Mammoth Site of Hot Springs

Friday, August 26th - - Continuing south from Wind Cave National Park, I stopped in Hot Springs, South Dakota to take a look at the Mammoth Site located there.





Some 26,000 years ago a sink hole developed trapping unsuspecting Columbian and Wooly Mammoths as well as other animals. Once in the sink hole, the animals could not escape and their remains are slowly being uncovered, a fraction of an inch at a time, by archeologists. A building was constructed over the area of the sink hole to provide a good working space as well as a means of protecting the fragile bones.





Looking down into the pit you can see numerous tusks and other bones of the Mammoths. Several almost complete skeletons were found but mostly the various bones are scattered here and there throughout the site.





Here you can see the rear legs and the rib cage of a Columbian Mammoth that was desperately trying to escape from the sink hole. Alongside him (or her) are the tusks of another trapped Mammoth.





I forget how far down they have excavated, perhaps a hundred feet or so, and they have uncovered the partial remains of 58 Mammoths. The sink hole is several hundred feet deep and they expect to find many more animals that were trapped.





After touring the main excavation site there is an impressive display in the exhibit hall. Prior to the tour, a video is shown that explains how the sink hole developed and how the animals were trapped within. It was well worth the slight detour south to visit the site.

Evening at Horseshoe Bay

Last night Roger (http://www.rogernordstromphoto.blogspot.com/) and I went down to Horseshoe Bay to shoot the sunset. I've been trying to show him some new areas along the lake that he hasn't seen yet. Horseshoe Bay can be a fun place to shoot, depending on the conditions. This evening when we were there the lake was smooth as glass, which is always nice to have when making images of the lake. At the entrance to the bay there is this nice, photogenic pile of rocks that I had fun shooting. I used my graduated neutral-density filters on the image above and the one below to help balance the exposure between the dark foreground and the brighter sky. Using the filters also helped bring out the detail in the underwater rocks in the foreground.

Climbing Cold?

I spent 12 hrs out yesterday. Not a big deal but recognised a few things I think worth mentioning.

To climb in the most efficient clothing system I think you have to climb what I consider, "cold". You want to run your clothing system at a level of heat that is well short of sweating the majority of time. So you want to be almost a tiny bit chilled a majority of time if you stop moving. And everyone starting off should feel a tiny bit chilled.

Almost the perfect storm for me yesterday. Dehydrated from the day before and little sleep the night before. Too much to get done in real life so I could get away for the day. Sound familiar? Been nursing a bad knee for several a weeks and finally had another MRI done to make sure I wasn't risking bigger injuries and more down time. So I was tired from the chronic knee pain of the last couple of weeks and had been trying to ignore the massive doses of Ibuprofen which is what I needed to get healed up.

At the trail head there was a huge temperature inversion that we didn't recognize in the predawn start. We had gained 5000' and it was cold. Seemed reasonable.

So I bundled up. With all the wrong things happening in the last 48 hrs I didn't want to be cold and uncomfortable. Being tired, dehydrated and edgy from the knee pain I just didn't tolerate the cold well that morning. It should have been an alarm bell.

Couple of hrs later we were well out of the temperature inversion. It was above freezing now and we were in the sun. I was over heated, sweating and stripping clothes as we climbed higher in the glacier basin. 1/2 way into the walk I noticed 3/4 of my day's water bottle was already gone. That was a little shocking as I generally pay careful attention to how I go through my water. That was my first alarm bell to just how out of it I really was.

What I had brought for water would have just barely been enough if everything went perfectly and we summited in 4 maybe 5 hours. I'd be dehydrated but could easily suck it up till we got back to the car.

Then the final straw was it took a full 6 hrs of trail breaking just to get to our 1500' climb. We knew the game was over 3 hrs into the walk but pressed on anyway to at least see what we in such a hurry to get up. Time to make this one a "teachable moment".

Quick bottom line? I over dressed because I wanted to me more comfortable. Unnoticed, I drank my water quickly because I was dehydrated from the previous 24 hrs. I then over heated because I over dressed, carried more than I should have in gear and clothing and not enough water.

So now as I get even more dehydrated, I get cold feet from wet boots I sweated out from being too warm. Then I am getting cold again because I am dehydrated and physically tired and having to add layers I can't easily technical climb in. Things have gone down hill fast in 6hrs. But it all started 56 or 72 hours beforehand I just didn't recognise it.

Truth is I should have stayed home and gotten some rest and re-hydrated and waited a day or so before going out again.. I would have climbed faster and better if I had done so.

My thought is if you are physically incapable of "climbing cold" do yourself a favor and stay home. I let the weather and my desire to spend time with a buddy sway me. We all do it.

The better we can identify what goes wrong and why the easier it is to have a better trip next time.

Holcot - Pitsford - Moulton - Holcot

Barry, Maureen, Gordon. just over 9 miles. Dry, some sun, windy.





Barry led this walk. We started from Holcot just after 9 am.





Across the fields from Holcot, with the morning sun casting shadows on the ploughed earth. Luckily the ground was dry.





