October Earwigs

Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate.

On Sunday, Doug and I paddled north in the kayaks to Richmond Beach where we turned about. After tea and a short leg stretch at North Head Beach, we blasted home with a light northeasterly tail wind – the first of the summer season – barely enough to catch runners, which did not stop us trying and I was happy to see that our return pace was brisk: we covered the 6 to 7 kilometre return journey in about 40 minutes. When we landed on the beach, 21 kilometres down and home in time for lunch, Doug commented that the lactate level sprint did not feel as uncomfortable as usual. He was right, it didn’t, although I could feel my legs the next day.

PC: DB

The day before, Saturday, we had ridden the Mogo trails with a friend and her friends, a nice group of six (in total – and only one e-bike!). I had plotted a route which avoided the closed trails (there was weekend race running) but took us on a tour around the trail network, up and down, as is the nature of the Mogo trail network. It was a great little loop and I admit to some satisfaction in Doug and I being the last men standing.

October I trained a lot more intensity: I went back to my Mountain Athlete (now Mountain Tactical) roots, doing long circuit sessions with slightly lower weights but more explosive exercises. Along with that, I’ve been doing more mountain biking and much less strictly zone 2 level endurance. That’s alright for me as my aerobic threshold is pretty tight against my lactate threshold. If you’re aerobic endurance and lactate threshold are widely separated, better performance and less fatigue comes from a gradual increase in aerobic (zone 2) training with only a smattering of lactate threshold work – the classic polarised training method. Despite many days of DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness – although I’m not sure mine was delayed), October was a fun training month. Intensity is both earned and fun.

I read some good books in October. I read so many books I forget what they all are. Certainly, I loved Barry Blanchards memoir: The Calling: A Life Rocked By Mountains, although the book ended too soon and too abruptly because I know Blanchard went on to complete many more audacious climbs after the book ended. An enjoyable part of the book was reading about old friends in Canada who featured in the book and also appreciating Blanchard’s deep and abiding attachment to the mountains that he grew up among and never left. Often overshadowed by the bigger mountain ranges of the world, Blanchard recognised early that world class adventure could be had close at hand in the Canadian Rockies if only a climber could dream big enough.

Bad News: How Woke Media is Undermining Democracy by Batya Unger-Sargon is a timely book as the vocal woke media continues to progress the victim-oppressor narrative. Before you close this blog in disgust, recognise that Unger-Sargon is on the true left of the political spectrum and very much concerned with “talking truth to power” – that old adage that used to be the mantra of journalists before journalists became propaganda arms of the government.

Liberal/progressive white women are, apparently, afflicted with more mental dysphoria than other groups. Could it be that a world view circumscribed by victims and oppressors is by nature pretty grim? Victims, by definition, are powerless, and, when there are so many different and over-lapping characteristics which classify the victim class, almost everyone becomes a victim. No sensible person can argue that oppressors and victims exist. But that does not make intersectionality theory logical, sensible or even useful, because once you embrace the idea, the oppressed class simply shifts. Ideas, are like ticks, almost impossible to remove.

Drinking Poison in the Jungle

 It’s a fine line between salvation and drinking poison in the jungle. Gym Jones.

I often wonder when it started: the “othering” of the other side. The Covid saga bears a lot of responsibility, I think, because it is never a good idea to treat your fellow humans as vectors of disease. Some people are truly evil, but few indeed, and most folk want only a few things from life: a home, friends, family, a decent standard of living, the ability to pass through both life and death with dignity, the option to choose religion or atheism, food and water. Humans don’t particularly need safety, in fact, there’s evidence we thrive under difficulty; we certainly do not need fake protections from other people’s beliefs and the humble and hubris free among us understand that we can never truly know the circumstances of other people’s lives.

Everyone thinks that media, particularly legacy media (in Australia that means Fairfax, the ABC, the Murdoch dynasty) exist to share the news, but in reality, today’s media is driven pretty much entirely by clicks, and clicks are driven by division and outrage, which is why virtually every news story you see (even on the oft-assumed to be non-partisan ABC) features headlines which are both absurd and outrageous. Middle of the road and balanced centrist views do not deliver engagement.

The best book I’ve read about this is written by comic artist Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert) and has the uninspiring title: Loser Think: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America. I walked past this book at my local library a dozen times before I borrowed it, read it, absorbed it and changed my relationship with media overnight.

It is discouraging to see the educated elite of our country perpetuating division and hate under the guise of empathy, and I simply do not understand how these folks can feel comfortable in their own skins with public comments such as this (not one of the worst):

“Trump and all his supporters are truly horrific – the most deplorable group of people on earth.”

