Heliotrope Ridge - Amazing.

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Went on another hike yesterday, to Heliotrope Ridge. The hike takes you all the way to the edge of the Coleman Glacier, which leads right up to the summit of Baker. It was a cloudy morning and the time we spent at the glacier overlook was foggy and cloudy. The glacier is AMAZING - you are literally right on top of it. There were a bunch of guys practicing there skills in the crevasses; ice axe, crampons, ropes, the whole bit. It looked very unsettling and dangerous...being on the glacier, that is. It was also awe-inspiring; reminded me of Superman's home. However, we decided to backtrack 1/2 a mile and take a turn up the climbers route; this is the route that those who wish to summit Baker take.

The climbers route added another couple of miles, and another 1000' of elevation gain, but as you can see, it was worth it, as the clouds finally gave way to some sunshine. My two companions, Julie, and my sister-in-law Nicki, did great on this hike as they made it up almost all the way. The last little bit got really hairy so I left them below and climbed up to the 1st camp. From what I can tell, there are two camps you can make on your summit bid; this lower camp which is at the 6000' level, and a higher camp much higher up. There were a bunch of guys setting up tents to make there early morning summit bid. I have to confess, there was a big part of my heart that wanted to join them...that may be coming one day.

Before we made our way down, Julie thought it would be fun to shrink me to miniature size. Thankfully, she didn't leave me in that state.

AUS Day 7: Botanic Gardens, Hike

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Day 7 was our photo-shoot in the Botanic Gardens,(jump straight to the pictures here). For those who like lots of color and cool plants, and who have a affinity for photographer, it was a dream. Plus, it was drizzling off an on which made the many colorful plants "pop out" even more (I've heard of some professional photographers who carry a squirt bottle with them to simulate rain/dew). The Gardens tour was just me and Julie, Dad and Traci. The highlight was a jade/green plant, a color that is extremely rare in plant life. Besides that, I'll let the pictures do the talking; CLICK HERE!


Following the Garden, David, Traci, Julie and I went on a "hike/walk." It was supposed to be a hike that started on a road and led into a trail that ended at a waterfall. Alas, we never got off the road, never found a trail and never got to a waterfall. Still, it was pretty amazing to get out and "up" high into the rainforest. Didn't get any cool pictures, although I did put a couple up anyways. That evening we were back downtown at the night-market and looking at cool birds.

Two Great Hikes

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First, two reminders: 1) you can click on any picture to see it bigger, 2) when you click on any picture it will take you to the album where you can see all the pictures from this album. Or you can just click here to go to the album.

Julie and I spent our labor day weekend up in the mountains. Hike #1 was to Table Mountain. We left Sunday at 3:45 PM with the idea of catching a sunset up on the top of Table Mountain, from which you have an amazing view (and yes, Table Mtn. is the same place I recently built a memorial for my Mom). Problem was, the weather didn't quite cooperate. As the weather forecasters promised, it was unseasonably cold, windy, drizzly and very cloudy. It was fun in a way, being up there in the clouds as they whipped by; but it was cold and the mountains were hidden the whole time we were up there. Still, as we made it back to the car at 8:00, some of the clouds around the parking area revealed a setting sun...it was beautiful.

Hike #2 was to Skyline Divide. This hike is 3.5 miles to a beautiful wildflower meadow at 5900 feet. After we got to the meadow we laid out in the sun, er, uh, fog/clouds for awhile; and then decided to continue on to a nearby summit. The trek to the summit was worth it (summit at about 6500 feet) as we got away from all the other hikers, and there were many, and found some peace and quiet on top of a mountain. Mt. Baker made some "peek-a-boo" views through the clouds, fog and mist. Still, as you can see from the pictures, this hike was much more pleasant as the sun did come out a bit to keep us warm.


Some highlights from the hikes: the amazing wildflowers, the sunset on Sunday, and this really cool fossil that Julie found. The fossil appears to be a clam or some kind of shellfish - and yes, this was at about 6000-6100' up. The ranger station confirms that these fossils can be found...I don't know how Julie found it. Amazing. Click on the picture to see it a bit larger.



