The FARTs got to the summit under the expert leadership of Matt Wilson.

Dave Adlard - full trip report and links to photos

Good adventure! But ... I still prefer hiking.

Each year, a huge number of polished up semi-trucks roll in and show off there paint jobs, chrome accesories, and brilliant lights.  Some talk about their age and milage with great pride.  Either way, the trucks were pretty impressive, especially for someone like me who had never seen anything like this.  One of the best trucks was the Systems truck from Quebec, Canada.  This was the crowd favorite for sure.

Congratulations to all the truckers and thanks for donating to a good cause.  For those of you who wanted images of your truck, email me at cruxphoto@comcast.net.

Although the top names were mostly the same as last year, with Daniel Woods and Alex Johnson in first place going into qualifiers, the show that the promoters put on was completely different.  This year's wall was awesome. I should actually say walls because there were 4 seperate walls.  This made for a great show. 

Now, on top of the awesome walls built by Vertical Solutions, they went all out on the lights.  Who knows how this was for the climbers, but for the crowd, it rocked.   For the photographers, it definitely allowed for some awesome photos to be shot.  The only shot I never got, was when there was lightening in the background.  How sick would that have been to have someone sending the hardest problem with a lightening bolt streaking across the sky. 

So besides a short rain delay, the night was very entertaining.  Chris Sharma and Alex Puccio took home the cash prize, with Alex only winning because she took one less attempt; very close!  I'm excited to see what happens next year!  Here are a few more shots from the evening.  I'll have a bigger gallery of all my favorites soon.

[caption id="attachment_507" align="alignnone" width="432" caption="2008 Mammut Bouldering Championships. Copyright Nate Young and Crux Photo."][/caption]

Thanks

For those of you who raced it and saw me sticking my head out of my car and getting photos, check out my Proofs Page around the end of the week and I will hopefully have all the photos up. Prints or high res images will be available for cheap (only $10 for a 5x7).

Here are a few photos from the event. Enjoy.

Finally we got on the river around 3:30pm.  Our dog Tux had never done anything like this, so he sat up front in the duckie with me and tried to enjoy getting splashed.  He got used to it, but due to the afternoon clouds, we all got a little cold.  Overall the rafting in the Green is pretty relaxing.  There are a decent number of rapids to keep things exciting, but nothing that a beginner couldn't handle.

There also are a lot of fish.  You could see the fish everywhere since the water was so clear.  Someone told me there are 22,000 fish per mile in the part of the Green.  One thing I know is true is that fresh trout (seriously 5 minutes from gutting to grilling) is really really good. 

The second day was a long day.  After an early start, and a few fast moving sections, we quickly reached the slower part of the river.  At first this was fun...  We took a few swims, ate a bunch of food, drank a bunch of beer, and even tossed the dog in the water to cool off.  But after an hour or so of slow water, the thought of driving home really late at night conviced us to start pattling.  So the very relaxing float trip finally gave us a workout as we pattled the last 5 miles to the pull out.

So the Green was a great river to float.  Just don't get a flat tire.  Turned out that we couldn't really drive home on it, so we put the doughnut on and drove 50mph all the way home.  Sure it took almost 5 hours to get home, but we got great gas milage.  

Check back in a few days to see some beautiful pictures of Flaming Gorge before the raft trip!

Yesterday, in celebration of the amazing and joyous holiday of Pioneer Day, Sarah, Ebbe and I rode the Wasatch Crest Trail.   Although this is one of the best rides in Utah, we rarely do it due to the dog restrictions in the Salt Lake Watershed.  Given we had the day off of work, we decided to ride the entire route from the parking area on the road to Guardsmen Pass to the parking lot at the top of Mill Creek Canyon.  From here, we rode up the Big Water Trail to Dog Lake and back down Mill D North to our car (we shuttled the road part).

The test piece of this trail is a short section called the Spine.  In my mind, there is the Spine, and then the Spine Junior.  The Junior part basically means you ride some steep rocky terrain, with no, or little exposure, bypassing the true Spine.  The true Spine rides a narrow rocky ridge for 100+ feet with A LOT of exposure on each side.  I've riden the Junior version a few times and thought it was time to try the real thing.  Although I didn't ride the whole thing, I was pretty happy with riding about 75% of it, and not dying.  There was one section in the middle that I put my foot down for, and then I didn't ride the exit (not as much exposure, but much steeper).  Next time!

Now for the photos of a few spots on the trail.

[caption id="attachment_473" align="alignnone" width="432" caption="Sarah Young on the Wasatch Crest Trail. Copyright Nate Young and Crux Photo."][/caption]

Sarah Young on the Wasatch Crest Trail. Copyright Nate Young and Crux Photo.

