It's been a long while since I've posted anything here, but I wanted to let everyone know about the launch of Great Path Adventures. It's a small trekking company offering hiking and culinary adventures in the mountains of South Korea. The adventure starts this October with an eleven-day tour of Songnisan and Jirisan National Parks. We will hike for several days in each park, stay in traditional inns and enjoy delicious food.
Please check out my website www.greatpathadventures.com for more information. I look forward to seeing some of you on the adventure this fall!
Monday, February 01, 2010
Monday, October 06, 2008
Lynn Hill on Climbing
Haven't made many posts here, most of it going on www.chrisandlizwandering.blogspot.com. But I wanted to put this interview with Lynn Hill about her climbing career and her thoughts on climbing as meditation as I thought it is apropos to the project we are undertaking right now.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Vote the Environment
I like the message. It's not just a liberal democrat thing. It's not just for rich white people with too much time and guilt on their hands. It is related to everything. It is our home. I hope that in the years to come "The Environment" becomes a great unifier of people from all walks instead of being a divisive, elitist issue. It's everybody's home.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
March Already?!?
Ugh, I have these items on my checklist that say things like, put pictures from "XXX" on blog. And I don't. Then we go on another trip, and I add posting those pictures to my to do list. And I don't. Then what the hell, it's March. Chris says I should stop caring.
Really I should.
I have.
I'm leaving my job in four months.
I have senioritis.
But I do care......sigh.
I am an overacheiver. So I worry about trying to do well planning for a test that I'm not going to be around for (there is one sad thing about leaving my job, no more trips to England). And for some reason I keep worrying about my performance reviews, even though I'm not going to get a raise this year because I'll be gone. Then of course there is the house and the WAAAAAAY too big of a landscaping project I took on. And of course, since I didn't use seed free straw in my garden there is grass coming up EVERYWHERE! And then there is the trip planning.
Sigh...
And you know I don't even think I'm that anal of a trip planner. But we're keeping our house, which means renters, and powers of attorney and MAJOR budgeting. And to get a few more bucks towards our mortgage we're refinishing our basement room (add that to the to do list: Post pictures of basement room remodel). Bad bad bad major pain in the butt. Then of course there are the actual trip plans: plane tickets, visas and vaccinations. We're not even talking about where to go in each country. I like to keep it flexible, but man we really tied ourselves down with the house so there are a lot more loose ends to tie up. It's not like college where you just pick up and go. I don't think I should even be thinking that anymore...most of my life doesn't (and should not) even remotely resemble college. Like KU just beat UNLV and I only know because I was on the phone with my parents and my dad was watching the game. I am happy that KU made it past the 2nd round, and since I really screwed up and watched KU in Orange Bowl, I'm going to do the basketball team a favor and not watch any of the games.
It's interesting how different I seem from my college self. I'm pretty sure that I would not have envisioned alpine climbing, backcountry skiing or hiking being my hobbies back in Kansas. Speaking of which, skiing was the original purpose of my posting, but how I digress.
February brought lots and lots and lots of snow. So much that Snoqualmie & Stevens pass were closed for a week with lots of natural (as opposed to human triggered) avalanches on paths that hadn't gone for a couple of decades. We got some really good trips in before that. The pass being closed gave us time to work on the basement.
This picture of Preston kind of sums up February...
We got really spoiled, all through Christmas, January and February. Lots of crazy sick powder. We have also discovered that Preston is like a snow divining rod. He can always seem to find the good snow.
This is my one successful attempt at sports photography. It's hard to get everything to focus when people ski fast, it's overcast, snowing and the snow, sky and everything in between seems to be the same color and depth. Many props to "real" photographers!
More pictures from Kendall ridge
The crown of my whole season was the Slot and Crooked Couloir on Snoqualmie Mountain.
Alex, Preston, Chris and I headed up there with increasingly lowered expectations as the temperature went up and up. But oh, the north side, always holding a powdery treat (a thought reinforced later in the season on Mt. Catherine). 5300 ft of vert and three amazing runs. The next day, I bowed out with a cold, but the three of them were even badder-asses and skied the Paradise Glacier to add another 4500 to the weekend.
Preston and I had a chill day on Lichtenberg (another good discovery this season). It was the trip that made me realize how different things are from what I thought they would be just five years ago. I posted my first (hopefully not only) report on Turns All Year, a website of mostly Northwest skiers dedicated to year 'round skiing (yep it's possible here in the Northwest!).
http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=9368.0
So that brings us to March. And it's still snowing. The house and garden beg to be taken care of but the mountains beckon. Hopefully it won't be June by the time I post more :).
