Exploring more of Egypt

Angela and I are wrapping up our trip to Egypt. Today we spent Christmas with Amiee, Angela's sister, and her family in Cairo. We had a great day! The kids got Band Hero and have been playing with that all day. I hope I never have to hear Kung Fu Fighting ever again.

Angela and I went to the antiquities museum here in Cairo and the Khan El Khalili (the big market) both of which were amazing. The museum's collection is incredible, not very well taken care of, but amazing nonetheless. The Khan is typical market madness, although its fun to wander around in the less touristy parts of the bazar where Egyptians buy all kinds of normal goods. Its like Walmart but way more chaotic and sprawled across several miles of town.

We headed down to Luxor for a few days to see the sights down there. Luxor is near the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Hotsepsut's Temple, and a number of other great sites. We had a great time in Luxor, most of the photos are from Luxor.

Sphinxes outside the Luxor Temple.

Hotsepsut's Temple

Karnak Temple, this is a huge temple complex in Luxor representing a whole series of different dynasties and changes over time in Ancient Egyptiam culture.

Sunset over the Nile.

Rockin' the Panorama T-Shirt at Karnak, those columns are about 80 ft tall.

The Citadel in Cairo.

We head back to Las Vegas on Tuesday where we'll meet up with some friends for New Year's Eve, hopefully I'll see you there... and if not, maybe next time.

Cairo and Sinai

After a long plane flight from New York Angela and I arrived in Cairo, jetlagged but happy to be here. We took a taxi from the Airport to Aimee's flat in Maadi. We spent the first few days hanging around at Aimee's and trying to shakeoff the jet lag. Its been great to spend time with her family, they have added a different dimension to our international adventure and helped a lot with logistics around Cairo. Angela and I took a night bus from Cairo to a small town called Dahab on the Sinai Peninsula. Dahab is a pretty laid back little hippy town on the Red Sea with lots of scubadiving, snorkeling and other tourist activities. We spent the first few days laying on the "beach" and eating good food. They don't really have a beach, they've built restaraunts and lounges right up to the edge of the water (more on this in a minute). Here's a nice photo of Dahab at sunset.

We swam a little bit, did some snorkeling, and just generally lounged about in the sunshine. After a few days of that we decided to get a little more motivated and either head for St Catherines or do some snorkeling. But when we woke a wind storm had come up over night. We walked down to the waterfront to find huge waves crashing into the restaraunt we ate at the day before. It turns out if you build right next to the water, occasionally the ocean trashes your place.

Well we only ended up doing a little bit of snorkeling because of the storm, but it was still pretty cool we saw lots of colorful fish and coral. We headed back to Cairo after a week in Dahab. The drive back to Cairo was great even if it was pretty long. The Sinai Peninsula is very rocky and mountainous.

Today we went to see the pyramids at Giza. Yup those pyramids! The pyramids were pretty much what I had expected, they're huge and impressive and surrounded by pushy touts that really want you to ride their camels. The pyramids and the sphinx are really incredible, the sheer scale is hard to fathom. We had a great time wandering around the site taking pictures and ignoring touts. The pyramids are amazing despite the crowds, touts and ridiculously crooked guards (apparently you can climb the pyramid for the right price). It is hard to see such a timeless historical legacy slipping away under poor management and the drive for individual profit. Trash, camel shit and "Good price for you!" are the main hallmarks of an astonishing monument to human accomplishment. Despite the hassles the pyramids are still incredible, it is impossible to really comprehend the time and effort it would have taken to construct even one of the smaller ones.

Ultimately we did ride a camel from the second pyramid down to the sphinx. We rode a camel named Charlie Brown. The guide spoke English, Arabic, French and German but can't read or write. Here's Angela kissing some old guy...

Tomorrow we're heading down to the main bazaar in Cairo for more haggling and hassling!!!

Off to Egypt!!!

