Julian and I rode in the Tour de Pierce bikeride this weekend - there was a 12-, 30- and 50-mile course. Julian wanted to do the 30-miler. It was a total blast and he rocked it, as clearly evident in this photo. Next year I told him we'll do the 50-mile one.

Typing the words to that book made me think of a song called Stay Together by a band called Suede - and one reviewer on Amazon wrote this in descript -Perfect.



ps - there's a nine-minute version of this song that is quite a bit more astounding than this radio-edit one.

So, we had our first garage sale today since moving into our house two years ago. It was pretty hot - as in 90º - so I'm going to blame that on the lousy turnout. We didn't sell much, so I'm going to be listing some stuff on Ebay and craigslist that I pulled out from the lot going to the Value Village - along with this book by Leo Lionni out of Julian's box -



I had this book when I was a kid and always liked it - I think that's why I got it for J.

Last night's post-running episode featured a song called Everything Will Flow by a band called Suede -



nothing lost and nothing gained life is just a lullaby
the neon lights in the night tonight will say everything will flow
the stars that shine in the open sky will say everything will flow
the lovers kissed with an openness will say everything will flow
the cars parked in the hypermarket know everything will flow ...

I then had to copy Brett and walk around barefoot in my grass, totally soft and cool in the evening air. I had to do something for the Soltice, especially since it was super nice here for a change.

I just always wish they let the ending of that song run on for another four bars or so before fading out.

So I went running tonight and then followed it with my little tradition of stretching out in my backyard under the ginormous birch tree, then crashing in the grass to stare up at the sky or whatever and tonight's song whilst doing this was this song called The Power by a band called Suede -



You might live in a screen kiss it's a glamorous dream or belong to a world that's gone,
it's the English disease

Best album ever. Best voice ever.

~ William Blake, poet, printmaker, visionary


Dragontail Peak and Colchuck Lake

So this will be a quick little story about Matthew's and my climb of Dragontail and Colchuck Peaks in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness of the North Cascades. OK, so I'm not entirely sure these two peaks are in the official wilderness area, but they're awfully close. And they're part of the Stuart Range, a spectacular range of granite peaks on the eastern slopes of the Cascades. And they're on the way to The Enchantmens via Asgard Pass. It is by far and away my favourite area of the North Cascades, home to the most impressive mountain in all of Washington (Mt. Stuart, of course - el. 9415').

So anyways, we were going to climb Mt. Daniel (definitely in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness area), but after finally getting through to the rangers in Cle Elum we found out the road was snowed over about 5 miles from the trailhead. Not wanting to endure a 5-mile slog up a forest service road, we came up with a backup plan - Dragontail Peak!

So we headed east over Snoqualmie Pass to the town of Cle Elum, then up and over Blewett Pass to the town of Leavenworth, then down the Icicle Creek road to the Stuart/Colchuck Lakes trailhead. Oh, we first stopped at Heidleburger for lunch, where Matthew learned the important lesson of not getting the "Heli Bacon Cheeseburger" and shake before beginning a climb.


Apparently, the best place in all of Leavenworth to get a burger; Matthew and I thinks they've placed key people throughout town to tout this fact

Then we were off, up the trail to Colchuck Lake under a beautiful sky and absolutely phenomenal warmth (the past week we had highs in the 50s on the west side of the Cascades, so it was quite a change with the sun and temps in the 70s). The trail to Colchuck is one of my favourite, and it flew by as we covered the five miles and 2200' of elevation gain to reach Colchuck Lake at 5700' in just over an hour and a half. Trouble was, it was only about 3:30 in the afternoon, so we debated what to do:

Plan A: Head up to Colchuck Col as far as we wanted just for, um - a workout, I guess
Plan B: Head up Asgard Pass into The Enchantments to wander around and then come back down just for, um - a workout, I guess
Plan C: Lie on the warm granite rocks in the sun and take a nap/read the route descriptions for the climbs of Dragontail and Colchuck about a hundred times/make up multiple choice questions about said route descriptions to quiz each other/take a nap again/etc.

Uh, Plan C won out cos naps always win. And Matthew fell asleep for something like three hours. Me, I couldn't really sleep but it was relaxing lying on the rocks just resting. Quite a way to spend an afternoon/evening, I must say. Since I hadn't slept all afternoon, I finally crashed around 10PM after setting the alarm on my altimeter watch for 5:30AM. Apparently Matthew didn't fare as well and had a hard time sleeping all night. I think that was Lesson #2 that he learned.

