Reminder: I'm Not Here Anymore

Reminder: my life is now rendered starkly for all to see at livejournal.

Transition

Goodbye blogger! I'm shifting all future blogging activities to LiveJournal. My vanity URL will redirect there as soon as I get around to it. In the meantime, you can update your RSS feeds.

6 legs, 48 mountains

cap2

Kaya the Wonder Dog and Dr. Sunflare completed their 48 this weekend. Jefferson is the 3rd highest peak in the Whites and the Caps Ridge Trail one of the most technically demanding to scale. Congratulations to both on a job well done.

Also, congratulations to fanw on her first 4k, D with his first ascent of Jefferson, and A for her incredible dedication. It was a pleasure to have you along to help celebrate the event.

The day was mostly brisk and cloudy. We were lucky enough to have a few breaks in the clouds at the top and could (intermittently) see as far as Vermont and Maine. Luckily, we avoided the rain which pounded the region on Saturday.

Many more photos over at flickr.

Taiko and Fire

The list of people to memorialize grows just a bit each year. In the past, I attended the Lantern Festival for the lights on Hibiscus Pond, the Taiko drumming, and the incongruous bagpipes. Three years ago, my friend J# died unexpectedly and the event took on much more meaning as a ritual for those who had left us in the last year.

This year my oldest friend watched her father die.

Ned, this year was yours. I'm sorry it was so soon.

Deep Truths Revealed

Naming your application Democracy causes some awfully strange dialog boxes. I feel really bad whenever I answer "yes" when it asks me "QUIT DEMOCRACY?". The above gem happened when the newest (supposedly super-stable) version had some problems on my machine.

(Update 25 june) Democracy is up and running again. I'm pleased to see that my cello instructor's band Fluttr Effect had a video posted to the channel Telemusicvision. Congratulations on riding the wave of participatory culture!

Nuclear Winter

Photo_062206_001-trader-joe-bonanza
Originally uploaded by wolftone.

Some purchases inevitably lead to a great amount of embarrassment. I imagine that most people don't really want to run into their friends at CVS while toting around a cartful of hemmoroid cream. Similarly, I had the luck to run into J while trawling the frozen food aisle at Trader Joe's. She was buying some dried apricots for a friend's party, while I was stocking my own Y2K survival bunker with frozen enchiladas and noodle dishes. I can only imagine how pathetic the checkout guy though I was as I pushed a wheelbarrow of convenience food past his tastefully rustic platform.

And I had to agree with him. Usually, I believe strongly in the Cult of Fresh. Living above a grocery store and a fish market, I heretofore enjoyed the luxury of preparing my own meals from scratch. I give my brother no end of shit for his participation in the agricultural-industrial complex and speak with authentically yuppie horror at partially-hydrogenated this and corn-syrup that.

Problem is, when you're selling your house you have to keep everything clean. Nothing is harder to keep inhumanly clean than a kitchen you actually use. For the last two months, I have been surviving on a rather monotonous blend of restaurant meals and chef's salad. Finally, I gave in and purchased a freezer full of preprepared items which can be cooked up in the microwave or toaster oven.

First, it's bottle returns. Now, it's fresh cooking. What cherished personal belief will I violate next in the pursuit of a clean house? Let's hope I don't have to find out.

Water (White)

Ran up to A's cabin in Vermont for a weekend of whitewater canoeing. Since you're guaranteed to get wet, it doesn't really matter if it's raining. In fact, it helps. The White River is usually kind of boring, but at flood stage it is littered with a bunch of Class II/II+ rapids. In a commercial raft, these would make me yawn. When I'm piloting the boat and have to pick the line, it's another matter entirely. Fun, fun, fun. Even a sedate river is a terribly powerful thing. You can't possibly out-strength it, so you have to out-think it. Is this the beginning of yet another sport for me? We'll have to see how much basement space the new house has.

48*4000

I had intended to complete the New Hampshire 4000 foot peak list with champagne, celebration, and fanfare last foliage season. October would have been exactly 48 months since I started counting in November 2001. One peak per month. Perfect. Nature had other plans for me, eliminating last autumn's color in a wash of constant rain.

Instead, I finished Flume and Liberty this weekend almost accidentally. After bailing on Plan A due to a closed Jefferson Notch Road, I found myself scaling the steep and wet Flume slide. Rather than the large, boisterous party group I had envisioned for my 48th, the pack consisted of only Kaya and Dr. Sunflare. Good thing too, as Flume Slide is not a place for anyone who lacks a basic bag of rock climbing moves. A few scraped knees and dozens of blackfly bites later, we summited Liberty with little fanfare. No champagne, no cheers, and no ceremonial burning of my tattered Franconia Notch trail map. Just the three of us facing into the wind. Appropriate, since that's how we started.

The next goal is to get Kaya and Dr Sunflare over the Northern Presidentials so they can finish their 48. After that, we're free at last. A hiker's relationship with the 48 list changes throughout the process. In the beginning, it's a helpful tool to prevent repeating adventures. At the middle, it motivates you into less-accessible places. At the very end, it feels like a straitjacket.

MI DEP 10

My ongoing Jihad Against Clutter has taken me to an extreme I never thought possible. As a child of the Great Lakes State, I always believed that can/bottle deposits were a limitless source of great wealth. I remember joyfully touring the neighborhood on trash day and picking sticky pop* bottles from stinking mounds of garbage. A mere 3 bottle returns was good for a whole candy bar back then. A morning's work could buy a small LEGO set.

Time passed, prices inflated, I moved to stingy 5-cents-a-can MA, and my income rose a bit. It's just not worth the trouble to return bottles anymore. I kept telling myself that I was going to redeem all that glass, which is how I ended up with 5 years of accumulated yuppie ginger beer in my pantry. In the name of Real Estate and the Impossibly Clean Home, they all had to go before this Sunday's open house.

Each overstuffed bag abandoned on the curb felt like a betrayal of my childhood dreams and values. I hope that the little chinese can lady who stumbles across her Big Score appreciates its sentimental value.

* pop (N): soda (syn)

Goodbye Foodie's!

My job is moving slightly westward, so the time has come to reluctantly leave the South End. It's a great house in a great neighborhood. If you are looking to buy a house or know someone who is, contact 1411washington17@gmail.com to schedule a showing. More photos and information available on the listing .

Chile Day Whatever - Mate Update

More harsh reality struck this week. I spent weeks lugging a large brick of Yerba Mate over mountain passes, down dusty roads, and past suspicious customs inspectors of two nations. I sacrificed precious luggage space and went to heroic ends to keep the package dry in the worst of conditions. I resisted the temptation to open the bag and enjoy a warm cup of tea during endless rainy days. I endured trials and even tribulations to bring that stupid thing safely home, and now see that my local grocery store has opened an Argentinian section stocked with exactly the same brand of Mate tea. My sacrifice now reaches the level of stupidity as bringing a case of Toblerone back from Europe.

Change of (work) Address

After years of employment at the MathWorks, I will be leaving for a small start-up company. They do 3-D medical imaging and have a pretty neat looking product. I will still be in the Boston area, so none of my personal contact details will change. But it's time to stop using my MathWorks postal and e-mail addresses.

Chile Day 19 - Well, That Sucked

Flight from miami to boston this morning. I was back on American soil for all of 10 minutes before I heard the word "insurgent" from some CNN talkinghead. You know you're home when surrounded by urgent warnings of threats from forces unknown.

I've said on a few occasions that this was the worst vacation I have ever taken. That may be an exaggeration. I remember one particularly painful trip out west to a an (ex) in-law's white-trash shotgun wedding. Curiously, it also featured a frustrated rafting trip. But that was only a long weekend, whereas this vacation dished out its parade of damp, frustrated inaction for over two weeks. I really spent almost every moment of this trip getting rained on, waiting for the rain to stop, in transit, or waiting for transit. The true sign that this vacation was a loser is that I actually thought at many times that I would have been better off on a cattle-herd package tour. At least an organized outfitter could make my connections work without multiple 24 hour layovers in nowheresville.

I figure that I just had a pretty good 4 day vacation. It's not like I had my passport stolen, lost luggage, got sick, or ended up in jail. This wasn't hell, not even purgatory. Just limbo. The reason I'm so unhappy is that it took over 2 weeks to get those 4 days of vacation. Plus, I missed three prime skiing weekends to make it happen. As I was leaving, I found a tourist brochure for the Aisen region which featured on its cover a happy cloud raining on a bus. This is to be the emblem of my trip, and should have been a big tip-off from the beginning.

