cold weather

It got cold here, with the low supposed to be -11 F and the high the next day of 10 F. [SARCASM] This is proof we don't have to worry about global warming anymore [/SARCASM]. I went out with my camera in the morning and took this image of some water dripping out of the aqueduct drain over a little creek.

 Aqueduct drain

Then I headed overland to Longfellow Pond. The snow was cold enough to squeek. Someone had cleared the snow off of an area to skate, but the ice was pretty atrocious (bumpy and the surface was hardened partially melted and frozen snow). I took a panoramic image to try to turn into a little planet. I need to work on how I fill out the middle a bit more, but as a proof of concept shot I think it worked out ok. This is from approximately the center of the cleared ice in the middle of the pond. Processing it did bring my computer to its knees though, maybe 4 GB of memory isn't enough after all.

Planet Longfellow

New Header

I made a new header image for this blog and uploaded it. I am not 100% happy with how it worked out, but maybe 85%, and I think it is a big improvement over the boring blue rectangle that was there before.

The image is a composite from Wyoming. On the right I am climbing the SW arete of Lost Temple Spire in the Deep Lake area of the Wind River Range. Dawn took the photo. The background is the Teton Range from the summit of Teewinot. The Grand is on the left and Mt Owen is on the right I think. I was going to put a climbing silhouette on the left too, but decided that didn't work out so well. Maybe some day I'll get ambitious and make some different header images and make them switch or something.

In case I do change it, here is the header image I'm talking about.

Sledding fun

A winter storm blew through a few nights ago with enough snow to cancel school for 2 days. The snow started out wet and heavy and weighed down and broke many branches. The second day the sky was blue, the sun was shining, and we went sledding over on the aqueduct. First we had to get all bundled up and walk there trading off carrying the sled.

Then P and T headed down the hill. 

But what goes down must walk back up.

Just heading down the hill became a bit boring. Someone had built a kicker at the bottom so of course the goal was to jump off of that. Unfortunately steering was not so easy with these sleds.

EEEEEEEEEK!!!!!!!!

Liftoff

Houston, we have a negative on that orbit, brace for impact.

OOF!

In addition to sledding people slid and tumbled down a shorter steeper hill. A good time was had by all (at least some of the time). As far as we know no children were permanently harmed in the making of this blog post.

lamest guarantee ever

Check out this guarantee on some batteries I recently got from China...

That's right, they will repair or replace any device damaged by these batteries provided the batteries have not been charged by the user or device. Of course it does caution you to charge before use.

I am going to get my sister to charge them for me, so I'll be fine.

2010 Year End Report

rowrbazzlicious - a big word to move the text below these 2 images.
I grew a ridiculous molestache as you can see here on the left, then I chopped it off as you can see on the right. 

Here are some of the highlights (and lowlights) of 2010 for me.

At the stroke of midnight and the start of 2010 I pulled over on the side of the highway near Russelville and took some photos of fireworks and the Arkansas One nuclear power plant. In the next few days I continued on to Flagstaff where I packed my bags and took the train to LA. There I met up with my girlfriend and found out she was no longer my girlfriend. Then we went to Thailand. The trip wasn't anywhere near as good as I had planned and hoped, but it wasn't that bad considering. Starting out with negligible sleep for 4 or so days made getting over my jet lag a moot point.

In Thailand we went down to Tonsai for the overhanging limestone sport climbing of the Railay peninsula. We also went on a number of rest day excursions to local tourist spots and did some snorkeling in the sea.

We took a break from Thailand and went down to Kuala Lumpur during Chinese New Year to climb at Batu Caves. The climbing wasn't all that great and was a logistics pain (and the weather was starting to monsoon), but the food in KL was most excellent. We returned to Tonsai for a bit more climbing before heading back to Bangkok and then back to the states shortly before the unrest started in Thailand. I took the train back to Flagstaff and starting trying to make sense of my life and some 10,000 photos I had taken. I made some progress with the photos.

I did some climbing trips around Flagstaff and the Sedona area plus trips down to Tam-O'Shanter (climbing) and the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Then I drove back east to attend my 20^th College reunion at Haverford. This was an interesting event. It was great to see and catch up with a number of people, but there were some I didn't get much of a chance to talk to and others that didn't attend. I also would have liked to see more people from the years ahead and behind mine.

