home base

back in town for a while.

got a new job at a cool adventure travel company. it's an office job but close to home. everyone i work with loves to travel, some even rock climb.

finally went to death valley. lived in california most of my life, love the desert, yet took this long to get to d.v. very cool place. c and i had a couple amateur moments though. the coyotes and ravens stole our food, the wind tumbled our tent around, and we got stopped for speeding (though didn't actually get a ticket because "it's not the crime of the century" according to the young ranger.) next day cross-country, we almost missed our ubehebe dream but kept hiking and finally got there. most people drive. saw some death in death valley--of the animal variety. ooh, and we saw a road runner. on the road. running.


another "finally" was getting an ipod which has dramatically changed the way i do distance dj. no more carting around crates of cds on road trips.

going to colorado soon for joe's birthday. had fun in new york last month with sister and friends. not much else really. hanging around here.

ravens and rain

hello from sitka, alaska.

c is getting personal carving lessons at the cultural center here, so i'm staying busy at the library. great view here.

the town of sitka is in the rainforest of southeast alaska.
and it's still raining.

they tell me the summer is never like this, that they usually get more than 3 sunny days in the summer. i don't know. some days it only drizzles which is not bad. actually it adds to the ambiance.

it was really cool walking through the hemlock & spruce forested park in town listening to the ravens talking up a storm before landing on a totem pole.

we went on a hike yesterday up a misty mountain. the trees covered in moss, it looked like a scene from lord of the rings, except that the ground was too steep. near the top, the vegetation changed and there were huckleberry bushes. not super sweet, but we foraged along the way. glad it wasn't like my childhood book "blueberries for sal" and we saw no bear.

the humpies (salmon) are thick in the streams on their way to spawn. they arrived shortly before i did. glad of it because now the bears are staying out of town cuz they have something eat. seems the berries were not plentiful enough this season. i only found a few salmon berries (like blackberries, but golden colored).

we moved from the campground to a boat closer to town. i was worried i'd get sea sick, but instead got food poisoning. fun fun. i'm better now. mostly the boat stays calm--it's in a harbor--but last night the rain and winds were bad, so i felt the swaying. today in town, on firm ground i felt fine while riding my bike, but if i sat still, i felt swaying. ugh.

speaking of boats, i went out on one the other day with some fishermen, and we pulled in a 70 inch, 180 pound halibut. spent the next day processing it and the others. i'll bring some home.

uh oh, my one hour on the computer is up, and some russians are waiting their turn, so gotta go.

i graduated

I got my review today and it's official, I'm now an instructor at BOSS

I thought I would have more time to write, but I ended up out on courses for six weeks in a row. Three two-week courses back to back, so I'd get one night in "town" every two weeks to shower and sleep in relative comfort in a tent with sleeping bag and thermarest. Town is small one in southern Utah--population about 150 year round, 200 in summer. I learned a lot, ate some strange stuff, lost some weight. I've been enjoying a week of vacation now, going fishing or on hikes of slot canyons just for fun--no students. The adventures continued though. I caught my first fish bare-handed. Dealt with a broken down car 26 miles down a dirt road, etc.

We did a sweat lodge tonight. I'm now enjoying a local Utah brew, Scorpion Pale Ale. Yesterday's was Polygamy Porter.

I leave on the shuttle tomorrow back to the city and airport. I'll be in home in CA on Sunday.

squirrels, snakes and sedge

The Mountain Hunter Gatherer course. Two weeks long. First week spent at base camp (with meals) making "primitive" tools to take on expedition during second week (no food except what we catch or collect).

The tools aren't fully primitive since we used knives or machetes to make some of them. We have bows (hickory stave with flax fiber string) and arrows (wild rose shaft, turkey feather fletching attached with sinew and hide glue), bone chisel, antler pressure knapper, heat treated jasper and lime stone for knapping into saws or blades, sand stone for grinding, fish spear points (tamarisk or salt cedar), pitch glue (a mixture of pine sap, crushed coals and dung), gourd bowl, rope (made from dogbane fibers), trap parts (made using only stone tools).

