The place where Bree works was mentioned and pictured in the New York Times today:

Walking Into the Earth’s Heart: The Grand Canyon



>>By the time we reach Phantom Ranch, its own side canyon, Bright Angel Creek, is deep in chilly shade. To reach the quiet huddle of stone and timber cabins under their grove of silvery cottonwoods, the trees tattered with old dry leaves, with a bunk waiting, and hot showers in the bathhouse, and the creek plashing by — relief floods in. But even though we’ve descended to 2,000 feet above sea level, it’s still freezing.

When the ranch bell rings for dinner, some two dozen guests troop from the cabins through the frigid dusk to the main lodge, where we quietly feast on stew, corn bread and salad. We’re from all over, all walks of life: a student from Quebec, a trucker from Kentucky, a fisherman from Alaska, a college student from New York, a woman in insurance, from Pennsylvania. All these trappings of people’s lives seem to fade in the context of this deep retreat from the world. We’re just people, making the pilgrimage from cradle to grave.

At 8 p.m. the dining room turns into a kind of mess hall. People sit around playing cards, or Trivial Pursuit, drinking wine or beer, and the counter opens for the sale of odds and ends. On a shelf sits the box for river mail, where letters wait for rafters coming downstream.<<

We made a leisurely departure from our campsite between Pika and Duck lakes, then hiked back up to the trail and around the lake to its outlet, where the lake's stream cascades through meadows and down into the valley below. Here we got our first peek at Cascade Valley, something like 2000 feet below.


Bree looking southwest from near the outlet of Duck Lake, elev. 10500 feet

Here we had a choice to make: take the John Muir Trail / Pacific Crest Trail directly to Red's Meadow (by Devil's Postpile National Monument), only 11 miles; or commit to a much longer trek that would take us to the Iva Bell Hot Springs. By the time we reached the junction, we were feeling energetic and ready to go, and so we veered to the left, on the trail towards Purple Lake, committing to the longer trip, and a very long day's hike: 14 miles to the hot spring!

Now we saw no more day hikers (many of whom had populated the trail up to Duck lake, almost all of them, inexplicably, with little pet dogs). Instead we encountered only the occasional backpacker or pack train. With them we had conversations like:

"How long you been out for?"
(wild eyed response) "Since May!"



Of course we went swimming. (But only for a minute—it's cold!)


Swimming in Purple Lake, elev. 9928 feet.

From Purple Lake we began the plunge into the valley below. The trail drops nearly two thousand feet in three miles—I'd dread having to hike in the other direction!—ending at a creekside meadow.

We were already worn out from the descent, but determined to continue onward to the hot springs, motivated both by the alure of observing the Perseid meteors from a steamy pool and the desire of shortening the next day's hike. Besides, what else do we have to do?

From the meadow the trail is relatively flat, following the creek which plunges over cascade after cascade. The light was fading, though, and now we spent little time admiring the scenery. Already tired, we had six and a half miles to go!

In the fading twilight we began to climb up out of the river valley and then another thousand-foot descent into the next valley over. At the summit we felt relief: here a flashlight, there a campfire, twinkling lights in the wilderness indicated others camping at our destination in the distance. It was now without question night, but the quarter moon provided sufficient illumination enough to cast shadows, and, for the most part, hike.

"Wouldn't it be great if we could share their campfire," one of us commented to the other about the flickering orange star in the distance below.

At long last the trail flattened out and entered the dark cover of forest. Almost immediately we gave up the idea of finding the hot springs that night in the dark and instead set about finding a good place to camp. A few more minutes down the trail we again saw the flickering glow of that campfire. As we neared, we heard a friendly shout: "Howdy!" We approached.

"Know any good places to camp around here?"
"Yes I do, how about you join us right here!" The reply, exuding friendliness, was exactly as we had hoped.

And so we strolled into the campsite, the dark forms of gear and horses and people coming into focus as our eyes adjusted and the veil of mystery over a foreign campsite in the darkness evaporated. There were strewn about various pieces gear, I assumed something for the horses. There was a campfire equipped with grill and some food grilling on it.

"Hungry?"
"Yes," I answered.
"Hey Ron, throw on a few more steaks for our guests!"

