It has been a long few weeks since my last posting. The new job has been keeping me well occupied and a bit tired at the end of the day. But all seems to have calmed down, and routine is once again the order of the day.

Spent Saturday struggling to finish some of the garden and house projects.  Pulled all of the carrots and beats, as well and the potatoes and squash.  Dismantled the peas and the pea fence as well as cleaned the gutters.  It was very difficult, as it seems that I caught a cold, probably from the kids at school.  I am over it today thanks to a lot of vitamins, minerals, and a few plants. 

The above image is of a dead fish in one of the local streams around the East Glacier Trail.  Thankfully the spawning season is about over, so the air quality is returning to normal by most of the streams.  Not quite there yet, but better than it has been. 

For the first time in two weeks, I went on a short hike today.  West Glacier Trail, which is about 6.5 or so miles, with a 1400+ ft elevation gain. I was surprised at the fast time considering I really felt tired and weak due to the cold I had this weekend.  It was cloudy with some drizzle, but it was t-shirt weather and in the low 60’s.  The below image is of Micha with some garden plants and on the West Glacier Trail today. The last image if from my hike to Mt. Juneau from Granite Creek I did a few weeks ago.  Still a lot of snow.  I want to go back next weekend and see how much snow remains. 

We were at Home Depot on this weekend.  Saw the below bike.  Nice! 

I finally was able to install Live Writer on my new computer under Vista 64, which is another reason I am finally posting again.  I tried several times previously, and it would not work.  I decided on one last try, and for some unknown reason, it worked.  I like Live Writer over my other blogging program, Blog Jet, as the insertion of images, in my opinion, is easier and more efficient in Writer.  Blog Jet is still a great program, but Writer is my default blogging tool at this time. 

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We took a short 6.7 mile hike/run around the East Glacier Trail today, and what I was thinking about a few weeks ago occurred again today. A few years ago a fast hike up the trail would put my heart rate in the 90 – 100% max range. With all of the hiking and running I have been doing this summer, it seems that my heart rate is not having a difficult time reaching even 80% max. It happens, but it takes some work. Even running is now just a bit too easy, and as above, my heart rate stays in a nice and comfortable range.

What does the above mean?  It basically means that in order to burn the same amount of energy, I have to go faster and/or farther.   So far, I have been going faster.  One example is the East Glacier Trail.  It is 3.5 miles round trip, with an ascent gain of only 640 feet.  I have cut 15 minutes off my time this year.  For the West Glacier Trail, a round trip of about 6.4 miles and an ascent of 1237 fee, I have cut over 40 minutes off my time for the year.  Every trail is like this, so the faster I go.

Then again, I have lost 20 pounds this summer, and am under 230 pounds for the first time in years.  My resting heart rate is 52 bpm, and I can get it down to the high 40’s if I think about it.  My blood pressure is lower than the usual 110/70.  Not bad for being 55.

Enough of that. 

If you are wondering what the image above is, it is a picture of my CPU socket on a motherboard I received on Friday.  It is an EVGA E758-A1, all ready for installation as a replacement from my aging, and ailing, desktop I build 4 years ago.  As I was installing the processor, and i7, I noticed a flaw in the pattern of the socket.  I used a magnifier to look at the flaw, and decided to call EVGA.  The tech that answered was very nice, and asked if I could send an image of the pin that I thought was the issue.  The result was the above picture, taken with my Cannon HV-20 and a 4X close up lens.  Not good, but not bad either.  The tech replied to my email and suggested I return it to newegg.com, where I ordered it from.  Not good.

Basically, the build for the new computer is:

Motherboard:  EVGA E758-A1 Memory:  12 GB Corsair XMS3 – DDR3 1600
Video Card:  EVGA 896P3-1170-AR GenForce GTX 275 with 896 DDR3
Drives:  4 – Western Digital Caviar 640 GB  (no RAID- I really have never been a RAID fan)
Power:  Kingwin Mach 1 ABR 1000MA1S 1000W modular
Case:  Cool Master HAF 932 Black Steel Full Tower
OS:  Windows Vista Business 64-bit with Windows 7 free upgrade
And:  2 DVD burners and a few other goodies like a card reader.