Also, check out these two: what a difference a day makes, eh? Click here to see the whole album.

AUS day 6: Beach Day

Day 6 was to be our 2nd beach day of the trip. The day started sunny and beautiful and we started by splitting up our group; Julie, David and I taking the nephews to a park while the rest of the troop ran some errands in town. The park group had fun playing baseball, kicking field-goals and going for walks, all while anticipating an afternoon in the water. Click here to go directly to the pictures of this day.

Lunch came and went and we made it to the beach. Not exactly a hot day, we nevertheless spent a bulk of our time in the water. Highlights were:
- burying Andrew in the sand
- burying all three boys in the sand
- throwing the football around
- body surfing
- baby Gecko
- the signs at the beach warning of all kinds of terrible things that could happen to you (it was, thankfully, the "off-season" for the jellies).

After the beach I believe we ended up downtown for dinner again.

Another special memory for Julie was her walk with Kyle that morning. While David, Me, Nathan and Andrew were playing ball, Julie and Kyle took off for a nice long walk together (no pictures).

Again, to see all the pictures, click here.

Remembering Mom

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of my Mom's passing. It was a bit of an emotional day. To mark it, I had a chance to spend the afternoon/evening up in the mountains, a place my Mom loved to be. It felt good for me to make a little memorial for her. The two pictures are the same memorial; one with Mt. Shuksan in the background, the other with Mt. Baker in the background. The following is in memory of her. Click on each photo to see it full size. Click here to see more pictures from table mountain.

AUS day 5: Port Douglas, Mossman Gorge

Day 5 involved a lot of driving. The day started with some noisy Cockatoo's and ended with a rushed/late dinner at Hungry Jack's (Burger King). Click here to see all the pictures I uploaded, and/or read on to hear more about the day.

The morning was beautiful and I started by heading down to the dock. After getting back, a big flock of cockatoo's decided to hang out right above our place. They were fun to watch and I ended up shooting a bunch of pictures of them.

Following our morning we jumped in the car and headed out to Port Douglas. We ended up eating lunch in Port Douglas and visiting the place where Mom/Grammi lost her cane many years ago. This turned out to be a little bit of an emotional time for many of us, but after that we jumped back in the car and headed out to Mossman Gorge to do a short hike through the rain-forest.

Mossman Gorge was beautiful, although I was constantly reminded that we were seeing it in "dry season" where there was very little water. Still, highlights from this hike were seeing the huge trees, (the bigger ones are fig trees I believe) and other plant life in the forest. Our group split up a bit at the Gorge with some of us doing a 2 mile loop hike, and others going to a shorter loop by the river. Unfortunately, those who thought they were doing a shorter loop found out that at the very end, the path was blocked and they had to go back the way they came.

The ride home featured a rushed stop in Port Douglas to try and find dinner (unsuccessful for most, except Julie who managed to get a great little pizza), followed by a late-night Hungry Jack's stop. A fun day, albeit a long one...







Again, click here for all the pictures.

North Twin Sister

So my and my three brother-in-law's made an attempt on the North Twin Sister. Alas, we got close, but not all the way to the top. Still, it was a fun day, if not a grueling one...

Getting to the trail-head requires a bike ride of 6 miles, gaining about 2500-3000' of elevation. Unless, of course, you take a wrong turn on the logging roads (which we did), in which case it's a 7.5 mile bike ride...and that just got us to the trailhead. Needless to say, I was gassed. Once there, it's a fairly easy hike to get to the ridge, which leads to the summit.



So how far did we get? We got up on the ridge and followed that a ways before mercilessly stopping...we got about this far (see image below); although one of us, Derrick, charged ahead and made it very close to the summit.



Will I do it again? Already the memory of the grueling bike ride has faded and the desire to reach the top is growing...we'll see. Scroll down for a few more pictures;

AUS day 4: Kuranda

Day 4 was our Kuranda day. We broke up into two groups to start the day; the skyrail group (me, Julie, Terri and the boys) and the van group (Dave, Scott, Traci and Dad). As usual, click here to see all the pictures.



