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March 2008 - Posts
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In this weeks roundup: The grand opening of the new and improved splash zone at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a product that introduces your kids to the science of an owl's digestive processes, and flying boulders in Hawaii.
Photo Credit: Brian Scott
Monterey Bay Aquarium Opens the New Splash Zone
For our Northern California audience: Monterey Bay Aquarium opened the new and improved splash zone on Monday of this week. If you are planning to design an educational expedition that involves exploration of tide pools or a trip to the coast, this is a great element to include as a goal.
With a walk-through kelp forest and a forty foot touch pool that includes sea stars, sea urchins, hermit crab, cow's tongue, kelp, kelp crab, and many other creatures, the splash zone is well worth a visit. What impressed me the most were the docents that staff the touch pool, who are top notch. They do a fantastic job helping the kids handle and learn about the animals and I was totally impressed with their ability to adjust their answers to the age of the children. Highly recommended, if you have the opportunity.
Owl Puke
This isn't really breaking news, but I was on amazon browsing for books and stumbled on this little gem:
Description:
"... The Owl Puke Book and Owl Pellet brings the best of those two worlds together in a unique package... What is an owl pellet? It's the football-shaped object regurgitated twice a day by owls, which contains the skeleton of at least one owl meal, be it a mouse, vole, shrew, or small bird. Used in elementary schools to teach the food web--but virtually unavailable at retail--a professionally collected, heat-sterilized owl pellet is now married to a lively, two-color illustrated book filled with facts and related activities about these most amazing birds. And what a story the Owl Puke Book tells--of the food chain, animal anatomy, life in the forest; of a bird that could read the bottom line of an eye chart from one mile away; and of a fierce hunter that swallows its prey headfirst and digests everything but the bones, which it spits back up in a pellet. As for the story the pellet tells, kids need only a toothpick to find out. The package includes a tray to hold the bones and a chart to help identify the pellet's contents."
It's a hoot.
If anybody does end up purchasing Owl Puke, please, please, please leave a product review in the comments section of this blog!
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park: Volcano Hurls Boulders
The USGS is reporting that an explosion at th Halema‘uma‘u Crater scattered debris over 75 acres.
"In addition to damaging the overlook, explosive debris covers the trail to the overlook, the Halema‘uma‘u parking area, and the portion of Crater Rim Drive adjacent to the parking area. On Crater Rim Drive the debris was up to 2 centimeters in size, with the size and thickness of debris increasing toward the overlook. The largest observed block ejected during the explosion was about 1 cubic meter (35 cubic feet) and must have been propelled from the vent located more than 70 m (230 feet) below the crater rim. Small impact craters from 30 cm (1 foot) blocks are abundant in the Halema‘uma‘u overlook area. Rock debris also extends halfway across the floor of Halema‘uma‘u Crater. The debris is composed of rock fragments that were derived from the walls of Halema‘uma‘u Crater."
Probably not a good day for an expedition to study the volcanoes.
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Have you ever tried to enter multiple data points into your GPS receiver? You can avoid self inflicted repetitive motion injuries by managing this type of data in the GPX file format.
Photo Credit: Jimmie Joe via Flickr
What is GPX?
GPX is an abbreviation for the GPS data exchange format, a file format that allows GPS data to be shared between programs that manage GPS information. Imagine two software programs that don't "talk" to each other. They have different manufacturers and may even be running off of different operating systems. One strategy that enables communication between the two is to have one program export data in a standard text format that another program can import.
The programs don't "talk" directly to each other, but since both programs recognize the standard intermediate format, they can easily share data. This is a powerful idea that simplifies the sharing of data.
For example, let's say you visited a website that provides GPS waypoint information such as Geocaching.com. You want the information on the website (the list of geocaches) to populate TOPO (your mapping software) as well as your handheld GPS receiver. The painful way of getting to your endpoint is to enter each waypoint into each application by hand. However, by downloading a set of waypoints in the GPX file format you import the data into both applications in just a couple of steps. It's actually very simple, once you get the hang of it.
How can I use GPX files?
If your mapping software supports importing or exporting GPX files directly, you have a ready-to-go method of cross software communication.
