Diversion on the way

On one of the trips up to Downieville, we took the scenic route up and did a mountain bike ride near Donner Pass before heading over.   I had found a 15 mile loop sort of across the highway from our normal ski haunt at Sugarbowl, and it was fun to explore terrain we had only previously seen from a distance.

Though the climb wasn't too bad, and the ride across the top was relatively benign, the descent was a rocky, steep, stair-stepped type-2-fun sort of experience.  That just goes with the territory...

Near the end, Chad liked the jaunty orange sno-cat that we saw in front of an isolated cabin.  It implies that in a couple of months, this area probably isn't generally accessible by car!

Downieville trips

We did make it up to Downieville a couple of times this summer and fall, in between periods of travel restrictions.  As we are back into a period of restriction (in our county at least), we must content ourselves with these earlier-in-the-year pictures.

One trip was to monitor tree work required by the insurance company.   Many tall trees on a steep slope behind the house made the job a little too large for us to want to do it ourselves, so we just played spectator.

The pile of carnage in the front yard

disappeared into the giant chipper as soon as it was generated,

and the two guys Linda hired made short work of the project.  The insurance company deemed this due fire-prevention diligance, so that task is done for the time being.  

Meanwhile, the river looked nice

so Chad went fishing.

I found stripey spiders.

The fish kept running away,

but eventually Chad procured delicious fishes for breakfast.

On another trip, we headed up the bumpy road to the trail up Haskell Peak.  Note that Chad had a mask on -- as did we all -- because Linda came with us and we are being careful in confined spaces like the truck.

The trail was in good shape and the weather was gorgeous.

Ho -- what have Chad and Linda spotted?

Silly people doing a squiddy dance?

Small creature in a hut?

A fine view?

Or the approaching summit?

Any and all of the above, of course.  A fine outing was had by all.

(Squiddy dance friends)

Aftermath

We have been busy enough lately with the new old van (more about that in future posts!) that I've gotten behind posting things again.  So, some catch-up for the next few posts...

When last you heard from us here, the state was burning up.  For a while, that meant not much bike riding -- either the areas I wanted to ride in were actively burning, or the smoke was just so bad that exercising was a bad idea.  We did have one day in September when the air near the coast was clear, at least at ground level, so I headed over to take a ride and see what I could see.

Weird, eerie, orange light is what I saw.  Despite the air quality being pretty good down low where I was riding, there was a high layer of smoke that led to the world being very orange for most of the ride.  These pictures were all shot between about 11am and 1pm -- and as you can see, it was dark!

The road going by Butano where the fire started was still closed, so I couldn't get in to see what things looked like back there, but Highway 1 along the coast had opened up.  There was much evidence of burnt vegetation on both sides of the road,

and also of the ongoing work to mop up the fire.  This was clearly a fire equipment staging area.  The world was less orange in this more southerly location.

Heading back north to the car, the sky re-colored itself, leading to some decidedly odd views.

On the way home, I drove by the junction of 9 with 236, which heads into Big Basin.  236 was closed, and the world was dark and smoky.  Remember that this was about 1pm -- all the smoke made it seem like sometime after sunset.  I stopped for a moment and listened to the silence, punctuated by the occasional sounds of falling trees and machinery in the distance.  Though my intent was to take 9 back over the hill, it too was temporarily closed, as a tree had just fallen across it, so I had to turn around and drive home the long way.  

On a hike a week or so later on a much clearer day, I looked out from the top of Skyline toward the ocean.  The fire over by the coast basically started on the far side of the distant ridge in the picture below, and I could see the faint red line of fire retardant in the distance.  I know those fighting the fire did a tremendous amount of work to keep the fire from crossing the drainage at the base of it, so it wouldn't roar up and over the ridge to the more populated areas.  At one point, parts of Los Altos and Palo Alto (on our side of the main ridge!) were under an evacuation warning, which was sort of a wake-up call for many.

Switching gears to the other big local fire, in October I finally rode up Mt Hamilton for the first time this year.  The fire here swept right over the summit, but fortunately, the fire crews were able to save the observatory and all but one of the associated buildings.  You can see the burned building on the left of the photo below; I think it was formerly housing.

Some areas burned with a lot of intensity; other areas were unscathed or just lost underbrush.  It is clear that much tree removal had to happen before it was safe to open the road for traffic.

Lower down the hill, one can again see the lines of red fire retardant that were dropped to stop the fire from progressing any closer to San Jose.  It is a bit hard to tell, but in general, stuff behind the line is burnt, while everything in front of it remains unscathed.

