Manning Provincial Park, B.C.

Unless I'm going to Gustavus, Alaska for July 4th, I like to get the heck out of America on this holiday. What can I say? July 4th just isn't my cup of tea.....so going for a weekend backpacking trip in Canada seemed like a perfect way to find some solitude. Manning Provincial Park is the Canadian extension of the American North Cascades National Park. We have spent a fair amount of time in the North Cascades because they are in our backyard but we had never been to Manning, so this was an easy decision for us (plus it was only about three hours away).

We hiked along the Heather Trail to a backcountry campsite called "Kicking Horse". The views were stunning the entire time we were on this trail, which isn't surprising considering the part of the world we are in. I was especially struck by how quickly the jagged peaks ended and the rolling mountains began (this feature appears to follow the US/Canadian border) - it was fantastic to be on the edge of this topographical change in wildflower-filled meadows staring at all the massive mountains in the distance. Jay and I are fairly familiar with the landmark mountains in North Cascades National Park, but we are used to seeing them from the south looking north. In this case we were north looking south and several of the mountains stumped us....except the unmistakable Mt. Baker which appeared once along the trail just past our campsite. Upon arriving back at our house we figured out that the super jagged peak in these images was Hozomeen Mountain (I had been voting incorrectly that it was part of the Pickett Range, whoops).

I got a new backpack and it made me very happy - can you tell? I'm hoping to write an entertaining blog about my old backpack to fill you in on the "story of Julie's ol' pack" but I'm not making any promises. This new pack ROCKS, I was a hell of a lot happier and more comfortable on the trail with a pack that actually fit me. Awesome.

Upon arrival at a nice spot to pitch a tent we were greeted by a thousand (billion?) members of the Kicking Horse mossie welcoming committee. I immediately took refuge from the enthusiastic volunteers in the tent while Jay attempted to brave his new fans and enjoy the view. The result of these two choices - one person with few bites and one person covered in them. Guess who?

 I almost felt like I was in Alaska again. *Sigh*

Our hike back the next day was equally fun because the weather decided to do some funky stuff. It was chilly, then warm, then sunny, then cloudy, then rainy, then foggy, then HAIL arrived, then clear, then hot - you get the picture. But stormy weather can make for some good photographs and I tried to get some black and white shots of the rain bursts over the Cascades.

Completely unrelated to Manning Provincial Park are a few short stories that should be shared! Poor Jay went out and bought his crabbing license to get some Dungeness crab while diving. He went twice this past week and got skunked both times (although he did get a red rock crab) - but he did manage to find my FAVORITE fish, the enigmatic Pacific spiny lumpsucker. I'm pretty sure the scientific name says it all - Eumicrotremus orbis. A trembling orbit! Jay and his dive buddy, Nate, collected this cutie for a local aquarium and it is now happily trembling about a tank and sucking onto the walls. Damn. That is one freakin' cute fish. My favorite lumpsucker memory dates back to my Glacier Bay days.....I will always cherish, and I'm not kidding, the moment when a little baby lumpsucker sucked onto my drysuit sleeve during a research dive in Glacier Bay. I was trying to collect data but I ended up spending most the dive making sure that my sucker had a happy and comfy home on my arm. Science can't always come first! Lumpsuckers get top priority over all!

We stuck around Anacortes for the last two weekends - which is also really fun because we live in such a gorgeous place and great town. These two photos were taken in Washington Park which is about three miles from our house and loaded with hiking trails that take you out to the water and stunning views of the San Juans and Olympic Mountains. Not a bad place to visit as often as possible from your house. When are you going to visit us and take in these views?

More photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/July2013?authkey=Gv1sRgCPua6NPqocm4NA

Fun-filled June

We had heaps of fun throughout the remainder of June following our awesome backpacking weekend at Black Lake. Jay took off to spend a week doing research in Belize at Carrie Bow Cay - a Smithsonian field station. While this was work-related, we all know that he has a blast visiting the tropics and working with his beloved corals. The only bummer was that a tropical depression came through while he was there and held the team off from diving, forcing them to scramble to get all their data collected when the weather finally cleared. When I see Jay's photos I can't help but wonder what the heck I was thinking when I started to specialize in temperate (cold) water fisheries. Why the heck didn't I go tropical too? Huh.

