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May, 2001I had a nice dinner with my parents last night. There wasn't any un-civility and the conversation was, at times, meaningful. My Dad has never really been a big problem, but it has been hard talking to my Mom the last few years. This time, she even mentioned she is getting used to the idea of not having grandchildren. At least she said that she always thought that is what this part of her life would be about right now, and that she has accepted that her life isn't what she expected it to be. The big improvement for her was being able to say that without getting choked-up or misty-eyed.
Of all the difficult, inconvenient, and unfortunate things about discovering that you are gay, the very worst thing for me has been disappointing my mother. She got sick the night I told her. I'm glad I purposely told her on a Friday, she spent the entire weekend crying. How can you do that to your own mother and not feel terrible about it? I have to expend a little mental energy every day fighting off the assumed guilt.
The frustrating part of all that is, of course, it is not my fault. Being gay isn't anyone's fault. Why? Because being gay isn't a fault. The pain my Mother feels because I am gay is based on her assumptions and perceptions. I am not guilty of ruining my mother's life by selfishly being gay. In reality, my mother is assuming her life is ruined because she bore a gay son, and it is her assumption that has made her miserable for the last few years.
Her life is not ruined at all; it is different from her expectations, it is different from what she was led to believe. But it is not ruined unless she chooses to make it so, unless she chooses to believe it is. This is what I think Mom is finally starting to realize. She will never live in the baseless, relativistic world I inhabit, but she is showing signs of adjusting to change. That made dinner yesterday a little more fun than it was a year ago.
"There is nothing either good or bad, but that thinking makes it so."
I had a good conversation with my friend
Aric about a potential trip to Mt. Shasta. I've been trying to organize a climb of this big peak since 1999. It is best climbed in late May and June for optimal weather and snow conditions, with minimal rockfall danger from the high ridges. In 1999 I went by myself and climbed to 11,000 ft. (3K meters) before deciding it was too risky to continue alone. In 2000 I couldn't get anyone to go with me during the narrow time window and didn't bother going at all since I was already signed on to climb Mt. Rainier in July. This year, Aric has finally got time to come with me, and he's bringing a friend.
I have never met Aric's buddy, but Aric says he's an outdoor adventurer from Wyoming. His name is Shane, like the legendary gun slinging cowboy. He's been hanging around San Louis Obispo where Aric is from on an extended summer break. Shane is 28 (started school late and is taking his time about it!) and has done a fair amount of camping and rock climbing, although he hasn't climbed to Shasta's elevation on snow and ice. Then again, neither has Aric. I'm looking forward to the adventure of helping them reach the summit of their first big mountain. An ambitious goal, considering it will only be my third big mountaineering trip, but I'm ready to do it.
We leave Monterey for Mt. Shasta on May 25th, and begin the climb the next morning. We should be on the summit the morning of the 27th. I think I'll bring a little rainbow flag with me to wave at the top. Why not celebrate the achievement of an all-gay expedition? Hmmm, now that I think about it, I wonder if there could be any sponsorship or publicity interest from various gay activist groups or publications?
If there was ever a stereotypical California Weekend, this last weekend was it. Each day shone brightly with the kind of unabated sunshine that only California can provide. The sea breezes swept away any trace of haze or cloud and moderated the threat of high heat from the searing sunshine.
The weekend began at Brent's house on Saturday. Shortly after 8:00 a.m., I drove the half hour route through the coastal hills and meadows that takes me back to my house (with a pit-stop to fill my coffee mug on the way) listening to Blink 182 to energize my day. At home, I checked in on my email (There was a rather sobering one from
Bryan. Why do people have to be so small sometimes?) and a bunch of adds. It's disappointing, but I don't get much email these days. I miss it. After email, it was time to get ready for another training hike.
