The Canoe.

Here's a couple photos of my goofy canoe. It's a 22-year-old Blue Hole "Sunburst". She's about 14.5 feet long, which is a couple feet longer than modern solo whitewater boats. Also faster on flat-water, which is good for me. I've got the outfitting all squared away (saddle, float bags, etc.), but the hull is going to need some work this winter. Doesn't leak or anything, but it needs some skid-plates and a couple patches. I'm probably going to take it down the river tomorrow, even though the flow is way down. Want to take it there before I'm gone for so long...



She's a bit curvy, eh?


The cockpit/saddle. My right leg goes numb after a bit, so I'm going to have to redo the footpads or something.



And here's a little video of me paddling it. I've gotten a lot better at the cross strokes since I took this...

Some more stuff.

The old man's sweet rig (BMW F 650 GS Dakar) at Baldy Pass (I recognize the pile of gravel).


Somewhere near Long Swamp.


Ditto...

Dad, that thing looks rad! Kinda makes me want to get one, but there's not really that much stuff to explore around here like that. A bicycle will have to do for now.

Decided to go up Camel's Hump again (this is the 4th time this year). The first time, I didn't push it too hard, and made it to the top in 1hr 45 minutes or so. The second time, I decided to push it, and made it up in 1:20. The third time, I was on a date, so I wanted to be able to talk to the girl, and since I'm out of breath when I'm hiking hard, we took it easy. It was pouring rain that time too... it was great! Anywho, this time, I decided I was going to try to set a new personal best, hopefully right around the hour mark. Well, I made it pretty quick, but in 1:07. I was hauling ass the whole way, even running a little on parts of it. Near the top, I ran out of gas and slowed down a bit (didn't have any breakfast). I was close, but I don't know how I'll ever shave off those 7 minutes. It's going to be tough, but it's kind of a fun goal to have. The trail is pretty nice, though there's no view until the very top, so I don't really feel like I'm missing anything by going as fast as I can... Made it back down in 50 minutes. That ought to give you an idea how hard I was pushing on the way up. Oh, it's 3.5 miles to the top. I'm sure dad could carry me on his back and make it up faster than that, but I'm only human.
Here's a couple pictures from the top this time:


Looking into the clouds...


Break in the clouds. Looking east.

Stuff.

Sorry it's taken me so long to add anything new on here. Here's a couple things to look at...


The view from Zealand Falls Hut, looking through Zealand Notch in the White Mountains, NH. I hiked into the hut to visit my old pal Meredith (she works there).


Volant at the Jones' dock in Skerry Bay, Lasqueti Island, BC. From our sail up there in early August.


Teal and the old man atop Mt. Tiffany, in the Okanogan region of eastern Washington.

I'm going to be in California starting Tuesday for the next 5 weeks (give or take several weeks...). I can't say too much about what I'll be doing there, but here's the site I'll be working on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Field_Laboratory
That's all I've got for now, sorry.

Recently...

I got rid of the internet at my house. Well, the internet I had was a mobile broadband card that we have at work for the purpose of internet access when we're in the field. I had just neglected to return it. Anywho, that's why I haven't posted anything lately...
So, I've been riding quite a bit, and STILL suffering broken chain issues. The latest one lasted longer at least. I'm getting a new cassette, so hopefully that will solve it. The chain on the cross bike was skipping like a mofo too, so it's getting a new drivetrain as well. Also in bike news, I got a new one. Sorta. Many months ago, I accidentally acquired a 29er frame off ebay (I was the only bidder, woops). I'd been delaying putting it together since I wanted to have the 26er and the 29er to ride side by side and compare. Well, I couldn't afford that, and I got tired of waiting, so I went ahead and built it. 29ers (which have road-sized wheels [700c] with mountain bike sized tires) are supposed to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Being a bit of a retro-grouch that I am, I didn't believe the hype. However, having ridden this thing quite a bit by now, I gotta say, some of it's true. Traction is better (though that could be just the tires) and it does roll a little smoother. Rocks and roots still feel like rocks and roots, but they're not quite as harsh anymore. Also, this bike handles beautifully, partly due to the long top tube and steep head tube. I don't know if it's just a better bike than the Salsa, or the 29" wheels deserve all the credit, but I'm sold. I'm not going to bother building the Salsa up again. Right now it looks nice on my wall. Without further ado, I give you... the Willits:

