I haven’t been very good at updating this or my livejournal in a while. I’ve been fairly busy for the past few weeks. I returned to my job at the mountain campus (www.mountaincampus.org, check us out) in the middle of March and spent the first two weeks cleaning up and preparing for the season. With all of the heavy snow this winter, we had a fair number of trees fall in critical places, so we spent the better part of a week removing some of them. It’s been so wet, though, that we can’t get to all of them with the truck yet, so there are still many downed trees remaining. We also got all of the tents set up and the buildings deep-cleaned so they would be presentable for a summer camp open house.

Last Friday, Steve and I went camping at Hone Quarry outside of Harrisonburg. The Forest Service campground is small and rustic, and nestled in a deep hollow of Shenandoah Mountain. It’s a beautiful spot that feels isolated even though it’s fairly close to civilization. It’s also not very crowded in the off season. We managed to choose the coldest night to camp. Temperatures dropped down to about 25 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the comfort limit of my 20 degree sleeping bag. It’s good to know the insulation survived the washing machine. In the morning, we hiked the short trail to a rock overlook and then tried to drive to Reddish Knob, but at 4300 feet, the road still had some snow drifts near the summit that were not going to fare well with my car. We headed down the mountain and went to Second Mountain for an afternoon of bouldering.

Last weekend, the new staff arrived for the start of training. We’ve been teaching them the ropes (literally) while playing on the elements and getting them set up for the new season. Training continues next week and we’ll get our first school group the week after. Here are a few photos documenting our fun. (more…)

The Palouse, originally uploaded by Matthew Singer.

Holy Smokes, it’s March already? My how time flies. It’s funny how time goes by when life is mundane and you feel like you’ve wasted the days. On the other hand, when you’ve got something to look forward to, it just can’t come fast enough.

I suppose I ought to let you, my readers, up to speed on my future. In January, I received a notice of acceptance to the University of Idaho. So last week, Erin and I went out that way to visit the school and the area. Long story short, we love it out there. We even found a house with a barn and riding ring that we like and should be able to afford. While I still have outstanding applications at a few other schools, we are more than 90% sure that come August, I will be a Ph.D. student in Idaho.

Idaho? What’s there? I thought it was a big hole in the ground. Go ahead, crack all those jokes. Idaho is a huge state with a population that barely exceeds one million. Much of the state is extremely conservative, people who are very Christian and have the “government should stay out of our lives” mentality of the west. Guns, God, and no Government. It’s sickeningly amusing. But Moscow is an anomaly, a spot of dark blue in a sea of blood red. Moscow is extremely liberal and progressive. I noticed only two car dealerships in town and one specializes in Subaru. Moscow is all about keeping it local. Buy locally grown organic food from the Co-Op. Buy locally made merchandise from any of the shops downtown. Or just support a small, locally owned family business including a book store, game shop, outdoor gear shop, two pet stores, and the list goes on. Moscow is like a very miniature Portland, Maine.

The part about northern Idaho that I really like is the abundance of recreation opportunities. Just outside of town is Moscow Mountain, covered in trails and a mix of private and public land. Hop up to an hour away toward Lewiston for some canyons to explore. Extend your drive to up to 3 hours and you’ve got some big mountains and sweet roadless wilderness areas. To the north is Couer d’Alene, the I-90 corridor, some big lakes and ski areas. To the south is Idaho’s Seven Devil’s Wilderness, to the southwest is Hell’s Canyon (deeper than the Grand Canyon) and Oregon’s Eagle Cap Wilderness, to the east is the Bitterroot range. And for longer trips, Glacier, Mt. Rainier, North Cascades, and Olympic Naitonal Parks are all withing driving range. There’s world class white water rafting on the Snake, Salmon, and Clearwater rivers. And when I need some city culture, Spokane is less than 2 hours away and Seattle and Portland are less than 5 hours away.

I’m ready to move out there and explore some new terrain.

For the longest time, I have been wanting to re-design my site to make it easy to update and manage content. At first, I thought a content management system would suit me, but I found them to be a bit daunting. Perhaps later I’ll re-visit the idea, but for the amount of content that I actually publish, a blogging platform would do me much better. I still have the photography up using Gallery2 and the main website is now using WordPress. I figured if I’m going to provide stories and updates, I might as well do it in blog form rather than use dreamweaver and static content.

