Valentine Lake

Last Sunday I took a hike to Valentine Lake.  I decided late in the day and didn’t get on the trail until 2pm. Just in time, as it turned out because I got back to the car just as it was getting too dark in the forests to see.

I took a hike up this trail in the spring this year, but I was stopped by snow about a mile or so away from the lake.  And earlier this summer, the slope you see in the picture below (which was taken from Mammoth looking southeast) was on fire – the closest a major fire has gotten to my house since I’ve lived in town.

 On the trail I was also trying out a GPS tracking application on my iPhone.  I was using TrailGuru on Sunday, and also have a copy of RunKeeper (which I’ve used on the mountain bike.) In this area, the GPS tracker works ok, but you’ve got to be careful about where you carry it. This trail runs south on the way in, in the direction of most of the satellites.  I think the combination of trees and the location in my backpack hid the skies from the iPhone part of the way in.  On the way out, however, the tracking was perfect.

And one of the good things about TrailGuru is the ability to send a track to the web site and then onto Google Earth…and here’s the trail view in that program!

 The trail is about 9 or so miles round trip and 2,000+ feet in elevation gain – a nice afternoon hike around here.  Once up there, the lake is the prototypical alpine lake, surrounded by peaks, rock and forest.  Here are two views looking south.

 

 From the rocks above the lake you can turn north and see the eastern part of Mammoth in the distance.  It was stunningly clear, so you can also see to the peaks north of Bridgeport, the Bodie Hills, and into parts of Nevada as well.  All in all, a great hike.

Catching up…first snows…

I’m catching up on posting some pictures of the first snows this year.  After the bigger of the two storms I headed up Rock Creek canyon to grab some pictures of Little Lakes Valley.  Didn’t hike too far in, just enough to get some pictures.  This one is the entrance of the valley, just after the initial elevation gain.

Then I hiked up and onto a set of rocks above a lake to get a better view of Mt. Dane and Mt. Abbot at the southern end of the valley.

Pulling back a bit from that view, you can see the lake in front (one of many) and Rock Creek which flows through the center of the valley, out through the glacial moraine and eventually flows through the faucets of Los Angeles.  Oh well, it’s pretty when its up here.

It’s 17 days from the Election. You’re John McCain. What do you do?

You’re John McCain.  You’re low on funds (relatively, compared to a juggernaught against you). You have 17 days.  You’re behind. Where do you put your limited resources and time in the next three weeks?

 

First, McCain can count on the following states to fall into his camp: Oklahoma, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Alabama, Nebraska, Kansas, Alaska, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arizona, Texas, Mississippi, South Dakota, Montana, Louisiana, Georgia and North Dakota.  In addition to these, with minimal effort McCain can probably count on Arkansas and Indiana.  In Arkansas the economy has taken a toll, reducing McCain’s margin but it’s highly unlikely even with the Clintons’ help that the state will go blue. And while Indiana flirted with toss-up status, this caused a huge panic within Republican party and they have now flooded the state with resources. If Indiana goes blue it’s likely other red states would as well, so they are going to stop that possibility. So assuming the GOP maintains that resource level it will be an uphill slog for Obama to win the state, even with the bleed over from the Chicago and other media markets.

 

This is a total of 21 states and 169 electoral votes that McCain can reasonably count on. He needs 101 more electoral votes to get to 270. Note that all of the states in the above list voted for Bush in 2004 (are “red”).

 

Next, he’d consider which are states where he has no chance and no operations currently because they are almost certain to go for Obama.  These states are: Vermont, Washington DC, Hawaii, Rhode Island, New York, Maryland, Illinois, Connecticut, California, Delaware, Washington, Oregon, Iowa, Maine, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota.

 

McCain is contesting Pennsylvania currently, but the polls show Obama’s lead in double digits. So why is McCain wasting valuable time and money?  Because the GOP and the McCain campaign have given up on every single one of the states that Kerry won in 2004 except for Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.  We’ll look at the total math in a second (and why McCain is still in these two states), but if you’re inside the McCain campaign and being realistic, you have to put both Pennsylvania and New Hampshire in Obama’s column.  (The current odds of Obama winning all Kerry states is 93%, and both states went for Kerry).

 

So, this means that the McCain campaign has to consider 21 states and 259 electoral votes blue.  This means that Obama has in place all of Kerry’s states and he has flipped one 2004 red one, Iowa with 7 electoral votes, to blue. This places the Democrat 11 electoral votes from election.

 

If you’re McCain, where does that leave the math?  McCain has 169 electoral vote in his base, Obama has 259 electoral votes.  And nine states with 110 electoral votes that are theoretically “in play”.  McCain will have to win 101 of these 110 electoral votes to win (92%).  Gulp.  Now would be a good time for a whiskey, neat.

 

If McCain looks at 2004, Bush won with 286 electoral votes, 16 more than needed to win.  In 2000, Bush won with 278 electoral votes, just 8 votes over a win. Starting with the 2004 map, and subtracting Iowa (now a core Obama state and voted blue in 2000) then the “red base” is 279 electoral votes.  This is the argument that many in the Republican party are now using – “protect the base!” The theory goes that the current political and economic environment is such that McCain should stop wasting resources in Pennsylvania and put everything on the rest of the red states to narrowly win the election.