It’s a bold statement, a hateful statement, and, at the end of the day, the kind of statement – and attitude – that will deliver the election to Trump because there is not a human on earth who responds positively to being denigrated and abused.

Weakness Leaving The Body

It was vertigo. A heady, insuperable longing to fall. We might also call vertigo the intoxication of the weak. Aware of his weakness, a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Milan Kundera.

Is vertigo the fear of falling or the desire to fall? I’m speeding along the new Mogo trails on my mountain bike feeling that almost overwhelming desire to go faster and faster until I crash. That’s mountain biking, the play between how fast you can go and how fast you should go. I heard about another casualty of the new trails yesterday – broken ribs and a broken collar bone – another old person like me tugged along by the pull of gravity mixed with desire.

My big goal is to ride 1000 metres of vertical in a day. That’s not really a big goal as I’ve hit the mid 700’s without really trying; but I’m leaving my 1000 metre goal for summer when it is too hot to rock climb and too busy to travel.

Mountain biking is a good sport for old people. It’s like that sticker on cars “objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” Obstacles and challenges come up quickly when you are mountain biking which means you have to react just as quickly and, as we age, our reaction times get longer and longer; some because of a reduction in fast twitch fibres, some because we stop doing things which require fast reactions.

There’s also the riding uphill which is a good leg and lung workout (no E bikes), and unlike running or walking (where you can slow down but still move uphill), to keep the bicycle moving you must go at pace uphill. An afternoon on the trails can become an interval workout. That’s the other thing we lose as we age, the ability to push your lactate threshold out. Without specific training, older folks get good at endurance and poor at power and strength, which is why so many older folks become MAMILS (or the female equivalent), though women seem to just drop out altogether.

Mountain biking is the closest I’ve found to backcountry skiing in Australia. “Earning your turns” we used to call backcountry skiing back in the old days when people still earned their turns. Most of a big day out in the backcountry was spent skiing uphill breaking trail through fresh powder. It might take an hour to gain 300 metres which was descended in the blissful joy of powder turns in about three minutes. Mountain biking is like that, most of the time I’m riding uphill but, there are descents where the bike and I float down buoyed by gravity. Weakness leaves the body the moment you decide to enjoy the uphill as much as the downhill.

Six Things

Here is a list of six things that I learnt recently while working towards my sea guide qualification:

1. The trip should be about the group having a good time not necessarily about your personal goals If you screen participants before the trip the likelihood of your personal goals coinciding with group goals increases. In fact, you can plan for that.
2. Maintaining situational awareness is imperative, particularly when hazards are flipped over.
3. Keep instructions concise, clear and to the point.
4. Avoid excessive instructions and/or long monologues because when you really need the group to pay attention they won’t be listening.
5. Build in appropriate safety margins by considering the worst thing that could happen. For example if someone capsizes right beside a bommie, reef, headland etc., do you have sufficient distance to perform a rescue or will you have to first tow them out of danger?
6. Consider drift when rafting the group up. This applies to quick raft ups for “just in time” briefings and longer raft-ups where you want the group to say in one location. Transits help with this.

But What Weather?

After Sunday’s paddle, I got interested in the minutia of weather forecasts and all the varieties available to the sea kayaker. First, I got the standard BOM marine forecast for my area which spans Ulladulla in the north to Montague Island in the south. Here it is. After that, I collected the MetEye forecasts for the same area which are produced in three hourly increments. You can see all of these as well. There was very little happening on MetEye at 8 am so the first image is 11 am, then 2 pm then 5 pm. All paddlers should be off the water by 5 pm!

Finally, I went to Willy Weather and started pulling up forecasts scattered through the region. This is where things got both interesting and perplexing. Starting in the north of the region at Ulladulla, Willy Weather actually has a drop down list of seven different Ulladulla locations ranging from Ulladulla off-shore to Ulladulla boat ramp. This is clearly a case of precision without accuracy.

Further south, things get even weirder. I’ve pulled both the Meringo and Congo forecasts. These two beach side communities are four kilometres apart. At Congo, the southerly wind comes in at 20 knots, while at Meringo the maximum southerly wind is 11 knots. Finally, to Narooma near the southern end of the BOM marine forecast. Willy Weather offers no less than 10 different options for Narooma! I chose Narooma Beach but also looked at both Narooma Offshore and Montague Island. As might be expected winds peaked at 20 knots for both offshore locations (they were the same) while at Narooma Beach winds peaked at around 13 knots.

