Carson Pass Route

Carson Pass

Andrew and I went snowshoeing up in Carson Pass at an elevation of 8574 feet. There was a fair amount of snow. We might have hiked 3 miles round trip and up to about 9200 feet.

On the Road ...

... to Winnemucca Lake ... at my elder brother's recommendation ... I doubt there will be this much snow ... but we going any way.

Pescadero Creek

I went for a short hike today out at Pescadero Creek.

You're Fired!

Aol Instant Messenger now has introduced a concept of punishment towards users that try to connect to their service repeatedly after a failed attempt. I think that that's not really an appropriate way to treat me. They threaten extend the time you have to wait if you continue to try to connect ... and then actually do it ...

The service is already crappy at best ... So, you're fired.

i Feel Like an Animal

"... Two interesting things happened the next day. A wolf ran out on the trail. One of the Dani (New Guinia Tribesman) whipped out his bow. ... and dropped the wolf in midstride....Then he and the rest of them fell on the animal and ate it raw. ... They wolfed him down.". From Left for Dead by Beck Weathers.

Oh ... That

It's been awhile. Tomorrow, I'd like to try to ride my bike to work. It's not easy. I am going to catch a 7:07 train ... which means up before 6. I want to try to hike around Angel Island this weekend ... 6 miles. Try.

Yes try. It's been about 3 1/2 months since the hike to Half Dome which left me with a broken foot, followed several weeks later with dislocating a toe on the other foot. I've had several weeks of Physical Therapy, seen several kinds of doctors, used Chinese medicine, and done my best to keep using it (my foot). I have walked, run, climbed, worked out, trained, swam and travelled against all advice. Following their advice, I have exercised my feet, ankles, calves and hamstrings for hours on end ... towel crunches ... left and rights, hamstring curls, achilles stretches -- the list goes on. Last week I had a fairly serious workout including weights and running ... and more running. Over the weekend I was in Oregon, mostly driving. Monday night I went to the climbing gym and abused myself pretty seriously.

Today my body hurts in a serious post-climbing way. My back aches across the shoulders ... My core is absolutely trash. My wrists and hands hurt. The skin on my fingers is sore. And I have stripes of pain on the inside and outside of my legs.

My feet really don't hurt all that much.

I am pretty comfortable with the idea that I won't be up to 100% for a while. Maybe even as long as a year. But I am starting to feel that I will be able to plan some trips, or do a few hikes, return to training, and be able to rely on it again

Which is a good thing.

It's Complicated ...

Yep, it's complicated. In my experience, even the simplest of relationships is pretty complicated. I changed my facebook status to "it's complicated," to which Facebook announced to all my friends that "Shawn is now in a complicated relationship." Brilliant. I was already in a complicated relationship I wasn't talking all that much about. I just now decided to mention it. The announcement doesn't say anything about the previous state, since I had not said anything before. So it sounds like I am starting a new relationship.

The choices for relationships in facebook are it's complicated, married, in a relationship, single, widowed, engaged, in an open relationship, and the additional option of no statement at all (imagine the movie title for that one).

How often does one enter a relationship with a status of it's complicated. Not very often ... I am thinking. Sometimes, but I submit that rarely "it's complicated" is the first choice in a new relationship. The truth though, is that none of the status descriptions listed above are suitable for any relationship that I am in. It's intersting that there are 5 ways to describe a "committed" romantic relationship, and just two kinds of single. Clearly there's a bias towards affairs of the heart, so I'll stick to those.

I find the number of choices to be less than effective at describing the status of a relationship. I would prefer ad-hoc text to allow me to describe my relationship, but short of that it would be easy enough to expand the list. Here's a list of suggestions (Shawn is in a(n) ______ relationship(s)):

Attractive
Dating
Ecstatic
Unbelievable
Fucked Up
Mind Blowing
More Than One
Many
Comfortable
Dangerous
Confused
Gay
Bromantic
Romantic
Late-Night
Co-Dependent
Esoteric
Secret
Fun
Unrequited
OMG
Sex-Only
Celibate
Seductive
Sabotaged
Tempting
Illicit
Contemptuous
Monogamous
Weekend
Vacation
Scrape the Skin Off the Ceiling
...

