WCAC

Sunday, April 30, 2017

Microadventures

We have been experimenting with microadventures of late.

“A microadventure is an adventure that is short, simple, local, cheap – yet still fun, exciting, challenging, refreshing and rewarding.” -- Alastair Humphries

Our ‘take’ on the definition:

Short: Saturday - Sunday
Simple: No planning allowed
Local: Leaving and returning from front door
Cheap: As there is no expenditure for transport or accommodation, feel free to splurge on 5 for $1 avocados or gas station tacos

We have summarized our research results in this handy table and look forward to participating and hearing about more from fellow WCACers...

	TRIP #1	TRIP #2
Moment of inspiration		Scene: Katie telling hilarious stories about the trials and tribulations of her day. Iain staring off into space. Katie: “Do you not get my joke?” Iain: “No I was just thinking about the weekend.” Katie: “You mean where we will camp?” Iain: chuckles Katie: We do now own a camp stove… Iain: It’s not going to use itself...
Original “plan”	Set no alarm for Saturday morning. Aim to leave approximately 7 minutes after consuming flatmate’s day-old baguette for breakfast and stuffing layers, head torches and sleeping bags into rucksacks.	Set no alarm for Saturday morning. Aim to leave approximately 7 minutes after consuming leftover shakshuka for breakfast and stuffing layers, head torches, camp stove and sleeping bags into rucksacks.
Leave time on Saturday	12:00pm	12:00pm
First detour	Flat tyre (Katie) two miles in. Detour 1 mile to bike shop. $7.	No gas cannister for camp stove. First detour Big 5, no dice, then Dicks. $5.
Route Day 1	Map Hugging the coast all the way through Pescadero, to Davenport. 70 miles, 3900 feet up ’n’ down.	Map Daly City, onto Skyline, along the reservoirs, Cañada to Woodside, up King’s Mountain Road to Skyline (5 mile climb, 2k ft), down Tunitas Creek road (8 mile descent) to the coast and the along the (surprisingly hilly!) final 10 miles of coast to Pescadero. 60.7 miles, 5,800 ft up ’n’ down.
Pit Stops	Half Moon Bay. $1 Hot cross bun at HMB bakery and a tea next door. Midway between Pescadero and Davenport. Duped by promise of cheap avocados. They were tiny and not ripe :( Probably for the best as our rucksacks were already bursting at the seams.	Woodside. Robert’s Market for some overpriced German bread twists and soup. (Mile 36, 2.5 hours) The Bike Hut on Tunitas Creek Road east of Half Moon Bay. Snack (incl. Chocolate malted ball found on floor), tea, and return of circulation to Iain’s hands in a little red barn at the bottom of an 8 mile descent - payment on the honor system.
Dinner	Shrimp tacos a la diabla from the place next to Whale City Bakery that doesn’t have a name on Google Maps. Followed by ice cream and pie from the WCB.	We packed fixings for a meal to pop our stove’s cherry, but we thought we’d stop in town for an “appetiser.” The bakery with infamous artichoke bread closes at 6pm, so we “settled” for fish tacos, bottomless chips and pico, and horchata. The face says it all.
Evening	Walking to our chosen bivvy spot, the inviting sounds of some jazz standards wafted out from Davenport’s third and final eatery. It would have been rude not to pop in...	To get us in the mood for cherry-popping, we nipped to the pub for a quick beer, striking up conversation with fellow cyclist Todd, who was waiting on a pick-up from his brother after missing his original turn-off. Aside from telling us about a mystical norwegian community on Skyline (where he lives with his step-brother), buying us beer, and providing a bowl of fries to cram into any gap left by fish tacos, he intrigued us enough to arrange to meet for drinks in the city a few weeks later. That turned out to be at a construction industry networking event, but that’s another story... For those worried that the stove didn’t get the love it deserved... We burnt a ton of homemade popcorn (complete with innovative sports-bra-lid) and then made some burnt-popcorn flavored tea!
Night abode	Shark Fin Cove - a hidden gem!	Pescadero State Beach
Middle of the night visitors	This little critter emerged from our towel/pillow approx 2 seconds after we woke up.	A large group of mexicans spent several hours attempting to make a camp fire on the beach, before disappearing as mysteriously as they appeared.
Breakfast	Cauliflower soup alongside the hippies in Santa Cruz.	Pan Dulce (good ol’ Pescadero Gas Station) and as much day-old challah bread as we could face.
Route Day 2	Map Along the coast, cheering half marathon racers, to breakfast in Santa Cruz. Over the hills on Mountain Charlie Road (a real beauty is Charlie), then down through the reservoir at Los Gatos (not recommended road bike surface!) to the wrong Caltrain station in San Jose. Then mile sprint to correct Caltrain. Leisurely cycle to Lee’s after we missing the hourly train. Sprint back to Caltrain after forgetting the time (see below…). 45 miles, 3200 feet up ‘n’ down.	Map Back into Pescadero for breakfast and putting on our ‘rain gear’. Along Pescadero creek road to La Honda, where the rain started. Down Old La Honda in pouring rain with a grim haul to Peet’s Coffee in Menlo Park. 35 miles, 3000 feet up ‘n’ down.
Pit Stops	Lee’s Sandwiches for Iain’s first and one of Katie’s best Banh Mi, when we missed our first Caltrain.	Peet’s in Menlo Park to raise core body temperature above hypothermia with tea and two egg and cheese sandwiches.

