Return to Canada Part 1: The Wedding

Among many fun and reminiscent visits with friends during my 3 week tour in the north country, the big event was our very own Fly Fisherman marrying his Mexican sweetheart. Everyone was there (most of them even managed to get to the ceremony on time), and the intimate back yard setting of the reception (not to mention the food & beverages - mmm!) was fantastic. More photos can be found here.

The bride & groom - now fully "tartaned"

In the words of Kilometres: a typical Gnat perspective

The reverse side of the quilt I made them

The full-fledged chaotic front of the quilt - so much going on!!!

Really?

Until I'm back in California and have my photos downloaded, here's a brief intermission (thanks Coach Ducnati for sharing) - ahhh, life in Bakersfield.

Read the news story.

And with that, I'm off to walk on the earth's interior in Newfoundland and eat lots of delicious dehydrated backpacking meals!

Santa Barbara Seeps

This week (right before my departure for Canada) I took a class called "Derricks to Desks", which is a local petroleum seminar for teachers. I figured it would give me a better understanding of what's going on here locally... I figured I wouldn't be the only one in the class with a geological background. Oh well, on the last day we went down to Santa Barbara to get a look at "Platform Holly" (one of the offshore rigs), the oil seepage, and potentially some dolphins. We saw all of those things - it was great, and the best part for me was NOT getting sea sick. Whew!

sea lions hanging out on a buoy (there were LOADS of these guys out and about)

Platform Holly

dolphins and Platform Holly

lots of dolphins! can you see the itty bitty dolphins?

oil seepage plus methane gas bubbles - there was lots of this too, but this photo showed prettier oil rather than gungier browner nasty looking oil

En Route to Newfoundland (almost)

BEG & I are soon to embark on a 7 day backpacking excursion in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland. I was last there (also backpacking) in 1996? On our trek (hiking routes shown in red) we plan to first hike across the Earth's mantle in the Tablelands, but in order to get there from the airport in Deer Lake we need to rent a car. The rental car route we're planning on is shown in turquoise. Then we have to make our way from the south end of the park around a fjord to get to the visitor's center and our orientation for the Long Range Traverse. At this point having a rental car becomes very expensive when we're hanging around in the backcountry, not to mention the difficulties of retrieving it from the western side of Brook Pond when we arrive on foot back at the visitor's center. So, from our orientation, we'll take the car back to the airport and taxi our way back (shown in yellow). We'll also have to taxi up to western Brook Pond in order to catch our boat to the other side (shown in blue) where we'll commence our hike up that fjord. From there we have 35km (20mi) of unmarked map-and-compass "trail" (is it really a trail if it's not marked?) across spectacular backcountry littered with fog and moose and geology to make our south to (and up and over) Gros Morne mountain, which is part of the eroded remains of a 1.2 billion year old range.

BEG posted our adventure on Canada's "Big Wild Challenge" where we have dedicated our adventure to protecting and promoting Canada's wilderness. You can donate to this cause through supporting our challenge.

A Special Tribute to Some 'Dam' Fine Wine!

Even though I'm not using this winery in my wine class, it still remains one of my favourite wineries and I feel like they deserve some props and free blog advertising too :) maybe someone at Castoro will stumble across this and send me some love in return...

So, here's my top 5 reasons that Castoro is great:

1. They make grape juice. And it's divine! Never been anywhere near, come remotely close to, and never will touch a concord grape!
2. They recycle. And they are anti plastic water bottles. They offer filtered water in their tasting room, but refuse to provide plastic water bottles.
3. They offer organic wines, which is cool and trendy - but they do it because they practice sustainable agriculture in many of their vineyards, and organic wines just happen to be a by-product of this.
4. They installed a photo-voltaic system in one of their vineyards and on their events room several years ago to offset their energy consumption in both wine production and the tastier side of the industry.
5. The obvious... wine! I tend to favour whites because I'm less prone to headaches from them - Castoro delivers consistently good whites, and that is a rarity in this area for sure. They also make nice reds - but so do so many other Paso Robles area wineries, that's not a "make or break" factor!

So if you're in the area, go check them out. If you have some magical connection and can hook me up with a sweet sweet deal (aka free wine), I promise I won't say no!

Manzanar. Or creeping around cemeteries at night.

Manzanar is an amazing cultural site not too far from Bake-town that I have driven past countless times, but never actually stopped at. We gave it a run through on the way to our campsite after hiking in the Bristlecones - specifically the cemetery. This was partly because of the great obelisk in the nearly full moon set against the Sierra Nevada, and also partly because at that time of night the visitor center/museum was closed.

Check out all the origami birds. Cranes that is.

One of the graves.

