Picasa Web Albums - Shaun - Summer!

Picasa Web Albums - Shaun - Summer!

Spring Break

Well like I said in my last blog “with school starting then it may be a while before the next blog”, I guess that was the truth.

The quarter finished up well and I must say that I had a fantastic quarter. With most of my friends on the New Zealand abroad I had to branch out and meet new people and I did just that making some amazing friends along the way.

So as the quarter rapped up I was left with a choice about what to do for spring break, do I go out to Colorado to ski or do I try a sport that I have been wanting to do for a few years now, kite boarding? Well kite boarding got the nod so I drove 16hrs out to North Carolina’s outer banks to take a few lessons.



To those that have not seen the sport before, basically it is wake boarding but instead of using a ski boat you use a 20+ ft wide kite. I did the courses at Kitty Hawk Kite school, which as the name suggests is in Kitty Hawk, home of the Wright brothers and there famous first flight. There is a monument and museum on the very hill which they flew off and I spend one afternoon exploring that place.


As for the kite boarding it was intense, and thankfully I was able to feel self sufficient after only 4 times out. So now I can continue the sport out here at school and I actually think I have found a good spot to ride. Its only 15 minutes away and as long as its not duck hunting season I think I’m good.

On my trip I also just so happened to drive through Charlottesville, Virginia, which is where my good friends Whit and Courtney live with their two kids, Ashlyn and Hudson. I spent a couple to great days with them catching up as it had been 4 years since we had last seen each other.



So now I am back at Prin, about to gear up for another quarter, so once again it will probably be a while before the next blog, so bye for now.

Love,
Shaun

Oh yeah, I got to surf as well!

Back to Prin

Hi Everyone,

Well I am back at Principia and classes start in 2 days, so I figured, if I don’t write a blog now then it’s more than likely that you won’t here from me for 10 weeks.

The last month has been quite eventful, I packed up my house, drove to Prin, and have been working on classes ever since.

First the house, well when I decided to come to Prin, I figured I better pack everything up, just in case it sells (Oh yeah, it’s on the market) while I am away.

I then drove from there down to Oakland, California, for two amazing days with Steve, Joan, and Josh Draskovich. This is also where Nanuk is now living and thankfully I can say that he still remembers me after us being apart for over a year. It was a very relaxing stay, full of great conversation.

After that I drove to Truckee, California, for a two day visit with Max and Kerri. We had a great time sitting around, talking in front of a glowing fire. We also had a very funny evening with Susan and Eric, playing games, including the crazy game Apple to Apples.

Well the trip had to go on, so from there it was off to Moab, Utah. I was hoping to find Bart Blankenship, but I couldn’t contact him so I spent a great day running icy trails out to some beautiful Arches, and doing a spot of bouldering. It was sunny but very cold and the Colorado River was even frozen over in places.

From there it was off to Glenwood Springs, Colorado, to pick up Morgan Williams, before heading out to Adventure Unlimited. There I stayed for 5 days, climbing in the rock gym for a few hours each day, and just hanging out, breathing in that beautiful mountain air. The weather was gorgeous and Morgan and I took advantage of a great afternoon and a full mooned evening to hike through the snow to the top of Five Fingers. What a glorious trip but I definitely felt the altitude coming from sea level only a few days before and not being in the best shape.

I got to spend time with some very special people while I was out at AU. I had a lovely lunch with Maree, and a nice evening with John and Al. I spent the most time however visiting with Bobby, Natalie, Cody, and Jess, after just coming back from their six month hike along the Continental Divide Trail it was great to catch up and just relax around this amazing family.

Then it was off again, this time out to Principia, which had just gone through one of the worst ice storms in recent memory. There were trees down everywhere, ice and snow everywhere, but then when I arrived we had a week of 60 degree days and that was it for the snow. In fact since I have been here the weather has been unseasonably warm.

So that was about two weeks ago and since then I have spent every day in the office preparing for class. It’s not been all work; I have managed to get out running every day and have been visiting with more fantastic friends.

So anyway it’s now about to get very busy for the next 10 weeks, so I apologize if my communication gets worse, it’s never very good anyway, but the Prin quarters always get a little chaotic.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and good New Year calibrations.