I cannot describe the surrealness of this scene. Somehow, effortlessly, we had become guests of a party of honest-to-God cowboys who were right then sawing off a steak from a huge piece of beef.

"Are you folks drinking folks?"
"We are."
"Well grab a cup and let me pour you some bourbon!"


Cowboys Dee, Jay, and Chris; and us. Near Iva Bell hot springs. Elev 7140 feet.

Bree and I took an awesome backpacking trip this week. Bree had hurt her back pretty badly a few weeks ago, but after spending last weekend recuperating in Orange County she was feeling rested and ready to go. And what better way to cure back pain than to carry heavy objects many miles over mountains for a few days? I've got to patent this treatment.

The trip was delightfully impromptu. (All of my previous (wilderness) backpacking trips were long ago with Boy Scouts and involved meticulous planning of itinerary, menu, etc. On this trip we kind of just threw some stuff together and set off with the intent to hike around for a few days.) After an hour of rooting about in my parents' garage, we had all our supplies if not a specific destination: maps of the high country around Mammoth, small butane stove, sleeping bags, therma-rest sleeping pads, tent, small aluminum pot with lid and pot gripper, fork and spoon, matches, water filter, pack towels, flashlights, toilet paper, plastic shovel. And with quick trip to Trader Joe's we acquired all our food. And then we were off! My parents were out of town for the week, attending my dad's 40th high school reunion in Rochester NY, so we were able to steal his Prius for the roadtrip up to the eastern sierra (averaging 47.2 MPG!).

When backpacking, one usually goes for very energy-dense food; and my experience has been of always being a bit hungry. In keeping with an obsessive attention to documentation, here's a table of all the food we brought along (intended for two people for around 3-4 days):

food	weight	energy
Trader Joe's dried apricots	16 ounces	1000 Calories
Nestle chocolate chunks	11.5	1600
Trader Joe's pre-cooked wild rice	16	630
Trader Joe's roasted and salted sunflower seeds	16	2800
TJ's italian dry salami	8	1000
half a kielbasa sausage
beef jerky	8
TJ's NZ sharp cheddar	16	2000
TJ's orange-flavored dried cranberries	8	800
TJ's instant oatmeal	?	2600
triscuit crackers	9.5	1200
TJ's whole wheat cous cous	35.2	3520
Jolly Ranchers hard candies
tea bags	1	0
water (5.5 liters)	200	0
total	23 lbs	17,150

Everything got eaten but about a third of the cheese, a third of the sunflower seeds, and most of the cous cous. We forgot to bring some tang/gatorade drink mix and found ourselves thirsty for it.

We didn't have much of a planned itinerary, and I pretty much made one up on the spot at the Forest Service station in Mammoth, ten minutes before closing, listing some spots we "planned" to camp in order to get a wilderness permit (which, it turns out, are free and take less than ten minutes to get). I spotted "Iva Bell Hot Springs" on the map and suddenly our trip had the sort of purpose that gives shape and aesthetic definition to an expedition.

This weekend Bree and I made the trek up to Santa Cruz for a very compressed but entertaining visit. On Friday afternoon it was pouring rain in southern California for the first time in a very long while; city streets were snarled and I can only imagine the freeways were a disaster, so we left bright and early on Saturday. 5:30 AM!

We breakfasted at the Cold Spring Tavern on the San Marcos Pass (CA-154), which I had recently read about in the Los Angeles Times. It was #2 on their "15 places to visit to see the real California" published a few weeks ago, and in good company with other items on that list. The place is terribly atmospheric--you could probably plunk someone doen from the late 19th century and they wouldn't immediately notice the new century, except perhaps for a slight excess of "flair" on the walls. At 8 AM the air was crisp and chilly inside the restaurant, not yet warmed by the woodfire. We dined on country-fried steak and biscuits and gravy in the dim glow of a kerosene lantern. We overheard another party ordering beer and whiskey to complement their morning meal.

