Plumbers Crack

I am back to regularly scheduled programming, which, for two months is the Hard Things project. Interestingly, I started my blog in 2007 before conspiracies hit mainstream media (MSM) but when I was living in the delightfully eccentric mountain town of Nelson, BC, where most folks happily embraced dope smoking and conspiracy with the same enthusiasm. Those days feel innocent and carefree now.

Here’s a catch up on the project: day 35, was a Hard Thing but I’m not going to write about now, although I might later. Day 36 was carnivore diet to dinner. That’s my disclosure – I eat vegetables at dinner on my carnivore days. Day 37, today, was a lap around the Dam Loop with a couple of add-ons. My quadriceps were shaking at the end so that seems like a legitimate training session.  Damn that Dam Loop feels steep sometimes. Plus, I got lured down a new track that is not finished yet but goes very steeply downhill. I could barely ride it – remember I suck at mountain biking – and had to push back up when the track ended abruptly.

Tomorrow is the first of March – I’m looking forward to winter (my favorite season) – and I’ll be at day 38 of the project, so I guess I can finally kick back, chill out, and smoke some dope (I don’t actually smoke dope but I don’t care if you do), sometime around the third week of March. I might be looking forward to that a bit too.

The Last Post

This is probably the last post where I will talk about anything covid related, which actually is a bit ironic because I’ve had something to say about the management of covid since the mystery illness first appeared. Of course, during the first two years, it was impossible to question the dominant narrative of fear, death and Big Pharma. Now that some (not all) of the censorship has been rolled back, and we can finally speak about the ‘rona years, there’s so much to say, and also so much fatigue about the whole issue that it’s quite hard to write anything coherent that sums up two years of madness in a page or two.

Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, who has advised to skip kissing, while insisting on wearing a mask during sexual activities in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19

In leiu of coherence, which I don’t have even in my own mind, I’m going to put down a bunch of bullet points and leave the topic forever. This does not mean I am in favour of a “covid amnesty.” Enormous mistakes were made and leaving those mistakes unexamined means we will simply repeat them next time the WHO (a conflicted if not outright captured agency) cries “virus”. If you trace, historically, the public health/government response to similar health scares, it’s obvious that as time passes, the government response has become more and more extreme without a consequent increase in public health. In fact, public health has deteriorated markedly in the last 50 years. At this point, if you are not questioning how public health functions, you probably need to sit in the corner for a bit and do some serious thinking.

1. The Keskt CNC Insitute tracks public opinion on the ‘rona. In July 2020, they surveyed European populations and found that the general population overestimated both the spread of ‘rona (number of infections) and the fatality rate due to ‘rona, by factors ranging from 4 to 300 times greater than those numbers actually were. Death rates across all European countries were overestimated by, at a minimum 100 times and at a maximum 300 times. Fear porn works.

2. John Ionnaidis of Stanford University (pre-pandemic one of the world’s pre-eminent epidemiologists – he was knocked off that peg because he wanted science not hysteria to prevail) noted that the average age of death due to ‘rona during the pandemic equaled the average age of death pre-pandemic. All but the most bleary thinkers should be able to understand what that means.

3. Over half a million scientific papers have been published about ‘rona. Almost all of those would be better used to paper the bottom of the budgie cage than used to guide public policy. I’m almost, but not quite (the budgie cage is my addition) quoting Ionnaidis. There has been a deluge of extremely poor quality papers that show nothing at all but are trotted out to suit whatever bias the purveyor of such junk believes.

4. Medicine is not a bias free field. Huge financial incentives govern what gets studied, what gets published and what makes it’s way into the public space. Bizarrely, medicine, science, the public all ignore the effect of incentives even though we all know that incentives are one of the most effective ways to influence human behavior.

5. Medical science is almost completely dominated by Big Pharma and industry who fund not only the trials that get done but the regulatory agencies. Regulatory agencies in the developed world are, at this point, completely captured and dependent on Big Pharma for funding. The staff rotate between staff positions on the various regulatory boards and the boards of Big Pharma, the very industry they are supposed to regulate. If you don’t believe this, you are probably going to wander down to the back garden tonight to look for leprechauns.

6. Big Pharma has an appalling history of corruption and malfeasance. It’s hard to imagine that 2020 was the watershed year when all that changed.

