Studio711.com – Ben Martens

The Quiet Side of Tiger

It just occurred to me that this title would work for a golfing post, but that's not what this is about. On Sunday afternoon, I headed down to Tiger Mountain as soon as I got home from church. It was 70 degrees and sunny so the place was busier than I've ever seen it before. Thankfully I had spent some time with the map the night before and figured out a route that I thought would avoid the crowds.

Tiger Mountain is made up of a series of peaks and my route took me across all three of the biggest peaks which are numbered 1, 2 and 3 from east to west. The photo above is taken from the street that leads away from my house. The main trail up the mountain only goes to peak 3 and it feels like walking through a busy mall because it's so crowded and loud. My route headed up the eastern side of the mountain: High Point Trail, Dwight's Way, Lingering Loop Trail, Tiger Mountain Trail, east at Fred's Corner, north on West Tiger No 1 Trail, then west along the peaks trail and then straight down on the cable line trail. All in all it was 6.5 miles and 2700' total vertical gain.

I saw maybe five or six groups all the way up to peak 1 and across to peak 3. When I got about two tenths of a mile from peak 3 I started to hear the whoops and screams from the huge crowd (30+ people) on top of the main trail.

It was my first time on the other two peaks and I was incredibly impressed. The east side of the mountain offers a very different feeling and peak 1 has an incredible view. It was hazy but I could see a long way south, west to the sound, and northwest to Seattle and Bellevue. I was also looking down on a bunch of the paragliders that launch from the southwest side of the mountain.

On the hike up I was thinking about the numbers from Lost and trying to figure out if I could make 4 8 15 16 23 42 spell something interesting. About that time, I heard voices coming through the woods. I rounded a corner and saw a radio tower! A few minutes down the trail and I came up to a building that was surrounded by a fence carrying signs about staying out due to some weird radiation from the towers. Luckily I didn't see any polar bears.

It was a long trip and wore me out. Other than the 30 minutes I spent on top of peak 1 taking pictures and trying to call Dad for Father's Day, I only stopped for a total of 20 minutes on the entire hike. It's great to get out there alone with my thoughts and enjoy some scenery.

Photos from the trip are in Outdoors > Tiger Mountain (the first five are from this hike.) And of course there is a new panoramic photo from this trip. I hiked up with a small tripod in my backpack to help with this one. It came out fairly well, but unfortunately the dark spot on the lens inside my camera is getting worse. I've noticed it for a while but it's to the point where I'm thinking of replacing the camera. I've tried to edit it out of the photos. That's a story for another day though. Click on the panorama below for the full size image.

benmartens June 17, 2008 Outdoors

Iron Goat Trail

On Saturday, I headed to Stevens Pass to hike along the Iron Goat Trail. This trail follows the old railroad bed and contains numerous old concrete snowsheds, concrete walls to protect the wooden snowsheds, and tunnels. This also happens to be the spot of the deadliest avalanche in American history which wiped out a train in 1910 killing nearly 100 people. Dad, Luke and I have all read a book about this called The White Cascade. It's good reading, but if you want the short version, you can read this newspaper article which is a decent summary.

My hike started at the Windy Point trailhead which is about in the middle of the Iron Goat Trail. There are some ADA accessible trails, but I headed up a series of switchbacks to get straight up to the railroad grade. Unfortuantely, on the way up I missed one of the switchbacks and ended up on a large scree field. I figured the trail had been washed away by an avalanche and I knew the railroad grade was probably at the top of the scree field. So why not hike straight up? Well this probably was one of the dumber moves I've made while hiking. The field was about 500 feet long and very steep. I knocked many boulders loose on my climb up but eventually made it to the top. I was hoping that I would find the trail on the way down so I didn't have to try to down-climb that field.

Once I reached the railroad bed, I headed east and quickly came to the west end of the Windy Point tunnel. This is about 3 miles west of Wellington where the train was hit by the avalanche. A short hike around the tunnel (it's not safe to go through it anymore) brought me to Windy Point which offers a nice view of the pass. A group of volunteers and some rangers were there eating lunch so I chatted with them for a bit before heading on.

