It was a bummer I didn’t have my camera on hand when a bobcat (or was it a lynx?) scurried past me towards the end of our mountain bike ride on the eastern side of the Cascade mountains last weekend. It was a fitting end to a nearly perfect fall ride though – cool & crisp, maples leaves leaching reds, greens & yellows. Above 6,000 ft, the western larch, painted in deep yellow hues, began their final life cycle before old man winter takes hold.

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High in the eastern Cascade mountains of Washington, a web of trails lead to some of the more remote, and legal, riding available in WA State. Topping out near 7,000 ft (some of the trail-heads start as low as 2,500 ft.) you can literally ride for days on mostly epic, raw singletrack and see nary another mountain biker. You’re more likely to see a few motos (whom we must thank because they put in LOTs of hours maintaining these hard-to-access trails) than anyone else. Otherwise, you’re on your own. You’re hard-earned efforts (hours of climbing) are, in this case, rewarded with a non-stop 10-mile descent towards Lake Chelan.

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This is the first summer in years that I don’t have some sort of multi-day bike tour planned, as I’ve embarked on the adventure of raising a wild and beautiful baby girl. But the other day I received an email from a friend, who runs an adventure travel company up in Bella Coola (www.wildearth-adventures.com), BC, looking for photos that illustrate the area and can be used on his site.

I immediately thought back to the day, a few years back, when I loaded up the bike and B.O.B. trailer and began the 5-day bike tour from Pemberton, BC, (just north of Whistler) to Bella Coola. It was an amazing bike tour, one that started with a long climb up Duffey Lake Road (an awesome place to access backcountry ski tours BTW) over Cayoosh Pass (in the Lillooet Range) before dropping into the high desert town of Lillooet. From Lilloet it’s pretty much straight north to Williams Lake, after-which you head west again towards Bella Coola. While the entire ride is relatively devoid of traffic, this last section, on HWY 20, from Williams Lake to Bella Coola is pretty much desolate…a true bike touring paradise.

If you ever have the chance to visit this area – on two wheels or four – I highly recommend it. It’s truly a magical place.

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Last weekend a group of us met up east of the Cascades for a small epic of a mountain bike ride, that included climbing and descending Red Hill, climbing Devils Gulch to Mission Ridge, descending Mission Ridge, to another climb and descent of Red Devil back to the car. Long ride for sure, but worth every suffering moment.

On the drive home I tried to capture a few photos of the surrounding countryside

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This photo was taken during a short two-day bike tour from Sisters to Oakridge, Oregon, via the McKenzie Pass—Santiam Pass Scenic Byway. Closed in the winter, this road is a true delight to pedal…as long as you start early to avoid heat and summer traffic.

Making the below photo your desktop wallpaper is easy:

click image
Mac: right click and “Set as Desktop Background”
PC: click image >> right click >> save to desktop >> open image >> right click >> save as desktop background

Monitor resolution – 1440 x 900

Monitor resolution 1280 x 800

Monitor resolution 1024 x 768

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I miss fall in New England. There’s a reason so many make their way to Vermont, New Hampshire and western Massachusetts to experience the kaleidoscope of colors that blanket the rolling hills and quaint towns. But thankfully, here in the pacific northwest, we too can experience the magic of fall. And I suppose it could be argued, in some ways, the shift in seasons is a bit more diverse here, as fresh snow coats the higher elevations, larch trees pop with color and maples burn green, red and orange.

Over the past two weekends I’ve made a concerted effort to pull out the mountain bike, the camera gear and head for the high hills. I didn’t necessarily find exactly what I was looking for in terms of color, but I found plenty of high-mountain solitude, felt the the coolness of the years first snowflakes on my cheek, and realized that the pacific northwest, although not New England, serves up fall serenity that is truly difficult to beat.

Below are some mountain bike photos from three different trails, 4th of July/Icicle Ridge in Leavenworth, Red Devil/Devils Gulch outside of Leavenworth, and the Dungeness/Gold Creek loop on the border of Olympic National Park.

I didn’t have a lot of time to begin with, so before even hopping on my bike, I was a bit apprehensive about whether I would even finish the hike-a-bike up 4th of July trail to Icicle Ridge and get back to the car by dark. I managed to get back to the car, as the last minutes of light faded away. It was a beautiful ride. I felt the seasons first snow flakes, inhaled the cool, crisp air at 6000 ft and peaked deep into the Cascade Range, with tainted views of Mount Stuart.

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The next day I met up some friends for a classic NW ride up Red Devils | Devils Gulch. Further east we expected dryer conditions. The trail was in perfect shape, until the top, where a couples inches of fresh snow coated the trail. It was great.

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Last on the list of fall rides was a loop on the border of Olympic National Park. The Dungeness River Trail/Gold Creek Loop is probably one of the better loops near the park, offering inspiring views of the Olympic mountains, deep solitude (the kind where you really don’t want to get hurt…help is far off), near-perfect NW singletrack and the chance to catch a glimpse of wild salmon spawning up Gold Creek.

