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Jacob had his EEG test today. He is five years old, his teacher thinks he might have had a seizure at school

The instructions were to keep him up late (11pm) and wake him up early (4am) so he would fall asleep while the EEG was recording. The nurse scratched his scalp and attached electrodes. First they made him hyperventilate for a few minutes and watch a series of bright flashing lights. Then he fell asleep.

After all that was done the doc declared his results as normal. He did so well we hit up coldstone creamery.

I’m so excited that I’ve got half a mind to scream out loud. I’m excited about photography again recently. There is a photo contest coming up, specific to and located in Death Valley. I’m trying to figure out which photo(s) to enter. I’m limited to two entries this go around, so I’ve got to choose a little more carefully than the shotgun effect of the last one.

It’s exciting (expensive), frightening and wonderful all at once. Over the years I’ve fallen more and more in tune with Death Valley; it’s solitude and it’s quiet beauty. Few people go high up into the mountains and even fewer wander outside the tourist areas of DV. I like these lonely areas, I find serenity there and am reminded of Buzz Aldrin’s famous description of the moon as, “Magnificent desolation”. What a perfect description for Death Valley.

I’ve even applied (by submitting some sample photos) to a stock photography company.  I’m excited for a lot of reasons lately.

Lots of new stuff.

http://jodag.net/Media/Movies/mystary.wmv

Direct link, rather than embedded due to IE’s failure to respect HTML standards.

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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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.

I’ve had it with Rattlesnakes. I just killed the first one that I’ve had in my yard, but prior to this my neighbor has had 3-4 I think in her yard, including one that bit her dog yesterday. Those little buggers blend in so well, I’m not sure if I would have spotted it had my dogs not been going buck wild around it. So, it may be time to get off my ass and snake proof my fence. Between those little shits and the family of bears that lives in the canyon here it’s quite crowded. I need another couple of German Shepards is what I need. At least there’s no sharks around here.

Speaking of sharks though, went swimming in the ocean for the first time since I was in the Marines as far as I remember last week. It was fun, except for the constant paranoia. The only reason I’m swimming in the ocean is that I’m trying to train up for a triathalon or two over the next couple of months. The first one is at the end of August and is a sprint distance, no real bigee. Then at the end of September is the Olympic distance which is more of a bitch.

Outside of that the only thing keeping me busy is it’s the annual time for one of my cars to die. Last year you may remember my truck dying a very expesnive death. Well this year the Honda is dying, but not an expensive death as I learned my lesson last year. Just gonna replace it, no repairs attempted this time around.

That’s it, just wanted to drop a quick note since I’ve not done so since Feb or so which is pretty pathetic. One more thing to note is that the long dormant though well worded itsdaniel.com is back up and running, at least temporarily.

The entire month of September my work required me to be within one hour of responding due to the Day Fire.  This was cool, because I made a ton of OT at work but it was uncool because I basically worked all month.

Has anyone seen my shoes?

So, the triple digit crew was off on it’s last adventure before the High Sierra Trail trip. This was a final shakedown, a high altitude gear and personal test for all of us. We planned to go up to the Cottonwood lakes area and bag Mt Langley and Cirque peak, spend three days and two nights on trail and then be done. It was going to be a good trip, but something happened.

When Gant showed up (late), we found out that he hadn’t slept in 24 hours. No problem, a tired Gant can usually outpace Jared and me anyway. So we got in the car and started driving while Gant slept in the back seat. When we reached the beautiful trailhead, we were all suiting up when Jared asked, “Has anyone seen my shoes” The trip went downhill from here. We looked around trying to find them, but had no luck. Jared realized he must have left them in his truck so that he could wear his cool as hell crocs and impress us. He almost went full metal jacket on us when he couldn’t find his shoes, which was kinda scary since he has a striking resemblance to Pvt. Pyle from certain angles.

With no shoes, we couldn’t go up to Langley, we couldn’t do much at all really. So Jared said he’d buy a cheap pair of shoes in Bishop and then since we would be that far north, we could just hit up White Mt and tool around at high elevation for the rest of the trip. So, that’s what we did. We got in the car and drove a few more hours, stopped in the Mountain Light gallery which is always inspiring and got Jared a 90 dollar pair of cheap shoes elsewhere in Bishop. Then we started driving more to get to the gate on White Mt Rd where we would setup camp and get an alpine start in the morning.

