Frogs!

I spend a good part of the day yesterday at a beaver pond shooting photos.  I have never really realized the importance of beavers in the ecosystem until today.  The wetlands they create are incredible and the species that live in them is diverse and beautiful.  I got a little carried away shooting photos of frogs.  I was fairly happy with the results.  So here you go.  First few photos are of pacific tree frogs.  The last photo is a frog yet to be identified.  If anyone  knows what it is please let me know. 

Not sure what type of frog this guy is so if you know please let me know.

Dragontail Peak Backbone Ridge.

Last week I did  a great trip to the Enchantments for a bit of rock climbing with Tom.  This was by far my best work trip of the year.  We started with a morning of climbing at Index, on the lower Town Wall.  We climbed Great Northern Slab, Japanese Gardens and Godzilla.  From there we did the drive to Leavenworth and climbed Classic Crack.  The goal of the day was to teach an Englishman how to crack climb.  We tried, but as with all crack climbers first days it was a bit of a struggle.  All in all Tom did a pretty good job despite showing full on British crack climbing technique by attempting to lay back of face climb around all the cruxes.
The next day we hiked into Colchuck lake to use our newly learned crack climbing technique on Dragontail Peak.  Is there any better way to test a new crack climber than to put them on a 30 meter long 5 inch offwidth crack?  Below are some photos of the climb.  

Tom in the offwidth.

More offwidth fun.

The top of the offwidth pitch.

Looking down the route.

Midway up the route.

Colchuck lake in the background.

The summit.

Sunset on the summit usually means its going to be a long day/night.

We got back to camp sometime after dark, drank beer, ate food and went to sleep.  The hike out the next morning was quite nice and we did a little climbing in the afternoon, which was also followed by beer.

A pika posing for a perfect photo.

Dragonfly at the lake.

The trip was ended by a run up OuterSpace the Leavenworth classic.

Tom on the crux pitch with high winds creating some interesting clouds.

Lunch with President Obama and Patty Murray.

I had the chance to shoot photos at Senator Patty Murray's fund raising event in the Westin Hotel in Seattle Yesterday.  Here are some of the photos of the speakers at the event.  

To respect privacy I have not included the individual and group photos on my blog.  If I shot your photo at the event please email me and I will be sure to get you copies of any photos I shot.  

Update on the Golden Eagle Work

I mentioned in some previous posts (here, here and here) that I had done some work with the WA Department of Fish and Wildlife on Golden Eagles. Much of that work involved getting to eagle nests and removing any prey remains that were in the nest after the young had fledged. Today I got some the the results of that work emailed to me.
At one nest was the following: 1 coyote pup, 2 pheasant, 1 magpie, 1 crow.  The next nest contained: 3 yellow-bellied marmots, 1 hoary marmot, 1 deer fawn, 1 short-eared owl, 1 chuckar, 1 pheasant, 1 raven, 1 snake, and another unidentified bird.  The third nest contained: 2 coyote pups, 4 yellow-bellied marmots, 1 deer fawn, 1 chukar, 1 magpie, 1 rock dove, 1 snake.
The nest below had no above anchors and the rock below was of such poor quality that every time I tried to leave the ground I would end up pulling grapefruit size chunks of rock down.   I ended up climbing in from the ledge on the left of this photo and tunneling through a very small constriction on the far left of the photo after tossing a large pile of rock that was blocking my way.  Although the rope would have done very little to prevent me from hitting the ground if I was to fall I was more worried about the rock above collapsing as I crawled through. 

Here I am in one of the nests collecting prey remains.  Its also known as picking up dead things and putting them in a bag.

 One nest still had a young bird in it and as I came to the nest that bird fledged. It was then captured, banded and fitted with a GPS tracking device.

Measuring the eagle before we carried him back to the nest.

It was then carried back to the nest, but it decided it liked the outside world more and fledged for its second and final time later that day. The map below shows the movements of that bird since we fitted it with the GPS device. 

Courtesy of WA Dept. of Fish and Wildlife

There are many wind turbines in the area where this nest is so lets hope our bird manages to avoid the hundred or so that are there now and the hundreds more that are planned.

We also revisited the nest I placed a trail camera in earlier in the year.  This was to retrieve the trail camera which hopefully had been shooting photos of mother and two young birds for the last month of their time in the nest.  

Here are the birds when I visited the nest for the second time.

The good news on this nest came before we got the ropes in place when a juvenile eagle flew right over head.  The great news came when we got home to find out there were 6000 photos on the trail cameras memory card and all but the last couple had eagles in them.

