Winter in the Marble Mountains

There's nothing quite like a good stomp around in pristine knee deep powder to get yourself excited about the upcoming ski season. My friend Drew and I lead a group of completely random folks on a 14 mile trail in the Marble Mountain Wilderness, a sub-range of the Klamath Mountains. A six hour drive north of Berkeley the Marble Mountain Wilderness lies beyond Mount Shasta, the second most southern of the Cascades, close to the Oregon border. We drove up on Friday night arriving at the trailhead parking and campsite just after midnight, just in time to pitch our tents before the heavens opened. At 4200 feet, all this precipitation was rain which soaked pretty much everything before we had even started hiking. The hike headed along the side of a colorful canyon before emerging into what would have been a green meadown had it not been for the thick snow cover. At this altitude the snow was only a few inches deep and gave the whole scenery an fabulous wintery feel. As we passed through another meadow and a series of frozen lakes, the snow starting falling. Soon it was more like a blizzard with periods of full white out conditions. At this point we began to ascend on to the ridge line where the trail meets the Pacific Crest Trail. Here the snow was knee deep and occasionally waist deep in the drifts. Drew did a sterling job kicking a trail up to the ridge line. At this point darkness had begun to descend and all hopes of reaching the summit lake camp had been thrown out of the window and we were just happy to find a good sheltered spot in the trees at the start of the 2 mile ridge traverse. Here we made camp and attempted to stay warm until first light.


Early the following morning we woke up to freezing cold boots and in some cases frozen trousers and socks - nice! We continued along the ridge, joining up with the Pacific Crest Trail. The snow along the ridge line was mostly knee deep and after half an hour or so everyone's feet had pretty much defrosted their frozen boots. The views done into the Valleys either side of the ridge were spectacular although the freezing fog and low level cloud prevented us from more far reaching vistas of Mount Shasta and beyond. The trail itself was almost completely lost in the snow forcing us to resort to the map and compass at times or to Erica's amazing ability to spot the slightest hint of the trail under all that snow. The chutes and routes through the trees looked so perfect for some backcountry skiing and myself and Drew were cursing that our gear was in the shop getting waxed ready for next season - these untouched slopes and pristine fluffy powder would have been awesome to ride down - we'll just have to wait until xmas at Lake Tahoe and new years at Whistler/Blackcomb.

Welcome to Winter!

Cheers,
Dave

Election Night Done Right

The almost FINAL results from last Tuesday, Missouri is still to be officially called though at this point it is irrelevant which way it swings:

Fright Night - Mario Kart Stylee!

Halloween night - the photos speak a thousand words and yes I was Bowser:

Indecision '08: 6 days to Election Night

Only 6 days left on the campaign trail before America decides who should replace George W. Bush as President! Its hard to imagine that either candidate, Barack Obama (Democrat) and John McCain (Republican), wouldn't do a better job since the bar has been set so low over the last 8 years. Its a fiercely fought contest that's being going on for what seems like forever, it will be good to have it finally come to an end next Tuesday.

I think one of the most defining moments in the race and one that is still extremely important going into the vote next week was the candidates choice of running mates or the Vice Presidential candidate. Early on many people argued that Obama did not have enough experience especially of foreign policy - so wisely he chose Joe Biden, a Senator from Delaware with plenty of both to be his running mate. McCain, with more than his fair share of years in public office, chose to appeal to the more hard line members at the heart of the Republican party by choosing Sarah Palin, the Governor of Alaska who has very little experience but who believes in drilling oil in the National Parks of Alaska, enjoys hunting from helicopters and who believes the Earth was made some 3000 years ago! A satire show here called Saturday Night Live (SNL) thats been going for eons, does a brilliant take off of Palin with Tina Fey playing the role of Palin (she is the spitting image)! One particularly entertaining sketch was poking fun of Palin's view that there is no such thing as man made climate change, the skit goes "global warming is not man made its just God hugging us a bit tighter!" Hmmm.....quite amusing but also scary that she could end up in the white house, especially with McCain being so old, he's 72, there are concerns he may have health problems during his time in office such that she may, if elected, have the reigns of the worlds most powerful country! The entire McCain picking Palin, a hockey mom, had Matt Damon say that it was like "the premise for a really bad Disney movie"! And thanks to the folks at www.collegehumor.com, there is now a trailer for this bad Disney movie, amusingly entitled "head of skate", check it out here.

