Barlow Point With Mike

A follow up on the Ice Caves posting, our second expedition took place just a few miles down the Granite Loop Highway at Barlow Point. I’ve added a few posts in the past about this hike and it was a great addition to our Big 4 Ice Caves adventure.

Big 4 Ice Caves With Cousin Mike

Some of my earliest memories include playing with my cousin Mike and last week (40+ years later) we were able to add another layer to those memories. Mike and the entire family unit drove up from Redding California to visit for a few days. On Tuesday, Mike and I went on a quick hike to the Big 4 Ice Caves and then Barlow Point.













I want to express my sympathies to the family that had a lose just a few days later at the Ice Caves.

Having Some Fun With A Tennis Ball

Forgetting he is 11 years old now, playing with a tennis ball like a puppy again!

St. Edwards (July 2010)

Gloomy day, but that has been be case for the last five July 4ths that I remember. Sort of bummed out that I won’t be able to do a nice hike this weekend but not surprised. Hiking season doesn’t seem to start in earnest until mid to late July. So a nice local fall back trail is St. Edwards.




It is nice for the wonder dog because the mid point of the trail is Lake Washington. As you can see, he had a bit of trouble getting out of the lake where he went in.

Centennial Trail Shots With The New Camera

The sun was supposed to be out by 9am but it took until 1pm. I didn't have faith today and didn't go hiking. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. I did decide to go into town to deposit some checks and we did a quick little walk on Centennial Trail. Wanted to try some test shots with the new camera.


At first, they wouldn't load to the web site and then I noticed the resolution was way too high! The pictures were 4 - 5 MB a piece. I'll have to adjust the way I save and store these images.



Here is a test of a pretty tight zoom.

Pretty nice overall but I'll have to spend some time getting used to some of the differences!

Monte Cristo (June 2010)

This hike was another leap of faith in weather.com, because it wasn’t a pretty day when we left. The hiking gods were smiling upon us once we reached the Monte Cristo trail head. We had hiked this trail last October and really enjoyed this early summer version. Here is a link to last years hike (click here).






The weather was almost perfect and we made very good time down the trail before the river crossing.






In fact, we made it to the Monte Cristo town site much earlier than I expected. It being a weekend day, there was a lot of folks enjoying the trail and we didn’t linger at the town site very long. I had taken a lot of pictures last year but I experimented with some alternate shots. I really like the one with bogie and the old lodge sign!




After we reached the Monte Cristo town site this time, we decided to venture down the Poodle Dog Pass trail. I knew that we would get there or even the Silver / Twin Lakes because of snow pack. However, I wanted to check it out for a future hike sometime mid summer.




We passed by Sunday Falls but I didn’t find a position that afforded me a very good picture of it. The trail was nice but we eventually turned around before reaching the lakes (because of the snow pack). I still had memories of trudging waist deep in snow from the Mount Dickerman hike. Plus, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get any good pictures because ... I DROPPED MY CAMERA INTO A BIG MUDDY PUDDLE!

Here you can see a very nice shot with soggy camera innards.


I have been upgrading my point and shoot camera every year for awhile now. So now I’ll be moving from the Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS1 to Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS6. I didn’t want to have to learn a whole new camera and the reviews for it are kick ass! I do hope the big moisture drop in the middle of the lens on my ZS1 clears up but looking forward to using this new model!