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The trails were full of roots, to trip us. And rocks, to trip us. And it was just blazingly hard to see. And dammit, our own feet tripped us. We tripped, but we wanted to do it.

Here’s my narrative, with photos, covering the entire May Lake Blue Moon trip. I started blogging in 2003, before the trip, but hadn’t mastered it quite yet, so there’s no contemporaneous blog entry from that period.

At the top, with sheer drops off the peak behind us, we sat on the top to capture a time exposure with my new digital (Nikon D100) camera. (No iPhone in those days.) You’ll see we are seated rather than standing. This is because we needed to hold still for the two-second exposure. Took a bunch of exposures. Well, actually we were so unstable at this height above the ground (precipice behind us) that we sat down and clenched the rock beneath our seats.

Well, I can’t speak for Aaron and Jason, but I was clenching for sure.

So around 11:00pm here we are — at the summit.

A couple of staff from the May Lake High Sierra Camp (my interview) (read about MLHSCC online) also did the ascent that night, and they caught up with us halfway up. They told us the next morning that they slept in bags near the peak overnight and had “never been so cold.” I slept at the bottom in my warm tent, but honestly after all this excitement it took me until almost dawn to get to sleep.

When I looked at the photos, at first I thought maybe I had captured nothing. But upon photoshopping the original digital photo, I discovered I could lighten it to the point where we were quite visible. Along with the streak of something behind us (probably an airplane, though it should have been red or green, not white). And here and there were glimmers caused by cosmic rays shooting through the camera’s sensor and dislodging an electron or two.

Like I said, check my interview of Brian Shoor, manager of May Lake High Sierra Camp, in 2015 on Youtube.

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This one was on a chai latte I got the other day. I found it to be light-hearted and almost whimsical compared to most.

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London is full of parks both public and private. Yes, private in that they’re fenced off and you need a key to access. Neighbors might have a key — others do not. And parks that have been there hundreds of years.

In San Francisco we’re not used to this concept of private parks. Frequently one encounters brass plates in the sidewalk stating “Right to pass… by permission of owner…” and in some cities, like New York, owners of private property that is open for trespass will close off their right-of-way once a year, just to enforce their right of ownership.

The dog sign might be related to this second sign, shown below, that is posted in Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco. I’d guess that giving the bison psychoactive substances might induce bison-related antisocial behavior. Or worse.

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Brian Shoor, who has managed the camp every summer for 14 years, gave me this interview in the summer of 2015. You can find information about the chain of camps, and application information, online.

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Here’s what happened. I was looking at this photo of the Horsehead Nebula on the NASA web site.

Then I realized that if this is the Horsehead Nebula, there must be humans out there to 1. know what a horse is; and 2. give it that name. Wow!

Now if I could only find out who at NASA was in touch with those aliens to learn the name of the nebula…we would have the SETI problem solved really quickly.

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In January (2015) I began a zero-to-sixty transition from full-time computer scientist to composer. The next stage in the process begins in September (2015), where I have been accepted as a student at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in their Technology and Applied Composition program. Their Professional Studies Diploma [PSD] is a non-degree, full-time “post-graduate program” that runs one academic year. (I guess I don’t really need more degrees — just want to learn how to do more stuff.)

You can find my recent in-progress work online and I will update this frequently. You can work “upward” from that link to find other works from the recent past. I am currently writing a three-part suite with the working name “Flight” and there is one excerpt online. A second three-part suite, which is yet untitled, is represented as well.  All are works-in-progress.

During this time I will continue to support cyberspark.net efforts in human rights and free speech, and a limited number of Red7 clients.

A pivotal event during the transition was the New Music Gathering which was hosted at SFCM in January 2015. I wrote a short article about the gathering in January.

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Philadelphia Orchestra in China (also see at WQXR)

Bucharest Symphony Orchestra at the airport

This one by my favorite group Improv Anywhere

And then if you follow suggested YouTube links, you see a lot more of this type of stuff
British Army

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What does an optical migraine look like? What happens for me, and this is not true for all who have this condition, is that portions of what I’m looking at are “filled in by background color” from behind the object. So, like the photo of Rick’s head, I might see clearly the left side of your face, but the right side disappears and is replaced by the color of the wall behind your head. (My opticals are not associated with headache or any pain whatsoever — they’re entirely visual and last 20 to 40 minutes.)

Really spooky to see a photographer reproduce this phenomenon!

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Using amateur radio repeaters — there were lots of folks watching for the aircraft all along its route — I tracked the flight’s progress from Southern California up past Stockton, where it flew around the capitol building in Sacramento twice, then down the Sacramento River to the Bay Area. The craft made a pass by the Golden Gate Bridge, one around the Bay in a big loop, and then back out straight between the bridge towers. I joined hundreds of enthusiastic fans viewing from Twin Peaks (elev. 800+ ft) in the geographical center of San Francisco. We were nearly the same elevation as the aircraft, which flew between 1,200 and 1,500 feet during the entire maneuver.The shuttle rode piggyback, held to the roof of a specially-configured 747 by struts. This is the same arrangement that was used to ferry the shuttles from landings in southern California out to Florida for later takeoff on subsequent missions.

