Amazing! Summerland to Panhandle Gap Hiking

Alisha says: We have been itching to get to Mt. Rainier National Park and do some hiking. The hike I picked out for us I found on a web site that listed ten best day hikes in North America (by the end of the summer we will have hiked 5 of them). The sky was cloudy as we left the house bright and early and I was nervous that it was going to be cloudy all day and we would miss out on some great views but it turned out to be a spectacular day! The trail we hiked was the Summerland portion of the Wonderland trail to Panhandle Gap.

The first few miles was a gradual climb through the forest with a few sneak peaks of the peaks that were to come. Once we crossed frying pan creek and climbed some switchbacks we entered the beautiful Summerland meadows. Lots of wildflowers were in bloom.

After a quick rest stop and a snack the trail continued above the tree line. The next few miles were rocky old glacier fields. There were still some snow patches covering the trail, especially as we got closer to Panhandle Gap. Once at the Gap we still felt good so we decided to take a side trip to the edge of a plateau. We even saw a small group of goats that we followed for a little bit until they disappeared at our turn around spot which was the edge of a cliff. The views all along the way were absolutely spectacular. You feel like you are close to Mt. Rainier as you can see all the snow fields and glacier ice but it still towers another 7,000+ feet above you.

After enjoying the scenery for awhile. We began to trace our footsteps back down the trail. We found that it was easier and more efficient and not to mention just fun to sit and slide down some of the snowy parts. We found a perfect rock to have a little rest on just before the meadow. When we got back to the car we had put in 14 miles and couldn't stop talking about how great it was.

 Sneak peak of what's to come on the trail

 Summerland Meadow

 Snow crossings

 It was so beautiful

 Dave chasing the goats

 Mount Rainier!

Nap time

Fourth of July Week

Alisha says: Dave and I have been having a lot of fun exploring our new area. Almost everyday we have been on some kind of adventure or another. We try to balance out the week with road riding, mountain biking, running, hiking, and what we call urban assaulting (riding our hard tail 29 mountain bikes around urban areas exploring all of the parks and neighborhoods). 

Urban assault ride to Discovery Park and the Magnolia Neighborhood

A different urban assault ride through Ballard, Golden Garden Park, and Carkeek Park

A road ride along the Burke-Gilman trail with a loop around Kirkland

On the 4th of July we got up early and went mountain biking at Duthie Park and King Ridge

Hiking the Lime-Kiln Trail

The Huffington Post

Alisha says: The Huffington Post recently published an article that cited some of Dave's research.

Stealing A Pen At Work Could Turn You On To Much Bigger Crimes

The Huffington Post  | By Emily Cohn

Posted: 06/26/2014 10:11 am EDT Updated: 06/27/2014 8:59 am EDT

Print Article

Steal a pen from your office and you could find yourself on a path toward becoming the next Bernie Madoff.

That's the warning of a new study, called "The Slippery Slope: How Small Ethical Transgressions Pave The Way For Larger Future Transgressions," by David Welsh of the University of Washington, Lisa Ordóñez of the University of Arizona, Deirdre Snyder of Providence College, and Michael Christian of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. According to the study, which was published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, minor unethical behavior at work, if undetected, puts workers on a "slippery slope" that could lead to worse behavior over time.

Stealing a pen is basically a gateway to massive corporate fraud.

To most of us, fairly innocuous sins like taking a pen from work or neglecting to refill the office coffee pot are much easier to justify than, say, racking up $2 billion in trading losses. But over time, the researchers found, those minor misdeeds make it easier to justify more and bigger evils in the long run.

If you're considering taking home a ream of copy paper, just think: doing so could land you behind bars with this guy.

“People rationalize their behavior to justify it,” Ordóñez, one of the study's authors, said in a press release. "They might think ‘No one got hurt,’ or ‘Everyone does it.’ The next time, they feel fine about doing something a little bit worse the next time and then commit more severe unethical actions.”

The researchers tested this theory by watching subjects in a number of different situations. One interesting experiment found that subjects who were given 25 cents for doing a minor unethical thing were much more likely to take $2.50 to do something more egregious later on than those who were offered $2.50 to do a big no-no at the start. According to the researchers, this shows that people are less likely to commit what they call "abrupt and large dilemmas" when they haven't already committed gradual, small transgressions.

The study cites Madoff, who was sentenced to 150 years in prison for orchestrating the largest Ponzi scheme in history and spoke of this phenomenon to his longtime secretary, according to Vanity Fair:

“Well, you know what happens is, it starts out with you taking a little bit, maybe a few hundred, a few thousand. You get comfortable with that, and before you know it, it snowballs into something big.”

So what can you do to prevent yourself from becoming the next Jeff Skilling?

The researchers offer a number of tips to discourage the minor stuff, like putting in place a firm set of ethical guidelines and calling workers out for the small things, like taking home too many office supplies.

“The ideal is for employees to recognize when they’ve committed a minor transgression and check themselves," Michael S. Christian, one of the paper's co-authors, wrote.