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It was rather late int he season, but Angela and Jane were off on a cabin trip - so Sara and I decided to get one last backpacking trip in for the year. We decided to head to a place called Marmot Pass - which is close to home (about an hour and a half) and where we had heard good things about the views. We took off relatively early Saturday morning (9a departure) and got to the trailhead around 10:30a.

For the last few weeks since labor day, we have been eager to go sailing again. The weather has been pretty nice well into September (minus the chilly mornings) and the wind has returned that we have been missing for most of the summer. For this trip, we made the short excursion down to Blake island for an overnight. 2025-09-27 It’s about an hour and a half sail/motor from Eagle harbor to Blake island. We departed at around noon and, after a bit of puttering around to find the mooring we wanted, we were all set by about 2p. It had been a while since we have done a mooring ball and, with Sara at the helm, there was a misunderstanding on what reverse vs neutral meant and the end result was a dropped boat hook - thankfully after I got a line on the moorning ball.

Labor Day weekend was coming up and we really didn’t have plans given our life with baby now. We knew we were going to be at Angela’s parents house on Saturday for her dad’s birthday, so we decided to build some plans around it. We decided to sail up to the Everett marina on Friday, spend Saturday with Angela’s family, and then meet up with Derek and Diane and spend the night in Penn Cove (near Coopville) before heading back to Seattle on Monday.

Sara takes on her first engineering task - building a small go-cart/speeder out of random stuff we have laying around the house. 2025-08-09 I was doing a bit of work in the storage space under our house and I pulled out a bunch of the old junk that the previous owners had left behind. Sara got to work. She used a bunch of paper tape to create a sled - with all the fixings - a chair for monkey, a chair for her, a storage tub in the back, a pull cord for helping her get up to speed, and a bunch of wires and pipes - well, for funsies.

When Jane was born, I took two weeks of paternity leave and by the end of it Sara and I were itching for an adventure. After clearing it with Angela, we headed off to the peninsula for a short backpacking trip. This was only Sara’s 4th trip carrying her own stuff and she upped the ante this time by carrying some of her own food. She loved it. 2025-08-11 We drove out to the Dosewallips Road Trailhead - which is less of a trailhead and more of a dead end road. The cool part about this hike is that it used to be a road - but in 2002, it was washed out and never repaired. At this point, there are a couple of dozen washouts and rockfalls that make the “road” impassible, so it’s unlikely it will ever return. We were backpacking, but this would be an awesome trail for bikepacking as well - where you could bike to the main camp and then hike from there.

My current company, Openlane, has 13 auction sites across Canada - and one of those sites is in St Johns Newfoundland. In July, I was given the opportunity to travel to Newfoundland for a work trip and I absolutely loved this place. The week I was there happened to be the same week as Canada Day - so I had a few days outside of work to tour around. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to get to Newfoundaland - so I started a 3 leg journey on Sunday at 8a PST and finally getting into St Johns at 8p PST (3:30p local).

Derek and Diane invited us to head to Cabo with them for my 43rd birthday - which also happened to coincidentally be their 20th wedding anniversary. They got a house in a place called Playa Colorado (colorful beach I think) and we spent the week eating, swimming, napping, and doing a bit of snorkeling/diving. 2025-06-20 We started the day early, and somewhat irresponsibly. We left home just enough time to get to the flight, but we ended up getting stuck in a little traffic (it was too early for the ferry, so we had to drive around) and for only the 3rd time ever, the masterpark lot I usually use was full. We ended up just parking in short-term parking for a little extra money and we made it to the gate just as they started boarding. Thank goodness! Everyone started sending pictures of them as they got on the plane - we were all on our way!

After the successful end of the skiing season, we decided that we don’t own enough real estate yet and we up and moved to Bainbridge island. We have been ruminating on this idea for a while now, but Angela found the right place and we made the move. This post is not about our new house, or moving, or any of that boring stuff. Instead, we went sailing for memorial day weekend and had a fun little adventure - and that’s what I’m going to write about.

We are off to Hawaii! We had planned this trip to Kauai last year and we were excited to get some sun. My parents were arriving just before us and were there to be our welcome party. Just to make things interesting, we purchased a new home a few weeks prior and our closing date was in the middle of the vacation - perfect timing, huh? 04/13/2025 Our house was in boxes, but we managed to put together three bgs of Hawaii essentials (sans a swimsuit for Tom that would need to be purchased there) and we were off to the airport!

It’s been a while since my last post - but not due to lack of adventures! Sara and I have been skiing like there’s no tomorrow: 25 days in total this year, almost a month of skiing this season! Sara was a spectacular skier for her age before this season, but seeing her slide down a double black like a pro at the end of this season was a huge rush.

Summary MS bike ride. Round 2. Ten years later. Ten years ago, we did the MS bike ride with some friends - the ride starts and ends at the Skagit county fairgrounds and it broken into two days. You have the option of doing up to 150 miles, but most people do a lot less than that. Despite not having done this ride in 10 years, Angela and I decided to give it a shot once again. We headed out on Friday evening and met up with the crew for dinner and stayed at an airBnB in someone’s basement (complete with very low ceilings). The next morning, the real fun began.

Sara and I decided to take a backpacking trip for the long weekend - probably our most ambitious to date. After some deliberation, we decided on Ross Lake - which is just north of Diablo lake in the North Cascades National Park. We arrived on the night of Aug 31st to pickup our permits - only to discover that they closed at 4p and weren’t going to open til the next day. No big deal - we slept in the van at a beautiful boat launch and then headed over at 7a to pickup our permits. We were planing on staying at Roland creek camp and then rainbow point the second night. This was going to be a 7 and 9 mile push with over 1k feet of elevation change in two separate days (with a shorter day in the middle) - and Sara was carrying some of her stuff now… We will see how this goes!

The last 4 days of our trip were very different from the first 6 - we went mobile. The mobile camp felt much different from the lodges, although not due to lack of amenities - we were not roughing it. Our guide at this camp prided himself on being so far out there that we would not see another car - and he held to it. We were on our own when it came to what we wanted to do, where we wanted to go, and what we wanted to see. It also meant that we had to find our own wildlife, instead of relying on the radio network from the other trucks in the area.

We continued our African adventure at Camp Moremi. The camp is located within the Moremi game reserve - which is a separate reserve from Savute in the Chobe National park, but still within the larger Okavango Delta. We spent 3 days here, exploring a very different ecosystem which was much more wet and lush than Savute. 8/6/2024 Our drive from the airport to Camp Moremi was relatively uneventful, we got stopped twice by elephants in the road and then by Bush Buck - which is a new type of antelope that spends most of it’s time in the water. They are also very fluffy and cute…

Africa - here we come! After about a year of planning, Angela and I along with Derek and Diane are off to Africa for 2 weeks on an epic Safari. We will be traveling to 3 locations across Botswana - including Savute, Moreimi Game reserve, and a walking Safari and a float trip in the Okavango Delta. This post will include the trip to Africa and the first camp - Savute Safari Lodge. We are very excited for this adventure!