For some reason the monsoon has come early this year and we get afternoon showers every day. Mostly just overcast. Not bad until the last three nights which is also when we are at highest altitude and have the least amount of food. The rain made catching things harder. Also the natural resources for building shelter not as good higher up. Since it's my first time on this course, I'm treated pretty much as student and don't get any perks. Kinda cold and damp and tired and hungry for a few days. "Kinda"? No, very cold, damp, tired, hungry.

Some of the things we might catch or collect for the one communal meal of the day: ground squirrel, mice, chipmunk, small rabbit (once), fish (if lucky), snake, ant larvae (the big kind), gooseberries (not quite ripe), wild mint, wild raspberries (not many), violet greens, dandelion, wild strawberry leaves (no fruit though), marsh sedge (yummy roasted), stinging nettle, pine cambium (no nuts this time of year) which is like eating roasted wood chips.

I caught my first ground squirrel. They look like chipmunk, only a little bigger and the stripes don't go all the way up their heads. I brain-tanned the hide, but was my first one ever and didn't do a great job. Caught a snake. It had recently eaten two bird embryos. I treated that skin too, but then it got all rained on and I didn't want to bother with it anymore, so left it behind.

I sure was thinking about food a lot. One night we only had two small snakes to feed 13 people. Not much. "Mmm, here's my 1-inch bite of snake for the day."

I've been eating like crazy this past week since I've been back. We refer to it as the BOSS eating disorder. I'm getting over it now though.

mosquitoes and mountains

It's Day 11 on the 14-Day Mountain Navigator course and I'm sweating under a fleece hooded jacket collecting cowpies as mosquitoes swarm all around me. I'm on top of Boulder Mountain "enjoying" a solo night on a lake. The bugs have been horrendous for days now.

Smoldering cow pies (dry) helps keep them away a little bit. I'm getting used to the smell. It's cold up here alone at night at 11,000 feet, so must collect bedding. Ponderosa pine doesn't grow this high, only have a little bit of spruce cones for duff. Cow pies make good insulation from the cold ground. Oh yeah, and I spilled my soap, so can't really wash my hands. As I'm pushing food into my mouth with my fingers, it occurs to me that I'm eating, sleeping and breathing cow shit.

Boulder Mountain is some sort of superlative. It's the somethingest something in the something. Maybe the highest forested plateau of it's size in the U.S. Whatever. It has lots of spruce, lakes and mosquitoes.

I'm up here alone for a few days trying to get from point to point assigned to me. I was supposed to be shadowing students during their solos but so many dropped out of this course that I get to just hang out and hike alone. In the past three days, I went up the mountain, down the mountain, and back up the mountain. I'll go down again tomorrow.

You see more wildlife when you hike alone. Yesterday I saw a grouse hen just up the trail about 10 feet. She was calmly hanging out with her group of chicks. I watched for a while, then had to push on. She got flustered so I veered off trail to ease her mind.

the first course

The first course of my apprenticeship was a 14-day Field Course. The same kind I took as a student last summer.

The students are given a very short list of clothes and gear they may bring. We teach them how to package it all up inside a nifty blanket pack. Then we take it away from them. They won't get any of their stuff for at least 3 days. No food, no blanket, and we march them through the desert.

We hope it's cold the first night--level of concern will be high the following day when we teach them about shelters. This night though was unusually cold, low-30s. I got zero hours of sleep. I didn't make a good impression the next day nodding off during the head instructor's lessons. I got a second wind though when we thought we lost part of the group. We tracked them down though and continued on.

Not much unusual after that. I did enjoy hanging out in the cave while students were out on their solo time. I couldn't believe how many sand traps there were around us. Built by ant lions, they are pits in sand that ants fall into and the beetle-type creature waiting at the bottom flicks sand up at the ant and eventually catches it.

