July 21-25, 2010 - I had a chance to go wreck diving at Isle Royale again this year - what a blast! I dove a couple of new wrecks, and some old friends. The water was cold (34°F was the coldest I recorded, usual temperature was about 39°F), the captain was great, and the camaraderie was outstanding! Below are a few photos and some descriptive text about the dives.

The trip was put together by Yan Saillard of Innerspace Scuba in Duluth, MN. The charter was operated by Captain Ryan Staley of Isle Royale Charters, and our boat was the Lake Superior Diver, a 38 ft Chris Craft with two 454 Chevrolet engines carrying us on our way. In the evenings we tied up at one of the various docks on Isle Royale and slept on the boat. Here is a link to our GPS track during the trip. The group included Captain Ryan, Yan, Josh, Steve, Kevin, and myself. Ryan, Yan, Josh, and I returned from last year, and Kevin and Steve were new divers this year. We made a total of 12 dives on the various wrecks near Isle Royale and were treated to some very well-preserved examples of the history of commercial shipping on Lake Superior.

The gang apres dive.

May 16, 2010 - We had a three-generation team run the Holiday Lake Triathlon. My stepson Mark did the swim, I did the bike, and Pete, Mark's grandpa and my father-in-law, did the run. Quite a bit of fun! My niece Malynda was there too - she did the whole thing herself! Here's a link to my race details: Holiday Lake Triathlon.

March 12-19, 2010 - I made a trip down to High Springs, FL this past week to do some cave diving. Beautiful caves and 100 ft + visibility make for some fascinating dives. Here's a day-by-day account of the trip and the dives.

March 12 and 13, 2010 - Here is a link of the GPS track for the trip down.

March 14, 2010 - Here is my track to Ginnie Springs and Cave Excursions East Dive Shop. Cave East is all the way at the west end of the track and Ginnie Springs is at the "hook" going north about 3/4 of the way to the west end of the track. If you set the map type to Satellite and zoom in, you can see the river and a bit of the dive entry point. Diving was - shal we say, interesting! Its been two years since I've dived in a high-flow cave. We started out at Ginnie Springs at Devil's Cave. I had a good dive buddy. His name is Allen Beard and he's just moved here from Seattle, WA. He's a law school graduate and former police officer in Seattle, and he moved down so he can cave dive more. He plans to take the Florida bar exam in June and join a law firm when he passes. He's currently working at Cave East Dive Shop as a part-time job while he studies for the bar. We did five dives today - two in the Devil's Eye entrance to the cave and three in the Devil's Ear entrance (here's a map of the cave with the Eye and Ear in the southwest corner - you can see I have lots of cave left to explore as my skills improve!). My first four dives were not so good - I got hammered by the flow! Finally on the fifth dive, I sort of figured it out. To get into the cave you have to pull yourself along the rock walls because of the flow. Its supposed to be "Pull and Glide" but in this cave its more like "Pull and Pull Harder." On the fifth dive I got in without any problems and we made it past the Lips formation. A decent accomplishment. I was diving 1/6ths (only using 1/6th of my gas to enter the cave and turn around at that point). I've included a photo of the dive entry point at Ginnie - note the beautiful, clear water...

March 15, 2010 - My tracks for today look pretty much the same as yesterday. We went to Ginnie Springs today and did two deco dives in the Ear at Devils. The first dive included two jumps and we made it to the Expressway Tunnel. We were diving thirds (turn pressure is 1/3 of your total gas supply) and as a result can make it much further into the cave. Flow was still an issue with me, although I've gotten much better at dealing with it and should continue to improve. The second dive we went to Hill 400. I lead and did a good job laying the primary reel into the Ear. The first half of the dive went pretty well. The second half was not very good - I had some issues winding up the primary reel while I was coming out of the cave. Ultimately I birdnested the reel. Nothing that a bit of work topside wouldn't help, but I would have preferred to have wound it up cleanly in-water. The problem is, that's tough to do when you are being blown upward by a million gallons of water per minute flowing out of the cave! I have to improve though, if I am going to pass. All-in-all a good day, but not a great day. Tomorrow we head to 3/16/2010 - Peacock Springs, a no-flow system that can get very silty. The challenge there will be to have absolutely perfect buoyancy and trim.

