A Change in the Wind

Sierra Water: It's Cleaner Than You Think

That's according to an ER doc and professor at UC Davis named Robert Derlet, who has been testing water at the most popular Sierra wilderness sites for years for the Wilderness Medicine Society.

Here's a study on the subject he authored a few years ago for the WMS, and here's a terrific story about his work from The Los Angeles Times, back in the good old days when they had an outdoors section.

Three take-away points: chances are good that you can drink water straight from Sierra streams and lakes without any filtration and stay healthy. The parasite giardia is not likely to harm you:

The threat is comparable to the chances of beachgoers being attacked by a shark, according to University of Cincinnati researchers who studied the danger giardia poses to backpackers, namely "an extraordinarily rare event to which the public and the press have seemingly devoted inappropriate attention."

(Derlet agrees, and in the aforementioned study points out that tests in the last few years on backpackers who did develop diarrhea in the backcountry found that giardia was not the cause. He's also skeptical that water filters, which easily clog, would successful remove giardia cysts.)

Second, the most likely risk is the familiar bug e. coli, which can be spread, for instance, by cattle manure falling in water, but even in heavily traveled backcountry sites the numbers are reassuring. Backpackers can safely drink water straight from backcountry lakes. Derlet told the Times reporter:

Most people think the water is better from a nice, running stream because it's so fresh and churned up. But the top few inches of lake water are zapped with ultraviolet rays from the sun, which are a very powerful disinfectant.

Third, the most likely pathway to infection is by poor hygiene, and according to experts, washing your hands with alcohol hand gels after a visit to the wilderness privy is "incredibly effective" at preventing you from infecting others.

To yours truly, this fear of wild water is part of a larger fear of nature itself, and an absolute plague on American society... to help us overcome it, let me repost some beauty at Pioneer Basin from the astounding (and generous) wilderness photographer Buck Forester, a hero I have yet to meet...

Noctilucents Spotted South of Iceland

Breaking news from the inimitable Cloud Appreciation Society:

Noctilucents spotted south of Iceland, from an aircraft, at 41,000 feet.

These are the highest clouds in the earth's atmosphere. From Bill Valentine:

where I am today...in the middle of San Francisco bay....

On Angel Island with my family, camping out...something one couldn't do not so long ago.

Where is Angel Island? In San Francisco Bay...a lovely, wooded island, with a few buildings from a century ago, and a few new campsites. Will report soon.

Here's a woodcut print from the inimitable Tom Killion, from a perspective atop West Point on Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County. Angel Island is in the center of the bay....awaiting the incoming of the fog.

Heroic Steelhead Climbs Notoriously Difficult Fish Ladder, Survives

True story, written for the Ventura County Star yesterday by me...find it here.

And here's a pic of the heroic fish. Almost asked the biologist, Steve Howard, who is holding the 28-inch fish, if they thought of giving him a name...but that would be too cute. Gotta be a hardened journo.

The Winter Skies of Southern California

...seem to me wilder and more beautiful than at any other time of the year (save perhaps fire season, which is scary as heck but also spectacular as all get out, let's be honest).

But back to winter...here's an example from last week, between storms...

Red Sky at Morning...

From a favorite blog by a Los Angeles writer...sunrise on Monday, from  Veronique de Turenne's wonderfully visual Here in Malibu.

Venus, the Moon, and the Stars too...

Thanks to Deborah Byrd's great EarthSky science site, it's easy to look out at the night sky and understand what you see...the beauty you'll have to find yourself...

An Unsurpassed Loveliness

This has been a day of unsurpassed loveliness for yours truly. For thirty years I have wondered, off and on, if I made the right career choice, and suspected perhaps I should have gone into journalism, despite its current woes, for personal reasons. Now it seems as if the universe is giving me a second chance. At a modest local level (as I told my wife, "I'm on track to become the world's oldest cub reporter.").

But how many times does one get a second chance in life? Universe, thank you thank you thank you...

Universe Says: I Told You So

Okay, so I've been whining...a bit. After now 14.43 inches of rain for the season, a trace of water has appeared in our local stream, aka Sisar Creek. I'm still not impressed with this past storm ("talking smack about the weather," as pal Ty puts it) but I must concede that the stream is not broken...just low.

And pretty...

Biggest Storm of the Season? That's It? C'mon now...

If this weekend's rain, totaling less than two inches in wet Upper Ojai, is the "biggest storm of the season" according to the Los Angeles Times, then we have problems.

The prediction was for between one and three inches of rain. Hardly an awesome figure for a weekend.

To date in the mountains of Ventura County, we are at about 11 inches for the year -- which is within range of normal, about 75%, but has yet to get the streams running, which is surely a better measure of ground water saturation. Usually by now the streams would have been running for at a month or two.

We're at nada.

To be fair, flatter areas and coastal areas (which attract more rain and less snow) are at about normal, which is good news. But the claim that a modest little Gulf of Alaska storm such as this one could end California's state drought...c'mon now. Stop dreaming.