Webster Art

I’ve struggled to write trip reports lately. I entirely skipped my Creek 2025 fall trip with James, as well as my Xmas trip with Fletch, Craig and Vlad. Most of my climbing trip reports start with a list of all the exciting climbs I did, and there were many on this trip. But the most poignant memory for me was at around the two week mark. All 7 hometown friends and partners had left. I was trying to decide between staying longer and making new friends, or driving home to my wife Sue. She was getting lonely and bored hanging around home being a grandma.

While I was cogitating I listened to this song by Michael Buble:

Here are some of the verses, note – I’ve shortened the song, apologies to Mr. Buble:

Another sunny place
I’m lucky I know
But I wanna go home
I’m just too far
From where you are.
And I know just why you could not
Come along with me
That this was not your dream
But you always believed in me.
And I’m surrounded by
A million people,
I still feel alone
I’ve had my run
Baby, I’m done
I’m coming back home

– Michael Buble

I was listening to his lovely song about being on tour in wonderful places like Paris and Rome when he sang: “I’m just too far, from where you are…” And I was thinking: yeah, the Creek is so good. But so is Sue. I was struck by a moment of extreme emotion, a deep sense of visceral loss. Why was I considering a third week away from home when there was no reason for it? I’d had some great adventures, played live music and made some art. And I’d proven I could get strong again.

In the music sphere, me, Dragon, Fletch and Craig were attracting small crowds in the campground each night. One of us would start playing in the dark quiet campground and we’d see headlamps walking toward us out of the night.

Out of 30 sites, we were the only musicians. One night a family of 6 people, 4 of them teenagers walked up to huddle around the fire.

“You guys mind if we join your fire? We heard the music. My son here said, Mom, you gotta’ come hear these guys, they’re incredible!”

The song he’d heard was us playing was Scarborough Fair. I’ve had that song memorized on the harmonica since 1969. But a few months ago I wondered if I could play the harmonica part on a neck brace while playing the guitar. A regular one man band. Hey, maybe I could even sing too? Turns out it’s a super powerful song whose melody has lasted 350 years.

I’d finished by the time they walked up and we’d moved onto to Fletches Brazilian Swing. When we finished that they peppered us with questions:

Are you guys a band – Sort of?

Did you write that song? – Yeah, Fletch built it up from various inspirations.

Do you play gigs in town? – No, we just play at campfires

You’re not famous? – We’re nobody, just old friends who climb and play music together.

Me: Fletch, do you want to play Piano Man for these people? It’s a crowd pleaser, and it’s Saturday night!

Fletch: Let’s do it!

We sang the first verse and when I bent my head to the harmonica I heard one of the kids exclaim:

“Oh, he’s got a harmonica too!”

After months of practice I’ve got that song wired. It’s another new one I added to my repertoire over the last year of what I like to call my “blossoming”. I’m not sure why, but I took both my painting and my music up to a new level. Seasons of life?

I’d painted three decent landscapes this trip. Because I’m painting well the passersby stop and take pictures, often asking how long I’ve been painting. I always have to ask if they mean lifetime or this morning. People love an artist working on location. They act like I’m a rare magician practicing a long lost dark art.

Because who doesn’t just shoot a picture? Stand at an easel outside in the blazing sun, that’s crazy!

I’ve digressed again. Moab is wonderful, but being home is pretty cool too. We’ve got at least 20 friends we see at the ping pong gym up to 4 times a week. I’ve known some for 10 years. Then there are our kids and their 5 grandkids. I’ve got a few reliable climbing gym friends plus my unicycle hobby. And my art and my music. Life is full at home, I don’t need to be a thousand miles away chasing adventure.

The fun of climbing vs the ordeal of driving down has me questioning my poor life choices. I can get to Pendleton easily in half a day. I’ve got my favorite Mt. Emily snowpark camping spot dialed in. It’s a dirt road off a dirt road off the freeway. While there are fire rings, it’s dead quiet and no one has ever been there.

But I wake up in the morning and it’s 14 hours of soul crushing driving to the creek. These are chunks of my life I can never get back. It’s incredibly long hours of butt cramping boredom interspersed with brief seconds of terror in the big cities. Is that 18 wheel monstrosity wandering out of his lane into me? Do I have time to accelerate past him before his next swerve? And how long is this rain going to last…and this road construction….are they ever going to finish this abomination of a freeway?