This fire also eventually burned south into Henry Coe State Park.  I haven't been down there to check out the trails, but from the reports and pictures that I have seen thus far, it appears that much of the fire there just cleared out underbrush without doing as much damage as was seen in other areas.  I am hopeful it conveniently removed all the poison oak while leaving the big trees unscathed!  Now that parts of that park have opened, I need to make it down there to see for myself.

Smoke

 I have no words at the moment that do justice to describe the crazy fires in all directions here at the moment.  Yesterday, we couldn't really see anything due to the thick smoke everywhere; they say the air quality in the Bay area then was the worst on the entire planet.  By afternoon, it cleared up a bit, so that one could distinguish separate thick plumes of smoke coming from the coast and from the east. After dark, one could see what the kid termed "Holy Flaming Mountain" -- Mt. Hamilton -- looming orange over San Jose.

I was happy to hear that they managed to save Lick Observatory as the flames swept over the summit last night.  However, the historic park structures in Big Basin over near the fire near the coast were not so lucky, and have reportedly been deemed a total loss.  It is unclear how much damage the big trees in that headquarters area suffered, as it sometimes takes a while before it is obvious if the canopy will regenerate.

Since the air was relatively clear this morning, I headed up to the summit of Mt, Umunhum to see what I could see, thinking that a high vantage point well away from any active fire might yield some interesting views.  Photos don't really do justice to what one can see in person, but here are a few.  I spent quite a while just sitting watching puffy plumes of new smoke billow up out of the haze, orange-lit from below, before they then sank and became part of the thick pall of smoke.

View toward the coast.  Just picture all of that smoke as the ghosts of the redwoods.  It does sort of smell like a campfire.

View towards Hamilton (buried under that bunch of higher smoke).

Yet another billow that blew up toward the east while I watched.

On a normal day, this would be fog, but it is all smoke today.  We haven't had any fog this week with the current heat wave.

Volunteer sunflower

I’m not sure where it came from, but we were amused to notice an unexpected sunflower blooming amidst the plants in the back bed earlier this week.  Happy July.

Virtual Choir 6: Sing Gently

One of the virtual projects that I participated in last May has finally been put together — Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir 6.  Go here to see it or google "Virtual Choir 6" to learn a bit about the project.  With over 17,000 singers, you won’t actually see me, but I’m in there somewhere and it is an interesting example of a large online collaborative choir.

I did take a screenshot of the “The choir” page right after I uploaded, when it was easy to find my picture.  Something like 10,000 more videos were uploaded after this point.  I was amused to get an email from a friend I sing with elsewhere mentioning that he thought he saw me when he perused the large array of singer photos.

The biggest challenge in my end was setting up the required plain white background for the video, given that there are no blank walls in the house.  I ended up attaching a white piece of coroplast to a tripod to put behind me.    I had to use a large bar of chocolate to clamp it properly (that's the orange thing you can see below the white backdrop; it came to hand when I was looking for something to use as a stabilizer), and then ruefully discovered when I went to eat it later that it had been crushed...
The little gray thing attached to the top of the music stand is a 3-D printed holder that Chad made to hold the phone while it was recording the video.

You may note that the music on the stand in that picture is not the Whitacre “Sing Gently”, but music from one of the other virtual music projects that I did that same week In May which are still pending:  one with Collage, and two with my hardy gurdy with some others I occasionally sing with.  Given that the people doing the post processing to compile videos have discovered that the process can be time consuming, I am not sure if or when those will ever be done, but I’ll pass them along as they arrive!

Delivery

One of Chad’s friends had a birthday; we made a surprise delivery to him on our bike ride this morning.  I figured you’d be amused by the shot said friend snapped as we showed up.

Doves

There has been a pair of dumb dopey doves hanging around our back yard for the last month or so.  They spent seemingly forever looking for a place to nest.  On the lip of the awning?  Nope.  At an inch wide, too small.  On top of the grill?  Nope.  Too exposed. On the light fixture?  Nope.  Too slopey.  On the hangboard?  Nope.  Denizen of the house chases you off.   Watching doves look for a place to nest gives one the impression that they are not the brightest bulbs on the planet.

Eventually the doves seemed to disappear, until Chad noticed that they had found an actual good nesting spot in a hanging pot that has been mostly covered by the passion fruit vine.  I peeked in and saw a chick (accidentally giving them a fright, which they fortunately got over).

Given that Chad can see this part of the yard from his temporary office in the living room, he has been privy to lots of dove drama.  Squawking, feeding, playing dead on the patio to distract a crow attacking the nest. All quite entertaining.

The best part so far was today.  Chad observed the doves checking out the area near where the bike rack extension is sitting, and the he texted me to come look when they brought their fuzzy chick out to explore with them.  Cute!