In Africa!!!

LEFT: Pool and grounds at Arusha hotel

Hi all,


Well we arrived in Africa late last night after a grueling, if uneventful 24 hrs of flying. Some high/low points:





- Newark airport. We had to go out and reclear security, as the various terminals are not interconnected via shuttlebus. What a PIA, and how incredibly stupid of them. At least we made our connection.


- Flying KLM (dutch airways): Where to start. 6 foot tall blonde stewardessess who actually smile and don't throw food at you (AKA USScare). Recliner chairs in the terminal in Amsterdam...awesome for the weary traveller. Not being treated like cattle. But, the downside, no concept whatsoever of queueing...just open the door and everybody pushes and shoves to get on the plane.





Funny story 1: Guy (let's call him "moron") goes to clear security. He has about 200 metal items on him, and proceeds to attempt to clear the metal detector one by one!!!! Finally, he gets the last metal piece out of his various pockets, turns around, and then drops the air-safe bag containing...yes, about 5 bottles of RUM!!!! Rum everywhere, as of course the broken glass split the bag open. So, the next 200 people boarding have to step through the rum in their socks and the entire plane smelled like a Jimmy Buffet concert.





Funny story 2: Upon arrival in AMS, we're deplaning on the 200 yard long jetway. Tom, of course, is meandering along, touching everything that he can along the way (except the stewardesses, of course Laraine!), so the person in front lets go of the door, and it shuts closed. When tom pushes on it, it doesn't open, but triggers the entire alarm system...international incident....american trying to circumvent security. Alarms and flashing lights everywhere. Luckily we got him release on good behavior and could continue or trip. He did have to claim that he was a Republican however.



Weird story 1: bob, flying in from Minneapolis, overhears the guy behind him chatting about his hike up kilimanjaro. Turns out that he is "Sam" from Denver, one of our party of hikers. Too weird...never had met him before, he was also coming in 3 days early for the hike, same plane as bob, one row apart. So, we had a new playmate for the trip. Big, strapping young guy. I probably don't need to go any further with Gill stories here...

Arusha airport is just like Rochester, well except for the single too short runway (can you say "air brakes"), the rich mahogany floors, the civil service passport workers, and, of course, the 200 taxi drivers in their 1942 Land Rovers all trying to get the ride. Even worse than a Saturday night at MSG after a Knicks game!

As we came in early, they put us up at a hotel for a couple of nights. Kinda like the Ritz-Africa, incredible woodwork (mahogany?). Gill immediately tried to strip the wood down and refinish it in cherry. The hotel people could not have been more accommodating, and we spent our first night sipping "kilimanjaro beer" adjacent to the pool. Awesome evening. Breakfast even better, a massive fresh buffet, lots of native fruits and foods. Gotta love that fresh bacon just cut from the pig out back.



Off to town today to check things out, then safari tomorrow.




Lumpy out!!!

Off to the Dark Continent!

Hi all,

Well, I'm off today to Africa to attempt Mt. Kilimanjaro (highest in Africa, 19,340 ft) with my buds Bob, Tom, and Gill. If I have Internet access while there, I'll update the blog with pix and stories.

Following Africa I'm off directly to Europe with K for a whirlwind tour of Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Switzerland, and Italy. Should have lots of good stories from those places!

I'll be back stateside around Thanksgiving; Till then, I'll have at best intermittent email and vmail access, but will try to keep in touch "en masse" via this blog, and via email as connectivity permits.

Have a great fall all, those North enjoy the foliage, and be safe in your activities.

Lumpy out

State Fair Time

Nutin' I like better than a good fair: animals, food, rides, food, people watching, food, music, and food. We did the NYS fair last couple weeks back, and it was a doozy, very nicely done. There was a heavy ag focus (yes, there are farm animals in NYS!), and, as we went on a weekday, it certainly attracted a "special" breed of folks...those who do not work, obviously take extensive use of drugs and watch way too much jerry springer on the tube. But, a good time was had by all, and the llama's were especially fascinating. Apparently, raising llama's is big business in NYS...who knew!!!!

