Below the Rim - Day 1

After storing my bike to use at the end of the hike to retrieve my van, I drove to Grandview Point, the "jumping off point" of my hike.  By 9 am I was slowly making my way down, dropping hundreds of feet of elevation in a couple of hours.

By lunch, I had reached the Tonto plateau, along which I'll hike for the next 3 or 4 days.

It was warmer as I descended, pungent odors from some bushes reached my nose and tiny lizards dashing off the trail as I approached.

I stopped a couple of times for water and a rest, but it wasn't really hot and there were pleasant breezes along most of the trail.

At one point, I had views of the Colorado, still another 1400 feet below.

I stopped at one little seep of water and filtered some to top up, not being completely sure where the next supply might be.  Half an hour further on, I came to Grapevine "Falls" (actually Grapevine Springs), where there was more water and a good place to camp for the night.  My tent site is already in the shade as the sun drops behind a ridge.  It's been a 10 mile day and time for some rest.

Hiking preparations

I probably should have expected this, but our previous backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon lulled me into an obviously false lack of urgency.  Consequently, I arrived here today to find that it just won't be possible to do the trail I wanted to do.  All booked up.

A few minutes of head scratching got me settled on a good alternate, still involving 3 nights out on the Tonto plateau doing a loop trail from Grandview point to Yaki point.  I could have started on Friday but decided that an extra day for preparation would be better.  I can also rest, tank up on water, eat hearty and pack.  Some biking might be good too.

This trip I'm not taking a stove.  Just food I can eat without heating, including these energy bars that I made.  So, we will see.  There will be one night and the day I hike out that won't have water.  The other days will have reliable water.

Anyhow, I guess I'd better get at my preparations and planning.

Migration .. Not the Answer Yet

Part of my motivation in making the long drive to Arizona was to find some heat.  It's been cool at home and spring has been reluctant, to say the least.

Now, camped on the Colorado River,  two long days of driving south, I've actually driven thru more snow than we had at home.  Its been cold, too.

I will admit that its somewhat warmer here on the Colorado, perhaps +11C, but it's been cool all day.  Not much incentive to stop for walks.  More weird weather caused by climate change??

In any case, I'm within 2 hours of the Canyon so I don't need to press quite as hard tomorrow.  There won't be much sense in starting my backpacking trip until it's a bit warmer.

Quote of the week...

“New Rule: Gay marriage won't lead to dog marriage. It is not a slippery slope to rampant inter-species coupling. When women got the right to vote, it didn't lead to hamsters voting. No court has extended the equal protection clause to salmon. And for the record, all marriages are “same sex” marriages. You get married, and every night, it's the same sex.” 
― Bill Maher

Capitalism - Back to the Future?

I just finished reading 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang, an economist at Cambridge University.  Looking back at what economic principles have been successful over the past century or so and how the more recent rampant "free-market capitalism" has so clearly NOT worked, culminating in the financial meltdown of 2008, Chang presents 23 economic statements and then proceeds to show why the accepted "wisdom" surrounding them aren't giving us the results claimed.  

Among the list are the following:

1. There is no such thing as a free market.
2. Companies should NOT be run in the interest of their owners
3. Most people in rich countries are paid more than they should be
4. The washing machine has changed the world more than the internet has.
5. Greater macroeconomic stability has NOT made the world economy more stable
6. Free-market policies rarely make poor countries rich
7. We do not live in a post-industrial age
8. The US does not have the highest living standard in the world
9. Governments can pick winners
10. Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer
11. US Managers are over-priced
12. People in poor countries are more entrepreneurial than people in rich countries
13. We are not smart enough to leave things to the market
14. What is good for General Motors is not necessarily good for the United States
15. Despite the fall of communism, we are still living in planned economies
16. Big government makes people more open to change
17. Financial markets need to become less, not more, efficient
18. Good economic policy does not require good economists

Ice Climbing in the Polar Vortex

 It's been quite a few years since I've driven east and taken part in one of the Sask Section's Ice-Climbing weekends.  I'm not even sure how many years it's been.  I wouldn't say that the years of absence has allowed me to forget how cold and hard ice climbing is, though.  Some memories never go away.

So it was with some misgivings that I agreed to go along on this year's beginners' ice-climbing weekend.  Really, the attraction of getting together with friends that I haven't seen much of over the past years was most of the appeal.  Hopefully, the weather would cooperate.

      

Sure enough, in the days before the weekend booked for the event, an "Arctic Outflow" dominated the weather.  It was colder than normal in the Kootenays, but it was just ridiculously cold in the Rockies and the prairies.  Night-time lows of -35C, day-time highs of maybe -15C.  I ended up wearing layers that I hadn't had out of the closet for years.

Despite that, a large group of us descended on the Shunda Creek Hostel near Nordegg, we went and climbed on Saturday, visited all evening and some went out again on Sunday.  At least Saturday's climbing location was in the sunshine.  However, my modified feet were unable to stand two days in the plastic boots, so I went, watched for a bit on Sunday, and then drove home.  It was one of those beautiful, blue-sky days in the mountains.  Dazzling snow, great scenery and a highway thankfully relatively free of traffic and other potential miseries of the mountain highways in winter.  

It was great to see the current crop of trip leaders who are now running things.  Great technical and organizational skills and fun times being had by so many new to the sport.  I remember years when we had to struggle to get half a dozen people to sign up for such trips.  I think there were almost 35 on this trip alone.  Good to see.

Nebraska at 40,000 ft

About 3.5 hours into our flight from Newark to Denver, I managed to determine that we were over Nebraska with the North Platte River in view. The I80 was near by.  I recalled a trip about 7 years ago, our big circuit around the USA when we drove, seemingly forever, on that same highway, aiming for a stop in Omaha.  I have to say, I'm enjoying Nebraska's "scenery" better from this vantage point.