FEB-B-7
THE FULL DAY OUT OF THE HOUSE
AS I WADE THROUGH THE SNOWDRIFTS WITH JACK
AND TAKE CROWDED METRO IN TO HIS NSF MEETING,
AND MY ALL-DAY CATCH-UP AT GW,
WITH THE EVENING PROGRAM AT REI,
TALKING ABOUT LINGSHED TO A GROUP OF WANNABES
A TRIUMPHANT FOLLOW-UP
TO THE ENIGMA OF THE DESIGN-FLAWED SNOWSHOE BINDING: I SNOWSHOE DOWN THE DRIVEWAY TO THE MAILBOX, THEN THROUGH MY DERWOOD WOODS THROUGH THE DEEP DRIFTS AND
AROUND THE STREAMS!
February 19—20, 2003
It has been an interesting attempt to get back toward normalcy, as many of the shut-ins were crawling back out after four days of confinement.
Jack Snoeyink scheduled 6:00 PM arrival actually happened a bit closer to 10:00 PM, whereupon he phoned to say he was awaiting Metro, and I took off through the knee-deep snow and the hip-deep drifts to get down the driveway to the plowed street, which I walked down the middle of to get to Metro to meet him. We carried his minimal bags back to Derwood from Metro and got him situated in the guest room, and looked at Photo Albums of family at Christmas and had a late re-heated dinner which had been ready for both of us a few hours sooner. He is here to talk about structural “designer proteins” that can be made to do enzyme function. He will have his meetings at the NSF at Ballston Metro stop, coincidentally where I am supposed to go from to get to the REI meeting tonight. He and I also worked further on the snowshoe bindings, getting closer to where they aught to be working, but did not arrive at anything like a functional fit.
We got up early, and trudged through the deep snow to get to the roads, which we walked to Metro, I carrying a bag filled with the albums and slide carrousels I would show for the evening presentation at REI. We got to a very crowded Metro at the origin of its longest run, and noted in the Post that the announcement was that Metro would be stressed today to perform at 60% of its capacity. We were packed in and were then entertained at each stop by the conductors trying to keep people from boarding as the cars were over packed and the doors would not close. I got out after Red to Orange Line transfer, and walked into GW as Jack went on to his NSF meeting.
I spent the day catching up on items such as phone calls, emails and faxes for submitting chapters and making schedules of meetings, including one that may have Christian Elwell visiting here at month’s end to attend the SCI Chesapeake Chapter with me and my new-found friends of the local hunting club. He had called while I was struggling through the snowdrifts to tell me about three Alaskan opportunities which I would like to get on the list of things that may eventually happen, such as a moose hunt with Craig in later September. I would have to arrange that around the Halsted Society meeting in Boston.
THE PROGRAM ON LINGSHED AND THE TREK
OVER THE ZANSKAR RANGE OF LADAKH
AT REI IN BAILEY’S CROSSROADS
One person very excited about recognizing my name (see the Feb-B-6) was Julie Crawford, who had met me at DCCRC—which I noted from the email traffic is trying to establish a list-serve email group, for announcements such as church cancellation because of heavy snow. A number of other people would also be in attendance, such as Chris Tate from Wilderness First Aid whose Board meeting we will be scheduling in later March, and three of my students now booked to go with me to the Himalayan Heights of Lingshed. One, Matt Kimball, had to leave early to pick up his girlfriend’s parents at BWI, while she is on a Mormon Mission. The other two Jan Ake (a favorite of mine, from Ocean City Maryland, where her parents run a sportfishing outfit!) and Rob Benowicz, will be going with me to Ladakh/Lingshed, were late because of the snow snarled traffic. A number of others were adventure seekers, a few folk from church attracted by Julie’s email, and a few folk who had been former speakers or attendants and had seen my name and the advertised talk.
It was fun! I had laid out the albums, and a few items relating to the trip, and showed a carrousel or two of slides after speaking ad hoc for a bit on subjects that ranged (as Jack pointed out later) from anthropology to Eastern Religion, to Geopolitics, the wildlife and birds, to plate tectonics, the “Weather Engine” world-wide of the Himalayan Range, to climbing, to medicine and migration of peoples, and the good fun of the exploration through this place of orogeny, where the Roof of the World is still growing. There were a number of questions and a few more who wanted to join us after the talk for dinner at the Greek Diner across the way.
We went to dinner late at the Diner as one of the waitresses watched a big screen TV in rapt attention to “The Bachelorette”—another winner in mass culture of the so-called “reality TV.” Mark Nelson supplied me, not only with the batteries for my little Petzel head lamp, but also gave me another to use on my Malawi expedition. He then took both Jack and me home, where I said “would you mind driving me up to my door?” He is a wilderness buff, and when we got to the foot of Kipling Road, he realized that I meant really “in the woods.” We trudged up the hill through the snow, and when he and I had toured the wildlife museum of the Derwood cave, we worried over and experimented with the snowshoe bindings until 1:30 AM when they appeared that they may be functional but still with some basic design flaws.
Now, I will have to keep working my way out, to see if I can clear some kind of pathway to the outside world as the temperature going up to the higher forties will cause a massive meltdown and flooding around me. The deer have used my pathway up to my door, and then have tried to find a place to get out of the heaviest snow, but they will have to start stirring around now to try to find some browse somewhere, since they have been hunkered down for a week, and have used up most of their fat stores.
