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Txzen

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  1. Also, while I love Kirkwood I would never drive there from the Olympic Valley area. First, highway 89 will be closed come winter time at Emerald Bay so to drive to Kirkwood you'd have to drive around the lake (clockwise) - Kings Beach, Zephyr, SLT. Then there's a pass you'll have to go through which is often a bit dicey. At the very least you'll need chains and/or 4WD. I would do Northstar (closer), Mt Rose (farther) before even thinking of Kirkwood. Heavenly also will require the same route around the lake. Just enjoy where you're at - I think Palisades probably has the best overall ski terrain at Tahoe. 

    And Kirkwood sucks - no one should go there. No night life, practically no on-mountain dining, slow butt slamming lifts. Stay away. Terrible place. 

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  2. Alas, no tubing on the Truckee this year. It's complicated - this year, for a change, it's cancelled because there's too much water and they slowed the flow (as opposed to all the years it was closed because of drought). 

    Season cancelled

    Spoiler

    Normally, the Truckee River Rafting Company starts welcoming visitors on Memorial Day, but not this year. River rafting on a section of the river might be shut down for the entire summer season.

    Despite a historic wet winter, the 5-mile stretch of weaving water from Tahoe City to River Ranch Road is currently at low levels. “It is a complicated system. Because of the snowpack, the water master can’t release water from Tahoe because it can lead to flooding downstream,” said Sydney Courcier, Truckee River Rafting Company manager.

    She said the rafting season should be in full swing by now, operating about 100 to 200 rafts a day. “We are really sad about it all, but we are happy about the amount of water, and it is good for everything,” said Courcier. 

    She said it is possible the risk of flooding downstream may taper off, allowing the release of Lake Tahoe water into the river which could give them a chance to open back up. “We could be back in business in August. We will just have to see,” said Courcier.

    That was at the beginning of the season. The company we normally use still says 'closed' so I'm not sure the situation changed. 

    Great hike/bike path from Olympic Valley down to Tahoe City. In that area the path is separate from the road. It continues south from there along 89, which has some nice stretches but also forces you to cross the (very busy) road a few times. Can be dicey with kids. 

  3. Just got off a call with leadership. The press reports and even the note to US parents was all about the heat. But they now say the sanitary conditions were not good (shower and toilets) and at least initially the calories provided were inadequate. They stated concerns also that the on-site medical care was not able to keep up with the demand. 
     

    That isn’t the story BSA first told us and many think they are trying to avoid any (more) legal issues. 
     

    So instead of interacting with scouts from around the world, the US contingent will be sleeping on cots in a middle school gym at Humphreys. They have some ‘cultural’ activities on base planned which sound more like arts and crafts, as well as trips into Seoul for some sightseeing, shopping, and a baseball game. Going to legoland also discussed which will not be a lot of fun for any of the older teens. Evenings will be spent watching movies projected on the wall. 
     

    They will not return to the Jamboree even for closing ceremonies. They will watch a livestream in the gym. 
     

    Shittastic. 

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  4. I have a Scout on the ground there. 
     

    It’s hot. The infrastructure is probably not up to snuff. But his group and their adult leaders are fully prepared and able to care for the scouts. They don’t want to leave - they are having a great time meeting Scouts from 160 other countries. 
     

    No one asked the Units. Humphreys is 2.5 hr away. They stayed there one night before the Jamboree. They were confined to a gym and ate (sorry but) lousy MREs. It sucked. 
     

    The conditions are tough. They are scouts. They’ve done worse. This is overblown media coverage. 
     

    Most have worked hard to raise funds to help pay their way for a once in a lifetime opportunity. Leaving early is dumb. 

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  5. I've only been once - in Hyderabad for business a few days and then a short excursion to make good use of the jet lag. Traveled a lot in my life - Mexico, behind the Iron Curtain in the early 80s, rural China 20 years ago. Nothing was quite like India. 

    Truly some beautiful places to see, and yes absolutely maddening and simultaneously beautiful chaos. Cattle in the marketplace. 

    Probably my main issue was that unlike any other trip, I really felt preyed upon. Maybe it was because I was a single traveler, and I do like to engage with people. I also like to walk all over with my camera and do as much street photography as I can. I found the Indians to be almost uniformly pleasant. But so many were just using the same script - 'Where are you from? Why are you here? What do you do? Oh, interesting, I teach at such and such school, we are having an art show today to help the students...', all in order to get you to go to a store where they get some sort of finders fee for bringing you in. I don't blame them, and don't hate them for it, so there were just so many of those interactions - 5-10 of them an hour - that I had to routinely shoo people away or be a bid rude to make them quit. It's incessant and it doesn't matter if you are near a tourist area or away from it. Also, the veil of pleasantry drops the minute you say no, and more than a few times the interaction turned somewhat angry. Never felt in any danger (at all) but those constant interactions really got old.

    That said, saw some amazing things, and had some of the best food I've ever had (and didn't really have any stomach issues). But the abject poverty and the totality of the pollution is something which I've never experienced before. It's not just the poor children, it's the poor children picking through garbage that gets you. Hard to unsee. 