Lumpy out

Henry Hudson's Got Nutin' On Us!

TOP LEFT: Leaving the final lock (Lock #2, interestingly enough)

TOP RIGHT: Confluence of Erie Canal and Hudson River

LOWER LEFT: Lumpy posing on the Mohawk

LOWER RIGHT: Peter in lock (a rare moment when he wasn't eating...)

We're off an paddling on our final segment of our Erie Canal traverse, this time from Fonda (home of world famous Fonda Speedway) to the Hudson River. We've got a good crew this trip, Me, Carl, Peter, Scott (Koz), and two of the girls who will relay/provide sag support, Jan and Kathy.

On the drive up to Fonda we loose another fender off of the trailer; we never actually see it fall off (as the trailer is about 200 feet long with the boats on it), but several cars give us massively dirty looks when they pass us. Geez, you think a slab of metal bouncing by you at 80mph is a big deal or something.

We get off and running on friday; we've got about 50 miles to paddle over the 3 days, good weather forecast (with decent trailing winds!), and we're all ready to see the "Big River" after 3 years of the narrow Erie Canal (which is sometimes canal, sometimes creek, sometimes, lake, and sometimes river).

We come across our first "Lock-Mistress" of the journey, a lovely gal in a world full of crusty old men. She couldn't have been any more pleasant as she locked us in, gave us a smile and a wave, and then proceed to let the water in at 100mph as she told us about the "man who had wronged her". We nearly drowned, but for Peter's quick thinking in distracting her by, well, I won't go into that as his spousal unit wasn't there and I don't know what story he told her...

Peter is on his 4th kayak of the trip, having blown the bottoms out of the prior 3 between his weight flucuations and his food loading. This trip he is "down" to only 35 lbs per day, spread amongst 3 drybags, and a feedbag tied around his neck (for those sudden urges to graze). It was an uneventful day, except for our lunch stop. We had picked a site near the age-old industrial city of Amsterdam; unfortunately for Jan, the site was tucked into a very decrepit industrial site, probably massively polluted, with drug dealers all hanging around. As she was waiting for us to arrive (with our sandwiches in her hands!), a truck came down and, let's just say sexual escapades occurred in the truck, in full view. We're out there working our butts off paddling, and she's getting dinner and a free show!

All in all though, a good first day, and we head off to put a hurting on Bucca de Beppo that evening. The waitress said she'd never seen a table not take a single doggy bag home, as the meals are massive. Peter orders seconds.

Saturday, the winds kick up strongly over 20mph, and we fly down the canal (which is the mohawk river at this point). Near Schenectady we go by a massive house up on the bluff; Jan's searching turns up that it was built and owned by some rich industrialist who got caught up in an insurance fraud scam. I seriously thought that the house must have been a college dorm, or a cathedral or something like that, it was so huge.

As we look for a place to put-in for the night, Jan comes across Diamond Coast marina. It's a no-name, no-where marina, but populated with awesome folks. The owners invite us to store our kayaks there overnight (really nice, far less work at the end of the day than packing up on trailers), and invite us to their end of summer clambake. Kathy and I head back to pickup the start car, while the rest of the crew sucks down free beers and dozens of clams; I think Peter at something like 7 dozen alone. We cap the night with another great meal, and drift off to sleep with dreams of the Hudson flowing through our heads.

Sunday, we awake to our final day of the adventure. It's another perfect day weatherwise, and the river is like glass as we say goodby to the Diamond Coast people and hit the water. This section of the river is vast wetland, and there's Heron's and other birds everywhere. They fly right up to the boat, checking you out. We also see lots of Carp jumping out of the river, some probably 1-2 feet long. I'm just waiting for the point when one jumps into my boat uninvited.

The canal ends with what is known as the "flight locks", a series of 6 back-to-back locks that take up a few hours of water time to lock-through. As we approach them, a "lock gate", a huge metal gate used for flood control, is closed - we have no way to get down to the locks themselves, and we're fearful that we've come this far, only to find the canal "closed for the day" for some reason.

