An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

This weekend we had one of those (cue dramatic music and digital titles) "Storm of the Century" storms. It's pretty unusual for us to get enough snow to ski here in Arlington so I took the opportunity to strap on my skis and hit the trail. Clearly I wasn't the only one with this idea. By the time I hit the trail there were well established ski grooves and I came across about half a dozen other skiers along the way. The W&OD trail was a pristine winter wonderland. The little foot bridge over Four Mile Run to the trail was like a pathway into a deep wood. I love the look of streams in snow and paused to reflect on the Four Mile Run before continuing on. I took the trail through the parks, down past the caboose, all the way to Carlin Springs Rd. Pretty much my morning running route. There was so much snow that even some of the typical bare spots under the overpasses were filled in. No problem at McKinley Rd. A few steps over bare spots at Patrick Henry Drive. The o...

It's not as cold as I expected as I step out the door of the Sheepshead Bay Comfort Inn. I'm at the southernmost end of Brooklyn, an area exposed to outer New York Bay and the ocean beyond. In the summer this can result in a nice cooling breeze. In the winter, it can mean a biting wind. I indeed feel the wind as I step out from the shelter of the hotel and begin my run up Emmons Avenue. It's blowing hard enough that I squint my eyes a little in response. I'm dressed right, though, and so it doesn't bother me. I make my way up Emmons Ave, past the abandoned Dunkin' Donuts and the half completed condos. The bay opens up to my left as I pass the fishing boat docks. A few people mill about. The morning fishing boats have already left and the stores aren't open yet so there's not much reason for people to be out and about, however being New York there's always someone around. My run takes me down through Sheepshead Bay, over the footbridge that crosses th...

How long does it take to get to Mason Neck State Park? Apparently, five minutes more than I think. No matter how much time I allot to get to this park I always wind up a little on the late side. Well, today I wasn't actually late. I was on time. It's just that most everyone else had gotten there early. It was a blustery morning (Small Craft Advisory in effect, winds gusting to 30 MPH) and I arrived just behind my friend Mark. We were numbers seven & eight to arrive out of a total of nine. No worries - I quickly unloaded my gear and find I'm ready to go well ahead of Kurt, the last arrival. Let me say that whatever kayaking cojones I have shrivel up as the weather turns cold - I am a cold water wimp. So, looking out at the whitecaps and feeling the wind gusts, I suggest that we start our trip as planned but stop and assess our situation at High Point before we head out into the more open section of the river. My more adventurous friends grumble their agreement. Our plan...

The "normal" kayaking season for the weeknight paddling groups ends around Halloween. After all, past that time of year it's dark out by the time one would launch, plus it starts getting cold. Which means it's perfect paddling weather! Tonight we kicked off the unofficial Thursday night "Ice Pirates" group - those of us who keep showing up and paddling into the winter. I must admit I have been only an intermittent ice pirate these last couple of years, choosing to spend my Thursday nights in the warmth of the yoga studio rather than the cold of the Potomac. I must say, though, that tonight's paddle made winter-time paddling seem pretty enticing. It had been a drizzly day, but the rain stopped at around 5 PM. Conditions as we set out were gorgeous. The water was like glass, perfectly reflecting the lights of the city. A slight mist hung over the river, blurring the boundary between river and sky. I've heard that pilots can lose their bearings at night...

What? It's going to be sunny and 70 degrees in mid-November? Drop everything and head for the outdoors!!! Ted and I decided to take advantage of the unusually balmy weather today and go for yet another geocaching hike, this time to Sky Meadows State Park in Delaplane, VA. After delicious, nutritious breakfasts (Eggos and veggie sausage for me, ice cream and Cheese Nips for Ted) we hopped in the car. I reluctantly took the "death seat", letting Ted do the driving. Sky Meadows is a nice park, except that the start of the trails is somewhat steep. Stiff from the car ride, we huffed and puffed our way up the hill until we loosened up a little bit. From there it was pretty smooth sailin'. We hiked the North Ridge trail, detouring up to (but not onto) the AT, then returned via the South Ridge, Snowden and Gap Trails, a 4.5 mi loop. According to the GPS we peaked at 1689 feet. While that's only about 800 feet of elevation gain from the parking lot, the rolling terrain ma...

