Last night was a sold out show of Apocalyptica in Ottawa, at the Capital City Music Hall. CCMH has moved, and the new venue is… different. That said, being in the front-row of a standing-room-only packed house is amazing, regardless of the venue.

The set was a phenomenal mix of their traditional covers as well as their new material; the crowd the normal Canadian boisterous bunch; and the experience was truly priceless. Having flirted with the band briefly in 2001, not really enjoying their music much, I’m happy to see they’ve “grown up”: A little compromise here and there has led to a full-time drummer and touring vocalist, which completely changes their color and the duration I can listen to three-to-four cellos without wanting to behead myself.

Yeah, cellos. Go listen. I would, but I’m still deaf from last night.

I returned from NH late Saturday and have been reacquainting myself to technology, wonderous foods, etc. - generally using successive approximations. Over the coming days there should be a flurry of pre-dated posts based on the paper journal that was my companion. Also, I expect to have the gallery for the trip up pretty quick tonight at some point.

In summary it was a great stretch by myself in the Adirondacks for a week, the Whites for two weeks, and then with a truly amazing crew for the last week. 6423 e-mails awaited me Monday morning, and have all been sorted out, with responses where I thought they were necessary- the rest will sit until someone decides to ping me [again] about them.

UPDATE 8.18 @ 11pm: Photo gallery is online, but the pics are not yet annotated. Also, the blog posts are rolling out, starting with 7.28.2008. Not all done yet, but a lot.

UPDATE 8.19 @ 6pm: All pics annotated and all of the pre-dated blog posts are finished.

[This post is based on my trail journal for the day in question. Parts may be redacted or expanded as memory and whim dictate]

Up at sunrise. The weather was soft and clear. I sat on a picnic table until breakfast. Corso left early on the van to catch a bus home. Wil, Shannon, Jamie and I headed off an gave the Wildcat zipline a go. After getting tickets, we didn’t want to wait for a lift… So we hiked the .5mi up to the zipline platform, zipping back down at ~45MPH we had our good-bye hugs and on our way by 10:30.

The drive home was largely uneventful, although rainy throughout Vermont and a lot of NY. I did take a brief nap at the VT welcome center, and enjoyed a truly beautiful ride across Lake Champlain on the ferry in the sun. Home ~4:00.

Eben’s for dinner.

Everything is Zen.

[There was no journal entry for this day]

I did not get up at sunrise. In fact, I didn’t get up until breakfast at 7. Exhausted from moving heavy rocks during the day, the excursion last night, and sore from the same.

Today’s the last day and the crews mixed up a bit. Natalie and Shannon needed some help with the stairs, and Wil and Sarah needed another set of arms with their steps. I pitched in the former and Corso the latter. Paula and Jamie finished setting the last stone and trenching the waterbar.

After doing as much as we could with the time allotted, the three of us headed off to where camp was and brushed it down. The “kitchen” area was a mudpit and definitely took the longest. The trails brushed over great thereafter. The crew loaded up and hiked the ~1.2mi back down to the trailhead to pile into a waiting van and back to camp.

BBQ was great - Anya really outdid herself. Sarah left with a relative for a formal event elsewhere. The rest of us headed off to enjoy a well-earned night on the town. The Shannon Door provided us splendid live entertainment, wonderful nachos, and all the Stolichnaya I cared to drink. I do hope my New Hampshire Moose cracks live on. Given the downers and revelations of the evening, I had a truly exceptional time- a sentiment shared by all there.

[This post is based on my trail journal for the day in question. Parts may be redacted or expanded as memory and whim dictate]

Up at sunrise again. My knee throbbing encouraged me to take a couple ibuprofen. Forward movement is relatively fine, but if I side-step, or try to turn on my right leg, it hurts wicked.

Same crews hit the same projects today. Our waterbar has two behemoths and a smaller end-stone. We’ve also screed the upper edge with a couple uglies the girls quarried.

We broke work fairly early to have time to run up Air Line to the Madison Ridge. I had real doubts about how far I would make it, and generally considered myself stupid for even attempting it with my knee, but the lousy thing has been feeling great all day- only one incident mid-morning where I slipped and it partially dislocated again. So I led up the ~2mi and ~2500′ to Madison Hut. My strongest motivator was that no one on the hike had ever been above treeline, and being able to share that with people was so very cool. I love the alpine and supratree areas. They’re so different from what anyone is used to. As a definite bonus, we all got to suck down some fresh water at Madison Hut, and refill our containers. We’ve been drinking clorinated pool-water for the last few days, and some fresh mountain well-water was well-received (Pun intended). Wil broke off from the main group on the way up, wanting to summit Adams for the views inward, but rejoined us below-treeline on the descent.

I had planned the trip well. We reached the hut within 3 minutes of when I projected and the descent was largely going faster than expected throughout the ridge-fall and alpine areas, until the Air Line got under dense canopy and sogged up. It hasn’t dried out from the rains of last week because of the foliage, and every rock was slick, and every trailstep a bog. Everyone slipped at least once, most several times. I took a particularly bad spill on a rock buffet I was scrambling, and had to clench it off for a minute after. We didn’t make it back before dark, but we were no worse for wear and all appreciated the experience. I couldn’t be happier.

