Accents, Sparrows and Sonic Gay-dar

Due to recent events, I have a new boss*. He seems a nice enough fellow, and I’m sure I’ll get to know him well over the coming weeks. Here’s an interesting thing about him: He has an accent. An English accent.

*I should mention that events of the last week have led to a fair bit of reflection. One thing that’s come to mind is that my old boss- the guy to whom I reported for 8 years- was really a great boss. Good bosses are like money: having one doesn’t guarantee happiness, but lack of one almost certainly ensures unhappiness. OK, that right there is probably the most insightful thing I’ve ever written.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking: “Everybody has an accent. He has an English accent, and you have an American accent.” And rationally, I know this is the case. But intuitively, I know that he has an accent and I’m talking Regular. And this, right here, is to me the most fascinating thing about accents: that they’re one of the clearest, most glaringly obvious examples of the difference between knowing something rationally vs. knowing it intuitively. Admit it- at least once in your life, when you’ve been listening to someone speaking with a heavy accent, you’ve thought, “Can’t you just talk Regular?” I mean, doesn’t it seem that if people just relaxed and spoke normally, they’d speak English the same, “normal” way you do?

Oh sure, this sounds silly. But consider another example. Back in September, when Twin A and I were hiking in the Henry Mountains, I blogged about the nature of self, and how rationally, from a purely physical, rational, materialist perspective, there is no such thing as a lifelong immutable “self.” But intuitively, we all know that we’re the same “self” we were yesterday, last year, and 20 years ago. Accents are like Self.

Side Note: There are of course countless other examples in everyday life I could have used to highlight this cognitive disconnect, such as fear of flying, peoples views on race, and the belief that ice shards somehow belong in a martini*. But I like these 2 because one- Accents- is easy to get your head around, while the other- Self- is a bit of a mind-bender.

*Sorry, Eric. Could not resist.

It struck me this week, BTW, that the amount of time I worked for my now-acquired employer- 8 years- was almost certainly long enough for a pretty thorough “self-refresh.” So the “me” who started working there wasn’t the guy who got the payout last week. Seems somehow unfair…

Accents are fascinating for so many reasons. If you learn just a bit of a foreign language, you’ll quickly become aware of them. Most of us who speak a little Spanish know the difference between the Castilian “c” or “z” and the Latin American pronunciation, and how “ll” sounds like a ”y” in Mexico, but a “j” in Argentina. More confusing is how much vocabulary varies between various Spanish-speaking countries. The “truck vs. lorry” thing happens like crazy in Spanish. Most of us learned that peanutbutter is crema de cacahuate in Spanish class, but in more countries it seems to be maneca de mani (“butter of peanut”), and confusingly, crema de mani (“cream of peanut”) in Costa Rica.

My favorite Spanish vocabulary-variation example- and one near to my heart- is the word for non-identical twins. (Pic left: don’t you love it when you get the jumbo eggs and crack one open and it’s a 2-for-1?) The word for “twins” in Spanish we learned in class is gemelos, but like so many Spanish words, its meaning is more specific than the English equivalent. Gemelos is the word for identical twins, but the word for non-identical twins is different in practically every country. In Mexico it’s cuates. In Columbia and Venezuela it’s morochos, and in Spain it’s mellizos. In Cuba it’s jimaguas and in Costa Rica, so far as I can tell, well, there is no word*.

*Quick Costa Rica twin story: When we were visiting last year, we hired guides a few times. Sometimes guides would give a discount for kids, sometimes not. In Monteverde our guide refused to discount prices for kids, but he had a long-standing policy that twins were 2 for the price of 1. I was glad for the discount, so I shut up and paid, but part of me was just itching to say, “You know that they’re actually two different people, right?” This reminds me- someday I need to do a post on all the wacky things people say about twins.

I‘m fascinated by accents and dialects of Spanish because the history of that language is so interesting. Spanish and Italian were the same language- Vulgar Latin- just 2,000 years ago, but today they’re 2 separate tongues. Spanish and Portuguese diverged more recently, and while they’re still 2 distinct languages, speakers of one can often understand much of what a speaker of the other is saying. And now regional accents are starting to diversify into dialects yet again. The evolution of language is continuous and fascinating.

It’s interesting to think that Americans and Englishmen presumably spoke English the same way just 400 years ago, if not more recently. And given modern travel, communications and media over the last 60-80 years or so, most of that accent-gap developed over somewhere around just 300 years. If modern technology and travel had never come about, how long would it have taken for the 2 to become mutually unintelligible?

My new boss has a non-rhotic accent. Linguists define accents in many different ways; one of the easiest to distinguish is rhotic vs. non-rhotic. A rhotic accent is one in which the letter “r” is pronounced when it is not followed by a vowel, such as the “r” in “park.” I pronounce it; my boss doesn’t. Most American and Canadian* accents are rhotic. In addition to the various “English” accents, non-rhotic accents also exist here in the US, the 2 best examples being the various Southern accents, and- dear to my heart- the Boston accent. If you’re skeptical, think of how the word “farther” is pronounced the 3 accents- English, Southern and Boston. In all 3 it sounds pretty much the same as “father.”

*Canadian non-rhotic accents can be found in the Maritime provinces.

Tangent: I grew up 12 miles outside of Boston. When people learn where I’m from, a not-uncommon question is: When did you lose your accent? Answer: I never had one. What most outsiders don’t get about the classic Boston accent is that there’s somewhat of a class-related distribution to it. In middle-to lower-class suburbs, such as Medford, Dedham or Braintree*, practically everyone has it. In upper middle-class suburbs, such as Lexington, Lincoln or Winchester, far fewer people have it. If you walk through a local rich-kids private high school, like Belmont Hill, I suspect it’s pretty uncommon.

*In fairness, these towns have all dramatically gentrified in the last 30 or so years. But when I grew up in the area in the 1970’s, they were definitely middle-to-lower class.

When I explain this to people, they frequently respond, “But what about the Kennedys?” The Kennedys are a weird anomaly. Nobody talks like them. Their accent, though sort of Boston, also has a strange, pseudo-patrician lilt vaguely reminiscent of George Plimpton or William F. Buckley. Speaking of which- where did those guys get their accents? Did anyone really ever talk like that besides them and the Howells on Gilligan’s Island?

Nested Tangent: I can however speak with a Boston accent. It’s easy. Drop your “r”s when they’re not followed by a vowel. When making an “r” sound, don’t let the back of your tongue recoil toward the back of your mouth- this’ll keep your “r”s from coming out to “hard”. And when making vowel sounds, don’t open the back of your mouth so much. (Optionally, you can also drop the final “g” off present progressive verbs and adjectives ending in “ing”. Liberal use of the “F” word also helps.)

I am great at mimicking accents. I sometimes suspect that the only reason Awesome Wife has stuck with me for so long is that I can reliably make her laugh with my cockney accent. For the Trifecta, my Indian accent is a sure crowd-pleaser. A few years back my company hired a German salesguy- let’s call him “Hans”- of whom I sometimes did impressions when relating a story. One of my coworkers* once said, “You do Hans better than Hans!”

*”Lance”, the CML leukemia guy. BTW, he is doing awesome. I will do an update post soon.