Should be a fun build if I ever get working parts.

In the wine room: 

6 gallons Blueberry Wine – Secondary
6 gallons Blueberry Mead – Primary
6 gallons Raspberry Wine – Aging
6 gallons Chocolate Maple Mead – Secondary, and ready for another racking
6 gallons Apple Wine  – Aging and may be ready for bottle next weekend.
6 gallons Maple Mead – Secondary, and may be stalled, or just slow.  Will check SG on Friday to see.
6 + 1 gallons Cherry Wine – Not too thrilled about this one.

In the planning stages – Another Lemon Wine, a Jalapeno Wine, maybe a garlic wine, and another grape based kit wine.

I am wearing my new glasses, so any typos that may be in this post are the fault of the glasses!  It is very hard to read anything, as my eyes have not quite adjusted to them.  Should be fun at work tomorrow….or not.

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My old Heart Rate Monitor (HRM), a Suunto T-6, died a few weeks ago.  I always hike with a HRM, and without one I always seem to over-exert myself, leaving very little energy left for the final push, usually to a  mountain peak, or without the energy the next day.  I consider my HRM an essential piece of equipment, so was a bit lost without one.  So………   

After much research into current Suunto, Polar, and other HRM’s, I purchased a Polar RS800CX Multi.  The RS800CX has a GPS, and enough features to keep me informed of my status at all times.  The screens, which each contain customizable information, are easy to access an very easy to read.  The features are too many to list, but the main ones I utilize are heart rate, of course, time of activity, and distance.  Starting and stopping the time of activity is very simple, as are connecting the monitor and the GPS.  Both initial connections only took seconds, an have worked flawlessly since I received the watch 3 weeks ago.

As for the GPS.  It is very accurate as compared to my GPS (a Garmin 60CSX).  It, like all GPS’s, has issues with overhead obstructions, such as our trees, but when the obstructions end, the GPS connects within seconds.  GPS Battery life is terrible though.  I am getting about 6 – 8 hours per AA battery, but I am using rather cheap batteries.  I will try batteries of better quality in the coming weeks.  The stored track can be used to produce routes and maps using Google Maps, which is a nice feature.  There are other GPS features, but I am not using them yet

One thing that really bothered me with the Suunto HRM was the software.  It was very difficult navigating the Suunto user web site to upload my exercises, and while the desktop program was sufficient, I was looking for more, much more.  The Polar web presence , Personal Trainer, is excellent.  I have no wants or needs that are not present, and it is very easy to use.  The desktop software is also very easy to use an very easy to customize.  Information can be changed, an communications with the watch, via infrared, is fast and easy.  I only wish there was a way not to have to connect once to personal trainer and once to the desktop in order to upload to both locations.  But the complaint is minor.

One nice feature of the watch is the altitude feature seems to be very accurate, especially for a watch.  My other watches had altitude, but they were always very inaccurate.  It is easy to calibrate the watch, which seems to help with its accuracy. 

As for the watch itself, while a bit ‘unique” looking, it is comfortable and the buttons easy to access and use.  Occasionally, I do accidentally hit one of the buttons to button the watch on or to add a lap, but that happened with all of my other watches also.

Anyway, this is my 4th HRM and my third Polar product.  I have always had good luck with Polar products, so I am looking forward to exploring and using all of the features of the watch, which I am still learning.

One last item.  I purchased the watch from Backcountry.com, which always ships promptly and has great prices on their products.

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We went on two hikes this past weekend. On Friday we went on the Mt Roberts train to Gold Ridge, and on Sunday we hiked the Granite Creek Trail to Mt Juneau, though we did not do the loop back down. Both trips included approximately 3500 feet of assent, which went well both days.  The Mt Roberts trip was 8 miles and the Mt Juneau trip was 11.62 miles.  We are planning of doing the Mt Juneau Loop the next sunny weekend.

