Greenovision

On Old Plaster, can I save it ?

2009-07-09T05:38:00.007-04:00

Here is a really exciting topic! Old buildings and old plaster. Everyone wants to save the plaster because it is so damn much work to remove it. Is this a wise choice? Well, there are number of things to be taken into account about old plaster. For one, old buildings (when I say old I am talking 100 plus years) didn't have insulation for many many years, this is a problem to the plaster. The plaster in a building in New England with no insulation is doomed. Over years and years moisture builds up in the wall cavities due to the extreme temperature difference between the indoors and outdoors. This causes the condensation point to occur inside the cavity... what this means is the lath nails rust away over time. A lath nail is a very small diameter cut nail with no corrosion resistance, it is the weak point. Once the nail rusts through the lath is essentially detached from the wall studs. What happens next is that the movement of the building (these old building do move, foundation issues, and improper loading cause deflection and uplift) flexes the plaster wall. Over time cracks begin to show, from this point on the plaster is doomed. After years of movement the lath nails are rusted through and the lath is essentially detached from the studs. The only thing holding it there is the hooking action of the plaster. When the Plaster is troweled onto the gaped lath it smears through the gaps and blobs to the inside of the wall cavity creating a hook which once hardened holds the plaster in place, kind of like Velcro. The lath itself is rough sawn so it assists in grabbing the plaster too. Once the lathe is detached and the heaving and settling of the building work on it the 'hooks' of plaster shear off (partly due to the moisture inside the wall cavity causing the plaster to become soft and punky); once this occurs the plaster begins to fall off the walls. Well I know some Mr fix it will say that you can use a washer headed screw to hold this ailing plaster on, its a short term fix. Especially when it comes to ceilings, gravity works on the plaster and literally the ceiling falls in, and I mean large chunks of heavy plaster, a real headache. So what most Mr fix it types do next is to patch the bad spots with drywall, or they drywall over the plaster to cover it and to hold it on. All of this type of remedying the ailing plaster is even more of a blight to the 'old building'....it is adding more dead weight to the structure, and most of these structures were under built in load bearing design. The floors were often over spanned or the distance the joists run from wall to wall or beam was too far for the depth of the joist. Most old buildings used square joists because the economy of milling beams is such that you can get more squares out of a round log than taller boards. Taller is better in joists and beams when you talk floor deflection as long as there is blocking to hold the joists upright. Getting a bit off the subject here, back to the plaster, so more dead weight is added and now the building is groaning under the weight. This is very bad for the structures beams and joists. Because the old builders didn't have metal joist hangers like we use today, they notched the beams and joists together as a form of joinery, sometimes a mortise and tenon connection, they thought this was superior workmanship but as we can see in old buildings it was a mistake to notch. The notches reduce the total effective height of the joist or beam and under years of loading splits will occur in the timber beam at the notches. So the modern re-modeler that is too lazy to make a mess and clean it up that plaster removal causes adds more layers of remodel weight to a structure already ailing in load carrying capacity. This is so chronic in old homes that it is not unusual to peal 6 or 7 layers of wood paneling, drywall, more paneling, wall paper, then plaster and lathe. In the end no builder is willing to take down the layers to the start because its just hell. It is time consuming, it is dirty, it is dangerous, and it is expensive. And after days of work the wood frame is revealed...only to show sagging beams, cracked joists at notched ends, settled and sagged floors, etc... Also once you peal all this off and clean up the mess you will usually have to bring everything up to modern code. And if not mandated to do this by municipal building codes the builder will usually suggest a complete modernization because it is so much work to do this plaster removal you should bite the bullet and really fix the building . This will include a full redo of the wiring, insulating meaning furring the walls out to accommodate reasonable priced insulation, and creating a consistent stud layout that will accommodate drywall (16" or 24" on center stud spacing).

So in a nutshell if you want to buy a building with old plaster that shows cracking, you might want to reconsider ...this is a very expensive proposition. And if you do buy such a building and think a quick cover up with a skim coat of plaster is going to do the trick, well it wont last, the building will most likely be energy inefficient in that it still misses proper insulation, and worse a chunk of ceiling plaster might fall on your head as you freeze to death in your bed on a cold blustery winter night.

How about new construction? Why not spend your money where it can go towards building what you really want rather than demolition and reconstruction of what most likely is at the end of it's life cycle anyway.

A work in progress

2009-07-07T07:19:00.003-04:00

Hi all, just merrily working away here, wanted to throw a few images up of our furring and insulation job....I know extremely interesting....not!

And a word of advice for all of you out there looking to buy a ancient decrepit historic building...please if you do....don't call me I am up to the elbows in filth and soot. Emily puts it that the building takes a crap every night, and it sure seems like it. Every day there is a new coating of filth on the floor after having cleaned it the afternoon before. I think of it as puke myself, the building is rather bilious. So if you like dirt, filth, decay, rot, mold, gross smells, buy one of these historic warships... a building like this is all about spending a whole bunch of cash just to remedy it, and pay for dumpster removal...oh by the way we are on dumpster 6 or 7...losing track now... and the house keeps puking it up.

Oh and another word of warning...dont be like the past 'craftsmen' and keep adding layers to a problematic interior...remove and rebuild otherwise the frame gets so loaded up with weight that it contorts the structure....these old buildings were not designed structurally, and they were really not designed to hold up 3 to 4 times of remodel layers. I guess 'craft' over the years in this building was about who could buy a 10 lb bag of nails and pound 'em home every day. Nailing is a small part of construction and remodeling...Sometimes folks ask me are you recycling materials from the building? Well believe you me I would if there was a damn thing worth saving ...this building consists of mostly puke covering a skeleton that has been oh so stressed.

Again dont call me on this sort of building. Life is just too short for historisism.

Turn around Point, move ahead six spaces

2009-06-21T10:57:00.017-04:00

67 Gray street has reached the apex of its trajectory. No longer is it rocketing into the dumpster bin by bin, but now its soaring to new levels of energy efficiency after 170 years of chilling and overheating it's victims within.

One hundred and seventy years "this old house" held itself up even after careless and incompetent men had removed main bearing columns, cut away floor joists, and notched joists without thought or hesitation. The post and beam structure itself has its own set of issues that over time can be seen as workings of gravity against wood, mortise and tenon, and live loading.

This old house is seeing a top down approach, the third floor, then the 2nd floor, then the first...etc. At this point we have remedied structural issues like over spanned rafters, lack of structural ties, off center loading of beams and columns. Further... we have insulated the roof up to a R-38, we have remedied head height problems in door heights and ceiling heights. The electrical contractor is in the process of rewiring the whole place. The plumber is re-plumbing the building to modern codes (meaning no metal pipes, but a lot of them due to venting all fixtures!).

Perhaps one of the biggest turnarounds is that the windows have been decided upon...yes! Michael Morrill has decided to hire Northstar woodworking to build them. A little bit of background, Steven Morrill, Jon and Michael's brother is a co-partner of Northstar, so its keeping the work and money 'in the family'. The Historic folks we hope will be happy about this too. Its keeping the window manufacturing in the area and if that is not Historically important than what is?

Like with all things that really matter in this world there must be patience, diligence, hardships, trials, and then more patience....In the end you build something that is worthy, better then previous, and hopefully with new vision as to how it could be better for us all then previous iterations had proven not.

Although we are not near done by any stretch, we are closer. And that's just going to have to be the new motto for those of us who work on 'This old ____'n House' . You cant turn 170 years of History around in a day, reiterate...a month....or two, or three...

In the meantime Emily, Jon, and Mark all wait for some new help ...and they are coming (Silas, and friend) this week brought by Mike....Yeay! Bring the boys we have plenty of work...and no shortage of dust to vacuum.

Back to the bench at Tenants Harbor

2009-06-16T20:34:00.010-04:00

A change of pace today (thank god!). Jon, Steven, and I took the shop van up to Tenants Harbor to finish the bench that I started last fall, and left ‘This old f_ckin' house' behind. We met at 7:15 at the Ohno café, then loaded up and hit the road. We made short work of getting to the lumber that was planed up by a guy named Duey up in Liberty Maine. Duey kind of looks like Mr Clean. He’s a big bald guy but friendly enough. He commented on how nice it was to work with a different species of tree. He usually works with white cedar which he says he can’t even smell anymore, our boards he planed were Hemlock. We loaded up our boards and Jon wrote old Duey a check and we were off…

Off over hill and Dale, Over Appleton ridge, through Union, then on down a number of winding narrow roads, finally to Rockland to pick up some screws. By 11 we finally are at the Morrill camp at Tenants Harbor.

We unloaded the supplies, and started right in knowing we would have to get a move on it to get it all done that day. Jon was the board evaluation man; he sighted the boards, picked “the good edge”, and then laid them out for scribing. I was the saw guy and ripped the boards to taper. Steven helped plane the edges, layout boards, screwed boards down and took a bunch of photos. In the end the whole things went as smooth as silk and we finished I think earlier than we all thought it would take.

The product came out very nice, and we all were satisfied with how it came out. We had a few celebrational beers and then hit the road back to Portland. Oh yeah you can see some renderings and older building shot of this project at http://www.greenovision.com/benches.htm
and past blog entry at http://www.greenovision.com/blog/2008_11_01_archive.html

Historic Windows... let's argue

2009-06-05T09:07:00.016-04:00

Portland Maine: the land of Historic buildings and Historic ideologies.

Today's battle with the Historic preservation committee is over compliance with their maddening window replacement policy. As most of the country tightens down and gets tought on energy lost and inefficiencies in housing, Portland, Maine's Historic preservation folks throw a monkey wrench at the designer and builder by mandating in-efficiency and gentrification. Let me explain.

67 Gray street, a 170 year old two story New Englander that is located in a historic district that according to Debbie Andrew, the liaison for the committee, is a historic working class neighborhood. This building, as said in past post, has seen so little maintenance over the years that it still has its original windows and has never been insulated. 14 windows- all double hung with 6x6 pane sashes, all most likely the originals. They too have never been maintained and are truly ugly, dangerous, and inefficient air ducts to the inside. Guillotines is the name that the notable architect Frank Lloyd Wright gave double hung windows, due to their uncanny way of just about taking your arm off while trying to open the storm windows. He never put a double hung window in one of his homes.

When Jon and I met with Deb the first time we were quickly told that we would have to save the existing window configuration because, as she hands us a 1925 picture of the building it shows 6x6 pane sashes. Now first of all I have a problem with this logic.... this photo was taken only 84 years ago rather than 170... what happened prior to 1925 no one knows.... so the history is incomplete but we must follow this photo. Jon and I noted while looking at the photo that this house looked still quite new at the time, no asphalt siding yet. And with this Jon mentioned to Deb that he was looking to make this building a viable home again meaning bringing it up to standards of the 2000s, new heating, new insulation, tear down the gross asphalt siding, and rebuild the front steps as they were in the photo. And with that said you would think that the Historic folks would be happy that this building fell in the right hands. One would think that they would make certain exceptions to their rules due to the massive financial and physically laborious undertaking that Jon has taken on in well intention. For example couldn't they be double hungs that are the same size minus the fake grills of the modern day double thermal pane double hung.

The answer is no....no...no...there are no exceptions to the rules when it comes to changing the appearance of the windows. According to Debbie these 6x6 muntin sashes are historically important as they represent the 'working class' of the time....was it 1925 that she spoke or 86 years prior to that? We could not conclude due to incomplete photographic evidence. At this point of the discussion Jon and I were awakened to Historicisms abstractness, it's interest in minutia, and lack of understanding as to what a window represents as a technology. Debbie with a smile suggested that we save the existing windows, that they come apart into pieces that can be replaced, fixed, re-puttied, painted. She noted that we could take place at a 'fix your window day'. Now I began to get a bit impatient with her at this point I know when a window is rotted right through and un-fixable...and these sacred artifacts were just that. So I mentioned this to her and she kind of glazed over. She said that there where a half dozen window companies that 'they have approved windows from' and that if we were to replace these windows frame and all which she did not prefer that they would have to be made from wood, that they would have to have grills on the outside and the inside and preferably true divided lites...no vinyl windows allowed!' and that concluded our first visit. Jon and I went off to see what was up in the world of window representatives.

Well what we found out very quickly on talking to other contractors, window representatives, and historic home owners is that these True divided lites or TDL are 'EXPENSIVE!' Every window salesman we talked to when they heard we were remodeling in a Historic district said "get ready to pay twice as much". These window folks mostly were instantly sympathetic, and looked at us with sorrow. From here Jon and I knew this part of the budget was going to go through the roof and that the window budget was going far away from 'working class ' and you know this because the window models approved are in the category 'architectural' or that they are called things like, Platinum line, or gold line, or premium, or 'expensive' in a nut shell. Quickly we began questioning the system...'preserving historic working class' by mandating the most expensive windows. Hum? How does this work? Is it that the Historic folks would rather you keep leaky old originals in?Or is it that they only want wealthy folks to have new windows? Or is it that windows come before people, warmth, sanity. Some how ideologies preside over the rational realities of our post peak oil time.

Having done this research we went back in to see Deb Andrews thinking maybe we could some how show her we had done our homework. On the second meeting we met her in the hall and she began dialogue there...and almost instantly there was arguing and we were quickly ushered into the catacombs of the Historic department. Jon was as he said the good guy, patient, quiet, listening. Me ... I was the bad guy, loud, challenging, disgusted, and in general not in such as nice of a mood as previously. The way the historic folks work on you is to quickly establish a mood of "we know more about historic windows than you". They do this by finding your academically incorrect vocabulary usage. For example I used the word mullion to describe the grills....Deb corrected, "muntins mullions are the verticals divisions in a transom window". In any case I don't care what you call them, they're fake. There is no reason to have them in a modern technological window, they're there just to simulate the old 6x6 sash, they are not structural, they hold no use other than to appease historic committees and cost a lot. On saying this to Debbie she quickly put up the bureaucratic wall, "Sir, I am not here to debate it with you, you will have to take this up with the committee." The committee meets once a month, and with the windows once ordered another month for them to come...I begin envisioning installing these things in the driving November rains.

