here are the "alleged-mel-and-nate-got-married" pictures. These pics were taken by Ali from Thistledown Photography (and her assistant!). I think she did an awesome job and she was an absolute pleasure to work with... In short, if you need pics taken of something and you want them to be good, check them out.

So, the wedding was pretty much perfect... Thank you so much to everyone who could help us celebrate (some of you came a REALLY long way!!!) and to all the others that couldn't be there but were thinking of us. We really had a spectacular day, and our only regret was that it was over too quick and so many of you were on airplanes heading back to the distant lands from whence you came. Anyway, enjoy the pics and thanks again!!!

Notes...
Location: Wren Vinyard
Food: Sam w/ Pig Out BBQ (FANTASTIC!!! BEST SALMON I'VE HAD! Highly recommend! )
Photos: Ali from Thistledown Photography
Tunes: The Water Tower Bucket Boys (awesome!)
Anything you thought was neat or cool from these pics: Mel, Kathy, and Karen
Little boy with mustache: Got if from kissing the tailpipe of his favorite tractor.

Summer stuff!

2011-07-22T20:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know I really should be putting up pics from our bad assed wedding, but since our shots haven't made it back to us yet in digital form, you are going to be stuck looking at this other crap in the interm. :)

Okay, I'd be as stoked as Mark is if I were riding a Pugsley...

Yep, pretty much everyone has fun on the Pugsley...

...except for viking warriors trying to duck under an obstacle.

Here's Kaz on the approach to Diamond Peak.

Aaron rolling tuff with curly locks.

Ugly view from the shoulder towards Crater Lake

G-nar-nar looking Mt. Thielsen.

The man with the plan Dennis Feeney rolling strong on the ridge!

(is he winking at me??)

Summit ridge of Diamond

My good buddy OX made it all the way out from NH for this trip and the associated wedding.

Okay, here are some shots from a quick beach trip with the family, pre-hitching day.

Pat and Rachel just getting warmed up to the view they'd have for another week.

Hmmm...

...it appears that Mom found a baby to entertain herself with.

Brian and Dad tossing the frisbee around.

Okay, here are a few shots from a quick trail run we did on Cooks Ridge/Gwynn Creek (notice the new ring)

Found this little gem on the ridge

Some of the lovely sights along the trail.

Drink up bella, we've still got a few miles. :)

Seriously, what an awesome place. Wildflowers and moss covered trees. We didn't see another soul, not a bad day for 4th of July.

Okay, here are just a few shots from the N. Ridge Trail. We've been having a spectacularly cool and rainy summer, awesome for hiking and just about everything else.

A carpet of Oxalis, my favorite understory.

Too pretty here.

A rare shot of yours truely with the dogz.

Wonderful midsummer mist further up the hill. Not particularly common this time of year.

Laying down some fierce licks with one of my groupies.

Mel messing around with a new lens.

Okay, here are some shots from a different trip up to Gordon Meadow/Lakes.

So, ummm... Where did this place come from, and why have I never been here!?!?!?

Bella seems pretty stoked too. :)

Okay, seriously, I think I might have fallen just a little bit more in love with this state.

Whoever came up with the idea of rain in the middle of summer is a genious. Wish they were all like this!!

Further along the trail...

Another rare shot of the author :p

One of the Gordon Lakes

Same lake, different angle.

Another goofy looking fella we came across.

Group shot back in da meadow. Too bad there was about an inch of water on the surface and skeeterz.

Island in Paradise.

Okay, seriously, you'd have been doing this too if you had stumbled upon a place like this. :) Okay, okay, next time I hope to have wedding pics up.

5/22/11 Amazing Moto Ride

2011-05-22T20:50:00.000-07:00

Took off this past Sunday on what rather unexpectedly ended up being one of the more enjoyable days I've had on two wheels. Yard work kept me around the house until around noon, and the highway 20 closure had me trying to find another way over to the coast. What I ended up finding was near solitude on miles of classic OR coast range "forest tunnel" roads... The fun started on the high road off of 20 at Blogett through Summit and then over to Siletz... I had driven this before but it had an entirely different feel on a bike. Very tight and fast corners mixed with open sweepers and that ended way too fast (even the couple miles of loose gravel weren't too bad). Once in Siletz I figured I'd check out the "Siletz Highway" which was about 25 miles of incredibly tight turns on perfect pavement through the coast range. Total bliss... Then I popped out on the coast just north of Depot Bay and rode the coastal route south (enjoying an occasional overlook!) to Rogue for a quick stop. Then back inland to Toledo, where I accidentally took the "back" route into Harlan... Yeah, I kinda got lost and ended up on a freshly graveled forest road 1000 (eek) but completly redeemed myself when I found the paved single lane "Hill Top" road, which plastered a shit eating grin on my face for the rest of the trip. From Harlan I rode the dirt up the back side of Mary's peak, popped over to the summit for a few minutes, blasted through the Alsea curves and into corvallis. Funny thing is that these pictures are of the "boring" places... The really good stuff was too good to justify slowing down for pictures. Awesome day to remember, right in the ol' back yard. I love this state!!!

Didn't even pull the camera out until the end of the Siletz highway, now I regret that...

Oops, missed the bike in that first shot...

Boiler Bay, now heading south.

Awesome little bridge near the start of the Otter Crest one way loop.

...Taken from the Otter Crest loop road.

Yeah, sometimes I forget how awesome it is here...

One lane awesomeness, right above the water

Looking down from Cape Foulweather. See the rock ring? Think lava outflow!

Seriously, OMG...

More absurdly awesome road. I wanted to kiss whoever built this work of art.

Almost drove right by this sneaky little coastal arch

Devils punchbowl, a popular spot to stop, tide must have been pretty low.

Okay, by this point my senses were overwhelmed...

...thankfully I was able to find a cozy roadside pub to relax.

Crappy cell shot of my vittles. I think this might have contributed to me getting lost...

Riding up the inlet to Toledo.

The only pic I took of the Hill Top Road. I shot some crappy video, but it didn't do justice to that incredible find.

Up on Mary's Peak now, first of the summit Meadows.

Top of the parking lot, all alone!

Cool clouds and sun near the top.

More snow in the meadows... Bring yer sleds!

Track of the route.

More winter -> spring stuff

2011-04-30T06:41:00.000-07:00

Took a day off and dragged the sleds over to Bend... Here's the 500 with a stormy look at S. Sister

Devils hill area, our ski spot for the day...

Matt working his way up...

Wee snowmobile specks down the hill... Noooobody else around. :P

Bachelor, Sparks Lake, Lava, etc.

Snow stability exam later in the day on Ball Butte.

Weather cleared for a minute!

Day 1 parting shot. Parked the sleds right at the wilderness boundary (see our tracks behind!?) Amazing we only got stuck once on the way up here (and that was cause our "ghetto" ski rack dumped it's contents.)

