Anyone who has attempted to get permits for backcountry trails in the last few years knows how much harder it has become and that getting them can mean selecting dates that are either earlier or later than the season when you can count on things to be snow free or melted out. That was us…
The weather we have been having lately here in the Pacific Northwest has not been super motivating for getting up into the mountains, particularly with the avalanche conditions that come with new, wet snow. It reminds me of the time we were down along the Columbia Gorge in December and the forecast was nothing but…
Have you heard of a thing called a living tree stump? In 2008, my son Mitch and I took a road trip to Southern California for two weeks to visit Legoland. Along the way we took a swing east and drove through Crater Lake and down to Ashland. Crater Lake Highway or State Route 62…
There is nothing like the holidays and end of the year for reflection. As I have been sorting through thousands of images to re-upload to the website, I ran across these pictures from three years ago of my family at Christmas during the height of COVID. We had decided to not celebrate…
Ah, the holiday season. No matter what you celebrate (or don’t), this time of year can be full of expectations. Not that the rest of the year isn’t full of expectations but they sure do seem to magnify in the month of December. The other day I heard the expression: “Expectancy, not expectations,” and it…
Editor’s note: it is the month of December and for many bloggers it is the season of “Blogmas”. It is a marathon of posting every day for the month of December, often with a holiday theme. For some crazy reason I have dived into this as motivation to clear out some drafts and repost some…