Adventures in the rainforest

Every now and then, things go wrong the right way.

This weekend I had organized a hike in the Olympic peninsula, since the hike JP organized two weeks ago went so well. The Olympic peninsula is about a three hour drive from Seattle, so I wanted a two-night stay, to make it worthwhile. My idea was to leave on Friday around 1pm, and hit the mountains in the North, or the rainforest and the coast in the West. Over the week, email went back and forth with different ideas, and in the end we left Seattle around 3pm, still with no final decision about where to hike.

We had to catch the ferry to get across Puget Sound to the Olympic Peninsula, and once there, reach Port Angeles before 7pm for a wilderness camping permit. The ferry ride is only a half hour, but we had to wait in line two hours to get on. Elia and JP had left a bit later than us, and the traffic jam delayed them to the next ferry, 40 minutes after ours.

It was a very nice ride, but we arrived in Port Angeles past closing time. Luckily, we found out that presence of the rangers is only necessary for restricted areas. Once JP and Elia arrived, and we decided where we would be camping, we filled in the necessary documents, put the dues in an envelope, and left them in the drop box.

After dinner at a Chinese place in Port Angeles, we left with the intention of camping by Lake Crescent, in the North. However, there were no spots left there, nor in the next camping ground, and we were about to admit defeat, and go to the town of Forks to sleep, when we checked the last camping ground on the way there. We found a great spot for our three tents, next to our two cars. It was past midnight. We quickly built the tents, and stayed out chatting until we were cold and sleepy.

It rained lightly that night. In the morning everything was wet, and the idea of cooking breakfast gave way to the idea of brunch in the town of Forks, which was on our way to the coast. We stopped at a breakfast joint, whose mediocrity we ignored because of the excitement of the trip. In Forks, JP, Elia and Emily needed to buy gear they had forgotten to bring, like sweaters or raincoats. We were now on our way to the Pacific coast.

The West of the peninsula is taken by fantastic wild beaches. We stopped at Kalaloch, which is on the way to the rainforest. I had been in a neighboring beach three years earlier with Andrea and Guillermo, and it had left a strong impression. Like that time, the sky was overcast, which lent the Pacific, and the numerous trunks pushed ashore by the waves, a magical quality. We spent an hour there, breathing the sea air, walking and playing with the waves and the tree trunks.

It was time for the main event: the Quinault rainforest. The rainforests in the Olympics are considered to be one of only three temperate rainforests in the world, the others being in New Zealand and Argentina. Even from the car, the place seemed especially full of moss and ferns. By the time we left the car, it was 5pm. There was a spot where we could camp, Wolf Bar, about 4 kilometers (2.6 miles) in, and we had decided that it would be our safety, but we’d try to camp in Elip Creek (9 kilometers – 6 miles in), if we were feeling well. That turned out to be the case. When we found Wolf Bar, we all felt like more exercise.

After a while, the terrain gained inclination, a drizzle started, and the sun was going down. We thought we had found our camp, but we were wrong. JP and Paul, who had been Eagle Scouts, said there were bear prints in some areas. Bears are generally not a cause of concern, unless people are careless to leave food, or even creams and soaps with sweet scent, in their camp. Bears tend to avoid humans, but if foraging for food leads them to a camp, and humans, they can become panicked and aggressive. Many camp sites (like the one we were planing to stay in), have bear wires, which are set between trees, high enough to hang bags and backpacks with food and put them above the grasp of bears.

We carried on, as conditions were getting worse. We then came to a steep wall that led to a river bed, where a ladder and a rope helped to climb down. After we were all down, we faced our next challenge: we needed to ford the river. The water wasn’t running very deep, but the curret was strong, and the rocks were slippery. We were concerned about falling in and getting soaked. We kept looking for promising places to ford. Emily pointed at a particular turn, and I followed her. There were rocks close enough to let us through, but we had to be precise. We both crossed, left our backpacks in a dry area under a tree, and went back to help the others. Elia was having trouble with balance, so he passed his backpack to Emily at the other side and she crossed again. After that he was able to make it. We were happy to be through.

The river crossing had taken us over a half hour, and it was starting to get dark. We took out the map and figured we still had quite a way to Elip Creek. We started looking for good spots, and after a short while, found a flat area guarded by trees. It was perfect. We were concerned about the bears. Luckily, Paul and I had brought rope. While JP, Emily and I built the tents, Paul and Elia arranged a makeshift bear wire, away from the tents. We had a rich dinner. Emily had brought a pack of white wine. This time around, I had bought a chorizo, and while we waited for the dried food bags to cook with boiling water, we shared the chorizo, nuts, cheese and chocolate. I had smoked salmon. Having fish in hikes is not a standard idea, but I think it’s working very well for me.

