Summer At A Glance
Well, rather than trying to catch up on my hopeless backlog of unfinished summer posts, I've instead created this handy collage so you can see, at a glance, what I've been doing these past few months.
The summer highlight for me would have to have been skiing Mammoth over the 4th of July weekend—not quite as much snow as they had in 2011, but just as much fun nonetheless.
Family trips to Arizona and Tahoe dominated the summer agenda, as well as a great deal of general contracting around the house. I believe I personally busted up over 2000 pounds of concrete with a hammer, which oddly enough has my back feeling like it did when I was in my 20's. Andy's ski mountaineering fitness program: bash things with sledge hammer!
On the subject of The Big Picture, it is hard to find things to cheer about here in late September 2016. So instead, I will tell you that my family and I are doing well: working hard, but safe and sound and looking forward to a nice, quiet, snowy winter. I have planted roses (doing well) and grass (not so well). I am considering replacing windows.
What does it mean to own a blog in Q3 2016? That's an interesting question. If you notice your favorite single-author sites slowly fading away, you're not imagining it. Media trends have made it challenging to take the time to write posts. It's a lot of work, and whatever you do, you'll get a lot more attention if you do it on Facebook, or Instagram, or any of the other social media panopticons.
As for me, I have no intention of going away quietly. I am retooling my old features into single-page layouts that use full-frame photos. Can't say when that will all be online, but when it is, I think it will look fantastic.
For now, I believe summer has finally come to an end. There is a chill (sometimes!) in our SoCal morning air. Winter is coming (hopefully in the Eastern Sierra sense, and not the GOT end-of-the-world kind of way, though the jury is out on that one). Time to get back to the mountains...
— September 25, 2016
Andy Lewicky is the author and creator of SierraDescents
Joe g October 5, 2016 at 5:48 pm
Did a few hikes this summer from your website and found it very informative.
I like the entire selection of articles all in one spot. When I get claustrophobic at work, the writing takes me back to nature so good work.
A little freaked out by all the fires around wrightwood and Lytle creek area. Really devastating. Backcountry in burn areas is super bad idea?