Leaning Tower attempt in Yosemite

Em and I are just back from Yosemite. It was a zoo. We drove out Thursday afternoon and met up with Nate and Helen at their Curry Village rent-a-tent (many thanks for making the reservation!). Nate and I sorted gear for our attempt of the West Face of Leaning Tower. Em helped me duct tape the haul bag, we shared a Stone Tripel that Nate got at the brewery (double thanks for the triple - delicious!). After tearing a page out of the guide book that I neglected to photocopy we crashed. We got up at 5am and were at the Bridalveil trailhead by 7am, I think. It was a treat to hike over talus with a full haul bag. Great pack training, though. Emily and Helen were very nice to carry a load up to the catwalk. I would appreciate them more where their items were back in the haul bag on the hike out. Then the first wave of car management shenanigans began. We made the mistake of taking the "no overnight parking" sign literally (instead of just parking in the dirt), so Emily and Helen took both cars with them.

It was tricky and somewhat slow to get all items to the start of the climb. Some exposure, some authentic 4th class moves with full haul bag, fixed lines, traxion/gri-gri self-belay action, awkward portaledge attached to ascenders, and other such tricks. Enough of a rude awakening to make it real. There was another party bivied at the start of the catwalk taking a more leisurely start - great guys who gave us beta and helped us retreat back along the fixed lines.

We weren't the most refined in our getting things sorted for the start of the climb, but I wasn't totally embarrassed. There was some unknown fixed line heading up to Awahnee Ledge that didn't belong to either of the parties we met on the way up. Nate put the full rack on his gear sling and started up the first pitch. The pitch went fine until the bolt ladder stopped. Nate's hands were cramping up bad and there seemed to be a fixed piece missing. He worked through it, but was pretty burned out by that point. He had scraped his hands a fair amount and had a nut pull on him trying to get passed the blank spot. He could see the first pitch anchor at this point. I let him know he was at the halfway mark on the rope so he could bail now or he could finish the pitch. He opted to come down since his hands were pretty locked up. He was unable to clean the draws off the most overhanging pieces. I was about to break out a prusik to get my weight off the last bolt and onto tension from Nate when I remembered I was aid climbing and had two full ascenders on my harness :). Once he was down I re-led on top rope and cleaned what was left. Nate lowered me down into space (due to the overhanging wall) and I clipped a draw into the other strand and trammed down. At this point Travis and Dylan were heading up the catwalk. We gathered our stuff and with their help retreated down the hill. A downer, sure, but we: a) lived to wimp another day and b) didn't cross any points of no return without being sure we were up for it.

Sunday did the shorter approach to the base of El Cap intending to practice on the Triple Direct, but there were a few parties of free climbers playing on it. Just a little 'tude from the free climbers, but friendly for the most part. We hiked further up to "La Escuela", just past this climb. Route was far enough in and tough enough that we could camp on it and avoid free-itude. Our original plan was to get up a few pitches and spend a training night on the portaledge. No dice. I led up a handful of placements in the very awkward leaning dihedral when it started raining. Another turnaround point moment. I could either finish the pitch to the anchor with an unknown amount of rain coming down or bail/down-aid lead. I down-led as best I could, but with the angle of the dangle couldn't clean one of Nate's offsets - my placements are just THAT good :) (Nate - I owe you a #9, and it's time for me to get a set of my own!). Rain stopped once I was on the ground...but started up with a vengeance soon thereafter. Free climbers were slipping and sliding. I was glad to get the haul bag down the trail before it got too slick or muddy.

Emily made a turnaround of her own at the start of the cables on the Half Dome hike. After sorting gear with Nate and reconnecting with Em we hightailed it out of that zoobomafoo. Somewhat of a pain in the ass trip, but surprisingly has me salivating even harder to get up and on a wall. Very useful recon and experience.

Time to unpack!

Back to Idyllwild

Getting around to a quick trip report on Idyllwild climbing two weekends ago with Emily and our new friends Ben, Teri, and Bert. We rolled the dice and drove out after work on Friday. Emily was smart and had reserved a campsite in the State campground ahead of time. Deluxe, indeed, but I couldn't get the wifi working...Ben and Teri had staggered arrivals later that evening.

We hiked to Tahquitz Saturday morning planning on climbing "Angel's Fright" as 2 parties of 2. Bert hiked up just as Teri was starting up. He was by himself (visiting from Canada) and we thought he'd have more fun climbing with us than trying to self-belay up the "Trough". He joined Ben and Teri's party. After considering soloing the chimney section, Teri and Ben decided to rope up. We made quick work of the first few pitches with one exposed weight transfer balance-y move to spice things up. We successfully found all the old fixed pins along the way. The weather was cold - in the 40s - and we were expected warmer so had dressed a little light for the conditions. Fog/clouds rolled in and out, but no rain to speak of. We had a slow down at the start of the slab finish, but Ben and I combined forces on lead to get everybody up before getting too cold. Fun climb.

We hiked to Suicide Sunday morning with no particular climb in mind. We ended up on Rebolting Face. Bert led up "Escalator" (ants!) and we set up a top rope over "Rap Flake". Teri led "The Shadow" and set up a top rope over it and "The Breeze". That filled our day. Of course, just as I was getting my mind wrapped around the slab climbing it was time to go. Fun, frustrating, motivating. Time to work on increasing my free leading ability.

After a quick brew at the Lumber Mill B&G (out of fries, wtf?) we headed home. Even got some food prep in for the work week, nice!

Aid climbing practice in Idyllwild

Emily and I got the honest last campsite in the Idyillwild Count Park Campground Friday night. We spent the day practicing belay escapes and transitions (PMMO), hauling (C, Z - I got some pulleys and a mini traxion recently), and general self-rescue tomfoolery at the campsite. Nate showed up and we managed to kill the day with aid climbing talk, gear sorting, and beer.

Saturday we loaded up the new pig and hoofed it to the base of "The Pirate" on Suicide Rock. Nate led it, I cleaned it, I led it, Nate cleaned it, Em practiced using ascenders on a fixed line. Emily took lots of pics too. She saw the flawless execution of our system (pendulum, notwithstanding) and has blessed me for a big wall. Nate and I are aiming for Leaning Tower soon.

Sunday Emily and I braved the climbing crowds and took a romp up the "Trough" on Tahquitz. We did a non-standard first pitch with actual jamming which woke me back up (not much honest rock leading lately). After that it was all just fun and fast scrambly climbing.

Pics on Flickr here (it didn't mangle them this time)!

Zoetzuur Flemish Ale - De Proefbrouwerij (bvba Andelot) - BeerAdvocate

Zoetzuur Flemish Ale - De Proefbrouwerij (bvba Andelot) - BeerAdvocate


I had a good day at work (except for the pulled back muscle doing power cleans at lunch - stiff neck!), so I decided to pop this strange Flemish ale I picked up at Bevmo. It is indeed sweet and sour, great salivation inducing umami flavor. The Beer Wench has some cool info on this brew. I love bottle conditioned ales and sour/wild yeast/farmhouse/Belgian ales so that's why this one caught my eye. Not too many chances to taste a Flanders Red Ale style - yeah, lactobacillus! Wine like? I don't know. I drink Belgian ales often and this one drops right into that family. This level of craft brewing makes my chemical engineering heart leap.

Russell Recon Overnight

Emily and I took advantage of the last no permit weekend for the season and headed to Lone Pine on Friday after work. Our goal was to see how far we could get up Russell, particularly the East Ridge. We knew it was pretty early in the year and a tough hike for a normal weekend. We made good time to Lone Pine, camped at Tuttle Creek, and were on the Whitney Trail around 6:30am. I decided to not take Diamox this trip and see how it went (ok...headache definitely present, and some failure to thrive). We got to Upper Boyscout Lake around noon and set up camp. My pack was heavier this week than last due to rope and minimalist rack (just in case we made it to the ridge and found snow and were forced to fifth class it). Some gusts of wind and a little bit of snow the previous night, but spring definitely arriving. We hiked another 1000' up above UBSL to a tiny lake (would've made a less crowded camp spot and a better jumping off point for Russell). With the snow as it was, the Clyde Meadow version of the approach to the East Ridge might have been easier than the Rockwell variation. We turned around a bit before the turn off to the last ascent up to the Russell-Carillon Col. The area above UBSL is very nice and good to know about for future trips. The Whitney-Russell Col looked like a fun and not often climbed snow chute. Secor's guidebook was useful for this trip. We fought a little with our stove at camp, but won the day. We hiked out pretty early on Sunday and avoided post-holing. Most of the snow on the hike to Lower Boy Scout Lake is not long for this world. Lots of ice chunks coming off the rock all around us (walk fast...). Some pics on Flickr.

Whitney via Mountaineer's Route

Nate and I met up in Lone Pine for dinner at Bonanza Wednesday night aiming to climb the Mountaineer's Route up Mt Whitney (the highest point in the lower 48, yadda yadda). Since it was dark we opted for the logistics-light option of camping at the Tuttle Creek campground. It was pretty windy at the campground (as it always seems to be). Nate had Jim Beam and portable iPod speakers for entertainment while we sorted gear. After one last trial run of my stove to make sure I knew how to light it (I'd say I'm 80% proficient in the use of this stove) we turned in. I slept in the bed of the Baja using my giant Alps Engineering Desert Pine 0 bag which I rarely use (it's frickin' huge - bringing it allowed me to pack my trail bag the night before). It seemed less warm than my Ultralamina 15, but that could've been the wind draft. We got up at 6am for final packing.

We got to the Portal around 7 and onto the trail around 730. It was a pretty warm day so I'm glad we got going early enough for the snow to be somewhat solid on the way up. There were so many tracks that route finding wasn't an issue. We ran into fellow climber Simon at Lower Boyscout Lake. He was taking a couple days to acclimatize. Nate and I were planning on rolling the dice (biased with Diamox for me). We didn't need crampons or axes up to Upper Boyscout Lake. There was a tent village at UBSL due to SMI (Kurt Wedburg) guides bringing 18 clients up. I will hold my tongue until I have more experience. There were a few altitude sick folks milling around camp. One of them advised crampons and axes for the next part up to Iceburg Lake (I seriously think it is IcebUrg). She also told us UBSL had the last water before the summit. Either she didn't perceive one can melt snow or she thought we were aiming to summit that day. We went ahead and put on our crampons and broke out the axes. It got steep/icy enough to justify them. We followed a traverse too far and ended up on some sketchy terrain. We used a little ice axe elbow grease to get up and over to the lake.

There were a couple Norcal climbers (I forget their names, but Nathan has their email) who had already set up camp. They were solid veteran mountaineers and let us use their shovel. I didn't know what to do with it really and ended up pitching the tent on some solid snow and cooking on a rock. Both of us were planning on a 6am departure the next morning to summit and then hike back out. We got some good beta on Shasta and Rainier from them. The view of Pinnacle Ridge (credit to source of photo), the Needles, and Whitney are awesome from Iceburg. Camping on Iceburg was like being on a giant lens - I got a little sunburnt even though I was more vigilant than ever regarding sun screen. My energy level was pretty good considering the hike. Nate's improved after a brew. We spent the next many hours melting snow for summit day and setting up camp. By evening we were starting to feel the elevation, but not too bad. At most, I just wanted to lie down early and couldn't quite finish my pad thai. I was a little concerned since I thought there was only 460 calories, but on further reflection at home it appears I was trying to ingest 920. Time to start buying the 1-person meals! (Sheesh, Backpackers Pantry only has 2 and 4 person sizes).

We watched about 5 subgroups of the SMI group come down in the afternoon and then late afternoon. They made slow progress. It was painful to watch their post-holing. There were maybe 4 gusts of wind through the night. It was slightly warmer than our Gorgonio trip. I got up once to check packs and tent were secure. I had extreme condensation on the inside of my bivy - still not sure if this is normal or if I have it inside out (hard to tell). I was plenty warm though (I brought a heavier base layer for my legs and thermolite socks).

We got up at 530 and started out around 6. The Norcal team was 15-30min ahead of us after all of our pack futzing. The summit packs were pretty light, but Nate was saddled with his new 30m rope just in case we needed it (we didn't). I appreciate him swinging by REI to get it and other supplies and for carrying it. The first 1000' of the gully was a 30ish degree slog with great snow since we got going early enough. We basically just walked up the staircase of bootprints. Then there was a section of crampon on scree to attain the "notch". At the notch the final steeper snow chute looked, well, steep, but doable. The "easier" traverse looked sketchy and like a pain in the ass (to climb, to find again on the descent, exposed, not sure the upside). There was one more rocky section before the steeper snow. Nate went straight ahead at a slabby icy rock and things got a little spicy for a moment. Ah, the joys of crampons and gloves on rock. I found a better way up and over to the left that we noted for the descent. The final snow slope we found out later from the other duo's clinometer was somewhere around 40-50d at its steepest portion near the top. Good steps and great snow for cramponing with the occasional strategic avoiding of rocks and shallow snow. With the warm weather I wonder how the conditions are going to change. Nothing got steep enough to warrant high dagger or other ice axe shenanigans except for a little shaft plunging for self-belaying ourselves on the first 20' on the descent. The final chute put us really close to the summit hut which boosted our mood. We met up with the Norcal duo at the summit. Great views, of course - especially of the snowy north. Makes me want to get into the Palisades during the winter or earlier in the spring.

Random notes: I had been alternating nibbles of my new favorite Organic Greens vegan bar and a Perpetuem shake on the way up so I was pretty mood and blood sugar stable during the climb. Toes stayed pretty warm - thermolite liner socks and polysorb footbed showing promise vs. silkweight liner socks and trimmed Superfeet. Still probably pushing the limit of how snowy and cold I can take my synthetic single boots out in. Main problem is when stopping in the snow or when they're wet or in the morning when they're frozen. Not sure I can fit them in my performance-fit sleeping bag.

Descending went pretty smoothly. The teeming masses were on their way up as we were coming down. Somewhat frustrating since they moved slow, wanted to chat, and some didn't have ice axes...Scary stuff. From where the ice axe-less dude was in the chute when we passed him I wouldn't feel comfortable down climbing. I had two self-belay shaft catches and one minor pick self-arrest on the way down. The snow was a sticky layer on top of a harder layer. The sticky layer would ball up on my crampons, but the underlayer prevented taking the crampons off and plunge-stepping. But it really wasn't that bad. It took us 5-6h to summit and return to Iceburg Lake depending on how much time deduction we get for chatty cathies. Simon was waiting at Iceburg when we got down and started up the main chute a little while later.

It took us awhile to break camp. We were starting to feel the exertion and possibly elevation. We took the Ebersbacher Ledges on the descent back to the Portal (on the way up we missed the Ledges and just took the snow up to the saddle before Lower Boyscout). I think it took us a few hours to get from Iceburg to the Portal. My ears, which had been plugged since last weekend, finally popped at that point. The Norcal climbers were just finishing packing up their truck and had graciously left us a couple Sierra Nevada Pale Ales. I'd like to say I'm sipping it now, but it's long gone...Thanks guys!

One more burrito and three cups of coffee at Bonanza and I hightailed it home. It's fun is to be back at home and experience flashbacks and wake up wondering where you are after a climb. Thanks for the gear and partnership Nate, and congratulations on summiting!

Happy Hour Beer Tastings

Grabbed a couple short pints after worked yesterday with the work crew.

Port Brewing Shark Attack - Finally got my hands on a Port Brew and it was worth it! Rum raisin coffee malty, balanced American hops. An interesting companion to recent Belhaven tastings. Color wasn't the blood orange reviewer on BA mentioned. A good beer especially when tasted in context of Irish Red Ales (as appropriate) instead of using the IBU method of ranking beers.

Followed up with the Firehouse Hef. It was light and refreshing, but it was also watery and flat. I can blame my local watering hole for the flatness. I got a little tropical fruit, not much banana, and not much of anything total. A hef for the masses. I like Weinhard's better in this "beer-tier".

San Gorgonio Summit

Against all odds, Nathan and I summited San Gorgonio today. The short form trip report is viewable in screencap form here. Rest of my pics (buried) here (Flickr giving me a headache). Nate put up a few pics here.

For my own homework before our next trip - Primus Omnifuel Youtube videos here. (By jove, I think I've got it!)

(White Gas Ridge is our own trip-specific name for the ridge we acquired to gain the summit - basically the one straight up from Trail Flat camp.)

Great job Nate - next is Whitney, then Leaning Tower! (then Baffin Island)

I'm loving the snowy mountains. Why anyone would climb them all dusty and dirty in the summer beats me.

Mechanical Engineers Unleashed

I'm glad we have mechanical engineers at work. Without them I never would have looked up Mr. T soundboards or the Axis of Awesome.

Morland Bottle Conditioned Hen's Tooth English Ale - home tasting

Another Wine Castle find. Interesting light orangish brown ale - clear glass bottle?

A very bitter, slightly lighter version of Newcastle. More hop action on the tongue. Darkened a bit on pour? Not skunky, but the clear glass makes me wonder. 50cL bottle. Out of Suffolk. Morland Brewing. Orange color - orange rind taste? Not much head.

Now I'm starting to wonder if the Diamox I took is starting to affect my flavor perception. Off to pack for an overnight on San Gorgonio (and to get to bed for a 3am departure).

