Here I Love You

Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.


Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

Pablo Neruda, 1959.

Camp Quinebarge

This is reposted from my website circa 1997.

Camp Quinebarge in Center Harbor, New Hampshire. Located on Lake Kanatsatka in the Lakes Region, Camp Q is home for many young people for seven weeks each summer. While at Camp Quinebarge, the campers, and the counselors, instructors, and administrators, find a rich and rewarding experience. During the Summer of 1996, I had the pleasure of teaching Primitive Ceramics, for about four hours each day. I found the opportunity to influence and touch so many lives to be worth the effort, and often I wish I could do it often, in favor of what I am typically doing.

In some unique way this experience reinforced my fundamental belief that teaching art involves the cultivation of a way of doing and being that ultimately reaches back through history at least to the point where humanity first discovered that the dirt under the cook fire had fused together to form a bowl., and reaches inward towards a heart that yearns to speak.

Discovering that it's fairly easy to form a simple vessel with your hands and the earth and wood that's readily available, enables us to draw on this vast history when creating Art. And it allows us to understand and give a form to our existence, our emotions, one in which we are confident, self-reliant, and can have at least a smattering of pride.

We discovered in that earth and fire that it was possible to have a great deal of fun and to make friends with ourselves, with each other, and with the earth that stood before us. We learned about the clay, about history and myth surrounding it, about an ancient tradition of making art. And after that we all went for a swim.

... Back on the Road

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't been riding my bike all that much. Some things have changed ... My job, for example. I have a somewhat nasty 12 mile bike ride to get to work plus a 45 minute train ride -- meaning 3-4 hours of commute everyday ... If I drive it's only 35 minutes.

My bike bag has been gone. For quite awhile. Which means a backpack (umm ... no), or the crap bag made by timbuktu&trade (again no). Or not being able to carry anything on my road bike. Despite having a couple of mountain bikes ... as soon as I had a decent messenger bag I took the racks off my bikes and gave them away. They never were all that good at carrying my stuff -- a computer, a stack of groceries, and so on.

SO today I bought a new Chrome Citizen, just like my old one. It has some new features, like the insertable laptop cozy, keyring loop, light attachment point, and new phone and Ipod carrier. Generally it's the same awesome bag, but strictly for righties (left shoulder?) ... never mind us goofy footed bastards. I bought one anyway, figuring it would be good to try it on the dark side. It could take awhile to grab my bag, swing it on, clip the buckle, stick my left foot in and cowboy it all up on to my steed, but I'll get the hang of it. C'est le vie.

Yesterday, at the gym ... I was doing the fly with like a 12 on the weight scale markings and I surprised something in my chest and it responded with a popping sound and some pain ... And I noticed the weather outside was suprisingly good. Like 70 degrees, sun, slight breeze, you know ... the barefoot me in shorts everywhere weather. Pass me a whine cooler. Winter, it seems, is fading. And so is weight lifting. I tried to row a thousand meters on the machine in my typical 5 minutes ... and I looked outside again. I went down stairs and got into the hot tub.

SO today I rolled my road bike out of it's winter hiding place. Added new stuff to it's bike bag, watered up the drinking bottle. Put my bike bag stuff in the new bike bag. Called up my bike riding buddy. "I think it's time for a ride," I said stupidly.

We rode 13 miles, and stopped for sushi in the middle. We rode back in the dark ... and it was really dark. Not too bad for the first ride in a while. A good start to the Spring.

The Dating Lesson

I guess I am dating ... It's more than a bit stressful, actually. It kind of snuck up on me, dating. Previously, I always liked to try to find a dating loophole (think Elaine in Seinfeld). The problem with dating loopholes, is they aren't actually dates. If I go out with friends to blah blah blah, or visit someone I like at blah, blah, blah, or casually lunch with so and so at work it's not really a date. So, no pressure. And no romance, and no reward, and no second date. If I don't admit they are dates, the likelihood of failure drops substantially, but so does the likelihood of success. No date, no prizes. Sure, I like you. I am pretty busy. Yes, (maybe) we can be friends. If it's not a date, then actually, I don't want to that much.

