That sinking feeling...

 You've seen the sunken SUV, so now a bit of description!

In kids comic terms - "*&#@!"

Wednesday last week was a catch up of sites in the Northern half of the study area. We've been neglecting it a bit, so we decided to head out to try and get 6 more sites out of a total of 13 remaining. The signs were not good early on. The first site we tried to access was along a road with a big "no trespassing" sign. That one was scratched. Three more sites were off the main road along a reasonable looking gravel road. Unfortunately we hit private property while still about 2km from the sites. 3 more scratched. Another offshoot of the main road held our last two sites from this group. There were "no trespassing" signs, but these seemed to be on the fences on either side of the road, so I made the assumption that it meant no going into the fields. The regular signs stating "Trespassers will be shot, survivors will be lynched", I took to be subtle Albertan humour and ignored (apologies for not getting a photo). We seemed fine going along here and got near to the first site. Of course it was behind the fence for a gas plant with big H2S warning signs, so I felt it sensible to scratch that one too. Clearly a very successful day. Last chance was a bit further along the road, and could be approached from what looked like a small gravel quarry with a nice secluded area to park. Secluded enough that I thought it worth the risk of possibly parking on someones land while we go and find the wetland. So one out of 6 there. Not good going. This all meant we had exhausted the days site list by 11.30. However, being a forward thinking individual, I had thrown in the sheet with the other 7 sites, just in case we finished early. How clever I am not.

Errr, it's getting deeper...

So the drive to these sites only took about 10 mins. Or 10 minutes to the start of the off road trail which takes you to those sites. It has been dry, so the trail is in pretty good condition. A bit rutted, but nothing the mid sized SUV can't handle. Jeff duly pointed us along the track, which was bouncy, but easily passable. There was the occasional puddle and dribble of water running across the trail. Then we reached a place where there was a deep dip with a bit of a puddle and some water running across. It generally looked pretty solid in the middle, but there seemed to be a smoother path going around. Personally I would have gone over the dip in the middle, given the SUV's 'trail rated' status. Jeff thought he'd take the smooth option though. Which would have been perfect, had he gone just about a metre further left. He didn't though and a metre into the innocuous looking puddle, the front right of the SUV was deep in really wet, really stick, really  really deep mud. There was a bit of swearing from Jeff, and my helpful addition was "we're not getting this out". So, after opening the passenger door, and seeing that there wasn't any easy way out that way, I clambered over the drivers seat and out the other side to join Jeff. A quick walk around told us we were in a bit of a situation. The Jeep was deep in it, the nearest town is probably about 30km away, and we are 3km along a trail with no mobile reception, in the middle of the week when the trails are quiet and the sun is blazing down. Obviously the first thing you need to do in this situation is get the camera out and take a pic! I've posted these before, but it is funny, and not having taken any more I thought I'd post them here again.

So. No panic. It doesn't help. It also doesn't help to get annoyed and think that it would have been better if I was doing the driving. It wouldn't. I would have gone through the middle and the whole jeep would have been swallowed! Best thing to do is start digging, and start trying to get traction behind the wheels. And quickly, because there seemed to be a bit of sinking going on. We did about an hour of this, but the logs seemed to just keep sinking below the wheels, and whatever we dug out quickly got replaced by other sloppy mud. It was also very hard to get any leverage to dig as the mud on the deep side was about waist deep. No success at all, just more sinking every time the wheels spun. Jeff volunteered to head back to the road to see if he could find some help, while I kept trying to sort out the problem. Very sensibly, he took his phone with him. Very sensibly, I also gave him my phone to double the chances of reception. Well, it seemed sensible until I thought that it would be good to be able to try to call him if I decided to leave the SUV as well. That thought was 10 minutes too late.

