TRAVEL ADVICE

One cutie pie, one ham-bone, one terrified toddler - and one FOF

You sort them out

How to travel during your 9^th decade - and enjoy it.

Most of these suggestions come from personal experience, usually discomfort caused by doing the opposite.

1)      Do nothing to diminish your appearance of aged helplessness.  Strive to look even more decrepit than you actually are, if that is possible.

2)      Carry and conspicuously rely on a stout wooden cane or walking stick.  You will walk easier and if, by chance, someone attempts a mugging you can kill them..

3)      Do not travel by bus, ever.  Trains might work, but airplanes are best because they minimize the time spent travelling and maximize the time actually being there. having fun.

4)      If possible visit friends and relatives with washing machines.  That way you can get by with a tiny, light suitcase.

5)      Even if you ran a triathlon last Tuesday, tell the airline that you need wheelchair assistance.  It’s quick, easy, and free.  (But have generous tip money at hand.)

6)      When you arrange your airline schedule (actually, let an agent do it for you), pay no attention to cost.  The object is to get from HERE to THERE and back again with the least possible discomfort.  This entails minimizing both time and plane-changes.  Money is nearly irrelevant; after all, you are in your 9^th decade – and you can’t take it with you.  If you did extraordinarily well the previous eight decades or so you might even consider 1^st Class.  For the rest of us, though, go Coach – for a few hours anybody can stand a 14-inch seat between two sweaty 300 pounders.  Right?

7)      When you get home, prepare to be very tired.

     

THE DONALD, WITH GREEN HAIR

This needs no explanation

You know what Chia pets are, right?  Well, I’ll bet you didn’t know you can get one of Donald Trump, with green hair!  When I learned that I was so excited I started to order one for every member of my family, and all my friends as well.  But then I thought: I always tell everyone not to give me gifts – I have everything I need, and if something I want suddenly crops up, I buy it.  So, if you had in mind giving me a Christmas present, please give it to Fred Hutch cancer research instead:

http://engage.fredhutch.org/site/TR/PersonalFundraisingPages/General?px=1148821&pg=personal&fr_id=1573

And in return I will donate in in honor of all of you.  In fact, I'll do it right now.

SO, go buy your own damned Donald Trump Chia pet.  Just don’t bother to show it to me.

Merry Christmas!

EVOLVING MEMORIES

I ran on the following tidbit while skimming the NIH web site.  It is in an interesting article on brain function.

Memories might seem as though they are stored as static records in the brain, much like books in a bookcase. But they really aren’t. When a memory is recalled, the brain will actively process it, adding or subtracting features. This allows recollections from as far back as childhood to evolve as long as we care to remember them. A practical consequence is that the only memories we should really trust to be completely accurate are the ones we’ve never recalled.

Maybe this explains why I have such happy memories of a glorious high school football career!

Too big to fail? I hope not.

I am too damned old for this stuff!

I get my Wi-Fi through Comcast – or  Xfinity, I can’t keep them straight.  Lately it has been less than satisfactory – crappy, to be blunt.  The problem is that my “devices” (iPhone and iPad) lose contact with Wi-Fi at irregular, but frequent, intervals.  However, as both are 4G whatever I am doing – emailing, Facebooking, etc. – goes on undisturbed, until I receive a message informing me that I have used up all my “data” (whatever that is) and will be charged if I use any more.  This requires me to unplug my router, then plug it back in.  Plug and unplug will restore my Wi-Fi, but only for a few hours.  

Thus, finally, lacking a teenager to fix my problem, I decided to appeal to Comcast for help.

Well, what an exercise in frustration!  I first ended up “chatting – over the computer – with Velda, in Biloxi, Mississippi.  After a lengthy conversation she sent a pulse down through the airwaves, purportedly to punish my modem into better behavior.  It worked, but only for a few hours.  Next I used 20^th Century technology – the telephone – to contact the company.  I had hoped to talk to a local technician.  Silly me!  Instead I spent 20 minutes with a female robot in Cairo, Illinois.  I tried everything I could think of to get a human being on the line.  No dice.  The best I could receive was a second version of the death ray Velda had unleashed.  So far, so good – but I had better hurry and post this before it all goes to hell again.

So, if some banks can be too big to fail, it may be that some companies become too big to be useful.  I can understand how economies of scale increase profitability (building cars hundreds at a time on an assembly line rather than by hand will produce a cheaper product – although maybe not a better one.)  However, even if getting so big as to require robots instead of people may be our future,  it still is damned annoying.  I would pay a little more for a product or a service, for a little less frustration!  

Where is Teddy Roosevelt now that we need him most?

God loves even the humble Musk Ox

I had coffee with my friend Phil this morning.  The conversation drifted somehow to trophy hunting, which we both deplore.  I mentioned that I had read somewhere that Alaska had issued some permits for a musk ox hunt.  Phil summed it up beautifully: “Hunting a musk ox is about as much sport as shooting a cow.”  I couldn’t agree more.

DIRTBAG

Just saw this “feature documentary”, Dirtbag:  The legend of Fred Beckey, (96 minutes long).  If you are a climber, a back packer, a trail hiker,  a lover of human diversity,or simply someone who likes to look at mountains,  YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO SEE THIS MOVIE!  But buy your tickets in advance: we didn’t, and were lucky to be shoehorned in. 

