blog.pschmitt.com

Feathered Friends gear review: Volant down Jacket

2009-07-17T16:11:00.004-06:00

Wildsnow just posted a review of a Feathered Friends down jacket. Pretty good review with the classic line:

Indeed, zipping up a jacket like the Volant can be like climbing into a warm bath.

That's exactly how I would describe it for many, many, many jackets that I've sampled while ski touring. As far as I'm concerned, a good down jacket is essential gear for the serious backcountry skier.

I'll take Potent Potables for 800, please

2009-05-17T20:19:00.001-06:00

*NEW* Celebrity Jeopardy!

Old age beings at 27

2009-03-15T20:55:00.001-06:00

Old age begins at 27: Scientists reveal new research into aging. Uh-oh!

Spring Skiing

2009-03-09T20:40:00.003-06:00

Daylight savings time and longer days has me itching for some spring skiing. What started off as an e-mail to a friend has turned into this blog post. Here are some goals for spring, 2009 (April-May-June):

A few days/weeks before roads open back up, I want to bring a bike & ski:

Independence Pass
RMNP: Sundance Mountain Bowl (see page 46 of Indian Peaks Descents)
Brainard Lakes area: Mt Toll, Audubon

Regardless of road conditions, plenty of things @ East Portal:

Yankee Doodle
Frosty
Radiobeacon
Cirques above Heart Lake

Hopefully I'll get out for a weekend, set up a "base camp" and do laps until I can't lift my legs up anymore.

Who's with me?

Conan O'Brien in Houston

2009-02-14T12:16:00.003-07:00

Conan O'Brien is taking over for Jay Leno in June. To celebrate 16 years of Late Night, Conan is playing old clips from the show. One of my favorite moments was when Conan went to Houston, TX to see what people were doing at 2:40am. Watch it here:

In case you didn't have enough Conan for one day, watch this clip about Conan's rant on Boron:

Free Denny's Grand Slam

2009-02-03T21:59:00.005-07:00

Corresponding Super Bowl Commercial:

Ben & I met at Denny's at 7am this morning for our free Grand Slam (2x pancakes, 2x eggs, 2x sausage, 2x bacon). We waited in line for 30 minutes before grabbing a seat. 30 minutes later, we left Denny's feeling slightly disgusting, yet proud of our one hour commitment for saving $5.99 each.

Nutrition info:

Food Description	Servings	Calories	Fat (gms)	Carbs (gms)	Protein (gms)
Denny's Original Grand Slam® (Breakfast)	1 serv (10 oz) (283.5 gm)	795	50	65	34
Recommended Daily Intake	N/A	2,000	65	300	50
% of daily value	N/A	40%	77%	22%	68%

I'm jealous of this guy, who ate 5 free Denny's Grand Slams.

Peter S.

2009-02-03T09:27:00.001-07:00

Just for the record, it wasn't me!

Gore-Tex Vortex

2009-01-30T12:24:00.002-07:00

I live in the Gore-Tex Vortex. It's a love-hate relationship.

Skiing Links, Brainard Lakes: Mt Toll & Other Updates

2009-01-26T21:14:00.004-07:00

Last week: 3 buried (and self-rescued!?) in Avalanche near Ben Eiseman Hut. The Vail Daily article makes it sound pretty sensational. Hopefully the CAIC will have an official report up soon.

Friday: Skiied Mt. Toll. Trip Report + Pictures + Google Earth KML. Videos.

Sunday: Great skiing @ Copper with James. 3 solid hours of skiing with zero waiting in lift lines in some the best in-bounds conditions of my life. Woo-hoo!

Berthoud Pass

2009-01-15T21:16:00.004-07:00

I made my first backcountry skiing trip to Berthoud Pass early Tuesday morning. I went with Ben and his friend Grant, pictured here:

I have always been a bit skeptical of the Berthoud pass area... I've associated it with the kind of slack-country skiiers wearing flat-billed hats who live to shred the 'gnar in shoulder-deep pow pow, bro!

But... after skiing the Upper 110's (visible here) on a weekday morning, I see that there's plenty of challenging terrain that's far enough from the road for some good solitude & fun skiing.