7. Absolute false-hoods – your Mum called them lies and gave you a clip across the ear – are being told by both sides in the ‘rona wars. Very often these are easily disproven, often in mere minutes. This has recently made the Twitter rounds. It’s not true, or at least the statement is unable to be shown to be true because the five pages that deal with masking in the report have been redacted. Don’t believe me. I mean, really don’t believe. Check for yourself. Always check for yourself.¹

8. Among the most egregiously poor studies are the modelling studies. Unfortunately, we are still swamped with modelling studies. Many, maybe even most claims about the prevalence of long covid are based on modelling. Note that I am not saying long covid does not exist. Long term symptoms/syndromes have been known historically to follow many viral infections; there is every reason to believe that the ‘rona, like other viruses will result in long duration symptoms in some individuals. Modelling, however, provides no information about the true prevalence. Most of the modelling done to date has been shit.

9. Marcia Angell, former Editor in Chief at the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine wrote in 2009: "It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine." Things have got worse.

10. There was massive collusion and censorship among the big tech companies (think Metaverse, Google, Twitter), main stream media (MSM) and the government to shut down any dissenting voices during the height of the ‘rona crisis. This included shutting down not only on theories that most of us would deem a “bit out there” (like 5G chips being implanted) but also the voices of highly respected scientists (for example, John Ionnaidis) who called for caution when implementing highly destructive policies to curb the spread of ‘rona. Jacinda Arden is famously remembered for her chilling statement that “we will continue to be your one source of truth.” There is no truth in science, and even if there was, it’s highly unlikely that the New Zealand Government (or any government) is in possession of that truth. Science is about testing, questioning and retesting. We are all the poorer for two years of outrageous censorship. Adults have lost the ability to think for themselves, people have been scared out of proportion to the actual risk (see points one and two above), and we’ve all lost any confidence at all in public health and government officials (admittedly, I had little to start with).

I have been astonished at the things people have come to believe during the ‘rona times, but also astonished by the echo chamber people have deliberately decided to live in. One of the key capacities which should separate adults from children is that we are able to consider opposing ideas, sometimes, even hold two opposing ideas at the one time, and most of life, deal with uncertainty. It is comforting to rush into the proverbial arms of the Blue Check covid-warriors who pronounce with utter certainty that “masks stop the spread” (unlikely given what we know), or that Hepa works, long covid is a pandemic itself, there are no vaccine injuries, lockdowns are effective etc., etc. Conversely, not every sudden death is due to the vaccine, no-one has been micro-chipped, mRNA vaccines are not gene therapy, etc. etc.

If you are an adult, part of being an adult is taking a critical look at the latest crazy idea to cross your field of vision. It is tiring, always being on guard against misinformation and the legions of vested interests whose goal is manipulation, mostly for profit, sometimes for actual malfeasance. Consider this intellectual investment akin to exercise done for the body, only it is exercise for the mind.

1There is a similar story going around about the ‘rona being the third leading cause of death in Australia. It’s not and again, it is very easy to check as the government publishes the statistics regularly.

A Bit Too Much Fun: Kayak Surfing

The Batemans Bay wave rider buoy is back online after going adrift at the beginning of February. This morning the easterly swell was about a metre with a maximum of two metres and a period of about seven seconds. And, it was forecast to be hot and sunny, perfect for a surf day.

Doug and I paddled down to Denhams Beach from our home beach, but Denhams is a pretty small beach and the wave and beach was a bit too crowded for two kayaks, so we continued on to Surf Beach, where we struck gold, or at least lots of rideable waves. I quickly worked out that without my rudder down, the kayak would broach almost immediately no matter how I worked to prevent it so I worked a system of riding in rudder down, quickly whipping the rudder up once I got into the break zone to turn the boat and paddle back out.

This is not bar surfing, however, so every ride required a surf exit to get back out but it was all really good practice for Sea Guide. After a bit, we drifted over to Wimbie Beach and caught a few waves there but the waves were smaller and the rideable ones less frequent so we ended up back at Surf Beach. Splashalot Blacklock came by on his way back from a Wimbie Beach to North Head run and we all three surfed for a while.