[caption id="attachment_474" align="alignnone" width="497" caption="Sarah Young on the Wasatch Crest Trail. Copyright Nate Young and Crux Photo."][/caption]

My name is Janelle and I am located in northern Colorado. I have been married to a wonderful man, Luke, for nearly 16 years now!! We have 3 wonderful and beautiful children. Ian is the oldest, he is 12 1/2. Our daughter Erin is 10 3/4 (yes that is important to her) and Ryan is going to be 8 in August.

I have always loved taking pictures and experimenting with light and angles. Recently I bought a digital camera from a friend who was upgrading and it has been really fun playing with my new toy. I also bought a new lens and that makes all the difference.

Here are some pictures that I took of Erin and Ryan at a park. I didn't get any of Ian because he was working on some service hours for Boyscouts.

After the ride, the optimist in me found us one of the most beautiful campsites that I've seen in years. We were parked at the edge of a beautiful field of wild flowers, a flowing stream 20 yards away, and beautiful snow capped mountains to the west. Although I had not intention of getting any good shots, I set up the camera, and waited (both for the shot and for dinner). Well, it was worth it. Both the sunset and the sunrise shots turned out great.

Well, with the good comes the bad.   The next day we drove into town, had a nice breakfast, and asked the local bike shop about rides.  The Adam's Gulch Trail was highly recommended as one of their better rides. This ride forms about a 15mile loop (different than Adam's Gulch Loop) that is definitely challenging.  The ride was a great, challenging downhill.  The problem was getting there.  Turns out you end up doing 45+ minutes of hike-a-bike.   Now maybe I'm spoiled by the Salt Lake City trails, but in my book, no ride that requires 45 minutes of hike-a-bike should be highly recommended.   Needless to say, it did result in a few nice photos.  Sarah was a sport for dealing with the hike-a-bike and me :-).  One thing I found really amazing was riding through the burned out areas.  It was like being in a whole new world just seconds from tree and flower filled meadows.

So after a long long ride, what do you think the last thing you want to do is.... come on guess.   How does fixing a flat on your car at 6pm in a small town in Central Idaho sound?  Well that's what happened.  Luckily this story just ends in getting it fixed, getting some beer and heading the the hot springs (yeah.. not so hot actually).  We were extremely lucky to find a shop that happened to be doing some after hours work and picked up the phone.  There is definitely something to be said for supporting your local shop rather than the national chains!

After a tough 2nd day of riding, we decided to go with a shorter and guaranteed to be moderate ride.  The Chocolate Gulch to Fox Creek Loop is a great ride.  It was only about 9 miles, and had some great single track that was mostly moderate climbs and fast descents.  This is a trail for most skill levels.  There may be a few technical sections that will catch some off guard, but most of it was beautiful scenery and fun riding.  Here's a few shots to prove it too.

So we had one last day to ride in Central Idaho, and a few friends and locals had recommended a trail called Fisher Creek.  This was definitely the best ride of our trip.  But before I get to the ride, I have to talk about where we stayed the night before.  Fisher Creek is actually in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, so we stayed on Red Fish Lake inside the park.  Although we actually had to pay for camping, it was worth it.  The setting could not have been more beautiful.   A huge lake right at the base of jagged mountain peaks.  I would say more, but I think the pictures do a better job.

So anyway, back to the ride.   The only way Fisher Creek could have been any better is if the whole 18 miles was single track.  The first 8 miles or so was on pavement and a jeep road to get to the top of the single track.  Needless to say it was worth it.  Lots of down hill and rolling cross country riding over 10 miles through meadows, burnt areas, and deep thick forests.  And this was a fast downhill because it was mostly smooth, with very few rocky sections.  If you're in Idaho to mountain bike, you have to do this trail.

So after 4 straight days of riding, we were definitely ready for a rest...or so we thought.   We couldn't leave the Sawtooths with out doing any hiking, so after a quick lunch, we headed up the 7 mile round trip hike to Bridal Veil Falls (doesn't it seem like every state has a Bridal Veil Falls?).  Although the hike was beautiful, the fall themselves are not that interesting (apparently unless you get closer).  They're difficult to see, and they're pretty far away.  But, about half way up is Lady Face Falls.  Although not as larger, these falls are hidden deep in a canyon, that really requires some scrambling to get the best views.   Here are a few shots from that hike.

So we were finally ready to head out of Idaho and into Montana.  In Montana, we actually met up with my family to enjoy a few days in the Big Sky area.  You'll soon be able to tell that I decided to mostly put down the camera and hang out with my family.  We had a great time hiking, rafting, horseback riding and of course, mountain biking.  So what I'd like to share about the riding around Big Sky is that its good, but not as good as Idaho or Utah.  The primary reason is that the season is short, there are less riders, and most trails are shared with horses.  The short season meant some of the recommended rides still had snow.  The low number of riders meant the trails were not always nicely worn in.  The horses mean that the trails are very rough and typically in a groove about 6 inches deep.   This made some of the slower climbs pretty tough as you'd hit the side walls of the single track.   I can recommend a few rides though.  If you're in the Big Sky area, do the Grizzly Loop and the North Fork Loop.  Both of these are really good rides.

