St. Clair Michigan to Jefferson Ohio

Night Time Bike Art

After the 90F heat subsided yesterday, the evening offered some interesting photo opportunities.

Bike against the Harvard Square skyline.

Self-portrait with bike in shop window. (You can see the outline of my hat on the far left.)

In that spirit, we stopped by the opening of the Momentum show at Open Bicycle's Chorus Gallery, which was amazingly well attended. My treacherous camera decided to run out of batteries, so I only have a couple of shots. The show features the work of graphic designer Matt W. Moore, including paintings, limited edition prints, and painted bicycle frames.

The painted frames made me think of Anna from Cycling is Good for You. Anna, I can so easily imagine you riding this in Vienna, especially one of the red frames!

A mountain of maintenance

I've been wondering about the upper mountain. It must be snowing up there today, because the temperatures are much cooler here in Longmire. The Camp Muir and Paradise weather stations are both offline... Perhaps they are casualties of the intermittent disruption of power, phone and internet. I do know this: there was 7 inches of snow on the ground at Paradise yesterday, and I can see a snowline at 3,500 feet today.

I am also wondering about all that rain on the glacier. I have a feeling that at some elevations, the rain turned the glacier into hard/bulletproof ice when the temperature dropped. Here is the Nisqually Glacier from the air, taken on Wednesday.

It has been raining steadily today, but the river flow and currents have remained normal. Access to the backcountry and mountain is dependent upon repairing the park's infrastructure. A lot of cranes, dozers, and dump trucks will be needed to re-sculpt the land for roads and sewer systems. Like today, I saw a large crane moving rock in the Nisqually River in order to help protect a historic cabin, road and treatment plant. But it's not everyday you see this sort of thing in a national park.

There was another spate of articles online at MSNBC and in the local papers about the park closure and flood damage. The big pieces were in the News Tribune, Seattle Times and the Yakima Herald. In the meantime, let there be colder temps and stable weather.

Maple Canopy

Taken along Rengo Road on the Grand Portage Reservation in Northeast Minnesota. The Maples were already past their peak but the trees along the road were still plenty beautiful. One nice thing about when the leaves begin to fall is that they usually fall from the tops of the trees first. This reveals glimpses of the blue sky above while the lower halves of the trees still have plenty of color. While most people are concerned only about when the peak will occur each year, I find every stage of autumn to be equally enjoyable.

Swirly Clouds

I like this pic because of the swirly clouds in the blue sky. We did have great, natural light for photos.

Tubing with Austin and Lauren

First on deck is Austin and Lauren! It is hysterical to watch them because their personalities shine through out there. Austin looks like a dog hanging his head out a truck window. Lauren tucks down and holds on tight. They both seem to love it!

Violets

Violets, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

They're violets, but they're yellow. In full bloom on Yucca Ridge behind Cal Poly. Close examination of the ridge-top revealed that there are millions of things getting ready to bloom in the coming weeks.

Early Valentine's Day for us

Laura and I wanted to keep with our tradition of Valentine's day ice climbing, but the temps were already up to 45° today and tomorrow is calling for warmer and rain as is the rest of the week. We decided to make Valentines day come early this year. We headed out to see if we could get one last day of some big ice lines. Our intentions were to climb The Beast and possibly a new mixed gear line on the right side of the cliff that we noticed last week. It follows a fracture line up a blank steep wall for 40' to a flow that continues up another 90' or so to the large Called on Account of Security ledge. Well we went straight to The Beast to see if the bottom 30' came in enough to get on it. It actually got worse since last week, but I was willing to investigate. I started walking towardsbottom of the climb to see what I could make happen with the unconnected pencil pillars, when all of a sudden I hear some rockfall. 5 or 6 large basketball sized boulders were plummeting towards earth in Laura's direction. I barely had time to yell "RUN" and Laura had already noticed the panic in my eyes. She took off like a bullet away from the cliff. All I heard was the loud THUD sounds made by the rocks hitting the ground behind us. I was having flashbacks to a day we had at The Gun club several years ago when the large upper tier collapsed and showered us with an enormous amount of ice, large ice. I was extremely lucky to walk away with only some serious deep tissue damage and Laura with a huge bruise on her ass. We could have easily been killed by any number of chunks that came down that day. I still question how we made it through the shower without being pummeled. We stood there for a few minutes, debating if this was worth trying. More debris was falling every minute or so. I debated alternate starts, but all across the cliff it was raining rockfall. Not the little scree stuff that falls at the end of season. We're talking blocks. The air temperature was rising quick and making things worse. Since this was our Valentine's Day climb, we decided to stay a couple a little longer and abandon this wall and try one of the others. We hiked back up to Central and looked down to the right watching things fall all over. Our new mixed line was a seam strewn with smaller chunks and blocks that are usually held together by the ice. It was out of the question as water was now running down the seam assuring us that all the rock in the crack were rendered useless for protection. We were determined to get our V-day climb in so we just picked the biggest, driest, safest line we could find. It was so worth it. I climbed the line enjoying the funky 3D climbing and fresh ice this weeks cold weather formed. I finished the pitch and built an anchor to bring Laura up. She was grinning from ear to ear up until the crux. For that section she had a little more intent look and even called out a rare "watch me". She pulled through without hanging and finished in great style. We enjoyed the view from the top for a moment and quickly returned to to the ground to head out before we pushed our luck too far and ruined our V-day climb by one of us getting crushed. It was still early, so we opted to head to Ohiopyle.

