Short Version:
Our visit to Yellowstone National Park draws to a close
Long Version:
Obsidian from the Yellowstone Basin has been found as far away as the Mississippi Valley (a long way away). The pre-European peoples made arrowheads and other implements from it. Much of what was used came from an area called the Obsidian Cliffs, which was both far less impressive that Tuhua, off the east coast of NZ's North Island; and carefully devoid of any legitimate or safe illegitimate parking spots - we suspect to stop people stopping to play collector. If that was the goal, it sure as eggs worked on us, as we passed on by, heading north to Mammoth Hot Springs and its much-vaunted terraces.
If Old Faithful was a cultural imperative for the Amerikans, the terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs were almost in the same league for us, affording as they do a glimpse into the past, to what the Pink and White Terraces near Rotorua must have looked like prior to the Tarawera eruption of 1886. Like a coral reef, most of the constructs were dead, leaving only fantastic skeletal remains behind. They looked pretty cool. There were some few active, living environments too, and they ranged from pretty neat to truly awesome; Canary Springs was probably the most amazing thing we saw in the whole of the park. Fantastically-shaped bacterial colonies piled atop one another and spread fan-like across plateaus formed by the corpses of their forebears; colors waxed brightly, then blended or stayed clearly separated, depending on the paths taken by the hottest waters; fern-like tendrils and fronds swayed in the gentle currents. Magical spot.
It was starting to get cold in the valley, and we still had a long way to go, so we piled back into the Reaper, ignored the irritating squeak which had started to emanate from the front left wheel, and blasted back the way we'd come for a bit, before hooking eastwards towards the waterfall region of the park. It was nearing full dark by the time we arrived at the Lower Falls, but the light of the moon was ample for us to appreciate the spectacle we found at the end of the 600-vertical-foot path down the cliff-face. There was a LOT of water piling over the precipice, and the cataract was almost glowing in the moonlight. We caught glimpses of the Upper Falls in the near distance on our way back up the path, then saw them from much closer quarters after sharing chilli sandwiches in the deserted parking lot.
The moon had disappeared by the time we reached the Sulphur Cauldron, leaving us in absolute darkness, except where our stupidly-powerful night-riding lights illuminated whatever was in their path like spotlights hitting a stage. Actors on this stage were largely bubbling pools, some of water, others of bright yellow molten sulphur. The sound of the bubbling seemed louder than in the daytime, and some of the bubbles sounded really large; James Earl Jones bubbles. Elk were roaring not far away, and the sound that we'd found incredible and a wee bit strange during the day (and from the safety and relative comfort of the Reaper) took on a whole new, rather frightening dimension in the cold, cold darkness outside. The glimpse of a coyote, caught by the edge of a beam, in stalking mode and heading our way provided little reassurance, and it was with relief that we leaped into the Reaper, with just a little more leapy vigor than usual, and set off again.
We were soon back out of the van and back on high alert as we hiked up the hill past a number of small fumaroles towards the Dragon's Mouth, which was making some seriously scary noises as it bubbled away in the dark. When we played our lights over it we saw a restless pool, running back under an overhang into impenetrable darkness. It was from this cavern that the noises were emanating. Further up the hill we found the Mud Volcano, which apparently once was a full-fledged volcano, albeit one made of mud. It blew itself to bits back in the 1800s, though, so what we found was a decent-sized mud pool, bubbling away quietly in the night. After some debate we decided to hit the long way home; a loop hike up and around the top of a hillside. We'd not long set off when the second-thoughts started, encouraged by the elk roaring away somewhere in the darkness, and by the knowledge that creatures with teeth were around and about and quite probably hungry. We had opposing strategies for warding off the eaters; Nene making as much noise as possible so they'd know we were there and multiple and that they should go away and not be startled when we rounded a corner; me trying for absolute silence, so they'd not come to investigate the strfange and potentially edible noises. At a guess the sum total was probably something like one clumsy, noisy creature that smelled like two: probably edible, definitely interesting. We made it to the really stinky Black Dragon Caldron (sic) unmolested, then back down Cooking Hillside (it started heating up in 1978, killing all the trees that grew on it), past Grizzly Fumarole and the Mud Geyser area, which was really impressive in the returned moonlight.
Back into the Reaper, back onto the highway, south past the really large and rather pretty Yellowstone Lake to a region where we were tormented by owls, which seemed to appear from nowhere to threaten the Reaper and its occupants before disappearing again into the darkness. Eventually we made it to the Lewis Lake Campground, where we found ourselves a spot and fell into bed and to sleep without much further ado.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
More Yellowstone in a Day
Short Version:
We're still in Yellowstone National Park
Long Version:
A sprawling complex has grown up around the Old Faithful geyser area, with accommodation buildings, stores, and a sizeable visitor centre. We arrived pretty much bang on the start of the next eruption window*, and hotfooted it outside to see some steaming action. After a short delay, the steaming hole started to vent larger and more vehement blasts, and soon it was blowing a spout of superheated water and steam high into the air. The coolness of the surrounding air meant that there was extra steaming going on, which made it difficult to see details of the spouting water, but the Amerikans who were sharing the carefully-safetyised viewing environment seemed satisfied. I guess for them the eruption ticked a national cultural imperative off the list, and once it subsided the vast majority waddled back to their oversized vehicles and set off down the highway in air-conditioned comfort.
We got on our bikes.
The chill in the air meant that Lovely Wife was riding with one hand on the bars and the other tucked into a pocket for warmth, swapping whenever the exposed hand became too painfully chilled. We stopped at a number of geothermal points of interest, including several brightly-colored pools and some bizarrely-shaped geyser spouts. Apparently many of the pools were once even more brightly-colored than they are now, but have been cooled and dulled by the trash people have thrown into them, part-blocking the hot water feed from the underground. Likewise some of the geysers, which have lost power or stopped altogether. Still, there were a lot still active for us to look at: Sporadic Geyser, with its many bubbling children; Sawmill and Mortar Geysers, the noisiest of all the geysers; the small, quiet pools that were Economic and Spa Geysers; and the peaceful, relaxing setting of the aptly named Riverside Geyser, where we sat in the sun for quite a while before being startled by the beginning of what was to prove to be the most spectacular of the eruptions we witnessed. The breeze along the river pulled some of the steam aside, exposing the 75ft column of superheated water to view, and the spectacle continued for long enough that it was still going when we set off back to the Reaper, biking along the "No Bikes Allowed" boardwalk which passed the quiescent Giant Geyser (last eruption: January 2010; next eruption: no-one knows) and culminated at the spectacularly ugly towering vent of Castle Geyser.
The Old Faithful Area is the best-known geo-thermal hotspot in the park, but is by no means the only one. On our way north we stopped at several more, taking in some incredible sights:
- Spasm Geyser and the brilliantly-colored Silex Pool
- The young and grumpy Red Spouter, which formed in 1959 and is a hot spring in the Spring, a bubbling mud pool in the Summer, and, as we saw it, a gas fumarole in the Fall**.
- The Grand Prismatic Spring was largely obscured by steam, but had many buffalo hoofprints wandering around it and looked really pretty in the photographs on the signage
- Variously-colored bubbling mud pools at the Artist's Paintpots (by this stage of the day it was so sunny and hot that one of us was shirtless. Can you guess which one of us it was? Clue: The reaction from other park-goers was not applause or gleeful ogling)
- The impossible-to-predict Constant Geyser, which erupted twice as we watched, then refused to so much as burp for anyone else.
The road had been following the Firehole River, which is very pretty and is, apparently, well-stocked with trout, despite (or possibly because of) the thousands and thousands of litres of super-heated water that are dumped into it every minute by the various spouts and geysers and springs. We'd seen many more buffalo since the first herd, as well as a stoat/weasel creature with a black-tipped tail, several deer, and two coyotes whose behaviour couldn't have been more different; the first was standing, serious and silent and still as a (non-volcanically-active) stone near a tree in a field; the other was frolicking and leaping about in a riverside meadow - we think it may have been chasing small critters in the long grass. Another of the day's critter highlights came to us from a small station-wagon; nine puppies and their mother, in transit from the Oregon coast to St Louis, Missouri. That's a LONG way. Between playing with the tiny dogs and protecting our delicious eggy burritos from the cheeky grey jays, lunch was rather eventful, although it was still incredibly relaxing to be sitting in the sun, away from the conveyor-belt sight-seeing of the park road.
* = Most of the geysers co-operate with human endeavor to the extent that they erupt on a reasonably predicatable schedule. There are exceptions; some follow no discernible pattern whatsoever. Those which do adhere to schedule are flagged by Park Rangers as being expected to erupt within a certain window, the duration of which varies from minutes to hours to days.
** = This was the first geothermal entity that really smelled like Rotorua. We got a wee bit nostalgic. My notes say "Satan's Anus"
We're still in Yellowstone National Park
Long Version:
A sprawling complex has grown up around the Old Faithful geyser area, with accommodation buildings, stores, and a sizeable visitor centre. We arrived pretty much bang on the start of the next eruption window*, and hotfooted it outside to see some steaming action. After a short delay, the steaming hole started to vent larger and more vehement blasts, and soon it was blowing a spout of superheated water and steam high into the air. The coolness of the surrounding air meant that there was extra steaming going on, which made it difficult to see details of the spouting water, but the Amerikans who were sharing the carefully-safetyised viewing environment seemed satisfied. I guess for them the eruption ticked a national cultural imperative off the list, and once it subsided the vast majority waddled back to their oversized vehicles and set off down the highway in air-conditioned comfort.
We got on our bikes.
The chill in the air meant that Lovely Wife was riding with one hand on the bars and the other tucked into a pocket for warmth, swapping whenever the exposed hand became too painfully chilled. We stopped at a number of geothermal points of interest, including several brightly-colored pools and some bizarrely-shaped geyser spouts. Apparently many of the pools were once even more brightly-colored than they are now, but have been cooled and dulled by the trash people have thrown into them, part-blocking the hot water feed from the underground. Likewise some of the geysers, which have lost power or stopped altogether. Still, there were a lot still active for us to look at: Sporadic Geyser, with its many bubbling children; Sawmill and Mortar Geysers, the noisiest of all the geysers; the small, quiet pools that were Economic and Spa Geysers; and the peaceful, relaxing setting of the aptly named Riverside Geyser, where we sat in the sun for quite a while before being startled by the beginning of what was to prove to be the most spectacular of the eruptions we witnessed. The breeze along the river pulled some of the steam aside, exposing the 75ft column of superheated water to view, and the spectacle continued for long enough that it was still going when we set off back to the Reaper, biking along the "No Bikes Allowed" boardwalk which passed the quiescent Giant Geyser (last eruption: January 2010; next eruption: no-one knows) and culminated at the spectacularly ugly towering vent of Castle Geyser.
The Old Faithful Area is the best-known geo-thermal hotspot in the park, but is by no means the only one. On our way north we stopped at several more, taking in some incredible sights:
- Spasm Geyser and the brilliantly-colored Silex Pool
- The young and grumpy Red Spouter, which formed in 1959 and is a hot spring in the Spring, a bubbling mud pool in the Summer, and, as we saw it, a gas fumarole in the Fall**.
- The Grand Prismatic Spring was largely obscured by steam, but had many buffalo hoofprints wandering around it and looked really pretty in the photographs on the signage
- Variously-colored bubbling mud pools at the Artist's Paintpots (by this stage of the day it was so sunny and hot that one of us was shirtless. Can you guess which one of us it was? Clue: The reaction from other park-goers was not applause or gleeful ogling)
- The impossible-to-predict Constant Geyser, which erupted twice as we watched, then refused to so much as burp for anyone else.
The road had been following the Firehole River, which is very pretty and is, apparently, well-stocked with trout, despite (or possibly because of) the thousands and thousands of litres of super-heated water that are dumped into it every minute by the various spouts and geysers and springs. We'd seen many more buffalo since the first herd, as well as a stoat/weasel creature with a black-tipped tail, several deer, and two coyotes whose behaviour couldn't have been more different; the first was standing, serious and silent and still as a (non-volcanically-active) stone near a tree in a field; the other was frolicking and leaping about in a riverside meadow - we think it may have been chasing small critters in the long grass. Another of the day's critter highlights came to us from a small station-wagon; nine puppies and their mother, in transit from the Oregon coast to St Louis, Missouri. That's a LONG way. Between playing with the tiny dogs and protecting our delicious eggy burritos from the cheeky grey jays, lunch was rather eventful, although it was still incredibly relaxing to be sitting in the sun, away from the conveyor-belt sight-seeing of the park road.
* = Most of the geysers co-operate with human endeavor to the extent that they erupt on a reasonably predicatable schedule. There are exceptions; some follow no discernible pattern whatsoever. Those which do adhere to schedule are flagged by Park Rangers as being expected to erupt within a certain window, the duration of which varies from minutes to hours to days.
** = This was the first geothermal entity that really smelled like Rotorua. We got a wee bit nostalgic. My notes say "Satan's Anus"
Yellowstone in a Day
Short Version:
We visit Yellowstone National Park.
Long Version:
Yellowstone Day dawned cold. Really cold. It was the cold that woke us, and kept us awake despite all efforts to the contrary. When we eventually succumbed to bladder imperative and exited the Reaper we found a frozen white riverscape. Delicate traceries of icy leaves adorned frosted branches on plants sprouting from frost-rimed ground. The Reaper was whiter than it had been for a long time; patterned ice covered windows and side panels and doors and mirrors alike. Too cold to break our fast there - we'd tried, but the water bottles were iced shut - so we packed up camp. Fingers froze despite more than one pair of gloves; it's a tough call whether to leave them on and take longer, or take them off and get colder but for less time exposed. In the end we got away with all digits intact, and left the icy-cold Polecat Creek steaming in the even colder air as the sun threatened to rise over the eastern hills.
We'd done some maths in between animal encounters the previous night, and had figured out that our plans to hit not only Yellowstone, but also the Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, Yosemite, Arches, and various other National Parks meant that we were better off buying an Annual Pass for all USA National Parks and Monuments than paying at each one. So we forked out eighty bucks to the unfortunate-looking but very pleasant ranger and set off into the park. Straight into a low cloud. We were fearing the worst for our one day of sightseeing, but as we hauled higher and higher up the wall of the huge caldera that contains the bulk of Yellowstone Park the cloud grew thinner and finally vanished altogether. We crossed the Continental Divide (a feat we were to repeat several more times throughout the course of the day) and then dropped down into the crater proper, where we stopped to have a look at the Kepler Cascades; a series of waterfalls in a canyon, viewed from a platform high above, which was covered in ice and just a wee bit slippery.
There were a number of deer grazing at the roadside. We nearly hit a couple of them. We also nearly hit one or two of the cars which had stopped in the middle of the road to take photos of several cow elk which were meandering about. We'd seen plenty of elk in California*, so carried on around the bend... where we in turn stopped in the middle of the road, confronted by a bloody big bull elk with bloody big antlers**. All four hooves were planted firmly on the asphalt as he eyed us suspiciously. It felt like we sat there for much longer than it could really have been, and then he snorted, shook his enormous head, and wandered off into the trees. Then he started roaring. It was without a doubt one of the craziest noises either of us had ever heard. No-one else had so much as glimpsed the beast, which made us feel kind of special.
Not long afterwards, we rounded a bend and found ourselves braking hard to avoid plowing into the back end of a traffic jam. The Reaper's not-so-aerodynamic front end came in handy at this point, affording us views over the top of the cars in front of us to the cause of the blockage: a herd of buffalo, standing on the road. They were huge. The big bulls, particularly, seemed to dwarf the smaller vehicles***. There were several calves in the herd, and even they seemed to emanate a sense of power despite only being the size of a large motorcycle. The buffalo seemed completely unconcerned about the proximity of even the biggest RVs, moving either minimally and at the last moment or not at all. Eventually enough of them moved far enough aside to allow one lane of vehicles to start moving, and we were underway once more, towards Old Faithful and the geothermal hotbed it spearheads.
* = Dirty wapiti!
** = Not nubbins****
*** = Not that there were many smaller vehicles about - we're in Amerika after all
**** = All together now; (E) A nubbin, a nubbin, a nubbin, a nubbin, (A7) A nubbin, a nubbin, a nubbin, a nubbin! (REPEAT)
We visit Yellowstone National Park.
Long Version:
Yellowstone Day dawned cold. Really cold. It was the cold that woke us, and kept us awake despite all efforts to the contrary. When we eventually succumbed to bladder imperative and exited the Reaper we found a frozen white riverscape. Delicate traceries of icy leaves adorned frosted branches on plants sprouting from frost-rimed ground. The Reaper was whiter than it had been for a long time; patterned ice covered windows and side panels and doors and mirrors alike. Too cold to break our fast there - we'd tried, but the water bottles were iced shut - so we packed up camp. Fingers froze despite more than one pair of gloves; it's a tough call whether to leave them on and take longer, or take them off and get colder but for less time exposed. In the end we got away with all digits intact, and left the icy-cold Polecat Creek steaming in the even colder air as the sun threatened to rise over the eastern hills.
We'd done some maths in between animal encounters the previous night, and had figured out that our plans to hit not only Yellowstone, but also the Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, Yosemite, Arches, and various other National Parks meant that we were better off buying an Annual Pass for all USA National Parks and Monuments than paying at each one. So we forked out eighty bucks to the unfortunate-looking but very pleasant ranger and set off into the park. Straight into a low cloud. We were fearing the worst for our one day of sightseeing, but as we hauled higher and higher up the wall of the huge caldera that contains the bulk of Yellowstone Park the cloud grew thinner and finally vanished altogether. We crossed the Continental Divide (a feat we were to repeat several more times throughout the course of the day) and then dropped down into the crater proper, where we stopped to have a look at the Kepler Cascades; a series of waterfalls in a canyon, viewed from a platform high above, which was covered in ice and just a wee bit slippery.
There were a number of deer grazing at the roadside. We nearly hit a couple of them. We also nearly hit one or two of the cars which had stopped in the middle of the road to take photos of several cow elk which were meandering about. We'd seen plenty of elk in California*, so carried on around the bend... where we in turn stopped in the middle of the road, confronted by a bloody big bull elk with bloody big antlers**. All four hooves were planted firmly on the asphalt as he eyed us suspiciously. It felt like we sat there for much longer than it could really have been, and then he snorted, shook his enormous head, and wandered off into the trees. Then he started roaring. It was without a doubt one of the craziest noises either of us had ever heard. No-one else had so much as glimpsed the beast, which made us feel kind of special.
