Sammy the canoeing dog!

On the Charles River, Needham/Boston border along Cutler Park.

Fall and winter of 2015-16 (mostly pictures of Sammy)

Visiting Jasper, Jess, David, and Hazel in NYC!

A walk in Ridge Hill Reservation.

Sammy wearing a Sammy-hair toupee. He looks like the Donald.

Spring 2015: Skiing Mt Jefferson and King Ravine

A few weeks before Yeuhi, Alex, and I went to Jackson Hole, we did an overnight trip up to the fantastic Grey Knob cabin on Mount Adams.

 We got up to the cabin in short order, dropped our heavy gear, then headed over toward Adams via Crag Camp, which hangs over the edge of King Ravine:

Soon after we pulled up, the clouds piled in and it started raining, soon turning to thunder and lightning. We jung out at Crag Camp playing hearts. The rain soon made the telescope sitting on the table there sadly irrelevant.

Spring in Jackson Hole #7: Static Peak

Our last day of skiing in Jackson was truly a day that only New England skiers would enjoy. Our original goal was Buck, which seemed reasonable, as the mountains would be getting a decent freeze overnight. However, that didn't pan out. 

We started the day in 34 degree rain a bit before dawn. Yeuhi's photo. Note the camera is perfectly focused on a raindrop.

Here's a grouse on a rock. This bird is truly miserable. Yeuhi's photo.

Lower Stewart Draw to find the approach. We'd scoped it out a couple days before and approached in sneakers until hitting the snow line.

Spring in Jackson Hole #6: Laurel Canyon

The day after we got back from the Skillet, we slept in late and took a rest day. We did a little hike to check out the approach to Stewart Draw, for knowledge later in the week:

We hung around the Lupine Meadows trailhead for a while, gaping up at the routes on Teewinot. We saw a coyote.

We decided that Laurel Canyon looked like a good goal for our second to last day of skiing. 

Spring in Jackson Hole #5: Skiing most of the Skillet Glacier, Mt. Moran

After the abortive attempt on the previous day, we got some rest and set our alarms for a nice early wakeup at about 1:30 AM. We got up to quasi-clear skies and went about the activities of a hot breakfast. During this time, some clouds came in and out, subtly blocking our view of the stars and dropping a few rain drops. As soon as we could, we got on our skis, determined to make a go of it, as this would be our last shot before having to hike out.

Hot breakfast among the moose shit. Yeuhi hoping it won't rain again.

The blurriness of this photo is about how I felt.

Spring in Jackson Hole #4: rainy wakeup, initial excursion

The alarm clock beeped at 2 AM, but Alex and I are already awake. Unfortunately, there is a pattering noise on the fabric of his tiny mountaineering tent which does not bode well. We call out to Yeuhi, sleeping under a tarp outside.

"Yeuhi, what do you think?"
"Fuckin' RAIN!"
"Should we give it a half hour?"
"Awright"

After saying that, the rain ramped up for about 15 min, then started tapering off and by about 2:30 it was stopped. Green light, ok. We got up, recovered our food from the bear cans (and our overflow bear bag), and fired up the stove. Around this point, it started sprinkling again. We stared at the stove, waiting for our water to boil for oatmeal and coffee.

(As a side note, this campsite had more bear and moose poop than I had ever seen, it was absolutely everywhere. One literally could not swing a dead cat without reaching some. In other words, we definitely waited for the water to boil.)

Sprinkling on and off. Drink the coffee. As we are eating oatmeal, the rain gets steady. Then turns to hail. Shit. We look at each other, and decide that this is not likely to work out. We decide to can it and go back to bed.

Real great that that happened after getting the coffee into our system. We crawled back into our sleeping bags, trying not to spread the wetness from our gear around the tent. I personally didn't sleep too great after that, but eventually fell asleep, and got up well after sunup. We had breakfast, and obviously were not going high on the mountain, but we decided to skin up and see how things looked.

Morning sun on the Skillet Glacier, from our cooking area.

Alex, happy to finally be on his skis.

Spring in Jackson Hole #3: approach to Skillet Glacier

After we skied Apres Vous, we knew we had time to make it up to the National Park Visitor Center, where we could talk to a ranger and make plans for the next stage of the trip. It was a tough decision, as we got some tempting views up Avalanche Canyon, but we decided to stick with our original goal of the Skillet Glacier on Mt. Moran. The rangers gave us lots of good info about camping and skiing options in the park in general, as well as a fascinating exchange with a college-age ranger who, as we were discussing our plan to do a hiking approach to the Skillet via Bearpaw and Trapper Lakes said something like:

"Trapper Lake, oh yeah, there are tons of bears up there."
"Sounds like we should be sure to bring bear spray."
"Yeah, if you have bear spray around, yeah, you should probably bring that..."

...Never mind what he would recommend if we didn't have bear spray already...like we shouldn't move heaven and earth to get some.

Loading up in the parking lot the next morning.