Friday, June 17, 2011

Knocked the bastard off again ! (via snow chute)

22 miles RT, (12 miles backpacking + 10 miles day hike)
Elevation Gain: 6500+ ft
Trailhead: 8300 ft
Summit : 14500 ft.

Bill, Sarah, Arun & I did a 2-day backpacking trip to Mt Whitney. We camped @ Trail Camp (Elev. 12,000 ft) on Saturday night and day-hiked to the summit via the snow chute on Sunday morning. The chute was precarious and some sections were over 70 degrees in slope, requiring crampons & ice-axes. Bill, Arun & I summited, while Sarah almost made it, but had to turn back to Trail Crest, a mile away from the summit, due to AMS. Glad she got better later.

This was my second ascent, the last being in sep 2009 as a day hike. It was a fantastic experience, my first experimenting with winter skills, crampons, ice-axes and glissading. As always, Whitney did not disappoint !

As of 2 PM, I think only 10 people summited, I saw 2-3 people who had come up the MR to the summit and another group of 6 who summited after 3 PM (probably less than 20 people summited on June 12 - seems quite low).

Weather forecasts indicated a temperature of 32 F at the summit, however, it was blazing hot at 60+ F.

There are sections in the chute that are actually 60-70 degrees in slope.

Couple of observations:
- Best time to climb up the chute is early in the morning, when the snow is still hard and frozen.
- The main trail is hard to locate in some sections after Mirror Lake.
- There is a snow slope that leads from Trail Camp, all the way to Lone Pine Lake, and this is the quickest and perhaps the easiest way to descend. (We got to LP lake from Trail camp in an hour, with our backpacks).
- There is a lot of snow from Lone Pine Lake, this is one looooong winter.








Sunday, May 22, 2011

Sophistication via Android

I've been an avid hiker for a long time, but all the while this far, I've been keeping track of my pace, distance covered and elevation gained etc through plain old trail signs and a clock on my iPhone.

It is only after I switched to an Android phone (Xperia X10a), which I then de-branded and rooted, have I gotten hooked to smartphones. I downloaded "Backcountry Navigator", from Marketplace, couple of days back. This is a GPS app for Android and I fell in love with it soon after I installed it.

I used it on a recent hike up Mission Peak, a regional preserve in Fremont, CA. This was my third ascent and my first solo ascent. Here are some statistics from the hike, gathered through Backcountry Navigator.











I bettered my previous ascent by 15 minutes and descent by 20 minutes. My average uphill speed was 3.1 mph and downhill speed was around 4.8 mph, for an overall average of around 3.8-4 mph, with a 2600+ ft elevation gain. Looks like my workouts are showing some results.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

In veritas clausura

Where dwells happiness ? In love or in fortune or in fame or in faith ? Where lies closure ?

It couldn't have been put more beautifully than by Christopher McCandless a.k.a "Alexander Supertramp" quoting Henry David Thoreau, from "Into the Wild"

"Rather than Love, than Money, than Faith, than Fame, than Fairness, give me Truth".

Of what good is the rest, without truth ? I've come to realize that even hope becomes hopeless sans the light of truth.

I am reminded of the biblical quote, engraved in the facade of the main building in one of my alma-maters - "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free".

Am I bound then, or am I free ?

Thursday, September 09, 2010

Knocked the (little) Bastard Off ! *

It was an adventure with as many twists and turns as there were switchbacks on the trail to the summit. I just got back after a long overnight drive , after summiting Mt Whitney.

At about 14,500 feet, Mt Whitney is the highest point in the contiguous states of the USA (the lower-48 states). The Mt Whitney Trail starts at 8300 feet from Whitney Portal and is 11 miles long to the summit, making it a 22 mile round-trip hike, with over 6500 feet in elevation gain. Every year thousands of people apply for the "Mt Whitney Lottery", as the permits are few and the seekers many. This year a friend of mine had applied for the lottery, but we didn't make it. But thankfully, I re-applied for the "left-over slots" and I was granted 4 permits for 07 Sep, for a day hike !

