Friday 28 August 2015

The Animal Episode

There have been a number of fun animal interactions this summer, so I've decided to dedicate this post to them.

Just yesterday Luke was biking on a trail in Brevard NC. He came flying out of a bushy rhododendron area only to end up biking right in between two black bears. The bears took off in opposite directions. This was a first for Luke!
He also saw a very large black snake, who he had to poke off the trail with a long stick. And he saw a turkey. The turkey was well behaved.

Luke had also recently seen a big black bear in Tennessee, but it sadly was extremely skinny and out of it (presumably from hunger). Very upsetting. Apparently the acorns season was quite poor this year, so they were signs posted to expect to see more bears than normal in the lower areas, looking for food. The bear population has been soaring after they were reintroduced about 20 years ago. Hopefully this doesn't mean that a bunch of them will be starving this year.

Luke sees many more bears than I do. I suspect I'm not fast enough to surprise them, and that they can hear my panting from a mile away. I'm not complaining, by the way.

The next exciting animal encounter was back a couple of months ago, in Bellingham. We were at a beaver dam and managed to sneak up on the beaver so we could watch it for a bit. It was diving in the water and coming up every 30 seconds or so, chewing. This went on for a bit, until I tried to sneakily take a photo with my phone. The phone make a little click sound and that was enough to alert the beaver to our presence. It started swimming along, parallel to us, until ==SMACK==, it slapped the water with its tail and dove away. Very dramatic! Sadly, after all that I didn't even get a good photo of the beaver because my phone camera sucks.

While we were in Tennessee we saw a lot of insect action.

Gross caterpillar nest


This was a spider/caterpillar show down. The spider kept trying to bite the caterpillar, but just got mouthfuls of fluff. The caterpillar wriggled until the spider jumped back, then it managed to get free of the web. Caterpillar wins!


Grasshopper that looks like a leaf. One of these jumped on my face a couple of days later.

Then there were the orb spiders. These were everywhere! They make very pretty webs and aren't poisonous, which is good since both Luke and I got a number of these on our heads as we were biking.



I've never seen spikes like these on a spider before! I went to the Big Fork Ranger Station to ask about what kind of spider these are. Both rangers gave me a funny/grossed out look and proclaimed that they don't know anything about spiders (these spiders are *everywhere*, so I was surprised that they didn't know anything at all about them). Internet and google came to the rescue and identified it for us. Not sure what they learn in ranger school, but spider identification is not in the curriculum.

I met a couple of very nice gentlemen from the Asheville area yesterday and learned from them that the long-leggy squirrels we've been seeing in the area are 'boomers'. They are super fast and acrobatic. I also learned that the chestnut-looking nuts are buckeyes, and that they say that if you carry one around with you, you'll stay healthy. I also learned that the buckeyes are partly poisonous, and they say that if you want to know what parts you can eat, ask the squirrels. 'They' have charming sayings, I think.

Saturday 15 August 2015

July and some August

Soooo, after Ed's visit we went up to B.C. and revisited Pemberton, Squamish and Vancouver. First we checked out the downhill trails in Abbotsford. I rode Squid Line, while Luke did some more ambitious stuff up higher.
We spent a lovely few days with our friends Phil and Mary-Lin in Squamish. There was good coffee, eating, swimming and biking. So sweet!
We then went to Vancouver to see our friends Holly and Alex, and to see Luke's brother Andrew who just moved to Vancouver a month before. We did the grouse grind with Andrew (and watched some of the horribly cheesy lumberjack show at the top), and Holly is always up for some difficult biking with Luke.

After a great couple of weeks in BC, we headed back down to the Bellingham WA area. We made a trip out to Anacortes, Levenworth, and the Mt.Baker area too. As I had mentioned, Luke's bike frame had cracked and we had to wait for the replacement frame to show up.
Here's a cute moment from our trip out to Mt.Baker. We were having breakfast at a little picnic area and I found this little mouse trapped in the bathroom.


It must have been in there for a while because it was very hungry and very lethargic. The very first thing it did was jam an old spider web in its mouth, and then proceeded to eat and eat and eat everything else it saw. It got progressively more spunky and eventually it was energetic enough to hop away into the woods.
Here's the view from the river right next to the picnic area. I wasn't able to capture the vibrant blue of the glacier water (I need more lessons from Luke it seems).