Fingers crossed for next week....I'm throwing a party to hopefully celebrate Obama as the next President or to coordinate a mass exodus to Mexico or Canada if the other guy wins!!

Wish us luck....

Dave

Love Fest: Birds Eye View

Just to show you that its more than a little popular, here's an aerial shot of the party outside City Hall....

LoveFest '08

In the spirit of a true San Fransisco experience we donned ridiculous hats and loud shirts and heading to the city for the annual LoveFest parade and party!

A parade of floats hosting various "local" dance DJ's heads down Market Street in the city aroudn lunchtime and ending up outside the City Hall and Civic Center where the floats continue to blare out loud dance music for revellers to soak up amid booze soaked carnage. What more do I need to say!

Gotta love the party.....

Dave

Brews on the Bay 2008

For the last 5 years the San Fransisco Brewers Guild have put on a beer festival to show off the finest of SF many microbrews. Entertaining it is hosted on the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien, a liberty ship built during world war two. Liberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during the war. They were British in conception but adapted by the U.S., cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by German U-boats, they were purchased for the U.S. fleet and for lend-lease provision to Britain. Eighteen American shipyards built 2,751 Liberties between 1941 and 1945, easily the largest number of ships produced to a single design. Its quite a location for a beer festival I can tell you!

There were 7 or 8 breweries present and despite what you might think about American beer, budwesier being the major export, the ales were both varied and some were really tasty! Ale drinkers of Britain would have been proud and there were views of Alcatraz and guns to mess around once you sampled all of the aforementioned brews!

Happy days!

Dave

Conquering Half Dome!

Half Dome is one of the most well known landmarks in Yosemite National Park and has been photographed many times by Californian icon Ansel Adams. As late as the 1870s, it was considered perfectly inaccessible, but now it can be ascended in several different ways. The easiest way ended being close to a 20 mile round trip after all the extra stomping around between Curry Village and the trailhead. The hiking trail begins in the Valley and culminates in climbing up the somewhat rounded east face with the aid of steel cables. It is 8836 ft above sea level and 4737 ft above the Valley floor which coupled with the 10 mile approach hike makes this a very strenous hike.


Earlier in the summer, myself and three of my friends (L-R, above right; Drew, me, Silvano and Allesandro) duly took up the challenge and can attest that as a day trip it is a stout proposition. The trail runs up the infamous mist trail, that leads to the John Muir trail, over Vernal and Nevada falls and then skirts the base of Half Dome before ascending the east face. We hit the trail around 5:30am and were on top by 10:30am just in time to avoid the overcrowded cables. In all honesty the cables are a little sketchy and I had heard that several people have slipped and fallen to their deaths,. We were not taking any chances and took climbing harnesses so we could clip in to the cables - this was a very shrewd idea as it turns out especially on the way down when there were far more people than was really safe.

Other peak bagged, bring on Mount Shasta next year!

Dave

The BIG 30: More flags, more fun!

So it finally crept up on me, yep you guessed it the big three zero - I am now officially no longer in my twenties! Clearly, theres only one way to cope with the drastic realization that your getting old and thats to embrace your inner youth with a day thrill seeking at an amusement park. Our destination was the Six Flags discovery kingdom in Vallejo, 30 miles north of Berkeley.

Obviously, we did it in true style starting with vodka shots and chocolate cake (thanks to Anne for the baking work there) at 10:30am in the car park. The park is a sort of strange arrangement with lots of animal attractions since it use to be marine world prior to the arrival of rollercoasters some 10-15 years ago. The newest two coasters being absolutely bloody awesome. (1) Vertical velocity (which being nerdy scientists we dubbed V squared), see top left and top right in the photo, is the only 45 degree impulse rollercoaster in the world. The coaster’s track is essentially a large U shape that is loaded at the base and uses a series of linear motors to accelerate the train up each side of the track (0 - 60 mph in 4 seconds). These are similar to those used in the magnetic levitation trains. One side of the track is twisted track and the other side is a perfectly vertical straight track so you get some upside twisting on one end and the sense of weightlessness on the other with acceleration like being in a sports car between the two. (2) Medusa is one of the longest (0.75 miles), highest (150 feet) and fastest (65 mph) coasters in the United States and pulls 4.5 G at the bottom of the first big drop. As a souvenir we purchased (thanks Julie and Dave) the photo from the ride, see above, from the last ride of the day! V for victory!

