Thursday, August 20, 2009

Hiking the Bald Mountain and Discovering Dandruff

Today I took a hike up Bald Mountain. It is located in the Glastonberry wilderness next to the Appalachian Trail and rises to around 2,800 feet with a 1,600 feet elevation gain from the trailhead. It is 2.5 miles to the top and the runoff made the first mile of trail quite muddy, something that Loki, my canine companion, decided to utilize by walking down the middle of any puddle. It probably helped him keep cool, it was 85 degrees and 50% humidity.
Along the way I ran into this guy, not sure exactly what species but he was about 3 inches long. The blue spike was brilliantly colored, something the picture doesn't do justice.
So the commen nomenclature in Bennington for Bald Mountain is The White Rocks, named for the large exposed white rock face on the western slope. During this climb I learned that it is white because the mountain is mainly marble. The chunk in the shot above was one of a multitude that covered the trail. Note, marble when wet is slippery.Just another cool rock, I wish the focus had turned out better. Poor Loki was suffering towards the summit, he is a bit porky and it was damn hot so I let him set the pace and kept stopping to let him breathe.This at the summit, the ground is white with marble powder, rather surreal and the reason for the title of this post. The pines there only grew to about 6 feet at the most so I stood on the pile of rocks to get a view.
Self portriate with the auto timer. I had my camelbak with me and drained all 50 oz. by the time I got back to the car.This is the view from the top. It was hazy so it didn't photograph well but it overlooked the Green Mountains and it was stunning. I took a seat and called my girlfriend Heather to share with her the exerience and as I am sitting there two backpackers walked up. Sure I am sitting on the summit of a moutain on my damn cell phone. Silly. Loki was very tired and going through heat exhaustion so we decended quickly to find some drinkable creeks. It was a good hike, I want to go up the other side so I can get to those white rocks and take some shots there.

Friday, August 14, 2009


Because you know it is true. I made this for fun in the peak of procrastination about other projects. The inspiration? Well simply this car was parked out of my apartment in Pittsburgh for the year plus I lived there...

Monday, August 3, 2009

What happens when you soak a Phoenix

After a couple days of insanity running around for my move up to Burlington I took today and its beautiful weather as a sign and decided to put the Phoenix back in the water at Lake Paran. It was quiet when I first got there.
This is the dam at the end of Lake Paran. After all the rain it was running strong. It is a small lake and has a serious problem with this invasive seaweed. Almost half is filled almost to the surface with the stuff and I had to be careful not to catch my paddles on it.
The launch is really nice and I did a couple trips out and around. I am getting more comfortable with the balance of the boat and when I would get close to shore I would try my harder paddle strokes and turns while tilting the hull. Once I relaxed and settled it was quite nice and dragonflies kept landing on the bow. I also saw a turtle surface for air, which was a nice surprise. Believe it or not this was on purpose. Knowing how tippy this is I wanted to do some more tests with worst case scenarios. I flipped and filled it as much as I could and tried wet reentry to see if I could paddle it filled with water. It was slow and ponderous but still functional. And with it filled with water and therefor lower, the kayak was notably more stable. I tried a partial flip with me in it to see what it would be like getting out of it inverted. I have my hands on ground in case I needed it and I discovered that it was incredibly awkward experience. I am going to practice more when I have someone there to flip it back up in case I get stuck. Over all I had a great time and all my clothing is hanging all over the room drying.