Taking advantage of the long weekend, Sara and I went for a backpacking trip on Sunday/Monday out to the Ozette triangle on the Olympic Peninsula. As expected in a rain forest, it rained the entire weekend - but we still had fun. The Olympic coast is a wild place and it’s amazing to visit in sunny weather and not. 5/26/2024 Ozette Triangle After a change of plans where our sailing trip was cancelled, Sara and I decided to go on a different kind of adventure. I’ve been wanting to do some more backpacking this summer - having fond memories of the few trips we have done in the past. This weekend, we did the Ozette triangle - a trip that I have been meaning to do for a long time. Back in 2012, I did a solo 4 day trip along the Olympic coast from the south end of the Ozette triangle all the way to oil city - which is the entire length of the trail, with the exception of the coastal leg of the Ozette triangle. I found the Olympic Coast to be magical back then, and it still is today.

Sara has gotten really into biking after she got a new bike from her Grandma for her birthday - so we took advantage of some great early May weather to go on some “adventure” bike trips. I don’t usually write about day trips, but Sara was so excited about these trips and we are working up to an overnight bike trip - so I thought they would be worth writing about. The first ride was just a little under 17 miles on a mostly gravel trail and the second was a little under 18 miles on mostly paved trail. Sara proclaimed after the first one - “This was the most Awesome Bike Trip Ever!!”.

Sara had her Spring break last week and we decided to take a very low key sailing trip for the week. Our original plan was to sail up to the San Juan’s for the week, but the combination of inclement weather, small craft advisories during 2 of the 5 days, and other commitments had us put that plan on hold for the actual summer. Instead, we just bumped around the Puget Sound for the week. On the plus side, we had lots of wind and we able to sail for all of the trip (except for the few minutes for docking and undocking). It felt really good to be sailing given how little we did on the Alaska trip last summer.

Summary For Sara’s mid-winter break, we flew back to Taos to go skiing. For the last 4-5 years, we have only been back in Christmas or Thanksgiving so just having a solid base of snow was pretty awesome. We got 3 days of skiing in and one rest day. Sara again is progressing leaps and bounds - she is skiing double blacks like they are no big deal and she was starting to ski parallel on the greens/blues. I’m going to apologize in advance for being a bit of a show-off in this post - I’m very proud of Sara’s skiing and I know it comes through…

We have been skiing every weekend since the begining of the year, but unseasonable warm spell this last week make the prospect of skiing more like ice skating. Instead, we picked a new campground that we had been meaning to go to and headed out for a weekend of hiking and camping. Sara, who constantly talks about camping when it’s been more than a month since we have gone, was thrilled.

Earlier this year, we undertook a challenge - take our 34 foot Catalina sailboat “Onward” up the inside passage from Seattle to Glacier Bay and back with our 6 y/o daughter and our 9 y/o golden retriever - over the course of 4 months. We were also not able to leave until late June, which is significantly later than folks generally leave for a trip of that magnitude - especially when their boat has a cruising speed of just 5.5 knts. Both my wife and I had about 10 years of sailing experience each - but this was the first boat we had owned (we purchased Onward about 8 months before the trip) and the first time we had taken a trip of this magnitude - prior to this our longest trip had been just over a week. All that to say, this was a big trip for us and we had lots of stories to tell!

We make our way through the San Juans, pass through Deception Pass into the Puget Sound, and then home! 9/18/2023 We had only a short move today - 11 nm from Henry island to Friday Harbor. We ended up getting in pretty early and found the place much less crowded than last time - only 3 boats vs 12 boats when we were heading north. Friday Harbor Amazingly, one of the first people we ran into was at Friday Harbor when we came through on the way North - a boat called Nisku. Apparently there was quite the stir when we mentioned our plans here 4 months ago and Nisku had been following this blog ever sense - with a particular interest in all of our mechanical challenges (and successes!). I had always assumed that the only people reading this blog were my family and maybe a few close friends - I’m going to have to watch what I write now… :)

We pick our way through the Gulf Islands and back down into the USA! 9/14/2023 We departed right on time at 8:20a this morning and made quick work of the 7 nm trip to Dodds Narrows - faster than expected with a 2 knt current - and we ended up having to wait for about 20 min before we felt comfortable running through the narrows with the current (~30 min before slack). As we were waiting, we saw some sea lions playing in the middle of the rapids. Seeing sea lions right on either side of the rapids has become a common occurance for us, they must be using the current to catch fish. It was only a few more hours from there to Ovens island and we had a bright beautiful day to do it in - and for a short while some wind to sail!

We head through the rapids, across the Straight of Georgia, and into the Gulf islands. From here on out, we are back in civilization - we have cell service & wifi most days and we will be staying in marinas/outstations most evenings. 9/8/2023 We had a very late start today - our window for crossing the rapids is at 1:10p so we are aiming to leave Shoal Bay at 11a. We spent most of the morning chatting with another boat who is from the area and they were heading to Dent island lodge. They gave us some good intel about being able to head through the rapids early on a high water slack - so ended up following them through the first set of rapids at about 12:15p. We waved goodbye as we headed through the next two sets of rapids and we saw some sea lions playing at slack water in the rapids - they were very fun to watch and very active.

We complete the last major crossing of the trip - rounding Cape Caution - and then we travel back through the Broughtons to Shoal Bay - our last stop before the rapids and fully tuck in behind Vancouver island. 9/3/2023 Early start from Pruth Bay to avoid afternoon weather. It was sad to be leaving, but good to be getting on our way. We got great wind the moment we made it out of the Kwakshua channel - 15 knts of wind at a broad reach. We were going 7 knts as we approached Fury Cove, so we decided to keep going and make it to Millbrook Cove in Smith Sound - about 10 nm further. This will take some distance off of crossing tomorrow and make it possible (but unlikely) that we can make it all the way to Port Hardy in one day. It ended up getting a bit choppy for the last hour or so, but we continued to have the wind so we got out of it quickly.

Leaving Prince Rupert, we push through Grenville & Princess Royal Channels. Some long days, but we made some tremendous progress towards our Pruth Bay on Calvert Island- our last anchorage in north BC and a location that we both very much enjoyed. 8/28/2023 We had a lot of provisioning/refit to do this morning - but we couldn’t very well visit Prince Rupert without the obligatory Cowpaccinos breakfast and back in the afternoon for ice cream. We departed the dock around 2p, and after a very frustrating 45 min wait for the fuel dock to open up, we were off just before 3p. We were hoping to make it to Gunboat Harbor (the anchorage just north of the Grenville Channel), but a nasty headwind was building and it wasn’t looking likely that we would make it to Gunboat before dark. We ended up pulling off about 10 nm short of Gunboat with a 15 knt headwind - still 20 nm day leaving at 3p isn’t bad.

