#Although I do wonder how much mileage we have left in the tank on the whole deconstructing escapist fantasy thing

[artbyblastweave]

DIE was really good. Kieron Gillen Does Not Miss

[highschoolharrier]

Justin Wrigley is the coach of St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Kansas who currently is riding an impressive state championship win streak and looks to be in contention for a bid to NXN via the Heartland region.

High School Harrier: Your teams are entering the year with recent state championship winning streaks there in Kansas. Can you say a little about how your team has attained that level of excellence?

Justin Wrigley: Our boys team has won four straight state titles and the girls finished third last year which ended a streak of five straight state titles. I definitely believe that the biggest factor for our success is the team culture. There are no magic workouts and there is no magic mileage that guarantees success. Every program is somewhat different in those areas but what has been working the best for us is the team culture.  We have had an incredible level of buy-in from the kids over the years and that has helped us achieve many of our goals. We've been blessed with large numbers of kids that are fun, positive and hard working. Because of that, Saints cross country has become a really great place to be. The cross country kids really like being around each other and even though all of the training is a great commitment of time and effort, I think that they just really like doing it together and so we are seeing the benefit of that when we race. It's really awesome that there are so many kids with the same attitude about the sport and the training process. The key is keeping it fun and positive because negativity can tear the whole thing down really fast. We are just like every other high school in the country, we have to always be on the lookout for negativity and try to change those types of behaviors before it does damage to our culture. It is a never-ending process but it's the true key to success in cross country.

HSH: State is 2 weeks before the NXR Heartland meet.  Do you think this is too far away, not far enough away or a good amount of time between the two?

JW: I think two weeks is just about perfect! I think that period of time allows kids to celebrate state and also sharpen back up physically and emotionally for NXR. When we first started making the trip to NXR, I don't think that anyone on our team managed the post-state emotions really well. We'd get too up for state and had nothing left in the emotional tank up at NXR despite being physically ready. When we started taking larger groups up to NXR and changed some of the ways we thought about the postseason, we saw our teams improve dramatically at the Heartland meet. Putting NXR on the calendar and planning to attend well before the season even starts has really helped the way our kids prepare emotionally and psychologically and that has really helped. I also think it's really important to get your sub varsity kids to the NXR open races. Those open races are more competitive than almost any state meet and so you're giving sub varsity kids a championship caliber meet to shoot for while also extending their training season by several weeks and getting them experience for when they become your varsity in the NXR championship race. I can't see any negative side to getting as many kids as possible to the NXR meet.

HSH: Do your boys and girls train together?

JW: Yes, we usually have 80-100 kids on our team in any given year and we do everything together. We split up into training groups for workouts but we'll often have girls and boys training together if they are similar in fitness and ability. Our top girl, Olivia Sovereign, trains with the boys. She has a little brother on the team and they push each other really hard in workouts. It is pretty awesome.

HSH: How does your team set their goals each year?

JW: We start each summer with goal meetings. We vote for the captains for the next season at the end of the current season and oftentimes the first official duty of the new captains is to schedule and organize our goal meetings in early June. We have separate meetings for the boys and girls teams even though we do most stuff together.  At that meeting we sit around for about an hour and try to have an open conversation about the types of things we want to accomplish. We have a follow up meeting with our kids at our team camp in mid-July. Recently, we've made our goals more about team culture rather than race outcomes and I feel like that is taking the program in a really cool direction. This season we're trying to make our season focus on being selfless in everything we do.

HSH: Is there anyone on your team that you feel is ready to have a breakout year?

JW: I sure hope so, hahaha!  We have had the type of summer that makes a coach really excited about the upcoming season. We have seen a lot of kids running very consistently and so I'm feeling pretty confident that some guys and girls will be stepping up and making a big impact this fall.  I'd love to name some names but I'd probably end up upsetting anyone I did not mention so I better just keep quiet and we will have to wait and see who goes out there and proves themselves this fall!

HSH: What regular season meet are you most looking forward to and why?

JW: The Rim Rock Classic is always one of the highlights of our season. It's a huge meet on the state meet course and in addition to most of the Kansas teams attending, we will also get to see many of the teams from around the heartland and midwest regions. We also get some teams from Colorado and Texas most years. Unfortunately, Kansas has a rule that nobody from outside of 500 miles of our border can attend our events but maybe someday that will change.  In the meantime, this meet is the biggest draw in Kansas every year and I love to get varsity, jv and c-team kids experience on our state meet course so when their time comes, they know the course very well. This year we will also be traveling up to Roy Griak in Minnesota. Usually that meet falls on Rim Rock weekend and we don't go because we don't want to pass up the chance to race on our state meet course but this year the schedule lined up a little different so we'll be going there to get a little preview of the Heartland region. There are so many good teams at Griak and it will be a great mid-season check up on how we're progressing towards our postseason goals. My buddy, Jason Druten of West Torrance, California is bringing his boys to Griak so it will be really fun to hang out with him and go toe to toe with his guys. They were the CIF D3 champs last year and we have a strong bond with their team.

HSH: For us who are not from Kansas, what is the qualifying process for state?

JW: The Kansas qualifying process is about as simple as it gets. For each classification (we have 6 of them in KS) there are four regional meets, geographically separated and the top three teams from each region qualify for state.  Classes 3A, 5A and 6A compete at Rim Rock Farm, one of the nation's most beautiful courses and classes 1A, 2A and 4A compete at the Wamego golf course. Both courses have their share of challenging hills at critical points of the race. Don't let anyone tell you that Kansas doesn't have any hills!

HSH: Do you have a motto or mantra for your program?

JW: We have two and we use them all of the time! Our cultural motto is, "Take care of each other" and our training and racing motto is, "B.A.U.," which simply means, "business as usual."  Both mottos are pretty simple but they both accomplish a great amount of good when people actually live the mottos.  Culturally, we want cross country to be something that everyone enjoys and feels good about. Running is hard and so is high school. Every day is not going to be your best day. We want people to be there for each other and help them get through the tough times. In doing so, we will all make each other better and then we'll have people with us to also celebrate the good times.  When we speak about B.A.U., we're talking about doing things the right way, every day. We want our process to become a habit. If we can accomplish that, then when we get to the postseason we can take a lot of the pressure off by reminding the kids that all they have to do is simply keep doing things the way they always have. There is no pressure to do anything special in the postseason and because of that we tend to run really well because our kids are not pressing to do anything more than usual. Both mottos are lifestyle goals and I think they are very helpful in how we approach things.  

HSH: What component of your program do you think is the biggest factor in the success of your team?

JW: Every coach probably says this but I believe that the biggest factor in our success has to be team culture. Getting the athletes to buy in to what we are trying to accomplish and how we need to go about our business is so important. On top of that, the even bigger factor is easily how much the kids grow to care about each other through the process. When we get a lot of kids sharing in the experience and working together, they develop this unbreakable bond that just seems to work wonders when they get to the toughest part of their races. They want so badly to contribute to the shared success that they'll do anything for each other.  Although only 7 boys and 7 girls get to race at the state meet, we take the entire team to the meet (usually 80-100 kids).  We bus them out to Rim Rock and they cover the course in blue and gold and give us an enormous advantage. Matt Hallauer, one of our assistant coaches, organizes that group to be the best state meet support crew around. He has laminated maps for every kid and details on the best places to cheer and how to navigate the farm so you can get to as many places as possible. We have people cheering for our kids on every step of the course and right now no one else in Kansas can match that. When we finish the state meet, we share that moment with every single kid on our team. Everyone that has worn the blue and gold in competition that year can proudly say that they helped contribute to our success. We wait until the awards ceremony is over and then we put our entire team on the podium. Kids that can't yet break 25 minutes get to stand on the podium and hold the state trophy. That's pretty powerful and I think that kind of experience for a high school cross country runner is priceless.

HSH: What was your biggest learning moment as a coach, pertaining to how you coach or the way you train your athletes?

