Weekend in Colorado

Two weekends ago (I know...) I went to Colorado to visit my mom, who was on a conference there. We started off by going into the Rockies toward Vail, then up to see Stillwater Reservoir and Flat Top Mountain, and up to Steamboat Springs. The second day we went through Rocky Mountain National Park to Boulder. It was an amazing trip and unbelievable that so much can be squeezed into just two days. I have the full set on flickr, but here are a few glimpses.



The wildlife was the highlight of the trip for me. I do not see much wildlife hiking in Washington State, so seeing some in the Rockies was a real treat for me. We saw two giant heards of elk, a couple of moose, some pikas and a marmot. Delightful! I wanted to see more marmots, but we saw so many last year I think some elk is a great treat this time around.



I also loved the great expanses and lakes all around. So beautiful! The bright blue sky all day long, with beautiful thunderstorms in the afternoon. Such a dynamic weather range!



On the flight there, Rainier was close up. I mean we flew right over it. I could see the bends of the glacier and even spy Paradise Inn on the south side. Amazing! I love the circular crater (is it a crater?) on the top of the mountain. I also love that it is so diverse with such different formations on each side. I really have to explore more sides to it (though getting to the top is a little too intimidating for me).



I spied Rainier on the way back again (pardon the double plane photo, but it was the most interesting thing I saw all day in my morning flight home). It was further away but still beautiful, and I got to examine it from the north side. I also got to spy on Crystal Mountain Ski Resort (left middle part of photo) and the road up to Sunrise part of Rainier. Love it!

Iceland in a photo a day

It is impossible to sum up Iceland in so few photos, but I will try. Ryan has the full set (processed by him, these were processed by me) on his flickr. So two weeks late, I'll try to make a bit of a summary.



The first day was the flight - it was a red eye from the US to Iceland so I am taking a 'guess' that when I was flying by Greenland it was the previous day, but I have no idea (and it most likely was not). But lets pretend that I was still on US time. Anyways - it was awesome to see the mountains of Greenland rising out of the ocean. So beautiful! Also much less green than ICEland.



The first step for us after getting the car was to go to the Blue Lagoon - about the only thing our brainpower could handle after being awake for 20+ hours. The Blue Lagoon is a tourist trap, but it is a super awesome tourist trap. Giant pool of warm water in a lava field? Yes! And a bunch of saunas of various degrees of steamyness? Yes! The smell of sulfur was a little overwhelming but worth it. The only problem is that the sulfur does horrible things to your hair - mine was a tangly mess for a couple of days after we went even though I shampooed and conditioned twice. I loved the Blue Lagoon - the Myvatn Nature Baths are the cheaper version of it but not quite as impressive - smaller and not as good of saunas. After this we just went and collapsed at the hostel with a little bit of wandering around the city in between.



The next day we did the 'Golden Circle'. The geyser area was a lot of fun because Strokkur erupts every 5-10 minutes so it is not very long to wait until the next one. I LOVE this photo for capturing the water just coming out of the ground.



The following day was fairly bad weather. We did get to see some beautiful waterfalls but the highlight was going to the Jokulsarlon lagoon and looking at the icebergs. Hundreds of icebergs float in the lagoon and are of the most magnificent color. We even did a boat tour in order to get closer to them - no Titanics were pulled in the making of this photo.



Seeing sheep is not specific to the next day - we saw sheep every day. In quantities larger than people, horses and cows combined. They wander the countryside/highlands in the summer and then the farmers gather them up in the fall to get inside for the winter. I think they are adorable.



I ADORE this photo. This is Viti crater in the Myvatn area. That is Ryan walking away toward the crater. I think the wide angle shot really makes this photo look 'epic'. Capture the beautiful crater and the landscape. It even kind of looks like Ryan is going off to run into the lake?



The next day we spent a while in the Myvatn area again. These craters are on the south side of the lake, but they are not actually craters. They are this shape because they gathered up steam I believe and then dried in this shape, and not because they were all erupting volcanoes.



This is Hvitserkur - an amazing rock formation on the northern coast of Iceland. The white color on the rocks is all bird droppings - the area is filled with all types of birds. We decided not to go down to the beach in front of the rock because of the amount of birds present. One of the birds of that area has a tendency to dive bomb humans and pierce their skull (or other part of your body). Their eggs get stepped on by beach dwellers so it is understandable why they hate humans. Anyways - we didn't take a chance and admired the rocks from afar.



The highlight of the trip for me was seeing puffins. We went to Latrabjarg, which is the western-most point of Iceland to see the great puffin colonies there. The birds do not have land predators so they do not mind when you get inches away from them. They are clumsy and adorable. And they come out in thousands every evening when they come home from fishing. This was by far the highlight of the trip - to be sitting on top of bird cliffs surrounded by puffins (and other birds). A must for any Iceland visitor (from mid-June to mid-August when the puffins are there).



We actually loved the puffins so much that we came back the following day to visit them again. There are many more puffins out during the sunset hours, but there are a few puffins each day that decide not to go fishing. :) Most of them were actually laying and dozing off.



The last day in Iceland was spent in the Snaefellsjokull national park (and peninsula). The park is centered around the volcano/glacier pictured and is filled with amazing lava fields, chasms and rock beaches. I though it was the perfect relaxing end of the trip day. I wish we were there when the snows had melted a little more though so we could have driven up closer to the glacier. But this was the case for the whole country - it was a cold summer so the snow line was a lot lower than usual for the time of year.



And to finish off - these are our bags headed back from Iceland on the light rail in Seattle. An end to a beautiful trip.

