Secret Life of Beej

It had been several days since the rain, and the biting cold was just starting to abate, so I took advantage of the late afternoon hours to ride up on the usual loop to Tilden Park above Berkeley.

Of course, this is California, so "biting cold" means something like 45F.  But today was great; short-sleeves and all!

Took Claremont Ave to the top of the hill, then Grizzly Peak Rd up to the steam trains, then the trail up to the top of Vollmer Peak.  Claremont's steep and each trip up brings numerous close shaves by passing cars, but it's the fastest way up to Vollmer.  (For the first time today I saw a roadie going up it, even.  They usually opt for the more sane Tunnel Rd.)

Up on Vollmer at about 1900', it was a great view.  There were low misty clouds to the east, and Mount Diablo was poking up through.  The near-full moon was rising.

Downhill from there along Seaview Trail!  All that pavement climbing and this is the payoff.  The trail was dry and fast, though there were quite a number of hikers out and that kept speeds down.  Said hi to everyone; they all said hi back.
Reached the stone circle (actually concrete--remnants of an old observatory or something?) and looked out to the west.  The sun was just about to set and San Francisco Bay and the Berkeley shore shone blue in the fading light.  The low tide had actually exposed a sand bar in the Bay between Berkeley marina and Emeryville marina.  One of my sailing buddies had told me about that, but I'd never seen it.  I guess one of the sailing clubs actually goes out there and has breakfast on the thing sometimes!

I had no light, so didn't tarry.  Down through the corkscrew, through the forest, and on along the ridge.  I zigged down Big Springs Trail, and zagged back Quarry Trail down to the Quarry picnic area.

From there, a short paved stretch got me to Inspiration Point for another view northeast, and then down Curran Trail turning right on Meadows Canyon trail.

This was my departure from the ridge down into the park canyon-proper, and the temps got lower as I dropped down between the ridges.

Sometimes after heavy rains, this trail can turn into a total mudbog.  Today the bog was only slightly tacky dirt, so it was no biggy.  The trail twists along the hillside down into the canyon alternating between oak and grass.  The closer to the parking lot I got, the more the trail was pockmarked by hikers and horses, but its still in decent shape.  It's luxury compared to some of the cattle-ridden trails in Wildcat Canyon.

Passed a lot more friendly hikers out there...but I was the only bike I saw on the trail.

A steep-but-short climb out Canon Dr to Summit Reservior, then down Spruce to the University, and through downtown to home!

Had a great Thanksgiving in Nevada City with my grandfather, his wife, my aunt, her boyfriend, my brother, his wife, and my parents.  This is in spite of the fact that I had a cold.

Also in spite of that, I was heading to Lava Beds National Monument for a cave survey trip with the Cave Research Foundation (CRF).  This is about a five hour drive from Nevada City, and I wanted to not miss the crowd, so I left around 8am on Friday after Thanksgiving.

The night had been cold, and my car was encased in frost.  I loaned my ice scraper to another Bay Area woman who was up for the holiday before going to work on my windows.  (It doesn't ice over in the Bay Area, so ice scrapers are rare.)  Fortunately, my cold was waning.

But soon I was on the road, heading up the I-5-to-97 route to Lava Beds.  The day was gorgeous and clear, offering great views of Castle Crags and a towering snow-draped Mount Shasta.  Almost exactly five hours after my departure, I arrived at the CRF research center.

The research center building is a relatively new structure in the park which is used by CRF teams when they are doing cave work.  It's heated and has two bathrooms with hot showers, and a full kitchen.  In short, it's heaven compared to camping outside in freezing conditions.

And things get cold up there.  It's in northeastern California at an elevation of 1250 meters.  A few inches of patchy snow were on the ground and a consistant 15 km/h wind took the 0 C temperature down a couple more notches.  No more shorts-and-a-t-shirt.

But never fear; I had layers and layers and layers for the cave survey.

I popped in the door and called out , "Hello?"  No one was around.  There was a note that said they were at a meeting room somewhere.  Not only did I not know where the meeting room was, but I wasn't particularly keen to participate in the administrativia that plagues large projects such as this one.

Instead I got back in the car and went up to Catacombs cave to take some pictures.  Catacombs is one of my favorite caves in the park due to its many twisting little passages, all different.  Also, it has a single entrance which makes you feel like you're really back somewhere (unlike other lava tubes that have multiple collapse entrances all over.)

First stop was about five minutes inside the cave where I spent a few minutes trying to get back into shape with the camera.  I was displeased with the results, but post them here anyway.  (Click on the pictures for a bigger view, which is better!)  In these photos you can see the multiple levels, twists, and colorful walls that dominate this cave.

I also wanted to go to the complex deeper in the cave where the northern and southern arms intersect just downstream of a room called The Boxing Glove Chamber.  Three levels of tube come together at this point, with lava falls dropping onto the lower levels and passages heading off in all directions, including vertically.

A photo really can't sum it up, because the quarters are close and wide-angle just doesn't cut it.  So I spent several attempts trying to get a good shot of a lava ledge above the complex before settling on the one I liked.

As you can see, the lavadrip-covered ledge is slightly taller than I am, and I'm already standing on the middle level on the complex. The ceiling is also covered with fine examples of lavacicles.

At first I'd been wearing several layers since it was definitely cold outside.  But running around with the flash had warmed me up to the point that I was back in a t-shirt.  (Usually I set up a shot, set the timer, have 10 seconds to get into position, hear the shutter open, fire the flash, run around the corner to the next place, fire another flash, hear the shutter close, and then walk back to the camera.)

After an hour of photography, I decided to head back and see who else was there.  Turns out, no one.  But this time I only had to wait a few minutes before a couple people did show up, and then the gathering grew from there.