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Fall in the NW is hard to beat. But the reality is, winter is coming. Time to wax the skis and start looking forward to some backcountry skiing photos

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Where else can you mountain bike on the side of an active volcano? The mountain bike trails that skirt the site of past Mt St Helens eruptions are truly one-of-a-kind. I don’t know of any other place in the US, if not the world, that offers such a unique and inspiring ride.

View More Mt St Helens Pictures on Flickr.

Photos from the previous days ascent and ski descent of Mt Adams are coming soon…

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Located at an elevation of 4500 ft (1500 meters) Dalat, Vietnam, provides a much needed respite from the searing heat seen elsewhere in the country. It’s a land of rolling hills covered in towering pines, while hidden valleys reveal fields of artichokes and small rice-growing operations. It’s also one of the few spots in Vietnam (that we knew of) that offered the mountain bike geek an opportunity to enjoy some aerobic exercise, fresh air and a unique, locals perspective of the “vegetable capitol” of Vietnam.

Below are a couple mountain bike photos from our 3-hr tour with Phat Tire Ventures. We had two very friendly English-speaking guides accompany us, both of whom were quite impressed with our (or should I say Jeannine’s) ability to ride all the terrain.

Our guide, with water and food (lots of bananas) mountain Biking in Dalat, Vietnam

Phat Tire Ventures offers other mountain bike rides in and around Dalat, as well as in Hoi An, a town we visited later (photos coming soon) on the central coast of Vietnam.

Pine-covered hills felt almost like eastern Washington, not Vietnam

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I love outdoor gear. My ‘office’ is crowded with bikes, skis, soft-shell jackets, etc…but really, when I look at it all, I’m pleased that all of it gets used. Very little of it collects dust. So as much as I would enjoy contributing to our ailing economy by buying even more stuff, I’d much rather prefer buying gear that works well in all types of environments and will actually last more then a year. I’m not sure why it is than, but I seem to be having a hard time finding a camera bag I really like. There are literally hundreds of camera bags on the market, so why is this such a challenge?

Lowepro Slingshot 200

The problem: I’m often outside, in the elements: snow, rain, mud, sand, salt-water (and sometimes the sun.) Furthermore, I’m typically on skis, a bike, in a sea kayak, while photographing. The result is, I typically don’t have a warm, dry car to escape to, or somewhere I can load up my photography gear, including a tripod, camera, lenses, towels, etc etc. Matter of fact, most of the time I only carry my digital Canon Rebel XT with a 17-85 IS lens, polarizer, some batteries and memory cards. The tripod typically stays home (although this may change as I just ordered an Ultrapod, a tiny tripod that will be coming with me to SE Asia in a couple weeks.) This is why I was looking forward to receiving the new Lowepro Slingshot 200 camera bag this past Christmas. It appeared to offer a utilitarian combination of space for cameras, lenses, etc,  but was small enough to mountain bike with, skate ski with, go backcountry skiing with, even act as a combo backpack/camera bag if needed for day trips.

Has it been a satisfying experience? Mostly. It’s worked great (most of the time) for a 2-3 hr skate ski, when I usually only carry the camera, polarizer filter plus some food and water. I can’t really use it for backcountry skiing, an activity that requires too much avalanche gear, extra clothing, food and water for an eight hour adventure. (For these trips I strap on a small TLZ-1 Lowepro bag that hangs from my chest.) The Slingshot does do well in these adverse conditions though. The bag repels water (and snow) well. Not sure how it would hold up in a downpour, but I think it would be fine, for a short while (the zippers aren’t sealed, so water would surely leak through these eventually.)

I am having some issues mountain biking with it, as I found out last weekend on a short ride outside Seattle.

Lowepro Slingshot 200 - just ok for mountain biking

The whole idea behind all Lowepro Slingshots is that you can access your camera quickly, without having to remove it, by undoing a single buckle and sliding it around your waist. And yes, it does work. The problem I have, and I will try to retrofit this, are the two existing straps don’t provide a tight enough fit if you’re actively moving around, be it on skis or while riding a mountain bike for example. What it needs is a waist strap.

Also, the bag doesn’t have any additional straps to carry a tripod, an obvious oversight in my opinion. It does contain a two small separate sections for all those little accessories and the inside will easily fit a DLSR and a few lenses (but probably not a big zoom.) I’ve never really been happy with Lowepro zippers…they just don’t seem to last very long.

Not sure why, but I always end up with Lowepro camera bags. If you’ve used another bag or have some recommendations for something similar that may be better for outdoor use, please let me know.

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There are many reasons to live in the Pacific Northwest, even if it does rain a bit here and there. Sure we have moss sprouting from the roofs of our homes, but now I know that’s a good thing.

Mosses cannot survive in polluted air. Like the lichens, they need a healthy atmosphere to survive.

A couple mountain bike photos from a short ride the other day.

View photos at SmugMug

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