Richard Huff's Seattle Social Blog - Hiking

Wildland Discovery Hike: Dishpan Gap

nospam@example.com (Richard D. Huff) — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 18:40:00 -0700

Since I haven't had a chance to participate in one of Washington Trail Association's weeklong "volunteer vacations" this summer, I opted for one of their Wildland Discovery Hikes. These are hikes organized and led by WTA staff. The weekend of August 26th was the North Fork Skykomish to Dishpan Gap hike: ~15 miles of trail hiking, and ~3 miles of hiking to the trailhead. The blueberries were ripe, the sun was out, and you couldn't have asked for a better group to hike with. Enjoy the photo collect!

Update: I made a Topo map of the hike with elevation profile. It's an 11" x 17" format PDF created with National Geographic's Topo set for Washington state. You can download the PDF by [clicking here] (7.5 MB).

Gadget Mania.

nospam@example.com (Richard D. Huff) — Sun, 30 Apr 2006 22:13:42 -0700

You might suffer from an addiction to latte art or roller coasters, but I have an addiction to a certain category of gadgets. My particular "fix" comes in the form of gadgets that perform an automated data acquisition task. (Geek Alert!) An example is the real time temperature monitor I recently installed at our data center. The latest "kick", however, is Garmin's new Forerunner 305. Having previously owned two of Timex's Ironman speed + distance systems (one with, and one without heart rate monitoring) and several other handheld GPS units, I can authoritatively state that Garmin has finally succeeded in an odyssey strewn with antecedent carcasses.

"Such strong words," you say? I'll let you in on a couple dirty little secrets about most portable GPS units. After spending between $300 and $500 on each, you'll learn to your chagrin that they only work in the middle of a desert on a clear day for the ten minutes that their double "A" batteries hold out. That's right. They're so pathetic that trees and clouds will reduce them to nothing but a battery consumption apparatus (which, ironically, they are exceedingly good at). Did I mention high-tension power lines? How about outside tall city buildings?

Don't get me wrong. GPS has held enormous potential. It's just that those of you, like me, who have purchased model after model need to start being honest about their shortcomings. Or, like me, you need to toss the lot of them and buy the Garmin Forerunner 305. (No, I'm not being paid my Garmin.) It's compact, easy to use, and reliable. I'm searching for something I don't like about it.

Let me explain.

The Forerunner 305 is an oversized wristwatch combined with a traditional heart rate monitor chest strap and, optional, cadence sensor (for cycling). I've been using it for running, cycling and hiking. In those activities, I most often have the unit's display set to indicate event duration, distance, pace or speed, and heart rate. Unlike pedometers or bike computers, GPS provides truly accurate speed and distance measurements. (Elevation calculation is a bonus that pedometers don't even pretend to deliver.) The advantages, however, aren't limited to the course or trail. A provided computer interface enables transfer of the acquired data to a web-based training log and analysis service (subscription required: www.motionbased.com). That's where the trifecta of GPS, data acquisition and Web Services reach a mesmerizing crescendo.

Take, for example, the following log of the past three running events at Greenlake. They were all fairly slow and short runs, but you can begin to image how such a log would aid in training over the season.

Motion Based logs all of the data acquired by the Forerunner, and combines it with weather data, a graphing system, and a handful of mapping systems. For instance, I can see that this morning's Greenlake run weather was noted as "scattered clouds at 1000 feet" (from the Boeing Field weather station). The average, low and high temperatures, relative humidity and wind speed were also recorded. Sitting like a maraschino cherry on the top of all this delicious data acquisition dessert is the Google Earth feature. (Your jaw will drop when you first see a Google Earth tour of an event recorded with the Forerunner.)

The image to your left is just a still photo of the Google Earth tour. If you want to experience the real thing, here are a couple Google Earth files from my training log: Greenlake (running), Lake Washington (cycling), and Rattlesnake Ledge (hiking). [You'll have to right-click on the links and save the files to your computer. You will also need to download the Google Earth software from http://earth.google.com.]

I'm not even scratching the surfice of Motion Based's data analysis features with this blog post. You can combine the data in several different ways to produce line, distribution and pie charts. Here's a simple one showing heart rate and elevation of this afternoon's hike to Rattlesnake Ledge.

The Garmin Forerunner 305 receives my strongest endorsement.

Urban Hike.

nospam@example.com (Richard D. Huff) — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 15:40:00 -0700

Finally having a break in the wet and gray weather this morning gave me a chance to take a short (2.68 mile) hike through my South Lake Union neighborhood. Although we're almost a month into Spring, I'm not yet willing to testify to its arrival in Seattle. It sure feels slow this year. The one thing that does seem to support Spring's arrival is the rhododendron (Washington state flower). It is in bloom at every corner.

I started my hike at Denny Park, Seattle's very first park, established in 1884. Trivia fact: it was once a cemetery. As parks go it's rather tiny. I appreciate its existence in my neighborhood, but rarely find reason to visit. That will likely change as the residential population increases with the opening of several, new condo and apartment building in the neighborhood.

From Denny Park, I walked to South Lake Union Park on the Lake Union waterfront. The park is home to the Center for Wooden Boats. If your interested in maritime history or sailing, I would recommend visiting the CWB. They offer youth and adult sailing classes, rent boats for use on Lake Union, and hold workshops on the craft of wooden boat building and maintenance, including a bronze casting workshop this next weekend (April 22nd and 23rd). Had I not already made plans for Earth Day I would have signed up for the bronze casting workshop.

My return trip was much less glamorous. With all the construction in South Lake Union tearing up the landscape, and the high volume traffic of Mercer Street and Denny Way, I stayed off the beaten path. The side streets of Terry Avenue North and Boren Avenue North are very industrial, but contain gems such as the Open Circle Theater and Consolidated Works.