Ice Wall, River & Spot Satellite Messenger

This top photo is of one of the ice walls formed from all of the water coming out of the mountain above the river. It's one of the places the dogs like to go run especially Peace & Bear because it is where the dipper bird hangs out and he likes to get them to chase him and they like chasing him. The next photo is the river just below the ice wall and the log jam at the confluence of the Phelps Creek and Chiwawa River, nice hole for the fish to hang out.
The bottom photo is a self portrait with my newest peice of safety equipment my Spot Satellite Messenger. Living out here and doing most of my traveling and hiking alone with my dogs I've been limited in what I can do because of being so far out here and being alone, especially having bad knees and shoulders, this is such a beautiful area and because of that beauty I find it hard to stay inside but have felt limited in where I could safely go up to now, usually I would just email a friend to let them know i'm going hiking and to where or if I'm going out to garage or snowpark, then call once there and when I'm heading back home, with an email once safely home, always with the understanding that if not heard from in 2-4 hours depending on how I'm traveling to call 911 because there was a problem.

Well with the Spot tracking messenger I can let people know where I am in realtime on google maps by turning the tracking mode on, I can also just check in to let them know if going out and if I'm OK even if my power is out now, a nice back up to have. I can send an OK or tracking message with GPS coordinates of where I am or where I have been for 24 hours or longer if I reset it again. If I'm out now and have a problem mechanically or physically but not a real emergency then I can send a help message with exact GPS coordinates and then if it is a real emargency I can send a 911 message which ties me in to the geos emergency worldwide service and will inform the authorities closest to me and get emergency teams dispatched to where I am using GPS coordinates. I believe this will give me an added sense of safety & security whenever & where ever I choose to go now with pretyped messages for check in or help depending on what I'm doing. You can find out more about it at www.findmespot.com if you are interested especially if you love the outdoors as much as I do and live as remotely during such crazy weather times like we have been experiencing. I purchased mine from Rescue Essentials for $149 and it came with the tracker option included via coupon for 1 yr a 49.95 value, then had to purchase yrly service plan for 99 and also got $100K SAR insurance for anywhere in the world for $7.95 and then repair or replacement insurance for 17.95 total of 135 for total service including tracking and unlimited checkin & help, I thought this wasa very good deal since they retail for as much as $169, but shop around there are deals, I'm happy with Rescue Essentials and their customer service is 1st class thanks Jorian, find them at www.rescue-essentials.com
We found our Paradise, hope you find yours too.

Making a Snow Road on way to the Dam

This past Monday Bob and I went to see just how bad the road to the dam was, and this slide and one other small place made it difficult to get past. This area slides every year never fails to let go and normally by this time of year we haven't been able to get to the dam for over a month or two. A few weeks ago when it was raining and we were getting wet snow I thought for sure that the whole face of the backside of Phelps Ridge had let go and slid, well I was wrong. The owners had gone up there a week before and told me they had to do some digging to get by on snowmobiles because of the slide area letting go as usual.
As we got up to the settling tank we had no difficulty getting there and were feeling good about getting up to the dam but we had to do some cutting and digging to make it level enough to get past on the ATV. We found it to be gorgeous going up there and we even found several natual ski runs across the creek. They are accessible from the Phelps Creek TH and by doing a little skinning you can get over 2000' of verticle skiing done and end up at our road across the creek. We had a great time getting there and seeing all of the beautiful snow and ski runs normally cutoff during this time of year.

We found our Paradise, hope you find your's too.