Good Skiing and Narada Falls Face Snow Pit

Howdy Everyone!



Afterseveral daysof cooler weather and some precipitation, the mountain has come back out in full sunshine with a good 6" of powder on her flanks. There is some great skiing on the south and west aspects right now; while the eastern aspects are getting crusty.



This weeks snow pit was dug at the top of Narada Falls Face, just below the Steven's Canyon Road. As you can see from the profile, the main layer of concern is between 10 to 20 cm below the surface. Some moderate failuresfor the stability tests indicated that point releases are possible especially on lee slopes. However, no propagation was observed during the stability testing.





CTM(14) @ 12 cm Q3

ECTN(18) @ 12 cm Q3

RB3 @ 12 cm Q2



Keep an eye out for possible point releases on south facing aspects...there's plenty of sluffs coming off all around the Paradise area; especially the face onPanorama Point and the 4th Crossing area.

Tubing with Nathan and Lauren

Next up was Lauren with Nathan. Nathan says he had fun. I think he was only out there about five minutes though so I don't know that he was the hugest fan. He says he flew up in the air higher than everyone else and had more spray in his face. I think he needs a bigger tube, because he is just too tall for this one!

If You Like It, Get Two... or Three

Last week I was excited to learn about the new bicycle blog started by the fascinating and knowledgeable Justine Valinotti: Mid-Life Cycling.



[image via Justine Valinotti]



Justine is a writer and a college instructor who lives in Queens and blithely cycles all over New York for transportation and recreation. This is a departure from her cycling past: the past of a lycra-wearing, hard-training, fast-spinning, Alps-conquering roadie... named Nick. As the meaning of this sinks in, it is self-evident why Justine's point of view is so valuable. She has experienced the cycling world from two diametrically opposed perspectives: that of a competitive male roadie, and that of a woman who cycles to work in a skirt and heels - and she has much to share about both.



[image via Justine Valinotti]



And then there are Justine's spectacular bicycles!... She has two custom-built, lugged steel Mercians: a roadbike and a single-speed fixed gear, both in an intriguing colour that Mercian calls "flip-flop purple green." It looks lilac under some lighting conditions, but changes to green under others.



[image via Justine Valinotti]



Here is a close-up where you can sort of see the colour change on the rear stays. Justine likes both the Mercians and the colour so much, that she has recently ordered a third one: a mixte model called the Miss Mercian. For those interested in custom lugged mixtes, Mercian is a great option in addition to Rivendell and Velo Orange: The frames come in custom sizes and are fairly priced - including custom colour.



Because I respect her opinion on bicycle-related matters, Justine's preference for Mercian Cycles has made me curious. Mercian has been handbuilding custom lugged steel frames since 1946 in Derby, England. Their models include track, road, and touring diamond frames, as well as a touring mixte. Some vintage Mercian models had elaborate lugwork and are now highly collectible. Over the decades, Mercian's reputation for quality has not changed, and whether in bike shops or on cycling forums, you will be hard pressed to find anything but positive feedback about them - which is particularly impressive considering their reasonable pricing.



[image via Mark Gell on flickr]



This sage green trackbike is the sort of Mercian I would not mind falling into my lap...



[image via Justine Valinotti]



But for now I will live vicariously through Justine and look forward to seeing her Miss Mercian all built up: no doubt there are some interesting adventures in its future. Justine has toured extensively on her trusty bicycles, including such dreamy routes as the Loire Valley of France, the Mediterranean coast, the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees. Her descriptions of cycling routes are filled with interesting information and nostalgia, making even a ride through New Jersey sound intriguing. And you know she is a practical woman, as she wisely heeds the old adage when it comes to bicycles: If you like something, get two... or three!

Snowflakes at Night

Lee took this shot of my dads elk antlers about midnight the night it snowed. The white dots are snowflakes.

War of Wealth

Geez, y'all stop collapsing the world financial system, would you?

This is a poster from a 1895 play. I'm not sure if today's equivalent would be War of Wealth, War on Wealth, or War for Wealth.