For whatever reason, my alarm never went off but I woke up literally at 5:31AM. Matthew was already awake, apparently not having really slept at all the entire night. And I discovered that somehow, chipmunks have the capacity of opening a cinched drawcord, climbing into a backpack, chewing through a mesh bag, then a Ziplock bag - all to get at some salami. I had no idea they were so carnivorous. And so industrious. Props to the chipmunks.

Before heading off, I ran down to the lake to grab some water and quick took this shot of Colchuck Peak -


Colchuck Peak, shot with a Canon G2 that didn't have a wide-enough-angle lens to get the whole flippin' reflection

Our plan, we had decided the night before, was to head up to Colchuck Col (the snow coulour at the far left of the pic above in between Dragontail and Colchuck). Once we got up there, we'd decide whether or not to climb Colchuck or just do Dragontail since I wanted to traverse Dragontail and come down Asgard Pass (in that first shot at the top of this post, it's the snow chute on the lefthand side of the frame). I estimated two hours to the Col from our camp. It was 2500' gain and most of that was pretty much straight up. I was a little hesitant about the steepness of that coulour, but it turned out the snow conditions were absolutely perfect and our crampons worked marvously. We made it in an hour-forty-five. Props to us.


Matthew, about halfway up the coulour to Colchuck Col, looking up at some climbers who had started up the Northwest Face of Dragontail


Looking up to the top of the Col with about 300' left to climb; this sort of does the steepness justice; the climbers we met were camped on that rock in the middle of the top of the Col, quite a nice little spot for a camp if you were man enough to bring all your gear all the way up to the Col, which we clearly weren't


Looking down as Matthew climbs up, about 2000' above the lake

We met a couple of climbers camped at the Col, then quickly decided to climb Colchuck - afterall, it was only 8:00AM (we had left at 6:15). The route description we memorized the day before said 1-2 hours to the summit. We made it in a leisurely 45 minutes. So I'm not sure how that 1-2 hours was figured, but oh well.

And the view from the top was spectacular!


Colchuck Lake 3000' below


Looking back down at our route up past Dragontail's northwest face, still in shadow


Mt. Stuart at left, with the north ridge in plain view; incidentally, the highest peak at far right along the horizon is Daniel with a ton of snow on it


Uh, me on the summit with Stuart in the background; and yes, that's actually my fleece pillow I'm wearing as a hat - nothing like saving ounces by making gear multi-task; and I need to work on my alpine steel look ...


Matthew surrounded by the granite of the Stuart Range ...


Matthew contemplating jumping; directly in the middle of the frame is Enchantment Peak, and just to the right of him is the summit of Dragontail in the distance

After that little pitstop, it was back down to the Col - stepping somewhat gingerly on the still pretty firm and steep snow because we were too lazy to bother putting on our crampons for the descent. But after eyeing the chute up the backside of Dragontail, still totally in shadow, we thought it best to put them back on for another steep 700' climb back into the sun.


Looking down the chute from the top - this doesn't do the steepness justice, really - or, then again, maybe it does


Matthew just about to the top; me-thinks it was this chute that made him opt out of climbing Little Annapurna, which would have been a stroll from the summit of Dragontail and would have made three summits in a day ... either that or the lack of sleep due to his extended power nap the day before

From this notch beside an obvious landmark known as Pandora's Box, we had to make our way along a traverse of an, um, rather exposed snow slope that was awfully steep and fell away for a few thousand feet down Dragontail Valley all the way to Ingalls Creek. After that little breather, it was a quick dash up to the summit where my G2's lens decided to freeze so I only got two shots from the summit -


Looking through a notch near the summit, all the way back down to our route up; it was a little dizzying staring straight down the north face 3000' to the lake below and thinking of those dudes that we had seen climbing up this face


Looking into The Enchantments from the summit; that's Prusik Peak off to the left in the distance about mid-frame, and McLellan Peak on the right across from Prusik, as well as Witch's Tower at center far right with Inspiration Lake directly beneath it still frozen over; the top of Asgard Pass is to the left of the frame; it's still pretty blasé in there as Spring is just starting to come to this little corner of the earth that's been called "still forming"

After about fifteen minutes on the summit of Dragontail, we headed down the southeast ridge to a saddle between that and Witch's Tower - from there it was a quick glissade and traverse over to where Asgard Pass dropped 2200' in three-fourths of a mile to the lake.


