Luis Vásquez || profile - info - links

The Basics

Name: Luis Vásquez Age: 29 (2077) Sexuality: Bisexual / Aromantic / Non-Monogamous Gender: Male Pronouns: He/Him Birthday: July 26th, 2048 Zodiac Sign: Leo Sun | Virgo Moon | Scorpio Ascendant Ethnicity: Mexican / Native American Languages spoken: English & Spanish Born in: Vista Del Rey, Night City Resides in: Vista Del Rey, Night City Occupation: Fixer | Formerly: Mercenary / Assassin / Thief

Appearance

Hair Color: Naturally brown, often colored magenta

Eye Color: Naturally brown, uses color-changing optics - colors range from any natural colors to his iconic metallic red hearts

Notable Features: Luis' eyes are often the most attention-getting. Although they are able to change color on a whim, they're most often bright red metallic hearts. He also has a multitude of gold-accented cyberware all across his body.

Height: 5′9″ (175 cm)

Weight: 165 lbs (75 kg)

Build: Athletic/Muscular, wide shoulders and thick thighs

Tattoos: His chest and arms are covered in gray and white tattoos, all of which symbolize religious meanings or Mexican culture.

Style: Although he was never a member, a majority of Luis's fashion is inspired by the Valentinos'. Distinctly masculine paired with bright colors and lots of jewelry. He prefers layers, fitted pants, and anything in red/pink and black/white.

Cyberware

Kiroshi Optics Mk.3 with Kiroshi Dodgeball and Color Shift lenses ↳ Eyes can change to unlimited colors and patterns and predict movements of the human body according to established patterns of body language

Techhair ↳ Head hair completely replaced, can be any color, emit light, or change tension.

Partial Modular Cyberhand with Dynalar "Digits" ↳ Right pinky and ring finger replaced with a lock pick tool and dart gun respectively.

Catspaw™ Stealth Foot ↳ Pads implanted onto the bottom of his feet that dampen the sound of his footsteps.

Raven Microcyber Mk.4 ↳"Some call these decks battleships. When it comes to system security and fortified anti-theft protocols, it's a foolproof piece of machinery."

Optical Cam-O-Skin and Skinweave ↳ At will can make him impossible to locate in visible spectrum light and his bare skin is equivalent to light body armor.

Misc. Internal Cyberware ↳ Limbic System Enhancement | Visual Cortex Support | Self-ICE | Syn-Lungs | Tyrosine Injector | Bioconductor | Pain Editor | Cataresist | Maneuvering System | Synaptic Accelerator | Microrotors | Microvibration Generator

Personality

Positive Traits: Adaptable, observant, loyal, patient

Negative Traits: Self-critical, secretive, paranoid, cynical

Description: 

Years of work as an assassin and mercenary have made Luis hyper-vigilant, often to the point of paranoia. In a line of work where one mistake could mean your life, he had no choice but to be the best of the best, he’d often berated himself and hyperfocused on small mistakes. This trait has stuck with him to the current day, he’ll beat himself up over simple things that don’t really matter. Saying the wrong thing, accidentally bumping into someone, or even letting his guard down in places where it's completely safe feels like a complete social blunder to him, something that could ruin his reputation or get him into nonexistent trouble.

His mercenary years have also skewed his perception of strangers. He has seen and been the worst in society and has trouble believing others and even himself are more than purely self-interested with the worst of intentions. He holds all but his closest friends and family at arm's length, never letting them know his true self or feelings for his own protection. This perception of others has made him deeply protective and loyal of those he does hold close though. 

Despite all the harm his previous occupation has caused him, his hyper-vigilance has made him incredibly observant of the people around him. He’ll notice small movements or changes in speech and react accordingly. It’s made him exceptionally good at navigating conversations, deftly avoiding uncomfortable or inflammatory subjects before they even truly come up. His mediation and conversation skills have put him league’s ahead of others in his job as a Fixer.

Relationships

Affiliations:

Having grown up in Heywood, he is in tight with most of the Valentinos' despite never officially joining. He is also frequently seen associating with the Mox.

Family:

Guadalupe Welles ↳ Adoptive Mother | Luis was close with Mamá Welles before his mother's death and even closer after. He’s a total mama’s boy, calls her every day, comes over for dinner at least once a week, and helps her whenever she needs him. She’s one of the only people who can talk some sense into him when he's doing stupid things.

Jackie Welles ↳ Older Brother | When they were younger Jackie and him were inseparable, whether Jackie liked it or not. He looked up to Jackie and almost joined the Valentinos until Jackie’s near death scared him off that path. Even to this day, he's close to his big brother, calling him regularly and making sure they have a family dinner at least once a week to catch up.

Grace Lee-Vasquez ↳ Bio-Mom, Deceased | Before she passed, Luis and his bio-mom were incredibly close. They didn’t get a lot of time together as his mother worked several jobs to support them, but whenever she had free time she made sure to spend it with him. Luis only has fond memories of her and visits her memorial in the Columbarium several times a year.

Ángel Vasquez ↳ Bio-Dad, Deceased | Died before his birth, no strong feelings.

Friends:

River Ward ↳ Friend/Partner | An unlikely pair, Luis hates working with cops but made an exception when River came to him looking for information and resources for his current investigation. Luis ended up saving River’s skin when he shadowed him on a hunch that the leads he was following would go tits up. They became fast friends and later partners in their shared obsession with justice and fierce loyalty.

Muamar Reyes ↳ Choom | After becoming a fixer Luis found a quick friend in Muamar through their shared morals and close work proximity. Luis admires him for how he works, genuinely caring for his crews and clients and keeping his turf safe. 

Sebastian Ibarra ↳ Close Acquaintance | Padre helped pick Luis up at his lowest, offering him words of wisdom, and religious comfort. He was the person who suggested that Luis become a fixer in the first place, and help mentor him through his first few years.

Kerry Eurodyne ↳ Acquaintance | Met during a few corpo/high-class parties/gala’s and hit it off. They're each other's goto when attending events so they don’t have to deal with snobby corpos alone.

Significant Other:

In an open queerplatonic relationship with River Ward.

Enemies/Rivals:

Dexter Deshawn ↳ Mutual Detest | Dexter is all charisma with nothing to back it up. He has no prior experience as a merc and treats his crews like they’re disposable. Luis despises him and thinks him morally bankrupt, caring only for his well-being and how many eddies end up in his pocket. Dex finds Luis far too intense, and with his rising reputation as a Fixer, a threat to his income.

Background

[CW: light mentions of alcohol and drug abuse/addiction]

2048 to 2066 (Birth - 18 years old): Childhood

Luis Vasquez was born in Vista Del Rey to an ex-nomad mother and a Valentino father who died just a few months before his birth. He and his mother had a close and loving relationship despite her working multiple jobs to support them. He spent most of his nights as a child at his mother's second job at the El Coyote Cojo. 

At age 13, Luis's mother contracted bird flu and passed due to complications. With no other living relatives, he was taken in and cared for by Mamá Welles. He and Jackie were attached at the hip, whether Jackie liked it or not. He looked up to Jackie and even almost joined the Valentinos with him until Jackie’s accident scared him off that road.

2067 to 2072 (19 to 24 years old): Mercenary Days

During his early 20s, Luis’s life took a turn as he followed Jackie into mercenary work. Luis found himself falling into an intense niche of gigs: assassination and theft. This style of work, as well paying as it was, took an insurmountable toll on his mental health. He became paranoid and closed off pushing away his family and friends out of fear. He was repeatedly required to change his look and face well on hits, sometimes for days or weeks. He changed his look and mannerisms so often that he often had a hard time recognizing himself in the mirror. He fell into a habit of heavy drinking and dependency on Paxium and “Char” to deal with his day-to-day life.

It took several years and interventions before he even admitted that he had a problem, but a particular incident knocked some sense into him. After a particularly brutal assignment, Luis had actually entertained the thought of chipping in a new face, one that could change look at the drop of a hat. Then, it hit him. How crazy that was, giving himself a new face, the thought of coming home and having his mother not recognize him. That terrified him more than anything in the world.

He dropped all his mercenary work right then, ghosted all his fixers and clients, and sought refuge under the counsel of Sebastian Ibarra.

2073 to 2074 (25 to 26 years old): Recovery

Luis spent his next few years under the wing of Sebastian Ibarra and several other therapists. His recovery was rough, reconciling with his past actions and almost relapsing several times. Padre guided him through it, offering him words of wisdom and religious mentoring. He reconciled the faith he had lost during his dark years and reconnected with those he had pushed away. When Padre found that idle hands made him waver he offered a solution: a job as a Fixer in the Vista Del Rey district.

2075 to 2080 (27 to 32 years old): Present Day

As of 2077, Luis is a Fixer in the Vista Del Rey district under the mentor of Sebastian Ibarra, handing out mid-tier jobs and trying to stay out of too much trouble. He’s quickly rising in fame as a reliable and competent Fixer and gaining more reputation as the years go. He cares deeply for his crews and clients and his home district and does his best to keep them safe.

2080 and Onward (32+ years old): El león de Vista Del Rey

Luis's fame and reputation later skyrockets and he gains the title “El león” or The Lion of Vista Del Rey. He’s deemed the “King” of Vista Del Rey and then later the whole Glen after Padre steps down as a Fixer. He’s wealthy, famous, and well-established all over Night City, and puts his money back into his community and his family.

Links

|| main tag | lore | vibes | profile || Ships ↳ X: Just Chooms (I promise) [River Ward] AUs ↳ Nomad

OC Questionnaire for the BG3 Unholy Trio

I grabbed this from a few other folks I saw doing this in the BG3 tag~ I made some banners for it even.

NAME: Sylve Aetherwind; she named herself, mind you. She doesn't know if she had a birth name.

NICKNAME: Her mercenary colleagues and other closer acquaintances call her Syl, and people who're afraid of her have dubbed her "The Tempest Archer" (for being like a storm in general and specializing in archery).

GENDER: Female

STAR SIGN: She doesn't know her real birthday, but the one she gave herself is March 8th (or whatever the D&D equivalent of that is), making her a Pisces.

HEIGHT: 5'6'' ft or 168 cm

ORIENTATION: Pansexual

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: High (Sun) Half-Elf, and she only found out what specific kind of elf she is because of some colleagues who figured it out. She doesn't know her actual ethnicity, but being born and raised in Baldur's Gate, she'd say she's pretty much Baldurian.

FAVORITE FRUIT: Peaches

FAVORITE SEASON: Summer

FAVORITE FLOWER: She's not all that big on flowers, to be quite honest. But if she had to pick, maybe sunflowers.

FAVORITE SCENT: The smell of forests, of trees, of nature in general. That is her home to her rather than the city of Baldur's Gate that she had to claw her way from nothing to survive in, left to rot by the elite.

COFFEE, TEA, OR HOT CHOCOLATE: Hot chocolate.

AVERAGE HOURS OF SLEEP: 5 or 6, and she's a very light sleeper, so she doesn't tend to rest all that well.

DOGS OR CATS: Dogs

DREAM TRIP: She doesn't really have anywhere in particular she wants to go, because she more so is very fond of the thrill of adventure, and she's traveled to many places in the Sword Coast already. Although she wouldn't be against traveling beyond it, even if just once.

NUMBER OF BLANKETS: She usually only has 1, but if she could she'd love to get multiple huge, fluffy blankets and maybe then she'd get a good night's sleep for once.

RANDOM FACT: Perhaps implied by her favorite fruit, but generally speaking Sylve loves sweet things. But given how she tries to hide how much more...well, dorky, for lack of a better word, she is deep down, she keeps it secret. She overall tries to portray herself fairly seriously, but it becomes apparent with time that as strong and capable as she is...she's pretty silly in actuality. Just ask her colleagues, they all have plenty of stories to tell about her.

NAME: Adoptive name is Raven Mizzrym, birth name is Raven Chandara.

NICKNAME: She's been jokingly called Rave before and up until getting tadpoled killed or at least threatened the majority who ever called her that. I think she'd end up called songbird by Astarion given her name and affinity for singing, and she liked it enough she let him keep calling her that. She'd not be opposed per se to being called Ray either, but thus far I doubt anyone would call her that.

GENDER: Female

STAR SIGN: Her birthday is July 20th (or the D&D equivalent of it), making her star sign Cancer.

HEIGHT: 5'4'' ft or 163 cm

ORIENTATION: Bisexual, tending to prefer women at least on the sexual front. She's never been in love before, so she can't say much there.

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: A Drow, though debatably may have some non-Drow ancestors given her hair color, but her birth mother never told her. Born and raised in Menzoberranzan in the Underdark.

FAVORITE FRUIT: Cranberries

FAVORITE SEASON: Spring

FAVORITE FLOWER: Azaleas

FAVORITE SCENT: She loves floral scents in general, but jasmine is probably her favorite. It's exactly what she smells like, actually... (she buys all the jasmine perfumes she can get from surface merchants in the Bazaar and always applies it daily).

COFFEE, TEA, OR HOT CHOCOLATE: Tea. Jasmine tea, specifically (jasmines are definitely her second favorite flower, and in her opinion it's quite unfortunate there isn't much perfume or tea blends for azaleas, but jasmines are good too).

AVERAGE HOURS OF SLEEP: As a Drow, she need only trance for 4 hours, which she usually gets with minimal issue. Her head is her domain; she wills bad memories away with ease, despite them trying quite often to flood her mind.

DOGS OR CATS: Cats

DREAM TRIP: She doesn't have much of a proper answer, beyond just wanting to explore the surface.

NUMBER OF BLANKETS: She needs at least 3, will not settle for anything less. Absolute blanket hog your honor.

RANDOM FACT: I believe I may've mentioned it before, but Raven hates the sun. Even when tadpoled and therefore immune to the penalties sunlight deals her, she still hates it. Too bright. She prefers the night through-and-through. Sometimes the party has to drag her out of her tent because she's being dramatic about how much she does not want to go out in sunlight. Eventually picks up a parasol from a dead nobleman and starts using it to help against sunlight. She gives it to Astarion in the endgame when his tadpole and therefore sunlight immunity vanishes, saying he needs it more and she'll get herself an even fancier one anyway...to mask her genuinely wanting to help him in some manner.

