Home from Canada, Eh?

We're back from our Canadian adventure.  I'm out of superlatives…plumb out.  At one point during a hike in Jasper National Park, Alberta, we were standing at a glacial lake, below the Angel Glacier, below the peak (5,000 vertical feet away) of Mt. Edith Cavel, and Sue took out her camera to take a picture of the scene.  Then she stopped in both awe and frustration, and said, "what's the use, I might just as well toss this thing in the pond, because there's no way it can even come close to capturing this sight!"  We had a lot of those moments.  So, that's why I'm out of superlatives.  If any of you reading this will be so kind, send me some superlative words to use as I blog about Canada.  I'm going to do this in installments, so you have time to think and send.  Help me out!

We left our cabin on Tuesday three weeks ago (I don't pay very much attention to dates anymore) and drove the scenic route  through western WY, up past Yellowstone National Park, and stopped for the night at Malmstrom AFB, MT.  It was weird to be on an AF base again.  I felt no compulsion to get over to the legal office and start doing legal assistance or useless reports of some kind.  Nope, we just got up and left….into Canada!  Over the past 3 weeks we've developed a story to explain ourselves.  It kinda started with the Canadian customs officer…."So, where are you from?"  We went the easy route with "Colorado".  He came back with "So then why the Alaska license plate?"  That led to "I'm military, recently retired, used to be stationed in AK, retired from DC, dropped last kid off at college, now we're on our second honeymoon to Canada."  He totally understood and was really nice.  We've told that story a lot since then.

From the Canadian border to Calgary, the earth is, in truth, flat.  Especially in a rainstorm that significantly reduces visibility.  But we found Canada to be very tidy.  Tidy farms, tidy towns…it was great.  We stopped in Calgary for gas, and it looked like just another american city (except tidier).  Sue leaned back for a snooze to pass the last 85 kilometers until we hit Canmore, at the south end of Banff National Park.  Ho hum,  rolling farmland (very tidy) and then all of a sudden we came over a small rise and BOOM….there in front of us the mountains seemed to leap out of the landscape!  There had been snow up high (while we had rain in the flats they had snow) and the snow on the high ledges accentuated both the height and the steepness of the mountain peaks.  I told Sue she needed to look at this, and she growled slightly and then opened her eyes…no more sleep for her….she was too excited!

The mountains got better and bigger and prettier (remember, I'm out of superlatives) and we drove on to our campsite at Lake Louise.  We were tent camping, so we were placed in a special enclosure that had about 400 campsites that were completely surrounded by bear-proof electrified fence!

Not being an overly trusting soul, (or very bright for that matter), I decided to try out the fence!  YOW…I couldn't taste my food for a week ;-).  Just Kidding.

After a lovely night sleeping in our tent we decided to take a hike the next morning.  The weather was iffy, but iffy weather in the mountains can be especially beautiful.  (ok, so i'm using words like "iffy"…you guys need to help me out!)  We went to famous Lake Louise to hike the Plain of the Seven Glaciers trail.

Pretty cool cloud, eh?  If you look right through the hole in the cloud, that's where we're going (or went, whatever).  Our destination was at the end of a canyon where we could see six hanging glaciers and one coming down a steep pass or chute.  And to reward our efforts, there was a Tea House up there where we could buy hot soup!  This is Sue about half way there.  We later saw a big chunk of snow slide off of that sheer rock wall in the background!

And here she is again…in the distance that's Lake Louise with its snazzy hotel where our hike started.

We had lunch at the top, and enjoyed soup at the tea house.  The tea house was build by the Canadian Railroad many years ago to give the early tourists a place to get warm and get food.  They didn't have PowerBars back then, so they needed some help.  We heard many foreign languages both on the trail and at the tea house.  This is a very popular destination.  After lunch we decided to take the alternate route back, detouring to Lake Agnes, and lovely small lake that sits in a secluded bench above Lake Louise.  While the hike to the Plain of the Seven Glaciers was fairly tame, the hike to Lake Agnes was not.  We had to go over the Big Beehive, and I was sure glad I had my Rocket-Powered-Booster-Thruster hiking poles, or I'd still be trying to get up!  We made it, and were rewarded with a great overhead view of Lake Louise.  The color of the water is NOT retouched…its Glacial, baby!

