insight pared

KNOWLEDGE SHARED

outdoor bold

To access Roland's weblog and column archives

 

 

Tip o' the Day

Have you ever glanced around and wondered how long you have before yon sun sinks below yon horizon? No watch? Fear not, Roland can help you. . . .

Hold your arm out to the sun, fingers together and pointed at a right angle to your arm. Each finger width between the sun and the horizon means about 15 minutes. Three fingers, means the sun will set in 45 minutes. Only one finger? You have 15 minutes until sunset.

The rule is very rough, and one must remember to hold his arm extended. But it makes no difference if you're Paul Bunyan or Tiny Tim. Tiny Tim's fingers might be smaller, but his arms are shorter, too, so the fingers-to-eye relationship remains the same. So does the fingers-to-time dimension.

* * *

Let's say you do have a watch, so you know your time. But you'd like to get a better fix on directions. Simple enough. Lay your watch on a flat surface. Turn it so the hour hand points to the sun. Halfway between where the hour hand is pointing and 12 o'clock is due south.

Remember that it works in all time zones (Northern Hemispher; if you're uphill of the equator the direction will be north). And you must remember that God never constructed His heavens to have the sun directly overhead on our Daylight Saving Time. So think Standard Time.

One of my guides was trying to explain the time/direction process to a group of our hunters after supper one evening in 1974. The hunters each stared at their watches but they couldn't seem to "get" it. Then we discovered each of them wore digital watches -- the first we'd ever seen.

* * *

It's that time of year when folks who're out and about in mountain country need to be aware of avalanche danger. Growing snowpacks, sometimes heavy wet snow on top of unstable old snow can break loose and roar down a mountainside in an instant. People innocently driving a plowed road have been buried by avalanche. So, even, has a snowplow operator or two. The danger is greater, however, to downhill skiers who leave the chair lift to push past out-of-bounds markers onto unsafe snow; to backcountry skiers; and to backcountry snowmobilers trying to see who can mark the highest spot on the steepest slopes.

Skilled avalanche forecasters often dig holes to analyze each snow layer's stability. But for we who are venturesome, I'm told our best protection against a surprise avalanche is to listen.

"Listen?" I asked my mountaineer friend.

"Sure," he replied. "Listen for any unusual sound. Sometimes snow breaking loose can come with a `snap'. but most often with a `whomp'." Then he shook his head, remembering. "There's usually a few seconds from that snap or whomp until things really start to move. That's when it's time to get to hell off that mountain, or into the timber.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ethan Lester, the 13-year-old lad who sent an evocative email telling me how much he liked Echoes of Vengeance, then followed through with the rest of the series, isn't necessarily tied to books. Not at all; the lad has a fine eye for drama, too, and a ready eye out for what might work best on the silver screen. The reason I know this to be true is because he once sent an email saying: "There should be a `echoes of vengeance' movie. That would rock!! Or a cartoon, I'm not too picky!! I really think some hollywood bigshot would dig it. I sure would.

Your california fan, ethan lester

I emailed Ethan to the effect: "I did note your suggestion that Echoes of Vengeance would make a good movie and am heartily in favor. There's only one flaw -- how? Tell you what you do, you go sell a Hollywood film studio on the idea, and you can have ten percent of all profits I make from the film."

So, Ethan, being Ethan replied: "I have a friend whos dad works for warner bros so ill try to talk him into it." Later,, Ethan emailed: "hey sorry its been so long.aol kicked me out for a while but i'm back.the warner bros guy said he might be able to get me in contact with a guy who could try to make the movie thing happen

It's possible there's still a few flaws to work out in Ethan's schoolboy pipeline into Warner Bros Studio lot because I've not yet been offered a contract.

 

 

THE BENEFITS OF HEALTHY LIVING

There was a cartoon in a 2006 issue of The New Yorker magazine that I thought worth clipping and saving. The "toon" had two cavemen sitting cross-legged facing each other in the mouth of a cave. One stroked his chin contemplatively while the other studied his friend.

"Something's just not right," the contemplative one said. "Our air is clean, our water pure, we all get plenty of exercise, everything we eat is organic and free-range, and yet nobody lives past thirty."

A mouthful, that. It carries a message some folks might rather not hear -- one with clear implications that no single "silver bullet" exists to provide wholesome, quality lives.

For example, my heart favors organic foods. But my head tells me that logical reasons exist to provide wiggle room for applications of certain sprays and fertilizers. I have troubled thoughts about production-line chickens who've never known the light of day, but I'll have to admit to Colonel Sanders' taste and tenderness. Farm raised trout and salmon? Are there differences in taste from wild fish? It's entirely possible farm raised fish might soon be the only ones within my price range. In fact, farm raised fish might be the only salvation to insure that the last boat into harbor isn't carrying the last wild fish in the ocean.

