Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
An elevated discussion
In my departure post before our trip to Colorado, I mentioned that San Antonio's elevation above sea level was 300 feet. I could have sworn I'd heard that somewhere. However, Henry, attending to his husbandly duty of correcting my mistakes whenever possible, said he thought it was 700 or 800 feet instead.
This got me thinking about who was right. And, being a government information librarian by trade, I knew where to go for the answer: Elevations and Distances in the U.S., a good example of your tax dollars at work. One of the website's sections gives the elevations of the "50 largest cities," of which San Antonio is definitely one. And the elevation answer? I was wrong, astonishingly, and he was more-or-less correct: our elevation varies from 500-1000 feet above sea level. Still practically awash in oxygen compared to our Colorado destinations, but higher than I thought.
Fooling around with the elevation information, though, led me to remember other elevation-related arguments discussions we have had. The first major one concerned the concept of timberline. Just looking at these two pictures, which peaks would you say are at the highest elevation?
The first picture was taken in Glacier National Park when I was a little girl and I remember very vividly the incredibly rugged peaks there. [You can see more of this '50's-era scenery in my collection of old photos.] So I argued for Montana's mountains having higher elevations than the gentler-looking summits we'd become familiar with in Colorado (the second picture).
Bzzzttxxx! I was wrong again. Colorado's mountains are LOTS higher than the highest peaks in Glacier. I don't have a positive ID on the mountain in my picture above, but the highest it could have been (going by my perusal of our Glacier topo map) is Going-to-the-Sun Mountain at just over 9600'. The highest peak in the park, according to the park website, is Mt. Cleveland at 10,466'. [And, referring again to the Elevations document linked above, I learned that Montana has a grand total of zero 14er's. Not that its scenery is in the least diminished by this lack.] A bit shorter than Mt. Shavano in the Colorado picture above, which weighs in at 14,229'. [And as readers of this blog might remember, Chaffee County, home of Shavano, has more 14-er's than any other Colorado county. So it's not a fluke.]
What threw me off is the treeline. More exposed rock makes a mountain look higher, but the peaks in Glacier have their latitude to thank for this, not their altitude. A friend later gave me a formula that I've since forgotten and can't find on the internet (!) that gives the relationship between latitude and treeline, but I did find [curiously, in several sources like answers.com, this precise example—I wonder where they all got it?]:
Of course, the vantage-point elevation of the viewer can also impact how high a mountain looks. Which leads to another elevation-related discussion we had once, about the mountains in Hawaii, long before we actually made it there for a visit. Given how small the islands are, how could they possibly have mountains almost as high as the ones we visit in Colorado? That would mean an elevation gain from 0 to almost 14,000' over a very short distance. Well, a quick check in our atlas confirmed that this amazing fact is true. Mauna Kea, on the Big Island, Hawaii's highest peak, according to the USGS, has an elevation of 13,796' ! [California, however, has even this elevation gain beat: its low point is Death Valley, which is below sea level and its highest is Mt. Whitney at 14,494'. However, it covers a lot more real estate than Hawaii.]
Here is a picture we took of the White Mountain in the distance during one of our Hawaii hikes (the white dots on top are the telescopes). Remember how far south it is, which accounts for the high treeline. Otherwise, it looks pretty tall:
One more fun elevation fact. Everyone knows that Denver is the Mile-High-City, right? When they built Coors Field, home field for the Rockies, my second-favorite baseball team [the one that's actually had a good year] they came up with a clever way to highlight this. "While most of the seats in Coors Field are dark green, the seats in the 20th row of the upper deck are purple. This marks the city's one mile elevation point." [from Wikipedia's Coors Field article] Clever decorating, eh?
GO ROX! Hang on to that Wild Card* lead!
*Although I object in principle to the baseball playoff system. But that's a discussion topic for a future post.
This got me thinking about who was right. And, being a government information librarian by trade, I knew where to go for the answer: Elevations and Distances in the U.S., a good example of your tax dollars at work. One of the website's sections gives the elevations of the "50 largest cities," of which San Antonio is definitely one. And the elevation answer? I was wrong, astonishingly, and he was more-or-less correct: our elevation varies from 500-1000 feet above sea level. Still practically awash in oxygen compared to our Colorado destinations, but higher than I thought.
Fooling around with the elevation information, though, led me to remember other elevation-related arguments discussions we have had. The first major one concerned the concept of timberline. Just looking at these two pictures, which peaks would you say are at the highest elevation?
