Tag Archives: NUHOC

Jun29

Weekend of 23Jun – A few days up at the Loj

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Friday, 22Jun12 through Sunday, 24Jun12

 

It had been a hot week. No, “hot” doesn’t really cover it… This was New England heat – 97+ Fahrenheit, with 80% + humidity. If you’ve never lived in New England, this is much like what it’s like inside of that pressure cooker that your grandparents would use to cook potatoes. Except that you are the potatoe. And it’s not pleasant, or buttery.

Thankfully I had planned out an escape from the heat – heading to the Loj with my friend Alex. Her and I were planning on trying for some rock climbing, with the backup of hiking if it rained, and I was very much looking forward to the chance to get to hang out away from Medway. Job-searching is important, but it’s just as important to sneak away every once in a while to recharge the batteries.

To be honest, this drive to the Loj was one of the memorable ones – Not only did I not have to drive (thank you Alex!) but I had another climber to chatter on with. We talked routes, gear, and things that would probably have bored any non-climber to tears within the first few minutes. It was relaxing, exactly what I needed after a week full of melting heat and stressful job hunting.

When we walked into the Loj I got pulled into a “spirited discussion” almost immediately;

“BEN! Help us with this! Life or death!”

“Ok… what is it?”

“Who was Obi Wan Kenobi’s Master?!?!”

Yep. For a good portion of that night, I sat in on a game of Star Wars Trivial Persuit – made even more entertaining by the fact that it was from before the prequels… and thus had the “old” canon to it, some things that had been changed since the game had been released. My friend Peter and I spent more than our fair share of time mocking people for their lack of Nerd Cred, before Alex finally hauled me away to try and make some plans for the weekend.

The rest of the night was spent pouring over climbing books, trying to pick out which routes we wanted to try out the next day… assuming the rain held off that is. And even after Alex headed off to bed, I stayed up on the couch reading through the hundreds of routes nearby… remembering some, and dreaming of the rest.

 

Saturday morning took it’s time rolling around. That night was horrible – the loj was sticky and hot, and for one reason or another I was not ready to pass out. I spent the night tossing and turning, getting sleep in short snatches only a few minutes long.

At one point I was shocked back to conciousness by someone in the bunk nearby having a full-on Night Terror – I wasn’t exactly sure what to do, and thankfully someone else knew to kick the poor kid awake before his screams woke the rest of the Loj. Seriously, I thought someone was being murdered.

 

The sun did finally break over the horizon, but of course it was just as I was finally settling into a clean rhythm of sleep. But adventure was calling, and so I made myself a tall mug of the most vile-tasting instant coffee I could find and slowly started waking myself up.

Breakfast quickly became a staging area for Alex and I – pulling out the climbing books, maps, and notes we had taken the night before. We finally settled on going to Cathedral and climbing a super-classic route (one of the “best in New England”, according to the guide) called Black Lung. Once that was decided and lunch was packed, we were on the road within half an hour – a rather impressive start if I may say so.

<See post: Weekend of 23Jun – Climbing at Cathedral and Rumney for specifics on the climbs>

We got back to the Loj early – really early for me. Usually I arrive back just in time to stop being from sending out a search party to find me, but this time Alex and I were the second group back, stepping over the doorstep only a few minutes after 16:00.

We spent the afternoon relaxing – listening to the radio on Mark’s old-school boombox, reading, swimming in the swimming hole, and just kicking back and chatting about everything we could think of. Soon enough we were starting dinner, eating dinner, and everyone was settling into their normal Loj routines.

My evening broke down pretty cleanly into three segments – Nerdy, Climby, and Introspecty.

Nerdy was, not surprisingly, a nerd-fest. Peter, Tim and myself geeked about about Diablo 3, bragging about our characters, and what part of the game we were on at the time. It’s true: even adventurers can be nerds.

Climby found Alex and myself stuck to the couch going over various routes and climbing areas, picking and choosing things that we could do over the next few months. Excellent, but a bit too exciting for an evening event – I left the couch wanting to climb El Capitan, instead of being sleepy.

Introspecty involved myself, a chair outside, a cigar, and a small glass of scotch. I’d been ages since I’d had a good cigar-night, and so I took myself away from the hubbub of the Loj for a while and let my thoughts flow around as I sipped the scotch and took slow drags on the cigar.