The weather looks spectacular for the next week - so we plan to take advantage. 2 days from Wrangell to Ketchikan and 2 days from Ketchikan to Prince Rupert. 8/24/2023 Early start today to catch the favourable tides from Wrangell to Meyers Chuck (one of our favourite stops in SE Alaska). We had a long ways to go today, 50nm. Normally we would have split this into two days, but with favourable weather, we want to get across Dixon Entrance and into North BC as quickly as possible. Turns out, calm seas, good currents, and very favourable wind got us there almost 2 hours early! We even sailed the last 3 hours of the 6 hour trip (across Ernest Sound) - holding about 6 knts the whole way.

We take on the Wrangell Narrows and on to Wrangell just in time for the Anan Bear Bay. 8/21/2023 Today was our read refit day - which has truly become an art of efficiency at this point. Kicking everything off at 8a, we wrapped up laundry, hardware store trip, and groceries with everything procured and stowed by 10a. The Wrangell Narrows (today’s adventure) requires that we leave at a specific time so that we reach the midpoint (South Flats) at high water slack tide. If we do it right, the flood tide will carry us to South Flats and then the begining of the ebb will carry us out the other side.

We head out of Juneau for some long days with good weather towards Petersburg - exploring Stephen’s passage & Frederick Sound on the way 8/18/2023 We left the dock at just after 5a - making our way down Stephen’s Passage. We will spend the next two and a half days in the passage heading south before we turn east into Frederick Sound and Petersburg. The weather is cool, but very calm - a welcome reprieve from the weather of this last week. We were treated with a beautiful view of the Mendenhall Glacier as we departed Auke Bay.

We leave Glacier Bay after taking a day to wait on some weather. We make for Hoonah in case more weather comes in and then head for Juneau. 8/12/2023 Our origional plan was to head out in the afternoon for Gustavos and make for Couverden Island tomorrow, but after looking at the forecast we decide to spend the night in Bartlett Cove instead. Dawn/Angela immediately inquire about a room at the lodge and much to our surprise they have one available. We check with the park rangers about staying an additional night (since our permit expires on 8/12) and they seem ok with us leaving tomorrow or the next day. With that out of the way, we settle in to do some laundry and relax for the rest of the day. With a tremendous amount of rain coming down all the rest of the day, we spent most of our time in the lodge or our room. The lodge resteraunt is really the only game in town (Gustavos is a 15 min cab ride away) so we head down for dinner and find the food quite delicious.

It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. But every great journey needs a destination and Glacier Bay is our destination. Unfortunately for us, the forecast calls for rain during most of our stay at Glacier Bay. Fortunately, this place is beautiful even in the rain/fog and we are all in great spirits and ready to enjoy! 8/7/2023 While waiting for Dawn to arrive, we toured the longhouse - a traditionally constructed tribal house off the Hoonah Tlingit people. It was beautiful to see, but the best part was the artist that was showing the place off - Sara had so many questions for him about how to make drums, pendants, totem poles, etc. She asked so many good questions - many were things I didn’t think to ask but resulted in very interesting answers. For example, the green color in Tlingit artifacts is made from oxidized copper mixed with Salmon eggs…

We take do our Juneau fishing charter and depart Juneau - a bittersweet departure, but it was time - and make our way to Gustavos - to pickup Dawn and head into Glacier Bay National Park. 8/5/2023 Our day involved a later start than usual with a 10a fishing charter, departing from the marina next door (15 min walk). We met up with captain Levi and his deckhand and one other client - which we later found out also worked for the fishing charter as a mechanic, but was just on this trip for fun. We headed out to the far side of Pt Retreat near Funter Bay - a journey that took about 45 min in this boat but took us the better part of a day in our boat.

This post will cover our time in Juneau - not much boating/sailing in this one, but lots of exploring in a new town with the family. 7/30/2023 We ended up spending most of the day yesterday exploring downtown Juneau - which thankfully is a very lovely town (we were worried having already committed to spending some time here). Sara and I got some magnets for the boat and ate fish & chips on the boardwalk in downtown. We also went out to dinner at a nice resteraunt in downtown - something that hasn’t necessarily been available for many of the towns we have stopped on during this trip. Last night was our last night in the hotel, so today we will move all of our clean laundry (6 bags of it!) back to the boat and get comfortable on the boat again.

7/25/2023 We woke up the following morning to a fairly strong wind coming into the bay - which meant even stronger winds in the strait. We checked the forecast on VHF and decided that today was not our day. Thankfully - we really liked this hot springs, so we did it all over again! Back up to the natural hot springs, hike all the boardwalks and explore some of the trails that lead up from the boardwalks, repeat. We ran into another family with small kids and they were painting rocks - and Sara joined for a while. For being stuck somewhere - this was not a bad place to be.

7/21/2023 We departed Merrifield Bay relatively late - around 9:30a - so we could pass by Point Baker at max ebb (currents flowing the hardest) in the hopes that it would make for good whale watching. We were successful and there were quite a few whales and they were very active. We even saw them doing bubble net fishing - which is where one whale blows bubbles underwater to corral the fish for the other whales to eat. I have seen picures of this - but seeing it in person I didn’t realize quite how fast the whole thing happens. The ocean starts to bubble and foam and then it builds for maybe 15-20 seconds, and then the whales emerge mouths/fins/etc at the very end for a second. We saw probably 4 or 5 bubble nets as we watched. Unfortunatly, and quite maddeningly, the inside of my DSLR lens fogged up when I brough it up from the warm cabin into the cold cockpit and it refused to clear while we watched. After about 30 min, the wind started to build and an uncomfortable chop developed - which caused us to turn north for the pass.

7/12/2023 We have been busy - the last couple of days in Prince Rupert have been a flurry of activity… We got groceries for the next 3-4 days (we don’t want to stock up too much before dealing with US customs), we did laundry, we refilled our propane, we refilled water, we got Oakley into the vet, we did a huge shopping run to the local marine store, and we completed some much needed repairs on the boat (eg re-mounting the toilet!). Turns out Oakely cracked one of her teeth - and the inside of the crack became infected. Her body fought off the infection (which is why the swelling went down) but it’s highly likely to become infected again so we need to get it removed. Fortunately, we were able to get her into surgery tomorrow and hopefully everything will go smoothly.

7/5/2023 We gave a sad goodbye to Ocean falls - the place had really grown on us over the last couple of days - and made our way toward Klemtu. Seas were calm and only a slight headwind, not great for sailing, so we motored back along Dean Channel and past Shearwater/Bella-Bella. The goal for today was to make it to just this side of Klemtu - but that was a tenacious goal of almost 45 miles. We found some slightly rough seas on Milbank Sound so we decided to take the inland Reid passage. This meant calmer seas, but we had to stop well short of our goal as we weren’t timed for the rapids at Perceval Narrows. We instead pulled in to Oliver Cove Marine Park - a small marine park on the north end of ivory island.