Wikipedia has a handy reference of Economic disasters in the US that includes 16 incidents labeled "Panics". I guess since the last one was in 1911, somebody thought it was high time for a good old-fashioned panic. Many panics seem to start when the Joe Moneybags of the world try to grow even filthier rich, by means of dodgy schemes designed to swindle everybody else.

-----

Here are a couple of money-saving tips that I learned by accident.

#1: Discounts.
Hubby had a few medical tests a while back (he's fine). The bill was substantial, about $1000. I always feel a little cheesy doing it, but since we have one of those BigNameGasStation credit cards that rebates 1%, well, why not use it. I've learned to tolerate a little cheese.

"Can I pay over the phone with a credit card?"
"Yes. How much would you like to pay?"
"All of it."
"I can offer you a 20% discount for paying the entire amount."
"What!"

I'm sure if I'd written a check, they'd have happily cashed the whole thing.

#2: Look closer.
Counterfeit $10 bills have been passed in Oneonta recently. Who's risking a felony charge for $10?! ("Teenagers" comes to mind.)

This is another thing I love about small-town living. The bank teller not only told me about it, she showed me the bill in question. I would never in a million years have caught this bill as a fake. It just looked and felt like one of the new tens that had already seen a lot of wear.

She told me there were two ways to spot it as a fake: look for the plastic security strip by holding it up to the light, or check that the glossy "10" (in the lower right) changes color when the bill is tilted. But who does that kind of thing for $10 bills? I check the strip on $50s and $100s at craft shows, though it always makes me feel so rude. Hubby's been saying that I need one of those currency-checking pens instead, but the teller told me that counterfeiters now use paper that the pen doesn't detect.

Bottom line, if someone hands you one of the newer bills that seems like it's seen a lot of wear... take a closer look.

Aerial Mount Rainier, Climbing Route Images

Moving the bear aside... This picture tells a long story. Here is Mount Rainier on May 30, 2006. I was able to capture a few climbing route images during a flight.

A series of recent storms dumped a lot of snow on the mountain. In some places, there were reports of 3 feet. There are rumors that more is expected later this week too. Winter is not over...

Today, however, climbers contended with blue bird skies and light breezes (and quite a bit of postholing.) The tracks indicated that a few made the summit too! Here, two climbers took on the arduous task of breaking trail up the Emmons Glacier... It didn't appear as if anyone else was on the route either. These climbers are at roughly 11,400 feet, exiting the top of the corridor to the left.

Parties were having a hard time making it to Camp Schurman until Sunday, so it's good to see a team getting up the route. This may mark the first successful ascent of the route in 2006.

And here is a nice image of the Ingraham Direct and Disappointment Cleaver routes. The green line traced the visible climbing route up the Disappointment Cleaver. Notice how directly it climbs the spin of the cleaver... Nice...

More images later, this week. All images by Mike Gauthier

Reading and Riding

When I started cycling I never dreamed of getting into bicycle-themed literature. In fact, I intentionally avoided it. I guess I wanted to think of myself as "normal," didn't want to get obsessed, you know?.. Just a person who rides bikes, and nota person who is so defined by them that even her reading list is bike-themed.Fast forward several years, and my coffee table is littered with books and magazines about... you guessed it, cycling. My laptop has browser windows open to cycling-themed reading material. I'm a goner for sure. And you know what's worse? For some reason, most of the stuff I like is roadie themed. Let me explain: There is some truly excellent writing in this genre. Not just writing that seems good because I am into bikes. But writing that is so genuinely compelling in its own right, that it has gotten me interested in topics I had otherwise been indifferent to. Here is a sampling of my favourites, by category:



Book: The Rider by Tim Krabbé. I posted a sort-of review of it last winter and it remains my favourite. It is ultimately a novel about human introspection. That just happens to also be about bicycle racing. By the end, you may not be able to separate the two.



Writer: Limiting myself to just one, I would have to sayGraeme Fife. "I'm not greatly interested in results, frankly but the metaphysics and aesthetics of cycle racing excite me enormously," this man once said in an interview.



Magazine: I started readingRouleurbecause it was available at the Ride Studio Cafe libraryand I was looking for something to leaf through with my coffee. After a couple of issues I was hooked. The articles have an unexpectedly brooding, almost dark tone to them that lured me right in. I had no idea what I was reading about half the time, but it was gorgeous, so I kept reading until it gradully began to make more sense. That's how they got me.



