End Pavement

I wanted to point to three writers I’ve been enjoying, all of whom coincidentally are posting about the Far East.

First up is a trio of posts that blogger Modern Hiker’s has put up recently about his trip to Tokyo last year. Great descriptions and photos:

• Hiking in Japan: Takao-San
• Hiking in Japan: Kamakura Pt. 1
• Hiking in Japan: Kamakura Pt. 2

The most recent from Kamakura seems to encapsulate what I imagine life to be like in Japan with the modern and ancient intertwined, from the organized games at an elementary school, to being caught in the wonder of a giant bamboo grove, to doing the tourist duty at a 13th-Century statue of Buddha.

As we continued our unscheduled surprise hike through the wilderness of Kamakura, we came upon many of the same sorts of things we saw while walking through Takao-san: rugged, rocky trails; dense forests; elderly, fit hikers; and shrines hidden and carved just about everywhere you could think of putting one.

The second writer is one well-familiar to hiking bloggers as someone who posts both evocative stories and gorgeous photographs — living in Japan, Bastish.net has posted about playing host to his parents of late. Back a couple of weeks, check out these posts: “Shitami” and “Going for Water”, while short, are wonderful. And since he’s been posting since the year 2000, there’s lots to check out.

The third writer is 80 Days or Bust, a travel blog being posted on the Condé Nast Traveler website by Mark Schatzker. Here’s the description:

One man sets off to re-discover the world the old-fashioned way, traveling no faster than 100 mph and taking the time to see, eat, drink, and blog about his experiences.

He started in California and took a cruise ship across the Pacific — the current posts are about traveling across Mongolia on horseback and in a Russian-made UVZ van. Schatzker has a good sense of humor that comes through in his writing, and the informal nature of the blog makes for a fun read. For an example, check out “My Sorry Attempt at Fly Fishing in Mongolia”.

Thanks to the Press-Enterprise for pointing out a new exhibit going on now at the San Bernardino County Museum.

[The] new exhibit [...] focuses on the unique geography of inland Southern California that makes the area especially prone to earthquakes, landslides, fires and floods.

Titled “Living on the Edge,” the show explores the scientific reasons for such natural disasters and their relationship to the human population. It details the ways local communities have coped in the past and prepared for the future, and offers pictorial reminders and preparedness hints.

The museum’s website has a full press kit with facts and figures, plus some of the images being displayed.

“Living on the Edge: Natural Disasters in San Bernardino County” runs March 17th to June 24th. I’ll definitely make plans to go see that.

I also want to see how the construction is coming on their new Hall of Geological Wonders, which had the groundbreaking back in February. The illustrations and blueprints look really cool.

Thanks to the Blasphemous Bicycler for pointing to this BBC news story about an experiment to see if climbers back in 1924 could have made it up Everest clad only in the clothing of the time. I guess some folks have managed to convince themselves it was impossible because, God knows, people could barely walk upstairs before they invented artificial fabrics.

The findings are a step closer to proving the men could have reached the top, 29 years before Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary.

Over the past few weeks, climber Graham Hoyland has been putting the old-style clothing worn on the fateful Mallory expedition to the ultimate field test on the world’s highest mountain.

Wearing replica gear made from gabardine, wool, cotton and silk, he wanted to disprove the common myth that the 1920s climbers were ill-equipped to reach the summit.

Anyhow, the experiment was successful for protection purposes, but was actually better than the newer materials for comfort and (of course) style, the latter of which being of prime importance. If you’re going to be clambering around on freezing mountains unlike sane people, you might as well look good doing it. As the Blasphemous Bicycler says,

Surprise, Surprise, wool and silk work out just fine in outrageously cold conditions.

More importantly, a mountaineer decked out in stylish woollies, cuts quite the dashing figure, and is sure to be popular with any young ladies he encounters on his way up the mountain.

Nice goggles, too (also very important). I want that outfit now, or one like it, and I’m not the only one; according to Hoyland,

“All the other climbers thought the jacket was stylish and wanted to know where they could buy their own versions of the clothes!”

This story brought to mind another from a few days ago on the Commute By Bike blog, No sweat bike commute, in which Fritz writes about bicycle riding in clothing other than the latest high-tech fashions.

I spent 15 years of my life with a faster bike commute. Each year, I had a new personal best for the time trial home. I wore sport-specific gear — bike shoes, bike socks, bike shorts, bike jersey, bike gloves — to improve my performance and wick away the sweat and I carted my work clothes to and from the office every day.

A few years go I began a radical experiment: I wore my normal work clothes to the office. I discovered something that LeMond and Petersen didn’t know about: you can go slow on a bicycle! The secret to the no sweat bike commute is to take it easy.

Words to live by.

Love this story from Freewheeling Spirit about two famous flyboys who were also dedicated wheelmen:

Like everyone else in the ’90s, Wilbur and Orville Wright were caught up in the bike craze. Wilbur preferred long country rides, while Orville enjoyed racing and considered himself a “scorcher” on the track.

By the mid-90s, they had set up their very own bike shop. Like most guys puttering around a bike shop, they were full of ideas.

“Hey, why don’t we come out with our own line of bicycles?”

“Yeah, man, I bet we could make one that would really fly.”

It was January 8th, 1857 — 150 years ago tomorrow.

It’s the California earthquake hardly anyone has heard of - strong enough to rip 225 miles of the San Andreas Fault and make rivers run backward, but leaving nothing like the cultural scar inflicted by the San Francisco Quake of 1906.

The AP has a story on the quake’s anniversary that serves as a scary reminder of the potential we always live with out here: “Giant California earthquake of 150 years ago is little remembered”. Amazing to think that a magnitude 7.9 quake would fade from consciousness, but in a way it hasn’t — this is the Big One that everyone knows, and there’s a “30 percent to 70 percent chance a magnitude 7.5 to 7.8 quake would rupture the southern San Andreas within the next 30 years.”

The reporter takes a trip to Fort Tejon State Historical Park, which is thought to be near where the epicenter was — looks like a cool trip for the historical exhibits alone.

The effects of the quake were felt throughout California. This is from a USGS page on the Fort Tejon quake:

This earthquake occurred on the San Andreas fault, which ruptured from near Parkfield (in the Cholame Valley) almost to Wrightwood (a distance of about 300 kilometers); horizontal displacement of as much as 9 meters was observed on the Carrizo Plain….A comparison of this shock to the San Francisco earthquake, which occurred on the San Andreas fault on April 18, 1906, shows that the fault break in 1906 was longer but that the maximum and average displacements in 1857 were larger.

And this from the Southern California Earthquake Data Center:

The Fort Tejon earthquake of 1857 was one of the greatest earthquakes ever recorded in the U.S., and left an amazing surface rupture scar over 350 kilometers in length along the San Andreas fault….

As a result of the shaking, the current of the Kern River was turned upstream, and water ran four feet deep over its banks. The waters of Tulare Lake were thrown upon its shores, stranding fish miles from the original lake bed. The waters of the Mokelumne River were thrown upon its banks, reportedly leaving the bed dry in places. The Los Angeles River was reportedly flung out of its bed, too. Cracks appeared in the ground near San Bernadino [sic] and in the San Gabriel Valley. Some of the artesian wells in Santa Clara Valley ceased to flow, and others increased in output. New springs were formed near Santa Barbara and San Fernando. Ridges (moletracks) several meters wide and over a meter high were formed in several places….

As it says in the original AP story:

…a repeat of Fort Tejon in the now-populous Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles - one of the fastest-growing areas in Southern California - could kill thousands of people and cause of [sic] tens of billions of dollars in damage.

While scientists cannot predict when the next quake will strike on the San Andreas, they say the southern segment that runs from the city of San Bernardino, 60 miles east of Los Angeles, to near the Mexican border is the most likely to break, since it has been building up stress for the longest time. It hasn’t popped in three centuries.

Spare a glance over your shoulder tomorrow at the beautiful mountains visible now thanks to the winter’s cleaner air. (Gorgeous day outside. Temps in the upper 70s, low 80s. Blue skies.) And make sure your earthquake kits are up to date.

“Past offers lessons on future Big One”

The Times picks up the story today.

Scientists hope to use the anniversary of the Jan. 9, 1857, quake in a yearlong series of preparedness campaigns aimed at shoring up residences and infrastructure.

Experts also will spend the year developing detailed scenarios about what would really happen if a magnitude 7.9 temblor — the size of the Ft. Tejon quake — were to occur along a length of the San Andreas in Southern California that scientists believe is overdue for a major quake: from the Salton Sea to Lake Hughes.

To kick off that effort, seismologists, engineers and emergency preparedness experts participated in a two-day scientific meeting Monday and Tuesday at USC, which houses the Southern California Earthquake Center.