Up there we chatted with a young couple who were on their first honeymoon, and with an older couple from Australia.  That's us in the Big Beehive lookout.

We then descended to Lake Agnes, where there is a second tea house.  We had apple crisp and a cookie (yes, we have PowerBars, but that doesn't mean we have to eat them!)  

From there our hike was a long descent back to the big hotel at Lake Louise.  In the picture below, as far away as you can see up the canyon, right off of the lower right corner of that white spot in the middle, was where we had lunch.  It was a fabulous day, a beautiful hike, and it never really rained at all.  It was a great start to our Canadian adventure!

Central Oregon

A friend of mine gave me a list of things to do while I was in Oregon…my thanks to Aaron Roberts for that wonderful list!  We did many of his highlights, and left others for another visit.  When we left Portland we went south to Salem and then turned east toward Bend.  Aside from the hide and seek we played with Mount Jefferson (OH MY GOSH!) the drive was beautiful as we cruised through forests of douglas fir, ponderosa pine and hemlock.  After a stop in McKenzie Falls for a visit to the neato general  store there (if they don't have it, you don't need it) we stopped for the short hike to Proxy Falls.  The hike gave us our first taste of hiking through an old lava flow that was being retaken by the forest.  I've never seen such a landscape, with trees growing right out of the top of big hunks of lava.

 But that was only the beginning of wonderfulness, because when we got to the falls, it was gob-stoppingly gorgeous!  We stayed there for a long time gawking and taking pictures, and, as is my traditions with waterfalls (when safe), I stuck my head under the flow (way over to the right side).

I like how this picture shows the size of the falls.  That's Kate in the lower left.

An extra bonus was the upper Proxy falls, a cascade through the forest with a special surprise.  There was a lovely pool at the bottom of the falls, but there was no outlet for the water!  I did some research later and learned that the water exits the pool from a hole in the rocks at the bottom (more features of a lava landscape, I assume).  So the we continued on toward Bend, through the lovely forest, then all of a sudden the forest stopped and we were driving through the middle of a LAVA FIELD!  That's right, lava as far as we could see on both sides of the road.  Aaron had told me about this place, and when he used the word "otherworldly" I didn't really appreciate why until I was standing there with my mouth open, staring.  It was like being on another planet, and I drove there!

There were even "islands" of trees that had been on the higher ground and escaped the flowing lava.  This lava flow is said to have happened about 7 thousand years ago.  Not much vegetative progress since then!

We then spend a quiet evening in Bend, and made plans for the next day.  We wanted to do quite a lot, including climbing Mt Bachelor, visiting Crater Lake, and getting within a reasonable distance to Salt Lake City to not have a terribly long travel day to get there.  Initially we decided not to climb Mt Bachelor, because the trail descriptions we found were sketchy and described a "punishing" steep climb to the top.  But, in a last minute loss of good sense, we decided we would give ourselves 3 hours of climbing and see how far we got.  Mt Bachelor is below.  I must admit that when we got to the beginning of the trail and looked up at it I thought that there was no possible way we'd  get up that thing.  But off we went.  I decided to try using hiking poles for the first time to help me get up the steep path, which turned out to be a rocky ski slope.  I soon discovered that hiking poles are magical turbo-thruster-ascending-boosters!  I took off with those things faster than I could have imagined, and Sue was wondering what had gotten into me.  They're great!  We made the first half of the climb pretty easily, but the second half is two thirds of the effort.  After struggling up an even steeper, rockier, loose, difficult ski run, Sue and I both discovered that there was a TRAIL to our left on a ridge that went all the way to the top!  So much for the trail descriptions I found.  This was a lovely trail through the lava rock (Mt Bachelor is volcanic, like most of the big mountains in OR).  It was steep but the footing was stable and we MADE THE SUMMIT IN ONLY TWO AND A HALF HOURS!!!  Hooray for rocket booster hiking poles and trails!