Blog: Red Kite Prayer. This is a roadie blog that I really have no business reading. But the entries are so thoughtful and well written that I keep checking in and finding common threads, sometimes even patches of common ground.



Blog Entry: Favourite cycling blog post of all time is a masterpiece by a girl named Beth Newell. Now, this is a girl who went from riding her first roadbike to turning track national champion in just a few years, all the while documenting it hilariously. But my favourite post of hers has little to do with cycling, and focuses instead on a student exchange trip to Hungary. So, if you're having a dull night, do yourself a favour: Pour a nice glass of wine, click here, then search for the phrase "perhaps the most traumatic story about my calves dates back age twenty" and start reading from there. You will not regret it.

Paceline Ride, Take 2... or How I Psyched Myself Out, Then Had Fun After All

After two weeks of cancellations due to inclement weather and a week skipped due to injury, I finally did my second paceline ride. Because so much time passed since the previous one, the whole thing had gotten completely blown out of proportion in my mind, and I was even more nervous than before. I was now convinced that it wasn't being on a touring bike that made the ride strenuous for me last time - it was just me, being hopelessly out of my league. Was I prepared to face the embarrassment of arriving on my 110% appropriate loaner Seven just to have the same experience as before?



But moreover, as time passed I began to question whether pacelines were really a good idea for "someone like me." Since my write-up about the first ride, I've been warned by readers and acquaintances alike about how unsafe pacelines are, how ruthless the members of this particular cycling team supposedly are, and how there was no need to go to extremes - why not join a nice social group ride instead? I've even received links to videos of paceline crashes, just to make sure it sunk in what sort of danger I was exposing myself to. Though I took it all with a grain of salt, I would be lying if I said it didn't get to me. When I arrived to the meeting point for the ride, I was so nervous that I had to practically shove myself toward the group of women sitting on the grass. I can't believe that I managed to psych myself out to that extent. I did the ride, and it was great.



To clear up a misinterpretation of my previous post on the part of some readers, I never meant to suggest that the atmosphere of the last paceline ride was anything but welcoming. The leaders told me I had the wrong bike not because they were being unfriendly, but because I did have the wrong bike for that type of ride. This was an introduction to a sport and I basically showed up with inappropriate equipment. This handicapped me in comparison to the other participants, and they were simply letting me know that. My description of doing the previous ride on a touring bike was meant to show the humour of the whole situation, and not to criticise the nature of the ride or its organisers - for whose guidance and time I am genuinely grateful.



This time around, the difference in speed was so obvious that it is hardly worth discussing. Yes, a Seven Axiom set up for racing is faster than a Rivendell Sam Hillborne set up for touring, and to frame this as some profound realisation would be absurd. Still, I was tremendously relieved to have real evidence and not just assurances that "the right bike" would make such a difference. The right bike does not have to be a Seven of course. But it needs to be a light, aerodynamically set-up roadbike with closely spaced gearing and modern combination levers. When that's what every single other person in the group has, then that's what you need to have in order to be on equal footing.



Our group was larger this time and by the middle of the ride it was evident that a gap kept forming in the same spot. So we split into two groups and I ended up in the faster one. This was fantastic. I was mostly in the big ring for the rest of the ride, took more turns in the front, and practiced rotating while going full speed downhill. One of the leaders made sure to pull up alongside me and cycle as closely on my left as possible on the descent, having noticed that I am scared of that kind of proximity. With no way of escaping, I thought I'd lose my marbles and crash into a tree out of sheer fear of sensing her elbow 1" away from mine. "Oh my God, you're too close to me!" I pleaded. "No I'm not. Keep going. You need to get used to this." And I guess she had the right idea for how to deal with me: I got used to it.



