Wizards, Slots, & Rattles

Here's the first report from El Viaje Fall 2010.

I didn't drive too far from Corvallis until I arrived at my first stop, Waldo Lake. Waldo Lake is located on the crest of the Oregon Cascades. It's about 2.5 hours drive from Corvallis. The plan was to meet the man previously known as FixItMan and the Nav Unit, then do an overnight kayak trip. I say "previously known as FixItMan" because somewhere in the course of this trip we decided to start calling him the Wizard. The Wizard and I spent the night at a parking lot next to the lake and the Nav Unit showed up the next morning. We loaded up the two kayaks with gear and headed out.

The weather was wet. It rained off an on during the whole trip. The lake was beautiful. It has some of the clearest water I've ever seen. When we kayaked over the deepest part the color was a deep purple that I don't think I've ever seen in water. No one seemed to mind the rain much. Eventually we found a campsite on an isolated bluff at the end of a peninsula. I think it was when we started setting up camp that the Nav Unit began referring to FixItMan as the Wizard. The Wizard kept producing objects which we were wisihing we had, which I think was why the Nav Unit started calling him the Wizard. It had started at the parking lot, where the Wizard produced some dry bags. The dry bags kept the critical stuff (clothing and bedding) perfectly dry. Next was a tarp, complete with stakes and cord to string it up. The Nav Unit and Wizard did a great job putting up the tarp, using kayak paddles as poles. The tarp was tall enough that I could stand up under it. It was angled against the wind, so the effective area it kept dry was larger than the floor plan. It kept the Nav Unit and I dry all night, despite sometimes heavy rain. I slept with only a sleeping bag covering me. Next was good fire starter, which proved critical to getting a fire going. The Wizard also constructed the fire pit, which was designed so that most of the heat was radiated towards the tarp. The fire really made the night much more comfortable. It was hot enough to keep us dry even though it was exposed to the rain. The Nav Unit and I at one point jumped into the lake and raced back up the bluff to the fire. I'm not sure we would have done that if we didn't have a fire.

The next morning we paddled back to our vehicles. I said goodbye to the Nav Unit and followed the Wizard east towards his dwelling in Central Oregon. It was nice to take a shower and relax a bit after being out in the cold rain for a couple days. The next morning I left.

The weather quickly turned much dryer as I crossed into the desert state of Nevada. I spent the next night at a trailhead about an hour east of Reno. I arrived there later in the day but I was so taken by the stark desert on clear day that I hiked off in a semi-random direction heading uphill. I lost track of time and returned in the dark, having left my headlamp in the Buffalo. The next day I went on a longer hike, still in a semi-random direction. I came across some aircraft components littered on the ground. I saw landing gear, some kind of tank, and what I believe was a compressor turbine from a turbojet engine. All of it was beat up and worn really bad, far beyond a repairable state. I figured it must be from a plane wreck. There was a military aircraft base nearby, maybe the plane had originated there? After taking some photos I headed back to the Buffalo, making a big loop. I continued driving eastwards, traveling along what was billed as "The Lonliest Highway". I didn't feel too lonely, but it was pretty empty. The highway ran perpendicular to long valleys separated by mountain ranges. The valleys were once filled with glaciers, which had moved south and scoured out the valleys. It was hard to believe that these valleys were once filled with ice. Now it was a hot, dry, bare desert with hardly any vegetation to be seen in any direction. After stopping to climb and run down a giant sand dune, I continued to Eastern Nevada. Near the Utah border I stopped at a park and hiked up one of the taller peaks, Wheeler Peak. Later I learned that Wheeler was Nevada's tallest peak, at 13k ft in elevation. It also housed what was purported to be Nevada's only glacier. The summit provided a great view on a clear day. It wasn't an especially difficult hike, but I definitely felt the altitude. As had occurred in the Andes, I felt a bit nauseous and had a headache. The trees had begun to reappear at higher elevations in Eastern Nevada. At the start of the Wheeler hike there were forests of Aspen and Bristlecone Pine. Examples of the latter are amongst the oldest living things found. The leaves were turning colors. Fall had arrived here. The golden hillsides reminded me of Upstate New York in the Fall. I also visited the glacier. For sure, there wasn't much left. It was maybe the size of a couple of city blocks. It did have a couple of crevasses. It looked like some interesting routes might form uphill from the glacier in the right season.