Total size of the group was 27 people, I think. Some slept outside, some slept in apartments at park headquarters, but most slept in the research center. (It was the floor for me, though there were many unused cots.  The cots weren't long enough. :) )

That first night, we had a big potluck feast which was delicious and stuffing. I mean, it was on top of Thanksgiving dinner the day before, right?  There was lots of food, music, and good company.  Cavers are an eclectic yet social bunch.

Gradually we fell asleep, food and wine getting the better of us.  That was ok, though, since it was a big day on the morrow.

Rising and shining, we split into five survey teams with the goal to take a big chunk out of the South Labyrinth Cave.  This cave had already been surveyed some time ago, but that survey didn't contain any vertical data, and we suspected it was also incomplete in the horizontal data as well.  So it's a big resurvey.

First thing, we joined forces with another team and made a shot through a 3" squeeze.  I passed the tape through to the other team, and then waited.  Normally I'd have more to do, but someone on the other side was getting instruction on how to read instruments and it was taking a little while.  All this time, the cave was blowing cool air past us which was starting to get a little bit chilling.  (At least it wasn't sucking frozen air in from the entrance nearby!)

So the Inventory person and I decided to run around and explore a bit to warm up.  (Inventory is recording what types of formations, floor, creatures, water, etc. are found between two survey stations.)  We crawled in two side passages that were marked as dead-ends on the original map but both led to small rooms, one through a 18 cm bellysqueeze.  My butt almost didn't fit, and the lavacicles on the ceiling threatened to pull my pants down as I forced my way through.

We returned to our team with the news, which meant we'd be surveying these side passages (which we thought connected to the other cave arm, but didn't.)  That would probably prevent us from reaching our goal of the collapse a few hundred feet down the tube.

Nothing for it but to get to work!  We found the piece of survey tape marking the last station visited from the day before, and started from there.  I was tape and lead instruments, which meant my responsibility was to select the location for the next station and also take "backsights" (altitude and azimuth data looking back to the previous station.)  Another team member took "foresights" which which is looking from the previous station to my station.  Our measurements need to match within two degrees.

And why wouldn't they, you might wonder?  How hard is it to read a precision compass graduated to half a degree, anyway?  It's not.  The problem is that all these lava rocks are iron-rich, and most of them are magnetic.  You have to move around quite a bit sometimes to get compass readings that match.  In one place, I found I could get a four-degree change just by moving the compass 10 centimeters up or down.

We mapped the passage to the 18 cm squeeze, and I set up a station on the ceiling at the top of the squeeze.  (These are "virtual" stations usually at the point of a rock of lavacicile.)  This was the hardest shot for me because I had to get all crunched in there, but we got accurate readings on the first try.  We did two more shots inside that room (which seems to be over another tube according to our maps) and went back out to the main passage.

Another side passage looped around, and we surveyed through that, connected the loop to the main passage, and stopped for lunch.  Even though we were only a few minutes from the surface, we ate lunch underground in the darkness, which was actually a first for me.  (My longest cave trips have been maybe three hours, so food wasn't really necessary.)  Some photos were taken at this time, too, and a couple groups of tourists came through as well.

No rest for the wicked, however, and we hit the other previously-known-as-a-dead-end side room.  Turns out this one is a real find!  The way the squeeze goes into collapse rubble, it looks like a dead end.  Until you stick your head in really far and look up, and then you can see another room.  Again, it was tight mapping in the squeeze, but we made it through and into the room.

The room had a breakdown floor and fantastic secondary mineral formations all over the ceiling, still wet and growing.  Some had grown into things that looked like blackberries--I'd never seen such formations in Lava Beds before.  Also a fantastic 20 cm lava stalagmite grew up off one of the pieces of breakdown, meaning that the room collapsed while it was still molten.  That would explain the interesting nature of the collapse rubble; it was all made of flat plates of stone.  Smaller lava stalagmites grew like old candles on a small ledge across the room.  Near Old Station lava stalagmites are common, but at Lava Beds I only knew of maybe two others before finding this room.

Off to the northeast, the room dropped to a 40 cm ceiling over more breakdown.  A tiny passage led to the right.  Elizabeth had suggested that it might have gone somewhere, but it was so inconveniently placed that it took me a minute just to get in position to look inside it.  With my head upside down, I saw a great chocolate (dark-colored smooth) ceiling curving maybe 15 cm over a big rock.  A small slot also led eastward around the rock.  Very tight.  I declined.

Elizabeth went back and looked, and then she also declined.

But Matt (185 cm tall, skinnier than I am)... he's gung-ho.  He put he head in, headed for the slot, and started pushing, stopping every 70 cm or so to take stock in the situation.  After a couple minutes we heard a muffled grunt, "Ugh, this sucks!"  Lavacicles were catching on everything.

A few more minutes, and his feet disappeared from view, and he was behind the rock in a small sitting-room chamber.  He described it to us while he rested.  Then after a couple moments of silence, we heard him say, "Huh."

We asked, "What?

He said, "How did I get through this?"

Chuckling, we said, "Well, you'd better figure it out, man, because none of us can fit in there to help you out."

Fortunately, Matt's got skillz, and he opted to back out the way he came in, which he made look easy.  Matt's left foot appeared, followed quickly by the rest of him.

Back out to the main passage, we were home free compared to that with huge booming passage before us.  We made three more shots at around 50 feet each, which is the max distance the mappers like to shoot.  (Yes, I know it's not metric, but we measure these caves in feet and tenths-of-feet, if you can believe it.)

With the final collapse in sight, we called it a day.  The collapse breakdown formed a crazy maze that would take some time to map out.  The final station was made on a rock on which was written "LABYRINTH" with red paint in fine 1920s scrawl.  It was historical graffiti from J. D. Howard, the man who originally found, explored, and named many of the caves in the park.

