North Cascades

Two weeks ago, I hiked to Barclay Lake below Mount Baring with Suor.



Last Saturday I hiked up to Heybrook Lookout with Nabeel. On the way, we also stopped at Deception Falls.

Cougar & Tiger Mountains

The past two Saturdays I've gone hiking. I've posted some photos to Flickr.

Cougar Mountain


Tiger Mountain


Both mountains are part of the "Issaquah Alps" which are in the suburbs east of Seattle. I think I'll try going to the northeast on my next hiking trip - Barclay Lake below Mount Baring sounds good.

North Cascades National Park

I thought that there were only three (US) national parks near Seattle - Olympic National Park, Mount Rainier, and Crater Lake.

The other day I stumbled the North Cascades National Park online. According the its website it is very scenic and has lots of camping and hiking with mountains and glaciers. It's only two and half hours away from Seattle too. I going to drag my friends there in the summer to go camping.

Travel Plans

I don't really have much vacation saved up at work, but my plans for this year are:

• Costa Rica - go and see the rainforest and do something a bit different than my past two vacations (which were to Europe).
• Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons - Crater Lake was an awesome camping trip. I want to go to camping at Yellowstone next and Grand Teton is right beside it.
• New York City - I have a friend who's moving there, so I figure I can invite myself for a visit some weekend and see the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Times Square, and all that good stuff.
• Chile - There's a ferry that runs along the coast, which has scenic fjords, and after a few days you end up in Patagonia, which has great hiking at Torres Del Paine. Being south of the equator, the seasons are "backwards", so the best time to go is November-April, which means I would go next winter.
• Portland - I've been to Vancouver and Victoria, which only leaves Portland as the nearby major city that I still need to visit.

I want to go hiking/camping at Mount Rainier and Olympic National Park this year too, as it's been two years since I've visited either place, but they're close by, so it's not really travelling.

Crater Lake

Lots of lots of photos from last month's camping trip to Crater Lake.

Piecora's Pizza

I went hiking today with Prashant to Greenwater Lakes, which is a bit past Enumclaw (about an hour and a half southeast of Seattle). It was pretty decent - the forest was nice. The lakes were more like ponds though. And we couldn't find the "awe-inspriing western red cedar" that my guidebook called out.

I was too lazy to cook dinner (and don't have very much food in my apartment), so I decided to go to Piecora's Pizza, which was near my house. (I've never gotten a pizza there before). I phoned in my order and they said it would be 20 minutes. I waited a bit and then walked over there, about 15 minutes after I phoned. They hadn't started making the pizza yet even. It took nearly 50 minutes by the time I got my pizza and walked back home, so I wasn't very impressed. It was good pizza though. I'm not sure if it's worth going back though - too much time/effort. Heating up a frozen pizza is cheaper and a lot faster.

Mount St. Helens

I put up some photos of Mount St. Helens on Flickr from when I went hiking there with Suor in August.

Mount Si

I went hiking up Mount Si yesterday with Sudhanshu. It was my third time hiking up to the top. I can tell that I'm in better shape then the previous times, but it was still quite grueling (and my knees are a bit sore today). The weather was little hazy, but the view from the top was good.

I'll post some photos once I install a new hard drive. (My current one is a bit small and full of music and photos).


And is it just me or does the Joliet file system suck. Why can't perfectly valid filepaths from a FAT or NTFS drive be copied onto a CD as is. Is that too much to ask?

Lake Serene and Talapus Lake

Some hiking photos from July: Lake Serene (with Suor and Nabeel) and Talapus Lake (with Dave and Caroline).

Lake Serene


Talapus Lake

Lake Serene

I went hiking to Lake Serene [Seattle PI] yesterday with Suor and Nabeel. We got a late start and it was a bit of drive to get there - it's 8 miles east of Gold Bar (Highway 2). The bottom part of the trail was relatively flat and a little boring. After about a mile in a half, you reach a rock face with water trickling down that was cool looking. Then the trail got really hard. The signpost at the fork in the trail listed the distance to the top as 2 miles, but it seemed a lot longer than that. And the trail was very steep (wooden "stairs" were often necessary) and extremely rocky. Near the top, there was a decent view of the valley below and the nearby mountains. The lake at the top was awesome - small, but a nice colour and surrounded by trees, cliffs, and snowbanks. We chilled out at the top for a while before heading back down.

I'll post some photos to Flickr once I'm done sorting through all my Europe photos.

Wallace Falls

Photos from last Saturday's hike to Wallace Falls.

Waterfalls

Nandu also recommends hiking to Wallace Falls. After Googling this and Twin Falls, I've discovered that (a) there are lots of detailed websites about waterfalls and (b) Washington state has some of the "best" waterfalls in the World.

So I also want to try hiking to Sulphide Creek Falls and Colonial Creek Falls. Both are in the North Cascades. Depending upon whom you consult they are the 12th and 49th best in the World [World Waterfall Database], the 4th and 8th best in North America [Ask Men], or the 1st and 13th best in Washington [Waterfalls of the Pacific Northwest], respectively.

