2015.10.28. North Face Speaker Event - Down To Nothing

Wednesday McMenamins Mission Theatre. The North Face Never Stopping Speaker Series. This one is titled "Down To Nothing", about a failed Myanmar expedition. Photos and video clips, curated by Emily Harrington and Hilaree O'Neill. Quite fun to hear their preparation, mistakes, journey and decision making.

2015.10.24-25 Arrowhead Lake

6:30am meetup. Pitch dark. 1 stop on the way. At 10am 6 of us + 1 dog in-training started hiking. Obsidian Trail is in a permit-only zone. Camping is limited to 12 person per night. This June, we just had hiking permit. Zone sign is posted at the TH, at the zone boundaries. Met a ranger checking permits. 2 runners who pasted us were given choices to hike back out or a $200 citation per person. The trail is strait forward. At Sister Spring, we followed a use trail south to go up to the plateau where the lake is. At 2pm, we reached the 2 ponds which was the lake in a normal year (or earlier season). Elevation 6700'. All nicer camp sites closer to water were all closed for restoration. Up-close view of North and Mid Sister. At the western cliff, good view to Mt Washington, 3 Fingered Jack and Jefferson (Hood is a bit faint) to the north, and Broken Top to the south.

After setting up my tent, I went off for a walk by myself. Followed a use trail out of the plateau east and up one of the many rock piles towards the Sisters. The trail gets fainter the higher I went, eventually I couldn't see the track anymore. Attained the ridge line at 2 different places for better view of the north.

Back to the camp at 5:45, in time for a very colorful sunset (at 6:30). The sky was lit way past the sun set, and moon rose from behind the mountains, almost full. Took many photos. Cooked dinner, watched 4 of them playing cards with flashlight. Got into my tent by 7:30, finished cleanup by 8. Read till 9. Went to sleep by 9:30 and woke up around 2:30am, unable to sleep. Bright moon, some clouds. Not too cold, no shining stars. Windy at times.

Sunday. Nice weather in the morning. We departed shortly after 9am. 2 breaks to delayer and put on rain gear. Back at the car at 11:10, in the mild rain. Late lunch at McMenamin's Treasury in North Salem. Multiple accidents on I-5 causing 1 hour delay.

My companions' GPS readings are ~13 miles, 2900' for this trip. My phone registered 30k steps on Saturday and 13k on Sunday. So I probably did ~4 miles more.

2015.10.22 Liz Thomas speaks at Montbell

2015/10/22 Thursday at 7pm, Liz Thomas talked about women long distance backpacking. Check out past and future events at Montbell Portland. A larger than usual turnout. Liz is sponsored by Montbell, a Triple Crown holder, previous record holder of woman's self-supported hike speed on AT (80 days). She's young (28?), candid, amicable. There're a few good tips: a bit of extra conditioner on the hair, using pee to disinfect when short of water, wear skirt for air flow and easy urination. There's a whole slide on menstruation. I sure appreciate her opinion. I've been to Montbell's events before, but this is the first time, that there were giveaways. Too bad, I had to leave early so could participate the drawing.

2015.10.15 Augmented Reality at Nike

Even Though I've lived in Portland area for 2.5 years, this is my first time attending an event at Nike, the 2nd largest private company in the area. Today's Tech Talk is held at Nike's Decathlon Club Cafe (15350 SW Koll Parkway, Beaverton, OR 97006). You register online, and receive a confirmation and later a reminder email with driving and Max/walking direction.

4:00pm Check-In. Drinks: beer (IPA and Pilsner), cider, diet coke, water with lemon. Appetizer includes arugula salad with cherry tomato and mushroom, bread and cheese with almond slices, raisin and salami, celery and bell pepper with hummus, yellow and blue corn chips, potato chips.

4:40-5:30pm Tech Talk #1. How Augmented Reality Will Change Your Life, Relationships, and the Planet - Todd Revolt (Director of Strategic Alliances, Meta)
A promotional talk about Meta1 development kit and the apps people have developed. It's a tethered bulky gear worn as glasses, with projections on current background and stereo speaker, understand a few hand gestures. All computing is done on the tethered CPU and PGU.

5:40pm Tech Talk #2. The Virtual Reality Revolution: The Future of Immersive Technology - Kent Bye (Host, Voices of VR Podcast)
The leading players are Oculus Rift, Mobile VR is Samsung (tracks head movement), hTc's Vive with laser controller, Google's Cardboard. Potential danger of VR was raised during Q&A.

