Strauch/Bruno Web Photo Album

Photos are arranged in chronological order with the most recent photos first. Select which thumbnail you want to see by clicking on it. To get back to this page, use your browser back arrow. Each batch of thumbnails has a brief description. A screen size of 800x600 pixels is used as a base but 640x480 and 1024x768 screens work fine too.

Email us Tom, Laura, Matt or Kelsey. Search all the photo pages.

11/13&18&27&12/1/2017 6 mile 100 feet Yachats hike on the coast; Early Thanksgiving with 14 of us, Aaron, Addy, Elizabeth, Dylan, Seth, Trey, Julie, Christine, Tim L, Mark, Janet and Tim S, playing ping pong and cards (Schneider and Crates); 7 mile 700 feet Oxbow Park hike on the Sandy River near Troutdale; Special Friend Day at Markham School, Aaron with his first grade teacher Ms. Franklin and Addy with her fifth grade teacher Mr. Stafford and Julie helping at the book fair. Slideshow

10/31-11/09/2017 Trip to Chicago to visit our Grand kids, Liam and Colin; Dinner party with Filipino food, Henry, Belinda, BJ, Jen, Lucas(3), Frankie(1); put up Christmas tree with Liam, Colin, Matt and Olivia; Halloween Party at Kindergarten class with Liam; Colin goes to pre-school at Independence School. Slideshow

10/9&16&27-29/2017 Gordan Peak hike 4 miles 500 feet bushwhack last half mile up the peak in the Santiam Wilderness Area; Tumble Ridge hike 9 miles 2600 feet with snow above 4000 feet near Detroit Lake; Mt Tom and Round Mt hike 6 miles 500 feet with John and Paul; Cheese Soufflé dinner with Aaron, Addy, Elizabeth, Julie, Tim L, Bette, John and Paul; kid hike Oaks Bottom loop 3 miles 100 feet in SE Portland near Sellwood bridge with Aaron, Addy, Elizabeth, Julie, Tim L, Bette and John. Slideshow

9/18-26/2017 Desolation Canyon and Gray Canyon Green River Raft Trip 84 miles in eastern Utah with Sharon, Bo, Ted, Dennis, Tim, Bill, Byron and Rick; did not see another person on the river for 7 days except for a river ranger on the first night. Slideshow Part 1 Slideshow Part 2

Rick's photos

Tom's Log and Photos

9/18 Leave Portland at 9pm after babysitting at Julie's
9/19 Arrive at Salt Lake City Airport around 10am, sleep a couple hours, pick up Sharon, head to the put-in at Sand Wash arriving at 4:30pm and rig my raft
9/20 Quick Bagel and Cream Cheese breakfast, meet with River Ranger Mitch with our group at 8:30am to get checked out at River Mile 96, get off at about 10am with 2 14-foot 30 year old bucket rafts (Tim and Ted in one and Bo, Sharon and Tom in other one), two catarafts (Rick and Byron) and a two seat IK (inflatable kayak) with Bill and Dennis, camp at mile 80.1 Rock House Canyon with nice petroglyphs, River Ranger Dave stops by in his raft giving us advice for our trip and Tim cooks goulash for dinner
9/21 Egg Burritos for breakfast, get off a little after 9am, a weather front is coming in and the wind is picking up, by early afternoon wind makes it difficult to make progress on river so we stop early to camp at a make shift campsite Mile 72, put up a tarp to help block the wind on the kitchen, Bo makes chicken stir fry for dinner in the strong wind and it starts raining about 8pm until about 4am in the morning
9/22 Blueberry pancakes for breakfast, get off at 9:30am, checked out Flat Canyon Petroglyphs at Mile 63.3R over lunch, wind picked up again in the afternoon so we stopped early again at Mile 59.3 campsite, set up tarp again to help block wind from kitchen, Byron pulled out his back, is in bad pain and can hardly move, Bill cooked Sausage stew for dinner
9/23 Scrambled Eggs for breakfast, Byron back is still bad and he can't move much, have a group discussion at 8am and decide to push Rick's emergency GPS for a helicopter to take him out of the canyon, two hours later in comes the Intermountain Lifeflight helicopter, very efficient medical crew and Byron has a 40 minute flight to a hospital in Provo, after some painkillers Byron got released from the hospital, the rest of us got on the river at noon, Bill takes over Byron's cataraft and Sharon goes into the IK, made good time and got to Lion Hollow campsite at Mile 48, Sharon and Ted make burritos for dinner, starts raining at 10pm and does not stop until 6am and loud thunder most of the night
9/24 French Toast for breakfast, get off by 9:30am, rain and hail start shortly after leaving, everyone is cold, the canyon is socked in both directions and it does not look good, the river water seems warm in comparison, plan to stop for lunch at MacPherson and Ouray Lodge (abandoned) to warm up, sun comes out briefly but then rain starts again and keeps us rowing hard all afternoon, luckily when we get to camp at Range Creek #1 Mile 31.2 things clear up, Dennis makes spaghetti for dinner and we have a nice fire that night
9/25 Egg Burritos for breakfast, get off by 9am, beautiful warm sunny day today, make good miles all the way Mile 15.7 at Butler camp, Rick makes Big Wind chili and peach cobbler in a double dutch oven for dinner
9/26 Quick Bagel and Cream Cheese breakfast, get off by 8am weather is good again today, get to Swaseys Take-out at Mile 12 around 10am, strong current there and Rick missing the ramp so we all have to pull him upstream for 100 feet, another great river trip with challenges and excitement just about every day with a fun group of people, derigged rafts and headed to Salt Lake City airport to drop off Sharon, got back to Salem 2:15am, slept three hours and bicycled to work 7 miles at 6:45am

9/6-10/2017 17th Annual Sierra Backpack/Mule Trip in the Ansel Adams Wilderness near Mammoth Mountain with John, Larry, Ziv, Sharon, Lisa, Brittney, Cindy, Leslie, Art, Terry and Mark at Garnet Lake camp and Ed, Gary, Alysha, Carol, Sandi, Beth, Ralph, Ginna, Mike and Jim at Garnet Falls camp,. Slideshow

Larry's Log and Photos

For the benefit of those who did not camp at the lake I have include a description of each day along with my photo link. Another really fun trip. Thank you to everyone for making it a special trip and to Ed for organizing another good one.