Luke's frame came just in time for us to meet up with our friend Ed, who brought his family along this time too! They did a big road trip of Canada and the US this summer and we were lucky to spent a couple of weeks with them.
We started in the Port Angeles area of the Olympic Peninsula, then headed over to Duthie (which was a huge success because Duthie is the best!). We then went down to Hood River and Bend Oregon, and ended the trip with Sun Valley Idaho. The last two times we went to Sun Valley we were pretty much rained out, so it was nice to actually spent some time on the trails this time. Luke even found some gold in a river!

We went to a great area just outside of Sisters Oregon that had....LAVA! It was the Dee Wright Observatory, where they made a little building out of lava rocks a bunch of decades ago. Here it is, with the moon still in the sky:


I learned a lot about A A Lava, thanks to the plaques along an info trail that was made. This is a kipuka, the little islands of tree that were spared during the most recent lava flows.



Are our bikes going for a ride without us? Har har!

The observatory had these neat little windows which identified the volcano you could see as you peaked through.

Here are some more snowy volcanos, along with the A A.


We're now in Jackson and Driggs WY. We were rained out the last time we were here too, so we're doing unfinished business. The traffic and amount of tourists is pretty horrible in Jackson, since it's so close to Yellowstone. I would hate to see how busy the park is right now. Luckily things get much less crowded once you leave Jackson.

Saturday 11 July 2015

Oregon and Washington

We are in Bellingham WA again, which is fantastic because it's fantastic here! We'll be in the area a bit longer than expected because Luke cracked his bike frame and he has to wait for Santa Cruz to send him a replacement frame. It's pretty great that they have a warrantee system--they are known for being particularly awesome in that department from what I understand.

It finally looks like it's going to rain here today. It's been horribly dry on the west coast in general and there are upsetting fires on Vancouver Island--we've been seeing the smoke from it over here for days. I think they need at least a week of rain, but at this point I suspect they'll take what they can get.

We went to see a mountain bike movie at the local theatre last night and there were piles and piles of people there. Luke said considerably more people attended the movie here than when he went to see a mountain bike movie in Toronto. Impressive, given the population is a fraction of Toronto's population. We even briefly met a local woman who just did the 24 hours of Light in Whitehorse a couple of weeks ago.

So, here are some highlights from the last bunch of weeks. We kept going north to the Redwood forests of Northern California. We rode the Ossagon trail and, besides seeing two elk and two lovely waterfalls, it was used as a set for Jurassic Park 2. After the bike ride we stopped to make dinner at a gorgeous pull-off by the ocean. Here's the view:


Our next stop was Ashland Oregon. It's a very cute town that has a famous Shakespeare Festival and lots of great parks and cute boutiques. I was surprised to learn from Luke, after seeing lots of broken window glass in parking lots, that they have a big meth problem and that people have been known to steal anything and everything out of cars...including the inside trim. Pretty sad.
We stayed at a campground for a couple of nights and we had some unusual neighbours. They slept most of the day and stayed up all night drinking and fighting. Very loudly. The woman was very friendly and respectful, but loud as anything and seemed to say everything that was in her head even when no one was with her to listen. She told me she has six kids and I heard them say multiple times that it was the 'best honeymoon ever!', so I'm guessing they were newly weds. Colourful!

We spent part of a day in Portland and I was surprised that I didn't like it much. I've had lots of people tell me how great it is and that I'd love it, so I'm not sure if it's just because I'm so used to being in nature away from cities by now. I thought the traffic was just awful, which was a surprise to me given Portland is known as a cycling city. I suspect if you live there and get to know the neighbourhoods and people that it's a great place to live, but my small taste of it was underwhelming.

Next we stayed a few days around Tumwater WA, where we found a free camping area where local dogs would come by and visit on a regular basis. One dog was pretty shy, but obviously interested in food. The others were very friendly and they were all very sweet.
Our friend Ed from Toronto flew to Seattle to travel with us for a couple of weeks. After a bit of a slow start when his bike didn't make it to Seattle with him (it showed up the next day, but Air Canada didn't make it easy to find out what was going on in the meantime), we travelled along Oregon and Washington. We started in Bend and made our way north to Oakridge, Hood River, Sandy Ridge, Mount St.Helens, then to the Mount Rainer area before dropping off at the Seattle airport again. Ed is a very good cook so we got particularly gourmet meals while he was around, including camping hollandaise sauce!
One of my favourite days was Mount St.Helens and the Ape Canyon Trail. It's a good climb on the trail so I didn't lug my camera up there, but this shot was close enough to the bottom for me.

