rural Spain; Picos de Europa

(In the last entry I made you click on the Picasaweb links. This time, I inserted photos for you. Do peruse the whole photo set at
http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20100413SpainLoRes#.)

Nothing too exciting happened on the way through rural Spain on our way to Casa La Xerra. A couple of observations:
* The countryside looked healthy. From the airplane on the way into A Coruna, the organic look of the agriculture -- small fields interspersed by equally large forests -- looked nothing like typical agricultural land in the US. On the drive we saw a lot of that up close. Also, as I noticed when I was in Switzerland in 1998, the cows there just look fatter and healthier.
* The freeway construction there in northern Spain is pretty intense. They're shooting for US-style gigantic roadways. Evidently, some Spaniards are not too happy about it.

Having plugged our destination into my trusty (ahem..) iPhone, we navigated our way into the hills north of the Picos de Europa. Having left the main paved roads now, we wound up some gravel roads, taking various turns according to the Phone. The gravel roads became dirt roads, and we began wondering if we were making a mistake. After driving through a flock of sheep (like you sometimes have to drive through buffalo in Yellowstone), we reached a dead end -- exactly the location marked on the Phone. Great. This was certainly not it. It was some kind of obscure picnic area. It was 8 pm by this time. The situation could be salvaged. Looked up directions on the Casa La Xerra website. Translated the Spanish and had some rough idea how to get there. Drove as directed. Still couldn't find it. Began asking random roadside Spaniards. My Spanish sucks. Their English sucks worse. Finally broke down and showed a guy the website on the Phone. He had a eureka moment -- "Oh!! Casa La Sierra!" I had been pronouncing it Casa La ex-erra .. not sierra. One of his friends was good with ad lib sign language and explained how to get there. Finally we made it!

By this time I was starting to feel like a mute. I couldn't talk to anybody (except of course Anita). Usually I joke around with people I encounter and I couldn't do that... I figured communicating with the owner of La Xerra would be like that. Ana met us and was happy to see us. She had a little dog, Milo, following her around. He was a non-barking, big personality, little dog. We talked in broken Spanish and English for a few minutes, then she revealed that she speaks French! Boy, was I excited. I could finally talk to a stranger. It was surprising how voluble I could be in French when it was the only way to communicate. Ana and I talked about hiking the nearby Picos. She showed me a map and pointed out some ideas. We dropped our stuff off in the room which was gorgeous.

Here is a view from the window (which doesn't show the room).

She told us about her favorite restaurant down the hill. We headed there and were greeted by 15 suspicious stares when we walked in the door. These were a bunch of locals. Playing cards. Smoking. Oh well, we were hungry so sat down. They took their time serving us. Finally did and I took a sip of my beer. Tasted .. ok, but something seemed weird. I read the label -- "cerveza sin alcohol." My spanish is poor. But "sin", I was pretty sure, meant "without." Funny they seemed to be playing tricks on me. I took the beer to the counter and got one with alcohol... Food was not too bad. Then we got out of there.

Day 3 -- Friday April 16

The next day, our hiking expedition was fun. The drive was winding, and Anita felt a little queasy by the time we got to the top, weaving along a narrow road with sheer dropoffs. Scenery near the bottom of the hike involved green rolling hills and sheep/cattleherders structures.

Scenery in the Picos

Our high point was near this hiker's cabin.

There was a nice dog to greet us there.

Clouds moved in and a bit of rain started falling, so we retreated. On our way down, we stopped in a little tourist spot that revolves around a shrine to the Virgin Mary established in 722. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Covadonga
Had my search for the truth ended? Here was a holy place where they worship a virgin mother! Impressive. However, judging by the tourist riff-raff around the place, this was not the truth.

That evening, I took a few photos around Casa La Xerra.




(I love this one.)

Ana made dinner for us that night. It was like Thanksgiving. She brought out one dish after another. A preposterous amount of food. Fish soup. Squid in its own ink. I forget all the dishes. Then fruit salad for desert. Most of this stuff from her own garden. She raises squid in a pool out back. Kidding. Breakfasts were decadent too. Bread, cheese. Honey from her beehives. Ana was an interesting lady. Had spent 20 years in Geneva, Switz. doing "natural medicine". Was raised just up the road from La Xerra. Dairy farmering family. New EU rules have made it tough to be a smalltime dairy farmer apparently. I think it has to do with the Common Agricultural Policy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Agricultural_Policy

Day 4 -- Saturday April 17

The next morning, we shipped out. Our first stop would be a cave with prehistoric artwork. Ana had recommended it and arranged for us to be in a tour. This sounded goood, but I seem to have forgotten about our lack of Spanish... To be continued...

