Boreal B[l]og

(Taken from management guru Jerry Harvey, who said this about 25 years ago at a Physician Executive conference I attended):

On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. The wife says, “Sounds like a great idea.” The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, “Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go.” The mother-in-law then says, “Of course I want to go. I haven’t been to Abilene in a long time.”

The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.

One of them dishonestly says, “It was a great trip, wasn’t it?” The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, “I wasn’t delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you.” The wife says, “I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that.” The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.

The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.

Back when I was in management, we had a consultant come to help us at the hospital.  After she left, the executive team discussed how the meeting went.  Everybody was positive and effusive about what the woman had done. I didn’t board the bus and spoke up.  “I wasn’t impressed,” I said.  “Every time I brought up numbers and measurement, she pooh-poohed me. You’ve got to count certain things in life, if they are important, countable, and the counts matter.”

It was as if I had breached a dam.  Virtually everybody then started to say something negative about the meeting.  They had gone from Coleman to Abilene and back, saying all was great when in fact nobody thought it was.

My wife had a similar experience when radiology residents were discussed.  Everybody said one individual was fine, until my wife said that she had reservations about the person.  Suddenly, when the room was polled again, everybody had reservations.  How does a group, who has reservations about an individual, decide that the individual is just fine?  Nobody wants to rock the boat. Nobody wants to raise an unpleasant possibility that maybe the truth lies elsewhere.

Last week, nine of us were hiking that along the Middle Fork of the Willamette River, near 3000 feet elevation south of Oakridge, Oregon.  It was an easy hike, short and would get me back to town in time for me to lead the monthly hike up Mt. Pisgah I lead every full Moon.

Right away, I was concerned about the time.  I had called the leader to ask when we would get back and whether I should even be doing the hike.  She assured me there should be no problem, that we would be back at 2:30, plenty of time to get ready for a late afternoon hike.  Even with that reassurance, I should not have gone.  I need to be completely focused on the hike I am on, not thinking about other things.

The trip was to see three separate springs that formed the headwaters of the river. The first was easy, and we then returned to a road, walked south along it, then headed towards the river.  The trail went upstream for about a mile before forking.  Here, we waited about 20 minutes as two of the group were picking mushrooms.  The leader told me she was a little annoyed at this; I could sympathize, having led 76 hikes.  The leader expects people along to follow the hiking plan.  I once had a woman taking a video of the entire Scott Trail, which put her a half hour behind the group after only three miles. I almost had to abort the hike. It’s rude and unfair to others.

We regrouped at the junction and went further upstream.  This soon became a problem, for the trail ended in a mass of blowdowns.  Two of us looked for other routes, but there weren’t any.  In the meantime, the easy hike, where I could give my sore elbow a rest, suddenly wasn’t.  I was climbing  up on 24 inch diameter blowdowns, wet and slippery, trying to navigate well above the ground, where sharp branches were plentiful.  A slip would have made more than my elbow painful.

A few minutes later, others found a way—no trail, only a way— to the base of a steep muddy grade, leading to the other trail, well above us.

I muttered sotto voce that this was dangerous.  I didn’t want to do it, and I was one of the strongest hikers in the group.  Others just kept going.  So, I went along, too, but reluctantly.  I figured I could get up the muddy slope, although if anybody above me fell, I would be going down as well.  It was a nasty climb up about 75 meters, and more than once, I found myself in an area where I had to think for some time what I was going to do next.  Finally, I took a chance of sorts, where there was a decent probability I would make it, and I did.  Everybody else did, too, but just because we all made it safely didn’t make it a safe route.  It wasn’t.  If we had done this 10 times, somebody would have fallen, and a fall here would have been bad.

I was upset with myself.  I should have suggested we turn around and take the other route.  I wasn’t the leader, but the leader probably would have agreed.  I should have told her later, in private, that we should not have done what we did.  Additionally, I should have added that she scout trips before leading them, to know where the trail is and isn’t. That doesn’t rule out a blowdown that occurs before the hike, but the blowdowns we encountered had been there for years.  Every trip I lead I have hiked at one time or another, learning in advance about route finding difficulties, significant snow, or a change the map didn’t show.