    Since you're down south, maybe try changing geographic areas to explore? Each seems like it's own country. I did a quick stay in Rajasthan - specifically Udaipur, but some of the neighboring towns (Jodhpur, Jaipur) look amazing as well. Udaipur was simply beautiful. I found it pretty easy to take domestic airlines, at the time IndiGo was cheap, clean and modern. Now, getting a taxi once you exit the airport was an exercise in fuckery, though...

  6. 10 hours ago, Horn Dogg said:

    Jonas ride was suspicious, like motor doping level suspicious.

    I mean, there’s always going to be a question of how clean the peloton is. On the other hand, with all due respect, GTFOH with that weak-ass shit. 

  7. What a ducking stage. Amazing Tour at stage 14. Jonas rode well today, really well. Maybe not the script JV had been taking up - they didn’t drop TP but Jonas limited the damage. 
     

    Gonna be a great weekend. 

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  8. Not sure all those days of JV putting riders in the break paid off well today. UAE looking like le train bleu there up the Colombier but TP didn’t seem to have the legs to rip anyone apart. Hell of a burst though and Jonas can’t match it. Keep chipping away, maybe take a flier tomorrow for yellow or just have it be equal going into the TT and he’s got it. 
     

    Still a great Tour though!

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  9. Cav’s a guy I love to hate. As much as a butthead that he is (literally) I might have wanted to see him at least challenge for 35. Hell of a career though. 
     

    My annual plug for https://pyreneescyclinglodge.com. Stayed here a few times - lovely view across the valley of Hautacam. Ride to Hautacam, Aubisque/Solour out the door, with Luz Ardiden and the Tournalet near. It’s many of the less known climbs that really shine though - Cirque de Gavarnie and Troumouse come to mind. Wake to the sound of church bells and the bells around the sheep grazing on the hills. My favorite area by far. 

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  10. I have a bag fetish - there I said it. Tried so many different style and designs and never really hit on the right one.

    I think there's a bit of an overall style choices to make - do you want one that is very techy or 'back pack-y' looking, do you want a ton of organization/compartments, or would you prefer versatility in packing it? 

    I could not be happier with the Peak Design Travel Backpack (45L) The straps are quite comfortable when it is loaded to the max (and there's even a hide-away waist belt, though I've never used it). It's fairly minimalist looking on the outside, and basically only two main compartments, one with a few smaller zippered areas. The rest is one big cavity which for me adds to the versatility. There is a dedicated laptop sleeve. 

    I've filled this thing with cameras, lenses and electronics (using their own equally excellent tech and toiletries bags), I've filled it with my cycling helmet, shoes and gear, or with my ski helmet and gear, I've used it for work trips and love that it doesn't look like my hiking bags. 

    Love that there are so many ways to get in the bag with zips on the side and a back clamshell - the latter is great because you lay it down on the outside and open from the portion that is against your back, great for getting your camera gear out and preventing you from getting mud on the part that will touch your body (or digging through it at an airport in nowhere India where whatever on the floor is also questionable). 

    They definitely make a lot of stuff geared for photographers, but this is just a great bag in general. Also love all the grab straps at the top, bottom and back of it as it makes it easy to grab and go without even putting it on your back. Bonus bag trolley sleeve as well. 

    Pricey but seriously well thought out with a high quality of build. 

    Ode to my Peak Design bag...

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  11. Alas, it seems like an underwhelming paper, mostly because of the lack of scientific collaboration (which likely stems from lack of trust going both ways on this issue).

    As noted here, some of the species supposedly identified by samples in the market could not possibly have been there ('killing a Panda carries the death sentence, so there is no way they could be in a market'). This either means the samples were contaminated and/or suffer from inaccurate species assignment. Remember that ad hoc analysis by the data by a French team (and others) came to the conclusion that raccoon dogs were a potential culprit. 

    Unfortunately, the quality of the data is not going to help resolve this question.

     

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  12. Alas, finding out will just get harder. A predictable, but unfortunate, development. 

     

    WHO abandons plans for crucial second phase of COVID-origins investigation

    Text:

    Spoiler

    The World Health Organization (WHO) has quietly shelved the second phase of its much-anticipated scientific investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, citing ongoing challenges over attempts to conduct crucial studies in China, Nature has learned.

    Researchers say they are disappointed that the investigation isn’t going ahead, because understanding how the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 first infected people is important for preventing future outbreaks. But without access to China, there is little that the WHO can do to advance the studies, says Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada. “Their hands are really tied.”

    In January 2021, an international team of experts convened by the WHO travelled to Wuhan, China, where the virus that causes COVID-19 was first detected. Together with Chinese researchers, the team reviewed evidence on when and how the virus might have emerged, as part of phase one. The team released a report in March that year outlining four possible scenarios, the most likely being that SARS-CoV-2 spread from bats to people, possibly through an intermediate species. Phase one was designed to lay the groundwork for a second phase of in-depth studies to pin down exactly what happened in China and elsewhere.

