Category Archives: Adventure

The Long Walk Home

Posted by dkrashb on

We decided we had to hike the Grinnell Glacier trail while we were in Glacier National Park in 2010.  However, given that we weren’t exactly in top hiking condition and the trail gains 1600 feet in about 3 miles, we thought we’d better take a short cut by taking the Glacier boat across Josephine Lake, cutting a little over a mile and a half off the total distance.  While the part we skipped was a flat, easy hike, I knew my knees would thank me by the time we descended the 1600 feet on our way back.

We made our way gradually up the trail.  Pat hiked in rubber boots he’d bought at the Indian Trading Post the day before.  He was wearing these boots because, for whatever reason, he hadn’t packed his hiking boots and the sudden fall of about 5 inches of snow made his running shoes impractical for hiking.  So, we’d taken a detour to the trading post and gotten him some socks and muck boots.  He said they were the most comfortable boots he’d ever hiked in.

My boots were not feeling so comfortable.  In fact, they were feeling a lot like lead weights designed for use when you need to drown someone and concrete isn’t readily available.  But, the scenery was so beautiful, it was easy to ignore my boots on the way up.

As we hiked, the sun came out, the temperature rose, the snow melted, and we worked up a sweat.  Pat stripped down to a cotton T-shirt (don’t get me started on cotton on the trail!) and shorts.  But as we made our way up higher, the temperature dropped, the wind became fierce, and the ground was once more snow covered.

People coming down the trail gave Pat looks as the passed us in fully zipped winter shells with hoods up.  I stopped to pull out my warm winter hat, put on mittens, and add a fleece under my rain jacket.  Pat kept putting off adding more layers.

When we reached the top of the trail, the wind was so strong, I had to brace myself against it to keep from losing my balance.  Pat finally pulled on a jacket.  We didn’t spend a lot of time at the top because of the bitter cold, but the entire hike was so spectacular, we didn’t feel cheated.

We had to make double-time on the way back down to catch the last boat back to the hotel.  This downhill trek was the first time I ever experienced sharp stabs of pain in my knees with every step.  By the time we got to the ferry, I could barely walk.  This was our 4th hike in 3 days (and, more problematically, also our 4th hike in about 3 months).  I would not have made it without my trekking poles.

In spite of the sore knees (which did heal for the most part), this was one of my all-time favorite hikes.

Through the Window

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Perhaps the simplicity of rhyme is what caused me to think of riding on a train today: rain-train.  Or maybe it was the sound of the water drumming on a metal roof that reminded me of our train journey from Portland, Oregon to West Glacier, Montana and back.

Whichever it was, I perused my photos from the train and was surprised to find a collection of landscape shots from our ride home.  Shot through the windows of a moving train in the low light of sunrise with a Canon 40D and the Canon 17-55mm EF-S f/2.8 lens, I’m pretty amazed I managed to get any shots at all.

Riding on the train was quite an adventure.  It seemed so easy–you hop on the train at one station and, eventually, hop off at another.  The lines were short, access to the stations were easy, and it took us right to our destination, unlike a plane.

There were a couple of down sides.  First, the 14 hours spent on the train each way.  Second, the seats were described as reclining with leg rests, so we didn’t book a bedroom.  That turned out to be a big mistake.

The reclining seats didn’t recline far enough.  The foot rests were made for someone under 4 feet tall.  On me, the footrest ended just below the knee and left my feet dangling until gravity pulled them back to Earth with the footrest jamming me in the back of the thighs.

On the way back, we managed to add a “roomette.”  It was a little private cabin for just the two of us.  We faced each other while we rode and when it was bed time, a Porter (or is that on a ship?) came and helped us convert our seats into two bunk beds with sheets and pillows.  It was pretty impressive.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure traveling by train in a sleeper car is cost effective for most locations, but it is a nice way to get to remote places.  We both got to enjoy the scenery when there was scenery.

I think it would take some time to get used to sleeping on a train, however.  Even with our flat bunk beds (which were a vast improvement over the reclining seats), the train rocked side-to-side and we were lying lengthwise to the car.  I had this constant sensation I was going to rock out of the bed.

The next morning, we woke early and headed up to the dining car.  It was one of those big, glass bubble cars that allows you to see the whole landscape.  I could have sat there all day, but we only had a couple of hours after sunrise before we arrived back in Portland.

Taking the train was low stress and allowed us to see some things we would have missed from a plane.  If time and money were not factors, I would probably always choose the train over a plane.

Mountain vs Couch

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As much as I love to be active, there’s a part of me that would really prefer to lay on the couch all day.  That part of me was screaming when we decided to try mountain biking for the first time in Jasper National Park several years ago.

Fortunately for me, I was still shooting with my PowerShot G3 at the time, which weighed approximately 1/3 what my current camera with a wide angle lens would weigh.

When the locals we talked to assured us that there was a “super easy” trail just outside of town that was only 10 miles long, I imagined it would take about an hour to cruise around this loop trail.  I planned for us to take it easy, stopping for a picnic lunch by a lake and having a leisurely day.  As we headed out for the trail, I wondered what we would do the rest of the afternoon.

When we got to the trailhead, we found if we went to the South, it looked flat.  If we went North, it was a very steep climb right from the start.  We, naturally, went South.  Of course, after about 100 yards, the trail turned uphill and we began the most painful climb of our lives.  Painful for two reasons:  first, our lungs (and every muscle in our bodies) were burning trying to keep the bikes moving up and over roots, rocks, bumps, and pot holes as we climbed.  Second, we were crawling along at such a slow pace that the plentiful mosquitos were keeping up with us.

When we encountered objects beyond our skill level to get over or around, we fell over.  Once we fell over, we had to push the bike along until we got to a flat enough place to get started again.

I pushed the bike up a hill at a run with my rain jacket on and the hood up trying to get away from the mosquitos.  I’ve been riding bikes a long time.  I’m pretty sure that “riding” doesn’t mean taking your bike out for a run.

After stopping for a quick lunch (due to the mosquitos) in a spot where we could watch loons on a lake, we turned around and started heading downhill back home.  We came to a screeching halt when Pat spotted a black bear peeking at us from behind a shrub.  Eventually, the bear figured out we were humans and took off.  We went on our way singing loudly in the hope of scaring the bear away (anyone who has heard me sing would appreciate how effective this would be).

Then, we out-peddled the mosquitos and discovered how much fun mountain biking is when you’re going downhill!  Much better than laying on the couch.  Going up, not so much.

When at last we arrived back home, over 3 hours had passed in spite of our brief lunch.  We both needed a nap–the perfect time to hit the couch.

Reconstructing History

Posted by dkrashb on

While in the Canadian Rockies at Jasper National Park several years ago (still shooting with the PowerShot G3), we decided to take a “rest” day by hiking a relatively easy trail to a lake at the base of Mt Robson.  We drove from Jasper Park in Alberta to the Robson Provincial park in British Columbia in about an hour.

When we started out, the sky kept promising rain (in fact, it even sprinkled briefly), but then the clouds would part and a deep blue sky would appear.  When the sun was out, we broke a sweat working our way up the easy, but uphill, trail.  When cloud cover moved in, it was like someone had cranked up the air conditioning and I would get chilled almost immediately.

For most of the walk, the trail ran parallel to a treacherous but beautiful stream swelling with the “spring” snow melt (this was in July).  We didn’t see anyone attempting to navigate the stream, so I’m guessing the water was too intense for even really good kayakers.  It seemed like getting in the stream would be a really bad idea with or without a kayak to me.

When we arrived at Moose Lake, we were further away from the base of Mt. Robson than we expected, but given that Mt Robson is the tallest mountain in the Canadian Rockies, we still had plenty of good views of it, including the glacier nearby.

As I went through these photos from 2005, I discovered an interesting phenomenon.  I believe I was feeling lazy on this particular day not only in choosing an easy trail, but in my shooting.  I notice that the metadata in my pictures indicated I was mostly shooting with a wide-open aperture, with the smallest aperture setting being an f/8.

This was remarkable to me in two ways.  First, this is another thing to add to my list of things I’ve learned–I would not shoot these scenes with that setting today.  Second, it seems like they have much more depth of field than I would expect for such wide aperture settings.  This caused me to look at focal lengths.  They are mostly under 20mm with the shortest being 7mm (if I recall correctly).  Is that even possible?  Assuming my metadata is correct, the extremely short focal lengths are most likely contributing to the extra depth of field.  I assume I was shooting with an open aperture because we were walking in the shade quite a bit, so perhaps there wasn’t much light.

It’s always fun to try to reconstruct what happened 7 years ago based on the evidence collected in the metadata of your photos!

What I do remember clearly about this hike is that Pat and I were quite irritated with one another at the beginning of the hike, but back to laughing together by the time we were ready to return to the car.  Maybe that’s why I love hiking so much–it’s restorative in more ways than one.