Some info about the frame... Wesley Willits was pretty much the first guy to experiment with 29" mountain bikes. This frame was custom made for someone 6'4", so it fits me like a glove. It's steel of course. It's heavy (that fork weighs 7lbs!), but I don't care. With any luck, it'll be the last hardtail I own. For a while at least.

I spent a 10-day shift down in Binghamton, NY the past couple weeks. Pretty uneventful work, but one of the nicer jobs I've been on. The site was in the woods, uphill from a golf course. Much nicer than a parking lot on Long Island. Also, we were nowhere near the drill rig, so we didn't have to listen to the noise all day. Lots of time for frisbee too. I finally got the hang of the forehand throw.

Since I've been back from that, I've climbed the Camel's Hump (2nd or 3rd highest peak in Vermont, and by far the coolest looking from a distance) twice. I did it last Friday, and it rained and was foggy the whole way up. I only saw a couple other people. Here's a shot at the summit.

Not too much to see. Those white blazes mark the Long Trail, which is actually older than the Appalachian Trail. This is a bit north of where the AT joins it, and follows it to the southern border of Vermont. That intersection is just north of Killington. Anywho, I decided I'd give it another go today, even though it looked cloudy in Montpelier. My old pal Rachel was going to come with me, but she had car troubles, so she couldn't make it. By the way, the trailhead is only about half an hour from where I live, so it's very close. The parking lot was already packed when I got there. Lots of 4th of July hikers I guess. One interesting thing I noticed was that everyone I passed smelled like clean laundry or something. I'm not used to hikers smelling like they just walked out of the shower. Oh well. I, for whatever reason, was going to try to make it up as fast as possible, so I was sweating like a pig and probably smelled like crap. I made it to the top (about 3.5 miles) in 1 hour 15 minutes. It's nowhere near as hard a climb as Katahdin, but that's still a pretty good pace. I passed 27 people on the way up! Once up on top, I was treated to 360 views of the Green Mountains, Lake Champlain, the distant Adirondacks, and the even more distant White Mountains. After 20 minutes of lunch and soaking up the sun and views, I headed down. Made it down in an hour. It's really nice that such a nice peak is so close to where I am, and it's a relatively easy hike to some awesome views. I'm sure I'll do it many more times, though I'll have to try a new route so I don't get bored with that one. Here's some pictures:

Looking west toward Burlington, Lake Champlain, and the Adirondacks.


Looking north to Mt. Mansfield, highest peak in Vermont.


Looking NE toward Mt. Hunger. Montpelier is south (to the right) and just beyond that range.


Looking east toward the distant White Mountains.


A 180 degree panorama from the summit. West is the left, east is the right.

Other than that, not a lot going on. Finally finished a draft of my paper on sea caves, which (hopefully) will eventually be published in a journal. I'm sure I've got lots of revisions to go through before that happens, but it's a start! Off to New Jersey for the next two weeks for work, then a bit of a break (which includes Teal's wedding!), then supposedly California for work in mid August. Still rumors about that Australia gig as well. I'll let you know more when I know more...
Oh, and the Tour de France starts tomorrow. I'm rooting for Cadel Evans (I always go for the former mountain-bikers like Floyd was), but Valverde will be up there too. We'll see!
Happy Independence Day!
Oh, and another thing, Kristen's dad and older sister Erica are currently riding across the country. I'm quite jealous since that's a trip I've wanted to do for a while. My time will come! If you're interested in following their trip, you can go to http://thesummerride.blogspot.com

Weekend Fun.

