Deception Pass

It's been a while since I posted because things have been busy. I went to Las Vegas for a conference last week and had a good time. (I didn't take any pictures, though. There are plenty of Vegas pictures out there if you don't know what it looks like.)

This weekend we took a short camping trip with our friends Alex, Crystal, and Rene. We camped at a beautiful and popular state park about two hours' drive north of Seattle.

If you were in a boat out in the Pacific and wanted to make your way to Seattle you'd navigate into an East-West channel of water called the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Strait leads inland to the North-South body of Puget Sound. If you turned south you'd eventually make your way down to Seattle, but if you continued heading straight across the Sound, you'd come ashore at a place called Whidbey Island.

At its northern tip, Whidbey comes within a quarter mile of another island (named Fidalgo). The narrow strip of water between them is called Deception Pass, and it's very scenic. The shores of both islands are part of Deception Pass state park, one of the more popular state parks in Washington. Boating can be dangerous because of strong tidal currents, but we stayed on land and enjoyed the views on a beautiful autumn day. The picture album is here.

Rattlesnake Ledge

On Sunday, Anya had an early-morning flight to Toronto, where she's going for a conference. Since I was up anyway, I decided to take Oliver on a sunrise hike. We went to the near edge of the Cascades to a classic Seattle-area hike called Rattlesnake Ledge.

You're probably sick of hearing about it, but Sunday was a great example of why it's so great to live in Seattle. I went on a beautiful hike (the pictures can speak for themselves) and made it back in time to have brunch with friends.

PAWS Walk

A big thank you to everyone who helped Anya raise $435 for PAWS! As I wrote last month, we participated in a fundraising walk for PAWS, a non-profit that helps take care of animals.

The walk, which drew a crowd of more than a thousand people (and at least as many dogs), was on Saturday. It's held every year in a big Seattle city park on the shores of Lake Washington. It was fun!

The pictures we promised are here.

Summer in Whistler

I'm a little late in posting the pictures, but a couple weekends ago Anya and I spent a weekend in Whistler. The picture album is here.

Most ski towns (as I've written before, Whistler is the largest & one of the best on the continent) are pretty quiet in the summer. Most of them can only dream of having the kind of year-round crowds that Whistler draws. Maybe it's the proximity to Vancouver or the fact that there's more to do there in the summer than in the winter, but this little town is almost as busy in August as it is in January.

We spent our first day ziplining - an activity where you don a climbing harness attached to a pulley and glide down cables suspended between trees. The place we went had a series of 5 cables, the largest of which was 2200' long, dropped 20 stories, and got you moving more than 50 mph. It was extremely enjoyable; I could have easily done 5 more ropes. For me the appeal was actually kind of like the appeal of skiing: a bit of adrenaline - even for those of us who aren't afraid of heights - mixed with the graceful and serene feeling of gliding through the forest and over a rushing mountain stream. After they showed us how to glide upside-down (with your head & arms dangling toward the ground) the experience got even better.

Although we couldn't bring our camera along we bought a couple photos from their professional photographer (above; they're also in the album).

You'll also see that we took the gondola & lift to the top of Whistler mountain and went for a hike. It was mostly cloudy, but at times it cleared just enough to see some fantastic scenery.

On our way home we stopped at the Whisler Olympic Park, the venue for ski jumping, nordic skiing, and biathlon at this winter's Olympics. Only one comment there: ski jumping is crazy.