We got a late start from Shearwater - I think the last couple of days have caught up with us. We ended up leaving around 9a from Shearwater - making our way for 35 nm to Eucott Bay (where the hot springs are). It was going to be a long day - probably 6-7 hours. Sara spent a couple of hour reading to me, it was raining in the morning so she tucked herself on the top step of the companionway to stay dry but still keep me company. The first challenge of the day was Gunboat Pass - a narrow pass that takes you out of Shearwater and into Dean Channel. The pass is narrow and does get some current, but it doesn’t get turbulent. We choose to go with the flood tide and got a nice 1 knot push through the channel - which carried us well into Dean Channel. The current flipped around 1 pm and we ended up with a half a knot or so against us for the last couple of hours.

Monday was our rest day in Port McNeill - we considered leaving early (marina life is far less enjoyable than being on anchor somewhere beautiful), but we still needed groceries and the weather looked much better for rounding Cape Caution on Tuesday/Wednesday than it did Monday/Tuesday. Either way, we got some delicious coffee from Mugz, did some laundry, and then purchased ferry tickets over to Alert Bay - which was advertised as the place to learn about the native peoples (called “first nation” people in Canada). The ferry ride was uneventful (and thankfully the crew allowed us to keep Oakley with us - sounds like you are supposed to put them in a kennel while you are on the ferry, which seemed terrible to us). The museum in Alert bay was very interesting - we learned about the Potlach dance and all the history/meaning into the different dances. The dances are performed with Masks and some of them are quite elaborate - signifying different deities and animals. We also learned about the history of the residential schools and some of the atrocities that happened in the middle of the century. Unfortunately most of the rest of the town was closed up - we were guessing that things kinda close down when there aren’t any cruise ships in port. There are some cool looking trails through the uninhabited part of the island, but we were running out of time to catch our ferry so we will save those until next time.

Our final rest day in Garden Bay was 6/19 - the heater finally arrived at around 5p. We started the day with a provisioning stop at the local IGA - this was our first grocery shopping by dinghy, kinda fun thing to do. We went on a hike to the nearby park (Garden Bay Provential Park) and found a fun loop trail & beach hike. We also spent a few hours up in the Sunshine Room, doing watercoloring and playing games.

We are off! We left Elliott bay on Thursday (6/8) around 4p and made our way up to the Blue Ridge neighborhood to anchor for the night. Our friends, Derek and Diane, recently purchased a new home there and it was closing day so we came by to celebrate with them. Pizza and 30ish year old Yamazaki whiskey was the perfect way to celebrate a new chapter for both them in their new house and us heading off on our sailing trip!

The last couple of weeks have been very busy cleaning up our house and getting the boat ready to go. We are T-9 days from departure on our 4.5 month sailing trip up to Alaska which is both exciting and anxiety producing… I’m writing this post to capture in writing some of the work we have done to get the boat ready to go and what the family has been up getting ready for this trip.

Success at last! This was my third attempt at the Palouse to Cascades state park trail. The trail runs for ~300 miles from Cedar Falls (near north bend) all the way to the border with Idaho (near Tekoa). This trail is a beast - but after three attempts, I finally made it. Before I jump into this trip, a bit of history. There is a bridge that goes over I-90 as you are going east from Seattle. It’s a pedestrian bridge, but it seems like it’s in the middle of nowhere so it’s notable and it has a big sign on it that says “Palouse to Cascades”. About two years ago, this sparked my interest and I discovered that this was a trail that followed the old Milwaukee road rail line across the entire state of Washington. Having done the Seattle to Portland bike ride the year prior, I was intrigued and interested in doing this trail - which is only marginally longer than STP (~300 mi vs ~215 mi). I put together a plan which involved dragging Angela along with me and even included bringing Sara with me in the trailer the first day. You can read more about it in the post below, but the bottom line was that I grossly misjudged the trail - not realizing the ruggedness of the trail and how it would impact me and my bike.

It was of course bitter sweet to be leaving the Galapagos. We had an amazing trip and the Sea Lions saw fit to give us a great send-off. Today was our last full day and tomorrow would be a morning departure from the boat and early afternoon flight back to Ecuador. The day called for a morning hike to Punta Pitt and an afternoon trip to the beautiful white beach on Cerro Brujo. This was another Galapagos moment - with the sea lions this time.

Today was to be our most metropolitan day of the trip - spending the day in one of the few towns in the Galapagos - Puerto Ayora. We were to spend the day at the Charles Darwin research center learning how they are protecting/preserving the giant tortoises (primarily). Then we were to head to a coffee plantation and finally a protected tortoise feeding area to take pictures of tortoises. Lots of tortoises today!

What a day today was. As you can see, an orca came to say hi to our boat today - the facial expressions say it all… We kicked off the morning with a hike to see the tortoises! The hike was about a mile and a half in an area called Urbina bay. This area was underwater until 1954 when an earthquake caused a dramatic uplift and about a mile of new land popped out of the sea within sec/min.

Day three in the Galapagos saw more snorkeling, an excursion to see the marine iguanas, and a Zodiac trip along the cliffs in the rain(amung other things). It also saw my first “Galapagos Moment” which Angela/I have defined as moments where you see something truely amazing that feels unique to the Galapagos. Each day, we were provided with a sheet that showed the schedule for the day along with details about what we needed to bring. As I learned in the army, 90% of success is being in the right place at the right time with the right uniform. :)

This was our first full day on the boat. A couple of remarkable things about the Galapagos: 1. It’s hot. The heat dictated our schedule and we tended to have early morning excursions and late afternoon excursions to avoid the heat of the day. It also impacted the animals - each with their own different adaptation for how to keep cool - or keep their eggs cool in some cases. 2. The wildlife really doesn’t care that you are there. The Ecuadorian government has done an amazing job with the Galapagos - in dictating how people should interact with animals (6 foot rule for example) and in enforcing those rules with a naturalist required to accompany you any time you leave the beach/trailhead.

Our day started at the hotel ~6a with breakfast and packing. We were to meet up with Nat Geo for a bus ride to the airport, flight to Galapagos, bus ride to the docks, and Zodiac rides to our ship. This was my first real taste of the level of organization that this company has - it was truely impressive. The morning went off without a hitch and when we landed in Galapagos it was early afternoon. My first impression was how dry it really was - this place is truely a desert (complete with huge cactus) surrounded by water.