One of the most interesting things about accents is how detecting one on a speaker immediately colors our perception of them. I’ve known countless bright Southerners, and have never had any reason to suspect that Southerners were any less smart than Northerners. But when I hear someone speak for the first time and they do so with a Southern accent, a little teeny part of my brain thinks, “Hick.” It’s not accurate (much less fair.) Why do I think it?

On the other end of the spectrum, when we hear an upper-class (not a Monty Python-cockney) English accent, we tend to automatically regard the speaker as smart. Why? Is it because we watched Masterpiece Theater during our formative years? Why? Pick up a tabloid on the streets of London, and you’ll quickly be disabused of the notion that the English are any smarter than us. But something about that accent just sounds so darn… educated.

I’m always curious as to how my accent sounds to other English speakers. I sometimes wonder if I sound to an Englishman as a Southerner sounds to me. Or maybe my accent sounds sort of Midwestern and flat- like an Ohio or Wisconsin accent, but stronger.

Tangent: 2 more things about English accents. First, I’ve known a number of ex-pat Brits- including my new boss- who’ve been very successful in American sales careers. Does the accent give them an edge in sales? Does it improve their credibility by just a teeny bit, giving them- in the long run- a slight statistical advantage here over an otherwise similarly skilled, similarly charismatic, similarly motivated, but American-accented salesguy?

I should mention that if true, this accent-effect quite likely worked to the advantage of my paternal grandfather, an ex-pat Englishman who emigrated to the US in the 30’s and worked his way up to the Vice President level at US Steel, back when that meant eating in an executive dining room and having a company limo drive you to work. By the time I knew/remembered him, he’d practically lost his English accent, and spoke pretty much as an American. Interestingly my grandmother, who emigrated at the same time, kept her accent throughout her life, as did my maternal grandfather, who emigrated from Cyprus at age 20 and retained a thick Greek accent* until his death at age 95.

*More specifically, a Greek-Cypriot accent. Long before I spoke Spanish, I spoke a little (and I mean a little) Greek. When I traveled to Cyprus in the mid-80’s, I was surprised to hear that the word for “and”,- “keh”(kappa alpha iota)- was pronounced “jeh.” My maternal grandfather’s coming-of-age/emigration story BTW is totally awesome, and includes working in a bakery as a young boy and sleeping on sacks of flour, sneaking across enemy lines in WWI armed with only a knife to kill and steal goats, and eventually, together with his fellow immigrant partners, throwing piles of money up in the air in the basement of their NYC restaurant. Someday I will work it into an Awesome Tangent. Τ' αγαπώ, Παππού.

The other thing about English accents is that when we Americans hear them, our gay-dar is largely disabled.

Before I go any further, this isn’t intended as a slur of any kind on anyone’s preference: I’m absolutely pro-gay rights, including marriage and military service*.

*Really, it’s 2010. If you still honestly, truly believe that gays “recruit” new members, that people get converted to “gay-ness”, or that 2 guys exchanging rings and kissing in a church has anything at all to do with the health or soundness of your marriage, then really, it’s time to get a clue.

In fact, as I so often do when blogging about matters outside my areas of expertise*, I consulted with a subject matter expert- let’s call him “Coworker Karl”- who possesses excellent qualifications in this area, in that he is, in fact, gay.

*Which is- with the exception of biking , work-related tangents and martinis- uh, pretty much everything in this blog.

Now, it may not be an “accent”, but there exists a stereotypical gay male “inflection” when speaking, a sort of clipped, extra-precise, almost feminine way of speaking. And though it’s a stereotype, it’s often* true. It’s a shame that the issue of homosexuality is so politically charged for many reasons, but one of them is that it’s lead to an almost politically correct “ignoring” of this inflection of speech, and that’s a shame. Because to the extent that it does exist, it is absolutely fascinating. Where does it come from? Is it obtained from conversing with other gay men (doubtful)? Or is it somehow related to some other factors in the brain which direct or influence sexual preference? Isn’t it an interesting question**?

*My use of “often” means just that. Not overwhelmingly, commonly or even usually. And certainly some number of men who speak with this inflection are not gay. (I think.)

**I should add that it’s a total stumper for Coworker-Karl as well. We discussed it at length, and he’s as clueless as I am. As an aside, Coworker Karl finds SGSI (Stereotypical Gay Speech Inflection) very unappealing in a prospective partner, and this lead to further discussion, and the interesting observation that it seems as though there’s a much greater variance in the range of “types” of men that gay men find attractive when compared to the range of “types” of women that straight men find attractive. In other words, I can pretty reliably pick a photo of a woman- say Selma Hayek- and be pretty certain that if I show the photo to a random grouping of straight men, at least 80% of them will agree she’s attractive. But, according to Coworker Karl, the same would not necessarily be true with a photo of a man among a random grouping of gay men; he feels that “type-preference” among gay men varies more widely. You know, I don’t really know where this post is headed, but it is just chock-full of interesting footnotes and tangents.

But back to the point (and I do have one)- when we hear an English (non-cockney) accent, our sonic gay-dar is completely disabled. Because to an American ear, all Englishmen- and forgive me, this is a terrible, awful generalization, but damnit it’s true- sound just a little teeny bit gay. Why is that?

Side Note: “Sonic Gay-dar.” I’m pretty sure that’s the best term I’ve ever came up with- even better than “Utard*.” If I am remembered for one thing in this blog, I want it to be “Sonic Gay-dar.” And if I ever start a band, that’s what I’m naming it.

*And yes, I am telling you, I invented that term back in the 90’s. Gayle Ruzicka was my inspiration.

**I of course will be the frontman. I’ll sing (badly) and play rhythm-ukulele.

Bonus Tangent: The other Accent Mystery that drives me crazy is the origin of the modern Israeli accent. If you’ve known, sold to, or worked with Israelis, you know that they have a distinct, recognizable accent. Where did that come from? (Pic right = female member of Israeli Defense Force. I was googling for pics of “Israel” and came across it. I find it disturbingly appealing in a vaguely Stratfor/Ian Fleming kind of way. OK I’m way over-sharing.) Hebrew was a pretty much a dead language until the late 1800’s, and modern Israel is populated with the descendant of Jews from many countries. Does the accent have pan-Eastern European origins, reflecting the origins of many immigrants? Or was it originally a Russian accent brought to Palestine by the mainly Russian Jewish settlers of the first 3 aliyahs*, and later imparted to the later waves of immigrants from other European countries?

*Aliyah = wave of Jewish emigration to Palestine/Israel. Between 1882 and the present there have been between 5 and 13 distinct aliyahs, depending on who’s counting. Chock-full, I tell you, chock-full!

Here’s yet another interesting thing about accents and dialects: birds have them*. Here’s a quick example from my back yard, involving a bird we’ve looked at before- the White-Crowned Sparrow.

*With birds, ornithologists usually seem to call them “dialects.” And while nobody’s suggesting that any birds have anything like a full-blown human language, the principle of the analogy makes sense: bird songs appear to vary regionally, eventually becoming mutually unrecognizable as populations diverge, separate and eventually speciate.

