The tea party fundraiser

Along with a few buddies, I am heading over to the Grand Canyon this weekend for a trail run. We start at the South Rim, find our way down to the Canyon floor, and up to the North Rim and back all the way. 48 miles of it. Or as much of it as fun, pleasure and camaraderie will allow. The whole thing should be a fascinating experience, visual treats along with extremes in temperature differing by 70F, and elevation changes in many thousands of feet.

This is a simplistic course profile here, but it looks simply beautiful. When I first saw this profile a month ago, I thought it looked like an old tea cup made of clay or of china whose handle had broken off. That simple imagery continues to be a symbol of pleasant anticipation for our trip to the Canyon. So that's what we're headed out there for - we've had all our little parties here, and now it's time for a grand old tea party at the grand old canyon.

photo courtesy: Maneesh Pandey

I got into running several years ago primarily to raise funds for the wonderful schools run by GSK in Rajasthan, India. That was when they had 65 children in thatched structures for classrooms. Today, they have 300 kids with great infrastructure and all of them enjoy spending time at what increasingly feels like a successful movement to restore the joy of childhood. The school's revolutionary alternative methods that attracted much opposition and criticism a few years back are now bearing some fruit - graduates excelling in public examinations, passionate buy-in from impoverished rural communities and more collaborations with mainstream schools.

There's a long haul ahead still for GSK, and funding continues to lag requirements - the Strides of Hope program from Asha for Education is a critical part of fulfilling this need for several such initiatives. My Grand Canyon run and tea party and a $1000 target are all part of this program. Donations made through this fundraising page go to the Austin chapter of Asha for Education. Asha for Education is a completely volunteer-run organization, and all donations are tax exempt in the US.

Thanks for sharing your time; now all you have to do is pay for your cuppa by 5/15 ;)

Links:

1. Donation page
2. Grand Canyon National Park
3. Gramin Shiksha Kendra (GSK)
4. Austin chapter of Asha for Education
5. Strides of Hope program

Catoctin Mountain Park

Date: October 11, 2009

Place: Catoctin Mountain Park, Maryland

Trails: Falls Nature, Hog Rock Nature, Blue Ridge Summit, Thurmont Vista, Wolf Rock, Chimney Rock

Distance: 8.5 Miles

Difficulty: Moderate

More fall season hiking, this time at the Catoctin Mountain Park managed by the National Park Service. It's a beautiful drive of about 50 miles from DC leading to the park. The mountains here are part of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the ancient Appalachian Mountains. The park itself is forested thickly with hardwood trees like oaks and maples and also has some interesting rock formations wrought over hundreds of millions of years of geological evolution.

Shankar and I chose the longest round-trip trail, listed as being 8.5 miles with a few strenuous climbing sections. This loop skirts around the edges of the park, from the Cunningham falls in the west to the Chimney Rock in the east.

Falls Nature Trail to the Cunningham Falls

Around 1.5 miles from the visitor center trailhead, and along the Falls Nature Trail, lies the Cunningham Falls viewing point. The hike up is moderate, and the falls are set in a beautiful wooded area.

Hog Rock, Blue Ridge Summit and Thurmont Vista

From the Cunningham Falls, it's a strenuous hike up of around 1.25 miles to the Hog Rock. The Hog Rock is at the center of the park, and is made of metabasalt, a dark greenish-gray igneous rock. It's also called the Catoctin Greenstone. After sunbathing here for a while and taking in the beautiful views, we resumed our hike up to the Blue Ridge Summit about half a mile away.

The view here opens out to the Blue Ridge Mountains in the far west, hence the name. Another half a mile away on the trail led us to the Thurmont Vista overlook. You can see the town of Thurmont in the valley below, the valley itself a geological attraction made by erosion over millions of years.

Wolf Rock

Another moderate hike of 1.5 miles took us to the Wolf Rock formations. The quartzite rocks and the erosion by wind and rain water (through frost wedging) creating spectacular shapes were a treat. We spent considerable time here jumping from rock to rock.

Chimney Rock

Chimney Rock, another 0.6 miles away, was the highlight of the entire hike. This is again quartzite rock formed in the shape of chimney. In order to get on the chimney rock though, we had to jump across very deep wedges that had formed cliffs along the rock walls. Dangerous and exciting as the jump was, we were rewarded with the best panoramic views yet. After spending half an hour here, we jumped back onto the main trail and headed back.

A couple of miles more of hiking brought us back to the visitor center just as the sun was setting. The hikes made for a good workout among beautiful wooded and forested sections for the most part, and there are viewing spots all along the trail every mile or so. It is an enjoyable and rewarding hike through some of the best scenery in Maryland.

Shenandoah NP: Overall Run Falls

Date: October 4, 2009

Place: Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

Trails: Overall Run, Beecher Ridge, Trace Trail

Difficulty: Moderate to Strenuous

Shenandoah! (Just love saying that word aloud!)

The day was nice for a hike/run - sunny, in the 50s and 60s, fall season. The Shenandoah National Park is about 90 miles from DC, and consists of breathtaking scenery of forested Blue Ridge mountains and meadows. The plan was to hike/run the 11.5 mile round-trip connecting the Overall Run and Beecher Ridge trails. The trails are listed on hiking websites as being strenuous and having an elevation gain of 4000'. Despite all that, Shankar and I started the hike, for various excuses, at 4.45pm. Even as we started, we knew that it was miserably late and that we would finish when the fullish moon was overhead.