We made for the gap in the hedge.











Our first 'surprise treat' of the day - the view of Pitsford reservoir as we climbed the stile.






















































On we walked with the reservoir below us on the right - the southern part which we've walked round a few times, close to the shore. We passed a house some way off, on our left, surrounded by trees, but certain to have a great view of the water.











Then pretty high up, was 'surprise' number two, a cupola memorial just by the local cricket ground. It commemorates local businessman Lynn Anthony Wilson, who died in a car crash in .








We followed the path coming closer to the water where we saw a large colony of coots.





The we continued into Pitsford, turning left and walking a short distance along the Moulton Road, before taking a footpath to the left. The path turns right then left across three or four fields and turns right again just before a stud farm.



























We crossed the Pitsford - Moulton Road into Spectacle Lane. An unusual name, sure to whet the appetite.

















































So, to the first 'spectacle' - I should have taken the picture when we first spotted this 'ruined castle'. Life is just a bowl of should've's.

It is known as The Spectacle, and was built by William Wentworth in 1770, and was designed to be visible in silhouette from Boughton Hall.

I gleaned this information from the painted pixels website

























We left Spectacle Lane and on the other side of the road from Boughton to Moulton is Holly Lodge, built between 1857 and 1861 for the Jeyes family, of Fluid fame. I seem to be stalking the Jeyes family - I had lunch in their Apothocoffee Shop in Earls Barton last Friday.

Holly Lodge echoes the style of the Spectacle, and boasts a pair of gates representing a dozen farm implements.





















Philadelphus Jeyes designed the gates, which were erected in 1861.













They include replicas of 2 hay forks, 2 sickles, a scythe, a rake, a shepherd's crook, a ditch cutter, a stable fork, a flail, a spade and a woodman's axe.













From Holly Lodge we walked for a short distance along the road to Moulton before taking a footpath to the right, over a few higher than the average stiles. Some of the path includes horse riding trails from Moulton College.









We climbed up hill, and turned to the left, following the path into Moulton. This is a lively village centre with local shop, pub and stocks - locked to prevent fun-loving teens and walkers from playing silly games.





Instead, we sat staidly and devoured Maureen's scones on a bench in the square.













We walked out of Moulton on the road towards Billing and the A43, taking a footpath to the left. This involved crossing several fields of wheat, and a couple of recently ploughed fields. We walked alongside Marsh Spinney, where notices informed us that cycling was forbidden by local by-laws. It would have been a brave and slightly mad cyclist who climbed the stiles and tackled the uneven ground.

So far unidentified plant growing at the edge of a field of maize

Could it be the hallucinogenic and sometimes lethal Jimson Weed?

No fields of beans today, but we had to negotiate maize above head height with a narrow path through. Past Overstone Grange, we turned left Rectory farm, and followed the path back into Holcot.





Plenty of interest on this walk.

It was Just a Matter of Time...

On my meandering drive through Ohio back in September .., I stopped at the Strickland Cemetery in Vermillion Township, Ashland County where Jonathan and Elizabeth Hazlett are buried. They may be my 5th great-grandparents. I haven't been able to prove the connection yet but they are really the only candidates that I've found thus far. I'll have more on them in a future post.



A previous visit to the cemetery in October 1999 had resulted in rather poor non-digital photographs of their gravestones, which appeared to be very worn and not very legible. Pouring a little water on the stones brought out the engravings somewhat – enough to verify the transcriptions that had been previously published.



Since I had been to the cemetery before, I knew that their gravestones faced west and timed my visit so that the sun would be in an advantageous position. But I got there a little too soon.





The photo above was taken at 11:39 am. The inscriptions are barely noticeable. The stone on the left is for Elizabeth and the one on the right is for Jonathan. Since time was not an issue, and it was a beautiful day, I walked around the cemetery a bit then fixed a sandwich and had lunch while waiting for the sun to move a little further west.





Taken at 12:15 pm, the inscription on Elizabeth's stone is starting to appear.



I was amazed when, 18 minutes later (at 12:33 pm) the inscriptions were completely visible and could easily be read. All it took was some time and a little patience...





ELIZABETHWife ofJONATHAN HAZLETTDIEDMarch 3, 1848Aged 86 Years



JONATHAN HAZLETTDIEDSept. 16, 1853AGED82 Ys. 1 Mo. 1 D.

Photographs were taken September 18, .. at Strickland Cemetery in Vermillion Township, Ashland County, Ohio.



Did you notice anything unusual with the inscriptions?



Elizabeth appears to have been about nine years older than Jonathan!

Dynamo Lighting Kit for Roadbikes

While I am generally a huge fan of dynamo lighting, I do not have it installed on what is currently my only roadbike. My plans for the bike did not involve significant amounts of night-time cycling; it was not meant to be a touring or randonneuring bike. For occasional riding in the dark I do have an excellent rechargeable battery headlight that lasts for hours and attaches easily to the handlebars. And I have an equally good tail light that attaches to the back of my saddle wedge tool bag. To install a dynamo hub wheel and lights on this bike would have added unnecessary weight and expense to the build.




