Welcome to Scottland

This one’s a marathon, folks. This should not be read by anyone who is pregnant or prone to seizures, or anyone who might get bored easily. And I apologize in advance for anyone trying to view this on a 56k connection.

Ok, way back…Hawaii. Here’s some pictures of my trip:

This is the hull of the USS Arizona. Nearly 1200 bodies still rest below the surface:

Bamboo on the trail where I hiked with Dave Drinan, from school:

This is the sunset from the beach on the western side of the island:

They really know how to live in Hawaii. This limo cab was the same price as a boring yellow one. And the driver was Jeeves:

This is the San Francisco sunset taken from the plane:

After I got back from Hawaii, I went climbing with Kira, Shavawn, and Craig. Shavawn didn’t climb at all and pretty much just sat and watched. We went to Peshastin Pinnacles, which is a group of sandstone towers outside Leavenworth. Here’s a picture of me at the top of the 1st pitch on the 2 pitch Diagonal Direct:

Here’s Craig’s first rappel:

As I wrote before, I went up Mt. Pilchuck with Craig and Dad. I finally got to putting together this composition of Craig hiking through a rockfield:

Over the July 4 weekend, my family, along with the Jerdes, went to Sun Lakes to camp and sit in the sun. The campsite was very windy and the wind threatened to blow our tent away multiple times. The first night was sleepless and made the next day very tired. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the day playing miniature golf and going up to Deep Lake, with its vertical basalt cliffs. We had been here last year and found that jumping off the cliffs into the lake was the best thing to do on that side of the state. So we did this again, but stepped it up. Last year we jumped off the 26 and 29 foot cliffs (we measured them exactly this year). This year, we ventured farther down the lake and found nice 40 foot cliffs with an excellent deep landing zone. But alas, we could only jump off 2 or 3 times, because by that time the feet, hands, and other various body parts stung so that it was more fun to sit in the sun and not do anything. We repeated all this the next day. Here’s a picture of me going off the 40-footer:

And now, on to the main event. Yeah, that’s right: we’re not even halfway done!

50 miler backpacking trip: from July 9 to July 17 I went on the annual 50 mile backpacking trip with Troop 42. However, it would be sort of hard to call it a real scout outing, since there was only 1 actual scout there. The rest were adult leaders and graduated Eagle scouts. We hiked the West Coast Trail up the coast of Vancouver Island.

Day 0 (traveling day) ended with a nice sunset where we camped near the beach. This is Alan and his son Grady:

Day 1 looked promising with early morning sun. Here’s us at the trailhead:

However, the sunny skies were soon replaced with clouds, rain, and mud. Lots of mud. Day 1 was muddy but manegable. You could usually walk right through the mud without it going over the top of your gaiters. At the time it seemed bad to us…how little did we know.

Night 1 campsite at Thrasher Cove:

Of course, I had to get some climbing in:

And as twilight came on Day 1, the famous cave-dwelling ghosts emerged from the shadows:

Day 2 started with rain, mud, and ladders:

Some of these puddles were nearly hip-deep. You don’t normally think of hiking on a well-used trail as a difficult routefinding activity. Although most of us tried to avoid soaking our boots in mud and water, Grady seemed to be right at home tromping through all but the most intimadating bogs:

Everybody went over the log except for Grady–right through the mud:

Trevor, who forgot his gaiters at home, just happened to crap his pants several times before the end of Day 2. He must have been frightened by the killer slug that ate his baggie of bacon:

Day 3 was our steepest day and our rainiest day. At one point, a miniature waterfall from the rain came over the side of the cliff and soaked us as we climbed up the ladder. The tallest group of ladders is over 200 feet high, and the longest single section was around 75 feet high. Some of the ladders on this section of trail were rotting and falling apart and ready to give way at any moment. They were scary, even for me:

I guess this would be a good time to mention the cable cars. While the ladders were kind of cool, they sucked to climb for 3 days straight. The cable cars were awesome to ride and made crossing many of the rivers much easier:

Day 3 or 4 (I don’t remember) had the suspension bridge crossing at Logan Creek. The bridge is very long and narrow:

After days of rain it was great to wake up at Walbran Creek to sunshine:

The day would turn out to be one of the best: cable car, beach hiking, great views and awesome wildlife:

A friendly reminder from the First Nation (Natives) that eagle feathers are sacred property and must not be disturbed by me:

The sandstone shelves at low tide were amazing. Large pools contained all sorts of animals and plants. Sea urchins grew perfectly in the pockets left by rocks that had fallen out of the sandstone:

Walking on the shelf was usually faster (and much more fun) than walking in the soft sand (where you’d be better off with snowshoes):

Eventually we reached the tasty burgers of Chez Monique’s and then the Carmanah Point Lighthouse. A Canadian Coast Guard helicopter was refueling when we arrived, and both the pilot and the lightkeeper were about. Grady took the opportunity to use the swing just as the pilot took off. Poor guy almost got blown into a 6×6 by the rotor wash:

One of the two sunny days we stopped at Cribs Creek to camp. The outlet of the creek meandered on an ever-changing course through the sand, which provided us with a nice baby grand canyon to trample and damage (sorry for the less-than-seamless merging of photos):

Our best campsite was at the famous Tsusiat Falls. The waterfall is maybe 40 or 50 feet high and is incredibly nice to bathe in on a hot day:

And finally…oh finally…one week after starting, we found the end of the trail:

Muddy boot check:

So…yeah…sorry about so many pics. And those were only the most bestest ones! If you want to see the other 200, I will be glad to show you about 100 more pictures of mud and 100 pictures of people falling on their asses in the mud.