Biggest cinnamon roll ever!

It's like Mt. Rainier, but taller and tastier. And harder to summit.

Maltby Cafe: finally!

I've had the Maltby Cafe on my list of places to visit for at least 6
years. I've bikes by the turnoff for it dozens of times over the years
- it's right by where a standard bike route crosses 522, north of
Woodinville.

I'd heard that the cafe is outstanding, but that the wait can be very
long - over an hour on weekends. And the obvious way to get there -
biking - isn't really conducive to sitting around and waiting after a
long ride (it's about 20 miles from Seattle. And if you know me, you
know that I'm always wanting to "do stuff" and dedicating a few hours
on a nice weekend just to eat at some cafe in the middle of nowhere
never seemed worthwhile.

So now that I have some free time, I thought I'd take a midweek ride
out to maltby!

Minor rant: Streets and Trips 2009

I picked up a copy of Streets and Trips 2009 on my last trip to the Microsoft Company Store yesterday. I know that Google Maps and Live Maps have pretty much eliminated the need for such software, but considering how much I rely on maps in my life, it can be critical to have maps at times when an internet connection is flaky. I was also thinking that with my new laptop it could be very useful on road trips where cell coverage is sparse.

I've been using Streets and Trips for about 8 years now. The last version I installed was circa 2005. It's sad to see that the new features that have been added to online mapping applications have missed S&T completely: no satellite view, no terrain view, no street view, no ability to modify a route by dragging on a section of it... in fact, the only thing that appears to have changed in the latest version is the UI: the color scheme is now black/grey and the button symbols have changed. And there's a navigation pane which I think is new, but still...

On the whole I'm disappointed. I know that we're moving more and more to constantly-connected machines. But you'd think that this standalone app would have integrated more features that are available in the online world. And in 4 years, I'd expect at least something new and exciting for a long-time user like myself.

FAQ: Where are you planning on going in New Zealand?

Well, to be honest, I'm not exactly sure. I'm planning on playing it by ear to some extent. I do know that I'm flying into Wellington and out of Christchurch, but how much ground I cover depends on weather, my legs, and how much hiking and sightseeing I end up doing along the way. I'm hoping to bike about 50-60 miles per day when I'm biking (I had been thinking 75, but when I rode my fully-loaded bike for the first time in a long time, I re-evaluated), and think I can cover a good deal of the South Island, especially if I take a bus to Christchurch at the end.

Here's a map of with blue markers indicating spots that I hope to hit along the way. Click on each marker for more information.

View Larger Map

Testing 1,2,3

This is a test of my mobile blogging system...

Snowy trekking pole

By the light of our headlamps, this was the only picture I could
manage from atop Mt. Si att 6:42 pm. It was snowing pretty hard, with
several inches of fresh powder on the ground!

To pannier or to trailer?, that is the question

There are many equipment choices involved in a bike trip (not the least of which is the bike...), but one of the biggest ones I needed to make was whether to use a trailer (see picture at left) or a rack + panniers.

As I see it, there are some definite advantages to each.

The advantages of the trailer:

1. 1) The trailer is more stable. Instead of having most of the weight on the bike on a rear rack and over the rear wheel, the weight is distributed between the rear wheel and a new third wheel (the trailer's). When riding uphill and out of the saddle on panniers, there's definitely more side-to-side sway on the rear of the bike.
2. Less pressure on the rear wheel, which presumably decreases the chance of flatting the rear wheel or breaking a spoke.
3. The ability to take all gear off of the bike (and into one's camping area, hotel, etc) all in one go. One can just use one large duffel bag on a trailer and quickly and easily detach the entire trailer from the bike.

Advantages of panniers:

1. Packing/travelling on other means of transportation. I will need to pack up my bike and load-carrying system several times during the trip: each time I check my luggage (in Seattle, New Zealand, and Australia), and any time I board a bus (which I expect I will do at least once during the trip). One extra level of complication is that I fly into and out of different cities in New Zealand. When I fly out of Christchurch, I'm planning on picking up a bike box from a bike shop there; finding a way of packing and carrying a trailer on the plane will likely result in extra cost and hassle.

2. Simplicity. Racks and panniers are very simple and common in bike shops around the world. As Kelly and I discovered in Maui (and Seattle), BOB trailers aren't nearly as common and have special parts that cannot easily be fabricated from parts found at a hardware store. For example, in Maui, when we realized that Kelly did not have his special BOB skewer (longer than normal), we tried to build something that would work from parts at Home Depot. It did hold up for about 10 miles of load-carrying, but ended up giving up, biking back to town, and renting a jeep to haul our gear.

