Quiz 3: Try Googling This!

Background:
One of the more disgusting things that scientists of the world get to do it diet studies. This may not sound bad in principle but how do you truly figure out what and how much of what an animal has eaten. This is a particularly tricky task for marine animals since it is very difficult to observe them for any significant amount of time.

The best way of finding out what an animal has eaten is look at what is inside that animal. Yep, that's right. You have to catch the animal, kill it, and then dissect its innards to find out what kind of animals are in its digestive track. To the untrained eye most things just look like a pile of goo since they are inevitably in some sort of decomposed state but believe it or not people become very good at identifying those piles of goo.

The fact that there are indigestible parts of animals is a huge help to scientists that perform these studies. Body part such as bones, otoliths, beaks and eye lenses can all be counted and potentially linked to a specific prey.

Question:
And so we finally arrive at the questions, how do you tell the difference between fish eye lenses and squid eye lens?
ANSWER:
Keith is correct. Squid and fish eye lenses are different shapes. Fish eyes are sphere shape and squid eyes have a flat surface. Keith you are ready to dig into some guts and start describing food chains.

Big Spiders

We spent Sunday climbing at Pinnacles in preparation for the Red Rocks trip. It was a great day, we managed to stay in the shade except on anchor of the last few routes. We got to see a lot of wildlife too. Before arriving at the craig we spotted three hairy spiders aka tarantulas. First wild tarantulas we had ever seen.
The photo above shows how well they blend in with the ground, you can just make out it's last legs and abdomen in front of Louie as it leaves the road. I made Lou take the close up pictures as I didn't really want to get that close.


We also saw frogs, two soaring CA condors, woodpeckers stashing acorns for the winter and deer. We even made a new friend! Any who, it was a good day. Now we are counting down to Red Rocks and Thanksgiving, 6 days until mayhem begins and we can't wait!

This is from last month, Louie spent a weekend in Yosemite with Graham, Greta, Jake and Emily. They had a grand ol' time. I thought this was a great pic of Graham.

We only got one photo from our weekend in Tahoe, and this is it. Good times with family and friends!

October/November

Time for an update. Since our last post we have continued to have fun outside and I have been making progress on my thesis.
I am taking a diving class this fall. Last week we were diving with a foraging sea otter and the week before we got to dive in the Monterey Bay Aquarium's kelp forest exhibit. It has all been awesome. Check out the MBA exhibit live link at http://www.mbayaq.org/efc/efc_kelp/kelp_underwatercam.asp
In the mornings between 9-10 they have a diver in there to feed the fish. While you are checking out the site you can print out a sea food watch card, they recently put together one for sushi.
Louie has spent some weekends without me in Yosemite. He met up with Jake and Emily, and Graham and Greta last month for a fabulous weekend in the park while I made progress on my thesis.
Halloween weekend was the annual Tahoe trip with my Grampa Don. We were joined by a new cast of characters (new to the Tahoe weekend), including Louie's mom, her boyfriend and his daughter, my grandpa's girlfriend Pam, and Jake and Emily.
The weekend started on Halloween night in Sacramento. Louie and I dressed as Dr. Seus's Thing 1 and Thing 2 complete with silly string, water gun, and balloons for props. It is good fun to create small bits of mischief at a party where you only know two other people.
Saturday night we spent several hours at the casino. Emily played 4 hours of blackjack and didn't lose any money! I sat down at a roulette table and placed 6 chips on number 23. The ball was tossed spinning around and coming to rest on......23! The first spin! One spin and I doubled my gambling money. One spin and I was cashing in, a short successful night of gambling for me. Jake played some roulette later and won all the chips in his color!
Most of our group walked out of the casino with some extra money or at least even, and we all had fun.
We played a great game of Pictionary and went on a group run. There was a lot of rain this year so no climbing, but there was great company, good food, and a welcome soak in the hottub.

One week into November and we are preparing for our Thanksgiving vacation. Louie and I are much looking forward to some time climbing at Red Rocks with a slew of friends we don't get to see often enough. At the last head count we will be joined by Pete, Keith, Jake, Graham, Garrett, and Eric. After four days of climbing we are headed to Boulder to meet up with even more of our fantastic friends for Thanksgiving feasting and other festivities.

Look for a third quiz question coming soon. Melanie is two for two, any challengers out there?
First person to correctly answer three quiz questions will receive a treat from the Fraurer's bakery.

Laboring In Tuolumne

So this is going to be one more post about the greatness that can be found in Yosemite. There are just way to many world class climbs, amazing trails, and awesome animals to not spend at least one weekend a month in Yosemite. Jaz and I got our selves and four of our friends together for a backpacking, fishing, climbing trip in Toulumne meadows.

Here is the whole crew minus one, Kenny, who is taking the picture.

The trip started out pretty average with high spirits and beautiful scenery. Joelle thoroughly enjoys being outside as can be witnessed by her zen like stretching. We made it over out first pass which was an average climb but pretty windy. Apparently there are two methods for dealing with the wind, one is to try to put your head into it and power through. The other is to embrace it in the hopes that you will gain some lift and allow you to easily move forward. Kenny and Jasmine explored both methods.