Sorry for the short summary - I have been procrastinating on this for long enough. There are a lot more photos on flickr, and a lot more things that we did, but this is a short summary/advertisement of Iceland.

Colombia Gorge

A couple of weekends ago, I went on a trip down to Portland. I'd gone to Portland previously in the fall with Cassandra.... for four hours. Does not really count. So it was great to take an actual trip down. We spent a day in Portland, which was great - went to some Cheese shops, wandered town, Voo Doo Donuts, Powell Books. Great times. But the real highlight of the trip for me was our last day, where we went through the Columbia Gorge on the way out. Magnificent. (well and I guess everyone out here compares the two cities - I will say that Portland has amazing bridges and public transport and does feel a lot more like a city at least in the center, but I love Seattle more - so much prettier, and frankly cleaner).

Not sure what the name of this fall was. We took a couple of mile loop trail along some of the waterfalls in the gorge. Very glad that we did since everyone was crowded around Multnomah falls and large amounts of people always make even the most gorgeous things seem unappealing to me. But the hike was lovely. Wishing that either of us had our SLRs and a tripod to play with photo taking more, but the photos turned out quite well nonetheless.

The most famous waterfall in the gorge is the Multnomah Falls, also the tallest. The parking lot at the bottom of the falls, well seen from the hiking trip (we did a loop so came upon these falls from the top) distracts a little from the view. Yet the falls are magnificent. The first cascade is so long that by the time the water reaches the ground it seems to have gone halfway into the air. 

My favorite waterfall was rightfully called 'Ponytail'. You must hike up for about half a mile from Horsetail Falls, can walk up in the cave behind the waterfall! Amazing! I love the feeling of standing behind a waterfall. Beautiful. The air is filled with water. People brought picnics up there even. The cave was not even wet (sorry no photos), so great place to hide out. 

Driving along the Columbia river is very easy and such a simple trip if you are in the Portland area - the highway goes right along the river, and mot of the attractions are just a hop away. For example, we happened upon an awesome hydroelectric dam, with two man-made islands supporting it. You get security checked to get to the dam, but then get the odd and rather scary experience of driving right behind it, knowing the power of the water that is pushing against the concrete directly to your side. Anyone else think of X-Men 2 after

The spazz that I am, I encouraged driving along the Oregon side of the Columbia river for a while in hope of seeing Mt.Hood. As we neared the town of Hood I kept peering right to see if the mountain was visible. About to loose hope, my hopes were granted when we crossed the bridge into Washington. Mt.Hood is seen! Much 'pointier' tip than Ranier or Baker. I love how the volcanic mountains stand separate from all else. Figures that the view of the mountain will come from not even the state that the mountain is located in.

Driving back, took the more adventurous route - over through the mountains. Always hard to tell if the roads will be open, but in this very very dry WA winter (sorry MD folks, we seem to have switched places this winter), the road was quite clear (well, partially, one road was closed which added at least an hour and a half on to the journey... but let that be forgotten!). No people and there was *shock* wildlife. About five elk crossed the road, and a deer was muching away on some grass. Baffles me how little wildlife is seen out here for such an area.



It is believed that Mt.St.Helens is there in the background. Hard to tell with the moving clouds, but it seems correct from the photos. Did not realize just how blown off the top is. In the excitement of seeing the mountain, signed up for 'climbing passes' to get to the top of St.Helens on July 31st. Hope for beautiful weather! It is not a very long hike, but the whole hiking through ash thing makes it difficult. I may get some hiking poles before that trip to make it easier... or not? I am sort of against having a large amount of equipment when hiking. But then... this IS a volcano. One of my life goals is to hike up a volcano so, looking forward to it!

Up a mountain

This morning I meant to go out on a small walk around town.... and ended up trecking almost all the way up a mountain. Whoops. On my morning walk around town ran into a local (woah! actually met a non-traveller) elderly gentleman on a morning walk up the hill above town. He had fascinating stories, and I ended up walking up with him. He was in quite good shape too! Impressed! He pointed me to the Ben Lamond track - up the mountain over Queenstown. He said I should try going as far as I can as there is snow on the ground but the view is worth it. So that is what I did... but that as long as I'll go turned out as being quite a bit longer than I meant.

Kept walking and walking and suddenly I was above the treeline. And then above the bush line. And the I was falling into the snow. Yeah I picked a bad day to wear jeans and not bring my hiking boots. But then the views kept me going. I got to the 'saddle' of the mountain, and it was quite a view, and the amazing part was--there was a random bench there overlooking the other side of the saddle. Perfect place to have my lunch (which was thankfully brought). I trecked on from there for about 15 more minutes. The summit was only 35 minutes ahead probobly. But by now I had gotten my feet very wet in the snow, and the wind was picking up. Kept falling through to my knee... not too safe. So regretfully turned back.

But the way down was great - got to spend the time looking out on the lake and the mountains instead of up. Ran into a couple guys treking up (where are the treking girls!) and got to reassure them that the view was worth it. The way down was actually more tiring than the way up - hurt on the knees. I didn't feel tired at all going up actually, because it is not at high altitude like Peru for example, so not so hard. But now my legs do hurt from the way down so most likely collapsing soon (too bad I can't take a bath here), and deciding what adventure I will embark on tomorrow.

Oh and I have a huge urge to re-watch Lord of the Rings. So much of it filmed around here. Saruman's tower was digitally manipulated on the right side of the lake. And they were stuck in the snow somewhere close by also. Kept humming some melodies while walking around. =)