The Long Walk Down

Arriving back at Chivay after the condor trip we prepared ourselves for three straight days of hiking in the canyon. The little pavilion at the start was mobbed with hikers; even though our tour consisted of just myself, Sylvia and the guide Eli, many tours start from here…serving as a reminder that Colca Canyon is Peru’s 3^rd biggest tourist attraction, getting over 100,000 visitors annually. A lot of people, but then Grand Canyon sees fifty times that many. Here as well is the ubiquitous Peruvian kiosk with bottled water, soda, snacks and hiking poles for sale. And a last-chance restroom with a manual-flush toilet (it’s called a bucket of water)…you could use it for the price of one sol (about 35 cents.) Beyond this, even bushes to hide behind would be in short supply.

Soon we were underway. It was barely mid-morning, maybe about 9 am. Some of the best views are those had early…sweeping vistas up and down the canyon. Again, comparing this to the Grand Canyon, Colca is not only deeper but much more precipitous…unlike the Colorado River which is miles from the rim and usually hidden from view beneath ledges and plateaus, the Colca River is entirely visible for those who dare to look straight down. This means that the downhill is much steeper, but also relatively fast (it takes half a day of hiking to reach the Colorado from the rim…a fast hiker can reach the Colca in perhaps three hours.)

As we walked, the entire hike unfolded right in front of us. This is one of the odd things about canyon hiking…from the start you can see everyplace you will go, often surprisingly close at hand. But once you get deeper into the canyon, the landscape swallowers everything. Now, all you can see is what the bending and twisting terrain will allow you to see, which is often as not deceptive. We had a brief glimpse of the Oasis, our second days destination, as we turned a bend. We would not see it again for over 48 hours.

While it was steep, the downhill is not especially difficult. There was only one section that I would consider dangerously rough, and this was very short (less than ten meters.) There were a few sections that pass under rock ledges, and these tended to be the rougher ones, and the guide urged us not to stop for long in these areas. But we saw no rockfall. The biggest threat was the sun…there were almost no shaded areas on the south side of the canyon at all…there are no trees except for one clump at the very start, and what few shady spots there are provided by folds in the canyon walls themselves (the microclimates of these little oasis are shockingly cool.) But these are few and far between; mostly, this is a long way down along a trail that is continuously in bright sun. As you get closer to the bottom, it gets hotter. And there is no water at all between rim and river except what you bring. By the time you gratefully reach the Rio Colca, it is obvious why an early start is considered mandatory on the ascent.

The river is crossed by means a large and impressive looking suspension foot bridge…which like all suspension bridges shakes alarmingly when crossed, but seems safe. After resting in the shelter of a boulder we turned sharply uphill to scale the river embankment, the first climb of the trip. Fortunately, elevation is not as much a factor at river level as on the rim. Eli the guide detoured us through a rough, jungle-like section to reach the final stop of the day; Roy’s Lodge in the village of San Juan de Chuccho.

The contrast between the barren south side of the canyon and the cultivated north side could hardly be greater. While not a tree stands on the sun-baked south wall, the north is not only lush but populated. Agricultural terraces shaded by orchard trees line the hillside, supported by systems of well maintained aqueducts. Villages dot the hillside in abundance. Crossing the river one leaves a starkly beautiful desert hellscape and enters a place that can truthfully be called a paradise, each separated by a moat of water perhaps twenty yards wide.

We sat down for a fine lunch at Roy’s, where we had a view of the canyon wall before us, and the lower part of the trail switch-backing down it. We were done for the day but some tourists were still making the laborious descent, in full view of us and in the full heat of mid-day.

After lunch and a tour of our accommodations (private cabins which included bathrooms, but no hot water and no electric lights) we went out for a walk with the guide. The abundance of foodstuffs growing here is incredible…pumpkins, figs, dates, avocados, various kinds of fruits and of course the staple of the Andean peoples, corn. Sadly, we also learned from Eli that the villages we saw are mostly metal-roofed derelicts. Despite its lushness, agriculture beyond the subsistence level is impossible in the canyon. You can grow food, but you can’t easily get it out of the canyon to market. With few opportunities for work or schooling, the young people of the villages are leaving for the cities. Those that stay are mostly the old, and those (like Roy’s family) that support the tourist infrastructure. In a few years, the culture will be entirely gone. Only the hotels and empty buildings will remain.