It’s been a while since my last post, but we haven’t been idle. Lost of skiing and boat work (in addition to real work) before our big trip to the Galapagos… Just scheduling the trip has been an adventure (credit to my mother), but 4 years later after countless reschedules, flight issues, and vaccine issues - we were on our way. Our trip began on Tuesday (4/4) with a 6a flight to Denver where we were to meet up with the grandparents for the continuation of the trip. We got to the airport extra early (which turned out to be unnecessary as the flight was delayed by over an hour), but we were all in good spirits - not realizing that the delay was an omen of things to come…

I had a grand plan of attempting the Palouse-to-Cascade trail, but plans fell through with some bike issues. Bit of a bummer, but we made the best of it! Our plan for the weekend was to leave on Friday night and grab a moorning ball at Blake island for the night, then spend the day playing around on Blake island before heading to Port orchard marina on Saturday night and head home on Sunday. It was our first 2 night trip in the new boat and the first night on a mooring ball (on the new boat). The trip was a great success - lots of fun and lots of learnings.

You may be wondering why there is a post in here about a new toilet… That doesn’t sound like an adventure (or at least not a fun one). Well, this project was quite the undertaking, so I wanted to document what I did and why - in case it’s of value to myself in the future (or anyone else). The toilet that came with the boat was the original when the boat was made in 2007. The pump was barely working (brought up little water each time) and likely just needed to have the plunger replaced. Unfortunately, when I was scouring the web for a new plunger I found that this particular head was made by the Wilcox-Crittenden company, which had gone out of business. Every site I found said that spare parts no longer exist and you need to replace the toilet. Boo!

This blog post will be slightly different than ones in the past. I recently went to Europe on a work trip, but I was able to carve out a couple of days for my own adventures. I’m certainly not going to write about work, but the trip had several experiences that I want to remember - hence the post. I had planned to go on a whirlwind trip with 2-3 days in each location (Dublin, Berlin, and Geneva) and the way schedules worked out, I had a free day in Dublin and another one in Geneva. In Dublin, I did some searching for what I could reasonably do in one day and found a tour bus that would take you up to the Wicklow mountains for a day. This is one of a handful of national parks in Ireland and the site of several major films (none of which I can remember the names of). The specific place I went off to was called the Glendalough - which is a series of lakes in a large glacial valley. There is a somewhat famous trail called the Wicklow Way which runs for 79 miles and crosses through Glendalough about halfway along it’s length. This was the trail I ended up hiking, following it up the valley for ~3.25 mi before turning back to catch the bus.

A week after getting our boat, we joined Derek and Diane for an overnight sailing trip to Poulsbo. We packed everything up and headed down to the boat on Saturday morning - We are still working out what we need on the boat and what can stay on the boat and the outcome of which was a slight overpacking for a weekend trip… We planned on leaving around 8a (ended up actually leaving 9:30a). We got some great wind and just the right angle on the first day - spending the first couple of hours on a close reach with 10-15 knot winds, hitting 4-6 knots the whole way and far enough from the wind to maintain only a slight lean. It really was the best of both worlds - fast but comfortable. Sara slept in a bit and opted to start the day in pajamas (which she ended up spending most of the day in - comfy!).

We did our first day sail to a destination this weekend on the new boat. Our neightbors in the marina infomed us that this was a fun day trip - go for ice cream in Bainbridge. This sounded like a lot of fun, so with my parents in town we headed off in search of some wind to get us across the sound. We really were… (I say this alot in my day-to-day, thought it was a fun name for a boat)

In 2022, right before we purchased our own boat, we took a trip to the BVIs to sail with Derek and Diane. I had such a good time in the Bahamas years prior that going back to the Caribbean for my birthday seemed like an awesome opportunity. Also, given that it was my birthday, Angela did all of the planning/booking/etc - which was great for me - but I still ended up being the designated captain given I had the most sailing experience.

Every time we drive down I-90 going into eastern Washington we pass a large bridge with a big sign saying “Palouse to Cascade state park trail”. Ever since I first saw it, I’ve had my eye on the Palouse to Cascade state park trail as an amazing adventure to do some day. Bit of background - It’s a 289 mile trail (350-ish including detours) starting in Cedar Falls near North Bend and going all the way to Treskow on the border of Idaho. The trail follows the old Milwaukee trail (railroad line) and is mostly gravel/sand the whole way. It’s relatively flat (railroad grade) the whole way, with the exception of a few detours that bypass broken bridges/tunnels.

Back to back trips! After heading to Utah with the family back in April, Angela has been hankering to get a dutch oven. After some research, she finally found one, ordered it, waited two weeks, and it arrived! We just went camping the weekend before, but you should never let the sun set on a new piece of gear - so off we went. We decided to head back to Whidbey given the fun weekend we had last time. Our trip out was pretty uneventful, picked up some groceries for Angela’s enchiladas dutch oven meal and found our campsite without any trouble.

Knowing we had several big trips coming up, we had been considering laying low for the next couple of weeks but a 3 day weekend combined with good weather was too hard to pass up. I made a last minute camping reservation at Birch bay state park which is just north of Bellingham right before you get to Blaine. We have been to a nearby state park (Larabee) several times so we knew the area, but this was a whole new place to explore.

We kicked off our first backpacking trip of the season this weekend - the forecast was for rain so we decided to embrace it and head out to the rainforest. We had done the Bogachiel river rainforest last year, so we opted for the Hoh river rainforest this year. We were destined for rain, but we had all the right gear so we were ready… :) But first, we headed out on a Friday afternoon and stopped for dinner on our way to the trip. We stopped for pizza about 2 hours out of Seattle and got a great pizza with some ice cream and cobler for desert. Just the right dinner for a big/strenuous trip into woods.

Welcome to Zion! When we had our Galapagos plans fall through, we decided to meet up with the family in Utah for a National park trip - starting with Zion National park. We only spent 3 days here, but we did get a good taste of the park through some canyoneering and biking. Zion is known for Canyoneering - which is where you climb up/down steep walled canyons often by walking through/in the water. We rented gear (big waders & felt soled boots) and took the bus up to the start of the narrows. There were a lot of people for the first 1-2 miles (note the first picture below) but it thinned out as we kept going.

After having such an amazing time at Diablo lake a few weeks ago, we decided to head back with the kayaks. The goal was to pre-position the kayaks at the head of the lake, drive to the other end of the lake, hike to the kayak, and then kayak back down the lake to the car. It was a big trip, but we were excited. 2022-04-01 The first order of business was to drive up to the North Cascades. We left late on Friday so we stopped of in our standard rockport for dinner at the brewery there. This is a really fun place, and Sara played and played on the chaulkboards and markerboards they had on the walls.

Back at it after almost a month since our last trip - Sara’s ski lessons, Angela’s sisters trip, and overall sickness created a perfect storm and prevented the adventures for a bit. We went to the north cascades last weekend and spent some time exploring the area around Diablo lake/highway 20 before the closure. I really love this area, it’s relatively close to Seattle (2.5 hour drive) but it’s so remote, especially before the highway opens. Highlight of the trip was the Diablo lake trail as well as finding a new place to explore in early spring/late fall (elevation is low enough in this area that you can explore outside of summer).