This list could go on for a while. Since we live in a place where serial monogamy is more than common, I'd like to toy with the steps a relationship might follow towards it's inevitable failure. I'm Interested, Tempting, Dating, Secret, Hot, Ecstatic, Comfortable, Irritating ... did I mention Boring ... then suddenly, It's Complicated. Do you see where this is going? It's complicated might be used when you're sleeping with your boss, or dating your ex, who's actually married to one of your friends, or whenever it's convenient not to try to clarify what's actually happening, but rather, to just put everyone off. Ummm ... "I'm not telling."

When I first looked (some time ago) at the list, I said ... I don't really like to define myself as single, I'm not really in a relationship ... so exclude the info from the profile. Later ... I decided not to share anyting about any relationship I was in. Not all that complicated, but ... there's not so much to talk about.

Right now, it's complicated. I think it's going to get uncomplicated soon.

How I See It ...

It's Safeway. I shop there all the time. It's convenient located, but really, it's not that convenient. So I have a few suggestions for them.

1. Don't address me by my name when I am in line at the checkout counter. As your customer, I have entrusted you with a bunch of personally identifiable information, which you get from my Safeway card or my debit card or credit card. Most companies have a policy governing their behavior regarding personal information, and assuring me that they are behaving correctly, or at least in a manner I can choose not to agree to. Typically, you (Safeway) don't actually know me, and neither do any of the other people in the store. So, please don't tell them my name.

2. Please try to discourage panhandlers outside your store at midnight. I give a lot of money to charities and to panhandlers, but really don't want to deal with them outside your dark store at midnight when I am typically getting the shopping done. As an alternative, maybe you could turn some more lights on in the parking lot. As your customer, I don't always feel safe on the way to my car (and it's not necessarily the fault of the panhandlers).

3. Closing all your registers at 11:00 PM for five minutes isn't really good for business. It pisses your customers off (I know because I am in line with them). It may be really convenient for you, but it's not for me, and ... after all ... I am your customer.

4. Having one cashier with 60 people in line at 7:00 PM on a Friday night isn't all that good for business either, in case you happen to be one of those Safeway managers who happened to be watching that night, when we, the customers, were wondering how it is that you actually still have jobs.

5. Stocking the shelves with stuff that people buy is another good idea. I don't know how many times I have gone shopping with a list of ordinary goods and found that some critical element (hamburger ... for example), was completely unavailable. Or found myself having to go to another store to get about half the stuff I have on my list. It must be really convenient for you to stock all the goods at the end of the day ... at once, but for me, it would be great if the stuff were on the shelf when I got there.

6. Although it must seem pretty fulfilling to have the user interface for credit cards ask your customers to donate money for the MDA, or PDA's for kids, or breast cancer associations, I personally find it a bit irritating. As your customer, I am usually in a hurry, already find your poorly designed and badly working credit/debit machine to be incredibly slow and cumbersome, and I wonder if you have any respect at all for my time, and the time of all the other people around me. I am really just trying to get the groceries and go. I don't want to be troubled with charitable giving decisions while I am shopping, I'll do that at home with my family and my tax advisor. Making every customer say no to a "do you want to donate" question is a an incredible waste of time for every person in line at every register, literally thousands of button pushes every day, hours wasted standing in line (talk about a drain on the economy). I tolerate this so you can feel good about yourselves; I don't think so. Please try to be slightly more considerate of my time by making that decision an option at the pay screen. You know, "credit", "debit", or "donate", or better yet, go back to little cards that a customer can select and buy.

So ... here's a business idea for you leaders at Safeway, if you want to keep good customers like me. Make it easy and cheap for me to buy my groceries and be on my way, and I'll be in twice a week. Make it too hard ... and I probably won't.

So I am Reading Along ...

... and it's a book about travel -- aptly called a "memoir." Susan Jane Gilman's Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven. Initially I was a skeptic. I picked it up in the bookstore (Kepler's ... my favorite), read a few pages and pooh poohed it. A few weeks later, desperately, I went back and picked it up. Now --- I am sort of bathing in it. It's unheralding and unpresumptious, perhaps the first read I recall where the writer clearly experienced the same Asia I did:

Claire Screamed.
What is it about cockroaches? People live with houseplants that grow spiky and grotesque as the creep over bookshelves, strangling things with thier overgrown tendrils, their genitals exploding every spring, littering the gardens and tabletops with thier rotting petals. People live with cats who clawthier furniture, coating it with dander and milllions of adhesive hairs, filling the bathroom with ammonia-scented feces and tracking urinous kitty grit all over the floor. And dogs? Those Slobbering, deficating, crotch-sniffing, face-licking shit-eaters. I've seen people literally clench bits of breakfast sausage between thier lips and let their schnauzer eat it out of their mouth as an act of low grade beastiality. And yet it's
cockroaches that propel us into a frenzy of primeval disgust.
"Oh no." Claire announced, ... "I can't stay here."

