- Off to a snowy start

Near record amounts of snow fell at Paradise in December and early January. The weather station there recorded over 360 inches (over 30 feet) of the white stuff so far this fall and winter. At that rate, the mountain is on track to break the previous snowfall record (93 feet in 1972)... The breakneck pace of snowfall has blanketed the entire Cascade range and has also caused a significant amount of avalanche distress and accidents. The thick unstable snowpack brought a series of severe avalanche cycles that have claimed nine lives in the region. Almost another record, yet very grim, for avalanche fatalities.

At Paradise on Mount Rainier, a snowshoer was caught in a snow-slide on December 18th. It took 3 and 1/2 days to find 22 year old Kirk Reiser. Though the accident occurred within 3/4 miles of the parking lot, a tremendous amount of continued snowfall made the recovery hazardous and arduous. To find him, we called upon Mountain Rescue and Crystal Mountain Ski Patrol to help. They showed up with many rescuers, search dogs and bombs (to mitigate the hazard). Left: Crystal Mountain Ski Patroller Chris Morin tossing a bomb, photo by Stefan Lofgren.

It's been over 20 years since someone has been caught and killed in a "winter" related avalanche on the Paradise side of the mountain. Climbers have certainly been caught, but those incidents happened in the spring and fall at higher elevations. The last four avalanche fatalities were in June (3) and October (1), not your traditional "avalanche season." Left: Mountain Rescue volunteers working a probe-line, photo by Stefan Lofgren.

Anyone who leaves the parking lot for a day of fun in the snow should definitely pay attention and adhere to the avalanche forecast. You'll also need to know how to evaluate the hazard and make route finding decisions that avoid hazardous areas. Another key is to carry the necessary backcountry rescue equipment (a beacon, a shovel, and a probe per person) and know how to use them efficiently during an emergency. Remember, rescue equipment is a last resort, avoiding an accident is the goal. Perhaps the best advice is to take a class and learn about snow safety. If you haven't done so, check out some of the avalanche courses offered in the area. If it's been a few years since you've had a course, take an update/refresher. A good place to start is the Level 1 AIARE or the Recreational Level 1 course from the Canadian Avalanche Association.

Over the last week, we've enjoyed mostly clear and cold weather (as attested by Chris Olson's image to the left). This allowed 3 climbers an opportunity to summit via the Gibraltar Ledges route on Jan 23rd!! During that weather window, numerous snowshoers and skiers made their way to Camp Muir. Most were reporting firm, hard snow, no one else summited (that we know of)... That said, the snow has again started to fall in Longmire and at Paradise (another 2 feet reported). Once again, things are very soft and hazardous. As a safety heads up: the emergency public radio at Camp Muir is not working (more later on when it gets fixed). As for the snow/ski conditions, check out our ski reports from Lead Climbing Ranger Chris Olson. As always, I appreciate any field reports route updates, if you send them, we'll share them...

And speaking of updates, we have a new writer on the website that you'll be meeting later this week. But to give you a quick heads up, get ready for famed writer and blogger: Rebecca Agiewich. Rebecca is a Rainier enthusiast, skier, and for the benefit of this website, a writer. She has signed on to help me with route reports and other updates so that YOU wont have to wait (sometimes 8 weeks) for the local scoop on Rainier traffic and events as I wade through NPS policy and budgets... Look for her pithy and fun posts to come. She'll spin her own Rainier press and provide added entertainment and information.

Above image is of Park Ranger Stefan Lofgren assessing the snowpack, by Mike Gauthier.

Going Crazy With Scanning...

It has been a month since the last update on my scanning project, and I'm sure y'all are eagerly anticipating this update ;-) At that time I had completed scanning my personal photographs and had a good start on Mom's pictures, which netted a little over 3,800 image files in a three month time period.

The prep work for the most recent group of pictures has taken considerably longer than the actual scanning. I didn't keep track of the time, but it consumed a lot of hours. However, in the past week I've scanned another 845 family pictures! With that, the albums for my two brothers and myself are done! Done, I say! Yay! That's the good news. Bad news is that the pictures for my sister's family still need to be scanned - they are being sorted and organized by my niece. My guess is there is a couple hundred pictures yet to be scanned. Big Sigh. But the end is in sight! At least, for the pictures… genea documents are still waiting.

While sorting the family pictures I came across a bunch of photos from Phend Reunions. Those were pulled out and put with the Reunion albums. Then I organized the Phend Reunion papers from the 1960s through the present day and put them in the albums with their corresponding pictures. Scanning the papers and pictures resulted in 615 image files. (The Phend-Fisher Family Reunion Ledger which covers the early years had been scanned, transcribed, and posted to the blog in the latter part of ...)