Tomorrow Angela and I leave for Egypt. We are going to visit Angela's sister and her family just outside Cairo. We've been reading up on different places we want to go visit and we're both really excited for this leg of our trip.
Catching up...
Angela and I drove out of Alaska and all the way down to Las Vegas! Along the way we visited with many different friends and family. We stopped overnight in Haines Junction to visit Scott, one of the guys I was on Denali with the second time. From there we headed down to Port Hadlock on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. We stayed with Crissy and Jake, good friends of Angela's from Gustavus. It was great to see them and we took a day to go up to Olympic National Park and did some hiking. Then it was on to Yakima to spend a few days with Allen (Angela's brother) and his family. We met Nate along the way and spent a night in Greenwater, WA, Nate's old stomping grounds. Next up was Smith Rock in central Oregon. We spent most of a week rock climbing at Smith. I'd been there once before but only for a day. Smith is a place I'd really like to get back to. There is a huge variety of climbs on different types of rock. We drove over to Portland for a weekend and were able to meet up with my parents and both of my brothers. This was great since all of us do not seem to get together very often. After Portland Angela and I headed for the desert. We spent almost three weeks in and around Las Vegas, climbing at Red Rocks and trying to stay out of trouble. We went to a couple big Halloween parties in Vegas that had some pretty awesome costumes, my favorite was a full size monster from Where The Wild Things Are. We also took a side trip over to the Grand Canyon where we met up with Nate again. He was able to get away from work for a long weekend and we did a great hike down to the bottom of the canyon and back up the next day. Grand Canyon was really cool, but I was shocked at the number of ridiculously unprepared hikers we saw. Shortly after our weekend at Grand Canyon we parked the truck and hopped on a plane out to Virginia. Angela took a weekend to go up to Boston to see her brother and we also made a quick trip up to Penn State to see Sean and Joanna. We've been helping my parents get packed up for their move out west and trying to see as many friends and family as possible.
Well I think that pretty much brings us up to now. We've had an incredible journey so far and we still have a long ways to go. Hopefully we'll still get to see a few more folks along the way. Here's a few pictures from our trip so far, now if you'll excuse me I've got some pyramids to go gawk at!!

Olympic National Park

Mt Rainier

Me and Angela at Smith Rock

Smith Rock at sunset

Angela pulling the rope at Smith Rock

VEGAS BABY!!!

Me, Angela and Nate at Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon
Christmas Tree Pass in Lake Mead Nat'l Rec Area

On the Move... Again

Ok, so as usual I've been really bad about keeping my blog up to date. Last post was all the way back in May...
I have finished another season of work as a backcountry ranger for Wrangell-St Elias National Park. I had a great season with a lot of really good patrols. Angela worked out in Slana this season as well and we enjoyed being out there together. We finished work on the 30th of September and took a quick trip into Anchorage, passed through Denali to see some friends and then headed down the Alcan. We are now on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State visiting some good friends. Our plan is to slowly drive south and eventually end up in Las Vegas. We will spend a couple of weeks rock climbing at Red Rocks before flying out to the east coast. We will be in the DC area around Thanksgiving and then on December 1 we will fly to Cairo. Angela's sister is living in Cairo right now so this seems like an excellent time to visit Egypt. We should be over there for a month. After Egypt we'll fly back to Vegas and spend New Years out in the desert somewhere just like last year. If you want to join us in the desert please drop me a line. That's the plan for now. I'll try to be better about updating this thing now that I'm not working like crazy for the NPS. Here's a few pics from the summer. The first picture is of Nate feeding some of Wrangell's wildlife.

First Mountaineering Patrol

I'm back at Wrangell-St Elias for another season as a backcountry ranger. This year we started off with a mountaineering patrol out into the Granite Range, south of McCarthy. The patrol went really well. The weather cooperated for most of the time that we were out there and we managed to climb eight peaks in eight days. None of the peaks were really high by Alaskan standards but we had a great time and did a lot of team building and planning for this season.

