Hike report 9/8/14: Maynard Burn Trail

I've already fallen over a week behind with the updates I had planned for my weekly hike, but let's just try to catch up.  Perhaps I can.  Usually (except this time?) I won't go into a huge amount of detail here, but just put my notes up here and some highlights (if any--this week's hike certainly had fewer).  As long as I'm doing introductory stuff, I'll mention that I'd like to also post trail reports on the WTA site--a great resource--but I think I'll only do that in instances where I actually get to the end of the trail.

There's a bit of a backstory concerning this particular hike, though.  Ever since we moved to Sequim, we have had a view of the Olympic Mountains.  In particular, a mountain - actually a ridge of mountains - directly to our south has been particularly alluring: lofty, bare, and frequently covered in snow, I tend to think the summit in this ridge called "Baldy" must have inspired the name of a road in our neighborhood, Silberhorn Road.

(As an aside: is "Baldy" a stupid name for a mountain or what?  Who came up with that?  Reading online, I find that "locals" are the ones who call it that, but it may also be called Mt. O'Neill.  I much prefer to call it Mt. O'Neill.  Or we could get really smart and call it "Badly" but that doesn't even make sense, because it is a fine mountain.)

So anyway, ever since moving to Sequim I have had in the back of my mind that I want to climb up this mountain.  We can see other mountains from our house, but this peak is the most prominent and generally impressive.  (Anyway you can practically drive to the top of Blue Mountain, so it doesn't count.)  But I never felt like I have had time to attempt this climb.  In recent years I have discovered I am in a lot worse shape than I used to be.  But on the plus side, I eventually came to find out (I'm not sure why it took so long) that there is a trail of sorts.  Not a great trail, but more of a really steep track created by scramblers.  I wish it had been a well designed trail, since I am out of shape and that would make the ascent much easier.  But hey, it is what it is.  At least the trail, for being unofficial and unmaintained, is very easy to follow.

So I went an hour up this trail, and when I came back to look at my map, I realized, wow, I got a lot farther than I realized.  I achieved half the elevation gain in just over an hour!  Maybe I actually can make it to the top, I thought.  So that was encouraging.  But I'm still putting it off another year, because I will enjoy it a lot more if I am in better shape.  This time around it just about killed me.  If I can't get in better shape by this time next year, well then I will just go for it, remembering to take my time and bring a lot of water.  It seems that a loop is available (the Tyler Peak "trail") alleviating the steepest part, which I went up this time.

So here's my report.  I'm going to try to keep a meticulous (digital) hiking 'journal' just for fun.

Here's a map showing my approximate route, and how far I got in an hour (and five minutes), and most of the ridgeline that is my future destination.  Yeah, I didn't get very far, but that is a lot of little lines and I had to hop over each one of them.

 Highlights of the trip pretty much involved our native hairy manzanita (Arctostaphylos columbiana).  I knew it grew up here, having seen it along the Dungeness River Road as high as 3,200', but I had no idea there were so many fine specimens to be found in the area.  This is where the trail crosses the abandoned road at 3,600'.

At 4,300', this is the highest I have ever seen hairy manzanita in the Olympic Mts--in the whole state for that matter.  Prior to this the highest I knew of it was about 3,950' along Deer Park Road (though I didn't finish exploring higher up along a ridge there to see where it ended).

Then we have this HUGE open glade of ancient and very impressive manzanita plants along the road to the trailhead - WOW!

This concludes my report.

Ragtime piano attitude adjustment

Good, no one is still reading my blog.  So let me share with you my ragtime piano story.

Since taking piano lessons growing up, I had been aware of the existence of ragtime for a long time, and I liked the sound of it, but always considered it to be too difficult to play.  (I started piano lessons late and was never really that great at it.)  I had also pretty much associated ragtime entirely with Joplin, which people commonly do.  I may have had a vague idea that other ragtime composers had existed, but I had no reason to be interested in them as I assumed in my ignorance that Joplin broadly represented the genre and was its best composer.  This was a mistake, but more on that later.

