Name change, big project start

So since I last posted we spent all summer in our geodesic dome, leading 3 hr. kayak tours (insert Gilligan's Island joke here), going on some of our own paddling trips, biking our 5 mi. "commute" each day, and spending lots of time in coffee shops. Pic: view from Eagle Cliff on Cypress:


Then the fall went off without a hitch, our second season as lead instructors passed by quickly and funly (yes I know that's not a word). Multiple fun trips to Seattle and Bellingham including seeing the National at Marymoore (which was super rad), Kaitlyn and Michael's wedding, a tiny bit of apple picking and of course "Men's Wellness Retreat feat. Jenna". Which was an attempted paddling trip to the northern islands which ended up being a 2 night party on Pt. Doughty. Pic: men getting well feat. Jenna



Now we have hunkered down in the Dispensary at camp. I am cooking at Doe Bay Cafe which is great, I am learning a lot and having fun. Kelly is waiting tables at Allium and is planning on substituting in the schools.

We have a huge project underway to keep us occupied...building kayaks! We are going to keep a detailed account of the process. We are currently epoxying seams, and will finish that this week and then will have our first kayak building update!

By the way we changed blog address to chipsncake because as most probably know...I love chips, and well Kelly loves cake. And we often have discussions on the merits of each and which are better.

Summer's here already?

This spring flew by. Weeks consumed by running around, computer typing, puke cleaning, class helping, staff supporting, injury dealing, and so on. I could go on as to the many jobs/roles/niches we filled as lead instructors for camp. The weekends were generally filled with decompressing and hanging out with people that we love. A few weekends I got out and did stuff.

James and I early in the season got down to the mainland and paddled the Sauk river. The Sauk is a class three river, consistently more difficult than the sections of the Elwha and Hoh we did the summer before. It was a gray drizzly day and Kelly dropped us off just below a much harder rapid, then she went on a hike, until meeting up with us a couple hours later at a bridge for the take out. The paddle was definitely harder than I had done before, constantly bracing, edging and looking out for the next rock-less avenue. I accidentally capsized three times while trying to eddy out and two of the times easily rolled back up. The third time my boat wouldn't rotate enough to get me set up to roll on my strong side, so I just waited, upside down, floating down a rapid. My boat finally (after what felt like a long time but was probably only a couple of seconds) rotated enough for my paddle to surface and for me to roll up. When I was upright I realize that I was actually sitting on a rock in the middle of the river...a bit disorienting actually.

The second trip I got out on in the spring was a sea paddling trip. Kelly, James, Dom and I drove down to Deer Harbor after work on a Friday and paddled the short distance to Jones Island. We got there late and had to leave early so goodbye Jones (I am kinda tired of that island anyway). The next day we paddled from Jones to Satellite island. Satellite is owned by the YMCA and is nestled in the crescent moon shaped Stuart island. We stayed at Mariner camp on Satellite for two nights. We made a long hike all around the island playing forest/beach bocci ball along the way. We discovered parts of the island that I had never been to before (I visited several times in 06). The next day we paddled to Stuart and hiked out to the light house (one of the most northwestern points in the contiguous U.S.). That evening was riddled with ridiculousness. Excavating missions, eating, fire, more bocci, and watching an Eagle take a massive crap very close to James' tent. Eagles are big, you can only imagine how big their crap is. We set out on our 12-13 mile paddle back to camp on Monday. It was the longest crossing (from Speiden to Orcas) that any of us had ever done and definitely taxed my reserves a bit. Also just the feeling that you aren't going anywhere. The trees on the island you are trying to get to aren't getting any bigger! Are we actually making headway? That was a bit trying in my tired state. But it definitely made me excited about our big inside passage trip next summer.

Near the end of the season I ran the San Juan half-marathon again getting about ten minutes slower than I got three years ago in 07. Not too bad. I trained a bit less this year.

Now the season is over and a lot of people have went their own ways. However quite a few from this season or past seasons are still around either at camp or just on the island. It is definitely a little tight community. I have never been on Orcas in the summer but not be working at camp. It is a strange feeling, but a good feeling. Kelly and I are leading 3-hour kayak tours with Shearwater based out of Eastsound. Our trips go out of Deer Harbor, Rosario, and West beach. The season is having a slow start but as soon and July 4th comes and the weather gets (it's almost July! For real??) then I am sure we will be a' paddling all the time.

We half bought/half work-traded for a geodesic dome (steel tube frame, canvas skin, 16 ft. diameter, 8 ft. tall). We put it up on a little section of property that is just next to Maple Rock Farm. The property is called Ravensong and it is owned by a couple Erin and Michael (who are getting married this week) who have a vision of their ten acres being a collective of like minded individuals sharing the land. They have done beautiful amazing things with the land so far and they seem to be constantly working on it. There is a communal kitchen/common room with electricity and running water, a productive and organized garden, a sauna, a wood stove powered hot tub, a meadow, a pond with a slack-line and a zip-line above it, and beautiful forest. So in the lull before work getting crazy I have been working a bit on Ravensong, hanging out at maple rock, biking around, reading and generally chilling. It looks to be a good summer.

