Mountain Lions and Bears
Out on the bike again, and because I am deeply in need of a break, I am taking the opportunity to update y'all from the comfort of Starbucks with an iced coffee by my side!
A couple of weekends ago, Jen and I, along with another couple of friends headed over to Alberquerque, New Mexico. We arrived late Thursday evening, and hopped in our rental car which, in common with most other American rentals that I have had the misfortune to encounter, had the wheels attached to the chassis by means of a water bed. Luckily, the roads in this part of the world are fairly straight and wide, so by 2am we found ourselves north of Durango, Colorado, safely installed in a ski condo, with only some superficial scratches on the car, and having visited the wrong side of the road but a few times.
Friday morning came around, and we got our first view of the pine forest and mountains that we were in the middle of. It's times like this that I really appreciate the alternate Fridays off; I mean less than 12 hours prior we were in Houston, now almost 1000 miles away.
We headed off up the Million Dollar Highway, so called because it cost one million bucks a mile to build. An alternative explanation is that it takes you through many old mining towns, and past old mines. I like it either way. Our first stop was Molas Lake, just south of Silverton. This was the campsite that I had stayed at whilst doing my geological mapping project back in the days of Liverpool uni. We reserved ourselves a camping spot for the next two nights, and then went to stock up on lunch materials for our planned afternoon stroll.
Unusually, this walk begins downhill. It wasn't a gentle slope either, a pleasant walk through the alpine meadows at 10,500 feet gives way to a 1,600 foot decent into the precipitous Animas Canyon along the Colorado Trail. The route gives some spectacular views of the mountains, some topping out at over fourteen thousand feet, and the Animas river far below. The Durango - Silverton Narrow Guage Railroad runs along the river at the bottom of the canyon. We arrived at the bottom of the canyon just in time to get up close and personal with one of the trains; its very cool to stand a metre away from the tracks, in a wilderness area with a steam locomotive barreling towards you! We recharged with some cereal bars, and slowly began the walk back to camp. Suddenly the canyon looked much bigger than it had done on the way down! To make matters worse, the altitude really let's you know who's boss. 10,000 is a long way up.
That evening we popped into Silverton for a beer and a bite to eat, before returning to the campsite. Just as we were at the tents, a rather large thunderstorm hit, thwarting our plan to have a campfire. It was as noisy as hell, but great to be warm and snug in a tent, listening to the rain and thunder, having violet circles in your eyes from the lightning, and being in one of the most beautiful places on the planet.
Saturday morning dawned milky blue, with a light mist that was burning off as we breakfasted in Silverton's Brown Bear Café. We drove up to Andrews Lake and set off on another route that I'd found in the past whilst doing my mapping of the area. We took the crater lake trail up a series of fairly civilised switchbacks, before cutting off left, walking over limestone and sandstone beds and into an alpine meadow where we took a break as we watched marmots playing on the sunny rocks.
After some yomping through the flattish meadows, the trail took a turn for the more vertical, and proceeded up the quartzite slabs overlooked by the 13,077 feet of Snowdon Peak. The climb took us over the 12,000 foot contour, an altitude at which interestingly I can fly a plane over only for a maximum of 30 minutes without supplemental oxygen. We passed some snow patches left from the previous winter, and through stunted forests and topped out by crossing a saddle on a ridge into a land of wildflowers and shallow alpine lakes. This made for a good lunch stop, and yours truly took a quick dip in the water, which, for the record, was very, very, very, veryvery cold. Did I mention it was chilly?
We were chased downhill by rather black looking clouds through thick forests and pink quartzite boulders, until we picked up the crater lake trail that took us back to the car. Jen by this point was struggling due to the rather mental decision to go hiking without an insole in ONE of her shoes. Apparently it was eaten by the dog. As you can imagine, this caused a little bit of an imbalance, and pretty much ruined her ankle. Doh!