What to make of all this? The most obvious first. If a paddler is using Willy Weather, the exact location chosen matters and varies widely. If I used one of the off-shore forecasts, I would be planning for winds up to 20 knots, while my paddling buddy – who chose Narooma Beach is prepared for 10 knots. There is a world of difference between paddling in 10 knots and 20 knots and there are a lot of paddlers out there who will struggle mightily in 20 knots. Drive your car at 40 kilometres an hour and stick your head out the window and imagine that wind blowing at you while paddling. This could well explain my perplexity when I’m paddling with folks who report a widely different forecast to my own. When I think back to all the times I’ve rocked up with a very different forecast to my paddling partners, when questioned, these paddlers always report using Willy Weather. But which Willy? Who knows? On a short stretch of the NSW south coast there are over 100 options and varying degrees of congruence between those options.

It’s interesting as well to compare the BOM marine forecast with MetEye. I tend to think of MetEye as a finer grained forecast than the broad brush painted by the BOM forecast. Inshore winds on MetEye range from 10 to 15 knots to 15 to 20 knots. That fits well with the BOM marine forecast and a sensible paddler would go out prepared for up to 20 knots of wind. Prudent outdoor adventurers (in any sport) plan for the worst but hope for the best.

But look at MetEye at 2 pm, there’s a half dozen tiles that are green (15 to 20 knots) among a sea (no pun intended) of blue tiles (10 to 15 knots). Some folks might look at this and think that if they are at Burrewarra Point at 2 pm the wind will be, at most 15 knots, while if they are at the Tollgate Islands or even North Head, the wind will hit 20 knots. Conversely, staying near Tuross Head, only 5 knots of wind will be encountered. This is false precision and an artefact of the way MetEye forecasts are presented. When I see this kind of discrepancy, I ignore the small details and assume that, in the afternoon, the NW wind will be anywhere between 15 and 20 knots. With that assumption I am pretty much covered in terms of preparation.

Finally, the very last image is from Windy. This application seems rarely used by sea kayakers but I think it’s the best. The presentation allows much better visualisation of the weather patterns, there are four different models to choose from and you can easily compare the different models. If all the models are in agreement, you can feel more confidence in the forecast, while if they are discrepant you should assume uncertainty.

What to make of all this? Well, that’s up to you. I’ll continue using everything except Willy Weather for all the reasons explicated above.

My Observation Beats Your Forecast

If one person says it’s raining and another says it’s not raining then the journalist should look out the window and report the truth. Unknown.

Stupidly, I had packed my lovely Jantex wing blade away in my front hatch instead of strapping it to the back deck. I do this simply to avoid washing the paddle after each trip. You might think that if the paddle has simply sat on the back deck unused it won’t need washing with fresh water, but you’d be wrong because salt gradually gets encrusted on the shaft and you end up with a paddle that will not go together when you need it most. But, if you need your spare paddle, what good is it stored away in a day hatch?

This is not the first time I have wanted to switch paddles on the water and been prevented from doing so easily because my spare paddle is safely stored below the hatch. You’d think I’d learn! One November day on a trip across to North Head with Quick Nick, I was, of course, paddling with my wing blade while my flat blade was safely stowed away in a dry hatch, but the adjustment on my wing blade was loose (we thought it was loose but it turns out when more closely examined at home, the joiner had actually worn out and I needed a new one) which meant the two halves of my paddle spun about as I was paddling resulting in many, many missed strokes where missing strokes was not only very slow but almost capsize material. I was not a happy paddler and I got a lecture from Quick Nick about having my spare paddle accessible.

My HR after switching to my wing blade

This time, I wanted to switch from my flat blade to my wing blade because the wind was getting up and I’m much more efficient in windy conditions with a wing blade. Somehow, despite the forecast I seemed to be the only person expecting windy conditions. Dan John has an expression “what do YOU mean by XYZ?” and I always think about that when among a group of three or four people there are three or four widely varying forecasts. It seems like only one person can be right; there should be only one forecast, but a lot of people use apps (such as Willy Weather) which pull their forecast from a variety of secondary sources.

Willy Weather forecast, 10 knots max

Willy Weather for North Head for example (an app that paddlers commonly use but which I make no bones about NOT liking), claims to use BOM data for its wind forecast, which is inexplicable to me because the Willy Weather wind forecast rarely matches the BOM marine forecast. This makes me think there is some algorithm in the app which adjusts the forecast. I dislike these algorithms (common as they are) because it’s impossible to know what the algorithm is and it turns out that humans are much better at this kind of thing than machines. Humans ARE pattern recognition machines, it’s how we evolved.