And, needless to say, my sleep that night was perfect and refreshing. Funny how an active day, followed by a relaxed night, can do that.

 

Usually, there isn’t really much to say about Sunday. This Sunday started out the same as any – Everyone woke up a bit late, dragged their feet through the closing proceedures, and we delayed leaving as long as we could. But once that we on the road Sunday swerved into the far lane, breaking out from the usual “blah go back to Boston”.

Instead, we started out with a bit of cliff-diving. You know… to keep things boring. Heh. I wish I could say that I dove into the water with the sun shining behind me, as dozens of bikini-models cheered in the background. Instead, I was the one sitting in the sun and cheering as Alex dove in – I was explaining my aversion away by saying it was cold, I didn’t want my dreads to get too wet… dozens of reasons. But looking back, I kind of wish I had jumped in… Lesson for everyone: If life gives you a chance for adventure and awesome? Take it every time.

After heading out from the cliffs, we headed to the other cliffs in the area: good old Rumney. Over the years I’ve climbed more routes than I can count at Rumney, but every time I go I somehow find something new to challenge myself on. This time was no different, and between Alex and I we both pushed our limits rather spectacularly over the course of the day.

<See post: Weekend of 23Jun – Climbing at Cathedral and Rumney for specifics on the climbs>

When we finally finished climbing, and dried off from the swimming that came after, everyone packed into the car and we started the long and boring road back to Boston. Aside from being scared by the time (it was barely getting dark, but was already 21:40) and stopping in for Burger King (yummy and horrid all at the same time!) the drive was pretty relaxing – Alex and I chatted, while Adam and Liz slept in the back seat.

Jun14

Acadia 2012 – Of campfires and singalongs

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If you ask people about their trip to Acadia, you’ll hear dozens of stories – climbing, hiking, cycling and kayaking. Everyone will have a different tale to tell about different trips and different adventures. But they’ll all align on one subject – hanging out around the campfire after a day of excitement.

There’s a pattern to the night life at Acadia. Friday nights are usually pretty crazy after being trapped in cars for hours, Saturdays are low-key since people are tired out, and Sunday nights are an all-out party because no one plans on waking up early just to drive six hours home. So when we pulled into camp at 11:00 on Friday night and didn’t see a soul, you can imagine our confusion.

This year was… strange. The atmosphere was different, and the camp had taken on a muted spirit. There were people, to be sure, but the people were quiet and guarded where they would usually be loud and welcoming. As Daniel and I set up our tents we talked to our friends who had already settled in, trying to figure out what the source of this lethargy that had settled over NUHOC.

In the end… we had no idea. Thankfully a group of Iranian’s settled into camp a bit after midnight, and they brought a bit of the party back to life – bollywood-style music blared from car speakers, and headlights illuminated a dance-floor covered by a canopy of trees. I only joined in for a short while, but that short time was enough to remind me of how amazing this weekend was going to be.

 

I hadn’t expected too much partying or loud insanity on Saturday night, and so when I settled into a chair around the fire I wasn’t at all disappointed about the lack of loud music crashing through the trees. Instead, I had the sound of Mike and Sam playing old Chili Peppers songs… which was the perfect mood-music to accompany my devouring of a few double cheeseburgers.

After I finished eating I did a bit of wandering around to the other fires, but I found that the rest of the camp was even more muted than I had expected – no one else had any music (aside from the alumni camp that had a stereo blasting Katy Perry), and everyone seemed quite happy with the people around their own fire – no one else was really necessary… or particularly wanted.

Thus, I headed back to camp. I picked up a few other fire-hoppers along the way who, like myself, had received rather lukewarm welcomes at the other places and were looking around for a place to veg out for the night. The new blood reinvigorated our little group, and we chatted and joked into the night, listening to the guitars strumming their songs.

 

Sunday was… strange. It kept with the theme of the weekend. The few people who were about (I later learned that only 75 people had signed up, out of the usual 150+) tried doing the whole socializing scene for a bit, but quickly fell back to old habits and formed off into their own circles.

The event of the night, like every Sunday night at NUHOC’s Acadia, was the bonfire. Since we order a ton of wood that we can’t really take home with us, we’ve found the best solution is to burn it all in a sky-igniting pillar of fire on the last night. Last year Mike and I had helped out by chopping apart a rather large fallen tree and using it as the center-point of the fire… causing the unlit bonfire to rear nearly 10ft above the campground. This year we aimed to go even bigger, hoping to draw all of the myriad camps into one cohesive group.

