https://blog.furkot.comApparently there is an entire country between Boston and San Francisco.Metalsmith - https://metalsmith.ioenhttps://blog.furkot.com/wavehttps://blog.furkot.com/waveI still cannot believe our luck: we won the lottery to visit the Wave. Or to be excruciatingly specific: a friend won it and let us join them. Up to 64 people are allowed to hike the Wave each day. For a long time the Wave used to be visited only by people living in its vicinity. Occasionally a tourist would hear about it in a whispered conversation at a local bar. One of those outsiders turned to be Gogol Lobmayr, a German documentary filmmaker looking for interesting images to include in the Fascinating Nature 1996, a nonverbal landscape documentary. And that was the end of the secret; nowadays the Wave is so famous that, besides its own Wikipedia page, there are entire websites devoted solely to all things necessary to visit it from securing the permit to taking perfect photos.https://blog.furkot.com/goathttps://blog.furkot.com/goatSergey Brin and Larry Page have been young and naive when they came with the Don't be evil motto in 2004. By 2019, having seemingly realized how ridiculous it is, both they and the motto all but disappeared from public eye. The same cannot be said for Google, one of the most powerful companies in the world, clinging to the illusion of being not evil while enabling mass surveillance, political censorship, weapons development, tax evasion, and exploiting monopoly position.https://blog.furkot.com/meanderhttps://blog.furkot.com/meanderChances are you may not like using Furkot. I won't take it personally. It's just statistics. We all like different things. What is Furkot? - you ask. It's a trip planning application. It's delivered directly to your browser through magic of the Internet, so you don't have to buy or install anything and it works out of the box on your desktop, laptop, tablet, and phone. Well, unless your laptop remembers Bush presidency. Then we might have a problem. Or not, since - as we already said - you might not like Furkot in the first place.https://blog.furkot.com/turnerhttps://blog.furkot.com/turnerSmall talk in Big Sky, Montana goes like that: The third time I hear the admiration in my interlocutor voice my curiosity is piqued: which aspect of Ted Turner biography grants him such notoriety in the Treasure State? Is it his marriage to Jane Fonda? The third one for both of them and neither remarried after their divorce in 2001. She is a famous actress, who looks more striking with each passing year but I doubt her fame is what distinguishes Ted Turner in the Big Sky Country.https://blog.furkot.com/biggesthttps://blog.furkot.com/biggestAs far as endurance challenges go, the one in Big Sky Resort is refreshingly mild and strangely informal: the most tram laps in a single day. The current record is unlikely to ever be eclipsed. Unless, of course, the resort management extends the Lone Peak tram hours. The terrain served by the Lone Peak tram is Experts only - double diamonds all around. The Liberty Bowl with its single diamond is a sole exception by virtue of being slightly easier than the adjacent Marx or Lenin runs. Even so, there is always a line at the bottom of the tram, unless fog takes the visibility away as it was on the day Rob Leipheimer set his record, which in my book, makes it all the more impressive accomplishment.https://blog.furkot.com/mammothhttps://blog.furkot.com/mammothFor a moment it seemed Mammoth would not close at all this year. But the global warming reasserted itself and, with the snow melting faster than expected, the closure date was set to August 6th marking it the second longest season in the entire history of the mountain. The 2016/2017 was a truly exceptional winter (and spring, and summer): the level of snowfall surpassed only once since 1970 and we skied and snowboarded not only on Memorial Day but also on the Fourth of July. With the bike park opening on June 23, Mammoth may be the only American resort where you can bike and ski at the same time on the same mountain.https://blog.furkot.com/katahdinhttps://blog.furkot.com/katahdinWe all strive to accomplish something. Something to be proud of. Something to casually mention in a mixed company and register a gleam of admiration, or a nod of respect. Something, anything. Those are my thoughts as I sit on top of Mount Katahdin contemplating the sign marking the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. It's just a nice moment on a day hike for me, but for some it's the end of 2,200 miles journey. As curious as I am about this almost mystical accomplishment alas, there aren't any thru-hikers in sight so I don't get the chance to ask.https://blog.furkot.com/leashhttps://blog.furkot.com/leashI've heard it countless times: He is really friendly. Or, she just wants to play. Never mind that the subject in question flattens its ears, starts growling, barks and generally looks ready to attack. And even if it is genuinely friendly, I am not. That is, I have no inclination to play with strangers' dogs. Befriend me first before you expect me to pet your four-legged companion. He's afraid of your trekking poles. The last one was addressed to Damian who started hiking with poles after a minor skiing injury. I knew trekking poles were a sham but didn't realize dogs and their owners shared my view. And if that's the case, dogs with that opinion have no business on a hiking trail, at least not without a leash.https://blog.furkot.com/tirehttps://blog.furkot.com/tireThe hissing whoosh of the escaping air was unmistakable. We got our first flat. In the middle of empty and, yes, flat as a pancake part of Colorado. At the beginning of what was supposed to be the dullest day of our trip. We somehow managed to make almost 70 thousand miles up to this point. Mostly backroads. Not a trivial amount on the surface that only a wildest optimist would call a road. Only a day ago our car took us up the Mt. Princeton Road. Couple of weeks ago we drove to the Nellie Creek trailhead on the way to Mount Uncomphagre that involved not one, not two, but three stream crossings. Our car survived sandy dunes, sharp rocks, impossible steeps, and holes big enough to swallow a grown man - all that with no malfunctions greater than a side mirror broken by a raccoon and a battery that expired in the cold of the winter.https://blog.furkot.com/kidhttps://blog.furkot.com/kidSometimes I just don't get people. Take kids for example. In theory I know why people have them, care about them, even love them. Or, at least, I think I know. It has something to do with an iron grip our genes have on us. Ancestors of a more kid-relaxed persuasion have unfortunate tendency of disappearing from the gene pool. Regardless of the real reason, kids are valued in our society - like cars, or houses, or iPads - and one is supposed to look after them. Well, in any case, that has been my working hypothesis.