Category Archives: Outdoors

MOUNT MARGARET – ON THE BOUNDARY OF MT ST HELENS

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Written after a hike to Mount Margaret on the Boundary Trail in 2019 from a series of hikes up into the Cascades. It was a very good summer in there were no complications from forest fires which seem to mar things in August and early September in recent years.

Lakes mount margaret boundary trail
Lakes and the Backcountry near Mount Margaret from the Boundary Trail.

BOUNDARY TRAIL

Save the best for last? Mount Margaret lies along the Boundary Trail, the 53
mile trail running from Johnstone Observatory in the Mt St Helens Volcanic National
Monument to Mt Adams. The trail was built in 1910 to service fire
lookouts on the border between the forest reserves of the Cowlitz – to the
north – and the Lewis – to the south.

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BAD KREUZNACH – REMEMBER AND RETURN TO THE NAHETAL

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2018 panorama over Bad Kreuznach from the Kauzenburg.

The Nahe Canyon leading to Bad Münster am Stein-Ebernburg is on the right.

Bad Kreuznach – Bad “K” or just “BK” to most former Americans living here – was and is a wonderful town to be introduced into culture beyond America.  Who says you can’t go back?  I lived and worked here for three years back in the 1980’s, a time of strong US dollars and a last fling of Cold War uncertainty. 

Today’s blog is a simple chance to amble down through the mists of my time and a chance to update photographic memories of a part of Germany flying under the radar of the Viking longboat cruisers.

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HINDU SANCTUARY IN THE TUALATIN MOUNTAINS FOCUS ON DIFFERENT PATHS TO THE SAME GOAL

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Sunlight filters through the trees along the Shrine Path high among the Tualatin Mountains.

“BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME”

“Build it and he will come”.  So, intones the voice of Shoeless Jackson to the Iowa corn farmer played by Kevin Costner in the 1989 film Field of Dreams. The quote often remembered wrongly as “Build it and they will come”. The film was a version of W.P. Kinsella’s novel Shoeless Jackson. In this case, we will choose the more popular interpretation which better describes this Hindu sanctuary high in the Tualatin Mountains just north of Portland. A retreat pointing towards a universal message of different paths leading to the same goal.

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CELEBRATION OF LIFE ON TOP OF THE DRAGON’S MOUNTAIN

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Sunrise on top of the Amphitheatre at Royal Natal National Park – one part of the long rim of the Drakensberg.

Celebration of Life

Birthdays have a nasty habit of piling up.  As a child, they are special, looked forward to.  As an older adult, they are part of life.  I don’t celebrate my birthday in a big way, as a rule.  My wife might push for a dinner out or the like.  The start of a new decade is different, however. You have made it through another ten years, a milepost!. Something special should be done to usher in the new epoch – a true celebration of life, if you will.

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THE WORLD GETS SMALLER WITH 360 CAMERAS AND DRONES

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Recent advances with the advent of 360 cameras, smartphones and drones with superb photographic and video capabilities are making it much easier to tell your story or create your epic film in more unique ways.

Enter into 360° Photography

I have been using a 360 camera for a little more than a year now.  The results are pretty cool even considering the optical disparities involved with a fisheye lens – or double fisheye lens in the case of a 360 picture.

Note: for the 360 photos, to take full advantage, click and drag your mouse to see the whole picture. This one shows two old squash players atop the magnificent Rotenfels high above the Nahe River in Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany near Bad Kreuznach.

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HIGH ROCK and PLUMMER – TWO TIMES THE FUN – 8/6/2019

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Panorama taken from Plummer Peak over the Tatoosh Range with Mt Rainier dominating all.

Beginnings

Two hikes today – High Rock and Plummer Peak – maximizing the long drive from Portland to Rainier National Park. The day warm and cloudless. Smoke from southern Oregon, however, had drifted up smudging the long distance views.

The first hike was to a former fire lookout south of the park known as High Rock. It is a well-known hike among Puget Sounders and short – 1.6 miles one-way. The lookout is one of only five remaining in the vast Gifford Pinchot National Forest.  It is steep gaining 1365 feet with much of the height gained in the second two thirds of the way up.

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DOUBLE TROUBLE ON CHINIDERE PEAK

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Panorama from atop Chinidere Mountain looking southeast to west.

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Wahtum Lake on the left, then Mt Hood; Indian Mountain is in the center; on the right is some of the fire burned areas of the upper Eagle Creek Canyon with Tanner Peak.

Native Beginnings – reaching out to Tomlike and Chinidere

Tomlike and Chinidere are two peaks on the agenda for today’s hike -. Tomlike was the son of Wasco Chief Chinidere in times long before now. Chinidere lies at the end of a small, steep spur trail going off the Pacific Crest Trail – PCT – while Tomlike is at the end of a long bootpath through some brush, atop some cliffs and up over scree boulders. This is probably the fifth time I have been up here wandering on these mountains and the day was superb.

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