Rafal, Diane, and Ola: 1996 - 2008, the pre-Illinois years.

I came to Seattle in 1994 to go to grad school. After a couple of years I got interested in rock climbing, mountaineering, or even just driving to anywhere that had a lot of (preferably red) rock. Most of the pictures below will be related to these and other fun outdoor activities. Surprisingly, I have no pictures of me studying or doing research, which is really what I have been doing most of the time.
Many more pictures are still on my old photo page. Some links there may be dead. You can also look here, here and here.

The pictures below are from the North Cascades National Park, Washington: first two from the climb of Eldorado Peak, the last is from the summit of Klawatti Peak.

For Spring Break 1997, we drove to the Canyonlands National Park, Utah. On the way, at the Red Rocks National Monument by Las Vegas, I tried rock climbing for the first time.

Some mountain scenery: Mount Rainier and Mount Shuksan in Washington, Mount Gould in Glacier National Park, Montana.

Every Christmas Break in years 1997-2000, Diane (now my wife) and me would travel south to find sun and relatively warm rock, to Joshua Tree National Park, to the California coast, or as shown below, to Snow Canyon State Park in southwestern Utah. Zion National Park made for good scenic rest days between climbing.

Alaska, pretty close to Anchorage.

In 2000, I graduated and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Great city, great hiking and climbing just north of it.

First time ever in Yosemite National Park.

In 2002, I moved from Vancouver to Santa Barbara, California. The hills just north of town were not nearly as big as those north of Vancouver, but still provided plenty of entertainment. So did the beach. The last of the six pictures below shows Campus Point. Engineering I building, which is where my office was, is just to the right of the frame.

Below: Snow Canyon State Park ("only" a 7 hour drive away from Santa Barbara), Zion National Park (it was nice that my boss, Professor Petar Kokotovic, enjoyed the mountains even more than I did), climbing in Joshua Tree National Park, and three pictures from Escalante Canyons.

In 2003, we went to Spain, Diane graduated, and moved to Santa Barbara. I wonder if we will ever again have oranges growing right off the porch.

More trips from Santa Barbara. First row, east side of the Sierra Nevada range: Alabama Rocks, a fun and famous for the movies that were made there climbing area at the foothills of Mount Whitney; the bouldering area of Buttermilks near Bishop; and Sabrina Basin way above Bishop. Second row, a pre-honeymoon in Zion National Park.

Spring of 2004, Diane and Rafal got married.

Shortly after, it was time to move back to Seattle for 3 years, so that Diane could finish her residency. Below, a couple of pictures of climbing in Yosemite; hiking down from Black Peak in North Cascades; and three shots from my fun solo backpacking trip to the Enchantmen Lakes in Washington.

Diane finally got two weeks of vacation (the only time in her residency), and we went on a delayed honeymoon to southeast Utah. We spent 5 days backpacking in the Needles Disctrict of the Canyonlands National Park, then did some climbing and mountain biking around Moab.

In spring of 2005, we went for a week to Mexico, southern tip of Baja California.

And then, something changed. Kind of...

In 2006, 7, and 8, Ola has proven to be a reliable hiking, snowshoeing, biking, climbing, and surfing partner. Here we are, snowshoeing in Mount Rainier National Park.