How To Name a Killer National Park – Yosemite

September 17, 2018 rick.romine Leave a comment

Imagine you are charged with naming the crown jewel of the national park system. Reasonably, you want to honor the Native Americans who once lived there. You decide to focus on something for which these First Nations people were famous. Therefore, you decide to call this park “The Killers.”

Wait, what? No. That’s an outrage. There would be protests, and calls for a congressional investigation. Well, social justice warriors, get your vitriolic pens ready:

Dear <insert local representative>, I would like to call your attention to the completely inappropriate and offensively named Yosemite National Park.

How exactly did this happen? And why have I never heard about it before?

The story you may have heard is that the valley was named Yosemite (meaning Grizzly Bear) in 1851 by Bunnell of the Mariposa Battalion. Bunnell simply wanted to honor the native people in the valley, as he was driving them off their land forever. Bunnell wrote, in Discovery of the Yosemite (1892):

… it would be better to give it an Indian name than to import a strange and inexpressive one; that the name of the tribe who had occupied it, would be more appropriate than any I had heard suggested.” I then proposed “that we give the valley the name of Yo-sem-i-ty, as it was suggestive, euphonious, and certainly American; that by so doing, the name of the tribe of Indians which we met leaving their homes in this valley, perhaps never to return, would be perpetuated.”

Apparently, neither Bunnell nor his Commander Major James Savage paid close attention during their Miwok as a second language class. According to language experts, they seem to have confused two similar terms. The incorrect Miwok term, isumat i, does in fact mean grizzly bear. Unfortunately, according to Daniel E Anderson in Origin of The Word Yosemite:

… Yosemite means literally “those who kill” (Yos, “to kill,” the modifier e, “one who,” and the plural suffix -meti). It was used by the surrounding Miwok tribes. The Yosemite people were referred to as killers by these surrounding tribes, who feared them. The Yosemite tribe, led by Chief Tenaya, were composed of renegades from multiple tribes, including Mono Paiute from the eastern Sierra. The Paiute were traditional enemies of the more-peaceful Miwok people.

Uh-oh. Yosemite National Park Public Relations, this is Huston… we have a problem. That national park we named Grizzly… well it is actually a bit more grizzly than we thought.

Very well intended people must have struggled mightily about what to do. I’m not sure, but the large inventory of Yosemite T-shirts and coffee mugs may have influenced the final decision. If you happen to be on the Yosemite National Park official website and search for “the killers” or “those who kill”… you will find nothing. In fact, there does not appear to be any reference at all to what Yosemite actually means.

Unfortunately for Bunnell and Savage, their naming blunders did not end there. In Discovery of the Yosemite (1892), Bunnell wrote:

I made every effort to ascertain the signification of Ah-wah-ne, but could never fully satisfy myself, as I received different interpretations at different times. In endeavoring to ascertain from Ten-ie-ya his explanation of the name, he, by the motion of his hands, indicated depth, while trying to illustrate the name, at the same time plucking grass which he held up before me. From these “signs” I inferred that it must mean the deep grassy valley.

However,according to Daniel E Anderson in Origin of The Word Yosemite:

The Yosemite people called Yosemite Valley Awooni or Owwoni for (gaping) “large mouth,” where the stem Awo or Owwomeans “mouth” and the suffix ni means “large.”

So let me get this straight: Yosemite means “those who kill” and Ahwahnee means “big mouth.” Is it possible that all National Park names have hidden derogatory meaning? How do we know that Glacier doesn’t refer to “obese, slow moving, cold people”? Or that Shenandoah doesn’t refer to “those who avoid paying income tax”?

To add insult to injury, the National Park Service remains embroiled in a lawsuit with Delaware North (the former park concessionaire) over park naming rights, including Curry Village, Badger Pass, Wawona Hotel and yes, the most historic hotel: The Ahwahnee. You might think of it simply as the Battle of the Big Mouth.

So, if your kids are less than excited about visiting the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park, you might spice it up with the raw truth:

Hey kids, let’s go find the Big Mouth, in the Valley of the Killers!

Backpacking, How To, Wilderness

How To Name A Mountain

May 15, 2016 rick.romine Leave a comment

Sunrise on Fisherman's Peak — Sunrise on Fisherman’s Peak

During my Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) thru-hike, I took a very popular side trip to the top of Fisherman’s Peak. Perhaps not surprising, this peak was named in honor of the three fishermen, who on August 18, 1873, were the first ever to reach its summit. Surprising to me, however, is the limited respect accorded these high climbing anglers: Charles Begole, A. H. Johnson, and John Lucas. After all, at 14,494 ft, Fisherman’s Peak is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States.

“Wait,” I hear you saying. “I thought Mount Whitney was the highest peak.” Well, yes, I suppose the mountain is also known by that name. This mountain naming business can be kind of tricky.

According to the Geonames website:

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names is a Federal body created in 1890 and established in its present form by Public Law in 1947 to maintain uniform geographic name usage throughout the Federal Government.

Because serious naming conflicts needed to be resolved,

President Benjamin Harrison signed an Executive Order establishing the Board and giving it authority to resolve unsettled geographic names questions.

Perhaps because of his commitment to resolving identity crises, Benjamin Harrison is now the official name for two elementary schools, a post office, a state park and natural preserve, a mine, and a memorial bridge – at least according to theGeographic Names Information System (GNIS) database.

So why do most people associate the highest continental peak with Whitney rather than the first-to-summit fishermen? It may be as simple as who you know.

Professor Josiah Dwight Whitney of Harvard was tasked with the 1860 California State Geological Survey. He hired a variety of scientist and explorers to help, including William H Brewer, Charles F Hoffmann, William More Gabb and Clarence King. You may also know them as: Mount Brewer, Mount Hoffmann, Mount Gabb, and just to mix things up – Clarence King Mountain. It must have been exhausting hiking around naming mountains after each other.

It was Clarence King who, in an apparent 1864 career enhancing move, suggested his boss Whitney for the highest peak. To explain King’s relationship with the summit, you could sum it up as: D’oh!

In 1864 King attempted to reach the summit and failed.

In 1871 he returned and climbed the wrong summit, peaking out on present day Mount Langley. He wrote extensively about his first-to-ascend Whitney adventure, only later in 1873 to have rival Goodyear let all the air out of his tired tale.

In 1873, King rushed back to climb the correct peak, to claim his place in the history books. With apologies to Gale Sayers, this new book could be titled I Am Third, as he appears to have been beaten out by both the fishermen and the team of Hunter and Crapo.

King sheepishly added the following to the Mount Whitney chapter of his book Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada:

The preceding pages were written immediately after my return from Mount Whitney, and without a shadow of suspicion that among the sea of peaks half seen, half storm-hidden, I could have missed the true summit.

In addition to the peak, I think he missed the point. King’s problem was that he returned from Mount Langley instead of Mount Whitney.

Given his failure as King of the hill, you might assume he gave ground on claiming the naming rights. Perhaps those rights belonged to the fishermen, who simply climbed the correct mountain the first time, probably encumbered with extra poles and a bucket of worms.

Because of King’s less than perfect navigation skills, the lower peak, now known as Mount Langley, was at that time identified as Mount Whitney.

In Exploration of the Sierra Nevada, Francis P. Farquhar (aka Mount Farquhar) recalls a letter written by Goodyear to the Inyo Independent on July 30, 1888:

It appears that when Prof. Whitney was in Owens Valley himself in 1872 for the purpose at studying the effects of the great earthquake of March 26th of that year, he became unpopular with a good many people in the Valley, some of whom took a very strong personal dislike for him. When, therefore, a year later it was suddenly discovered that a lower mountain had for three years been called Mt Whitney by mistake some of these people thought it could be a fine opportunity for revenge upon the man whom they disliked by making his name stick to the lower peak and calling the highest one something else.

Mount Whitney versus Fishermen's Peak — Mount Whitney versus Fishermen’s Peak

It was not until Feb 2, 1891 that the U.S. Board on Geographic Names stepped in and called the fight, in an apparent technical knock out. The hand written decision card can be found on the Geonames website.

Fisherman’s Peak was then relegated to the status of “variant name,” a sort of purgatory waste bin for losing names, recorded in the GNIS database, but never again to be used on any map or official document.

King’s bungling did manage to get his boss some bonus recognition. Mount Langley, the one he accidentally climbed, has a variety of variant names, including False Mount Whitney, Mount Whitney Number One, and Old Mount Whitney.

Although Mount Whitney may have beaten back Fisherman’s Peak, the winds of change continue to howl through the mountains. On October 1st, 2014, white male McKinley was knocked off his (highest in the entire USA) mount, in favor of the local native name Denali. Could white male Whitney be far behind?

The competition for Denali was as high as the mountain. In addition to Mount McKinley, other now discarded “variant” names include: Bolshoy, Bulshaia Gora, Bulshaya Gora, Bulshoe, Churchill Peaks, Deenaalee, Deenadhee, Deenadheet, Deenalee, Deghilaay Ce’e, Deghilaay Ke’e, Delaykah, Denadhe, Denagadh, Denaze, Dengadh, Dengadhe, Dengadhi, Dengadhiy, Densmore’s Mountain, Densmores Peak, Dghelaay Ce‘e, Dghelaay Ke’e, Dghelay Ka‘a, Dghili Ka‘a, Diinaadhi, Diinaadhii, Diinaadhiit, Diinaalii, Diinaazii, Diineezi, Din-al-ee, Din-az-ee, Doleika, Doleyka, Mount Denali, Mount Doleika, Mount McKinley, North Peak, North, Peak Mount McKinley, South Peak, South Peak Mount McKinley, Tenada, Tenda, Tennaly, To-lah-gah, Traleika, Traleyka.

I was disappointed that Boaty McBoatface did not even make the consideration list.

If local names are to be given preference, then shouldn’t we pay attention to what the California natives called the highest continental peak now known as Whitney? To answer this, Wikipedia quotes from Judge William B. Wallace memoirs:

The Pi Ute [Paiute] Indians called Mt. Whitney “Too-man-i-goo-yah”

Given the extremely high number of people fighting each year for a permit to climb Mount Whitney, the name “Too-man-i-goo-yah” seems “too-good-i-think-yah.” I can only offer it up with a degree of amused skepticism. It reminds me of the public relations disaster when a KTVU anchor read the supposed names of four pilots who crash landed Asiana flight 214 in San Francisco: “Sum Ting Wong,” “Wi Tu Lo,” “Ho Lee Fuk,” and “Bang Ding Ow.”

“Perhaps we do need policies on appropriate names,” mused Ray Cyst Baphuny.

In 1997, The United States Board On Geographic Names released a 56 page document titled the PRINCIPLES, POLICIES, AND PROCEDURES: DOMESTIC GEOGRAPHIC NAMES

It includes ten naming policies.

