My old camera, a Panasonic Lumix TZ-4, travelled with me everywhere I went. Over the past year I took thousands of images with that camera. It was a relatively basic point-and-shoot camera with a 28mm lens. Panasonic has been using Leica lenses in their cameras and the image quality is pretty darn good.

I let the camera hang off of a shoulder sling with the lens open (camera in the “ON” position) a bit too often and after about a year now the lens has a lot of scratches. The image quality was affected by these scratches, especially when shooting in bright daylight conditions.

My new camera, a Lumix ZS-5, arrived from B&H last week and I could barely contain my excitement. I could care less about the even bigger zoom than my old model. What I’m psyched about is the 25mm super wide lens (good for getting more into the image), the added megapixels for larger blow ups should I decide to print, and the “M” option. This “manual” option allows the user to adjust the aperture and speed for better images.

We’ll see over the coming weeks, as the leaves turn. I shot these few images at Sandy Hook, down near my folks place.

I unloaded images off of my Blackberry a few days ago and was treated to a few surprises. This may have been the best (along with the Minnewaska sunset from the last post) image there. It’s a shot of my friend Suzy’s house outside Three Forks, MT. They have a sweet spot with a little lake on the property. Standing water is hard to come by in the Rockies and this place seems like a real oasis. Lucky them, I guess. Not a bad shot for a 3 megapixel phone either.

Well, I’ve been back in the northeast now for about 9 days and I’m relieved to say the least. My last trip to the Cascades was a tough one. The trip and the clients were, as usual, amazing and upbeat. The challenge laid more in the number of transitions I was quickly forced to make in the days prior to the trip. A serious airline fiasco (see my last post) made things much worse by ripping the band-aid off what was basically a nasty open wound.

I started doing some simple math, and it turns out that I’d been in New Paltz less than 10 of the past 50 days. No wonder I was feeling out of sync and tired. I am a homebody and an individual who identifies strongly with the northeast.

The last few days of work have helped the readjustment process. A SUNY Backpacking trip in the roadless wooded quiet of the Catskills, a film shoot at majestic Lake Minnewaska (perhaps the most beautiful place on the east coast) at sunset, and yesterday…

Yesterday I was given a giant treat – a Mohonk Mountain House client who wanted to climb Foops. Our half day included Foops, No Exit and Krapp’s Last Tape. Not a bad half day and a pretty tough transition to make. Mt. Rainier one week, 5.11 in the Gunks the next. Umm, ok. I was reminded why rock climbing always seems like my favorite thing to do. The movement is pure joy, and pushing it above gear when you’re pumped is so exciting.

My pace back and forth down the short narrow hallway quickened. My face was hot. Tears welled in my eyes. My voice faltered. Anger and frustration trickled to the surface. The customer service representative on the phone had just redirected me back to the Delta.com website and instructed me to cancel all my flights and start over. She misled me and promptly got off the phone.

It’s been a day and a half now. My frustration is a mile wide, its current swift. The levies can not and should not hold this back. I’m screaming inside. I’m going to shout out loud.

A week ago I was physically exhausted, after schlepping a backpack all over the North Cascades. Now I feel like a caged animal. I’m in need of a lung-searing, gut busting long run.

Three days ago my grandmother passed away. Today there’s a small, private memorial service for her at my grandparents home in coastal North Carolina. The following day I have to head back to Washington state for another Alpine Endeavors Cascades trip.

The fiery chafe lies with the airlines and my need to change my travel plans. I was scheduled to fly on Delta Airlines from Newark to Atlanta, and then from Atlanta to Seattle.. I’m headed to North Carolina for the memorial service and it’s not practical to fly out of Newark at 7:20 the next morning. What I wanted to do was skip the flight from Newark to Atlanta and check in for my flight in Atlanta.

I initially tried to change my flights online. I carefully selected the proper flight (if nothing else, as a climbing guide and risk manager by trade, I am meticulous). After entering and submitting all of my information there was an error and the Delta website instructed me to go back in my browser. Upon re-entering my confirmation number the website indicated that BOTH flights had been canceled.

I received no confirmation email and as far as I could tell the transaction had not been completed. However, according to the system I had been charged $150 so that Delta could sell my space on those flights.

I called Expedia to see if they could help. The customer service representative there said that flights had been changed within the Delta system and there was nothing he could do. He told me he would transfer me to Delta and put me on hold indefinitely. Shit mofo.

I called Delta to explain my situation and the woman on the other end was both unempathetic and unfriendly. I had clearly cancelled my flights and that was all there was to it. The system doesn’t make mistakes; it was my fault. She grilled me about the name of the funeral parlor as proof that there had been a death in the family. After putting me on hold at least 4 times for 3 minutes at a time she came back on the phone and told me to go online cancel all of my flights and start over. What? And get charged $150 more to cancel my return flights too, only to be left with a few dollars credit from the original purchase price? I asked her to stay on the phone while I did what she was telling me. “Just enter your confirmation code on the homepage and you can take it from there” she told me. There was nowhere on the homepage to do that. This woman was lying to me, and trying to shift my heat off of her. Where was her empathy? Her understanding? She was a soulless automaton. Near as I can tell, and right about now, she’d make a pretty good punching bag. Gloves off.