About a week ago, 3(?) White-Crowned Sparrows showed up at my feeder- the first time I’ve noticed them this season. Male WC Sparrows have standard songs they sing to establish territories and attract females. These songs are learned not from their fathers, but from other male birds in there area- or, in other words, the guys in the ‘hood.

Now these songs vary a bit from area to area, or in other words, the male WC Sparrows sing their songs in their local “dialect.” But the really cool thing is this: male WC Sparrows raised where two areas/dialect overlap actually grow up “bilingual” and can sing songs in either dialect.

Tangent: When I blogged about WC Sparrows last year, I mentioned that they almost always chase away Dark-Eyed Juncos (which we also looked at last year.) Well, right around New Year’s a flock of DE Juncos established themselves around my feeder. For a week, they were all over the place- perched on the feeders, on nearby branches and hopping about on the snow-covered ground below. Then about a week later other birds started appearing- Finches, House Sparrows, Siskins and the WC Sparrows, and almost on cue, the DE Juncos were immediately relegated to the ground only, where they’re picking up spilled seeds from the feeders. So my question is this- is it simply coincidence, or are the other birds- and specifically the WC Sparrows- somehow following the DE Juncos?

I don’t know, but I suspect this may be some aspect of a common bird behavior known as mixed species flocking, which is believed to provide feeding and protection benefits for the various species involved, and to which I plan to return in a future bird-post.

Accents sometimes change in adults, as with my paternal grandfather, but not always, and usually only after many years. If you want to speak another language accent-free, your absolute best shot is to learn it before age 10 or 11*. So far the Trifecta, born and raised in Utah, speak for the most part as we do. But not entirely.

*Which in turn is a way, way fascinating topic, but one which I’ll save for another post.

I’ve heard that Utah is considered, along with Arizona and Indiana, to be accent free (which is allegedly why they’re popular locations for call-centers) but those of us who’ve lived here a while know that there is in fact a Utah accent. It’s difficult to describe. There are a few words that are clearly pronounced differently (“measure” is pronounced “MAY-zhure”) but mostly it’s something you just have to hear, and you don’t hear it right away, but only after 15 or 20 seconds of steady speech.

On characteristic of the Utah accent is a clear, long “e” pronunciation of the first “e” in words starting with “de-” or “be-”, such “decide”, “beside” or “depend.” Utahns pronounce the first “e” as a clear long “E”, like “dee-PEND.” Awesome Wife and I pronounce the first “e” in these words sort of halfway between a schwa and a short “I”, as do most Northeasterners.

The Trifecta pronounces them long, like Utahns. There are other differences as well; they pronounce the “t” in “often”, which neither AW nor I do.

The last thing I’ll mention about accents is how they’re like smells. When you hear one you haven’t heard in a while, the sound can take you back to the time and place where you knew it, just like the scent of a forest, meal or perfume.

To be truthful, I was a bit disdainful of Boston accents when I lived there. But now that I’ve been away for 20 years, I- strangely- love hearing them. When I return to the Boston area nowadays and hear people chatting on the street, or even when I phone a company in Boston and hear it in the greeting of a receptionist, a little voice in my head shouts, “Home!”, and my heart lifts just a teeny bit.

Note: Special thanks to Coworker Karl, who is endlessly helpful, patient, good-natured and an absolute pleasure to work with.

Breakout & Burdock

Sunday morning I had a 7 mile breakout trail run. “Breakout” is my term for when you climb up and out of an inversion under your own power. From my house, depending on circumstances, I can do it by bike (road or mtn) or foot. The last month or so has been probably the most consistently inverted winter I can remember here. The pattern of high pressure has meant few storms, so the skiing’s lousy. Backcountry skiing after a couple of snowless weeks isn’t much fun, and the resorts have rocks and shrubs sticking out all over the place. In this blog I’ve gone on many times about how great it is living in Utah, but the truth is that right about now, it kind of sucks.

Tangent: Awesome Wife and I have returned to a conversation that comes up every couple of years or so- should we move? Last week Northern Utah had the worst air quality in the nation. This can’t be good for any of us, but we worry most about Twin A, who is asthmatic. He takes daily medications, and we keep a steroid prescription on hand in the fridge for emergencies. We love our neighborhood, our proximity to both city and foothills, but is living here the right thing for our kids? Should we bite the bullet and move up to Park City, or maybe even out of state?

Our concern and frustration is exacerbated by the almost complete lack of effort or backbone on the part of local and state government to do anything about our bad air. Every January our state legislature convenes for several weeks, spent driving back and forth through the smog to the state capitol, where they worry about gay people getting it on, suing the federal government for possibly, maybe, trying to do something about healthcare, and passing yet another pointless abortion law that we’ll spend years and millions of tax dollars defending before it’s finally shot down by the Supreme Court. Our politicians just love to go on about how pro-family they are. Why isn’t kids breathing clean air considered pro-family?

What’s fascinating to me about inversions is how clear the demarcation is between the inversion layer, and the warm clear air above. Here’s a shot from early on in my run, behind the U. of Utah hospital at ~5,000 feet.

Here’s the view at the mouth of Dry Creek Canyon, looking East/up-canyon. You can see I’ve almost broken out of the inversion, with clear blue sky just ahead.

Side Note: What’s interesting is that I broke out of the inversion a moment later, just inside Dry Creek Canyon. But ~45 minutes later, while returning down-canyon, I encountered the fog bank just ½ way down, or in other words, ~3/4 mile up-trail and ~200 feet higher than just 45 minutes earlier. This was consistent with my general observation that inversions seem to rise over the course of the day, probably due to the sun warming the fog…

And here’s what it looked like partway up Dry Creek. The air is clear, clean and dry. Ahhh!

I haven’t blogged much about plants lately, mainly because I’ve been sticking close to home, or traveling to other Northern climes lately where not much is growing right now. But about ½ mile up Dry Creek, I noticed several weathered brown shrubs bearing these things. You know them- they’re the little weird Velcro-thistles that stick to your bike shorts or arm-warmers when you brush by, and then stick to your glove like crazy when you try to pick them off. But if you pick them off with your bare fingers, they don’t stick at all. What are these things and what’s the deal with them?

They’re Lesser Burdock, Arctium minus, an exotic weed native to Eurasia which has been wildly successful in North America. It occurs in every state except Alaska, Hawaii and Florida, and every Canadian province South of the Yukon. It even occurs in Greenland! Arctium phylogeny is complicated*, but it seems to have originated in the Iran-Iraq-Turkey area, and have been around for at least 9 million years.

*It’s closely linked/intertwined with the genus Cousinia, which contains some 600+ weedy species originating from the same part of Eurasia. Arctium and Cousinia were originally distinguished based on morphological features, but it turns out that Arctium is paraphyletic, unless grouped with a number of Cousinia species. Together with these species Arctium can be grouped in a true monophyletic clade, all possessing a haploid chromosome number of n=18, and dubbed the “Arctioid Clade”, within the broader “Arctium-Cousinia Complex”.

I’m just curious. Does anyone reading understand what I just said in this footnote besides me, the Catalogue of Organisms guy, KB, Ted and Sally? I always wonder when I write this stuff if people are like, “Oh yeah, that’s cool stuff…” or if they’re just like “zzzz… when’s the next tangent, already?”