Highlights from this trip were picking up Craig at the SLC airport. I’d been waiting in the crisp morning air for an hour. The Cell Phone Lot has a live flight arrivals screen in the parking lot. 

He texted me when he was standing at the pickup kiosk and gave me a post number. I drove right up. He threw his pack in the back and we bumped fists.

“That went so smooth you’d think we knew what we were doing!”

“I know. I was worrying about what I’d do if you didn’t show up.”

We got to the Creek early enough for him to lead Wide Crack Simulator. The next day we both led Twin Cracks cleanly then he put up TIHC. I’d led that cleanly three years  earlier 3 weeks into a creek trip with Christine and Julia. While following Craig I hung all over it.  But it being day 2 at the Creek I should have known to lower my standards. The Creek makes us humble.

Handsome Dave and his Smith Rock crew (Dragon, Chris, etc) spent the morning at Supercrack area until it got too hot. We trooped down to sit in the shade of Dragons Sprinter to eat lunch.

“So Dragon, Dave tells me you play guitar? I’v been known to play the blues harp.”

“Oh hell yeah! Let’s get them out and play right here, it’ll be several hours before Donnelly gets shady.”

Now, I meet a lot of guitarists in my travels. But it has been 15 years since I met someone as talented as Dragon. So, so many guitarists have never learned blues. They’ll know classical, pop, rock and country but blues, hell no. Dragon also plays the Mandolin!

From the very first 4 seconds of Dragons playing I knew we had a REAL musician in the parking lot. He immediately launched into some very high level blues and I was right there with him on the harp. We rocked that parking lot.

Fletch showed up on the 26th. Dave and his crew took us up to 4 x 4 wall where Craig led Marshmallow Safari. It is a lovely soft 10 that I need to lead. The bottom looks bad but has great jams and gear. It flares at the top so bring some big stuff.

Next Craig led the 5.11 4×4 route cleanly for an onsight. As usual I had to pull on fours to pass the roof. Here he is cruising through the roof:

We went looking for Hookers and Blow but Craig didn’t like the narrow start and chose something further right with a lot of red and tight yellows to start. I bailed on TR.

We took the same crew up to Way Rambo. The first river at Meat Basin was entirely dry while the one at the Willows looked like a small ditch. I’ve seen that thing 50 feet wide and waist deep to the point only two rigs crossed it in a day, one being my Tundra. At Rambo I hungdog Blue Sun, a route I often get clean. Dave put up Fuzz to the right of Rochambeau. Other than the first 50 feet of reds I might be able to lead it.

Blue Grama is becoming one of my regulars. I led Mexican Unicorn with one hang at the top. Fletch led Pirelli Motors.

I think there was more but after a month I can’t remember.

On the day Craig left we climbed at Blue Grama where he onsighted another stiff ten which I filmed:

That same day Julia showed up for her 5 day visit. Julia and I did our usual rambles through Chocolate Corner, Twin Cracks and 4AM. Fletch put up the 5.11 green crack called Drainpipe

He left that afternoon and Julia was gone a day later.

I painted for a couple days at Grand View above Moab.

I did a painting of the eroded ravines at true Grand View. A lot of hikers liked it. I slept on BLM land by an active oil rig at Gemini Bridges. In the morning I drove up to Orange cliff viewpoint but it’s an afternoon painting.

On my way out I stopped at Buck Canyon Overlook and set up my easel. Usually I start with a brown undercoat. But it takes a while and can lead to a brown cast on the finished piece. 

I decided the painting would probably suck anyway so why not break some rules? I put out the primary colors and began drawing with local color. I put thin blue lines down for the distant ridges, and orange for the close orange cliffs. I was a little buzzed to find that I liked this new (for me) style of direct drawing painting. Not that it matters, but the tourists noticed too.

When I paint or play music, I seem to have an observer in my head. He is part critic, and part fly on the wall. He is me, but separate from me. He often gets in the way of my work, overly critical and not letting me peel away the faff before I get to the good.

When I can get past the awkward phase I hear: oh, okay. I guess you aren’t sucking too bad today, I’ll step back and be quiet. But I got my eye on you. Don’t fuck up!

I was on a point of land a hundred feet from the parking lot and 30 feet off the paved footpath to the fenced off cliff top viewpoint. I wasn’t there intentionally to attract admirers, it was just the best view, and it happened to be 60 feet from the end of the trail in full view of all the hikers.