POLICY I: NAMES BEING CONSIDERED BY CONGRESS
POLICY II: NAME CHANGES
POLICY III: COMMEMORATIVE NAMES
POLICY IV: WILDERNESS NAMES
POLICY V: DEROGATORY NAMES
POLICY VI: USE OF DIACRITICAL MARKS
POLICY VII: NAME DUPLICATION
POLICY VII: USE OF VARIANT NAMES
POLICY IX: LONG NAMES
POLICY X: NAMES OF NATIVE AMERICAN ORIGIN

I suspect POLICY VIII addresses secret names, such as Area 51, and therefore had to be redacted. To make up for it, however, there are two POLICY VII’s, one of which is titled… wait for it… NAME DUPLICATION?!

Our focus, however, is on how to name a mountain. Our attention, therefore, is logically drawn to POLICY IV: WILDERNESS NAMES, which regrettably states:

Within wilderness areas, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names will not approve proposed names for unnamed features, names in local use but not published on a base series map, or unpublished administrative names used by administering agencies, unless an overriding need exists, such as for purposes of safety, education, or area administration.

Name proposals commemorating persons are discouraged…

Before you get discouraged, remember:

… a person must be deceased at least 5 years before a commemorative proposal will be considered.

In other words, you will have plenty of time to get over the injury of your untimely death, before you have to face the insult of your mountain name rejection.

NOTE: A newer version of Principles, Policies and Procedures was released in 2016.

Children, Gear, How To, Safety, Wilderness

How To Survive Hugging A Tree

Gallery February 3, 2014 rick.romine Leave a comment

When most of us hear the term tree hugger, we think of an environmentalists. Whether we hear the term as derogative or effective is not the point. The point is that the tree hugger is trying to save the tree.

There is another tree hugging movement whose objective is not to save the tree, but to save the tree hugger. The focus of this movement is not big huggers, but little huggers, between the age of 7 and 11.

In Feb of 1981, 9 year old Jimmy Beveridge and his two brothers hiked a popular nature trail on Palomar Mountain. Merely a half mile from where their parents were preparing lunch, Jimmy became separated. The brothers, assuming Jimmy was racing them back to camp, quickly returned. Jimmy did not. After 4 days of intensive search and rescue (SAR) efforts, Jimmy’s body was discovered 2 miles from camp. He had died from hypothermia.

Tragedy and grieve are sometimes catalysts for noble plans of action. Ab Taylor, who participated in Jimmy’s search, was determined to do something to prevent similar tragedies. Working with a team, he created the Hug-a-Tree and Survive program targeted at very basic survival skills. In 2005 Ab donated the rights to the program to the National Association for Search and Rescue.

The principle of the program is simple: A lost child who stays put is easier to find than one who keeps moving. Initial searches typically focus where the child was last seen. If the child keeps moving, that information becomes less and less helpful. Once an area is searched, resources focus on other locations. A moving child may enter a previously searched area, making the search and rescue more difficult.

Targeted for young children, the Hug A Tree program is designed to be delivered in about 30 minutes. It typically covers these main points:

Hug A Tree: When you are lost stay put. Find a tree and hang on to it. Since the tree won’t move, neither will you. A tree is alive, just like your pet. You can name your tree and talk to it. It will help protect you.
Always Carry a trash bag and whistle: A trash bag is easy to carry in your pocket and easy to make into a jacket. It will provide you protection from water and cold. A whistle is easy to carry and can be heard from a longer distance than yelling.
Your family will not be angry with you: Anyone can get lost. Do not feel embarrassed or ashamed. Do not hide from your rescuers. Get comfortable and remain calm, knowing help is on the way. Your family loves you and will be very happy to see you.
Make yourself big: Make it easier for others to find you. Wear bright colors. Blow your whistle. Make a big X in the ground with sticks or rocks.
Animals are afraid of humans: If you hear a noise blow your whistle or yell. If it is an animal, it will run away. If it is a rescuer, you will be found.
You have hundreds of friends looking for you: If you hear people yelling your name they are not angry. They are trying to find you. Yell back, or blow your whistle.

Parents also play a key role. The messages for parents include:

Prevention is key. Make sure your child understands the main points of the program. Help arrange a presentation at your school, church, or youth organization.
Footprint your child. A small piece of aluminum foil can be used to create a imprint of your child’s shoe. Place the foil on a towel and have your child step on it. It can be an extremely valuable tool for searchers.
Call for help right away. If the child is moving, the search area will be expanding exponentially. The sooner the search starts, the more quickly the child will be found.
Be available for interviewing. Searchers rely on clues to find lost children. You are the best source for clues. Be available to provide them.

There is nothing scarier to a parent than the loss of a child. A few minor steps can significantly increase the odds of a happy reunion. If your child remembers to hug a tree, you may very well get another chance to hug your child.

Backpacking, Entertainment, How To, Skills, Wilderness

How To Navigate With Your Magnetic Dog

Gallery January 10, 2014 rick.romine

Is your dog a pointer? I don’t mean his breed, I mean his read. Can he read the earth’s magnetic field and point the way like a compass? Well that’s exactly what the folks at Frontiers in Zoology were interested when they published this dog-goned research abstract: Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth’s magnetic field.

Dog Magnetic Squat — Photo Credit: Jenny Ricken

Other serious researchers have explored the magnetic sensitivity of various animals, including migrating birds and rodent-hunting red foxes. Even cows and deer have shown a preference for north/south orientation.

So what exactly did this Czech Republic/German study find?

Dogs preferred to excrete with the body being aligned along the North-South axis under calm MF [magnetic field] conditions.

They do, they do indeed.

This directional behavior was abolished under Unstable MF [magnetic field]. The best predictor of the behavioral switch was the rate of change in declination, i.e., polar orientation of the MF.

After observing backpackers struggle for years with compass orientation, I am absolutely astonished that dogs can not only calculate declination, but can actually detect small changes in it. Let’s see, for 17 degrees westing, do I subtract or add that to the heading? It’s gotta be add, right? 17 plus 354, that’s like what 371 degrees? Wait it can’t be more than 360, so… oh, doggy excrement!

Besides revealing their incredible math skills, what’s the big deal about compass dogs? According to this latest report, it is all about availability:

Dogs are widely available experimental subjects all over the world and can easily be trained to react on diverse sensory stimuli.

Clearly they don’t mind defecating in public, plus many show a willingness to eat their own poop. Perfect for this study. So how serious was this research? How’s this for commitment:

We measured the direction of the body axis in 70 dogs of 37 breeds during defecation (1,893 observations) and urination (5,582 observations) over a two-year period.

In order to appreciate the scope of this effort, I conducted research on my own three cats. Ninety-seven percent (97%) of the time my cat’s prefer to poop unobserved, most likely in the neighbors yard. When trapped indoors, regardless whether the litter box was oriented on a North-South or East-West axis, they manage to fling all the litter onto the laundry room floor. I trust this puts to rest any questions regarding my contribution to science.

Given the nature of this magnetic study on dog defecation and urination, it may prove difficult to maintain a straight face while reviewing. I tested myself by reading the entire study, and frankly struggled in a few sections:

The direction (u) and length (r) of the (grand) mean vector and the p-value of the Rayleigh uniformity test as well as the sample size are given next to each diagram.

P-value? Sample size? In the same sentence?

Pooling is justified in this case because samples for respective dogs have comparable sizes.

And here I thought pooling was the expected result of urination. And apparently sample size does matter… so lay it out there big fella.

Navigation in the wilderness can be quite a challenge, so help of any kind would be greatly appreciated. Exactly how dependable at navigation are man’s best (and becoming even “bester”) friends? The research shows dogs are only good at it when the magnetic field is calm. I’ve personally never felt a magnetic storm, so its gotta be calm most of the time, right? Well it turns out:

MF is calm only about 20% of the daylight period.

Bummer. I am not great at math, but I think that means dogs would be wrong something like 80% of the time. Coincidentally, that is about the average rate of error for most backpackers using a compass. Is there any good news in this study?

Typically, the daily declination comprises westward-shifts in the morning and eastward-shifts in the afternoon, while the magnetic field is rather stable at night.

Great, while I am in my tent thrashing through nightmares about which direction to travel in the morning, the dog’s out pooping directions in the dark. If I brought my cats, I could at least figure out which way it is to my neighbor’s yard.

Backpacking, Entertainment, Wilderness

How To Backpack With Dragons

Gallery January 1, 2014 rick.romine

Legend has it ancient map makers feared white space. Every gap revealed a cartographer’s lapse in geographic knowledge. And like London Underground passengers, mind the gap they did indeed. Artwork became a form of cartographer’s spackle, filling in those unsightly and embarrassing holes.

Not exactly sure what’s out there? Quick doodle a giant elephant, a sea serpent, or better yet a really cool dragon. No gap means: relax I’ve got this map covered. A scary monster means: don’t even think of going there to prove me wrong.

Cartographers with sketchy sketching skills simply wrote HC SVNT DRACONES, which in Latin means Here Be Dragons. In English it means your fingers are probably not lined up on the keyboard. Here be Dragons went on to become the standard way cartographers indicate “terra incognita” or “land unknown.”

This particular legend has a characteristic common with many legends. Namely, it is untrue. Oh yes, there were real and mythical creatures drawn on maps, but apparently only one marked HC SVNT DRACONES. Written, or perhaps mistyped, HC SVNT DRACONES appears on the 1510 Hunt-Lenox Globe near the eastern coast of Asia. As cool as Here Be Dragons sounds, it was unfortunately not a mappers standard. What a drag for the dragons.

Ironically, what cartographers abhor, adventurous backpackers adore – terra incognita. Given advanced satellite imagery and Google Earth delivery, it is hard to imagine what on earth still qualifies as terra incognita. Not only has Google created a world of interactive street views, they have strapped cameras on hikers enabling trail views as well. Okay, so the entire planet has been selfied. Boring. Short of sporting a winter balaclava, how can an adventurous backpacker feel anything remotely incognita?

Well let’s not forget there are plenty of remote wilderness areas, small and large, with no mapped trails. If you can’t actually order up a tectonic plate of terra incognita, perhaps you can at least wander in for a reasonable entre of “vestigia incognita”, or “tracks unknown.” Off trail, cross country, bush-wack, off grid, or vestiga incognita. Regardless what you call it, getting off the trail may be as incognita as you are going to get.

John Muir loved to wander trail-less in the wilderness. Ironically, so famous for that was he that a 210 mile trail now bears his name. This John Muir Trail however, has become so popular that it feels a bit more highway than my-way. It reminds me of the Yogi Berra quote: “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.” At times I feel like one of those nobodies. And frankly, backpacking nobodies like to see, well nobody.

