Category: outdoor adventures

A larch in front of other larches

Looking for larches

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Move over, aspens. There’s a new fall tree in town.

This weekend, Cobalt and I went on an epic hike in search of larches, trees I had never heard about until a few weeks ago. These needley trees look like your typical evergreens during the summer, but then in the fall the needles turn yellow and fall off, like your typical deciduous trees. So cool!

In addition, it’s been two years since Cobalt and I have lived in Colorado, and we missed our fall tradition of seeing the glorious aspens turn yellow against the bright blue Colorado sky.

So when we found out that the Pacific Northwest has larches, we knew we had to go find them.

It’s not exactly easy. Larches in the state of Washington live at high elevation (~5,000 ft) in the northern part of the Cascade mountain range. So we had about a three-hour drive to wiggle northeast to the Cascades and then up.

But it turned out to be a beautiful day for a drive. To get to the Cascades, we drove through tunnels of orange and yellow trees that were shrouded in fog. Perfect for people who love fall and Halloween. Then as we climbed into the mountains, the sun came out and we were surrounded by outstanding views of the craggy mountains in this mountain range. Seriously, it was jaw-dropping.

My co-worker had recommended that we do the Cutthroat Pass trail, because it would definitely get us high enough to see larches (the trailhead is about 4,000 feet), and it would possibly be less crowded than other popular hikes in the area. The weather was too perfect though, so I think half of the state of Washington had the same idea we did.

Anyway, the trail was great! It was coated in snow, which ranged from a little dusting at the beginning to more prominent snow as we climbed. But the sun was out, so we weren’t too cold. We had INCREDIBLE views of the surrounding mountains, and we started to see larches nestled on them as the trail went on. Then suddenly, at about 6,000 feet, we found ourselves surrounded by these beautiful turning-yellow trees…. and all the other humans who had come out to find them.

We found them!!!
Cobalt admiring the view

Cobalt and I wandered around the larches for a while, taking pictures and getting to know them.

Getting up close and personal with a larch….

Their needles are thinner than those of other needled trees I’ve encountered, so they felt feathery and soft. Their softness and the way they were organized on the branches made the branches look like yellow pipe cleaners jutting out of the trunks. For some reason, the twisty nature of the larch branches made me think of skeletons. Not sure why.

Similar to other deciduous trees, each larch needle turns yellow in its own time. It makes for a gorgeous mix of yellow and green on any given tree.
Looks spiky but soooo soft…

After meandering through larches and humans, we found a large rock in the sun and decided to stop for lunch. We enjoyed our excellent views of the larches and the light breeze that swept across the area while we munched on carrots and cheese.

Also part of the lunch view: This neat mushroom!

Then it was time to head back down. :(

These little puffs caught my eye as we headed back down. I like that you can see the larches in the background.

These trees are magical. I can’t wait to go back and visit them again next year — or maybe next week. I miss them already.

Leaving you with some mushrooms and a baby tree!

Nature vs. nurture: a ghost story

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Helllooooo friends! I hope you have been enjoying spring (or autumn if I have any southern hemisphere friends). Cobalt and I have been having a good time getting to know our new city. There’s always something fun going on on the weekends. We participated in Independent Bookstore Day one weekend and Free Comic Book Day the next! But while we’ve been having tons of fun with all of that, we really wanted to get out and explore the wilderness too.

So last weekend we went on an adventure to a ghost town with our friend Titanium! This particular ghost town only existed in Washington for ~20 years! It sprung up with a coal mine in 1900 and then it slowly started dying 15 years later when the nearby trains switched away from coal. Then a fire wiped out most of what was left of the town. Yikes. Bad news. So don’t get too excited, the only town-y parts left are a few walls and a foundation here and there. But it was still cool to wander around and wonder what it would have been like to live there.

Also, it was really incredible to see how nature has slowly reclaimed all of the remaining human-made objects in the area. Moss is not deterred, folks. It will grow on anything it seems.

Enough chit chat! Let’s get to the pictures!

This was labeled as a Retaining Wall on the map from the hiking guide I borrowed from my coworker. It was about a mile from the townsite though…

 

The sun was highlighting these leaves in such a way that I saw this as an opportunity for a black and white photo. So here you go.