Not long afterwards, we rounded a bend and found ourselves braking hard to avoid plowing into the back end of a traffic jam. The Reaper's not-so-aerodynamic front end came in handy at this point, affording us views over the top of the cars in front of us to the cause of the blockage: a herd of buffalo, standing on the road. They were huge. The big bulls, particularly, seemed to dwarf the smaller vehicles***. There were several calves in the herd, and even they seemed to emanate a sense of power despite only being the size of a large motorcycle. The buffalo seemed completely unconcerned about the proximity of even the biggest RVs, moving either minimally and at the last moment or not at all. Eventually enough of them moved far enough aside to allow one lane of vehicles to start moving, and we were underway once more, towards Old Faithful and the geothermal hotbed it spearheads.
* = Dirty wapiti!
** = Not nubbins****
*** = Not that there were many smaller vehicles about - we're in Amerika after all
**** = All together now; (E) A nubbin, a nubbin, a nubbin, a nubbin, (A7) A nubbin, a nubbin, a nubbin, a nubbin! (REPEAT)
Monday, October 25, 2010
Moose on Slate Mountain
Short Version:
Another great ride with a moose encounter, happy burgers, near-misses in the National Park.
Long Version:
Our second Pocatello morning dawned... actually we have no idea how it dawned, because we were warm, and clean, and in a comfortable bed inside a house, all of which adds up to "Not hurrying to arise in the morning."
When finally we did haul ourselves out into the world, we found another perfect riding day waiting for us, which was a very good thing, given that a ride was exactly what we were planning.
We dropped Lisa's truck at West Fork and drove the Reaper to the Gibson Jack trailhead. From there, we rode up a steep hill, then up alongside Dry Creek to the top of its valley. There were a couple of great viewpoints along the way that showed what a difference a drop or four of water can make: Dry Creek was a strip of lush trees running up the center of a landscape of arid brown grasses. We'd been warned by an outbound runner that there were some ornery moose about, so we were on high alert right up to the point where we relaxed, which was just before we encountered the moose and her calf. Luckily, they were no more keen to make our acquaintance than we were theirs, although we would have liked to ogle them for longer before they hightailed off into the woods. Especially given that their departure meant we had to ride up a really steep hill.
Once up that, though, it was several descending traverses with occasional short climbs, and then the main descent, which saw us drop down through a pretty valley, swinging from side to side through a series of sweeping corners, popping us out on the West Fork trail, ten minutes of flying downhill from the trailhead.
Reaper collection was followed by burgers for lunch: happy elk mixed with happy goose. Apparently goose, happy or otherwise, is not a particularly pattie-friendly meat, so they cut it with elk to make it stick better. Whatever the science, it was delicious.
And then we hit the road, northbound, through Idaho Falls and into Wyoming, where we drove in the dark through a National Park, narrowly avoiding cleaning out a coyote, a deer, and a herd of elk along the way despite our slow speed. Eventually we made it to Polecat Creek, where we set up camp with the smell of bear in our noses and fell asleep quickly as the stars twinkled overhead. Probably.
Another great ride with a moose encounter, happy burgers, near-misses in the National Park.
Long Version:
Our second Pocatello morning dawned... actually we have no idea how it dawned, because we were warm, and clean, and in a comfortable bed inside a house, all of which adds up to "Not hurrying to arise in the morning."
When finally we did haul ourselves out into the world, we found another perfect riding day waiting for us, which was a very good thing, given that a ride was exactly what we were planning.
We dropped Lisa's truck at West Fork and drove the Reaper to the Gibson Jack trailhead. From there, we rode up a steep hill, then up alongside Dry Creek to the top of its valley. There were a couple of great viewpoints along the way that showed what a difference a drop or four of water can make: Dry Creek was a strip of lush trees running up the center of a landscape of arid brown grasses. We'd been warned by an outbound runner that there were some ornery moose about, so we were on high alert right up to the point where we relaxed, which was just before we encountered the moose and her calf. Luckily, they were no more keen to make our acquaintance than we were theirs, although we would have liked to ogle them for longer before they hightailed off into the woods. Especially given that their departure meant we had to ride up a really steep hill.
Once up that, though, it was several descending traverses with occasional short climbs, and then the main descent, which saw us drop down through a pretty valley, swinging from side to side through a series of sweeping corners, popping us out on the West Fork trail, ten minutes of flying downhill from the trailhead.
Reaper collection was followed by burgers for lunch: happy elk mixed with happy goose. Apparently goose, happy or otherwise, is not a particularly pattie-friendly meat, so they cut it with elk to make it stick better. Whatever the science, it was delicious.
And then we hit the road, northbound, through Idaho Falls and into Wyoming, where we drove in the dark through a National Park, narrowly avoiding cleaning out a coyote, a deer, and a herd of elk along the way despite our slow speed. Eventually we made it to Polecat Creek, where we set up camp with the smell of bear in our noses and fell asleep quickly as the stars twinkled overhead. Probably.
Wing Barrels and a Trench run
Short Version:
A chance meeting leads to clean and fed and comfy, two good rides, two rounds of disc golf, some interesting informations
Long Version:
Our wee stream was in shadow when we awoke, so we blasted on down the road to the Cherry Springs Picnic Area for breakfast. We were nearly done when we met some dogs who were rather pleased to be on their way out for a walk, and then we met their owner, Lisa, who gave us invaluable ride advice* and stopped to chat for longer than Tulip and Sonny would have liked. Eventually the hounds managed to drag Lisa away, and we set off up the road to the West Fork trailhead. We were about to get on the bikes when Lisa appeared, and invited us to stay the night and/or join her and her accomplices for a rock-climbing session. We were keen, and agreed to catch up post-ride.
The uphill was rather pleasant. We were riding in a valley full of fall color, on a trail in fine condition. The surrounding countryside was very dry; the hills were the same color as those of Waiheke or the Port Hills late in summer. We climbed, we consulted maps, we ate nutritionally-sound foods, and then, after a hundred-or-so minutes, we started down the chute.
It was great; twisting and turning, and always descending, dry and hard-packed, and fast as fast can be. For the first time in a while we were kicking up rooster-tails of dust, and were riding well-spaced, which meant that by the time I arrived Nene had already discovered that the people in the bushes were archaeologists surveying a site which had turned up a bunch of artefacts, including some made of obsidian, probably brought thither from Yellowstone National Park, several hundred miles to the north. We chatted to them for a while, then blasted down the rest of the trail, and a half-mile or so of paved road, back to the Reaper. Another picnic at Cherry Springs yielded vast amounts of interesting informations:
- Wing Barrels: The theory is that any hunter who has been out harvesting grouse places one wing from each bird harvested into the wing barrel. The relevant authorities then periodically empty the barrel, tallying the number, age and sex of the grouse harvested in the area
- Trapping season: The marten we rescued from the toilet near Revelstoke, BC was very cute. In Idaho, they set traps for them, and then make mittens and other garments out of their fur. Scoundrels. They also trap otters, which is a long way beyond the pale. Interestingly, marten traps are required to be at least two feet above the ground, to reduce the chances of entrapping females. No information as to whether the martenwomenfolks are safe because they can't jump, or whether they're just too lazy to do so.
Delicious foods and interesting informations ingested we set off into town, to the City Creek trail network, where we rode another two hours or so on more well-designed and well-built trails. The uphill was gentle, following a creek up its gully, criss-crossing it regularly on a series of bridges. The descent back to the carpark included some nice traversing, a half-pipe section similar to the Anaconda trail on Godley Head near Otautahi**, and one straight and narrow flying downhill through tall grasses. The effect was similar to a big-screen, surround-sound viewing of the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars where Blue, Gold and Red Squadron's X- and Y-Fighters fly down the trench on the side of the Death Star to the Achilles' Heel maintenance portal where they deposit their ordnance. Great stuff.
We ran into Lisa again in the parking lot, setting out for her evening ride as we set off to the nearby disc golf course, which was packed! The course was a short 9-hole, and both of us played better than our adopted handicaps demanded. We got worse the second time around though. It was interesting to note that well more than half of those playing were women, in stark contrast to disc golf course patronage we've observed in NZ and BC.
And then we took Lisa up on her offer: stealing her daughter's room for the night, using a bunch of hot water, and eating lots of delicious foods. Good beer, interesting people, great conversation, good sleep (for one of us).
* = Includng the fact that the trailhead was just up the road, saving us a drive of twenty miles or so into and back out of town
** = Christchurch, NZ
A chance meeting leads to clean and fed and comfy, two good rides, two rounds of disc golf, some interesting informations
Long Version:
Our wee stream was in shadow when we awoke, so we blasted on down the road to the Cherry Springs Picnic Area for breakfast. We were nearly done when we met some dogs who were rather pleased to be on their way out for a walk, and then we met their owner, Lisa, who gave us invaluable ride advice* and stopped to chat for longer than Tulip and Sonny would have liked. Eventually the hounds managed to drag Lisa away, and we set off up the road to the West Fork trailhead. We were about to get on the bikes when Lisa appeared, and invited us to stay the night and/or join her and her accomplices for a rock-climbing session. We were keen, and agreed to catch up post-ride.
The uphill was rather pleasant. We were riding in a valley full of fall color, on a trail in fine condition. The surrounding countryside was very dry; the hills were the same color as those of Waiheke or the Port Hills late in summer. We climbed, we consulted maps, we ate nutritionally-sound foods, and then, after a hundred-or-so minutes, we started down the chute.
It was great; twisting and turning, and always descending, dry and hard-packed, and fast as fast can be. For the first time in a while we were kicking up rooster-tails of dust, and were riding well-spaced, which meant that by the time I arrived Nene had already discovered that the people in the bushes were archaeologists surveying a site which had turned up a bunch of artefacts, including some made of obsidian, probably brought thither from Yellowstone National Park, several hundred miles to the north. We chatted to them for a while, then blasted down the rest of the trail, and a half-mile or so of paved road, back to the Reaper. Another picnic at Cherry Springs yielded vast amounts of interesting informations:
- Wing Barrels: The theory is that any hunter who has been out harvesting grouse places one wing from each bird harvested into the wing barrel. The relevant authorities then periodically empty the barrel, tallying the number, age and sex of the grouse harvested in the area
- Trapping season: The marten we rescued from the toilet near Revelstoke, BC was very cute. In Idaho, they set traps for them, and then make mittens and other garments out of their fur. Scoundrels. They also trap otters, which is a long way beyond the pale. Interestingly, marten traps are required to be at least two feet above the ground, to reduce the chances of entrapping females. No information as to whether the martenwomenfolks are safe because they can't jump, or whether they're just too lazy to do so.
Delicious foods and interesting informations ingested we set off into town, to the City Creek trail network, where we rode another two hours or so on more well-designed and well-built trails. The uphill was gentle, following a creek up its gully, criss-crossing it regularly on a series of bridges. The descent back to the carpark included some nice traversing, a half-pipe section similar to the Anaconda trail on Godley Head near Otautahi**, and one straight and narrow flying downhill through tall grasses. The effect was similar to a big-screen, surround-sound viewing of the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars where Blue, Gold and Red Squadron's X- and Y-Fighters fly down the trench on the side of the Death Star to the Achilles' Heel maintenance portal where they deposit their ordnance. Great stuff.
We ran into Lisa again in the parking lot, setting out for her evening ride as we set off to the nearby disc golf course, which was packed! The course was a short 9-hole, and both of us played better than our adopted handicaps demanded. We got worse the second time around though. It was interesting to note that well more than half of those playing were women, in stark contrast to disc golf course patronage we've observed in NZ and BC.
And then we took Lisa up on her offer: stealing her daughter's room for the night, using a bunch of hot water, and eating lots of delicious foods. Good beer, interesting people, great conversation, good sleep (for one of us).
* = Includng the fact that the trailhead was just up the road, saving us a drive of twenty miles or so into and back out of town
** = Christchurch, NZ
Bad Driving at Nampa, Noisy Creatures
Canada's CBC radio is great. Amerika has lots of radio stations too.
One of the few interesting things we've heard on NPR - the Amerikan Public Radio Network - was about the Wormfest in Banner Elk, North Carolina. They hold worm races, and then determine the snowfall forecast for the coming winter by assessing how wide the copper band on the body of the winning worm is.
Into Idaho, and the Rest Areas started to bear Rattlesnake Warning signs. We passed a town where billboards promised that workers' hospital bills would be paid by the uranium mining company they worked for, which we thought was rather nice of them, and then we started what was to be a series of crossings and re-crossings of the Snake River. We'd passed 1000km since leaving Vancouver somewhere near North Powder, Oregon, and then hit 23,000km in the Reaper just before Nampa, Idaho, which is where the church bus full of church people pulled an incredibly rancid maneuvre whilst attempting to enter the Interstate, causing us to take some serious - and seriously scary - church bus avoidance action. We passed industrial ruins, and many, many trucks; some with "Oversize" signs attached carrying enormous wind turbine blades; others carrying other trucks. One was even carrying a tow-truck. We passed Massacre Rocks, and eventually stopped at a Rest Area near Coldwater, where we saw an old man wearing a one-piece jumpsuit made from what looked very much like modern car seat fabric. And then we hit Pocatello, Idaho, stole some internet access from a tyre company, and then headed out of town to a patch of National Forest, where we camped for the night next to a wee stream, where small creatures frolicked about joyously, and noisily, all bloody night. Grrrr.
One of the few interesting things we've heard on NPR - the Amerikan Public Radio Network - was about the Wormfest in Banner Elk, North Carolina. They hold worm races, and then determine the snowfall forecast for the coming winter by assessing how wide the copper band on the body of the winning worm is.
Into Idaho, and the Rest Areas started to bear Rattlesnake Warning signs. We passed a town where billboards promised that workers' hospital bills would be paid by the uranium mining company they worked for, which we thought was rather nice of them, and then we started what was to be a series of crossings and re-crossings of the Snake River. We'd passed 1000km since leaving Vancouver somewhere near North Powder, Oregon, and then hit 23,000km in the Reaper just before Nampa, Idaho, which is where the church bus full of church people pulled an incredibly rancid maneuvre whilst attempting to enter the Interstate, causing us to take some serious - and seriously scary - church bus avoidance action. We passed industrial ruins, and many, many trucks; some with "Oversize" signs attached carrying enormous wind turbine blades; others carrying other trucks. One was even carrying a tow-truck. We passed Massacre Rocks, and eventually stopped at a Rest Area near Coldwater, where we saw an old man wearing a one-piece jumpsuit made from what looked very much like modern car seat fabric. And then we hit Pocatello, Idaho, stole some internet access from a tyre company, and then headed out of town to a patch of National Forest, where we camped for the night next to a wee stream, where small creatures frolicked about joyously, and noisily, all bloody night. Grrrr.
A Cold Day in Hell
Short Version:
A long ride. Coldness. No pets, no dyes, no removal of wetsuits.
Long Version:
The Red Devil trail from the Sand Creek trailhead was really nice to ride, despite the damage caused by motorcycles. It had nice feel and sections with great flow, and an hour on a trail like that is about as good a warm-up for a major mission as you can ask for.
The Devil's Gulch trail also had motorcycle damage, but was pretty excellent nonetheless. There was some envy when we met a guy riding the trail the other way, though - we'd been riding uphill for what felt like hours! By the time we reached the steep and nasty climb out of the gulch proper, we were knackered. Especially me. Actually, Nene was still fresh as a bloody daisy, and blitzed the climb quickly and without apparent effort. Grrrr. At the top of the grunt we turned onto Mission Ridge, and began the ascend a little/descend a lot of a downhill-trending ridge ride. The trail was incredibly dry, but was a lot of fun, and it was with definite sadness that we reached the end of the trail - and not just because we had to ride up and over the Red Devil hill again to get back to the Reaper, food, and warmth. Ride over it we did, though, with fifty minutes of climb earning us ten minutes of down, for a grand ride total of six hours on the bikes; the perfect way to ease ourselves back into riding after a week of hot-tub soaks and over-indulgence in delicious foods and alcomaholic beverages!
We were cold and tired, and especially cold, so it was early to bed with umpteen layers on. We shivered our way through delicious Indian curry on mashed spuds before Friday night motorcyclists drove their trucks past us and up to the trail for some riding and yee-hawing, and then we slept as best we could in that kind of cold, waking to find ice on the Reaper, and the plants, and the puddles. It was really cold.
We scraped the ice off the windscreen and set off. Junkyard guy was feeding his animals; we counted twelve dogs and fifteen cats, and there were more of each, which we would have counted properly if not distracted by the very cute dog walking around on its two front legs, twisted rear legs held high over its head.
We'd been too cold in the trailhead valley to eat delicious foods or make coffee, so we found a picnic spot in the sun at a town called Monitor. It was lovely and sunny, but the wind had a distinct chill to it. We noticed that there seemed to be less Amerikan flags around than in most other similar-sized Amerikan towns, and figured that we'd stumbled on a hotbed of Islamic Communism. This theory was confirmed when we visited the restrooms, where the doors were festooned with signage, warning us not only about the unlawfulness of bringing pets into the building, but also banning the use of dyes and the removal of wetsuits.
So we stayed grey, left our neoprene on, and went on our merry way, to a fruit and veg stand, where we purchased delicious foods, and then on into some seriously weird desert, where military convoys appeared and disappeared between rocky outcrops and wind farms with no apparent wind to spin their enormous turbines crowned the hilltops. The towns we visited became significantly Hispanic, as did the radio stations we were picking up, and then we were on the Interstate again, crossing the Columbia River and into Oregon, and then up into the Blue Mountains to camp in the woods. We'd seen a bunch of weird and wonderful roadkill, including coyotes, cows, deer, raccoons, and a very stinky skunk, and we'd seen a hugely fat woman driving an old Camaro Z28. All in all, a good day's driving... but we were still a LONG way from the State line, and even further away from our next destination: Pocatello, Idaho.
A long ride. Coldness. No pets, no dyes, no removal of wetsuits.