These tourists who like art are a self selecting group. By that I mean they are already predisposed to look at pretty things. When my painting took off, it was another pretty thing to admire and photograph. And I was the only artist, as usual. I had many people stop to compliment my work. There was a group of thirsty looking older women who clearly liked what they saw. Whether it was me or the painting I wasn’t sure. But they were very entertained and hung around, asking where I was from. I try to be nice. There is no point in being grumpy, no reason to ruin someone’s day.  

Normally I have my earbuds in so I can focus, but the compliments were so refreshing and inspirational it was easy to work and talk.

They all thought it was magnificent but I was not liking my color choices in the shadows.

“Oh, that is simply magnificent! How long did that take you?”

”About 3 hours. I’ve been struggling to get the right color on the distant shadows. It’s all brown out there, but the atmosphere turns the local brown cliff color to something closer to a purple blue. But exactly what shade purple is it? I feel like I’m not quite there. It’s like an impossible puzzle…Anyway, it’s a beautiful day, I feel lucky to be here. ”

One more day of climbing

Some hometown friends were in town staying in a condo and doing mostly mountain biking. They used to be avid climbers and agreed to meet me at Supercrack.

Andrew led Coyn crack. It didn’t fit him at all but the others wanted to TR. He aided up it very quickly and set up slings. Lisa TR’d Coyn crack at the bottom by lay backing the offset edge. It was very powerful climbing of a type that I have aged out of.

When her 9 year old son went up and did the same thing I said:

“Look, he’s doing Lisa’s layback!”

Kyle, who was belaying his son said:

“Ah, that’s my layback actually…”

It doesn’t sound as funny sitting here at home, but in case you don’t get it, both parents were proud of their son’s ability to climb a 5.11, and Kyle was implying his son got the power from his side of the family. Kyle and Lisa are a riot with a wicked sense of humor, super fun people. 

Andrew B, another friend from my hometown led a route I’d led three days earlier called 4AM crack. He ran out of steam at about the sixty percent point and had to start hang dogging. Everyone hangdogs that route, including me.

Lisa and her son were unable to get anywhere on it due to their small hands. Kyle got up it but with a few falls and rests. This surprised me until I realized they are more into mountain biking than climbing on this trip and hadn’t been training.

To save time I took a top rope and sailed up it smoothly, even finding two rests, one a no hands rest. The climb felt muscular but just right, perfectly matching my power and skill set. The transitions between blue steeples to fist jams and back to tight yellow hand jams was amazing. Anytime I started to run out of juice I positioned my feet and hands more effectively and shook it out. At the top where it goes back to medium tight yellows I’m usually tanked. But with a top rope I had power to spare, that climb just flows!

The 40 year olds below were shocked to see a 72 year old geezer floating up a 10c like it was candy popcorn. When I got down Lisa was stunned, saying she couldn’t believe what I’d just done. 

“Forget what you just saw” I said. “That climb fits me perfectly, plus I’ve been here 13 days building power. And I just led it 3 days before so I know every move. It’s not so much that I’m a crack wizard it’s that the stars all aligned for one perfect moment.”

I’ve been home a month now and the time has been filled with lots of ping pong, climbing gym dates, hanging with family, painting, learning new songs and lots of exercise on my 10 speed and unicycle. Michael Buble is right: home is pretty cool.

Every ten years I do an open mic. The first one in 1978 was at a former fire station turned bar. Half way through my first song I froze up with stage fright and lost my place. Under the spotlights my pause felt like 5 minutes. I literally couldn’t see the music through the terror. My wife told me later the pause was only 10 seconds. The next two songs went fine.

Ten years later Craig and I played at a bar by the water near where he lived in his old dead motorboat. I played a song that started with me playing guitar and harmonica together, then switched to voice.

He played banjo and got a rousing cheer. I got polite applause. Later I asked him how I did and he said my guitar and harp were great, until I started to sing.

My wife has always told me my voice sucked. I’ve done practice recordings where I sounded so bad that I agreed with her. Back at Indian Creek last fall I had a new friend tell me I had a great voice and that I shouldn’t listen to people who said I was terrible. I was hesitant to believe her, despite wanting her words to be true.

