The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology.
-- Edward O. Wilson
#Wisdom #Quotes #EdwardOWilson #Emotions #Humanity #Politics #Technology
#bwca
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Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.
-- Shirley Chisholm
Nature loads the gun but environment pulls the trigger.
-- Anonymous
Virtues are dangerous as vices insofar as they are allowed to rule over one as authorities and not as qualities one develops oneself.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
You can recognize a deep truth by the feature that its opposite is also a deep truth.
-- Frank Wilczek
In many ways "connection" has been disastrous. We have confused information (of which there is too much) with ideas (of which there are too few). I found out much more about the world and myself by being unconnected.
-- Paul Theroux
Symmetry is immunity to change.
-- Mario Livio (Studio360)
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About 2.5 miles down the trail, we started hitting downed trees across the path. Clearly, this was as far as trail clearing had gotten from this end after wind storms last summer/fall! We skirted a couple, then decided we'd had enough and turned back.
The return trip was more fun, following our own tracks, picking up speed on the downhills, but with still enough snow to keep speeds safe for everyone.
And one more species for the trip bird list: Boreal Chickadees! We heard their distinctive, wheezy "Sik-a-day-day!" call at one point, but not close enough to get photos.
5 miles wasn't as far as we'd expected to go, but with the extra effort breaking trail, it was exercise enough!
Back on the trail today! Winds have calmed, so out we went to break trail on the west end of the Banadad. We'd scouted that trailhead a couple days ago and saw it wasn't groomed, but someone had broken trail back before the latest snowfall. Not much had changed!
We decided to go with the X-C skis to follow in the tracks and let Zeena lead the way. She was happy to break trail!
While it was extra work to push through the snow, it wasn't nearly as bad as we've faced before...
Continued thread
Here's Zeena enjoying a bit of a downhill run! The terrain is generally flat with easy hills here and there, especially on the east end.
We didn't specifically train the huskies to avoid the ski tracks: they just seemed to prefer it here. The well groomed sides helps.
When the snow is deeper and softer, they'll often walk in the ski tracks, as the firmest footing available. Which is fine, because we ski over and flatten out their footprints behind them!
Prejudice against skijoring, especially by trail groomers, is frustrating and sad, which is why we treasure the few dog-friendly trails we've found.
Continued thread
It was quite notable how much easier it was to make distance today, compared to yesterday. The narrow X-C skis were fast, had more glide, and you didn't have to work nearly as hard to keep your skis pointed down the slot-car tracks.
We went twice as far today as we did yesterday, in almost exactly the same amount of time!
Tonttu did great too. Sometimes we wonder if he's not enjoying the long trips as much as our other huskies, but he definitely got in the groove today. He's not as fast and confident on the hills as Zeena, but kept a good pace and a tight lead the whole way.
We also tried Musher's Secret on the pups' paws today, which seemed to help: yesterday they'd both been stopping to chew snow out of their toes, which seemed more bothersome than our huskies have experienced before.
Today we picked up the pace, with proper skijoring on Nordic/X-C skis and a groomed traditional/diagonal track. This is the east end of the Banadad Trail, one of the few dog-friendly groomed trails in the region, and consists of a single track, 27km one way through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. (Normally no powered vehicles are allowed in the BWCA, but the trail has a special permit for grooming with a snowmobile.)
Zeena was especially happy to be going along at a good clip, compared to yesterday's shuffle. We were taking an appropriate Siberian Husky pace, apparently!
We did 5.25 miles in from the east end of the trail, and then 5.25 mi back, which was plenty for all of us today!
Skijoring Day #1! We wanted to break in our legs on something a little on the easier side, so we took the Hok backcountry skis down the Moose Trail, which follows the northern edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
Several inches of fresh snow awaited us: a good depth for skiing without exhausting the huskies breaking trail for us. Hok skis floated nicely, though as always, their short length work the hips and legs to keep them going in a straight line much of the time, especially when the base isn't flat.
The busy snowmobile trail the first 1/2 mile from the trailhead is particularly annoying to ski on, and we were glad to break away to fresh powder.
Toss it back and forth long enough and a nugget of conventional wisdom eventually comes to be treated as fact.
-- John Gruber (Daring Fireball)
Why have so many turned against reason? There are several explanations, but among the foremost must be failure of the quixotic hopes vested in it. Reason was misrepresented as an all-powerful, divine force, with its own supreme mission. In fact, it has no aim and no inherent goodness. Reason is simply and solely a tool, without any legitimate claim to moral content. It is a biological product fashioned for us by the process of evolution, to help us survive in an inhospitable and unpredictable physical environment. It is also a tool to enable us to compete with other animals that are larger, faster, and stronger, with longer claws and more powerful jaws.
-- Donald B. Calne (Within Reason: Rationality and Human Behavior)
Reason, like art, consists of drawing the line somewhere.
-- Leonard Krishaltka
If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.
-- Mark Twain
Poetry's object is truth.
-- Christine de Pizan (1364-1430 CE)
