Matthew Singer

Category: Travel Stories

  • Asotin Creek




    The Deep Gorge

    Originally uploaded by Matthew Singer

    While we were out in Idaho, we had the pleasure of taking a day and hiking. While the Moscow area was devoid of any snow this year, the surrounding mountains still had a bit of the white stuff, and forget about trying to get to the big mountains. It was winter, after all. I’m particularly excited about the nearly year-round hiking available out there. In the summer, I can retreat to the high country. In the winter, I can head low into the canyons where it stays pretty warm late into the fall and warms up quickly in the spring.

    Hell’s canyon was a bit far for this trip and may have required driving on some snowy forest service roads in the higher altitude. But as I soon found out, there’s plenty of good terrain closer to “home.” Just south of Lewiston on the Washington side of the Snake River is Asotin Creek. The creek begins in the Blue Mountains and winds its way down to the Snake, carving a deep gorge up to 1500 feet deep in many places.

    Unlike the canyons of the southwest, these are carved into Basalt in a slightly less-dry environment. The result is more vegetation, though it’s still mostly grasses and shrubs. There are small patches of evergreen forest on the canyon floor, particularly on the northern walls.

    The drive in to the trailhead seemed to take forever, at least 20 minutes on a dirt road. At one point, I thought we’d be at the head of the canyon, not very deep below the rim. But upon further investigation, I found that the trailhead in the state wildlife management area wasn’t even halfway up the gorge. We ended up only hiking about two miles in, but I’m already hooked. I’m looking forward to returning and hiking beyond our stopping point, maybe even spending a night or two down there.

    But more importantly, this sets the tone for exploring Hell’s Canyon, a gorge deeper than the Grand Canyon.

    Asotin Creek Canyon Asotin Creek Canyon
    Asotin creek Canyon Asotin Creek

  • National Aquarium in Baltimore

    Last Saturday, Erin had to go to Towson to take her riding instructor exam. I dropped her off at Goucher College and headed to REI, only to find that they didn’t open for another hour, so I drove down the road to Borders, looked at books I couldn’t afford, and played on the reliable fast internet for a while. It’s funny, when I went into the the store at 9:30, there were barely any cars in the parking lot. When I left at 11:00, the lot was full. I did make it back to REI to play with gear, but Erin called to say she was finished early, so I drove back to the college and picked her up.

    We returned to REI so I could exchange my shoes, which had blown out way before their time, and get a new pair. Then, with the whole afternoon ahead of us, we drove into Baltimore. Against my better judgment, we decided to go to the Aquarium. I’ve been wanting to go back ever since I discovered the new addition with the Australia exhibit. It turns out a lot has changed since my last visit in high school. They no longer have Beluga whales, only dolphins. The baby sharks in the old Beluga pool have grown up to be bigger sharks. The deep-sea tanks have become night reef exhibits. The jellyfish have moved to the dolphin pavilion for their own “Invasion of the Jellies” exhibit. The touch tank has been removed altogether. And, of course, the new Australia, which was awesome.

    If you’ve never been to the aquarium in Baltimore, it’s worth a visit. Once you enter the aquarium, you’re brought to a big pool, pictured above. Long ago, this used to be where the Belugas lived and performed their shows. But that was a loooong time ago. Since they moved to the bigger amphitheater across the pier, this pool has been used to house small sharks, rays, sea turtles, and open-water fish. It’s kinda sterile, though. I wish they’d add some decoration to make it look more habitat-like. I think it’d make a great Chesapeake Bay exhibit.

    From there, you move upstairs for three floors of small-tank exhibits surrounding the big tank. From each floor, you can always look down on the sharks and rays, but you’re mostly too busy enjoying the other fish. From the 4th floor, you rise one more level into the glass pyramid of the Amazon rainforest. This is my favorite part of the entire aquarium. In truth, rainforest exhibits are my favorite part of any zoo or aquarium. They generally exhibit live plants, free-flight birds, other animals, like primates and turtles, a flowing stream with a glass edge to look in, smaller tropical animals in their own habitats (frogs, snakes, lizards, small mammals…). But the birds are what make it. I love the warm, humid atmosphere with all the sunlight and the sounds of the birds.