The first picture was taken in Glacier National Park when I was a little girl and I remember very vividly the incredibly rugged peaks there. [You can see more of this '50's-era scenery in my collection of old photos.] So I argued for Montana's mountains having higher elevations than the gentler-looking summits we'd become familiar with in Colorado (the second picture).
Bzzzttxxx! I was wrong again. Colorado's mountains are LOTS higher than the highest peaks in Glacier. I don't have a positive ID on the mountain in my picture above, but the highest it could have been (going by my perusal of our Glacier topo map) is Going-to-the-Sun Mountain at just over 9600'. The highest peak in the park, according to the park website, is Mt. Cleveland at 10,466'. [And, referring again to the Elevations document linked above, I learned that Montana has a grand total of zero 14er's. Not that its scenery is in the least diminished by this lack.] A bit shorter than Mt. Shavano in the Colorado picture above, which weighs in at 14,229'. [And as readers of this blog might remember, Chaffee County, home of Shavano, has more 14-er's than any other Colorado county. So it's not a fluke.]
What threw me off is the treeline. More exposed rock makes a mountain look higher, but the peaks in Glacier have their latitude to thank for this, not their altitude. A friend later gave me a formula that I've since forgotten and can't find on the internet (!) that gives the relationship between latitude and treeline, but I did find [curiously, in several sources like answers.com, this precise example—I wonder where they all got it?]:
"timberline is at about 2,500 ft (750 m) on Mt. McKinley, Alaska; 6,500 ft (1,950 m) on Mt. Shasta, Calif.; and 11,500 ft (3,450 m) in the San Francisco Mts., Ariz."Anyone who wants to figure out my missing formula from these figures is welcome to do so.
Of course, the vantage-point elevation of the viewer can also impact how high a mountain looks. Which leads to another elevation-related discussion we had once, about the mountains in Hawaii, long before we actually made it there for a visit. Given how small the islands are, how could they possibly have mountains almost as high as the ones we visit in Colorado? That would mean an elevation gain from 0 to almost 14,000' over a very short distance. Well, a quick check in our atlas confirmed that this amazing fact is true. Mauna Kea, on the Big Island, Hawaii's highest peak, according to the USGS, has an elevation of 13,796' ! [California, however, has even this elevation gain beat: its low point is Death Valley, which is below sea level and its highest is Mt. Whitney at 14,494'. However, it covers a lot more real estate than Hawaii.]
Here is a picture we took of the White Mountain in the distance during one of our Hawaii hikes (the white dots on top are the telescopes). Remember how far south it is, which accounts for the high treeline. Otherwise, it looks pretty tall:
One more fun elevation fact. Everyone knows that Denver is the Mile-High-City, right? When they built Coors Field, home field for the Rockies, my second-favorite baseball team [the one that's actually had a good year] they came up with a clever way to highlight this. "While most of the seats in Coors Field are dark green, the seats in the 20th row of the upper deck are purple. This marks the city's one mile elevation point." [from Wikipedia's Coors Field article] Clever decorating, eh?
GO ROX! Hang on to that Wild Card* lead!
*Although I object in principle to the baseball playoff system. But that's a discussion topic for a future post.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Long, pretty paddle
This must be a blogging first for me—I'm writing this while my shoulders are still sore from the paddling I'm going to report on.
And they're plenty sore. We made a longer-than-usual (for me, anyway) run on the Guadalupe River Saturday, with a flow level lower than we'd hoped for. Which results in more work! Even though I didn't have to paddle constantly because we chose a canoe over kayaks.
But, fortunately, the scenery was still lovely, and the weather was most cooperative—warm enough to encourage stopping for a swim now and then, but not oppressively hot. This picture was taken just after we put in, and is looking back upstream at the bridge and our remaining fellow-paddlers.
On a historical note, Henry, who remembers these details, pointed out that this was the bridge
we came out to see during the flood of 1978. Look at the height of the roadbed above the river. And try to imagine the water just about to slop over the asphalt. Doesn't look possible, does it? [We did take some pictures, forever positively dated by the presence of our nephew James as a baby—he who is now a dad himself. But they are buried deep in our slide collection and digitizing those slides will probably end up being a retirement project for me. Maybe someday I 
can come back and add a vintage picture to this post.]
I did find some statistics that were pretty mind-blowing in a book called Flash Floods in Texas by Jonathan Burnett (yay! Google Books!). The rains that caused this flooding were from remnants of tropical storm Amelia and the river flow gauge at Comfort (a ways upstream from here) went from 50 cfs to over 180,000 cfs in just a couple of days in August. Surf's up, indeed.
