2 posts in one day!!?? More vacation stuff.

Well, I should be working but I thought I would try to make another post while I was at it. The big hike for the week in Montana was to Pine Creek Lake. Elevation 9,077'. The hike is a mere 5 miles but it starts out at 5,600' elevation so there is the challenge of climbing a mere 3,400' of elevation in the 5 miles. The first mile of the trail is actually pretty tame, but it is all uphill from there!

We actually hiked to the lower falls earlier in the week as a family and we got some pictures with Eli at the lower falls then.





From there the trail starts with the switchbacks to get to the top of the falls and the switchbacks continue for was seems like forever. Last winter was a big snow year in Montana so I was hoping that there would still be some snow at the lake although it was the very end of July when we were headed up there.

I started to see some snow on the other side of the valley and then hit some snow with still about a mile left to get to the lake.


As we made it to the top I was greeted with the large snow bank I had remembered the last time I was up there although that year we made the hike around the first of July instead of the end of July.



This is one of my favorite views with the double waterfalls and the little catch lake underneath.


But the view of the lake itself truly is worth the hike.




I thought this was a good picture of the trail on the way back down. If you open up the picture to the larger size and look really closely you can see some of the switchbacks going down the mountainside.



One thing that I decided on this hike was that I need to get in shape for my elk hunting trip to Wyoming in September. I thought I was going to have a heart attack and it took 4 hours to hike up there. Where we are planning on hunting in Wyoming is only 7,000' elevation and I didn't really start having problems until about that elevation on this hike, but it made me realize that it would for sure be a good idea.

Well I think that's it for this post. It sure was beautiful up there.

Okay, I'm slow. Another report on our vacation.

Well, just for giggles I took one of my trail cameras with me on vacation in Montana a few weeks ago. I tried a few spots with little success and then setup on this spring in a burned area.





It was on public land and I figured there was a chance at losing the camera but I didn't. I got 2 pictures of hikers looking at the spring but they didn't seem to notice the camera.

I was hoping for a bear but no luck. I did see a 2 year old bear in person about 50 yards away that was completely oblivious to me until I woofed at it and it ran up the hill.

There were a bunch of different cows and calves and they were VERY curious about the camera. At first I thought a bear must have been there because when I went to get it the first time it was crooked on the tree and there was mud on the front and back of the camera.





There were a bunch like this where they were checking out the camera up close and personal. They ended up getting mud all over the camera and knocked it off kilter a bit. I saw the mud and thought a bear must have messed with it, but it turns out it was just an elk's muddy nose.



It was fun and I was glad I set it up. The SD cards are really amazing, the one with these pictures on it went through the laundry when we got home and it still works!

First report from our Vacation in Montana

Okay, after not posting for a couple weeks, I think I may end up with some overload. We're back from our annual vacation to a church camp in Montana and had a great time. I brought my new to me motorcycle (a 2006 Suzuki DR650) and one of our ATV's also. I posted this as a ride report on www.advrider.com so I thought I would post it here on my blog as well. I'll be posting on some trail camera pictures of some Elk that I got and also some of the hikes that we went on as well. Not sure if I will get those posted today or not though.

I bought my 2006 DR650 with 1,100 miles on it on July 22nd and hauled it on vacation with me up to Montana on July 25th. I've ridden street bikes for over 20 years and ridden ATV's for a couple years but the DR650 is my first off road bike.

I ran several easier gravel roads during the week and on Friday decided to try to take the bike up Arrastra Creek. I had gone up the trail about 2 miles earlier in the week but it was getting late and decided it was too challenging for me. After thinking about it a few days I decided I would give it another try.

The trail is closed to full size vehicles but open to both motorcycles and ATVs. I also brought one of my ATVs with me so I had a friend come along on the ATV and he is the one that took most of the pictures.

The trail starts out pretty easy but gets rocky less than a 1/4 mile in.

I was a little leary of the rocks, most were loose and some were pretty large. It got worse as we got farther along.

The switchbacks were endless. This was a decent representative of most of them. They got steeper and tighter to the point that my friend riding the ATV couldn't stop and take pictures anymore or he couldn't get going again so I don't have any pictures of the worst ones.

Keep in mind that the 2 tracks you see are about 2' apart, this is an ATV trail, those aren't vehicle tracks.

This is where I turned around the first day. I don't think I'm a very good dirt bike rider yet, but I'm stubborn so after a short pit stop we decided to push on.

Looking back on the trail from the pit stop.

After a week of ownership I think I made the right choice between the KLR650 and the DR650. I am tall (6'2") but only have a 32" inseam so I can flat foot the DR pretty easily on flat ground, but on a trail it is a different story. Being a novice off road rider, I think the KLR being taller and heavier would have had it ending up on the ground a few times, the DR came close to being on the ground a few times, but because it was lower and lighter I was able to keep it from falling over.

Here's a picture of me crossing a little stream on the bike.

More pictures of the trail. These rocks were very challenging to me going up and even more so going down.

This was the first destination. A small lake at just over 9,200 feet elevation. Where were were staying about 10 miles down the road was at 5,600 feet.

I think this is my favorite picture of the ride.

And a closeup with my ugly mug in it.

We were making good time and my confidence was building so we decided to make a run to the top. There were some no tresspassing signs that I hadn't remembered from the past, but they were off the trail and I decided that meant we could stay on the trail but just not to leave it.

