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Grand Canyon Rim to Rim Hike – September 24 – 29, 2012

I began planning this trip to the Grand Canyon around the beginning of 2011. I learned a lot in the process. I had originally planned on doing this Rim to Rim hike in two days and camping in Phantom Ranch at the bottom. That plan did not work out as you must book your stay in Phantom Ranch thirteen months in advance and there are only realistically ten available spots for women and another ten available spots for men, all dormitory style, since priority for all of the best rooms are given to those riding mules down and for those folks staying overnight on a rafting trip.

Once I realized that Phantom Ranch was not a realistic option I made the decision that our group would make the South Rim to North Rim hike in three days instead of two, camping two nights in the Canyon Backcountry. The upside is that we were able to choose one of the best weeks of the year for backpacking. The downside is that a fully loaded backpack can weight twenty or more pounds than a reasonably loaded day pack. (I’ll provide details on the gear I used in a later post.)

We ended up driving out to the South Rim from Phoenix on Monday, September 24 and camping in Mather Campground. We woke up Tuesday and took a van ride to the North Rim and camped. On Wednesday we woke up and hiked our way to the North Rim Trailhead which is about one mile from the campground. We then hiked our way down about eight miles the North Rim to the Cottonwood campground. On Thursday morning we hiked our way about another eight to the Bright Angel Campground. On Friday morning we woke up and hiked our way back up about nine miles to the South Rim. We camped in Mather Campground again on Friday night, woke up on Saturday morning, had a very nice breakfast at the El Tovar restaurant, and started our trek back to Phoenix.

All in all it was a really great week. The group was very laid back and fantastically helpful to each other in so many ways. It is true that the journey is, and in this case certainly was its own reward, but the sense of accomplishment at the end, well, that will linger a very long time.

October 1, 2012
Coffee and Me

I have had an on again, off again relationship with coffee for most of my life. I do not remember exactly when I started drinking coffee but it was somewhere between junior high and high school. What I remember more clearly are the times I quit.

I’ve given up on coffee exactly three times in my life. The first was my sophomore year in college. Though for the life of me I cannot at this moment recall why. It was just something I did. That was 1994 so it’s likely that my mom or my dad were trying to quit and mine was a show of support. The quitting didn’t come with any painful drawbacks but it also didn’t last but for a few months.

The second was early in 2000. This time the quitting was in fact to rid myself of caffine. Also, this time was painful. That’s what I get for going cold turkey. I slogged thru four days of headaches, the worst of which was the second day into quitting. I came home, ate a very small dinner because of the massive nausia I felt, and went to bed before the sun went down. Rinse and repeat the next day and the next. By the end of the week I was feeling much better. That coffee fast lasted right about a year.

[photo by DOUG888]

The third was late last decade. I am not sure of the exact month but it’s been about two years at this point. This time it wasn’t for health reasons so much as it just irritated me that I had to have coffee or there was a vicious headache waiting around the corner. Some mornings I would be busy with work and forget to have my coffee. It became a chore so I decided to end it. This time wasn’t as bad as the last. I drank a few diet cokes (with caffine) the first few days to transition.

In the past two years I can honestly say that I haven’t really missed real coffee. Not that much. When I get a craving I have a cup of decaf but even those are getting farther and farther few between. I do however enjoy waking up, especially when it’s in a hotel and I get to walk down to the lobby, and feel good about the fact that I don’t have to wait in the coffee shop line for a fix. It’s the little things I guess.

September 8, 2011
A Very Brief Tale of One Mini & Two Drives

In a not so recent post I described how I secure my data from disaster. I thought it might be fun to show you how I have all of this setup.

All of my data is stored on external drives because the internal drive on my Mac Mini is just way too small (and for reasons described in the previous post). The setup involves the two identical 1TB pictured.

The first I’ve named G-DRIVE A and the second G-DRIVE B. The A is primary drive because it is where the live copy of my data is stored which is backed up on the B using Time Machine. Sexy, no?

August 26, 2011
How To Delete All Photos Off Your iPhone At Once

I went to take a picture with my iPhone the other day and it told me that I didn’t have enough space. I discovered that I hadn’t deleted a single pictures or video off my iPhone all year. Not good since I’ve already synced and saved them in Aperture. Not wanting to take the time to delete them all once at a time, I went looking for a way to delete them en masse. Here’s the ten simple steps. (This was done on a Mac but a similar approach should work with Windows.)

(1) Open a Finder window and look for Image Capture in the Applications folder.

(2) Launch Image Capture.

(3) Plug in your iPhone and you should see something like this.

(4) To keep it clean, I created a new folder to dump all of my pictures in. To do this, click the Import To: drop down.

(5) Click [New Folder].

(6) Name your folder and click [Create].

(7) Click [Choose].

(8) Now before you click [Import All] remember that we’re doing this in order to delete all of the photos on our iPhone after the import. Therefore, make sure to check [Delete after import]. Now that you’ve checked [Delete after import], click [Import All].

(9) You should now have an empty Photos folder on your iPhone. Hooray!

(10) You will however have a full iPhone Trash folder on your desktop. I simply moved mine to the trashcan.

Mission complete.

August 10, 2011
Grand Canyon Rim to Rim – Booked!

I had some free time this afternoon so I went ahead and booked reservations for our Grand Canyon Rim to Rim hike next year. So far the crew will consist of me, my sister Crystelle Brown, my cousin Brent Blough, and tentatively my wife Linda Brown.

Here are the trip details.

(1) We will be leaving Phoenix on Monday, May 28, 2012 and arriving at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon that evening. (A stop in Sedona for lunch is a possible option.) We’ll be spending the night at Bright Angel Lodge.

(2) The afternoon of Tuesday May 29 we’ll take the Transaction Shuttle service to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We’ll spend the night in a cabin on the North Rim.

(3) On Wednesday May 30 we’ll take shuttle service to the Trail Head on the North Rim. We’ll hike approx 12 miles down to Phantom Ranch and spend the night in one of their dormitory style lodges.

(4) On Thursday May 31 we’ll get up and hike the approx 10 miles out. Once we’re back to the South Rim we’ll spend the night again at Bright Angel Lodge.

(5) On Friday June 1 we’ll get in the car and head back to Phoenix.

If any of you out there are still interested let me know and I’ll walk you thru making your reservations. I’m already excited and I’d be great if some of you would join us.

July 23, 2011