March 16, 2010 - Today we went to Peacock Springs State Park near Luraville, FL and dove Peacock 1 (click here for a map of the Peacock Cave system). This turned out to be a beautiful slough near the Suwanee River (of Stephen Foster fame). There is a huge cave there. We did the Peanut Tunnel and the Olsen Tunnel (2 dives). This is the cave system described in the book "The Taming of the Slough" by Sheck Exley. Sheck was a cave diver who did a lot of the original exploration of this system. He is memorialized in a plaque near the stairway down to the water. See a photo of Peacock Spring here. Both dives went great! I felt confident like I knew what I was doing. We did several drills including a lost buddy drill where I had to search for Allen. I remembered everything and found Allen lurking behind a large rock in the cave. Also, a couple of lights-out drills and an air-share drill. I ran the line for the first dive and Allen ran it for the second. Peacock is a no-flow system, and so we had to swim in and out. I backed off on my thirds by 100psi because I figured I'd get tired swimming all that way. We made it quite a ways both dives before we turned, and overall the dives were very fun! The Olsen Tunnel was VERY dark - the park had been recently flooded and just reopened to diving, so there was lots of murky stuff in the water. Didn't really matter when we did lights out...

March 17, 2010 - The track to Ginnie Springs. We did two dives here today. The first was exceptionally mediocre - the second turned out great. Tomorrow's the last day of diving, and after this week, I will have completed 14 more cave dives in two systems - Peacock Springs and Ginnie Springs. Its been a good run!

March 18, 2010 - Great dives today! I'll add some commentary and some pics after I get rested up. Here is my track for today. We went back to the Devil's Cave at Ginnie Springs for the final day of dives. My fingertips are toasted! I also drove over to Alachua to check on availability of Nutricote plant fertilizer. I wanted to get a couple of 50 lb bags. Didn't find that, but I did have a great barbeque supper at Sonny's!

We did two dives today. Both were in the Devil's Ear. I seem to have mastered the flow - pull and glide becomes pull and pull harder. The key (note to self: remember this!) is to go as high in the Gallery Room as possible. That way you miss most of the flow and have lots of handholds on either side. The second dive was the coolest cave dive I've done. We made it to the July Tunnel, which is a siphon (flow pulls you in so you have to swim against it when exiting) but didn't enter as I turned on thirds. On the way out we did a couple of nice bypasses of the main line tunnel and a tour of the Gizzard Room, which is a very cool open room about 100 ft across and 15 ft or so high. Lots of fascinating formations in there! Can't wait to go back!

March 19 and 20, 2010 - The loooooooooong trip home! This track is for both days. At Champaign, IL, I got out of the truck to pump gas, and about froze. The temperature was about 40°F and the wind was just howling out of the north. Brrr. Good to be home!

February 20, 2010 - Todd and I had a chance to go skiing today at the Chestnut Mountain ski area near Galena, Il. Here are a couple of photos and an interesting movie of some of our ski tracks. The first photo is of me going down Warpath. I took my GPS along and measured my speed at 36 mph. Not very fast compared to those Olympic downhillers! But going that fast was an absolute blast!. The second photo is one of Todd coming off of one of the lifts. The photos were taken with my phone, so they aren't very good.

I've also included an image of our GPS track for the day. If you count all the runs, we made a total of 33. Not bad for 6 hours of skiing - we were tired at the end of the day.

The other interesting thing is this movie using Google Earth. The movie shows three of our ski tracks using a Google Gadget, and is courtesy of Run Saturday, a web site for saving GPS tracks etc. from your outdoor activities. Very cool!

January 7, 2010 - Tycho and I had a very successful trip to Colorado over the past two weeks, including some time at the Winter Park ski area and a backcountry ski tour to the Jackal Hut near Camp Hale on Highway 24 north of Leadville, CO.

