Big Trees and Rock Creek Camping Adventures will be posted soon! A little thing called school has started and I have to do this thing called teaching.

9.28.14
Laura, Zephyr and I decided the tome was right to get out of the house and go for a late summer hike in the Toiyabe National Forest along Wolf Creek. The dirt road to the trailhead requires a high clearance vehicle (like our Forester), but it's worth the drive for the solitude. The creek was loaded with what looked to be golden trout or a very vibrant rainbow strain. I didn't have my rod. Wolf Creek is subject to special fishing regulations and artificial flies only, making me think they are goldens.

8.14.14
A father and son trip to Whalers' Cove Lodge on the remote Alaska Island of Killisnoo, near the small Tlingit village of Angoon on Admiralty Island. It was a whirlwind adventure flying to Juneau and then taking a float plane to the lodge early the next morning. We were fishing by 9am the day we arrived at the lodge. It was great to fish with my dad and bring home 200lbs of salmon and halibut for him, but it was more fun spending time time watching him smile and badly overestimate the size of his fish on the end of his line.

8.9.14
Hawaii Pics are up! Big Trees and Alaska Fishing will soon follow.

6.20.14
I was asked to take the photos for the wedding of my cousin-in-law, Jennifer and her husband, Josh. I rented a few top of the line lenses from Borrowlenses.com and let my trusty, now somewhat old, D700 do the work. The wedding was great, set in Jennifer's childhood backyard in Verdi, NV. The wedding was full of joy and happiness as evidenced by all the smiles in the photos.  Thankfully, their joy made me look good as a first time wedding photographer.

6.11.14

Photojournal from the 2nd annual WildLink Club GradPacking trip on 6/3-5/2014: A backpacking adventure for freshly graduated alumni of the THS WildLink Club Brian and Kathleen. Thanks to another horrible drought year, we decided to tackle the Yosemite high country in early June. Unbelievably, we only encountered ten other hikers on our entire hike and very few mosquitos above 9000ft! Infact, marmots outnumbered people by about 3-1. Our three day journey was 26 mile lollipop route from Tuolumne Meadows to Lyell Canyon, up to Evelyn, Fletcher, Townsley and Boothe Lakes and then down Rafferty Creek and back to Tuolumne Meadows. Patchy snow and still-frozen lakes made the going a bit slow and caused us to change camp plans for the second night, but the views were amazing and memories to last a lifetime were etched into our brains. Be sure to check out the sunset and night photos at Boothe Lake. I’m happy with them. With that, bon voyage to Kathleen and Brian, entering the Army and Marines, respectively, in August.

6.11.14

Laura, Zephyr, Steve, Bryanna, Gretchen and I took a lovely tune-up hike to Bear Lake. This 8 miler was by far Zephyr's longest hike and he did great. The hike itself is pretty easy with a dusty climb to Camp lake and then a lovely walk between small meadows and ephemeral streams to Bear Lake. I didn't bring a fishing pole but the fishing here is generally fair at best. See my previous Bear Lake hike descriptions for more geology.

5.26.14
My Aunt Dorothy proved her sewing skills are second to none when she sent this cute 1920's "onsie" to Zephyr after he was born last year. He was finally big enough to model the enesemble today and just might have started a new retro 1920's trend in baby fashion.

5.26.14
Photos from spring break that I neglected to post earlier:
Ellen completed the SLO Half Marathon rather quickly, so she decided that we also needed to hike up Bishop Peak before we left SLO.

A fun, somewhat relaxing trip to South Lake Tahoe during Spring Break. It had been 70 degrees prior to our arrival, but the snow gods decided California needed a bit more moisture for the year while we were there.

3.27.14
GEOSCIENCE CLASSES CLICK HERE CLIMATE GRAPH LAB

2.17.14

Laura and I cannot believe that Zephyr has been with us for one year. So to celebrate such a cool kid’s birthday we went on a mini-vacation to Monterey and even PriceLine splurged for the Hyatt Regency for two nights (nice place, but thin walls). Upon our arrival we took a great stroll along Asilomar State Beach. Day two was a full day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. We ended our vacation on day three with a lovely hike through Cypress Cove at Point Lobos State Natural Reserve. The photos say it all… Zephyr loves being outdoors and especially loves birds.

GEOSCIENCE CLASSES CLICK HERE FOR PLATE TECTONIC LABS!

1.28.14

With Laura and Zephyr staying home with Laura’s friends I was itching to get out of the house and take advantage of the nutty drought. The lack of snow in the Sierras and unseasonably warm weather drew our attention to Hetch Hetchy once again. The 2014 version of the Hetch Hetchy hike was surreal. The temp was in the low 70’s. The Rim Fire laid waste to the Evergreen Road corridor and a good portion of the trail between the tunnel and Wapama Falls.. We saw a bear ambling along the road when it should have been sound asleep. We saw one measly patch of snow along the South Fork Tuolumne River. I caught a huge brown trout while standing near the old dam top and road. And I missed sharing the experience with Z and Laura. But my parents were good hiking company and the day was absolutely, horrifyingly perfect for March… to bad it was the middle of January.

2013 UPDATES CLICK HERE
2012 UPDATES CLICK HERE
2011 UPDATES CLICK HERE
2009-2010 UPDATES CLICK HERE