 

Pretty sure this abandoned car is not from the time of the ghost town. It looks like it’s been there a while though. It’s fun to look at people’s pictures of this car through the ages. It’s definitely becoming part of the forest as time progresses.

 

See what I mean about that moss? Slowly claiming the backseat as its own.

 

Even the railroad pieces are being twisted by nature…

 

Human-made or natural? It’s all starting to blend together!

 

Apparently someone still lives in this town… PS: Look how green this concrete foundation is. I didn’t do anything to the color in Lightroom. Further proof that nature is relentless.

 

Cobalt in what’s left of the schoolhouse. Look at the size of the trees in there!

The driest waterfall

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Who wants to see a giant waterfall that has no water in it? Oo oo sign Cobalt and Potassium up! That’s right, we drove two hours away to see the grave of an ancient waterfall!

This week’s post is a continuation of Cobalt’s and my exploration of how floods from thousands of years ago carved out the landscape of eastern Washington state. A few weeks ago, we went to see Palouse Falls, and then the next weekend we headed farther north to see its cousin, Dry Falls.

During the end of the last ice age, Dry Falls was apparently the largest waterfall in the world at 3.5 miles wide and 400 feet tall! That’s like five times the width of all three falls that make up Niagara Falls. And the tallest of the Niagara Falls is less than 200 feet. So… Dry Falls was friggin’ HUGE. Tons of water surged over these now-dry cliffs as it made its way toward the sea. And now it’s all gone. The only thing that remains are the cliffs themselves and those ponds, called “plunge pools,” where the cascading water carved out the rock below. But it must have been quite a sight!

I took this picture from the visitor center, which sits at the top of Dry Falls. The whole time we were up there, I was itching to get down to the bottom. I wanted to be surrounded by these huge cliffs and imagine what it would have been like to be completely underwater.

It turns out that there’s a trail that takes you to the edge of that plunge pool on the left in that picture, and it wasn’t too cold out. So Cobalt, our friend K and I had a wonderful walk across the floor of the former riverbed. It also turns out that it’s really hard to photograph just how crazy and awe-inspiring it felt to be surrounded by walls of rock that used to be a waterfall. But I’ll try:

The trail had stunning views like this one. I felt so small next to this crazy rock tower.
I really liked the details of the walls themselves. There were so many colors and layers. So green!
A plunge pool up close.
At the edge of the last plunge pool with the cliff in the distance. Remember, there was water cascading down it!

Utter craziness, I say. Stay tuned for more fun with ice age floods as Cobalt’s and my exploring continues. Are you from the area? Where should we go next? We’re always on the lookout for our next adventure. :)

It’s the little things

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Helloooo! How is it the last week of January?! How did this happen? So confusing.

Today I am gonna talk about Cobalt’s and my weekend adventure to Palouse Falls. So this is crazy: in the middle of eastern Washington farms, there are these amazingly epic falls. These falls were formed by ice age floods that carved out the landscape across eastern Washington thousands of years ago. Apparently these falls are the only ice-age-flood-formed waterfalls that flow all year round! So pretty. So intense.

So anyway, this past weekend Cobalt and I went to Palouse Falls after our friend L showed us pictures. The falls are spectacular and super easy to see, even if you don’t like hiking. From the parking area, there’s a viewpoint that looks out over them. But Cobalt and I wanted to explore a little more. So we followed a series of trails that led us back behind the falls and down to the river.

From there, we were surrounded by towering cliffs, rushing water, and soft moss and other friendly plants. Then we left the slippery, mossy rocks behind and got back on a trail surrounded by green and yellow grasses blowing gently in the wind. Creeping along the cliff wall, we followed the river back around to the waterfall. Then we rounded the corner of the cliff and stepped out next to the top of the waterfall. Huge gusts of wind blew mist up in our faces where it coated our glasses. Cobalt and I grinned at each other and then picked our way to the waterfall and then the surrounding areas. It was incredible! From the top of the falls, we could see how the floods had carved out a canyon below the waterfall. Here are some pictures.

Such interesting patterns in these cliffs…
These rocks stood right next to the top of the waterfall. I loved them because they were so tall but sooooo skinny. I couldn’t figure out the best way to show them off. But then I saw Cobalt standing there watching the river, and I was inspired!

