Crazy Winter Weather

The Pacific Northwest recently experienced nearly two weeks of below-freezing temperatures and wind storms, combined with the most snow we've seen since 1996. We finally had a white Christmas, though.

The Sammamish area, east of Seattle, got hit with some of the worst conditions.
First, we felt the chilling 14-degree mornings. Schools closed due to a "threat" of snow (no actual snow on the ground) the Wednesday before winter break began and stayed closed after the snow finally came Thursday, Dec. 18.

The snow days made for some nice sledding and leisure time. Most people had a perfectly legitimate excuse to work from home or simply not go in at all.

It's now 43 degrees and wet. All the slippery snow is slush, but it's nice to have the roads back and drivable again.

Here's the view of Beaver Lake Friday, Dec. 19, after the initial snow.



See the Sammamish Review and Issaquah Press Web sites for more snow photos and video.

www.sammamishreview.com

www.issaquahpress.com



— Christopher

Cool experience at a state football championship

Check out my new multimedia work from the 2008 Washington state 4A Football Championship game between Skyline High School and Issaquah High School.

This video is the first for the Issaquah Press and I got to be the guy to make it.



Skyline won 20-15 and completed its second straight undefeated season. This was its second state championship in a row, as well. Last year, the Spartans won the 3A title game against O'Dea.

Stories and photos from the game are available at:

www.sammamishreview.com

and

www.issaquahpress.com


— Christopher

Cool travel video

I want to go here right now:


Ibo Island - Sand Spit from Free to Adventure on Vimeo.

Travel Video

Just found a funny clip from the Travel Channel. Thought I'd share it.


Anthony Bourdain ATV Wipe-Out from TravelChannelTV on Vimeo.


Not sure I'd want to eat at this restaurant. A little odd for me.


Anthony Bourdain - "Hospital Chic" from TravelChannelTV on Vimeo.

Dramatic Weather in East King County

The clouds finally lifted a bit today and allowed people in flood-prone areas of eastern King County to clean up after the rivers crested earlier today. I happened to be driving home from work when the majestic clouds opened up over downtown Issaquah.

This is from the Highlands area on the Plateau.

More that I never published

These photos come from my take on the Ruth Mountain trip in early August. Most of them are from the summit at 7,100 feet. The sunset photo is from our camp about 300 vertical feet from the summit.








Above is a spot on Icy Peak, where we stopped to fill our Nalgenes with snow melt straight from the snowbank. After six hours of tough climbing, that was the coldest, most refreshing break.

Photos that never got posted

Here are some photos that have yet to make it on this blog only because I was too tired or too busy to post.

The first ones are from the Wooden Boat Festival in September...

Hang gliding off the Butte

Redmond, Wash. resident Tom Johns is gets a running start to launch himself off the top of Chelan Butte Oct. 12 in Eastern Washington. He said he has been hang gliding for years and has participated in day-long races. Chelan Butte has been an incredibly popular launch point for avid flyers over the years. Gliders take flight off the mountain and gain lift from the thermals coming off the ground, according to Johns' wife Lori Johns. People have been known to catch thermals and wind currents all the way to Oregon, about 150 miles away.



— Christopher

Photojournalist Wins TED Prize

A photographer friend of mine from Western Washington University posted this video to his photo blog recently. World-famous photojournalist James Nachtwey is one of those photojournalists who inspires anyone who seriously wants to become a professional visual journalist. I studied Nachtwey's work as a student and continue to use some of his ideas in my work.

You can also click the title of this entry to see the presentation.



-- Christopher

Lake Chelan for a Weekend

Sorry for the long periods without material. I am not doing as much serious travel as I was last year. Despite recently finding legitimate jobs that we both love, Julie and I have still done some short trips out and about. The hope is to keep material coming. Mostly a photo or two at a time as we travel around our home, beautiful Washington state. Not going to run out of blog postings anytime soon. If you still check this, keep reading and viewing from time to time.

We recently spent the weekend in Chelan, where our family has a condo on the lake. I grew up going to the lake and spending time in town and at Chelan Butte. The drive to eastern Washington from Seattle is magnificent — I've rediscovered the absolute splendor of it after being away in other parts of the world over the past few years. The apples are the best in the world — it is the apple capital of the world, really. Some are the size of your head — almost.