Meantime London Porter - home tasting

Kudos to Wine Castle again for their selection. Now they have Meantime Brewing's IPA and London Porter. The London Porter is listed as an authentically researched London recipe from 1750. It has a great bottle conditioned "aged" quality to it. Here's my stream of consciousness run down as I (and Emily) taste it:

More hop aroma than 1554
Malty German bock smell
Velvety
like black lager, but mellower
cassis
yeast-brackish-nice maturity
oak and chocolate on breath
bright midmouth, cherry
1554-ish level of darkness to color
coca-cola (float) mouthfeel
almost tannin coating of mouth
roasted barley, no extreme Caramunich thing going on
prune
chewy
tangy caramel on later sips - great umami development
smooth and complex flavor
hint of molasses, apple
rich and delicious
tastes like food

Whitney Camping Trip

Drove to Lone Pine Wednesday after work. Indulged ourselves with an impromptu no call ahead booking of a room at the Alabama Hills Comfort Inn (wifi, breakfast, clerk gaveus the AARP rate). Did final packing and preliminary new stove trials in the room. Got to Whitney Portal around 8am. Road was clear all the way up (road closed sign was there on our way up, gone by the time we came down). Had intermittant snow on trail until about a half mile past the North Fork of Lone Pine Creek turn off where it turned to all snow. Some tracks in the snow up to Mirror Lake. Just us and blankness after that. I originally thought it took us 8h to get to Trail Camp (12039'), but Emily corrected me that we started hiking at around 8:30am and got to camp around 3pm which is 6.5h. We took 45min to test drive the stove in the field (we were stymied by the white gas and switched back to canister the rest of the trip) and took another ~30min in breaks. So apparently I'm a taskmaster and we got from the Portal to Trail Camp in winter conditions (albeit very fairweather - beautiful!) in 5.75h with full (indeed) packs. We snowshoed most of the way - our first time using any snowshoes let alone our new MSR Denali Evo Ascents. The televator feature is for real and snowshoeing is warmer on the toes than stomping in bare boots. We had time to leisurely set up our new tent and brewed up some pots of tea. Night time temps were in the teens. We were warm for the most part. We didn't open all the vents in the tent so we internally iced up a bit. I got a hole in my prolite sleeping pad so my hips got sore and toes got cold. I found where it was and duct taped it for the next night - slowed it, but required multi mid night refilling. The next day we hiked up a few hundred more feet, but were daunted by the sloughing snow chute up to Trail Crest. We decided to take a day to play at our snow camp instead. Where does the time go? Apparently brewing, cooking, reading the Rock&Ice mag we brought, napping, taking pictures can fill the day. We hiked back out on Saturday. Was just a hair faster coming down than going up. Snow was fluffier coming out. After veggie burritos at Bonanza we drove home. Of course, the hiking didn't preclude a killer gym workout on Sunday...

Next day breakdown
High soreness/bruised: hips, calves, hands (surprising - from gripping poles and piolet)
Moderate soreness: general leg/ankle stabilizers, neck
Light soreness: ab/back core, shoulders

System issues
Cold toes (Sam): fix via staying/getting warmer at night (patch that therm-a-rest!), check footbed/liner sock/sock system (scorched earth policy would be plastic boots), reduce number of "cinching" layers around ankle
Stove-white gas: read instructions, practice at home (outdoors), evaluate vestibule cooking

System highlights
Total weight and distribution of packs was fine - everything was used or for emergencies only
Snowshoes worked great
Tent worked great
Food choices were pretty great (mainly a sugary pecans vs. plain almonds type thing)
Wag bags worked great (ahem)

Mountains of the World - Photographs and Information

Mountains of the World - Photographs and Information

I was searching for high points in Canada and came across this site. Cool pics! Great for scanning and planning.

Successful wintry ascent of Mt Baldy

Short story: got up at 3, got on the road by 4, got to the trailhead at 6, started hiking at 6:30, got back to the car around 3:30. Some goofing around, but most of that time was hiking. I was impressed by Emily on the snow climb up the Baldy Bowl. She did great plunge stepping on the descent after getting the hang of it. We ran into Nate after descending the Bowl (we missed him at the trailhead - no worries). Much planning of future trips (various and sundry big mountains and big walls). Emily and I were impressed when Nate let it drop that this was his first time using crampons and he had successfully summited. Kudos! Pics on Flickr. Whitney via main trail is this Thurs-Sun (outing to celebrate my and Emily's 8th wedding anniversary, hence the excuse for all the new gear - that and the fire sales due to the economy tanking). Fitness and experience are coming along well - feeling like I need to sneak in some skills practice at some point. Technical alpinism should have a food pyramid like diagram showing all the prerequisites.

DIY foodie stuff

Made lime pickles Tuesday evening following a recipe I found on the web modified to match the ingredients I had on hand. Basically salt and chile powder plus vinegar and lots of juicy limes. The mixture going into the Mason jar looked and smelled delicious...mustard seed, apple cider vinegar, local Cali chile powder.

I bought cucumbers and mangoes to further explore pickling maybe this Sunday. Food bushcraft is invigorating and ties in well with good diet, training, and pushing it outdoors (currently slated to climb Baldy tomorrow, Whitney via main trail the following weekend, Gorgonio after that, and Whitney via the Mountaineers' route after that - hey free rein to eat as much as I want and train hard intraweek - gives me a reason to push hard in all spheres and live right, although I am sipping half a homebrew right now).

Haven't dealt with the grain grinding or beer recipe finalization yet. Still planning on doing the Xocolatl Stout and the "Dragon's Milk" beer (English October Beer made with split peas) next.

Apparently, I do a lot of things in a lot of areas. My google docs personal to do list is getting out of control (in a good way). Off to meditate on how I can bring energy and excitement to those around me and stay committed to living cruelty free. And eat lentils and mangoes and drink homemade kombucha. And crash out early since that's what this mood foretells.

sunshine powerlifting

I took the plunge at the local Play It Again Sports store and bought a 7' olympic bar and 2x25lb plates. I am looking forward to powerlifting at lunch out in the sun (I would say "or rain", but c'mon this is Socal). Pretty cheap too (especially when going halfsies with Damon - cheers!).

I also got a foam roller since I've got all kinds of adhesions and knots from the crazy training. Combined with last night's mountaineering gear purchasing, apparently it's on like Donkey Kong.

Fresh Gear

Planning on attempting Whitney and Gorgonio in the very near future. Ordered some fresh gear online last night.

Tent - EV2
light, single-wall, integrated vestibule, found a good deal

Stove - Primus Omnifuel
works with canisters and all liquid fuels, good reviews

Snowshoes - MSR Denali EVO Ascent
two pairs, found a good deal

Bivy - MSR E-bivy
for my wife, got 20% off

mountain athlete workout

I enjoy the Mountain Athlete workouts, but haven't felt like I've had the time or baseline fitness to attempt them lately. Even though I pulled triples MTW and hiked 8h yesterday, I ate enough to fuel an attempt in the gym today. I tried the "Dry, Windy, & Cold" workout modified downwards since I wasn't chipper enough to do it at the listed weights/volume and because it's difficult to learn/follow a new workout and push hard at the same time. The workout generated a great agro-motivating feeling that's been missing from the cardio intensive stuff lately. Eating a big breakfast (kefir pancakes!) and lunch (seitan sandwiches!) ahead of the workout helped. I am considering upping my calories and training hard since weekends will be mountain intensive this year. I'm a stronger 175lbs as of this afternoon, up from a low of 168 a few weeks ago. I'd like to be 155, but I'll let the climbing take care of that. Here's a snapshot of what I did:

3 rounds of 3x Turkish Getups/5x Burpees
8 rounds of 10x deadlifts (2x 135/6x 95)/5x 1-arm db clean and press (1x 20/7x 35)/10x box jumps/10x weighted situps (25 plate)
5 rounds of 5x chinups (varied grips each round)/10x dips/15x pushups

Tough to find work weight for the deadlift round. Pushups were tough at the end, basically split into 5-rest-5-rest-5 to get the volume in. Can definitely go heavier, faster, more volume next time. I'll throw a print out of this workout into the magic gym bag. Left calf is most sore, on the cusp of feeling tweaked, but I felt ok on the box jumps.

San Jacinto Peak attempt

We got up at 2am, got on the road around 2:45 (Emily drove - that was a nice treat for me), ran into traffic and had to improvise a detour through San Dimas passed Raging Waters, got to Humber Park and onto the Devil's Slide trail around 7am. We hiked to within ~700' of the summit. We used crampons on the icy snow in the morning, then boots in soft snow as we moved into the sun. We brought snowshoes, but didn't use them. I hope they enjoyed their tour of the area. It was a nice warm day with little wind. We did some boot skiing on the hike out - fun! We got back to the car around 4pm so we got about 8h of hiking in. I felt gross during/after dinner so we hightailed it home to allow for foodie hobbying and future trip planning (Baldy, Gorgonio, White Mountain, Whitney are possibilities).

Pictures on Flickr.

Kraut Busted

DIY Food update:
* Sauerkraut was a bust. It got moldy and I chucked it. Next time I'll chop it very fine, smash it into Mason jars (better aspect ratio), use more salt, and have the expert (wife) sign off on my process before proceeding (starting to sound like work).
* Mustard greens gundru is still "cooking" on the window and looks like it might make it.
* Soy kefir made on 3/7 thickened up really well and I made a farmers' market fruit salad with it last night. Rice milk kefir is sweet and good on oat porridge. Hemp, oat, and rice yoghurts are thin, but very yoghurty.
* Tofu is crumbly, but delicious (the soy "whey" is an interesting soapy liquid).
* Grain grinder seems like a piece of junk on assembly - haven't run grain through it yet.

I want to make more breads, tortillas, pitas at home as well as jam, pickles, etc. Aiming to replace store bought items with homemade over time. Still hunting for a source of quality grain and legumes locally - some sort of coop with grain and produce would be great.

Training Progress

After a couple weeks of early gym sessions before work (530-630am) with lunch running (~5mi) and occasional/additional cardio/strength/stretching gym sessions after work (6-7pm), I've transitioned to some minor stretching in the morning, recently added intense Crossfit type sessions at lunch (we've fashioned an urban gym in the "sky bay" at work), and cardio/catch-all sessions after work (either out the door running or in the gym). After bottoming out at 168lbs a couple weeks ago, muscle accrual and increased fluid intake puts me around 172 this week. That's low enough to trigger climbing trips and general planning of outdoor endeavours so I've been doing that. I'm sick/wary of long drives and lackluster outings though. Training-wise, I'd still like to establish a habit of long endurance and/or skill based weekend work. I'll post upcoming trips once I commit to them.

Kefir and Kombucha Progress

I let the soy milk (Silk DHA enhanced) kefir go 2.5 days on the counter before putting into fridge overnight. Viscosity continued to increase. Tasting at 24h mark was essentially room temp soy milk. Tasting at 48h was thicker slightly off-tasting soy milk. Tasting at 72h at fridge temp was better more standard kefir tasting, but not very strong and not the sour target I was going for. Definitely hit target high viscosity. A really interesting food conversion to be primarily viscosity. I innoculated a new pint of soymilk with the strained kefir globules from the first batch (not much) and a couple fingers worth of the first batch.

Kombucha isn't bubbling or fermenting like beer, but it is open to the air (covered with paper towel). The SCOBY initially was on the bottom, but it has floated to the top. Some filaments have been thrown off and there is sludge at the bottom of the jug. The tea is turbid as well. It's definitely doing something, just very quietly. The temp has been below the target temp so I'll let it go longer, not much I can do - room temp tends to pretty much be outdoor ambient here in our Central Coast stasis.

Black Oak Stout

Minor miscommunication on proper growler SOP had me tasting my growler of Hollister Black Oak Stout ("imperial Belgian stout") last weekend earlier than expected. It was almost purple in color, long standing tan suds, very strong, yet refreshing - definite banana yeast thing going on, with an effective malty roasty chocolatelyness. No big alcohol taste although I believe it's ~9% abv. In short, a new favorite - very impressed.

Bucha Bucha

Soy milk kefir and black/red tea kombucha are a go! Kefir is about as easy as it gets to make - pour the milk into a ball jar, sprinkle on the kefir "crystals", put a paper towel over the lid, and use the ring to close it. Kombucha was like making a fast beer - boil some water, add some tea bags, add some sugar, cool it back down, add the SCOBY and starter...Should be ready to test taste the kefir tomorrow and the kombucha next week...

Wadi Rum

Well, I now have something to read and something to focus my trip-planning energy on. Time to go international? Environmentally aware adventure tourism? Time to enter the yuppie matrix. It would be kick ass to climb my first big wall in Wadi Rum.

Hollister Brewing Company

On our drive back from an overnighter in the Silver Peak Wilderness we stopped by Hollister Brewing Company in Goleta near UCSB. I was surprised by the extensive selection of craft beer. I I had a bunch of samplers then a pint of Weizenbock followed by a growler of Black Oak Stout to go (still unopened). Here are the samplers I had with some notes:

Orange Blossom: light mead taste from the fermented honey, nice lacing, orange scent and orange+malt taste
German Alt: a "lager finish" although it's an ale with a little char roast taste - due to the Caramunich according to the brewer (this malt flavor showed up in a few of his brews). Golden brown color, some stickiness, but mild hops
Abbey Dubbel: banana-clove, light brown sugar, minimum yeast mouthfeel, mild abbey taste, caramunich taste present
Irish red: skunky? bigger mouthfeel than Alt, caramunich present - made it more like a schwarzbier - got better and maltier as it warmed up
Barleywhine: big hop nose, fruity-resin, sticky sticky sticky, grapefruit, as a barleywine - "not big enough"
Black Oak Stout: "Imperial Belgian Stout", roast-alcohol-malt, altogether fairly unique, caramunich, surprisingly drinkable, had body, dark garnet color
Hollister Hefweizen: Bavarian style, mild banana throughout, light mouthfeel, finished clean
Pope IPA: strong golden color, strong grapefruit, dry hop
English Mild: I sucked it down too quick to eval ;)
Weizenbock (pint): caramunich, low hop, Bav yeast, enjoyable

...and they had even more I couldn't justify tasting!

White Whale bottling day

We didn't brew this weekend, but we did bottle a pale ale-wheat hybrid we called "White Whale" (white wheat pale ale). Gravity went from 1.058 to 1.014 with the American wheat smack pack + Saf-wheat producing a distinct banana-clove smell. The hops are strong, but not too strong (we started with Belgian Admiral and First Gold and then alternated Cascade/Tradition - 2.5oz over 4 additions). Color is light copper. The Cascade hops are more muted than expected - German and Belgian hop character is strong, but overall not too sticky. We'll see after carbonation if our specialty AIPA + wheat is too many great tastes that don't go great together.

I had a Green Flash Imperial IPA on Friday after work and that thing was hopped to the max and I believe it had an abundance of fusel oils - it made for an amazing headache (then again it was VERY strong). Tasted like OJ gone bad with some bitters added - not entirely bad.

In other news, I've been training more - finally broke out the rock rings for pull ups at the gym. Although, I feel most benefit for outdoors stuff from 160bpm extended cardio, stretching, and weighted traversing (if not actual gym climbing). I do feel an illness coming on - people have been out sick at work lately. I have been enjoying a 5am gym into a 7 to 5ish work schedule. But I forget about the early rising sometimes when I start getting tired earlier in the evening.

Meantime IPA from London!

Randomly picked up a corked bottle of Meantime IPA for my wife who enjoys IPAs. I prefer Belgian style ales, but a corked and bottle conditioned IPA caught my attention. On tasting and researching, I found they are essentially the only game in town for getting an authentic original style IPA, e.g. Fuggles and Golding hops. This is not a grapefruit sledgehammer AIPA, it has a sophisticated bitterness. I like the idea that the bottle's travel from the brewing company to here mimics the journey the original IPAs took. I also appreciate it being brewed in the town of the first IPAs (for the water chemistry). I am enjoying the historical background on their website - London brewing influencing Burton-on-Trent in the nineteenth century. This ale has a malt complexity ("backbone") that is more aligned with the Salvator Doppelbock I had the other night than the "tangy" AIPA convention. It stands up to the alcohol and hops. Old school - a hardy brew at 7.5%. It makes sense that their website would have a website on the "Baltic Market" since the maltiness in this brew reminds me of Baltika - an underappreciated Russian brew.

Variation on chocolatl

Emily and I were sipping Old Rasputin and thinking we should brew a porter or stout, but didn't have a "hook". I remembered seeing the chile beer category on BeerAdvocate that sounded intriguing. Turns out their traditional lighter colored lager beers with a chile in the bottle. Then I remembered hearing about ancient Mayan spicy chocolate drinks. I've been known to enjoy chile flavored dark chocolate and there are chocolate porters out there - so how about making a dark ale with chocolate malt, chile peppers, and "spicy" hops? Our hook was to be brew a beer harkening back to cacahuatl - ancient hot chocolate. Unfortunately, Dogfish Head stole our thunder and was the first google hit to come up. Their "Theobroma" brew is said to be lighter in color still, so making the porter or stout version should retain some originality. Plus, I want to add chile pods directly to the boil. I also want to add a shaved, almost ripe mango to the boil, cacao nibs and vanilla beans to the secondary fermentor, use "jalapeno juice" with the priming sugar, and scottish ale yeast since that's what we have on hand it'll be close enough. Tasting Old Rasputin reminded me of days in Seattle enjoying Obsidian Stout so that could serve as the starting point for the malt profile, IBUs, and gravity. A forum post on Theobroma suggests honey and ground annatto - not sure if I'll need those, maybe the honey to kick things up. We're going to go all or mostly grain on this one, but not this weekend since I don't have the recipe ready. In the meantime, I "brewed" some cacahuatl using this recipe - reducing the water, increasing the milk (used vanilla soymilk, so I skipped the vanilla), using cacao nibs instead of baker's chocolate (smashed and extracted in 1 cup water in the microwave, brought to boil), using dried chile pods torn up instead of ground chile peppers (made a wonderful color broth), skipped the cinnamon. Cacao nibs don't dissolve, soymilk likes to separate, but it had a nice sweet dark chocolate taste hot. The next morning it looked and tasted like chocolate milk spiked with chiles. I think I would redo it mixing the chile pods with some fresh green chiles and reducing the liquid volume a bit to thicken it up (although going with baker's chocolate would do the trick).

Classic brews

Sipped a couple classic brews last night: Salvator Doppelbock and Ayinger Hef Weiss. Both are near oroginators of their styles and are more subtle and simple than modern American craft versions - less over the top, less in your face, less hops. They reminded me of the differences in style between the older Russian dystopia "We" and the later, more well known Western ones "1984" and "Brave New World". Here I am being all literary when I've been reading the "Sookie Stackhouse" novels off an iPod. Back to beer, the Sal had a mild nose and great balance with an interesting umami-brackish lager characteristic reminiscent of our recent schwarzbier lager homebrew. Ayinger was all kinds of chewy banana. I had lemon, but never thought of adding it (real men don't put fruit in their drinks).