Clean air and water? I know not one soul who'll argue in favor of dirty air and polluted water. But the discussion's dimensions aren't about total purity, as desirable as that may be; the debate is about what degree of pollution is acceptable. I would submit it's no longer debatable when natural systems can no longer filter water through wetlands, down streams, in lakes and oceans. In short, when a river catches on fire, as did Ohio's Cuyahoga, at Cleveland, that's unacceptable. When fish can no longer be eaten from the Great Lakes, that unacceptable.

Let's consider global warming. Assume that global warming is a fact (an assumption based, I presume, on sufficient historical evidence because one lifetime, at least by my experience, is hardly enough for me to be definitive). The problem, we're told, is "greenhouse gases" released into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gas is defined as "any of the gases whose absorption of solar radiation is responsible for the greenhouse effect, including carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and the fluorocarbons."

Greenhouse effect is defined by my dictionary as "heating of the atmosphere resulting from the absorption by certain gases of solar energy that has been captured and reradiated by the earth's surface."

Do you understand all that?

Neither do I.

But if it's true, I understand the predicted results: receding glaciers and polar icecaps, rising ocean levels and ocean temperatures, more devastating storms, drastically changing weather patterns. Droughts and floods and blizzards and dust storms. Deserts where once was fertile lands.

All that global stuff aside, I'm in favor of reducing air pollution for the very good reason that I'd like to view distant mountain peaks as I once did instead of vehicle smog as I presently do. I'd like to ogle Orion or the Big Dipper or Northern Lights in the nightime sky instead of constant inversion overcast. But can I wish for total clarity? No, for the simple reason that I drive an automobile and heat with wood -- and there are others who insist on doing the same. Not only that, we all want electricity when we flip the switch, and water to sprinkle our lawns and flush toilets.

It takes enormous masses of energy and equipment each time we go to war or win the peace or feed starving refugees. Producing that energy and building that equipment and housing those people, and rebuilding their oilfields and pipelines and supplying their goods and services requires more greenhouse gases spewing into the atmosphere.

Whether we can reduce sufficient amounts of greenhouse gases to reverse global warming won't be apparent in our lifetime, even if we begin today. That's why the real question about air quality is one of acceptable degree, not of purity. We can never get back to the air quality of those two cavemen, no matter what. And I, frankly, am ambilvalent about our chances of reducing any significant amount of greenhouse gases in the face of an expanding human population without end. With more people, there'll be more planes, trains, and automobiles. They'll all want to breathe in more oxygen and out more carbon dioxide. As Pogo said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

But let's return to the first question: If the cavemen enjoyed the benefits of healthy living, why were they so short-lived?

Our modern medicine might be one thing we have over folks who had no hospitals or doctors. On the other hand, can we explain Helmut Sonderman who lived into his 90s on a 2,000-acre Hi-line wheat ranch before he found it necessary to visit a clinic?

Another advantage we have in our modern world is the relative ease of our food chain. Picking up a round steak at the meat counter of an air-conditioned market is certainly less stressful to modern man than sallying forth with spear and club for ribeyes from mastodon or mammoth. Similarly, cereal grains in a box is a bunch handier than sending the little woman into canebrakes to find a patch of wild oats to cut, thresh, grind, and boil for breakfast porridge. I'm not sure Aunt Doris, who ate Grape Nuts Flakes for 85 years would agree that today's corporate farms produce inferior, health-retarding products.

I don't know how much of a miracle our modern society is, but I don't know that it isn't, either. I do know we've had our chains jerked too many times by a loose-lipped media apparently running short of drop dead news for that particular day, week, or month. First, coffee's no good for me. Then it is. Then sugar is bad. Don't reach for its substitutes, though, because substitutes are worse. I remember one year when we couldn't send an apple with the kids to give their teachers because the media launched a toxic frontal attack on chemicals used by the apple industry. After the smoke and slander cleared, turned out the apples were okay. By then, of course, a bunch of the apples were rotted and a lot of apple growers went bankrupt.

Do I have a point? No. It's just that The New Yorker cartoon made me think.

 

Roland Cheek wrote a syndicated outdoors column (Wild Trails and Tall Tales) for 21 years. The column was carried in 17 daily and weekly newspapers in two states. In addition, he scripted and broadcast a daily radio show (Trails to Outdoor Adventure) that aired on 75 stations from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. He's also written upwards of 200 magazine articles and 12 fiction and nonfiction books. For more on Roland, visit:

www.rolandcheek.com

Comments

for more info about these and other Roland Cheek books

Click Here

Click Here

for detailed info about each of Roland's books

Read Reviews

Read their first chapters

to send this weblog to a friend

to tell Roland what you think of his Campfire Culture weblog

Click Here