Long Version:
The Red Devil trail from the Sand Creek trailhead was really nice to ride, despite the damage caused by motorcycles. It had nice feel and sections with great flow, and an hour on a trail like that is about as good a warm-up for a major mission as you can ask for.
The Devil's Gulch trail also had motorcycle damage, but was pretty excellent nonetheless. There was some envy when we met a guy riding the trail the other way, though - we'd been riding uphill for what felt like hours! By the time we reached the steep and nasty climb out of the gulch proper, we were knackered. Especially me. Actually, Nene was still fresh as a bloody daisy, and blitzed the climb quickly and without apparent effort. Grrrr. At the top of the grunt we turned onto Mission Ridge, and began the ascend a little/descend a lot of a downhill-trending ridge ride. The trail was incredibly dry, but was a lot of fun, and it was with definite sadness that we reached the end of the trail - and not just because we had to ride up and over the Red Devil hill again to get back to the Reaper, food, and warmth. Ride over it we did, though, with fifty minutes of climb earning us ten minutes of down, for a grand ride total of six hours on the bikes; the perfect way to ease ourselves back into riding after a week of hot-tub soaks and over-indulgence in delicious foods and alcomaholic beverages!
We were cold and tired, and especially cold, so it was early to bed with umpteen layers on. We shivered our way through delicious Indian curry on mashed spuds before Friday night motorcyclists drove their trucks past us and up to the trail for some riding and yee-hawing, and then we slept as best we could in that kind of cold, waking to find ice on the Reaper, and the plants, and the puddles. It was really cold.
We scraped the ice off the windscreen and set off. Junkyard guy was feeding his animals; we counted twelve dogs and fifteen cats, and there were more of each, which we would have counted properly if not distracted by the very cute dog walking around on its two front legs, twisted rear legs held high over its head.
We'd been too cold in the trailhead valley to eat delicious foods or make coffee, so we found a picnic spot in the sun at a town called Monitor. It was lovely and sunny, but the wind had a distinct chill to it. We noticed that there seemed to be less Amerikan flags around than in most other similar-sized Amerikan towns, and figured that we'd stumbled on a hotbed of Islamic Communism. This theory was confirmed when we visited the restrooms, where the doors were festooned with signage, warning us not only about the unlawfulness of bringing pets into the building, but also banning the use of dyes and the removal of wetsuits.
So we stayed grey, left our neoprene on, and went on our merry way, to a fruit and veg stand, where we purchased delicious foods, and then on into some seriously weird desert, where military convoys appeared and disappeared between rocky outcrops and wind farms with no apparent wind to spin their enormous turbines crowned the hilltops. The towns we visited became significantly Hispanic, as did the radio stations we were picking up, and then we were on the Interstate again, crossing the Columbia River and into Oregon, and then up into the Blue Mountains to camp in the woods. We'd seen a bunch of weird and wonderful roadkill, including coyotes, cows, deer, raccoons, and a very stinky skunk, and we'd seen a hugely fat woman driving an old Camaro Z28. All in all, a good day's driving... but we were still a LONG way from the State line, and even further away from our next destination: Pocatello, Idaho.
Amerika, Again
Short Version:
One last headline, the Border Police say no to Nene, a long drive with an unpassing maneuvre, we end up in a junkyard
Long Version:
Running well behind schedule as usual, we barely had time to glance at the newspaper before we hit the road. Of course, this being Vancouver, the one headline we did note said "B.C. Leads National Study Into Vagina's Ecosystem."
At the border, we were asked to go inside the building, unlike the many Canadians and Amerikans who were being passed back and forth without undue delay. We'd been expecting to be accosted, though, as it had happened last time, so we weren't particularly concerned. Apparently, we should have been.
The Border Police gent who came to the counter was tall, stood with an almost military bearing, had a silver moustache, and was absolutely not going to let Janine into the country. Especially once he requested "The address where you will be staying and contactable tonight," and got: "Um... somewhere in the Wenatchee National Forest?"
Luckily for us, Officer Van Bever stepped in. He was, we found out, a dual-citizen Canadian-Amerikan with Scottish ancestry, and had served in the police in Canada prior to becoming a US Border Police officer. He asked lots of questions, like: "You have jobs to go back to in NZ, yes?" We answered all his questions honestly. ("Um... no.")
Basically, we answered every single question as wrongly as was possible, and by rights he should have blocked Nene's entry to the US. But, having recognised that no-one as naive as us could ever pose a threat to Amerika, he decided to let her in, and we rolled on down the highway towards Bellingham, past the rollerblader and the sled-dog transport truck who'd crossed the border much faster than we had, past the handpainted sign for the taco/guns/ammo shop and over the Nooksack River into Bellingham, where we finally bought another replacement camera.
We saw no Silvertip action in Everett, and both of us left Value Village empty-handed, which is both rare and disheartening. Not as disheartening, though, as passing a bus near the top of a fogged-in mountain pass and realising that without the lights of the bus ahead of us we were essentially blind. We unpassed the bus, and followed it to the end of the fog.
Finally, 400km and lots of hours after we'd left Vancouver, we found ourselves approaching Sand Creek, driving between huge piles of junk: cars, trailers, tyres, household appliances; you name it, there were piles of it on both sides of the road. Critters skittered about the place, half-seen in the glare of the Reaper's lights, and we were starting to wonder how we could have got so lost when all at once we were through, and back into forest, and then at the trailhead, where delicious foods were followed by some sleeping.
One last headline, the Border Police say no to Nene, a long drive with an unpassing maneuvre, we end up in a junkyard
Long Version:
Running well behind schedule as usual, we barely had time to glance at the newspaper before we hit the road. Of course, this being Vancouver, the one headline we did note said "B.C. Leads National Study Into Vagina's Ecosystem."
At the border, we were asked to go inside the building, unlike the many Canadians and Amerikans who were being passed back and forth without undue delay. We'd been expecting to be accosted, though, as it had happened last time, so we weren't particularly concerned. Apparently, we should have been.
The Border Police gent who came to the counter was tall, stood with an almost military bearing, had a silver moustache, and was absolutely not going to let Janine into the country. Especially once he requested "The address where you will be staying and contactable tonight," and got: "Um... somewhere in the Wenatchee National Forest?"
Luckily for us, Officer Van Bever stepped in. He was, we found out, a dual-citizen Canadian-Amerikan with Scottish ancestry, and had served in the police in Canada prior to becoming a US Border Police officer. He asked lots of questions, like: "You have jobs to go back to in NZ, yes?" We answered all his questions honestly. ("Um... no.")
Basically, we answered every single question as wrongly as was possible, and by rights he should have blocked Nene's entry to the US. But, having recognised that no-one as naive as us could ever pose a threat to Amerika, he decided to let her in, and we rolled on down the highway towards Bellingham, past the rollerblader and the sled-dog transport truck who'd crossed the border much faster than we had, past the handpainted sign for the taco/guns/ammo shop and over the Nooksack River into Bellingham, where we finally bought another replacement camera.
We saw no Silvertip action in Everett, and both of us left Value Village empty-handed, which is both rare and disheartening. Not as disheartening, though, as passing a bus near the top of a fogged-in mountain pass and realising that without the lights of the bus ahead of us we were essentially blind. We unpassed the bus, and followed it to the end of the fog.
Finally, 400km and lots of hours after we'd left Vancouver, we found ourselves approaching Sand Creek, driving between huge piles of junk: cars, trailers, tyres, household appliances; you name it, there were piles of it on both sides of the road. Critters skittered about the place, half-seen in the glare of the Reaper's lights, and we were starting to wonder how we could have got so lost when all at once we were through, and back into forest, and then at the trailhead, where delicious foods were followed by some sleeping.
A Wooden Leg, a Parasite, Silvertips
Short Version:
We eat delicious foods, grind up a mountain, and then leave.
Long Version:
Thanksgiving, be it Canadian or Amerikan, is essentially a harvest festival. Canadian Thanksgiving is a month earlier than its Amerikan counterpart. I assume this is because the cold comes earlier and with greater force here in the north*. We spent a lot of the weekend either shopping for, cooking, or eating delicious foods. In line with most of what we've heard about Vancouver - and especially North Vancouver - it rained most of the weekend, although we did get one day of glorious sunshine, on the Sunday, which one of spent running in the woods and swimming in the icy-cold pool, while the other more responsible one did a bunch of planning and preparation for the next leg of the trip, which should see us blasting around Utah and parts as-yet unknown. There were fifteen of us for Thanksgiving dinner, including one with a new take on a wooden leg and one who'd acquired some form of nasty parasite on a recent trip to Africa. The doctors in Uganda had given him some medication for it. One of the possible side-effects listed on the package was "trouble," but it was the Captain who provided the best examples of trouble on the night; carnaging several people with pumpkin cheesecake spillage and then setting fire to the decorative vines.
A day or two later we decided it really was high time we got high in Vancouver. So we found a spot for the Reaper near the top of Skyline Drive, and stopped in to see Monsieur Le Couteur, who was drying freshly-cut rocks in the sun atop the garbage cans. He'd spied a bear half an hour earlier, and was mildly concerned that it might take it into its head to rummage round in the garbage, thereby disturbing his carefully-ordered sample set. We ran away, westwards along the Powerlines trail, and snuck in to the Grouse Mountain wolf enclosure, where we saw no wolves, but some most excellent evidence of their presence: a child's shoe, lying forlornly in the no-man's-land inside the fence. No severed foot inside, and no bloodstains, but emotive nonetheless.
And then we found the start of the Grouse Grind trail, and went up. And up. And up. We were by far the fastest critters on the trail, and half an hour or so in we were getting ready to start in on the self-congratulatory stuff. Then we saw the sign. It said: "HALFWAY"
Oh.
Maybe we should slow down then.
The trail got steeper, which made slowing down easier, and then got steeper again. More and more of the trail was steps, none of which were regularly-sized or -spaced. Some of them were too high for Nene's little legs to manage easily, and she had to scramble. More and more of the people we encountered were sitting down, or leaning against trees. Many of them were sweaty.
Eventually we reached the top of Grouse Mountain and spent some time taking in the views out over Vancouver, with Georgia Strait and the Island to the west, and Amerika's Olympic Peninsula to the south. Then we walked back down, via the BCMC Trail, which we'd been told would drop us out at the top of Skyline, near the Reaper and the promise of a cold drink. Turns out, though, that the trail which connects near-direct to the top of Skyline is the OLD BCMC Trail. Not the one we took. The one we took dropped us back at the bottom of the Grind. So we then got to walk back up half a mountain to get to the trail that took us back down to where we wanted to be. Normal people probably would have wandered back along the flattish Powerlines instead. Actually, all evidence points to normal people not doing the Grouse Grind in the first place, with a second level of normalcy kicking in at the top, where 95% of climbers take the gondola back down. Scottish heritage says no to paying for unnecessaries, though, so we arrived back at the Le Couteurs' several hours after we'd left, thirsty and hungry and with really tired legs. Ginger beer and whole-wall maps and photgraphs were awesome, as was the electron microscope. The killer, though, was the enormous fossilised tooth, which is quite possibly the coolest item in the world.
Then we went home, had a hot tub, and watched some hockey** on the enormous television - first home game of the new season for the Vancouver team. We were keen to go along, but the cheapest seats cost $91 each, which kind of gives lie to their slogan: "We are all Canucks." We've decided to adopt a team from the third-tier competition instead, and have settled on the Everett Silvertips, because their mascot is cool***. So cool, in fact, that we decided to go there.
* = Apparently Vancouver is further north of the equator than Dunedin is south. This may or may not have some bearing on Dunedin being a shithole.
** = That's ice-hockey for those of you who believe that field hockey exists and/or is relevant and/or is watchable
*** = A silvertip is a grizzly bear.
We eat delicious foods, grind up a mountain, and then leave.
Long Version:
Thanksgiving, be it Canadian or Amerikan, is essentially a harvest festival. Canadian Thanksgiving is a month earlier than its Amerikan counterpart. I assume this is because the cold comes earlier and with greater force here in the north*. We spent a lot of the weekend either shopping for, cooking, or eating delicious foods. In line with most of what we've heard about Vancouver - and especially North Vancouver - it rained most of the weekend, although we did get one day of glorious sunshine, on the Sunday, which one of spent running in the woods and swimming in the icy-cold pool, while the other more responsible one did a bunch of planning and preparation for the next leg of the trip, which should see us blasting around Utah and parts as-yet unknown. There were fifteen of us for Thanksgiving dinner, including one with a new take on a wooden leg and one who'd acquired some form of nasty parasite on a recent trip to Africa. The doctors in Uganda had given him some medication for it. One of the possible side-effects listed on the package was "trouble," but it was the Captain who provided the best examples of trouble on the night; carnaging several people with pumpkin cheesecake spillage and then setting fire to the decorative vines.
A day or two later we decided it really was high time we got high in Vancouver. So we found a spot for the Reaper near the top of Skyline Drive, and stopped in to see Monsieur Le Couteur, who was drying freshly-cut rocks in the sun atop the garbage cans. He'd spied a bear half an hour earlier, and was mildly concerned that it might take it into its head to rummage round in the garbage, thereby disturbing his carefully-ordered sample set. We ran away, westwards along the Powerlines trail, and snuck in to the Grouse Mountain wolf enclosure, where we saw no wolves, but some most excellent evidence of their presence: a child's shoe, lying forlornly in the no-man's-land inside the fence. No severed foot inside, and no bloodstains, but emotive nonetheless.
And then we found the start of the Grouse Grind trail, and went up. And up. And up. We were by far the fastest critters on the trail, and half an hour or so in we were getting ready to start in on the self-congratulatory stuff. Then we saw the sign. It said: "HALFWAY"
Oh.
Maybe we should slow down then.
The trail got steeper, which made slowing down easier, and then got steeper again. More and more of the trail was steps, none of which were regularly-sized or -spaced. Some of them were too high for Nene's little legs to manage easily, and she had to scramble. More and more of the people we encountered were sitting down, or leaning against trees. Many of them were sweaty.
Eventually we reached the top of Grouse Mountain and spent some time taking in the views out over Vancouver, with Georgia Strait and the Island to the west, and Amerika's Olympic Peninsula to the south. Then we walked back down, via the BCMC Trail, which we'd been told would drop us out at the top of Skyline, near the Reaper and the promise of a cold drink. Turns out, though, that the trail which connects near-direct to the top of Skyline is the OLD BCMC Trail. Not the one we took. The one we took dropped us back at the bottom of the Grind. So we then got to walk back up half a mountain to get to the trail that took us back down to where we wanted to be. Normal people probably would have wandered back along the flattish Powerlines instead. Actually, all evidence points to normal people not doing the Grouse Grind in the first place, with a second level of normalcy kicking in at the top, where 95% of climbers take the gondola back down. Scottish heritage says no to paying for unnecessaries, though, so we arrived back at the Le Couteurs' several hours after we'd left, thirsty and hungry and with really tired legs. Ginger beer and whole-wall maps and photgraphs were awesome, as was the electron microscope. The killer, though, was the enormous fossilised tooth, which is quite possibly the coolest item in the world.
Then we went home, had a hot tub, and watched some hockey** on the enormous television - first home game of the new season for the Vancouver team. We were keen to go along, but the cheapest seats cost $91 each, which kind of gives lie to their slogan: "We are all Canucks." We've decided to adopt a team from the third-tier competition instead, and have settled on the Everett Silvertips, because their mascot is cool***. So cool, in fact, that we decided to go there.
* = Apparently Vancouver is further north of the equator than Dunedin is south. This may or may not have some bearing on Dunedin being a shithole.
** = That's ice-hockey for those of you who believe that field hockey exists and/or is relevant and/or is watchable
*** = A silvertip is a grizzly bear.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Short People Are Evil
Today's Vancouver Sun lamented Canada's failure to gain a seat on the UN Security Council, beaten out by Germany and Portugal. One of the staff writers referred to Portugal as an "afterthought nation of just 10 million," which I thought was a little rude. A spokesperson for policy thinktank Rideau Institute referred to the failure to win the seat as "Canada's Hindenburg moment," attributing the vote to "Canada's dismal performance on climate change, foreign aid, peacekeeping, asbestos, reproductive rights and the Middle East." All sounds very Amerika-lite to me, but the Hindenburg comment did bring back fond memories of this picture:
Speaking of pictures, this one from the Sun:
Speaking of pictures, this one from the Sun:
struck me not only as highlighting what a diverse bunch people are, but also as depicting with great impact the emotional state of this crowd in Copiapo, Chile, as they watched the first of the long-trapped miners emerge from the rescue pod. Originally it was the guy in the upper left corner who caught my eye, with his round face, high collar and happy-clapping upper-teeth-only joyousness, but the longer I looked the more the guy in the lower right stole the limelight. Not the orgasmic guy with the sombrero in the middle; the guy to his left / our right. The little one. The evil dwarf midget one, with the clasped hands and the hairless noggin. What strikes me most about him is that even he - long steeped in evil, sidekick of some horrendous mad scientist guy, hardened to deeds that would make even Josef Fritzl or Graeme Capill blanch - is showing some very raw, near-transcendental elation. Hard to reconcile that he's going to leave this happy crowd with a young girl in tow, take her back to the underground lair, and immobilise her with leather straps and metal buckles for his master to use as an unwilling plaything and/or experimental subject*.
Fact: Short people = evil.
Fact: Short people = evil.
* = Ralphus has details. And feets.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Standard Exterior Eyebrows
Short Version:
Public transit takes us to see bodies
Long Version:
A quick visit to the chiropractor saw several vertebrae and a rib clicked back into place,
Public transit takes us to see bodies
Long Version:
A quick visit to the chiropractor saw several vertebrae and a rib clicked back into place,
and then SeaBus and SkyTrain took us to ScienceWorld, which was very cool. Interactive stuff everywhere, combining fun with learning. Too much cool stuff to list, but highlights included the kalliroscope, the laser harp, and the oscillation visualisor. And the Body Worlds exhibition, which was the primary reason for our visit.
Brainchild of a Germanic doctor named Gunther, Body Worlds showcases human bodies which have been plastinated, which essentially means that the fluids are replaced with polymers, suffusing and preserving the skin, muscle, and fleshy bits. 
Networks of blood vessels are made visible by pumping plastics through them and then stripping away the surrounding tissue - items we saw which had been treated in this way included a lamb, and a rooster.