So, in the morning we didn’t quite get an alpine start, more like a Ventura start, as in we didn’t step off until about 9:30 or so. Jared realized that he forgot his sunglasses too, I let him borrow my spares. Beautiful weather to start the hike. A few clouds, we knew the thunderstorms were on the way in, hopefully in the afternoon, but at the moment it was beautiful. We made great time, full packs, high elevation, almost 3 mile an hour pace. It was going so well, but something happened.

When we got to the telescope, we took a break. We were there for no more than 15 minutes when the skies started to fall. It started off slow, I didn’t even plan on putting my jacket on. Then the rain started getting cold, when it hit your skin it would actually burn. So, I got my jacket out while the others were getting their wet weather gear on as well. Then it started to hail. Then it started to thunder. Then we started to run.

I swear, I heard thunder and looked up, straight up and saw nothing but light above me in the clouds. I started to run faster. We were on something of an exposed high point with a very steep downhill between us and safety of the lower elevation it represented. Once we cleared the downhill and were (relatively) safer we stopped running and just hiked, while it continued to rain. From our perspective, it looked like the Sierra crest was getting hammered too, so even if we had attempted Langley, it looks like we would have had very similar results.

So, our final shakedown hike went well and poorly all at once. It was fun though, and everyone came back without injury so it was sucsessful. We also all realized that we had to re-treat our waterproof gear and make some changes to the way our gear was packed to allow easier/quicker access to certain items (raingear), as well as making sure we remember to bring certain items (boots).

When we got back to the car, we got a long, georgous look at the mountains we’ll be in during the next trip.

A quick, unrelated question for the readers, who will Search and Rescue find first in this picture?

Next is the big trip, where we can’t run back when the skies open up will be quite interesting indeed.

Rattlers and cliffs

So, the three usual stooges were on a three day trip. This time we just went locally to save some time and gas money. We decided to try Snowy trail, which is one of, if not the single most difficult motorcycle trail in the state of California. We had our packs and alot of ups and downs to climb, temps were nice and stuff was looking good. Along the way we explored some old closed mine areas and were generally just having fun, when the snake struck.

I was in the lead, we were walking through some waist high dead grass when all of a sudden I heard a rattle. The weird thing is that I heard it behind me. Usually a rattler would rattle before you get into his little special area to warn you away. I heard a rattle behind me and Jared going ohhh shit and stumbling around. I look back and see a Rattle snake in the middle of the trail, not 2 or 3 feet behind me, which is also just a couple feet in front of where Jared was, much to his dismay.

By the time I got my senses about me and realized what happened the snake was already crawling back into the bushes. Jared said that the snake struck at me and fell on the trail, barely missing me. That was an eye opener to say the least. I was so shaken up that I couldn’t walk in the lead anymore on that trip.

So, we continued on, got to the hard part of the trail, which is really incomprehensibly difficult to walk on, let alone imagine riding a motorcycle on. At the bottom of the cliff you have to scale is Piru Creek. We had to cross it, after which we just relaxed here and filtered some water for the rest of the trip. The creek was definately the high point of the trip, because after that we had to scale the cliff on the other side to continue on the trail. After about 8 miles on day one with many emotional ups and downs, in addition to the vertical gain and loss we setup camp.

Day two began and we hiked by the Baker cabin, which is what the USFS refers to as a pre-historic cabin, nice work Forest Service. In the same area as the Baker cabin is a beautiful meadow area, which bears apparently frequent. After another 7 or 8 miles on day two we were finally done. Which is when we realized that Jared had left the door to my truck open when we had left the day prior… all night in a wilderness area frequented by drunks, disorderlies and douchbags. Thanks again, J$$!

So, to total the experiences we’ve accumulated:

• Ubehebe crater death slide attempt by Gant
• Telescope Peak hypothermia/lightning strike attempt by all three of us
• Snowy Trail rattler strike.
• Broken finger on Split

Great.

Triple Digits

Triple digit temperatures. That’s what was forecast for Death Valley during the two days that we planned on being out there on May 3rd and 4th. There are three of us who have been training together (Gant, J$ and I) to get ready for the HST trip later this year and one new addition (Gant’s roomate, Charlie). We got up there a bit later than expected on Wednesday, but that was ok, since it got us to start our hike after the hottest part of the day. Our plan was to carry our backpacks out a few miles, setup a basecamp and spend the night there. Then in the morning, tag the peak fast and light with just daypacks.

