Beach Party, Going Away Party

Had a wonderful, sleep deprived, party at the beach on Saturday after the all night mountain bike ride. It was really nice to see everybody that came out. The weather was perfect. A special thanks to Dave Asmussen who made the whole weekend smooth and easy. Thanks especially for the beautifully constructed beach table decked out with grilled and marinated vegetables, sausage, brownies, chips. Can you tell which people were biking all night?



Flickr Photos

Night Biking for Geoff's 30th

This was an epic weekend. I realize that the term "epic" can have a variety of different connotations, and this weekend was an epic weekend in a variety of different ways. One of my favorite uses of "epic" is to describe an adventure that has gone terribly wrong due to bad luck, and/or poor planning. Lots of climbers can tell you stories of "epic-ing" on this climb or that mountain. Stories of getting stuck on ledges overnight, dropping belay devices, getting off-route, cutting stuck ropes. Simple adventures become dangerous and uncomfortable, but then later in the retelling they become great stories. Of course an Epic adventure doesn't necessarily have to be accidental. Sometimes you can push yourself into one on purpose.

That's what we did this weekend. Friday, my "last day" at Velocity11. Geoff's 30th birthday. We needed an epic. Geoff provided the inspiration: Poach the "Something to the Beach Trail". The name of the trail has been changed to protect the guilty. The Something to the Beach Trail runs 30-35 miles from the top of Something at about 2,500' all the way down to the beach. Why poach it? Why change it's name? Why be vague? It's a hiking trail; biking it is illegal. It's in the bay area and normally crawling with rangers and snot-nosed kids. We had to legitimately worry about getting caught. Of course, we also had to worry about how to get there and back. Who would drive which vehicle, who would ride who would camp where would we camp?

Wednesday we met at my house for planning and pizza and beer. We talked and researched and Dave, playing secretary, laid out the entire plan on the pizza box lid (see first image). I then translated it into text and sent this email:

"Everyone* but Geoff and Amber meet at Velocity11 (3565 Haven Ave Menlo Park CA) I don't care when you arrive, but we're leaving promptly at 8PM. That means all the bikes are loaded and we're pulling out of the Velocity11 Parking lot at 8**. Arrive enough time before then to get your shit together and into the truck.

From V11 we'll drive Ryan's truck and my car up to [Something] where we'll meet Geoff and Amber. We'll plan to leave the parking lot just after 9PM***. My car will stay and Dave will drive Ryan's truck to Mike's parents house on the beach and set up. Meanwhile we'll ride. The trail's about 31 miles so figure like a 6 hour ride. Get's us to the end around 3AM****. From there some people pile into Amber's car and drive to Mike's, they pick up Ryan's truck and come back to get everyone else.

Then we sleep on Mike's parents beach until we wake up, then we'll drive up the road a-ways to the beach party location, set up and have fun. Rides will be leaving from the party going to various locations. There will definitely be rides back to Palo Alto after the party, but can't guarantee exactly when."

And that's pretty much how it happened. With only a few minor changes or explanations:

*"Everyone" wasn't actually everyone. It was Ryan, Dave, Mike H, Thorsten, Adam, Karla and me. At the last minute Mike N and Mike W got in on the ride and at the last possible second Forrest found a bike at 7PM Friday and made it out. All told there were 12 people on the ride. That many people riding for that long that late at night almost guarantees an epic. Something has got to go wrong.

**We actually left Velocity11 at 8:08PM. Only 8 minutes behind schedule. Not bad.

***Unfortunately we didn't leave Something till 10PM. It took Geoff and Amber almost 2 hours to drive from the end point where they'd stashed Amber's car to the starting point and that delayed our start.

****The ride actually ended up taking 7 hours even after we cut took a short-cut and substituted 4 miles of road for 5 miles of trail. We finished the ride at about 5AM but it took another hour to get all of our stuff shuttled to Mike's house. Ryan Karla Jeff and I crashed under a tree as the sky started lightening. Everyone else slept in the field right by Mike's house. We were too tired to bother moving down to the beach. We woke up at 11AM after about 4-5 hours of sleep, packed up and headed to the next beach.

Overall, the ride was amazing. I can't believe all twelve of us finished the ride. I'm not too surprised that things ran later than we'd intended. Actually, I'm pretty stoked that we estimated it as closely as we did. It seems like everyone was well prepared for the ride. Nobody ran out of battery power, nobody crashed super hard, nobody had massive mechanical problems. Everyone had a enough food and water, no one got whiny or bitchy. Everyone had a blast!

