Impressions of Zion

There are many trails at Zion that take you into some interesting places... The Emerald Pools (Lower, Middle, and Upper), which weren't green (at least they weren't when I was there). This waterfall is cascading into the Lower Emerald Pool and soaking anyone who dares walk beneath it, though this young man doesn't seem to mind getting all wet.

Weeping Rock - so porous that water seeps through it and a variety of plants grow on its walls.

Along the river were many trees with oddly shaped roots. This one wasn't too far from my campsite.

On the eastern side of the park, through a tunnel (a marvel of engineering completed in 1930) is Checkerboard Mesa.

And the eastern side is also where you might see Bighorn Sheep. I was lucky and saw several on this day. (I wasn't very close, these were taken with the 7x zoom magnification.)


Of course, spring flowers were in bloom. Not covering massive areas (as in California) but quite a few scattered here and there, and in the most unusual places. Like on the side of a canyon wall or in the crevice of a rock.


There was only one thing (and lots of that one thing) that even slightly marred my stay at Zion National Park. Worms. Though technically I guess they were caterpillars. They were creepy, crawly things. Lots of them. And they really liked my red tent. I mean, really. Every morning and every night and whenever I'd notice them, I'd pick them off the outside of the tent, 10 or 15 at a time.

The afternoon of the day before I left, I took the tent down. First I picked them off of the outside and from under the “skirt” along the bottom. Some were harder to remove because they had started creating their little cocoon. Once I had them all off, I started folding up the tent, but I kept seeing them as I closed up the poles. At first I thought the wind was blowing them off the trees, but I didn't see any flying through the air! Then I realized they were inside the “loops” where the support poles go. Oh, yuck. And some of them had also started making their little cocoons. It took forever (about two hours) to get them out and I'm not positive that I got them all. I haven't put the tent up since I left Zion but I have visions of little critters (Caterpillars? Moths?) coming at me when I do finally open it up again!

Even with that, my stay at Zion was incredible. The weather was perfect most of the time. Sunshine. Warm but not too warm for comfortable hiking. Nights and mornings were on the chilly side but nothing extreme and it warmed up nicely when the sun came up. The wind was strong several days but mostly just a light breeze. Near perfect conditions. Great hikes. Nice camping neighbors. Marvelous scenery. 'Nuff said.

Tuffee & Spanky

Tuffee and her friend Spanky playing their game of race along the fence.

Better than Ueli Steck? Frank Jourdan

Even Steck admits to an on sight climb as being the betteraccomplishment. Jordan didn't require pre inspection or multiple laps in the alpine.



And a bit of tongue in cheek when I say "better" as both are obviously incredible athletes. Just wanted a little shock value as most haven't heard of, or understand Jordan's accomplishments in North America. Some perspective? Manyof these climbs take a full day's walk just to get to the base. Most if not all, have rock much worse than on the Eiger. There are no trams,no cell service, no fixed gear with few climbers out compared to the Alps. And finally only the easier routes have seen much traffic. Almost everything Jordan did was an early solo ascent if not the 1st solo ascent.I've never heard of anything remotely comparable having been done by one climber in such a short amount of time in North America. You would have to look long andhard in the Alps to find anyoneso eager, capable and most importantly committed today, let alone in 1994.Read on if you want to know more.



Pictures are literally only of Jordan's "easy" routes from these trips!



Frank Jourdan?



David Dornian wrote the following about Frank Jourdan's summer for the Calgary Mountain Club World News' alpine report in 1994.



"A stiff little reminder of what can be accomplished when you put a few caffeine pills into your butt bag, hang a couple of ropes and your shoes off your harness, and get out whilst everyone else is still "waiting for things to come into condition"



What did YOU do on your summer vacation? In July, visiting German alpinist Frank Jourdan managed a quick two-week trip to the Canmore/Banff/Jasper corridor to finish off a North American tour.



Discovered sleeping in his car at the ACC clubhouse parking lot in Canmore, he was taken into town by staff, coffeed up, and the following amazing tale was extracted in halting English.



It seems that a few days previously, Frank had driven north to the Columbia Icefields where he soloed a route he referred to as "Skyladder Direct" on Mt. Andromeda. He then descended the line, crossed the glacier to the northeast, and ascended "The Shooting Gallery". From there, he traversed the summit of Andromeda, climbed down one of the "Practice Gullies" and moved across too the base of "The Andromeda Strain".





The gully of A-Strain



In the dark now, he ascended the "Strain" by headlamp, carried on past the Andromeda/Athabasca col, over the summit of Athabasca in blowing conditions and what he called "...very strong snow" and arrived back at the parking lot 45 hours after he had left.



There's more.