But back to our placid paddle. With a few fun, but not dangerous, rapids to get through, and plenty of slow stretches in between, we had ample time to observe wildlife like the vultures above on the left. And also time to enjoy the
amazing cypress trees all along the banks. A sample of one of the biggest is above on the right.
And did we ever work up an appetite! As regular readers of the blog know, after-paddling-dining is one of the highlights of these excursions. This time we patronized an old favorite, the Texas 46 Bar & Grill, named for the state highway where it resides. Nothing like a cheeseburger, fries and a cold one to start the recovery process after all that work!
And they're plenty sore. We made a longer-than-usual (for me, anyway) run on the Guadalupe River Saturday, with a flow level lower than we'd hoped for. Which results in more work! Even though I didn't have to paddle constantly because we chose a canoe over kayaks.
But, fortunately, the scenery was still lovely, and the weather was most cooperative—warm enough to encourage stopping for a swim now and then, but not oppressively hot. This picture was taken just after we put in, and is looking back upstream at the bridge and our remaining fellow-paddlers.On a historical note, Henry, who remembers these details, pointed out that this was the bridge
we came out to see during the flood of 1978. Look at the height of the roadbed above the river. And try to imagine the water just about to slop over the asphalt. Doesn't look possible, does it? [We did take some pictures, forever positively dated by the presence of our nephew James as a baby—he who is now a dad himself. But they are buried deep in our slide collection and digitizing those slides will probably end up being a retirement project for me. Maybe someday I 
can come back and add a vintage picture to this post.]I did find some statistics that were pretty mind-blowing in a book called Flash Floods in Texas by Jonathan Burnett (yay! Google Books!). The rains that caused this flooding were from remnants of tropical storm Amelia and the river flow gauge at Comfort (a ways upstream from here) went from 50 cfs to over 180,000 cfs in just a couple of days in August. Surf's up, indeed.
But back to our placid paddle. With a few fun, but not dangerous, rapids to get through, and plenty of slow stretches in between, we had ample time to observe wildlife like the vultures above on the left. And also time to enjoy the
amazing cypress trees all along the banks. A sample of one of the biggest is above on the right.And did we ever work up an appetite! As regular readers of the blog know, after-paddling-dining is one of the highlights of these excursions. This time we patronized an old favorite, the Texas 46 Bar & Grill, named for the state highway where it resides. Nothing like a cheeseburger, fries and a cold one to start the recovery process after all that work!
Friday, September 18, 2009
Paddlin' swimmin' & eatin'
I had to work last weekend, but the weekend before that [which was before our big rains] we went paddling on the San Marcos. Being spring-fed, it was the only river with enough water in it prior to the recent rain.
It was a very nice paddle, mostly uneventful except for several sightings of lovely water hyacinths such as this sample on the right posing attractively by a handy log.
There were a lot of logs and other residue of past floods in the water. When a tree still has lots of branches and hangs over the stream we call it a "strainer" since that's what it can do to you if you get caught in it.
Fortunately someone had previously been along and neatly cut up this tree trunk, making a nice gateway to pass through. Note more hyacinths on the left.
The excursion wasn't as completely placid as these photos make it seem, though, since I was tumped twice and got to experience the refreshing water up close and personal. Neither dumping put me in any danger, other than some frantic moments wondering if my drybag containing phone and camera had sunk [both times it stayed quite obediently right at home under the boat—and the drybag stayed dry]. My lovely little sit-on-top kayak [unlike the sit-inside I overturned in Colorado, that promptly filled up with very heavy water] was a breeze to turn back right-side up, and I was on my way. Sorry I don't have pictures of any of this excitement, but I was otherwise 
occupied.
As were we all after the paddle. Our group's quest to sample each of the eateries that make Lockhart the BBQ Capital of the state [which is really saying something] continued. This week it was the Chisholm Trail's turn and we enjoyed it a lot. Amazing how hungry sliding downstream (and occasionally wrassling with boats) can make you!
According to today's paper, we are no longer in an "exceptional drought," just an "extreme drought." So I'm looking forward to paddling on the Guadalupe tomorrow, for the first time in months. Stay tuned.
It was a very nice paddle, mostly uneventful except for several sightings of lovely water hyacinths such as this sample on the right posing attractively by a handy log.There were a lot of logs and other residue of past floods in the water. When a tree still has lots of branches and hangs over the stream we call it a "strainer" since that's what it can do to you if you get caught in it.