Last December I played quite a bit with Craig and Fletch while we waited out rain storms at Jtree. One night a guy walked up to our campfire while I was playing and was very effusive in his praise. Saying my playing was beautiful and hung around for a while as I sang Billy Joels’ Piano Man. Craig said it was true what he said ten years ago, but that my voice had improved. “It’s the same voice, but now you put more emotion into it, more confidence, you got better.”

When I was 6 Dad used to sing solos at the Presbyterian church where he was also the choir director. All my aunts and uncles had lovely voices when we gathered around mom’s piano every holiday. So you’d think I would inherit a little talent.

On to my third open mic

Last Thursday I played at a bar in the north end. There was a live house band there and I was told by the bartender to introduce myself to the musicians. They were all very welcoming. I signed up on a sheet of paper and sat down to wait for my turn to come up.

The house band did a few numbers and they were awesome. They had clearly been playing professionally for decades. Their music was smooth and polished. They’d been playing and rehearsing together a long time. All their pauses, breaks and solos were picture perfect. I’d talked to the drummer before hand and he explained why he preferred his guitar looking Zendrum over a real drum set. The sound was identical to real drums, but he could walk around the venue while playing.

My only problem was that they were extremely loud to the point that my ears were ringing after each song. Maybe that is normal at concerts. I don’t go to live music venues, so perhaps my ears just need breaking in.

The sign up guy, who I thought was just another open mic guy went up to play, with the band backing him up. They were smooth, this wasn’t his first rodeo with them. They did 4 numbers then invited me up.

They asked if I wanted the backing band and I said no. I’d been thinking about that and was worried that the blasting sound would distract me. The bandleader was totally cool and said no problem. They all stepped down from the stage and sat in the bar to watch.

Everyone was super nice. They got me a music stand and helped set up and sound check my bluetooth guitar pickup. I did Scarborough Fair first because I like the simple chords and harmonica guitar combo. That went well so I played Piano Man, followed by The Rose, which also has harp. That was 3 so I asked them if I should stop there and they encouraged me to play a fourth. Vincent is a song about Vincent Van Gogh who died tragically after only selling 2 paintings. I briefly introduced the song saying that he was one of my hero’s because I was also a painter.

At that point there were only 12 people in the bar, with 5 of them being the house band. It was a friendly crowd and they asked me what kind of art I did. I told them I painted landscapes and portraits and mentioned my website. Vincent is the only song where I didn’t play my harp. I liked the way my voice sounded through the sound system. I felt like I was singing OK, maybe even pretty good? The applause seemed heartfelt.

I didn’t make any mistakes in any of the four songs, or at least not serious enough to be called stage fright meltdowns. I played as well or better than when I practice at home, which I’d done a lot of: maybe an hour a day for a week leading up to this.

It was nine thirty after my set and I was tired so I left. I had seen three other people walk in with guitars and I wanted to hear them, but I was toast. I learned later that walking out after your set is a no no.

On my way out I asked the sign up sheet guy how I’d done.

“We are more of a rock and roll bar. You did ballads, which is fine, that’s your thing. But we don’t do a lot of those here.”

This felt like I’d maybe picked the wrong venue for my style of music. I learned later that there are open mics where the sound is intentionally all acoustic, as in: no electric guitars with massive amplifiers.

I haven’t played in a week, returning instead to my pen, ink and water color drawing. My latest twist is calligraphy. I find it strangely satisfying pursuing an art form that is 600 years old. These Pilot Parallel pens are cheap but very capable.

In 1998 my son Clint was in the seventh grade when he started bringing his BMX friends over to the house. That was 1998. There was a gang of them including Tony and his brother, our neighbor’s son Jeremy and a few others. They’d build increasingly larger dirt jumps in the neighborhood, sometimes just beyond our property in the green belt. I didn’t think about it at the time, but there were never any girls in the group.

Lisa was always around of course, and I’m sure some of her girlfriends like Andrea would be nearby. But they weren’t into BMX. As they got better Sue would act as a soccer mom, BMX style, driving them around town to the various skate parks and forested jumps in our 1996 Ford mini van. I went on some of those trips if I wasn’t working.

Clint has been around climbing his whole life, but sometime in their late teens, early twenties, he invited Craig to try climbing for a weekend. Craig was a natural and within a few years he, Clint and some of their nursing buddies were climbing at Exit 38 on their own. We all made some trips to Yosemite Valley as well.

