Still working this angle, but wanted to at least get the names of plants written down somewhere.

Here are some before/after pics. The before is from when I moved in (almost two years ago), the after is from this morning. There were a few stages in-between. Mostly not pictured.

The side hill.

It’ll look better once it’s got mulch on it. The little green guys in the foreground are pachysandra. The guy at the nursery said they’d be great, but everyone online says that full sun will scorch them. We’ll see how it goes. I’m kind of holding off on buying any more flats until — I dunno. I don’t think this will get answered in the next few weeks. I should have gone with plumbago.

The established plants are privets even though they look like they’re just more box woods. In the before photo, they’re the plants that are 10 feet high or whatever. A couple of them got hacked down to stumps at some point and are now trying to come back. I wish them good luck. At the bottom of the two privets in the foreground is a “valley rose pieris”. When it gets bigger it will look less like a weed. And I still think adding bark will help.

Here’s looking at the back half of this side hill (if you’re bored already you can just stop reading — it’s fine).

The after photo is from the other angle. It’ll be okay. The thing that looks like a pile of sticks in the foreground is a butterfly bush; it will supposedly look better in a month. Then there’s another privet behind that, then another pieris, then those three other green guys are bird’s nest spruces. Swell. Up above those is one of the survivors from the yardpocalypse that preceded my arrival (it’s just a mature boxwood). I’m thinking I’ll try and fill in some of these blank spaces with more ground cover (either the pachysandra or the plumbago).

Just one more area. This is the side yard just above the side hill.

Stupid feral rose-of-sharon plants.

An in-between stage.

It’ll look better with mulch. And with the hose put away. From left to right, silver sword azalea, little business (¿) daylily, stella d’oro day lily, peppermint mountain laurel, stella d’oro day lily, little business (?) daylily, silver sword azalea. Which of course ignores the air conditioner in the one window well and the other window well that doesn’t have a well liner.

One of the missionaries in the bad ward told me one Sunday that the thing he missed most from home was being able to dig things. That’s who took care of the rose-of-sharon (continued thanks).

I’m hoping the a/c pushes into the house rather than out of the house. I’d have to dig if it’s out. Probably a lot.

bkd

PS, I also transplanted a hydrangea out of the front yard and into the back yard where there’s a little more shade. In its place I planted three new azaleas that were on sale for $5 each.

(Not pictured: the coat of black paint, but then…:)

For instance, you might have thought I would have prioritized painting the trim around the garage door before re-painting the address. Nope.

bkd

Mad River Glen kind of takes Smuggler’s Notch’s approach of “mostly locals” and pushes it a little further into something akin to “locals only”. It’s a little odd showing up at a ski resort where everyone else seems to know each other because they’re all part of the collective and you’re not. I spent most of the day feeling like I was doing it wrong. Whatever it was.

They only have four lifts, two of which seem mostly superfluous. The lift going up the big mountain is a single chair (see first photo above). They take significant pride in that anachronism. The resort also keeps the mountain “natural”, which was interesting. Good-interesting. Very little grooming or snow-making, the runs seem to fit the mountain (whatever the means), a couple of creeks running down the hill, and a waterfall adjoining one of the routes down. The natural situation also results in some more challenging terrain than you usually see. A lot of black diamonds, none of which get cat-tracked. At least a couple of the green circle trails had significant mogul fields on them.

All-in-all, it’s a compelling place. Not a lot of people and a very different attitude. I got the impression that the customers there sometimes take turns running the lifts. (It is, seriously, owned and operated by a collective.) I’d like to go back some time if only to see what it’s like when the conditions are better (the night before it had rained for several hours, then froze, then early in the morning it got a couple inches of new snow, then it warmed up into the 30s during the day resulting in a rough mixture of ice and slush with occasional puddles). There was a lot of good-looking terrain here that just needed some snow.