Truth-stalking in Spain

I stalked some truth in Spain with Anita from April 15th to April 23rd. This is the first entry of several in which I'll try to capture some of the adventure and fun we had there.

For pics, see the albums involving Spain at

http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice

Only my pics are there right now, but I will soon be adding Anita's. You may find some of the comments on the pics interesting, so take note of those.

Day 1 -- Tuesday to Wednesday April 13 / 14

Took off from Minneapolis on this transatlantic journey -- my first trip away from North America since 1998 when I went to Switzerland -- and first landed in Amsterdam. I guess I recall a little of the wonder of being abroad and a little about how challenging it was. Without much difficulty, I connected from Amsterdam to Madrid and then from Madrid to A Coruna. The landing in A Coruna was kinda exciting: the flight was pretty empty, but for some dumb reason, I took my assigned seat at the window with the other two seats in my row taken by a retirement-age Spanish couple. On the descent into A Coruna, the pilot must've been having a little fun because it was like being on a fighter jet in a dogfight. We swooped this way and that at extreme bank angles. When we landed, the lady beside me puked. Great. Why hadn't I taken a seat in an empty row??!!

Met Anita there at the airport quite easily and we headed back to her hotel room. I was wasted of course from traveling for the past 20 hours, but I was stoked about going to see a 2000 year old Roman lighthouse in A Coruna. So we did that. Cool place. See

http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20100413SpainLoRes#5464678496352214002

Wind was blowing like a Republican opposing finance reform at the top. We're talking Mt Rainier conditions. A Coruna is situated at the far NW corner of Spain. Anyway, view was nice and was fun to see this ancient lighthouse (but I must say it was a little tough to tell what was authentically 2000 years old in this significantly remodeled structure).

We got some early dinner that evening. Well, in Spain, they don't start dinner at restaurants until 9 pm, so 7 pm is "early" there and we had to just get "tapas" or, as Seth dubbed it when we got tapas at a Mexican restaurant one time in DC, "tap-ass" (implying the tapping of your ... pocketbook when buying tapas). The problem with ordering tapas in Spain wasn't really the cost, but rather the total unpredictability of what you're going to get. I had my spanish dictionary, but couldn't usually figure out what was coming at restaurants. Usually, it would involve huge amounts of cheese and some bread which isn't too bad.

Day 2 -- Thursday April 15

Rent car. Car rental guy had a British accent. Said he'd grown up in London where his folks had moved to get decent paying jobs. Car make was Seat. Probably pronounced like the first part of Seattle. But we pronounced it like a chair-type seat just for fun. It was a typical narrow European car. Ran well. Had tiny engine. Stick shift. So we took off. The wrong way. Traffic was bad in A Coruna. Plus I was driving for the first time in Spain. Their roundabouts are free-for-alls. Another crazy thing is that they don't have yellow lines for two-way roads. Sometimes roads are one way. Sometimes two way. Always the same white lines. Aaaaaahhhhh!! Busted out iPhone and got straightened out. Anita is an excellent navigator and without too much effort, we got on track for our first destination, 50 miles away, Santiago de Compostela, where there is a famous cathedral which pilgrams hike from the Pyrenees across Spain to see. See

http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20100413SpainLoRes#5464678576001538594

We enjoyed the cathedral. The Spanish seem to be pretty religious folks in general. There were less tourists and more local and visiting Spanish people than I expected. In the cathedral, they were taking the ceremony pretty seriously and I couldn't handle the chanting very long. I/we enjoyed the nearby expansive park a lot more. Nice day. Weather was quite good for us in general during this trip. 70 deg F highs. 50ish lows.

Got back on the road to cover the 200 miles to reach the B&B-type place (rural house) that I'd booked for us for two nights (Thursday and Friday nights). We had quite an adventure finding the joint. Check back here soon for that story and more!!!

Groundhog Day 2010 (my 32nd birthday)

(revised/expanded Feb. 5, 2010)

I went to the office today and sat in on one of the two classes I'm taking this quarter. Then I did a little thinking and tinkering on my research proposal which I'm presenting in March. Then I just slacked off the rest of the day! And, for a change, it was a very beautiful sunny day. I rode to school, but forgot my iPhone which I am addicted to. So I rode my bike to my house then back to campus where I took a bus downtown to meet Anita. But on my ride back to the office, I took a detour through the Union Bay Natural Area which is an ex-landfill which has been covered up and made into a sanctuary (for birds primarily). I saw a turtle and a Great Blue Heron:



My GBH picture is pretty poor but here's one that one of my colleagues (Alan Glasser) took a few weeks ago. It is a fairly awesome picture. He has a very fancy Canon 20D digital camera and a pretty nice telephoto lens to go with it. These herons are incredibly tolerant of close human presence.


