Swarms

This isn't really great photography or anything, it's more of a Halloween post.  You see, swarms of anything gross me out in a creepy, Halloweeny way.  Doesn't matter if it's rats or people crawling all over each other, it's stomach-turning.  So you can imagine my consternation when, on a winter hike in the Poconos with boyfriend, I came upon an area of snow pocked here and there with holes FULL of swarming insects.  These are big holes, about a foot across, and there were at least a dozen of them.  That's a lot of bugs.  And they were all wriggling and squirming.  It's snow, bugs!  It should be pristine and pretty.  Stop making it gross.

Anyway, Happy Halloween.  May your snow be free of weird bug spawns.

The horror, the horror...

Today, I am going to the Exhumed Films 24-hour Horror Fest.  I went a few years ago (was in Nepal last year, poor me!), and it was pretty bonkers.  Its 3am, you're hopped up on candy, and you are watching some true, delirious insanity unfold on the screen in front of you.  Its usually an eclectic mix of movies, from the actually good (Cronenberg), to the classic (Suspiria), to the classic B-movie (the original Piranhas), aaand to the apeshit, shot-on-a-shoestring, Indonesian, cannibals-kung fu-special forces-orgiastic-pagan sacrifice-zombies whatthefuckery.

And in the spirit of this event and this holiday, here is one of many carcasses we saw piled along a half-mile stretch of the Bishnumati River in Kathmandu- an urban water source.  That is true horror.

Pensive Piety

A congregant at the Great Mosque of Xi'an.

In his house he waits dreaming...

Fancypants spider of unknown species (genus Aranea!), Kathmandu, Nepal.

Burned out

Undergrowth rebounding after a controlled burn in Mariposa Grove, near (in?)Yosemite.

Ama Dablam

Egregious gap in mountain pictures!  Too many goons on rocks- gotta step back and get the whole boulder.

Everest gets all the press, but Ama Dablam, just south of the big man in the Khumbu Valley, is easily the most arresting and beautiful of the peaks in the area.  Also one of the most visible- it is one of the few mountains that you can see from a variety of points in the valley.  This was taken from Dughla, just across the river from the end of the Cho La pass.  I wanted so badly to get some quality alpenglow shots on this trip, but was each day foiled by the relentless march of late afternoon clouds.  This was the closest I ever got- within about 10 minutes those clouds had rolled up to envelop me.  Still, I think this came out quite well.

The Wizard(s)

Back to Birdsboro!  In truth, only one of these guys bears that nickname.  Can you guess which one?

I can tell you who is not a wizard though- me.  Yesterday, for the first and last time, I got my hair stuck in my ATC while rappelling off a route I cleaned.  No danger, if anything I was more secure due to some unplanned shimming of my belay device, but I did think I was going to have to give myself an impromptu haircut.  With a knife (both life-saving rope and life-giving carotid in close proximity!).  While dangling in midair.  While my head was pretty much cranked down on my shoulder.  After about 10 minutes of finagling and some aid from the ground, I managed to free it.  First and last time.

On the plus side, feeling progressively stronger and I can climb fairly hard two days in a row.