What a great way to usher in the 3rd decade on planet Earth.
Let the good times roll!

Bay 2 Breakers 2008

The bay to breakers event in San Fransisco is an annual foot race that starts on the BAY close to the Oakland Bay bridge on the East of the city and traverses directly west through the city and golden gate park culminating at the Pacific Ocean where the BREAKERS pound pacific beach. The race attracts close to 100,000 serious runners and almost as many less serious ones! We were, as the photos will confirm, in the less serious category.

It is the longest consecutively running footrace in the world and started in 1912, as a means to lift the City's spirit after the disastrous Earthquake of 1906, which was of magnitude 7.8 on the Richter Scale. Public nudity and open alcohol consumption are prohibited although in reality it was more like the norm. A friend lent me an old bridesmaid dress (thanks Julie) so it seemed wrong not to go as "The Prom Queen" - and it was quite a hit with the other race goers! In order to facilitate extreme amounts of drinking, my friend Drew and I built a rickety old booze truck from a cooler, some pink string and wood plus wheels from home depot. Surprisingly, it lasted pretty well - 6 miles before we lost a wheel, by which point the 60 cans, half a mini-keg and 2 litres of Caipirinha cocktail where significantly depleted to render the crippled cart unnecessary.

Happy Days!

A little, longer lasting fame.

So I had my 15 minutes of fame, but heres a little, more long lasting fame - a photo I took in the summer of 2007 in Nice, France has been included in a online travel guide. Click here and then scroll down to the Port of Nice photograph and low and behold one of the 10 Port of Nice photos has my name on it! Very cool indeed - paparazzi career here I come!

'Sideways' the Russian Way.

Sideways as many of you well versed cinema goers will know is a film set in the wine country of California. Its a curious yet strange tale of a two man stagdo with what else but wine of course. It is supposed to be based in the Russian River Valley, a mere hours drive from San Francisco, although it was actually filmed down in Paso Robles near Santa Barbara. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that due to the unique meteorology of the Valley's and the strong temperature fluctuations caused by the marine fog that drifts up from the San Francisco Bay every day, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes grow really well here. Being more a fan of the reds than the whites, it was the Pinot that I was interested in sampling and what better way than straight from the barrel during the 30th Annual Barrel tasting festival.


Team Europe (from Left to Right above Silvano, Italian; Martial, French; Elena, Spanish; Me, obvious; Luka, Italian) as we shall now be known successful managed to negotiate 5 vineyards, try significant amounts of awesome Pinot Noir, got some accidentally very well priced Pinot and only one of us got completely trashed - that was Luka - apparently he blames sleep deprivation, though I believe it had a little more to do with his efficiency at getting samples!. One of the vineyards (Armida) had a heaven/hell theme (weird but definitely original) - clearly we were in hell for some time since thats were they were dolling out the Zin and Pinot. The weather was of course, hot and sunny - well it is California after all!

Take care for now...
Dave

Fifteen minutes of fame, well sort of...

So the say that everyone gets fifteen minutes of fame, so heres mine. The College of Natural Resources here at Cal has a magazine called Breakthroughs and we (myself and my boss Allen) featured in an article about the instrument we're developing. Follow the link to see the article:
http://nature.berkeley.edu/breakthroughs/break_feature1_fa07.php

Enjoy...

Dave

Colorado New Year and the great snowboarding saga!

Following the success of new year in the snow at Lake Tahoe last year I journeyed east this year, in search of a real winter, to Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. Fort Collins, home of the New Belgium Brewing Company, was the first destination to see in the new year at Chez Colette (photo 1). Colette having just moved there to start a professorship at Colorado State University. The new Belgium Brewery (http://www.newbelgium.com/index.php) were we spend new years eve with a tour and tastings would be a great place to work and not just because its a brewery! The company is a co-operative as in all the employees own a part of the business and therefore have a vested interest in the companies success. After one year of employment, a stake in the company is awarded along with a neat New Belgium bike. After 5 years, employees are rewarded with a week long trip to Belgium to learn skills from their master brewers. Recycling and sustainability also feature heavily and all the power generation comes from wind farms. All this and theres a slide that leads to the tasting room, what more could you ask for. Being Colorado (Denver is the mile high city, being a mile above sea level), there was plenty of snow, freezing temperatures, ice skating (photo 2; I'm the one on the floor, I suck at ice skating) and snowball/ice fights (photo 3). It was a classic way to send off 2007 and welcome in 2008 with a bang.