Like almost all thistles, it’s a member of the sunflower family. Burdock is a biennial. In its first year of life, it’s just a small, low-to- the-ground clump of leaves (a rosette.) It doesn’t flower, but just accumulates and stores energy for the year to follow. In Year 2 the plant shoots up and flowers. Following pollination and seed development, the plant dies. Every burdock you see right now in Northern Utah has already died.

In summer each purple flower-head consists of dozens of disk flowers (no ray flowers.) They’re pollinated by bees of all sorts- bumblebees, honey bees, wild bees- and also by several moths and butterflies. After pollination, the flower-heads turn brown and dry out.

One of the cool things about flowers in the sunflower family is how often reproductive hardware gets re-purposed for seed dispersal. Dandelions, Salsifies and Spotted Knapweed are all examples we’ve looked at before, and in each of these flowers, following fertilization, the calyxes of the individual florets dry up and transform into little parachutes, which are then carried away by the wind, hopefully some number to a possibly viable location for germination.

In burdock the calyxes also are transformed, but not into parachutes. Rather each dries and hardens into a stiff, thin little stalk, the end of which culminates in a tiny hook. The dried calyxes remain firmly attached to the flower-head, but the connection between the flower and stalk dries up, becoming brittle and weak. When a passing animal bearing a coat of fur brushes against the dried heads, the hooks catch firmly on the animal hairs, with a grip much stronger than the weakened stalk-connection. The heads- full of seeds- remain attached to the animal, and are borne wherever that animal wanders.

In the early 1941 George de Mestral, a Swiss engineer, returned from a hunting trip and noticed the numerous burdock thistle-heads stuck to both his clothing and the fur of his dog. Curious, he examined several up of the heads under a microscope and noted the tiny hooks which had caught on the fibers of his clothing and the hairs of his dog’s coat. It occurred to de Mestral that the same mechanism might be used to bind two materials. It took him 10 years of experimentation and development, first using cotton, then nylon* to come up with a fully mechanized process for producing Velcro.

*Cotton worked, but only for a short while before wearing out. Nylon was a brand-new material at the time, and de Mestral’s biggest problem with it was working out how to cut hooks out of it.

The new fastener didn’t catch on for a number of years. NASA used it for space suits in the 1960s, but the first large-scale consumer uses were for skiwear, followed by Scuba gear. Today of course, Velcro is everywhere; I can’t think of a day where I don’t connect/disconnect a velcro connector of some sort at least ½ a dozen times.

Many angiosperms of course use animal agents for seed dispersal. But all Asteraceae fruits are achenes, which, being dry and generally small, lend themselves easily to wind dispersal, which is why so many species in the sunflower family- including Dandelions, Balsamroots, Mules Ears, Knapweeds, Asters and Salsifies- use an Agent-Wind pollination-dispersal strategy. But Burdock is Agent-Agent, and it’s interesting to think about what the relative advantages of each approach might be.

On the downside, there’s always wind, but depending on where you’re growing, there’s no guarantee that an animal will brush against you. But on the upside, when an animal does brush against you, that animal is generally going somewhere. And it occurs to me that animals generally- eventually- get around to going to places conducive to growing plants. An herbivore seeks out plants to eat, and such plants obviously grow in places where plants can grow- not on sun-baked barren outcrops of rock or sand, or in the middle of a pond. And carnivores go looking for prey in places where herbivores are likely to be found, which, again, are places where plants are capable of growing. So while it may be likelier that a breeze will brush against you than an animal, it’s likelier that the animal is eventually headed to someplace where your seed might gain purchase*.

*Always wanted to work that “gain purchase” expression into a post. I think I originally heard it in Raising Arizona, when “Hi” is narrating his fertility problems with Edwina.

I continued running up the trail, blue sky up above. It hasn’t snowed in close to a couple weeks, and the trail surface is packed snow and ice, treacherous for runners and bikers alike. Fortunately Sunday’s run was my first with a new gear acquisition: Yaktrax, which you can think of as little tire-chains for your shoes. They grip wonderfully on snow and ice, the only minor downside a small increase in foot-weight. I ran over sketchy, slippery trails for 7 miles without even a slip; I don’t know why I waited so long* to get them.

*One of 3 cool gear-acquisitions over the last week, the other 2 of which will most certainly make their way into the blog in coming weeks.

There’s another advantage to agent dispersal, which actually occurred to me last week in this same spot, when I biked past and acquired several burdock-heads on my lycra tights. As I stopped to remove them I thought, I’m dispersing seeds in January. Think about that. No dandelion is scattering parachutes now. But animals like deer, coyotes and mtn bikers pass by year-round. Burdock- dead for months- is still dispersing seeds.

Tangent: I thought about something else, too, and that was how many times over the course of this project- and before- I’ve noticed really cool things biking or running up Dry Creek. Glacier Lilies, Ballhead Waterleaf, Stellers Jays, Spotted Towhees, Mule Deer, Coyotes, a lion-kill, Oregon Grape, Milkweed, Balsamroots, Arnicas, Beardstongue, Wild Rose, Salsifies, Lichens, Mosses, Dragonflies, Myrtle Spurge, Spring Parsley, Oaks, Maples, Bitterbrush, Sagebrush and so much more- just on this little (<2 mile) stretch of trail. Think about that*. Over the past 2 years, if I’d done nothing but ride up and down Dry Creek, I still probably could’ve down ¾ of this blog.

*Better yet, search for “Dry Creek” in this blog.

I ran up the canyon, then switch-backed out of the bottom and climbed up along the side-hill to the overlook, running the last 100 yards in the bright morning sun. The air was dry and warm, the light clear and bright, and I felt like I was awake- really awake- for the first time in weeks. At the overlook I paused and looked out over the valley.

As I did so, I was reminded of the wonderful, awful irony of inversions: that something so ugly, foul, cold and downright unhealthy can be so heart-achingly beautiful when viewed from above. If there’s something prettier than looking down on a valley inversion on a warm, sunny winter morning, I haven’t yet seen it.

I lingered a while, then reluctantly turned and began the long run down. Toward the bottom of the canyon I began to feel the cold again, creeping through my jacket, my flesh and into my very bones. I exited the canyon and jogged back along the foothills toward home, responsibilities, work and another week in the smoggy valley.

I’ve found though that the sense of wakefulness and clarity from a breakout lingers for a day or two back down in the fog-world. It’s as though your brain is still carrying a bit of the clear sky around with you. After a couple of days though, the effect wanes, and your mind begins to haze over and fog up again, like the air around you.

Pouring a Line in the Sand

OK, I’m doing the martini post. This is total filler, with zero science.

Side Note: But if you want martini-related science, check out this post from last year about junipers, berries and the parallel evolution of “fruit.”

BTW, gin is not made from fermented juniper berries. It’s a neutral liquor, distilled from malt or grain, and then either a) distilled again, with juniper berries, in which case it’s called distilled gin, or b) simply flavored (but not re-distilled) with juniper berries, in which case it’s called compound gin.