Eventually, we had to go back to the car. So we picked our way back over the trail on the other side of the waterfall. On the way back, I got distracted by the green plants. They were so green and so detailed. I wished I had a macro lens for my DSLR so I could take some crazy up-close and pictures to show off just how intricate each plant was. But alas, all I had was my portrait lens and my iPhone. The portrait lens wouldn’t let me get as close to the plants as I wanted, so it was up to the iPhone camera! It did a pretty good job I think. I really like the spiky patterns in these plants. I find them mesmerizing. I also like that the bigger leaves look like hearts.

<3

It was so fascinating to see such bright green plants here in eastern Washington. I’m used to seeing them in wet western Washington, but not so much here. We live in what’s called a “Shrub steppe,” which is sort of a desert but with small bushes and shrubs (think: tumbleweeds) everywhere. No small green guys. So it made me happy to see them again.

All in all, it was a good day full of adventure and marveling at this crazy earth we live on. So beautiful.

PS: I took the top picture with my DSLR, not my iPhone.
PPS: It’s scarily warm here for this time of year. :-/

Bee my valentine?

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Hi friends!

I don’t have much time to chat today but I wanted to leave you with this fat bee! Last weekend was the first time we’d seen the sun in a while (Holy rain/flooding, Batman!) and Cobalt and I took full advantage of it by going to Carmel-by-the-sea with our friend Mercury and our other friend C! We did this epic hike at Point Lobos to explore the beautiful forest and beaches near Carmel. The trails were very muddy (more like small creeks instead of trails) but it was all worth it for beautiful views of the coast. I found a bunch of fun anemones and crabs hanging out in tide pools too! But today’s picture is a cute bee that I found on the trail. These huge bees were hanging out with some bright yellow flowers, bending them every which way when the fat bees landed. I was amused and had to stop to do a quick photoshoot of bee/flower interaction.

Enjoy!

Ahhhh how has it been two months again?! Oh I know… first the holidays happened and then school started up again! AHHHHHH! This quarter is equally as crazy as the first in some ways but also quite different in others. We only have two classes instead of four and we’re writing a few really long pieces instead of a bunch of tiny ones so the pace is quite different. One really fun part of this quarter is that I am working for Big Picture Science, which is a fun sciencey podcast based out of the SETI institute. You should check it out if you are interested!

Back to homework for me…….. :(

Telescope + Camera = new sky friends!

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Hello everyone! How were your weekends?! I hope they were good. We are on spring break so Cobalt and I headed up to Steamboat Springs to hang out with our friends L and B and their kiddos. We had tons of fun eating, playing pool, skiing, sledding, snowshoeing, game-playing, hot springs-ing, etc! It was so awesome to get away from Boulder and relax a little in great company. Plus I think I am finally succeeding in teaching myself how to snowboard!

One night, B set up his telescope so that we could see Jupiter up close and personal. I have only seen Jupiter from earth without the aid of a telescope or in books that show it waaaaaaay up close with its huge spot that can fit 3 (!!!) earths in it. That night, I got to see a middle version – Jupiter with two rings around it! So cool. I tried to take some pictures with my cell phone camera but it was hard to point the tiny phone camera into the eyepiece of the telescope. I ran upstairs to grab my big DSLR so I could try that instead. It still turned out to be a bit of a challenge. Jupiter was moving around in the sky so B had to readjust the telescope frequently and I had to hover with my camera around the vicinity of the eyepiece to try to catch Jupiter in the eyepiece of my camera! Plus, autofocus was not working (it has a hard time in the dark) so I had to hover around the eyepiece while constantly fiddling with the focus to try to bring Jupiter’s cute little rings slightly more into focus. Whew… 50 pictures later, I think this picture (which is actually one of the first ones I took) takes the cake! Introducing my new friend: JUPITER!!

