Goals for 2011

A year-length bucket list, if you will. I made a similar list in summer, but I only accomplished 4 of the 12 goals. I never really expected to reach all of them—some of my goals are easily attainable, while others are difficult (and some are just plain fantasies). Anyways, here's my list for this year. Hopefully I'll have a better success rate this time around!

1. Go back to school for Environmental Biology/Zoology. This one's pretty much in the bag, unless for some reason MSU declines my application for readmission. I've been looking at programs for the last year and a half, and it finally became feasible.
2. Keep riding the veggie train. I always feel healthier when I stick to a vegetarian diet. This was one of my summer goals that I met—been going strong for about a month now. (Which isn't so easy when you live on an Angus beef farm.)
3. Keep riding, period. This is critical to weight loss, and to getting faster, which leads me to...
4. Get faster. I want to improve my Ore to Shore time by at least 15 minutes, and actually finish Iceman this year.
5. Travel to more places with better hiking than Michigan. Because I want to climb a freaking mountain, not a hill! While I love biking in Michigan, the local hiking leaves a lot to be desired. Hopefully I'll get a chance to visit family out west again, and take in some sweet hikes in the process.
6. Save money. This will be difficult with goal #1, but it involves a 2012 goal: attending a mountaineering course at NOLS.
7. Volunteer more! I started doing volunteer work in the wildlife department of the Michigan Humane Society this fall, and hopefully I can find time to step it up a bit with another organization.
8. Actually hike the Porkies. This was in my summer list, but I never got around to it. There was always some excuse—weather, races, my job, the list goes on.
9. Tour Michigan's microbreweries by bicycle. Another from my summer list. Pretty self-explanatory, no? Who's with me?
10. Race more. Entering my first race was one of my summer goals, and I ended up doing 3 in 2010. I want to increase that in 2011—aiming for 6.
11. Ride to one of the Great Lakes. Probably Huron, because it's closest.
12. Hike Isle Royale. I planned on going with the wolf and moose study exhibition in 2010, but it coincided with Ore to Shore. Clearly, Ore to Shore won out for me. I won't have the funds to participate in the study this year (see #6), but I'd still like to hike the whole island.

Oh, and one of the things I'm hoping for is more snow. I finally got my snowshoes (I decided on a pair of MSRs) and all the snow melted. What the hell, Michigan? It's not supposed to be 45ºF in January!

Greetings from Oregon

I've been in Oregon for almost a week now with the family, and I've got to say, I love it here! I've been bikeless the whole time, but it hasn't been too bad because I've been getting in a lot of workouts doing day hikes.

The first place we took in was Crater Lake. Despite hearing the accounts of many who have been there, I couldn't believe how pristine and blue the lake truly is.

We attempted to hike up Watchman Peak to get a better view, but it was still rather snowy:

We weren't expecting the trail to have over 6 feet of snow in mid-July, and nobody on the trip was prepared to hike in it so we turned back at that point (since slipping on the snow would mean sliding down the slope into a bunch of unfriendly-looking rocks).

We were able to hike down to the surface of the lake, which was just as blue up close. The hike back up was intense though—over 700 feet of gain in just about a mile.

We spent some time traveling to see the redwoods in California and a kind ranger told us about a little-known trail that wound around the hills south of Crescent City and took you down along the coast in the Redwood National Park. It was pretty isolated and the views were incredible. I've got to admit, I'm falling in love with the mountains here.

One thing, however, did put a bit of a damper on my enjoyment of the outdoors, and that was people breaking rules. Not everyone abides by the Leave No Trace philosophy of "Take only pictures, leave only footprints," but I saw several people blatantly breaking the rules at national parks. People were feeding squirrels and chipmunks at Crater Lake...while I'll admit it's not as dangerous as feeding a bear, it's still bad to do. When squirrels start relying on handouts from people, they don't bury as many seeds and less new pine trees germinate. Even squirrels have important roles!

Feeding squirrels scraps of bread paled in comparison to people taking out large pieces of driftwood from the coast south of Crescent Beach. On the way down, I passed a group of people carrying out four large pieces of driftwood (ranging from two to four feet wide) and a piece of what looked like coral back to their car. Seeing that was infuriating, and it was very hard to bite my tongue and not inform them that they were breaking federal law by removing those from the park...but getting in the middle of an argument about it while being outnumbered didn't seem like a smart idea. It made me even more mad when I got down to the beach, and saw that there was really very little driftwood down there—it would've been appreciated if those folks had left it for others to see.