I’m doing this post for 2 reasons. First, last week SkiBikeJunkie did a thoughtful post asking readers, if they could have drink but one drink in addition to water for their rest of their lives, what would it be? A great post topic, but the responses were, well, a bit lame. Diet Coke, coffee and lemonade were some of the more popular candidates. I piped up for something alcoholic- specifically a gin martini- and in a huff of bravado bragged that I would post about how to make a decent one. This post is making good on my huff.

But the 2^nd reason is that although this blog covers all kinds of things, one of my excuses for rambling on and on about this, that and the other is that I like to think that, in my own little way, I am somehow making the world just a little bit better place. And you know what’s wrong- like really, truly, fundamentally wrong- with the world today*? There are way too many really bad martinis being made every day, that’s what.

*Yes, I get that, strictly speaking, a nit-picking reader might point to world hunger, poverty, AIS or global climate change instead, but I’m not going to be able to overcome those problems in a single post. But, by God, I can do something about all these lame cocktails floating around.

Seriously. People make “apple martinis” and “teqinis” and “espresso martinis” and water-logged martinis with chips of ice swirling around in them. Enough is enough. I’m drawing- or rather pouring- a line in the sand right here and now. The world can be a better place, one cocktail at a time.

Tangent: BTW, while researching* this post, I came across a fascinating new blog: Daily beer project. This guy, who apparently has not previously been a beer-drinker, is embarking on a month-long taste-test to determine if he likes it/acquires the taste. I don’t know anything else about this guy, but clearly, he is committed to the Scientific Method in a huge and awesome way.. I am totally following along, and you should too- this should be fun.

*OK, I didn’t actually do any research- I’ve been making martinis since college. I was just killing time and screwing around when I stumbled across it.

My philosophy about martinis is consistent with my overall philosophy regarding hard liquor, which is that like red meat, if you are going to consume it, it is far better that you should do so sparingly and of high quality.

Tangent: If this seems like a weird post, I should mention that it is a weird week. I’m out on the East coast for work, visiting the HQ of the company that acquired mine last week. For 8 years I’ve run the sales team for a small technology research company. And the company we competed against most regularly and consistently during those years was the one that bought us. This week I’m at their headquarters, for the sales management kick-off, clapping for quota achievers, and attending training and group workshops. It feels weird. It feels kind of like…

Imagine it was 1985, and one night President Reagan came on the TV and announced that the country had been acquired by the Soviet Union. Then some Soviet generals and such came on TV, welcomed us to the Soviet Union, talked about the great opportunities we’d have in our new country, and how nearly all of us- 93% to be exact- would be offered Soviet citizenship.

So the next week you flew out to Moscow for a big 3-day meeting in the Kremlin, where you attended party rallies and workshops on Marxist theory and collective farming. And actually, it turned out that the Soviets were generally really nice and welcoming, and went out of their way to ease your transition and make you feel at home. And by and large your visit was fine. But every once in a while, in the middle of a meeting or workshop or whatever, a little voice went off in your head and screamed, “Holy crap! I’m in the Soviet Freaking Union!”

That’s kind of what this week feels like.

Getting Started

First, start with good gin. Tastes vary, but my absolute favorite is Boodles British Gin*. Conservative, but with a very faint “fruity” undertone. My second favorite is Plymouth Gin, a quality, traditional choice. Hendricks is also a solid conservative option.

*Can’t get it in UT. Try one of the places in Evanston, or AJ’s Discount Liquors in Mesquite.

Sarticious is a sort of “wild” gin, with a powerful unique aroma and strong fruity taste that’s sometimes- but not always- to my liking. You have to be in the mood for it, and if you’re not it comes across as harsh and almost violently over-flavored. I should mention that the last decade has seen a surge of boutique, sometimes local gins, many of which are worth a try as well.

Side Note: I tired of Tanqueray years ago. It has a very distinctive flavor and smell, which, while not unpleasant, dominates any martini constructed with it. I do like the flavor in a G&T, but not in a martini. Bombay and Bombay Sapphire are OK in a pinch, but sub-optimal for a fine martini.

The brand of vermouth doesn’t have as much of an impact. I usually keep a bottle of Martini & Rossi around, and it lasts for a couple of years.

The first key to a great martini is preparation, and the most important (OK, really only) step of that preparation is this: keep the gin in the freezer. Not the refrigerator, and-for God’s sake- not the cabinet. The beauty of hard liquor is that it can be cooled to temps far lower than 32F without freezing, because ethanol doesn’t freeze until -173F. The exact temp at which hard liquor freezes is dependent on its alcohol content, or proof; gin generally won’t freeze until around -15F.

Super-cooling gin is not without controversy; critics point out that cold gin won’t release the aroma of its botanical flavoring agents (juniper, sometimes lemon and other things). This is a valid concern, but we’ll return to it later in the post.

Side Note: Yes, I’m omitting vodka from this post. I really have nothing against vodka martinis, other than that they’re, uh… not actually martinis.

With your gin super-cooled, you’re ready to begin. First, you must decide your gin-vermouth ratio. This is a matter of taste. Pre-prohibition martinis were supposedly 50/50. A 2-1 martini today is considered soaking “wet”. I usually favor somewhere between 8-1 and 6-1*.

*Actually, I used to prefer 8-1, but more recently I think I’m doing more like 6-1. I do seem to like them a tad wetter as I get older, a trend toward which I was encouraged by my best friend and fellow martiniphile, Arizona Steve.

Next, you must line the glass with vermouth. We’re neither shaking nor stirring because we’re not using ice. This is my pet martini peeve. People get a great, expensive gin, pour it out into a cup, and totally mess it up by shaking/stirring it around with tap-water ice cubes! Lining the glass allows you to gently mix your martini, as we’ll see in a moment.

Many martiniphiles use a vermouth-mister, which is a small pump-spray container, to line the glass. Misters work well, but unless you pump it like a hundred times, misting-only results in a very, very dry martini, which may not be to your taste. If you use a mister, but prefer a wetter martini, you must add vermouth to the bottom of the glass.

The other, no-frills, way to line the glass is to fill the bottom with the desired amount of vermouth, and then tilt and rotate the glass a couple of times to coat the interior with vermouth. This is where the distinctive shape of a martini glass really comes into play; it’s hard to effectively rotationally-coat a standard water, beer, or even wine glass in this manner.

After the glass is coated, you’re ready to pour. Pour the gin from the bottle with one hand (I recommend the non-favored hand) while slowly rotating the glass, with 3 fingers on the stem such that the gin “stream” impacts on the side of the glass. As the gin hits the vermouth coating, it mixes and slides into the pool at the bottom. Keep rotating until the glass is filled about ~2cm from the brim. Ahh… we’re almost ready!

Martinis are fine “naked” but a a couple of gin-soaked olives make a wonderful appetizer, so I recommend adding 1 or 2. Pitted are the lowest hassle*. Traditionally I’ve favored “empty olives (i.e. no pimentos) but of late I’ve become a sucker for olives stuffed with garlic cloves. Yes, it sounds abysmal, but wait… You should just plunk the olives into the drink- no toothpicks or plastic sticks- they just get in the way.

*Because there’s just no way to gracefully chew an olive, spit out the pit, and still look James-Bond-Cool.