-Sent from ipod

Premature "Westy 2" Tasting

Pint swing top bottle, splitting with Emily. Tastes like a slightly less umami, slightly more hopped version of Orval (such a wonderful humble beer) crossed with Duvel (such an aggressive arrogant beer), but with less bubbles since it's wasn't ready yet. Very happy with it. Totally the type of beer I like best, can't usually find, so I had to brew myself. I expect no one at work to like it (very Belgian in character). Yeast esters have mellowed since my very premature tasting on day 5 post-bottling. Great pilsner malt character. Could be considered to be slightly watery vs. hop level, but it is fairly crisp at the finish and we'll have to see what further carbonation will do. Hop flavor from organic noble hops is wonderful. Start with components true to style and geography and get great beer. Even the aftertaste is authentic. I wonder how much the "manual" water chemistry adjustment contribution to the authenticity? This homebrew batch gives me hopes and dreams of brewing important beers in the future. It gives me confidence that I have the basic template down and can move on to the esoterics.

On ice and snow and rock

Touristing with visitors we checking our a local bookstore and I found a copy of Gaston Rebuffat's 60s-70s climbing handbook, "On Ice and Snow and Rock". I expect it to be re-energizing and humorous. I've been nibbling away at his autobiography and he has an excellent humble adventurous climbing ethic.

Tasting and Brewing Notes

Working backwards...

"White Whale Ale" (working title) - Brewed this mini mash yesterday (1/24). Tried to shove 3lbs of grain into the grain bag and get away steeping at 150F, but coupled with insufficient grinding, we didn't get as much out as we needed. It's back to full mashing for us! So our Imperial Pale Ale became an India Pale Ale. We used a significant amount of wheat constituents: white wheat malt (grain)/Bavarian Wheat (dry extract) - 20% of the bill. Dry extract pils was 30%, light extract was 10%, and amber extract was 20%. We rounded it out with smaller amounts of Cara-pils (5%), 20/60/120L Crystal (split evenly to give 5%), and Munich (10%). We need to get a grinder and had ordered our last grain selections unground. We did the ol' rolling pin trick, but the white wheat especially didn't crack easily. We were targeting a 1.081 beer and ended up with 1.058. Tried that mash pH stabilizer again and didn't add gypsum (bigger issue?). We used 3.25oz of hops starting with Belgian Admiral, moving to First Gold, then Cascade/Tradition together for the last two additions. Should be pretty hoppy (~70). We'll decide on whether to dry hop later. We used Wyeast American Wheat (slurry) and SAF's wheat (dry - rehydrated day of) for pitching. 5gal batch is currently bubbling away. I am curious to see what flavor dominate: wheat malt (grainy, biscuit, body), wheat yeast (esters), pils base (sweetnes), crystal (caramal/roast), carapils (body, sweetness). I think we should have enough of a malt backbone and body to stand up to the hopping. Curious to see if we get some hop complexity or if either the Admiral bitterness oor Cascade citrus dominate.

1/23 Home tasting of Allagash Dubbel Reserve - 750mL corked bottle. Excerpt from beer book notes: dark amber, turbid, Belgian yeasty, unique roastedness gives way to alcohol gives way to yeast - good length. Noble hop finish (pushing the limits of my taste-recognition here - I could be wrong - mainly mean herbal not citrus). Fresher, brighter than Chimay Red. Not nearly the same umami level relative to Trappist. Not sure the toastedness is true to style. Really stuck out. Thinner than Chimay or recent homebrew batch. Comparable to Duvel body - overattenuated? Toast and hops do not gout de Orval make?

1/22 Work Happy Hour tasting - I didn't have my tasting log book with me (I'll have the ipod touch with me going forward) and I didn't want to geek out (any more than usual) with the coworkers so I can't give more than my summary take-aways on the beer I had. Started with Bruery's "Partridge in a Pear Tree" in 10oz snifter. I am beginning to think it's a JJ Brewsky's conspiracy to provide flat beer - I didn't see the excellent head retention mentioned in reviews of this beer on BA. The beer is listed as a quadrupel, but it tasted more like a barleywine to me. Very delicious and I tasted pear (autosuggestion?). Spices were well mixed into the dried fruit flavors. I followed that with a pint of Telegraph's California Ale. I really liked it. It had a Belgian yeast character to it. Hard to classify style, but I just rode through my surprise at finding a "Belgian Amber Ale" (as one BA reviewer put it) and enjoyed it. Longer happy hour than usual since it was a work week from hell so a few of us had a third round. I repeated a tasting of Island's Jubilee ale since I liked it so much from tasting last weekend. It is malty with a little alcohol kick. A great American take on the brown ale.

1/18 Brew Day with Brother - "Pocahontas" (I have no idea how brother came up with that name). Essentially an amber ale based on Papazian's Bababa Bo. 2lbs in grain bag steeped at ~150F in 2gal, sparged with 1gal of 170F water. Very good extraction. ~40% British light dry extract, ~30% organic light dry extract, ~10% 20L Caramel, ~10% 120L Caramel, ~5% Chocolate, ~5% Special B (because Alex liked it). Used 0.25oz Goldings, 0.125oz NZ Cascade, and a fat 0.25oz of Tettnanger (old stock). Created a 1qt yeast starter using Saf US-05. Added gypsum to Brita water. Pitched the yeast a little warm. Put in tub to cool down. Bubbling ok when Alex drove away with the bucket. OG at 1.055ish if I remember correctly. Alex tells me it looks done at about the 6 day mark.

1/17 Island Brewery tasting with Mother, Brother, Wife (combined notes)
Blonde - light american hops, dull gross odor, Kolsch style
Weiss - banana, clove, bubblegum
Paradise - nice lacine, grapefruit overtones, strong bittering, but fruity and well balanced
Nut brown - slightly turbid, hoppier than traditional, a little watery
Island Pale - floral with a little bit or roast, interesting choice
Jubilee - old ale style, garnet, old hop flavor, malty - I enjoyed this the most
London Porter - ruby dark, nitrogen, nice roast, smooth, medium bitter
Starry Night Stout - some fruit and toffee, a little burnt smoke char flavor

1/14: Tripel Karmeliet 75cL bottle
pours very well, true golden blonde, thick streamers, big bubble head
strong pehnolics, classic clove-banana, some spiciness, minor medicinal/astringent after awhile
Emily says "some skunkiness" "malty undertone" "very tripel-y"
excellent aroma - subtlety, tiny bit of Orval flavor
mild, no oat or wheat on first flavor, drinks almost like a light lager
refreshing, med to light body, but not watery
getting oat-skunk towards the end - isn't unpleasant, generates a signature

1/13: Leffe Belgian Blonde, 11.2oz bottle
light honey gold, substantial head, light aroma (phenolic, fruity, alcohol, slight mineral)
stickier and heavier than Duvel, I get BBQ/jerky
effervescent, mild hop bitterness, mild Orval bitterness, currant? tannins?
yeastiers, maltier than Duvel, light wheaty malt, not quite grainy, tasting the barley
umami-lingering, not exactly sweet - barley again
earthier than Duvel, makes Duvel seem more impressive, but a nice friendly beer

1/13: Sierra Nevada Wet Hop Ale 12th release, sharing with Em
honey orange amber, spicy citrusy hops, numbs the tongue, nice lacing, some roasted malt, big mouthfeel, foamy, clean finish is surprising. Roasty sticky hoppy: welcome to California

New Ipod Touch

An xmas box that was presumed lost to thieves miraculously showed back up. So Friday night it was xmas in January! I got an iPod Touch 2G (16GB) and it is slick and functioning well.

Here are the applications I have on it:
Mail - I'm able to send/receive yahoo personal mail and work mail. Painless to set up.
Facebook - for mobile status updating and friend pestering
BJCPStyles - Free app that stores the beer styles guidelines. First thing I searched for on powering up the iPod for the first time. The iPod is now a taste-logging machine!
Google Calendar - WebApp bookmark to mobile version of calendar.
iBloglines - mobile version of bloglines. Good presentation, very usable.
Stanza - ebook reader. Not the best for pdfs (converts to text). Via desktop software I can upload book files to iPod.
Flixster - movie trailers, showtimes, reviews. Works pretty good, but how do I backtrack to Flixster after watching a trailer? Where's my alt+tab?
Remote - Great app for running iTunes via wifi from iPod. Much better than depending on IR remote through Vista Media Center.
Units - conversion factors on the go. Haven't used yet.
Beer Brands - pretty exhaustive list of beer brands. Haven't found one yet that it doesn't have.
iCanHazCheezburger - cool app to view pics only versions of fun blogs like ICHC, Failblog, and more. Time waster extrordinaire.
CraigSearch - mobile craigslist. Might be good for house hunting on the fly.
Wikiamo - slimmed down mobile version of wikipedia. Works great.
Google Earth - haven't played with it much.
Discover - allows for general file transfer to/from iPod. Connection seemed to cut out easily, but that could have been my bandwidth usage at the time.
Mobile News - AP news stream.
BBCReader - BBC news stream.
Mortgage - "3-in-1" mortgage calculator - not clear what the "3" are. It works, but not as functional as my DIY one.
TCT Lite - portable periodic table just in case...
Flickr - mobile version. Looks like I need to take and upload some new pics. Time to break in the new digital camera - if I can find it in the climbing gear pile.
BeerAdvocate web app - just a book mark to their search page saved to the home screen. It'd be great if they had a mobile version and/or a app to search their site.

Usage:
Media watching - I downloaded Allok's video converter and now have a bunch of movies and tv shows on my ipod. Max resolution is 640x480 so says manual.
Surfing - zooming and clicking is more functional than I expected. Thumb-typing is slow, but that's what bookmarks are for. Great to be able to save websites to home screen.
Reading - Stanza is good for text ebooks. Currently reading the Sookie Stackhouse novels and I'm not ashamed to say so.
Listening - Great brewday music when paired with Remote and nearby desktop. I don't really do the earbud zone out thing except when training. I'll try plugging into car stereo tomorrow morning. I appreciate there is an external speaker for incidental audio. Now listening - "Argument" by Fugazi. Unlike video, music continues when you go back to homescreen.

Issues/Questions:
-Integrate with internal calendar instead of duplicating via Google Calendar? I have work Outlook calendar and Google Calendar synched. Will read more and ask veterans at work.
-Carrying case? Won't this thing get scratched, smashed, busted? I can't imagine using it for music in the gym and sliding it into my pocket seems iffy. Plus, how to lock it immediately?
-Extended ebook functionality - better pdf viewer? djvu viewer?
-Best way to use for hiking and climbing beta? Upload photos of maps? Would be cool if Mountainproject had a mobile version or app.

First mobile post

Trying out new iPod touch... Thumb-typing!

Tollhouse climbing

Met up with Harry from CMG in Prather and got onto Tollhouse Rock before 10am on Saturday. Climbed on doubles for the first time. Nice to have the ropes at the ready and to be able to skip rappel stations. We climbed Tollhouse Traverse (I led pitch 2, we did it in 3), rapped down, then Old Fart's Edge (I led pitch 2 and 4, we did it in 4), more rapping and a hike out. Great to find warm and sunny granite at such a low elevation - nice winter climbing destination. Tried to get a room at Java Time, but they didn't answer their phone (guess I'll call ahead next time). Stayed at a Motel6 in Madera since it was a sure bet (I didn't feel like camping), even though the drive was longer. Sunday we rapped down first to avoid the grungy hike out (using twin ropes this time) climbed Elephant Walk (I led pitch 2, we did the first 2 pitches) and Free And Easy (hmm, MountainProject description doesn't match what we climbed...I led pitch 2, we did it in 4 - last was 4th class). I could feel some out-of-shapedness in the calves and ankles after the friction climbing. Strange bolt placements on this rock (bolts next to cracks in some places - run out slab in others). Drive out was fast. Good to get out and get re-motivated for training this week.

Vegan Food Pyramid

Although I appreciate the porting of the standard food pyramid to the vegan multiverse, why does it need to be a pyramid/triangle? Why three-sided? I see it as a three way tug of war between the rational-technical, compassionate-progressive, and bushcraft-traditional. Basically, nothing to do intrinsically with nutrition, but fully human in its emotional-cultural transparency (blowhard-o-meter in the red).

I like this representation this best of the pyramidal ones since it explicitly lists so many of the grains Emily and I recently purchased from bulk bins at Lassen's. Emily is sprouting some amaranth now, and I have lofty goals of producing a well-balanced, non-barley, Celiac friendly beer (I recently tasted Green's Quest and unfortunately it was exactly how rye/sorghum were purported to be according to "Designing Great Beers" - sour, but not gout d'Orval sour, just regular type - although that does bring up the idea of going with Brett or LB if it's a matter of not fighting the ingredients - bend like rye in the wind...).

I'm drinking some of our homebrew red ale right now, from a plastic recommisioned seltzer water bottle no less. It's improved significantly over the last couple weeks. A higher pitch rate, a higher grain:extract ratio, and 25% more aroma hops would "improve it", but these aren't complaints - this is very drinkable and matches our intent. Any changes would mean a different intent.

Upcoming Brews

Dad likes Pilsner Urquell best. Brother mentioned liking domestic beers of similar character. Emily likes American pale ales. Unfortunately, they're all wrong and good beer actually means Belgian strong ale, but the road to La Trappe is paved with Bud and Sierra Nevada (or should I say, "One does not simply walk into Moortgat?").

It might be time for us to try to brew an authentic Bohemian pilsner. If that means buying a small lagering fridge, so be it. Not sure how to combine the pilsner and IPA requests since they have seemingly contradictory goals (IPA would be to bitter to the pilsner drinker; pilsner would be too un-ester-y to the IPA drinker). Guess that means multiple batches. Pilsner demands all grain respect, but maybe the hop-dominated character of the APA could be served well by a partial mash? I'll start developing (stealing) recipes.

New Year Brew Days

Wednesday:
"Lefty"
Used leftover semi-spent grains from a batch of "Raucous Red Ale" made first weekend in December. Main goal was to get a practice all grain batch in worry-free before using the good grains from Seven Bridges and Northern Brewer. The grain was wet and semi-frozen which made getting up to mash temp a challenge. I devolved into pouring boiling water until it got to 160F and then closing the lid. Only about 30% the capacity of the converted igloo cooler mash tun so system loss was high (wet, cold grain didn't help). Ended up with what I thought was about 2.5gal of 1.018 beer after mashing (no real mash out). I added a pound of Briess Amber dry extract which after boiling produced 2gal of 1.054 beer - not too shabby. Wort chiller worked ok, but not best design for batches <3gal.>80F (late night bonehead move). Brought down to 75F and set outside on shelf. Fermenting in 2gal Demijohn with blowoff tube. Sucker is bubbling like crazy! Lots of krausen coming out. Currently at 65F, near optimal. Wort was very bitter, but roast and sweet malt came through. Medium dark brown color. Used brita filtered tap water

Thursday:
"1554 ale/lager"
Schwarzbier modeled after New Belgium 1554. Used an ale yeast with higher gravity first "drainings" since we weren't sure we could keep lager yeast cool enough. Trying that with lower volume second drainings. We made a first attempt at replicating Vienna water chemistry, but MgCO3 wouldn't dissolve. We ran into other water problems when trying to combine our Vienna water with a phosphate buffer in the mash - caused salts to crash out. We went ahead anyway. We decided to not use the mash pH stabilizer for Friday's brew. Ended up below target volume after boil - our evaporation losses are high. Ended up with 2.25gal of 1.062 first drainings (target was 3gal) and ~1.75gal of ~1.040 second drainings (added 0.25lbs turbinado sugar to second). Pretty happy with that. More happy that pre-boil gravities were dead on target per ProMash software. Our sparging system was suboptimal (hard to get high temp water in efficiently). We're going to go with a better fly sparging process next time.

In other news, we racked our cranberry wine and mulled grape wine into demijohns for storage. They had reached full attenuation and I mean full. Both were ~0.99 gravity. I enjoy the cran wine as it is - tart and firey. Mulled grape is mellower and will probably be a better wine if it lasts long enough in storage. I think it will be a race between contamination, oxidation, and sampling over the next 6 months.

We must also announce the passing of our mead. It either got stuck or never started fermenting. We tried repitching and adding yeast energizer, but all we succeeded in doing was contaminating it. Moldy, sickeningly sweet, after 40 days and 40 nights it was time to dump it. Our first dumped batch.

Friday:
"Westy 1", "Westy 2"
Recipe is a basic Trippel using mostly pilsner malts and some candi sugar addition. Similar process to Thursday, but with more grain and different water chemistry (modeled after Westvleteren water info from "Brew Like a Monk"). It's fun and challenging (and nerve-wracking) to brew starting from distilled water. I might have seen salt crash-out during the boil, but tough to tell since it could've been protein scum + rigorous boil. No mash pH adjustment here, although we will research water chemistry and mash pH for next time. These water choices (especially for Westy) are pretty out there - very hard water, high bicarbonate. We need a pH meter and better thermometer on a tether. I ended up having to add more strike water than by design due to lack of knowledge of system heat losses and inability to get hot water in efficiently. Ended up with 2.5gal (more trub loss than evap loss here, started with a solid 3.5gal) of 1.082 first drainings and 2gal of 1.056 second drainings. Used Wyeast Trappist yeast for first and SAF S-04 + yeast energizer for second. Trappist isn't bubbling as fast and furious as I'd like 12h later.

We also made spent grain granola and veggie burgers. Still LOTS of grain leftover.

Saturday:
Water heater started leaking significantly - could it have anything to do with being gone a week and then promptly turning on the water full blast for many hours? Either way, that thing is rusted and gross. Landlord has been called. Everything is bubbling away and at close to optimum temperatures (or were until we had to move everything in from the "beer foyer" next to the water heater), except for "Westy 1" which is lagging. I put a coat over it and moved it to a warmer area. Yeast was dark and smelled funny when pitched. I assumed it was the nature of the strain at the time, but the packet didn't swell as much as the one used on Thursday for the "1554 ale". I'll repitch near end of today if it hasn't gotten going yet (I hope Mr. Suds' homebrew section gets revitalized soon!).

In other news, our Kolsch is coming into condition. I have enjoyed a couple bottles. Of course, I was a bonehead in not properly labeling everything so it's a gamble on whether I'll get a Kolsch or a witbier from any given bottle. Lesson learned!

I also determined that 30-35lbs is the optimal UPS homebrew shipping weight range. A 22oz bottle of beer weighs 2.3lbs. Packaging is about 1lb. So that's about a 12-pack of 22s for about $25 shipping. And that's assuming glass bottles. For the same weight you can send a 12-pack of 1L plastic bottles for 50% increase in beer volume. Time to order some brown 1L PET bottles, I guess.

Random brew pics available here.