I try several more times to explain technology of windows to her, that the reason 6x6 sashes were made had to do with glass making. In the age this building was built the ability to make glass bigger than 1' x1' was not readily available and if it was these panes were expensive. This can be seen when walking the neighborhoods on the Western Prom, the wealthy old homes often had picture windows (a large piece of glass) with designed muntins around the perimeter. These windows had internal ballasts or weights to allow the operator to open the window just the right amount. These were the 'Architectural' window of the time and expensive. Now if you walk into a "working class" neighborhood you will see either double hung windows with one muntin in the middle....this has to do with the age of the window. These windows were the later technology to the 6x6, glass companies were able to produce larger glass (Who wouldn't want more light in, or to see better out? Evidently not historicists). Or you will see windows like 67 Gray street. 67 Gray street was old enough that the cheap "contractor model" of the time were the 6x6 configuration in double hung sashes, and the frame and sill were built on site. These windows for the time were the cheapest, no ballasts, no frills, and a junky lock system that almost always is broken or jambed. These windows operated with notches that held the window up...dangerous if you ask me, guillotine is right!

Back to arguing with Deb. When we argued that by asking us to install expensive simulations of a "cheap contractor model window of the time" was in a sense "gentrifying this "working class neighborhood" and in essence wiping out historic importance of having working class neighborhood in a city or town. Is this not the real discussion as far a historic importance of maintaining such neighborhoods, and Not the simulation of old, out of date technologies?

To argue further Jon asked Debbie why Aluminum storm windows are acceptable when they are a technology not of that time, and that they are on the outside and what you really see? To me this is the core of the Hypocrisies. The Historic folks allow storm windows that are modern, they replicate nothing, they look like a cover up and that is what they are. The storm window is important because it actually creates some sort of seal to prevent air infiltration, for the old double hungs really have no seal. If they want to mandate such minutia as the 6x6 muntin sash why don't they mandate that old homes must have the historically accurate "shutters" of the time?

So with all the cash that Jon will have to dump into the new heating system, modern plumbing, new electrical system, new insulation, demolition and rebuild of failing plaster and lathe, etc, etc he now is burdened with installing windows that cost 2x what a reasonable double hung with no muntins would cost....seems unfair, unjust, and to me stupid.

Monday morning, and Debbie sends her "second" man out to survey the situation. I was not at this meeting and thankfully. From what Jon said, this guy sees everything old as "precious". Evidently he said that Jon would need to replace first, second, and third story windows with "wood" windows. He gave Jon the address of a home that was being retrofit with such a window or "trimline" as he called it. So we go and take a look. What do we find? We find what looks like a aluminum clad window, they look alright but they were not "wood". The Historical folks like to argue and greenly so that wood is a renewable resource, and that it makes for easily maintenance. Well A. they are not wood.(they were fooled by the window company) B. wood windows are not easy to maintain...these aluminum clad windows strive to be maintenance free. C. if they were wood, most wood windows today are made from sap wood or quick growth lumber, not old growth. If you want a window made out of old growth, which is rather non sustainable, you would have to pay an arm and a leg for it. In any case these windows he sent us to look at are expensive and not representative of "working class". Hell if you want to get down to it a working class window of today would be a vinyl window....egads!

On maintenance..if a regular maintenance schedule is followed these old windows last much longer than a modern vinyl window. Lets take a look at 67 Gray street, sure doesn't look like anyone painted the second and third story windows for decades. Why? Too hard to reach, too much of a pain to remove the sashes, etc,etc. On could argue too ...what sort of working class homeowner wants to come home after a 40+ hour week to scrape paint, putty, and paint a window on the second floor off a ladder? I don't know of such a person who wouldn't gripe and groan. Lets face it maintenance is for the wealthy...they pay someone to do the job, hell they wouldn't have a clue at how to take apart this so called maintainable technology unless they're friends with a Historisists.

So in the end what's going to happen? We still do not know. Time tics along and we need affordable solutions not ideologies to fix "This old F_ck'n House"!

'Grizzly Discoveries' a reality show

2009-05-21T08:05:00.007-04:00

Well a couple weeks into the project and we have come up with a new reality show. Either ‘This old F_ck’n house’ or ‘Grizzly Discoveries’. Jon and I joke about it pretty much every day…what grizzly discovery awaits for us today? The first grizzly discovery occurred when we talked with Deb Andrews with the Historic preservation board. She said that we would have to save the front two chimneys, and replace windows with comparable looking 6 X 6 pane double hungs.

First of all the chimneys are what I call ‘done’. They are bent over; precariously leaning over the house and for how long will they stay this way? I guess they have been precariously leaning for some time. So rebuilding them will have to wait…budget will hopefully make it through modernization of utilities, heating, electric, insulation, plumbing, and windows alone might blow the budget.

Now the windows, what a situation, the existing windows are the originals, 170 years old, and no amount of putty and paint is going to get them to go any longer. The Historical folks believe that these old windows are just great and that the preference for them would be that we just suffered with these decaying portholes of yore. But reality is they are an energy sieve. On researching new windows with external mullions and similar sill profiles lead to a very expensive window. Of course the Historic folks want it their way, but I would argue that ‘their way’ is rather contrived…Let me explain…the reason mullions exist is not just an aesthetic discussion, that they look nice this way, but more that it was the technology of the time. The 6 X 6 configuration has a lot to do with the availability of glass at the time…thicker glass, more expense, and thinner glass cheaper…so the mullions reduce the size of each pane so that the pane can be thin and cheap. These windows were what I would call the ‘contractors model’ of the time…they were never great, well made windows…they were cheap…so now we have to replace them with expensive, fake mullioned replicas of technology inefficient and obsolete. The simulation ‘old’ windows are not to be clad with vinyl even though every surface in Portland Maine is covered with it. They must have fake mullions that make cleaning difficult. They must be twice as expensive as a decent more honest double hung window with no mullions.

Grizzly discovery of the day….on removing plaster around one window in the front corner of the building leads us to find no insulation anywhere and ‘K’ bracing in the corners. This means that there would be very little good in pumping the wall cavity full of insulation…the cellulose would never make it into all the voids, the K brace is in the way. So this we began the long, dusty grimy process of plaster and lathe removal…Two, three, four days later and three dumpsters…we are still removing the stuff. In the end though we will have insulated walls with the proper thickness to make insulation affordable (insulation cost has a lot to do with thickness…to get R value it takes space or it takes expensively thin ‘space age’ insulation). In the end the walls will have new windows in them, and the heaters wont have to run full tilt throwing ridiculous amounts of energy into ‘This old F_ck’n House’.

Grizzly discovery of the day….the forced air heating system was installed by a guy the wore a #2 hard hat and a size XXL jump suit. He took out main support columns in order to run his inefficient ductwork…found this Grizzly discovery while examining the slumping floor system. Remedy. …remove crappy heating system and replace columns. Actually the place had not one but two heating systems…Force air ran the first floor, and a boiler ran the second floor…both oil burning monsters…efficiency was not in the vocabulary of heating men of this time.

Today we will drain the water from the system in the basement, get the sawzall out and remove miles of copper pipe…none of it insulated which we are glad of …could be worse …it could have been insulated with asbestos. More later….

Portland, bums and old buildings

2009-05-14T08:28:00.005-04:00

Well back to Portland Maine, arrived with the warmth, or brought it with us. Great to be re-united with old friends. Jon Morrill has a project for me. A 170 year old house in the historic district of Portland. Its a real fixer-upper if ever I spied one. Yikes! Take a look, this building has seen so little maintainance over the years other than some quick masking tape and nailed up asphalt shingles.

Our strategy here is to get this building insulated, it has none. A new heating system, it has two heating systems now that are ancient. It needs new windows, electrical system, plumbing...you name it this building needs it...especially some TLC. Yesterday we met with Debbie Andrews, the liaison for the Historic preservation board, she was glad this building finally fell in the hands of someone who cares. Its going to be a long summer of dust here but Jon's Nephews hopefully will pan out as help, so far so good, I have already showed them how to rip down old plaster and lathe quickly...cant say painlessly, part of the ceiling fell on my head as I tried in vain to save an old plaster ceiling lamp ornament.

This is not exactly a dream job, but its my best friend and he really needs a hand. So far I have measured and drafted up the building. More to come later.

The desert

2009-05-08T08:34:00.013-04:00

We made it back to Maine....4 days of driving the armpit of the USA....hot , sweaty, dull, ...But first let me elaborate on our time south of Montana.

On leaving Big Sky the snow came down and we drove through W.Yellowstone for the last time 10 ft high snow banks Goodbye! Warm sand and sun Hello! Well not exactly... We drove to Logan Utah and spent some time with old friend the Onionman, the days there were cold and snow like snot ...We headed off then to visit Billy 'steakknife' Bentley, Pattie, and Charlie a mini version of Bill. On arriving in Glenwood Springs, Colorado the snow fell as well. On the first day here we fished Woody Creek below Aspen...I caught a few and brrrrr, but the sun was out. Over a few beers we made plans to go to fish the Gunnison on the next day.

Emily and woke to a sunny morning and after coffee we packed Billy's car with rods, , and the dog aptly named Gunnison. Heading to Gunnison river we crossed freshly snow covered mountains by way of a crazy pass. The views were stunning after a whole week of snow the contrast was incredible, blue sky, white mtns as far as one could see.

At the Gunnison river the birds were singing in the bright sunlight, we climbed into our waders and head across the river to make the hike in to the best fishing spots. Its a good four mile hike up the river which weeds out the lazy fishermen before we stopped to air out, rig rods and fish. I tried some nymphing but was rather lax about my focus. I watched Billy catch a few trout from a distance and figured I would find out what he was fishing with. Billy is a great guy to fish with because he very selflessly gives up his own catching to help others 'hook up' . He led me across the river to look for 'risers' and did we find some.

"Greeno" look at that Brown rising! Sure enough a huge 3 or 4 pound brown trout was taking Blue winged olives off the top. Of course Billy had me rigged with the very thinnest tippet and on second cast that brown made Billy chuckle as it took my fly and swiftly broke me off.
We spent the whole day in the sun...a cool wind blew on occasion but other than that it was a warm spring day.

The rest of the time in Colorado we did some hikes, and mostly looked at the weather to see when it would stabilize enough for camping around the canyonlands. We were restless to go so we head off with not the greatest forecast for early week, snow and wind. As we neared Moab the skys were cloudy but it was warm, 60's. We went looking for a place that Billy told us to camp near the Canyonlands. Much of what used to be camp-able places have been closed over time and it was not so easy to find a legal spot. I guess over the years campers have kind of made a mess of the fragile desert environment making it necessary to mandate changes to what was free camping everywhere. Finally we found a spot way down a dirt road ...it was peaceful, and it was legal so we set up the tent just before things got windy.

We did an evening hike around the area, slick rock, agave, tumble weeds and prickly pear. We got out our cook stove, made dinner and turned in. That night the wind picked up and how it roared....our tent was barely standing...we hardly could sleep it was so noisy. By morning the storm system was passing and the sun woke us...we had our first morning coffee in the desert and made a plan of hiking off to see if the cliffs across the planes of slick rock would have a boulder or two at their base we could climb on. The wind was getting stronger throughout our hike and we were being blown with it...Emily and I hiked about the cliffs and took in the panorama of red rocks, desert and sky. We noticed the wind was now throwing tumbleweeds, sand and daring birds about. The boulders were not too climbable, crumbly stuff.

On heading back to our camp the wind now blew so hard that the sky filled with sand. A real sand storm was developing. We had lunch and of course it had sand in it, you get used to eating sand out here. We were getting sandblasted to the point that it was necessary to get into the car. We sat in the car listening to some old '80s tapes, sonic youth, Lou Reed and stuff. Snow began to mix with the sand storm; it snowed 3 inches of wet, red snow. It got cold. To warm up we ran the car on occasion, laughed a lot at our luck and by late in the afternoon the snow stopped...the juniper trees were coated with red snow, the ground became a mess, red mud ...we passed time throwing tumble weeds into the air and watching them flyaway. I cooked bacon, cheeseburgers from the drivers seat. Clouds above kept the setting sun hidden so this night started very cold in the tent.

In the morning we lucked out again, the sun let us warm, and dry our gear hung from juniper branches. We had bacon again, eggs, coffee and sand then head for the canyon lands park. As we approached the Island in the sky, snow showers and sunbeams made the environment seem huge, impressive, and a bit intimidating. We found a hiking trail and head off down it. This trail starts at the top of a mesa and drops quickly by a series of switchbacks down, down 1500 ft in a mile to a bench were it is resistant sandstone rock. The scale of the erosion is unbelievable ...everywhere it looks like slabs of broken asphalt...there is no describing of this place, its beyond words. After a few hours of wandering, lunch, and jumping onto massive islands of rock perched apon-decaying gravel we head back up the Goose eye trail. This is a must do trail for those that like vertigo. On the hike back up snow fell, and blurred our view of the canyon lands.

On this evening the winds came down and it began to look good for the next day, and hopefully shorts. Sure enough I woke to feeling as if my feet were on fire. The sun was really warm already. Emily and I decided to run across the slick rock to the other side of our valley to see if we could possibly climb up onto Big Mesa. We found that this mesa is aptly named...it was so long and actually quite tall...we never made it to the top. But we did find a secluded place where we lay on the sandstone in the buff. Little lizards scampered around, the sky filled with puffy white clouds, and they made us get going again, we ran back to camp thirsty.

The following days became progressively hotter. We hiked, we bouldered, we burned, we looked for easy water, we found showers, and I paid a lot for warm beer in Moab Utah. Finally it was time to leave, we knew it was time when we sat and didn’t know what to do anymore but hide from the sun. Time to make the drive back east….next blog Portland Maine.