Now you’re ready to drink. A martini is best drunk with a good friend or two- not more than ½ a dozen* in any case. If you’re looking for an all-night big-party drink, choose something else. And only drink martinis with good friends- never with people you dislike, or for whom you have mixed feelings. Drink it slowly- you’re only having one. As you sip the martini, 2 wonderful things will happen. First, the stiff alcohol, delivered in nearly pure form, will smooth the “edge” off your mood. The day’s troubles will recede, and your pace of thought will slow just a titch. And as you sip, your mind and palate will open just a little bit, and as they do, concurrently the martini will gently, slowly warm. It’ll take a nice long time to do so, with the gin being super-cooled.

*Friends, not martinis.

As the martini slowly, slowly warms, and your mood gently eases, a most wonderful thing will happen; the subtle flavors of the gin will slowly start to develop and emerge- flavors that you couldn’t have quite fully appreciated when you first sipped the drink, before your mood was eased and you were past the initial “smack” of a stiff drink. After a while, when you’ve sipped your way down about ½ - 2/3, you’ll be able to pluck the olives out with your thumb and forefinger; soaked with gin, they’ll be full of flavor. When you finally reach the bottom, pause for a moment and bask in the afterglow. But stop here; no matter how good an idea it seems at the time, 2^nd martinis just never recapture the moment. And worse, they lead to sloppiness, drunken foolishness and hangovers.

Side Note: With 2 of these martinis, it’s highly unlikely you’ll pass a breathalyzer, and I’m not even sure you’d pass after just one. This is strictly a designated-driver, or walk-to-the-neighbors drink.

I have, of course, had more than one more martini before*. And what’s interesting is the way in which it affects me. Multiple martinis manifest themselves in one very specific muscle of my body- the tip of my tongue. Really, I’ll feel just fine, but the very tip- and only the tip- of the tongue will be very slightly slowed. As it slows, it will just barely “miss” the front of the roof of my mouth, and I’ll start to lisp my “S”’s.

*Because I have in fact, tried a wide array of ill-advised and poorly thought-out things,mostly in my younger years, when I was young and stupid. Now I’m just stupid.

As the “edge” slips from your mood, a nice effect may become evident: jokes will seem funnier. I don’t know why alcohol makes things seem funny, but it does. And to prove it, I have included a Test Joke for your convenience. Your can read this joke now, and maybe have a chuckle, but I recommend you save it for after a martini. In any case, it includes exactly 1 bad word, so skip over if profanity offends you.

The Joke

So this stockbroker from New York City strikes it rich, retires, moves out to Montana and buys a ranch. His first day, as he’s unpacking, he hears a knock at the door, and opens it to see a grizzled old rancher standing at his doorstep.

Rancher: Howdy neighbor!

Stockbroker: Neighbor?

Rancher: Yeah, I live in the ranch 20 miles down the road, and here in these parts, that’s neighbors! Anyway, I just stopped by to welcome you to the neighborhood and invite you to a hootenanny I’m havin’ Saturday night.

Stockbroker: A hootenanny? What in the heck’s a hootenanny?

Rancher: Aw, a hootenanny is a great ol’ time! That’s when we get together, do a little eatin’, a little drinkin’ and a little dancin’. Later on we do a little more drinkin’, a little more dancin’, maybe some fightin’ and… (with a conspiratorial wink) maybe even a little f*ckin’!

Stockbroker: Wow, that sounds like a great time! Count me in!

Rancher: OK then, see you Saturday night!

The rancher turns and starts to walk away, when the stockbroker thinks of another question.

Stockbroker: Hey, uh, by the way, who all’s going to be there?

Rancher: Oh, just you and me…

It’s not a drink to drink every day, so I save it for something special, like after a long, stressful week at work, or seeing an old friend after a long time apart, or maybe celebrating a promotion or a big event with friends, or, oh I don’t know… maybe after your company gets acquired, you cash out your options and the wire xfer hits your account.

PS: On a serious note, my friend and fellow mtn biker/nature blogger KB is undergoing surgery today to have several vertebrae fused in her neck. Stop by and wish her well. Thanks.

Bald Eagle, And My New Year’s Resolution

Yes, I know it’s January 11. So I’m late. But I’ve been busy lately, as I mentioned earlier, and I really do have a New Year’s Resolution. Ready? Here it is: I’m taking my camera everywhere I go.

Tangent: Oh. What’s that? I said I was doing a post on making martinis next? Yeah I put that off because a) blogging about this resolution will give me an excuse to tell about my cool wildlife sighting and b) I’m traveling for work most of the week, and that post will be the kind of mindless, zero-research filler post that’s easy to do from a hotel room.

As longtime readers know, I take my camera along while mountain-biking or skiing. But I don’t typically take it road-biking or running. You know, bulk, weight and all that.

Tangent: I take my phone (blackberry) biking, but not running. That may have to change. Most of my weekday runs take place at work, during my lunch-hour. Traditionally I’ve left the phone behind, figuring there was nothing so urgent it couldn’t wait <1 hour. But as my mileage has increased, and I’ve been out a bit longer, more and more often an urgent call or email will arrive during my run. In particular, over the past few months, my boss*, who resides 2,000 miles away, has taken to regularly calling with urgent matters during my runs.

*Oh, BTW, I have a new boss, who will provide material for a post I’m planning later this week. Yes, I’m going to blog about my boss. Because really, if you can’t blog about your boss, why blog at all?

Compounding the situation, the company that acquired my company last week appears to be staffed entirely by People Who Call Me With Urgent Matters While I Am Out On A Run. Seriously, I’ll go out for 45-50 minutes, and when I come back the blackberry is blinking so hard I need a potholder just to pick it up. So I think I’m going to start running with a phone.

Lately I’ve been doing more and more trail-running, especially on Shoreline and related trails across from the zoo. Last Sunday afternoon I was wrapping up a trail run, popped out on Sunnyside, running West down the road the last ½ mile back to the house. As I was passing the zoo entrance, a bird flew, East-bound, low overhead. A big bird, with a profile I immediately recognized the profile as Eagle. I looked up as it passed expecting to see a Golden Eagle, when I caught a flash of white in the tail. It wasn’t a Golden; it was a Bald Eagle, Haliaeetus leucocephalus (pic below left, clearly not mine).

Tangent: Why didn’t anyone tell me trail-running was so much fun?* The foot-impact is softer, you use way more muscles, it doesn’t destroy your IT bands, and you see all kinds of cool stuff.

*Actually, someone did tell me: Rainbow-Spirit-Paul. He told me like 5 years ago, and I blew him off. Of course he was totally right. RSP is 5 years older than me, and predictably, he figures everything out 5 years earlier.

There are over 60 species of Eagle in the world, but only 2 occur in the US. Though I see Goldens fairly often, in nearly 15 years of living in Utah, this was my first Bald sighting. It passed 20 feet overhead, ½ a mile from my house, and I didn’t have my camera. It passed low and slow overhead, like it might stop in a tree nearby. I pulled a 180 and started running East back up Sunnyside, following it.

The 2 American Eagles aren’t all that closely-related. Eagle phylogeny is confusing and in the process of (likely) being revised due to recent DNA studies. New and Old World Harpy Eagles for instance, turn out not to be all that closely-related after all, with some of their common features apparently having come about from evolutionary convergence, as opposed to ancestry. Snake Eagles appear to be more closely-related to Old World Vultures than any other eagles. Goldens are lumped into a group called True Eagles, which now appears to be a paraphyletic..