Day 2 of ski/sled fest: crew multiplied substantiall in size!

Post run tour around devils lake.

Prepping for the fabled "wizard island" trip (inside joke)

Prepping on day 3.

The dog clearly getting sick of being left behind.

The two sleds together were effective at moving 7 people at the same time. Fancy! :)

The penut butter cup lotus pose.

Skinning up at Tam Mac

Tam Mac from the lake.

Next trip was a rescue training on the Deschutes river near Steelhead Falls

Our sweet camp spot!

AM briefing with the crew.

Mel and Aaron attending, Jim prepping for edge.

Again.

A shared moment of relief (for a moment we thought Jim lost a finger, was just his glove+lots of cursing)

Last weekend was a trip to meet up with our friends Chris, Amy, Andy, and Beth. Here's squirt (aka "the squiz") looking very similar to another dog we know... ;)

Basic snapshot of what the weekend activity looked like.

View from camp.

This is the Williamson River from camp. I want a canoe. :(

Dog stoke.

Okay, add some rain to the picture. That's a little more representative of the w/e.

This photo doesn't do justice to what I was trying to get: electric green lichen.

Beautiful spot to camp, even with all the extra H20.

Group shot before breaking camp. Like any album cover, something needs to be looking off in the distance...

The gorge just upstream from camp.

Bella having a little howl session, water get's her excited.

More of the insanely beautiful canyon. I need a canoe.

More. I didn't see another group all weekend, we had the place to ourselves!

The little lady with some sun (finally!)

Otis striking one of his glamour poses.

2011-03-28T19:31:00.001-07:00

Time for a quick update: First few were from a trip that Aaron, Mel and I took over by Edison Butte... We took the sled out for a spin up to Kwolh, then took a ski lap on Edison, followed by some sled playing in this big open field. Kinda fun to try to figure out how to corner the things, although it's clear that we're still not ready for the big time... Lots of fun though! :) The dark clouds in the background were a thunderstorm!

And here are some pics from the tail end of Catherine's visit... Weather was a little iffy, but we managed to get some great backcountry turns before heading over to Sisters and Smith. We only managed to get one pitch in before it started to rain on sunday, but it was fun anyway. Great to see ya Catherine!

Oh Canada...

2011-02-23T21:30:00.000-08:00

So, up until very recently I've been able to boast that I've never set foot off of good ol' USA soil. Many find this interesting because Mel and I spend so much time driving ungodly distances to see things, and we've always lived pretty close to our humoriously-accented friends to the north. The reality is that I've never felt a strong urge to go anywhere else... We have things pretty damn good here in the US and there really isn't a shortage of things to look at (especially if you are willing to spend countless hours behind the wheel to see them). Yes that may be close-minded, but why run the risk of loosing hundreds or thousands of dollars trying to make sense of the dollar/gallon vs. cents/liter gas price conversion? Why put myself at risk on their roads, which invite forigners to travel at 110 while the locals poke along at 65?

All conversion jokes aside, this past weekend we found out that Canada has kinda been holding out on us... Mel and I rolled out of Corvallis on Wednesday evening, and after a sleepy night in an I5 rest area, we arrived in Olympic Park thursday morning to stormy weather and high tides. We spent a low key day wandering around rain forests, preparing ourselves mentally for what was sure to be an intense day of border crossing and canadian->english language translations. Thankfully everything went smoothly and we were soon hauling NW across vancouver island towards Bill's house in Nanoose Bay. After a too-short visit at their new place we loaded his gear and a few dozen fresh oysters for the 3 hour trek to their ski cabin at Mt. Cain.

To summarize briefly: we probably timed our trip for one of their best weekends of the year, allowing us to spend a few days enjoying fresh powder stashes, spectacular t-bar accessed slack country, and some of the nicest locals I've had the pleasure of drinking a beer with. Without hesitation I would say that the trip ranked up there with some of best ski trips I've ever had. Enjoy the pics! :)

Love the sword fern everywhere. This is from a short loop trail before the park.

Awesome little river canyon we hiked along.

More of the Olympic national forest, just outside of Lake Quinault.

Quinault rainforest.

More of Quinault rainforest

Liked this shot of Mel down by the lake so figured I'd include.

Came across this little gem in the Hoh rainforest, started snowing at this point.

I had a hard time resisting photos of snow in the second-growth rainforest.

Friday morning now, looking back towards Hurricane ridge and Port Angeles from the ferry.

Mt Baker from the ferry

Stupidly, this is the only shot I took of the inside of Bill's cabin. The Canadians haven't discovered electricity yet, so candles were in vogue!

Should have taken the time to make this a better pic (tripod) cause the (moon)lighting was perfect.

This is kinda an example of what we got to look at when we woke up. Couldn't find the name of these.

Amazing peaks of the Haihte range: Merlon (L) and Ya'ai (R)

More awesomeness. Couldn't find the name of this either.

Zoomed out view of the Haihte range (L->R): Rugged Peak, Merlon, Ya'ai, and Haihte Spire.

Absurd views from the top of the first T Bar. Only gets better on the next one! LONG lineup though!

Looking kinda towards Mt. Abel and the E. Bowl from the top of the second T-bar. No shortage of backcountry in that direction.

Been a while since I've seen one of these. Usually not with such a backdrop either.

Looking over the W. Bowl towards Hapush, getting ready to drop into our first run. Woot!

One of the super friendly folks I got to meet up there. Seemed like everyone knew Bill...

West Bowl on the last run of the day, still plenty of fresh out there to be had!

Looking down from the cornice at the top of the bowl.

Choose yer own adventure! :)

Sharks tooth(?) from the saddle between North Bowl and West Bowl

Karma biting us in the ass on the last run. When the lift breaks, a local-looking guy shows up, crashes into a lift tower (was pretty funny), climbes unprotected in ski boots while Bill heckles, curses a bunch, but eventually fixes things (but of course, only AFTER we decided to ski off).

Mel preppin for her first run on day II

Mel post-shreadding hard!!! You can see the West bowl behind her (where we spent most of our time on day I).

Day two was dead compared to day one... We had everything to ourselves, including the awesome views.

Riding the lift with the little lady. She didn't even crash once on the way up (sorta a right-of-passage thing)!

Yer's truely. Couldn't seem to lose the grin that weekend.

Shot of Bill's deck. If you stand just right you can see the water through those trees.

Awesomeness in the Cathedral Grove, about a half hour from Bill's

Love the Cedars (my favorite spp), and there were lots here.

Mel and Bill taking in the sweetness. We had this usually busy place to ourselves.

Amazing that this sucker was still alive...

Bella scoping out Bill, wondering what the best way to eat him would be.

Taking her first (cold) bath of the past couple of days.

No, that is not a stick.

Seriously, you'd think with water that clear that she'd be able to see the freaking stick.

Old growth cedars, right on the bank of Cameron Lake

Again.

Great colors along the lake!

More trail through the Cathedral Grove.

Awesome. Awesome. (A theme of the trip apparently).

Riding the BC ferry over to the mainland.

Neat weather rolling in over the coastal mountains.

Vancouver

Parting shot of the coastal mountains... Next time hopefully we'll have more time to explore that way!

Beaver Creek (OR) Paddle - 2/5/11

2011-02-06T10:35:00.000-08:00

Had and awesome time yesterday paddling around in Beaver Creek with Mel, Sveta, and Dennis... This is something Mel and I have been meaning to check out since we first heard about it a year or so ago, and a Ian's blog post (link on this page) was enough of a reminder to jump-start our motivation. Apparently this area just got purchased by the state and turned into a hiking/paddling park, although people have been paddling there for years and years. With the exception of another pair of kayakers we had the area to ourselves. Thanks again to Josh for letting us borrow your sweet inflatable, that thing was insanely comfy and perfect for a mellow paddle like this. :) Dennis and Sveta were using pack rafts, which were a little squirrely for the flat water, but honestly, these little things are sweeet (I think I want one!). Okay, no sad attemtps for witty comments for this one, enjoy the pics! :)

Nice weather! 1/23/11

2011-01-24T12:06:00.001-08:00

We've been having some warm weather lately that has left the ski conditions in the crapper, so Mel and I decided to take the cycle over to the coast for a day to pretend it was summer. The roads over and back from the coast are twisty enough to make for some interesting/exciting riding, and along this stretch of coast it's almost hard to focus on what you are doing due to the rather exceptional nature of the views. Unfortunately the forecast didn't pan out to be quite as warm as it looked, which made the conditions, well, I guess kinda just like the coast always is during the summer (cold). Overall it was a neat way to spend the day doing something we normally don't get a chance to do in the middle of January. The total trip length was only about 200 miles, but we were feeling pretty exhausted by the time we got back home.

This was actually from our warm-up ride on saturday down at Finley NWR.

Another shot from the woodpecker trail at Finley (which is just south of Corvallis)

Mel finds something interesting, which apparently brings out the blue heron in her

Okay, on to Sunday. This is the bridge in Waldport, where we'd start our trip south.

Thunderhole thingy down on Cape Perpetua. This place has to be one of the raddest on the OR coast.

Yes, that was too close Nate. Now you are soaked.

A little further down the coast we stopped to hike the hobbit trail

I think Shore Pine is one of my favorite trees. Looks like a Dr. Seuss book. :)

Ah, delightful gametophytes were amass in the mosses.

Mel winding through one of the hobbity-er sections of the hobbit trail

Heceta Head from Hobbit Beach

The stretch of coast along Heceta Head is amazing.

The Heceta Head lighthouse

Enjoying the view from one of the overlooks.

Looking down from one of the overlooks.

There are so many good overlooks on the coast you kinda get sick of taking your helmet off to enjoy them.

View looking South towards Florence. This is the part of the coast where the "Dunes" become prevalent.

Last shot before we grabbed an afternoon dinner in Florence and headed back inland.

New Years in the Desert

2011-01-09T15:20:00.001-08:00

Had a great trip out to the high desert over new year's weekend. It turned out a little different that we had anticipated due to a late night detour over to Mt. Bachelor to help search for a lost skier, but I think we salvaged it nicely with a campout/freezefest instead. I think it's safe to say that if you want solitude, the John Day region when it's below zero is a pretty safe bet! We tooled around the painted hills district north the the town of Fossil, rarely seeing signs of life. A fresh dusting of snow added amazing contrast to the painted hills, and pretty much everywhere else we went we couldn't put the camera down. Enjoy!

(leaf fossils)

Civil War Flyover

2010-12-04T14:17:00.000-08:00

I was out working in the driveway today and to my surprise got visited by a pair of F15s (two pair perhaps?), who were circling town in prep for a flyover of the Football Stadium, where the OSU vs. UO Civil War game was going on. The made a half dozen passes overhead giving me enough time to shoot a few hundred pictures :P Their last pass was LOW!!! and fast, complete with mini sonic boom. Check it out, felt like I could reach up and touch 'em.

<<<< BOOOM!!! >>>>

Mink Lakes Basin Backpacking

2010-11-25T06:45:00.001-08:00

Been a while since we've done anything cool, so I figured I'd put up some pics from an overnight trip Mel and I took into the Mink Lakes Basin here in Oregon (probably two months ago?). This was our first time visiting this area, but I managed to get some tips from Josh and Mike that were really useful (including one that scored us and awesome campsite). The area was forested and somewhat flat (at least by comparison) so we made good time past a half-dozen lakes to Mink, where we camped. The spot we stayed at really reminded me of a miniture lake george, and although it was pretty cold I managed a quick dunk. We really only saw two other groups that day, so there was a neat feeling that we had the place to ourselves.

One of the lakes we passed on the hike in

The dog was loving this patch of moss we came across

...it had to be 8-10 inches thick in places. Really neat.

The dog loving some sun at Cliff Lake

I though this was a cool shot at cliff lake

...this one too :)

Cliff Lake Shelter: This thing was awesome, folks take really good care of it.

The pup finds something to entertain herself with...

Rocks by our camp

Comic relief: throwing waterlogged sticks in the water and watching Bella try to figure out why they weren't floating.

Coffee brewin' the next morning

Our wicked campsite

It was pretty cold that morning and Her Majesty wasn't ready to get up...

Liked this pic

Lots and Lots

2010-09-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

Looks like I've got a little catching up to do... again.

First off, I had the unsuspected pleasure of playing host to Random for a weekend... He was in Oregon for work, but managed to get away for a weekend filled with real beer (ha ha), disc golf, canoeing, and canyoning. Fun to hang out with half of "Team Dudley" in Oregon, hadn't expected that one!

Our crew for Eagle Cr: Random (Capt. America), Catherine, Aaron, Dennis, Amy, Mel and I

Nice views on the walk in

Looking into the narrows... We'll be down there shortly!

We opted to Bypass the Skoonichuck entry waterfall to save time

And right here, right when the action was to begin... my camera died.

...so the rest of the pics are from Aaron's camera: here's Random in his action suit

Let the swimming begin!!!

Tossing the pack above one of the MANY jumps.

Capt. America in action! Watch out criminals!!!

Mel in her usual jumping post: firm clasp on nose

Nice pic of Amy in the creek

Dennis looking fine in his element

Okay, fast forward a bunch to the last rap: Amy w/ cool rope designs on Metlako

Now Catherine's turn (notice the rope blowing away from the water impact)

Catherine enjoying the punchbowl swim

Capt. America on rope.

Random after the rap and swim. Seems like he's somewhat happy.

Mel's turn, getting started at the edge

Enjoying the view

more...

Had to include this one cause it was the only one w/ a rainbow

Mel enjoying her swim

My turn!

more...

Floating disconnect (don't drop anything!!!)...

So that's how you get the rope down! (answer to the common question)

Okay, what a fun trip. Thanks everyone, great to see you Random.

The next weekend was a joint high angle training with the National Park Staff over at Crater Lake. I didn't get any pics of the actual training (cause it was raining and snowing the whole time) but on the way out it cleared enough to grab a couple scenery shots of the lake.

"The Wolfpack".

Playing around w/ the new polarizing filter... Works pretty awesome!

One of the MANY overlooks around the lake

Here we are, learning about "The Old Man of the Lake"

One of the park's most commonly asked questions: "how much dye do you have to put in" (seriously!)

The rig in her beautiful element.

Tim, also in his beautiful element.

Another cool trip over at Crater, looking forward to more next year!

Okay, now for the main event (well, at least for me is was...). Over Labor Day, Mel and I took a couple of days off and headed down to California, where we met up with our good friends Chris and Amy for the third annual Sierra Laboring Festival. This year we managed to secure a camping permit for the oft-sought-after Palisades region. Allegedly this is the most mountainous part of the Sierra Nevada range, with 5 of the states 14,000'+ peaks just a stones throw apart (there are 15 "14ers" in CA I think). The first day we enjoyed an early start, and set up camp next to Fourth Lake. The second day Mel and Amy enjoyed exploring around some of the other lakes and meadows while Chris and I climbed the classic U-Notch Couloir route on North Palisade. Enjoy!

Here is dawn overlooking the Palisade Glacier.

The U-Notch Couloir is the large gully in the center of the range, and North Palisade is the summit directly right of the couloir (just a hint of sun on it)

Here's a closer view of the gully, from on the glacier.

Getting ready!

Look, now there's a rope!!!!

Meanwhile, back in camp, the ladies and dogs are enjoying a relaxing morning (4th Lake from Camp)

Here's Amy and the Boys working up towards Sam Mack Meadow (you can barely see N. Palisade above the rectangle snowfield)

The beautiful Sam Mack Meadow (Chris and I had passed through here a few hours before)

Again

Awesome pine remenents around 4th lake

View of the Palisades from near our camp

Another view of the lake from our campsite

Okay, back in the couloir, Chris leads over the bergschrund and starts the icy part of the climb.

zoomed...

This was the nature of the climb for the next few hours

Here's me belaying Chris up after a turn at leading

Chris elects to take some rock instead of the ice on the left.

Me on the last ice step in the gully.

Looking back down the couloir from the top

We stashed our ice gear and began the rock climbing portion. Here was a short traverse.

Followed by a couple of pitches of rock... (neat to go from ice to warm rock!)

Here Chris makes the last couple of moves onto the summit ridge. If you look below him, you will see another party of two climbers going the other direction.

Sitting on the summit ridge with Polmonium peak (close) and Mt. Sill (farther) behind

Me standing below the summit (which required a little scrambling and route finding to get to)

Chris on the high point. Lot's of air behind/below him here. Lots and lots actually.

Looking down in the other direction over Dousy Basin. It was hazy!

Okay, fast forward a number of hours. To reverse the route, we made 15+ rappels combined with a lot of downclimbing do get back to the glacier (We knew it would take a while, and it did!). From there we had a few more hours of hiking and boulder hopping to get us back to camp. All in all, a great day though!

Here we are the next morning (w/ route behind) looking surprisingly happy!?

Chris and Amy with the lake in it this time.

Taking a bath in 5th Lake. The water was pretty cold!

On the hike out we pass more lakes and Temple Crag, which is home to the longest climb in the sierras

Lakes were this color because of the glacial influence

The teammembers for another memorable sierra's trip!

Here's the Little Lady enjoying the sun and the views.

Mel taking reflection shots of my glasses. Cheesy, I know.

Okay, last but not least, I'm obligated to add some pics from the next weekend's trip up to Three Finger Jack with Mike and Catherine. They both had been wanting to do this for a while so I was glad to be dragged along.

On the summit belaying Mike up

Mike almost there!

Quick summit shot before decending.

View to the north from the summit. Rather exposed here!

Fall colors are starting in the alpine slopes already!!!

Late Summer Weekendage - 8/14ish/2010

2010-08-19T18:23:00.000-07:00

Mel and I decided to emerge from the air conditioned bat cave that we call home this past weekend... It was another hot one, (hopefully the last of the year) so we snuck out to Opal Creek to try to beat the heat. Apparently everyone else in Western Oregon had the same idea, but a slightly different application... We choose to explore a section of the creek that isn't commonly visited in the summer, despite it's absurd beauty. Okay, I'm just going to say it: Opal has to have the clearest water of any creek I've ever seen... It was so clear in fact that it was almost impossible to predict it's depth in places! As we swam along, occasionally I'd reach for the rocks that appeard to be right under the surface, only to find that I couldn't touch bottom even when dunking under and reaching with my toes... Other times, we'd think it was deeper only to find ourselves running aground as we swam along. Awesome, and the best part is that we've got a lot more canyon to explore, but for another time.

Usually the darker color implies deeper. I doubt I could touch bottom here even jumping in...

One of the few spots I dug the camera out... Pain to get it out of the drybag.

More of the creek, pretty low flows right now.

Mother nature kicking some serious ass...

Can you tell how clear the water is?

Mel diggin' on the canyon scenery

Yep, pretty awesome.

More awesome...

Hundereds of people were there to hike and picnic, but we had this part of the creek to ourselves

Totally special... We'll be back for more before the year is out...

Okay, <---that was Saturday, on sunday, I joined party of yayhoos heading up Broken Top as part of some insane Dudley "hyper"-weekend that Catherine had put together to entertain our friend Christine. It was HOTT out, but worth it cause the bugs were down and the views were sweet.

The ship of fools

Broken Top from below the crater... This was my first trip back there since I climbed it years ago with Chris. The first trip was much more "harrowing" and I will confess that the route we choose that time was one of the scariest I have done. This time thankfully we were taking the straightforward route up the Northwest Ridge. :)

Christine finds some snow and promptly attempts a snow angel.

The views rapidly became stunning as we gained the ridge crest

Here's Aaron with some "majesty"

Loose scree scrambling (screeambling?) as we approached the summit

Catherine starting up the one tricky part of the climb

The gals doin' their little turn on the catwalk.

Amy right after the catwalk section (or at least, the first catwalk section)

The team stringing out on the exposed summit catwalk

Again... (Zoom in on this one to get a better feel for it)

Catherine pulling up to the summit (another one worth zooming in on... don't fall here!)

