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5 Loons 24 hours 1/3/2025
1/3-4/2025 There had been an Arctic Loon (ABA code 3) in Port Angeles regularly since the Christmas Bird Count. I decided to get up and take the Coupeville – Port Townsend Ferry at 8:45 AM. Coupeville was nice and rainy and so was the ferry ride, I went up top to go look at some birds during the trip to see if I could get some seabirds. There were White-winged Scoters and Murres and Murrelets, nothing really list worthy. But I did run into my friend I hadn’t seen in a while! She was headed to Port Angeles also took like at a tiny house to potentially move to some…
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Hemispheres 1/1/2025
0.25 miles, 400 feet I’ve been working up to go out of bounds a Baker for a year or so. I didn’t happen last year because I don’t think I was ready by the time the snow was good enough and Ross and I never really talked about it. I think we brought our backpacks and avy gear once, but weather was bad or whatnot. He suggested New Year’s Eve that the weather was going to be good, and the snow was good, so we brought our stuff. When we got up to the ski area we just started with our backpacks and headed up chair 1 to do some…
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Christmas Bird Count 12/15/2024
12/15/2024 I had a fellow birder reach out to me by e-mail and ask if Ross and I wanted to participate in the Audubon Christmas Bird Count of Whatcom County. I really appreciated the thought; I do want to work on being more involved in the birding world here. I like to bird with other people, more eyes are better than two! But I also do like my alone time birding. Anyways, I reached out to the Whatcom County coordinator, and he got back to us and added us to a part of zone 6. We didn’t really know how to do this thing, we asked some questions and read…
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Saddle Mountain 11-29-2024
Clastop County, Oregon 11-29-2024 5.15 miles, 2300 ft (with Humbug Mountain) We decided to stay in Cannon Beach for Thanksgiving, a good time to utilize four days off without taking PTO because Anacortes is stingy and I only get 2 weeks of vacation for 5 years! There are a couple peaks around the area that we chose from. Ross has hiked Saddle Mountain as a kid and wanted to do it again. It is actually the highest peak in Clatsop County at a massive 3,284 ft a little less than 5 miles to the top. A little background geology this mountain was formed in the Miocene by Columbia River lava…
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Volcán de Fuego and Acatenango 11/11-12/2024
11/11-12/2024 This whole trip started on the 9th with a meeting at the OX expedition headquarters in Antigua. I immediately got bad feelings. They asked us to give them our IDs to hold for the trip for renting gear, Ross and I literally only rented a sleeping bag liner. I was NOT into giving my ID and I almost argued, but no one else seemed to have an issue with it at least it was not my passport, that would have been a hard no. Ross made a comment about the people in the meeting with us, being “its exactly the type of people I’d expect” which he meant Instagram…
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Guatemala Birding 11/6-8/2024
Guatemala Birding 11/6-8/2024 Day 1 We landed in Guatemala City at 6 AM and our bird guide was there waiting! We had talked to the guide Josue over WhatsApp about a month prior to our arrival and he told us he would get us an itinerary over the weekend and he did not until about the weekend before we left. I was worried about it the whole time but Ross kept telling me, everyone is not as uptight as us American’s, and he was right. Over our conversation we told Josue we wanted to see the Pink-headed Warbler and possibly a Quetzal and as many birds as we could see…
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Guatemala 11/5-17/2024
Day 1 11/5/2024 I cannot believe it but I started out at work. Well, I can believe it, do not want to waste vacation time when I only get 2 weeks to start off. Made it home about 1 pm and we were out the door on the way to Seattle at 1:45. We parked the Audi at the normal AJAX parking lot, they have been easy and great shuttle service for the last few years. At the airport we had to go through the extra passport step but, no hiccups whatsoever. Honestly, my major concern was flight grounding due to the election. I have a cousin in LA where…
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Stiletto Peak Lookout 10/25/2024
10/25/2024 10.2 miles 3900 ft We were looking for a hike that was about 3500-4000 feet of gain. I really wanted to try and find some larches if they were still larching around. Ross had suggested Stiletto Peak earlier in the week and I got my heart set on it, as I do. There was the idea of possibly trying to scramble the peak but we were going to have to see how it looked when we got up there, I had not read too many reports some saying class 3. Luckily, he was agreeable and we set off about 6:45 AM and got to the Bridge Creek Trailhead off…
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Tomyhoi False Summit 10/13/2024
Tomyhoi false summit 9/13/2024 10.3 3,200 ft Ross and I decided to head up the Yellow Aster Butte Trail. This was after a couple of unfortunately bad life weeks where I was not able to get out and do anything. But I kicked myself out of the funk and we really needed to start getting some hiking in before Guatemala. A fellow birder friend of our had gone up the previous day and saw a couple bird species that we would like to see so that gave us the idea of this one. We did not plan on leaving super early and got to the trailhead at 9:30 AM and…
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Driveway Butte 9/13/2024
Driveway Butte 9/13/2024 9.0 miles 3100 ft Picked this one to do on our way to Winthrop for a Hart’s Pass birding weekend. Hart’s Pass area has a tiny bit of Whatcom County still on the eastern side of the Cascades so it still counts for my Whatcom County list! This trail was nice because it was right off HWY 20 starting by the Klipchuck Campground, we were the only ones in the parking lot. Starting off on trail 481 and then take a right on the Driveway Butte Trail, there is a sign that says 4 miles to the top. Right away we were excited about the new birds…