My plan was to hike 2.5 miles from there up to Wellington, but at about 0.4 miles, I started to hit snow. That quickly transitioned to full snow. While it's not terribly hard to hike through, I kept breaking through spots where streams of water were running underneath. I decided to turn back and avoid 4 more miles (2 each way) of that kind of hike.

After finding the trail down which avoided the scree field, I got to my car and drove to the top of the pass. Tye Road near the top of the pass leads down to Wellington and it's a short hike from that parking area to the scene of the disaster. Unfortunately that road is still covered in 3-4 feet of snow so I wasn't able to make any progress.

Viewing of the Wellington area will have to wait until another day later in the year, but it was still great to hike along the trail. Railroad spikes and old scraps of iron are easily found all over the trail. It's so nice to see it all preserved there and not carted off by all the hikers!

On the way back down US 2, I stopped on the side of the road to see if I could figure out where Wellington was. While I'm not sure I found that spot, I did see the concrete snowshed which was just west of Wellington. It also looked like the trail had a bit less snow on it near the east end so I wonder what would have happened if I had kept hiking. Oh well, that mystery will have to wait for another sunny weekend!

Photos are available under Outdoors > Iron Goat Trail. I tried to give some description on each of the pictures.

benmartens June 16, 2008 Outdoors

Twin Falls

After my abysmal physical performance on Friday, I was pretty down on myself so I decided I need to get back on the trail and prove I wasn't a tub of lard. After church on Sunday, I drove to exit 34 and found Twin Falls State Park. The trail is not very strenuous (2.2 miles each way with 1300 cumulative elevation gain) so I set a quick pace and didn't take any rest stops. That was the plan anyway, but I did end up stopping at two points along the trail to view the amazing waterfall. It's not as big as Snoqualmie, but the hike up there makes it much much less crowded. If you click the image on the right, you'll see a large stitched photo of the full falls. It's hard to get a perspective from a picture like this, but the falls are 135ft high and about 30ft wide.

Our book of trails says this is a 2-4 hour hike, but I pounded it out in 1 hour and 23 minutes, and according to the GPS, I was stopped for 11 minutes of that time. As I came back across the bridge over the falls which is 1.2 miles from the trailhead, I crossed paths with the two groups that had left the trailhead at the same time as me. In the time it took them to go 1.2 miles, I had gone 2.2 miles up to the top and then 1 mile back down to that bridge. That brought a smile to my face.

The top of the trail connects with the Iron Horse Trail. That's the old railroad grade that goes all the way up to Snoqualmie Pass and includes a 2.2 mile long tunnel under the ski area. Tim and I have plans to ride our bikes down that one of these days so it was nice to see what the trail actually looked like.

This was the first time that I have ever hiked by myself. It was a great way to recharge my batteries, clear out a head that has been consumed with a lot of thoughts lately, and get in a good workout. After getting home, I proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon on the couch watching NASCAR, but somehow I didn't feel too lazy which made it even better.

More pictures are available in the photo gallery under Outdoors > Twin Falls.

benmartens June 11, 2008 Outdoors, Panorama

Skiing in June

A guy on my team at work, MikeD, has been talking to me about backcountry skiing for the past year. He did it for a long time in Colorado before moving to the Seattle area. He finally convinced me to give it a try, so Friday morning we set out for Camp Muir on Mt. Rainier.

The hike starts off at Paradise at an elevation of 5400' and goes directly up the mountain to Camp Muir at 10,188 ft. That camp is the basecamp for groups attempting to make the summit at 14,400'. Our hike was about 4700 vertical feet in 4.5 miles. That's about constant 20% grade which is much steeper than most road hills you'll encounter. For comparison, Lombardi Street in San Francisco is 31.5%. This route was steep.

Normal ski gear won't work for something like this so I rented a few things from Marmot Mountain Works in Bellevue. I got an avalanche beacon (for being rescued or for locating the position of a fallen skier), fat powder skis (Black Diamond Vertex 180s with a 100mm waist!), special climbing ski boots and climbing skins for the base of the skis. The skis have special randonnee bindings on them. The heel of the binding can come out of the ski and hinges on the toe. The skins that stick to the bottom of the ski allow you to slide forward but give you traction when you step uphill. What all this gear allows you to do is climb straight up a hill on your skis in a fairly comfortable motion. It took a few steps to get used to but after the first five minutes I was in the groove.

We expected to hike the first mile or two with our skis attached to our large ~30lb packs. Boy were we surprised when it started snowing well before we even reached Paradise! By the time we got to the parking lot, the Subaru was plowing through 5-6 inches of fresh snow and it was still coming down fast. (3-4 more inches fell while we were there and a foot was expected by Saturday morning.) While we were in the parking lot, I heard one of the summit guides talking to someone at Camp Muir. They had 40mph winds, zero visibilit8y, and extreme avalanche danger up there. Everyone was snowed in. Yikes! We knew we probably wouldn't be able to get all the way to the camp but decided to go up as far as we could.

Mike led the way and we started plowing our way up the trail with Mike being nice enough to break a trail through all the fresh snow. I made it less than a quarter of a mile, vomited, and felt like I was going to pass out. WHAT?! It was one of the most embarrassing points of my life, but thankfully Mike was very nice about it even though I'm sure he wondered what he had gotten himself into. It took about 20 minutes for the feeling to pass. My only guess is that the combination of ascending 5000 feet in the car and then going at 100% full steam ahead a few minutes later was just too much change all at once. I should have done some laps around the car or something.

Mike offered to show me how to assess avalanche danger to give me some more time to recover. We headed off the main trail, found a suitable spot and started digging. Basically you are digging a deep pit to look for the different layers of snow and see if there are any large variances that could sheer off. The snowpack looked pretty good so there wasn't much danger down there. I was amazed that there was still 6-10 feet of snow in most places.

After that, I decided I was ready to push on, and from there on, things went much better. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't able to keep up with Mike, but I was able to set a steady slow pace. Actually it was probably about half the speed that he was going which was still embarrassing, but at least I was moving uphill again.

When we reached 6150' feet, we stopped to eat some food. We had been on the hill for a couple hours now and it was time for a break. By this point the weather was getting really nasty so Mike and I dug a snow pit, sat down inside and at our lunch. As we sat there, one of the guided summit groups came back down past us. They had made it up to Panorama point at 6900 feet and decided it was too bad to continue. After finishing our lunch, we decided that we should probably head back as well. While I readily admit that I would not have made it to Camp Muir at that pace, I would have liked to keep going at least a bit further. Unfortunately it just wasn't safe to keep going. The ski down was going to be very difficult because we couldn't see much ahead of us.

In retrospect, we could have picked a better route down, but it was still incredible to be skiing down huge open valleys with at least 10 inches of fresh snow. Those fat skis were incredibly fun and gave me a lot more flotation than I'm used to. We ended up being about a mile west and a little lower than the trailhead so that meant it was time to put the skins back on and continue the hike.

When we got back to the trailhead at Paradise, we headed into the lodge to change into some dry clothes. Komo4 news was there with their video cameras interviewing people. You can see the news video and read the accompanying story on the Komo4 news site.

All in all it was an incredible day. I've spent many ski days in conditions like that before, but it was a shock every time I remembered the date was June 6. I can't thank Mike enough for answer all the questions I had about the whole process, for breaking trail the entire trip, for putting up with my crazy sickness at the beginning, and for waiting for me to catch up the whole trip.

The whole event was an order of magnitude harder than I had expected. I knew it would be a challenge, but I considered myself in fairly decent shape. Wrong. Carrying a 30 pound pack and tying 5 pound weights to your feet while climbing up a 20% slope was an incredible challenge. We ended up hiking over 3 miles and 1200 vertical feet throughout the day which isn't too shabby.

I do want to try it again, but I have a lot more training to do. Hopefully Mike will be willing to take me up again, but next time I'll probably choose a smaller hill to tackle and I'll train heavily before we go. I'm considering buying some leg weights and wearing those on our weekend hikes since those don't usually stress me out too much. I'm also considering attempting to make it to Camp Muir later in the year when most of the snow has melted. The last two miles will still be on a snowfield, but we shouldn't be running into a blizzard! This trip put a damper on my thoughts of summiting Rainier next year. I'll have to see how the second attempt at Muir goes later this year.

I didn't take many photos since I spent most of the day trying to keep up with Mike. Thanks to Mike for sending over some of his pictures. You can find them in the photo gallery in Skiing > Paradise. The pictures didn't come out great but it's due to the heavy snow that fell all day!

benmartens June 9, 2008 Outdoors, Skiing

What Motorcyclists Wish You Knew

I had an interesting conversation the other day where a lady talked about how driving around motorcycles made her nervous. I actually notice that some drivers do change their driving styles when I'm around them. Sometimes that's good, and sometimes that's bad. Next time you're near a motorcyclist on the road, here are some things to remember:

  • The main thing is that if you get in an accident, you'll have to fill out some paperwork and get a loaner car while yours is in the shop. If we get in an accident, we die. Therefore, in any argument, the motorcyclists wins whether you like it or not. That's not to say the rider is always right, but you must give way and let them do their thing if you have the choice.
  • Always use your turn signals and check your blindspots, especially if you know there is a motorcycle around. I know firsthand what can happen.
  • If it's rainy, we're probably miserable and less happy than normal.
  • Don't wash your windshield if we're following you.
  • Don't flick your cigarette out the window if we're behind you.
  • If you're on the interstate and there's a large convoy of motorcycles, try not to get in the middle of us. If you need to exit, just slow down and get behind us. Don't try to merge into the middle. And if you find yourself in the middle of a pack, kindly pull out and get in front of behind the pack. Don't make us all pull out and pass you one by one.If you're driving down a nice windy two lane road and there's a rider behind you, slow down and wave us past when it's convenient. I'm way faster than you in the corners and I'm probably driving that windy road for the enjoyment of the corners.
  • If I turn on my turn signal to merge in, back off. I can fit in just about any spot and I will whether you give me room or not. I can't count the number of times that I turn on my signal to squeeze into a spot, and when I finally do squeeze in, the driver slams on their brakes like it was a surprise. My bike is small. I use that to my advantage. Deal with it.
  • I don't care how big your muffler is, you can't race me. My bike does not have a huge engine and I ride a cruiser instead of a sport bike, but I've still beaten Porsche's off the line. You can't compete with the horsepower to weight ratio.
  • When following, leave twice as much space as you normally would. Few things make me more nervous than a tailgater. It's very dangerous. Besides, bikers have been known to have a stack of nuts attached to their bike which they will drop off behind them when a car is following too closely. You'll end up with a dent in your car or a cracked windshield.
  • If you're waiting to turn onto a road and you see a motorcycle coming, look really hard before you decide to pull out. It's very difficult to judge the speed of the bike since there is only one headlight. Assume they are flying and if at all possible, just wait until they go past. As a biker, I really don't like following people and I always give a friendly wave to someone who waits a few extra seconds to let me pass before they pull out.

It's a lot to remember, and I know it's a losing battle. Even if there's one person on the road who doesn't understand these things, that's all it takes to get me hurt. As a motorcyclist, I assume that everyone on the road is out to kill me. It's a mentality that has served me very well so far. When you get on a motorcycle, you quickly gain sixth sense of knowing who the bad drivers are and predicting their poor choices.

Ultimately it's my responsibility to manage my own risk level, but you can help us out by paying extra attention when we're out there. Thanks!

benmartens June 6, 2008 Motorcycle

Mountain Biking

Tim and I have been enjoying our bikes down the street at Soaring Eagle Park. On Memorial Day, we decided to try to make a little video. That basically consisted of us riding around until we found a mud puddle or bridge, setting up the camera and riding past it. We’re clearly not very great at this yet, but we have a good time. You can tell us apart in the video because Tim has the blue backpack and I’m the guy with the Under Armor pants and white shirt.