Soooo stripey. Jupiter kinda looks like a baseball… or a Mr. Stripey tomato…

After B and I had so much fun trying to get cool pictures of Jupiter, he decided to set up the telescope to look at the moon. It was REALLY bright and also REALLY COOL. I was completely floored by how much detail we could see! Again, I am used to looking at the moon without the aid of a telescope or seeing pictures of moon craters in a book. I couldn’t believe that all the rocks and crags that I was looking at through the telescope belonged to the same moon that I usually see outside my house! Photographing the moon through the telescope eyepiece had its own interesting set of challenges. First of all, it was much brighter than Jupiter so I could mess with some of my camera settings to decrease the chance that I would make the moon blurry by all my hovering around. I learned that I could change some camera settings but not others (e.g. the f stop, or how much light you let into the camera, had to stay the same). Second of all, the moon is BIG and my camera was limited to how much it could see through the eyepiece of the telescope. It was really hard to get the entire moon into frame with the lens I had chosen to use (a 50 mm prime lens). That was kind of okay with me though because I really liked focusing on various parts of the moon and didn’t really feel the need to have ALL MOON in my pictures. Finally, the focusing – still hard. Even with a bright moon, I was still messing with my focus to try to get the moon details as sharp as possible while hovering around the telescope eyepiece. None the less, I really like a lot of my pictures, including these awesome ones:

(my relationship with the moon is forever changed by this picture….)
Cheese, Gromit!

Another fun thing – we also looked at sunspots during the day (obviously not through the eyepiece). B held a piece of paper up by the eyepiece so that the BRIGHT light from the sun was projected onto it. There we could see tiny little sunspots hanging out with the sun. Before I got a chance to look, apparently a plane flew in front of the sun and Cobalt and B saw a tiny plane projected onto the sun on the paper. Jealous…

Anyway, that’s all for now too. Do you get a spring break? Are you doing anything fun? It seems that the most popular options for spring break are: a) go to the beach, b) go to the mountains, or c) staycation/sleep. What did you choose? Back to work for me today – technically postdocs don’t get spring breaks. :(

PS – If you remember me talking about the moon in my Top Books of 2015 post, yes I am still unhealthily obsessed with the moon (you try reading a book in which the moon blows up without warning and then having a normal relationship with the moon after that…).

Cabination!

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Wow! It’s been forever since I posted again… Sorry you guys… this semester has been really busy what with trying to graduate and the hurt ankles and all… It’s been a rough month for this Potassium, that’s for sure.

Anyway, there have been some good things that I’ve been photographing and not posting so let’s talk about that! Last weekend, Cobalt and I went camping with our friends The Chocolate Pudding and her husband the Millionaire Space Accountant and J and her husband K for K’s birthday. Before you freak out about what kind of people would go camping in Colorado in March, let me tell you that by camping I mean sleeping in a warm cabin while it snows outside. Yay! So yeah, we drove up to the cabin on Friday evening and settled in for the night. The cabin had a firepit and a picnic table in front of it so we set about making delicious hobo packs for dinner. Yum!

Now the thing about TCP, MSA, J, K, and Cobalt and me is that we are pretty much the best of friends. We can talk forever! So we brought games and other activities but did we do any of them? Nope. Suddenly it was really late and J and I were falling asleep sitting up. So we went off to sleep in the comfy beds in our cabin! In the morning we were going to do some hiking/walking around for Potassium and her messed-up ankles but it started snowing like crazy right as we were packing up the cars (see that top picture!) so we ended up just leaving. Still it was a fun weekend and I can’t wait for more cabin/camping adventures as this year finally warms up a little.

Below are some of the pictures I took while everyone else was toasting marshmallows!

First up, we have K and J looking awesome with their headlights!

Now we have MSA roasting a marshmallow while TCP supervises. I like the way the fire illuminates their faces.

For this picture and the following two pictures we were playing with “light painting.” I put my camera on a tripod and then put the shutter on the “bulb” setting. With this setting, I tell the camera when to open and close the shutter so it’s really good for night time photography (especially star pictures… too bad it was cloudy for us…). Anyway, then we took K’s headlight and “painted” J and K with it while I had the camera shutter open. I think it has a really neat lighting effect. Also it’s a bit like taking pictures a long time ago because you can’t move while you are getting painted or you will be blurry…

After J and K’s picture turned out so well, we all wanted to try it!

