Here are a couple photos of our plum tree ...
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| 250mm @ f/5.6, 1/1000s, ISO 200 From Misc 2010 |
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| 250mm @ f/5.6, 1/1250s, ISO 200 From Misc 2010 |
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Early Spring
Our flowers are starting to show themselves. All of you dealing with snow should be jealous :). It is sunny and 56 here in Portland right now.
Here are a couple photos of our plum tree ...
Here are a couple photos of our plum tree ...
Lacamas Park
Janel and I went on a small "hike" in Lakamas Park today in Camas. It is a nice little park with a lake and a couple of small waterfalls. I played with my tele lens a bit and got some bird photos.
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| 250mm @ f/5.6, 1/20s, ISO 100 From Lacamas Park |
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| 250mm @ f/5.6, 1/80s, ISO 100 From Lacamas Park |
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Long Time No Post
Not a whole lot of excitement over the last couple of months.
Obligatory Christmas Tree Photo ...
We had a nice trip home for Christmas. Photos from downtown ...
We had a nice trip up to Mt. Hood over President's day weekend and celebrated Janel and Kendra's birthdays. The weather was rather crappy ... so no good photos :(.
Last night Janel and I swung by Council Crest park on the way down to a Chinese New Years party at Allens. Photo of tree ...
Obligatory Christmas Tree Photo ...
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| From Christmas 2009 |
We had a nice trip home for Christmas. Photos from downtown ...
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| From Christmas 2009 |
We had a nice trip up to Mt. Hood over President's day weekend and celebrated Janel and Kendra's birthdays. The weather was rather crappy ... so no good photos :(.
Last night Janel and I swung by Council Crest park on the way down to a Chinese New Years party at Allens. Photo of tree ...
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| From Misc 2010 |
Monday, November 16, 2009
Birthday Dim Sum and Hiking
Saturday was my 29th birthday. I met up with a bunch of friends at Wong Kings for some Dim Sum. After gorging ourselves, we headed out to Latourell Falls (in the Gorge) for a short hike. The rain let up for the day (first time in a while), but it was still rather cloudy.
One note ... Julien persuaded me to use my white balance card, and I have to say ... it really made the colors turn out a lot better. The auto white balance was way off.
Couple select photos:
One note ... Julien persuaded me to use my white balance card, and I have to say ... it really made the colors turn out a lot better. The auto white balance was way off.
Couple select photos:
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| Upper Latourell Falls 0.8s @ f/8, ISO 100, 21mm From Latourell Falls Birthday |
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| Latourell Bridge 1/6s @ f/11, ISO 100, 18mm From Latourell Falls Birthday |
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| "Lower" Latourell Falls 1s @ f/13, ISO 100, 18mm From Latourell Falls Birthday |
Monday, November 9, 2009
Crabbing
This past weekend, Janel and I went to the coast to go crabbing. Anna found a nice (and really cheap) house that we rented with Anna, Danny, Michelle, Julien, and Allen in Rockaway Beach (between Seaside and Tillamook).
We ran into some technical difficulties getting started, but had our first crab ring in the water around 1:00pm in Garibaldi. We originally planned to crab up in Nehalem Bay at the Brighton Marina, but they were closed for bad weather.
There were a lot of crab, but you can only keep males whose shells are 5.75" wide. Here is a photo of one of our catches (all of which were too small).
You catch crab by dropping these "rings" into the water. There are two concentric rings -- a small one and a large one -- that are connected with a net. When you pull them up, they create a "truncated cone" which holds the crab. We used chicken legs as bate.
Janel, Julian, Michelle, and I shared a ring and were able to bring in two crabs. The rest of our group did not have any luck. There is not a lot of skill involved in catching crab, and it is really easy to do ... but catching crab that is actually big enough seems like a bit of a crap shoot.
Here is a photo of one of our crabs after we boiled it. Tasty!
Crabbing was a good time, and I think we all plan on going again sometime (but preferably on a day with better weather).
We ran into some technical difficulties getting started, but had our first crab ring in the water around 1:00pm in Garibaldi. We originally planned to crab up in Nehalem Bay at the Brighton Marina, but they were closed for bad weather.
