Mostly Plants

On a particularly sharp climb at Peter’s Kill
Climber:”What’s this red stuff coming out of my knuckles?”
Belayer: “That’s personal weakness!  You’re forcing it out by climbing!”

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The “Trap Dike” is a lovely little route up Mount Colden, in the Adirondacks, that ranges in quality from dry, blocky scramble to raging waterfall.  This is the story of how four intrepid adventurers from the Free Outing Club of Cornell/Ithaca ascended the dike in “slightly runny” conditions.
All photos are courtesy of my coadventurer Elaine [...]

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August 6, 2008
Around 7 AM
Gros Ventre Camp
August 5: Morning at Brooks Lake is gorgeous!  We filled up our H20 at the lake, and I shot the panorama shown in the previous post.  After some trouble with the stove, we had Quinoa cereal that Adrienne made for breakfast.  The last time I had quinoa for breakfast [...]

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Some of you, my dear readers, may have wondered what ever happened to my garden.  The short answer is I stopped paying it much attention after the first week of July, when I started caring about the bar.
I had assumed it was a total loss.  When I moved to Massachusetts I showed the plot to [...]

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August 6, 2008
Around 7 AM
Gross Ventre Campground, Grand Teton N.P. 
This is my first real chance to write so far on the trip.  A recap so far:
August 3: Our 5 AM departure became a 9 AM departure.  We were planning to drive 13 hours today and camp at Badlands National Park, SD, where buffalo roam freely [...]

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This is my channeling a bit of my dad’s perpetual anger at people who yield the right of way that is rightfully theirs.  I don’t think it’s nearly as big a deal as he does.  For instance, when you’re pulling out of your driveway on an empty residential street and a driver coming by stops [...]

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The garden is coming along quite nicely now.  I visited today, did some digging, and mulched around the brussels sprouts.  Three cubic feet of mulch didn’t go nearly as far as I thought they would, and I gestimate it would take about ten bags to mulch the whole garden.  Probably cheaper to plant chives, clover, [...]

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I didn’t write in my trail journal on Day 6, so this entry will be based on photographs and memory.

A Graphical Summary of the Trip

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This is technically the sixth day in the desert, but by that count there were seven. We Spent this day mostly on the road, so I do not count it–I give it an irrational number between five and six. Or maybe a complex number, with five as the real part and some non-zero [...]

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The walk from here to Lost Palm Oasis is only about 40 minutes. From the overlook, you see two oases–one down in the canyon, and one on the opposite rim. The trail descends steeply into the gorge, where we immediately encounter fan palms. Some are still well-covered in shag; others have recently burned. The canyon floor is very sandy and these are the beaches we read about–beaches without water. There is very little water here, only sparse seeps leak above the ground. Many of the seeps are fouled with decomposing organic matter. We find a few bones, too small to be Bighorn Sheep, too small to be rabbit. Coyote, maybe?

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