I was visibly and audibly upset, and thankfully my partner stepped in and got back on the phone with Delta. She explained the situation to a different, and more understanding yet equally as powerless, customer service representative. They were able to reinstate my original flights.

After four hours, at the end of an already long and psychologically punishing day I was back to square one. I would try again in the morning.

Yesterday morning I got back on the phone with Delta. How hard could it be to change my reservation so that I could check in in Atlanta? Delta could fill an extra seat on the Newark-Atlanta flight and I could attend my grandmother’s memorial service and then fly from North Carolina to Atlanta where I could check in for my flight to Seattle. This doesn’t seem like an unreasonable thing to ask for, does it?

Well, it turns out it is. The customer service representative was kind enough to waive the change fee for me. It was going to cost me $580 without the flight change fee not to fly from Newark to Atlanta. So I was being penalized for not flying? It sure seems that way to me.

I wasn’t going to pay $600 not to fly from Newark to Atlanta. I had already purchased a one way ticket from NC to Atlanta and this would put my expenses for the two day detour at nearly $850. Instead I purchased another one-way ticket from Atlanta to Seattle and decided to be done with the whole thing. I needed to stop stressing about this.

It’s all done with now. I have the plane tickets and I will make it to both the memorial service and to Mts. Shuksan and Rainier afterward. The whole situation, however, has left me with grave doubts about the system that we live, work and play in. I’m not a fatalist or a huge cynic. I don’t believe that we’re going to destroy ourselves before our generation is dead and gone. I am really feeling like things need to change though.

How can someone (a customer service representative) willingly agree to a job with the airlines where they are so powerless to do the right thing? How does one do it? You’d have to put a gun to my head before I’d do that, especially right now. And the people who design the programs that calculate costs based on demand rather than people’s real needs – they’ve sold out, sold their souls to the devil. And the supervisors who can’t override the computer when a customer service representative comes to them with a unique situation like a death in the family? You must hate yourself.

The only conclusion I have come to is that these people have either given up all hope that things can be different (which is sad) or don’t care that things are the way they are (which is fucking lame). If the guide service that I work for provided the style of service that many of these large corporations that are “too big to fail” provide we would promptly put ourselves out of business. We would disappear. But that hasn’t happened to the airlines. I haven’t had a good flight experience in 4 years. Out of half a dozen flights per year, none of them are pleasant? What does that tell you about the quality of service they’re providing?

After this incident I’m left with more questions than answers. And I’m not going to let this frustration subside so quickly. There are so many things that we should try to be “zen” about. Just let them go and get on with your life. I just don’t feel this is one of them. We need to start making changes. Voting is lame. It just doesn’t work. What we need to do is vote with our money.

So that’s where I’m at. Each day I get more focused about it too. Spend your dollars as locally as possible. Give your money to the people you want to have it. Buy local food and clothing from local stores. Ride your bike. Drive a smaller car and less often. And don’t fly unless you need to. Definitely make sure it isn’t Delta.

I won’t even pretend to feel like the great polar and mountain explorers of yesteryear, or like soldiers who’ve just returned home from a long tour. I can say, however, that there are times (like now) when I can empathize with them. As I return from an amazing trip in the woods I can’t help but feel a bit directionless. In the mountains, despite the weather, one’s direction presents itself with startling clarity. Whether you can get there is another story.

Needless to say, my four climbs in the North Cascades over the past two weeks were amazing experiences. The trip was marked by generally clear weather. Wet days (there were two during the trips) are tough and cold, but when the shroud of clouds lifts the world seems that much brighter and even more glorious.

I’ve had a hard time being out of the woods though. It’s irking me, I usually look forward to burgers, beer, a hot shower and all the other accoutrements that society has to offer. This time it’s different. I want to crawl back under the wilderness shell right now. The contrast seems irreconcilable.

A stop at Target in Burlington, WA on a Sunday, our first stop out of the woods, found me among people happily giving their money away to large corporations on their day off. My absence, during a move, has stressed the relationship with my partner of four and a half years. And my grandmother, who played an integral role during my early childhood, has been in the hospital with a large brain tumor.

This chain of events left me feeling pretty overwhelmed. Home now for four days I’m feeling a bit more adjusted, but the feeling is bittersweet – I’m headed back to the Cascades for a Shuksan and Rainier trip, 10 more days away from my home-life and easy access to updates on my grandmother’s condition.

I’m more fortunate than most though – without the highs and lows life would be uninteresting. There would be no perspective by which to judge things. For now enjoy these very beautiful photos from the past week.

A few weeks ago my family took a vacation to coastal South Carolina. On the way home I stopped by my grandparents place in Emerald Isle N.C. They live along the intercoastal waterway, on the water. Their place is a bird lover’s paradise. It also happens to be an amazingly beautiful spot. As a youth I’m not sure I appreciated the place as much. My most recent visit made me realize that this place is priceless and that it feels very much like a sanctuary in a land of more or less rampant development.

