Shallow Thoughts : tags : mtb

Akkana's Musings on Open Source Computing and Technology, Science, and Nature.

Wed, 01 Oct 2025

Flying Fluff and Spiderwebs

[Looking up at tall trees from the forest floor; one of the trees is blocking the sun so there's a flare around where the sun is] On a recent bike ride up at the East Fork trail, Dave had to go back to the car to get something he'd forgotten, leaving me guarding his pack.

It turned out that was a blessing in disguise. While I waited, looking up at the spectacular backlit sky high above the ponderosas, I saw hundreds of little fluff pieces floating by, highlighted and glowing from the sun behind them. Occasionally, I'd see long filaments drift past: I assume they were strands of spider web, perhaps with tiny baby spiders attached, invisible at that distance.

I tried to capture them on phone video, but unsurprisingly, the video wasn't good enough to capture them, and neither were the still photos.

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[ 14:41 Oct 01, 2025    More hikes | permalink to this entry | ]

Sat, 18 Jan 2025

Knitted a Camelbak Hose Insulator

[A pack to hold a Camelbak, with the hose covered by a thick, dark green knitted tube] This week's group hike was at the always beautiful Las Conchas trail, up in the Jemez mountains. Originally planned as a snowshoe/ski hike, we discovered there wasn't enough show to justify either one, so we all opted for Yak Trax or other forms of shoe-mounted spikes. As it turned out, there wasn't much ice so we probably didn't even need that. (One of Dave's spike sets fell off early in the hike, and he continued for miles before he noticed one foot was unspiked. Fortunately, he was ahead of the group and someone else spotted the lost spikes.)

It was beautiful, and the 27°F temperature didn't feel so bad once we were moving. But it did cause one problem: my Camelbak hose froze up, so I had to resort to eating snow when I wanted a drink of water until lunchtime when I managed to clear out the ice.

Not the first time that's happened. I've long wanted to get some sort of hose insulator that would keep the hose from freezing, but I haven't been able to find one.

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[ 11:25 Jan 18, 2025    More art | permalink to this entry | ]