So that's the trip.  We did 100 miles over 6 days of riding.  Who knows how many vertical feet.   I hope you enjoyed the photos and some of the stories.   If you're heading in the direction, please feel free to send me an email and I'll give you some tips about the area.   I definitely look forward to heading back up to Idaho to ride.

Oh, and the dog ran every mile with us as well.  He was happy!

We arrived in Munich yesterday at around 7 pm after a 6 and a half hour train ride from Oldenburg. Fortunately we just had to change trains once in Bremen and that's it. I thought we'd have to change a lot more than just once. We just caught the ICE (Inter-city express) which travels extremely quickly between the big cities. We managed to reach just over 250 km/h (155 mph) at our top speed. Once we arrived in Munich, we found our youth hostel which was fairly easy to find. It's a nice place. We have a 2-bed room to ourselves, so it's pretty nice. We just hung out at the hostel for the rest of the night because it got dark quickly and we were really tired. We also figured out what we wanted to do today and tomorrow.

Today, we took a guided tour through the Dachau concentration camp about 30 minutes outside of Munich. It was pretty interesting to see it all and hear in detail about everything that happened there. We visited the memorial museum which used to be the processing center for the prisoners as they were coming in. Part of the same building used to be used for medical experiments on the prisoners as well. We also saw the crematoriums as well as a couple of reconstructed barracks.

After the tour of the concentration camp, we came back to downtown Munich and went to a beer garden called the Augustiner Biergarten. It's run by the Bavarian beer maker Augustine which has been in operation since 1328 apparently. There we had a very traditional Bavarian meal consisting of beer and sausage.

I've also uploaded photos of the Dachau concentration camp and generally of Munich. I'll upload more photos as I take them.

Until tomorrow.

Aloha everyone,

Mahalo for sharing and creating with Elise and me! When I see photos of you and your art, I'm awed and touched by what you've created.

I've created a Flickr site of many of your photos (still adding photos of masks, totem animals, spirit guides, etc…) and commented on them. I've also linked them to your websites. Big Island Hawaiian Lomilomi Conferences are also there.

aloha ke akua,

Kaleo

Elise Dirlam Ching and Kaleo Ching are the authors of Faces of Your Soul: Rituals in Art, Maskmaking, and Guided Imagery with Ancestors, Spirit Guides, and Totem Animals, and Chi and Creativity, Vital Energy and Your Inner Artist.

CLICK HERE to view Kaleo's photo collection
CLICK HERE to learn more about Kaleo and Elise
CLICK HERE to read about Kaleo and Elise on the Blue Snake Books Blog
CLICK HERE to order their books from Blue Snake Books
CLICK HERE to order their books from Amazon

On another note, we'll be leaving for a 10 day road trip up to Idaho and Montana, so no posts for a while.  Hopefully I'll have a lot of photos when I return.

The trip to Groningen about an hour and a half. Crossing the border was strange because it wasn't any different than crossing the border into another state in the US, except for the fact that all of a sudden I couldn't read anything anymore. When we go there, we got off across the street from the main train station. From there we went into the city center where there were large open markets selling vegetables and random tourist souvenirs. Unfortunately it was raining heavily, so we decided to go to a small cafe called Der Witz (a German name, meaning 'the joke'). It was in an old building probably built in the early 1700's or earlier. The waiter came over to us and asked us something in Dutch. Rieke could do a little bit of Dutch, but that's it. The waiter couldn't speak a whole lot of English either, but fortunately he could speak pretty good German, so we spoke to him in German. He was the only person we encountered (and had to talk to) that couldn't speak English well.

After we had something to drink there, we left and wandered around the market for a while. It had stopped raining and even got clear and sunny later in the day. We also went down the main shopping street in Groningen which is a pedestrian-only street with a bunch of stores on it. After going in and out of several stores (including a Dutch bookstore where I had to refrain myself from buying a book in Dutch), we went to a place called the News Cafe. There we ate lunch and I had the best hamburger I think I've ever had here in Europe. I tried reading the name of the hamburger when I ordered which was long and all in Dutch, but I gave up when the waitress had gotten the point. Dieuwertje has taught me a little bit about reading Dutch, so I do have some sort of an idea.

