Seoul 

Posted on August 28, 2017 by

On my way to Almaty I had one night stopover in Seoul South Korea. I was really surprised by the size of the city. Looking at it on the map didn’t really provide true size of all the different districts and distance between them. Next need to have at least one week dedicated to the city to even scratch a surface.

In one day I managed to eat some great food, do a nice hike in the city park, watch sunset, listen to a group of teenagers singing to their cell phone provided boom box music right on the banks of the river and walk through one of the many streets in Gangnam-gu. 

Posted in Seoul, South Korea | Tagged | 3 Comments

Big Almaty Lake 

Posted on August 27, 2017 by

Big Almaty Lake is about 20 kilometers south of Almaty, deep in the Tian Shan mountains. I grew up in Almaty, but never had a chance to visit this lake, till 30 years after moving away from the city. 

Posted in Alma-Ata, Almaty | Tagged , | 2 Comments

South Dakota – 50 by 50

Posted on July 8, 2017 by

This is my last lower continental state. All 48 have been visited. Plus Hawaii. Plus Puerto Rico. Now I have one more state to visit – Alaska. Hopefully can make over there sometime next year.

Yesterday we were checking out Black Hills in South Dakota. First went to the Custer State Park, looked at a few bisons and hiked the Lovers Leap trail. Half of the trail was nice, in higher altitude, the other half descended to a creek and was surrounded by poison ivy. I’m highly allergic to it and had to watch every step I made to avoid any contact with it. It was not fun.

We ended up driving up to Mount Rushmore to see the presidents. Late afternoon storm went over it as we got into the memorial and provided this nice drama. Lightning strikes were all over, but I didn’t get any…so just imagine it. After it dumped some heavy five minutes rain, the clouds moved to the east and it went back to the boring blue sky. BTW, if you want to see more photos from this trip and other, follow me on Instagram.

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North Dakota – 50 by 50

Posted on July 7, 2017 by

I’m almost done with my goal of visiting all 50 states. This is state #48 that I visited and put at least one photo on this blog. Today we did a long drive to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota and did a quick hike. Never on any of my hikes I came across a carcass of large animal, prior to this one. Seeing bisons carcass was very surprising and made the whole drive to ND and hike in the 90F totally worth it. Pretty cool experience. It stank a lot. 

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Rabbit Mountain 

Posted on July 4, 2017 by

Fifth day in a row of doing small hikes. Today we went to the Rabbit Mountain open space, it has couple nice views over the surrounding area and all under four miles of walking. Can get pretty hot though as it’s fully exposed under the sun. Bring your sunblock!

This is looking over the Boulder valley. Way to the left is Boulder. Right under us is Lyons cement plant, and you might see Indian Peaks Wilderness poking out with snowy peaks on the right.

This is view from the Little Thompson overlook. Looking north west.

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Eldorado Springs Canyon 

Posted on July 3, 2017 by

Another day, another hike. Today we went to the Eldorado Canyon to hike Rattlesnake Gulch trail. About 5.5 miles with all of the side trips. It was pretty crowded, required $8 fee to enter the park and not mostly not that exciting. We were hoping to see a train on the Union Pacific railway you see to the right, but that didn’t happen.

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Diamond Lake 

Posted on July 2, 2017 by

Third day in a row with great hikes. Today we went to the Diamond lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, right of the 4th of July trail head. Very appropriate on the 4th of July weekend, don’t you think? 7 miles round trip with little side explorations. We looked at potentially going to the upper Diamond lake, but that trail is not really marked well and requires some steep climbing. Perhaps next time.

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