JohnHuth

Curvengen....probably just a slip of the fingers, pintail, I know, just trying to get it right. You should see me trying to spell in Marshallese....gawd awful.

In the heat of the action I doubt that people would seriously stop from assisting someone because they were worried about a lawsuit. I had to administer the Heimlich maneuver to someone at work who was choking to death. I don't think it remotely entered my mind that I'd get sued - you'll find yourself just going into auto-pilot in situations like that, particularly if you've practiced a bunch. (and that's why you practice)

I consider practicing rescues in rough water essential. Now, you're going to think me kind of perverse when I say this, but I actually think it's fun. Lord help me. I was surfing with an experienced guide (Kevin from CRCK), and I tried to stay on a wave too long and popped out. Trying to be helpful, Kevin came over to help me out, but I said, "don't touch me, dang it, I want to work on my reentry and roll!". It was just that it was a perfect situation to try that - breakers coming in, I wasn't injured or anything, and he was there just in case, but I really wanted to see how I would fare.

Hi, Ed - I'm planning on going back country skiing in the Pemigewasset Wilderness and will certainly bring my Northface- killer tent. It weighs more, sure, but I don't want to take a chance of getting hit hard by a storm - I can just hunker down if I have to. I've been in lighter "three season" tents up in the high country, even in the summer, and there have been a few nights when I really wish I'd had that Northface mountain tent. So, yeah most of the time it breaks the right way, but when things turn nasty, those all-season tents are a godsend. J

Yes, when we did our -20 degree trip, one of the 3 season tents froze to the ground - obvious mechanism - warmth from breath slightly melts the snow - it puddles at the bottom of the tent, and then refreezes and sort of attaches the base of the tent to the ground. It took awhile to get it off. My Northface (Everest mountain type) came through like a champ. I'm going XC skiing up in the Whites one of these weekends soon!!! Yippee.

I'm seriously thinking about getting a dehydrator, if so, I'll report back. As it is, I will smoke things and take them along on trips. Bluefish is so plentiful in August, that it's a great time to smoke it, and it lasts quite a long time. I suppose you have to have the taste for it, but it works for me. In terms of recipes, I've found that you can do a lot with ramen as a base starch, have some premade sauce in a baggie, and them some dried meat to add to it. Another trick that I like is to put dried beans in a baggie to soak, maybe around noon, and then it doesn't take a lot of cooking in the evening to get them to work out. Rice and beans make a good cheap power-food. Now, on the very low end of things, I talked with some thru-hikers in the hundred mile wilderness about how they did stuff on a budget. One guy said he bought a couple of jars of peanut butter, two or three of those 'stacks' of bagels, and just accordion-squashed them to fit into his pack, and powered from Monson to Kahtadin on that (also cranked out 30 mile days)

Here's a PR blurb from Harvard University Press. For anyone curious about the 'kayaking incident' - it was the famous Aranhoff/Jogoda incident which resulted in the legislation that we've discussed a bunch of times on this website. I don't want to reopen *that* discussion. The only issue was that I was in Nantucket Sound at precisely the same time and within about a quarter of a mile where the girls were paddling when this happened. Incidentally, I was having a great time, not knowing that people were struggling for their lives at the time. I was horrified the next day when I found out. When you read about something like that in the paper, you might shrug your shoulders, but when it's in close proximity to you, it really is unnerving and I had a bad case of survivor's guilt for about a year. My course in navigation and writing this book was my way of "working off" the emotional debt (as opposed to advocating legislation....) HUTPRI.pdf

I always find the ratings for bags a bit misleading. I've come to understand that if you sleep in a bag at the 'rated' temperature, you're not terribly comfortable. It's more like a 'survivability' rating, although that's perhaps overstating it. For most of my camping, I have a 20 degree down bag that works. I do a lot of backpacking in the mountains, where it gets cold at night, but I find that the 20 degree bag is good for that. On a weekend like this one, I'd clearly go with the -20 bag. I suppose everyone has hit on the trick of breathing in and out inside the bag to add the warmth of breath to gain maybe 10 degrees, right? I guess that's kind of obvious.

One of the problems about sleeping in cold weather is 'cold diuresis' - the body "wants to" shed water in the cold, to keep it drier on average. So, just when you've got settled into you -20 degree bag, and all's snug, that's when you find that your body is telling you to go out and pee. I have some fundamental objection to using a nalgene bottle for this purpose, and will just go out in my long johns and pee. Of course, I end up shivering for about 20 minutes in my bag afterwards, so perhaps I should reconsider my problem with nalgene's. My son was in a troop with an insane scout master. We went out when the forecast was for -20. My stuff for winter - high end Northface tent. The stakes have a "V" shape to them, and can penetrate frozen ground pretty well. The tent itself is very warm - that is to say, breath will stay inside the tent and keep it warm. I *will* stake the tent down wearing a pair of thin-ish gloves - my compromise on dexterity. I have two -20 degree bags - one is down, the other synthetic. The synthetic one in particular takes up a huge amount of room in the backpack. Any battery operated device that you want to have operational goes in the bag with you when you sleep, and also as close to your skin as you can. Batteries fail around -10 to 0 degrees F. Any bottle of water you want to drink also goes into the bag with you. Also, if you're being really careful, the feet and hand warmers that skiiers use are pretty nice.