JW: I can actually pinpoint this moment to the winter of 2011. I had been the head cross country coach for five years and finally decided to do an exact study of how much we were running in the off season. At the time we had not started logging our training yet so after investigating, it turned out that even our most dedicated athletes were only running about 55% of the days in the winter. This came as a big shock to me as I assumed the number would be much higher. So we started logging our training and pushing for greater accountability and consistency. The biggest change we had to make was getting kids to run over the weekends and switch to taking days off only when needed rather than automatically putting them on the calendar every week for no reason at all. This increase in consistency had a huge payoff for us. Starting in 2012, we won five girls team titles and four boys team titles with five girls and three boys individual champions. That winter was an epiphany that has changed our program in a major way. Consistency is the key!

HSH: What steps do you take to ensure your top athletes progress each year?

JW: I think being present and available for all of our athletes all year long is probably the most important thing I can do as a coach. Consistency and accountability are critical to progressing as a runner so if I want the kids to train with any level of consistency then I better show up as well.  For Saint Thomas Aquinas, that means having a regular off season training program for both the summer and the winter, showing up on weekends and coaching track & field in the spring. On top of that, logging our training and keeping an eye on the training logs to make sure each kid is progressing at the proper rate is also important. And finally, just planning sound training progressions for each kid based on age and experience so you can gradually push them more as they get more experience.

HSH: How much volume does your team get during the summer?

JW: We build up very gradually, perhaps too gradually compared to some but by the end of the summer we like to have our upperclassmen in the 50-70 miles per week range. Sophomores could be anywhere from 30-60 depending on the kid and freshmen are all over the place but the really dedicated ones might be in the 30-45 range. All of this, of course, depends greatly on training age and experience of the individuals. Like I said, we're just like every other team so we're also going to have our share of kids that show up on day one that have not run a step all summer.  Managing all these kids is important and you can't just expect any single kid to fit to a broad training scheme.

HSH: What do you feel helps your program buy into the team concept so effectively?

JW: That is a great question. Sometimes I wonder why all of these kids are doing this because it is hard. Cross country is simple, but it is hard. Anyone that thinks cross country is easy is doing it wrong.  My very best guess at what helps kids buy in is simply other kids.  I think that once some kids take that leap of faith with us and then they not only see some success but experience a lot of fun, then they become our best sales-people. They are the ones that go out and convince other kids to do the same. People want to have fun and they want to succeed, those are both basic ideas that appeal to all humans. So if kids see a bunch of kids doing those things, they become intrigued in doing so too, even though it require so much hard work and sacrifice of time and effort.

HSH: I am a freshman joining your cross country program.  What will my training and racing look like this fall?

JW: As a freshman, the top focus of our coaching staff would be to ensure that you are having fun and enjoying the sport. We're going to be real cautious with what we throw at you in terms of volume and intensity. The first thing we'll do when the season starts is analyze your summer and plan out the progression of the season based on what you did or did not do in the summer.  Freshmen typically race every weekend because we want to gain experience at running 5k and because most kids join a team to participate. The freshmen won't take any bye weeks like the varsity kids.  

HSH: What is your favorite workout to have your runners perform and why?

JW: Are you ready for the most boring answer of all time? Because my favorite workout to do with our runners is threshold intervals, or what Jack Daniels calls "cruise intervals."  And this is something we do almost weekly all year long with our distance runners. We create variety by adjusting the length of the intervals but we typically do a total of 20-30 minutes of total volume and always at what Daniels defines as threshold pace. I just feel really good about the adaptation that comes from this level of stress on a consistent basis. Of course, a close runner up would be regular tempo and progressive runs.  We're working really hard at improving our progressive runs and the kids are really starting to enjoy them more now.  We were pretty bad at starting too fast or progressing too much, too soon when we first started doing these runs. Now that the kids have a better handle on the pacing, they really enjoy them and gain a great deal of confidence.

Photo courtesy of Justin Wrigley.

[cinkyara16]

[Driving to France] Episode 9: Moscow meets St. Petersburg, just like the capital meets the capital

Below I will share with you in chronological order, what kind of beauty and magic we have experienced during the 152-day journey, and how we drove from China to France every day. Mileage in this episode: Moscow-Saint Petersburg-Vyborg

Moscow-Saint Petersburg

Our destination city today, Saint Petersburg, is located in northwestern Russia, on the coast of the Baltic Sea, on the Neva River, the central municipality of Russia, the capital of Leningrad Oblast, the central city of Northwestern Russia, and an important water and land transportation hub in Russia. The second largest city, the northernmost city in the world with a population of more than one million, is also known as the northern capital of Russia.

There are 700 kilometers from Moscow to St. Petersburg, of which there is a long section of the express highway, which is one of the few express highways in Russia. The road conditions are good and the street lights are also strong, and the gas station is too big. I couldn't see one in a few hundred kilometers. I recorded two sections of charges: one section costs 450 rubles for 40 kilometers, and another section costs 660 rubles for 345 kilometers.

The service area of the express highway between Moscow and Saint Petersburg is much simpler than our domestic service area. The most important thing is that there is no gas station, which is equivalent to a parking area in the country. Configuration.

There was no gas station even after passing several parking areas. I started to be a little alert. At that time, only half a tank of gas was left. I started to consciously turn off the speaker, lightly step on the accelerator, and glide as much as possible to save fuel. The atmosphere in the car started to change and became a little nervous, and my parents also began to show some anxiety. Everyone was worried about what to do if there was no gas!

In fact, I was also worried. I was even more worried than my parents. It was getting dark at the time. This highway even had an emergency parking zone. When the oil burned out, I was forced to drop anchor at the speed. On the side of the highway, it's dark again, it's really dangerous...but I can't show it, because it will aggravate my parents' anxiety. I can only step on the accelerator quietly and slide as much as possible.

In this way, we glide for 100 kilometers. When the indicator of the fuel gauge has reached the end, another parking area appeared on the side of the road. There was still no gas station, but there were two elderly people smoking and chatting over there. Yu  open  in the past I plan to ask them. It’s maddening. There is no signal in this place. I don’t need a translation app. I don’t speak Russian. I can only rely on gestures.... I pointed to my car’s fuel tank cap and flushed 2 The old man danced and danced, and finally made them understand that I was looking for a gas station. The old man tapped the number 15 on my mobile phone calculator, and pointed his finger in the direction of St. Petersburg. I understand what they mean. There is a gas station 15 kilometers ahead, but they are not sure if I see them. , Due to communication difficulties, I cannot further confirm this information with them.

There is a dilemma in front of me-there may be a gas station if you keep going 15 kilometers, but if you don’t have it, it’s bad. The remaining fuel cap is only enough to support a few kilometers, and it may break down at any time; if Do not move forward, waiting for the passing vehicles to give me some fuel, although there is a safe parking area, but when it gets dark, the variables will be more variable. Thinking about it again, I decided to move on!

This is really suffocating 15 kilometers. When we saw the off-ramp of the express highway, our whole family sighed loosely-until we came out of the fully enclosed express highway, I would ask for gas. Stations and calling for rescue are easy to handle, and mobile phones also have signals. Thank goodness, there is a big gas station on the side of the road just off the ramp. This is nothing short of charcoal! Filled up with oil, we drove to St. Petersburg calmly, recalling the experience in the afternoon, and feeling lingering. I would like to remind all riders: When walking the road from Moscow to St. Petersburg, you must fill up the fuel before going up. When I was going up, I was negligent because I felt that there was still more than half a tank of fuel. , almost made a big mistake. Since this incident, my parents have always reminded me to refuel, even if there is half a tank of oil left, they will feel it, and sometimes I can’t laugh or cry.

It was late when we arrived in the city of St. Petersburg. We quickly found a hotel to stay through Booking and opened 2 standard rooms for 4000 rubles. Because there is no human room and the shop owner refused to let us 3 people share. A standard room, which is common in Europe.

Saint Petersburg-Viborg

Our Russian tourist visa expires at 24:00 on August 23, so we plan to spend most of the day in the retro-style St. Petersburg city today, and then rush to the border between Russia and Finland. City of Vyborg, leaving Russia on the 23rd from Vyborg.