 The reward at the top was a wonderful 360 degree view of central oregon, and, as you can see in the picture below, lots of big mountains.  For those of you who care, they are, from near to far, Broken Top, the Three Sisters, Mt Washington, Mt Jefferson, and way in the distance is Mt Hood!  That's a clear day folks! (and a pretty girl on my arm too!)

The descent on the nice trail was easy enough, and we soon were on our way to see Crater Lake national park.  Here we go with "otherworldly" again.  We drove into the park, and started seeing these huge areas of bare ground….really bare…oddly bare.  Sue thought maybe the drought, but the spots were surrounded by normal areas of vegetation.  These spots were acres in size.  Oh well, who knows. Then we got to the first overlook at Crater Lake.  As I looked over the edge, I could only say two words….Big….Blue….Big…..Blue!!  I've never seen anything like it.  Crater Lake is the result of a volcano blowing up then collapsing into itself, then filling with rain and snowmelt over a couple thousand years.  Its 1900 feet deep!  The good news is that the volcano way down in the earth is not extinct…it could blow again some day.  So, the bare spots.  Some time after the volcano blew, it spewed hot ash and pumice dust out that filled up some low areas in the surrounding terrain and this pumice and dust is about 400 feet deep and pretty much sterile, so almost nothing can grow on it because it cannot hold water…it simply drains through.

What a great day that was.  We stayed in a little town called Lakeview, OR that night, in a motel run by the local LDS bishop.  He gave us a discount!  We had an uneventful drive through northern NV and made it to SLC in time to go to a concert.  My brother Mike plays in several bands in UT, and this one was playing for a USANA company conference.  That's Mike on the big screen (on the left), he's the guitarist in white pants and a dark shirt.  It was the most fun I've ever had at a concert!  It was a beach theme so they played Beach Boys, some reggae (Mike on lead vocals, and he rocked it!), and lots of really fun, really loud music.  It was a blast!

We ended our stay in Utah Valley with a saturday hike with Bryce and Lysa to Silver Lake in American Fork canyon.  That's Bryce at our lunch spot by the lake.  It was a fun hike, and the aspen trees were just beginning to change color!  

I can't wait for fall so Sue and I are heading to Banff National Park in Canada tomorrow.  We're going to be on the road again for a while.  I guess I should mention that we dropped Kate off at BYU on Sunday.  She's already loving her roommates and is very happy to be there.  So, now its just Sue and me, empty nesters.  The funny thing is that our nest is our car, and its pretty full of camping gear!  So off we go to see a place that both of us have dreamed about for many years, and there's no one I'd rather be going with.  My bride is still my best friend, and I'm so very blessed that she loves to hang out with me.  Off to new adventures!!

Portland, OR

We made it to Portland and found Zack and Leah happy in their new town.  Portland is really green, with many different varieties of really big trees and shrubbery.  The Columbia River Gorge is very pretty, going from dry high-desert savannah to rainforest in a matter of about 50 miles.  Seeing a river that big is a change for us…we're used to smaller mountain streams, but this one reminded me of the Potomac, transplanted to the west!  Zack took us to the Portland Saturday Market, a kind of farmers/artisans market in downtown.  One of the highlights (?) was a man playing a Didgeridoo.  His song was "What Do You Do With a Didgeridoo?" and the answer, it appeared to me, was, "the same thing over and over and over again".

I've been doing quite a bit of family history research lately and have been blessed with a breakthrough in that I found the family of my great grandfather on my father's side.  This is hard b/c these are all Polish immigrants, and names get spelled differently, dates get confused, etc, but thanks to the Spirit of Elijah I finally confirmed that these folks are my family.  So we spent an afternoon and evening with Zack and Leah in the Portland temple doing the work for these relatives.  It was a wonderful, Spirit-filled evening and I felt a good connection with these people.  I got the sense they were very happy, but were wondering what took me so long?!

Here in Portland we have also reconnected with some good friends from college, Dale and Mary Graff.  Unlike us, Dale and Mary have lived north of Portland for over 20 years.  They invited us to their annual family whitewater rafting trip on the Deschutes River and we had an absolutely wonderful day.  The river runs through an area east of the mountains, in a volcanic, dry deserty landscape.  Here's Dale and Me and Kate at the beginning of the trip:

Dale and Mary looked just like they did in college, lo these many years ago, and I was struggling to realize that they are grandparents just like Sue and me.  The rapids were fun, and the companionship was even better.  Thanks Dale and Mary, for a really wonderful day!!