Unfortunately Mike and I arrived back at camp a bit late thanks to a massive feast of lobster, ribs, quesadillas, and beer.

Someone else had taken the lead in building a fire and it was almost ready to be lit by the time we jumped out of the car. It wasn’t as huge as the year before, but it still easily reached 7+ feet tall. And more importantly, it was doing its job – almost everyone was gathered around the fire pit waiting to see it go off.

As it was lit, a great cheer broke out around the fire and people finally started mingling and chatting. I had gotten to catch up with most of my old friends already, so I took this chance to sit down with some of the newer kids and get to know how the current club was doing. He laughed, we joked, and had a rather nice time – I even scared the whole fire at one point by throwing a few packets of fire-color into the blaze… Turning a bonfire blue and green is always a good camping trick.

However, the bonfire didn’t last. I kept tending to it, but after maybe 45min or an hour of getting along people started grouping back into small insular groups. I ended up giving up on the main fire about two or three hours in when I realized that everyone from my camp had went back to their fire, and I was alone with a few small groups of people who were too busy with inside jokes and drama to be very good conversation.

I left to wander, and ended up finding what turned out to be the best fire of the weekend – the Iranian grad student’s camp. Mike was already there, playing to an enraptured audience. Seriously, most other groups would shout out requests, try to sing along, or generally be loud… but these guys were completely enthralled by Mike’s playing. I joined in the “music appreciation” fire, and played cameraman for an hour or so as Mike kept rocking out.

The guitar died out after the loss of a string (Mike did fix it, but was too tired to keep going much longer afterward), and so we all stretched out by the fire to chat about the universe. Literally the universe as it turned out, because most of the folks around the fire were theoretical physicists or engineers. We talked about quantum entanglement, relativity, and how quantum entanglement could feasibly get around relativity. We talked about space travel and politics, and discussed whether I should ever go to Iran.

The consensus on Iran was, by the way, “hell no they’ll kill you”.

I finally found myself back at my tent around 03:00, completely exhausted from the weekends activities and the nights discussions… but quite happy about the whole trip. True, the feel of the camp was still quite alien to me, but I was happy that I had gotten to meet so many new people, and actually had the chance to discuss string theory while camping.

 

Jun10

Acadia 2012 – Pirates of Acadia Sound

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Ed Note: It’s not actually Acadia Sound.  It’s correctly named “Somes Sound”.  All references to Acadia Sound have thus been edited.  Is it weird that I write these editors notes, even though I’m both the editor and the author?  Meh.

Mike owns a Kayak. I’ve mentioned it, and some of the adventures that have occurred within its inflatable hull, before. But when we were talking about when to head up to Acadia, we realized the scope of what this inflatable kayak actually mean – we could explore any of Acadia’s waterways, without worry of trying to find a place to rent the kayaks.

Thus, on Sunday morning we pulled out a map. Actually, first we went and hiked up The Beehive, a mountain hike that involves a lot of steep rock scrambling that’s aided by large iron runs in the cliff. But after that, we pulled out a map and started ticking off places we’d already been, and places that kayaks weren’t allowed. In the end, that left us with about half a dozen spots that we could explore, not including the outer coastline – we decided against that since neither of us really wanted to test an inflatable kayak in ocean swells.

Since we had a half dozen possible spots, we went with the scientific method to choose our launch point: we’d start driving, and drop into the first one that looked cool. Simple and efficient, and that’s how we found ourselves walking into an extremely high-class art boutique, asking the owners if we could park in their lot while we explored Somes Sound.

Unfortunately they did mind, since they’d technically be liable for both the car and us launching from their docks, but they were nice enough to point us towards a local boat launch that bordered on the marina at the end of the sound. We drove over, inflated the Bogmaster 3000, packed in our lunch and camera, and headed out into the “open ocean”.

Our travels took us through many adventures, but the first was the most dangerous… not in terms of getting hurt or anything, but in terms of self control: we were paddling through one of the major marinas, and there were boats tied up all around us. Tied up and just waiting to be plundered by a pair of buccaneers such as ourselves. See, I had my hat. And that hat? That hat is awesome. And with an awesome hat, comes a strong urge to become a pirate… and if you happen to be on a “boat” already? Well, that urge becomes almost too much to handle.

