a 50 mile jaunt through the sierra nevada

Twenty years ago this month, I first set foot in the Ansel Adams Wilderness just west of the ski town Mammoth, CA. It was my first ever backpacking trip, and I resisted it like bad medicine - thought it would be too much work. Walking up steep mountains, sucking in thin air, carrying everything you need on your back...who needs that? Little did I know, I would be totally taken with this particular part of the world and that a lifetime of epic backpacking adventures was about to begin. I loved it.

My buddy Chris and I wanted to get out of town and into the wilderness, and since we had an entire week I suggested going to the Sierras. It has been probably 10 years since I've been, and even longer to my favorite Ansel Adams Wilderness. I knew that hiking from Mammoth to Yosemite was a popular trek, so we decided on that. Leaving his car on the Yosemite Valley floor, we took a bus/taxi/shuttle over to Mammoth and walked back all the way back. Several 11,000+ ft mountain passes later, we arrived back where we started under the watchful gaze of Half Dome.

I hadn't done a multiple day, long, difficult backpacking trip in years - and this was Chris's first ever trip! Everything went according to plan - I gotta say, we were total studs.

If you want to see more pictures, you can visit my Flickr page.

 We arrived on the glorious Yosemite Valley floor only to be completely annoyed by the hoards of ice-cream licking tourists. We got outta there as fast as possible...

A familiar sight - the beginning of the trail in Agnew Meadows.

Ahhh - the High Trail approaching the Minarets, Mt Banner and Mt Ritter.

Campsite at 1000 Island Lake under Mt Banner - can you say "stunning"?!

Headed out the next morning in gale-force winds to go up and over Donohue Pass at 11,056 ft.

I love this photo of Chris coming up over the pass because of the view - look at those mountain peaks behind him...they go forever!

View from the pass towards our next destination - the bucolic Lyell Valley in Yosemite National Park.

Me at the Pass, which is where you enter Yosemite National Park.

Coming down the steep trail into the Lyell Valley.

Looking back at Donohue Pass from the banks of the trout-filled Lyell River.

After a night in the valley, we headed right back up to 11,000 ft.

The dry Sierra forests at treeline are simply amazing and look like no other place.

Chris, back in the high altitudes...

Alpine lake and meadow at 10,300 ft.

 Takin in the sights on the 10,500 meadowy plateau.

More mountain peaks going on forever and ever...

 Vogelsang Peak

From Vogelsang it was all downhill - 11,000 ft to 4,000 ft on the Yosemite Valley floor. The steep downhill trails were punctuated by all sorts of little meadows and more trout-filled streams.

More mountains appearing.

Loungin, streamside.

Getting down in elevation also means you get into the big forests.

Gorgeous Merced Lake against the granite walls that are a signature of Yosemite.

Classic Yosemite scene.

The back of Half Dome - we're getting close to the car!

Vernal Falls, a Yosemite landmark.

One. Mile. To. Go.

A different view of the Yosemite Valley.

On the long drive home (we took 395 all the way to Bend, OR!), we gambled in Reno, ate lunch at a muy authentico taco truck, and had dinner and celebratory beverages at Timberline Lodge!

Dusk on Mt Hood, just outside of Timberline Lodge.

the olympic life

Adrienne and I made it out to Second Beach this weekend, almost exactly a year after the first time we went. This is a great time of year to head out there if you can catch some good weather, which is what drew us to the coast on this particular weekend. While it was 90 degrees east of the Cascades and forecast to be 80 degrees here in Seattle, it was supposed to be 70 on the beach - which is about as warm as it gets. It turned out to be  little cloudy, but the temps were great and the scenery was as good as ever. We saw several bald eagles, 1000s of swarming seabirds, an intertidal teeming with life, and we even saw a a little weasel on the beach. Uncle Mark joined us, which was the icing on the cake for a great overnight jaunt to the sand and the sea.

I love the approach to this beach - you hike through the rainforest and then descend on the beach from above.

Camping on the sand is heaven.

The seastacks offshore are one of the reasons to come to the Olympic Coast.

Uncle Mark made his way down to the shore too...

The tide is out.

Gotta check out the tidepools.

A whole pile of seastars.

Anemones - underwater and out of water.

AJ finds a friend on the sand who needs a new home.

The shore.

Those are out tents under the trees!

Camping essentials.

Back at camp, gotta have a fire.

Mark-o does a bit of sketching.

AJ and JJ

My favorite ferns.

The Olympic Mountains

all the things i love about san diego

Seattle is my home, and I love it here. Just read a few blogposts if you're not convinced. But when I head to my natal home down south, I just can't help but feel the beach culture in my veins. I just returned from a great trip to Carlsbad and the warm southern California landscapes of my childhood last week - nothing remarkable to report, except that the trip was everything it should have been. Great weather, great scenery, and best of all great company.

 No trip is complete without hanging with the Giant Sunglasses Crowd and a little beach walkin!

Nor is a trip complete without a backyard BBQ - gotta have one of those!

I grilled my first bratwurst BBQ, overseen by the grillmaster himself!

Breakfast with Auntie Wiener was as it should be - fun and informative!

 Got to hang out with pure joy himself, my nephew!

And I almost beat my dad at a little round of golf - so close!

Drank some crummy beer with Papa!

And caught a movie with ma at my favorite theater!

Did a little hiking at my favorite place, Torrey Pines - saw leaping dolphins and an osprey!

And then caught a margarita on the way to the airport!

the 20th avenue garden re-emerges

Adrienne Sutton's garden is looking pretty good these days. The Pacific Northwest continues to amaze me on many levels, its productivity being one of them. This garden takes a lot of work, but a moderate climate and the steady amount of rain we get make the garden grow like mad. What's cool is we can grow almost anything here - corn, tomatoes, beans, strawberries, cherries, raspberries, peas, carrots, asparagus, radishes.... We just got an olive tree, and if they ever perfect a PacNorWest avocado I'll be in heaven.

We are currently harvesting lots of radishes, asparagus, leafy greens, leeks - all the early season stuff. But what's most impressive in the garden now are all of our flowers - spring up here is stunning. Below are some pictures I have been taking over the last month. For those of you that are my FB friends, you've already seen these.

Flowering red currant is a native up here and one of the first things to bloom. We have about 10 of these in the garden.

This is the other first-flowerer of the season - the native salmon berry. Grows like a weed and produces semi-sweet beautiful salmon colored berries.

Next come the tulips, which have stunning color on a sunny day.

This guy looks like an upside down tulip, but in fact is a lily.

Then the cherry tree comes to life and bursts with white flowers.

This is one of my favorite plants in the yard - don't even know what it is, but it is stunning!

Next come the azaleas and rhododendrons...

And now the next round of bulbs are coming up - irises!

Things are looking fly around here - you should come visit!

afternoon light revisited

I know I've written of this before, but the afternoon light in the Pacific Northwest is like no other place I've ever been. An extended dusk draws out the long rays of the sun, and the usual cloud-cover bends them into colors that make you stop what you're doing and enjoy. Yesterday, an afternoon squal brought in the dark rainclouds - but the sunshine was on its heels, and created the brightest end-to-end rainbow we've ever seen. It lit up the hillsides and trees in a post-storm glow that was stunning.