ilanarama | Recent Entries

Oh, dear, has it been a month since I've updated? I have some photos of our last backpack of the summer (in which we got hailed on and snowed on and nearly lightninged on and cliffed out on our Mt. Oso approach attempt) but I am still trying to extract a small enough number that actually might make people want to look at them. I have some photos of the landscaping we've been doing, but I need to take some more so that you can see how beautiful it looks now that it's finished, except that it's not quite finished.

Stuff coming up in my life: Marathon in two weeks. Election. Hopefully going to get the boat out of drydock and go cruising this winter except there are all sorts of unforeseen complications. So, what's new with you?

Alas, poor Pluto!
Demoted to "dwarf planet" -
Sorry, Clyde Tombaugh.

New mnemonic: My
Very Elegant Mother
Just Served Us Nachos.

The house to our east is still for sale, and the price has been lowered to $415K.

The house to our west just went on the market, FSBO for $449K. It's 4BR/1BA by the grace of a previous owner having converted the garage to a tiny bedroom, built in perhaps the 1950s, boring and ugly (compared to our Spanish Eclectic bungalow and the painted-lady Victorian to the east), has an "oversized lot" which just means 60x150 ft instead of 50x150, and is on the corner with a very busy road.

Of course, neither of these houses is actually selling at these prices.

We took a spontaneous casual backpack trip up the Pine River valley (in the Weminuche wilderness) this weekend; lower elevation and less goal-oriented than our usual hikes, but we wanted it to be relatively warm at night because of the Perseid meteor shower, and Britt wanted to relax and do some fishing. (I tend to get summit fever and focus on peaks.)

The meteor-viewing was a literal washout, as it rained off and on and was cloudy nearly all the time, but the fishing was successful. And because it's been a relatively rainy summer, the mushrooms were fabulous! Friday night we had trout with Leccinum aurantiacum (Aspen Bolete) - we would have preferred Boletus edulis but the few that we saw were big, soggy, and half-eaten by wildlife and worms. Then on Saturday we gained a few hundred feet of elevation and found ourselves surrounded by vast amounts of chanterelles!

( trout and mushrooms for dinner )

I ended up packing out about half of the dinner and lunch food I'd brought, because we ate trout! with mushrooms! And I also packed out two pounds of chanterelles. I think this is the first time my pack got heavier rather than lighter on a trip...

Tuesday was our primary, and I was an election judge for the very first time. Which sounds fancy and important, but most of the job involves looking up would-be voters in the big registration book and verifying eligibility, giving them ballots or directing them to the newfangled touchscreen thingy, and giving them the little "I VOTED" sticker. In other words, it's a long day of clerical work (6 am to 8 pm) for $100, which works out to...more than minimum wage, anyway.

Here in southwest Colorado we didn't have quite the high-profile race that Connecticut had, but we had a single contested race - the Democratic candidate for state representative in the 59th District. As you might expect, the turnout was light, with far more Democrats than Republicans, and quite a few unaffiliated voters filling out declaration forms at the polls so they could vote in the contested Dem race. ( And then there was the weird stuff. )

The precincts I was a judge for (we had two combined) had our polling place in the county courthouse, ( which turned out to be an interesting place to be... ) We ended up redirecting (we decided that "turning away" had the wrong connotation!) about a hundred people, slightly more than actually voted at our polling place.

This was the first year that our county had touchscreen voting machines - each polling place had one, in addition to the Accu-Vote optical scan system that we had used before. ( These are pretty cool machines, actually. )

All in all, it was kind of like having a yard sale: chatting with people I knew and people I vaguely recognized from the neighborhood, exchanging paperwork, a little bit of reading in slow times (and amusingly enough, the last person who had checked out the library book I was reading, according to the receipt still in it, was

de_wynken), plus the do-gooder glow of knowing I was performing a civic duty. At the end of the day I signed all the ballot tallies and put the various things in the various containers and delivered them to the official counters, then went to Carver's and had a couple of pints of beer.

So, now that I've had some low-key practice, I guess I'll be doing it again for the general election.

After being thwarted by illness and weather for two weekends running, we were finally able to get out to the Weminuche Wilderness for a three-day backpack. Our plan was to climb Jupiter Mountain, at 13,830 the 92nd highest mountain in Colorado.

( Our arduous ascent! With photos and a map! )

More photos are on my flickr page (16 in all, including the map)

Just got back from a fabulous backpack and successful thirteener ascent, of which there will be pictures and story coming shortly.

But this is not about that. This is about the house next door, which is for sale again. It was for sale when we were looking to buy 3 years ago; although we loved the neighborhood, $287K seemed a little steep for an 1898 house, maybe 1200sf, 2br/1ba with an odd interior layout (one downstairs bedroom which has a window to an enclosed porch rather than to outside, and an upstairs attic-bedroomy-thing with headroom of maybe 6 feet) and obviously necessary roof and foundation repairs. (We said to our realtor, "Alas, too bad that nice house next door isn't for sale," and a week later he called us and said, "Guess what?" and fifteen minutes later we were there, and fifteen minutes after that we put in an offer.)

Anyway, the house next door didn't sell, and after a few months the owner put it up for rent, and it's been rented more or less steadily, although not for longer than a year at a time. And they did put a new roof on it late last summer, although to our critical eye it was a quick-n-dirty cheap job.

So it's for sale again. For $425K.

Want to be my neighbor?

ETA August 7 2008:

Trails have been cleared through the avalanche zone on both sides of the river crossing, but the bridge has not been replaced and at this time there are no plans by the Forest Service to do so. There is a rope across the river to aid crossing; be aware that this rope crosses at a relatively deep spot (although the river is somewhat narrow and not as swift) - at the time we were there (August 5 2008) I would estimate the depth as ~40" at that spot. If you have no hiking poles, the rope is an important aid, but if you have sturdy poles I would recommend crossing a little downstream of the rope, just upstream of a few large rocks in the river and just upstream of where Dead Horse Creek joins the main Vallecito. The river was perhaps 32" deep at the deepest point here during our crossing. On our earlier trip we actually crossed even farther downstream, where there is a broad shallow spot (almost an island) near the west shore, but this trip the water there was very swift. Needless to say, the water is very, very cold.

Photo of Britt crossing the river.

In this relatively high water year, we estimate that the Vallecito was probably not fordable until just a few weeks ago. In any year, the earliest reasonable crossing would most likely not be until July. For any backpackers contemplating the Vallecito route, we recommend the following:

Plan your trip for later in the summer.

Bring good water-crossing shoes and hiking poles. A party we met said that two of their group, who were using sticks they cut from branches, broke their sticks during the crossing and they fell into the river.

If you're doing a loop involving a one-way crossing, route your trip so you cross at the end rather than the beginning, so your pack will be lighter. Strapping hiking boots to the top of one's pack adds quite a bit of weight!

Carry extra food in case a torrential rain raises the river to an unsafe level and you need to wait it out for a day or two. Big rains are not uncommon in late summer and early fall.

See the comments for information from other hikers. While one person reports staying on the west side of the river upstream to the Johnson Creek bridge, that means 2+ miles of difficult bushwhacking. The east side of the river between the crossing downstream to the second bridge is a shorter distance but over even rougher terrain.

Britt and I had been planning a really big backpack over the July 4th weekend, but I got sick, so we ended up just doing an overnight over the 3rd and 4th. We hiked up the Vallecito trail (the one we did with

catbear when he visited) seven miles to where the swinging bridge used to be. It was taken out in an avalanche sometime during the winter of 04/05 and hasn't been replaced yet; the trail hasn't been restored, either, so anyone wanting to continue past the slide zone has to negotiate a 1/2-mile maze of tree trunks followed by a wade across a very cold and swift river, followed by another couple of hundred yards of tree-trunk maze. The destruction is pretty impressive - huge trees snapped off in the middle, flung every which way. We camped just below the slide area and took daypacks, which made it a little easier, but it still took us about an hour to cross through to where the trail picks up again.

More photos of knocked-down trees and bridge debris are here on my flickr page.

We'd also been planning a big backpack for this past weekend, but it poured rain, so we ended up driving around on jeep roads in the mountains north of Silverton with a couple of friends. We did a quick hike up Hurricane Mountain (13,447 ft, but we started from Hurricane Pass at 12,407 so it wasn't much of a climb), but pretty much it was just bouncing up and down in the pickup trucks and trying to peer at scenery through dense cloud-fog.

This was the weekend of the Iron Horse bicycle race from Durango to Silverton, which I did not do. (We went out in the morning to watch the mass start, though - about a dozen of our friends were racing.)

Instead I raced the Narrow Gauge 10-mile run, which was a loop around town and up the mesa to the college (steeeeep!), around the campus, and then down again. My time was 1:30:34, just over 9 minute miles which is what I was aiming for. Not a very good time in the scheme of things, though - runners around here are serious! Put me about in the middle of all women's times. I was mostly running 8:50 miles, but the uphill killed me. Whew. Gorgeous day, partly cloudy and breezy, really nice for running.

( And here I am just after crossing the finish line. )

Last night we had a wake (and I ain't got sober yet...) and learned a little more information about the rights fiasco. It turns out that the publisher's website doesn't say, under 12 Angry Men, that performance rights have been withdrawn - but it does say on the front general page that performance rights may be withdrawn for any of these plays at any time. Our producer had assumed that since the play is over 50 years old and since we are not near any major city that a traveling show might visit, there wouldn't be a problem, so she didn't call to obtain the rights until just last week. Her fault; and now we have a company policy that rights must be obtained before rehearsals begin.

The rights have been withdrawn because 1) there will be a Broadway revival of the show this fall, and 2) Penguin books is republishing the script Sept 1.

Anyway, we are all still bummed. And hung over like whoa.

