more golden granite!

On your left is the shaded norwand. The circled spire I have, in jest, dubbed the Central Pillar of Mackay (climbers might get the reference to the famed French pinacle). Indisdinguishable in this Ipod photo are the 3 or 4 continuous crack systems that lead to the top of the pinnacle, about 400 feet I think.

On your right is Cerro Mackay, this unuasually dry winter has allowed the notorious final rime pitch to melt away!

All puns aside, this is world class granite at 10,000 feet. After finding nothing but a lifetime of shale and limestone in these mountains, stumbling upon this granite is like an alchemists dream come true.

off the map

a few weeks ago i judged this slope just steep enough to slide, but not enough to run to far with the given snow pack. I opted to skin up far lookers right on dirt and grass to be safe. I sneaked through the starting zone by threading the rock line in center of the photo. I also summited and skied the far left ridge of the peak in the background...in retrospect I should have skied the sunlit ridge. I returned a week later, but it was blown clean to bare rock

Same slope a week later after 10 inches and heavy wind

And the killer granite alpine spires. These serve up about 500 feet of climbing and top out at 10,000 ft.

conjoined!

Before After

Here comes the brain (s)! Olfactory nerves, snip, snip! Optic nerves, snip, snip!

Two hearts! Both had four chambers and all the normal veins and arteries. The one in the foreground was bigger and connected to the dominant liver and lungs. The smaller heart connected to a tiny liver and lungs that would not inflate. I would have liked to explore the circulatory system in more depth, but time and resources did not allow. The organism had two esophogouses that merged into one digestive system. There was a single male reproductive system. The skeletal system contained a forked spine with ribs extending from the right side of the right spine and the left side of the left spine. The spine of the dominant head was half the diameter (2 inches), although the chord and brain were identicle.

And one nightmare shot for good measure! Don't worry buddy, we'll have you home to mommy soon! Moooo!

This organism died a few hours after birth. While improper grazing can lead to high rates of conjoined twins, this calf was born on a well managed, all natural ranch. A rare event made even more odd because someone was around who wanted to disect it.

The pictured eyes from the dominant head dissected normaly, while an eye from the lesser head seemed to have no retina.

The organism shared this set of testis...one person asked, "how do the testis connect to the eyes?"

More Dickey Peak ridge routes....the profile shows the top third of the more Northern (looker's left) ridge, taken from the more Southern ridge. Summit in background.

These last two are from an attemt on Bora. After stumbling around the LRR for a few months now, the trail (!) felt like an escalator. Even so, I was thwarted by an exposed, icy class three rock section, which I was unprepaired for, wearing only my ski boots. After Neil laughed at my previous week's efforts being stopped by steep scree, this rejection didn't feel so bad.

The steep coulies are on Bora's West face; this shot encompasses 3,000 verticle feet. Final shot: Yeti sighting!