canyonwalker: My other car is a pair of hiking boots (in beauty I walk)
Alaska Travelog #19
Now getting dinner - Mon, 17 Jun 2024, 7pm

We reached our turnaround point on the trail to the Harding Ice Field just before 4pm. It's not that it was too late in the afternoon to continue; there'd still be more than 7 hours of daylight plus 2 hours of dusk. It's that to go further really would have benefited from snow/ice equipment and we were too exhausted to fake it. So we did the safe thing, the thing recommended by the ranger anyway, and turned back.

Heading down from Marmot Meadow near Harding Ice Field (Jun 2024)

The way down on out-and-back trails can become a forgettable thing. You've already seen all the sights, now it's just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other 5,000 times. So it helps to remind oneself, In Beauty I Walk. And it helps when nature is stinkin' beautiful with constant panoramic views.

Enjoying a panoramic view near Exit Glacier (Jun 2024)

We do still have to walk those thousands of steps, though, so we can't stop constantly for pictures. Though it does serve a dual purpose of letting us rest our aching legs. 😅

Heading down the trail from Exit Glacier and Harding Ice Field (Jun 2024)

Well, actually, our legs weren't aching while we were still up here. It was about halfway down the relentless descent that our knees and toes were crying out for mercy.

We made it back to our car at 5:45pm and then to town around 6:15. We went straight to dinner.

canyonwalker: My other car is a pair of hiking boots (in beauty I walk)
Alaska Travelog #18
Kenai Fjords National Park - Mon, 17 Jun 2024, 4pm

Today we've hiked the trail toward Exit Glacier and the Harding Ice Field in Kenai Fjords National Park. After starting out easily from the visitors center the trail forks in various directions. We took the fork that goes up, up, up.

Up, up, up on the trail to Harding Ice Field in Kenai Fjords (Jun 2024)

The climb was... well, I don't want to say tough but it sure wasn't easy. We've climbed about 1,300 vertical feet over the course of 2 miles. That's far from the toughest we've ever done, especially because there's no altitude acclimation challenge here. And the beautiful views in all directions helped us keep focused on the reason for the hike rather than the drudgery of it.

Views of the mountains across from us on the trail to Exit Glacier and Harding Ice Field (Jun 2024)

As we climbed ever higher the views opened up more and more. And the sky was so clear. We could see there was still fog hanging over Resurrection Bay in the distance. But out here it was sunny and even warm. I'd stripped off my heavy sweater after 10 minutes of hiking. The little thermometer I clipped on my pack reads 72°. And yes, in the photo above that's a patch of snow in the small trees below us.

Speaking of snow, there'd be more to come.

Snow on the trail near Marmot Meadow in Kenai Fjords (Jun 2024)

As we approached Marmot Meadow, which a ranger at the visitors center below advised us is as far as we should go, we crossed a few larger patches of snow.

Posing for a picture at Marmot Meadow in Kenai Fjords (Jun 2024)

Marmot Meadow is where we were advised to turn around as going farther involves entering areas with increased snow/ice hazards and danger of avalanches. Indeed we'd already seen a small avalanche happen high up on the snowy cliffs an hour earlier. Such warnings didn't stop a lot of hikers who'd gotten this far. Even we pressed on just a bit further, as long as the trail was dry and clear.

Exit Glacier and Harding Ice Field seen from above Marmot Meadow (Jun 2024)

This was the view at our turnaround point. From here the trail drops down the side of the cliff to meet the side of the glacier. We didn't feel like going down only to have to come back up. 😅 But like I said, some other hikers up here did exactly that. Some of them even had the appropriate gear for it. (Our not having crampons and ice axes was one reason we planned not to go further than this.) Indeed, in the photo above you can see a small group of hikers on the glacier. They're just above the crevasse near the bottom center of the picture.

Up next: Coming back down from Exit Glacier


canyonwalker: Driving on the beach at Oceano Dunes (4x4)
North Las Vegas Travelog #17
Desert National Wildlife Refuge - Mon, 19 Feb 2023, 5pm

I wrote two blogs before this one about driving the Mormon Well Road. It's an unpaved 4x4 route that crosses 40 miles through the Sheep Range Mountains of Desert National Wildlife Refuge. We tackled it in our rented Toyota Rav4— a vehicle that I didn't think terribly much of on the pavement. Would it handle the 4x4 route okay?