We made it to Santa Cruz just barely in time for the fermentation workshop that was our stated purpose for visiting. I particularly enjoyed the presentation on Tempeh production by Manfred Warmuth. That man is awesome, and a true tempeh/fermentation enthusiast. And a professor of computer science. He gives his contact information as simply "google manfred". Despite having such a common (German) first name, he is the fourth search result on (American) google. If he had a fan club, I'd join it. Meanwhile, workshop participants stochastically interjected anti-capitalist slogans. Ah, Santa Cruz.

Our host for the evening was Alex at the Twelve Tribes Co-op, an eight-person Jewish-themed house, where we found an uncommonly high density of very friendly folks. My interest in train hopping was made known, and Alex showed us videos from his hitchhiking trip from Ukiah to Bolivia. It turns out that the train-hopping portion occurred on none other than the Copper Canyon Railroad, the same route on which four and I were once paying travelers on the passenger train. Alex actually rode on the roof of a boxcar on a freight train. It looked totally terrifying, albeit with awesome views! No couchsurfing trip would be complete without running into another physics student, and in this case we were quickly rewarded by meeting Zack, a first-year physics grad student at UCSC. The four of us enjoyed an intermission from the 12-tribes party in which we acquired delicious donuts at Ferrell's.

On Sunday we woke somewhat late (but still all-too-early) and Alex offered us delicious coffee. I do not know why, but coffee in the Bay Area just tastes better than most other places (e.g. southern California). (Is it the water? Or the coffee? Or the preparation?)

We wandered the UCSC campus briefly. Most of the university grounds consist of a huge forest, and we hiked up a fire road into this forest in search of "tree number nine," a redwood we were told was climbable and offered an excellent view. We found thousands of other trees, but not number nine. The forest is a patchwork of different kinds of forests. There are patches of redwood forest and patches of oak forest and interesting patches of moss-covered manzanita that make you feel that you're in a fantasy novel.

I have heard that students build elaborate treehouses in the forest, and live in them. I asked about these treehouses and was told, "oh, the woodsies live in them." I asked where I could find these "woodsies" and was told that they could not be found. I was told that they moved their treehouses every three weeks, via zip-line. Others told me that the University routinely removes treehouses from the forest. One person I asked about treehouses launched into a diatribe concerning the military-industrial complex. Another gave specific directions.

On our journey home we were accompanied by Sav and Oliver, who had replied to my craigslist advertisement offering a ride to Los Angeles from Santa Cruz, the first leg of their own Grand Hitchhiking Adventure, from Zami co-op in Santa Cruz to LA to Joshua Tree to Austin to New Orleans to New York to Europe. We stopped in San Luis Obispo for burritos. Sav explained that she changed her name for every trip and that she was mulling over "Tobin" for future use.

Our passengers deposited at their friend's house in Echo Park, we arrived home again at about 1 AM.

[spoonless: sorry we didn't manage to meet up! next time!]

The first storm in months* hit Los Angeles on Friday, so the next morning Bree and I decided to go on some erosion tourism. We had hoped to find our city's river channels coursing with muddy water, carrying trees and boulders alike toward the ocean, but instead we found them pretty much dry. I guess the first day of rain just soaks the soil. We need a little more to start the debris flows.

Naturally, we headed up into the mountains, up CA-39 following the San Gabriel River. (Somewhere back in my mind I contemplated the various scenarios involving the road washing out behind us; the San Gabriels are littered with abandoned highways.) It's amazing how a little weather can make a place so much more dramatic. The wisps of cloud rising from the mountain tips would have me believe I was in the Peruvian Andes.

The above photo is of Glendora Ridge Road, a little-traveled road, just one lane for both traffic directions, that traverses the mountain ridge from CA-39 to Mount Baldy Road. We saw just two other cars.

We took refuge at the Mt Baldy Lodge. Outside the weather was crisp and the air smelled like Christmas, something about the fresh rain and the conifers. The lodge was the perfect place, snug and warm, and with delicious foods. We weren't the only ones who thought so; it was packed, for the first time all summer. Strangely, the storm brought people into the mountains. We dined on hot apple cider, prime rib with baked potato and salad, heffeweizen, chocolate cake, and irish coffee. Somebody said it was snowing near the summit, but we didn't believe him; today we look up at a snowy mountaintop.