    Coming down from the rainforest, you are perched atop the giant reef tank. The reef is an oval, 15-20 feet deep, and you walk down the middle. Under the reef are the sharks, and under the sharks is the under water viewing area for the big tank we saw at the very beginning. You can see the window in the photo above. From there, an escalator brings you back up to the main level to the gift shop and exit.

    But now, before exiting, you can go to the new Australia exhibit, which is very similar to the rainforest. A huge glass enclosure contains a stream with waterfalls and several underwater exhibits. There are also some snakes in tanks and lots of birds in free-flight. I was expecting a multi-level exhibit, but it was only one small path. Still, the open exhibit with all the birds was very nice.

    After touring the Aquarium, we drove around the city looking for a place to eat. We were in the mood for Thai, so we found the decent neighborhoods. Unfortunately, it was a Saturday night, so parking was nowhere to be found. So we started driving home and found a place off of Route 40 near Ellicott City. Actually, the entire strip mall turned out to be an asian shopping center. There was a huge asian food market and several asian restaurants of various ethnicities. The entire parking lot was full, but we managed to find a space. That’s usually a good sign, and we chose wisely. The food was great. It was a nice end to a nice day.

  • Chicago

    On Monday, I went into Chicago to meet up with the elusive Gloria Mui who I haven’t seen since Medfest 2005. She was in Chicago for some pharmaceutical conference. So yesterday I took the train into the city, and actually missed the train I wanted because I couldn’t find a parking space in the first lot. Well, I got into the city and met up with her and we took the L out to the Garfield Park Conservatory. The greenhouse and gardens are a bit larger than those of Lincoln Park, and much nicer too. I really liked their fern room set-up. There’s also a special sculpture display going on called Niki in the Garden. I brought my camera but didn’t see much of interest until we came across this skull. After shooting the sculpture, I shot some photos of the Lotus pond containing lotus flowers of all different colors. The light wasn’t bright enough to get any good shots inside. It rained on and off and we managed to miss the bulk of the downpours while we were outside.

    After exploring the garden, we headed back downtown in search of a Thai restaurant on State Street. When we found the place was no longer there, we had pizza at Pizano’s. This raised my hopes for Chicago-style pizza. The crust wasn’t flaky and the sauce and ingredients were delicious. I still maintain that a brick-oven thin-crust is the best.

    We walked off dinner down the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Ave.) hopping in and out of stores and ending back at the hotel where I dropped her off and headed back to the train station. I had many thoughts as I was people-watching on the way to the train. Its mostly fun to people-watch while playing music. Its sort of like your own ballet as people’s lives are choreographed to the music at hand… in this case, Swan Lake while waiting for the train.

    Happy June everyone.

  • Porcupine Mountains, Memorial Day Weekend


    Lake of the Clouds
    Originally uploaded by Up Nort.

    This Memorial Day weekend was exactly what I needed. It was a weekend away from civilization getting some good physical exercise and getting in touch with the real world.

    The Porcupine Mountains are simply amazing. Its Michigan’s largest state park and on a scale of 1-10, I give this park an 11. Parts of the park are covered in old-growth timber including some impressive hemlock stands. Other parts were once mined for iron and are covered in a very healthy secondary growth. Several spots are muddy and wet with marsh marigold while others are high up on the escarpment and dry with some low shrubs and some boreal plant species. Simply put, the North Woods is an incredible place.

    My first night I hiked in from the east side of the park along the Union Spring trail and up the Government Peak trail to one of the ponds atop Government Peak. I got there rather early but set up anyway in anticipation of an afternoon thunderstorm. Turns out the rain didn’t come until after dark, and no thunder either, but it was a decent place to camp with a stream nearby to get water from. After 7 miles of hiking, I needed to stop anyway.

    I woke up Sunday morning to some light rain and overcast skies. The air was cold, damp, and very windy. So I slept in a bit, till noon or so, before getting up and taking down camp. It had stopped raining by then, but the wind made the tent clean-up quite interesting. The cold and windy day turned out to be a blessing. The forest was brilliant green and carpeted with white-turning-pink Large-flowered Trillium and Dwarf Ginseng. The cool temperatures also kept the mosquitoes at bay. They had been somewhat of a problem the day before.

    So Sunday I hiked about 7 more miles. My route took me down Government mountain on the Mirror Lake Trail. This followed a creek which had cut a deep gorge and nearly fell like a waterfall. It was so gorgeous that I stopped to get a photo. This is when I discovered my battery, which was working fine before I left, was indeed dead. So I was unable to photograph the rest of the trip. I think the worst part about it was that the camera was 3 lbs of dead weight.

    The trail took me down to Lake of the Clouds where I stopped to fill up my water bottles in preparation to camp on the escarpment. After a short rest, I made the trek straight up to the escarpment ridge, only about 3-400 feet high at that point. I took my pack off and hopped back to the parking lot where the main overlook is, just so I could check out the view. I had a snack for lunch, grabbed my pack and continued down the escarpment which kept emerging onto greater and greater views on bare rock turning into cliffs 500 feet above Lake of the Clouds.

    A bit farther down I reached my campsite an set up the tent. This time I staked everything down in case the wind was as bad as the night before. It was a much calmer night. In fact, the clouds were clearing as the sun was setting. The view from the campsite was amazing. It was situated over the Big Carp River within view of Lake of the Clouds and even Lake Superior beyond that.

    Monday Morning was absolute bliss. The sun rose on the east and Lake of the Clouds was to the west. When I emerged from my tent, there was a cloud of mist above the lake as the warm water gave off steam into the cold air. Within an hour, the mist was gone. I got up and checked out the birds on the escarpment. I ran into a beautiful Indigo Bunting, a flock of Yellow-rump Warblers, and a few Raven. I did not catch any eagles.

    After breakfast, I successfully took down my dry tent, packed up everything and took one last look at the view from the escarpment. This was honestly what I had come for: Great views, a great workout, and pure serenity. But it was time for a 7 mile hike back to the car as the loop met back up with the Union Spring trail. I made it back in 3 hours and could have hiked farther with a short rest. But alas I had to make the 8-9 hour drive back to Illinois for work the next day.

    The Michigan Upper Peninsula is a wonderful and magnificent place. The forest, old growth or secondary, mountain or flat, is gorgeous and the land is riddled with some spectacular waterfalls. I ended up stopping at Bond falls on the way home and I haven’t seen anything like it. The remote landscape with few people and minimal impact is one to be visited, cherished, and preserved for all. I highly recommend the adventure.

    I’ve also decided that every person should go backpacking at least once in their life. It really is the greatest experience one can have to reconnect with the world.

  • Observations from my Weekend

    Everywhere I go I make observations on the world that would be great commentary for this journal. Unfortunately, I never write them down and most of these notes get lost in the millions of thoughts going through my head. But I will try to recall what I can.

    Observation no. 1: Zoos

    Last weekend I went into Chicago to visit Lincoln park and wandered around the Lincoln Park zoo. As a kid, I liked zoos and then I kinda lost interest with all of the fakeness. Lately I’ve been into checking out various city’s zoos to see how they compare. Habitats nowadays are getting more realistic and natural, especially for indoor exhibits. The Lincoln Park Zoo had some pretty nice displays for being a small and free zoo. I especially liked their small primate house, small mammal house, reptiles, and birds exhibits. I also enjoyed their Africa Expedition.

    This weekend, Erin and I went to the National Zoo in Washington, another free zoo but that was made up with parking fees. The national zoo is bigger and funded by the Smithsonian, but is in need of a renovation. The relatively new panda habitat is quite nice, but the big cats and African mammals had the old-fashioned concrete step enclosures and the primates had cage-enclosed trees to climb on, though most were inside for the winter. The small mammals building was set up with better habitats, but there were too many repeat species among the displays. The reptiles were set up nicely as were the invertebrates. I really liked the bird habitats. Like the Lincoln Park Zoo, the exotic bird house in Washington included a large free-flight room which you could virtually bird-watch with binoculars. My favorite part of the National Zoo is the Amazonia building which was newly built the last time I was there senior year of high school. You walk into Amazonia greeted by a shallow flooded forest aquarium with sting rays and other fish. Then you move on to some river displays including some rather large fish of the Amazon and some turtles and so forth. That’s followed by a discovery area with some small animals in 10-gallon tanks. But the best part of all is the rain forest upstairs with plants, free-flying birds and free-climbing monkeys.