After much scrambling, we finally locate a lockmaster downstream who drives up to open the lock gate for us; seems the guy the night prior had closed it and we were just the first boaters to come upon it in the morning. After an hour or so delay we're back on our way, towards the flight locks.

Now, back in Lockport (near Buffalo) when we did our first locks, it was a pretty darn cool activity. At Albany, 40 or so locks later, with 6 in a row to undertake, it's not all that interesting. In fact, it's damn tedious, as we spend the next two hours lock-in, water down, lock-out, paddle 100 yards to next lock. The locks sides are all concrete, and there's no where to get out (at least from a kayak), and thus, no where to pee. And, with tourists at every lock, it's kind of rude to release the water snake with kids hanging on all the locks. So, two hours later as we lock out of the final lock, we make a mad dash to the shoreline to empty our bladders. Funny picture, 4 guys emptying about 20 gallons of waste onto the beach.

The canal was a great adventure, and I'm really glad we undertook it. It is deep with history, and was one of the major events in opening up out country to what became; from sea to shining sea.

Next year we're looking at doing the length of the Hudson River, from the canal confluence at albany past new york city, and out into the ocean. If we can get the logistics of that together, it should be an equally great adventure.

Lumpy out

Canandaigua looms

The first of the Finger Lakes I'm going to kayak is Canandaigua Lake. I have a long history with this lake, as I've biked around it, swum the length of it, and directed a major triathlon on and around it. So, I thought I'd start my Finger Lakes kayak adventure there. Plus, my buddies had a party on it later that day, so I could get beer at the finish.

Accompanying me was my trusted sidekick Peter, the man who brings a feed bag bigger than his boat with him everywhere. He had about 40 lbs of food onboard for what should be (note this phrasing...) a 5 hour paddle, including, and I kid you not, 12 packages of Chips Ahoy cookies.

In an afront to the gods of weather, we elected to paddle north to south, even though there was a relentless 20mph headwind the whole time. Our rational was that the beer was at the south end of the lake, and we didn't want to waste any time having to drive back down once we finished. This turned out to be a fatal mistake, as what should have been a 5 hour paddle turned out to be an epic 9 hour adventure, with waves breaking over the kayaks the whole day, boats swamping us in the rough water, a relentless sun beating down on us frying us, and, my bladder on overdrive.

You can't really pee out of a kayak without tipping it over, so you have 3 options; dump the kayak and pee in the lake, pee on yourself and sit in it the rest of the trip, or pee in a bottle. Being a marginally sanitary green guy, I choose the later. Well, there was one thing that mom never told me about, that being that a full-grown adult can generate far more pee than a bottle can hold; and stopping cold mid-stream is a VERY difficult thing to do...So, picture this: I'm sitting in the middle of the lake, getting swamped with waves. I finish off a gatorade bottle so I have a pee bottle. I roll my kayak shorts down around my ankles, bottle-up, and, ah, relief is in sight. After about 2 minutes, I realize that I'm NOWHERE near done, the bottle is filling up rapidly, the water around me is cold, and I have to stop mid-stream. Not a good situation. So, anyways, I get through that situation, empty the bottle (sorry Greens') in the lake, reset, and continue to empty my bladder. Except, I now fill the bottle a second time! Now I'm thinking, "Hey, I must be loosing every last ounce of fluid out of my body" and begin to panic. I fill the bottle again, repeat the process, and about 3/4 through the third bottle finally run dry.

This happens 2 more times on the trip, and I've now gone from Lumpy to P-Boy. Well, the wind continued the entire day, we fought and fought and finally made the lake inlet, and then paddled over to our friends cottage for a beer. Which, we never got close to drinking, as we were both out cold with exhaustion the moment we hit the shoreline. We slept the afternoon away, with dreams of full gatorade bottles and chips ahoy in our heads.

Lumpy Out

Back to Yack!

Having made the JMT hike alive, next up was some kayaking adventures. I've had a project going on for the last couple of years, kayaking the length of the Erie Canal from Buffalo to the Hudson River. Accompanying me on this "Grand Tour" are my buddies Carl, Scott (Koz), Peter, and a relay team of some of the wives/proxies (Kathy, Jan, Pam, Jerry, Tom). We've done about 80 miles each summer for the last couple of years, and the end is in sight this year.

Also, this year, I've decided to start a multi-year adventure to kayak the length of all the Finger Lakes (Upstate NY). There's 11 lakes (just like your fingers...), ranging from 10 or so miles to 35 miles. They have great names like Canandaigua, Hemlock, Sleepy, Dopey, and Sneezy. I've had a special love affair for them over the years, having bike around all of them, and swum two of them. So, off we go a kayaking....


Our first trip was a "make-up" for one short leg that we had missed the prior summer (weather). It was only 8 miles, near Syracuse, but it turned out to be an epic day. First, when we went to leave, the hitch on Carl's truck was bent; apparently he had been rear ended earlier this year, but it left no damage on the truck. That was because the hitch took the ENTIRE IMPACT!. No way we were hooking the trailer up to that, so I pulled the loaded trailer with my little subaru.

Then, we got to the start, got paddling, and at 4 miles went to switchover the girls for their relay. This was accomplished uneventfully, EXCEPT for one of them (who shall remain unnamed because one of us happens to sleep with her) dropping the car keys IN THE CANAL. That was a good time retrieving them and wiping down the zebra mussels!

And to cap it off, as we approached the end of the day, a massive storm front rolled in. We paddling like our lives depended on it (which it probably did), and made ground just as an incredible lightning storm hit, with bolts hitting ground and water all around us. We beached the kayaks, and huddled in the car (6 smelly dogs in a subaru, what a good time....) for about an hour until it dissipated. It was frightening, and the first time that we'd been caught in what could have been a fatal lighting situation; we'll have MUCH more respect for the weather on the water from now on, that's for sure.

Lumpy out

Roads End; Trips end

Group at Roads End (Cliff, Karen, Jo - Frenchie, Lumpy, Bob). Rose was being mollested and couldn't make the picture.

We finish our walk through the sand and make Roads End. Our jeep is still there, and we're pretty happy about that; sometimes the bears break into them looking for food, and totally trash them. We saw pictures of cars with their roofs and trunks torn right off.

As we make the trailhead, we come across the runner chicks lying prostate on the ranger cabin. They were totally exhausted from their run (what a bunch of skirts...25 miles at 100 degrees and they're tired...), and their ride hasn't shown up to pick them up. We offer to have them hang with us, but they decide to wait for their ride a bit longer.

Then, down the trail comes Rose. She'd lagged as the bear wanted to mollest her, and then 6 other hikers, and then God had come down from heaven, and...you get the story. She wants to camp with us tonite, but Bob had a video calculus class he had to take so was busy, and the rest of us were sane so wanted nothing more to do with her.

We drive down the hill a bit to a formal "campsite" where we indulged in $200 worth of burgers and fries at the camp snack bar. Cliff alone eats (I swear) about a tray full of french fries alone. Then, we ran into the runner chicks again, who had finally given up on their ride and we going to walk down the hill to Fresno; that's about 60 miles, down 5k feet, and it's pitch black, with bears, switchbacks, and drunk campers all the way there. We talk them into camping with us; just as we're leaving to setup, there ride shows up, announces that they "got lost" DUH.... and that they should camp there. So, they do that, setting up a small camp adjacent to us, and sleeping like pigs in a blanket side-by-side. The bears are going to be happy about this one, they don't even have to open the tents for the crunchy treats inside the sleeping bags. Rose wants to join us also, but we defer as the campsite is getting pretty full, and besides, none of us have any more mollesting left in us.

Asleep about 20 minutes (under another incredible starfield!), and the bears start. As in, bear raids into the campground about every 20 minutes, all night long. A bear would come into camp, start turning over garbage cans, ripping open coolers that dopey campers had left out on their picnic tables, banging on the bearproof vaults trying to open them, and ripping up cars. Now, this an experience definitely to be undertaken by everyone. The bear makes all the noise, then everyone in the camp wakes up. They release their dogs, who all attack the bear, who then makes even more noise and chases the dogs around camp knocking over stuff everywhere. Then, the campers all come out and start RUNNING AT THE BEAR, banging garbage can lids to try to scare it off (yup, this goes down as probably the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life). We have about 10 bear raids throughout the night, and I finally end up sleeping in the jeep, with the keys in the ignition, and my trusty swiss army knife in my hang. I'm ready for that bear...

