Fortuitous Fuck-up

Sometimes the photos that don't come out as you planned or aren't as technically proficient turn out better than originally envisioned.  Take this- I was trying to shoot the junk boats (I believe this one was departing for a river tour) in Hong Kong at night.  I was going for a standard long-exposure, but forgot to take the flash off, so I ended up with this surrealish double-expsoure.  Pleasingly evocative of the lights, colors, and movement of the Hong Kong harbor and would be hard to reproduce.

Random Pretty Sunset

Just cause it's pretty.

In Philly, taken from my roof.

Can you Digs it?

Today is my brother's birfday!  Huzzah!

My present to him is this reminder of a wonderful day and his (and my) favorite mountain-

From our campsite on our first night on the Timberline Trail, the 43-mileish circumnavigation of Mt. Hood.  This is right near Mudd Fork River, looking up at the west face at sunset.  This was a great day- beautiful trails, easy river fords (don't think my feet even got wet!), 16 miles covered, happy times. 

Partway down the Elliot Glacier moraine, which the previous year had been plowed by a major landslide, looking up at the north face.  Here is a reminder of a less happy day...I popped my thermarest in a blowdown, there were some moderately frightening (and frigid) glacial river crossings, I got some bonkers heal blisters, and towards the end of the day we were confronted with this washout between us and the campsite.  Now, on the near side there was a rope to facilitate the descent of the steep and unstable moraine wall, mostly sand and ash dotted here and there with large boulders that were far from solidly buried.  So the descent was no prob.  But instead of assuming that there would also be a rope on the far side (I honestly don't think it even occurred to us...not our best moment), we decided to scramble up.  It was very much a two-steps-up, one-and-a-half-steps-back, one-wrong-step-and-you-fall-thirty-feet-into-the-river kind of thing, plus the unseating of the aforementioned boulders and a constant geysering of ash and dust directly into lungs.  Kinda rough for the end of a long day backpacking.  I think it was around 8pm when we finally made it to the camp (which, it turned out, was still about a mile away and did not have water).  Not the happiest of days, but y'know, adventure!  Sibling bonding!  General epicness!

Anyway, happy birthday bro!  I can't wait until our next mountainy adventure (much soonness!).

It's a mystery!

 

Blogger was mysteriously down for the count yesterday, but that's okay cause I was out having funs last night anyway.  Here is another mystery- what makes holes (with doors!) in the sandstone of the California desert?  This is about halfway between Death Valley and Las Vegas, and there were similar domicile-looking holes in all of the other rock outcroppings within about a half mile radius.  It is not and never was (at least not on anything but a geologic time scale) a hospitable place to live.  There was no signage, nothing on our detailed "places of cultural and geographic interest"-oriented map, nothing at all for miles around.  When did people live here?  Why did people live here?  It's a mystery!

You can't beat this view...

Waking up to this renders illness, altitude, drafty plywood box, and the soon-to-be-viewed yelling, naked British man almost irrelevant as far as inner bliss is concerned.

From my sleeping bag in Gokyo, Nepal.

Great Mosque- Xi'an

The ceiling of a pavilion in the Great Mosque of Xi'an.  I found it interesting how unified these decorative motifs were throughout China.  The same style, the same symbols, the same rich red-green-blue-gold color palette- on every mosque, temple, and imperial palace.  Now, much of this might have been done or enhanced in recent years in fits of nationalism, but the carvings here are certainly old.

Limited Liability Country

Warning: unusually high word content.  This picture takes some elaboration to be interesting.


In my travels, I have noticed some countries take a much more lax attitude toward personal safety and organizational/corporate liability than Ol' Uptight Amurrica the Litigious.  Probably the best example of this is Russia, where things like traffic laws and regulations about what you can do while drunk seem to be considered unbearably sissy. 

But Nepal had its moments too, and I mean that in a manner distinct from totally understandable resource limitations.  Take the Kathmandu zoo.  This picture is emblematic- the best way to feed a rhino, by all accounts a dangerous, aggressive, territorial, and unpredictable animal, is obviously to just stick a guy with a bucket in his habitat, one half-assed rhino-charge away.  Obviously.

But wait, you say, maybe that rhino was entirely predictable.  Maybe it had been there for decades and had never shown the slightest bit of aggression.  Maybe it was best friends with that bucket-wielder and they had lunch together every day.  Maybe it was a paraplegic and was hiding in the water because it was embarrassed about its condition, okay?  Back off, you insensitive jerk! 

And I will back off; I will grant you the paraplegic rhino.  But lets just say the "enclosures" here don't really enclose much.  A dozen kinds of springy antelope or deer-like species?  How about a ground level paddock with a fence about five feet high?  Wolves, bears, cougars, and all manner of predator-types?  How about some cages with bars easily hand-with apart?  Boyfriend, would you like to stick your hand in the Himalayan bear's cage and try to pet it?  Of course you would!  Little bite-size children, shall you do the same?  Why not?

You might take from the tone of the paragraphs that I condemn these policies and animal-retention designs, but you would be wrong.  Amused, yes.  But I rather like the responsibility for one's safety in this situation being on one's own shoulders.  Its up to me to assess the likelihood of that bear going berserk and biting my hand off.  Empowerment!