Maligne Lake

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Maligne Lake takes its name from the Maligne River that feeds it. The river was apparently treacherous enough to be dubbed “malicious,” although it sounds better in French. Located in Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies, it’s one of those places that I had never heard of before I started researching the area while planning our first trip there.

Maligne Lake is a popular destination. The tiny island, Spirit Island, located in the lake is apparently an extremely popular destination among tourists. One cruise to the island states the island “epitomizes the Canadian Rockies.” the island is supposedly one of the most photographed sites in the Rockies.

Whenever I see a claim like that, I have to wonder how anyone knows how often a particular site has been photographed. I didn’t notice any photo detectors going off while I and the boatload of people on our cruise started shooting like mad.

I did however notice a certain calm. I don’t know if it was a case of self-fulfilling prophecy with all the build up, but the place seemed aptly named. There is something about journeying across this lake to see this tiny island that makes the trip worth it, even if it’s been done by a million people before and will be done by a million people after.
Having done our tourist duty by contributing to the Jasper economy by joining a boat tour, we then separated from the crowd and headed up to hike the Bald Hills that were immediately past the lake.

We spent the better part of the day climbing in elevation. By the time we got into the hills, we were starving. At the same time, the temperature was dropping rapidly and a cold wind kicked up. We found a rocky outcropping to shelter us from the wind and quickly learned that not only big, scary predators can be a pest if they’ve been fed. At least today we had only to outsmart the chipmunks.

After a few minutes, they were so bold that we were afraid we were going to get bit. When one actually stopped and nudged Pat with its tiny little paw as if to say, “Hey, feed me!” I started to get more nervous than when we had encountered a bear! I just kept envisioning a finger getting nipped off while we hunkered down on this remote mountain and dying of some horrible illness like rabies.

We did manage to complete our lunch without any injuries, although we did lose a crumb or two. As we walked on, we passed a slumbering yellow bellied marmot soaking up what little was left of the sun. in fact, sunshine came to an abrupt and frightening end when dark clouds rolled in and snow started falling fast. Unprepared to spend the night in a snow drift, we moved out quickly, taking the chipmunks’ last hope for a grand feast with us.

Bat Cave

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In my early 20’s, a co-worker invited me on a group caving trip.  In preparation, I put on approximately 7 layers of cotton.  Cotton underwear, cotton long underwear, cotton jeans, cotton shirt, cotton sweatshirt, cotton everything.

We, of course, decided to do a crawl (more like a drag–there wasn’t enough space to actually get up on your hands and knees) through a 160 foot long “tunnel.”  I was immediately behind the leader, who was wearing waterproof coveralls.

My co-worker was the last person in the group.  When we caught up in a large cavern, I was soaked through.  I said, “I thought you said it was a dry cave?”  He replied, “What are you talking about?  It was completely dry.”

This was probably true, but only because my 7 layers of cotton had absorbed every drop out of every puddle I drug my body through.  I have since read that you will actually stay warmer stark naked than you will wearing wet cotton.  I believe it.

I shivered for about 3 hours straight.  The group debated on whether to take me to the hospital, figuring I was on the verge of hypothermia.  I was OK as long as I kept shivering.  I’ve never been so cold in my life.

Since then, I haven’t been so excited about caves.  But when I learned that Outdoor Chattanooga offered a kayaking tour to a bat cave, I couldn’t resist.

We kayaked across a small section of Nickajack lake to the entrance of the bat cave.  This is not a lair for a superhero, but rather a cave occupied by approximately 80,000 gray bats.

We sat in our kayaks near the fence that keeps people from getting too close to these endangered mammals.  While we waited, we learned that the gray bat is not just important for mosquito control (one of the reasons I adore bats), but that it’s also a major pollinator.  The fact that it’s endangered has vast implications for our ecosystem.

As the sun dropped, a whir started deep within the cave.  After a while, there were so many bats flying out of the cave, it was like a blur of black motion rising from the opening and heading into the woods.

When we looked against the still-light sky, we could see hundreds of them darting around above our heads, collecting the insects around us.

It took at least 20 minutes, maybe 30, for all the bats to exit the cave.  We sat in awe, watching until our necks ached.  Then, we paddled back in the dark, each with a single light on our kayak.

As we arrived back at the launch, the crescent moon sank towards the horizon, setting very early (or late).  It loomed larger as it approached the horizon, beginning to take on a golden cast.

We sighed and said out loud what a nice way it was to spend a Saturday evening. I wasn’t wearing a single stitch of cotton.

