Hiking the Stawamus Chief

On Sunday, our Scout Troop went for a hike up the Stawamus Chief in Squamish BC.  The weather was perfect.  At the beginning of the hike, the temperature was around 12C and it promised to be a sunny day for the whole hike.  We had 8 scouts, 2 cubs, 5 parents, a friend and myself head up.  We lost one parent early due to the extreme start (it’s a really steep uphill to start) but the rest of us all soldiered up and even the few that looked like they were going to die at the beginning came through with flying colours!  The peak elevation is 620m so the elevation gain is almost 600m.  What an incredible view!!!

We hung up at the top of the mountain for about 1 hour and then hiked down the “east trail” via the  gully and it was a fun technical root hop.  Lots of little scrapes and scratches to help the kids remember the hike!  A great start to the warm weather!

For all the pictures, head over to:

http://www.slacker.ca/brian/webpics/showpix.aspx?20090426Chief

 

Enjoy the view!

 

Technorati Tags: Stawamus Chief, Squamish, Hiking, Vancouver, Canon 50D, 40th Marpole Scouts

Backyard birds

With spring here, it won’t be long before the Pine Siskins move back down south (it’s about time – they are eating me out of house and home).  I only see the odd Oregon Junco around now too.  We’ve had a couple of new visitors to the feeder this past week – a goldfinch and a female hair woodpecker  No photos yet, but I’m sure I’ll get them at SOME point.  The bushtits have become more frequent visitors and tend to only show up in pairs now… It’s that time of year of course   It’s nice to see the buds out on the trees, but it does mean that shooting the birds among the leaves will be quite a challenge.

I finally managed to snag a shot of a chestnut backed chickadee while he waited to jump on the feeder amongst the Pine Siskins as well a Pine Siskin that was the loser of the batter for feeder space.  Here they are:

Chestnut backed Chickadee:

Pine Siskin:

Shot with the Canon 50D, and 100-400L at 400mm.  Exif is available on the large photos linked to by clicking on the ones above.

 

Technorati Tags: Photography, Pine Siskin, Chickadee, Canon 50D, Backyard Birds

Crazy

Is everybody going crazy?
Is anybody gonna save me?
Can anybody tell me what’s going on?
Tell me what’s going on?
If you open your eyes
You’ll see that something is wrong

Simple Plan – 2004