The permits are usually open from early April to late October and the demand is higher for multi-night trips. The reason being - Acclimatization. For the uninformed, at such altitudes, many can experience Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) and it is important hence, to acclimate before venturing out on such hikes. But since I was only granted permits for a day-hike, it was going to be a challenge even before it started.

I had everything (well almost) planned out well in advance. Had explained to my hiking buddies the risks involved, the trail conditions, the gear list and the plan. I had booked campsites at Lone Pine campground, which was about 6 miles from the trail head. It is a 7 hour long drive to the town of Lone Pine, via US 395, through Tioga Pass Rd (Yosemite) from the San Francisco Bay Area. The Tioga Pass Rd rises up to an elevation of 10,000 ft towards the end, at the ranger station, before merging on to US 395 (elevation ~ 7000 ft) and since my old car had some difficulty in climbing up this road the last time we were here, I decided to go in my friend's much newer car. But seems like I was mistaken and here is where we had the first "twist" in the story !

It was all hunky-dory until we crossed the ranger station on Tioga Pass Rd, on Sunday evening. We had decided to spend about an hour by the Tioga Lake (elevation 9000+ ft) to acclimatize a little, and we did, but when I got back to the car and tried to start it, it wouldn't. It indicated that the battery was low. As always, AT&T is the least reliable of any cellphone carriers, and we had no signal on our iPhones. We could have walked to the ranger station about 2 miles up the road and used the call phone there, but much to my annoyance, my friend neither had his insurance papers nor was he sure if he had road-side assistance coverage. While we were evaluating our options, he asked an old lady in a van near by, if she had any jump-start cables and if she could help us. Thanks to that good old lady (there are many such Samaritans here in the US) she helped us jump-start our car. We were still wondering how could the battery have drained out all of a sudden. My friend declared it could have "just happened" and was confident that it would recharge itself as we drive.

We took off from there and got to the Mobil station at the end of Tioga Pass Rd and decided to fill our tank, but before I could warn my friend, he switched off the engine and lo! It wouldn't start again! This time the owner of the gas station was our good Samaritan. He biked for couple of minutes and brought his truck and the jump start cables. By then I had googled for AAA towing service nearby and learned that there was one in the town of Lee Vinning, which was about a mile away. The good Samaritan also informed us that there was a station mechanic in Lee Vinning who could replace car batteries. So we drove to Lee Vinning and explained the problem to the mechanic. He immediately suggested that we replace the battery. My clueless friend also thought that was the best thing to do. But then as the mechanic was pouring through his battery catalog, we learned that the car's battery was replaced only about 2 years back and technically it should last for 84 months (from its specs). When we told him about this, the guy said he wouldn't know (wtf ?!). He then examined the circuitry and declared that it wasn't the battery, but the alternator that was at fault, which was why the battery wasn't charging. He told us that he could order a replacement, but that won't happen till Tuesday as Monday was labour day. He also discouraged us from driving out of Lee Vinning at night (lights would consume the remaining battery) and suggested we find a place to stay in that town for the night. He also told us it was unlikely that we'd find any mechanic shop nearby who'd be open on Labour Day.

By now, we had also found out that all the motels (which is like 4) in Lee Vinning were full. Luckily there was an RV park nearby where I could call and book 2 tent sites (thankfully we had tents with us). We pitched out tents and then started evaluating our options.

1) Call up a friend and ask him pick us up. Leave the car @ Lee Vinning, to be fixed by the mechanic on Tuesday. Skip Mt Whitney.
2) Charge the car's battery, carry a spare (with tools) and take a chance driving back to San Francisco in the morning. Skip Mt Whitney.
3) Get an iPhone charger (we were running out of charge), use the wireless in the RV Park to search for mechanic shops in nearby towns, who were open on Labour Day and who could replace/fix an Alternator and if by some miracle that could happen, try to continue with the Whitney plan.