Shaun

Climbing and Paddling

Well it’s my last month here before I head back to Prin for the winter quarter and the house is all finished. This has left me with more time to go and play.
So about two weeks ago I was planning on going on a climbing trip with Sune, Ben, Monica, and Natty, but at the last moment I had to go on a two day boat trip. When I got back I looked at the weather forecast for November and realized that it was going to a wet one, so on a whim I decided I would go anyway. As it was going to be solo I realized that I was limited in what I could do, so I jumped in the car and headed for Mt St Helens, which is only 2:30hrs away.
I had a chat with the ranger and he said that it would be an 8-12hr round trip, 6 miles each way, with 5000ft elevation, and some snow and ice. So I got to the trail head at 7am and headed off. It was basically frozen scree to the crater cone. This gave me fantastic views of Mt Rainer, and Mt Baker to the North, and Mt Hood to the South. The crater was steaming away and there was not a cloud in the sky. It was about 25 degrees and blowing about 30 but the sun was great.
The crater rim was not the highest point so I had to traverse about ½ a mile to the west, which would have been easy had it not been for a north facing gully. Here I found about 100 yards of very sketchy ice with a 50 degree run out of about 2000ft. Just as well I had decided to bring my ice axe. It took about 30minutes of very slow going owing to the lack of crampons but once on the other size of the gully in the sun it was cake. A snow traverse to the summit and I was on top of the world, well not exactly considering every other mountain I could see was higher, but not bad anyway. What about the time, well it took 2:46 hrs, from car to summit, not exactly the 6-8 suggested. So put my big jacket on and my back into the wind and it was very cozy, so nice in fact that I spent an hour on top just contemplating life. Well after working through the ice section again I was back at the car by 12:30.
So anyway I was right about Novembers weather, it started raining the day after that trip and so far we have had 13 inches in 2 weeks, not a lot really, but 8 of those were in one weekend. This has enabled me to spend some good hours out kayaking, because as it turns out what is considered the best white water play hole in the Northwest is 5 minutes from my house. It is an old low head dam beside the salmon hatchery. Now the Naselle River normally runs at about 300cfs, but when it gets to 2500cfs the hole starts to form and just gets bigger and bigger until at 6000cfs you want to seriously think twice, because of how retentive it is. So anyway the first time I paddled it was the Monday before last at 6150cfs, by myself no less. It was a little scary, I didn’t go into the meat of the hole because there was a 4ft tree limb throwing some sick ends in there and it was still in there when I left an hour later. As it was the first big rain of the winter, all manner of logs were floating through, so I had to keep my eyes open.
The next day the rains had eased off and the river was down to 5000cfs, this is considered the perfect flow. Now there were 3 other guys from Olympia, and the hole was, no joke, 80ft wide with a 4-5ft pile. Nice and retentive so if you flipped and wanted to stay in you could just roll up in the hole but not so retentive that you couldn’t get out if you didn’t want to. It has two huge eddies on either side which extend 150ft down river, so you couldn’t get much better.
Since then I have paddled it twice more at 3500cfs and 2500cfs, and by 2500cfs it starts to get a bit shallow. Now we all know that I am not the best play boater but to give you an idea of how good it was at the 5000cfs day, 3 of us could be in the hole at one time, and one guy was staying in for over 5 minutes throwing every move that I knew existed and many that I didn’t.
So anyway its suppose to rain again tomorrow, than then again on Sunday, so if you cannot get hold of me that’s were I am.
Well bye for now.

Catch Up

Hi everyone, well I am stuck in a hotel for the night so it is my chance to update you all with what has been going on over the last two months. Let’s see, June and July were very busy on the boats, 24 and 19 days respectively, August was very quiet (7 days) which was a nice break.

I have had some variation in the boats I have been going out on; I got to try near shore dragging, pot fishing for black cod, and tuna fishing. The last was so much fun, it was on the pot boat and we just decided to try tuna fishing for the day as it is a open fishery, no permit required, and we caught about 20 fish. Oh and now about 20lbs of tuna is in my freezer and I have been trying every recipe I can find, but still the best was 2 minute of Sashimi, talk about fresh!

Lately I have got a lot of work done on the house, the upstairs bathroom is finished, and if I do say so it looks good. I am now starting on the kitchen and all the windows which I will be replacing.

So where am I now? I am in Bellingham, Washington (1hr north of Seattle) waiting for a boat. On the was up I spent a great two days with Rachel Holser and her family at their lovely place in Gig Harbor, going on some beautiful sea kayak paddles, a great trail run, and just relaxing around the house.

Well when I get back from the boat I will try and have so more to write, and the local library just got high speed wireless so I may be able to post more often.

Well I am sending my love to everyone, and to those back at school have a great quarter, to the cross-country guys, run hard, and to Bobby, Natalie, Cody, and Jess, congratulations on getting to the halfway mark of the CDT, you are an inspiration.

With Love
Shaun

Garibaldi Adventures

Ok so like I told you in my last blog I have been spending quite a bit of time down on a small fishing boat in Garibaldi, Oregon. Well Garibaldi has a harbor bar which is recognized as probably the most dangerous bar on the West Coast, that’s right even worse than the Columbia Bar (Oh and as I found out last week a fantastic surf spot).

What this means is there have been quite a few times that we get to the boat in the morning and cannot go out. Now usually I then drive the 1.5hr back home to work on the house but today I decided to stay in town and check out the area.

There are a couple of Capes that I have been fishing off and I wanted to see if I could get out to them. As it turned out the two local Capes, Cape Meare, and Cape Lookout, are both state parks that have trails, so off I went.

The first Cape Meare, had a short 1 mile trail to the end with beautiful large Spruce trees and a fantastic view. The islands in the pictures are the ones I have been fishing around for the last couple of weeks.

After running out to Cape Meare, I headed off for Cape Lookout, a more strenuous up and down 6 mile trail. It was a nice run out to the end with the trail constantly staying along the ridge line.

Ok so that’s it for now, hope you are having a great time.

Love Shaun

p.s - thats a 60ft shrimp boat in the last picture, it was rather high!

Fishing and Teaching

Hi everyone, sorry it has been so long between blogs but I only have dial up now and it is pretty difficult to download photos with dial up.

So I have been working on a really fun boat for the last couple of weeks. It is a near shore rockfish boat, it can only catch about 1500lbs of rockfish a month and so he uses a basic fishing rod, yes that’s right he commercially fishes with a rod and reel. Oh I should mention 1500lb of live rockfish is worth about $7500, so not a bad way to make a living.
So what have I been doing on this boat, well fishing actually, I record what we catch but basically I sit there all day with a fishing rod in my hands. Not bad.

The other eventful thing I have been up to is substitute teaching at the local K-12 school and guess what my first class was? Think of the funniest thing I could teach, that’s right American History.

So that’s what’s happening at this end. I would love to hear what you are all up to. Well bye for now.