Most of the display items, though, were human.
Lots of people parts, from joints to thinly-sliced cross-sections of partial or entire bodies, and lots of whole people, each of whom had been wholly or partially flayed and/or cut up and posed and exposed in various ways to highlight different elements of the human body and its workings. Drawer man was a particular highlight,
as were figure-skating couple, yoga woman, and the slices of constipated woman and obese man. The human body really is quite amazing, as is the ability to preserve and display bodies in such an incredible way.
There were a few presentation idiosyncracies, including the fact that while the male bodies had skinless genitalia, the rudebits of the female bodies still had skin. The female bodies also had nipples attached, which looked vaguely incongruous perched atop skinless lumps of fatty tissue. The big highlight in this respect, though, was the eyebrows; Many of the flayed faces, skinless and raw, had standard exterior eyebrows attached. A big help in creating facial expressions, for sure, but slightly weird once you'd noticed their presence.
And then it was SkyTrain and SeaBus,
There were a few presentation idiosyncracies, including the fact that while the male bodies had skinless genitalia, the rudebits of the female bodies still had skin. The female bodies also had nipples attached, which looked vaguely incongruous perched atop skinless lumps of fatty tissue. The big highlight in this respect, though, was the eyebrows; Many of the flayed faces, skinless and raw, had standard exterior eyebrows attached. A big help in creating facial expressions, for sure, but slightly weird once you'd noticed their presence.
And then it was SkyTrain and SeaBus,
and Corn Nuts, and then bowls of wine with dinner, and a french fry fight which left me bleeding but unbowed.
A Pox on You
Short Version:
Nothing to do with us. A big book, a dinosaur, droppings, pox, a taxi, drag-racing
Long Version:
Vancouver has been a hotbed of interestingness for almost a week now, and a lot of what's been capturing my attention has revolved around monkeys and health, and sometimes both at once. Not all of it, though: A giant book at the Frankfurt Book Fair; A new dinosaur named Sarahsaurus; the tale of how my father dropped my sister on her head when she was a baby while scrambling to not drop a package of muffins. Great stuff.
Not as great as monkeypox, though, or Anti-Monkey Butt. The latter is a powder - now available in Original, Lady and Baby versions - designed to reduce or eliminate frictional skin discomfort. The former is essentially the monkey equivalent of smallpox, although it is believed to be more naturally occurring and probably originally confined to rodents, particularly squirrels. Like smallpox and cowpox, but unlike chickenpox, monkeypox is an orthopoxvirus, which is a pretty cool word. The current concern - or, more likely, the current scaremongering newspaper sales boost attempt - is that it appears to have begun to cross the species divide, infecting humans not only as a result of human-monkey or human-rodent contact, which has always been viable, but now also from human-human contact. This, we're told, has epidemiologists somewhat concerned, as apparently the eradication of smallpox outside laboratories and subsequent halt of vaccine production has left humanity vunerable to other poxviruses which successfully adapt to human-human transfer. Human monkeypox is believed to have a 1-10% fatality rate, although this is based on statistics from central and west Africa, so it's likely that this could be greatly reduced should it begin to affect people who have money (ie Amerikans) - indeed, in 2003 several Amerikans reportedly contracted monkeypox after a shipment of Gambian animals to Amerika, including a bunch of rodents (rope squirrels, tree squirrels, Gambian giant rats, brush-tailed porcupines, dormice, and striped mice to be exact) were imperfectly quarantined and then housed in proximity to other household pet critters. Leaving aside for the moment the question of who on earth would want a Gambian giant rat as a pet, it is believed that one of these horrid-sounding beasts, along with some dormice and a rope squirrel or two, were harboring monkeypox, which they duly passed on to other rodents in their vicinity, which in turn managed to pass the disease to their new humans. None of the humans died.
Also on the health front, but with less monkeys, new research claims a correlation between air pollution and breast cancer, which kind of sucks for all women (and morbidly obese men, I guess) who live in cities. Also in health news: prolonged exposeure to loud noise increases the risk of heart disease. So, it's a big commiserations to all lathe operators, construction workers, people who have lawns, rock musicians, and men with wives.
On a cheerier note, the Vancouver Sun's police affairs column, which is written by a working constable, this week described pulling over a taxi which was being driven erratically. The driver, it turned out, had been so absorbed in watching the action that was occurring in the back seat that he'd neglected to devote sufficient attention to driving the cab.
Also in the Vancouver Sun, a profile of one of Canada's first female drag-racing* drivers, Sylvia Braddick, who in the 1970s had a 1968 Dodge pickup truck which had been retrofitted with two 800hp Hemi engines. It had titanium pads on its rear end so that it would throw sparks when she did wheelstands, and they set it up so that nine-foot flames would jet from the headers of the alcohol-fuelled engines. Tres cool.
* = The kind where people drive automobiles really fast in a straight line, not the kind where men dressed as women compete to see who can run the fastest
Nothing to do with us. A big book, a dinosaur, droppings, pox, a taxi, drag-racing
Long Version:
Vancouver has been a hotbed of interestingness for almost a week now, and a lot of what's been capturing my attention has revolved around monkeys and health, and sometimes both at once. Not all of it, though: A giant book at the Frankfurt Book Fair; A new dinosaur named Sarahsaurus; the tale of how my father dropped my sister on her head when she was a baby while scrambling to not drop a package of muffins. Great stuff.
Not as great as monkeypox, though, or Anti-Monkey Butt. The latter is a powder - now available in Original, Lady and Baby versions - designed to reduce or eliminate frictional skin discomfort. The former is essentially the monkey equivalent of smallpox, although it is believed to be more naturally occurring and probably originally confined to rodents, particularly squirrels. Like smallpox and cowpox, but unlike chickenpox, monkeypox is an orthopoxvirus, which is a pretty cool word. The current concern - or, more likely, the current scaremongering newspaper sales boost attempt - is that it appears to have begun to cross the species divide, infecting humans not only as a result of human-monkey or human-rodent contact, which has always been viable, but now also from human-human contact. This, we're told, has epidemiologists somewhat concerned, as apparently the eradication of smallpox outside laboratories and subsequent halt of vaccine production has left humanity vunerable to other poxviruses which successfully adapt to human-human transfer. Human monkeypox is believed to have a 1-10% fatality rate, although this is based on statistics from central and west Africa, so it's likely that this could be greatly reduced should it begin to affect people who have money (ie Amerikans) - indeed, in 2003 several Amerikans reportedly contracted monkeypox after a shipment of Gambian animals to Amerika, including a bunch of rodents (rope squirrels, tree squirrels, Gambian giant rats, brush-tailed porcupines, dormice, and striped mice to be exact) were imperfectly quarantined and then housed in proximity to other household pet critters. Leaving aside for the moment the question of who on earth would want a Gambian giant rat as a pet, it is believed that one of these horrid-sounding beasts, along with some dormice and a rope squirrel or two, were harboring monkeypox, which they duly passed on to other rodents in their vicinity, which in turn managed to pass the disease to their new humans. None of the humans died.
Also on the health front, but with less monkeys, new research claims a correlation between air pollution and breast cancer, which kind of sucks for all women (and morbidly obese men, I guess) who live in cities. Also in health news: prolonged exposeure to loud noise increases the risk of heart disease. So, it's a big commiserations to all lathe operators, construction workers, people who have lawns, rock musicians, and men with wives.
On a cheerier note, the Vancouver Sun's police affairs column, which is written by a working constable, this week described pulling over a taxi which was being driven erratically. The driver, it turned out, had been so absorbed in watching the action that was occurring in the back seat that he'd neglected to devote sufficient attention to driving the cab.
Also in the Vancouver Sun, a profile of one of Canada's first female drag-racing* drivers, Sylvia Braddick, who in the 1970s had a 1968 Dodge pickup truck which had been retrofitted with two 800hp Hemi engines. It had titanium pads on its rear end so that it would throw sparks when she did wheelstands, and they set it up so that nine-foot flames would jet from the headers of the alcohol-fuelled engines. Tres cool.
* = The kind where people drive automobiles really fast in a straight line, not the kind where men dressed as women compete to see who can run the fastest
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Putting the Ass Back into Assistant Attorney General
In the United States of Amerika, each state has an Attorney General who is basically their top-dog prosecuting lawyer. Attorneys General are the ones who decide whether or not to prosecute in any given case, based on the evidence their enforcement minions have gathered and on what best suits the people of the State under that State's laws and ordinances. They are, essentially, the arbiters of the interpretation of State law, which is far more comprehensive than I'd realised; really, most legal and social stuff is conducted at State level, not Federal, as I'd expected. Attorneys General and their Assistants have a significant role to play in the way their society is shaped.
In Michigan, Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell has been suspended for aggressively stalking the openly-gay student-body president of the University of Michigan. Shirvell's activities came to light primarily through the blog he created, maintains, and frequently updates, which is dedicated to attacking the student. It's available to an invitation-only readership, but apparently it rants about the student's personal life, and those of his friends and family. Facebook activity is documented and commented upon, negatively. Photos of the student, snapped secretly by Shirvell, are posted, as is video footage of the student's house at night, again shot by Shirvell. The long blog posts have been, apparently charitably, described as rants, and are very much concerned with the student's sex life. Apparently Shirvell has himself been filmed, protesting outside the student's house with a placard, which I assume was probably extremely enlightening and informative.
Like having the leader of a Christian political party arrested for child porn, this is just too nuts, but at the same time all too believable.
In Michigan, Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell has been suspended for aggressively stalking the openly-gay student-body president of the University of Michigan. Shirvell's activities came to light primarily through the blog he created, maintains, and frequently updates, which is dedicated to attacking the student. It's available to an invitation-only readership, but apparently it rants about the student's personal life, and those of his friends and family. Facebook activity is documented and commented upon, negatively. Photos of the student, snapped secretly by Shirvell, are posted, as is video footage of the student's house at night, again shot by Shirvell. The long blog posts have been, apparently charitably, described as rants, and are very much concerned with the student's sex life. Apparently Shirvell has himself been filmed, protesting outside the student's house with a placard, which I assume was probably extremely enlightening and informative.
Like having the leader of a Christian political party arrested for child porn, this is just too nuts, but at the same time all too believable.
mārāšu izzib
Between the magic of radio and the glories of print media, I'm now much more cleverer than I was before. For instance, I now know that not only did the ancient Babylonians understand the way rabies works (the bite transfers semen into the wound, which then forms tiny puppies which are not conducive to either wound care or overall health and wellbeing), but that they also wrote poetry about it.
urruk birkīšu
aruh lasāmam
īṣ bubūtam
etnuš akālam
ina šinnīšu
e’il nīlšu
ašar iššuku
mārāšu
izzib
In your newfangled modern language, that would be:
Long-kneed,
Swift-running,
Short of victuals,
Lacking in food.
In his teeth
He carries his semen.
Wherever he has bitten
He leaves his offspring.
That's pretty cool. As is the fact that you can hear audio of this and other ancient Babylonian and Assyrian poetry, chants, religious tracts, and other important things, as read by scholars of Ancient Mesopotamia, at http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/mjw65/BAPLAR/Archive
urruk birkīšu
aruh lasāmam
īṣ bubūtam
etnuš akālam
ina šinnīšu
e’il nīlšu
ašar iššuku
mārāšu
izzib
In your newfangled modern language, that would be:
Long-kneed,
Swift-running,
Short of victuals,
Lacking in food.
In his teeth
He carries his semen.
Wherever he has bitten
He leaves his offspring.
That's pretty cool. As is the fact that you can hear audio of this and other ancient Babylonian and Assyrian poetry, chants, religious tracts, and other important things, as read by scholars of Ancient Mesopotamia, at http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/mjw65/BAPLAR/Archive
Stupide Français
Everything in Canada is labelled bilingually, in English and French. This, of course, is kind of irritating when one is a confirmed Francophobe. So I make a point of leaving on the shelf any product with the French side showing, because that'll learn 'em!
Despite all best intentions, though, we're learning some French words and phrases, purely through packaging osmosis. One of the words which comes up regularly is sans, meaning without. No Added Sugar on one side of the bottle is written as Sans Sucre on the other; Sans Agent de Conservation indicates the product has No Preservatives; Powerful odour and wetness protection becomes Protection Puissante Contre les Odeurs et l'humidite.
This morning I learned a new one from a tin of Black Beans*: Sans Nom, which means No Name. It's some supermarket chain's in-house brand which pretends not to be a brand, although the black-on-yellow packaging is certainly distinctive, and is carried across multiple product lines.
What really caught my eye, though, was the word Nom. Thanks to the glories of the Interwebs, this is now a universal indicator of deliciousness**. Only the French remain convinced it means otherwise, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Stupid French people***.
* = Haricots Noirs, in case you were wondering
** = nom nom nom nom nom
*** = I do like their President though.
Despite all best intentions, though, we're learning some French words and phrases, purely through packaging osmosis. One of the words which comes up regularly is sans, meaning without. No Added Sugar on one side of the bottle is written as Sans Sucre on the other; Sans Agent de Conservation indicates the product has No Preservatives; Powerful odour and wetness protection becomes Protection Puissante Contre les Odeurs et l'humidite.
This morning I learned a new one from a tin of Black Beans*: Sans Nom, which means No Name. It's some supermarket chain's in-house brand which pretends not to be a brand, although the black-on-yellow packaging is certainly distinctive, and is carried across multiple product lines.
What really caught my eye, though, was the word Nom. Thanks to the glories of the Interwebs, this is now a universal indicator of deliciousness**. Only the French remain convinced it means otherwise, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.
Stupid French people***.
* = Haricots Noirs, in case you were wondering
** = nom nom nom nom nom
*** = I do like their President though.
Colleccting Whale Snot With a Remote-Controlled Helicopter
We're back in Vancouver, which means we've been reading newspapers. They are, as usual, full of really strange stuff. The weirdness actually started early, though, with some wonderful reportage from CBC Radio 1 on the Twentieth First Annual Ig-Nobel awards, to which I listened while Nene purchased delicious foods late at night at the Salmon Arm Save-On-Foods.
For the uninitiated, the Ig-Nobels are presented by the folks at Improbable Research, mirror the format of the Nobels (ie prizes are presented in several categories, including Engineering, Physics, Biology, and Peace) and are, according to Nature magazine, "...arguably the highlight of the scientific calendar." According to the official website*, "The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people laugh, and then make them think," which I think is a pretty excellent thing to be honoring.
This year's winners were joined at the gala ceremony not only by past Ig-Nobel winners, but also a swag of Nobel laureates. The only dual winner, this year's Nobel laureate in Physics, Andre Geim (who won an Ig-Nobel in 2000 for using magnets to levitate a frog) was not present. Prizes this year included:
ENGINEERING PRIZE: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and Agnes Rocha-Gosselin of the Zoological Society of London, UK, and Diane Gendron of Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Baja California Sur, Mexico, for perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter.
Scarily, that makes a huge amount of sense to me. I'd never have thought of it myself though.
PHYSICS PRIZE: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, New Zealand, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.
I was amazed that this seemed to be a new concept to the Canadian broadcaster, as parts of Canada have been known to get sub-tropical on occasion. She even jokingly suggested that Canadians might start doing putting THEIR socks on the outside of their shoes this winter. Um... yes, they might. If it works (which, apparently, it does) then surely it's a low-cost solution to a serious issue which affects millions of Canadians and other icy-clime dwellers, some of whom have little moneys. I mentioned this award to an ex-Dunedin-dweller, who was aware of the research, and of recent reportage around the research, but who highlighted some issues with exo-socks as a long-term and/or commercially-viable solution to the issue (sock-wear, primarily), but I think this at the least warrants further investigation.
PEACE PRIZE: Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston of Keele University, UK, for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain.
Canada was recently found to be the swearingest country in the world**, so this was of particular interest. And apparently they're not just talking about a reduction perception of pain, but about the actual amount of pain signal received by the brain's ouch centre. Last year's Peace Prize went to the inventor of karaoke. I have no idea what to say about that.
MANAGEMENT PRIZE: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Italy, for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random.
I've worked for organisations who have been using this method for years.
BIOLOGY PRIZE: Libiao Zhang, Min Tan, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, and Shuyi Zhang of China, and Gareth Jones of the University of Bristol, UK, for scientifically documenting fellatio in fruit bats.
This award was accepted on behalf of the team by Gareth Jones. Apparently he filled his (strictly-enforced) one-minute acceptance time-slot with a fruitbat handpuppet re-enactment of what their research uncovered. Nuff said.
* = http://improbable.com/
** = Before you jump to any conclusions, this research was conducted before we arrived in the country
For the uninitiated, the Ig-Nobels are presented by the folks at Improbable Research, mirror the format of the Nobels (ie prizes are presented in several categories, including Engineering, Physics, Biology, and Peace) and are, according to Nature magazine, "...arguably the highlight of the scientific calendar." According to the official website*, "The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that make people laugh, and then make them think," which I think is a pretty excellent thing to be honoring.
This year's winners were joined at the gala ceremony not only by past Ig-Nobel winners, but also a swag of Nobel laureates. The only dual winner, this year's Nobel laureate in Physics, Andre Geim (who won an Ig-Nobel in 2000 for using magnets to levitate a frog) was not present. Prizes this year included:
ENGINEERING PRIZE: Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse and Agnes Rocha-Gosselin of the Zoological Society of London, UK, and Diane Gendron of Instituto Politecnico Nacional, Baja California Sur, Mexico, for perfecting a method to collect whale snot, using a remote-control helicopter.
Scarily, that makes a huge amount of sense to me. I'd never have thought of it myself though.
PHYSICS PRIZE: Lianne Parkin, Sheila Williams, and Patricia Priest of the University of Otago, New Zealand, for demonstrating that, on icy footpaths in wintertime, people slip and fall less often if they wear socks on the outside of their shoes.
I was amazed that this seemed to be a new concept to the Canadian broadcaster, as parts of Canada have been known to get sub-tropical on occasion. She even jokingly suggested that Canadians might start doing putting THEIR socks on the outside of their shoes this winter. Um... yes, they might. If it works (which, apparently, it does) then surely it's a low-cost solution to a serious issue which affects millions of Canadians and other icy-clime dwellers, some of whom have little moneys. I mentioned this award to an ex-Dunedin-dweller, who was aware of the research, and of recent reportage around the research, but who highlighted some issues with exo-socks as a long-term and/or commercially-viable solution to the issue (sock-wear, primarily), but I think this at the least warrants further investigation.