And we were late for dinner, so we surfaced, found a couple other also-late teams, and headed back.  Another large dinner awaited us and there was much relaxing and rejoicing.  And wine.  And cave photos.

Some people left at this time; there were storms forecast and no one wanted to be trapped.  I had chains, so... whatever!

The next day, our numbers were decimated.  We put together a single four-person survey team and went back to the same rock I ended on the night before.  I again took tape and shot up to the base of the collapse.

Elaine and I then tore into the collapse, trying to find if there was a passage that skirted the south part of the collapse pit.  Perhaps it might lead to more side tubes, or a lower tube.  We pushed through it on both sides, and found a decent-sized room along the tube wall, but nothing that went anywhere.  We'll have to look more some other time.

From there, I took the survey to the right, into the collapse, then vertically up near the top of the collapse rubble since there was no where else to make a good station in the rubble this direction.  (Vertical shots are neat because you don't need to measure the bearing or inclination.  The bearing is undefined since one station is directly below the other, and the inclination is +90 degrees.)

We then looped it around the main path and back to the second station we'd shot on the day.  We were hoping to get the collapse pit mapped out this trip, but it just didn't happen.  At least we set up one station outside that we can use in the future.

Time for lunch, Elaine and Fofo were leaving since they had no chains and it was starting to show.  Turns out there was only admin stuff to do after lunch and no more survey, so I decided to caravan down with them.  Counting work from all teams, about 2500 feet of passage was surveyed over the weekend.  Not bad!

Blasting through snow flurries to get out of the park, we managed to not get stuck in any appreciable snowfall, and traffic was decent, getting me back to Berkeley in about six hours of driving.

A good old friend of mine from Chico State, Dale Harris (aka Dizzy Swank) was in town from New York for the holiday, and dropped by for a visit.  It's always fun to see him, because we always have a fun evening.  We always have a fun evening, because there's always some kind of burlesque show involved.

Well, almost always.  Turns out New York really is the hotbed of burlesque, while San Francisco isn't.  But that's ok.  There was still a show of sorts at a well-known venue called Slim's on 11th Street in the City.

First we popped into Taqueria Los Coyotes in the Mission for a bite to eat.  I'd never been there before, and Dale was a little nervous that the place across the street was packed and this one was deserted.  I jokingly told him it meant it was a "D"-list joint, and I think he might have taken me too seriously.

Food was pretty good.  Not orgasmic, but good, and the greasy chips were fresh and the service was friendly and fast.

Onward, now: we headed over to Slim's on foot, and got in line for tickets.  While waiting, the gentleman in front of me turned and asked, "Are you buying tickets?"

"Yes," I replied.

He said, "Wanna get in for free?"

Now, this is San Francisco, and it might be a trick question.  But hey, a free $15 ticket...

"Sure!" I said.

Turns out he had an extra for a no-show, and so I became the stand-in.  I asked him what the ticket was worth because it would be fair that I pay him, and he said, "Buy me a beer and we'll call it even."  So for $5-worth of Stella, I was in the door.

I've been to Slims a number of times but it has always been for loud and/or metal bands.  I've seen the ear-shattering Melvins there at least twice.  But not this time.

This time, the show opened with The Blue Bone Express, a blues/bluegrass band from Oakland with a lot of brass and a great full sound.  They played a number of songs, and then announced a "special treat"!

You might remember at the beginning up there I mentioned that burlesque was involved when Dale comes to town, and, see, this is where it begins for this particular evening.

Up on stage, undressed to the nines in feathery goodness, were the dance troupe Hot Pink Feathers!  Beaming from ear to ear, the gorgeous trio danced, swung, and shook their lovely selves to fantastic tunes by the 'Express.

Great stuff, and the audience loved it.

This is one great thing about a burlesque (or burlesque-ish in this case) show... the audience loves it in a way that can only be appreciated when the raciness of it all is tempered with pure entertainment.  It is hot and it is fun!

Next up was a band for which the MC quipped, "They have both kinds of music: country and bluegrass": The Burning Embers!  [Applause]

Well, to be frank, I've always been one of those "every-kind-of-music-except-country-(and-rap)" people. But I might have to eat a partial serving of crow here and say that a live country/bluegrass sound can really rile a crowd.  I was mightily impressed, yes siree.  And some of the blazing fiddlework was simply top notch to this untrained ear.

In front of the stage, the crowd whirled, stomped, danced, and whooped it up while a nearby sign needlessly warned, "ABSOLUTELY NO STAGE DIVING, CROWD SURFING, OR MOSHING!"

But why did I come to the show again?  Oh yes, the Hot Pink Feathers.

After The Burning Embers, they came out onstage again... this time dressed in skimpy jungle garb and performing a serpentine voodoo dance to ghostly tribal music.

Seriously an interesting thing to have following long skirts, country fiddles, and shitkickers*.

* "shitkicker" here-used in the "heavy boot" sense.  No offense intended.

But again the audience was totally into this number, as well; nevermind that it was way more sensual than the last one.  But, hey... no one has ever accused Bay Area folk of not being able to enjoy a broad spectrum of activities.

Final act of the night was The Shut-Ins.  Before I begin, I want to say that I totally recommend the other bands with their excellent solid acts.  But I extra-recommend The Shut-Ins.  They were bizarre, funny, and I loved their music.  I'd say more, but just go to their "about" page and give it a quick read.  The fact that they "specialize in 'hula-billy'" should be enough to get your attention.

The Hot Pink Feathers came on for another great improvised number with The Shut-Ins, and then it was it for the night.  It was after midnight, but thankfully Dale drove so it was easy getting home.

Finally!  After half a man-year of procrastination, the results are starting to show!