Vegas Beer Sampling

Emily and I went around to various Vegas breweries getting samplers. We've started a beer log comp book to keep track of tastings, recipes and batches. Here are some highlights:

Leinankugel's Sunset Wheat (Monte Carlo Brew pub): Not a local brew, but apparently the Monte Carlo "brew pub" hasn't brewed for a couple years. The copper kettles are only decorative. Very herbal and floral hefewizen: clove, cinnamon, anise, apricot. Even so, it had a nice mild aftertaste. I got blood orange (like Trader Joe's sparkling juice). Muted wheat on finish. Spices reduce drinkability making it more sippable.

Orval - I've been reading "Brew Like a Monk" so Emily was sweet and grabbed a bottle of Orval when she came across it at the grocery store. I can't believe this taste comes from grain. It is a powerfully unique and creative (and strange) beer. I have pages of notes on it, but all I'll comment here is that it starts like a dry-hopped kombucha.

Gordon Biersch Schwarzbier - well balanced malt profile. Reminiscient of an Irish stout, but more roast evenness in aftertaste. Not quite as dry or full bodied.

Ellis Island Weiss and Red - Weiss was skunky and honey sweetness was overdone. Red had nice bitterness and a little charcoal and umami. We liked the red. Its flavors evolved while we drank it.

Main Street Station Barleywine - Plastic cup MIGHT be interfering with aroma :). "Belgian" mouthfeel, creamy, fairly dry, persistant foam, sweet apricot to hops to alcohol to hop stickiness, but not as far as in their IPA. MSS brewery seemed like a placeholder, possibly languishing?

I also downloaded Promash to help with New Year's batches. We are planning on doing an all-grain high gravity Belgian dark ale (+ small beer), a 1554-esque sweet Schwarzbier (+ a hoppier small beer with added oats), and a quick cider from juice fermented using raisin water. We got in some new equipment as xmas presents to ourselves: wort chiller, converted coolers, lots of organic grain and hops...

brewing updates

We bottled the blonde (Kolsch) and the red today. Both tasted great at time of bottling (and have quite a kick!). These were both partial mash brews and have the appropriate design amount of hops. It'll be a couple weeks before they're carbonated. We've been sampling the witbier bottle a couple weeks earlier and it is tasty. Carbonation level is a little low at this point, but these are early samples. I hope to spread these three brews around to friends and coworkers soon. We bottled some into plastic bottles for potential mailing to non-local friends and relatives.

We are aiming to go all grain with our next batch and try to shoot the moon with a Westvleteren 12 adaptation. We are currently collecting yeast from various Belgian ales to use for the batch. We aren't in a rush though - we've got a couple quick ciders and early wine attempts still fermenting. That and holiday climbing excursions will keep us from brewing until mid-January.

Wine Castle

Wine Castle in Ventura has a better (quality for sure, quantity possible) than Bevmo. Imagine my surprise to walk into what I thought was going to be a sleazy liquor store to find a well-lit, clean, family friendly place with any and all of my favorite or yet to be tasted beers. They had gueuze, non-fruity lambic, Flemish sour ale, organic cider, all Stone brews, nearly all Trappist beers (if they had had Westvleteren I would've cried)...decent to great prices. They will be my go to place for getting bottle conditioned beers for yeast harvesting for home brews!

Go to Sleep

sleep's holy mountain - Google Video

Sleep is the source. Great cold raining evening music.

Brew Crew Fiascu

I got up at 6am on Sunday to drive 40mi to the site of the most local home brew club. I had volunteered for Brew Crew for a 60gal batch of Russian Imperial Stout. I was first non-captain to arrive. I got right to work weighing and grinding grain. There was ~200lbs of grain in this batch (split between an actual 30gal system and an ostensibly 30gal system). It got fairly crowded as the morning progressed. Most folks were all about the giant metal monstrosities. I'm trying to be about the recipe formulation and bushcraft of diy food, preservation, and improvement via microorganisms. I didn't have much luck talking shop about the recipe. It seemed like a standard exporting of BJCP style guidelines through Promash software. After a boilover by a wort kettle and brew captain I bailed. Most folks were friendly, interesting, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic, but my long drive, fatigue, and sense of incompatibility got to me. Had a downer rest of Sunday and Monday since I had been looking forward to it. Still processing the experience. I did come away knowing I should transition to all-grain and partial kegging while retaining small batch/high turnover in the spirit of a relaxing rewarding avocational experience.

Adventure Proof Camera

Optio W60 Waterproof Digital Camera (Ocean Blue) - Official PENTAX Imaging Web Site

Our Canon kicked the bucket recently and it's lame to climb and go on adventures (advent?) without a camera. Nimble googling uncovered the Pentax W60. It's on its way!

Recent beer tastings

Wednesday - impromptu happy hour with coworker. Had a Kilt Lifter. I'm still devising my on the go tasting log book and method, but it was "pretty nice", but I forgot about the Scotch Ale part of the order after tasting it.

Thursday - bigger group happy hour. Had a Humulus Gold to start. Great head and color. I am intrigued by the Belgian taste ahead of an intense American Pale ale fruitiness. I am impressed with their approach even though the over the top hop and American fruit-hop thing isn't my thing. I enjoy creative recipes for sure though, which this and apparently their others at Brewsky's are. Followed with a Hoegaarden witbier to see what I'm brewing. Our homebrew Hoegaarden clone is in the secondary fermentor and about 3 weeks out from tasting. I convinced a boss to try a Hoegaarden and a coworker to give St Bernardus 12 a try - a bold move! After a pause, the remaining group convinced me to have a short pint of Racer 5 IPA. So much hoppiness tonight! Quite the quality IPA randomly presented. I should trust my supervisor's palatte. I'm running out of beers to try at Brewsky's, but I don't mind.

Grand Cru Racking

Racked the Grand Cru Witbier (a perfect recipe selection by Em) from primary bucket to secondary carboy. Specific gravity has gone from 1.042 to 1.028. Wort was delicious - honey, orange, coriander. Can smell the alcohol and there was a real yeast cap (making our London Porter initial attempt look worse and worse, although nothing wrong with beer bread). Fun watching the yeast start growing and bubbling again in the carboy. I think this is going to need another week or more to finish fermenting (SG needs to drop to ~1.01) and then a couple weeks to get the bottles carbonated, but it'll be worth the wait. Enough of a confidence boost to keep us a'brewing. That and some brew club events coming up. Really excited about this brew. It should be decent enough to send to relatives as samples, which is good because I'm at a loss about what to do re: Xmas this year.

Once I see the SG make it down to 1.01ish and bottle it and see that it carbonates and that I can get a buzz off it, the principle will have been proven and I'll unleash my not so inner chemical engineer. I have some ideas, but need to see how robust the "system" is. Particularly, I have some ideas on how to make some high quality home table, near, and n/a beers.

Lower Boy Scout Lake Trip

Emily and I drove up Thursday morning to Lone Pine. We climbed a few quick routes on Hoodgie wall in the Alabama Hills before meeting up with Simon, who we met on Facebook from his Sierra Alpine Ice Climbing group. We munched at the Whitney restaurant and exchanged some gear before it got dark. Em and I camped at the Tuttle Creek campground (pretty empty this time of year, but it is open year round now for only $5 - stunning views of Lone Pine). We met for breakfast back at the Whitney restaurant. We drove separately to the "road closed" sign up Whitney Portal Rd. We took the Baja the rest of the way, no problem. Simon had reconned it the afternoon before. We got on the trail around 8:30am and made it through the Ebersbacher Ledges and to our campsite at Lower Boyscout Lake by about 3pm. I "led" one section of the Ledges on crampons that would have been a nasty fall. The Ledges weren't that bad even icy/snowed over a bit. We weren't feeling up for the trek up to Upper Boyscout Lake and could see the Falls would be a reasonable hike so we set up camp. Em and I camped in our floorless tarp tent with some mild fretting about the cold, but we were plenty warm. Some sliding around, but nothing a bit of buttressing with rope and scraping of snow couldn't fix. We had some excitement when a hiker that had passed us earlier came staggering into our camp mildly hypothermic. We weren't sure how bad a state he was in and only Simon knew enough spanish to communicate somewhat. Simon made some brew and Em and I set up his tent. Turns out he's an experienced mountaineer who wasn't expecting snow. He essentially had a car camping kit which provided amenities we weren't expecting: cookies, big stove, propane lantern, more food. He was much better the next day. Saturday morning Simon and I headed up for the Falls. Emily hiked up halfway, but she was gaiterless and the snow was fluffy so she turned back. Simon met up with a hiker, Norman, who made amazing time on snowshoes up to Iceberg Lake and back to the Portal. The trail from Lower Boyscout Lake to the Falls wasn't very convenient (or we didn't trailblaze properly). The trail from Upper Boyscout Lake was pretty obvious. We bushwacked our way across the creek to join the trail to the base of the right side falls. There was a group from Caltech finishing up when we got there. Simon gave me some gear pointers, we got harnessed up, and he led a ~150' route. I followed and cleaned. We followed the Caltech group's footsteps down the walk off and grabbed our gear. The hour was late enough and spindrift stinging so we hiked back out (this time with crampons on - much faster). We ran into Kurt Wedberg and his client, Rohan, on the way back. They were heading up Whitney via the Mountaineers' Trail. We brewed and enjoyed Rafael's lantern for a couple hours back at the campsite. I developed a crackling cough soon after getting into my sleeping bag - not much sleep and it accelerated our walk out on Sunday. Emily was a big help getting the tent taken down and my pack together. I might have a pattern of getting sick on day 2 of mountain camping. We were only camping at 10500' so I was frustrated. I have a list of medical/gear/logistical/nutritional action items to address this. We made pretty good time on the hike out and had lunch at our HQ - Whitney Restaurant. After getting gear sorted we headed into the heart of post-Thanksgiving RV traffic on the 395...

Simon took some pictures. Our camera is at least semi-broken.

Things to do: consider getting plastic boots, look at sock system, bring more RTE carbs (bagels, pita, tortillas), consider getting freestanding tent, get crampon and ice tool point guards, find Scholler pants (check), camp higher up first night after driving in, organize his/her gloves better, re-waterproof La Sportiva boots, get bigger better snow melting stove

Made some mead

I'm trying to get as many batches in as possible, and read a lot before the 12/14 Shop Brew (to avoid being the Brew Noob). I still want to sketch out the process flow, work flow, unit operations, equipment list, etc., but that sure does feel/look like my to do list at work.

We made some mead last night using leftover ingredients from witbier. Going for a round robin approach to fermented beverages. We were in a hurry so we didn't go the t'ej wild fermentation route. I do want to try that soon or repeat this recipe using gesho. Or make other beer using gesho and other hop alternatives (herbal beers).

Mead
1.25lbs "brewer's" honey (can't remember flavor, something thistle) from HBWC
0.75lb orangeblossom honey (local)
1lb brewer's sugar from HBWC
1 lemon, quarterd, unsquozen
added honey and sugar to 1L water, brought to boil for ~5min, added lemon, boiled for 10min, skimmed off protein-scum, cooled in ice bath to ~80F, rehydrated yeast in ~90F sugar water, poured honey water into demijohn, added cuvee' yeast to demijohn, added airlock, took all of 30min, may not have temps exactly right and the temp is probably going to stay too high too long (since we're going to sleep), but it's starting to bubble, so that works for me (11/25 8pm)
Didn't clean dishes fully afterwards...ants found the residue! Not too bad to clean up. No ants anywhere else (other batches, malt extract, bottles). 11/26 7am

Fermentation Hobby Updates

I have a google doc Emily and I are putting our notes and batch info into. Pretty rudimentary right now, but we'll make it look more like work eventually.

recent beer tastings

Quick notes on some beers tasted recently
Double Bastard Ale - not much I can say that BA hasn't said better
St Bernardus Tripel - candi sugar and bread and yeast with zest, the real deal
Allagash Grand Cru - as a preview of the spiced beer we brewed Sunday, small batch beer, strong
Rochefort 6 - smelled like feet or ancient memories of stinky cheese, thick dark sediment,
Anchor Steam Xmas Ale - similar to the Porter we just brewed, some metallic/molasses taste

Stone Mill MacroOrganoBrew

Stone Mill Organic Pale Ale

Bought it randomly at the macrogrocery store. Turns out it's by Michelob. Color is nice, bubbles on sides of mug on pour are nice, no significant aroma (matches up with accusations of underhopping by BeerAdvocates), definitely refreshing, but on this 4th bottle of the six pack (not all tasted tonight) I am getting metallic tastes on the middle sides of my tongue. This means something in regards to the brewing, but I'll have to look it up. My guess is industrial organic brewing + hot temps during shipping + unknown shelf life hurt the beer. Don't misread me though - macro-organic food sounds like utopia.

Apparently, Django invented RnR

YouTube - Django Reinhardt - Nagasaki

My Dad pointed me to Joscho Stephan which led me to an evening of Django Youtube surfing. Apparently, he invented Rock n' Roll out of necessity (separate rhythm guitar due to lack of ring and pinky finger function). So far, Gypsy jazz is sounding melodic, melancholy, yet aggressively played. Sounds like how life works to me. I dig it.

homebrewing status

Revelations from recent batches:
Need to research pros/cons of different size/type bottles, headspace, etc.
Need to have more of a rolling boil during hop addition
Need to chill water for fermentor top off
Need to cool wort kettle directly in ice bath vs. adding to fermentor and chilling entire 5gal
Should consider more official cooling and bottling system after confirming that our homebrew tastes good
Want to transition to local grains and hops
Want to try ciders directly from fruit

Developments/Field Trips:
Took trip to HBWC 11/22, additional equipment purchased: bottling bucket with spigot, tubing, malt extract, grains, hops, yeast for witbier/red ale (APA)/blond ale (Kolsch), more stick-on fermometers, hydrometer and sampling tube, racking cone, capper, caps, 20qt wort kettle, funnel, stirring spoons, more champange yeast
Joined the Maltose Falcons 11/22
planning on attending their Home Brew 101 class
planning on attending their next Club meeting
signed up for beer crew for their next Shop Brew day (Russian Imperial Stout)
Got strainers and big bucket to serve as ice bath at Smart&Final 11/23
Got many demijohns and miscellaneous stuff from Trevor 11/24

Batches in progress (last updated 11/25):

Cranberry Wine
2 cans of cranberry sauce, some table sugar (Emily added), heated until dissolved, cooled in ice bath to ~90F, OG was 1.1 at 65F, strained into 1.5gal (2gal?) demijohn, topped off with grape juice, champagne yeast added, blow off tube inserted (no real need), bubbling furiously within an hour (11/24 10pm)
Will probably swap blow off tube for airlock shortly

Quick Apple Cider #2
1gal Treetop apple juice plus "2 squeezes" of honey + 1/2 packet champagne yeast - fermentation started 11/22 8:47pm
Fermentation going strong

Grand Cru Witbier
Brewed 11/23
Notes: didn't chill extra water added to fermentor, don't have quick way of cooling wort, took hours to get down to 75F, gravity a little low (used temp adjustment of 0.03g/cc per 10F) at ~1.045 vs. 1.056-1.060 per recipe, wort tastes like sweet tea, not sure of consequence of wort taking so long to chill before adding yeast.
11/25 7am, bubbling at ~20 bubbles/min, hooray! Possible slow start?
Planning on bottling in 14 days 12/7

Beach Blanket Blond Ale (Kolsch)
Have kit, need to pick brew day, need to speed up time between end of boil and yeast addition
Might inspire us to think about fridge for lagers
Will be informed by Porter and Witbier

Raucous Red Ale
Have kit, need to pick brew day, need to speed up time between end of boil and yeast addition
Will be informed by Porter and Witbier

Post-bottling Brews (updated 11/25):
Quick Apple Cider
1gal glass jug of Martinelli cider from Von's
1/2 packet champagne yeast from Mr. Sud's
Fermented in original jug with stopper and airlock for 7 days (11/15-11/22)
Sampled some - tasted mildly yeasty and like Hornsby's otherwise, but not metallic 11/22
Bottled into 650mL capped bottle and 750mL Duvel corked bottle 11/22
Planning on sampling this weekend 11/29

London Porter
Pre-hopped Malt Extract from Mr. Sud's with included ale yeast packet
Boiled water and set to cool overnight in sanitized plastic fermentor 11/14
Boiled malt extract syrup and 500mL of Black Strap molasses for 15min 11/15
Cooled wort in ice filled sink for 30min
Added to fermentor, closed with airlock 11/15
Temperature most likely >80F from 11/15-11/17 (water not cold enough and fermentor in front of refrigerator exhaust)
Bubbling occuring, krausen visible 11/16
Fermentor moved to foyer 11/17
Bubbling continuing at a slow rate 11/18-11/20
Gravity was ~1.010, alcohol ~4% according to hydrometer (dark beer and >60C temperature probably means it was higher). We primed with brewer's sugar (3/4 cup into 16oz water into 5gal) and bottled into plastic jugs. 5gal is a lot of beer. 11/22
Tasted metallic (fermenting temp too high, wort temp too high), molasses (unfermentable fractions), dry (not enough fermentable fraction due to excess molasses), not too watery (residual molasses and it being a porter) 11/22
Planning on bringing some with for Thanksgiving and tasting (not optimistic about end result of this first batch, but am optimistic about future batches after getting plugged in at the HBWC and reading more Papazian) ~11/29
11/25pm Sampled 1L (2d after bottling). Some carbonation occurred - not sufficient yet. Tastes like beer, don't get me wrong. However, it is seriously underhopped, too metallic, low in alcohol, and somewhat "soapy" presumably from unfermented molasses dextrins. Sure was fun to drink and I drank just enough to confirm it had alcohol in it.

Other foods planned (>12/6): sourdough bread, soy yoghurt, saurkraut, saurruben

fermentation updates

Cider off-gas smells like cider, is turbid, and continues to bubble small bubbles rapidly. Beer off-gas smells a little like beer initially, but mostly like the molasses we used as the sugar source (in lieu of the dextrose that the malt extract container recommended - we didn't weigh it precisely, but we're going to let it ferment 3 weeks anyway. That is a question I have: if I know there is unfermented residual sugar in the beer, can I add bottle it and allow it to continue to ferment in the bottle? Or do I need to add fresh sugar or yeast anyway? Or do I need to definitely let the primary fermentation run its course? Questions to bug Joe with for sure). There is a 1" layer of krausen (kreuzen?) on the surface of the wort (is the diluted wort still wort?). At this point we need to gather supplies for bottling day. We are planning on bottling the beer (racking in bottles for secondary fermentation) on 12/6 and then putting it in a cooler 12/20ish for xmas distribution and consumption. The cider we'll probably drink flat over Thanksgiving. Emily has been tasked with ordering tempeh starter and kombucha mother. I want to make saurkraut and saurruben in phase II, tempeh and kombucha in phase III, mead in phase IV (we don't have a problem with honey), and more and better beer (with actual hops) in phase V.

