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Bear Lakes Basin Traverse: Part 5
Up Pine Creek | Pine Creek Pass | Feather Pass | Dancing Bear and Italy Passes | Full Circle Full Circle We had planned for an early morning departure, aiming to be on the trail by 7:30 this morning. Last week, I had back calculated the times based on Brad’s flight out of Ontario, dinner,…
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Bear Lakes Basin Traverse: Part 4
Up Pine Creek | Pine Creek Pass | Feather Pass | Dancing Bear and Italy Passes | Full Circle Dancing Bear and Italy Passes I wake up to frost on my shoes. Getting out of my tent, I think to myself, “Today is going to be the second hard day.” I walk around Big Bear…
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Bear Lakes Basin Traverse: Part 3
Up Pine Creek | Pine Creek Pass | Feather Pass | Dancing Bear and Italy Passes | Full Circle Feather Pass From my planning, now comes the day I have been stressing most about. We will be route-finding and boulder-hopping to make our way up to and over Feather Pass. Our group gets up early.…
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Bear Lakes Basin Traverse: Part 2
Up Pine Creek | Pine Creek Pass | Feather Pass | Dancing Bear and Italy Passes | Full Circle Pine Creek Pass The drizzle lets off enough for us to make breakfast burritos with chipotle chili. Between storm clouds, shafts of sunlight break through and strike the Wizard’s Castle. I survey the clouds as they…
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Bear Lakes Basin Traverse: Part 1
Up Pine Creek | Pine Creek Pass | Feather Pass | Dancing Bear and Italy Passes | Full Circle This backpacking trip is one of firsts. It’ll be the first time hiking with Jonathan and Lisa. Jonathan is a photographer, media producer, sound engineer, writer at Loma Linda University, and we’ve been talking about backpacking…
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Backpacking to Heart Lake and Chickenfoot Lake
For the two older kids, this was supposed to be a breeze of a trip—one to two mile days, relatively flat, and many rest breaks. I intentionally picked this short flattish trail, because while Rakesh and his kids, Noah and Siri, have gone backpacking before, to Hilton Creek Lakes on a moderately strenuous hike, this…
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James Peak Wilderness
Planning This trip can be considered a twenty-year celebration, when in 2006, Brad first joined me on a backpacking trip. The other special thing about this excursion is that I chatted with artificial intelligence to plan it. From the beginning, I asked Claude.ai for suggestions for a loop or in-and-out trail within two hours of…
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First Utah Ski Trip
We’ve heard a lot about this place called Brian Head in Utah. Everyone tells us that it’s family-friendly, and we finally ventured out there. It’s only a little farther than Mammoth. Because Mammoth is in California, and getting to Brian Head involves crossing three state boundaries (California to Nevada to Arizona to Utah), it sounds…
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Black Rock and Jumbo Rocks at Joshua Tree
Getting a campsite reservation in Joshua Tree National Park is fairly elusive, especially on weekends for this time of year. A few weeks ago, at the nudging of the kids, I started browsing for sites, and to my surprise, a single site was available in Jumbo Rocks, so I grabbed it. We decided on two…
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Family Black Canyon Paddle
After having gone backpacking, and in particular, after the Hilton Creek Lakes trip with friends, the husbands wanted to introduce their wives to the wilderness, far away from anything accessible by car. So, I drummed up interest for this paddle excursion and secured reservations and permits in May, a full six months in advance.
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Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness
This trip was planned months ago, and we had missed getting permits for the original weekend. This date was our backup, but it turned out to be better now, when the Arizona summer has transitioned to more fall-like.
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The Water and Clouds of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers
The Water and Clouds of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers (瀟湘水雲) was composed by Guo Mian (郭沔, c. 1190–1260). He was a qin player from coastal Zhejiang (浙江), and I’d find out that he and my wife share the same ancestral hometown of Yongjia, Wenzhou (温州市永嘉县). As a famed guqin player in his day, he…
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Saddlebag Lake to Greenstone Lake
It’s been a year since we last went backpacking, and the kids have been looking forward to this trip. They are growing up, and they can have more freedom on this trip. The night before our trip, I put all the kids to bed an hour early, since we have an early morning start to…
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Mountain Oak and Jackson Lake
We’re all looking forward to an upcoming paddling trip, from the Hoover Dam down through the Black Canyon, visiting hot springs on the side. A few weeks ago, I had given some of the novices a tutorial, and not, it’s time to try it out on the water. Mountain Oak Campground near Wrightwood is situated…
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Oahu with the Family
This is Yan’s first time on Oahu, and we base ourselves out of the Moana Surfrider. I book a last-minute glass bottom boat cruise from Ko Olina Monday afternoon. It turns out that we’re the only ones on this boat, so we love this private excursion. The highlight for the kids, however, is the luau.…
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ABJS Meeting in Japan
Arriving in Tokyo Monday evening is very hectic. We leave the airport and take the light rail to our hotel. Our dinner consists of take-out food court items from the subway station, and we eat in our tiny hotel room.
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Kauai Ten Years Later
Planning for the Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons meeting in Kyoto, I figured it would be better for jetlag to add in visits to Hawaii, on the way there and on the way back. And this being at the same time as our tenth anniversary, we would spend it visiting the honeymoon locations on…
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Camping and Paddling at Lake Perris
The kids have been wanting to go camping, since it has been months. At the same time, we are planning a paddling trip to the Black Canyon below Hoover Dam later this year. Some of us need practice.
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Revisiting Forest Falls
Ten years ago, this weekend, I proposed to Yan at Forest Falls. It had just snowed, and today is a perfect day for bringing the kids up to the mountains. Yan and I relive wonderful memories, and the kids enjoy hopping through the stream and throwing snowballs.
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Hand Association Meeting on the Big Island
This year’s Hand Association meeting took place on the Big Island, at the Hilton Waikoloa. The sessions mainly took place in the mornings, and afternoons were free for roaming around the island. Highlights included hiking to lush waterfalls, watching serene sunsets, and viewing the glow of Kīlauea light up the starry night sky.
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Mammoth Ski Trip
After experiencing a ski-in-ski-out place, it’s hard to go back staying at a regular rental. We found a wonderful condo just up the slope from Eagle Lodge at Mammoth. Just steps outside of our front door, we can ski down to the lift and be up on the slopes in no time. Mid-day, we simply…
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Family Trip to the Yucatán Peninsula
Yan’s longtime interest in archeology and the kids’ online Spanish classes were really what catalyzed this trip into existence. During the pandemic, Daphney had the opportunity to transition to Spanish immersion with a teacher in Mexico, and we kept up these classes with various teachers, all based in Cancún. So eventually we decided: we should…
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Hilton Creek Lakes
It’s a sunny Friday morning. We had driven up the day before and camped at Rock Creek Lake, a beautiful spot surrounded by pines and aspens that are just beginning to glimmer gold. The hike to Hilton Creek Lake #2 is five miles according to the map. We set out first, while Kendrick, Rakesh, Kara,…
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Shepherd Creek
The first light of dawn peeks through the trees, nudging me awake from nine solid hours of sleep. There’s no rush, but we know we need to finish breakfast and hit the trail soon—Brad has a plane to catch. Breakfast is familiar but satisfying, with an extra treat of honey packets we saved from yesterday.
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Shepherd Pass
“The sun is up,” Brad’s voice jolts me. I leap out of my sleeping bag, jump out of the tent, grab my wide-angle lens, and crank down the aperture. I race along the shores of Lake 11,400’, chasing the border where light meets shadow, trying to capture perfect sun stars. As I reach the southern…