I've written a new little something titled "Beej's Photo Guide" on how to take better snapshots.  Also there are some interactive gadgets ("toys" I call them) that you can play with that demonstrate certain photographic concepts.  Oooo!  Ah!

For years, I've enjoyed writing guides on a number of mostly computer-related topics, and this was a chance to branch out a little bit.

If you like it, link to it from your blog or homepage, and I will be forever grateful!

(Speaking of that, here is some additional shameless self-promotion: Beej's Guide to Network Programming, Beej's Guide to Unix IPC, and Beej's Guide to C Programming.)

As some of you know, I play some bicycle polo on Thursday nights in Oakland.  I just don't post about it, because the original post pretty much sums it up.

But now someone has shot video!  (I'm not featured because I missed this week due to Monkey Head Ale.)  So check it out!

Also, here are some stills I took a few weeks ago.

[Photo credits: Juergen Bohnert]

I've been caving for years up at Lava Beds National Monument (LABE) and other sites in Northern California, in particular the huge number of lava tubes that cover the northeast portion of the state.

Lava tubes are fun to explore and easy to find.  Not only are a lot of them marked on old USGS topo maps, but you can also see major flow systems on Google Maps and run around there looking for new caves to explore.

Limestone and marble caves, though they do exist in California, are much more difficult to find due to caver secrecy.  See, people tend to go into caves and do things that destroy delicate formations, like touch them.  And also tend to litter.  And spraypaint walls.  Since some of these caves take hundreds of thousands of years to form, they're definitely a limited treasure and could easily all be destroyed.

Additionally, they are dangerous.  Lava tubes form nice horizontal rough passages with very few pits, whereas marble and limestone caves tend to be made of smooth stone covered with wet mud, and have pits scores of meters deep all over the place.

To make a long story short, I know where very very few wild (as opposed to tourist or "show") marble or limestone caves actually are.  And the ones I did know about were all gated shut.

So, what do you do if you want to explore wild caves?  You join a "grotto", the colloquial name for a local chapter of the National Speleological Society (NSS).  The grottos know where the caves are, teach caving techniques, and lead cave trips.

I'd been to my local grotto, The Diablo Grotto in Oakland, California, a few times before.  I tend to go to their monthly meetings about once a year.  I'd been on a Cave Research Foundation (CRF) cave survey trip to Lava Beds a year and a half ago, and I'd attended part of a vertical practice at Cragmont Park in Berkeley.

But I'd never been on a wild cave trip until last weekend.

In the early morning hours of Saturday, I drove down to Union City and joined up with the trip leader and his right-hand man in the Cave Mobile, a Dodge minivan with six seats.  We put all the gear in and hit the road.

Stopping in Dublin to pick up another, we continued to the town of Angels Camp in Calaveras County.  (Yes, Mark Twain's jumping frog.)  Angel Camp is a still-hopping gold town which contains the Burger King that is the meeting point for most Diablo trips in the area.

We met up with the rest of our party, and headed for the hills.

Out of town about 20 minutes, we parked in front of a gate marked "NO TRESPASSING", got our gear together, and hiked in.  (We, as the grotto, had the permission of the landowner to visit the caves on the property.)

The hike was about 1.5 km over hilly terrain.  We followed a dirt road for some time, and then turned off road and followed a barely-worn leaf-strewn path through oak groves and gorgeous weathered blue marble outcrops.  The colors were surreal!

We got to the first cave of the day: Bobcat Cave.  A small sink lead down into the earth under a large jumble of marble and ended in breakdown.  Who goes first?

I do!  They have a little game called "find the entrance", wherein they all stand around and watch us noobs poke our heads around the collapse rubble trying to find the way in.  Since I was first, I followed the first false lead which went nowhere fast.  Up and around a corner, though, was the entrance proper.  Even outside, there were beautiful flowstone formations.

And down we went!  It was a tight little tunnel with smooth walls.  I was immediately impressed by the downhill angle, since I'm used to relatively flat lava tubes.

We scooched past a single sleeping bat on the ceiling, and into a small (sitting room-only) space with a small pillar and several stalactites.  From there, a false floor cut the passage in half horizontally, but I was able to squeeze under it into the back room of the cave.  This room also had a split floor.  (I'm guessing these develop when formations build up on mud that is subsequently washed away, or on water, which subsequently drains.)  Nice formations were all around, plus a little bit of 19th-century graffiti.

Turning back, we explored another flowstone-filled side room which led to a near-vertical exit climb of about 8 meters.   A couple people scaled it, and the rest of us headed back out the main entrance.

A short hike away, we hit the second cave called Porcupine. The main room in this small modestly-decorated cave featured a large central pillar and several exits, as well as a neat little formation garden.  Tiny crawls led off various directions.  I took a short climb out, and we moved toward the goal of the day: Grapevine Cave.

Grapevine was the best of the day (sagely saved for last.)  The collapse sink at the entrance was large and deep, and we took multiple paths down into it.

Just under the rubble, one passage ran immediately into a two-level 5-meter tall chamber with a great stalactite hanging down from the center of the ceiling.  (It's quite neat to stand under a garden of stalactities and look up at them--it's quite the "shower of knives" effect.)  This chamber dead-ended immediately, seemingly oblivious to how promising it had at first looked.

Instead, we found a tiny hole up through the rubble.  It was a squeeze and a push to get up there, but it was the main entrance to the cave.

Climbing through it, I found myself in a tall wide passage that split into a lower section on the right, and continued high on the left.  First we stuck to the left, skirting the edge of the lower level by holding onto the remains of two 30 cm diameter stalagmites that had been cut off near the base some time ago.  They were now polished smooth by years of gloves and hands.

