Me, Mostly Outdoors

I'm Jesse - an engineer here at Tumblr. This is a sfw blog that will serve mostly as a collection of musings on my time in the outdoors, but honestly, could be anything.

Meetup in Porto, followed by an extra week in Spain that culminated in me playing acting like I was in the Vuelta and breaking a thumb in a bike crash. Then it was off to be in my friend Visrut’s wedding and some time with family on the east coast. I spent only 5 days in my own bed in September, exciting and terrifying at the same time.

Seattle autumn was abnormally dry so I got in a lot of biking and hiking in October and November before the long damp dark finally settled in over the PNW.

December resulted in more travel - I was in France for a week again which was a much less planned vacation that was super relaxing and enjoyable, and back home to see family once more.

The new year finds me back in my old haunts, entrenched in my usual ways - skiing and playing in the snow that took way too long to arrive on the Cascades. I’ve already been down to eastern Oregon once this month and will be back in a week for more mountain time.

This seems to have gotten kind of long, but that’s usually what happens when you’re tired and ready to ramble. Nonetheless, I just wanted to say thanks to all my friends, family, coworkers and any other cool people I’m grateful to have met or gotten to do cool things with in 2023. You all are really what it made it great. I hope 2024 is much of the same in that sense. See ya around.

i was tagged by @michaliz to grab a receipt over at receiptify! 🎧

tagging (this is, ofc, completely optional mandatory)

Last week, staff got together for 4 days to really dig into the issues we face as a platform here at tumblr and how we can solve them.

TL;DR is we need to grow but I think we're well equipped to do so. Everyone really does care, a lot. You could tell by the energy everyone brought and the idea's they shared. Hours, literally 9 am to 9 pm non-stop most days (and I'm sure some got started even earlier and stayed even later), were spent on brainstorming, designing, planning and just connecting so we can humanely make this place the best it can be.

They were working hard to make something out of this wonderful and weird little corner of the internet - and I'm glad and honored they let me come along for the ride.

On another sentimental, but less work related noted, I really want everyone to know how damn cool each and everyone of the staff members here is. A fun tradition that tumblr has inherited from Automattic and really embraced is flash talks - at the beginning of every day, people are given the chance to talk about whatever they want.

A quick presentation with no guard rails, just a 4 minute time box. It's a way to share something about who you, an individual, are - and a way to really embrace the bringing your whole self, every day. We got flashtalks on everything from Bigfoot, mosh pits, and roofs, to more.

Remember, keep it hardcore.

It's here... It's finally here. Summer in the PNW!

The past month has been filled with a lot of adventure - thankful every day for the beauty that is a Northwest Summer.

The first weekend in July, myself and 4 friends set out on a 40 the mile Devil's Dome loop in the North Cascades. It was steep, it was hard, but it was gorgeous. I don't have too much to add that the photos don't show. Truly an amazing place, with some good company. We ran, we ate, and soaked in the views. The weather was good enough to cowboy camp, situated perfectly in a saddle along a ridge line. 12/10 would do again

The snow is finally, finally starting to melt out here in the PNW. That means it's been adventure run time.

A couple weeks ago I had an epic weekend -- I started by running up and down three close by peaks on Saturday: Mount Tenerife, Mount Si, and Little Si. All said and done I had about 7K vert, and 16 miles under my belt. A beautiful day to get out, move and have fun.

The Monday after, a friend and I tried an even more daring loop circumnavigating Granite Mountain on foot, connecting a bunch alpine lakes on the way (the original plan was to go up to Kaleetan Peak but it was too snowy to get there safely in just running shoes). It was beautiful, but grueling. We ended up doing about 22 miles and almost 9K of vert that day, the first bit moving really slowly with our detour to Kaleetan.

The snow is starting to run out here in the PNW... A couple weekends ago, some buddies and I went to explore a new zone off the Mountain Loop Highway, specifically the northeast side of Sloan Peak.

We were enticed by the promise of novel, rolling terrain with cool features and a glacier!

But before we could get to that, we had to hike a bit in the dirt. I always forget how pretty the forests and natural features of Washington are in the winter, because they become much more barren and stark -- almost brutal for lack of a better word. When it's warm and green, it's a nice feeling to stroll through the trees and take it all in.

Overall, I'd give this trip a 6/10. Bumpy and scary pothole road that we barely made it up thanks to Matthew and his trusty Subaru. Hiking in the dirt, big scary avalanche paths on the way to cool terrain.

This weekend we made it out to Blewett Pass for a sunny corn harvest. All morning on the east face of Diamond Head, we had lap after lap of smooth spring skiing. Honestly, just a good time with some friends.

Funnily, on one of our laps, I took off my helmet on the transition since it was warm and we were headed up. Gravity had other plans and sent it rolling down the mountain. I just skied after it later, but it funny as heck in the moment.

I planned a run on Sunday because I was told the weather would be good.