Even Jerimiah Gundelberg lived in awe of this guy!

Fred just died.

A SAD STORY

It is gloomy today, and I have just read one of the most saddening stories I have ever been exposed to.  It is from Chapter 7 of book 14 in the Aubrey-Maturin series, written by Patrick O’Brian.  The book’s name is The Nutmeg of Consolation.  The story involves some polar bears.

Sad though this story is, perversely it raised my spirits a little – after a long time mulling it over.  In the early 19^th century the actions described would have been considered perfectly acceptable and natural.  Now, however, in the early 21^st century, most of us would regard this kind of behavior as reprehensible and disgusting.  So, my contemplation suggests, maybe -despite all the terrible things that are going on all around us – as individual human beings maybe we have improved a little in the last 200 years.

Nah!  Who am I kidding?

As to the story – you’ll have to read it for yourselves.  In doing so you will gain an introduction to a great series of literature.

THE REAL REASON THAT COLIN KAEPERNICK IS NOT PLAYING FOOTBALL

The real reason why Colin Kaepernick is not playing in the NFL has nothing to do with politics.  Most NFL owners would sell their mother to the Taliban if it would win them a few more games.  Nor has it much to do with his abilities; Kaepernick is an experienced, second-tier quarterback: not Tom Brady, for sure, but not Ryan Leaf, either.  Even the Green Bay Packers would be happy to have him as back-up quarterback.  Especially now.

No, the real reason Colin Kaepernick is not on an NFL roster is obvious from his photograph.  No NFL team has a helmet big enough to accommodate all that hair.

HOW TO RUN A MARATHON AND FEEL GREAT

Fun?

It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that running a full marathon (26.2 miles) is harder on a person  than running half that far (a half-marathon).  You probably also would expect that, although full-marathon runners train more than half-marathoners, they feel disproportionately crappier at the end of their race.  My personal experience was that at the end of a “halfathon” I wanted to wait around and see whom I had beaten (if anyone), whereas after a  ”fullathon” all I wanted to do was sit down and drink beer.  And this was true, no matter how many miles I had run in preparation.

Well, it turns out I should have burned some of those training hours in a weight room.  A scientific-sounding study conducted in Spain indicates that building leg muscles by means of weight training is beneficial – extremely so.  I don’t recall conspicuously bulging thigh muscles on any of those Kenyans that win all the important races these days, but maybe I just don’t know what to look for.

I have a relative who runs marathons – runs them well, in fact.  Maybe she should look into this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/well/move/what-half-marathons-teach-us-about-running-a-marathon.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fhealth&action=click&contentCollection=health&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront

A FIB AND OVCA

Poor lady

Are you an old fart with a non-standard heart?  Well, I am.  I “suffer” from atrial fibrillation (a fib, to most of us.)  I use the “ thing because, in my case, there is no “suffering” involved; apparently I go in and out of a fib episodes, but I never detect the difference.  Not so many folks; for some, an a fib episode pole axes them to a state of non-functionality.  I guess I’m lucky.

Well, if you do have a fib, you probably take some kind of blood thinner.  I take warfarin, which is the most common prescribed.  After a little trial-and-error groping my med team has found a regimen that keeps my blood in the Goldilocks zone; not too thin (you die of internal bleeding) nor too thick (you die from a blood clot.)  I get checked every six weeks or so.

It turns out that a gene scan can make getting the right warfarin dose quicker and more precise.  Apparently the people in white coats, by means of a clinical trial, have established that the functionality of certain genes affects proper dosage.  Good, I guess.  What truly is good is that they say that such a gene scan should cost only about $200.  Hell, my checkups – involving a pharmacy tech, one drop of blood, five minutes and a $19.94 machine – cost almost that!

Maybe gene scans will get cheap enough so that ALL FEMALE BABIES can be tested for bad genes at birth.  And the same scan can be had periodically throughout life, like mammograms. 

      

Devoutly to be wished for.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/genetic-testing-improves-blood-thinner-dosing

AN OPEN LETTER TO JOHN McCAIN

Senator McCain, thank you for helping defeat this latest attempt to modify Obamacare.  I believe that modification is in order and could be very beneficial, but to work it will have to be a product of mature, bipartisan deliberation, and not some frantic push to satisfy a campaign pledge.  Just as you have said.

Senator, I regard you as the best thing that has happened to the Senate in my lifetime.   I supported you for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, and again for President in 2008.  You lost both times, of course.  However, I firmly believe that, had you won, the world would have been and would continue to be, a better place.  Possibly much better.

Glioblastoma is a terrible enemy.  However, you survived the Hanoi Hilton on shear guts.  Maybe, with the help of our best oncologists, a little luck, and those same guts you can beat it.  I hope so.  And, I can scarcely imagine, there can be any truly thoughtful Americans who would disagree.  Senator, we need someone of your caliber to lead the fight for rational, bipartisan, centrist policies.  God knows, we do.

Please get well.

ENERGOPHAGI

You know what a sarcophagus is, right?  That’s what the Ancients – and modern archaeologists – call a stone coffin.  Anthropologists like them, too, as attested to by the Ogden Nash poem:  “Among the anthropophagi, one’s friends are one’s sarcophagi.”  (I don’t know why I like that so much; I’ve kept it stored in my head for at least 60 years!)

Why did they call it that?  Well, because whenever they opened a sarcophagus they found a skeleton: skin and bones, but never any flesh.  They thought (really?  Can they have been that dumb?) that the stone coffin had somehow eaten the flesh, hence “sarco” (flesh in Greek), and “phagus” (eating), yielding sarcophagus.   See what interesting stuff you learn from my blog!

Well, I have come to realize that my favorite chairs all are energophagi, from energos (Greek for energy) and, of course, phagus, as before.  That is because whenever I sit down in them I go almost immediately to sleep.  Sitting in those chairs I can’t even make it all the way through the Bellingham Herald without a nap!  More and more I find that I can do serious reading only while sitting bolt upright before a desktop computer, on a hard wooden chair.

Just a gentle warning, kiddo.  You’ll get here someday.

Obliteride North? Why not?

Young men having fun

Fred Hutch stages a yearly fund-raising bike event they call Obliteride.  In view of the fact that Bellingham is aswarm with bicycles day and night, I would like to suggest that some young, public-spirited Bellinghamite organize an Obliteride North.  Watch the link below to develop enthusiasm, then Google Obliteride  to find out how it is done.  Hell, you could even make a series of races out of it.  I’d do it myself, but I am too old, too fat, and lately somewhat bike-averse.  However, if there is a race, I promise to toast the winner with a glass of my favorite Icelandic hootch!

http://www.king5.com/entertainment/television/programs/new-day-northwest/obliteride-funds-lifesaving-cancer-research-in-fun-filled-bike-riding-weekend-/463359472

Well, okay. I'm an idiot

Okay, let’s agree on that this discussion is to be conducted in light of the following non-negotiable premises.

1)      This is MY life.

2)      I am old enough to make up my own mind.

3)      I am not senile.

4)      All of you want the best for me, but only I can decide what that is!

I am going to stay in this house, and sell #33 Parkway Village.  I will spend whatever it takes to make this feasible.  I will park my car in the driveway and use the front door exclusively, which will chop nine steps off my to-ing and fro-ing.  I will hire somebody to shop for me, garden for me, and do anything else I might want but have too little energy to pursue on my own.  I will subscribe to one of those alert services in case I fall, etc.  If a problem arises I will smoother it in money.  When #3 (above) becomes no longer true I will go directly to assisted living – or, with luck – Bayview  Cemetery.  In the meantime I am going to stay right here, where I feel comfortable.  So there!

I find that this became less of a discussion and more of an announcement.  So be it.

Oh, by the way – this “downsizing” business ….  #33 is nearly as big as the living part of 1811, and has only two fewer steps.

And, besides….  My cat is at home here.

So, in conclusion I want to thank you all for your concerns, and acknowledge that you think I’m an idiot.  But I’m not.

Dad/Myrl

Oh, LORD!

Oh, Lord, the deed is done.  I own two houses!  Heaven forefend!

BLOGGER HIATUS

Mountain Adventure, Octogenarian Style

I am going to England with daughters Karen and Kristen.  No more blogs, Frivolous or otherwise, until mid-August.  Then I will be downsizing, big house to little house.  Routine life may set in again by October.  In the meantime, read my old cancer blogs.

JEREMIAH GUNDELBERG: THE INDEX

None of these is Gundelberg

For those thousands of Gundelberg fans out there who have been demanding an index – here it is.

http://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2017/02/exploring-mountain-west-with-jeremiah.html

http://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2017/02/exploring-mountain-west-with-jeremiah_22.html

http://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2017/02/exploring-mountain-west-with-jeremiah_26.html

http://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2017/03/gundelberg-in-twin-sisters-range.html

http://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2017/04/of-gundelberg-and-bear.html

http://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-midwinter-misadventure_8.html

http://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2017/05/gundelberg-returns-to-twin-sisters.html

http://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2017/06/gundelberg-and-i-confront-mt-challenger.html

http://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2017/06/gundelberg-explores-sierra-nevada.html

http://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2017/07/gundelbergs-last-stand.html

This isn't Gundelberg, either

GUNDELBERG'S LAST STAND

North Twin, West Ridge

The Gundelberg saga concludes with one last adventure in the Twin Sisters range.

Harken back to our last “climb” of the North Twin

(http://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2017/05/gundelberg-returns-to-twin-sisters.html.

Needless to say, after this fiasco interest in the Fairhaven College mountaineering class (JG/BK professoring) diminished sharply.  In fact, the next year there were only two “students” – both men in their 40s – game to make the North Twin climb.  Naturally, I went along, ostensibly to “help”. 

Well, it was crappy weather, a crappy experience, no fun at all.  It did have one virtue, however.  It scared some sense into me.

Do you know what “gendarme” means to a mountaineer?  Well, in the French Alps it may denote a policeman who kicks your butt into jail for getting a little too exuberant in some nice, cozy wine shop.  However, more generally it means some species of rocky impediment blocking a climbing route.  You have to go around it, over it – or go home in defeat.

A Gendarme.  Not ours, but you get the idea

Well, there is one such on the upper portion of the west ridge of the North Twin.  In a decent weather year we could easily passed by it on either side, but the weather that day was bad, as it had been for months – and we were faced with a dilemma.   Our choices were two:  we either could pass by the thing on its north side, by traversing a few tens of meters of steep snow, or we could climb over the damned thing.

I was leading.  I had my ice ax, and I liked to fool around on steep snow.  There was a modest “bergschrund” – maybe 18 inches wide but God knows how deep – which I confidentially stepped across.  We had a rope but I wasn’t attached – hell, this was going to be a piece of cake.  On crossing I planted my ax, took a single step, slipped, lost my grip – and found myself sliding down a very steep slope, on my back, head first!  The bottom of the slope was perhaps 1000 ft. below, and it was lined with big rocks! 

A Bergschrund, considerably larger than mine

Well, I just had time to formulate the thought “What a stupid way to die!”, when I whacked into a few rocks that Providence had placed just below the gendarme.  They stopped me, without significant damage.  Cats have nine lives.  Clumsy climbers have, at most, three.  I had just used up one.

Very carefully, I crept up the snow slope to the “schrund”, retrieved my ax, tied on to the proffered rope, and regained terra firma.  I was alive – but the damned French policeman still barred our way.  Now it was the turn of JG/BK.

Keller liked to climb rock.  The obvious way over the gendarme began with ascent of a rubble filled shoot – I guess you could call it a couloir, to continue the barrage of French names.  So Bob started scrambling upwards, while the rest of us stayed out of the way of falling debris.  He was un-roped, of course – we learned hard in those days.

Well, after what seemed like too long I decided to take a peak.  I stuck my head around our sheltering rock, looked upwards – and a chunk of Twin Sisters dunite the size of a softball whizzed by my right ear, going very, very rapidly.  I jerked my head back just as it was followed by a shower of other rubble and the thought popped into my head:  “That’s life #2.  Is God trying to tell me something?”    I decided that the answer was “yes”.

So, I yelled at Bob that I was through, that I was going down, and taking the two “kids” with me.  He was pissed, but had no choice.  I think he pouted for the next two days.  We spent the night in a dilapidated cabin at the edge of a meadow called Daley’s prairie, near the foot of the mountain.  We shared it with two young men from Lynden, WA, a nearby town known for its religious fervor.  They found out I was a geologist, and spent half the night trying to convince me that the “recent flurry of earthquakes” (there was none) presaged the End of Times.

So, all in all, it was a shitty trip.  It did teach me an important lesson, however.  I never again went courting death in the mountains.  Sure, you can be killed by a dead squirrel falling on your head while at dinner in a campground; malign fate is always sniffing at our heels.  But after that it was trail hiking or mountain scrambling for me.  I still have that third life in reserve.

NIX THE APOSTROPHE

I like it when you “Comment” on a blog.  It assures me that it was read, and by someone interested enough to chime in. 

You can place comments in two places; on the blog itself, or when (and if) I post it on Facebook.  Of the two I much prefer the blog.  Facebook comments disappear in a few days, whereas Blog comments are forever.  Think a spring dusting of snow vs, glacial ice.

However, if you do “Comment” on the blog, please do not use apostrophes.  Google maintains a list of all Comments which, with luck and the help of a grandkid you probably can access.  On this list the humble apostrophe is translated as &#39.  Thus “it’s” becomes “it &#39 s”, which I can’t help but read as ”it fucking well is.”  Same way with haven’t, won’t, etc.  Gentle souls such as my daughters, sister in law, cousin in law, and several ex-girlfriends are recorded as using such foul, overly emphatic language.  It’s disconcerting.  Don’t do it.   I won’t, either.  Let's promise.

SODS!

Abu Beckr al Beaumonti is not pleased

Some sod has stolen two vases of flowers from my wife’s grave.  When he or she reaches the gates of Hell I hope they are first beheaded, then pitched inside.

IN DEFENSE OF MONSANTO

Yum!

The title of this blog has very little to do with its content; I used it principally to get your attention.  However, in passing:  I know that most of you detest Monsanto, but you are misguided.  If it weren’t for Monsanto (and similar firms) that are responsible for GMO crops such as soya beans and corn, as well as sophisticated pesticides, we would have mass starvation world-wide.  Not in  rich, pampered places like Seattle, but surely in Djibouti.

No, what I’m on about here is our love affair with “healthy foods”.  An initial caveat:  I am all for eating fresh fruits and vegetables: nothing can beat Boxx’s berries or local corn.  What I avoid are foods conspicuously labeled “organic”.   They always cost more, and I suspect are no healthier than the stuff I buy.  I only buy “organic” when I can’t find an alternative.

This blog came about because of something I found in my freezer; what I took to be a small container of chocolate-coconut ice cream.  I don’t know how it got there, but there it was.  I opened it last night because I had run out of strawberries and French vanilla ice cream.  I should have suspected something when I saw that it was nearly full; only a few small spoonsfull were missing.  However, without reading the label I dished out a little and attacked it.

Well, it tasted like library paste flavored and colored by molten crayons.  I dumped the whole mess into a bowl, then set it on the floor for my cat to eat.  She approached it cautiously, sniffed, then licked.  Up, popped her tale, and she stalked away, filled with indignation.  She still eyes me with suspicion and won’t get on my lap.

So I read the labels.  This stuff turns out to be non-dairy, free of refined sugar, devoid of GMO-modified ingredients, gluten free, and does not contain several other “unhealthy” ingredients I can’t name because my cleaning lady just dumped the carton. 

My point?  To heck with “organic”.  I will eat whatever I want, and buy it as cheaply as is convenient.  But, of course, I’m 84.

ONE MISERABLE FEMALE on the TRAIN

Good God!  If these are the sorts of things that rattle around in the skulls of young women, then I am eternally grateful to chance for giving me an Y chromosome!

I refer of course to the novel The Girl on the Train, about which I have heard so many good reports.  They seem even to have made a movie of it.  Oh, Lord!  Why?

I read the first 50 pages of this book this morning while avoiding housework (Abebooks:  $3.59).  It has left me in such a state of depression that I may skip golf this afternoon and go straight to the beer-drinking ritual. 

Part of my Alaska family is arriving tonight.  I may pick up Girl when they leave next week, or I may not.

Tell me why you liked it.

The Rawthey Rhythm

Most of the band

To what heights may an old scientist not aspire?

In this blog I introduce you to Ernie Hailwood, his wife Viv, and the Rawthey Rhythm – perhaps not the most professional musical group in northern England, but surely one of the happiest.  For a taste of its music, click on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGlw_3AamOs

and be sure to have a pint of English bitter handy.

Ernie Hailwood (right) is a retired geophysicist and entrepreneur; Vivian, his wife (center), is a teacher and educational innovator.  I first met Ernie at a conference in Zurich, Switzerland, in – I think – 1973.  As part of that meeting we both participated in a field trip to the Matterhorn region where we discovered  a  strong  mutual interests in geology, paleomagnetism, rock magnetism, and goofing off in the mountains.  Later that year I returned to Bellingham, obtained some money for a project in the San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado – and promptly invited Ernie to join me.  Just as promptly, Ernie scrounged some expense money, and accepted.  Thus, the summer of 1975 (probably) found Ernie, my graduate student Steve Sheriff* and myself camped (for at least two months – maybe more) at a FS campground on the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River just above Lake San Cristobal, in Hinsdale County, Colorado.  Boy, what a gas!

  

We worked hard.  We showered occasionally.  We climbed a few mountains.  We ate dinner in town, mostly, and we drank a lot of beer.  Trips to the fleshpots of Lake City (read: a couple of taverns that served food) were made interesting by Ernie and his accent: the Beetles were at their ascendancy, and anything that smacked of England drew a crowd.  It grew tiresome, having to extract Ernie from fervid young women attempting to take him home.  Fortunately for all (except, perhaps, the young women), Ernie was a faithful husband, and a newlywed to boot.  (He used to bristle at the notion that he sounded like a Beetle.  He was from the south of England, not Liverpool.  But in America, who could tell?).

Toward the end of the summer Viv joined us, and the pace of life picked up.  Viv was young – about Steve’s age – red-headed, and had a tiny, little, very  becoming chip on her shoulder regarding Americans.  It seems that she was tired of Yank tourists regarding everything in England as precious or quaint, and explaining patiently how things were done (better) in America.  Steve sized her up immediately and began pushing buttons.  Her reaction was muted, but predictable.  I was bemused (and maybe a bit amused) by the whole thing.  Poor Ernie was caught in the middle.  Suffice it to say that, while on the top of Mt Uncompaghre  (pictured), Steve did not allow himself to be caught between Viv and the cliff face.

But this is about music.  I should have suspected something when, around a campfire one night after Viv had arrived, Ernie pulled a harmonica out of his jacket pocket, said “Oh, what’s this?” – and then proceeded to play it like a virtuoso.  (I have tried to master the harmonica several times, without the least bit of success.  It’s hard.).  Immediately Viv joined in, singing.  They were musical!  I was jealous.  Seeds of Rawthey Rhythm were already in the ground.

Anyway, Ernie went on to have a successful career in academia, and later in business, while Viv created an educational program called Brain Child about which I know absolutely nothing.  Linda and I spent a happy month in their beautiful house in Yorkshire a decade or two ago, and they used our Bellingham home as a base for exploring the North Cascades at about that same time.  I keep inviting them for a return visit – but they are too busy assuring that the toes of tavern-goers in western Yorkshire conyinue tapping to be able to accept.

*Steve Sheriff went on to be Dr. Steve Sheriff, Chair of the University of Montana Geology Department.  He is retired now, and seems to work full time at skiing.  At the time of our adventure he was a typical hippy of the day: long hair, ragged jeans, faint odor of weed.   He narrowly avoided being lynched by the local cowboys.  Thank God he escaped: I needed a field assistant.

GUNDELBERG EXPLORES THE SIERRA NEVADA

LeConte Divide?

My first serious backpacking occurred in the Sierra Nevada (California), in the years around 1960.  I loved the fact that, once above tree-line and armed with a good topographic map (and the ability to read it) you could ignore formal trails and plot your way from here to there in the almost certain knowledge that the route would work.  There is nothing like glaciated crystalline rock (granitics, high-grade metamorphics) to set you free!

