2021

 Merry Christmas!  Late.

Time has been a slippery eel this year.  Periods of seeming inactivity made time pass slowly.  Then the calendar began to fill, to which we were so unaccustomed that entire months passed quickly and unnoticed.  That brings us to the end of the year, with nothing yet posted on the blog.  

Here is a brief synopsis to catch up (and incidentally to serve as our Christmas letter).  Memory is foggy in Slippery-Eel-Time years, so I have organized the general flow of events by looking through old photos and picking one for each month.  Or sometimes two.  I can no longer count.

January

Mostly projects around the house and hiking.  Chad got me a cheap laser cutter, which he then spent much time and effort to retrofit with niceties like safety interlocks and a water cooling system.  I gave it warning stickers and proceeded to burn... er make... stuff.

February

Local van camping trips and hiking at Joe Grant and Arroyo Seco.  We were happy to see that many local areas that had burned the previous year are recovering nicely.

March

In a truly talented move, I broke my hand doing laundry.  Fortunately, I could still hike, sometimes with Chad, and sometimes with Kean, who was still doing online college from home.

April

Chad and I went out to the desert to Not Act Our Ages to celebrate my very large round-number birthday.

May

More local camping in the van, this time to Bodega Bay.  We were lucky enough to find a rare last-minute coastal camping spot (these are hard to come by around here in this era of too many people camping) and explored the hills on our bikes.

June

For the kiddo, gainful employment for the summer as a counselor at Hidden Villa.  For Chad and me, mountain biking!  Pictured are a trail up near Downieville, and our camp from a quick bikepacking trip to Henry Coe.  Both pictures may look idyllic, but rest assured, we also found the requisite amount of suffering on hills that one is never quite fully in shape for...

July

Road trip up to WA!  This was the longest excursion of the year -- we spent a couple of weeks on the road, visiting Linda on the way out of CA, meeting my brother and dad on a crystal dig in NV, climbing Lassen Peak, exploring places to mountain bike in southern OR, visiting my parents, seeing my brother again back at his place with the rest of his family, hiking and camping at Mt Rainer, camping on the slopes of Mt. Shasta, and making an early-morning run home through the Central Valley to outrun the worst of a heat wave.  

August

The long-awaited dropoff of the kiddo in Southern CA for college!  While this was a big transition for Kean, he did appreciate being able to attend actual in-person studio classes at Otis.  One nice feature of the area is that one is able to occasionally walk down the hill to the beach.

September

More jolly projects and bicycle time.  Chad had an unusual work week in which he was up in the mountains with some USGS folks, assessing conditions in the big Dixie wildfire burn area.  I camped with him near Oroville on the way up, but had to be home for a Tuesday night rehearsal, so rode my bike across the Central Valley through a mix of small idyllic farms and large less-idyllic headwind-infested farms to catch the train home from Davis.

October

Many pictures of the cat on my phone.  Kean was missing the Bobber, so I instituted the COD, or "Cat of Day" text stream.

November

More fun micro-trips.  First a weekend up in SF to celebrate our anniversary, which at that point was about as Covid-free a major city as one could find.  It was decidedly odd to be doing urban things like going to dinner, to a museum, to see live jazz, shopping...  Later in the month, we made a run down to Joshua Tree to meet up with Kean and some friends for Thanksgiving camping.

December

I sang with Early Music Singers in our first concert since the pandemic started.  It was so weird to walk into the church for the dress rehearsal to be surprised by the Christmas decorations, and then realize it was the first time any of us had been in that space for two years.  I was the only one bold enough to go with a bright green mask (hey, the director did say any color of mask...).

And to end the year, mountain biking in the snow on the way up to Downieville (lots of Downieville weekends this year, but this was the first one where we encountered snow).

Kean is now home for break after a successful semester, and it is time for feasting!

Anniversary Trip: The Scenic Way Home

We opted for the scenic route up 395 on the way home from the desert, since we were denied that route on the way over.  This allowed us to camp at a lovely mostly-empty campground near Bishop:

We especially enjoyed watching the light change on the Eastern Sierra as the sun set.

The next morning, as we headed north, remnants of snow from the storm at the beginning of the trip became apparent.  It was also chilly!

Chad in his happy place.

We stopped at Panum Crater to hike around the obsidian deposits and look at Mono Lake.  These domes are pretty much all made of glass.

Small bits of tufa at the edge of the lake.  This is the same kind of deposit as what there was near Trona Pinnacles at the beginning of the trip, just with the lake still present rather than dried up like Trona.  (These tufa towers are also much smaller.)

More obsidian

The Eastern Sierra, under a dramatic sky.  We ended up having to follow 395 all the way up to Highway 88 before we found a pass that was open.  With scenery like this, that wasn't a terrible fate!

W Tree Rock Scramble

A few years ago, I found myself riding through Sunol regional park in the East Bay, and noted that there was an interesting label on one of the drainages on the map: "W Tree Rock Scramble".  Of course that piqued my interest.

