Rolling Blackouts Narrowly Avoided

I got an alert on my phone yesterday afternoon that the state power grid was operating close to its limit. Shut down what electrical use you safely can, particularly raising the temperature on your AC, the message warned, or there might need to be rolling blackouts.

"Rolling blackouts?" I fumed silently. Those haven't been a thing in California since the summer of 2000... and even then they were a manufactured crisis created by malicious market manipulation by out-of-state energy companies. Could real rolling blackouts be a thing now? I was skeptical. I did up the AC setting a few degrees to be helpful, though.

Later last night I saw a news article explaining that the need for rolling blackouts was real and was narrowly averted— except for in a few areas. This LA Times article (6 Sep 2022) details how the state really was on the edge of its capacity. A few cities in northern California imposed blackouts for 1 hour, but it was not widespread.

The article also give a bunch of figures for yesterday's high temperatures. The high here in Sunnyvale was anywhere from 102 to 109 F (39-43° C), depending on which recording location you choose. Other cities in the Bay Area had temps over 110. And in many places the temperature set a record not just for the date of September 6 but forever. Like, many cities had never seen weather that warm in 70 years.

The forecast for today is cooler, only 97° F here. But then tomorrow's back to 100° before the heat tapers off through the weekend.

Office Move - At Home!

Office moves used to be a regular thing. Employees' desk locations would be shifted around whenever there was a company reorg or a change in which buildings the company owned/leased. At one company I had 3 offices in 4 years. At another I had 3 offices in 6 months.

All that became much less of an issue when I switched to partial remote work 8-9 years ago, and a complete nonissue when I switched to 100% remote 4 years ago. Until now. I had an office move last night!



Last night I moved my home office location to a different part of the house. With the hot weather we're experiencing and warnings from the state power grid of rolling blackouts yesterday afternoon I figured downstairs would be better.

We live in a 3 storey townhouse. Our regular home office is on the top floor. It's always at least a little warmer there than on lower floors. On hot summer days, and especially in the afternoon when the sun is on that side of the house, the office is over 80° even when the thermostat on the middle level of the house is set to 71°. Rather than suffer in the heat or try to fight physics I decided to move my workspace temporarily to a table in our living room. Now I can set the AC to 73° or 74° during the daytime to save a bit of energy and not suffer by sweating buckets upstairs.

BTW, the desk I've moved to is one Hawk has used for her crafting for a few years. She graciously moved her jewelry, stones, and tools aside last night so I could set up my workspace there. This is a temporary move because a) I have no intent to displace her crafting but also b) I don't want to keep my remote work area in the living room long-term. I intend to move back upstairs when the heat wave subsides.

Waterfalls Lost & Found

Pacific Northwest September Travelog #5
Northwoods, WA - Sat, 3 Sep 2022, 3:30pm

Our plan to visit 5 waterfalls today on a big driving loop around the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington got off to a strong start with the stunning (if clumsily named) Falls Creek Trail Falls. Right after that, though, the plan started to unravel. After Falls Creek, and well outside of cell signal range, all of our apps decided, "What is this 'caching' you speak of? We will clear our screens now and reload from the web!" Finding our next destination, McClellan Falls, became difficult. And it wasn't listed in either or our printed guides.

Through use of crummy map kiosks posted at out-of-season snowmobile stops, and some dead reckoning, we did at least find McClellan Viewpoint.



McClellan Viewpoint offered a nice vista of Mount St. Helens in the distance. Cloud cover obscured much of it, though. I saw cloudiness in the weather forecast this morning, which is why I decided to do the waterfall loop today and save Mount St. Helens for tomorrow. Mountains are hard to appreciate without clear skies, while waterfalls often look amazing under gray skies.

So, the trail to McClellan Falls was supposed to start near this viewpoint. And for all I know, it does. But we couldn't find it. The online guide did warn that it's "hard" to find. I'd edit that to note that two experienced hikers couldn't find it and gave up.

We drove on from McClellan Viewpoint toward our next hike, Big Creek Falls, about 8 miles away. Halfway there, though, we saw a small sign indicating a turnoff for Curly Creek Falls. "Why's that not on our list?" we both asked. We decided since McClellan Falls was a no-show we had time to add Curly Creek into our itinerary, an impromptu swap.