I'm excited about the potential for the backcountry program here. It was incredible to stand on top of these peaks and see mountains stretch away as far as we could see. If you were to go west from where we were the mountains stretch for hundreds of miles. It's a hard place to really wrap your head around, its just so massive.

Our camp on the glacier.

Looking out towards the Jeffries Glacier and Bagley Icefield.

Mt St Elias

It can't all be hard work.

Mt St Elias on the horizon, our tracks to the pass are also visible.

Steep snow climbing.

More steep snow climbing.

You can see our tracks on the upper ridge of what's called Tokyo Peak.

Pictures from Joshua Tree and Nicaragua

OK, OK So its been a really long time since I've posted anything and yes I know I'm way behind on this thing buts I'm trying to get it up to date.

Angela and I had a great trip through the desert southwest and then down to Nicaragua. I'll post some of those pics first, even though the trip ended all the way back in March.

Angela leading a climb in Joshua Tree.

A Joshua Tree at sunset. This was our first trip to J-Tree and we'll be back...

Sunset in Joshua Tree.

We went on a canyon trip in Nicaragua. We swam and hiked through the Canon de Somoto up near the border with Honduras. The canyon was incredible, the walls went up hundreds of feet.

Sunset at Jiquilillo, my favorite place in the country.

The folks from Rancho Espreanza enjoying the sunset on the beach at Jiquillio.

Me and Angela with Telica Volcano behind us. The cloud is actually gas escaping from the crater. We hiked right up to the crater's edge.

Jiquilillo and Granada

Angela and I have spent the last week or so lounging on the beach in Jiquilillo. We stayed at Rancho Esperanza, a great little spot right on the water. Jiquilillo is a small fishing village with just a couple of places to stay. Tourism is growing there but it's still very undeveloped. We spent most of our time reading in one of the many hammocks around the property. When we did make it down to the beach we got a little better at surfing and a lot better at falling off the board into the water. Rancho Esperanza uses volunteers to help with a number of community projects including a kids club, organic garden, and other sustainable community development projects. I was very impressed with the commitment and ethical standards that the owner-operator was employing to develop sustainable tourism in the community.

We went on a canopy zip-line tour today which was a lot of fun. Great views of the lake and volcanoes from up there. Tomorrow we are headed off to Isla de Ometepe.

Canon de Somoto and Telica Volcano

Angela and I just got back to Leon from Canon de Somoto and Telica Volcano. We did both of these trips with a guiding company called QuetzalTrekkers. Quetzal is a nonprofit organization that donates the proceeds from the business to a local charity for street kids. Volunteers sign up for three months to a year and guide volcanos and the canyon for silly gringos such as myself. Its a pretty cool program. The guides do not get paid and they pay for all of their costs while they are down here. This is especially impressive if you have ever been around a guided group full of difficult clients. Angela and I had a great experience with this organization and I highly recommend them.

The trips were great. We did the volcano trek first. Telica volcano is just outside of Leon and you can see it smoking from the city. It took us about 4 hours to walk out to the volcano and then a couple more hours to climb up to the crater. We crested a rise and were suddenly right on the edge of the crater. The crater drops away vertically for several hundred feet to the bottom where the gas pours out of the ground. We hung out around the crater for a bit before hiking down into the old crater where we camped out for the night. After it got dark we climbed back up to the crater rim. Looking into the crater we could see the lava glowing at the bottom. The noise the gas makes as it escapes is incredible. Its a hissing sound like a hot frying pan being put into a sink full of water, well a really big frying pan and a really big sink of water. We could feel the heat radiating out of the crater. We hiked back down to camp and slept out under the stars. We didn't even bother to take tents with us. The next day we hiked back to the road and caught the bus back to town. It was a bit strange having guides that did all the logistics, cooked all the meals, and reminded us to drink lots of water. We just had to sit around and enjoy the scenery.