Evidently, the chances of continuing with the Mt Whitney plan was very bleak. We got a charger from a nearby gas station and incidentally while asking the shopkeeper for suggestions, we stumbled on this AAA tow-truck driver who informed us that his store in Reno, NV was open on Labour Day and they could replace an alternator. This raised our hopes and we thought perhaps Whitney was a possibility, albeit a distant one. Our plan was to go charge our battery the next morning from the local mechanic and try and make it to Reno, which was about 132 miles away, before the battery drained out.

Next morning, I had called up the Interagency Visitor Center of Inyo National Forest and informed them that there were only 3 in our group (there by releasing the 4th permit for someone else, if they were waiting) and that I'd like a night-drop-box pick up of the permits, as we were running late. The mechanic charged our battery for about an hour and we were all set to drive to Reno (and barely make it before the auto service shop there closed at 2 pm) when we discovered the car wouldn't start again. This made the mechanic examine the situation further and conclude that it was the battery that was fault and he suspected that it had short-circuited, thereby not allowing itself to get charged again. He replaced the battery and confirmed that everything was fine now (the alternator was all fine) and we should be good to go. This brought back a smile on our faces (although I still wasn't sure if his diagnosis was right, but hell, the car seemed fine and we were going to give Whitney a shot again!).

We reached Lone Pine, I went and collected our permits and poop-bags (you are supposed to poop in a bag and pack it out , should you have to answer nature's call in the Mt Whitney Trail :-D ), we devoured some burritos for lunch and head to the Lone Pine Campground (elevation: 5700 ft). I was afraid they'd have canceled my reservation as we didn't show up the previous day. Thankfully, our campsite was still good and we went and pitched our tents. It was very hot and the terrain around us was plain desert. We were told that there were rattle snakes all around (hunting for mice/chipmunks
). We stashed our food in bear-proof lockers and then decided to drive to Whitney Portal campground (elevation: 8300 ft), which was where the Mt Whitney Trail started. Our original plan (before running into car troubles) was to hike up to Lone Pine Lake on the Mt Whitney Trail (elevation: 10,300 ft) and spend couple of hours there to acclimate. But now we had but 2 hours in all. We hiked up the trail for about 45 minutes, spent couple of minutes sitting there and we returned. We had decided to get up early next morning (Tuesday) around 1 am, and start the hike by 2 am. According to some estimates on other hiking blogs, a fast hike up to the summit would take 5 hrs, a moderate would take 8 and a slow hike would take 11. So we thought we should be able to get back by 2 pm (grossly underestimated).

Things went like clockwork that night, we dozed off for a while, woke up at 1 am, packed out tents, had some bread and fruits for a quick breakfast and drove to the trail head. It was 3 am by the time we started our hike. We had already concluded that we cudn't stay as a single group and yet complete the hike by 2 pm like we had initially thought, based on our "acclimatization" hike the previous day. My friend V (whose car we had drove in) was pretty slow and inexperienced. My other friend VK and I had given clear instructions to V on what should be done and we discussed general protocols and precautions for everyone. There were about a dozen people assembling near the trail head by then, all ready to start the hike.

We started precisely at 3 and soon VK and I were ahead of the rest of the gang. We overtook several other hikers along the way and reach Lone Pine Lake (2.8 miles from Trail Head, 10,300 ft) in 70 minutes. That was a good pace. However, as we began to gain elevation, I began to slow down. I had to take pictures, I could only sleep for 2 hours the previous night and I had annoying bouts of head-aches (mild AMS symptom) and all of this was contributing to my slowing down. About over an hour later, I reached Trail Camp (which is where the multi-night hikers camp before ascending to the summit the next day). This place was like a Wind Tunnel. Although weather forecasts indicated it was going to be a bright and sunny day, there were fast chill gusts and winds blowing through this region. I had to put on my gloves and Balaclava by now. The next 2 mile stretch was agonizingly slow, by some counts, there are a total of 99 switchbacks from this point, to the summit.

