Mount Pugh Hike

Jackson, Nick and I went for a hike in the Cascades on Saturday. We had a beautiful and challenging day hike picked out. But when we got there the trailhead road was closed due to a storm washout. So we quickly consulted our books and picked another nearby, Mount Pugh. I am not sure I knew what I was in for, though the ranger station rated it as "most difficult" and our book deemed it a 5 out of 5 for difficulty. It was an amazing hike with incredible views from the top. It took us 8 hours total, and was a 2.5 hour drive from Seattle...a wonderful day. And I am still sore! The peak is at 7224' and we had a total elevation gain of 5304' over an 11 mile roundtrip. The last hour plus was a class 2 scramble along a ridge, and most of the hike was pretty steep. however, the trail was beautiful and well maintained. I hope you enjoy the photos.

When I still had enough energy to smile...just kidding, wait till you see the top. I sure was smiling up there.

A beautiful glacier we passed

Me at the top-Jackson took this from down the ridge so I am the little spec, bent over stretching

The ridge we hiked to the peak

We had an amazing 360 view, here is a taste.

The start back down

A view of the summit, not from our start but another hour or so down farther and we were at the trailhead.

The Inside Passage

The view from the top of Mt. Roberts Trail. Sarah and I hiked it Friday evening-a vigorous but pretty fast hike (~1.5 hours). We were able to take the tram down, from which this picture is taken.  It is a great day when I can work a full day, hike, hang out at the top of the mountain and ride the tram down for amazing views, and then still have time to go out and have sushi and some wine and party with the crew. Everyone seemed to be pretty excited to be headed back to Seattle.  We had a great night, and a tired work day on Saturday!

The morning after we left Juneau we had to go through the Wrangell Narrows. A tight fit, and beautiful landscape.  Our navigation and deck people did a great job!

A sailboat run aground contacted the Rainier

Our deck crew to the rescue

A gorgeous sunset....

that only got better

Morning fog rolling from the east to the west of the passage

A whale tail in the morning

Transit to Homer Spit

Getting the anchor up for our short transit to Homer Spit from farther up in Kachemak Bay. We had been in Kasitsna Bay for a good while. It was great to have such a beautiful day. More than often it is cloudy, rainy, 55 or so. But still, beautiful. 

Lots of sailboats out for the holiday weekend during our transit.  

I think that is Grewinhgk Glacier is in the background. 

The view aft from the flying bridge while we were in transit.  

It was a beautiful day for the ride. 

We were able to take liberty boats in Friday night and I went out for some salad, wine, and soup with Russell at my favorite place in Homer, Finn's Pizza.  When I was waiting for my ride home, I saw an amazing moon rise over the mountains. It is finally rising early enough that I now see it before bed most nights. 

What-your commute doesn't look like this?

I was able to go to land yesterday (Mon) to level the tide station. This is Christie in the picture, when we are en route to Bear Cove for the tide work.  On the way I passed gorgeous mountains, glaciers, and several sea otters. Rush hour...

It was great to walk around for a few hours. The short of it is we make sure our tide gauge is reading the water level correctly so that when we apply tides to our multibeam depths, we are certain they are correct. There is a lot of cool measuring and calculating involved. For part of the day I leveled to the benchmarks, and the rest I sat in the skiff just off the beach and read our tide level every 6 minutes for almost three hours. Oh the excitement.  It really was a cool trip and a nice break from being on the ship or launch all day doing the multibeam work. 

The beach at Bear Cove, where we leveled the tide gauge. 

This photo and the one following are complements of Sarah Wolfskehl, visiting the boat from the Seattle office-I have become very lazy about having my camera out...my quarters are way down below and aft.  Takes a while to "run and get it".  Didn't want to miss the sunset! It just kept getting better and better this night.  This is Iliamna Volcano.

Again, the amazing sunset from a few nights ago. The full moon was rising on the other side of the ship over the mountains and glacier. AMAZING. 

Barley stuffed cabbage smothered with veggie red sauce=my favorite meal on the ship thus far!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Toni, I sure wish I were there to celebrate with you T.