From the Crest of the Sandias you can see Albuquerque but can look off to the northeast also.Thursday, June 18, 2009
Looking NorthEast
From the Crest of the Sandias you can see Albuquerque but can look off to the northeast also.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Living the life in gorgeous North Carolina!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Bicycle-Friendly Workplace
There is a range of opinions among cyclists about what constitutes a bicycle-friendly workplace. Some consider indoor bike parking a must. Others are concerned with shower facilities. Others still feel that bike to work schemes are crucial. More than anything, our ideas of a bike-friendly workplace seem to depend on how we construe transportation cycling.
For me personally, the most important thing about commuting is having a safe and comfortable route. As long as that is in place, I am pretty easy. At my last 9-5 job, the 4 mile riverside commute kept me happy. On arrival, I locked my bike to a pole. I brushed myself off in front of a mirror before facing co-workers.It did not occur to me to lament the lack of indoor bike parking, let alone to wish for showers at work.Once I transitioned to freelance and began to spend the day going from place to place, it made even less sense. "Hello, I'm here to meet about the XYZ project ...But first, do you have a shower I can use? I arrived by bicycle you see."
Others have different priorities, which is understandable. Long, strenuous commutes involve challenges that I do not usually face. Likewise with finding all-day bike parking in unsafe locations.
From an employer's perspective, the question is which priorities it makes the most sense to cater to. Is it the employer's responsibility to offer indoor parking? Many bicycle commuters say yes. Others feel it is the cyclist's responsibility to choose a bike that can be stored outdoors. What about shower facilities? There are those who lobby for them. And there are those who feel that the idea of showers at work conflates transport with sport.
Others believe that focusing on parking or showers is too narrow of an approach. What about calling for employers to open up shop in bike-friendly locations? What about travel compensation, tax incentives, bike share memberships, and the like? Or maybe a different paradigm altogether: What if neighbourhood employers join forces to sponsor bike lanes (and street plowing in winter) within an X mile radius?
Budgets are finite, and often employers get mixed messages as far as what cyclists are looking for. The bike-friendly workplace is a concept worth exploring more thoroughly.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Piddington - Salcey Forest - Piddington
Led by Barry. With Gordon, Maureen and Eddie. Fine sunny morning. Just under 7 miles.
Piddington Roman Villa info
Upper Nene Archeological Society Piddington Dig Diaries
and finally . . . flapjack break.
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| Garden gnomes with a difference? |
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| Thatched shelter opposite a fallen tree under which, no doubt before it fell, we are told the sixth Duke of Grafton used to rest on his arduous way from his home to the church. |
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| Salcey Forest glow |
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| View from the high platform of the treetop walk. Northampton 'lighthouse' in the distance. |
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| Coffee and scone break |
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| Piddington Roman villa dig, with church in background |
Piddington Roman Villa info
Upper Nene Archeological Society Piddington Dig Diaries
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| Rarely heard words: 'Shall we hang on for Eddie?" |
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| Piddington Church |
and finally . . . flapjack break.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
The MacIntyre/Colton on the Grand Jorasses
And introducing Dave Searle as part of the Cold Thistle test team and the author of this guest blog piece. It is Dave's picture of Ally Swinton chugging up thesummit icefield of the Eiger that now graces the Cold Thistle masthead above. Welcome Dave!
“IT'S GOING TO BE A LONG NIGHT DUDE!”
....That’s the words Ally said to me when we topped out on Pointe Walker at 5.45pm after climbing the Colton/ McIntyre (with Alexis Crux Variation).
Our plan was to traverse the Jorasses, after climbing the north face, to the Canzio Hut at the Col des Grandes Jorasses for the first day of our epic link. We wanted to traverse the Rochefort Arete to the Forche hut and finish up the Cechinel Nominee on the Grande Pilier d’Angle to Mont Blanc.
Little did we know just how long the first day was going to be……
Be sure to dbl click the Dave's and Ally's photos to see any of them full size.
Ally on the way up to the Leschaux hut.
We arrived at the Leschaux hut in good time on the Wednesday (21st) to hydrate, feed and sleep before our early start for the North face of the Grande Jorasses that night. Conditions looked good on the Colton/McIntyre, a lot better in fact than last time I was up there, but, looks can sometimes be deceiving.
For those interested, Route marked with red on how to get to the bottom this year.
Converse hut slippers= rad
Ally’s phone beeped into life at midnight signalling the time for the action to begin. We
brewed up, got ready and ate the mildly burnt porridge (nice one Ally) after what had turned out for me to be only a few hours of stressed out sleep.
We left the hut and were soon on our way up to the bottom of the face, navigating our way through the maze of crevasses up to the toe of the Walker Spur. One pitch of steep rotten ice got us over the first of three Bergshrunds with the next two being pretty straightforward to get us to the bottom of the face.
We moved together up the first ice field to the first ice crux. It was a lot steeper than the previous year when Myself, James and Gav had been on it. We were the first team up it too which meant every placement had to be swung for rather than hooked so it felt pretty hard, amplified by doing it by head torch.
