Hearsay

2012-01-24T18:45:00.000-08:00

A number of hikes and ski tours last year I took interesting pictures but the trips themselves didn't warrant a dedicated album. I had some time recently and I made an album of my favorite pictures that I hadn't posted yet.

2012-01-20T13:24:00.000-08:00

I've been traveling and skiing a fair amount.

After Thanksgiving I went to Germany for two weeks. Over the weekend I had the chance to visit Chris. No snow yet, so we went for a mountain bike tour in the Bregenzerwald.

In December David and I skied the Slot Couloir. In December Heather and I went to Summit County, Colorado to do our best to teach Will how to ski and to ski on man made snow.

Beginning with New Years, the real travel began: road trip to Whistler for four days of Canadian skiing, back to Seattle, road trip to Sandpoint, ID to move Heather in, fly to Orange County for work, back to Sandpoint for the weekend, to Seattle for two days, to Belgium, road trip to Berlin, fly to Friedrichshafen, then spent the weekend in Austria skiing, train to Nuremberg, fly back to Berlin for a day, fly to Frankfurt, train to Heidelberg. Tomorrow I head back to Sandpoint for a week, and then more travel.

Chris and I had a fantastic weekend in Austria. Not much to say other than watch this video and look at these pictures to get an idea.

2011-11-15T15:03:00.001-08:00

I put together the best film clips from our trip to China into this compilation.

2011-11-04T11:36:00.001-07:00

I've finished my last set of pictures from China. Our last few days were spent in Shanghai.

2011-10-27T15:59:00.000-07:00

I became the new rep for DPS skis in the Seattle area this fall. If you are considering new skis for the upcoming season, I couldn’t recommend them more. Their designs are revolutionary and my skis instantly took my skiing to the next level. If you like them on Facebook you could win the new Spoon Ski. If you order online, I can get you free shipping. If you have any friends who are patrol or ski instructors, I can get them a pro deal. Let me know if you have any questions about DPS skis.

2011-10-26T13:51:00.000-07:00

I finished an album of pictures from our two days at the Yellow Mountain, Huangshan.

2011-10-25T23:25:00.000-07:00

Huangshan (the Yellow Mountain) was one of my favorite parts of our trip to China. One of the best parts were the charming, yet patronizing, signs. Below is a collection of many of the signs seen along the hiking trail:

Salute to manners and hygiene keepers!
Be Careful of Precipice
With safety in mind, you have the views in eyes
The tree is 12.8 meters high, its circumference is 1.46 meters, and its crown size is 9.6 meters times 11.7 meters. The bare five root looks like the claw of the dragon.
Stop Climbing the Cliff
Now-I-believe-it Peak: It's so fantastic yo don't believe your eyes; seeing with your eyes, you believe it's really fantastic
The mountain is inspecting your behavior while you are appreciating its beauty
Virtue is esteemed while the scenery is enchanting
Look out for taking photos.
Keep an eye on the views to let fly your relaxed heart.
Let every action witness the environment protection.
Advocate civilized sightseeing in Huangshan.
Do not stay at the peak in storms
Leave nothing behind but your footprints and take nothing away but your memorable experiences
Respected visitors: The traveling path is under construction and that may bring inconvenience to you. Sorry!
Keep away from the monkeys in case you're bothered
Your soul joining the views, civilization goes with the mountains.
Mt. Huangshan is admiring your gracefulness while you are enjoying its beauty.
Due to the small area of the viewing platform, act of comity is encouraged.
Look out for your step while looking about your admiration.
As a smile is the prettiest language, gracefulness the best self-presentation.
Keep an eye on the views to let fly your relaxed heart.
Your soul joining the views, civilization goes with the mountains.
To leave with the memory, please leave behind your virtue.

2011-10-24T20:58:00.000-07:00

One of the major inspirations for our trip to China was the karst topography of the Li River. It certainly didn't disappoint. We spent two and a half days in the area, a full day cycling along the Yulong River and full day hiking along the Li River. The Li and Yulong Rivers.

2011-10-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

Heather and Manu and I spent 11 days traveling through central south China last month. I finished my first set of pictures, which are from the Longsheng Rice Terraces and Dong villages of Chengyang.

2011-09-10T20:51:00.000-07:00

Some more silly wild flower photos from Poe Mountain two weeks ago.

2011-08-30T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've been getting after it this month. A few weeks ago Heather and I backpacked in a new corner of of Mt. Rainier. We camped near Saint Andrews Lake and visited Emerald Ridge on the way out. Tons of flowers all over the place and an amazing sunset. Somehow we took over 1200 pictures. Understandably, it took me a while to winnow them down. The pictures are posted here.

The next day it was a bit cloudier and I went to Lake Dorothy in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

The next weekend Heather and I hiked down to Third Beach and spent the night watching porpises (porpi?) and seals. Last weekend Tony and I checked out the abundance of wildflowers at Poe Mountain. All of those pictures are still pending.

2011-08-18T14:08:00.000-07:00

I posted pictures from a backpacking trip David and Megan and I took to Tank Lakes in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness a week and a half ago.

Last weekend Heather and I had an amazing two days backpacking in Mt. Rainier National Park in a corner I had never been to yet. Somehow we manages to take over 1100 pictures. I am still working on going through those.

This weekend is the ocean. It is August in Seattle and we've got to make the most of it.

2011-08-05T15:20:00.000-07:00

One year ago I increased my running volume from one commute to-and-from work per week, to two. For an entire year I have run the round trip (3.75 miles one way) twice per week as often as I could. (Work travel, holidays, and vacation prevented many runs.) I figured it was an appropriate time to put together some statistics about the commute.

I ran to/from work work 107 times. Considering 4x52 weeks, that is a 51% success rate.
Over the past year I ran 810 miles total, running to/from work was 51% (415 miles) of my total distance.

My morning runs were much more consistent. The run home from work I often modify by doing intervals, steps, or longer distance. 88 of my runs were tempo runs door-door. Of these runs:

My average time door-to-door was 29.81 minutes
My fastest time door-to-door was 24.85 minutes
My slowest time door-to-door was 35.87 minutes

Run durations depend on timing of street lights, energy level, and construction (there have been numerous detours on my main route).

A histogram of these run durations can be seen in this image:http://imgur.com/J7hUO.png.

2011-07-28T07:10:00.001-07:00

I uploaded pictures from our ski tour trip to Burroughs at Sunrise from a few weeks ago.

2011-07-15T12:12:00.000-07:00

I completed post-processing the pictures from our trip to Costa Rica two weeks ago. I split the trip into two parts. Part 1 is here and part 2 is here.

2011-07-05T09:55:00.000-07:00

We spent a week in Costa Rica last week. A few days at the beach Samara, a few days at the Monteverde Cloud Forest, and a day sloshing through the mud on volcano Tenorio to visit the turquoise Rio Celeste.

Spent a day at work and then headed back out to a different volcano, of the local variety, to ski the Burroughs out of Sunrise on Mt. Rainier and watch the sunset.

Many pictures waiting for me to go through, but first, work and then David's wedding in Ohio.

2011-06-07T10:04:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday was the nicest day of the year so far. Eric and I seized it and made a one-day attempt to ski the Cascadian Couloir of Mt. Stuart. We thought we would have to turn around due to instability, but things worked in our favor. It was my biggest day of climbing yet: 7,700 vertical feet in 12.5 miles and 10.6 hours. Pictures from the trip are here.

2011-06-06T18:39:00.000-07:00

I combined the best video clips from Nepal into this video montage. It is less than 6 minutes. I think that is all I have left to share from Nepal.

2011-05-25T23:03:00.000-07:00

While on our trek in Nepal, Heather and I decided that the photos from our trip and trek in Peru really ought to be upgraded to the Picasa Web Album. I broke it into two parts: Cuzco and Machu Picchu and the Santa Cruz Trek.

