Grand Canyon

T&T (GB's brother and partner) run REI hikes in the Grand Canyon every Spring and Fall. They were looking at a new area to hike in with a new itinerary on some lesser-known trails and decided to use us as guinea pigs before they took paying clients on the adventure. Me, GB, and J went with them on this new adventure and had an absolutely amazing time. It was one of the hardest hikes I've ever been on and gave me as well as GB and J quite the workout. Not to mention the rattle snakes, scorpions, bighorn sheep, etc. Of course, for T&T, it was "just another day at the office." Must be nice.

First Time from T - N - T on Vimeo.

We've been having the coolest weather patterns here lately (well, except for the smog), and it's been making for some great panorama photos from our balcony.

Enjoy (click for larger image, bigger is better, eh?)

Last long ride of '09

A few weeks ago my friend suggested doing one more long ride for the season. We planned it for the 16th and with the weather being as good as it was on Friday and me being on Fall Break from school, I couldn't resist. I rode down to American Fork Canyon and we rode the Alpine Loop and Cascade Springs before heading home. It couldn't have been a better day, temps were in the high 60's for most of the ride and I was taking my birthday present out for their maiden voyage. Boy were they good! Thanks G

Stats:
Distance: 191.77 km (119.2 mi)
Elevation Gain: 2,136 m (7,008 ft)
Link to interactive map

Taylor - welcome to the joys of road riding :-) You sure know how to fly on those downhills!

Published!

I just have to do a bit of bragging about my wife and her new publication! Well, OK, it's not a full book, but it is a photo in a book. We have a few photos on iStockphoto.com to help us earn credits so that we'll buy other images there. (I know, it's a vicious cycle) We've sold a handful here and there to non-descript downloaders and maybe one day I'll spot one somewhere, but the photo below drew a bit more of a personalized crowd. We received a message saying that Greg Witt was including it in his book "60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Salt Lake City". We were pretty excited. Way to go GinaBina!

Do not reproduce without permission

Ringing in the New Year!

Besides the party that we had for New Year's (I'm sure GinaBina will post about that...), we celebrated the new year and the new snow with snowshoeing up by Mountain Dell Reservoir.

Here's the view we woke up to yesterday...

"Flocked"

Me and the Mrs.

This is what we saw all day long

Zion's HDR attempt

Steve and Liz invited us to St. George with them this weekend with no kiddies. We couldn't pass up a free place to stay and the classic Anderson hospitality so we headed down. The weather was perfect and some of the trees were starting to change. Now for the pics... With all the shadows, it was very hard to get the detail in the sky along with the colorful trees. So what did I do? I tried my hand at HDR again.

Here are the originals

In this one the sky looks great but the trees are blacked out

This one the trees look good but the sky is washed out

Here's an attempt at a happy medium, but the trees are still a bit dark and the sky lost some detail

Here's the HDR Version

Now you can see the High Dynamic Range (HDR) in this version. The trees keep their true color and the sky is a rich blue with whispy clouds. Not bad since I'm still figure the HDR thing out. In hindsight, I should have taken about 5 images instead of 3. Now I know.

More pics to come!

Lake "Pal"

Thanks to the Wildings and the Bennetts for making the second annual trip to Lake Powell an absolute blast! Now for some pics...

"Relationship Building"

"Sunrise at 'Pal'"

"At the Helm"
"The Gang"

"Surf's up"

Experimenting with stroboscopic flash

"Houseboat Livin'"
"Sweet Dreams"

Early Autumn Uinta Backpacking

It just doesn't get any better, crisp mountain air, chilly alpine lakes, the girl I love, and a night in the mountains. Far, far away from any of the worries of life. Now for some pics, since I do still call this blog "Two Wheel Photos".

A few "artsy ones" first:

"Glass"

"Lichen Fetish"

"andiamo"

"Grass Swirls"

"Star Trails"

"Leading Lines"

And, of course, the ones of my babe:

"Here Goes"

"Wall Lake"

"Pensive"

"Take a Deep Breath; ahhh"

To drill or not to drill, you decide.

Will drilling in ANWR and the outer continental shelf help our energy situation? You decide, based on this chart built from the US Department of Energy's data.

(Data from the US Department of Energy)

***my opinion*** Sure we can drill, but why the heck are our partisan candidates even talking about drilling when it will have such a minimal effect on our situation? They've coerced us into believing that what they're talking about (drilling) really is a significant issue with regard to our energy independence when it is so clearly insignificant. Besides, in 10 years shouldn't we have other things going for us instead of needing to use our last few remaining drops of domestic oil? (and it really is drops on the grand scheme of things) Additionally, when the oil finally does come on line, we will still only be able to get it for the international oil price (currently over $100). At that price, it won't have any effect whatsoever on what you pay at the pump. Bottom line, that is not cheap oil, and there's not much of it. Yes, that little bit of oil would come from the US instead of abroad, but the other 99% of the oil we use would still be foreign. Shouldn't we address the 99% instead?

To put things in perspective, OPEC met yesterday and simply decided (it took them all of one day to decide) to turn down the flow on their 'spigot' by 530,000 barrels per day. So, on not much more than a whim, OPEC reduced their oil output by more than twice what the US could ever get by drilling as much as we possibly could. That is, assuming we would also have built the required infrastructure to process the additional oil that we drill. I'm not singling out either candidate here, because both of them are making such a big deal about whether to drill. They should NOT be focusing on drilling at all, it is a drop in the oil bucket, that's all. We have much bigger fish to fry. Don't you love partisan politics? It's either one extreme or the other and each candidate's flame is stoked further by his/her respective party instead of by the real issues.