It was a great dinner. We were all tired from the hike, happy about crossing the river, and exhilarated that we were camping in the middle of nowhere. It was drizzling but we didn’t mind. After chatting for a long while, we put the food in bags, on our bear wire, and walked to the tents to sleep.

The morning brought the happy realization that our food was intact. We had breakfast, took down the bear wire, stored the tents and started walking back, again in light rain. The river crossing was still intimidating, but this time we knew where to go. After fording, and going up using the ladder and rope from yesterday, it was an easy and long hike back. Whenever we stopped, though, we tended to chat for a bit too long. We had a sense of achievement and ruggedness. We had also functioned very well as a team. Nothing like a little misadventure for one’s ego.

By the time we were ready to drive home, it was 5pm. This time we were going South, then East, then North, around Puget Sound, no ferry crossing needed. After dinner half way, in Olympia, the two cars separated, and we all drove back to Seattle.

You can find more photos in my SmugMug album.

European or gay

Years ago, when I got the news that I had received the fellowship for graduate school in America, my friend Guillermo (the one from Buenos Aires), who was then my flat-mate, gave me a stern warning: “Jaime, you see how you’re sitting right now, with your legs crossed? Don’t ever do that in America, or they will think you’re gay … or European”.

The “or European” part was good enough for me, so I’ve continued to cross my legs in this country. I’ve asked some friends, and they have confirmed that Guillermo was indeed right. There are many other examples of things that are common in Europe, but taboo here. One is smell. I’ve made some American male friends very uncomfortable by asking them what their favorite cologne was. “Cough. What?… Me?, I never use cologne. I just slap on some aftershave!” they would retort. Describing smell is seen as womanly, unless it is to prove your knowledge of wine or food.

On Friday, an acquaintance from New York, Yanis, contacted me, as he was in Seattle for a conference. Yanis is Tunisian-Swiss, and grew up in Switzerland and France. We caught up on Saturday, and of course, as we Europeans do, made fun of the things that we find silly in this country. I took him to Discovery Park, and we were supposed to join Emily, Christina, Elia and J.P., for drinks, after we were back and they were done watching Batman. As it happened, Yanis was tired after we had dinner, so I dropped him at his hotel. I then met the others in a bar in my neighborhood. After a while, we left, as they wanted to dance, and we went to a club the guys knew.

The place, that night, was playing techno music. Another thing that means “European or gay”. Yes, the bar had a strong gay contingent, and the go-go dancers were male. We had a drink, and then left. I was finding the music ok. Not the best selection, but for my ears, techno is almost always better than hip-hop, the stuff that puts Americans on the dance floors. After that, we ended up coming to my apartment, and having a mini-party. I mostly have electronica, and almost no hip-hop, but J.P. had his iPod on him, so we hooked it to my hi-fi set, and the Americans were happy. We stayed up pretty late, it was a good time.

Today, Sunday, I wanted to go to Alki beach, in West Seattle. The water is too cold to bathe, and I didn’t want a beach plan, but I had never been there, and had heard good things. I brought Yanis along. I found the area very nice, so I will definitely go more.
We then went back to downtown, and were joined for dinner by a Brazilian woman Yanis had befriended during the conference. I chose one of the serious restaurants in the city, something I hadn’t done so far. I had beet soup and Alaskan salmon, and both were very good. The wine was good too. There were a couple of details that surprised me in the service; very apparent – but harmless. They just served to contrast with New York. I got tired of the restaurant obsession there, but a nice consequence is that there are very good restaurants and very good delis and markets. Here, I’m happy to rely much more on my cooking.
It was a good dinner. The Brazilian woman and I allied to make fun of Yanis, who, being brought up in France and Switzerland, can be pretty snobby about wine and food, and other things.
National differences can be a good source of comedy. But back to the theme of this post: why is it that only gay Americans have good taste?

On browsing, or how I find my music

Last Wednesday I came home from work exhausted and in a bad mood. The only thing to do for me in those cases is to have some alcohol, and medicate by watching TV or listening to music. I ended up watching a rerun of Futurama, a series that the creator of The Simpsons made years ago. It has something of a cult following among nerds, but I’ve only seen it a couple of times. The episode turned out to be very good, but especially, at the end, there was a song that stuck in my head, and I had to listen to it again.