PEACE PRIZE: Richard Stephens, John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston of Keele University, UK, for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain.
Canada was recently found to be the swearingest country in the world**, so this was of particular interest. And apparently they're not just talking about a reduction perception of pain, but about the actual amount of pain signal received by the brain's ouch centre. Last year's Peace Prize went to the inventor of karaoke. I have no idea what to say about that.
MANAGEMENT PRIZE: Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Italy, for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random.
I've worked for organisations who have been using this method for years.
BIOLOGY PRIZE: Libiao Zhang, Min Tan, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, and Shuyi Zhang of China, and Gareth Jones of the University of Bristol, UK, for scientifically documenting fellatio in fruit bats.
This award was accepted on behalf of the team by Gareth Jones. Apparently he filled his (strictly-enforced) one-minute acceptance time-slot with a fruitbat handpuppet re-enactment of what their research uncovered. Nuff said.
* = http://improbable.com/
** = Before you jump to any conclusions, this research was conducted before we arrived in the country
Friday, October 8, 2010
Mmmmmmmmmm... Cherries
Short Version:
We stay with friends, learn about jealous fruits and other things, and eat delicious foods
Long Version:
~~~~ wavy lines indicating travelling back in time ~~~~
When we reached the vehicles at the bottom of the rain-soaked hike down the mountain from the Conrad Kain hut in the Bugaboos, cheery orchardists* Dave and Laura (Hi Dave and Laura!) told us to come and stay if we were in their part of the world at any point.
~~~~ wavy lines indicating a return to the present day ~~~~
Salmon Arm is not far from the Okanagan region where they live, so we dropped them a line and asked them if the hot water offer still stood.
And then, when they said yes, we did a little dance, and sang a little song, and spent the drive thither dreaming of clean, and warm, and not-so-stinky.
In retrospect, I'm not entirely sure what I'd been expecting from the house amidst the family-owned-and-operated cheery orchard; maybe a wee hand-built cottage, with a rickety tractor and a collapsible, portable stall for use at the various Farmer's Markets in the region.
What we found was rather different; a big but bigger-than-it-looked beautiful modern home, full of both art and life and with chains for drains, incredible lake views, and seriously impressive design smarts; a significant expanse of cheery trees on the home block, with other leasehold blocks both near- and not-so-nearby; and a really impressive production environment, through which we were fortunate enough to be guided by both Dave and his Production Manager, Shaun. If we'd arrived a few weeks earlier we'd certainly not have gotten near either of them, as harvest was in full swing; this season they packed and distributed 1400 tons of cherries to markets all over the world, and if the ones we tasted were anything to go by it's easy to see why they're able to command the premium market to the extent that they do. Dave's knowledge of the operation was both deep and wide, and hugely impressive; the layer-upon-layer of impactful elements and their sometimes-surprising interconnectedness were really quite amazing. As were the apples they grow as a hobby - we were quite astounded by their deliciousness.
We spent two nights there in the end, eating a lot of delicious Happy Meats and learning a lot about cherry and apple production; about the Okanagan region; about Canadian life and politics and history. We also learned two new Scrabble variants, drank cherry port, and listened to coyotes airing their opinions outside in the night-time. Apparently deer occasionally get trapped in the orchard, the way a bird will sometimes blinder into a room and not be able to find their way out again. Eventually the coyotes run them down and ingest them vigorously. At harvest time they also eat windfall cherries.
Mmmmmm, cherries.
* = Each time I write or type the word cherry, there's a good chance it's going to come out cheery. I've learned not to fight it.
We stay with friends, learn about jealous fruits and other things, and eat delicious foods
Long Version:
~~~~ wavy lines indicating travelling back in time ~~~~
When we reached the vehicles at the bottom of the rain-soaked hike down the mountain from the Conrad Kain hut in the Bugaboos, cheery orchardists* Dave and Laura (Hi Dave and Laura!) told us to come and stay if we were in their part of the world at any point.
~~~~ wavy lines indicating a return to the present day ~~~~
Salmon Arm is not far from the Okanagan region where they live, so we dropped them a line and asked them if the hot water offer still stood.
And then, when they said yes, we did a little dance, and sang a little song, and spent the drive thither dreaming of clean, and warm, and not-so-stinky.
In retrospect, I'm not entirely sure what I'd been expecting from the house amidst the family-owned-and-operated cheery orchard; maybe a wee hand-built cottage, with a rickety tractor and a collapsible, portable stall for use at the various Farmer's Markets in the region.
What we found was rather different; a big but bigger-than-it-looked beautiful modern home, full of both art and life and with chains for drains, incredible lake views, and seriously impressive design smarts; a significant expanse of cheery trees on the home block, with other leasehold blocks both near- and not-so-nearby; and a really impressive production environment, through which we were fortunate enough to be guided by both Dave and his Production Manager, Shaun. If we'd arrived a few weeks earlier we'd certainly not have gotten near either of them, as harvest was in full swing; this season they packed and distributed 1400 tons of cherries to markets all over the world, and if the ones we tasted were anything to go by it's easy to see why they're able to command the premium market to the extent that they do. Dave's knowledge of the operation was both deep and wide, and hugely impressive; the layer-upon-layer of impactful elements and their sometimes-surprising interconnectedness were really quite amazing. As were the apples they grow as a hobby - we were quite astounded by their deliciousness.
We spent two nights there in the end, eating a lot of delicious Happy Meats and learning a lot about cherry and apple production; about the Okanagan region; about Canadian life and politics and history. We also learned two new Scrabble variants, drank cherry port, and listened to coyotes airing their opinions outside in the night-time. Apparently deer occasionally get trapped in the orchard, the way a bird will sometimes blinder into a room and not be able to find their way out again. Eventually the coyotes run them down and ingest them vigorously. At harvest time they also eat windfall cherries.
Mmmmmm, cherries.
* = Each time I write or type the word cherry, there's a good chance it's going to come out cheery. I've learned not to fight it.
Jalapeno-Flavored Happy Meat Salami
Short Version:
A tantrum on the Tantrum, weird stuff on the Trans-Canada, Rubberhead at Salmon Arm, Happy Meat incomprehension
Long Version:
When we drove in to Revelstoke the first time around we saw people on mountain-bikes riding out along the highway south of town. Turns out they were heading to the local XC Ski area which is, when there's no snow, the area's main offroad bike trail network. We decided to go ride there.
We parked at the bottom of the Tantrum trail and rode up the road to the midway parking area, then rode into the woods and up trails to the top trailhead. Soon after setting off up the Black Forest trail we were on bear alert, as we heard some big noises, but there was something not quite normal about them, and we found out why pretty quickly when a posse of teenage girls came running down the path towards us, ski poles in hands, chattering away merrily. Soon afterwards we ran into another group of pole-equipped runners, this time younger and mixed-gender. We accosted the middle-aged man who was running sweep for the group, and he confirmed our suspicions of XC ski training before recommending a trail called Ridge Walk and disappearing off into the trees after his pre-teen wards.
Ridge Walk turned out to be steep enough to justify the second half of its name, and pretty much no fun at all, but it led to a trail called TNT, which was probably the pick of the day for flow, although that's not saying a heck of a lot. TNT dropped us onto Root Canal, which had a fun top half and a difficult lower section, and popped us out at the top of the Tantrum trail. We soon found out how it got its name; riding it was absolutely infuriating! Every time you got some flow going, an unrideably-steep upwards section appeared, and pretty soon both of us were cursing. Bits of it were fun, but for the most part it was just hard work, and for not enough reward. Kind of like the whole trail network.
We were pretty pleased to get back to the Reaper and get on the road, although that was at least partly because that meant we got to eat foods. We saw a bunch of slightly weird stuff on and near the roads: a train passing through three tunnels at once, like a needle pulling thread through flesh; a truck carrying on its load deck a pair of tyres so large that "Oversize Load" signage and a pilot vehicle were warranted; a billboard depicting a smiling, happy anthropomorphised pig, dancing around with an Indian feather headdress on; a blue spruce farm, with huge fields of trees that looked really unusual seen en masse; a town called Grindrod.
Salmon Arm was almost normal by comparison, and provided the best info centre staffer of the trip so far, by far. She had the answers to all of our questions, and a small moustache. The riding at Salmon Arm was great too, with some incredibly fast and flowing descents that were so good we rode back up and did the downhill all over again. The only downside was the group of shuttling riders who drove past us several times as we rode laboriously up the hill; not an issue in and of itself, but the knowledge that every time they passed us indicated that they'd been and done another complete downhill run was galling. Not galling enough to spoil the ride for us, though, and Rubberhead Mountain earns a definite "must revisit" rating on the chart of places we've ridden; a surprising amount of really good riding, especially given that a year ago there was only one trail there.
Then we hit Vernon, and the Happy Meat butcher shop, where the nice lady totally didn't get what I was on about, to the point where Nene had to play translator. "Are your Mennonite sausages made with fresh Mennonites?" got a look of complete incomprehension, and even the simple "We're here to get some Happy Meat; meat from critters which had nice lives, and deaths which weren't horrible, insofar as death can be not horrible," was combined in her head with my appearance to somehow add up to Islam. In the end I demanded a jalapeno-flavored Happy Meat salami, and went and sat in the van.
A tantrum on the Tantrum, weird stuff on the Trans-Canada, Rubberhead at Salmon Arm, Happy Meat incomprehension
Long Version:
When we drove in to Revelstoke the first time around we saw people on mountain-bikes riding out along the highway south of town. Turns out they were heading to the local XC Ski area which is, when there's no snow, the area's main offroad bike trail network. We decided to go ride there.
We parked at the bottom of the Tantrum trail and rode up the road to the midway parking area, then rode into the woods and up trails to the top trailhead. Soon after setting off up the Black Forest trail we were on bear alert, as we heard some big noises, but there was something not quite normal about them, and we found out why pretty quickly when a posse of teenage girls came running down the path towards us, ski poles in hands, chattering away merrily. Soon afterwards we ran into another group of pole-equipped runners, this time younger and mixed-gender. We accosted the middle-aged man who was running sweep for the group, and he confirmed our suspicions of XC ski training before recommending a trail called Ridge Walk and disappearing off into the trees after his pre-teen wards.
Ridge Walk turned out to be steep enough to justify the second half of its name, and pretty much no fun at all, but it led to a trail called TNT, which was probably the pick of the day for flow, although that's not saying a heck of a lot. TNT dropped us onto Root Canal, which had a fun top half and a difficult lower section, and popped us out at the top of the Tantrum trail. We soon found out how it got its name; riding it was absolutely infuriating! Every time you got some flow going, an unrideably-steep upwards section appeared, and pretty soon both of us were cursing. Bits of it were fun, but for the most part it was just hard work, and for not enough reward. Kind of like the whole trail network.
We were pretty pleased to get back to the Reaper and get on the road, although that was at least partly because that meant we got to eat foods. We saw a bunch of slightly weird stuff on and near the roads: a train passing through three tunnels at once, like a needle pulling thread through flesh; a truck carrying on its load deck a pair of tyres so large that "Oversize Load" signage and a pilot vehicle were warranted; a billboard depicting a smiling, happy anthropomorphised pig, dancing around with an Indian feather headdress on; a blue spruce farm, with huge fields of trees that looked really unusual seen en masse; a town called Grindrod.
Salmon Arm was almost normal by comparison, and provided the best info centre staffer of the trip so far, by far. She had the answers to all of our questions, and a small moustache. The riding at Salmon Arm was great too, with some incredibly fast and flowing descents that were so good we rode back up and did the downhill all over again. The only downside was the group of shuttling riders who drove past us several times as we rode laboriously up the hill; not an issue in and of itself, but the knowledge that every time they passed us indicated that they'd been and done another complete downhill run was galling. Not galling enough to spoil the ride for us, though, and Rubberhead Mountain earns a definite "must revisit" rating on the chart of places we've ridden; a surprising amount of really good riding, especially given that a year ago there was only one trail there.
Then we hit Vernon, and the Happy Meat butcher shop, where the nice lady totally didn't get what I was on about, to the point where Nene had to play translator. "Are your Mennonite sausages made with fresh Mennonites?" got a look of complete incomprehension, and even the simple "We're here to get some Happy Meat; meat from critters which had nice lives, and deaths which weren't horrible, insofar as death can be not horrible," was combined in her head with my appearance to somehow add up to Islam. In the end I demanded a jalapeno-flavored Happy Meat salami, and went and sat in the van.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
New Favorite Critter
Short Version:
The road to the sky ends in a mud puddle, we ride to the rescue, then ride some more.
Long Version:
We were in two minds about the Keystone/Standard Basin ride: high sub-alpine back-country expedition rides are great, but the weather in Rossland was pretty grim. We decided to believe that the sun we'd had at Frog Falls meant the Revelstoke cloud was localised and/or low-lying, and that either way the Keystone ride would be in the sun. And we were right.
We drove past the Mica Dam, which is big and looks cool, and then up the eastern side of Kinbasket Lake to the Keystone Forest Service Road. We'd been warned by the Kiwi in the Revelstoke bike shop that the road was impassable from about the 11km mark, but still managed to get the Reaper near-stuck in the big mud-wallow: we got a hundred or so metres into the wet stuff before we started to lose traction, but once we did we thought we were going to be stuck in place for the rest of the weekend. In the end we backed out without too many issues, parked at the roadside and set off on the bikes.
The road was a muddy mess for about 400m. It was sticky, tyre-hugging stuff, and it took far longer to negotiate that section than we'd expected. Once we did, though, it was a quick and breezy 5km haul up the dirt road to the trailhead parking area...
...where we found a bunch of vehicles, only one of which was a high-clearance 4WD. In fact, there was a tiny red VW Golf up there, which made us feel like maybe we should have tried harder to get the Reaper through the bog. Still, no sense investing valuable energies into regretting, so we paused briefly to sign the Forest Service register and avail ourselves of the facilities before heading on up the trail.
The facilities at the trailhead were fairly new-looking, but Lovely Wife was in the outhouse for not-very-long before she hustled out of there, saying: "There's something in there. It's the size of a small cat." I would have been freaking out a bit about that, had I been the one to make that discovery, but by the time I'd registered what she'd said she'd grabbed the high-powered night-ride light and was back inside, directing the super-bright beam down into the vault to see what she could see. I joined her in there and peered down into the hole. I was expecting something truly horrific; most likely a combination of an enormous mound of rotting waste matter and rats as big as terriers. What we saw, though, was vastly different: a near-empty vault containing a really cute and very much bedraggled and worse-for-wear critter, wandering forlornly in circles and scrabbling at the unyielding and unclimbable sides of the cavernous collection chamber. Further study led us to identify the wee beastie as a pine marten, which meant that if we were in NZ we'd have had quite the dilemma: Can we, in good conscience, leave this (very cute!) critter to starve to death in a toilet, despite the fact that rescuing it means native birds and their eggs get chomped by the introduced predator?
Lucky, then, that we're here in western Canada, where the marten is indigenous. It's both predator and prey, and it's a natural and necessary part of the ecosystem. And it's very cute. So we found a long branch and stuck it down into the toilet, allowing the marten to climb out of the vault and make its way, weary and bedraggled, into the woods. It stopped and looked back over its shoulder at us several times, as if trying to figure out why we'd freed it or whether we were either a threat or edible, then it disappeared into what we figure was its den, in a hollow tree-stump. We had a warm glow on, despite the chill wind, and when the critter popped its head out and stared at us for a while before popping back into its hidey-hole we felt pretty good about our wildlife rescue activity. He was certainly not in tip-top health - who knows how long he'd been in there for - but being free to pursue birds and small beasts in the woods has to be better than being incarcerated in a toilet vault, no matter how recently-dug and devoid of solid waste.
Our warm glow was in danger of being eroded by lengthy exposure to chill wind, so we got back on the bikes and started off uphill, along what we'd been warned was a very tough, very steep and technical first 2.5km of trail. It wasn't as bad as we'd expected, which was kind of nice, but it also didn't get any easier after the first section; I found it hard slog the entire 11.3km to the cabin at the end. Nene not so much. In fact, she was loving it. It wasn't that we were climbing the whole way, after all. The downhill sections were there, but they were the kind of downhill that makes you work: nothing flowed; nothing was easy; there was no opportunity to relax while riding. Trying to take in the spectacular views whilst in motion almost proved disastrous for each of us at various points, so we learned not to look until we were stopped at one of the many vantage points along the way. In the end, the views, of snowy mountains, alpine meadows, and high-country lakes were what it was all about - that and the silence. It was incredibly quiet up on the tops, which gave the place a splendid feeling of isolation and of being far from civilization.
All the downhill bits on the way out to the cabin at the end of the trail were uphills on the way back, which kind of sucked. None of the rock garden crossings were any easier when ridden (or walked!) back the other way, and it wasn't until we arrived back at the trailhead, failed to find our marten, and set off down the dirt road at incredible speeds that we got any easy riding. Even then the speeds we were doing made it kind of scary - it took us less than ten minutes to ride down the road that it took forty-five minutes to climb. The mud pit was still a tough slog, even with the gradient on our side, and we were pretty tired by the time we made it back to the van, almost five hours after we set off.
Only ten or so minutes of those hours were spent on the rescue operation, but it loomed largest by far in our dinner-time recap of the highlights of the day. New favorite critter, although for cuddling purposes maybe one with less wees on it might be a good idea.
The road to the sky ends in a mud puddle, we ride to the rescue, then ride some more.
Long Version:
We were in two minds about the Keystone/Standard Basin ride: high sub-alpine back-country expedition rides are great, but the weather in Rossland was pretty grim. We decided to believe that the sun we'd had at Frog Falls meant the Revelstoke cloud was localised and/or low-lying, and that either way the Keystone ride would be in the sun. And we were right.
We drove past the Mica Dam, which is big and looks cool, and then up the eastern side of Kinbasket Lake to the Keystone Forest Service Road. We'd been warned by the Kiwi in the Revelstoke bike shop that the road was impassable from about the 11km mark, but still managed to get the Reaper near-stuck in the big mud-wallow: we got a hundred or so metres into the wet stuff before we started to lose traction, but once we did we thought we were going to be stuck in place for the rest of the weekend. In the end we backed out without too many issues, parked at the roadside and set off on the bikes.