Why is St. Petersburg retro? In fact, relative to Moscow, in addition to the Red Square, the Kremlin, there are also many European contemporary art in Moscow; St. Petersburg is traditional, the Winter Palace, the Summer Palace, the Church on Spilled Blood, etc., the whole city They are full of Russian retro romance. St. Petersburg is most proud of it. Unlike Moscow, it is a "window to Europe". The city embodies the collision and integration of Russian and European cultures, which is similar to the Champs Elysees in France. The wonderful Nevsky Prospekt is a romantic travel destination for couples, and the retro-style European-style buildings winding along both sides of the Neva River seem to take people to Venice and experience the beauty of the city of water.

Therefore, the two cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, are more modern and more retro. The former has a sea-like feel, while the latter has the thick feeling of the old Beijing city!

The architectural style of St. Petersburg is like this, but rather retro.

St. Petersburg was founded in 1703, and the name of the city comes from Saint Peter, a disciple of Jesus. In 1712, Peter the Great moved his capital to Peterborough, and it was the center of Russian culture, politics, and economy for the 200 years until 1918. In 1924, it was renamed Leningrad to commemorate Lenin. In 1991, the original name was restored to St. Petersburg.

There is a Chinese restaurant called Tan Zhen on this street. I found it with TripAdvisor. The face looks like this. I came in and found Chinese tourists. It is estimated that most of the tourist groups came to eat the group meal. I wanted to explain that I was looking for the right place.

When I stand on the bridge and feel the breeze blowing across my face, it really feels like the past is like smoke.

The Neva River has a total length of 74 kilometers, of which 28 kilometers are located within the range of St. Petersburg, and the rest are within the territory of Leningrad Oblast. She flows southwest from Lake Lahga to its southernmost point-where it meets the Tosna River, and then turns northwest to the Gulf of Finland. It is an important navigation channel of the White Sea-Baltic Sea and the Volga-Baltic Sea. If calculated by the river flow alone, the Neva River is the largest river in Europe (after the Volga and the Nau)

Next, we are going to see the Spilled Blood Cathedral in St. Petersburg. After arriving at the cathedral, we first found a large wall outside the cathedral, and the surface can still feel the residual temperature left by the Russian World Cup not long after:

The official Russian name of the Cathedral of the Spilled Blood is the Church of the Resurrection of Christ. It is called the Cathedral of the Spilled Blood because of the attempted assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. The Cathedral of Spilled Blood itself is an architectural boutique, typical Russian Orthodox style, with 7000 square meters of mosaic decoration inside. The designers include Rovanetsov, Matthew Nesterov, Andrei Liabushkin And so on, it took 24 years to build the entire building.

When we were about to leave the church, an interesting incident happened: there were some street performers dressed up in bronze statues in the church square. Among them was a girl with a cute look. So I used the camera to shoot her, but just when I was preparing When I left, the girl chased me and opened her mouth for 200 rubles, and I realized that I had encountered a paid shooter. But looking at the booths of other artists, they all set up obvious signs telling visitors to pay for the filming, but this girl did not set up a sign, so I refused to pay. She also said that I would give 100 rubles. I told her through the translation app: This is not a money issue. I was not prompted to pay when I took the photo. Now I feel that I have been cheated.

She tried to insist on asking for money, but I insisted on not giving it, and did not leave. I was just arguing with her, and finally she gave up. In fact, looking at her pitiful appearance, I also want to give money, but as I said to her, this is not a question of money, only the relevant rules, and the money of Chinese tourists is not so easy to cheat. .

Next, we will go to the Winter Palace, the most famous Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.

The Hermitage Museum, the main part of which is known as the "Hermitage", is a well-deserved cultural and artistic treasure of Russia, comparable to Britain and the Louvre. In addition to the works of great Russian masters of art, the Winter Palace also houses paintings by Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, and Caravaggio that also take the elegant route. In the Golden House of the Treasure Museum, travelers can also See gold and silver jewelry made by ancient Greek and Eastern craftsmen. The most precious exhibit in the museum is the "Peacock Clock", which was a gift received by King Catherine II in the 18th century. The most amazing thing about the peacock clock is that every hour on the hour, the peacock will automatically "turn on". Screen" tells the time.

Some people say that my dad doesn’t look like a 70-year-old, maybe because he has a better mentality in his life, plus the trendy look I created for him this time.

The summer residence faces the Gulf of Finland and consists of beautiful fountains, parks, and palaces. The victory of the Great Northern War that year greatly satisfied the ambitions of Emperor Peter, and in order to demonstrate Russia’s status as a veritable “great power”, Emperor Peter needed to build a palace to match it—this is it. The Summer Palace, later experienced by the czars, carved and polished it step by step, making it more beautiful and charming. In World War II, it was destroyed by the German army and was later restored, and it was listed as the "World Heritage List" by UNESCO.

Okay, this update will write this first. On the night after visiting St. Petersburg, we drove 100 kilometers to the city of Vyborg on the border between Russia and Finland. In the next episode, we will leave Russia and enter Finland. Officially enter the European Schengen area! Just think about it, I’m excited, but at the same time, I’ve also felt uneasy and worried. I’ve never entered the Schengen area before. This is my first time and I’m driving by myself. I don’t know if all the procedures I prepared in advance are complete or not. Finnish customs and border inspection will let us know what kind of customs clearance process.

[j0sgomez-blog]

By Michael Lanza

The heat presses in from all sides as we hike down the Bill Hall Trail off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The overhead sun feels as if it has expanded to a supernova threatening to engulf the planet. The rocks radiate waves of heat up at us; I wonder if they might actually reach egg-frying temperature today. Even the air seems to be rising to a boil like a vast kettle on a stove. We hike cautiously over broken stones that slide underfoot, leaning out onto our trekking poles for the two- and three-foot ledge drops on this path—which appears better suited to bighorn sheep than to bipedal primates hauling backpacks weighed down with gear, food, and a surplus of a rare element out here: water.

It’s not even 9 a.m. at around 7,000 feet in the second week of May, and the forecast for the bottom of the canyon—where we are headed—calls for highs in the 90s over the coming days. In other words, we must remind ourselves that these are the coolest hours of the day, and we should try to enjoy them because this respite from the heat—however much it may not feel like a respite—won’t last long.

Three friends—Todd Arndt, Chip Roser, and Jeff Wilhelm—and I have set out on a four-day backpacking trip on the 25-mile Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop off the Grand Canyon’s North Rim. We’ve come in mid-May hoping to get lucky with the temperatures during one of the two brief seasonal windows for taking this trip. And it turns out we did get lucky in that the trailhead access road only became free of snow and passable days ago; had we planned dates much earlier, we might have been shut out. (Autumn often has a slightly longer ideal window for backpacking this loop. See my trip-planning tips in the Take This Trip section at the bottom of this story.)

Chip Roser on the higher Tapeats Creek Trail in the Grand Canyon.

When reserving a backcountry permit months in advance, it’s a roll of the dice to guess which dates in spring will reward you with snow-free roads and lower-than-supernova temps. While the recent heat wave melted away the last snow and dried out the roads on the North Rim, it unfortunately also transformed the inner canyon into the inferno it normally becomes from late May well into September—when this environment shows its true face as a place hospitable to lizards, snakes, and scorpions, but not so much to humans.

The Grand Canyon doesn’t just get hot, it gets really hot.

But our circumstances can certainly be viewed as a water bladder half full rather than half-empty. While the higher stretches of the Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop pass through parched, waterless desert—the reason we are each hauling three liters or more of water now—the lower sections that form the roundish part of this lollipop loop we’re hiking have an unusual abundance of water in fast-moving, perennial streams.

  Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside, which has made several top outdoors blog lists. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip. Please follow my adventures on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube.

  Todd Arndt backpacking the Granite Narrows route in the Grand Canyon.