The aircraft entered SF airspace in the East Bay, flew down past San Ramon, then came back up the east side of the actual bay and over to Marin County where it made a tight left turn back toward the Golden Gate.Three big engineering feats from different times, all visible at the same time (shuttle, huge 747, and GG Bridge…).

The piggyback pair was easily visible from major peaks around the Bay during the entire circuit. There was a big viewing party at the Chabot Space & Science Center in the Oakland hills.

Here’s a shot of the dual craft passing between the towers of the Golden Gate (only one tower in the photo) with just a bit of fog in the air, and (above, top) a closeup of the craft as they swept past Twin Peaks nearly at our eye level. A fighter jet escorts them in the bridge photo.

The viewing area was packed with natives and tourists. Parking areas overflowed. This is one of the big benefits of living in a beautiful tourist city…we get to participate in events like this several times a year. Last month it was the America’s Cup World Series (catamaran sailboat racing), with another round beginning October 2nd. And right after that the Blue Angels’ next airshow  coincides with Fleet Week October 4th to 8th, 2012. Exciting stuff!

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Jeff Goldsmith, who has made many of these trips with me and the group, was the only one with a full week to spare this summer, so he and I made this journey, which we called “27.1” because it’s the first hike of the 27th year that I’ve been doing this.

The photo gallery shows some photos taken along the way. My Yosemite page contains most of the trips taken in the last 10 years.

This year’s trip was highlighted by the following events and observations:

• We attempted to cover 10+ miles per day. We could actually only cover  8 miles on average due to the excess weight (“hobbies”) we were carrying. It is important to recognize these limitations early on and adapt the schedule!
• The amateur radio hobby was a bust this time for two reasons. Although I had a five-watt transceiver and a nice antenna, I wasn’t able to make a single contact on any band because conditions were pretty bad. I’ll have to check further into whether it was an antenna issue or an output-power issue. The second problem was that this hobby accounted for over eight lbs in my pack, which really slowed me down.
• The photography hobby needs to be scaled back. My Nikon D7000 camera works great, but it’s a heavy beast, weighing in at something over two lbs, and it’s hard to carry on the trail, since it really has to be fastened to the chest strap on the pack and it still bounces around significantly. A camera weighing a few ounces would be much better. In all I was probably carrying upwards of 10 lbs of such hobby gear that was not necessary for this trip. My pack weight was 44 lbs and could have been 34 if I hadn’t carried the extra gear. (This included 11 lbs of food, which was also excessive.)
• The Pacific Crest Trail hikers were friendly and are in general an outgoing group. Ran into more than a half dozen every day, and most were hiking from the Mexico border to the Canadian border. Many had been on the trail since April or May this year, with a few down-days (they say “zero days”) along the way. Most of them were covering 20 miles or more each day. We were on the PCT every day except for the time in Matterhorn Canyon.
• Matterhorn itself is a long ways in. I figured about 35 miles from Tuolumne Meadow. That’s just too much for slow and heavy-pack hikers to cover in three days, especially given the 3000+ to 4000+ ft elevation change on the last day going toward Matterhorn. So we just relaxed once we realized we wouldn’t make it either to Matterhorn or around the loop I had charted out in advance. We adapted and enjoyed the area.
• There are great lakes along the trail. Miller Lake, where we spent the 2nd and the 4th nights (see top photo), is a wonderful little lake and is warm enough to comfortably swim in with few mosquitoes. McCabe Lake, which I’ve visited before, is more than two miles off the PCT and thus not on the itinerary for most PCT’ers, but we spent a night there and it was a great place.
• After accounting for limitations and changing the plans, it was a memorable week-long trek.

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Summits On The Air [SOTA] is an organization that operates mostly in Europe and the US, which encourages amateur radio operation from mountain peaks. In many areas these are really just large hills, but here the western mountains of the US, we have many hundreds of peaks that are truly mountains and not just high spots.

The SOTA organization awards points for those who climb peaks and “activate” them by making a minimum number of radio contacts. It also awards points to chasers who listen for the climbers and contact them. This encourages more people to pursue the hobby, be on the air at the right time (when someone is on a peak!), and to actually make the contacts.

Backpack mobile operation, which is really what this is, requires either 1) carrying a honking big battery (several pounds); or 2) carrying smaller batteries and perhaps going solar-powered. Since my trail forays are generally 4 to 8 days in the wilderness, I go for the lightweight solution, which includes small batteries and solar-panels to charge them up.

SOTA: (UK)
SOTA Watch (current activity): who’s on top right now
SOTA enthusiasts online: KDØBIK // KØMOS

This summer as I make week-long treks in the Yosemite wilderness, I’ll be operating low power (2.5w) and attempting to activate a couple of SOTA-rated peaks. I’ll do a sneeze page of links later as I build up more of an inventory of sites.

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