EDIT @ 9pm: Jen has just asked me to point out that she is not physically inferior in any way (and that is wasn't nice of me to imply that), it was merely an "equipment malfunction" that caused the problem! I'd like to take this opportunity to say that I was very impressed with the resilience exhibited, and if it were me, I would have lain down on the ground and refused to take another step until the helicopter arrived.
We rewarded ourselves with a decidedly mediocre meal at the Pickle Barrel, again in Silverton, avoided a bit of drizzle by having a sunset photo opportunity at Molas Pass, and retired to the tents to do the campfire thing. We managed to get the wet wood burning quite efficiently, it turns out a bag of charcoal and a block of firestarters works a treat.
On Sunday, we scarpered earlyish, and drove down the 50 miles to Durango, where we stocked up with coffee and pastries for breakfast. Destination for the day was Santa Fe, back in the state of New Mexico. We wound our way there the long way, made slightly longer thanks to the so called Hertz NeverLost GPS (subsequently christened 'bitch'!) whom we had clearly confounded by taking it to a place with no roads that it knew about.
The others picked up a car in Santa Fe, as rather stupidly they had to head back to Albuquerque to catch a flight for work on Monday, but we all had chance for a quick walk around the pueblo and a bite to eat. Jen and I took the "low road" to Taos which, after passing through the crappiest town in the USA, turned in to a spectacular drive through red canyons lit by a hot sun that was also illuminating huge thunderstorms ahead of us. We thought the distant thunder sounded like rocks hitting the windshield, until it turned out that it was rocks hitting the windshield that sounded like rocks hitting the windshield. Unfortunately, one left a 5cm impact star as a memento.
It was a thundery Taos that greeted us that Sunday evening, and we went directly to the Cottonwood Inn, a simply stunning B&B that I'd found for the night. On the Taos ski valley road, it was excellently located for a little evening stroll and some further sunset photos high up by the ski lifts.
If you're ever in Taos, stay at this place! The owners, Shantel and Brantly, are ex Houstonites, and had the good sense to get out of the oil patch and head for the mountains. This tells you all you need to know about them! The building itself is a beautiful Adobe home, with stunning gardens where breakfast was served in the morning.
We had chance on Monday for a walk around Taos, and took the high road back towards Santa Fe and on to Albuquerque for the return flight home to Houston.
We were out of the airport by 11pm, and home shortly after. A great weekend, with a lot packed in to four days. Carpe Diem!
Oh and no, we didn't see any bears or mountain lions.
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Labels: colorado, New Mexico, Travel
Summer in Houston
Well, summer is well and truly here now, but we've had no hurricane scares yet this season. We got dumped on with a lot of rain for three days or so as hurricane dolly came onshore way down on the Texas / Mexico border, but not much wind up here.
I have taken to riding my bike a bit more often, braving the 100 F temperatures and the hummer drivers. Today I made it as far as Starbucks where I succumbed to a large iced coffee for my efforts.
Last night I went to "white linen night" in the heights. The houston heights is one of the more close in suburbs, and is a fairly old neighbourhood that is undergoing somewhat of a revival. Last night was great; almost like living in Austin, with hundreds of people out on the streets, bands playing on the pavement and all the shops open until late. A great atmosphere.
Went for breakfast this morning to a little café on 6th Street and Yale. 2 eggs over easy, wheat toast and bacon. Coffee of course, and an OJ. Got rid of the slight headache which was acting as a reminder of the night before. Another entire bottle of pimms gone. And I can't buy another because its Sunday. They call this the land of the free...
Oh, I forgot to mention that we went to see "Not the Messiah" with the Houston symphony and Eric Idle at Jones Hall last month. Very funny. And of course very silly. Basically an oratorio based on the Life of Brian movie. John DuPrez was conducting, and there were bagpipers, and even a sheep. When you see the words "and a sheep" in the promo material for a production at a symphony hall, you kinda have to buy a ticket or two.
Signing off now. Gotta figure out what outdoory stuff I can justify buying for a trip up to new Mexico and Colorado next weekend.
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Vote for Obama
I went to see Eddie Izzard at Jones Hall, downtown this week. He's in the middle of a US tour at the moment, and the place was packed for both of the Houston dates.
