Shenandoah

Since I moved to the East coast after college, I have come to cherish autumn weekends spent in the mountains. We typically spend several weekends backpacking, camping, or taking in the fall colors. This year was a bit difficult, because my foot injury prevented me from doing any hiking. Finally, this past weekend, we got out to the mountains.

Shenandoah National Park has been a favorite location, in all seasons, for both me and Tatiana. We did our first backpacking trips together there in 2001, and have returned multiple times. Both of us had spent considerable time there before we met, and we have hiked the entire Appalachian Trail through the park.


So this weekend, Shenandoah was a great place to see fall colors! We drove out on Saturday morning, and completed a short (~2 mile) hike to Dark Hollow Falls. Calista hiked the whole way without assistance (except with getting over the rocks). Today (Sunday) we hiked to Stony Man Cliffs, one of our favorite spots in the park. Calista climbed the rugged trail with us, approximately a mile round trip. It was cold enough on the exposed ridge for ice to have formed in some of the rock crevices. Later in the afternoon, we completed a 3.3 mile loop hike to South River Falls, 3rd-highest in the park - with Calista along in the backpack this time. These falls lie near the South River Picnic Area, where I started a backpacking trip with my brother Mike (in 2000?), but we did not have time to journey to the falls on that trip. So it was fun to see them now. My foot help up pretty well - it was by far the most walking I have done since the injury.

You might be able to tell from the rest of the photos that the colors were best at lower elevations, while most of the leaves in areas along the ridgetops have fallen already.

Fall

We are well into the heart of fall now. I think the leaves are falling a bit earlier than usual. At the WCAC championship last weekend, there were leaves coating the surface of the stream - something I have not seen before.

I always spend huge amounts of time on cross country in the fall. Often I spend more time planning practices or for weekend meets than prepping for my classes. Managing a team with 75 runners and 5 coaches is not an easy task.

A couple of weeks ago we had a free Saturday, so we went out to the Western Maryland Rail Trail to do some biking. It's a very scenic trail, running parallel to the C&O Canal and the Potomac River. We covered 45 miles, with Calista trailing along behind my bike in her "chariot" (it's a Burley trailer, actually).

We have one more free XC weekend, and then three straight championship races: MD/DC state (private schools), Jesuits, and then Nike SE Regionals. And maybe Nationals, if we run really well.

We also made it through Halloween without too much drama. Calista dressed up as a fairy for a local event - a parade for the kids, followed by trick-or-treating at local businesses. We did not go out house-to-house Sunday night - she was too tired for it to work!

Here are some more pics from our fall outings . .

The rest of our trip . . .

I never got up to updating the blog again during our summer trip, and have forgotten about it since we got home! Here's a recap, with some links to lots of photos:

We had a great family reunion in Trinidad. We stayed at a great house near the ocean, and had lots of fun being together with family. And of course we toured the famous Redwood trees with our local guides!!

Mike and I had a fantastic backpacking trip on the PCT. I have a full trip report posted here (I am having some trouble uploading to my website, so this is on the Gonzaga page).

On the way home, we made lots of great memories and stopped at a bunch more places: Lava Beds National Monument, Lassen National Park, Timpanagos Cave National Monument, Fossil Butte National Monument, Golden Spike National Historic Site, Agate Fossil Beds Nat. Monument, Scotts Bluff Nat. Monument, Homestead Nat. Monument, and Lincoln Nat. Historic Site. We camped the entire way, except the last two nights when we encountered fierce humidity and a heat index of over 100.


Here are the photo sets. Many of the pics were taken with my new GPS-enabled camera, so you can use the map feature (lower right corner) to see where they were taken - or load photo sets in Google Earth:

Reunion (Trinidad/Redwood NP)

Backpacking (Pacific Crest Trail in the Klamath Mountains)

Lava Beds and Lassen National Monument, and the rest of the way home.

Trinidad, CA

We have made it to the reunion! It's been a great trip, and it feels like we have been away from home for a long time! Here's a quick overview of our travels:

* Canyonlands . . great wide-open spaces and a super quiet campground with awesome night skies!

* Great Basin NP - alpine lakes and bristlecone pines

* Great basin region - in Utah and Nevada - a "Sagebrush ocean" punctuated by mountain ranges.

* Ancient Bristlecone pines in the White/Inyo mountains.

* Giant trees and snow-capped mountains in Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks

* Grassy hillsides with scattered oak trees and chapparal in various parts of CA.

* Pinnicles National Monument was hot! . . we swam in a pool and had a nice hike the next morning.

* San Fran . . . Alcatraz, Muir Woods, Point Reyes National Seashore.

In the Rockies

The first few days of the trip have gone great! Calista has been great in the car. She's enjoying the various car toys, reading, etc. She has been a bit silly at times - on the first afternoon she put her bunny on her head and declared, matter-of-factly, "I have a bunny on my head!"

