New York City

NEW YORK CITY - July 28 to August 2, 2008

After a brief unscheduled stopover in Chicago...

...and a very relaxing visit with the Stesky clan up in the Thousand Islands Park and Brockville, we were off for our second visit to the Big Apple - but this time we drove into the city. With Christy behind the wheel and me as the navigator we cruised over the George Washington Bridge into upper Manhattan and were greeted by the iconic buildings of New York City.

The Empire State Building

The Flatiron Building

Times Square

The Chrysler Building

Grand Central StationAnd many other cool looking unnamed buildings

We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.

We walked and rowed through Central Park.

This kid was dancing up a storm to a drummer in Central Park.We visited the huge and incredible Metropolitan Museum of Art.

We did the "Flight of the Conchords" walking tour through the Lower East Side.

Bret and Gemaine's apartment

Dave's Pawn Shop

Murray's New Zealand Embassy

We took an afternoon subway trip out to Coney Island.

We managed to get tickets to go see Dave Letterman (guests were Luke Wilson and Mindy Kaling from The Office).

And we finished off our day with a foot massage in Chinatown!

Good times!

Sasquatch Festival at the Gorge

May 26, 2008 - Sasquatch Festival at The Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington State.

We arrived just before noon on Day 3 of the Festival before the bulk of the crowds gathered later in the afternoon...

We scooped a spot on the grassy slopes with an amazing view of the Columbia River Gorge.
No line-up to use the Honey Buckets was a rare thing to see during the day!
In the heat of the mid-afternoon sun, The Hives incredible, high-energy performance ranked as my #3 performance on Day 3 of Sasquatch.

#1 performance of the day was of course Bret and Jemaine of "Flight of the Conchords"- The crowd laughed and sang along to all of their songs, but their 45-minute set was far too short!

The Flaming Lips Sasquatch grand finale (#2 on my list of performances) was entertainingly over-the-top, highlights included: a giant UFO landing on the stage carrying the band members, the lead singer crowd surfing inside a giant translucent ball, dancing teletubbies, dancing naked people, and enough confetti and fireworks to make Times Square jealous... it was a sensory overload but a lot of fun! Check out the video of Flight of the Conchords!

Brew Hut snowshoe trip

March 15-16, 2008

For this year's annual winter overnight backcountry trip we chose Brew Hut, which is located in the mountains on the west side of Highway 99 just about halfway between Squamish and Whistler.

So after breakfast at the Squamish McD's, Jeff, Geri, Scott, Cindy, Pat, Christy and I headed up Saturday morning... thinking that we might be able to drive up the Roe Creek Forest Service Road all the way to the trailhead. But two stuck vehicles later, we discovered that the road was only passable to snowmobiles, snowshoes and skis so we unstuck Jeff and Geri's Toureg and had to abandon Pat's truck which was impossibly stuck in deep snow, hoping that we would be able to get it out the next day. This added about 7 km and 500m elevation to our hike but we thought we were starting early enough to make it to the cabin before sunset. We might have underestimated the trek...

Trekking up the ridge to the hut.
A bright half-moon and a clear sky full of stars made the night-hiking magical!
8 hours later, we arrived at Brew Hut about an hour after sunset.
Good morning in Brew Hut.

The next day involved a lot of sliding back down (we brought crazy-carpets!) and what took 8 hours up only took 3 hours down... and with a little help from some friendly snowmobilers, we got Pat's truck unstuck and made it home safe and sound. Good times. :)

Hawaii

February 13-21, 2008

Hawaii - The Big Island
After discovering that Christy's backpack had mistakenly flown to Kauai all on its own, we picked up our rental car at the Hilo airport and killed time until the backpack arrived with a sidetrip to the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory. Mmm...free samples!

On our second day we drove to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and set out on a trek across barren lava fields to the oceanside beach oasis of Halape.

Our tent at Halape.

Halape beach (almost all to ourselves). The Halape "Guardian" overlooking the sea turtle nesting beach.
Green Sea Turtle (we saw a lot of these guys!)