And then it opened into the main chamber of the cave.  And this one was nice!  A 2.5 meter pillar stood on the left, and a huge number of pale white stalactites hung thickly from the ceiling.  The room dropped down a couple meters from the passage and continued away, probably 15 meters long, and 5 meters across.  To the left, a side chamber looked promising, and a tiny crawlhole exited the far side of the room.

While people continued through the squeeze, I helped with the flashes for cave photography.  It was nice to be on the other side of the camera for a change because now I'd have some more photos of me in the cave.  But I'll have to come back here some time and take some more photos myself. :-)

I also turned along the side passage to see what was down there, but it dead-ended around the corner.  A small well-decorated flowstone loop also briefly left the main passage and returned.

A slick muddy passage dropped at a 45-degree angle under the floor, as well, but I didn't follow it, instead deciding to go to the small crawl in the back of the main room which had now emptied out.

There were many tiny formations along the edge of the crawl, and it ended in a small minimally-decorated 1.5 meter tall room.

Going back through the main room and into the first passage, I dropped onto the lower level and followed it.  It ran into a small room with a tight crawl at the end.  I poked my head in, and then saw light on the other side--it was another member of the party who had followed the slick 45-degree passage from the main room, so these two rooms were connected through there!

It's a very neat cave, and my favorite from the trip.

And that was it for the day.  Many of the party began the two-hour drive back to the Bay Area, but four of us headed to Sonora for Mexican food and to find the campsite.  We did both these things, drank some beer, and crashed out for the night.

I heard things hitting my tent in the night.  I remember thinking, "I'm not under an oak--are these acorns?"

In the morning, I found a collection of small stones by my door.  I guess I'd been snoring!

(I did an experiment.  It was only supposed to be a few degrees above freezing that night, and my sleeping bag, though it is supposed to perform well under those conditions, hadn't been.  Acting on a tip from somone who always was cold sleeping on an air mattress, I put my blue foam pad on top of my inflatible Therm-a-Rest.  I was much warmer, albeit a little less comfortable in the bed-softness department.)

I ate some quick oatmeal, and then we got back in the car to go to BK in Angels Camp once more.  We met some other members of our party (well, only one showed up) and went back up the road to the caves once more.

The destination today was Heater Cave, with a possible trip afterward to Wool Hollow.

Heater was another 1 km hike from the car, with views onto New Melones Lake.  It took a little bit of searching in the scrub, but we found it fairly quickly.

The entrance is a 2 meter vertical slot just one body-width thick.  One barrel-chested member of the party couldn't fit, unfortunately.  I went in but had to push hard to get myself past a knob of rock that was digging into my shoulderblade.  (Later I found a nice brused stripe there.)

Once inside, there was a small foyer area.  A 50- or 60-degree slope lead down from to the right, dropping about 15 meters, and we'd rigged a handline going down there.  Straight ahead, a window looked down into a gorgeous 30 meter tall room.  (I guess no one in the grotto has been down there due to bats.)

I was intimidated by the slope.  A fall would be bad (imagine being pulled through that squeeze with broken bones) and I decided I just wasn't comfortable with it.  So I passed on the chance to see one of the best decorated rooms in the Sierras and climbed back out the squeeze.  Bah.  Well, it will still be there when I'm either more comfortable on a hand line, or I bring vertical gear and make it 100% safe.

The rest of the guys went down to take pictures, while the other two of us chatted on the surface, and ran around looking for more caves.  (Found one more (already known) vertical pit just down the hill.)

There's a nearby quarry, and people were out shooting in it.  We heard several rounds whirr overhead as they tumbled by.  Well, as long as there was a hill between us and them.

Off in the distance, I saw what I'm pretty sure was a bald eagle turning lazy circles in the sky.

Finally the photographing party returned.  And just in the nick of time, because one of the shooters, by the sound of it, had climbed to the top of the ridge and now had line-of-sight on us.  We stayed low behind the rock outcrop until we were ready to go, and then skirted the hill on the way back.

A short distance away is Wool Hollow.  It's a cave which you have to do a wee amount of trespassing to get to, but I was more worried about getting shot than getting caught.  We quickly crossed the area between the road and cave, and got our stuff on.

The cave had been gated, but the gate was gone, leaving just the surrounding bars.  These turned out to be very useful for holding onto on the 2-meter drop into the cave.  And the gate itself had been converted into an adhoc short ladder of sorts.  Ironic that something meant to keep people out was so effective now at helping them get in!

Wool Hollow has high ceilings all over, and fairly wide passages.  Lots of up and down stretches, however.

We hiked to an upper level, then the passage dropped back down lower.  An 8-meter pit on the left lead away to more tall passage.  One of the party started looking at climbing down, but it was too hairy even for him.

(I'd discarded the idea the minute I saw the drop.  In retrospect, I determined that I made risk assessment decisions based on the assumption that I was going to fail.  In this case, it meant severe injury or death.  So I didn't want to climb down.  Other people seem to factor in the probability of failure in their assessment calculations, which I grant seems like an intelligent thing to do.  But I don't. :-) )

Fortunately this time there was a narrow chimney that had lots of footholds and handholds that led down to the same place.  So we took that to the lower level instead.

The lower level was pretty neat, with a few narrow but tall meandering passages.  One graffiti-filled side passage ended in a small room with a big pillar and flowstone base.  Another just ended in a squeeze.  But there were some decorations, and it was, overall, a fun cave to climb through.

But now it was getting dark, and we were hungry, and it was getting on time to go.  We climbed out of the cave, and drove home via Mountain Mike's Pizza.

The End.

Every month in San Francisco there occurs a large bike ride known as Critical Mass.  It's an interesting phenomenon; sort of the original flash mob before such a thing became popular on the Internet.

