Links: 4-20-08

Apr 20, 2008

• Bikely.com
  Don’t know how I’ve managed to miss this site until now, but I’ve been waiting for something like it for a while. Bikely allows people to share information about bike routes, partly by drawing on a Google Map. I am always trying to find safe new routes, especially in New Hampshire where most of the state is sadly devoid of any “Share The Road” signs. I also have friends who say they would bike to work, but there is no safe route. This should help myself and others.
• Currier Museum of Art reopens
  After being closed for almost 2 years for expansion, one of the highlights of Manchester,NH is back.
• Possible Dreamweaver alternative
  I’ve gave Aptana Studio free version a quick tryout and it seems to have a lot of useful features. It looks promising as it is very similar to Dreamweaver, only $399.00 cheaper.
• I fell in love with a female assassin
  This story about a photojournalist in Columbia seems like it could make a great book. “There comes a point in every new relationship when your girlfriend wants to share a secret. Usually it’s to do with sex – how many other partners she’s had (with a few conveniently erased) – that sort of thing. Often, the secret changes the basis of the relationship; honesty comes with consequences. But what happens if your new girlfriend has a much darker and more sinister secret than having slept around a bit?”

Baxter State Park Winter Trip

Feb 7, 2008

Well after a recent trip to Mount Desert Island, it was time for another journey up into Northern Maine. This one was not quite as luxurious as the previous one, but still a fun adventure at another one of the more spectacular places to visit in Maine. The plan was to spend 4 days at Baxter State Park with the primary objective being to do a winter summit of Mt Katahdin. Kathadin is the high point in Maine (5,267 feet/1,606 meters) and the end of the Appalachian Trail. We’d also try to explore whatever else we could from Roaring Brook Cabin, which was our home for 3 nights. To get to Katahdin, it is approximately 20 miles total in the winter (depending on which trail you take up to the summit ridge).

After spending the night at Hotel Terrace in Millinocket, we woke up to rapidly falling, big puffy snowflakes. This looked really nice, but once we got going it would turn the first day into a death march. We had to hike 12 miles in to Roaring Brook Cabin, as opposed to the summer when you can drive right to it and we were pulling sleds with food and gear. The snow was constant, heavy and wet which made it feel like we were doing a marathon while pulling a dead body in our sleds behind us. We got to the cabin a lot later than we anticipated and were quite spent.

The plan was to go for the summit of Katahdin on Saturday and this would have been ideal, because the forecast called for the temperatures to plummet on Sunday and Monday. The trip in the day before though eliminated the chance of that though. We didn’t have enough time do do the necessary preparation and we were still pretty exhausted. This was unfortunate, because with the arctic blast coming the next day, we knew it was our best chance.

Instead with the weather being nearly perfect, mostly sunny and not too cold, we decided to go for South Turner Mountain. It’s not a huge mountain at only 3123 feet, but because it is positioned directly across from the broad Katahdin ridge and was a steep and interesting climb, we found it to be a very worthwhile. With deep snow and the trail totally unbroken, it was also one of harder small mountains I have done in a while.

Sunday morning the Artic blast set in as scheduled. While it was still dark and -5 degrees I went to fill 9 water bottles down at the brook. This was one of those moments where you ask yourself, “I like doing this why?!”. Of course it’s actually rare that I feel like that but I think it happens to any winter hiker sometimes.

As we were setting out for the summit of Katahdin, I was pretty sure right from the start that our chances of summitting were pretty slim. At 6:45 after taking a little Vitamin I (ibuprofen), we started for Chimney Pond and it just got colder as we went. By the time we reached Chimney Pond it was -10 degrees and we could see a nasty, swirling snow plume blowing around up at the summit ridge. Even at 2900 feet, boogies and sweat were freezing on our faces. We decided it could turn dangerous a little too easily and turned around there. We probably could have made it, but if we ran into one snag we might have been looking at a dicey situation.

Even though the averse conditions prevented us from reaching our primary goal, it was still a great experience to see Baxter State Park in the winter. As usual on these winter expeditions, I learned a lot and walked away much better prepared for the next trip.

View Baxter State Park photos

Mount Desert Island

Dec 12, 2007

I put up some pictures from a recent trip to Mount Desert Island in Maine, a.k.a. home of Acadia National Park. This was my first time there and while I had heard some nice things, it was actually much more than I imagined. I had no idea we had something of that magnitude here in New England. The island is filled with mountains with ocean views, carriage roads, stone bridges, lakes and has the only fjord on the east coast of the United States. Some of the more fun things we did while there was taking the South Ridge Trail up Cadillac Mountain and exploring Otter Cliffs.

