The Bird Whisperer of Taos

Man, it's easy to fall in love with Taos, New Mexico!
It's all the better when living the adobe life with Dave Hahn, in his hometown of Taos. Dave says he has lived in Taos since 1985, but with 9 trips to the summit of Everest (and the rest of the year booked at Mount Vinson, Antarctica, South Georgia Island, Denali, Rainier, etc.) he has probably spent more time traversing the Khumbu Icefall than he's spent in Taos. The air and view from Dave's house were as clear and sharp as anything I've ever seen.
I met Dave a few years ago in the Alpes when he dragged my butt up Mont Blanc and Monta Rosa, then later across Shackleton's route on South Georgia Island, and up Mount Rainier. Dave's nine Everest summits might not seem like much compared to my 48 summits of Mount Washington, but he’s going at the pace he has chosen for himself and I'm still proud of him.

Turns out Dave was in Yosemite on the same days I was. He was on assignment from Outside magazine climbing El Capitan with Jimmy Chin, Conrad Anker, and Ivo The Crazy Bulgarian. Dave tells a good story, so it was fun to hear his perspective on big wall climbing, complete with all his personal fears and photos!
They were on the wall six days, climbing a tough Pacific Ocean route. Dave is an entertaining and insightful writer, so the Outside article will be a good look at big-wall climbing, and whole paragraphs of it will be true and accurate.

We went up the road to some beautiful backcountry behind the ski area, beside a little lake. It was mostly uphill, and Dave had no trouble keeping up with me even at this altitude. Good job, Dave. There was a light, dry, new snow on the ground, and again, the crispy air was so clean and sharp... I gotta come back with skis in the winter!
Dave is known as The Bird Whisperer of Taos. Here he is balancing a bird -- a Peregrine Falcon probably -- on his toes.

I headed downhill from Taos (everything is downhill from Taos), and pointed the car towards -- gasp! -- Texas!

Back on Campus

Snowy weather while driving through Colorado from Utah kept me off my bike, and out of the higher passes, so I went straight to Boulder where I snagged Thomson out of his Billabong store,
ate a fired-up dinner at my favorite sort-of-Mexican restaurant in Boulder (Tahoma), and picked up Beth and Brittany (where's Will?) at the Denver airport, which is nowhere near Denver, but it could be if they would move it west about fifty miles.Beth and I stayed in a cozy inn she found in Boulder Canyon, while Britty practiced for college by crashing on T's futon sofa.

Rain in Boulder?! Yes, Thomson has said it happens, and now I've seen it. Beth and I braved the drizzle, and walked a few miles through Boulder Canyon on Boulder's ubiquitous recreational trails. Boulder has big time taxes, and they spend a lot of the money on acquiring and managing green space, and that means it's a friendly area for hikers and bikers.

This was a high-level business trip for Brittany, featuring her much-anticipated first visit to Target (it fulfilled her dreams),
and with official visits to Colorado College and University of Colorado... two very different schools.

Britt was one of five Gould Academy students touring the Colorado schools this weekend, including three on her CU tour. Imagine their delight when they had the opportunity to pose for this pic! (Hey, yer good kids... thanks!)Britty did a great job checking out these schools, and it's good she has this head start as a junior. She's interested in lots of different kinds of schools right now, and she quickly figured out all the differences, advantages, and disadvantages of CC and CU. It was a fun and interesting start to the search process, and not at all the feared horror show of dragging around a mute, amorphous lump in the back seat of a rental car!
And luckily, we were roaring around in the luxury of Thomson's Thunder Truck, since The Little Red Diesel is a little crowded these days!
Other trip highlights included a tour of Thomson's Boston Red Sox hat museum, and a screening of the new movie from Krakauer's Into the Wild book. My thoughts about McCandless's wreckless life and death have mellowed a bit since the book came out about ten years ago, but it's still a disturbing and mysterious story.

Some of my better Life Moments have been on the sidewalk at Boulder's Cafe Roma, in the brisk, dry, early-morning Colorado sunshine, with a large mocha and a croissant, often before or after a day of skiing/hiking/climbing/biking in the Colorado wonderlands. (I think Thoms enjoys this habit more than this pic demonstrates.)

