JustinBKay.org

I decided to do a little experiment. I've written a little web application to be used as a family directory for the people on my mothers side of the family. So far, there has been a lot of support by the potential userbase, but I wonder if it will actually be used. The challenge might be to make is easy enough to use that it actually gets used.

The other question is will there be enough peer pressure to get everyone on it. I'm hoping for the best.

So, I had a meeting last evening and didn't get home until about 9pm. When I rolled up to the house, I couldn't help but notice that there was a for sale by owner sign in my front yard. That was a surprise.

The market is pretty bad right now, so I don't really expect that much will come of this, but it is kind of exciting. Potentially homeless.

I have my first media center now. It comes in the form of an Apple TV. I have hacked it to allow uploading of movies that are not synced with my iTunes. This was necessary because my mac mini hard disk is full. So far I'm really liking it. I do wish that it had a larger hard drive. It is the 40gb model. It will be great to have all of the kids movies on there so they can watch them without destroying any more dvd discs. We really need to get an iMac with a good sized drive.

Things have sure changed. We had a snow day today, school is out. We only have about 3"-5" inches of snow and temps are in the 30's and the wind is calm. I wouldn't have ever gone to school when I was a kid if we got out for weather like this.

This has been our most snowy winter in Kuna I can remember. Not to say that it is a lot of snow, but the most that we've had for the 10 or so years that we've lived here. More is supposed to show up tomorrow. Makes me nostalgic.

Yesterday, August 4th 2007, I went to Driggs, Idaho to hike to the top of Table Rock or Table Mountain as it is sometimes called. I was hiking with my Dad, 2 of my brothers, a nephew and a girlfriend of one of my brothers. We got up at 5:00 am and left the house in Rexburg, Idaho by 6:00 am. We arrived at the trail head, which is up ski hill road, on the way to Targhee at about 7:30 am. We were hiking by 8:00 am.

The trail head starts out above 7000 feet above sea level. There are 2 different trails that you can take to begin your climb. We elected to take the Huckleberry trail on the advice of the locals who have hiked it before saying that it was the easier of the two. The trail is nice and passes through some beautiful country. There are several creeks that you cross and meadows full of purple and yellow wild flowers as you wind up the canyon under the pines.

The trail is not too bad for the first few miles. You slowly gain elevation until to come to the section where you hike out of the valley onto the ridge that you'll follow until you summit. The climb out of the valley is a section of switchbacks that are pretty tough. Once up on top we could see our final destination and we thought that it looked pretty close, but actually it was still pretty far off. A group of scouts that we passed on their way down said that we still had an hour or two to go from that point.

We continued up the ridge until we were at the base of the final rise that is Table Rock. We passed over a section of the trail that was nothing but rock. It was like walking on cobble stone streets that didn't have the cobble stones held together by anything. All that I could think of was how awful it would be to break an ankle up there. The last section going up to the top is steep and is littered with lots of rock and is a difficult climb. The rock right at the base is more like a gravel mix whereas the section below was actually made up of pretty good sized stones. After you climb through the steep gravel section you climb the Table rock itself. It is not a very difficult climb from that point.

Once on top you see that it is really a long narrow section of rock. We guessed that it was about 15 feet across and about 75 feet long. The views of the Tetons are spectacular. There is a valley that sits between Table Mountain and the Grand Teton. It was an awesome site. The picture posted with this article is of the Grand Teton from the top. Once on top we had some lunch and rested for a bout a half and hour and then headed back down. It had taken us about 5 hours to summit the 11,000 feet above sea level mountain.

On the way back down we elected to try The Face trail which is a little bit shorter, but a whole lot more difficult. Taking that trail you wander down a ridge for a while and then you drop down the mountain. The trail is steep and very rocky. By the time I had made it to the bottom my right knee was distressed and painful. I wouldn't recommend that trail for either the ascent or the descent.

Along the way we did see some wild life. We saw a couple of deer across the canyon when we were headed up the first section of the Huckleberry trail. We also saw something else that was very dark. Some in our party thought that it might be a bear. It was too far away and we were never able to tell for sure what it was. Up on the top ridge we saw a number of wild chickens. There were dark in color and fairly good sized. They didn't seem to be afraid of humans either. We walked within 5 feet of some of them and they didn't seem to be bothered at all.

I would definitely recommend this hike to anyone that loves the Teton Mountains. It is a difficult hike but well worth the work.