As an alternative to the John Muir Trail, rock climber and outdoor adventurer Steve Roper describes the Sierra High Route. This should not to be confused with the High Sierra Trail which, though spectacular, is yet another established trail. Roper’s Sierra High Route is not a trail but rather a suggestion. It is roughly 200 miles in length, though your mileage may vary and batteries are clearly not included. Roper’s route guides you on and off the topographic maps of Kings Canyon, Mono Divide, Mammoth, Yosemite, and Hoover Wilderness. Roper went out of his way not to define a specific trail. Doing so would be like taking an ancient map and erasing all the dragons.

There are adventurous dragon-free trails, such as the Appalachian Trail (AT) or the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) where backpackers can navigate with merely an elevation profile. These well worn trails are reasonable enough to follow, if you just have the marathon willpower to keep placing one foot in front of the other, for months at a time. What these trodding thru-hikers likely want to know is: How much up and down today? Where’s the next water? How far to my campsite? Rarely are thru-hikers in the truly dragon-infested land of the lost. Lost to them usually means being spun around, heading blissfully down the trail in the wrong direction. It is quite amazing how different a trail appears when traveled in reverse.

Traveling vestigia incognita, however, requires additional skills to root out the route. With no trail or tracks as guides, you must translate map contours to the canyons, peaks and passes before you. This navigational art and science is also a game. And like other games, you do not always win. Be prepared for the defeat known as being boxed-in or cliffed-out. Retreat, regroup, and counter attack are necessary strategies and frankly half the fun.

To some the frustration of not knowing exactly where you are, or where to step next, can be a total drag. Those willing to walk off the trail and amongst the mythical beasts, however, are more likely to say: Bring the drag on!

Backpacking, Entertainment, Wilderness

How To Avoid HAFE

Gallery November 11, 2012 rick.romine Leave a comment

Sonoma Pass — Staying back for a reason?

Without a doubt elevation gain can do some pretty nasty things to your body. Most outdoor adventures have heard of AMS – Acute Mountain Sickness. It can cause severe headaches, nausea, and vomiting. Fluids accumulating in tissue, known as edema, can make a bad situation worse, much worse. If fluid builds in the lungs it is known as HAPE – High Altitude Pulmonary Edema. When it accumulates in the brain, it is known as HACE – High Altitude Cerebral Edema. Both HAPE and HACE are potentially lethal, requiring immediate medical attention.

Given the life threatening seriousness of HACE and HAPE, it feels somehow inappropriate to worry about HAFE. But should a legitimate altitude caused affliction be completely ignored simply because there are other afflictions even worse? That’s like saying you can’t hate the Red Sox because there are Yankees. Ridiculous, right?

Public awareness of HAFE varies depending on whether you or someone close to you has suffered from it. By close I mean anything less than about 15 feet. Let’s face it, HAFE stinks. I mean literally. HAFE stands for High Altitude Flatus Expulsion. No I am not making this up! Look it up.

Paul Auerbach, MD and York E Miller, MD submitted their observations to the Western Journal of Medicine. In it they wrote:

“The syndrome is strictly associated with assent…

I had to read that several times to make sure it wasn’t some kind of a pun. I’m pretty sure it is. In fact, it may be two.

“… and is characterized by an increase in both the volume and frequency of the passage of flatus, which spontaneous occurs while climbing to altitudes of 11,000 feet or greater.”

So I guess at 10,999 feet you really have no excuse.

“The use of digestive enzymes and simethicone may minimize the hazard.”

May minimize? Doctors, we really need some answers here. I smell someone not taking this seriously enough.

“At present, we can advise victims that the offense is more sociologic than physiologic.”

I am not sure what pseudo-logic Dr. Paul and Dr. York are prescribing, but according to my spell checker sociologic is not even an actual word. My dictionary defines physiological as “characteristic of normal, healthy functioning”. In other words, paraphrasing the doctors:

The offense is more something that does not exist than it is characteristic of normal healthy functioning

That seems about right, I think. One thing I do know is that victims are often so ashamed of this abnormal act that they resort to deceit. Regardless of what your climbing companions are telling you, there are no such thing as Rocky Mountain Barking Spiders.

What to do?

Like both HAPE and HACE, HAFE appears to be caused by excessive and rapid altitude assent. To reverse the symptoms, descent is usually the best option. Yes I agree, descent is a very appropriate pun. If descent is not possible, then you are going to have to find a way to weather this storm. I recommend using the lightening storm safety model: spread out! No sense in everyone getting caught up in friendly fire.

Your other option, of course, is to always travel below 11,000 feet. If you do, however, find yourself still being productive at lower elevations, you are going to have to come up with something better than Barking Spiders.

Backpacking, Entertainment, Wilderness

How To Pack In The Words

Gallery October 13, 2012 rick.romine Leave a comment

The word backpacking means carrying all your belongings on your back. The word by itself, however, does not really tell the entire story. For example backpacking in the backcountry is very different than backpacking in the frontcountry. It could mean the difference between:

hiking 20 miles and sleeping on the ground in the Desolation Wilderness
riding 9 hours on a Eurail train and sleeping on a hostel bunk in Spain

To keep things straight, we need to pack more meaning into our backpacking words. As a service to the confused, I offer my own repackaged definitions of common backpacking terms, uncommon terms, and terms that don’t really exist but should.

Common Terms:

Wilderness Backpacking: Carrying on your back all the necessary food and gear to be self-sustaining and self-righteous in the wilderness.
Urban Backpacking: Using a backpack as a suitcase, but otherwise traveling by planes, trains and automobiles. Also known as “Seriously, this is not really backpacking.”
Thru-Hiking: The process of hiking a very long trail from end to end. The term typically applies to the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail. The hiking term may be confusing if it suggests this can be done without staying out overnight. Thru-backpacking actually makes more sense, but thru-hiking is the term used.
Ultralight Backpacking: Wilderness backpacking with a base weight under 10 pounds. This usually involves giving up traditional comforts such as a tent, a stove, and a change of underwear. Ultralight backpackers value “miles” over “smiles.”

Less Common Terms:

Super-Ultralight Backpacking (SUL): Wilderness backpacking with a base weight under 5 pounds. Seriously?
Extreme-Ultralight Backpacking (XUL): Wilderness backpacking with a base weight under 3 pounds. Oh this is just ridiculous
Fastpacking: Backpacking for speed. Combine ultralight with trail running shoes. Now get going, you’re wasting time!
Slackpacking: Hiking wilderness trails, but being easily distracted by comfort. A slackpacker may day hike between hotels to avoid sleeping on the ground. Slackpackers are often found in pubs discussing the wonders of the great outdoors. They appear conflicted when offered a choice between eating on the patio or indoors.
Flashpacking: No this does not involve exposing private parts. Flashpacking is upscale backpacking. Flashpackers have larger budgets which they gladly use for gadgets and comfort. Urban flashpackers stay in fancy hotels and eat in high end restaurants. Wilderness flashpackers carry the latest technology such as a solar charged smartphone, mapping GPS, fully loaded eReader, and an emergency beacon to summons technical support.
Fatpacking: A marketing term used by Fatpacking.com to mean backpacking with the intent of becoming NOT fat.
Fitpacking: A marketing term used by Fitpacking.com to mean backpacking with the intent of becoming NOT NOT fit. In the name of semi-transparency, I have guided for both Fatpacking and Fitpacking, but only because they are in fact one and the same. I imagine that Fatpacking gets more media interest, but Fitpacking is probably what most customers tell their friends they are doing.

Terms That Don’t Exist But Should:

Snackpacking: Backpacking without any cookware or stove. Snackpackers typically survive on cases of melted Snickers bars from Costco.
Meatpacking: Backpacking with carnivores. Vegetables? We don’t need no stinking vegetables.
Ratpacking: Backpacking without any clear understanding of what should be left at home.
Plaquepacking: A form of ultralight backpacking where the participant can no longer cut off any more of his toothbrush handle, so he simply leaves the dang thing home.
Statpacking: Backpacking with the goal of increasing your impressive statistics, such as: peaks bagged, famous trails conquered, and family birthdays completely forgotten.
Tracepacking: The opposite of leave no trace packing. Tracepacking typically involves burning foil wrappers and cans in the campfire.
Flatpacking: Intentionally backpacking in areas with little elevation change. Florida is a prime location for flatpacking. Himalayas, not so much.
Quackpacking: Backpacking with certified Wilderness First Responders.
Flackpacking: Backpacking with people who share no interest in food planning or preparation, yet manage to share observations regarding results.
Yackpacking: Backpacking with parents of genetically gifted children who will not shut up already!
Smackpacking: The results of backpacking with someone yackpacking.
Wackpacking: Escalation from smackpacking. Also known as Sicilian backpacking.
Backunpacking: The process of opening gear and releasing the unmistakeable odors of a backpacking trip.
ThroughHiking: Similar to thru-hiking, but shorter. A lot shorter.

Backpacking, Entertainment, How To, Wilderness

How to Keep Them in Stitches

Gallery October 10, 2012 rick.romine Leave a comment

Readily available technology, known as photo stitching, is allowing casual photographers to easily create amazing images. The technical terms used vary by vendor, but to the lay person they end up sounding pretty much like:

Really cool 3D virtual reality things you can spin around in and look at everything from your feet to directly over your head.

If you have not yet seen this technology, you should. Like the Street View in Google Maps, you can slip into a 3D virtual bubble and look around. But rather than being of popular street locations driven by a Google car, these are micro bubbles usually created by individuals in strange or remote locations. They can be inside a museum, an office building, or be deep in the wilderness.

For backpack planning, the possibilities are intriguing. My middle son loves to backpack but prefers solid granite to lose shale, and he wants inviting water features such as cascades and falls. A quick pop into a virtual bubble gives us a realistic view of the surroundings. Google Earth provides us high level visualization, but these photo stitches are micro level.

How Are Photo Stitches Created?

On a Yosemite backpacking trip we were resting near a wooden bridge which spans the Merced river. A man approached and sat down on the other side of the river, apparently waiting. For what we had no idea. Our powers of laziness far exceeded his powers of patience, and he eventually resigned himself to our continued presence. He ambled onto the center of the bridge, pulled out his smart phone, and began taking a series of photos in an arching and overlapping pattern.

Well, we were in stitches. That’s not to say we were laughing, though we might have been, but we were being stitched, as in photo stitched. Once I realized, I apologized for ruining his visual knitting. He simply smiled and said he was using Microsoft‘s Photosynth™ application. He went on to say that in about a month we should go to Bing Maps, find this bridge, and there find a 3D panorama of us on our lazy rear ends. Okay, I added that rear ends part.

