Dan Allison

I hiked on Sunday with Joe Herbst and Howard Booth in the Bowl of Fire area, off the North Shore Road of Lake Mead NRA. This was the first time the three of us have been together in… well, not sure, but well more than 10 years. I see Joe at least once a year, and Howard at least twice a year, but this was a long-overdue reunion.

We drove up Callville wash to the end, then hiked around and through the Bowl of Fire, and back to the car. The day was perfect, blue skies, warm temperatures with a breeze that kept it from being hot, and none better company.

Photos on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/allisondan/sets/72157600004707642/

Our first real snow of the winter, about six inches in the valley, a lot more in the mountains. It is blue skies today, a good day to be out, but I’m mostly working.

On the Presidents’ Day weekend I got out for a three day backpack in the Sierra foothills. Walked out my door to Ash Canyon where I slept overnight beside the creek, then climbed up the ridge to the south, and over to Kings Canyon past the waterfall, then up the road that snakes towards the ridge to the south, and along that ridge to the west saddle where Kings Canyon Road (the old Lincoln highway) crosses from Kings Canyon to Clear Creek, camped there, and back home on Sunday.

Highlights were the lone pine that sits on the ridge between Kings Canyon and Clear Creek, which is visible for miles from certain angles, and is a bonzai-like tree about 20 feet tall. Probably very old, though not large. The closest other trees are a half mile further west on the ridge. The top of the ridge, to the south of the saddle, is also a really cool place, flat, with large pines and rocks along the outside edge to sit on an stare off into space. The weather was pretty amazing, 56 degree Fahrenheit on Friday, with a little spatter of snow early Sunday morning. Very pleasant for backpacking.

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/allisondan/sets/72157600004892629/

I’ve decided to go with WordPress, the hosted version, for my personal blog. I can have multiple blogs for other purposes by installing local copies, as I’ve done on the NNREC website, and still be in a similar though not identical interface. I looked at other installed blogs provided by my host Cedant, at Blogger, and at Moveable Type. I’ve had a TypePad blog for some time, and I like that interface, but it is not free and has less flexibility than WordPress unless I buy higher cost options. I found Moveable Type too hard to install and manage, with limited UNIX skills. Blogger is OK and will probably get better quickly with the Google connection, but it is just not there yet. WordPress is not perfect, and some of the themes don’t seem to work properly, but it is pretty good. WordPress it is, for now.

I imported my old TypePad posts from 2005 and early 2006, which was easy.

So, now, to find the time to post more regularly!

I’ve been exploring TypePad (hosted), Movable Type (my own), WordPress (both my own and hosted), and Blogger (hosted). This blog is the hosted version of WordPress, at wordpress.com. Can’t say that so far they are much different from each other, though I can clearly say that having a hosted blog takes a lot less effort than setting up my own, though there is more flexibility in numbers of blogs and users when I have my own. I also have a “personal” and a “community” blog on raincloudpub.com. It will take some time to explore all these and see what works best.

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Originally uploaded by allisondan.

While I was in Las Vegas for the holidays for my family, I went on five great desert hikes: Goldstrike Canyon with hot springs, White Rock and Ringbolt Canyons and hot springs, River Mountains (with Mark Pitchford), Mesquite Canyon (with Mark Pitchford), and the hills behind my sister’s house in Henderson. Ah, being out in the desert, in short sleeves, even shorts two days, that is the life. I was so happy after these five days in a row of hiking, and being in the sun.

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Originally uploaded by allisondan.

On November 20, a small group of people joined to celebrate Howard Booth’s receipt of the John Muir Award. We hiked north from Mountain Springs to a point above the sandstone bluffs, enjoyed talking about hiking and backpacking trips going back 40 years, looked at the peak register with some old names in it, and wrapped it up with a beer at the Mountain Springs bar. That evening, we gathered for dinner at Lance & Lorelle’s, joined by the Pitchfords and my mom Ruth Allison, for more fun.

I woke up to about eight inches of fresh snow. It is beautiful. But I’m not going to get over the hill to join my friend Steffani in a Winter Solstice celebration. On the other hand, what more appropriate thing to keep me from a solstice celebration than fresh snowfall?

I’m in San Diego this weekend. I flew down Thursday for a Project WET Facilitator Workshop on Friday at the Water Conservation Garden in El Cajon. Brian Brown, friend of many years from Whiskeytown was the facilitator, and it was fun to see him and meet new people as well. Today (Saturday) I spent the afternoon with my friend Jan Gardner (Kenick) who I haven’t seen in 20 years, and husband Fred. We ate lunch, did some talking, caught up on things and told a few stories from long ago. Tomorrow I’m heading out on the train to San Francisco, and then Monday back to Reno. I’m looking forward to the train trip, as I love trains, a good chance to think and to catch up on work.

I’m staying at the youth hostel in the Gaslamp district. This area is the nightlife center of San Diego, thousands of people hanging out at bars and restaurants, many of them looking like they must have fake IDs. There are four pubs within a two block area, one of them, The Field, is authentic, so I’ve had to have some Guiness.

I need to learn more about weblogs, so here is my start. I’m actually more interested in how to create RSS feeds in a simple manner than about the blog itself, but TypePad seems to do both.