Then last summer, things changed in the Barclay household when a lesbian piano came into my life.  Madelin's friend had one that we could borrow indefinitely, and that needed a home, so she persuaded me that we should get it so Nigel could practice on it.  We got some guys together and lugged it to our house.  Well guess who ended up using the thing all the time?  I like playing the piano so I started picking up old hymns and other stuff I used to play.  Simple things that were not too challenging, basically.  My idea of playing the piano pretty much centered around getting the fullest sound possible while moving my hands and fingers as little as possible.

Then last December, in the year of Our Lord 2013, I remembered an idea that I think had been kicking around in the back of my mind for at least 2 - 3 years, but I simply never got to it.  The overland theme from Super Mario Bros. 2 was a very catchy little tune that somehow stuck in my head for many years after I was parted from the family Nintendo.  I had also come to associate this piece with ragtime, since a 'facebook friend' (and real friend, but I haven't seen him in years) Dave Pierce mentioned the piece by chance, and called it ragtime (which it is, actually).  So finally I thought to myself, I should look online to see if I can find any sheet music for it.  When I did, I soon discovered that quality & playability varied according to the arrangement and left much to be desired.  (Apparently most folks who have arranged sheet music for video game music have never actually tried to play their stuff on a piano?)

After a couple days of poking around on the internet, though, I eventually stumbled across this YouTube video with a link to a quality arrangement of the piece:



(Open that video in a new window if you want to see the link to sheet music.)  More importantly, however, I discovered TOM BRIER, and a whole world of exciting piano music that I did not know existed.  After spending a day or two (or was it a whole week) being mesmerized by this...



...I went on to discover a wealth of actual ragtime that didn't come from a video game, including both classic ragtime-era pieces and contemporary works.

Now a little backstory here.  Apparently for many years, a certain Ron O'Dell (who goes by the YouTube username keeper1st) has been posting many videos of Tom Brier and other ragtime pianists (and more) on his channel.  (I'm bummed I didn't discover this a long time ago, but as the saying goes, better late than never.)  I greatly appreciate the willingness of Tom and others to be recorded, and Ron's relentless posting of more videos which serve to promote ragtime on the internet and connect more people with it.  (Others besides just Ron deserve credit for this as well - 'verybigrifle' being another favorite YouTube channel - but I'll be up all night if I try to credit them all here, plus I will inevitably miss some.)

The really significant thing about discovering Tom though was the attitude adjustment that happened to me with regard to how I approach the piano.  All of a sudden I realized the piano is not in charge.  I have to make it play what I want.  I have to own the piano.  I have to just go for it.  Why didn't I get this earlier?  Who knows?  And yes that does involve a good deal of practice.  But having been at this less than a year now, I have come much further in my overall piano proficiency than I ever thought I would get in life, thanks to ragtime.  Ragtime certainly has a way of honing proficiency, as long as you are motivated and don't give up.

If you watch enough of Tom, you soon find that he is renowned for his spectacular sight-reading skills, but I think learning ragtime well naturally lends itself to this ability.  I now know there are many other great ragtime pianists besides Tom, but it's likely that Tom will always be my favorite.  Not just because he is the first ragtime pianist I found online, but I still really like his style as well.

So now, for better or worse, I have become a certifiable ragtime nut.  I have purchased several books of sheet music, and printed off many scores from the internet.  So far I can play a lot of pieces poorly and nothing really well.  But my improvement continues, and when I feel that I can play something well enough for it to be worth posting, I may do so in the future.  It is tough to find time to practice when I have numerous other obligations, but I try to manage at least 45 minutes or so most days.  I'd get a lot farther with more practice, but I'll do what I can.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this discovery is there is so much more to ragtime than Joplin.  Ragtime is a much broader form of music than I used to think, and encompasses a lot.  Joplin was great and deserves the renown he gets, but he certainly doesn't have a monopoly on quality either among classic or contemporary ragtime composers.  There is so much more out there, and composers like James Scott, Henry Lodge and Percy Wenrich are quickly becoming favorites of mine.  (I have sheet music from Ron and Tom too!)