The trail itself was pretty darn fun too. Long sections of downhill, some interesting technical sections, and (unfortunately) a pretty decent amount of climbing that we weren't expecting. The trail seemed to constantly hug a steep slope or cliff on the left. If the trail was on the slope of a hill, the top of the hill was always to the right. Forever. Geoff said he'd subtitle the ride "Or, how I rode 31 miles with a cliff on my left", and at the time it was a very funny thing to say. Having the cliff constantly in your thoughts might have made the ride a little slower than it otherwise would've been, but most of the time it didn't dampen the ride, and did provide for several spectacular views of moon-soaked ridges heading to the ocean and one spectacular crash where Mike N. went tumbling down a 70 degree sandy slope for a good 30 feet. Overall a really fun trail.

This was my first time riding at night (I borrowed a light from Marc. Thanks Marc!) and it was really a blast. It's amazing how fast you can ride with a light. Especially in the beginning when the batteries are fresh and there isn't a cliff on the left. It was almost the same as riding during the day. Tons of fun. Tons of riding. I was impressed.

Flickr photos Sorry they're not so great.

More concrete plans

This is a purely informational post for those of you trying to keep track of me.

Work Schedule: Friday was the first of two "last days" at Velocity11. I'll be back in the office for one more day on Thursday Sept. 6th. That will really be my last day. Spreading it out gives people time to adjust to my absence and start asking the questions they should've asked before I left. Then I'll come back for a day and answer those questions. At the same time it gives me health care coverage through September, which is a definite benefit.

Moving Schedule: September 5th Goldstar vanlines will show up at my place and carry all my boxes and furniture into their truck and drive it away to store it until I call them to bring it to me in SLC. Friday September 7th I'll be in SLC. I'm not sure if I'll leave Thursday night, or early Friday morning.

Moving Eastward

Dear Everybody I know,

A common theme among self-help books and 12-step programs is a piece of advice meant to help you find your life's calling. Do now what you would plan to do in retirement. It is also a common question asked by every high school guidance counselor:

Q: "What would you do if you could do anything you want?"

A: "I'd live in a fairly populous location close to high quality climbing and biking and work for an outdoor gear company working on conceptual designs for products, but I'd have a lot of free time to get outdoors."

So, based on the advice of an archetypal guidance counselor, I've decided to move to Salt Lake City in September. I'll work part time for Guyot Designs (check out GuyotDesigns.com) and possibly do some contract work for Velocity11 while working on my web and photog skills, which I would currently describe as "nascent". I should have a lot of time to get out in the mountains which are nearby and filled with climbing and biking and skiing. Moab, The Wind Rivers, Joe's Valley, LCC, Maple Canyon, etc etc. The list is very long all of it is within a 4 hour drive.

I'm sad to leave behind all the great folks of the Bay Area. Thanks for all the wonderful memories and adventures. I'll be back to visit, and you've got a couch to sleep on in Salt Lake City when you come to visit. Not that I know where I'm living yet. But when I've got an address I'll send it out. Same old cell phone number and email address.

Hope you're all doing well.

-Ben

Memorial Day

Hey Folks, Finally published a new adventure: Memorial Day weekend. The pictures have been up for a while, but now there's a story to go along with them. I haven't finished it yet, but the first installment is up.

Quick Yosemite Trip

Jonny5 and I were up in Tuolumne Meadows this weekend to do some climbing and meet up with some friendly squirrel researchers. Memorial day weekend Ryan and I met Haleh, Katie, and Jenny in Bishop at an artesian-well slash hot spring slash swimming hole. They're doing squirrel research in Tuolumne this summer which means they've got a free reserved campsite and can get us into the park for free. Haleh invited us up to Tuolumne for the weekend, and Jonny and I headed up.

We got in Friday night around 9:30PM after leaving San Francisco around 3:45. It always amazes me how long it takes to drive to Yosemite! Minor adventures and confusion ensued as we tried to find "The squirrel camp" which was actually being shared by the "Berkeley Butterfly Boys". There's an interesting and rich employee culture in Yosemite. People stay in cabins and tents throughout the summer doing field research on various species. I've met people who study frogs, owls, squirrels, and butterflies, and I'm sure there are other groups as well. Some researchers live in the valley, some live up in Tuolumne. Seems like a pretty fun job, living and working in one of the more beautiful places on the planet. It reminded me a little bit of the trail and bio crews that live and work at Moosilauke Lodge up in New Hampshire.

