The next day was a transit day; we moved from one accommodation (Canadian Artisans Bed and Breakfast) to another (Kicking Horse Lodge). All our luggage would be in the car while we took that day's hike, the prime reason why we wanted a vehicle with a real trunk. Our hiking ground was one we had driven past many times on the Trans-Canada Highway, but never visited: Sunshine Meadows. It's a ski resort that takes advantage of its spectacular setting to have a summer job entertaining hikers. You don't drive directly up to it, however; you drive several miles off Highway 1 to the ticketing and parking area, and ride regularly scheduled buses up to the complex, at an average altitude of 7,300'. This would be the thinnest air so far on our trip -- 2,000 feet higher than the day before. Here is a picture looking back towards the housing, ticketing, and ski lift complex from the start of the hiking trails.
At this altitude it was still spring, and we could see it in the flowers.
We soon encountered a bird species we see only on these Canadian trips, the gray crowned rosy finch.
As the Cornell Lab of Ornithology states,
A songbird of extreme environments, the Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch is found in open ground at the top of mountains from Alaska to California and out on the Aleutian and Pribilof islands.
We also see this finch foraging on remnant snow amongst the snow algae, and alongside streams and lakes. Early on the Rock Isle trail, where even the visitors taking only a short stroll would benefit, were some signs.
Walking trees, anyone?
Sunshine meadows is a popular way to avoid some of the altitude gain in hiking to Mount Assiniboine, if not some of the distance.
A guardian on the Rock Isle trail ...
The viewpoint for Rock Isle Lake is pretty enough to entice many visitors to go no further.
At the far end of this lake the trail starts descending. At that point we caught sight of an off-trail cascade, which was tricky to photograph through the foliage.
The trail meanders past Grizzly Lake and arrives at the Simpson Viewpoint, where we had lunch (purchased at Sunshine Meadows). Two squirrels played a continual game of chicken with us, darting closer, pausing, then darting closer, hoping to score some calories. A good foot stamp would put them off, but only for a few seconds.
Just after the viewpoint was Larix Lake.
The tall hill in the distance, beyond the head of the lake and to the left of the above photo, is topped by the Standish viewpoint. Here is a closer view of the platform up there (click to enlarge).
We hiked along the far side of Larix Lake, up to the level of Rock Isle Lake, and then continued left to the viewpoint. We were definitely getting more up-and-down hiking than the day before, as well as the higher altitude. Here's the view from the Standish viewpoint, absolutely worth the walk! Rock Isle Lake is easily visible on the left, and Larix Lake in the center.
After this viewpoint we decided to take the Twin Cairns trail back to the bus stop. This was longer (at 4.4 km or 2¾ miles) than a simple return, but it would be new territory. We set off, and it turned out to be a gentle grade and, at the end, downhill. Sporadic showers began soon after we set out, so our rain jackets came out of the daypacks. During this last leg of the walk, we hoped but doubted that we would return in time to catch the 3:30 bus. There was a 4:30 bus, so if we missed the 3:30 because we explored the Twin Cairns trail, so be it. But as our watches ticked down towards 3:30 and the bus stop came into sight, we quickened our pace. We could see the driver pacing beside the bus, clearly waiting to depart. Joan yelled "Run!" and I ran. With the hiking boots, dayback, and walking stick, running was a novel experience, but, as we like to say, I bashed on. Luck was with us that day; I got the driver's attention, just barely, and still had our receipts in my shirt pocket. We made it. Climbing aboard the bus, my right calf cramped, but we were training for more rugged hikes anyway, right?
Back with Mr. Steed, our rental car, we drove through Kicking Horse Pass and down to Field, British Columbia, where we would spend the night. Staying just a few miles from the Lake O'Hara parking area allows us take the morning bus in, rather than the afternoon bus, giving us, in effect, an extra day of hiking. We enjoyed the Truffle Pigs Café, as we had before. One new addition to the dining area was a squadron of flying pigs, each different from the others, hanging from the ceiling.
