Here is a copy of the trail map on the Whistler - Blackcomb website, which can be found here: http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/todo/summer/hiking/index.htm for anyone interested hiking at the top of Whistler. I started out at the top of the Peak Express chair and took the Hi-Note trail connecting to the Musical Bumps and Singing Pass trails back to the gondola. It was about 10 miles overall and took me about 2:45 including a quick lunch. It was very warm and I'm glad I took a lot of water and bug repellent. The flies were nasty.

Leslie and I visited Whistler last week.  It was very hot and very fun.  The annual and very extreme Crankworx mountain bike competition was underway so the village was full of fans from around the world there to watch crazy people jump off high ramps and attempt all kinds of amazing flips, twists and turns. The fashion accessory du jour seemed to be arm slings.  For a great video of some of the competition go here - http://www.vimeo.com/14159017.

When not strolling around the village admiring the bikers and fans we took some great hikes, rode bikes on the extensive trail system around Whistler, and read a large stack of articles, books and magazines.  We also got to attend the weekly farmers market which had some terrific foods.  All in all it was a great vacation.

I visited Gabrielle at Camp Nor'Wester yesterday. The camp is located in
the San Juan Islands not far away from Roche Harbor on San Juan Island.
Parents, family and friends come visit one weekend of each four week
session. Departures by boat leave from either Anacortes or Roche Harbor in
the morning and return in the afternoon. I flew up on a seaplane service to
and from Seattle to catch the boat.

 Visiting all the kids is a lot of fun. Parents can pack picnic lunches and
include all the contraband not allowed in camp, such as cokes, chocolate,
and cupcakes. After lunch the families and campers roam the island and view
the various activities which occupy the kids each day. Each session the
kids can choose from several long excursions including biking, kayaking,
climbing Mt. Baker, or sailing. Gabrielle had just returned from five days
of sailing around the San Juan Islands and had a great time.

 As you can see from the photos, the kids live in three person Tee Pees,
oriented in a cluster with a unit counselor. Girls are on one end of the
island, boys on the other, and the units are organized by age. Gabrielle
had 13 girls in her unit, the oldest. This is the last year she will be
able to attend as Juniors in High School are too old! Hopefully she can
come back as a counselor some day. It's been a great experience for her and
she has been fortunate to attend. The owners and board do a great job of
instilling life skills, respect, and discipline. To find out more you can
see their website at http://www.norwester.org/.>

Took another hike again this week with Max up to Granite Mountain. I
usually save this particular hike for when I'm conditioned because it's
strenuous, gaining 3,700 feet over 4 miles. It offers spectacular views
from the top and it is interesting to see the fire lookout built there in
1955, replacing the original tower built in 1924. The bugs were swarming up
top near the meadow and I was glad I brought along my Deet spray. We came
across several pairs of marmots along the way, perched atop granite
boulders, loudly whistling their alarm upon seeing Max as we approached.

 From Wikipedia: marmots are generally large ground squirrels. Those most
often referred to as marmots tend to live in mountainous areas such as the
Alps, northern Apennines, Carpathians, and Pyrenees in Europe, the Rockies
and the Sierra Nevada in the united states, northern Canada and Ladakh in
India. Marmots typically live in burrows, and hibernate there through the
winter. Most marmots are highly social, and use loud whistles to communicate
with one another, especially when alarmed.

Took Max for a nice hike up to Melakwa Lake today. Located just west of
Snoqualmie Pass near I-90, the hike reaches an elevation of 4,200 feet after
an elevation gain of 2,200 feet spread over 4.5 miles of fairly rocky trail.
Not too strenuous, the hike offers several scenic waterfalls with the big
payoff at Melakwa lake which sits in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness. Max
enjoyed a cool swim in the lake while I enjoyed my lunch. The walk back
down was uneventful and we finished the round trip in about 4 hours.

The last two weeks represent the official end of crush of 2008 at our
winery. Collective sighs of relief and tremendous satisfaction took hold as
we finished the last press load yesterday and went off to celebrate a
historic election day over lunch and a few beers. (note that after we've
been around wine all day for months, wine is not necessarily the first
beverage of choice!) This entry will mark the end of my weekly blogs. As
events or experience allows, I will write future entries on a less regular
basis.