We never did see the headwaters.  Afterwards, everybody in the group, sans me, thought it was a great hike. Nobody, and there were some people on the hike I respect, said anything about the danger.  Had we done what I suggested, we would have been safe, we would have had time to get to the spring, and we would not have been pushed to get back to town as quickly as we later did.  We made a bad decision, and nobody, including me, spoke up about it.  Had we had a hiker who signed up for this “Easy” hike, they would have been far over their ability.

I was annoyed with myself. While the Obsidians do have bus trips, Abilene has never been a planned destination.

The top of the hill.  Note the angles of the trees, looking down through dense brush to the bottom.

What passed for the spring that began the Middle Fork.

The road referred to was behind us.

One of the branches of the upper Middle Fork

After I joined the Obsidians, an outdoor club in Eugene with 500 members, I thought it might be interesting to eventually lead a hike or two.  One of the women in the club, a dynamo now 75, has led perhaps 500, and strongly encouraged me to lead.  I told her I couldn’t lead anything that I hadn’t hiked myself, so I spent my first summer in Oregon soloing many trails in the Willamette and Siuslaw National Forests.

In August, two months after I joined, I led my first hike on the Obsidian Limited Use Trail, requiring a permit, for no more than 30 are allowed in any given day, post the hike online, meet everybody at a given time and place, assign cars and drivers to get to the trailhead, then hike.  Somehow, everything worked out fine.  The first reason I lead hikes is that the club needs hike leaders.

During the next two years and the 51 hikes I led, some were easy, like in-town ones that required little driving and were on a trail or path that was familiar to everybody.  Most, however, were out of town.  I had hikes where people were spread out on 2 miles of trail, others where some people were fast and had eaten lunch before the stragglers got to the turn around point.  I had hikers who wanted to video the whole trail, some who wanted to photograph, others who used the hike as training, slowing down the group, and one, who was late to the meeting point, joining us at the trailhead and didn’t say one word to me the whole hike.  I treated falls, heat exhaustion, and often hiked a mile extra each hike.

We leaders are volunteers, but to hear some talk, one might think that only certain people lead.  I got behind two discussing various merits of leaders on an in-town Thanksgiving Day walk.  Why, I thought, don’t they lead, if they don’t like a leader’s style?  That is what I did.  So the second reason why I lead hikes is because I like having control.

Leading, however, is work.  It’s easier to show up at a hike and just do it, without having to organize it, write a description of what is expected, field phone calls from members or non-members who often would have such questions answered if they logged on to the site and read the description, ensure that the people going can do the hike and have adequate equipment, worry about drivers, know where everybody is, make sure the hike moves along, take care of any problems, and get everybody back to the trailhead safely.

I want those on my hikes to know what to expect. We leave promptly, I give the approximate speed on the trail, regrouping points, the lunch stop, and when we can expect to get back home.  If you want to hang loose and walk around in the woods, I’m not your hike leader.  If you want to see some good backcountry where not many people go, cover some ground, and get home at a specific quoted time, I am.

I put Obsidian Loop on the schedule for 1 July this year, figuring the hot June would take care of the snow.  The Forest Service told me the snow level was at 5200 feet.  I had done a hike in early June to 5600 feet, encountering only one small patch of snow.  I suspected there might not be much snow left, but to be sure, I scouted the hike 5 days prior.  Scouting is a full days’ work.  I’m doing the whole hike, including the drive. I had to buy a permit, then a few days later drove to the trailhead, the last 20 miles on a winding, curving, narrow road.  Finally, I hiked the loop, 12 miles—solo.  There was a lot of snow, although not as much as two years before.  I got off trail several times and navigated by GPS.  It was a difficult day. The Obsidian Trail is beautiful, but it takes a lot out of people— some is on volcanic rock, a lot of snow was present in this instance, there were six stream crossings, some of which were deep. Still, I was glad I did it, because I knew exactly what we could and could not do. I returned home fine, but I put on the trip description that we might be doing an out and back to Obsidian Falls, and to be prepared for snow. Two people cancelled.  One other, who had been on the waiting list, joined, and I was glad to see him, for I knew he was a good hiker.