Then, as I was rummaging through a box looking for something I came across my grandmother's genealogy "book" and realized that I had never scanned it in its entirety. Most of the pictures had been scanned at one time or another but not all of them, and not the family group sheets. The book has a "post-hole" type of binder that easily comes apart so it wasn't a problem to scan each page individually and then put it back in its proper place. The pages are just a little bit larger than legal size. Placement on the scanner was critical so that no data was lost. There were 90 pages with 116 pictures, ending up with 206 scans for that project. I went ahead and scanned all of the pictures again because I wasn't really happy with the previous scans from several years ago.

And, as reported in my 3rd update for the Genea-Blogger Games, I scanned 74 newspaper clippings on the Phend family that were in the Whitley County Historical Museum's "family clippings" files. I've since created a name index of the clippings for reference purposes.

Image files created from scanning in the past month: 1,611

• 845 family pictures
• 206 pages and pictures in Grandma's Genealogy Book
• 486 Phend Reunion documents (sign-in sheets, announcements, flyers, etc.) and pictures
• 74 Phend Family newspaper clippings

Total number of scanned image files created since mid-April: 5,434

Maude Wise Brubaker Yontz, aka "Mama" or "Grandma Bill", with her grandchildren. About 1933. From the Genealogy "Book" of my grandmother, Hazlette Brubaker Phend, which is now in my possession.

Passing the Link-Love Around

There's a love virus meme being propagated through the genea-blogosphere and kinexxions has been tagged twice! Thanks go to both Thomas MacEntee at Destination: Austin Family and Sheri Fenley at The Educated Genealogist.

The rules associated with this particular tagging thingy are that the tagged blogger

• can put the logo on his/her blog
• must link to the person who gave the award
• must nominate seven other blogs and link to them
• must leave a comment on each of the nominated blogs

I've selected some of the "newer" blogs that I enjoy reading.
Listed in "reverse" alphabetical order ;-)

• We Tree by Amy Coffin
• Twig Talk by Sheri Bush
• TJLGenes : Preserving Our Family History byTravis LeMaster
• Taylorstales-Genealogy by Taylorstales
• Photo-Sleuth by Brett Payne
• Nana's Diggins by Suzy
• From Axer to Ziegler by Linda "in Lancaster" Stienstra
  

A Give-Away for Valentine's Day

Roses are redand so is this bike

- which could soonbe yours if you like!

For on this comingValentine's day

it shall be promptlygiven away.



"What is this bike?"you might inquire,

"with its bright red frameand old-fashioned tire?"

In reply I guide you to

this Bobbin Bicycles Birdie review.



The lovely loop frameand the lugs

will surely elicit passionate hugs.

And as the cupid'sarrow nears

you've got the Sturmey Archer gears.

For yourself or for your darling

a shiny red bike is oh so charming!



From England it traveled by land and by sea

to Boston's Harris Cyclery,

and from thence it shall be sent

to that person for whom it is meant.



For a chance this bike to recieve

a velo-Valentine you must conceive,

in the US you must reside,

and by the guidelines below abide:



-------------------------------------------

Guidelines for the Bobbin Birdie Give-Away:



Submission Procedure: Create and submit a bicycle-themed Valentine. Your Valentine can be intended for a real person, for a fictional or hypothetical person, for your bicycle, for any other bicycle, or for anyone or anything really (except for me) - as long as it is in some way bicycle themed. The Valentine may consist of text and/or image (no video, no audio). If your Valentine is text only, please submit it directly in the comments here. If your Valentine is an image, upload it and post the link in the comments (if you have nowhere to upload it to, email it to "filigreevelo[at]yahoo[dot]com" with the subject "Velo-Valentine"). Be sure to include your email address in the comment when submitting your Valentine. One submission per person please.



Submission deadline is Thursday, February 9th , 11:59pm Pacific time. Recipient will be announced on Valentine's Day (February 14th, ).



Eligibility: Entrants must reside in the continental USA. Entrants may be of any gender, and may be getting the bicycle for themselves or for a loved one. Entrants should be readily reachable via email. This bicycle is best suited for persons 5'3" - 5'8", please use your judgment.



Selection criteria: Selection will be made on the basis of the Valentine, assuming that eligibility criteria are met. Any Valentine submitted may be publicly viewable and there will be reader input in the selection process.



This give-away is made possible viaForth Floor Distribution - the North American distributor of Bobbin Bicycles. Many thanks to them for donating this beautiful bike, and to everyone for taking part!

The Swift Polaris Porteur Bag

I am trying out a Swift Industries Polaris Porteur Bag - a front bag designed specifically to fit on porteur style racks, such as those from Velo Orange and Soma. Handmade in the USA, this is a very large, "everything but the kitchen sink" kind of bag that's surprisingly stable, requiring nothing but the rack for support.I am using it on an upright bicycle with low trail geometry.