There were a lot of crab, but you can only keep males whose shells are 5.75" wide. Here is a photo of one of our catches (all of which were too small).
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| From Crabbing Nov 2009 |
You catch crab by dropping these "rings" into the water. There are two concentric rings -- a small one and a large one -- that are connected with a net. When you pull them up, they create a "truncated cone" which holds the crab. We used chicken legs as bate.
Janel, Julian, Michelle, and I shared a ring and were able to bring in two crabs. The rest of our group did not have any luck. There is not a lot of skill involved in catching crab, and it is really easy to do ... but catching crab that is actually big enough seems like a bit of a crap shoot.
Here is a photo of one of our crabs after we boiled it. Tasty!
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| From Crabbing Nov 2009 |
Crabbing was a good time, and I think we all plan on going again sometime (but preferably on a day with better weather).
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Central Alpine Lakes Backpacking
We went on our annual guys-only backpacking trip to the Central Alpine Lakes in Wenatchee National Forest. We had a huge turnout this year. Myself, Allen, Melvin, and Steve came up from Oregon. We met Andy and Kevin from Seattle, who picked up Todd (Texas) and Sain (Cali) who flew in.
We entered at Cooper Lake (the Pete Lake Trailhead). Our original plan was to circle around from Cooper Lake to Waptus Lake, down to Spectacle Lake, and then hike out at Cooper. However, the region around Spectacle was closed because of a forest fire, so we had to adapt our plan. We spent two nights at Waptus, which allowed us to do a day hike up to Spade Lake. We spent our third night at Pete Lake before hiking out.
All in all, Waptus lake was quite nice. It was moderately crowded (for the backcountry), but we had no problem finding an empty site. The fire turned out to be a blessing, as the dayhike to Spade Lake turned out to be quite nice. Pete Lake on the last night was an annoyance … there was like a billion kids (since it was only ~4.5 miles from the trailhead). There was a nice site near the trail to Lake Escondido, and I kinda wish we would have stayed there instead.
Anyway … let's get to the details.
We headed out Thursday morning down the trail to Pete Lake. We decided to take the "hard" route to Waptus Pass via the Palallie Ridge. It was not that hard … but it was also not that scenic either. Most of the time was spent in the trees with a few okay views here and there. The picture below was about as good as it got (yawn).
After about 10.5 miles, we made it to Waptus Lake. We camped at the first site, before the stream crossing. The best site is along the trail after crossing the Waptus River, but some other people beat us to it. We did a bit of swimming and relaxed on the "beach". Here is a view from our site:
We had a fire that night. I took some photos and tried out my camera's handling of the high ISO settings. Here is one at ISO 6400. I had to do some post processing to reduce the noise, but it turned out okay.
The next day we moved our camp to a uneventful site on the other side of Waptus Lake near the trail up to Spade Lake. Here is a view from the "good" campsite at the tip of Waptus Lake looking towards Bears Breast and Summit Chief Mountains.
After hiking ~2 miles to our new campsite, we then climbed ~8.5 miles (round trip) up to Spade Lake. The book described the trail as steep. It was. It was also hot.
Spade Lake has a great blue color. We had a nice lunch on a rock near the water.
The next day we hiked ~12.5 miles to Pete Lake via the Waptus Burn Trail. The trail had a good amount of elevation (~2500 ft) with lots of good views along the way.
After a long hike, we got in to Pete Lake. It was Saturday, and quite crowded with large groups w/ kids. Luckily we found a decent site. I was not particularly impressed with the lake, and found the crowds rather annoying. I would definitely recommend it as an okay spot for introducing backpacking to a young-in … but that's about it. Here is a photo looking over Pete Lake at Sunset.
The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast, and then hammered out the 4.5mi to the car in less than 1.5hrs. Afterwards, we had lunch at "The Brick" in Roslyn. It was a decent pub with plenty of TV's playing football. They had breakfast burritos for $2 (the bacon ones were good) and chili dogs for $1 (bad). I would go back.