Tiger Key and the Manatee

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The tiny keys that dot the Gulf Coast of the Everglades are countless.  But the ones that are big enough to land a canoe on and pitch a tent have names.  They are supposedly named after the shape of the key when viewed from the air, but I suspect Tiger Key was actually named in honor of the ferocity of the insects there.

Fortunately for us, when we climbed cautiously out of our tent on Boxing Day, the wind had kicked up and we were spared the brutal attack of the night before.  It was an enormous relief not to do battle again first thing in the morning.

It was time to return to the mainland.  We were somewhat concerned that we would not be able to find our way back having gotten so lost on our way out.  Fortunately, we were traveling via major channels most of the day.  While this made navigation easier, it greatly reduced the wildlife we saw.

By the time we were in the main channel, we got into a rhythm like we’d been paddling a canoe every day of our lives.  We laughed at a couple heading out.  They were struggling to go downstream because they were paddling against each other–the wife was literally paddling backwards.  We felt like canoe paddling champions as we dug into the water and pulled our canoe against the current.

Then, we got to the final stretch.  We could see our destination.   It was a short distance compared to the many miles we’d paddled over the last three days.  But the current was so strong that it pushed us sideways across the channel.

We spotted a small island along the way where we could land and catch our breath.  We made it to the closest end of the island.  After resting for a few minutes and saying a few choice words, we pushed off for what we thought would be our final launch.

We paddled for all we were worth, but the current pushed us back to the far end of the island we’d just left.  We’d have spent less energy walking the canoe along the shore.  Neither of us felt much like a champion paddler anymore.

We took a longer rest.  We ate a snack.  We got out of the canoe.  We stretched.  Then, we rallied and drove that canoe right across the current until we suddenly found ourselves in calm waters and could relax for the final 50 yards of our trip.

As we slowed down, a large, dark mass rose towards the surface of the water.  Pat yelled, “Manatee!”  We were so excited we nearly capsized the canoe after 3 days of remaining afloat.

As we glided closer to the slowly moving mass, we felt ourselves blush as we realized it was a mass of algae.  No manatees in sight.

Despite the disappointment, we really felt like we’d done something when we beached the canoe for the final time.  It was the best Christmas ever.

Jumping the Moat

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Continued from Lost and Found.

Christmas morning we woke up early and laid there in the dark, realizing we could no longer hear the Gulf slapping the banks of our tiny island.  Even when we held our breath, we couldn’t hear the waves.

When at last dawn lightened the sky, we decided to get up and get an early start in our canoe.  We had about 8 miles of paddling in store for us and we were already sore from paddling yesterday.

When we stepped out of the tent, we discovered our tiny island had become a giant island at low tide.  Actually, it was still a tiny island, but now it was surrounded by a giant moat.  The Gulf was suddenly so far away, it was almost unbelievable last night we were worried our canoe would get washed away by high tide.

We ate breakfast slowly.  We walked around the island and watched the sunrise.  We packed up our campsite.  We loaded up the canoe.  All the while, the water was slowly rising, coming closer, but it still looked hopelessly far away.

Having nothing left to do, we sat and waited.  But then, the wind died and we were sitting ducks for biting insects.  We were suddenly motivated to find a way across the moat, dragon or not.

We slid our canoe along the murky shore while we walked as far as we could on dry land.  We found that the opposite end of the island was closer to deep water than our end, so we edged our way through thick mangroves until we finally stepped into the muck and pushed our canoe and gear through the shallows until there was enough water that we could get in and paddle away.  We were itchy with drying muck as we paddled off into the sun.

We hadn’t been out too long when we saw a strange line of evenly spaced white dots stretched across the horizon.  As the dots got larger, we realized it was a large group of American White Pelicans flying in precise formation, sweeping the surface in search of prey.  They flew to a shoal where a huge conglomeration of pelicans gathered.  That might have been the best Christmas present ever.

When we stopped for lunch somewhere between Rabbit Key and Tiger Key, we discovered a family of Osprey.  The young were nearly the size of their parents and angrily demanded to be fed while their parents seemed to argue that it was time for them to leave their nest.

We arrived at Tiger Key without any navigational hiccups.  But the wind soon died and we discovered “no-see-ums.”  I tried a trick someone told us–smearing baby oil on my exposed skin.  I ended up looking like human fly paper and they still bit me–my skin looked like a basketball.

Thankfully, we managed to keep the bugs out of the tent and fell asleep with smiles on our faces, dreaming of Osprey and Pelicans.

