Been a while ...

I have been debating quitting my blog, but have decided to try and keep it alive. I probably won't post as much as I have in the past, but do still plan to do periodic updates on what's up.

So what's new since my last post? Well, Clara has gone from learning how to stand to running all over the place. She is still staying in her crib luckily, but otherwise she is a force to be reconned with. She is learning how to speak, although most of the things that she says are only understood by Janel and I. "Up" was her first word (other than Mama, Papa, Dada, etc). It sounds identical to "Help" now, and you can only tell the difference because she sticks her arms up in the air when she says "up". Her most recent word is "hammer" (we really need to get her a tool set so that she stops running off with my stuff when I am trying to do house work). Clara has 8 front teeth and 4 molars, and is working on her first canine. She also had her first real fever a couple weeks ago (she has been a really healthy baby). Still hates milk, but loves to eat cheese and other dairy. Bed time is ~7pm, and if you wait too long she starts to get cranky and repeats over and over again "nigh-nigh" until you take her upstairs. She usually sleeps through the night for ~12-13 hours ... man I hope that lasts. She dropped nap #2 around 13 months, which has really openned up our flexibility.

We had the downstairs painted. We also got rid of the guest bedroom furnature and we repainted that room. It has made a world of difference. I really want to get our bedroom, the office, and the laundry room painted now ... but spring is just around the corner and we will have lots of outdoors chores to keep us busy.

Lots of new photos are up and posted at picasa. I am not going to bother to link to them all here, as it is easier to just hop over there and see what's up. We went to the zoo today, so here is a random photo from there:

Halloween 2011 Count

This year started out slow, but had a big run between 7:30 and 8:00 to make it quite respectable.

• 6:00 - 6:30 -- 17
• 6:30 - 7:00 -- 50
• 7:00 - 7:30 -- 53
• 7:30 - 8:00 -- 100
• Grand Total: 220

Clara learns to stand on her own

Clara learns to stand on her own. Lots of photos in the 11 month album.

Enchantments Backpacking

Introduction
Allen organized a 2 night backpacking trip up to the Enchantments in Washington. We applied for ~10 permits back in February and came away with 1. The Enchantment are considered one of the top backpacking destinations in the Northwest. I will describe the trip along with photos below. You can also see all of my photos here.

Allen, Kelsey, Anna, Danny, Melvin, Chris, Mark, and myself took on the route up from the Stewart Lake trailhead to Colchuck Lake, up Aasgard Pass, through the Core Enchantment region, and then out through Snow Lakes. It was definitely one of the top backpacking trips I have ever taken.

We really got lucky. The snow this past winter was very heavy, and there was still significant snow in the area when we were up there, but enough had melted that ice axes and such were not required for Aasgard Pass. I just wanted to comment that the conditions report from the ranger station was fantastic. We called a few days before and they provided all the necessary information to make it a safe trip. If you are looking for a trip report, your best bet is to stop hunting around the internet and just give them a ring.

Day 1: Stewart Lake Trailhed up Aasgard Pass
The first stop was the ranger station to pick up our permits. There were a number of groups hoping to get a "day of" permit (most of which obviously failed). After getting our permits, we dropped off a car at our exit point and then headed up to the Stewart Lake trailhead. This is a very easy shuttle. We got started at around 9:30AM (a bit later than we had hoped).

The trip up to Colchuk Lake is a bit of a slog (~4.6 mi to the lake + 1.1 to the end of the trail below Aasgard with ~2.2K of elevation), but the trail is in good shape so it was not so bad. We got to the end of trail at Colchuk and had some lunch. Below is a view looking up Aasgard. Does not look too bad from here.

After having a nice lunch, we began the fun part of the day. The trail itself ends, and before you can start heading up Aasgard, you need to cross a rather larger boulder field. The first part is the hardest and in general this can be hammered out rather fast.

Then we began Aasgard. Melvin and Chris were already a good ways ahead at this point and I was stuck by myself in the middle. The rest of the crew (Allen, Kelsey, Anna, Danny, and Mark) took up the rear. Allen was chugging along with a 60lb pack complete with 3 liters of wine and a 6 pack of PBR. Ouch.

The route that we took up Aasgard (diagonal across the bottom and then up the left side) was basically snow free and completely safe. There is definitely no trail, and the cairns seems to be few and far between. The worst part was that it was HOT, especially at the bottom. There were about 2 trees that provided shade the entire way up. It is a good price to pay for clear skies though.

Here is a photo moderately close to the top looking down towards Colchuk.

And a photo of me at the top. I am not smiling because I am still pretty tired. I managed to make it up in ~2.5 hours. Not bad for a full pack and without working out for 2 years!

Group photo from the top:

After making it to the top, we started looking for a campsite. Most of the good ones were taken, so we ended up basically setting up camp on the trail. Not the best campsite, but it worked. It was rather windy and the spot was somewhat exposed, but there were no issues. Below is a photo of sunset from our campsite.