When we arrived, the snow wasn't all that good, but we got a couple of feet of fresh during the time we were out there, and the skiing turned out great! I had a new set of Salomon Lords that I got to use for the first time on this trip. I set them up with a pair of alpine bindings, and they worked out most excellently! For the backcountry skiing, I used some old favorites, my K2 Heli Stinx telemark skis. The climb up to Jackal Hut went well. We had 4 miles in with about a 2500 vertical foot altitude gain, for approximately a 12.5% grade. It took us 5 hrs and 20 minutes to make the trip (with ski gear and ~ 50 lb packs). Greg and I had done this hut before, and we beat our previous time significantly. My best recollection is that conditions were similar in 2005, so I must be getting in better shape as I age! I know that's not true, because Tycho climbs much faster than I do, but its a nice thought anyway... Sometimes I wonder though, as I'm definitely the oldest guy I see at any of the huts we do.

When we reached the hut, the scenery was beautiful. We had an outstanding view of the continental divide, including the huge peak Mt. Massive and six other 14'ers. We could also see an old molybdenum mine. Outstanding!

The snow was very unusual at the hut. There was about 3 feet of snow on the ground, but it was completely unconsolidated due to the cold temperatures. So there was no base, and it was difficult to ski without hitting rocks or other debris that you couldn't see. So we spent a major part of our ski day doing jumps on a ramp that previous hut occupants had built. Lots of interesting crashes to see in the video we collected, and a couple of very nice landings as well. I learned pretty quickly that I'm not cut out to be an Olympic freestyle skiing competitor! But it was still a tremendous amount of fun!

Skiing at Winter Park was also a blast! My new skis tracked through the crud most excellently. Its always nice to feel sure-footed as you are speeding down the slopes at high velocity. The big, stiff skis make it easier to track a line in moguls as well. They are advertised as an all-mountain ski and I can certainly recommend them as such!

The night before our last day, we got a big dump of snow, and had from 12-18 inches of fresh powder in the Parsenn Bowl. Skiing the bowl with that much powder is fun - I like to take the road to the right as you come off the lift, and drop in to the bowl from the road and ski back across the bowl to a couple of different chutes through the trees. It seems more like surfing than skiing. The powder makes it a lot more fun when you crash too!

While we were at the top of Parsenn Bowl, we climbed the north cone and I took a panoramic image of the surrounding area. The image is pretty big, so I've included a thumbnail of it at the bottom of this report. Click the image to download the full-sized version. It is always windy and cold at the top, and you can see people hunkered down against the elements all over in the picture.

Also, I've included a panoramic photo of the area surrounding the Jackal Hut rendered from photos taken by Tycho with his cell phone. I think the effect is pretty striking here too!

October 11, 2009 - I got a chance to kayak part of the Cedar River today. I had invited the Homebuilders class at SUMC plus some others to spend an afternoon on the water. The temperatures were at near-record lows for the few days leading up to the trip, so I wasn't sure if we would be able to go or not. The afternoon of the float trip, we had air and water temperatures in the mid-40°'s. Ultimately, we had six hardy souls that were willing to make the trip. Cash and Mike, Ron, Stacey (the only female, yaay!), Todd and myself put in at Palisades/Kepler State Park at about 1:45 Sunday afternoon.

The trip started out very nicely - with a bit of sunshine and blue sky showing through the cloud cover. Todd and I wore our scuba wetsuits "just in case" and they proved to be quite comfortable. Early on we spent lots of time exploring the bluffs along the river and boating through the trees and other debris in the river. Some had new (or new to them) boats and so got a chance to expand their horizons a bit. Others just enjoyed the peaceful paddle.

Among the interesting things sighted along the way - a bald eagle resting in the top of a dead tree trunk, a like-new football trapped in a debris pile, several holes and cave-like structures in the Palisades (bluffs), and Todd's new boat. He'd had it about a week when we put in for the trip today.

We spent about 2 1/2 hours on the river before we arrived at the take-out point, near Sutliff. Kim and Karla met us at the Sutliff tap, and we enjoyed a good supper during which we regaled the two K's with our tales from the float trip.

A good trip was had by all six participants! We'll plan another similar outing for next spring. The river gage at Cedar Rapids showed 4.7 ft today, which corresponded to a flow of 3,710 cf/s and that level seemed good. Hopefully the sun will make a real appearance next year and lots more people can enjoy the river!