At first it seemed like the answer was Yes, it would handle the route just fine. I had already checked recent posts on a wheeling website as well as asked at the ranger station in the morning. Both indicated the trail was in fine shape for 4x4s with a bit of extra ground clearance. Indeed, the first nearly 20 miles of the trail were fairly well graded gravel. Then it got tough. And by tough I mean muddy.

We drove THAT? The Mormon Well Road (Feb 2023)

As the trail neared its crest of 6,683 ft. (2,037 meters) the gravel surface ended. What a place to stop with the gravel— pretty much at the snow line! And since the snow had fallen several days earlier (remember that storm that screwed up my day getting to Vegas on Tuesday?) it was now melting and forming puddles of mud.

The mud started out patchy at first. It seemed like just one stretch to get through, and I could avoid most of it by staying to one side of the road as I drove. But then that one stretch was followed by another, and another, and then more. And soon the mud spread across the whole trail. I was driving with two wheels up on the berm at the side of the trail most of the time, dodging trees and bushes while trying to keep two wheels out of the goop.

It was tough going. I used all my 4x4 skills, picking lines, maintaining speed, avoiding digging in with tire spin, and steering into the many skids as the vehicle bucked back and forth in the mud. Meanwhile the Rav4 was doing yeoman's work. The AWD selector offered a "Mud and Sand" mode which I engaged, suspicious it was mostly a button for show, but it really delivered the goods. There were at least two spots where I thought we were surely stuck, but between my resolve and the Rav4's unwillingness to quit, we got through.

Mud and snow at the top of the Mormon Well Road (Feb 2023)

We pulled aside at the trail's crest. The mud looked a little easier going downhill ahead. Of course, it looked a lot easier coming up before we really got into it!

Getting muddy on the Mormon Well Road (Feb 2023)

This is what our vehicle looked like at this point on the journey. I'm only surprised there wasn't more mud on it!

As we were getting ready to continue onward, another 4x4er came up the trail from the opposite direction. Driving a heavily modified Jeep Wrangler he was surprised we'd gotten up here "in this". He meant the Rav4, not the mud. But also the mud, I guess. Anyway, the other driver had good news for us: the route down was less muddy than what we'd already gotten through. Plus, I figured, driving gently downhill in mud is easier than driving gently uphill; the pull of gravity helps with maintaining forward momentum.

The second 20 miles of the offroad trek passed subjectively much faster than the first 20. This is the phenomenon I've warned about when hiking back out on a trail. You feel you've been there, done that, seen everything. You focus on putting one foot in front of the other, at the risk of sort of sleep-walking through half the trek. Here, our adrenaline was spent from slogging through the mud. We had already seen plenty of the scenery, too. Now we were focused on getting back on time— and continuing to not get stuck.

As we crossed over the last ridge coming down out of the mountains we started playing a game of how far the road was. "I can see what looks like a building, it's probably 8 miles," said Hawk. "Now I can see tractor-trailers on the road, it can't be more than 2 miles," I countered. Soon enough we were back on pavement. We turned South and headed back to Vegas.

Driving back to Vegas after visiting Desert National Wildlife Refuge (Feb 2023)

Once we got back to Vegas we looked for two things before returning the car: gas and car wash.

I thought we'd need a self-wash place to really knock all the mud off the car. Hawk suggested we try automated wash first. I agreed. It predictably got... most... of the exterior clean but did nothing about all the mud caked inside the wheel wells, the wheels, and around the suspension.

So next we found a self-wash place. It was much cheaper than those in our area back home. We started with $3 because that's the minimum back home for about 3 minutes. Here in Vegas $1 bought 3 minutes. We dropped all $3 in, and I got busy with the pressure hose. 9 minutes of heavy spraying was just enough to knock all the dirt off so you'd be hard pressed to figure out how much mud we drove through.