Surfing was my Hard Thing for day 34, but I’ve done so much surfing lately and got so much more comfortable (and upskilled) that I feel like I might have cheated a bit today. Maybe not though, there was stiff northeasterly blowing on the way back so we did do a bit of harder paddling as well. The big thing I’ve discovered about surfing is that you need to learn to ignore the roar of waves breaking behind you. Even 1 to 1.5 metre high waves sound so loud that the lizard brain can be pretty convinced that sudden death lurks mere seconds behind.

Renormalisation

In the quest to rebuild some muscle, I trained on Sunday, paddled on Monday, trained again on Tuesday and then, of course, found myself pretty fatigued on Wednesday and Thursday. In what universe did I think I was 38 again and could train hard four or five days a week? Wednesday, I did a recovery walk, but Thursday, I took completely off any training, which brings me to Friday, and because the Hard Things project is still going so I looped back around to the Southwood program as my hard thing for the day. That’s my third time through the Southwood program and I’m not sure it gets any easier. So day 33 was the Southwood program and day 32 was my usual evening stretching without the succor of watching some drivel on Netflix to stave off the boredom. Day 32 was more uncomfortable than day 33.

I was listening to a podcast recently (trigger warning: Joe Rogan) where the guest talked about renormalisation. The theory was explained thus: one person in the family becomes a vegan (for arguments sake, the daughter). Mum or Dad, whoever does the cooking, has three choices, (1) make the usual omnivorous meal and have the daughter throw a fit; (2) make two meals – one for the omnivores and one for the daughter; or (3) make a vegan meal and inflict the vegan meal (inflict is used deliberately as there has never been a successful human culture that followed a vegan diet because such diets are inevitably nutritionally deficient unless supplemented) on the rest of the family. Inevitably, choice three prevails, and the intolerant minority now rules over the more tolerant majority (the omnivores will eat anything).

Haven’t we all been there. Tiptoeing around social discourse because one person (perhaps two at most) in the group is the president and CEO of the Intolerant Tolerant Society. The folks who believe themselves to be the tolerant champions of any and all minorities but who are, perversely incredibly intolerant of anyone with a different opinion. These social situations are literally like trying to walk across hot coals.  Keep in mind I am socially inept. 

Apparently, renormalisation is actually based on physics and mathematics which are hard sciences and I find them much easier to believe than social and medical sciences which are soft, woolly, comforting to some perhaps, but ultimately not able to answer specific questions with any degree of vigour.  Read more about renormalisation here. It’s pretty fascinating.

Thinking Clearly In The Face Of Fear

People often talk about how much they love adrenaline sports without realising that the adrenaline of fear is mostly counter-productive. Sure, a rise in blood glucose, some mild tachycardia might help if the exposure is brief and avoidable, such as jumping away from a snake, but long term exposure to adrenaline (and it’s concomitant hormone, cortisol) is destructive to both mental and physical health.

One of the biggest problems of adrenaline is that it makes objective assessment of risk near impossible. Once, leading a bolted (sport) route in Canada, I worked myself into such a state of fear that I almost passed out, even though I was on a well bolted slab route where it was safe to fall. Similarly, I’ve frozen when leading rock routes unable to visualise the climbing sequence in a series of holds (something I can normally easily do) because I have become so afraid of falling.

As the years of the pandemic roll on (no-one can agree on whether or not we are still in a pandemic, if we ever were), I’ve become increasingly concerned about how media shapes our views of the world. Most individuals and even government agencies have moved to a “post-pandemic” phase and have left behind some of the more extreme mitigation measures that were enforced in previous years. Some commentators, however, continue to call for a return to stringent mitigation measures, and many people still support these views. It is abundantly clear at this point, that neither side of the debate expresses the “scientific truth”. Sidebar: my rule of thumb is to discount anyone that utters this ominous phrase “the science is settled.” Science is a method which can only support or refute a particular theory.

Years ago I came across a study that indicated that the more TV crime shows an individual watched the more dangerous they rated their neighbourhoods and the less likely participants would be to walk at night. In 2020, a very simple survey from the Civil Unrest and Presidential Election Study had fascinating results when participants were asked four basic questions. Two questions were used to assess how far to the left or right participants were on the political and social spectrum, and then participants were asked to estimate how many unarmed black people were killed by police in 2019. Participants on the far left tended to overestimate the number of unarmed black people killed by police by an order of magnitude. Somewhere between 13 and 27 unarmed black people were killed by police in 2019. 53.5% of the self-identified “very liberal” respondents estimated that police had killed upwards of 1,000 unarmed black people in 2019.