For my hike, I drove a little way south of Monterey to the Rocky Ridge trail on the Big Sur Coast. The trail ascends a steep ridge on the edge of the Pacific Ocean amid fields of green grass and a profusion of wildflowers. I carried 55 lbs. of water weight in my pack. Water makes for good training weight because it is heavy and is easily dumped in an emergency or at the high point of the hike, to save my knees on the descent. The water made the hike hard work, but it didn't spoil the scenery one bit. My pounding heart rejoiced in the brilliant clear blue sky above, the flashing Pacific below, and the unruly riot of wildflower colors all around. My nose was itchy and sneezy due to the same wildflowers, but I didn't mind.
I finished my hike around 2:00 p.m., in time to get a shower and drive north up the coast to the town of Marina, where, at an old airport, I helped to set up a race track. Not a real, full-on road racing course like Laguna Seca, but rather a smaller course, defined by neon-orange traffic cones. My friend
Mark
met me at the taxiway and apron area where the track was to be set up and we spent the better part of three hours working with three other racers carefully placing all the cones, according to the track design. I estimate we deployed nearly 1,000 cones. Mark and I took a few test runs of the new course after set up, and then called it a day.
I drove over to one of my favorite Mexican restaurants, picked up two large burritos, and continued on to Brent's house to surprise him with dinner. Well, it wasn't a complete surprise because I made a point of calling him en route so that he wouldn't try to surprise me with dinner too! We ate dinner, played with the cat, and watched TV, including one of our favorite shows, Iron Chef. (Chen Kenichi won his battle against the challenger using this week's very difficult theme ingredient, yogurt.)
Sunday dawned brilliantly clear, and not to be outdone by Saturday, was pleasantly warmer still. I didn't need an alarm to wake up just after 6:00 a.m., and drive back to Monterey to get my car prepped for the race. I topped off my oil (synthetic only, please!) filled the tank with nice, peppy Techron ($2.00 a gallon - ouch!), and pumped up the tires to 50 psi. (I apologize to my ROW readers, but I have trouble converting units of volume to Metric, and even more trouble with derived units such as pressure. You should have seen me staring, dumbfounded, at the pressure gauge on the air tank I was handed to go scuba diving on Australia's great barrier reef - kg/square cm! I had no idea what was a safe amount of air to use on the upcoming dive. At least that gave me another excuse to talk to the very cute, blonde and sun-bronzed, young dive-master who I thought was doing a wonderful job of wearing only a Speedo!)
Mark was missing, so I called him on his mobile phone. He answered groggily and explained he was still in bed having been out until 3:30 a.m. the night before working at the radio station. I scolded him for putting work before racing and let him get back to sleep. I wasn't completely lonely, my friend Javier showed up for a while and racers in general are usually friendly (and frequently cute!). I gave Javier a ride at speed through the course. It was an eye opener for him. He had no idea a normal street car could slide around corners so well, or brake with such force. It always surprises first-time passengers when I approach a sharp corner with the throttle wide open, say 60 mph and accelerating, with only a few car-lengths to go before the turn, then I squeeze on the brakes with great authority and slither through the turn adding more and more throttle as we go. The car is rarely going in exactly the direction it is pointed; instead it is always drifting a bit, on the brink of spinning off the course completely. What good, clean, and inexpensive (the entry fee is only $25 and all you need is any old car and a helmet) fun!
I was happy with the results. I came in fourth out of 10 cars in my class. All those who beat me had two more cylinders at their disposal. Better yet, each of my four timed laps were consecutively faster. I learned something about driving each time through. It's hard to think logically while guiding a car through a skid at 50 mph, but necessary if you want to drive well. One thing I learned was that while my car is under-steering (not turning as tightly as it should for the amount of turn I've cranked into the steering wheel), I can actually back off on my steering input, gain more grip for the front tires, and make the car turn tighter! Steer less to turn tighter. It's counter-intuitive, but makes sense in terms of physics - at least when you are partially sliding the car.
