Plant Stuff

Somehow I've become a plant person? I'm working on a California native plant garden, an avocado cultivar collection, and an orchard of fruit trees on a 2 acre lot in Palos Verdes. Many of the fruit trees have culinary or cultural significance to Armenian and Chinese people (like us!)—e.g. longan, wax apple, jujube, pomegranate, and quince. The following database is linked by QR code from botanical signs in our garden. It reminds us about how to take care of the plants or harvest fruit and is a field journal with photos and updatable health and height fields.

• Middleridge garden database

Trip Reports

One day I'll accept that YouTube videos are the new long-form trip reports, but today is not that day.

• An Anarchic Alta (Parker and Hamik, 10/2025)
  A wintry first summit and multiday backpack for Parker in a government shutdown.

Ancient Trip Reports

These were originally posted on the now (nearly) defunct SuperTopo and SummitPost sites. Perhaps I will eventually migrate comments too.

• A Muy Peligroso Chacraraju (Vitaliy M. and Hamik, 7/2013)
  Not my proudest exercise of risk management.
• A Nose in a Push (Vitaliy M. and Hamik, 4/2013)
  It's like the Nose in a Day but somehow easier and harder. My first time on El Cap. Two sunrises, zero sleep.

Primordial Trip Reports

These are from my mid 2000s blog, hexploits.com. Entries 1 to 13 from India and Chamonix are seemingly lost to time: they aren't on the Wayback Machine or any of the usual places. Maybe one day I'll find them on an old external hard drive.

• Coming soon...