Beer is in the fermentor

We have our first batches of homebrew "quick cider" and "London Porter" fermenting (using malt extract, hopefully it was pre-hopped - containter said just add dextrose and water). Cider should be done by thanksgiving, but the Porter is going to take an extra week to ferment and then there's bottling which we've never done before. The airlocks are a-bubbling the yeast is doing something. The cider is bubbling like gangbusters.

If I can remember to swipe a paper easel from work I'm excited to lay out a flow chart of the magical conversion of staples and produce into fermented and sprouted live foodstuffs. Emily and I have some space cleared away from various crocks. It's easy to get good results working with a ringer mo-bio lab expert!

More equipment to get for transferring (racking) and bottling. Maybe at Mr. Suds or online or at a restaurant or lab supply store. Time to ask Joe his favorite online retailer.

Off and running with the home brewing

We found a home brew store within walking distance and drove there. Since we're a "put up or shut up" kind of couple, we bought the kit, an extra airlock, some extra yeast, a cannister of malted barley for London Porter, and Papazian's book. Emily has a bottler at work (and the capacity to culture and isolate strains of yeast...). We then went to the grocery store and bought apple juice.

After an epic workout where I banged my ankle bone hard against a climbing hold and did many rope strand pull ups (making a mental note to bring my rock rings into the gym), we lugged all the new brewgear into the kitchen.

What we've done so far is start a batch of quick cider using my friend Joe's method (champagne yeast, apple juice, airlock, time). Emily is off buying cheesecloth to do a second batch of quick cider (apple juice, cheesecloth, time...then airlock and more time - recipe from the book, "Wild Fermentation").

If we can find some dextrose and decipher the instructions, we might have home brew date night tonight. Maybe we'll try using molasses instead. It would be great to have our first batches of cider and brew ready to take with us for Thanksgiving.

After we take cider and beer through the process once or twice don't be surprised to see Process Flow Diagrams of Grains/Water/Sugar source/Legumes/Yeast into cider/beer/tempeh/sprouts/seitan/etc. We're aiming for a whole DIY value added food conversion thing there.

Zen Bakery makes delicious food

Zen Bakery - The Original Quest



Em brought home a bag of these around 8pm last night. As of 10am this morning they are all gone. High quality carbs after my autoasskicking in the gym the last couple days.

home brew research has begun

Emily and I are exploring the feasibility of some home brewing. She is interested in quick cider and I am interested in lambics. We have some background in the unit operations that go into home brewing, but haven't done so before (although we've thought hard about it). Our ethic is to go as primitive as possible, relying on wild fermentation as much as we can, and using local grains and produce. We want to malt our own barley. We want to value add, vitamin enrich, and preserve quality staples by harnessing the power of the natural progression of microorganisms.

I'll be posting our progress when we have some. Until then, we're in google and speed read mode.

Pinnacles Climbing Weekend

We drove up Friday after work to meet Bill at the Pinnacles National Monument Campground. It was the perfect time of year to be in that area. This was Bill's 3rd time climbing outside and his 1st trip to Pinnacles. It was our 2nd trip to Pinnacles. We climbed "Portent" a couple Octobers prior.

We had a great time camping and climbing. Even rain Saturday night couldn't stop us. Bill's contribution of Maredsous Dubbel to the beerpile was pecan pie delicious. We (Emily) contributed a sixer of New Belgium 1554 - a unique black ale treat, and Prosecco sparkling wine for post-climb toasting.

Bill brought his fancy camera along and got some great pics. They are in his gallery.
Quick rundown of the climbs:
Saturday -
Thrill Hammer - Started at Tourist Trap. 5.8+, not sure about the + part, one more 5.8 face climb to set up anchors for Bill's first rappel. He was game to try anything this trip. He climbed well and didn't freak out no matter how convoluted my instructions.
Nipple Jam - started up a 5.5 crack and skipped that whole protection thing since I didn't have a big cam (don't tell my wife), then I picked whatever seemed fun. My reward at the top? Dirt. Bill's first multi-pitch. Just wait til we do some real ones together in Red Rocks.
Steve's Folly - crazy fun moss chimney, followed by a 5.7 roof move to more dirt and a tree. Convoluted walk off that we could have skipped by rappelling in hindsight.
Monolith, Regular Route - 5.8 with a hard start, then a traverse and then a run out 5.6 water chute (don't tell my wife)
Cleft - 5.6 chimney on Discovery Wall in between the sport climbs
Rat Race - back on Tourist trap. 5.7 roof made me think...especially without a big enough cam (don't tell my wife)
Sunday -
First Sister - climbed a couple of the first pitch variations in the rain, did the no pro 5.4 pitch to the anchors (don't tell my wife), rain subsided and we finished the central route to the top
Side Saddle - on the "X", another traversing climb, very fun. We perfected the art of the short tie-in, 3 person team.
Coyote Ugly - Classic 5.9 face straight up the "X". Can't see it and not want to climb it. Lots of lookie-lus.

Brewskys Beer Roll Call

"Hydration Therapy" with coworkers was a blast last night. As the only chemical engineer, it fell to me to do the full geek out and compile the beeradvocate rankings for JJ Brewskys updated beer list. A pared down version of the spreadsheet is available here.

I wasn't planning on it, but since they had it on draft, I gave Hemp Ale a try. A solid tasting ale - a good warm up for the Belgian styles I would try after. After that, it was time to put up or shut up so I mispronounced and tripped all over my words ordering the St. Bernardus Abt 12. It's definitely in a different class than the marketing-friendly macromicrobrews on tap. It took me awhile to sip-finish it what with it being 10% abv and all. By that point the rugby player and the Europeans had broken into song. Apparently, I wasn't keeping up with them so I ordered the Stone Cali-Belgique to close the night. I enjoyed this "Belgian version" of the Stone IPA much more than the standard Stone IPA. Something about the choice of hops makes it more my taste.

A fun evening and a good turn out.

Vegan Beer

Additional Vegan Beer and other drinks links:
Vegan Beer
Veggie Wines
Vegan Wine Guide

Vegan Beer - Vegan Wine - Vegan Liquor

Vegan Beer - Vegan Wine - Vegan Liquor

Barnivore came up pretty quickly googling on this topic. After watching an episode of Michael Jackson's "Beer Hunter" on real ales, I think it's time to get serious about making sure my libations are cruelty free. And I don't mind my choices becoming more specialized or niche - I'll just be even more of a conneisseur (snob).

Dig the company email Barnivore received from Chimay. Whew!

Irish Whiskey Shark Attack Date Night

Emily and I had a fun spontaneous date night last night. It's been rainy so it's had us in a late 90s Seattle mood. We took a neighborhood walk to run some errands. I found a decent pocket beer guide at the used bookstore. We went to Dargan's to put the guide to use. Dargan's doesn't have a big selection of beer. They have the typical big three: Harp, Bass, Guiness with other inoffensive choices like Stella and ciders. I had a Harp and it was light, refreshing...and boring. Since my beer guide wasn't going to be much use we started ruminating on what type and subtype of liquor would use a cider chaser (Emily was sipping a Strongbow cider). We thought maybe a more mineral, non-peaty, non-smokey whiskey. We don't know from whiskey so we pestered the bartender. He retrieved an unopened bottle from a secret location on the top shelf. There followed some friendly excoriating to have it neat. So we sipped some Redbreast Pure Pot Still Whiskey and compared it to the standard Jamesons (found out later they're made at the same distillery). Redbreast tasted of maple and walnut with no peat, very smooth. The Jamesons was basically a less smooth, less flavorful version. We walked home and power googled our way to Irish Whiskey purchasing competence. Somehow it came up that Emily hadn't seen "Jaws", so that was set to download. We picked up Bushmill's, Power, and Tullamore Dew. We'll have to wait for a special occasion to try the more expensive Macallan, etc. We took little sips of each and watched out for sharks. Tullamore Dew was smooth and mild and Em's "most favorite", Power seemed like a good bargain approximation of the pure pot still taste of Redbreast, and Bushmill's was the least smooth, but had a classic whiskey taste. We'll have to research further how to properly taste and evaluate. And because of our moderation and the excellent snack dinner plate Em made, we're up and heading to the gym early this Sunday...we got rained out of climbing.

John’s Background Switcher

John’s Background Switcher - John’s Adventures

Allows for autoswitching of desktop background image from multiple Flickr users and other sources. It's a pretty cool way to rotate climbing trip pictures automatically. I'm still looking for a functional Flickr screensaver.

Supplements

Random log of supplements I took this morning:

Aspirin, 2 tablets 500mg?
DMAE, 1 tablet, 150mg?
Yohimbe, 2 tablets, 200mg?
Solgar multivitamin/mineral
Taurine, 1000mg
DHA pill
Glutamine, ~5000mg
Creatine, ~5000mg

Later today, I'll probably have an emergenC packet, additional glutamine/creatine, and some BCAAs.

Valley Weekend

Quick note on a spontaneous last minute trip to Yosemite Valley over the weekend. My plans fell through so I shot out a very vague, vary open-ended S.O.S. to rockclimbing.com. A guy named Nate had the social chutzpah to give me a call and invite me up to the Valley if I could hack the drive. It was a long drive, but it was time to dissipate the cognitive dissonance between my self-identity as a climber and my lack of climbing in Yosemite (had driven through once, have climbed in Tuolumne a few times, but never the Valley proper - was intimidated by the crowds and logistics). Nate was a great easy going host and we did some "easy" (although no freebies in the Valley) climbs and played it cool. A good plan with a new partner. Kudos to Nate for calling even after iffy stranger climbing partner experiences previously that week. We climbed the Grack, Sunnyside Bench Regular Route, and a couple short routes on Swan Slab. All the most popular places, but NOBODY else was climbing!

A few pics are up on Flickr.

Westvleteren Belgian Beers on eBay

6 Westvleteren Belgian Beers - Free Shipping - eBay (item 250308619250 end time Oct-20-08 21:46:21 PDT)



I've bought $20 bottles of wine before, so $19.83 per bottle for the best beer in the world should be so shocking...Anybody want chip in on this grey market extravaganza? Niet verder verkopen! I'm looking at you, Joe.

The first rule about Westvleteren is you don't resell Westvleteren...

Vertical Epic on the other hand is completely kosher. The 08.08.08 is only $10.95 at JJ Brewsky's.



In other news, I had a good time with Mike, Trevor, and Jerry drinking last night. I had the Super 7 which was good and strong, but a little flat as were all of JJ Brewsky's beers - "the CO2 is fine they said", well the cask ale I had wasn't flat...In addition to those, I had a Firestone Oaktoberfest which tasted a lot like their Double Barrel Ale to me, and the Firestone Union Jack IPA. Trevor and Jerry had dueling Union Jack/Guinness. Jerry even had them add a little Guiness to the Union Jack. Mike had Guiness and something else - can't remember...now I'm sick (voice is disappearing) and a little hungover, but it was a joyful evening. Emily picked me up, very sweet!

Beers at JJ Brewsky's

Here is a synthesis of ratings and reviews mostly from beeradvocate with some personal notes on most of the interesting beers available at JJ Brewsky's in Camarillo, CA.

Mycroft Project: Beeradvocate.com Search Engine Plugins - Firefox & IE7

Mycroft Project: Beeradvocate.com Search Engine Plugins - Firefox & IE7

I tested the first one. This adds a firefox search engine plugin for www.beeradvocate.com. It came in handy for grabbing ratings for the beers at JJ Brewsky's. If I knew perl I could be even cooler and auto-scrape ratings and create my own plugin. My geek will is only so strong though.

Viking beer tasting

Data dump post on beers I had recently with star rankings for input into the Facebook ratebeer app eventually:

Had in Leavenworth on tap at dive bar
Mac and Jack's African Amber Ale **, mediocre taste, didn't realize it was a microbrew
Manny's Pale Ale **, tasted thin and watery

Had at Joe's house (thanks Joe!)
050505 Stone Vertical Epic *****, pure artistry, thick, balanced, most impressive ale of the trip, a beer for wine connoisseurs

Had these next ones as a choose your own sampler at the Viking Tavern in Spokane (much good beer there and smart servers). It was great to hang out with old friend Joe and for him to know about a place like the Viking. The internet jukebox was auto-selecting some spookily demographic-appropriate songs for us (including a track off a Mark Lanegan solo album). I guess when Nissan is using Modest Mouse you've got to start watching your yuppie back for bullseyes. Anywhoo...the beers:
Dead guy ale, ***, not my personal taste, refreshing
Stone IPA, ***, not my personal taste, but Stone makes really interesting beer, tart/citrus
Belhaven scottish ale, ****, getting closer to my preferred beer taste, fun to drink
Boundary Bay Scotch, *****, bingo! this is what i like beer to taste like, nitrogen used? only beer with a head on it of the evening, creamy and malty
9lb porter, **, watery - not surprised to find out later it's made by same people who brew Manny's
Vanilla bourbon stout, *, vanilla was overpowering and tasted artificial, disconnect between nose/first taste/mid/after taste

(I followed with a pint of Boundary Bay - must explore their brews further)

After that we coordinated with the "older" crowd (George, Bill, Jason, and company) at the Catacombs Pub. Twice the price for the same beer! But they were open and had a nice nook for all of us to be loud in.
Spaten Optimator, ****, old school delicious, have tasted before

Castle Rock Climbing

George and I got back from a 15mi 3 day excursion into the Wenaha-Tucannon wilderness on Monday. We weren't up for iffy weather and 10h more of driving. The hiking was fun and that area is pretty...pretty cold, wet, and miserable. We drove down from Spokane on Saturday, car-camped Saturday night, hiked 11mi up to the Lookout on Oregon Butte and then down to a horse-dominated campsite, then hiked the 4 mi in a loop back the car.

On Tuesday morning we busted out of a crap shoot of a poker tourney at Northern Quest casino, looked at the weather and figured we had a one day window to climb on Wednesday. So we packed up and drove out to Leavenworth Tuesday afternoon. That town is a surreal tourist experience, especially on a rainy/snowy weekday evening. We did the approach hike to Castle Rock Tues night as recon just as the rain in Tumwater Canyon was starting. That didn't bode well.

Back in town, there was a surprising dearth of fancy beer. The black bean ravioli at the Italian restaurant was a surprising vegetarian option amongst the *wurst shops. We checked out the Leavenworth equivalent of a dive bar. I had a glass of Mac & Jack's African Amber Ale and Manny's Pale Ale - both mediocre and not the fancy beer I was going for. George got huge servings of house whiskey for cheap.

The next morning we returned to Castle Rock and found 4 vehicles in the parking area, doh! Luckily, they were a group of guides doing a training session on "Canary". They'd be near us, but not totally in our way (although we did share anchors). We did some ground school on Logger's Ledge since this was George's first time ever climbing outside. We worked on lead belaying, gear placement and retrieval, belay transitions, etc. The weather had cleared up and the rock was dry (enough). We climbed "Saber" in 4 pitches. The 1st was super short, 2nd and 3rd were medium length, and the 4th was a scramble to the top. George did a great job not freaking out or falling, and had no issues cleaning the gear. With ground school and taking our sweet time on "Saber" that was all we felt like climbing. We grabbed lunch at the Rennaissance Cafe (God Food = tahini linguini = good food). I had an Oktoberfest beer - the first "real" beer in Leavenworth. After a failed search for a Lederhosen costume for George (that Bavarian Clothing Company is serious), we drove back to Spokane. There should be some summit pictures eventually.

ABB Extreme Speed Stack

Extreme Speed Stack



This stuff is amazing! It made me run 10k on the treadmill when I was only planning a couple. I had to force myself to leave the gym Vegas style - very intense neurotransmitter stuff going on (Slayer on the mp3 player contributed). What's a workout if you don't scare the people around you? A++ Will slam again! (after I go through ingredient list via wikipedia)

This drink contains a compound thought to increase vigilance, alertness, and quail lifespans. Holy manic in a bottle Batman!

Ballot Propositions

Starting from the recommendations from the GPCA on ballot propositions and filling in gaps on those props with no position stated and adjusting bond measures based on personal flavor:

Prop. 1A: High Speed Rail Bond: No

Would contribute to sprawl and current route kills Bambi

Prop. 2: Treatment of Farm Animals: Yes

Possible downside is that it would increase egg and meat food costs…wait, that’s a downside?

Prop. 3: $2 Billion Children's Hospital Bond: No

Bonds are an abuse of the initiative process.

Prop. 4: Parental Notification for Under-18 Abortions: No

Repeat initiative is an abuse of the process. Adds barriers to health care access regressively. Public health is better served by voting no.

Prop. 5: Nonviolent Offenders Sentencing and Rehabilitation: Yes

Favors treatment and minimizing jail time for nonviolent small time drug offenses

Prop. 6: Anti-Gang Penalties (Runner initiative): No

Wow, crazy read about Runner and his patron. This initiative is an abuse of the process and racist.

Prop. 7: Renewable Energy Requirements for Utilities: No

Corporate gaming.

Prop. 8: Same-Sex Marriage Ban: No

End run around the state Constitution.

Prop. 9: Victims' Rights, Reduction of Parole Hearings: No

All these scary sneaking of amendments to the Constitution with large % votes to change later

Prop. 10: Alternative Fuel Vehicles & Renewable Energy Bond: No

Natural gas isn’t alternative T. Boone. The legislature should be doing this.

Prop. 11: Redistricting: No

All these effing constitutional amendments.

Prop. 12: Veterans' Bond: No

Bonds are an abuse of the initiative process. The Home with a capital H fetish scares me too.

I don’t have a sample ballot showing who is running Green in my districts, but I did just become a supporter of Cynthia McKinney on Facebook.

Mind Mapping

Exploring two interesting tools for mind mapping: Freemind and CmapTools. Using them for brainstorming, to do list making/managing, and getting familiar with the software for eventual/potential process flow type charts. I ran into a thing with Freemind where I can't make a child node connect to two parent nodes (so that in a to do list, it would be dependent on two things getting done before proceeding). I'm having trouble printing with Freemind as well. Just getting started with Cmap.