Lava field that ran down the canyon

The view at the top was spectacular!!!  It was a 360 degree view with a snow-capped volcano in each direction. I could have stayed up there forever.
Not far from the trailhead there was Lava Canyon. Here's a shot of the lava that traveled through this area. It's pretty neat how there is a 'cap' on top of the distinctive columns.


There's a waterfall there too.

Here's a shot of a very pretty waterfall at one of our campsite in Oregon:


After saying goodbye to Ed we went up to BC, which I'll cover in my next post.

Sunday 5 July 2015

Truck repairs

Our stereo conked out, out of the blue, so when we got to Sacramento we went to Harbour Freight (Luke's favourite store) so he could fix the problem. It turns out there are three fuses that effect the stereo, only one of them being obvious. We ended up being in the parking lot for a while while Luke was doing the repair and we were approached by a shocking (to me) amount of people asking for money.

We then headed for the mountains. We drove and drove and found a lovely secluded camping site at the top. The next morning our battery was dead, and the truck was pointed so that it would go over a cliff if we tried to push start it. Luckily we heard people shooting guns (how often does that seem lucky?) so we knew we weren't completely alone. Luke hopped on his bike to go find them, and soon after he showed up with a fellow and his truck. He had a charger but it wasn't enough to get the battery going, so he towed us to a spot where we could jump start the truck. The even crazier thing is that it took about 300 metres going down the mountain road before the battery started again.
We ended up at the little camping area where the guy and his family and friends were spending the weekend. They were incredibly nice and generous and we were so grateful for their help--we really were in the middle of nowhere. They mentioned that they've needed similar help before so they are happy when they can help someone who needs it. Yay for humanity! They told us about the powerful gun they had that could shoot 400 yards away and each shot cost $5. Even though shooting in that area isn't allowed, it was a good spot because it was in a little canyon where shots would just hit the rocks and not go anywhere dangerous. I don't understand the appeal of it, but a whole lot of people in the US seem to enjoy it.
After we left them we went straight to Clear Lake to buy a new battery.

We continued on to Eureka CA and after exploring for the day started heading out of the town at dusk...only to be stopped by a police officer because one of our headlights had burnt out. It just burnt out (Luke is excellent at staying on top of such things) and luckily the police officer told us that he doesn't give fines for such things. He was really nice but it was still scary to be pulled over and it still felt weird to be asked a bunch of questions as to what we were doing. We promptly turned around and bought a new bulb.

Luckily that was the end of the streak of truck repairs (although previous to this we had to fix a leaking tire and get a new air intake).

Saturday 4 July 2015

Yosemite

We had the unfortunate timing to be in Yosemite on Memorial Day Weekend, so it was busy. Busy. Thankfully the park is big enough that most of our time there was reasonable.
We did a great hike to see some big sequoias:

Nothing is better at making me feel petite than a giant tree.

We also saw some deer.

Can you find the camo deer? You have to look past my messy hair.

It was raining on and off that day, so there were lots of clouds that made for a sweet atmosphere. We had to laugh going past a particular look-out point because there were about a dozen cars that had stopped there, but the clouds were so think that you literally couldn't see a thing.

We then decided to visit Yosemite Village, where all the money-shot famous stuff is. Normally I would say that this was a mistake because it was a horrible, ridiculous 1.5 hours of gridlock to drive the maybe 2km of the village. However, it is so insanely beautiful that even that amount of sitting around in a car was nice given the views. It would have been even nicer if we had gotten out of the car, but at that point all we wanted was to get away from the crowds (I doubt we would have been able to park even if we had tried). 
We stopped at a little picnic table pull off just outside of the village for some lunch.