See our video here!

https://youtu.be/JolJogCsKmY

Next up: Walking Along the Colca

The Condors

At 1 am we rose groggily and began preparing to depart our hotel. Close proximity to a cobblestone main street, through which traffic never stopped rolling, had denied us any real possibility of sleep. Not exactly how you want to start five days of rigorous hiking, but such is the way of things in remote places like Peru. Everything is always far from everything else, and usually involves driving in a cramped, smelly vehicle over bad miles of bad roads and sometimes staying in less than ideal places. If you want to visit someplace convenient, I highly recommend the local shopping mall. If you want to visit someplace remote, beautiful and different…don’t expect that place to be convenient. I highly recommend Peru…indescribably beautiful and thoroughly inconvenient.

Anyway…our guide, Eli, arrived first. She turned out to be petite woman who appeared at first glance to be approximately 14 years old, but is both an experienced mountain guide and a stout hiker. The bus arrived not long after, and the driver was both behind schedule and furious at everyone. After hurling our backpacks into the rear of the vehicle, resulting in Sylvia’s glasses case and glasses hitting the ground, the driver hit the gas and off we went!

But it was another hour before we were on the road to Colca. First, the bus made a tour of hostels in the Arequipa area during the early morning hours, at one point having to backtrack a full half hour for someone. All the while the driver kept shouting at everyone. Apparently, he was upset because several people on the route were not ready when the bus arrived. In fact, it appeared NO ONE was ready. This probably had to do with the fact that everyone had been told a different pickup time. The only reason we were early was that we’d gotten the message thanks to Eli and the tour company…if not for that, we would have been hours behind schedule.

Eventually everyone was either aboard or had been left behind for later buses to extract, and we were in fact on our way. The driver eventually brightened up enough to start joking with Eli and another guide named Roy who had grown up in the canyon…we would later stay in the hostel owned by his family.

We arrived soon at a restaurant in Chivay where were given breakfast…here, we were allowed to leave behind some of our gear for later retrieval. This came a great surprise to us, one of those things that would have been very helpful to know in advance but never seems to be communicated. We cached several pieces of gear that we simply did not need for the Colca trip, but would need later for Misti. Only after would we learn that all this had been arranged between Eli and some of the staff, and the people who ran the restaurant were not entirely pleased with it. But our knees and backs would thank us later.

The first stop on the tour would be the Cruz del Condors, or Cross of the Condors, a popular viewpoint atop one of the deepest sections of the canyon. As the name implies, you can see Condors here. And not just a few Condors…in the Grand Canyon a few years back, I had seen a couple of these birds at a distance and had been impressed. Here you can see a whole flock. Sylvia had visited this place before and told me that the trick was to stay quiet, and with luck, you can see the condors rising majestically out of the Canyon.

Well, since then the condors must have become a bit more used to humans. It was ANYTHING but quiet on the rim. There were scores of buses lined up on the road idling amidst a cacophony of horns, alarms, backup warning, voices, cameras clicking, people yelling and screaming and tourists from every point on the planet lining the rails, jockeying for position. It’s a miracle more people don’t fall to their death here, and for all I know, maybe they do and that’s how they keep the condors fed. (The Condor, for all its majesty, is basically a large vulture.)

But not long after we arrived, and despite the chaos on the rim, here came the condors rising out of the canyon like performers in a well-rehearsed act. And not just a few, and not just far away…at one point we had at least eight in view, with more sitting on a ledge below, and some of them passed within fifty feet of our view point. There is absolutely no doubt this is a HUGE and majestic bird…check out our video if you don’t believe me. Kiss doesn’t put on a more choreographed act than these birds.

After thirty minutes of condor-seeing we were herded back into the buses and we moved on. It was time to get hiking. It was our turn to go down into the canyon, but unlike the great birds, we were taking the earthbound route.

See our video on youtube here!

https://youtu.be/io-Vk5orQiY

Next up: Walking Along the Colca

From the bottom to the top, Colca Canyon

Finally, after weeks of preparation, it was time to go.

I touched down in Peru on May 15…Sylvia had gone before me and was waiting with her family to pick me up. This is the first time that “Gringo Grande” had flown into Peru alone; during that time I had worked to improve my range of conversational Spanish from nill to approximately the level of a latino Tarzan. I made it through the airport with no issues though, and after a day spent in Lima we boarded plane for the hour-long flight to Arequipa, Peru’s second largest, and by most accounts most charming, city.