Here are a few more of my favorite ragtime videos for your viewing enjoyment, two classic pieces and a contemporary piece.  Enjoy!

Hiking objectives

I have realized lately that...

#1) I really enjoy hiking, and should do more of it.  Not only do I like being out in nature and up in the mountains and trees, but there are a lot of botanically interesting things most anywhere I go as well.

#2) As I get older, I had best start making more of an active effort to keep myself in good enough physical shape to do it.  I have definitely lost some ground in the last few years and I'm not really that old.... yet.

To that end, I am not only subjecting myself to various forms of exercise throughout the week, but I am also going to try to do more in the way of serious hiking.  I have a little time for this, but not a ton.  So the plan is:

#1) Once a week (Mondays), I'll go for a quick hike in the 2 - 5 mile range: I go one hour, then turn around and come back.  This would be somewhere in the mountains around here so I don't have to drive too far.  Ideally I'm back in three hours and don't have to bring any food.

#2) Once a month, I'll get out for a more serious hike of some type - basically, I'll make a day of it.   This may be with my family, or by myself, depending on how difficult the hike is and whether they want to come.  Also, I'm permitted to drive much farther to get to the trailhead.  Ideally I would hike at least 6 - 12 miles and I might get more ambitious when I get in better shape.

The once a month commitment applies to July through February only.  I know I won't have time for it in the spring.  I'm not sure what happens in spring to the Monday thing.  I may have to reduce it to every other week, or something.

So we'll see how this goes.  I already started, so first update to come soon!

Public Service Announcement: Don't Fool With Volcanoes.

And we're back.  Following years of me not posting anything, my faithfully non-existent readers need wait no longer.  Why now?  I can't really explain that.  My son is back to school.  I can think again.  And I feel like it.  We'll see how long that lasts.  But right now, I'm just shooting for one post.  It's possible I might not finish it.

But where was I.  I have a very important ANNOUCEMENT.  Which is, you don't want to mess with volcanoes!  They will kill you.  How do I know?  I just finished reading Fire Mountains of the West and I learned a lot of interesting things.  There has been much new research lately on the Cascade volcanoes, with the conclusion that even the ones we thought were relatively safe generally are not.  Sure, there are some truly extinct volcanoes in the Cascades.  But generally, all the really large volcanoes in Washington are just waiting for a chance to kill us.  If you're in a river valley downslope from a volcano, consider yourself dead.

So, why haven't they killed us yet?  Well, I suppose theories abound, but my belief is they are waiting for the right moment.  As soon as all the important river valleys are densely populated, then the volcano will strike.  What does it mean when you're excavating to build a house 40 miles from Mt. Rainier and find semi-mummified tree stumps buried in ash and mud?  It means don't buy that house.  Unless you want to be dead.

Who in the Northwest doesn't love Mt. Rainier?  It's so iconic.  It's just always there.  And it's fun to visit.  I was just on a hike there less than two weeks ago.  Tra-la-la, I said to myself.  (Actually, that was where I bought this book). Well I have news for you.  Mt. Rainier is an ACTIVE VOLCANO.  And not just any volcano - it is, in fact, AMERICA'S MOST DANGEROUS VOLCANO!!!!  Watch out for Mt. Rainier.  (Mt. St. Helens must be jealous.  Did we have to make it angry?)

What else should we watch out for?  Well, Mt. Baker could easily kill all those Dutch Reformed people in Lynden.  Then you have Mt. Shasta.  Geologists now know that it has been very active in recent times, and it's only a matter of time before it reawakens.  Mt. Shasta is truly a disaster waiting to happen, since there are several large towns/small cities (depending on your perspective) right at the base of it.  These people should all move.  Now.  Also, I-5 is doomed.  When Mt. Shasta wakes up, stay away!

This is why we live in Sequim: no volcanoes.  I suppose an ashfall could get us if the wind is blowing the wrong way.  But we ought to survive that.  The only major natural disaster likely to get us here is the next big subduction-zone earthquake.

In conclusion, volcanoes will kill you.  This concludes this public service announcement.  You're welcome.