Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Outdoors

Tent

cabelastentIt has been 11 years since I bought a tent. That last $35 tent served me well over the years but it was always flimsy, it wasn’t great in the rain, and the last time we used it, Oskar ran through the door destroying the zipper.

With Elijah getting to an age where we are considering camping, I decided it was time to stock up on some new gear. Instead of going for another cheapo tent, I decided to buy one that will probably last us for the rest of our lives. Tim and Chelsea bought the 6-person Cabela’s Alaskan Guide Geodesic Tent a few years ago. They’ve had that tent out in a lot of wild weather and it’s still in fantastic condition. Those experiences coupled with a $100-off sale on tents at Cabelas caused me to pull the trigger before even figuring out if Elijah actually likes camping. In addition to the $100-off sale, I was able to ship it to the store which is in another county that has a lower tax rate so I saved quite a bit of money.

Elijah and I picked up the tent last weekend and set it up in the front room. We didn’t set it up fully, but it was enough to make sure that the tent was in good shape and to get him excited about the idea of camping. We’re going to book a quick camping weekend with just the three of us somewhere close by to see how it goes, but hopefully we’ll be getting out a little more often in the coming summers.

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benmartens May 27, 2016 Outdoors

Talus Rocks Hike

All this nice weather had me itching to get out for a hike so Saturday morning we piled in the car and headed for Tiger Mountain. Instead of attempting the peak with a ~25 pound kid in a backpack, we did the Talus Rocks trail (#8 from Beyond Mt Si).

Elijah did a fantastic job on the trip. He rode calmly in the backpack the whole time and talked nonstop. The most common topic was about which trees had fallen down and which ones were “good strong trees.” I think he’s slightly nervous because we’ve seen some trees falling (even on a car) so this was his way of working through it.

We made pretty good time on the hike with only one quick stop to shed some layers. The trail from the main West Tiger 3 trail over to the Nook Trail was pretty much covered in trees and we bushwacked a bit around some closed areas. Eventually the deer path or whatever we were following ended up back on the main trail and we continued along. The nice thing about Tiger Mountain is that as long as you understand the basic layout of the main trails or if you have a map handy on your phone, it’s pretty hard to get lost because there are so many well-travelled and well-marked trails.

We covered 3.3 miles and averaged 2.4 mph. Hopefully this was just the first of many hikes for the season!
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benmartens April 18, 2016 Outdoors

Greenwater Lakes

After the success of our Barclay Lake hike, we decided to try it again. We met Mandy and Ike at their house, got both car seats into one car and piled in for a 1 hour 45 minute drive down to the trailhead for Greenwater Lakes. It’s off of Hwy 410 on Forest Road 70. The drive was a little long for the boys both coming and going, but it’s nice to get a little farther away from the popular, crowded trails.

The hike had a little more vertical than the Barclay Lake hike but it wasn’t too bad. Unfortunately the lakes at the end weren’t as great as we were expecting. They both looked really low which is unusual for this time of year but probably expected given the low snowpack. We had a normal amount of precipitation during the winter, but it wasn’t in the form of snow so it wasn’t released slowly down the mountain during the spring melt.

We ended up going all the way past the bigger, second lake and found a nice spot along the river that feeds into the lakes. The boys had fun throwing rocks into the water while we enjoyed a picnic and rested up for the trip back.

I don’t think we’ll do this one again, or at least if we do, we’ll wait until we know the lakes are fuller. There were some reasonably good camping sites available in that area too.

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benmartens June 16, 2015 Outdoors

Barclay Lake

We’ve had an incredible spring in terms of weather. Normally we are in the midst of “June gloom” where it might not be super wet, but it’s 100% cloudy for weeks on end. Instead, we’re in a stretch of warm weather and clear blue skies. We don’t usually get this until July. I’ll take it!

When you get nice weather in the Pacific Northwest, you better take advantage of it, and that’s just what we did. We loaded up the car and headed to Barclay Lake for a hike with Nancy, Megan, Mandy and Ike. Our previous attempts at hiking haven’t been super successful because Elijah ends up getting tired of riding in the backpack and wants to walk. Walking turns into a game of endless distractions that doesn’t result in us moving down the trail.

This hike went a lot better, and it might be because Ike and Elijah could both see the other one riding in a backpack. The hike was not too difficult, but it ended at a very nice lake. Elijah and Ike spent their time throwing rocks and mud into the lake while the rest of us had a picnic.

Ike and Elijah both fell asleep in the backpacks on the way back to the car and the hike was a success! The only downfall was that I had underestimated the traffic that would be coming back through the pass on Memorial Day. It added about 90 minutes to our 90 minute drive. Ouch.

Two thumbs up for Barclay Lake though. There were a lot of very nice potential camping spots around the lake and I could see it being a good spot for a first overnight trip with Elijah when he’s older and able to carry his own pack.