By this time, couple of other hikers, many whom I had overtaken in my first 3 miles, were going past me. The trick to climbing up the trail at such altitude is to take small and slow steps, while maintaining a steady heart-beat. It was something I could never do. I have never been the one who climbs a flight of stairs patiently, I had to always run. This inability was crippling me. For every 20-30 feet I ascended rapidly, I had to catch my breath, it was worse at times that I had to sit on a rock to get enough oxygen, before ascending again. The annoying headache had to be contained through 2 doses of Ibuprofen. By this time VK had gained couple of hundred feet more than I had and he was beginning to disappear from my line of sight. It was day break by then and I could see the brilliant golden orange rays of the sun, bouncing off the rocky walls of the Sierras. It was beautiful and I clicked several shots.

After couple of more agonizing hours of dragging my feet along, I reached Trail Crest (elevation:13700 ft). I was delighted. For it was only 700 more feet to climb, over 2 miles (or so I thought!). Turns out that the trail descends about 400 feet from Trail Crest to the John Muir Trail Junction. 400 feet at this altitude, without proper acclimatization seemed like climbing a vertical mile! The last 1.9 mile stretch to the summit was the most strenuous of all. There was a blast of chilly wind between the "Needles" next to Mt Whitney, but the views from there were beautiful. By now I had learned the art of taking slow and small steps and getting into a rhythm. I took over 2 hours to cross this stretch and get to the summit. It was 11 am, sharp, when I reached the summit. It had taken me 8 long hours to summit. I saw VK there, who was shivering in cold. He didn't bring his jacket or gloves or a beanie! It seems he had reached the summit an hour before I did (around 10 am) and he was trying to get warm in the stone hut on top. I suggested he descend immediately before he froze and sent him off.

I had some other hikers shoot some pictures of me> I ate some trail nuts and an apple for lunch and began my descent at 11:40 am. While Sheldon Cooper's "Gravity Thou Art a Heartless Bitch" is right for the most part, there can be no better friend than Gravity during the descent! All you need is strong knees and a great sense of balance (part of which perhaps I inherited and part of which I nurtured as a kid), and you can literally run down the trail. Unlike many other trails, the Mt Whitney trail is built on solid rocks. It has a lot of big and small boulders all along the trail making it ideal for downhill-parkouring :-). I was galloping down the trail. I cleared the switchback section alone in 20 minutes and got to the trail camp in 1.5 hours, overtaking many of the other hikers who had summited much before I did. Towards the end of the trail camp, I overtook VK, who was filling up his Camelbak with water from a stream. In 3 hours, I had reached Lone Pine Lake. The lake was beautiful and it was hard to believe I had passed through somethings so beautiful without realizing it, earlier in the morning.

It was just another 2.8 miles to trail-head and I figured I could cover that in 30 minutes, but by then my stomach was showing signs of being upset (thanks to all the water I drank from the taps and streams) and I didn't want to inaugurate my poop-bag :-). So I slowed down to a brisk walk. I reached the trail-head at 3:40 pm, 12 hours and 40 minutes after we had started the hike. I examined my feet for any blisters, but thanks to the Vaseline that I had applied on them, and to the liner I had underneath my hiking socks, my feet were okay. I rested on the rocky walls next to the trail-head for an hour when finally VK came down at about 4:45 pm. We then got into the car and took a nap, hoping for V to show up by about 6:30 pm. But there was no sign of him. It was dark already and we were worried. We thought of inquiring at the Whitney Portal Store for some Park Ranger's number but the store had closed at 8. There was no signal on our cellphones again ! It was 8:30 pm already and we were wondering what should we do if he doesn't show up. We got to the trail-head and wanted to inquire with the other hikers who were descending, if they'd seen V. But there weren't any hikers descending at that time. V was perhaps the last man on the trail. Finally, at about 8:45 pm, we spotted a bright LED light somewhere up the trail. We were sure it was a hiker descending and were about to approach him to inquire about V. But thankfully, behind that hiker, was V, he had finally made it back, after 17.6 hours!