The only progress I made was to get muddier, so I gave up and went to site in a nearby river to clean my self up a bit. By this time Jeff had been gone for over an hour. Not being able to do anything useful at the Jeep, I went after Jeff. Now would be a good time to have a phone... The whole way along the 3km walk back to the road, I was hoping I would see Jeff in the passenger seat of a big Albertan truck, ready to go and pull us out. But no dice. I made it back to the road and thought I'd better wait there for a while before I made my next move. I remembered from an earlier trip out this way, that there was an ATV tour place about a kilometre further up the road, which might be a good place to find help. After 5 minutes of waiting though, Jeff appear riding on the back of a quad from that direction. Good man. He found help.

One of the benefits of getting ourselves into a whole heap of poo was meeting some very generous and thoroughly nice helpful people. Bonny from Hidden Trails Adventures (http://www.hiddentrailsadventures.com/) was the one giving Jeff a lift. She couldn't help us there and then, but she had called her husband and business partner Rob who would be back later and was better equipped to try and pull us out. Much relieved we walked back to the Jeep, to wait the estimated 4 hours until he would be back. Not much happened in this time, except a few more failed attempts to get ourselves out. But I did get Jeff's story of the search for help. Two people passed him on the road, one guy stopped, but he didn't have a tow rope and couldn't help. The other guy didn't stop. He had turned the opposite way from the ATV place, but there is a campground in that direction. Unfortunately everybody seemed to be away there. Still, nearby is an Army Cadet training centre. Now, you would think that great training for army cadets would be rescuing people from the wilderness, and that they'd have some quite useful equipment. Unfortunately they must be training army bureaucrats there, because he got told that everyone was too busy, and that all they could do was offer a phone to call a tow truck. Pathetic really. The quote from the tow truck place was $600, so quite rightly, Jeff went away in search of actual helpful people. This is when he headed back up the road and found the ATV place and met Bonny.

Well, after waiting from about 2pm to 6pm, I got impatient and decided to walk back out towards Hidden Trails Adventures site. Not that I was getting annoyed with people who were being kind enough to help! It was just getting quite late, and if for some reason they couldn't come and help us, we would have to start making some sort of attempt to get ourselves back to civilisation. I did manage to get a little phone reception during this walk and managed to send Amanda a picture of the Jeep, and teh message "We're in a bit of a situation". I had intended to expand, however, I met Rob shortly after, and got a free ride on a quad back to the Jeep. Much more fun than walking, but I kind of forgot I left a rather cryptic message with my girlfriend! So at around 7pm, we started trying to extract the jeep using a quad and it's 3000lb winch. After an hour of trying, we finally broke the winch and hadn't succeeded in budging the Jeep an inch. Which was a bit disheartening. The only thing left to do was go back to Hidden Trails and use their phone to call a tow truck. Although more importantly, call the girlfriend to say we are okay first! And secondly, call the boss to relay the tale of stupidity and hope she's not too angry! Hats off to both though, they were very supportive and didn't shout at all!

The tow truck was called at about 8pm, and they said they would send someone out, and it would be about $400. Great! A $200 saving!

We have to give a huge thanks to Bonny and Rob here. They took us in and fed us burgers (perfectly cooked), and lit a fire to keep us warm, and were very good company. It was worth getting into a bit of a disaster to meet them! Total legends. And we also have to apologise for stretching their work day into the hours of darkness.

Back to the tow truck. At about 10.30pm, the truck driver calls to say that he would rather not come out in the dark. Which I think is fair enough. But had he come out when we called, there would be an hour of light left to dig us out. It would maybe have been good of the tow truck company to say that there was a time limit on when their drivers would come out, so we had good notice of when it was too late, so we could make arrangements to get home. At 8pm there was maybe a small chance of imposing on our hosts to get us somewhere near barrier lake, but at 10.30, there was no chance we could ask them that. Rob still had an hours drive to get home, and he was due up at 6am the next day. Somehow I managed to convince the driver to come out anyway. So back to waiting. An hour later, the drivers boss called to say that he couldn't allow him to come out. Again, fine, but not very helpful to keep us waiting for nearly 4 hours before telling us we're stuck. To make things worse, I was told that they wouldn't be able to come out the following day, and we'd have to wait until friday morning. With much polite complaining, the tow truck boss person went away to see if there was anything she could do about getting someone out on the thursday. 15 minutes later we were told it's friday or nothing. Rather annoying. So we booked it in, and all we could do for getting a bed for the night was impose on Rob one more time to take us to Cochrane where we got a hotel room. Fortunately it was on his way home, so hopefully we didn't hold him up too much. So at least we got a shower, and by the time we got to bed it was 1.30am. That was a long long day!

