Mt Hoffman or Bust!

September, 2008: Mt Hoffman

John Muir once said that if you only have one day to spend in Yosemite National Park, that you should spend it hiking up Mt. Hoffman. As Hoffman is the geographic center of the park it affords amazing views in all directions.While i wouldn't necessarily take all of JM's advice, like climbing a tree in the middle of a storm, i think he was right on this one. It was a beautiful day with lots of time spent with a map identifying features & dreaming up future backcountry trips.

With Naomi and Katie on the summit.

The view towards Half Dome and the Valley.

Katie ponders Tenaya Lake.

Napping on the western ridge.

Instead of taking the trail back down, we scrambled down the western side adding a bit of adventure with lots of rock hopping down to beautiful alpine meadows.

Looking across May Lake towards the southeast.

YI in the house.

Jen and Claire's Wedding

September, 2008: Palo Alto, CA

i felt so honored to be invited to join Jen and Claire to celebrate their marriage in Palo Alto. There were so many wonderful friends to celebrate these two wonderful people and their commitment to one another and to making the world a better place. Now we just need to repeal Prop 8 so that some day they can share the same legal rights as well!

Jamie, Anna, & Carter

ML & Levy

Jen with her parents

Jen and Claire exchanging gifts as part of the ceremony. The wedding was the first traditional Jewish wedding i have ever attended. It was interesting to see the different ways in which cultures celebrate the joining of two people. The afternoon included a Tish, which was a roast of sorts. The couple gives a short presentation while the rest of the family and friends sings songs and heckles them. Claire's family sang mostly traditional Jewish songs, but we got in several ultimate cheers and Harvard soccer team cheers to round it out. After the religious ceremony, we drank margaritas and then proceeded to dance the Hora for a good half hour pre-dinner, getting enormously sweaty & totally disheveled before sitting down to eat. So fun and such a beautiful, wonderful day.

Grand Canyon of the Tuolomne

September, 2008 Grand Canyon of the Tuolomne

Taking advantage of our first three day weekend in Yosemite to run away to the backcountry, Katie, Naomi and i set our sights on the Grand Canyon of the Tuolomne. Being way too bad ass to walk down the canyon like normal people (read... hannah's knees did not want to walk downhill all that way), we started in White Wolf and spent the next two days hiking up the river past the incredible waterfalls and amazing views. Combined with testing out every great swimming hole, eating lots of yummy food, reading the whole Sunday Times at the Tuolomne store, and getting to hang out with two wonderful friends, it was a fantastic weekend.

Naomi and Katie crossing the Tuolomne River near Pate Valley.

A successful hunt for the secret pictographs. It is amazing the number of things that exist in this park that do not show up on any maps or guidebooks and require knowing someone who knows to even hear about. We were given directions to this amazing wall of pictographs that required a short detour but were clearly well off the beaten track. The whole wall was covered in drawing and handprints, providing an incredible connection to the long human history of this place.

Another swimming spot with water slides and all.

Yeah whatever..... more beautiful waterfalls.

Our second night was spent camping just above California Falls, right at the edge of the valley overlooking the whole canyon. Although our first evening had been pretty warm, the temperature dropped sharply this evening and we quickly made dinner and crawled into bed. The next morning began with yelling as we tried to fight the cold to get out of bed and ended with us skipping the whole breakfast thing, packing up in a record of about fifteen minutes and hitting the trail well before 6:30, trying to find some sun.

Naomi and Katie above Glen Aulin; with the sun finally up, we were almost finally ready for some breakfast.

Heading into Tuolomne Meadows with Cathedral and Echo peaks in the background.

Living the Dream in Yosemite

August, 2008

Yosemite in August.... so unbearably hot, especially after a summer in Alaska. i survived, however, thanks to all of the wonderful folks at YI who made the first few weeks crazy busy and a lot of fun. Days were spent having our heads crammed full of way to much info to digest and evenings found us moving into the hotel & throwing dance parties. Throw in a backpacking trip, attempts to fix a bear-eaten door & meeting the rest of the YI staff and you get sleep deprivation, chaos, and great times had by all. Mostly, we just kept finding ourselves asking... Do we really live here? Is this really our job? And the answer... hell yeah!

