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So, I take a bit of pride or at least I did in some of my photos.  I’ve long been jealous of Vu’s photos, though I’ll be damned if I can find anything on his site that just showcases anything but his portraits, which are great but nothing I’m really interested in.  his candids and nature shots were what originally inspired me to buy a SLR camera and look at the world through a lens.

Galen Rowell and his fabulous Mountain Light gallery in Bishop kept me going with huge displays of stunning photos from around the world, though concentrating on the Sierra Nevada.  Going out to go backpacking with any number of people over the years has given me alot of opportunitiies to take pictures; most crap, some average and some maybe even okay.

I got an email from an old friend who just kind of reminded me how much I suck.  He gets paid to fly around in helicopters and take pictures and his pictures are stunning.  I could be wrong but as far as I know photography is a relatively new pursuit for Egood, as in the last four years, much like it is for me.  But looking at his work makes me feel like Sgt. Scholten squaring off against a drunk junior NCO…

Eric Good makes me want to sell my camera gear and buy crayons.  What an increditble asshole photographer.

My most used running loop is five miles from my door, around a few trails and back.  It’s a good loop all the way around with the exception of this one area near Ehrbacher canyon.  At least 2/3 of the time I run through here I see bear prints in the dirt.  Since I usually run in the morning, the tracks are nice and crisp on the edges which is just super.

Seeing one of those is not nearly as reassuring as you might think.  It’s actually not very cool at all.  Though, either way its better than seeing one of these snake dens.  Please note I didn’t take either of these, my heart would not have stood long against such fear as this inspires.

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So, I have inexplicably gotten 3 emails (two from people I don’t know) asking about the Circle of Solitude trip. Generally just asking for the basic route/information on it. I am going to use this sentence here to plug the usefulness of the comment box in cases like this, instead of email please feel free to use either but comments are cool!

Now onto the subject at hand. The Solitude Circle is generally as follows and I do plan on wearing my brand new Adama for President T-shirt out there, hopefully on the summit of Triple Divide peak.  There are many options as is always the case in the Sierra Nevada, this is just a general outline.

This one launches from the Bubbs Creek trail head, right at Road’s End in Sequoia/Kings Canyon.  This is one of the more popular trail heads on the west side of the Sierra Nevada, partially because of the easy access to the Rae Lakes loop from here.  So from Bubbs creek you head to the Sphinx creek junction and head south over Avalanche pass.

Options: from here you can head into either Deadman or Cloud canyon.  From Deadman Canyon you can cross Copper Mine pass (just north of peak 12,2345) into Cloud Canyon or take Elizabeth pass trail (we’ll ignore this one for the CoS).  Either way you go, you have to get over to the south-east side of the Colby Pass trail near Gallats Lake.  For this trip, I’d like to hit Triple Divide Peak, seeing it from the High Sierra Trail was inspirational and intimidating.

From Gallats lake you head east towards Junction Meadow, bypassing Milestone Bowl and Kern Point.  Once you get to Junction meadow you’re on the High Sierra Trail for just a few marvelous minutes as you head north.  The HST then breaks East up to join the Pacific Crest Trail, but on the Circle of Solitude you keep heading north, staying away from the highway of people that the PCT is comparatively.   Heading north, you’ll eventually come to Lake South America.

At LSA you have another good set of options.  You can head south and east towards the PCT and when you hit that you head north again over Forrester pass.  You stay on the PCT for quite a bit, until you get to Vidette Meadow where you head back west towards the Bubbs creek trail head and completion.  The disadvantage to this PCT option being that you have so much time on the PCT with all those people.

I think the true spirit of a hike entitled the Circle of Solitude almost requires you to head straight north from Lake South America instead.  Heading north you’ll cross over Harrison pass, which is lower in elevation than Forrester, but less maintained (if at all).  From Harrison pass you start heading north-west from here to Lake Reflection and then straight north to the Bubbs creek junction and then again west, back towards the trail head and completion.

So that in summary is the Circle of Solitude.  Quite a bit of it is off trail, or at least has the option of being off trail, it’s all remote and lightly used.  I’m looking forward to it and recently found out that Gant has been successful in getting time off for the trip, but that Jared won’t be attending this time.

PS. Adama for president.

I worked harder yesterday than I have since the last time I wore cammies. Which coincidentally, I wore again yesterday and amazingly enough fit into after 10 years. I’m going to be purposefully vague in my wording and descriptions as I’d rather not have this page be easily googled.

It all started at 3:40am (a familiar time to anyone who has worn cammies) when my alarm went off. I got dressed and went to meet my team for the day. I got paired with 7 SWAT guys from the local county and was going to be the safest man on the planet for today, since I had a full team of over armed and over armored bodyguards. Sure they weren’t supposed to be my personal bodyguards but I was safe either way. So, we loaded into a helicopter and went to our ’site’. We disembarked and the helo left to handle more teams and sites. SWAT cleared the scene and then we got to work.

This was the hard part, my god I haven’t worked this kind of purely physical job in 10 years. We had to cut (I personally cut almost 600) plants, then hike them over to the pickup point and stack them. Then the bird would come over and lift them when we had a full load. We worked up about 7 full loads I think, so each one of those loads involved the helo hovering above us for a few minutes as the load was secured and lifted. If you’ve never been under a hovering helo; its loud, its windy and its dirty. Not to mention painful, with all the dirt being propelled at bb gun speed impacting every bit of bare skin on your body. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an awesome feeling, but you need a shower after just one helo lift, let alone 7.