There are a few legends in this story. The next one is Amanda, who had driven over to Calgary on Wednesday, to meet my mum at the airport. We were all due to meet on Thursday evening, to go to the stampede on Friday (which will likely be the next update). We needed a way to get back to the field centre on thursday, and my ever patient girlfriend was very kind to agree to picking us up from Cochrane at 8am on thursday morning. This even though she was woken at midnight with the request.

The sight that met Amanda in the morning must have been a fearsome one. Having no change of clothes Jeff and I still had our muddy gear on from the day before. Which was now caked on mud, hardened to a brick like texture. We duly got back to the field centre and got changed and I packed up for Calgary. Before heading away, we went to the University of Saskatchewan office there to report our woes and ask if anyone had any better ideas about getting the Jeep out. Here we meet our next two legends. May and Dhiraj. They have access to a university truck, and decided to take it out and see what they could do, borrowing towropes, from Gary (field centre maintenance). I feel bad about abandoning them to it while I headed into Calgary with Amanda and my mum, but I thought it would be in there till friday, and this was my only chance of getting to Calgary on thursday.

Legends that they are, May, Dhiraj, and Jeff managed to dig and pull the Jeep out after three hours of work. Many beers owed. Many thanks proffered. $400 saved. Now it looks fortunate that the tow truck place was useless!

The only other thing to note on this tale is that this is the same trail that killed the bikes a few weeks back. Taking the Jeep was meant to be simpler! I'm really starting to dislike that place. And I still have to go back to tick off those sites!

Fun times.

Whoops.

It's going downhill...

Another harmless looking hill, full of pain.

I will have to rush in my weekend activity report! This week will probably be hectic. My mum arrives in Calgary on Wednesday to be met by Amanda (thanks!), and I head out after work on Thursday to meet them. We'll be Stampedeing! Need to get me a checked shirt! Or not.

My plan for Saturday was to get on my bike and ride. My choices were to revisit Baldy pass and do the complete circuit minus the mountaineering bit, or head to the other side of the lake and take on the Prairie View trail, divert along the Quaite Valley trail into the Bow Valley for a bit before turning back and taking the Jewell Pass trail back to the lake. I went for the latter. I thought that I could make it an out and back trip measuring about 30km. A nice distance to take it easy and have a good day out. I should probably have done a little background reading first.

Up, up and more up.

Back when I was doing more regular biking at home, 30 km and 600m of climbing didn't really seem too bad. Especially if you're taking it slowly. So I thought this would be a nice, if tiring day since I'm well out of bike shape. Of course, it is probably a good idea to properly look at the trail map first. I did, but only to get me pointed in the right direction. What followed was a 600m climb over 4 to 5 kilometres. Not something my wee legs are used to! Still, I was taking it easy, so I could go slowly up and stop often. That is if I wasn't a pathetically competitive manboy. At the initial climb up from the lake, there were two middle aged men who were also going up the Prairie View trail. They started up the trail at the same time as me. One guy was pretty slow, but the other one was moving pretty steadily. Obviously I couldn't let him beat me to the top, so I stayed at his pace. Which pretty much blew my taking it easy out of the water. Fortunately he stopped at one point to let his mate catch up, so I got some respite. But five minutes later he's powering up behind me. So the competitive urge kicks in again and I force myself to stay ahead of him. Eventually we caught up with a group of girls and he stopped to wait again. No stopping for me. By now I knew if I stopped there was going to be a lot of pushing to the top. I had at least seen the last of the old man. But now the competition was the group of girls. They passed me once, then stopped for a break. Not me. Had to get to the top before them! So I went past them again and steadily plodded my way up the hill. But I got chicked again (not my terminology, that's from male triathletes who get passed by female competitors). Again they stopped for a break, and again I went through. Hard to believe I'd only gone about 3.5 km by this time. I was passed yet again, and this time my will broke. I could see too much of the climb ahead of me, and it looked long and steep! I had to stop. I also have to admit there was some

