ScenicBoys

Bumping Lake, east of Mt Rainier

We enjoy each others company when it's just the two of us deep in the wilderness, but we love it when friends are able to join in our crazy adventures. It becomes a completely new dynamic with 13 close friends wandering off in every direction... and a mom lovingly cookin' up some breakfast back at camp.

The first caravan left Seattle early Friday morning and traveled east, around Mt Rainier and down into the Wenatchee National Forest. By early afternoon Keith, Kyler, Mark, Anthony and Will had helped us setup camp near the banks of Bumping Lake. A few hours later George found us and by night fall the entire family was accounted for when Ian, Matt, Patrick, Jesse and his mom Deidre arrived.

Our spot was perfect. Hidden amidst old fir and cotton woods, we had our own little claims either along the creek that bordered our camp or on the bluff overlooking Bumping River. Early one morning a few of us were enjoying coffee and the warm sun when we noticed a pair of Western Tanagers in a nearby tree. They played a Twitterpated game of chase before whisping away across the river.

There was so many fun things to do around this area! We floated on the lake and channeled "Lord of the Flies" while playing on a little island. A group of us hiked up a shale hill to a nice view of the area and just the bravest of us jumped off the 15ft spill way.

So far this was the funnest place we've group camped this year. We've had very good luck with this part of Washington. Between the Little Naches, camping with Kitty, and now this adventure - I think this area is prime for when YOU come camping with us.

ScenicBoys: Bumping Lake 2008 from scenicboys on Vimeo.

Kitty Likes Camping!

Blogosphere... meet, Tonka.  Otherwise known as Kitty (he'll answer to both)  Our kitty is brilliant, playful and could care less what you're doing to him as long as you're paying attention to him. :)

We've long joked about taking kitty camping with us.  This weekend we finally brought him along.  Kitty likes it! :)

Learned some valuable lessons though:

kitty can easily move a 10lb rock...

kitty shouldn't make silly faces...

kitty has much to learn about tobogganing...

And kitty loves to go for walks - as long as your direction is mutually beneficial, exciting, and involves rolling in more dirt.

ScenicBoys: Kitty Likes Camping 2008 from scenicboys on Vimeo.

Caribbean Adventure 08 - Part 2

Well here is the second installment of the ScenicBoys Caribbean Adventure. :) Thanks to everyone who commented on the last post, hope you all enjoy this one too.

This trip also marked our 2 year anniversary together!  Where better to celebrate our anniversary than back at the place it all started?  Have we ever mentioned that 2 years ago we fell in love on St. Maarten?  It's an exotic, romantic, and at times magical place.  I don't know of anywhere else on earth quite like it.

If you haven't been, be sure to check out the photo galleries in the panel to the left.  In there you'll find plenty more pictures from all our adventures.  Here are some of our favs from the second half of the trip.

Long Baie, second to the last night

Enjoying a nice stroll through the warm water on Cupecoy

Dusty looking out over the Atlantic from Anse Marcel nature perserve.  That's Pinet Island in the distance.

Sunset, Long Baie

Back at Cupecoy (can you guess which beach was our favorite?) :)

Underwater Camera!  Everyone looks great underwater...

Surprise Caribbean Adventure

Garet and I had the first week in July off and for months we kept thinking how cool it would be to go on a backpacking trip for the entire week! Imagine how lost we could get with 7 days to explore the wilderness. I did some research, called some ranger stations, and found us a cool trail around a big lake. So... 2 days before the break started we were having dinner.  Garet turns to me and said “Boyfriend, you can stop planning for the mountains, cause I bought us tickets to the Caribbean.” Woah! A Surprise Adventure to the Caribbean?! Not much could make this better except the fact that we were leaving in 48 hours!

As excited as two little school girls we landed on the beautiful island of St. Martin and immediately changed into our swim shorts and went to our favorite beach in the world, Cupecoy. With plenty of time to spend in the warm turquoise water, we drank some rum punch on the beach till the sun set.

We stayed at a little gay friendly hotel called the Royal Turtle Inn. Our room was awesome with a king sized four poster bed and a huge tiled bathroom to die for. With endless adventures waiting for us outside, it was hard at times to leave this comfortable room.

This was our second time to the island so we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted to see again and what new things we wanted to do. At Orient Beach we sat and enjoyed some Carib Lagers and saw tons of boobies. We also took a water taxi to Ilet Pinet, a small island/nature preserve off the northeast coast of St. Martin. Being on the Atlantic side, the waves were huge and crashed just feet in front of us.

At 1500ft, the highest point you can get on St. Martin, you've reached Pic Paradise. This was a hike we did last time, but could not resist another chance to view the island and water from such a high elevation. It was clear enough that day for us to see some of SXM's sister islands: St. Barts and Anguilla.

By mid week, we had nice tans setting in, our hair was lighting and we still had a few days left in the Caribbean. Part 2 of this adventure coming soon.

Bonus!!!

Hello Adventure People!

During our trip to the Federation Forest, our buddy Matt was gathering footage and has put together a wonderfully surreal movie of his point of view. He has done such an amazing job of telling the story, that it seems like a fantastical adventure. And here is a true testament to his talent; his view finder is smashed so he free-hands his visual concepts. Imagen when this boy gets a new camera!

Enjoy...