We parked and found trail notes for Curly Creek in one of our guidebooks. The trail would actually be a two-fer: Curly Creek Falls and Miller Falls. We could see both with a hike of less than 1 mile round-trip.

Well, Curly Creek Falls was another a no-show. Except unlike McClellan Falls we found where it was supposed to be; it just wasn't there. It's dried up for the season.

We continued on toward Miller Falls. It's almost dried up for the season....



This photo shows Miller Falls hanging on by a thread. Earlier in the season it's probably quite a sight, with a drop of 80' or so.

...Actually I don't have to say it's probably quite a sight. It's definitely a sight. We have pictures! Pictures from 5 years ago, that is.

While we hiked this trail Hawk and I debated whether we'd been here before. She said yes, as it looked familiar; I said no, as I didn't quite recognize it. She dug through the photos on her phone, searched by location (we had a wisp of cell signal here to support geolocation), and found photos she'd taken of both these falls 5 years ago. Photos taken in April that year, when the rivers were flush with spring snowmelt.

So, today's trip is a mix of hits and misses so far. I'm looking forward to the next falls on our list, Big Creek Falls. It should be flowing well even at this time of year. Stay tuned for more!

Lewis River Falls (Lost & Found, part 2)

Pacific Northwest September Travelog #6
Cougar, WA - Sat, 3 Sep 2022, 5:30pm

I lamented in my previous blog that our epic waterfall day in Washington that got off to a strong start had started to fizzle, with waterfalls hard to find or dried up for the season. "Waterfall Lost & Found" I dubbed it, as we extemporized with new plans when one fell through.

The need to adjust on the fly continued into the next leg of our trip, when we couldn't find the trailhead for Big Creek Falls. It was probably in a construction zone we passed, behind some "Area Closed" signs. Update: It definitely was in that area, as some online hiking guides reflect that it's been left in a state of growing disrepair for several years.

But, like I said, we extemporized. We're good at finding a Plan B when Plan A doesn't work right. In this case Plan B was the better-than-expected Lower Falls on the Lewis River.



A short trail leads from the parking area down to viewing areas on the edge of a cliff. The Lewis River pours left, right, and center over a ledge in the riverbed. There are so many waterfalls here it's almost hard to count.



The trail along the cliff provides view from a number of different angles. To one side, the trail goes upstream, where there are several more falls in this area. They're not breathtaking like this one, though. To the other side, the trail goes downstream and provides access to the water level... sorta.

I say sorta because the paths down to the water are all treacherous. I used one that had a knotted rope anchored around a tree to help with a near-vertical descent (and later, climb) the bottom 5 meters. I was glad I had my hiking boots and climbing gloves for that. Other hikers looked at what I did and turned around. I think that was wise.

While the climb down to the river (and back up) was an adventure it wasn't a great photographic spot. Maybe if I'd waded upstream closer to the falls there would've been great photos... but while I had climbing gloves in my pack I did not bring wading gear on this trek.



I met back up with Hawk at the first viewpoint. She had gone exploring upstream while I tried the challenge of getting down to the water and back. Ultimately the best views were at the viewpoint, so I made more photos (like the one above) there.

We still had 2 more waterfalls left on our original itinerary. Lower Falls on the Lewis River was so unexpectedly nice, though, that we decided to visit at least one other falls in the area— knowing that it would jeopardize us being able to see the final falls on our list before dusk. Thumbing through one of our printed guides (our smartphone apps had all long since gone into "I know nothing, no-thing!" mode) we decided Upper Falls would be the next best falls and drove a few miles to the trailhead.



When I mentioned used a printed guide I meant... yes, Dr. Smedley Q. Boredom's Very Dull Book of Waterfalls, aka That Dratted Book. 😨 Smedley once again gave us a bum steer with bad directions to Upper Falls. Instead his instructions took us to Taitnapum Falls, pictured in the photo above. Which... hey, Taitnapum Falls is pretty nice. I don't regret being led astray there. But given that he also provides directions— different directions— to Taitnapum Falls, I wonder where we would've gone if we'd followed those!

In beauty I walk... even if it's not where I planned to walk. That's the idea.