Christine joins the party

Hanging out on the summit while Catherine starts the downclimb

Faith, Hope, and Charity... Aka the Three Sisters

Looking into the crater. This shows the route we took years before.

Reversing the route

Aaron on the diggin the views and making sure we didn't leave anything behind!

Heading down the ridge with most of the difficulties behind

Some clouds rolled in which changed the light some. Couldn't resist another shot

Springs we came across on the way down. Yum!

Pretty much ugly, huh? Actually, it almost looks fake it's so cool.

Another spring, this time w/ Bachlor in the background

Parting shot, Indian Paintbrush, Heather, and Bachlor.

2010-08-11T11:24:00.000-07:00

This shows how to both fail and succeed in using a line launcher to set up a highline. First one is kinda funny to watch... I think if the bucket wasn't tied down it would have ended up in the river too! :)

Ecola SP and Fort Stevens - 8/7/10

2010-08-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

Here are some shots of a great trip we had to the North Oregon coast this past weekend. It was rainy most of the day, which was a nice change from what we've been getting used to back in the valley. Would have been a good day for the nice camera, but alas, these are just from my little point and shoot. Looking back, these pics really make me look forward to the rainy season!

Looking North towards Indian Beach in Ecola SP

Nice rocky stretch of coast here. North, it mellows out a lot until the Olympic beaches.

Beach rocks on Indian

Mel at Indian Beach

Looking south towards Tillamock Head from Sunset Beach

Wreck of the Peter Iredale

Stoneworks at Russel Battery. We don't have many ruins like this in OR!

Wish I had wondercamera for this staircase, oh well, maybe next time.

Why can't we just give peace a chance...?

...cause cannons are frickan cool! (5" naval gun at battery 245)

More passages and stonework at Ft. Stevens

...and some more. Really neat colors at this place. An interesting history note, Ft. Stevens was shelled by a Japaneese Submarine in 1942. Apparently the only thing that got hit was the baseball field's backstop.

Mt. Washington - 8/1/10

2010-08-02T07:36:00.000-07:00

Had a great trip yesterday w/ the little lady up on Mt. Washington (Oregon version that is...). I was interested to see how Mel would handle the climbing and exposure (we haven't been out too much lately) but I shouldn't have worried, she jumped right back into it! We made pretty good time on the approach and roped up for the summit pitches. The climbing on this route (N. Ridge) isn't particularly difficult, but the rock quality is generally poor, which means it's worth taking your time and finding the holds that don't move (or pull out). We enjoyed the beautiful summit for a few minutes, but the siren call of Big Lake was enough to make us not want to linger too much! Unfortunatly the mosquitos had laid a trap for us and we were pretty much swarmed most of the way down the trail. We still managed a quick swim on the way out, but pretty much had to run barefoot and soaking from the lake cause of the little bastards. It was still worth it though: another great trip for me and a new cascade summit for Mel! :)

Hiking up the ridge w/ Big Lake, Hayrick Butte (flat top), Hoodoo (ski hill), Three Finger Jack and Jefferson in the distance.

Waltzing past one of the ridge-crest towers.

Same tower, different perspective...

I don't think Mel was particularly impressed with the steep, loose, gravely crap on the approach!

Summit corndog (sidenote: if you only eat corndogs for a month your skin turns yellow and your hair falls out)

Found evidence of some of our friends... Couldn't find Aaron and I from last year though...

Mel enjoying the hazy view back towards the valley

Sister's were looking surprisingly clean for this time of year

Window on the ridge during the downclimb/butt-slide

Mel traversing some crappy/shattered rock on the way out

Parting shot: She sure is a beautiful mountain if you don't look too close at the rock! :)

Cascadia Highline - 7/24/2010

2010-07-29T16:43:00.001-07:00

Thought I'd add a few pictures from our "highline" training from last weekend... Highlines are one of the more complicated rigging tasks that we do in our mountain rescue operation. In general, they require a lot of gear and a lot of people to operate efficiently, but when you REALLY need to transport a rescuer and subject across a span, it's one of the best ways to do so. Anyway, enjoy the pics! :)

Scott attaching himself to the rigging as the "patient" attendent

The operating crew deep in rigging related though! :)

And we have lift off!

For this exercise, our "span" was the S. Santiam river at Cascadia State Park.

Certianly one of the more scenic locations for this training! :)

In this picture, a Norwegian reeve is added to the highline to lower Mike to a "subject".

This rig allows the rescuer to move both horizontally and vertically without having to adjust the tension in the track-line (ie, it's easier).

Odds and Ends - June and July

2010-07-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

Summit of Battle Axe

Mel and Mt. Jefferson

Yep, that's pretty exciting Nate...

Salmon Falls on Opal Creek

The newest member of the westcoasttrips family!!! :) (the motorcycle that is...)

Mt Jeff from up French Creek

Detroit lake, Tumble lake (sorta hard to see), Tumble Rock and Needle Rock

More of the same mostly...

Cool little pond!

:)

Yep, Mel's pretty excited about another hundred miles on the bike...

Mel on Quartzville creek (yeah, we covered a lot of ground, there were some sore asses involved)

Okay, so Aaron also has a wondercamera, and he just dropped off his Zion pics the other day... Yeah, makes my point and shoot stuff look like crap! Very artsy! All creding goes to Aaron Hartz for these pics, I'm just shamelessly reproducing them here cause I couldn't help it...

Artsy shot of Keyhole

The makings of a fun week!!!

Scheming up some ideas on day one. This was our sweet campsite.

Entering unknown terratory for me... Prepping for the first drop in Spry

Getting all rigged up!

Random in a contemplative moment :)

Okay, action is more his thing... Lettin' the ropebag sail!

Sweetness in Spry

Rigging another drop

Though this was a cool pick of a rappel

Artsy rope shot... Aaron you're so good!

Typical spry sequence... Rap down a slot into a pool...

...throw the rope again...

...

...and then more down!

Yep, this is gonna be a wet one...

...fail...

...brrr!

Fast forward a day to Behunin canyon. One of the entry raps.

Midface on the Behunin entrance.

Last of the entrance raps...

Random and the sandy corridor

Finishing up the entrance sequence.

Happy to be out of the sun!

Last drop in Behunin

Random chillaxin' after a good day

Last drop in Pine Creek

Again

Our "thank god" swimming hole

again

Random working his magic!

Love the hustle Random!!!

ONSLAUGHT!

2010-06-19T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is probably my best shot at crashing the Blogger folk's server... Below exists a photo onslaught which has yet to have been matched in westcoasttrips history... Either quit now and go do something meaningful with your day, or grab a drink and a hot dog and dig right in. :)

_____________________________________________________________________

First off is a batch of photos from Mom and Dad's visit to the west side. I thought I could time their trip for one of the prettiest times of the year, and Oregon obliged (with rain and clouds and hail).