The flight was not without some moments of excitement, the most serious being that the airline had overbooked and we were left without a seat. Eventually a seat was found…but only one. Sylvia wisely seated me, the Gringo, in the open seat and then, when the next seat opened, sat herself immediately down in it before the flight crew could react…and then refused to yield. This was just days after a well-publicized video of a man being hauled off a United Flight had gone viral. The airline was in no mood to argue; after a somewhat testy altercation with a trio of irritated women who apparently thought this seat belonged to them, the plane took off and all was well. The flight itself was uneventful, and I amused myself looking out the window watching the shockingly barren landscape of the Atcama desert pass by, punctuated by snow capped mountains and volcanos in some cases over 20,000 feet high. At one point my lofty view afforded me an early glimpse of Colca Canyon, distant but impossibly deep and menacing. As we neared the city, there on the horizon loomed the unmistakable cone of the famed El Misti…the active volcano that we planned to climb.

But it was only after landing that I fully understood the scale of this massive mountain. As we exited the jet bridge, I saw (across a runway disturbingly strewn with pieces of airplane fuselage, some with the seats still in them) Misti not looking down on us, but TOWERING over the city. It reminded me that the volcano is just six kilometers from the center of the city and an eruption at this point would be…less than good.

But it was not erupting today. The summit was wreathed in a small circle of snow, what looked to be only a dusting…which was to my relief, since one of my concerns had been the very real possibility of having to summit in icy conditions neither of us were prepared for. I could rest easy at least as far as that was concerned. (As it turns out, the ascent was by the opposite – eastern – face, which we could not yet see. There was no snow at all on that side.)

A driver was waiting for us and this guy at last had my name right (in 2012 when I first toured Peru, the name that proceeded me at every stop was some combination of “Ryan" and "Francis.” We proceeded through the streets to our Hotel just a few blocks from the center of Arequipa, the Plaza Del Armas. Compared to Lima, the traffic seemed light, though we were warned it could get ugly. It was twilight when we arrived…we had another day in Arequipa in which to acclimate, though the cities elevation is a modest (by Andean standards) 7,700 feet.

We did the usual tourist destinations the next day, including the magnificent main cathedral, the interesting and sprawling Monastery of Santa Catalina, and several prominent viewpoints.

We returned to our hotel to discover the next of the many awkward surprises of the trip: our ride would be there to pick us up the next morning at 2 am…NOT the 6 am start time we had been told previously. This meant less time to sleep, and more importantly, less time to prepare. Having five days hiking ahead of us and only sketchy details about logistics, we had to make the best of it, taking as much gear as we possibly could…we figured on having to carry all the gear we needed for Misti into the canyon too. It turns out there would be more surprises and many things that it would have been good to know about beforehand…but that’s the reality of travelling in Peru, you must adapt to any number of shifting circumstances. We packed our bags, set our alarm, and got as much sleep as we could -  which, thanks to the noisy street outside and a room with no air conditioning, was very little.

See our videos of Arequipa online at YouTube!

https://youtu.be/hdNEs0EqM1M

https://youtu.be/SjPMcOWlqCY

Next up: The Condors

The Smokies

With Peru looming, I found myself in search for a bigger challenge. After all we were about to hike in the Andes, the second highest mountain chain on earth, with trail conditions almost impossible to simulate locally. We needed a trail considered to be a fair challenge, and on a big mountain, at least by local standards.

The trail that satisfied all these criteria is the same one that I had been avoiding for nearly a decade now – the Alum Cave Trail to the summit of Mt. Leconte. Though actually located in Tennessee, the Alum Cave Trail is very popular among Carolina hikers (it’s just a few miles from Newfound Gap, the NC/TEN border.) It’s also just tremendously popular in general…maybe THE most hiked trail in the most visited National Park in the US. Partly because of the crowds, partly because of logistics (it’s hours away) and partly because the trail was closed for nearly two years while improvements were in progress, I had not yet attempted it. Though it has a reputation of having some badly eroded sections, recent work had supposedly improved many of the more hazardous sections. I decided that we could spend a weekend to strike at it, overnighting near my least favorite town in the US – Gatlinburg TN. (Sorry…I know it’s a beautiful place folks. Unfortunately, so do the other 35,000 or so people who jam into it on summer and fall weekends.)

