Juicy Tibdits

(garnet sands in Andrew Molera State Park)

Since I took spring break during finals week and spent spring break working, I got to enjoy quiet campus, quiet town, and some kind of flower-pheromone-induced euphoria. Not trying to rub it in, all of you still in the snow/rain/cold, but it was a beautiful week.

Snuck down to Big Sur on Saturday afternoon for some bratwurst-roasting, rock-tossing,

beach-walking,

(Rachel investigating the Franciscan rocks outcropping at Andrew Molera)

(some poor somebody has one cold, wet foot)

poison-oak-avoiding fun.

As a midwesterner, I find Poison Oak distressing. This stuff takes over, especially in Big Sur. In the spring, you can walk trails that are little more than a tunnel through cut-back PO. I feel bad for the folks that have to cut it back. I think I'd wear some kind of chemical hazard suit.

How do you decide how to dress for the ride to school? When the cat stakes out the pilot light, it is time for an extra layer.

Skiin', eh?

(Bryn just outside Sapphire Col hut, checking out our descent path)

I spent spring break in the Canadian Rockies with Bryn and Louis. Incredible snow, pretty nice weather and the usual assortment of laughs made for a good trip. Of course, no trip of mine is complete without some (usually self-induced) antics, and this one was no exception.

To start with, it was relatively remarkable that I actually made my Denver to Calgary flight, since I, uh, didn’t exactly make my original flight out of San Jose to Denver. Somehow or another, in the mental checklist to go on a trip with Bryn and Louis (Pack? Ski boots? Beacon? Shovel? Probe? Stamina? Appetite? Endurance for Pain?), passport didn’t make it on the list. Is it just because those Canadians are so darn friendly? Or perhaps I’ve spent too much time so close to the border (Ely, Seattle, Priest Lake ID)? Or because the last time I went to Canada, I drove and only needed a driver’s license? Or simply that I just wasn’t thinking? I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

To make a long story short, I have VERY, VERY nice friends and got one to drive my passport up to the airport. Then, got rescheduled onto a flight out of San Francisco and in a bout of EXTREME luck (and some of the usual state of affairs at airports these days) even scored a free shuttle ride to SFO from the airlines because they had just cancelled a flight and had to schlep a bunch of folks up to SFO. And somehow made it onto my original flight from Denver to Calgary. I think I’ve used up a bit of airport karma (to quote Genya) so it is good I don’t have any flights in the immediate future.

On to skiing. We headed to the Roger’s Pass area of Canada’s Glacier National Park. There are numerous huts at various distances and elevations, so the trip was a combination of nights in huts and snow camping. We started the week in flat creek, snow camping for 3 nights since there is only a cabin for wardens (the Canadian equivalent of park rangers). Alas, the location of the cabin was wrong on the map, and we ended up with our camp just uphill from the cabin. We discovered this when the helicopter nearly landed on top of us, and ten minutes later, a whole train of wardens skied by on the way to the hut. Oops.

Bryn loves the snow! Louis loves smoked salmon!

Spent Wednesday & Thursday night in Wheeler Hut, and of course discovered more folks with small world connections to us, between the NOLS/Widji/Santa Cruz links. When I wrote the tag line for this blog, I didn't really realize how true it was. Sometimes it feels like I don't really meet new people, just people I can't figure out how I hadn't already met!

Anyway, we day-skied from Wheeler up to Lookout Notch on Thursday, then Friday we skied up to the Sapphire Col hut (a whopping 4000 ft of elevation gain, as my thighs and rear can attest...) and then skied out on Saturday.

View down Asulkan Brook, on our way up to Lookout Notch. Note the windswept glacial moraine in the far edge of the snowfield in the foreground. According to the Louis bag of knowledge, there was a glacier there when they put in the Trans Candadian railway, so not long ago..... Now there is just a moraine. And sweet, sweet rocks. (another view of the moraine)

(descent path from Sapphire Col, on our way to Lily Glacier)

One tired Katie in Sapphire Col hut. Apparently I drifted off, only to awake with that weird feeling of people watching you, and saw Bryn and Louis staring at me. I guess I'd been making funny whinying noises while drifting off... I think it was about 6:00 PM

Signs of Spring

Spring means the end of winter quarter, sunshine-induced euphoria and ramped-up motivation (for me, anyway). I found some euphoria today on a wonderful Sunday afternoon hike with Sarah, a friend from my Seattle days who now lives in Berkeley. We had sunshine, good birding and and some speculations on mountain lion-encounter behavior. Kind of looks like that kid is being used as a shield....

The extra hour at the end of the day made for a nice drive home on the 1 and should come in handy for getting home this week, since some punk recently stole my bike light.I found some extra motivation in a couple of places earlier this week. I spent Saturday helping judge a science fair that will send 3-12 graders from the county off to state. Now, it has been awhile since I was a 4th grader and pretty long since I spent quality time interacting with 4th graders, but I was impressed! It was really fun to see the logic process at work, and to see the creativity in the way the kids approached problems. I worked with the environmental science group and global warming is definitely at the forefront for most of these kids (oh, how it makes my heart go!). And of course, their enthusiasm was hard to resist. Now I remember what got me down this road....

Motivation source number 2? I had some anxiety over data analysis that had the potential to shoot down my last two years of work, but instead turned out quite well-behaved.
And we're about 2 weeks out from the end of the quarter, so I'm ready to call it and put winter to bed.

Something that would help with the spring motivation would be banishing the winter self-doubt. Is it too late to give up something for lent? If so, I'm giving up self-doubt. Maybe Karma will help it join my bike light in someone else's life. And in the mean time, I'll be looking forward to that other sure-fire sign of spring. Spring Break!