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.

Gear for sale

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Ethiopia Pics

I realized I hadn't put up the rest of our pics (well, not really the rest... but more of them). Here you go -- some duplicates from the pictures in our blog posts here, but some other new eye candy if you hadn't gotten enough yet.

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Ethiopian Death March

Lalibela tour
Trek Day One
Trek Day Two

In the event of an unexpected landing, please move quickly to an emergency exit, keeping in mind that the nearest exit may be behind you.

Spaghetti Math

Lalibela tour
Trek Day One

Abune Josef is the third highest peak in Ethiopia. A broad, sloping bench more than 2 miles across rises up to become the 4295 meter summit from the south, while the north face is a sheer granite cliff. This massive chunk of rock sits in the high afro-alpine 36 kilometers from Lalibela, above Agaw Berat, our second day’s destination.

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Now, if you’ve been paying attention and doing the math, you’ll deduce that, if Josef is 36 kilometers from Lalibela and our first camp at Ad Medhane Alem was 13 kilometers from Lalibela, our second day of travel is 23 kilometers, or roughly 15 miles. In fact, Agaw Berat is 23 kilometers away and climbing Josef adds another three, for an even 26 kilometer, 17 mile day. Starting at 11,000 feet and climbing to just over 14,000. Have I mentioned that Anastasia picked this trek?

Informal Tail Guide

Lalibela tour

I’ve learned a couple of things today. For one, there are tour groups that describe their trips in the most benign way possible to take advantage of your perhaps-optimistic assessment of your own physical abilities. Once they get you to commit, they go to great lengths to make you aware of that optimistic assessment by putting you on a trail with dozens of children that can run circles around you while carrying a 35 pound bag of barley.

Holy holy, Holy, Chanting Room

It’s 8:30 on Friday night and I’m propped up in bed next to AP, in our little round “hotel” room in Lalibela. At an elevation of 2600 meters, Lalibela is home to 25,000 Ethiopians, hundreds of goats and donkeys and eleven rock-hewn churches built in the 12th century by an Ethiopian Orthodox priest/king.

How the hell did I get here?

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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Kokanee Video

Andy put together a fine little video with our footage from the trip. Be sure to expand it to full screen.

Kokanee Hut from A. Toyota on Vimeo.

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.

The Hog Loppet

This past Saturday Erik, Carey, Alisa, Rich (Alisa’s husband) and I all skied the Hog Loppet, a 30k “race” from Mission Ridge outside Wenatchee to Haney Meadows at Blewett Pass. It was a bluebird day with temps in the 40s.



The race covers 18 miles and starts at 6400 feet. The first 3 miles has a LOT of down, over 1000 feet, which makes for some comical moments when everyone is on waxless fishscale cross country skis, or skate skis. Ass-craters littered the slopes.

Finally Skiing - A Two Tour Weekend

It has been a fairly dismal snow year here in the Pacific Northwest. Our passes to the Snoqualmie resorts lie crisp and fresh, untouched, in our helmets. Amid the organized chaos of involvement with 3 or 4 Search And Rescue teams between the two of us, we've had precious little time to use those passes, even if there had been snow to play on, so when we looked at the schedule and realized that the last weekend in January was blissfully free of commitments, we decided to ski tour both days and make the most of it.

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.

Snow Pit Graph Explained

Many of you will be familiar with this stuff already, but Aunt Tilley (Margo) wanted a more thorough explanation of the graph in my last post, so I wrote it out for her and figured I might as well put it up here, too.

Soggy Slogging at Yodelin

We took Jessica out for her third backcountry weekend in a row, aiming for the trifecta of difficult skiing conditions. We were lucky to find 15" of new snow that had been subject to 2 or 3 days of above freezing temperatures and several inches of rain. Had to be some of the soggiest, heaviest skiing I've ever done, but we had a good time, dug some pits and did some beacon practice before running home to the beer and dry clothes.

Breaking In New Folks, 12/12, Hyak

This was a Cascade Backcountry tour, and a beacon/travel education day for a couple of friends who are new to touring.

The very ambitious (and never really serious) plan was to head out the XC trails from Hyak and scoot out to Twin Lakes, then up to ski the east slopes of Silver. Coverage along the XC trails is pretty good, with only a few bare patches, but even at 3400 feet there's only 18" of snow on the ground, if that.

Since both Jessica and Leigh were working on new boots, we made it a travel day and skinned up to just shy of Windy Pass and did a nice big beacon search clinic. Great fun, and everyone did a great job. It's a treat to go out and have a blast with enthusiastic people when, if it were just me, I'd probably stay home and eat pancakes, waiting for better snow.

Occasional sun and great visibility was a bonus. Surface hoar forming everywhere, with particularly impressive formations in the creeks and riverbeds. Had we dug a pit, I'll bet we would have found some near the ground, but we were occupied with beacon work.

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.

Into The Land Of Fire

Our Argentina story, in moving-picture format...

Into The Land Of Fire on Vimeo.