Saturday we woke up early and did a little bit of dog-smuggling and climbing. Yosemite (like all national parks) does not allow dogs anywhere in the park except on "improved surfaces" (pavement) and some campsites. My plan had been to leave Khola at camp while we climbed, but the camp host said that she couldn't be left unattended. It's too hot to leave her in the car, so we snuck her into the woods and to the base of the cliff. We managed to do that twice. The only thing that sucked is that Khola was very defensive at the base of the cliff and would bark at any new climbers that walked up. That was annoying and troubling, but in the end we didn't get caught. Still it was a big hassle and one that I would avoid in the future. It really frustrates me that our national parks don't allow you to bring a dog into the woods. Seems pretty ridiculous to me.

The climbing itself was great. We went up West Crack on Daff Dome which is a stellar 5 pitch 5.9. Really perfect rock with a nice long crack and some knobs and face-features, even a little roof you had to pull over! I got strung out accidentally trying to link the 2nd and 3rd pitches together. I was in the zone and blew right past a nice bolted anchor about 10 feet left of the crack and about 100 feet above the first belay. So, at about 135 feet I realized I had two slings left, and what looked like about 30 feet of pretty smooth, slightly flaring crack. I'd already had one 30 foot run out earlier on in the pitch and wasn't in the mood for another one at the end of the rope. I wouldn't have had any gear to build an anchor anyway. So, I built a nut anchor in the crack at a nearly vertical section of the cliff and had to hang there and bring Jonny up. Luckily he found the bolt anchor and we managed to get everything straightened out. I came down to the bolt anchor and Jonny finished off the third pitch with style. The remaining climbing was pretty easy and uneventful. I'd love to go back and do it again now knowing to stop at that bolt anchor.

We had a siesta back at camp and were pretty surprised that we hadn't seen Haleh or Katie yet. We went back out and smuggled the dog into the base of "Low Profile Dome", which should really be called "Low Profile Cliff" as there's really nothing dome-like about it, where we climbed a really nice two pitch 5.7R. The R rating was deserved, Jonny had a 30-40 foot runout at the top of the second pitch, but it was on relatively easy terrain. It was a nice finish to the day. It's amazing how much more pleasant climbing is when you can easily see and hear your partner. That was one of the biggest problems on west crack. When I ran out of gear Jonny was 130 feet below me and under a roof and it was windy. We couldn't really hear each other at all.

Again, back to camp, and some wading in the Tuolumne river, and then finally Haleh and Katie arrive. Car troubles delayed them by about 10 hours. Bummer. Jonny and I were both pretty tired and satisfied so we did a little bit of hanging out around a campfire, then off to bed, rise early, and head back home. I've got a big trip to Whistler coming up that I need to prepare for, and there wasn't much we could get done on Sunday without worrying about the dog and all that hassle so we just took it easy and headed back. You can check out Jonny's Flickr page for photos from the weekend. I brought my camera but it never got out of my bag.

Mr and Mrs McArthur

Last weekend I was back in Des Moines to see my sister marry Matt McArthur. They're a wonderful couple and it's great to see them tie the knot. Thanks for a great wedding and weekend Abby and Matt, hope you're enjoying Mexico. Congratulations Matt and Abby!

Click on the image to the left to see the Flickr photo gallery.

And these photos from AmMcarthur's Flickr page are even better.

Rope Robot from 60 AD

Here's a neat little article and video about a very simple two wheeled "robot" that can be "programmed" to move forward and backward, and turn left and right, based on the way strings are wound around the axles of each wheel. The video makes it pretty clear. Kind of a neat simple machine.

"A Programmable Robot from 60 AD"

Virtual Ecomonies

This article in the New York Times Magazine is an interesting look into "gold farming" where players of the game World of Warcraft gather gold and other valuables in the game which are then bought by other players too impatient to earn it themselves, creating real value for virtual goods. As a result people are playing video games for a living in China. An entire industry has grown up around playing online games to harvest gold. This article discusses how this affects the gaming community at large and also describes a variety of tactics that have been employed to make a living playing video games. Interesting reading. Enjoy!

The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer

Quick link

Here's an interesting article from Scientific American: "Can Climate Intervention Turn Down the Heat?" Some researchers from Carnegie Mellon created a climate model of Earth and observed the affects of global warming in over time. They then introduced climate intervention techniques such as satellites supporting mirrors or particles dispersed in the sky to reflect the sun's rays.
They made the assumption that whatever intervention technique was chosen the affect would be uniform across the globe. That seems like an unrealistic assumption, but without that assumption it would've been pretty hard to model, so I can understand why they did it. Anyway, read the article for their interesting results.