Lunch Time view


We met a very nice woman from Vancouver, who was vacationing in California with her husband and didn't realize it was the long weekend for Americans--they assumed they'd be able to find camping easily in the park. We got to talking and at one point her eyes grew as big as saucers and she pointed behind me and said 'Bear!' Here's the bear:

This bear was very obviously accustomed to people and their tasty picnic food. It had both an ear tag and a collar, so the park knew this bear and it had a pretty chilled out, calm personality. So much so that when we did the recommended 'make-yourself-look-big-and-talk-loudly-to-scare-it-off' it was having none of that. It just looked at us, picked up its paw and contemplated the best plan of action to get in on the picnic goodness. 
We were at a loss as to what to do until this rather large park worker waddled over with his garbage picking stick swinging and barked at it to 'get out of here' (who I've named The Bear Wrangler). The bear perked up and ran into the adjacent bushes to wait it out. At that very moment, a couple of tourists from Europe ran over asking 'Bear? Bear? I want to see the bear!' So the Bear Wrangler called them over and pointed to where it was waiting in the bush. This prompted other people to come over. Then a bus load of tourists pulled up right in front and those people all joined the group to stare at the bear. At this point Luke and I agreed that we didn't want to be around to see how the bear took being gawked at by a huge crowd people, so we hopped in the truck and took off.

I usually find the crowds at famous parks detract from my enjoyment enough that I don't feel the need to go back (like at Yellowstone), however I would definitely go back to Yosemite. Hopefully there's a less popular time that I can go in the future!

Friday 19 June 2015

Mono Lake and Tufas

One of the favourite parts of our trip so far for me was our visit to Mono Lake, CA. Naturally, since I love dinos I also love volcanos and this lake is in a volcano crater--happiness!!
We got there later in the day so we went to the tufas, which are not to be missed! I stole this explanation from the monolake.org website:
"Tufa is essentially common limestone. What is uncommon about this limestone is the way it forms. Typically, underwater springs rich in calcium mix with lake water rich in carbonates. As the calcium comes in contact with carbonates in the lake, a cemical reaction occurs resulting in calcium carbonate--limestone. The calcium carbonate precipitates (settles out of solution as a solid) around the spring, and over the course of decades to centuries, a tufa tower will grow. Tufa towers grow exclusively underwater and some grow to heights of over 30 feet. The reason visitors see so much tufa around Mono Lake today is because the lake level fell dramatically after water diversions began in 1941."
As you walk down to the lake they have a marker showing where the lake level was before the diversions--it's pretty shocking to see. Thankfully they've stopped removing water to save the lake and they have a goal of where they want the lake level to return to. It's hard to imagine how long it will take for the lake to fill up that much again.
Anyhoo, I had a hard time choosing photos because everything there is stunning (also, they were taken by Luke, which is why they are so good). We had a rain storm, which you will see approaching in the photos, which made for extra dramatic shots. Enjoy!


I think this kind of looks like a castle


the bubbles are where the tufas are slowly forming

the sky was really that colour



Thursday 18 June 2015

Las Vegas and California

Luke had to get a replacement bank card (there was an info breech at one of the places Luke used his bank card, so the bank required him to get a new one) and Las Vegas was the closest bank to us. Las Vegas is one of my least favourite places--it's too hot and too over the top for me. The good news is that there is a great bike shop that carries Shredly shorts, so I bought my first pair! YAY! I've been wanting a pair for a while, so that made the trip worthwhile to me.

We left asap and headed for Charleston Peak about 45 minutes out of town. It's nice that there is a mountain relatively close to Las Vegas, where you can escape the desert for a while. It was *cold*, which was a big change from the 30+ weather we were in during the day. We weren't keen to ride the trails there though so we continued NW towards Bishop California.

The route ended up being a series of back roads and, much to our happy surprise, we ended up in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest are of the Inyo National Forest. This is where the oldest trees in the world are located--between 4000-5000 years old!
We had to drive up and up and there's a lovely view point where you can see the 'Inconsolable Range' of mountains. Mount Whitney is in the area, but you couldn't quite see it from that area.

See the mountain chain in the distance?

