Approach from Emmett

It never ceases to amaze me the memories I hold onto from childhood. Growing up in Boise, I have seen a lot change in the last 35 years. Urban sprawl has swallowed up so much scenery here in the valley. The Boise Foothills have homes making their way further up and up. Shaffer Butte now has radio antennas visible from Boise with the naked eye.

Long road ahead

One thing hasn’t changed in the landscape, and that’s the view of Squaw Butte from my SW Boise home. Squaw Butte is an 8 mile long ridgeline in the Boise Mountains. What has always intrigued me is its appearance of being an island mountain. It in fact is not, but being able to see the North / South ridge from Boise with its 2500 foot prominance makes it look that way.

View from the top

I chose to carry out this hike after the weather had cooled. November was a great time for this desert mountain hike. The approach I took was from the South, connecting to Butte Road near the base. This provided access entirely along a dirt road. This is open rangeland, so there were plenty of cows watching me as I made my way up. The hike is pretty easy until you make it to the final gulch and the grade jumps to 15-20 percent. Eventually, you make your last turn and reach the top.

Fire Lookout

It was a great view and the snow was quite pretty.

It took a bit longer than I expected to make it up, so I got back to the car just before dark. In all, this hike was around 14 miles out and back. Elevation gain was over 3000 feet. Bring plenty of water, and a good lunch for this hike. You will need a lot of energy and time for this one. Watch for cows (and other critters).

Local wildlife

There were a couple of ATV’s passing by me on the way to the top. I suspect that depending on the time of year, these may turn into snowmobiles. This will even make a pretty decent snowshoe adventure.

Bigger than it looks

I enjoy getting away from home and visiting places I’ve never had the chance to experience before. With the best weather we’ve had all year, it was time to get out for the first campout of 2010. I live in Boise, Idaho where camping is as close as 20 miles away. As with most places in Idaho, you can be in the middle of nowhere in about an hour. I was ready to camp somewhere close, yet unlike anywhere I had been before. My next choice was Leslie Gulch, near Adrian, OR.

Alien Landscape

As with much of the desert here in the Northwest, there are plenty of canyons with volcanic formations.  Leslie Gulch is especially filled with these  volcanic rock formations, and is in fact very beautiful.  The best time to visit would have to be right now, in the Spring, so you can enjoy wild flowers, mild temperatures and generally very few people.  There are several official hiking paths in the park, however you can park in any of several turnoffs and take off to create your own hike.

Wildflowers in bloom

I chose two official trails (and several unofficial ones) during my stay.  The first was at the Leslie Gulch campground.  If you head South, you can hike for several miles in a dry streambed.  I took the opportunity to blaze a trail up one of the hills and walk along the ridge overlooking some grand formations and the campground far below.

Honeycomb Canyon

Located within the park at Leslie Gulch, Juniper Gulch treats you to unique, scenic geological honeycomb structures along most of this hike. I took a short loop which was about 3 miles. My next visit to the area will have me summiting “Yellow Jacket Peak” Maps of my journey will be made available in the Maps section soon.

It should be said as you plan your trip, watch out for snakes, and observe good judgement when it comes to visits in early Spring.  A sign warns you as you enter the park that there are chances of flash floods.  There is so much rock here that even a short downpour can lead to your scrambling to higher ground.  The campgrounds have vault toilets and covered picnic tables, but you are responsible for bringing drinking water.  Keeping this area beautiful is up to all of us.  I am pleased to report that there was virtually no litter on or off trail during my stay.

I took quite a few pictures and movies along the way.  Below you will find links to the finished video shorts, on YouTube.com

If there is one thing I do a lot of, it’s taking pictures.  I love exploring new places, and remembering those adventures with the perfect shot.  Up to now, I have been satisfied being in the point and shoot camp but after having poorly exposed pictures on my trip to the Sawtooths, I needed something I can set to get great photos while out in the field.  I took a good long look at the D-SLR packages, but they had a few real shortcomings:

• The camera is expensive – just the body!
• The lenses are expensive
• The kit is pretty heavy
• Not really appropriate for a hike, unless you consider the added calories burned carrying the extra weight!
• Due to a mechanical nature, battery life is not impressive

So I decided I needed a point and shoot with a nice big zoom, and manual settings for everything.  Being a videographer as well, I wanted a unit which could film in 1080 HD.  Enter the new Nikon P100.  I can say right off the bat that I love this camera.  It certainly has all features I have been looking for (manual, lightweight, portable, big zoom, HD) but also has a load of automatic settings.  Not being any kind of photography genius, my summary revolves around the ease of use of this camera.  Detailed specs can be found at the Nikon site.