Tomorrow will be a quick breakfast and then on to Lake O'Hara.
The next day, after a breakfast feast at Canadian Artisans Bed and Breakfast,
we set out to hike the Deer Ridge Trail, off Highway 68, near Sibbald Lake. The westernmost section of 68 is unpaved almost until the Sibbald Lake parking area; however, the gravel road was in good condition when we were there. This terrain-view from Google Maps shows the spur road to the parking area, the hills and ridges, and a large unnamed lake/pond.
This sign says 'Sibbald Flat Trail,' but there are several trails from the parking lot. I've highlighted the route Joan and I took in green (click to enlarge).
Here is a photo of our rental car, Mr. Steed. We could get all three duffels into his trunk, so we were very happy with him, even if we had to mash the gas pedal to get his attention. The base model Avenger has a four-cylinder engine with a four-speed automatic.
In the parking area we were briefly welcomed by a bald eagle. This we considered a good omen.
The Deer Ridge trail begins by following the flank of a ridge overlooking a large meadow and pond.
In the center of the meadow is the remains of a Stoney Indian sweat lodge, about 50 years old, as described in the trail sign above. Here is a zoom-in on the lodge.
The first section of the trail weaves through an open mass of young trees.
This was in late July 2012, a year in which spring had been delayed a couple of weeks by a heavy winter snowpack. On our first hour we stopped often to inspect blooming flowers and flitting butterflies.
Our trail wound along until it split; the right-hand fork continued on to Eagle Hill, while we took the left-hand choice and soon entered an open meadow. Here, in the tall foliage, the trail to Deer Ridge took a 90° turn. It would have been easy to miss the turn, and bash on through the meadow, except that the correct trail was visible as a straight-line cut up the side of Deer Ridge. Too narrow for a utility right of way, nonetheless it was cut as unwavering as if with a straightedge. We climbed.
It was good exercise for us, this otherwise modest climb. We had not been able to prepare for hiking in the Canadian Rockies this year, as was our custom. One reason was the extreme temperatures in Ohio in June and July, with days on end of high temperatures between 90°F - 100°F, and matching humidity. Also, about six weeks before our departure, Joan broke her little toe. Thus our plan was to start with the same degree of difficulty we would have employed for training and, we hoped, work our way up to our "goal" hikes for this trip. I should also note that while we live at an altitude of about 800 feet, this first hike fluctuated around 5,000 feet. Our lungs huffed and puffed.
The view from the top was more than we had hoped for. We were perched just above Sibbald Creek, which stretched away in both directions. First, here is a view looking to the southwest.
And now an overlapping view to the southeast.
The crest was a wonderful spot to munch lunch and watch the comings and goings on the highway. At the end of lunch we discovered that the Calgary skyline was visible to the east!
We descended the ridge and entered the first meadow at the end of the pond.
There we encountered swarms of gorgeous blue damsel flies. I couldn't capture a photo of one on the wing, but occasionally one would alight for a few seconds.
On our way back we reached the spur trail for a viewpoint atop the first ridge -- you can see it on the trail sign photo if you click to enlarge. This viewpoint gave us a look down to the meadow we had just crossed.
The benches at the viewpoint had an odd construction I had never seen before. Was it intended for people with backpacks? Accomplished slouchers such as myself? I gave it a quick try and found it uncomfortable.
We returned to Mr. Steed, but instead of returning directly to Highway 40, we drove less than a mile further, to take in two viewpoints down the valley of Sibbald Creek. The cone-shaped ridgetop towards the right is where we lunched.
This hike was much more enjoyable that we had expected. It wasn't a long march to a glorious alpine view, but it suited us exactly as an initial hike. Joan called it "the perfect prescription."
Our 2012 trip to the Canadian Rockies began, as usual, with flying to Calgary. A moose waited for us in the arrivals hall.
