Surprise
October 14, 2009 at 5:37 pm | In Mountains, Skiing | Leave a CommentApparently, if you’re a snowflake and you want to bust an extra move or two, Colorado is the place to be at the moment. Here’s the first detailed incident report for the year; an example of smart and competent people doing something normal (climbing and skiing their line, with obvious attention to the upper meter of the snowpack) and overlooking a critical feature in the snowpack. Careful technique, however, kept them from getting caught in the slide. Nothing like an Empire State Building size slide to command your attention. Yet another mote of paranoia to add to an already addled brain.
Macro
October 14, 2009 at 8:45 am | In Life | Leave a CommentMonday, I got it in my head that this would be “Macro Week”. That probably only extended to Monday, as I took no photographs Tuesday.
Macro denim
Kendall
October 11, 2009 at 9:41 pm | In Life, Mountains | Leave a CommentThe Happy Hiker and I rambled over Kendall Peak and beyond today. T’was fun. Lots of pictures, but that’s up to me today!
Not a bad way to start the morning
Penguin cooled his heels on some unexpected freshies
Before we flipped the ridge into the colorful sunshine
Put a snow science aficionado and a crystallographer on an autumn hike together, and they’ll spend a lot of time dissecting frozen mud puddles.
Now I know why it’s called Gold Creek.
The Hiker strolls the vaunted southern slopes of Alaska.
The Fearsome Kendall Katwalk. It’s so narrow, you can ride a horse across it.
One of the big paths on Alta.
From this vantage, it’s hard to believe that normal mortals ski those chutes.
Red Man.
We wrapped up the day by foraging for the last berries of the year in the afternoon light.
The PCT heading North from the Pass is far more scenic than I’d expected. The views to the snow-dusted Lemahs were perfect, and the trail just made endless lazy switchbacks toward them. I think I may be back that way again.
Wouldn’t you love to see what’s on the other side of that pass? (The trail comes in from the lower left. Apologies for blurriness.)
Cereal
October 10, 2009 at 3:25 pm | In Life, Skiing | 1 CommentSomeone in the Safeway art department gets kudos.
I’ll admit it. I bought it for the bag.
Ever been inspired by a box of Raisin Bran?
There’s something for everyone on a Safeway cereal box.
Netbooks
October 9, 2009 at 11:09 pm | In Mountains | Leave a CommentThey’re very handy, portable, and useful. They’re also insufficent for perusing the grandeur of the Himalaya with Google Maps. The screen is just too small. I’m not really sure what would be big enough; something 600 dpi and 36″ square?
Edit: I figured out why: the ice and snow features are on a much smaller scale than the geographic features that cause them. See a crevasse? It’s not caused by a little roll under the glacier – it’s due to the motion of ice on a massive scale. Even the windlips have windlips with windlips in their windshadows. What a huge place.
Insomnia
October 7, 2009 at 9:19 pm | In Gravity, Physics | Leave a CommentNot mine, Gravity’s. Gravity never sleeps.
From the Colorado Avalanche Information Center:
The CAIC has already begun to monitor the 2009-10 snowpack. The first avalanche incident of the new season was reported from Mt Meeker in Rocky Mountain National Park on October 5th. The small slab broke loose about 6 inches deep and 40 feet across and took two climbers on a short ride, with no injuries. The slide ran on the lower, or first pitch, of the Dream Weaver alpine climb. This route is located on the east side of the prominent north aspect buttress of 13,911 foot Mt Meeker. The first pitch ramps up to 50 degrees in some places. This route can see significant cross-loading deposit any fresh snow as slab at several areas along the route, though primarily at the first and last pitches.
In other news:
The upshot: at frequencies larger than ~1 kHz, I know how to sense displacements smaller than an atomic diameter. This isn’t news to the world, but it’s still nifty!
Unfortunately, this thing’s maturing enough that I’ll have to start redacting the axes from the plots now, lest readers make premature conclusions. The mode structure (all the peaks) has nothing to do with any of our production experiments.
Moon
October 5, 2009 at 6:37 pm | In Mountains | Leave a CommentSome evenings, distant Cascade peaks get a little hungry and start nibbling on things.
Same idea, much better glass, today.
4.66920160910299067185320382…
October 5, 2009 at 9:20 am | In Physics | Leave a CommentIt’s Nobel week. I’ll continue to advocate for Mitchell Feigenbaum until he dies or wins the prize.
A fine bifurcation diagram, care of Wikipedia.
The two Feigenbaum constants are as fundamental as 
A period doubling cascade, varying the drive frequency, in an electronic pendulum from my undergrad lab. The axes are position and momentum, though I can’t recall which is which (and it doesn’t really matter here). More complicated rotating states got me up to period 16, but the diagrams are less instructive.
Splendid
October 4, 2009 at 7:36 pm | In Life | Leave a CommentIt was a fine early autumn Seattle day.
In general, one only dreams of this kind of light.
It was a fine sunset, by george.
Moonrise over Seattle Children’s Hospital
Basil
October 2, 2009 at 11:25 pm | In Life | Leave a CommentWith the changing of the seasons, it was time to harvest our copious supply of basil. Many hands made light the work – the basil seen here was rendered into perhaps a little more than a liter of pesto.
Mmmm.
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