Hm. Last post was snow pictures. And now its August. I suppose I'll keep this blog limping along barely alive by posting a couple pics from trip out west in July.

First stop was Portland, for a conference. No interesting pics from the conference of course, but afternoon wanderings led me to the international rose test garden, with 700-800 different species of roses. Don't ask me which species these three are...



After that was up to Washington. Unlike the last couple summer, I didn't do any crazy hikes or backpacking. Just a couple short hikes, but into some nice areas.

Small waterfall on the trail to North Lake

Ice caves.

Looking down on fireweed

The end of the ice caves trail


Sunset-ish golden light

Looking through one of the smaller ice caves

Finally... A decent snow!

Despite massive snowfalls on the eastern seaboard, up until yesterday even Texas had gotton more snow (at once) that we had up here in Ithaca. Fortunately that is now set right with the foot+ (and counting) of snow that has slowed (but not stopped) things around here. I took my camera home last night to have it on my walk up to campus this morning, so here are some abstract(ish) shots along my normal walking route to the lab.

a sinuous bench. Looks a little cold to sit on at the moment though.

One man's trash...

Almost gone.

Texture! Yes, it was snowing pretty hard at the time.

A Midwinter Splash

...of color, that is. Its far too cold for splashes in the wetter sense. These are from the sunset last evening, which was welcome in a predominately white, gray and brown season around here. Quick snapshots, no time to really get into the artsy-ness.

The slope, in wide angle.

The sky, again in wide angle.

The colors kept getting better after the sun set...

Late Fall Adventures

The fall colors this year were nothing short of phenomenal. For the two weeks after getting back from Boston, the foliage did the NE reputation proud (which hasn't been as much the case the last 3 years I've been here). The trees were eye-popping yellows, oranges, and reds that were a delight to photograph. (Gallery here!) Along with this was some beautiful weather that made for some enjoyable afternoons wandering around campus with my camera.

Look up! The contrast is amazing.

From the clocktower, looking towards downtown Ithaca.

Engineering Quad colors

Halloween also provided some good photo opportunities, with a gorgeous sunset and full moon.

The clocktower gets decorated for Halloween every year. The sunset doesn't happen every year.

In the first week of November, I had the chance to give a talk at Stanford on a Friday, then hang out with my brother for the rest of the weekend. The workshop itself was on a hill overlooking the Stanford campus, in a very nice "research center" that was beautiful and well set up for special events. I don't think they let the lowly students up there much! (Photo gallery here!)

The rest of the weekend was spent exploring campus, doing some walks within biking distance from campus, and just chilling. Saturday afternoon, after seeing the main part of campus in the morning, we rode bikes out to the Arastradero preserve to walk around. The weather was California beautiful... 65 and sunny. Which (unfortunately from my perspective) was also the case back in Ithaca! Not to complain, but couldn't the November heat wave have hit Ithaca one of the 28 days I was in town? Oh well.

Old Union building, Stanford campus

Cactus garden, Stanford arboretum

After church and dinner with friends on Sunday, we walked the "dish", a Stanford-owned natural area just above campus with nice views out over the Bay area as the sun set. The recent daylight-saving time thing meant it was getting dark at 5, which was really throwing me off. We went for an In & Out burger run with my brother's roommate that night (mm. good burgers!) before I turned in early to get precious few hours of sleep. (the airport shuttle came at 3am the next morning!) The trip back could have been worse. They canceled my flight from Philly to Ithaca, which meant I got to sit around the Philly airport for a nice 8 hrs or so. I still got back to Ithaca not long after 9pm, but that still made for a long day.

Hills above Stanford, looking out at the Bay

Since then, I've been getting research done again (There have been many good distractions this season!) as the weather gets colder and the landscape is now an un-photogenic grey and brown. But, there have been a couple good sunsets in there that have got the camera shutter moving.

In your face sunset colors.

Boston!