September 5-6, 2009 - I got a chance to head to Milwaukee last weekend for some diving on a couple of wrecks just outside the breakwater. The trip was put together by Ken Kremer from Seatasea Watersports in Cedar Rapids. There is a great group of folks that seems to show up for this trip year after year! We dove the Prince Willem V and the Milwaukee Car Ferry from the Len-Der. I had dove the Willie last year, but the Car Ferry was a new wreck for me.

The Willie is probably the most popular wreck dive out of Milwaukee. She lies at depths of 55-90 ft. on her starboard side. She went down after being rammed by a barge, which punched a huge hole in her side. This wreck went down without any loss of life, but has claimed five divers over the years. We saw various memorial plaques for those divers mounted on the wreck. The water temperature was a balmy 60°F all the way to the bottom. As a result, the visibility was not as good as last year, when the water temps were about 45°F. Dive buddy was Jen Van Der Zee. We did two dives on this wreck, and spent a fair amount of time around the pilot house amidships, doing some moderate penetration. Unlike Lake Superior, all the wrecks near Milwaukee are completely covered in Zebra Mussels. I wonder how many mussels (about 1/2" in size) it takes to completely cover a 200+ ft. wreck?

Sunday we did two dives on the Milwaukee Car Ferry, a 340 ft rail car and vehicle ferry running from Milwaukee to Grand Haven, MI. This was a very interesting new wreck for me. She went down in a storm due (apparently - there were no survivors to tell the tale) to a breach of the sea gate on her stern and lies in 90-120 ft. of water. The sea gate was bent crazily - perhaps from a train car or two coming loose in the storm? The pilot house had come off of the wreck and was lying off to the side. A permanent line lead from the main wreck to the pilot house, and I followed it out. The pilot house (sans roof) was nestled on the bottom with debris scattered all around. We did one dive on the stern and a second on the bow. Vis was much better on the stern, as we were the first divers down. Temps were about 60°F to a thermocline at 100 ft. and then dropped to a chilly 47°F below that.

Overall, 4 great dives with my buddy Jen!

August 13, 2009 - Marian and I got to spend this past week in the Colorado Rockies. We took our bikes and kayaks and had quite a lot of fun. Along the way, I think we turned our nephew Max into a kayaker.

We climbed Mt. Evans, a 14-er south of Idaho Springs. I say we climbed it, but what that really means is we drove up the road to 14,130 ft and then climbed the last 134 ft to the summit at 14,264 ft. Supposedly, the road up is the highest paved road in North America. My pucker factor was definitely up there on a couple of the guard-railless turns toward the top. We looked for some mountain goats, but didn't see any this time. Here's a picture of the two of us at the Mt. Evans summit.

As an experiment, I did a panoramic summit image composed of 10 photos taken with viewpoints angled around the mountain top. The image is huge, so takes a long time to download, but here it is if you would like to see a copy. Can you recognize the lady in Red? There are also three additional 14-ers visible in this photo. Can you find and name them?

On Sunday, we drove out to Monarch Lake, a small man-made lake southeast of Granby Lake, and spent the day kayaking and hiking in the area. The chop was pretty good at the head of the lake, so we got a chance to do some paddling into the wind on the way back to the put-in. A beautiful area, with a couple of nice picnic spots. The area is one with lots of moose - we didn't see any, but as we were hiking past a couple of fly fisherman, we heard them hollar. Turned out a moose had just walked through the water right between the two of them. We had lunch on an island in the middle of the lake. Beautiful wildflowers and other native plants, and even the lodge pole pines hadn't been too badly damaged by the mountain pine beetle that is wreaking havoc in Grand County. Here's a snap of Marian, prowling the lake in her quest for the perfect lunch spot.

Grand County, and the local businesses and trail groups, are working very hard to provide year-round activities for the Winter Park - Fraser - Grand Lake area, and as part of that effort, they are building a mountain bike trail from Winter Park to Granby. The trail is complete up to the Snow Mountain Ranch turn-in. Marian and I rode the trail on Monday, and it was very interesting and scenic. Parts of it parallel Highway 40 quite closely, but parts run back into a timber stand and also past some of the outbuildings for a working ranch. We appreciate the landowners allowing the trail to run through their property - when complete this trail will be a very nice thing.