He was great, very very funny as expected, and provided a no holds barred approach to presenting his views on the election, and religion, two topics of conversation that you are best to avoid in republican Texas!
--
Sam Clayton
www.samclayton.net
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry.
The Great and the Good
Hey Y'all,
Well, May has gone very nicely, thanks for asking, and has resulted in my becoming a full year older, but sadly no wiser. Such is life.
I was invited (plus one) to a British Airways reception the other week here in Houston to "celebrate the move of the Houston flights from Gatwick to Heathrow". The great and the good of Houston were there, along with Willie Walsh, CEO of BA who talked much about how excited they were to have this move happen, how he was sorry he kept losing all our bags, and how the Houston flights will only move into T5 later this year when all the glitches have been ironed out of the systems. Right.
They had put in a lot of effort with this event; for about 150 attendees (I'd estimate) there were a couple of BA chefs from the London lounges cooking up some awesome food, plenty of drinks to be had, a mockup of the new Club World (business class) cabin and seats which I was lucky enough to encounter on my trip to South Africa last year.
In the corner was a flight simulator hooked up to proper controls of the new Boeing Dreamliner (787), so of course I had to have a go on that. Sadly, I have to report that the first time I brought the plane down on houses just outside the airport boundary (no power to the engines), and the second time I surfed along the runway at 170 knots thanks to the throttles refusing to reduce power at all. I assume Boeing will work out these kinks before they send people up in the real Dreamliner... Those airport protesters might have something genuine to complain about if the real plane keeps landing on their property...
The next shindig we were invited to was in honour of BHP Billiton's sponsorhip of the Beijing Olympic Games later this year. All the metal for the medals come from BHP Billiton mines, and probably most of the materials used to build the stadiums (and the rest of China come to that) too. The final of the Mens Gymnastics Championships was being held here in Houston, and BHPB made a big thing of it by having over 300 people down at Reliant Park. Multi-olympic medal winners Mary Lou Retton and Peter Vidmar were guests, and took part in a great Q&A session in the BHP Billiton room before the event, as well as taking time to explain to us how the scoring works, and what were were looking at. The event was very enjoyable, and was basically being used to select the USA Gymnastics team for this year's olympics.
BHPB impressed me with food and drinks flowing freely all evening.
Work continues well - currently a lot of activity at our operated Shenzi Development with wells drilling and new information coming in all the time which makes for a very interesting and exciting time.
I've booked tickets home for the end of June, early July (yes, with BA!), and will be heading up to Scotland as well as London and North Wales most likely on the schedule.
Posted some more pictures on
www.flickr.com/samclayton.
Labels: Houston
May.
I have just realised that it appears to be May. This is a good thing in some ways, but does herald the beginning of the end of the good weather, and rings in the 100+ F temperatures and high humidity of the Houston summer.
I was 'volunteered' to be a captain for the first ever BHP Billiton dragon boat team a couple of months back, and I am pleased to report that the team, many of whom had never been in a dragon boat more than once prior to race day, did us proud by coming 3rd in the energy cup, and 5th overall out of 30 teams. Nice job! We'd been kitted out in BHP "thunder from down under" t shirts and Aussie style hats for the event which went down very well with the locals. It did turn out that "thunder from down under" is also a group of male strippers from Australia performing in Las Vegas (if you're interested!), but as we'd already printed the T-Shirts... Ah well. Best laid plans...
I spent yesterday at an Aussie mates stag do which went off very well. We kidnapped the poor chap, and drove off up to a paintball park near Tomball, close to the airport I fly from. It appears that the Saturday lunchtime crowd in Texas burger joints are a bit bemused when you bring in a guy in pink fluffy handcuffs and a pillow case over his head, Guantanamo Bay style.
I'd not been paintballing for ages, and it was great fun running around sniping at people through the forest. Those little paintballs don't half move though, and you certainly know about it when they hit you!