Frankly, I was not sure I could remember my name in a month’s time, let alone to come to this bridge on Microsoft’s Bing Maps. Apparently, the thought of seeing myself sprawled for eternity in a virtual wilderness wonderland was powerful indeed. For I did remember to come. I found the bridge and spun myself around on it like a whirling dervish. I zoomed in and out and eventually landed on my chillaxing virtual self. I marveled. Not at the amazing technology, but rather at how happy and relaxed I seemed.

And yet I somehow also felt violated. There I was, happy to be in a place I had worked so hard to reach. Nearing the end of what had been 2 weeks of rigorous backpacking, I was marveling at the raw beauty. Much of my thrill, I now admit, coming from the realization that very few people in the world have ever seen this place. And of those who have, they certainly earned it… made painfully clear by the sweat on their brows, and a little less clear in other places.

Mousing around in my virtual wilderness, I realize that every common sofa spud within an arms reach of a computer can now come play here too. Not only can they see what I saw without any effort, but they can do so with the smiling approval of virtual me! I click on virtual me in an attempt to make him protest: “You have to earn this!” But oblivious virtual me remains blissfully silent.

Upon further examination, however, I realize this virtual world is not an entirely accurate representation of what I worked so hard to see. For example, notice the legs to the right and below me. They are missing a torso and head. I am pretty sure I would have remembered that. The good news, however, is that in the lower left part of the frame, near the waters edge, there appears a head missing a torso and legs. This virtual slaughter house is made slightly worse by the realization the head is that of a woman and the legs are that of a man. I leave it to you to determine which, if either, is improved by the addition of the other.

So for now at least, if you want to see what actually exists in the wilderness, with heads and legs attached, you are going to have to get off the couch and work for it. But like most technologies, I am sure these virtual representations will continue to improve. In fact it might not be long before virtual me in the wilderness is able to see actual you on your couch. I’m thinking at that point you are going to want to turn the technology off, leaving me virtually alone.

To see the actual Bing Photosynth of the bridge follow the attached link. But while there, please remain quiet. I am clearly resting.

Bridge Shot in Yosemite

NOTE: On 7 February 2017, Microsoft decommissioned the Photosynth website and services.

Also check out:

Virtual Parks

Backpacking, Food, How To

How To Backpack Paleo Style

Gallery October 8, 2012 rick.romine Leave a comment

Let me start by saying that I am neither a caveman nor an expert in paleolithic food consumption. I have not published a PhD dissertation comparing The China Study with benefits of dino-dining. I leave dietary science research to the more qualified, or at least the more openly opinionated. I’m just a simple minded outdoorsman, trying to make my way through the wilderness carrying as many calories in as few grams as possible.

What is the Paleo Diet?

Perhaps oversimplifying, the Paleo Diet consists of foods that were available and consumed during the paleolithic period. In the unlikely event you’ve forgotten, paleolithic refers to the Stone Age, starting 2.5 million years ago and ending 20,000 years ago. The Paleo Diet is generally described as the diet of the hunter-gatherer. In other words, Paleos had to either kill it or find it on the ground. I am guessing the 3 second rule was longer then, maybe more like 3 weeks. At any rate, the diet was made up primarily of meat, vegetables, and seasonal fruit. Products of the future agriculture age, involving food processing and probably government labeling, were not included. Grains, pastas, and breads are not considered part of the diet. So in other words, hamburger yes, hamburger helper no.

I have no idea how we know exactly what these homo sapiens did and did not eat. Perhaps anthropologists have examined cave drawing banner ads, or conducted internet polls. These experts seem pretty confident that forbidden items include: refined sugar, grain, dairy and legumes. Some actually say the only vegetables Paleos can eat are ones that do not require cooking. It is okay to cook and eat vegetables not requiring cooking, just not to cook and eat the ones requiring cooking. My stone age cerebral cortex is throbbing.

As a side note, I have found no reference to cannibalism. I assume if it occurred during the paleolithic period it would still be okay today, but cannibal helper would be strictly forbidden. Assuming of course I got all this right.

Paleo Backpacking

As I consider them, the similarities between Paleo-sapiens and Backpack-sapiens are indeed eerie. Both are clearly:

mobile wanderers
opportunist gatherers
occasional hunters
fire makers

They are also

usually hungry
dirty and stinky

Paleo-Packer Compatibility

Many of the traditional backpacking staples are clearly non-Paleo. The modern Paleo-Packer would have to brutally club to death his desire for oatmeal, ramen, and even the peanuts (legumes) from good old raisins and peanuts (GORP). Many of the things we consider non-perishable and light weight are disallowed, where as things that are perishable and heavy, such as fresh meat, vegetables, and fruit are just fine.

Surprisingly, almost every Paleo recipe book includes sweet potatoes. Apparently the paleolithic landscape was simply littered with wild yammers. I am not sure how wild; for example, were they gathered or actually hunted? At any rate, they must not have required cooking, but they probably were, since all of today’s recipes call for it.

Another popular modern Paleo dish is called Pemmican. Pemmican is a supposedly nutritious concoction of fat and protein. Used as a high energy source by arctic explorers, it can be made from whatever resources are available: beef, bison, deer, elk or moose. Pemmican is basically 50% dried pulverized meat, combined with 50% clarified (melted) animal fat. In some cases berries, such as chokeberries, are added. Seriously? How much choking can one energy concoction contain?

Paleo Backpacking Options

As I hunted through various resources, websites and books, I was able to gather a list of traditional or at least common Paleo Backpacking food choices:

Pemmican (though it may melt in warm climates)
Foil packed tuna
Foil packed chicken
Jerky (beef, turkey, elk)
Summer sausage
Salami
Sardines
Almond butter
Dried fruits (apples, apricots, bananas, mangoes, dates, etc)
Raw or dehydrated vegetables (sweet potatoes, yams, broccoli, onions, peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, etc)
Coconut Oil
Almond flour products (muffins, pancakes, whatever)

Unsolicited Advice

Through my research I also gathered there is a non-believing splinter clan whose advice can be summed up as:

Hey caveman, shouldn’t you be spearing and clubbing your way through the wilderness?

The problem here of course is the word advice. According to the North Carolina Board of Dietetics / Nutrition, offering advice on Paelo diets without a license is illegal. They have aggressively gone after Steve Cooksey, clubbing him over his Paelo diet blog. The Institute for Justice has joined the fray, offering their hairy-knuckled support for the Paleo blogger. They are now representing Steve in a free speech lawsuit against the North Carolina nutrition board (Cooksey v. Futrell). You just cannot make this stuff up.

It is ironic that a caveman has launched a free speech lawsuit against a modern science board, whose intellectual beef against him appears to be “ugh“. That of course is merely my opinion, and not advice. In fact, nothing in this Paleo diet article should be construed to be advice. Personally, I would advise against anyone offering advice, if doing so were not clearly illegal, at least according to the North Carolina Board of Neanderthals.

I do wish the caveman Steve well in his lawsuit, and hope the North Carolina board ends up consuming a significant portion of humble pie. Is it okay if I recommend the Paleo sweet potato pie? Probably not.

Backpacking, Gear, Safety, Skills, Wilderness

How To Decrease Risks In The Wilderness

Gallery September 17, 2012 rick.romine 1 Comment

In terms of wilderness safety, there is only so much you can do. And yet, there really is so much you can do. If doing so for yourself is not motivating enough, then do it for someone else. Do it for a loved one waiting at home, or a traveling companion depending on you, or a total stranger, such as the Search And Rescue volunteer who may be called into harms way.

As a commercial guide I have an obligation to do all I can to ensure the safety of my traveling companions. I have to be Wilderness First Responder certified, CRP certified, and even Food Handler certified. I carry an expedition sized emergency kit and usually a satellite phone. I am an Eagle Scout, and “Be Prepared” seems fairly apropos.

This summer I helped guide a two week trip into the backcounty of Yosemite. On the trip, one of my companions was carrying and reading Eric Blehm’s The Last Season, the tale of Randy Morgenson. If you are not familiar with the story, Randy was a Backcountry Ranger with 27 years of experience in Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon. He was an expert in Search and Rescue (SAR) operations, yet ironically disappeared, causing one of the largest SAR efforts in Sequoia and Kings Canyon history. It was 5 years before his remains were finally discovered in a remote part of the park. Circumstantial evidence suggests he may have fallen through a snow bridge and died of hypothermia.

Randy was 51 years old, the same age I am. Sometimes it is the little connections that make things real.

I recently joined a LinkedIn™ group called Pack6 Science Drop for Hikers and Backpackers. Pack6 was founded by Honor (Kori) Boone to honor her brother Michael Ficery. When I Googled Michael Ficery the first link presented was for a website called Instant People Finder. Oh, if only it were so easy. Further down the list reality sets in. On June 21, 2005 Michael Ficery, who was backpacking in the Yosemite backcountry, was reported missing. A massive SAR operation was launched, reported as the most expensive in Yosemite history ($452,000). Michael’s backpack, map, and camera were found near Tiltill Mountain. Nothing else was ever found. John Dill, probably the most famous and experienced Yosemite SAR, was quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle as saying of the case:

“It drives us nuts, of course,” Dill said. “Our goal is to find them, first because we want to save them, second for the benefit of their families and third for our own egos.”

Like Randy Morgenson, Michael Ficery was 51 years old.

The stories of Randy and Michael bring home the sobering reality that wildernesses are wild and things can happens. Bad things. It is also this wilderness wildness, however, that attracts us. So what can we do to maintain the thrill of being in the outdoors, and yet at least partially decrease the risk?

Emergency Essentials

The mission of Kori Boone’s PACK6 is to educate the public while offering compact, pre-assembled kits of essential tools for hikers. It’s more than a business opportunity. It’s personal.

Certainly carrying emergency essentials, whether the PACK6 six items, the Boy Scout 10 Essentials, or your own experience-based outdoor essentials kit, provides two major advantages. The first is the actual utility of the items themselves, but perhaps as important is the conscious reminder that being prepared matters.

Appropriate items banging around in your pack, however, means nothing if you do not know how and when to use them. HowTo training is critical. Also, as you can imagine, a kit of safety items is only one part of a plan to reduce risk.

Although not a comprehensive list, as you purchase or pack your emergency kit, consider these additional recommendations:

Plan your trip appropriate for the skill level of the participants
Plan for likely risks including health, weather, swift water or avalanches
Ensure reliable and safe water sources
Plan bailout routes for each campsite
Share your itinerary, including dates of expected entry and exit
Ensure each participant is carrying their own personal essentials, including food and water
Agree on an action plan in the event of separation
Carry appropriate communication devices (2-way radios, cell phones, beacons, satellite phone)
Carry emergency contacts and medical treatment / insurance information

It would be naive to think that simply following these and similar precautions would have prevented the tragedies of Randy and Michael. We will never know. Not knowing, however, is not our excuse for not knowing what we should do. Reducing risk may prevent a tragedy. And even if it doesn’t, knowing you did what you reasonably could may bring some small form of comfort.