I arrived at the bottom of the 2nd (real) crux to find it in less than ideal condition with a large blank section gaping the initial ice ramp and the steep wall.
me leading up the first crux
ally at first light after the first icefield
We opted for the steeper and more technical Alexis variation (the same way that Mr. Steck went when he soloed the route in 2h25!!) due to the conditions. It was an impressive lead by young Ally, with hard to place gear, thin feet and lots of rotten ice to be cleared. A few American friends of ours have since been up on the face for the Colton/Mac and said they did do the original crux pitch but they also said it was quite hard too “I had to pull out all the tricks in the book for that one!”
Ally on Alexis.
Ally a bit further up Alexis.....
Me following Ally after Alexis
It took a little more time than we would have liked to climb this variation pitch but you can’t hurry these things. If it needs time it needs time. After this pitch we worked our way up to the bottom of the mixed pitches where I took over again. Thin ice, loose rock, poor gear was the order of the day but I knew what I was in for and the pitches aren’t that steep either, just delicate. Soon we were sunning ourselves on the walker spur on the way up to the summit. We passed the bit of tat that I had placed on a ledge, where we had bived the previous year, and I wave of relief washed over me knowing that I wasn’t going to have to sit another night out there without a sleeping bag!
2nd mixed pitch.
We topped out at 5.45pm giving a total of 13hours on the face. We briefly discussed our options as the original plan to traverse the to the Canzio Bivi hut that afternoon seemed like a lot of hard work. Quite an ambitious plan such as this can easily be spoilt but any number of factors and the lure of walking off the back for Italian Pizza’s was strong. We were both feeling the strain after the Colton/MacIntyre but decided we should at least give the traverse a go, so we set off shortly after topping out (Thursday) preparing ourselves for a long night….
ooooohhh I think I need a sit down!
From Pointe walker to Pointe Croz is straightforward enough and it was soon after completing that section that it got dark….
Sunset, just after Pointe Croz
Just before it got dark at the first 1st abb.
The ridge is incredible, knife edge for the most part, with the 1000m north face on the right and equally long way down to Italy on the left. It was also incredibly loose in places which obviously takes a lot of care. There was a lot of rope on, rope off faffing about which eats the time up too. We must have taken the rope off for abs a total of 10 or so times. It was very cold too. We were both in all of our clothes and only movement was keeping us warm which stopped us from stopping to eat something warm. We made a fairly serious route finding error coming of Pointe Marguerite in our fatigued state. This cost us a huge amount of time, probably 4 hours in total. After we had corrected our error we eventually got to the top of Point Young the last summit on the traverse. From here it is about 200m of abseiling to get down to the col where the Canzio Bivi sits. We got down to the hut at 8.30am on Friday making it a 32hour single push from hut to hut. We were both seriously tired from such a long time on the go and with little food or rest (for me I had had ½ a pan of (slightly burnt) porridge, 4 chewy bars, 5 energy gels and a caffeine tablet that day).
As they say, "the rest of the story" is here:
http://searler.com//09/27/its-going-to-be-a-long-night-dude/
Enjoy!
Ally and Dave have been ripping it up this yearin the Alps. For Ally's version of the story and his comments on thenew RAB sponsorship (congrads Youth!) look here:
http://allyswinton.blogspot.com/
“IT'S GOING TO BE A LONG NIGHT DUDE!”
....That’s the words Ally said to me when we topped out on Pointe Walker at 5.45pm after climbing the Colton/ McIntyre (with Alexis Crux Variation).
Our plan was to traverse the Jorasses, after climbing the north face, to the Canzio Hut at the Col des Grandes Jorasses for the first day of our epic link. We wanted to traverse the Rochefort Arete to the Forche hut and finish up the Cechinel Nominee on the Grande Pilier d’Angle to Mont Blanc.
Little did we know just how long the first day was going to be……
Be sure to dbl click the Dave's and Ally's photos to see any of them full size.
Ally on the way up to the Leschaux hut.We arrived at the Leschaux hut in good time on the Wednesday (21st) to hydrate, feed and sleep before our early start for the North face of the Grande Jorasses that night. Conditions looked good on the Colton/McIntyre, a lot better in fact than last time I was up there, but, looks can sometimes be deceiving.
For those interested, Route marked with red on how to get to the bottom this year.Converse hut slippers= radAlly’s phone beeped into life at midnight signalling the time for the action to begin. We
brewed up, got ready and ate the mildly burnt porridge (nice one Ally) after what had turned out for me to be only a few hours of stressed out sleep.
We left the hut and were soon on our way up to the bottom of the face, navigating our way through the maze of crevasses up to the toe of the Walker Spur. One pitch of steep rotten ice got us over the first of three Bergshrunds with the next two being pretty straightforward to get us to the bottom of the face.
We moved together up the first ice field to the first ice crux. It was a lot steeper than the previous year when Myself, James and Gav had been on it. We were the first team up it too which meant every placement had to be swung for rather than hooked so it felt pretty hard, amplified by doing it by head torch.