The drive up to Mammoth on Monday was a nice drive for me, John and Art. Relatively cool as we crossed the desert. Got to drive John’s new Jeep. Drives very nice and had just enough room for John, Art, and my gear. We met the others of the group and camped at Coldwater Campground near Lake Mary. The group at camp were Me, John, Art, Ed, Gary, Alysha, Sandi, Cindy, Jim, Leslie, Sharon, Carol, Mike, Mark, Ginna, Jerry, Ziv and his dog Chloe.

On Tuesday morning we took a short hike up Panorama Dome which offered very nice views of the Mammoth area. We then drove up to Devils Postpile NM and did a nice loop hike to Minaret falls, the post pile, and Rainbow Falls. From there we headed to our camp site at Agnew Meadows. Joining us at the camp were Beth, Ralph, Terry, Tom and Lisa.

Monday-Tuesday photos

Wednesday we packed up and headed to the pack station a short ways from camp to drop off our gear by 7:30 AM. We then hiked to our prospective camp spots where the mules would drop off our gear. Some were camping at the base of the waterfalls on the outflow from Garnet lake while Me, John, Art, Leslie, Sharon, Lisa, Terry, Tom, Ziv, Cindy and Mark were camping on the north shore of Garnet Lake. I took the river trail up to the falls group camp and from there climbed the steep trail up to Garnet Lake passed all the falls. The water crossing at the falls camp was a bit different from Ziv and my crossing of it back in 2006 when we just stepped from rock to rock. Quite a bit of water flowing this year which required wading across mid-thigh deep water. At arrival to camp it was lightly sprinkling so I set up my tent rather than sleep under the stars. Good thing I did as later in the evening it rained hard for about two hours with plenty of thunder. Thunder storms are so neat in the mountains as the thunder echoes. I love it. Ziv’s dog Chloe did not like it much though.

Wednesday Photos

On Thursday we all hiked to two high points on the ridge separating Garnet Lake and Thousand Island Lake. A very nice loop hike. On the way up the second high point I stepped on a large rock which turned out to be loose. It slid out from under me tumbling down the slope. Fortunately I did not tumble after it but did fall twisting my right ankle and scraping up my right arm. Not complaining though as it could have been much worse. The ankle strain was not real bad. Although painful I was able to complete the loop hike on my own.

Thursday Photos

On Friday my plan had been to climb Mount Davis but now was not sure my ankle would be up to it. So instead planned to hike up Garnet Peak to test the ankle and maybe do Mount Davis on Saturday. Tom and Ziv, the two who usually accompany me to the harder peaks planned to hike up to North Glacier Pass and possibly continue up to Mount Davis if they felt up to it. Cindy accompanied me to Garnet Peak. A really nice peak with great views of the Minarets, Banner and Ritter, etc. This peak was the most fun of all the peaks I did on this trip. That evening I got a report from Tom and Ziv on the conditions up to Glacier Pass. Lots of snow in the drainage leading up to the pass and very large talus blocks to climb just short of the pass. I have been to the pass before so knew about the talus blocks. When I initially planned this hike I knew it was a bit ambitious. Best plan would have been to spend a night at the upper end of Thousand Island Lake and then climb from there, but I love the camp site on Garnet. Had previously camped there on a trip in Sept of 2006. So based on the report from Ziv and Tom and the fact that my ankle was not 100% I decided not to go for Davis on Saturday.

Friday Photos

On Saturday I decided to go for two peaks on Lists of John which are north of Thousand Island Lake. The others were all going for Garnet Peak after hearing my glowing reports of it and John and Terry were going to head for Clarice Peak. I had done Clarice on the previous day along with Garnet. So my trek to the LOJ peaks was a solo trek. No complaints, I enjoy solo excursions, just have to be extra careful. I made it to the first peak, LOJ 10597. A very nice peak with views that rival those of Garnet Peak, possibly even better than Garnet. My way to the second peak was blocked by a large steep snow field. But I could see Weber Lake below and to the north of my peak. I could tell from the map that it would likely get to steep for me to get all the way down to the lake but decided to see how close I could get to it. On my way down I passed a point where I could get by the snowfield so I headed off down the ridge towards the second LOJ Peak. LOJ 10475. I initially got onto the wrong ridge and had to climb back up a few hundred vertical feet. Then the route I took down the main ridge put me down a gulley which ended in a chimney dropping about one hundred feet. It was vertical and not something I would consider down climbing alone and even with someone else I would want to be roped. At this point it had started to sprinkle lightly and I needed to get off the rocks before they got wet. So I headed on back to camp. A really fun day in beautiful country.

Saturday Photos

Sunday, our last day. Really not ready to leave this beautiful camp but time to leave. We packed up our gear, which was wet with much frost in the morning, and stacked it up for the packer to pack up and carry out for us. For the hike out back to Agnew Meadows I took the route past Shadow Lake as did Ziv, Chloe, Art, Sharon Brittany, and Leslie. From previous trips I knew of the beauty of this area. Visiting it again was a must. We had to wait a bit for the mules to arrive when we got down which is normal. The mules arrived just before 4:00 PM, the latest of all our trips. Arrived home at 11:30 PM. Another great September Sierra trek. Can’t wait for next year.

My Photos

Gary