1) I had a conversation with my landlady yesterday about how we might not have any more conflict about the garden. We agreed that I can plant anywhere that I want to, so long as a) I put a border around my garden, and b) I do not use the fence as a trellis again this year.

2) The hops are budding aggressively, so I am now thinking about what sort of trellis they might like this year. I have a few weeks before I have to decide.

3) Today I planted mustard greens and sage around the hops, as well as a few perennial wildflowers.

A lot of time to think, because I just kept getting honked at.

I’m an experienced road cyclist. I ride on the right, as close to the fog line as safe and reasonable; I signal my turns and stops, and generally crank a straight line. I do not ride with an iPod or anything else in my ears. So I don’t think the honk is meant as scolding, unless it’s scolding for daring to be a cyclist. In which case, the sound of your horn, while unpleasant, will not cause me to stop cycling, or stop cycling on the road.

Usually the honker is somebody who is passing me, so perhaps the honk is meant as a courtesy to say “hey, I’m passing you!” You know, in case I didn’t notice the deafening clatter and roar of your big machine coming up behind my relatively silent bicycle. I don’t think it’s that either, because the honk nearly always happens at the end of the massing manoeuvre, when the motorist is already in my field of view. Here, there is no further information that the honk can add.

I should add, in fairness to these motorists: they all passed me properly, by going at least partially into the left lane to leave lots of space between my elbows and their wing mirrors. This is unfortunately uncommon enough to be remarkable. There are some of motorists in the wold who think that as long as a stationary car and bicycle could fit side to side in a travel lane, they can pass at 40 mph without moving to the side at all. Here, it is a good thing that Mass drivers think lane lines are only suggestions.

The route starts in Lowell, heading south on MA 110 to MA 4, and following that road to Bedford, MA. It’s a steady, gentle climb from the start to the Billerica line, then after a slight dip, a steep uphill slog for a mile and a half to Rangeway Road. “Steep” here is not more than a 2% grade, but around here that’s practically vertical. From here on to Bedford it’s basically flat. In terms of scenery, this section progresses rapidly from urban to suburban to rural, past marshes and meadows and forest, with beautiful crossings over Russel Mill Pond (mi. 6.5) and the Concord River (mi. 9.5). From Lowell to Bedford is completely exposed to the sun, so bring sunglasses and sunscreen.

Halfway through Billerica I realized that I had forgotten my helmet in Lowell. Oops. That’s important. But given that the highway riding was nearly done, I decided it would be safer to press on than to retrace it all.

At Bedford, there’s a Whole Foods just off the road, and I decided that Sushi would make the perfect mid-trail snack. I was right.

Across the street from the Bedford Whole Foods, a brief jaunt down Webber Ave to Loomis St puts you at the northern terminus of the Minuteman Commuter Bikeway. The trailhead is a little tricky to find–it’s behind the old Boston and Maine railroad car. On a nice day, follow the bright yellow spandex.

The bikeway is an 11-mile green tunnel, under almost 100% forest cover. Sunglasses went in the panniers here. The trail passes through the towns of Bedford, Lexington, Arlington and Cambridge before ending at Alewife Station. Frequent road crossings are marked by stop signs on the trail, and local motorists are very good about yielding to walkers and cyclists. The busier crossings have traffic lights with trigger buttons for the trail users. In Lexington, the trail passes by a town park where there was some kind of concert going on that the entire town seemed to have turned up for. Just past the park, across from the Seasons Four nursery is a huge patch of wild raspberry bushes, which made for a convenient water and berry-picking stop.

At the Lexington Arlington line, the trail crosses south of Arlington’s Great Meadows, a 180-acre virgin wet meadow with hiking trials around its uplands. At Arlington Center, the bikeway breaks and requires you to ride for a block along Mass Ave, but the signage is good and again, there are always other cyclists to follow.

At Alewife, follow the signs to Davis Square via Linear Park, which is a multi-use trail paved on top of the red line subway connection between Davis and Alewife. Again, there is a slightly awkward crossing over Mass Ave. This part of the trail is narrower and has more pedestrians and dog walkers, so use caution. On yesterday’s ride I nearly had to stop to avoid a small, curious dog whose human was so lost in her iPod that she had no idea it was running straight for my bike!

At Davis Square, the trail is done. Ice cream, beer, and BBQ are good options here. Map of the route below

If you think that anything off the shelf with the letters SPF on the front will protect you from sunburn and skin cancer, you may be dangerously wrong.