Almost at the top

Top, looking back

In its element.

pushing. But I did ride at least 80% of the way. I caught up with the girls at the viewpoint just before part of the trail where the only option is to carry your bike up. They asked me which way I was going. I said that I was going to go along Quaite Valley, but thanks to them and the old man, I really didn't feel like it any more! That felt like a serious climb and my legs didn't fancy any more uphill, so Quiate valley will have to quiate for another day. Oof. I'm finding it tough to compare to the riding I have done back in Scotland as my fitness is different and there is possibly an altitude issue. But I think that that was approximately the same height gain as an Innerliethen ride, but over half the distance. Both are well worth the pain for the view from the top.

Innerliethen - good views too!

I wasn't really there for that though. I was more there for the going downwards stupidly fast

Pretty nice at the top.

Fun time! Aaaall down from here

(for my skill level)! It is pretty much down all the way for 7km, so there are no photos of any of that. I was way to busy having fun! There were some slow downs where hikers were coming up the trail, but mostly just pure adrenaline and sore hands from gripping hard. It's a really nice trail. Rooty and rocky, but nothing really loose to slide on and flows really well. I somehow managed not to come off or hit anything all the way down, so I guess that's 1-1 Kananaskis! Had I any energy left in my legs, hands that weren't cramping and wrists that could support me, I'd have been right back up to the top! Fully recommend this for any bikers out there. Although probably best to avoid trying to race people up the hill!

The other part of my saturday plan was to get a curry as a reward for my exercise. I haven't had many good curry experiences so far in Canada (a locational factor I'm sure), so I was a bit apprehensive that the Cochrane curry house would leave me unsatisfied. I'm glad to report that my fears were unfounded. Methab in Cochrane appears to know what they are doing. Not exactly the sort of curry I'm used to, but very tasty, and the naan bread was really good. All in all that was a pretty satisfying day!

Sunday. That was reserved for chores, and bumbling about expressing little whimpers of pain every so often! Really need to do more biking!

So that's the quick weekend update. Next one is probably going to have to wait until after the Calgary Stampede. It all seems a bit weird to me, but then we never had cowboys back home. Except for some builders, plumbers, mechanics... Looking forward to it! I've heard that there is a stall that does a special kind of burger. One served in a donut instead of a roll! Traditional... should you put ketchup on it or raspberry jam?!

Oh, talking of cowboy mechanics, that front brake of mine held up fine now that they finally bled it properly!    

Here's the rest of my pics.

Siteseeing...

I just thought about my affinity for science fiction. Maybe that's the genre my thesis will be put in... Being able to put Sci-Fi writer on my CV would be great, but that might come at the expense of being able to write MSc (twice). Since I started, I've had a nagging feeling that I've been making it up as I go along. Maybe that's why the boss came out this week to check on me!

My sis in the process of winning the world Duathlon Champs in 2010

Before I start wittering on about my week, I feel I need to return a few plugs I've been getting for my Blog. My sister, the world famous Ironman Triathlete managed to double my audience overnight by tweeting my blog. You can find out about her at www.catmorrison.com. A true athlete in the proper sense of the word. Several time world champion at crazy endurance stuff, and almost as smart as me... Currently rehabilitating gammy Achilles, so good luck getting back to killing yourself soon!

You too could work here. With her!