If you visited the link, you will note that it has Hybrid VR (vibration reduction) technology which will make photos easier to shoot while hand holding the camera.  I have found that I like this to a point, but it seems to affect the photo quality when I zoom in on the captured picture.  I have decided that for the way I shoot, it will be tripod mounted.  One really interesting feature to me is the way you can shoot video using a dedicated button.  The skinny on how that works for me – I frame my initial shot using auto or manual controls (focus, zoom).  When I am ready, I hit the video record button and the camera freezes these settings and you are recording in beautiful high-definition.  Understand, however, you can set the camera to auto focus, and you can zoom in and out while recording, but the results are hard to watch, and you can hear the focusing motor through the built in stereo microphones.

The color reproduction is fantastic and the movie mode is fluid high-end looking.  The on-screen menu system is very straight-forward, and easy to memorize.  Pop into automatic mode, and this is as easy as any pocket point and shoot.  Put the camera in SP or AP and now you can completely control your shot.

I have included a few samples so you can see what I have been able to capture with this camera in the last week playing with this camera.  As a true amateur photographer, my results can be seen as typical for other first time buyers for higher end automatic cameras.

YouTube movie I made on Easter…

EDIT:  After one week, I returned this camera.  While it had fantastic image and video quality, it suffered from what appears to be a common problem of random freezing of the focus and zoom mechanicals.  The solution is wait until the camera times out and powers off.  Powering it back on restores the function.  Unfortunately, trust in my tool is pretty important when shooting.  A firmware update MAY possibly fix this, but I went on instead to purchase the Canon SX20 IS.  I will provide an opinion after I’ve had it for a month or more.

Acer R1600

I haven’t really done much in the way of tech posts lately, so today I discuss my newest addition to the HTPC front.  I have been watching for some time with interest the Nvidia ION platform.  It is essentially the graphics and processor on one board which promises a super-compact package which performs media operations extremely well.  One of the applications so far is inclusion in the tiny Acer Aspire Nettop which is to date, one of the smallest full function desktop computers.  I picked up the AR1600-U910H from Best Buy for the bargain price of just $199.99.  I purchased this with hope I could finally have a Windows Media Center which had the advantage of the Apple TV’s tiny footprint.  I am pleased to report I have achieved this very goal.

Cracking open the case

The Acer R1600 comes in the box with a USB keyboard and mouse, and a power brick you would typically expect for a laptop.  The specs are very minimal, using the Intel Atom 1.6 ghz processor, Nvidia Ion video with HDMI Video / Audio out, VGA out, 1 gig 800 mhz, DDR2 DIMM, 160 Gig Hard drive.  The packaged operating system is Windows XP, SP3 home.  The software load includes all the normal junkware which I spent 3 hours removing in order to do a quick image backup.  Once the backup was complete, it was time to get Windows 7 on this thing and start enjoying a Media Center PC.

Simple Layout

The first task was opening this unit up to put more RAM in.  After a couple of days trying to find instructions on how to do this, I came up empty handed.  I took my chances and removed the one small screw in the cavity where the stand goes.  There is a white plastic band around the perimeter of the computer with a visible seam.  As with most of these CE devices, it’s held together by a series of plastic clips (as seen in the photos).  I carefully pried the case open, unsnapping the clips until the top cover came off.  Inside, I was pleased to see a very simple main board with the hard drive, RAM expansion slots and mini PCIE slot in plain view.  I pulled the 1GB DIMM and swapped in two matched 1GB DIMMS in it’s place from my old laptop.  I had a wireless G mini PCI-E from my retired laptop, so placed that in the empty slot.  After a few photos, replaced the top cover, replaced the screw and powered up to load Windows 7.