So, welcome to the new Mineral2.com. I’m still playing around with the new system, but hopefully this means I can provide updates more often and keep this site active once more. Current projects include integrating photo galleries with wordpress and customizing my own theme design. At lest now I can manage my site on the go.

Enjoy.

On top of The World
Originally uploaded by Matthew Singer.

Its Memorial Day Weekend already! My how time flies. There’s been a lot happening lately, and between illnesses and deaths in the family, I haven’t been out exploring and backpacking as much as I would have liked. I’m finally going to get out on my three-day weekend. I will be hiking the Three Ridges Wilderness loop with two nights out on the trail.

Next week, Erin and I leave for Las Vegas for a friend’s wedding. I’m more excited about our week at Zion National Park after all the festivities. I’ve got film ordered, but I fear it may not be enough. But have no fear, new photography will come as I pick up my camera once more.

View on Kennedy Peak
Originally uploaded by Matthew Singer.

Wow. I realized I haven’t updated this place in quite some time. A lot has happened in the past year. I went back to Ferry Beach (www.fbes.org) in the fall and had some fun on the coast of Maine with weekends in the White Mountains again. I spent the winter in Hagerstown unsuccessfully looking for a job. And now I’ve finally found one in Luray, Va with the Sheridan School’s Mountain Campus (www.mountaincampus.org). I work at a facility nestled up against Shenandoah National Park, and literally somewhere in the photo above.

We’re still in training week, but work has been great so far. Everyone there is friendly and its great to be out of the dirty city. The job is less science-based and more adventure and teambuilding, though the science content is certainly growing and expanding. I’m excited to be taking students on hikes, backpacking trips, overnight canoe trips, rock climbing and into caves.

Over the fall and winter, I also applied to the zoology graduate program at the University of New Hampshire. If all goes well, I shall be moving North again by the end of summer.

Happy Spring, and more updates to come.

On Mount Moosilauke
Originally uploaded by mineral2.

I’m in Illinois now and will be here for a good majority of the year. While I’m living 40 miles in the Chicago suburbs, I’ve already taken a trip to the Mississippi River to see the Bald Eagles and am planning a weekend to Nebraska to watch the mass of Sandhill Cranes as they stopover on their migration north. As the spring approaches, I hope to go south to some terrain that is reminiscent of Alabma. I also plan to go northward to view the waterfowl and the flowers of the North Woods. Of course, I will also get back into city photography with some extensive shoots of Chicago and the suburbs. It looks like I’m on my way to amassing a collection of photos that I can only call “America.”

Mount Adams Summit
Originally uploaded by mineral2.

Well, I’m finished scanning 5 of 6 rolls from the fall. It sounds pitiful, but there are lots of great shots.

Last Fall I shot off 9 rolls between Alabama and North Carolina. In the spring, I topped that with 13 rolls including the hike in Virginia. Add 2 more over the summer and the 6 from the fall and I’m up to 21 for 2006. Actually, I finished off number 22 yesterday, but I probably won’t have a chance to scan that in for a while.

Look for a White Mountains gallery in the next week or so.

I’ve been in Maine for the past 9 weeks teaching outdoor education at the Ferry Beach Ecology School. Its been wonderful up here, though its gotten quite cold rather quickly. On weekends I have been hiking up in the White Mountains getting some great photography shots. Unfortunately, none of the computers I work with have a firewire card I can use my scanner with. But new photos will hopefully be up before the month’s end.

My White Mountain adventures have been strenuous, but fun. It started Labor Day weekend with Mount Lafayette, the 5200 foot giant at Franconia Notch. The elevation gain in 4 miles was a little under 4000 feet and the whole hike took 7.5 hours. But the views up there were worth every ache and pain. Two weeks later I did Mount Chcorua, a smaller mountain to the south, but its bald, rocky summit gives way to great views of the mountains. Next was Kearsarge North, 200 feet smaller than Chocorua, but with an observation tower on top. Kearsarge is located just beyond North Conway, NH and looks up the Mount Washington Valley right at the 6300 foot giant itself. On Columbus Day weekend, I did an overnight on Mount Adams, the second highest peak at 5800 and part of the Presidentials chain. I spent the second night lower down at Mountain Lake and woke up to the sounds of loons crying and splashing in the water. I also finally saw my Moose. A couple weeks later, I went back up Mount Chocorua with some of my fellow naturalists from Ferry Beach for a 10-mile circuit.