In fact, the two creeks and one river (in addition to the Colorado River) that we will hike along pour over some of the Big Ditch’s prettiest waterfalls, course through spectacular narrows, and nurture oases of trees and vegetation. That’s why the Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop has become a prized destination for in-the-know backpackers and river rats. Plus, even though the upper parts of the loop are dry, the vistas are the biggest of the hike, revealing the Grand Canyon’s majestic breadth and depth.

And while most of the route’s mileage offers no more shade than you can find under a prickly-pear cactus, there are pockets of shelter from the sun beneath trees along the creeks. We can hunker down like native desert fauna through the incinerating heat of the middle hours of each day, while hiking in the cooler early mornings and evenings.

We came here with a clear-eyed understanding that this hike from the North Rim down a vertical mile to the Colorado and back up again, on often-rugged trails, in heat that pushes the edges of human tolerance, will be really tough. But in compensation for that suffering, we’ll explore one of the more unique corners of the Grand Canyon.

All we have to do is survive it.

Read about how climate change is affecting the Grand Canyon and other parks in my book Before They’re Gone—A Family’s Year-Long Quest to Explore America’s Most Endangered National Parks.

Thunder River

After hours of perspiring copiously while hiking downhill, the incongruous sight of the Thunder River can make your stewed brain suspect it’s a mirage.

By early that first afternoon, we’ve dropped nearly 4,000 feet from the Monument Point-Bill Hall Trailhead. We traversed the Esplanade—a broad plateau of slickrock, massive boulders, and sand at around 5,000 feet, with long views of the canyon—and descended off that plateau on a double-black-diamond-steep portion of the Thunder River Trail, occasionally surfing the smashed dinner-plate stones that comprise it. Then we crossed the starkly barren and absolutely-devoid-of-shade Surprise Valley in skull-baking heat. Only the wind, ash-hot but mercifully strong, makes the steadily rising temperature barely tolerable.

Now, standing the edge of Surprise Valley, we’re looking down at today’s third long, knee-pounding descent through countless switchbacks over loose and rocky ground on a steep canyon slope. Hundreds of feet below us, a lushly green oasis of tall trees stands out against the landscape of cliffs and dirt in shades of ochre and brown. Immediately above this tiny but spirit-lifting soul patch of forest, a roaring, spring-fed waterfall erupts from the middle of a cliff face: the origin of the Thunder River.

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In one sense, the Thunder River isn’t much of a river: From that waterfall at its source, it only flows about a half-mile, although it drops some 1,200 feet in a continuous cascade to its confluence with Tapeats Creek. One of the shortest rivers in the country, it’s also certainly one of the few rivers that’s a tributary of a creek.

But the sheer volume of water gushing from the cliff makes it one of the most dramatic tributaries along the Colorado River’s entire 277-mile length through the Grand Canyon. Unlike most rivers that begin as trickles and streamlets coming together, it leaps from its headwaters birthplace fully formed. Naturally, it’s a great spot to escape the heat. In the shade of the trees and the mist below the waterfall, it feels about 25 degrees cooler. We lounge in the water and beside it for an hour or more. Not surprisingly, in the time we’re there, several parties of river rafters arrive, having walked a couple miles up the Tapeats Creek Trail from the Colorado River to see this waterfall.

We reach a designated campsite in the Upper Tapeats camping area on Tapeats Creek around 3 p.m., in the full-on blacksmith’s forge heat of the day—it’s probably in the mid-90s. We’ve hiked nine horizontal miles and almost a vertical mile downhill, somehow also accumulating over 800 feet of elevation gain over the course of the descent from the North Rim. Although we’ve all completed days of hiking that were three to five times that distance, the fatigue of the heat, the rugged terrain, and the equivalent of walking down well over 400 flights of stairs carrying a pack—if those stairs were intermittently built of loose stones ready to tumble with each step—has left us all feeling physically spent far beyond what we’d expect.

Plan your next great backpacking trip in Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, or other parks using my expert e-guides.

Jeff Wilhelm on the Tapeats Creek Trail, Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop, Grand Canyon.

The almost inevitable dehydration resulting from hard exertion in that kind of heat certainly contributes to the physiological toll: We’re all guzzling water in camp to refill our tanks. Chip and I will both go hours before peeing again.

Of the two campsites at Upper Tapeats, the one slightly upstream is larger, but the downstream one has shade sooner and plenty of space, and sits right on the creek; both are empty, so we grab the lower. While walking between them and the creek for a matter of minutes, I make the egregious error of leaving the top of my backpack not securely closed, and return to find Jeff saying he caught two ravens pulling food from my pack. I assess the damage: a bag of bars torn open, and another bag of the pita bread that was to be part of my lunch every day shredded, with its contents torn up in the dirt or gone. A little while later, as I’m still cursing them, we see one of the ravens fly overhead with a chunk of pita in its mouth.

As dusk dims toward night, bats emerge, making jet-fighter aerial maneuvers overhead, somehow throwing together a meal from the meager offerings of insects in the desert. The steady drone of Tapeats Creek gifts me with a night of coma-like sleep.

Tapeats Creek

In the morning, Todd emerges from his sleeping bag after spending the night out under the stars instead of in one of the tents, and tells me he didn’t sleep well; mice and other small critters kept darting over him, startling him awake. “I may have to rethink the tent thing tonight,” he says.

Today, we have to hike only two miles from Upper Tapeats to the Lower Tapeats camping area, where the creek spills into the Colorado River. Knowing there’s no shade down there, we decide to find shade to hide out in for most of the day. After the sun hits our campsite shortly after 9 a.m.—instantly jacking the temp up about 10 degrees, from pleasant to “time to go”—we start hiking, passing through sprawling, beautiful prickly-pear cacti gardens, with flowers in bloom, on the canyon bottom before the trail climbs up the canyon wall.

While stepping carefully along that narrow goat path, with a potential hundred-foot plunge below my left elbow, I glance down to see a bighorn sheep, with a full curl to its horns, leisurely sauntering through the sparse scrubland along the creek below me.

The trail descends again, and we find a sandstone ledge beside Tapeats Creek with a four-foot wall that casts a strip of all-day shade just wide enough for all of us to lie down on pads. And there we pass the next several hours reading, talking, eating, and chugging water.

I can help you plan this or any other trip you read about at my blog. Find out more here.

. . .

[marijanafwspickardttp89insu-blog]

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[jaysviewpoint]

Sunday noon July 8, 2018 In route from Ottawa, Ontario to Sherbrooke, Quebec.

BACKSIDE

May backside benefits from my endurance gene. But even my backside appreciates a break after three to four hours in the saddle, which is the time it takes to run through a tank of gas, depending on mileage.

Departing North Bay at 8:45, by 12:15 I need gas - just fifteen miles before Ottawa. Got gas, a bite to eat, made notes for the blog, and rested.

MIND

Traffic was light this morning. Not much on my mind.

“What fun it can be to wait emptily and listen to my mind - uncluttered and left alone to it’s unbridled space and device.” (Jay Eaton, AK blog.)

Turns out, however, my mind was working overtime Sunday sorting out my experiences the first two days of this ride. (They are discussed in my earlier Sunday July 18 ‘eve post.)

TRAFFIC

Traffic gets heavier throughout this morning.

I begin seeing quite a few motorcycles on the road, the closer to Ottawa the more. But none ride east of my gas stop toward Ottawa.

After my gas stop, within two miles heading east into Ottawa I learn why. Hwy 417 expands from two to four and five lanes each direction. It’s like rolling up I-35 and I-80 around Des Moines and unrolling them right on top of I-235 through city center - but in a city of 1 million people!

I’m really glad the solid sea of bumper-to-bumpers do not actually “stop and go!” Braking to a stop, foot down, ballancing, foot up, ballancing again to roll and accelerate - just to break and do it all over again - is not fun, particularly in Ottawa’s steamy 93 degree heat.

For many miles my speed is a very vigilant four to ten mph brake lights ahead flashing cars and trucks darting without warning back and forth seeking faster lanes. I’m glad this is not rush hour on a week day!

Although 417 reduces to two lanes (each way) outside Ottawa and on to Montreal, the traffic remains much worse than moderate.