Day 2 - Core Enchantments
We woke up on day 2 and found out that the goats had found us. The mountain goats up in the enchantments are not at all afraid of people, and they are particularly interested in the salt that is left behind in urine. We had a ton of goats surrounding us before we knew it. I took a ton of photos which you can see in my picasa gallery. Here is one of a mom and her baby.

We got a bit of a late start and headed down through the Core Enchantments. After about 20 minutes we split up, with Allen, Melvin, Chris, and Mark heading up Little Annapurna and Kelsey, Anna, Danny, and myself heading down to try and scout out our next campsite.

There was still a good amount of snow, but it was quite safe. There was one interesting section heading down towards Inspiration Lake, but it looked worse than it really was. It would have been a bit trickier earlier in the morning or later in the evening when the snow is more like ice ... but mid-day it was not a problem.

We found a nice spot on a little side-lake off of Perfection Lake. The others had a great time heading up Little Annapurna. It is completely non-technical and has some great views of the entire state. The mosquitoes were voracious. I have not seen more mosquitoes with the exception of the Boundary Waters and Alaska.

Here is a photo from our campsite looking out towards Perfection Lake. Note that this was actually taken on the morning of day 3.


Day 3 - Heading Out
We got up Sunday morning and started the long trek out. It is a long way down (~6K feet over ~9.5 miles) from our site. The first part of the trek was great. Here is a photo right after getting started as we headed down from Perfection to Sprite Lake.

Sprite Lake was very nice, but we did not find a good campsite there (so it was a good thing we found the spot that we did).

Lake Vivian also was a good spot, complete with some good campsites.

After Lake Vivian, we began the long slog down to Snow Lakes. This took a good amount of time. A lot of the path is rather rocky, and we did not make great time. We finally made it down to Upper Snow Lake around 11:30. We had some lunch, and decided to split up so a faster group could take care of the car shuttle and fill up the gas so we could get started with the long drive home as quickly as possible. Snow Lake was a nice spot, and had a number of great campsites.

Mark, Kelsey, Anna, Chris, and myself were the "slow group". It was a rather tough trek down from Snow Lakes ... much harder than I had anticipated. I thought that it would be largely switchbacks on a good trail through the woods. Instead, you are in the sun for the majority of the time walking along a path that is very rocky and difficult to really get going on. Nada Lakes was a decent spot, but for the most part, the rest of the trail was a forced march to the bottom.

All in all, it was a great trip with excellent views and good times. Nobody got hurt. I wish I had brought my mosquito headnet and less food, but otherwise it was great.

Photography
I took my Canon T1i along with my Tokina 12-24 F/4 and Canon 55-250. I primarily shot @ 12mm and the wide-angle lens was great for this trip. The telephoto was great for the many many many shots of mountain goats that I took. I used my polarizer for 95% of my wide-angle shots. If anything, the sky came out too blue in some cases. An ND filter would have been fun if we had more time and I brought a better tripod. but under the constraints I am glad I did not bring mine. I brought along a Tamrac ZipShot Ultralight Tripod (11.6oz) instead of my standard Manfrotto beast (~5lbs). It worked okay, but I definitely will only be using it in special cases like this one. You definitely need a cable release when using that thing with an SLR -- even using a 2 second exposure delay is not sufficient to avoid shake.

My Grandpa's Garden

They did a story about my grandpa's garden in the local paper.

My grandpa:


This year's plan:

Mt Hood Camping

We attempted Clara's second camping trip up to the Lost Creek campground near Mt Hood with Melvin, Michelle, Julien, and Avinash. Despite the fact that both nights we were out there Clara freaked out and had to be taken to our "backup plan" (a crappy hotel ~15 minutes away) it was a fun time.

Saturday Janel, Clara, and I went hiking with Michelle and Julien up to Mirror Lake. Melvin and Avinash attempted another more challenging hike. The weather was great, and Clara enjoyed the relatively easy 3 mile hike. There were plenty of dogs for her to screech at.

Here is a photo of Mt Hood from our lunch spot:



Ian, Janel, and Clara at Mirror Lake (courtesy of Julien):


Michelle and Julien:


After Mirror Lake we brought Clara back to camp for her nap. Julien and Janel hung around camp while Michelle and I hammered out Ramona Falls (the 8 mile hike was only ~5 minutes from our campground). I carried my tripod the whole in my hands (only brought the baby carrier) only to be rewarded by crappy lighting. Oh well.


Clara enjoyed camping ... except for the part about sleeping at night. Here is one of her enjoying Julien's camelbak:

Clara 9 months old

That means that the 8 month album is ready here. Stino came for a visit this month, and some of those photos can be found here. Grandma and Grandpa Alonzo also came for a visit, and those photos can be found here.

Some select photos from the last month: