A Change in the Wind

Starbucks reaches out to backpackers with VIA

Well, not exactly. Probably the giant corporation is thinking mostly of harrassed and weary office workers with nothing but a microwave to their name, when they launched their new line of instant powdered coffees.

Nonetheless, on a recent backpack trip with the family, looking for a coffee to take backpacking that wouldn't be hideous and wouldn't require equipment, I took a chance on Starbucks' new line, called VIA...and was pleasantly surprised. 

Shocked, even. 

Give the instant "microground" packet of coffee powder a minute or two to fully dissolve in the hot water and you will find it's quite decent -- better than cowboy coffee, without the irritating bits to get stuck in your teeth, and far superior to the sharp, bitter instant coffees of the past. 

It's a little like Cinderella. It's good when it's good and hot. After it begins to cool, it can turn on you. Drink it while it's fresh. So to speak.  

It's a breeze to pack. A pack of eight coffees weighs a mere ounce and a half (though it does cost a shocking $7 or so). 

One detail: If the giant corporation packed its black caffeinated powder in paper, instead of a plastic sleeves,all  the trash could vanish in a minute or two, and leave not a trace, on land or in the pack.  

For all the coffee's virtues, I can't bear to post a picture of the product. Instead here's the sort of place you can go, by such means, and see this sort of scene...Muir Lake by moonlight. 

Best time to hike in the Sierra

For the underemployed -- now. Right after Labor Day. The kids have gone back to school, the Austrians have gone home, the drones have returned to their cubicles -- the trails are yours, if you so choose. 

Here's a new loop I'm checking out, starting Tuesday, featuring Deadman's Canyon, which I have heard from reliable reports, including this book, and a ranger at the Crescent Meadow Ranger Station, is great. Heather said it was one of her favoite places in the park.

Anyone who wants to join me, let me know. Looks pretty good...

 

The unheard-of and suddenly indispensable Smartpen

Take it from veteran journalist and computer writer James Fallows, of the Atlantic:

For my own workaday purposes, the most useful recent invention has been the Livescribe Pulse pen, which I bought just after its introduction early last year and now can hardly be without. It looks like a somewhat bulky, cigar-shaped metallic writing instrument. Inside it contains a high-end audio recording system and assorted computer circuitry. When you turn it on, it starts recording what you are hearing—and also matches what is being said, instant by instant (in fact, using photos it takes 72 times per second), with notes or drawings that you’re making in a special Livescribe notebook. The result is a kind of indexing system for an audio stream. If a professor is explaining a complex equation during a lecture, you write “equation,” or anything else—and later when you click on that term, either in the original notebook or on images of the pages transferred to your computer screen, it plays back that exact part of the discussion. (Works on both Macs and PCs.) For me this means instant access to the three interesting sentences—I just write “interesting!” in the notebook or put a star—in the typical hour-long journalistic interview. The battery lasts for several full days’ use between recharges, and the pen can hold dozens of hours of recordings.  

Or take it from me, an average joe journalist... this device is freaking amazing, for anyone who does any kind of interviewing or listening with attention. It passes my tech test: it works straight out of the box, no need to crack open the manual. Even for people with bad penmanship. Unbelievable. 

 

The queen of Hostel Obispo

Last night my wife and I stayed at Hostel Obispo, in San Luis Obispo, a charming place in a house over a hundred years old, with fresh sourdough pancakes and fresh-ground coffee in the morning, lots of interesting chatter, and a lovely neighborhood.

All that was great, but especially great was this character, Chloe, who appears to run the place. One of the kids who runs the hostel -- named Johnny -- told me that she has her own social life, entirely independent of the hostel, that folks comes to see her, take her out on walks, weekends at the beach.

Perhaps she's waiting for one of them now...

Bears and Minivans in Yosemite (the beta)

Fascinating study in the Journal of Mammology sent to me by a reader.

The opening of the study and the headline in the Los Angeles Times agree: Minivans in Yosemite are targets for bears, maybe because they're usually inhabited by messy young children.

As reporter Carla Hall put it:

It's official. Those discerning car critics, the black bears of Yosemite, have voted the minivan their most sought-after vehicle.

Not to drive, of course, just to break into.

Year after year, foraging bears have made minivans their first or second choice among tens of thousands of SUVs, sedans, sports cars and other vehicles in Yosemite National Park.

At least that's the conclusion of an article in this month's issue of the Journal of Mammalogy, which details a study of 908 bear-on-vehicle break-ins from 2001 to 2007.

It's a reasonable "interp," one might say. ScienceFair reported it in similar fashion, but found a picture as well for the story, showing a couple of bears defying the study results and attacking a sedan.

But it's not the only possible interpretation offered by the study. Without getting too definite as to its reasoning, the study also hints that the breaks could be the work of just a few bad apple bears.