    At any rate, I’m a sucker for forest exhibits whether at zoos or aquariums. The best zoo with continental enclosures is Toronto’s. But many aquariums have rain forests too. Most of us, if you live in the mid-Atlantic region, are familiar with the Baltimore Aquarium’s forest. Well, as we were wandering around Inner Harbor, I noticed the entrance to the aquarium was newly remodeled and sure enough there was a second forest exhibit to walk through. The original one appears to be there as well, so now I really want to check out the aquarium.

    Observation no. 2: Airports

    When you look at a map, the sheer size of Chicago’s O’hare airport dwarfs the city much like JFK, which could easily fill the lower half of Manhattan. Midway’s airport looks tiny in comparison, taking up one of those square blocks made up by the grid of major roads in the suburbs. I mean, just compare the two on the map. But maps are deceiving. Midway was quite larger and busier than I expected, though it didn’t service any planes larger than a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 (about the same size). At any rate, I was amazed at the terminal size and the amount of food options. Then you realize that O’Hare is about 6 Midway terminals spread out, so yeah… its huge.

    I’ve flown out of Baltimore many a time as a kid, and its a bit bigger than Midway, but no giant that I remember it. Its also not nearly as busy as it used to be. In fact, walking around the ticketing loby, Southwest was the only airline to take up all of its counters. Many of the ticketing counters were just empty, perhaps just under half of the total check-in booths. Security, which used to be at the front of each terminal had been moved up so that only ticketed passengers could go to the shops and restaurants. I guess the FAA and security agencies don’t want visitors just hanging around anymore. Then again, most of the security measures implemented since 9/11 are just an unnecessary joke and probably cause more feelings of paranoia than safety. Perhaps that’s the downfall of the airlines. Sometimes I get the feeling the government just wants U.S. citizens to sit around at home like shmucks rather than travel and explore the world.

    Observation no. 3: The Weather

    Here in Chicagoland, its anywhere from 10-20 degrees colder than its been out East. As a result, we still have snow on the ground and got another inch last night. Its supposed to warm up by the weekend so maybe I’ll find something fun to do by then.

  • Canoeing

    This weekend I went canoeing down the Juniata River with my girlfriend, Erin. We had a blast. We only got rained on once while on the water, and then we waited it out under a tree to minimize the soaking. We put in at the riverside park in Huntingdon, PA and took out about twenty miles downstream at Newton Hamilton. See the map. Look at the river rather than the road.

    The wildlife was awesome. I had 44 bird species. Highlights include a Bald Eagle, 24 Common Merganser, and lots of Wood Ducks. We also saw a family of River Otter playing on some fallen trees along the bank. They were cute.

    We camped on islands in the river. The first night we were sandwiched between the road and the railroad. Trains kept coming by every 10 minutes or so. Really, I think I’ve seen more trains that day than in my entire life. The second night was much quieter. There was a party going on upstream with a live band. We could hear them pretty well and they were playing good music too. It was a nice treat.

    The trip was so much fun and I hope to be able to ride the river again before heading up north.

  • View from Mount Rogers


    View from Mount Rogers
    Originally uploaded by mineral2.

    Oops! I promised a detailed account of my Mount Rogers extravagansa, but forgot to post about it here. So here it is, almost two months late. Of course, you can visit the photo galleries for photos as they are now up there. But here’s my adventure:

    Sunday: I left Alabama on Sunday. I said my good byes to everyone, including my 5-foot wild gray ratsnake rescue friend (hehehe), and my partings from Jen. We’re still together for now, but time shall tell if the distance thing works out. So anyway, I headed out of camp by around 11 a.m. CST with Damascus, VA as my destination. I spent the night in the MRO hostel and had some time to explore the town. There’s a really good italian restraunt and the outfitters store and other neat stuff. Basically, the town caters to backpackers since the Appalachian Trail runs through main street. Just over the border, in Tennessee, in the Cherokee National Forest, is a neat little area called Backbone Rock in which one of the mountain’s feet comes down into a big narrow rock gorge with the river making a complete u-turn around it. Originally, a railroad ran through the valley and an extremely short tunnel was built to get the tracks through. Now the road travels under the rock, but there’s a recreation area with trails on top of it and a gorgeous waterfall nearby. It was so neat that I went back Monday morning to photograph it.

