A few days after the storm, the snow will melt to the 500-900m level, leaving the lakeside green and lush as if no storm had ever passed this way.
The South Island at 300m does have snowstorms, – we’re in the middle of one now, see the video shot a few moments ago. But in a few days, a week at the most, this scene will probably be a distant memory. There will be green grass and sunny days – like a schizo change from dug-in to hanging out. It’s a little like the western Washington’s winters.
Last month however, we had a good storm, that sent cars skidding off the Queenstown lakeside road and as well as points south to Lumsden. The road in both directions was closed for 24hrs due to the storm, with travelers stuck at our local Kingston store/cafe, reminiscent of a treacherous day I’d had on I-80 west of Laramie, Wyoming, where I ended up waiting it out in a truckstop near Elk Mountain or Rawlins. Maybe this storm will be the same.
I was geared up, mentally, when the last one hit. I was digging in for the long haul and getting wood in near the stove, keeping ahead of the accumulation by shoveling and keep the van cleared off. It was reminding me of New Hampshire, or when I lived in Albion Basin in Alta, Utah. But then it all changed. I was all dressed up and ready for winter, and it all melted, but it didn’t in adjacent higher elevations..
There will be good skiing up high, that’s for sure.
Hiram Bigham, “the discoverer” of Machu Picchu was a amateur archeoligist and worked at Yale. Many artifacts have been finally returned to Peru.Cusco’s Casa Concha opens doors for Machu Picchu exhibition
From: Andean Air Mail and Peruvian Times Cusco’s Casa Concha, owned by the Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad de Cusco (UNSAAC), has opened its doors for two weeks to exhibit more than 360 artifacts from Machu Picchu that were recently returned by Yale University. The artifacts will be displayed in two rooms in the Casa Concha, located about half a block from Cusco’s main plaza, state news agency Andina reported.
The opening was inaugurated by UNSAAC’s rector, Victor Raul Aguilar. In the first two hours of the opening, which is free for locals and tourists, the exhibition attracted about 100 visitors, read the rest of this story..
When the Mountain Bites Back, And What Are the Lessons To Be Learned
Mountain guide, writer and longtime friend from Outward Bound days, Ken Wyle is writing a book about his accounts the day he was caught in the La Traviata avalanche in Canada that killed seven people. I had heard through the grapevine that Ken had been caught in a big one, and I felt a wrench in my gut. Mountaineering accidents, in which friends are involved affect me more than most things in life. Alan Bard was one of my ski-guiding mentors, and he goes and dies on the Grand Teton. One’s teacher isn’t supposed to do that. There was a cloud over me for a time after I had heard the news, and I did’t feel comfortable on the rock for a time too. There have been other friends too that are no longer with us, and I ask myself the same questions that we all do about events like this, and the meaning of it all.
Reading a few of Ken’s Facebook posts and on his blog, give me the impression, he too has been asking some questions. And while the answers are secondary, the questions he’s asking have weight, at least from my humble perspective. While compassion is one of outcomes of teaching an Outward Bound course, it looks like Ken is living it.
I caught up with Ken on Facebook last week, and he suggested I check out his blog The Energies of Adventure. Some glimpses of what will most likely be included his book can be seen on his blog.
Here’s the lead-in to his first post on that blog:
Seven Cairns
Chapter 1, “Lost in the Fog”
January 20th 2003, deep in the Selkirk mountains of Canada’s British Columbia. It is overcast and white out. Snow flakes are lightly falling from the clouds. The air is moving softly out of the southeast. Two groups of backcountry ski tourers collect at the frozen, snow covered, Tumbledown Lake for our first tea break of the day. My smaller group of read the rest of this story..
South America Unites Against “Irresponsible Debtors” in the North By: Mario Osava, Inter Press Service
North American Funny Money
Default, insolvency, fiscal irresponsibility, debt crisis and similar terms form part of the vocabulary used to describe countries in the developing South in the 1980s and 1990s. A decade later, the world seems to have turned upside down.
The “irresponsible debtors” are now in the industrialized North, and the countries of South America, victims of the “lost decade” of the 1980s and the subsequent financial crises, are now working hard to protect themselves against contagion from the crisis in the United States and Europe.