Size compared to Apple TV

The Windows 7 install went very easily (using external DVD drive, none included with this budget PC).  Once Windows 7 came up for the first time after the install, I installed the Windows 7 drivers for chipset and video found on the Acer support site.  This system is super snappy at this point.  Another thing to note, it’s practically silent.  No noise from the WD hard drive and the fan is running slowly and quietly.  I continue my install by plugging in my Hauppauge 980 USB HDTV tuner and installing its driver.  Without walking you through all the painful details on configuring the power management, scanning for channels, and all the other items, I finished the configuration.  Now for my thoughts / impressions of this platform for a Media Center PC.

New HTPC in action

WOW!  This thing is NICE!  With the built in HDMI, connection to the TV was flawless.  The new Acer with Windows 7 detected my 32″ LG Tv at its native resolution and looks beautiful.  Turning on the Media Center software and tuning to an HDTV program rewarded me with smooth animation and flawless (no jitters, stutter) video.  I have never had such an easy time getting such a knockout video stream with an HTPC.  I think I can probably thank the ION platform for this, as it uses the Video Processor to offload all decompression tasks from the CPU for video playback.  12 mbps HD video at 720p and 1080p is perfect.  This looks as good as any consumer set top box I have ever used.  Netflix even worked flawlessly.

In conclusion, with all the features available in Windows 7 for the TV DVR functionality, my AppleTV 3.0 is now my device to watch Internet podcast video.  The Acer unit drives my TV for day-to-day programming.  Apple should consider allowing a TV tuner in the Apple TV, because with this new addition to the Windows market, Acer with Windows 7 is the perfect package.  Size, function and price are just right.  Sure, there are extra costs such as the purchase of Windows 7, USB tuner, memory, etc.  I had the hardware components I was able to put to use from components I had sitting around.  Still, this is a bargain price for what you receive in the way of the Media Center experience.

TJD

Near Toxaway Trailhead

Idaho is such a great state to live in for so many reasons, mostly for the outdoor enthusiast.   As a life-long resident of this beautiful state, I am continually humbled by the immeasurable beauty of the landscape.  On a recent camping trip I had the opportunity to lead a small group on a couple of very short but beautiful hikes in the Sawtooth Wilderness, which is part of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area in south-central Idaho.

The Sawtooth Mountains (referred to as ‘The Sawtooths’) are a collection of mountains which are home to at least 39 high mountain lakes.  The most well known of these are Stanley, Sawtooth and Redfish Lakes.

Along Parks Peak

The 12.5 mile hike began only 8 short miles from our group campsite, at Pettit Lake.  At 7000 feet with crystal clear water and stunning views of beautiful McDonald Peak we headed West along Pettit Lake quickly making it to our first of several creek crossings.  I found it was much easier (and safer, wearing trail runners) to simply wade across these streams rather than hop on slippery rocks.  The trees eventually give way to a dense rock field about 1.7 miles into this hike.  Full exposure to the sun and incredible vistas dominated the hike to Alice.  The trail conditions were fantastic considering the number of people making this hike even on the day that we visited.

Distant White Clouds

Around the 4 mile mark, we got to a final switchback with a great view of the White Cloud Mountains to the North-East, and proud, El Capitan (9,901 ft) to the South.  Once to this point, it was a very short hike to Alice Lake, which sits at approximately 8590 feet above sea level.  When we “turned the corner” and got our first glimpse of Alice Lake, I was struck by it’s crystal clear, bluish green color and the majestic backdrop of jagged, glacier carved mountains surrounding the lake.

El Capitan near Alice

Alice Lake marked the turn around spot for this moderate day hike.  We made our way back along the same path we had taken to Alice, and was a much faster trip due to it’s gentle 9% grade from the 8600 foot high-point.  Before escaping to the vehicle for the short drive back to camp, I took time to take in the beauty of Pettit Lake one last time.  This hike was just the beginning of several more years journeys back to this beauty of a mountain range.

Pettit Lake, goodbye for now

TJD