The original plan was to drive back to SF, but it was too late now and given the condition in which we were, we thought it might be a better idea to check-in into a motel somewhere near Lee Vinning for the night and drive back home in the morning. But when we got to Lee Vinning at 11 pm, we still saw the same old "No Vacancy" boards in the 4 motels (seriously, you guys are completely booked even on a Tuesday night ?!). As a last resort we decided to drive back to SF instead of looking around for other motels in nearby towns. V and I took turns to drive from time to time. We even stopped at the Yosemite entrance center and took an hours nap. I drove for the most part back home as I had managed to take a quick nap after my hike. V was in no shape to drive, he was pretty confused and I'd say even non-compos-mentis! After several agonizing hours of "Driving-under-the-influence-of-Redbull", we reached SF at 8:30 am. I had to take the day off from work, to catch some sleep.

* - The words uttered by Sir Edmund Hillary to his friend, after he summited Mt Everest.
I am not Edmund Hillary and Mt Whitney is not Mt Everest, but hey, it is 0.5 time Mt Everest :-D
(14,500 ft Mt Whitney, Vs 29000 ft, Mt Everest :-D ).







Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Immune System Breach

After almost 4 years, my immune system has been breached. I have a sore throat now, I don't recall when was the last time I caught cold. All thanks to the Mt Dana hike on Independence Day. The 3100 ft elevation gain hike, in which we ascended from 9945 ft, to 13,061 ft gave me mild systems of dehydration , and it was so hard to breathe up there at that elevation.

Now a cold is all that I needed x-(

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

You can't go wrong with yourself !

Work kept me busy for couple of weeks that I had to skip my regular workouts at the gym. After a long-weekend spent rafting and camping in Yosemite (which didn't involve much physical activity), I thought it was time to get back to my regular weekend hikes.

The Stanford Outing Community is not pretty active during summer, so I didn't have the company of strangers. As always asking out friends to join you is pointless. So I decided to hike alone. I decided to hike the 11 mile Berry Creek Falls loop in the Big Basin Redwood State Park, about 50 miles from home. The last time I was in this state park, it was with a friend. She didn't dress warm enough and couldn't stand the cold weather. So we had to settle for a "local" 1 mile loop. I didn't complain, but I was getting a little annoyed with her mood swings (which seems to afflict most of the females I know/I've known --- some things never change I guess).

It was much different this time. The sun was scorching and I could feel the heat even while amidst giant Redwoods! But I was by myself, and I had my gear : Camelbak, Ace-bandage, Ibuprofen tablets, flashlights (I don't hike without all of these, nowadays!) and my lunch. I could be reckless and free again. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I clocked 3 miles/hour on the 11 mile loop which gained 2000+ ft in cumulative elevation. Half-way through the hike, my right foot (which doesn't seem to have healed completely yet) began to hurt, but a dose of Ibuprofen fixed it. I had lunch by the beautiful Golden Cascade waterfall and rested beneath the 60 foot tall Silver Falls and the beautiful Berry Creek falls.

It was a good time connecting with my inner self. I didn't have to get annoyed by someone's eccentricities or super erratic mood swings. I was free from bickering. The trail didn't have to be beautiful to motivate me.

I don't share your appreciation for Art or your appreciation for alien cuisine or your tastes for exotic wine. Call me a Philistine, but this is what I love; being out there connecting with mother nature, may it rain or may it shine.

There is pleasure in loneliness too :-), after all, you cannot go wrong with yourself (?)!