Also, thanks to my supervisor for being more interested than me in promoting my work within the university and more extended hydrology community (fear of having to present and a preference to fly under the radar). She is currently seeking someone who can work on other research in this really terrible location. To make up for that you can be based in wonderful Saskatoon! Could be MSc, PhD, postdoc or research assistant. If you know a bit about hydrology, and can put up with regular trips to Kananaskis (tough, I know), you can get in touch with her. Dr Cherie Westbrook, info here - http://homepage.usask.ca/~cjw842/


The Centre for Hydrology is where I'm based at the University of Saskatchewan. They are doing a lot of interesting work in hydrological type things. It's all very technical to me, so I'll not try and explain stuff. Go here to have a look if you are interested -  http://www.usask.ca/hydrology/

A nice picture to break up all this text.

Finally, the Global Institute for Water Security who are the source of all cash! The Global Institute is concerned with developing tools and techniques in managing the worlds freshwater resources in a sustainable way. My main interest is to help do my bit to ensure that I can always get enough water to make a cup of tea! But if you want to get more serious, you can learn more about what the institute is doing here - http://www.usask.ca/water/

Plugging over!

Just another pretty picture.

Well, another week down and a total of 48 wetlands visited. A much more relaxed feeling this week. Monday morning was set aside to go and collect the GPS points of where we ran the GPR the previous thursday (too many acronyms, I know. It's a Canadian thing. They also have a a strange habit of pronouncing them as words even though the words they come out as often sound nothing like the acronym looks. For example, shirk which would be SHRC. So from now on I think I'll refer to the GPR as "Gipper"). That done, we decided to take Gipper out since the forecast rain hadn't appeared. We have two sites quite nearby, site no. 510 and site no. 4. We checked out 510 before hauling Gipper down. That turned out to be a good plan, because the area I though we could use it was shin deep in water. It was a wet weekend, hence why our only activities were shopping, cinema and blog writing. There was another area on that site which I thought might be a good possibility for running Gipper, but I wasn't sure if it was peat, so we abandoned that site and headed to the other.

Site 4. Nice.

Site 4 is one of my favourites. Right next to the road, and not to much wading to get around. There is also something that looks like an old infilled beaver pond about 10m from where we park. What makes me happy out here is a bit different from normal... Anyway, you can often get an idea of where an old pond is because the is a kind of triangular shape where the vegetation is less dense and lower than the surrounding vegetation, with the downstream edge of the triangle being raised slightly. It's not always right, but it's a good hint. It was one of these that we decided to use Gipper on. So we laid out 4 transects, and I got setting Gipper up, while Jeff cored along the transects. We were frozen out here as well. Which wasn't the biggest problem. The bigger problem was that I had forgotten to make sure that this area was actually peat. It was not. I should

Nice trace. Pity it's not peat.

probably get my research objectives tattooed to my hand. So that turned the Gippering into a practice session. Since it was all laid out, we ran it anyway. The traces looked pretty good. Jeff had measured a frost table dropping lower along our first transect, and the trace seemed to show this. Amazingly, I may actually be able to work this thing! Interpreting may be  a different matter.


Job done, we packed up and headed back to the field centre. About two minutes along the road, a massive thunderstorm and torrential rain hit. Deciding not to stay and try and take Gipper further down the site was a good idea! It also meant we got back quite early, and I had time to go and pick my bike up from the shop. I was amazed to hear that they found no leaks in my brake system, and that bleeding them again seemed to have worked. Maybe it was a bad bleed after all they said. Shocked I was, that this might be the case. I'm still reserving judgement until I've had a proper ride.

The wrong clothes...

Top of the Highwood Pass...

Yup. Pretty snowy.

Tuesday, apart from working in a continual downpour, was pretty successful. 5 Sites visited, south of the Highwood Pass. This drive had nothing to recommend it on tuesday, although returning to it on Thursday it was really very pleasant. My good friend Kenny reminded me of a Billy Connolly truism; "There's no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes." Something that rings very true when  you forgot to pack your waterproof trousers! Still, I was better off than Jeff, who didn't pack a waterproof jacket either! Well, it's not too cold when you keep moving. And at least we were leaving the higher altitude sites to another day, as the drive back over the pass was through heavy snow. The wrong clothes also appear to help you move faster, as we managed to get through our list of 5 by 2pm. So a nice early finish again. Which was good because Mrs Boss woman was arriving on wednesday, and we needed to do a bit of cleaning of the man pit!