This is the Obsidian Trail after a snowy winter, 3 July 2014.  No trail visible, and one either knows the route or uses GPS.

Friday, eleven of us met, driving up in three cars.  We always carpool.  I had a good group, and we got an earlier start on the trail than I had hoped.  We stop at trail junctions, and as leader, I usually am not in front but somewhere in the middle, trying to have a sense where the front and back are, who is fast, who isn’t, and anything else I observe.  When we reached the first regrouping point, I discovered that one of our hikers had continued on, which was clearly not something we do. I hoped he would go directly up the proper trail to the Falls, because there were side trails that could be taken.

Obsidian Falls from above.  The passage here was the area I was most concerned about, for it was on a 45 degree snow field where sliding was dangerous.  

From here on, I led from the front, because I knew the trail and wanted to keep the group together.  When we reached the Falls, I saw the missing person and went down to talk to him.  I first quietly asked him how he was, and when he told me he was fine, told him firmly that we waited at trail junctions.  He hadn’t heard me say that, but I had, and others on the hike could verify that, and in any case it’s a Club rule.  I had been worried about his well-being and a bit angry, but I kept my anger in check and he apologized.

100 meters off trail, we came down this area, some choosing to glissade.

After lunch, I thought with less snow, we could complete the loop, and we did, slowly coming back down off trail through snow, my navigating by GPS and memory I had of the trail, which I knew ran near a creek.  More than once, I was concerned about not knowing exactly where I was, despite having been in the area five days earlier, but yet I knew we were going the right direction.  The map on the GPS was off by 400 meters.  Eventually, we finished the loop and hiked almost 4 miles to the cars.  For the second time in 5 days, I had to drive back down the winding road, tired, back to town.

People loved the hike.  One called it his favorite, another said he wanted to do anything I led, and a third said “That is what I call a hike.”  That’s a good day.  They aren’t all that way.  Why do I lead hikes? My third reason: Had I not decided to do this hike, no Obsidian–indeed, no person–would have seen the vast stretches of snow in the Three Sisters Wilderness that we saw on 1 July 2016.  Nobody would have glissaded, nobody would have seen a lake emerge from its winter ice, nobody would have seen the Winter Wren calling, and nobody would have known what they had missed.

Lake emerging from ice at 6800′ elevation.

Nobody saw this area that day but us.  Middle Sister in the right center.

Winter Wren.  Interestingly, five days earlier there was one on this root ball, so a nest is probably nearby.

I have shown many the night and daytime sky. Twenty years ago, I went to a conference in Palm Desert, during which time Saturn’s rings happened to be edge-on, an occurrence every fourteen and a half years.  I was driving, so I took my telescope, set it up in the parking lot the first night and had maybe 5 takers.  The second night, I had 30.  The fourth and final night, I had a continuous line.  People were thrilled.  One woman almost cried when she realized she was looking at Saturn.  Another guy told me about his childhood, when he once knew the planets and stars.  He finished looking and got back in line.  Loved that trip.  It had been nearly 4 years since I last did a telescope-aided “star party,” when I showed maybe 50 people the 2012 transit of Venus across the Sun, an exceedingly rare event that won’t be seen again until 2117.

TRANSIT OF VENUS, 5 JUNE 2012

Mercury transits the Sun as well as Venus, about 13-14 times a century, but I had never seen one. I looked during the November 1999 transit, when I was a grad student in Las Cruces, New Mexico, but I had no telescope, and binoculars were insufficient.  This time, I was prepared with my telescope, Mylar solar filter designed for it, and camera, with which I would shoot the transit, using a solar filter designed for binoculars that could be held over a camera lens.  I put the event on the Obsidian hike schedule, where it appeared as a “class”.  Where asked, “number of people allowed to join,” I wrote “100.”  Exactly 6 eventually signed up, including me, and one of them cancelled.  I decided to set up just south of Autzen Stadium at 7:30, during which time the transit would be well underway.  From Eugene, the transit started before sunrise.