Matthew looking back at Dragontail's summit, the point farthest to the right along the ridge, before heading down Asgard

The snow was a little firm and the terrain, well, a little steep to really glissade. A few hundred feet down I heard Matthew yell "rock!" and turned in time to see a rock about the size of a basketball come whizzing past me and fall another 1000+ feet before crashing into something far below. He hadn't kicked it loose - it had come from somewhere above. We, um, moved to the edge of the chute for the rest of the way down, eyeing above us every so often.

And, after 6 hours and 45 minutes we got back to our camp. I took off my boots and crashed in the tent for a bit of a rest before getting up to sun myself on a rock and stare up at the drama playing out on the impressive scene across the lake - watching two ant climbers coming quickly down Asgard Pass, another group of three inching there way up to Colchuck Col, then another group of six heading up as well while a group of two started down. All the while I was just glad to be sunning myself on a rock having already gotten the hard stuff out of the way, rather than trying to make it up that coulour in the middle of the day.

Then it was just another five miles and 2200' back down to the car. Great trip, as Matthew and I always seem to have. I'm looking forward to our next one ...

Parting shot ...



All images © 2008 half | light photography, especially the one of the Heidleburger

Well, it's pretty much been since this post that I've mentioned anything about my remodel. It's been going behind-the-scenes (and on Flickr, but those shots aren't marked for the public) and tonight I finally hit a milestone worth blogging - I finished the new shower!



Just for fun it, um, used to look like this -



Then it looked like this after I ripped out the disgusting fiberglass tub/shower and cut and fit a new subfloor (and before this I had done a bunch of electrical and installed a 4" recessed light on a dimmer above the shower - oh, and tore out the drop ceiling and put in a new ceiling @ 9') -



then I installed the pan -



then did the plumbing -



then the walls -



then started the tiling -



and finally finished -



The tiling was actually kind of fun - I finished that in about a week. I'm going to give it another day or two for the grout sealer I just put on to cure and for the caulk to totally set, but after a couple of months of only being able to take a bath, a nice shower will be awesome.

To keep it in perspective, a friend had their shower tiling job quoted and it was $3000. That was just for labor. For just the shower. This post sort of talks about everything else I have to do still, now that the shower is done. I'm thinking maybe in a month I can be finished, but that's highly unlikely given my track record - everything takes waaay longer than planned and there's still a lot to do ...

~ from the jacket of the recording I have of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphonie Nr. 5 c-moll (c minor) op. 67 as performed by the Weiner Philharmoniker under the direction of Carlos Kleiber (1930-2004)



By chance, I picked up the 12" vinyl record years ago from the Seattle public library and listened to it simply because it was on the Deutsche Grammophon label. I had of course already heard literally dozens of recordings of Beethoven's C-minor symphony, but from the first bars of this recording I knew it was special - a master performance. Unlike any other recording of this work ever made. No conductor has ever hit Beethoven's metronome markings as accurately as Kleiber.

I have to remind myself after reading that that it was written in 1810, a mere 2 years after the Fifth was performed. And already, Hoffman refers to Beethoven as 'the master, whose foremost position among instrumental composers probably no-one would now dispute' (two hundred years later, Beethoven is considered by many to be the greatest composer who ever lived). He goes on to explain how music is not only an art in its own right but that it is 'the most romantic of all arts – purely romantic.' He describes this work perfectly when he says it is one that creates a feeling of 'nameless foreboding, deep and inward, and persisting until the final chord.' That it is a 'concept of genius.'

And I got made fun of by my brother the other day about this post below where he said "I find it amusing that many (most? all?) of the bands you really like tend to look terribly serious. No one's ever smiling. Some of them look like they're thinking about a huge tragedy from a while ago, while others are worrying about the future. I suppose that's also why their music isn't happy-fun-silly stuff?" No one could get more serious of course then Beethoven, whose infamous explanation of his Fifth was

Thus Fate knocks at the portals!

Except, possibly, Kleiber himself.

So I don't know how many years ago I said that I would never get a cell phone. Well, two years ago or so I made the leap - but only partly, to just a prepaid phone that I mostly kept in my glove box in case I got stranded or in a wreck or something (i.e. an emergency).

Well, times have changed I guess - what, with traveling for work and other things - I finally made the real plunge and got a grownup phone (i.e. not the Nokia brick lol).



For me, size totally matters and the Motorola KRZR was the smallest phone I could find - about the same size as my first generation iPod Nano (when unflipped). It's pretty cool - now I'm just in limbo waiting for my prepaid cell number to be ported over to AT&T.

First a garbage disposal, now a real cell phone ... what next I'm wondering?

Greatest invention of all time ...



Ginormous tub o' chocolate chip cookie dough.