NAME: Nimue Winterbell

NICKNAME: Most people call her Nim, both before and after her amnesia. Before her amnesia, the people of Baldur's Gate knew her as the 'White Mask Killer' since what bit people could see of her was mostly her white cloak and white mask, and she even had her own mark she left when she murdered people.

GENDER: Unlabeled, shifts between leaning feminine and androgynous, and utilizes she/they pronouns.

STAR SIGN: She doesn't know her birthday, and even pre-amnesia she didn't think assigning a birthday to her befit her and refused to acknowledge the birthday given to her by her foster parents.

HEIGHT: 5'8'' or 173 cm

ORIENTATION: Unlabeled, she likes who she likes, that's all that matters to her.

NATIONALITY/ETHNICITY: A Bhaalspawn modeled after a High (Moon) Elf. Baldurian.

FAVORITE FRUIT: Cherries

FAVORITE SEASON: Winter. She loves the snow, and the cold doesn't bother her.

FAVORITE FLOWER: Lilies

FAVORITE SCENT: Blood- The sea.

COFFEE, TEA, OR HOT CHOCOLATE: Coffee

AVERAGE HOURS OF SLEEP: Bhaalspawn she may be, but she is still modeled after an elf, and therefore needs to trance only 4 hours. But she rarely properly gets that, her rest always being extremely fitful, haunted by memories that both vaguely do and vaguely don't feel like her own.

DOGS OR CATS: Cats

DREAM TRIP: She'd love to go just about anywhere that has a beautiful view of the sea. Or even sailing a bit.

NUMBER OF BLANKETS: 1 or 2 are fine.

RANDOM FACT: A habit she retains from before her amnesia is that she often goes skinny dipping during the night either when she can't trance much or when she's tranced enough, as swimming is very calming for her. She also has zero concept of shame, at least in regards to being naked; it's just her (forever tainted, drenched in blood, twisted imitation of an elf-) body. She sees no reason to feel shame.

This is part of the Yorkshire Heritage Way, in particular, the Flamborough section.

My wife and I decided to head over there yesterday afternoon, having not walked it before and hankering after blowing off the Cobwebs.

The coastline is one of Chalk cliffs, some sections being 100ft+ in height.

It's an exposed and often wild part of the Yorkshire Coastline, with secluded bays, only accessible from the sea by boat, or a climb down with some specialist equipment if you're that way inclined.

The area here is designated a Nature Reserve and is home to several mammalian species and sea birds. We missed the Puffins nesting by a month or so, as they nest and raise a single 'Puffling', here each year between May and July.

I said I'd come back next year for the Puffin season and hire a 200-400mm lens for one of my cameras and set my stall out to grab some close ups of them.

Today I was running with the Sony a6300, a 90mm f/2.8 Macro lens and i also took a super compact 7Artisans 25mm f/1.8 fully manual lens, due to it being so small i could pop it in a pocket.

The Macro lens gave me 135mm full frame equivalent, due to the crop factor of the camera. I could have really done with a 300mm equivalent focal length as a minimum to be fair, but it was the longest lens I have to hand. It just wasn't even near good enough to grab shots of the birds nesting in the cliffs.

It did however allow me to grab the odd macro shot, such as this abstract one i shot here.

It's a good focal length for the odd portrait as well, although it gives a lot of compression. The lens was a Tamron 90mm 1:1 macro designed for EF (Canon) fit bodies. So i used a Sigma MC11 lens converter. I'll be honest, it was hit and miss with the focus at times, as it would simply stop communicating with the camera and I'd have to take out the camera battery and re-insert and switch back on a few times over the course of the day. It was workable though and at times i found myself switching to manual focus and using peak focusing and the focus zoom on the Sony (which is brilliant BTW and I've yet to see another system match the Sonys, although Fujifilm are close on the X series bodies).

I have to admit that I've not used the little Sony for several months, as I've fallen for Fujifilm and so have been shooting them 90% of the time. It is a great little camera though and way more powerful than it's compact size suggests. Aimee took the shots of me on her Google Pixel 6 phone.

The wind started to pick up a fair bit a couple of miles along the coast and the sun was dipping towards the Horizon, so we decided to turn about and head back the way we came, stopping for a picnic on a picnic bench/table set up (of which several are dotted about here and there) when we were almost back to the Flamborough Head Lighthouse car park.

We decided we would hang on a bit more into blue hour, so we headed down to the nature hide there and saw some seals on the beach, grabbed a few shots then headed back to the car for me to set up my camera and tripod for some shots of the Lighthouse when it was switched on.

We had a great day and I'd recommend it.

As always, the Sony performed really well and these lighthouse shots were taken using the 7Artisans 25mm lens. It's a great little lens that and for the money (£80 ish) it's an absolute steal. It's completely manual, but I love that about it, and it can produce super sharp images. I highly recommend it.

I am sometimes asked about what bag and kit I'm carrying if shown in images.

If you're interested, this rucksack here is a Swedish Army LK35 pack. It's been modified by the addition of the Swedish Army Webbing pouches being sewn onto the sides. It has a steel tubular frame, which allows the load to be centralised and I have a Viper waist belt attached as well, another modification. I've added a couple of small molle pouches to that belt also, so i can carry spare batteries, a mic for video, compass, multitool, etc etc.

This is a great pack for everything outdoors. I wouldn't use it in town, it's too military looking, but anywhere in the outdoors, it's brilliant.

They're hard to comeby now, and you could be paying £150+ for a good one and I've seen them going for in excess of £300!

This one was made in 1988! By a company called Haglofs, a Swedish outdoor company who had the contract to make the packs for the Swedish Army between around 1980 and 2000. Comfiest and most practical pack I've ever used.

Anyway. I'll sign off for now, but if you have any questions about the location, my kit, any photography or editing techniques i use, please do ask. I'm not one of those photographers that won't share techniques .

All the best and speak again soon.

Regards,

Neil.

Is Cricket Sustainable Amid Climate Change?

https://sciencespies.com/environment/is-cricket-sustainable-amid-climate-change/

Is Cricket Sustainable Amid Climate Change?

The joke is that if you want it to rain during this wetter-than-usual summer in the Caribbean, just start a cricket match.

Beneath the humor is seemingly tacit agreement with the assertion in a 2018 climate report that of all the major outdoor sports that rely on fields, or pitches, “cricket will be hardest hit by climate change.”

By some measures, cricket is the world’s second most popular sport, behind soccer, with two billion to three billion fans. And it is most widely embraced in countries like India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and South Africa and in the West Indies, which are also among the places most vulnerable to the intense heat, rain, flooding, drought, hurricanes, wildfires and sea level rise linked to human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases.

Cricket in developed nations like England and Australia has also been affected as heat waves become hotter, more frequent and longer lasting. Warm air can hold more moisture, resulting in heavier rainstorms. Twenty of the 21 warmest years recorded have occurred since 2000.

This year, the sport has faced the hottest spring on the Indian subcontinent in more than a century of record keeping and the hottest day ever in Britain. In June, when the West Indies — a combined team from mainly English-speaking countries in the Caribbean — arrived to play three matches in Multan, Pakistan, the temperature reached 111 degrees Fahrenheit, above average even for one of the hottest places on earth.

“It honestly felt like you were opening an oven,” said Akeal Hosein, 29, of the West Indies, who with his teammates wore ice vests during breaks in play.

South Africa cricketers took a water break during a match against India at Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi in June. This has been the hottest spring on the Indian subcontinent in more than a century of record keeping.Anindito Mukherjee for The New York Times

India’s Shreyas Iyer in action during the match. To cope with the heat, some players have worn ice vests during breaks in play.Anindito Mukherjee for The New York Times

Heat is hardly the only concern for cricket players. Like the roughly similar pitching and batting sport of baseball, cricket cannot easily be played in the rain. In July, the West Indies abandoned a match in Dominica and shortened others in Guyana and Trinidad because of rain and waterlogged fields.

An eight-match series between the West Indies and India concludes Saturday and Sunday in South Florida as the height of hurricane season approaches in the Gulf and the Atlantic. In 2017, two Category 5 storms, Irma and Maria, damaged cricket stadiums in five countries in the Caribbean.

Read More About Extreme Weather

Wildfires Out West: California and other Western states are particularly prone to increasingly catastrophic blazes. There are four main reasons.

A Miserable Summer: Monthlong heat waves. Record-breaking floods. No more Choco Tacos. This summer has left many Americans with only one option: surrender.

Yosemite’s Paradox: The national park’s towering trees are perennially threatened by fierce wildfires. To protect the treasured forests, experts say it’s time to cut and burn.

Europe’s Heat Wave: The record-setting heat that roasted London showed how ill-prepared northern European cities are for extreme weather driven by global warming.

Matches can last up to five days. Even one-day matches can extend in blistering conditions for seven hours or more. While rain cleared July 22 for the 9:30 a.m. opening of the West Indies-India series in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, players still had to contend with eight hours of sun at Queen’s Park Oval in temperatures that reached the low 90s with 60-plus percent humidity.

According to a 2019 report on cricket and climate change, a professional batsman playing over a day can generate heat equivalent to running a marathon. While marathon runners help dissipate heat by wearing shorts and singlets, in cricket the wearing of pads, gloves and a helmet restricts the ability to evaporate sweat in hot, humid conditions often lacking shade.

“It’s pretty evident that travel plans are being disrupted because of weather conditions, along with the scheduling of matches, because of rainfall, smoke, pollution, dust and heat,” said Daren Ganga, 43, a commentator and former West Indies captain who studies the impact of climate change on sport in affiliation with the University of the West Indies.

“Action needs to be taken for us to manage this situation,” Ganga said, “because I think we’ve gone beyond the tipping point in some areas. We still have the opportunity to pull things back in other areas.”

The International Cricket Council, the sport’s governing body, has not yet signed on to a United Nations sports and climate initiative. Its goal is for global sports organizations to reduce their carbon footprint to net-zero emissions by 2050 and to inspire the public to consider the issue urgently. While Australia has implemented heat guidelines, and more water breaks are generally permitted during matches, there is no global policy for play in extreme weather. The cricket council did not respond to a request for comment.

“This is like stick your head in the sand denial,” David Goldblatt, the British author of a 2020 report on sport and climate change, said of the council. “Cricket really needs to get its act together. A whole bunch of trouble is not really far away.”

A suggestion in the 2019 climate report that players be allowed to wear shorts instead of trousers to keep cool in excessive heat may seem like a common-sense idea. But it has not gone over well with the starchy customs of international cricket or seemingly with many players, who say their legs would be even more susceptible to brush burns and bruises from sliding and diving on hard fields.

A spectator stood next to a mist fan and wiped sweat off his face. Matches can last for days, testing both fans and players.Anindito Mukherjee for The New York Times

In July, cricket fans sat in the sun in Durham, England, to watch a match between England and South Africa. Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“My two knees are already gone,” said India’s Yuzvendra Chahal, who is 32.

Still, questions are being raised inside the sport and out about the sustainability of cricket amid the extremes of climate and the exhausting scheduling of various formats of the game. The English star Ben Stokes retired on July 19 from the one-day international format, saying, “We are not cars where you can fill us up with petrol and let us go.”

Coincidentally, Stokes’s retirement came as Britain recorded its hottest day ever, with temperatures rising for the first time above 40 degrees Celsius, or 104 degrees Fahrenheit. As climate scientists said such heat could become the new normal, England hosted a daylong cricket match with South Africa in the modestly cooler northeastern city of Durham. Extra water breaks, ice packs and beach-style umbrellas were employed to keep the players cool. Even with those precautions, Matthew Potts of England left the match, exhausted.

Aiden Markram of South Africa was photographed with an ice bag on his head and another on his neck, his face in apparent distress, as if he had been in a heavyweight fight. Some fans were reported to have fainted or sought medical attention, while many others scrambled for thin slices of shade.

On June 9, South Africa also endured taxing conditions when it faced India in the heat, humidity and pollution of New Delhi. The heat index was 110 degrees Fahrenheit for an evening match. A section of the stadium was transformed into a cooling zone for spectators, with curtains, chairs and misting fans attached to plastic tubs of water.

“We are used to it,” said Shikhar Dhawan, 36, one of India’s captains. “I don’t really focus on the heat because if I start thinking about it too much I will start feeling it more.”

In India, cricket players are as popular as Bollywood actors. Even in sauna-like conditions, more than 30,000 spectators attended the match in New Delhi. “It feels great. Who cares about the heat?” said Saksham Mehndiratta, 17, attending his first match with his father since the coronavirus pandemic began.

After watching some spectacular batting, his father, Naresh, said, “This chills me down.”

South Africa, though, was taking no chances after a tour of India in 2015, when eight players and two members of the coaching and support staff were hospitalized in the southern city of Chennai by what officials said were the combined effects of food poisoning and heat exhaustion.

A staff member refilled water bottles for spectators at the match at the Riverside cricket ground in Durham, England. Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

England’s Ben Stokes walked past his teammate Jos Buttler after losing his wicket.Lee Smith/Action Images Via Reuters

“It was mayhem,” said Craig Govender, a physiotherapist for the South African team.

For South Africa’s recent tour, Govender took along inflatable tubs to cool players’ feet; electrolyte capsules for mealtimes; slushies of ice and magnesium; and ice towels for the shoulders, face and back. South Africa’s uniforms were ventilated behind the knees, along the seams and under the armpits. Players were weighed before and after training sessions. The color of their urine was monitored to guard against dehydration. During the June 9 match, some players jumped into ice baths to cool down.

“Global warming is already wreaking havoc on our sport,” Pat Cummins, the captain of Australia’s test cricket team, which plays five-day matches, wrote in February in The Guardian newspaper of Britain.

In 2017, Sri Lankan players wore masks and had oxygen canisters available in the dressing room to counter the heavy pollution during a match in New Delhi. Some players vomited on the field.

