Vacation – The Industrious Squirrel

Summer Travels (part 2)

This summer we took a long trip, primarily to see Kira’s parents in Massachusetts. Part 1 describes our trip from CO to MA and kayaking at Conway Lake. After returning from Conway Lake, we spent a couple weeks in Massachusetts with Kira’s family. We also went on some of the hikes that Kira did as a kid and visited her brother and his family.

Massachusetts – Davis house – Climbing the big tree

Next, we headed north through Maine and into New Brunswick. We had originally planned a longer trip into Canada to go to Nova Scotia or the Gaspe peninsula. But we had a hard time finding hikes that would be both quiet and interesting enough to justify the drive.

Our first hike was Tumbledown Mountain. This hike was not super interesting but had a fun little scramble section. Our next stop was an old growth forest area near Black Mountain. This was probably the best of several old growth forest hikes that we did on this trip. We used the website Old-Growth Forest Network to find places that probably haven’t been logged. They are usually very small chunks of land and vary a lot. Sometimes they look a lot like a normal forest, but others have a distinct feel with fewer bushes and small plants, bigger trees, more ferns and lichen, and just feel old and quiet.

Maine – Black Mountain – Old growth area – mini forest

Our last stop in Maine was Cutler Coast. We did the Fairy head loop which included some beach, some coastal cliffs and some forest. Our first stop in Canada was Irving Nature Park which was very similar. Cutler was the better hike, but Irving did have a marsh area.

On the way to Fundy National Park, we drove through Fundy Trail Provencial Park. Fundy Trail was a nice drive along the coast with a few very short hikes along the way. At Fundy National Park, there were more people around and we had to start early or late to avoid running into people on our hikes. In the middle of the day, we tried to do really unpopular hikes or hikes outside the park. The environment was similar to the other coastal areas that we saw in Maine with lots of green, rocky ocean cliffs, and waterfalls. While looking for a place to sleep, we stumbled upon a marsh (man-made) that had lots and lots of frogs.

New Brunswick – Fundy Trail Park – Flower pot rock

On the way back to Massachusetts, we did a few more hikes in Maine. The first was at Gulf Hagas (the “Grand Canyon of Maine”). This was a good hike through a gorge with several waterfalls. The rock in the canyon is vertical slate. The hike was difficult (we were also trying to do it quickly because it was getting dark) with lots of up and down as we followed the edge of the gorge. One big complaint about this hike is that access is only through a privately owned area and road that charges an exorbitant entrance fee.

Our last hike in Maine was another old growth forest. We spent a few more days in Massachusetts before heading back to Colorado. On the way home, we stopped in New York to hand deliver a custom painting that Kira did for a client. We also hit three more old growth forests. One in MA, one in NY and one on the shore of Lake Erie. Then it was a couple days of driving through the Midwest before getting back to my mom’s house in Loveland.

Uinta highline trip report

Kira and I hiked the Uinta highline trail from Chepeta dam east to Hayden pass starting on August 14th. It was a 65 (ish) mile hike over five days.

Check out the photos

We left our car at the Hayden pass trailhead and got a ride to Chepeta dam. (Note that a parking permit is now required at the Hayden pass trailhead. You can buy it online before you go or at some of the campgrounds in the area. But there is no way to buy the pass right at the trailhead.)

We camped at Chepeta dam and got a fairly early start on the 14th. We crossed the North pole pass (12200) and hiked 17 miles. This day was pretty easy hiking. The pass was not very steep and the trail was good. The whole day was spent >10k feet and I had a bit of a headache from the altitude and not sleeping well the first night. The most interesting scenery on the first day was actually the rocks. There were lots of sandstone rocks with very distinct and even stripes. Here is an example

We got a late start on the 15th and didn’t get to the top of Anderson pass (12800) till 2pm. The weather was good though, so we climbed up to King’s peak. I definitely recommend the side trip up to the peak. The view is not so much better, but it is a fun hike with a little bit of scramble and not as hard as it looks from the pass. There isn’t really much of a trail, but Kira didn’t have any trouble finding a good path. We descended and camped that night in the valley between Anderson pass and Tungsten pass. The campsite was still above 11k feet and I definitely noticed the elevation at night. It didn’t bother me much during the day, but at night I felt a little out of breath and got a light headache.

The 16th was not super memorable. We crossed the Tungsten pass without really even noticing and then Porcupine pass with no problems. There was a nice wetland area right before Porcupine and we had lunch with some sheep. The day was mostly spent in the high valleys. We camped at the low point before Red Knob.