Mary & I are headed to Southern California this weekend. It'll be sunny & 80 degrees... As nice as that sounds, I'm already itching to get back & tap the rockies (but not in the Coors Beer sense of the phrase).

Reasons Houston, TX sucks

2009-01-06T20:37:00.005-07:00

Hot.
Humid.
Flat.
No zoning law for buildings, meaning that sidewalks are optional (and most people choose not to build 'em)... So walking to the grocery & liquor stores sucks.
Grocery stores sell beer and wine, but not liquor
Liquor stores close at 9pm
I arrived at the liquor store at 9:05 pm and couldn't purchase said liquor.

Oh well, guess I'm not drinking tonight...

Ben Eiseman Hut trip: A series of unfortunate events

2008-12-22T07:42:00.010-07:00

Sometime in July, 12 friends & I made reservations to stay at the Ben Eiseman 10th Mountain Division hut. After much (internal?) debate, we decided to take the 6.75 mile Spraddle Creek route (click for approximate GPS route), rather than the 8 to 9.5 mile (depending on parking) Red Sandstone Creek trail (see hutski.com for both trails).

We left Boulder in four separate cars (two 2wd and two 4wd cars) arond 4:15 am, and started driving up I-70. There was between 2 to 6 inches of new snow from about Empire up to Vail, the roads were snow packed, temperatures were between 0 and 8 F, and the winds were raging at times, creating white-out conditions on the road (this storm system created 100+ mph winds reported by the CAIC).

We exited I-70 at Spraddle Creek around 8:30 am and started driving up an un-plowed steep, windy road to get to the trailhead. Two cars stuck in the snow (oops! :-) and about 90 minutes later, we were at the trail head and ready to go.

The motley crew started trekking up to the hut.

But Jonathan was struggling quite a bit from his heavy ski pulk. Famous last words: "The website said a 50 lbs sled should be comparable to a 10 lbs backpack!" Here is the sled unknowingly/accidentally sliding down hill when we stopped for a short break. Oops! :-)

We securely attached the sled & started trekking up. About 1 hour into the trek, I stopped to wait for Jonathan. Waited for about 15-20 minutes with no sign of Jonathan & the sled... I skiied down to find him repacking the sled. Another 15 minutes later, we finally caught up the group, which was waiting at the first and only critical junction: when we turn off the jeep trail and on to the marked 10th mountain trail that veers north.

Everybody was getting cold & anxious to continue the trek up. The only problem: No one knew which way the trail went. We all went in separate directions to look for the trail. By the time I found the closest approximation to the right trail, the 12 people in the group were spread out. Getting everybody together and back on track was like herding a group of cats.

In retrospect, we should have regrouped, spent 5 or 10 minutes carefully using the map & compass to compare the route with the GPS I was carrying. You think I would've learned this lesson already. Oops!!

While attempting to cross Spraddle Creek to join up with me, James punched through the snow & was ankle-deep in water. Oops! :-) His snow shoes were frozen solid on his feet for the rest of the day.

In the picture below, the blue route is my tracks, while the red is a close approximation to the actual trail.

We stopped for lunch about 30 minutes later. Of the 12 people in the group, 9 decided to turn back & head for the car.

The three that trekked onwards descended too early & wound up in a deep creek bed with very thick vegetation. When describing the conditions to me, they made it sound like walking through a 3-ft deep vat of molasses. Oops! :-)

The three ditched their expedition sled in the deep creek bed, which had my backpack and probably enough food to feed 40 people. Approximate GPS coordinates of the sled: 39 39' 47.57" N, 106 22' 25.7" W. It's probably gone for good. Some bear, mountain lion or some lost hiker is going to find a delicious treat in the spring!

In case things weren't exciting enough, a very tall (100+ feet?) 3 foot diameter tree fell, missing Sara by 10 or 15 feet. The way the three described it to me, it sounds like it would've been certain death had the tree hit Sara. Yikes!

Here's the correct route (red) and our route (blue). We barely made it halfway to the hut. I'm glad we turned around when we did.

Anyway, it was a disappointing weekend, but at least we all made it back safely. I learned a lot of lessons about leading such a big group of people with very diverse backcountry experience in unfamiliar territory. You can check out my GPS trip log (Note: We forgot to turn the GPS off, so the last mile or so is inaccurate).

Winter Camping: Building a Quinzhee

2008-12-14T15:52:00.014-07:00

Last weekend, Pat, Jonathan & I snowshoed/skinned around the Brainard Lake area and built & slept in a Quinzhee. Here's a photo log of the Quinzhee:

1:00pm: Pat work hardens a circular area to build our shelter:

We mark the sidewalls of the Quinzhee and shovel, shovel, shovel!
We Continue piling snow on...
3:20pm: Once our pile became dome-shaped, we stomp on the snow and pat it down with our shovels.
We then let the snow settle for about an hour before beginning to excavate our Quinzhee at 4:40pm.
6:00 pm: After 1.5 hours of excavation, we're finally complete! Time to cook dinner & hop in the sleeping bags. We were treated with a clear sky & a great 3/4 full moon shining brightly.

We were toasty warm all night long inside the quiznhee (the low was forecast to 15 F). The snow acts as a great insulator & we built our hut such that it traps heat... I was very warm all night just wearing my wet/soggy long underwear (from all the work shoveling).

Quinzhee stats:

Radius: 160 cm (it could've been MUCH smaller for the three of us!)
2 hours, 30 minutes of continuous work piling snow on
1 hour, 10 minutes waiting for the pile of snow to harden
1 hour, 30 minutes tunneling out the quinzhee
Total time: about 5 hours. Next time we could probably shave off an hour or so by:

Build it smaller: We probably could've slept 5 people
It seems like it's more important to find a wide open field of snow to build near rather than the deepest drift possible to build on... We had a bunch of trees/rocks in the way, which made lugging snow to the initial mound take a long time.

We had boiled water, packed our bags & started heading back to the car around 11:15am Sunday morning. (Check out how the roof sagged about 12 inches overnight)

Ready to build your own snow shelter? Check out these great books (wow, that really sounded like a tag-line from Reading Rainbow!)

All & all, building the quinzhee was fun & educational... Next time I want to try building an Igloo. Given the right snow conditions, I think it should require less physical work to build a large igloo...

Barrack keeps it cool

2008-12-07T23:01:00.000-07:00

Innagural Dawn Patrol

2008-12-05T15:44:00.004-07:00

Pat & I went up to the East Portal this morning for our first morning backcountry skiing excursion (aka Dawn Patrol). Here are some quick highlights:

The usual Tolland snow drift formed. We stopped before the drift to check the depth. A school bus drove up a minute later, tried to drive through the drift & got stock. 30 minutes of shoveling her out & we decided to wait for a plow.

A pickup truck showed up, started plowing, and got stuck. 30 more minutes of digging to get him out, and we decided to head back to Boulder.

30 seconds later a CDOT grader came through & effortlessly cleaned up the drift. We turned around *again* & headed towards the East Portal.
The school bus needs to drive past the drift Monday through Friday around 6:30am.
The CDOT plow only works Monday through Thursday & has Fridays off... DONT go on Dawn Patrol early Friday mornings under windy/snow conditions.
The trees near the East Portal (along the Arapahoe Lakes trailhead) got 12" of new snow on top of a 12" to 18" base of compacted snow.

Winter is finally here!

2008-12-04T08:34:00.003-07:00

After an abysmal November, we're finally getting plenty 'o snow! In the past 10 days or so:

Winter Park: 60" (11.5" last night!)
Copper Mountain: 68"
Eldora: Not sure, but the base nearly doubled to 32"
Last weekend Loveland got 43" in one storm

... and to top things off, Boulder has a few inches this morning. Now it's time for an interesting bike commute to work!

Avalanche rescue techniques

2008-12-02T21:55:00.005-07:00

Now that it's snowed more than 4 feet in the past week and you've passed Backcountry Skiing 101, time to brush up on your snow/avalanche safety! Boulder's very own Back Country Access has several great resources for snow safety research & reports.

Did you know that the average burial depth of avalanche victims is 1.16 m (3.8 feet)!?