3. Weight. Every extra pound is noticeable when heading up those steep mountain passes, and a trailer weighs an order of magnitude more than a rack (13.5 pounds for the trailer, according to the manufacturer's website).

4. Quiet. I gave the BOB a test-haul just to see how it felt to ride (and indeed, the stability was nice), but for the love of Pete, it would not stop rattling. There was just a little bit of play between the skewer and the trailer, which was enough to cause endless noise. And if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a travel companion who just won't. shut. up. ; )

5. I've used them before. I used panniers for my bike trips in Oregon, Vermont, Colorado, and the United Kingdom and never had any problems.

So, after some hemming and hawing, I've decided to go the pannier route. But thanks to Kelly H. for lending me his BOB so I could test it out. (Kelly is a big fan of the BOB!) Perhaps for the next trip I take that doesn't require air travel, I'll use a BOB.

Pirates on Bainbridge

My friend Denny introduced me to the idea of riding the FHR, a very low-key 33-mile bike race around Bainbridge Island while the Cascade Bicycle Club has their annual Chilly Hilly ride.

I wasn't entirely sure about the pirate thing, and was pretty sure that I wouldn't be cool enough to fit in, and I don't even drink beer (the 0.83 club is a drinking club with a biking problem, they say), but decided that it would be a fun way to ride some hills to train for New Zealand.

I did feel a bit awkward when I was the only person (out of 50? 75?) with lycra/spandex/neoprene/bright yellow as we boarded the ferry, but had fun chatting with people afterwards (especially after I changed into some other clothes, even though they still weren't nearly as cool as everyone else's). During the ride, we were all mixed in with the CBC riders, so I definitely didn't feel too out of place then.

There were definitely some fun people that I met, and as the third female finisher got to pick out a prize from the pile of loot: I walked away with a pretty hand-made messenger bag with the 0.83 bike club logo hand-painted on it. Sweet! I just might need to ride with these guys again... as soon as I can find some cool high socks and clothes of the appropriate palette. Oh, and I need to figure out how to carry a messenger bag without it falling off my back.

(Picture from alyson's Picasa album from '08, showing race "number" that we wore)

Skiing Mt. St. Helens

Back in May of '07, four of us (Bryce, Kelly, and Frederick) headed up Mt. St. Helens and reached the rim. Unfortunately, on that day we never actually saw the rim. Or the crater. Or the other cool stuff that makes St. Helens amazing. At the time it was still a great trip, but I definitely wanted to return to see the inside of the crater for myself.

Andy and Cheri decided that they wanted to attempt St. Helens. On skis (Andy) and snowboard (Cheri). In retrospect, it was pretty bold of them to make the attempt: Cheri had never been on skins before and had only taken her splitboard out once before (at the resorts), and Andy had limited backcountry ski experience.

I haven't done a ton of backcountry skiing either (I've been out about a half-dozen times) but felt reassured by the fact that we'd be on wide-open slopes and that I'd be on rented randonee skis instead of my telemarks.

If you're not familiar with these kinds of skis, randonee skis are designed for skiing in the backcountry (i.e. in areas not served by ski lifts), but are otherwise very similar to downhill skis. The difference is that their bindings can switch between "walk" and "ski" modes. In walk mode, your boot is free to pivot about the toe; in ski mode, the heel of the boot is locked firmly against the ski. In contrast, with telemark skis, your heel is never locked down. For those of us who grew up on downhill skis, the transition of learning to telemark skis can be long... and painful (as the bruises on my legs from the prior weekend attest to).

The day began with a 3:30 a.m. wakeup, a 4:00 a.m. meetup, and a 7:45 a.m. arrival at the trailhead (after stopping for gas/snacks around Olympia). At 8:20 we were finally on our way from the Marble Mountain Sno-Park, heading up the standard winter route (Worm Flows). During the off-season (N0vember-April), permits are simply acquired at the trailhead - no online registration or quotas.

There were some clouds and some sun on the way up; I was down to just a t-shirt when the roasting on the open snow fields was in full force. One wrinkle in our plans was that neither Andy nor Cheri felt terribly comfortable with the skinning up once we got above the treeline and ended up booting up from about 4000'. The windblown snow had created a powdery crust that made the skinning a bit tricky; I found myself flat on my face more than once. However, I stubbornly refused to put my skis on my back and did make it to the rim with skis on my feet the whole way.