Celebrating Patrick's 30th birthday on top of North Dome.

Taking in the view from the top of North Dome and still in disbelief that we are actually getting paid for this.

Naomi and Casey hiking along the North Rim.

Jeff Crow and Casey on day three of backcountry training.

A "wow" moment. Scott, Delaney & crew checking out the view from Columbia Point on the way down the Yosemite Falls trail.

Ooooooh... fire. The YI staff sets fire to the National Park in attempts to learn how to teach about it. Turns out that areas that have not been cleared or burned recently really do burn so much better than those that have been managed. Our small test area had flames leaping up over six feet. All in the name of science and education folks.

Natural history day with Jeff Crow. Joe, Casey & Scott on top of Sentinel Dome.

The office... otherwise known as Yosemite Valley. Sweet.

Stanford in Southeast Alaska

August, 2008: Southeast Alaska

i am finally getting pictures from the summer and fall sorted and put up. Unsurprisingly, Stanford travels Southeast Alaska in true Stanford style, on a small, very classy, adventure-focused cruise; i am still not sure that i believe that i got to be part of it. Arriving in Juneau, i hung out with Laura Baker for an evening and witnessed the tail end of the legislature's special session chaos before boarding the National Geographic Sea Bird for a ten day cruise with twenty or so Stanford Alumni families. As much as i have expressed disdain for cruises and cruise passengers, a small expedition cruise is by far the way to go and an incredible way to visit areas of the region that otherwise would be totally inaccessible on my limited budget. Each morning we found ourselves sailing into an amazing new bay or pocket of water, going places that big ships would never dream but would require some serious kayaking to visit as an individual traveler. Even more amazing was the weather, which was unbelievable the entire time we were there, a huge shift from the cold drizzle that had been plaguing the state the entire summer. We saw whales bubble net feeding, brown bears playing on the beach, and sea lions swimming after our boats on multiple occasions. Leave it to Stanford to somehow get a perfect trip. The families on board were a ton of fun and i enjoyed lots of Uno games with the younger kids and hanging out with my teens as they tried to act cool despite being on a family vacation. Fun times and an amazing way to finish out the summer. As Darcy reminds me: There are eagles... you just have to look up.

Some solo time kayaking in Williams Cove.

Morning cruise into Thomas Bay with the Patterson Glacier in the distance.

A ten-foot tall devil's club catches the light on a rainforest hike at Cascade Creek.

Our day in Petersburg was one of the first sunny days the town had seen all summer. i got to go on an much needed run along the muskeg trail and out to the airport, before wandering around town and enjoying a day off the ship.

Our morning in Glacier Bay National Park started out with fog so thick we could barely see the back of the boat from the front. It burned off mid-morning, however, to reveal one of the most spectacular days i have ever witnessed in Southeast. The landscape here is unreal. Andrew points out the Fairweather Range in the distance.

Looking down the fjord toward the Johns Hopkins Glacier.

The Johns Hopkins up close and personal. So amazing.

Apparently, i am obsessed with this mountain and glacier. i think i took about fifty pictures of it and made Andrew take about twenty on his camera as well.

On our final full day, we were incredibly lucky to witness a group of humpbacks bubble net feeding in Chatham Straight. They were surfacing right off the boat with their huge gaping mouths wide open as they gulped down as many fish as they could. Dropping the hydrophone, we listened to them communicate as they fished. Making a ton of noise as they coordinated their actions, they trapped whole schools of fish in a net of bubbles against the surface of the water. Then, as their singing fell eerily silent, they would all surface as one group, thirteen mouths lunging up in unison.

A sea otter near the Inian Islands.

A kittiwake in Glacier Bay. Birders, please correct me if i am wrong on this one.

The Stanford team, all residents of cabin 112, a roughly 10 ft by 10 ft space including the "showilet."

