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Explore More ..Nishant and Vini's exploration(s)... 4월 5일 First Hike of 2009: Rattlesnake LedgeApril 05, 2009 Last couple of years, we have always started with Rattlesnake as our first hike as it is perhaps the best After a while we realized that we would not be able to actually get to the trail, so we decided to fall back to the *tried and tested* rattlesnake hike. As luck would have it, it was on our way back, so we went to it. It was worth it. Every year we do this hike, and every year I am still amazed by the view. This year there was a new twist in it. This year there were multiple patches of snow. This made it interesting and challenging. In addition to this, it was extremely windy at the top (as you would see in the Eskimo pictures :)). There was one slight stupidity on my part at the end, when I tried jumping over a small chasm and misjudged the height and banged my knee. fortunately, it was nothing serious :). Also, when you do look at the pictures, speculate how the banana got on the tree :) One really cool (or uncool) part of it is in the pictures of last trip. See if you can spot it :)
Few Moments of Madness
Hike Length: 4 miles Hike time: 2 hours
Difficulty: easy-moderate Distance: ~ 45 minutes from Seattle Directions: Take Exit 32 on I-90 to 436th Ave NE (Cedar Falls Rd). Turn right and drive 2.7 miles to Rattlesnake Lake Recreation Area. Signs will point you to the Rattlesnake Ledge Trailhead. Hike Elevation: 1160 ft Hike Keywords: rattlesnake ledge, hiking More resources :
11월 18일 Trip To Maui - Day 0This is a vacation that we had been waiting for very long. Hopefully the series of post would help us relive the moments and also give some helpful pointers to those who are planning to go there sometime in the near (far) future :). Also, all the information/ suggestions I give is based on my own experiences :) Travel Guides: Before this trip, I thought that travel guides are of no real use. They contain bunch of recommendations sorted by price and commission. This trip made me think otherwise. The best travel guide I found for Maui was Maui Revealed. Everything we tried based on their recommendations was right on the mark. Place to Stay: This would really vary with the type of vacation that you are looking for. If you are the type that wants to touch on all the tourist points, and hence not really stay in your room a lot, place to stay would not really matter. If you are going to spend any length of time just chilling out, this could be the most important place to consider. If you are like us, http://vrbo.com would be your best friend. More about the place that we stayed in another post. Few tips: Maui is awesome and most of the things that you would do there would involve water :) (as if you did not know it) and you would definitely enjoy it way more if you knew swimming well. If not, please take a few classes and practice before you go there. Things that you should not leave home without would be sunscreen cream (SPF 30+), shades and swimming gear. It is going to very easy to think that an hour out in sun without sunscreen would be ok, but believe me, it might cost you the whole vacation. Not fun getting sun burnt. Shades is a must (if you do not want to go blind :)). If you rent a condo, it really pays to cook a few meals. Apart from the romantic brownie points, you do save a whole load of money. There are few popular things that get sold out. If you are planning any one of them, book them early. There is no point (in my view) of saving a few $$$ and trying to get cheaper deals (which you can by sitting through a travel share presentation :) ) while you are there and maybe miss out on the activity. Rental car are perhaps the cheapest in the nation and you can easily get a convertible. Most of the airlines have tie-ups with rental cars (for example Hawaiian airlines have it with Advantage) which provide really cool deals. I would really recommend taking a convertible. Few other things regarding this. If you have a credit card that takes care of collision, confirm the coverage. Also, if your insurance covers liability, please confirm the limits and extent of coverage. The rental agency will try to sell you insurance which sometimes is more than the base price. Take a small backpack with you. You will be surprised as to how useful can a small backpack prove to be. If you would be doing snorkeling/ scuba/ snuba, and do wear prescription glasses, do not despair. There is something called optical mask (essentially the same snorkeling mask with special glasses). Rent those. Renting these is extremely cheap and you can get the one that fits you the best. Do not skimp on optical mask if you have prescription glasses. Essentials for water activities (what you should rent): mask, fins, floatation belt, defogger and boogie boards. Once again they are extremely cheap. Of course, if you are staying at a condo, they would probably have couple of complimentary sets. 4월 19일 Dekha ek khwaab to yeh silesile hue..Fellow travellers: Vinni, Nagu, Ruchir, Jyoti & Myself Rating: Photos: http://good-times.webshots.com/album/558736944kZTjRv Distance: 70 miles from Seattle Tulip Photos: Review: For those who don't know the meaning of the title, it is the starting verse of one of the most memorable song from one of the biggest blockbuster movies from bollywood. The movie was silsila. Well what has this got to do with the post? This movie was known, among other things, for shots of songs filmed in beautiful fields full of flowers and this was was exactly the feeling we got when we reached the tulip festival at Skajit valley (@ Mount Vernon). Fortunately it was an awesome day. It was bright, sunny and not cold. What more can you ask for when we are going to see tulips in full bloom. We did get a scare for stretch of about 3-4 miles when it started raining. It was funny to see rain localized to such a small area. Well, we reached the fields and this year we visited the tulip town. It was actually much more beautiful than the other fields. Although small, it had more varieties of tulips and they looked gorgeous. It was the first time for Ruchir and Jyoti and they were in total silsila mood (as you would make out from the pictures). One really awesome thing we saw was a group of people flying kites. It was amazing to see them flying it in so much synchronization. we kept on wondering when will they get entangled, but boy! they were good. A visit to tulip festival is not complete without ice-cream. There is this non-descipt ranch between the i-5 exit and the tulip town where they sell this delicious and HUGE scoop for $3. It must be really famous as we had to stand 40 minutes in line to get one :). Also, we could see the ill-effects of eating too much of it in lots of people around us. Not that I blame them, if the place was in close proximity to our home, I would be doing the same (and having the same result) one thing to watch for is the traffic. It is brutal. I would advise to get bikes along, so that you can park at some place and then bike alon. Believe me, if it is sunny and tulips are in bloom, you would love it.