    Monday: After playing around at Backbone Rock, I checked out of the hostel and headed for Mount Rogers. Along the way, I drove up to the top of the neighboring mountain of Whitetop, with a summit of 5500 ft. (only 200 feet short of Mt. Rogers, the highest in VA). It was really neat up there and the views were gorgeous. In Damascus, the trees were all out in full foliage, but driving toward the mountains, the trees looked as if the leaves were only days old with that new-leaf bright green. On top of the mountains, the trees had not even opened yet. After playing around on white top, I headed down the mountain and ended up by the Grindstone Campground at the base of Mount Rogers (elevation ~3500 ft). I hiked 6 miles to the shelter just below the summit, located around 5500 ft. wtih gorgeous views of the mountains in North Carolina. The shelter is along the Appalachian Trail, and is one of the nicer shelters around. Its two floors and we slept proabably around 14 people in there that night.

    Tuesday: I should mention that the weather on Monday was absolutely amazing. It was sunny with a few clouds in the sky, nice and clear, and perfect temperature for hiking. It remained gorgeous all week. Tuesday we woke up to an awesome sunrise on top of the mountain. It was cold and windy up there. I’m not sure what the temp. dropped to, but it had to be close to freezing. The sun felt good and it soon warmed up. After breakfast, I hiked over to Wilburn Ridge about a mile away and played around on the rocks for a while. Up there in the highlands are some herds of wild (feral) ponies which are now protected by the park. Then I headed across the Pine Mountain Trail which connected me back to the AT where I headed down the mountain to my next spot, Old Orchard shelter at around 4000 feet. When I got there, it was much warmer and sheltered from the high winds, so I had to change into shorts. I decided not to sleep in the shelter but pitch my tent and camp. It was a nice place to do that. It was a very serene area with lots of birds. Three Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers flew into camp and Barred Owls called to each other as the sun disappeared.

    Wednesday: From Old Orchard, it was only about 5 miles back to the car. My plan was to take the Lewis Fork Trail back to the Mount Rogers Trail (the one I hiked up) and camp at that intersection. However, it would have only been a 3-mile hike and getting to camp that early would have left me sitting around for a long time waiting for night fall. Also, there’s no water source near the camp site. So I made the decision to return to the car. I really didn’t want everything sitting out in the hot sun too long anyway. So I hiked down the Appalachian Trail to the road, which would have left me two miles from the car for a 3-mile day to end on. But, I decided that this hike should be worth something more. So I continued on the AT for another two miles until it intersected with the Iron Mountain trail. That brought me down to 3500 feet to a really awesome birding spot where I saw Hooded warblers, Chestnut-sided warblers, a Canada warbler, Blue-headed Vireo, a Veery, a Black-and-white warbler, Black-throated green warblers, Scarlet tanagers, Red-eyed vireos, and much more. It was awesome. That was at the main road. The trail intersections were two miles up the AT at 4500 feet. Its tough to go uphill after coming downhill for so long. But I made it up there and travelled a mile and a half along the Iron Mountain Trail before coming down on another trail that led me to the car. So, it ended up being about a 5-6 mile day.

    In all, the whole trip was only about 16 miles, and could have been done in two days, but it was so beautiful and relaxing up there that I had to stop and soak it in. It was so un-stressful and de-stressing. I can’t wait to go back.

    Of course, I’ll have photos soon for all to see. : )

    I reached the car at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday and was glad to get out of my boots. I drove out to the town of Marion and then made my way north to Fredericksburg, stopping in some towns along the way to see what was in them. I visited my friend Renee in Fredericksburg for a week and then came home. I’ll tell you more about that in another post.