The road was a muddy mess for about 400m. It was sticky, tyre-hugging stuff, and it took far longer to negotiate that section than we'd expected. Once we did, though, it was a quick and breezy 5km haul up the dirt road to the trailhead parking area...
...where we found a bunch of vehicles, only one of which was a high-clearance 4WD. In fact, there was a tiny red VW Golf up there, which made us feel like maybe we should have tried harder to get the Reaper through the bog. Still, no sense investing valuable energies into regretting, so we paused briefly to sign the Forest Service register and avail ourselves of the facilities before heading on up the trail.
The facilities at the trailhead were fairly new-looking, but Lovely Wife was in the outhouse for not-very-long before she hustled out of there, saying: "There's something in there. It's the size of a small cat." I would have been freaking out a bit about that, had I been the one to make that discovery, but by the time I'd registered what she'd said she'd grabbed the high-powered night-ride light and was back inside, directing the super-bright beam down into the vault to see what she could see. I joined her in there and peered down into the hole. I was expecting something truly horrific; most likely a combination of an enormous mound of rotting waste matter and rats as big as terriers. What we saw, though, was vastly different: a near-empty vault containing a really cute and very much bedraggled and worse-for-wear critter, wandering forlornly in circles and scrabbling at the unyielding and unclimbable sides of the cavernous collection chamber. Further study led us to identify the wee beastie as a pine marten, which meant that if we were in NZ we'd have had quite the dilemma: Can we, in good conscience, leave this (very cute!) critter to starve to death in a toilet, despite the fact that rescuing it means native birds and their eggs get chomped by the introduced predator?
Lucky, then, that we're here in western Canada, where the marten is indigenous. It's both predator and prey, and it's a natural and necessary part of the ecosystem. And it's very cute. So we found a long branch and stuck it down into the toilet, allowing the marten to climb out of the vault and make its way, weary and bedraggled, into the woods. It stopped and looked back over its shoulder at us several times, as if trying to figure out why we'd freed it or whether we were either a threat or edible, then it disappeared into what we figure was its den, in a hollow tree-stump. We had a warm glow on, despite the chill wind, and when the critter popped its head out and stared at us for a while before popping back into its hidey-hole we felt pretty good about our wildlife rescue activity. He was certainly not in tip-top health - who knows how long he'd been in there for - but being free to pursue birds and small beasts in the woods has to be better than being incarcerated in a toilet vault, no matter how recently-dug and devoid of solid waste.
Our warm glow was in danger of being eroded by lengthy exposure to chill wind, so we got back on the bikes and started off uphill, along what we'd been warned was a very tough, very steep and technical first 2.5km of trail. It wasn't as bad as we'd expected, which was kind of nice, but it also didn't get any easier after the first section; I found it hard slog the entire 11.3km to the cabin at the end. Nene not so much. In fact, she was loving it. It wasn't that we were climbing the whole way, after all. The downhill sections were there, but they were the kind of downhill that makes you work: nothing flowed; nothing was easy; there was no opportunity to relax while riding. Trying to take in the spectacular views whilst in motion almost proved disastrous for each of us at various points, so we learned not to look until we were stopped at one of the many vantage points along the way. In the end, the views, of snowy mountains, alpine meadows, and high-country lakes were what it was all about - that and the silence. It was incredibly quiet up on the tops, which gave the place a splendid feeling of isolation and of being far from civilization.
All the downhill bits on the way out to the cabin at the end of the trail were uphills on the way back, which kind of sucked. None of the rock garden crossings were any easier when ridden (or walked!) back the other way, and it wasn't until we arrived back at the trailhead, failed to find our marten, and set off down the dirt road at incredible speeds that we got any easy riding. Even then the speeds we were doing made it kind of scary - it took us less than ten minutes to ride down the road that it took forty-five minutes to climb. The mud pit was still a tough slog, even with the gradient on our side, and we were pretty tired by the time we made it back to the van, almost five hours after we set off.
Only ten or so minutes of those hours were spent on the rescue operation, but it loomed largest by far in our dinner-time recap of the highlights of the day. New favorite critter, although for cuddling purposes maybe one with less wees on it might be a good idea.
Fish, Fish, Fish, Fish, Fish
Short Version:
A boat trip, grizzlies, fish. More fish. Fish. A hard night's drive and a spooky forest.
Long Version:
Having lived on Waiheke Island, and having travelled between NZ's North and South Islands, we're quite accustomed to ferry travel. Even so, British Columbia's government-run BC Ferries keep hitting us with unexpected twists: first there was the sheer size and the number of passengers and vehicles on the Vancouver Island ferries, not to mention the spectacular environment through which the boats travel. Now we're hitting the inland ferries - this time the run from Galena Bay to Shelter Bay - and the bit that had us slightly confused was that it was free.
Cars, trucks, RV's: free.
Motorcycles, people: free.
Seems that instead of building bridges across the lakes formed by the hydro dams scattered about the place, the provincial government decided to run ferry services instead. We were happy with that - riding the boat across the water was pretty, and it was kind of relaxing. And it was free.
And then the enormous grizzly bear statues at the gates to Revelstoke were upon us, and then the enormous grizzly bear statues at the gates to Grizzly Plaza. And then the Grizzly Auto Repair sign, then the bike shop and the thrift store and some stolen internets and then we were off again, through Sicamous and Salmon Arm and Three Valley Gap, and eventually to the Adams River, to see some fish.
There were a LOT of fish there. Quite a few people, too, but not as many as the place was set up to receive over then next few days, when the Festival of the Salmon kicked into high gear. The Festival runs every year, on the weekend closest to the start of the main run of the sockeye salmon up the Adams River. Bucketloads of people come from far and wide to purchase overpriced t-shirts and nutritionally-bereft foodstuffs, to queue for overloaded portable toilets, and to look at the fish, of which there are many. We snuck in on the Friday evening, after the infrastructure had been set up but before the crowds. They'd already started charging admission fees at the gate, but the attendant had gone home, or was off having a sneaky fag break, so we didn't bother slowing down - just breezed on through the choke-point and into the parking area, then meandered across to the helpful informational signage.
WARNING: FACTS.
The fish travel a LONG way during their lifetime: spawned in the river, they swim with the current as juveniles, hundreds of kilometres downriver to the Atlantic Ocean. They travel vast distances in the sea as they grow, and then, as near-metre-long adults, they somehow find the river from whence they came, swim back up it all those kilometres they once swam down, to the spawning grounds, where they hang out, and mate, and then die. Every fourth year is what's known as a dominant year, where the fish numbers are far larger than those of other years, and every so often a dominant year goes a little bit haywire and provides extra-vast numbers of the beasties.
[END FACTS]
This year has turned out to be one of those super-dominant years, with fish numbers higher than any other year in the last century. We were there before the run hit its peak - at its height apparently you can walk across the river on the backs of the fish and not get your feet wet - but it was still pretty blimmin impressive. Being kind of color-blind, I'm not sure whether I should be describing their hue as crimson, or scarlet, or as a bright, deep red. Whatever the name, it was similar to the color of a glass of pinot noir with the sun shining through it. Their heads were a green that defies decription, and you could tell the sexes apart because - not unlike humans - the females looked like fish, and the males were ugly; sometimes spectacularly so.
And there were thousands of them.
Swimming upstream had left many of them battered and scarred, and some of the earliest arrivals had already spawned and were in various stages of dying. Corpses littered the stony beaches wherever the current was favorable for casting inert objects ashore. It's hard to imagine what the place will look like in a few weeks, when all of the millions of fish that have made it back have spawned, and died, and been washed up, and are starting to decay. When we were there, though, the living far outnumbered the dead, although it was possible to see at a glance which ones were getting close to that edge; they fade before they die, from the robust, bright red they go at the start of their 21-day odyssey to and up the river, to a pale, pinkish... actually we'd probably call the color "salmon pink." The living thronged in the river, clustered in groups in the shallows ("What's that Jimmy? Oh, they're... ummmm... fighting!") and hung in the main current like a crimson ribbon, looking a lot like a significant amount of blood that had spilled into the water; a liquid thread of scarlet within the river. We got extremely close-up vews in a number of spots, including the official viewing platforms and some precariously-balanced fallen trees we edged our way out on. Awesome spectacle.
In the end, it started getting dark, so we left the fish to do whatever it is that fish do at night and set off in the Reaper for the Frog Falls Recreation Site, miles and miles and miles away. The Reaper is absolutely appalling to drive at night; the headlights are feeble and misaligned, and the harvested bugs and birds and beasties which encrust the windscreen turn the headlights of oncoming traffic into a diffuse, blinding glare. The best views of the night were of a burning silo, which lit up the night like some pagan ceremony. Later research indicates it was probably a sawmill waste burner, although at the time it just seemed weird and a bit spooky, leaving us perfectly mood-enhanced for the Frog Falls area, which was in heavy forest, pitch-dark except where mildly illuminated by the Reaper's running lights, and full of enormous tree stumps which had faces carved into them. Spooky faces at that. And then we got lost in the woods, and found a creepy underground bunker before we found the campground, and there were more faces on the trees, and there were huge cascades of fungi of all shapes and sizes.
We slept well though, and woke to gorgeous sunlight filtering through the trees. The trees looked much friendlier in daylight, so we explored the river and the falls and had a leisurely breakfast before hitting the road back past Revelstoke, east and north to the Keystone/Standard Basin Trail.
A boat trip, grizzlies, fish. More fish. Fish. A hard night's drive and a spooky forest.
Long Version:
Having lived on Waiheke Island, and having travelled between NZ's North and South Islands, we're quite accustomed to ferry travel. Even so, British Columbia's government-run BC Ferries keep hitting us with unexpected twists: first there was the sheer size and the number of passengers and vehicles on the Vancouver Island ferries, not to mention the spectacular environment through which the boats travel. Now we're hitting the inland ferries - this time the run from Galena Bay to Shelter Bay - and the bit that had us slightly confused was that it was free.
Cars, trucks, RV's: free.
Motorcycles, people: free.
Seems that instead of building bridges across the lakes formed by the hydro dams scattered about the place, the provincial government decided to run ferry services instead. We were happy with that - riding the boat across the water was pretty, and it was kind of relaxing. And it was free.
And then the enormous grizzly bear statues at the gates to Revelstoke were upon us, and then the enormous grizzly bear statues at the gates to Grizzly Plaza. And then the Grizzly Auto Repair sign, then the bike shop and the thrift store and some stolen internets and then we were off again, through Sicamous and Salmon Arm and Three Valley Gap, and eventually to the Adams River, to see some fish.
There were a LOT of fish there. Quite a few people, too, but not as many as the place was set up to receive over then next few days, when the Festival of the Salmon kicked into high gear. The Festival runs every year, on the weekend closest to the start of the main run of the sockeye salmon up the Adams River. Bucketloads of people come from far and wide to purchase overpriced t-shirts and nutritionally-bereft foodstuffs, to queue for overloaded portable toilets, and to look at the fish, of which there are many. We snuck in on the Friday evening, after the infrastructure had been set up but before the crowds. They'd already started charging admission fees at the gate, but the attendant had gone home, or was off having a sneaky fag break, so we didn't bother slowing down - just breezed on through the choke-point and into the parking area, then meandered across to the helpful informational signage.
WARNING: FACTS.
The fish travel a LONG way during their lifetime: spawned in the river, they swim with the current as juveniles, hundreds of kilometres downriver to the Atlantic Ocean. They travel vast distances in the sea as they grow, and then, as near-metre-long adults, they somehow find the river from whence they came, swim back up it all those kilometres they once swam down, to the spawning grounds, where they hang out, and mate, and then die. Every fourth year is what's known as a dominant year, where the fish numbers are far larger than those of other years, and every so often a dominant year goes a little bit haywire and provides extra-vast numbers of the beasties.
[END FACTS]
This year has turned out to be one of those super-dominant years, with fish numbers higher than any other year in the last century. We were there before the run hit its peak - at its height apparently you can walk across the river on the backs of the fish and not get your feet wet - but it was still pretty blimmin impressive. Being kind of color-blind, I'm not sure whether I should be describing their hue as crimson, or scarlet, or as a bright, deep red. Whatever the name, it was similar to the color of a glass of pinot noir with the sun shining through it. Their heads were a green that defies decription, and you could tell the sexes apart because - not unlike humans - the females looked like fish, and the males were ugly; sometimes spectacularly so.
And there were thousands of them.
Swimming upstream had left many of them battered and scarred, and some of the earliest arrivals had already spawned and were in various stages of dying. Corpses littered the stony beaches wherever the current was favorable for casting inert objects ashore. It's hard to imagine what the place will look like in a few weeks, when all of the millions of fish that have made it back have spawned, and died, and been washed up, and are starting to decay. When we were there, though, the living far outnumbered the dead, although it was possible to see at a glance which ones were getting close to that edge; they fade before they die, from the robust, bright red they go at the start of their 21-day odyssey to and up the river, to a pale, pinkish... actually we'd probably call the color "salmon pink." The living thronged in the river, clustered in groups in the shallows ("What's that Jimmy? Oh, they're... ummmm... fighting!") and hung in the main current like a crimson ribbon, looking a lot like a significant amount of blood that had spilled into the water; a liquid thread of scarlet within the river. We got extremely close-up vews in a number of spots, including the official viewing platforms and some precariously-balanced fallen trees we edged our way out on. Awesome spectacle.
In the end, it started getting dark, so we left the fish to do whatever it is that fish do at night and set off in the Reaper for the Frog Falls Recreation Site, miles and miles and miles away. The Reaper is absolutely appalling to drive at night; the headlights are feeble and misaligned, and the harvested bugs and birds and beasties which encrust the windscreen turn the headlights of oncoming traffic into a diffuse, blinding glare. The best views of the night were of a burning silo, which lit up the night like some pagan ceremony. Later research indicates it was probably a sawmill waste burner, although at the time it just seemed weird and a bit spooky, leaving us perfectly mood-enhanced for the Frog Falls area, which was in heavy forest, pitch-dark except where mildly illuminated by the Reaper's running lights, and full of enormous tree stumps which had faces carved into them. Spooky faces at that. And then we got lost in the woods, and found a creepy underground bunker before we found the campground, and there were more faces on the trees, and there were huge cascades of fungi of all shapes and sizes.
We slept well though, and woke to gorgeous sunlight filtering through the trees. The trees looked much friendlier in daylight, so we explored the river and the falls and had a leisurely breakfast before hitting the road back past Revelstoke, east and north to the Keystone/Standard Basin Trail.
One Plain Bagel, and One Cup of Raspberry Tea
Short Version:
We ride the rails and a cable
Long Version:
Like the Otago Central Rail Trail in New Zealand's South Island, the Galena Trail is an old railbed. It runs from the town of Rosebery* through New Denver and on to Three Forks, near the ghostish town of Sandon**. We were still feeling sub-par***, and the idea of a gentle grade appealled greatly, as did the opportunity to turn and ride back down, gently, at any stage.
We set off from Rosebery, up a pretty lakeside trail with rusting old rail equipment scattered at intervals. We crossed and recrossed the highway, then up through a winding canyon with the river churning through its narrow passage far below us.
An hour or so after setting off, we reached the cable car, which was very, very cool. It was a rectangular metal frame with a steel-mesh-covered plywood floor and steel-mesh sides, suspended by two pulleys from a wire rope that spanned the river at somewhere around four metres when empty - three when full of heavy NZer + bike. When at rest, the cage swings near the middle of the span. From there it is hauled to either bank by means of a rope, which runs in a loop from the frame of the cage, through pulleys on each landward support tower, and back to the cage. This same rope is the means of propulsion for the cage from one bank to the other: some serious hand-over-hand effort is required to make it up the last few metres. But make it we did, first Lovely Wife, then humble puppet servant, and then we had a snack in the sun, perched on the remains of an old rail bridge, before hauling ourselves back across the river in the cable car and setting off back down the trail. It had taken us an hour to ride up, which is not a lot compared to some of the rides we've done but was a lot in the context of being temporarily weak and feeble. Still only took us half an hour to ride back down though - even a little bit of downhill grade goes a long way!
* = There is a trail connecting Rosebery to the next town northwards, but it was labelled "Hills," so we didn't go there. Later, we drove through the next town. Its name: Hills. There was a barn there which no longer had walls - they'd disintegrated at some point. The frame and the roof were still intact, though, and over the years a mass of red ivy had grown over the framework, providing a new - and appropriately colored! - set of walls
** = There are still a few people living there, and they maintain a small museum, some historic cottages, and a still-functioning, still-running power-generation plant
*** = Lovely Wife's food intake for the previous three days stood at one plain bagel, and one cup of raspberry tea
We ride the rails and a cable
Long Version:
Like the Otago Central Rail Trail in New Zealand's South Island, the Galena Trail is an old railbed. It runs from the town of Rosebery* through New Denver and on to Three Forks, near the ghostish town of Sandon**. We were still feeling sub-par***, and the idea of a gentle grade appealled greatly, as did the opportunity to turn and ride back down, gently, at any stage.
We set off from Rosebery, up a pretty lakeside trail with rusting old rail equipment scattered at intervals. We crossed and recrossed the highway, then up through a winding canyon with the river churning through its narrow passage far below us.
An hour or so after setting off, we reached the cable car, which was very, very cool. It was a rectangular metal frame with a steel-mesh-covered plywood floor and steel-mesh sides, suspended by two pulleys from a wire rope that spanned the river at somewhere around four metres when empty - three when full of heavy NZer + bike. When at rest, the cage swings near the middle of the span. From there it is hauled to either bank by means of a rope, which runs in a loop from the frame of the cage, through pulleys on each landward support tower, and back to the cage. This same rope is the means of propulsion for the cage from one bank to the other: some serious hand-over-hand effort is required to make it up the last few metres. But make it we did, first Lovely Wife, then humble puppet servant, and then we had a snack in the sun, perched on the remains of an old rail bridge, before hauling ourselves back across the river in the cable car and setting off back down the trail. It had taken us an hour to ride up, which is not a lot compared to some of the rides we've done but was a lot in the context of being temporarily weak and feeble. Still only took us half an hour to ride back down though - even a little bit of downhill grade goes a long way!