Cafe remains open till 7:30pm.

2015.10.13. Margaret Atwood speaks at Powell's

Tuesday evening, Canadian author Margaret Atwood came to Powell's Bookstore at Cedar Hill Crossing, promoting her new book The Heart Goes Last. She talked briefly and read a small section (maybe a page). I always like the Q&A session. She's fun to listen to. Critical and candid. After the talk, it's a long line for people to get autograph. Most regulars knew to get a signing ticket early. Ticket numbers were called so readers can line up 10 at a time in a manageable fashion. Each ticket is good for 2 books. My Canadian nephew text-ed me to get an autograph too. I bought what he wanted ‐ Oryx and Crake, only after her talk. Then waited for all ticket holders to finish their books. Atwood is very fast signing her name on an open page prepared by a store employee. At my turn, while she was writing her name, I softly asked her if she could also write "to xxx". She softly responded "of course" and added "best wish", without even raising her eyes. I was very touched by her generosity: by now she's probably tired, after signing more than 100 books!

2015.10.11. Sedum Point

10/11 Sunday. Foggy in the morning, but soon burnt out. Driving along Columbia River in the morning is always a treat: low clouds clinging to the green hills, pleasant light and temperature. 8 of us started at the Trout Creek trail head (NW of the Work Center W of Stabler on  Wind River road), following the PCT south for about 4.5 miles until Lookout Mtn Rd, a wide road abandoned by the Forest Service. Head east (sharp left) on this abandon road for about half a mile and then right to the ridge bushwhack the last 500 feet to Sedum Point. The small rocky outcrop does have sedum, and some flowing flax. Had lunch there. Barely fit all of us. Today, we saw Three Corners Rock, Mt Hood, Mt Adams, and even Mount Raniner, but not at the same time: blocked by the trees.

Found my first ever 2 Matsutake and a couple of Chanterelle today, thanks to the rain yesterday? Haven't met any other hikers all day, except for Benson, a Korean hiker who knew that we'd come, arrived before we did and raided mushrooms.

2015.10.10. Upper Salmonberry River

10/10, Saturday, rain. 8 of us walked part of Upper Salmonberry Rail trail. I'm very glad that I went, even though I got quite drenched. A very pleasant flat trail with many historical viewpoints, canyon and creeks, tunnels and rail bridges. Got to play with the track switching bar.

A detailed mileage and features can be found at this log, which covers the entire trail.

* Mile 0.3, Cochran Pond. Quite big for a pond. Saw 2 small salamanders.
* Mile 1, walk on rail track, Tunnel 26 spur, no railing, a couple of short segments. Saw optic cable line exposed due to landslide.
* Mile 1.8, Tunnel 26 is just long enough that I used headlamp. Rain started.
* Mile 2.7, the aptly named Big Baldwin Trestle. Maybe 200' tall, wide, long and straight. Very impressive. Just before it, is a big wagon, supposed to hold water.
* Mile 3.6, Tunnel 27, short enough that you can get away without a lamp.
* Mile 4, on the west side of this tunnel is Wolf Creek Trestle. This is my favorite. Not much railing. But wide and stable. It curves gracefully to the right. You can see the other side: almost a U turn. By then, the rain has increased intensity. Despite of my umbrella and raincoat, my pants and boots got soaking wet hiking through the under bushes.
* Mile 5.6, Tunnel 28. Just before that a railway carriage, dubbed as B&B Shack 4. I wouldn't be surprised that there are 3 other "shacks" spread across the forest. Here it's more canyon like. A creek running along the track. We had lunch in the short tunnel, its front has collapsed a bit. Even though we were out of the rain, any small breeze over my wet clothes gave me a chill. We voted not to continue because that the immediate next is the broken Kinney Creek Bridge, which requires going down to the creek and ford.
Return the way we came, but much faster: no one bothered to stop for photos in the pouring rain.

2015.10.7. Steven Pinter speaks at Powell's

Wednesday evening at Powell's City of Books, Steven Pinker on book tour for his Sense of Style. Very enjoyable, well presented examples of badly used English sentences from major newspapers and famous personnels. One topic is the abuse of passive tense, and when it should be used.