Being educated in the efficient use of avalanche transceivers is a crucial skill for back country enthusiasts (Free transciever training Dec 12-13 @ Chattaqua: Joe Despres Memorial Transceiver Training).

But don't stop there! Proper digging technique can make all the difference to save lives.

Backcountry travelers: make sure that you read Strategic Shoveling: The Next Frontier in Companion Rescue. A little digging strategy can shave off crucial minutes necessary for successful companion rescue.

Happy Turkey Day, from Sarah Palin

2008-11-21T08:33:00.003-07:00

Check out the latest Sarah Palin interview:

Wait a minute. . . those turkeys getting slaughtered, right behind her!

Chicago-style Deep Dish Pizza Recipes

2008-11-02T17:25:00.002-07:00

A few weeks ago, I made some deep dish pizza. It was no Lou's or Gino's, but it was definitely better than Baked in Boulder (on my first try)! Here are some references:

Blog post (and video) of recipe that I followed
The Joy of Cooking
Links & some info (and some yummy looking pictures!)
Gino's Ingredients -- pretty useful for getting your recipe right! (See bottom right of page)
Supposedly really good recipe (towards bottom of the post)

Attention Mac & Linux users: CodeWeaver CrossOver free on Tuesday, October 28

2008-10-27T23:26:00.003-06:00

The CEO of CodeWeavers issued the "Lame Duck Challenge": The CodeWeavers Lame Duck Presidential Challenge will make its software products downloadable for free to all Americans for 24 hours at www.CodeWeavers.com if President Bush accomplishes "at least one of the goals listed here.

So, sometime before 11pm MST Tuesday, you should go register for your free copy of Crossover Pro, a piece of software "that allows many Windows-based applications to run on Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris"!

Apache + SSL (https) + Ruby on Rails + Mongrel

2008-10-27T20:59:00.006-06:00

I couldn't find a good "how-to", so here's what worked for me. Assumptions:

Running Apache 2.2 on a CentOS box
Apache & SSL works just fine for static content
Rails app works just fine over http

Here's what I did:

Setup A simple single mongrel configuration using mod_proxy (AKA ProxyPass). This enables me to access my rails app via [http://mydomain.com:8000] and if you have your ProxyPass set up correctly, [http://mydomain.com]. To be explicit, I'll leave the ":8000" in the URL for now.
Edit vhost.conf or httpd.conf
1. make sure HTTPS redirects (RewriteEngine, RewriteCond and RewriteRule) are commented out
2. add this:
  RequestHeader set X_FORWARDED_PROTO 'https' env=HTTPS
  RequestHeader set X_ORIGINAL_PROTOCOL 'https'
3. Restart Apache
  /etc/init.d/httpd restart
4. Start mongrel
  cd /path/to/application
  mongrel_rails
You can now access your site via:
http://mydomain.com:8000
https://mydomain.com:8000

In order to forward any http requests to https:

Install the "ssl_required" plugin
ruby script/plugin install ssl_requirement
Be sure to check out the HowToEnableSSL wiki page.
Edit app/controllers/application.rb and add this:
include SslRequirement

def ssl_required?
return true
end
(Click here to find out why this works!)

Now whenever you access

http://mydomain.com:8000

you should be forwarded to the secure URL:

https://mydomain.com:8000

Once that's done, go get a beer, some coffee or goto sleep!!

Netflix "Watch Instantly"

2008-10-27T19:19:00.003-06:00

Attention Mac users: Netflix finally brings "watch instantly" to macs!

Update: You can now "opt-in" to join the "Watch Instantly" beta.

Larry David is waiting for November 4, 2008

2008-10-23T19:01:00.003-06:00

Reading this article is just like watching an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

What is "Security" to you?

2008-10-22T21:58:00.003-06:00

I just read a great quote:

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. -
Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills

(Which reminds me of a book I've been meaning to read: Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World).

Update: Apparently it's a Hellen Keller quote!

Avalanche Safety Evaluation Quiz

2008-10-22T13:12:00.002-06:00

Wild Snow has a neat avalanche safety evaluation quiz. Take the quiz & post your score in the comments (See below).