We camped the first night at a state park in Illinois. The second night we were at a state park on a reservoir in western Kansas. We arrived in Denver yesterday afternoon. Today I hiked with Tyson up in the mountains, and Tatiana, Calista, and Sarah visited the Cherry Creek Arts Festival for most of the day. Our hike was at an abandoned mine, and involved a route that was featured in a recent edition of backpacker magazine. We hiked a few miles up to the old mine, and then continued to a ridgeline that afforded a great view of the surrounding mountain ridges.

Tomorrow we head for Canyonlands.

Off we go!

No blog updates since Spring break . . I am getting pathetic at keeping up! We are ready to take off on an epic cross-country trip tomorrow morning. Our hope is to keep up the blog periodically from points along the way - but since this is an outdoors-based trip, rather than a city tour, time on the web might be hard to find. Tatiana will have a laptop so we can always drop into a McDonalds with wireless for a bit.

The last few months have been good, if stressful and busy as usual. The two of us travelled to NYC to see a broadway show in May (Phantom of the Opera), and we were also in New Jersey to see family on a separate weekend. There was a weekend in Chincoteague, and the usual short trips to Hampstead or outdoor places for a short hike. I was in Cincinnati for a week to grade AP exams in early June.

We will be headed west on the I-70 corridor towards Denver tomorrow. The plan is to visit Tyson and Sarah in Denver, then hit Canyonlands, Great Basin, and Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks on the way to our family reunion in Redwood country, on the northern CA coast. Happy 40th anniversary to Mom and Dad!!

Spring Break

We recently returned from our spring break trip to Kentucky and southern Illinois, where we visited with my parents (who had traveled from Michigan) and saw interesting natural areas in Shawnee and Daniel Boone National Forests, as well as Land Between the Lakes. I have created a Google-maps based tour of the trip. You can also view our photos here.

Updates

The blog is woefully out of date now, so I am going to do a big "winter update" post. My last post was at Christmas! Yikes! So here is a run-down of some recent events.

Skiing in Canaan, round 1

For MLK weekend, we rented a house with some friends in Canaan valley. The winter had already been cold and snowy for a month by that point, and we managed to arrive on the first mild weekend since the winter started. There was plenty of snow, and ski conditions were decent on Saturday. Things turned "south" on Sunday, with rain and temps above 40 - so we stayed inside and played games most of the time. I went for a long run through slushy gravel roads in Old Timberline, where we were staying. I did not get many photos because of the weather, but I did create a map of the various places that we tend to visit in Canaan valley.

Calista's Birthday

Believe it or not, Calista turned 2 years old on January 28th. We had 4 birthday celebrations - with Tatiana's dad the weekend before; with just the three of us on her birthday; with church friends including Bella Bouman, whose birthday is two years earlier; and then with both of Tatiana's parents. Calista keeps growing and changing every day, it seems - she has changed a lot even in the 6 weeks since her birthday. She is very talkative and interactive, loves to read and play and tell you what she is thinking. She likes to look at pictures of animals, and the latest thing is to listen to recorded bird calls - after she and Tatiana heard an owl one afternoon. There are some photos here.

Lake Placid

We had 4 days off for President's weekend, which followed the two major storms that hit the mid-Atlantic in February. Tatiana was in Atlanta for a Smithsonian event during the first storm, and her return was delayed because of the snow. She snuck into town between storms, and as things were clearing back out we drove north to the snowy wonderland of Lake Placid. The snow conditions were perfect there - not a huge snowpack, but plenty for good skiing, and temps in the low 20s. Calista was on skis for her first time, on a pair of beginner skis borrowed from someone we met. We skiied at Mount VanHoevenburg, home of the 1980 Olympic competition, and also on part of the 40+ mile Jackrabbit Trail, which runs right past the cabin where we stayed. It was fun to be there during the Olympics, partly because the olympic torch in Lake Placid was lit.
Pictures are here.

Blackwater Falls

We had our final ski trip for the season about 10 days ago. We were still on the tail end of a cold snap, and Canaan had 5 feet of snowpack in places! We stayed at Blackwater Falls, and skied both in the park and at Whitegrass. Wonderful conditions and fun times. Pics are here.

On into spring

Since our Blackwater Trip, we have suddenly launched into spring. We have already experienced several beautiful early spring days, with temps in the 60s and sunny blue skies. We also had a rainy weekend, accompanied by some serious flooding in places. I am getting ready for the Boston Marathon, which goes off in just over a month.

Christmas

We spent the Christmas/New Year with family on both sides. We were in Hampstead for Christmas, and then drove to Michigan on the 27th and stayed for a week. It was fun to spend time with family members, and Calista really enjoyed opening lots of presents. The snow in Michigan was excellent this year, and we were able to ski every day while we were there. We spent New Years Eve at a small cabin in Cadillac, on Lake Mitchell. We skied at Cadillac Pathway and at Mackenzie/Caberfae. More pics are here.