At this point I am probably horrifying some of you again and making you wonder what on earth attracts me to this type of cycling. Honest answer: I don't know. But something definitely does. I like the speed. I like being in a paceline. I like receiving straightforward feedback about what I am doing wrong. I am relieved to know that my speed and endurance are up to par. My technique needs a lot of work, because I am still somewhat scared of the bike, scared of downhill speeds, and not entirely comfortable with constantly shifting gears. But all of that can be improved if I am willing to practice. The funny thing about human psychology, is that we tend to do what feels good without really knowing why, then construct elaborate rationalisations of our actions after the fact. But right now I'm too tired and confused to rationalise. I don't fully understand why I like the paceline rides. But I know that I want to keep doing them.

Mt. Shuksan

Mt. Shuksan had been on our list of mountains to climb for quite a while. It would be a new climb for most of us. So we made plans and headed north. We got off to an early start so we could make this a day trip. Here we are above the treeline heading for the glacier.

We were in and out of the fog and clouds for most of the morning.

This is one of the steeper sections of the Sulfide Glacier.

A climber approaching the 500' high summit pyramid.












Flowers at 9,000'






The easy rock climb up the summit pyramid makes for a great finish on this climb.







Dave picking a route to the summit.











Dennis, Dave, Jim, Doug and Mark on the top at 9,127'. Mt. Baker, our objective for the next day, in the background.
Dave looking down on the Mt. Baker Ski Area.












Some Foxglove growing by the road.

Good Day Sunshine

One of the things I love most about Florida is the sun. We are settling into our "winter" routine and enjoying being here again. I am really loving all of the sunshine after being in cloudy and rainy weather.





It was a bit cold today though. Not too cold to wear shorts while playing pickle ball and hiking by the river. But cold enough that at dusk, I could see my breath in the air. We built a campfire to keep us warm and at some point it was still too cold to be outside. I'm not complaining though. As long as the sun shines and I can be outside, I'm a happy girl.

Beer Tasting at Brouwerij de Molen

I was invited to a beer tasting event with dinner subsequently last month at ‘Brouwerij de Molen’ (literal translation: Windmill Brewery) in Bodegraven in the South Holland province. It was a business related event, and the brewery is really located inside a windmill.

The Netherlands is famous for beer brands such as Heineken, Amstel, Grolsch and Bavaria which I often call as water beer. I almost never drink them. So it was a big revelation for me to learn that the Netherlands actually produce real beers or something along the gastronomic beers that you can only find in Belgium. Well surprise, there is one in Bodegraven! And it looks like that the ‘Brouwerij de Molen’ is the only beer brewery in the Netherlands brewing the best beers in the country.

At ratebeer.com, an international site where beer enthuasiasts rate beers from all over the world, one can find a number of Brouwerij de Molen’s concoctions on the Top 50, even on the Top 10. Interestingly, it is the only Dutch brewery that entered the Top 50.

Anywho I don’t want to go into beer technicalities but what I do want to tell is that I enjoyed the beer tasting. I find the ‘Mooi & Machtig’ really grand. This is the cherry on top of the icing and can easily be served as an aperitif as well. Unfortunately, they only brew this beer for tasting and not for commercial production. All the beers we tasted had over 12% alcohol content which is pretty high for beer.

The nearest to taste to Mooi & Machtig is the ‘Bommen en Granaten’ so I bought four bottles to take home with me. The brewery has a little beer shop where consumers can buy their own locally brewed beers, as well as beers from other breweries around the world.

After the beer tasting we had dinner. I had the usual seafood but I did not take fotos of my starter and main, however I did for our desserts. Dinner was good and I would rate the food here 4 stars out of 5. And the beer? 5 stars of course =)

For the beer enthusiast, this is your place.

Brouwerij de Molen. Not joking but the brewery is in a windmill.

The beer guide telling us the history of the brewery.

The beer tasting starts!

We tasted 3 types of beers. The first one was a Stout (left foto). The second one was a Blonde or Pale Ale (see first foto at the top of this entry). The third one is the Mooi & Machtig, the most impressive (right foto).

Before dinner was served we were led to the little beer shop:

Brouwerij de Molen also sells other beers, imported beers.

I bought four bottles of Bommen & Granaten.

Then dinner was served and I had a pint of stout to go with it:

This was really good.

No fotos of the dinner except the desserts. Here is mine, a bavaroi tart with ice cream and melon... could not finish it.

The others had chocolate muffin with warm chocolate inside and some ice cream and melon.