On the 17th we didn’t get a super early start. We did Red Knob (12000) w/o difficulty but got caught by rain a couple miles before Dead horse (11600). We sheltered for at least an hour in our ponchos in the trees. There was hail, lightning, and some significant wind, but we didn’t get wet. The rain cleared and we made it to the base of Dead horse before the next storm started rolling in. There wasn’t any thunder this time so we pushed on. The wind was blowing toward the east, so we were sheltered by the pass and the rain was pretty mild as we climbed. Unfortunately, when we reached the top of the pass, we were no longer sheltered from the wind and it was too treacherous to continue with the wind knocking us around. We sheltered right near the top in our ponchos for about an hour waiting for the wind to die down. I was worried about the footing because I’d read that Dead horse pass was the sketchiest and would be bad when wet. But we had the opposite experience – I thought the footing was quite good. The path was narrow, but it wasn’t slippery at all. Maybe being wet actually helped.

At this point it felt like we were getting behind on our schedule, so we walked quickly to get to the valley below Rocky Sea pass. We took the official route through the burn region and the downed trees definitely slowed us down. Kira was good at finding a path around the trees, but we had to check the phone a lot to see where the trail was. We also didn’t see the trail split at the river and had to backtrack a bit. The river itself was probably running high from the rain and we had to get wet to cross. It wasn’t dangerous, but the river was running fairly quick. We camped about a half mile from the river.

This was definitely our hardest day. I don’t think the passes were any worse than on prior days, and I was finally fully acclimated to the altitude. But the rain delays, the worry and anxiety about whether we’d get over Dead Horse, and all the downed trees made this a very long tiring day.

We got up early on the 18th because we didn’t want to get caught in any more rain and so that we could try to get off the trail before we met too many day hikers starting from the west end. We crossed Rocky Sea pass (11300) with no difficulties, but I would say that it was the second most challenging pass after Anderson.

We did run into a lot of people on this last day. There were also a lot of people around King’s peak. Otherwise, we probably met one or two other people per day.

Overall, the scenery was nicer than I expected it to be from the photos that I’d seen. It is very open scenery and it is fun to see the landscape change as you hike. But the scenery was also a bit repetitive and overall I wish that the hike had been four days instead of five. I think this hike would be more fun if we were going a little bit faster: doing 17 mile days instead of 13, or if we started at King’s peak instead of Chepeta.

I was happy that our camping gear kept me warm at night. I was worried about being cold at the high elevation and that wasn’t a problem. We also didn’t have many mosquitos. I did get a few bites (all within the span of a few hours), but there were basically no mosquitos.

Water is plentiful on the trail. The AllTrails map was not a reliable guide about rivers, but we basically didn’t have to worry about water availability. Unfortunately, our filter was acting up and going super slow. So we were spending almost an hour a day dealing with water.

Overall I’d say that this was a more difficult hike that I expected. The climbing was fine and the trail was never sketchy. But it was long, and stayed at high altitude the whole time. I’d say that the hardest part for me was the rockiness of the trail. The trail was rarely smooth or soft and after five days of walking on rocks my feet were worn out. I’d highly recommend good cushion on your shoes for this hike.

Trip to Alaska

I took a trip with Kira to Alaska. She drove up with a friend and we met near Denali on the 2nd. We spent a week with her parents in the Kenai peninsula and then did hiking and backpacking for another two weeks on our own.

Check out the photos

In the week with Kira’s parents we did mostly water activities. We took a one day tour of Prince William Sound out of Whitter, and then a three day kayaking trip out of Seward. On our last day together we did a hike. Her dad had originally planned to join us, but we ended up going solo.

Both the Prince William Sound tour and the kayaking were very pretty. The Kenai peninsula gets a lot of rain and has abundant fjords and glaciers making for great scenery.

The boat tour was mostly about animals, and we saw puffin, seals, humpback whales, orcas, otters, eagles, porpoise, and a black bear. Most of the sightings were at ‘known’ locations. There is an island with a large colony of puffin, and another island where the seals like to rest. We went to a salmon hatchery where salmon were returning to breed and it was a feeding frenzy for eagles, seals, seagulls and a bear. The tour guides were excited about the orca sighting, but I thought that the humpback were cooler.

Prince William Sound tour – Seal at the salmon hatchery

The tour also took us to some impressive scenery

Prince William Sound tour – Seals and glacier ice

The kayaking trip was a guided tour. They provided the tents, food, and kayaks. It also included transport from Seward to the Northwestern Fjord. On the first day we saw orca and there were a few otters and a lot of seals, but the highlights were the glaciers and scenery.