The plan was going well on Tuesday, the temperatures were in the 80’s at most, nice clear, cloudless sky. Telescope peak had a nice coating of winter snow up top and Gant broke his already broken cool guy shades, Charlie was pounding water and Jared was pounding some tunes. We hit a few patches of snow, threw some snowballs and just hiked along.

About three miles in, we found ourselves at our first goal. We had gone off trail to bag a nondescript peak named Bennett. At the top of it, we decided that this was a great spot to setup camp to see the sunrise/set over the sierra crest and badwater. So we setup camp, cooked some dinner and it started to get cold. Did I mention that it was going to be so hot that I didn’t even pack pant legs that weighed less than a pound? Yep, that’s right, I was wearing shorts and it was cold. Great sunset and fun to sit around watching it in 30 degree temps.

Wednesday morning we slowly got out of the tents, it was cold and windy so we didn’t really start the day until about 9 or so. Gant apparently used some of his W. connections to get us a mini-airshow first thing in the morning. A couple of A-10’s on a refueling run and the CHP bird all swung by to say hi.

Eventually it was time to move out, bag the peak and get on outta there. So we started hiking. It was overcast and obviously snowing (this picture also shows the ridge you follow to get to the peak) on the peak, though it didn’t look too major. As we climbed higher and higher the snow got thicker on the ground and heavier from the sky, along with the temps still dropping, though it was in the 40’s, perfect short weather. Eventually we got to a point where there was no more ground without snow cover. This was basically the point where Charlie stopped.

Gant, Jared and I kept trudging uphill. The final section of Telescope is a notoriously steep climb, add in about 3 feet of snow to slop through, a few inches falling from the sky and a pair of shorts and you have a good idea of what I was feeling like. Jared took the shortcut, and after a few hours of crawling up this snow covered steepossity, we were at the top, where we each did our own thing (DG, JG, JM). This is where the adventure actually begins.

Downhill was carefree for an hour or two too long. We partied on the peak and threw snowballs for almost two hours total time. Throwing the snowballs had the double plus good effect of drenching our gloves as well as slowing down our rate of descent. This wouldn’t have been a problem if it weren’t for the storm, nay let me re-phrase that, the thunderstorm, nope not quite right yet, the snowstorm thunderstorm that was rolling our way.

We first heard random thunder from the north, much further away than would be worrisome to us, except that we were headed north and the thunder was generally heading south. By the time we got to the saddle between Telescope and Bennett lightning was visibly hitting Bennett peak. We hadn’t run into Charlie on the way down as of yet and with our camp still setup at the top of Bennett, we figured he must have went back to camp and hopefully packed his shit and ran for lowlands before the storm hit him.

Thinking that Charlie was safe, and knowing that ascending the highest point around with no cover in a thunder/snow storm would be a terribly stupid idea, we dropped off the trail, down into a low lying grove of trees and found one to hide under. During the hour that we waited out the storm the following happened:

• Temperature dropped from 46 to 36 degrees.
• Snow kept falling
• Lightning struck 1-2 seconds away from us (1/5 - 2/5 of a mile away)
• Snow kept falling
• Scorpion was found under a rock I was sitting on.
• Snow kept on falling

Lightning was striking all around us, it was cold, Gant was starting to feel sleepy in the cold and our wet gloves weren’t helping the situation, neither were my shorts to be honest. But, like all things, the core of the storm eventually passed us and we made a run for our camp. This is when we discovered that Charlie had actually sheltered in his tent, on a peak in a snowstorm. He is a lucky man not to have been hit. We made the decision to pack camp and make a quick run to low ground as the storm was flattening Charlie’s tent and we didn’t know how long it would last.

Charlie had called 911 to report us as missing as well. So, we bagged our shit up as quickly as we could. My legs were starting to feel the sting of a full day of cold, wet snow. We started downhill and by the time we got to below 9,000 feet or so the storm abated and we had time to actually look back at what we had been through. Of course by this point my CF card was full so I got no pictures (a problem to be rectified by the HST trip).

So we made it back to the truck safely after all that. I’ve not been that close to that big a storm without any safety gear, ever.

So to recap the adventures I have had while Mr. Gant has been there:

1. Broke my finger on Split
2. He almost died numerous times climbing out of Ubehebe crater
3. Me, him and Jared damn near bit it on Telescope.

Am I sure the HST trip is a good idea?