We walked over to the rental car building and got in line for Hertz, with whom we had a reservation of many months standing. There was only one person ahead of us in line, which we thought was good, but things were moving slowly. When we reached the counter, there weren't any cars available in our reserved category (full-size). It all depends on when people bring their cars in, we were told; apparently, Hertz expects the drop-offs to happen sooner than the pick-ups, and when they inevitably don't, you wait. We emphasized to the guys at the counter that we wanted a vehicle with a trunk, to keep our luggage secure, which is why we reserved a 'full-size' vehicle oh-so-many months ago. And then we waited. For a bit over an hour, at which time they offered us ... an SUV. Trunkless. Without even a privacy screen to pull over the cargo area. We expressed our displeasure, only to learn that Hertz expects most customers to request an "upgrade" to an SUV. We didn't. We were told that there was no telling how long it would take for a full-size car with a trunk to be available. We said we'd wait, and our frame of mind was not the best. Something always goes awry with the rental car companies at the Calgary airport -- we've tried at least three over the years. We learned to avoid the queueing hell of the Calgary Stampede, or the Labor Day weekend. We had arrived by 11:30am. But nothing helps. An hour and a half into this visit we were fuming at the futility and gullibility of making a vehicle choice when reserving a car. Ten minutes later Gary (praise to him) ran in with the keys to a real car, a Dodge Avenger who we promptly named Mr. Steed. We left and headed south for Okotoks.
At Okotoks we headed west on Highway 7, to reach the Okotoks Erratic, a glacial erratic:
From the ground, you can appreciate how out of place the rocks are.
And closer up, you see how massive these boulders are.
These quartzite pieces are hundreds of miles out of place, having fallen atop a glacier near Jasper during the last Ice Age. They were slowly carried by the glacier to this point, by which time the glacier had stopped growing and then melted. There are several informative signs along the trail.
Then we drove further down Highway 7 to the small town of Black Diamond, and Marv's Classic Soda Shop. We had stopped here last year, and by this time desperately needed another chocolate malted with chocolate ice cream and chocolate syrup. We've received recommendations for Marv's carbonated ice cream, but it's impossible for us to pass up the chocolate malted.
We then turned north, headed towards the Trans-Canada Highway by a route we'd never taken before. We arrived at the Canadian Artisans Bed and Breakfast in Canmore, our choice for the last three years, and were greeted by our hosts Bob and Val. Canadian Artisans, besides being comfortable and offering astonishingly good breakfasts, has an ideal location within walking distance of both the downtown area and riverside trails. Our pigs (Dr. Maybe, Babelet, and Ruth) got along very well with the host bear in our room.
We ambled down to the Valhalla Pure store to pick up bear spray (not for the cuddly one above), had dinner at the Rocky Mountain Flatbread Company, an excellent place for an informal dinner, and then crashed. It had been a long day, and tomorrow was our first hike.
This summer a hummingbird nest appeared at the edge of the woods in back of our house. Here is a photo from June 16th.
And from another angle. The lichen cladding the side of the nest gives it a well-tended, camouflaged, and almost armored look.
Mom would visit from time to time on 6/16. The nest is about 15 feet above the ground, so I needed both a stepladder, to get a picture of anything except the bottom of the nest, and the full zoom (300mm equivalent) of my point-and-shoot camera.
Now fast forward to July 13th. The two babies in the nest have been visible for the last couple of weeks (click to enlarge). The yellow leaves are due to the heat and drought we've had for several weeks. Joan is bracing the stepladder, which is on uneven ground, so I'm willing to climb a rung or two higher than before.
Then one turned around, and the picture is of two baby hummingbird butts.
Time to move the ladder. In this picture, if you enlarge and look closely, you'll see that the closer bird has his or her eyes closed.
One more repositioning of the ladder, for a last shot.
These chicks barely have room to breathe; they'll be fledging soon.
Joan and I have decided to avoid 3-D movies for a while. The visual quality of what we see in the theater has fallen very far downhill, and we'd rather see a crisp regular version of a movie than a sloppy 3-D one.