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Agony Ankle

I’d like to share two thoughts that I had at midnight, on top of a mountain, a few weeks ago with you all:

Fuck, I came all the way from SF for this? Thanks for ruining it, Alex.

Instantly followed by...

Shit, poor Alex, this looks bad; how will we get him off this mountain...

“Are you okay? Can you put any weight on it?”

“I’ll be fine, I think I can go on...*insert blood curdling scream*”

Not my own work, obvs

Somewhere along this ridge between Hollins Cross and Lose Hill (in the Peak District National Park, in the middle of England), in the middle of a winter night, my friend Alex hurt his ankle real bad. It made weird noises.

Rewind.

Less than an hour earlier, we were posing for photos.

Me, Jasmin, Konrad, Alex

Defending co-ed champions, Team Haggis On Tour, about to start a 42 mile, overnight, navigation-very-much-required-to-finish fell race, ran in teams of four. Our good friend and long-time rival, Jim, had a crack team and we had the prospect of an epic 8-9 hour battle, punctuated with some riddles I had prepared:

Well, what is the name of the stepson of Simkins?

Everything had been going well: Hollins Cross, the first checkpoint, arrived before I could even bring Mrs Watkins into the equation, and we were setting a blistering pace along the ridge to the second hill. One of my favourite features of the race was Alex’s undoing: teams start at one-minute intervals: fastest teams starting last. As a result, while running along this narrow, muddy ridge, we were having to dive off the track to overtake other teams, chasing Jim who had started a few minutes before us.

I watched Alex try to convince us (himself?) he was fine. After the second scream, the crushing realisation on his face that this was the end of our race -- the thought that he was letting us down -- was worse than the cries of agony it temporarily put aside.

Despite my first emotional reaction (human nature or I’m an asshole), the only person aware that there was a race happening around us was Alex. We'd quickly moved well beyond caring about anything other than Alex: we were on top of a mountain in the winter wearing nothing but lycra. Additional layers on immediately; Jasmin was going to run back to the start, get our car and meet us at the nearest road; Konrad and I would provide shoulders for Alex, and point the compass straight down the hill.

It was slow going, punctuated by yelps from Alex, but I provided an easy subject for mockery (“look how american Iain sounds”, Trump, “When will you get deported”,...) and the prospect of being first team back for the legendary post-race stew kept his mind off the pain.

We got Alex off the hill in around two hours. It had taken 20 minutes to get up. We were sadly disappointed on the stew front:

Six hours too early for anyone except Katie Williams

But we did get to spend the next four hours in the ER:

You might notice that we replaced Konrad with an alcoholic called Paul in the post-race photo. That’s another story.

The NHS finally determined that it was not broken, and sent us on our merry way. At 6am we toasted ourselves for surviving our ordeal, and then headed to bed.

I'd like to propose a toast...

Jim’s team? Well, they won. But there was none of the usual mockery and jocularity: they were gutted for us, and for Alex: the prospect of 6 months off running sends a chill down any runner’s spine.

Why am I sharing this? It’s not a terribly exciting story. Not really as a reminder of the dangers of mountain travel, not as an insight into the drinking culture of middle england, and certainly not as a lesson on mountain rescue.

I think it’s mostly to point out the asymmetry(?) of human nature.