Our second pass was cross country hiking (no trail) and after reaching the top we were rewarded with a spectacular view of our climb for the next day, Matthes Crest. This is a view from the east side instead of the standard approach view from the west side. We camped at Matthes Crest Lake which is off to the left.

The first evening in camp quickly exposed our weaknesses in gear and otherwise. Lewis proceeded to get progressively ill which proved to be extremely serious later in the trip while our stove, Joelle's and Lewis' stove, and our water filter all failed. Not so good for preparing food. Joelle gave us some good lessons in cooking over an open fire, a first for me, and after some small flare ups in frustrations a late dinner was served and amazing then everyone was just fine.

We awoke to what was probably the most beautiful sunrise I have ever witnessed. You can imagine how beautiful it was considering the picture was taken by complete amateurs with a cheap point and shoot. This did cause a significant delay in starting the climb however since who wants to climb on a 11000 ft. ridge with the risk of thundershowers looming.

Matthes Crest route deserves every one of the five stars that SuperTopo gives it. We climbed it in 30 mph winds that were biting cold wearing every piece of clothing we had on the trip but managed to have a great time. Especially once we got jasmine climbing and she could warm up a little. She admittedly did not have the best first pitch due to the cold. The route is usually climbed from south to north and has 300 feet of vertical climbing to gain the ridge. Then there is about one mile of traversing that is interspersed with 5.6 downcliming and upcliming moves. The last two pitches are the crux with a 5.6 downclimb and 5.7 lead. We then did two rappels off the east side to return to our camp. The standard rap route to the west had tons of rap stations but we found slings and did not have to leave behind any gear.

All ready to go and checking out the approach after the clouds cleared at 9am


Chris and Kenny climbed first so Kenny is taking the picture, Chris is the first one on the ridge, then me and Jaz are simul-climbing behind them. Jaz is the light blue spot on the highest point.


My awesome wife looking like the rock star that she is on the ridiculously exposed climbing that is Matthes Crest. I love being outside with her.



We got back to camp at 5pm, hungry but not too cold. The wind helped deliver the coldest night of our trip though and it got down to about 15F. I was the first one out of bed because jasmine and I had just purchased a new down bag two person sleeping system and were just as cozy as could be all cuddled up all night without wearing any extra cloths. Everyone was quick to jump out of there bags once I got a fire started and we started packing up to move to Cathedral lake. This hike took the four climbers of the group about 3 hours. Lewis' health had continued to deteriorate though and the hike took him and Joelle about 6 hours to complete. That evening we were all quite worried about him. He certainly was not having a very good time. We spent the evening relaxing, eating shmores, and talking logistics of getting Lewis out of the backcountry as early as possible. This involved us getting up a 4:30 to do our climb of Cathedral Peaks regular route so off to bed we went.

Now you may not think that you need an early start (especially a 4:30 one) for a climb on a mid-week day when you only have a 45 min approach but we sure were glad that we got that early of a start. Sure it was for other reasons than to beat the crowds but it still worked out that we had crowds to beat. The route was superb, again worthy of all 5 stars. Consistent, well protected, and fun 5.6 climbing for 5 pitches. This route is the debateably the most popular in all of Tuolumne for a reason. We were able to make it to the fourth pitch before anyone else even started at the base but by the time that we had walked off there were 5 other teams on the route, what a mess! I can not re-iterate enough how valuable our lesson of getting an early start has been in Yosemite on numerous occasions, thanks Chris.

Me and Jaz with South Cathedral Lake and Cathedral Peak in the background. Our route followed the right hand skyline of the peak. Our camp was off to the left.


Jasmine leading the perfect shoulder width chimney pitch and having a great time enjoying warm sunshine and zero wind.

For the most part the trip was totally awesome, relaxing, and well executed. I say for the most part because there was some fallout to deal with once Lewis got himself out of the backcountry. I have been hinting at issues all along which is exactly how it felt while we were out there. Things got serious pretty fast when Jaz and I woke up to a message from Joelle about taking Lewis to the hospital and being admitted into the ICU. We rushed to the hospital to find Lewis in stable condition but with absolutely no word as to what was wrong with him. I will spare you the details but the synopsis is that the poor guy most likely had a viral infection that was greatly exacerbated by the heavy physical exercise and high elevation. This in turn caused an acute kidney failure which of course lead to dehydration, head aches, and pneumonia. Lewis is doing quite well now but what a trip for him. Come to find out him and Joelle have numerous outrageous backpacking tails so if any of you reading this ever run into them you have an instant conversation starter. Simply ask them about the trip Lewis almost died or the trip that Joelle almost got eaten by a bear, or the trip that went horribly wrong in Big Sur.

Well, if there is anyone still reading this I am sure that you have had plenty of a story so until next time...don't get in viral infections.