After visiting Hurricane Ridge ski area a couple of weeks ago, I thought it would be a fun trip to go back with skiis and give the $20-lift-ticket ski area a try. It was super fun and Sara had a blast - grabbing onto the rope tow was a learning experience and she realy had to put her whole body onto it to make it work. :) Anyway, more on that later.

No van camping on this trip - but we had such a fun time anyway that I decided to make a post about it. This weekend was Diane’s Birthday and we headed to Walla-Walla for some wine tasting/drinking to celebrate. We hit up three wineries and had a delicious dinner in Walla-Walla - then found a fun hike and brewery on the way back home. We (Angela, Sara, Tom) ended up leaving a bit late on Friday and made it to Walla-Walla fairly late (around 7) and got our dinner on the way. We did a bit of hanging out that evening but had an early night to prepare for the crazy day we had ahead of us.

For our first trip of 2022, we had a whirlwind adventure - hiking in the snow to climbing over logs on the beach. Sara started Ski lessons, so our first van trip of the year was Sunday and Monday of a long weekend (Saturday was ski lessons). There was a lot of driving on this trip, more than I expected, but we got to see it all, snowy mountains, rainforest, and a very stormy (and rainy) beach.

Welcome back! Baker lake, round two. I think our plans must have changed 3 times before this trip - from Mt St Helens, to Langley, and finally to Baker Lake. The weather called for rain/snow all weekend, but we didn’t let that deter us! Sara made the final decision, she wanted to see snow. Baker lake had some obvious advantages - clear roads (to support the Dam there), I knew the landscape, and the hike I was planning (Baker Lake trail) was in the trees so, theoretically anyway, it shouldn’t be as windy/stormy - as it likely would have on St Helens.

We made a last minute decision to head to Ft Flagler this weekend (near port townsend). The origional plan was to head to Mt St Helens but the forecast was for lots of wind and rain, so we decided to change it up a bit. There is a drive-in movie theater that we were going to try and Ft Flagler an old historic fort with lots of trails and places to explore.

First trip since Lasik - We had plans to go to Mt St Helens to do some hiking and see the caves/observatory, but I realized at the last minute that Sara needed to get her passport (an appointment I made 3 months ago and forgot about) and I had to take her out to Port Townsend to get it - which is basically the opposite direction. So we packed up early on Friday and headed out to Port Townsend for passport paperwork… After the appt, we headed up to an area called Quilcene - a town of ~500 people that borders against the national forest and national park. We claimed our campsite and headed into town for dinner (decided not to cook given all the chores we had on the way to camping this time).

Wine country is open! We went on our first bike ride van camping trip last weekend - a great test drive of the new van setup with tow bar/bike rack and our first wine country trip to eastern Washington - and we picked a great weekend to do it with all the rain in Seattle. We left on Saturday morning with the aim of getting to Walla-Walla mid afternoon to start our first bike ride.

We decided to do a last minute trip this weekend - even though it broke the every other weekend pattern and we went two weekends in a row… It was Labor Day so we had to take advantage of the opportunity! There were only a handful of campsites left in the state, but we got one down near Snoqualmie called Tinkham campground. It was a nice campground - other than how close it was to I-90 which made it fairly noisy while we were out and about (it was quite inside the van). I decided to leave early Sunday morning and do a big Sunday hike - that way we could take it easy on Monday morning and still get back into Seattle at a reasonable hour (before the Labor Day traffic.

We had grand plans this weekend of heading to San Juan island to take the Jolly Trolley tour and do some hiking, but after a 3am wake-up to catch an early ferry, I checked my email to find that they had cancelled all but two of the ferry sailings that day. For a minute, we though about just leaving and seeing if we could get standby for one of them - but decided that would be a miserable day (up at 3am to catch the 2pm ferry…). So instead, we decided to go to someplace new.

I decided to do something a little bit different for our trip this time - we went to an outdoor theatre “built” in a forest. I say built because apparently they built the theatre with the idea that they would not cut down any trees or change the landscape any more than necessary. I found the concept facinating, so I decided it would make for a good van trip. Relatively tame considering our trips of late, but the curveball this time was a heatwave coming through western Washington this weekend - so crusible by fire on the new van optimizations for hot weather camping (more on that below).

This was a trip of first - Our first overnight kayaking trip with Sara, Our first time doing an overnight trip in the inflatable kayaks, first time doing a (minor) ocean passage crossing. Overall the trip was close to 12 miles - 5.5 each way but the current pushed us off course a bit. Lots of paddling - but totally worth it! I thought Sara’s video did a great job summing up this trip.

Sara’s first backpacking trip! It was amazing for everyone - Sara had a great time and it was an overall positive experience. Even more impressive, our little 4 year old hiked 12.5 miles over 2 days!!! I will admit that I didn’t plan it that way - we had to hike a bit longer to find a campsite than we had origionally planned, but mostly Sara wanted to go find blackberries and hiked over 3 miles to find them… Anyway, here’s the story.

Welcome to the second post in our yellowstone travels. This post covers all of the touring around we did during the trip - lots of wildlife, thermal features, and exploring. There were a couple of day hikes, but mostly we were just driving around… Our first stop was Mammoth Hot Springs - where we hiked around on the Travertine terrace and Sara got her first introduction to thermal features. I think it took a couple of days to sink in, so her reaction was a bit mutted.

And we are off! This was our first big van trip - and part of a bigger vacation. In all, we traveled 1400 miles over 5 days and saw some really interesting sights - and learned some new tricks for longer van trips & van trips in hot weather. I’m going to write this trip up in 3 blog posts - this one covers the road trip there and the other two will cover the backpacking trip we went on and touring around Yellowstone national park.

We went to Alta lake for the weekend, near lake Chelan - left Saturday morning and made the 3.5 hour drive up there. We had a great time, but it was a crowded little lake - very different from the lakes I have gone to in the past (when the weather wasn’t as nice). The most exciting news though was that Angela came with us! It’s the first time she has made an entire trip (she met us on Saturday night for the last one. This was the first trip with a working water system as well - which was super exciting. I now have 6 gallons of water (2 3-gal tanks) connected to a pump that we can use for dishes, cleaning ourselves, or drinking water.

Another great camping trip - and this time we had some first time campers as guests! We went up to Baker Lake on Friday afternoon and stayed for two nights - with Barun and Roshni joining us just before noon on the second day. But first, let’s check out our beautiful campsite! ‹ › Wanted to get Sara in a couple of those pictures - but she was not having it!

Larabee state park round two in the last couple of months - this time with a kayak. Derek came along as well - which was super fun for a change. In total, almost 7 miles of kayaking, playing on the beach, camping, movie watching, campfires, and games galore. Here we are all ready to go: And then the morning paddle - about 3 miles, but very choppy/rough seas. Made paddling any distance really hard… I didn’t get a picture, but we saw some seals from up close - which was super fun - but Sara didn’t seem super impressed. She was far more interested in the bubbles!