After the glacier hike I headed southeast into Utah, then east skirting the Utah / Arizona border. I stopped to check out some slot canyons. I ended up doing a 26 mile backpacking trip, almost entirely at the bottom of slot canyons. The bottom of a slot canyon is it's own little universe, and entering one is like being teleported. The bottoms are river beds. At times they were no wider than the width of a person, and had walls which could be several hundred feet high. In comparison to the top of the canyon the bottom is cool, moist, and dark. In some places the canyon widened into miniature oases where trees and plants grew. The canyons form an interlinked network. I estimated that the full network I was in extended for about 70 miles. When a thunderstorm comes the canyons are a bad place to be in. Any mechanical engineer could tell you why, but the sight of logs spanning the canyon walls 50 ft up in the air was all you needed to see. The slot canyons are funnels for huge, intermittent flows of water. In my entire slot canyon trip I found only one spot where I could climb out, and it was a good scramble. At nightfall, bats came out to hunt for insects, sometimes buzzing me. The canyon walls highly amplified all sounds. The swoosh of a bird flying by was startling. I could literally hear grains of sand falling. The water had left it's mark in all kinds of smoothed out, fluidic rock formations. The rock was colored in hues of red and pink by the different layers of sandstone. Parts of the canyon floor were wet from springs or from water which trickled down from a canyon wall.

After leaving the canyon I hiked along a nearby desert trail which started at the Utah / Arizona border. I soon discovered that the trail crossed all of Arizona from Mexico to Utah. I encountered a rattlesnake during this hike. I must have startled it because it quickly slithered off under a nearby bush. It was well hidden under the bush, but I knew it was there. It must have hoped I hadn't seen it or wasn't interested in it because it wasn't making any noise. I picked up some pebbles and threw them at the bush. The snake now knew that I knew where it was. Wasting no time putting it's new found knowledge to work, the snake initiated it's next defensive measure, which was to shake it's rattle. (Thereby also confirming that it was, in fact, a rattlesnake.) I briefly considered trying to fish it out somehow so I could get a better look at it. Some primitive part of my brain protested vehemently against the idea, however, convincing me that any critter which broadcasts it's location so loudly must be capable of hurting me pretty good. The rattle had worked. Upon my arrival at the trailhead I noticed a large "Caution: Rattlesnakes" sign which I had somehow missed. Later I found out afterwards that rattlesnake bites are extremely poisonous, and potentially fatal. One account I read on the web resulted in a 35 day hospital visit plus 13 surgeries. After the hike I headed to Lake Powell. A dip in the lake was very welcome on a hot desert day and was my first bath in almost a week.

That pretty brings me to my present day status. I'm writing this from Page, Arizona, near the shores of Lake Powell. I should arrive in Texas City in a week or so, depending what other places catch my fancy on the way there. The photo at the top is of a horny toad (which apparently is actually a lizard, not a toad) I saw during the rattlesnake hike. More photos are here.

Underworlds & Strawberry Mountains

It's drizzling outside as I write this. I'll be leaving Corvallis for Texas tomorrow. The start of the rain makes it a bit easier to leave. The Buffalo's got a brand new set of tires, a new drinking water pump (the old one froze during our ice climbing trip in Colorado), and has had a check-up with the mechanic. My house is rented out to college students again. I just need to make some final decisions about what I'm going to take with me and load up the Buffalo.

I've had a few more outings since my last entry. In August the NavUnit, SecurityChief, Matt, and I climbed Three Finger Jack in the Oregon Cascades. After the climb we spent a night out next to a lake, then searched for some caves the next day. The caves were the most novel part of the trip for me. The location of these particular caves is a well kept secret. Cavers in general seem reluctant to divulge the locations of caves. The reason typically given is that others will show up and trash them. After seeing these caves I think another good reason is that you could easily get yourself into a lot of trouble. After hiking cross-country with no apparent trail we came to what looked like giant, cone shaped anthills made out of pumice (a volcanic rock). The anthills turned out to be miniature craters. Inside were holes that opened up into lava tubes. The second one we saw was very impressive. It was a shaft oriented at maybe 80 degrees. The hole at the top was maybe a dozen feet across, but it quickly opened up into a much larger diameter. The shaft went down at least a few hundred feet before it turned completely black. We couldn't see the bottom. It was an odd feeling to suddenly discover that you were standing over a very large empty space which you had previously believed to be solid earth. Kind of like walking on the roof of a domed stadium, believing that it's solid all the way down to the Earth's center, then suddenly peering through a hole in the roof and realizing that there's a whole other environment underneath you. I'd read about caves which extend for many miles, far underground, some with underground rivers and lakes. I now understood why many societies have legends about the underworld.