A photo from the trail camera showing mother bird, the two chicks and a coyote pup.  (WDFW Photo)

This is one of the last photos of the chicks in the nest.  The next morning they were both gone. (WDFW Photo)

Although I have not been in that many nests I probably have the distinction of having sat in more of these (legally) than most other people.  The nest are huge, one which I went to was about 8 feet long and 6 feet wide.  The one in the photo just above was typical of sizes which is about 5 to 6 feet wide.  Not all of the nests are as stable as I would like.  I certainly never un-clipped from the rope while at any of the nests (with the exception of one which did not require a rope to get to, but turned out to be the most unstable).  I made the call that if it did collapse it would result in bodily harm but probably would not kill me.

All the nests I went to had several other nest nearby.  Eagles will often build more than one nest in a given area or on a cliff.  They tend to rotate from one nest to another over several years. The reason for this is not know for sure, but one theory is that parasites build up in the nest over several years and moving to other nests allows them to die off.  We did visit several tree nests which I did not climb to.  That was fun when I was a kid, now it looks downright scary.  Luckily I was with another person who was more that willing to climb tree nests.

Tree nest in Eastern Washington.

I usually don't like to create blog posts without a bunch of pretty pictures since that is what I am supposed to do, but I kind of felt the content of this post makes up for it.  But...  Here is a few pretty pictures just in case.  I shot these all in the last week or so.

Ravens don't often let you get this close.

Closer still.  I only shoot with a 200mm lens.

Juvenile Robin

AAI Alpine Leadership Part 3 course.

Golden Eagle Nest Work

I just got back from a week of working with WA Dept of Fish and Wildlife. The work was some of the more interesting that I have done this summer. I spent the week collecting prey remains from from golden eagle nests in an attempt to identify what the eagles are eating. Eagles will put their nests on cliff faces often in caves to protect them from the weather. Getting to many of these nests was pretty challenging and each presented a unique problem. Some nests have no overhead anchors and very loose rock making for difficult climbing conditions. Once at each nest I would collect any pellets and any remains of prey that were in the nest.

Me sitting in a particularly challenging nest.

I found all sorts of animal parts in the nests including deer faun legs, coyote skulls, lots of marmot skulls, game bird legs, raptor skull, and snake parts. From a non-biologist perspective it appears that eagles will eat anything available and are pretty good hunters.

One of the last nests we did still had a chick in it. Soon after this photo was shot the bird fledged and made a remarkably graceful first flight out of the nest and down to the valley below.


The bird was captured, banded and fitted with a GPS tracking device.

Banding the bird. This is the business end of an eagle. The talons are the main danger in dealing with eagles.

Adding the band.

The eagle with the GPS tracker.

And a couple of eagle portraits.


The eagle then had to be returned to the nest. This involved wading across a creek, hiking up a hill, climbing down to the nest and putting the bird in.

In this photo I am standing in the nest so I can put the bird back. After grabbing the bird I put it in the nest and quickly climbed out. The bird stayed and we left. (WDFW photo)

Wildlife from the last few days.

More out of luck than any other reason, I have run into lots of wildlife in the last week or so. I am currently in Eastern Washington doing some work with WA Dept of Fish and Wildlife on golden eagle nests. Although I have not yet run into a golden eagle, I have seen a few other pretty interesting things. Here are some photos.

I am not sure what type of bat this is, but my guess right now is a Townsends Long Eared.

We estimated there were around 100 bats in the cave.

California Quail

Hummingbird Nest

Mountain Chickadee

Red Squirrel.

I am still trying to get a photo of a bushy tailed wood rat, but I cant get him out of the engine to get a photo.

Baker 6 Day Course

Here are some photos from a recent trip to Mt. Baker. This was an enjoyable trip despite the weather. It was certainly a memorable one due to reaching the summit in the worst weather I have ever been on the summit in.

Ed practicing his ice climbing.
Iryna practicing hers.
A group heading down from the summit. This weather did not last long.
Our camp.

Ed and Iryna.
Iryna taking advantage of the short stint on good weather.
Iryna.
Dana practicing self arrest.
Ed getting over his fear of heights.
Dana and Lincoln Peak.
Heading to the summit.
On the summit in crappy weather.
Oh look at the wonderful view!

Mt. Rainier Kautz Glacier Climb

I am way behind on posting photos from the trips I have done lately, so hopefully I will have a bunch of posts in the next week or so. I will start with my latest trip since it has the fewest photos to sort through.