So, I am doing the laundry, packing things back away, and may try to get out on the newly refitted snowshoes again to work my way out of Derwood atypical winter with real snow toward something like a regular schedule of events with a planned series of activities after a few days’ hiatus in suspended snow covered pause for reflection. It has only been a week here, and we are not up to the cabin fever rages of the Alaskan trappers who might have to hunker down for a few months, so they had extra time to work on their snowshoe bindings!
OH, HAPPY DAY!
I FINALLY HAVE A NEW SPORT—
AND HAVE USED IT JUST IN TIME, IN A MELTING MILEU
It has taken almost a week, and three men have spent an extensive and intensive time on it: I, Jack Snoeyink, and Mark Nelson have pored over the inadequate half-sheet of directions, with incomplete sentences such as “turn heel strap to outside.” After a late night session in which we at least got the cam buckles turned the right way to put tension on the straps. But, there is still a basic design flaw in it, and we have not been able to get it to the functional level, even when indoors on carpet, without kneeling in deep snow and trying to fumble with the gloves and tangle of ice-crusted straps.
So, I went about my business doing laundry, balancing check books and needing to send out a letter or two, and after lunch, I thought I would try to get down to the mailbox. So, I carried to letters, and tried to strap on the bindings. The snowshoes could not have been more appropriate for this day: it is warming up to the high forties and there is a lot of meltwater, and a heavy saturation of the upper three inches of the two feet of snow cover left. This means that trying to walk through the snow would fall through and work even harder. I had the snowshoes on and shuffled down to the mailbox on top of the snow. I crossed over deer tracks that were pressed deep into the drifts, and fox tracks on top. The real problem was that I ad to keep my eyes on the snowshoes and stop every second step to cinch up the toe strap. Nonetheless, I made it down to the mailbox, and back, with far less effort than wading through the drifts, and falling through the crust.
Then, I brought the snowshoes inside and said: “This is ridiculous! I have kept these snowshoes in the attic in a box and had a chance to use them only once per decade in Maryland. I had useful bearpaws in Kamchatka and got quite good at using these simpler snowshoes, and these classic ‘Michigan-style’ long stemmed snowshoes would be perfect for this day if only I could get to use the bindings in a way not apparent in the directions or the detached straps. But, if ever I am going to get to use these tools, today is the day.”
I thought of that one phrase about a “heelstrap.” Why would they call it a “heelstrap” when it is under the insole or arch? Well, if I let the straps out to the end of their buckles, then I could cinch the ‘heelstrap’ forward to push the boot toward the toe strap, even though this would swivel the buckles out to the sides. This worked as I tried them on while standing on carpet without gloves, so I thought I would try what was already looking more like a functional set of snowshoes. I went out to the yard and started to make a path toward the woods. I was able to snowshoe with far less effort than it would take to plow through with boots alone. I felt like I was ready to go for the acid test, and I thought I would try to see if the Michigan-style classic snowshoes would be interfered with in the bush if I went through the woods.
I launched into the woods down the steep slope, and went toward the stream. I crossed a deer track, and hiked along, comparing my two inch deep prints and the deer prints with the animal sinking to its belly. I was doing better than the deer and could run down a deer and catch up on him in the open woods. I swiveled around and took photos of the two sets of prints, with the snow-covered house behind the hill as I went to the stream. It is a pretty scene, and I paused for a few more photos, and then marched up the hill, using the grids on the front of the snowshoes, and found I could make a good transit through the woods. I was elated to have a new sport!
The bindings are still bedeviled with some design flaw, but at least I could look up and see other things in the woods that were much more worth looking at. I made a cruise all around my woods, and by the streams. It was a great way to use this winter day, and I had waited a long time to try these sporting goods which I had stored up for this occasion, and had been frustrated by the complex and irrational bindings when the time came. But, after worrying them into functional shape, I got them to work as well as they needed to, to carry me through the snowy woods in a time and place that I could not otherwise get through it, and added a new dimension to my appreciation of the woods I live in. I had enjoyed my use of the bearpaws in Kamchatka in deep rotting snow in April/May of their late winter/spring of Siberian and it expanded my horizon in exploring in this period of the doldrums of exploration. So, now I am equipped with a new tool that at least functions as I had hoped it would and I got accustomed to them the way I had rapidly to the smaller snowshoes, the ones that I had hoped would make it possible for me to run in the times when deep snow would prevent that.
SO, NOW, FROM A FINAL ARRIVAL AT SOME SUCCESS IN SNOWSHOEING, I AWAIT
THE NEXT NEWS OF RESOLUTION
OF WHO OWNS THE DERWOOD WOODS
Now, I have only to hear some positive news from the other fronts that are supposed to have matured on this deadline day. We are handicapped by a strange problem, since one side has expressed extreme urgency, and we have responded promptly to their lawyer, who does not seem easy to reach. He apparently has no office, or secretary, and only a cell phone answering machine is reached without a high likelihood of having him return the call. It seems there is some trouble since his former partner has just lost his job by being dis-barred in disciplinary actions so that practice has been impaired, with Mister James Shelton not knowing much about this area of law to begin with. But, for all this, the other side wishes to have me be the one under some deadline pressures from their tax liability and wants me to pay their price at their terms and timing, and then pay all the closing costs, and give them the credit for half of all the taxes I have been paying! Some reality must settle in for any resolution by March, before it’s too late.
So, here I am in the snowy Derwood woods, and getting around in it, if not settled on it, after over three decades from buying it and of calling it home.