I did an overnight business trip to Florida this week. I cleverly arranged my first day's meeting so that I found myself free and at Indialantic Beach at about 4 PM on Weds. I started my beach visit by indulging in an ice cream from Coldstone, both because ice cream at the beach just feels right and because it assuaged my guilt at leaving my car in their parking lot. I then took off my tie, rolled up my pants, and switched from shoes to Keen sandals. While I'm sure I was quite the sartorial oddity I didn't care - it made me beach ready and away I went. I spent quite a while strolling the beach (even picking up two geocache finds along the way). Boy, it felt good - the sun, the waves, the sounds. Finally, as the sun started to get low I headed back to the car. I would have liked to have stayed through twilight (a pretty time at the beach) but I knew I had an hour's drive back to Orlando and I didn't want to be doing it too late. The next morning I figured I needed to...

It's become a tradition - every year my friend Tall Tom and I do a leaf-peeping kayaking trip on the Occoquan Reservoir, launching out of Fountainhead Regional Park. This year we were joined by my friend David. David and Tom had never met before - they are from different aspects of my life, but they're both paddlers. Valerie always tells me to stay safe while paddling, and in this case I was in good hands, accompanied as I was by a Red Cross safety professional and an attorney. We all got there early and launched at about 9:45 AM, after bumping into Tom's and my friend Kingsley, who was not there to kayak but just to schmooze with another group of paddlers. As we launched, David commented that he was surprised there wasn't more wind, given that a front had just passed through. This is something you never want to say while kayaking and indeed, as soon as we cleared the shelter of the marina cove, we were justly punished with a significant headwind. We pushed upriver for ...

One of our last Thursday night trips of the regular kayaking season (not counting Ice Pirates). As we headed up the river from Columbia Island we found ourselves being carried along by a mysterious wave. I kept looking over at people kayaking to my right and seeing that they were riding this wave - it looked like they were surfing the Potomac. After a minute or so I realized it was carrying me too. Our whole group got swept along for quite a while, making it to Memorial Bridge in record time, beofre the wave finally started to outrun us. There were a couple of confused moments as the wave train went by us, pushing kayaks this way and that as it did. The tail end of the wave kept sucking us along almost all the way to Roosevelt Island. I have no idea what caused this mini tsunami. It wasn't a boat wake, and the wind was calm. WEll, it was the week before Halloween ... maybe the river was haunted.

I went to the gym today after a long, long absence. I like going to the company gym at a technology firm. There are plenty of other scrawny-lookin' folks there and I never have to feel embarrassed about the not-so-heavy weights I use. Now to see which aches more tonight, my teeth (I started the day at the dentist) or my muscles.

Sunday morning I got a particularly early start, as I wanted to get a decent paddle in and still spend Sunday afternoon doing some family things. It was just getting light as I headed down the GW Parkway . Taking my eyes off the road for way too long, I marveled for about the zillionth time at the beauty of the monuments. I got to Columbia Island about 6:45 AM. I had deliberately taken a route unaffected by the road closures associated with the Army Ten Miler, which was being run that day. The Pentagon is just across a narrow channel from the marina and as I unloaded in the distance I could see and hear the hustle and bustle associated with the race. Unbeknownst to me, at the same time I was pulling into the marina my friend Cyndi was arriving on the other side of the Boundary Channel to check in a t the race . In my rush to get out the door I had forgotten my watch, but I knew what time it was when I set out as I could hear church bells chiming 7 AM as I passed under the h...

Sunday morning I went out for one of my typical early morning quick paddling jaunts: launch at Columbia Island and head up the river a ways. It's nice having a marina so close to home - early Sunday mornings it's under 15 minutes driveway to dockside. Anyway, I noticed a lot of activity on the water as I headed past Georgetown. A number of crew launches out, and an endless stream of single person sculls heading up the river. Float markers everywhere. It turned out there was some sort of rowing regatta going on. I made it up the river with no problem, but on the way back down I really felt like I was dodging traffic. I followed the DC shore to keep out of the lanes marked by the floats along the Virginia side, but that route had me crossing the sculls' launch trajectory and also put me right in the path of the maniacal racing canoes and kayaks from the Washington Canoe Club. Once south of Key Bridge I decided to get out of traffic by heading back over to the Virginia side an...

The Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashonah is one of the major events in a season that focuses on repentance and introspection. At this time of year we ask for forgiveness for our sins and try to wipe the slate clean for the new year. One holiday ritual, dating back to at least the 15 th century is that of Taslich , or "casting off". Taslich involves physically casting an item - typically some sort of bread - into a body of flowing water as a way of symbolically casting off sins. This ritual has its root in the following biblical passage: G-d will have compassion on us, and overcome our sins, He will hurl all our sins Into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:19) I guess I shouldn't even have to mention the biblical connection. Judaism is a legalistic religion. Every word in the Torah is assumed to be there for a reason, and just about all of them are interpreted as some sort of commandment. Let me just say that if Genesis 2:2 read, "and on the seventh day, G-d had a cup o...

I spent part of this past week up in New York for the sad event of my mother's funeral. She passed away Monday after a long period of illness. The funeral was held Tuesday, which therefore started the official mourning period. The rituals and restrictions associated with mourning in Judaism are many, particularly during the first week, or shivah period. If you follow all of the rules you're pretty well forced to spend the week focused on the grieving process, since you basically are discouraged from doing much else. You're prohibited by tradition from leaving the house, bathing, shaving, engaging in any form of entertainment, wearing leather shoes (I have no idea why), and more. However, Reform Jews do some picking and choosing from among these rules. I refrained from wearing leather shoes for the first three days (said to be the most intense part of shivah), won't shave for the week, and am avoiding TV and radio, but I have left the house. In fact, I drove home from N...

On Saturday I led a meditation walk for a group from my temple. I have for some time been interested in the intersection between my love of the outdoors and my religious beliefs. I’ve also been involved with a Jewish meditation group, which in some cases draws upon kabbalistic tradition and in others outright appropriates or invents other ideas to create a Jewish meditation practice. I decided to combine all of these and do a Jewish walking meditation. Again, I didn’t invent this particular mash-up; I drew heavily on the writings of Rabbis Mike Comins, Jamie Korngold and Jeff Roth. Nine people bet against the forecast of thunderstorms and showed up for the event (a winning bet, it turned out - the afternoon was unexpectedly sunny). After having a chance to ooh and ahh over a hickory horned devil caterpillar a ranger had just caught, our group off down a trail in River Bend Park alongside the Potomac to explore various meditative approaches – walking and stationary. I will not detail al...

4 AM, raging thunderstorm. Feels good to be safe and sound in bed, but my paddling plans are at risk. 6 AM, light rain. Beginning to think of bagging paddling and working out on the erg instead, but I go downstairs and check the weather online - hmmm , looks like there's going to be a break in the weather. 7:15 AM, load the boat. The sky is clearing a little. 8:03 AM, pass through the gate at Mason Neck State Park just after the park opens. Unload and get on the water a little after 8:30. It's beautiful out. Not too hot. A little foggy/hazy, the kind of mist that makes things seem a little unreal. I say a prayer of thanks for being able to experience this scene. As I paddle the water is like glass. The iffy weather has scared most people off for the day - there are a few fishermen out and a handful of recreational motor boaters , but other than that, the river is mine. I paddle around out of Belmont Bay and into the river, the paddle north a ways. The slightly foggy weather se...

We just took a family vacation: a cruise to Bermuda. This was the first cruise for all of us except Valerie, who had gone on one as a child. Overall it was a nice time, though Valerie had some trouble dealing with the motion of the ship. One of our days in Bermuda we booked a sailing/ snorkeling expedition aboard the catamaran "Restless Native". Alas, the wind was calm and so we would up motoring rather than sailing. The silver lining of that circumstance was that since we didn't spend time cruising the island under sail, we had more time for snorkeling . The boat took us to a protected, shallow beach near a small coral reef. We all grabbed masks and snorkels and down the ladder we went into the water. I started seeing fish right away, as did the boys. Valerie, however, struggled with her mask - it was fogging, and leaking - and so it was a while before she got into the fish-watching. I enjoy snorkeling - floating along looking at the fish, and even more so the coral, ...