Backpacking, How To, Safety, Skills

How To Treat Water Using Solar Water Disinfection (SODIS) Method

Gallery September 14, 2012 rick.romine Leave a comment

Removing harmful pathogens from questionable water sources is a challenge for any outdoor enthusiast. The most common methods are boiling, filtering, chemically treating, and exposing to UV light. When most of us think of UV light, we think of an expensive battery powered device, such as a Steripen™. The sun, however, is also a pretty good source of UV light, and given enough time to do its thing, can be just as effective as its artificial counterpart.

Solar Water Disinfection, or SODIS, is supported by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the Red Cross. It has become more and more popular in developing nations as a cheap and effective water treatment solution. The required ingredients for success are fairly simple and readily available:

A clear Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle
Water
Sunlight
6+ Hours

There are of course a few minor important details.

The bottle must be clear, unlabeled, unscratched and no larger than 2 Litters. If the water is deeper than 10-12 inches, the UV light penetrate is decreased, and results less effective.
In the US, PET or PETE bottles are usually labeled with recycle code “1”.
The water being treated should be relatively clear. Cloudy or turbid water should be filtered prior to treatment.
Bottles should be placed on their side, not upright, to ensure maximum exposure to sunlight. Placing bottles on reflective surfaces have proven even more effective.
The sunlight should be relatively unobstructed. If clouds cover more than half the sky, the exposure time will need to be increased, typically doubled.
This technique works well on common pathogens, which can cause life threatening diarrhea, but it is not effective against poisons or toxins.

Clearly this method was designed with developing nations in mind.

What about outdoor adventurers?

The question of SODIS for backpackers really comes down to practicality. Although there certainly is plenty of sunlight in the wilderness, adventurers are often on the go, making 6 hours of undisturbed solar exposure a challenge. Many are already struggling to figure out how to recharge their smartphones with clunky portable solar panels. The thought of adding rows of water filled PET bottles in to the mix is perhaps just too much to ask.

Also, backpackers may not have the required easy to find in the front-country bottles. Although some ultraliters, and some ultra-cheapskates, may carry reused ultra-thin Code-1 PET bottles (the Gatorade™ type), most of us have been trained to carry indestructible Code-7 BPA Free bottles (the Nalgene™ type). Unfortunately Code-7 bottles do not allow the UV light from the sun to work its magic.

Is any of this relevant to backpackers?

Perhaps. When most outdoors enthusiasts think about gathering water, we tend to favor fast moving streams. The assumption is that the aeration and filtering will produce a purer, healthier water source. Assumptions, however, are not always correct. SODIS has proven that extended undisturbed exposure to UV light can disinfect pathogens. Water in swift flowing streams is far from undisturbed exposure. Lakes, however, are a different matter. Is it possible that lake water, relatively still and exposed to repeated daily doses of UV light, is a better source of safe water?

According to Robert W. Derlet, MD, a Sierra Water researcher and author:

The UV rays from sunlight are powerful killers of microorganisms. For this reason, the first twelve inches of surface lake water have the fewest microorganisms. In nearly 300 samples of water from Sierra wilderness areas, our research group consistently found fewer total bacteria in lake surface water when compared to streams. In addition to sunlight, other factors may also reduce bacteria including settling effects, or ingestion of bacteria by zooplankton or other small organisms.

In other words, even if we do not carry PET bottles, and line them up for 6 hours of exposure, we can benefit from the cleansing SODIS-like method of UV light, if we are careful where we gather our water. It turns out, the tops of lakes are better than the bottoms.

So as you sing your way towards the wilderness water, remember:

Take it from the TOP!

NOTE: The SODIS Initiative is part of the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Sciences and Technology. For more information, consult their website:

https://www.sodis.ch

Backpacking, Entertainment, Wilderness

How To Treat Found Items

Gallery September 13, 2012 rick.romine Leave a comment

It seems during the biblical “wilderness of the wandering” six items could be found in the Sinaitic Tabernacle:

an ark – a gold overlaid chest of acacia wood
a table of shewbread – a gold overlaid bread board
a lampstand – a seven branched light stand
an alter of incense – gold overlaid alter / deodorizer
an alter of burnt offering – a bronze alter
a laver – a bronze basin

Personally I have done a fair amount of my own “wilderness wandering” and I too have found items. Such as:

a bag of tent stakes
a mosquito net head gear
a dirty wool sock
a walking stick
a set of earbuds
a change of plans note from Troop 60

Perhaps not quite as impressive, but certainly as mysterious to me. What meaning can I give to these apparent gifts to the wilderness gods? Who concludes, 26 miles from the trailhead, they suddenly no longer require the means to secure their tent to the ground? Or that mosquitoes should now have free reign to partake of blood from their neck and face?

On a recent trip my son and I came upon a strange shiny bolt, in very close proximity to a three rock duck. It is perhaps logical to conclude that the discoverer of the bolt, finding it of no particular personal value, constructed the monumental stone beacon in the hope of attracting the attention of the returning and frantic bolt loser. I suppose it could also be that the finder discovered three lost rocks, and placed the shiny bolt to call attention to them.

How do we decipher the intentions of what we find and more importantly how do we decide what, if anything, to do with these found items?

My natural tendency for obvious litter is to “pack it out”, in a pay it forward “leave no trace” manner. This pile of junk was discovered on a Yosemite trip, and packed out by a reasonably good Samaritan.

But hold on little doggie, is litter as easy to identify as we think?

According to the Bureau of Land Management:

Gathering or collecting historical or archaeological artifacts… on public lands is illegal. Violators may be prosecuted under a variety of federal laws. Vandalizing, defacing or removing scientific, cultural or historical items from sites is also prohibited.

On a Svalbard arctic expedition, we were informed that before us lay an historical whaling site, fully protected from disruption by penalty of law. Seriously? This pile of drums and junk?

In Joshua Tree National Park, we came upon a very similar pile of rusting food cans. Was it historical, or was I merely hysterical?

Some items in the wilderness are probably not protected as historical. For example, I am not sure how old these wilderness found earbuds are, but I seriously doubt they are on a national registry.

So what would Ms Wilderness Manners advise a finder to do? Leave it, in hopes the owner will return? Carry it forward, hoping to find the music deprived hiker along the way? Turn them in to authorities? Who are the earbud authorities anyway?

According to the National Park Service:

Items left on park property will be considered abandoned property and will not be the responsibility of the National Park Service.

But then whose responsibility is it? Are found items available for anyone to take? According to BLM rules:

If you leave personal property unattended for more than 24 hours in a day-use area, or 3 days in other areas, it may be considered abandoned and disposed of by BLM.

Three days seems like a reasonable amount of time, but how does a finder know how long an item has been lost? Surely I cannot wait 3 days on a trail to be certain. Is there some trail side carbon dating system? Single headphone, adventurous, outdoorsy, seeking new owner with deeper pockets and a stronger sense of responsibility.

Some items left in the wilderness, such as food caches placed in bear boxes, should and often do display a date. In most cases food past this advertised date is considered abandoned. On a Yosemite trip we discovered a bag of resupply 4 days passed its date. It contained pudding mix, energy bars, and a jumbo sized Snickers.

What to do, what to do?

Technically it was up for grabs. But what if that poor late backpacker was on his way, delayed by injury. Perhaps only the thought of the awaiting Snickers was keeping him alive. We decided to let it go one more day, but after that, it was ours.

Suddenly, a Ranger appeared from nowhere, and began going through and collecting “abandoned” food. When we inquired what happens to the found lost treasure he smiled and simply replied “we eat it.”

Panic set in as the vision of a Snickers bar dancing in our wee little heads… vaporized. Mustering the most pathetic and desperate expression he could create, Jesse begged the ranger if we might at least have the Snickers.

I will never know the name of the ranger who saved, if not our lives, at least our souls by handing over that bar. What could have easily divided us, was quickly divided amongst us.

I may still lack clarity on how exactly to treat wilderness found items, but this found treat found a place near our hearts… though slightly lower, creating a surprisingly satisfying gurgle .

Entertainment, How To, Wilderness

How To View The International Space Station

Gallery September 6, 2012 rick.romine 2 Comments

A clear night sky in the wilderness offers spectacular views of celestial objects, including the International Space Station (ISS). After all, the dang thing weighs 954,334.8 pounds and covers an area of 26,909.78 square feet. I mean you’d have to be practically blind not to see it.

According to the NASA ISS facts and figures page:

The ISS solar array surface area could cover the U.S. Senate Chamber three times over.

Frankly I think they should use some of the extra to cover the House of Representatives. Both houses could benefit from some heat, but I digress.

When observed from Earth, the ISS is one of the brightest objects in the sky, with an apparent magnitude of -5.9. It appears as a bright white dot, moving quickly across the night sky. So why then do so few of us actually see it?

Okay, yes it is 240 miles in the air. But don’t forget, 240 miles is the same distance Gandhi went for salt. I have no idea how far he went for pepper, but the point is 240 miles can’t be that far. The real problem is not the distance up, but rather that the satellite keeps moving. Not only does it move, but it does so at a rate of 17,500 miles per hour, or 292 miles per minute. At that speed, when asked to pass the salt, Gandhi could have said give me a minute, and actually meant it.

So how then do we see this really cool moving object?

We just need to know when and where to look. Circling the earth every 92 minutes, we get quite a few chances. It is possible, though unlikely, to see it during daylight. Our best chances are when the sun is reflecting off it brightly and the sky is dark, usually just after dusk or slightly before dawn. But frankly, we can’t stand out here all night, and we are probably looking in the wrong direction.

On a two week trip to Yosemite, Scott, a backpacking companion, was carrying a small piece of paper with magical insights: a list of dates, times, durations, maximum elevations, directions of entry, and directions of exit. Every night, when the sky and horizon allowed, we gathered and awaited the space stations appearance. If there had not been prohibitions against erecting structures in the wilderness, we would probably have constructed nightly mini Stonehenges in anticipation. It was just that cool.

Assuming you don’t have Scott on your wilderness adventures, you are going to have to create your own magical paper. Luckily, NASA has created a website to help you do just that.

https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/

Here you will find factual information about the International Space Station and a wide variety of other observable satellites. There is even a cool “applet” that will allow you to enter various criteria, including your location on the planet, and with the push of a button create your own list of observation opportunities.