Training for a half-marathon

It's hard to run when your lungs and head are filled with fluid. But even when you're sick it still gives the strong sense of satisfaction and peace. Starting out the ache in my legs is very prominent, I move slowly and the dull pulse in my head makes me want to turn back. As the hill levels out, my feet, my steps, my lungs, my breath level out as well. I become a fluid machine and my mind starts to drift. Aided by mellow beats from my headphones, a type of meditation settles in.

Training for a half-marathon is a prime example of the saying "It's not the destination, but the journey". Completing the race is not the reason for running it. It motivates me to run several times a week which no matter my mood, whether I'm tired, energized, grumpy, elated, full, hungry, a run always brings me peace, calming energy, patience and renewed exuberance.

I read an article about meditating while running. The gist was that it makes you focus on your surroundings and think about nothing...also that this wasn't possible to achieve while listening to music. For me music aids in the meditation. Once I reach a groove my surroundings become clearer, the air tastes crisp and the vegetation pops. I can either think about nothing or I can think about everything that has been hiding in the back of my mind...and create solutions to them. I create brilliant plans. I direct my future, consider what I want out of life. It serves the same function as a really good hike, but is more accessible and gives me quicker results.

Orcas Island!

Kelly and I made a quick drive back up to the NW. Colorado was great, we spent all our time working, hanging out with friends and snowboarding. Nothing super eventful happened.

I learned quite a bit about making sushi from working at a sushi lounge called Storm King.
I bowled a 198 in Leadville.
We watched the snowboarding grand prix.
...
Honestly I can't think of too much more.

Since getting back on Orcas we have been working and planning a lot for the season. The new staff showed up last week and we have had a fun first week of training.
We had an amazing race style event leading to our first group barbq.
I've been running a lot preparing for the half marathon in June and been paddling in the bay.

Just thought I would add a short update. More to come when I have some more adventures.

On The Way to Colorado

Last you heard we were in Port Townsend, but shortly after my last post we left on a month long mini road trip to end up back in Frisco, Colorado (where we lived two winters ago).

First stop on our trip was of course Orcas Island where we stayed for about a week and a half. We saw our old friends and solidified our decision to come back in the spring as leads. We also went on a three day kayaking trip (in October). Needless to say it was cold and rainy and windy the whole time, and it was awesome! Good practice for potential long paddles in my future. The rest of the time there was spent relaxing and catching up.

We next went to Bellingham and stayed with Alex and Sam for a few days. I got to show Kelly around my old stomping grounds. We went on a classic hike up to Oyster Dome and got an amazing view of the San Juans from another angle.
"Hey, we were just there!"
We went out for a beer and some darts one night and I got to see my friends Lynn and Scott who I hadn't seen in like four years or so.

Montana came next where my brother just bought a new house in Missoula. We spent some quality time with Pete and Krista, went to a slightly overpriced David Sedaris show and took a stroll down to the river to see "Brennan's Wave", a man-made standing wave for kayaking. Pretty sweet.

Then we booked it down to New Mexico with a short stop in weird Utah. On a Sunday, where you cannot buy alcohol anywhere...all I wanted after a long day of driving was to drink a beer and watch football. Not a chance.

We spent my birthday with Kelly's parents and went out for some Mexican food, went for some walks and visited a little farm.

Then we visited Tallie and Clarkie in Albequerque. Wine drinking, Mad Men watching, rock gym climbing, and Halloween. We ended up at a house party (I was a rake and Kelly was a pile of leaves). After looking around at the party we realized that everyone looked real young. Then I noticed the glass case with gold trim and pictures of old people in them. Then I saw the home office with like a scanner and computer and drafting table. Then it came to me...this is someone's parents house and these kids could be like 18? Hmm...time to roll out.

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Now we are living with Emily, Wizzard, Suzanne, and Pete. That's right six people in a three bedroom. After a good three weeks of looking for a job I finally found one rolling sushi at a lounge on the mountain. It started out slow then there was the really busy winter vacation time where everyone in the house was working all the time. And now it is slow again. However we finally got snow! It has been snowing constantly for like a day and a half. It had been super dry up until then.

Well that was my short update. And soon we will be moving on back to WA. Thanks for reading!