The autocross ended around noon, so I pulled the numbers off of my car, put the spare tire and floor mats back in, and scooted off to Laguna Seca where my friend Stuart was racing. Farther away from the shore, it was much warmer at Laguna Seca. I quickly displayed my boxers to the world, or at least to the paddock, to change into shorts and a light (Ferrari) T shirt. Brent gave me a Razor scooter for Christmas, so I used that to zoom around the paddock and pit lane visiting friends. At 1:00 p.m. I zipped over to the grandstand to sit with Carrie (Stu's wife), their small son Stirling, and Stu's parents for the race. It was a family affair as the race fell on Stu's birthday.
Stuart made up one position on the start, another a lap later, then held his own until the pace car came out after someone crashed. On the restart, Stuart spun his car attempting to use the opportunity to move up a few more positions. Unfortunately for Stu, he ended up loosing five places, although he was able to rejoin and eventually finish the race. We all celebrated with cake and ice cream back in the pits.
Late in the afternoon, I folded up my scooter and drove back out to Brent's house. He was finishing up a homework project. I'm forever clinging to him while he's trying to work, so to distract myself and allow Brent to write his report in peace, I popped a tape of the Spanish Grand Prix from last weekend into the magnetoscope (VCR). It was a great way to wind down a fantastic weekend. Before the race on tape was over, Brent had finished his project and went into the kitchen to whip up some chicken with pesto over pasta and a salad. We munched on the meal together while watching Voyager to round out our Sunday evening.
Ya just can't order up a better California weekend than that, can you?
Teams from all over the world have been putting in successively higher camps and supply caches for the last forty days. The next fourteen days will determine their success or failure. In the picture, the weather appears ideal. It is sunny, and Everest's famous plume is not apparent. The plume is a unique condensation cloud that forms on the lee side of the mountain when the summit gashes a rift in the extreme winds of the Jet Stream. Its conspicuous absence in today's photo indicates (relatively) gentle winds near the summit and survivable climbing conditions.
Notice that the mountain has a great deal of snow on its high slopes. Last year, when the body of 1920's British mountaineering pioneer George Mallory was discovered, the upper mountain was quite dry. The discovery would not have been possible in a year with heavier snows, such as this year. The deep snow will make climbing difficult for those with summit aspirations this week. If you've ever tried to wade through hip-deep new-fallen snow, you will know why. Add to labor of postholing through deep snow the steep ascent, the appalling lack of oxygen, the vicious cold, and the dreadful exposure to vertiginous mile-high cliffs and you begin to understand the difficulty faced by Everesters. I'll keep you posted on the events at the roof of the world as the next few weeks go by, either here, or on my
Kibbles and Bits blogger page. The mountain already claimed the life of one of the most accomplished and experienced Sherpas ever only last week. I hope Chomolungma is satisfied.
In the last few days, I've received a lot of good news regarding my attempt on Mt. Shasta at the end of the month! First, over the weekend I got in some great training at the
Heavenly
ski area in Lake Tahoe by hiking from the parking lot at 6,200 ft. to the just short of the highest ski-able terrain at 9,600 ft. I carried my 55 lb training load of water, and accomplished the entire route in seven hours. It was a bit more technical than just a hike because I was on snow for at least two-thirds of the route. I walked up double black diamond runs (the most difficult for skiers) to simulate the kind of steepness I'll find on Mt. Shasta. They were steep enough to need good technical footwork and justify an ice axe to belay a fall.
The other good news for my Shasta climb came from my friend, Aric, who called to confirm his intentions to go on the trip. I've had to cancel climbs of Shasta twice before because my teammates called it off, so I'm going to be nervous about that until we're on our way to the mountain together. Nevertheless, Aric's confirmation was good news.
I hope my blithering on about Mt. Shasta doesn't bore everyone to tears. As will be revealed later in this entry, relief is in sight. Until then, my blithering is justified because this is my journal and this is what is foremost on my mind these days. For instance, last week, after planning the route, I e-mailed the group a climbing itinerary and a required gear list. I also wrote up a meal plan. This week, I'm spending time each day after work, inventorying and prepping my mountaineering gear; sharpening crampons, replacing head-lamp and radio batteries, loading film and video cameras, refurbishing and re-stowing my tent, Scotch Guarding my Gore-Tex, and testing my gas stove. I have even been sleeping in my sleeping bag to get more accustomed to it.
