Off to Iceland

30/09/2018 by Paul

Tuesday night I am flying to Iceland with my oldest daughter, Eva, to spend a week traveling, hiking, running, and photographing in Iceland.

The last time I went to Iceland I was alone and when I arrived (in the end of March) several feet of snow had fallen, making my initial idea of doing a lot of trail running not possible.

Also, last time I still was shooting with Canon cameras—which I had used exclusively since my first camera (a Canon EOS 10s film camera) in the late 1980[s. Although the EOS 1Ds Mark III I was using in my last trip functioned wonderfully, it was a tank of a camera, and the high ISO performance was not very good. A few years ago, after reading about the Fuji mirrorless cameras, I purchased a Fuji x100T and was so impressed by the image quality and the compactness of the camera, that I sold all my Canon camera gear and switched completely to Fuji. These cameras are without a doubt, the best camera’s I’ve ever used, and the image quality is far better than my previous “full frame” Canon camera.

Here’s the kit that I am taking to Iceland: An X100F with the wide angle conversion lens, and XPro2 with 14mm, 23 mm, 35 mm, 50mm, and 56 mm lenses, Also (not pictured) a monopod and a tripod, and 5 extra batteries.

Now I have to finish grading a pile of physics exams, write a Statistical Physics lecture, and then I can enjoy traveling around Iceland with my daughter.

January Thaw, Peaks Island, Maine

04/02/2018 by Paul

Peaks Island has a wonderful reserve of conserved land. After a harsh arctic blast, we had several days well above freezing in January 2018, and a ground hugging fog made for a nice even lighting.:

Late Autumn Storm, Peaks Island, ME

24/12/2017 by Paul

Late Autumn Storm, Peaks Island, Maine

Partial Pemi Loop, NH

09/08/2015 by Paul

Here are some photographs from a partial Pemigewasset Loop that my wife and I hiked this 7-8 August.
We hiked the loop in a counter-clockwise direction from Lincoln Woods trailhead, over Bondcliff, Mt. Bond,
Mt. Guyot, South Twin Mtn, Garfield, Mt. Lafayette, Mt. Lincoln, and exiting
down Falling Waters Trail from Little Haystack Mountain.
25 miles, 17 Hours in two days.

The first (roughly) 10km is pretty flat, on an old rail bed, and after a long but easy vertical kilometer, you emerge onto Bondcliff, In my head, I think of them as the Bond Cliffs, as they are on the shoulder of Mt. Bond, and therefore, I anthropomorphically ascribe ownership
of the cliffs to the body of Mt. Bond…in any case, here’s my wife in the classic cliche Bondcliff shot, but it’s an amazing spot everytime I go to it.

Standing out on the far rock is almost sure to make one take pause (it always totally terrifies me), and most people will not stand closer than about 1m from the edge.

View from the Bondcliff “plank” ; from the hiker’s perspective, it’s not clear whether the far rock is held up by anything, and even though you know it is, there’s a part of the brain that doesn’t really trust the visual observation. I mean, one of these years, it will fall…

From Bondcliff, its uphill to Mt. Bond (elev 1,432 m), and then to Mt. Guyot (1,396 m), and then a 3 km walk through the woods to South Twin Mountain (1,494 m). From there, its a short but STEEP downhill to Galehead Hut, and then a slow but steady and then steep climb to Mt. Garfield (1,372 m). At the summit of Mt. Garfield there are panoramic views from an old fire tower’s foundation (from WhiteMountainHistory.org)

The 1938 Hurricane blew down thousands of acres of forest and many sections of the White Mountain National Forest were closed to public use because of the high fire hazard. Several new lookouts, guard stations, trails and roads were constructed by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) at this time. The concrete foundation of the lookout on the summit of Mount Garfield is a stark reminder of that period. (Incidentally the outhouse for the Garfield Lookout is still standing and is a short distance north of the summit hidden by balsam fir trees. )

View of Owl’s Head and the Franconia Range from the summit of Mt. Garfield.

