06.15.08 McClellan Butte

started out the day by stopping by REI to swap-out the poles that broke a couple weeks ago. turned out to be a good thing since poles were pretty crucial for this hike. there weren't too many cars at the trail head so that was good. made it a few miles but snow hid the trail near the top. i'd never been on this trail before so it was slow going after the trail disppeared. after a few stops to verify that i was heading in the right direction (using map/compass/gps) i made it to the top. the snow caused a few impromptu glissades (i.e. falling on your ass and sliding down hill), but poles and quick feet kept it from getting too dangerous. found a mylar balloon at about 4500 feet. there isn't much that pisses me off more than trash in the mountains. this has damn near gotten me into fights at ski 'hills' before when yahoos are chuckin beer bottles and cans off of lifts or on the side of trails. grrr. anyways, here are some more purrdy photos of mountains and a pic of the balloon that i dragged back to seattle. oh, yeah McClellan Butte is just off I-90 so you can see that in a few of the pics.

damn near a week ago (6.12.08)

Last thursday I had a drilling job in North Bend (aka the place we always get nachos) so after we were done I took advantage of my proximity to the mountains and headed up for a hike. After checking out snow levels at Snoqualmie pass, I headed back east and hiked Granite Mtn. With the weird weather we've been having out here I was pretty stoked that it was blue bird up there. Only saw two groups of people out there in the 4 hours I was up there, so that was nice. There's still a lot of snow near the top and it would've been nice to have some poles. Oh yeah, I saw some critters on this trip and got close enough to get some good pics! Wasn't sure what the birds were at first but after reviewing Hoen's bird encyclopedia, I'm leaning toward blue grouse rather than ptarmigan. Feel free to correct me. As always, click on the pics to get a better/closer view.

City Fishin' 6.07.08

that's right, i got 2 trucks. woot.

It's early June and we're still getting snow out here. Well at least at the higher elevations in the mountains. With up to 18 inches of new snow up high I was tempted to head to Rainier this past weekend for a splitboard session, but nuts to that it was the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife FREE FISH WEEKEND and Topher was willing to show me the ropes. Problem is Topher's knowledge of the 'ropes' is limited to MN, WI, and boundary waters fishin' and, well, i don't know sh*t about fishing. For those not in know, 'free fish weekend' means you don't need a license to fish in the state (freshwater, saltwater, or shellfish) but you still gots to abide by the state rules/limits. Lucky for me, Topher's got some extra gear and was willing to share it with me. We started out putting the canoe in on Lake Washington near the arboretum by Hwy 520 which is pretty shallow and full of weeds, herons, beavers, turtles, and apparently no stinking fish. I guess our major problem was we didn't know what kind of fish were in the area or what kind of bait/lures would work. We probably annoyed a bunch of rich people as we tried to catch fish that might be hiding underneath their fancy boats and docks. I did manage to hook some fancy lookin' kids raft with my lure and had to board the dock it was sitting on to get Topher's lure back. We paddled out to Madison Park, 'docked' the canoe at a public beach and got beers and pastrammy(sic) sandwiches at a nearby market. Madison Park is a pretty uppidy-rich Seattle neighborhood and we got some weird looks even though we weren't too smelly for wannabe fishermen. On our Lake Washington adventure we managed to catch a bunch of weeds , stick-bass, and lily pads. I don't think we even got a bite. We did see a ton of minnows that thought it was funny to jump out of the water all around the canoe though.

In a effort to redeem ourselves, we went to a dock on the Puget Sound (saltwater) near Golden Gardens. Too bad it was low tide and some 15 year old laughed at us because we didn't know what we were doing. To Topher's credit, I guess he did 'land' a piece of sea anenome (sp?) by accident.

It's cool though. I'm kinda excited to try more fishing this summer, especially after I learn a bit about the sport. I think this weekend was the first time I've gone fishing since grade school. I don' t know if it's because I'm getting older, because I like getting away from 'people', because beer was involved, or a combination of all three but I can see myself getting into this.

