NWHikers.net

It's now almost 8 pm. I've been about 6 hours or so picking through threads and managed to make a few posts.
I'm still waiting for the new computer promised to me about 2 years ago.
Bad enough that a slow dialup connection sucks, but I haven't been able to view any of the images here for quite a while, nor can I post my own.
( Hence the lack of trip reports for the last couple years. )

Quark and javman- I sent emails to both of you. Sorry for the delay.
First time I've turned this machine on in quite a while because it's so slow and can't log on to most websites running IE 5.5.

Just wanted to let you know I'm still alive, but the computer is dying a slow death. I check the email every couple weeks or so lately.

A buddy of mine grew up on Oahu. When he was a kid, he and his friends would go down and play in the irrigation canals. In the low spots or where rocks had blocked part of the ditch, they could catch the Tilapia bare-handed. They tossed them up onto the bank just to watch them flip around and die.
Not a suitable food source even for dirt-poor Hawaiians.

Mike-
Add to your list of "do not miss":
The old Russian Orthodox Church in Sitka.
You don't have to be part of a tour group to get in, but having someone narrate the history of the church was certainly worth the $25 the bus-tour cost.*
Best collection of Russian Orthodox icons outside of Russia. Fabulous.

After running up and down Gavan Hill in Sitka, I was talking to a guy down at the docks about the trail. Built by locals - "Sitka Trail Society" ( or something along that line ) - Sitka Chamber of Commerce can probably provide you with contact info. Might be worth checking into.

* Or just find out when they're scheduled to be there and lurk at the back of the room.
Don't forget to drop a couple bucks in the donation jar for the Church - good juju for your trip.

Next time you're in Mazatlan, try the fresh-caught that morning shrimp.
If you're up early, the "Shrimp Man" will clean them for you right there on the beach - about $9 a half-kilo for the really big ones. Take 'em up and cook 'em in the room with a little limon and miel.

No comparison.
Farmed shrimp tastes like cardboard at best. The economic and environmental consequences of shrimp-farming in SE Asia should make any person with a concience avoid it like a plague.

Raised on fresh-caught salmon, steelhead, and trout, farmed-raised Atlantic Salmon to me is kind of like eating boiled tennis shoe.
As with shrimp-farming, the long-term environmental consequences ( particularly the decimation of food-fish stocks in the North Pacific ) should give one pause before buying it.

I'll go lick my toilet clean before I'll eat Tilapia.

But hey, to each his own, right?

Friends don't let friends eat farm-raised fish.

Filson Mackinaw Wool Pants Model 087*

The salesman in the Seattle store tried to talk me out of them. Said they were too heavy for anything in Western Washington. First time out was a walk up to Lower Lena Lake, wearing lightweight Capiline underneath them. Fine in the shade, but when we got to the lake the sun came out and I was broiling.
On a mid-February walk up to Blue Lake ( south of Randle ) they were just dandy post-holing through 4 feet of snow. ( With the lightweight Capiline and a pair of knee-high gaiters. )
If you're looking for something you can wear while sitting down in the snow for an hour or so, this is the ticket.

( * mine are actually Model 089 - now discontinued and replaced by Model 087 - same except mine don't have the side cargo pocket. )

It's apparent several of you have completely misunderstood what I've said in the previous posts.
Unfortunately I am not able to post images, or I'd draw a diagram.
I'll see if I can line somebody up who owns a video camera and get a clip made so you all can see how it's done properly.

1958-2009 = 51 years fording rivers, not one fall with a pack yet.

Okay guys-

Maybe it's just me.
I've fished several kids out of rivers. I've talked with the LE rangers up at ONP who fished out bodies. I've watched people go down with packs on at the ford at Sams.
I've spent my entire life on rivers- mostly the Nisqually and the Queets.
I've crossed them when they were ankle deep.
I've forded the Queets when the water was so high I had to pull the straps up on my pack to keep my sleeping bag out of the water. ( It ties on at the bottom of my frame pack. )
My older brother dragged me up Tshletshy one day until the water was chest-deep and we couldn't get up any higher.

Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

Just don't let me read your name in the papers next summer.

somebody posted a video on YouTube of one of the members here fording Sams up there.
if somebody has a video camera and would like to shoot a video of how to do it properly, get back to me about mid-July.
I just finished my new crossing stick for this season.

I wear size 13 Converse hi-tops for fords.

GoBlueHiker managed in Tevas, but mine kept coming loose, and the coarse sand from the Queets works its way into the inside of the sole where the straps go through and rattles when they dry out.

I can't speculate as to fording with snowshoes.

PS:
next time you're in the water with your pack on, try doing the backstroke.

okay.... let's see if I can clarify it:

body at angle in relationship to streamflow - yes.
( better stability )

angled toward upstream - no.
( if you fall you're going to go down on your back. consider 24-year-old girl drowned in Quinault a few years ago: went down, head hit rock, girl drowned. )

body angled downstream - yes.
( if you fall you're going to go down on your stomach. smashing out all your teeth or breaking your jaw on a rock isn't going to be nearly as bad as the back of your skull colliding with said rock. )

make sense?