In 2018, the English captain Joe Root was hospitalized with gastrointestinal issues, severe dehydration and heat stress during the famed, five-day Ashes test in Sydney, Australia. At one point, a heat-index tracker registered 57.6 degrees Celsius, or 135.7 Fahrenheit.

The incident led Tony Irish, then the head of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association, to ask, “What will it take — a player to collapse on the field?” before cricket’s governing body implemented an extreme heat policy.

Also in 2018, India’s players were asked to limit showers to two minutes while playing in Cape Town during an extended drought there that caused the cancellation of club and school cricket.

In 2019, the air in Sydney became so smoky during a bush fire crisis that the Australian player Steve O’Keefe said it felt like “smoking 80 cigarettes a day.”

Climate change has touched every aspect of cricket from batting and bowling strategy to concerns by groundskeepers about seed germination, pests and fungal disease. Even Lord’s, the venerable cricket ground in London, has been forced at times to relax its fusty dress code, most recently in mid-July when patrons were not required to wear jackets in the unprecedented heat.

India’s Hardik Pandya paused for a drink during practice before a match. Climate change has touched every aspect of the sport, from the care of the pitch to the spectator dress code at matches.Anindito Mukherjee for The New York Times

Children played cricket in New Delhi in June. Because of global warming, “our love and appetite for sport risks straying into brutality,” said Russell Seymour of Lord’s Cricket Ground in London.Anindito Mukherjee for The New York Times

Athletes are being asked “to compete in environments that are becoming too hostile to human physiology,” Russell Seymour, a pioneer in sustainability at Lord’s, wrote last year in a climate report. “Our love and appetite for sport risks straying into brutality.”

To be fair, some actions have been taken to help mitigate climate change. Matches sometimes start later in the day or are rescheduled. Cummins, the Australian captain, has begun an initiative to have solar panels installed on the roofs of cricket clubs there. Lord’s operates fully on wind-powered electricity. The National Green Tribunal of India, a specialized body that addresses environmental concerns, has ruled that treated waste water should be used to irrigate cricket fields instead of drinkable ground water, which is in short supply.

Players on the Royal Challengers Bangalore club of the Indian Premier League wear green uniforms for some matches to heighten environmental awareness. Team members appeared in a climate video during a devastating heat wave this spring, which included this sobering fact: “This has been the hottest temperature the country has faced in 122 years.”

Yet some in the cricket world counter that climate change cannot be expected to be the most immediate concern in developing nations, where the basics of daily life can be a struggle. And countries like India and Pakistan, where cricket is wildly popular, are among the least responsible for climate change. One hears the frequent admonishment that rich, developed nations that emit the largest amount of greenhouse gases must also do their share to lower those emissions.

“In the U.S., people are flying on private jets while they’re asking us not to use plastic straws,” said Dario Barthley, a spokesman for the West Indies team.

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

#Environment

“The Next Adventure”

Hey guys, here is my final entry for JuLance2020! I want to dedicate it to three people who might not know I exist: @leggylance, @ikimaru and @starlightments​. You guys have inspired me to make VLD content even 1 1/2 years after the show’s end. LOL

•

Lance lost three years of his life when he was in space.

Three years. The equivalent of his entire time in middle school, or his first three years at the Garrison. He was technically not even a teenager anymore—he was about to turn twenty. He was an adult.

He had lost three years.

Honestly, it had been worth it. He and the other Voltron paladins had saved Earth—hell, they had saved the entire universe. Him sacrificing a few years was nothing in comparison to what could have happened if they hadn’t stopped the Galra Empire.

But yeah, three years. It was still so weird. His twin sister had finally grown to almost match his own height. His nieces and nephews were in completely different grades at school. One of his brothers had gotten married. And his grandmother… well, she was gone now. So much had changed.

He had been back home in Cuba for nine months, recovering. His family had welcomed him with open arms, his mother especially. She had been in tears when he requested his old room back. It had been incredible to see everyone again, and Lance had really needed a mental break.

But now he was restless. After Queen Allura and Coran had left on the newly built castle ship, bound for New Altea with Romelle and the rest of the Altean citizens, things had been… slow. He had helped out on his parent’s farm, done some media appearances and gladly participated in some humanitarian work across South America.

He kept in contact with Hunk and Pidge, who’d decided to stay at the Garrison and help work on new projects using the newly discovered Earthen-Altean technology. Shiro had gone back to Japan to see his parents, taking Adam with him. And Keith—well, he was back in space, of course.

The Blade of Marmora was undergoing a major transformation. They were becoming a relief organization, traveling to and helping planets still recovering from the war. They had brought people from Earth to help with their mission, and were planning to pick up other volunteers wherever they stopped.

Keith had invited Lance to come along. In fact, he had almost begged him, insisting that Lance was “the best man for the job,” and that he “couldn’t do it without” him. Both declarations had tugged on Lance’s heartstrings to the point where he’d almost accepted. But he hadn’t been ready to leave Earth just yet.

Begrudgingly, Keith had finally accepted Lance’s answer. Before leaving, he gave him a special communicator and demanded he stay in touch (they had), as well as a devastatingly passionate hug that Lance was still pondering over months later.

He sometimes wondered if he’d made the right choice. He missed Keith a lot more than he’d expected. And he missed space, and adventure, and flying. Blue was safe at the bottom of the ocean, just off the Cuban coast, but Lance didn’t think it right to call her when it wasn’t an emergency.

It was now late July. His birthday, actually. Lance was currently sprawled out on one of his family’s ancient bath towels on Varadero Beach. A large sunhat was lying atop his face, shielding it while the rest of his body, clad only in a pair of blue swim trunks, soaked in the sun. A longboard lay next to him, covered in saltwater and sand.

He listened to the waves crashing relentlessly against the shore. The sound of children further down the beach playing volleyball. A passing boat’s horn peering through the calm.

And then… a voice close by uttering a simple greeting: “Well, if it isn’t the son of Poseidon.”

Lance’s eyes shot open. He knew that voice. There was no mistaking it—there was no other voice like it in the entire galaxy. In a frenzy he sat up, his hat flying off as he frantically looked around for…

Keith was still a couple meters away, making his way towards him awkwardly on the dry sand. Lance’s eyes took in everything. His black hair was longer, braided to one side over his shoulder. He was wearing a pair of black leggings and a red t-shirt, holding a pair of Doc Marten-esque boots by the laces. He looked hilariously out of place.

But god, was Lance happy to see him. “Keith!” He cried, standing up and not bothering to brush off any sand before charging towards him. A smile broke out on his friend’s face, and it looked like he was about to say something before Lance practically knocked him over in a hug.

Lance felt him startle, but he didn’t care. He buried his nose in Keith’s neck, breathing in deeply and reveling in the fact that his favorite person was here, with him, safe and alive. “What are you doing here?” He shivered as he felt Keith’s arms gingerly wind around his lower back.

“What do you think?” Keith chuckled. “It’s your birthday.”

Lance blinked. He stepped back slightly, though he left his arms resting on Keith’s shoulders. He wasn’t ready to let go again. “Oh.”

“I told you I’d be back for the next major celebration, didn’t I?” Keith wasn’t letting go of him, either. They were in a very… intimate position. Lance was surprised at how calm he felt about it.

“Right.” Lance smirked. “Because my birthday is a lot more important than the Fourth of July, or Carnaval…”

“Obviously,” Keith said seriously. Lance stared. Gosh, Keith’s eyes were as ridiculous as ever. Blue-purple-galaxy orbs. Absolutely ridiculous.

“So,” Lance drawled, forcing himself to step out of the embrace. He noticed Keith’s gaze wander from his face and down his bare chest, which sent slight thrill shoot through his body.“If you’re here for my birthday, that means you’ll help with the party, right?”

Keith’s head shot up. “Huh?”

Lance laughed. He turned and jogged to his towel, grabbing it and his hat before hefting his surfboard up over his head. Passing by a still confused-looking Keith, he winked. “C’mon buddy, we’ve got corn to shuck and drinks to mix.”

The party lasted all evening and into the night. Lance’s family had spared no effort, hiring a local band and decorating the backyard with hundreds of twinkling lights. Everyone—friends, friends of friends, coworkers, neighbors—showed up. Lance counted twenty people in the first hour he’d never met in his life.

Lance’s brother recruited people to man the bar, serving up everything from beer to fancy cocktails. Everyone brought food, transforming the event into a massive potluck. And of course, Lance’s mother made dessert: a giant vanilla rum cake. Lance’s nieces and nephews helped decorate it with large blue flowers.

It was going on 2am when Lance finally admitted he was exhausted. He was sitting on the back porch, nursing a bottle of water as he observed remnants of the celebration. Most people had gone home or passed out somewhere on the property. The band had dispersed, though a lone guitarist was still lounging on the grass where the “dance floor” had been earlier, plucking out random chords.

“Finally tapping out?”

Lance grinned as Keith took a seat next to him. “Yeah, I think so. But don’t you dare make fun, I saw you snoozing on the couch before midnight.”

“Cut me some slack, I just go back from space.” They both chuckled. Lance felt warm, and not just because of the stifling humidity. It had been so nice to have Keith there. They had spent most of the party catching up, drinking and challenging each other at dumb competitions. (Lance was still the champion of catching peanuts in his mouth.)

They had also danced. Lance taught Keith a few basic Cuban forms and surprisingly, Keith did pretty well. At one point the band had switched to a slower song and, well, Lance would be lying if he said he hadn’t almost fainted when Keith switched their positions so that he was leading Lance.

“I’m really glad you came,” Lance muttered, and maybe it was the alcohol still in his system that gave him the courage to lean into Keith’s side and lay his head on his shoulder. He felt Keith stiffen, then relax almost immediately. A strong arm wrapped around his shoulder.

“Me too,” Keith murmured. “Happy Birthday.”

“Thanks.”

They sat there in silence for a while before Keith finally spoke up again. “So… what’s next?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that, Mr. Universe?”

“Mr. U…” Keith coughed. “Um, well, I already went to see Shiro and Adam in Yokohama, and I visited Pidge and Hunk when I docked at the Garrison. So I think I’ll be heading back to the Blade headquarters now. Kosmo and my mom are there.”

“Take me with you.”

Lance was surprised at himself for just blurting it out. But it was what he wanted to say, and he was done censoring his feelings. He needed to own up to the fact that he was ready to leave home again. And he was ready to leave with Keith.

“Okay.” Keith didn’t hesitate in his answer. Giddy, Lance turned towards him. He reached up, tugging at the other man’s braid, which was pretty much a disaster after hours of partying.

“Look at you, accepting companionship right away,” he said, smirking. “I feel like a proud parent.”

Keith scowled, but there was no heat to it. “I’m the one who asked you first, months ago.” He grabbed Lance’s wrist. “So… would you just be coming as far as Japan, or…”

“I have supplies already packed in Blue. I’ve been waiting for a while, you know.”

“Oh.” Keith blinked. A small smiled creeped onto his face. “That’s… good. Great.”

Lance beamed.

A week later, Lance was standing on Varadero Beach in the shade of Blue, who was sitting on her haunches waiting patiently for him to board. The lion caused quite a stir—most of the locals had seen her before, but it wasn’t that common. A TV news team had stopped by so they could interview Lance before his departure. Their cameras were trained on him; the local hometown hero who’d helped save Earth.

His family were gathered around, some in tears but others shouting words of encouragement. His nieces and nephew were glued to his legs, demanding he take them with him (or at least bring them back a "space souvenir"). Lance noticed that his sister had taken Keith aside. She had him by the elbow and was pointing at him threateningly, and whatever she was saying was causing his friend to glow bright red.

His mother pulled Lance into one more bone-crushing huge. Despite the fact she was almost an entire foot shorter, the woman held some incredible strength. “You are no longer a child, or even a teenager,” she said, her voice trembling. “You are a man now. But you must remember one thing.” She pulled back, fire in her eyes. “No matter how old you get, you will always be my baby. You are my baby, Lance. Please come back to me.”

Lance blinked his tears away. “I promise.”

He walked to Blue, holding his hand out to Keith, who jogged over and grabbed it. They smiled at each other. “Ready for the next adventure?” Keith asked as they made their way up into the lion.

Lance took one last look at his family as the hatch closed. He gripped Keith’s hand. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I think I am.”

