Winter is back!

William on snowshoes in the Cascades

The snow has begun to fall in the mountains.  We spent the past weekend over in Bend and enjoyed both the snow - beautiful, fresh, fluffy powder, and the sunshine - crisp and clear.  Unfortunately, no downhill skiing was available at Bachelor, but we are ready for it as soon as we can get back over there.  In the mean time, it was still great to get out.  On Sunday I was able to get over to Badlands Wilderness and do the hike up Dry River Canyon for the first time.  I had been wanting to walk this ancient river course for a long time, and it was a perfect day for it.  Nice to have wilderness available in two directions in less time than it take me to get to work here.

Dry River Canyon

Veteran's Day in the Olympic Peninsula

Elhwa Dam removal

We spent the Veteran's Day weekend out at the Bogie again this year.  It is a perfect time for a trip to the Olympic Peninsula, since it is rainy pretty much everywhere in the Pacific Northwest so I might as well spend the weekend in the rain forest.  This year I got to see the Elhwa River dam removal project, which began this fall.  Unfortunately, the big one at Glines Canyon is not accessible for viewing, but the lower dam is.  Amazing project, I hope it goes well.  While we did get a fair amount of rain, we also had plenty of good weather and a couple of really nice starry night skies.  Perhaps we burned a hole in the clouds with our fire...

Enjoying a small campfire at the Bogie