The basic idea is that a ton of cyclists gather at a prearranged place (Justin "Pee Wee" Herman Plaza) at a prearranged time (5:30pm on the last Friday of the month) and get ready to take over the streets in a huge biking extravaganza!

Why?  Well, there are a lot of reasons depending on who you ask.  Biking is fun, increase driver awareness of cyclists, demonstrate cyclist strength in numbers, and so on.

Is it legal?  Um, technically no.  The most common infraction is the huge number of red lights and stop signs that are just completely ignored by the cyclists, except those at the front of the pack.  However, since the police really have no way to stop the ride without shutting down all traffic in the City, they actually cooperate with the group in an effort to get it moved through town as quickly as possible.

So I arrived at the Plaza at 5:30, and there was a smattering of bikes there.  I was hoping for more, but hey, a hundred or so was pretty impressive.

Lots of people were in costume because Halloween was coming up.  I wasn't, because I hadn't been thinking about it, lamely.  It turns out that the Halloween Critical Mass ride is one of the biggest of the year, and I just happened to choose this month at random as the first one I'd go to!  That was good luck!

As time wore on, more and more people started showing up.  People in clown costumes were performing tricks on their bikes in the plaza.  A gentleman dressed as a middleeasterner (well, let's be fair--he was trying to look like a terrorist) fine-tuned the electronic music (a Knight Rider remix) coming out of the speakers on his Mountain Rack.

More and more people showed up.

By 6:15 the Plaza was quite packed.  By 6:25, you could feel it: the crowd was ready to ride!  Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast blared from the front lines.

Finally at 6:30, the people at the front started moving down Market Street, and the ride was on!  I estimate at this point there were some 2000 bicycles waiting to go.

It was slow going at first as the huge pack in the Plaza squeezed like toothpaste onto Market.  Roadies fell into the narrow grates over BART, and tripped up on the MUNI tracks, while fat-tires like me had fewer problems.  We had completely control of the westbound lane, and much of the eastbound lane, too.

A motorcycle tried to force his way through the pack, but was cut off by a bicycle, who tapped the motorcycle's front wheel with his shoe as he went by.  The motorcycle let out some clutch to fight back, but stalled.  He started the engine, but before he could move, a cyclists pulled up alongside, and struck up a generally friendly conversation explaining what was going on.  I left them behind.

If you're a car, don't try to force your way though the pack.  It won't work.  Cyclists will simply stop all around you and you won't be able to move without committing some kind of vehicular assault.  Furthermore, it will create a traffic jam and increase the amount of time you have to wait for the mass to ride by.  It might suck, but the most effective thing you can do is shut your engine off and wait until the bikes are gone.

Also, you can honk to show your support.  It doesn't matter if you are angry; the cyclists will cheer back at every horn they hear.

There were lots of costumes and non-costumes out!  Photographers lined the road, and people looked down from balconies, and we waved back at them...  what a parade!

The ride turned off Market and went into the Tenderloin, where we enjoyed massive popular support from prostitutes, panhandlers, and hotel tenants on fire escapes far above.

Then it ran south past Civic Center, back onto Market, and into the Castro, again to huge supportive throngs (this time asking where the good-looking guys were).  The Octavia Street offramp was blocked off by squad cars, allowing us to pass without fear of being run over by cars exiting the freeway.

Heading east past Dolores Park, we turned north in the Mission, ran back to Market, then started climbing the flank of Nob Hill.

We met an emergency vehicle at this point, and the pack instantly parted to make way.  Normal cars simply weren't allowed, but it was impressive how quickly the crowd could act.  Nevertheless, I wonder about how the ambulances manuvered around the gigantic backups caused by the cyclists.

One of the naked guys was pulled over by a motorcycle cop.  I guess there are limits after all!

Each time we approached an uphill, you could hear tons of people shifting down in unison, followed by lots of groaning about "who chose this route?"

Who, indeed?  The route isn't planned in advance, I suppose to prevent shutdown by the police.  The people in the lead, who are probably mostly veterans of the ride, play it out as they go.  I can image there are lots of common destinations, such as the Castro, but I won't know more until I go on some more rides.

Suddenly the pack turned right into the parking garage of a Whole Foods market.

"I hope there's another way out of here," I said to Sarah.

"We'll find out in a minute!" she answered.

It was LOUD in there, since everyone inside was whooping and hollaring with the grand echo playing back all around.  Employees were standing outside their door, watching the pack go by, grinning from ear to ear.  We spilled back out onto California Street and turned north, heading for Broadway.

As we approached broadway, there was a backup as two cars blocked both lanes, and bikes were forced to percolate through on either side.  The crowd started chanting "Tunnel!  Tunnel!  Tunnel!"  and the pack turned right onto Broadway.

The minute we turned, you could hear a strange and constant sound--a quiet ghostly scream carried on the wind.  As we drew closer to the Broadway Tunnel, it was clear that was the source.  Hundreds of cyclists inside were yelling to the echo as they biked through the mountain.

At the entrance, a lonely sign pleaded in vain, "Quiet In Tunnel".

We ran easily downhill.  Someone dressed as the Grim Reaper slalomed past me on rollerblades.

Heading east, we made it back to Embarcadero, then turned toward Fisherman's Wharf and continued along the waterfront past Hyde Street Pier, Fort Mason, the marina, and Crissy Field.

It was at this point, after hours in the saddle, I was lured by the sirensong of burritos (it was about 10:30 at night and I'd had no dinner) and rode back downtown with Sarah for Mexican food and Coke in a bottle at a hole-in-the-wall joint at 6th and Market.

The ride, we later learned from cyclists on BART, eventually made it out onto the deck of the Golden Gate bridge!  Unreal!  I'll have to do that next year, because there's no way I'm missing this Halloween ride again!