The trick in hiking the Smokies is…

1.      Avoiding the throngs in Gatlinburg (or the East side casino town of Cherokee)

2.      Securing a campsite

3.      Beating the heat

If you try any this on Summer or Fall color peak weekends, you are basically doomed. Fortunately, it was mid spring, a good time to be in the Southern mountains, so the weather was mild and the park only moderately crowded. We left early on Saturday, got to the park about 3 PM and easily secured a campsite in Elkmont Campground. This done, we prepared to set out the next morning for the summit of Mt. Leconte, one of the highest mountains in the Appalachians at 6593 feet. The Alum Cave Trail has a reputation for being steep, rough in sections, and difficult in bad weather…but also one of the most scenic in the South. For those getting ready for a good, rough bit of walking, this seems like the place.

The trailhead, off US 441, the main North/South corridor through the park, is impossible to miss…look for the scores of cars parked by the road. The park service has done quite a bit of work here building new overflow parking lots with toilets, etc, and we were able to find a space without much trouble. Still, despite the fact that we arrived at the trailhead just after 8 am, most of the parking spaces were full. Leconte is also home to a famed lodge of the same name located near its summit; many of these parked vehicles belonged to people who had scaled the peak the day before and overnighted at the Lodge. I was also interested in checking out the Lodge myself.

The first mile of the trail follows a stream and is quite level and wide. This section bears much evidence of the high traffic it has been subjected to for years. At 1.3 miles, the trail crosses the stream on a log bridge and begins a steep ascent, passing through the rock formation know as Arch Rock. This formation alone would probably justify hiking this part of the trail. After leaving Arch Rock behind the trail goes ever more steeply uphill, then down and up again, passing the first of the badly eroded sections the trail is famed for. Soon it passes some nice viewpoints (the last view below the cave is perhaps the best one on the trail.) At 2.2 miles the unmistakable landmark that gives the trail its name finally comes into view. Alum Cave Bluff is, as its name suggests, not really a cave; it’s actually a rather remarkable rock bluff over 80 feet high, located at an elevation of nearly 5000 feet. Here, the recent work by the NPS to improve the trail was much in evidence.

The cave marks the furthest point most day hikers will venture, and the place is usually quite crowded (as it was when we returned past it some hours after summiting.) This is however only the halfway point of this trip…the trail continues another 2.7 miles to a confluence with the Rainbow Falls Trail just minutes from the door of the Mt. Leconte Lodge. For those who will venture further, the remainder of the trail is steep, much rougher in places, and much less travelled.

Needless to say, Sylvia and I did continue on past the cave. I found the infamous rough areas to be far less of a challenge than I had anticipated; compared to sections of trail considered rough in New England, they present little difficulty to the average hiker. There was only one short bit (the notorious one that traverses the top of a precipitous slide) that might be called dangerously exposed. There is no question that in icy conditions this could be far more challenging, and then the steel cables that are bolted to some sections of the trail in the manner of Via Ferrata would be of great use.

After joining with the Rainbow Falls Trail, whose lower approaches we hiked on a waterlogged day in 2009, it is just a short walk to the lodge. The Leconte Lodge is an interesting historical landmark that is also the highest full service Inn in the eastern US. To be clear: The lodge is a collection of very rustic cabins. This was much to Sylvia’s dismay. She rated the lodge very poor and not up to her expectations, giving it just one and a half fu’s on the fu-fu scale. Looks like we won’t be staying there anytime soon.

Anyway…from the lodge it is another half mile to the summit of Leconte, the sixth highest point in the Appalachians. There is however no view there; the two best viewpoints are from the west facing Cliff Tops and the east facing Myrtle Point. We chose the Cliff Tops, less than 1000 feet away. It turns out this short stretch of trail was by far the roughest section we hiked all day. On the Cliff Tops were fine panoramic views of the surrounding mountains and nearby Gatlinburg; you could clearly see the swaths devastated by the recent fires. A man with a set of bagpipes was playing there, which was somewhat inspiring but also somewhat annoying. Guess it depends how much you like guys in kilts and bagpipe music. We were told this guy is a frequent visitor to the lodge. But at any rate he left after a while and we had the views pretty much to ourselves.