Anita took me out to lunch downtown in Pike Place market to a fancy french restaurant. We ate something called la raclette. It involves a petite grill that you simmer cheese on and then put the melted cheese on some ham and potatoes that are served on the side. Tasty! The authentic French waiters were pretty funny with all their "voilas" and stuff.

We've been wanting to go up Seattle's historic Smith Tower for a while, so I decided my bday was a good day to give it a go. When we got there, they said we couldn't go up because, in the winter, they're closed during the week. Anita gave them a smile and puppy dog eyes and they let us go right up. There was a sweet old black man operating the elevator. Everything in the place has delicate architectural touches that remind you that it was built in 1909 (see http://www.smithtower.com/History.html). The view from the top is pretty spectacular my shots don't do it justice but ...

Anita on top.

The view looking south past the gladiator arenas (the football and baseball stadia) at Rainier.

View looking north. The Space Needle is visible looking down 2nd Ave.

After doing a little more work that afternoon, we burned the last of the daylight by taking a stroll through the Arboretum -- another one of Seattle's big wonderful parks. We went to my favorite spot there, an old gazebo. That evening, we both did more work (alas), but then watched the Lost season premiere. It was good. The chaos in the show (in terms of time travel) is getting out of control :) Anita made tasty coconut cupcakes sweetened with honey which were very tasty. She gave me a copy of Open, Andre Agassi's biography. So far I've found it fascinating! The next day, my friend G gave me the same book with a very nice handwritten inscription.

It was a day I wouldn't mind repeating a few times. But not as many times as Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day.

Rainier ascent via Emmons-Winthrop

Rainier ascent via Emmons-Winthrop

Aug. 8-10, 2009 (Saturday thru Monday)

Eric Meier, Seth Meier, Cihan (the Living Legend) Akcay, (Pistol) Pete Norgaard, Ralph Swanson, Kaitlin Murdock

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20090809RainierEmmonsWinthrop#

Seth flew in Friday night late as hell as usual. We started out with the game plan of departing early on Saturday morning and going for a summit and return to vehicles on Sunday. We did manage to leave *relatively* early, but the Sunday return to vehicle was not to be. The mountain is too damned rough this time of year for that. We got out of Seattle at about 9 AM (early, huh?). Got on the trail by about 12:30. The wildflowers were gorgeous down low in Glacier Basin.

Seth, G and I were a little behind Pistolé, Ralph, and Kaitlin. We caught up to ‘em just before we hit the Inter Glacier. (It is called “Inter” because it’s between the Emmons and Winthrop Glaciers.) The Inter is a big mess right now. It’s like a mostly melted ice cube sitting in a big tray and collecting a helluva lot of rock and dirt.

Climbing it required crampons and a lot of care to avoid slipping which would mean a very unpleasant ride down the rough ice/rock surface. The thought of climbing down was rather unpleasant. In the early summer, it’s cake: the whole basin is filled with a big snowfield and you just glissade down. We made the top of the Inter at about 6 pm. At Camp Curtiss, we traversed down onto the Emmons with no trouble. (There is a fairly clear trail.) On the Emmons:

Made camp at 8:30 as dark fell. Upper camp was full on this busy Saturday night and we had to clamber down to the snow below the exposed solid-ground campsites and join a couple of guided groups. Chill set in as we dug out spots, threw up tents and melted drinking water. I believe Jupiter was the beautiful object in the sunset.

The guided groups didn’t appreciate us crashing into camp. Some curses could not be contained as we fought across a little mote between the rock and snow/ice. Somebody told us to quiet down (they were getting to sleep in prep for early departure). This is common courtesy at such a camp and they didn’t even need to tell us. They arose at 2 AM (an hour before our planned wakeup time) and started raising hell and talking like they were drinking beer in their back yards.

We were up and at ‘em at 3 AM and actually hit the trial at 5, all roped up. There was the red team: me, Seth and Ci (pronounced “G”). There was the green team: Pistol Pete, Ralph and Kaitlin. (Our ropes were roughly red and green.) My buddy Reid two of his pals had started a couple of hours ahead of us. We stayed in touch with radios. It was nice to have them ahead to tell us about any route difficulties. G as we got started:

We enjoyed the sunrise on the way up to 11.5k,. So beautiful. Venus was shining bright. I caught this shot (Anita's favorite) just as the sun rose.