The problem with dating is that it's dating. There's a bunch of pressure to be Mr. Right, to be smart, to know how to behave, and to know what's the cool thing to do. I was at the grocery store tonight and this woman was retelling a horrible first date story, and it's brutal. The guy, that guy, didn't stand a chance, but not because of the woman, he didn't listen, basically wasn't dialed in at all, and didn't even know how to pay for dinner politely (I mean without being inadvertently insulting). He missed at every opportunity to succeed.

It's hard to be the guy though. I am supposed to know where to go, what's cool to do, and when and if I should offer to pay for everything. So I feel a little bit for that guy. But not that much. He obviously didn't catch the subtle clues, do his homework, or really appreciate his predicament. I am not sure I did any better on any of my efforts last week. I had one date -- that wasn't actually a date. I met one woman at a funeral and managed to figure out how to go to where she works and try to ... well I don't know ... get a date (I have been reduced to stalking). Another person didn't show actually, and the third, well it went better than that guy. At least I knew how to pay for everything. And to give my date some credit, she wasn't too hard on me for having absolutely no idea what I am doing.

Aside from last week, I think the last real date I went on was in 2001 ... So, maybe I am a bit rusty. I'm 51. I was married for ten years, had a couple of romances in college ... have had all of about a dozen real dates in my life, if you count the prom, so maybe I never was all that good at it. In addition to being dialed in to a substantial career, having two kids in college, being a ambitious photographer and wilderness adventurer, I am supposed to know where the great place to eat is, have reservations, and know where the good place for Margaritas, despite real indicators that my date isn't going all that well, and do it without a kayak, hiking, riding a bike, being able to eat raw fish (or use any other superpowers).

I am supposed to do all this, even though I never really cared all that much for dating. I like sex (go figure), girlfriends, love, partnership, marriage, family, and to be committed to these things. But dating, not so much. Being on the spot, hair combed, clean shirt, best behavior, funny, charming, smart, with a plan, and a back up plan. I am not sure I am up to the job. It's pretty clear that I need to sharpen up my game. After having heard the review of that guy, I am sure I am in a lot better shape than he is, my date actually might want to go out again. Imagine what he feels like.

Wondering ...

When I should let my friends in the Twin Cities know that I am planning a trip that includes me being dropped off at MSP in May with my bike.

What d'y'all think?

Bad Things Happen in Threes

That's what my great-grandmother always said. Today, two people I know passed. One, a person who has been a part of my life since my earliest memories, whose children were my playmates, and friends. Our friendships were there all the time, but when something like this happens ... the strength of those life-long friendships rises to the surface, tears flow, bonds renew ... She was my next door neighbor for most of my early life, for 20 plus years. She ran a catering business from there, which grew up to be a restaurant later. A restaurant I frequent and enjoy. I think she's been feeding me once a week or so since I was about two. There's no question, she's been a powerful figure in my community for my entire life. The loss is immeasurable. My heart goes out to my life long friends.

It's not just my community though. A huge number of people I know have been there, met her, know the joy. So many people around me have expressed their sadness at her passing, people I never knew were there, never imagined would have known her. We'll need to find a way to carry on.

Two -- Franchot, a man I barely know, a patron of a cafe I frequent, passed away today. I don't really care about the details. We talked often, he took an unique interest in me, in what I was doing, in the things I was doing, in a way that let me feel as if he was my friend. I looked forward to seeing him. He was a good man. He cared. A friendship cut so short. What a tragedy.

And for me -- I've been inspired by watching the Olympics. I went to the gym last night and worked out hard. All my junk hurts today. I've been getting flabby. I decided I need to start to ride my bike more -- so I took the Surly to work in my truck. I rode at lunch. 9 miles. It was good. I hurt, but I feel good.