No, really! I have! Those 'mummy bags' have a weird, tight fit. If you aren't accustomed to them, they're almost claustrophobic. I'm going to need a good night's sleep in high camp and I want to feel perfectly at home in my bag. Every little edge you can get counts when you're climbing a mountain.
I've also been creating a new web site to focus on my mountain trips. I'm using the site to learn how to make web pages with Microsoft Front Page (These pages are still lovingly coded by hand using nothing more than my brain, Notepad, and FTP.) and to provide an outlet of expression to share my mountaineering activities with the world. Not that the world cares, so much, as I feel the need to express the things I see and feel on these trips. The new page, not yet ready for prime time, is at
www.lhotse.8k.com
for those of you who want to watch it develop. Keep in mind that it isn't 'officially up' yet and there are lots of links to nowhere and placeholder content. But if you check in now and then, I hope you'll be able to see my Front Page skills improve each week.
Before finishing this entry, I'd also like to let everyone know that my sympathy goes out to my dear friend
BrYaN
who's pages are temporarily down for unknown reasons at Geocities. As one who's suffered this fate more than once, I understand his frustration. Don't give up, dear journal readers, our good friend BrYaN will return when the gods of the net next show him favor.
Happy Victoria Day to my Canadian readers! I don't know what Victoria Day is, but I see it here on my calendar, so I thought I should give it a mention. If it has anything to do with the town of Victoria, British Columbia, than I'm sure it's a neat holiday, because Victoria is a really neat place. Anyone traveling to the North West should consider spending a day or two to relax and see an interesting, beautiful and fun town. It's an especially interesting, beautiful and fun if you love floatplanes as much as I do.
My mind has been full of thoughts (as usual) over the last few days. Foremost on my mind is, of course, my climb of Mt. Shasta, which begins in five days. I should really be thinking more about the alumni magazine that I publish at work. It's falling behind schedule. Everybody in the School's administration thinks I'm doing a great, so I'm not worried about my job, but I would very much like to see the magazine get back on track. Nevertheless, I've got mountaineering on my mind. Since nobody complained about me writing about my trip last week (in fact, I got a request for more from long-time reader Yves in Montreal) I will continue with that train of thought.
On Saturday, I used a great deal of time getting my climbing gear out of storage and ready to go. It all had to be tested, cleaned, organized, and packed. Pack weight and space are extremely limited resources on a climb. Therefore, everything I bring is vital, nothing superfluous. It must all work as designed. There is no room for spares and little ability to make repairs in the field. Yet, each item is necessary to reach the summit or it would not be with me.
I tech-washed (meaning I used a non-detergent soap) and Scotch-Guarded my Gore-Tex pants, jacket, mitts, gaiters, and hat. I washed, fluffed, and tightly compressed my fleece pants, jacket, mitt liners, and hat. I did the same to my polypropylene long underwear and nylon hiking shorts, socks, and sock liners. Then, I squeezed each type of clothing into an individual color-coded nylon bag, to make it easier to find the right item in my pack on the mountain.
I loaded my head-lamp (something like you might see a coal miner wearing) with fresh batteries, even though the batteries already in place weren't completely worn out yet. It's worth it to put the half-used batteries to some other household use. Fresh and half-used batteries weigh the same, but the fresh ones are far more useful if I get stuck out in the dark much later than expected! I made sure I had a spare bulb and one spare set of batteries for the lamp. I also added to my electronics bag my Garmin GPS, a tiny but powerful LED flashlight, a magnetic compass, two mini-sized cigarette lighters, lightweight folding Minolta binoculars (James Bond used an identical set in his last movie!), a 35mm camera (loaded with 200 ASA, 36 exp), and my Swiss Army Knife. In the little nylon bag that composes my hygiene kit, I placed a toothbrush (cut in half to save space and weight) a super-tiny tube of toothpaste, a nylon (quick drying) hand towel, two single use handy-wipe packets, a little plastic bottle containing two days worth of sun screen, and a mini car packet of Kleenex. (No, I didn't forget a shaving kit, or soap and deodorant. Those things are unnecessary on the mountain, because you're just going to look ugly and stink any way. Get over it!)
