Outdoor Travel Geek

  • lassen peak

    Today I went with a few friends to hike Lassen Peak. It’s a hike I’ve been wanting to do for a while, but haven’t been able to since the trail to the peak has been closed for maintenance. It’s only opened a couple of times in 2012, and this weekend was the last scheduled opening…

  • royal gorge rerun

    A couple of days ago I went mountain biking at the Royal Gorge area with Dave. We didn’t get very far. So I decided to explore the area on foot. I heard there’s some epic scenery about seven miles in, so I decided to head up early in the morning to try to find it.…

  • royal gorge

    Today was my second time at Royal Gorge. Last time I came out here with Geo, Jack and Joe. We rode in Geo’s Prius, which we didn’t think could handle the rough dirt road to the trailhead, so we ended up hiking several miles on dirt roads just to get to the trail (the Palisade…

  • subaru love

    The last few months have been quite expensive for me and my Subaru. I’ve had all sorts of different car related expenses– a parking ticket (missed the meter maid by less than a minute), a moving violation (my first in four years), traffic school (what a load of crap), and an expensive repair (somehow my…

  • neglected hobbies

    Today was a fun filled day. I suppose what made it really fun was the variety of activities. I guess I have a wide variety of hobbies, and lately they’ve been somewhat neglected. Lately I’ve been pretty lazy, preferring to lie on my couch and watch stuff on Amazon Prime or lie in bed reading…

  • the omigosh meal

    At better Japanese restaurants you can order what’s called an omakase meal. Omakase means “I’ll leave it up to you” in Japanese. It apparently comes from the Japanese word “to entrust” because essentially what you are doing is entrusting your sushi selections to the chef. Supposedly it’s the best way to get the chef’s freshest…

  • trinity alps wilderness

    This weekend six of us went backpacking in the Trinity Alps Wilderness. I had already been here once before, so I know it’s a pretty special place. Typically I don’t like to go backpacking to a place where I’ve been before, and although I knew it’s a pretty amazing place, I was kind of wary about…

  • tour of napa 2012

    Today I rode the 2012 Tour of Napa century ride. I’ve done this ride enough times that I don’t really take it too seriously anymore, seeing as how I went on a hike the day before. And I guess there’s really nothing special about the Tour of Napa century– other century rides have better scenery…

  • round top attempt

    So I didn’t realize this until recently, but apparently according to the US Forest Service, every wilderness area is a special place. I know this because every time I enter a wilderness area I see a sign that says, “You are about to enter a special place.” It makes me think back to a previous…

  • marin century 2012

    Today I rode the 2012 Marin Century. Apparently this year is its 50th year– I wonder what kind of bikes they rode back then. I rode this ride once before, in 2009. I thought it was a fun ride, with nice scenery. I don’t remember it being particularly tough, but for some reason this year…

  • cloud’s rest

    Last year I finally got to hike up to the top of Half Dome, crossing one of the world’s epic hikes off of my bucket list. I was hoping to do the hike again this year, so at the beginning of April I applied for a permit. This year they changed to a lottery system,…

  • reno, rest, relaxation & return

    The drive from Seattle to Glacier National Park took almost ten hours. Originally our plan was to hit up Yellowstone after Glacier, and then Arches and Zion, and then hit Las Vegas before heading home. But looking at the map, we saw that each of those drives would be at least a good eight hours.…

  • glacier national park

    Often when car camping for multiple days in a row there’s a bunch of leftovers. Those leftovers are great when thrown into a pot with some ramen noodles. In this case we had some leftover seafood soup from the Korean restaurant we ate at outside of Seattle. It made for a really tasty breakfast. It…

  • seattle

    Most people know this about me: I like to bike, I like to eat, and I like photography. Apparently Portland exists at the intersection of all three of those. Seriously I liked Portland so much, it was hard to leave. The distance between Portland and Seattle is not very long. In fact, I biked it…

  • portland gluttony

    I ate so much in Portland that I decided to dedicate a post to all the food I had… Spanish anchovies with lemon aioli. This food cart was named Euro Trash– they had all sorts of stuff including escargot and foie gras. Kalua pork slider. Very tasty, but kinda pricey at $3 for such a…