What does all this have to do with adrenaline? Well, if you are continuously exposed to media that is mostly doom, gloom and over-inflated risks, you might find yourself fearful of the future, the environment, people around you, even the air that you breathe. At that point, adrenaline and cortisol are activated, and while both those hormones are excellent for jumping out of the way of a Death Adder, continual fear, anxiety, and apprehension makes it incredibly difficult to evaluate risk clearly. You could find yourself so scared that you almost black out on a rock climbing route or thinking that the police are routinely shooting unarmed black people.

Days 30 and 31 of the Hard Things project are now over. On Day 30 I did 100 squats to the floor in sets of ten. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t have to be winched up on squat number 99 like Pelosi and Schumer were after taking a knee. And, day 31 was a ten minute plank. Now, lets all take a knee to remember the planking craze.

Day 29: The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death

Day 29, this will be a shorter epistle than yesterdays long, somewhat emotive plea, to try to walk through the middle ground, which is much like “the valley of the shadow of death” where we should “fear no evil” even, and especially, if someone has a different opinion.

Anyway, I’m in a build phase, in that I’m trying to put some more muscle on. Good grief what a difficult thing this is to do as you get older. Gaining muscle mass requires progressive overload but progressive overload results in fatigue and the need for recovery. Recovery takes much longer the older you get so training sometimes must be delayed because you aren’t recovered, which means your training volume goes down, which means reduced time under tension that week, which means less gains. Talk about a downward spiral. Life would be so much easier if we all just sat on the couch and munched on Tim Tams.

The upshot of all that is that additional “just exercise” on top of training seems to generate more fatigue and muscle soreness than it should. But, I might just be remembering wrong. Now I think of it, back when I was backcountry skiing four days a week AND doing Crossfit AND climbing on my indoor wall, muscle soreness was simply a part of life. My brain may be getting as weak as my body.

Speaking of which, endurance activities can be so good for teaching the brain that the body can persist. Yesterdays, hard thing (day 29) was paddling down the coast doing some rock gardening and, hopefully, getting into Malua Bay cave. Heading south from our home bay, we went into every small gauntlet and around every small rock feature that we could. At Malua Bay, we found the cave and I got a reasonable distance in but the tide was really high and I was bashing my paddle on the roof and feeling in danger of bashing my head as well. There was probably less than a boat length left to back into the cave. The photos don’t seem to show it but when the kayak surged up with each wave, I had to duck my head.

On the way back, we detoured via Black Rock. I was feeling weary before the detour but I was remembering big: when I was always up for one more ski run or to climb up one more ridge line, so despite thinking it would be nice just to get home for a very late lunch, we went out to Black Rock. It was as calm as I’ve ever seen the ocean on the west side, I could have reached out and touched the rock.

The first obligatory post-paddle roll was shaky, I was on my third try and doing a pawlatta roll by the time I got up but the impetus not to bail out and deal with the re-enter and roll was strong. The following few were much better as, in a funny way, relaxing and not rushing, results in an easier and quicker roll.

The First Casualty Of The Pandemic Is Friendship

If “the first casualty of war is the truth” the first casualty of a pandemic is friendship. Early in the pandemic, a long time friend posted on Facebook (yes, I know, not a place for nuanced discourse) that any friends of his who would not take the vaccine were evil and he wanted nothing to do with them. This included people who had been in his life for decades. Another friend, who bravely decided against vaccination, in addition to being locked out of the normal discourse of social life – in Australia, the unvaccinated were legally prohibited from participating in normal everyday life, and those legal prohibitions were defended with the vigor of war – was shunned by her social group and lost half a dozen good friends over the course of the pandemic.

The above are two small examples of the unintentional fall-out of very intentional policies designed to produce unthinking obedience to authoritarian dictates that had no justification in science or ethics. Those of us who have somehow managed to come through the pervasive fog of extreme media and publicity questioning not only the legitimacy of pandemic madness but the efficacy of draconian lockdowns and forced vaccination are going to be disappointed. There will never be a full scale accounting of the costs to society of the “psy ops” that permeated the pandemic. Billions of dollars were and continue to be funnelled into the coffers of pharmaceutical companies for vaccines that started out with promises of “preventing 95% of infections,” and have over time dwindled to “may prevent severe illness.” In reality, it’s clear that these same vaccinations have caused considerable morbidity and mortality in healthy individuals never at risk for disease. I have not even mentioned the additional billions going towards anti-viral medications with well documented side effects and poor efficacy.

