Sea Ice

Lewis and I went for a walk to look at the ice the other night - this is what it looked like..

RockFall 2009

RockFall was great again, lots of good climbing! I am experimenting with Picasa web albums as a way of showing the images. So here it is...

Santa Monica Beach

Yesterday I returned from LA where I had attended a two day Ground Probing RADAR workshop. After dropping my gear at the airport I decided to have a look around the city, but it is a big place, so I decided to go the the beach and at least have a look at the Pacific ocean. I hopped in a cab and asked the driver to take me to a beach. He recommended Santa Monica, perhaps because it is nice, or perhaps because it was a $45.00 ride away. As beaches go it was quite nice, a bit like Bournemouth beach, but with more palm trees. This photo doesn't really show the beach all that well. After visiting the beach I had a walk around Santa Monica, before getting the bus back to LAX, the bus was only $0.75 quite a deal!

Gasifier wood stove

For a few weeks now I have been trying to build a gasifier camp stove. This is a camp stove that efficiently burns wood. In a camp fire wood burns inefficiently, in fact much of it is not burned at all. Much of the combustible material is lost as smoke and is left behind as ash. Also, most of the heat is lost and is not easily directed to heat food. A camp stove is very convenient, but you have to lug fuel with you and the fuel is usually non-renewable fossil fuel.
My plan is to design a wood burning camp stove, that has the portability of a camp stove, but Burns wood. Currently it works, but the flames are a bit big. I am going to experiment to see if I can get the heat a bit more concentrated at the top of the stove, like a real camp stove. Fore a more complete description of my stove check out The Brain Saver

Spout Hike

In January of 2003 (I think) Neil and I decided to attempt a hike to the spout (A wave driven fresh water geezer on the Southern Avalon Peninsula). This is trip didn't go so well and we didn't actually get to see the spout in it's winter glory. This Year we decided to have another go. The next few photos are of various stages of the trip. Here Neil is on the barrens about 2km from the spout.

Spout Hike

This is a view looking south from the top of the ridge above the spout.

Spout Hike

Neil Surveying the landscape, trying to pick a good route down from the ridge. There is only about 800m of woods between the foot of the ridge and the shore, but this is the hardest part of the trail. on our return in 2003 it took us about 8 hours to get through this section, yes, a speed of 100m/h. Deep snow and fallen trees made travel extremely difficult!

Spout Hike

The Spout is created as a small brook runs down a fracture in the rock leading to a submarine cave. Wave action pushes water in and out of this cave, as waves enter the cave they act like a piston and force air and brook water out through the fractures. In the summer this is a pretty impressive feature. In the winter the fresh water freezes forming a large cone, here we estimated that it is standing about 20 feet above the rock on which it stands.

Sliding at Flatrock

On the north west facing side of the beamer (a 1km long peninsula in Flatrock) the 550 million year old sea bed is exposed and dips at about 20 degrees to the west. This winter ice has formed on several parts of this surface making walking out there an interesting, but possibly dangerous way to pass an afternoon. We also found that the ice can be quite fun as if provides a great surface for sliding - no sled required! Unfortunately this image fails to convey the motion, but rest assured that you can reach some pretty high speeds sliding on these ice sheets.

It should be noted that the beamer is notorious for the lives claimed by the waves pounding it's shores. We were sliding well out of reach of the waves and separated from them by several hundred metres of grass, boulders and rather short trees.

Taking a spin out to Flatrock.

The last snow storm we had in the Northeast Avalon area ended, as most have this year, with heavy rain followed by rapid freezing. This has resulted in some impressive ice sheets. Form this image you may think that I have been foolish enough to drive out onto a frozen pond, however this is just a parking area covered in about 10cm (4 in) of ice. Most flat surfaces in this ares look like this now unless they have been salted. Many car parks, drive ways and even some roads have a healthy coat of ice.

Morning Light

Here is an image I shot back in November while on a prospecting trip on the Baie Verte Peninsula (Newfoundland). We Flew into this location by chopper and spent a week wandering around kicking rocks. This was one of the nicer mornings as it was neither snowing or raining.

Pot Shop, Salluit

Here in Salluit it can be hard to find some of the most basic supplies, I couldn't fine a hammer or paint brush the other day! Even basic food can be a problem, we went almost a week with no bread, milk or eggs in the shops. However the pot shop is always busy and I assume well stocked. Perhaps I should drop in there and see if they could order in some bread with the next shipment!

Chucking rocks in Salluit

My first post for a while. I went for a walk along the beach in Salluit the other evening and noticed some kids playing in a boat, and another kid doing what seem slike a popular pass time here, throwing stones. it is not unusual to see kids standing in the road throwing stones at each other, or at houses, windows, pretty much anything.

Climbing Comp. 2008

Today was a day of climbing - well, not for me - I was photographing, but Lewis did some great climbing. He came second in the Junior division at the Wallnuts Rockfall climbing comp. In this image he is negotiating the Junior final route, which he, and 3 others completed, drawing for first, so to break the draw they climbed in a super final on a different route, he placed second on that route. He did very well, Michelle and I are quite proud of him.

Back in Labrador

Yep, I enjoyed doing GPR in Labrador so much they sent me back to do some more. This time I am working on the Voisey Bay Mine site.
I have been hoping to get onto the Voisey Bay site since moving to Newfoundland 12 years ago. Not sure why, I guess I heard so much about Voisey Bay while I was in University, it is cool to be here - not that I'll see much of it. I think the survey is going to be quite "interesting" so there will not be much play time. I'll try to post some photos.

St. John's -> St. Anthony -> Blanc Sablon -> Goose Bay -> Postville

After about 30 hours home I am off again, not to the desert this time, but to a frozen lake in Labrador. I'll be working on a project to map the bottom of some lakes so the volume of the lakes can be calculated. I'll be using Ground Penetrating RADAR (GPR) towed behind a Skidoo and Sled over a frozen lake. I think it is going to be cold, but It should be interesting.
The plan is that I'll be there for a week, than I'll be going back to Torbay.

Photos to Follow.

The Strip, Vegas

Well I am on the road again, and am staying in Vegas tonight. We are a few blocks from the strip, so I thought that although it is not my thing I should have a walk down there. It is quite a place, it is amazing what money can buy and what an artificial world people can create.I Think I prefer the desert, sure things either have spines, or are poisonous, out there, but at least it is all real.

Trees!

While Exploring today we found some trees and some very nice cactii. The white mountains in the distance are Zion National park.

Hudu?

We started work early today to make the most of the cold (-4C) mornings before it gets too hot, so we were finished with enough time for some exploring. Kanab Canyon is just a few minutes drive north of Kanab. There are some interesting rock formations here, most of which are going to require another visit with a wide angle lens.


I think this is what is known as a Hudu. Basically a layer of very soft sandstone is protected from rain by a cap of harder sandstone. It is this differential weathering that lakes some of the dramatic landscapes around Utah and Arizona.

Northern Arizona

This is a shot of the desert, about 40 km south of Kanab. In the distance you can see the far side of a canyon, not sure how big this one is as we haven't had a chance to get any closer than this. The Grand Canyon is about 85 miles from here.