Winter Adventures: Silver Lake

I definitely have winter adventures, but haven't blogged much about them. Many of them are at night, snowshoeing all over creation. Others are in adverse conditions, making picture-taking difficult. We were soaked to the bone on one memorable adventure up Maple Mountain. Taking pictures was not a good option. But this past Saturday, we had a glorious day AND I remembered my camera. We skied up the road from Tibble Fork Reservoir about 3.5 miles to Silver Lake Flat Reservoir (no water in it) pictured here. We intended to hike to Silver Lake, about 2 miles farther on, at the base of that mountain in the middle of the first photo, White Baldy. The mountain is part of the boundary between American Fork Canyon and Little Cottonwood Canyon.

This next photo is a look back at Timp from Silver Lake Flat.

It was an AMAZING day! I'm not sure the temperature, but I was very warm. Probably around 30 degrees, but we were working hard! Lots of sun. I should have had my hat. I definitely wore sunscreen.

Surrounded by beauty on the way to Silver Lake. I had to turn around to get back to Nathan's basketball game and so didn't make it to the lake. Still, my grand total miles were about 11, with a 1500 foot elevation gain. I did it in four hours flat. Theo came along but didn't hold still long enough to be in any photo.

Heading up to Silver Lake, about the spot where I turned around. It was 3 hours up, 1 hour down. The snow was a couple feet deep up here at 8,000 feet. Not nearly as deep as last year, when this would have been a sink-to-your-waist struggle the whole way. Perfect conditions; no avalanche danger.

Adele and Lin

People I am in love with this week include Adele and Jeremy Lin. I can't really claim to be unique. Everyone seems to be in love with Adele and Lin. But here's the thing: I don't fall in love easily, though the rest of the world seems to. This, for me, is momentous. Loving two celebrities at once is probably unprecedented, in my case.

I'm trying to think of the last time I loved a female vocalist. Maybe never. I suppose maybe Diana Krall and, back when I was in grad school when I first discovered Ella Fitzgerald (whom I still adore). There have been a few others. I certainly like a lot of them and can name a bunch, from pop to jazz. But love? Where I read about them on Wikipedia and can recount what I learn? And track down Youtube videos, and watch one of those videos ("Someone Like You," performed in Adele's home) more than once? Nah. I don't do ANYTHING more than once. Not even stuff I love, like hiking or canyoneering or mountain biking. I'm always looking for a new route. But I've watched "Someone Like You" three times. That's true love.

And Jeremy Lin. He may not endure; I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure Adele will last, both in popular culture and as someone I admire. Lin may be a flash in the pan. I'm not sure. He doesn't look like a passing fad, but it's tough to know. And the last NBA player I loved? Um, probably never. I don't think I would like to meet most of them. Gordon Hayward seems like a decent fellow. Among former Jazz players, Thurl Bailey, John Stockton and Jeff Hornacek would be fine dinner companions, I'm sure. Malone, on the other hand, doesn't seem my type. Chris Paul and Blake Griffin are certainly admirable and fun to watch, as are many others. But making me excited to watch or to feel happy for them? Nah. Only Lin.

So what do Adele and Lin have in common? Both seem immensely talented folks who have been true to self while battling some adversity. Adele was the daughter of a teenage mother who got noticed when songs for a class project were posted to myspace. Lin got turned down at the college level for scholarships and so went to Harvard, hardly the best way to launch a basketball career. They are the quiet, determined underdogs who succeed without ridiculous antics and without playing to stereotypes of female sexuality or male machismo. That's a sure way to my heart.

Nonfiction for Youth

Ellen's adolescent literature class has introduced me to an amazing world of nonfiction literature for youth that I had no idea existed. I had seen nonfiction books written for youth in the library, of course, when helping children with research projects. But they were pretty nondescript: nice summaries of events or people written to reach a youth audience.

The books Ellen is reading are different. They are like the best nonfiction for adults in the sense that the high-quality writing is part of the accomplishment. But they actually exceed adult nonfiction in bringing their subject alive because they employ graphical material in such a superior way. By graphical material I mean photos, illustrations, maps, and layout design. The two most amazing I've seen so far are "Black Potatoes" about the Irish potato famine and "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" about Shackleton's exploration of Antarctica. Even less conventional is Maus, a graphic book (it's nonfiction in the sense that's it's essentially an oral history) of the Holocaust. All three books have blown me away with their writing and use of graphics.

The thing I worry about is why Language Arts teachers in high schools are responsible for teaching nonfiction writing and historical analysis under the new core standards that Utah and others are adopting. I'm not sure English teachers are well-equipped to help students understand these kinds of texts. I would hope that History teachers would start adopting texts like these or that English teachers would collaborate with History teachers in using these texts.