Founded in , Swift Industries is a 2-person shop in Seattle. Frequentbike travelersMartina and Jason started out making custom touring panniers, eventually expanding into saddlebags, handlebar bags and city bags. Today they have streamlined their process so that standard models can be customised with a selection of colours and features.






The $230 price tag of the Polaris includes choosing the colour of the fabric, trim, stitching, and reflective strips. Being the boring customer that I am, I chose an all-olive canvas with brown trim, brown stitching, and silver reflective strips. I opted to forgo the optional clear map case.




The boxy22"x14.5"x12" bag attaches to the Porteur rack at 5 points: Two sets of adjustable straps with buckle closures secure to the rear of the rack's platform, two more secure to the sides of the platform toward the front, and an additional velcro strap secures to the rack's "tombstone" at the rear (this last attachment is not shown in the picture).






Initially I was somewhat skeptical about the attachment system. I doubted that such a large bag would be sufficiently stable with only the lower support, and I thought the bag might be time-consuming to attach and detach. But I was glad to be proven wrong on both accounts. The bag contains some very effective stiffeners inside, and combined with the adjustable straps, this keeps it entirely free of either side to side, or fore and aft sway. The straps and buckles are fairly easy to manage, taking no more than 30 seconds in total to attach and less than that to detach.






The bag features a cordura exterior, with a waterproof vinyl interior. At the front is a zippered front pocket and a headlight mount. D-rings are added to the sides for an optional shoulder strap. For those who do not wish to attach a strap, a short carrying handle is attached at the rear. On the left side is an external U-lock holster that fits a standard sized lock snugly and securely.The flap, featuring reflective strips and expandable straps with buckle closures, opens away from the rider.






Both functionally and aesthetically, the design of the Polaris strikes me as a messenger bag that has been converted for porteur carry. The main compartment is immensely expandable. The spacious interior is free of dividers - you just pile things in. There are internal pockets handy for carrying tools and spare tubes.






Given the size and design of the Polaris, it is not feasible to retrieve objects form the bag while cycling. Opening and closing it are multi-step processes. And once expanded, the height of the open bag might block the rider's view on the bike.






Depending on the rider's size, it may not even be feasible to retrieve things from the bag while remaining standing over the bike - the reach to the buckles at the front is fairly dramatic. In short, the Polaris is not designed for easy en route access; it is assumed the rider will access the bag once they reach their destination.





A number of things impress me about the Swift Polaris Porteur bag. The quality is top notch, and the bag has a "production" rather than a DIY look and feel to it; it is apparent that they have made a number of these already and have the process down pat. The waterproofing is well thought out: Not only is the interior vinyl, but the roll top prevents water from coming in from the sides. And, perhaps most importantly, the attachment system really works to keep the bag stable. I have tried much smaller bags that have swayed without additional decalleur support, but the Polaris feels glued in place.






The large size and the messenger-style design of the Polaris offer the freedom to carry a great deal of stuff on the bike in an enclosed, sturdy, waterproof, expandable container. Those who routinely travel with technical equipment, piles of books, and the like, will find the Polaris very handy. Those seeking a more compact bag for commuting, or an easy-access randonneuring bag, will probably want to look elsewhere. I should also mention that I find the shape of the bag slightly awkward for off the bike carry, but not overwhelmingly so. All that said, Swift Industries does take custom orders and can make alternative versions of this bag to fit a customer's needs. They also make front bags for Cetma racks, Gilman front bags for the Brompton, and Ozette rando bags, as well as a variety of panniers and saddlebags. Overall, some great products for a variety of uses.


---



POST SCRIPT: Q&A



I've received a number of questions about this bag over email. Rather than try to incorporate the info into the text retrospectively, Ipost the answers below:



Q: Is there a way to attach a cable lock?



A: This is how I am carrying mine. It does shift around a bit, but not enough to affect handling. Fine for city use, though might start to drive you nuts long distance.



Q: What size U-lock will fit into the holster?



A: I am not well-versed on U-lock sizing. A typical, standard one should fit, such as this one from Kryptonite.



Q: Will this bag fit a laptop?



A: My 13" Macbook air, inside its padded carrier, fits, but you won't be able to go any wider.



Q: Will this bag work with drop bars?



A: I have 42mm width drop bars on my roadbike. Just tried to fit the Polaris in between them. It's a tight squeeze that would render most hand positions unusable.



Q: Do the straps interfere with any of the rack's light mounts?



A: The straps do not interfere with any part ofthe VO Porteur rack. I have no experience with the Soma Porteur rack.



Q: Is there any way to tuck in the dangling straps?



A: I don't think so. But while aesthetically not great, they are nowhere near the front wheel, so perfectly safe.



Q: How much weight is this bag rated for?