Sometimes a Good Tourist, Sometimes an Ugly Tourist

There is a lot of parched, dry land out here.
There's not much green, not much rain, rarely a spring or lake, and when it does rain it all runs into drainage creeks and goes somewhere far away except for that it evaporates before it gets far away and so nobody can use it anyway. Then all these states fight over who gets to use the water that did not evaporate. I think Nevada and Utah have the most extensive varieties of water-repellent soil materials of any place on Earth.


There was a little more wildlife in Utah, including these cool antelope,

a good collection of cattle trying to help Subway make good on their "eat fresh" claim,
and the topography became more varied and dramatic.



Red Rock Canyon was a peachy drive on the way to Bryce Canyon.




Bryce Canyon National Park was a real winner... All I was looking for was a scenic route across Utah, en route to Boulder, and man oh man, what a place!
I parked the Deezuhl at the Visitor's Center, and took a day to ride the Park road.
It was sunny and warm, I struck my Natural Bike Dork pose,

and I loved the beautiful rocks and shapes

and colors and light. I slept out under the crispy cool stars again, and some of them now recognize me and know me by name. (Do you think all the little stars in Star Junior High have to learn Human Names like we had to learn Constellations?) I slept a few feet from the Canyon rim, and in the pre-dawn I moved right to the rim, wrapped in my goosey down, snoozing in my sling chair, to make sure the sun rose on time...
It did.

It was such a clear morning that it went from dawn to bright sunlight in about ten minutes.
Great hiking and walking...

I was a Good Tourist in Bryce Canyon NP. However, I confess to conducting an Ugly Tourist 90-Minute National Park Drive-Thru at Capitol Reef National Park.
Sorry, but I was behind schedule. It's a cool place, probably worth a day or two of hiking and walking and learning. Lots of the rock there was this color.
If you're there in September, it's open season on the fruit orchards,
and the crowds are thick. You might know Capitol Reef as "the place where that guy's arm got stuck and he cut it off with a knife to save his own life." He is busy rock climbing again, btw.

How 'bout this Crazy Canuck and his buddy, riding from Calgary to the complete bottom of South America! They are stopping pretty much everywhere, seeing pretty much everything, and they have no idea how long this will take, but they're measuring it in years.

My Dog Did Not Eat My Homework

OK, OK, so I'm a little behind on my blog-o-rama life.


Here's what my next blog entries will be about...

1. A cool day belting across the sunny, dry, high plains of Nevada and Utah

2. A couple of beauty days, and one night, under those persistent stars, in Bryce Canyon National Park... good biking, gorgeous weather!

3. Pack up your sports car, and follow my curvy, hilly route out of Bryce Canyon, en route to Capitol Reef National Park... scene of my Ugly Tourist 90-Minute National Park Drive-Thru. (I did get out of the car twice.)

4. Beth-Britty-Thomson (where's Willy?) rendezvous in Boulder, featuring indoor lodging with plumbing, fireplaces, good food, and college visits.

5. 24 hours in Taos, New Mexico, with Dave Hahn (9-time Everest summiteer!), eating, sleeping, solving world problems and kitchen redesign challenges, confirming the meaning of life, and hiking in Taos backcountry in 4" of fresh, light powder. It's gonna be a big winter in Taos!

6. Not enough time here in Austin, Texas... what a place, following Lance's training routes, eating good food, listening to live music, wondering why I've not been here before, and why I'm leaving so soon!

Great Basin Nat'l Park... huh?

I barreled out of California and into Nevada, discouraged to learn that I was only 3,200 miles from Massachusetts,
but encouraged to learn that the way to Tom's Place was so clearly marked.
Unfortunately, I don't know Tom. He must really rate though, huh? I wonder if I can get a "Jay's Place" sign installed on I-95 in Portsmouth.

There are helpful people everywhere on the roads in Nevada.


*****

It’s 8 o’clock and it’s dark. I'm in Nevada, barely, near the Utah border, in Great Basin National Park. Betcha’ never heard of that one, eh? I hadn’t either. I arrived in the dark, set up camp in a fairly legal location, at about 7,700’, near an active little stream. I have no idea what it looks like around here, so it will be exciting to wake up.

I'm betting the weather gods know they owe me one, so I’ll sleep under the stars, leaving the tent in its stuff sack, where all good tents belong. Last night was my first night inside in a while. I will have a couple more chilly nights outside, then a few nights inside in Boulder with Beth, and then I'm heading as far south as possible, as fast as possible!

