New Flash! You can now buy any of the photo's from my hiking adventures in the Methow Valley/Leavenworth areas on my new online store. There are currently 11 photos for sale online, but I have 100's of photo's varying is sizes 8×10, 11×14, 11×17, to 4 feet and 6 feet panoramas. Also quite a few of my panoramas have been bought and displayed on Duratran Backlit Film for use in light boxes. If you have flown to and visited Las Vegas you have seen many examples of this type of lighted photo displays. Eventually all my photo's will be uploaded to be purchased at the <a online store. I am very proud of these photo's as each one represents a memory from an adventure I attempted and either succeeded or failed at. But either way each one was a learning experience. I do photo requests, so if you have been to the Methow valley or Leavenworth area and would like a photo of a special place or site you can always email me. A payment of half the fee would be required.

Enjoy the store here and my on going journal.

My hope for the hike was to beat my best time 9 hours 18minutes (estimated distance of 25 miles). But after taking 1300 digital photos (most were to be made into panoramas) the run wound up taking me 55 minutes longer.

On Monday August 11th I arrived at the Colchuck/Stewart Lake trail head at 5:55am and was on my way at 6:05am.  I only needed to quickly pass one party of four men and I had the whole trail to myself.  In fact all the way up Asgard Pass through the first quarter of the upper Enchantments I never saw another person “What a great birthday present”!  I had determined to drink a lot more on the way up to Colchuck Lake and up Asgard Pass.  This paid off as I easily made it non-stop past the lake then straight up the pass. When I hike by myself I never stop for more then 30 seconds to take a quick drink then head on.  For me half the challenge of hiking is to see how fast you can go and how far you can push yourself.  As I quickly hiked through the upper Enchantments the combination of the snow and the normal rugged background was so beautiful I found myself stopping every few minutes to take just one more photo.  Little Annapurna kept catching my attention.  I enjoy the view from up there, but I was still hoping to beat my time of 2 years before.  Monday seems a good day to do a one day hike through the Enchantments as I only quickly passed a few random parties.  Around each bend there were more beautiful areas to take photos of.  The lightweight trail shoes which I wore this trip were not built for the pounding of a rocky trail I found out.  My feet and big toe were taking a beating.  The previous trip I had wore a pair of New Balance 710s and my feet felt great the whole time.  The whole run and photo taking through the upper and lower Enchantments was so quiet and peaceful I felt like I was in my own world.  Then reality came back as I came to the end of Lake Vivian where the waterfall starts and there sat 20 people with two other large parties coming.  I thought back to the 1970’s and 1980’s when I could hike up to the Enchantments and never see another person.  Those days are long gone.  I didn’t stop I just quickly jogged past the invaders and headed down to Snow Lake.  Running along the Snow Lake trail and crossing an old wooden log my left foot broke through a plank and I quickly fell flat on my face.  I cut my right hand up, banged my right knee and the worst was when I run I usually carry my camera in my left hand - well I went down so quickly my natural reaction was to put my left hand down to break my fall which I did my camera was smashed never to work again on this hike.  I was able to download all the photos off the two memory cards luckily.  I was worried about my knee and cut hand, but the knee soreness went away as I ran and the cut stopped bleeding as I pressed a rag into the cut.  The rest of the run was interesting until I passed Nada Lake. The last five miles from Nada Lake down to the parking lot is very boring.