A: It's your rack and bike that will be the limiting factors, rather than the bag. Be careful carrying a lot of weight on your bike unless it is designed to do so and made of appropriately robust, touring+ grade tubing. As VO puts it: "Parisian delivery bikes were reputed to carry as much as 110lbs of newspapers on similar racks, but of course they had strengthened bike frames and forks, not only racks."

Pickleball and Line Dancing

It is very rare for us to not do quite a bit of sight seeing, but this past few weeks it has been so cold we have not even wanted to do that. I am beginning to get a bit stir crazy from it but there has been a nice upside. It has given me more time to spend getting to know our fellow pickle ball players. I have really enjoyed that!



After pickleball, I came back to the RV just long enough to take a shower and start some laundry. Then it was back to Torrey Oaks for line dancing. This was my first try at line dancing and I had a blast. It was much more fun than I even expected it to be. It was really nice to have time with other women. I have really missed having another female around since Auburn has moved out, so it is nice for me when I can hang out with other women. Donna, Sherry, Tracy and her daughter and I went. Faye and Sally were already there since they are at Torrey Oakes and there were other Torey Oakes members there.



Thank you, Donna, for sending me your pictures! I did not take any at either event, so I'd have been pictureless without you.





Living the life in way too cold Florida!

Working out and silly details.....

I suspect when the hit count and membership goes up most who write a blog at some point start thinking what they write actually is important. Generally it is not. But like much of what I do, this isfor me anyway :) So you are forwarned!






the man in the mirror



If the last 6 months taught me anything it is I want to be the water and not the rock. And water is not my personality, never has been. So it is a big change. Days like today (when you are suffering) if nothing else gives you a more clearpicture of yourself. Why I ever go out on days I don't really feel like it, generally I'll neverfully understand. But today I knew. There is a storm comingin tonight so I wanted to enjoy a tiny bit more sunshine. But I didn't really enjoy the sunshine. And the sun effectedsnowin the morningwas well frozen shiteby the time I headed home. Marley really enjoyed thesnow conditionsso that was onebonus! Me? Not so much, in the breakable crust. But it was my attitude not the snow conditions that sucked. For the typical climber with anA personality it pays to remember that it is not the workout that makes you stronger, but the rest and recovery after the workout.



When I really want to climb I don't take a HR monitor. But so much of my time outside is onlytraining for something else more important to me. Which can make some days"less than fun". The HR monitor is generally my close companion. One Iam constantly conversing with and referring to. If you are going to train, pays to heed the workout zone and the level of the effortfor your desired effect. You simply needto pay attention to the details.






Zone 3





Zone 4





Zone 5



Speaking of details. This the second time I have skied in a pair of Dynafit "Movement" pants.









They came highly recommended but are hard to find asDynafit imports sofewto NA. I bought what was availableknowing they might be too large. (they are) I first skied in them beforecutting outthe pre marked buckle slots. Nice pant but not all that impressive on the first run.After all they are not much more thana niceweight ski tight with a logo.



Previous to this trip Itrimmed the premarked cut outs on the bottom of the legs. I am most impressed with the end result. The right pant really allows you to take advantage of the TLT boots in the back country. Dynafit's "Movement" pant is the "right" pant for the TLT. But easy enough to make your own as well. Again it is all in the details.








ski mode













walking mode









Home sewn pant mod that does has the same effect




http://www.randosaigai.com/jan_11.html




While I am thinking about clothing. This one was a surprise and continues to impress me, "Cabella's E.C.W.C.S Thermal Zone® Polartec® Power Dry® " long johns. Cabellas' is not the first place I shop for gear. But neither is Costco and both have surprised me in the past. The E.C.W.C.S Thermal Zone® Polartec® Power Dry®is a base layer made up of several different weights of Polartec materials that are smartly sewn. In comparison to other long johns I have used they are warmer and a lot less bulky. Which makes them much easier to move in and just as important stay dry in. There is some really amazing technology and effort incorporated here. I have one pair right now but will be buying more. The bottoms are that much better than everything else I have used. Ease of movement at the knee and no boot top bunch. Too my surprise I noticed both improvments today when I went back to skiing in the typical long john bottom.









E.C.W.C.S Thermal Zone® Polartec® Power Dry®top.

Nice mouth full ;)








More detail stuff, If you want to run a HR monitor or a tech watch and more importantly want to pay attention to them for some reason be sure to put them in the right place. This one is buckled over my base layer and the other layers are blocked from covering the monitor. Silly stuff, but just more details.









The details? Do you have a foot problem? Even just a tiny one? Pays to remember them the night before and address it then. Better thanlanding in the parking lot for what ever adventure you have in mind and forgetting there is a problem. A two inch strip of tape can make the difference betweena really fun day for me and enough additional pain to be really annoying. Another small detail.




Doesn't matter if it is Water or Rock. What you have seen here are some of my details. Just a small reminder to pay attention to your own details.