    But two years since that high-profile trip, the WHO has abandoned its phase-two plans. “There is no phase two,” Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist at the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, told Nature. The WHO planned for work to be done in phases, she said, but “that plan has changed”. “The politics across the world of this really hampered progress on understanding the origins,” she said.

    Researchers are undertaking some work to pin down a timeline of the virus’s initial spread. This includes efforts to trap bats in regions bordering China in search of viruses closely related to SARS-CoV-2; experimental studies to help narrow down which animals are susceptible to the virus and could be hosts; and testing of archived wastewater and blood samples collected around the world in late 2019 and early 2020. But researchers say that too much time has passed to gather some of the data needed to pinpoint where the virus originated.

    Tense times
    Many researchers aren’t surprised the WHO’s plans have been thwarted. In early 2020, members of then US president Donald Trump’s administration made unsubstantiated claims that the virus had originated in a Chinese laboratory, and US intelligence officials later said they had begun investigations. The city of Wuhan is home to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a high-security lab that works on coronaviruses. Chinese officials questioned whether the virus originated inside the country’s borders.

    In the midst of simmering hostility between the two superpowers, WHO member states requested in May 2020 that the agency put together a science-led effort to identify how the pandemic started. Although China agreed to the mission, tensions were high by the time the WHO group left for Wuhan, and engagement with China quickly unravelled after the group returned.

    In its March 2021 report, the team concluded that it was “extremely unlikely” that the virus accidentally escaped from a laboratory. But the inclusion of the lab-incident scenario in the final report was a key point of contention for Chinese researchers and officials, says Dominic Dwyer, a virologist at New South Wales Health Pathology in Sydney, who was a member of the WHO team.

    That July, the WHO sent a circular to member states outlining how it planned to advance origins studies. Proposed steps included assessing wild-animal markets in and around Wuhan and the farms that supplied those markets, as well as audits of labs in the area where the first cases were identified.

    But Chinese officials rejected the WHO’s plans, taking particular issue with the proposal to investigate lab breaches. Zhao Lijian, the spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, said the WHO proposal was not agreed by all member states, and that the second phase should not focus on pathways the mission report had already deemed extremely unlikely.

    In August 2021, members of the original mission team published a Comment piece in Nature urging quick action on the proposed studies to trace the virus’s origins. “We wrote that piece because we were worried phase two might not happen,” says Marion Koopmans, a virologist at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and a member of the mission to Wuhan. “I’m sorry to say that that’s indeed what panned out.”

    Stalled work
    Gerald Keusch, associate director of the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory Institute at Boston University in Massachusetts, says the origins investigation was “poorly handled by the global community. It was poorly handled by China. It was poorly handled by the WHO.” The WHO should have been relentless in creating a positive working relationship with the Chinese authorities, says Keusch; if it was being stonewalled, it should have been honest about that.

    Van Kerkhove says that the WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has continued to directly engage with Chinese government officials to encourage China to be more open and to share data. And WHO staff have reached out to the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing to try to establish collaborations. “We really, really want to be able to work with our colleagues there,” says Van Kerkhove. “It’s really a deep frustration.”

    The Chinese ministry of foreign affairs did not respond to Nature’s e-mailed requests for comment on why the phase-two studies have stalled.

    In November 2021, the WHO formed the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO) — a permanent team of experts who have since written a proposal for how to conduct origins studies for future outbreaks. SAGO has also evaluated evidence on the origins of SARS-CoV-2.

    Blood-donors study
    Outside the formal WHO-led process, some studies proposed for phase two have gone ahead. In May last year, researchers in Beijing and Wuhan published the results1 of an analysis of donor blood supplied to the Wuhan Blood Center before December 2019. The researchers were looking for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies that could signify some of the earliest infections in the pandemic. The team screened more than 88,000 plasma samples collected between 1 September and 31 December 2019, but did not find any SARS-CoV-2-blocking antibodies in the samples.

    Michael Worobey, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, says the work is an important contribution from Chinese scientists, supporting earlier genomic analyses2 showing that the virus probably had not emerged as early as September and was not widespread in Wuhan in late 2019.

    Another study3 by researchers from China, which has not been peer reviewed, reported finding traces of SARS-CoV-2 in January and February 2020 at the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, which was visited by many of the earliest known people with COVID-194. Samples were taken from sewage, drains, the surfaces of doors and market stalls, and from the ground, among other places. The researchers concluded that the virus was probably shed by humans, but Rasmussen and others are keen to take a closer look at the raw data, which included swabs from a defeathering machine, to see whether they can identify animal species.

    “I still hope that progress will be made,” says Thea Fischer, a public-health virologist at the University of Copenhagen, who was a member of the mission to Wuhan and is part of SAGO.

    doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00283-y

     

  13. 1 hour ago, BRLA said:

    Wow - I was there for that game.  If memory serves me correctly it was cold, wet & windy....and I stayed until the end.  It was like watching a train wreck occur in real time and over a 3 hour period.  

    It was indeed miserably cold and wet. Somewhat ashamed to say I didn’t stay for the end (and the only time I remember ever leaving early) but there was no real reason to stay. 

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