After new years I spent 5 days up at Winter Park in the Rockies learning to snowboard with Mike (english guy I met on a research course in France 6 years ago) and a bunch of his University friends from the UK. It was a tough first few days with multiple bruises and sore muscles before I final got the hang of it and was cruising down the pistes. For the final two days we were rewarded with real Colorado powder, 4 inches of fresh fluffy snow on the first day and 8 inches on the second. This was awesome and exactly what snowboards were designed to ride! I have truly been bitten by the snowboarding bug and this past weekend I was up at the Heavenly resort at Lake Tahoe with my housemate Lindsey and several of her friends to cruise the slopes. Two weeks previously Tahoe had had 12 feet of snow, I kid you not and although snow was not as fresh and fluffy the base was pretty damn thick and it was all good. The views from the top of the Mountain were impressive looking down over Lake Tahoe (photos 4 and 7) and for the Friday at least the slopes were not overcrowded (photo 6). An impromptu performance by the University of California's band (all the musicians on skis) added to the atmosphere (photo 5) and the fact that the Condo we we're staying in was 2 minutes from the ski lift and was free (the owners are friends of Lindseys parents) were definite bonuses.

Laters,

Dave

Happy Holidays 2007-2008!

Dear Friends, Romans and Country-'blog reading'-folk,

Firstly, I wish everyone a very merry christmas and a fruitful and prosperous 2008!
And secondly apologize for having been a little slack with updating my blog. Its been really busy here since I got back from the woods (BEARPEX) in October. I will endeavorer to make a new years resolution to provide an increase in blog posting frequency.

I hope that all are well and I will no doubt be in touch with you soon.

Have a mulled wine on me and drink to the USA signing up to the Kyoto Protocol in 2008, we can but hope.

Cheers and all the best for now,

Dave

Frichalak Wedding, Traverse City Michigan.

During the last weekend of September, myself and several of the Berkeley crew (Colette, Delphine and Tim) made the trip East to the shores of Lake Michigan for the wedding of Julie and Dave. It was a classic; it had hats (of the foam cowboy variety and the Canadian 'chapeau' type), plenty of Dave's (see photo bottom middle) including the father and grandfather of the bride, champagne (from the Napa Valley, California) of course, swimming in the 55F Lake Michigan, giant pumpkins (in the forecourt of a gas station, don't ask me), parkour with martinis (cosmopolitan ones as i recall) and of course a great wedding with the best vows I have ever heard! Once I get hold of more photos I will post them!

The only other small thing to mention is that i missed my first flight (missed the shuttle bus from the hotel by a whole 3 minutes) and that cause a few knock on effects which resulted in me arriving back at Blodgett some 30 hours late (after forcing Mike and Delphine to stay overnight in Reno to wait for me) and with a replacement hire car after the first got dinked proper by some huge SUV outside Reno airport....ruining my until that point clean driving licence! Boo..

TTFN,

Dave

BEARPEX field campaign - Blodgett Forest

For the past 10 weeks I have been hauled up in the woods about 2 hours North East of Berkeley as part of the BEARPEX campaign. The site was located in Blodgett Forest, 2 miles away from
UC Berkeley's Forestry headquarters. The field deployment was focussed on studying the effects of the biogenic (natural vegetation) emissions from a predominantly Ponderosa Pine forest. The tower site is shown in photo 1 (and the view fromt he new tower at sunset is shown in photo 4), the new tower in the foreground to the right and the original tower in the background to the left. The deployment was long compared with other field campaigns that I had previously been involved with and there was barely time to keep up with the outside world. The purpose of the extended length was in principal to get enough weekends so as have good statistics for looking at the weekend/weekday differences. As it turns out it was necessary in order to overcome several major logistical problems mostly relating to power or should I say the lack of power. All this stemmed from changing the main site generator from diesel to propane. After two weeks or so these initial hiccups were overcome and the site was fully up and running.