This route turns out to be not a trail, but rather a designated scrambling route up a wee canyon through steep terrain -- the sort of thing that naturally draws me in.   I've been meaning to get back there to explore it ever since then, but a little thought and research made it clear that the endeavor would be most fun under just the right conditions.  Too hot, and it is full of rattlesnakes.  Not what one wants to be surprised by when reaching around a boulder for a handhold.  Too wet, and the rocks are slippery and more difficult, and cold.   A big poison oak year, and, well, that is it just too itchy.

So really, a very narrow window exists. It's gotta be November or later, after the rattlesnakes give up due to cold, but before the winter rains start. That usually coincides with busy holiday and singing seasons, so I just hadn't gotten out to do it.   

Last week, there was finally the perfect day - I had time, it was 70° out, and we haven't gotten much rain yet this year, so there wouldn't be much water in the creek (hopefully) and there wasn't that much poison oak this last year, relatively speaking.

My route in ran along the hillside above Alameda Creek.   This area is full of faults, which clearly are active enough to lead to steep hills, so the hike in was a good warmup.   I enjoyed hiking while taking in the views and listening to podcasts in the warm sunshine.

I eventually dropped down to the creek level, and found my way to the "W Tree", which was not hard to spot.  There was even a sign :)  Time to deviate from the trail!

Others have been here since the last rainy season  -- there is no way this cairn would still be here otherwise.  One can tell that water runs through here frequently; there was a faint slick of water on the most of the route even though we hadn't gotten much of any rain since last winter.

You may notice the excellent green color of the rocks above. This area is chock full of scenic metamorphic rocks with swirls of fantastical coloration. It is fun stuff to scramble through, both visually and because the rock is hard enough to provide many good hand and footholds.

Conditions were such that one could move up this drainage relatively quickly by channelling one's inner quadruped. That was what I had planned for, so it was fun.  The climbing gym has been closed for months, so I've been looking for more opportunities to clamber on rocks outside.  I found myself a dry waterfall or two to climb. Just little ones; nothing stupid.

After about 45 minutes of scrambling, I came to a trail junction.  Though I wanted to keep scrambling, it was time to head back if there was any hope of making dinner that night at a reasonable hour.  Plus, I wanted to save some of the scramble to come back and do with Chad!

The trail headed back up and over many hills, with scenic views of trees,

hills covered in brand-new green grass, poking up through last year's old brown grass,

the edge of Calaveras Reservoir,

and cows both young and old munching on the fresh new grass. I accidentally deviated from the real trail onto a cow trail at one point, but the landmarks were such that it was easy to navigate back to the car. A most excellent hike!

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BigBoy 2000

 We have a perfectly good small folding saw that I use in the yard.  Chad, however, gave me another one for Christmas.

You may notice its funny name:  BigBoy 2000.  What you may not notice from the photo above is just how ridiculously large it is.

Unfolded, this thing is almost as long as my leg.  Naturally, I found it necessary to engage in tree carnage.  The overgrown oleander got to be the first target; the saw showed itself to be sharp in the way that only new blades are, and made short work of vertical spires that had gotten too thick to trim back with the loppers.  If they saw me standing on the top of the back fence attacking the offending oleander, the neighbors surely have one more reason to think we have lost our marbles.

Now one can’t help but wonder about the BigBoy’s larger cousin, KatanaBoy...

Anniversary Trip: Day of Ooops

Sometimes one accidentally turns down the incorrect unmarked dirt road.  Sometimes one doesn't immediately turn around upon figuring that out 1/4 mile in.  Sometimes the road then turns to sand.

This probably isn't a problem if only two of three of those conditions hold in any given incident.

Here is the offending dirt road.  It took off from the main road probably only a couple hundred yards before the road we really wanted, and all of these desert tracks look similar.  When we turned off, I asked what the mileage on the van was, indicated that we should take the left at the fork in 1/4 mile, and then promptly stopped paying attention.  After all, there was nothing to choose until after that fork.

Then it got sandy.  "How far in are we?"  "About a mile and a half."  Argh!!!  If it was the correct road, we would have had a turn by then.  And by this point, I can tell that while it is going towards intriguing pointy mountains, they are the incorrect intriguing pointy mountains.  We don't want to take the van into that sand, plus I'm now 110% sure it is the wrong road, so time to turn around.

The spot we chose to turn around in looked solid.  That was a lie.  A nasty evil plot by the sand, as it desperately wanted to eat unsuspecting travellers.  Anything off the main doubletrack immediately turned into soft sand down an invisible lip.  One can't actually turn around here anywhere.  Uh oh.

But wait!  We brought the sand plates.  Surely that will help?

Why no, of course not.  The astute among you will have noticed that the sand plates in the pictures above are positioned all goofy-like by the time these pictures were taken.  There is a reason.  Let me lay it out for you:

Van is rear wheel drive, so those wheels are the ones that need traction.

So, what does one do?  One puts the sand plates behind the rear wheels, digs some sand out of the way of the front wheels and tries to back up.