We kept going up and stopped at the visitor centre where there are a few trails to hike. There was a fair bit of snow, so we stuck to the shorter trail. These trees have grown so old partly because they have really no competition (it's very high up and the soil is alkaline, so little can survive there) and partly because it's so remote. The trees grow very slowly and the wood is incredibly strong. Thankfully they are protected!
The oldest known tree, named the Methuselah Tree, is somewhere in this forest. However, it's exactly location is kept secret to protect the tree.
The trees are so amazing!:




This tree must be in a vortex--take that Sedona!

There was an interesting section with these red rocks left over from when this used to be the bottom of an ocean. Crazy to think about given how high up it is now.



Thousands of rings

I'm so glad we came across this area! Luke had learned about it a few months before but we didn't realize we'd be passing it. One of my favourite unplanned stops!

We reached Bishop later that day. It's a super cute hippie town that's well known for it's climbing, bouldering in particular. The area gets very little precipitation so you're almost guaranteed to have good climbing weather (although it was raining when we were there...and that was the talk of the town). They have really cool huge boulders there too. We went to Buttermilk Rd to check out the scene and there were people there even in the rain.
We were in town during Mule Days, the town's week long festival celebrating their history with mules. We had seen wild mules on the way there and there were progressively more and more people in cowboy hats and spurs appearing in town. I was super jazzed about the Mule parade, which is the largest non-motorized parade in the world since the mules pull the floats. Unfortunately we miscalculated the day so I didn't get to see the parade after all. I can imagine it was amazing though :)

the view from our campsite

More St.George Utah

I have another forgotten photo. This one is of the (deceased) scorpion we found at the Dome in Sedona. It's only a about an inch long and it took a while to figure out that it wasn't alive.


While we were in the St.George area we camped a few nights in Leeds Canyon. There are a few spots that are pretty great, but my favourite was by a big cliff of cool rocks:



There was some rainy days and a lot of the trails don't do well in the rain due to the ground getting sticky like peanut butter--it cakes on the bike wheels and ruins the condition of the trail when it dries. Luckily it dries fairly quickly. We decided to go the Guacamole trail, which is ok when wet but the road up to it is not. They recommend parking before the steep part of the road and riding the rest on your bike, but since our truck is a 4x4 and Luke is an excellent driver and we learned to drive in slippery snowy Canada we figured we'd be fine--which we were. However, when we were 2/3 of the way up two trucks (from California) were going backwards down the road (it's only one lane wide). Since that's a bad idea we questioned what they were doing and they insisted that we had to drive backwards down the mountain side too because they had already gotten stuck twice and couldn't make it up the road. We made it down alright but it was a silly situation to be in especially since other people had made it up the road just fine. Luke met them on the trail later on and it became apparently they weren't very experienced--so they hopefully learned some lessons that day!

We also did the JEM trail (and I, unknowingly, did my first IMBA epic. Yay me!). SO FUN! When we got back to the truck a group from Ottawa had written us a message on our back window to say hello! We also saw two horny toads on the trail.

We checked out the Little Creek Trail too, but by that point Luke's back (which had been giving him troubles for a few days) had gotten pretty bad and he had to cut the ride short. Luke is very tough and has a high pain tolerance and I have never known him to stop riding because of pain...so I knew it was pretty bad. [as a point of reference, Luke once broke his wrist on a ride, then finished the ride and rode his bike home. He walked in the door and, in a nonchalant way, said that I needed to take him to emerg]

Here's a bat that was hanging out (nice pun, eh? eh?) outside the ladies bathroom at one of our campsites:

Here's our happy bikes enjoying the view:


Here's a group of cute cacti:


A couple of extra Leeds Canyon shots:



Next time: we brave Las Vegas.

Sunday 31 May 2015

Animal updates

We've been up to quite a lot in the last couple of weeks, but I've been feeling lazy about writing so I've decided to do it in little chunks.

First, a few things from back in Arizona. I have a pretty photo of a hummingbird from the feeder at the Dome in Sedona (thanks to Ute!):


I forgot to mention that one of the hummingbirds accidentally flew into the dome (we had a habit of leaving the patio door open). The poor thing was disoriented and went up to the skylight window and tried to get out there. The window was much too high for us to reach, so we put the feeder on a pole and tried to tempt it down with that....which didn't work. However, after a few minutes the bird was exhausted and landed on the ground. Chad carefully approached it to catch it and release it outside, but it recovered enough to fly out on its own.
Luke and I have seen countless hummingbirds in the last month. We must have been following them along their migration route. My favourite is when they sound like they are blowing tiny coach's whistles as they fly around. I also love watching them dive bomb. A couple took a particular interest in my bike too :)
Next is a sweet photo Luke took of Ute and Steveo when up on Mount Lemmon in Tucson:


On that same ride they saw a couple of gila monsters!!!! One of them pretended to start leaving, then turned around and hissed aggressively at Ute. So bad ass.