The return trip was entirely uneventful and we were back at the car about six and a half hours after we started. From the trailhead we drove south and east across the Smokies, avoiding the roadblock of Gatlinburg, and back east through our favorite NC city of Asheville, stopping in Cherokee, NC for a bite to eat.

We judge the Alum Cave Trail to be within the ability of any hiker, as long as they are prepared for a long (5+ miles) and unrelenting ascent, and an equally long descent. There is no part of this trail that we consider unusually dangerous or difficult, though we would recommend that it be done when ice is not present on the trail.

The views from the trail are very fine, though I noted once again a troubling haze in the air somewhat diminished from the experience. This has happened many times in the Smokies, possibly as a result of pollution from power plants and industry in the midwest…My continued opinion is that the best hikes in the Appalachian range are those to be had in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and in Western Maine. But that should not dissuade anyone from doing this great and challenging hike, among the best I have done in the Smokies. Sylvia gives a sharp thumbs-down to the Leconte Lodge which she pronounced to be ‘crappy’ and ‘not majestic’ and ‘disappointing’ as well as having very rudimentary bathroom facilities, which may be the source of the crappy comment.

All in all, a good hike and I was pleased with our performance. There remained only one thing…to go forth to Peru and see how well we do!

See our movie of the trip here!

https://youtu.be/KWSVL7y_fcc

NEXT UP: From the bottom to the top, Colca Canyon.

The Build Up: Hanging Rock

Our conditioning as usual starts off in our favorite get-ready-for the-big-stuff hiking place…Hanging Rock State Park. Hanging Rock, in Danbury NC, is a surprisingly rugged little place, located about 30-40 miles south of the Blue Ridge and not far from the cities of Greensboro and Winston Salem. Due to its proximity to urban areas, it’s overrun with people on peak weekends, but if you catch it at the right time it’s a fine park with miles of solid trails.  Not only is this a great place to condition, it’s really a very good place in and off itself with fine views of Greensboro, Winston Salem, Charlotte, Pilot Mountain and a wide swath of the Blue Ridge.

We like Hanging Rock over any other NC state park east of the Blue Ridge; the trails are aerobically challenging and have superior views. Though not close (two plus hours drive) it is closer than the Blue Ridge or Smokies, and while challenging, the trails and elevation gains are mostly modest. Usually we stop off at Winston-Salem for a quick bite to eat on the return trip.

https://www.ncparks.gov/hanging-rock-state-park

We did the first of these hikes in March on my birthday, when we hiked the hanging rock/wolf rock trail with a side trip along the Indian Creek Trail to Window Falls and Hidden Falls (which, contrary to the name, is not particularly well hidden.) None of these is an especially difficult trail but together they make for a surprisingly good workout.

The second hike we did a couple weeks later, and this is the other of the park’s major trails, the Moore’s Wall Loop…which hits the highest point (and best view-point) in the park, 2,579 Moore’s Knob. This prominence is also popular with rock climbers. There is an old stone tower here and the views from it, and the surrounding rock slabs, are very nice on a good day (one can see all the way the skyscrapers of Charlotte far to the south.) This was also the very first trip filmed with the GoPro…the crude results more an experiment than anything but still came out pretty well.

But while this was a fine start it was not enough. We needed one more good shakeout though prior to Peru and this one needed to be a step up in challenge. We were, after all, panning on doing some serious stuff. In search of a trail, my eyes turn South and west, across the blue ridge to the Smoky Mountains, to a trail that is almost a rite of passage among Southern Appalachian hikers…and one I had been putting off for a long time.

NEXT UP: The Smokies

From the Bottom to the Top…Peru 2017

2017 found us finally through most of the overdue stuff we needed to do to get the house in shape (which is more suitable for a future home improvement blog.) The time was ripe for another adventure but where?

We had considered doing the Alps this year but ruled it out for a number of reasons. Firstly, travelling to Europe is costly. Last time I checked, the Alps are in Europe. Until they move the Alps out of Europe these majestic mountains will likely remain a costly venture. The second problem is that the main languages spoken in most Alpine locations are French, Italian or German. Though we are a bi-lingual household, those languages ain’t either of them. Finally, there were serious questions in my mind about whether I was ready to attempt the serious challenge of Alpine trekking. My left knee, always problematic, has basically forced me to end my ‘shambling career’ (others know this as running) at least for the foreseeable future. It’s not easy to stay in shape if you can’t run; especially if you are, like me, a man who is ‘fond of food.’  And if the knee hurts running how will it stand up to coming down a mountainside?