"Clowns to the left of me,
jokers to the right,
here I am stuck in the middle with you."

Nice clouds...

Just had to post this quick shot of the sunset tonight. Look at those clouds! They were on fire.

Saturday Ride

Last night when we were getting ready to go to bed, Gina asked if I thought she could do Big Mountain... I answered by telling her that it would be hard, then I showed her what the profile looks like for that ride:


I was pretty excited when she said she wanted to try. Sure enough, we woke up this morning to a beautiful, cool summer morning with the sun shining and a steady stream of cyclists heading up Emigration Canyon. The wind was a bit strong at first, but didn't last long after we got into the canyon. Up we went. The pedals kept turning over and before we knew it we were at Little Mountain. Gina said she didn't even want to stop until we got to the Reservoir (look in the profile and it's the little dip on the way up). We stopped and ate a bit, drank some water and then it was back on the bike for the steep section. Gina cruised right up the switchbacks of Big Mountain and I think the top looked more beautiful than ever because she had worked so hard. Now for some pics at the top:


Gina taking a short break after a steep switchback section. (almost there!)



Ahhh, the top. (I keep forgetting my camera, so I have to use my crappy cell phone one)

Wasatch Loop (check!)

As a follow up post to this one, I thought I'd post the only picture that I got from our ride of the Wasatch Loop, as I affectionately call it. It was a great ride, there were a few of us from the University of Utah Team (myself, Tyler, and Jon), and one "friend of the program," Trevor. It was great having you guys, we'll have to do some other long rides next time. Thanks for the 5-star lunch at Sundance Gina! It was a welcome pit stop.

Sorry for the camera phone pic, I forgot the camera :-(

The Wasatch Loop

As a follow up to that last post, here's a bit more info about the ride we're doing this Saturday. It's open to anyone that wants to. Meet at Hogle Zoo at 7:30am.

Map of the route:


And here's an elevation plot to give you an idea of the "fun" we'll be having:

Want to double your fuel economy?

Without a doubt, there are many gimmicks and suggestions for improving your fuel economy, more-so now than ever due to the recent increase in US fuel prices. Some of the gimmicks and suggestions work great, some work only marginally, and others don't work at all. One that is guaranteed to double your fuel economy is carpooling (when compared to driving alone).



Roughly 99% of the cars I see on the freeway or on the road in general have only one person in the car. If you put another person in the car, you double the efficiency of the car, thus doubling your fuel economy. For example, let's take your average Toyota Corolla. We'll pick that car because right now I'm sitting on the bus in the express lane passing one that only has one driver in it. (Yes, that's right, I'm posting this using the free wi-fi that's available on the bus). If you have one person in that Toyota Corolla, the car is getting around 30 p-mpg (passenger-miles per gallon). Meaning you have one passenger multiplied by the miles per gallon. If you put just one more person in that car, the fuel economy jumps to 60 p-mpg because you now have 2 people multiplied by the miles per gallon (2x30 = 60). Put a third person in the car and you get 90 p-mpg, and so forth. Carpooling is the best thing you can do right now to lighten your wallet when it comes to fuel costs. And it's guaranteed to work, no gimmicks or tricks.

Now on to the reason for this post. The reason is that I found this awesome website that connects you to people that are traveling your same commute so you can easily find them and start cutting your fuel costs in half. It's called eRideShare. Go to www.erideshare.com for more information. Best of all, it's free! Happy motoring.

ps, pics of our trip back east are coming soon!

Bakfiets

I couldn't help but post this when I saw it on the news tonight. We've posted about the "bakfiets" (cargo bike) before: See here, and here. But this takes the cake because it's an Orem family doing it. They stopped driving their car for short errands and just take the bike instead... complete with child seats, seat belts, and a convertible roof for the rainy days! See here for the complete story.



They're a bit pricey, but Mad Dog Cycles in Orem can get them in apparently. Now I want one even more!

Have your cake and eat it too

'Nuff Said:

Wasatch Backcountry

We couldn't have asked for a better day to celebrate two Presidents' birthdays! The sun was shining, we have lots of snow, and the avalanche danger was low. So we decided to take advantage! We had a hard time deciding where to go, but we settled on snowshoeing to Donut Falls in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It's a short hike, but very scenic. The best part was how much wildlife we saw today. There was a huge herd of elk on the mountain by the side of our house when we left with one large buck heading up the harem of females. Then we saw a few moose while snowshoeing and later in the day we saw a bobcat dart across the road below our house. It's amazing that within 15 minutes of the city, you can see all that wildlife and simply "get away from it all." Now for the pics...

Classic one-hander

The Tongue

Leap of FaithMt. Olympus on my shoulderQuiet SolitudeThis is Donut Falls just to the right of the rocks (about 5 feet under the snow)Moose Buddies (see the one on the right too?)

Unfortunately we didn't get pics of the elk or the bobcat, maybe next time...

***PS*** We also went on a SLC photo tour with our friends on Saturday, click on the teaser pic below for more great shots of SLC.

An American Institution