Working like a beaver.

The good Doctor was due in at Calgary airport at 7:07am, which meant a bit of an early start. Ooof. I hate mornings. Jeff was also flying out from Calgary that day as well, so good timing in a way, but not that good as his flight wasn't till 4.30. Ouch. Calgary also needs to work on it's signage. We managed to miss the turn off for the airport and were a good way out of the city before we turned around. We were both looking for the sign and both didn't see one. Smartphone activated, we headed back, and sure enough there is as sign. It's a tiny one and it is right at the turn off. No wonder Albertans change lane suddenly quite a lot. Actually, I think I may have to add a supplemental about Albertan drivers. Terrible they are. Pardon the digression. Our lateness of arrival at the airport was compounded by the fact that Dr Westbrook had decided that she didn't really want her phone with her and left it on Saskatoon. So sshe couldn't call to ask where we are, and we couldn't let her know we were running late. All these scientific minds at work. you'd think common sense would be, errrr, more common.

Canadian Moose - much larger than its Scottish counterpart.

With the airport dealt with, it was back to the field centre, and working out how best to use my supervisors time. Part of my site visitation is assessing for suitable places to take Gipper for a walk on. I've found 5 that seem to be good, but I worry that my selection is not very scientifically based, and has more relation to them being very easy to get to! It is a big consideration since Gipper is a portly beast, but shouldn't be the only one. So I felt that going back to these sites and getting a second opinion would be useful. Cherie seemed pretty pleased with them. Which is either a good sign, or a sign of someone pretending to themselves they've not wasted a bunch of money funding a half assed researcher! Possibly a bit of both. Other than driving about and soil coring, which is mostly boring (yes, I did just do that), it was a pretty successful couple of days

Very huggable.

Ruff.

The ideal pet for your kids.

wildlife spotting. There was a Golden Eagle (maybe, certainly a big hawk), deer, 2 moose, a wolf, a toad, a beaver (only the second one I've seen!) 1 adult and two baby grizzlies, and what Cherie is convinced was a wolverine. I'm not so sure. It didn't have metal claws and an Australian accent. We also saw a wild Albertan redneck driver. Who drove past us at about 100 on a gravel road and kicked up a huge stone which almost punched through the windscreen. Pricey.

Croaaaak.

Mmmmm, Bruski!

Today has been pretty quiet. Not much office work, and I'm not trusted to go out on my own. I had a wee investigative bike ride along the widowmaker trail. Rather disappointing given it's name, and is only 3km long. It follows the widowmaker kayak course which looks much more fun. I want to try it! Apart from that I've been looking at the trail map to see where I can go tomorrow and test my brake out. Maybe Prairie View trail over to Quaite Creek trail for a 20ish km blast. Or maybe do the Baldy pass trail without the ridge nightmare! After that, I have found a curry shop in Cochrane which has a promising menu and hopefully I can have a curry worthy of the name! I may even have the Irn Bru with it!


 

SUPPLEMENTAL - OBSERVATIONS ON ALBERTAN DRIVERS

They won't move back into the slow lane unless you are almost touching their bumper. Even then only 50% of the time.

They tailgate.

Combining the tailgating and not moving over creates ridiculous traffic flow situations where there are up to 20 cars crammed into a 150m length of 2km of otherwise empty double lane highway.

Select Albertans overtake on gravel roads purely to try and smash your windscreen.

They cut in and out of lanes very quickly.

Most cars are sold without indicators (signal lights).

You are not a real man if you don't have a big truck.

I'm sure this list could grow indefinitely.



If you read this small rant, here are some more bear pictures as a reward.

To pacify a bear, stab it in the rear with a red ballpoint pen.