Enjoying some sun on our way up Mary's Peak

Working our way up to the top

Mel with the now famed Mary's Peak Chucker

Dad enjoying the views over a nicely managed Weyerhaeuser forest :)

The fearless (and geographically challenged) Chucker up close

I thought it was going to crawl into Mom's lap!!!

Enjoying the green in an old growth patch near corvallis

I think I love this place

This photo must have been taken before the rain started... See how happy they look!

One big tree!

Okay, that's more like it... Rain jackets on (for the rest of the week?) South Falls

Jungly jungle at Silver Falls SP

Winter falls

Behind the curtain at middle north falls

This one came out okay for not having a tripod...

North Falls

Again

Again

Again... That's all the pics I really had from their stay, it rained most of the rest of the time! :)

Okay, so next was the epic Zion trip... This is something that sorta got thrown together at the last minute, and although I'd call it a success, we lost a couple of members right before the trip due to one new (and awesome sounding) job, and one torn ACL (Bella's). So, while Chris B was finishing up work and Mel was nursing Bella back to health, Aaron, Random, and I got to galavant around the country burning as much fuel as we could. In a nutshell, the trip involved 2 days of climbing in the Owens Gorge (near Bishop, CA), 5 days of canyoning in Zion, a day of climbing at City of Rocks (Idaho), and exactly 3000 clicks on the odometer. So, getting right into it:

Aaron stemming up one of our favorite pitches of the entire trip.

I think maybe he was just showing off here...

A look over the Owens Gorge from the rim.

Woke up that next morning to a pretty rough view of the eastern sierra.

Our saweet campsite.

Kicking back with a cold one after day 2 of cragging in the owens gorge. That day I almost stepped on a rattlesnake w/ my flip flops on!!!

After a quick evening jaunt over towards vegas we found this spot to camp in the Joshua trees

Okay, getting into it now... Rigging the first rap in Keyhole (around midnight). Is that an air guitar?

Clearly I'm pretty excited :)

One of the drops in Keyhole

Zion day two.. Captain America on the approach to Spry canyon.

Yeah, I was excited that the approach was over. It was too hot out...

Ugliness on the first rap in Spry

Random on one of the slotty stemming raps in Spry.

Aaron unropes while Random gawks

Rigged and rolling again.

Classic Spry drop: Rap down a slot, stem over a pool, out a notch into another rap.

Same spot I think

Sure is purtty here

Random realizing that he WILL get wet on this one.

Another CLASSIC drop

Aaron set the bar pretty high w/ this custom hitching sign (credit sign: Random)

...and within minutes catches a sweet ride in this ford falcon

Our crew on the approach to Behunin canyon

Rigging up on one of the long wall raps early on in the day

Looking down into a mid-wall pothole on rap #3 (I think)

One of the few swims in Behunin

Rigging the last 200' drop on Wednesday

Starting down Pine Creek canyon on thursday... Back into the cold water!

Pine creek is deep...

...and narrow...

...and dark!

We finished with Pine Creek pretty quick, Random hitched us a ride, and we bailed to higher (cooler) ground in Bryce Canyon

Funny pic... Aaron didn't see the sign :)

More Bryce awesomeness...

This is what we WISH we were driving around in

Okay, day 5, canyon 5: "Fat Man's Misery" This is looking back down the approach gully along checkerboard mesa.

Slickrock bench on the approach

More slickrock...

Okay, a little more slickrock.

Getting into the first narrows of the canyon on rap 1.

Amazing light in this little canyon

More good light

This is what the canyon seemed to be mostly... Lot's of tight little downclimbs

Nate's Misery?

Aaron on the longest rap of this canyon (which was only 50')

Then the canyon really slotted up and got dark... We passed a hotspring down here.

Down to the confluence with the East Fork Virgin, which was basically stunning

I believe "OMG" would be an appropriate description...

More...

More... I could have done hours more of this...

Parting shot of our total crew... After a miserable hike out of the East Fork (it was HOT!!!!) we had to bail out of Zion, back to Vegas so Random could catch a plane. Vegas was a furnace, so we figured we'd try to drive as far away as we could... We almost made it to idaho!

Around 2am we were looking for a place to crash on public lands, and after a good 45 minutes of ROUGH (!) 4wd, we ended up here... We didn't even know what it looked like until we woke up.

Our last goal was to hit some cragging at the City of Rocks... Here's Aaron topped out on our first pitch of the day

A spontanious game of wiffle ball broke out while we were on the rock, which provided a lot of entertainment

A fun conclusion to an amazing trip... Aaron leads a flaky granite pitch on Elephant

The City of Rocks... Rocks!

Figured we'd drive home that night and ALMOST made it... We passed out in the Gorge and woke up to this... Ahhh... So nice to be back in OR!

And finally, here are some pics from a recovery mission that CMRU participated in on the N. side of Hood. No captions, just some pics:

Skiing in Rainier NP - 5/1/2010

2010-05-05T08:52:00.000-07:00

This past weekend Aaron and I trekked up to Mt. Rainier to meet up with our friends Justin, Laila, and Jason (who is living in the park for the summer) for a last shot at winter for the year. As it tends to do in this area, the forecast went from sunny to rain a couple days before we left, but rather than pull the plug we decided to make the drive anyway, figuring that at least we'd be hanging out with friends. Surprisingly, in addition to seeing friends, we were rewarded with full-on winter conditions and some of the best ski conditions I've had all year. Unfortunatly we never got a view of the massive mountain lurking in the clouds right next to us, but I'm sure it will still be there the next time we go visit. Enjoy!

Day 1 - Mazama Ridge:

Taking a break in a little wind break behind a tree

Amazing winter conditions in May!

A look at the types of stuff we were skiing in

Lunch break in the snow (Credit: Justin)

Jason dropping a knee (Credit: Justin)

Me (Credit: Justin)

Skinning up after a lap: lots of happy people in this picture.

Looking back on the ridge... We just moved down the ridge all day skiing fresh lines.

The apparently famous Paradise Parking Lot Fox

Day 2 - Castle/Pinnacle Peak area (Tatoosh Range)

Our first glimpse of the peaks on our approach. They were in and out of the clouds all day.

Castle on the left, Pinnacle on the right. We skiied a run in this basin, and then another basin to the east

Nice way to spend a day!

If you look close you can see our tracks all the way back up (Credit: Justin)

Aaron drops into a "steeper than it looks" gulley on our second run.

More turns on our second run as the weather closed in.

More Stuff from April

2010-04-15T18:07:00.001-07:00

Looks like we are getting into our busy season! :) Here's a quick photo onslaught from the past 2 weekends. First off is a batch of pictures from our 10 year anniversary, which we celebrated in classy and rainsoaked style down on the southern oregon coast.

We checked out the Elk River on the way down... Amazingly beautiful river.

Look at that style! :) Us leaving our home away from home for fancy pants dinner.