Gundelberg (Bob Keller), on the other hand, had cut his backpacking teeth on relatively short mountains that were distressingly vertical.  These mountains – the North Cascades – were smothered in healthy, dense, impenetrable vegetation to timberline, above which they were frighteningly steep, rugged and covered in ice.

To put the contrast simply: getting around in the Sierra Nevada required a map and a good pair of boots, whereas in the North Cascades it required that, plus a trail system and climbing equipment.

Keller once told me that he enjoyed nothing so much as hiking Sierra “mountaineers” into the ground.  As he couldn’t do that to me, he conceived a desire to see just what the Sierra had to offer.  And so, we planned a trip.

Another Gundelbergian fact you might not know is that he loathed automobiles.  (He was once severely admonished by the law for punching a moving car.)  From Bellingham to the Sierra is at least 1000 miles, and that was simply too far for Bob.  And so we took the bus to Reno, and then hitch-hiked on down!  It took a long time but, hell, it was summer and we were college professors.

I am shaky on the geography of that trip so I will be vague.  We “went in” from the east, crossed the range by – I believe – LeConte Divide, then hiked northward along some trail system, crossed back over (Bishop Pass?) and descended to civilization.  The mountain part of the trip took about a week

.

Sierra scenery - maybe Evolution Basin

I sometimes speculate that the only thing that prevented Keller from being a Himalayan expedition climber was physiology; he had a terrible time adapting to high elevations.  At about 10,000 ft. he invariably got sick.  LeConte Divide is, perhaps, 12,000 ft.  The upshot was that we spent a day camped near the top of the range; me fishing the nearby streams, Bob prostrate in his tent, moaning and burping up little globs of vomit.  I would check on him now and then, bringing him water and more food to vomit.  He was still so weak the next day that I was forced to ferry both packs over the col, while Bob crept across, not smiling.

The thing was, 10,000 ft. stopped Bob in his tracks – but only for a day or so.  Once he recovered he was fine, and could scramble about as if he were at sea level.  We hiked together in Wyoming many times later, and we learned to include a down day in our plans.

After that the trip went smoothly, and Bob enjoyed it – until the trip home.

Obviously, we had to hitch back to Reno, to catch the bus.  It took several days, and multiple rides.  Our dirt-smeared persons, ratty packs, stubble birds, and ice axes repelled normal drivers.  The only people that would give us a lift were fellow back packers – or drunks.  We encountered one of the latter and, in something like desperation, hopped in. 

It was two women, mother and daughter, in a pick-up truck.  We were in the back, with our gear.  The two ladies apparently lived out in the boonies, somewhere SE of Reno.  Apparently they had picked us up out of kindness; we received no invitations to stay overnight.  Hardly surprising, in view of how we must have smelled.  Anyway, we noticed that we were passing an awful lot of traffic.  Also, we seemed to weave back and forth more than seemed necessary.  The reason became apparent when the younger lady slid open a small door to the cab, stuck through a whiskey bottle, and asked us if we wanted a drink!  Thereafter she kept the door open and wanted to talk.  Every so often she would offer the bottle to her mother, take a swig herself, and then pass it to me.  I felt obligated to drink a bit; that had the twin benefits of emptying the bottle quickly, thus perhaps saving our lives, and also rendering me less afraid of death.

Bob, meanwhile, pretended to be asleep.

Well, as should be obvious, we survived.  We made it to Reno that night, bought showers at a trailer park, and caught the next bus north.

The upshot?  Neither of us ever again proposed  the Sierra Nevada for an adventure, and Bob never again suggested we hitch-hike, anywhere.

GUNDELBERG AND I CONFRONT MT. CHALLENGER. Challenger wins

Whatcom Peak: Challenger in background

The events I relate here sandwich the bear encounter described in “Of Gundelberg and the Bear”  In other words, it explains why we failed to climb Mt. Challenger, twice.

Our first attempt was thwarted by Nature and my lack of self-confidence.  The route we had chosen required us to traverse on smooth rock from Whatcom Pass to the foot of the Challenger glacier.  The smoothness of the rock was owing to erosion by the Whatcom glacier, which had retreated but still was alive and healthy, grumbling away not far above our path.

The”path” itself was on the side of a sloping half dome, which steepened to our left, away from the glacier. On that side the smooth rock dome steepened and eventually fell off almost vertically into a valley filled with dead trees.  To our right it rose but flattened, to the nose of the growling, grunting glacier.  I knew it was stupid to walk out under that billion-ton sheet of ice, but the way looked so easy and we had hiked so far…..

Well, half way across we encountered an unexpected impasse.  There was a steep-sided channel in the smooth rock, at least 100 ft. deep and filled with colossal blocks of ice.  There was no obvious way to get to the other side.  We were carrying full packs, of course,  We should have known better, but we set them down and began scouting around for a quick fix to our dilemma.   And then Nature took over, as you would expect.  

A huge block of ice broke loose from the Whatcom glacier, perhaps 200 m. above us -- and came crashing down, straight at us.  The smooth rock surface that I have described had “steps” every so often.  Through the good offices of whatever agency of Fate takes care of idiots, there was a substantial one, perhaps a meter high, right at our feet.  We ducked down beside it, and watched the broken ice avalanche pass right over us, so close you could have grabbed a bit to cool your evening cocktail.  And so we survived.