Really I should.
I have.
I'm leaving my job in four months.
I have senioritis.
But I do care......sigh.
I am an overacheiver. So I worry about trying to do well planning for a test that I'm not going to be around for (there is one sad thing about leaving my job, no more trips to England). And for some reason I keep worrying about my performance reviews, even though I'm not going to get a raise this year because I'll be gone. Then of course there is the house and the WAAAAAAY too big of a landscaping project I took on. And of course, since I didn't use seed free straw in my garden there is grass coming up EVERYWHERE! And then there is the trip planning.
Sigh...
And you know I don't even think I'm that anal of a trip planner. But we're keeping our house, which means renters, and powers of attorney and MAJOR budgeting. And to get a few more bucks towards our mortgage we're refinishing our basement room (add that to the to do list: Post pictures of basement room remodel). Bad bad bad major pain in the butt. Then of course there are the actual trip plans: plane tickets, visas and vaccinations. We're not even talking about where to go in each country. I like to keep it flexible, but man we really tied ourselves down with the house so there are a lot more loose ends to tie up. It's not like college where you just pick up and go. I don't think I should even be thinking that anymore...most of my life doesn't (and should not) even remotely resemble college. Like KU just beat UNLV and I only know because I was on the phone with my parents and my dad was watching the game. I am happy that KU made it past the 2nd round, and since I really screwed up and watched KU in Orange Bowl, I'm going to do the basketball team a favor and not watch any of the games.
It's interesting how different I seem from my college self. I'm pretty sure that I would not have envisioned alpine climbing, backcountry skiing or hiking being my hobbies back in Kansas. Speaking of which, skiing was the original purpose of my posting, but how I digress.
February brought lots and lots and lots of snow. So much that Snoqualmie & Stevens pass were closed for a week with lots of natural (as opposed to human triggered) avalanches on paths that hadn't gone for a couple of decades. We got some really good trips in before that. The pass being closed gave us time to work on the basement.
This picture of Preston kind of sums up February...
We got really spoiled, all through Christmas, January and February. Lots of crazy sick powder. We have also discovered that Preston is like a snow divining rod. He can always seem to find the good snow.
Deep seems like an inadequate adjective.
This is my one successful attempt at sports photography. It's hard to get everything to focus when people ski fast, it's overcast, snowing and the snow, sky and everything in between seems to be the same color and depth. Many props to "real" photographers!
More pictures from Kendall ridge
The crown of my whole season was the Slot and Crooked Couloir on Snoqualmie Mountain.
Alex, Preston, Chris and I headed up there with increasingly lowered expectations as the temperature went up and up. But oh, the north side, always holding a powdery treat (a thought reinforced later in the season on Mt. Catherine). 5300 ft of vert and three amazing runs. The next day, I bowed out with a cold, but the three of them were even badder-asses and skied the Paradise Glacier to add another 4500 to the weekend.
Preston and I had a chill day on Lichtenberg (another good discovery this season). It was the trip that made me realize how different things are from what I thought they would be just five years ago. I posted my first (hopefully not only) report on Turns All Year, a website of mostly Northwest skiers dedicated to year 'round skiing (yep it's possible here in the Northwest!).
http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=9368.0
So that brings us to March. And it's still snowing. The house and garden beg to be taken care of but the mountains beckon. Hopefully it won't be June by the time I post more :).
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Yodelin - New Year's Eve 2007
I could write or post pictures, but I think the day is best described by Preston's short little movie:
http://faculty.washington.edu/pfew/12.31.07big.mov
http://faculty.washington.edu/pfew/12.31.07big.mov
Sunday, December 30, 2007
787 Rollout
I know this is a seriously belated post. But if the airplane can be late to fly, can't I be late to post some pictures? We were going to use this picture for our Christmas card, but thought it might be too dorky. In the end, it didn't fit on the card, so we opted for the skiing pictures. Anyways, back to the rollout...we went backpacking in the North Cascades for the Fourth of July holiday and hemmed and hawed over whether we should go. In the ended I pushed Chris to go since he's put so many hours into working on this plane. We were pleasantly surprised, the whole operation was pretty cool. There were some glitches with parking and actually getting everyone into the factory on time (despite showing up an hour early, we were still 20 minutes late to the ceremony). There was a lot of blah blah about how great the airplane was, but when it came time to actually roll the plane out (or rather in), it gave me chills. Afterwards we were all free to walk around the airplane. We took lots of pictures and got to see a lot of people we knew. It was nice to catch up with everyone in a casual setting. The weather was really nice too. It was like a picnic, only with stale popcorn and water instead of hamburgers.
