B+L

It isn't objectionable to *you*. Keep it up and us angry bitter atheistic, new age, latte-swilling, merlot-sipping, cheese-eating, prius-driving, over-educated, tree-hugging, fur-abhoring, terrorist-supporting, America-hating, vegan commie socialist liberal elitist coastal dwellers are going to start believing it's true that people out your way go around barefoot all the time.

Except we shouldn't propagate convenient myths.

We hope Alnilam can make it on the new date. We are very eager to meet him and get a good look at his belt buckle. Odds are we will sooner or later.

I know at least half of our team would be happy to postpone until the 31st. The other half is too dumb to know any better.

Since this is the opening weekend of hunting season, switching to Sunday means we'd have to slog through the heavy traffic on the way home. I am going to have a hard time convincing L how much fun this will be, so we'll wait until late Friday to decide if we want to experience the joys of hypothermia again.

The Mac version of the Communicator Plugin does not work with serial devices such as your converter. Unfortunately, Garmin has stated they have no plans to do anything about it.

What a coincidence. As we were heading down the pass yesterday, I mentioned that it would be fun to explore the Iron Goat trail someday. We usually bring the truck when we go up the passes (its windshield is already battle scarred). That means we would have room for the two of us plus 3 in the backseat.

That might be a Whitespotted Sawyer (white spot behind the head?). Didn't know there were any around here.

He even managed to perfectly emulate Ken Jenning's writing style. Probably because it is him. Doubting is all the rage around here lately.

You are probably looking for this: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=110560

While we agree somewhat with your sentiments regarding micros, there are at least two micro in the woods that are even more fun than ammo cans. GC1F0MF and GC1F0M8

Uh, how about removing the names?

Hypothetically, yes, but you would have to be very (extremely?) motivated and/or possess a high pain threshold and not too severe of a sprain. The Annette Lake trail is pretty rough. It has a lot of big tree roots and some rocks to navigate over and around. The Iron Horse trail is gravel with a mix with larger stones/railroad ballast, but it's rocky for a short stretch where a minor washout was semi-repaired. The as yet un-repaired bridge washout means crossing a short, but lumpy traverse and then crossing some smallish boulders in the creek.

Congrats to Lucy's Ranger for reaching 1000 today at Rangers Lead The Way. One of Lucy's Rangers will be deploying for the third time soon. Godspeed.

It's about a 4 mile round trip hike, with about 500 feet of elevation gain, most of which is on the Annette Lake trail. You reach the Iron Horse trail after about 1/2 mile or so. It's really obvious as it is old railroad grade and looks more like a road than a trail. If you are going that way, just about every gas station in North Bend sells the passes (5$ day pass/$20 annual). Otherwise, they are available online or you can find a vendor here.

I think they mean Blazer 12. I hope your iPod is really old. A Blazer 12 cost about $120.00 new.

Hmm. If you want, leave your car at Southworth and meet us on the ferry. We are bringing our truck which has a rack in the bed for two bikes, but there is plenty of room to tuck a third one in. Red Toyota Tundra. We should be easy to spot with the bikes in the back. I'll PM our cell number.

We're up for doing this one. It's been eons since I was out that way. I think the last ice sheet had just receded right before my visit. We'll bring our mountain bikes and be on the 6:25 ferry which should get us to Granite Falls somewhere between 8:00-8:30, depending on whether the ferry is on time, traffic, etc. It should be noted that we are using Google Maps for the time estimate and Google can be somewhat conservative with driving times. For comparison, according to Google's estimate, you will not arrive until around 8:30. In this case, the estimate looks fairly reasonable, so we are going to assume you may like to keep the right-hand pedal under some pressure. We like to use a more moderate touch, so let us know if 8-8:30 is too late, because we have no desire to take the earlier 5:35 ferry. If the time is agreeable, where is the meeting point going to be? The Masonic Park?

The fire was in a vault in the underground parking if the stories are correct. It sounds like the generators may have been on the same loop of the fire suppression sprinklers, or they were flooded by the runoff. Oops.

BaseCamp only works with maps that include digital elevation model (DEM) data.

Fancy shooting by your daughter aside, no it is not a cool thing to leave in a cache, because the guidelines explicitly call out ammo as an example of things that do not belong in a cache. Terrible T's, topics like this have a tendency to stir up some pretty strong sentiments, so my advice would be to do as the guidelines suggest (use your common sense) if you find things like live rounds in a cache rather than soliciting opinions in the forums. Unless, of course, you enjoy having a stiff headwind to lean into.