Overanxious rangers, freezing fishing mission, and hypermiling to Chimacum

When Kelly and I set out on our five day backpacking trip to high divide and the seven lakes basin we were expecting rain but had high hopes. There had just been a storm and there was supposed to be another one coming in during our trip. There was a typical overcast mist in the air as we entered the ranger station in Port Angeles. We asked if there was much snow on high divide yet, the backcountry ranger shrugged and said "not much". He routinely typed out our pass and handed us the bear canisters and we headed on our way. Just as we were going to pull out of the parking lot though he came marching up to the car.
"So looks like you got some weather coming in on Thursday. You looked at the weather report?"
"Yeah, I saw that there was a bit of a storm coming in" I replied.
He smiled a bit unconvincingly "Well you got warm clothes I see...waterproof jackets...so if you get caught in a snow storm ya know, just hunker down."
That made us a bit more uneasy...we didn't really want to "hunker down" in a snow storm at 5000 ft. Our first two nights were at a bit lower elevation though. We figured we would just go those two nights and see what the weather is like.

As we arrived at the trail head just a bit above Solduc resort the weather was alternating between rain and mist. Random tourists trudged off the trail wearing multicolored see-through ponchos, getting their picnics out under umbrellas. As we set off for a short hike to Mink lake we passed the ranger station and noticed that we were being followed by what seems to be another overanxious ranger. He was very polite and in a round about way asked for our wilderness permit and made sure we had bear canisters. Just like the other ranger he seemed to think we were a bit crazy to be going camping in...oh no...rain! He also sort of listed items offhand that we would need...but that he could obviously see we had.
"I see you got your pack covers and rain gear there. That's good. Warm clothes?"
Can't blame him, probably get a lot of people who come completely unprepared for the drastic changes the northwest weather can make. We tried to put him at ease and then headed up the 150o ft elevation gain to our first campsite.

It felt real good to be hiking with a heavy pack again. Tiring, but good. I had never seen so many different kinds of mushrooms at one time before. So many huge obviously poisonous ones, a few golden chantrelles and countless others. As the rain pattered on my shoulders and seeped into my hair I hit the zone of thinking about everything while at the same time not thinking about anything. We stopped occasionally to munch on delicious wild blueberries.

When we got to Mink lake the vision in my head came true. There was a big opening of blue sky directly above the water. The vegetation on the edges of the lake glistened bright green with the reflection of the sun in water droplets. During camp set up Kelly and I realized just how cold it was. Just a week earlier and I think we would have missed the cold snap. The good thing is that there was no one else anywhere near us, we had the place to ourselves. After a burrito dinner we got in our sleeping bags and fell asleep to the sound of raindrops dripping from fir branches.

The morning hit us cold but rainless. So we quickly ate our oatmeal, drank our coffee, stocked up on water and set off to make tracks over two small passes before ending at deer lake. We got up into snow encrusted alpine meadows. And it stayed mostly rain-free the entire hike. We were hoping to see a bear but a deer and a grouse would have to suffice.

When we got to our campsite I made some coffee with a bit of whisky in it and I set off to try my hand at fishing. I hadn't fished in about a decade...no idea what I was doing and so I didn't catch anything. But had a good time yelling at the stupid trout to get on my lure.

Kelly and I looked up at where we were supposed to be headed, high divide, and it looked fairly covered with snow. And there was supposed to be a good storm coming through the next day when we were planning on hiking on the highest part of the ridge. Not much to our liking, so the next morning we headed back out to the car, satisfied in our decision not to get caught in a snow storm.

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I did get another chance at fishing though. Last Saturday Stefan, Joss, Homer and I set off on a little fishing day trip to Silver lake. As we pulled up the the trailhead I looked down at my gas meter just as the little E light blinked on. We had been driving for what seemed like ages since Quilcene and apparently, Stefan informed us, there isn't even a gas station in Quilcene, the nearest one is in Chimacum. Hmm...that was stupid, it appeared that on our way back from the hike we were going to run out of gas. I have never run out of gas, I like to think that I am enough of a forward thinker to fill up when it gets low. I guess I kinda forgot to do that this time. We decided to deal with it later.

We set off just before a bunch of Asian guys about our age who were grossly underprepared. They seemed to all be wearing basketball trainers, shorts and cotton tee-shirts. And the one day pack between them could not have contained much. Joss set out ahead to see if he could bag a grouse while Homer, Stef and I trudged up the seemingly unending, very steep mountainside. We played leapfrog with the unprepared group and as we increased in elevation it seemed to start to get very cold. A few groups of smart-ass middle aged folks came down wearing full-on, warm raingear commenting that we should look out for the group of boys ahead of us. Also commenting on our intentions.
"Going fishing?" no, we are just carrying fishing rods...
"Oh the lake is frozen."
Good one buddy. Real funny. Hopefully he was joking, I think we all half believed him at first.
Once the group of underprepared Asians heard there was a lake they were dead set on going also. Luckily when we got to the turn off for Silver lake we mentioned to them that it was about another 2-something miles to the lake. Oh did I mention that by this time it was snowing? I think the distance and weather convinced them to turn back.