Coming here, I had to decide between Aisen and Patagonia proper. Re-reading my guide, it looks like Patagonia has better hiking and better transportation. Not sure about weather. I chose Aisen to raft the Fu. Which was cool, but not worth the trouble. I remember a moment three weeks ago sitting before a LAN Chile website hovering my mouse over Puerto Natales, then Puerto Montt, then back again. If only Fate had directed my cursor 20 pixels south I would have had a very different trip.

Lest I be accused of excessive negativity, here are the things I like about Chile:

* Views. When the mountains aren't hidden by clouds and fog, the scenery here is exactly the kind of thing I want. Simply amazing!

* Perros. Most seem to view the ample supply of free-range dogs as some sort of nuisance, but I like 'em. It's such a pleasure to have a dog waiting to be greeted at every doorstep. I only petted the ones with collars, but praised any of them that knew how to sit.

* Smell. Most people heat and cook with indestructible century-old german-made cast-iron wood-fired stoves. Walking around town in the morning, you can see the smoke plumes rising in the still air and smell cheery smoldering hardwood everywhere. On Sunday mornings, there are always flower vendors clustering around churches and cemeteries, sweet scent wafting. Chile's towns lack the acrid stench of 2-cycle engine hydrocarbons so common to third world economies, as tuk-tuks and mopeds are either outlawed or simply not used.

* Booze. Unlike Norway, good cheap wine is always readily available here. I had to cut back once I decided that a half bottle of vino tinto for both lunch AND dinner was probably well beyond recommended FDA guidelines (and likely to give me headaches). Still, except for when I was extremely cash-strapped, I had at least a glass of wine every day. It's a good way to live.

For all the misery, I'm bummed that it's all over. I felt like things were finally improving toward the end and would have liked to stay, now that I've figured this place out. Next time, if there is one.

I'll close with gratitude for everyone who has been reading this and posting/mailing along the way. Travelling solo is a good way to talk with new people, but it's just as important to have some connection with home and the people there. Thanks, all!

Chile Day 18 - Das Kapitol

Santiago is sort of closed on Monday. After the party-hard weekend, most museums, attractions, churches, stores, and restaurants take a holiday. I had to get creative.

Because I misread Let's Go, I thought that a certain church/memorial was "high above treeline". A long bus ride to a dusty, flat suburb revealed a large monument on the nearby mountain. But certainly no alpine conditions at the memorial itself, a hulking modernist monstrosity with good stained glass work and a closed museum. Supposedly, this is the place where Bernardo O'Higgins won the decisive victory over spanish forces to establish independence. Every town in Chile seems to have an O'Higgins street, usually the most prominent throughfare. At first it seemed strange to have streets with an irish name here, but it made more sense once I learned the history. It's kind of like how every town in the US has a Washington St.

The central train station has dragon-winged llamas guarding the roof. That's so cool.

Visited the fish market for lunch and consumed the biggest bucket of oysters on the half shell I have ever seen. The hardest part was overcoming the language barrier to order, apparently a 4-man job. Dessert at the nearby fruit market made probably the healthiest meal I've eaten since I arrived.

Parque Metropolitan is on a much bigger hill than Cerro Santa Lucia and has better views. But it's nowhere near as interesting with its straightforward observation platform and well-marked system of paths. I enjoyed the breeze there, my only real break from the 30 degree (~90 F!) heat in town.

Other than that, I did a lot of wandering around and shopping for souvenirs. The city is littered with little markets selling a combination of everyday necessities (the detergent store!, the pastic-sheeting store!) and local handicrafts. My book suggests bargaining hard and reducing prices by at least half. It's wrong, or I'm the world's worst haggler. The best I got was token reductions, if any at all. Still, I had ATMed too much money (an over-reaction to my earlier poverty) so I had plenty of cash to blow on llama-themed products. You are nothing in the Chilean tourist trinket market if you haven't festooned your sweaters/socks/shirts/underwear with as many vaguely llama-shaped blobs as possible.

Easy bus to the airport and a crowded flight to Miami. My Argentinian tea-spoon didn't even draw a raised eyebrow from the DEA inspectors. Good riddance, Chile.

Chile Day 17 - Return to Civilization

Flew from Chaiten->Puerto Montt->Santiago today. The first leg was aboard a tiny 8-seat turboprop. As the first aboard I sat in the co-pilot's seat with full access to instrumentation, controls, and the air freshener. This gave me great views, plus the ability to save the plane in the event of an emergency. (Don't think I wasn't prepared to do so.)