From here, it was several kilometers unti the summit of Mt Lafayette (1,603.2 m) became visible.

First clear view of the Mt. Lafayette summit after emerging from the forested ridge connecting Mt. Garfield and Mt. Lafayette. Note the inherent fashionability of this NH hiker on his way to the summit.

Stunning views from the summit:

The view looking south along the Franconia Ridge from the summit of Mt. Lafayette.

And then, a down and up to Mt. Lincoln before a final descent/ascent to Little Haystack:

Descending Mt. Lincoln toward Little Haystack Mtn.

All in all, a great hike in perfect weather conditions over two days — a rarity in the White Mountains!

Iceland, Post #1

01/04/2015 by Paul

I just returned from my first ever visit to Iceland, a trip I’ve been wanting to take for many years. I had a mixed mission to photograph and run up as many mountains & volcanoes as possible. But, alas, the weather conspired to make real running problematic at best. A day or two prior to my arrival, a blizzard deposited a snow all over the mountains and backroads of southern Iceland, making travel to trailheads via ordinary 4wd not possible.

Of course, if you had one of these, you’d be all set:

This is the vehicle you need to get around the backcountry in Iceland.

As it was, I had to drive 25 km on supposed main roads to get to the cottage I rented, and the wind had already begun drifting over sections of the road. When I took the side “road” to the cottage, I got stuck off the road, and had to dig out the snow from under the truck with my mittened hands. Finally I made it to the “R50” cottage (just a name, not an insulation value)—it had a nice view of Hekla:

This is the little cottage “R50” that I rented. Cheaper than the car rental, and a great view of Hekla about 20 km away. It’s super hard to gauge distance without trees as a reference. (Note the two trees attempting to grow in the from of the cottage.)

The hill on the left looks to be the same height as Hekla, but it’s not; as you can see in the view from a different vantage point:

Hekla is a famous volcano in Iceland (due to erupt soon supposedly)—it the 1500 m peak in the center. Since I couldn’t even hope to make it to the trailhead via car, and because I did not bring skis, it was too far given the snow to do in one day. As it was, I was post-holing through thigh high snow just to summit the hill on the left.

My first day, I went for a nice 12km run to explore the first hill; it was obvious that running shoes would be iffy at best due to the ice, snow and steepness as one approached the summit, so I resolved to come back in a day or two with my crampons and ice axe. More about that in another post.

On my second day, I ended up having the good fortune to have picked up two hitchhikers from Reykjavik University—they were headed to Seljavallalaug — a small pool built into the mountainside of the mountains by Eyjafjallajökull (that’s the volcano that erupted in 2010), a fifteen-minute walk (over rocky streams and under basalt turrets) off the end of road 242. I’d have not found this pool if they had not been hitching a ride when I drove by. Here’s the pool:

Nice thermal-fed pool built in the 1920’s. I gave a couple of hitchhiking students from Reykjavik a ride here, and they told me that when Eyjafjallajökull erupted, this pool was filled with volcanic ash, and it was dug out (by hand?) in order to restore it to use.

and here’s a picture of steaming hot water emerging from the mountainside:

You can see steaming hot water emerging from the mountainside, and the colorful green slime that grown in the scalding hot water.

On the way back to the “ring road” (rt. 1), I came by this house, and made my favorite image of my trip (click any image to view it larger):

House placed at a somewhat precarious location at the base of a steep slope.

A few things I’ve learned about traveling to Iceland: (1) if you come in March or April, bring SkiMo gear (this is an awesome place to ski tour, and sometimes, the only way to cover the distances over snow needed to reach trailheads, (2) don’t even think about seeing the whole island in a week. You need time, and the weather may not always cooperate, (3) Iceland’s weather is like that in the mountains of New Hampshire or Maine, it can be very windy and significantly colder than at the lower elevations.

