Misc. from this weekend

This weekend we hosted the group stages of a "world cup style tournament" of domestic lite beers.  We had a great turnout and the event was surprisingly fun.  Here is what our recycle bin looked like the next morning:

We had a lot of leftover lite beer:

Here are the results of the group stage.  Knockout round to follow.  We will get a keg of the winning beer for our wedding (unless big flats light wins, in which case it may be impossible to procure a keg).

Here is Patrick doing his best John Cusack impression after the rounds were over:

 

 The next day we went out to Whidbey Island to make Cider at my boss's place.  It was really fun, but I didn't take any pictures.  Here is a picture of the cider we made.  It was cool -- the apples get ground up then you press them and the juice comes out.  Pretty straightforward.  The cider is really good and we had a nice lunch.  We were going to go over to my Uncle's afterwards but Meghan wasn't feeling well so we just drove home.

Surfing at Westport

 

Aaron Millstein and I went out to go surfing at Westport on the Oct 13 weekend.  It was really stormy out there and there were tons of waves.  It was really windy and rainy.  But we surfed anyway.

In our wetsuits, we were actually really warm.  Props to the Honda for holding two surfboards.

The conditions were pretty rough, but we surfed (unbelievably) for four hours.  It was really fun and a really good workout.  I was starving by the end, and I was really happy to chow down on this Longboard Burger:

Winthrop Wedding

The first weekend of October I went to Emily & Andrew's wedding in Winthrop.  MK was in NYC for a wedding, so I had to go solo. 

The wedding itself was in St Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Seattle:

Then everyone drove over Highway 20 to just outside of Mazama.  It was a beautiful day.  I drove a couple of Em's friends:

 

We stayed at a lodge near Mazama in the forest.  It was really pretty and the reception was a blast.  Here is some greek-style dancing at the reception:

The next day I played golf outside of Winthrop with these two dudes:

Then I caught a fish (with a fly rod!), then rode a horse:

It was a really fun weekend.. I met some great people and got to do some cool outdoor stuff.

Yellow Aster Butte

We started the morning by meeting Jackie at Sakuma Market Stand near the little town of Bow, Washington.  We picked blueberries.

We drove about an hour to the trailhead for Yellow Aster Butte.

It was misty and a bit cold.  Before we made it all of the way up, but decided to take a little rest.

From the top of the butte, we could finally see the mountaintops over the fog.

Kind of like islands emerging from a sea of fog.

Beautiful colors as the sun rose the next morning.

Sitting on the edge of the world...not really.

A bit clearer on the way down.

A view of a small lake, and Danny swimming in the chilly water.

PCT

This is me, excited but squinting in the late afternoon light, as we continue hiking of the Washington portion of the Pacific Crest Trail.  We picked up where we left off last year--at the trailhead just north of Surprise Lakes campground.

About two miles in, I sprain my ankle.  I'm sad here, but it ended up not being that big of a deal.

This is the next morning.  Danny and I had this plan where he would ride his bike from our campsite to our car, and then drive to meet me at our starting point for the next day's hike.  But...the bike lock didn't unlock (?!?), so we ultimately were forced to cut the tree down in order to keep the bike.

Danny went at the tree with a Swiss Army knife.  It took awhile...

But eventually he did it!

We continue our hike and soon realize that the haze has gotten thick because we're moving into a forest fire zone.

This is at 10:30am and you can barely see the sun!  We decided to cut our losses and head home a day early.

To make the best of our vacation, we stopped at the Puyallup Fair on the way home.  This is Danny with goats and me with dahlias.

High Sierra Trail

After the glacier peak trip I flew down to California to hike the High Sierra Trail, which crosses the Sierra Nevada range from west to east.  Einar flew in from Sweden and I met him at Fresno.  We took a cab to the trailhead for $200 because the other guys we were hiking with had left a day and a half earlier.  Our cabbie was happy to stop and see the giant sequoias:

We started at Lodgepole trailhead in Sequoia National Park and hiked about 5 miles to a place called Panther Gap where we got our first view of the Sierra range:

The next morning we contoured along a ridge before we started to ascend into the high sierras:

We stopped at Hamilton Lake our first night at around 10,000 feet of elevation.  Maybe slightly less. It was a pretty lake and we met some nice people there.

The next day we climbed up to Kaweah Gap.  On the way up I went for a swim in lower Precipice Lake:

Einar sat on a rock:

Next we passed by Upper Precipice Lake.  It was really pretty:

After Kaweah Gap we cam to the Big Arroyo Valley, which was one of the most scenic parts of the trip:

We hiked about 20 miles that day and finally caught up with the other guys in our group at the very end  of the day.  We rolled into Kern Hot Springs around 8:30 after it was already dark, and swam in the hotsprings while cooking dinner.  We unknowingly camped about 100 feet from the rest of our group.  They found us the next morning.  Here we are playing hearts:

We had a couple of short days through some valleys before climbing up to Guitar Lake to prepare to go up Whitney.  This is a lake on the way to Guitar Lake:

This is what it looked like at Guitar Lake.  

We woke up really early the next morning to summit Mt. Whitney.  We got going at 3:30 AM.  There was a full moon that allowed us to hike in the dark even without a flashlight (mine had dead batteries).

It slowly got light as we ascended:

It's weird, even though Mt. Whitney is the highest point in the US, you can't see it until you're practically on it.  Here it is from the trail:

Views from the trail to Whitney:

And here is the top.  It's 14,480 feet or something like that: 

Me, Einar, and Braxton at the top:

I took this picture on the way down. Everyone drops their packs for the last 1.9 miles and 1000 feet up to Whitney.

Here we are descending from Whitney down the "99 switchbacks" (we counted and it's debatable whether there are 99 or 97).

After the hike, Einar and I went to my Grandma's house in LA to go surfing for a few days.  I had never surfed before.  It was great to see my Grandma.  Here we are at brunch.

Our first day of surfing, we took a lesson at Hermosa Beach pier.  The waves were apparently not very good, but we honestly couldn't tell the difference.  Surfing was a blast. 

We played tennis with Braxton, who lives in LA also:

We went golfing:

And we went surfing up in Malibu the next day:

When I got home I got to meet my new cat, which Meghan had picked up a few days before I got home.  She sleeps a lot: