I was going to make some reference to how getting on top of three sisters is better than just one, but that would be crude, and only pete would get the joke without some explanation. Last weekend i went down the sweetwaters and attempted to climb the three sisters (east, middle, and south). i will add the pictures when i get home, and maybe include a map or something so you can see what i am talking about.
I drove down friday afternoon after work and started up east sister, starting at about 7,000 ft, right at treeline (this is the only true locationa/elevation to start an attempt on a sub 4000m peak). I slept at about 9000 ft in a sheltered spot just below the ridgeline. For about an hour the stars were just incredible and the air was perfectly still, then the moon came out and kept waking me up since it was so bright. I woke up at about 7 (i didn't actually look, but sunrise was at 6, and it was about halfway to where it is at 8 when i wake up normally) and started up the hill. It was pretty slow going, i had to pick between deep snow with class three scrambling on one side, or super dense undergrowth and bushes that i had to bushwack through on the other. I eventually ended up choosing the snow since it got better the further up i went. You have to love sinking in a foot every step you take. It was pretty windy but the temperature was good and the sky pretty clear. I summited about 9-930.
I started down the next ridgeline to head toward middle sister. Going down was horrible, because i had to go down the south side of the mountain, which was free of snow, but completely covered in brush/undergrowth/bushes/etc., whatever you want to call it. It was all about six ft. tall and hurt really bad when you have to try to go through it, and that was the only way (can't go under it, can't go over it, can't go around it, gotta go through it, doesn't everyone remember the song). I reached the saddle at about ten. At this point i was pretty tired (i am pretty out of shape, i haven't run almost all winter) and i didn't really have a lot of motivation. Normally there is someone else to hike with so you don't want to look like a wuss or get beat so you keep hiking even when it isn't fun anymore. I ate lunch on the saddle and tried to decide if i wanted to keep going. Part of me said i didn't want to hike up middle sister if i couldn't get up south sister as well (about six miles away) and it would have been a long day if i had tried. Needless to say, i wussed out and headed down the mountain. I excused it by saying i didn't want my mom or mary to worry about me (i still don't get why they don't like me hiking by myself) and i needed to pick up mary that night, so i couldn't spend all day bagging peaks.
Of course heading down the mountain i decided to go a different way then i came up so that i wouldn't have to go back up east sister through the bushes. Now everyone remembers the hike up mt. rose where we choose a different way down than up (link). This one turned out something like that. The only time i went in straight line was when i slid for about five hundred feet down a snowed over creek bed (>45 degrees, i wished the pictures showed this better) and boy did i slide fast. Some people may say i wasn't in control, or that i was "falling", but i still claim that head first is the only normal way of preceding down the mountain (it brings balance, you go up head first). The bushwacking was pretty bad cause i came down on the wrong side of the mountain. The snowshoes finally came into a good use when i hit the flats and i headed for the car. I used the gps to find the car (that saved a ton of time) and started home at about 2. Overall it was a great hike and i can't wait to get back down the sweetwaters and hike the rest of the peaks there. At least i bagged my first Nevada peak of the season, hopefully there are more to come.
I'm back
Nationals was great. Oh sure our team can't hang out together, let alone eat a meal together, and somehow we barely manage to not kill each other, but considering all that we placed 3rd in air, 4th overall, and 7th smallbore. Yours truly shot an 1143 (new pr, still one point off mary's pr of 1144) but if i had only hit ten points better we would have been 3rd in smallbore and 3rd overall. I could have too, my last standing target i hit 81 instead of 90+ like i had been shooting, i just couldn't do it, my back hurt, i was nervous, and i was worried about running out of time (i had ten minutes left, some people finish with 10 seonds left, i'm not sure how they do it), i just didn't know how to handle it, but oh well, i guess everybody could have shot better. Overall, we did well, better than last place like last year, that was embarrasing. Also ryan got all american in both smallbore and air rifle, so he was pretty excited, and coach got coach of the year, so we were all really excited, he certainly deserved it and hopefully that will help out the program. He would do anything for us and i am glad that the rest of the country knows that.
New York was pretty cool. There are a lot of things i like about the east coast, it is just that i like the west better. It was cold, but really pretty. West Point was a lot like Annapolis (suprise suprise). Flying in the trees looked like velvet on the hills, i didn't have the camera ready or you would know what i am talking about. It snowed for most of the time we were there but it got really nice the last day. The range is beautiful, the campus even better, and the airport has a whole 7 gates, we were pretty impressed.
I have uploaded some pictures so check back and i will have the comments all in the right place. The pictures aren't that great but they work, i didn't really have the camera setup right i found out later. We went to a bunch of dinners, watched a lot of tv, ate some pretty bad food, shot a bunch, watched the nra guys give dirty looks to the usa shooting guys (they don't like each other), and had a grand old time.
Last thing, the weather is looking crappy so i don't think there is going to be any nevada finding this week, which sucks, buy oh well. I think mary would kill me if i got her truck stuck somewhere and couldn't get it out, or if i broke a leg or something, maybe this weekend it will clear up, we will see. It will be good to make some money this week. Anyway, more to come later.
I'm planning on taking a little roadtrip over spring break. Kind of taking another crack at finding Nevada, just a little closer to summer this time. Hopefully i will get to bag some peaks and get some cool pictures, i will let you know when i get back from New York or when i get back from the desert.
Here is another cool Nevada quote that i found today, it is by John C. Van Dyke.
"Not in vain these wastes of sand. And this time not because they devleop character in desert life, but simply because they are beautiful in themselves and good to look upon whether they be life or death. Insublimity - the superlative defree of beauty - what land can equal the desert with its wide plains, its grim mountains and its expanding canopy of sky! You shall never see elsewhere as here the dome, the pinnacle, the minaret fretted with golden fire at sunrise and sunset; you shall never see elsewhere as here the sunset valleys swimming in a pink and lilac haze, the great mesas and plateaus fading into blue distance, the gorges and canyons banked full of purple shadow. Never again shall you see such light and air and color; never such opaline mirage, such rosy dawn, such fiery twilight...Look out from the mountain's edge once more. A dusk is gathering on the desert's face, and over the eastern horizon the purple shadow of the world is reaching up to teh sky. The light is fading out. Plain and mesa are blurring into unknown distances, and mountain-ranges are looming dimly into unknown heights. Warm drifts of lilac-blue are drawn like mists across the valleys; the yellow sands have shifted into a pallid gray. The glory of the wilderness has gone down with the sun. Mystery - that haunting sense of the unknown - is all that remains."
I know that is kind of a long quote, but i just wish i could talk about Nevada like some of my favorite authors can. I won't write about Nevada any more after this post, i promise, it is just that i sit inside all day and i dream about being outside, underneath the big sky. Even though corrie disagrees i think Nevada can be big sky country as well, but someday i will check out Montana and see what all the fuss is about. Everybody needs to go read something by Walter Van Tilburg Clark (i recommend track of the cat, the oxbox incident, or the city of trembling leaves) or Wallace Stegner, or any of the cool Nevada authors. One last quote, then i am done, and you won't see any updates for awhile.
"For nearly a half century after Lewis and Clark, we avoided, or hurried through, the dry plains that Pike and Long called the Great American Desert and thought unfit for human habitation. Buy by the 1860's we were pushing the agricultural frontier out into Kansas and out into the Platte Valley, and were misled by a wet cycle into believing that settlement improved the climate, and that rain followed the plow."
It is from Wallace Stegner's book about living and writing in the west, it doesn't really have anything to do with anything, but i thought it was interesting and the rest of the book talks about how the deserts of the west can't recover from the affects of people like the forests back east can, it can't reclaim its lands back to nature, it is permanetly scared by our actions. It is pretty interesting reading.
I find a really cool quote about Nevada (that is over on the right) while reading for western traditions, so i can't say that wt has been a "complete" waste of my time, but 22/7 was always close enough (to pi) for me. Sorry, i don't know why i just wrote that, but i think i will leave it since it seems kind of weird. I was trying to say how even though it isn't complete, it is close enough. Anyway, i hope you get it, and if not all the better. Also, i don't really agree with the quote since i love Nevada and think it is completely wonderful, perfect, and absolutely beautiful, just in its own way. I agree that green should not be a requirement for a pretty skyline. There are far more shades of color, light, and richness in a boring summer day in the desert than in the most spectacular of days anywhere else. Luckily nobody reads this blog, i would hate to be proved wrong.
"...scenery need not be green, that shapes and shadows may segue into figures and forms, and that seductive details can be spotted when one goes slow."
Ann Ronald, from Earthtones (more wt reading, at least this stuff is decent)
Also, i found out a few cool things while reading the Nevada constitution. My first allegiance as a Nevadan is to the federal government, under the Paramount Allergiance clause, and second, "whensoever any portion of the States, or people therof attempt to secede fromt he Federal Union, or forcibly resist the Execution of its laws, the Federal Goverment may, by warant of the Constitution, emply armed force in compelling obedience to its Authority." Pretty cool eh? It looks like the federal government learned a few things in by the time 1864 had rolled around and closed a few loopholes. They made sure if we were going to get to be a state, they would get their electorial votes and prevent any more uprisings. Also, in middle school i was taught that we became a state so that the union could have our silver, but apparently they already had access to it because of our territorial status. Learn something new everyday.
I saw a funny link about lan parties and it got my thinking about all the good times we spent in pete's garage, or wherever. I just wish i had more pictures of back then. The link was funny because i remember sometimes we spent twice as long setting up everything, installing patches, clearing viruses, etc than we spent playing, but somehow that made it even better. Even more proof to the power of the fine and pleasent misery.
Well that sucked, i know i got one problem right, so i am at +15/100 right now, the rest, i have no idea. At least that is over and i don't have to think about systems for two weeks since i will be gone. I think i am going to go get a milk shake right now, 4 dollars is a lot for a milkshake but they taste oh so good. I normally only get them as a reward for a good job on a test, but i don't really care right now, just taking it was hard enough, you can't expect me to also do well. Only heat transfer, insturmentation, and wt on tuesday and then i am out of here.
If anyone wants to go see The Faint with me in san fran on aprill 18th let me know, it should be killer.
systems test in 1 hour and 27 minutes. The hurting in my gut began early this morning and hasn't let up since. The worst part is knowing that i am not prepared, knowing there are two dozen questions i should have gone and asked Dr. Snyder over the last week, i can't find any of my study group and i can't prove how to tell whether the barrel is empty or full based on its motion, how high the plate stacker is going to rise when you take off one plate, or how many vibration responses will appear in the system response without inverting the laplace transform. I am scared. Hopefully i can just throw some nubmers around and pull an A, but i don't see it happening on this one.
I really wish i had brought the camera today. Some students are holding a peace potest / student strike. The peace protest is what it it, so i won't comment on that, but the reason for the camera is the big fat Reno Police Dept. guys standing about 200 ft away watching whole thing. I don't have a way with words so this probably doesn't seem that interesting, but it is a really funny scene; you are just going to have to believe me (at least give me a pity laugh).
If you all didn't know, pete is one of the concert reviewers for The Tech, which is one of the MIT newspapers. Here are links to the three show reviews he has done so far. The coolest part about the whole thing is that they pay for the shows and all he has to do it write about it, and boy does he love to talk about music (this is all in good fun, i rather enjoy listening to it but we still give him shit anyway).
sleater kinney
dashboard confessional
hey mercedes
Also, he got to see chuck down at annapolis the other weekend because he had a rifle match down there. He shot pretty good smallbore but they didn't get to shoot air because somebody shot one of the spinkler heads and flooded the range, no joke. I tried to convince pete to bring the MIT team out to hawaii for our match down there but for some reason he doesn't want to miss school, go figure.
Everybody who hasn't already should check out his website, it is really funny.
The air force academy called us up last week and told us they want to have a match, but on a monday. So i get to shoot some air this afternoon for no real reason except that air force wants to travel aparently and missing school isn't a big deal to them, how odd.
Also i have a test in every class in the next week before i leave, two of them the day we leave, so it is going to be pretty hectic around here.