We parked next to one of the vacuums at the self-wash place to repack our suitcases and change into street clothes before returning to the airport. At first felt a bit self-conscious about changing clothes in a parking lot, but let's just say that self-wash garages tend to be in... not the most discerning... parts of town. Basically we were in the slums. We weren't bothering anybody, so nobody bothered us. Then, with the car sparkling clean and us back in our fancy clothes, we were ready to drive past the gleaming high-rise casino hotels to the airport for our flight back home.



canyonwalker: My other car is a pair of hiking boots (in beauty I walk)
North Las Vegas Travelog #14
Somewhere outside Las Vegas - Mon, 19 Feb 2023, 11am

Today's our last day in Las Vegas/North Las Vegas. Our plan for today, before we fly home in the evening, is to do some hiking and car-touring north of Las Vegas, in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge. Nothing is really set in stone, which is good because we weren't sure what the conditions would be like or what trails the rangers would recommend. When we stopped at the refuge visitor's center this morning, in fact, we found out there really isn't that much hiking. It's basically jjust a nature trail around the center, which is down in the uninteresting part of the desert.

We popped out of the refuge (we'll go back later in the day) and went for a scenic drive up in the mountains around Mt. Charleston. Not having things set in stone allowed us to do that. Up at elev. 8,200 ft. we reached the Desert View Overlook.

It's snowy at the Desert View Overlook, with Mummy Mountain in the background (Feb 2023)

It's snowy up here! We started seeing patchy snow on the drive from around 6,000' elevation. Up here over 8,000 there are deeper drifts. Some families with younger kids were coming up here just to play in the snow.

The mountain in the background is Mummy Mountain. At first I thought it was Mt. Charleston, the highest peak in the range just west of Las Vegas, but it's not. Mt. Charleston is behind Mummy Mountain from this angle. And you can't see it because they're of similar height. Mummy Mountain reaches 11,333 ft.; Mt. Charleston reaches 11,812 ft.

It's snowy at the Desert View Overlook, elev. 8,200 ft., outside Las Vegas (Feb 2023)

There's a short, paved trail from the parking lot down to an overlook from. "Wheelchair accessible," the official descriptions all note. Except rifght now it's buried under packed ice and snow up to 2 feet deep. We carefully picked our way partway down it.

A desert view at the Desert View Overlook. Yon mountains are 30 miles away. (Feb 2023)

This third picture is what they really expected us to look at when they named this place the Desert View Overlook. It's a view of the actual desert! One of the signs here explains that different people see different things when they look at the desert. Natives see their ancestral land, geologists see history, the military sees a great place to drop bombs (yes, the sign said that). Surprisingly, "Screw the desert, look at this awesome snowy mountain instead!" was not one of the examples. But, hey, the desert view is nice, too. And not in a way that makes me think of dropping bombs.

BTW, the mountains in the distance, including Sheep Peak and a bit of snow atop Hayford Peak, are 30+ miles away. One great thing, and sometimes one disorienting thing, about the desert is the incredible sight distance.
canyonwalker: Uh-oh, physics (Wile E. Coyote)
This morning we got some snow in the Bay Area. That alone is not so unusual. What is unusual is where it fell.

Usually a few times each winter there's snow on the higher inland peaks around the region, above 3,000' - 3,500' elevation. On a cold morning after rain the day before I can look southeast toward San Jose's Mt. Hamilton and see snow at the top. This morning there was snow in the coast range mountains, and it was a lot lower down than elev. 3,000'.

Snow in the coastal mountains above Silicon Valley (Feb 2023)

This pic I snapped on the way back from lunch shows the view from an intersection in Cupertino. There's significant patchy snow up in the coast range mountains, and it's fairly low down. I estimate the snow in the pic above is below 1,000' elevation.

In 25+ years of living here I don't think I've ever seen snow in the coast range mountains. Although they get way more precipitation than the mountains to the east of us due to their proximity to the ocean, they're also kept warmer in the winter by the moderating temperatures of the Pacific Ocean.

This weird winter weather isn't limited to the SF Bay Area. I heard on radio news yesterday that there's a blizzard warning for Los Angeles. A blizzard, in Los Angeles!

...Now, the catch was that it's not the City of Los Angeles, which is almost entirely right down at sea level, but Los Angeles County. LA County includes mountains that reach to 10,000'. Interstate 5 crests over 4,000' in the Grapevine north of the area. State roads wind through the mountains at up to 6,000'. Those are the areas that had severe weather warnings.
canyonwalker: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Travel! (planes trains and automobiles)
Vegas Travelog #1
SJC Airport - Tue, 14 Feb, 2023. 3:55pm

Today is Valentine's Day so I'm off to Las Vegas... alone. 🤣 My company scheduled its annual Sales Kickoff (SKO) meeting for this week. They were aware it could cause some conflict for US staff. Is it only the US where Valentine's Day is celebrated? Probably it's only the US where it's commercialized to a ridiculous degree. Thankfully Feb. 14 is just another day of the year for Hawk and me so there's nothing disruptive about this trip.