God, we are hard on ourselves.

Jasmin was kicking herself for being just in front and blocking Alex’s view.

Konrad was upset about being responsible for bringing Alex on the team at the last minute, and possibly ruining his season.

Alex blamed himself for ‘being clumsy’ and letting the team down.

I felt very guilty for making Alex feel worse because I’d travelled so far.

Go figure.

Postscript. There are benefits to not running 42 miles. You are able to run the rest of the weekend.

A view of Glencorse reservoir and the Pentland Hills, Edinburgh

Looking towards Bleaklow in the Peak District

Eóin and Stewart showing and my first Allermuir Summit of the year

Monday, February 20, 2017

Ski Mountaineering? More like ski picnicking!

Man, the snow in the sierras is beautiful, isn't it? But every time we go out into it, we learn: Snow is SLOW. Ok, maybe frozen snow can be fast, if you have spikes on your feet, but the deep powdery stuff we have now is SLOW. You have to snowshoe through it, carrying your camp on your back, since you're so SLOW that you won't make it to your destination in one day and now must carry everything with you for an overnight.

I hate moving slow. So until now I've kinda hated deep snow. But we had a hypothesis- we could be fast, maybe, if we changed our approach. What if we used skis? It works for Kilian Jornet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eVBrMcflDE

Minute 10 is where it really starts to get ridiculous.

OK, but I don't want to only travel in ski resorts (downhill skis) or on mostly long angle terrain (cross country skis) and I can't do the drop knee thing (telemark skis) so it's gotta be randonee skis.

This sounds like a great idea. So we purchase all the pieces from various people on craigslist. Some of them turn out to be janky and we're forced to replace parts, but after a few weeks the whole setup seems to be working. In short: these skis are like XC skis uphill, with a free heel and some sticky skins on the bottom, but like downhill skis for the downhill, with a fixed heel and the skins removed.

So, a few times in the last month we took advantage of breaks in the storms and headed to south lake with all our cyborg parts and give this a try. Here's a few lessons:

Fig 1: technique, technique, technique! Skinning uphill is a constant battle to get friction

Fig 2: OK, when the snow goes away (on ridges) you have to carry the skis which seems counterproductive. Not shown: backside of this ridge which has no snow.

Fig 3: You are wearing ski boots. They are not good for much other than skiing

Fig 4a: Downhill is pretty fast if you're GG.

If you're C (Fig4b) you are probably still back in the woods trying to find your ski which came off when you crashed

Fig 5: Backcountry snow is not groomed. Here is a mini-cornice. It is fun, but if it were a big cornice it would not be fun.

Basically, we learned that neither of us is Kilian Jornet, but that this method of travel is much faster but also much more unpredictable than snowshoeing. So far, we've only done what GG calls "ski picnicking" because the mountains we pick are so weenie that it doesn't really qualify as mountaineering. See:

http://www.summitpost.org/waterhouse-peak/272095

http://www.summitpost.org/trimmer-peak/179129

http://www.summitpost.org/red-lake-peak/151517

as fdk suggested, this is us trying to make lemonade out of atmospheric rivers.

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Stopping by the woods for a snowy new year

Certainly a second post ought to be written about our time in Shasta to ring in an Irish new year; after all I organized none of the logistics. However looking back over Erik's pictures of our adventure in the snow and stay in the spiritual dodecahedron reminded me of Frost’s “Stopping by the woods on a snowy evening”. Some people say this poem is about death, but I think Frost was a simple man and stated what he meant: he was in some lovely woods, in the snow, and he was quite fond of the scene.

So here is an ode to Frost and a few of my favorites of the pictures Erik took (the full album can be found here).

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Torres del Paine, Chile

Chile would like to take all of your money, in exchange you will placed on a bus for a dozen or more hours, get to swim in surreal blue lakes, cling to massive walls of granite, cross unstable suspension bridges over violently rushing rivers, and be assaulted by wind, rain, and hail.

I feel obligated to rave about the jaw-dropping beauty of Patagonia, but if I am being completely honest my overall impression is a strong sense of gratitude that it’s over. I know! I know! I am a spoiled, petulant millennial, incapable of appreciating my privilege of even being able to travel this far corner of the globe let alone embody adequate respect for the nature that created it. So rather than make my case I leave you with a list of logistics, a digital scrapbook of the adventure, and the resolution to explore more domestically.