Islands in the Sky

 Fog--often surrounding ridges and peaks like water surrounding an island--is shown in the following photos, which were taken on eight different days during five different months in 2020. Enjoy.

Toppling John Muir

In my 20s, I remember reading an article that lamented the loss of heroes for youth to emulate. It made me ask myself who my hero was.

The answer was John Muir. Muir and I share many attributes, and I've lived my life in many ways parallel to his, reading his works and repeating his adventures.

It is hard when your hero falls from grace. The first times it happened were when I read things he wrote that I disagreed with: his opinions on fire and irrigated agriculture were not helpful, and likely harmful given his influence. Examples:

Learning about equity from Monopoly

In recent months, when I played Monopoly with my kids, I realized how insidious the rule is that you don't have to pay someone who doesn't notice that you landed on their property. That rule encourages dishonesty and bad sneaky behavior--and could be responsible for the downfall of western civilization. Wait, never mind, the me-first capitalist mindset preceded Monopoly. But still, we don't play with that rule so as not to encourage dishonesty--at least while they are young and impressionable.

Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter. While this statement is true, I dislike it for the same reasons I dislike the term "environmentalist." Of course all human lives matter! Of course we all care about our surroundings! Everyone should embrace both ideals, making both terms completely unnecessary. Unfortunately, the need for both terms reflects the presence of--and pushes back on--people in our society who behave irrationally, and who don't care about people or the environment--or more accurately, people who do not act to change the way things are due to past practices and decisions that weren't in the best interest of people and the environment, and continue to influence our society today. And with both movements, people can be harming progress just by doing business as usual, because of a lack of education. We all must strive to educate ourselves, listen to experts, and do the best we can to help make the world a better place.

I went to the beach

Has anyone else been reading headlines and news articles as if they were from The Onion during regular times? The video of the guy cleaning his groceries is classic and will be watched in disbelief by incredulous audiences many times in future years (but honestly, it is helpful, and right now we are following some of his guidance). The Point Reyes Light's "Sheriff's Calls" is full of people reporting other people doing very normal things, like going to the beach, surfing, etc. On social media too, from people's reactions, you'd think going to the beach was somehow dangerous--for people who only are familiar with crowded Southern California beaches on summer weekends, this attitude is excusable--but the world is full of lightly-traveled beaches with few virus-carrying humans where it is perfectly safe to be (and probably one of the safer places to be in the spectrum of risk).

So last weekend I went to the beach (yes, this used to be normal and acceptable behavior). And I wasn't going to let anything stop me--not the dirty dishes (partially dealt with), screaming kids (handled), lovely wife, cute cats, social media shamers, poorly-worded closure signs, or lingering symptoms. I'm so done with being sick. After seven months of sickness and disease (with two kids in two schools we get plenty of colds), and having had the latest cough for over five weeks, I was finally feeling well enough for a big day of exercise. I needed to get out.

By the way, my SARS-CoV-2 antibody test came back negative. So I had the flu shot last fall, plus I probably had the flu or something similar twice since January. But I digress.

The bike ride from San Geronimo to Limantour Beach is about 20 miles (40 miles round trip). After passing through the Samuel P. Taylor State Park campground on the Cross Marin Trail, I was catching up to three cyclists ahead of me. Not really wanting to deal with passing, I followed at a slower pace, then at Platform Bridge they disappeared and I merged onto Sir Francis Drake Blvd adjacent to another cyclist. I tried to get ahead but couldn't, then fell back, then passed, then was passed. This was my first time over Olema Hill on a bike, and it was hard to find my pace while at the same time trying to be adequately physically-distanced ahead of or behind the other rider, who was much older but frequently rides long distances. He disappeared ahead before I reached the top.

Coronavirus Pandemic Misinformation and Mislabeling and Musings

First of all, I want to start by expressing gratitude and appreciation for everyone that is leading us through these uncharted waters. Nevertheless, there is always room for improvement and better ideas, and I may have a few here. Or maybe not.

Social Distancing
"Social distancing" has been with us for over two months, but it is an inaccurate term. In the age of social media, "Physical distancing" is much more accurate and it is nice to see many people and agencies switching to this term.

Shelter-in-place
It has been six weeks since the poorly-named "Shelter-in-place" orders were issued. The consequences of the misnomer "Shelter-in-place" really hit me when I spoke to my mom one day, and she told me she was afraid to go outside in her yard, and that the Coronavirus was washing up on the beaches from the ocean. Now, the latter belief was a result of a single person's ill-chosen remarks that were widely reported in the Southern California media and quickly retracted. But the former--fear of going in the yard--was certainly related to the "Shelter-in-place" terminology, since "stay home" does not equal "stay inside," but "shelter" implies staying inside.

This is a poor name because it is inaccurate--depending on where you live, it is generally safer outdoors than indoors. The purpose of the shelter orders is to keep us away from each other, not to keep us away from the outdoors.

Your chances of catching the virus when you go outdoors is extremely low, provided you’re keeping a safe distance from others. “Outdoors is safe…unless if we are in a very crowded place — which is not allowed now anyway. It is safe to go for a walk and jog and not to worry about the virus in the air..." Lidia Morawska, professor and director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia.
NYT 4/17/20

Paired-watershed Study

A paired-watershed study is conducted by using two similar watersheds and evaluating them for differences. One watershed is a control and the other has a management change applied to it. You can then measure the differences in flow and water quality exiting the watersheds, and have a pretty good idea of how the management change influenced any flow or water quality changes. Or in this case, with no management applied, the differences reveal natural differences in the watershed.

February 2020 was the driest February since 1864 in San Francisco. No rain fell there, as well as here in San Geronimo Valley (except for one weather station (WDAC1) that picked up 0.01 inches of precipitation on February 24th). December precipitation was 200% of average, however January was only 37% of average. February was 0% of average.

San Geronimo Creek peaked at a respectable 210 cfs in December--the highest December flow in 3 years, but less than 1/10th the peak flow in 2016--a good situation for Coho salmon redds, which got plenty of water but wouldn't have been washed out by flows high enough to scour the streambed. Since there weren't that many redds this year, a higher survival rate would be nice. January's peak flow was 70 cfs. February's was 6 cfs--perhaps the lowest February flow since 1864.

A 30-year History of My Mountain Bikes

My mountain bike is thirty years old this year. Or maybe it is 28, I'll have to look that up and update this later. It is a 21-inch Giant Iguana, a little on the tall side for me, but that is what they had in stock thirty years ago at South Bay Bicycles in Torrance, CA (on Sepulveda Blvd), near where I grew up. It was the first--and last--bicycle I bought for myself.

My parents had bought me bikes before--a new bike was always an exciting birthday or Christmas present. I had been riding my brown curved-handlebar ten-speed the three-and-a-half miles to high school every day, often followed by another mile-and-a-half ride to the beach after school, when my parents bought me my first mountain bike. It was a light blue low-end mountain bike with slightly curved handlebars. All the "real" mountain bikes had straight handlebars, but it was better than a ten-speed for dirt riding.