We remember being impressed with the clarity and sharpness of the 3-D images in earlier movies, such as Up!, How to Train Your Dragon, or even Rango or Puss-n-Boots. Lately, first with Pirates: Band of Misfits and then with Brave, the competence of the projection been disappointing, in two different multiplexes.
When we saw Pirates, the bottom third of the screen was much dimmer than the upper two-thirds. This was primarily through one of the two eyes -- I alternated looking through just the right eye, and then just the left eye. I'll try to recreate this for you; first, here's an arbitrary photo.
If this was projected in the same way we saw Pirates, it would look something like this.
When we saw Brave, during the movie previews two images were being shown, but the 3-D glasses weren't merging them into a three dimensional image, rather, there remained two separate flat images. A couple of us had to leave that theater and tromp down two halls to find someone to complain to. After a couple of minutes, something was visibly flipped, and the 3-D now worked. But not well.
The problem was that the left and right images didn't line up correctly, and it remained that way through the entire movie. The top third of the screen was all right, the middle third of the screen was fuzzy, and the bottom third of the screen was very fuzzy. Looking at text, such as logos and credits, or sharp edges in the image, such as tables or fingers, it was apparent that the two projections weren't aligned properly with respect to each other. The letter E, for example, should have three horizontal lines, not six. The effect, using the same photo, was something like this -- click to enlarge for the full effect:
In the last few weeks we've had some interesting experiences with our cable ISP/TV provider, WideOpenWest, or WOW.
+1
The good news first. WOW gave everybody a free download speed bump; we went from 8Mbps (megabits per second) to 15, and it's really there:
Our upload speed is still limited to 1 Mbps, which sometimes is a pain, especially when I'm uploading videos for this blog. A bump to even 2Mbps would be lovely.
-1
A couple of Mondays ago we recorded Eureka, on the SyFy channel. However, WOW had its channels mixed up, and the first 37 minutes or so of the recording was the Animal Planet channel, not SyFy. There wasn't much use in keeping only the last 21 minutes of the Eureka episode, so we deleted it. I double-checked the recording settings and the channel assignments, and I'm convinced WOW had its "wires crossed" for some unknown length of time -- but at least 37 minutes.
Derecho
We were in the path of the "super derecho" that swept from Indiana to the East Coast on June 29th. Our electrical power was knocked out for about 6½ hours, but when it came back, we were pleasantly surprised to see our service from WOW still up and running. We got to bed well after midnight, and when we arose at 7am, the cable was out. No Internet or TV. WOW's backup batteries/generators weren't designed for a prolonged power outage at their various distribution points, and although our house had power, obviously much of WOW did not.
The cable came back early Tuesday, after about 3 days of outage. We were ecstatic, prematurely. Over the next couple of days the cable service would be up for several hours and then down for several hours as both the electrical company (AEP) and WOW worked on their respective networks. But it's been up for 48 hours now, and we've still got the 15Mbps service.
That wasn't the only effect of the derecho. We also discovered that our battery backups (UPS, or universal power supply) for the house alarm and the DVR had aged and were not up to the task of a 6½ hour outage, even with minimal loads. The DVR, which had about 25 entries in its programming schedule, had lost them all. (Many of those entries are because the same show is being broadcast at different times each week, a very annoying network habit. We like to record during the repeats, mostly, and they are not constrained to a rational schedule like the first broadcasts are.)
Two new, larger UPS units are on order, as well as a larger replacement battery for inside the alarm system panel.
During my March 2012 visit to Fairfield and MUM (Maharishi University of Management), I took photographs for three new ZoomWalk videos. This post will present them and, at the end, discuss some changes in technique from the earlier ZoomWalks.
The Unsecret Path
In Sthapatya Veda, southern entrances are strongly discouraged, so the south face of the MUM campus not only has no entrances, it's fenced off. This can be inconvenient for traveling between half the campus and downtown or Everybody's, so an unofficial but well-tended path has evolved.
