Wyatt's First Backpacking Trip!

This weekend we made the long trip to head out to Houston to be a part of Wyatt's very first backpacking/camping trip!  Wyatt is the new Gosling family member and he is only 3 months old! When we arrived we gave Wyatt a present from Auntie Kristin and Uncle Ed - his first camping outfit!

In case you can't read it, the outfit reads "My 1st Camping Trip"

Of course we had to play around a little with Wyatt before taking off...

Happy baby!

We headed out to Lake Somerville State Park for a nice 3 mile hike-in backpacking trip.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous with highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s!  We hiked to our campsite along the lake and enjoyed some of Ed's famous tuna quesadillas for dinner.

 Momma (Christina) hiking the trail with Wyatt AND her backpack!

Wyatt was definitely ready for dinner...

The next morning we relaxed and had some pancakes and "ghetto mochas" (instant coffee mixed with instant hot chocolate) and enjoyed showing Wyatt a little more of the wilderness.

 Our tent site

Ed playing around...

 Wyatt lovin on his daddy

Dad hiking with Wyatt AND his pack...

Lake Somerville - only 90 min from Houston!

After backpacking we did a little shopping and then said goodbye to mom and dad (Christina and Paul) and Wyatt and hello to Christy, Rohit and Eshaan!  We enjoyed a fantastic dinner of Lupe Tortilla (yay for good Mexican!) and really enjoyed catching up.

Monday morning we left the 70 deg temps of Houston and headed to the airport to take the long flight back to Reno and then the even longer drive back to Klamath Falls. 

Back in our winter wonderland!

Hogsback and Bachelor

For Valentine's Day weekend Ed and I decided not to spend time and money on flowers and food but instead on hiking and snowboarding!  (are you surprised?)  Saturday we did Hogsback again (this time with NO Snow!)  and we finally got all the way to the famous "Lone Pine" with Alee!  We started the hike with Mariah, Joe and Alee's friend Daphne and ended up meeting at least 12 more dogs on the trail!  It was definitely a dogs day!

 Ed and Alee on the trail - Alee was off leash the entire time!

 The famous "Lone Pine" - this tree is beat up, leaning and all brown...people wonder how it's still standing...

Alee doing a little off-trail hiking to look for "snacks"

 Needless to say...Alee was pooped after the hike!

On Sunday we headed up to Mt Bachelor in Bend for FREE snowboarding!  The resort makes it's easy hill (aka bunny hill but very large) free Thurs - Sun - so it was ideal for 2 people who didn't know what they were doing!  We were so busy on the mountain we didn't get any pics except of the gear before we left - we just love our Subaru!  We had a great time though and plan to go back in 2 weeks!

Reno and Snowboarding at Tahoe!

After being in a work conference all week in Reno, we met up with some friends at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno and had a fantastic fun weekend!  The Grand Sierra is a blast itself with a bowling alley, movie theater, indoor golf facility, etc - we could have spent the whole weekend there and never ran out of things to do!  BUT instead we decided to head out on Saturday to Mount Rose for some snowboarding!  Ed had never been snowboarding before and Kristin had only been once when she was a teenager, so we were both brand new at this!

 Kristin and Ashley before they got their gear on!

 Laura and Mike and geared up and ready to go!

 Ready for snowboarding!

 Matt and Ashley on the lift

 "I'm actually standing on the board!!!"

Modoc National Forest Hike

This past weekend Kristin wasn't feeling well, but with no fever or achiness, we decided to head out for a calm hike in the Modoc National Forest along Willow Creek for some petroglyph hunting!

Alee was very attentive while we were eating lunch...waiting for any leftovers

One of the petroglyphs we saw - the biggest one!

Alee along Willow Creek

A little pond near Clear Lake

Another, smaller petroglyph

Crescent City, CA

Sorry it's been a while with the posts, but our computer screen went out so we have been computerless for a couple weeks now!  Now time to update you on where we've been exploring over the past several weeks!  A few weeks ago we took Alee down to Crescent City, CA and then down to Klamath, CA to camp near the beach at Kamp Klamath.  The weather was perfect and very unexpected for this time of year - highs in the 60s and lows in the mid-30s!  Perfect for camping!  We took some gorgeous drives along the beach and through the Redwood National Forest.  We also got Alee out on the beach and let her run around and get splashed by the waves!  Camping with Alee was better than expected - she had no problem sleeping in the tent and didn't move around much at all...although she preferred to sleep IN the sleeping bags rather than next to them...

Alee Getting Some Air! 

 Alee and Kristin on the beach

Ed and Kristin

"Big Tree" in Redwoods State/National Park

Alee out at St George's point

Sunset...time to go home!

Mt Stukel

To start off the long weekend we made plans to hike up Mt Stukel with our friends Mike and Laura.  Stukel is not as challenging of a hike as Hogsback, but it's much longer!  It's about 2.5 miles to the first summit and then down a little and back up to the second and tallest summit.  The temps were much higher today - in the 40s - but there was still lots of snow (very wet snow) on the ground.  Of course we took our faithful hiking partner Alee with us and tried to convince her not to eat all the deer poo!

Starting out there was dense fog so we couldn't see too much in front of us.

The beginning of the trail was an old mining road that's still used so it was fairly easy...

By 20 minutes into the hike, we all started taking our jackets off - it was getting warm!

About 1/4 of the way into the hike, the fog started to clear and we left the old road to hike up the mountain.  The trail was "hit or miss" - not well defined - especially with the snow!

 Stopping for a quick Alee photo break!

 Ed...amazed at how warm it is!

Some of the "trail"

 Ed and Mike found an old beer can on the trail - "Schlitz" - anyone remember that?  The can said it was brewed in Portland.

 Mike was super thirsty...but no luck - it was empty.

 Alee was love running around in the warm snow! 

 Our doctor friend Laura said this looked like a large cat, but there was no skull to be sure. 

 An old structure at the top of the first peak - maybe a fire look out?

Once we got to the first peak, we looked toward the second peak and saw dark clouds moving in.  Ed's phone told us to expect rain soon, so we turned around to head back.  By this point, we had been hiking in lots of deep wet snow so we all had cold wet feet and cold wet pants!  After a quick lunch we headed back down to find that many of our snow foot prints had already melted!  Needless to say it was a slippery hike down.

 

 Mike and Laura coming down from the peak.

 Ed heading down.

View of Upper Klamath Lake from the Mountain.

Bend Visit

Last weekend we decided to take a trip up to our favorite little town of Bend, OR.  Bend is just a beautiful little city that has everything to make a perfect weekend - shopping, skiing, dog parks, river trails and more!  We headed up there with our friend's Mariah (human) and Daphne (canine).  Alee loves to play with Daphne although she is a little older.  We did a little hiking around Bend along the Deschutes River and then took the pups to the dog park.  When we arrived there were THREE other Rhodesian Ridgebacks there!  How bizzarre!

 Alee playing with 2 of the other RRs

 More dogs joining in...

Daphne!

On the way back we enjoyed a lunch at the famous Deschutes Brewery for some local food and brew!