If you think that the FDA or any other government agency is doing rigorous scientific testing of sunscreens on the market to make sure that they are safe and effective, again, the data may not support that hypothesis.

The Environmental Working Group’s study of 1,097 sunscreens found only 15% to be both safe and effective.  Their gripes: many active ingredients in sunscreen either degrade in sunlight, or are themselves known or suspected carcinogens.   They also found that of “high-SPF” sunscreens, advertising an SPF of 30 or higher, only 7% protect against UVA rays.  EWG didn’t do experimental testing of the susncreen ingredients, but what they did do was read published, peer-reviewed research on various ingredients in sunscreens, and cross-reference ingredient lists against their research.

You can go to their web site, and look up your favorite sunscreen or their list of recommended safe-and-effective sunscreens.  For each sunscreen that they list, they go through the ingredients and provide citations to various studies on each ingredient.

Because this research activity appears not to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, I looked to see if I could find some intelligent criticism of their work, or something to suggest that they are wrong.  The best I found was from the industry, saying that they “obviously have a very low-level understanding of how sunscreen works.”  The industry comment did not elaborate any further or make any attempt to rebut EWG’s claims.  Then again, no scientific argument can hold a candle to calling your adversary stupid.  One thing the industry seems to be right about: this doesn’t mean you should stop using sunscreen.  It just means you should be a smarter consumer and not rely on the government to protect you.

I’m not a dermatologist or a chemist. I can read the language in these studies, but I’m not really qualified to evaluate the quality of the science.  My only concluding thought is this: most of the sunscreens in issue are synthetic chemical compounds, made in a lab, that I am asked to put in direct contact with my flesh in fairly high concentrations.  When a serious question is raised about their safety and effectiveness, I put the burden of persuasion on those who tell me that it’s safe.  Until such time as they meet that burden, I’m going to use one of the products that *everybody* agrees are safe and effective.

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Climber:”What’s this red stuff coming out of my knuckles?”

Belayer: “That’s personal weakness!  You’re forcing it out by climbing!”

This wooly mammoth is actually me.

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 Guidero, who (unlike me) remembered a memory card for her camera.

Our story starts on Saturday morning at 4 AM, with me sleeping.  For another two hours.

At six, I awoke to wonder what happened to my 4 AM alarm.  I will never know.  Elaine, Don, and Darren actually made the planned 9:00 trailhead time; I got there around noon and hiked in solo.  The road in follows Calamity Brook up to Lake Colden and is mostly one big mudpit.  Other hikers tell me it’s always like that.  Maybe about 2/3 of the way up the trail is a monument to David Henderson, who was shot and killed by his own gun in his own pack in 1845.  Moral of the story: unload that gun and engage the safety before you put it in your pack!  In a cruel twist of history, the person responsible for the gun’s unsafe condition was a man named Cheney who had just failed at shooting ducks!  Not unlike a certain vice president.  (See Schneider, The Adirondacks: A History of America’s First Wilderness (1998) at 141–42.)  Henderson’s last words were “John, you must have left the gun cocked… this is a horrible place for a man to die… Archy, be a good boy and give my love to your mother.”  Id.

Near Henderson’s memorial I encountered a couple of Scots who admired my Utilikilt Brand Utility Kilt, and resolved to get hiking kilts of their own!  Kilt evangelism happens in the strangest places.

Don and me, early morning

I arrived around 3:00 in the afternoon to find Don sleeping on the Colden Dam, which turned out to be just around the corner from our campsite.  Through a last-minute failure of communication, our party had an extra tent and was short a ground pad!  I ended up using Don’s empty pack as a makeshift ground pad, which was a little lumpy but kept me quite warm.  Darren and Elaine were out making an attempt at Algonquin, but returned in time for a toasty dinner of minute rice and dried fruit, with hot cocoa for dessert.

Sunday morning we rose early and breakfasted on a hot cereal of oats, rye, triticale, barley, and golden flax with dried cranberries, apples, and apricots, almonds and cashews.  And instant coffee.  We then set out to the east shore of Avalanche Lake, to bushwhack through the fir trees to the foot of the dike.

Me, Partway up the dike

Without getting into fancy geological terms that I don’t understand, the Trap Dike is a fissure in the side of the mountain with high vertical walls and water running through it, and big blocky rock formations that are well-suited to climbing.  It’s commonly described as a fourth-class climb, meaning it’s an easy scramble, but an unlucky fall might kill you.  After reaching the top we agreed that its proper rating is low fifth class–easy, but a true technical climb that should be done roped.  The pictures to the right should give you a good idea of what the dike looks like.

Darren in the Dike

The word “trap” in the name is the subject of some debate.  It could refer to a geological term that does not accurately describe the rock formation.  Some say it refers to the high walls of the dike, in which climbers are “trapped.”  And it is true that the point of no return–at which one cannot retreat and must advance–happens quite early.  I propose a third interpretation–it may mean the same as the “Trapps” of the Shawangunks–derived from the Dutch treppen, for “steps.”  In may places, climbing the trap dike is very much like ascending a flight of stairs–it’s the occasional seven to fifteen foot rises that will put fear in you.

Don tops out one of the trickier sections

After ascending about halfway up the mountain in the Dike, we bushwhacked through dense cripplebrush onto the Great Slide.  I’m not sure how to describe the Slide except to say that it is a gravity-defying slab of granite at about a 45 degree angle to the ground.  The natural reaction to looking at it is “no fecking way am I going out on that!!!”  And looking down from the Slide, one can easily imagine a false step resulting in the ultimate test of one’s ability to thow onesself at the ground and miss.  That’s why you don’t look down.

Don on the Great Slide

The Slide was actually the easiest part of the whole ascent, but also the most terrifyingly exposed.  Darren and Don walked straight up the middle; Elaine and I clung to the safety of the cripplebrush along the side.  Yes, it’s slipprier, but there are Things to Grab if I fall!  Climbing at that angle is also exhausting, especially when you’re several thousand feet higher than you’re used to, and in a state of mortal terror.  When we finally mounted the summit, we had a crowd of cheering Québécois hikers to welcome us to flat ground.

Me, with the Void

Group Photo at the Summit

Darren being a Goof

Of the hike down, I will only say that it was wet, steep, and full of rotted-out wooden ladders.  I rather enjoyed the bottom, but we didn’t stay longer than we needed to strike camp and hike out.  We got back to the parking lot around 20:30, and began the long trek back whence we came.

Thanks again to Elaine for her mighty photographic prowess!  Full photo gallery at http://freeoutingclubs.org/gallery/v/TrapDykeHike/

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 was years earlier while hung over, and although I had loved it before, it was so vile that day that I had not easten it since.  Today, quinoa and I are friends again.  Rowan is not impressed.

US 26 is under construction through Togwotee Pass (Elevation 9 653 feet above mean sea level).  Only one lane is open and traffic must stop and wait for an escort vehicle.  Travel is very slow, and very dusty.  Thank the gods we didn’t try to do this last night!

We finally arrived at Grand Teton around noon.  We went straight to the Jenny Lake, which is the access point to the Teton Range and the center of hiking and mountaineering activity in the park.  We went to the information desk at the Jenny Lake visitors’ center, and discovered that the info ranger was a self-righteous twit who didn’t listen to questions before answering them.  I asked him about an easy one night backcountry trip, suitable for a party including a child and an elder.  He recommended Cascade Canyon to Hurricane Pass!  For those who don’t know the area, that’s a 3,300 foot climb that’s only an “easy” trip if you are a mountaineer!  We also asked about top roping and he told us “we don’t really use that practice here in the park, because we believe in loving our mountains, but not loving them to death!”  Less sloganeering and more facts please.  Top-roping is entirely consistent with clean climbing practices, and what he should have told us–the correct answer–was that there are few sites in the park with walk-up top access, and most of the top-rope sites in the area require one person in the party to lead the route (some sport, some trad) in order to set the top-rope anchor.  He did mention Bouldertown, which is one decent top rope site in the area.  More on Bouldertown later.

The ranger at the ranger station was more helpful.  He told us that non-strenuous hiking is limited to lakeshores, and got us a last-minute campsite at Leigh Lake.  Lunch was Indian pouch food at the String Lake day use area, which we should have had for the previous night’s dinner–had we eaten.  Rowan took YEARS to eat it.  We got started down the 2.4 mile trail around midafternoon.  The hike was uneventful, pretty, and short.

We arrive and pitch camp in the late afternoon.  Rowan helps us by taking photos, then putting in tent stakes.  After pitching  camp, we play in the water for a bit.