Wow--it takes me quite some time to catch up with my writing here, and now fear I must present you with news of activities over a week old!  Don't worry--it's all in the hopper, so to speak, and will slowly percolate into written form.

But, stepping into Ye Olde Time Machine, we find ourselves at Cragmont Park in Berkeley.  On this particular day, a member of the Diablo Grotto (the Oakland chapter of the NSS) was hosting "vertical practice".

"Vertical practice" is practicing cave rope techniques, which are similar to rock climbing, except all climbing takes place on the rope with the help of ascenders.  Also, cavers mostly tend to use a rack brake for rappeling.

And that latter piece was what I would practice a little bit that day.  Ascending involves more gear.

Anyway, I got there first, and there were tons of people there.  I guess the sunny day was perfect for a boy scout troop from Vallejo to show up and do some rock climbing.  I shyly searched around from Dominic, the Diablo guy, but didn't find him until I walked back to my car.

Fortunately, the cavers like a part of the rock that the climbers don't like, and vice-versa, so there was no overlap.

I watched and absorbed information as Dominic "rigged" the rope at the top of the rock.  In this case, it's a static (non-stretchy) 11 mm rope with a figure-8 loop in the end wrapped several times around a good stout tree with the figure-8 carabinered back to the rope.

Then I put on a caving harness (similar to but different than a climbing harness) and got ready to go.  Instead of going all out and jumping over the full cliff, I just bouldered my way up 3-4 meters, attached the rack, and then rappeled down to earth.  I did this a number of times until I was well-versed with it.

At this point, it would have been fun to get more instruction.  But I had already planned to go with Mike down to meet friends of mine in the south bay, and it was time to go.

The ultimate destination, via Taco Bell, was De Lavega Disc Golf Course to play disc golf!  This I'd never played before, but I always though it looked like scads of fun.

We arrived and went directly to the van that is always parked there selling discs.  I invested $14 in three of them, a putter, midrange, and a driver.  All of them have different flight characteristics and are used at different ranges.

Guess what!  I suck at it!  But hey, practice makes perfect, right?  Besides, it didn't matter... it was still lots of fun, and I was in good company because there was not one exceptionally good player in our party.

The course itself runs through tall pine forests with lots of shade, and it was a great sunny day out.

Play starts from the "tee", which is a concrete slab.  You throw toward the "hole" which is a chain-draped basket in this case.  If you miss, you throw again from where your last throw landed.  Your total number of throws is your score, and the player with the lowest score wins!

Amazingly, we only had one lost disc, but Mike found three others while he was looking for his.

Overall, it was a lot of fun!  I even got a chance later in the week to check out the course in Berkeley, though I was constantly terrified of losing my non-floating discs in the ever-stinkey Aquatic Park Lagoon which runs along the course.  Having read more, I practiced new technique, including the X-Step.

With courses all over the place, I'm sure I'll be having fun with this for years to come.

Sometimes it can be difficult to get my normal biking friends, all of whom have "real jobs", to meet up for biking now and again, thus the craigslist post earlier.

Well, Saturday I met Jeni at her place and we bundled the bikes onto the Saturn and headed for China Camp for a day of singletrack!  Wooo!  I've been to this place many times, and it's always great riding, but I'd never been to the museum and portion of the state park that is the town of China Camp-proper.

A quick drive over the Richmond Bridge brought us to the park, and we unloaded the bikes in the free parking just outside the park entrance.

I strapped the GPS to my backpack so I could later get a ground track and profile, and we hit the trail!

First we rode up Shoreline Trail past the campground entrance and turned right to climb up Bay View Trail.  This trail climbs past oaks switching back several times before rising into pine-territory.  From time to time, you catch a glimpse of the view between the trees looking north and east across San Pablo Bay.

Bay View Trail climbs until it meets Echo Trail.  We turned on Echo and kept climbing, the goal being the Nike Missile Site along the Bayhills Drive.  In between is some steep paved road that's quite a workout to climb.

But the view from the top is worth it!  You can stand on old Nike launch slab and get near-360-degree views of the north bay area...quite fantastic!

Following Bayhills down, we made a left on the Ridge Fire Trail, and then a bad right onto an unmapped unnamed path that it turns out went downhill a long way to nowhere.  Yay.  Climbing again to get out!

Back on the Ridge Trail, I was being way timid about the downhill after the endo incident a couple weeks ago.  I was so far back past my seat, I was probably in 10x as much danger of washing out than I was of endoing--hopefully I'll be back up and correctly fearful in not too long!

Finally caught our proper right turn back onto the Bay View trail once again.  This snakes through the forest along the face of the mountain (which is sometimes sheer), again punctuated by views over the bay.  The trail rejoins the Ridge Fire Trail, and then, after a short hop on the Miwok Fire Trail, we turned right onto Oak Ridge Trail.

This was all easy fun curving slight downhill out until we reached a nice south-facing vista point with views of the Richmond Bridge, The Bay Bridge, and even the top of one of the towers of The Golden Gate.  All the north bay islands were visible, as well.

We switchbacked down the Oak Ridge Trail to Shoreline Trail, and then out to the end of the park where the town of China Camp is.  Of course, first we had to check out Rat Rock, which barely qualifies as an island, but certainly has the most piratey name of them all.

The town has a tiny diner, a small museum, and a pier, as well as a bunch of preserved buildings and items from when this was a big Chinese shrimp company in the 1930s.  Turns out there were a lot of shrimperies (I just made that word up) in the Bay Area back there, mostly on Hunter's Point.

Inside the museum were featured boats and equipment used in the shrimp operation, and photographs from its heyday. Well worth the price of admission, we agreed.  In fact, at $0, I suppose the value was near-infinite.