Our first trip to Larabee state park - which is right on Chuckanut bay near Bellingham. Beautiful location and lots of fun stuff to do. There are railroad tracks that run right through the park, which might be n issue for some people, but Sara and I did great (didn’t wake up at all) and it was fun to watch the trains go back while we were playing around. We went on a fun hike and Sara hiked the most I have ever seen her do - almost 2.5 miles!

Our first Van trip as a family - and our first trip with a working battery… :) This was also our first trip with our new inflatable Kayak, which was super fun. Sara and I left early Saturday and got a campsite, bought some groceries, and went on a hike around the south side of deception pass. The hike had some amazing views and we were able to get some play time on the beach as well. Almost a 3 mile hike and Sara did about half of it on her own.

So I decided to try to find something on the Olympic peninsula for this trip. I found an interesting camp near Lake Cushman with some trails nearby that looked like fun. Lake Cushman is a beautiful area with some amazing day sites right along the beach. Here are some pictures of the lake. ‹ › You can see it in some of the photos below, but the water level was super low - which I suspect had to do with the snow we got and the melt overwhelming the dam (Lake Cushman is man made). It was an erie sight at times with these fields of sandy stumps where the water used to be…

So - we were planning to go on a van trip this weekend, but woke up on Thursday morning to this: ‹ › Snow!! Doesn’t happen very often in Seattle. So that, combined with the van not really being setup for snow driving, meant we ended up staying in the city. But, that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have a bit of fun…

Our latest trip was up to the North Cascades National Park - which was an amazing place, far more than I expected this time of year. It’s a national park, but they allow dogs to hike on trails and they don’t really have an entrance/exit. The place we went hiking was about 3 miles from the end of the road (where the close the north cascades highway for the winter) and right after the big dam/lakes in that area.

Second van trip was a wild success. I decided to do another on nighter with Sara down at Cape Disappointment state park in southern Washington on the coast. The views were amazing - especially the sunset on the first evening, which had the most incredible color spectrum. The van setup worked soo much better as well - still a couple of things to optimize, but we were much more comfortable.

We decided to do a day hike on Bainbridge Island and the trail was super cool so I decided to do a post about it. It’s a 5 mile trail point to point that goes from one side of Bainbridge Island to the other. The first mile was on a road and the first half mile was not super fun (small shoulder) but after that the hike was super fun. Old growth forests, open meadows with views, interesting landmarks, etc were all available. Angela dropped Sara and I off at one end and came to meet us at the other end (she was planning to hike in to meet us but got a little lost).

We did it! First overnight van trip was completed on Dec 22-23. We (Sara and I) went to Wenachee state park and camped in the campground there. It got cold… Down to single digits and I didn’t quite have the camping system optimized for that weather yet so it was a cold night for me! (Sara did fine, she just burrowed down in the middle of my sleeping bag). And during the day she had her backpack to keep warm!

Spoiler Alert! I picked the Chrysler Pacifica. Why you might ask? Great question. That’s what this blog post seeks to answer. Two primary reasons and a handful of secondary (nice to have) reasons. I’ll start with the standard pro/con analysis. Let me start off with my requirements The first question I had to answer was whether I wanted a compact/minivan vs a full sized sprinter van. For me, I decided to optimize for a perfect 3-4 day expedition vs a full time live onboard. This meant I didn’t need as much space and I could avoid the full size van - making it easier to drive in the city, better gas millage and allow it to be quite a bit cheaper. Cons are less space (obviously) and you can’t stand up inside. If I start looking at month long trips in the future (if my work situation changes) then I would reconsider. The rest of this post focuses on the mini/compact vans vs full sized vans.

Way back in 2019, I had this great idea to travel to Glacier NP via train from Seattle. The real idea was to bring our backpacks on the train with us and then just go backpacking straight from the railroad station, but a small child and the desire to do other stuff besides backpacking sent us on a different path. Instead, we took the train and Angela’s parents drove out to meet us. Angela and I were going to go backpacking for a few days, and then tour around the park for the rest of the week before boarding the train back to Seattle.

The Wonderland Trail! This was the most amazing backpacking trip that I’ve ever had (so far) and while it’s several years later as I write this, many of my memories of the trip are still very vivid. This is my first post of an adventure from before I started this blog - hopefully one of several to come. To start, I thought some background on the wonderland trail would be useful. The trail is anywhere from 93 miles to 102 miles (depending on route choice and detours) and a cumulative 22,000 feet (6,700 m) of elevation gain. It was first built/hiked by the mountaineers in 1915 and was considerably longer (130-140 miles) but took hikers an average of 3-4 weeks to hike it. For us, it took a total of 10 days and our final distance was a little over 100 miles.

When Sara was just a few months old, I took her and my mom on a train trip down to Eugene OR. 2017-08-22 We took off in the morning of 8/22 - heading to king street station to catch our train. The cascade line runs down to Eugene OR and up to Vancouver BC. We were taking the train down to Eugene and then back the following day. ‹ › Boarding the train was nno issue and we were treated with amazing views of the coastline for the first part of the trip. Once we passed through Tacoma, we were inland for the rest of the way. The trip was fun - there was a observation car that we spent quite a bit of time in and we grabbed lunch in the middle.

Back in 2017, Sean, Golden, and Brian headed up to the PNW again to climb Mt Baker this time. I, in my infinate wisdom, decided to join them. This was to be my second time up Mt Baker and I found it to be a truely amazing climb - Big mountain with tons of snow and glaciers, and only 10k feet of elevation. ‹ › Unfortunately, August in Washington can be very suspect with all of the wildfires in BC trowing smoke up in the air - and this weekend was supposed to be a rough one.

Sara is here! 2017-05-05 Angela woke me around 2a because her water had broken an hour earlier. She took a shower and put on some clothes before waking me up - probably because she knew I would be excited and she wanted to have a calm start to the day which would certainly be fully of excitement. We left around 2:15a and headed up to Ballard. The day start off fairly slow, but the contractions started to get painful around 10a or so and there was some panic for half an hour or so before she could get an epidural put in. After that, it was pretty relaxed for a while - we played cards and chatted about everything ahead that we had no idea how to fathom. Then, at 3:09p, it all went down.