Pitching Camp

Photo by Rowan

Ranger told us that we were allowed to burn dead and downed wood, but we don’t need much, because the Venture Crew before us left a great heap of seasoned, split wood.   Lucky thing, because we forgot to refuel the stove before leaving on this hike.  Dinner is Capellini with Pesto.  We forgot to bring oil, so the Pesto was a little dry, but scrumptious nonetheless.  Rowan hated it, the rest of us loved it.

Bear protection in the Tetons consists of large steel boxes cemented into the ground.  Forget your ammo crates and BearVault Brand portable canisters, this thing is the real deal!  When you close the lid, steel tabs with holes in pass through slots in the door, and a pair of carabiners through the holes makes the thing totally bear-proof.  No way to open one of those without opposable thumbs.  Take that, Yogi!

Adrienne and I stayed up late, but too much talk of bears as the fire was dwindling scared us off to bed.

]]> http://borealnemeton.org/outdoors/teton-arrival/feed 1 http://borealnemeton.org/outdoors/garden-not-a-total-loss http://borealnemeton.org/outdoors/garden-not-a-total-loss#comments Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:32:45 +0000 Borealis http://borealnemeton.org/?p=80 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 Shannon and told her that if she felt inclined to rip out the weeds and see if she could salvage any produce, she was welcome to.  She didn’t.

Last weekend I went back to Ithaca and slogged through the prairie formerly known as my garden, in pouring rain, to take down my fence and retrieve my hose and tools.  To my joy, I found that my produce had actually produced!  In the absence of any effort on my part for the past three months, I got six stalks of brussels sprouts, a HEAP of basil, and exactly one tomato, which I promptly ate.

It totally made getting soaked worthwhile.

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 through the campgrounds.  Instead, we found a motel in Murdo, SD–population 612.  It was hard to find a room due to the huge population of bikers en route to the rally in Sturgis.  We got the “family suite” in a little hole in the wall motel there, and breakfast in a beautiful little diner–also full of bikers.  

Every town in SD has some little bit of kitsch to stop for: Wall Drug, the Corn Palace, etc.  We stop for none of it, but Adrienne remarks of the Corn Palace, “what else do you do in a state that doesn’t exist besides go see things that shouldn’t exist?

I took no pictures on the third–nothing was very photogenic that day, and what there was we didn’t stop for.  You’ll have to read below the cut to get to the first picture.  

August 4: Due to again getting a late start, not making expected progress yesterday, and multiple stops along the way, we realize that we won’t make Grand Teton NP tonight–at least, not in time to get a campsite.  I note that we are passing LOTS of National Forest campgrounds, and we agree to stop in one of them.  We identify Shoshone NF, near the park, as a potential target.  The road passes through the Wind River Indian Reservation, including the gorgeous natural wonder of Wind River Canyon–made slightly less beautiful by the fact that most of the inner cañon outside of the river is taken up by the freeway and the railway.  This is typical of US Indian policy, and must be supremely insulting to the folks who live there: we, the beneficent United States, will “allow” the Natives to keep nominal sovereignty over their cañon, but we shall “improve” it for them by paving it and running smoky trains through it.  They should thank us.  Really?  There’s no other route that I-90 could have taken?  That cañon would have made for such wonderful hiking and backpacking!  Now, admittedly, it makes for very nice driving…

We stopped in the town of Riverton for Ice Cream.  Yum!  But, more time lost.

Coming off the rez, Marj is interested in finding the earliest possible camp, due to worries about bear activity at night.  We try to reassure her that the bears do not think we are food, either at night or during the day.  But nothing short of getting a tent pitched and herself into it (bear-free) will calm her.  We turn off the road at a brown sign for a state campground around dusk, but we’re not sure how far back from the main road it is.  A very Western man in a felt hat with a big dog reassured us that it existed and wasn’t far, but after a couple of miles the majority of the party agreed to turn around and proceed to Shoshone N.F.    More daylight lost.

We stop in the town of Dubois, WY, and ask at a motel for directions to the nearest campground.  The proprietor gives us directions to the KOA campground, and a map that shows the Brooks Lake area of Shoshone NF being not-far-off.  I expressed my feeling of profound distaste for commercial campgrounds, and we proceeded to Brooks Lake.

We finally arrive in the National Forest around 2130, and after a tense trip up dark forest roads, we arrive at the Pinnacles Camp.  We are all too exhausted to eat, so we make camp and go to sleep with little fanfare.

Have I teased you enough yet?  Anxious for a picture?  So was I!  And now, I present the view from Brooks Lake the next morning:

Panoramic View of Brooks Lake: Continental Divide in Background