After that, Orion suggested we go canoing in one of the canals. I had absolutely no desire to do that because I wanted to see more of the city instead of paddling around the canals and not seeing much plus I didn't want to get wet. Rieke and her friend wanted to go, so we ended up going to do that. When we got there though, we discovered they had paddle boats, so we decided to do that instead. We rented 2 paddle boats for 2 hours and just went around the canals. Rieke and her friend sat together in one boat and Orion and I were in the other. Before we left, the guy who rented the boats to us told us that one of the boats kept filling with water, but wouldn't sink. For that they provided a bucket to empty out the water with. Orion and I quickly got into the other boat and left the boat that filled with water to Rieke and her friend. For the 2 hours, we paddled around the Groningen canals and saw lots of house boats. They are boats that are permanently or not permanently docked in the canal that people actually live in. They are almost like trailer-houses I think. That's all we really saw though which was really frustrating because Dieuwertje had recommended several other things to see that I wanted to see, but didn't get to. Hopefully I can go again before I leave.

We returned the boats, then went to McDoanld's of all places. I managed to scrape up enough Dutch from somewhere in my head to order my meal without using any English or German. I was quite satisfied with it. After McDonald's, we wandered around the markets again for a while, then we went to the train station to see it. The building was an old building and quite beautiful. I took some pictures of it which I posted with the others. In front of the station, they also had what looked to be several thousand bikes which was quite impressive. We sat around at the station for a while before then catching the bus back to Oldenburg at 5 pm. Dieuwertje met us at the bus stop here in Oldenburg and then her and I hung out for the rest of the night. Of course she wanted to hear everything that we had done. She said she really wishes she had decided to come after I told her about the stupid paddle boat trip and not really seeing anything other than the canal and the market.

I posted photos of the trip here.

Later today, Dieuwertje is coming over again and we're going to watch the final for the Euro 2008 soccer tournament. It will be Germany vs Spain so it should be interesting.

Although the weekend tends to revolve around the music, it is full of talented artists in the Artisan Market and full of activities at the Kidsfest. (Check out previous post for these shots.)

I know it's a little long, but here are a few of my favorite shots...

DARK MEAT blows confetti on the band members and crowd while performing on the main stage during Athfest 2008 on June 20.

MODERN SKIRTS performing at Athfest 2008 on the main stage Satuday, June 21.

Allison Weiss & the Way She Likes It performs on the Hull Street stage Saturday evening.

Ponderosa performing on the main stage Saturday, June 21, afternoon during Athfest 2008.

Lukas cheers on Brantley Gilbert performing Sunday, June 22.

Club crawl:

Centro-matic plays at 40 Watt on Saturday, June 21.

The Empties performing at Tasty World Saturday, June 21.

Richard Sherfey & All God's Children, final performance at Tasty World on Saturday.

More shots from Athfest '08 by R&B photogs at www.blog.redandblack.com/photo-blog.

Jim Pinneau of J.P. Studios in Crawford

Will L. Eskridge: "contemporary paintings of the ephemeral"

I have many more of other artists, maybe more to come later!

If anyone knows what type of flowers they are, I would love to know...Thanks.

You can find them here.

Today we went again to watch Germany play Poland. This time the entire parking lot was jammed pack with people wearing black, red and yellow hats (the colors of the German flag), German national team jerseys and waving German flags. Apparently this is really the only time that the Germans rally together like this and show this much patriotism because of the general negative context patriotism has here in Germany, especially when patriotic people rally together here.

Anyway, Germany beat Poland 2-0, so that was good. We also saw the representative for the communist party for Niedersachen (the area I'm staying in) there. He was busy waving a DDR (East German) flag around which was quite amusing.

I took some pictures of it here.

Today I had to give a presentation in my Working, Speaking and Presenting class. It was on cowboys. The presentation didn't go as well I had hoped though because I guess I freeze when I get up in front of a crowd like that. I knew the material pretty well and had more than enough for the time I had to present (30 minutes), but the problem was that because I was nervous my grammar was absolutely horrible and I probably sounded like I didn't belong in such a high level German class. Oh well.

48 days....

For dinner I cooked myself pasta. It's the fanciest thing I think I've ever cooked myself. Unfortunately, it tasted too much like spaghetti to be any good, but I'm proud of myself for actually cooking something other than scrambled hamburger and fried chicken. I was proud enough to take pictures which you can see here.

Tomorrow I am going to meet the girl from the Netherlands, Dieuwertje, at a place here in Oldenburg called Stattstrand. It's a part of a strange phenomenon here in Germany. For some reason, they have decided to have "beaches with in cities." Basically what they do is import sand from real beaches, then open an outdoor bar with the beach sand. Stattstrand is one of those (in fact the name is a play on the German words: "Stadt" (city) and "Strand" (beach)). It looks like we're going to meet at around 2 pm and go down there since it's supposed to be extremely nice tomorrow.