A Springboard Event

In January of 1996 the company I worked for was acquired by one of Ross Perot's gigantic corporations and underwent the typical remake to mirror the image of the new owner. We went from a small, privately held firm of about 120 people to being a part of an international company of many thousands.

The upside to such an acquisition is typically one of financial solvency and the adoption of a series of new tools, systems, processes and a remake of the culture. In this case, I had no interest in joining this particular firm for reasons that really no longer matter. As soon as the change was announced I began laying plans for my departure and next adventure.

When the changeover took place, the new owners, in a moment of generosity granted us all our full year's worth of vacation effective immediately. I think this was meant as an act of thoughtfulness and an opportunity for folks to take a little time off to readust to the new much more rigid culture. I took them up on it. I took my entire four weeks and disappeared for the month of February. I then returned. And quit.

I spent that year, from the first of March through about mid-September working with a partner to create a website devoted to boating in the salt water of the Northwest. We flew all over the place, from Olympia to Point Roberts, taking pictures of all the islands and bays and marinas and then built what would still be considered a first class website today. It subsequently sold to a couple of ambitious guys from Microsoft, but it kept me busy for months before that.

What I learned from that spring and summer, in addition to how to build websites and how to try to sell advertising on them, was that what seems like a lot of time when you are at the beginning of it somehow turns into not very much as you near the end. I promised myself that if I ever again was offered a chance to have time all to me, just to do what I wanted with it, I'd not waste as second of it, but dive right in and get busy.

This past Wednesday I was relieved of command at my job. Here I am, with time handed me, and another opportunity to invest my energy into the things I am deeply interested in. So I'm getting started.

There are a couple of ski trips in the next week. There is a lot of writing to ramp back up and complete. There is the opportunity to learn some new things - like classes in writing and publishing, like piano lessons. A chance to focus on my own health and spend time outdoors and get together with family and friends - this list goes on and on.

Expect a bit more activity here on this blog in the coming weeks. I'll keep you posted on things as we progress, share a few bits of writing with you, take you along on some of these terrific ski trips and generally just do a better job of connecting with the rest of the world.

As I was describing all this to my son Zeke, he said to me, "Wow - this is really a springboard event for you!". I like that phrase. It sort of sums up where I am right now and offers a picture of what this means. I'm on the end of the board, bouncing up and down, trying to decide if it will be a back flip or a full gainer of a one and a half. And even if it ends up in a belly flop, I can't wait to get busy!!!!

Yellowstone - Day 4

The sun was finally out in full force for our trip from our West Yellowstone base to a more central location at Grant Village. Another trip along the Madison River, then the Firehole River and past the Old Faithful Lodge and it's namesake geyser and we left, for a while, the still burn-scarred upper geyser basin for a trip up to a pass over the Continental Divide. Along the way we stopped to see Grand Prismatic Spring - the largest and most impressive of the hot springs in the area. With the cool weather, the amount of steam coming from the hot water made for poor views and wet sunglasses, but we did manage to get a few views in.

We finally got a glimpse of Yellowstone Lake after topping the ridges and then took a short jog to the south to find the never before visited by me Grant Village complex. This was the first time I've stayed in this area, always had just driven through before. The complex was constructed in 1984 amidst enormous controversy as it was placed right in the midst of some the best grizzly habitat in the park. Needless to say, the bears came out on the losing side in favor of more visitor space. There is still a great deal of disagreement among wildlife biologists and park administration about habitat management in general, but this facility caused a firestorm in the late 80's. It's in place now, however, so little can be done to change things, but I must say it's a delightful location and the facilities - the newest in the park by far - are nice. The bears might disagree.


We explored the area around Grant Village for a bit before heading north to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone - next to Old Faithful, probably the most well know spot in the park. It is a spectacular place with a deep canyon cutting through layers of multi-colored rock.
At over 900 feet deep and half a mile wide, it certainly gets your attention. Geologically it's an interesting spot because the canyon is erosional rather than glaciated, which is what defines much of the park - and of course volcanism. In this case, it is presumed that the location of the canyon was covered by rhyolite rock - normally very hard -which was chemically altered by the existence of an underlying geyser basin. The heat and water and chemicals contained in that water had an effect on the rhyolite which altered its composition, making it very soft and subject to the incredible erosion we see today. There are still many thermal features in the vicinity today, which were visible on this trip. The cool weather caused large amounts of steam to be emitted from all these locations so I was able, for the first time, to see the locations. A fabulous place!!

On our return toward Grant Village we made a stop at the Yellowstone Lake Hotel. It was here we found all the bison that had been missing in our passage of the Hayden Plateau between the canyon and the hotel. Here is the Hayden Valley - a gorgeous place as well!!

Yellowstone - Day 3

We finally hit the rivers today, starting with a cool and cloudy visit to the Madison. This is a fast and deep river on the west end of the park. We were just inside the boundary when I took this picture. Steve managed to get one small whitefish but the advertised big and burly trout failed to find any attraction to our gear.

After this we moved deeper into the park and stopped off at the Firehole River, just below the upper geyser basin where Old Faithful erupts and pours gallons of hot water into this river. It's odd because you can feel how warm the water is. It's very different than any other trout stream I've ever fished because of that. Apparently, at some times of the year it's almost unfishable as the warm water forces the trout deep, looking for any cool water they can find, where they hide out until fall brings cooler weather.