More like it: back on the road again, getting soaked at some coastal natural bridges.

Raining and winding so hard that we decided to go get soaked in the redwoods instead.

More soakage in the Stout Grove, but toned down a little.

Smith River through the moss.

Hard to comprehend. Just amazing that that much life can grow.

More stupendous awesomeness.

The rain turned to snow for a little while, allowing Wonder Camera to strike!

Wonder Camera strikes again! :)

Cool picture from a rickity bridge on Howland Hill Rd

Smith River... So pretty!

Working our way back north we found a sucker hole in the weather

Ten freaking years... I kinda can't believe it!

Wonder Camera with another cool shot.

Home away from home for the weekend.

Sweet view from the tub.

I think I'll miss this place. What a cool weekend! :)

_______________________________________________
Okay, next is a batch of pictures from Eric's visit this past week. Sheez, it had been too long, but we got right back into it.

Sleds all "skied" up parked in front of Tam Mac.

Rolling into the wilderness boundary between Moon Mountain and Ball Butte

Working our way up Ball Butte.

Hey, what's that over there? Looks like a little bit of Broken Top!?

Skiing the "too-steep-for-me" gully on the W. of Ball Butte.

Looking back doesn't do justice to the steepness of this side. Oh well! :)

Parking ourselves on the SE ridge of Broken Top

A glimpse of the crater on BT.

Looking back towards Ball Butte, which now seems to look small.

Looking north towards Jefferson from the shoulder.

When looking at this, my first thought wasn't "hey, let's ski that".

Eric's first though was "hey, we should ski that". Warning: pics don't do justice.

WTF. I took pictures. Cliffs scare me.

Aaron shreading near the cliff band.

Cornice hucking... The light was so flat that nobody could see the landing. Apparently that's no big deal for some.

Style points. Sheez.

Eric skiing something quite steep.

Aaron skiing something quite steep. Nate takes bad pictures.

Next we dragged OX to the coast:

Some cool forest near cascade head.

Eric snuck up this little guy for a photo op.

How we roll in OR: Moss growing on tree, ferns growing on Moss. The tree was probably growing on a buffalo or something.

Me and the little lady at Cascade Head.

Thought this was a good pic of my boy Ox.

Devil's punchbowl

Obnoxious but cute dog.

Beach bocce, the only way to play the game.

Afternoon skin up Mary's Peak on the last day Eric was here

Already miss this boy...

Can one of you bird people tell me what this is? Bella was obsessed with it.

Skiing the old growth on the East Face.

Gullies on the N. Aspect

Getting ready for the "Skitch" down (see the tow rope?)

More catching up...

2010-03-19T16:06:00.000-07:00

Okay, lot's to catch up on... I've been in a lazy slump, so not many updates lately. Things are going good with the new house, although we still haven't really moved into it... We've been pretty busy on our weekends, but that's kept us from getting a lot done around the house. Oh well, that's what summer is for I suppose.

So, first up is the maiden voyage the snowmobile fleet. I managed to pick up a couple of sleds from James, and although we seem to be having a record crappy winter, we had to get them out at least once for a spin... We decided to head up to Tam McArthur rim and then around towards Moon Mountain. It was a little too socked in to ski Ball butte, so we headed back to Tam Mac and a fun tour:

Getting stoked (500 two seater in this pic)

XLT bristling with skis.

Aaron pretty excited after his first spin around in the powder.

Fun comes crashing to a halt when I BURY the 500 in "deeper than it looks" snow. Some nice folks helped us newbies get 'er unstuck.

Aaron finds a cliff

Bigger than it looks?

Nice scenery on our tour.

More of the same.

Next I thought I'd throw up some pics from a driving tour of the high desert east of Paulina peak. Usually this would have been impossible due to snow at this time of year, but it's been such a whimpy snow year that we got into some awesome places.

A seemingly perfect design?

The girls find something interesting to look at.

Lunch with the State Champion Western Juniper

Goofball dog.

Mel on some butte (I forget the name) with Pine Mountain in the distance.

The stars were mind-bending out there with almost no towns nearby.

Just enjoying the night!

We caught sunrise back on that same Butte, but it was COLD that morning.

Scouting for a spot to do some skiing in the future in Echo Basin.

Death to snowballs!

Finally, I thought I'd throw up a couple pics from our last weekend of climbing out at Smith. It was a great time... we got to climb some fun pitches, meet some nice folks, and enjoy some killer weather and views. It'd been a while since I've been there and great to be back.

Aason starting up his first (?) full pitch trad lead ever?

Looking back down from the top of P2.

The view was sorta okay from the top. Just kinda...

The afternoons objective...

Aaron steps it up on the first pitch of the West Face variation of Monkey Face

Wedged into the corner on the second pitch of the variation.

Aaron shreads the bolt ladder

Looking back on some nice folks we met along the way. This bit is absurdly overhanging and gives you plenty of time to ponder the long way back down.

On top of the monkey, just as the sun is setting behind Mt. Washington.

Another fun trip with Aaron!

Just wanted to put this picture cause I thought it was cool... I snapped it on the way to work the other day... It's unique because of the triangular shaped shadow on the cloud celing in the upper left of the picture... That shadow is being cast by 10K' Mt. Jefferson (which is hidden from view in this picture), and was gone within minutes of it appearing just as the sun crest the horizon. Great way to start the day!

...and while Aaron and I were at Smith, Mel was working hard in her Avy 1 class

Buying a House... wait... what??? - 12/24/09

2009-12-30T13:04:00.001-08:00

So... Yeah... I guess we just bought a house!!!??? I know, I don't believe it either. :) I'm still waiting for someone to wake me up during the middle of the night telling me to get out of THEIR house, but since it hasn't happened yet, I guess I just need to accept the reality that it's ours and that I should start to take care of it (or at least unpack some of the boxes!!!). So, here's the lowdown: Mel and I got the keys to this sweet new (1970 vintage) rig on Christmas eve, so rather than our usual christmas of gluttony and senseless money spending, we spent the day moving in. I guess you could say that there was still a lot of money spending, although you could argue over whether or not it was "senseless" (TBD). Oh yeah, we cooked up a big feast too, so I guess the gluttony part was there too. Not that different from our regular Christmas afterall! :)

Then, my brother Chris was visiting for the weekend, so in addition to packing up a few rather heavy objects, we spent some time wandering around OSU and Corvallis, and checking out Silver Falls. I also got to hang out with Gennie's family and my neice Cora, the newest addition to the Meehan family. This was only my second time meeting the little bundle of cuteness, but it was the first time she didn't scream at me (I blame the beard, at least for the sake of my pride), and actually allowed me to hold her for a bit (BTW, why didn't anyone get photo evidence of her not screaming at me!?) Anyway, lot's of fun stuff!!!