4월 13일 Hike: Rattlesnake Ledge· Hike Length: 4 miles · Hike time: 2 hours · Difficulty: easy-moderate · Distance: ~ 45 minutes from Seattle · Directions: On Interstate 90 eastbound, take Exit 32, turn right on 436th Avenue Southeast (Cedar Falls Road) and continue to the end of the road and parking area for Rattlesnake Ledge (920 feet). Or, continue a bit farther on the road to the new parking area and trailhead for the Iron Horse Trail. However, that is a state park and a $5 fee is charged to park there. When the Education Center is closed, restrooms can be found along the shore on both sides of the lake. The western trailhead (Rattlesnake Mountain Trail) is just off Exit 27 from I-90, at Snoqualmie Point, elevation 980 feet. · Hike Elevation: 1160 ft · Hike Photos: http://community.webshots.com/album/558556039VYpBAA · Hike Keywords: rattlesnake ledge, hiking · More resources :
My Review: This was the first hike for the season and we were all very excited. We had planned and taken all the elements into factor. The group list now read Nishant, Vineeta, Nagu, Santy, Munjal, Deepa, Rohit, Aarti and Ruchir. The weather forcast was sunny. But alas! it is never that smooth. It was drizzling in the morning and people started dropping out :( At the end it looked like Vini and I were the only people left and we had to make a decision. So we said that now we are up, we might as well take the risk and we set off. Nagu joined us saying that he had been waiting for this whole morning. So here we go.. The drive to Rattlesnake ridge is beautiful. The whole North bend area is extremely beautiful. It was drizzling lightly but it was extremely nice weather. We
8월 13일 Camp Muir Hike - The Ascent
Ah!! The thirst for adventure has always led man to new heights, pushed him beyond his limits and made him crave for more. Seems very philosophical, doesn’t it J. Well, believe it or not, it is so very true. I realized this on July 16th, when we tried to hike till the base camp for Mt. Rainier. Thanks to Lovey for finding about it. We started our journey at about 6:30 (which itself was amazing as I am not used to getting up before 10’oClock on a warm Sunday morning). So, after picking up the fellow travelers (lovery, Pammi, Ashish and Abhishek) from Redmond and Seattle, we set out towards the destination. The journey was very pleasant with lots of intellectual discussion on “Enumclaw” phenomenon and its implication. For those who can like cryptic puzzles, ranch dressing would never be the same :) Anyways, we reached at paradise point, and slowly started realizing the magnitude of what we were about to do. With no experience what so ever, we were going to hike through rock, road and snow, gaining 5000 ft in 4.5 miles. We took out our snow boots and realized for the first time that they were heavy, very heavy. There came the first wave of self doubt. It was reinforced pretty strongly in the first 1000 ft. of hiking. The first 1000 ft of hiking from paradise point is extremely brutal. Carrying about 20 pound of weight on our shoulder, we were out of breath in the first 20 minutes of hike. With us taking a short pit stop, we were really doubtful of our ability to continue, but then coaxed each other to carry on as far and long as we could. If we had not pushed each other, that could have been premature end to our quest. But we carried on…. The first 2.3 miles of trek is on rocks, road and stone steps. It is actually pretty boring and uneventful. We just kept of chugging along, carrying the heavy bags. Then we saw it. A huge expanse of snow. It was beautiful. So we had travelled 2.7 miles of our 4.5 miles long trek in maybe 2 hours. Cool, we were on track. We put on our snow boots and got ready for next 2 miles – 3000 ft – 2 hours (as we thought) leg of the journey. As it turned out, we were so wrong. As I realized that walking on snow is no walk in the park. It was difficult and slippery, even with a clearly marked trail. The first 200 ft or so, it was difficult and awkard to walk, slipping so many times. It was also a bit disappointing as it was foggy and i could not see a lot. Doubts were running amok. Is this going to be worth it? The steps were becoming just series of counting 1.2.3....100 , stopping for a minute and then starting again. It wa becoming more of a mental challenge than physical challenge. at about 8500 ft, we broke throught the clouds and suddenly it became clear as to why people do it. It is magical feeling standing on top of counds and gazing towards a huge mountain. I felt dwarfed by the scenarary around me. With renewd vigor we again started towards the base camp, with just 1500 ft to go. With every step, I could feel the air getting thinner and breathing getting more and more laborious. Believe it or not, the toughest part was the last 500 ft. Before we started it, we (lovey and myselft) saw Abhishek coming down and he said "The home stretch is the most difficult". To this Lovey asked if "is there any different in view?". Subtle hint saying "Dude.. too much... ab wapas chaleing". It took lot of courage to say that no way, we have to reach the top. Man!! the next 500 ft were indeed the longest. The whole body was aching. If I stopped at this point, I knew the the next step would be going down and not going up. I just said to myself, just keeping going and don't look up. Slowly but surely my feet finally touch the solid ground of Camp Muir. Sitting there, having sandwich, it felt heavenly just looking towards Mt. Baker. At this point, it was pure bliss and we all were unanimous on one though "IT IS DEFINETELY WORTH ALL THE EFFORT" Photos; Mine: http://www.flickr.com/photos/53698188@N00/sets/721... Lovey's: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vgarg/193765824/ UTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUEeS0mB5CE UTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-R8hRxHTxg Utube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiXGE4utBdI UTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKxI6yd7hUc Utube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hUW9LhMCA0 UTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGMxyZ3oups |
Things for 2007.....
Resources to help fulfill wishes..
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