The site offers these viewing tips:

For best results, observers should look in the direction and at the elevation shown in the appearing column at the time listed. Because of the speed of the orbiting vehicles, telescopes are not practical. However, a good pair of field binoculars may reveal some detail of the structural shape of the spacecraft.

You may, however, want to limit the power of your binoculars. After all, as you can see from the picture, some celestial movements are best unseen.

Entertainment, How To, Wilderness

How To Have a Blast as a National Park Service Employee

Gallery August 15, 2012 rick.romine Leave a comment

New employees of any company or organization are faced with digging their way through various policy and procedure handbooks. Typical tomes requiring shoveling include volumes on workplace health and safety, anti-discrimination policy, sexual harassment, and most recently the dos and don’ts of bullying. These manuals are typically painful to read and require some sort of mandatory testing to artificially infuse interest.

One employee handbook I recently came across, however, sparked my attention like no other.

National Park Service Handbook for the Storage, Transportation, and Use of Explosives

Now I have been fooled by YouTube™ videos where the advertised title and actual content were not in the least bit related. I carefully kept my giddy expectations in check as I followed this link to the online book:

https://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/npsg/explosives/

NOTE: Updated link: https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/npsg/explosives/

It is quite possible that clicking this link blasts an automatic warning message at the Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms. But even if it does, it also magically summons an eleven chapter, 221 page bible of wilderness pyrotechnics.

Many of us who have spent significant time in granite country have wondered in amazement at the trail excavation and armory work of various switchbacks and trail ledges. We imagine the blood, sweat and tears exerted from the working end of a Pulaski, Mattock, or McLeod.

In these areas of obvious labor, we occasionally stumble upon mysterious worm holes, the apparent effects of some giant silicon based life form. Or is it? Is it possible that in addition to exerting sweat, a subset of these NPS employees is actually having a blast?!

If the official job titles provided in the handbook are any indication, it seems there is no lack of people wanting at least a part of the action. With no exaggeration positions include:

Park Service Blasting Officer
DSC Blasting Officer
Blasting Inspectors
Regional Blasting Officers
Chief Park Blasters
NPS Blasters
Explosive Handlers
Magazine Operator

I assume the latter is operating a device that holds explosive charges, as opposed to the latest issue of Field and Stream.

I confess to being a tad confused as to the target audience. The same manual that explains the formula for calculating borehole depth when subdrilling:

(H = 2.5 x Ve x (B² + J²)½ + T) / Vr

Also explains:

Allow no one to handle explosives while under the influence of liquor, narcotics or prescription drugs that impair performance.

As a side note, I found no guidelines regarding performing the actual borehole calculations while under the influence. Go figure.

For the backpacking layman, these procedures and people have something to do with removing big rocks by drilling holes in them and blasting them into new locations. Pretty cool.

Most of us have seen remnants of these endeavors, without ever considering the science. Let’s consider at least a portion of that burden.

In rock blasting, the term burden refers to the rock between the borehole and the open face or edge. To successfully move it requires knowledge of the interrelations between the depth of the hole, the velocity of the explosive, and the velocity of the rock.

By delaying charges in the boreholes, the total burden can be increased and direction controlled. For example to move a large burden up off the bench, a series of rows can be timed in sequence. The borehole row 1 is discharged, removing the burden from it to the face, freeing up the second discharge to take the burden from row 2 to 1, followed by row 3 to 2 and so on.

Similarly, if delaying in diagonal rows, the burden can be moved up and to the right.

So there really is a science to blowing up rocks. So much so there are multiple levels of certification programs (NPS/65) for people who do this for a living.

All this requires basic physics and applied mathematics. It occurred to me that if more teenaged boys were allowed to apply math in this explosive way, this next generation would be prepared to easily blow away our countries competition. With burden removed, we would rock!

Backpacking, Food, How To, Wilderness

How to Survive – Logan Bread

Gallery July 29, 2012 rick.romine Leave a comment

Ambiguous titles are fun. Is Logan Bread the answer, or simply part of the question? Or perhaps, both? I was at a dinner party recently where a woman, after sampling a brownie-like item declared:

This tastes healthy.

There was immediate recognition, by all within ear shot, exactly what was meant. Needless to say this pronouncement did not create a mad rush towards the serving tray. The feeling was one of reverent respect for the apparent wholesomeness, combined with a surprising decline in actual desire.

To sustain life, backpackers eventually require sustenance. Classic conflicting forces are usually at play: bulk, weight, calories, nutrition, shelf life, and taste. How do you create a compact, non-perishable, quality source of tasty calories? Is it even possible?

According to legend, in the 1950’s this very challenge faced an expedition team set on summiting Mount Logan. The resulting recipe, Logan Bread, meeting all desired requirements, is now referred to as the pinnacle of do-it-yourself energy bar-dom. Given its historical predecessor, known as hardtack or sea biscuits, one could claim the competition was not particularly stiff. Others counter, however, it was in fact the stiffest thing imaginable – 6 parts flour, 1 part water, and 2 parts broken teeth.

If the Logan Story indeed cracked our long toothed desire for outdoor substance, it must be an amazing tale, climaxing in an amazing recipe – one in which we can confidently entrust our backpacking lives. Recipes are full of details, and details are important. It can mean the difference between the rise and fall of our daily bread. As I delved further into this expeditionary tale, I found nagging conflicting details. The shear variety of recipes claiming the title Logan Bread, calls somewhat into question their validity. How can there be so many different recipes claiming this one momentous 1950 event?

Most claim the event was an expedition to the top of 19,550 foot high Mount Logan, Canada, the second highest peak in the Northern Hemisphere . Impressive. Others, however, refer to Mount Logan, Alaska. To many of us uneducated, there is probably not much difference between Canada and Alaska. There is in fact a Mount Logan Alaska, however, it stands a mere 6,204 feet high, making it the 17,576^th highest peak in the US. This hardly rises to a level worthy of legend.

If details are important, how can we intrust our detailed recipe for life to someone who cannot tell the difference between 6,204 feet and 19,550 feet? That percentage of error is over 68%. If we calculate the error based on difference between peak rankings of 2 and 17576, the percentage error approaches 100%! So exactly how much wheat flour are we really suppose to add?!

To make matters worse, you can find a Mount Logan in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, Ohio, Washington and Wyoming. Perhaps this explains the plethora of recipes purporting to be Loganesque.

There does appear to be some common ingredients. Almost all Logan Bread recipes contain some combination of the following:

Water
Wheat Flour
Brown Sugar
Powdered Milk
Honey
Molasses
Oil
Salt
Baking Powder

As fibrous filler, they recommend a variety additions including:

Dried Fruit
Oats
Nuts
Seeds

To spice it up, many include

Cinnamon
Nutmeg

One major area of divergence seems to hatch from eggs. Some included them, many do not. The argument against eggs seems to be one of shelf life and sickness. Backpackers appear to have an irrational fear of eggs and salmonella, which if I am not mistaken is caused by salmon eggs, which is why I prefer to use a spinning lure.

More concerning to me is the complete lack of chocolate chips. Seriously, are we expected to believe life is worth living without chocolate? For my Logan Bread, I have added a healthy dosage of dark chocolate chips. Luckily, chocolate contains antioxidants, so a healthy dose can be a lot. I base this improved recipe on an expedition to my own backyard compost heap, which I coincidentally call Mount Logan. To me, without the chocolate, standard Logan Bread tastes a tad too much like the smell of my own Mount Logan.

Check out this recipe at:

https://howtowilderness.com/food/logan-bread

Or other recipes at:

https://howtowilderness.com/food/backpacking-recipes/

Backpacking, How To, Skills, Wilderness

How To Survive the 5 Stages of Laundry

Gallery July 19, 2012 rick.romine Leave a comment

As with most griefs, there are five stages of wilderness laundry:

Denial: I don’t smell anything. Why are you sitting way over there?
Anger: Seriously, it is not that bad! Besides, you don’t exactly smell pine scented!
Bargaining: Listen, I’ll take a quick dip in the lake when we get to camp, OK?
Depression: You really do think I smell bad.
Acceptance: Ok, Ok. So what do you want me to do about it?

Don’t sweat it

It appears that by itself sweat does not smell, at least not mine. However, micro organisms which interact with sweat, like an unwanted occupy movement, can create quite a stink. Wilderness cleaning strategies are as varied as the bacteria bathing most backpackers. To tackle this load I think in terms of three laundry baskets: delicate, permanent press, and regular

Delicate

Delicate is the least interventionist laundry solution. In fact, you can think of it as mostly prevention and wishful thinking. The theory is pretty straight forward. Wilderness smells come from bacteria grown in sweat. Decrease lingering sweat and you decrease lingering smells. Since sweating is a natural process to regulate temperature, we need to do everything we can to control temperature first. Proponents wear clothing in layers and quickly remove them as they heat up. Better to be too cool than to accidentally sweat. Antiperspirants can be deployed in all the normal places, and some of the abnormal ones as well. Wicking clothes can accelerate the evaporation of sweat. Removing boots and letting socks dry out during hiking breaks may also help.

Most multiday backpackers who use this delicate laundry approach, are referred to as “stinky”. To mask reality you may be tempted to apply deodorant. Frankly, covering your body with a bouquet of sweet scents may not be the best approach when traveling in bear country, unless you desire a hug. In that case, I recommend honey scented or perhaps maple sausage.

Permanent Press

Permanent press is the next level of intervention. It involves an acknowledgement that sweat prevention probably did not work, and we need a way to press this bacteria causing solution out of our clothes on a continuous, one could say permanent, basis. Due to environmental concerns, proponents of this free press are agitated by the thought of soap, even biodegradable. They prefer a proactive yet minimalist approach. The most common solution to remove bacteria is to thin it in water and then squeeze it out. This could be accomplished by removing clothes and rinsing in the river, beating clothes against a rock, or simply jumping in with clothes on in an organic strategy known as “wash and wear”.

Regular

For the regular folks, who believe soap can be used responsibly in the wilderness, a more aggressive approach is taken. The challenge is that normal amenities like a laundry sink or tub are noticeably lacking, and using soap in a river or lake is completely out of the question. Creative approaches are therefore required. I have seen or heard tell of various containers in which to soak soapy clothes:

Plastic ziplock bag
Emptied bear canister
Cooking pot
Wide mouth Nalgene bottle

To achieve warm water for cleaning some carry black plastic jugs or containers which convert the suns ray to heat. In any case, the rinsing of soapy water should be thorough and at least 200 feet from the water source. Needles to say extra precaution should be taken to clean any improvised laundry containers you plan to eat or drink out of later.

Solar Sterilization

Regardless of the cleaning approach, a simple clothes line and the sun are typically used for drying. If you do not dry your clothes quickly and thoroughly, you risk growing mold which frankly pretty much defeats the purpose of washing to begin with.