Since then, it has gotten cold and snow has fallen in the higher elevations of the mountains. Time worked itself out so that I haven’t been back up there, but I may be back in December and so I shall hike some more peaks then. But in a week, I get to go to my new house in Virginia and do some more hiking around Mount Rogers.

Grafton Street, Dublin
Originally uploaded by mineral2.

I’m scanning old photos again. Its the first time in probably a month since I’ve been archiving photos. I skipped over a few and am doing a more “recent” set from the summer of 2001.

Ireland.

Its 6 rolls of color and one of black and white. I’ll probably post a few up here as I scan them, but expect the full set on the website when they are all completed. To scan after this: London 1999, 2000; Scotland 1999; Drew University 2000, 2001 and some random bits in between.

Well, my time in Alabama has come to an end. To catch up on this thing, I spent the fall season at the McDowell Environmental Center as an educator down in northern Alabama. I enjoyed it so much that I returned for the spring season. The area is a sandstone highlands carved into canyons by the rivers. Its beautiful and biologically diverse and very interesting. I had a great birding season with 117 species this spring, lots of wildflowers, and good herping.

The season ended May 19, and on Sunday the 21st, I headed north with Damascus, VA as my first checkpoing. I spent the night in a backpacker’s hostel and proceeded to Mount Rogers the next day. Mount Rogers is Virginia’s highest mountain at 5726 feet. The next peak over is White Top mountain, with a road to the top. I drove up there to see the view and then headed to the Mt. Rogers trailhead. I spent three days and two nights on the mountain enjoying the view, the flowers, and the birds as well as the company of Appalation Trail through hikers. Its a really amazing place and gorgeous and probably the most relaxing 3 days of my life. I wish I could stay up there longer, but I must also get home and unpack my car. I’m sure I’ll see the mountain again.

I shall post a more detailed description of my time up there. For now, I’m headed North. Next checkpoint: Fredericksburg, VA to spend some time with an old friend.

Its been an interesting week to say the least. Friday it was warm and rainy, which killed all remains of snow. Then it got real cold. So I had a ski lesson on the grass. It doesn’t really work that great on grass. Today was also cold. So…

Its cold. Booo

Its supposed to snow. Yay!

Its going to stay cold. Booo

That means the snow won’t melt. Yay!

I’ve been dreaming tonight as I decided to see what ski areas are nearby and how much snow they have. Areas north of here have been getting hit with snow pretty nicely, so maybe I can start skiing in a few weeks. I found a few places within reach that look like they could be good. Of course, the exciting ones are several hours away in the Adirondaks. So some of the Catskill ski areas of interest include Bellaeyre, Hunter, and Windham. And I’m excited over Whiteface with its vertical drop of 3100 feet and Gore Mountain with a vertical drop of 2600 feet. Both of these ski areas feature lodges half way up the mountain and gondolas. Both of these are also up in the Adirondaks, so I don’t know how often I can get up there. Oh but they look so fun.

Tomorrow, I am going into Philly for the evening on a blind date. Actually its a double date with Bill and his blind date from last month. All I know is that she’s a Jewish girl from Albright. This should be interesting.

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Winter has made a comeback here on the Palouse. After several weeks of warm weather into the 50’s, the temperatures have cooled down, but the precipitation remains. The snow began Monday night, giving us only an inch or two, not much to worry about. But the snow continued throughout Tuesday dropping another two inches on Moscow. However, for every inch of snow that Moscow gets, Deary gets 2-3 times that, and so we had about 6 inches on our driveway when I got home Tuesday night. I got to use our new snow blower for the first time to clear the driveway. The snow continued Tuesday night with a light dusting, and continued Wednesday and into the night. When I woke up this morning, there was yet more snow on the ground. I shoveled our little patio twice last night, but it made no difference. The driveway might be deep enough to bring the snow blower back out.

The Palouse is pretty again with its blanket of light, fluffy snow. Our week’s accumulation at the house might reach 12 inches, though that’s a stretch. I’m more excited about what’s happening in the higher elevations. Silver Mountain has reported 24 inches of new snow in the past 48 hours and is reporting a snow depth of over 100 inches at the summit. All this fresh powder is begging me to utilize it while my bank account is holding me back. So I’m hoping the cold weather lasts and that by Spring break, maybe I’ll have recovered enough funds to get one more ski trip in before winter leaves us. Until then, I may also put my snow shoes on and find a few peaks to ascend.

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