Anyhow, we get through the night, go visit the giant sequoia trees the next morning (they are REALLY big, go see them before you die), and roll down the hill back to Fresno. Margaritas and steaks are the order of the day, and we spend a great afternoon reminescing about the trip, planning our next great adventure, and discussing how Jo can keep her weight down so she can return to her ice dancing career. Bob tells us about his plans to take a video astrology course, Frenchie tells us about her plans to own her first house (in a couple of weeks)...this from the women who can't own shoes that have soles on them...and Karen tells us more stories about "Growing up Anderson".

All in all, a fantastic trip, with an incredible group of people. We persevered in the face of adversity, bonded for life as a group, and even got in a cheap mollestation of Rose. What more can anyone ask for?

Next up: Switching gears to kayak trips..

Lumpy out

How long can you go?

TOP LEFT: Battling Mosquito net'd oxygen deprived hikers

TOP RIGHT: Runner chicks, AKA Pigs in a blanket for bears

LOWER LEFT: Karen about to molest Rose

LOWER RIGHT: Our "White Trash" Christmas tree

We awake to our White Trash Christmas tree (AKA our drying rack for our wash) and sing "Oh come oh come emanual". It's an old jewish spiritual back when they were building the train between jerusalem and rome to mine frankencense, celebrating the origins of the first young boy to be mollested by a priest. (I think this may be my most obtuse reference ever...). Anyhow, at this point, we're MORE than ready to be done with the hike. After a group vote over bfast, we decide to take a run at hiking out today, compressing our final two days of (mostly) downhill into one.

Over bfast, Jo breaks it to us that she used to be an ice dancer, but that she got too fat to do lifts anymore (she's ALL of about 90 lbs nowadays). Of course, this was amongst the worst things that anybody could have added to my reportoire, and it's a relentless day of ice dancing and fat chick jokes.

Bob tells us about the video statistics class that he took. Yup, a video statistics class, you read that right. And you wonder why he never gets a second date. Or a first date for that matter. On a positive note, he can tell us about the standard deviation of our water supply. We break camp, and start quickly working our way down the mountain.

On the way down we stop to re-water, and come across a "woman" (being kind) called Rose. Rose is a fire plug by any other name, about 5' in any direction you measure it. She tells us how she's been hiking alone for the past couple weeks (never a good idea in bear country), and how this guy had been following her, and trying to mollest her for the past several nights. We tell her to hang with us, as having 3 brawny guys around (me, bob, and frenchie) will deter any would-be mollester. She hikes with us for several miles, telling us about her upbringing (a military brat who lived all over the world), her various jobs (prep girl in an organic bakery), and "foundation" model (size 52DD and up). Well, it turns out that Rose was a total loony, and we find out that EVERY guy is trying to mollest her, and I think some of the bears also. We finally part ways, only to run into her time and time again over the next couple of days. Bob mollests her twice before we leave.

Cliff and Jo drop off the back for a while, a bad move on their part at they encounter the first "up close" bear of the trip. Up close, as in, about 10 yards away. Jo totally panics; cliff doesn't, as he'd be at best a toothpick after the bear got done feeding on Jo. They loose about an hour as they have to backtrack and finally loose the bear. Nothing more invigorating than having a bear stalk you for an hour. Or Rose, for that matter...

Further down the hill we come across a group of 5 college-age gals who are RUNNING the 25-30 stretch of mountains that we've just come across (slightly different routing). They are training for an ultra-marathon, and, let me tell you, these chicks were TOUGH. Cute also, but does Bob mollest them...no, of course not!

We finally come off the hill with a 2 miles set of rock switchbacks (just lovely for the quads after 80 miles of hiking), and then finish with another 2 miles or so of sand...yes, sand. As in 150 degree, sink in 4 inches, get it in your shoes, clothes, and every exposed orifice (shouldn't have worn the ripped shorts today), and basically melt you to a pool of sludge sand.