Self-explanatory sign

The aforementioned "dangerous gas" - We did keep our car windows closed but we actually saw a couple of people hiking through this area - yikes!

Snorkelling in Kealakekua Bay.

The Pu'uhonua o Honaunau Place of Refuge - an ancient Hawaiian religious sanctuary. Christy at Pu'uhonua o Honaunau
Our gecko friend on the kitchen wall of our B&B.

On our last day we drove up to the top of Mauna Kea (13,796 feet, highest point in Hawaii) where there are several huge domed astronomical observatories. The high elevation and thin air can make your head a little dizzy but it didn't stop two guys from snowboarding down the snowy volcano slopes!

Aloha!

The Olympic Peninsula

NOVEMBER 11 - 12, 2007

Christy and I took our high-valued Canadian dollar ($1.04!), decided to brave the long border wait and headed down to the Olympic Peninsula and Olympic National Park in Washington State for the November long weekend. The weather wasn't great (to say the least!), but the area is incredibly beautiful. The "storm of the month" blew through the area and on Monday morning trees were blown down everywhere, ferries delayed, bridges closed, and the power was out in most of the towns on the peninsula... but we still went hiking!

Port Townsend

The windy ferry ride to Port Townsend

Crescent Lake

Marymere Falls

(having fun with the colour settings on my camera!)

Olympic Peninsula coastline

Video of the Olympic "Perfect" Storm

Adventure on Alice Ridge

AUGUST 4 - 5, 2007

This hike ended up being much more of an adventure than I anticipated - check out the video at the end of this blog entry...

Paolo got sick at the last minute so after much contemplation, I headed up to the mountains on my own at 2pm Saturday afternoon. Two sweaty hours later, I was at Elfin Lakes which were still frozen over (a lot of snow on Paul Ridge too) and the bugs managed to maintain squadron-force numbers even in August!

Elfin Lakes

I filled my water bottles and headed up to the Columnar-Gargoyles saddle (photo above) where I was greeted by the view of a massive snowfield all the way to Little Diamond Head. My plan was to scout a route down Alice-Cheekye Ridge, so after crossing the snowy slopes of Little Diamond Head, I made camp just below treeline on the ridge where I enjoyed a magnificient sunset... and a visit by a black bear that evening! He didn't get too close but close enough to keep me wide awake for a while that night.


On Sunday, I headed down towards the Cheekye River to see if I could find a route down, across the river and make my way up to Brohm Ridge and hike out to Garibaldi Lake following a similar route I hiked last September... but after 5 hours of serious bushwhacking I was thwarted by steep cliff after steep cliff above the Cheekye River. Expecting to reach the Cheekye River to refill with drinking water, I didn't bring enough water and soon ran out on my climb back up to Alice Ridge: a 600-metre straight up, exhausting, leg-cramping slog... pulling myself up on tree roots and shrubs while using my ice-axe as an anchor in the ground of the steep slopes.


-Phew-

I returned to the top of the ridge by 3:30pm and proceeded to melt 3 litres of snow to rehydrate while feeling soundly defeated with my effort to get down to the Cheekye River. My route-finding expedition would have to continue on another trip... so I began my impromptu descent off of Alice Ridge towards Alice Lake... and that's when I walked right into the T-rex nest.

I was bushwhacking along Alice Ridge when all of a sudden I smelled the distinct and strong odour of animal... and then pile after pile of fairly-fresh bear scat... I started talking out loud and making my presence known... I broke through some trees into a clearing (aka "the nest") and right in front of me was a half-eaten deer carcass... and much more bear scat... scared as hell I walked past the dead deer, talking out loud every step of the way, holding my ice-axe in the "ready" position. I never did see another bear but I was paranoid for quite a while as I bushwhacked down off of the ridge towards Alice Lake.


I found the old, overgrown trail (indicated as a dirt road on the old topo map) about 30 minutes from the nest and hoofed it the remaining 15 or so kilometres to Alice Lake by 8:30pm, where I called Christy to come pick me up... exhausted and beaten... quite the adventure. We drove through the Wendy's drive-thru on the way home so the trip wasn't a complete loss. Good times. :)