One night one of the instructors saw two cone nose kisser beetles right near us as we were going to bed. We transported them far from our camp and hoped there were no more. These creatures inject you with an anesthetic then suck away at your flesh (usually on your face) creating big ugly wounds

The last morning we were there, I found a scorpion at the foot of my blanket. Fortunately I found it by sight not by touch.

Notice the oh so fashionable skirt in the photo--protects my legs from deer flies.

my summer vacation so far

last week was staff training. this week is the slickrock gathering --one of several primitive skills get togethers. this one hosted by boss. i got to be in the hunter gatherer workshop (my second choice was hide tanning).

yesterday we killed a buffalo. it was farm raised, but was good to get experience on something other than sheep. after the field course which starts next week, i will have helped in the butchering of 4 large animals in a month.

today we harvested willow to make quicky bows and arrows. they are still in progress. but we got to practice shooting with other bows. i'm not very good yet.

pinon bark is good to eat lots of antioxidants... well not the bark, but the cambiam layer just under bark. pine needle tea is yummy too. stinging nettles are good sauteed, but hurts to pick. had some venison the other day for dinner. it had been road-kill deer, but someone at boss got to it before it was too old.

set a snare today. also a dead fall trap. just test-set them, but didn't leave them set to try to actually catch any mice or rats to eat. not that hungry yet. actually we are getting a lot to eat this week and last. will have to wait until next week to really suffer.

last night was quite cold. not looking forward to sleeping outside without even a blanket. not much hiking yet been working out a little in our "weight room". walking into town is a good jaunt too. but my knees are not altogether happy. hope i'm ok out on the field courses.

got stung by a wasp the other night. on my forearm. next day got bit by an ant on my toe. so far haven't seen scorpion, but they must be around. snakes are rarely seen.

there is a garden here and chickens. we feed them our scrap veggies, they give us eggs. not a bad arrangement.

forgot to bring deodorant so using sage brush leaves instead. works well.

not much else now. i should go to bed, but here is a picture from last year (early june) when i was a student and it snowed on us.

long overdue update

my oh my, i saw a friend last week who thought i was moving to alaska. made me realize it's time for an update about me. i mean, some of you might not even know i had had plans to go to alaska at all.

i probably haven't written any kind of update since some time while in mumbai.

so the past year and a half in brief along with near future plans...

march 05 - came home after 4 months in india just in time for mom's birthday. fortunately, the sublet problem had gotten resolved so c and i had an apartment to return to. many thanks again to all who helped.

june 05 - took a course with outdoor survival school in utah. the course was pretty intense, though not a rambo type thing. no food or blanket or anything for the first three days. after that they took pity and let us have some rations and a blanket, but no tent.

june-september 05 - guided backpacking and trekking trips for the adventure travel company i used to do office work for. went to tahoe, yosemite, mt whitney, muir wilderness in sierra nevada.

dec 05 - worked for a month on maui selling vintage posters. i've been selling them here part time for a few years now, and finally got to do the "employee exchange" with the maui gallery. saw whales and volcanoes, tried surfing for my first time, etc.

jan-apr 06 - back to the full time office thing, working for bill (cpa) preparing lots o' tax returns.

may-july 06 - i'll be going back to beautiful southern utah to apprentice/work with the outdoor survival school.

the rest of the summer will be back in california guiding. oh and i got a mention as "sous chef and guide" in the may 2006 issue of cooking light magazine. they did a feature on my boss who does "gourmet" cooking out in the woods. the article doesn't seem to be online, so if you're really curious you'll have to loiter around the newstands. sorry.

end of august, i'll go for a 2 week visit to sitka, alaska where c will be spending the month. earlier this year we had plans to move there (c has beaucoup de family in that area), but eventually decided to stay put in the bay area and just go to ak for a visit. or many visits.

that wraps up the summer. um, and i don't know what i'll be doing after this september. i'll just have to see.

i leave tomorrow morning for utah. back mid-july. i'll have only occasional email access, but drop me a line and i'll try to answer in between wilderness stints.

i hope this was short enough though i probably left out some important chunks. oh well.

i'm off to the wild orange yonder.