And I only paid $30 for the lift ticket (via Liftopia). So there was that.

bkd

(Their tag line is “Ski It If You Can”, which is a pretty good tag line I think although it’s not like they don’t have any beginner or intermediate terrain.)

From the top of Smuggler’s Notch you can see Mt. Mansfield and some of the runs at the Stowe resort 4 miles or 70 minutes away.

So anyway. As a ski resort, Smuggler’s Notch is kind of a locals-oriented place. Not that I didn’t meet plenty of French-Canadian snowboarders, but still, it doesn’t try to be a big destination resort. Which is sort of a good thing. One of its charms, though, is that it only has old-school, slow double chairs:

On the other hand, at least it’s not a single-chair, right? ‘Cuz nowhere would have one of those any more.

The day I was there was warm (50+ degrees) and sunny. Snow conditions ranged from spotty to slushy, though it should be noted that in the continuum that exists in my mind there’s some decent snow between spotty and slushy. Maybe just not a lot of it.

Also, this is the friendliest resort I’ve ever been to. Maybe it was the weather and the fact that the lifts are slow enough that lines develop at them resulting in no one being allowed to go up the lift solo, but whatever: everyone I sat next to on the lift wanted to talk. I met:

• A guy who sold his landscaping business in Massachusetts to move to Vermont and now works for the parks department somewhere.
• A guy who told his boss, who’s from Tennessee, that he shouldn’t bother trying to keep his car clean in the winter and that he better get used to employees coming in late whenever there’s a decent overnight snowfall.
• A woman whose best friend lives in Pittsburgh and who regrets the fact that USAir no longer flies non-stop from BTV to PIT.
• A French-Canadian teenager who has been to more major league ballparks than I have and who takes joy in hating on the Canadiens.
• A guy whose daughter is big into whitewater kayaking and is taking a month-long trip down the Colorado River this month.
• A guy who denigrates Jay Peak (another ski resort) because it’s too close to Canada and, thus, draws too many Canadians (he refers to it as “Eh Peak”). I’m still not sure as to what the appropriate number of Canadians at a ski resort would be.
• Other people.

It was a fun day. Tried skiing in the glades a little bit, which was kind of different. A few of the decent slopes had enough snow on them to go down. The atmosphere was as laid back as I’ve experienced at a ski resort. Cool place I’d be happy to check out again some time.

bkd

]]> http://www.bkdunn.com/blog/2012/03/smugglers-notch-ski-resort-review/feed/ 0 http://www.bkdunn.com/blog/2012/03/ski-stowe-without-feeling-bad-about-being-a-tourist/ http://www.bkdunn.com/blog/2012/03/ski-stowe-without-feeling-bad-about-being-a-tourist/#comments Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:14:03 +0000 bkdunn http://www.bkdunn.com/blog/?p=2445 Skiing Stowe was expensive and nice. Great weather, they take care of the mountain well, tons of parking right next to the lifts (!!), lifts go to useful places, many (long) runs of varying description, etc. Locals seem to dislike it because it doesn’t offer them any in-state discounts. Fair enough, but the discounts for out-of-staters aren’t great either, but I got over it.

Top of Mt. Mansfield (Vermont’s highest point!) from the top of the Stowe quad.

Looking up the gondola lift-line.

Chute full of moguls somewhere at the bottom of the hill.

I think this run (“Hayride”?) is less flat than it looks.

View across the top of the ski hill from the quad to the gondola.

So that’s what it looks like. Sunny weather and the snow was surprisingly good everywhere. What else?

• I think the locals also don’t like it because Stowe doesn’t let skiers ski in the woods. That’s usually sort of a thing in the northeast.
• Stowe moves a lot of people up the hill, but the slopes never seem crowded and there were never any serious lines. The place feels smaller than it is. IMHO. In a good way.
• A lot of French-speaking Canadians. Again.
• The resort has two different sides to it with a gondola connecting the two sides (by crossing the parking lot and the highway). The other side is kind of lame though.
• Although it seemed odd to me that the lame side is the one with all the condos and shops.
• The lodges on the non-lame side seem a little more rustic than you’d expect at a ski resort that charges $92 a day.
• Skiing on the quad is more challenging/interesting than skiing on the gondola.
• The bacon cheeseburger in the cafeteria was overpriced. That probably would’ve gone without saying.
• At the top of the gondola they have a waffle stand, but I did not buy a waffle.