It's amazing such a place is less than ten miles from the metropolis.

* LA receives on average about 14 inches of rain in a year. So far this year we've received only two.

Bree and I took a trip out to Joshua Tree this weekend. Slept out under the stars at Ryan Campground--it was a wonderfully clear and warm night with zillions of stars and meteors. In the pictures: some cacti and the 49 Palms oasis.

Couldn't resist posting another photo from our Owens Valley trip. Here's looking from the Lone Pine Campground (up Whitney Portal road) out across the valley, with the Alabama Hills in the middleground. Looks like we were only just above the snowline.

We are feeling a bit bored, cold, lonely, and miserable. Mostly cold. The house where we are staying is unheated, and in any case our room is more of an "enclosed porch," and so it is with some irony that we are wistful for our heated-to-65-degrees home in Rochester. Sleeping beside a wood burning stove actually sounds quite appealing, out of place though it may seem for Southern California.

As for the rest: we are looking forward to getting more established here and being busy again. The house we're moving into will be available on Monday or Tuesday, and it is heated, albeit poorly. As an added bonus we'll finally be able to unload our car, which has contained All Of Our Worldly Possessions for a whole month now, freeing up some seats in it to carry around our soon-to-be-met friends on our soon-to-be-had camping trips in the deserts and mountains.

Possible agenda for tomorrow:

• Flea market at Pasadena City College (PCC)
• Eat at Fox's or Andy's, two reputed diner-like establishments here in Pasadena. (Oddly enough when I googled for Fox's, the first link was to a diner by the same name in Rochester.)
• Possibly visit my grandparents in Ventura county

I was thinking I would delay the public announcement until everything had fallen into place. But there is no sense in that. Here it is: Bree and I are moving to Los Angeles in December and to Louisiana in July and will remain in Louisiana for at least a year. (Briefly, and in a pun, we are moving to LA.) After Louisiana: Unknown.

To pre-emptively answer a few questions: There will be a big Going Away party. The co-op will persist. In California I will work at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, better known as Caltech. In Louisiana, the LIGO Livingston Observatory. All of this is predicated on various applications being approved and accepted that have not yet been so. Thinking two steps ahead, planning two moves.

What I need from you is a Reading List and a little networking. I need to hit the ground running. What should I read? For Los Angeles, I have City of Quartz. I have "Los Angeles Against The Mountains." I need more. I need to be culturally aware. I need the zeitgeist. I need the Weltanschauung. And Louisiana—I know nothing! Give me a reading list. Who should we know? And, where should we live? I grew up in Los Angeles's shadow, but know nothing of it.

One of my favorite memories from Sweden is of biking to Malmö, and, for that matter, my other bicycle adventures in the springtime, when I'd venture out in some random direction on my dilapidated old bicycle that I'd bought for $25. The town of Lund would suddenly fall away and I'd be out in the fields amongst the windmills and farm roads and all the mysteries you can find in such places. When I tired, I'd find a train station and take the dear little Pågåtåg train home again. The trip to Malmö was one of the best. I stopped at a cute cafe out in the farmland for a delicious breakfast of pytt i panna—a hash of ham and potatoes. Since then I've pined for similar quests on a similar motif, featuring a bicycle ride to unknown villages followed by hearty food in a cozy place, and, if possible, return, exhausted, by train.

Yesterday Jones (joneshead) burst into the dining room at the co-op, raised his eyebrows, and asked, "bikeride?" Soon he and Bree and I were on bikes on the Genesee River Trail, which leads from our backyard to points south. Cloaked in the jungle of summer, the trail generously avoids urbanization wherever possible. An extinct railway was pulled up to make it. New York's conveyances fall into corridors, with highways replacing railways replacing canals. Here a bike path replaces a railroad replaces the even-more-extinct Genessee Valley Canal, which lead south towards Pennsylvania. At the city limit the trail diverges from the roads and plies through farmland, riding the railroad grade like a chariot.

Ten miles of corn stalks, beanfields, and intermittent wildness smiled past. We emerged in the town of Scottsville, where we sauntered down Main Street to the Scottsville Diner, where we dined on haddock sandwiches and ice cream.