I just signed up for the Death Valley Marathon 2009.  Exciting times indeed, the last one was just plain fun despite my inherent dislike for running in general.  It’s in stunning Titus canyon, it’s not a big race with lots of wankers and douchebags, it is just a bunch of dedicated runners (and people like me) doing what they love in a beautiful place.

Here’s another reason why I love the DV Marathon.  Without knowing it, I finished third in my age group thereby getting me a ribbon for this minor achievement.  Since I didn’t know it, none of us attended the award ceremony that night.  A couple weeks later I get a letter in the mail with the ribbon and a congratulatory letter.  Well, this year I plan on going to that awards ceremony and I’m going to go hollywood actor style in my acceptance speech.  Someone will have to physically drag me off the stage this year.

Hopefully the gimp and pimp combo will be able to overcome their fear of the outdoors or whatever the issue is before February so they can see the ceremony this year.  And as always there are tons of things left to explore in DV itself making for a really great weekend of the pimp wearing his medal and the gimp experiencing narcoleptic fits.

The last Death Valley Marathon writeup.

White Mountain III, a long foretold return to WM by the original crew from White Mountain 2003 fame is on the calendar.  September 15-18, 2008 are the dates.  Aaron, Bonnie, Jarr, Lan, Vu, I and any others who want to roll are all on the roster this time around.  The first two trips were the definition of memorable events, thankfully in a largely good way.

The last time we did this was 2003, and it was so fun we did two of them.  Then we all went our seperate ways, trying to recover from the trauma that we all suffered at the hands of defeat that summer.

An interesting aspect of this trip is that there will be three professional photographers/videographers/wankers and then there’s me, so there’s apparently going to be way too many cameras here.  But, at the very least there should be good pictures everywhere, unlike when it’s only me and Gant, who’s pictures I never see anyway.  Though, you likely won’t be able to say anything stupid without it being caught on one or more cameras.  Since I put together the first WM03 movie and made everyone look like jackasses, I’m sure I’ll have to watch myself very carefully for the sequel.

Well, Lan has spearheaded this new attempt.  Within an hour of him sending out an invitation email there were dozens of emails flying this way and that.  I can’t wait for this, it’s just plain old White Mountain, but it’s beautiful to me.

Without court today I could relax and appreciate the finer things in life.  With that in mind, here are some pictures of my job as a Ranger, so you can enjoy them too.

I promise to take better pictures of my job this year.

Talk about high blood pressure, nothing does it quite like a jury trial.  I have one tomorrow morning and I couldn’t sleep last night because of it, I’m sure tonight will be just as good.  Courts can be fun or nerve wracking and there’s just no way to tell which way a trial is going to go until you see how good the defense’s lawyer is.  One thing is certain, you get what you pay for when it comes to lawyers.  I’ve been torn apart by one lawyer (I got his card, just in case.  He was that good.) and I’ve held my own against others.

Court is just a game, there’s offense and defense.  There are plays, players and referees.  Some players are good, some are great and some are just absorbing oxygen.  All I can do is study my case as much as possible and hope not to choke in front of the jury when the defense unveils his big play.

The biggest thing that strikes me every time that is substantially different than court TV is when someone says, “Objection!”  The two lawyers approach the bench and they all chat it up like old friends.  Then they return to their seats and carry on.  In court TV shows you get to hear the objections, the points they raise and what the judge thinks about it all.  In real life court when they are at the judge’s bench they are all so far away from everyone else that you have no idea what they are talking about and you likely never will.

I hate the unkown.  The defender always has the advantage of knowing when they want to spring their ambush and how to get you to that point.  Sometimes you can see it coming based on their lines of questioning and sometimes they walk you around in circles until you don’t know who you arrested, let alone why you did.  Not knowing if it’s a good, great or just an average lawyer before hand really sucks.

The unknown is not easy on my soul.

Update!

The trial has been continued to September.  Defenses love to continue trials, as the longer they wait the more memories fade and the more chance it is that their client will walk away scott free.  Either way, I’m free today!

I have high blood pressure, it runs in my family.  I was officially diagnosed today by my doctor and I’ve got mixed emotions about this.  A) (good) I’m glad a potential long term medical condition has been identified and is in the process of being treated. B) (neutral) I’m likely going to be on medication for the rest of my life.  C) (bad) This is just another reminder, a pretty prominent one at that of my own mortality.

I had six vials of blood drawn today, and I’ve still got many more tests to run before all is said and done with this diagnosis.  El doctoro expects all the results to be normal as I’m pretty healthy, active and (relatively) young.  So, in the end it will be chalked up to genetics.  I’ve got my dad to thank for this apparently.

Thanks dad.

I bought an Enya CD after I got all this crappy news and am listening to that right now.  Music plays a huge part in calming me down.  I know I’m high strung but I also know listening to classical music and beautiful vocals like Enya relaxes me.  I can feel my pressure dropping already, or at least I feel more serene at the moment.

That and the fact that I got some potentially good news about the gimp and the pimp maybe being able to make CoS ‘08 trip today.  It’s all about timing; the gimp might need a later launch date than what is currently scheduled and the pimp might be able to get time off later than what is currently scheduled.  So, with just about a month to go before the trip, again all the variables are up in the air which just does wonders for my blood pressure.

Thanks guys.