Had a great day here. Would gladly return. $92 (or $78 pre-purchase through Liftopia) is steep, but if you’re going to drive 12 hours to go skiing, I mean, you know. May as well.

Your pal,

bkd

One of the best things about that part of the country is its complete lack of pretension. Saranac Lake is a lake-based tourist town, but it doesn’t come off acting like it. Which I appreciate. For whatever reason.

So that’s about what the place looks like. Also they had icicles like this:

Which were pretty awesome. All we get in Pittsburgh are straight, boring ones.

bkd

New York, Adirondacks. Near Lake Placid. It’s where they did all the skiing events for the 1980 Olympics. Steep, stupid pretty, stunningly cold, and firm.

Whiteface summit. The olympic downhill course started here. I tried it. It was steep. And icy.

Heading up-lift toward the summit.

Whiteface summit (highest point in New York!) taken from the top of the gondola.

Lake Placid taken from the top of the summit lift.

Inside the Gondola with French-speaking Canadians. The French-Canadians seem to need to talk (to each other) a lot.

Au Sable River at the bottom of Whiteface Mountain. You cross this to get from the parking lot to the lodge.

I guess that’s enough photos. Whatever. Some bullet points because they’re easier than paragraphs:

• -2 at the bottom, -12 at the top. Degrees Fahrenheit.
• Firm at the beginning of the day, firm at the end of the day.
• “Firm” means “icy”.
• Just about had frostbite from driving there. Switched hands on the steering wheel every 30 seconds so I could keep the other one inside my coat. Apparently it takes more than half an hour for my car’s heater to start working.
• I had never skied from a gondola before. It’s warmer than the normal chair lift.
• Tons of French-Canadians.
• The cafeteria chili wasn’t very good.
• I got my lift ticket for $25.75 off of Liftopia. Regular price is $79. BKD ftw. For once.
• I caught an edge on the downhill course and ended up sliding on my belly for about half a mile. It was steep. And slick.

I imagine a little snow and about 15 degrees warmer would make this place great. If only.

bkd

As evidence:

Green circles mean GO!

Top of the hill. This is taken from the parking lot. I mean, the *parking lot*.

Do the tops of these lifts sort of look like the at-at walkers from Empire Strikes Back to anyone else? Maybe it’s just me.

See? From the parking lot.

This elevation is within 50 feet of being the highest point in Pennsylvania. (Srsly. I was surprised there were elevations in PA that were this high.)

This is the interior of the lodge. The sushi chef had the day off, so I stuck with the cheesesteak.

Experts only.

I’ve never actually been to Whistler.

Condescending photo captions aside, this was a very fun day and a great place to go skiing.

• Unlike Seven Springs (the other PA ski resort I’ve been to), Blue Knob has more and colder snow. By the end of the day nothing had turned to ice.
• It’s also higher, steeper, and has longer runs.
• Also, since it’s primarily pulling people from Altoona and not mighty Pittsburgh (let alone Philthadelphia), there aren’t a whole lot of people up on the hill. I.e., there are no lift lines and most runs you have all to yourself.
• The expert terrain was closer to being expert-like terrain (although a lot of it is on the bottom half of the mountain, where there’s less snow).
• It isn’t actually green circles as far as the eye can see. The intermediates are fun, fast cruisers. There was only one black diamond-ish run that was worth taking (it’s been a warm, dry winter), but it had fresh snow and fun moguls on it. (With more snow, the black diamonds at the bottom of the hill looked like they’ be a good time.)
• Relatively speaking, the place is *cheap*. $38 for all day or $32 for a five-hour pass (any five hours, the clock starts when you buy the ticket).
• It’s cool to be able to park 100 feet away from the top of the hill. No mile-long slogs back to the car at the end of the day. If you decide you want to change from mitts to gloves, I mean, your car is just *right there*. It’s like parking at a bowling alley rather than parking at Disneyland. Maybe I have unusual car-separation anxiety, but it’s nice to be able to see your vehicle every time you get off the lift.
• Because, seriously, the parking lot is at the top of the hill. That’s how we roll here.