 

This is threading the needle, and it’s pretty much what McCain will have to acknowledge in the next week.  If he’s to win, it’s going to be a very, very narrow victory. The nine “at play” states with 110 electoral votes are;

 

Virginia, 13 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 94% probability for Obama

Florida, 27 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 84% probability for Obama

Ohio, 20 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 76% probability for Obama

Missouri, 11 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 64% probability for Obama

North Carolina, 15 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 59% probability for Obama

 

New Mexico, 4 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2004, currently estimated at 91% probability for Obama

Colorado, 9 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 90% probability for Obama

Nevada, 5 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 77% probability for Obama

West Virginia, 5 electoral votes, voted for Bush in 2000 & 2004, currently estimated at 50%-50%

 

If McCain is to win, he must not lose more than nine electoral votes from this list.  He can afford to lose any of the bottom four states alone.  He can lose New Mexico and either Nevada or West Virginia.  If he can somehow flip New Hampshire he can offset a loss in New Mexico (what happened between Bush and Gore in 2000.)  But these are sideshows now.  They are battlegrounds because they are flipping demographically and in a close election Obama would have needed one or more of these small states to seal a win.  But that’s not where the race is today.

 

The real story is that John McCain cannot lose ANY of the five states of Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Missouri or North Carolina.  And that’s his needle to thread, he must win them all.  All are in the eastern or central time zones. On election night, if McCain loses any of these states then the election is over and all that will matter the rest of the night is how big Obama’s electoral win is.  Indiana is a target of the Obama campaign because it would also be in this list if it was closer – and that’s what the Obama campaign is trying to make happen in the next 10 days (again, an uphill chore).

 

McCain is on a quixotic hunt in Pennsylvania because it’s his last hope that he can change this math.  Pennsylvania has 21 electoral votes and if he could pick up that one, he could afford to lose in Ohio or in any two of Virginia, North Carolina or Missouri.  But the Republican party and outside observers has decided that, outside of a major game changing event, Pennsylvania is out of reach of McCain.

 

So it’s Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Missouri and North Carolina.  McCain must win them all.  And Obama must stop him from winning them all.

SNL: Crazy McCain Lady…

The debate skit this Thursday wasn’t all that, but the anchors of Weekend Update do a great job talking about the overall campaign, and with “Crazy McCain Lady” make a point about all of the rediculous assertions made across the Internet and in chain emails.  Nice job!
 

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The deed is done and my vote is in…

No one will be surprised. In California voting has already started. So go get your ballot and vote now! Monday is the deadline for voter registration, you can fill out the form at www.voteforchange.com.

Bon Hiver!

There’s a joke here in the high Sierra that Mammoth has four seasons; early winter, winter, late winter and summer.  Well, summer ended abruptly yesterday.

For those who haven’t read my blog in the fall in the past, “bon hiver” means “good winter” in French and it’s a traditional greeting for the day on which the first snow falls that sticks on the ground and begins the annual white build up for winter. It’s sort of a new year’s day in the mountains as the snow falls and wipes away the past year and creates a clean slate. “Bon hiver” was inserted into popular lexicon by the show “Northern Exposure” – a show that is a bit reminiscent of the high mountain town of Mammoth.

It came earlier than expected and as somewhat of a surprise this year.  We had received a dusting of snow above 9,500 feet last weekend which left the peaks white, and the leave changing in town.  On Thursday we were warned that the temps were about to dive, but that we’d just get a few flakes in town.  Well, no.  About a foot fell at the house and it’s clear that the snow is going to stick around on the ground for awhile and stay on the mountain for the winter.  And as I write this it’s lightly snowing still.

This is a picture of a pond near Lake Mary earlier today.  I thought I’d get a nice picture of snow around it, only to find out that it had already frozen over (to a slushy like consistency).

This is a picture looking towards Mammoth Crest (crest of the Sierra) from Twin Lakes.  In the winter, this is the entrance to the groomed cross country ski area

And I took a hike around the old Mammoth Consolidated Mine site (1920s and 1930s) and the entrance to one of the mine shafts was surrounded by icicles, which was great.  The mine temps are steady year round, but feel warm in the winter (above freezing) and so the snow melt around it.

So to everyone, bon hiver, and best wishes for the coming Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and all that stuff.  I hope you have a good winter.

It’s the big debate…parody

Still excellent. Loved the take on Biden constantly saying he loves John McCain but McCain’s unstable. As for Tina Fey’s take on Sarah Palin – still spot on and captures the feeling of a lot of the country, “What is this person doing running for VP?”

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It’s beginning to look a lot like…October

Yep…the mountain is white above 9,000 feet.  Most of this is going to end up melting in the next week, but it’s the start of the annual process of lowering the ground temperature so that following snowfalls stick.

But it’s pretty.  And the cold temps will trigger the fall colors to rapidly move down the slopes.

You know, I’m ready for the fall and winter.

Snow at 9,000 feet

October 4, and there’s snow above 9,000 feet.  I was in Austin on Thursday night and Friday and drove home late last night.  It was raining so I figured something might be happening further up.  But I didn’t think too much about it since I was dealing with the normal fall house things (where is that drip coming from?)

This morning I woke up and could see white on the mountain.  So I drove up to the lakes and the snow level was just above water level around most of the area – but at Horseshoe Lake there was some covering.

It’s enough to make the peaks white for fall and start lowering the ground temps, but I bet we’ll go into our normal indian summer next week – which will be good for the fall colors.  I headed up to Rock Creek to check things out at 10,000 feet and some of the colors are coming out.  In brighter light they’ll be stunning.  I’d say we’re about 2-3 weeks away from the key color changes at 7-8,000 feet, but up high there’s a change and at near 11,000 feet the leaves are falling.

I also saw a road I hadn’t been on on the east side of Rock Lake.  So I mosied over and caught this picture of the really blue water.  I had to snap it quickly because the wind and cold were a bit much.

Anyway, that’s the fall update.  Love the snow.  As for me, holy cow I’m tired after the Austin trek the last two days.  Definitely an evening to take it easy.

www.declareyourself.com

Voter registration time! Voting time! Not going to vote? Watch this…

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