MSA and TCP. :D

Now it’s your turn. Tell me about an adventure with your friends. Doesn’t have to be camping related though. I’m excited to hear your stories! Also, tell me what you want to hear me talk about! It’s been hard coming up with ideas lately when I am so busy/stressed out. Maybe we should have a “blast from the past” and I can talk more about my trips out of the country (France, Germany) last year? Let me know! :D

Birthdays, Anniversaries, and other fun

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This pinecone and its friends are the reason why I have crazy allergies right now… but I still like this pic. :)

My apologies for the short post but this week is crazy for me. I’ve got to squish 5 days worth of labwork into 3 because then Cobalt and I are heading to see his family for his mom’s 60th bday! Yay! Happy birthday to my MIL!

In other news, this weekend was nice. Cobalt and I made ricotta pancakes on Saturday. They were fluffy and delicious. See the pic below for tastiness (yeah yeah… they look like “normal” pancakes but they are way fluffier and tastier than them). We also tended to our little garden (the plantys are getting so big!!!), invented our own version of lavender lemonade (yummmmm), and went out for some tasty Italian food on Saturday night with some friends.

Tasty pancake… why did we eat all of them?! :(
These mixed peppers are probably ecstatic that it’s finally decided to be over 90 degrees here. The rest of us are not so sure we like it…

On Sunday, Cobalt and I, along with some other graduate students, took some of the students in the summer program I work for on a hike near Boulder. It is really fun to take people who don’t know the area at all on a hike because they are so excited to see everything – reminds what a cool place we live in. After the hike, we took our exhausted students out to lunch at The Buff, another staple of Boulder (hint: it was on Man Vs. Food). In the evening I went swimming with two of my friends from my grad program (we all started grad school together many many years ago… craziness) and we practiced some French. It was quite a lovely way to end the weekend.

Speaking of French, look forward to more France posts coming your way next week! Something you will definitely see next week: why Cobalt and I now have a fondness for Starbucks (hint: it’s not because of their coffee or any of their products)!

Did you guys have great weekends?! Tell me about them. I know some of my friends celebrated their 1 year wedding anniversaries.. Hooray! Congrats! Also, let me know if you’ve thought of anything you’re dying to know about France, or my current life in Boulder, whatever. Finally, don’t forget to wish my MIL a happy bday! :)

Spring maybe?

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Look at those Flatirons all ready for spring!

Well for now it appears the snow has stopped and maybe spring can finally arrive in Boulder. This Saturday, Cobalt and I repotted some of our plants (still too cold for the peppers to go outside though…), went out for delicious taco truck tacos, and then we took a walk around a lake. The lake walk had all these neat little exercise activities located every 0.2 miles. Cobalt and I had a lot of fun trying all of them out. Here’s Cobalt on the parallel bars!

Can you find the shark in this picture?

Is it spring for you guys yet? We’re supposed to get a lot of rain this week – just in time for all the undergraduates to graduate this Friday. Did you guys do anything awesome this weekend? Did anyone else see Iron Man 3? Cobalt and I liked it but not as much as the first one…

Cobalt and I are getting excited about our France trip! Hopefully updates on that later this week….

Pumpkins acquired + rocks!

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Busy weekend here in Boulder! I think I can safely say I got most of the stuff on my to do list done. Could always have more relaxing of course but you know…

Anyway, as mentioned in Friday’s post, we went to the pumpkin patch on Saturday! I got that epically sized pumpkin shown up there and my friend A got that normal sized pumpkin that she’s standing with. I had originally chosen a similarly sized pumpkin with the perfect orange hue but then I found that fatty and fell in love. You know how it is…

I also like him because he has such a good stem… looks like a shark fin. Wahaha… stay tuned till next week to see the carved version!

Anyway, we all got nice pumpkins and then we headed up into the mountains above Boulder for some rock climbing in the afternoon. It was a perfect day for it: warm, sunny, not too many people on the rocks. It was my first time actually bouldering outside so it was a neat experience. After we tried bouldering a little, we just scrambled around on the rocks. Here is a picture of Cobalt and our friend M staring off at Boulder.

In case you don’t believe that we were actually that high off the ground, here’s what the city of Boulder looked like from our perch. I love the colors of the trees and I love how small everything looks in this picture:

Awesomeness! I had so much fun this weekend! Can’t wait to go climbing again! And I definitely can’t wait to carve my pumpkin. I am thinking a shark because of that awesome stem but I don’t know. Anyone else have any ideas? What did you do this weekend? Something fun I hope? How’s the weather where you are? Still fall-like? We’re supposed to get some snow later this week… :-/