2011-05-19T09:38:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago David and Adam and I spent four days skiing the backcountry near Duffey Lake north of Pemberton, British Columbia. We had fantastic weather and fantastic snow, if I do say so myself. I had a chance to post pictures this week.

2011-05-06T13:25:00.000-07:00

The next set of Annapurna pictures took longer than I planned for two reasons. 1) I was in Canada for four days with David and Adam doing some fantastic skiing in the back country. I of course took plenty of pictures. 2) I downloaded a virus to my computer. My computer eventually succumbed and died Sunday night, requiring a reformat. Not before the virus stole all my passwords, I am sure.

Nevertheless, here is the final set of pictures from the Annapurna Sanctuary Trek.

2011-04-25T12:27:00.001-07:00

I have started going through our photographs from Nepal and have made two Picasa albums so far.

Album 1: Annapurna Sanctuary, Birethanti to Deurali, Days 1-3, 2011
Album 2: Annapurna Sanctuary, Annapurna Base Camp, Days 4-5, 2011

2011-04-15T08:54:00.001-07:00

During my research of the Annapurna Sanctuary I had a hard time finding coordinates of significant way points. Therefore I thought it would be helpful to post the GPS coordinates I collected while making way points during our trek.

BIRETHANTI 02-APR-11 6:44:33AM N28 18.537 E83 46.506 3323 ft
CHIMRONG 02-APR-11 8:23:45AM N28 20.472 E83 48.184 3817 ft
KIMCHE 02-APR-11 9:40:54AM N28 21.283 E83 48.294 5165 ft
GHANDRUK 02-APR-11 10:55:14AM N28 22.391 E83 48.600 6248 ft
KOMRUNG PASS 02-APR-11 1:46:54PM N28 23.750 E83 47.845 7289 ft
KIMRONG 02-APR-11 2:39:24PM N28 24.244 E83 47.694 5900 ft
CHHOMRONG 03-APR-11 8:57:03AM N28 25.037 E83 48.930 7657 ft
CHOMRUNG VALLEY 03-APR-11 9:49:58AM N28 25.692 E83 49.276 6179 ft
SINUWA 03-APR-11 12:37:23PM N28 26.081 E83 50.308 7681 ft
BAMBOO 04-APR-11 7:55:30AM N28 27.407 E83 51.418 7240 ft
HIMALAYA 04-APR-11 12:29:59PM N28 29.089 E83 53.319 9339 ft
DEURALI 04-APR-11 3:00:32PM N28 29.836 E83 53.881 10404 ft
MACHHAPUCHHRE BASE CAMP 05-APR-11 10:39:42AM N28 31.594 E83 54.459 12072 ft
ANNAPURNA BASE CAMP 05-APR-11 12:59:37PM N28 31.877 E83 52.638 13551 ft
TAULUNG 07-APR-11 2:15:43PM N28 24.625 E83 48.006 7228 ft
CHUILE 07-APR-11 3:55:06PM N28 24.378 E83 46.592 7112 ft
TADAPANI 07-APR-11 5:34:32PM N28 23.810 E83 45.931 8795 ft
BAN THANTI 08-APR-11 8:38:59AM N28 23.642 E83 45.169 8712 ft
DEURALI (POON HILL) 08-APR-11 10:49:20AM N28 23.750 E83 43.892 9964 ft
GHOREPANI 08-APR-11 2:06:25PM N28 24.154 E83 41.989 9494 ft
POON HILL 09-APR-11 6:00:00AM N28.27170 E83.67570 10475 ft
NAYA THANTI 09-APR-11 8:59:34AM N28 23.095 E83 42.601 8367 ft
BANTHANTI 09-APR-11 10:34:13AM N28 22.091 E83 43.979 7444 ft
HILE 09-APR-11 1:05:33PM N28 20.953 E83 44.532 5163 ft
NAYAPUL 09-APR-11 4:21:13PM N28 17.775 E83 46.061 3424 ft

2011-04-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

I put together a map of our trekking route in the Annapurna Sanctuary. Since Google doesn't provide any place names in this area, I used my GPS way points to make the map as accurate as possible. I also included some hiking statistics.

For full hiking statistics, visit my mountain activities log.

2011-04-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

8 days of trekking, 72 miles, and a total of 25.8 thousand feet vertical ascent, Heather and I successfully visited Annapurna Base Camp and Poon Hill. We took over 3000 pictures and 100 videos. Lots of picture updates, video updates, maps, and journal reports to come.

2011-03-16T07:45:00.001-07:00

I went to the first European Congress for Bronchology and Interventional Pulmonology in Marseilles, France for work last week. I had some time to take pictures from the conference center and go for a morning walk and a morning run.

2011-03-14T10:21:00.000-07:00

In mid February there was an amazing weather window. Heather had the weekend off so we made the most of it in the Mt. Baker backcountry and camped at Lake Ann. There was fresh snow, full moon, and clear skies. I got a few interesting pictures.

2011-03-14T10:09:00.000-07:00

I spent New Years in Whistler and two weeks later David and I attempted the Spearhead Traverse, Blackcomb to Whistler.

Heather and I spent a weekend in Salt Lake City skiing, it rained of all things. Less rain than the Cascades, however. I had to return the week after for work. Then I continued on Colorado to visit Heather's brother.

I had a few trips to Orange County to our other office. One of the trips I was able to extend, Heather came and we met her brother's family at Disneyland.

2010-10-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

Certainly not my best pictures ever, but I threw a few shots from Barcelona on my Picasa album. Most of them were taken with my phone.

2010-09-29T22:53:00.001-07:00

As is usual, I have been busy. Spent a week in Barcelona for the European Respiratory Society congress, came back and spent a night in the woods in Carnation with Heather's residency that was doing a retreat. The next day David and I climbed the highest point of the Goat Rocks, Mt. Curtis Gilbert. We hiked back to camp in the moonlight and took lots of interesting night photos along the way.

2010-09-13T16:06:00.000-07:00

I have started using RunningAHEAD. I've added a link to my running log on my Lists page.

2010-09-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

I posted a couple of pictures from my solo hike on Icicle Ridge last weekend.

2010-08-31T22:04:00.000-07:00

I've culled 1000 pictures from the Glacier Peak trip to 75 or so. Here are the pictures from the descent. I hope you like flowers and sunsets.

2010-08-30T07:38:00.000-07:00

I posted pictures from the ascent of Glacier Peak.

2010-08-05T07:28:00.000-07:00

I had a chance to post pictures from my work trip to Vienna back in June.

2010-08-03T07:44:00.000-07:00

I posted pictures from our backpacking trip to Spider Meadow.

2010-08-01T21:55:00.001-07:00

I've adapted another book into a Google Map. 75 Scrambles in Washington by Peggy Goldman.

2010-07-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

I posted pictures from our hike to Grand Park two weeks ago. There are also some bonus pictures from my ski trip at Burroughs from July 5th!

2010-07-21T22:49:00.000-07:00

I've been giving Mt. Rainier the respect it deserves over the past few weeks.

The day after Independance Day I ski toured Burroughs. Not too many pictures as it was cloudy.

The weekend after David and I climbed up the Emmons Glacier and skied from the top. Pictures I posted today here.

Last weekend we hiked Grand Park. Photos I will post soon, but Heather and I are visiting the Entiat Mountains first.

2010-06-30T07:14:00.000-07:00

I've posted our pictures from the British Virgin Islands sailing trip.

2010-05-22T16:45:00.000-07:00

Heather and I are back in town. We spent a long week in the British Virgin Islands with a bunch of medical students and their close friends sailing from island to island. We had 6 people on our sail boat and another boat, which had a similar, but different itinerary, had another 10 people. I've never been on a sailing trip before, but we had a blast. Lots of sunshine, scuba, swimming, beaches, and other good fun. I took some pictures, especially of the scuba. We visited some cool wrecks.