Thankfully, Mike kept us true to course by distracting me with the one thing that could distract me from good piracy: Rock climbing! The opposite shore was almost all perfect straight-sided cliff faces, and Mike and I aimed the Bogmaster 3000 for a small spot that looked like a low enough angle for us to clamber up and tie up to for a bit of land-based exploration.

The clambering around on rocks and ledges was quite fun, but The Captain (Mike) and I quickly longed for a return to the nautical life. And so, after failing to find the playboy mansion (which we totally expected to find) we returned to the Bogmaster 3000, untied from the cliff, and headed back into the “open ocean”.

As we paddled away from the cliffs we set our scopes on a medium-sized island shoved right in the mouth of the bay that we were in – we had been getting a bit hungry, and it seemed as good a spot to land and have some lunch as any. Unfortunately, we weren’t the first to decide that island would be a good spot… as we pulled into a small cove, we saw a large sign barring our way,

“NO ENTRY! BALD EAGLE NESTING GROUND!”

Damn. So instead, we charted a course around the island, and into the open waters of the main bay of Somes Sound.

Out here the water turned into the kind of chop that a pirate lives for – not enough to make the paddling hard or dangerous, but just enough to make us feel like we were actual sailors on the open sea. We were aiming for a small beacon in the distance… a small little buoy gleaming orange against the dark blue of the water. As we sliced through the oncoming waves we started singing a bit of a sea-shanty, falling deeper and deeper into the dangerous waters of “pirate talk”.

By the time we moored up to the buoy (that’s right. We moored to it. I pulled the anchor line and lashed that thing to a bolt on the buoy like a true sea dog) we were completely infected by Pirate Talk. Mike actually recorded a few minutes of our trademark inane banter, where I called out what was happening and possible piracy targets (in an excellent pirate accent, I might add), and Captain LeVasseur bellowed out orders with authority that rivaled that of Barbosa himself.

It was such a level of inane fake-piracy that I could feel Blackbeard rolling in his grave, getting the Queen Anne’s Revenge ready to burst from the waters just to shut us up.

And so, since the first-mate’s job is always to protect the captain and ship, I called for us to cast off from our mooring and continue our nautical adventures… to the tune of slightly less piratical banter.

The hour was starting to get late, and more importantly it was starting to get cold, so we headed back towards the small local dock that we’d launched from. On the way we attempted to board a sailboat that was cruising around between Eagle Island and the shore… but unfortunately a kayak can’t really keep up with a sailboat, much less run it down when the wind is blowing strong. After two failed attempts at pulling along side and demanding their wine and women, we turned towards the nearby shore to do a bit more exploring before heading back to dock.

This time, we stayed and paddled around a small cove instead of actually going ashore. The reason for not going ashore? We were in the middle of a small “kelp forest”, where the seaweed grew thick in these awesomely cool pillars that you could see through the clear water of the bay. Mike pulled out his GoPro camera (waterproof, of course) and took a few most-excellent underwater shots while I paddled around the small cove.

The kelp entertained us for almost 15min, but unfortunately it was in the shade… and the day was starting to wane quite chilly, especially for those of us on the water without jackets on. And so we started making a beeline for the docks. On the way we tried pirating another row-boat that we saw cruising around, but his head start left him docked before we could get close enough to shout a challenge… and challenging a docked boat just isn’t the same as a boat on the water, so we held off our assault in favor of simply getting to shore.

The nice thing about an inflatable kayak is that it’s easy to store in a smaller car. The bad thing about it is that, instead of simply washing it off and putting it on a rack, it takes almost half an hour to deflate everything and stow it away in its travel bag. Thankfully we weren’t in any rush though, and packing the Bogmaster 3000 away gave us just enough of an extra appetite for the meal of the night: heading into Bar Harbor and devouring an entire rack of ribs, a 1.5lb lobster, a plate of fries, a beer each, and a plate of Quesadilla’s as an appetizer. A worthy meal of worthy pirates. Or, at least, attempted pirates.

Map for the Map:
A = the Marina
B = our tie-up point and land-based adventures
C = Eagle Preserve Island
D = tying up to the buoy and playing pirate
E = Attempted piracy numbers 1 and 2
F = exploring the kelp forests
G = Attempted piracy #3