Mt Stuart and Glacier Peak showed themselves in the distance. By 11.5k, Ralph and Kaitlin, who had not really trained for this trip since they were roped into it on short notice, were pretty worked and decided to hang it up. It was also at this point that Pete and I started throwing our gear into deep crevasses. I donated my fairly new (et un peu chèr) sunglasses to the crevasse gods and Pete contributed his helmet to make me feel better about myself (real slick; the good news was that rockfall was not really a concern on the upper mountain). Fortunately, I had a pair of ski goggles to use as a backup. Here's a shot of the upper mountain from about 11.5k about a half-hour after sunset:

Pete roped into the red team and on we went. At this point, the route goes up “the Corridor” and then turns right beneath gnarly crevasses. We took a break at about 12.5k to melt water. It took what seemed to be an eternity to melt enough to get going again. But good to be hydrated. It was toasty that afternoon and we were sweating heavily. On the way to Liberty Saddle at 13.5k, the route weaved this way and that around broken snow bridges. No technical climbing was required at all on the route. After reaching the saddle, the walk to the top is simple. As usual, you just put one foot in front of the other, taking one full breath per step and just resign yourself to the grueling task. Eventually you end up with a pretty nice view.

Descent was decent. Hard on the knees/ankles. Seth was raring to haul ass and I had to hold him back a little. We got back at sundown with a half hour to spare before pitch dark. Slept well and felt great the next morning. We found a way to descend without touching the Inter Glacier. We asked around at camp and found that you can just descend the ridge upon which Mount Ruth sits. It worked out nicely.

Yellowstone (Fairyland Basin)

SLC / Yellowstone (late June 2009)

THis post is quite late. We did this trip 3 weeks ago!

I made a visit to SLC where we celebrated Seth's bday, attended the wedding of one of one of Seth's best buds from high school and college days (Ben Passey), then headed to Yellowstone with my dad and a buddy of mine from here at UW (named Christian, who is actually back in Denmark now). Selected Yellowstone pictures can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/200906YellowstoneSelected#.

It was fun to get together with all of Seth's old SLC crew for his birthday celebration and for Passey's wedding. The wedding was fun. I got into some interesting conversations. Talked to a Swedish Jewish woman who told me a bunch of history of holidays (like Hannukah and Christmas). Also talked to an older couple about global warming (which often comes up when i tell people that i do research in fusion science), and about the justification for our government support of NASA. We also got together with a few of my old buddies (Mano and Poore). Seth and I hung out a lot with eachother's friends...

My sister Tess just did a great post about the family trip on her blog,
http://tessothy.blogspot.com/2009/07/family-visit.html (pictures courtesy my mom).

We arrived in Ystone Monday morning. The crowd was horrendous. I almost lost the handle while driving the big Ram pickup and simply drove over some of the tourists' cars. But Christian's danish etiquette restrained me.

We had a lot of interesting conversations, many of which did not end up in wrestling matches. As i've mentioned, Chris is danish. But he seems to have had a bad reaction to the heavy dose of liberal social policies in Demnark. He largely agrees with Libertarian ideas. We had a heated discussion about whether it would be better to let the free market handle Yellowstone or not. Chris thinks that private conservation efforts would be sufficient to protect the Park and all of our other protected wild areas in the US. My dad and I are fairly convinced that capitalists would gobble the place up and spit it out. Another interesting discussion was about gun control. In demnark, handguns aren't allowed. A shopkeeper who'd been robbed several times eventually got ahold of a gun and shot a robber. The shopkeeper was thrown in jail. We talked about when somebody like the shopkeeper is gonna just snap and how everybody has a breaking point beyond which any morals or compulsion to follow laws goes out the window. Christian pointed out that there's a fundamental question about how much power governments should have, arguing that they will be inefficient because they aren't part of the free market. I pointed out that governments were established essentially through free market forces anyway. So it IS the free market keeping Yellowstone alive!

Lots of beautiful scenes in Yellowstone. We finally made it to the seldom-visited Fairyland Basin. It was quite a slog through a fog of mosquitos and mile upon mile of lodgepole pine downfall. But the fantastic thermal features along the way, plus the Basin itself made the slog worthwhile.

Volcano #3 (Mt. Adams)

I've made it to the top of three volcanoes around here now. First Hood, then Rainier (twice), then Adams last weekend. Did this trip with Reid, Veronika (a friend from the UW climbing club) and several of Reids buddies (one of whom [Bill] toughed it out to the top with us).