Laura enjoying our Valentine's day climb here in SW PA

The belay offered a nice angle for photos

So much fun climbing ice together, Laura lovin' it!

Smiling through most of it!

My happy girlfriend, the worlds greatest climbing partner.

Happy Valentine's Day

Ohiopyle was interesting to say the least. We walked to the top of the Upper Meadow area. To our amazement we didn't see any ropes set up. I started to walk towards the top of the climbs to peer down. All of a sudden a tool with a rope attached to it came flying up over the top towards an exposed root. A guy was tossing the tool towards the root with the intentions of hooking it to assist him through the last several melting out moves. Crazy bathook antics for sure!

You can see the tool laying on the root ahead of my left foot.

We watched for a few minutes before deciding to leave before the sky started falling! All in all it was a great day and we fulfilled our Valentine's day climbing!(a day early)

Off to the French Alps

We are leaving in a few hours. We will be going to the same ski area we went to last year but will be staying in a different village. Dutchman and I loved the slopes here because they are a kilometre wide!







This is the ski village. Just look at how wide the slopes here are.



We have visited this village last year, Dutchman several times, while I, I think twice in the afternoon. It was a rather quick visit as it is located at the other side of the mountain range where we were staying. The ski lifts connecting both mountain villages closes at 4PM sharp, so we were always in a hurry.



Nevertheless, I will be blogging during the holidays, internet connection permitting.



On other news, this weekend the whole Netherlands will be ice skating on the frozen lakes. Here is a Volkskrant article (Dutch) about the ice skating tours this weekend all over the country starting today Friday: Schaatstochten trekken 50.000 recreaten(Ice skating tours attracts 50,000 holidaymakers)



See you in the French Alps!

Icicle River Gorge Trail ..

Jennifer and I finally got away for a little camping/hiking trip. We drove out to Leavenworth to camp with Matt and his brother Sunday night, and it turned out they had a similar plan for Monday. As Matt put it, "Drive to the end of the road and start walking." I was not aware that Icicle Road was still not fixed, so we headed onward. About five miles from Eight Mile Campground we were met with the road closure.

The road now a river

There was a newer road cut away from the river, but the forest service is not allowing public access by motorized vehicles at this time, so we parked and started walking. The new road is not yet ready for heavy vehicle access and is even susceptable to some flooding early on, where a small bit of rocks and mud is the only thing keeping the river out. It also showed plenty of signs of beavers, which might interfere with the road as well. We hiked on this a bit before it rejoined Icicle Road above the washout. We investigated the upriver side of the washout before proceeding up the road.

The work of beavers

After a while we came to the Chatter Creek trail head. After checking out the board there, (A trail conditions report from August '08 was on it.) we parted ways. Matt and his brother were heading back to Seattle via Washington Pass and Jennifer and I forged on ahead. Just around the corner we found the Chatter Creek Ranger Station. It looked like it was in a state of disrepair, but not too bad considering it has not been used in two years. Just across the road was the start of the Icicle River Gorge Trail. We decided to take it.

Unfortunately, the most dramatic point on the trail is the start where you cross the footbridge over the creek.

View from the bridge

There was some serious whitewater and interesting eroded rock in the constriction under the bridge. We watched a bit before heading up the trail. The trail climbs a short bit to a lookout area above the creek before dropping back down into an area that is more like a Western Washington forest. The ponderosa pines were replaced by western red cedars and the ground cover changed. We started seeing plenty of blooming (and past bloom) trilliums. We hiked on crossing several small bridges and hiking for what seemed like a while. The trail has not been maintained in a few years, but did not have too many logs across it.

Largest trillium I have ever seen

We had started this trip sans packs, and started thinking about getting back as this was a little more than we were thinking about when we left the car. But the trail was nice and we were having a good time. Despite dark clouds in places, we did not get any precipitation while we were out either.

We decided to continue up trail as we expected to be reaching the bridge back across the creek soon. It took longer than we expected, and once we got to a bridge we still appeared to be heading upstream. I quickly ran ahead to make sure we were going the correct way and I was able to see the vehicle bridge at the Rock Island Campground. We were going the correct way. At the campground I checked to see if the water fountains were working, but of course they were not. Since Jennifer and I had not packs, we did not carry any essentials with us including water.

We got back on the trail and headed back toward the car. The trail went quicker on this side of the creek and once again we were in a cedar forest.

Needle carpeted trail

The rest of the hike out was uneventful except for us missing the new road back before locating it. This was a fun hike, and surprisingly populated for a Monday. (We saw two other parties.) Considering the road is closed, it takes a bit of hiking just to get back in there. You could take a mountain bike on the road, but they are not allowed on the trails due to it being a wilderness area. I'd like to explore this area further in the future. It was also nice to get out without a pack on and just go for a walk. Of course, it would have been nice to have some food and water with us, but we survived.