On Tuesday, we went up the road to Rocky Mountain National Park, the flagship park in that system. We wanted to do some hiking a bit different than past trips, so we stopped at Milner Pass, where Trail Ridge Road crosses the Continental Divide. We did some hiking in a couple of different areas. Lake Irene is a beautiful mountain tarn above a huge alpine valley. Above Poudre Lake (headwaters of the Cache de la Poudre) we hiked to a set of granite columns about 60 ft high that we climbed on as well. We also tried to get to the Colorado River on the west edge of RMNP, but due to road construction on Trail Ridge Road, we weren't able to access any closer than the big swampy area to the east of the river.

July 28, 2009 - Just got home from a wreck diving trip to Isle Royale in Lake Superior. I got to dive a couple of new wrecks, including the George M. Cox, the Chisholm Engine, and the Monarch, as well as some old favorites including the Emperor, the Congdon Bow, and the America. Isle Royale is a beautiful setting, and the cold water (temps were about 39°F on the bottom) visibility of the wrecks was outstanding.

The trip was organized by Yan Saillard of Innerspace Scuba in Duluth, MN. Our boat was the Lake Superior Diver, a 38 ft Chris Craft boat well set up for diving and owned and operated by Captain Ryan Staley of Isle Royale Charters. We departed from the Grand Portage Marina in the morning of July 22, 2009 for a five day charter. Both Yan and Ryan did an excellent job with this trip! The food was great, the wrecks were great, and the weather was as good as I've seen it. There were four of us on board - Ryan, Yan, Josh, and myself. Yan is a great underwater photographer as well! I'd highly recommend both of these operations if you are interested in Isle Royale wreck diving.

I have uploaded some pictures of the trip. To see these, click the Scuba Diving box and the Isle Royale 2009 Photos link at the left. Here are a couple of photos just to whet your appetite. The first is of me on the bow of the Chester A. Congdon, and the second shows a couple of artifacts on the stern section of the Emperor. Both of these were 500 ft steel-hulled lake freighters downbound from Thunder Bay that struck the Canoe Rocks reef off the north west edge of Isle Royale during heavy weather. I also plan to post a more detailed trip report in a day or two.

June 15, 2009 - This past week, I took the TDI Advanced Nitrox/Deco Procedures course from Duane Johnson of Precision Diving. The first three days of the course were at Haigh Quarry, near Kankakee, IL, and the last two were at Lake Wazeenear Black River Falls, WI. We did 11 dives over the five days - two days of skills dives, two days of simulated deco dives with failures ;-) and other task loading thrown in, and the final day was a set of two real deco dives to 143 ft with some additional skills. Diving was in the mornings and the afternoons were filled with lectures, discussion, and working out dive planning examples. It was a very good course! Duane exhibits excellent in-water technique, and thus teaches by example.

I enjoy Great Lakes wreck diving, and wanted more bottom time on some of the wrecks than what I can get with recreational profiles. So, I decided to take the course in a cold-water environment. I chose Duane as my instructor because he does these kinds of dives himself. Bottom temps at Haigh were about 42°F, and at Lake Wazee about 38°F. Doing valve drills, shooting an SMB, manipulating deco and stage bottles, and performing other tasks with thick drysuit gloves on were challenges that I wanted to master to improve my safety in the cold water. I got lots of practice on all these things with Duane. The necessity of excellent buoyancy control and trim for deco diving were hammered home as well.

In addition to the diving side of the course, Duane included lectures each afternoon/evening - covering nitrox and deco physiology, equipment, and dive planning, among other things. The exposure to detailed dive planning, including deco and contingencies, was very well done. I have a significant new appreciation for the whole process, including minimum gas requirements, different types of gas planning (thirds, halves, and all-use dives), deep stops, and deco gas selection. Duane teaches the GUE EDGE pre-dive checklist and I found that to be a very comprehensive way to initiate a dive. Team awareness and environment were also a significant part of the course.

My diving skills have improved tremendously as a result of this course, and I am looking forward to enjoying those longer bottom times on some of the deeper wrecks in the Great Lakes. Further, this should put me in good shape to complete the last two segments of my training to full cave. I would highly recommend Duane as an excellent, caring, and careful instructor. No photos, though, I was too busy troubleshooting the failures!