FULL  NAME  :  LESTRANGE,  elisabeth  thérèse KNOWN  SOBRIQUETS  AND  /  OR  PSEUDONYMS  :  lissa,  the  heiress  of  house  lestrange,  charms  master,   mistress  lestrange. REGISTERED  BLOOD  STATUS  :  pureblood. KNOWN  LANGUAGES  :  dutch  (  native  ),  english  (  native  ),  french  (  fluent  ),  german  (  conversational  ),  latin  (  fluent,  exclusively  used  for  spell  work  ). BIRTHPLACE  :  ghent,  belgium FAMILY  :  LESTRANGE,  corvus  v  ;  LESTRANGE,  marie  élise  née  faber.         MARITAL  STATUS  :  unmarried,  seeking  a  worthy  match       SPOUSE,  IF  APPLICABLE  : ––       OFFSPRING,  IF  APPLICABLE  :  ––       ORIENTATION  :  panromantic,  pansexual DATE  OF  BIRTH  &  AGE  :  july  14,  1923  &  27 WESTERN  ZODIAC  :  cancer  sun,  cancer  moon,  leo  ascendant. PROFILE  :     EYE  COLOR  :  green,  like  the  sunlight  that  filters  through  leaves  in  the  early  days  of  summer.     HAIR  COLOR  :  dark  brown.     BUILD  &  HEIGHT  :  defined  jaw  and  cheekbones,  shapely  curves.  5′6     IDENTIFYING  MARKS  &  SCARS :  none  of  note.   SCHOOLING  :  BEAUXBATONS,  academy  of  magic.     HOUSE,  IF  APPLICABLE  :  éclatant.  the  house  of  brilliance,  the  members  of  this  house  have  found  excellence  in  their  magical  pursuits  and  boast  graduates  such  as  perenelle  flamel  and  marie  curie.  exceptionally  creative,  forward  thinking,  and  more  ambitious  than  most  knew  how  to  focus  it   before  their  arrival  to  the  school,  éclatant’s  students  are  at  the  forefront  of  innovation.  whether  reinventing  spells  and  maximizing  their  use  or  inventing  new  ones  (   something  about  modern  problems  needing  modern  solutions  ).  still,  éclatant’s  house  has  laid  out  one  thing  very  well:  some  of  the  most  creative  minds  don’t  choose  the  most  clear  cut  paths.  independence,  so  says  the  plaque  beneath  perenelle’s  statue  on  beauxbaton’s  grounds,  is  watered  by  creativity  and  confidence.     N.  E.  W.  T.  S  EQUIVALENT  :  charms  ·  o,  transfiguration  ·  o,  herbology  ·  o,  potions  ·  o.             NOTE  :  beauxbatons  academy  of  magic  offers  a  different  set  of  examinations  which  ultimately  qualify  their  students  at  sixth  year  and  allow  seventh  year  students  to  specialize  in  their  fields  of  success  after  their  sixth  year.  this  allows  beauxbatons  students  to  typically  enter  their  workforce  earlier  as  some  students  intern  with  the  french  ministry  or  find  masters  to  learn  under  for  their  own  future  masteries  in.  with  this  being  the  case,  miss  lestrange’s  grades  come  from  her  sixth  year  of  studies.  her  tutelage  under  richard  macintosh  began  when  she  first  visited  ireland  and  sought  mister  macintosh  out.  he  only  accepted  her  as  a  student,  so  she  says,  because  she  impressed  him  with  an  undoubtedly  strong  cheering  charm  that  kept  him  under  her  spell  for  almost  two  hours.  he  came  to  his  own  faculties  while  they  were  in  the  midst  of  tea.  miss  lestrange  has  carefully  stressed  this  was  in  no  way  an  imperius  curse.  OCCUPATION  :  MASTER  of  charms.  mistress  lestrange  is  currently  crafting  spells  as  part  of  her  research  for  her  own  charms  textbook.  mistress  lestrange  has  also  been  experimenting  with  combining  transfiguration  and  charms  spells  into  a  single  action.      MINISTRY  FIELD,  IF  APPLICABLE  :  –– REGISTERED  WAND  :  willow  wood,  veela  hair  core,  12  ¾  inches,  and  surprisingly  springy.  willow  wands  are  typically  considered  to  be  feminine,  favoring  charms  work,  non  verbal  spells,  and  healing  magic.  willow  wands  also  favor  a  wielder  who  bears  some  kind  of  insecurity  and  equally  have  an  incredible  potential.  veela  cores  are  notoriously  temperamental  but  they,  too,  have  their  own  favor  towards  charms,  and  the  master  of  charms  is  as  graceful  in  her  magical  expertise  as  she  is  in  everything  else  that  she  does. AMORTENIA  :  there’s  a  fondness  that  comes  with  the  question,  a  moment  of  remembrance  for  a  first  love  and  disastrous  potions  class  all  in  one  go.  elisabeth  said  that  the  cherries  from  across  the  room  were  the  first  thing  she  smelled,  because  of  the  cherry  trees  on  the  lestrange  property  growing  up.  it’s  the  one  smell  that  was  truly  familiar,  like  she  was  going  home.  the  second  thing  she  mentioned  was  something  deeper,  that  she  couldn’t  quite  place  her  finger  on  at  the  time  (  now  it’s  something  she  recognizes  faintly  as  someone’s  cologne,  though  she  has  been  in  the  presence  of  too  many  men  attempting  to  win  her  over  to  identify  specifically  which  one  --  though  it  did  have  notes  of  sandalwood  ?  or  perhaps  bergamot  ?  ) . and  then,  without  a  doubt,  there  was  the  sweet  notes  of  toffee  and  butterscotch  that  have  become  part  of  her  christmas  traditions.   BOGGART  :  her  own  gravestone,  marking  her  as  the  last  of  her  family’s  line .  her  father’s  spirit  rises  up  and begins  cursing  his  daughter  for  failing  them,  for  failing  him  because  she  wouldn’t  live  up  to  the  one  thing  he  asked  of  her.  upon  the  casting  of  a  successful  counter  charm  shows  her  surrounded  by  multiple  children, with  a  partner beaming  at  her  with  pride.  one  might  be  careful  to  note  that  even  though  the  charm  is  successful,  it  might  lead  to  a  deeper  fear  that  even  with  all  these  children  and  this  legacy  secured,  she  is  not  truly  happy. PATRONUS  :  corporeal,  a  raven .  mystics  tend  to  find  comfort  in  ravens,  but  they  are  insightful  creatures  who  are  generally  known  for  their  cleverness  and  understanding .  it’s  a  toss  up  in  the  muggle  world  if  ravens  are  a  good  omen  or  agent  of  sin,  but  in  the  magical  world  it  is  far  more  indicative  of  a  person  who  seeks  (  or  has  attained  )  freedom.  it  is  worth  noting  that  the  raven  is  the  symbol  of  the  house  of  lestrange. KNOWN  AFFILIATIONS  :  BURKE,  fidelia.  LESTRANGE,  taliesin.  MACINTOSH,  richard.  MCKINNON,  malachai.  WEASLEY,  septimus. CURRENT  MAILING  ADDRESS  :  3  faber  road,  her  mother’s  former  summer  home  and  built  by  the  faber  family  in  1667  after  the  great  fire. LAST  SEEN  LOCATION  :  arriving  by  portkey  in  the  ministry  accommodations  for  international  travel  from  france,  after  attending  a  meeting  for  the  académie  française  des  sorciers. ADDITIONAL  INFORMATION  :  member  of  the  académie  française  des  sorciers  as  their  secondary  supervising  body  on  charms ,   first  belgian  born  witch  to  win  the  dunstable  dueling  competition  as  set  forth  by  the  british  wizard  dueling  association,  her  title  as  master  of  charms  was  awarded  after  studying  with  sir  richard  macintosh  who  is  only  known  to  have  produced  ten  such  masters  before  her  (  most  thought  he  was  dead  prior  elisabeth’s  mastery  ). SECURITY  STATUS  :  not  a  known  threat,  under  observation.  there  is  no  need  for  observation,  gerald,  stop  editing  miss  lestrange’s  file. 