We'd brought climbing gear with us and started looking for a way to set up a rappel anchor. The second cave required a free rappel down the center of the cave. We didn't know if our rope was long enough to reach anything solid, so we'd have to be prepared to ascend the rope. We weren't sure if we could gather our nerves to do it, but I told the NavUnit that if he could build a solid anchor I would go. The NavUnit's safety module seemed to be operating well, and he's previously rescued climbers off of mountains, so I left the judgment of the anchor's safety up to him. He couldn't find anything near the entrance which satisfied him. There was a dead tree which seemed solid but, as I said, was dead. The rock walls around the crater moved when the NavUnit set up and tested an anchor in them. We didn't have enough rope to reach the nearest ideal anchor (a big living tree), so we decided to look for another cave. Another thing I realized about caving is that it requires a lot of gear. I thought climbing was a gear intensive sport, but serious caving requires far more gear. It was clear we didn't have enough gear. At the very least we needed a few hundred feet of static rope just to set up a good anchor. Better lights would have been good too. We found a third cave. It had a very large opening, with a relatively short drop to a sloped floor you could stand on. The anchor was still a problem. The NavUnit did the best he could with what he had, but it was far from ideal. Since I had previous experience serving as a self propelled disposable anchor tester I went down first. If the anchor failed I'd probably just be permanently maimed instead of instantly dead, as would have been the case with the second cave. Fortunately the anchor held and we all made it to the sloped floor in one piece. The floor sloped downwards under a rock overhang on the side opposite from the anchor. I kept making my way down to try and determine if the cave kept going. At the point where I turned back the cave had narrowed considerably to the point where it was about the width of a human body. It also steepened abruptly. From stories I've heard, squeezing through tight holes seems to be another aspect of caving. A draft suggested that the cave continued through the narrow hole. We called it good, climbed back up the rope, and hiked out to the car. It was a good exploratory outing and introduction into what caving is all about. I'm still not sure how much caving I want to do in the future. Offhand, spending time in dark, constricted spaces doesn't sound terribly appealing. I would like to rap down into the second cave someday, though. Also, spending time in high cold places doesn't sound very appealing either, but I've done it anyway on many occasions.

Over the Labor Day weekend Ann and I headed out to the Strawberry Mountains in Eastern Oregon. Ann had planned out a three day, two night backpacking trip. Neither of us had ever been to the Strawberries. I always enjoy visiting a place I've never been to. An extra bonus is that the route was a loop, so we'd be seeing new scenery the entire time. The Strawberries are a high, craggy ridgeline, surrounded by idyllic alpine lakes, rivers, waterfalls, and meadows. Our route looped around the ridgeline, passing through beautiful alpine landscapes along the way. We took a few short side trips off the loop to visit various lakes and Strawberry Mountain, the highest point in the Strawberries. The weather was mostly sunny. I was glad I had taken plenty of warm clothing, as it got below freezing at night. I was surprised to see a scary looking water ice climb during one of our side trips. We spent the first night next to a spring running through the middle of a meadow with a great view of Strawberry Mountain. After it got dark I tried to sneak up on some deer, but they noticed me well before I got close enough to touch them. We spent our second night next to a lake, which I submerged myself in. It was ice cold. The trip was over all too soon. The next day we hiked around some waterfalls and a lake in the Cascades on the way back home.

Most recently the boys and I floated down the Willamette River which runs through Corvallis. As seems to happen on all our river trips, it was an eventful float. The story is too long to tell here, but I will say that the NavUnit has a new chicken as a direct result of our trip.

We bailed on the adventure race I mentioned in earlier posts. Some combination of barely sufficient training, escalating costs, and other opportunities lead to our decision. I was never really too keen on it, mostly because we were going to shell out a significant amount of cash to do something we can do for free. So, I wasn't too sad to see the end of it. I noticed that my exercise program changed dramatically once the decision was made. The race certainly had been a good motivation for me to get into better shape.

The software business has progressed since my last post. The first business model I experimented with was giving away the software and generating revenue via advertising. I tried that for a month before giving up on the idea, at least for now. It made some money, but not enough to justify the effort. The problem appeared to be that there wasn't enough advertising to go around. I moved on to the next business model, which was paid, ad free software. That resulted in an immediate, relatively large jump in revenue. Over the past few weeks I've been experimenting with different prices, changing the price every week in an effort to find the price which maximizes revenue. It was clear that I was undercharging at the original price. I'm not sure I've found the optimal price yet, so I'm going to keep experimenting with it. I'm now moving on to a third business model, which is offering an enhanced version at a higher price point. The enhanced version will go on sale next week.

It's encouraging to see the business generating some revenue. It's still not a lot, especially compared to what I was making at HP, but it's better suited to my current lifestyle. I also think there's a lot more value the software could add given a bit more time and effort. Hopefully the increasing revenue trend will continue with the enhanced version. For now, I'll be ramping down my efforts with the software business as I switch focus to the bakery.

Before that I'll be crossing the American west in the Buffalo. I'm giving myself two or three weeks tops to make the trip. I'm not sure what places I'll be visiting yet, but roughly I plan on heading south first into the southwest before heading east. The NavUnit and I have arranged to meet FixItMan at a lake in the Oregon Cascades this coming weekend for an overnight kayaking trip. That's the extent of my trip plan so far.

The photo at the top of the entrance to the second cave. The NavUnit took the photo. A few more photos are here.