Kayaking NW Fjord – Northwester glacier calvingYou can appreciate the size of the calving by comparing it to the seals on the ice flow

In the time without Kira’s parents, we did several hikes: Kesugi ridge, Lost lake, Crow pass, Lion head, Fairangel lakes, Lane basin, and Reed lakes. While doing these hikes we were camping in the car that we rented for the trip. We found a Prius on Turo that ended up being a great arrangement. Most car rentals in Alaska aren’t allowed to travel on some of the gravel roads, and getting a car that would let us go where we wanted from a big company would have been quite expensive.

We had mixed weather in Alaska (which is typical). It was cloudy for most of our first week and we did not get to see Denali on the Kesugi ridge hike. That hike also got cut short because rain was moving in. The Crow pass hike was also rainy and had the worst weather of the trip. We made it to the pass, but it was so windy that we were having trouble making forward progress. We also had a fog day near Hatcher pass and we did the Fairangel and Lane basin hikes in dense fog. We didn’t get to see some of the scenery, but what we did see in the fog was pretty:

Reed lakes and Lost lake were both very nice hikes and the Lion head hike was steep but had great views of Matanuska glacier.

We also did two longer off-trail backpacking trips. The first on the glaciers near McCarthy in Wrangell St Elias, and the other at Thompson pass near Valdez. The glacier hike was four days and Thompson pass was two.

The Thompson pass hike had great scenery. We were mostly walking above tree line on the side of a long ridge that had a view of a long valley and the next line of mountains. The part of the hike above tree line was very nice and we were totally alone the whole time. But getting from the “trailhead” to above the trees was some ridiculous bush-whacking. We had a brief and inaccurate description for how to ascend from the guide book and spent several hours going 1/4 of a mile and gaining 1000 ft. Part of the problem was the steepness and mud, but the main issue was getting through all the bushes. I’ve done very little cutting through vegetation off trail, so I don’t really have much to compare it to, but Kira has done much more and she said it was the worst she’s seen. Here is a photo of the flat easy part before hitting the bushes:

Thompson pass hike – Start of the bushwacking

It’s hard to pick a highlight on such a long and varied trip, but exploring the Root and Gates glaciers in Wrangell is the first thing that comes to mind when I think about the trip. This was another difficult hike. The same guide book gave some bad directions about how to get onto and around the glaciers and we were basically on our own to pick a path through the glaciers and moraines. It was not dangerous, but there was a lot of unsteady footing and backtracking when we’d crest a ridge only to find our path forward was blocked by a crevasse or cliff. We also had rain and some very wet ground to cover in a lake region between glaciers. But it was a lot of fun to walk on the glacier and explore the different terrains and features.

Root glacier hike – hiking along the moraine

Root glacier hike – Hiking on the glacier

Donoho lake hike – Exploring Gates glacier

Kira’s trip was a couple weeks longer since she did a bunch of sightseeing on the drive north. This was also her first attempt to fly since the accident. We were very well prepared to keep the sound exposure to a minimum. TSA was still a problem but the rest was pretty good. We learned some lessons that would make it easier next time, but we’re still hoping for improvement before trying it again.

Trip to Italy

I went to Italy with my mom, brother and his’s family in April. We started in Florence and visited Siena, Bologna, Venice, Padua, Lake Garda, and Milan. I’d been to Florence, but the rest was new to me.

Check out all the photos

My favorite new things were the cathedral in Siena, a restaurant in Bologna, seeing Venice, and the cemetery in Milan.

The cathedrals we saw are very impressive: stunningly large and ornamented, often with museum quality art, sculpture and frescos. They are just so much larger and more elaborate than the rest of the city, and it must have been even more of a contrast when they were built.

Venice was an interesting mix. Sometimes it felt over-hyped and over-priced with too many people chasing the experience. But I was also able to see why it is so popular. The canals are picturesque and the level of development and luxury in it’s prime must have been incredible. It has a certain look and ambiance that is pretty unique and the light off the lagoon is a bit different.

Milan was more like a modern city than the other cities we visited (at least the parts of each city that we were in). It felt bigger, less touristy, and more commercial. The cathedral there was very impressive and we happened to catch a big soccer celebration. My favorite site there was the Monumental Cemetery which felt like a closely packed cemetery where nearly all the graves are elaborate. The place is very large (60 acres) so we didn’t nearly see everything. The graves are from late 1800s to today and the art styles are quite varied.

The weather was mixed with mostly clouds and a few sunny days. We had some rain, but nothing bad. It was a little cool, but I think close to normal for the time of year we visited.

We were not on a tour and had pre-planned most of the trip. Hotels were reserved, about 2/3 of the restaurants were reserved, and we’d pre-booked tickets to many sites.