Now, about what my grandmother said ... I'm waiting for that third thing. That third bad thing.

I Saw Your Ads Toyota ...

... where you claim to want to restore my confidence in your quality product. You have a long way to go. I noticed the picture of the 70's era Land Cruiser inspiring me to want to own one of your tough vehicles. It's not working really. Those pictures, those suggestions of happy families; those are of old cars, an old Toyota -- that's not me and my car.

I am the guy whose always scraping together an extra grand to get his car maintained. I am the guy that goes to Toyota to pay a couple of hundred bucks to have a guy explain how the air conditioner is working the way it originally did, even though we all know better.

I remember after I drove my truck though some water 18 inches deep for a while and then the slave cylinder on the clutch failed, which isn't that unusual (or is it?), that the Toyota dealer (2 actually) told me he couldn't find anything wrong, even though the clutch pedal randomly collapsed to the floor and stayed there while driving. When this happens it is important to reach down and pull it back up to it's normal position, which is what some people are telling Toyota owners they might want to do to their gas pedal while there car is speeding ahead. Lucky for me the local mechanic was able to diagnose and fix the problem with my clutch.

I remember seeing those Kurdish Toyota trucks, with the machine guns mounted on them, tearing up the desert and wonder if they had to stop and turn back during a mission because their steering rack failed in the middle of a trip. I am sorry, the romance of it all just isn't getting through to me. The quality of your cars, I am thinking ... it's just not there.

My truck is a 2003 Tacoma, and the real story is about the electronic throttle controller, my gas pedal. When it first started behaving erratically, my car had about 90,000 miles on it. The primary symptom was that the acceleration would disappear randomly while accelerating, particularly at freeway speed.

So I took it to the dealer, several, in fact. Superstition Toyota in Mesa Arizona, Toyota 101 in Redwood City, California, and City Toyota in South San Francisco. Repeatedly I was told that they couldn't find a problem ... bring it back if it gets worse. SO finally I took it to the independent Toyota Shop (C&T, in San Mateo, CA), and they diagnosed and found the problem, a faulty throttle motor controller, a part which costs about 1300 dollars. I am sure this is why Toyota didn't want to find the problem. C&T found me a used one which they installed for much less, and it's been running well since.

The problem that I see isn't so much that the quality isn't there (it obviously isn't), but to have seemingly reasonable people tell me that there's nothing wrong with my car, when there clearly is, is definitely a problem. In fact, denial of the problems with Toyota vehicles seem to go way beyond my car and the three or four dealers I have dealt with, it seems to stem from the very top level of the company. Listening to the news reports leaves me thinking that Toyota knew there were problems with their cars, dangerous problems, and categorically denied the problems at a time when full disclosure seemed imperative.

It's really easy for me to believe this since they have repeated done this -- denying there's a problem -- about every problem I have brought to them.

Your advertisements are good Toyota, but I feel that you are trying to whitewash a somewhat dire situation. It's hard to believe the sincerity of the ads, when your mechanics and service advisors have been standing in front of me, telling me it's fine when it isn't, on a regular basis for several years.

Personally, after this car, I don't think I'll ever own a Toyota again.

In The Wild ... With Other Sublime Fish.

So I had a long protracted conversation while eating raw fish earlier today. And we talked about whales and sharks, and monkeys, and predation ... and intelligence. And intra-uterine cannibalism.

Then I brought up the sublime. Friedrich's Monk at the Seashore. One man standing before the storm. Dylan, singing Shelter from the Storm, trading for a lethal does of salvation, Rothko's void, a terminal abyss we may all have stood before. It's a common theme in my early writings, man's tendency to isolate himself from the wilderness. The ocean in Friedrich's painting, is just beyond the monk, hence the sublimity of it, the storm is held at bay, which I submit, is quite delightful. Rothko's glimpses into the void remind us that we haven't fallen in, we haven't submitted to our desire. My early arguments for the void were sophisticated, quoting Foucault, Lyotard, even Carlos Fuentes, I wove a complicated treatise into the sublime, a treatise of fear.