Took the diamond DA 20 out for a spin last Sunday evening. I love that plane! It's so small that its almost like wearing an aircraft, and is just an extension of your body. Its very sprightly and turns on a dime; you can knock it on its side and pull awesomely tight turns without pulling the wings off. This is of course a good thing.
Its a great priviledge to be able to just take off and fly over the "great nation state of Texas", taking a look at cars passing below, flying low along the Brazos river, and watching the sun go down off your wing.
--
Sam Clayton
www.samclayton.net
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry.
Flickry Goodness
Hello.
Just a quick one to say that I am putting my good photos on flickr.com.
The address is
http://www.flickr.com/photos/samclayton/.
Please tell me what you think!
Austin and Helicopter Crashes
Morning all!
Well, Terminal 5 opened today at Heathrow. That
went well didn't it? Hopefully they'll get it sorted before the Houston flights move there from Gatwick at the end of April.
Anyway, I went to do my HUET training in Lafayette, Louisiana a couple of weeks ago. HUET stands for Helicopter Underwater Egress Training. This is mandatory training for all those who travel offshore in helicopters, and was a lot of fun!
Because helicopters are nasty things that shouldn't really fly if you actually sat down and worked it all out, they have a tendancy to crash all over the place. When flying over water, they tend to dump you in the drink upside down, because some engineer thought it would be a great idea to stick the engines on top, thereby making them float upside down pretty well. This is just one reason you should always be deeply suspicious of engineers.
I drove the 3 and a bit hours east along I-10 to Lafayette, and stayed overnight in a very 1980's Hilton. The morning saw me in class for a couple of hours, getting a skim through different types of helicopter, how to jump off oil rigs, why you shouldn't work in the North Sea and other exciting and deeply reassuring things.
After a relaxing, and not at all nervous lunch, we changed and went to the pool, where we were duly strapped into a mockup of a helicopter fusalage, and dumped upside down into the water. If you got out, you passed.
Well, actually, it was a bit more gradual than that. We climbed in, and whilst the helicopter was held a couple of feet above the water we were told and shown how to jettison the doors and windows. The helicopter was lowered into the pool, and we had to unbuckle, and swim out of the openings - a piece of cake.
The next run saw us dropping in with the doors and windows in place. The idea was to wait until the inrush of water had stopped, remembering to take a breath before it came over your head, jettison the door, keep one hand on the exit and unbuckle with the other before swimming clear.
The next run was fun. In we went, but immediately rolled upside down. Water was pouring in - remember to take a breath - feel for the door latch - where is it where is it - it's by my knee it's by my knee - pull, hand on exit, unbuckle and swim clear... Phew! It sounds simple, and really is, but it's amazing how disoriented you get when underwater and upside down and strapped in. You know really thet the door latch is still by your knee, but your mind tells you that for some reason it is now moved, just because you're upside down...
Here's the place we did it, if you'd like photos!
Following this run we did some more, but this time you had to wait (still strapped in and upside down) while the person next to you jetissoned the window and exited before following them. The window just pushed out with a good shove - but it only works if you're strapped in. If you do what I did and try to open the window after unbuckling yourself, you simply push yourself away from the window as there is not much to brace against.
After the drowning, we spent the rest of the afternoon floating around in the pool, inflating life rafts and jackets, learning how to climb in them, making floatation devices from your overalls and all manner of interesting things.
The water in the Gulf of Mexico is nice and warm (~80 deg F year round) so you stand a great chance of survival if you get out of the burning twisted pile of helicopter that's just screamed into the sea at a million miles per hour.
Anyway, on to more benign stuff...
Went over to Austin with some freinds a week or two later. Had a nice time in the Sunny weather doing a little wondering about Hamilton Pool, just outside Austin where there is a nice green natural pool in the limestone which is a good place to swim in the summer. Just took some pictures this time though, and spent a while trying to photograph turtles, but always just got a little too close causing them to plop into the pools.
It was very nice to get that feeling that summer is around the corner, with the Hill Country spring breeze, pleasant temperatures, blue sky and fresh smell - perfect.
Labels: HUET, Louisiana, Work
