Dusty Equipment

You might be surprised to learn that I love gear. 

Might.

That is if you don't know me. I first became aware of my addiction to gear years ago. It was through my first true outdoor passion: Astronomy. 

It was some time back,when I was in high school, and I was deeply invested in the sciences. I enjoyed how they changed the way I viewed reality and enlightened me to the order of the world that surrounded me. The awesome power of natural phenomena and the complexity of our universe truly appealed to me. Astronomy, though, was my discipline of choice to see deeper, literally, into this cosmos.

Over the course of this hobby I devoted thousands in my personal expendable income into telescopes, eyepieces, filters, solar filters (for viewing sun spots) tripods, maps and all the other accoutrements you can think of to make one self respecting amature astronomer.  I experienced a number of amazing sights, for example,  routinely being able to manually find the Andromeda Galaxy or the time I used a green filter and a 2Xs barlow with a piece of string attached so I could see Phobos, a small asteroid captured and turned into a moon by Mars. A few weeks later I used the same method to see the even smaller Deimos.

Tonight I decided to bust it all out again for a small moon viewing sesh. I had a pretty rough day at work and wanted to see mountains. I thought it was impossible, but then I remembered that the moon was in a great phase and I realized I could see actual light from actual mountains all from my backyard in New Orleans.

After a short dusting of all the gear (and it WAS dusty) it was time to get to viewing.

Great night for viewing the Western hemisphere of the Moon.

The only real problem here is that all these "mountains" are formed by meteor impacts. On Earth, mountains are not only capable of being formed by meteors but they can also be formed by volcanism and the process of orogeny, which has only been observed on our planet.

Oh and for the record, I never spent the money on astrophotography gear. The photos of the moon here were taken hand held.

 -MG

Down River

My summer of rafting has finally come to an end and I am now back in New Orleans. The major bit of adventure in my life will come exclusively through the swamps as I start guiding canoe tours once again. It is fine though, I am hashing out a big winter mountaineering trip but the more I think about mountains the more I realize how much I miss the river.

The river seems so distant now; her water and all the people I grew to love and respect. We were a respectable group of transients, vagabonds, and wayfarers. Money was only as important as it was necessary and there was always a good time to be had. What tied us together though, in my mind, was the environment. It provided an overabundance of opportunities to test our skills, learn more and, in the end, take bigger, more calculated, risks. It's like ole Jim Whittiker said: "If your not living life on the edge your taking up too much space."

Maybe now that I'm home I might be taking up too much space on the couch but it gives me time to reflect on my experience over these past four months.

The most prominent opportunity and risk I took this summer was my R2 trip down Chattooga Sec. IV.  If you know the river and you know her dangers, you are perfectly justified in having a healthy sense of caution approaching it. A fatal river in many places, Chattooga is littered with undercuts and sieves. As a designated wild and scenic river it has a natural flow and is isolated from roads making medical evacuation highly difficult. The challenge and gravity of consequence was there.

Chattooga also had an element of nostalgia for me. My father had taken me at 13 on a rafting trip with WildWater rafting down Sec. IV. This experience was actually one of the first outdoor memories I cherish and see as a defining moment in my love of the outdoors. It is funny though, it wasn't the river that got me. It was the first time I saw mountains. I still remember staring out of my hotel room at the distant hills and all I wanted to do was be on top. At that time the river didn't even register in my mind. It is funny how things turn around. That is one thing water taught me though, it is all ebb and flow.

I did a quick edit of our Chattooga run, enjoy it y'all!



Lagniappe

Every year there is a world famous race on the Green River outside of Asheville N.C. The green does not play around and is almost exclusively a hard boat river. Some of the guys I had been living with are training for that race and they have been running it pretty regularly to learn the moves. Check em out.



Boof Ducks Green River Narrows Triple Crown from Alexander M. on Vimeo.

Happy to be back on the Blog-o-sphere!

-MG

Saturday Night Movie: Waterwalker

Bill Mason is a paddling legend. If you just so happen to be from Canada or way up north in the States you may have heard of him. He was a standard outdoor figure on Canada's public broadcasting. He produced a number of short films and worked on a number of television shows bringing the joys of paddling to many. Waterwalker is one of his finest films and has been made available for free. This is a classic treasure. Canoeists will surely enjoy or remember this film. Enjoy the paddling and even, wait for it, the pallet knife painting.