Ice, Sun dogs and Parhelic Circle

19/02/2015 by Paul

It’s been cold this February in Maine—by local accounts, we’ve had more ice in Portland Harbor than has been seen in decades, and the Coast Guard has been using it’s ice breaking ship to keep the harbor navigable. However, “navigable” is relative; smaller boats have not been able to escape the harbor due to the ice buildup, which has now even reached Peaks Island:

View looking north along western edge of Peaks Island.

The cold weather means that small animals (such as a recently sighted mink) can even make the trek from Peaks Island to neighboring House Island (mink not in this photo):

View from Peaks Island to House Island at -20 C.

Just the other day (Feb 16, 2015), on a frigid walk around the island with my daughter, we spotted a beautiful sun dog—an optical phenomenon caused by reflection & refraction through ice crystals in the atmosphere. The two opposite rainbow arcs are formed when the light refracts through a minimum deviation of 22 degrees:

Sundog from back shore of Peaks Island, ME.

Sometimes, but apparently much more rarely, one can see a parhelic circle extending from either sundog part way around the sky. On this morning, the arc extended more than half way around the sky, and I took this panoramic image before my iphone6+ battery totally tanked in the -18 C temperatures:

Parhelic Circle extending from a sun dog on Feb 16, 2015 on Peaks Island, ME

Portland harbor, Maine

11/02/2015 by Paul

After a long snowless stretch this winter, Portland Maine has now received over 6 feet of snow, and has been in a deep freeze for some time. This morning Portland Harbor was flooded with ice, and I made this image from the Casco Bay Lines Ferry to Peaks Island.

Track Meet at Scarborough Maine

21/05/2014 by Paul

Now that I’ve finished teaching the Spring Semester and am into summer school, I was able to go to my oldest daughter’s track meet, which was held in Scarborough, ME. It was a gorgeous day, not too cold, not too hot.

A lot of standing around occurs as events are run by grade level, so I spent my time photographing mostly students from King Middle School. It’s way more interesting to photograph track events now that I feel like I consider myself a runner at this point. The long jump was especially interesting, as the camera affords one a glimpse of each runner’s form in a few thousands of a second that the eye has no chance of seeing.

Long jump—nice form!

100 Meter

Boys 100 m

My Daughter in the long jump.

More photos are posted at my google+ page

Mt. Madison, White Mountains, NH

05/05/2014 by Paul

It’s a little early in the season for proper trail running in the White Mountains,
but I decided to try for a Presidential Traverse this past weekend.

(The Fastest Known Time (FKT) was set last September by Ben Nephew in a crazy time of
4h 34min; a time I have no hope of achieving)

In any case, I started at 5 am with a breakfast of 4 eggs, sour cream, bacon, and a coffee with heavy cream.
I then ran to the dock to catch the 6:15 ferry off the island.

Gear from my run (Yaktrax in pack). Shoes are MT110 by New Balance.

Gear from my run (Yaktrax in pack). Shoes are the excellent New Balance MT110’s.

Then, it was a 2.5 hour drive to Pinkham Notch, and after a quick talk with the AMC about weather and trail conditions, I headed off to the Appalachia trailhead. On the way, there was a nice view of the Presidential range from the Mt. Washington Auto Road:

View of the Presidential Range from Rt. 16, just north of Pinkham Notch.

Finally, I started from the Appalachia Trailhead at 9:40 am. That’s really too late a start (IMHO) for a Presi-traverse, but here I was, finally ready to go:

Start of the traverse attempt…took Valley Way to Madison Hut.

The first 3 km were pretty straightforward running—okay, that’s really not quite true, because the average grade from the trailhead to the summit of Mt. Madison is 20% (about double that of the UTMB). But there was good footing and no snow. However, around 3km, the trail turned to serious amount of snow and ice which continued until Madison Hut. To top it off, every other step would involve post-holing, and it was plain slow going. There were even a few frozen waterfall sections (which would have been impossible without my Yaktrax)—just to make things more fun. I made it to Madison Hut in about 2 h 17m:

Madison Hut and Mt. Adams. 3 May 2014

Now it was much easier going (snow-wise anyway) and I made it to the summit of Mt. Madison in 2h 49m.