Sunday, May 02, 2010

Man Vs Wild, Adventure

I set out on a 23 mile hike with a 7000 ft elevation gain, with the s.o.c (mostly strangers) last morning. The plan was to start at Morgan Territory Regional Preserve, make our way into the Mt Diablo State Park, Ascend both the peaks of Mt Diablo and take a shuttle to get back to our parking lot in Morgan Park's staging area. In my last couple of 15+ miles hikes, I've always had trouble with my hiking shoes. My feet are the weakest link in my body, with these crappy shoes. Either my toes begin to hurt by constantly impinging on the front part of my shoe (while descending steep slopes), or the soles develop blisters (thanks to the crappy insoles). A great pair of hiking socks mitigates the problem to an extent, but in the end the crappy shoes always win.

We started around 10:30 am (quite a late start) and were averaging 2-2.5 miles/hour as we took frequent breaks to discuss about the geology, the plant and wildlife around us. After covering about 6 miles and ascending 2000 ft, we decided to take a lunch break. Around this time my plantar-facia began to develop some internal inflammation and was sending me a signal that I shouldn't put much weight on my right heel. I thought it should get better along the way and kept moving with the group. By the time we had descended 2000 ft and reached the foothill of Mt Diablo, my heel was in very bad shape. I could barely walk on my right foot. We had covered about 12 miles now and it was already 4 PM. I continued with the group for another 15 minutes by dragging myself behind them. During our next stop at a trail junction, I informed the hike leader Val (who btw, is a 68 yr old female, a former ultra marathoner, mountain biker, trail runner.... very impressive background) that my feet were giving way and I couldn't keep up with them. Val showed me some directions on her map and suggested I hike back for 3.5 miles and reach the Morgan Territory Rd, from where I should be able to hitchhike a ride to the parking lot where I had left my car. I didn't have a map of my own and the park was pretty deserted. Seemed like around that time of the evening, we were the only hikers in a 9 sq mile area.

I figured that this might be easier on my heels and chose to find my way back. Val gave me couple of Ibuprofen tablets and I gulped them down. Ibuprofen is a wonder-drug. Couple of months back when I had gone skiing with KD and SP to Tahoe, I had a bad fall that injured my left knee (LCL strain/tear). I was limping and in couple of hours the knee began to swell. Although I had initially refused to take Ibuprofen when SP insisted, I had to when the pain became unbearable. Thanks to Ibuprofen, I was able to climb up the stairs to my apartment and send-off KD and SP. This time was no different, Ibuprofen was my savior.

It was quite an adventure tracing my way back to the parking lot. Soon after I left the group, I hit Curry Canyon Rd, however, I went in the opposite direction (west) towards Curry Point. I walked for a mile and all the while I kept thinking the route looked unfamiliar. Then I found the sun to be right ahead of me and then what Ejaz said struck me ("keep traveling east"). Realizing I had made a stupid mistake, I retraced my steps and hiked for about 2.5 miles to get to the park boundary of Mt Diablo State Park. From there it was another 2-2.5 miles on Curry Canyon Rd to get to Morgan Territory Rd.

By now my right foot seemed to have gotten alright (thanks to the Ibuprofen dose!) and I didn't see why I should take a ride as I had no reason now to complain. It was around 6 PM and fortunately my iPhone had 3G coverage. I found out that I had about 6 miles to go along Morgan Territory Rd to reach the staging area. I kept walking and from time to time I jogged. A handful of motor vehicles passed by, probably around 5 in all but I chose not to hitchhike. I figured that I should be able to get to the staging area by 7:30 PM, but it turned out that my GPS wasn't accurate enough (frickin Google maps ><, this wasn't the first time!). It was 7:30 and I still couldn't see the staging area in sight. I decided I would hitchhike on any vehicle that passed by after 7:30 as I wasn't too sure how far away I was from the staging area, and it was getting dark. Unfortunately not even one vehicle passed by after 7 PM.