A Mt. Rainier greeting agent. Much more friendly than the Rangers. Actually the rangers were great! Not like North Cascades National Park.

Here is a panorama from our camp. Mt. St. Helens in the distance.
Crossing the Nisqualy Glacier.

Justin, Kate, and Liz.

Another guide services camp below us.

Scott near the summit.

Scott at the summit.

Liz with about ten steps to go.

Fist Bump!

The rappel down the Kautz Ice Chute.

Kate back at camp.

Heading out in less than perfect weather.

A panorama of the entire Muir Snowfield.

American Alpine Institute Bolivia Trip: Part 3 Illimani

I am back in the not so sunny Pacific Northwest. While on many hours of flights yesterday I sorted through hundreds of photos from the Bolivia trip. Not only did I sort the ones from the part 3 but I went back and added photos from part 1 and 2 so be sure to go back through the previous 2 blog posts to see some new photos.

The last few days of Part 2 consist of a summit of Huayna Potosi. I got a nice photo of it, but unfortunately did not climb it due to the flu.

Kids when we got off the bus at the base of Illimani.

One of our porters and a horse.

AAI guide Juan with north summit of Illimani in background.

Some porters coming down from high camp.

This lady kind of makes me ashamed to not be carrying my own stuff up to high camp.

Diccon making the last few steps to the summit.

On the summit. Diccon giving the universal "I feel great" sign.

Summit shot.

Heading down with the summit in the background.

The north peak in black and white.
This guy greeted us back to camp. This photo does no justice to how big these birds are.

Leaving La Paz. The houses of the Altiplano catching early morning light.
El Alto and La Paz from the air with Huayna Potosi in the background.
See you next year Bolivia.

American Alpine Institute Bolivia Trip: Part 2 Climbing in the Cordillera Real

We just got back from part 2 of the AAI Bolivia trip in the Cordillera Real. This was a great trip in an amazing area and we managed to tag three summits along the way.

The first day we take a boat to an island on lake Titicaca.

Later that day we head up to a base camp which we spent the week at. Here the burros bring all our gear up to camp.

Next day we did our first acclimatization hike. Here Diccon reaches the col with Huayna Potosi in the background.

From the summit we have a great view of Condoriri and izquierda (left) wing. Two days later Danny and Diccon made an attempt at the Izquierda via the huge snow face in the center. They turned around about three pitches from the top due to being short on time.

This is a close up of Cabeza (head) of the condor.

A group shot on the summit of Pico Austria. Over 16,000ft.

The next day we climbed our second summit (Piramide Blanca). Unfortunately the white pyramid no longer has any white and should be renamed the black pyramid. This peak was over 17,000ft.

On the summit of Piramide Blanca. Our campsite is located between the two lakes in the background.

From the summit we could see our next objective. If you look carefully you can see several people climbing the left ridge to the summit.

The other AAI group heading back down the glacier as seen from the summit.

The next day we did some water ice climbing near the base of the glacier. This was good technical practice.

Juans son doing some ice climbing.

Ray after getting down from climbing.

We do things right at AAI. Birthdays in the mountains are important too. A hand carried cake for Jim's birthday.

That night I spent some of the evening shooting some photos.

After a much needed rest day it was time to climb again. On our way to our main goal of the day we climb over a first summit and down the other side. Here another group of climbers head to the summit of Tarija.

Diccon on the summit of Tarija.

Our main objective for the day (Pequeno Alpamayo). The Standard route heads up the ridge split by sun and shade. Our route would be the direct route up the face to the summit. We started just to the left of the rock and after two pitches traversed right below the horizontal band of rock 3/4 of the way up the route. The last pitch followed the perfect snow ridge on the right skyline and finished directly on the summit.

From the top of the second pitch we could see our other group heading up the normal route.

Diccon near the top of pitch 2.

Looking down from the pitch 3 belay.

Diccon nearing the belay.

On the way down.

Heading out the next day

Back at the bus.

Amazing skys on the way back to La Paz.

Wildlife of the Bolivian Andes.

I try not to post photos of marginal quality on this blog, but this post will break that rule. For the last two weeks I have been climbing and trekking in the Cordillera Real here in Bolivia. I don't consider my self a birder, but I do like to know what the birds and animals I am seeing around me are. Having never been to South America and having no field guide, my only chance of identifying the birds I am seeing is to try and shoot a photo of them and them and hope it is good enough to identify later. Here are some of the photos I shot in the last couple of weeks. Some are quite good from a photo standpoint, some are really bad, but hopefully they will help me identify the birds. Some of the birds were pretty easy to identify so I have labeled them. Others I am still searching for.