Yay, it looks like it is working, as the right rear wheel (the one I am watching while Chad backs up) is able to move off of the soft sand and back up sort of onto the roadbed.

Then -- zZzzzzip!  The sand plates are sucked under the rear tires and spat out in front of them.  The one under the right rear wheel is now in front of the wheel, but still weighted under the van enough to be stuck there.  The one under the left rear wheel has been sucked all the way through and shot to the front of the van at high speed, and the left rear wheel has now dug itself a new hole into the formerly firm road bed.  Hmmm.  Not the intended effect.

Roadbed is hard on the top surface, covered by thin layer of somewhat slippery sand pellets.

Rear wheels are up on the roadbed, quite a bit higher than the front wheels.

Most of the weight is on the front wheels.

Slippery sand pellets act as little ball bearings to allow the sand plates to slide right under the wheels when the wheels are powered, and there is not enough weight on those wheels to hold the plates in place.  The wheels just grab the plates and shoot 'em on through.

Sort of looked like a cartoon to watch.  Except that one can't just change the channel.

What to do, what to do?  We tried using some vegetation for traction (not enough of it to help, plus it was creosote, so merely started smoking as the wheels spun over it).  We tried using the jack to lift up the front right tire so there would be more weight on the back (not successful, as we didn't have the big jack with us and the angle we were dealing with was larger than it seems in the photos).  We tried rocking the van back and forth while I shoved rocks into the hole under the left rear tire (partially successful, as I eventually figured out how to place the rocks get that hole filled without having all the rocks just spit through to the front.)  We had high hopes for that latter strategy, and did eventually get the hole filled and the back wheel moved a couple feet back off of it.  You'd think that would be a cause for celebration, but it immediately became apparent that now the angle of the van was that little bit more extreme and that back wheel, while it had moved three feet back, was now no longer touching the road surface at all.

Incidentally, I must have collected all the fist-size rocks within a 500-foot radius.  There were no rocks larger than this.  Now they are in a tightly packed deposit under where the left rear wheel had been.  Future geologists will be puzzled.

By this point, it had been a couple of hours.  I was in a state of absolute flow, placing rocks, problem solving, unaware of time passing.  Fortunately Chad noticed that it was getting to be mid-afternoon --the light was starting to change -- and that it would be a good idea to figure out how to get help before it got dark.  (While we *could* have just slept there for the night, the van was tipped at an angle that would have made it a bit uncomfortable.)  We really only needed to be pulled back about 3 feet more back onto the road and then all would be well.

A tow truck would probably be about a two hour wait.  Our friends also lived about two hours away.  Call the friends?  Tempting, but that would have had a high likelihood of getting friends stuck too.  We called for the tow truck, and after some discussion they decided to send their 4WD from Barstow, two hours away.

Chad stayed with the van, while I walked down to the point where the dirt road met the main paved road to meet the driver.  Didn't want him to go down the wrong little desert dirt road, and it wasn't like we could just say "We need a tow at 123 Main St"...  In this modern era, I also shared cell phone location with the driver so he could see where I was and I could see when he was getting close.  So I sat on the side of the road and caught up on old issues of the Economist, all the while tracking his little blue dot on the phone map.

Tony the tow truck driver from Barstow was wonderful.  He showed up about a half hour faster than projected, with his 4WD pickup on the back of a flatbed truck.

Isn't it a cute little truck?  The photos in the late afternoon light definitely show its best face.  The thing must have been more than 50 years old, and definitely had character that can only be described as "classic", by which I mean "can drive anywhere, but cantankerous as all get-out, and must have been old when your grandpa was a kid"   It only died once on the way up the dirt road (engine flooded?); after Tony got it going again he couldn't go slowly lest it die again, so the ride up to the van was a bit of a Mr.-Toad's-Wild-Ride up the bumpy desert road, amidst the cloud of automotive fumes emanating from the vehicle.  Sort of fun.

If we had these tires on the van, we wouldn't have gotten stuck.

The light was waning by the time we got to Chad and the van, but it didn't take Tony long at all to turn his truck around, hook up the strap, and pull us out of the sand.  He was nice enough to drive slowly on the way out to give Chad a light to follow, as we had to back down the mile and a half to the main road.  That's a quite a bit of backing up in the dark after a fairly long day!

Sunset on the way out.

We were lucky that I had enough cell signal earlier in the day to identify a place to park the van and camp just across the main highway and down a dirt road that was labelled as 2WD friendly, so we headed over, set up in the dark, and went to sleep.  It was pretty quiet there for all that it was close to the road, and we woke up to more gorgeous desert.

What I hadn't told Chad the night before was that the little short piece of dirt access road was another pipeline road....I had good info that the piece we would be on was short and in good condition, and just wanted to stop for the night.  Fortunately, the only side effect was a little bit of truck traffic in the morning from the training and work they were doing that day (yes, upon seeing this sign all I could picture was tortoises fleeing from the rumble of noisy trucks).  The previous 24 hours had not been the planned vacation day, but were certainly memorable!