Sunday was my food preparation day. Brent was kind enough to accompany me to a grocery store and a warehouse store to get the supplies. He's an expert at bargain hunting, which was important since I am putting together the food for all three climbers on the trip and both of my partners are under funded, second-try college students. Food on a climbing trip must be high in calories and taste, and low in volume, weight, and cooking time. Things that take a long time to cook require a lot of cooking fuel, which is heavy.
One evening's dinner will be angle hair Pasta-Roni in herb sauce (takes 3 minutes to cook!) with seafood. I bought three boxes of the meal, then, back at home, poured the noodle contents into a large Ziploc bag. No point in carrying garbage in the form of three cardboard boxes up a mountain, only to have to pack it out again! I emptied the powdered sauce mix packets from each box into a smaller Ziploc bag, then added some salt, pepper, dried oregano, lemon dill seasoning, and a measured amount of powdered milk mix. I wrote on the small Ziploc the correct amount of water and cooking time to add during preparation, then tucked the small Ziploc into the large Ziploc with the noodles. Finally, I removed the labels from a can of shrimp and a can of crab meat and added them to the Ziploc. After squeezing all the air out and sealing it up, I wrote 'Dinner' on the outside of the bag.
I prepared another dinner and breakfast bag in a similar weight and space saving fashion. Lunch while climbing is another matter. There is no set time and meal for lunch. Allow me to elaborate. When I made my training hike at 9000 ft. last weekend at Tahoe, I stopped to take my pulse several times. It turns out, for the five hours I ascended, I maintained a heart rate of 140 beats per minute. That's a pretty high metabolism and needs a lot of fuel to drive it. Therefore, while climbing, lunch begins immediately after breakfast and does not stop until dinner begins.
I made one feedbag for each climber to use on the trip as lunch. Each bag contains:
Left to accomplish this week is seem-sealing my tent (making sure it won't leak water through its seem stitches) and testing my stove. My little gas jet stove is vital to survival, but not because of the need to cook a hot meal. I'm sure we could live quite some time in a survival situation with just the cold food we're bringing. A hot meal will make the trip much more pleasant, of course, but it isn't a life-and-death essential. What makes the stove vital, is the need for drinking water. There are no rivers or lakes high in the land of snow, ice and rock.
Each climber needs two to three liters of drinking water per day. With three days of climbing, that could mean carrying nine liters of water each, if we had to pack it all in. The weight and space of nine liters of water would use our entire carrying capacity. The solution to the problem lies in the snow that we will be living on. We'll use the stove to melt snow into water. Fortunately, snow is as pure as, well, the driven snow, so we don't have to boil it or add iodine to make it safe for drinking. All you need is a little excess water in the bottom of a pot heated up, then start adding snow. The water is necessary, believe it or not, to avoid burning the snow! It takes a lot of snow to make a liter of water, but it's way better than carrying it. A nice trick I like is to add handfuls of snow to my water bottle during the day while I climb. This keeps my water cool and replenished.
So, Mt. Shasta is foremost in my thoughts this week. It is mixed in with things like the nature of life and death (yes, I really do think about both several times a day!), what I'm going to get Brent for his birthday, how I'm going to get my Mom to accept her gay son, how I am going to get the ski season organized for next year, and how am I going to pay for all the trips I want to make this year. I'm sure there's other things too (what's for dinner tonight?) but honestly, this big mountain has me so distracted I might forget to eat dinner altogether.