Moving north a bit, Frank then soloed the Robinson/Arbic on the North Face of Cromwell.



And more...



Next, he attempted the North Face of Alberta. Going up without a rope, Frank decided he didn't like the inconsistent nature of the rock band above the icefield, and so he traversed off the face and descended the NE ridge. As a consolation, he bagged the peak by the Japanese Route before returning to the highway.



And still more...



He drove to Jasper and had a look at the North Face of Edith Cavell, coming down because of wet rock and unconsolidated snow.



And finally.



Returning south past Mt. Kitchener, where he soloed the Grand Central Couloir - "Only to be climbed ven zer's eis..." - apparently spending over an hour tunneling through the summit cornice.





N. Face of Kitchner

Wait...



After resting and cragging around Canmore for a few days, Frank decided that he wanted "...perhaps one more peak" before he headed home to Germany. When he showed up at Acephale around noon on Sunday, looking for Todd, we mercilessly insisted that he have a go on Mirror Stage 12b. Heh, heh. After all, we pointed out to this quiet little guy in the pilled fleece, there was already a rope on it; he might as well give it a shot. Protesting that he was "probably quite tired...", he dutifully pulled on a pair of shoes and sent the rig first try. A little while later, he did the same to Bleu du Ciel 12b, loosing his feet during the hideous sloper match at the crux and simply pulling up and locking off while he reached across for the next crimp edge in the sequence.



Now willing to let him be our friend, we engaged Frank in conversation. Turns out he had spent the day before climbing the Blanchard/Robinson on the North Face of Howse Peak, avoiding the A3 chimney and block via the ice in the gash out right (which he admitted was slow going and "very technical" [and which Peter Arbic, the only other person to go that way, reportedly characterizes as "Death" - ed.] and had been forced to sleep on the mountain that night, prior to descending and running up to meet us at the crag."



Dave Dornian





There is more...



From:



http://www.alpinist.com/



Frank Jourdan



Posted on: December 1, 2004



http://www.alpinist.com/doc/ALP09/climbing-note-jourdan







The east face of Mt. Assiniboine, showing Cheesmond-Dick (V 5.9 A2, ca. 1200m, 1982). Frank Jourdan soloed the route in July for its second ascent. It was his third trip to Canada; in July 1994 he soloed a direct variant to Skyladder Direct, then climbed The Shooting Gallery, and then climbed The Andromeda Strain, all on Mt. Andromeda, car-to-car in forty-five hours. He then soloed the Robinson-Arbic on the north face of Cromwell. Next, after attempting the north face of Alberta, he climbed the Japanese Route; then attempted the North Face of Mt. Edith Cavell; then soloed the Grand Central Couloir on Mt. Kitchener; then soloed the Blanchard-Robinson on the north face of Howse Peak. His 2004 tour showed his enthusiasm to be undiminished. Photo courtesy of Raphael Slawinski



in his own words



"In July I traveled for the third time to Canada. In spite of bad conditions on the alpine faces I picked off a couple of good routes. After installing a bivy cache at Eiffel Lake I succeeded in climbing the Greenwood-Jones (V 5.8 A1, ca. 1400m, 1969) on the north face of Mt. Temple,





2000m N. Face of Temple

then, after a bivouac at the cache, the Supercouloir (IV 5.8, Lowe-Jones, ca. 1200m, 1973) on Mt. Deltaform (the final pitches of which are especially brittle).







Dave Cheesmond photo of Tim Friesenon Deltaform's crux



Deltaform's 2000m N. face. Cheesmond's picture above is the lastbit of rotten rock on top of that narrow ice gully.



Two and a half days later, when I was feeling more confident with this type of rock again, I headed to the glacier at the base of the east face of Assiniboine (the longest "twenty-kilometer" hike I ever did). This impressive mixed face was not in good shape either. After resting at the base I started climbing the Cheesmond-Dick (V 5.9 A2, ca. 1200m, 1982) at 2 a.m. I gained height pretty fast, but around 8:30 a.m. I got stuck just below the start of the upper, steeper sections because of intense rockfall. I searched for shelter and waited for dropping temperatures. At 4 p.m. (!) the rockfall abated and I kept going as fast as I could. In some sections, especially the steeper waterfall pitches, the snow and ice were almost gone. Therefore I was forced to climb very tricky, scary, loose and wet mixed terrain with sketchy pro. A ramp system and a traverse to the left leads to a steep rockface which is usually the crux, but, compared to the lower sections, the rock was not too bad. Using free, aid and drytool techniques I reached the easier exit slopes. A final, vertical, ice-and-soft-snow pitch through the cornice at the top made me shit my pants. The face took me thirteen hours to climb (with the stop, twenty-one hours). Another longtime dream was fulfilled.