There was once a book (or was it a play?) called something like, “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change.” Such is the story of my new kayak, a CLC Shearwater. I’ve been in love with this kayak since I first paddled one, and the one I picked up recently from a guy in Massachusetts immediately became my favorite boat. Still, a wood boat cries out for custom outfitting, particularly since the guy who built this one had fitted it out for his 6’ 4” frame (not my height!) and with a bias towards form over function (for example, no deck lines). So, while I’m enjoying paddling it as-is, I’m slowly modifying it to my tastes. So far I’ve added forward deck lines: bungies and perimeter grab-lines. I ripped out the NRS seat pad he had put in (what did he glue that thing in with???) and put in a thicker, more contoured seat with some hip pads. This seat is more comfortable, plus the inch or so of added height gives me better layback clearance for rolling. Currently I’m fabricating some thigh brace...

About once per year I convince the family to go camping. That’s long enough for them to forget the details of the last trip, and so they agree. Actually, Ted would camp every weekend, particularly if he got to drive to the campground. It’s Valerie and David who need convincing – anyplace without WiFi or A/C is indistinguishable from Guantanamo Bay in their eyes. This year we headed for Lake Anna State Park. The park added camping just a few years ago, and it’s quite nice campground – large sites, clean bathhouses, lots of trees. As a compromise we booked in a camper cabin rather than a tent site. That way Valerie would have a somewhat real bed and a ceiling fan. The ride down was a challenge. We hit enormous traffic. The drive, which is under 100 miles, took over four hours. I was coming down with a cold and started to get really tired in the stop-and-go traffic. Valerie took over driving and I promptly fell asleep for the rest of the ride down I95 – good thing, actually, since I think...

It seems like virtually every Summer evening in the Washington area has the same forecast - warm and humid with a chance of thunderstorms. As a result, we spend a lot of time before launching debating the wisdom of going out and, these days, checking the latest forecast on someone's iPhone. This past Thursday was no exception. In fact, as we arrived at the marina it was thundering, but the storm soon passed and the iPhone indicated that the system was moving out of our area. So, we launched as usual. The paddle up the river was beautiful and as is so often the case, we congratulated ourselves on making the right decision and having a splendid evening rather than running from the specter of showers. Then it start raining. A few sprinkles at first, coming, of course when we had already paddled quite a ways up from Columbia Island. Sprinkles soon turned into a downpour and our group took shelter under Key Bridge waiting for it to pass. Which it didn't. "It's only rain,...

It's here. I picked it up in Connecticut. It paddles beautifully. More later.

Decided to check out the new bike path over the Wilson Bridge today. It rocks! They were even nice enough to build in some overlooks where you can pull out of the main bike path and look out over the river through built-in binoculars. I started at Gravely Point and headed down the river to Alexandria. When I get to Old Town I'm never sure if I'm still on the bike path or not, but it doesn't matter. I just keep heading South. This time I would up on a block I hadn't been before, where I went through this weird little tunnel that took me back to Washington St and the entrance to the bridge path. It's interesting - the Virginia side of the bike path is at the South end of Old Town, which is a very nice, colonial era town. The path entrance is itself, however unremarkable. The Maryland side of the bridge, on the other hand, is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but has this beautiful landscaping. That seems backwards to me, but maybe they just had more room to work w...

After saying goodbye to Ted this morning - he's off to Boy Scout camp - I headed out to Ft. Smallwood Park in Pasadena, MD to do some kayaking on the Bay. I carpoooled up there with my friend Tom. That always adds to the experience, both because Tom's a nice guy and because he literally strokes the dashboard of his well-worn Saturn station wagon to coax it to keep going for one ... more ... trip. The launch site for this trip is a new one - well, at least kayak access is. Our trip organizer, Gina, lives nearby and wanted to introduce folks to this new launch. Sixteen of us in total, from all directions, showed up, and no one but Gina had been there before. I'd say Ft. Smallwood's kayak launch coming out party was a success. The conditions were choppier than predicted. 1-2 foot waves, and quite confused in places, making it hard at times to maintain direction. I guess this was a result of a combination of wind, boat wakes and tid al currents, as the wind wasn't stro...