In the midst of tons of weekends outdoors, I had the opportunity to present some research last week at a DARPA grant progress report meeting/conference in Boston with several others from my lab. The meeting itself involved doing demos, so I got to haul some of my research over there and set it up. Fortunately it all worked well enough. Other notables at the meeting itself included the first night "teambuilding" activities, which consisted of a Nintendo set up playing the "rock band" game where people "play" guitar and drums and sing. Yeah. A bunch of government bigwigs and top-of-their-game professors doing glorified karaoke. Wow. Needless to say the grad students in general did a little better, and our "band" actually got 3rd place (Woohoo. Won a Darpa water bottle!). Fortunately, the drum controllers for the game are sort of like electric drums, so I was able to cobble together a decent showing based purely on actually playing drums.

The conference hotel was interesting. Right by the Charles river, but with a style of architecture that was interesting, but reeked of the 70s.

The most fun of the week involved getting out of the hotel though. A friend who worked in my lab as an undergrad is now at MIT doing grad school. He gave a tour of the media lab, where he works. Impressions? So much creativity, engineering, and fabrication capability in one place its ridiculous. I love the intersection of art, music, and engineering. I don't regret declining MIT's admission offer, but if I had ended up there the Media lab would be where it was at for me.

MIT Media lab lobby. This entire building was full of labs that just emanated creativity and new ideas.

We also wandered through the Stata center, Frank Gerry's famous new building on the MIT campus. Its very... modern. I don't think there's a 90 degree angle anywhere in the building, and it was awesome to wander through and photograph, although fans of classical architecture probably would not appreciate it.

The Stata center, MIT's new(ish) famous computer science building. Very dynamic and fun to try and capture (in picture).

Interior of the Stata center. There were literally buildings within buildings, and it was all so 3D. Never a dull corridor or a boring room.

Next I wandered over to Harvard, which was a couple miles away. Impressions here? I expected more in terms of the architecture. It was nice, but not stunning. It felt like a nicely-kept housing complex, with some old brick buildings, white-framed windows, and a nice traditional quad. I left slightly underwhelmed, wondering if I had even found the right place (although the signs said I had indeed). I suppose that may be part of its charm... that it feels like a smaller school, yet has such highly esteemed programs.

Tree, Harvard campus. Fall colors were not yet peak in Boston, but a few trees were turning anyway.

Nothing else too notable on the trip. I woke up at sunrise the next morning to go for a nice run down the Charles and through downtown. I enjoyed seeing the city again, and secretly enjoyed not being a camera-toting tourist as I ran through, although there certainly would have been some nice shots. My impressions from my previous visit to Boston still hold true... it is a very nice city with a lot of character and a lot of fun to wander around!

The Charles river, by the hotel. Looking downriver towards downtown Boston.

Fall Outdoor Fun!

It's been a good season for outdoors activities! I've been keeping busy with COE (Cornell Outdoor Education) both teaching and taking classes. I decided to try something completely new this semester, so I took a whitewater kayaking course. We spent a few session in the pool, learning how to roll and recover and getting a feel for the little boats, then we took two trips. The first trip was to a standing wave on a river a couple hours north of here in Watertown that was fun to play around. But the whole class was leading up to a weekend trip to actually run a couple rivers.

We packed up the boats and gear Friday night, then took off Saturday morning on a beautiful day. We headed down to northern PA to run the Lehigh River, which was going to be class 2/3 rapids. One thing I didn't know is that they actually do dam releases just so that people can whitewater kayak and raft on these rivers on the weekends. Interesting. The boats themselves are little tiny things that look like they should flip over with someone sitting in them. But they are extremely maneuverable, indestructible, and after the pool sessions I was pretty comfortable with them.

The river itself was nice. Nothing super crazy, just lots of sun, trees, whitewater, and good times. It was a pretty long run, so we ended getting off the river getting on towards evening. We decided to camp nearby at a rafting company campground, which turned out to be an experience. The place was crawling with junior high kids and had the atmosphere of a summer camp. There was a store, a zip line, an arcade... you get the idea. Better yet, after dark just as we were about to crash for the night the camp DJ turned on the lights and music in the pavilion across the field from us and fired up the dance party. You're kidding, right?? I was embarrassed to be there in a COE van, but it did make the whole experience fairly memorable.

Me on the Mongaup. The class 3 section is below the bridge this was taken from. (photo: Scott V.)