I arrived at the bottom of the 2nd (real) crux to find it in less than ideal condition with a large blank section gaping the initial ice ramp and the steep wall.
me leading up the first cruxally at first light after the first icefieldWe opted for the steeper and more technical Alexis variation (the same way that Mr. Steck went when he soloed the route in 2h25!!) due to the conditions. It was an impressive lead by young Ally, with hard to place gear, thin feet and lots of rotten ice to be cleared. A few American friends of ours have since been up on the face for the Colton/Mac and said they did do the original crux pitch but they also said it was quite hard too “I had to pull out all the tricks in the book for that one!”
Ally on Alexis.Ally a bit further up Alexis.....Me following Ally after AlexisIt took a little more time than we would have liked to climb this variation pitch but you can’t hurry these things. If it needs time it needs time. After this pitch we worked our way up to the bottom of the mixed pitches where I took over again. Thin ice, loose rock, poor gear was the order of the day but I knew what I was in for and the pitches aren’t that steep either, just delicate. Soon we were sunning ourselves on the walker spur on the way up to the summit. We passed the bit of tat that I had placed on a ledge, where we had bived the previous year, and I wave of relief washed over me knowing that I wasn’t going to have to sit another night out there without a sleeping bag!
2nd mixed pitch.We topped out at 5.45pm giving a total of 13hours on the face. We briefly discussed our options as the original plan to traverse the to the Canzio Bivi hut that afternoon seemed like a lot of hard work. Quite an ambitious plan such as this can easily be spoilt but any number of factors and the lure of walking off the back for Italian Pizza’s was strong. We were both feeling the strain after the Colton/MacIntyre but decided we should at least give the traverse a go, so we set off shortly after topping out (Thursday) preparing ourselves for a long night….
ooooohhh I think I need a sit down!From Pointe walker to Pointe Croz is straightforward enough and it was soon after completing that section that it got dark….
Sunset, just after Pointe CrozJust before it got dark at the first 1st abb.The ridge is incredible, knife edge for the most part, with the 1000m north face on the right and equally long way down to Italy on the left. It was also incredibly loose in places which obviously takes a lot of care. There was a lot of rope on, rope off faffing about which eats the time up too. We must have taken the rope off for abs a total of 10 or so times. It was very cold too. We were both in all of our clothes and only movement was keeping us warm which stopped us from stopping to eat something warm. We made a fairly serious route finding error coming of Pointe Marguerite in our fatigued state. This cost us a huge amount of time, probably 4 hours in total. After we had corrected our error we eventually got to the top of Point Young the last summit on the traverse. From here it is about 200m of abseiling to get down to the col where the Canzio Bivi sits. We got down to the hut at 8.30am on Friday making it a 32hour single push from hut to hut. We were both seriously tired from such a long time on the go and with little food or rest (for me I had had ½ a pan of (slightly burnt) porridge, 4 chewy bars, 5 energy gels and a caffeine tablet that day).
As they say, "the rest of the story" is here:
http://searler.com//09/27/its-going-to-be-a-long-night-dude/
Enjoy!
Ally and Dave have been ripping it up this yearin the Alps. For Ally's version of the story and his comments on thenew RAB sponsorship (congrads Youth!) look here:
http://allyswinton.blogspot.com/
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Badlands :: A Prairie Dog Town
Wednesday, August 24th - - After the bison had moved along, so too did I. Traveling a short distance on the gravel road, I stopped at the Prairie Dog Town and watched the little critters for a while. Some were rather close to the road but as soon as I opened the door and stood up they all scurried off to their burrows. So I got back inside Van Dora and waited a few minutes until they decided to come back out. All of these photos are cropped, some more so than others.
Youngsters. Not sure they should go down into the safety of their burrow or stay outside. A second later and they had disappeared.
Oftentimes you see more with the camera (thank you, whomever invented the zoom lens!) than you do with the naked eye. This little fellow, and the ones below, were quite a distance from a burrow and fairly close to the road, sampling the morsels provided by Mother Nature.
It was so much fun watching these little guys. They were quick to scurry off in every direction at the lightest noise – a cough, a clearing of the throat, even sometimes the sounds of the camera.
Youngsters. Not sure they should go down into the safety of their burrow or stay outside. A second later and they had disappeared.
Oftentimes you see more with the camera (thank you, whomever invented the zoom lens!) than you do with the naked eye. This little fellow, and the ones below, were quite a distance from a burrow and fairly close to the road, sampling the morsels provided by Mother Nature.
It was so much fun watching these little guys. They were quick to scurry off in every direction at the lightest noise – a cough, a clearing of the throat, even sometimes the sounds of the camera.
Happy Birthday, Austin!
Today was Austin's 16th birthday. He has been looking forward to this one for a long time! Happy Birthday son!Our sweet pickleball friend, Charlotte, has a birthday only a few days from Austin's so we had to celebrate with her too. Unfortunately I forgot to snap a picture before we ate the cake, but at least we still had the writing left for this picture.
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