We'll be heading to another country for a vacation soon. There are not very many caches in this country and only three of them were hidden by a resident (inactive) of the country. The status of most of the caches is, shall we say, ambiguous. --- Easiest cache for most people to get to, but disabled since February 6, 2007. The owners responded when contacted and said have fun looking, but they have no plans to return to the country anytime soon. .... Another cache and a FTF. .... Another cache. Didn't find it, but left a new one and claimed a find anyway (a FTF). The owner seems OK with it. .... Another cache. Spotted it, maybe, but couldn't retrieve whatever it was. Oh well, let's log it. .... And another replaced and logged. .... Gotta keep logging my replacements.

Expect rain. The Hoh rainforest gets over 200 inches of rain in a year. While the area around Port Angeles/Sequim gets about 10 inches. A good raincoat is needed and boots for (often) muddy trails. Along the coast storms can blow in at any time, so a tent that has good tie downs is handy. Forks gets around 40 inches a year and they've already had over 26 inches so far this year. You have not said when you are arriving, but you can get wet weather any time of year. We have managed to get rained on (torrential downpours) on two different trips in August (the dry season), but we also had 80 degree weather one October, which will probably prove to be a once in a lifetime experience for us. A good tent is a must. Make sure you seal the attachment points of any loops, velcro, etc. The factory seam sealing always seems to miss these spots and you do not want to find out you have an insanity inducing drip when you are under the fire hose. We sometimes bring a extra tarp and some light line to act as a (so far unnecessary) reinforcement for the rainfly, a wind shelter, or a covering for our cooking area. The usual multi-layered, water wicking/fast drying clothing is always good. Cotton is not your friend in the wet. Rain pants are much nicer than soggy jeans if you get caught out in a squall. We usually leave the lightweight raincoats at home and bring the triple-ply goretex. A big part of the beauty of this area is closely intertwined with the weather and as Tom Robbins once said about the weather, you should either embrace it or ignore it. The best part about the wet weather, if you are prepared for it, is that everyone else will bolt for home and you get your choice of the best campsites.

As mentioned, we are particularly fond of the stretch from Rialto Beach to Ozette. Ozette to Shi Shi in the north (about 14 miles), Rialto Beach to Ozette in the middle (20 miles) and Hoh River to Third Beach near La Push (17 miles) in the south are the most common routes for longer hikes, but you have to get back to your car somehow. There are shorter hikes, such as the aforementioned triangle route, or by going out and back for part of one of the longer hikes. You can also reach Shi Shi from the Makah Reservation (about 2 miles). The Makahs were charging for a separate recreational permit ($10), so you may need to arrive during business hours. The WIC will know. Some of these routes require river crossings and you must use your judgement depending on the conditions. If there has been a lot of rain or snowmelt, some of the crossings can become extremely dangerous temporarily. We once made a safe crossing after it rained 7.5 inches in one day, by waiting a day before we started out. The larger headlands have somewhat treacherous trails to get over them when the tides are in, but some of the smaller ones do not and you can get held up waiting for the tide to change. The camping areas near the places where people commonly get stuck are pretty over used, so good planning can help you avoid them. All the beaches are beautiful and any of them are well worth a trip. Ruby Beach is particularly scenic and is worth pulling off the highway and taking the short hike down to the beach just to see it. Shi Shi is probably the best pure beach. Although reaching the NW corner of the Olympic Peninsula by car is a little tedious, if your mental picture of a "beach" is a 2 mile long crescent of sand framed by sea stacks and arches, then this is the place. It can be very popular, especially on weekends, but we once had it all to ourselves. As an added bonus, you can make a quick side trip to Cape Alava and see the westernmost point in the contiguous U.S. We have done most of the middle and northern sections and about half of the southern section. As you can probably tell, we love the whole area. In fact, all this writing about it makes me think we had better plan a trip to do the section we missed last time. Oh, and cellphone coverage is weak to nonexistent, but the pay phones are ridiculously expensive. I don't remember the details, but it cost us $19.00 to make a less than 60 second phone call.

Thanks for the info, but we are talking about on a Mac. The Communicator Plugin does not work at all on a Mac with serial devices and apparently never will. Even on Windows, serial devices are unsupported, but some people are lucky enough to have one of configurations that do work. This is what Garmin said, when asked: