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It was about a month ago when we last hiked Jewel Basin, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now that Kyra’s best friend Hannah is visiting for the week, we decided to head that way again. They wanted to summit Mt Aeneas, the highest peak in the area (at 7,500 feet). We donned our trail runners and headed out.

The first few miles were pretty tame: a wide trail with a fairly easy upward slope. But the last mile or so was where the trail earned its “strenuous” rating. It climbed through the forest with switchback after switchback, finally coming out on a ridge that runs upward to the peak. Here’s Kyra surveying the last half-mile of the route:

The summit is the highest point, of course. Already pretty tired, she and Hannah heaved a sigh and set off.

Despite the difficult climb, the peak was worth every calorie getting there. The views were astounding. To the north are the Picnic Lakes and probably Canada.

To the northeast, the peaks of Glacier are visible.

The southeast features Hungry Horse Reservoir, an enormous man-made lake (it’s visible in the distance, just before the mountain range).

And to the west, the always beautiful Flathead Valley. Here’s a shot of Pepper overlooking the land below. Flathead Lake is, of course, the huge body of water in the center. It makes Echo Lake, a popular tourist spot, look like a tiny pond (it’s in the lower right). We could also see the Flathead and Swan Rivers. Pretty awesome.

Kyra and Hannah took a few minutes to catch their breath at the top, and then posed for a picture.

It’s always cool to summit a mountain. “Top of the world, baby!”

Okay, maybe only five of the Seven. Two years ago, five of us met up in Indianapolis for Gen Con, and last year four of us were at Casa del Becher in Florida. This year, my new(ish) house was the destination. Since travel is all weird this year, Bech, Derek, and Dirk piled into a rental van and drove from St. Louis to Montana. Twenty-six hours on the road, with a stop in Omaha to pick up Aron. Oof.

Once they were here, though, we had a grand time. We mostly played board games, with breaks to go out on the lake or shoot some pool or just talk and laugh about our thirty-plus-year history together.

Derek enjoyed relaxing in the cool lake water. He decided paddleboarding wasn’t for him, so instead he just floated behind his board for about an hour.

Aron worked on standing on his paddleboard and eventually managed it. Then he decided to strike a yoga pose; this is some odd form of warrior:

We learned some new games, including Rising Sun, which turned out to be fairly complicated and not worth the effort.

The perennial favorite Power Grid probably saw half a dozen plays, which was great because it’s one I really enjoy. Also, I win that one a lot.

We learned Endeavor and after a few games, had the strategy down.

Let’s not forget Terraforming Mars, which is pretty high on the complexity scale but definitely popular with this group.

Grilling burgers and steaks, commenting on the hot summer weather (and lack of air conditioning in the house), sitting around in the courtyard until 2am… it was really awesome to hang out with these yahoos from my childhood.

Where will we meet up next year? It’s not clear yet, but since this is the third year in a row, it’s now officially an annual tradition. Maybe one of these times we’ll actually get all seven of the Magnificent Seven together…

… But mostly this is a story about bears.

For the past few weeks, we’ve watched the cherries in our orchard continue to ripen as the time for harvest approached. We also watched a couple of black bear cubs– who we’ve named Shawn and Gus– visit the orchard. On at least four occasions, we’d be coming up the driveway and see the two of them scrambling to get out of the orchard, like kids caught sneaking cookies. We’re sure they’re the same mischievous cubs Kyra and I spotted climbing our tree.

I didn’t mind that they nibbled on a few cherries here and there. After all, we have 92 trees, and they were looking good. I didn’t mind, that is, until yesterday. That’s when we took a walk around the orchard in preparation to have it picked, so we could sell our cherries and make back the money we’ve spent managing the orchard all year (pruning, watering, spraying, mowing).

We discovered that the bears had pretty much picked the entire orchard clean. As in, many of the trees didn’t have a single cherry left. There were a lot of instances of this:

Notice all the cherry stems without cherries. This particular tree had literally this single cherry on it. Several trees had broken branches, because bear cubs climbing to get the high cherries can be heavy:

Although I would love to see a bear cub in a cherry tree fall down when the branch under him breaks, it was pretty clear that these guys had systematically eaten through our orchard. The only trees with any berries at all were near the driveway, and I suspect it’s simply because the bears hadn’t had time to get to them yet. Give them another day or two, and those trees would’ve been empty as well.

So, this morning we went out and picked everything we had left. It was actually kind of fun.

Here’s Pepper picking the sun! Just kidding– it was an accident but kind of a fun shot.

There were a few cases where there were a bunch of cherries still on the branch:

Of course this should’ve been the case for nearly all of the trees, not just two or three of them.

While we were walking through the orchard looking for any remaining fruit, we had to avoid stepping in the bear scat that was littered throughout.

Yes, that’s right, I have a photo of actual bear poop on my blog. Notice all the cherry pits in that one. Sigh.

After an hour, we’d picked the orchard clean. We ended up with three half-buckets of fruit:

According to some friends in the business, in an average year our orchard should easily produce around $5,000 in fruit (of which we’d get roughly half; the other half would go to the pickers). Today we ended up with $0.

On the bright side, I spent the afternoon driving to various friends’ houses, giving all of them a couple pounds of cherries. They all loved it. And we have a few pounds left for ourselves, which I’m sure will get eaten soon. They’re delicious.

So, yeah, we learned a few lessons for next year…

I’m really digging the astrophotography options around here. Last night the stars were brilliant, with the Milky Way stretching from one horizon to the other. Here’s the party house beneath Cassiopeia:

Looking north toward Woods Bay and the distant lights of Kalispell… check out Ursa Major above the trees!

There’s something magic about sitting in the hot tub on a cool summer evening, watching the incredible stars above. Last night Alex and his friends retired there and spent about an hour chatting. I snuck a picture.

Today my beautiful daughter turned 21. Or maybe 22. And what better way to celebrate than with a trip to the town dump, to get rid of some garbage that had accumulated in the garage?

Today was a beautiful sunny day, and we finished all of our chores, so we decided to head out to the lake. I grabbed my paddleboard, and Pepper and Kyra took the jet skis out in search of boat wakes to jump. It was nice to stand, sit, and even lie down on the board while the waves gently rocked it.

Definitely a great spot for a nap! I watched the beautiful azure sky above.

After a while, Kyra found me and we traded. I rode the jet ski for a while, trying to learn some new tricks, while she laid on the board. She had a brilliant idea: tether the board to a weather station out in the lake, so she wouldn’t drift with the current!

After jumping wakes and working on tricks, we decided to head in. Kyra was feeling a little lazy and didn’t want to paddle back to shore, so I towed her. Nice!

“Raking the driveway” isn’t a household chore you hear about very often. But that’s exactly what I did today.

Our half-mile-long switchbacked driveway gets terrible ruts from running water after storms. It makes it tricky to drive in places, and isn’t kind to the jet ski trailer.

I decided to smooth out some of the ruts by raking rocks and dirt into them. We could really use some more erosion preventers, but that’s a project for another day. Good times.

Last night, just before heading to bed, I stepped outside and looked up at the night sky. It was absolutely amazing. I went back inside, grabbed my camera and a tripod, and spent ten minutes taking some pictures of the stars overhead.

I cleaned out my wallet today, and sandwiched between my REI card and my Safeway card, I found this ancient gem:

The back of the (laminated!) card says it was issued in Rolla, Missouri. That was my college town– I got the card in fall 1990. Yes, thirty years ago. And that means it’s been in my wallet that long. I never thought of myself as a hoarder, but sheesh.

One memory about this card: in 1995 I traveled to Toronto for a physics conference, where I presented a paper about the optical properties of atomic energy transitions. I got to the conference without any problems, but when I was returning home I was stopped at the airport customs desk by a large, gruff woman. She asked me for a passport (which I didn’t have) and then said it would be okay to present a valid U.S. driver’s license (which I also didn’t have). I protested that I’d been allowed into Canada without any issues or ID, but she said sternly “Well, this isn’t Canada. We don’t let just anyone into the United States.”

I dug through my wallet and pulled out my Selective Service card. Surely that would prove I’m a U.S. citizen, since they’re only issued to citizens? Nope. Finally, in a bit of desperation, I showed her my Blockbuster Video card from Rolla, Missouri. If that didn’t prove I was an American, I was out of ideas and apparently doomed to live out my days in Canada.

Fortunately she let me through, and I was able to return to the United States. Whew! Thanks, Blockbuster!