You can watch the flash version below or download the full video.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

benmartens May 30, 2008 Outdoors

Rattlesnake Lake Hike

After I skied on Saturday morning, I met Rachel and Tim at Rattlesnake Lake for hike #10 from our hike book. As you can see from the GPS track below, we walked down to the lake since we had never been there before. The lake looks a bit low and the map seems to confirm that as it shows we were supposedly walking in the water.

Looking up from the lake, it's easy to spot Rattlesnake Ledge jutting out from the mountain. The hike from the lake to the ledge isn't too difficult. The trail is wide and very full of people. It gets a bit annoying at times, but we made great time up the mountain and passed a lot of people. After a quick stop at the crowded ledge, we continued up the mountain and left the crowds behind.

From that point, the trail gets more difficult and there were only a few hikers. We had plans of going all the way to the top, but after we realized there was snow on the last mile, we decided to turn around. Our footwear wasn't ready for that much snow and we would have ended up with cold, soaked feet.

The hike was fantastic and has jumped up near the top of my list. If you go on the same hike, bypass the first ledge and go up another 0.5-0.75 miles to find another smaller ledge that will be much less crowded and offer even better views.

Saturday was good practice for my Camp Muir hike which is coming up on June 6. Mike and I have scheduled vacation for that day, and I rented randonnee ski gear. Hopefully the weather is as beautiful as it was today!

There are pictures in the photo gallery and more panoramic photos. There is a bug in the photo gallery which doesn't let me put these panoramas there, so I'll leave them in this post. I think they help to communicate the vast views better than the single photos.

benmartens May 28, 2008 Outdoors, Panorama

Geohashing

Rachel and I have been chatting about trying to do a little geocaching instead of regular hiking. Today's XKCD comic presents an idea called geohashing. There is a formula to figure out a geohash location. The inputs to the formula are the date, that date's (or most recent) Dow opening, and the integer lat/lon of your current location. The formula includes an MD5 hash and is pictured below. There is an app already written to calculate each meeting spot and there is a wiki with more info.

I'm not going to bother to explain what all that means, but if you need more help, you can click on the links for extra learnin'.

benmartens May 21, 2008 Geek, Outdoors

Sunday Ride

Rachel and I hopped on the motorcycle on Sunday and went exploring. The first interesting site was the split in the road pictured below. You can click on it for the full view. The road splits and both directions have a Dead End sign. I feel like this is a good cover for a motivational book, or maybe there's a sermon topic in there for you Pastor Scherschel.

All of our exploration ended in either dead ends or dirt roads. (Jay, if we had your Jeep out here, we could drive on dirt roads to some incredible places.) We backtracked back down to the main road and headed for Snoqualmie Falls.

I've been to the falls a number of times, but it's still one of my favorite places to show people. It's my way of saying, "See how awesome Washington is? This place is 14 minutes from my house!"

The near-record snowfall in the mountains coupled with the record warm temperatures has created a very fast melting snowpack that is sending flash floods down the hillsides. I was shocked at how much water was flowing over the falls. I've never seen anything close to it. Check out these comparison shots. I think it will be easy to tell which ones were from the weekend and which were from a previous summer.

 

I don't have a comparison shot for this last picture because the river is so high that all of these rocks are underwater. The normally calm river where people go tubing has turned into raging rapids.

Speaking of record snowfall, Alpental is staying open for another weekend. What an incredible ski season!

benmartens May 21, 2008 Motorcycle, Outdoors, Panorama

Topographic Wallpaper

Export a JPEG from TOPO! It seems to have a problem if you try to export the entire state, but you can split it up into fairly big chunks.

Download GIMP

Choose Image > Guides > New Guide By %.

This splits up the photo for printing, and you can break up your photo into A4, easy-to-print sizes.

Finally, use Image > Transform > Guillotine.

benmartens May 19, 2008 Projects