I had no idea then that knafeh even existed. Knafeh is effing sublime. Dante's gluttony. It is so exquisite, so rich, such a wilderness of joy that one might fall to it. As my friend Carol said, "I think I'll cry." Without help, I surely would have succumbed. It is a succubus. I should have died.

So what's the point of all this? To discuss the merits of some other dessert? No.

Our conversation was regarding the high intelligence of Orcas. I brought up the sublime in order to emphasize the idea that we believe ourselves to be separate from nature, to be separate from the animals, to be separate from the wilderness. We are capable of creating constructs to support our beliefs that we are spiritual, intelligent, philosophical beings, and therefore not animals. By "we," of course, I mean the "bright" people in the "West." We are not really in the wild. We are civilized.

I ate a squid the other day, grilled, no less. Ika Shioyaki. I felt like an animal. We are clearly at or near the top of the food chain. Very few other animals would find us to be food. Crows. Vultures, sharks, coyote, polar bears, mountains lions, wolves perhaps. Orcas? I have trouble making sense of the natural order of things. I feel like an animal. Yet we, as a society, have separated ourselves from the animals.

In doing this, we have explained so much. Our management of the animals, the wild lands, the landscape. Our justification of our own intellectual superiority. Our insistence into the management of all of the wild aspects of the earth. We explain our existence, our raison d'etre, as caretakers of this place, the Earth. Haven't we made a few presumptions? Sure, we should take of this place. But, are we sure we are right?

I am in a wilderness, yet I am not an animal. Go figure.

Eating Right

So I went to the doctor a while ago ... who claimed I was pre-diabetic (fasting sugar > 100, me @103). ... and so on ... till Dr. Lorenzato recommended the Paleo diet. Let's review the Paleo diet ... cave-man food, fruits nuts, berries, the occasional cat, meat and fish, and wild meat or fish if you can get it, yeta, yeta, yeta, and no grains agricultural products. It's a grain free diet -- with little or no veggies.

"That's kinda radical," claims one of my friends, "you'll starve." My fitness guru was surprised, "You have a doctor recommending the Paleo diet? Where did you find him?" He's the son of one of my early mentors, and I accidentally picked him out of the phone book. Blah, blah, blah. I claim.

I love food. Since I stopped smoking and started to exercise, I eat. So much so, so aggressively, that some people hint that I might have a tapeworm. I'm typically famished. And people saying things like, "I had to stop and eat on the way so I could order some thing good, rather than the largest thing on the menu" do not surprise, nor do statements like, "That looks like it's about what you normally eat, maybe you should put more in there so the rest of us can eat." I would usually rather eat. Everything is better with butter.

I went to visit my friend, let's call her Rose, who was on a meat only diet. Sort of Paleo gone arctic. Atkins with a "NO." Yeah -- meat. The good, the bad, and the ugly. She looks healthier than I have ever known. Go meat.

So I have pushing my diet towards meat, ever inspired by this quote from Left for Dead by Beck Weathers, and by my cave-man friends:

"... Two interesting things happened the next day. A wolf ran out on the trail.
One of the Dani (New Guinea Tribesman) whipped out his bow. ... and dropped the
wolf in mid-stride....Then he and the rest of them fell on the animal and ate it
raw. ... They wolfed him down."

"They wolfed him down." That's how I want to eat. It's how I do eat. It's pretty hard though. Order a chicken salad and it's filled with shitty white bread croutons, sugary dressing. Eat sushi and it plonked down on rice. It's a wide spread conspiracy to pack your body with cheap ugly calories, pasta. As Julia Childs' said, "It's starch." Intended to fill you up.