if i could date & kiss anyone it would be the Tunguska event was a large explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia, on the morning of 30 June 1908 (NS).[1][2] The explosion over the sparsely populated Eastern Siberian Taiga flattened 2,000 square kilometres (770 square miles) of forest, and may have caused up to three human casualties.[3] The explosion is generally attributed to the air burst of a meteoroid. It is classified as an impact event, even though no impact crater has been found; the object is thought to have disintegrated at an altitude of 5 to 10 kilometres (3 to 6 miles) rather than to have hit the surface of the Earth.[4] The Tunguska event is the largest impact event on Earth in recorded history, but there have been larger impacts during prehistoric times. Studies have yielded different estimates of the meteoroid's size, on the order of 50 to 190 metres (160 to 620 feet), depending on whether the body entered with a low or high speed.[5] Since the 1908 event, there have been an estimated 1,000 scholarly papers (most in Russian) published on the Tunguska explosion. In 2013, a team of researchers published analysis results of micro-samples from a peat bog near the center of the affected area showing fragments that may be of meteoritic origin.[6][7] Early estimates of the energy of the air burst ranged from 10–15 megatons of TNT (42–63 petajoules) to 30 megatons of TNT (130 PJ),[8] depending on the exact height of burst estimated when the scaling laws from the effects of nuclear weapons are employed.[8][9] More recent calculations that include the effect of the object's momentum find that more of the energy was focused downward than would be the case from a nuclear explosion and estimate that the airburst had an energy range from 3 to 5 megatons of TNT (13 to 21 PJ).[9] A 2019 paper suggests the explosive power may have been around 20–30 megatons.[10] The 15-megaton (Mt) estimate represents an energy about 1,000 times greater than that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan—roughly equal to that of the United States' Castle Bravo (15.2 Mt) nuclear test in 1954, and about one-third that of the Soviet Union's Tsar Bomba explosion in 1961.[11] It is estimated that the Tunguska explosion knocked down 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 km2 (830 sq mi), and that the shock wave from the blast would have measured 5.0 on the Richter magnitude scale. An explosion of this magnitude would be capable of destroying a large metropolitan area.[12] Eyewitness reports indicate that at least three people may have died in the event.[13][14][15][16][3] The Tunguska event has helped to spark discussion of asteroid impact avoidance. Contents 1 Description 2 Investigations 3 Earth impactor model 4 Geophysical hypotheses 5 Similar events 6 In popular culture 7 See also 8 References 9 External links 1.1 Selected eyewitness reports 3.1 Asteroid air burst 3.2 Blast patterns 3.3 Asteroid or comet 3.4 Lake Cheko Description  Trees knocked over by the Tunguska blast. Photograph from the Soviet Academy of Science 1927 expedition led by Leonid Kulik. On 30 June 1908 (cited in Russia as 17 Jun 1908, Julian Calendar, prior to implementation of the Soviet calendar in 1918), at around 07:17 local time, Evenki natives and Russian settlers in the hills north-west of Lake Baikal observed a column of bluish light, nearly as bright as the Sun, moving across the sky. About ten minutes later, there was a flash and a sound similar to artillery fire. Eyewitnesses closer to the explosion reported that the source of the sound moved from the east to the north of them. The sounds were accompanied by a shock wave that knocked people off their feet and broke windows hundreds of kilometres away. The explosion registered at seismic stations across Eurasia, and air waves from the blast were detected in Germany, Denmark, Croatia, the United Kingdom, and as far away as Batavia and Washington, D.C.[17] It is estimated that, in some places, the resulting shock wave was equivalent to an earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter magnitude scale.[18] Over the next few days night skies in Asia and Europe were aglow,[19] with contemporaneous reports of photographs being successfully taken at midnight in Sweden and Scotland.[17] It has been theorized that this effect was due to light passing through high-altitude ice particles that had formed at extremely low temperatures—a phenomenon that many years later was produced by space shuttles.[20][21] In the United States, a Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory program at the Mount Wilson Observatory observed a months-long decrease in atmospheric transparency consistent with an increase in suspended dust particles.[22] Selected eyewitness reports  Topi Tunguski, around the area where it fell. This photo is from the magazine Around the World, 1931. The original photo was taken between 1927 and 1930 (presumably, no later than 14 September 1930). Testimony of S. Semenov, as recorded by Leonid Kulik's expedition in 1930:[23] At breakfast time I was sitting by the house at Vanavara Trading Post [65 kilometres/40 miles south of the explosion], facing north. […] I suddenly saw that directly to the north, over Onkoul's Tunguska Road, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest [as Semenov showed, about 50 degrees up—expedition note]. The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn't bear it as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few metres. I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the Earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons, which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged some crops. Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn, a part of the iron lock snapped. Testimony of Chuchan of Shanyagir tribe, as recorded by I. M. Suslov in 1926:[24] We had a hut by the river with my brother Chekaren. We were sleeping. Suddenly we both woke up at the same time. Somebody shoved us. We heard whistling and felt strong wind. Chekaren said, 'Can you hear all those birds flying overhead?' We were both in the hut, couldn't see what was going on outside. Suddenly, I got shoved again, this time so hard I fell into the fire. I got scared. Chekaren got scared too. We started crying out for father, mother, brother, but no one answered. There was noise beyond the hut, we could hear trees falling down. Chekaren and I got out of our sleeping bags and wanted to run out, but then the thunder struck. This was the first thunder. The Earth began to move and rock, the wind hit our hut and knocked it over. My body was pushed down by sticks, but my head was in the clear. Then I saw a wonder: trees were falling, the branches were on fire, it became mighty bright, how can I say this, as if there was a second sun, my eyes were hurting, I even closed them. It was like what the Russians call lightning. And immediately there was a loud thunderclap. This was the second thunder. The morning was sunny, there were no clouds, our Sun was shining brightly as usual, and suddenly there came a second one! Chekaren and I had some difficulty getting out from under the remains of our hut. Then we saw that above, but in a different place, there was another flash, and loud thunder came. This was the third thunder strike. Wind came again, knocked us off our feet, struck the fallen trees. We looked at the fallen trees, watched the tree tops get snapped off, watched the fires. Suddenly Chekaren yelled "Look up" and pointed with his hand. I looked there and saw another flash, and it made another thunder. But the noise was less than before. This was the fourth strike, like normal thunder. Now I remember well there was also one more thunder strike, but it was small, and somewhere far away, where the Sun goes to sleep. Sibir newspaper, 2 July 1908:[25] On the morning of 17th of June,[26] around 9:00, we observed an unusual natural occurrence. In the north Karelinski village [200 verst (213 km (132 mi)) north of Kirensk] the peasants saw to the northwest, rather high above the horizon, some strangely bright (impossible to look at) bluish-white heavenly body, which for 10 minutes moved downwards. The body appeared as a "pipe", i.e., a cylinder. The sky was cloudless, only a small dark cloud was observed in the general direction of the bright body. It was hot and dry. As the body neared the ground (forest), the bright body seemed to smudge, and then turned into a giant billow of black smoke, and a loud knocking (not thunder) was heard as if large stones were falling, or artillery was fired. All buildings shook. At the same time the cloud began emitting flames of uncertain shapes. All villagers were stricken with panic and took to the streets, women cried, thinking it was the end of the world. The author of these lines was meantime in the forest about 6 versts [6.4 km] north of Kirensk and heard to the north east some kind of artillery barrage, that repeated in intervals of 15 minutes at least 10 times. In Kirensk in a few buildings in the walls facing north-east window glass shook. Siberian Life newspaper, 27 July 1908:[27] When the meteorite fell, strong tremors in the ground were observed, and near the Lovat village of the Kansk uezd two strong explosions were heard, as if from large-calibre artillery. Krasnoyaretz newspaper, 13 July 1908:[28] Kezhemskoe village. On the 17th an unusual atmospheric event was observed. At 7:43 the noise akin to a strong wind was heard. Immediately afterward a horrific thump sounded, followed by an earthquake that literally shook the buildings as if they were hit by a large log or a heavy rock. The first thump was followed by a second, and then a third. Then the interval between the first and the third thumps was accompanied by an unusual underground rattle, similar to a railway upon which dozens of trains are travelling at the same time. Afterward, for 5 to 6 minutes an exact likeness of artillery fire was heard: 50 to 60 salvoes in short, equal intervals, which got progressively weaker. After 1.5–2 minutes after one of the "barrages" six more thumps were heard, like cannon firing, but individual, loud and accompanied by tremors. The sky, at the first sight, appeared to be clear. There was no wind and no clouds. Upon closer inspection to the north, i.e. where most of the thumps were heard, a kind of an ashen cloud was seen near the horizon, which kept getting smaller and more transparent and possibly by around 2–3 p.m. completely disappeared.  Tunguska's trajectory and the locations of five villages projected onto a plane normal to the Earth's surface and passing through the fireball's approach path. The scale is given by an adopted beginning height of 100 km. Three zenith angles ZR of the apparent radiant are assumed and the trajectories plotted by the solid, dashed, and dotted lines, respectively. The parenthesized data are the distances of the locations from the plane of projection: a plus sign indicates the location is south-south west of the plane; a minus sign, north-north east of it. The transliteration of the village names in this figure and the text is consistent with that of Paper I and differs somewhat from the transliteration in the current world atlases. InvestigationsIt was more than a decade after the event before any scientific analysis of the region took place, in part due to the isolation of the area. In 1921, the Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik led a team to the Podkamennaya Tunguska River basin to conduct a survey for the Soviet Academy of Sciences.[29] Although they never visited the central blast area, the many local accounts of the event led Kulik to believe that the explosion had been caused by a giant meteorite impact. Upon returning, he persuaded the Soviet government to fund an expedition to the suspected impact zone, based on the prospect of salvaging meteoric iron.[30]  Photograph from Kulik's 1929 expedition taken near the Hushmo River Kulik led a scientific expedition to the Tunguska blast site in 1927. He hired local Evenki hunters to guide them to the centre of the blast area, where they expected to find an impact crater. To their surprise, there was no crater to be found at ground zero. Instead they found a zone, roughly 8 kilometres (5.0 miles) across, where the trees were scorched and devoid of branches, but still standing upright.[30] The trees farther away had been partly scorched and knocked down in a direction away from the center. In the 1960s, it was established that the zone of levelled forest occupied an area of 2,150 km2 (830 sq mi), its shape resembling a gigantic spread-eagled butterfly with a "wingspan" of 70 km (43 mi) and a "body length" of 55 km (34 mi).[31] Upon closer examination, Kulik located holes that he erroneously concluded were meteorite holes; he did not have the means at that time to excavate the holes. During the next ten years there were three more expeditions to the area. Kulik found several dozens of little "pothole" bogs, each 10 to 50 metres (33 to 164 feet) in diameter, that he thought might be meteoric craters. After a laborious exercise in draining one of these bogs (the so-called "Suslov's crater", 32 m (105 ft) in diameter), he found an old stump on the bottom, ruling out the possibility that it was a meteoric crater. In 1938, Kulik arranged for an aerial photographic survey of the area[32] covering the central part of the levelled forest (250 square kilometres (97 sq mi)).[33] The negatives of these aerial photographs (1,500 negatives, each 18 by 18 centimetres (7.1 by 7.1 inches)) were burned in 1975 by order of Yevgeny Krinov, then Chairman of the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences, as part of an initiative to dispose of hazardous nitrate film.[33] Positive prints were preserved for further study in the Russian city of Tomsk.[34] Expeditions sent to the area in the 1950s and 1960s found microscopic silicate and magnetite spheres in siftings of the soil. Similar spheres were predicted to exist in the felled trees, although they could not be detected by contemporary means. Later expeditions did identify such spheres in the resin of the trees. Chemical analysis showed that the spheres contained high proportions of nickel relative to iron, which is also found in meteorites, leading to the conclusion they were of extraterrestrial origin. The concentration of the spheres in different regions of the soil was also found to be consistent with the expected distribution of debris from a meteoroid air burst.[35] Later studies of the spheres found unusual ratios of numerous other metals relative to the surrounding environment, which was taken as further evidence of their extraterrestrial origin.[36] Chemical analysis of peat bogs from the area also revealed numerous anomalies considered consistent with an impact event. The isotopic signatures of carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen at the layer of the bogs corresponding to 1908 were found to be inconsistent with the isotopic ratios measured in the adjacent layers, and this abnormality was not found in bogs located outside the area. The region of the bogs showing these anomalous signatures also contains an unusually high proportion of iridium, similar to the iridium layer found in the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. These unusual proportions are believed to result from debris from the falling body that deposited in the bogs. The nitrogen is believed to have been deposited as acid rain, a suspected fallout from the explosion.[36][37][38] Researcher John Anfinogenov has suggested that a boulder found at the event site, known as John's stone, is a remnant of the meteorite,[39] but oxygen isotope analysis of the quartzite suggests that it is of hydrothermal origin, and probably related to Permian-Triassic Siberian Traps magmatism.[40] Earth impactor modelAsteroid air burst  Comparison of possible sizes of Tunguska (TM mark) and Chelyabinsk meteoroids to Eiffel Tower and Empire State Building. The leading scientific explanation for the explosion is the air burst of an asteroid 6–10 km (4–6 mi) above Earth's surface. Meteoroids enter Earth's atmosphere from outer space every day, travelling at a speed of at least 11 km/s (7 mi/s). The heat generated by compression of air in front of the body (ram pressure) as it travels through the atmosphere is immense and most meteoroids burn up or explode before they reach the ground. Since the second half of the 20th century, close monitoring of Earth's atmosphere through infrasound and satellite observation has shown that asteroid air bursts with energies comparable to those of nuclear weapons routinely occur, although Tunguska-sized 5-15 megaton[41] events are much rarer. Eugene Shoemaker estimated that 20 kiloton events occur annually and that Tunguska sized events occur about once every 300 years.[8][42] More recent estimates place Tunguska-sized events at about once every thousand years, with 5 kiloton air bursts averaging about once per year.[43] Most of these air bursts are thought to be caused by asteroid impactors as opposed to mechanically weaker cometary materials based on their typical penetration depths into the Earth's atmosphere.[43] The largest asteroid air burst to be observed with modern instrumentation was the 500-kiloton Chelyabinsk meteor of 2013, which shattered windows and produced meteorites.[41] Blast patternsThe explosion's effect on the trees near the hypocentre of the explosion was similar to the effects of the conventional Operation Blowdown. These effects are caused by the blast wave produced by large airburst explosions. The trees directly below the explosion are stripped as the blast wave moves vertically downward, while trees farther away are knocked over because the blast wave is travelling closer to horizontal when it reaches them. Soviet experiments performed in the mid-1960s, with model forests (made of matches on wire stakes) and small explosive charges slid downward on wires, produced butterfly-shaped blast patterns similar to the pattern found at the Tunguska site. The experiments suggested that the object had approached at an angle of roughly 30 degrees from the ground and 115 degrees from north and had exploded in mid-air.[44] Asteroid or cometIn 1930, the British astronomer F. J. W. Whipple suggested that the Tunguska body was a small comet. A comet is composed of dust and volatiles, such as water ice and frozen gases, and could have been completely vaporised by the impact with Earth's atmosphere, leaving no obvious traces. The comet hypothesis was further supported by the glowing skies (or "skyglows" or "bright nights") observed across Europe for several evenings after the impact, possibly explained by dust and ice that had been dispersed from the comet's tail across the upper atmosphere.[8] The cometary hypothesis gained a general acceptance amongst Soviet Tunguska investigators by the 1960s.[8] In 1978, Slovak astronomer Ľubor Kresák suggested that the body was a fragment of Comet Encke. This is a periodic comet with an extremely short period of 3 years that stays entirely within the orbit of Jupiter. It is also responsible for the Beta Taurids, an annual meteor shower with a maximum activity around 28–29 June. The Tunguska event coincided with the peak activity of that shower,[45] and the approximate trajectory of the Tunguska object is consistent with what would be expected from a fragment of Comet Encke.[8] It is now known that bodies of this kind explode at frequent intervals tens to hundreds of kilometres above the ground. Military satellites have been observing these explosions for decades.[46] During 2019 astronomers searched for hypothesized asteroids ~100 metres in diameter from the Taurid swarm between 5–11 July, and 21 July – 10 August.[47] However, as of December 2019 there have been no reports of discoveries of any such objects. In 1983, astronomer Zdeněk Sekanina published a paper criticising the comet hypothesis. He pointed out that a body composed of cometary material, travelling through the atmosphere along such a shallow trajectory, ought to have disintegrated, whereas the Tunguska body apparently remained intact into the lower atmosphere. Sekanina argued that the evidence pointed to a dense, rocky object, probably of asteroidal origin. This hypothesis was further boosted in 2001, when Farinella, Foschini, et al. released a study calculating the probabilities based on orbital modelling extracted from the atmospheric trajectories of the Tunguska object. They concluded with a probability of 83% that the object moved on an asteroidal path originating from the asteroid belt, rather than on a cometary one (probability of 17%).[1] Proponents of the comet hypothesis have suggested that the object was an extinct comet with a stony mantle that allowed it to penetrate the atmosphere. The chief difficulty in the asteroid hypothesis is that a stony object should have produced a large crater where it struck the ground, but no such crater has been found. It has been hypothesised that the passage of the asteroid through the atmosphere caused pressures and temperatures to build up to a point where the asteroid abruptly disintegrated in a huge explosion. The destruction would have to have been so complete that no remnants of substantial size survived, and the material scattered into the upper atmosphere during the explosion would have caused the skyglows. Models published in 1993 suggested that the stony body would have been about 60 metres (200 ft) across, with physical properties somewhere between an ordinary chondrite and a carbonaceous chondrite.[citation needed] Typical carbonaceous chondrite substance tends to be dissolved with water rather quickly unless it is frozen.[48] Christopher Chyba and others have proposed a process whereby a stony meteorite could have exhibited the behaviour of the Tunguska impactor. Their models show that when the forces opposing a body's descent become greater than the cohesive force holding it together, it blows apart, releasing nearly all its energy at once. The result is no crater, with damage distributed over a fairly wide radius, and all of the damage resulting from the thermal energy released in the blast. Three-dimensional numerical modelling of the Tunguska impact done by Utyuzhnikov and Rudenko in 2008[49] supports the comet hypothesis. According to their results, the comet matter dispersed in the atmosphere, while the destruction of the forest was caused by the shock wave. During the 1990s, Italian researchers, coordinated by the physicist Giuseppe Longo from University of Bologna, extracted resin from the core of the trees in the area of impact to examine trapped particles that were present during the 1908 event. They found high levels of material commonly found in rocky asteroids and rarely found in comets.[50][51] Kelly et al. (2009) contend that the impact was caused by a comet because of the sightings of noctilucent clouds following the impact, a phenomenon caused by massive amounts of water vapor in the upper atmosphere. They compared the noctilucent cloud phenomenon to the exhaust plume from NASA's Endeavour space shuttle.[52][53] In 2013, analysis of fragments from the Tunguska site by a joint US-European team was consistent with an iron meteorite.[54] The February 2013 Chelyabinsk bolide event provided ample data for scientists to create new models for the Tunguska event. Researchers used data from both Tunguska and Chelyabinsk to perform a statistical study of over 50 million combinations of bolide and entry properties that could produce Tunguska-scale damage when breaking apart or exploding at similar altitudes. Some models focused on combinations of properties which created scenarios which similar effects to the tree fall pattern as well as the atmospheric and seismic pressure waves of Tunguska. Four different computer models produced similar results; they concluded that the likeliest candidate for the Tunguska impactor was a stony body between 50 and 80 m (164 and 262 ft) in diameter, entering the atmosphere at roughly 55,000 km/h (34,000 mph), exploding at 10 to 14 km (6 to 9 mi) altitude, and releasing explosive energy equivalent to between 10 and 30 megatons. This is similar to the blast energy equivalent of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. The researchers also concluded impactors of this size only hit the Earth at an average interval scale of millennia.[55] Lake ChekoSee also: Lake ChekoIn June 2007, scientists from the University of Bologna identified a lake in the Tunguska region as a possible impact crater from the event. They do not dispute that the Tunguska body exploded in mid-air but believe that a ten-metre fragment survived the explosion and struck the ground. Lake Cheko is a small, bowl-shaped lake approximately 8 km (5.0 mi) north-northwest of the hypocentre.[56] The hypothesis has been disputed by other impact crater specialists.[57] A 1961 investigation had dismissed a modern origin of Lake Cheko, saying that the presence of metres-thick silt deposits at the lake's bed suggests an age of at least 5,000 years,[35] but more recent research suggests that only a metre or so of the sediment layer on the lake bed is "normal lacustrine sedimentation", a depth consistent with an age of about 100 years.[58] Acoustic-echo soundings of the lake floor provide support for the hypothesis that the lake was formed by the Tunguska event. The soundings revealed a conical shape for the lake bed, which is consistent with an impact crater.[59] Magnetic readings indicate a possible metre-sized chunk of rock below the lake's deepest point that may be a fragment of the colliding body.[59] Finally, the lake's long axis points to the hypocentre of the Tunguska explosion, about 7.0 km (4.3 mi) away.[59] Work is still being done at Lake Cheko to determine its origins.[60] The main points of the study are that Cheko, a small lake located in Siberia close to the epicentre of the 1908 Tunguska explosion, might fill a crater left by the impact of a fragment of a cosmic body. Sediment cores from the lake's bottom were studied to support or reject this hypothesis. A 175-centimetre-long (69 in) core, collected near the center of the lake, consists of an upper c. 1-metre-thick (39 in) sequence of lacustrine deposits overlaying coarser chaotic material. 210Pb and 137Cs indicate that the transition from lower to upper sequence occurred close to the time of the Tunguska event. Pollen analysis reveals that remains of aquatic plants are abundant in the top post-1908 sequence but are absent in the lower pre-1908 portion of the core. These results, including organic C, N and δ13C data, suggest that Lake Cheko formed at the time of the Tunguska event.[61] In 2017, new research by Russian scientists pointed to a rejection of the theory. They used soil research to prove that the lake is 280 years old or even much older; in any case clearly older than the Tunguska events.[62][63] Geophysical hypothesesThe scientific consensus is that the explosion was caused by the impact of a small asteroid, but there are some dissenters. Astrophysicist Wolfgang Kundt has proposed that the Tunguska event was caused by the release and subsequent explosion of 10 million tons of natural gas from within Earth's crust.[64][65][66][67][68] The basic idea is that natural gas leaked out of the crust and then rose to its equal-density height in the atmosphere; from there, it drifted downwind, in a sort of wick, which eventually found an ignition source such as lightning. Once the gas was ignited, the fire streaked along the wick, and then down to the source of the leak in the ground, whereupon there was the explosion. The similar verneshot hypothesis has also been proposed as a possible cause of the Tunguska event.[69][70][71] Other research has supported a geophysical mechanism for the event.[72][73][74] Similar eventsSee also: Fireball (meteor) and List of meteor air burstsThe Tunguska event is not the only example of a great unobserved explosion event. For example, the 1930 Curuçá River event in Brazil may have been an explosion of a superbolide that left no clear evidence of an impact crater. Modern developments in infrasound detection by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization and infrared DSP satellite technology have reduced the likelihood of undetected airbursts. A smaller air burst occurred over a populated area in Russia on 15 February 2013, at Chelyabinsk in the Ural district of Russia. The exploding meteoroid was an asteroid that measured about 17 to 20 metres across, with an estimated initial mass of 11,000 tonnes and which exploded with an energy release of approximately 500 kilotons.[55] It inflicted over 1,200 injuries, mainly from broken glass falling from windows shattered by its shock wave.[75] In popular cultureMain article: Tunguska event in popular cultureSee alsoPatomskiy crater, about 830 km (515 mi) to the east-southeast Sikhote-Alin meteorite, 1947 impact Tunguska Nature Reserve, protected area covering a portion of the site; ongoing scientific study of forest recovery Tall el-Hammam, a Middle Bronze Age site that one archaeological team has proposed was destroyed by an airburst