OUCH

By the end of Friday, sore stiffness sets into the top of my left shoulder approaching the base of my neck.

After riding Ottawa, I know a sharp serrated knife is stabbing and twisting in there.

As my father-in-law Hap Miller said to our football team my junior year of high school the first week he took over as head coach and saw us perform drills during practice - “back to the fundamentals!”

Relax - no muscle tension.

Elbows softly bent and low - not stiff.

Feather-light touch of fingers on hand grips - no death grip.

Voila - amazingly no more pain!

I’m now physically “adjusted” for this ride.

DETOURS

The last time I detoured riding was three years ago. Two hours spiraling south through rough rain and constant construction deep in the spine of the Canadian Rockies into the evening to Revelstoke, British Columbia - instead of riding north, from the exit sign we missed, pointing to our destinations Lake Louise and Jasper, Alberta. Sipping a hot cup of coffee from a chilled hand at Tim Hortons in Revelstoke searching for a campground was no consolation!

Today is my next detour.

Northbound out of Montreal to Quebec City, more than half an hour past where eastbound Hwy 10 from Montreal to Sherbrooke should have been I pull over to check the map and figure out how to get back on track to Sherbrooke before nightfall.

The attendant I ask for help looks confused? “Hwy 10 E is just up the road three miles.”

Yahoo!! No detour today after all. Big smile!

I arrive Sherbrooke at at 7:15. Ten and one-half hours and 459 miles.

TRAFFIC AGAIN

Divided four-lane Hwy 10 eastbound from Montreal to Sherbrooke still carries lots of traffic Sunday late afternoon. But nothing like the westbound traffic returning to Montreal. Stand-still backed up for several miles in several locations! So thick I could barely see through it. As if skiiers were flocking to three feet of new powder on the slopes for New Year’s weekend.

WEATHER

Most of my rides are west of IA. Weather is a common topic for them. Variable and sometimes extreme weather is common; and it adds dynamic dimension and risk to riding.

However, in the west traffic is not a significant problem.

I haven’t mentioned weather yet this trip. But traffic is a constant theme.

I’m wondering if that’s because there is so much more traffic in the east? Drat - if that’s so, it’s only going to get worse! C’est la vie.

Between the two, I’ll take weather any day!

REGARDLESS

My patience fixed, my daily destinations recalculated and my shoulder adjusted - three day’s in and I’m now ready for this ride!

Imagine!

[brendamariesmith]

Frozen Car and Other Musings

So here’s a crazy story for you about the love between mothers and sons and the lingering power of addiction. Normally I write fiction, but this is 100% true, though since it happened to me, my narration may not be 100% reliable.

My son, JD, is an auto mechanic, a green mechanic offering biodegradable motor oil and so much more, but this is beside the point. JD has been living in a mobile home (known in these parts as a trailer house) on a piece of land out west of Austin, Texas. The land is owned by a friend of JD’s named Jacob and his parents. There are two homes on the land and a couple of trailers. JD was very grateful to Jacob for giving him a good deal on the rent. JD was working on Jacob’s car, and it was taking a long time, due to parts orders and I don’t know what all. JD was fresh out of loaner cars, so he asked me if I would rent my car to Jacob at $120 for six days.

Well, I wasn’t crazy about the idea, but I needed the money, and I wanted to help JD out because he’s a good son who does me favors all the time, like keeping our cars running and buying me organic food. I said I would do the deal, and Jacob came to pick up my car. He seemed like a nice enough guy – maybe a little forced in his niceness. Something made me wonder about him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. We signed a simple little agreement that said he’d have the car back to me by Valentine’s Day morning (because I had a doctor’s appointment that afternoon), he gave me $120 cash, and he said he would bring the car back washed with a full tank and an oil change. I thought that was a decent deal. He even asked if he could hug me, to which I said yes, somewhat awkwardly.

A little background: I am partly disabled and don’t use my car that much, but I do need it for doctor visits and for errands, which consist of driving through places in my neighborhood like the bank, the pharmacy, and fast food joints (I would go for healthier food if I could drive through to get it, but I don’t know of such a place anywhere near my house). I have loaned my car out to my sons for years, sometimes for months at a time, as long as they do errands for me and drive me places when I need it. So loaning out my car didn’t seem like a huge thing. Of course, that evening when I told my husband Doug what I’d done, he said, “Well, it’s your deal, not mine, since you didn’t ask me.” Cue the foreboding music.

Valentine’s Day morning arrives. I get ready for my doctor appointment and decide to call Jacob to see when he’ll be returning the car. He doesn’t answer his phone. After waiting a while and calling some more, I call JD. He says he has already tried to call Jacob and is getting worried that something is wrong. So JD leaves work and comes over to take me to the doctor and do my errands. Meanwhile, I get sick to my stomach and decide to cancel the doctor appointment. JD does my errands, then he calls Jacob’s mom. He walks away from me to talk to her, and I hear him using a hushed voice, saying “Uh-huh” and “I see” and “I’ll call you back.” This doesn’t seem good.

Sure enough, Jacob has been arrested and is in jail, in – wait for it – freaking Wisconsin! That is 1,200 miles away. Not only that, he has been arrested on felony charges in Texas and is being extradited back here, leaving my car behind. Now JD figures it would be a good time to tell me that Jacob is a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for five years but may have gone on a bender, and he sometimes does “stupid shit.” He had been in an “argument” with his “baby-mama,” she had supposedly pushed him and he had allegedly pushed back. A likely story. There is something about breaking and entering involved in his charges, too. What the fuck?!

Jacob’s mom, Lisa, doesn’t know where the car is parked, only that it’s at someone’s house. I’m picturing a crowded city street where my car is likely to get vandalized, stolen, or towed. Lisa doesn’t even know what jail Jacob is in, but she thinks it is around Madison in a county that starts with “Wau,” which is hilarious (not) because every third county in Wisconsin starts with Wau.

When Doug comes home from work that night, I say I have something bad to tell him but I want to wait a day so it won’t spoil Valentine’s. He says okay with a droll grin on his face, and he goes upstairs to change clothes. When he comes back down, he says, “Where’s your car? Does it have anything to do with what you don’t want to tell me?” And so I tell him. How could I not? Doug is so sweet that I can’t hide things from him. He doesn’t get mad at me, he just commiserates. I need that. We have five grown sons. We are accustomed to stupid shit.

I realize it’s up to me to find my damned car, my seventeen-year-old, powder-blue Nissan Maxima that I have babied and kept legal and insured, that still gets amazing gas mileage, and that needs a paint job, new tires, and a noise fixed in the front end. My car that I bought to travel to Oklahoma 32 times in two years in 2000 & 2001 when my parents were ill and dying. My car that I paid for twice because I leased it for three years before I bought it over another five. My car that has yet another lien on it because I put it up for collateral in a family business that failed, the car that could get repo’d any day but so far hasn’t. (The lender has made no efforts to collect the company debt – a mystery that I am happy to keep mysterious.) My comfortable car that I haven’t taken out of the state in a decade and that has only been as far as Houston and back a couple of times in recent years. My car that I can’t even afford to paint, much less replace.

I get online and find a map of Wisconsin counties. I find two that start with Wau around Madison. I call their jails, no Jacob. I call the county where Madison is, even though it doesn’t start with Wau, but still no luck. I call Jacob’s mom and ask her to please find out from Jacob, next time she gets a call from him, where exactly my car is, but she isn’t getting to talk to him every day. Plus he doesn’t know much since he has no phone and apparently no memory either. I go back online and am looking at a road map of Wisconsin, trying to see how JD will go when he drives my car back home, because he is going to drive my car home, oh yes he is.

It’s now been two days. While studying the Wisconsin map, I see a Wau county next to Milwaukee. I google their jail, and this one actually lists the names online of people they have in custody. And there he is, Jacob Blankety-Blank, the stupid-shit-doing son of a bitch. I call the jail. They are very nice to me, but they have a policy against relaying messages to inmates, so they won’t ask him where my car is. They do tell me he was not arrested with car keys or a wallet, though. I guess the lady feels sorry for me, so she offers to transfer me to the little town police department that arrested Jacob. I tell them the whole story all over again. The receptionist takes it down in great detail and says she will ask the arresting officer to call me back.