Since I worked Sunday, and long days Monday and Tuesday, I had my 40 hours in by Thursday. So, I took Friday off and went to ride at Millstone Hill again. It wasn't supposed to rain, but it did on and off all day, so it made for a wet ride. Fortunately, these trails soak it up pretty well, so no harm done. Anyway, followed the directions a bit better this time and wound up doing a 3 hour loop. Pretty cool stuff. Here's some pictures from that:


View from the "South Lookout". Kind of a dreary day.


El Salsa taking a break. Speaking of breaks, I didn't break a chain this time!


Another view near the south end of the loop.


A "grout" pile. Like I think I've mentioned before, this area is full of abandoned quarries. "Grout" is what they call the substandard rock (which is weird, since grout usually refers to cement). Anyway, there are lots of these giant piles of granite blocks around.


Rock of Ages Quarry. This portion isn't used anymore I think. The main active part of the quarry is visible on the hillside in the background.


Yes, I actually got a new jersey... The water is that milky blue color due to all the rock flour. In this case, it's not glacially derived, but derived from the quarry operations...


An anchor for one of the cables supporting the tower in the distance.


Oh no! The anchor pulled loose, so I had to hang on to the cable until they could fix it. No problem, even if there was a mountain lion attacking me at the same time, not to mention the rattlesnakes...

Saturday, I had plans to go canoing on the Winooski again with some other folks from work. This time, I had a different person in the bow, and there was a second boat along too. Jessica (a coworker) and I in "my" boat, Morgan (another coworker) and her husband Andy in an old Grumman aluminum canoe. Due to all the rain, the river was a lot higher than the last time. Some of the rapids that were more of a slalom course last time had transformed into big, rolling wave trains. Mostly no problems. Mostly. We dumped our boat a couple times and swamped it. Fortunately, the water was only about waist deep, so it wasn't too much trouble to get it taken care of. And, since we had girls along, they packed lots of food, so we had a picnic halfway through it. Good times.


Jessica and I near a covered bridge.


Morgan and Andy going under the same bridge.


Morgan and Jessica.


Looking downstream from our lunch spot. The upper half of the river is calm and meandering like this. The second half gets quite a bit steeper. Unfortunately, I was too busy paddling to take any pictures of that part...


Our lunch break spot. Nice little point bar. In the cut bank on the opposite side, there were lots of swallow nests dug out.


You can sort of see the swallow nests...


Nice trees hanging over the river. Really pretty. I forgot to mention it got up into the high 80's when we were doing this. Hot for around here.


Morgan in charge of the Grumman. This girl is always smiling.


Jess and I in the big green boat.


Yours truly.

Winooski River and news from Keith.

Well, I wound up doing that canoe trip on the river after all. Sunday morning, I met up with my co-worker Lee at his house in Plainfield. We were originally going to run it from Marshfield to Plainfield, but after driving the road and seeing the river along the way, we decided the water was too low for it. So we wound up going from Plainfield to Montpelier instead. There were a few spots where we had to get out and push, and lots of rocks were scraped, but it was a great time. Most of it was super tame flat-water stuff, but as the river gets past E. Montpelier, it gets a bit steeper. There are a few little rapids which were no problem at this water level, but looked pretty scary back when all the snowmelt was coming down. There's also a couple dams we had to portage around, which was also no problem. Got a bit better at controlling a canoe. And by that, I mean being able to keep it in a straight line without constantly switching sides. Not sure if I was doing it right, but it worked for me.
It's 10 miles on the road from Plainfield to Montpelier, and it's probably twice that on the river. It meanders quite a bit. The whole trip took about 4 hours. We didn't go hard, but we didn't just drift either... Anywho, here's a couple pictures.

The first dam we had to portage around. Maybe a 6 or 7 foot drop. The next dam, closer to town, is probably a 20 or 30 foot drop.