So you’ve decided you want to walk across the Grand Canyon

@dwelling-abode​ pinged me, and I ranted enough I’m just going to make this a post

3 parts: 

The Hike itself and why it sucks

The warnings

The walkthrough

The gear you’re going to use to make it suck less and also not die

The fitness you need to be in to not die

I apologize to all the mobile people for whom this is a wall of text.  

The hike:

Two variations: 

1) Rim-to-Rim aka North Kaibab to Bright Angel.  I did this.  1 day down, 2 days up.  

2) South Kaibab to Bright Angel off the South Rim

First thing you should notice: There is no water on South Kaibab.  There is no purified water source between Cottonwood and Bright Angel (Well, er, Phantom Ranch) which is the longest, hottest, most exposed portion of the trip.  You are coming up Bright Angel.  

The other thing you should notice: 1000 feet is 600 miles, this is the rough equivalent weather-wise of walking from Calgary to Phoenix to Minneapolis.  On a good day, your downhill day has a 60 degree temperature differential.  

This in turn enforces a very hard cutoff in terms of when it’s physically possible to do this, namely about 2 weeks in early October when the North Rim is open and it *might* not be 100+ degrees at the bottom.  Key word might.  I did it on the last possible day (No seriously, I flew my grandmother out to spend 4 days driving the car around), and it was 92.  

If you’ve never done serious exertion, 55 is t-shirt weather, I mean this.  

If you do it in June/July/August/early September, you will die.   There is no safe way to do this (Read: Any) level of physical activity in the desert in those temps.  

So let’s walkthrough the hike. 

The first mile and a half down to Supai is a boring series of switchbacks down through a pine forest.  Poor visibility because of the trees, boring yellow/grey rock, just do it.  Weather-wise, it went from 30 to 60 in the space of about 2 hours, if you brought a jacket, it’s in the backpack by now.  

Then you get to the tunnel.  If your less... energetic... companions want to come down a little bit, this is the spot they gawk and turn around.  There is a water supply, but it was covered in wasps, so don’t count on it running.  Probably 60-90 minutes down, 2-3 hours back up.  

The rock turns red, the pines get replaced by high desert scrub, it’s really the first open view of the next few miles of the hike and the light’s come around *just* far enough that it’s down into the canyon, but it’s still good light.  

Broadly speaking, you’re switchbacking down the left wall to the bridge, over the bridge, then down the right wall until you hit the bottom of that far wall.  

About halfway down, the red rock converts into the red-gray rock, and the trail becomes a dynamited cut into the sheer rock wall.  If you’re afraid of heights... enjoy!  Seriously, it’s freaky.  There is a tree in this picture.  

It’s another 15-20 degrees hotter (80... It was 30 4 hours and 3000 feet ago), and the sheer rock walls largely conceal the transition from the pictured scrub to actual desert.  

At Roaring Springs, the red rock ends and you get this off-green shale in eroded piles.  The trail flattens out, opens up, and goes another half mile down to the pumphouse.  This was my first working water supply!  It is 11:37AM.  I have been walking for 4.5 hours, 6 miles, and I have another 8 hot, flat miles to go.  

At this point, you merge with Bright Angel Creek.  This is the worst part of the trip.  ~5 miles of open terrain through the desert on a hot, hot day.   Another mile up is Cottonwood, the last water supply until Phantom.  Drain your water now, and refill completely.   Drink, drink, drink.  

About 2 miles up is the Ribbon Falls side trail.  Unfortunately, the bridge was out and I really did not feel like going up to the ford, fording the creek and doubling back while carrying this much gear.  This was a good choice, since I barely made it by dark.  In October, I doubt it’s really running tbh.  

So 5 miles rambling through the desert as the red side cliffs get higher and higher, you get lower and lower, and the day gets hotter and hotter. 

And finally, at last, 11 miles of walking in, you hit the box canyon.  Blessed shade.  3 miles of increasingly tired cornering later, there’s a side hike to Phantom Overlook, 1000 feet straight up, but I was running out of both light and leg strength, so I passed on this.  If you’re coming down South Kaibab, you have 5-6 hours to kill, so go explore the box canyon.  It’s seriously cool, and you’ll never be back here again.  

Go to Phantom Ranch or Bright Angel Campground, check in, drop your bags, run run run down to the river for sunset at the black bridge.  Stay there until dark, then use your headlamp to get back.  

Variant: There’s a variant I’d love to do where I manage to get Cottonwood permits as well, and then do both Ribbon Falls and Phantom Overlook as Day 2 with some more time at Phantom Ranch.  That’s about 7 down slow on the first day, a relaxing early sleep, ~11 (and ~4000 feet of elevation gain/loss nervous_monkey_puppet.jpg) on Day 2, then 2 easy 9-mile days on the climb with dead legs.  

Note: I stayed in the cabins and got 2 hours of sleep.  Preferably, you should just do Bright Angel Campground.  Lows of 70 are perfectly fine for sleeping.  

Day 2:

Wake up.  Walk down to the river, cross... either of the bridges are fine really, black bridge is a slight detour, but ideally this is a short day, adding a mile won’t hurt.  I must admit to being moderately curious about the south side trail from black to gray bridge.  

Two miles running up and along a cliffside trail to the base of Polk Creek. 

Looks like this, that’s a cell phone camera, enjoy.  

You’re still pretty low, but also desert morning, shade, and the river being a giant heatsink.  Then you start the climb out. 1500 feet up to Indian Garden, probably 80% of that climb is a 2-mile stretch of switchbacks.  Lovely red and yellow rock.   

The last mile or two before the campground are flat, exposed to the sun, and still low enough it’s hot hot hot.  80′s are expected.  

And then you finally get to the campground (Trees, shade, toilets, first actual real water supply since Phantom!).  At this point, either:

1) Congrats, you have a campground!  Set up camp, rest, relax, maybe make a Plateau Point (2 miles, 1 hour each way, perfectly flat the whole way) run.  

2) If you’re really fast and have 2 hours/4 miles of buffer in your legs (Iffy, 14 mile day up a 4400 foot cliff), also make a Plateau Point run.  It’s not very pretty at 2:00 in the afternoon, so really don’t feel bad for skipping.  

3) Stare in sheer horror at the 3000 foot cliff that has finally become visible in front of you, and cry inside.  

You are a third of the way up.  

I wasn’t feeling so good, so I went to bed early.  The sun goes down at 6:00 by the way, and it’s so dark you’ll just conk out.  

Day 3: 

So I woke up at 4AM, made a sunrise Plateau Point run (DO THIS) with my tripod, and then headed back.  Packed up the campground, started up about 9:00 or so?  

This is ideal.  You’re headed right up the middle of a crack in the rock, and if you do it this way, you’re making the climb in 60 degree weather in the shade pretty much until the top.  If you took Option #2 or #3 yesterday, the sun comes around, and you’re doing the climb in 75 degree weather in the sun.  

There’s not really much here.  It is exactly a 5 mile, 3000 foot climb with 2 intermediate water supplies split every 1000 feet on 2/1.5/1.5 mile splits.  3 mile resthouse has a decent view.  The most exciting thing past that is the red/yellow line in the rock, and if you do this early enough, the sun will be on that wall.  This took me about 4.5 hours.  

The hike until now has been a 2.5-day test of your ankles.  Downhill, uneven ground, drop-offs, etc.  This is a sheer test of your quad strength and cardio.  Especially as you get closer to 8K feet.  “Officially”, I burned 6200, 4300, 6200 calories across the 3 days.  

The most encouraging thing is seeing the increasingly “tourist” nature of your hiking companions since the serious hikers have proper gear and the less serious ones... do not.  So if you’re watching some little 4 year old kid in Converse, you’re probably not *that* far from the top.  

At the top, stay as close to the Rim as possible.  My ankle gave out the second I got to the top, and I had to hobble half a mile to my hotel.  God help me if there was a shuttle ride or a longer walk.  

Shower, relax, massage some feeling back into your feet, change clothing if you brought extra, THEN meet up with your family members.  And then I was bored, so for sunset, I went around and grabbed this shot of the trail.  

Gear that will keep you from death: 

Satellite comms: 

Garmin satellite comms ($350 for the Inreach Mini + more $$$$ for the actual plan) https://www.rei.com/product/140110/garmin-inreach-mini-2-way-satellite-communicator

I upgraded to the good plan that lets you send infinite random texts (~10 minute delay), and didn’t regret it.  But you need a Panic button that works.  There’s pretty good connectivity, you don’t need one of the $1000 beacons they use in slot canyons, and the cheaper competitors don’t.... actually work.  

Invest in a Garmin.  Set it up.  TEST IT BEFORE YOU LEAVE.  Make sure your relatives know how to contact you over the satellite comms, and that your texts will arrive from some random number.  

Hiking gear: 

Fitted Backpack with both good chest and hip straps and an internal support structure ($2-400)

I’ve been ecstatically happy with my 70L Osprey (Aether?), I also have a 24-inch torso.  

They make different ones for men and women, because the men’s ones put the chest strap straight across the nipples.  You actually care about that.  

Carbon Fiber Hiking Poles tested and fitted ($300)

Get you down steps, get you across rivers, provide support on pushes up, get weight off the ankles.  

Protip: 5cm too long on downhills, 5cm too short on uphills.  

Good boots/shoes ($150-$300)

There’s an inherent tradeoff between ankle support and weight in the boots.  Personally, for a through-hiker with serious gear, I’d go with mid-rise boots

If you were doing a true Rim-to-Rim, they all use trail runners even when they’re not running it.  

Good Boot Socks

Merino Wool is a must, I really like Darn Tough thick boot socks.  

Moisture-wicking underwear

Merino Wool is acceptable

Carbon Fiber is light, you actually care about every ounce. 

Related: You’re about to spend 3 days in the same clothing, it will smell. Merino at least makes it smell better and handles the moisture acceptably.  

Anti-heat gear:

A good sweat-wicking wide-brim hat with holes in the outer band (The name brand is Tilly for $80, I think mine was about $40?)

Good, tough, not too hot hiking pants ($60/pair?)

Ripping is bad, extra pockets are good.  

I use these, note the water resistance and also two pockets, one per leg, with horizontal zippers so you can reach straight down and things can’t fall out of your pockets.  

Some people use those convertible shorts, I’ve never liked the zippers myself.  

Good moisture-wicking t-shirts, or even better polo shirts ($40)

Polo shirts let you pop your collar and cover your entire neck.  

Moisture-wicking keeps you alive when it’s 95.  

SPEND MONEY.  It’s a $40 t-shirt, you just need one, SPEND THE MONEY. 

Light jacket for cold mornings

Consumables:

At least one water bottle and 1 3L Osprey water bladder

Some form of backup water purification

High-carb, high-calorie-to-weight-or-volume, low-fiber food

6000 calories a day * Fiber in an energy bar...

Personal recc: Nutter Butters.  Easy to find in any mid-sized grocery store, can go a week without going stale, etc, etc.  Throw 2-3 family-sized packs into Ziploc, ration one a day.  

Phantom Ranch has a store, you can buy some more food there.  

They also have an all-you-can-eat breakfast, that’s worth investing in if you’re in the cabins.  

Imodium

Any needed meds.  I have contacts so I needed a little bottle of Boston.  

Camping Gear (Skippable if through-hiking or only staying at Phantom):

Lightest possible self-supporting full-frame tent ($300)

https://www.rei.com/product/110817/rei-co-op-quarter-dome-1-tent

The ground is rocky, you probably can’t pitch

There are scorpions and rats.  If you want to try a tarp, I can’t stop you.  

Sleeping bag + pad

Cold, but not that cold at night

Once again, rocky ground.  

Your permit, in a plastic Ziploc bag.  

Camera Gear: 

Your cell phone is very good these days.  

But fine, it’s a once in a lifetime trip.  

Full-frame or APS-C body

High-MP landscape body if you can do it.  