We look forward to many more visits with the Graffs b/c now we'll be coming to Portland lots more often.

Another trip we took was to Indian Beach.  The Pacific ocean is beautiful, much nicer than the Gulf of Mexico where I used to surf as a teenager. I was tempted to surf here, but the REALLY COLD WATER overcame my desire to revisit my youthful adrenaline junkiness.  I got some pretty good pictures though:

That last thing is a Blue Sail Jellyfish, which are apparently washing up on Pacific beaches by the thousands because of some change in currents and wind.  The sea really comes up with some weird creatures!

Oh, I forgot.  On the way home from rafting…..wait, a weather update…on the rafting day, we left the house in cloudy skies and temps in the high 50's.  We decided to take the route that goes over the shoulder of Mt. Hood, and when we got there it was foggy, drizzling, and even colder!  Rafting in such weather was NOT a pleasant thought, but we soldiered on, with thoughts of blue lips and shivering.  Never fear, however, mountain weather saved the day.  When we got to the other side of the mountain, the clouds cleared and the sun was bright and the day was warm.  THANK GOODNESS, because the river water was very cold.  Anyway, on the way back, we again went over the shoulder of Mt. Hood because the clouds had cleared and the mountain was out in all its glory!

We stopped at the Timberline Lodge, which sits 5 thousand feet below the peak of Mt. Hood right at treelike and offers this magnificent view of the mountain.  The lodge is beautiful itself, built back in 1937, and full of a gigantic brick fireplace as its centerpiece and with huge wooden beams forming the structure.

The beautiful young woman in the last picture is Kate…our most marvelous traveling companion! (she stole Sue's warm pants…it was cold up there!)

Today we're off to see some of the area's famous waterfalls!  More blogs to come!

Boise, Idaho

Off to Portland, OR we go, to spend some time with Zack and Leah and enjoy some of what the NW has to offer.  Along the way we stopped for a night in Boise, specifically so we could visit the LDS Temple there.  It is a beautiful building, clearly from the same architect as the Dallas Temple.  We spent a lovely evening learning about the eternal nature of the family, and doing some sealing work for several families.  The sealer spoke to us about the importance of a married couple "holding on to each other" in both a spiritual and physical sense in order to keep the relationship strong and to resist the forces in the world that try to pull us apart.  That counsel rang very true to Sue and me.

In other news, we've at last made the final decision as to where we will settle.  The winner, no surprise, is Colorado Springs.  We've had the notion over several years that this is where we were being guided to, and now we'll move forward in faith and establish ourselves in the Springs and do our best to serve in that community.  We feel a sense of awe that we merit enough notice from God that He would patiently direct us on this path.  We're also very grateful.

Today we're off to see Portland…rose gardens, food carts, bridges in downtown, and maybe the largest urban forest park in the United States.  I guess I should wear my tie-dyed t-shirt so I'll look like a local!

Reid's Peak, Uinta Mountains, UT

What a great adventure we had today!  When last we hiked with Bryce to the Notch, he pointed out Reid's Peak, a huge pile of rocks that has no trail to it, and it looked so fun that we went out to try it today.  Here's what it looks like in the morning sun....

We had to find our way, and that was really fun.  There's a saddle to the right of the peak that's just out of the picture, and that was our first goal.  Soon, however, we discovered we were not alone!  A family of mountain goats were watching our progress and seemed a bit nervous about us, even though I wouldn't even THINK of going where they were.

The going got pretty steep pretty quick, and the dwarf spruce trees were both a blessing (hand holds) and a problem (hard to push your way through them).

We made the saddle without much trouble (aside from some uncharacteristic trepidation from one of the crew, who will remain anonymous), ((but her initials are Sue)).  I was having a great time, and even taking a moment to smell the roses (ok, take pictures of the Indian Paintbrush).

We followed the path that the mountain goats had made (that should have been a clue!)...