Not all GPS receivers allow direct import of GPX files. If you have a Garmin, Magellan, or Lowrence GPSr, you can download a free copy of Easy GPS that will allow you to manipulate GPX data and upload it to your GPSr. You can read a tutorial here:
How to Upload Multiple Geocache Waypoints to your GPS receiver using easyGPS
What Software Applications support the GPX format?
More and more software applications are supporting GPX. Here is a list of software that uses the GPX file format.
Although it takes a little practice, managing map data in the GPX format is much easier than managing the data by hand. In the end, you will save yourself time, headaches, and perhaps avoid carpal tunnel surgical procedure down the road.
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If you live in Southern California and are looking for an opportunity to get outside with the kids, here's a site that should be in your RSS reader: modernhiker.com. Modern Hiker uses a well written blog, digital photography, and Google Maps to track trail descriptions and conditions for a number of hikes in the Los Angeles area.
We caught up with Casey Schreiner, the author of modernhiker.com, and asked some questions about how parents hiking with kids in LA might benefit from the information that he posts. He was happy to provide some tips and tricks for using modernhiker.com to plan a family outing.
1) You have built up quite a list of hikes in the LA area and differentiated them with a red - green - blue color scheme. Is there any additional advice would you give to parents hiking with children when they use your map system?
I'm a mostly-solo hiker, so I'll assume that parents hiking with
their kids already know how to keep track of the little ones on the
trail. Depending on their age and enthusiasm, I would recommend
sticking to the green and blue labeled hikes. Greens are pretty short
and easy, almost like 'nature walks,' while the blues can get a bit
more strenuous.
I try to give as much information about the trails as I can on my
write-ups, so that people can see if there's something in particular
that interests them - like waterfalls or historic areas - or would
steer them away, like thick brush and ticks. If you're taking your
kids out into the wilderness, it's your responsibility to be informed
about where you're going. It's a good habit that will hopefully rub
off on the little ones when they venture out for hikes of their own.
2) If you were going to go on one of the hikes that you have blogged about with kids, where would you take them and why?
If I were taking kids out on a hike, I'd want to bring them
somewhere that could get them into nature, but also provide some
colorful local history. A shortened version of the Mount Lowe hike
gets to some really fascinating remnants of an old resort hotel built by
America's first military aviator (a hot air balloon pilot from the Civil War).
San Gabriel Peak is a short trail that gives some great views of the mountains,
as well as an old Nike Missile site. And another shortened version of
Santa Anita Canyon is like a trip back in time to the turn of the century.
Also, there's a big ol' waterfall.
If the kids are a bit older (and hardier), I'd take them down the East
Fork to the Bridge to Nowhere It's got a ton of river crossings to splash
through, and seeing a giant bridge by itself in the middle of a canyon is
fascinating, no matter how old you are.
3) What is your favorite thing about modernhiker.com that we might not know?
Other than the fact that it's a one-man, spare-time, labor-of-love
operation, everything is pretty much right there on Modern Hiker. I'm
familiar with web design, but by no means a designer. There are a lot
of things I'd still like to do with the site that I just don't quite
know how to do yet. Maybe one of these days I'll spring for a
bonafide web designer to spruce everything up ... but for now, I'm
just focusing on content.
4) You mentioned in a recent post that you used to hike on the Freedom Trail in Boston. It's a bit outside the parameters of the map, but would you mind giving us the modernhiker.com report?
I went to school in Boston, and long before I developed a love of
the outdoors, I'd been developing the History Nerd aspect of my
personality. Growing up in New England, you're never more than a mile
or two away from some significant historical site, and Boston's
Freedom Trail gives you all that historic goodness through some of the
most picturesque neighborhoods of Beantown. It's a 2.5 mile trek,
marked by a red brick pathway, that takes you from the oldest public
park in the nation to the oldest active warship in the nation. Along
the way, it passes historic graves, homesteads, markets, political
hotspots, and plenty of Dunkin' Donuts shops.
I used to walk to the trail down Commonwealth Avenue's branch of the
"Emerald Necklace," an innovative city-wide park system designed by
Frederick Law Olmstead, which added a bit of green to the day. Now
that it's just about done, the Big Dig has chipped in an additional
300 acres of parkland to the North End of Boston.