For my own memory I mapped out our route. If you care, go here and visit it.

2010-05-10T22:57:00.001-07:00

I'm all caught up on pictures! Pictures from David and my recent ski trip to the Mount Cashmere area. The weather was nothing special the first day, but the morning of the second day we had some great views of The Enchantments.

For comparison, here are pictures from when Heather and I went to the area without snow.

2010-05-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

I'm catching up on my picture editing.

- The fourth and final set of pictures from our Japan trip. Kyoto.
- Pictures from early April when I spent an afternoon in Stuttgart before meeting Chris for dinner.

Maybe I will get caught up tomorrow by posting pictures from the Mt. Cashmere ski trip, before I leave on Tuesday to take more pictures...

2010-05-08T22:10:00.000-07:00

I posted our pictures from Mt. Fuji.

I also wrote a trip report about the (non)trip.

2010-05-08T18:26:00.000-07:00

I've been keeping myself as busy as possible.

Last weekend David I spent two days at high altitude in cold snow. We skied up and down peaks in the Mt. Cashmere area to our heart's content.

Things are busy at work and I spent 63 hours there this week. Despite so much work, I managed quite a bit of physical activity without even doing an official workout. Between commuting, running errands, and earning turns I biked 43.5 miles and ran/carried-over-night-pack for 34.5 miles.

2010-04-29T22:09:00.000-07:00

The following is a run down of our trip. Probably kind of boring to read if you weren't there. It is mostly for my reference so I remember what exactly we did a few years from now. But maybe you will enjoy it.

Sunday, April 11^th

Our flight arrived an hour late at 530pm. We took the Keisei line to Ueno station, changed to the subway to Shinjuku. We had 3 bags and a ski bag and we wandered from the station to our hotel 0.25 mile away. We had emailed with Lynette, a highschool friend who moved to Japan 5 years ago, to meet at our hotel. We were 45 minutes late, but she was still waiting. We dropped our bags and went out with her fiancé to get our first Japanese meal. They took us to a traditional place and we ordered all kinds of great food. For most of the rest of the trip we stuck to “picture” menus, but that night we ate it up.

Monday, April 12^th(also my 10,000-days-since-my-birth, day)

We started off with a walk around the Shinjuku neighborhood. It was raining quite hard that day. We hoped it would let up, but it never did. We then walked through the Shinkuku-Gyoen park, supposedly one of the best places to see cherry blossoms. The blossoms were amazing and because of the heavy unrelenting rain we had nearly the entire park to ourselves. We even stopped in the tea-house and treated ourselves to Japanese green tea.

We continued on and caught a subway to the Asakusa neighborhood. In the dusk (and rain) we admired the lit up Senso-Ji temple. We also had dinner in this neighborhood.

Tuesday, April 13^th

As with most days, we got a 6am start. We took the subway across town to the Ginza neighborhood. We heard the Tsukiji fish market was an interesting place to visit, despite them not really appreciating tourists because it is the fish market for Tokyo. They love seafood there and a lot of seafood is traded at this market. It took us a while to figure out how to get in, but we eventually waltzed into one entrance, dodging forklifts and trolleys. We walked around for a while not really seeing much other than forklifts and Styrofoam boxes. We eventually found our way to the Sumida River to see the foggy river and boxes and boxes of fish.

Eventually we did find the active trading section. Imagine all the fish, mollusks, and squid you have ever seen at aquariums, but resting on ice instead. Imagine the entire sea scooped up and placed on ice. The variety of seafood for sale there was staggering. The stalls of seafood sellers went on in every direction. We took probably 200 pictures of all the crazy seafood we saw.

We finished the market by getting a sushi snack. Fatty tuna. Probably the freshest fish I have ever eaten. Man vs Wild style. Almost.

We then walked through the Ginza neighborhood to the Imperial Palace. We walked through the gardens, looked at the palace, where the emperor actually lives. We caught the subway from Otemachi to Shibuya. We crossed one of the most famous pedestrian intersections in the world, found a soup bowl, then caught the train back north to Shinjuku (one of the busiest train stations in the world) and walked to the Tokyo Metropolitan Office. We took the elevator to the observation floor where I hoped to get my first view of Mt. Fuji. It was a bit to hazy, but we did a get a great view of city stretching out to infinity in every direction.

I’m not much of a city person and I had very low expectations for Tokyo. I was very pleasantly surprised and it is now one of my favorite city cities. It is clean, it is quiet, it is efficient, it is interesting, and it is nice to look at.

After the observation tower, we went back to the Shinkuku-Gyoen park to look at the cherry blossoms again in the sunshine.

That evening we caught a bus to the mountain town of Hakuba. After a strange 1 hour delay on the side of the highway, we eventually made it shortly before midnight.

Wednesday, April 14th

We planned on skiing the very next day, but we awoke to ferocious winds, even down in the valley. The winds were most likely much stronger up in the mountains (the wind, is also why we didn’t attempt Mt. Fuji at the beginning of the trip). It is tough to have a fun time skinning in a wind storm, so we took the bus to Nagano instead and then on continued on past Yudanaka to visit the “snow monkeys” that bathe in the hot springs.

The snow was melted out at their elevation, but we made the few kilometer hike in to visit the monkeys anyway. We had a ball taking pictures of them and the ones bathing in the hot spring were of course the most fun.

We returned to Nagano and visited the Zenko-ji temple. In Tokyo the cherry blossoms were a bit past their prime, but in the mountains at the temple they were absolutely spectacular. We had a great time taking amazing pictures of the blossoms in the evening sun.

We returned to Hakuba to find out that there had been reports of tornadoes in the valley. Probably a good call on postponing skiing.

Thursday, April 15^th

During my online research about skiing Mt. Fuji I met a Tasmanian expat who was living and skiing in Hakuba. Since there wasn’t much of a backcountry community in Japan and didn’t often have someone to ski with, he offered to take us out for a day. Along with a guy who was doing a work/travel trip at the lodge we were staying at, the four of us went out for some skiing. He drove us north to the Tsugaike National Park. We took two lifts up. From there we continued skinning up. At that elevation things were absolutely socked in and we couldn’t see more than 100 yards. It made all the difference in the world to have someone show us around his ‘backyard.’ He took us to his secret stashes and we made laps all afternoon. It had snowed the night before and we lived the dream of skiing powder amongst the birches. We were deskinning for our final ski down back to the base when the clouds finally dropped and we got a view out over the clouds, and a view of the nearby peak that we didn’t attempt to ski because of no trees to offer orientation.

The clear weather rejuvenated us and we rallied the 1000 feet up the nearby peak from there we skied a continuous descent of 4500 feet of super fun untracked snow through trees all the way back to the car. In total we climbed 4500 feet. It turned out to be our only ski day, but it was most certainly a very full and satisfying one.

Friday, April 16^th

We had originally planned on skiing at least 3 days out of Hakuba. We had also planned on skiing Mt. Fuji. According to my weather forecasts websites the weather for the weekend was finally shaping up to be halfway decent. The skiing in Hakuba was fun, but without amazing weather it wasn’t that unique. There is great skiing back home, but there isn’t Mt. Fuji.

So we decided to call Hakuba good and we caught the first train out of there to Matsumoto, just a bit further south in the mountains. We spent the afternoon there and visited the Chuo-koen castle with cherry blossoms. We then rented a car and drove to Kawaguchiko, the popular departure point for Mt. Fuji. The weather on the drive down was partly cloudy, but as we popped out of the tunnel into Kawaguchiko it was snowing. That wasn’t in my forecast!