There were some great people (graduate students, postdocs and principal investigators) from 9 different institutions from across the United States and these folks certainly helped to make the time pass more quickly and of course Stumpy Meadows (photo 2) - our local swimming hole. It was not all work, work, work and I got introduced to 'beerpong' - a US 'frat house' favourite on more than a few occasions, including a battleships versions (photo 3). The premise is simply you fill cups with beer at either end of a long table and then attempt to throw a ping pong ball into your opponents cups which they then have to drink. The first team to lose all their cups has to drink the remnants of their opponents. In principle a genius drinking game, except for the fact that we sucked at it and the games lasted far too long for anyone to actually get drunk! Glenn elected himself as social secretary and illustrated how much extra time you have when you only measure 3 things...sorry Glenn! But he did do a sterling job, from mulitple Beer pong adventures, to movie night and drinking with the dude (the big lebowski) - I felt pretty rough after that one, damn you natural ice! Already looking forward to the repeat offences likely in phase II next summer....NOT!!

Sorry to everyone for the lack of communication over the past few months, the satellite internet connection in the woods was terrible at best. Fortunately, I am now back in civilization and back on the grid so hopefully I will be able to catch up with you all soon.

Laters

Dave

#3 - "Slippery Melon Zest"

So with the 10 week stretch in the forest approaching (the BEARPEX - Biosphere Effects on AeRosols and Photochemistry EXperiment or as Delphine christen it the "Bitter Experimentalists Always Repairing Pieces of Equipment eXperiment" since we all seemed to be having trouble getting our instruments to work pre-campaign) it seemed appropriate to have a pre-campaign party to celebrate the future absence of civilisation.

It was of course a true classic and would not have been complete without one of my now infamous cocktail concoctions. I had two hard acts to follow: the #1 "not as bad as I thought it would be" from the new years party at Lake Tahoe and #2 the "sorbet-rama" from Delphines Berkeley leaving party but the #3 "slippery melon zest" proved to be a willing contestant thanks in part to the zesting skills of Dave Michalak and the oversized Melon slices (which actually proved to be fundamental in order to prevent the Sambuca and Baileys mixing). My medicine ball again led to some entertaining moments as everyone tried to balance on it (not sure what Tim was trying to do, see bottom left photo)!

Heres to 10 weeks in the desolate forest with no TV, terrible internet and 12 miles to the nearest red neck hick bar. Bring on that post-BEARPEX party.

Cheers

Dave

Uncle Dave and the "Donner Party"

This past weekend I was climbing up in the Donner Memorial State Park at Donner Summit. This state park was named after the ill fated Donner Party. The Donner Party was a group of California bound American settlers caught up in the "westering fever" of the 1840's. After becoming snowbound in the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846 - 1847, some of the emigrants resorted to cannibalism. Although this aspect of the tragedy has become synonymous with the Donner Party in the popular imagination, it actually was a minor part of the episode. There were truly spectacular views of Donner Lake from the Summit climbing areas (photo) although the heat was a little hard to handle even at 7000 feet. The climbing, on Granite, was good but really paled in comparison to the huge and enormously impressive granite domes of the Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite NP, where I spent the previous weekend.

The Donner Pass is where the First Transcontinental Railroad in the United States crosses the Sierra Nevada Mountains. This railroad linked the Eastern United States to California and the Pacific Coast and was completed in 1869. Its completion initiated a nationwide mechanised transportation network that revolutionized the population and economy of the American West. This network caused the wagon trains of previous decades to become obsolete, exchanging it for a modern transportation system. To protect the railroad and keep the tracks open year round, wooden sheds were constructed over the tracks (see top right photo below) especially during the heavy winter snowfalls.
Even more interesting is my recent ascension to the ranks of Uncle Dave - WOW do I sound old now! My niece, Teyha, was born on 16th July and weighed in at a health 7lbs something. I look forward to meeting her very soon but until then we will both just have to get by on on photos and stories alike.

Cheers

Dave

"Les cloches du mariage" at the Beau Rivage

The 2nd of June saw the 2nd marriage of my under graduate "Derby Grove" housemates. This time it was Jon the Hands (and yes there were significant mentions of his gigantic digits during the Best Man's speech - nice one Phil!) finally marrying Paula after some 10 years together. It was a tremendous wedding, very befitting to both the Bride and Groom (see above), on the beachfront in Nice. They certainly broke some new ground with respect to some of the more traditional aspects of a wedding. There were 4 best men, the wedding ceremony was conducted by two of the best men and the top table was distinctly absent of any of the olds. Great food, plenty of booze and good weather (well for the most part) all added to the occasion and I was very happy to have made the 5000 mile trip and to have been apart of the celebrations!

Jon and Paula - I probably said it already but you guys are perfect for each other and I wish you all the happiness and success in your future together. See you both in a few weeks.

All the best,

Dave