And the last photo is of the javelina that we finally saw (thanks to Steveo for the photo!)


One more animal story. When we were biking on Gooseberry Mesa we came across a diamondback rattle snake (a young one, without a rattle yet) on the trail. Luckily it was asleep. It was so asleep that I was worried it was dead, so Luke got a long stick and gently prodded it. It woke up and slithered off. I felt a bit bad for disturbing it, but since it was on the trail and sort of looked like a stick at least it wouldn't get run over.

Next time I'll finish off Utah.

Thursday 14 May 2015

More Arizona and Utah

After we left Tucson we went north to Cave Creek and Carefree. They are both north of Scottsdale/Phoenix and are much nicer than Phoenix (which both Luke and I dislike very much). We went to a great coffee shop/bike shop where the barista was from Alberta and they sell coffee scented chain lube [that I bitterly regret not buying] The gal from Alberta told us Cave Creek attracts hippie types, but that rest of the area is mostly very conservative and that she avoids talking politics if at all possible. It was also the day that the Alberta provincial government went NDP.
We camped at a little sight close to Lake Pleasant (so pretty!) and listened to the cows and burros braying in the little valley across the road. It's always such a nice surprise to find such beauty after the uninspiring landscape of Phoenix.
We decided to ride the Cave Creek Cactus Classic so we started from the coffee shop and just as we arrived at the trailhead (about 10k in) I barfed up my lunch... I was actually feeling fine otherwise so I think I just didn't give myself enough time to digest my lunch. But regardless, my stomach seems to be against me more often than I would like. :(  Since there was 30km to go I turned around and went back to the truck. It was pretty frustrating because the scenery was gorgeous--hills of saguaro cacti with smallish rocky mountains in the background.  However, Luke said the trail was harder than he thought it would be, with annoying areas of chunder, so it's probably better that I didn't continue on.

It was pretty hot so we decided to go back to Flagstaff...and promptly got snowed on.  I've never ridden in Flagstaff so we planned to do a trail mid-day...and then it was too windy. I still love Flagstaff. I need to go back in the summer it seems.
We did see some nice footprints in the mud at our campsite in the morning though:

Elk hoof

Mountain Lion paws

More Mountain Lion


So we hopped in the car and drove to Hurricane Utah. There was a fair bit of rain and even some hail and snow (apparently the Grand Canyon got a dump of snow), but luckily after a day the weather turned nice. As we were approaching town an SUV behind us passed us just as a huge tumbleweed was blowing onto the highway. They drove right into it as they passed and we watched little bits of it coming off of the car for about 30 seconds before they pulled over to the side of the road--the tumbleweed was stuck on and was the size of the entire front of their SUV!

I have more additions to my Flowers of Walmart series. These are from the Walmart in Hurricane Utah.






We rode the Dino Cliffs trail, where there are dino footprints in one of the washes! I was ridiculously excited by that.


We stayed at a campground with a little lake and beach, that was full of huge RVs and ATVs. I don't really understand the appeal of driving ATVs in the sand. They are so noisy and you are just sitting there being inactive for the most part. Then again, I kind of hate driving so I guess it makes sense that I don't get it. To each his own I suppose.

The next day we went up to Gooseberry Mesa. We had a fantastic campsite that was at the edge of the mesa--we had fantastic views:

Campsite--front

Campsite--back




Funnel Spider Web





We rode the trails out to an amazing view point with a 360 degree view of the area. It was spectacular. I didn't take any photos, but photos wouldn't have done it justice. It goes out to a peak and even though you're on a fairly big slab of rock, the feeling of being that high up with so much space around was a bit hard for scared-of-heights me. But it was so worth it.
There's another view point a bit further back from there and there is a smashed jeep about 20 stories down that went off the edge.

Next time: more Hurricane and St.George!