I've been listening to Christmas radio for the last week or so. Mmm.

But what would this Christmas season be without a little U2 cheer? Check out U2's brand new Christmas song video: 'I Believe in Father Christmas' - (a Greg Lake cover). It's typical U2 song: ambiguously spiritual... but so are 1/2 of the Christmas songs out there.

See the video here: http://www.u2.com/highlights/?hid=507


Does this get anyone else excited about the new album?

2nd snowshoeing of the season

There was a lot of hype about a snow storm hitting the area this past weekend - and we did get a little snow in Olympia yesterday and this morning... But Friday night's storm didn't keep me from hitting the trails. Saturday, my friend Beth and I packed up our snowshoeing gear and headed back to Mt Rainier. I had just been there five days earlier, and it was certainly a different place with the new snow. The last few miles of the road were closed, so we started hiking just a few miles into the park.

We chose the Eagle Peak trail - which the ranger said would be the hardest of the handful of options... so naturally we went for it. The summit was up 3,000 ft and 3.6 miles ahead. We hiked in for almost three hours before the cold started getting to my feet. We made it about 2 miles in and 2,000 feet up, one of the more aggressive altitude gains I've done in the snow.

My pictures aren't too diverse since we never made it above the tree line.

Here's a few shots from the trail...


We turned around because my feet were getting soaked and reeaally cold... maybe in the early stages of frostbite. Thankfully there were a couple other hikers who gifted me with an extra pair of warm wool socks for the trip down... my first x-mas gift of the year.

Lesson learned: don't go out there without all the right gear!

the 1st snowshoeing of the season...

Monday I had the day off, so I headed to Mt. Rainier to have a go at the snow. This was my first time snowshoeing since April or early May, and I was jonesing to be outdoors...

Why do I enjoy snowshoeing so much?
It's quiet. It's peaceful. It's good exercise. It's beautiful. It's away. It's a different world.

There were 10 inches of fresh snow on the mountain when I arrived, but the roads were cleared pretty well all the way up to Paradise.
The sun wanted to shine,,,,The sky began to clear, and my hopes of a nice mountain view increased:These whisps of cloud were pretty neat when the fog finally lifted:It's christmas for like 6 months on this mountain...How cool is this? The clouds spreading off the southeast side of the mountain, covering the valley below: The mounatin and me:The clouds re-covered the mountain as I began my decent... The snow covering everything is incredibly beautiful, I think. The path down:
I listened to all-Christmas radio the whole way back to Olympia. It was a great day.