At any rate, we weren’t ready for the Alps, yet. Not this year. Instead we decided to attempt something I had my eye on for some time: Colca Canyon in Peru. We had visited Peru in 2011 and 2015 and (see my blog entries for the Santa Cruz Trek) and these had been among the best things I had ever done; plus it’s an opportunity for Sylvia to visit her family in Peru. We did no major trekking in 2016 at all, but I was confident that we could both handle the challenge of Colca.

(photo By Cédric Liénart (Geoced) - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=25350521)

Colca Canyon

Colca Canyon, located near Peru’s second largest city of Arequipa, is the world’s second deepest canyon (the world’s deepest is also in Peru, actually a few hours drive to the Northwest of Colca.) It is one of Peru’s biggest tourist attractions. Sylvia had visited the canyon before, but not hiked into it. My research of the canyon removed any doubt that would were up to its physical challenges. The elevation of the rim, while not insubstantial, is far less than the worst we have done; the hike goes from hostel to hostel, so no tenting needed; and you can hike it with a very light pack. I did the Grand Canyon rim to rim in 2003 and found it to be within the ability of most hikers. All things pointed toward this being equally great adventure that the both of us should be able to do, no problem.

(photo courtesy Valentin)

MIsti – The Bigger Challenge

As we began the preparation of this hike, Sylvia asked me at one point…why not add a hike of Misit? Misti, if you don’t know, is the massive stratovolcano that looms ominously above the city of Arequipa. It is one of the most iconic mountains in the world, having that almost perfectly tapering conic shape that the mind assigns to the word ‘volcano’ (though in fact, few of them are shaped exactly like that.) It is also a BIG mountain and a formidable challenge. Though considered a walking peak (no mountaineering gear or training is required to summit) it is nonetheless quite challenging, mostly because of altitude. Misti stands 19,101 feet above sea level, making it by far and away the highest thing either of us have attempted to hike. In fact, it towers a thousand meters above the highest point on the Santa Cruz Trek…Punta Union.

After pondering it for a while, and pouring over trip reports, I decided that we could PROBABLY climb this mountain. The main issue was altitude; if we could master the elevation, the trail itself is not an issue. I have hiked volcanos before; all trail descriptions of Misti pointed to a surface of loose ash, quite steep in places; these are conditions not unlike what I hiked before at the top third of Mt. St. Helens (2007) and Haleakala (2014.) Sylvia did some investigation and after speaking with the travel company and procuring an itinerary, I was sold. The excitement was building…we would attempt to climb not only one of the world’s deepest canyons, but one of the world’s highest walkable peaks…all in one trip!

Nice little map tourist shows it all...

(Map courtesy Pablo Tour)

NEXT UP: The Build Up!

Here's a picture or two to whet your appetite...

Grand -re-re-opening of the blog.

Well there have not been too many posts lately because, frankly, I haven't made any. This is not so much because I have had no time (the usual excuse) or that I was 'too busy doing other things' or distracted; it is mostly because I couldn't be bothered with it. It takes a lot of work to blog; if you enjoy the outdoors, shouldn't you rather be outdoors than blogging? It turns out I also enjoy a lot of other things like playing video games, watching hockey and (as Sylvia would tell you) doing nothing..

Blogs are a bit like gardens...if not continually maintained, they fall into disuse; and blogging is a lot like gardening in that it requires not only a lot of work but continual re-work. It strikes me that the finest blogs I see online are not only those with the best content,  pictures and graphics, but those that are continually updated. The best blogs are the most highly evolved, iteration by iteration. If you don't do something constantly it can never be perfected; it can never be great. True of gardening, true of anything that requires skill. It's certainly true of blogging.

So, I am going to re-re-open the blog with the idea of evolving it to the next level; if not perfect than perfected. There's actually been quite a few adventures since the last time I checked in. We've been back to Peru, and we visited the state of Washington last year. In addition we've had many adventures in NC and neighboring states. We have, in short, plenty to talk about.

I'll start with this years adventures and, if time and interest permit, I'll circle back and show some of what we did last year. Time to get this blog evolving again.