APPLE CIDER SUNDAY

Look at all those apples! We spent Sunday harvesting the lovely fruit and mashing them to a dry pulp. It was great fun. Lou and I have talked about making hard cider since some of our very first conversations over a pint or three of Keith's hard cider and this weekend we finally did it. Our friends Joelle and Lewis live on a property that has four apple bearing trees, all with branches looking like the one in the photo.
We have 15 gallons of juice bubbling away, and another 5 of fresh apple juice for drinking right now.
Joelle collecting good apples that had already fallen off the tree.
Wheel barrel #1 of many.
Lewis, Joelle, and Louie getting it done. We decided to call this cider the Double J Double L Brew.The hornets loved the apple juice and apple pulp. They would land on the juice and float their way to the spout bursting into flight as they flowed over the edge.
Other happenings...we got a new summer sleeping bag! It is one bag that when open zips to a cover for two sleeping pads, pretty slick set-up. It will definately save on weight. I got dibs on the blue side. The hydromedary is new too, it is important to stay well hydrated.
We have still been getting a day of climbing in a week and I captured a few of the many "louie" faces I am sure you will all recognize while taking a lunch break out on the rock.
The "OH! that's interesting, I'm gunna get it" face.
The "humph, I don't know about that " face.The "my life totally rocks" face

Three weeks in Rhode Island

After 9 days on a boat Lou and I spent the weekend climbing around Lake Tahoe with Eric the last weekend of June. Good times. Then on Monday I boarded a plane headed for Rhode Island. It is a hot, humid state in the summer.
Shaara and I were there for three weeks to process some sample for our theses. We worked really hard, but managed to have a lot of fun too. First the work part
We are both using vertebrae to find out how old a few different species of skates get, and some other life history stuff too. The process is, first decalcify the vertebrae in capsules shown above.Then they go in the space machine, above, for 18 ish hours. It is really called a Autotechnicon, but looks like something from the show "Lost in space". The samples are agitated as they sit for two hours in each of 9 different baths, a dehydration and embedding process.

After the "space machine" each vertebrae is embedded into small wax cubes.
Once embedded we can section them. The top is a what is left of a sectioned vertebrae and the bottom of the photo are the sections.

This is Shaara on the sectioning apparatus, aka sledge microtome. We both spent a lot of hours standing here.

Next vertebral sections go through a multi step staining process. And the finished product....Hundreds of stained vertebral sections ready to be aged.It may be that I have a lot of time invested in them, but I think they are cool to look at. I will spend the next year working up the data and counting growth bands so that one day I can graduate and get paid to learn about sharks. Now the fun...
We got a tour of a long line fishing vessel . This is the sword part of a swordfish. Then there were the shark tournaments. The Dunkin Donuts cup clues you in to the fact that we are on the East coast; the shark being weighted is a common thresher. Lisa (that's her in the photo, Shaara and I stayed at her house while in RI and she taught us everything we know about the histology process described above) and other biologist at NMFS go to sport tournaments for sharks to collect samples every summer. Most of the fishermen let the biologist get samples and measurements from their sharks, which allows biologist to keep an eye on changing trends.
If I could design my ideal job it would be Lisa's, but on the west coast. She gets to work on sharks all the time, go out on boat's regularly for tagging & surveys and gets to see a lot of really cool stuff.
Shaara and I got to help out at a tournament on Martha's Vineyard, (and at this smaller one in RI). It was nothing short of a cultural experience. I would definitely do it again. One thing that was really reinforced while at the tournament is how miss-informed the general public can be. Don't believe what any activist group tells you until you look into it yourself, otherwise you aren't getting the whole story or may be told completely untrue things.
This is a common thresher. The large organ out closest to the head is the liver. Sharks have a huge oily liver to help them maintain neutral buoyancy in the water.
This is the tournament at Martha's Vineyard. After biological info is collected the sharks are fillet, mako and common thresher are good tasting. We were really busy at this tournament moving from one animal to the next. The white bucket on the first table is what the liver is weighed in, often the liver fills the bucket.
All samples have to be properly labeled, this is a short-fin mako. Those teeth mean business.
The tail!
The crowds!
The sunburn! The tournament on Martha's Vineyard has a minimum weight limit of 250lbs (this is above the legal limit) I can't say for sure, but I'm guessing this is one of the mako's that didn't make weight.
After three weeks we headed to Montreal for the American Elasmobranch Society meeting. We spent an afternoon in Boston to see some history before getting on the plane.
The USS Constitution. If you are in Boston it is a must see. Especially if you are married to Louie. Yes, there was a thunderstorm for most of walking tour of the city.
No, we were not dressed for rain.
The cannons took 12+ men to operate with 15 feet of recoil. The hull is three layers of wood thick giving the boat the nickname Ironside.
Once in Montreal I spent my time listening to the talks on sharks and at the bar. I got to meet a lot of the big names, other students, and learn about some interesting work being done. We had fun, and several good microbrews.
There is a nice park in the middle of Montreal I got to a few times. Our last day we spent exploring the city and hiking around the park.
Shaara, Lewis and I at the viewpoint in the park. It is pretty flat around Montreal, we are standing on the tallest hill in sight.

Tourist photo moment.

On our exploring we did see some wildlife, and since we had the time and digital memory I had to take their pictures.