Branding, branding, branding. Have got to get the Stanford banner in there. Great trip, great people, amazing scenery. All told, i think it might qualify as another incredible boondoggle.

Snow Day in July?

July, 2008: Anchorage, Alaska

Well... maybe not quite a snow day, but there was certainly a fresh dusting on the peaks when i arrived at work last week. Does global warming mean that Southcentral Alaska is going to become more like Southeast, rain and all?

It has been a soggy, cold July in Anchorage and just when we think we might catch a break in the weather, it starts drizzling again. It certainly makes for fun bike rides. These past few weeks have actually involved staying home a bit more, getting a lot of work done and helping Darcy and Toby prep for their three week float down the Noatak (so jealous!). Other then that, there has been lots of dodging moose on my bike (i think my summer moose count is somewhere in the 20's?), fixing flat tires, shorter hikes close to home, and becoming an expert on the culture and social structures of villages in Northwest Alaska. Throw in an indictment of Uncle Ted who has kept the state flush with pork barrel money for over 40 years now, and life in Anchor-town can get pretty crazy.

For those interested in getting a better sense of the communities i am working with, here is a first cut of a National Geographic Documentary that is coming out about one of the communities i am studying. It does a great job of giving a sense for the land, the people and the way of life in these far flung villages.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8151647920867682260&hl=en

the view from my office on yet another overcast day...

Add a dash of snow a few days later.

Biking the Fireweed 400

July, 2008: Sheep Mountain Lodge to Valdez, Alaska

After several years of hearing about this crazy race where people bike several hundred miles on Alaskan highways, i was finally roped into participating this past weekend by Steve, my road biking-enthusiast boss at ISER. The race consists of several different divisions, with race distances ranging from 50 miles to 400 miles, the 400 miler only being for about 10 or so super-crazies. Steve and Luke were planning on riding the 200 mile distance and as i was clearly not ready for anything that long, i ended up riding the 200 mile race as a relay with Anne, Steve's girlfriend, trading off biking and driving legs throughout the day.

We started at Sheep Mountain Lodge at 7am on Saturday morning in an intermittent, drizzling rain which eventually cleared into a beautiful day. We proceeded to bike west on the Glenn Highway before turning south to follow the Richardson Highway and the TransAlaska Pipeline all the way into Valdez. The scenery was incredible and the biking was fun, but by far, one of the best parts was getting to know other riders as we biked or waited for relay partners at exchange spots. The whole thing had the feel of a moving party of folks all crazy enough to do this sort of thing for fun.

All told, i probably ended up riding between 80 and 90 miles of the 200, as Anne had actually trained for the race (training? what's that?) and was in much better shape than i. She also rode most of the serious uphill legs, so really i got off easy. Despite all of that, i have to admit that i was pretty tired when we finally rode into Valdez, tired enough that i read the "Fireweed" sign as "Free weed" and remember thinking..." huh, that's a new post race perk!" right. But... i survived, had a great time and will definitely be back again in the future, maybe this time with a few more miles on my bike to help get me through. And, for anyone interested in planning a trip next year... www.fireweed400.com

Bike racing, Alaska style. Throw your tent out next to the airstrip, put your bike under a plane you are good to go. Just keep praying that the rain lets up by the time you have to start riding in the morning...

The rainy start of the 200 mile relay at Sheep Mountain Lodge

Steve is all set to go for the 200 mile road race!

Random biker climbing up towards Eureka Summit... incredible scenery everywhere!

The sun comes out as Luke bikes towards Tiekel River Lodge

Race photographer took this one at a food station... sheesh, what a dork.

i may have been driving while taking this picture....

.... but i did actually pull over for this one.

Anne heading up the first climb of Thompson Pass. What you cannot see in the picture is the ridiculous headwind that made the ~6% grade feel about twice as steep. Go Anne!

The climb up Thompson Pass with the Worthington Glacier dominating the scenery

Bridal Veil Falls in Keystone Canyon on the way into Valdez. The Canyon is famous for its world class ice climbing in the winter.

Our ride back to Anchorage

Five bikes on a roof rack? No problem!