Totally worth the 2.25-hour drive.

bkd

(PS, Curiously, as with Seven Springs, Blue Knob has a situation where there are two different lifts that start in the same place and end in the same place. As with Seven Springs only one of these two lifts was operating.)

(PPS, If you’re curious, here’s a trail map. Only four lifts, two of which are redundant and one of which is about 200 yards long and intended for beginners ONLY. The bottom-to-top lift has a midway station, which would be useful especially if you wanted to focus on the more advanced terrain at the bottom of the hill.)

“Story” is a strong word.

First we drove out to Fort Necessity, the place where George Washington inadvertently started the French and Indian War.

Things I learned there, the veracity of which having not been verified: the French and Indian War precipitated the American Revolution, George Washington accidentally signed a document accepting sole responsibility for assassinating a French officer, his time in the area made Washington a big proponent of the US’s eventual expansion into the Ohio Valley, and most 18th century North American forts aren’t very impressive.

We then stopped at the only restaurant on Highway 40, a Pizza Hut, where there was considerable confusion about what specials were or were not offered. Then we went to Ohiopyle to see the falls:

This is Mr. and Mrs. Telkontar, btw. And the Telkitos. I talked about the falls in a much earlier post in case you feel cheated by lack of additional photos or description.

Then we went to some guy’s house:

I’d never heard of it before moving to Pittsburgh, but it’s apparently the most famous-for-architecture house in the US (Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright). We didn’t have reservations, so we were not allowed inside and were treated like dogs. The waterfalls were nice and the use of stone was kind of cool, but the preponderance of pink concrete was perplexing. Definitely better than the Biltmore Estate, though.

Then we drove back through Ohiopyle and came upon the following waterfall:

It’s named Cucumber Falls due to the prevalence of wild cucumber in the area.

It was starting to get dark, then, so we did what comes naturally to tourists in the Pittsburgh area: ride the Duquesne Incline up to Mt. Washington.

There was probably a good photo there if I could have found something to which to attach my gorilla pod.

And then we went home and debated the relative utility of creche committees.

bkd

The top 20 search terms used to find my blog in 2011:

1. diy tv stand (and what a stand it is…!)
2. forbes field (I have one photograph)
3. ford trimotor (ibid, but at least this one’s a potentially interesting photograph)
4. diy kitchen table (although it turned out to be more of a writing desk)
5. trigger finger (the ligament inflammation, not the need to shoot people)
6. spooky gulch (referring to the gulch, not to my grad school experiences)
7. b-52 (several photos actually)
8. diy tv stand plans
9. reagan library
10. tv stand diy (it was still a terrible project)
11. gluing wood together (although I can see my info being possibly helpful to someone trying to glue wood together)
12. general sherman (the tree, not the general; anyone looking for the general will have been disappointed)
13. tv stand plans
14. b52
15. ford tri motor
16. diy tv stands
17. flying tigers (one photo)
18. diy entertainment center
19. washing machine drain (one photo)
20. spruce goose (ibid)

In addition, 49 people found my site by searching for the word “clamps”, 33 by searching for “kia jeep” (which isn’t discussed anywhere on this domain), and 30 by searching for “pittsburgh toilet” (and to think that two years ago I’d never heard of such).

bkd

I am nevertheless comfortable in asserting that Maui is the least interesting of the Hawaiian islands with which I’m familiar. I can see why someone would like it, but those antecedents of “like” would correlate strongly with that someone and I being generally incompatible as co-vacationers. FWIW. Maui would be great for someone who wants nice weather, a mega-resort, a mall with expensive boutiques and galleries, sub-par restaurants, and resort-style golfing.