Brokebike Mountain

Well, I decided to take it easy yesterday and not do any more updating. We had to recover from a mad mad mad Saturday night out in Banff. Dinner and a movie. Maybe this time away from our girlfriends is starting to get to us... I'm embarrassed to say that we went to the Irish pub. Speed and cost were the main factors for consideration though since it's near the end of the month and we still haven't be reimbursed for expenses submitted about 3 weeks ago, and we only had 50 minutes until the movie. I highly recommend Okanagan Summerweizen Apricot flavoured beer! And Prometheus in 3D was pretty darn good. Although I am a sucker for Sci-Fi.

It'll have blown over by the time we get there...

How to attach your $3k soil corer to your $1.5k bike...

Last week. Yes. A bit of a trial that one. It would be great to get a reliable weather forecast, but I suppose that there are drawbacks to working near the mountains. I had planned our second biking excursion for the monday. We had previously scouted the start of the route that would take us along a trail for 10km past 6 sites. A nice wide ATV trail all the way along. Dry and dusty when we passed it, and due to be dry for the Monday. Kit was packed up, bikes thrown in the SUV (mid sized) and off we went. It looked dry in every direction. Except the direction we were headed. In that direction there were some nice purple looking evil clouds. But we had a plan and we were going to stick to it. On arrival, it was still dry, and it looked like we might actually get away with it. So we headed off down the trail, which was still nice, dry and solid. 5 minutes in the downpour started. I've seen worse, so just kept pedaling. Then the hail started, which kind of stung, so we pulled over to shelter under a tree until it eased off a bit. 15 minutes of heavy rain and hail later it finally did lighten off. So back on the bikes, cycling along what was now a small stream. The going wasn't too bad though and we had a quick discussion and decided we might as well keep going so we didn't have to come back. However, the rain kept coming, and the mud was getting deeper and deeper. At about 6km in I lost Jeff. I wasn't too worried as he usually takes a bit longer than me. I waited for a while and then decided I'd better go back and check. I found him 500m back carrying his bike. Mud had clagged his chain, causing

Ideal conditions

Clag

Got a little mud on me.

chainsuck at the front, which in turn forced his rear derailleur into the spokes of his back wheel. Result – rear wheel wasn't turning, and gears were a thing of the past. $200 bikes are not very hardy in tough conditions. As the designated bike technician, I had to do a trail fix, which involved brute force to bend the derailleur back to around where it should be, and use two rocks to hammer the cage back into shape so that the chain would stay in it. I got it going, so apart from being soaked, cold and annoyed, I was quite pleased with myself. There was no way we were going any further forward on the bikes though. We had stopped just short of one site (the plan was to go to the furthest one and work our way back) and had passed one on the way, so we managed to get these done. Then it was a slow, wet, cold, muddy crawl back to the SUV. It was ridiculously sticky. Rolling along the trail for 10 metres tended to double the weight of your bike. I tried to get Jeff to ride his bike through all puddles to try to keep the mud off,

I hate mechanikking

but he didn't seem to be listening. Probably off in a world of misery. I left him to push while I rode my much tougher bike back to the SUV. I was just congratulating myself on having bought a sturdy steed, when I started to hear a metal grinding noise from the back. The mud, as well as being really sticky, was also really coarse, and it had worn out my rear brake pads. Then there was a similar noise from the front. Which is quite amazing really, since my front brake problem from the weekend had recurred and I hadn't actually used the front brake for a few hours. And I had also put in new pads at the front. So without being able to engage the brake, the mud had still managed to eat it's way through brand new pads in about 10km!

A very generous time for 20km of riding would be 4 hours. Add in 6 work stops and make that 6 hours. It took us the 6 hours to do 12km. Another day of learning! No more taking the bikes out in the wet!

What I stand in 6 hours a day 4 days a week

All this made tuesday a bike parts shopping and maintenance day. One of the benefits of having a cheap bike seems to be cheap replacement parts. Jeff's new derailleur was only $10, whilst my fancy hydraulic brake pads cost $45. It was nice to have a change of scenery and go to Calgary to get these. Back at the cabin, I had the whole afternoon for the simple replacement job on Jeff's bike, and the even simpler pad replacement on mine (which still had to go back to the bike shop to enquire about the crapness of their brake bleeding skills). So, 4 hours later and after a lot of swearing and petulant kicking, I had to give up on both bikes. Jeff's needed a new gear cable; my spare ones were too short. I got the brake pads in on my bike, but the rear seemed to be jammed on, and although the front ones seemed fine, it would have to wait until the bike shop fixed their bad job to tell.