Only two more days until I leave home for Mt. Shasta. The preparations are pretty much done and it's just a matter of flipping two more days on the calendar to let the adventure begin. I can't wait!
I'm no longer doing any physical training. It's too late for that. Now it's time to rest and build my energy for the weekend. My equipment is all prepared and loosely packed. It will have to be reorganized on Thursday night when the climbing group assembles for the first time. We'll do our final pack-out then, evenly distributing the weight of group gear and food.
I'm watching the weather on Mt. Shasta very closely now. There's nothing I can do about the weather, but the knowledge of how it's been the last few days and what to expect while I'm there is necessary. It's been too warm to safely climb over the past week. The freezing level, during the day, has risen above the summit. This creates dangerous conditions because the snow pack melts rapidly, condensing it and making it heavy with water. Point release avalanches are likely in such conditions.
I wouldn't leave home if the forecast called for a continuing warm spell. I won't climb when an avalanche is likely. Indeed, there was one early this week that injured some climbers and required a helicopter evacuation. Either those climbers were foolish and failed to learn how snow behaves before going climbing, or they had the knowledge they needed and were simply willing to take the risk.
The weather is expected to cool down on Friday, and be about normal for this time of year Saturday through Monday while I'm on the mountain. Mind you, a warm spell at 14,000 ft (4000M) is relative. It's 33F (.5C) on the summit with 25 knots of wind as I write this mid-day. I'm expecting to find it around 25F (-3C) when I get there early Sunday morning. The warm weather preceding my climb, with good frozen conditions while I'm there, are the perfect combination. The snow that was likely to slide will have already done so, and what remains will consolidate and become more stable. Of course, there is always risk of an avalanche, but as things are shaping up, the level of risk is acceptable to me.
There have been a few noteworthy events in Journal-Land lately. My young friend
Chris
has made the courageous step of telling his best friend that he likes guys! This was only the second time he's ever told anyone. His friend seems to have taken it in stride, so it's a big relief for Chris, as many of you readers know all too well. Not too bad for a freshman out on the plains of Texas. I'm very proud of his mental strength and courage. WTG Chris!
Then there's my friend
Mickey
who is in the delightful situation of getting to know his first boyfriend! He's happy and learning new things and I'm proud of him too. But rather than gush on about his new relationship, I want to respond to some more general comments in his journal this week, in which he writes about GLB social and support groups. Mickey has inspired me.
Mickey advocates GLB groups, and supports them with his time and talent. He finds a sense of community, a social network, and a dating pool there. His positive comments come in the wake of my friend
Bryan's
disavowal of the same kind of groups. Bryan writes "Matt and I are both very busy with other clubs, interests, friends, and stuff. Neither one of us really feel the need to join another group. Also, and I don't mean to sound like a snob or anything, but I don't see where I really need to join a group to advertise the fact that I'm gay."
Of Bryan's ideas Mickey writes, "He (Bryan) doesn't feel the need to socialize within only the gay community or gay bars/clubs. AND he's proud to be in a committed, monogamous relationship. These are perspectives that far too many gaybois our age do NOT get exposed to, in large part because people like Bryan choose not to be involved in the community." At first glance, Mickey and Bryan's points of view seem to be in opposition, yet I support both.
Whereas I think that gay culture needs to get over the shallow and promiscuous bar/tricking lifestyle it has long been afflicted with, I don't think people in committed monogamous gay relationships are tasked with fixing dysfunctional gay culture. Need does not create obligation.
I don't think that Bryan and Matt, or myself for that matter, have any obligation to help those who have not figured out for themselves how to live more meaningful and enjoyable lives. Yet, I invest a fair amount of my time helping guys do just that. I volunteer to lead discussions at a local GLB youth group, I enjoy talking things over with internet pals like Chris as they deal with GLB issues, even this website is, to an extent, a way of advancing the GLB community.
