Crowders Mountain State Park April 2012

Had the opportunity to join some existing friends and make some new ones on a short but challenging hike up Pinnacle Trail at Crowders Mountain state park.  Based on the trail map, Pinnacle has a difficulty rating of strenuous.  I think to get to that it is a combination of how fast you walk and the kind of shape you are in.  If you stroll up this trail I would say it is fairly easy.  If you walk with real purpose and try to make the fastest time possible you will breath hard.  If you are not use to this you will pass out!  I was somewhere between breathing hard and passing out as we reached the top.  It is not a long trail, only 3.4 miles round trip from ant to the park office.  You start up a small rise and then move along a ridge for the first mile.   The last half mile is more steep and the last 2 tenths are pretty steep and at the very end you are basically rock climbing.  The views were great, as we reached the top of the mountain it was obvious that we were lucky from a weather standpoint.  As I looked west it was raining toward Blacksburg and then I looked east and it seemed to be raining there as well.   The wind picked up and there was a nice cool breeze that gusted at times.   Here is a photo of the view from the top.  Sorry the only camera I had was my blackberry so its not the best shot in the world.

 

click the album below to see the rest of the photos taken on this trip.

Crowders Mtn. Pinnacle Trail

Here is a small part of the trail map for reference.   I will also paste a link to the full map under “Trail Links” to the right.

Helpdesk

Lake Wateree April 2012

Cap'n Dan and Helpdesk made a trip to lake Wateree state park on April 2, 2012.  The weather was great and we paddled around the island.  Wish there was a way to totally circumnavigate the entire island but there is a land mass bridge that we couldn't paddle under.  So, we just paddled each section to accomplish our goal.  See the pictures:

Lake Wateree April 2012

Lake Wateree - GPS and Stats

Steamboat Colorado 2012

When a man turns 50, he can choose how to react. He basically has two choices – 1) he can withdraw and decide it’s time to slow down, do less, cut back and basically start the slide into old age; or 2) he can be bold, go large and do things he has never done before in his previous half century. And so Sleepy, upon reaching this milestone, choose option 2. Because hey, he’d already been doing the slow down, do less and cut back (this does not apply to eating mind you!) stuff for a loooong time!
So a decision was made back in the long hot summer of 2011 that Sleepy, accompanied by Helpdesk and Gusto, would heed the call and head west “not-so-young men”. And so we did. Destination - Steamboat Springs, CO for a week of skiing, snowmobiling, hot springing, sightseeing and good eating. Although no snow fell on us during our week, there was still plenty for us to enjoy on the slopes at Steamboat and in the Routt National Forest, where we traveled about 45 miles on snowmobiles. And to our amazement, we learned something incredible about Sleepy in those 45 miles… truth be told, we learned it in only the first mile or two!
In those first couple of miles, we discovered the one thing that Sleepy does not do slowly. The dude will flat out fly on a snowmobile! Once we got to a large open meadow and were given a green light by our guide to have some get acquainted time with our machines, Sleepy wasted no time in seeing just how fast he and his 550cc Polaris could go! Although he didn’t say anything, his actions screamed “Get back you folks from Australia! Eat my snow spray Helpdesk and Gusto!” as he shot out in front of the group (As Seen on TV – or at least in one of our videos) leaving us to marvel and wonder “who is this guy?”.
Sleepy, we think, has racin’ genes and they were in full effect during our 4 hour snowmobile tour. Sleepy got a new name to reflect his need for speed and his desire to pass everyone that dared be in front of him. On that day, Sleepy became “Freddy Petty”.
Helpdesk and Sleepy got to meet and ski with Gusto’s long time friends Chuck and Laura, who live in Denver. They drove up to spend a few days in Steamboat with us during the first part of our trip. Unfortunately we missed out on the Sunday brunch buffet at the landmark El Rancho restaurant with them because we were delayed for over an hour in leaving Charlotte due to the replacement of an “air bleed valve” on the plane. But, we more than made up for that missed Colorado time on the end of our trip.
Our trip was originally planned to run from Sunday to Friday; but ended up extended to Sunday, when Denver was hit with a record snowfall causing over 600 flight cancellations. We did a bit more sightseeing with our extra time. We went to Craig, CO on Friday and toured a museum that featured exhibits on the early western settlers, cowboys and gunslingers. On Saturday, we made the beautiful drive down to Glenwood Springs, CO. The drive through Glenwood Canyon was spectacular (good thing we traded out a stinky Rav4 for a new Forester with a very large sun roof at Hertz on our first day!). We had a great visit to Glenwood Springs and took in such sights as the tram ride to the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park, the Hotel Colorado and the famous Hot Springs. 
It was a great week and a wonderful way to celebrate with Sleepy and ensure he made the right choice on his birthday!

Steamboat 2012

Snowmobile Tour Steamboat Colorado 2012

View all the video on our YouTube channel

View our entire web album for more photos of the trip.

Cheraw State Park September 9, 2011

Gusto and Helpdesk wanted to finally mark this one off our bucket list. The drive to Cheraw wasn't too bad. From Fort Mill it took about 1.5 hours to the park. Hope you enjoy the photo's and video. The cypress trees were more than I expected and we were able to paddle much further up the creek that feeds lake Juniper than either of us would have thought based on the maps that we had of the area. Wildlife that we spotted; two snakes, herons, beaver, deer, ducks, and something that splashed pretty good in the small creek area. Hope it wasn't a gator! For a full view of the trip on Every Trail click here

Click here to link to all the photos

Details Here

Saluda River August 2011

Helpdesk, Gusto, Sleepy and Rolling Peach took on the Saluda in Columbia SC on this breezy and somewhat overcast day.  We started at the Riverbanks Zoo put in and paddled about 5.5 miles in fairly low water conditions.  Attached is our route, a few pictures and a video.  Enjoy..

2011 Saluda River at EveryTrail

The Green River

Nothing like a early July trip to the Green. The water was great as there has been some showers each day and the hydro plant was producing at 100% providing for a great water level. Gusto, Sleepy and Helpdesk made this trip. Helpdesk has a new GoPro HD camera that he mounted on the front of the boat. I think it made some great shots of the action. Take special note at about the 1:30 mark. You will see some cool slow motion thanks to filming at 60 frames per second. Ok, sorry for that last comment probably more than you wanted to know. Anyway, enjoy the footage.
PS. For the best picture make sure the youtube settings are set for 480p. You can check that by looking at the bottom right of the video window.

Mountain Island Lake

Helpdesk and Dan went out to Latta Plantation for a paddle on Mountain Island Lake. I forgot to bring extra batteries so... we only got maybe half the trip. But for what we did a very comfortable and steady paddle. We averaged about 2mph as we explored the coves and creeks of the lake. It was a great morning as the skies were overcast most of the morning and we found shade early. However as the morning wore on we found ourselves looking for any bit of shade we could find. We did take a swim when we returned to the shore. Overall a great paddle.

Helpdesk

Mountain Island Lake at EveryTrail