You can see my pictures in my web album:
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| 787 Rollout |
Christmas Break
It's so much fun to have a Christmas Break. It's the one thing I really miss from school, that and summer vacation.
Chris and I are trying to start a rotation of one year in New England, one year with my family and one year for us. So this year we decided to just stay put in Seattle. I miss seeing my family, but at the same time, it has been so nice not traveling and being in town for the inevitable Christmas storms. We've been doing a lot of things that needed to get taken care of around the house (like blogging), cooking great meals (because our families gave us awesome pots for Christmas) and of course skiing. It's snowed 8-10 feet in the last two weeks. This has made for some sketchy avalanche conditions at times, but there has still been plenty of skiing (deep and oh so powdery) in the trees. The snow has been very light and I've had some of the deepest skiing ever this past week (even more than Hakkoda).
I love our Christmas tree. It's a little blurry, but you get the gist. We've been putting the stove to good use. Carmen (our second cat) really appreciates it because it's more comfortable to sit in front of the fire rather than on the heating registers!
Christmas Eve Chili! We had a growler of stout from North Fork Brewery (up near Mt. Baker) from the day before, so we decided to make a big batch of chili to go with it. We had to open up a gift a little early (Thanks so much Eric & Cathleen!) so we had a pot big enough to cook all of it in. That's a three gallon pot and you can see it's mostly full!
White Christmas in Seattle! We intended to go skiing, but slept a little too late (probably from that growler the night before!), so we decided to just hang out and cook a big breakfast. A little after that it started snowing, and pretty soon it was puking! It didn't stick around long, but it made for a beautiful Christmas walk!
Christmas Dinner: We put all our new Christmas gifts to good use. Mom and Dad brought us a fondue pot over Thanksgiving, so we had fondue for Christmas Dinner! So easy to make, and the pot heats nice and evenly on the stove. I think we'll be doing fondue fairly often now.
Enjoying a great time skiing on Mt. Catherine (near Snoqualmie Pass).
Chris put together a sweet video of us skiing on Mt. Catherine (up at Snoqualmie Pass), click on the album below to watch it.
You can find more pictures in my web album (click on the album below).
Chris and I are trying to start a rotation of one year in New England, one year with my family and one year for us. So this year we decided to just stay put in Seattle. I miss seeing my family, but at the same time, it has been so nice not traveling and being in town for the inevitable Christmas storms. We've been doing a lot of things that needed to get taken care of around the house (like blogging), cooking great meals (because our families gave us awesome pots for Christmas) and of course skiing. It's snowed 8-10 feet in the last two weeks. This has made for some sketchy avalanche conditions at times, but there has still been plenty of skiing (deep and oh so powdery) in the trees. The snow has been very light and I've had some of the deepest skiing ever this past week (even more than Hakkoda).
Enjoying a great time skiing on Mt. Catherine (near Snoqualmie Pass).
Chris put together a sweet video of us skiing on Mt. Catherine (up at Snoqualmie Pass), click on the album below to watch it.
 |
| Mt Catherine 12-27-07 |
You can find more pictures in my web album (click on the album below).
 |
| Christmas Break |
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Los Angeles
I ran into Josh at my 10 year reunion, and after never making good on my promise to visit him in college, I decided to go visit him in LA. He's the head coach of the Pomona/Pitzer College swim team in Claremont. It's funny, I was picturing hanging out at cafes on near beaches, but he lives in the far east corner of the county, so picture lots of desert and urban sprawl for miles. Despite that I had a great time. Most of my pictures are in a web album (click on the link below).
One thing I didn't take pictures of was the LA County Fair. We went there the first day I was there. Where there is anything resembling agricutlure in LA County I'm not sure. The Test Director here in England assures me there is...somewhere, because he parents used to farm in LA county. Anyways, it was a scene. I ate fried coke, which is exactly like what is sounds. Other highlights of the night included a chicken breast on a krispy kreme donut with honey and raspberry sauce.
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One thing I didn't take pictures of was the LA County Fair. We went there the first day I was there. Where there is anything resembling agricutlure in LA County I'm not sure. The Test Director here in England assures me there is...somewhere, because he parents used to farm in LA county. Anyways, it was a scene. I ate fried coke, which is exactly like what is sounds. Other highlights of the night included a chicken breast on a krispy kreme donut with honey and raspberry sauce.
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