We we're going to need it for our Issy Alps Grand Tour - a 23 mile, 6600 vertical feet trail run that traverses all three of the wonderful state parks that line the I-90 corridor just east of Seattle: Tiger Mountain, Squak Mountain, and Cougar Mountain. As hinted by the title, they've been lovingly deemed by the locals as the "Issaquah Alps" and have really set themselves apart as a difficult but accessible place to get moving in nature be that running, hiking, or biking.

Well, the weather started in the moody PNW fashion by giving us a bit of rain, but as we got to the high point on Tiger #3, we entered whiteout conditions unexpectedly. Exposed and cold, we looked pretty funny out there and were only 8 or so miles into the run.

After some sharing of layers, we kept on going; encountered more snow, more rain, and eventually ended on a bit of sunshine.

All in all, a hard as hell day, but a good time. And made even better by coffee and donuts in the parking lot with friends.

Please enjoy this video of me flailing/waddling/running in the snow. And us enjoying our post run snacks.

Last weekend, conditions lined up in our favor and a couple buddies and I headed out to the Kendall Adventure Zone over in Snoqualmie Pass. It's a zone with sweet and steep chutes all lined up next to each other for easy picking. Each line offering it's own flavor of fun and 1000+ ft of uninterrupted vertical descent. When it was all said and done, we clocked over 8000 feet of ascent and descent (lest I remind you that's all leg-powered, a lot of it just in our boots when the chutes got too steep to skin) in nice springtime powder.

Two of the runs we wanted to ski, Icy Gash and Old Man, required a daring mountainside traverse around a ridge, and then some steep booters up the back to drop in. We could see the exits from the valley floor, but had no clue what the entrances or main parts of the lines looked like. I'm a firm believer in seeing the line before skiing the line, so this was starting to get a little hairy.

We quickly reached a point where I would be able to get up, but if the line looked bad, I didn't know if I would be able to get back down safely (my buddies had ice axes, I did not).

It took some flopping, but I eventually made the call to back out before getting to the entrances while my buddies continued up - we would keep in radio contact while they climbed up and skied down and I would traverse back to a line I knew I could ski and they would watch me come down after their descent.

Long story short, I was a little disappointed but I think I made the right call. In these types of situations you just have to trust your gut and not be afraid to be to make a safety play or take the conservative option. It's always better to be safe than sorry, and I'm glad I took the time to really know my limits.

Obligatory photos:

At the beginning of March, I was fortunate enough to have work fly me to Amsterdam where we spent a week discussing our problems, goals, and getting to know one another to be a better team here at Tumblr.

It was a ton of fun and I learned a lot from all the smart and cool people I work with. I look forward to our next one and in the meantime doing our best to make the Tumblr experience the best it can be (If you have any ideas, my submissions are open on my work blog -- @jesseatblr).

As some of you know, I don't go very much anyplace without a camera, so here are a few fun photos I got (none with anyone it in because privacy is valuable this day and age) while on the trip. Mostly shot on my trusty Ricoh GRiii and my cell phone.

Today was a long and hard circumnavigation of trails around Cougar Mountain. Myself and a buddy set out not too early, but before the crowds (and dang were there crowds). With recent lowland snow and cold temps it seemed everyone in the area was crammed onto Cougar since not many other options were accessible.

The trails were in surprisingly good condition, we had smooth and dry tracks all the way around. We've been sleeping on Cougar.

All in all, 14ish miles and 3000 feet or so of vert. Not easy, but I felt really strong. I think the mileage and training are starting to add up. I'm really becoming aware of the results and it's such a good feeling.

Or, Training in Adverse Conditions and Feeling Good

I wasn't super sure where to go with this post as the endorphins wore off, but I just wanted to share something inspired by the weekly group runs I attend.

Tonight was particularly nasty weather, even by our Pacific Northwest standards. It was cold, it rained, then it hailed -- puddles of icy water and accumulating sleet meant that we really didn't need to be out there, but the group showed up. Week after week, it's great to have a consistent crew that is just there to train and have fun. Because of this, although conditions were bad, spirits were high and damn did we run. And run fast we did. Everything just felt right and felt good. It's hard to explain to people the runner's high, but just imagine somehow feeling elated after 7 miles running in hail at about 102% of your normal pace and being so excited you get on to Tumblr to blog about it. That is what it's like.

On the way home, it was about 7:15 (i.e. dark here in the PNW) and still terrible out, but I saw a mail carrier doing their rounds, and it made me think of their unofficial motto:

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

On Sunday I also went for a nice trail run. I do these pretty frequently over at nearby state forest, Tiger Mountain. It's a popular hiking, running, and biking spot for good reason. Lots of acreage and trails to get lost in, with a variety of old growth and new growth trees, plus the classic PNW rainforest vibes at times.

At some point I plan to run Section J of the PCT over 2 days, so Tiger has the elevation and trails I need for training.

I usually run at Tiger with some buddies, but this time I ran solo and it was a lot of fun! Just yourself, some sunshine, and some trees.

Saturday we got up early to ski the northwest glades and slopes of Arrowhead Mountain. Steep, deep and truly delightful. We made a few laps and even stopped to take turns getting pics of each other skiing down. 10/10 would ski again.