The forecast still called for it to clear up over the weekend. Less good on Saturday, but still nice on Sunday the day we planned on summiting. We went to the information office to inquire about the bus to the 5^th station (equivalent to Paradise at Mt. Rainier.) To our dismay the road up the mountain was closed on Saturday due to the snow. Maybe it would open on Sunday. It continued to snow. I usually love snow, but that day it made us sad. Snow meant higher avalanche conditions making climbing Fuji more questionable.

We cut our losses and used the car to drive around town and look for a Ryokan, a hotel with dinner and breakfast and hot spring baths. We stuffed ourselves with all kinds of sushi and other Japanese food. We then relaxed in a private bath room with a “view” of Mt. Fuji. We soaked and watched the snow fly harder.

Saturday, April 17^th

Overnight it had snowed nearly a foot in town. Snow at these elevations was supposed to quit by this time of year. We got breakfast. From the dining room we could see out over the city. Like magic the clouds parted and we got our first view of Mt. Fuji. We only had our cell phones with us and we took pictures while eating fish for breakfast. As soon as it came, the mountain left again, not to return again for the rest of the day.

After breakfast we took a soak in the hotel bath.

The bus up the mountain was still closed due to all of the snow. We decided to try for a Sunday/Monday summit attempt. To pass the time we rented a car and drove south to the Izu peninsula. We drove nearly 10 hours straight taking in the coastal scenery. On the return trip we drove through the inland mountains and stumbled upon a spiral bridge. A sort of hyper switchback like the spirals at parking garages, but much bigger and in the mountains.

Sunday, April 18^th

We woke at 6am to bluebird skies and an amazing view of Mt. Fuji from our dormitory room (we stayed cheap our second night to compensate for the expensive first night). We busted out of the room to go take pictures of the mountain. We ended up walking around the entire Lake Kawaguchiko (with the bridge). We turned a 10 minute photo grab, into a 3 hour walk. Crossing the bridge we spotted a cherry blossom tree ablaze with morning light. Heather decided we should continue on across the bridge as there might be great pictures of blossoms and the mountain from there. She was right and she wasn’t the only one who had figured it out. There were well over a hundred other photographers in that spot. I have never seen so many fancy cameras in one place in use. It was a blast to be taking that picture with so many other people.

The combination of bluebird skies, morning light, prime cherry blossoms, and fresh snow probably happens once a year if you are lucky. And we were lucky and took pictures for hours. If we weren’t going to have luck climbing Mt. Fuji, we were certainly going to have luck photographing it.

We went back to the hotel to inquire about the bus. We planned on catching the afternoon bus, hiking in to the only all-season hut, spending the night, and waking early to make a summit attempt on Monday. The hotel informed us the bus was only running to the 4^th station today (the equivalent of Nada Falls at Mt. Rainier.) We decided to catch an earlier bus and hike in to the hut.

We showed up at the information booth and they informed us because of all the snow and lack of access, the hut was closed that night. Damn! Our plans ruined. We pared back our ambitious plans and decided to do a day ski tour from the 4^th station instead. The next bus was in 30 minutes.

We exploded all of our gear out on the sidewalk. Throwing everything into our ski backpacks. Heather ran and grabbed some snacks. We jumped on the bus with all of our gear. We spent the 40 minute ride tightening our boots, organizing our packs, putting on sun screen, and hydrating. The last bus down was at 3:30. We wanted our 4 hours on the mountain to be the best they could be.

We showed up at the 4^th station to nothing but clouds, dense trees, and a thin layer of snow. (The snow from the night before was melting quick in the spring sunshine). There was supposedly a trail from the 4^th station to the 5^th. We wandered around with our ski bag looking for it, but no luck. We contemplated just scrambling up the forested slope not knowing where we would break out into the snowfield. It was too steep and slippery and covered with downed branches to make safe progress in only a few hours. We reluctantly gave up our dream of skiing on Mt. Fuji.

We stashed our boots and skis in the forest. We walked past the road block and decided to walk up the road as far as we could with the time we had. The road was bare or covered in less than 1 inch of snow (why the hell was the road closed) so we made rapid progress.

Within 90 minutes we found access to the treeline. We scrambled up the slope for twenty minutes until we decided we were running out of time. We had an excellent vantage point of the rest of the mountain and Lake Kawaguchiko (neither of which were visible from the 4^th station). The route looked like it would have been an excellent ski, nevertheless it wouldn’t be possible without a tent and sleeping bags. We appreciated it as best as we could and rallied back to the bus.

Since we now had an extra day, we decided to take the night bus to Kyoto.

Monday April 19^th

Monday was a giant day. We were on our feet for 16 hours. We showed up in town at 6am and found out hostel. We then took the bus to the Southern Higashiyama neighborhood where we started a laundry list of site seeing. We first went to the Kiyomizu-dera temple. It was still early, so there was hardly anyone else there. From there we walked north on the Sannen-zak road to the Ninen-zaka road. We took a reading break in the Maruyama-koen park. We stopped by the Shoren-in temple, where we witnessed some sort of Buddhist proceeding. We then walked through the Heian-Jingu shrine complex.

We took a break by shopping at the Kyoto Craft Center. We then soldiered on to the Nanzen-Ji temple area. There we visited a zen garden, then we hiked into the forest up a hill behind it for a few kilometers, mostly just for kicks.

At this point we were feeling pretty beat, so we decided to relax by buying an ice cream and continuing north on the path of philosophy along the canal. Eventually, out of money and very hungry we found some dinner, then took the bus back to our hostel…

Where we found Steven! Great friend from high school as well. Who has been living in Japan for the past 4 years. Before I got a chance to go visit him, he moved back to Seattle. However, he coincidentally had a business trip in Kyoto while we were there.

He took us to a great dinner in downtown Kyoto and then we walked around for another hour while he showed us all the great people having a night on the town in Kyoto.

Tuesday, April 20^th

Like our first day, our last day was quite rainy. We started by walking through the Nishiki Food market. We continued north, looking at more markets. We eventually made it to the Kyoto Imperial Palace Park. We had a fun time having a leisure stroll and taking pictures amongst the blossoms. We then bussed back to Kiyomizu-dera temple where we started in Kyoto. This time things were much busier and the shops were open, giving a different feel. We bought another ice cream and got dinner. That night we took the bus back to Tokyo.

Wednesday, April 21th

We went to the airport and finished our trip.

2010-04-29T07:06:00.001-07:00

Part 2 of our pictures from Japan. We visited snow monkeys and cherry blossoms at their prime in Nagano. We skied in the Tsugaike National park near Hakuba. And we visited a castle in Matsumoto.

2010-04-26T22:28:00.000-07:00

I've gone through the first batch of pictures we took in Japan. The first album is Tokyo.

2010-04-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

I've been traveling a lot for work lately and Heather and I just went on a personal trip to Japan in the middle of it which got extended with a detour to Melbourne on the way home. I'm in Melbourne right now.

In the past 22 days I have completed the following itinerary. (stop over locations, such as Seoul or San Francisco are not included. Only cities that I worked in or visited are included).

Seattle ---> Berlin, Germany ---> Seattle ---> Stuttgart, Germany ---> Heidelberg, Germany ---> Frankfurt, Germany ---> Seattle ---> Tokyo, Japan ---> Nagano, Japan ---> Hakuba, Japan ---> Matsumoto, Japan ---> Izu Peninsula ---> Mt. Fuji (Kawaguchiko, Japan) ---> Kyoto, Japan ---> Tokyo, Japan ---> Melbourne, Australia ---> Seattle.

Japan was absolutely amazing. We took thousands of amazing photos. I will make it a high priority to post those over the next few days. I also have some nice pictures from Stuttgart.

2010-04-04T22:37:00.000-07:00

I updated the pictures of the Mt. St. Helens album. The last 5 pictures are new and are from the second trip to Mt. St. Helens in March.

2010-03-31T08:34:00.000-07:00

I've got a little bit of recapping to do.