All 233 tons of grapes are now in barrels representing about 33,000 gallons.
With an extremely wet and cold spring followed by an excellent summer
growing season the winemaker feels we were fortunate to get so much great
fruit in a fairly even distribution. It should be a good vintage with
excellent varietal characteristics and balance of pH, sugar and acid. In a
couple of years we'll know if he's right.

There were only a few days when we felt overwhelmed by the number of tons of
grapes awaiting us inside the semi-trailer as we opened up the delivery door
and peered inside each morning. And even though we came close, we never ran
out of fermenters, tanks, or barrels. It was an impressive logistical
effort by the winemaker to keep everything moving without creating
bottlenecks inside the winery. Space is tight and stacks of barrels along
with steel and fiberglass fermenters rotating through two week fermentations
could easily created blocked or inaccessible areas in the winery. It all
went very smoothly.

All of the crush equipment including the destemmer, shaker table and sorting
belts, steel and fiberglass fermenters and the must pump have been
thoroughly cleaned and sanitized and will soon be moved offsite to free up
space.

From here we'll begin weekly stirring of the whites which are in barrels
sitting on their lees (dead yeast cells). Malolactic fermentation on whites
and reds will finish. Topping of whites and reds will occur monthly. Later
we'll begin racking and blending of the 2007 reds and 2008 white to get
ready for bottling in the spring. A Lot of work remains, but nothing will
match the intensity of the past two months.

For me, I'll be finishing up my log book, recording my hours and writing a
summary of my internship as required by the school for class credit. I
worked close to 300 hours in the winery and learned more than I imagined
possible. I hope to continue my work there as we complete the yearly
winemaking cycle into the spring. To the wine maker and the rest of the
staff, for taking me under their wings and showing me how some of the best
wine in the country wine is made by a small group of passionate and
dedicated professionals, I say "thank you."

My hands are continuously swollen and covered with nicks, blisters, and
newly developed calluses. The skin around my fingernails is permanently
darkened from wine stains. I've lost about fine pounds in weight and 3
percentage points in body fat, and my Levi's fit much more loosely. As
someone pointed when looking at my hands "You look like a farmer."

Last week was when most of us hit the wall. The head winemaker finished
three weeks straight of working in the winery, far short of his 28 day
stretch back in 2006. The youngest member of the team injured his back and
was out for a couple of days. And the cellar master and I were just plain
tired. The jokes were coming less often, our pace in the winery a bit
slower, and smiles not as quick to emerge from our faces.

The week marked the final crush day of twenty four total. Which also meant
the end of volunteers, that interesting group of people who work five to six
hours for a free lunch, a bottle of wine, and the experience of standing in
front of a sorting table, usually with a puddle of dark red grape juice
under their feet, pulling grapes off of stems. I love the volunteers
because they provide so much help, but it's nice to have the winery to
ourselves. I find it amazing that our volunteer coordinator can send out an
email announcing an upcoming crush opportunity a day or two in advance and
the request for twelve people will be filled by email responses in ten
minutes. Obviously they have too much time on their hands and love their
Blackberrys.

One of the more interesting personal experiences has been that period
normally known as sleep. I never sleep more than three hours without waking
up and feeling some intense pain in my arms or legs. After a quick
adjustment and falling back to sleep, I wake up again in a different
position with something else aching. And then there are the dreams. Just
bizarre, upsetting, where did that come from kind of dreams. And I'm not
alone. The wife of one staff member told him he kicks and whimpers in his
sleep much like a dog, and thrashes about pulling the sheets.

We are on the downhill leg now, with crushing done and pressing to be
finished. Since fermentations takes about two weeks, most pressing will be
done two weeks from now. In the meantime we'll be cleaning equipment and
storing it off site for the season, making sure malolactic fermentation is
going well, topping barrels, and performing chemistry tests to track ongoing
wine health.

It's illuminating to run the numbers. We crushed and will press 230 tons of
grapes. Assuming a range of 2 - 2.5 barrels produced per ton yields a range
of 460 - 575 barrels. And with each barrel yielding 25 cases, we'll have
produced somewhere in the neighborhood of 13,000 cases of wine when the last
reds are bottled a year and a half from now after ageing. I look forward to
drinking some.