Side Note: Vultures, BTW, are a classic example of convergent evolution. Although they look quite alike, and have similar lifestyles, they’re not closely-related. But how un-closely-related is unclear. For a long time the story was this: Old World Vultures, Aegypiinae, are related to Eagles and Hawks, while New World Vultures, Cathartidae, are more closely related to storks and herons. (I blogged about this last March when posting about Black Vultures (pic right, not mine either) down in Costa Rica.) But recent DNA studies suggest that New World Vultures are more closely-related to eagles and hawks than they are to storks and herons after all. Even if that’s the case, they still evolved their “vulture-ness” independently.

But Balds (pic left. nope, still not mine) are part of a group called Sea Eagles- or sometimes Fish Eagles- for their common lifestyle of living near bodies of water- coasts, rivers, lakes- and feeding largely on fish. And it appears that Sea Eagles as a group are almost* monophyletic, meaning that they descended from a common ancestor. The closest relative of the Bald is the White-Tailed Eagle, H. albicilla (pic below, right), which lives a lifestyle much like that of the Bald clear across Eurasia.

*A couple species of Southeast Asian Fish Eagles are problematic.

They favor fish, usually nesting close to bodies of water, but they’re opportunistic eaters, feeding on everything from dead whales to rabbits to (surprising to me) raccoons and deer fawns. They’re strong, fast flyers, and live up to 30 years, becoming sexually mature at (usually) 5 years, when their head-feathers turn from brown to white*.

*When you think about it, the white head-feathers are the functional/signal equivalent of beards, breasts or pubic hair in humans.

Side Note: Raccoons and deer fawns are pretty big- bigger than a human infant. Have Bald- or any- Eagles ever preyed upon young humans? I poked around on this one a fair amount. Eagle attacks on humans certainly occur, but they appear to be mainly defensive- for example if the eagle perceives a threat to its nest. I couldn’t find any clear accounts of human children being preyed upon.

There’s a tale from the 1930’s of a 3 year old Norwegian girl snatched up by an eagle, and later rescued- unharmed- from a nest, but it’s almost certainly apocryphal. Maori legends tell of birds of prey large enough to snatch up children, and given the fairly recent* extinction of Haast’s Eagle, a 40 pound monster-sized eagle (check out the cool dramatization, left) which lived in New Zealand and elsewhere in Polynesia, the stories may have a basis in fact.

*~500 years ago.

The eagle landed in a tree at the East end of the zoo parking lot, paused for about 10 seconds, then flapped off across Wasatch Blvd, landing again in another tree at the West end of the recycling drop-off area at the corner of Wasatch and Sunnyside. I turned onto Wasatch, crossed the street and stopped and stared at it, as it perched, the perfect would-be photo subject, just 30 feet away. Oh, for my camera!

For a long time I thought there weren’t any Balds in Utah. I’d never seen one, and many range maps show a curious hole above much of the Great Basin. But in last May’s Golden Eagle post (graphic right) a helpful commenter- let’s call her “Laurel”- mentioned having seen then in Springtime down my Old Mill, several miles to the South. Balds aren’t migrators in the classic North-South sense, but often migrate in Winter if the body of water by which they reside freezes over, and my guess is that this one was in the process of such a migration, looking for a spot to perch and rest for a bit.

Most everybody knows 2 things about Bald Eagles: that they’re the national symbol of the US, and that they were on the brink of extinction in the 1950’s and 60’s, due to loss of habitat, hunting and pesticides. Today they’re far more common, having been de-listed as an endangered species a couple years ago, but still at nowhere near their estimated population levels in pre-European-settlement times. They do best in Alaska, and though they range all over the West, still fail to nest successfully in much of California due to the lingering presence of DDT, which causes them to lay thin-walled eggs.

The Bald perched on a branch in a bare Cottonwood. The trees lining Sunnyside Avenue near the zoo are Magpie territory- you can almost always hear their calls when running or biking past in daylight. By the time I arrived at the Cottonwood, about a ½ dozen Magpies had alighted on nearby branches, and were squawking up a racket. As I watched, about every 20 to 30 seconds another Magpie flew into the area and perched on a nearby branch. Every once in a while one of the Magpies would get threateningly close, and the Bald would spread its wings and feint/lunge toward it to drive it back. I didn’t see any actual contact take place, but the Bald was getting little rest.

Magpies regularly do this to birds of prey; ornithologists call it “mobbing.” Many other birds do it as well, and it serves (ideally) to drive off the raptor, but also to call attention to it and eliminate the possibility of surprise attack. Some researchers suspect mobbing behavior may even be a fitness indicator, with males showing off their genetic fitness (as potential mates) by daringly antagonizing a dangerous predator. Such fitness-related explanations for behaviors are hard to prove, but have been used to try to explain everything from stotting in gazelles to red leaves on Maples*

*In the leaf case, the Maple is not of course thought to be signaling in any way to other trees, but potentially to insect predators, advertising its fitness and presumed ability to ward off attack.

Tangent: Speaking of stotting, I got this nice video clip of a Mule Deer buck in front of my house over the weekend. I like it because it shows 3 different gaits in rapid succession- walk, trot, stott.

Mobbing is risky for both perpetrator and target. Gulls have been observed mobbing ospreys down into the water, where they’ve then drowned. Owls have been observed being mobbed by crows, and sitting still until finally lashing out and catching one who ventures too close, then flying off to consume their meal in peace.

The scene would have made an awesome video. And here I was- camera-less- just 1/2 a mile from home. You just can’t plan wildlife sightings; they either happen or they don’t. Time to start running with my camera.

I enjoy watching Magpies mob. With their alarm calls, their rushing to assist each other, and their daring taunts, it’s a great display of cooperation- and probably a fair amount of intelligence- in action. I felt a bit sorry for the eagle, tired, in a strange place, and seeking rest, but I identified with the Magpies. They reminded me of a gang of people, banding together to drive off a wolf or lion. Besides, I’m so used to the Magpies on Sunnyside, I kind of think of them as my neighbors.

And I wonder if they think the same of me. As we discussed in the Magpie post, they- and other corvids- appear to recognize individual humans. I run and bike by them so often, I’ll bet that they- with their superior eyesight- know and recognize me. Maybe home is where the corvids know you.

OK, seriously. Camera every run. This is a resolution worth sticking to.

Friday Martini Non-Post

So if you came here today looking for the Martini-related post I bragged about doing yesterday over on SkiBikeJunkie’s blog*, I, uh… didn’t get it done… Like I said earlier- busy week, and I overslept this morning.

OK, but I promise I’ll do it over the weekend, it’ll be great, it’ll include an awesome wildlife sighting and, if I’m really inspired, my 2^nd-favorite joke ever*.

*Since I already used my 1^st-favorite joke in a previous post.

Like so many posts, it’s already in my head, but I just haven’t had time to get it out onto the screen. Know what I need? A blog-staff. Like an admin and a graphic artist, and I’d just dictate the post and describe the graphic, and my staff would crank it out. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Too bad I already blew my blog-budget on all those STICKERS.