On the 12th I got a haircut. I get my haircut at Nola now, by my house. I highly recommend them. They are in the old Speedy Reedy building. That weekend we went skiing at Crystal. It was quite fantastic, some freshy snow and nice weather.

The next weekend Heather and Tony and I returned to Mt. St. Helens. This time camping at the trailhead the night before. I used my excellent physical capacity to carry my skis and boots and Tony's skis the three miles and 1000 feet in to good skinnable terrain. Heather and I climbed up about 4000 feet before it got too windy to still be enjoyable. Like last time we had a fantastic ski down. I'll add some pictures to the Mt. St. Helens album when I get a chance (which probably won't be for a while.)

Last week we got Nexus Ones. OMG. It is amazing. I am in love with my phone. Phone apps are so amazing. Even simple things, which were possible on the Blackberry (like alarm and calculator) are amazing to use on the Nexus One. For example, it was possible to use calculator on the Blackberry, but I never really did because it was kind of awkward. The calculator on the Nexus One is so easy to use it is easier to use than a real calculator. I've retired my podcast iPod and now I get all my podcasts "over-the-air" on my phone. No more hooking the iPod up to the computer to sync my podcasts. I'm also considering changing my number to my Google Voice number real soon. Expect an email regarding that in the near future if you are in the "Erik's My Contacts Club."

This week I am in Berlin for work. Next week I am in Australia (or maybe Germany) for work. The week after Heather and I go to Japan. (Three continents in three weeks, WTF?) Mt. Fuji here we come.

2010-03-10T23:12:00.000-08:00

I posted pictures from Mt. St. Helens trip last weekend. I think they are quite lovely if I do say so myself. Take a gander.

My Haloscan comments were no longer working (because Haloscan shutdown) so I have enable blogger comments. Comment away!

2010-03-09T07:48:00.001-08:00

David and Adam and I made a day trip out of Mt. St. Helens last Saturday. It was the first time skiing there for all of us. The weather was fantastic and we had a grand time skinning to the top. We enjoyed the views for an hour and then had an amazing 5500 foot corn ski run all the way down. We took lots of fun pictures, which I will post to the internets some time soon.

2010-02-21T21:52:00.000-08:00

Heather and I skied to Camp Muir today on Mt. Rainier. It was sublime.

4800 feet of perfect perfect skies. We could see all the way to Mt. Hood. And the skiing down was a riot.

Although, all of my pictures are grainy and sheisty because I had my ISO set to 1600 all day. Oops.

2010-02-16T03:22:00.000-08:00

We’ve been keeping ourselves busy in February.

I’m in Australia this week. Melbourne right now and I am leaving for Brisbane in a bit.
The last week in January I did a trip to Hemer, Germany. It was 50 hours, from Wallingford to Hemer and back to Wallingford. We had to drive 3 hours each way in Germany from the Frankfurt airport to Hemer. It snowed like crazy the entire way, but the traffic moved briskly the entire time. That was fun.

The Sunday after I got back I skied the Slot Couloir at Snoqualmie with some friends. That is an amazing couloir, especially the fact that one can be standing at the top of it after only 1 hour of driving and 3 hours of climbing.

Heather and I have some ambitious ski mountaineering goals for this spring. So we have started an 8 week training program using this book. It is an excellent book and I highly recommend it.
Last weekend we practiced skinning and doing kick turns at Hyak. Formally a ski resort but now a clear-cut and empty parking lot for backcountry skiers. We were going to return last Saturday, but we figured doing a run in the rain in West Seattle would be more fun than skinning in the rain.

2010-01-30T18:22:00.000-08:00

I've finally caught up on my backlog of pictures. Pictures from Adam and Heather and I skiing in Salt Lake City.

2010-01-29T22:37:00.000-08:00

I've had a busy week. Saturday David and Heather and I headed up and over Skyline at Steven's Pass and up the mountain behind it.

Sunday I got a new commuting bicycle.

Monday and Tuesday I was in Phoenix for work.

Thursday I left for Frankfurt for work, I'll be back Saturday afternoon.

I posted some more pictures from the Alps.

The Berghof, Austrian hut.

Skiing out of Geneva Part 1 (Avoriaz, La Clusaz, Courmayeur)

Skiing out of Geneva Part 2 (Grand Montets, Brevent)

2010-01-20T22:04:00.000-08:00

I'm slowly working on posting pictures from our trip in the Alps and slightly out of order.

First up are pictures from two solo ski tours, The Portlahorn and The Schoenberg.

2010-01-10T06:49:00.000-08:00

2009 Mountain Activity Roundup.

I love mountains and I love skiing and hiking in them. This past year was the most exciting year yet. I spent 62 days in the mountains across 3 continents and 8 countries.

Backcountry Skiing

26 days, climbed 72,000 vertical feet, and covered 166 miles.
Notable trips included: Eldorado Peak, Mt. Baker, Quandary Peak, and the Rotbühelspitze.

Alpine Skiing

14 days descending 331,000 vertical feet.

Hiking/Backpacking

22 days, climbed 69,500 vertical feet, and covered 202 miles. Notable trips included: Torres del Paine, Fitz Roy, and The Brothers.

For a full summary of the year, there is a spreadsheet.

2010-01-10T06:37:00.001-08:00

Heather had an interview in Salt Lake City on Thursday. Adam had an interview on Friday. So we decided to make a fantastic ski trip.

Thursday Adam and I skied Alta. 5 inches of fresh snow + bluebird weather - snowboarders = an amazing ski day. I got some awesome pictures of Adam blowing off cliffs.

Friday, Adam had his interview, so Heather and I enjoyed ourselves at Alta. Another bluebird day, but the snow was getting cut up. We still had a number of awesome runs and discovered bottomless hot chocolate. In the evening we drank beers and ate nachos at The Porcupine.

Saturday, the entire team skied together at Snowbird. It was no longer sunny and the previously sun-exposed slopes were death crust and there were snowboarders, but we had no problem having a blast. We explored new ways to negotiate rock infested couloirs. We came back to our hotel, made some mushroom pasta before taking Adam to the airport (because he had a date with Arapaho Basin in Colorado on Sunday).

Today we had originally planned on skiing again, but the combination of marginal conditions and Adam leaving us made the prospect of having a better day nearly impossible. Rather than be let down we will see some non-skiable parts of Salt Lake City. I think we will head to Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake.

We get back to Seattle tonight, but not for long. Just enough time to unload our suitcases, reload them, sleep, and then head back to the airport. On Monday morning Heather goes to Oakland for another interview and I go to Vienna for work.

2010-01-05T10:22:00.000-08:00

I couldn't stand to be so close to the alps and not be in them. So I "stole" Chris' skis and his car. I drove to the fine country of Lichtenstein and rallied up the Schönberg (Pretty Mountain). It was a bluebird day, with 6 inches of fresh snow. The clear night created a hoar frost, which reflected brilliantly in the daylight. I got 3000 feet in, but just barely, my legs were quite tired from the 9.2 mile, 1200 vf trail run on the Gehrenberg that Chris took me on last Sunday.

Skiing in Lichtenstein was the sixth country I skied in the past 20 days. It was also the 11th day of skiing of the trip. It has most definitely been an excellent Alp ski trip.

2010-01-03T11:23:00.000-08:00

40 bottles of wine and sparkling wine, 6 ski areas, and 1 ski later...We've been doing the Alps right.

Part 1: The Bizau to the Bezau (Alp hut in Austria)

On the 19th we drove through a blizzard to Zurich to pick up Heather. Unfortunately her flight from Paris was delayed a few hours. We got her and then drove east through more blizzard to the Bregenzerwald where Chris had reserved an Alpine hut for ourselves. We arrived at the 6 person tram around 8pm, shuttled up 2000 feet, piled our gear into a sleigh and pushed it through the falling snow to our own mountainside hut. Chris' friend was already there and had Indian food cooked and ready to eat.