We started at the Traces Trail trailhead, and the trail started climbing steeply immediately for a mile or so. On the way we passed a few trail intersections, randomly chose what we took to be the "main" trail, wondering why these extremely well maintained trails were not marked at all. After hiking a mile, we came across another intersection, and we finally figured out then that the funny looking stone pillars had tiny metal plates on the sides that gave out the information on trail directions that we could have used 0.5 miles earlier. This intersection was with the famous Appalachian trail, which we had definitely not planned to meet.

Backtrack. Back to the previous intersection then, a fast downhill run on trails nice, rocky in parts but mostly soft. We finally got back to the Overall Run trail, our initially intended itinerary. We then hiked up steeply and then down steeply for a couple of miles through thickly wooded forests. There are no scenic views here, but the trail itself is colorful with the red, pink, yellow and green leaves from oak and maple trees that herald the arrived fall season. This part of the hike ends at a clearing with fantastic views of mountains and the nearby 93' Overall Run Falls. All the prior steep climbing was forgotten in this vista of meditative beauty. The setting sun added a picturesque background to the valleys of the Blue Ridge mountains.

We continued hiking steeply downward along the trail for some more, though Shankar by this time was plodding on bravely despite ITB issues and foot blisters. It was soon 7pm and darkening rapidly, and we decided to turn back to conquer the trail another day. A surreal night hike in the forest ensued, navigated safely with the help of a flashlight and a headlamp. The trails were empty of any people other than us two, quite reasonably, and that added it's own charm in the night with birds tweeting and creatures strange rustling the leaves on the ground. We got a little lost though and ended up at the Mathews Arms Campground instead of the trailhead, but we knew the way down to the trailhead through the campsites. We finished finally at around 8pm.

If the 7 miles or so that we did on the trail is any indication, this is a strenuous hike with rather steep uphill and downhill sections but well worth the effort for all the beauty there is along the way. Among the wildlife we saw today were white-tailed deer, gray squirrels, vultures and white caterpillars.

The little we saw of the trail and the park was enchanting. Enough to make me want to go there again. Soon.

New Year's

What were you doing when the new year broke? Here is a short selective history of my eves. The New Year kind.

2009. This year, it was a comparatively quieter affair at the Draughthouse Pub followed by some samosas at Ken's. It was good fun nevertheless with friends old and new.

2000. The last new year's eve of the previous millennium was a sodden affair at San Francisco, with hundreds of thousands of revelers. Not much to write home about though, could have been just about any other night at the pub.

2001. The millennial start! The hype led me and a friend to New York, where we stood in below-freezing temperatures for the better part of an evening and night, and watched, with dumb anticipation, the ball, only a ball really, drop. This was clearly one of those moments that you presently can't dig but talk about endlessly in future. One for posterity, nothing more.

2005. The most surreal one. And perhaps, for ironical reasons, the most memorable one. Subbu, Ramdas and I had gone to Big Bend for a multi-day backpacking hike. We had planned to continue the tradition of a wet new year's, but what happened out there was an altogether different experience. At 4.30pm on the 31st, we came across a nice campsite, primitive though it was, it was still a campsite. Feeling cocky however, probably through inexperience, we decided to move on to find the next campsite. Darkness fell at 6pm, and we could barely hike through the trail at this point. Desperation led us to search for anything that might work as a camping spot, and this thing turned out to be a stony ledge, slightly slanting downward and enough for maybe 2 dwarves to sleep comfortably. So here we were, 3 grown men, lying on that sloping stone, sleepless in mild fear of snakes, scorpions, and nameless fiends, and just counting all the stars all through the dawn of 2005. A memory keeper.

1999. Another memorable one. In Madras this time, a few quick ones and then a ride to the Elliots Beach. The beach where tens of thousands of inebriated men (men alone) were waiting like a cinderbox for an explosion of excitement. Any girls foolhardy enough to venture into the beach got earfuls of tips on improving their personas, and a few frank verbal appraisals of their bodies, which in some cases, turned physical. The large posse of uniformed, good-humored and indulgent coppers however seemed to draw a hard line at the physical bit. Out came the lathis, and a lathicharge perhaps not unlike the freedom movement days, ensued. All the freedom-loving patriots ran for cover, many into the cool water and I got hit smack on my elbow for the sole impropriety of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Nevertheless, a badge of honor that I now share with a few luminaries of this world.

2002. At home in Bombay, wandered around late-night with a bunch of newly made acquaintances, bestowing visits to a seedy "beer bar" and a late night roadside eatery making "fry ry". Got back home at an unearthly hour and woke up next morning to smells that reminded one of past misdeeds!

2006. A tradition of bring-your-own-scotch-but-drink-all instituted. There may have been some dabbanguthu involved, but that was a fairly regular occurrence back then.

2007. A tradition of bring-your-own-scotch-but-drink-all continued. New Year's Eve spent with friends and their families in a downtown club.

1997. A Goan binge to forget, and promptly forgotten. A few fennys (the local drink then available for 3 rupees or 10 cents a pop), some wholesome seafood and some contributions to increasing the noise levels later, we went to sleep. If there are any allegations about my indulgences that night, I meet them stoically with stout denial.

2008. First Night Austin. Music, love and fireworks.

Happy New Year!