There are a lot of stars out tonight, the dark sky is clear, and it’s in the thirties. I’ll sleep well. Sweet dreams!

I woke up,

quickly drove to the road’s end at 10,160’, and enjoyed the views. Nice views of the basin, way down there, but I think I know now why none of us ever heard of this National Park.


Anyway, it’s a convenient stop en route to Utah’s treasures, and I'm off!

Yo's Other Side

There was a wind in Lee Vining this morning (Yo East entrance) that was like the wind at the beginning of the Wizard of Oz: swirling, gusting, blowing hard and with force. It blew a jacket from the Porsche parked next to me at the El Mono, and sent it half way to Nevada. Yes, this is California, and there are Porsches even at $45 No Bug* hotels. In California, there are almost as many Porsches as there are jackets.

The helpful El Mono owner doubles as the barista at the Latte Da, since the whole café and hotel front-office operation fit in a 12 x 12 room. She whipped me up a great latte and a homemade pumpkin-spice breakfast cake that was wicked awesome. It was evident that she tests her baking recipes with repetition and diligence.

I drove through swirling snow up to Tioga Pass,
hoping that sunny skies would be celebrating on the west side of the pass. No dice. More snow, clouds, high winds, all the way down to Tuolumne Meadows. The rocks at 9,000’ had a couple inches of snow already, and my hiking route to Clouds Rest was a long, high, exposed granite ridge. Snow and granite are a bad mix, so this hike was a no-go. I’m getting better at turning around than I want to be. The pretty forest ranger suggested it was a good day for a walk in Tuolumne Meadow, but I don’t wanna take a walk in a snowy meadow.


Sunny and windy in Lee Vining, snowy and windy in Yo's mountains.




John Muir would be disappointed in me, but I put Yosemite in the rear view mirror, and headed east out of California. Oooh, in the scope of this trip, this is momentous, oui?

Tioga Toomey's Whoa Nellie Deli

Again at the suggestion of the Klugs, I had a beauty of a short hike up to May Lake, on the quiet side of Yosemite, on the Tioga Pass road heading east out of the park.

What a sight, what a day.
After May Lake’s beauty, I slowly finished the drive
to and through Tioga Pass. It’s a drive full of beautiful panoramas,
and the views towards Clouds Rest ridge and peak (tomorrow’s hike), and to Half Dome, are stunning, spectacular.


That evening, I found the El Mono Hotel featuring the Latte Da Café
in quirky Lee Vining, CA. I'm picking up quite a bit of Spanish while in California. “El Mono Hotel” translates loosely into English as “The Mono Hotel.” (Mono Lake is across the street.) Spanish seems easier than French, and the food is spicier, and served in larger quantities, too. Anyway, rooms were $60, or $45 with a bathroom down the hall. You know darn well which room I took and my economy was rewarded with a bright and clean room, no bugs, and with better towels than Sunday River housekeeping passes out at our $400/night condo. So, El Mono earns the $45 No Bug designation in my travel guide, narrowly bettering the $45 One Bug Hotel in Nebraska. Honestly, I should put an asterisk on the No Bug* designation as there were three little micro-mini ants on my camera this morning. They were eating the remnants of a Power Bar that melted in my pack and stuck to my camera, so it’s really my fault, and they were actually being helpful. So we’ll designate the El Mono Hotel featuring the Latte Da Café as a $45 No Bug* Hotel.

I asked the helpful El Mono owner for the insider’s dining recommendation in Lee Vining. Without hesitation, she said, “Go back to the Mobil gas station. It’s the best.”
“I drove to California from New Hampshire and you want me to eat supper in a gas station?”
“Hey, you chose a room without a bathroom. You might as well complete the experience and eat dinner at a gas station.” Everybody is a joker.
Well, what a fine recommendation it was. The Mobil station features “Tioga Toomey’s Whoa Nellie Deli, with World Famous Fish Tacos.” What a feast I had. I took the world’s advice and ordered the tacos, with a side of mashed potatoes.
Delish, and fun and fast service, too. Full of regulars, tourists, uniformed employees of Your Government, and whacked out employees. I paid with my debit card, and they about threw me a parade when they saw my name matched the name of their favorite cook, who had the night off. In New England, most Irish guys are named “John Riley,” and it doesn’t get me much attention.