The Berghof hut was located in the Bregenzer Forest above the town of Bizauv(near the town of Bezau). It was heated by a giant wood fired stove. We spent for nights. Cooked fantastic food each night, drank much wine afterwards, and took lazy ski tours from our hut each day. Some even including faceshots. The weather was very interesting. The first two days it snowed and was extremely cold. About -4 F. But then during the night of 21st a Foehn Wind moved in raising the temperatures dramatically to about 65 F overnight. Consequently it melted a lot of snow.

The view from the hut was dramatic. We took plenty of pictures. I'll do them right and post the best ones in the coming weeks.

After four fantistic days, we headed back to Friedrichshafen, washed some clothes, and then drove to Wertheim to spend Christmas at Manu's Parents.

Part 2: I left a ski in Chamonix

On the 26th we drove to Geneva. We did a house exchange with a family so we had a flat to stay in. Their place was actually in France. it was so close to the border that when we parked the car, the bumper was in Switzerland while we were in France.

On the 27th the snow pack was still quite meager, so we headed to a higher area, Avoriaz in Portes du Soleil. We found some closed runs that were quite delightful. We had crepes for lunch. We made a leek tart for dinner.

On the 28th we went to La Clusaz on the otherside of the A40. It started out pretty cold and hard to see. But we found a really fun run under the Fernuy gondola. I think we did that decent 4 times. We had a very fancy (20 euro burgers) for lunch. We made chili for dinner.

On the 29th we decided to try something different, we drove through the Mt. Blanc tunnel to Italy. On the French side there was 2 inches of snow, on the Italian side we popped out to 1.5 meters of snow. We skied Courmayeur. It was my first time skiing in Italy and judging by the quantity of snow I had very high hopes, but the weather was warming up again and the snow was super duper heavy. Almost Cascade snow like. It snowed/rained all day and we still had tons of fun. We found a small hut that we jumped off about 4 times. Since we were in Italy we had spaghetti and lasagna for lunch. For dinner we made mushroom pasta.

On the 30th because the weather was still warming, we took a ski break and visited Geneva. We walked through the old town, visited the Maison Tavel museum, walked by the cathedral, walked along the river, looked for something affordable to buy for lunch, failed and shared an expensive kiesch instead. For dinner we made galette and crepes for dessert.

On the 31st we thought about going to Courmayeur again because there was so much snow there. But on the way to Chamonix it was puking snow, so we pulled over and went to Grands Montets instead. By the time we arrived at the parking lot it had already snowed over a half meter and it was still snowing like balls. Probably a meter of fresh snow by the end of the day. You couldn't breathe fast or it could be a choking hazard. We didn't get a lot of vertical because the lifts were crowded, but we skied fresh lines all day getting faceshot after faceshot. At one point my ski caught beneath a buried bush branch and it came off. It took 10 minutes of shoveling to find it, so I tightened my DINs after lunch. At lunch we had some local potato dish smothered in cheese. For dinner we went out to celebrate Sylvester. We got fondue at La Flambée in Argentiere. We went home, drank some champagne (perhaps bottle 13 of sparkling wine of the trip) and went straight to bed as our biggest day of skiing was still ahead of us.

The 1st. We hired Miles Smart a mountain guide originally from Seattle Washington. Our original goal was to do a descent from Aiguille du Midi in Chamonix. From there it is possible to ski 10,000 feet in one "run." The biggest "lift" served descent in the world. Unfortunately because it had snowed so much, the conditions were not stable enough (this time). So Miles took us to Brevent, which was closed the day before (I assume due to heavy snow fall). Because it was the 1st, things were quiet in the morning and the entire resort lay under 24 inches of fresh powder. We had a killer morning skiing first lines in couloir after couloir. We had an early lunch of onion soup and baguette sandwich.

After lunch the Brevent tram was still closed because the piste was not yet prepared. There would have been lots of interesting descents from there. Instead we booted up the Col Cornu. It was quite the effort wallowing in the deep snow. Fortunately we had hired a guide to kick steps for us. :) After making steps, he came back down and carried Heather's pack up the rest of the way. Our intention was to skin along the ridge for a while and drop down the backside and make our way to La Flégère. Unfortunately weather moved in as we were booting and it started to snow quite hard. So we dropped back down the front side. A 50 degree pitch in 36 inch snow. Could only have been better with better visibility. At the bottom of the bowl Chris and Heather were ahead of me. I cruised along the flatish traverse section. Because of the low light I couldn't see a slight roll in the terrain. I sunk real deep into the snow, my right ski disconnected and I slowly pitched forward and head planted into the snow.

I wallowed back to where I thought I lost my ski. But couldn't find it. 10 minutes later Chris, Heather, and Miles came to help me search. We probed the snow for an hour with our skis and still couldn't find it. I told them not to waste their day and to continue skiing. I took my shovel and started excavating huge trenches every 2 feet. I still couldn't find it. Around 3:40 I had to head out in order to catch the last tram down. With a heavy heart I left my recently obtained 183 cm K2 Baker Superlight ski with Fritschi Freeride binding somewhere in the bowl below Col Cornu. At least I didn't tear my ACL and at least it was a cool place to leave a souvenir.

On the 2nd instead of skiing another day, we took a scenic drive home through the Portes du Soleil. This morning I took Heather to the airport. Today and tomorrow and I am taking some down days by working remotely from Chris' place. Tuesday maybe I will steal Chris' skis and car and get one more hit of the Alps. Wednesday I fly out, but not to Seattle...

2009-12-18T11:39:00.000-08:00

Fueled by landjäger, German pretzels, and Swiss chocolate I have done a lot of back country skiing in just the past two days, 8740 vertical feet to be exact.

Yesterday Chris and I headed to the end of the Montafon Valley to Gargellen. From there we skied south, up the valley 5 miles and 4620 feet to the Rotbühelspitze, a 9360 foot peak on the Austrian Swiss border.

It was really cold the entire way, it was the first time I ski toured with all my jackets on and a backlava and didn't overheat. We estimated it was -10 Fahrenheit at the top. Most of the tour was below the cloud deck, but in the last 500 feet we broke through the clouds. It felt like we were in heaven. In fact, there was even a sign saying something to that effect. If you can't read German, the sign says "Look at the works of God."

We then skied down. Here is my favorite picture of me skiing.

Here are the rest of the pictures Chris took yesterday.

Today I did a solo tour to the Portlahorn near Damüls in the Bregenzerwald. It was a shorter tour of only 1300 feet, but it was a face of untracked powder, so I did it three times.

Tomorrow we pick up Heather in Zurich and then head to a mountain hut back in the Bregenzerwald.

2009-12-15T12:46:00.000-08:00

Adam and I tackled a winter ascent (during winter weather) of Granite mountain on Sunday. The snow was so stable that we were able to boot straight up the avalanche gully. That is one amazingly long sustained slope.

The ski down was somewhere between horrendous and terrible. Ice breakable crust, death cookie, scrapefest. As long as the day is safe, I always have fun.

I'm now on my way to Germany for work, which will roll into a week in a hut in the Austrian mountains, then a week in Geneva where we will ski France and Switzerland,then a few more days of work in Germany, and then straight to Utah for four days (I hear that there are mountains covered in pixie dust there).

As always, I'll take a few pictures. Cheers!

2009-12-04T18:10:00.000-08:00

Perusing the trip reports on Turns All Year this week, I came across this one. The author claims his trip to Vesper Peak was the best ski tour of his life. The weather was looking cloudy for this weekend and the weather on Thursday was looking stellar. Additionally Vesper Peak is difficult to time between avalanche conditions and road access. The stars were aligned so I skipped work and headed to Vesper Peak with Dave.

You may remember Vesper Peak from this previous blog post of mine.