Lost and Found

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The first day of our canoeing adventure along the Gulf Coast in the Everglades, I discovered a key difference between canoeing in the Everglades and canoeing down a river.  There’s only one way to get lost when you canoe downstream on a small river:  failure to stop at the pick up point.

Canoeing in the Everglades was a completely different story.  We had a permit to camp on a particular Key each night of our trip.  Our first day, we were supposed to paddle about 7 miles to Rabbit Key.  Unfortunately, we started out heading down the wrong channel through the mangroves.  As we paddled around trying to identify openings between tiny mangrove islands that matched shapes on our map, I realized how little a map drawn from an aerial perspective reflects what land looks like from the water.

As the navigator, I eventually gave up on the map all together, picked a channel that pointed generally Southwest, and took us through the maze of mangroves until we hit the Gulf.  Assuming we were West of our destination, we paddled East.

Paddling along the Gulf Coast through swells of salt water in a canoe identical to the canoes we’d paddled as children was a completely surreal experience in and of itself.  Then, we spotted a dolphin about 50 yards from our canoe.  It was a joyful sort of strange.

After having paddled long and hard in the Gulf (which is not at all like paddling down a river) we decided to break for food and try to locate ourselves on the map.  We figured we might just stay where we were.  We were rapidly running out of daylight and we really wanted to have our campsite setup before dark.

We took a walk around the island we’d stopped on, trying to get a sense of what it might look like on our map.  Fortunately, we stumbled across a sign that identified the Key we had landed on.  It was Rabbit Key, the key we were supposed to spend the night on.  While this was mostly pure luck, Pat was still impressed by my sense of direction (too bad it doesn’t seem to work in the Chattanooga area).

Taking some advice someone had given us, we found a suitable spot to pitch our tent where there was plenty of wind.  Then, we pulled our canoe well up out of the water so it wouldn’t float away at high tide.  We ate quickly and went to bed, exhausted.

In the middle of the night, I woke up and went out to heed the call of nature.  When I looked up at the night sky, I’d never felt so close to the stars.  I’ve been to the top of Maunakea, which is supposed to be one of the best places in the world to see the stars, but here at sea level on a tiny key in the Everglades, it seemed like the stars were within arms reach.  It was astonishing.

See Ya Later

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Nearly a week into our 2008 Christmas road trip, we made it to Everglades City, Florida.  We were looking forward to 3 days of canoeing and camping along the Gulf Coast.  But, the day we arrived, we decided just to enjoy the surroundings and spend the night comfortably in a local bed and breakfast (who also happened to rent canoes).

Before we could really enjoy ourselves, we decided to head to the local grocery store and stock up on supplies for our camping trip.  This did not take long because the local grocery store was about the size of a large convenience store at a gas station.  There was very little selection and only one brand of anything they carried.  This had the advantage of making decisions very easy.  Do you want bottled water?  1 liter or 2 gallons?  Do you want beef jerky?  Oh, they’re buy 3 get one free.  Do you want granola bars?  1 box or 2?  I love easy decisions!

On the way back to the hotel, we discovered a roadside park with a lovely swamp occupied by so much wildlife, at first I thought it was a zoo.  I couldn’t get over the birds.  If all birds were that big, birding would be so much easier!

The Cormorants stood around drying their wings.  The Little Blue Heron posed while stalking fish.  And the Anhinga, well, they were the most amazing of all.  I saw a stick poking up through the surface of the water and suddenly realized it wasn’t a stick at all!  It was the beak of an Anhinga who was walking along the bottom of the pond with its beak sticking up through the surface like a breathing tube.  I don’t know if it was really breathing, but I was blown away by the scuba diving bird!

If the birds weren’t enough, the alligators added a whole new level of excitement.  While you can’t tell from the photos, there was a fence between the closest alligators and us.  Although, it was a fence they could have run around to get to us.  I’ve heard alligators are pretty fast, but Pat kept an eye on the gators to make sure none were sneaking up behind me when I was looking at his brother.  You have to respect any animal that has been around for as many millennium as the alligator.  They reek of ancientness.

Amazed, loaded with images, and stocked with food for our trip, we decided to try a local restaurant that was recommended to us by the bed and breakfast.  It was one of those hyper casual places that served on picnic tables with paper plates.  But I had the best salad I’ve ever had in my life there–the greens, herbs, and flowers (yes flowers) were all grown in the restaurant’s own garden.  Just writing about it makes me want to return just to have another one of those salads.

It was a great way to prepare for our canoeing adventure.