Meanwhile, although JD may or may not have known it, I have made him my bitch. I’m not sure, but I may have invented errands for him to run for me. I talk to Lisa about money to get JD to Wisconsin, but, although she is nice and as apologetic as can be, she has no money. In fact, Jacob has been paying the mortgage on their land because she and her husband are out of work, or only have work part-time, or some very sad story that I don’t fully absorb because my mind shuts down when she says they have no money to help us. They are worse off than I am.  That’s all I really catch.

 A police officer from the town of Occo-fucking-something-or-other calls me back. “Ma’am,” he says, “did you know you were loaning your car to a felon?” “No,” I say, after I smack myself in the head. The cop tells me a story of Jacob and his friends coming to Milwaukee for an annual Rave. They were stoned out of their minds and bothering the neighbors where they were staying. The cops calmed them down and departed, but returned to arrest Jacob after they ran a check on him and found his felony warrants. The cop says he knows where my car is, but he can’t tell me without permission from the people who have the car. I’m thinking drugged-out people who may not have even noticed my car, or mean-assed neighbors who had the car towed. I’m thinking slashed tires and smashed windows. I’m wondering if my car is now in Mexico or Canada or Timbuktu. I’m thinking of abandoning my beloved car.

But the cop, who has been a bit snarky so far, throws me for a loop when he says, “Tell you what. I’ll go by to see the people who have the car, and I’ll ask them to call you.” I don’t know how many times I say “Thank you!” but it is a lot.

I figure it might be days (or never) before I hear back, but that evening I get a call from Wisconsin. It’s a woman named Karen who says my car is fine, and that I can leave it there until JD comes to get it. “The policeman told me I didn’t have to call you back,” she says, “but I thought I’d call. And now that I realize you’re someone’s mom, I’m glad I did.” I thank Karen until I have no Thank-you’s left in me, and I promise to call her back. This is around February 17th.

I call JD, super-excited and ready to book him a flight. I tell him that Jacob’s mom Lisa offered to find a cheap flight because she claimed to be good at that.

“I want to drive,” JD says.

 “What the hell? That will take two days. And then you’ll have to get two cars home.”

“I’ll find someone to go with me. Flying is bad for the environment.” Evidently, so is loaning out your car to people you don’t know, to people who do stupid shit. “I can’t go for a few days because I have work to do,” he says. I get it because he is self-employed, but he caused this mess and I want him to fix it, like, Now!

“If you don’t have time to go, then you should definitely fly,” I say, and he says he’ll see what he can work out. He has no dinero either, but thinks he’ll get some from the jobs he is doing.

I wait for a day, then I start texting JD, asking him when and how he’s going to Wisconsin. I throw in a few more errands for him to run while I’m at it. He says he’s leaving for a trip to Mexico in less than a week. It’s a trip he’s already paid for, and he can’t get his money back. He’ll be gone for a week, and he can’t go get my car until a few days after he gets back. I am pissed. I think he should drop everything and go get my bleeping car.

But like a good passive-aggressive mother, I seethe inside while I arrange things with Karen to keep my car for two or three more weeks. I tell JD he has to loan me his car while he’s gone. “My car broke down, and I’m not gonna fix it,” he says. “I’m giving it back to the dealer.” This is his Chevy Volt electric car that cost a small fortune, and he’s giving it back?! I am beyond confused.

“You need to loan me another car then,” I say. JD says okay and describes three possible cars. They all sound huge and impossible to get in and out of, much less to drive. I pick the one that sounds the smallest. A day or so later, he brings me an old, smallish Subaru wagon with a reasonable paint job. “It looks legal, but don’t get stopped. That registration sticker is from another car.” Great, I think, but I’m so happy to have a car that actually fits me (I am short and very fat), that I start talking about trading my Maxima for the Subaru, or leaving the Maxima in Wisconsin since it will be so expensive to get it back. I may have been suffering from Stockholm Syndrome or something like it.

Karen in Wisconsin tells me the keys to the car are inside it under the seat. She lives in the country, “down a driveway that’s a mile long.” I ask her if she’s up to it, will she please bring the keys into her house. She is very ill, she says, from terminal cancer. She just moved to Wisconsin and doesn’t know her neighbors. She says her nephew and Jacob were partying at her house and she returned to a home surrounded by cop cars. She lives on a lake. Jacob and friends had gone out on the icy lake, wrecked on God knows what, and Jacob returned to the wrong house and tried to get in. These neighbors have a teenage daughter and were scared, so they called the cops. The mistaken house story sounds leaky to me, given Jacob’s breaking and entering charges in Texas. It could have happened, just like he could have stayed in Texas with my god-forsaken car.

JD goes to Mexico. I drive the Subaru and discover it’s not such a great car after all. It wanders on the road into other lanes. The cup holders are a joke. The A/C fan squeals so loudly that I have to turn it off in drive-thru lines, which are the only places I go. Luckily it’s not too hot yet. Thank the lord for small favors.

Jacob’s mom Lisa wants Karen’s phone number. She seems to have a mistaken idea that Jacob knew Karen before. Lisa says Jacob left his wallet up there, and it should have enough money to pay us back for JD’s plane ticket. But I can’t give Lisa Karen’s number without permission. Plus I start thinking that if Karen knows there’s money in the wallet, she might just take it for a storage fee, and who could blame her? Or Karen’s nephew, who sounds like a dumbass himself, might take the money. I stall on calling Karen for Lisa. Also, Jacob is already back in Texas. It doesn’t seem fair, even though he is in jail.

JD’s one week trip to Mexico turns into ten days. Before he returns home, I get a call from a long-time friend of mine, who is about eight years younger than I am. She tells me she went to Mexico with JD. They’d been seeing each other since September but were afraid to tell me. I don’t get it – why would they be afraid to tell me, a woman who had a couple of young boyfriends when she was forty? The intimidating mystique of motherhood. “Are you mad at me?” my friend asks. “Hell no,” I say. “My sons have already lost me a couple of old friends. They can’t have any more of them! But let’s not talk about it anymore, okay?” I didn’t want that picture in my head. Anyway, JD and my friend broke up, had a fight, and she left Mexico early, so why worry, right? (Says me, the woman with bigger fish to fry, like a car held hostage in the frozen tundra and a mad-man for a President. And the Great Barrier Reef being dead. And my stomach being entirely too volatile these days.) Oh, and by the way, the registration sticker on the Subaru belongs to my friend.

Finally JD comes back from Mexico and comes straight to my house before he even goes home. Lisa finds us a cheap flight, and we book it for JD to fly from Austin to Milwaukee two days later. JD has a dog, a pit bull rescue who is sweet but highly excitable. JD had left the dog with a friend while he was in Mexico, and the dog had “an incident,” the details of which are unclear. He is now in “doggie jail” for the next two weeks. Sad but ironically convenient for JD to leave town again. Poor dog.

Lisa reminds us that there’s money in Jacob’s wallet, which she now knows is in the car along with his other belongings. Since I used almost all the money I had for the plane fare and JD didn’t have any money after going to Mexico, I tell Lisa that JD needs money for the drive back. She says if the wallet has enough cash, JD can use it for the drive. But her heart is sinking, I can hear it in her voice. JD will have to move so Lisa can get the trailers off her land. They are illegally tapped into her septic system. She has to rent out Jacob’s house to help pay the mortgage without income from Jacob. She needs money for his lawyer. She is sweet and sad about her son fucking up so much. “I didn’t raise him to be this way,” she says. “I know you didn’t,” say I. Heart-breaking. The next morning I call Karen to tell her that JD is coming early Saturday afternoon.

Friday night JD comes by to get the extra set of car keys, Karen’s phone number, and directions to her house, which is a long, $100 cab ride from the Milwaukee airport. I also give him phone numbers for family who live along the way back. I’m worried sick about him driving so far alone, but he says he has friends he plans to visit in Illinois and Missouri and Oklahoma and will take his time coming back. He has $400 for the trip. It could be enough IF nothing goes wrong.