Apples for sale in crates at a small Saturday market in Chelan. Locally grown apples run about $4 for a 5-pound bag. Quite a deal.


Manson, Wash. resident and long-time farmer Juan Laberrigue, 62, smiles as he prepares to close up shop on a late Saturday morning in October. He sells pumpkins and apples on the weekends and has been farming for 40 years.

I recently spent two exhausting days experiencing the beauty and splendor of the North Cascade Mountains. It was my first climb and it was to the summit of Ruth Mountain.

Elevation: 7,100 feet.

The above photo is of the view we (my brother, David, my cousin, Phil, and I) had from our camp. After hiking four miles on a relatively easy forest trail, climbing up a dried-up waterfall trough and traversing a mile or so of snowfields, we found the flattest spot at the top of the snow bank to pitch the tents.

Oh, what a sight. The breathtaking vistas, combined with the satisfaction of much-needed rest, nearly bring an exhausted, relatively out-of-shape climber to tears. It's all worth it when you get to see the sunset and experience the calming silence at this elevation. Below is the view of Mount Shuksan (foreground) and Mount Baker at sunset from teh other side of our camp.


After a rejuvinating night's sleep, we awoke to this, looking northeast from just below the Mount Ruth Summit.



That morning, we summited (above photo) in 18 minutes from camp and then moved on to Icy Peak (below, from Ruth summit), which was another four hours of trekking. We didn't quite make it up the summit — too many vertical snow banks in our way and not the right gear to scale them — but it was still fun refilling our water bottles with pure snow-melt straight from underneath a small glacier.


This rivals my Inca Trail experience as the toughest thing I have done physically, but it was all worth it.



— Christopher

LA BELLA STRADA ART FESTIVAL: AUG. 9-10


Christopher will be participating in the upcoming Allied Arts La Bella Strada Art Show Aug. 9-10 in Bellingham, Wash. The event will feature restaurants from around Bellingham, a chalk art festival and a wide range of professional artists from around the country.


Enjoy the Bite of Bellingham and peruse the plethora of artist tents along Cornwall Avenue (downtown Bellingham). The fastival runs Saturday 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Be sure to look for Christopher Huber Photography. He will have matted and framed pieces from his travels in Alaska, Washington and Latin America.


Prices are reasonable and the prints are archival quality. If you can't make it to the festival, but would like to see Christopher's work, visit www.chuberphoto.com. High-resolution digital copies of photos are available for $10 each and checkout is easy through PayPal.

We got the chance to spend some time in downtown Seattle a couple of weeks back. It was for my brother's graduation ceremony — he graduated from the University of Washington with a biology degree and they held the commencement on Lake Union. The facility is part of the Center for Wooden Boats. Dozens of privately owned sail boats and large "project" boats are moored next to the building. This photo is of the side panels of the largest boat being restored there: the Wawona. The ship was finished on September 12th 1897 by master shipbuilder Hans Bendixen and was the largest three-masted schooner ever built on the West coast of North America, according to seanet.com. Built for the Dolbeer & Carson Lumber Company of Eureka California, Wawona is 165 feet long with a 36 foot beam and a depth of 12 feet 3 inches.

Below is the porthole of a private boat that is for sale for $140,000. The hull and floor are made of teak.


The Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival, put on by the Center for Wooden Boats, runs this weekend, July 4-6 in Seattle from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Living next to a beautiful park is a wonderful thing. At the end of spring, the huge, old trees that line the park blossom and fill the area with color, especially against the (not so common this year) blue sky. Next time you take a stroll through the park, look up and appreciate the change of perspective.

Old fashioned randomness

Pretty random, how I made this picture. It was the only shot I took this way, but with more experimentation, I think some great, rustic medium-format photos could come from this method.

All it takes is your digital camera and an old, cheap and easy-to-find medium-format camera. Compose the shot in the film camera, hold your digital camera in line with the viewfinder and shoot. It may take some tweaking to get your desired style and texture, but should prove to be quite fun, especially when you don't have to shoot with film if you don't want to.


— Christopher

The overlooked details in everyday life

After somewhat of a drought, I have decided to publish photos from everyday experiences, interspersed with recent travel photos when possible.


Just one of those details you might not think are worthy of a photograph or any thought, for that matter. Use your imagination to construct the rest of the image.

— Christopher

Ahh, the market...

Indeed, one of the finer, or at least one of the richest, experiences you can have as a foreigner in Cusco, Peru. Anyone who spends any time in the old Inca capital must forgo the tourist mainstream and slip into the awfully pungent yet eclectic and colorful atmosphere of El Mercado de la Merced, the Merced Market, named for the neighborhood and 14th Century catholic church nearby.


This market is one of, if not the largest open-air markets in the downtown area and is packed full of hundreds of farmers, craftsmen, small Andean women who bring their textiles from the mountains and shaw men selling herbs.

Booth set-ups like these are placed sporadically throughout the maze of raw meat, groceries, juice tubs, soup kitchens and wheels of fresh goat cheese. The vibrant colors are quite eye-catching.





— Christopher

Stone corridors part of a master plan

Narrow. Straight. Towering. Bumpy. Old. These words describe the maze created by the ancient streets and alleys the Spanish constructed after the conquest in Peru roughly 500 years ago. However, much of the original Inca stone walls and street block layout in this former Inca military, religious and agricultural center remain the same.

Today, the streets form fifteen square blocks (canchas) that comprise the city. According to local guides, the city was originally laid out, somewhat abstractly, in the shape of an ear of corn, with an irrigation canal as the stem.




— Christopher

Ancient Ollantaytambo

Locals walk along a Spanish cobble stone street, lined by some of the oldest Inca walls in the Sacred Valley of Peru. The ancient fortress city of Ollantaytambo was the site of one of the final standoffs between the Inca people and the Spanish during the conquest.

Rustic Bicycle

Although there is relatively a lot of traffic in the Sacred Valley town of Urubamba, you still see many bikes parked along the curb. People duck into small, hidden doorways on their bikes or they might just dump them on the secluded, dusty sidewalk for convenience. Sometimes, like I observed on numerous occasions in Costa Rica, you may see a teenager balancing their younger sibling, who is sitting between the seat and the handlebars, on the crossbar.

This image is everywhere in Peru. Especially in my favorite place — The Sacred Valley.

Downtown Cusco at Night

The walk up the hill from the Plaza de Armas, along Calle Suecia, brings you to one of my all-time favorite viewpoints. On one side, you have the sprawling ruins of Sacsayhuaman (sexy woman), and on the other side, you have this.


At night, the bustling city, which is nestled in a bowl between mountains at approximately 11,500 feet above sea level, is aglow with the lights from the cathedrals and main thoroughfares. I could spend a lot of time here, as it is far enough removed from the noise of cars and barking dogs to observe in relative silence.

This particular photo is taken from a Catholic church perched atop the hill the entrance to the ruins of Sacsayhuaman. Stone and concrete benches are placed throughout the ancient Spanish courtyard, and on any given night you will find at least a half-dozen high school-aged lovebirds cuddling while taking in the view.

Fascinating Cusco Doors

The more you walk around the oldest continually inhabited city in South America, the more you learn about its past through the doors — the wear and tear, the dirt, the multiple coats of thick paint, the colors, and even the surrounding walls.




Below: Probably one of the oldest Spanish doors I have seen in Cusco.


Below: This door is to a fancy Cusco restaurant in the Plaza de Armas.

Cusco, Peru: Doors

During our four days in Cusco, Peru in early January, I made pictures of various doors throughout the city. As we wandered through the alleys and streets, the color, the age and the different styles of doors grabbed our attention. Many are probably from the Spanish conquest — the 500-year-old church doors, at least. They are so vibrant. And, collectively, they tell a story of the city's past.

Catching Up with Travels in Peru

After taking a bit of a hiatus from travel blogging and work in Costa Rica, I would like to catch up with some visuals from a brief stint in Peru after Christmas 2007.

The Hubers recently found work in Whatcom County, Washington. Living in Bellingham, Chris is working as the sports and education reporter/photographer/editor for the Ferndale Record-Journal, while Julie is working as an instructional assistant for the ESL program at Burlington-Edison High School.

That's an excuse for not blogging as of late. However, we have not forgotten about the unending demand for user-based and -generated information and media (YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, etc.).

First things first...

Travels in Peru


The world-famous Inca ruins of Machu Picchu ("Old Mountain" in Quechua) is now a wonder of the world.