It was almost dark, the road was long, narrow and winding. There were flies and mosquitoes all over the place (I was walking on the road through a dense forest). At times the thought crossed my mind as to what would I do when it gets pitch dark and not one vehicle should pass by. I had about a 500 ml of water left, I had my rain jacket, perhaps I could find some spot beside the road to rest. I was thinking about Snakes, Coyotes and Giant Mosquitoes. How was I going to deal with them all without fire or a flashlight? But it wasn't time for that yet. My feet were now sore and I had developed multiple blisters, but I had to keep pushing myself.

I kept walking, jogging, walking and I was totally frustrated. Then I saw the board "Morgan Territory Regional Preserve" and I was so relieved! It was 8:10 PM when I got into my car, by then there were only 2 other cars left in the parking lot. In the end it was 12 (when I left the group) + 4.5 (via Curry Canyon Rd to Morgan Territory Rd, including my screw-ups) + 7.2 (from Curry Canyon Rd and Morgan Territory Rd junction to the Staging Area) = 23.7 miles hike for me. I would have gained 3000 ft + in elevation. I drove for an hour and reached home around 9:30 PM and crashed in my bed

It was a nice experience. Unfortunately my shoes and feet weren't on my side today. The last time I was in a similar situation was 6 years back, when I had gone to meet my senior in IIM-B. I was stranded in Bannerghetta Rd, in pitch dark at 10:30 PM at night. My herniated disc on the lumbar spine made it nearly impossible to walk for more than 100m without taking a break. But hey, I lived to tell the tale :-p!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Weeding out facebook feeds

Over the years I've hidden 188 off 294 friends from my facebook feeds. No wonder i don't see much activity in my feeds these days.

From what I recollect, here are some of the reasons why I have hidden feeds from ppl :

1) Calling Trisha beautiful
2) Praising Microsoft
3) Approving 6 or more friends in one go.
4) Those wanting me to become a farmer (multiple requests)
5) Showing signs of being a communist
6) Logging on to facebook once a month.
7) Horoscope app users
8) Emo-freaks
9) Posting obviously fake videos :-p
10) Guys/girls brooding over a lost bf/gf for over 2 days.
11) gf/bf liking every other status update of the other (even if it was about taking a dump!)

Don't take it personally folks (if i am still visible on your feeds). I love ya'all. Its just that I get bored of/pissed-off at most things after a while...like 2-3 days :-p

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

First experiments with Skiing

Went to the Lake Tahoe region to spend a day skiing in the beautiful weather with KD and SP. It was my first attempt at skiing. Just when it looked like I had "got it", my reckless nature took over. I gained a lot of speed and momentum skiing down a slope and thought the easiest way to break my speed would be to take a fall. What a fall it was....and now I am left nursing an injured leg :-)





Sunday, January 03, 2010

>> The Redwoods <<

What a way to begin the New Year! I drove to the Redwood National and State Parks in northern California. What a trip it was ! The Avenue of the Giants in Humboldt Redwood State park, Jedediah Redwood State Park and Del Norte Redwood State Park in Crescent City followed by the Lady Bird Johnson Redwood State Park and Prairie Creek Redwood State park.

Pictures won't do justice. Here are some pictures nevertheless.



video

video

Neither can words do justice, but this one gets close to ....




"The Redwoods"

Here, sown by the Creator's hand,
In serried ranks, the Redwoods stand;
No other clime is honored so,
No other lands their glory know.

The greatest of Earth's living forms,
Tall conquerors that laugh at storms;
Their challenge still unanswered rings,
Through fifty centuries of kings.

The nations that with them were young,
Rich empires, with their forts far-flung,
Lie buried now - their splendor gone;
But these proud monarchs still live on.

So shall they live, when ends our day,
When our crude citadels decay;
For brief the years allotted man,
But infinite perennials' span.

This is their temple, vaulted high,
And here we pause with reverent eye,
With silent tongue and awe-struck soul;
For here we sense life's proper goal;

To be like these, straight, true and fine,
To make our world, like theirs, a shrine;
Sink down, oh traveler, on your knees,
God stands before you in these trees.”