Last Weekend (5.31-6.01)

So I'm a procrastinator. Always have been, always will be. That being said, here's what happened last weekend (edit: i started this post last week and now i'm finally finishing it so now it's 2 weekends ago. Get ready for a bunch of random stuff crammed into a couple paragraphs. Here we go.):

Lindsay and I started off on an Olympic Penninsula adventure at 6am on Saturday. We hit up Diva Espresso on the way to the Edmonds/Kingston ferry. There was this dude working there who was MEGA chipper which was kinda weird but not too annoying. Made it to the 7:10 ferry, parked the car, and headed to the 'ferry food court'. Despite my recent gut probelems, I managed to slip and get a soft pretzel w/nacho cheese and a diet Monster energy drink. Good breakfast. Anyway, we got to Port Angeles (PA) in time to hit my favorite Goodwill just as they were opening. I got two sweet new shirts. Lindsay likes Candlebox, a lot. From PA we headed 17 miles south to Hurricane Ridge. This was the first time I've been to Hurrincane Ridge and HOLY CRAP, that place is purrdy. There was still a bunch of snow up at the visitor's center and some dudes were hiking up and snowboarding down. We attempted to do a hike that Lindsay read in one of her hippie books. Problem was the 6 mile road to the trailhead was still covered in snow, so we decided to hike the road instead. Early on I managed to break one of my REI hiking poles and got kinda pissy about it but we treked on. It turned out to be a pretty rad hike along a ridgeline and we didn't see another soul. The weather was pretty nice and I decided to try and get some sun without putting on sunscreen. Well, let's just say i've been peeling dead skin off the last couple days and i've got a sweet backpack strap tan. Anyways, we hiked out a ways, made some coffee, enjoyed the views, and headed back.

Drove back to PA and headed out toward the coast to find a place to camp. On our way west, we stopped at the Hungry Bear restaraunt for dinner. Pounded some Rainer beers and Alaskan Ambers with our greasy burgers (this place serves a 1lb. burger called the hungry bear but we didn't step to that this time). The food was ok and we were ready to get the check and bounce when the old lady waitress asked us if we were intersted in some homemade pie. Lindsay immediately said 'no' but i was interested and inquired what kinds of pies that had. The waitress rattled off about 5 different kinds before she got to the one i'd been waiting to hear "Cherry!" So hells yeah, i ordered a slice ala mode and began to build a fortress out of empty beer bottles and water glasses to protect my slice forthcoming pie from potential fork attacks by Lindsay. When the pie arrived at our table, let's just say the waitress, who turned out to own the place, was less than impressed with my anti-pie sharing beer fortress and threatended to turn me in to her husband (who was sitting at the table next to us) for not sharing. Damn. I don't know if it was the sunburn, alcohol, or what, but man the pie was good. From the Hungry Bear we headed west to La Push, a little town on the coast. I think i promised not to tell about this but hot rod lindsay managed to get pulled over about a second after entering the town. Don't worry though, the southern charm got her off with just a warning. After being spooked by the Law, she was nervous about camping on the beach for fears that her car would be recognized by the cops so we went to some pay camp spot on 'Mora?' beach, i think.

Woke up the next morning and checked out second beach at La Push. Tide was low and there wasn't any swell, so no surfing to be had there. Walked the beach for a ways and decidedt to bail on our original plan of going to Westport to surf. Got some pizza in Forks and started to backtrack to Seattle.

Pictures!

Crappy breakfast

Hurricane Ridge

Pie!

Linsay put me in tree jail for constantly making fun of hippies. Side mirror photo taken while screaming by Crescent Lake (this is the 4th attempt to take a decent pic).

La Push and death logs.

Memorial Weekend

Ok, so I went 'back east' for Memorial Day weekend. The purpose of the trip was two-fold, hang out with my parents and go to a wedding in Madison. For some reason i didn't take any photos on this trip except for some pretty crappy ones at the wedding. I kinda hurt my knee at work a few weeks back and even though i've been hiking and snowboarding on it, it has been pretty sore. That being said, a lazy stay at home was good for my knee to recover. The only problem is resting my knee (i.e. being lazy) compounded by all the Mt. Dew, beer, pizza, steak, and other delicious stuff got my pants a little snug. I even ate several chicken breasts stuffed with bacon and 3 cheeses! Seriously, it was like a taco where the chicken breast was the shell, the rest of it was crammed in and it took 2 pieces of twine to keep it all tucked in. F-ing awesome, Wisconsin rules and Mom rules for finding/cooking such a glorious thing. Hung out with some friends that I haven't seen in a while. Umm, I'm sure there's more stuff that I could mention but it's been over a week since this all went down and I can't think of nuttin' now. Plus there's some hockey game distracting me.

Wedding: 2 people I know from college got married in Madison. They live in San Fran and most of their freinds live out of state now so it was like a SUPER REUNION. The ceremony was at the Overture Cetner rootop garden or something like that and the reception was at the Orpheum. They are across the street from each other. Good planning dudes! VIVA ZZA and McKZA. No more typing, here are pics. (1) Leif Mackin (2) Orpheum, duh (3)Nels goonin' (4) Me and Angie (5)The 2 in the middle got married

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