We were eventually all on the crater rim by 2:30 p.m., which was the time that I had calculated should be our turnaround time, based on a worst-case descent time of 3 hours. The edge of the rim is a dangerous place; it can be corniced and has a steep dropoff to the crater floor. I found a relatively safe place that afforded some views of the interior of the crater and got to see some steam rising and snapped a few photos, with Mt. Rainier providing an excellent backdrop. Bueno!

Although none of us thought we would have a terrible time getting down the mountain, after several attempted turns on the breakable crust and uncomfortable falls, Andy decided that he wasn't going to be able to ski down the mountain after all. More booting for Andy. Yikes! Cheri, a self-proclaimed "good snowboarder" had a tough time as well, and I really had to work hard to make turns and my share of wipeouts when the skis didn't turn the way I intended. I'm not sure how much of this had to do with the skis; I think that most of the problem was with the snow conditions. At least we all had fun skiing/boarding on the section below tree-line; I had been a little nervous that the trail would be too narrow, but on the descent I found that it was perfect for some mild downhill fun!

All in all, it took 2 hours and 45 minutes for us to get back down to the cars, arriving just before dark. (Phew!)

After a dinner in Cougar, WA that involved Susan eating everyone's leftover food (the hollow leg strikes again), our trio hit the road again.

After hitting construction traffic just a few miles from home, we made it back to Cheri's place at 10 p.m. A long, semi-epic day!

What I learned:

1. Randonee skis are awesome. They make kick-turns easier when turning switchbacks. They make the downhills much easier. The brakes not only decrease the chance of losing a ski, but make them easier to carry around the parking lot than tele skis. The only minor downside that I noticed is that if one ski slips out from under you when skinning up, the ski really shoots back under you on randonee skis; on tele's, this is mitigated by the boot/binding springiness. To be fair, I didn't do a side-by-side comparison and try to skin and ski on both tele and randonee skis on the same slopes on the same day. But I'm pretty convinced that the randonee skis are the way of the future for Susan. Unfortunately the boots, skis, and bindings are so expensive, but they are on sale now as the end of winter nears... :)
2. What looks like an easy-to-ski slope might not be so easy when you actually try it. Even though it really stinks to have to hike up the same section twice, try skiing a test section on your way up so that you know if you'll have to boot down the entire 5000' of open snowfield you're heading up. On this trip, everything ended up fine despite our difficulties with our descent, but if we had really been depending on our descent taking less than an hour, things could have gotten very difficult very quickly.
   
   

Thanks to Andy for the pictures; my hard drive died after I copied my pictures from my camera but before I could post them!

It's not all fun and games...

Being funemployed is not always as glamorous as it sounds. On Thursday and Friday I spent a good chunk of my time on homework; I'm taking a graphics programming class through the University of Washington Extensions this winter (and took its predecessor in the fall), and it's been driving me a little batty this quarter. The 3-hour class sessions don't seem to be preparing us for our assignments, which is a recipe for banging one's head against the wall repeatedly and a lot of time wasted on dead-ends.

I also spent time getting ready for the New Zealand trip: picking up the bike at the bike shop, giving it a test ride, trying to figure out whether to take a trailer or a rack + panniers, etc., etc.

Long story short, Friday I was supposed to be out skiing, but opted to stay home and work on homework instead. :(

Ski day on Hex Mountain

Hex Mountain 012
Originally uploaded by SusanAsh

Bob Coleman had been wanting to check out Hex Mountain, out by Salmon la Sac, WA, and I decided to tag along on his mid-week trip. We had a fun, mellow skin & ski under more or less blue skies. Near the summit (~5200') the winds picked up and the clouds rolled through, but we still were able to enjoy a relaxed lunch on the summit. We actually had some minor routefinding issues (we apparently started on the wrong road; there are two within 100 meters of each other), but enjoyed figuring them out. Total time: ~6 hours.

More photos

Training!

If I'm going to meet my goal of biking ~14 days in New Zealand for 75 miles per day, I need to be in decent shape before I head over there. To that end I've been getting on the bike a bit lately, and did some decent work yesterday: about 6 miles of running and 51 miles of biking. The riding will be more difficult in New Zealand, however as I will be carrying a significant amount of weight (clothing, tent, sleeping bag, etc.), and riding solo. I'm going to try to get in as much training as possible before I head out so that the riding doesn't wipe me out! I'm also planning on doing a one-night overnight bike-camping trip to make sure that my equipment works all right. I'm surprisingly busy these days, so fitting in lots of long rides is going to be a little tricky, but I'll do my best!