The makers of CmapTools has interesting research going on, although I'm less and less a transhumanist. People's sense of technology seems dominated by metal and circuits. For human improvement and advancement, I favor more dietary, preventative type "biochemical extropianism" is the way to go while cryonics/cybernetics/MEMS sounds like a big messy hassle. I advocate going vegan and living right - not down with the immortality focus (feels like decision dodging). I can get behind properly studied nootropics. My thoughts are colored by having just read the ubermensch wikipedia page.

Crunch Crunch Pear

My brother and his friend Yujia populated our fridge with goodies from an Asian market over Labor Day. We are still finding treasures like this pear drink. It's pretty sweet and the crushed pear texture is interesting - not quite chewy.

Firestone Union Jack

Firestone Walker Brewing Company - Our Pale Ales

Since I know that the people who peruse my blog/facebook account just love my beer notes...I had some of this at the unsanctioned company happy hour this evening. It just solidified Firestone as my favorite pseudo-local brewery. I am happy to have discovered their other flavors. Unfortunately, the restaurant was out of their "Opal" flavor. I am having a bottle of Pale 31 at home now though.

Cheers,
Sam

Laughstock 2008

Spot your friends on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Me and my brother plainly visible at Laughstock 2008.

Labor Day Visit

Alex and his friend Yujia visited this weekend from San Diego. They arrived late on Friday so we were up even later chatting and trying the baijio (sorghum whiskey) they brought. Saturday morning we went for brunch at Chamomile Cafe in Carpinteria followed by boogie and skim boarding attempts on the local beach. I had one good wipe out skim boarding that after another hour in the ocean was bleeding pretty impressively. Ocean water is hygenic, right? After that we came back to the apartment, had some champagne and, and caught a showing of Wall-E at the cheap theater. Sunday we went kayaking in the Channel Islands Harbor getting pretty far out into the open ocean (for us rookies - only my 2nd time renting a kayak). We saw a couple sea lions and got WBS (wet butt syndrome). After some bagel sandwiches at home, we walked to Weaver Wines for a wine tasting flight. Alex went back later to buy a bottle of the Shiraz he liked. I made a mental note to look up Pendleton Winery later (expensive). Then we watched an epic 4.5h comedy improv "contest" - the culmination of the Ventura Improv Company's Labor Day Laughfest. It was a lot of fun and great value (and no involuntary audience participiation). Monday, Emily made a mexi-breakfast and we made mimosas. After Alex and Yujia left, Em and I both fell asleep for a few hours and now here we are with a pleasant Labor Day afternoon and evening to catch up on blogging.

Alex sent me some pics he took while we were kayaking.

No Man's Land 2006 Red Wine

No Man's Land Wine by Damianitza
Another stop in the Trader Joe's global tour of wines (previous stop was Hungary). This wine is listed as from the Thracian Valley region of Bulgaria. It is much better than the Hungarian wine - smoother, more complex, a good blend. The previous one made my stomach hurt. Like the description says, it's "universal" and was paired with soy chicken nuggets+spinach as well as saurkraut+tofu. Yeah, that's what we eat around here - got a problem with that? I'm surprised Emily didn't claim this bottle for tofu marinading.

Mendocino Brewing Company - Red Tail Ale

Mendocino Brewing Company - Red Tail Ale

Now this is a delicious beer. After some stinker knock offs, this tastes authentic. The trick is bottle conditioning apparently. Slightly reddish color. It's a mouth-swisher!

Here's the beer advocate link too: B+!

eee PC progress 082608

Looks to be in a stable state. No OS reinstalls tonight. Might be time to order the touchscreen?

-reinstalled XP from eee_XP_mini iso
FAT32 formatting used to help with piggypacked tiny Linux installs later
footprint on disk 2.37GB still seems large(temp files? virtual memory? restore points?)
potential exists for further XP tweaking, minimizing

-reinstalled drivers from included Asus DVD
touchpad and RTHDCPL.exe audio component didn't install from Asus driver DVD correctly
(files missing, presumably removed for mini install)

-reinstalled asus drivers from DriversBackupeeepc.exe file (from torrent)
touchpad working same as before (single click bar)
will download and install KB888111 to try and get Realtek audio working

-checked for WPA patch for windows/atheros
topic covered here
hotfix found here

-installed portable apps on SDHC

-checked video playback
youtube worked after installing flash extension
netflix watch it now - didn't work through portable firefox - no old Miami Vice epis for me :(

Egri Bikaver - "Ancient" Hungarian Dry Red Wine

Egri Bikaver - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Corkd Review



Got a bottle of this for like $3.99 at Trader Joe's. That's like 100% more expensive than Charles Shaw. It smells of plum, fruit, smoke, alcohol. It tastes like the Corkd review says - dry, fruity, simple. The dry table red tastes makes it taste like "mom" wine. Well, at least like wine my mom would drink in sip-memories of youth (not intending to give the impression my mom gave me wine as a kid). My mom's wine palate has expanded since then (it was Nebraska - hard to be a connoisseur there).

eee PC progress 082508

8/25
-Bought IDE to USB connector fro $20 at Fry's. Set jumper to Master.
-Burned some XP ISOs on Desktop using Nero Express. Booted off external DVD drive.
-Ran Setup (eeeXP). Formatted entire internal SSD as an NTFS partition. Followed Setup. -Booted to XP. Loaded some drivers. Wifi wouldn't connect, mouse a little wonky (less wonky than before).
-Loaded drivers from ASUS driver DVD.
-Downloaded most recent drivers from ASUS website. Rebooted many times.
-Installed Atheros client without uninstalling existing drivers.
-Turned off WPA (retained MAC restriction) and got wifi working.
-Updated BIOS to 0910 (03/03/08, got scary CMOS default values error, but it loaded when I selected F2, lots of new found hardware popped up on next reboot, possibly unrelated).
-Downloaded and Installed firefox on internal SSD. Downloaded and Installed FullTilt on SDHC.
-Played a $2 6 person sit n' go tourney. Forgot it was 6 person for awhile. Remembered and...came in 2nd for a cool $1.95 profit.
-Only have about 900MB of storage internally. Probably should've installed the smaller eeeXP ISO.
-Not sure if USB2.0 is recognized.

to do list:
screen resolution increase/management?
overclock (via setFSB app)?
order/install touchscreen
investigate miniPCIe port expansion

Brouczech Pilsner

Brouczech



Each of my two sampled bottles essentially geysered upon uncapping. I liked Zatec better. More knockoff cheapo imports (this time from Trader Joe's). That isn't to say they didn't match well with Em's vegan pizza. None of that left, that's for sure. Wheaty was the word that came to mind on sampling this "pils". I mixed and match some of their lager for comparison later.

Orleans Hill Winery - Well Red Organic

WELL REaD

Smooth and mellow - no bite, very pleasant. Medium full bodied. Price was right for an organic table wine.

eee PC progress

current state:
pupeee liveCD burned and functioning
pupeee flash USB installed and functioning
pupeee 3.01 installed onto internal SSD (3.2GB ext2 hdc1, 550MB linux-swap - required wiping and repartitioning to get GRUB to work - due to residue of ebay seller's previous installs?)
-recognizes 2GB RAM
-recognizes 550MB swapfile as virtual memory
-finds home wifi (WPA - required a bugfix)
-left-click on touchpad clicker bar isn't recognized (right-click works, touchpad tap works)
-default browser is Seamonkey
-minimal other programs installed (distro is only 65MB!)

to do list:
enable left-click on touchpad bar, if possible
increase resolution of screen, if possible (800x600?)
overclock (via linux kernel or bios update)
install firefox and addons
install/evaluate wine, crossover office
evaluate eeeBuntu, Mandreeeva
install nlite XP to SDHC card
adjust swap partition (eliminate, implement swap file)
order/install touchscreen
investigate miniPCIe port expansion

ultimate goal:
minimal linux distro
minimal swap file
fast surfing
smooth emulation of a handful of specific windows programs

Extreme Thermo Rush

Extreme Thermo Rush















I'm still twitching from drinking this before/during a quick workout today. Overkill for the elliptical, but it can't hurt to ride the snake installing pupeee linux on the eeePC. I'm a power user!

Dual XHD6425 Car Receiver

FRYS.com Dual XHD6425
USB front input, built-in HD tuner....and only $69.99 after mail-in rebate!



Speak now or forever hold your peace - I'm about to order and schedule the install...

eee PC made it

The eee PC laptop I ordered arrived 30min ago. It's a 4G Surf model meaning no webcam, soldered 4GB SSD, underclocked 800MHz Celeron ULV processor. It came with 2GB ram vs. the 512MB standard. It also came with an extra 5200mAh battery (vs. 4400 standard). I got it for $238 including shipping and insurance.

After one spooky touchpad issue (fixed by tilting the laptop!) and one bonehead wifi router setting fix, I am up and typing on it right now. First impressions - keyboard is small, but I'm getting faster on it, Xandro OS is going to disappear soon (it can't read the full 2GB of memory), this thing is really light and small. Going to run some errands and then return to update the software. Guess I should cancel my paypal claim against the seller now...he dragged his feet a bit.

Sierra Nevada Shandy Palmer

Emily ran to Circle K last night and came back with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and a giant can or Arizona Iced Tea. Mixed 50/50 it tasted pretty good. Mixed at a lower beer ratio, the sweetened tea made it cloying. She christened it the "Shandy Palmer".

training goals out of focus

Some things have combined recently to shake my training routine and motives for climbing.

Realities of recent climbing experiences:
* The drive to the High Sierra is long, expensive, boring
* Going from sea level to >12k in one day has been iffy
* Fingers, toes, etc. are getting tweaked and not bouncing back before getting pummeled again
* Tuolumne is crowded; campsites are noisy, crowded, overpriced;permits are a hassle
* Finding trips or climbs that work for Emily and me is tricking
* The consequence to missing a day or being too fatigued (mentally or physically) is significant
* Local crags are lame for the most part
* Climbing gym feels like a hassle (distance, partner issues, hours)
* Carpooling and the coordination thereof sucks my will to live
* Logistics and pre-trip planning is awkward and frustrating
* It's difficult to grab more than a couple days in a row (and there can be a lack of understanding when interfacing with people who have that option)

Ping pong has been fun so I've been going with that while letting the running and climbing slide. But it's time to reformulate since I'm not getting mentally recharged without the climbing and the carrot of a cool route in mind. The missing intensity is manifesting as lack of momentum day to day. Off to brainstorm.

Quantitative Wine Purchasing Methodology

Buy the one with:

a) Minimum price (e.g., $5 - whoa there big spender)
b) Biggest % Von's Club discount (or equivalent)

Examples:
Echelon 2003 Shiraz - $11.99 marked down to $5.99 (50% of original)
Firefly Ridge 2005 Central Coast Syrah - $12.99 down to $6.99 (54% of original)

Haven't tasted these yet, but I pause, concerned that my previously bulletproof methodology has purchased me two stinkers. I will consider this an opportunity to expand my pain threshold for future mechanical investing pursuits. I have the sneaking suspicion that our free will consists at most of some small sliver of leverage over our choice of methodology of goal determination.





Methodology methodology methodology

BoE MPG Calcs

Random calculations prompted by Consumer Reports list of most fuel efficient cars for <$10k:

Assumptions:
Used car with 150k mi on it can probably give 100k mi more.
Effective gas cost is ~$5/gal
Neglecting differences in insurance and maintenance costs
Neglecting trade in or sunk costs
Cost of 2000 Insight: $8000
Miles per year: 20000mi

Comparing Baja type mileage (~20mpg) to 2000 Insight type mileage (~50mpg):
Savings per mile: $0.15
Distance to breakeven: 53333mi
"Free Miles": 46667
Time to breakeven: 2.67y

Comparing Honda type mileage (~30mpg) to 2000 Insight type mileage (~50mpg):
Savings per mile: $0.067
Distance to breakeven: 120000mi
"Free Miles": -20000mi
Time to breakeven: 6y

Upper end scenario - 60mpg vs. 20mpg:
Savings per mile: $0.167
Distance to breakeven: 48000mi
"Free Miles": 52000mi
Time to breakeven: 2.4y

netbook comparison

I'm currently bidding on this item on ebay. Specs and info here.

Anybody familiar with these devices or have any thoughts? I like the atom processor and specs of the 901 model, but the price point of the ebay-able 701 is compelling.

We're wanting a "road trip" "netbook" device for on the fly internet check and storage of climbing topos, etc. Things we're likely to want to check for on road trips are: veggie friendly restaurants, directions, movie times, movie trivia, climbing conditions, climbing techniques, home and work email. The eee PC looks like a slick product, but I'm not tied to it if somebody has a better recommendation (Acer Aspire One?).

Spec comparison here. Short story as I interpret it is:
701 - affordable, upgradeable, decent battery, slower CPU, smaller screen
901 - battery rocks, CPU and screen excellent, SSD large
Aspire one - price point vs. 901, weak battery, less memory

(Basically, product planners adjust price point via battery. Since I plan to have it plugged into the car or the wall, I'll have to discount that).

30th birthday celebration on Palisade Glacier

Guest Trip Reporter, Emily!
(Pictures on Flickr here)

This weekend we had an adventure in the Palisades. In preparation, we bought a satellite beacon. Not for us, of course, but in case we ran into some other injured climbers or hikers, since we were going to be so far out from the road.

Wednesday night we drove out to our reserved campsite at Upper Sage Flat, 7600'. Very pleasant place, with new picnic benches and large bear boxes. First thing in the morning we drove back down to town (Bishop, CA) to pick up our wilderness permit and have one last non-Jetboil cooked breakfast before heading out. We picked up the permit at the ranger station at 8am sharp, were admonished to follow all wilderness rules, and finished stuffing our packs in the parking lot. Then it was back up the winding road to Glacier Lodge and the Big Pine Creek trailhead. We parked in the Glacier Lodge pay lot to skip an extra half mile or so of hiking from the free lot (the 20 miles, 6300' elevation gain of our trip as planned sounded like plenty). We started up the North Fork trail, enjoying the promised big pines, babbling creek, and numerous switchbacks. We took our first break in a shady spot by the creek after our first 1000' or so of elevation gain. There's a really great little stone bench by the trail just as you enter the wilderness and exit a long stretch of shadeless uphill. It was already full with a family of backpackers, so we sat on a fallen tree a little further up the trail. Continuing on towards First Lake, we enjoyed the great views of Temple Crag* and Mt. Alice**. After another 1000' of elevation gain, we stopped for lunch by the trail. A dayhiker with a shoe issue came by. The sole had come plumb off one of her boots. We offered use of our climbing tape to patch her up enough to get to the lake. She made it up to the lake, and so did we.

If you've never seen a lake fed by glacial runoff, like First Lake and Third Lake, you might not believe a photograph of one to be accurate. I don't think I can give it a description that does it justice, so I'll just say if you ever get a chance to see one, do.

Our campsite for the night was at Sam Mack Meadows, in view of a lovely waterfall. As evening fell, we were joined by a very large swarm of mosquitoes. We killed a lot of them as they landed on us, but we were outnumbered and retreated to the tent for the night, with occasional forays out while wearing mosquito netting.

The next morning, we headed out with harnesses and gear to climb Mt. Sill. We still had 2000' of approach left before the climb, 1000' of hiking and 1000' of glacier travel and rock scrambling, but that seemed reasonable since the climb is ostensibly a Grade II. As we made our way to the glacier, we met a two climbers who had summited Sill the night before. They gave us really great beta, starting with the fact that it took them most of the day to climb Sill and get back down the glacier. We decided to move camp and go for summit the next day, though I was already feeling pretty beat and not totally sure I'd be up for summiting.

The campsites at Gayley Corner are excellent; beautiful views, very flat, built up rock windbreaks, just all round great places to set up camp. After moving camp from Sam Mack to one of these stellar spots, we chatted with the climbers we'd met previously, who gave us more excellent beta (even a topo!) and wished us luck on our summit bid the next day.

On summit day, we woke up at 4:30 to be fed and hiking out by 5:30. We scrambled up and over a talus-y slope to get to the base of the Palisade Glacier. The view of the Palisades from the base of the glacier is another one of those things I don't think I can do justice with words. It takes your breath away, and it deserves a less cliched description than 'takes your breath away'. Just see it. Worth the hike, I promise.

Early as it was, snow that would later in the day be soft and passable with sneakers was hard and icy. We wound our way up the glacier, doing our best to avoid the big patches of rocky ice and stay on the more passable snow. Lots of good crampon practice for us! The process was surprisingly exhausting, physically and emotionally. I'm not totally confident on steep hard snow yet, and that makes the climb more draining than it needs to be. In retrospect, I was feeling sketched about sections that were safe and easy. It's like growing accustomed to what you can do in rock shoes; footholds you wouldn't think were all that stable become as secure as flat ground. Crampon points sticking only a tiny bit into ice hold like, in Sam's words, magnetic boots. *shcoop* Anyway, we made it to the top of the glacier well within our schedule. Off with the crampons, and up to Glacier Notch*** with us. The route is supposed to be third class, but didn't feel like it at all to either of us. This was because, as it happens, we were not on the route, but we did not know that then. We're still building our mental image of what counts as third class and what counts as fourth class, and if the stuff we'd just climbed was third, I was super-sketched about the fourth class portion of the descent. The tricky thing about climbing is it can be much easier to get up than get down, but once you're up you gotta get down. We sat on the ridge, ate some food and and enjoyed the views of Sill and Gayley and the glacier below us. We decided not to go to the summit, we were both feeling pretty worked already. While eating, a trail stood out about 150' below where we'd come up to the ridge. When it was time to come down, I carried all the gear and Sam gave me a belay. The belay was unnecessary, as it turned out, since once we were on the actual third class route it felt like actual third class, which is to say not too tough. Then it was back down the now melty and soft glacier. The portions that had been ice were icy streams. We got back to camp in the early afternoon and proceeded to eat and chill and nap. Sam was coming down with a cough and fever and napped out hard first chance he got. While we relaxed, several groups of dayhikers came up to look at the glacier.

The next day, we packed up and hiked back down, passing quite a few climbers and backpackers. Everyone was friendly and happy. It was like we were all on vacation in one of the most beautiful spots on earth or something!