The Rendezvous and Gallatin Glisade

2009-04-03T17:09:00.003-04:00

End of season races turned out well if but not difficult, Emily finished her first 50K skate with a 3.5 hr race, and a 116th place finish. She had a smile at the finish and I am proud of her. I had a tough race in that it was slower snow than expected. Additionally a second wave start made it a whole lot of passing for me to cough up a 40th place finish and a 2:55 time. Its hard to say it was fun due to heaving lungs and leg cramps but this is what we live for pain and suffering!

The Gallatin Glisade was on the weekend after and proved to be fast with the 18 K covered in around 38 minutes...mostly down with one good tough uphill for 3 k's. here is a little image of my agony. In the end I took 6th place with some teenagers beating me in the sprint!

End of the winter musings

2009-04-03T15:59:00.006-04:00

March 16th. Getting closer to the final winter melt down…. Today was the first day this winter that I could easily have been on a beach and been happy- 40 degrees and mushy snow. Less than two weeks to go before Emily and I pack up and leave Big Sky, Montana. But before I put my skis away and forget about winter, there are some adventures that I have yet to mention in my blog.

After the last Yellowstone post, Emily and I spent a few weeks skiing on the Lone Mountain trails. We enjoy the difficulty of the terrain, the excellent snow conditions, and the grooming there. Two weeks before our last ‘big race,’ the Rendezvous 50k in West Yellowstone, we decided we’d better get a long ski in to prepare. Emily had been trying all winter to figure out a way we could inexpensively ski around the ‘Old Faithful’ area of the Yellowstone Park. Finally she found a deal where we could take a snow shuttle in to Old Faithful for $20/each rather than the $110 guided tour, which seems the most common. From Old Faithful we would be responsible to ski back out the 32 miles to W.Yellowstone on the snow-covered roads. So, we arranged the trip with Yellowstone Alpine Guides.

Of course, there were a few hurdles like getting up in Big Sky at 4 am in order to make the shuttle departure from W.Yellowstone leaving at 6:45am. There were the concerns like how much liquids we needed to bring for hydration, how to carry our food and extra clothing without making the skiing anymore tiresome than need be; 32 miles is a fair distance by ski. Other concerns included what the weather would be, the snow conditions, and if the entire road was covered by snow. Before we reserved our shuttle, we asked the reservations personnel some of these questions. The roads were in fact good; just one bare spot right around Old Faithful and we could ski around it. The weather the day before was actually hot for this part of Montana hitting 40 degrees and our day was to be a bit more overcast, so more like just around freezing as a high temp for the day. This was all looking in our favor; the mild temps would allow us the luxury of not having to bring too many extra clothes, the snow would be at a perfect temp for easy skating and good glide, but yet the temperatures for the day would not overheat us and make extra hydration necessary. We booked the shuttle and began arranging our equipment, gear, clothes, and food.

The day before, we first went to the waxing hut that we use almost every day at Lone Mountain Ranch. We waxed with a blue/purple swix glide wax. This would give us good longevity and decent glide. Then we went back to the condo and I started a pizza dough. Pizza would be the lunch with chocolate chip cookies that Emily made. We each brought 3 litres of Gatorade to get us through. We stowed the Gatorade in camelbacks, which we hoped would not freeze up. I packed the pizza sandwich style so that each slice is face down on the other making a sandwich. Pizza is very transportable this way. We each carried an extra pair of socks, gloves, and hat just in case. We tested our packs to make sure they felt reasonable, not too heavy or uncomfortable. Satisfied, we spent the rest of the short evening watching a movie and we were in bed at 9pm.

4 am came way to quickly. We drank coffee, ate some oatmeal, and wearily left the house at 5. The drive in the dark to W. Yellowstone sucked, I was nervous about Elk in the road. We arrived just before the snow coach driver did. We changed into our ski boots, dawned our ski garb, loaded the skis onto the Coach and were off. The snow coach is like a giant, old VW beetle, but with benches on either side and along the back. They have snow tracks to float on the snow and skis in the front steer the vehicle. These vehicles are old, but have been retrofit with modern efficient diesel engines with high standard pollution control. Still, I heard these things only get 6-8 mpg. Riding in the snow coach was a bit of a rough ride and the driver had to muscle the manual steering. The Yellowstone Alpine guides are a cool bunch of youngsters that have all chosen their jobs because they love the park, the animals, and a sense of adventure. There were three of them on board because they had to pick up two other snow coaches and drive a group of thirty tourists at Old Faithful out that day. There was also an older couple that was going in to ‘7-mile Bridge’ and they were to ski out. With Emily and I, seven passengers is a full boat. As we rode along the icy morning, fog began to burn off and the sky became light. I commented to Emily on how far we had been driven- in not long we would be skiing our way over these same roads. At one point visibility was reduced down to less than 50 ft as the geothermal activity condensing in the frigid air made a fog as thick as any on the Maine coast. All of a sudden, there were bison in front of the coach and the driver slowed…. I thought this would be interesting when it would be us on skis and no vehicle to hide in. Along the way we both talked to the guides asked a million rookie questions and wondered if we bothered these folks.

Finally, we arrived at the Snow Lodge at Old Faithful. The guides let us out and gave us a few pointers as to where we should head to avoid the tourist trap in the lodge. They encouraged us to wait a bit for the temperature to warm- it was 8 am and still in the low teens. Emily and I stuck our skis in a snow bank and headed into the lodge. On entering the lodge, we were immediately gazed on by globular tourists that were heading into the restaurant. It was strange to be preparing for a day of skiing with so many folks around us who never in a million years would think of doing what were about to do.

We could not handle more than a half-hour in the lodge, so we head on out. We started our tour skiing by Old Faithful and then we headed on to the north by a trail system called the Biscuit Basin Trail that takes you by many hot pools and geysers. Emily chose to take her skis off because there are many places on the trail that are elevated boardwalks that have no railings. Boiling pools wait below to receive anyone who skis off the edge. The bison had trampled the trail into craters in places and the hot mists glazed the ski trail, so it was an experience! We popped out onto the main road and head across it to look at what I remembered (from previous trips) being some very beautiful pools…Sapphire Pool is amazing. But on this day, the mist and fog blew right onto the trail so you really couldn’t get a good look into its sapphiry abyss. We head back to the road and began our skate skiing to cover some real ground. To the left was the Firehole River and near it, the trees were covered with frost. To the right were woods, cliffs, and small hot pool outflows that were melting the snow away.

It wasn’t more than 2 or 3 miles before we reached a large herd of bison. Luckily, they were making their way out of the road. After a few more miles, we ran into a herd that was just stepping into the road and they were in no rush. The majority of them were grazing slowly along on the riverside. The biggest bison were at the rear of the pack keeping track of things. They were in the road looking back at us giving us the feeling that we better not rush them. When a bison decides to move, they can do so quite quickly and on skis I felt a bit exposed and underpowered against these 1200-pound beasts. We scanned the roadside to see if we could go around them…not a chance, cliffs to the right and river to the left. So, we moved along behind them hoping for a gap to occur. It was a long cold wait and finally a snow coach and a snowmobile pushed through the herd giving us a chance to move. At this point, I passed a monster bison at maybe 25 yards…. closer than I wanted to be. It seemed as if we might get trapped in between these animals, so we sped up to get clear.

We skied through the surreal world of mud pots, fummerals, and the winter landscape. The steam rising from the thermal features creates a beautiful juxtaposition to a cold, winter day. At about noon, we stopped in the center of a wide valley for lunch. We sat on posts that stuck up out of the snow, ate pizza, and looked out over the steaming yet frozen winter-scape. Bison were all around on the small hills. After a cookie, we were off again.

The ski was mostly flat or slightly downhill and we were cruising. As we skated along we saw magnificent Trumpeter Swans on the river. They twice the size of a large Canada Goose and they really do make a trumpeting sound. At about 2 pm, we reached the turn for West Yellowstone at Madison Junction- half way there. There were few people out and about; a couple of snowmobile trains and some snow coaches, but other than that, we had the place to ourselves. In between Madison Junction and 7 Mile Bridge, we witnessed two enormous bull bison duking it out. We were glad that they were not too close as the charges and the head butting they did was frightening. At 7 Mile Bridge we made our last snack stop and sat on a wooden fence overlooking the Madison River. To each side the hills were steep with rugged-looking rock faces. The fires of ’88 left charred stalks of Lodgepole pines and beneath grew many young conifers, naturally seeded by the burn. Two massive bison grazed nearby us next to the river and a lone coyote wandered around in the road looking a bit thin and starved. It didn’t seem to want to come too close to us, no beggar. As we skied off again on tiring legs, it was a weird grouping with Emily and I, Mr. Coyote, and the big bison brothers all within 50 yards.
The rest of the ski was rather nondescript in the way of animals; the landscape, however, is breathtaking because we looked out over the plains toward the massive northern mountains. We commented on how the fires actually had made the views much better. Before the burns, the road must have been kind of boring because all one would have seen for most of the trip would have been dense Lodge Pole trees. After many slight bends through the remaining woods, we finally approached the West Yellowstone entrance gate. After each bend we would see another long stretch with no gate at the end. As we neared the gate, there was a group of Nordic skiers in the trail and they applauded Emily as to how fast and smooth she skied… if only they knew that she was at mile 32 of her ski. I skied under the overhead gateway, stopped where the car road began, took off my skis, and waited a few minutes for Emily to ski up…Wahoo! We did it! What a day! The rest of the story is about the elation one feels after such a day of accomplishment. We loaded our skis into the ski box and drove off back to Big Sky at about 3 pm. On our way back, we talked about how different the same distance will be when we race it in two weeks. It was not going to be as leisurely and most certainly not going to take 6.5 h

yellowstone park...Part 2

2009-02-11T17:26:00.003-05:00

We awoke to the roaring V-8 Dodge Ram, must be going to work. Emily rose and got the coffee on. On opening the door, it was a perfect blue-sky day and it didn’t take long for us to get suited up in ski clothes and get out the door. We were coming back for another night at the yellow cabins, so we didn’t need to move out. Heading into the park we arrived at the gate, purchased our year pass for all national parks- a deal at $80; one day through Yellowstone alone will cost you $25. The sun was bright and the snow sparkled. We drove through the military-like Mammoth encampment. We parked above the Mammoth terraces where the road ends in the winter and turns to snowmobile or snow shuttle service only road. The morning temperature had a bite in it, but it was easy to see that it would soon heat up with the bright western sun. We chose skate skis as the transportation device de jour and skated off- up and up the crystalline snow-covered road. We were not long on our journey before we were passed by one of the old snow bombardiers- a cross between a VW beetle on steroids and a snow mobile. These vehicles are old and one has to wonder how they are allowed in the park anymore. They are noisy and smell like an old truck with a bad exhaust/carburetor problem. Americans love an old vehicle, even if it is bad for the environment. It’s this nostalgia-based thing that makes no sense to me. Its represents the ‘good ole glory days’ to some, but to me it’s where we went astray- relying on petroleum and mechanization, giving up faith in our own physical means of transporting ourselves. Yellowstone Park grew from this time period when the populace would no longer walk, hike, or ski to destinations, but would motor… and damn it if they had to walk. The Park is set up for the motorist and downplays the human’s ability to move about the Park by his or her own means. Most of the hikes are not longer than 10 miles and the vast majority are as short as possible with multiple trailheads within easy walking distance of each other. There are expensive and exhaustive efforts (ramps, stairs, boardwalks paved footpaths, etc, etc) put into making hiking as easy as possible. Some of this is necessary because humans have proven to be pretty stupid while in the park. They have walked off cliffs, fallen into the waterfalls, been swept down the icy rivers, and stepped onto thin crusts around the hot geysers then fallen through to be boiled alive. They have had little respect for the place that they visit. I think it’s the auto and the snowmobile that contribute to this lack of respect because it isolates the human from the environment. The auto makes them comfy and cozy in their climate controlled SUV while it speeds through these environments making a joke of the distances, the weather, the temperature extremes, and the topography. Once they arrive, they clumsily pour themselves out of whatever vehicle on the brink of some massive drop or boiling geyser. There is no prelude activity, like say walking, and yes, a lot of them are in poor health because of this lack of exercise and because of this easy transportation.

Easy transportation leads to a lack of respect, not only for the lazy visitors, but also for the environment that they motor through. The animals are turned into an amusement park-like phenomenon and are not appreciated for their many difficulties including their overall strength to remain alive. Instead, Carl and Sarah and their little Jonny and Suzie arrive from a long motoring day of sitting and watching a DVD inside the new Suburban as they tear across Montana…slurping on yogurt in a straw, munching on chunks of hardened hydrolyzed grease, and then finally, they poor themselves out at the first bison they see next to the road. No matter how much warning you present to these people, they are still going to try to put Jonny and Sarah up on that bison and get a digital photo to send to their work mates back in Chicago… to prove that they, too, had conquered the Wild West. Why are we still trying to conquer the West? Aren’t we getting a bit old for that? The vehicle is the direct connection to the lack of respect. I say, make these people earn it. At least make them realize how far they are from Chicago- and not in numbers of MacDonald’s that they ate at from home.

So, Emily and I skied off and up. It was beautiful. You see things clearly for what they are and you realize after skiing for a half of a day how big this park is. You see and feel for the animals how tough it must be to survive the cold here all winter long, while we go into a warming hut to dry off. You can hear the fierceness in the howl of the wolves calling to each other as they set up a flanking ambush on the elk. You can better understand the idea of strength in numbers and how each animal’s natural survival instincts and physicality attributes to survival. You can smell the smells of Yellowstone- the sage, the conifers, the rotten eggs of the geothermal waters, and the awful smell of bison farts. It takes a lot of grass to feed a 1000-2000 lb. bison in zero degree temps. How do the animals do it? They make our human American culture look so inefficient…. Yet we bathe in the glory of inefficiency; we pride ourselves on our consumption.

We meet a couple along the ski trail by Sheepeater Cliff. As I skied by them on the trail, they had that ‘alive look’ and they stopped me with words. First the lady, with white sunscreen smeared over here face said, “Wow, you really ski nicely. You’re so smooth.” The guy nodded in agreement. I thought to myself, ‘This is what I am talking about: a respect that people gain from where they are and how hard it is to get there.’ They become filled with endorphins and are happy; happy to have camaraderie. Compliments flow and it feels… humane… a far cry from how I feel when I am passed by the snowmobiling herds that zoom by. They, on the other hand, look bored, tired, and annoyed; annoyed because they are lazy and that I am in their way, enjoying my health, without a motor. It’s a competitive feeling and I get this feeling that they see me as either a poor, unlucky person because I have to actually hold my own weight up on these skis or that I am an ‘Elitist.’ I am so tired of this dumbing-down ‘Elitist’ thing. I am an elitist because I don’t spent all my money (all of it) on a $10,000 snowmobile, trailer, SUV to pull it, associated gear and garb, suitcases of cheap beer, lodging expenses, etc? Not only am I an elitist, but I am also a dreaded naturalist, liberal, commie pinko, un-American, non-consumer…. that Nordic skis…. and my skis are not wide enough!

‘Emily really has learned how to ski in just 3 years,’ I think to myself as we skied 20 miles over hill and dale that day. It was perfect; I didn’t have to wait for her. She’s quick as a matter of fact. When I do have to wait, its good for me to get the heart rate down. At noon, we fired up a wood stove in a warming cabin and ate some sandwiches that Emily had toted around in her backpack. We then skied toward a different trail back to the trailhead- over Bunsen Pass. It was great to get away from the snowmobile road. The snow had warmed up (just right… fast!) and I didn’t even have a hat on now. When we caught up with an older, lean man making his way on skis, I skied by and he started talking excitedly. Emily pulled up and we talked to this guy. He seemed to be a guy in his mid-fifties that pulled the ripcord on the Eastern U.S. and all of its phony material ways. He culled security in exchange for happiness. He was just bubbling and so happy, evident in the big smile. Between breaths, he told us how fun it will be to go down this trail and that it was good to get off the road. We could tell this guy was cool; that he found happiness like we did in simple, but extremely rewarding outdoor activities. We smiled at each other and wished each other happy trails.

This Bunsen Trail was fun. There were wolf tracks and obstacles to avoid, like hardened bison flops. Hit one of those and you’re going to go down and/or scratch a ski. The trail took us along Burnt Mt, aptly named because it was barren with burnt lodgepole trees sprouting up. The view was so clear and we could see for miles out to the north over what seemed to be unending wilderness. We skied down, down many tricky switchbacks. I had to snow plow; a rare occurrence for me. We stopped and looked down into a huge canyon that had frozen waterfalls and a basalt rim. We skied on…down, down. At times I could ride my skis up the drifted, hardened snow banks and tele-turn. At one point, a bison was 50 feet away from the trail. I let him know that I wanted to come through; they can run 30 mph, but I doubt they feel the need to- its winter and running just exhausts more energy for them. Once clear of him, I watch Emily, courageously, determinedly with head down, ski quick as possible by the bison that looked on casually. What would I do if he charged her? Attack it with carbide pole tip? Finally, we finished and at the trailhead we realized that we had to walk up hill for 1.5 miles to where our car was parked, but guess what? A park ranger picked us up and gave us a ride up the hill. He was familiar with the danger of skiers walking that road- it’s icy and people drive tooo fast. Sure enough, on our way up a SUV came careening down. Why would they go so fast and where would they need to go so quickly on this beautiful day? I don’t think they would have the answers if you asked them.

Next, we walked the Mammoth Terraces. After the great day we had, it was kind of lackluster, like a prefabricated event- very canned, planned, and boring. But we were in anticipation for soaking in the Boiling River. We arrived to it’s trailhad with just a few hours left of soaking time. Evidently there has been times in the middle of the night when drunken bathers have died here, so the park sets more rules because, again, of the few, the bad, and the ugly. We carried our packs, containing a change of clothes, sandals, and towel, along the river. A very beautiful spot- arid landscape, junipers, welded tuff hills on the other side of the river with draws and rivulets coming down. It’s a half-mile to where the Boiling River wells up from beneath limestone slabs and runs into the cold Gardner River. Along the river junction, stones have been piled up to create a dike, which helps meld the cold and hot water. The Park Service has had to intervene with this area because once, again, people have no respect. People don’t think, even the type that would climb into a hot spring. You would figure that these visitors would be alternative, environmentally speaking….Wrong. In this day and age, the Boiling River visitors are most likely young Spring Breakers looking to kill a few six packs; their cans floating about them. Sure enough, when we arrived there was a group like this. They guzzled beer while taking photos of each other with a digital camera (how this thing didn’t just fry from the steam?), but they were at least reasonably quiet. So, Emily and I took off our ski clothes, dawned our swim suits, and stumbled our way down river with feet in the cold and hot water until we found our own spot with hot water gushing over falls into a pool. Emily loved it…much better than Chico. As the sun set on the hills beyond, we moved about from spot to spot. Emily found a cave with falls over it (grotto). After an hour and a half, we quickly dried off and walked toward the car. Time to get back to the yellow cabin.

The drive from the Boiling River to Gardiner is a short one, but quite beautiful. We saw some pronghorn antelope on the darkening hills. Back at the cabin, the satellite TV and a million channels waited. Emily and I were starving. We lay on the bed, ate a whole loaf of bread, and drank a bottle of wine. First, we settled on what they call ‘cage fighting’-weakest sport I have ever witnessed. It is supposed to be rad, but instead it’s like federation wrestling and seemed really fake. A guy with tattoos who was supposedly the kick boxer/punch 'em up just laid on the mat waiting for the other wrestler to …no, not wrestle, but punch. Boring. The next channel was a soccer game between Ecuador and Venezuela. We watched this until Ecuador scored its second goal and well, it seemed Venezuela had no chance. These players were such good actors- always crying, falling down, and raising a stink. Finally, we both fell asleep.

Well, morning TV (remember we don’t have a TV, its mysterious to us) has a million religious channels and a million channels trying to sell some sort of device that some buff, steroidal actor claims will make you lose 30 pounds in 30 days or some ridiculous claim. At this point, Emily and I are done with our coffee and we are ready for some real weight loss…not that we need to. Off to the Park for another round of skiing. We drove to Mammoth then hung a left towards Cooke City. We were told that a 20-mile drive takes you to a turn-off where there is good snow that is groomed for x-c skiing only. It is a sparkling morning once again, the night frost coats the tall grasses and makes everything bright and surreal. We pass elk and bison and we see eagles. The trees along this east/west passage are large white bark pine, aspen, Douglas fir, and many lodge pole pines. The views are airy and the valley massive. The bison look like the dark rocks of the area. A stellar morning.

After many twists and turns on the glazed road, we arrive at the trailhead. There is a tour group in a bus at the rest room and we wait for them to finish. It takes a long time for 20 or so people to empty their bladders. Emily comments that she is glad that it is just a tour of the two of us. I agree. I do not care much for group activities and I’ve never understood why one would want to take the fun out of finding places and things. The experience of finding is so rewarding, especially when you have not been there before. It’s a process: doing the initial research, the maps, the questioning of local folks, and the searching (sometimes in vain) that makes the finding an adventure. It is this adventure, which is not spoon-fed to me, but self-created by companions and I, that makes memories. We are in a time period now where most people want the instant gratification of seeing without the adventure of the finding. For these people, adventure is associated with danger. Adventure is when you might get lost, hurt, frustrated, or, heaven forbid, when you may learn some things about yourself. These canned tours exemplify our modern, lazy time period. It scares me that people are giving up on their ability to create their own adventures and these people often do not realize their sacrifice. They rob themselves of a connected experience with the trials and errors of a true adventure. I also feel sorry for the ‘adventure tour guide’ who has fallen for the old, “If I could just do this for a job.” Guides are almost always disillusioned this way. If you could just do this (adventure touring) for a job, it would become a job. Then catering to the lazy and guiding the same old beat would get boring. The guide has to dress them, tell them to eat and drink fluids, tell them speed up (or they won’t make it there and back before the wolves come out) or slow down (they are over-heating and sweating too much and will freeze later), and tell them to come over here look at this (because they are too busy playing with their cameras). What a pain in the ass for the guide. Have you ever been out and observed a guided trip run by a bored guide? Yikes! It looks like no fun. But lets face it; this is what happens unless the guide is challenged.

We got our ski clothes on- layers today. It’s cold; in the low teens now but, with this sun it will get warmer. I take a look up the trail, puurrrfect tracks, So, I say to Emily, “A classic day,” meaning get out the kick wax. We’ll start blue/green and if we ski with speed, we will beat the rising temperatures to the top and have kick the whole way. The descent will be fast with the warming snow- slick and slippery. We waxed, clicked into our skis, and off we go, starting in a meadow that approaches the forest then an obvious climb ahead. We moved around the tour group that was still standing on their skis, ready to go, but their guide was giving them final instructions. If I were in this group, I would have already skied off… probably to be reprimanded later on. I notice that they all had heavy skis, telemark boots, or egads…dreaded fish scales. Emily and I are excited to get the blood flowing because it makes the cold go away. Knowing that this ski is 5 miles up hill for 1000ft, I started the day with my heavier gloves, then, once my hands warmed, I transitioned to thinner gloves. I don’t want to sweat-out my heavier gloves because I will need them on the descent. It is this sort of thinking ahead that many people are not used to during winter outdoors activity. Most of the touring people were overdressed to the point where in 1 km they would need to completely stop and undress. The guide, I am sure, warned them all about this, but obviously to no avail.

Our kick is good, maybe too good, but it will get better with the warming day. Same with the glide wax- a bit too warm of a wax, but as soon as the western sun hits the tracks, snow crystals start to melt, which rounds the spurs on each flake. The melted snow lubricates the surface of the waxed ski. It is tough waxing in an environment that is constantly changing and often there are compromises that one has to make. ‘Good now, crappy later on’ is not the way to go because you become tired later on. Later is when you want your wax to be approaching best.

Climbing the trail, we pass a Rainy Lake. I wonder why it is considered a lake. I could throw a rock across this frozen puddle. My mind imagines a cloudy spring day with a light rain coming down- the kind of day you really wish you were not looking at Rainy Lake. I imagine standing around a smoldering rain-drenched fire, clothes smelling like smoke… Then I snap out of it and notice a bend ahead. We ski around the bend then come upon a vista of a canyon and a steep drop in front of us. There are basalt cliffs in the sun on the other side of the canyon and junipers sprouting up from unlikely benches. The ski trail goes down hill for a bit, to the left of an immense basalt cliff that towered over us. There is evidence of decay, as chunks of columnar basalt lay next to the trail. I look up and find myself dizzy and I start poling quicker to get clear of this cliff. Not far after this spot is one of the tourist trap areas known as Tower Falls. It is named after the many pointed, witch-hat-like rock formations that the waterfalls flow through. In the summer, this junction is like an ice-cream stand on a hot day. It actually resembles one, too- there is a building on the side of the road that looks like a lakeside knick-knack and ice cream selling concession. The architect hit the nail on the head. On this crisp, winter day, the spot looks quiet. It will for a few months until its alive once again. We glide by.

The trail starts to steepen, but the tracks remain solid with better glide now. We see a herd of elk moving parallel to us on the opposite hillside. They are looking a bit spooked. I turn and Emily skis up. “Do you hear them?” she asks. My hearing sucks, so, no. “The wolves are howling in the woods to our left and right.” I look around and see that the wolves have been using this track as a highway to avoid the deep snows. Their tactics must be to quickly cover distance on this trail, then to spread out and signal where one another is. This must get the elk to panic and get confused, which spreads out the herd. I am sure that it is very difficult snagging an Elk in deep snow. We notice that the elk stay in deep snow a lot and maybe this is their tactic… longer legs. [Emily: I am editing this story for Mark. His hearing does suck (as does his grammar). The wolves were not howling to our left and right. They were howling to the left and right of the hill that the elk were on (apparently surrounding the elk).]

Whatever Emily!

As I ski along, I think about these wolves. They have obviously grown in numbers since reintroduction in the ‘90s. The U.S. department of wildlife has recently taken the wolves off the endangered species list- one of Bush’s 11^th hour last stabs to naturalists. The cattle industry wins once again. It is always the cattle industry that wins. They win against the Bison, too, because of a disease called Brucellosis, which has spread from elk to bison to cattle. This disease causes the first newborn calves to be aborted. So, of course the native animals get the shaft and the domestic ones get the rules to protect them. With all of the land in Montana and Wyoming for cattle, the Cattle Industry needs even more. They want the land on the outskirts of the Park to be free of bison. I ask myself, ‘if it comes from elk, why not go after them, too?’ Well, the cattle guys would be killing elk, but elk hunting is an industry in itself. It brings huge revenue to the states that have an Elk Hunt. The bison on the other hand barely have the numbers to sustain themselves. Imagine… there used to be 60 million bison in the West. Now the largest numbers in the wild remain in the park- no more than 3 to 4 thousand of them and on occasion they need to move outside of the Park to get additional nourishment. Have you ever eaten bison? It’s actually pretty good and has far better nutrition than beef and less fat. Bison are natural grazers that need less pampering. They have instincts in bad winter weather that allows them to stay alive. For example, the bison move into the wind head first during snowy, wintry days. This means that they move through the weather system quickly. The cow does the opposite- it keeps its butt to the wind and gets blown along like tumbleweed, ending up in bad weather longer…dah!

Finally, we are high up and we can see over the landscape. We can see Mt Washburn to the south and many other nameless peaks to the north. No manmade things as far as we can see. We stop and have our lunch in the sun under some lodgepole pines. The fields in front of us flow out until interrupted by more lodgepole stands. The grasses and tall plants now drop the whore frost crystals that had grown on them over night, which makes a dreamy sparkle to the snowscape. Food tastes really good when you have a vista like this. Time to head down; don’t want to get a chill. It looks like our direction of travel was well chosen because the tracks end and the groomer has dropped the flattening blade- meaning downhill. It is odd because the ski guide recommended that novices go up this steep, winding trail, which is obviously better to descend. I can just imagine running into one of these herring boners as I come whipping around one of the many corners. Never trust guidebooks; use your own instincts. Guidebooks instill a sense of confidence that lacks reality. What happens if the guidebook is lost? Do you really know where you are? Once instinct has been left behind, it is hard to get your bearings. So, down, down we go and low and behold, we meet some skiers that are coming up the descent. They look discouraged; they could have had the sweet tracks up like we had.

We pop out at the Tower Junction (ice-cream joint) and we see the guide and his clients. The guide sees us and knows that we have gone twice as fast as his group. He looks like he wants to abandon ship and ski with us. We smile as we fly by. On the remaining 2.5 miles down, we run into all kinds of stragglers in different states of overheating and exhaustion. Emily and I comment on how our conditioning has paid off. We started our ski season on snow back in November; we have been skiing at an elevation of 7000-8500 ft. most of the season. Its really fun this time of the year to get off the same old tracks and be able to tour, but in a quick and efficient manner covering some distance.

My dream of Yellowstone Park in the winter… If I had my way, I would scrap this whole snowmobile thing and turn the park into a winter refuge with little motor intervention. The Park could be a series of huts, yurts, and cabins that are spread out along the roads that the snowmobiles now ride. The skier can tour from cabin to cabin in a ski-able day’s distance. Not only is this type of experience so rewarding, to attain warmth and a place to sleep after a day of skiing, but also it is easier on the already taxed wildlife. Winter is hard on them. Should they have to be fighting whirring snowmobiles all winter? As it is now, the Park is mostly meant for snowmobiles and x-country skiers are the minority taken into account by the Park with few ski-only trails. America loves to dumb down experience. There are arguments like, ‘what about people in wheelchairs or blind people?’ This has extended to fat people who can’t get out of their SUVs. I think exceptions should be made for the disabled folks, but let’s be real, all summer long anyone can drive into the park and see by wheel chair accessible ramps almost every geyser and mud pot. Should the winter be dumbed down in the same manner? Why not make one of the greatest outdoor experiences about a challenge and an adventure, minus the motor. How can we call this place ‘Americas Foremost Wilderness Park’ if it’s nothing but parking lots, ice cream stands? Is any of this really ‘happy’? Motoring year round? It is demeaning to the word ‘Wilderness’ to turn it into a year-round amusement park. Yep, I am going to be labeled ‘Elitist’ again. Y’ know what? Fine, call me elitist! I will call most Americans lazy, slothish, spoiled fatsos. I am not going to sugarcoat the picture. The obesity rate is out off control and most Americans are like flies, slurping up sugar drinks by the gallon threatening to get diabetes before they have their first kiss. Most can’t do a simple sit-up; you can’t bend a bowling ball made of lard. This park should not be dumbed down to comply with the standards of a degenerating culture of motorists. Join me in the experience of earning the experience.

We arrive back at the car…I know, what a hypocrite. There are differences, though, between those who try to be efficient, less impactive to the environment, or strive to live in a more sustainable way, and those who simply don’t even try. We can’t dumb down all arguments in such a way. Yes it is a car, but it is four cylinders, aerodynamic, and has emissions that are far less than the average behemoth 8 and even 10 cylinders SUV on the road now. The SUV culture, yes a culture, is a belief system that you need to bring everything with you (the kitchen sink, too) when traveling. We Americans have a lot of baggage aside from massive bodies; we are consumer-oriented gear heads. Everyone needs every piece of gear/gadget to prove that they have had an outdoor experience. Most can’t go on a simple hike without a battery of REI-certified hiker paraphernalia kits. So, the SUV acts as a freight car. It also acts as a safer vehicle. The auto industry has figured out that most people can’t drive on snow, so it supplements the ability to drive safely with all wheel drive, ABS, satellite navigation, and hoists to load the driver and occupants. I know its Elitist to try to be sensible.

In the end, Emily and I really had a great time. Our journey into the park was so rewarding because we powered ourselves into, what felt, very remote parts of the Park. We were part of the place for a few days. As we reverse our trip, back through Paradise Valley, to Livingston, and over the pass to Bozeman (the next Salt Lake city of strip malls and 7-elevens). We try to keep calm and stay in the zone that the time in Yellowstone helped us to find. This is hard, though, when every Dodge Ram super truck is breathing down your back, on your bumper….racing, racing …. unhappy, disgruntled, pissed…. “And damn!” they think ….a Maine license plate…. “Liberal Elitist! Run ‘em off the road!”.

I pull over and let them by.

Part 1 of Yellowstone Park trip

2009-02-08T17:23:00.001-05:00

February in Montana. We have had some really incredible weather- warm, sunny days, cold nights; the snow is fast and its time to get out and see some different places other than our old beat. So, Emily and I packed up and headed to the North entrance of Yellowstone Park. To get there, if one could fly, it would only be about 40 miles at best, but over some giant mountains. By car, we had to drive 120 miles, first north to Bozeman, than east to Livingston, than south down Paradise Valley to Gardiner Montana, the Northern gateway to the Park. The drive was dark and gloomy this day, much like weather that is reminiscent of New England. It was warm and balmy, mild with big snowflakes falling on occasion. As we entered the Livingston area, the wind was blowing hard as usual. Livingston is at the junction of the mountains and the plains, so there are is a pressure difference that causes high winds. Tractor-trailers sometimes are blown over and off the I-90. We turned onto route 89 towards Paradise Valley and the snow fell harder as we approached the narrowing that the Yellowstone River has cut through limestone walls. The drive was beautiful in a non-scenic way. We could not see the mountains to the left nor right; the snow hid all except the field of winter crops. Everything was monochromatic and blurry.

Paradise Valley is a strange valley. It is developed in a scattered way; houses and farms are plopped down wherever the acreage was parceled with no rhyme nor reason. There are few trees, mostly fields, and what trees there are most likely are cottonwoods or junipers along the river. This makes the housing seem so obvious, obtuse, and unplanned. It is like a junkyard of human habitation. We wondered how these people live… then we noticed the satellite antennas abounding. The river the whole time winds through in a serpentine way with massive blocks of ice jammed against the banks. I commented to Emily that there will be a surprise on the way back through this valley if the weather clears, for once it does, the majesty of the Absoroka Mountains is stunning. They are jagged peaks covered with tall conifer trees, high meadows, and plenty of angular talus rocks.

We decided early on in the day to break down the drive and stop at a hot spring resort called Chico so we could soak our skied-out legs before heading on. In the back of my mind I had a hike planned, but would wait before suggesting it to Emily. We turned off and head over the Yellowstone towards Chico, past a settlement of strewn-about trailer homes, barbwire fences demarking boundaries, plastic bags stretched out in the wind clinging to the barbs. One area was quadranted off with a perimeter of old trailers lined up end to end. Where there were gaps, someone chinked them with whatever junk they could find: old refrigerators, sheet metal roofing, even an old plow blade. Whoever owned this property made it known you were not welcome. We drove down the long access road towards the mountains where Chico lies beneath. I informed Emily as to what to expect at Chico. It has a place in history for sure. Once it was a saloon, where a cowboy could soak his tired saddle-sore ass, drink from the saloon, and get a whore. Today it is a therapeutic resort with a day spa and masseuses. I warned Emily that that doesn’t mean that this place is hygienic or sterile…but nonetheless the water is true geothermal mineral ‘hot Wada’ as they say at Chico. On arriving, the new buildings that have been installed to add to Chico’s ‘grandeur’ are formula lodgey things, but cheaply constructed. Out here in Montana there is truly the modern formula for lodges: use a bunch of whole trees, saw them up into lengths and plaster them up to what is cheap stick framed, lackluster modern, ill thought-out ranch-like dark, viewless, boxes. The actual old saloon and Chico Hotel are more honest; they too are cheaply constructed of old hewn planks and timbers, but without the airs of being high end and ‘simulacratic’ bullshitting undertones.

We entered the main lobby of Chico. The lady behind the desk, a narrow lady, wrinkled, with spectacles fitting for her personality, you know the rectangular ones that the wearer looks over the top of in a bitchy kind of a way. Well, she didn’t look at us once. She had her phone headset on and glared at the computer and lodging book She didn’t say a word even on the phone, wouldn’t look up at us… so I sat down on a plush couch as if I had lived there forever. Emily wandered around the main desk looking for information and trying to put out the vibe of a customer needing help. In the back room, another chunky woman worked the phone and didn’t glance up. After about 10 minutes, a cook came out of the dinning area, he looked at me slouched on the sofa, looked at Emily looking through brochures at the check-in desk, saw the old, wrinkled bitch staring at her computer, looked into the back room behind the check in desk and could see chubby working the phone. It was clear that he had seen this before: people waiting, waiting, and no help. He asked me if we were staying the night, no we are not, so he walked off. We got the point; those that come to use the hot spring pool are not worth waiting on. We finally had the chance to pay our $6.50 apiece and were pointed towards to door out of the Inn to a covered walkway to the Saloon entrance where we were told to show the barman our pass. He pushed a buzzer that let us through a door to the pools. I figured that they must have had problems with drunken cowboys letting themselves into the pool without paying.

The pool area itself is a very odd construct. It is open to the outside (above), but closed in by buildings made of cheap texture 1-11 paneling. The whole thing brought together by a dark green trim and green metal roofing that had a barbed wire look- sharp, jagged edged (I wouldn’t climb over it). The men’s and women’s rooms are at the other end of the two pools. Signs around the pools remind the bather of Montana state rules about bathing in public pools: that you shouldn’t drink alcohol nor have heart problems, and if you do, 15 minutes max in the hot water. Also if you have open sores, you shouldn’t use the pool. Another sign read, “Welcome to our ool. Notice that there is no P in it …we would like to keep it that way.”

Emily and I made our way to the changing rooms at the end of the pools, on the way stepping over bathers’ fruity alcoholic drinks in plastic cups. Several couples were embracing and floating drunkenly, lethargically in the mist of steaming waters. On entering the changing area, I remembered on a past visit that it had been remodeled and that I thought at the time it looked like a cheap job and wondered what kind of glue they use to paste up the plastic paneling. The rooms themselves were made mostly of mold, mildew, and grime at that time. Well, it smelled in there like old times; one big changing room, floor of a dirty concrete, walls, yes, plastic sloughing off, benches made of some material I recognize from I think dock and ramp prefab outfits. I didn’t sit to change, but stood, removing each article of clothing and neatly rolling them up and stowing in my bag, which you are reminded by a sign that the Chico management posted, “We are not responsible for stolen items. Please use 50 cent lockers around pool.” I also remembered the Montana rules and regulations about public pools and entered the shower, to clean off my filthy body before entering the pool. The shower seemed like the kind of place that you might contract legionnaires disease, or at least a bad case of athlete’s foot or planter warts…. I was glad I brought my sandals.

I entered the pool before Emily. She was still in the changing room enjoying her shower. Once you enter the pool of unchlorinated hot mineral water, your body just instantly relaxes no matter how nervous or spooked you may be. Emily came out of the women’s room with an expression of fright that I knew would disappear once she entered the pool. She had on her black bikini bathing suit and looked out of place in an athletic way amongst the beached walruses sipping drinks and floating wrapped in those colored float tubes. We relaxed and swam to the saloon end where the ‘hotter’ pool and the buzzer for a take out window for alcoholic drinks are located. We drank water from our bottle that we brought; Chico was not going to make a killing on us- we are ‘cheap athletes.’ We soaked for about an hour and a half and in that time our fellow bathers drank what we figured was enough to stop the heart. It was time to go. On leaving through the dark dank saloon, I could still smell tobacco smoke of the yesteryears before the new age liberals had it all shut down. I glanced at the patrons slumped over what I imagined were shots of whiskey and draft beers…only imagined…more likely bud light in a can.

We both breathed a sigh of relief as we walked back out into the Montana open air. Chico had a closed, claustrophobic kind of uncanny, perverted feel to it and it felt liberating to leave. I suggested a hike up a canyon nearby to shake off the musty feel and Emily agreed. We drove out of Chico the back way. The dirt road, the cattle fencing, and the rustic nature of the place really make you feel like you are in Montana. The turn we are to take is marked by a friendly brown forest service sign, so we took a left and drove up a narrow dirt road, covered with a hardened ice, in between small cabins and humble homes, then along a small river flowing over jumbled river rocks. The canyon is steep on both sides with scree slopes and juniper trees flowing up and up. Along the narrow road are gnarled aspen trees and piles of stones left behind by barge dredge machines. These machines were used in this river drainage long ago. They dig a hole, which fills with the river flow then they float and dig ahead sifting the material for ore. On and on they go making a huge mess of piled river rock…. A wasteland for years after…snakes love these places in the summer.