We were trying to roll out by 1:30, so we gunned it back along the oak-line Shoreline Trail, which runs the length of the park, but closer to the base of the mountain.  I stopped to show Jeni one of my favorite geocaches (Willard!) but aside from that, we got back easily to the car, a total ride of 23.7 km.

Back in Berkeley, we had a slice at The Cheeseboard, an excellent pizza joint I'd been meaning to eat at for the past seven years.  And now finally got my chance!  Yum!

Epu and Carrie were back in town from Chicago.  I used to work with Epu, the nicest guy you'll ever meet (sorry everyone else I know), at a company called Z-AXIS.  Maybe you've never heard of it.

Anyway, I hadn't seen them in months, and agreed to meet up with them for a fun day on the town.

First, I met up with the group at a restaurant in The Mission and picked up what was basically a fancy grilled ham and cheese sandwich.  Except it was called a Jambon & Gruyère. Quite tasty, I must say.

From there we walked to Delores Park and ate our food while the kids played on the playground equipment nearby.  It was a gorgeous California day out--maybe even a little too hot in shorts and a t-shirt.

The eventual goal of the day was to get to Mission Dolores, one of the Spanish Missions of California.   I'd been to a number of Missions around the state, but surprisingly I'd never been to this one, right in my own back yard.

The building itself has a modest facade, and you'd almost walk past it if you weren't paying attention.  But once inside, you really get the feel of being in an old Mission.  The painted ceiling is unique in the system, and everywhere there is fantastic woodwork, paintings, and stained glass.

Oh, and famous people buried in the floor.

Next to the old structure is the much-more-modern basilica complete with organist playing very moody music inside.  The stained glass and huge domed ceiling was very impressive, indeed.

Continuing outside, you pass through a small museum, the bathroom (only if you have to go, though, really), and into the graveyard, wherein there are a disproportionate number of Irish represented.  The modest cemetery somehow manages to stay quiet even in the middle of the hustle and bustle of The City.

Mission explored, we mulled over what to do next.  One member of our party suggested that we trek up the hill to a park which has a large concrete slide that we could race down on pieces of cardboard!  Sweet--I love slides like this.  We stopped at a small store near The Castro to pick up some cardboard, and then finished the hike to the park.

Et voila!  The slide awaited us!  We ran up to the top and gave a couple quick runs to test it out.  It was fast, and the landing was a little rough as the slide dumped you 60 cm down unceremoniously into a sand pit.

Furthermore, experiments showed that a particular piece of waxed cardboard was particularly speedy, so the person who suggested the park in the first place gave it a spin.

And it dumped her on her ass at the bottom on the slide.  Hard.  She doubled over in pain holding her lower back.  Uh oh.

Generally springing to action as a group, Epu went down to get the car, while another gentleman went to get some ice and painkillers.  The victim stretched out on her back on some cardboard.  Her back was all seized up and she was in great pain.

Finally the car came back, and we pulled out some poles meant to keep cars out of the park, and Epu backed it up so it would be easier for her to get in.  One of us on each arm, she managed to get into the car and was driven to the hospital.

(Later she was found to have a spinal compression fracture which sounds completely nasty, but actually is one of the more mundane ways you can break your back.  The prognosis is excellent, relatively speaking, with reduced activity and OTC painkillers until healed in 6 weeks.)

The rest of us walked solumnly down the hill.  I had time to kill before dinner, so I thought I'd go over to Nob Hill and pick up some free ski poles (found on craigslist) that I planned to turn into bicycle polo mallets.

Since that's a ways away, one gent I was with offered me a ride in his convertable.  Sweet!  All we had to do was find it.

Not on 19th St.  What about 18th St?  No...  Hmmm.  But it had been there.  A lot of cars had been there, but now there were none.

That's right.  In the extra time we'd spent dealing with the medical situation, 4:00pm had rolled past, and all the remaining cars on that block had been towed!

Agh!

So he bade me farewell, and hoofed it over to the impound yard, while I unfolded the kickscooter and started kicking.  Now, I could have taken BART up to Civic Center, then gone from there, and it would have been easier.  But I still had time to burn and BART might not have been faster.

I kicked up to Market, Van Ness, and more Van Ness, and more Van Ness.  I had no idea how far Pacific was up Van Ness, but it turns out to be pretty far.  And mostly uphill.  But I finally got there, and closed on the location of my ski poles.

Called the guy, he told me the address, and he walked out the front door just as I scooted up.  He handed them off, and said, "Have a nice day!" and that was that.

These poles are like totally rad.  They are so 80s.  White with pink--it's incredible.  I was going to paint them, but once I saw them, I simply couldn't.  I cannot.  I will not.  They say "Atomic 3D System" on the side.  All this styling will be preserved when they are reborn in polo mallet form.

After I spent five minutes trying to figure out how I was going to carry these huge things (they're big, even for me!), I settled on attaching them to my backpack and letting them dangle behind my board-foot on the scooter.  My kick foot was free to move without hitting them.

Cresting Nob Hill (I was almost to the top anyway), I started coasting back.  Tourists on the cable car laughed at me.  I'm sure I was the only person in San Francisco who was riding a scooter around with two ski poles strapped to his back.

Well, pretty sure.

It was slow going until I discovered that Hyde Street had recently been repaved and I could take the lane and coast with the cars.  Taxis honked at me, but screw 'em.  I was going with the flow of traffic.

I arrived back in The Mission with 15 minutes to spare before dinner, having scooted for 12 kilometers, a personal best.

Dinner was at a fancy Italian restaurant, which is interesting to find in the around around Mexican-dominated 24th and Mission.  Good food, good beer, and excellent company all around.  I was stuffed--no room even for dessert.

And I told Epu and Carrie that I was coming to visit.  They told me after January when their next would be born.  So, Chicago, here I come!