Now to practice, practice, practice...

March 22, 2009 - We went to St. Croix this year for Spring Break. It was my 50th birthday a couple of weeks ago, and Marian's birthday also falls right around this time of year, so we decided to splurge and get some sun. It was 3°F the morning we left. Brrrr. When we got to Fredericksted and sat on the beach for a couple of hours all of the cold left our bones pretty quickly! I've posted some pictures of our trip in the travel section.

While we were down there, I got to do some scuba diving on the west end. A friend John, whom I met on the dive boat, had a nice camera and has promised to send me some underwater pictures from our dives. When I get those, I'll post them as well. I dove with N2 The Blue dive shop and thought it was a great operation. Safe, reliable, and they took us to some great sites. I'd highly recommend them if you are down that way.

We also went on a day-sail trip to Buck Island, a small island to the north of St. Croix a couple of miles administered by the National Park Service. That was a fantastic day - we did some beach combing, lying in the sand, snorkling at the Buck Island reef, and had a beach party on Cokely Bay beach after we returned to St. Croix. It was about an hour ride over to Buck Island, and then an hour back. The boat was a two-sail catamaran, and very smooth and comfortable.

The balance of time we spent sightseeing, eating great food at one of many local restaurants, or laying (snoozing?) on the beach. Overall, a great trip!

EDIT - I got some great dive photos from my dive buddy John. Click the Scuba Diving box and then the St. Croix diving link to see them.

January 12, 2009 - Wow! Had a great time skiing in Colorado over the holidays! We spent some time in Winter Park, and did a trip to the 10th Mountain Hut near Leadville, CO. It snowed about 3 ft. the night before our big ski day there. We had a ball. Here are a couple of photographs of me that capture some of the thrill of our skiing. Lots of big, fluffy powder! Greg is working on a ski movie of our trip, and I will also have some other photos to post. Suffice it to say that its possible to turn a somersault in all that snow and not touch the bottom. The hike up was moderate, although they all seem difficult toward the end. Our group included Tycho, Greg, Todd, and myself. These guys are great to include an old man like me in their activities. What a ball!

I've also discovered a cache of slides of old winter camping trips. As soon as I can get those digitized, I will post some of the best!

October 26, 2008 - I am in the process of putting together a web page with material from some of my various outdoor adventures over the past several years. Most of the material is recent - since the advent of my digital camera. Hopefully I can scan in interesting photographs from the old days too. I have been at this since I was about 11 years old, so there is a lot of material to include!

I owe a very big thanks to my son Tycho for his help with the PHP and Javascript code (as well as for participating in many of these adventures with me). Also, thanks to my brother-in-law Greg for help in understanding video encoding schemes (as well as sharing his love of the Colorado Rockies, putting together some of the movies, and introducing me to the 10th Mountain Division Hut system). My friends Steve and Graham also deserve thanks for being willing to learn the skills of winter camping together with me in the early days. Sometimes its hard to believe we didn’t freeze to death on those early winter expeditions. Amazingly, 20+ years have gone by since we started our January trips to the backcountry. Finally, all of these activities would’t be possible without the support of my lovely wife Marian. I appreciate that more than you know!

The genesis of my interest in the outdoors can be traced to my parents and the Boy Scouting program. Those family trips to Minnesota and out west, coupled with the BSA High Adventure program have spawned an interest that has stuck with me to this day. I still remember when my dad pointed to Grand Teton and told me, "someday you’ll have to learn to climb peaks like that." My first big mountain was Mt. Baldy at Philmont Scout Ranch in 1974. Lots of hard work, but lots of fun!

The page is here for you to enjoy. A lot of you have participated in these adventures with me. Take a look and see if you can find someone you know (maybe yourself?) in the photographs, movies, and descriptions. The movie files I’ve included on this page are huge and have always been difficult to distribute efficiently. Hopefully, posting them in a streaming format as I have done, will make them more readily accessible to everyone.

Finally, please let me know if you find broken links or other stuff that doesn’t work. And thanks for your interest!