Sunday morning I woke up early as usual. It was a beautiful day and I knew it would be several hours before the rest of the family woke up. Kayak? Boy, I wished I had loaded the boat on top of the car the night before, as I was feeling just a little too lazy to deal with it right at the moment. Besides, the overhead of a paddling trip - loading, driving to the river, driving home, unloading - would take more time than I felt like investing in the morning's outing. I decided to have breakfast, read the paper and think up an alternate plan. How about biking? Well, that would have a lot of the same overhead -- but wait, there's a bike trail two blocks from my house! And I've heard that the county has built a new connector trail from the terminus of my local trail to the Mt. Vernon trail. I decide that the W&OD / Mt. Vernon / Custis Trail loop is exactly what I the doctor ordered and in a few minutes I'm out the door. It's 7:10 AM. The first 4.5 miles of the ride ar...

Sometimes you just have to do something that doesn’t make sense. So when my friend Zgrav suggested driving nine hours to Asheville, North Carolina to go geocaching, I said, “heck, yeah!” Before I continue, a little background on the sport. Geocaching is a GPS-assisted treasure hunting game. You use your GPS to guide you to a spots where people have hidden little “caches” – containers ranging in size from pinky-tip up to briefcase size. The real point of the game is in the hunting rather than the finding – sort of like catch-and-release fishing. Geocaches each carry a two dimensional rating –difficulty and terrain – as to how hard they are to find. The easiest ones you can drive right up to. At the opposite extreme, there are geocaches that require solving hard puzzles, use of a specialized gear (helicopters, free-climbing, SCUBA) and a host of other challenges. The most challenging cache level is 5/5. Asheville is overall something of a caching mecca, and is home to a couple of 5/5 cac...

It's been a rainy week. Not just the usual Washington summer afternoon thunderstorms, but heavy downpours 5 AM thunderstorms, flash flood warnings, the works. So it was with a severe weather watch in place and some trepidation that I headed down to Columbia Island last night. The consoling factor was that I had checked the weather report right before heading out from work, and the skies looked like they would be largely clear until about 9 PM. My friend Dave has a new fixation with doing yoga warmups before paddling. I think he has been influenced by both Dubside and our friend Gina, who is a yoga instructor in addition to being a paddler. Interestingly, I had been thinking just the day before, when doing my 20 minutes of stretching before my 40 minute run, that it's funny that I stretch so much for running and erg-ing, but not at all for kayaking. So, when Dave suggested yoga, I was happy to take part. We must have been quite a sight, about half a dozen of us going through var...

Last weekend I went hiking with Ted at theBull Run Nature Conservancy. As usual, our hike had several purposes. Of course, there's the basic enjoyment of hiking. But Ted is also training for a week-long Scout backpacking trip in July and is trying to do as much hiking as possible in preparation. Needless to say, we were on the trail of a geocache as well. I had already found this one, but Ted hadn't. As we hiked, I decided to try out a mindfulness technique I had read about in the book "A Wild Faith". What you do is bring your concentration into the moment by focusing on various things, first in succession, then sharing your attention among them. The feel of the soles of your feet as you walk. The appearance of the forest around you. Your breath. I find I can maintain this combined focus for only brief periods, but during those periods I'm very much in the moment. Then the monkey mind kicks in again and I start to wander off into thought. Another thing about doin...

There’s a corner of my garden that’s wild. This little spot bursts forth with such savage lushness that walking through it one half expects to come face to face with a tiger. I must explain the peculiar fact the spot I’m describing is neither large nor remote. In fact the deepest depths of the savage corner are maybe six feet from the house. It’s just that the lay of the house and plantings have created an isolated tiny wilderness. To get there from the front of the house, go past the dogwood on the front lawn, turn left at the tea roses that flourish despite my neglect of them, and then squeeze between the sycamore and the boxwoods. As you emerge from the shrubs, you’ll find yourself in a spot so overgrown with so many plants it takes your breath away. Ivy, Virginia creeper, and thorny things and wild weeds I can’t even identify. It’s as if the local flora developed a master plan for the neighborhood and zoned this petite square to return to nature. A couple of times per year I go bac...

OK, I didn't bike to work on Bike to Work Day, but I had an excuse. Really. I biked to work on Tuesday, which was quite pleasant. I have finally settled on a favorite route and outside of some unpredictability due to construction in Tysons Corner (for example, about 50 feet of sidewalk disappeared between my morning and afternoon commutes), it's a pretty smooth ride. Then came the ride home. I made it through the traffic of Tysons with few problems, then the bumpiness of Gallows Road. When I reached the bike trail that takes me the rest of the way home, I breathed a sigh of relief. A little ways later I heard a sudden Bang , like a firecracker had gone off under my bike. I stopped immediately, and at first I thought it might have been a joke - maybe someone scattered those pressure-sensitive caps on the trail - since my front tire was fine. Then I realized my rear tire was massively blown. Hmmm, four miles from home. No one to call. Got the bike with me, plus laptop and clothes...