Looking downstream from the dam. The river had been mostly tame before this. Afterwards there were lots of fun little rapids.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that Keith Lannom (our old Team Green soccer coach, sometimes riding buddy, super host when I was in Utah, and all around good dude) is moving to New Hampshire! He's been in East Tennessee for the past couple years working for the Forest Service. He'll be working in White Mountain National Forest up this way. Not sure where he'll be living yet, but it'll be great to have him in the area. He's been married a few years now, and his son is nearly a year old! Time flies...

I went riding another new place this afternoon, and broke my chain again! It was the same chain I broke on Friday, so I was going easy on it, but still... I really don't get it. I've never had this problem before. I used the same chain the whole time I was in Mississippi. Replaced it last summer because it was worn out. I had to replace the middle chainring this spring (ripped a tooth off), and I thought maybe I had an 8spd one on there or something. Nope. So I don't know what's going on. I'm going to try either a Shimano or KMC chain next time and see how that goes. It's really making me mad! ARGH! Not to mention banging up my knees! Argh, ARGH! Which reminds me, on that canoe trip, a lady was on a bridge we went under at one point. She had a patch over one eye. She was friendly and said something like "Good for you guys" or something like that. I had a hard time resisting the temptation to say, "Avast!" or "Ahoy there!" or other pirate speak. She was sitting in a car, so I couldn't see if she had a peg leg...

Recent Fun Stuff.

I've been enjoying some outdoor time lately. Still nothing going on at work (for me anyway), though I have learned how to operate a Geoprobe. Last Saturday, I rode at a place nearby called "Millstone Hill". You may know that Barre (Montpelier's next door neighbor) is world famous for its granite. Well, Millstone Hill is where all that granite came from and still comes from. There are lots of old quarries up there, most filled with water. I think the only active one is the famous "Rock of Ages" Quarry. Anywho, there's a nice trail network up there. Nothing too difficult, but there are a few really technical parts of it.

A view from "Grand Lookout" at one of the old quarries.

My old pal Meredith (fellow kayak shop worker for years) is back home (in NH) after her winter in Aspen. Her and I took a quick trip up Mt. Cardigan in central NH. The hike was really short, maybe 6 miles, but the last half mile to the top were a scramble up bare rock. Would have been super sketchy in the rain. However, the wildest part of that little outing was getting there! Turns out Google map directions aren't quite foolproof. The last leg of their directions had me following "Knowles Hill Rd". I'd been on gravel roads for a while, so I didn't think much of it, when that road seemed to be a rarely used jeep trail. Didn't worry about it much at first, but the "road" kept getting worse and worse, to the point I was driving down a washed-out, overgrown, rutted, boulder-strewn, abandoned skidder trail. I consulted the NH gazetteer (should have sooner) to find out that "Knowles Hill Rd" is marked as a "trail" on their map. Hmm. I got to a point where I couldn't go any further due to trees, so I decided to backtrack. Wasn't any room to turn around, so I had to gun it backwards back up all those ruts and rocks, which I could no longer see coming. So I just hoped for the best. Mud flying everywhere and bouncing like crazy, I made it to a spot I could turn around, but not before smacking several rocks and causing the engine oil light to turn on. I thought I was screwed. Fortunately after turning around, shutting the car down, and checking things out, everything worked out ok. Light turned off and started up fine. So anyway, needless to say, I found a different way to get where I needed to go. It's really good that I still had my snow tires on, or I definitely would have gotten stuck. Fordo, you would have loved it.

The point of no return. Didn't stop the Suby though!


Meredith scrambling above treeline.


Looking back at Mt. Cardigan. The upper part of the trail just goes straight up that left side of it.