The Forest Service page on the washout

Birthday Buddies

Today is my sister's birthday. Teresa Jane Wiseman Ratcliff Plybon would have been 55 years old today. Born in 1954, she passed away not quite two years ago. The picture, above, of Terry and Grandma was taken in early summer, 1955.

My Dad was born in 1924, on January 29th. He passed away on December 18, 1995. The picture below was taken during the 1990 reunion of the 11th Airborne.

Birthdays seem to run in pairs in my immediate family. One of my nephews was born on my Mom's birthday in May (he was her first grandchild). One of my nieces and I were born in February, a few days (and, obviously, years) apart. My older brother and one of his sons, as well an uncle (by marriage) were born within three days of each other in March. His twin boys were born on the last day of March.

Another nephew was born just a day after my younger brother, during the first week of July. My brother's birthday was the one that we all celebrated when we were young, with a party and everything! After all, it was in the summer and close to the 4th. A great excuse for a family get-together. His son was born the last week of June. His daughter was born in September as was my other niece.

Hollow Rock Dreamscape

The final location for the night ended up being Hollow Rock Resort along the shores of Lake Superior. As I drove back down the Arrowhead Trail the sky was completely socked in with clouds and a thick fog covered the ground. I thought for sure these conditions would persist all the way home. As luck would have it, however, when I got back to Highway 61 along the Lake Superior shore the fog had lifted and there were some openings in the clouds. By the time I was driving by Hollow Rock the clouds were receding quickly and the sky was full of dancing northern lights. Of course I had to stop at Hollow Rock once I saw these conditions! This is the first time I have been able to photograph the aurora directly over the rock. Since the view here is more east/southeast than north you don't get very many opportunities to see the aurora from this angle. On this night, however, the sky was full of dancing lights and plenty of them were directly above Hollow Rock. This photo was made about 3:30 in the morning and was the last shot I made before heading home and crawling into bed. It sure ended up being a fantastic night!

The Larz Anderson Bicycle Show!

Today was the14th Annual Larz Anderson Grand National Bicycle Super Meet in Brookline, Massachusetts and I am pleased to report that I was able to attend.



I intended to take documentary-style photographs of the show... But that did not work out so well, as it was just too crowded with too much going on! Nonetheless, here are some shots of bicycles that I especially enjoyed and you might too.



Having seen pictures from previous years, I expected the Larz Anderson show to be full of antique roadster-style bicycle, but this year there were only a few. This one is an Elgin loop frame.



Wooden fenders, wooden chainguard and netted dressguards on another loop frame!



And dramatic upside-down North Road handlebars (or are they track dropbars? a hybrid of the two?) on a Sterling roadster.



A Columbia truss bridge bicycle!



I examined it up close, and it is definitely welded, not lugged - though I am not sure whether this was true of all early truss frames.



A Dunelt Roadster with baby chariot. These look so much nicer than the modern Co-Pilots! But are they road legal?



An unusual Concord mixte in a beautiful shade of slate blue.



The lugwork on this one was gorgeous and it was in exactly my size. What strength of will I have!



I was told that Concord was a Dutch manufacturer [edited to add: looked it up on bikeforums, and it is actually Japanese].



Could that explain the atypical spelling of "mixte"?



And how about this fully equippedRaleigh Sixteen? - a folding bicycle like the Raleigh Twenty, only with 16" wheels.



Green frame, fat cream tires and dynamo lighting! I am envious of who ever ended up taking this beauty home!



The star of the show was this enormous, forest green, originalDursley Pedersen bicycle.



Dursley Pedersenheadbadge.



Crocheted saddle (or seat in this case?).



Wooden grips with inverse brake levers.



And, of course, an antique headlamp! This bicycle was truly a spectacular sight.



My personal favourite in the show, however, was this stunning bicycle from the 1960s, which belonged to the wife of Cino Cinelli. To my dismay, I was not able to get any good full-size pictures that capture its glamour to the extent it deserves, but maybe some hint of it will come across here!



Ever seen a step-through Cinelli before? This one was apparently Mrs. Cinelli's personal ride, and it is exquisitely made. I am wondering what is the history of this particular style of frame; is it specifically Italian? I have been admiring similar designs from Abici and Bella Ciao, and would love to learn about their vintage origins.



The colour is just the right mix of pink, beige and champagne to be feminine and glamorous, yet understated. The lines are curves are as graceful as can be.



One piece handlebars and stem, with cream grips.



Cinelli crest on the stem! Just stunning.



There is a "his"model as well, and these bicycles were displayed as a pair. Riding these around town must have been a sight...



In addition to the exhibiting and selling of bicycles, there was a brisk trade in components, accessories, and vintage clothing. It was enough to make my head spin. This time around, I neither brought a bicycle to exhibit (I was trying to be incognito), nor, thankfully, did I purchase a bicycle. But next year perhaps I will plan things better and spruce up one of my vintage beauties for show and tell.TheLarz Anderson Bicycle Showis a must if you are in the Boston area and love vintage bicycles.