Saturday morning, March 4th, JD’s already in St. Louis to change planes. We send each other a string of Facebook messages. I call Karen. Good thing I did. She thought he was coming on Sunday, I don’t know why. Pain meds, I’m guessing. JD lands in Milwaukee just before one p.m. Karen calls to say she’s going out but will leave the keys in the car. Next thing I know, I have a new Facebook message with a picture of my car. It looks beautiful! (Mostly because the shot is a side view, and all the peeled paint on the hood and roof of the car can’t be seen, but still it’s beautiful!)

There’s a second photo of snow on the ground in the woods with the infamous lake in the background. The car’s tires are low from the cold, and Karen isn’t home. Luckily the car had enough coolant/antifreeze to keep the block from cracking. Been there, done that. Not fun. JD says the wallet is in the car, and there’s enough money for the plane and the drive. Will wonders never cease? JD takes the car to buy Karen a plant for a thank-you gift and to air up the tires. Karen is there when JD returns. He gives her the plant and a big hug. He feels like he made her day.

JD takes three days to drive home, visiting friends and my brother and his family on the way. It’s like pulling teeth to get JD to communicate with me. He takes one more day to gas and clean my car, to change the oil, and to investigate the front end noise that has grown much louder. My car is a thousand times better to drive than that illegal Subaru. It sits low to the ground, like me. It has sturdy cup holders and an A/C fan that doesn’t squeal (a special blessing since it’s hot now). And it stays in its own lane.

I get my car back on March 9th, one month and one day after I “rented” it to Jacob. Better yet, I’ve got my son back too. It was a bit of wicked fun to have a personal bitch for a while, but there’s nothing better than a loving son. And JD knew it was his responsibility too, so he didn’t bitch much about being my bitch. He took care of me willingly, and for that I am hugely grateful. Whatever stupid shit he may do, it won’t be as stupid as poor Jacob.

No telling when Jacob will get out of jail. I calculate that he owes me at least a thousand dollars just for the mileage he put on my car. Not sure what’s a fair price for stealing my car and the weeks he took off my life. JD says Jacob is a stand-up guy. He does stupid shit, but he will pay me back. I’m not holding my breath, but I will not forget either.

Jacob and his family are the real tragedy here. Addictions never go away, they only get held in check sometimes. After the cost of the plane trip, the drive, two motels, cab fare, food, and the plant gift, there was $11.00 left. I kept it out of principle. At least we got our money back. What remains to be seen is whether or not Jacob and his family will get their lives back. Let us hope so. That stupid thirty-year-old kid. Argh!!

And me? My stomach has calmed way down, knock on wood. In fact, I’m feeling so frisky that I might just venture out solo to the drive-thru liquor store on the opposite side of Austin. Got to stretch my horizons. I might even save up to paint my sweet old ride, if it doesn’t get repo’d first.

[mrjoshuabishop-blog]

NA LCS: The fall of FlyQuest

In my Week 4 rundown of the North American League Championship Series (NA LCS), I argued that the veteran team, FlyQuest, was the worst team in the league. After some generous feedback on Reddit (thank you, Reddit!), I’ve decided to dive back into the writing to see what the numbers truly reveal about FlyQuest’s nightmarish summer slump.

I will mainly be using these incredibly detailed stats found right here at OraclesElixir. If you’d like to follow along with me or take a view at why your favorite team is doing well, why your team isn’t playing up to par, or just to take a look at who the league leaders are, feel free to click the link and see the numbers for yourself! So, without further ado, let’s take a deeper look at the numbers!

We’ll start with the simple numbers: Kills, deaths, and assists. These are numbers that we can equate to acting like yards and touchdowns in the NFL, points scored in the NBA, number of hits at-bat in the MLB, and so on and so forth. Why? Because these numbers, while a strong reflection of individual performance, may not directly correlate with a team’s success. A team’s success in League of Legends goes much further than who’s got the best KDA – a sentiment I’m sure fellow solo queue players can share in contrast to the LCS.

Player [Position]: Kills (Rank by lane position)/Deaths (Rank by lane position)/Assists (Rank by lane position) / KDA (Rank by lane position)

Balls [Top]: 43 (5th) / 70 (1st) / 86 (8th) / 1.8 (11th)

Moon [Jungle]: 44 (7th) / 63 (2nd) / 106 (6th) / 2.4 (11th)

Hai [Mid]: 61 (8th) / 74 (1st) / 88 (7th) / 2.0 (11th)

WildTurtle [AD Carry]: 53 (8th) / 60 (1st) / 79 (8th) / 2.3 (10th)

LemonNation [Support]: 20 (2nd) / 66 (3rd) / 108 (8th) / 1.9 (12th)

Total combined K/D ranked amongst all 10 NA LCS teams: 221 (8th) / 333 (1st) / 0.66 (10th)

The first thing you’ll see right off the bat is that FlyQuest are getting killed a LOT. Some of this can be from overly aggressive playcalls that don’t work out in FlyQuest’s favor (such as this botched fight around the 12:50 – 13:00 in-game time in FlyQuest’s third game against Team Envy from Sunday) while some of this can be from poor decision making or ill-advised rotations. Does this mean FlyQuest need to be more passive to insure more success? No, not exactly. Counter Logic Gaming has been one of the most aggressive teams in the league this split, ranking first in total kills and second in total deaths, and are currently tied for 2nd place with Team Solo Mid at 6-2. But in the linked clip above, you’ll see that FlyQuest had a great play in mind that looked solid on paper. If Renekton’s Slice and Dice is unavailable, Ziggs secures the kill thanks to Jarvan IV’s well-timed Cataclysm. If this happens, Ziggs can logically move in to continue raining damage down on Varus and Braum. Instead, Renekton simply E’s out of the pit and moves in to stun and kill Ziggs, a sitting duck by the time Lee Sin joins the fight. From that point, it all goes downhill for FlyQuest. (By the way, if the NA coaches haven’t figured it out by now, let this game against FlyQuest be the defining example why you don’t allow Lira to play Lee Sin.)

If the play worked out as intended, FlyQuest probably continues the momentum to a 2-1 victory and we’re potentially gearing up for a competitive second half of summer split. Instead, we’re wondering what in the world happened to this promising squad and why everything has gone so wrong so soon.

So, we know FlyQuest is dying a lot and aren’t racking up a lot of kills. If you went off these numbers, FlyQuest individually are among the worst in the league at their positions. But there’s more to the game than who’s dying and who’s doing the killing. After all, high-level League of Legends isn’t anything close to Call of Duty, so there’s definitely more to this than meets the eye here. To take a deeper dive into the players individually, we’ll have to break down more of their advanced stats, such as DPM (Damage Per Minute), GD10(Gold Difference at 10:00), and DMG% (Damage Share – how much percentage of the team’s total damage is one player is responsible for?). There’s a vast amount of information to run through here, so I’ll pick a few things that catch my eye and expand my view on what I think they say about the player.

Let’s start with FlyQuest’s top lane. A sentiment I shared with Aidan “Zirene” Moon during yesterday’s LCS broadcast was that An “Balls” Le has been FlyQuest’s most consistent player. I personally argued that Balls has earned more mileage on that front. That suggestion looks reasonable on paper when taking his spring numbers into account, especially given that his champion pool mainly consisted of tanks such as Maokai, Nautilus, and Shen. The spring numbers show that although Balls is far from the player he was in years past, he still turned out to be a serviceable, if unspectacular, top laner. This would only be a problem if FlyQuest were deliberately trying to funnel resources into Balls and relying on him to carry games, but his GOLD% (Average share of team gold), EGPM (Earned Gold Per Minute), and DMG% were among the lowest during spring – which should be expected from someone who played a majority of top lane tanks.