...which dumped us out onto the shoulder of the peak (not the top), which consisted of nothing but an enormous rock field that was mostly loose and unstable, and at more than a 45 degree angle!

(I promise...this is WAY steeper than it looks!)  Finding no way to safely ascend this talus slope, and seeing that a misstep would end back in that meadow where I took the first picture of the day, we opted to live to hike another day and headed back down.  We were tantalizingly close to the summit (we thought, but later learned we weren't so close after all) but it simply was not worth the risk.  We had a lovely trip back through meadows of flowers and ROCKS (I like rocks, can you tell?), and I was fortunate to snap these last two pictures of two kinds of beauty...my bright, shiny, happy, adventurous daughter Kate, (with my beautiful wife Sue in the background, taking pictures as usual),

and a lovely stand of Monk's Hood among the Skunk Cabbage.

Wow.  I feel so very blessed to be able to spend time with these two ladies that I love so very much in a place that makes my heart glad.  I am, of all men, most fortunate.

Notch Mountain, Uinta Mountains, UT

Between naps and eating, we're getting into the glorious high mountains pretty regularly.  This trip was with my brother Bryce, with Stephen, Sue, and Kate.  It is wonderful to be hiking with Bryce again.  When I first moved to UT in 1982 he was, and ever has been, a mountaineering mentor to me. After several years of ill health he is finally back to hiking and is unstoppable.  This was a lovely point to point trail that was advertised as 8 miles but turned out to be 10...Bonus!  More time in the hills!  The weather was one of those perfect days with blue mountain skies, white puffy clouds (that didn't rain or lightning on us), a cool breeze right when we needed it, wildflowers, lakes, rocks.....I need to slow down, I think my heart is racing and my blood pressure is going up!  If God had come to me and asked for suggestions on how to make the day better, I would have had none!  The trail starts in the woods...

...and follows this lovely stream pretty much the whole way.  Eventually the trail climbs to The Notch, a saddle that splits Notch Mountain in half.   We stopped at this lake just before the pass to admire the scenery, eat, and enjoy the breeze.

Even the Boy Scouts we encountered weren't loud and obnoxious!  It was an exquisite day and we all slept well that night.  I'm happy to report that my lungs are doing very well and my legs are getting stronger with every hike.  As I said to Stephen the other day, "this kind of thing could make a man not want to get a job!"

Bald Mountain, Uinta Mountains, UT

We've been at our cabin in the mountains for several weeks now, and have have some great adventures.  Zack and Leah came to visit from Portland, and we had to take them on our traditional Bald Mountain hike.  I once carried 10 year old April up Baldy because of a broken foot, but that's a different story ("April, sing me a song while I carry you"....Ok Daddy......."Here comes the ox cart, oh how slow, its pulled by an ox of course you know".....I was NOT inspired.).  Baldy isn't a long hike, but it has a lot of bank for the buck!

We had to hurry off of the peak because of an arriving thunder storm, but we were safely off of the high ground before the hail and rain started, and almost to the car before the lightning and thunder!  It was a great hike and even Biscuit the dog survived the drenching.  She probably travelled the human equivalent of about 400 miles in that 4 hour period!

Another fun thing we got to do was buy two new mattress sets for the cabin (long overdue, says my aching back!).  When you buy mattresses in Evanston, WY, and your house is 30 miles away in the mountains, you don't even ask about delivery....that's a self-help endeavor.  So, we strapped all four pieces onto our Big Blue Magic Carpet and headed on down the road!

The problem is, it is WINDY in WY!  Every couple of miles I had to stop, get out, shove the whole load back to the other side of the van where it belonged (crosswind) and then amble along at about 4O mph.  But we got them there and my back is much more at ease.

Also, thanks to my brother Todd, I have a new hobby, Whittling!  My first project was a bit challenging, but I got it done and had a blast doing it.  Its called a ball in a cage, and its carved from one solid piece of wood (my grandson, Stephen, was not impressed).  Next time I'll try to whittle a nuclear reactor to power the TV and maybe he'll give me a little more respect!

That's what's happening with us.  Sue is in Heaven here in the Rockies (as am I) and we don't want to ever leave again.  AND WE DON'T HAVE TO!!!!!