Our campsite (Tuttle Creek) is set against the backdrop of Mt. Whitney, more or less amongst the Alabama Hills. Not too often that one is camped by the tallest and second tallest mountains in the lower 48 on the same trip!

This is the grinning rock in the Alabama Hills. No, they're not in Alabama.

really old trees

Returning south from Crocuta, we made a little detour via the Sierra Trading Post store in Reno to see if we could find a few items that one cannot live without. For me, this was a new pair of boots. I tried on a bunch of pairs, and really these were the best fit right from the start. But, never having heard of "AKU" before, I was somewhat hesitant. In the end I figured that between the fit being good and the boots being made in Italy, it would be difficult to go wrong.

Naturally, after such a purchase, it would be impossible to go the rest of the day without actually trying them out. So we stopped (this really was a detour) at the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains for a hike through some really really old trees - over 4000 years old!

The trees were good and gnarly, and they were growing right out of sandy dolomitic rock, truly white, and the reason (I figured) for the name of the mountains themselves.

From the White Mountains, we were able to clearly see the Sierra Nevada to the east, and here in particular is the "Inconsolable Range" - which was (obvsiouly) why I had to photograph and mention them...


Rounding out the last 2 weeks at mostly high elevations, the trailhead started at 10 000' and from there we hiked UP - between this and virgin boots, taking breaks to photograph Indian Paintbrush was pretty easy to do. There was no shortage of spectacularness, making the return to Bakersfield even less inviting.

Crocuta, crocuta

My fantasy locale for a yurt in the Sierra stems from Crocuta, handbuilt by the Woodsman some 40 years ago, and home for the annual 4th of July celebration (sans forest fire starters) of which I have been privy to for the last 3 years. 4th of July being a somewhat belated celebration of Canada Day held in another country - as I see it anyway.

The newest addition to the cabin: a custom-made sign.

The origin of "crocuta"? a funny sounding word that (when doubled) means Pleistocene spotted hyena or something to that effect. Regardless of the meaning, this place has come to be a haven that I love going to - it's not exactly roughing it, in fact, I'd say it's the high life of mountain living. Screened-in windows and doors. Solar-powered lights. Fresh spring water on the property. Mountains, trees, meadows, the occasional bear, charm, etc.

The view I wake up to (behind the screen) when I am nestled above the "bath house".

brief stopover in San Francisco

...en route between Shasta and cabin-in-the-woods, I detoured into the city on the Bay for some good company, good food, brief onslaught of productivity, flowers and ducks:

mama pooch always carries dog treats with her in the park - this guy "oso" was soft and fluffy looking, but a very stinky pup

I can't remember the name of these, but I loved the firey orange and yellow-coloured petals

snapdragon. for sure. have always loved these, and if I didn't have a penchant for killing plants, I'd be all over the snapdragon/honeysuckle garden. oh, also if I had a garden...

quack. quack quack. the mallard was quite plucky I'd say - not sure what's up with his semi-albino friend there, but the standard duck was so reminiscent of buck/chickadee, my adventuring kudu-launching plush friend of yore that I was captivated

Shasta

After some limited planning and even more limited training, the Rock Star and I made our way up to Mt Shasta (at 14179 ft) to give a lesser-traveled route a summit attempt. We decided to give the Hotlum-Bolum ridge a try, although up until Friday morning, we were still tossing around other route ideas, like Hotlum-Wintun ridge, West Face... even Avalanche Gulch etc... 

rental boots vs my boots. no contest.

Looking at my beloved boots we thought that the sole peeling away from the toe might elicit some leakage, and I went to the Fifth Season to rent a pair of plastics before we got started.

We marked our way beyond the treeline with a GPS (after having been warned that getting back to the trail is one of the most challenging parts of this route), took an unnecessary detour up a big rock scramble to make our way up to camp among the moraines at 9500 ft only to find that a little longer pursuit up a snowslope to our right would have gotten us up there with significantly less fatigue (oops). In the end, since we didn't cross the Bergschrund (known henceforth as a "BFC" for "big fucking crevasse"), we figured this more challenging ascent still gave us credit for having done a "moderately technical" route...