Here’s a photo of sunset from the hotel pool:

I think it’s a nice photo and all, maybe even enticing. But what amount of time on your Maui vacation could staring at sunsets across pools productively take up? I’m going with eight. The second sunset you stare at is cliché, and by the third one you’re just desperate for meaning. Um, IMHO. So then what are you going to do for the other 6 days, 23 hours, and 52 minutes?

Well, there are a couple things. Maybe even three:

• The Hana area is genuinely nice. It’s slower paced and not dominated by mega-resorts. It seems like a place you would find on Kauai. Except that: (a) it’s a pain to get to — you can romanticize that drive all you want, but at the end of the day it’s arduous and there are only four or five places worth stopping, and (b) since it’s the only place on the island that looks anything like that, it’s necessarily crawling with escapees from all the mega-resorts. Who aren’t necessarily fun to hang out with.
• The drive around the northern part of the western lobe is kind of nice. It’s not all that crowded, not quite as arduous as the Hana drive (I mean, it’s arduous, just not wish-I-was-dead arduous), and has at least one nice little church and a little tidal swimming pool among the rocks in one spot.
• Haleakala is something that’s probably worth doing once, although it’s a long ways up there for maybe a couple of hours of entertainment (with thousands of your co-tourists).

So it’s got that going for it.

Here’s a photo of a bird taken from the lanai of the hotel room at the mega resort that we stayed at (because it was close to the conference):

See that little black bird in the tree? Awcute, right? Except that it’s loud, it’s everywhere, and it’s a non-native species. In a sense, it’s a type for the real problem with Maui:

*Tourists*. And there’s nothing for them to do. No way to disperse. Just sitting around the pool mutually reassuring themselves that they’re doing something interesting.

The place is dominated by the mega-resort whether in Kihei-Wailea, or the whole Lahaina-Kaanapali mega-hotel-opolis. It’s hard to break free from these places and there aren’t a lot of reasons to do so (other than the three above and to buy groceries at Wal-Mart). Maui ends up feeling like the Las Vegas strip, but without all the stuff to do.

If you have to go to a conference and cost has no meaning, it’s a nice place to have a conference. Between sessions you can hang out outside, in January, and it’s warm. Nice. OTOH, you’re still at a conference and, for the most part, there’s not a lot different about a conference session room at the Grand Wailea on Maui and a conference session room at the Will Rogers Airport Embassy Suites in Tulsa.

Then with the opportunity cost. It costs the same to go to Honolulu, only that place has better food, more stores, a “scene”, and several regions to consider exploring. It costs the same to go to Kauai, which has rivers everywhere, waterfalls everywhere, easy-in snorkeling, world-class hiking, fewer crowds, etc. It costs the same to go to the Big Island, which — I haven’t been to. I’m guessing I’d like it better so long as I wasn’t stuck in Kona.

Long story short, I’d like to go to this conference again, but probably when it’s on some other island.

Here’s a picture of water:

bkd

Everything pictured here is somewhere on the other side of Hana. I like Hana better than the rest of Maui. The hippie vibe is refreshing compared to the tourist vibe of everywhere else, plus it rains more there so it looks greener.

The bridge below those falls:

The gulch is called Oheo Gulch by the way. The trail goes through a bamboo forest. The forest looks like a bamboo forest.

And the falls are the Oheo Gulch Waterfall. Clever. It’s a high waterfall. Sorry about all the portrait-orientation. Waterfalls and trees, I guess.