Andean Geese



Bar-winged Cinclodes

Andean Flicker

White winged diuca finch.

Juvenile Caracara.

Not a bird. Some type of funky kangaroo rabbit hybrid. These things would make a great "b" horror movie subject.

Rufous-Collared Sparrow?

Not a bird, but I thought it was kind of cool.

Some type of coot? It looked like a coot, but its call and behavior was very different from ones I have seen in North America.

Mountain Caracara. Our local guide Juan informed us that this bird is said to bring good luck, which is always nice when you are sitting on the top of a 17,000ft summit and one glides by.



Some type of waterfoul. Yea that does not narrow it down much, but I am a crappy birder.

Puna Ibis

Andean Lapwing.

A beautiful bird that I only saw once on this trip. I know its a really crappy photo, but it should do.

Andean Gulls on Lake Titicaca.

Short Winged Grebe

Crested Ducks

Andean Condor. This guy flew withing 30ft of our camp, but unfortunately I did not have the 200mm lens at 18,000ft so this picture kind of sucks.

If anyone knows what any of the question mark birds are I would greatly appreciate it if you could leave it in the comments.

Thanks.

American Alpine Institute Bolivia Trip: Part 1 Treking in the Cordillera Real

Just got back from part 1 of the American Alpine Institute Bolivia trip. This year we had to change the trek due to a landslide making the regular trek impossible. This trek was so good that we may never do the old trek again.

Sheep herder.
One of our hardest working members. We used mules burros and horses to carry most of the load.
After a short climb we were on a vast plateau at 14,500 ft.
An Andean caracara, said to bring good luck.
Susan on the other side of the plateau where we head down to our camp deep in the valley in above her head.
The group heads down.
Lots of stars.
Danny getting to know the burros.
A locals home.
Climbing out the other side of the valley.
Our camp.
There is a hut system being developed here in the Bolivian Andes. This hut was newly build and not open yet.
The group crossing over a high pass at 16,000ft. Huayna Potosi in the background.
Group shot.
Heading down into the next valley and our camp for the night.
The vast dry valleys are amazing here.
The group.
Heading down to a lunch spot.
Mamerto and Juan.

Juan and Susan

Jim

Jim and Danny

Nancy and Margen
One of the many areas of the trek that has no trail.
Llamas
Condoriri with some young locals in the foreground.
Baby llama.
Local kids at our camp.
Sunrise near camp.
The final day of our trek.

Heading back to La Paz.

Bolivia: La Paz

Today was our second full day in La Paz and I figured I would upload some photos of the trip so far. La Paz is a huge city that I somewhat wary of coming to prior to the trip. After walking around the first day without any valuables on me I realized that this city is safe, very safe. Other than potentially getting killed by cars this city is great. I have certainly felt less safe in several American cities. So today I walked around with the camera. Fellow AAI Guide Danny Uhlman arrived this morning, and we spent much of the day walking around the sprawling markets that most of the locals use to buy everything they need.

Danny and Susan enjoying the walk. The people here are not very tall.
Typical street scene.
Most of the women have kids somewhere very close by. Here is a typical housewares market stall.

Susan navigating the market.
Danny
Danny buying some pears.

Three full generations of local women.
There are dogs everywhere here. They do not seem to be neglected and starving as in many other countries. The people here just love dogs.

Entertaining the locals.

Hey Danny, where the hell are we?

I now have a new belief about what animal has the cutest babies. We met this guy on our way to do some climbing. There is no question this is the cutest animal I have ever seen in my life.

Some human kids are cute also, but the llama still wins.
Unfortunately not everything in La Paz is cute or enjoyable. This next photo is of the river that runs through La Paz (mostly underground) and re-surfaces just outside of town. It is quite simply the most disgusting thing I have ever seen (smelled) in my life. The color and the smell make it clear that this water is mostly raw sewage.

Danny and I managed to find the La Paz rock climbing. In this photo I am climbing on some conglomerate rock of questionable quality. The climbing area is actually pretty good, although Danny and I both got our asses kicked a little by the altitude.

Thats it for now. There is lots more to come. We have one more day here in La Paz and then off to the mountains on Sunday for five days of trekking. Stay tuned for more photos.

Jessica and Matt's Wedding at Sleeping Lady Lodge.