The next day we drove to southern NY and ran the Mongaup river, which had an real class three section at the end. It was a shorter run, but a lot more intense. Also extremely nice, in the same northeast tree-lined river sort of way. The Mongaup empties into the Delaware at the bottom, but the first time through I ended up hitting the last rapid too close behind another student and got spit out into the mighty Delaware upside-down, bumping my (helmeted) head against rocks along the bottom. That would never do, so fortunately it was reasonable to carry my boat back up and run it again unencumbered. So I managed to stay up that time, and end the trip well.

I've also been doing as much climbing as time permits, including trips with friends and even leading a COE outdoor climbing class last weekend over the 4 days of Fall Break. The weather was absolutely gorgeous fall weather, with the tree colors in full swing, cold, crisp nights, and days that got warm enough to shed a layer or two. The students were awesome, and we all had a good time. Earlier in the season (and a bit over the summer) I had the chance to work on my trad lead climbing. Always good times to spend a weekend with friends and rock!!

Trad climbing earlier this summer. I obviously didn't lead this one, but I lead for the first time later this day. This imposing overhang is actually only a 5.8. Gotta love the Gunks!

Toproping at Peterskill in the Gunks. Good times! (Photos: Jen)

Summer Catch-Up Post...

Whoops. It's now been a couple months since I posted, despite a three week trip to TX and the northwest at the end of August. Hopefully everyone interested has found the photo galleries from the hiking here and here. I'll summarize the highlights here quickly:

-I was in Austin, TX for a conference, but like the last couple years I was able to spend the weekend before with cousins and family in Arlington. Always amazing to see them, eat some good food, and relax! Highlights of the conference include real tex-mex food. There is nothing remotely good in that vein here in Ithaca. Also, one evening activity was a riverboat cruise along the river that goes through Austin. We were definitely away from the downtown area, cruising through some pretty wealthy neighborhoods. Honestly felt more like CA than TX.

Pennybacker Bridge, Lake Austin. From a riverboat cruise that was part of the conference.

-Got back to the NW just after a heat streak. Did a short hike to Gothic Basin to wet the appetite for later in the week. Weather was dry, but moody which made for fun photos!

Foggy Lake, living up to its name

Looking out over Gothic Basin from Gothic Peak over the clouds socking in the valleys.

-Went on one of the most ambitious backpacking trips I've done. 5 days/72mi along the Alpine Lakes stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail. It was a blast, and a good chance to make use of some of my lightweight backpacking gear which made it quite bearable. The weather definitely could have been better, as we spent a good bit of time hiking through clouds oblivious to the magnificent beauty that was no doubt around us. there were a couple nice days though, so all in all it was well worth it!

Avalanche Lake, on the one sunny morning of the five day backpacking trip

Beneath Cathedral rock, on the one sunny evening of the trip.

Kendal catwalk, on the last day. The fog was awesome here, since it made the cliff just fall down hundreds of feet into oblivion.

-After so many days of bummer weather, I managed to get out on one more day hike before I had to come back to the northeast. This time the weather was picture-perfect, and the hike was the most beautiful hike I have ever been on. Period, no doubt in my mind even two months afterwards. The Enchantments are well know for both hiking and climbing, but are normally done as a 2-3day backpacking trip. However, traveling light and fast it was a decent 25 mile day hike.

Leprechaun Lake. One of about 11 lakes in series, each one stunningly beautiful.

Perfection Lake. I agree.

Prussik Peak. Alpine climbing heaven.

UK09: The conferences (AKA the reason for it all...)

The next morning I made my way the two miles from the hostel into Ft. William to catch a bus out of the highlands. I left myself a good half day in Glasgow to explore, but ended up just seeing one of the local parks (Victoria Park) and the Museum of Transport. There was not a lot notable about what I saw of Glasgow, except some petrified trees in the park and a bunch of interesting cars, boats, trains, motorcycles, etc. in the museum. Or maybe I was just so tired at this point that nothing would have been too interesting.

The end of the West Highland Way in Ft. William. I cheated and only did the last 35 of the 95 miles, but only for lack of time.

Petrified forest in Victoria Park, Glasgow.

Traditional gardens in Victoria Park

Did you know Scotland produced cars? Here's one from the Scottish Museum of Transport.