Dennis took a really sharp photo of me hanging out in the waterfall pool, but I’m afraid it’d end up on some  porn site somewhere. If everyone were Mormon, I wouldn’t have to worry about that. It’d just be a photo of a guy giving a thumbs up from the bottom of a waterfall. Maybe I should move to Provo. Or Saudi Arabia.

Not always a fan of the species.

Also in the gulch:

This is a view of the “forbidden part” of the Hana Highway. The part that’s beyond Oheo gulch. It’s drier there.

So there you go. I think the highway has some other name on this side of Hana also.

In January, Pittsburgh is colder than there.

bkd

The beach is sort of on private property or requires you to cross through private property or something. There’s a hotel there that has signs posted that declaim any responsibility for you killing yourself while trying to get there. Not without reason.

A few photos I guess:

The beach itself:

And I got about 50 more photos that are some variation on that. The tree is in all of them. Seriously, like *all* of them.

On the hike:

• It’s not very far — maybe 3/4 mile from the place where you park.
• But: the trail is pretty dodgy. There’s one part where the footing is poor (sandy and loose pebbles), and the trail is narrow (ca. 12 inches) and slanting off the edge of a cliff (20-foot drop). It’s about a 10-foot stretch, but that’s about all it takes.
• I was wearing flip-flops, which did not grant me goat-like powers of ground adhesion.
• Ended up gashing the side of my foot.
• Alternately, there’s a trail spur that bypasses this section. It takes you off the cliff and down to the beach, then goes back up onto the ledge above. Would’ve been smart. Would have.
• And then coming back up, we came up one trail too early. This too-early trail goes to the cemetery and is steeper than you want it to be. With loose, sandy pebbles.

Cemetery is like this:

For some reason all the stones had Japanese writing on them. On the interesting scale, I’m guessing the story behind that (unknown to me) rates a 3.

bkd

PS, This was a purely Google-driven headline. Thanks, search algorithms: you’ve destroyed blog post headlines forever.

I should probably just start posting these on Facebook instead. Just that I kind of want Facebook to fail, so — you know. Also, I don’t remember in which month I got the phone. Probably spring some time.

A giant eagle at Lowe's: a retail allegory.

Because Giant Eagle is the big grocery chain in western Pennsylvania is why. That’s a really big bird, though. And not very shy. And I’m not sure which of the small children there he had his sites set on.

A pan fish I caught.

It’s not as big as it looks. Orrin did a nice job with the trick photography. But the impressive thing in the photo isn’t the fish that was about to be un-hooked, it’s (IMHO) this:

The effects of poison ivy.

Before moving to Pittsburgh, I was barely even aware that poison ivy still existed in the modern world. I certainly wasn’t aware of how, just, ridiculously awful it is. Fortunately, after the fourth or fifth outbreak I figured out a regimen to minimize the damage of the contact. But man, at this point I itch just looking at it. Hopefully none of the poison got on the fish…

Meanwhile, here’s a sunset:

Sunset on Keystone Lake

Also this…

The eastern rat snake that got into my garage.

As mentioned elsewhere, he was a gentleman among snakes. Waited for me to open the garage door before slithering in, then barely complained when I picked him up with my snow shovel and threw him out into the yard. Four feet long, inch and a half thick. They eat bird eggs, mice, and chipmunks.

This next photo was taken at the mall nearest my house (Century III) at about 12:30 PM.

This is the food court.

Interestingly, most of the restaurant spaces were occupied (and the restaurants were open for business). OTOH, you know your mall isn’t doing very well when it not only has two GameStops in it, but it also has two Army recruiting offices. (Would seem to indicate low lease rates is what I’m saying.)

A shirt I wore one day while fighting my cell phone.

Here are a couple shots of Mt. Rainier taken while maneuvering around the breakwater barges in Commencement Bay (Tacoma) in my dad’s boat.

Heading out of the marina

Then onto the open waters of Commencement Bay.

Also while out west this summer, I got to reconnect with some old friends:

This was in Spokane (downtown). It is the most friendly Carl's Jr. I've ever been to. The guy taking orders at the counter actually knew the names of his regular customers *and* knew what they usually ordered. It was almost too much to handle.

