AK Cruising, bonus ski video

Okay, there's a big collection of stuff in this post. Most of it is from the ridiculously luxurious cruise on the Montego that AP and I were lucky enough to experience, thanks to Andy and Mica. There's a great video that Andy put together and a bunch of pictures -- I'll pluck out some of the better pictures with a few stories from the trip, then put up a gallery at the end. The video above really captures the trip well, so watch that for sure if you have ten minutes.

The other is a ski video that Andy put together from a trip in early July, 2011. Lots of cute puppies.

Sierra Pictures, At Last

AP, Hopi and I took off for a two week climbing road trip in late August/early September. We took the new van, all kitted out as a mobile home, and did a big loop through Arcata, the redwood forests, Tahoe, Mammoth, Yosemite, Reno and back up through eastern CA, Oregon and Crater Lake. It was delightful and one of the best trips we've had in a while. Lots of good climbing, good swimming and good times.

Took me a while to sort through these -- two weeks on the road will give you a lot of pictures. There are a ton in this album, but I've tried to trim it down to give the flavor of the trip. I've probably not trimmed it quite enough...

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Mt. Ellinor, southern Olympics

Anastasia, Andy and Mica did a little exploration in the Olympics last weekend, while I stayed home to clean the house and do homework. Hmmm... something's wrong here. Pictures of their ski of Mt. Ellinor below. Pictures of my efforts to de-moldify the house later.
For Linda
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The Scene
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Mica's Monkeys

Mica's Monkeys from Marcus Engley on Vimeo.

We Are Gathered Here Together

On Monday I had the honor of performing the wedding ceremony for our friends Andy and Mica. The service was held on the beach near Blue Ridge, north of Golden Gardens. The small wedding party walked down the train tracks to a locked set of steps. Undeterred, the bride and groom (and the wedding party dogs) stemmed across the gap in an oddly symbolic transition into the rest of their life together. Anastasia had me all weepy with the words she shared and we celebrated with a four hour meal at El Gaucho. A fantastic day.

The Details

It's remarkable how long the "little things" take. It's been a couple of weeks since Keith finished up and we're slowly chipping away at the detail work that we saved for ourselves. Tiling the backsplash -- the last big project -- is finally done. We still need to grout it, but thanks to a full day's help from Mica, we got it all mortared to the wall yesterday.

Busy May

The moment we got back from our Kokanee trip we dove into a hectic schedule for the month of May. I'm wrapping up my documentary film class with Andy for a "premier" on June 8th, trying to fit in as much helicopter flight time as possible and, the kicker, taking Snohomish County's "Rigging For Rescue" class, with Mica and Anastasia.

Kokanee Hut, Nelson BC

Five years ago, when we did our first hut trip to Fairy Meadows, we fell in love with the "hut trip" concept. We've since gone to several others, but have been trying each year to get a spot at the Kokanee Hut via the Alpine Club of Canada's lottery system. We missed it again this year, but managed to grab a later winter/early spring spot when the vacancies were announced in January.

Caribou Lodge - The Puppy Tour

After ushering in 2009 in a moldy, half-frozen yurt, we made plans to close out the year in comfort and style. Caribou Lodge had been good to us despite poor skiing conditions in March and it came through again for New Year 2010.

Spontaneity Arete, Le Petit Cheval

Andy has been diligently hunting for moderate alpine climbs that Anastasia would be willing to do -- Spontaneity Arete just east of Washington Pass was the latest effort. Short approach, minimal scree and loose garbage, solid rock.

July 4th, Mt. Adams Southwest Chutes

I was unusually luke-warm about this trip in the two weeks leading up to it. The plan was, like last year, to drive down to Mt. Adams on Friday, climb and ski the Southwest Chutes on Saturday, then drive to Hood and ski that on Sunday. With job dissatisfaction weighing my mood down, that just sounded like a hell of a lot of work to me.

Ymir Yurt Wars, New Year 2008-9

Better late than never.

After hearing tales of last year's powdery slopes and moldy yurt walls, Anastasia and I couldn't pass up the chance to join Andy, Mica, Kirsten, Nate, Todd and Murray (and Tundra, canine wunderkind) on a New Year's return trip to the Qua Yurt, 20 logging road miles outside Ymir in southeast BC.