Anyhow, I caught a bus out to the airport, then a cheap domestic flight to East Midlands airport, which put me about 7 miles from the conference site. A short taxi ride later, I all but crashed in my room at the 4 star hotel. The event was the Rapid Manufacturing Conference, which is an international gathering of researches and companies from the rapid manufacturing (3D printing) community. I got my fill of traditional English food at the hotel, and the talks were interesting. However, I had to leave early on Thursday, because I was due to present a paper at another conference back across the pond in Montreal the next morning. London was about an hour and a half train ride away, and the international flight went without a hitch.

I showed up in Montreal at about 7pm that evening, caught a shuttle bus downtown (which was a mess because of a jazz festival going on) and checked into yet another amazing 4 star hotel where the conference was being held. I tell you, don't let a grad student get used to this continent hopping, 4 star lifestyle! My talk the next morning went smoothly, (some people even showed up for it at 8:30am!) but the rest of the conferences was, well, pretty boring. This conference was GECCO (Genetic algorithms conference), so it was mostly computer programmer types, who I don't associate with especially interesting talks. I did have a couple chances to explore around Montreal, and surprisingly, it felt almost more European than the UK did (something about the fact that the language and road signs are all in French there).

Montreal at sunset

Anyhow, a couple of my colleagues had driven up from Ithaca, so I just rode back with them to complete the loop. All in all, I was gone less than two weeks, but it was a crazy whirlwind of a trip. And even more of a headache to plan! I added it up and it turns out I made use of more than 10 different transit companies (planes, buses, trains, taxis, etc.), all of which operate independently. But all the planning paid off, and I got to do and see everything I had hoped to do, and came away with a very fun and memorable trip!

UK09: Day 5 - Ben Nevis

[Note: Accompanying photo gallery for the whole Scotland experience here]

The next morning I awoke to a drizzle. After the last couple days where the general trend was clearing up into the morning, I decided to hang tight, since I only had 10 miles of hiking slated for the day. That happened to be up the tallest mountain in the UK (Ben Nevis, at 4300 feet), but still. Don't need all day for that. After a lazy morning, sometime around 10:30 the rain stopped and it looked like things were maybe clearing up. Or at least I was bored sitting around camp. So I set out.

The hike up was mostly dry, but the trail wasn't too interesting. Just up and up, and it was really well traveled. By that, I mean hiker highway. Oh well... I'll do anything once. It started raining towards the top. Hard. And cold. And windy. The last mile or so was above vegetation line and through a barren rock landscape. There was even a patch of snow to hike across, which I was mildly surprised at. The top was more or less flat, although with no vegetation there were views in the directions not blocked by clouds. Also present were the remains of an old observatory and a few monuments. After about 10 minutes of getting soaked hoping the rain would abate, I gave up because I was soaked to the skin and starting to lose body heat to the wind. I think the mountain was generating its own rain to some degree, because I could look out under the clouds and see that it was light and almost sunny out in the valleys below.

Climbing Ben Nevis. Town of Ft William below.

The summit of Ben Nevis is flat, but there are dramatic cliffs on the one side. (You can just barely see people next to the monuments at upper right for scale)

The trip down was.... miserable. Not to look for pity or anything, but I was tired, didn't want to stop to dig out food from my pack (so starving) and there was no shelter up there whatsoever. And the rain would let up for just a bit before coming back seemingly harder than before. You would think that given I was soaked to the skin it wouldn't be so bad, but the continual, cold drenching felt... spiteful. I am still definitely glad I did it, but let's just say I probably would have enjoyed it more had it been a little dryer. But hey... Rain is the reality of hiking in Scotland, and I had lucked out the previous two days.

It poured most of the way down, despite apparently being sunny right down there in Ft William.

I had been considering getting a bed (and a shower) at a hostel that night anyway, since I would be traveling by bus (and plane) back down the island the next day. But given my cold and drenched state, my mind was made up. Fortunately, there was a nice hostel right at the base of the mountain that was set up with a drying room among the other amenities. So 18GBP later, I had a nice, clean bed, a long, piping hot shower, and all my stuff was drying out nicely in the drying room. Much, much better than a cold, wet night. (It did continue to rain for most of the rest of the day).

Met some cool folks at the hostel, including my roommates who were from Poland, biking Scotland for a month. Sounds like fun! I actually went to bed quite early (partly out of boredom), and slept long and hard.