I am becoming a fan. She is profoundly clear ... so far ... on how bizarre it is for a suburbanite to be travelling in Asia ... It's a fairly good read so far ...

.

There was a little barbeque at my house to help send a couple of my friends off to Texas in California style (if there is such a thing). About 50 people stopped by. Serious eating of ribs and ... there were oysters because Ann (and I) like them ... this chili, and much much later, these clams. It's pretty much covered here and here.

If you look, you can find a picture of my ass -- actually 2 -- with a scissors sticking out of the pocket and just one of me with my shirt off.

Interestingly enough, the late night clamfest with the folks that volunteered to help clean up is extremely well documented. I suppose that Angel was really fascinated at how quickly we were able to devour 5 pounds of clams.

Moonlight Hike to Half Dome Version 4

Vernal Falls
It started innocently enough; a woman named Lisa bringing up a moonlight hike to Half Dome ... me thinking, that's a great idea.

I floated the idea out on Facebook, and my youthful friends quickly chimed in with versions of "I'm in." Some friends were skeptical, others feared we may die like this guy. We talked it over several times, gradually we became advocates for the trip. July 7, after work, we leave for Yosemite, drive to the trail head before midnight, charge up the mountain with moonlight and arrive at dawn, rest a bit and hike down. We had a plan. The Gang of Four™, the Santa Clara Four, the Blues Brothers, half a pack a smokes, a tank of gas, and a mission ... We definately had a plan.

B and I had a 7 mile test hike a few days before; our cear checkes out and we both performed well. Robert had been on the May 17 hike and had done well, George, was pretty much an unknown. He was around 30 and worked all day on his feet ... so I figured he'd manage.

From the trailhead parking lot near Happy Isles to the top of Half Dome and back is roughly 17 miles by my estimate. It climbs around 4500 feet vertically from a starting elevation of about 4000 ft. The trail is mostly hard rock staircases and sandy, rocky trail. It's a substantial hike by most standards. Colder temps during the night and the longer duration of the hike would mean carrying a change of clothes, some real food, and around 3 liters of water. We carried a first aid kit, a water filter and navigation stuff, we we shared the weight of between us.

Although this is a perfect application for my trail runners, they had broken down considerably, so I wore my ever faithful boots.

The 7th arrived, and at the alloted time of 6 PM, we still weren't on the road. Because of the sad state of all of our cars, we rented a car. So we started out at 8 or so. Since some of us hadn't eaten we stopped at the Nations in Hayward for some burgers and fries. We arrived after 1 AM. at 2:00 we were dressed, packed and in the restroom at the trailhead laughing it up, excited to be on the trail.

Robert, Bassel and George in the Restroom at the Trailhead.
The first few minutes of the hike were odd and interesting. As we packed, a ranger cruised through the parking lot, checking us out. We had this strange picture taking session in the restroom at the trailhead, just before we left. We stepped out onto the road, which turned into paved trail ... I led an agressive pace into the first section of the hike. the mile or so up the bridge below Vernal Falls.

We rested and watched as George hurled his Nation burger into the Merced River off the edge of the bridge. I should not write about this, but I'm going to. It happens to the best of us. From that point we left the paved trail and started the 600+ step climb to the top of Vernal Falls. Although we believed we might be able to do this solely by the moonlight, we really needed our headlamps to navigate. It's a fairly broad trail, and at night, there's no traffic to speak of. I tried to take pictures, but my Canon 20D is limited in it's after dark capabilities by it's 30 second exposure maximum (stupid engineers). We continued up the trail with relative ease ... the first real challenge being the last section before the crest of the falls. Fortunate the darkness hid any danger of falling ... and we managed to make it to the top of the falls without even the slightest difficulty.

The next section is a bit challenging. finding and staying on the trail, and locating the bridge is a bit interesting in the dark. We met a family of hikers that misdirected us up the Muir Trail ... and told us it was the Mist Trail. We knew better and eventually found our way.