We had a fantastic day. Stupendous views (we could even see Seattle) and fun skiing. We still had energy once we reached the top, so we skied off the west side a bit. In all it was a 5500 vf day. Here are the pictures I took.

2009-12-01T22:29:00.000-08:00

The Sunday before last I had my first inbounds ski day of the year. We went to Steven's, where the air was cold and the snow was deep and light. We had a fantastic day, faceshot after faceshot.

Last week Heather and I went to Colorado for the Thanksgiving weekend. Wednesday was my birthday. To celebrate, Heather and I did a ski tour on Quandary Peak, one of the 14,000 peaks in Colorado. While the weather was great and the avalanche danger was low, so to was the snow depth. Only 8 inches in the deep parts.

We had a great time skinning up, until the wind got too intense, so we turned around at 13,000 feet. Turns out it is possible to skin in two inches of snow, but not possible to ski in it. We tore the heck out of our bases. But that is still cheaper than one ski ticket at Vail.

Here are the pictures from the day.

2009-11-16T16:25:00.000-08:00

Early November is an awkward time. No holidays yet, too rainy to go hiking, not snowy enough to go skiing.

Two weeks ago I was in San Francisco a few days for a conference. I was quite busy, but I did have time to go for a few runs. It is hot there.

The weekend after Heather and I witnessed Ghostland Observatory for the 8th time. This time they had four LASERS. The next morning, Heather and David and I went to Steven's Pass to start our ski season. On the Thursday before, there was no snow, by Sunday there was well over 30 inches. We had a ball.

Yesterday it was another rainy day, so I tried installing Windows 7. There is some sort of graphics card driver conflict, so my monitor is displaying two screwed up versions of the desktop. I have been attempting to fix it using the "bang head against the wall" method.

2009-10-28T20:24:00.000-07:00

I was in Boston earlier this week for a few days for work. It was my first time there, but I didn't have any time to see anything of note. I had about an hour to myself and I used it to go for a run, which included a loop around the Chestnut Hill Reservoir. I'm going to San Diego next week for 4 days, I should have a bit more time there.

The last few weekends I went for fall leaves hikes, with Tony to Ingalls Lake on the 17th (tamaracks! tamaracks! tamaracks! and larches!) and last Saturday Heather, David, and Megan went to Merritt Lake and Nason Ridge. Followed by an amazing home cooked pizza at our place (bacon, apples, and goat cheese).

Here are pictures from the last two hikes.

2009-10-13T22:38:00.000-07:00

I posted pictures from Hidden Lake Peak. New snow, blue skies, mountains.

2009-10-12T13:43:00.000-07:00

SNOW!

I went and visited winter yesterday. We hiked to Hidden Lake Peak and traipsed through 1+ ft of snow most of the afternoon. Views were mind-blowing. Will of course post pictures shortly.

2009-09-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

I am in Berlin today, the first of many many trips to Germany/Austria over the next 6 months. I am only here for 36 hours however. I did have time to do a run past the Victory Tower, The Brandenburg Gate, and Museum Island. I'm bushed, I'm off to bed.

2009-09-17T23:46:00.000-07:00

I went through my pictures from the trip up The Brothers and posted the best to Picasa. It was a 17 hour, 7000 foot, 21 mile trip to Heaven.

2009-09-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

I had a long weekend in the mountains. On Saturday I went to Lake Lillian and Mount Margaret. On Sunday, David and I hiked through the Valley of Silent Men and camped at the base of The Brothers. On Monday, David and I summited The Brothers. We were high above the clouds and could see all the way to Mt. Rainier. It was absolutely fantastic. It felt like being in heaven. I will try to post pictures on Thursday.

All in all this weekend I covered over 30 miles and gained and descended over 10,000 feet.

2009-09-09T22:01:00.001-07:00

Two weekends ago Heather and I drove to Lake Tahoe. Tom was marrying Lauren and we were there to witness it. It was a lovely wedding with good food, scenery, and great friends. We ended up spending more time in the car than in Tahoe, but it was a fun drive. I hadn't seen Heather for a week since she had been in San Diego. We caught up and listened to Sherlock Holmes dramatizations.

Last weekend was a full on stormy weekend so no mountain activities for me. On Saturday I visited some parents. On Sunday and Monday our NY friend Aaron was in town and we played host.

My mother has a new real estate agent web site: ComeHomeToKitsap.com If you are thinking about buying a home in Kitsap, visit her site.

2009-08-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

2009-08-23T17:31:00.001-07:00

Wow. All I can say is wow. I just got back from a backpacking trip to Robin Lakes. Sunsets, mountain goats, shooting stars, and alpine lakes. I couldn't ask for more.

2009-08-19T23:45:00.000-07:00

In your twenties, August is wedding month. First we had Megan's wedding and last weekend was Tom's bachelor party in the woods. We found an excellent camp site in the Foss River valley. We had miles of forest to ourselves where we could yell as loud as we wanted. I've posted pictures here.

2009-08-05T08:51:00.000-07:00

Other than enduring record heat, I found time for a few hikety hikes. Here are pictures from a hike to Lake Ann and another hike to Van Trump Park.

2009-07-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

We hiked to Spray Park last Saturday. The sun was out and the flowers were out and I got some cool pictures.

2009-07-17T09:20:00.001-07:00

I had a chance to upload pictures from David and my ski trip to the top of Mt. Baker.

2009-07-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

Viva la Vida

Last weekend was quite the action packed weekend. Friday we drove to the Gorge with David and Megan and made some buffalo burritos. But that is not all we did, we drank some beers, spent the night, and then spent Saturday in the sunshine playing lawn games such as croquet and volleyball. In the evening we went to see Coldplay. It was my 9th time. It was very different from my first time. A Coldplay concert is much more of a show now than a band playing its songs, but nevertheless it was highly enjoyable. I especially liked how they left the main stage and played a number of acoustic songs, like them good ol' days. The cover of Billy Jean was intriguing.

We spent Saturday night and then (skipping a few minor details) we drove back to the west side where we celebrated Heather's birthday at Beaverlake. The weather wasn't like Saturday at all, but at least it didn't rain. Tom learned how to aquaskip, we ate chicken, spent time in the hot tub, made smores, and ate the great rasberry cake that Megan made.

I had a chance to go through the hundreds of pictures from Hawaii and finally uploaded them. A lot of them are not up to my usual standard because we had the camera on the wrong ISO setting for a long time. Nevertheless, I still think there are some good ones.

2009-07-08T08:47:00.000-07:00

I had an action packed double weekend. Friday we spent the day at Joan's with just a few friends enjoying the sun and swimming and aquaskipping. I tried all last summer to get the hang of it and I finally figured it out. Here is a video. Riding it kind of reminds me of the "It" from South Park. Watch this video for instructions on how to ride the "It" and/or the Aquaskipper.

Saturday we had friends over for sausages and beer at our place. We took a break and flew kites at the park. After fantastic bullfrogs with real lemons, we went outside to watch the fireworks. We then had some berry cobler and then stumbled train-like down to Fremont. We were late enough to get into the Ballroom cover free and we danced until closing.

David Johnson and I have been thinking about skiing Mt. Baker for most of the year. We've been piecing together the gear for glacier travel all year and practicing at Gas Works park. This weekend was the only time we could coordinate our schedules. So Sunday afternoon we drove to the south side of Mt. Baker. We hiked in 3 miles before starting skinning on the Easton Glacier. I accidentally brought my old skins. I threw a little fit, but then found a way to jerry rig them with zip ties to make them work. We camped at about 5800 feet. The weather was actually quite good on Sunday and we could see the San Jauns and the Olympics as the sun set.