Peru’s Environment Minister Ricardo Giesecke said Monday that tackling social conflicts in the country will be an “urgent” task in his portfolio, state news agency Andina reported. Social conflicts sky-rocketed during the Alan Garcia’s administration.
When Garcia took office in 2006, Peru’s ombudsman – the Defensoria del Pueblo – reported about 80 social conflicts in the country. Towards the end of his term, which wrapped up last Thursday, there were over 200 social conflicts, of which an overwhelming number are related to socio-environmental issues in the extractive industries.
In addition to delaying projects and investments, the conflicts have cost numerous lives and cost millions of dollars in collateral damage Read the rest of this story…
Peru Gov’t looks to increase visitor limit to Machu Picchu From: Andean Air Mail & PERUVIAN TIMES
Peru’s Ministry of Tourism and Foreign Trade said Tuesday that a recent study supports more than doubling the number of visitors to Machu Picchu, the ancient Inca citadel perched on a mountain top in Cusco region.
Currently, the daily limit on tourists that can enter the Machu Picchu site is set at 2,200. According to state news agency Andina, the ministry’s study suggests the citadel can withstand 5,479 visitors a day. This would allow Machu Picchu, a World Heritage Site, to receive approximately 2 million tourists a year.
Guillermo Seminario, leader of the Peruvian band, Chimu Inka, with is wife Lourdes and their new son, born in Trujillo, Peru about 8 months ago. They just sent us this shot, which we wanted to share with you. Congrats to Familia Seminario. Chimu Inka has come to the U.S. under sponsorship from MSI in the past and will be visiting again in 2012.
March 16, 2011: Mark your calendar. On March 19th, a full Moon of rare size and beauty will rise in the east at sunset. It’s a super “perigee moon”–the biggest in almost 20 years.
“The last full Moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of 1993,” says Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC. “I’d say it’s worth a look.”
Full Moons vary in size because of the oval shape of the Moon’s orbit. It is an ellipse with one side (perigee) about 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other (apogee): diagram. Nearby perigee moons are about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser moons that occur on the apogee side of the Moon’s orbit. Read the rest of this story…
Fishermen See Flashes of Light as Quake Hits Port
Lyttleton, New Zealand, From: The Press* By Paul Gorman
Gary Vallance, Photo: Stacy Squires
Light show: While fishing on Lyttelton Harbour on June 13 Gary Vallance saw blue lights flashing in the water at the precise time the magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck.
Flashes of blue light in the deep waters of Lyttelton Harbour mystified the four occupants of a fishing boat on June 13.
Heading back to port after a largely unsuccessful trip in search of groper, Christchurch engineer Gary Vallance and three friends experienced the 2.20pm magnitude-6.3 earthquake from a different perspective in their seven-metre boat.
They did not feel the magnitude-5.6 quake at 1pm, when they were in deeper water near Pigeon Bay.
However, Vallance put their lack of fishing success down to the shake and unexpected swells.
“We were about halfway up the harbour between the heads and Lyttelton when the second one hit,” he said.
“I was looking out the front of the boat and I saw a couple of blue
flashes down in the water
was definitely a flash, a dim blue flash.
“Almost immediately, the boat shuddered and the guy driving it wondered what the bell it was. He thought he’d run into something.
“Then we saw all rocks coming down the hillsides.
“The blue flashes were about 100 metres to the side of the vessel and shot from left to right in a straight line across us. Then the next minute it was like the boat hit something.”
He wondered if the flickering blue light was the result of friction from rocks on the harbour bottom grinding together as the quake struck.
Canterbury University geological sciences professor Jarg Pettinga said what they saw was possibly the effects of the energy of the P-wave (primary wave) moving through the water.
“The shockwave may have released some bubbles of gas from sediment or it may be something to do with the way the light was interfering wiht the water as the seismic wave was coming through.”
* The Press is an excellent newspaper, and their coverage of the earthquake through it all, has been fantastic. If you’d like to keep up on the latest earthquake news please visit their website, or if you’re on the South Island, purchase a copy.
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