 Windy Carrie Bow

Jay is not one to take photos of himself, so I have nothing to show you of my man in Belize. That said, he loves corals so this shot is perfect when it comes to representing him in his element.

The day that Jay flew back to WA our friends Susanna and Mike came to visit for a night with their nugget Jasper! I've known Mike since my days in Glacier Bay, Alaska which means we have been friends for over ten years now! Whoa. I actually remember meeting Susanna when she came to visit Mike in Glacier Bay - the two of them were heading off on an overnight paddle and I remember waving my greeting to Susanna from the shore. They live in Northern CA now and were on vacation in Washington for a week. Jay and I were stoked to make it into their itinerary! We had a fantastic dinner and conversation the night they arrived and the next day we got a nice hike in around Cranberry Lake in Anacortes. As for Jasper, I always worry when we have kiddos in the house because I have no toys to provide for fun. Well, Jasper had no problem finding "toys" in the house and he quickly adopted a neat metal candle jar that kept him entertained the entire time. Oh, and our cats were pretty interesting as well to a one-year old!

Mike and Susanna left on Friday afternoon and Jay and I jumped in our car the same day and headed down south to Corvallis, OR to visit our friends Britton and Erik for the weekend. Typical of  I5 traffic, what should have been a five hour drive turned into more and more hours and hours and hours. We arrived at their place around 1am?? or was it 2am? I can't remember because it all turned into a blurrrrrrr.  On Saturday Jay headed off to meet with a faculty member at Oregon State University who studies coral/algal symbioses and I got to spend the morning in the warm sun on a nice walk with Erik and Britton. What a great town!

 Corvallis gets even better when you get to drink beer on a hot day with dear friends at Sky High Brewing Company

 Yummy

No stay with Erik is complete without an awesome meal. Actually we had several awesome meals....but here he is perfecting polenta pizzas. 

The next day Britton went to work in her lab and the remaining three of us went for a very, very, wet hike. This shot was taken pre-downpour - too bad I didn't take a photo post downpour because we were all soaked. What kind of Pacific Northwesterners are we if we think we don't need raincoats?

 Newt!! At least it was happy about the rain.

Post-soaking we drove to the Airlie Winery and tasted some wine with all the awesome winery animals. What a great place! We bought some wine and sat outside on their picnic table and devoured a tasty lunch with a fantastic dry rosé .

Following that lovely weekend we came home to the warm, sunny weather in Anacortes. In Washington it is fairly typical for July and August to be bone dry (while it rains the rest of the year). This year the drought appears to have arrived a bit early and we have no complaints about that! Here I am with our own homegrown strawberries and spicy mesclun mix. Yum! The bounty of summer makes you wonder how you survived through winter.

More photos from June are here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/111221596171793333099/June2013?authkey=Gv1sRgCL2Ql7aeluCu0wE&noredirect=1

Antarctic marine protected areas

Back in 2010 I was lucky enough to spend three months in Antarctica working as a scientific diver with a team of fantastic ecologists and engineers studying Antarctic benthic ecology in the Ross Sea. The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources is meeting this week to try and reach an agreement over the creation of two very large marine protected areas in Antarctica, including 1.6 million square kilometers of the Ross Sea. Twenty-five nations need to reach unanimous agreement on these plans with success potentially resting on the votes from the fishing nations of Russia, China, and Ukraine. If I understand the process, a decision is supposed to be made this week! Please read this article (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=bid-protect-antarctic-waters-marine-life-gets-second-chance) and sign this petition (http://antarcticocean.org/). 

You can also monitor this website (http://www.thesealliance.org/) for updates and more information on what you can do to encourage the creation of these marine protected areas. We should be doing everything possible to protect these Antarctic gems.

Here are some more images from the Ross Sea to encourage you to get involved and at least sign that petition!

Weddell seal pup

 Adelie penguins

 Gorgeous Ross Sea colors

Kevin and a Weddell seal

If you have a twitter account please tweet #AntarcticOcean to show your support!