Santiago is uncomfortably hot and humid, almost a welcome change. I wandered around in search of a hotel, which turns out to be difficult in high tourist season. Eventually, I was granted a converted broom closet with no window. But it has a lock on the door, breakfast, and free internet so there are no complaints. It's on a winding cobblestone street with trees and colonial architecture.

Enjoying my return to civilization, I wandered the city's parks, plazas, and neighborhoods. The clear winner was Cerro Santa Lucia, built on top of what was until 1871 a 200m tall ugly rockpile in the center of the city. Now it's a 3-dimensional maze with fountains, turrets, plazas, and lookouts. Surprising little architectural details abound and it rewards some exploration. The top affords a nice view of the city, and I could just barely make out mountains through the pollution haze. I was strongly reminded of the gaudi-designed park in Barcelona.

The subway system in town is efficient, clean, and cheap. Many of the stations are decorated with huge oil paintings. And the trains have a wonderful innovation - windows that really open! Finally, oppressed commuters have a say in their climate.

I'm celebrating urbanness with chinese food for dinner. It's surprisingly good, more authentic than most American places. Though the waiter did look like I'm the first person in a long time to request chopsticks. They're well beyond the epiphany grace period for playing Christmas music, though.

Now that I'm in a big city with some actual nightlife, I feel like I should go out to a bar or club or something. After all I've been through, that's about the last thing in the world I want. What I really want is to see all the South Park I've missed. From a hot tub. While eating a salad.

Chile Day 16 - Smell of Fear

The Everest IMAX film says that you don't conquer big mountains - you sneak up on them, leave, and hope they don't kill you. The same advice applies to the big-water sections of the Fu when they're at the commercial flood stage limit.

Oh baby.

We started early in order to give Mike and Marcelo time to make their bus for Argentina, hitting water at about 7. The sun rested well below the ridgeline and mist floated up from the water. Even james the guide wore thermals. Shivering, we climbed into the raft and could hear the roar of the first rapid around the bend. James told us to dispense with some usual bits of rafting advice - there was to be No Defensive Swimming. Pointing your feet downriver and waiting for rescue would mean pick-up somewhere in the Pacific ocean. In case of disaster, we'd have to swim for the rescue catamaran, and hard. Chastended, we began.

And it never really stopped until the very end. Even under low-water conditions, the bridge-to-bridge section of the Fu is a sustained battle through big water. In flood, you're lucky to have time to breathe. We had 90 minutes of continuous class-V big water, with monster hydraulics, boat-eating standing waves, and whirlpools to the center of the earth. When I had time to look up, I saw slopes undercut and worn smooth by angry water. I can see why people fly from the other side of the world to run this river. It's simply incredible.

With our experienced crew (half pro river guides again), we were able to cut some hard lines through the water and hit them pretty well. We also had no swimmers, no capsizes, and no flying paddles. Almost a miracle.

With the early start, we were done at 8:30, just as the sun peeked over the mountains. In my only (and I mean only) stroke of transportation luck this entire vacation, the Chaiten express bus rolled over the take-out bridge just was I got myself packed and ready. I had expected to be hitching and was smiling at my good fortune. Maybe this vacation could be redeemed after all!

Not really. I arrived at the Chaiten airpot and waited several hours for the extremely overdue flight. When it arrived, I was informed that the plane was full and I'd have to wait for tomorrow. Worse, I had seen 3 nearly-empty flights from other operators take off for PMC while I waited. Ugh. I had hoped to at least make Puerto Montt tonight so I could do some souvenir shopping, if not all the way to Santiago. Instead, I'm stranded for yet another 24 hours in Chaiten.

Compared to last weekend, it's a transformed city. I think all the big outfitters cancelled their trips for last week and there was nobody here. Now the same restaurant where I watched Gilmore Girls alone with the owner's daughter is packed with Germans about to begin their package tours. Packs of feral Americans in baseball caps stalk the streets, calling each other "dude" from behind their $200 sunglasses. But there's still nothing to do here.

I think it's telling that the restaurant's menu lists pollo under pescado. If it's not mammal, it's fish.

To wrap up: 90 minutes of heaven today. Otherwise, yet more transportation limbo. And more ahead. The sad thing is that it's the best deal I've had for the entire trip.