We entered at Cooper Lake (the Pete Lake Trailhead). Our original plan was to circle around from Cooper Lake to Waptus Lake, down to Spectacle Lake, and then hike out at Cooper. However, the region around Spectacle was closed because of a forest fire, so we had to adapt our plan. We spent two nights at Waptus, which allowed us to do a day hike up to Spade Lake. We spent our third night at Pete Lake before hiking out.
All in all, Waptus lake was quite nice. It was moderately crowded (for the backcountry), but we had no problem finding an empty site. The fire turned out to be a blessing, as the dayhike to Spade Lake turned out to be quite nice. Pete Lake on the last night was an annoyance … there was like a billion kids (since it was only ~4.5 miles from the trailhead). There was a nice site near the trail to Lake Escondido, and I kinda wish we would have stayed there instead.
Anyway … let's get to the details.
We headed out Thursday morning down the trail to Pete Lake. We decided to take the "hard" route to Waptus Pass via the Palallie Ridge. It was not that hard … but it was also not that scenic either. Most of the time was spent in the trees with a few okay views here and there. The picture below was about as good as it got (yawn).
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| View from Polallie Ridge 1/125s @ f/11, ISO 100, 29mm From Central Alpine Lakes |
After about 10.5 miles, we made it to Waptus Lake. We camped at the first site, before the stream crossing. The best site is along the trail after crossing the Waptus River, but some other people beat us to it. We did a bit of swimming and relaxed on the "beach". Here is a view from our site:
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| Waptus Lake Campsite Day 1 1/40s @ f/9, ISO 200, 18mm From Central Alpine Lakes |
We had a fire that night. I took some photos and tried out my camera's handling of the high ISO settings. Here is one at ISO 6400. I had to do some post processing to reduce the noise, but it turned out okay.
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| Fire at Waptus Lake 1/6s @ f/3.5, ISO 6400, 1/6s From Central Alpine Lakes |
The next day we moved our camp to a uneventful site on the other side of Waptus Lake near the trail up to Spade Lake. Here is a view from the "good" campsite at the tip of Waptus Lake looking towards Bears Breast and Summit Chief Mountains.
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| Bears Breast and Summit Chief Mountains over Waptus Lake 1/80s @ f/9, ISO 100, 25mm From Central Alpine Lakes |
After hiking ~2 miles to our new campsite, we then climbed ~8.5 miles (round trip) up to Spade Lake. The book described the trail as steep. It was. It was also hot.
Spade Lake has a great blue color. We had a nice lunch on a rock near the water.
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| Lunch at Spade Lake 1/30s @ f/11, ISO 100, 18mm From Central Alpine Lakes |
The next day we hiked ~12.5 miles to Pete Lake via the Waptus Burn Trail. The trail had a good amount of elevation (~2500 ft) with lots of good views along the way.
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| 24 Switchbacks 1/30s @ f/10, ISO 100, 27mm From Central Alpine Lakes |
After a long hike, we got in to Pete Lake. It was Saturday, and quite crowded with large groups w/ kids. Luckily we found a decent site. I was not particularly impressed with the lake, and found the crowds rather annoying. I would definitely recommend it as an okay spot for introducing backpacking to a young-in … but that's about it. Here is a photo looking over Pete Lake at Sunset.
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| Sunset at Pete Lake 1/13s @ f/9, ISO 400, 29mm From Central Alpine Lakes |
The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast, and then hammered out the 4.5mi to the car in less than 1.5hrs. Afterwards, we had lunch at "The Brick" in Roslyn. It was a decent pub with plenty of TV's playing football. They had breakfast burritos for $2 (the bacon ones were good) and chili dogs for $1 (bad). I would go back.
Erin's Wedding
Janel and I went to my sister's wedding. We had a great time catching up with family, many of whom we have not seen since our wedding.
Here is a photo of Erin and I before getting ready.
Here is a photo of Janel and I after getting ready.
Here is a photo of Erin and I before getting ready.
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| From Erin's Wedding |
Here is a photo of Janel and I after getting ready.
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| From Erin's Wedding |
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