We stayed in Leon for a night and then got up at 3:30 in the morning to start the long trip up to Canyon de Somoto. It was a really long bus ride made longer by the fact that the bus seats barely fit 5'5'' Nicas and certainly not 6'5'' gringos. I discovered my legs will bend in many extremely uncomfortable ways I was unfamiliar with. We finally reached the canyon after a long bus ride and a short hike. We slept on a gravel beach at the entrance to the canyon, again without tents. In the morning we met our local guide and hiked to the entrance of the canyon. The canyon makes a big 'U' shape so you can hike and swim one way through the whole works. It was incredible the canyon walls come so close together at spots I could almost touch both walls at the same time. We hiked, swam and scrambled through the canyon for six hours before reaching the end. There was a place to cliff jump into the water and places where we swam for several hundred yards through twists and turns so tight the sun did not reach the water. We slept out on the gravel beach again and then took another long bus ride back to Leon. I think we will head up to Jiquilillo Beach tomorrow for a few days. I suppose its probably my turn to step on a stingray now...

I'll try to get some pics up but Angela's card reader doesn't like the computers here so I'm not sure if that will happen.

From stingrays to volcanos...

Angela and I have been in Leon for a few days now. Leon is the main college town in Nicaragua so there is a pretty young population here. Leon also won the National Baseball Champsionship this week and everyone went out and partied last night until really late. I heard the last fireworks around 4 this morning. We´ve just been hanging out around the pool and sweltering through the afternoon heat. Angela loves it, I could go back to snow tomorrow and be just fine. Our last couple days out on the coast were pretty good although Angela discovered that stepping on a stingray can be a very painful experience. The ray got her in the heel of her foot. After much to-do, we took her to a local clinic that was surprisingly clean and professional. She got some anesthetic and the doc cleaned up the puncture, total bill about eight dollars. No wait in a long line, no demands for proof of health insurance, and when it was time to pay the bill I got an itemized list of the cost of all supplies used and more professional service than I have received in a number of American clinics. Fear not, the American Health system is still the best in the world!!! Unless you want affordable health care in a timely manner provided by professionals, then its no bueno. And enough about all that I appear to have taken a side track...

Tomorrow we are headed out to climb Telica, a volcano near Leon. We will camp just below the crater rim and then go up to the crater at night to see the glow of the lava. This will be an overnight trip and then we will be back in Leon for one night. After that we are headed up to Canyon de Somoto for a three day trip through the canyon. I am hoping both these trips will be a lot of fun. Thats all for now...

Las Vegas, Joshua Tree, and Nicaragua

So I should probably be keeping up with this thing better, but I'd rather go work on my sunburn instead. Angela and I are in the midst of an excellent trip. I flew out to the Washington DC area for Christmas and Angela went to Yakima, WA and Phoenix to see family. We met up in Las Vegas on December 29. We also met up with Nate Porter and his girlfriend Casslyn. We spent a couple of days enjoying the finer things that Las Vegas has to offer and then headed out to Lake Mead for New Years Eve. We rang in the New Year around a campfire complete with champagne toast. We went for a great hike on New Years Day in the park. The next day Angela and I headed off to Red Rocks to spend a few days climbing. We had a good time there and then headed out to Joshua Tree for about a week for more rock climbing. If you drive like me its only about three and a half hours from Vegas to J-tree. Joshua Tree lived up to the hype and I'm already plotting ways to return for some more rock time.

After a week in J-tree we headed back to Vegas where we got on a plane to Nicaragua. We spent one night in Managua, the capital, and then headed out to Las Penitas, a small beach town with unbelievable waves. We've been hanging out on the beach for a few days now and I'm starting to look like the tourist lobster that I've been aspiring to be since leaving Alaska. We'll probably be here for a few more days before trying to climb some volcanos or something. I'll try to post some pics next time. Temperature is 88F and sunny all day, everyday. Ok for now.