I felt pretty good about my bike's lighting setup until I found myself wanting to join an overnight ride. Initially I thought that my super duper rechargeable battery headlight would last through the night. But when I did the math it became clear that it would not; I would need to add a second headlight and to bring several sets of spare batteries. Even at the height of summer an overnight ride in New England means 8+ hours of riding in the dark - and not the kind of milky suburban dark where you can leave the light on a low setting to conserve battery life; proper boonies dark that requires a powerful headbeam. I talked to the others doing the ride, and they all had dynamo lights. Now I felt foolish for not having a bike with appropriate lighting. But at the same time, how often would I do rides like this?






I was discussing this with local cyclist Pamela Blalock and she offered to lend me her mobile dynamo setup: a spare front wheel with a dynamo hub, and lights that are easy to attach and remove. With this kit, she can turn any 700C wheeled roadbike into an overnight bike. Extremely grateful to Pamela for the offer, frankly I was also skeptical that it would work out. To me, dynamo lighting was something that gets permanently installed - not attached and removed on a case by case basis! Furthermore, my bike has no fenders, no racks, no braze-ons. Could the lights be attached securely? I was worried that the installation process would be tricky, and that in the end something would end up falling off, disconnecting, or malfunctioning.




To my amazement, the installation process took mere minutes. The front wheel switch was seamless and soon my bike was sporting a dynamo hub. Then the headlight was attached to the brake bolt, as shown in the first picture. A thin cable runs straight down from the headlight to the hub, easily secured to the fork with a piece of tape.






For the tail light, a P-clamp was installed on the left chainstay. The wiring got routed along the chainstay and the top tube, secured with zip ties to the brake cable. The result was not beautiful, but neither was it flimsy. It was secure and problem-free. The positioning of the headlight and tail light beams were spot on.




Later I learned that other local cyclists employ a similar system for when they ride in the dark - a dynamo hub wheel and lights that get moved from bike to bike as needed. I would not have thought this to be a good idea until I tried it myself and experienced how easy and hassle-free it was. On a dedicated randonneuring or touring bike, it makes sense to have dynamo lighting permanently installed in a more elegant manner. But for those who want the option of using their pared-down roadbike for occasional night time riding, a kit like this can be a good solution. Pamela's setup includes a 32 spoke Velocity Aerohead wheel built around a Schmidt SON hub, a Lumotec Cyo IQ headlight and a Spanniga Pixeo tail light - though many alternatives exist.




At least here in New England, there seems to be an increasing amount of cross-over between road racing, randonneuring, endurance events, and casual long distance rides. And this cross-over is influencing how roadbikes are defined and equipped.I am still unsure what kind of cycling I will ultimately gravitate toward. But if more night time rides are in my future, a versatile dynamo setup like this is certainly worth considering.

Snow time...

Quite a bit of snow has fallen over the past week leaving plenty at Paradise (a solid 2 feet). As you can see in this John Piastuck image, skiers and boarders (32 ants by my count) are "chomping at the bit" to climb Panorama Point for early season turns... This is looking to be a very promising ski season folks. The question is, will it hold; will it continue?

The Washington State Climatologists have something to say about our weather. They just published an interesting report about our 2007 summer temperatures. It points to data that says we're still experiencing a warmer than normal trend (0.01 to be exact for Aug). I also found that they are willing to post an "Outlook" for the fall and winter. Check it out, but don't look for any clarity as it doesn't really predict anything substantial or exciting: "The Climate Prediction Center's 3-month outlook for November-December-January is for equal chances of above, below, or normal temperatures for Washington..."

Whatever the case, we're off to good start and the ants on Pan Point are seemingly stoked. With them are a few climbers who are hoping to find the summit this week. Perhaps they'll successfully weave through the upper mountain crevasses and visit Columbia Crest during this weather window.

If you are planning to climb this fall, here are few safety, registration and camping tips:

• Expect crevasses: Though it's been snowing quite a bit this Sept/Oct, be prepared for lightly covered crevasses on the mountain.
• Avalanche: Yes, slides have killed climbers in the fall on Mount Rainier and it could easily happen again. It doesn't take much to knock a team into a terrain trap (crevasse, cliff, hole) or bury someone. This is especially the case if the wind is blowing which could contribute to large snow deposits.
• Poor weather: Ok, this is a constant on Rainier, but fall is definitely the time when storms linger longer than expected and climbers regret their "fast and light" plans. Be prepared to sit out inclement weather and expect heavy wet snow.

You can register in Longmire at the museum, or self register (i.e. honor system) at Paradise on the front porch of the Jackson Visitor Center. Most teams will select the Camp Muir Public Shelter for high camp accommodations. Over the past few years, that hut has been very accessible... But you should still bring a shovel to dig out the door and always clean up after you leave. On nice/busy weekends, bring your ear plugs (snoring, running stoves, chatter) and expect to breath stove exhaust in the hut.