I knew of two other local sites where people had telescopes, one downtown, the other on Skinner Butte, a wooded hill 300 feet above the city, near the Willamette River.  I hoped I might have several visitors, since my site was near a dog park and a lot of walkers were out, but it was quiet.  I arrived with my wife at 7:30, and one of the Obsidians joined us about 20 minutes later.  It was quiet, except in the celestial arena, where interesting things were happening.

Once I had the telescope focused on the Sun, I saw Mercury immediately.  It was small, but compared to the sunspot near it, the planet was a sharply defined black sphere. I shot pictures of it using high power, letting the camera gradually get the Sun into focus.

Mercury is below the sunspot in the lower middle of the picture.

A few came by, but they were either wearing earphones and couldn’t hear me or not interested.  Four other Obsidians came and kept us company.  I don’t push people to view something in the sky.  I will tell them what I am doing, and if they seem interested, I suggest they take a look.  Some are very interested, some not; a woman with two dogs was more interested in showing her dogs than she was in Mercury.  She never made one move to come over and look.  People have their reasons.

Perhaps it was just as well.  I hadn’t read up on transits.  That’s inexcusable for me, and I’m a bit ashamed that I didn’t prepare my lesson plan.  Kepler predicted the first known transits of Mercury and Venus, incredibly occurring within a month of each other in 1631, but ironically and sadly, he died the year before.  His predictions were not only verified (he said to check a day on either side of the prediction, because he didn’t trust his calculations), but were within 5 hours of the correct time.

Why did it all matter? In the 17th century, we knew the relative distances the planets were from each other but not the Sun-Earth distance. Knowing that distance, known as an astronomical unit (AU), would allow us to know all the distances. The path of a planet’s crossing the Sun is different depending upon one’s location.  In other words, the path will be a different chord on the circle of the Sun for observers in different locations.  By knowing the location and the chords, one can determine the distance from the Earth to the Sun, an astronomical unit (AU).

At 11:30, four hours after arrival, we saw Mercury near the edge of the Sun.  It then became internally tangent to the Sun (third contact).  Finally, there was a slight irregularity, a little hole, on the edge of the Sun.  Mercury was continuing on its orbit, in several days becoming visible in morning twilight.

Mercury approaching the edge of the Sun.

After I posted my pictures on Facebook, some of which were actually decent, I saw in “trending news” something about the transit, referring to it as an “astrological event.”  Worse, it was accompanied by a NASA picture.  I posted a scathing comment about the inability of so many people to know the difference between astrology and astronomy, and the distressingly large number of Americans who believe in astrology.  I later deleted the comment.

I became disheartened when I heard from a friend that not one classroom he knew of, and he was recently a teacher, had kids go outside and see REAL (caps his) science in the REAL sky.  He continued: “The kids who looked through my scopes today were awestruck at seeing a live event right before their eyes and experiencing the size of the solar system via this transit. Heard lots of ‘wows’ and ‘cools.’ Funny, I never heard that when they were watching a video on a Smartboard.”

I would have loved to have shown the transit at a school.  Had I tried, however, the first thing I would likely have heard would have been, “Who are you?”  (now, one has to be somebody, not just an experienced amateur astronomer).  Then I would have heard how busy teachers are, require fingerprinting and have a background check.  Yet, in 60 minutes of having 100 kids look at Mercury’s crossing the Sun, I bet more of them would remember this day than the day they would have at school.  It would stay with many, just like when I talk about eclipses, people remember days in school where they made pinhole cameras to view a partial eclipse.  I could have made trig, geometry and space exploration come alive.  Instead, I showed this to 10 other people.  Ten.  And I told passersby what I was doing.

Still, the fact that only 10 others saw it with me was immaterial. I made my choice; they made theirs.  We will have to wait until November 2019 for another chance here.  Climatologically, that is a cloudy time in Oregon.  Whether I would go elsewhere to see it is not clear.  I enjoyed this transit more than I thought I would, and if eastern Oregon were clear, it might be worth a trip.

Nah.  Definitely will be worth it.

Mercury almost at the edge of the Sun.

Talking to Evelyn N. of the Obsidians about the Transit. Photo courtesy of David Lodeesen.