On one memorable 14 day trip we met Bretts friend Crystal in the valley. Clint and Sue drove home in his Tacoma while Craig, Crystal and I stayed another week. Gradually, as Clint got busy with his nursing job he cut back on his climbing. I can’t remember the exact timing, but we had a great run of about 12 years. Craig, on the other hand, had a shipyard job with a lot of vacation time.

Craig fell in love with climbing. He and Clint still ride the jumps on their mountain bikes to this day. But while Craig does both sports, Clint doesn’t climb rock anymore. He still climbs Rainier every summer, but his sports are the mountain bike, bow hunting and skiing, mostly on Rainier, but also lift skiing.

I wasn’t planning to revisit all this history… I started this post to show my latest painting, which is Craig. I guess I felt I needed background since up till now my portraits have all been family. My first portrait was of two of Clint’s chickens. Then a cat, then his daughter Rose and then Clint. Next I did Lisa’s daughter, grandkid number 2. Then I painted Lisa. I thought Lisa’s portrait was my best painting ever.

During my annual jtree trip…I still haven’t written that trip report…I got some great photos of Craig. My darn iPhone 17 pro almost matches my full frame camera for portraits in good light. Craigs wife Shannon liked Lisa’s portrait and mentioned in passing that she was thinking about commissioning me to paint Craig for his birthday. She has a print of an old portrait I did of Craig by campfire light in Jtree. I didn’t respond immediately to her statement. These days I paint for enjoyment and satisfaction. And I still don’t know how I feel about that. I dislike money between friends.

Long story short I started Craigs portrait by drawing it in pencil on masonite covered with an oil ground. That went fairly well after the usual stumbles. It turned out so good I wished I’d just done the pencil work on good drawing paper. I could have called it done. But as the old saying goes: “In for a penny, in for a pound”.

When I started in on the color I immediately started hating life. I’ve never painted teeth before. The reason ancient painters never did teeth is because photography hadn’t been invented and no one can pose smiling. Being a traditionalist I also never did teeth, preferring to work from life. But no one has time to pose anymore, and it was a great smiling photo my camera had captured.

For several days I tried to ease in on the color with non committal washes, letting the strong pencil work show through. I’d fixed the pencil so it was bulletproof. But I was getting nowhere and knew I had to launch into thick paint. For a day I was using the color picker in Photoshop on my iPad to tell me what colors to put where, but that didn’t work. Painting from a photo is not just copying colors. You might as well just keep the photo. No, the whole point of a painting is to bring a portrait to life so it breaths in a way that a photo never can. There is a reason painted portraits are treasured.

Finally I started interpreting the photo colors into something that spoke to me. Soon the painting came to life. There was a moment when I was painting my crazy ass colors and a good song came on my playlist. I think it was “Gimme’ one reason” by Tracy Chapman. I was so happy with the painting I started dancing in my studio.

Sue knocked on the door and came in.

“Oh, those colors are awful! His beard isn’t green, what were you thinking? I’ll bet it was all those acid trip that messed up your ability to see color!”

But before she had come in I’d been wondering about my choices. My daughter Lisa is an excellent judge of my artwork and I’ve always known I can get the straight skinny from her. Here is a text message string to Lisa:

Because I was focused on painting and then building 4 new hand painted and gold leafed picture frames, I’d stopped playing guitar. Or I think that was why. Perhaps my mind only has so much creativity available. I finished the frames today and was pottering around the house and saw my guitar gathering dust.

I put on my harp brace and started playing The Rose as a one man orchestra: guitar, harp and out of tune voice. The song dug out some deep emotions of joy and sadness combined that could only happen through performing live music. I feel fortunate to have these talents.

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My iPhone has a function where I can press a button and it goes grayscale. It’s supposed to reduce screen time by making it less interesting and therefore addictive. I hit it accidentally while looking at his portrait and was stunned at how accurate my values were. Any hue will work if the values are correct.

Had a fun day at the gym Friday. Brian and I have an on and off Friday afternoon rendezvous that depends on us both being in town. Earlier in the week Craig, James and Chris all asked me to climb, but I only had Friday available. I invited them all to join Brian and I. A great time was had by all. We know each other from previous trips, though James hadn’t met Brian.

I feel lucky to have a core group of climbers who love the sport. For a little background, I met Craig first when he was 12. He and my son with BMX buddies who started climbing. He in turn met Chris and shortly thereafter Lisa, who later became Brians girlfriend. I met James on a legendary trip to Jtree in 2007. That was my first return to Jtree in 7 years. We had a carful of characters also including Austin and Brett, joined the next year by (blind) Paul. Since then I’ve only missed 2 years in the high desert. Chris and Lisa G and I have made many, trips together to Yosemite, Smith and Squamish. Here we are in Yosemite 16 years ago:

Earlier in the week I climbed with Terry and Roger J, of Roger’s Corner at Index. I think I met Terry through Roger, and of course I met Roger through Jim P. Terry is an old alpine climber who has been everywhere and climbed everything. I met Jim P at Spire Rock in 1977 and must have seen Roger there too, since he and Jim Yoder spent years building the darn thing one stone at a time.

I also played doubles ping pong 4 times this week. Tuesday Thursday and Friday mornings with Sue and a cast of merry makers: Pam, Dennis, Casey, Lissette, Carol, Mary, Cary, Jackson and his mom, John the policeman, Eric, and a couple others whose names escape me. Wednesday evening Sue and I played with the pros: old Bob (90) Randy, Kathleen and Yo. John also showed up there after work in full armor.

I pedaled my uni twice this week. Today there was a motorcycle meetup at the ferry dock boat launch parking spot. As usual I was the only one wheeled weirdo. A little kid got so exited by my uni he raced alongside me for half a block, hooting like he’d seen a unicorn. I had enough in the tank to pedal up the hill to the skywalk. Pedaling uphill on a uni is a flat out sprint. I’m pushing as hard as I can while desperately fighting for balance. It’s important to maintain some speed because inertia helps with stability. It’s such good exercise!

I was pleased to do all that without Ibuprofen. I’ve been taking a teaspoon of a Tumeric anti-inflammatory supplement every day. It’s not as good as Ibu, but less toxic.

After riding today I stopped at Clint’s to pick up Sue who was babysitting 3 month old Gracie. Clint and I worked on truing up his new fence door. As a homeowner of an older house he is becoming quite handy. He’s put in real slate flooring in his kitchen, tiled the walls in his bathroom with grout and installed two wood stoves and a dishwasher. Being retired I help where and when I can.

I guess I could work around our house. I have to change oil in our two Toyotas. Sue is after me to replace the front and back doors. I did one on a shed last summer which turned out good for a non carpenter. I also need to clean the traps on both sinks. We’ve been overbooking ourselves in retirement. Here is a week:

• Two hours of doubles ping pong up to 4 days a week
• Climbing gym up to 3 days a week, often on same days I play pong
• Unicycle every other day, Sue walks with Pam
• Helping out, visiting and or babysitting 5 grandkids
• Playing guitar
• working on cars
• dental or medical appointments
• feeling guilty because I’m too busy to be an artist

I’ve started a new portrait from a photo. It’s really tough orange lighting with a smile. I rarely do teeth. I did a nice pencil drawing on oil gesso. That was so nice I wished I’d just done it on good hot press drawing paper. Now I am trying to put oil color on top of fixed pencil and it’s an awful transition. What was once a well value balanced drawing is a train wreck of a painting. I need to have faith that I can get it past the awkward teen years to adulthood. The suffering involved reminds me why artists are rare. It hasn’t rained in 11 days.

I bought a new pen by Pilot. It is the Vanishing Point (VP). It’s a 60 year old design and keeps the ink wet just as good as my other Pilot Namiki Falcon. They both have an 18 Karat gold nib. They both have a small flex range and handle the same. The VP has a clicky ballpoint pen function that is very cool. However, the steel involved in the mechanics makes it noticeably heavier than my Falcon. It’s not so heavy it’s dumb, and my arthritic fingers are the real problem not the VP.

I prefer drawing with my Falcon, but it is all plastic and the cap may crack someday. But there you have it, two overpriced Japanese fountain pens. You get what you pay for with pens.

I treat these semi blind contour pen drawings as practice. Like a pianist running her scales, I draw to maintain my hand eye coordination.

We have mixed feelings about this. I guess pioneers taught kids how to shoot squirrels back in the day. She does it under strict supervision, with the bow out of reach when he isn’t home.

