300 feet. 0.7 miles. Almost a year later, I refuse to believe either of those numbers. According to AllTrails, it’s only 0.7 miles from St. Mary Falls to Virginia Falls by trail. You only have to go up 300 feet to get there. Neither of those felt remotely true. 30000 steps. My Fitbit passed that …
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Glacier National Park: St. Mary Falls
A little rubbery in the knees, but otherwise alright. That was my self-assessment inside the RAV-4 at Siyeh Bend as we sat out the angry spits of rain. It was only early afternoon on July 15, and Elizabeth and I faced the age-old question: what to do now that we’d finished a 9-mile hike several …
Seattle Weekend 2023: Snoqualmie Falls
Here’s the thing about long weekend trips: they’re actually quite short. This is especially true when you worked until 11:00 on Friday night, and then you flew two time zones away on Saturday morning. All of a sudden, you have a long Saturday afternoon, and then a fun early Sunday, and then you’re out of …
Guest Post: Elizabeth and the Bear
Note: Elizabeth is my fiancee and my hiking companion on the route to Piegan Pass on 15 July 2022 when we saw a grizzly bear just off-trail. Elizabeth has generously written a blog post about her experience. Her account has been lightly edited. I always thought I had a “healthy” fear of bears. Nolan and …
Glacier National Park: Piegan Pass
The top of the continent was windy. Yeah, I know that hardly qualifies as a surprise. Piegan Pass sits at 7,600 feet, well above the tempering influence of any trees this close to the international border. That’s part of why the view here was so incredible. The views to the south and east of Piegan …
February 26, 2023 Tornado Outbreak: Working From the Bear’s Cage
Hopefully the first six months you have at a new job aren’t an omen. If they are, then NWS Norman is in for a ride over the next however long I work here. I’d already seen some wild stuff *before* last week. I was in the office way back on November 5 working TAFs as …
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Seattle Weekend 2023: Blake Island
When Elizabeth woke up on the morning of January 15, I had the lights in Michael’s apartment set to a dim purple and I was nearing the one-hour mark of using his massage chair. That’s easily the best massage chair I’ve ever used, fyi. It got to all sorts of places (including your wrists!). I …
Glacier National Park: Hiking to Piegan Pass
Grey pre-dawn light filtered into the tent. The air was perfectly still at Sprague Creek. There wasn’t a sound – except for my phone alarm, which had woken me up not long after 5:00 a.m. just like it was supposed to. Outside of the fact that I did not wanted to be awoken from my …
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Glacier National Park: Sprague Creek
Miffed. I remember being miffed when Elizabeth and I reentered Glacier National Park for the first time in a day during the evening of 14 July. Why had we gone to all of the effort of purchasing a GTSR vehicle reservation if people could just pour into the national park unimpeded? It was surprising to …
Seattle 2023: Day One
2023 is upon us. I’ve now been operating this blog for about 3 years. The difference between being a 22-year-old with a blog and the person I am today is quite stark. Back then, I started those posts so that one day I could remember the details of the peak years of my life. Now, …