However, we were nowhere near out of the woods yet  because – where were our packs?  Nowhere to be seen.  Remember that everything we needed to stay alive was in those packs.  If the ice fall had shoved them into the deep valley described earlier, we were in very serious trouble.  After searching for a frantic twenty minutes or so we located them, far down on the smooth rock half-dome.  In the meantime the Whatcom glacier, which was in full sun, tossed out another little bouquet of ice.  I may be stupid, but I can tell when Fate is giving me advice, so I strapped on my pack and traced a bee-line back toward Whatcom Pass (and, of course, the bear), all the while hurling profane imprecations at Bob, who was back searching for a way across the big gully that had stopped us in the first place.  But in the end he relented, and so survived to try again another day.

We did try again a few days later, using the Easy Ridge/Perfect Pass route.  As this already is too long, I will describe that “adventure” another time.

Perfect Pass

We never got there

TREE TOPPING. I hope they pay well

Well, yes this one is a bit bigger than the one in my neighbor"s yard

I love watching other people work.  The harder or the more dangerous it is, the more I love it. If I ask myself “how much would they have to pay me to do that?”, and the answer is “there isn’t that much money in the world”, then I can’t stop watching.

Well, I have just wasted an afternoon watching work I might have done at age 20 – for maybe $200/hr.  The work could be called tree-topper, I guess.  I watched all afternoon as a guy swinging from ropes and lugging a chain saw  reduced most of a Douglas fir – at least 90 ft. tall – to sawdust (with the aid of his partner on the ground, operating the chipper.)  It was such a bravura performance that I applauded long and vigorously when he finally descended.  He gave me a shy smile in return.

Linda and I bought this place in 1984, I think it was.  At that time we had a sweeping view in all directions but south.  Thus at that time we could see most of Bellingham Bay and the southern B.C. Coast Range from our back deck.  On 4^th of July we could watch the fireworks from our hot tub.  But, gradually, inexorably, nature intervened.

Our neighbor two doors down to the south had a Dough fir – a little squirt, but as Doug firs will it grew to impressive dimensions.  The neighbor in question is an attorney, so I hesitated to sue him for deprivation of view.  Instead, I prayed for a windstorm intense enough to blow the damned tree down, or at least rip off most of its branches.  No such luck; the tree prospered, and my view evaporated.  Nowadays to watch the fireworks you have to set up a chair on the sidewalk in front of the house.

Why are they removing the tree?  No clue.  Maybe they have realized that, if it DID blow over it would take out half the neighborhood.

And so, I get my view back.  There is irony here, however.  As many of you know, I am down-sizing, and 1811 4^th St. soon will be sold.  I hope the new owners appreciate the view.

THE WAY AHEAD IS MURKY

Re-living a (let's face it) far from glorious athletic career

Well, time and entropy have led me to an unavoidable fork in the road.  In the long term everything will get sorted out, of course, but in the meantime…..?  What do I do?

I doubt that you want to hear an old man whine, but here it is. I find it increasingly difficult to “manage”.   At this juncture there seem to be four diverging paths: four alternatives.

(1)    Stay in this big house with its 14 steps and accumulating repair issues.  Hire more and more help, as needed.  Install an elevator system to allow access to the garage.  Or, perhaps sell the car and put my welfare in the hands of Uber.  Go through my savings like you-know-what through a tin horn.

(2)    Buy a small manufactured home in a 55+ park, thereby reducing the need for hired assistance substantially.  Acquire near neighbors to notice when I have not been seen for a week, and there are vultures perched on my roof.  Give up my view, and much of my privacy.

(3)    Move into the Parkway Chateau –  the Pink Palace, before they re-painted.  Live in a 600 ft² apartment with a balcony, and no kitchen.  Get three squares/day in a common dining room mostly peopled by elderly women.  (It was remarked that, as a single male, I would be very popular!  Shudder!).   Have access to a gym and many “activities”, most of which I would avoid.  Not have to rely on flocks of buzzards to signal that something was wrong.  Cost about $40,000/year.

(4)    Find a huge house with horse potential somewhere in the County but not too far from town.  Buy it, together with my two K daughters, and then let them look after me.  This is known as the “Beck Compound” option”.  Among other difficulties, this option would require daughter Karen to give up her excellent position with UW and find a local job that she would enjoy.  It also would require Kristen’s partner Joe to spend more time on his riding mower.

I neglect the always obvious “hit by a bus” alternative.  Never sought, always present.  I cross streets pretty slowly these days, so who knows?

I am open to suggestions.

CANUCK, A COMMITTED "NAGEV"

Canuck, eyeballing some hamburger

“Nagev” is “Vegan” spelled backwards.  I apply it to the perfect anti-vegan which, from my observations, is the crow.  Old fart that I am, I don’t eat very much but, through habit, I prepare hearty meals.  Inevitably there is food remaining on my plate when I burp, push back, and shamble into the living room with the remains of a beer in hand.   Later I find myself pondering just what do with the stuff remaining on my plate.  If there is a lot I stick it in the refrigerator for tomorrow’s repast, but if there is only a little, heretofore I would scrape it into the trash.  But not any more.

I should point out that I cook and eat my greens most every night.  Nagging by every woman  I have ever known well has instilled in me the need to “eat right”.  Thus my left-overs almost always contain green stuff.

Well, since my encounter with Canuck, the famous Vancouver crow, I have become a rabid Corvofile*.   Instead of dumping the remains of my dinner in the trash, I place it, plate and all, on my back deck.  Like magic, next morning the plate is clean, or nearly so.  What remains is all the healthy green stuff.  From my observations, crows will not eat beans, broccoli, cucumber, green pepper, zucchini, or lettuce.  They also will not eat onion or tomato, although these are not green.  Furthermore, I have it on good authority that they prefer egg yolk to its surrounding white stuff.

What Corvids WILL eat is meat, potato, bread, cake, pancake – that kind of unhealthy stuff.  In other words they are nagevs.  My kind of bird! 

*Science probably classify Canuck as Corvus brachyrhynchos although that is uncertain

GUNDELBERG RETURNS TO THE TWIN SISTERS

North Twin, west ridge

Back in the day, JG/BK (Bob Keller) offered a mountaineering class to students at Fairhaven College.  It was more like an introduction to the Zen of High and Remote places because – in addition to practical stuff like how to tie into a rope or use an ice ax - he endeavored to fill their youthful souls with a profound, almost mystical oneness with nature, as manifested in high and forbidding chunks of rock.  Desperate as I was for climbing opportunities, I volunteered to help him teach the course. 

My contributions were almost totally “in the field”, so to speak; I helped the students avoid disaster, and – if ropes were required – I led one,  I gave a lecture on mountain geology once , but the students were so smart-assed (as Fairhaven students tended to be back then) that I never did it again.  Funny how self-confident kids can be in a lecture hall, but how humble they are when you and a 3/8 inch rope are all that stands between them and death!

Anyway, the penultimate field excursion of Bob’s Mountain Zen course was an ascent of the North Twin (the shorter but much more challenging of the two peaks that give the range its name).  This was a rock climb that, in places, warranted the use of ropes.  Such was the extent of Bob’s charisma amongst Fairhaven students that, in the year I describe, we had far too many students for the two of us to properly supervise.  Consequently, Bob recruited a local dentist/climber to help, as well as several experienced Fairhaven students.  On the day of the climb Bob divided the students into two groups.  One group, consisting of the more able kids, were sent with the student volunteers to climb the South Twin, which is higher but easier.  That group made the summit, probably smoked some weed, then skipped back down the mountain and was home for dinner.

The less able group stayed with the dentist, Bob and me for an assault on the North Twin.

Why, you ask, were the weaker “climbers” consigned to the more difficult ascent?  Frankly, I have no idea.   Maybe our laggards were supposed to derive some psychic benefit from conquering their fears – and a not-inconsiderable mountain.  Or maybe Bob wanted to see if he could shepherd these unlikely souls to the top.  I should have asked at the time but I didn’t, and now it is too late.

Well, we didn’t summit.  The route we used, the West Ridge, starts out as an easy traipse through the trees.  However, the way narrows steadily as you ascend, the trees disappear, and eventually you are dealing with a ridge a yard or two wide, consisting of solid rock.  That in itself is not so fearsome, but on one side the ridge drops off as a near cliff several hundred feet. high, and on the other there is a very steep snow slope at least 2000 ft. long, with big rocks at the bottom.  In mountain-speak, the ridge is “exposed” .

If you are used to exposure it doesn’t slow you down – other than perhaps to augment your caution a bit – but if you are not prepared for it you may be stopped in your tracks.  That, of course, is what happened to our pitiful flock.  Our upward progress slowed, then slowed even more, and it soon became apparent that time was running out.  Nevertheless we went on, certainly far too long – and finally, by the time we tossed in the towel the sun was about to set.

Well, the dentist – who was thoroughly disgusted by this time - herded the more able kids down off the mountain.  Presumably that got home in time for a late supper.  I don’t know; I never saw that guy again.

And that left Bob and me, with two terrified, almost hysterical, young ladies.  I talked to one of them, explaining how difficult it would be to fall off of a sidewalk two meters wide, but that didn’t help.  Finally, I tied her into a short rope (maybe 3 meters long), got behind her, and urged her to start down.  But she couldn’t move!  It transpired that she could move only if I was directly in front of her.  That, of course, is not where you want to be for belaying purposes, but no matter – if she couldn’t see me she couldn’t descend so much as an inch. 

So that’s how it was.  For what seemed like ten hours we crept down what seemed like five miles of rough rock ridge.  Did I mention that the poor young woman used a five-point climbing technique on that decent, exclusively?  The result of this technique was to abrade a large hole in her jeans.  And for the entire time I was positioning directly below her, looking up at her, encouraging her descent.  Thank God for substantial panties!

And, of course, Keller experienced much the same situation with the other poor girl.

We hit the parking lot about midnight, minutes before the (totally disgusted) cops arrived.  I clammed up, pointing at JG if asked anything at all.  The two young women were too given over to hysteria to talk.  Eventually, we arrived home – early for breakfast!

And if those two women ever – ever – in their lives went near another mountain, I would be greatly surprised.