The Del Taco in South Bend (Ind.) wasn't as friendly. And South Bend isn't exactly "out west", it was just close enough to have a Del Taco. Food was good, but I got the impression they don't sell a lot of the churros.

And this is a cup of Postum:

And then I went to eBay and saw that a jar of the stuff costs like $400 now because they quit making it several years ago.

All right, then there’s this building on the campus at Pitt that’s called the “Cathedral of Learning”. It was a WPP project. How could it not have been? Anyway, every time I see it I think of the Tower of Babel, although I’m not sure any sacrilege (or language instruction) actually happens there.

And then there was this day when I was thinking that I hadn’t seen an AMC Pacer on the road in like a decade. Then a couple days later I saw this one (with current inspection stickers).

You can't beat the paint scheme.

Or maybe you *can* beat it, I don’t know. I’ve never actually tried.

Anyway, that’s a big enough dump I guess.

bkd

They also misspelled "vitamin". And I'm not sure I want to know what "Dairyplus 600" is.

If they don't want to say where they made it, they could probably just leave that line off.

‘

Not a great place for math, either.

Or maybe I just shop in the wrong stores.

Other than that, everything here remains steady. Always steady.

bkd

So there’s a miraculous story here that explains how I ended up going to Glacier Lake at all. My cell phone (with Virgin) gets no reception between Minnesota and Spokane. That is to say, it doesn’t work in Idaho, Montana, or the Dakotas. When I was heading from Tacoma to Montana, I stopped in Spokane to call my brother in South Dakota to see if he wanted to join me for fishing in Montana. He said he couldn’t make it, so I figured I’d leave Montana Saturday after finishing the Lake Fork hike.

But then when I got to Butte or so, I checked my phone and it had received a text message. Somehow, *somehow*, despite being in coverage no-man’s land, my phone had gotten a text message from my brother saying he could make it after all. And then I found a pay phone and confirmed plans. Yes, they still have pay phones. Everyone who saw me using it was also surprised.

(And: I said the story was miraculous, not that it was interesting.)

Fishing at Glacier Lake was great. The guy at the hotel in Red Lodge recommended it. Good job, guy!

Garry crossing a creek.

Elevation: 10,000'.

Ibid.

Glacier Lake shoreline.

Fishing was, as said, good. Used dry flies trailing behind a plastic float. Mostly 12- to 15-inch cutts. Caught one 12-inch brookie. All were good fighters. Also caught this:

The largest trout I've ever seen.

Two pounds? Two and a half maybe? It was a big trout. Caught it on four-pound line and apparently my knots don’t suck. Took probably 10-15 minutes to get him ashore. He took a lot of line. Awesome fish, mad respect.

Gebrüder (I'm not really six inches shorter than him).

Emerald Lake (in Wyoming!), just below Glacier Lake.

• This is a short hike, btw. Two miles each way.
• But steep (ca. 1,500 feet in elevation gain).
• And at high altitude.
• Glacier Lake is a perfect fishing lake: no grass, plenty of shoreline, lots of places to sit.

Morning reflections in Keyser Brown.

September Morn Lake, where I presume Neil Diamond danced until the night became a brand new day.

A 12-inch brookie I caught there.

A 120-inch brook I crossed there.

View of Keyser Brown and First Lake from the trail above.

First Rock Lake (with rocks).

Big Thunder Mountain.

• Should have spent more time fishing at September Morn.
• Not having a working watch is hard.
• Had serious line problems, but was able to salvage enough to jam knot a couple strands together for fishing up at September Morn.
• Then lost most of the rest of my line hiking back from First Lake and, thus, was out of the game.
• There was a nice fishing hole for nine-inch cutts at the bottom of a cascade between First Rock and Keyser Brown. I thought someone should know.

bkd

PS, More SEO fodder in the title. Sorries.