* = There is a trail connecting Rosebery to the next town northwards, but it was labelled "Hills," so we didn't go there. Later, we drove through the next town. Its name: Hills. There was a barn there which no longer had walls - they'd disintegrated at some point. The frame and the roof were still intact, though, and over the years a mass of red ivy had grown over the framework, providing a new - and appropriately colored! - set of walls
** = There are still a few people living there, and they maintain a small museum, some historic cottages, and a still-functioning, still-running power-generation plant
*** = Lovely Wife's food intake for the previous three days stood at one plain bagel, and one cup of raspberry tea
Hot Water and Hookers
Short Version:
Seats for sale, we're told to go to someone else's town, Dunster School rides again. We end up in hot water and on shaky ground, then flawlessly execute a stealth mission. Hookers.
Long Version:
Nelson, BC seems like a pretty cool town. The local cinema was selling their seats at $1 each, and we saw several pairs of young people staggering out of the theatre carrying a row between them. The leftover pesos from the Mexico trip were finally swapped for real moneys*, which we then promptly spent at the bike store on replacement tyres and gear cables and other necessities. The staff there invited us to come ride with them in a couple of days, but went on to say that if they were us they'd be off to ride at New Denver and Revelstoke and Salmon Arm instead.
So we left, right after we ate delicious foods at the wifi-enabled Hare Krisna restaurant, and washed our clothes at the laundromat with the enormous television and the broken toilet.
On the way north up the western shore of Kootenay Lake we cheered the radio-borne news that the Dunster community had been successful in their battle to save the local school from closure, and it was a happy pair that meandered into the Ainsworth Hot Springs and soaked away several hours in the hot and not-so-hot pools. The complex has a really cool (hot!) cave system in behind a pair of tiled arches. The tiling soon gives way to natural-looking rock walls which look like they're made of melted wax. Stalagmites and stalactites are everywhere, and the waist-deep water gets hotter the deeper one penetrates. Just when it's about as hot as you want it to get, the cave turns through ninety degrees, and runs parallel to the outside wall for a ways before executing another right-angle turn and heading towards the outside again. Very awesome, as were the views out over Kootenay Lake.
We cut short our conversation with the round couple from Ohio to go find a place to sleep. We drove past it, twice, then found the turnoff only to discover that since our guidebook had been published access to the site had been gated and locked. We walked down for a look at the falls anyway, and from each of the many viewpoints along the way we were really rather impressed by the scale of the falls, and the way the whitewater seemed to glow in the light of our high-powered riding lights. We didn't realise until we reached the bottom that most of the ground we'd been walking on was fairly precariously balanced atop a serious overhang above a decent drop to the rocks below. We walked back up a different path.
Camping that night ended up being a stealth mission: we snuck into the Lost Ledge Provincial Park late, set up and ate quickly and quietly, and were up early to go have breakfast in the day use area, so no BC Parks official would catch us in the campground and make us pay the $21 fee.
Getting the Reaper stuck while executing a ladylike three-point turn was NOT part of the plan.
Eventually we were free, and up the hill to the picnic area where we... wait, where's the picnic area? Oh.
Back into the campground, down to a lakeshore site with a wonderful view, where we parked in one spot and breakfasted in another before setting off back down the road towards Kaslo, home of the Sufferfest. On the way we passed the remains of a truck, which had run head-first into the cliff. We tried to figure out how he'd managed it, and when, because it wasn't there when we'd come through around nine the previous night and we didn't hear what must have been an almighty bang. There were no body parts strewn about the place, though, so we carried on our way.
Kaslo was cute, basking in the sun, as was one-time boom town Sandon, which apparently at one point had over eighty brothels operating. This in a town of 5000 people. Kind of topical, given that Canada's currently having conniptions over whether to legalise prostitution or not. From what we've heard on the radio, opinions are split on the matter, although it sounds like the factions are talking about different things: those in favor of legalising say: "What two (or more) consenting adults get up to is their business - why should paying for it be an issue?" whereas the anti-legalisation lobby says: "All prostitutes are unwilling participants - in some case slaves - who have no other option. Children are forced to be prostitutes. Native peoples are forced to be prostitutes. Drug addicts are forced to be prostitutes."
The anti-legalisation folks then throw figurative stones at the pro-legalisation folks: "He's a buyer." Actually, it's probably unfair to select that particular, particularly rabid anti-child-prostitution ex-child-prostitute as representative of the whole faction; maybe the Conservative senator from somewhere back East... no, she was an ill-informed do-gooder primarily adept at reassuring blue-rinsers that someone in the corridors of power is just as reactionary and bigoted as they are.
Listening to the debate has been by turns interesting, boring, heart-breaking, and infuriating. Eventually we turned the radio off.
* = I asked someone in Revelstoke why on earth there was a currency exchange in Nelson that was prepared to accept pesos when there was no such facility in a number of larger communities we'd passed through. Apparently it's because so much pot is grown in the area that a full-fledged currency exchange is called for: "I just happen to have a backpack full of sequentially-numbered US dollars..."
Seats for sale, we're told to go to someone else's town, Dunster School rides again. We end up in hot water and on shaky ground, then flawlessly execute a stealth mission. Hookers.
Long Version:
Nelson, BC seems like a pretty cool town. The local cinema was selling their seats at $1 each, and we saw several pairs of young people staggering out of the theatre carrying a row between them. The leftover pesos from the Mexico trip were finally swapped for real moneys*, which we then promptly spent at the bike store on replacement tyres and gear cables and other necessities. The staff there invited us to come ride with them in a couple of days, but went on to say that if they were us they'd be off to ride at New Denver and Revelstoke and Salmon Arm instead.
So we left, right after we ate delicious foods at the wifi-enabled Hare Krisna restaurant, and washed our clothes at the laundromat with the enormous television and the broken toilet.
On the way north up the western shore of Kootenay Lake we cheered the radio-borne news that the Dunster community had been successful in their battle to save the local school from closure, and it was a happy pair that meandered into the Ainsworth Hot Springs and soaked away several hours in the hot and not-so-hot pools. The complex has a really cool (hot!) cave system in behind a pair of tiled arches. The tiling soon gives way to natural-looking rock walls which look like they're made of melted wax. Stalagmites and stalactites are everywhere, and the waist-deep water gets hotter the deeper one penetrates. Just when it's about as hot as you want it to get, the cave turns through ninety degrees, and runs parallel to the outside wall for a ways before executing another right-angle turn and heading towards the outside again. Very awesome, as were the views out over Kootenay Lake.
We cut short our conversation with the round couple from Ohio to go find a place to sleep. We drove past it, twice, then found the turnoff only to discover that since our guidebook had been published access to the site had been gated and locked. We walked down for a look at the falls anyway, and from each of the many viewpoints along the way we were really rather impressed by the scale of the falls, and the way the whitewater seemed to glow in the light of our high-powered riding lights. We didn't realise until we reached the bottom that most of the ground we'd been walking on was fairly precariously balanced atop a serious overhang above a decent drop to the rocks below. We walked back up a different path.
Camping that night ended up being a stealth mission: we snuck into the Lost Ledge Provincial Park late, set up and ate quickly and quietly, and were up early to go have breakfast in the day use area, so no BC Parks official would catch us in the campground and make us pay the $21 fee.
Getting the Reaper stuck while executing a ladylike three-point turn was NOT part of the plan.
Eventually we were free, and up the hill to the picnic area where we... wait, where's the picnic area? Oh.
Back into the campground, down to a lakeshore site with a wonderful view, where we parked in one spot and breakfasted in another before setting off back down the road towards Kaslo, home of the Sufferfest. On the way we passed the remains of a truck, which had run head-first into the cliff. We tried to figure out how he'd managed it, and when, because it wasn't there when we'd come through around nine the previous night and we didn't hear what must have been an almighty bang. There were no body parts strewn about the place, though, so we carried on our way.
Kaslo was cute, basking in the sun, as was one-time boom town Sandon, which apparently at one point had over eighty brothels operating. This in a town of 5000 people. Kind of topical, given that Canada's currently having conniptions over whether to legalise prostitution or not. From what we've heard on the radio, opinions are split on the matter, although it sounds like the factions are talking about different things: those in favor of legalising say: "What two (or more) consenting adults get up to is their business - why should paying for it be an issue?" whereas the anti-legalisation lobby says: "All prostitutes are unwilling participants - in some case slaves - who have no other option. Children are forced to be prostitutes. Native peoples are forced to be prostitutes. Drug addicts are forced to be prostitutes."
The anti-legalisation folks then throw figurative stones at the pro-legalisation folks: "He's a buyer." Actually, it's probably unfair to select that particular, particularly rabid anti-child-prostitution ex-child-prostitute as representative of the whole faction; maybe the Conservative senator from somewhere back East... no, she was an ill-informed do-gooder primarily adept at reassuring blue-rinsers that someone in the corridors of power is just as reactionary and bigoted as they are.
Listening to the debate has been by turns interesting, boring, heart-breaking, and infuriating. Eventually we turned the radio off.
* = I asked someone in Revelstoke why on earth there was a currency exchange in Nelson that was prepared to accept pesos when there was no such facility in a number of larger communities we'd passed through. Apparently it's because so much pot is grown in the area that a full-fledged currency exchange is called for: "I just happen to have a backpack full of sequentially-numbered US dollars..."
Aged and Toothless and Bent Old Crones
Short Version:
Transformation, reduced services, one of us enjoys a beautiful day
Long Version:
We nipped into Rossland town to steal some internets before heading east, and discovered a frightening phenomenon: attractive young women enter the local Credit Union; aged and toothless and bent old crones come out. Creepy.
Over the hills and down to the lake, where we discovered that the water was off at the Texas Creek Provincial Park Campground. This was good thing, because it meant camping was free. Not so good in that it also meant all the flush toilets were boarded up, and even less so once we discovered that the vault toilets were all quite far away from our campsite.
Not ideal for people with a bout of food poisoning.
Still, by the time we arrived I was on the mend, and it was only Nene who had suffering still to do. Nene being Nene, though, she put everything she had into it, and suffered enough for the both of us. Poor wee poppet.
The sun was shining, the birds were singing, cheeky chipmunks scurried hither and yon, squirrels frolicked in the trees, and I swam in Canada's warmest lake several times while Nene carried on executing her sufferment programme. Cups of tea, backrubs, peanut butter sandwiches - all my healing powers were put forward on her behalf. The most effective strategy turned out to be going elsewhere and leaving her to it, and a run out and back on the Deer Point trail was just the ticket.
The mad camp host guy had told me before he left that it was a 2.5 hour hike to the summit, and then a long, less-steep hill to the end of the trail, at the north end of the lake. I don't run fast - especially when Lovely Wife's not there to whip me along - so it was a bit of a surprise to find myself on the downslope a mere eighteen minutes after setting off. Beautiful trail. Beautiful sunlight filtering down through beautiful green and golden leaves. Beautiful views out over the beautiful lake. Beautiful swim afterwards.
Found out later that it's a renowned biking trail, with multiple magazine cover shots snapped along its length. I can see why.
Transformation, reduced services, one of us enjoys a beautiful day
Long Version:
We nipped into Rossland town to steal some internets before heading east, and discovered a frightening phenomenon: attractive young women enter the local Credit Union; aged and toothless and bent old crones come out. Creepy.
Over the hills and down to the lake, where we discovered that the water was off at the Texas Creek Provincial Park Campground. This was good thing, because it meant camping was free. Not so good in that it also meant all the flush toilets were boarded up, and even less so once we discovered that the vault toilets were all quite far away from our campsite.
Not ideal for people with a bout of food poisoning.
Still, by the time we arrived I was on the mend, and it was only Nene who had suffering still to do. Nene being Nene, though, she put everything she had into it, and suffered enough for the both of us. Poor wee poppet.
The sun was shining, the birds were singing, cheeky chipmunks scurried hither and yon, squirrels frolicked in the trees, and I swam in Canada's warmest lake several times while Nene carried on executing her sufferment programme. Cups of tea, backrubs, peanut butter sandwiches - all my healing powers were put forward on her behalf. The most effective strategy turned out to be going elsewhere and leaving her to it, and a run out and back on the Deer Point trail was just the ticket.
The mad camp host guy had told me before he left that it was a 2.5 hour hike to the summit, and then a long, less-steep hill to the end of the trail, at the north end of the lake. I don't run fast - especially when Lovely Wife's not there to whip me along - so it was a bit of a surprise to find myself on the downslope a mere eighteen minutes after setting off. Beautiful trail. Beautiful sunlight filtering down through beautiful green and golden leaves. Beautiful views out over the beautiful lake. Beautiful swim afterwards.
Found out later that it's a renowned biking trail, with multiple magazine cover shots snapped along its length. I can see why.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Asparagus Soup
Short Version:
Disc golf, a ride with issues, disc golf, disc golf, toxic badness
Long Version:
We'd planned to go ride early in the morning, but were weary and slept in. When we did arise, we hit the disc golf course instead of the trail, and had such a grand time that we played again later in the afternoon, and then again the following morning. Nene improved her score every round. I got worse.
In between the morning and afternoon rounds, though, we went and rode up a mountain, just for a change. Three hours total time on the trail, although half an hour of that was gas-bagging to various folks we met - including a Kiwi doctor we met at the top* - and half an hour was spent carrying out emergency sidewall-tear puncture repairs a quarter of the way up. The rest of the time was, as usual, mainly spent riding up the hill. Switchbacks, rocks, steep bits, not-steep bits: it was a good climb. On the way back down we skipped the trail with the person-attacking bear advisory and rode down a trail that reminded both of us of the best that Rotorua has to offer. It was far too good to be that short, or possibly the other way around. Both of us had tired legs and arms from the Seven Summits ride, though, so maybe it was a good thing that it was over quite quick.
Nene had been threatening asparagus soup for a day or two, and finally went through with it, despite my protestations. I'm choosing to believe that was what poisoned us.
* = He told us that you ARE allowed to raise kids wherever you like in Trail; you're just not allowed a vege garden
Disc golf, a ride with issues, disc golf, disc golf, toxic badness
Long Version:
We'd planned to go ride early in the morning, but were weary and slept in. When we did arise, we hit the disc golf course instead of the trail, and had such a grand time that we played again later in the afternoon, and then again the following morning. Nene improved her score every round. I got worse.
In between the morning and afternoon rounds, though, we went and rode up a mountain, just for a change. Three hours total time on the trail, although half an hour of that was gas-bagging to various folks we met - including a Kiwi doctor we met at the top* - and half an hour was spent carrying out emergency sidewall-tear puncture repairs a quarter of the way up. The rest of the time was, as usual, mainly spent riding up the hill. Switchbacks, rocks, steep bits, not-steep bits: it was a good climb. On the way back down we skipped the trail with the person-attacking bear advisory and rode down a trail that reminded both of us of the best that Rotorua has to offer. It was far too good to be that short, or possibly the other way around. Both of us had tired legs and arms from the Seven Summits ride, though, so maybe it was a good thing that it was over quite quick.
Nene had been threatening asparagus soup for a day or two, and finally went through with it, despite my protestations. I'm choosing to believe that was what poisoned us.
* = He told us that you ARE allowed to raise kids wherever you like in Trail; you're just not allowed a vege garden
The Seven Summits
Short Version:
We ride the Seven Summits trail with a bunch of interesting people. It's awesome. Afterwards, beer is cold, food and house and company are warm.
Long Version:
The Seven Summits trail in Rossland is an IMBA Epic, like the North Umpqua River Trail in Oregon and the Plains of Abraham at Mt St Helens*. And, like the North Umpqua, you should go ride it.
We dumped the Reaper and another vehicle at the lower trailhead and drove to the top, where we geared up and set off just after 9am on a sunny but cool morning. In direct contrast to pretty much all the riding we've been doing, we were in a big group for this one: ten of us in all, most from Invermere but with an Albertan Fire Chief (Hi Paul!) in the mix to keep us on our toes.
The upper trailhead is 1500 metres higher than the bottom, which sounds like ample downwards riding in the making, no?
Not on your Nellie.
We rode up. And up. And up. There was a stop, for a while, while one of the Steves (Hi Steve O! Hi Steve 19!) fixed a puncture that had arisen from a ripped sidewall, and then we got back on the bikes and rode up some more. That first climb took us up another 600 metres before we dropped into a saddle, and then it was climb/descend all the way along the ridgeline to the Rock Knob, the seventh and last summit of the journey, from where we dropped, down 1300 metres over 8 kilometres in what Well Mark accurately described as "A really really good dessert after a really excellent meal."
Even describing it like that really doesn't do it justice though - some of the climbs along the ridgeline were killer, as were a couple of the descents. The trail was beautifully maintained, especially in light of how remote and how exposed it is, and it had not just a bit of everything, but a lot: steep ups and downs; flowing sections of screamingly fast trail; scarily-pitched descents through boulder fields; rivers of rock where crossings had been paved with big flat slabs**; switchbacks of all shapes, sizes, and gradients both up- and downwards. Everything you want in an epic ride, except for the hot pool at the end.
Both Nene and I were having a great ride day: strong on the climbs, and ripping hell out of the trail on the descents. We loved every minute of the 7.5 hours we were out there: the riding was amazing, and the breaks were all filled with the kind of conversations you only get when you're doing something difficult but achievable with an assortment of people you don't really know who are both individually and collectively interesting.
Highlights of the day included:
- Rudeword Dave (Hi, Rudeword Dave!) falling off his bike sideways while attempting to describe the joys of whitewater kayaking in the extreme wilderness of Canada's Northwest Territory
- Steve 19, unable to stop in time, colliding with a girl half his size who'd stopped dead unexpectedly in the middle of the trail while failing to negotiate a big rock
- Steve 19, unwilling to stop in time, scaring Rudeword Dave off the trail and out of his way by sounding like the Galloping Tyres of the Apocalypse bearing down imminently and unstoppably
- Well Mark hauling his bike onto his shoulder and leading the entire party up an unrideable non-mandatory trail to the peak of Summit #3, then riding down the (sketchy, borderline-rideable) other side before the potential recriminations caught up
- Tales of Steve O's epic crash, with accompanying pantomime demonstration and smashed helmet evidence presentation
- An Anne and Bruce combo, for the first time in far too long, although this one's actually a Bruce and Anne combo, and one of them's Australian (Hi Bruce and Anne!).