After some rest days and a twelve-day visit to the remote Waddington Range, where I managed to solo three routes (the Flavelle-Lane route [TD+: 55 degrees 5.8, 980m] on Waddington; a possible new route [5.9+, ca. 650m], left of Perseverence, on the south face of Combatant; and the Southwest Face [TD+: 5.8, 1450m] on Tiedeman), I headed farther north to the main goal of the trip: the 2000-meter unclimbed northwest face of Devils Thumb, the ultimate challenge for a fast solo push. From Petersburg I flew in, highly excited to look at the face, but what a mess: there was no snow and ice at all, only very broken and chossy-looking rock (especially in the lower part). I realized that there is no way to climb this vertical quarry. I left for Canada, where I sat in my car near the river ready to start another attempt on the north face of Mt. Alberta (which I had attempted in 1994, failing below the upper rockband, which scared me too much at the time)—but I hesitated. The last weeks had hurt my knees and back painfully. The stress of being alone in a lot of scary situations had blown my mind, and I decided to not go: I was not motivated or calm enough any more. I started the car, anxious to get back to life, to my friends, to share my beloved red wine... and realizing that once again, I had been lucky to survive."



— Frank Jourdan, Pforzheim, Germany





Some holiday :)

Unusual Seismic Recordings from Mount Rainier Glaciers

This is Steve Malone with the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network located at the University of Washington in Seattle. We operate seismographs throughout the Pacific Northwest and have three located high on Mount Rainier. We often record seismic events from all of our glacier-clad volcanoes that we associate with glacier motion, i.e. "ice-quakes." However, since about May 20, we have detected a strange set of these events coming from the upper Winthrop Glacier. We are calling these small events "clones" because the seismic waveforms from one event are near-duplicates of those from other events indicating a repeating source. They also seem to occur at very regular intervals.


The interval between events is often as short as every 3 minutes but changes from time to time and has been as much as 15 minutes between events. We think that their magnitude (on the Richter scale) is about M = -1 (i.e., 8 orders of magnitude smaller than the Nisqually earthquake of 2001).



So, what are these puppies? We think they represent small periodic slips at the bed of the glacier. Perhaps there is a large rock embedded in the bottom of the glacier and as the glacier moves it scrapes this rock along the bed, only a few mm in each slip. But why are they so regular in time? Maybe water pools up-hill of the rock until it slightly lifts the glacier allowing the rock to more easily slip and this then drains that small pool of water starting the process over. We think that water has an important influence on glacier sliding but don't understand the mechanism very well.


How can you help? Anyone climbing Rainier on the east side (upper Emmons or Winthrop Glacier routes) may see or hear things that would help us pin these suckers down. Please let me know of anything you think may be out of the ordinary (sounds, sights, feelings???). Particularly those of you who have been in this area before and can compare what may be different from previous climbs. Our best guess where these originate (based on stacking 4000 individual events to get the best relative seismic wave arrival times at six seismic stations and using a 1-D seismic velocity model with station elevation corrections, blah blah blah, other scientific mumbo-jumbo) puts the location at 46.85950 north 121.7610 west (i.e., 2.5 km WSW of Camp Schurman or 3.4 km NNW of Camp Muir or about 600 meters up from the top of Russell Cliffs).

To see these suckers yourself check out our "webicorders" at: http://www.pnsn.org/WEBICORDER/VOLC
and click on the date-time for one of the high Rainier stations (RCS, RCM, STAR). The small blips that have about the same size and shape are our "clones".

Send email to: steve@ess.washington.edu or give me a call (206-685-3811)


Steve Malone

Moose cow and calf on Teal Lake

(Click the image to view a larger version)

Today on my way to work I saw, for the first time, a Moose on the shoreline of Teal Lake. Not only that, but it was a cow Moose with a calf! To top it off, it was one of the Moose that have been collared by the Grand Portage Reservation Natural Resource Department! What a treat to see these animals today. The reservation has collared several Moose in order to track their movements over the course of two years and they will be using the collected data to help manage reservation lands for the benefit of Moose. I sat and watched this mother and child for about 10 minutes, and they barely moved. Just before I left the mother laid down in the grass and the calf followed suit. I wonder how long they stayed in this spot?

Big Lagoon State Park

Located 10 miles southwest of Pensacola, Big Lagoon State Park is named for the lagoon bordering a portion of the northern shore of Perdido Key. Compared to some Florida state parks, Big Lagoon is on the small side but it has several nice trails and admittance to it also gives you access to two other state parks in the area. I loved the campground. Most sites were large enough to accommodate a bus-size RV and there was some degree of privacy with shrubs and trees separating most sites.

My first day there (Wednesday, February 3rd) was beautiful, until late afternoon when the clouds rolled in. It rained that night and for most of the next two days. My neighbors lost the rain-fly of their tent one night, blown off by the wind. They and everything in the tent got soaked. They were not happy campers ;-)

The campsite. The Picnic table and fire ring are hidden behind the van.

Taken on the first day at the park.

The lagoon and marsh area. Also taken on the first day.

Towards sunset on Friday the sky started to clear and I was hopeful that there would be some sunshine the next day, but it was not to be. It remained cloudy and overcast for two more days.

It was still rather cloudy at 5 o'clock on Friday.

But by 5:25 most of the clouds had been blown away by the wind.

Royal H + Lovely Bicycle: Un Petit Projet

First an idea. Then a frame. Now finally a bike!



For those unfamiliar with this project, I have been collaborating with Bryan Hollingsworth of Royal H. Cycles to create a classic French randonneuring bicycle for a customer who was as curious as we were about how these mythical creatures handle.



It's become popular to call all sorts of bicycles "rando bikes." Framebuilders and manufacturers will sometimes use this term to mean "a fast bike with fenders and racks that's meant for long distance." However, we mean something very specific: the classic low-trail geometry design with wide 650B tires, in the tradition of the early French constructeurs - as described and enthusiastically recommended by Jan Heine in the Bicycle Quarterly (see my earlier post about BQ here). We found Jan's descriptions of these machines intriguing: They promised the comfort and convenience of a fully equipped, wide-tired touring bike with the speed and responsiveness of a racing bike. Could it really be?



Jan Heine and a couple of my personal contacts in France were immensely helpful with the process of figuring out the geometry. Jan also advised on the choice of tubing and a number of other details. We specifically wanted to consult with him on these matters, because the whole point was to try the sort of bike he recommended.While our bicycle is not a constructeur (the racks and other parts were purchased, and not custom-made for seamless integration), it is a fine handbuilt frame, fully equipped with fenders, front and rear racks, and internally wired lighting. I would also like to acknowledge that we had some help from Harris Cyclery with the finishing touches of the build.



Naturally the frame is lugged, and for me the aesthetics of the bicycle are strongly defined by the lugwork in the headtube and the fork crown. I was happy to see that these lugs remained a strong focal point even once the frame became "cluttered" with components and accessories. Notice also the tiny lug where the wire for the lighting enters the downtube. There is a matching one on the left chainstay, but I don't have a good shot of it just now.



I am not going to go into details of the frame construction and internal lighting right now, so that will have to be a separate post. Some of the components are pretty interesting - such as the Nitto lugged stem and the Grand Bois Maes handlebars - and I may write about them separately as well.



Will also write about combiningShimanodrivetrains withCampagnolo shifters, which we have done to two bicycles so far.



The bicycle as shown here is not entirely complete: It's getting a handlebar bag in a few days, as well as bottle cages, a bell and a computer installed. I will be thoroughly test riding it over the course of the next month before it is sent off to the customer, and writing up my impressions in an article for Bicycle Quarterly. The BQ article will be different from, and more detailed than the posts here, so reading it will most definitely be worth it for those interested in the topic.



Yesterday I took the randonneur on its first ride: 40 miles consisting of the hilly countryside, a crowded bicycle path, and urban areas with heavy traffic. Some might say I should not be riding this type of bicycle without a handlebar bag at all, but I think it's important to get a sense of how it handles without any weight on it - even if the design is optimised for a front load, it seems worthwhile to compare the handling both with and without. The size of the frame is more or less right for me. If it were mine I would make the seat tube 1cm shorter, but probably would not change much else. I am particularly pleased that even on such a relatively small frame there is absolutely no toe overlap - in fact there is over an inch between the tip of my toe and the fender.



Because countless people have told me that low trail bicycles are a "love it or hate it" sort of thing, I expected to have an extreme reaction to the randonneur's handling. However, that did not happen. It rides like a bike, basically. A nice bike. Different from other bikes I've ridden, but not as radically differently as I expected from some of the dramatic descriptions I've read and heard. The most distinct qualities I've noticed so far are the the way it turns (different), accelerates (excellent) and climbs hills (oh my...). But I need some time to make sense of it all and put it into words, so please stay tuned.

In collaborating on the randonneur, my main agenda was to satisfy what had become a burning curiosity about this particular type of bike while also helping create a custom bicycle from scratch in keeping with my aesthetic vision - all of which was in line with what the customer wanted. We have no expectations about whether ultimately we will like or dislike the handling, since that is the whole point of the experiment. I will have the randonneur until September and am thankful for the chance to gain a firsthand understanding of these bicycles over the course of my temporary guardianship.