We woke at 5 am on Monday to socked in weather. Fortunately there was enough of a boot path that we could navigate to the top. We did make it to the top, but with no views. We skied down as far as we could and it rained the entire way out. We had tons of fun and 16 miles and 8000 vertical feet was a perfect way to work off all the beers we drank during the first half of the weekend.

2009-07-01T17:48:00.000-07:00

Heather and I spent a week bumming around the Hawaii Big Island in a rented VW bus. It was a great way to celebrate Heather completing 3rd year of medical school. We started out in the southeast corner hanging out on some hidden beaches, hiking around the volcano, and viewing lava. In the middle of the trip we explored the SW corner and laid on beaches north of Kona. In the end of the trip we did some hiking around the valleys at the north end. We of course took lots of pictures. I have a busy weekend planned, so I doubt I will go through them any time soon.

2009-06-15T16:46:00.000-07:00

I went up to Chinook Pass yesterday for a day of skiing. Maybe the only sunny place in western Washington. After skiing one particular 1500 foot run, I took off my pack to put my skins back on and realized I only had one. I didn't clip it to my bag properly and it must have fallen off at the top. Damn. So I had to boot pack all the way back up to retrieve my skin.

2009-06-11T21:01:00.001-07:00

Last weekend Heather and I went along with David and Megan to San Francisco and we lived it up. We had some good food and drinks, walked a lot around the town, and went to the San Francisco Academy of the Sciences. There is some crazy stuff in there. I took a few pictures of San Francisco, and posted them here.

2009-06-01T13:28:00.000-07:00

Saturday Heather and ski toured out of Chinook Pass. We climbed a peak (I couldn't figure out its name) east of Naches Peak. Brilliant views from the top. We could see all the way to Mt. Hood. The trip wasn't quite epic enough to warrant an entire album, but maybe I will try to post a few of them. We took a really cool panorama.

I also accidentally threw my pole off a cliff on the back side of the mountain. Heather got a cool picture of my skiing back from retrieving it.

2009-05-25T21:55:00.000-07:00

Another weekend another amazing trip in the North Cascades. This time it was Heather, David, Adam and I. We skied into Maple Pass from Rainy Pass. Set up camp and skied a few lines. As the sun set we ate and partied. In the morning we skied some more. I can't really imagine a better way to spend the weekend. Pictures are in my Picasa Web Album.

2009-05-18T17:14:00.001-07:00

Last fall I saw Eldorado Peak for the first time and decided that I would ski there some day. This weekend my friend Adam and I had the weekend reserved for a skiing adventure. We decided Eldorado Peak was the best place to go. It was quite a bit of work to make it the nearly 7000 feet to the top, especially the first 2000 feet hiking through steep forest with no real trail. But it was absolutely beautiful up on the glacier and we had excellent weather to boot. Here are the pictures.

2009-05-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

Heather will be out of town for a bachelorette party, so I have got my adventure planned. Adam and I are going to spend the weekend on Eldorado Peak. (the mountain above David's head in this picture) The trip will require over 7000 feet of vertical gain, which is more than is required for many routes on Adams and Baker. I'll be taking my new skis :D

2009-05-03T20:22:00.000-07:00

I am annoyed that Picasa Web Albums doesn't have nested folders, so I reorganized my photos page to be in nested tables. I wanted the table to be collapsible, but the built in Frontpage feature doesn't work. Does anyone have a suggestion of how to do collapsible tables?

2009-05-03T15:41:00.001-07:00

Stupid weather pulled a fast one on us. It is great weather, opposite of forecast. So instead of skiing, I bought new skis.

2009-05-02T19:17:00.000-07:00

I had plans to do a ski tour at Snoqualmie Pass. Perhaps another attempt at Kaleetan Peak. But, it is raining too much making it too unstable and too miserable, so we have canceled. Maybe I will go shopping at REI instead.

2009-04-27T23:21:00.000-07:00

I uploaded pictures from Cascade Pass last weekend.

2009-04-26T22:44:00.000-07:00

David and David and I spent the weekend skiing the Cascade Pass area, one of my favorite places in the state. It required a 3 mile hike just to get to the trailhead. Part of it had to cross a massive avalanche with granite and trees that had crossed the road, I don't imagine Cascade River Road will open any time soon. We had our sights set on skinning all the way up the Sahale Arm (click here for pictures from last fall) and maybe summiting Sunday morning, but the weather on Saturday really was not ideal. It was thick clouds and snowing all day. We made it about a 1000 feet up the arm from the pass, navigating from tree island to tree island in the dense fog before turning back and camping at the pass.

We thought about making a summit attempt at 530 Sunday morning, but it was as cloudy as ever. So we slept two more hours instead. While eating breakfast a few sun breaks appeared. We decided to climb up the southern arm from the pass towards Johannesburg Peak instead. As we went the weather cleared completely up. I had a good hour where I took some phenomenal pictures. We then skied down into the Stehikin Basin before going up to the pass and skiing back down to the Cascade Pass trailhead. We decided to forgo crossing the avalanche debris by skiing around. This required some bushwhacking and stream crossing, we weren't quite sure if was worth the effort.

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. A two hour weather window making all the effort worthwhile. (David thought it was harder than our Mt. Hood trip last summer).

2009-04-24T12:22:00.000-07:00

I'm doing it, I am going to switch to Picasa to host my pictures, rather than self hosting them with the Coppermine software. Picasa is just too slick and easy to use in comparison. And it has really nice geotagging, which I am a sucker for.

Pros:
- Big picture format
- Geotagging
- Easy to use
- Always adding new features
- Super easy face tagging

Cons:
- Can't customize layout
- Hard to incorporate into my webpage
- Can't do nested folders

I geotagged all of the Patagonia pictures. So if you go to my Picasa album, click on an album, and then in the bottom right corner click "view map" and you can see the pictures on a map where they were taken. This link might take you directly a map.

Oh, and you can comment now on the pictures. So comment away.

Heather and I also went to a concert last night for the first time in a few months, Leonard Cohen. It is his first tour in 15 years. He was 60 then, and is 75 now. It was an amazing show, and over 3 hours long. I thought it was most amusing when he would jog onto stage.

2009-04-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

I've done it! I have gone through all of the pictures Heather and I took. I narrowed nearly 2000 pictures down to just 158.

We spent two days trekking in Fitz Roy. It was spectacular. Great weather, crazy fall leaves, and amazing mountains. I would come back to Fitz Roy before Torres del Paine for sure. The pictures can be found here. I also made another map of our trek, which can be found here.

I also cross posted the pictures in Picasa. I'm thinking about moving all my pictures to Picasa. What do you think?

I went skiing in bounds for the last time this season on Saturday. Three trips to the south back and some nice sunshine on my face.

2009-04-21T21:41:00.001-07:00

The second to last set of pictures. Days 3 through 5 of our trek through Torres del Paine. Here is a map of our route.

2009-04-16T19:39:00.001-07:00

Another round of pictures. This one is from day 1 and 2 of our 5 day trek in the Torres del Paine National Park. Here is a map of our route so you can see where the pictures were taken.

For most of our time we had high clouds. It certainly could have been worse, low clouds blocking all views or rain making this wet. Instead we just got glimpse views mostly of the mountains rather than unobstructed views. Torres del Paine is notorious for its wind. We actually had very calm weather the first three days and the fifth day. The fourth day the area lived up to its reputation.

2009-04-15T22:47:00.000-07:00

I've uploaded another album of pictures. This time of the Perito Moreno Glacier. (Map, Wiki) Even though we only spent an afternoon there, I thought it was so amazing that I made an entire album for it. It is definitely one of the coolest things in all of S. America.

Our camera is so much fun that Heather has gotten good with it as well. So from now on many of the pictures in the albums have been taken by her as well. It is too hard to remember who takes which pictures.

2009-04-14T23:06:00.000-07:00

Since there are so many pictures, I am going to have to upload them in multiple albums. The first is Buenos Aires.