Phil - Yeah, I already knew about that. I *just* finished the index and sent it to the publisher. The book is mainly about cultures of navigation, tides, weather, how to predict stuff, reading the stars, waves etc....not a lot on animal navigation. Curious one though - the desert ant Cataglyphis - uses polarization of the blue sky to orient, and counts paces. Some poor grad student had to both clip the legs of the ants, and glue tiny stilts on to ascertain the pace counting. Fun, job.

OK, I'm curious now, at what temperature will we get sea ice? I remember some years back when the ferries crossing Nantucket Sound had to stop operations because the darn water was so viscous, the trip took too long. The sea is really weird looking when the sea ice starts to form in it, because the wave action and the way salt water freezes kind of makes it different from fresh water. Anyone notice this? Not to sound like an old hippy or anything, but it's "kinda trippy looking". Here's a nice video of sea ice with some swell in the Bering Sea:

That too. Sorry, ya know, I should've just kept my (virtual) mouth shut and let the others have at it. Next teaser, I'll hang back. OK?

I guess I started on the dark side. For me, the big advantages of canoes on extended trips is the gear carrying capacity. We managed to carry a month's worth of food on one trip. They aren't suited to the ocean, but can do well even on decent sized fresh water lakes. There's a whole different skill set - like polling up rapids to be mastered. This longer trip involved doing the traditional bannock etc. I *have* taken fresh water trips on a rec. kayak for a duration of a week, including a 1 1/2 mile portage. Different environments, different craft. There are a few bucket-list trips in northern Quebec I've had up my sleeve. Let me reinvestigate with my informants about some of the routes. Lac Temiscamie to the Bay is one of them. (error in the previous e-mail - the reservoir in Labrador is called the "Smallwood" reservoir)

A loong time ago, I went up the Temiscamie River up to a series of portages to a lake called Lac Eau Froix (Coldwater Lake) and then down the Mistassini. Didn't see a single other human being the entire time - the only sign was of a wrecked canoe, and a bunch of camps the Cree used in the winter for their trap-lines. I'd heard that the Mistassini suffered from a lot of logging, but it does drain out into Lac St. Jean. I have contemplated the Lac Temiscamie to James Bay before the hydro project ruins everything. That's already happened in Labrador, where the Stillwater Resevoir has obliterated large chunks of legendary spots

I wonder if the area NE of Lac Temiscamie is still relatively untouched.

Good point, my short forays near the Elizabeths definitely are in that vein. OK, well, here's my whacka-doodle "dream" trip - Surgeon General's Warning...it involved poach camping, definite no-no, and of course I don't break the law, ever. I've had this dream of doing a circumnavigation of Nantucket Sound. Question is whether to do the inside or outside version of it. For the inside version of it - go down the length of Monomoy and ...ahem... camp on the tip (few birds there, however), wait for favorable time on the tide and then make the jump to Great Point Nantucket. Then follow the Nantucket north coast. In the crossing to Martha's Vineyard, from what I can tell, there's actually a fairly substantial tidal channel just off the small islands east of Nantucket, but then you also run into the Muskeget Channel closer to Martha's, which can be quite hairy, so again, time it with the tides properly. Work to the inside of Martha's Vineyard and then cross over to Wood's Hole, again exercising some care over the MIddle Ground, then schlep along the coast back to the starting point. I'm not quite so enthusiastic about the outside circuit, as it obviously is more exposed. In particular, I'm not sure what it's like going to the outside of Great Point on Nantucket, it looks like there's a very long sandbar that sticks out, which could be problematic. I know folks have done all three have the crossings, the only bit I don't know a lot about is the long bar off of Great Point, and whether this gets hairy.

Camp out on a remote island off the coast of Maine, look at the stars while enjoying some single malt scotch. I guess if there's an "I really want to do" trip, it's Woods Hole to Cuttyhunk and return by timing the tides. Gotta work up to that one.

My approach is to push myself in challenging conditions when I have an easy escape route - e.g. practicing near a friendly beach. Then, whenever I'm doing a trip - solo or accompanied, I always back off so that I have some margin of error. The last thing you'd want is to take a real pounding near an unfriendly coastline.