Afternoon stroll in the woods

I'll let you guess what's going on in this picture

Talk about circus talent!

:)

Lovin' the weather!

Lovin' that tree!

Pretty managed stand.

Our sweet Velociraptor rig! :)

Our first morning in the new place! We found the tree on the side of the road! :)

Neat frost patterns in the foothills

My bro Chris from behind South Falls

Me and my Bro!

South Falls

Mel from behind North Falls

More North Falls

A very cold Bella diligently watching over our new back yard.

View from the porch

Messy Kitchen! :)

First ski trip of the season - 11/13/09

2009-11-20T20:39:00.000-08:00

Had amazing weather and early season snow conditions up on Hood last week, so Jason, Dennis, Nick, Catherine, Aaron, and I got out for our first turns of the season. And they were epic! No captions, just pics! :)

Tam McArthur Rim - 10/25/09

2009-10-26T09:54:00.001-07:00

Had a great little overnight w/ Mel and Bella this past weekend out scouting for ski trip ideas at Tam McArthur Rim. Because of the cold temps we had the place to ourselves, so we set our tent up right on the tip of the rim with awesome 360 degree views. Once the sun went down (early these days!) we actually built a fire to pass the time and to stay warm. The next morning we were treated with some frozen water and great views of the Cascade range. All in all a great weekend, and my suspicion is that we'll be back this winter when it's covered in snow! :)
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Looking at the Sisters from across Three Creek Lake

Relaxing around camp enjoying the last of the days warmth

We set the tent up so we'd have an early morning view, but I had to remind Mel that if we got up during the night not to walk more that 10 feet cause of the 600' cliff right out the front door...

We cranked up a fire to keep us busy and warm right as the sun was going down

The "Wonder Camera" strikes again! Here's 40 seconds of a cold(!) night at 7700' :)

Early morning light on the Oregon Cascades

Mel tells me I like taking picturs of our tent too much.

South Sister at Sunrise

Middle and North Sister

A happy although freezing cold Nate

My favorite view of the morning

Bella's favorite view of the morning

Packed up for the hike out

Mt. Bachelor and Nate on the hike out...

Looking back on our camp (right on the tip of the rock buttress) from across Three Creek Lake

10/11/2009 - Menagerie w/ CMRU

2009-10-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

Had a great little trip up to the Menagerie on Sunday with some CMRU folks. Great to have folks get familar with the area and begin to understand the challanges that would be associated with a rescue in that location. Only managed a wee bit of climbing cause of the short days and smack-down approach. I think everyone had a good time though!
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Devil horns came out pretty early that day...

Catherine follows Matt's lead up the first tricky bit of Rooster's N. Face Route.

Team 2 waiting their turn.

The Hoy's proud send!

Aaron sticks the mandatory heel hook through the 5.6 crux (kiddin).

Mel, Aaron, and I all climbing at the same time.

Looking up at the summit frenzy.

If you look close, you can see The Hoy reflected in my glasses, that way were all in this shot! This is the summit of Rooster. :)

This is me climbing on "Rawhide" on Hen rock. Not much of a picture other than to note the lack of gear on the rope below me. Surpisingly this doesn't even earn an "R" rating for runout (felt pretty "X" to me).

Overhanging moves to the summit...

Last bouldering move to the top.

Watch right at the 22 second mark to catch Aaron slipping (not sure if his tether caught him or not, but it raised a few pulses I think!)

Mt. Washington - 10/10/09

2009-10-13T09:35:00.000-07:00

Back in July(?) Jon E. got in touch with me looking to hit up a climb somewhere in the cascades. I told him I'd be stoked, but that my weekends were actually booked through October... So we went ahead and planned to hit up Mt. Washington (not the NH version) with the hopes of camping on the summit under the stars... Well, stupid us forgot that it snows in October and get's dark around 6:30, so that plan got scrapped. Anyway, we bailed the weekend before because it was snowing good and hard up in the mountains, which apparently doesn't make for ideal rock climbing conditions... But, favorable weather this past weekend let us squeek in one last climb before the sun leaves us for the next six months.

Aaron, Jon, Matt, and I left from the trailhead with varying degrees of optimism. The climb looked snowy, which I assumed would make it a "no go", but we figured we'd at least take a closer look since we drove up there. I had climbed the route 5 years before with Chris B, but that was under dry summer conditions and I had remembered that being pretty straightforward. As we got closer to the mountain, we found that many of the simple rock scrambles on the approach were covered in hard snow, and without thinking of bringing crampons these were a little more dicey than anticipated. Matt had his fill about 2/3rds of the way up the ridge and turned around to find a good spot to enjoy the view while we approached the summit pinnacle. Aaron volunteered for the first lead, which is the trickiest part of the climb... We waited and watched as he carefully inched his way out on a ramp and then up the face. The exposure here is absurd, and there isn't really any good chance to place protection as the rock is somewhat loose. As he topped out on the first pitch, Jon was weighing the option to continue to climb with us or bail and head down with his good buddy Matt (who was visiting from WV). Based on the timing of Aaron's lead and understanding of how much more climbing was ahead of us, he made the right decision to bail and go hang with his buddy (the decision to bail when you are so close and the conditions are good is one of the tuffest to make, so big ups to Jon for heading back - the mountain will be there next year).

I followed up the first tricky pitch with increasing respect for Aaron's lead... It was quite runout, with snow/ice on many of the holds and big air below my feet. It felt quite different than it had 5 years before during the summer, when I think we climbing w/o rope. I barely slowed down as I reached his belay, grabbing the rack, and leading up the last few hundred feet to the summit in one long pitch. The rock near the top is more solid so this simul-pitch went much quicker than anticipated. We hung out on top (views were incredible with the fresh snow) for a few minutes and then set off on the 4 raps to get back to solid ground. Overall a great day out with some good people. :)

Gotta love the water bottle point... "I think the mountain is over there..."

Three of the crew with the days spicy looking objective.

Crew on the approach ridge with Three Finger Jack and then Mt. Jefferson behind.

Some tricky and exposed downclimbing on the approach.

More tricky downclimbing.

Jon scrambling up right before the roped climbing begins (kinda scary here...)

Me getting ready to shread a huge summit air guitar

I'm not sure what was going on here, but I think Aaron my have been doing "the robot".

Peeking down the S. Face from the summit boulder.

"Way to ride that summit boulder Aaron..."

View of the Three Sisters from the top

Gotta have a group summit shot...

Aaron rigged and ready for the first of 4 dizzying rappels. Usually this part is a pretty straightforward downclimb, but w/ the snow we decided to rap.

More of the first rap...

Spontanious air guitar rappel technique Aaron was trying out.

Looking back once we were back on flatter ground.

Summit panorama, view down the S. Face, and Aaron on the final rappel, which was down the first pitch of climbing that he lead.

Parting shot.