Training Log Archive: Swampfox

Mapped some at Diamond Bay, several interesting bird encounters, and ran intervals to finish up my outdoors activities for the day. Seasonally quite cool and as pleasant as could be. The dirt roads are powder dry and the ATVs and buggy vehicles (whatever they are called) were kicking up impressive clouds of dust.

The first bird encounter was scaring a nighthawk off its nest. Well, nest is quite a stretch, since they simply lay their eggs directly on the ground. And, I can't be 100% sure it was a nighthawk. The bird *looked* like a nighthawk and acted exactly like a nighthawk should act when scared off its eggs, and I'm not aware of anything else that really looks like a nighthawk. And yet, the eggs were almost pure white; it's the second time (happened once last year, too) I've seen white eggs from what I thought was a nighthawk. The eggs should be speckled, and their coloration makes them all but impossible to spot unless you very carefully mark with you eyes exactly where the parent bird gets from. They're *really* hard to spot. So what could this be if not a nighthawk? I have no idea.

Bird number two was heard, not seen. It had a call that was more similar to that of a bobwhite than anything else, a 2 note call with the second note a full step up from the first note, and the call repeated 4-5 times. I've never heard it before around here, so it quite took me aback. I have no idea what it could have been.

Bird number three was a woodcock, also--I am almost positive--getting up off a nest, but I was not able to locate the nest (or chicks, if they weren't in a nest) despite seeing pretty closely where the bird got up from. At first I wasn't even sure it was a woodcock, because I thought (wrongly) they were upland birds. But it sure looked like one, and when I checked information back home I realized that's what it had been.

Also found the first deer sheds I've come across this year.

Mosquitoes were not bad at all--just one or two occasionally buzzing around--and if they're not bad by now up in the hills, then this probably will go down as a mosquito light year. Down in the valley it's quite different and without spraying and other control measures, it would not be much fun to be walking around in town, not even in the middle of the day.

edit: mystery solved! It was a poorwill and poorwill eggs I saw, and that was also the bird I heard.

Beautiful day and I spent a good chunk of the afternoon biking, about 3 hours in all. Then went running at Happy Jack. I was quite surprised to see the snowfield hadn't melted completely away yet. It was very shrunken however--down to about 3' x 3', and pretty thin, so it will probably disappear in the sun tomorrow, barring a phreak ozzy blizzard. Legs felt good.

O' session at Pelican Bay--11.1 kms, 34 controls. Uneventful, except when I nearly stepped on a mule deer fawn. And this wasn't one of those cases where I was a few feet away and the fawn got up and ran off. Rather, my foot was literally coming down onto where the fawn was hiding, and it wisely/luckily got up at the last possible moment and dashed off. The explosion of unexpected motion right at my feet completely startled me, and I came *this close* to stopping, ripping my map in half, and writing out a note to say: "Do NOT do this again!" Except of course mule deer don't read.

Quite cool out today--low 60s down in the valley, and lower than that up top.

Ran trails at Happy Jack at an easy pace. Checked out the snowfield and...it was still there! It will last at least another day, but not much longer, as there is not much of it left.

Spent the Solstice--well, part of it--setting/streamering the Rocky Mountain Goat. I did a first draft, liked it, then checked the length and saw it was 10.7 kms. Normally I would go for something another kilometer or so longer than that, but when I looked over the course again and thought about the likely field/turnout we might get for Labor Daze, I decided to go with it and just see how it looked on the ground.

And it I really liked it on the ground--everything about it. A nice mix of varying types of controls (difficulty, approach) and legs, and and an ever changing mix of terrain, visibility, vegetation, and underfooting. While I was checking out things I only ended up making one change, and that was a very tiny one--moving one control from one feature to another feature about 15m away.

Normally, with a generic course on a generic map in a generic terrain, I would expect to make quite a few changes to a design once out in the field. Here, however, it helps a lot to know the terrain, and especially a mapping style and quality I can count on.

So the course designs for Labor Daze are done, and it always feels good to get that done. Now there are only a few more details to attend to--maybe getting some punch cards, lining up some toilets, an actual permit in hand wouldn't be a bad thing, printing up a few maps, and then of course an entry or two at some point would also be nice just from the standpoint of seeing if any controls ended up in the right location. ; )

C • Punch Cards 2

At least 84F today, so easily the warmest day of the year here so far. (For those who don't know, anything over 80F counts as pretty warm around here.)

Looks like the high for the day reached 87F which, if correct, should have been enough to set a new record high for the date.

Even with the heat, it felt pretty nice to be out biking today. I ended ditching plans to run at Diamond Bay when a late afternoon storm arrived at about the time I was about to leave. It didn't last long, but it was pretty intense with very strong winds while it was going. Once it ended, I ran from home, hitting the trail net near home.

ed: It reached 88F, and it was a record.

Ran at Happy Jack and checked out the snowfield again--still there, and it looks like it could last another 2 days, so it will make it to astronomical summer. Mosquitoes are definitely going to be there to greet the solstice; they were there today to greet me.

A great deal of flagging appeared a few weeks back, indicating incipient (mountain biking) trail work. One straight uphill section leading to the snowfield and which I sometimes use for hill work was flagged for a major s-curving re-route, and it looks like the re-route was just completed. The re-route is enough longer than the piece it replaced (which was part of the Silent Trails race course) that the old records for Silent Trails will probably never be broken.

The trails are now very dry and dusty and are already approximating late summer conditions; this time last year, in contrast, some of these same trails still had trickles of water running down them from late winter snow melt.

Biking by the river, I could see that the river levels are falling quickly now. It crested a few days (from spring snow melt) and is now down at least 2 1/2'.