(By Joseph B. Strauss, Chief Engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge)

Monday, December 07, 2009

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

>> Learning the probability distribution of the Uni(?)verse <<

A friend of mine recently asked through his status message on facebook "Why is it that we follow the decimal system (other than the fact that we have had 10 fingers)".

Following are some of our hilarious (?) exchanges :-p

Jugger:
One doubt. Whats this "decimal" number system? Btw, humans have 1010 fingers. Can't you count?


Friend:
"Suppose we had followed binary system, all calculations would have been tougher, representing (and hence remembering) even small numbers would have required more digits. Would that have led to better neuro-evlotions (in terms of computation and memory) ?"


Jugger:
Memory is for those who can't compute. A string of bits is more easily compressible than a string of chars (more likely to have repeatition). So we can store numbers in compressed form :-p besides, it is easy to compute in binary. Again what is this "digit" that u just mentioned? Is it something like our "bit" ? :-p


Friend:
"memory is for those who can't compute." - NO. The Turing machine has memory. All theoretical computer models assume availability of memory. Yes; digit is like bittu. If we had followed binary system, we would have used the word digitu instead of bittu.


Jugger:
the intended meaning was that anything that can be computed (efficiently), shouldn't be stored. (In other words, if the Kolmogorov complexity of the object you would like to store is less than the size of the object itself, you'd rather store the computation).


Friend:
Yea, the kangaroo complexity matter makes sense.


Jugger:
On a serious Note:

1) You ask this question only because the decimal system is popular today. (Sumerians and the Babylonians used Sexagecimal system -- base 60)

2) The same can be asked about why anthropomorphs have a pair of arms, pair of legs. We could have certainly done better with 4 pairs of them. I believe evolution is an optimization algorithm, that has its quirks (exploration vs exploitation) in the form of random mutation. Not everything we have is "optimal".... Read More

3) The same can be asked about religion. Why is Christianity, Islam the two most popular religions in the world. Are they the "optimal" ? (I guess not :-p)

4) The entire universe in the space-time continuum (the state of every matter in it) can be considered as a string of bits (infinitely long). The current "configuration" is only one of the infinite possibilities. We do not know the "distribution" of these configuration (yet?). May be all configurations have a finite probability, may be some are more probable.

so the right question to ask is perhaps NOT "why is this possible?", but "how probable is this"

:-)

Ippidi pesittu irundha no scope for finding a figure....so lets dissolve this debate and get back to work.


Not sure how much of that techno-babble makes sense :-).

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

>> Half-dome hike <<

Finally after a year, SP and I hiked half-dome with a couple of her other friends.

The weather was expected to be worse, but thanks to good planning we managed to get to the peak by 11 AM and back by 12 noon. There was a heavy rain, followed by hail storm which made the cables wet and the route to the peak very slippery. Unfortunately this resulted in a fatal fall for a 41 yr old, who fell to his death some 1000 feet below the peak. Details here: Hiker Falls to Death. Probably someone we saw on our way back from the peak.

I was also terribly irritated by the sick bastards pushing their way up and down the cables.....many of them have little respect for those who are slow. One slip up there by one man could spell disaster for dozens of others....if only they had some common sense! I hope one of these bastards wasn't the reason behind the poor Hiker's death.

It was funny (and scary) to see SP swear at a man who pushed his way past her, during our descent from the cables :-)). Some wise thinking made her bring a harness...it proved handy. I was the reckless one up there...sans gloves, sans hiking shoes, sans harness ...

Yosemite and Half dome....a fantastic place indeed, was a wonderful weekend well spent in YNP!






Saturday, May 30, 2009

>> Facebook killed the blogger <<

When it is much easier to post quick status updates on Facebook, there is not much of an urge to blog.

This place is perhaps goinna be devoid of new posts for a while.