This weekend I shot a wedding for my good friends Jessica and Matt. Here are a few shots that I promised I would post prior to leaving for Bolivia in about 12 hours. This is just a selection of shots from the wedding and there are many more good shots. There is also no real order to these photos. I will sort through these as soon as I get a chance.
















Thanks for a great weekend guys!

Mt. Baker climb. AAI Alpinism 1 Course

Just got back from teaching a 6 day course on Mt. Baker. Usually this time of year these trips are a bit harsh due to the typical Cascades spring weather. No rain the whole time we were on the mountain. Perfect.

Usually on these courses we find a nice open crevasse to practice crevasse rescue in. There is no alternative to dropping everyone in a real crevasse and having them practice with real weight. Unfortunately the glaciers were a bit buried. I found this crevasse by falling in it. Here is one of the students falling in.

On the way across the glacier to find a crevasse.

A closer shot of the fall.

Cary
Stephan

Chris

Brigitte

Andy heading to high camp.
Brigitte and Shivesh on their way to high camp.

Tents at high camp.

AAI guide Erin Smart just after sunrise with the shadow of Mt. Baker in the background.

The first rope team on the summit.

Summit shot.

The whole group on top.
Tristan.

Heading back down.

As we were heading down a group of climbers were heading up Colfax Peak.

This was my first Mt. Baker trip of the summer and it might be hard to top. Perfect weather, a great group and an overall fun time. I have a ton more photos from this trip and will post others as I go through them. It might be after I get back from Bolivia.

A Second Trip to the Eagles Nest

I just got back from a second trip out to the eagles nest that I set the trail cam up on several weeks ago. The chicks are looking a little more grown up and have quite a few more feathers on them now. Here are a couple of photos I shot while changing out the memory card on the trail cam.

When I got to the nest there was no adult bird there this time. The two chicks were sitting up, but I was not able to get the camera out fast enough to get a photo. I was hanging on a rope set up that consists of two ropes tied together. When weighted these stretch a lot, so I needed to adjust my location on the rope prior to shooting the photos. By this time the birds were "hiding" in the nest by crouching down as flat as possible. As you can see this is very effective.

A little closer look.
And one more that I shot in my back yard of a chickadee that has decided to use the nest box I built years ago.

My First Cascades Work Trip of the Year: Washington Pass Climbing.

I just got back from a trip to Washington Pass for the last two days of and AAI ice course. This was a back up plan due to terrible weather on Mt. Baker. These photos are from a climb of the the west gully on South Early Winters Spire.

Weather was great in the morning, however the snow conditions made for some difficult trail breaking.

Larches

The view of the peak from the approach. The route goes up a snow gully on the left side of the peak.

One of the rope teams at an anchor.

AAI's newest guide, Erin.

Snow seat belay.

Looking down the gully.

Blue Lake Peak as the weather worsened.

Charlie leading up the gully.

High in the gully.

Near the top.

Ski track between the larches below.

AAI guide Kurt Hicks.

Charlie


Summit joy.

Erin at the summit.


Summit shot.

Group shot on the summit.

Golden Eagle Nest Photos.

Yesterday I went out to install a camera on a golden eagle nest. There were two chicks and a mother bird sitting in the nest when I rappelled down to the nest. Unfortunately I was not able to get a shot of the momma bird sitting in the nest due to an extremely agitated rattlesnake who I was trying to get past on the way to the nest. Once I got to the nest the two chicks did not present themselves as very good photo subjects, but I did manage to get a couple of photos.


This is the camera set up to look at the nest. Working at golden eagle nests is very difficult due to the location which is often at the base of small overhanging rock areas. This was the second nest I tried to get to, the first one failed due to a large loose block that I was not willing to try and climb past.

Random Photos From My Trip to Las Vegas

I was just going through some photos from my drive down to Las Vegas. This photo seemed worth posting. This was shot about 100 miles north of Las Vegas while driving through the Great Basin.
I can't wait till the cactus start to flower. Looks like it might be another week before we see the desert bloom. This photo was all I could come up with until then.
There are a ton of ticks in Red Rocks right now. Here is one I found on my arm.
In most of Red Rocks canyons there are small frogs. Here is a photo of one of them. I tried to find the species of frog by looking on the web, but there is very little info available. Unfortunately the BLM finds it more important to build a fancy new visitor center with next to no interesting information in it, than compile a list of the species that are located within the boundary of Red Rocks National Conservation Area and make it available to the public. Oh well, its nice seeing the frogs.