Month: September 2007

Del Webb, Sierra Canyon, Reno Hiking Group Monday Hike

Today was the best Monday hike we have done so far with the Sierra Canyon Hiking Group. We parked on the Mount Rose Highway and hiked south on the Tahoe Rim Trail up Chickadee Ridge. It was a beautiful day but cold when we started out. There was quite a bit of ice on the trail. I loved it though. The scenery of the forest, mountains, and Lake Tahoe was stunning. The crisp mountain air made the day all the more glorious. We must have seen 20 different bicyclists on the trail but a only a couple of other hikers.

Here is the Flickr link to the pictures of the hike.

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Kilimanjara after White Mountain

I had a nice email exchange a few days ago with Bob Coomber AKA 4WheelBob, the guy who recently climbed White Mountain and was the first person to do it in a wheel chair. I talked about him in my blog here and here.

There is a great YouTube video of his ascent of White Mountain posted by Rick at besthikes.com

In our email exchange I commented that one of the nice things about blogging is the people you ‘meet’ as a result. On of the things Bob said in his email to me is….

"I’m not a real publicity hound by nature, so my challenge the rest of the year is to assert myself to Corporate America, hoping some businesses find some PR value in sponsoring my planned Kilimanjaro summit next summer."

So if you know anyone who would like to sponsor him let him know.

Trip to LA, Fort Churchill and The Ancient Bristlecone Pines

Last weekend Duke and I drove to LA on Friday and back on Monday. We took interesting detours both coming and going to do some site seeing. On the way down we stopped at Fort Churchill State Historic Park. It is located on the Carson River about 50 miles south east of Reno. Fort Churchill was built in 1860 and abandoned in 1869. It was on the pony express route and guarded the route west against Indians. The adobe buildings of the fort are in ruins but it is still very interesting to see what is there and to visit the museum.

On the way home we detoured to The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains east of highway 395 at Bishop. The views from the road and the visitor center which is at about 10,000 feet are stupendous. The bristlecone pines are amazing and fascinating. Many of the trees are more than 4000 years old and still living. They are the oldest living things on earth. Some of the dead trees on the ground can be dated back 10,000 years.

What I found particularly fascinating is that they have been able to use the wood from bristlecone pines  which can be precisely dated using tree rings to calibrate radiocarbon dating. This all happened in the 1960’s and as a result of the recalibration many archaeological dates have been corrected. Many artifacts found in Europe were actually much older than originally thought. As a result scientists have reinterpreted their theories of cultural diffusion. This also means that the dates we learned in school in the 60’s were wrong.

From the bristlecone pine visitor center a dirt road heads north to the trailhead for climbing White Mountain. Duke and I are thinking that climbing White Mountain is something we might like to do next year. Here are my pictures of the bristlecone pines, the interpretive trail and our car on the road to White Mountain.

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Thomas Jefferson by R. B. Bernstein

I just finished reading Thomas Jefferson by R.B. Bernstein. As you may remember I also recently read His Excellency – George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis  and John Adams by David McCullough. Jefferson was American president number three, Adams was number two and of course Washington was number one. The Jefferson book was considerably shorter and also much more of an overview than the other two books. I found it engaging and interesting although I missed a lot of the in depth stories and quotations that the longer books included.

I have started a project to read at least one book about each of our presidents. When I was looking at reviews to help me decide which Jefferson book to read there were a lot of  comments about what a complex person Jefferson was. Before reading this book I really knew very little other than the basics about Jefferson. Bernstein’s book gave me a very balanced non judgmental perspective. I like it that in the epilogue Bernstein discusses the different historical stages that Jefferson’s reputation has gone through. Apparently over the years historians have had problems with how Jefferson’s actions often differed from his words and how he often said different things to different people about an issue. Examples of this include the fact that Jefferson hated slavery but owned slaves, Jefferson believed that the federal government only had the powers explicitly granted in the constitution but yet he purchased the Louisiana purchase, and he believed strongly in equality but yet was strongly against women in government. Jefferson was a consummate politician in the best sense of the word. I have always liked people who are able to see two sides of an issue and who are able to work with a diverse group of people. It seems to me that this is what makes Jefferson very likable to me.

I am finding that reading biographies is a great way to learn about history. Instead of reading about events I am reading about people’s reactions to the events and in fact am often reading more than one perspective. In essence it allows me to triangulate history.

Now I am on to President number four, Madison. If you have any suggestions for future books I should read let me know.