In the west, inflation runs rampant, driven almost entirely by the billions of dollars of stimulus and lowering of interest rates to well below notional zero that was required to maintain lockdowns. Without stimulus payments, the public would never have agreed to being locked into their homes 23 hours per day to combat a virus that had a infection fatality rate of less than 1%. Now, to curb inflation, the heads of central banks around the world are committed to raising interest rates (not inherently a bad thing) likely until recession hits, resulting in job loss and increasing economic hardship for the poorest people in society. The rich have, and continue to, profit from the pandemic which has seen the largest upward migration of wealth since tracking such measures began.

And then there are the burgeoning mental health issues, the domestic violence, the predictable increase in other causes of morbidity and mortality which ran upwards unchecked throughout the pandemic causing, in highly vaccinated countries, the greatest increase in mortality for decades.

In some ways, the bigger scale issues are harder for us small scale humans to grasp, but most of us can grab hold of the extreme polarisation that has come to define any and all discussions of covid going forward. Personally, I never discuss pandemic management or the covid “vaccine” with any of the people I know in real life. The conversations are too fraught and damaging. Most people probably sit somewhere in the now miniscule middle range, but others believe wholeheartedly that those of us who oppose vaccine mandates, ineffective masking, lockdowns and discrimination are quite literally evil and are willing to kill for our right to not vaccinate and/or mask. This mindset has been perpetuated by Twitter posts (often by Blue Check credentialed individuals) that, for example, Covid is the third leading cause of death (it’s not, a simple search will reveal that cancer remains the leading cause of death in Australia, diabetes, in fact, kills more Australians than covid) or that not wearing a mask is tantamount to killing the vulnerable.

Whether or not the world is entering a Klaus Schwab orchestrated Great Reset, on a smaller scale we have certainly entered into the “Great Friend Reset” (many thanks to Andy Kirkpatrick for coining this phrase) wherein disagreements over pandemic management have forged irrepairable rifts in personal relationships because people on either side of the now great pandemic divide are unable to cope with the messy but real grey middle ground. In a divisive world, it is more important now than ever to understand that we can disagree with respect and without fear. My interpretation of the available data does not denigrate yours anymore than your interpretation invalidates mine. We are all ultimately powerless in the management of the pandemic, but if we give either side of the debate the power to enduce such fear and helplessness in ourselves that we turn real friends into enemies we may be crossing a rubicon into a new world that is ultimately more harmful to our essential humanity than the one we left.

I am not by any measure a religious or even spiritual person but there is some wisdom in these words:

forgive us our trespasses,/ as we forgive those who trespass against us,

especially if our only trespass is to hold a differing opinion.

Hard Things update: day 25 was a knackering weight workout, day 26 was the upwind/downwind vomit run, day 27 was taking only cold showers, and day 28 (today) is adhering to the Carnivore diet.

The Floggings Will Continue Until Speed Improves

I spit some vomit out of my mouth and rinse with salt water. We’re on the downwind portion of an upwind/downwind run. During a short break on Richmond Beach after a steady 1.5 hour paddle into a 12 knot headwind, Nick has suggested (bless him), that we focus on paddling into the wind. You could be forgiven for thinking we have been doing that for the last hour, but Nick means really paddling into the wind, at a good 7 to 8 kilometres an hour, making every stroke count. Off we go again, heading into the wind, the plumb bow boats crashing down over the tops of a steepening sea until we are about 1.5 kilometres off shore of Flat Rock Point and the turn around point.

These downwind runs are actually harder work than the upwind segment. There is a tacit agreement that no-one brings a sail so catching runners involves all out sprints to get the kayak onto the following waves. If you can keep the average pace up near 10 kilometres per hour, you can catch a brief “micro rest” – even Nick acknowledges the rest is vanishingly brief – as the kayak surfs along the following sea.

Mentally, I’ve broken the return leg into two halves, the first half to North Head will be the hardest technically as the sea is confused by swell and rebound, while the second half, within the shelter of big, broad, Batemans Bay, is simply a matter of trying to keep output high as the runners – with luck – become more regular and somewhat easier to catch.

Within half an hour of turning, we have covered the six kilometres to North Head, I’ve vomited into my mouth, and am hoping my heart, weakened by two enforced clot shots, does not give out on segment two. Apparently, a False Killer Whale had swum right by the bow of my boat but in my concentration to keep apace with Quick Nick – or at least not too far behind – I saw nothing.

The final kilometre into Sunshine Bay my body has taken on the consistency of a wet noodle. Doug and Nick actually do some rolling but I’ve completely lost any connection between different body parts and simply float in the warm ocean drifting with the seaweed. Day 26 of the Hard Things project is over.

Leg Day

Today is day 25 of the Hard Things project and a different facet of the project has come to light: fitting a Hard Thing into your everyday life which is already pretty full. Days 23 and 24 were physical Hard Things – something I was reminded sharply of when I got up this morning feeling a bit worked over. On day 23 I did a 1.25 kilometre loaded carry with an 8 kg kettlebell. This is a Dan John style carry with the bell in your hand not tucked comfortably away in a backpack. On day 24 I did back squats and deadlifts, lots and lots of backsquats and deadlifts. Insert leg day meme here:

Climbing and Paddling

I am now over three weeks into the Hard Things project but still only one third of the way through. Putting this in perspective, Candice Burt just finished up her 100^th consecutive ultramarathon distance (32 miles or 51.5 kilometres) run over the duration of a Colorado winter. Yikes.

Yesterday (day 21), the Hard Thing was a long paddle when I did not feel like a long paddle. But, it was Sunday and I had committed to paddling every/most Sundays so off I went. The forecast was iffy with lots of wind, not something that would normally deter me or result in a river paddle, but on this particular day, a river paddle seemed like the best choice. In the end, we did 32 kilometres and paddled as far up Currowan Creek as one can get in a sea kayak.

Today, just a bit more fatigued than yesterday we went rock climbing, and I did the notorious Body Pump route.

Park Running

For day 20 of the Hard Things project I cycled down to my local Park Run. While I’m not absolutely stoked about the course – along the pathway from the marina to downtown (I prefer bush trails) – I do enjoy the camraderie of one hundred other people turning out early on a Saturday morning for a bit of exercise. I was not my perkiest – this Hard Things project is wearing me out! - and I was 10 minutes slower than my fastest time (2019). Admittedly, I only ran about half way. I thought I would test out the very popular run/walk strategy (although I’m not sure people run/walk five kilometres) and see how it compared to my last Park Run (in December) when I “ran” all the way. My time was virtually identical. I don’t know if you can extrapolate anything from that, but there it is, a couple of data points.

Then, because it was hot, and I wanted to be sure I had really covered the Hard Thing for the day, we went down to the local beach and did a bunch of rolls. On-side, off-side, one re-enter and roll when I blew three in a row and ran out of air (happens frighteningly quickly) and, trying to the C to C roll and not getting it. I am reminded of Nick asking “Why?” Increasingly, that seems like a good question.

Kayak Surfing

Today’s Hard Thing was so much fun that I feel like a cheat for calling it a hard thing. Pete, Steve, Nick, Doug and I went kayak surfing at the Mossy Point/Tomaga River Bar. Pete had his new surf boat, a very low volume jobbie. Steve has a whitewater boat similar to my whitewater boat, while Doug and I were in our plumb bow kayaks and Nick in his plastic play boat. Once we’d cleared all the surfers off the wave, we had the break to ourselves and caught ride after ride after ride.

Off an on I’ve been trying a C to C roll, although Nick posed the excellent question today “Why?” but, by that point, I thought I’m almost there, I’ll try a few more times. I did have one capsize, not quite sure how, but the Pace 17S can go over pretty quickly sometimes. I ended up pinned onto the back deck with my face in the sand thinking “how can I roll from this position?” and then, more sensibly, I thought, “just get out and stand up.” Sometimes bailing is the simplest action.

Yesterdays Hard Thing was what I call Work Capacity after the Mountain Tactical three hour long workouts I used to do back in Nelson: 1 km row, 100 step ups, 100 pushups, 10 pullups, 100 TRX rows, 100 squats, 100 kettlebell swings, 100 random core exercises and 100 random glute exercises, with some finger training on the hangboard in between.