The first video is another ZoomWalk where the camera faces forward as the walker goes along this "unsecret" path. Because there are many objects (leaves, etc.) close to the walker and few objects far away, it worked best to have a short distance between the still photographs from which the video is constructed. Too many steps, and the continuity between frames would be lost. For this video, I took only one step between pictures.
The Unsecret Path @ MUM from
Ben Branch on
Vimeo.
Rotating the Golden Dome
The next ZoomWalk is quite different: the camera keeps facing a particular object, in this case the Maharishi Patanjali Golden Dome, as I walk.
Rotating the Dome @ MUM from
Ben Branch on
Vimeo.
For this video, I took two steps between each photograph. I had originally intended to take only one, but it was a very hot and sunny day. To stay out long enough for one step per photo I would have needed to bring along a snack, some water, and a wide-brimmed hat.
Orbiting the Maharishi Vedic Observatory
The third video was accumulated a couple of miles from the MUM campus, in Maharishi Vedic City, where the Vedic Observatory is located. Because of the concentric nature of the observatory, I walked around the structure about halfway out, once facing outwards, to capture the ring of instruments, and once facing inwards, to photograph the structures representing various planets and other astrological constructs. I also looped around one of the instruments.
Orbiting the Maharishi Vedic Observatory from
Ben Branch on
Vimeo.
I needed to take more photos, less far apart, for the outward facing portion of this video. Those instruments just fly by.
Techniques and Experiences
Whereas the "looking forward" ZoomWalks can use automatic methods to improve the alignment of the still images, that would be counterproductive when the camera is facing inward (Rotating the Golden Dome) or outward (Orbiting the Maharishi Vedic Observatory). Objects are supposed to slide from one side to the other through the frames. However, using the raw photos without any alignment whatsoever produces very jerky, almost unwatchable, videos. Thus I had to manually align each frame using some object or segment of the image. For the Golden Dome, it was the ornament on top, the kalash, that was my registration mark. Similarly, in the second half of the Observatory video, it was the cylinder in the center of the observatory. Aligning while looking outwards was difficult because of the lack of a central object; I would use the horizon and hope for the best. Needless to say, this manual aligning took a significant amount of time, and might discourage long-duration rotational ZoomWalks unless I find an automating technique. (The Rotating Dome video is based on about 240 photographs, plus title and credits frames.)
During the generation of the videos I experimented with "doubles." This is an animation technique where two identical pictures are taken of each step of the animation; thus, an animation with 24 frames per second requires only 12 animation steps. Previous ZoomWalks had one original image, then one or two "morphed" images, then the next original image. In shorthand, for images A and B, the frames generated would be, for two morphed images:
- 100% A
- 67%A/33%B
- 33%A/67%B
- 100%B
In all three of these videos, I doubled the originals by making a copy of each under a new name. (This I was able to automate.) Then, a two-morph video (Golden Dome) would be:
- 100% A
- 100% A
- 67%A/33%B
- 33%A/67%B
- 100%B
A one-morph video (Unsecret Path and Vedic Observatory) would be:
- 100%A
- 100%A
- 50%A/50%B
- 100%B
I believe the higher proportion of original, unblended images produced by doubling yields a better product.
The algorithm for automatic alignment (used only in Unsecret Path) was also tweaked. Before, pairs of images would be compared, and because of the way the list of images was walked through, no more than half could ever be inspected. The new procedure is to align around "anchor points." For instance, consider the sequence of photographs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. If comparing three at a time, 2 would be the anchor point, and 1 and 3 would be compared to 2. Then 5 would be an anchor point for comparison with 4 and 6. Because of the way the align_image_stack tool works, the anchor point is unmodified; nonetheless, up to two-thirds of the images are alignable. There is no attempt to compare anchors, so occasionally a badly photographed anchor will require manual intervention. It also appears that comparing 3 images at a time (one anchor and two changeable) works better than comparing 5 at a time (one anchor and four changeable). Comparing 5 at a time puts images that are too different in the same pool, so attempting to reconcile them makes no sense.
Here is a still photograph to satisfy the 'Recent Posts' and 'Popular Posts' sidebars.
