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Picture of the Week |
Looking back (south) on Grandfather Mountain
I’ve been very busy with graduate school, and that has put hiking and exploring on hold, but that also has me itching to get out, especially as my days of decent hiking weather grow shorter and shorter. I’ve been trying to get up to Sandpoint to get in one last snow-free summit for the season, but time just hasn’t been on my side. So this weekend, I headed up to Grandfather Mountain with Erin for what might be our last chance [read more...] 
The West Fork Wallowa River Valley from the Lakes Basin Trail
A year ago this weekend, I set foot in Oregon for the first time and explored one of its most beautiful and least advertised mountain ranges. Last year, we only got a preview of the Eagle Cap Wilderness in the Wallowa Mountains, only able to stay one night. So this year, I arranged the backpacking trip for Labor Day Weekend, which let us spend 3 nights in the wild and [read more...] The past week, my parents were in town visiting and we spent the week exploring and showing them our favorite places in the area. We’d usually leave fairly early in the morning and get back kinda late, always exhausted. As a result, I haven’t been able to post some detailed updates on the awesome places that we’ve been. I’ll try to summarize the week here.
Lower Stevens Lake
The hike to Stevens Lakes itsn’t particularly hard, but it’s no walk in the park either. It’s about 2.5 miles and 1700 feet of vertical gain to the upper lake on a well-used and well-mantained trail. It starts off relatively steep and continues to climb steadily for the next mile before levelling out briefly as the trail emerges from a beautiful forest into an open basin surrounded by walls several hundred feet high. Just atop the headwall, 350 feet up, is the first [read more...]
“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated [read more...] View Upper Basin Trail in a larger map The Upper Basin Trail is a 5 mile loop in the upper basin of Elk Creek just north of Elk River The trail is near the giant western red cedar, thought to be the largest tree in the U.S. east of the Sierra-Cascade crest. The loop is also near the Morris Cedar Grove, another grove of large old-growth red cedar. unfortunately, the road to the Morris Grove was closed and blocked off on Saturday. If you’re looking for a difficult challenge, the Upper Basin loop is not for you. The trail was [read more...] 
Panoramic View from our vantage point, originally uploaded by Matthew Singer. This story begins with Luke and I itching to get out into the backcountry. Although it’s the middle of June, the combination of an unusually cold and wet Spring with the very productive winter has left many of the high country destinations (above 5000 ft.) still buried under 100+ inches of snow in places. And even some of the lower areas are still blocked with impassible snow drifts on the road. This makes our options quite limited. The one place we’re [read more...] There is a Forest Service hiking trail about 3 miles due north of our house, though it’s about 7 miles to drive there. Still, it’s close for those after-work getaways. The trail is a ~5mi. loop along the Potlatch River that takes you along the river and then up to the “rim” of the canyon. The first half mile or so is paved, but it then becomes a regular old trail through the woods. There are interpretive markers along the entire length. In April, I briefly lost my camera due to a bent pin in the card slot. I sent it to Canon for repair and got the camera back in a week’s time. Unfortunately, during that time, I had scheduled a hike up Old Rag with Jon, my supervisor at the time. So, after a trip to Fed Ex, I stopped at the camera store and bought a couple rolls of film. I’ve finally had the chance to get the old scanner out of [read more...] I made my very first appearance in the state of Oregon over the weekend. I’m impressed and hooked. Oregon is a very pretty state, and I didn’t even get to see very much of it. My Oregon experience took me to a little known section in the northeastern corner, the Eagle Cap Wilderness Area in the Wallowa Mountains. I went with two other grad students in the department for an overnight trip to Mirror Lake in the heart of the wilderness area. We [read more...] |
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Copyright © 2012 Matthew Singer - All Rights Reserved |
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