In October of 2016, the crew got together for a day trip up Mt Rainier to do some BC skiing. The road to paradise was on it’s winder season schedule - so they didn’t open the gates until 8a and they close them down again at 8p. We had to make use of every moment we had! 2016-10-22 It was still early in the winter season, so the first bit of our trek was a hike. It was not too far, but hiking with skiis and boots on your back is always a chore. We had fun though and we were all pretty used to it at this point

My 6th attempt at Mt Rainier was ultimately not successful, but it was one of the most enjoyable times I’ve had on the mountain - it really proved to us on this trip that this moutain is not for the faint of heart. 2016-06-16 The trip involved a whole crew of folks - including my wife and I, my cousin Sean and his wife, and my brother. Everyone flew in on a Thursday and we headed up to camp on Friday, heading up the Edmonds-Winthrop route again. The first part of the climb was pretty standard - sunny morning and we made quick progress up to the point where we rope up and drop down onto the glacier. We had done a few training hikes, which was good - everyone was strong and in good spirits.

Back in 2016, we decided to take a long sailing trip in the Bahamas with my family (parents & brother). This was just a few weeks before Angela and I got married. The trip was a bit of a culmination - we had taken all of the ASA sailing courses and we felt like we were finally ready for a really big trip… 2016-03-25 We landed the night before, but day one was when we finally met our boat. We boarded around noon (after the cleaning crew was done) and did some outfitting and hanging around for a while. Our boat was a Lagoon 38 I believe - 4 cabins and 2 heads and probably the coolest part for us was the galley on the bridge deck - where you could see out and get light while you were making dinner and hanging out. The next few hours were spent getting a tour of the boat systems by one of the captains, stowing away our food and gear, and getting to know the boat a little bit.

About a year after our san juan’s kayaking trip, Diane had this great idea of doing a sea kayaking trip in Alaska - in the Chugach mountains area. She did all the research and found us a guide group and we were on our way! We flew into Anchorage and then rented a car to drive to Whittier - which is the deep water port that services Anchorage and cuts through the small mountain range that separates Anchorage from Prince William Sound. The Whittier tunnel is 2.5 miles long (longest in North America), is one way, and can accommodate both cars/trucks as well as trains. It was apparently built during WW2 to provide Anchorage with access to a deep water port - as big ships were unable to enter the Anchorage port directly. To this day, cruise ships enter Whittier and passengers are bussed to Anchorage as they are unable to reach anchorage directly.

In 2015, I made my fifth climb on Mt Rainier but my first time going up the Emmons-Winthrop route - which is one the opposite side of the mountain from the more popular disappointment cleaver route. There were 6 of us in total on the climb, two groups of three. This was the 3rd trip I had taken with a few of them, but this was the first time climbing with the rest of them.

Back in 2015, I had the opportunity to go on an amazing trip with some friends to climb Mt Olympus. The core crew was team tiny tent - the 5 of us who climbed Mt Baker together a few years prior. This was an epic trip, just under 50 miles of hiking - starting at the ocean and ending at the top of My Olympus - the most remote peak in Washington state.

Back in 2014, my friend Pam who I met doing crossfit during my Amazon internship expressed an interest in doing some big moutain climbs. She, along with two of her friends (who I had not yet met), and I decided that Mt Baker would be a good first trip. This would be the first time up Mt Baker for me, but I had heard it was a much more managable mountain compared to the other PNW volcanoes.

Way back in 2014, we went on an overnight kayaking trip with Derek and Diane to the San Juan islands. This was right after we all completed a sea kayaking class - so this was a graduation trip of sorts. 2014-08-23 We departed on a Saturday (which just happened to be the same day that Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie got married) and started on our three day trip - leaving from Jackson beach just south of Friday Harbor. The group we rented the kayaks from provided us with an itinerary for where to go on the trip - making use of two campsites on the Cascadia Marine trail, where campsite reservations are not required for human powered watercraft - which was great on the first night but not as awesome on the second.

This one is taking us way back. In Aug 2014, Angela and I had only been dating for ~9 months and this was the second backpacking trip we had been on together. The plan was kinda simple - park at the drop Sol Duc hotsprings, pay a van to take us to the Hoh Rainforest trailhead, and then hike from Hoh to Sol Duc over the next 3 days. Our van driver mentioned something about why are you doing it this way, most people do it the other way - not sure what he meant.

In early 2014, I took off with my brother and one of his friends to attempt to climb the infamous liberty Ridge route on Mt Rainier. This is a very different route from many routes on Mt Rainier in that it involves some fairly technical ice climbing - using dual ice axes and pick like crampons to climb up a 60+ deg ice slope. I even had to get some new gear for this trip.

Back in 2014, Angela and I went on our first backpacking trip together. I had thought this would be a perfect one - flat trail along the coast from Ozette to Norwegian memorial. I had done this trip back in 2012 right before I started at Amazon - extending all the way from Ozette to Oil city over 5 days - and this trip was to be a quick out and back, 2 day trip. I guess I had forgotten how rocky the beach was in this area…

This is my second trip down memory lane, and this one goes way back. In the summer of 2012, my brother and I attemped to climb Denali (formerly Mt Mckinnley) in Alaska. While we ultimately didn’t make it, it was an epic trip that changed the way I thought about the world. To be dwarfed by a mountain that big is truely awe inspiring. We started our trip in Talkeetna - a fun little mountain town where most of the climbing/hiking expeditions that go into Denali NP start from. We spent most of our time at the Alaska Mountaineering School (AMS) HQ (the mountain guide group we used for the trip) - but our climbing hotel/hostel was also worth note. It’s called the “House of Seven Trees Hostel” and it was run by this lady who lives on the premises. She had bunk room for probably 24 people - with a combination of bunks in a separate building out back and rooms in the building proper. There were communial breakfasts most mornings (cooked by whichever climber got up first) and lots of stories flying around about climbing challenges by this group or that. A few seemed like they were almost permenant residents - using it as their base for adventure for the summer. We met one guy who founded a “low pressure tent” that artificiality simulated high altitude while you slept. Kinda a weird guy and I don’t know how much of his story was true…

Back in 2012, I was given the opportunity to study abroad to finish up my MBA education - at the WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management. It was a great way to finish up my education and it offered the opportunity to travel around before heading back into the real world. 2012-04 At the end of the study abroad program, we made our way down through France and Spain to Gibraltar. I don’t actually remember how we got there, either the train or a flight, but we ended up walking across the border from Spain into the tiniest bit of England, where the rock sits. The place was not what I expected - there was some of the historical batteries and the like that protected the entrance to the Mediterranean, but mostly it was just a very touristy place where they sold everything under the sun that said Gibraltar on it. The most notable thing about the rock was the monkeys, there were probably a hundred of them on the rock and they were melicious - stealing things and harassing people. I watched one steal a little toy out of a babies crib and another distract someone while a different monkey stole an apple from his backpack.

In 2011, I was given the opportunity to intern at Amazon - a opportunity that ended up shaping the next 12 years of my life. For now though, it was just a fun opporutnity to try something new and spend a summer in Seattle - a placed I have enjoyed since first visiting Derek back in undergrad. This story is about a slightly different topic though, my successful attempt to summit Mt Rainier for the first time - and experience that also shaped the next years of my life.