Hi Dan We pick in the Blewett Pass area primarily on North facing slopes at an elevation of 3200- 4800 feet and temps need to reach the low 60's before they emerge. You don't need a permit to pick but you must have in possession an Incidental Use Mushroom Information Sheet put out by the USDA. The year after a forest fire is very good but I have not picked a burn area. Commercial pickers usually descend on these areas My neighbor an I pick for morels in the spring and chanterelles in the fall. After years of rivalry and bragging of our picking be not revealing our secret locations we recently joined forces. We both are now in our early 70's and not allowed the roam the forest alone anymore

My wife and I foraged 6+ pounds of Chanterelles in less than 2 hours

Comet Neowise AKA C/2020 F3 discovered this March will be closest to earth at 64 million miles won't be back for 6,800 years

An amazing journey. We love the Mayan Ruins of Mexico, Tikal, Guatemala, Xunantunich and Lubaantun in Belize . I climbed Orizaba way back in 1997.

One thing led to another finding a guide. I was sitting in the doctor's office picked up a travel magazine and read an article about a guy putting on guided self drives in Tibet and Mongolia. We had previously done 2 unguided, unsupported self drives in Africa and the article piqued our interest. We contacted the first outfitter. Once we decided his trip was too short I searched the web and I found the outfit we went with. Not many outfits doing trips especially the longer more remote trips. We decided to go an a guided self drive this time mainly due to the language barrier, everything written in Cyrillic and the remoteness. I exchanged emails with the outfit for a few months before we pulled the trigger. It was a bit of a leap of faith but we always purchase trip/medical evacuation insurance for trips of this magnitude.

It was a guided (English speaking) and supported trip. We were the only clients and drove our own vehicle. We originally looked at a shorter self drive but most operate within what seems to be the tourist corridor between Ulaanbaatar, Hustai NP and the Khongoryn Els usually a 9-12 day trip.. Not much to see during the drive between destinations. My wife said if we are going that far we should make it a longer trip and see more of Mongolia. We contacted another self drive company that produced an itinerary that took us to some very remote places, the far west mountains (Altan Bogd) of the country and the far south to an oasis and the canyons (Kherman Tsav) of the Gobi. We mostly camped but stayed in a few Ger Camps. Outside of the tourist corridor services are very few and very far between and the guide seemed relieved when we entered into it Pictures. My wife is still processing them. She took about 5000 photos. The bane of digital photography is you are not limited by the amount of film you once had to carry. Once she is done I will post a few.

I used to shoot when I was in High School in Pennsylvania  Shot a recurve before compound bows became popular and now pretty much the bow of choice. We used the roam the woods shooting at stumps with arrows tipped with field points. Got pretty good at judging distance and trajectory without the use of sights. Lost a few arrows and spent a lot of time looking for missed shots but had a lot of fun.When I got stationed at the old USCG Base Seattle on the ship canal. I spent hours shooting arrows at Carkeek Park in Seattle when it had a range in the early 70's and then when I lived on Vashon after the Coast Guard. Once I moved to the city I quit shooting mainly because it was a hassle to spontaneously get to a place to shoot safely. I have been wanting to reconnect with archery but proximity to an archery range has hampered that ability and I no longer have a bow but that is easy enough to purchase.