We made some sandwiches and ate them sitting in the car while looking way up the canyon. The snow is falling on the steep craggy mountainside above, but a light rain where we are parked. We are ready to hike and I don’t feel a need to wear winter boots for there is just a small amount of snow on the ground, a change from the Big sky area where you have no business hiking without ski, snow shoe, or at least winter boots. We start walking up the road, someone had driven a truck, someone had driven a snowmobile up the center, and we walked the ruts. We notice an aspen tree scarred by a bear that had clawed its soft bark away. It is quiet, there is little wind, the sky is gray, and snowflakes fall as we go higher. Along the road, rock sloughs down off the slopes into the road. We see small snow avalanches of what I call cinnamon swirls: snowballs that roll down the hill and roll into our feet. We look up- not a friendly place to hike up, so we stick to the road. The trees are lodge pole, Douglas fir, hemlock, and the mountain behind is crazy-looking steep jagged rocks coated with a sticky snow. The river gurgles along. We wonder why the forest service has needed to pound metal stakes with signs denoting that forest service land is beyond them. Who would care? No one could hike these slopes nor are there resources there that anyone would want. We didn’t even see an animal other than a few lonely birds and one tree squirrel that angrily scolded us. As we walk higher, the snow gets a little deeper, but the road is well packed by the snowmobile track. We cross the river over a culvert that is 6 ft in diameter and made of ½” steel riveted tube that was roughly cut off at one end by a torch. Emily wondered why anyone would go through the effort to place this here and as we climb this road, which is cleaved into the scree slopes, I wonder too. Some desperate skiers had traveled the climbing pass road. I couldn’t imagine their descent- lots of rock debris had fallen onto the snow on the road and the road itself allowed no room for error. To one side, a steep drop down into the river far down below. We hiked up and up until we were in a cresting notch between the ramparts of the crazy, craggy mountains. We paused and Emily ate some snow, not much though. Then we headed down, down, back through the canyon.

Back at the car we headed on our way. Back by Chico, there where more cars and mostly trucks now, working day was over I guess. We drove back out onto the highway, hardly any traffic, snow now lifting. I told Emily about the CUT or Church of the Universal Triumphant. It has its compound in the area and I guess after the new millennium when the apocalypse never happened, membership died off. They had built, from what I have heard, underground bunker houses filled with supplies and such, in case the world went crazy. Now they are selling off pieces of property to whoever will buy some. The Park actually is lined up to buy a piece from CUT to allow the bison a corridor out of the park and onto grazing land. I hear it’s a bum deal and that the bison wont use it anyway- ‘prolly’ freaked out by the CUT, too. We passed a bunch of elk and then on to Yankee Jim Canyon where they do some white water rafting in summer. The Yellowstone River is the longest undamed river left in the USA. I hear 500 miles long before a dam.

We finally get to Gardiner and are welcomed by White-tailed deer on the road, beside the road, and in folks’ yards, even on their doorsteps getting a little supper. We pull into the local grocery store and I get a much needed six pack. Beer prices were a bit high, but the locals were nice and everyone that I saw in the store looked me directly in the eye and nodded; a change from Big Sky where the Elite Wealthy don’t see well. We drove a block to our destination lodging that Emily had set up by phone that day. Cabins on the River they were advertised. We spied the sign and low in behold there they were right on the main drag. Emily told me to pull down in behind. On driving in, there were two bucks snoring in the driveway. No one was here yet even though the sun had gone down. There was a pen next to the cabins where a goose and some deer were hanging out. The cabins were in a row, more like an extruded cabin, each with one window on a small porch. They were the color yellow, kind of giving it a feminine touch on the outside.

Emily went to find the proprietor. I cracked open a beer in the car and looked out towards the park and the dusk sky glowing a bit, mountains far off, and the river way down below. It looked hard to get down there. I noticed that Emily had found a lady, the owner I assumed, and first she showed Emily, their pride and joy: the deer, the goose, and the hot tub platform that over looks them. She opened the tub up, steam rose, and I saw her fiddling with the knobs. Emily was looking at the deer. She loves animals. So, I took this meant that our accommodations were marginal since viewing them came last. Emily was shown in. The manager with her frosted blonde hair left us to sort things out. On entering the cabin, it was small, and not feminine, a brownish shag rug, not a window to see this river, but instead, a nice TV and with a satellite system too! There were also amenities like a microwave, a coffee maker, and a refrigerator… I stowed my beer away. What do you expect for 50 bucks a night? I wasn’t complaining. Emily was paying. We were going to the park first thing in the morning and sleeping and some satellite TV were in between that. So, we settled in. Emily heated up some left over spaghetti in the microwave while I tried to figure out the dish thing. There we laid ….I clicked through infinite stations, mostly buying channels or sports networks that were payperview. Oh, and soft porn channels that were payperview at $11.56 a channel…Debby does Dallas and such…. You would have to be pretty desperate. At this time laying back I noticed the manly fishing paraphernalia on the walls. They seemed to be made by some guy that was a store clerk that had always wanted to be a wood worker. Plywood stencil cutouts of a ‘German brown’ trout. Even in the bathroom, a toilet paper dispenser that was modeled after a fishing reel. I noticed the joinery was lacking and that a hot glue gun was the attachment system. Well, it wasn’t but about 8 pm when the neighbor, the guy that I guess rents the cabin right next door, roared in with his must have been Dodge Ram truck, dual exhaust. We kind of had an idea that the room next to us was rented ‘by the week’ because there was a propane barbeque grill on the deck. Cigarette smoke started to fill our room as soon as he slammed his door and then we noticed our room had a door to his and the seal was not very good. I kind of have allergies to cigarette smoke and Emily detected that the night might turn sour after my first sneeze. She quickly got up and turned on the air conditioner. The smoke blew about so she opened the door and checked on the deer. All in all I slept ok, the baseboard electric heat is kind of hard on the nostrils, though.

The wonders of Mountains

2009-01-16T13:28:00.001-05:00

Hi all...just a pic of Emily and I enjoying Montana and the solitude of the mountains.

A little powder for the Kids

2008-12-29T14:12:00.003-05:00

Big Sky . . . a Big Mistake

2008-12-27T14:00:00.005-05:00

As I sit in this small efficiency condo about 400 ft.² in floor area, with heat and electricity included, I am happy being free of thinking daily about crazy fuel costs. Emily and I are cozy and snug while looking through the window at the Big Sky Mountain. But haunting my good feelings is my mind wondering in the background…. Why …Who… and How has this place become one of the biggest examples of environmental, economic, and cultural ethics decay, disrespect, and destruction I have witnessed?

Emily and I came to Big Sky not to ski the mountain proper but to Nordic ski the small trails, glades, riverbed areas in the area, and to enjoy the yearly West Yellowstone Nordic ski Festival. We had no idea we were renting a condo

‘on the mountain’. When we arrived in a snowstorm we realized that we were to drive up a 7-mile road resembling a mountain pass to reach our condo. This ‘ski area access road’ is the place of death of travelers marked by white crosses and ‘lil’ johnny’s snowboard and flower arrangement.

The car road access arrangement is just the ‘foot-road’ to further ridiculousness in its access. Once at the mountain base a striking view of the Big Sky Mountain reveals that it has no summit! Man has removed the mountain’s very symbolic apex, a ‘symbolic of those places that we humans have to be strong to reach’. All this is to accommodate a tram tower to allow skiers of any fitness level to attain its summit.

The tram is the ultimate symbol of Big Sky and it’s associated accommodations and accessories found here. With capital to burn in the form of dynamite this majestic mountain has had no chance. Nor it’s valley, nor it’s glade, nor it’s natural passes.

The development of this tram is supposed to represent a triumph of man’s technological ability to access anything, anywhere anytime. With such a success all else in the periphery lay in a similar path ….the co modification and quelling of even the symbolic mountain, the supposed prize of the natural world.

When I think of a mountain and the ascending of it I envision a long arduous endeavor with the summit only attained after a process of strenuous climbing and perseverance. When I think of mountain living I think of small cabins fitting where they can be reached not by car but by foot. These envisioned cabins have a wisp of smoke coming from their thin stovepipes exemplifying simple heating system. Skis line the perimeter of the decks. The cabins interior is cozy, but not crammed, still allowing views of the grand natural place in which they are built. I think of simple accommodations that bring one back to the essence of primitive life, exemplified by a hearth for warmth, a place for our friendships, and re-acquaintance with our family or loved ones to flourish.

The Big Sky resort and peripheral housing and lodging represent the destruction and abuse of my idealistic, naive, and maybe old-fashioned principles. I believe the direction that this resort has headed is wrong. Big Sky development exemplifies the deterioration of our cultures ethics and aspirations, and exemplifies greed, wanton destruction of natural places, and shortsightedness. Big sky has driven its cruel stake through the very heart of the Mountain that it reveres for its challenges. The corporate and safety culture have reduced this mountain into a Disney land like co-modified experience. Every Banker, realtor, engineer, architect, contractor/builder has lowered their eyes to the wreckage they assist to prosper.

Everyone bows to the moneyman to get a piece of the pie. In the end what do they have to show for it? A decapitated Mountain accessible to any doughy family with cash. These people who prosper from the destruction of symbolic environments (the mountains, rivers, high natural passes) are seemingly exempt from making appropriate decisions. Even the financial decisions they have made are corrupt, delusional, and lack foresight.

Yesterday Emily and I woke to clear skies. We went for a walk along a small creek heading up the mountain; it was beautiful as long as we ignored the power line running overhead up to Moonlight Basin ski area. We felt freedom in the hills as long as we didn’t approach the massive lodges to the right and left that corner the creek and its populace of small animals. The Elk have long considered this place a lost cause, much like we consider those concrete parking areas around passé malls in and around almost every town in America lost causes.

We tried to avoid a massive 10,000 ft.² uninhabited single family “cabin”, we didn’t want to trespass. We wandered through some beautiful forests then popped up onto yet another traversing access road, accessing higher ‘cabins’. At one point we looked out and yes the eyes found the horizon, a ridgeline of imposing peaks. However, the foreground was unforgivable. Every which way a traversing, blasted in access road, to a modern stylized ‘cabin’ mansion cleaved recklessly into the hillside. In places the clefts are so big that massive condo complexes abound teetering on the edge. The pure acreage that the parking lots and buildings occupy makes it seem as if we were looking down on any suburban place in America. Not a single soul moved. These buildings are unoccupied ‘the ski season’ is not yet.

This whole ecological disaster with its associated sewage problems, energy infrastructure, and run-off issues has been speculatively imposed on this hill, (I can’t call it a mountain, its just too beat up) someone’s idea of a good investment. We climb higher hoping to escape the horrible truths of mans floundering existence and imposed wreckage.

We pass a sign that says that we are not allowed higher. This is Big Sky property. So here it be that even the mountain is owned as a real-estate endeavor. We break the law. We move up a slope where snowmaking ‘turbines’ have been blowing ‘man made’ snow. Even the neve’ is fake. The ski resort must guarantee that winter comes….even if mother nature is slow to crank up her ‘snow gun’. There are many condos and upscale lodges that need to be filled for ski season…snow must be a certainty.

As we all know our economy is in a bad place. Could it be that these places that were built during times of excess will never be occupied? And what becomes of behemoths if never sold? This whole system is contingent on cheap oil, electricity, and affluence. Not one of the homes even attempts to be sustainable in scale, energy saving, or material modesty. The mountains snowmaking is a prime example of energy just blown into the sky.

A lone father and son with helmets and goggles come down the icy slope bouncing hard on the ice paved way. They drove their car to this point 8500 ft. to enjoy ‘early winter”.

I wonder if this economy further fails who will be able to afford the $78/day plus accommodations, and food? Not many from what Emily and I see today, on opening day so few skiers are here, how can this place stay alive? As with most corporations there must be guarantees that some many trails, lifts, and acreage are open even if there are not the skiers to occupy them.

As we walk down the yet to open, rock covered ski trail we feel like we should not be there, Emily reminded me that we are trespassing. We wonder if we will get in trouble with a ski patrol. I tell Emily, if asked why we are there to just say “nanu, nanu” and raise the hand split fingered like Mork, Mindys friend.

We walk down under the lift which transports helmeted skiers with very wide skis upwards. Some look down at us wondering, I suppose, why we are walking there? Why are they not taking the lift? One guy looks like actually he is upset that we are on ‘their’ mountain….only made by god for the skiers.

Whatever has become of our world? Whatever became of us? Mechanized, safety clad humans hiding behind helmets, seemingly sexless, without self identity or critical thinking. We have become robots marching/skiing/driving towards a cliff that no amount of blasting will make safe. When, if ever, will we realize that the legacy we have are leaving the next generations is a mess, natural wonders of the world desecrated, scars that wont go away anytime too soon. Could we put behind our ego and greed to ensure these special natural features remain unaltered, and maybe difficult to get to without hard work? Or to run the current path, one leading to ghost towns of condos, uninhabited, or crumbling paved ways leading to phantom mansions. Our future generations have one thing to learn from Big Sky, what a disaster, what short sightedness, what greedy minded individuals prospered here.

The west (Part 1)

2008-12-04T13:43:00.003-05:00

The West….

a place I have tried to avoid thinking about since leaving it. For to think about the West, states like Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah would just make my time back East harder, so one just tries to forget those lost loves..and Move on.

But once Emily’s suggestion hinted that maybe just going back there would be a good thing… that maybe staying in Maine ... and ‘Caahhmden’, Maine at that…burning oil in an in-efficient in-law apartment all 6 months long might just not be the thing for us. So she hatched a plan…the Nordic ski festival at West Yellowstone the destination, and got on Craig’s list and found us a condo in Big Sky Montana, just a mere 50 miles down the road to save money (more on this later).

So we packed up, found a cheap storage unit just a convenient couple of blocks away, packed and stowed our domestic lives, for the promises of the open road, and Westward to where snows are reliable!

Well sounds easy as pie right? We had to do so many things to get this ‘Dream’ underway. The jobs that had to be finished were many-fold indeed. We had to get a car that was not a Pig! We had to sell the Pig (Subaru Forester)! Then the customary walk down car sales lane is no picnic… it is long and arduous. But we came out the end with a pretty nice car (VW Jetta wagon), although Phil, my Brother, needed to point out the snow tires that would be needed out on the mountain passes. But Emily kept her head down and she even, in the end, sold her Pig car for a nice Penny!