I've uploaded a selection of photos from last weekend's backpack in Dark Canyon, Utah, with captions, to my flickr account. This canyon feeds into the Colorado River (actually Lake Powell at that point, although in the past 5 drought years the lake is actually no longer up to that level). Britt and I did this with our hiking partners from the previous hike, Bruce and Laura.

We hiked in on the Sundance trail, which is 2 miles of up-and-down slickrock followed by 1.5 miserable miles straight down a talus slope, and set up a base camp approximately 3 miles upstream of the Colorado confluence. The next day, Britt and I explored upstream, to where a layer of limestone was exposed on the canyon bottom, making a series of beautiful pools in which to frolic. The following day we went on a surprisingly strenuous hike downstream, not quite to the Colorado as the last 1/2 mile was an ugly and unpleasant mess of silt and tumbleweeds. There were some lovely pools here as well, and we had a great swim. On the last morning we woke early so we could hike up the talus slope before it became too hot.

Every evening at our camp, as soon as the sun dipped behind the canyon walls, an incredible chorus of frogs began and didn't stop until moonset. (This link goes to an .mp3 file, about 426K and 26 seconds long, please right-click and save.) We saw many frogs - they are much tinier than their loud mouths would suggest!

(The links here go to a few selected photos from this set. See all 18 here on my flickr page.)

I haven't mentioned it here, but I've been rehearsing for another play - we were going to do Twelve Angry Men the last two weekends of this month. Operative words: 'were going to do'. I just got a call from the director saying that they have just found out that the publisher has withdrawn all public performance rights.

I was off book, and everything. (I was Juror #4, the calm, rational, classy and wealthy stockbroker. The third or fourth largest role in the play.)

*cries*

ETA: I just got a phone call from the guy who was Juror #3 (one of the two largest roles) saying that he was really impressed by me and hopes we can work together in the future. I am torn between being incredibly flattered and wondering if he was hitting on me. :-)

fredfred interviewed me. If you want to be interviewed, ask me and I'll give you five questions which you can answer in your own lj and perpetuate the meme. Alternatively, you can ask me two questions, and I'll ask you two.

( 1. Have you now, or have you ever been, a member of the international communist... well, more seriously; as a politically-active Democrat, how do you cope with waves of right-wing vitriol, either in person or on the net? )

( 2. How did growing up Jewish in your family shape your religious or spiritual beliefs? )

( 3. Where haven't you travelled that you're dying to go to? )

( 4. What are you reading now? )

( 5. How did you end up as a working meteorologist and what might you have done instead? )

I suspect my Toshiba laptop is being adversely affected by the metric ton of cat hair that has no doubt infiltrated its case. Any suggestions for a gentle way to clean it out?

I've uploaded a dozen photos from our backpack trip last weekend to our flickr page; click on the teaser to see them all.

Incidentally, the couple hiking with us are 73 and 76 years old. This was not a trivial hike - the daily distances were relatively short, but there were no trails over much of this terrain, and we had to take packs off and pass them through a hole in a boulder jumble once on the way down, and then hand them up and scramble up a short cliff on the way up (a different side canyon). Also, we saw a rattlesnake on the way out - and yes, there's a photo in the set of it, and no, we didn't get bitten.

The next-door neighbors are in the process of repainting their cream-with-green-trim house a vivid periwinkle purple.

It clashes with our red trim like you wouldn't believe.

I appear to have survived the first backpack of the season, an excellent outing to Slickhorn Canyon in Utah. Photos to follow once I get them off the camera and sort through them. PS

littleamerica - if you and the dentist want to take a long weekend the first weekend of May, we're planning on the Fish Creek/Owl Creek loop.

Yep, I have become one of those people it's impossible to catch the attention of because I'm too busy ~~taking orders from~~ listening to the voices in my earphones.

I am trying very hard not to be one of those incredibly obnoxious people who hums along to the music YOU CAN'T HEAR but it's hard, it's hard.

We have not done any significant work on the house remodel lately, but! We have bought more furniture! From the same place we got our awesome dining room table; this stuff is made from kikor (another kind of Indian rosewood) rather than shisham so the grain isn't quite as dramatic, but it's still really pretty. At least, I think so.

Ok, those of you on the Front Range or in the midwest probably are grimacing - we only got a little skiff of snow from the most recent storm that has just hammered you. But I finally got the photos off the camera from last week's storm:

( Our house got snowed on! )

( And then we went skiing. )

BTW it has all melted off by now, except for a tiny strip just north of the hedge.

Ilanarama!

all about me

not dead.

Pluto memorial haiku

a steal at half the price

weekend up the Pine River

adventures of a novice election judge

climb of Jupiter Mountain 15-17 July

ah, progress

avalanche on the vallecito trail

Narrow Gauge and Iron Horse

the rest of the 12 angry men story

a multimedia Dark Canyon extravaganza!

RAGE.

interview

technical help needed

photos from Slickhorn Canyon backpack

painted ladies

back from the wild

I am now a pod person.

new furniture

yay snow

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