Monopodiness

Sorry, I like making up words - it's a lolcat thing.

For a few months I have been searching out different monopod/hiking staffs to help me get up nice screed hills and give me a hand while photographing panoramics and other still shots. I found a lot of different ones, all very expensive. Camera shops carried the top of the line ones that cost anywhere from $160 to $400. The most expensive you could easily use as a club to fend off angry bears and moose and what not. I just happened to run into the following line of products which offer similar features to the super expensive ones.

Trek-Teck: Trekpods

• Retractable small tripod legs in the base
• Light weight and suitable for hiking
• Comfort grip
• Protective cap for the threading
• Adjustable head on the camera
  

One of the cool unique features include a magnetic shoe for lighter cameras and spotting scopes to quickly connect to the monopod. I think I'm gonna start saving up now.

Also, if anybody out there has a Nikon D70 or greater and they are feeling really generous - please send it to me - Email me for shipping information, I'll handle the transportation costs :)

I'm pooped

It's been a while since I wrote in my blog.. Probably a good thing.

Today was fishing and geocaching day. Skyefoil is in Seward, AK with a friend and I have a few days to myself during the 4th of July holidays. Adam and I decided to start off the our day with fishing at the Euklutna Tailrace (whats a tailrace?) and it was dead as a doornail. Our friend Cinaminx joined up for the fishing however our awesome combined presence must have scared all the fishes away. Right next to our fishing area there is a geocache full of unique keychains - I stole a Jagermeister one.

After fishing Adam and I ran up and down a hill in a very forested area trying to get a good GPS signal so we could find 4 caches near the Glenn/Old Glenn Highway intersection. The mosquitoes were out in full force putting us into a foul mood. My GPS also showed bad positions for a certain geocache which sent us on a wild goose chase. Cache hunters go where the caches are of course and there were a few we had not logged on our way back to Eagle River, AK from the Euklutna area - one of them was at a scenic hike to a waterfall I had done before. The bummer about this hike is at the end there is a "lookout" to see the falls which you can't actually see the falls from. There was a hollowed out standing tree that I thought would fit a small child, so I of course attempted to wedge myself into it. I fit and it was very snug :). There was also a tree knurl I was looking for on this hike, I had seen it in the past and it looked very much like a hawk or eagle using its wings as shelter. I found the tree the knurl was on, however some prick removed it and probably took it home to add a few chisel marks and sell for $500.

We continued the hike down to the falls on the trail then went Rambo after the trail ended and traversed a rock face to get up and over to the falls. Wonderfull sight! I of course fell off the rock face on the way back to the trail. It was a steep rock face maybe 70 degrees up and I think I fell around 20 feet while grabbing for several very handsome hand holds which would have been very useful had they not been covered in mud. Adam was impressed and I was in awe that there was no sort brokenness to my body, I was quite covered in mud however.

Like I said - I'm pooped after walking lord knows how much

Yay for hiking!

Yay for me, another hike so far thats a hike a week!!! This being my second consecutive hike week out of two total hikes in the last six months.. well.. thats not really that impressive to all you fit people. I'm totally pooped and glad I had Adam around to talk with, the dog is really warming up to him which is quite different from when they first met up, I believe Adam and Sam the dog had to be on other sides of large rooms initially - Sams a little shy.

Today was Mt. Baldy, which isn't really a Mt. at all and more of a big foothill leading to a few peaks overlooking Eagle River, Anchorage, and the Matanuska Susitna valley. The cache I went after was called Baldy Eagle and the trek to it wore Adam, Sam, and I out. My legs aren't going to feel very good tomorrow and I plan on stretching tonight, right after I drink the rest of my beer and pass out crying on the couch.

Go hiking people!

Ouch.. Why.. ?

Last night was fun, Skyefoil and I did some us stuff and headed out for ice cream. It should have stayed that innocent, but we rarely let a good thing last for too long. We needed to take the dog for a walk and I knew the perfect place! I had recently tried to find a geocache in the parking lot of a trail head called South Fork in Eagle River, AK. I only had a minimal amount of information about this cache, ended up not finding it, and later found out that it was a puzzle/multi cache listed improperly. Boo..

I knew there were to very real caches in that area however, just up the trail a bit and it seemed like a good place to take the dog off leash and let him find some fuzzies to chase and get some exercise with his people. So I drove us to the trail head and we embarked on a quick walk that ended up taking several hours. The initial cache out of two was 0.7 miles away as the bird flies, straight without taking elevation into effect, so the real linear distance is 4100 feet instead of 3800 once you add elevation in. The next cache along the route was an extra 450 feet away, no big deal, right? It was slow going, we cursed a lot, the ground gave way a lot and made it hard to hike up leisurely, thankfully I had just loaded topographic information into my GPS and knew when the ground would level out, which personally kept me going. We met up with a group of 16 or so teenagers who found a quick route down, snow veins in the hillside had not melted away yet so the teens rolled down head over heel until they were nearly at the bottom of the trail, mad props for being efficient.

0.7 miles turned into 0.5 miles very slowly, we rejoiced when 0.2 miles were left and the ground levelled out dramatically, and we eventually found ourselves between two small peaks (link to topographic map). The hike from this point on was simple and straightforward. We reached a high enough elevation to get some sunshine for a little while, until the sun moved behind one of the peaks, and the dog ran all over the place chasing ground squirrels in the area. We found a lot of new and very intense ground dwelling animal holes. The wind almost blew Skyefoil away and was getting pretty chilly to me, wearing just a button up shirt instead of a coat, so we had to bunker down every so often and let the wind die down a bit. This simple walk was turning into enough mini-adventures to keep me pretty damned happy. I love the elements!

We found the caches (Momma Bear, Cache In The Notch) took some photos and headed home, totally exhausted. The dog curled up in his chair and snored away while we ate our simple dinner. Today I am totally wiped out, and am very thankful for caffeine.

To all you locals, Lets go Geocaching!