-MG

Double Trouble

It is always some sort of fun and games for raft guides when we are on the river and one of our favorite rapids to joke around in on the Ocoee is called "Double Trouble". It is a prime location for making a fool of yourself or looking like a true rafting Jedi master. Double Trouble is a pretty sweet wave train. Basically, all the water in the river begins to pile up and the only place it can go is up by making huge waves. It is a straightforward run and risk is fairly limited, it is also a spot where we take photos on every run. So we do stuff like this:

-MG

Equipment Failure

It brings me no joy to announce that my laptop has become inoperable.  This will hinder my ability to update this page regularly in the near future. The issue does seem capable of being repaired. I will try, at least to offer y'all, post smaller entries that may link to larger material.

-MG

Jacks River Trail

This campaign,
year, after year,
season, after season.

Through forest and swamp,
through hill and dale,
through mountain and canyon.

In all the places I have fought,
what rewards were given,
what rewards were sought?

through the snow,
through the rain,
through the burning sand.

In times of heat,
in times of cold.

This time,
this battle,
a river.

Flowing she was.
Gently at times,
violently at times.

I trekked on,
step after step,
crossing after crossing.

After while the boots were removed from my feet.
Bare flesh intimately upon the earth.
With the mosses and the leaf litter beneath me.

She pushed hard,
I pushed harder.

Through the blackberry bramble,
through the laurel,
through the ivy.

Until I found myself,
at length upon my reward.

A great waterfall,
brilliant the cascade was.

And from there I found myself
walking in a great circle.

Searching,
searching,
searching.

That hopeful exit,
that vehicle of my return.

A return to civilization.
Where the mass of men carry on,
working, slaving.

Their misunderstood lives,
their misunderstood desires.

On their backs are carried the burdens of distinguished men.
The great ones being far and few between.
How they seek to be them.

But here in the wilderness,
one can be everything,
and nothing,
all at once.

-MG

Big Frog Mountain

Every day we drive to the river I can see this mountain watching over Parksville lake. It looms over all the others. Sometimes it is covered in the classic mist that is ever so recognizable in these southern mountains; the summit only known in imagination. Other times it takes the namesake of its home range, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and is paled to an azure color of the sky. It took me less than a week to find out it was Big Frog Mountain at 4,200' of glory. Before I knew her name, I desired to be on its peak.

My maps revealed that it was located in the Big Frog Wilderness, part of Cherokee National Forest. The other bit of information that I became privy to was that a trail went directly to the summit. That trail: The Benton MacKaye. A classic, shorter thru-hiker trail, a small section would prove my route.

The hike would take me up one of the forks of Rough Creek. I smiled when I saw the name "rough creek". Cartographers were highly creative back in the day. I have seen at least three other "rough creeks" in the Southern Appalachian.

I made my camp for the night at the start of the climb up the main ridge to Big Frog. It was gently situated near the creek and I continued with my current trend of tentless camping.

The following day's hike up the ridge was rather easy going. I would attribute this to my week of hard work and conditioning. My hike up Cheoha the previous week had been a smoker and really pushed my green legs. On this day I was strong, gaining over 1000 vertical feet an hour. The goddess Diana would bless me as I was fortunate to witness a black bear foraging on my ascent. The first I have seen in these mountains. Once back at the guide camp it was revealed to me that this wilderness area was a prime relocation spot for bears that had disrupted human activity in the past. I can neither fully confirm or deny this rumor at this point.

Once I had gained the main ridge it became a knife edge. Very narrow and rocky. At points I would have been unable to lay across it with all 6'1" of myself. I began to notice, much to my dismay, that I was forming a blister on my left heel. I never get blisters. In my entire hiking career I never had one. This day was different. I was wearing a new pair of boots, stiff boots and admittedly a size too small. I thought it would be fine but it wasn't. After applying moleskin and putting on two pairs of socks to cushion my overwhelming desire to summit pushed me on.

It was a classic experience in these hills. Even though I was precipitously placed high above the world I was enclosed in a dense hardwood forest and was given few opportunities to view the surrounding landscape. One spot, listed on the map as the "Chimney Tops" did have a decent rock outcropping that opened up to some reward. This, beyond finally reaching the summit, was the only reward given on that day.

The summit was equally unforgiving. If there had been a frog on the top of that heap of dirt, rocks and trees, it would have surely been huge due to the unfathomable quantity of black fly, house fly and myriad of other flying pests that called that place home. Promptly upon arrival I left. I spent a second to try to locate a USGS marker but deemed it not worth it. The confirmation of the trail intersection and my altimeter was enough to prove it was indeed the summit.

I possessed enough food, time and the ability to spent another night in the wilderness area but my blister had become quite poignant. I decided to rush the estimated 12-14 miles down and back to my Jeep. This proved a tiring endeavor. Once I reached my Jeep, the Endeavor, I was elated and comforted. But what was even more comforting was knowing that a hot meal and warm bed was only a 20 min drive away back to our guide encampment, and not 9 1/2 hrs back to New Orleans.

-MG