Update!

Apologies for lack of updates, I just haven't felt like bloggin' much.

I'm kinda going to Tarantino this one because I haven't sorted through the pictures from my road trip last weekend yet.

So the past couple days have been a bit rainy and in between showers I've been doing uphill sprints on my fixed gear bicycle, in addition to my usual daily route. Well needless to say uphill sprints on a track bike are brutally painful but I figure if I'm not climbing mountains I might as well attempt to build a bit of muscle. My legs felt fine at the time (my lungs, a different story), but I woke up with a sore knee and now I'm stuck here on the couch. Knee injuries scare the crap out of me. What the heck would I do without these things? Not sure what I was doing wrong, except perhaps for riding a track bike where track bikes certainly don't belong. Lesson learned? Probably not...

Before the rain I went fly fishing (surprise). This was an attempt at a self portrait. Came out a bit dorky, but I'm a dorky guy so I guess I shouldn't except anything else. I caught all rainbow trout this day and actually kept one for my dad (not the fish pictured, a much smaller one). He's been bugging me to keep one since I got here so I did and luckily it was just OK tasting. It was the first fly caught fish I've ever kept.



Before that I climbed up Fantham's Peak.



It was an awesome hike, despite being trapped in the clouds for the upper half. No view from the top, but I was fascinated by the alpine flora that survives up there.



This is the route to the top. Once above treeline you hike through a steep scree field the rest of the way up. Take a step, lose half a step, take a step, lose a step, repeat, etc. In weather like this (which is actually "good" weather for this mountain) the route is sort of a guessing game. There are wooden stakes placed in irregular intervals to the top. But with the cloud cover you can't see the next stake from stake you're currently at. It's not so bad when you're going up, but definitely something to be aware of on the way down.

I took lots of photos of the life in this seemingly barren alpine environment. I wish I knew the names of them all off hand, but I haven't researched as much yet.

















Before my Fantham's trip I went on a little road trip to break in my new ride, a '93 Mistubishi Magna Station Wagon, and to figure out how to drive a manual transmission. No photos yet, but here's the route. Stay tuned...