Cycling and Climbing

Here I am at day 18 of the Hard Things project, and, yes, I am feeling a wee bit fatigued. The Hard Thing on day 16 was combining two previous hard things (days 4 and 10) and increasing time on one and weight on the other. That is, I did 30 minutes on the climbing wall (last time was 20 minutes) and added weight on the Southwood workout, and did the two training sessions concurrently.

Yesterday, day 17, I finally got back on the mountain bike and rode the Dam Loop. This one had been on my Hard Things list for a while. It did go better than I thought although I pushed the bike up what I call “heartbreak hill,” the steep loose access track from our suburb to the fire trail that intersects the Dam Loop. I have not ridden the Dam Loop for a very, very long time. Back when I was training for our Canadian trip, I used to ride the Dam Loop, Jackhammer, and RU12 once every 8 to 10 days as interval training. I don’t really have a good conclusion to this post, so I’ll stick in another gliph instead. Φ

Trigger Warning: Opinions Ahead May Diverge From Your Own

Oh, the Monday blues. Tired Mondays can still be a thing even if you are no longer gainfully employed. I had all sorts of ideas for Mondays Hard Thing but also knew the “thing” couldn’t be too physically taxing as I was tired. The weather was good, so I trolleyed the kayak down and did some rolling practice. I simply do not understand how much I can dread something which is literally over in seconds. Contrary to my usual practice, I used my wing paddle and rolling with a wing blade is so easy that by the time I thought about what I should do I was up. And, yet, in those few seconds upside down there can be so much unnecessary angst. “The mind is primary.” If only our minds were easier to control.

I’ve written previously, but only in passing, about the ingrained Australian habit to arbitrarily decide what can be shared as trip reports, in guidebooks, or – shudder deeply – in social media posts, recently the topic came up again after a friend of mine attempted a circuit route in Wadbilliga National Park descending one creek and ascending another. Travel was much slower and more difficult than anticipated and the two adventurers found the route pretty sketchy (possibly bush fires had altered the route). This happens to us all, and, back when I was knocking around the high mountains of Canada we used to call this phenomenon “getting schooled” or even “getting spanked.” The general idea being that the involved party had over-estimated their ability and underestimated the difficulty. There is, or should be, no shame in getting spanked. After all, if you’ve never “been schooled” you’ve never tried anything audacious, and we should all try something bold at least once in life.

The general arguments for not sharing information are threefold: (1) unprepared/inexperienced or otherwise unworthy people will follow the trip report and will get into difficulties; (2) the trip itself is in terrain that is so inherently dangerous that no-one should go there; (3) the area will be over-run/over-used resulting in environmental degradation. There is a fourth subtext that trends through the narrative but is never overtly stated but runs roughly thus: the trip was hard/sketchy/scary/extreme for the participant who operates at a very high level, therefore, anyone else that follows will find the trip hard/extreme/sketchy/scary regardless of individual ability.

As to this last covert reason, I’m reminded of the “pandemic” where monitoring of other peoples behavior reached perhaps its most extreme level, with the devout Covid believers requiring everyone to wear a mask and have several “vaccines” even though logic dictates that if the mask/vaccine combination actually worked those who feel the need of protection might avail themselves whilst leaving other people to make their own risk assessments. But I digress into terrain likely to offend many. As Andy Kirkpatrick said in his last podcast “like wanking at the dinner table” some things are best left unsaid or undone.

I don’t buy any of the three or four reasons previously expounded and the whole thing reeks like a dead fish of inflated egoism. With a blog that’s lasted over a decade and hundreds of trip and route descriptions on Bivouac.com – a site where people specifically go to get route and trip information – my experience suggests that the number of people who go out and follow a route or trip description they have read online into terrain that is beyond their skills is vanishingly small. If you want to save people’s lives, refraining from driving would have more effect.

Nor am I impressed by the idea that the terrain is too dangerous for anyone to visit simply because one person found such terrain sketchy. On the weekend, we paddled past Burrewarra Point and paddled through numerous gauntlets. I avoided one that another member of the party paddled quite safely through. He had the confidence and skill to pull it off, but the gauntlet looked sketchy to me and I passed by. Both of us made appropriate decisions and it would be completely improper for me to control another paddlers behavior.