Despite all the failings, my failings, it's working, the Paleo diet. I am at 154 lbs and holding. My joints don't hurt. I feel good.

Weekend in Paradise

It was a promising weekend. Two days and two nights camping in Yosemite, with a potential for snow in the valley. My friend and I both have new tents, so here was a chance to test them out, and test our mettle a bit. It was probably going to be freezing or below on both nights.

Sunday Skiing. 6 miles total, out to the Bridalveil Campgrond on Glacier Point Road for about 6 miles total. In the afternoon it snowed enough to get us a little wet and slow down our skis.

Monday we went for a hike out to the Snow Creek trailhead and back from HappyIsles, for what I think is about a 6 mile trip. It rained continously on Monday, including all the time of the hike and all the time spent pack and all the time traveling home.

Drying out my gear in the living room. I burned a crapload of calories this weekend, and I am still hungry.

The Zen of Being Me.

Virgin River Cattails
It's almost 5 years since I went on this trip to the Colorado river. To mee t various wilderness gods and find out more than a few things about myself. I remember people laughing and telling river stories and talking about this and that, and how the "groover" -- riverspeak for the toilet (an ammo can really, with a toilet seat on top of it) -- always was set up in a place with a great view. Why is it called "groover," someone asks. "Imagine what it would be like if it didn't have a seat; That's the way it used to be," was the response. ... Yeah, imagine that. The stories ... finding sand years later in your gear.

Returning to Flagstaff after the trip I called Jeff Foott on the phone in his room at the Radisson, "I'm on the groover," him; "How's the view," me, repeating the mantra of twelve days on the river. The hotel room after unpacking was an adventure in sand, I unpacked, sand ... the fine pink and brown sand of the Colorado ... spread throughout the room. I moved my gear to my truck, which now had sand. Sand. I went home. Sand everywhere. Invasive; vacuum, clean, more sand.


I just opened a lens filter case in preparation for this weekend's trip to Yosemite and felt that fine sharp texture ... the fine sand of the Colorado. I thought of all the friends I made there.

Tomorrow, Andrew and I will head into what is predicted to be a storm in Yosemite, probably unlike this storm that Jim Fitzgerald and I drove into last year, but this week promises ten feet of snow in the higher elevations, and rain in the valley. Oddly enough, Jim will be there in Camp 4 when we arrive. Andrew and I will hopefully ski, or snowshoe out to Dewey Point. Me, sandy photo gear, cat crap on my glasses, pink sunglasses, and a camera. The joy never ends. Zen.

There's Just No Story ...

really ... Conan O'Brien won't give up the Tonight Show, the surfers don't want to start the Mavericks because it's raining, despite a 20 ft NW swell. If you're wondering, that means it's clench time over at Mavericks, with triple-overheads. Tonight, it's raining in earnest here, and it's keeping me awake. I want to watch the news and see if this apartment falls into the sea. It means a serious snowfall in the Sierras.

I have lived here most of my life, and every year the pundits claim drought ... and time and again the Pacific storm track has proven that it can make up for a a year's deficit in a very short period of time, especially when it's what the call an "El Nino" year. Although the weather gurus are predicting 10-18 inches from this storm, I am just saying it now -- it's could snow a shitload.

I am packing my gear for the weekend.

... Simile

…(Simile)Images of Manhattan from October 2004Shawn Kieltyhttp://shawnkielty.com/NY/manhattan.htm

Copyright 2004, Shawn Kielty, all rights reserved.






Journal entry, October 8 2004 NYC:Did you happen to run up to me on this corner while I was shooting this photo to talk about my camera and photography? I met an attractive woman (a fitness instructor, perhaps) while shooting this picture, and I keep thinking that I should have introduced myself or found some way to stay in contact because – it was a charged conversation about cameras and photography and being an artist in life, about how we have to resort to things like being a fitness instructor or software engineer despite both having fairly accomplished degrees in fine art. It was excellent to talk with someone who was really interested in the same thing that I am. It’s fascinating to me that this small event would somehow define my recent visit to Manhattan.