It was remarkably hot considering how far north we were and at such an elevation. 

camp among the moraines at 9500 ft

Our camp was gorgeous and comfortable with spectacular views of the peak - but by the time we got there I was seriously regretting the boot rental as my feet were extremely unhappy. The next day we got going around 4am, which was probably about 3 hours too late for the conditions. We saw a handful of headlamps shining up the ramp before we headed up ourselves, and they must have gotten started hours earlier. 

sunrise hitting the summit, we're partway through the moraines and heading up to the next snow slope

By 10 am, 2 major things happened that prevented us from getting to summit:

1. my rental boots were trying to amputate my feet, I felt like a giant whiner but each step was just agonizing, and 
   
2. the sun was warming up the snow so fast that the ice our crampons were happily clamping into until then suddenly gave way into slush and we were "postholing" our way up in knee-deep mush. 

the Rock Star returning from his apex near the Bergschrund

We tried to press on to the Bergshrund at least, I caved at 11700 ft and the Rock Star made it to 12000 ft - then we admitted defeat but committed to give it a go next year - perhaps a little earlier in the season. And with a broken in pair of new boots for myself. Better safe then dead I always say!

my view back down the slope beyond my crampon, it's steeper than it looks - our camp is near the end of the "tongue of moraines" - the flattish looking stuff for those who don't know what I'm saying...

help me find...

Canada flag/maple leaf knee socks. Seriously, why do these not exist online??? I have found USA, Mexico, Italy, Brazil, the UK... but no Canada. This is wrong! If you find said Canadian knee/over the knee socks, I'm a size 10 foot - and thus a size large sock. Please and thank you.

Tasting the Terroir - sneak peak!

After much research, both of the reading kind AND the drinking kind, I almost have a finalized list of committed vineyards to feature in my class this fall. All are estate single varietals, and all are truly unique from each other. This is looking like a fabulous line-up and I'm so excited!!!

If you're in the area, go and check these wineries out - tell them I sent you! They are really working with my limited budget, and I wouldn't be using any of them if I didn't think their wine was great. Of course, what really makes a wine "great", is that you love it!

The For Sures (as in, I actually have the wine in my possession)

Pretty-Smith

Penman Springs

Cinnabar

Caparone

The Almost Certain (as in, I have a price worked out, but no wine in my possession yet)

Clautiere

The Anticipated and Greatly Hopeful (as in, things look good, but nothing "set in stone" yet)

Adelaida

top 2 least helpful things...

The Great SW USA Adventure

After much fund-raising and heinous heinous planning, I embarked on leading a group of students and my sister on a 10 day camping excursion from Bakersfield to Carlsbad Caverns and back. With the exception of one flat tire, we literally had no problems at all - some sketchy weather at times, but all in all, the mission in its entirety was accomplished with success.

Below are highlight photos from each day, the rest of them can be found here.


Day 1: Death Valley - the scenery was spectacular, and I've been yearning to see the fabled moving rocks up close in person for years, so this was for sure the highlight for me. Way too cool!


Day 2: Zion (and some rain) - the checkerboard mesa was pretty spectacular, although I can't seem to forget the extreme craving for pancakes after we saw oodles and oodles of stacked up crossbedded sandstone...


Day 3: In the rain we saw Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon National Parks, but having been to both before, and always coming away with the feeling that photos just don't do the grandeur justice, I have to say that the fake cops lining every small Utah and Arizona town were truly the highlight of that day. I suppose the purpose of the dummy cops is defeated when 9 people are poking in the windows of all the cop cars pointing and laughing and taking photos...


Day 4: From the Glen Canyon Dam to Sunset Crater to Montezuma's Castle & Well, and ending at Meteor Crater - the highlight of this long day for me must have been laughing at the photos of two students: one wearing a crooked tree as a mustache, and the other wearing a "junior ranger" vest in a gift shop - though they were hysterical, I'm showing you the craziness that is Montezuma's Castle.


Day 5: The spectacular Petrified Forest (and Painted Desert), followed up by Roswell and the Bottomless Lakes in New Mexico. Some of the petrified trees were impressively large...


Day 6: A morning at Carlsbad Caverns, the by the Permian Reef Trail (Texas) and onwards to camp at Rockhound State Park (obvious choice for a geology group). My highlight is the unlabeled cave formation of such obvious nature...


Day 7: A lengthy but scenic drive through the Sonoran Desert (yes, I realize that most of the trip was actually in the Sonoran Desert - but this day went through the actual National Monument) - while the highlight was likely the "Desert Dance Party" at the camp at the Petroglyph Site, this Chuckwalla I saw was pretty freaking cool.


Day 8: An excursion to the Salton Sea (as stinky as promised) brought us full circle back to California, and while we camped at Palm Canyon in Borrego Springs (Anza-Borrego State Park), which was beautiful and delightful and comfortable, the highlight has to be a dead fish on a stick. GROSS!


Day 9: Joshua Tree National Park - I FINALLY made it inside the park boundaries - and the spheroidal weathering of the monzogranite is really what makes this place stand out. Especially with butt- and whale-shaped rocks...


Day 10: Departure for home via my old faithful: the grand Mojave Desert. After over a year of threatening to do so, the Creech finally went for a swim in one of the brine trenches. We all nearly died of laughter.