The outdoors – Page 28 – a sibilant intake of breath

Ottawa River hydro

Right near the complex where I work, there is an unusual hydroelectric system on the Ottawa river. On either side of the main channel are large concrete canals with blocks of turbines. From those, high voltage power lines extend. In the middle of the river, there is a long arc of gates. These are to manage the degree to which water flows through the side channels, and the degree to which it flows over the uneven stone surfaces that were once natural cascades.

Since the water level in the river is high, there is pretty much always some degree of overflow venting through the gates. The little building you can see above them actually moves along the arc, raising and lowering gates. I am not sure if there are people inside or whether it is robotic, but everyone with an office on the south side of my building has a constant view of the whole installation. Those on the north side must content themselves with the fountain at a Gatineau casino.

Britain inundated

For those who haven’t been keeping abreast of the flooding in the United Kingdom, it is apparently extremely severe. Brize Norton, the airbase near Oxford, recorded 127mm of rain on July 20th. Normally, soggy Oxfordshire gets that much in two months.

Thankfully, relatively few people have died, though the British firefighting services are apparently describing this as the largest peacetime rescue operation in their history. Hopefully, the waters will soon abate.

Life, the universe, and everything

During off hours, I have been watching the spectacular BBC series Planet Earth. Just seeing an episode is almost sufficient to make a person turn to a life of nature videography. Whether other viewers feel the same compulsion or not, it does seem reasonable to call the series mandatory viewing for human beings. It is both awe inspiring, insofar as it demonstrates the enduring richness of truly wild places, and chastening, insofar as it demonstrates their wholesale slaughter.

A book I am reading captures it well:

Being will be here.
Beauty will be here.
But this beauty that visits us now will be gone.

Curious, how powerful and helpless we seem to be, in the end.

July snow fun

On the way to Crown Mountain, we found ourselves standing on snow about two metres deep. My father was with us for the first part of the hike – going up the British Columbia Mountaineering Club (BCMC) trail to the Grouse Mountain chalet. After he turned back for work, we carried on along the Dam Mountain, Goat Mountain, Crown Mountain route. The whole top of Dam Mountain was covered with this snow, so Neal, my cousin, and I spent a very enjoyable hour sliding down it in our hiking boots, using flailing arms for stability.

In the end, we decided that climbing Crown without ice axes and crampons would be too dangerous. Even so, the hike was enormous fun. It was warm and sunny, but the snow had not turned to slush. As such, it presented familiar terrain in an altogether new way. I think it is fair to call today the most fun I have ever had hiking in the mountains close to Grouse. It was quintessentially British Columbian and exactly what I was hoping for when I planned a hike for today.

Cabin to mountaintops

Cabin Fever 3 has been enjoyably concluded. It was excellent to spend time with old friends, as well as meet a few new people. As always the food, company, conversation, and recreation were excellent. I will probably write more about it and link some of the photos when I have a bit more time.

For those interested in the hike I proposed earlier, we have decided upon Crown Mountain. We are meeting at 9:00am tomorrow (Monday) in the north parking lot of the Grouse Mountain Skyride. If you have any questions, call or email me before 8:00am. The hike is described in the post linked above.

Coast mountain

As has already been reported, I will be in Barrier Lake this weekend (the 6th through 8th) for Tristan’s third Cabin Fever event. At some point in the three days between my return to Vancouver and my departure for Ottawa, I am trying to arrange a hike. That is to say, either on Monday the 9th, Tuesday the 10th, or Wednesday the 11th.

Strong possibilities include:

Crown Mountain (being Grouse)
Petgill Lake (near Squamish)
The Stawamus Chief (near Squamish)
Somewhere people suggest in the comments

If you are interested, please let me know by phone, email, or a comment below. Be sure to specify which days would be possible for you, as well as which days would be best.

Given the short span of time for which I am in Vancouver, this will be a rain or shine proposition. It is also unlikely to occur if fewer than three or four people are able to go.

Lakeland photos III

Compressed walkers.

Sheep are never far away.

One third of the way around the Kentmere Horseshoe.

If you are in a proper place for walking, the landscape will dwarf you.

Dry stone walls take a lot more effort to build than to climb over.

Lakeland photos II

Once you reach a peak, a bit of a rest is surely in order. Actually, Rob and Sarah were ill during the whole trip, so their fellwalking demonstrated particular persistence.

Walkers atop Wetherlam.

The hiking boot: noble symbol of our determination.

Which isn’t to say we never take them off…

If you can shear a sheep, you can arm wrestle two humans at once and win.

Lakeland photos I

Thirteen Oxonians on a mountainside.

An enthusiastic fellow Canadian.

This was one of the few bits of actual rock climbing we did. Note how much more impressive it looks when done with a gear-filled leader’s pack.

This scramble on the Coniston Horseshoe was the most enjoyable bit of walking on the trip.

Having climbed a Wainwright, it is sometimes necessary to climb the marker and present as unusual an expression as possible.

f = m * a

In a conversation at the end of Sunday’s walk, we realized just how much energy is actually involved in such a trek. Our vertical ascent was about 1100m, spread between climbing Yoke and following the ridge of the Kentmere Horseshoe. That is about 75kg of me personally, plus a pack. Imagine me falling from 1100m up, and you begin to appreciate the gravitational potential energy built up through the (not entirely efficient) expenditure of chemical energy. We also traveled more than 20km, as the crow flies. Then, there is the fact that we had to absorb all the energy from all the descents into our muscles and dissipate it. Add in the energy required to keep us warm, balanced, and thinking, and you are racking up a good number of calories.

It’s amazing how far some dry cereal, two sandwiches, a couple of chocolate bars, and ones various short and long-term energy stores can go. The fact that I didn’t feel unusually hungry at any point during the weekend suggests that those stores were not seriously depleted.

As you may guess, this weekend included a lot of interesting discussion about physics, biochemistry, and physiology. We also learned a good bit about sheep.