December 9-25, 2007
Eileen, Eu-Jin, Serene, and I went to Ecuador to visit the Galapagos Islands and the Quito area. It was an amazing trip with plenty of opportunities to see truly unique wildlife. To visit the islands we took an 8 day cruise on the 16 person yacht, the Monserrat II. We booked the cruise through a Quito agency, Guide2Galapagos. I have put up a few of my pictures from the islands here - hopefully I will expand on this sometime. Here are some pictures that I took with my new pocket camera, including some pictures from our trip to Cotopaxi. You can also see Eu-Jin's pictures and Eileen's pictures.
March 21-28, 2007
For spring break, Paul, Warren, Eu-Jin, Serene, and I went to Mexico to climb the 18500 ft volcano Pico de Orizaba and to see the Aztec ruins of Teotihuacan. As it turns out, only Paul and Warren were able to successfully summit - I got up to around 17500 ft or so before succummbing to a combination of food poisoning and altitude sickness. While this trip was certainly a lot of fun, it was not particularly scenic, so I probably won't be posting pictures anytime soon.
February 19-20, 2006
To celebrate President's Day, Eu-Jin, Serene, and I went to Yosemite with the intention of snowshoeing from Badger Pass to Glacier Point and back. Unfortunately, a storm passed through the area on Sunday morning, and the drive up to Badger Pass took much longer than expected. Starting the hike two hours behind schedule, and slowed down by the intermitent moderate to heavy snow showers, we were not able to make it to Badger Pass by nightfall. We setup camp about 3 miles short of Glacier Point and spent a chilly night, with the temperature dropping to less than 7 deg. F. The next morning we hiked back to Badger Pass and then drove down to the valley - stopping along the way at the various vista points.
December 11-26, 2005
Over the winter break, Eu-Jin, Serene, and I returned to South America to visit the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia and the Torres del Paine national park in the Chilean Patagonia. Here are the highlights from the Bolivia part of the trip. Here are the highlights from the Chile part of the trip. Here are Eu-jin's photos.
November 19-23, 2005
Eileen, Eu-Jin, Serene, and I drove 12 hours to the Grand Canyon during Thanksgiving break to do the Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim hike. We left from Stanford early Saturday morning and made it to the Grand Canyon by dinner time. The next day we started before dawn on the 21 mile hike from the South Rim to the North Rim. We camped in below freezing temperatures on the North Rim and then hiked back to the South Rim the next day. Then we spent a day seeing the tourist sites around the South Rim (like the IMAX movie) before heading back to Stanford - stoping at our favorite Mojave Motel 6 for the night.
October 8, 2005
For my birthday, Mark, Serene, Eu-Jin and I did the dayhike up Mount Whitney. We left from Stanford early on Thursday morning, driving south through Santa Barbara to pick up Mark on our way to Lone Pine. The first night we camped in the below freezing cold at the Cottonwood Lakes/Horseshoe Meadows campground. An early bedtime the next night at Whitney Portal campground prepared us to start hiking at 4am the next morning. The trail is only 22 miles round trip with a net elevation gain of just over 6000 ft. We planned to take about 7 hours going up and 5 hours going down for a total of 12 to 13 hours. But with the icy conditions above 12000 ft. slowing our progress significantly it ended up taking almost 17 hours and we didn't return until well after dark. Even though it took a while, we were lucky to have even summited that day. Most of the people we saw on the trail turned back because they were not properly equipped for the snow and ice. Experiencing the Whitney hike with some snow definitely made it more memorable, and in the end we were actually very fortunate with the trail conditions. A few days earlier it was much colder and the trail was more slippery - as a result several hikers made the decision to descend by sliding down a snow chute instead of attempting to walk down the icy switchbacks, and one hiker died as a result. About a week later a new snowstorm made the trail impassable without mountaineering equipment and experience. See Eu-Jin's picture's here.
August 9-11, 2005
I went to Yosemite with Eujin, Serene, and Ben to accompany Eujin and Ben on the first leg of their John Muir Trail attempt. We hiked from the Happy Isles trailhead to the Sunrise High Sierra Camp. The following day, Serene and I hiked back to the trailhead while Eujin and Ben continued on the JMT.