Originally from the suburbs of San Francisco, award winning Artist Shawn Kielty currently lives in Mesa, AZ. Early in his career Shawn was primarily a Painter and trained at the San Francisco Art Institute, California State University, Hayward and eventually received a MFA degree at Washington State University.

“My first cameras, were the collection of family cameras, a brownie, an original PolaroidTM, and a pocket camera. And then there was the plastic Diana, a cheap camera with a plastic lens that I won at the county fair. From the earliest of large format experiences, shot in an oatmeal box camera, to my current exploration of the 4x5 format, the camera has always been a part of my art experiences. It seems today to be a foregone conclusion that I would focus my attention on photography.“

Shawn has been included in more than 50 national and regional exhibitions, lectured and taught fine art during his career.

We the People ...

Reposted from 1, 8, 10 and 11 July 2008 regarding a backpacking trip in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness in Southern Oregon.

1 July 2008




In a few days I'll be going back to the Charcoal Cathedral. On this trip I may actually miss the Biscuit Fire. I don't know because this is new. Everytime I have been to the Kalmiopsis wilderness, I have seen the result of the Biscuit Fire. I'll be going in to the Illinois river at Pine Flat. It's a fair piece upstream from my last trip. 4 days, 1 old river, 2 old friends, 2 old dogs.

8 July 2008

Day one included a two and a half hour drive from Grants Pass, OR to the Illinois River Trailhead at Briggs Creek near Miami Bar on the Illinois River, and a forty-five minute hike to Panther Creek, where we eeked out a rocky camp. Let's all keep in mind that we are still in the charcoal cathedral.

The camp at Panther Creek, just outside of the Kalmiopsis wilderness.

Next, York Creek Botanical Area, and the trail to the Illinois River near Pine Flat.

10 July 2008


That sign used to say "Entering the Kalmiopsis Wilderness" or something like that. It was torched during the Biscuit Fire.

The Illinois River.

A carnivorous Pitcher Plant in the York Creek Conservation Area

Ummm ... What is this Yellow Flower? Also in York Creek. Michael Parker of Southern Oregon University has helped me to identify this flower as a California coneflower, Rudbechia californica. Thanks Michael.

Jim shooting a picture

11 July 2008


... spent a couple of days in camp along the Illinois river at Pine Flat. Out in the open grassy flat we found the carcass of a bottle rocket that looked recently used. Fear and anger rise. Fear of being trapped by a fire, and anger that someone would take such a high risk over something so foolish. How could anyone be in this charred wilderness and actually consider using fireworks. To any one that would actually think of doing such an insane thing let me say this: Please don't go into the wilderness to shoot off fireworks, please continue to do that only inside your own house, so the damage will be restricted (hopefully) to only your stuff.

I saw a turkey, and a red fox. The red fox made an cranky, angry, loud, scary, run off your enemies, frightful sound. I have never heard a noise like that except maybe the time I heard the racoon lovemaking -- which is ummm ... really noisy. Anyway -- the fox came by the camp during the night to make that same noise while we were sleeping, or so I heard later.


This is Jim wearing the Albert Einstien hat with grass stuffed underneath it to keep the mosquitoes from drilling through the bandana into his head. I'm an advocate of the Albert Einstien hat, which is a bandana with a knot tied in each of the four corners. Any sculptor or physicist will immediate understand how this turns a flat rag into a bowl shaped hat.




The Sierra Designs Light Year in camp.

thewildschool.com

Last night I registered a new domain name. thewildschool.com. I'm not completely sure what I am going to do with it, but I'll think of something.

Your Script ...

Caution: This might get a bit geeky -- but, I still hack a bit to pay for all of this.