Twin Falls

Last Saturday I went hiking with Suor to Twin Falls, 40 minutes east of Seattle. The trail wasn't too difficult and after 1.5 mile lead to a bridge above and behind the falls. There was also lookup point facing the falls. I've posted twenty-one photos with some more details in the accompanying descriptions.

To Do List

I can't believe that 2005 is almost over. With work being so crazy busy, I doubt I'll be able to do anything big outside of work before Christmas. So, here are some things that I want to do in 2006:

• Learn how to ski: I use to live where there was lots of snow, but no mountains. Now I live where there is no snow, but lots of mountains. So I should take the opportunity to go skiing at least once. I've only been downhill skiing once and that was when I was in grade six and on a ski hill. (Emphasis on hill). Last year there was little snow in the mountains, but this year is suppose to be a good winter. (Some of the ski resorts are open already).


• Visit Europe: I haven't really gone on vacation this year. My masterplan is to visit Europe again next year. Probably Copenhagen, London, and a couple other cities.


• Learn how to scuba dive: One of co-workers goes scuba diving and gives lessons once in a while. I should join one of his classes.


• Go to another chess tournament: It's been a while since I've played in a chess tournament. (Although I'm playing a game every week or two at work and doing well).


• Visit Crater Lake: I read that Crater Lake has the deepest blue water in the World. It's in eastern Oregon and I'd like to going camping and hiking there some weekend during the summer.

Rattlesnake Ledge

Photos obtained after hiking up to Rattlesnake Ledge.

Woodland Park Zoo

It's been a really busy month - my project at work launched, my sister and brother-in-law came to visit me for our birthdays, (my sister's birthday is the day after mine), and my friend Martin was at a conference in Portland and came up to see Seattle visit me for the weekend.

So aside from all the crazy hours, I've been to the aquarium, the Space Needle, hiking, the Experience Music Project, and the Woodland Park Zoo. I'm still organizing all the photos that I've taken, but for a start, here are some photos from the zoo.

Snoqualmie Falls

Last Sunday I went with Suor, Nabeel, and Tom to Snoqualmie Falls, ostensibly to go hiking, but the trail was more like a park trail than a hiking trail and it was only half a mile down to Snoqualmie River from the cliff overlooking the river. At the end there is a boardwalk leading to a look-out point (and lots of fencing along the boardwalk to keep people away from the power generation facilities). At the end of the boardwalk we hopped the railing and scaled down the trees and rocks to get closer to the waterfall, which was kind of cool. Here are eleven photos.

Olympic National Park

I'm terribly slow, but I've finally put up some photos from my camping trip to the Olympic National Park.

A Long Anticipated Weekend

It's been a long and tiring week. I'm glad that I have a long weekend to rest.

Last weekend I went camping at the Olympic National Park with Nabeel and Suor. On Saturday (after some creative exercises involving getting keys to get other keys to recover keys that were lock into someone's apartment), we took the ferry across Puget Sound to Bainbridge Island then drove to Port Angeles on the Olympic Pennisula. (There is a bridge between Bainbridge Island and the Olympic Pennisula). We hiked up Hurricane Ridge then camped at the Heart O' The Hills campground. The weather was okay, but a little cloudy. There were lots of deer at the top of Hurricane Ridge.

The next day, we went to Second Beach (after a short hike) on the Pacific Ocean. It's a pretty good spot for photos, but it was raining fairly heavily the whole time we were there. (Kind of like last time!). I haven't sorted through all my photos yet, but I'll try to post some later this weekend.

On Tuesday I went to a Lifehouse concert at El Corazón with Suor. The setting was very "intimate". (i.e. Small, crowded, hot, and sweaty). I only recognized a small subset of the songs. (I have their album No Name Face, but have not heard either of their other two albums...well that's a small lie, I've listened to their new album once). Overall the concert was good though. (The opening act was decent (for an opening act) too...but we never figured out who they were).

Since my last post about 30 Days was popular, I guess I'll comment about this week's show too. :-) A (Christian) guy from West Virgina goes to Dearborn, Michigan to spend a month living with Muslim family and observing all of their customs, including, wearing a traditional outfit when he left the airport in West Virgina that made him popular with the airport security. (One third of Dearborn's population is Muslim). It was an interesting story, probably the most interesting of the three episodes that they've shown so far. He struggled with his stereotypes (but was open-minded) and (understandably) had a lot of trouble trying to reconcile the Muslim lifestyle with his Christian beliefs (in particular going to a mosque to pray). Next week's episode sounds very similar in it's approach - a straight guy goes to San Francisco to become a roommate with an openly gay man.

Long Weekend

It's nice to finally have a long weekend. Saturday I went hiking with Suor to Franklin Falls. Some photos are here. Yesterday I went to party at Kevin's and today I helped Nabeel move. (His couch was bigger than the elevator. We had to carry it up nine flights of stairs. That was an adventure to say the least)...Being so busy, I don't think the weekend was long enough!