I got my jobs done too…I had to keep my head down right to the day we left, for we couldn’t leave until they were done…design, permits, find the right metal worker to assist in the project, get materials, do insane on the water metal fabrication, and in the end get paid my old friend Mike Morrill….and brother Jon, longtime high school friend and conspirator.

Then we said goodbye to everyone, the nieces, the geeses, the parents, the siblings, the aunts, and friends…saying all these byes is hard for it gets one to wonder how they will deal when these people are all thousands of miles in the past.

Our final hurrahs were with Jon and Kate… always a party. I mean, these two paarrty! And Jon’s Brother Mike was coming in. Steven too~! So, Emily and I left my folks Place in Liberty, Maine… and I must mention it was a pleasure staying there (even if the turkeys were roosting on the railing that we toiled so hard on and crapped on the deck, clawed around on the roof). But the architecture…! Just kidding… it was nice to finally ‘test drive’ the product that I designed and built for my folks.

The drive to Portland gave the car a shake down…initially it was packed to the gills, but we pruned ‘her’ down, stowed some more in my sister, Danielle’s attic. The second-hand Thule ski box that we put on the roof was covered with stickers of places only a ski playboy could go. No problem, “We have the whole trip across this miserable country to peel them off,” I said to Emily. But back to the blowout that occurred on our way out of Portland… Let’s put it this way: Emily, Jon’s doctor neighbor Sarah, and Kate wore black electrician’s tape over their nipples that night! And the dirty dancing…. I did not approve of it, much like an old man would not have. So the few days’ laughs were had and many more beers downed… the timing to leave was good everyone went back to work… except Emily and I… we drove away… away to our new lives for at least a winter.

We woke early and got on the road by 7 am… not easy to do in November… it was Nov. 11 and the wide-open road was waiting. All of our toll money in a row, we drove off. By the time we got to Connecticut, we had made a mistake. Missed an exit. ”Oh, well” Emily said. “We will catch the next road and reconnect.” But not so fast, we hit a slow in the road…. And time goes by sitting in traffic…my goal for that day was to miss the NY turnpike and go by the way of the good ole Pennsylvania turnpike- cheap and dangerous….plagued with mini deer I told Emily. And we did get to see a whole bunch of them. I told Emily, wait ‘till she sees an Elk!

We almost made it out of Pennsylvania that night, but we decided to call it quits and pulled into a lack luster Motel 8. “And not necessarily cheap either,” Emily confided to me. So, we watched a few crappy reality shows and called it a day. Oh, I forgot to mention….It was a dry town… No beer for Greeno!

We were up and a frost was on the car. The car next to us had two smashed out windows. We were thankful ours were not. We drove off checking our fuel gauge and mileage, for we wanted to verify that we were not driving another Pig. So far we’re averaging 28-29 mpg.

Well, the tolls of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois suck! We paid like 30 bucks to go through those miserable states. And all they had to show for it were a couple of Starbucks coffee joints housed in what I told Emily was the equivalent of a first year architect’s portfolio. We toiled on the road that day and drove through some of the most frightening places: suburban sprawl, electrical lines, choked highways, trash clinging to wasteland pedestrians’ legs. We achieved for a day’s labor: Iowa… the land of the truly lost. We pulled off the road when every trucker and his brother blew by in the early night hours….

The EconoLodge sign loomed and we suckered into it. I sat in the car thinking that I needed a beer, but all I had was smoke-ables… so I indulged. Emily came out. “We are room 215.”

We walk into the hall and its already a scene out of a bad horror movie. Our room is to the right… on entry an awful smell of pesticide hits my nose… I look for a window to open… its not operable, I say to Em “ look for bugs in the corner of the room” she looks at me oddly… In the meantime I see a brown thing on the floor, I examine….”looks like a husk”. “Lets look at the bed”… I say… On approaching the bed I see what appears to be a huge bedbug on the center of the mealy looking brown bedspread…. On closer examination…”Emily look at this huge bedbug” she runs over and the bug feels her horror and on queue runs across the bed and jump off into the dark….

We quickly gathered our bags before the word was out in the bed bug community and practically jogged out of there down the hall and Emily was getting her money back.

Now I had to drive again… and where? So we see this sign over the interstate pass… ‘Newton Inn’ …. “ well hopefully there are no bed bugs in the Inn” I think we both said at the same time. I am now in my ‘Nth hour’ and just want to be done with driving. “Emily… Where do we go? … you’re my co-pilot tell me where…”

Emily takes control, “take a left”. We arrive at the weird entry of the Newton Inn… a blue canvas awning … into what looked like a swimming pool? But alas to the left a high portico marking the true Hotel entry…or so we thought…Emily finds her way through the maze of entry doors and is met by a very tired drywaller at day hotel custodian at night Black man. I am sorry I am from Maine… its customary to mention when men are black.

Again I am waiting in the car…. She comes out… and triumphantly announces room 154 … so we go in under the glowing blue awning, down a hall wide like on entering a football stadium… covered with exterior grade blue carpet…? Walking into the stadium we find the smell of Chlorine and a giant swimming pool roped off. We go into the room… close the door… immediately inspect the bed… rip the covers off, flip the mattress up and no bugs! We celebrate…oh and forgot to mention I did have a beer this night but up to this moment had not been able to open it….I hesitate to open it… the room is damp from the nearby pool so I turn on a air exchange unit… instantly the air has the smell of burnt wiring…acrid… and I open the door … the smoke alarm goes off… Emily comes back in… I try some lights and the TV and all wiring is poached…. Blown breaker… The hotel manager comes down in his last hour stand…smells the wiring and sends us to another room.

The second room in the Newton Inn … more isolated… away from the noisy room, but what about bugs? We go through the whole bed, mattress thing again… No bugs… I conclude that it’s the chlorine in the pool that keeps the bed bugs away… and most bugs really I suppose. I finally get to drink my beer.. A Fat Tire… ahhhh! A flavor I have not had since last out west… beautiful… my first beer since we left Portland too. We watch a few reality shows and retire in a haze.

The night was long in the inner catacombs of the Newton inn… no windows saw day break, the only window looked dumbly out onto the pool which had crappy lighting…we came out of our catacomb actually early for we had no idea of daybreak… The continental breakfast was great! If you like captain crunch, and toasties… luckily we made our own coffee in our room…. Not risking that one. I had seconds on no one item, Emily didn’t like her breakfast so much. On leaving we got to reflect once again on the overall Parti of this hotel convention design… bring the kids too, they can make friends in the pool that will hopefully drown them.

We marked time against another Newton Inn customer wearily leaving a just dawn… his eyes blood shot and blurry…The Newton Inn a place for

Iowa sucks…. Once on the road… Iowa sucks… the drivers hated our Maine state license plate… they knew we were on the other side…the McCain side and they were soar about the recent lost to Obama. We knew we were in their territory! So I drove fast, and Emily hung on to the convenient handle over the passenger door. At some point I noticed that I was having a deja-vu experience …I had been through Iowa before…The middle of this sad country is frightful, it seems as if its become one power grid like tinsel on a tree strewn all about. The road scape is bleak, apocalyptic in its industrial usage of land. The farms that once embodied this region have sold out to the big box stores. As far as the eye can see corporate chains, fast food courts, and industrial parks own the landscape. No one smiles, and if they do I wonder what they are on. At this point I yearn to see a semi load of shitting cattle over the industrialness of this land. Our dreams were answered when we saw the windmill of yore all over the hills …Brand new shining windmill…huge in scale…going up all over the hills….Emily and I feel that now we are getting somewhere…. As the land opened up to the west….heading into the never ending Nebraska…

Nebraska is boring, but in a calming way, I-80 starts to thin out, and commuters…where are they commuting? We see a sign that tells us that we are half way through the state, only another 200 miles till Good old Colorado.

We stay in touch with Billy Bentley who is going to receive us on the other side of Colorado, over the passes of I-70. We realize that we will be hitting Denver just as darkness fully sets in. As we approach Denver its maddeningly crazy, the lanes come in and everyone is driving straight out….tumble weeds roll as the winds off the Front range of the Rockies begin to roar. As the grade steepens up the first foothill, which are quit steep snow begins to fly….I could see it all coming, that we would have to pay our dues getting over Loveland pass, and then Vail Pass, the semi trucks were trying to beat the weather before it got worse… and we started to wonder about the Jetta Wagon with all season radials. It was a white knuckled ride, and through the Eisenhower tunnel we raced with the big trucks western folk love to drive. When we popped out of the tunnel the snow was blinding, and greasy and building up quick… this descent was crazy, and I was pushed from behind by every asshole and his brother….I would like to say that it got better, but Vail pass proved to be a white out, and even more snow….the climax was when a semi loaded with cattle flew by on a steep snow slickened downhill, he must have been going 85 mph! We just stayed as far right as we dared. By the time we got to Beaver Creek, the snow had died and we had a relatively easy time through the Glenwood canyon, winding this way and that with the huge talus slopes above towering in a menacing way. I remembered Glenwood well enough and before we knew it we sat with Billy, Pattie, and their 2.5 year old kid Charlie, and the two dogs. Whew!

Tenants Harbor bench progress

2008-11-08T11:49:00.003-05:00

A view of the new bench stantions in place...finally ... just need the wood planks for completion...next spring....

Building a bench alongside the Seals of Tenants Harbor

2008-10-27T17:32:00.003-04:00

Its been a cool project to work alongside the wildlife of the coast. The Loons in their winter plumage eating crabs. The Osprey screeching eerily on the other shore. The tide flowing by always telling the time.

Emily has been "holding the other end of the tape", she is a real camper, never complains. The crib stone has been good rock with the proper machining characteristics, ie. takes a hammerdrill bit well, and can actually be chiseled some. I have had Mark from Marks Metal fabrication shop help me on this project, he has had some very good advice and we have got along great. Today he came out and 'tack' tig welded the stantions to the mounting plates... then I took the whole wooden jig apart that had held all braced in place for the welding opertation. After that I unbolted the stainless steel post from the crib. Emily and I cleaned up the site...took a last gaze out at the bay, the islands, the ocean, and packed the car with the pieces.... back to Marks shop where he will weld gusset plates to further brace the post and mounting plates. So its a process, not fast, not slow, but accurate.

Design on hold, westward bound

2008-10-24T09:13:00.003-04:00

When life gives you time off from career, work, professional pursuits....take it and enjoy. Lately with the collapse of the economy there has been little coming my way as to new home design/construction, or anything resembling stable work ....so instead of worring and fretting Emily and I are going to West Yellowstone, Montana to do some early season nordic skiing. Maybe by spring things will warm-up.
It has been slow, slow, slow, I have waited for someone to call me about designing or building a sustainable, energy efficient, small home.... the time is good to get out of the old oil consumptive farm house and into a new home outfit with passive energy strategies, but no one can sell there old farm house so...we are in a catch 22 situation.
Rocky mountains here we come!

Acadia 100 mile ride....a great group

2008-10-06T08:49:00.002-04:00

In between design time... Emily and I got a ride in, did the Acadia National park Century ride, it was a hoot, got to see a whole bunch of folks I have not seen in a while. Many folks I used to ride with in Portland. The day was spectacular, glistening sun on the ocean, and lakes, lots of happy cyclists parading around the park, taking the place over. I rode with some new folks from Belfast cycling team that had fast and large legs... hung on and enjoyed some punishment... rode with some folks from back bay cycle who are always fun to ride with.
The only down was not enough hydration, legs cramped a bit, but did make the climb up Cadillac with reasonable work. I was happy to see Emily on the way up as I sailed down the auto road. All in all we had a blast... if you get a chance do this non entry fee ride....many people having a grand day.

Up North in a Clay hole

2008-09-14T07:31:00.003-04:00

Well, not all design build work is interesting and joyful. Emily and I just spent a week up in Lakeville, Maine rebuilding the foundation under her camp. Several things to note about this experience are: Mainers up there are big. Everyone is big and they drive big trucks. I would say that going on a diet in these parts is eating one rather than two big macs. The folks are friendly, but if you don't go muddin' with a atv on the weekends, you might come up short on things to talk about with these folks...oh wait...the rain this summer and the prolonged mosquitoes were a few conversations I did manage with a local or two.
So, Emily and I spent the week jacking up the building, having the excavator dig us some new 5' deep footing tube holes, and mixing our own concrete. Emily got to go to Lincoln Maine Rental and rent the mixer and a sump pump. She found it very interesting. I guess they even sell dynamite there. I got to muck around in the holes and have dirt collapse on me while pick axing clay; it was great fun.
On occasion I would see that the wind was blowing across the lake and would have to give the windsurfer some crash action....
Then back to messing with the heaved up building. One thing is if you live in northern Maine, don't think that you can dig your foundation with a shovel....the rocks are too big, the clay to thick, and the frost line too deep. This is what the original builder had done; he cheaped out and didn't spent the money on a proper excavation job. In the end, he had sono ("sonah") tubes that were only 18" to 2' deep, some sitting on the boulder that the shovel found in the way. In the end, the boulders heave up in the winter, wrack the building, break windows, and make a mess for unlucky builders like myself and Emily.
In the end: job completed, new foundation that wont sag or heave, some new pain and stain, a gutter, some new drainage....and an aching back, a bunch of welts from September mosquitoes?! But, on our last day we were rewarded to one of Mainers' favorite pastimes: drinking cheap beer starting at 9 am. and burning old brush piles with the very few neighbors that there are there....yippy....then we got to get the hell out of there. Back to the 'civilized' world of Camden, Maine....its "so perfect here" said Emily with her nose in the air.