There is a growing scientific debate, however, regarding the effectiveness of using the sun not only to dry clothes, but to actually clean and sterilize them. It starts with anecdotal memories of Grandma’s lovely laundry, where stained diapers hung on the line were magically sun bleached. Not only were smells removed, but the actual stains vanish! Backpackers have ample access to the sun, and the thought of removing smells and stains by simply offering them up to the sun god is, well frankly, too good to be true.

The scientific debate usually goes something like this:

Sun light contains UV light, which is really powerful stuff causing sun burns and in extreme cases, skin cancer.
UV light has been used for years in water and sewage treatment. Surely my backpacking laundry is no worse than urban sewage!
UV light is proven to disrupt DNA. Organisms with single celled membranes such as bacteria and fungi found in clothes are particularly vulnerable to UV disruption, rendering them unable to reproduce or sustain life. Stinks for them.
Grandma’s laundry line is actually a slow cooking UV sterilizer.
Problem solved!

Soiling the party, however, are observations such as:

If the sun can really sterilize my backpacking clothes, then why are my sun baked shirts stinking to begin with?
UV works best with direct hits. Even small particles in liquid can shadow pathogens, allowing them to survive. One can only image what shadowy things lurk in a backpackers pants.
The UV spectrum used in water treatment plants operates at 2537 angstroms, or 254 nanometers. This spectrum, though present in sunlight, is usually absorbed by our atmosphere. It’s presence on earth therefore is extremely rare. For practical sterilization purposes, it has to be artificially created with UV lamps.

Damn you science! Stop teasing me!

But don’t give up quite yet. The promise of simple sunlight cleaning and sterilization is just too good to give up on. I came across an ACS Publication of Applied Materials and Interfaces article titled:

Realizing Visible-Light-Induced Self-Cleaning Property of Cotton through Coating N-TiO₂ Film and Loading AgI Particles.

It seems two Chinese scholars, Deyong Wu and Mingce Long, are plotting to turn the entire Chinese laundry business on its head. Others, including researches in Australia and US are also exploring coatings of Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles for self-cleaning anti-bacterial clothing. If successful, the five stages of laundry could be condensed in to one solar blast.

Oh sure, there still needs to be research. I am personally skeptical we will be able to harness the moon any time soon for required ironing and folding. Perhaps we should also be a smudge nervous that manufactures are adding chemicals to our pants that enable basic sunlight to vaporize dirt.

After all, applied to a hat, who knows what would become of my dirty mind.

Entertainment, Food, How To, Wilderness

How To Forage the Forest

Gallery July 16, 2012 rick.romine Leave a comment

Those of us of a certain age remember Euell Gibbons, a man of seemingly normal human intelligence, declaring on network television:

“Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible.”

What an idiot! Not Euell, me. Years I wandered through thick pine forest, lugging my rolled oats and dirt flavored granola bars, never once realizing I could simply eat the trees. This fruit of knowledge, however, raised new concerns for me, such as:

Which goes better with fresh trout, red fir or white fir?

Still something in the back of my mind was just not right. The same could also be said for most of the front. If our forests are enormous arbor buffets, minus the sequoia sized sneeze guards, surely they would be filled with herds of grazing obese Americans. In my wilderness wandering, most white trash trail-ers I encountered were small, scrawny, and seemingly starving.

If I remember correctly my Latin roots, forage comes from the words fore, meaning in front of you, and age meaning unavoidable death. For the Greeks, forage derives from the word forge, meaning to make false. Forage therefore loosely translates to:

“before you lies certain death because this is all totally false.” Loosely.

There are two reasons to forage in the forest, neither of which is particularly appealing: revival or survival. Revival is an increased spiritual interest in something. It is true we have become disconnected from our natural food chain by, well, our grocery food chains. Food magically appears hermetically sealed in plastic, completely removed from its source, usually by underpaid migrant workers. Reconnecting to our wild food roots, regardless of how bitter they taste, is the dream of the forage revivalist. For the survivalist, well I guess we just got ourselves into such deep doo-doo that we need to eat a few logs to get out.

There must be food in the wilderness. After all, birds and squirrels are eating something. Some of it sounds surprisingly similar to their plastic wrapped relatives: wild strawberries, blackberries, asparagus, onions, and miner’s lettuce. Some things seem totally lacking. I have never found miner’s croutons or miner’s lettuce dressing. Also, some of it seems down right weedy: dandelions, cattails, and oh come on, seriously, nettles!?

The forest foraging marketing department could use some serious revamping. I have reviewed a wide variety of foraging books, guides, and websites, and offer up some of these apparent pearls of wisdom:

Braken fern tips, when tightly curled are delicious. As they begin to uncurl they become bitter and poisonous. Recent studies have also linked consumption to esophageal cancer.
Wild asparagus is delicious steamed or boiled, unless leaves have formed, in which case it become toxic. Eaten raw, it causes nausea and diarrhea.
Nettles should be cooked to remove the stinging hairs. If undercooked, even slightly, they can cause miserable tissues swelling in your mouth and throat.

Frankly, it is difficult to image that Mother Nature has not been sued, let alone the authors of these foraging guides and books. One author strongly recommended that new foragers maintain a yearly journal. Based on the labyrinth of risks to life and limb, I declare optimism has never been so bold.

One piece of supposedly helpful advice:

Eat only what the bears will eat.

First, why are we close enough to their dinner table to see what they are eating? Second, if they really want it, I am pretty sure they are going to get it.

Perhaps this advice simply means we should behave like a bear, focusing on things easily recognizable and digestible such as berries and fish. I have to point out that bears also eat grubs, and frankly if your hiking partner Steve get’s between bear and cub, he is pretty much in play as well. I suppose we can indeed take lessons from the bear. Given a strong enough driving hunger and the element of surprise, we might be able to take out Steve ourselves.

Foraging appears to be growing in popularity, though I am not sure how successful these scroungers actually are. A suspiciously significant amount of coverage is given to creating brews and teas from pine needles and manzanita berries. I am not sure too many people are actually starving in the wilderness from a lack of boiled twigs.

Plants with seeming potential, such as oaks which sustained centuries of Indian tribes, begin to generate reservations when you realize their acorns have to be harvested, sorted, dried, stored, mashed, leached, boiled, shaped into a patty, and only then cooked on a rock. My instant oatmeal pack is looking pretty good about now.

Maybe the skills required are so refined, that commercial providers are better suited for foraging. There is a restaurant in California called Forage in the Forest that serves, get this, hamburgers. Call me cynical, but it seems this hunger game has crossed over from gathering to hunting. If hungry enough, I suppose poached food will have to do.

We now return to Euell Gibbon’s pine nuts. I have to confess that by now I am no longer sure if this refers to edible seeds, or simply the people like him who think pine trees are edible.

I am slightly embarrassed to say I experienced perverse pleasure when I first heard Euell Gibbons died of malnutrition. I am not completely convinced this is true, so I personally refuse to Google it for fear of spoiling the immense irony. I suppose it is possible old Euell simply passed away in his sleep, bludgeoned to death by troop of starving backpackers.

How To, Skills, Wilderness

How To Take Decent Wilderness Photos

Gallery July 15, 2012 rick.romine Leave a comment

Leave No Trace principles limit our wilderness take home pay to memories and photographs. Since memories quickly fade with age, we should probably give these photograph things a snap more exposure. Professional photographers aside, most of us set our artistic dial on decent. Decent seems to be the minimum level necessary to achieve a Facebook like.

Most casual wilderness photographers are more concerned about camera weight and battery life than the light gathering capabilities of a 300 millimeter lens. After all, cameras are lower on the survivalist’s hierarchy of needs than say food and water. We certainly want our memory maker to perform in the wilderness, but if it approaches the size and weight of a lunch box, we may be tempted to simply open it up and eat all 32 mega bytes.

Assuming a small camera with some easy to use features, what can we focus on to improve our decent-cy?

Before we zoom in on that, we should explore the difference between impact and intent. Impact is what the observer thinks and feels examining our photograph. Intent is what we actually meant to convey. Not surprisingly, these can be in conflict. For example, a dark shadow can create a partially obstructed view filled with ominous feelings of voyeurism. Or it can simply mean our fat finger got in the way and ruined the shot.

Understanding how the camera can be manipulated to create various emotional effects can increase the odds that impact and intent, if not married, are at least dating,

Rule of Thirds

The first place to start is the frame. Regardless of any camera settings, if what we are pointing at is not particularly interesting or pleasing, the final picture probably won’t be either. Some argue that with today’s high mega pixel density, we can shoot wide and improve by cropping later. But let’s be honest. We are probably going to post this straight to Facebook, so let’s just act like we give a crop.

The little autofocus cross-hairs in most cameras encourage us to point directly at our subject. After all, if we are taking a frantic shot of an approaching black bear, we want it to be in focus, and we want it to be in the frame. Unfortunately, humans do not find dead center particularly pleasing. Research, probably involving cruelty to animals, eventually revealed the rule of thirds. If we divide a picture frame into horizontal and vertical thirds, main subjects along the lines and at the intersections are more aesthetically pleasing. For example, a face looking left appears pleasing positioned on the right third. A face looking right appears pleasing positioned on the left third. To highlight an impressive foreground, we place the horizon on the top third. If we want to irritate the observer subconscious, we place the horizon dead center, or even worse, tilt it slightly.

In this action landscape, the water is positioned on the lower third line. My cliff-diving son is pleasingly positioned in the upper left sweet spot. If we compare impact and intent, we may find in this case that the impact is, well, frankly just impact. And pretty darn painful impact if I remember right.

Beware of the Digital Zoom

A convenient way to crop a picture is to use the zoom. Some cameras have an optical zoom, some a digital zoom, and some have both. Both zooms make the target seem closer, but they do so in very different ways. Where possible, turn off the digital zoom. It is not increasing the amount of data you have to render a quality picture, it is simply blowing up the pixels that are already there. Anything you can do with a digital zoom can be done better in software later.

Lighting

Photography literally means writing with light. The more dramatic the light, the more dramatic the write. Mornings and evenings, with impressive long shadows, are a great times for pictures. Where practical, we should inform our wildlife friends that we prefer they perform during these magic hours. Regardless of the actual performance time, as we compose our decent pictures we should be conscious of the primary lighting source. Is it side lit, top lit, back lit, or front lit? Each creates a very different feel. Front lighting is the safest, albeit most boring form. Our flash can be used even in daylight to provide fill, but given the proximity to the lens, beware of the dreaded red eye. Unless of course the devil monster look was indeed our intent.

