The outdoors – Page 26 – a sibilant intake of breath

Cabin to mountaintops

Cabin Fever 3 has been enjoyably concluded. It was excellent to spend time with old friends, as well as meet a few new people. As always the food, company, conversation, and recreation were excellent. I will probably write more about it and link some of the photos when I have a bit more time.

For those interested in the hike I proposed earlier, we have decided upon Crown Mountain. We are meeting at 9:00am tomorrow (Monday) in the north parking lot of the Grouse Mountain Skyride. If you have any questions, call or email me before 8:00am. The hike is described in the post linked above.

Coast mountain

As has already been reported, I will be in Barrier Lake this weekend (the 6th through 8th) for Tristan’s third Cabin Fever event. At some point in the three days between my return to Vancouver and my departure for Ottawa, I am trying to arrange a hike. That is to say, either on Monday the 9th, Tuesday the 10th, or Wednesday the 11th.

Strong possibilities include:

Crown Mountain (being Grouse)
Petgill Lake (near Squamish)
The Stawamus Chief (near Squamish)
Somewhere people suggest in the comments

If you are interested, please let me know by phone, email, or a comment below. Be sure to specify which days would be possible for you, as well as which days would be best.

Given the short span of time for which I am in Vancouver, this will be a rain or shine proposition. It is also unlikely to occur if fewer than three or four people are able to go.

Lakeland photos III

Compressed walkers.

Sheep are never far away.

One third of the way around the Kentmere Horseshoe.

If you are in a proper place for walking, the landscape will dwarf you.

Dry stone walls take a lot more effort to build than to climb over.

Lakeland photos II

Once you reach a peak, a bit of a rest is surely in order. Actually, Rob and Sarah were ill during the whole trip, so their fellwalking demonstrated particular persistence.

Walkers atop Wetherlam.

The hiking boot: noble symbol of our determination.

Which isn’t to say we never take them off…

If you can shear a sheep, you can arm wrestle two humans at once and win.

Lakeland photos I

Thirteen Oxonians on a mountainside.

An enthusiastic fellow Canadian.

This was one of the few bits of actual rock climbing we did. Note how much more impressive it looks when done with a gear-filled leader’s pack.

This scramble on the Coniston Horseshoe was the most enjoyable bit of walking on the trip.

Having climbed a Wainwright, it is sometimes necessary to climb the marker and present as unusual an expression as possible.

f = m * a

In a conversation at the end of Sunday’s walk, we realized just how much energy is actually involved in such a trek. Our vertical ascent was about 1100m, spread between climbing Yoke and following the ridge of the Kentmere Horseshoe. That is about 75kg of me personally, plus a pack. Imagine me falling from 1100m up, and you begin to appreciate the gravitational potential energy built up through the (not entirely efficient) expenditure of chemical energy. We also traveled more than 20km, as the crow flies. Then, there is the fact that we had to absorb all the energy from all the descents into our muscles and dissipate it. Add in the energy required to keep us warm, balanced, and thinking, and you are racking up a good number of calories.

It’s amazing how far some dry cereal, two sandwiches, a couple of chocolate bars, and ones various short and long-term energy stores can go. The fact that I didn’t feel unusually hungry at any point during the weekend suggests that those stores were not seriously depleted.

As you may guess, this weekend included a lot of interesting discussion about physics, biochemistry, and physiology. We also learned a good bit about sheep.

Back from the Lakes

The weekend in Lakeland was most enjoyable. We spent Saturday and Sunday walking, each time going around a horseshoe of peaks. Saturday, it was the Coniston horseshoe, starting with the Old Man. That day involved some enjoyable scrambling, a bit of actual rock climbing (for those who cared to try), and a brief nighttime rescue operation. Thankfully, those we set out to find met us on the road back from where we were heading to look for them. Sunday, we did the Kentmere Horseshoe, starting with Yoke.

The walking was atypical of the club for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I had never previously spent a day with them in which it did not rain significantly. Neither day of this trip involved any rain at all. Secondly, this was distinctly less strenuous than Snowdonia, which was distinctly less strenuous than Scotland. I rather enjoyed the drama of steep slopes and narrow, windy ridges during the previous two trips. Of course, there is something to be said for sheep-speckled tranquility as well.

In terms of company, this trip met the high expectations I had of the Walking Club. There is always a fascinating mixture of people from different fields – from theology to comparative literature to medicine – and they tend to get along in a very spontaneous way, even when they have not met before.

Photos and such to follow. For now, I need to get some sleep.

Three follow-ups

1) Remember how our flat got deprived of refrigeration? One week on, we are still subsisting off of bread and cheese we keep cold in the metal cages outside our windows. We call them the ‘alternative fridges.’

2) Remember how I lost the ballot for the Lake District trip with the Walking Club? Well, somebody dropped out. Because I expressed so much interest in it, they offered the spot to me. As such, I will be climbing mountains again from June 1st to 3rd. The only thing that would make it better would be having more than 16 days left before exams.

3) Remember ‘Studio Photography on the (very) cheap?’ Well, I have figured out how to build a large and effective diffuser for under $3. That was the purpose behind this query. Two sheets of A1 tracing paper turn out to perfectly cover the lower section of the window.

Note how English tea stains glassware. The picture would be a lot more attractive if I propped the glass objects up on something, cleaned them before taking the photo, and photoshopped away the tape holding the paper to the window and the place where the two sheets overlap. This was meant to illustrate the assembly, not be artistic of itself.

Alaskan fishing photos

Here is an interesting series of photos about fishing in Alaska. There are huge waves, giant crabs, and a feisty cat. Having read so much about fisheries in the last few years, it is nice to have some visuals to accompany my thinking. Here are my favourites:

PS. Be advised that a few of the advertisements on the original page may not be work appropriate.

Protecting parks

While it is excellent to have national parks established, the difficulty with making them meaningful lies in the enforcement of rules on entry and activity within the defined territory. Even American national parks are having trouble with poachers. The problem is certain to be more acute in less affluent areas, where the impulse to protect nature is more immediately threatened by poverty. Just 14 rangers patrol the 4,200 square kilometres of the Nouabale-Ndoki national park in Congo. Technology can play a part in park management: from satellite tracking and motion sensors to networks of internet connected metal detectors looking for guns and machetes.

Ultimately, technical fixes will probably not be adequate protection in the most vulnerable areas. The reasons for this are primarily economic. There is more money to be had in exploiting the content of parks than in protecting it, and there is no incentive for local people to refrain from damaging activities and be vigilant in preventing others from doing so. As with climate change, the biggest challenge lies in creating institutional and financial structures that encourage environmentally responsible behaviour. Growing recognition of that among policy-makers and the NGO community may eventually lead to much more effective enforcement mechanisms.

This article discusses the TrailGuard metal detectors in much more detail. They sound very clever, even if they are unlikely to solve any problems in and of themselves.