Presidential Mountain madness

2008-08-21T08:51:00.010-04:00

Just wanted to tell about our (Emily and I) bike ride around the Presidential mountains this last Tuesday. It was a plan conceived of after we read about it last year; a 100+ miler that rides over some of the big notches in Maine and NH. We decided last week to head to Portland to see some friends, then to proceed on to Fryeburg, Maine to start out. Well, the weather report made it look in our advantage to wait Monday out....hot and humid... but with a cold front coming to bring this wonderful fall like air we have today.
On Monday night we didn't bother to check the weather report because all indications throughout the week had shown that Tuesday would be very sunny, plus we had already postponed a day. Tuesday....we wake at 6 am.....dark and cloudy...hum... well lets go... the weather will clear...
After driving towards what looked like doomsday to the N west...the rain started...hum?
We kept eating our snacks, drinking fluids, and preparing mentally for what was looking like a wet start. Arriving in Fryeburg at 9 am, the rain and clouds were very present. We drove to our starting point just across the Saco River and parked. The clouds and rain were socked in good. I said to Emily that we should just commit and get wet for a bit...it would clear soon and we would dry out. Well, Emily was not so sure....so we pumped up the tires and filled our jersey pockets with goo, and snack...and headed off into the rain. Emily luckily had brought a long sleeve jersey and I had packed a wind breaker....which seemed unnecessary when we departed Camden just a few days before.
We rode in the rain North towards Evans notch.... it was cold and windy, too. I kept thinking how it seemed kind of fun in a masochistic sort of way....knowing we would dry out quickly when the sun showed. Well, an hour into it Emily gave me the look from beneath her soggy helmet "this sucks". I said, "oh, its just blowing over the last of it...sun's coming". Well, no sooner had I said this than torrential down pouring rain, squalling winds. We kept a riding....
30 min. more and I pull over for a natural break...Emily rides up , she looks cold, slightly blue-lipped, and miserable...complaining that she can't eat her snacks because her hands are too cold to open them. I think, "oh great, this ride is already going hypothermic." I get frustrated and shoot back "you have to try harder to get the food into you or you'll never make it." Emily's look was of an angry, cornered Fischer cat. I then gave her the two choices...1. we could ride back which would mean a hour and a half of more rain going back in the direction that the storm was heading ...or 2. keep heading North...knowing clear skies are ahead, Canadian high filling in, envisioning a sunny afternoon riding about Mount Washington. She looked like she wanted to bite my head off...and rode off ahead towards Evans notch.
There is a kind of beauty to the rain-soaked world when you are suffering in it. The clouds look so low and spooky. The rain squalls so sheet like on the river like pavement. The river beside us showed how wet it has been this summer: over-flowing the banks like in the spring...everything too green for August. At a point on the ride I recognized a spot where last year we had seen deer in the woods. Emily ahead pointed to the woods... I looked in and spotted a soggy deer looking like how I felt. What ever dry clothes I had were no longer. The cycling shorts felt like wet diapers, and everyone knows how wet shoes feel. We passed a soggy hiking group of youngsters...I asked them as we whistled by, "who's more miserable?" one boy looked up with a smile, the rest looked beat, and the guide laughed.
We rode on and the day ahead began to look very long indeed... I was even feeling a bit chilled....I ate a cliff bar choosing the food as diversion strategy. We rode by a farmer's garage, all farm tractors in a muddy yard out front...rotting potato crops in the foreground... the farmer and helper look out of the garage in dismay and see us riding by soaked to the bone....I think somehow it made them feel just a little bit more fortunate to at least not be us.
The last stretch before Evans notch has some down hills before the big climb. They were not the fun down hills today as a rooster tail of spray off my rear wheel gave me a very cold enema. But, hey, the clouds did seem to be breaking up with a patch of blue sky intermingling with swirling dark clouds, and blowing rain. The fields and woods had a rainy greenness to them. We head up the notch...heart rate rising and sweat of the brow...climbing felt good as warmth came back. At the outlook at the top I pulled over...time to get out of these wet socks and wring out. Emily pulled up, looking a bit better..." will that help?" she asked. "Well not for awhile, the wind and descent should dry them out eventually" I said and then made up some bullshit story about having had to dry socks on the handlebars on some other past misery ride...hoping to ease the tension. So, Emily wrung out her socks ...ate a cliff bar and we rode off, down the notch...the wind blew into us we gripped our bars with slimy cold hands in slimy cold gloves, and descended, down, down, down, no real sun, just clouds and wind.
We popped out on rt 2, crossed the Androscoggin river, and had a drying windy ride toward Gorham. The North road is really very nice cycling, slightly rolling, no real traffic, farms, camps, and views of the Presidentials to the south west, of course through the clouds. As we rode on, I felt the socks on the handlebars...still wet.
The stretch coming into Gorham the wind blew hard into us, the logging trucks whistled by and we both looked forward to getting off the bikes for a needed break. Cumby's- what a wonderful place, out of the wind and in the patches of sun that fell, the air pump and payphone against the building, a few dumpsters around....a place to take off soggy shoes, shoe liners, and the pavement felt warm on the bare feet. Emily went in to do a diaper change....she was day two of "that time of the month" to add to the already many difficulties of the day. We fueled up, got some gatorade, and put on the almost dry socks and shoes....
"So what do you want to do, Emily? Stay with the plan and head north for the Jefferson Notch road into the wind and a dreaded huge hill right out of Gorham. Or should we run with a tail wind and blow back over Pinkham notch...and fail our Century ride plan?" Just after I said that the flag before us snapped even harder in the wind. Emily said lets keep going as planed. Are you sure....? Yes.....Now there is a girl who likes a punishment.
Heading out of Gorham the traffic was thick, tourists and hikers drying out from the night and early morning soaking were everywhere. It felt cold, fall was already in the air, the break was good, yet, I needed to warm up, the legs felt the cold and the 45 miles behind us. Well, we got what we wanted: a warm up...that hill out of Gorham on rt 2 goes on and on....with a head wind...the next 10 miles into a wind, and the clouds didn't seem to want to go away. I could see Jefferson notch ahead, the clouds whisking over. I slowed to let Emily get a draft in. We got to the frontage road that the dirt Jefferson notch road starts from. It was nice to be on a country road again. Mile 52
The Jefferson notch road is a piece of work. It climbs for 7 miles all dirt, up and up. Well constructed with a beautiful crown to it, the road was in great shape, not too lose, thanks to the recent rains. I stopped to see how Emily was faring...she seemed more up now ...her "stump leg" was gone, or the wooden feeling of cold feet in a cold shoe. I said "We are doing it ...we are getting there." Emily looked almost happy....all was good...until I banked the next corner...yikes...the dirt road went straight up for as far as you could see, some early red leaves falling in between, and around the next corner more of the same, and the next. I was doing well, my heart rate was getting gradually higher every turn, my bike had just enough of a low 1st gear that I could make the grades without falling over. The road had just the right grade to allow the "roadie" passage. I stopped at the base of one steep grade to let Emily catch up...or truth be told, to avoid a heart attack. Emily rode up to me. "Have you had to get off yet?" I asked. "No," she said ...her bike has a third chain ring or "granny gear"...lucky her. My bike had a chain that is a bit stretched, so if I let the rear wheel spin out just a bit, the gearing skipped. So, I had to keep in the "sweet spot" over the handlebars to be able to pull with the arms....but not too far forward...hard on the back. The last few switch backs are text book, I thanked my history of mountain biking. And finally ahead I could see sky, the summit, and the sun threw a few rays through the hardwood reddened leaves...Ahh
Emily came into view, she actually smiled....Yeay! and we did the cliche Borat "high five". We were now on the way to heading home, the worst behind...or so we thought. Once over the notch heading south down into the Washington mountain bowl, where the cog railway starts, the weather got cold and wintry....the clouds allowed no sunlight through. Ahead as the road dropped steeply off and I could see the other side of the valley or Crawford notch in the distance through the swirling clouds. I began racing down the mountain dirt road. Instantly the brake levers were cold and almost sticking to the fingertips... I got down on the drops to get better leverage on the brakes. I pulled over....I wanted to give Emily this advice. When Emily came around the corner she had a disgruntled look and pulled up along side and said ..."I have stump foot again." I got a bit pissy again and retorted in a smeerish sneerish snide way "I have been waiting 5 minutes....what's taking you so long? Do you want to hang around here and freeze....Let's get on with it. Hanging around isn't going to make it any better." She gave me that look like "what a dink". I felt bad. I rode off. I said to myself as descending...she is doing really well, be easier on her, she is on her way to completing her first 100 mile ride. Keep things "up," Greeno. And then I started seeing how incredible this Notch is, the road runs parallel to a river for a long time, waterfalls, and pools, it would be so nice on a hot day.
So, the notch road pops out and crosses the cog railway access road and becomes the Clinton road, a tarmac road, bumpy, but consistent, which works its way to Crawford notch. As a matter of fact, it ends at the top of Crawford notch....no further climbing needed to begin the long decent back down towards Attitash, Jackson, and eventually N. Conway. We could see the valley ahead in complete sun...as we zoomed down the Crawford notch I hit sick speeds, and locked out the arms for the cross winds ...I had fear that Emily might forget this technique ...like a worried boyfriend....I looked back and she was whipping right along behind me. I hit the big chain ring and the wind now blowing down the notch at 25 to 35 mph gave a massive boost to the tiring legs. I was thankful to be descending with this tail wind rather than ascending into it as I had done on a ride in the past with a Jeffery Boulet character, where it took us 2 hours to ride 25 miles up this windy notch.
The oak trees caressed by afternoon light, blowing about in the wind as a foreground to the valley was so beautiful, I was so happy. As we approached the turn for Bear notch ...our original plan, I almost entertained the thought of climbing this notch. Then, I quickly remembered that my chain skip would make it suck, and also reminded myself that once I turned out of this tail wind, up the grade, I would have some suffering legs. Best to take mother nature's gift of this awesome tailwind and blow back home to the car and get off this aching ass. I pulled over at the turn off, and Emily agreed quickly. She had a natural break behind a semi rig that advertised a west coast chopper or something mundane....I broke out a goo and prepped myself for the long haul back...must have still had over 20 miles to go.
Well, the rest of the ride was a lot of traffic, luckily a good shoulder, and running out of liquids. Stopped at the scenic vista coming into N. Conway...took a natural break, got some water...I remembered it feeling like a long way from here back to Fryeburg....and it didn't feel any shorter this day. The drivers were lunatics, always being selfish, and with no courtesy of understanding of the bicyclists' dilemmas: pot holes, broken glass, getting cut off, etc...
Once on the east road back to Fryeburg, that feeling of being about done... the euphoria, the certain feeling of victory started to set in giving the legs that boost. Rounding the last corner on the home stretch, the corn in the western sunlight was very romantic... Emily and I pulled up to the car, dismounted and hugged and kissed... took an after-ride picture and reminisced about our ride......103 miles- not all fun, but certainly the adventure we had needed for a while. At this point, the goals and objectives were: buckets of spaghetti and meatballs, beer, and a bed at Bondo's in Portland.

A summer away from the blog

2008-08-20T14:02:00.002-04:00

It has been a while since I last wrote a blog entry, I have been not on the computer much....out building and doing in the world. I spent the better part of the spring and summer finishing details on my folks home. Put together some of the exterior details that I couldn't get to in the dead of winter. I took apart the garage that was on site and recycled much of it in form of a new garage minus the normativeness of the old. So I will work to get some updates online on my website as soon as I can.

Was my design ripped off?

2008-05-02T08:11:00.007-04:00

Have you ever designed something that you put your heart and soul into and later found out someone was taking credit for your hard work? This is common place in the architecture and design fields where citing sources is seldom practised. Unlike most other scholastic fields that must follow strict ethical principles of citing sources (bibliographies and such) the design fields follow a more informal approach where there are few rules as to piracy and theft of design from other designers. Why is this? Well... so much of the architecture and design fields function off of a daily rip off of others ideas during the design phase, it is part of the lifestyle of designing. A designer is constantly seeing others ideas in magazines, coffee table books, etc, etc. The designer may not even be aware that he/she is pirating an idea, for this visualization is often internal, or that their new contribution to the idea/design makes it different or unique. So this sort of thing is really part of what it is to be a designer or architect.
However, mischief and deviousness begins to occur when a designer knowingly takes full credit of a design when another designer was active in the same project they they built upon without citing that designer. When this sort of lack of respect and ethos occurs it turns the world of design into yet another world of abuse and scandal opening up a can of worms. Once a designer has been violated in this fashion he/she becomes cynical, and guarded. It is at this point where they often become secretive, bound by legal contracts. The openness of the design world as an art form loses the transparency, the collaborative process and trust that once made it a unique and wonderful field.
Perhaps some of the most savage purveyors of such mischief are the egotist architects/designers who believe that it is not necessary to acknowledge those who actually build their projects(elitists). Sure their concepts give rise to a product, but it is the craftsman, the everyday labor that goes into the building that makes that project come to reality. It is with this sort of disrespect that makes individuals guarded, jaded, and disconnected. I have witnessed this sort of separation in the world of design and construction. It divides the builder from the architect/designer and in the long run creates dysfunctional relationship.
In the end we work should work together on projects. The project is only as good as its weakest link, it is through respect of the collaborative process and the individual that all links are strengthened.

Prefab=globalization....not good

2008-04-11T03:18:00.000-04:00

Everywhere I look, every single design website/magazine , all of them are pushing prefabricated homes.....why? Why do we continue to outsource everything...even our own homes. Why do we insist on factory made even when we know what it all means...china.china.china...increased transportation of objects, the devaluation and demise of local craftsman,local material use, and and the associated lack of appropriateness to site, region, local weather and spirit.
What is wrong with local, homemade, in our back yard? Is it that local equals boring? It doesn't have to be.
In this time prefabrication of whole homes not just the windows is the wrong direction for our planet. We need to put the reins on. The more we give up on our local resource base, talent, and know-how the more we admit that we are lost, that we can't even create the world we want to live in with our own hands, with help from our friends family and community. Its these close ties that need to be nurtured; not devalued.
When we chose to order from catalogues we are admitting that our local resources are inadequate or are exhausted. The more often we give up on providing for ourselves the more needy we become.