On the way up Mt Juneau we decided to take a break and have a snack.  While resting we observed a hiker descending one of the (many) steep portions of the trail.  He was moving fast, but it was down hill so nothing special.  He stopped and talked with us as we were about ready to start up the trail again.  He said he was going to do the loop, but it was foggy and you could not see the trail higher up.  Since we were not going that far, it really did not matter, so up we went as he went off down hill.

We traversed a large snowfield and proceeded up the mountain.  After 15 or 20 minutes we looked back and we saw the guy we talked with coming back up the mountain.  We were not going fast, be not slow either.  This guy was flying up the mountain!  He was fast.  He caught up with us and hiked along for a while, trying to convince us to do the loop with him.  If we did the loop we would not have gotten down the mountain until midnight or after, and we were just not prepared to do that, so we opted out.  We saw a couple of hikers up ahead and suggested he try them.  He did and we never saw him again, so either he hiked with them or……  Found out the guy was from France and doing a boat and train tour of the US and Canada.  Fun I guess.

A few pictures of the hikes, with the first two being Mt Juneau and the last being Mt. Roberts:

There are a few pictures of the animals we saw on Sunday.  The first is a ptarmigan that was running in the trail to draw our attention away from its young.  The last two are of a marmot that we saw on the way down from Mt Juneau. 

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The picture on the left is of Micha with one of our cauliflower this year.  So far the garden is one of the best, if not the best, garden we have ever had.  Because of the lack of constant rain, the flowers have been blooming all summer and are lasting a long time.  The vegetables are not being attacked by slugs as much as usual, and my deer fence around the vegetable is keeping the deer from eating the berries, snow peas, and the few other plants they like.  The deer are however, eating the pansies, hosta, roses, and a few other plants.  I have put temporary fencing around some of the plants, and plan on fencing in the flower and vegetable garden next summer.

We picked 20 pounds of squash last week.  The picture below left is an example of some of the larger squash.  The middle picture is of one of the broccoli and I planted this year.  I planted about 20 broccoli and cauliflower plants, and all grew well, and most have been eaten. The picture on the right is of my wheat experiment (which is going well) and some other plants in the background. 

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This is a test post from the West Glacier Trail.

It is another hot and sunny day. Time to see how this works.

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If you are going to make a sign saying that there are actually real stinging bugs in Alaska, please, at least get the name of the creek right!

Went up Perseverance Trail and then Granite Creek Trail on Friday.  It was another hot day, and the total hike was 11.4 miles.  Met a few people on the trail, including one guy whose dog bit him when he was throwing a stick to play fetch – LOL.  Nothing else to say on that one.

There is still a lot of snow in the basin, as shown in the below images, but it was easily manageable.  The best part of the hike was finding a nice gray flat rock that we took a short break on.  The heat was calmed by a very mild and cool wind that blew across us as we rested.  There were no sounds except for the wind and the waterfall that was close by, and it was nice.  It was difficult to leave..

The below pictures are of the waterfall (Nugget), snow, and our rest rock:

Hiked the Mt. Roberts trail today.  I was planning on going to Granite and Roberts Peaks, but there was just too much snow on the ridges.  So, I went to Gold Ridge, which is a nice hike.  There were only a few other people on the trail today, which always makes a hike better.  Total hike was about 8 miles. 

On the way down, my heart rate monitor started beeping at me.  I looked at it and it said my heart rate was only 37 BMP!  I really hate it what it either shows it too low, or goes to zero.  Always makes me think that I am about ready to die!  LOL – I guess I need a new monitor, and am thinking of the Polar FT 80.

The below images are of the hike today.  As can be seen, there are a lot of wildflowers out.

And, one of my arm from today.  This was caused my my fall on Mt. McGinnis last week – it looks worse in person.

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