Two items come to mind - isolated thunderstorms in the summer can be very local and unpredictable. Rather than relying on ap's, I'd recommend becoming familiar with their pattern of development. Frequently the wind starts out of the E or SE and there are growing vertical cumulus clouds to the west. When the storm is close, the wind "veers" to the S, then SW and you have to deal with strong downdrafts, which can be really hairy. Having someone in the group with a good 'weather eye' is probably a good idea - that is to say - someone volunteers or is designated to keep an eye out for changing conditions. In terms of the 'squeaky wheel' phenomenon - it's amazing how one person can turn the dynamic around from wallowing into a dangerous situation to keeping things safe. I was hiking up in the Rockies with a bunch of fellow physicists. These guys were a bit crazy, and at some point, I found myself leading and cutting steps into a steep icy slope with an ice-axe. We got to a spot where to go on we'd have to cross a knife edge ridge with very steep icy slopes on either side dropping precipitously 3000 feet down on both sides. They were all ready to cross, and I said "no way, no how am I crossing that without protection..." I think about five of the other guys in the party sighed a breath of relief - sort of like saying the emperor has no clothes. Two guys did do the crossing, but didn't have an accident. A week later, one of the guys who did the crossing came to me and said "You know, you made the right decision in not crossing that ridge...I never should have done that." And I was just one lone voice, and spoke to my misgivings. It's an important thing.

Warren - Well, for me, it's not only the observation of the sea state, but it's also some prediction of the sea state in the future, based on wind speed forecasts, fetch, and also the bathymetry, associated with the timing of the tide. Add in current, and there are a lot of factors to consider. So, the sea state may be acceptable to perhaps a bit hairy at some moment, but I know that the wind will pick up over a long fetch as the day wears on. I'll approach a river's mouth on an ebb tide, and there are shoals around the mouth which cause the waves to steepen up. Then, I wonder "can I paddle out to sea to avoid the breakers on the shoals in case it gets really bad?" Or, it may look good in a sheltered area, but on a windward shore, you could predict that things kick up. I *do* like the idea of trying to "read" a new coastline, as you suggest. There's an additional factor, which is skill level. Even for myself, I feel that early in the season I have to work on things to re-develop timing, instincts and the right muscles. I had this happen to me this last year - I was on sabbatical in Geneva, Switzerland, working on the Higgs boson discovery and also working on my book. I was pretty much desk-bound until August. When I went out on a paddle, I knew that I'd readily go into the conditions I saw after some tune up, but the tide was receding over some shoals I knew of in the distance, and I could predict what it would be like. I paddled closer to the shoal. Normally I would've gone through it, but I hadn't gone through my usual conditioning period, so I turned back. The last bit is important to consider, I think. Not only do you have to consider experience of people you're with as gauged against conditions, but also the current state of readiness. If they're rusty, their rolls may not be working the way they used to, or the instinct of bracing is not as fine tuned as it used to be. John

I couldn't find the Sea Kayaker article online, but did find this blog about the incident: http://blog.redalderranch.com/?p=89 Interesting reading. I don't have a lot to add, but one thing that struck me is that the blogger admits to strong misgivings just at the start. I wonder whether the group mentality and the scheduling of the event overrode the instincts that said "this isn't safe". When I solo paddle, every so often I'll find conditions that are too extreme, and I've gotten into the habit of saying "oh, well....guess I'll wait until another day" - a lot easier when it's just me. When I get back home, my wife will ask "back so soon?". I'll answer, "yup, conditions were too hairy," and she'll nod knowingly.

Like PeterB, I don't use a GPS. I think maybe the best answer is that it's more "fun" to navigate with compass and chart. I did use a GPS at one point, but I had a number of failures - receivers crapping out, batteries dying. I also got a bit concerned that I was becoming overly reliant on them, and then worked in the opposite direction to increasing reliance on natural signs and compasses. Nothing against GPS users, they're probably wiser than I am, but that's just me. I still have to try Leon's test on my GPS, but that means I have to dig it out and actually try the test.

I have the vanilla kokatat GoreTex, relief zipper. I do covet the expedition, I guess with the hood. Temperatures - I have an annual New Year's day paddle on Nantucket Sound, so it's pretty much a must for me. My transition temperatures (water) 50 to 55 and below is drysuit weather, 55 to 65 is wetsuit range. Above 65, it partly depends on atmospheric conditions, short wetsuits mostly. Depending on the water temps, I have a different range of under clothing, going down to wicking long underwear and fleece for the coldest. I do recall one ghastly day off Mt. Desert with 50 degree water temps and 90 degree air temp. Practice rescues seemed to be particularly popular that day.

Out of curiosity, what is the max current in Hellgate? I was taking the train back from my parents in Philadelphia and went over the Hellgate bridge. The water looked disturbed, but not so bad. It must've been close to slack tide.