So in just a few miles, you get some great American History, some
historic parkland, and the biggest civil engineering project ever
undertaken in the U.S. There's a little something for everyone!
Modernhiker.com is a great blog that we have been following for a few months now. If you are planning a hike in or around Los Angeles, or just like well written outdoor blogs, this site is worth a visit. Thanks Casey!
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In this weeks Roundup, we learn 10 tips for better travel photography, find out why the Grand Canyon is flooding, take a look at an expedition that is absolutely amazing in vision and scope, and find out what all the fuss is about with these wolverines in Tahoe.
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View original media here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBpi-O_ixUM
This is a video of 10 top tips for travel photography from What Digital Camera magazine
Grand Canyon Flooding:
National Geographic has a great report on the recent flooding of the Grand Canyon. If you weren't aware, more than 300,000 gallons of water per second were release from Lake Powell into the Grand Canyon to simulate flood conditions, raising the water up to 15 feet in some areas. The flooding helps create sandbars and beaches required for wildlife habitat.
Daren Wendell Sets out to Walk Around the World
Speaking of expeditions, we have been doing some writing about expedition design. For an example of spectacular vision and scope look no further than Darrell Wendell who is setting out to walk around the world carrying only 38 pounds in his backpack. That's not a misprint.. around-the-world.
He is doing it to raise awareness for bloodwatermission.com, a clean water and AIDS relief effort founded by one of my favorite bands, Jars of Clay. He will walk 18000 miles over three years.
The following is a list of thoughts from his website. Absolutely amazing:
- Legacy: I dont have any children, in fact I havent dated for about a year because of the expedition, but there will be a day when I am gone and my children will say "My father gave back to this world instead of just taking from it, he saved lives, and he was a voice for the voiceless" I cant think of a better legacy
- One of my biggest fears is to look back on my life and wished I would have lived it differently. Therefore I refuse to live a life of mediocrity. I meet so many people who have lost sight of their dreams and ambitions and settle for something else. I feel like I have been given this gift of life and I want to live it to the fullest.
- I also want to raise awareness and move people to action when it comes to the Water Crisis and Aids Pandemic that ishitting Africa by advocating for http://www.bloodwatermission.com/
- I want to inspire people to follow dreams and help figure out why they are on this earth. I feel If you miss out on that then they will miss the reason they were created.
- I am fiercly wild at heart. I love adventure, change, new people, cultures, mental challenges, languages physical challenges, spiritual challenges.
- I am sure that I will discover a lot more of the why as I walk. But for now... I stick with just "Life to the fullest"
"Dream no small dreams. They have no power to stir the souls of men."
You can track him on a map by following this link:
http://skyshield.positionlogic.com/Login.aspx
User Name: earthexpedition
Password: earthexpedition
Wolverines, Thought to Be Extinct, Discovered in CA
A few years ago, I was amazed that a new waterfall was discovered in a California National Park. About that time, a World War II era airplane wreck was discovered in the Sierra's. It never ceases to amaze me the treasures and discoveries that California holds to explorers willing to venture into road-less places.
The most recent discovery was of a wolverine in the Tahoe National Forest. Thought to be extinct, this is said to be the first sighting in more than 75 years. The discovery occurred when an automated camera, placed by a graduate student to photograph a different species, caught the wolverine investigating the bait.
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Are you looking for a way provide your children with outdoor opportunities that educate and build confidence? Look no further, we just put the finishing touches on Educational Expeditions, the new Trailmix.Net e-book.
The e-book is a blueprint for developing a family outdoor recreation plan. It teaches the reader to use basic project management skills and a model of development to set healthy recreation and leisure goals.
Learn how to:
- Coach your children using a model of continuous learning
- Guide your children into challenges that build confidence
- Discover a new way to look at outdoor recreation with kids
- Set Recreation and Leisure goals
- Create a fun packed recreation and learning plan
Educational Expeditions is free to Trail Guide subscribers and has a flexible license for those who would like to share the ideas and concepts with others. It's the perfect thing for parents who want to begin hiking, biking, or any other outdoor activity with kids.
You can download your copy here.
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