I recently finished switching over all of my photo galleries to Flickr, the premier online photo sharing site. Using Flickr instead of Coppermine (the software that used to run the galleries on this site) has a ton of advantages. Now people can get the full-size versions of photos, commenting is better and easier, the look and feel is nicer, and it’s also just easier for me to manage. Plus, you can do some neat things with Flickr — check out the little animated photo badge on the right!

To celebrate my new Flickr account I’ve added four galleries that I had been meaning to post:

• Pictures from my trip to Australia from 2001. Better late than never, right?
• Photos from Kevin and Leigh’s wedding in Vail last fall.
• Some pictures from the 2006 US Open in Flushing Meadows, NY.
• A few shots I managed to take in Oulu, Finland when I was there last year.

You can go to a page with all of my Flickr galleries or you can just see the latest pictures I’ve added. Enjoy, and please leave me some comments if you can

Well we loved hiking Mahoosuc Notch in the snow so much that we decided we were due for another trip up north. This time we went to hike Mount Waumbek, one of the lowest 4000 footers and also one of the most northern of the group. The conditions were great: high temperatures in the mid teens, slightly overcast, excellent visibility, and only a very light snow at times.

• Mt. Waumbek hike photo gallery
• Mt. Waumbek hike info page

Again as with the Mahoosuc hike, preparation was key. We were dressed in many layers, had plenty of water and a reasonable plan to get back before dark. The trail was in very good condition, with firmly packed snow and markers every 100 feet or so. When hiking in the snow it’s easy to lose the trail if it’s not well marked or there are no footprints to follow. The trail conditions on this hike alleviated any of those concerns.

Hiking in pristine winter conditions is unbeatable. Walking up a mountain surrounded by a forest covered with deep undisturbed snow is almost like stepping into a different world. Though winter hiking brings with it a unique set of challenges (or water kept freezing!) the experience is well worth the extra effort!

It seemed to us that Mahoosuc Notch — said to be the toughest mile on the Appalachian Trail — would be a lot more fun if there were six inches of snow on the ground. So with fingers crossed, we headed up to Maine last weekend to attempt it. The Notch, since you’ve probably never heard of it, is a one-mile stretch of trail that must be slowly traversed by climbing over, under and around giant boulders. The snow on the ground in early November made that even trickier by providing lots of places to slip and lots of places which looked solid but weren’t. It took us nearly three hours to get through the entire thing, but man was it worth the experience.

• Mahoosuc Notch in November photo gallery
• Dan’s (much better) account of the trip

In case you’ve heard otherwise, Northern New Hampshire/Maine is cold in November. The average temperature while we were walking was in the mid to high thirties, making it so our water bottles would start to freeze if we didn’t give them a few shakes every now and then. On Saturday night, we slept in a three-sided shelter near the top of Mahoosuc Arm (3700 ft). When the temperature dipped into the single-digits, not only our water froze but our boots froze as well. When we were getting ready to go on Sunday morning, we had to smash our boots with rocks to thaw them enough to untie the laces and get our feet in. Problem was that it was like putting your foot into a block of ice. Once we got walking, though, our feet and bodies warmed up and it was actually really comfortable as long as you kept moving.

At one point Dan remarked that this trip was continuously teetering on the edge of catastrophe, meaning that so much about our situation could have gone wrong. Luckily, we were prepared for every obstacle we met and everything went fine. Winter hiking is an incredible experience and I definitely recommend it to anyone who thinks they can handle some mild discomfort. I’m not sure I’m ready for multi-day winter hikes yet, but this was definitely a highlight of my 2006!

So that’s it for our hiking adventures this year. Next year will bring more 4,000 footers and hopefully at least a late winter/early spring day hike.

If you try emailing me at work you’ll get this:

I will be out of the office on vacation from WW35.5 (Sept 1, 2006) to WW39.1 (Sept 25, 2006).

Your email is important to me, though, so if it can’t wait until I get back then contact my manager Alex Kaluzhny and he will put you in touch with someone who can handle whatever it is you’re emailing me about.

However!! Three weeks is a really long time to be sitting around at home, so there’s a slight chance I’ll get so bored that I’ll fire up the ol’ VPN and check my email. In that case, you might luck out and get a response from me. Don’t bank on it, but it could happen.

Ahhh, what a feeling. Since Intel sold my entrire group to Marvell a few weeks ago, we will lose all of our vacation time at the close of the sale. Therefore, I decided to take all of my remaining vacation time, floating holidays and comp’d time all at once. What does someone do with themself for three weeks without having to work? The answer to that lies in my travel calendar. As for the thing about checking my work email: fat chance