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benmartens June 12, 2015 Outdoors

Birch Bay Camping

Tyla’s family was camping up at Birch Bay State Park over Labor Day weekend. They had their trailer parked at the state park and had also reserved a room at their timeshare/condo place down the street. Tyla and I ended up staying there with Elijah at night and then hung out at the campsite during the day. It’s not exactly the most hardcore camping trip I’ve ever had, but it’s a nice area and we had better weather than expected, and it was nice to get away from the house for a while. There was a pretty nice sunset the first night too.

benmartens September 5, 2014 Outdoors

Meydenbauer Beach Park

A couple weekends ago, Tyla and I headed to a new (for us) park in Bellevue. It’s small but it has a nice little swimming area with life guards. Mandy and Ike joined us for the sunny fun and I snapped a few photos. You can also check out my quick Photosynth from the park. Well, technically it’s the view FROM the park. I didn’t want to look too creepy photographing other people’s kids.

benmartens August 18, 2014 Outdoors

Anti-Aircraft Peak

We purchased a used hiking backpack earlier this year, but aside from walks around the neighborhood and working in the yard, we’ve never really used it. Now that the yard is finally done, we are able to spend more time together as a family so this past weekend, we headed out on a more legitimate hike.

Since we didn’t know how Elijah would react to the adventure, I picked a hike that I’ve been avoiding throughout the years because of it’s simplicity. Simple is good in this case though. So we headed for Cougar Mountain to hike around the Anti-Aircraft Peak area (hike #3 in the Beyond Mt. Si book.)

This area was the site of some post-WW2 90mm anti-aircraft guns to help guard the Puget Sound Area. They were later replaced with a site for the Nike Ajax Missile Defense. None of that stuff is still operational or even present on the mountain anymore.

The hike itself went pretty well. We made it about 1.4 miles before Elijah decided he wasn’t loving it. We stopped for a break, but given how unhappy he was when he got back in the pack, we decided to take one of the shorter options to finish the hike at around 2.2 miles. He was almost falling asleep at the very end so we probably could have completed the entire planned hike.

I’d call it mostly a success though. I want to make a few modifications to the backpack to help hold him in place better. I also need to avoid wearing a hat with a big long string that he can pull on! Assuming that he gets more used to riding back there, I think we could tackle some slightly longer trips.

benmartens July 23, 2014 Outdoors

Estimating A Hike Duration

Back when I used to have time to go hiking, I was constantly amazed at how predictable my hiking speed was. This takes a little practice, but here are some rules of them. I didn’t invent them but everyone needs to tweak them a little bit to their own habits.

To calculate the time it will take to do a hike:

  1. Add 20 minutes for every mile
  2. Add 30 minutes for every 1000 feet of vertical

That’s it! So if you’re going on a 4.5 mile round trip hike that goes up 2000 feet and then returns to the starting point, that would be 4.5 miles * 20 minutes + 2  thousand feet * 30 minutes = 2.5 hours. You don’t need to count the down part. The 30 minutes that you add for going up takes the down into account.

The flat ground timing is extremely accurate. The elevation can be more variable depending on the steepness of the slope. And of course you need to factor in how much time you’ll spend enjoying the view at the top.

I wonder how this will apply with an 11 month old boy on my back?

benmartens May 19, 2014 Outdoors

Bike Trailer

Last year, Tyla got a bike for her birthday, and we’ve been hoping to do some family bike rides this summer. Elijah probably won’t be riding a bike yet so we decided to get him a bike trailer. When I hopped online to do some research I was amazed at what you can buy for a bike trailer! We opted for the lower end of the spectrum until we prove that we actually need something fancier and settled on this very well reviewed model from InStep.

Assembly was quick and easy. Elijah fits into the straps just fine so we decided to give it a shot. He did ok on a very quick ride around the cul-de-sac. He’s a very curious kid and his curiosity was definitely winning though he wasn’t laughing or smiling. We decided to go for a ride around the neighborhood but after about a quarter mile, he decided he was done.

It’s generally too cold and/or wet for this kind of activity right now anyway. I’m guessing that by the time spring rolls around, he’ll be loving this!

benmartens February 10, 2014 Outdoors

Road Trips From Seattle

We’re starting to get some beautiful summer weekends so I thought I would like out a few of my favorite day or weekend trips.

  1. Artists Point on Mt. Baker – Check WSDOT to see when it opens. It will probably be a few more weeks yet, but the road is fun to drive and it’s awesome to see how much snow is still up there in the middle of the summer. Do this on a sunny day though so you get a good view.
  2. Dry Falls – We did this as a day ride, but you could combine it with something else (like #3). The stretch along Highway 2 going east from 97 away from Wenatchee is AWESOME as you wind through a canyon on very curvy roads.
  3. Grand Coulee Dam – This is a long drive so maybe you want to spend a night, but you could do it in a day I guess too. Just make sure you give yourself some time to take the tour. It’s worth it and shows you stuff you’d never get to see on your own. They have a laser light show on the dam at night which is interesting for the first few minutes but didn’t hold my attention. If you’re staying overnight then it’s worth seeing.
  4. Hwy 20 is the northernmost pass through the Cascades and it’s my favorite. You’ll go through Winthrop on the way back which has a fun old west look to it. I did this as a long day ride on my bike. You’ll go past Lake Chelan which is huge and beautiful but also very packed.
  5. Canyon Road between Ellensburg and Yakima is another great curvy road with fun scenery. You can combine this with a drive across US 12 and a stop at Rimrock Lake.
  6. Mt Rainier – Duh. Sunrise on the east and Paradise on the south are the main stopping points, but if you’re up for some off-roading, you can also check out Mowich Lake.
  7. Crystal Mountain – It’s my favorite winter spot but it’s also great in the summer. They offer horseback rides or you can take the gondola up to the top and hike down.

This is by no means a complete list, but maybe there are a few on here that you haven’t tried yet. Whatever you decide, get outside and enjoy the incredible Pacific Northwest!

benmartens July 4, 2013 Outdoors