2012-03-28
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Odd topic of the day
I was reading in the latest National Geographic about a woman mountain climber who recently became the first to climb all of the 14 highest peaks in the world (8000 meters and more above sea level). The article is sprinkled with the deaths of people she was with on other expeditions and with bodies come across on various climbing trips.
I'm sure there some people who think I'm a bit nuts. I am acrophobic. But I really like driving on twisting, turning mountain roads. After being detoured out onto a shelf road (a jeep trail with the worst boulders cleared) in Wyoming, and descending on the sheer side of a narrow cliff-face road in Utah facing a whole line of pickups with over-sized campers which were illegally driving up the cliff, the average mountain road in the US isn't too frightening. Most places in summertime, daylight and good weather, if your car handles well, you can drive a bit faster posted speed and still be driving slowly enough to enjoy the view without worrying about on coming traffic approaching in the wrong lane. Yes, you do see people driving in the middle of two-lane mountain roads (the chickens!) so you can't drive a lot faster than the posted speed.
One of my aunts used to start objecting when my uncle even made the suggestion of driving over a mountain pass. But then she's still around at over 90, so you can't fault her caution, too much. ;o) Back when I had just graduated from high school my parents and I stayed for a couple days at a Colorado mountain cabin that the company that uncle worked for owned. I'm sure my aunt enjoyed the cabin although probably not the tame drive up to it. One morning I got up and started climbing the nearest mountain as a lark. There were steep spots but nothing to stop me from walking up. (There was a deer in the forest that I kept hearing, till we spotted each other in a place where I was actively using the trees to hold onto to help me climb.) I remember thinking at that moment that this was enough for me. If I couldn't basically walk up a mountain, I didn't need to climb it. I'd been up Pike's Peak before. Frankly I thought looking down on everything was disappointing. The top of that high spot I climbed on the side of Mt Antero was amazing that morning. Beautiful below, beautiful above. So my motto in the mountains has always been, 'The best view is from the top of the smallest mountain.'
And I'm still convinced that technical mountain climbing is for the truly insane.
I'm sure there some people who think I'm a bit nuts. I am acrophobic. But I really like driving on twisting, turning mountain roads. After being detoured out onto a shelf road (a jeep trail with the worst boulders cleared) in Wyoming, and descending on the sheer side of a narrow cliff-face road in Utah facing a whole line of pickups with over-sized campers which were illegally driving up the cliff, the average mountain road in the US isn't too frightening. Most places in summertime, daylight and good weather, if your car handles well, you can drive a bit faster posted speed and still be driving slowly enough to enjoy the view without worrying about on coming traffic approaching in the wrong lane. Yes, you do see people driving in the middle of two-lane mountain roads (the chickens!) so you can't drive a lot faster than the posted speed.
One of my aunts used to start objecting when my uncle even made the suggestion of driving over a mountain pass. But then she's still around at over 90, so you can't fault her caution, too much. ;o) Back when I had just graduated from high school my parents and I stayed for a couple days at a Colorado mountain cabin that the company that uncle worked for owned. I'm sure my aunt enjoyed the cabin although probably not the tame drive up to it. One morning I got up and started climbing the nearest mountain as a lark. There were steep spots but nothing to stop me from walking up. (There was a deer in the forest that I kept hearing, till we spotted each other in a place where I was actively using the trees to hold onto to help me climb.) I remember thinking at that moment that this was enough for me. If I couldn't basically walk up a mountain, I didn't need to climb it. I'd been up Pike's Peak before. Frankly I thought looking down on everything was disappointing. The top of that high spot I climbed on the side of Mt Antero was amazing that morning. Beautiful below, beautiful above. So my motto in the mountains has always been, 'The best view is from the top of the smallest mountain.'
And I'm still convinced that technical mountain climbing is for the truly insane.
(no subject)
Another death to report: Earl Scruggs. Even if you had no interest interest in country music, virtually everyone my age knew who he was. We mostly thought of him in the guitar-banjo duo Flatt and Scruggs, who seemed like they were everywhere in those days of the 1950s and early 1960s from Ed Sullivan to The Beverly Hillbillies. Earl Scruggs was more than just the banjo half of the duo. He virtually re-invented five-string banjo playing and his style is played and heard now far more than any of the simpler banjo styles that came before him.