This was a spectacular trip. Gorgeous weather, good friends, and to use a UW climbing club phrase, good times. We climbed the South Spur. I had to tow a tree out of the way as we drove to the TH at gray daylight. We got on the trail at 7 am, and hit the summit just before 4 pm. TH is at 4500 ft. Summit is at 12300. Nearly 8000 vertical. The most vertical footage I've ever done in a day. But we did get to cheat and ski down. Took about 3 hrs down.

Here's a google earth image of the route we did (GPS trace from Veronika's GPS).


See all pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20090606MtAdams#

Saw some of Veronika's fellow Russians near the summit and they posed with their flag. The dudes joked with me that they were meeting there for a secret KGB meeting. I joked back asking where their Kalashnikovs were. They responded quite seriously, "Kalashnikovs are quite heavy. Nearly 10 kilos. We would never carry those up here."


Here's our summit shot.


and a picture of my skis on top :)


Veronica took some nice pics of me on the way down the SW chute. The route was spectacular. At the top, it was a bit icy, but below about 11,000 ft, the snow was softened by the sun. The best part of the chute had snow of very uniform consistency that let you sink in about a foot with each jump turn. See the video too in the pictures on Picasa.

Rainier -- On top again.

This Rainier trip went pretty smoothly. Me and Ci and another guy named Aaron (also in my research group) were the crew. In a 2-day effort, we tagged the summit via the Ingraham Direct route and returned to Seattle. Left Friday morning early. Got back Saturday night. I'll sprinkls some photos in this post, but if you want 'em all, see
http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20090523RainierWithCihanAndAaron#
http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20090523RainierCihansPics#

We did a glacier skills training day the week before and pics from that are at
http://picasaweb.google.com/remierice/20090516GlacierTravelTraining#

We got up to Muir in 5.5 hrs. Left Paradise at about 10:30 AM and made it to camp at 4. We chilled on the heli pad for a while in the sun.


The shelter had plenty of room. There were lots of guided climbers, but they set up their own tent sites. Here's a nice shot of the camp from above:


A guy had fallen into a crevasse the previous day. His team (including his guide) arrested his fall and he was able to climb out on his own power using his axe and crampons. He was petrified though, and headed back down. I talked to him on his way down past us. He said he'd need some therapy, then he'd come back to the mountain for more (I think he's a big pansy for turning around .. was he that shocked that he had to use his equipment? Why did he think he was roping up?? to look cool?).

We got up the next day at 1 AM and departed at 2. Beautiful morning climbing. Venus and Jupiter were up and bright. Here's a pic at sunrise:


Made the summit at 9 AM (7 hrs climb).


Hung out there for 1.5 hrs. G and Aaron felt like dogshit. I felt decent if not chipper. They felt better once we descended. Descent only took 3 hrs. Hung out at camp for about 4 hrs (until 5 pm) and then headed down to car where we arrived at 9 pm. I admit that I did feel like hell once I got back down to Camp Muir and was happy to get going to lower altitudes that evening instead of hanging out for the night.

You'll notice in my pics that I tried some night photography. For example, here's a shot of St. Helens with Portland lighting up the night sky behind it.


I actually hauled my full-sized tripod up to Muir. In retrospect, it was perhaps a mistake. It is a long way up there... But it was fun to have it and I learned that I had a little more to learn about night photography. For example, I had the ISO set way too low.

We met a badass guy who's been climbing Rainier and other NW volcanoes for 17 years. He said he did the Kautz as his first route on rainier with his dad back in 1995. Said route was vastly different then. No significant ice climbing. All snow. Hard to imagine, but i guess it's true. Anyway, this guy was soloing the mountain on skis. Has done solos on skis numerous times. He showed me where the climbing register is stowed under a rock ("register rock") near the summit and I signed in this time.

I bathed myself in sunscreen and avoided sunburn altogether this time. We brought far more food than we needed. But we were planning on 3 days + emergency food for 4 days. I ate mostly my usual fare of ... clif bars. However, i did down a fair amount of freeze dried food, snickers bars, and dried fruit. Oh and I did have some power bar goo packets which are good quick energy. We didn't have to boil water on summit day. Just carried about 1.5 quarts. Ate a little snow to tide us over until we reached Muir again.

I kept my heart rate at or below 120 primarily. I wouldn't want to push it over 130. I was happy that on the final ascent, I was only running 110, and my pulse was calm on top.