Every once in a while I get pretty excited about things unrelated to climbing. Recently I’ve been pretty jazzed up about a few things.

About two months ago my partner and I decided that we were going to have a container garden this year. We bought several tomato plants and basil plants, scavenged a ton of squash seedlings out of the compost and planted some lettuce. It’s a work in progress and a serious learning experience. We chose buckets and other random containers because the soil in Cambridge where my partner lives is a bit suspect. Additionally, we can move the plants around and even move them over to New Paltz for the summer (we won’t be in Cambridge for the summer).  We’ve spent a total of about $150 on plants and supplies thus far and we’re hoping to get a lot of that back in fresh food this summer and canned/dried goodies for the upcoming fall and winter. I know, already, that next year’s garden is going to have a lot of other things in it, and with some careful planning hopefully we’ll be able to harvest at least a few things all spring, summer and fall. I took a few pictures about two weeks ago now. The tomatoes are healthy. Can’t wait for the first ripe tomates, which seem to be a few weeks off right now.

These days I’ve been riding a cyclocross bike I began acquiring parts for last year. A few months ago I finished putting it together and gave it the acid test. I rode tentatively for the first few road rides, foolishly fearing that something awful, like the front wheel coming off in the middle of a big downhill, would happen. I’ve now ridden the bike for commuting to work (with my full climbing kit in the panniers and on the rack), shopping for groceries, and for fun on a few of the access roads on the Mohonk Preserve. A mountain bike would probably better for some of the rockier terrain but the bike absolutely rips on smooth packed access roads. I’ve ridden a bike quite a bit over the years, and have always thought that a cyclocross bike was appealing because you can go most places on it comfortably and quickly. Slap a set of road wheels on it and you’ve basically got a slightly heavier road bike.

I went with mostly Shimano Ultegra parts (including a triple up front instead of the normal compact crankset) and swapped the wheels (Chris King hubs, Mavic Open Pro rims) out from my old road bike. I kept the 8-speed cog stack in the back so that I could have wheel compatibility with with my old road bike, and for long term durability. I’m pretty psyched, and every day I don’t drive to work or to the cliff I save some money on gas, which is nice.

These days I’m working off of a new laptop too. I picked up a Toshiba (big fan) A505 laptop. I’ve used Mac’s a bit here and there and still feel like I know my way around a Windows OS better. So much most people do on computers is server-side and has very little to do with one’s processor speed. A lot of web-design can be done using open-source software and I like using Photoshop for image editing. This has really left me feeling like the extra $900 I would have spent for a Macbook Pro wasn’t worth it. The A505 has a new Intel I3 processor, 500gb storage, 4gb RAM, a long-life (about 6-6.5 hrs.) battery, full keypad including a numberpad on the right, and good sound. Not too shabby for about $650. It’s quite a step up from my indestructible old machine, a low-end, $300 Black Friday Toshiba notebook I bought in 2007. I have to admit I’m sentimentally attached to the old laptop and will be keeping it around for a while yet.

Well, this may be an odd and off-topic post, but I feel compelled to write about it anyway. We’re having some typical Gunks weather right now – on-and-off rain that makes clients skeptical that they should come climbing. I’m clearly not at the cliff right now. Two days of work this past week have been canceled only to have dry daytime weather. As a climbing guide on the East Coast this type of weather makes you realize that your career, while being fun and rewarding, is a paltry way of making a living.

Enough of that though. Do you ever rediscover music you used to love? On occasion this happens to me and it’s almost always (always is a strong word) pleasantly surprising. For me, Pandora has made this a much more frequent occurrence.

Temple of the Dog is a band that I have rediscovered recently. I was an impressionable young teenager when this album was popularized by the release and subsequent success of Pearl Jam’s Ten album. Temple‘s a one record collaboration between members of Soundgardern and the band now known as Pearl Jam. It was written as a tribute to Andy Wood (Chris Cornell’s housemate in Seattle) of Mother Love Bone, who died in 1990 of a heroin overdose. The remaining members of Mother Love Bone teamed up with Eddie Vedder to become Pearl Jam. The album I thought, as a teenager, was awesome.

I owned the album as a cassette and haven’t had a cassette player in a decade. Hearing a few Temple of the Dog tracks on Pandora has convinced me to get an digital copy of the record. Giving it a listen, it’s nothing short of exceptional, and much better than I ever realized as a teenager. If, like me, you were a teenager when the Seattle grunge rock scene put mainstream heavy metal to bed for a while you’ll definitely enjoy revisiting this album too.

So, if you’re sitting inside on a rainy day instead of climbing, like me, cruise through some of your old music. You’ll probably be pleasantly surprised too.

I’ve updated my review of the Black Diamond Sphynx 32. I love the design of the backpack, a classic climbing klettersack. Durability and quality control seem have become major issues and I’ve begun to question how long the pack is going to last.

Check out the link to the review, with updates here.

Here’s a sunset pic I snapped on the way home from my parents’ house in NJ.