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 during 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 somhow easier and harder. My first time on El Cap. Two sunrises, zero sleep.
• A Glorious Romp Across the Range of Light (Nick S. and Hamik, 4/2011)
  Forty miles across the Sierra in two days. Midnight moonlit skiing.
• A Moonlit Matthes Crest with Vicky (Vicky and Hamik, 7/2012)
  An excursion that might be miscontrued as romantic. But now we're married, so maybe it was? Vicky says all she remembers from this era are my il-fitting jeans and her incredulity that I could forget to bring normal shoes for approaches (it it that weird if you leave for Yosemite straight from work?!)
• Jack of All Routes, Sender of None (Lea and Hamik, 5/2013)
  Chocolate fondue at Iceberg Lake, then the "Traverse of the King" from Bloody to Star Trekkin to Mithril.
• A Technically-But-Not-Really Winter Mithril Dihedral (Vitaliy M. and Hamik, 3/2012)
  My first trip with Vitaliy Musiyenko.
• A Snaggy Churup (and More Andean Adventures) (Alex and Hamik, 6-7/2011)
  It's all fun and games until you have to cut your rope!
• A Luxurious Huascaran (Vitaliy M. and Hamik, 8/2013)
  A self-satisfied jaunt to 22,205 ft (it was a bit painful to read this in 2026).
• A Winter Winter Route (Kellen, Aaron, and Hamik, 1/2011)
  A bivy high on the south face followed by a first little taste of mixed climbing.

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.

• 14: Mini Adventures at Season's End (Veronica A., Sonia, Steve Gubser, and Hamik, 9/2009)
  A flurry of little trips with Veronica, a Blacker classmate, Sonia, who I think I met on the UKClimbing forums, and Steve Gubser—not sure how I met Steve, but he was well-liked physics prof at Princeton who died climbing in Chamonix in 2019.
• 15: Final Days in Chamonix, plus V Notch and Polemonium to Starlight (Pavel, Justin, and Hamik, 9/2009)
  With 48 hours separating French and Californian glaciers!
• 16: Late Fall East Buttress of Whitney (Alex F. and Hamik, 11/2009)
  The East Buttress of Whitney in November, photographed in black and white by Alex Falk.
• 17: A Polar Vortex Pineapple Express Atmospheric River Mega Baldy Dump (Caltech Alpine Club, 1/2010)
  Slept in the hut, dug a snow cave on the summit, and hucked the outhouse.
• 18: SoCal Ice Climbing!? (Alex F., Pratyush, Kedron, and Hamik, 2/2010)
  Once upon a time, there was ice climbing at Tahquitz!
• 19: North Ridge of Lone Pine Peak (Hamik, 5/2010)
  A solo trip up a Sierra classic.