That's what this paragraph at the top of 1044 seems to say, although it's difficult to believe:

Finally, selection of minivans could reflect the foraging decisions of a few individuals that developed a learned behavior for breaking into minivans. Anecdotal evidence supports this idea and indicates that most of the break-ins resulted from a maximum of 5 bears and possibly as few as 2 individuals. Furthermore, the pattern of selecting minivans likely spanned 2001–2007 (Table 1) and known individuals suspected of breaking into vehicles were alive and in the area during this period.

Which is a shocking suggestion, given that the table 1 they referred to includes hundreds of incidents. Take a look (click to enlarge):

So is it then a handful of ursine villains ripping into dozens of minivans parked in Yosemite Valley? Maybe all this smashing of windows, ripping open back doors, tossing out of seats -- said to have "appeared effortless" for the perpetrators -- was the two bad bears?

Hmmmm....

May need to contact Stewart Breck or one of his coauthors to find out.

Camping on Angel Island (the beta)

Countless folks warned myself and the fam last weekend to watch out for the fog on Angel Island (as if I didn't know that the San Francisco Bay could get foggy in the summer).

This maybe is a difference between locals (who have to live with the fog for months at a time, and weary of the chill of blowing greyness) and one-time locals who moved away years ago, and like to revisit the fog, as a sort of nostalgic novelty, the way one might enjoy the jolting of a cab ride in New York, or the snootiness of a Parisian waiter -- a kind of local color.

You know you're in the Bay Area when you can hardly see across the road in the evening.

That's my excuse, anyhow. In any case, yours truly will not back down from the idea that camping on Angel Island is a rare treat, with or without fog. Here are some tips on how to do it.

First, if you visit the Angel Island Association site, you'll get the basic choices quickly, but it's helpful to know that there are but nine campsites on the island, in three different places on the island. 

The most popular are the Ridge Sites (#4,5, and 6), facing the Golden Gate, which a helpful parks ranger told us are booked seven months and a day in advance for summer weekends, but that you can often "slide in" on weekdays. These sites, like the less-popular Sunrise sites (#7.8.9), where we stayed, are exposed to the fog and the wind, so expect blustery nights. More protected are the Eastbay sites, (#1,2,and 3) which are in the lee of a pine grove. Sites cost about $25 a night, thru ReserveAmerica. You can do it through the site, but I suggest calling to nail down the details: 1-800-444-PARK. 

Wood fires are not allowed, 'specially after the spectacular fire on the island of last fall, but the sites have not just tables, basic food cabinets, water, and toilets, but even trash and recycling.

The ranger told us that the Ridge sites have a "$10,000,000 view." Faithful readers of this site will recall that with global warming, coastal areas such as San Francisco will actually get a little foggier. But if you like camping with a city view, and can stand some weather, Angel Island is a must.

My advice is look for a weekday in Indian summer, which does sometimes happen in the Bay Area, usually in late September or early October. Maybe if you're really lucky, you'll find me there....

[pic from a trail atop Mt. Livermore, at about 750 feet, via SFYer]

The Beta on Downtown Phoenix

While visiting Phoenix recently, learned a useful new phrase -- "the beta." Learned it from the proprietor at Conspire, a very cool coffeeshop/arthouse/neighborhood collective said to have the best coffee in town.

Conspire was once an ordinary house, but has become a 21st-century hang-out., The Americano-style coffee is absolutely superb, perhaps the best I've ever had, and the chatter is spiky and upbeat.

I told the bright-eyed proprietor that his place was changing my opinion of Phoenix, which I imagined (based on the drive in to town) as "this monster city where everyone drove an Escalade."

A cruel over-generalization, obviously, but he took it in stride, admitted there was some truth to it, but said that his work/live neighborhood of galleries, restaurants, and such was different, and offered me "the beta" on where to go in what is known as the "Artisan Village."

He mentioned a cool house-turned-bar across the street, called The Lost Leaf. Tried out The Lost Leaf that night after a movie, and found it delightful -- it's for twentysomethings, mostly, so I'm too old to stay long, but if you're of that age and looking for a place to hang out, have some wine or beer, and flirt -- go.

Also worth checking out is a little restaurant nearby called The Nile Cafe, where proprietor David, who is as young and friendly as seemingly everyone else in the Roosevelt Row area, serves delicious and reasonably priced breakfast, lunch, and dinners in a "Mediterranean" style, meaning falafel, gyro, soups, Greek salads, and more. The lemon chicken soup is especially good. 

Being a poverty-stricken free-lance journalist, stayed while at the convention at the Phoenix Hostel, which is not listed in the phone book, but appropriately is readily available through the intertubes, costs about $20 a night, and is perfectly decent, if unspectacular. Given that most hotels these days seem to be run by surly Dementors, and offer rooms so reeking of stale cigarettes that even former smokers such as yours truly are repulsed, an ordinary house in which one shares a room with other itinerant travelers is actually a more restful experience.

So there's "the beta" on downtown Phoenix. I figured the term must be a computer-related, but it actually comes from the world of climbing, as in "Hey Jack, give me the beta on those moves over the roof."

Here's a picture of the back of the hostel, behind the men's dorm. As owner/operator "Sue City" said: "It's not so bad":