A choppy evening on the Potomac tonight. There was a steady wind, creating a continuous wave train. The waves were only about a foot peak to trough. This is high enough to be fun, but not at all out of control. We banged our way South and around the bend into Washington Channel. Then we turned around and surfed the waves back. Oh, how I have a love-hate relationship with surfing following waves. I hate the crazy out of control feeling of skidding as a wave picks up the back of the boat and makes it try to catch up with the front. Oh, how I love the feeling of riding a wave, paddling hard to keep on top of it, being propelled along faster and faster. We got off the water just in time. As we were loading our gear it started to rain, and lightning arrived soon thereafter. Washington Summer is on its way.

When the opportunity to take a master class with Dubside came up, I jumped on it. What was he going to teach? What were the details? It didn't matter. Dubside is one of the masters of traditional Greenland-style kayaking, one of the few Americans to have competed in the Kayak Championship competitions in Greenland. I mean, you really should see this guy do a Kinnguffik paarlallugu / nerfallaallugu (Greenlandic for "coming up on the other side, on one's back"). Plus, he's a little bit of a character - kind of like a mystical shaman of the kayaking world. He has no fixed address. He dresses all in black. Even his kayak and kayaking gear are black. He has the kind of long, wild beard one would expect a mystic to have. He doesn't own a car and so paddles a folding kayak, which he schleps around on public transportation. And of course, he has only one name ... Dubside . My kayaking pal Jen, who lives around the corner from me and I *for once* managed to coordin...

Midway through today's hike I had two simultaneous and contradictory thoughts. Tired and achy from rock scrambling on the way to the top of Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah Park, I looked at the next challenge and thought, "Boy, maybe I'm reaching the age when I'm going to have to cut back on some of these more strenuous outings." The reason I had time for my thoughts to wander, though, is that we had caught up with a hiking group composed entierely of Korean (I think) senior citizens and had to wait while they scrambled up a particularly challenging crevice in the rock. They were slow, but each and every one was making it. Ted and I had talked for a while earlier in the day with one of the younger members of their group, Joe, who told us that this group hikes every Sunday, and that they do it for their health. From the pace they were setting up the mountain, I'd say it was working! I guess if you set your mind to it, you don't ever have to slow down. We did...

I always find the drive from DC to NY tiring. I95 is always crowded enough that you can't just relax back into your thoughts, and today bad weather exacerbated the stress of the drive. Combined with some sensory overload from a brief stop at a kayak show, I was pretty dazed by the time I hit Staten Island. Is it any wonder that at first glance I misread the "Staten Island Botanical Garden" road sign as "Satanical Garden"? Brooklyn always brings out mixed emotions for me. It's home. It's my roots. Truth be told, though, it's a pretty gray and grubby place. But dammit, the food is good. As usual, my first goal upon entering the borough is to get a slice of pizza. I squeeze the car into an impossibly small parking space in Bay Ridge and set out in search of a pizza place. The first place I come across, a block and a half up, is closed for renovation. I have to walk all the way to 79th St. to find a pizza place - that's five blocks! Having to walk fi...

OK, so five days ago we got slammed with significant snow. But that was then, this is now. It hit seventy degrees today. Seventy! There is no way to describe how good the warm weather and the Springtime air feel when you're so, so sick of Winter. Today was the annual trip planning meeting for my kayaking group. I usually attend the meeting but truth be told, I don't lead many trips, so this time I stayed home and worked on my taxes. I can add my trips to the calendar later. I swung by the meeting just as it was ending - had time to grab some dynamite coffee cake and join people as they headed for the river. Oh, the agony and the ecstasy of warm early spring days! You have to dress for the water temperature, which is still in the 40's, so on went the layers and the dry suits. But have I mentioned that the air temperature was seventy degrees? Man, that winter gear is hot. Before I got into my boat I had to wade into the Potomac to cool off. We launched from Gravelly Point, j...