The important thing to remember here is that I do not feel obligated to do any of this. I do it because I enjoy doing it, and because I want to see a healthier, happier gay population. It is my choice and makes me happy. My choice in no way reflects on Bryan's choice.
I'm not sure why I try to be a good example, a mentor, and a leader. I suppose I enjoy making a positive difference in the lives of people going through the same struggles that I do. I really would like to live in a world where gay people are fully integrated and accepted. I see the marginalization of gay people as damaging to individual lives. This week, Mickey assessed the young gay populace by saying, "The bottom line is that your average gayboi is looking for other gaybois to sleep with, party with, dance with, do drugs with." I might be pulling the idea out of context a bit, if so please forgive me, but it struck a strong and sad chord with me. Is this really all there is for young gay guys, or is this all they can see from the confines of the social ghetto they are pressured to live in?
I love the idea of social and support groups where gay guys can meet each other to break the isolation of being young and gay. I am working to achieve the day when there is no isolation, when boys can casually come out as soon as they realize their orientation and have plenty of other gay kids at their school to befriend and date openly, just like all the straight kids do. It's sad to me that isolation and prejudice can squeeze out all the happiness possible in the lives of young people, and limit their imagination to various states of intoxication and sex.
Intoxication and sex can both be fun, even joyful, but I don't think they should compose one's entire life. Indeed, I don't think intoxication and sex can be enjoyed to their full potential if they are the sole factor in one's life. The human mind thrives on more than just that, gay or straight. We live better when we have peace of mind, healthy and stable relationships, creativity, physical fitness, the ability to think clearly, and the satisfaction of personal achievement. Every one of these things we have to make for ourselves. They come from within and can't be given to us by circumstance or the good will of others alone. Each person must be an active participant in the creation of his or her happiness. If there is any obligation in my philosophy, that is probably where it lies.
Finally, I would like to add to this a fine, but I think important, point. We should try not to confuse the idea of happiness with the idea of pleasure. They are not always one and the same. I try to seek happiness in my life. I seem to stumble into a fair bit of pleasure along the way.
Thursday, May 3rd 2001
Monday, May 7th 2001
With the beamer all ready to go, I zoomed back over to the Marina airport (more Blink 182 blaring, sunroof open) for the race. The race wasn't exactly a race, per se, but an autocross. An autocross is a timed event over a short course. Each participant gets four attempts to set the fastest time, one car at a time. I had a slight advantage, being one of the course preparers, in that I had already driven the course three times the night before. I didn't, however, expect to be very competitive. There are people in this world who make auto-crossing their lives; they spend small fortunes tuning their cars to maximum performance on the mini-racetracks and are quite talented. My car is 100% stock, with the exception of the new Momo shifter knob Brent gave me for my birthday last week. The knob would make no difference here, as the entire course is run in second gear.
Tuesday, May 8th 2001
This picture is of a very different kind of mountain than the one I talked about last week. This is a digital photo of Mt. Everest, taken earlier today. No, I'm not going there any time soon, but I present it here as a news item which I am following. Everest 'summit season' has arrived. There is a narrow weather window between the Jet Stream driven storms of winter and the snow laden summer monsoon that presents optimal climbing conditions at the highest point on Earth. The window of two weeks or so opens now.
Wednesday, May 16th 2001
Monday, May 21st 2001
One of the stranger effects of altitude on the body is what it does to the appetite. In most cases, it just makes the appetite go away. While climbing you've got to keep eating, no matter how sick the altitude makes you feel. Food starts tasting different. Something you hate at sea level, you might find incredibly good at 12,000 ft. or vis versa. You've just got to keep nibbling, so I've tried to include a wide variety of tastes in the hope that something hits the mark with my partners and they eat properly at altitude. If not, they won't make it to the summit, plain and simple. For me, I find that string cheese, beef jerky, and Snickers bars are quite edible up high. Trail mix, which I often enjoy, sucks up there.
Wednesday, May 23rd 2001