Category Archives: Travel Stories

What’s your travel style?

When I think about the way I travel and the way others travel, there are two extremes at the ends of a spectrum: on one side, we fit in everything we can see during our limited time at a destination; … Continue reading

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Fourth of July

For many years, I have spent my Fourth of July basking in the part of America that I enjoy the most: its wild and natural beauty. It started in 2011 when I explored the Hobo Cedar Grove for the first … Continue reading

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Sand Mountain Trail

I don’t get out hiking or geocaching often these days. With geocaching, it makes sense. I’ve found nearly all of the geocaches in a close distance to home and town, forcing me to travel farther distances just to make a … Continue reading

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Hells Canyon, Episode 2

Happy Memorial Day everyone. I had originally planned to spend the long weekend down in the Alvord Desert of southeastern Oregon with friends and the family. We would have been camping, hiking, birding, herping, and soaking in hot springs. But … Continue reading

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Moscow Mountain Snowshoe

Saturday, January 14, 2017 It’s not often that I get out to hike these days. But we’ve had a fantastic winter so far, and after a week of insanely cold temperatures and clear weather, I just had to get out … Continue reading

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Adventures with Clara: Hobo Cedar Grove

The Hobo Cedar Grove is a nice easy 1-mile hike through a grove of giant old-growth trees. It is the perfect hike for toddlers to explore nature, which is why we brought Clara up there on Sunday. She enjoyed the … Continue reading

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Grandmother Mountain

I finally got some time to get up to Freezeout to hike Grandmother Mountain. The flowers are out and it’s quite pretty, though it’s not the best year for flowers that I’ve seen. It could be that I got up … Continue reading

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July 4 Update and Clara in Spokane

It’s been over a month since my last update. There haven’t been any major adventures due to time and financial constraints. As I aim to write and finish my dissertation, the time for such outings decreases and thus this summer … Continue reading

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White Pine Loop & Bomber Too

Last week, Clara and I had a day to ourselves, so we had a little adventure on a nearby trail. The white pine loop is a 3-mile hike from the White Pine campground off of Idaho Rt. 6. A one-mile (one-way) … Continue reading

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Canoeing on the Palouse River

March is such a bipolar month in Idaho. One day it can be cold and snowy and the next can be sunny and 60. So while we had cold rain during the weekend of our canoe trip, this past weekend … Continue reading

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Canoeing the St. Joe

Hello. I realize it’s been quite some time since my last post. That’s what happens when you get into dissertation writing mode. Life tends to cease and all you can think about is finishing this damn thesis. As a result, … Continue reading

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Seattle

In the 5 years living out here, I haven’t been to Seattle other than to catch the ferry over to the Olympic Peninsula. So when four of my college buddies from Drew mentioned they were converging in the city for a … Continue reading

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Wallowas Weekend 2015

After a long summer with not much exploring, the pace has changed and I’ve had a fairly busy two weeks. The series begins with the return of the Annual Wallowas Weekend. In the six Septembers that I have lived here, … Continue reading

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Seven Devils on the Fourth of July

What do you do when temperatures rise above 100º F? Seek relief at very high elevations. This June was one of the hottest on record for the northwest with several days above 100 degrees in Moscow. So when my friends … Continue reading

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Alaska

I was in Alaska from June 10-17. This trip was mostly about business with a little bit of pleasure while I was out there. I attended the 2015 meeting of the Animal Behavior Society. This wasn’t my first scientific meeting. … Continue reading

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East Moscow Mountain

[map style=”width: auto; height:400px; margin:20px 0px 20px 0px; border: 1px solid black;” gpx=”http://www.mineral2.com/wp-content/uploads/Moscow Mountain Hike.GPX”] I had heard about the big trees on Moscow Mountain, but I had yet to experience them for myself. I first drove the road along the … Continue reading

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Small hikes near Moscow

The end of the semester is a busy time, and that often means foregoing larger adventures for some smaller ones closer to home. In the last week, I’ve been trying to keep active and take advantage of the local trails. … Continue reading

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Blue Mountains: Panjab Loop

We open the 2015 hiking season with a fairly big hike in the Blue Mountains. The Panjab loop takes us up the Panjab Creek trail and back down via the Rattlesnake Trail in the Wenaha Tucannon Wilderness. This hike is … Continue reading

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Annual Wallowas Weekend 2014

[map style=”width: auto; height:400px; margin:20px 0px 20px 0px; border: 1px solid black;” gpx=”http://www.mineral2.com/wp-content/uploads/Selected Data from wallowas 2014.GPX”] The annual Wallowas Weekend tradition kinda took a hiatus for a couple of years. In 2012, Tyler had to pull out of the … Continue reading

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Oregon Butte

In a world where there are so many playgrounds at arm’s reach, the Blue Mountains of southeastern Washington are so often overlooked. They’re not as tall as the surrounding mountain ranges – the highest point is just shy of 6400 … Continue reading

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