Today, I wrote a very short tcl script that executed a mysql query from the command line in a unix shell, spitting back the results less than gracefully. In short it was a quicky hack to provide some functionality, i.e. visibility into a database.

It started like this:

#!/bin/sh \
exec /usr/bin/tclsh "$0" ${1+"$@"}
# end of excerpt

"What is this (regarding these two lines) and ... what's it for?" asks one of my coworkers. I hadn't really thought about it for several years. "It gets around a 32 character magic line length limitation for long path names ... blah, blah, blah. It's habit," I say, "dressed up as good practice." spitting back stuff I was taught by this guy. I went and lookeditup. The truth is ... I have written programs in tcl on various flavors of unix, including SCO and 4.xBSD and HPUX 9.x (these are all pretty archaic systems at this point) and worked in a place with 20 flavors of tcl spread all over a huge system. This was the best way to do it. Now, most of these systems are located in back dusty rooms, running archaic legacy systems, and probably won't be running any of my scripts ... but my scripts will still be up to it.

Solstice with Wolves

Awesome post by Jill Homer.

Hidden Villa

"Hidden Villa is a nonprofit educational organization that uses its organic farm, wilderness, and community to teach and provide opportunities to learn about the environment and social justice. Hidden Villa stretches over 1600 acres of open space in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, about 40 miles south of San Francisco. Our mission is to inspire a just and sustainable future through our programs, land and legacy." (From the Hidden Valley website)

The mother of my children tells me that she's been buying organic pork and lamb there.

Look Better Almost Naked Challenge.

My friend Saul -- Challenging us to eat better.

A License to Eat

Robert and the North face Mountain 25.

The South Rim.

Chile at the Ahwanee.

The fireplace in the great room at the Ahwahnee Hotel.

Robert and Campfire at Camp 4, January 3, 2010.

North Rim of Yosemite Valley in the Blue Moonlight

Moonlight Sot to Rival Dave Kohr's.

Ravens

Skiing is interesting at least. It is work, real work, even as it gets easier. Cross country sking requires the body to do a bunch of unusual movements. Although we can't really ski very hard, I can see active skiing burning a thousand calories an hour.

I went to Yosemite (again?) this weekend. I've sorta decided to try to do something more formal with the photos I've take, or at least try to apply myself to taking them a bit more seriously. Anyway -- we drove up Saturday morning, taking the Mountain Tent on it's maiden voyage, made camp, and had a bowl of Chili at the Ahwanee.

We had a campfire, and I shot photos of the blue moon, to see if I could rival Dave Kohr's. I also shot phots of the moon lit North wall of the valley above Camp 4 while we stood around the fire.

The tent performed admirably. It was a bit wet ... after spending the night below freezing at Camp 4. The trade offs to keep the tent warm were to seal up the top and have it be a bit more drippy inside from the condensation. Mostly, my nose was cold. I finally put the neck gaiter over it ...

In the morning it was icy on the outside of the tent, we opted for coffee with breakfast over at the Yosemite Lodge, a decision I always regret. The food is kinda sucky, but the place was warm anyway. Then we went up to Badger Pass for a ski. We skied out the Glacier Point road for about two miles and back. We struggled with the wax for Robert's skis, slippy skis, slippy snow, sticky klister, sticky snow, I didn't have the exact wax for mixed corn snow with glisteny crap, alternating repeatedly. Welcome to California. Just a short side note ... Saul, those skis rock!! I had no problems.

The ravens followed us up the trail, looking to see if we dropped anything, any food, anything shiny. Maybe they remembered me from two weeks ago when I think I might have dropped some turkey jerkey. I keep waiting to see if they will lead me to some game. I've heard that ravens can tell when men are hunting, and pay more attention to them. It's all about the food for those ravens, it's like they have a license to eat. It's all about the food for me too.

Once back -- we broke camp and headed for food. We ate, a couple of times, and I'm stil hungry, I think I'll be extra hungry tomorrow too. Skiing is like ... a license to eat.