Focus

Nothing changes a picture from decent to indecent more quickly than lack of focus. Well, actually there may be some things, but we are certainly not going to uncover them here. Most point-and-click cameras offer autofocus. In the uncontrollable wild, where nature appears and disappears in an instance, autofocus may mean the difference between Bigfoot and Bigblur. When less urgency is required, we can have both focus and pleasing cropping by pointing at our main subject, pressing half way down for auto-focus, and then re-framing the picture before pressing the rest of the way.

The Light Benders

It’s fairly obvious that all cameras require light to create an exposure. The amount is influenced by three inter-dependencies:

the size of the hole – aperture
the duration of the exposure – shutter speed
the sensitivity of the sensor – ISO speed

These light causes create a variety of photo effects, which are either blessings or curses, depending on our intent. Almost all point-and-click cameras offer ways to influence these settings, though it may not always be obvious how.

Aperture

Aperture is simply the size of the opening which allows in light. The primary effect from aperture is depth of focus. The larger the opening, the smaller the depth of focus.

A tiny aperture can create a landscape picture where the plants in the foreground and the mountain peaks in the background are both in sharp focus. This picture calls attention to everything and nothing at the same time.

A large aperture create a narrow depth of focus. In this photo, a large aperture creates a image where the blue tongue lizard is in sharp focus, but everything in the background is blurred out. Dramatic attention is drawn to the objects in focus.

Shutter Speed

Shutter speed determines how long the picture is exposed to light. A fast shutter speed will freeze the action in flight. It is great for limiting blur for fast moving subjects or shaking hand held cameras.

A slow shutter speed will allows us to take photos in lower light, and create a blur effect which enhances the illusion of movement in a still picture. For extremely slow speeds, a tripod may be necessary so that only the moving objects are blurred.

Film Speed

Film speed (ISO speed) determines the sensitivity of the light gathering process. In most cases there is a trade off between speed and image graininess. The lower the speed, the finer the grain. The higher the speed, the larger the grain.

Inter-dependency

There are inter-dependencies between all of these settings. A choice in one will impact the others. For example, for a low light landscape demanding great depth of focus, we set a very small aperture. To make up for the decreased amount of light coming through this tiny aperture, we either need to set the shutter speed lower (increasing motion blurs) or the film sensitivity higher (increasing graininess). Similarly, if we want to freeze a water fall we set a high shutter speed. To make up for the limited time for light exposure, we have to increase the aperture (decreasing the depth of focus) or increase the film speed (increasing graininess).

There has to be an easier way!

Because these controls are so fundamental to photography, most point-and-click cameras offers them, but in a much more friendly mode, such as presets. Presets are control settings which offer sweet spot combinations, organized by their most common situation. Since the digital camera can deal with the inter-dependencies, we just need to set the priority, and the other settings will be handled automatically. Although not standardized, there are some common icon images to identify each. Here are some examples:

Action Mode (a running man?): Forces shutter speed to fast to create a blur free picture. Results: Image frozen in time. Helpful for hand held shots
Landscape Mode (a mountain range?): Forces aperture to small to create a large depth of focus. Results: Foreground and background in focus. In low light, this may require a tripod if shutter speed is too slow.
Portrait Mode (a person profile?): Forces aperture to large to create narrow depth of focus. Results: Target sharp but background blurry.
Night Mode (a star?): Forces shutter speed to slow to increase light and fill flash turned on. Results foreground well light, background darker but in focus.

Given that preset do not really know what we are photographing, we can trick them into other uses. For example, portrait mode will likely result in a picture with the background blurred. If we want a portrait with the background in focus, we can use the landscape mode. Do not fear, it will not make our subject look like a mountain. Unless, of course, they already do.

The Photo Finish

Unlike the days of development fees and limited film stock, digital pictures are cheap and instant. If we don’t like the landscape picture we just took, we delete it and take another. We can try the same framing with each of the available presets. We can vary the framing. Taking a wide variety of pictures not only lets us throw a handful of darts at our target, it also lets us draw the target after we have thrown the darts.

Just because it is easy to capture a massive quantity of varied images does not mean they represent quality. We should find in our virtual pile the very few decent ones, the ones we really like and post those. With any luck, others will Facebook like them too.

How To, Wilderness

How To Camp with Glamour

Gallery July 11, 2012 rick.romine 1 Comment

Wilderness adventure brings to mind two conflicting persona’s – the rugged outdoor survivalist matching wits with Mother Nature, and his cousin the Nature Channel HDTV voyeur. Each labors for his love. The former hacks free his boulder trapped arm with a penknife, while the latter pries free his remote control trapped under the cushion.

Is it possible, or even desirable, to bring these two nature fans together on the same adventure? Can the safety and comfort of the couch be transported into the boulder fields of the wild? According to the proponents of glamour camping… the answer is right there in your wallet.

“Glamping” combines glamour and camping, creating a travel adventure which enables participants to be as close to their nature as they are to their nurture. You can be Sir Edmund Hillary by day, and Conrad Hilton by night. Imagine sleeping in a canvas tent on the plains of Africa, just a few feet away from a pack of howling hyenas. Now imagine the tent has an attached bathroom, shower, and running hot water. Imagine the bed is not a stiff foldout cot, but rather a memory foam mattress, with toasty hot water bottles to keep you snug and comfy all night. You are starting to get the picture.

For some this glamour camping creates a bizarre juxtaposition, like two nature lovers staring at each other from opposite ends of civilization. Vendors have paired up to meet this odd couple of demand. It’s a market where Abercrombie meets Kent, and Lindblad meets National Geographic. The service offering is primal luxury. The stark and rugged gum tree plains are decked out with banquet tables, as if daring nature to crash the party’s aristocracy.

For some, the excitement of the wilderness is water down slightly by the pampering. Like that all too new pair of boots at the cattle dude ranch, these adventures can seem real and yet unreal at the same time. Authenticity requires a little more dung on the heels, but frankly, you might be surprised at how well you can giddy up without it. The glamor camping magicians make incredible wildernesses accessible to the inaccessible. Our family adventures have provided shared remote wilderness memories for groups ranging in age from 5 to 80.

Given the growing surge of glamping dedicated websites, facebook pages, and even pintrest boards, this trend appears to be one with legs. And these legs seem more than willing to carry the rest of us into the wilderness on a litter, for the right price of course. Gratuity not included.

Backpacking, Gear, Wilderness

How To Be a Wilderness Flashpacker

Gallery June 13, 2012 rick.romine Leave a comment

The term flashpacker usually refers to an urban backpacker with an upscale budget.

An urban backpacker, as opposed to a wilderness backpacker, is someone traveling in a low cost manner with the primary objective of extending the trip. Imagine a college student resting his weary head against a ragged old backpack on the floor of a European train station, holding a piece of cheese in one hand and a youth hostel guide in the other, and you pretty much got the picture.

A flashpacker maintains the urban backpacker’s adventurous attitude, but does so with bit more money and a significantly higher standard for comfort. The flashpacker would more likely lounge by his new gadget filled backpack in the hotel lobby, iPhone in hand, multi-tasking between surfing for the nearest zip line, and updating his Facebook status.

A traditional wilderness backpacker is often motivated by a desire to escape the hustle and bustle of everyday urban life. The objective is to connect with nature in its rawest form. In the past, limitations of weight and bulk required backpackers to strip their life’s possessions down to the bare necessities. For many this minimalist existence and the powerful feeling of simplified self-reliance are part and parcel to the wilderness backpacking experience.

What happens when the wilderness backpacker has access to discretionary funds, and an itch for techno comfort? A wilderness flashpacker is born.

Advances in technology have significantly changed the items which will easily fit into our backpacks, if not our skimpy budgets. These devices often represent, on steroids, the very things we previously jettisoned in exchange for our mobile outdoor experience. After all, how much does an iTune actually weigh? How much physical space is taken up by an electronic book? How about 100 of them? or 1,000? or 10,000? The potential economies of scale seem frankly ridiculous. I will not likely be in the back country long enough to listen to 100 books on tape or 50 days worth of classic rock, but what the heck, they fit.

Some items are simply high tech versions of things we previously carried. A set of physical topographic maps can be replaced by a handheld GPS. A collection of nature field guides can be loaded on our eReader. Our clunky 35mm SLR camera with film for 48 pictures can be more than replaced by a tiny digital camera with the potential to take 32GB of still and video memories. As these gadgets find their way into our packs, we begin to take on the flashiness of a wilderness flashpacker.

More impactful than the modernization of existing clutter is the inclusion of things never before possible in the wilderness. With advances in electronic connections, whether satellites, cell towers, or emerging technologies, escaping the hustle and bustle of everyday life now requires a conscious effort. You carried your PDA because of the built in GPS and map, but what the heck you seem to be getting some bars, why not check your email or shoot out a quick tweet? After all, everyone deserves your status update. Surely they are desperate to know how many calories were in that snack, the size of the fish that just got away, or how your last bowel moved you in the wilderness. Right?

It is difficult to discuss the use of technology in the back country, without sparking a bias which often roars into a wildfire. Smokey the eBear may need to reminds us: only you can prevent flashpacker fires. Disagreement usually come down to “good witch” versus “bad witch” conclusions.

The iPod music distracts me while hiking, leaving me much happier and more pleasant to be around. Good Witch!
The music distracts me and I do not hear your cries for help as a bear mauls you. Bad Witch!
After getting bite by a rattlesnake, the electronic beacon allows me to quickly reach out to search and rescue. Good Witch!
The beacon provided me a false sense of security, and I pushed way beyond my skill and training, placing both my party and the entire search and rescue team at risk. Bad Witch!

The ability to leap from cause to effect is an imprecise art. Generations face off from opposite sides of a continental divided. The young whipper snappers pitch their ultralight tents in the pro tech camp, while the old fogies dig in their high laced leather boots. How can the same flash of facts result in such different reactions?

Technology in the wilderness is likely to be more than a mere flash in the pack. In the immortal words of the King… Rodney actually: “Can’t we all just get along?” And if we can, how long is it, and who’s gonna carry it? Frankly, there really should be an app for that.

What to do?

Common Terms:

Less Common Terms:

Terms That Don’t Exist But Should:

How Are Photo Stitches Created?

What is the Paleo Diet?

Paleo Backpacking

Paleo-Packer Compatibility

Paleo Backpacking Options

Unsolicited Advice

Emergency Essentials

What about outdoor adventurers?

Is any of this relevant to backpackers?

Don’t sweat it

Delicate

Permanent Press

Regular

Solar Sterilization

Damn you science! Stop teasing me!

Rule of Thirds

Beware of the Digital Zoom

Lighting

Focus

The Light Benders

Aperture

Shutter Speed

Film Speed

Inter-dependency

There has to be an easier way!

The Photo Finish

The Goto Learning Resource for Outdoor Enthusiasts