Lenses

24-105/4 for the day hikes.  (NIkon is 24-120/4)

You want the reach more than you want a 24-70/2.8.  

(Optional) 16-35/2.8 for nights/star shots/wide

Long lenses are heavy.  105 is good enough.  

I brought a full-sized tripod, this was simultaneously super-cool and incredibly stupid.  

Maybe a Platypod instead?

Don’t lose your remote trigger the day before like I did.  

Peak Design Clip.  Seriously, amazing little gadget.  

Misc: 

Wallet (Pull the loose change), keys, etc. 

Paper printouts of your South Rim hotel reservations in a Ziploc bag.  

I brought a change of clothing because Grandma was a couple days behind me, but an extra pair of underwear and socks is probably a good idea.   

Extra batteries.  

I blew out 2 camera batteries and an entire 26K mAh battery over 3 days with a camera, a phone, and satellite comms.  

Fitness that will keep you from death:

Broadly Speaking: 

Ankles/Calves/Feet are stability

Quads are power

Hips and back and chest hold the backpack up 

Mine weighed 35 pounds, this is not nothing. 

Cardio matters at the very end, gets outweighed by stability until then.  

1MPH at 7K feet is 3MPH at sea level basically.  And you can do 3 MPH now.  

Arms kinda sorta show up and help a little bit on the hill climbs?

Pretty much your order of priority is top to bottom.  Ankles giving out is a $10000 helicopter ride and months of rehab, legs giving out is a surprise lunchtime and an hour-long rest sitting on a rock somewhere.  

Ankles: 

BALANCE BALANCE BALANCE, also Lyle’s calf rotation starting about 6 months out, ending 4 just in case you injure something. 

Legs: 

Leg press and one-legged leg press.  Also stairs.  Loaded stairs if possible.   Press it UP!  Press, press, press.  I got up to 700 pounds on an incline press.  

Legs, but also Cardio:

Bring your backpack and wear your hiking boots to the gym, take a treadmill, and go slow and highly angled for a long time.  Speed up as you get better.  You use subtly different muscles when you have ankle protection on because the Achilles is no longer able to act as a spring.  Train them hard now.  

If you’ve got a good hill climb near you, be religious about that.  

There are worse things than finding an ice cream shop 10 miles away, walking there with a fully loaded pack for hours and hours, getting the biggest ice cream they have, and Ubering home.  

Hips/Back/etc: 

Hip hinges with perfect back posture.  Deadlifts wreck the back and risk injury, but rack pulls are perfect.  Load up, load up, load up.  

Other back exercises: Cable rows with perfect back posture, Pulldowns with perfect back posture.  

Arms: 

So you did cable rows, right?  Yeah, that’ll get you some good enough arms.  

-------------------------------

Whatever you end up doing, pause it 2-3 months out.  Avoid injury.  Maintain your lifts, lose 10 pounds, and maybe up the cardio a tad.  

And good luck and enjoy.  

Norse Germanic Holidays

I thought for my first post I would write about the holidays as we all love a good holiday.

I follow the Traditional Norse Rites as closely as I can, which, with the lack of historical evidence and the infiltration of Christianity at the beginning of the 11th Century it can be quite a difficult process to winnow out what is uncompromised tradition.

However, after saying all that, here is the list of Norse Holidays that I have researched and which have a traditional basis.

(I will put my thoughts in parentheses and make them italic. My personal thoughts are just that, personal thoughts and in no way are based in fact)

Jol/Jul (Yule) - Winter equinox, the shortest day

December 20th - 22nd

A celebration of the New Year.

On the first night, Mother’s night, Frigga and the Disir are honored. Also, it is said that the God Freyr rides over the earth astride the back of his shining boar bringing light and hope back to the world for the coming spring. 

There are numerous references to this festival in the sagas.

Disting

February 2nd

This is a farming festival at its heart. Women past and present are honored and the fields are planted along with the first market or fair of the year. A feast is held to ensure that the coming months will be blessed with fruitfulness.

Ostara / Eostre (Easter) - Spring Equinox

March 20th - 21st

As it is still celebrated today, Ostara was the festival of Spirit and the Goddess Ostara. Coloured and decorated eggs were gifted to one another and the rabbit was especially welcomed. 

Pretty much all of the Gods & Goddesses were worshipped at this festival.

Walpurgis

April 22nd - April 30th

The nine nights of the 22nd to the 30th are venerated to Odin who sacrificed himself on the World Tree for the runes and the knowledge on how to use them. It is said it was on the last night, the 30th, that he beheld the Runes, died, the 9 worlds’ light was extinguished and chaos reigned until he came back to life at the darkest part of the night (midnight). It is when the clock hits midnight then immense balefires are said to have been lit to chase away the darkness and light Odin’s way home.

“No true Germanic Heathen name survives for May Eve; the German Walpurgisnacht is derived from the well-documented Christian St. Walpurga. To avoid confusion, and because no better name survives, Many Germanic heathens have replaced ‘Walpurga’ with the name of the second-century Germanic seeress ‘Waluburg’. This festival marks the beginning of summer in Scandinavia. In all the Germanic countries, it is seen as a time when witches are particularly active, a belief memorialized in Goethe’s description of the witch-moot on the Brocken (Faust, Act I) and Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain”. It is also the Germanic equivalent of Valentine’s Day and a night of love: young men are expected to go out into the woods to gather green branches and wildflowers with which they decorate the windows of their beloveds. For both these reasons, Heathens consider Freya to be the ruler of this festival, as she is the mistress of both witchcraft and love. The traditional ‘Maypole’ or ‘May Tree’ is also a part of the celebration of this feast; in Scandinavia, the ‘May Tree’ is carried about in processions, a practice which probably goes back to the Vanic fruitfulness-procession of earliest Heathen times. Fires were kindled on grave mounds or other high places on this night; it is traditional for folk to leap through the flames for luck. A fire kindled by friction (the ‘need-fire’) might also be used to protect cattle against illness or cure them.” - The Pagan Journey

Midsummer / Midsumarblot

June 20th - 21st

The celebration of the Sun is at its height. Midsummer is the festival of power and activity. 

Midsummer is recognized because it is the longest day of the year; thus, the year begins to age after this point and therefore the days grow progressively shorter. The God Baldur is claimed to have been sacrificed at this point but is reborn in the Jol.

Midsummer celebrations consist of feasts, dancing, singing and general partying. During the day, people make wreaths, headdresses, and corn dollies which were burnt in the night’s bonfire. The maypole was also a big part of the celebration, being dressed in greenery and flowers and with people dancing around it for fertility.

Lithasblot

July 31st - August 1st

The harvest festival was a celebration of the bounty that the gods had blessed the people with. Food was distributed out to the poor and needy and loaves were made in the shape of the fylfot (which was soon discontinued due to the symbol being used by the Nazi’s)

Lithasblot has long been associated with powerful ceremonial magical workings, and it is suggested that the magical lodges of England performed a working in 1941 to repel the German invasion force)

Unfortunately, not much remains of what exactly went on during this festival traditionally, as the tradition was quickly taken over by Christianity.

Mabon / Haustblot

September 22nd - 23rd - Autumn Equinox

Not the biggest festival, from the disparate historical record it seems as if this was a long-running festival while the harvest was being brought in, feasts would have been common and bonfires with mead, singing and dancing as well. It is thought that there may have been animal slaughter may have been common as well (perhaps the meat from the animals was preserved in salt and also dried for over the winter?)

Far distant livestock and shepherds would be coming back to the home to overwinter as well.

Vetrnnaetr / Winternights

October 29th - November 2nd

The beginning of the Winter for those in the North. Remembrances of the dead and the ancestors were part of the ceremonies. It seemed that the celebrations were full of wild abandon and this was the time to consult the fates, sing magic songs, recites power poetry - also it was said that if one was to rest atop a grave for the entire night, they would be most powerful! 

The Goddess Hel of the dead is honored on this day, as well as the Norns. Vor, the goddess of divination would have been honored also.

The festival marked the turning of Summer into Winter.

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So there we go, please leave a note if I have missed any major holidays.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope it’s been interesting if not useful!

~ Scarlet

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Sources / Further Reading

Norse Holidays and Festivals

WalkingtheWyrd

Wizard Realm - Norse Holidays and Festivals

Wikipedia - Heathen Holidays

Meet the Band

Dysphoria is:

Stage name: Dhel. Position: Vocals, piano. Birthday: October 29. Age: 305 years (equivalent to late 30′s). Height: 8′. Weight: 220+ lbs.

Essentially the “face” of the group, Dhel writes much of the band’s lyrics--and when the other members have ideas for songs, they usually come to him to help them get the words out. 

Onstage, Dhel is charismatic, enigmatic, and all too willing to hypnotize fans with his husky baritone voice. He has the ability to command an entire auditorium even when standing perfectly still, eyes closed and mic down, and despite his usual rigid personality away from the lights and the music, he seems drawn to the drama of the stage. This is one of the few times you will find him smiling and interacting without spitting biting words.

Those fans unfortunate enough to encounter him outside the magic of an arena often describe the offstage Dhel as a jackass with a viper’s mouth. 

Stage name: Lin. Position: Lead guitar, backing vocals. Birthday: October 29. Age: 305 years (equivalent to late 30′s). Height: 8′. Weight: 220+ lbs.

Lin is both the founder of the band and its main composer; he writes most of the music, whether alone or with his bandmates’ input. Occasionally, he writes some songs completely, but he usually leaves the lyrics to Dhel, since he believes Dhel has a way with words that few people can match. 

During shows, Lin is eager to interact with his fans and you can often find him leaping from the stage to skip, jog, and hop down the catwalks. He enjoys getting close to the crowd and given his abundant energy, he loves amping up the fans, encouraging them to cheer, scream, cry, and sing along with expansive gestures. The sort of person who always seems full of smiles, he isn’t afraid to be goofy and he always makes it a point to talk to the crowd between sets.

Offstage, he’s much the same: friendly, charming, willing to be a clown to make people laugh, and eager to interact with anyone. But if his smiles seem a little brittle around the edges and clouds sometimes hide the sun in his eyes, well... who will notice?

Stage name: Bren. Position: Rhythm guitar, backing vocals. Birthday: October 29. Age: 305 years (equivalent to late 30′s). . Height: 8′. Weight: 220+ lbs.

The youngest of the triplets and the band’s rhythm guitarist, Bren contributes quite a bit in the way of themes for songs. He and Dhel frequently work together to create lyrics, whether they begin with said lyrics and pass them on to Lin to make the melody, or they receive a melody from Lin and create lyrics for it. 

Onstage, Bren is the cool, silent type who usually lets his body language speak for him. Unlike Lin and Ishiki, he doesn’t often slap hands with his fans, nor does he make much eye contact with the crowd. He tends to keep his head down, eyes focused on his guitar and his fingers--and when he does lift his chin, his eyes mostly focus somewhere on the back of the arena, above the sea of heads. Most people assume he just gets carried away in the music, so much so that he forgets anything else exists. But between sets, he still keeps his eyes averted and you’ll frequently see him with his back to the audience.

Offstage, he’s been described as elusive and shy, an introvert who rarely makes eye contact with anyone. A closer inspection might reveal that this abyss is staring right back at you from the corners of his eyes. Perhaps he isn’t as shy as he seems.

Stage name: Rei. Position: Drums, percussion. Birthday: July 10. Age: 304 years (equivalent to late 30′s). . Height: 7′2″. Weight: 241 lbs.

A childhood friend who grew up with his bandmates, Rei had a talent for patterns and rhythms that made him damn near unbeatable in any rhythm games he played. That talent--and his fondness for drumming on everything he encountered--led Lin to suggest the most sacred of childhood swears: the pinkie promise. Rei’s part of the promise? If Lin ever started a band, Rei would join as the drummer.

Rei is the sort of person who uses the stage as a place to cut loose and release all his pent-up emotions. As the heartbeat of the band, he is content to hide behind his drumkits and he usually only talks during sets when one of his bandmates speaks directly to him or encourages him. An introvert who is truly shy, the stage is the place where he bursts from his shell and lights up--at least when someone holds his hand and drags him out of the shadows.

Offstage, his bandmates have described him as a homebody, content to hermit in his cottage and take care of his animals. He has a habit of picking up stray, injured creatures and rehabilitating them before releasing them back into the wild, and if he hadn’t joined the band, he’d probably be a veterinarian. Or a mechanic. Ask any of Dysphoria’s other members and they’ll probably tell you that Rei likes animals and machines more than he likes most people.

Stage name: Ishiki. Position: Bass guitar, violin. Birthday: October 22. Age: 302 years (equivalent to mid 30′s). Height: 6′8″. Weight: 226 lbs.

The youngest member of the band, Ishiki is another childhood friend who preferred playing sports to playing instruments... until he realized that soccer balls could never cry for him the way music could. His grandmother was a huge fan of chamber music and she encouraged her daughter to enroll the boy in violin lessons that he often skipped in favour of playing soccer with his friends. But when tragedy struck his tenth birthday, he planted both feet on the ground and threw himself into music, leading Lin to recruit him as bassist when they were still kids.

Onstage, he is just as sunny as his hair. Optimistic, upbeat, and possessed of a disposition sweeter than treacle, he loves working with Lin to get the crowd energized. He’s a bit like a rabbit, hopping around with boundless energy and enthusiasm. Much to the chagrin of his bodyguards, he isn’t at all shy about jumping off the stage and shaking fans’ hands whenever the opportunity arises, and he is usually the first to join Lin in bantering with the crowd between sets. 

Catch him offstage and you’ll find that he is much the same: sweet-tempered, friendly, and guileless. He loves home-cooked meals, so if you’re the sort of fan who likes to bring gifts to shows, give him a treat you’ve made yourself and he’ll remember you for a long time. His bandmates will tell you that if he hadn’t picked up music, he could probably make a killing as a tailor and/or fashion designer, and he frequently works with Lin to design and create the band’s stage costumes. 