Fortunately someone had previously been along and neatly cut up this tree trunk, making a nice gateway to pass through. Note more hyacinths on the left.
The excursion wasn't as completely placid as these photos make it seem, though, since I was tumped twice and got to experience the refreshing water up close and personal. Neither dumping put me in any danger, other than some frantic moments wondering if my drybag containing phone and camera had sunk [both times it stayed quite obediently right at home under the boat—and the drybag stayed dry]. My lovely little sit-on-top kayak [unlike the sit-inside I overturned in Colorado, that promptly filled up with very heavy water] was a breeze to turn back right-side up, and I was on my way. Sorry I don't have pictures of any of this excitement, but I was otherwise 
occupied.As were we all after the paddle. Our group's quest to sample each of the eateries that make Lockhart the BBQ Capital of the state [which is really saying something] continued. This week it was the Chisholm Trail's turn and we enjoyed it a lot. Amazing how hungry sliding downstream (and occasionally wrassling with boats) can make you!
According to today's paper, we are no longer in an "exceptional drought," just an "extreme drought." So I'm looking forward to paddling on the Guadalupe tomorrow, for the first time in months. Stay tuned.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Heading home
Like all good things, our Colorado sojourn had to come to an end.
Fortunately, we were treated to some great new scenery during our first day driving home, since we chose a different southeasterly route than usual. Here's some beautiful mountains and neat storm clouds, snapped from the car window as we tooled along state highway 69:
We had cool cloudy weather with frequent rain all of our first day, which ended up in back in Texas. Specifically, in Dumas [home of the Ding-Dong-Daddies—not a made up nickname].
Back in Texas! Home of such delightful establishments as....
[Now, to be fair and to fend off criticisms of Texas-bashing, Colorado has its share of amusing signs. Like this one, painted on the tow truck that lives up the hill from our place. I like the slogan....]
We had no scenery for our second day of homeward driving, not even the bleakly beautiful emptiness of southeastern New Mexico that we enjoy when taking our usual route US 285. No,
this is the Texas Panhandle and points south, and except for the canyons south of Amarillo [Palo Duro and Caprock] which you can't see much of from the highway anyway, there is nothing in the way of scenery.
In the traditional sense, at least. But if you saw my last Wordless Wednesday post, you might have an idea of where this is heading.
We drove through a virtual forest of wind turbines north and south of Sweetwater (on US 84 north of town, and an assortment of little state roads south of it). We thought we'd seen a lot of the structures in far west Texas alongside IH 10 before, but nothing like this. It's not so hard to believe Texas leads the nation in megawatts produced by wind when you take a look at this scenery:
Not a bad photo for one taken through the windshield of a moving car, but it doesn't really convey the otherworldly quality of this landscape. Sort of spooky, sort of beautiful, perhaps the look of things to come????
Fortunately, we were treated to some great new scenery during our first day driving home, since we chose a different southeasterly route than usual. Here's some beautiful mountains and neat storm clouds, snapped from the car window as we tooled along state highway 69:
We had cool cloudy weather with frequent rain all of our first day, which ended up in back in Texas. Specifically, in Dumas [home of the Ding-Dong-Daddies—not a made up nickname].Back in Texas! Home of such delightful establishments as....
[Now, to be fair and to fend off criticisms of Texas-bashing, Colorado has its share of amusing signs. Like this one, painted on the tow truck that lives up the hill from our place. I like the slogan....]
We had no scenery for our second day of homeward driving, not even the bleakly beautiful emptiness of southeastern New Mexico that we enjoy when taking our usual route US 285. No,
this is the Texas Panhandle and points south, and except for the canyons south of Amarillo [Palo Duro and Caprock] which you can't see much of from the highway anyway, there is nothing in the way of scenery.In the traditional sense, at least. But if you saw my last Wordless Wednesday post, you might have an idea of where this is heading.
We drove through a virtual forest of wind turbines north and south of Sweetwater (on US 84 north of town, and an assortment of little state roads south of it). We thought we'd seen a lot of the structures in far west Texas alongside IH 10 before, but nothing like this. It's not so hard to believe Texas leads the nation in megawatts produced by wind when you take a look at this scenery:
Not a bad photo for one taken through the windshield of a moving car, but it doesn't really convey the otherworldly quality of this landscape. Sort of spooky, sort of beautiful, perhaps the look of things to come????
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