If you live in an old house your clothes closet doesn’t have lights. What did people do back then? I wasn’t about to pay an electrician to wire a new circuit from the main panel to each closet in each bedroom.

Amazon sells motion activated rechargeable closet lights for $17 advertised to last 60 days, but I don’t believe they are as good, bright or as controllable as my DIY system. I did buy a couple units from Lowes but they ran on 4 disposable C cells which are expensive and short lived.

The system I built uses 4 separate components.

• Motion – infrared sensor
• battery
• charger
• LED light strip

The battery can be something as simple as a motorcycle battery, recharged with a car trickle charger. So it depends on what you have on hand. I already had two 12 volt rechargeable LiFePO4 batteries that I use when I hike with my ham radios.

I charge them with a $37 LifePo charger that plugs directly into the battery:

I also had a 20 foot 110V dimmable plug in light strip already up in my closet. These Chinese made light strips are cheap and super bright. You can also find them at Lowes. But it was annoying because the power chord over to the wall outlet ran under the closet door and looked like a fire risk. And it wasn’t motion activated. I’d plug it in to use the closet, then forget and leave the light on. I looked into door activated switches, meaning the light turns on when the door is open, but that requires hard wiring 110 volts which seemed too much.

Over the span of a couple years I went though the C cell Lowes closet light, the 110V LED strip and a simple headlamp hung on the door. None were ideal. Then I was on a climbing trip and went into one of those classic cement outhouses at night in Joshua Tree. A light came on in the ceiling. There is no electricity in Jtree. I looked up and they had the solution.

Rechargeable battery powered closet light sensor

Inside a metal cage on the cement ceiling they had a small rechargeable battery wired into a motion-infrared sensor with wires that led to a small LED light and a small solar panel on the roof.

While staring at it I realized I could replace the solar panel with my Bienno battery and charger and my system would be complete.

I wired in a standard automotive fuse for safety. I used Anderson PowerPole connectors because that is the standard in the Ham radio community and the YouTube learning curve is short. Plus that is what the battery ships with.

The beauty of this DIY closet light is that it is very bright, lasts for weeks, is rechargeable, is fused, and never has more than 12 volts in it. So fire risk is low. The only real risk is when charging the battery with the 110V chord going under the door. We are always careful to unplug any chargers before leaving the house. This includes laptops, iPads, phones, vacuums, etc.

I offered to put one in my wife’s closet but she prefers replacing C cell batteries. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink.

Mountain closed, what to do?

Yesterday we were supposed to ski Rainier but two of the plow drivers recently retired. As with many boomer staffed blue collar trades these two old dudes took a ton of experience out the door with them. Our inside connection tells us that the online park service application process is incredibly cumbersome. The local loggers and diesel equipment operators who would be ideal for the job don’t have a chance of wading through the byzantine park service application process. Besides, who wants to drive a snowplow?

Fortunately there is a skinny ski and snowshoe trail on the way to Rainier. It is run by volunteers. It’s basically a couple old logging roads with reservable huts at the top. They have their own ski resort style grooming plows. If it snows a lot you park at the highest parking spot they can keep clear. You need a $50 yearly Snowpark pass, but other than that it’s free.

Yesterday Lisa and I skied – skinned 3 miles up the snow covered road to the 4700 foot high hut. I’d forgot to carb up the night before and ran out of gas in the last mile. I should have brought a rope so she could tow my sorry old ass. Both kids are incredibly strong: lungs with legs. But by stopping every 60 feet I managed to dig deep and arrive on top.

Lisa took off down the road like a shot, effortlessly linking turns on the narrow cat track. Both kids bought season passes as soon as they got hired in the ER. They can ski anything anywhere, including off the summit of Rainier. I ski the lifts maybe once a year. Who can afford $230 a day?

So when we go as family we skin up which is totally free and better exercise.

There was a crew of women dragging light plastic sleds. We couldn’t figure out why they needed McKinley style sleds to haul up light backpacks. But when they hopped in at the top and went zooming down the road, steering with their feet, we quickly saw the logic. No skill required and a fast trip down.

I started out snow plowing like a raw beginner. But with 3 miles to go I cramped up. The slope lessened and I was able to practice my cat track turns. Couldn’t keep pace with Lisa but she’d stop now and then and look back. Twas a fun ski day. Thanks to Sue for babysitting so Lisa could get out. My wife is a saint.