On this day, for example, the BOM forecast is shown above. The synopsis – a feature of the weather forecast which is surprisingly hard to get in Australia – predicts cold fronts and fresh westerly winds. Around Batemans Bay, westerly winds can be fresh indeed as they tend to funnel down the Clyde River Valley and conditions can get surprisingly rough where wind and tide collide. The BOM marine forecast has an increasing sea, and, off-shore (a flexible definition at best) winds up to 20 knots. Willy Weather predicts winds to just around 10 knots from the west. Twenty knots might only be twice 10 knots, but for the paddler, the effect is more than doubled as making progress into a 20 knot headwind – offshore no less – while not nearly impossible, takes some effort. I admit to being always leery of off-shore winds as the margin for error shrinks rapidly.

Weather forecasts aside, I think my pattern recognition software must have been firing because I was expecting it to get windy. I even tried to get one of the paddlers to make a bet with me but he refused. I love betting on these things. It’s my downfall. Captain Bivouac once took away all my hard earned Bivouac Points when I lost a bet with him while we were out on an eight day ski traverse. I had managed to amass several hundred Bivouac Points which would have kept my site membership active for decades and I lost them all in one rash bet! But back to the weather around Batemans Bay. Sunday was forecast to be at least 10 degrees hotter than Saturday. Whenever the air temperature changes by 10 or so degrees between one day and the next (hot or cold), we have windy conditions. It makes sense, the hot air has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is far enough away that you can lay money on windy conditions. That is, if you can coerce someone into betting with you.

Gnarly Climber Dude Style Writing

I ran around the Dam Loop this morning. There was one bicyclist: a true aficionado of analog. Old school bike on an old school trail and he was rocking it. When I got to the Dam wall, there was a big gaggle of blokes chatting but not riding. What is the correct collective for a group of males? I jogged past, they eventually rode past, at the far end of the Dam, I passed them yet again chatting, perhaps a chorus of males? In any event, there were a lot of fancy bikes, fancy helmets, fancy shoes, fancy everything, not an analog to be seen. Apparently, it’s possible to spend $22,000 on an electric bike. $22K!

Humans seem to have this innate desire to increase complexity and gear requirements beyond the bounds of reason. Take endurance sports, the easiest and most basic of sports to master. Do roughly 80% of your volume at your aerobic pace, the remaining 20% is sprints, threshold, and intensity work. Eat protein, drink water, sleep. Boom, 98% of your results are right there. So simple, so cheap, so easy. Instead, endurance athletes consume nutty amounts of refined sugar individually wrapped in annoying little wasteful packets, drink slurries of goo, strap their legs into air compressor powered sleeves, breathe hyperbaric oxygen, and have special running packs and shoes, even sunglasses.

I am currently delving into the ultimate analog experience which is reading Barry Blanchard’s autobiographical book: The Calling: A Life Rocked By Mountains. Blanch, or Bubba as he came to be known, is a few years older than me, and I would often see him out guiding groups of novices up on the Wapta Icefields. One of the world’s leading alpinists in his day, known for putting up bold ascents in the purest style on some of the world’s largest alpine faces, Bubba was both an outstanding climber and every-man. Friendly and welcoming to every outdoor adventurer he ever encountered, a world class climber with zero ego. An older, now wiser, but no less rash as a youth, Marc Andre LeClerc.

It’s an engrossing read and the story of an extraordinary life. Blanchard truly knew the meaning of passion. With equipment and clothing prehistoric by modern standards, Blanch pushed his personal boundaries from his very first climbing days, from climbing Takkakaw Falls in winter, in a single day, approached on rental skis with ice axes wrapped in rubber inner tubes, and only a handful of ice screws to spending a night stuck in the polished and ultimately unprotectable chimneys of Mount Yamnuska. At the time, of his Takkakaw Falls climb he had less than a half-dozen ice climbs under his crampon points. By the time he was in his early twenties, he had endured multiple unplanned bivouacs under the harshest conditions, including a mid-winter night over 11,000 feet after climbing the classic and dangerous route Slipstream on the east face of Snow Dome in the Canadian Rockies. There is no doubt, Blanchard’s passion involved enormous suffering.

The irony of the alpinist versus the ultra-runner is that the alpinist works several times as hard and consumes only what he can carry along, often running out of food long before the epic is over, while the ultra-runner, who has honed their efficiency consumes calories like a fat lady at an all you can eat buffet.

I’ll close with the two one star reviews on Amazon, because one star reviews are always a belly full of laughs. And yeah, when shit gets real out in the mountains people use the f word!

I usually like these adventure books but this was not good literature. I stopped reading after a few pages.

This could have been a much better book if he had stuck with his meaningful and introspective parts: "each of us were at work on Monday morning, swollen hands, faces bloated and sunbaked, tired feet labouring to gain stairs, but hearts as light as feathers." Instead, half the book was laced with f--- this, and f---that. I guess this is meant to appeal to gnarly climber dude style writing, but I found it totally unnecessary and off-putting.