Everything looks better on a good day.

Wednesday. Finally things went well! We took what was planned as two days of sites and hit them all. 8 in one day is our new record! Funny how when things go well, there's less to say. It did feel like we had somewhat recovered from the earlier disaster. There were some nice photos to be had, and despite the forecast it stayed dry most of the day.

Following the weather forecast again (rain), we decided to map out and core a site for using the magic box on. It has to be dry to use the box, for woe betide anyone who buggers up the electronics on a $30,000 piece of equipment! Of course it was blazing hot sunshine

Everything...

when we got there... Basically what we were doing here was marking out grid lines with flags for GPR transects. We also need to core so we can compare the GPR data to the actual soil content. For this site that meant 8 transects and 21 soil cores of 2m deep or more. Well, 2m deep or more if you don't encounter frozen soil after 50cm! Coring was a bust, so I made a quick decision to go and get the box, and we'd do the GPR survey. Then we'd leave the flags in and come back with the GPS and note their locations so we can come back and core when the ground has defrosted.

So back to the cabin to quickly pack up the GPR. Have some lunch and head back out. Then the fun job of hauling this kit through a wetland for 1500m again. 1400m in is a terrible time to realise that you've forgotten the control unit. Another minor disaster. So I got to run back to the SUV, drive the 40 minute return trip to the cabin in 30 mins, and run back through the wetland to catch up with Jeff. During the drive it started to rain. Which was just brilliant. I was going to have to run all the way back and tell Jeff that we need to get everything back to the car, and that it was all big waste of time! It was still raining when I met Jeff, but had lightened up a lot. And after 10 mins it was actually dry again, thank goodness.

Controller bag generously donated by D. Donaldson.

Finally we got started with the GPR. At this site the ground is terrible for trying to drag a cuboid over. To me, scientific research shouldn't involve two grown men jumping up and down on hummocks trying to make the ground smoother! The surveying went reasonably well though. I'm still not sure we can actually use it on the terrain at this site, but far improved on our previously reported attempts. To my surprise, we had still managed to finish by 5pm. So again it seemed like we had recovered somewhat from unpromising beginnings!

Where?! I wanna see it!

As friday is our office day, nothing of great interest happened. If you want to avoid some venting at comedy bike shops, stop reading here and just look at the pictures.

We finished our paper work early, so were able to go into Cochrane to the bike shop and get them to have another try at fixing my brake, and also get Jeff his new gear cable. I'm glad I know at least a few things about bikes. Firstly the shop tells me that my make of brakes quite often don't work as well after a bleed. I'm prepared to accept “not as well”, but it was working “not at all”. They then suggested I had a leak. Which I knew might be a possibility when it stopped working, but I was checking and there was no sign of leaking fluid anywhere. In any case, it went through a cycle of working/ not working/ working/ not working. So unless it leaked, and then somehow sucked the fluid back in, then leaked again, I can't see that being the problem.

The scenery is growing on me.

They agreed to check it over again. The next thing they tried was to suggest that I needed Jeff's cable accurately measured so I could fit it to his bike. That's the first I've heard that one. I had to ask three times to get a cable. After several attempts to get me to bring the bike in and to tell me that gear cable comes on a spool (so how then does it stay in the shifter?) and I need to tell him what length I need, he finally took me into the workshop and asked me to point out the cable I needed. All that for a sale of $2. And you thought car mechanics were bad.

So as far as measuring accurately goes, I fitted the cable and had the bike fixed in about 10 mins and did not measure once. And I just picked up my bike today and the brake seems fine just now. I'll reserve judgement until I ride it though!

So that was the disaster week. Apologies if it comes off as a bit of a rant! If that's going to be the worst week here, I think I'll manage just fine.

Here's another bunch of photos...