Sherman Peak - site of 1988 White Mtn. fire

Jen and I just returned from a weekend mountain bike festival, the 2010 Kettle Crest Fest.

Friday, our trail work party cleared more trees than we could count from the Sherman Peak Loop trail (photo above, ~6,000 ft.). Then we enjoyed two days of some of Washington State’s finest singletrack – including a 2,000′ descent of the Jungle Hill Loop.

The annual advocacy event is hosted by Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance and coordinated by volunteer Tim Banning. Lucky for us, New Belgium Brewing was a sponsor!

This is my climbing partner, Dan Azer, leading the first pitch of the famous 5.6 Beckey Route on Liberty Bell in the North Cascades. As we geared up for the climb, a family of mountain goats approached us – looking for food and, particularly, ‘salt.’

This photo was selected from more than 750 entries as an Editor’s Favorite in the Washington Trails Association’s Northwest Exposure photo contest. Learning The Ropes will be featured in the January/February edition of Washington Trails magazine.

WTA’s photo contest promotes Washington’s wonderful hiking destinations and the importance of advocating for these wild lands.

More pictures from the Liberty Bell slideshow.

Puget Sound King Crabs are a species of King Crab that inhabit the Pacific Ocean between central California and Alaska. As you can see, adults are orange, red, and purple.

What does this have to do with marketing? Absolutely nothing.

I’m scuba diving around Stuart Island in the San Juans this weekend with James Keithly and Jason Baker.

Note of interest: the African wildlife pictured above live on Spieden Island, owned by James Jannard, the founder of Oakley, who resides on Orcas Island.

Summer. It’s not just the season for rock climbing and thunderstorms. Summer means weddings. Lots of weddings.

Last month, Jen’s cousin Kitty Rasmussen married Jeff Craig. Watch the Craig-McIntyre-Rasmussen reunion slideshow (the trimaran pictured at the end was hand-built by Jen’s uncle, Dennis Rasmussen, in nine months!)

This week, I visit Hamilton, MT for a one-day shoot of the wedding of Charla Grenz and Ben Solheim.

I return to the office Monday, August 18.