[This post is based on my trail journal for the day in question. Parts may be redacted or expanded as memory and whim dictate]

Up at sunrise yet again, watching it come up through the trees, slowly illuminating the forest.

Jamie, Corso and I started working on a water bar (rock). They combined to create a formidable rock-moving team. With only sporadic help and guidance from myself or Paula, they managed to quarry-to-trail a 300-350 pound chunk of granite ~50′ through the woods, and another 20′ or so down the trail! AMC/USFS rules don’t allow backfilling or propping, so setting these behemoths is definitely not going to be as easy as it could be.

Wil and Sarah are working on a mini-stair, just up from our camp ingress. Natalie and Shannon are a bit up further working on a stair that was started last week by another crew. Paula is generally with my group, and Hammy is floating around.

After work, most of us headed back down-trail to Lake Durand. The water was icy but felt amazing, all agreed. There was a loon on the lake most of the time we were there. Didn’t seem to mind us much, just kept its own distance.

After dinner, en route to the bear hang (in the dark), I stepped in a hole left after someone in last weeks crew quarried a steprock. The bottom part of my right leg stayed in the hole, while the rest of me fell to the right, resulting in an excruciating lateral dislocation. Thankfully my leg came out of the hole as I hit the ground and partially relocated itself, leaving only a little left for me to do. I’ve never dislocated my knee before. The nausea was intense, and the surprise of it definitely caught me a bit off guard. It’s been a couple hours since then, and I feel a lot better, although it’s still ridiculously sore, and quite bruised-looking. Not too swollen, but the four ibuprofen I horsed down might have something to do with that.

[This post is based on my trail journal for the day in question. Parts may be redacted or expanded as memory and whim dictate]

Divided the loads up, and headed out to Air Line, a trail from Appalacia south to Madison Ridge. Packed 70-75 pounds ~1.2mi up to our off-trail camp. The load was rough and the trail unkind, but we all made it up with surprisingly little complaining.

Wil and I tossed for bearbag holds. He hit both with a wicked underhand- one was ~20′ up, the other closer to 25′- ending my reign. He and I are sharing a provided 4-man.

After getting things settled, four of us hiked quite a ways up Air Line further to get some better views of the sunset. Didn’t break treeline, but definitely got up a ways.

[This post is based on my trail journal for the day in question. Parts may be redacted or expanded as memory and whim dictate]

Up early for the first day of crew. Pouring rain and no working chainsaws for a day of bog-bridge-building. Fucking great. Spent several blisterful hours with two-man crosscut saws on logs before heading out in the van to Caps Ridge trail. Paired with NJ for most of the time on a rough placement. The crew worked on four bridges, but I believe only three were actually finished before we packed out and back to Dodge: All of us completely covered in mud, completely soaked through, boots squishing, gloves useless.

After cleaning up a bit we headed into Conway for light drinks, light dinner, and to pick up the third Virginian.

[This post is based on my trail journal for the day in question. Parts may be redacted or expanded as memory and whim dictate]

I woke up a bit before 6 at Dodge, and was greeted with brilliant sun. I walked up to the hall and on a lark turned around. Wow. The Presidentials were out of the clouds for the first day in 10, and I wasn’t about to miss that. I grabbed my day gear and raced to the Tuckerman Ravine (TUX) trailhead at Pinkham.  I humped all the way up to the Washington summit, almost non-stop except for pictures. The TUX headwall is 900′ up, with another 1100′ up from the top of the wall to the summit. [I stitched a pretty amazing vertical panorama of the TUX, for a sense of what it's really like]

Backat Dodge: The thunder rolled in a bit ago. Hailing pretty nastily now. I’ve met a good chunk of the crew: Two girls from Virginia, one from NJ, one from NY and an English guy currently residing in NJ but schooling in QC. No profound opinions yet. We’re going to be picking up another Virginian tomorrow night at the bus stop in Conway. Per observations I’ve gleaned we’re hammering the Air Line trail (Appalacia, south to Madison ridge) and some trail on the west-side of Jefferson.

Hiked: 4.1mi, 4200′ up.

Favorite Pic: Pano looking down across the Tuckerman Ravine from the headwall crest.

[This post is based on my trail journal for the day in question. Parts may be redacted or expanded as memory and whim dictate]

Drove over to Franconia Notch to spend the day with my parents who were coming back from vacationing in Maine. We met up early at The Flume and walked around there - very similar to Ausable Chasm. Thereafter we went up Cannon Mountain via cablecar which was really cool. It was mostly cloudy while we were up there, with inconsistent views of the Franconia Ridge but generally great views of the notch looking south. It was nice to be able to convey the scale of what I was hiking to my parents - Seeing Franconia Ridge really hit it home that this wasn’t a leisurely walk in the woods.

After lunch we went up Artist’s Bluff which provided great views of the notch south, the Franconia and Garfield ridges, etc.

Favorite Pic: From Kinsman ridge, pano looking south down the notch with Mom.