Lucky for us, the water and weather cooperated and we each managed a half dozen trout out of the Firehole! That's a lifetime achievment for me - fish caught in the Firehole River. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? There are two species of cutthroat here that I can't differentiate, but the two that I caught were a beautiful golden color with brililant red spots - very nice fish!

Yellowstone - Day 2

It was cool and foggy when we drove through the Park Entrance this morning. The sky above, when we could see it, was clear and gave every indication of a good day. At the first opportunity to look west, however, we could see a bank of clouds hanging on the horizon looking ready to change things.

By the time we reached the Firehole River, it was so thick we could barely see. We decided we'd put fishing on hold for a bit and travel through the three geyser basins since Steve has not been here before. That would allow a chance for him to see some of these wonders while getting the basic lay of the land along the western side of this magnificent park. We followed many of the boardwalks and visited geysers, fumaroles, mud pots and hot springs galore. By about nine am we were at the upper geyser basin and decided to follow the three mile trail there to see the sights around Old Faithful (or as Jamie likes to call it, "Old Reliable"). There are over six hundred of these things in the park so any of us visiting actually only see a tiny fraction of them.

Following our tour of the basin we wandered through the wonderful Old Faithful Lodge, admiring the unique structure and enjoying a nice lunch out of the rain, which had by then begun to fall in earnest. As the temperature dropped and the rain increased, we headed back west following the Firehole River to the intersection with the Gibbon River and began to follow it upstream. After a few miles we seemed to have out run the rain so we stopped long enough for Steve to wet a hook.

Yellowstone - Day 1

Steve agreed to pick me up at the Bozeman International Overseas Aerodrome today after driving all the way from Seattle while I rode a very bumpy Horizon Q400 the five hundred odd miles from home to here. Weather was not good for most of the trip and very turbulent. In spite of that, or maybe because of that, the views here are quite spectacular.

We've watched a number of thunderstorms roll in from the west and have seen lightning many times. Whether we are seeing fires start or not we'll find out later.

We got to West Yellowstone about five thirty so we had time to wander through a few fly fishing shops. One would think that in a town that's only about five blocks long there would not be more than one of these stores. We visited three and have not seen them all. It would appear that fly fishing is a money generating sport in these parts. We did listen to the guides in one store discussing today's outings with one another and it sounds like twenty inch fish are just itching for Steve and I to show up with our Lamboghini Woolybooger Activator Indicator flies to yank 'em out. We will see how that works out. Remember, for me it's called fishing, not catching.

Into the park tomorrow with a very wet weather forecast. I'll update tomorrow night.

Here, once again, is proof that wandering the new book shelves at your local library is a worthy use of time. I stumbled onto this book quite by accident and am wonderfully impressed by the breadth of content Mr Reid has managed to stuff into this volume.

Equal parts adventure travel, philosophy, and spritiual guide commentary, the story revolves around journey's taken from his home in Carson City, Nevada to utterly remote locations north of the Arctic Circle in his quest for sightings of the Porcupine Herd of barren ground caribou. He writes of arctic exploration in the past, timeless vistas along still frozen rivers, the mystic ability of the caribou, and other animals, and how they manage to find their way across trackless miles of land and sky by mechanisms that still defy science, tying all this together with man's current and past views of the land and where we fit into this puzzle.

This is a thought provoking, beautifully written story that weaves multiple tales into a single view of life, time and the earth. I strongly recommend it.

Cascade Pass

I can hardly believe it's been forty years since I first set foot here. In fact, I had just arrived in the Northwest as a guest of the US Navy and took my very first trip ever into the Cascades with a group from Whidbey NAS and showed up at this place. I followed that same year with my first ever backpacking trip using gear loaned by the Navy recreation office. My pack was a wooden frame, canvas bag know as a "trapper nelson".

Stuffed into this state of the art gear was a tent large enought to hold four people and lawn chairs, a two burner coleman stove, and one of those discount store poly filled sleeping bags that rolls up to about the size of a medium sized dog. Lashed across the top of the pack were the tent poles - steel and about five feet long. Every time I passed someone on the trail, I had to turn sideways to allow them to pass. I got more than a few stares. I was a novice.

At the time the North Cascades Park was barely two years old and little had been done to develop the area. As a result, camping was still left up to the discretion of the traveler, and for someone like me, with absolutely no knowledge of anything related to no impact camping, the soft meadows of Sahale Arm were the perfect place to erect the mostrosity of a car-camping tent so as to provde the optimal view of Doubtful Lake.

Over time, with years of study at the university and many more years of trail experience, I have mended my ways and would never consider either carrying such a load of non-essentials nor moving in atop one of the fragile meadows. That's all changed, along with the gear I carry. My whole load these days just barely outweighs the oak frame and canvas sack I lugged on that trip. But what has not changed is the dramatic beauty of the pass and areas above it. This trip takes you right to the core of the wilderness park and surrounds you with vertical rock and ice in all directions. Last weekends jaunt also surrounded us with bears, as a veritable fleet of big black bruins busily stuffed themselves on roots and rodents in anticipation of the coming La Nina winter.

This was my sixth trip to this locale, and like every other time I found myself thinking, enjoy it since this will probably be the last time I come here with so many other places to go. We'll see if that holds true. In fact, if you are interested, you probably only have to tell me so and we'll be planning yet another drive up the Cascade River for visit number seven.