*which we would like to climb one of these days
**which looked like a total chosspile
***the low point of the ridge between Sill and Gayley

Post-trip BevMo Rewards

Laundry list of what we got at BevMo on our drive back from our first trip to the Palisade Glacier in the Sierra Nevada. An authentic trip report and pics will follow, I swear.

Bacardi Anejo Rum
Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock beer
Tanqueray Rangpur gin
Strongbow Dry Cider
Baltika "2" Lager
Baltika "4" Dark Lager
Baltika "8" Wheat Ale

Can you guess which were Em's selections and which were mine?

Cheers,
Sam

Flickr pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13208891@N03/sets/72157606275730100/

Emily had had her eye on this climb for a year. It looks big from the road. It was our first time "simul-climbing" together. Emily did some great leading and there are some good shots.

The climb took about half the guidebook time, but the descent was awful and to be honest, scary (wet mossy death slabs). The Meadow and campground were crowded. We discovered there is a veggie friendly grocery and restaurant within the park - didn't help promote a backcountry experience. We ran into nice international climbers and made friends. We had intentions of climbing Matthes Crest on Sat/Sun, but overwhelmed by the throngs and logistics we came home early and watched Batman instead.

Notes to influence future trips:
alpine style better, car-camping frustrating
drive 72mph not 85mph
drive home exit day should not be major climb day
careful of carpooling
no midday meet ups or hike outs
if easy alpine climb - rack cams on single biner not individual racking biners
eat bagels and get the carbs in
bear can requires bigger pack
tape up turf toe prophylactically and not too tight (and see an effin' "physio")
camping and climbing with international climbers was fun
ultralamina 15 sleeping bag worked great down to 35F (packed small, even foot temp overnight)

Organization Websites:
CMC
AAC
CMG

Beta Websites:
Summitpost
MountainProject

7/12,13: Magic Carpet Ride (aka Packing and Planning for Future Trips)
7/18,19,20: CMG Tuolumne
7/24,25,26,27: Private Trip, TBD, Palisades
8/1,2,3: Tentative CMC Rock Creek (Bishop) OR AAC Tuolumne
8/8,9,10: CMG Mt Thompson, Mt Gilbert
8/16,17: Company Party
8/23,24: OPEN
8/30,31,9/1: OPEN
9/6,7: OPEN
9/13,14: Available CMC Cathedral and Conness
9/19,20,21: Available CMC Big Bear Campout
9/27,28: OPEN
10/4,5: OPEN
10/11,12: Available CMC Joshua Tree
10/18,19: OPEN
10/25,26:OPEN
11/1,2: OPEN
11/8,9: Available CMC Joshua Tree
11/15,16: OPEN
11/22,23: OPEN
11/27,28,29,30 (Thanksgiving): OPEN
12/6,7: Available CMC Joshua Tree
12/13,14:OPEN
12/20,21: OPEN
12/24,25,26,27,28 (Xmas): OPEN
1/1,2,3,4 (New Years): OPEN

Matterhorn Peak

Emily and I joined in on a California Mountaineering Group outing this 3 day 4th of July weekend. It was a bit of a drive up to Bridgeport to the Twin Lakes trailhead for Matterhorn Peak. We met up with Bill at an airport shuttle parking lot in Palmdale with cheap multi-day parking on the way in. It was nice to carpool and get a chance to talk climbing logistics as opposed to driving logistics. We camped on the side of the road Thursday night and got to the trailhead a little earlier than the rest of the group. We managed to veer off the main trail about a mile early which made for some bushwacking, but allowed the other group members to catch up. After that we were a happy if soon to be tired group scampering over talus and dealing with approach routefinding. The alpine lake at 9800' was gorgeous and worth the hassle. It gave us a perfect view of Matterhorn Peak to chew on. We got to bed early seeing as we were driving until 1:30am and the hike took about 6h. The group got up at 4:30am with staggered starts of subgroups starting around 5am. I had some mental reticence and apprehension about our ability relative to other group members that eased steadily as we through each "phase-gate" of the climb. We had to climb up a snowfield then the glacier to the start of the rock portion. A couple group members (Bill and Mike) headed up the East Couloir to the peak. The start of the North Arete route was about a third of the way up the couloir. There were many parties of many skill levels. We were too lenient in accommodating other climbers climbing through. Very loose rock on the first few pitches led to some memorable blocks coming off. Emily and I reached the peak of our doubt at finishing the route about half way up the first pitch when we got stuck in traffic. The first two pitches were solo-able and scrambly. The 3rd pitch was 5.easy. The 4th pitch was cleaner rock and straightfoward 5.6. It seems that all parties opted for the (5.6 PG, imho) arete instead of the supposed 5.7 dihedral. Since Emily had been shouldering our climbing pack with boots, layers, and water that was heavy and awkward, and because the route was indeed called the North Arete, I joined in the arete fun. Most climbing duos ahead of us were stopping short of a 5.6 roof and doing a very short final pitch. I wouldn't have done this if I had had the option, but I can see how the roof moves after the no pro arete section could be intimidating. We had watched others have trouble with the roof while wearing packs. At this point esteemed guide Dave Miller zipped by over/under/over/under our ropes and grabbed the main anchor location at the top. No worries - I'm the king of multi-horn anchors. We had two pitches of 4th class from the top of the climb to the summit. It was a good example of where short-roping or simul-climbing with running belays would be possibly faster and safer than pitched climbing. It was a minor hassle on lead to have to protect easy, but exposed traversing for the second and avoid snags (and avoid other parties), plus I couldn't hear Emily 230 lateral feet away. The descent was 2nd class to a notch and then speed plunge stepping and/or attempts at glissading (both intentional and unintentional butt, as well as standing). We got back to camp at 6:30 making for about a 13.5h day. I felt pretty fresh except for some quad fatigue from standing glissade attempts (I do not have mad skills). Emily was fully tired, but victorious. Worst part of the climb was crumbly scree past the glacier to the base of the climb (and general loose rock). Best part of the climb was finding we had a fitness and skill buffer on the technical portion. We consider this to be our first full alpine experience.

We hiked out the next morning in about 3h. We had inklings of climbing somewhere down the 395, but "bailed off" due to hunger/fear of traffic/lack of guidebooks/fatigue/running out of red bulls.

Emily did most of the packing and selected great freeze dried food entrees and a very climb-specific customized climbing rack. We got by with me with a 65L and her with a 45L. Me mostly with camping gear. Her mostly with climbing gear. Things that could be optimized include: sleeping bag choice (warmth, packed volume, functionality), bear can (we brought one - it helped organize and gave peace of mind, but was quite bulky), half length single carabiner slings (useless on "real" alpine climbs), double length slings (very useful - get more and skinnier), racking (avoiding bulky cheapie biners on harness), water filter pump (used a lot - faster would've been better, re-eval steripen?), sleeping pad (Sam is considering cushier, inflatable due to sleep issues, but better sleeping bag could be the ticket), food (salted nuts a sure-win, less sweet, more savory, miso was delicious but seaweed overdose has side effects), feet (Sam gets heel hot spots on uphill, Em gets sole hot spots on down hill), camera (battery, water resistance), rope (60m, middle mark, even lighter than joker?), simul-climbing/short-roping over exposed terrain, route-finding (avoid groupthink, bring personal gps?)...

Pictures on Flickr here.

Goals

Taking a week to "unpack" - lowering training intensity, extensive stretching everyday, playing ping pong... Dealing with 2 overuse injuries (toe and finger) and 1 traumatic injury (ankle), all mild, all annoying. Signed up for a lot of trips with more to officially register for soon. Thinking about my climbing goals and how to formulate them. Em bought me the "How to Climb 5.12" book. I had been eyeing it for awhile.

Here's an attempt at a list of tangible goals with training/trips attached and possible timeframes:
1. Achieve an "enabling" level of crack climbing skill - Be able to climb variety of 5.9 cracks (fingers, hands, fists, ow, chimney) on gear. Lots of rock climbing outside this summer should help with this. Fear is the mind killer.
2. Achieve an enabling level of ice leading ability - Be able to lead the easier of the classic alpine ice climbs this summer/fall. Be self-sufficient on visits to ice crags this winter. Joining in on some group outings will help with my baseline ice climbing experience. Mock leads, accommodating partners, or guide hiring will help me towards leading. I have a hard time visualizing how I will get up to full vert ice leading ability before this winter, but if I can solipsistically baby step me and Em to easy neve and ice through then I will be satisfied. This is a source of antsiness for me since I don't feel self sufficient for even the basic outings. Getting out with the groups will help clarify.
3. Achieve a useful level of sport leading ability - Be able to lead 5.10d and have climbed 5.11a. This goal will help with the ongoing motivation to slim down. While the mountaineering helps motivate to train hard, wanting/needing to push the grade helps motivate to put in the cardio times, watch the intake, and maintain the stretching regimen. I don't have any intensity about the time frame here. I'll lead in the gym and take the odd sport climbing weekend trip to places like Holcomb or nearby Echo Cliffs.

I've been having fun on Facebook. It's presentation is excellent and with all the applications I can make it my one stop internet shop. I linked this blog to it.

Recent Training

We've got lots of climbing trips planned so I'm keeping the training intensity and volume high. I've been following the posted Mountain Athlete workouts, modified to account for gear, ability, goals. I have a overview log here and detailed workout notes here. I'm averaging about 2h of training per weekday with frequent long trips or sessions on the weekends. I have a couple overuse injuries lurking and am very sore and bruised. I am dynamically throttling to maintain health and functionality. I believe I can distinguish between exertion pain, fatigue, tweaks, injuries, etc. I ice, heat treat, aspirin/ibruprofen, tape where appropriate. Balancing calories, sleep as well, while staying committed to staying highly productive at work. I feel engaged and fit vs. 4 months ago. I am more sensitive to crappy music and slow moving people though. I hope to make some breakthroughs in climbing performance this season and get some good climbs down on my climbing resume. Antsy about lack of ice climbing experience/ability. Not sure how to break into that on my own or when to hire a guide/how to get the most out of that.

Holcomb Valley Pinnacles

We woke up at 4am on Saturday, departed about 4:45am, picked up Matt at 5am, and were on the 101 at 5:07am. We woke up the camp host and secured a site around 8 and pushed the Baja to the max on the rocky road to the northern parking area for the Holcomb Valley Pinnacles. We met up with Peter in the parking lot and hiked over to Coyote Crag where Nicole, Mike, and Elaine were getting started climbing. Mike led "Coyotes at Sunset" while we selected what to climb ourselves. The "Bye Crackie" arete looked fun, but it got occupied pretty fast. Coyote Crag was getting crowded, so we snuck around the corner to Gold Wall. Emily grabbed the sharp end and onsighted "Hidden Gold". It had fun plates. Emily had an excellent lead head and moved fast and efficiently. I climbed it too, then Em climbed it once more to clean it. We were pretty warmed up so I onsighted "Gold Bug" - a short one move wonder. Emily followed it no problem. Then Emily onsighted "Gold Standard" - a longer climb with an airy crux (for the grade) and a delightful view from a cozy ledge up top. After a sandwich shade break, we popped back over to Coyote Crag where we both climbed "Golden Poodle" on top rope. I saw an opening in the sea of people and led "Coyotes at Sunset". Emily kicked it up a notch and pulled the rope so she could lead it too. It was more fun climbing on plates and knobs. We ditched the crowds again and flaked out our rope beneath Wilbur's Tombstone. I wasn't sure where the left most climb "Wilbur never wore lycra" was, so I jumped on the most obvious left most line. It was a fair distance to the first bolt and more run out than the other walls (optional cam placement was available). I probably led "What a Woman". Emily top roped it and set up a directional over "Pumped Up Woman". We both top roped that. The ambient temperature was great, but the sun sure was hot and bright at 7500'. We had a shady Rockstar chit chat break with the Ventura County climbers group before heading to Claimjumper Wall. There was a group of folks from our local climbing gym there. Lots of familiar faces. Mike was leading "Lady Luck" when we got there. Peter wasn't taking no bull leading "Bum Steer". There was no dodging it this time so I sauntered over to "One Arm Bandit". It had a bulgey roof crux, but wasn't that bad all said and done. I feel like the ice is broken and I'll jump on harder stuff next time. That said, the climb does look scary from the peanut gallery. Emily finished the day showing everybody how to lie back on "Lady Luck" on top rope. I climbed it too. I got a boo boo on the top of my right foot from where my turf toe tape job had sawed a blister. Taping up my left middle finger helped with a nagging soreness there too, and allowed me to flip people off with impunity. My left ankle felt ok range of motion and pain-wise with possible mild swelling by end of day. Hard to distinguish anything from "standard"climbing baseline. We had a lovely evening at the campsite. There were faux pirates faux sword fighting. We saw their wenches and ship on the drive home. We refilled our sleepmeters, although I was cold (officially retiring POS Slumberjack Latitude 20). Knee bruises and cramping left ankle also had me tossing and turning. Emily's fancy organic fair trade coffee with alpacas on the jar made me feel better in the morning. We weren't the first ones to the crag (Peter and his gang beat us there), but we did snag "Bye Crackie". Emily and I both led it. After that, one last hoorah on Thunderbird Wall. Emily led "Medicine Man" which was at her limit. It had a bulge with thin hands that made her think. I led it and concurred. I set a directional over "Thunderbird" which had a reachy start to "secret" holds. Emily got a couple moves into it before lowering. I had a false start before climbing it. Would've been easier if we still had fingertips. We said farewell to the group and sped home. Emily really put it all together and had some great leads - probably her hardest and best. I think "One arm bandit" was my 3rd hardest sport lead to date.

New template

I had to "x" out a week due to ankle injury - got a lot of training in, but not enough to count as week 3. So this month will run a little long. I'm between 171-174lbs. It'll be crazy in a couple weeks to be starting to see 16x numbers on the scale. I've been digging the Gym Jones website and finding the Denali program to be too simplistic and constraining. I'm going to go the Gym Jones route and eliminate moderate intensity workouts from my week in favor of HIIT type stuff. I've also refocused my training on climbing. I've increased my gym climbing workouts to three times a week and have a busy schedule of real climbing on the weekends. The new general template for my week will go something like:

Regular Gym workout ~2x/week:
warmup aerobics
warmup hybrid complex: bb_squat/db_RDL+squat+press/bb_OH_squat
warmup stretches
3x10 hybrid (no rest between reps, rotate through exercises)
3x10 complex (no rest between exercises, more like superset without setting down the bar)
burnout exercise (24s or countdowns)
4min Tabata
stretching

Climbing Gym workout ~3x/week:
Rotating between high volume, hypergravity, and pushing the grade
High volume is most likely "date night" with wife

Cardio workout ~4x/week:
Split between running and hills with pack, inside/outside
Still thinking, but probably done 145-165bpm or interval style
Most likely to be supplanted by weekend trips
Might be supplanted by additional "regular gym workouts"

Weekend/Holiday Trips ~1x/week:
Some long outdoor session of climbing and hiking

Rest ~1x/week:
A non-double workout day sure feels like a rest day in comparison.

Complex

I came across the Gym Jones website the other day. Trying to get/stay motivated to train hard and adding some knowledge. Mainly, I was freaked by the whole confluence thing of Twight-Rollins-Palahniuk, but couldn't find a Mothersbaugh connection, so no quadfecta. The Gym Jones philosophy is intense, elite, and measures progress objectively. It's always fun to find content that resonates. I do my best to try and take those impulses and transfer some of the energy into community building, inclusion, cruelty free living, and a more global progression. In practice, it sounds like the Gym Jones folks do the same thing after reading the "300" articles. That and I am committed to technical progress. I can have a hard time accepting the value of professional athletes/artists. More fundamentally, I'm committed to house and home with Emily.
Anyway, I really just wanted to make a list of complexes Em and I could do to get more bang for our training buck. In the spirit of Gym Jones, we're going to aim to eliminate all moderate training sessions in favor of high intensity interval training (and similar) during the week and long (>2h) endurance type sessions on the weekends. Those kinds of weekend trips are what we enjoy the most anyway so it all locks in place. I end up doing 1 or 2 multi-hour gym climbing sessions each week, but they're kind of stop and go. Might have to adjust or do more routes up/down in a row. Or do shorter sessions as hypergravity training. I'm feeling limited by the Denali program. I might adjust the boundaries of what constitutes a "strength" or "hill" or "stress" workout.

(Hybrids)/Complexes from Remedios:
(bb hang, jump shrug, clean, push press, front squat, bent row, rdl)
(db hang, high pull, snatch, squat/press, bent row, pushup, core row)
(bb hang, muscle snatch, oh squat, snatch drop, oh lunge, clean-front squat, row/extension)
(bb bent row, extension, neider press)
(bb hang clean, lunge, press)
(db curl, lunge, press)
(db curl, lunge, press, side bend)
bb hang, high pull, push press, front lunge
bb hang, muscle snatch, oh squat, (bent row, extension, neider)
db hang, clean, split jerk, drop lunge
db hang, snatch, (squat,press), (pushup, core row)
bw parallel squat, parallel squat jumps, fwd lunges, split squat jumps ("24s")
bw (plyo pushup, squat jumps) ("countdowns")

HIIT from Remedios:
4min Tabatas (8 rounds)
squat jumps
plyo pushups
(cable squat, row)
(cable step, press)
cable wood chop
burpees
corkscrews

workout would be: 3x10-hybrid, 3x10-complex, 1x24s/countdowns, 1xTabata

We did some 1-10 breathing ladders Friday night. Pretty sore today from it. We were in everybody's way because the ladders take more than 1min to complete. When we start doing complexes and hybrids it's going to be awesome.

Nutrition info from Gym Jones page suggested trying Perpetuem. Looks like it might be what I need to not cramp up in the mountains. Time to revisit the diet for fast mountain trips. I'm developing a history of muscle cramps (even at home sometimes).