After what seemed like much more hiking then we were expecting we made it to the lake. The trees all around were crusted with snow. As we started fishing the ends of our rods were icing up and generating frost. Made it a bit harder to cast.

Stefan caught the first one and expectedly, instantly started gloating about it.
"Well, real fishermen do it this way.", etc...
Joss and I started getting some serious bites and it wasn't before too long that I dragged one in. Joss got two right up to the edge of the lake and then they flapped off the hook just at the last minute. And Homer would never get a bite when he was looking at his bobber, but everytime he left reaching distance of his pole we saw the bobber start to dip and he would run back just as the fish stopped biting at his bait.

Needless to say the later it got in the day the colder it got, so about 5 o'clock rolled around and we were all freezing, so we set off back up and over the ridge. The last mile before the parking lot was covered by trees and super dark. We were in ankle rolling town, roots and rocks threatened us on every step. We clapped to scare off the bears and cougars and planned our methods of killing four attacking bears at once.

When we finally made it down to the car we looked at the gas gauge and Stef made the prediction that we would definitely would make it to Chimacum if we "hypermile" the entire way. So I basically glided down the entire road to Quilcene in neutral and then took it real, real easy on the uphills, gathered as much speed on the downhills as possible and we ended up making to to Chimacum with .2 of a gallon left. Success! After a healthy dinner of gas station fried chicken and jojos I went home exhausted but satisfied.

Breaking the block -- The weekend of awesomeness.

I have been having a hard time getting myself to write on this thing since we got back from Ecuador. So I am just gonna go for it, it may be a bit of mental splatter though.

Was it two weekends ago now...three? Well I meant to write about it. About the weekend of complete awesomeness. So it all started with our friend Andy deciding to come visit us on his few days off from Orkila. Then it turned out that Emily was also on Orcas and so hitched a ride. This also inspired Ethan to hitch down the next day as well. Meanwhile James is over in Port Angeles and Danielle on her way to visit him from Seattle. Wizzard hears of all of this and...boom! on a plane and getting picked up by Danielle. This is just a recipe for an amazing weekend on the Peninsula.

We played games and music the first night in our little cottage accompanied by Heather, Kevin and Spencer. The next day I had to work a double (the usual thursday) but James, Andy, Emily and Kelly reverted to their childhood roots as they scared each other all over Fort Wardon...and Andy has plenty of pictoral and video proof of it. That evening was host to an epic Clue: Master Detective battle. We wore masks and all...and if I remember correctly...no one won.

On Friday we packed it up and headed out to James' tent village on the Elwha river. Once there we were finally all assembled and we loitered about throwing and kicking various items around as we all caught up. After a simple sandwich lunch we set off to the Olympic hot springs. After a short hike and a quick but enthralling game of pooh sticks off a very small bridge, we made it. Most of the pools were either too small, too algaey, or too occupied for all of us. But with a bit of patience the best pool opened up and we swooped in to take it. It was amazing to be with so many incredable people in a natural hot spring in the olympics, drinking whiskey and playing mini games of "let's see who can hit that first" or "see if you can get a rock to sit on that log from over here". Happiness is what I would call it.

That night we had a brat and veggie barbeque and hit the sack early. Because the next morning we got up and headed to the Hoh river basin. The only temperate rainforest in the U.S. (and North America?). James and I donned hard shell kayaks (the one that I recently purchased) and everyone else was in an inflatable kayak, creating a fleet of duckies! James valiently and successfully led us all down a super fun and beautiful section of the river with only two unintended flips! River kayaking is amazing. So much different then Ocean. All you are doing is trying to avoid rocks and trees while keeping your balance in the boat. But it is so much more complicated than that. And it gives you such a rush and a sense of accomplishment...much like rock climbing.

After the paddle we headed back to Port Townsend for a bit of a rest before we headed out to Spencer's Robot vs. Ninja going away party. Spencer is known for throwing good parties and having a great time. I know I always do when I'm around him. He is in NY now doing what he loves and what he needs to do to get the knowledge to do what he wants to do later in life...aren't we all? Anyways, the party was a blast, a crazy shmorgasborg of costumes and beer pong and well, insanity. I think that is the only way to sum that up.

I think I really wanted to write about that weekend because it was so eventful. Other than that I have been working a lot waiting tables and cooking food down at Water St. Also kayaking a bit and climbing a fair amount. Going to bars, playing poker. But nothing quite that eventful. I have about 2 more weeks of it then it is on to eventfulness again! October holds a lot of potential in it. Backpacking, kayaking, coast and a road trip all beckon to Kelly and I...almost there. We will update again when something happens.