- Fire Chief Paul's birdcalls atop summit #6
- The look on Lori's face as she held her bike over her head in triumph atop summit #7. Actually, now that I think about it, that expression may have indicated something other than triumph
- The weather. This ride would have been a nightmare in the cold, wet filth we'd been having, and we'd heard horror stories of how hot it gets mid-summer. We had a perfect fall day: bright sun with a cooling breeze. Not too cold, not too hot, not wet.
I also really liked lunch, although I have to admit that when we stopped, and sat down in a sunny, near-windless spot, and I pulled out the loaf of bread I'd hauled laboriously up the hill, I did expect Lovely Wife to pull some stuff out of her bag to go on it. Maybe some tomatoes, or cheese, or some jalapenos. Nope. Dry bread lunch. Having said that, it was a garlic/parmesan/olive foccaccia loaf, and it was delicious. Still, what happened to equal distribution of communal stuff between the packs? I felt hard done-by for the next four hours or so, right up to the point when she pulled an apple donut out of her pack and gave me half. Nice Wife.
The beer at the end was well-deserved and delicious, and then we got an extra treat: we got to go have dinner, which was delicious, in a house, which was warm, and well-lit, and full of interesting people who were clean. That last bit left us feeling mildly self-conscious, but it was neat to be part of a community again, no matter that it was fleeting.
Fleeting it was, though, and all-too-soon we were saying goodnight, and were out into the cold, into the Reaper, and heading out to the Black Jack XC ski area parking lot, where we slept appallingly. Stupid dogs. Stupid coyotes. Why can't we all just get along, or at least disagree quietly?
* = We won't mention the Buckhorn
** = In a couple of instances, this path was not immediately apparent to look at, and it was a blessed surprise to open one's eyes and find oneself still riding instead of about to land face-first on the rocks
We ride the Seven Summits trail with a bunch of interesting people. It's awesome. Afterwards, beer is cold, food and house and company are warm.
Long Version:
The Seven Summits trail in Rossland is an IMBA Epic, like the North Umpqua River Trail in Oregon and the Plains of Abraham at Mt St Helens*. And, like the North Umpqua, you should go ride it.
We dumped the Reaper and another vehicle at the lower trailhead and drove to the top, where we geared up and set off just after 9am on a sunny but cool morning. In direct contrast to pretty much all the riding we've been doing, we were in a big group for this one: ten of us in all, most from Invermere but with an Albertan Fire Chief (Hi Paul!) in the mix to keep us on our toes.
The upper trailhead is 1500 metres higher than the bottom, which sounds like ample downwards riding in the making, no?
Not on your Nellie.
We rode up. And up. And up. There was a stop, for a while, while one of the Steves (Hi Steve O! Hi Steve 19!) fixed a puncture that had arisen from a ripped sidewall, and then we got back on the bikes and rode up some more. That first climb took us up another 600 metres before we dropped into a saddle, and then it was climb/descend all the way along the ridgeline to the Rock Knob, the seventh and last summit of the journey, from where we dropped, down 1300 metres over 8 kilometres in what Well Mark accurately described as "A really really good dessert after a really excellent meal."
Even describing it like that really doesn't do it justice though - some of the climbs along the ridgeline were killer, as were a couple of the descents. The trail was beautifully maintained, especially in light of how remote and how exposed it is, and it had not just a bit of everything, but a lot: steep ups and downs; flowing sections of screamingly fast trail; scarily-pitched descents through boulder fields; rivers of rock where crossings had been paved with big flat slabs**; switchbacks of all shapes, sizes, and gradients both up- and downwards. Everything you want in an epic ride, except for the hot pool at the end.
Both Nene and I were having a great ride day: strong on the climbs, and ripping hell out of the trail on the descents. We loved every minute of the 7.5 hours we were out there: the riding was amazing, and the breaks were all filled with the kind of conversations you only get when you're doing something difficult but achievable with an assortment of people you don't really know who are both individually and collectively interesting.
Highlights of the day included:
- Rudeword Dave (Hi, Rudeword Dave!) falling off his bike sideways while attempting to describe the joys of whitewater kayaking in the extreme wilderness of Canada's Northwest Territory
- Steve 19, unable to stop in time, colliding with a girl half his size who'd stopped dead unexpectedly in the middle of the trail while failing to negotiate a big rock
- Steve 19, unwilling to stop in time, scaring Rudeword Dave off the trail and out of his way by sounding like the Galloping Tyres of the Apocalypse bearing down imminently and unstoppably
- Well Mark hauling his bike onto his shoulder and leading the entire party up an unrideable non-mandatory trail to the peak of Summit #3, then riding down the (sketchy, borderline-rideable) other side before the potential recriminations caught up
- Tales of Steve O's epic crash, with accompanying pantomime demonstration and smashed helmet evidence presentation
- An Anne and Bruce combo, for the first time in far too long, although this one's actually a Bruce and Anne combo, and one of them's Australian (Hi Bruce and Anne!).
- Fire Chief Paul's birdcalls atop summit #6
- The look on Lori's face as she held her bike over her head in triumph atop summit #7. Actually, now that I think about it, that expression may have indicated something other than triumph
- The weather. This ride would have been a nightmare in the cold, wet filth we'd been having, and we'd heard horror stories of how hot it gets mid-summer. We had a perfect fall day: bright sun with a cooling breeze. Not too cold, not too hot, not wet.
I also really liked lunch, although I have to admit that when we stopped, and sat down in a sunny, near-windless spot, and I pulled out the loaf of bread I'd hauled laboriously up the hill, I did expect Lovely Wife to pull some stuff out of her bag to go on it. Maybe some tomatoes, or cheese, or some jalapenos. Nope. Dry bread lunch. Having said that, it was a garlic/parmesan/olive foccaccia loaf, and it was delicious. Still, what happened to equal distribution of communal stuff between the packs? I felt hard done-by for the next four hours or so, right up to the point when she pulled an apple donut out of her pack and gave me half. Nice Wife.
The beer at the end was well-deserved and delicious, and then we got an extra treat: we got to go have dinner, which was delicious, in a house, which was warm, and well-lit, and full of interesting people who were clean. That last bit left us feeling mildly self-conscious, but it was neat to be part of a community again, no matter that it was fleeting.
Fleeting it was, though, and all-too-soon we were saying goodnight, and were out into the cold, into the Reaper, and heading out to the Black Jack XC ski area parking lot, where we slept appallingly. Stupid dogs. Stupid coyotes. Why can't we all just get along, or at least disagree quietly?
* = We won't mention the Buckhorn
** = In a couple of instances, this path was not immediately apparent to look at, and it was a blessed surprise to open one's eyes and find oneself still riding instead of about to land face-first on the rocks
Short
Short Version:
A short run west, then we meet some friends in Rossland. One of them is short. A short ride through fields of flame, a short term big dog, and a short sleep before a long ride
Long Version:
We listened to a Texan talk about energy on the radio, crossed bright orange and yellow bridges, and passed through some really cool towns, including Yahk (Two-Scoop Steve had closed for the season) and Creston. Eventually we found ourselves in Trail, which was surprisingly large. Apparently there are two major employers there: the massive smoke-belching smelter, and the hospital where they care for people injured or diseased from smelter activity*.
Just up the road from Trail is Rossland, which has no smelter or hospital, but does have lots of awesome mountain-biking trails. We'd arranged to meet the folks we rode with near Invermere (Hi Mark and Lori!) to ride the IMBA Epic Seven Summits trail on Saturday, but we and they were there a day early, so we met in the bike shop by accident after failing to meet on purpose and set off to ride some of the near-town trails: KC to Back of KC to Milky Way to the Old Wagon Road.
Combining our navigation expertise with theirs meant that we temporarily misplaced ourselves, and ran out of time to complete the planned loop. Nene and I got to do an extra trail or two, including the star of the day: the Milky Way. Fast as fast can be, we blasted down this swooping, diving trail, bypassing the bigger jumps and hucking off the smaller. It ran us through a forest and through a field full of bracken in various stages of changing color. The yellow, orange, and red fronds made it look very much like the whole meadow was on fire. Then back into forest and down and down some more. It was great fun.
And then we had to pay for it, by riding back up. A long way. With lostness. Eventually, though, we found the remains of the old Mining School, and then we found the town and the Reaper in relatively quick succession, although not so quick that we didn't acquire an enormous canine for a while - he trotted alongside Nene quite contentedly for fifteen minutes or so, ignoring blandishments, protestations, and commands alike. Eventually, though, he found something more interesting to do and abandoned us to our own devices.
We'd grabbed a couple of potential free camping locales from the mechanic at the local bike shop, and decided to check out the parking lot of the Black Jack cross-country ski club, on the grounds that it was closest to town and had a disc golf course. It also had a bunch of people with dogs, and some really bright lighting, so we found an out-of-the-way byway and hunkered down for a short sleep before an early start on the Seven Summits mission.
* = We were told at one point that there are suburbs of Trail that have been so comprehensively poisoned over the years that you're not allowed to live there if you have children. Scary. Of course, it was Rudeword Dave that told us that, and he's at least as likely to make stuff like that up as I am, so feel free to consider it a likely semi-truth, or a blend of fact and fiction**
** = A faction
A short run west, then we meet some friends in Rossland. One of them is short. A short ride through fields of flame, a short term big dog, and a short sleep before a long ride
Long Version:
We listened to a Texan talk about energy on the radio, crossed bright orange and yellow bridges, and passed through some really cool towns, including Yahk (Two-Scoop Steve had closed for the season) and Creston. Eventually we found ourselves in Trail, which was surprisingly large. Apparently there are two major employers there: the massive smoke-belching smelter, and the hospital where they care for people injured or diseased from smelter activity*.
Just up the road from Trail is Rossland, which has no smelter or hospital, but does have lots of awesome mountain-biking trails. We'd arranged to meet the folks we rode with near Invermere (Hi Mark and Lori!) to ride the IMBA Epic Seven Summits trail on Saturday, but we and they were there a day early, so we met in the bike shop by accident after failing to meet on purpose and set off to ride some of the near-town trails: KC to Back of KC to Milky Way to the Old Wagon Road.
Combining our navigation expertise with theirs meant that we temporarily misplaced ourselves, and ran out of time to complete the planned loop. Nene and I got to do an extra trail or two, including the star of the day: the Milky Way. Fast as fast can be, we blasted down this swooping, diving trail, bypassing the bigger jumps and hucking off the smaller. It ran us through a forest and through a field full of bracken in various stages of changing color. The yellow, orange, and red fronds made it look very much like the whole meadow was on fire. Then back into forest and down and down some more. It was great fun.
And then we had to pay for it, by riding back up. A long way. With lostness. Eventually, though, we found the remains of the old Mining School, and then we found the town and the Reaper in relatively quick succession, although not so quick that we didn't acquire an enormous canine for a while - he trotted alongside Nene quite contentedly for fifteen minutes or so, ignoring blandishments, protestations, and commands alike. Eventually, though, he found something more interesting to do and abandoned us to our own devices.
We'd grabbed a couple of potential free camping locales from the mechanic at the local bike shop, and decided to check out the parking lot of the Black Jack cross-country ski club, on the grounds that it was closest to town and had a disc golf course. It also had a bunch of people with dogs, and some really bright lighting, so we found an out-of-the-way byway and hunkered down for a short sleep before an early start on the Seven Summits mission.
* = We were told at one point that there are suburbs of Trail that have been so comprehensively poisoned over the years that you're not allowed to live there if you have children. Scary. Of course, it was Rudeword Dave that told us that, and he's at least as likely to make stuff like that up as I am, so feel free to consider it a likely semi-truth, or a blend of fact and fiction**
** = A faction
Twitching Woman, Hidden Moose
Short Version:
A slow start inside a cloud. A new wheel. We ride and walk up a big, nasty hill, then ride back down an exceptionally good downhill run. Stolen showers, Happy Meat, Cryogenics.
Long Version:
An early ride had been mooted, but didn't eventuate. In fact, in the end it was quite the opposite, with a slow start to the day encouraged by the temperature (cold), the visibility (nil: a cloud had settled on the hill where we were camped), and our legs (feeling yesterday's climb). The hill's fog hat lifted then started to come and go in waves, which looked pretty neat as they boiled up from the valleys.
Eventually, we made it to town, where we purchased a replacement rear wheel. Grrrrrr.
We also got ride advice and directions from long-time Fernie mechanical wizard Al, and spent an age chatting to the Dobermann-owning Kiwi and his Ottawan girlfriend, whose names we finally learned (Hi Leigh and Vanessa!) before setting of in search of the Slunt.
The weather wasn't looking too flash, so we were raincoated when we set off from the Reaper through the Mt Fernie Provincial Park to the trailhead. A twitching woman stopped us on the way and told us she'd just seen a family of moose where the Stove trail entered the forest. Not sure if she was trying to warn us off or giving us an opportunity to go see them for ourselves, but we saw no sign of them and were soon far too occupied with the technical challenge of riding up Dem Bones to worry about whether or not we should be worried about their proximity. Wet, slippery, off-camber root systems and short steep climbs - and sometimes both at once - had us concentrating and working hard, and there was little respite when we crossed the powerlines into Mushroomhead. Things got steeper again when we turned up onto Lactic Ridge and then Moccasin, both of which were so steep as to be largely unrideable, although that may have been at least partly due to how far up we'd already ridden.
Finally, after an hour and a half of serious climb and sometimes-sketchy traverse, we reached the start of the Slunt.
Thirty minutes later, we were back at the van, having ridden down the Slunt and Brokeback Ridge and along a partially-submerged road-parallelling track to a tap where we rinsed the bikes, then on through the campground to the picnic area where the Reaper welcomed us with the now-traditional eye-watering grit shower during desecuring.
My notes on the Slunt/Brokeback Ridge descent say:
- awesome, down and down and down
- Great trail, steep, slick, FAST!
- Brokeback = flatter but also awesome. Even faster!
- Both: wet dirt
- Jumps, bermed corners, GREAT!
My ride notes also say:
- Best trail of trip? If fix Lactic + connector + Moccassin then maybe
Lovely Wife was almost indignant on the way up Lactic Ridge, saying "It would be SO EASY to make this an AWESOME uphill trail!" I could see where she was coming from - the trail went straight up a ridgeline, but could be made to wind back and forth at a far more pleasurable gradient. Not without a reasonable amount of effort though, and it's probably not going to be our sweat and pain that's used if and when the undertaking is undertaken, so we'll not complain too vociferously. Instead, we'll laud the awesomeness of the downhill trails, because they really were quite special.
We stole hot showers from the Provincial Park, and snuck into the dirtbag campground via the Suzie Road feeling fresh and clean and on top of the world. The Happy Meat burgers and extra-strong Tres Pistoles Beer were like icing on a cake, only more delicious, and the only downside was the cryogenically frozen fingers we both got when the stove decided to spray fuel everywhere during setup. The peril of machinery I've operated on, I guess.
A slow start inside a cloud. A new wheel. We ride and walk up a big, nasty hill, then ride back down an exceptionally good downhill run. Stolen showers, Happy Meat, Cryogenics.
Long Version:
An early ride had been mooted, but didn't eventuate. In fact, in the end it was quite the opposite, with a slow start to the day encouraged by the temperature (cold), the visibility (nil: a cloud had settled on the hill where we were camped), and our legs (feeling yesterday's climb). The hill's fog hat lifted then started to come and go in waves, which looked pretty neat as they boiled up from the valleys.
Eventually, we made it to town, where we purchased a replacement rear wheel. Grrrrrr.
We also got ride advice and directions from long-time Fernie mechanical wizard Al, and spent an age chatting to the Dobermann-owning Kiwi and his Ottawan girlfriend, whose names we finally learned (Hi Leigh and Vanessa!) before setting of in search of the Slunt.
The weather wasn't looking too flash, so we were raincoated when we set off from the Reaper through the Mt Fernie Provincial Park to the trailhead. A twitching woman stopped us on the way and told us she'd just seen a family of moose where the Stove trail entered the forest. Not sure if she was trying to warn us off or giving us an opportunity to go see them for ourselves, but we saw no sign of them and were soon far too occupied with the technical challenge of riding up Dem Bones to worry about whether or not we should be worried about their proximity. Wet, slippery, off-camber root systems and short steep climbs - and sometimes both at once - had us concentrating and working hard, and there was little respite when we crossed the powerlines into Mushroomhead. Things got steeper again when we turned up onto Lactic Ridge and then Moccasin, both of which were so steep as to be largely unrideable, although that may have been at least partly due to how far up we'd already ridden.
Finally, after an hour and a half of serious climb and sometimes-sketchy traverse, we reached the start of the Slunt.
Thirty minutes later, we were back at the van, having ridden down the Slunt and Brokeback Ridge and along a partially-submerged road-parallelling track to a tap where we rinsed the bikes, then on through the campground to the picnic area where the Reaper welcomed us with the now-traditional eye-watering grit shower during desecuring.
My notes on the Slunt/Brokeback Ridge descent say:
- awesome, down and down and down
- Great trail, steep, slick, FAST!
- Brokeback = flatter but also awesome. Even faster!
- Both: wet dirt
- Jumps, bermed corners, GREAT!
My ride notes also say:
- Best trail of trip? If fix Lactic + connector + Moccassin then maybe
Lovely Wife was almost indignant on the way up Lactic Ridge, saying "It would be SO EASY to make this an AWESOME uphill trail!" I could see where she was coming from - the trail went straight up a ridgeline, but could be made to wind back and forth at a far more pleasurable gradient. Not without a reasonable amount of effort though, and it's probably not going to be our sweat and pain that's used if and when the undertaking is undertaken, so we'll not complain too vociferously. Instead, we'll laud the awesomeness of the downhill trails, because they really were quite special.
We stole hot showers from the Provincial Park, and snuck into the dirtbag campground via the Suzie Road feeling fresh and clean and on top of the world. The Happy Meat burgers and extra-strong Tres Pistoles Beer were like icing on a cake, only more delicious, and the only downside was the cryogenically frozen fingers we both got when the stove decided to spray fuel everywhere during setup. The peril of machinery I've operated on, I guess.
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