Memorial Day Joshua Tree Trip

We intended to be in Joshua Tree all of this Memorial Day weekend, but I hurt my foot. I wasn't quite warmed up and a couple moves into the first climb of the day (T-plus 20min since getting out of the car after the 3.5h drive), I slipped and took a short stuttering lead fall onto a #12 nut. I banged my left ankle a little, but shook it off and climbed the rest of the day. By the last climb it was getting sore and by the next morning it didn't feel reliable enough to climb on. Emily taped it using the method described in Buck Tilton's WFR book, but that plus shoe made it feel worse. I did the HIRICE thing today and it feels a lot better. Compression taping it basket-weave style really helped. We even got in a decent round robin weight and cardio workout in at the gym today. My hands are pretty chewed up - need to tape up first thing next time. We got 4 great climbs in on Saturday before setting up for the night at Ryan campground. I felt like I got into the swing of it more with each climb. Some frustration with having to return home early, but a nice day off at home is just fine. Plus all the blogging to do. We climbed "Scrumdillyishus", "Frosty Cone", and "Mr. Misty Kiss" on Dairy Queen wall (eerily empty except for one other climbing couple - pretty green, they found the walk-up/off so they could top rope - hadn't considered that option before. We top roped "Mr Misty Kiss" for a few bit, but it was a hassle without extender webbing. Top roping is a hassle in general). "Mr. Misty Kiss" was the only one that felt like real rock climbing. We also climbed "Jessica's Crack" in the Hall of Horrors. It was grainy and short, but funnish. I got a pair of anasazis that will be great for the gym and edgy climbs. I also got a #4 TCU and #11 stopper to fill-in/replace stuff on my rack. I played with supercams, maxcams and link cams at Nomads. Maxcams were lame and cheap feeling (clerk thought they were just Trango's end run around Black Diamond's design patents), supercams rocked with their spooling kevlar trigger line, and link cams really rocked with their Transformer appearance. It was great to see the medium Supercam for sale. Need to wait for a real reason to buy them, though. I did a better job sorting, ordering, and racking my gear this trip and it made for faster, smoother leading (nevermind the noob fall).

Cam Thoughts

I made a spreadsheet as part of some research into what cams I might need now vs. as off-brands wear out or get stuck. I also wanted to see how the new Metolius Mastercams stacked up and look at wide range cams for putting together an alpine rack (after seeing a Metolius Supercam in the Steve House video). I also cribbed what the "typical rack" is from some different area guidebooks. Ordering the cams I had into a "full set" of 8-10 cams helped streamline the predawn Baja bed racking upon arriving at the crag. It's tricky to come up with a good proxy for comparing cams across brands and types (weight/range is what I used in the spreadsheet, with "range" being 35% of the manufacturer's listed range for standard cams and 65% for wide range cams).

REI trip

We went to REI a couple weekends ago and spent a surprising amount of moula on freezedried food. They had a box of ingredients and a slew of new vegan meals. I also got some climbing friendly pants that fit well sans belt and Emily got some pants and shirts. I've gone from a 36in to a 32in waist over the last year. It was time to replace what had been culled. We got a demo of the new Jetboil Helios remote canister stove as well as the MSR Reactor (complete with glowing MSR logo). Both seemed overkill compared to what I was thinking, but the ready to go nature of both is a plus (pot, windscreen, heat exchanger). The Reactor seemed better suited to snow melting. We got a suggestion to go with a liquid fuel stove, but I've yet to be out camping with someone who has one without the fuel getting on clothes and gear. I suppose it would get better with practice, but the liquid fuel stoves seemed a headache to get going compared to the Jetboil. Jetboil PCS has a hanging kit.

Vegan Factory

As part of an REI pilgrimmage, Emily happy cow hunted down a new veggie restaurant in Tarzana called the "Vegan Factory". We went crazy there: tempura, papaya salad, spicy noodles with soy chicken, soy beef with peppers, all washed down with kombucha and young coconut. I think it just broke the $40 mark including tip. Tasted great and was a feast, but I did get all kinds of sick about 8h after eating the leftovers. No proof I got food poisoning, and the leftovers did spend hours in a hot car before I ate them.

alpine climbing summary

Here is a summary of what clothing and gear Steve House talks about in his Patagonia videos. For the clothing, I'll be adding links to the actual Patagonia items with a price tag. I hope to also add links to the Mountain Hardwear, North Face, and "cheapest" versions.

Clothing - similar for all winter weather climbing
Patagonia version
0: mixmaster pants, capilene t-shirt, liner socks (x2), expedition weight socks (x2)
+1: R.5 stretch long sleeve (can't find R.5 on patagonia website)
+2: R1 pullover, work glove, basic hat, silkweight baselayer
+3: R2 high loft pullover, Hoodini mountain shell, stretch element glove, balaclava, mittens
+4: DAS parka, puff pants

Mountain Hardwear version
0: pants, shirt, liner sock, hiking sock
+1: long sleeve
+2: pullover, glove, hat, silkweight baselayer
+3: high loft pullover, hooded shell, climbing glove, balaclava, mittens
+4: belay jacket, snow pants

North Face version
0: pants, shirt, liner sock, hiking sock
+1: long sleeve
+2: pullover, glove, hat, silkweight baselayer
+3: high loft pullover, hooded shell, climbing glove, balaclava, mittens
+4: belay jacket, snow pants

Other brand, but well reviewed version
0: pants, shirt, liner sock, hiking sock
+1: long sleeve
+2: pullover, glove, hat, silkweight baselayer
+3: high loft pullover, hooded shell, climbing glove, balaclava, mittens
+4: belay jacket, snow pants

Gear - snow, ice, some rock
rope (8.1mm x 50m + 5mm x 55m)
ice tools (leader: one w/ sliding pinky rest w/ adze, one w/ large pinky rest w/ hammer; second: one "real", one "light", all with elastic tethers)
crampons (all around style - he customizes)
ice screws (3 short, 3 long)
pitons (8 Ti)
stoppers (8)
cams (3 "super cams")
wire gate biners (many light, full strength, full size)
tiblocs
reverso, superlight small locker, larger HMS locker
cordalette (15' of 5-6mm cord)
single runners (12)
double runners (2)
harness (many gear loops, haul loop)
helmet (hardshell)
boots (double)
tent (light weight mountaineering)
sleeping bag (room for two people, "Big Agnes" style)
sleeping pad (3/4 inflatable with rubber band)
pot (lightweight Al)
heat exchanger
wind screen
pot grip
stove ("remote canister style": MSR, Snow Peak, Primus, Jetboil)
sunglasses
goggles (yellow lens)
camera

Denali training program: Month 4, week 1

It's like that post-montage scene from "Cast Away"...I'm about 174lbs (first time since high school - down 14-18lbs from the start of this training cycle, down 62lbs peak-to-trough from all time high), I feel like I have more endurance, moving up in workset weights for explosive exercises, and getting out for great mountaineering and rock climbing on the weekends. I definitely need to get more straight-up climbing in and am considering getting a hangboard, although the installation in a rental apartment is daunting. Had my ass handed to me on a 5.10 crack last weekend, but it was 90 degrees out and I'd just finished leading a couple pitches near my ability. Have the last of 5 sessions on Olympic lifting with a trainer next week. Have had a couple minor muscle pulls (calf, rhomboids) throughout, but nothing that hasn't healed up within a couple days. The "stress" workouts started this month and I've done the first one. It carries over mood-wise the next day - tired! Found some great crack climbing destinations a bit closer in the Southern Sierra to tackle this season as well as chipping away at all the easy to moderate classic alpine climbs with my wife.

Kernville

Emily and I took up a last minute offer from a climbing friend to head up to Kernville. We wanted to take advantage of the fact that Brian is essentially a local and has a copy of the long out of print guide book. The drive was quick, but there was a lot of traffic. Turns out this weekend in Kernville, there was a hot rod car show and fly fishermen convention. No overlap with climbers. We only saw one other couple out climbing. It got up around 90 by mid day. We met up with Brian and Mona around 10am on Saturday. We got some supplies and navigated to a parking and potential camping area. We carpooled back to the Kernville Rock trailhead and hiked up the approach. Mona had never been climbing before and was actually thinking we were going indoor climbing originally! She figured it when the word camping got involved. I was jealous that her first time climbing was a multi-pitch old school wide crack and chimney! Brian led for Mona and I followed leading for Emily. This was a great arrangement to handle new climber questions and for climbing as a fun group. This meant I had to keep up with Brian on leading. It was fun and engaging climbing, very classic, and I think Emily and I are in love with the Southern Sierra. We will be up there again and again (especially after reading that it is a perfect destination to practice crack climbing) - if we can get our hands on a guidebook. We climbed on Kernville Rock both Saturday and Sunday with some camping in an underwhelming roadside primitive campsite in between. We camped near the river which is beautiful, but the broken glass and t.p. was lame. Pushes us in the direction of a developed campsite, but we don't have an RV so that pushes us closer to the lodge/motel thing. Maybe it's better further up to Needles and Dome Rock, further off-river. After climbing "Claustrophobia Crack" on Saturday, we drove up the canyon and hiked along the creek. We had the intention of swimming, but the current was strong and the rocks were slick so we couldn't get across to the intended pool. We dipped our toes a little and then hiked out for burritos and margaritas (except for me) at the local Mexican joint. Sunday we climbed "The Lieback" which was much more difficult than the 5.5 rating the book gave it. It was a very classic climb up a dihedral then a traverse. I tried to climb "Initiation Crack" on top rope, but my fingers and shoe rubber failed me. Can't wait to climb in the Needles proper!

Horseshoe Meadow

Itinerary for our Langley attempt leaving from Horseshoe Meadow. Pictures on Flickr here.
(Em color commentary in pink. Sam color commentary in blue.)

Friday:
Pack from 7:30-10pm
For once, we didn't overpack. We shouldn't have brought/used Platypus water bags or carried any more than 1L each due to snow and stream availability. I brought just the right clothes to stay just warm enough. We need another or a couple better mountaineering 0d bags (or quality 20d ones). Snowshoe 0d bag is too complicated. Jetboil was subpar as a snowmelter. Tarp tent was flappy, but warm. It has good area, but the trekking poles are annoying. I vote for a freestanding tent and for learning to guy out better/faster/stronger. I didn't bring trekking poles, but might in the future. Freeze-dried food is convenient, but was too spicy for my altitude sick stomach. We will order our own stock supply for mixing matching. I wanted dried hummus and beans. I needed more legume type calories. Chamomile tea is great. Mate is great. Oatmeal is really great. Some dry soy milk and flax meal would improve the nutrition. EmergenCs didn't do it for me - need more potassium and sugar? Gels were ok, but tough on stomach when pared with plain ice cold water after exertion.
Final tally: Sam - 40lbs, Emily - ~25lbs (didn't weigh), including water and bear canister
Saturday:
Arise 3am
Leave 4am
Arrive Horseshoe Meadows 7:30am
Start Approach Hike 8am
Beautiful morning. So good to be out in nature. Delighted that Horsehoe Meadow is open and such a great into the area. Nice to increase our Sierra experience.
Approach Routefinding Antics 8am-1:30pm
It's hard to attach much value to staying on the trail when the trail is covered with snow and you can see your destination in the distance anyway. We made a beeline for Langley. Swamps, sun cups, and all lakes looked the same to me. I'll be better at the outgoing orienteering next time, but we did have all day.
Arrive at High Lake Camp 1:30pm
Here's where our inattention to routefinding caught up with us; we thought we were one cirque over from where we actually were. I wasn't confident of our location, but looking at the topo, I figured it didn't matter anyway; there were good snow climbs leading to Langley in both cirques. I wasn't tied to any particular snow climb, but I didn't realize until after the fact we were near NAP and not OAP/Winter Pass. This effected summit probability which also wasn't a big deal for me.
Acclimatization Antics 1:30pm-6am
Sam napped out in the tent while I wandered around, took pictures, ate and drank (and ate and drank). I tried to foist some food on him but probably should have foisted harder considering how the trip went after that point. He ate a bar but not much water. The sleep helped, but I felt pretty horrible. Needed broth type stuff, cup o' noodle type stuff. We mostly had sweet and vitamin-y. I was craving tomato and salt. Luna bar was ok. Chana Masala entree was too masala-y for me, couldn't get it down.
Sunday:
Arise 6am
Sam seemed better and I was full of pep so we continued with our planned route. I really enjoyed our 2:30am oatmeal and brew session. Em was so attentive and seemed to be having a good time out in the mountains. We were committed to not pre-determining anything and just going as best we could until we hit our turnaround time or max sketch factor.
Break Camp 6:30am
Hike to base of snow climb near New Army Pass 7am
Arrive at base of snow climb 8am
I love my candy-red aluminum walking crampons (see photo) but must admit Sam's new crampons are clearly superior. My BD crampons felt very secure. Snow climb looked much easier up close than from afar (to me at least).
The climb
Pretty good, solid snow. Got a little freakily steep for me at the top, but Sam just ran up it like nothing, leaving nice steps for me in his wake. I got to the top so fast I was laughing. I was expected much more issue here.
Reach top of snow climb 9am
Amazing views! So exhilarating! The dirt climb to finish up Langley looked a little underwhelming after the snow. Topping out over the lip of snow near cornices was more fun.
Stash packs and hike towards Mt Langely 9am-11:30pm
Sam was feeling headachey so we took a slow, steady pace. At about 1000ft below the summit, we decided to call it a day and turn back, figuring we should give ourselves plenty of buffer time for getting back out to the car during daylight hours. Little did we know!
Hike back to packs and climb down New Army Pass 11:30pm-3:00pm
Still keeping the slow and steady pace. The extra elevation gain and loss from coming in the wrong cirque was significant. Sam once again, despite exhaustion and altitude sickness, lead the way on the technical (snow) portion, making steps for me. Slushier for sure, but also only a short distance to where the NAP trail reappears. I felt fine whenever climbing happen only to turn back to flu-like ugginess on flat land.
Return routefinding antics 3:00pm - 9:30pm
Getting back to the car was a challenge. We opted for returning by the actual trail rather than re-tracing our overland route. We took an overland shortcut to the Golden Trout Camp area where we met up with the well-marked, well maintained, only somewhat snow covered trail. About a mile and a half into the trail, just as daylight faded, the snow cover increased and we lost the trail. Still thinking we could get to the car that night, I had us head slightly east of our destination so we would hit the road if we missed the parking lot. This plan sounded great, but after hiking for an hour in the dark we had yet to hit the road. Also, the exertion was knocking Sam out in his unwell state. Unsure of our location, and unable to confirm from terrain features in the dark, we decided to camp for the night. Em did a great job orienteering. I contributed some risk management decision input (aim for main trail and follow macro features). I was moving very slow. Should've had a V8. All I wanted was something savory, but all we had was sweet. I was altitude sick and hypo-something. Cold creek water on an empty stomach pushed me over the edge once.
Camp set up (benighted) 9:30-10pm
Restless sleep 10pm-5am
Brewing, orienteering, and camp tear down 5-6:30am
Chamomile tea is the best thing ever, even when it has a certain amount of grit and pine needle in it. I concentrated on resting and postponing decisions until the morning. I started to cough during the night, but I attributed it mostly to exertion and only a little to altitude. Em and I talked about it a little. I put my cell phone in my pocket to keep the battery warm, but we didn't have reception.
Hike to car 6:30-7:40am
Once daylight hit, it was clear we were exactly where I had aimed to put us, less than a quarter mile from the road. I left Sam by the side of the road and went to get the car. I hiked to the wrong parking lot at first and momentarily thought our car must have been broken into by a bear and towed by the rangers. Realized I was in the wrong lot a few seconds after having that thought, but still. I felt bad about the road hiking Em had to do, but heading for the road was better risk management at that point. She hiked quickly and I got to rub my cold feet in the sun a little.
Drive to cell phone coverage 7:40-8:20am
Drive home 8:20am-12:10pm

Final Tally:~20mi, ~4900' gain

Month 4 of Denali Training Program

My 4^th month of following the Denali training program started without me noticing it. I didn't notice because I was home sick recuperating from an attempt on Mt Langely. We didn't summit, but we thorougly explored the space.

So for Month 4 each week I am supposed to do: 2x 50min aerobics (no problem – this is my standard work lunch time run to the local golf course and back), 2x 40min hill work with a 40lb pack (I will swap some of my work lunch runs for hill climbs – if I can just remember to bring a pack and 40lbs), 1x 30min stress aerobic (I'll run the hill without a pack or similar on a machine at the gym), and 4x strength workouts (I'm still incorporating a lot of Olympic/explosive/power lifts). There's a rest day and a recreational day in there somewhere too. I'll be liberal in counting weekend overnight trips towards workouts to motivate getting out and doing something real.

I need to get more straight up climbing in. I want to get a hangboard, but am daunted by the installation in our rental unit.

climbing dream road trip

Armed with google maps, mountainproject, summitpost, and some guide books, I am putting together the greatest climbing road trip dream ever. Doubtful I'd ever have the time to pull it off, but it's a fun exercise. I'll list the destinations first, then fill in the climbs, then do time estimates, then do other cost and logistical calculations. I might do the same thing with a best climb or climbs in each state/province and try a link up road trip that way. This dream road trip is pretty much a west coast thing. Here's what I've got so far:

Picking destinations based on climbs. Starting point search criteria on mountainproject is >= 3 stars, 5.5-5.9 trad. Adding in high rank peaks and mountains from summitpost.org. First pass is doing a loop driving the whole way. Will explore possibility of renting RV one-way or with some backtracking. Could also buy at start of trip and sell at end, but I'm not very good with enjoying trips with that kind of unknown. I need to figure out times of year to be in different places and/or develop weather contingencies (4-D logistics).

Starting in Ventura, CA
Destination 1: High Sierra
Lone Pine - 237mi
Independence - 253
Big Pine - 279
Bishop - 294
Mammoth Lakes - 337
Lee Vining - 359
Tuolumne Meadows - 377
Yosemite Valley - 428

Destination 2: Northern California
Lover's Leap - 576
South Lake Tahoe - 602
Truckee - 643
Lassen - 786
Castle Crags/Shasta - 926

Destination3: PNW
Crater Lake - 1047
Bend - 1134
Mt Hood - 1237
Mt St Helens - 1397
Rainier - 1491
Leavenworth - 1681
North Cascades - 1787
(Other destinations here - check summitpost)

Destination 4: Canada
Squamish - 2044
(Other destinations here - check summitpost)
Selkirks - 2497
Bugaboos - 2605
(Other destinations here - check mountainproject)

Destination 5: Looping back
City of Rocks - 3403
(Other desintations here - check mountainproject)
Zion - 3880
Red Rocks - 4002

Destination 6: Local crags
Joshua Tree - 4200
Idyllwild - 4268
Holcomb Valley Pinnacles - 4355

Destination 7: Home
Ventura - 4519

Tuttle Creek Hike

Emily and I had aspirations of climbing Mt Langley via the