New Post has been published on https://vacationsoup.com/ponce-lighthouse-adventure/

Ponce Lighthouse Adventure near New Smyrna Beach Florida

Ready for a Ponce Lighthouse adventure near New Smyrna Beach? Step back in time and climb 175 feet of fun in the Florida sun at the Ponce Inlet Light Station and Museum! Constructed in 1887, the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse has guided mariners along the Florida coast for more than 130 years.

17 Stories High

Standing 175 feet tall ,the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse is the tallest in Florida and one of the tallest in the US ( (the Cape Hatteras Light in North Carolina is taller at 207 feet). That is the equivalent of 17 stories high. Workers stacked 1.25 million bricks and an 8 feet thick wall at its base.

213 Steps

Not for the fainthearted or bad knees, climbing the lighthouse is no joke! The stairwell spirals up 213 steps (which are steep) with 9 landings to rest and read interesting historic information and see lighthouse artifacts. But the view at the top are worth it - breathtaking.

Enjoy the video of Ponce Lighthouse with its beautiful coastal backdrop below. This view is facing south with the Atlantic Ocean on the left, the Ponce Inlet and New Smyrna Beach directly behind it, and the intracoastal waterway (Indian River) on the right.

http://poncelighthouse.zsite.info/z/-vf.0.0.0.18.DB169BF567E34DBF1853365EABC8BEBDEA1229F9E0C2D791D3E7E089CF4265DF

Lighthouse's Many Uses

Divers swim on the shipwreck Spiegel Grove Tuesday, July 12, 2005, of Key Largo, Fla., in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Since it was fully sunk on June 10, 2002, the decommissioned Navy Landing Ship Dock has rested on its starboard side. But Monday, July 11, 2005, divers discovered the ship had rolled upright, apparently courtesy of waves spawned by Hurricane Dennis off the southeast coast of Cuba, according to a National Weather Service official. The ship is the largest in the world ever scuttled to become an artificial reef. NO SALES (Photo by Fraser Nivens/Florida Keys News Bureau/HO)

Prevent shipwrecks. Florida is home to many famous shipwrecks. Hundreds of Spanish sailors and would-be colonists and millions of dollars of gold, silver, and jewels being transported from South America back to Spain have sunk in the waters off of Florida.

Navigate. The Coast Guard assumed operation of the Lighthouse around 1939 and installed a radio navigational beacon. Ships use the Ponce signal plus signals from Jacksonville and Cape Canaveral to fix their positions relative to the Florida coast and to prepare to navigate around the dangerous Hetzel Shoal near Canaveral.

Wartime Defense. During World War II, the lighthouse tower was used as a spotting station for enemy aircraft and off-shore vessels. The Light Station was a Coast Guard training center and barracks during the War. There is a permanent exhibit of artifacts and information concerning the Coast Guard and the Light Station in World War II. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, changed life for everyone in America, including Ponce Inlet. On December 12, the light station was closed to the public, and unauthorized persons were not allowed on the beach. (Eventually, civilian guards would be stationed to check every car that crossed the bridges onto the peninsula.) The two keepers at the lighthouse were ordered to stand eight hour watches to spot possible enemy activity, and on December 29th, the Coast Guard decided to require round-the-clock watches.

Stephen Crane and the Ponce Lighthouse

In 1897, American author Stephen Crane, working as an undercover correspondent for the New York Post, joins a gun-running expedition to Cuba aboard the steam tug Commodore.  Their goal is to reach Cuba with supplies to aid the rebellion against Spanish rule of the island. The morning after her departure from Jacksonville, the ship sinks about 12 miles off Daytona.  Survivors credit the beacon from the lighthouse at Mosquito Inlet for giving them the direction in which to row their small boats.  Eight men die in the sinking, but Stephen Crane survives and writes his famous short story, "The Open Boat."

17 Mile Lighthouse Beacon via Fresnel Lens

The Ayres Davies Lens Exhibit Building at the Ponce Lighthouse Museum contains the restored original 1st order rotating Fresnel lens along with exhibits on the history of lighthouse illumination, and a truly stunning collection of lenses and lanterns.

The original lamp burned kerosene; in 1909 it was replaced with an incandescent oil vapor lamp. In 1933, the lighthouse beacon was electrified in 1933 with a 500-watt lamp and the original, 1st order rotating  Fresnel lens was replaced with a 3rd order rotating Fresnel lens. The fresnel lens blinks its beams 17 nautical miles away!

History of Lighthouse Lenses

One of the seven wonders of the Ancient World, the great lighthouse of Alexandria, built around 280 B.C., towered some 450 feet above Egypt's greatest harbor. At that height, it was the second tallest structure in the world, after another of the seven — the Great Pyramid of Giza. The light within, also state of the art, was an open flame.

From that time until the 18th century, the lights that warned ships that they were approaching land improved hardly at all. Some burned coal. Others stuck with wood. Oil lamps backed by mirrors eventually offered a bit more candlepower. Still, every coastline in the world remained littered with the ribs of broken ships whose captains didn't see the lighthouse until it was too late. Then, in 1822, a frail scientist with a passion for optics made a revolutionary breakthrough. His name was Augustin Jean Fresnel. Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-makes-a-better-lighthouse-lens-

As a child, Fresnel was a slow learner who showed little interest in language studies or in tests of memory. By the age of 8, he could barely read. Yet his boyhood friends, for whom he studiously determined how to increase the power of popguns and bows, called him "the genius." When applied to optics, his genius proved to be real and considerable. Where others had improved existing lighthouse technology, Fresnel leapt forward by studying the behavior of light itself. His studies both advanced the understanding of the nature of light and produced the most important breakthrough in lighthouse lights in 2,000 years.

Fresnel worked out a number of formulas to calculate the way light changes direction, or refracts, while passing through glass prisms. Working with some of the most advanced glassmakers of the day, he produced a combination of prism shapes that together made up a lens. The Fresnel lighthouse lens used a large lamp at the focal plane as its light source. It also contained a central panel of magnifying glasses surrounded above and below by concentric rings of prisms and mirrors, all angled to gather light, intensify it and project it outward.

The various reflector systems installed in lighthouses during the 40 years preceding the introduction of the 1822 Fresnel lens certainly had been improvements over the open fires or candles in lantern rooms. Still, they could trap only a small percentage of the light. All prior systems paled by comparison with the Fresnel lens. Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-makes-a-better-lighthouse-lens-170677431/

The Museum has something for everyone

The Ponce DeLeon Inlet Lighthouse Museum campus includes the lighthouse, a Museum and Gift shop, a Cuban raft exhibit, a Video Theatre, a giant old galleon anchor, the First Assistant and Second Assistant Keeper's Dwellings, the Lens Exhibit Building, and the 1000 lb US Lighthouse Service Fog Bell.

Children and adults will all enjoy the museum and lighthouse. Interesting unique history, optical science, beautiful coastal setting, The Gift Shop is full of unique books, art, and of course gifts - you could easily enjoy browsing there for an hour. Visitors should plan for at least a half a day. The local area also has a few waterfront marinas and seafood hangouts, fishing charters, water sports as well as a nature preserve, Lighthouse Point Park with beach, and a Marine Science Center.

Your Ponce Lighthouse adventure near New Smyrna Beach is about 30 minutes from our condo. We travel north up Route 1 to the first intracoastal bridge in Daytona Beach which is Dunlawton Blvd. Then turn right on South Atlantic Avenue to the end of end of the island!

4931 S. Peninsula Drive Ponce Inlet, FL 32127 (386) 761-1821

Hours of Operation

Sept. 3, 2019 – May 24, 2020 Open Daily, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM (Last Admission at 5:00 PM)

Back to the Future: A new Ministry in Mutare

Revd Charlie Moore, Vicar of St Mary, Bermondsey, writes...

I arrived in Mutare late in the evening on Wednesday 3rd July. On stepping off the plane in Harare earlier in the day, you could be forgiven for thinking it was the height of summer, but later as the sun goes down you quickly feel the cold of the southern African winter and the smell of wood fires is in the air, the smoking trails of which can be seen in the valley against the panorama of mountains surrounding Mutare viewed from Christmas Pass.

Power cuts are still a feature of daily life with little prospect of improvement soon as a stretched power network struggles to compensate for Lake Kariba dam (one source of Zimbabwean generated energy) being low in water because of drought.

As we continue to drive down Christmas Pass into Mutare we are greeted by the words in a neatly trimmed hedge on the hillside “Welcome to Mutare”, followed by a sign which proclaims: “The voice of the people is the voice of God”- a statement popularised by President Mnangagwa when he came to power in 2017.

Whatever we or Zimbabweans may think of those words, one cannot help but be struck by the beauty of this country and especially the location of Mutare, Zimbabwe’s easternmost city, situated on the border with Mozambique.

At this time of year, as the sun sets, the colours are vibrant against the sharp clarity of the evening sky in the setting sun - short moments to be enjoyed before the sudden fall of night.

Having worked and lived in Zimbabwe from 1998 to 2001, two of those years, serving as the Acting Dean of St John’s Cathedral, Mutare, I had not visited since 2006, and so it was very special to have the opportunity to represent Bishop Christopher, the Woolwich Episcopal Area Manicaland Link and the Diocese of Southwark at the Installation of Revd Luke Chigwanda as Dean of St John's on Saturday 6th July 2019.

So as we continued our journey down Christmas Pass into the heart of Mutare, I was also looking forward to seeing old friends.

The following day, I spent the morning seeking to familiarise myself with the latest changes to the monetary system and simply how to buy goods in Zimbabwe. At present this can be done using “Ecocash” (a mobile phone based payment system) or in Z$ bonds.

Since the end of June the Government have not allowed the use of US$ and other foreign currency in shops (although inevitably this doesn’t stop “discreet” transactions on the street). There are daily fluctuations in prices which, together with the shortage of cash and the ban on foreign currency, make daily life challenging, especially for the less well off.

Bond notes are difficult to get - I gave up queuing in a Bank, and having purchased some privately, then allowed a young man to pay for my shopping at the Supermarket with Ecocash so that I could give him the equivalent in Bonds.

At the Deanery I was given a warm welcome by Luke. Over lunch, we reflected on the challenges of Christian leadership. The words from Philippians 3: 13-14 come to mind.

I shared a recent experience of watching the London Marathon and the “servant” role of the Pacemaker or Pacesetter and how they run at the front for a sustained period before relinquishing the lead and allowing others to run ahead.

Later, it was especially encouraging, as Luke showed me a project based at the Diocesan Office making and providing uniforms for School children, to meet people from my time at St John’s, still involved in a number of ways.

This included a workshop where a multi stationed sewing machine can be programmed to sew patterns on to garments (including vestments). A major challenge to the smooth running of these and other projects is the lack of funds to provide necessary parts and maintenance.

Following on from this at a meeting with the Bishop of Manicaland and Diocesan Secretary,  the Bishop expressed his thoughts on the benefits of developing Parish profiles for churches in the Diocese and how they might help people looking for a church. I suggested that this could potentially lead into a Diocesan wide model for Mission Action Planning.

The following morning began with a rehearsal for the Installation service after which we set off for St Augustine’s Mission, where I spoke to a group of school chaplains about my experience of school ministry in the UK - as it is mainly confined to our Church School, and drawing heavily on my own experience as a parent of teenagers!

One of the most interesting questions related to the challenges we face in the UK as compared to Zimbabwe. From our perspective- the influence of Social media which has led one Church of England school in London to ban smart phones at the beginning of the coming school year. Later, in conversation, it was also challenging to look at the same issue from their perspective - the benefits the internet brings, especially in relation to the downloading of essential educational materials without the expense of printing and paper, thus reducing the need for expensive books.

The impromptu session with the Chaplains was followed by a tour of the school when a survey of Premier League football teams raised a cheer or two! Lunch preceded another kind of tour- The Diocesan Pig rearing project directed by a brother of the Bishop.

Then it was back to Mutare where I was dropped in the Florida district (after negotiating a large number of potholes) to visit a family, former St John’s members from whom I collected quite a haul of very large avocados and bananas.

As I made my way back to the home of my hosts, I reflected on the humbling experience of returning unannounced to a previous place of ministry to be given such a warm welcome and hear in the midst of challenging times, such gratitude for the gift of life itself.

I also reflected on the past divisions: in Country, Cathedral and Diocese and the hope of healing any new beginning brings.

And so the following morning, it was with a sense of anticipation that we gathered outside the Diocesan Offices in Mutare to begin the procession into the Cathedral for the service of Installation.

The melodic singing and mesmeric beat of the drums as we entered the church brought back memories. The joyful worship did not disappoint, the age old liturgy of initiation of a new person, into a new ministry, in a new place, not only spoke of a new beginning but also the potential of a new future. As Bishop Erick said: “it is a new ministry because Luke brings particular gifts to our life and work together”. In his sermon, Luke himself called for creativity in worship, especially in relation to investing wisely in young people and children as he appealed to parents to “allow (their) children to take church seriously” There was much laughter when he spoke about his old Datsun car into which he poured so much money, that it ended up costing him a lot more than he bought it for. In fact as he joked: “I ended up under the 1952 Datsun more than I was in the car!”

Towards the end of the service, greetings were given by visiting Clergy - from Manica, over the border in Mozambique, the Diocese of Central Zimbabwe, and by myself on behalf of Bishop Christopher and the Diocese of Southwark (with Agnes Mugadza). Gifts were also given to Luke and his family by the children and members of the Cathedral congregation.

After almost 5 hours, the service ended with a welcome meal after which I went home to finish preparing to preach at the Cathedral the following morning on a theme requested by Luke: Unity.

I spoke on Ephesians 4: 1-16. The People of God, The Body of Christ + A Growing Body and unusually for me, I began and ended by leading the congregation in a song: an old favourite from our time at St John’s, with which the choir joined in.

“Let your Living Water flow over my soul….”

As my short time in Mutare drew to a close, I rejoiced in the renewal of old friendships and in the making of new ones.

In many ways the old Mutare is receding. As I wrote: “What we see now seems like the remains of someone else’s city stamped on someone else’s land” but “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” Psalm 24: 1                        

As 1 Peter 2: 9-10 reminds us: “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy”

God bless Zimbabwe!