Originally planned to hike up to Black Canyon Lake and probably to Sundance Pass, camping, I dunno, somewhere. After about a mile of hiking, I realized that I’d just spent seven days at sea level and was now at 8,000 feet and climbing. Objectives were toned down accordingly.

• So ended up camping at Keyser Brown Lake — about seven miles from the trailhead and 1,500 feet of elevation gain (I think the lake is at a little over 8,000 feet).
• Just about passed out trying to get my tent set up.
• Took about 45 minutes trying to get my food appropriately hung.
• Trail follows the river most of the way, although there are some miles where there are trees that get in the way of seeing the river.
• Some dude coming down the trail said he saw a grizzly, but I’ve pretty much determined that grizzlies are merely legendary like, z.B., Sasquatch.
• There was one other dude camping near the lake. He was from Minnesota and so, naturally, he helped me get my rain fly on tighter than it was. I told him he was only reaffirming the stereotype.
• Mountain House lasagna is good, but it’s hard to get all the cheese off your fork.
• The good campsites are all on the back side of the lake.

Highway 16 running through Mt. Robson Provincial Park (Fraser River at left).

The goat welcomes, the clouds warn.

You can ride your bike for the first 3.5 miles -- but no further.

Bridge over Robson River near Kinney Lake in-flow.

Disappointingly stable.

Lunch-time view from the shelter at the Whitehorn campground.

Whitehorn Mountain and the Robson River: the money shot.

Same place, other money shot.

Photo of the Falls of the Pool

View from the Emperor Falls campground.

Berg Lake and Berg Glacier from the trail up Toboggan Falls.

Mt. Robson and Mist Glacier and clouds.

Outflow from Berg Lake.

It's sort of like the waterfall is dreaming of the mountain. It used to live there after all.

The bottom of the steep part.

The river below Kinney Lake.

Enough.

• Camped first night at Whitehorn, second night at Emperor Falls.
• There are a lot of people backpacking in this area. Many are friendly. It’s supposedly the most popular back country trail in all of Canada.
• It was way less crowded than Banff/Jasper.
• Very nice, very well-maintained camp sites — there are pads with bark and benches and stuff.
• Have to make reservations a month or so in advance.
• Took my point-and-shoot camera, which doesn’t do well with bad lighting; i.e., it’s prettier than these pics make it look.
• On second day hiked up to Emperor Falls, set up camp, walked down to Lake… eh, I forget. Some lake on the Jasper side of the line. Then hiked up Toboggan Falls (probably worth it), then went back to camp and played solitaire.
• Mountain House Chicken Teriyaki is pretty good.
• The two miles between Whitehorn and Emperor Falls is the steep part, but you pass by three big waterfalls, which sort of breaks up the horror.
• The first three miles (to Kinney Lake) is a tourist hike. I saw a Mennonite family biking up to the lake (the women were wearing dresses, it was sort of cool).
• I think the weather there is usually iffy.
• I don’t like breakfast.
• A&W in Canada (the restaurant) is awesome. Just really, really awesome. No joke.

bkd

Emerald Lake in Yoho NP -- so I shouldn't blame Banff/Jasper for this one.

And this guy was in Kootenay NP -- but still.

And so was this -- but all the rivers look the same there anyway.

This is Marble Canyon, but there isn't even any real marble there.

Another interchangeable river view (Bow River, Banff NP).

The mountain peaks are likewise interchangeable.

Athabasca Glacier and the Columbia Icefield, the ultimate drive-up glacier experience.

Athabasca Falls, which is mostly covered by a highway overpass.

Maligne Lake + Bad Lighting = Tourist Nirvana.

Maligne Canyon and by trying to get as few tourists in the shot as possible I totally missed the story.

And when I finally left Jasper for the last time, heading west into the unknown wilds of Mt. Robson Provincial Park in British Columbia, it was with a profound sense of relief.

bkd