We were there a little before the peak of the season, and it wasn’t too crowded, but there were lots of sites where you had to book in advance and even more where not pre-booking meant standing in a long line. Having to pre-book tickets makes it much more difficult to plan a trip and also limits spontaneity and exploration. We didn’t leave enough time for the sites in Padua and had to rush between them to make our reservation times and it would be great to be able to rearrange plans based on weather or mood.

The crowds themselves were only a problem in Venice on the grand canal ferry. There were so many people that you could not count on being able to catch an (already slow) ferry without a significant wait. It made the ferry system basically unusable for getting around the main island.

There have been some stories in the news this year about how there is a backlash to tourism in Italy. I certainly never felt any hostility and there were lots of very kind and/or helpful people. But I did get a sense of tiredness or lack of patience occasionally. One thing that probably helped is that Ryan speaks Italian and was able to get past the language barrier.

Mom got food poisoning (or something) that developed into pneumonia and she went directly from the flight home to the hospital. She also ended up missing almost half the trip due to the illness.

So it was a trip with lots of ups and downs. Lots of great sites and family time. I don’t know that I’d change much if planning it again. Probably one fewer city: moving hotels a lot is a pain and I think a slightly slower pace would have been better.

Trip to Beartooth Highway

Kira spent a month biking in Montana and British Columbia. At the end of her trip, I met her in Red Lodge MT and we spent a few days hiking and biking near the Beartooth Highway between Red Lodge and Silver Gate. This is an area just NE of Yellowstone and is considered one of the most scenic drives in the country. I’d say that it is well worth a detour if you are ever in the area.

We hiked to Quinnebaugh Meadows, then biked/hiked to Glacier Lake, drove Beartooth highway, hiked Island/Night/Becker lakes and finally drove out on Chief Joseph Highway.

Here are some highlights of Kira’s trip and pictures from our trip.

Chief Joseph highway – Antelope Mountain

Northwest Parks

After a couple weeks back in Colorado following the Arkansas and Dakotas trip, we left again for a two month trip through Yellowstone, the Tetons, Idaho, Glacier, Cascades, Olympic, Vancouver Island, Rainier and Lassen.

Here are all the photos

And here are a couple maps showing our route and where we were each day:

Arkansas and Dakotas Trip

My lease ended May 1st and instead of renewing, we decided to move out and spend the summer travelling. There was quite a bit of preparation needed to give up the apartment and live in the car for the summer. This post describes some of the prep and the first trip we took to Arkansas and the Dakotas.

Here are the photos

Sandhill Cranes

We took a trip to Bosque del Apache to see the Sandhill cranes which winter in the marshes around the Rio Grande river in New Mexico.

Each night the cranes fly in from the surrounding area and sleep in a shallow flooded ‘lake’. In the morning, they fly out to find food. They move at dawn and dusk and it takes about an hour for all the birds to arrive and depart.

Along with the cranes, there were lots of snow geese, ducks and a variety of smaller birds. We saw one roadrunner.

Along with watching the birds, we did a couple hikes. One up to Chupadera mountain which had a small but interesting canyon of hard volcanic rock. The second was to Mount Baldy where we saw a small tarantula.

Check out the photo gallery.

Redwoods and Coastlines

We took a trip to Northern California to see the redwoods. We drove out through Salt Lake City and spent two weeks exploring the Redwoods State parks and the beaches at the very north end of California. We mostly camped in the car, but there were a couple nights in a tent on the beach and a few night inside.

It is a beautiful area – wet and lush with mosses and mushrooms everywhere. The redwoods are stunningly huge trees that change the whole ecosystem around them and create a unique environment. The coast there is rugged and dramatic with lots of beaches and rocks in the water.

While we were there it rained a lot and we got wet a few times, but it also made for pretty fog and low clouds. On one night car camping in the forest, it was so dark that we literally could not see our hands in front of our face or the outlines of the trees against the sky. The moon hadn’t risen yet, the clouds were thick and the trees were tall and dense and it was pitch black. You couldn’t tell if your eyes were open or closed.

It was a really good trip and we took a ton of pictures. I’ve finally sorted through them and posted a gallery here.

Damnation trail – Light through the redwoods

Family Trip

I took a trip with Mom and Dad to see Ryan and family in Pennsylvania. We all stayed at Ryan’s place near Stroudsburg. It was my first time seeing my brother, niece and nephew since COVID. It was very nice to see everyone again and catch up with the kids.

The area around my brother’s place is wooded and quiet. While we were there we went swimming, kayaking and for a couple hikes. We also played a lot of board games and outdoor games with the kids.

More photos for family in the password protected gallery.