The skyrail ride was very cool and very scenic. You literally go over the rain-forest. We were able to get out at two different points and look around. The first stop was at a rain-forest boardwalk which was nice, but the second walk was even better, stopping at Barron Falls. This water-fall is amazing in the wet season...unfortunately, we were there during dry season.


However you can check out the video below of Barron Falls (the transformation from dry season to wet season is amazing).



Kuranda itself is a great place to spend the day to do some shopping and eating; which is exactly what we did. The day was unfortunately remembered for Nathan's arm injury. He got hurt pretty bad towards the end of the day but after a doctors visit and some prayers, he ended up being just fine in the end. The other bummer was the hat I found that I ended up not buying...still regret that to this day. Also in Kuranda, the three girls got matching purses (they are really cool).


After our day in Kuranda we made a mad dash home and ended up dropping Kyle, Andrew, Dad, Dave and Traci, while Julie and I accompanied Scott, Terri and Nate to the E.R. (Julie and I tagged along so we could get dropped off downtown while Nate was getting checked out). It was during this time that the bird pictures were taken - I'll admit, this is not my best photography work...I had some problems getting my ISO set right, etc. However, still a nice evening. And then, after Nate got the green light from the ER, we had to go to the Night Market to celebrate with some McDonalds and a crepe. Click here to see all the pictures

Camping: Icicle Creek, Leavenworth

Just got back from an overnight camping trip to Icicle Creek in Leavenworth...went with Julie's brother and his wife, Dave and Kathryn. We were originally intending to do a 3 day back-pack trip to Hannegan Peak but due to an unusually high amount of snow still on the upper slopes, we were forced to change plans (and save a valuable vacation day). Nevertheless, we had a blast! To see all the pictures I've posted, click here.


We car-camped and spent the night at a campground along the icicle creek area. We ate well and had a great evening, followed by a beautiful day hike to the Lake Colchuk area; (this is the beginning of the trail to the Enchantments). On the way home, Julie spotted a black bear off the side of the highway just hanging out!

Summer Hiking...

Before I move on to the next Australia post, I must take some time to blog about our recent hikes...in order, Alger Alp, Goat Mountain and Sauk Mountain. To skip the writing and go straight to the pictures, click here.



Alger Alp was a short and rather "boring" hike. It ascends to the top of a big hill in the town of Alger. Towards the top you do get a nice view of Baker and from the top you get a view West towards the islands; however, the hike is entirely on a logging road and once on top the Chukanuts partially block your view west. Perhaps we are "snobs" now but it's hard to do a hike like this when so many other, better hikes loom so close. Hikes like...



Goat Mountain: this is probably one of the toughest hikes we do as it is about 4 miles long and ascends about 3000 vertical feet (according to my handy altimeter). However, once on top the views are worth it as it offers about 250 degree panorama. The only downer to this hike is you do have about 2 1/2 miles of switchbacks through a forest before you get to the really good views. And once you read the next hike, you may not want to hike Goat Mtn...








Sauk Mtn. Julie and I did this hike with a couple of friends of ours, Dan and Bill. It takes a bit to get there (about 1 hour 20 minutes) but is worth the drive. This was our first hike off of highway 20 (North Cascades Hwy) and we were blown away. For those looking for "bang for your buck hikes" (read: short, but beautiful), this is your poster-child hike. The road to the trail-head is rather long (7.7 miles off of the hwy) but the reward is that the views start from the parking lot. The trail is only 2 miles long and ascends 1100' to the summit; very doable (although we wouldn't have felt comfortable without our trekking poles). The wildflowers and views begin from the parking lot and never let up. From the summit you have a 350 degree panorama (the only thing keeping it from being 360 degrees is the true summit of Sauk mtn, which requires some rock climbing skills to reach). This hike was a photographers dream; between the views of the mountains, wildflowers, marmots and then the sunset, I was in heaving...albeit longing for a wide-angle lens and a tripod (neither of which I packed).



At any rate, too many pictures to put them all here...so if you want to see the rest, CLICK HERE!