I immediately went on the internet, and with a couple of searches found what I was looking for. It was funny to see that a decent amount of people had been looking for the same song after having seen the same Futurama episode, and there was a forum page where someone had given the name of the group. I immediately bought it in electronic format from Amazon, and listened to it many times in a row. By the time I went to bed, I was in great spirits.

This is not the first time I’ve found music this way. I also have some songs that I discovered from commercials, and of course, a sizable portion of my collection comes from film soundtracks. Another sizable portion comes from browsing in Amazon to see what people with similar tastes were buying. I have also discovered some groups thanks to friends; notably, Anthony introduced me to British electronica.
I don’t think I have any songs that I discovered through the radio. Perhaps one or two. Aside from a brief period during teenage, I’ve never much listened to the radio or watched MTV, so that explains that, but my point here is that I have a large collection of music, and it didn’t come from the radio. I wonder if that is very unusual.

But back to the song, it’s “Baby Love Child” by the Japanese group Pizzicato Five, and you can listen to it below, courtesy of YouTube. The video shows frames of the Futurama episode.
To give you some background: Turanga Leela, the girl with one eye, has grown up never knowing her parents. Everybody, herself included, thinks she’s an alien. At the end of the episode, she finally meets her parents, and it turns out they’re human mutants from the sewers, and they had decided to leave her in the human world, in a crib, with a note in alienese [sic] so humans wouldn’t suspect her origins, and would give her a good upbringing. The sequence in the video shows how the parents always kept an eye on her from a distance, not wanting to be uncovered, but leaving her birthday presents, and looking out for her. Here it is:

Camping trip

At last, my first camping trip since I moved to Seattle. In fact, my first camping trip in a long time.
My friend JP from work asked if I was interested, and of course, given the great weather we’ve been having lately, I was. He also hadn’t gone camping yet. He bought a book on hikes in the area, and narrowed the choices to a few, and then we decided to go to the Cascades because of the short car trip, only slightly longer than an hour.

JP brought Elia and Luis, and I brought Emily. We met in Redmond at half past two on Saturday, had lunch, drove through some lovely scenery, and started hiking around 5:30. From the car to our camping area by lake Greider, it was an almost uninterrupted climb, a bit over 2 hours, around 500m vertically. We were in the middle of a forest of firs, and the sun almost didn’t hit us. Towards the top there were a few areas of snow.

There were few clearings to camp in, and most were taken, but we finally found a good spot by the larger Greider lake. JP had brought a steak, and a pan, oil, potato and onion to cook it with. He used to be an Eagle Scout, and he impressed us all by starting a fire from the old coals left from previous campers. While the fire was going, we built our tents and unpacked the rest of our food. Emily, Elia and Luis had brought dried camping food, which just requires adding boiling water to the bag, stirring, and waiting 10 minutes. To boil the water we used my JetBoil burner, a wonderful piece of gear that I picked up three years ago. I don’t like that type of food, so I ate canned sardines, cheese and fruit, and we all shared nuts, chocolate, and JP’s fried potatoes.

The guys had brought a bottle of wine and a small bottle of Jack Daniels, so as you can imagine, a lot of laughter and silly conversation ensued. Poor Emily was stuck with four technical guys, but I think we all had a very good time.
Of course, sleeping in camping is never as comfortable as a proper bed in a proper room, so we all woke up early and sleepy next morning. After leisurely having breakfast and packing up again, we headed down. We were proud to take with us some of the garbage previous hikers had left.

After lunch on the way back, in the tiny town of Sultan, we all gathered in Redmond to pick up Emily and JP’s cars, and went our separate ways. It was a fantastic weekend.

You can see more photos in my SmugMug gallery.

Long patriotic weekend

I wish all weekends were this long. I had Friday off since it was the 4th of July. To celebrate, in the evening Emily came to my place with her friend Christina. I hadn’t seen Emily since Andrea’s wedding a month ago, so it was great to catch up.

We mainly had cheese, ice-cream and berries with white wine. I had made sangría, as we were expecting a couple of people more, but we ended up not having any. We sat in the deck watching the fireworks in Belltown and Gasworks, a park on the North end of Lake Union. Lake Union itself was crowded with people out on their boats. Seems like a good way to celebrate Independence Day.

After the fireworks it was getting chilly, so we went inside and chatted. It was nice to do something so easy, and it’s a luxury to have an apartment in such a strategic location.
The rest of the weekend I’ve just relaxed and caught up with sleep.
Aaaaaah, I wish I had more days.