The trail to the top is much steeper and rockier than the ride to the small lake. We didn't get any pictures on that part of the ride. At several points I was spinning the rear tire (I still have the stock trail wings on there for now) with both feet down on the ground helping to push the bike up the hill. Coming back down was even more difficult, the large rocks didn't help much while you are creeping down to a steep tight and loose switchback under heavy braking. They would just stop the front wheel in it's tracks and then I would have to catch the bike and get it over the rock and on down the trail. I talked to a couple experienced riders who have been to the top and they both said it was a very difficult trail for them as well. The margin of error if you got out of control going down is very slim.

Here's a picture from the top looking back on the switchbacks that we came up. At the very top left of the picture you can see the trail that I took a picture of looking back from where we stopped for our pit stop coming up.

Here's one with the bike in the picture. Yes that is snow and yes it was August 1st when we were there.

A couple more pictures to end on from the top. My GPS read 9,993 ft where I had the bike parked. Not that high compared to some spots in Colorado, but since we started at 5,600 feet less than 10 miles away we did some serious climbing to get there.


I was happy to get the bike up and back down without dropping it. Probably not the wisest choice of trails for only having owned the bike for just over a week at the time but it worked out. It was much more difficult than I thought it would be compared to having ridden the same trail on an ATV in the past. Not sure if I will get better and this will change or if it will always be more challenging on the bike than on an ATV. It will probably be a while before I get to ride a trail anywhere close to as challenging as this one was (most likely until next year when I go back to Montana).

I did ride the DR on pavement for the first time and it rode pretty well I thought. I do think I am going to buy a full face street helmet to wear on longer rides where I won't be doing any serious off road action though, the off road helmet was really noisy and that little visor thing can sure catch some wind at 90.

Well that's the end of my first report. I had a great time and thought I would share my first real ride.

Nathan

Is this blog still alive?

Sorry it has been so long since I've posted. I've actually been pretty busy and just don't seem to be able to find the time to post. (Excuses, excuses..)

I'm going to start trying to start posting more again.

I just took some pictures of Eli out at the pond and thought that they turned out really well. The water lilies are doing great and I counted 21 blooms today. I usually don't get to see them during the day, and the blooms close in the evening so it was really nice to see them doing so well.


Things are going well down on the property, the fields that I planted are doing really well considering the rain that we've had and the amount of work that I put into them.



The two older bucks that have been showing up on camera are sticking around still, they are continuing to grow their new antlers.



That's about it for now, I don't want to overload anyone who has been expecting to see nothing new posted like the last couple months!

I'll try to get back to posting once a week again.

Nathan

Nothing Exciting....

Nothing too exciting this week. Planted some pumpkins and mowed the yard. Working on getting a drip irrigation system installed so I'm researching that and working on getting the supplies. It will be a couple weeks before I can work on getting it installed though. Been busy at work and not much else going on. That's about it for now!

Taking off work to work!

Well, I took a day off work Friday to go down to the land and finish planting. I actually drove down on Thursday night and got up at 7 Friday morning and worked pretty much nonstop until 7 that evening and then hauled home.

I got the big field planted although I'm not sure how well it is going to turn out. It was almost 6 weeks from when I hired my neighbor to disc it for me until I finally got the last of it planted and some of the stuff I planted 2 weeks ago had either been washed out by the big rains or somehow still wasn't germinated because there were several places where the sorghum hadn't come up yet. The red ripper peas looked like they had come up pretty good for the most part though. I'm not going to replant so we will see how it turns out I guess.

Here is a picture of the tractor about 1/2 way done with planting. The weeds that you see in the picture really aren't that bad, it just looks that way from this angle. It wasn't a perfect seed bed though by any means.

Here is a wide angle view showing how big the field really is. The tractor is still in the picture if you squint hard enough you can see it!


Here are some pictures of the winter wheat, oats, triticale and winter pea mix that I planted last fall. We had a pretty dry winter but it is looking okay. I don't think many of the winter peas made it, mostly it is triticale with wheat next then oats. This is a 2 acre field in the foreground with a 13 acre field behind the tree line in the distance.

Here is a closeup of one of the better looking spots.

The triticale is a blue green color and that is why it doesn't look as green as you would think.

The bad news is that the tractor is leaking diesel fuel again. After the last time taking it apart I am regretting it already and am not happy that it seems like they did a poor job fixing it so that is going to take another 8 hours or so of my time to pull it all apart again to get the tank fixed again. I'm debating whether I should just break down and buy a new tank but at $500 vs $50 for the repair I am still on the fence.

Other than that things are going pretty well. Mother's Day went very well and Cathy got the day off of watching Eli on Saturday and most of Sunday as well.

Eli is growing like a weed. I posted a bunch of pictures of him in the photo gallery on our website.

That's about it for now.

Nathan

An uneventful weekend. (Well somewhat eventful)

Well, this weekend turned out to be pretty uneventful, especially compared to last weekend.

During the week, we went to a conference in Laughlin, Nevada and by the end of the trip we were all pretty sleep deprived (Eli didn't sleep very well in the hotel room) and we were very ready to get home.

We traveled back to Lubbock with my niece and her two sons and got home around 11pm Thursday night and then on Friday afternoon celebrated my Mom's 80th birthday at my sisters house. I forgot the camera so no pictures of that but it was very nice and all of my Mom's sisters got together and that was nice.

On Saturday I played taxi running people to the airport and then just crashed at the house that afternoon. Sunday was uneventful and I got a good nap in and then processed the pig that had been on ice on the back porch all week.

Nothing too exciting, I need to get back to the land sometime this week to finish planting.

That's it for now.

Nathan