View from the summit of Mt. Adams. Mt. Washington on far left, Mt. Adams dead center. The weather starting to look sour now.

View from the summit of Mt. Adams. Mt. Washington on far left, Mt. Adams dead center. The weather began to deteriorate by this point, with increasing wind and visible precipitation approaching in the distance.

From the summit of Mt. Madison, it was clear that the weather was changing for the worse (as predicted), and I didn’t want to summit Mt. Adams with the potential of a thunderstorm. I therefore headed south along the Gulfside Trail to Thunderstorm Junction, at which point I could re-assess the weather and either summit Adams and continue, or bail down the Spur Trail with a stop at Crag Camp.

Unfortunately, as soon as I descended Mt. Madison and arrived back at Madison Hut, I began having cramps in my quads that forced me to stop and stretch. This happened to me back in November on a 35 km run, and it eventually went away. But this time, the combination of iffy weather (forecast to definitely get worse) and persistent cramps made the decision to abandon the traverse pretty easy.

Well, at least the decision was straightforward. The descent on the spur trail was a blast through a snowfield by Thunderstorm Junction, but then turned into a slow post-holing and icy descent on a super steep ice covered Spur Trail down to Crag Camp. By the time I arrived hail had begun in earnest, and I was psyched to have a respite from the weather. You can see the sleet/hail beginning to fall on the porch of Crag Camp:

View of Mt Adams (in distance) and Mt Adams (in the clouds now) shortly after arrival – you can see sleet/hail on the deck.

After taking a rest and getting out my pack cover and proper raincoat, I headed out down the Spur Trail. I figured I had about 300-400 meters of ice and snow, and eked my way down another long steep icy-snowy-ending-on-slushy trail. Finally, after making it to the Amphibranch, I could run the rest of the way to the trailhead. This last section was super fun, and was in fact the best running of the whole day. Strangely, the cramping was really not bothering me anymore.

By the way, there’s a ~~great~~ excellent article about cramping over at iRunFar. You should read it. Seriously, it’s quite interesting. I especially like the part about how apparently the taste of pickle juice on the tongue somehow convinces the brain to stop the cramping in your leg. See. I told you that you need to read the article.

So, now it’s two days later and my quads are still sore. Funny though, I can tell they’ll be fine in a day or so, and I’m already psyched to get out for another run. Next time maybe I’ll try something more runnable until all the snow is gone.

Sacred & Profane 2013

20/10/2013 by Paul

This past Saturday (19 October) was the 18th celebration of the “Sacred and Profane”, and art festival that takes place just down the road from my house on Peaks Island. It takes place at Battery Steele (See the USM Free Press article. Although I lived on Peaks Island 11 years ago, yesterday’s event was my first time attending. The weather was wonderful, and the venue at Battery Steele (and old WWII concrete bunker) was totally transformed and an enormous amount of effort went into cleaning up Battery Steele, and creating all the art installations.

Of course, Battery Steele is dark as hell (imagine a 200 meter long massive tunnel with 1 meter thick reinforced concrete walls and multiple side rooms and you get the picture), so almost all the photos inside were handheld at iso 3200. All images were taken with a 50mm f/1.4 lens.

Before entering, I was greeted by
some slightly surreal costumed folk (that’s an baby in the giraffe (?) suit; click on images for an enlargement):

and inside, there were performance art/acrobatics:

To darkly-hooded keyboard musicians:

and, my favorite performance piece that really needed to be experienced, reduced here to merely a photograph:

There were also wonderful sculptures that utilized the darkness and engineered lighting to wonderful effect:

All in all, a celebration not to be missed. I can hardly wait till next year.

(In the meantime, I have more images made into a video that I would be happy to send you a link to if you are interested. )

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