Now You Know

… why I’ve been so busy.

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100105005771&newsLang=en

For the past couple of months I’ve been peppering my posts with whiny excuses about how busy I’ve been at work. So yeah, I really have. This is what I’ve been working on.

To be clear, it’s a real good thing for the Watcher Family, though these types of events are inevitably filled with turmoil and change, and no small bit of anguish.

Anyway, I’m posting this for 2 reasons. First, if you know me in real life*, this is why I’ve been so unavailable, not very responsive, perhaps a bit “curt” and well, maybe even a bit of a dick over the last couple of months. I’m sorry, and hope you understand. I don’t have any real excuse, other than that sometimes in life you just have to knuckle down and get stuff done.

*And I’m continually surprised by how many people who do know me read this blog. It’s funny, they’ll just sometimes make a reference to it, and I’ll realize with a start that they read it. But they generally don’t talk about it much, like it would be embarrassing or something to talk about it in real life. It’s almost like if they walked into your house or your office and you happened to have no pants on. And then later on they might refer to having seen you the other day or whatever, but it would be sort of a quick and hurried acknowledgement, because they didn’t want to get to the part about you having no pants on**.

**Is this footnote making sense? Because it makes total sense in my head, but looks weird on the screen. BTW, just to be clear, I am wearing pants

If you don’t know me in real life, this is the reason- the only reason- that my posting frequency has slacked off of late. I’d like to say it’s over, that the busy-ness has abated, and that things are back to normal, but that’s not the case. My professional life will stay crazy-busy for the next few months, and posting will be light as a result.

The project isn’t ending, or even taking a break. It’s just going to proceed more slowly for a bit. I feel like a veil’s been lifted from my eyes over the past 18 months, and I won’t allow the dark cold of Winter or the here-and-now pressure of the corporate life to let it fall back down again.

Besides, I have this weird hunch that this whole deal’s going to give me some great material.

A Thousand Hidden Places

Saturday SkiBikeJunkie and I did a ski tour from Big Cottonwood up and over into Mill Creek. The temps were warm- about 30F when we started skinning up from the Spruces trailhead at 9AM, and after the cold snaps of the past couple of weeks the weather felt almost balmy. Our route took us along Mill D North, up and over Tom’s Hill into the drainage behind, up the East ridge of Reynolds to the peak, down through the West-side glades, back up and over to Dog Lake, up to the top of Little Water Peak, a minor (9,500 ft) knob rising above the surrounding aspen forest.

At some point along the way SBJ said something that, despite having tramped around the Wasatch for over a decade, never really occurred to me before. He said that one tends to think of the canyons of the Wasatch as big, parallel drainages, but that they’re really more like a hub & spoke system, and when you get up to the “hub” everything sort of comes together and the drainages all meet up. I don’t know why I’d never thought of it before- I’ve transited the “hub” many times by bike and ski, but I still tended to think of the canyons as “parallel lines”.

From Little Water Peak we surveyed possible routes down into Mill Creek. Finally agreeing on the best choice, we de-skinned*, dropped into the aspens, and threaded our way down into the canyon.

*Take your climbing skins off your skis. Just in case any non-skiers are reading.

Backcountry skiing is fun in general, but I like tree-skiing best of all. Part of it is the fun of line-finding through the trees, part of it is the soft powder protected from mountain winds. But I think what I like best about tree-skiing is the constant sense of discovery. Unlike a bowl or open slope, you can’t see what’s ahead; the path through the glades reveals itself to you as it happens. You can’t know the run, or even image it until you actually experience it.

Tree-routes reveal themselves bit by bit. A glade rolls, constricts, pinches out, and then a quick dark tunnel between tighter trees leads to an opening, leading to another opening, which in turn leads to another glade you never knew was there, never entered before, and which maybe, quite possibly, you’ll never pass through again.

What’s interesting about these glades is that although you could theoretically visit any of them in Summer on foot, in practice you never would. They’re filled with waist-to-chest-high undergrowth, and though a trail may pass within a half-mile or less, you’d probably never bushwhack your way to them. (Pic left = Aspen forest in June.) And that’s the irony of the hub & spoke model: the closer to the “hub” of the Wasatch you get, the more the world around is filled with secret little hidden- almost unreachable- places.

But snow- that strange season-long blanket of frozen water- somehow opens up paths into these secret places, letting you glide in and out of hidden glades you’d never reach otherwise. And after you leave it blows and snows your tracks away, making those places secret again.

Here’s a couple of minutes of helmet-cam video during our descent into Mill Creek. But before I show it, I need to set expectations. The web is chock-full of exciting, amazing, Warren Miller-esque ski videos. Mine are not like those. There are several reasons for this, foremost of which is that I am an exceedingly lame skier*. In fact, most of my ski runs go something like this:

*Certainly, my lame-ness is compounded by my misguided use of free-heel gear, a pointless, multi-year, granola-esque undertaking which I intend to rectify shortly.

No, this won’t be exciting; it’s just weaving between widely-spaced trees in deep, soft powder. But it gives the sense I was describing a moment ago of one glade leading to openings, to choices, to other glades, to little mysteries and hidden places continually being revealed, while other glades, openings not followed, remain hidden, secret and unknown.

Tangent: I once read this great sci-fi/fantasy book about a haunted forest. It was this old stretch of primeval English woods that was all thick and overgrown and almost impossible to penetrate. But if you paid careful attention and were patient and persistent, you could gradually find pathways that led to other pathways which could gradually take you deeper into the forest, revealing its mysteries. Backcountry tree-skiing sometimes makes me think of that story.

Eventually, like all tree-runs, ours funneled us into a ravine, through which we teased and cajoled our way down. Sometimes the going was smooth…

Other times tricky…

But eventually we popped out on the snow-packed road and coasted and skated our way down. As we descended we started to encounter people again- infrequently at first, then a steady current- all sorts of folks, looking mostly happy amid the bright sun, blue sky and above-inversion-level air. Having slalomed our way earlier through trees, we now slalomed our way through XC skiers, snowshoers and dog-walkers back to the gate and the waiting car.

Probably one of the most overused analogies for life is how it’s like a journey. And though carpet-worn, we like life-as-a-journey analogies because, to a certain extent, they work. We start somewhere, go someplace, and wind up somewhere else. But most journeys aren’t like life. When we drive to Vegas or Reno or Denver, we know how far it is, how long the trip we’ll take, and what road we’ll take to get there. When we go for a ride on the Shoreline or Mid-Mountain Trail, we know there’s a clear, intended trail for us to follow.

But with tree-skiing, the life-as-a-journey analogy makes more sense. When we ski down through a forest in the backcountry, although we pick a direction and have an approximate destination in mind, we don’t really know what path we’ll take down, exactly where we’ll end up, or quite when we’ll get there. At each junction, each glade, we make our best choice, which in turn leads to other openings and other choices, and yet ends other possibilities at the same time. After we’ve gone a ways, we may start to see a pattern, and our route as a whole may even make some sense, but we can’t see that pattern until we’re most of the way down. Sometimes, part-way down, we realize we made a poor choice early on, but it’s no good to just stop and sulk in the forest for long; we look around, pick the best next opening, and ski on.