Chair Peak circumnavigation

Pat, Rob, and Ira
Originally uploaded by SusanAsh

On the way up to our first pass on our Chair Peak circumnavigation adventure: Pat, Rob, and Ira.

The weather varied between pleasant and overcast to steady winds with heavy snow.

This was my first ski tour of the year and despite falling all over the place on the downhills and some sketchy bits of skinning, had a great time overall.

Susan buys a ticket and makes a decision

When debating whether or not to interview for another job at Microsoft, it didn't take much time for me to start thinking about the many things I wanted to do outside of Microsoft. Over the years, I had accumulated a pretty long list of things I wanted to do but didn't have time for. One of them was biking in New Zealand.

Back in 2001, my friend James Miller introduced me to the concept of bike touring and took me on my first 20-mile bike ride (a circumnavigation of Lake Sammamish). Over the next several years, my newfound love for cycling took me to duathlons, road racing, a solo ride down the Oregon coast, cyclocross racing, up the length of the UK ('04), and around the states of Colorado ('05), Vermont ('04), and Hawaii ('07). I even brought my bike along when I travelled to South Africa in December of 2007.

New Zealand is known as one of the best places in the world for bike touring: epic scenery, friendly people, and quiet roads. In fact, about 5 years ago I picked up the book Bike New Zealand at Half Price Books. Additionally, the hiking in New Zealand has an awesome reputation: there are nine "Great Walks" that are well known and described by Peter Potterfield in his Classic Hikes. Hearing him talk about New Zealand at REI one night last year made me even more certain that I would travel there ... sometime. When I had time.

I knew that the summer was quickly coming to a close in the southern hemisphere, and that if I wanted to get a great start to some time away from Microsoft, New Zealand would be an option. Furthermore, airline flights are incredibly cheap these days - roughly half of what they were a year ago.

While thinking about travel options, I still needed to do some work to make sure that I reallydidn't want to interview for another job within Microsoft. I talked with a variety of people hiring software engineers both inside and outside of Microsoft. Their eagerness to talk to me convinced me that I was hireable and that I need not be extremely stressed about finding a job immediately.

After working for Microsoft for over 8 years, I realized that as I tried to make plans to leave that I had very strong financial and social ties to it. Knowing that the economy is terrible and unlikely to get better any time soon made me nervous from a financial standpoint (will I be able to find a job when the money runs out?), and not having a group of people to see and talk to every day was scary as well. One of the biggest unknowns was how I would handle having a lack of structure to my days and to my life as a whole. Could I independently create the structure I needed to continue to be a happy and healthy member of society?

There were still many unknowns regarding the future of the economy and my ability to handle them two weeks after the announcement was made, but I knew that an opportunity like this wouldn't likely present itself again. I was 30, single, without debt or children.

So it was with both trepidation and excitement that I placed a call to Qantas airlines on February 10.

I'll be leaving for New Zealand on March 1.

Skiing in Telluride

Frosty times
Originally uploaded by SusanAsh

I had never skied in Colorado before (or anywhere in the Rockies, for that matter), so when Jeff and Chris of our ice climbing contingent announced that they were going to Telluride for a day, I couldn't resist the temptation to check it out.

The slopes were almost empty and the lift lines nonexistent at this resort that boasts a lift up to 12,600'. It hadn't snowed in a week, and apparently this had scared off the spoiled Coloradans. Or maybe people were reluctant to fork over $92 for a day of mediocre skiing. We lucked out on both counts, as we got vouchers for ~$40 off lift tickets and it started to snow _hard_ midway through the day. For the first time ever, I actually enjoyed moguls! (OK, just a little bit).

Ice climbing in Ouray

Larry, Strange, and Charm
Originally uploaded by SusanAsh

In early January (weeks before the layoff announcement was made), eight of us from the Washington Alpine Club decided to make a pilgimage to Ouray, a mecca of ice climbing in the United States. Some of the ice may be naturally occurring, but the majority is manmade: water is piped in and turned on at night to create large walls of ice in Box Canyon, a short walk from the town of Ouray.

We all had a great time, and I discovered that I'm not nearly as bad at ice climbing as I am at rock climbing.

My first attempt at ice climbing

Denny kicking in
Originally uploaded by SusanAsh

I knew I wanted to try ice climbing in 2009, but hadn't found a weekend yet to go with friends. Alas, on February 1st I managed to coordinate a trip with Sketchy, Denny, and Tiffany to the Alpental area. I had a blast and was excited for the next weekend in Ouray!