Last time I was in Boothbay, I borrowed Travis's canoe (with his permission of course). My coworker Lee and I have been planning to paddle down part of the Winooski river in it, but so far our schedules haven't matched up. So, some afternoon this past week, I forget which, I took it out to a local reservoir with my neighbor Brandi. I'm not much of a canoer, and she's even less of one, but it was still a nice laid back little paddle. It sprinkled a bit, and once we got back to shore, the sun was below the clouds and created a gorgeous double rainbow. It was really pretty.

Brandi reaches for her raincoat.


Sun on the opposite shore. Sure would make a nice rainbow if it rained right now...


Shazam! Remember the awesome rainbow we saw that winter out at Long Beach? This was about as good as that one.

Yesterday, after work, I went riding with 4 other folks from work at a place in nearby Waterbury called Perry Hill. Holy crap, some awesome riding! Lots of roots and rocks, made treacherous by several afternoon showers, but some awesome trails nonetheless. I kept up with them all just fine too. About an hour into the ride, I broke my chain. I've been doing that a lot lately. After running a half mile or so to where they were waiting, I fixed it real quick and impressed them with that. They're not really the mechanic sort. In fact, I've worked on two of their bikes in exchange for a six-pack of microbrew. Anywho, after that, I had to baby it up the hills for fear of snapping it again, so I wound up running a lot when it was uphill. Going down though, whee! Some pretty rippin' downhills. There was one called "Butt-crack". Super steep and some pretty harry parts too, especially since it was wet. Everyone but Lee (mentioned earlier) and I were on full suspension bikes with quick releases on their seatposts, which was definitely an advantage on this descent. I was wearing baggy shorts over my spandex out of modesty, and I kept getting stuck behind my saddle! I'd get way back behind the seat on a steep part, then couldn't get back on top of the saddle because my shorts caught the back of it. Skipping the baggies next time I ride there. There were even several skinny bridges with some serious consequences if you screwed them up. There were some super sharp banked turns that were a total blast too! The final descent (and initial ascent) has lots of big dirt waterbars, which tried to buck you off on the way down, going wicked fast. At one point there was a straightaway with two waterbars pretty close together, followed by a sharp left turn. I couldn't slow down enough, since the waterbars threw me in the air, and totally blew through that left turn. It was pretty funny I though. Anyway, great ride, even if it was wet and nasty and I had a mechanical and had to run a bunch. Followed by some beer and hotdogs in the parking lot. Good times. Unfortunately no pictures of that though. Maybe next time.

Horn of the Moon.

First of all, Happy Mother's day mom!
I've been riding a lot lately, thanks to the motivation provided by Ford's training plan he made up for me. No real specific goal in mind, just get in good shape, maybe do some casual racing this summer, who knows.
Anyway, went out for my longest ride yet (since I've been in Vermont that is) on Friday, about 30 miles. Rode what's becoming a usual loop, then decided to add something else onto it. That something else, Horn of the Moon road, turned out to be a long, steep climb. Then it intersected North St., climbed a bit more, crossed some fields along the crest of a ridge, then descended steeply back to town. A pretty great section I think. The climb up Horn of the Moon road (cool name eh?) is about 20 minutes of grinding the granny gear (which is a 34 x 25 on the 'cross bike). Some great views from up there, and the following pictures don't do it justice.
Headed out for a mountain bike ride today and broke my chain twice right the base of the first climb. Broke it the first time, slammed my knee into the stem. Fixed it beside the trail, decided I'd do something more mellow instead and rode some double track along the river. Going up a slight rise, it broke again. Fixed it again, and headed home. Walked up the steep hill that leads to my apartment. Hopped on the 'cross bike and headed out on a road ride. Good stuff. I think I'm starting to somewhat enjoy the climbs. At least not dread them. I'm sure it'd be different if I were riding with someone else and had some competition, but for now, I'm liking it a lot.
Here's a couple pictures from the ride today.

About 2/3 up Horn of the Moon Road.

Yay Spring!

Camel's Hump in the distance.

Killington is visible, but hard to make out.

Sparrow Farm.