Finally, the argument that the area will be overrun by “tourists” with ensuing environmental damage. We can all pull one area out of thousands which has seen an increase in tourist numbers with consequent environmental effects. The one that stands out to me is Joffre Lakes in British Columbia which was once a quiet hiking trail to a series of three lakes but now features nose to tail parked cars for kilometres along the highway with visitors lining up to stand on the log that protrudes into the first lake. It is worth noting, however, that the first lake is about 100 metres from the trail head, and the furthest probably only about four kilometres away, all on good trails.¹ Places that are tough to get to, that is, no trails, thick bush, mandatory swims and scrambles, requiring navigation skills, will never get that busy. There are just too few people who enjoy suffering. If you doubt this assertion, stroll (I seriously challenge you to stroll) into the Budawangs on any of the well documented routes in the guidebook and/or online and judge for yourself whether these areas are suffering over-use damage. Most routes you won’t even find an old faded footpad.

The older I get the more I realise how far I’ve fallen and it’s sure easy for us aging coots, who must work to maintain last years level of fitness, to fail to recognise that something hard/extreme/sketchy/scary for us, is a stroll in the park for the youngsters. In 2019 we were backcountry ski touring in Canada and feeling pretty chuffed that we could still put in decent days, until a group of young men powered past us on the trail (ironically we were following the Joffre Lakes trail to access Mount Tszil). As the guys skinned past us chatting easily, I suddenly realised just how much slower we had become over the intervening seven years absence from the mountain world.

The Older I Get The Better I was

I am your fire and brimstone

Chasing, chasing your shadow

We’re hypocritical thinkers in the worst way

With our busted up confessionals and liars and freak shows

We’ve been vindictive and so wicked, forgive me

We’ve come to shake things up

We’re here to make things interesting

God forbid that we bring offense

When you read your sins in the album print

And honestly, this honesty has been killing me

I am your tired and burdened

Chasing, chasing your heaven

We’re clinically defective at the worst times

With our twisted up convictions and night walking

We’re the drifters and the dreamers forgive us

Mad dogs, fury, raging on with glory

Lyrics by Write This Down

1The biggest environmental impact of the new found popularity of Joffre Lakes is due to the 6 hour round trip drive from Vancouver to get to the trailhead.

Up and Down The South Coast

The hardest thing about the Hard Things project is keeping up with the blog about all the Hard Things. Saturday, I had various Hard Thing ideas rattling around in my head but opted for an early morning along the Bingie Track at Congo. This meant getting up at about 5 am as I had to be back at Congo at a reasonable hour for a meeting. My plan had been to get 16 kilometres in before about 9 am but I only made about 12 km.

National Parks has done a huge amount of work on the Bingie Track and it is in really good shape now. The section from Mullimburra Point to Grey Rocks is now very fast on a rebuilt track. I could be wrong but it seemed as if this section of track had been rerouted as previously I have always gone along all the little beaches between Grey Rocks and Mullimburra Point but I may have been off the track along that section.

Sunday’s hard thing was 38 kilometres kayaking down the coast. Another really early morning as we had arranged to meet friends at Guerilla Bay and were not sure how long it would take us to paddle down. In the end, we were made good time and arrived after about 1.5 hours of paddling. It was a fantastic morning, calm, a slow rolling southerly swell, and really clear water. We paddled over schools of fish all the way down the coast.

PC: DB

Conditions were suitable for some rock gardening so we paddled through some gauntlets around Jimmies Island and Burrewarra Point before heading over to Broulee Island for lunch. While we were onshore, a 10 to 13 knot easterly came up which really ruffled conditions at Burrewarra Point. Burrewarra Point protrudes about 1.5 kilometres out into the coastal current flow and often has interesting conditions. It was lively coming back around after lunch.

PC: DB

Our friends paddled back into Guerilla Bay while Doug and I headed north up the coast. It felt like a real slog heading north, easterly winds tend to make for lumpy, bumpy, sloppy – whatever you want to call it – conditions along that section of coast and the paddling felt slow and hard. By the time we were paddling the last five kilometres home I had convinced myself that we must be paddling into a northerly current. That would explain our easy paddle south and our harder paddle north. Turns out, perception is everything, as Doug had the GPS running and our paddle speed on both the north and south legs was very similar so my interpretation of current was actually just effort.

PC: DB

I was tired when we got home and alseep by 8.30 pm. Here’s an end mark, sometimes called a glyph, to indicate the terminus of this blog post■ Who says I can’t learn new stuff? And yes, I deliberately blew past the gliph.