The Cadillac hike was one of the nicest hikes I have ever done. Even though the mountain is only 1,530′, the South Ridge Trail which is 3.7 miles to the top has about half of the distance on an open ridge with spectacular views around the island and into the Atlantic Ocean. It also helped that it was sunny and not too cold. Cadillac Mountain is famous for being the first location in the United States where a sunrise can be seen. We didn’t see a sunrise, although we did get to see a striking sunset that slowly progressesed and took on different appearances as we descended the South Ridge Trail. We also had the very good fortune of seeing a rabbit scampering around on the summit. It’s usually pretty rare to see any animals on a summit, let alone on the highest point on the U.S. Atlantic coast.

I almost didn’t go to Otter Cliffs and damn would I have been missing something. With lots of different types of rock formations and cliffs hanging high above the ocean, Otter Cliffs were more like things I have seen along the West Coast than the East Coast. There were also plenty of deer roaming around very casually and because we went on a Monday in late November, it was pretty much just us and them.

View Mount Desert Island photos

Links: 9-24-07

Sep 24, 2007

• Mayor Menino wants Boston to be bicyclist’s dream
  Boston Mayor Tom Menino is hiring a bike czar and a first phase of improvements around the city is to include 250 new bike racks and an online map system. Future possibilities mentioned include shower facilities, bike storage areas, and automated bike rental systems that make wheels instantly available to anyone with a credit card. It would be great if Boston goes all the way with this and then maybe other cities around New England would follow the trend too. If you consider things like skyrocketing energy costs, global warming, increasing obesity rates in the US and how bad traffic is in some cities, doing things like this should be a no-brainer.
• $1 US = $1 Canadian
  Seems like it was just yesterday I could go up to Montreal and get a whole lotta bang for my buck.
• Manchester City Marathon
  Manchester, NH is having a full 26.2 mile marathon for the first time since the 1930′s on Sunday November 4, 2007. The race is approved as a qualifier for the Boston Marathon.

An Observation, Not an Endorsement

Sep 19, 2007

I am posting this picture I took in Holderness, NH just as an observation, not as an endorsement. So far in the early days of primary season here, one of the most unexpected developments has been the amount of support for Ron Paul. Before this year I had never heard of Ron Paul. Lately though I have been noticing a suprising proliferation of Ron Paul for President signs around New Hampshire. It probably won’t mean anything since the Republican base won’t get behind him and he is just too much of an underdog, but hopefully it at the very least sends a message. I do respect some of of the things he has had to say:

“I believe that when we overdo our military aggressiveness, it actually weakens our national defense.”

“The obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people.”

“Cliches about supporting the troops are designed to distract from failed policies, policies promoted by powerful special interests that benefit from war, anything to steer the discussion away from the real reasons the war in Iraq will not end anytime soon.”

Paul has also said quite a few things I disagree with but so far one of the best things about this primary season has been candidates like him and Mike Gravel who have the chutzpah to state many of the inconvenient truths the other candidates are afraid to mention. For now though, like many others voters are, I still have to do a lot more listening to all of the candidates.

Hands Across The Merrimack Bridge

Jun 4, 2007

For a long time I have been telling my Manchester friends that good cities utilize their waterfront/riverfront setting by building around it and Manchester is not doing it enough. All of the cities I enjoy going to have a vibrant waterfront area that usually has lots of people walking, running, roller blading or biking and lots of other life and nature around it. It’s good for the residents of the city and it helps the city have more appeal as a destination city. With that said, I was glad to see construction had finally begun the other day on the Hands Across The Merrimack (aka Singer Family Crossing), a pedestrian bridge that crosses the Merrimack River .

Work to begin on pedestrian bridge over river in Manchester

Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta says something very similar to what I think I have said 100 times since I have lived in this area.

Citing successful waterfront development in Boston, Portland, Providence and Portsmouth, the mayor said Manchester has hurt itself by treating the Merrimack River as an afterthought.

The bridge will link walking paths and trails on both sides of the river. This should encourage people to utilize the trails more now that more routes will be possible. I was happy when Manchester created a Riverwalk a few years ago, but it is usually a ghost town when I am there (except during New Hampshire Fisher Cat’s games).

Hopefully at some point it will even be possible to make a loop around the river, without using the streets, much like one can do around the Charles River in Boston. This would require a trail/path on the west side and a little extension on the east side.

I am pretty amazed and happy to see some infrastructure being added that has nothing to do with automobiles. The bridge which had been in the fund raising and planning stage for the last 5 years was spearheaded by Manchester citizen Helen Closson. A HUGE kudos to her for making it happen. Manchester needs more people like her.

Below is picture of before and a drawing of after:

The old railroad trestle which will be replaced:

A promotional drawing of the new bridge: