Matt – Page 2 – Matthew Singer

5000 feet

November 7, 2015 Matt Personal Updates

It snowed in Moscow for the first time this season on Thursday. And although the accumulation didn't amount to much in town, the mountains were turned white the next day. But two days of sunshine, and evidence of the snow is all but gone. The mountains around Moscow are back to their baren self. But at 5000 feet, winter has…

Elk Creek Falls

October 6, 2015 Matt Personal Updates

I think I've mentioned Elk Creek Falls in passing, but haven't actually written a featured post about it. Elk River is a small outdoor recreation town (read: hunting & fishing mostly) a little over an hour east of Moscow. This small community represents the "end of the road." The paved road ends here and forest service roads pick up to…

Latah County Fair

October 6, 2015 Matt Personal Updates

Clara loves animals. At home, she loves to pet the dogs and the cats. She tries to pet the chickens and gets all excited when we catch one and bring it over to her. She loves saying hi to the goats and touching the horses. So we brought her to the Latah County Fair where she could look at and…

Seattle

October 6, 2015October 6, 2015 Matt Travel Stories

In the 5 years living out here, I haven't been to Seattle other than to catch the ferry over to the Olympic Peninsula. So when four of my college buddies from Drew mentioned they were converging in the city for a race in September, I jumped at the opportunity to pay a visit. So for a weekend in September (11-13), we…

Wallowas Weekend 2015

September 21, 2015 Matt Hikes

After a long summer with not much exploring, the pace has changed and I've had a fairly busy two weeks. The series begins with the return of the Annual Wallowas Weekend. In the six Septembers that I have lived here, I've led a backpacking trip to the Eagle Cap Wilderness four of those years, with this year being the fourth.…

Seven Devils on the Fourth of July

July 19, 2015 Matt Hikes

What do you do when temperatures rise above 100º F? Seek relief at very high elevations. This June was one of the hottest on record for the northwest with several days above 100 degrees in Moscow. So when my friends proposed a backpacking trip for the Fourth of July weekend, i was a bit skeptical, especially given the location's tendency…

Alaska

June 30, 2015 Matt Travel Stories

I was in Alaska from June 10-17. This trip was mostly about business with a little bit of pleasure while I was out there. I attended the 2015 meeting of the Animal Behavior Society. This wasn't my first scientific meeting. But it was my first time at ABS and my first meeting where I was alone. I was the only…

East Moscow Mountain

June 2, 2015 Matt Hikes

[map style="width: auto; height:400px; margin:20px 0px 20px 0px; border: 1px solid black;" gpx="http://www.mineral2.com/wp-content/uploads/Moscow Mountain Hike.GPX"] I had heard about the big trees on Moscow Mountain, but I had yet to experience them for myself. I first drove the road along the ridge back in 2010, the year I moved to Idaho. Back then, I passed some fairly large trees along the…

Small hikes near Moscow

May 10, 2015 Matt All Things Moscow, Hikes

The end of the semester is a busy time, and that often means foregoing larger adventures for some smaller ones closer to home. In the last week, I've been trying to keep active and take advantage of the local trails. One of these trails is the Headwaters trail on the western end of Moscow Mountain. In my five years here,…

Blue Mountains: Panjab Loop

April 20, 2015April 20, 2015 Matt Hikes

We open the 2015 hiking season with a fairly big hike in the Blue Mountains. The Panjab loop takes us up the Panjab Creek trail and back down via the Rattlesnake Trail in the Wenaha Tucannon Wilderness. This hike is full of wildflowers, wildlife, and canyon views. (more…)

Yes, I’m still alive.

April 15, 2015 Matt Personal Updates

It's been a long time since I've posted anything here. The purpose of this post is the reassure you that I'm still alive and kicking. There haven't been many adventures and photo outings this winter for a number of reasons, the least of which is that it's been a pretty lackluster winter in terms of snow fall. But I've also…

Annual Wallowas Weekend 2014

September 19, 2014September 22, 2014 Matt Hikes

[map style="width: auto; height:400px; margin:20px 0px 20px 0px; border: 1px solid black;" gpx="http://www.mineral2.com/wp-content/uploads/Selected Data from wallowas 2014.GPX"] The annual Wallowas Weekend tradition kinda took a hiatus for a couple of years. In 2012, Tyler had to pull out of the trip, and several other people followed. That left me with one other person who still wanted to hike, but also…

Oregon Butte

September 7, 2014September 7, 2014 Matt Hikes

In a world where there are so many playgrounds at arm's reach, the Blue Mountains of southeastern Washington are so often overlooked. They're not as tall as the surrounding mountain ranges - the highest point is just shy of 6400 feet. There are no natural lakes, and the valleys are actually canyons carved into an uplifted basalt lava flow. But…

August Update

September 5, 2014September 4, 2014 Matt Hikes, Personal Updates

I just realized that August has come and gone and I have yet to write about anything that happened during this month. It's not as though I haven't done anything. In fact, I was quite busy every weekend. So, let's see, what happened in August? It got really hot. In fact, it got so hot, that doing things became unpleasant.…

Roman Nose Lakes

July 29, 2014July 29, 2014 Matt Hikes, Travel Stories

[caption id="attachment_605" align="aligncenter" width="344"] Upper Roman Nose Lake with Roman Nose peak rising behind it.[/caption] Last year, I tried to take my family up to Harrison Lake to enjoy a true alpine zone. When we got close, we saw that the lake had been closed due to problematic bear activity. I would have still been ok hiking up there, but…

Grandmother and Grandfather Mountains

July 21, 2014September 22, 2014 Matt Hikes

Since my daughter was born a month ago, I haven't been able to get out and stretch my legs on the trail. So when an opportunity came along to go hiking, I jumped at it. The past few weeks had been miserably hot, even to the point where escaping into the high elevations wouldn't provide refuge from the heat. However, since…

Introducing Clara

July 1, 2014July 21, 2014 Matt Personal Updates

On Thursday, June 19, my 32nd birthday, Erin woke up having contractions that were 10 minutes apart, give or take a minute. This persisted through the morning. By the afternoon, the contractions had gotten closer together. We left home around 2:30 and an hour later, we were at the birth center in Moscow. Clara would have been born at…

Mexico, Auroras, and other June Fun

June 25, 2014June 25, 2014 Matt Personal Updates

I'm a bit late getting some updates out, so I'm going to condense about 3 posts in to one in the hopes that I can get caught up. So let's start with my trip to Mexico. If it wasn't obvious from my last post, I went down to the Mayan Riviera with Erin and the rest of my family…

Flight Paths

June 8, 2014 Matt Personal Updates

[map style="width: auto; height:400px; margin:20px 0px 20px 0px; border: 1px solid black;" maptype="ROADMAP" gpx="http://www.mineral2.com/wp-content/uploads/Flights.GPX"] If you don't already know me, I have a thing for maps and geography. It's an absolute delight to see the landscape from the air. I've been bringing my GPS with me when I fly, mostly to keep track of flight progress and to identify what…

What might the native prairie have looked like?

May 26, 2014May 26, 2014 Matt Personal Updates

It's hard to imagine what America's prairies looked like when they were unspoiled. Today, more than 95% of our prairies and grasslands have been repurposed for agriculture. The last remnants are so highly fragmented that it's a fight to keep non-native invasive species from taking over. Prairies and grasslands were once thought to be ecological wastelands, a monoculture of grass…