...Nothing disruptive except the travel itself, that is.

I'll book this Southwest flight... and it's delayed

Rolling Delays

My flight to Vegas is delayed. Delays are pretty common with Southwest. Usually they're small. Usually they don't result in stranding me somewhere overnight. Usually. Fortunately SJC-LAS is just a 90 minute nonstop trip (only 58 minutes in the air) so it's hard to screw it up that bad. But, you know, if they try hard enough....

While I bash Southwest for their habit of delays building up pretty much every afternoon, and they have stranded me overnight twice, this delay wasn't due to their antiquated operations systems. Las Vegas got socked with a surprise storm this afternoon. There were high winds and even sightings of snow. Snow in Vegas! A ground stop at the airport inflicted delays on flights on all airlines.

Our flight was on a rolling delay. Our 1:30pm departure was pushed back to 2:00, then 3:09, then 3:38, then 4:35. Over 3 hours late. All for a 90 minute flight.

Update 1: Flight Canceled!

Can it get worse? Sure it can. My flight got canceled.

I got rebooked to a flight originally scheduled for 12:15pm that had already been pushed back to 3:52. Over 3.5 hours late.

It's after 3:52pm already, so who knows when I'll actually get there. I assume at least it will be tonight, because Southwest has already canceled multiple SJC-LAS flights and piled everybody onto this one aircraft. Seriously, multiple flight crews are aboard. They all need to get to Vegas, too, to staff flights tonight and tomorrow morning.

Update 2: Overweight, Call for Volunteers

Update 2 (4:30pm): Twenty minutes ago the pilot announced we are overweight. After the airline canceled 2 or 3 other Vegas flights and piled everyone (including me) onto this one, filling every seat, it's not too surprising. They advised us they would look for 10 volunteers to deplane.

Five minutes ago an operations agent came aboard and made the offer. Take another flight, currently estimated to leave 3 hours later, and Southwest would provide a $600 voucher for future travel in addition to refunding the ticket for this flight. The first volunteer jumped up out of his seat so fast at the mention of $600 the agent had to say, "Not yet, let me finish." 🤣

I'm on this flight with two colleagues headed to SKO. Tim needs to be there ASAP to rehearse for a presentation, Tiffany decided to volunteer for the voucher. I considered it myself. If it's only a 3 hour delay that's reasonable for a ticket refund plus a $600 voucher. The thing is, with all these delays already today, there's no guarantee a flight scheduled 3 hours from now will actually leave 3 hours from now. Flights later today could well get canceled, stranding us 'til tomorrow if we take the deboard. Well, enough other people jumped up ahead of Tiffany that she was #11 in line. She remains on the plane with us. And BTW none of us are going anywhere. It's 4½ hours past this flight's scheduled departure and we're still parked at the gate.


canyonwalker: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Travel! (planes trains and automobiles)
Today is the long road home as we travel from Harrisburg, PA to Sunnyvale, CA. This morning at my inlaws' house just outside Harrisburg we awoke to a dusting of snow!

Early morning snow in Harrisburg, PA (Nov 2021)

Snow is uncommon this time of year in this area. Just 100 miles north it's more common. When I attended college about 200 miles north of here we'd get the first snow of the season looking like this by the end of September!

This also reminded me how long it's been since I've stepped in snow. It doesn't snow at all at my house; the forecast today has a high of 70! So experiencing snow is something I have to travel for. And with travel reduced the past 21 months because... well, you know why... the last time I set foot in snow was 2½ years ago— ironically on the second day of summer while hiking in the Grouse Lakes Basin.

Early morning snow in Harrisburg, PA (Nov 2021)

To be fair I didn't actually step in/on snow here. The pre-dawn lows only barely hit freezing, so snow melted right away on the sidewalk and driveway. There was a fun coating atop our car at 8am, as you can see above.

Right now were at Washington National Airport (DCA) awaiting the first leg of our flight home. The drive down here from Harrisburg was easy, 120 miles in 2 hours. We allowed extra time in our schedule in case there was traffic in the morning. The downside of not needing that that extra time for the drive is that we have to spend it waiting in the airport terminal. Our flight doesn't depart until 12:50, by which point we'll have been here almost 3 hours.


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