The next stretch of the trail went about the same, but the delay finding the bridge and the short misdirection up the wrong trail all teamed up to slow us down. We climbed the trail up beside Nevada Falls and arrived at the trail junction above the falls at first light.

We ate, took a break, took crappy pictures, rested. I adjusted my boots. We had travelled about 4.2 miles.

Bassel and George Recovering at the Top of Nevada Falls
We Saw a Deer

Is that Half Dome?
We hiked through Little Yosemite Valley along the Merced River to the campground ... we didn't stop.

Merced River in Little Yosemite Valley
We hiked through to the trail to Half Dome. Through the sandy trails of Little Yosemite Valley to the trail head for Half Dome. 4 miles to go. We forged ahead.

Fire

... Bear Danger
We began to climb again in earnest. The next 4 miles covers about 2400 vertical feet, winding around the back side the mountain. We just kept moving up the trail. as we near the top it is about 10 AM. It is stunning.

People climbing up the cables to the Half Dome summit.

My friends near the top.

Danger

Me at the top of the "Sub-Dome."

View of the cables and Half Dome Summit from the sub-dome.

The Cables -- Photo Robert Hendrickson

View of the Diving Board -- Photo Robert Hendrickson

George Makes it to the Summit -- Photo Robert Hendrickson

Robert Summits
Bassel wanted to turn back somewhere below the top of the sub-dome, so he and I went back down to the flat just below that, while George and Robert continued to the summit. Although I started back up to fetch the boys when it was time to go, I didn't actually make it to the summit, because they were on their way down already.

At about 11, we headed down, beginning the hammering downhill that would eventually damage my foot fairly severely. Amid pressuires of running out of water and getting off the mountain before my left foot disabled me in earnest, we headed down the stony path.

Nevada Fall

Bassel Leading the Way Below Nevada Falls

The Silver Apron

Mist Trail

Danger, Rattlesnake

See the entire set of photos here.

UPDATE: About a month after this, x-rays revealed that I had fracture the second metatarsel in my left foot -- in the way commonly referred to as a march fracture. It's a stress fracture, and is healing well -- albeit slowly.

Moonlight Hike to Half Dome Version 3

In the deep recesses of my memory I lies my first ascent of Half Dome. A three day hike from the Valley to Half Dome, Clouds Rest, and back to the Valley. Day 1, hike 4 miles to Little Yosemite Valley. Day 2 hike to Half Dome summit and back, then on to the summit of Clouds Rest. Day 3, hike the 10 miles and 6000' vertical down to the Valley. Notice having 10 black and blue toes for several months following.

I don't remember it being anywhere near this painful, however. It's three weeks to the day since the hike to Half Dome, and I can just barely manage to walk in a way that looks normal. During the hike up, I was golden, in fact, as we approached the su I was tired, but still very strong. On the way down my toe began to get hammered in my boot, then I began to try to protect it. For at least four miles of the hike my foot was swollen, damaged from the pounding, and a bit heavy. The day after the hike I was pretty good. It was completely traumatized and all that ... but the following day I went to the climbing gym.

Two days after that I was getting x-rays. The day after that it seemed that the swelling was increasing. Apparently it isn't fractured. I read about a treatment that the Muay Thai fighters use called dit da jow. It's a liquid you apply to your feet and shins to reduce the damage from beating them to toughen them up.

I went out to get some of this -- which led me to the martial arts supply warehouse -- where I was directed to the Chinese apothecary. I was asked a lot of questions about my foot and directed to use the dit da jow and wei ling xian (Upright Virgin's Bower), a shrub used to dissolve fish bones if you happen to have swallowed them ... I was directed to boil in vinegar for 5 minutes and apply to my feet. I used the stuff. It seemed to help.

last Monday I went to an Osteopath ... which helped a bunch. He rearranged the bones in my foot a bit. And now I can pretty much walk. Last night I tried to swim ... not really well, and it was kinda painful. It looks like I may be ok by the next hike I have planned on August 9. Maybe.

Pass the Ibuprofen, please.

Oysters

Moonlight Hike to Half Dome Version 2

www.flickr.com

HIRICE ...

That's hydrate, ibuprofen, rest, ice, compression, elevation ... I've decided maybe I should follow my own advice. In all this somewhere there might be an admission that I am actually injured.