Stories

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    Aurora

      This story begins Friday night when I learned that a large coronal mass ejection (CME) sent a burst of solar radiation from the sun headed toward Earth. It was predicted to intercept our atmosphere on the evening of the 8th, producing auroral activity in the high latitudes. Given the size of this solar storm, as described by spaceweather.com, I was a bit suspicious that the auroras migh be big enough to see all the way down here in northern Idaho. So, I kept a watch looking for evidence of such activity. On the evening of the 8th, I checked…

  • Smoke in the Air

    Where have I been the last three weeks? To put it lightly, I have been choking on smoke. Since returning from the Seven Devils trip over Labor Day Weekend, the wildfires in the northwest, particularly in Idaho, have flared up. A fire south of the Devils appeared as well as a large fire just outside of Riggins. There have been some smaller fires near Grangeville and Lewiston to add to the mess. Winds from the south have blown all that smoke into the Lewiston-Clarkston valley and onto the Palouse where the smoke has been so thick at times, you could…

  • Huckleberries.

    I went up to Freezeout Saddle with some photo club people to pick huckleberries. As I expected, they were still ripe, and very plentiful. But the problem with huckleberries is that you can pick for an hour and still not get very much. I think I came home with maybe a pint of berries. I brought my camera up as well to get some photos of the area and of us picking only to find out that I left my card in the card reader and my extra card in the sack that I take backpacking. oops.

  • Labor Day Weekend: Backpacking the Seven Devils

    This is the story of how Dan Beck and I ended up spending much of our Labor Day weekend in the backcountry of one of Idaho’s most scenic and rugged mountain ranges, the Seven Devils. It begins over a week before when I sent out a message for a backpacking trip over Labor Day weekend. I suggested a 3-night trip into the Eagle Cap Wilderness with an emphasis on summiting peaks rather than counting long miles. I had some interest and was all set for our 3rd annual Wallowas weekend, when some of the members decided it would be a…

  • Fly Fishing on the St. Joe

    There’s nothing quite like the feeling of getting that perfect cast with your fly rod, landing the fly perfectly on the water exactly where you intended it to land, and having a fish jump for it seconds later. I was in that groove Sunday afternoon where the fish were chasing after my fly, but only one actually hooked. But the thrill of fly fishing isn’t so much the catch as it is the pursuit. There’s something theraputic about standing thigh deep in running water while throwing the line back and forth, even if nothing is biting. Then again, it’s just…

  • Perseoids

    Every summer at early-mid August, we enter a portion of the solar system rife with meteors, and ever year around this time, many of those chunks of rock and debris hit our atmosphere and burn up, giving us the Perseoid meteor shower. This year, the shower did not occur during a full moon, and so the skies were dark and the stars were bright. Some of the photo club folks wanted to have a camping trip this weekend, and that devolved into a fire and star photography night at our place. The meteor shower was pretty good Saturday night. There…

  • Fishing on the North Fork

    I went fishing along the North Fork of the Clearwater with Tyler and Dan, two graduate students in the department. Unfortunately, it was a short trip, leaving Thursday morning and returning late Friday afternoon, but that’s just how the timing worked, and it was a much needed getaway for all of us. We camped at Kelly Forks campground, luckily snagging a spot along the river. The campground is located at the confluence of Kelly Creek and the North Fork of the Clearwater which has some added benefits. Kelly Creek has an amazing fishery, but it is catch-an- release only. At…

  • Hard drives and data storage

    I’ve come into a real conundrum lately. I’m running out of space on my hard drive. Earlier in the year when I thought my hard drive was dying, I bought an external drive which I use to move old files for storage and back up my current system. The problem is that using the external hard drive as a working drive is not an ideal solution when my primary (read: only) computer at the moment is a portable notebook. Thus, I don’t want to be using the external hard drive to store all of my music and photography, the two…

  • Garden Update

    For the past month, we’ve been able to enjoy some of the produce coming out of the garden. The lettuce has been producing beautiful and tasty leaves. There’s nothing like a freshly-picked salad. One of the lettuces has flowered and will soon go to seed. I think we will let it mature in an attempt to collect seeds to plant for next year. However, the rest of the heads continue to produce leaves to pick. Back when the chickens ate my lettuce to the ground, I planted more seeds in case the plants didn’t come back. Well, they did come…

  • Float Trip 2012

    View Float Trip 2012 in a larger map Every year, the graduate students from the University of Idaho’s biology department embarks on a float trip on the Snake River. It’s an annual tradion that carrys on well before my time. Actually, I’m not sure when the tradition began. In 2010, the float trip was held shortly after I arrived in Idaho. By that time, the daytime temperatures had cooled and I was not feeling up to floating in the river. In retrospect, I wish I had gone my first year. I made up for it by going last year. Actually,…