2015.10.5. William Thompson speaks at REI

Monday evening, former National Geographic photographer William Thompson talks about the vanishing cultures and landmarks in the high Himalaya, especially around Indian Kashmir Lahakh and Zanskar, either because of habitat loss (water source disappeared and disappearing due to glacier retreat), or new access (road and TV). His photos are exceptional, often captures the scale of the landscape, and emotions of people. The best event this REI has hosted.

2015.10.3-4 Ingalls Lake

Last weekend's splendid color made me want to see larch again this year. So I contacted Julie for her upcoming trip to Lake Ingalls, as there is a healthy population at Ingalls Pass and basin. A slow start, as always with a large group (we have 9). One lady was 45 minutes late because she misread the time. We all weighed our packs using Julie's spring scale. Varied from 21-35 lb. Mine was ~27-28 lb, including a bottle of champagne and a big candle. Jenny started a group messaging inside meetup to arrange a surprise celebration. Friday was Julie's birthday. After a long stop at a busy Starbucks (lines at bathroom and counter) in North Bend (misty and chilly then at 11am), and dilly dally at TH, by the time we started hiking, it was sunny but already past 1pm. Considering we met at 7am, this is quite ridiculous. The good thing is that Pryanka lives very close to me. I walked to her house, and we drive to the meeting spot, so I could sleep an extra 40 minutes.

Parking lot complete full, and cars align the road. It's like a parade going both up and down. Tons of people. Natalie, Jenny and I were ahead of our group. Paused for a couple of times for photo. Some red, mostly brown on the way up. Only at Ingalls Pass (2:55), you start to see larch. We set up our camp by a creek in the higher Headlight Basin. Plenty space here. However, quite busy with other groups, especially a Korean group who got probably drunk, sang and talked well into the night.

At 4pm, still no sight of last 3 of our group. Didn't want to wait any longer. Natalie and I took off to Lake Ingalls, and arrive in less than 30 minutes. A couple of pictures later, we walked along the eastern shore to the north side of the lake. At 2 points, had to scale rocks without good footing. But we made it. There, saw a goat right on trail. As we walked closer (within 10'), he ran away. We walked a bit further north towards Stuart Pass. We scrambled up a small butte, saw more peaks, and maybe Glacier Peak. As it was getting late, we didn't go all the way to Stuart Pass (maybe only 1 mile away). On the way back, met a ranger with a big shovel. He told us that the western shore is easier, so we took his advice. Back to the camps at 6:15.

Shortly before 7pm (dark already), we started wine and chocolate. Presented Julie a card we all signed along the drive in the cars, and sang happy birthday. By 8pm, the night sky was brilliant. We didn't manage to stay out until the moon rise: getting chilly. My candle shined nicely in the dark. Saw a bright shooting star.

Sunday 10/4. Got up when the sun was already on my tent, ~7:15. The larches are more golden in the morning sun. Frost on ground. Almost some ice on my rain fly. But soon melted. Someone chewed a bit of my sandwich in the night. A family of 3 goats at the camping area. Women chat a lot, well into 9am. Julie showed us hiking options. We all headed towards Lake Ingalls. A few went to Stuart Pass. Natalie and I tried to climb Ingalls Peak. The higher you are, the more extended view there is. At some point, I could see Mt Rainier! Pretty straightforward at first. We saw 5 guys in front of us climbing, so we followed. By the time we reached a straight gully, it got a bit tricky. Also we were close enough to see that they had helmets and ropes. I gave up. Natalie went to a saddle NE of the gully, but I don't see the point going there. I retraced my steps, went up to the south ridge where the terrain is reasonable. It's an excellent choice. The view to the west is splendid. Saw many snowy peaks. There is a better and higher top I should have gone to, more to the south. It has a flat top that you can sit. I headed down at 12:30, hoping to get to our camp by 1:30, our agreed meeting time. Met more climbers going up, all carrying ropes, not all had helmets. I took the higher boulders for awhile. However, when I reached the trail, it was the lower trail. It still baffles me how I could have missed the higher trail. I got confused for quite awhile, going back and forth looking for the camp, even got a few hikers concerned after seeing me a few times. Eventually, it dawned on me to check my GPS location. All ended well, except that I felt guilty of letting people wait for me.

Arrived at home ~10pm. Not bad. My phone recorded about 23000 steps each day, so maybe 15-16 miles total.