So what’s the problem in summer? A quick look at Balls’s current champions played in summer shows mostly carries or bruisers, and only one of those champions – his signature Rumble – has something resembling passable numbers. Perhaps the meta doesn’t suit Balls’s strength as a tank player. But it certainly doesn’t help FlyQuest’s dire situation. Balls is in the bottom five for DPM (363) and has the worst DMG% (18.7%). Even worse is that Balls is regularly down in gold with the worst EGPM (226.1) and the worst GD10 (-199), meaning he is in no position to help his team carry out of the top lane. Maybe the simple solution is to put Balls back on low-economy tanks and only require him to pick the odd carry once in a blue moon. But would this really fix FlyQuest’s problem at its source or make things worse? Put yourself in the coach’s shoes and think to yourself: “Do I stand to benefit from limiting Balls’s champion pool? Maybe so, but wouldn’t teams just ban out the meta tanks and force me to put Balls on a carry? Haven’t I seen this happen before at the first Mid-Season Invitational when teams pulled this exact strategy against Team Solo Mid during Dyrus’s final season? If not, who steps up for the team?”

Well, why don’t we judge by the numbers?

You may think Hai Lam is past his prime and should rightly sit as one of the worst mid laners in the NA LCS. What you’d be surprised to see is that Hai is actually very capable of handling himself against the stacked competition. Currently, Hai is in the top five for DPM (543), DMG% (28.9), GD10 (-16), GOLD% (24), and first blood rate (21). And he’s doing all of this while having the fourth lowest EGPM (255.2). When cross-referencing those numbers with his total K/D/A on the split, maybe Hai’s just been unlucky. Maybe some of those bold, gutsy calls he’s known for haven’t worked in his favor. As of right now, the numbers point in favor of Hai still being able to play mid lane at a high level. Even when you take his spring performance into account – he’s near the top of the leaderboards in several areas amongst all mid laners who played in spring – it’s insane to suggest that Hai is past his prime. It’s almost like Hai never left.

Maybe his own comparison to Brett Favre as Cloud9’s jungler during the 2015 summer split was appropriate after all; as a member of the Minnesota Vikings, Brett Favre proved he could still play football at a high level when surrounded by young, explosive talent such as Percy Harvin and Adrian Peterson. I believe the same could be true for Hai if the talent surrounding him was mechanically gifted, young, and motivated to make an impact on the LCS – three words I would use to describe FlyQuest’s jungler, Galen “Moon” Holgate.

Although Moon has more stage experience than you’d expect from a young player, take into consideration that this is only Moon’s third split as a full-time starter. His debut split with NRG Esports left a lot to be desired. He was routinely in the lower half of the league in almost every category amongst starting junglers. Take out the spot starters with less than 10 games and 2016 shows a player who wasn’t ready for the LCS. One year later, we see that Moon has made strides to improve. Some of the credit should go to FlyQuest’s veteran leadership, but let’s take a moment to appreciate some of the numbers Moon posted in spring.

2016 Spring- NRG Moon: 28 (8th) / 41 (5th) / 89 (8th); 2.9 KDA (6th), -240 GD10 (11th), 262 DPM (11th), 183.3 EGPM (11th) over 16 games

2017 Spring – FLY Moon: 158 (6th) / 105 (8th) / 240 (5th); 3.8 KDA (1st), 34 GD10 (5th), 336 DPM (7th), 225.1 EGPM (8th) over 43 games

The numbers will look skewed given that 2016’s LCS format was still under Best-of-1 rules, but the improvements can be found in the ranks. In spring, Moon was in reach of the top half of the league in almost every relevant stat. That’s a pretty big jump from year-to-year. If Moon could match those numbers in summer, he’d be a guaranteed league-average starter. Unfortunately, that’s not the case so far. Of junglers with at least 10 games played on the split, Moon has the lowest DPM (236), the third worst GD10 (-17), the second highest deaths (63), and the second worst EGPM (194.9). That’s not a good look for FlyQuest if its starting jungler isn’t able to lift the team’s performance up. Still, Moon deserves the benefit of the doubt after a solid spring. As the youngest player on FlyQuest’s starting roster, Moon deserves a fair shake to start the rest of the split and FlyQuest should trust Moon to shake off the cobwebs and get back on track.

For as much flack as Jason “WildTurtle” Tran receives for his positioning and ill-advised flashes, I still believe WildTurtle, like Hai, can help a good roster make a push for playoffs. He was far from the problem with Team Solo Mid’s disappointing finish at the 2017 Mid Season Invitational, he was still a good fit for TSM’s roster, and Peter “Doublelift” Yillang was the overall better option for TSM’s immediate future. All three of these things can be true. But no one can blame WildTurtle for wanting to be an unquestioned starter as he is in FlyQuest. As the AD carry of this squad, creep score and experience stats will provide more effective analysis here than they will for the other four positions. With every relevant stat in mind, WildTurtle is still far from the problem in FlyQuest. Among ADCs, he currently has the fifth best GD10 (49), fourth best XPD10 (91), sixth best CSD10 (0.2), second best CSPM with five other ADCs (9.0), and the fifth best DPM (516). He’s doing all of this with the fourth highest GOLD% at 24.7, slightly above Hai’s share in the mid lane.

The argument can be made that WildTurtle’s box score looks better than his tape. This is an argument worth making with the correct supporting evidence. But from a pure numbers perspective, WildTurtle is doing his job. He’s not the reason FlyQuest is 1-7 on the season. In other words, FlyQuest can do a lot worse than playing WildTurtle at ADC.

Supports are tough to judge based on the numbers. As the most macro intensive role in the game aside from jungling, reviewing the tape will say more about Daerek “LemonNation” Hart than the numbers will. But for the purpose of this article, we’ll use the limited information we can gather from the numbers to see where LemonNation sits on the season. There are positives to be found here. LemonNation has the highest DPM (268) and DMG% (13.6) among starting supports in the league. But with the worst KDA and the worst wards per minute (1.25), we can start to make an assumption from a pure numbers perspective. Taking a look at his champion pool on the season, we see that Zyra is his most played champion on the split. Zyra is a high-damage support, which explains his lead in average DPM. We can now assume with his high number in deaths and DPM that LemonNation typically goes for an aggressive play in an attempt to set up something for his team. Unfortunately, the aggression hasn’t paid off. One notable example I can immediately think of what happened in FlyQuest’s third game on Sunday against Team Envy, after the team fails to kill Seraph on an attempted pick. This point is where everything goes wrong for FlyQuest.

FlyQuest attempts to start a fight at Rift Herald around 15:23. Hai is immediately picked off by Lira in mid-rotation while Moon jumps the gun and is left to die against Apollo and Hakuho. At this point, LemonNation and WildTurtle should not be doing anything because the fight is over and the team can no longer contest Rift Herald. However, LemonNation makes the ill-advised decision to join the fight way too late with Tahm Kench’s Abyssal Voyage. WildTurtle goes along for the ride and it costs both members their lives. FlyQuest had the right idea to force the issue in the mid-game – their chances would be slim to none in the late-game with an assassin and an AP caster against Cassiopeia, Varus, and Braum due to their high damage and hard engage – but the execution was horrible. It’s almost as if FlyQuest decided to intentionally feed and throw the game when it wasn’t quite out of reach.

It’s true that the season is still far from over for this squad. But it’s going to take a superhuman effort to turn this squad around. Never count Hai out to pull off some more magic, but it’s hard to see this squad avoiding relegation, let alone making playoffs. The veteran instincts on this squad gave them their biggest edge, but just like Cloud9 a few years ago, it’s the biggest thing holding this squad back. FlyQuest could use some new blood in the ranks, particularly at top and support, while keeping their eyes on the future at mid and ADC. You never want to be ill-prepared in the event you avoid relegation or you believe you have a shot to make the playoffs. But if FlyQuest chooses to move forward with this roster, then the change has to begin with Balls, Moon, and LemonNation stepping up their play. Two of these players are arguably the worst at their position right now while one of these players’s bright spots get overlooked for his mid-game misfires.

After a magical start in spring, it’s amazing to see how far FlyQuest have fallen. If this doesn’t change now, FlyQuest fans will be in for a long season.