The end is in sight, and we can see it ahead....

Lumpy out

Forrester Pass; One big mother

TOP LEFT: Forrester Pass looking Southbound

TOP RIGHT: Lumpy atop Forreter Pass

LOWER LEFT: Forrester Pass final ascent

LOWER RIGHT: Frenchie's destroyed shoes

We break camp and start the long trek up Forrester Pass. We slept at 11k, so we have a difficult, long trek to get us up and over 13k Forrester; we're very hesitant about the storm we received last evening, and try to get a very early start to avoid being the recipient of a mid-afternoon lightning storm exposed high on the mountain. After a few miles of hiking, we have a group rendezvous for lunch. We apportion our remaining protein - some cheese and our last stick of pepperoni - and wish each other luck for the climb (where we'll definitely separate).

You can see the climb from a long ways away; a set of near vertical switchbacks, each one getting tighter and steeper until they disappear over the mountain. These are the hardest mentally to climb, as you can never see the top until you get there, and each step is higher vertically, harder rock-wise, and more exposed. It takes us several hours to make the pass, and the last 100 yards or so were the worst of the trip. You felt like you were free climbing up the mountain, and frankly, it scared the hell out of all of us. Joanna had a panic attack, but the crew talked her down from it, and in the end, she was stronger for it. I'm honestly not sure that the pictures above really do it justice.

Atop the Pass, we run into a gal named Sue whose 60th birthday it was. She was one tough bird, about 4'10", quads like tree trunks, and a real head for backcountry workouts. We all join in for a Happy Birthday salute, and then wish each other good luck on the downstroke. The North side of Forrester is much less gnarly, looser switchbacks for some time, and then we enter into a long, gentle saddle (where two mountains come together). We come upon another small lake, break to re-water, re-tape, and soak our feet, and then finally make treeline for our evening camp. Everyone is now seeing the end of the road, as we have 2 more days of hiking left, we're back into treeline (thus much less at risk, except for those pesky bears), and our packs are noticeably lighter.

Lumpy out

Oh boy! FINALLY an uphill!

TOP LEFT: Mt Whitney in storm

TOP RIGHT: Joanna's feet

BOTTOM LEFT: Colby Pass sign (12k)

Frenchie spent a chunk of the night and the morning soaking her swollen ankle in the icy mountain stream. The area that we were camping in was basically an alpine desert, very sparse vegetation and lots of sand. So, why hot and exposed (and cold and exposed at night), it made for a relatively soft ground to sleep on. We broke camp and started on our long climb up to the John Muir Trail (JMT). From there, we'd be able to see Mt Whitney, our original destination, and at least reminisce about "what coulda been". But, nobody was saddened; we'd had an epic hike already, and we weren't done yet by any stretch of the imagination.

When we finally saw the peak, it was shrouded in a VERY heavy storm. We ran across a hiker who had attempted the climb and turned back; it was heavy rain and then hail. Nothing you want more than hiking up bare rock in a hailstorm. So, we didn't feel to bad about not making it there; it would have been very frustrating to get within a thousand vertical feet or so and then have to turn back. And, we still had out work cut out for us, with the dreaded Forrester Pass awaiting us tomorrow.

As we set camp for the night at 11k (our highest camp), a storm rolled in over the mountain. It poured rain for about an hour or so, and we remained sequestered in our campsite. A very frustrating feeling, as you're hungry, cold, and stiff, and all you can do is hunker down in your tent and try not to get too chilled. I don't know how the "big mountain" mountaineers do it.

That night, finally the rain clears, and we're treated to the most incredible starfield to date, the sounds of coyote's howling off in the distance, and the running water of the mountain creek adjacent to our campsite. A most bucolic scene.

Tomorrow: Forrester Pass

Lumpy out

He's Back!

Hi All,
Just back from a couple weeks in Colorado (another blog story to come!). I've been getting lots of nasty emails to get the travel blog current, and I'll be adding LOTS of content over the next couple of days...stay tuned!

Lumpy out