Then I headed up to Needham for a visit with the segments of the family there. I also continued with getting in shape with Andy's “get fit with 2 workouts a week or die trying” workouts which I had started with shortly after returning to the US. Amazingly I did get in much better running shape than I have been in since college, but I still don't particularly enjoy trying to run fast despite really enjoying being in shape. I also managed some pack rafting on rivers in the area and a short trip up to Maine to visit Emi (who I had also seen at the reunion). After my niece and nephew's birthday and a fair bit of stalling I finally achieved terminal velocity and headed out west.

The first thing I did when I got to the mountains was a rather epic ridge traverse of 4 peaks in Rocky Mountain National Park. Then I headed up to Lander for the International Climber's Festival. I was on a roll with the contests there and won the milk crate stacking and slackline competitions! Then I did a final acclimatization trip into the Wind River Range before heading around to the other side of the range for the annual TMF Expedition with the Yogaslackers (TMF = Too Much Fun, also known as a sufferfest). This 6 day trip trip involved hiking in 20 miles, a failed attempt to climb Arrowhead peak (rain and lightning got in the way), travel over some passes into the Titcomb basin, climbing Mount Helen, climbing Gannet Peak (the highest point in Wyoming), descending to the west with some technical backpacking to the Green River, and descending the Green River with ultralight pack rafts and hand paddles. Finally we busted out to the road and were saved from a long slog by some quick and fortuitous hitch hiking.

From the Wind River Range I headed to Squaw Valley, CA to the Wanderlust Music and Yoga festival. It was a weird mix of music festival, yoga festival, and burning man light – quite entertaining and I didn't get a whole lot of sleep. Then I headed back east to Salt Lake City to the Outdoor Retailer show (still with the Yogaslackers). As usual it was plenty entertaining but not so restful.

Then I had a few days of sport climbing at Maple Canyon before heading back up to Wyoming to join Dawn for a climbing trip into the Winds – the Deep Lake and Cirque of the Towers areas. After this tiring but successful trip we did a bit of sport climbing at Ten Sleep and then headed to Devils Tower where we climbed for a few days 'til she had to head back to Arizona. I stayed on at Devils Tower and did some work there at the Devils Tower Lodge (acting as host for the bed and breakfast). I also managed to get a number of good climbing days in.

I left Devils Tower to head down to Mexican Hat, Utah for a trip down the San Juan River with a heap of people Dawn knew. From there I headed back to Flagstaff for a few weeks with some local climbing including a trip to Granite Mountain. Then I headed to Kentucky in time for Halloween and some steep sandstone sport climbing in the Red River Gorge region. Unfortunately it seemed that as I was starting to get strong on the climbs there it was time to head up to Needham for Thanksgiving. There I have been enjoying the pleasures of indoor living, good food, fast internet service as well as enthusiastic 8 year olds. At this time last year I was excitedly driving across the country. What a difference a year makes.

Thanks to the many people who have shared adventures, trips, lodging, and food with me over the years, it is very much appreciated.

I have posted a number of trip reports online on my web page here:

http://www.electricant.net/grundyman/index.html

Happy Holidays (what's left of them anyway) and have a great new year.

Sunset over the Wind River Range, Wyoming

Solstice Lunar Eclipse

It started snowing here the 20th, so my expectations were low, but I looked out after midnight and the sky was clear, so I pulled out my camera, tripod, and warm coat and headed out to take some pics. First I had to sweep the steps clear, then I set up. Almost immediately a large cloud bank began sweeping in from the NE and the moon disappeared. I had also just locked myself out. oh well.




I peeked out a little over an hour later and it was somewhat clear, so I put on the telephoto and snapped a few pics of the moon disappearing. Meanwhile the clouds thickened up to the point where the moon completely disappeared. It would have been nice to see the whole spectacle but sleeping was nice too.

More Red River climbing

Here are a few more pics from yesterday at Funk Rock City... The weather was spectacular once again, and I even sent a few new climbs.

Derek on "Eye of the needle"

Zac on "Gyana Mudra"

I finally posted these and a bit more on my web page  here:

http://www.electricant.net/grundyman/kentucky2010.html