text:
At Dusk, while Pancho and
Claudio, my guides, were loading the boats, a single planet appeared overhead, a
dim beacon in the dark-blue sky. Wet and cold, I waited at the edge of Lake
Rivadavia, washed by the quiet melancholy that follows a long and glorious day.
Over a half-hour, the sky darkened from lavender through azure to black, and a
host of unfamiliar constellations emerged. When a crisp half-moon rose over the
dark mountains of Patagonia, I felt an icy stab of heartbreakŚthe pain that must
have hit those three Americans, almost a century ago, when they looked back on
Cholila like this, knowing that time was against them. Leaving this paradise was
tough enough after just a couple of weeks. For three hard-living,
straight-shooting adventurers named Santiago, Harry, and Ethel, who spent almost
four years here, that last night in 1905 must have been painful. Cholila was the
only real home they had ever had, a green valley where sweat, money, and
patience had brought them peace, prosperity, and respect. But they never could
escape completely.
Those weren't their real names,
of course. Horse thieves, bank robbers, and train bandits are wise to reinvent
themselves from time to time, and the trio in question are better known to
history as the charismatic Butch Cassidy, the quick-fingered Sundance Kid, and
the sharp-shooting Etta Place, the most famous criminals of the Wild West. As
any fan of the deservedly cherished 1969 motion picture can tell you, Butch and
Sundance died in Bolivia, guns blazing. (This may even be true.) What almost no
one knowsŚsimply because it was left out of the Hollywood classicŚis that from
1902 to 1905, before their fiery end, the bandits were ensconced in the Andean
foothills, where they built a set of cabins, lived large, cultivated a herd of
more than four hundred cattle and a thousand sheep, and, under those assumed
names, tried hard to go straight.
In 1902, Patagonia offered
everything an outlaw could want. In this southern part of a southern land on the
southern continent, there were no big towns, no nosy detectives, no real roads,
and no telegraph cables whispering descriptions of wanted men. Land for grazing
and homesteading was plentiful, the local horses were excellent, and a couple of
pistol-packing American cowboys blended right into the tiny community of North
American ranchers, Welsh colonists, and gauchosŚtough Argentine cowboys with
their own outlaw traditions. In Cholila, the three were safe. They should have
stayed here forever.
But only mountains last that
long. When Claudio started the engine, Pancho waved me out of my starlit
reveries and into the back of the truck. Perhaps only leaving a place truly
preserves it. The fishing rods rattled against one another as we drove up the
hill and then rumbled down deserted gravel roads toward the kind of place one
can never really leave.
"My dear friend," Butch Cassidy
wrote to a woman in Utah in 1902, "I am still alive. . . ." Indeed. Datelined "Cholila,
Argentine Republic, S. Am.," his long letter explained how and why he had
vanished into one of the most remote places on earth. He described how the
outlaws had "inherited" some ten thousand dollars eachŚmoney withdrawn from a
Nevada bank at gunpointŚand how, enriched by the fruits of their crime, had
headed south into one of the most remote places on earth, taking new names,
looking for a new start.
In Cholila, they finally found
what they were looking for: the ultimate hideout. Four valleys meet here in the
kind of verdant, high-mountain bowl common in Wyoming or Montana (cholila
means "beautiful valley" in the local Mapuche language). On the rolling lower
slopes, the Andean cordillera is forested with conifers and
three-thousand-year-old alerces, a South American sequoia. Higher up, the
mountains show bare shoulders of gray stone, dominated by the 8,200-foot Tres
Picos, where snow is visible even in summer. Icy, deep-blue lakesŚamong them
Lezama, Pellegrini, and CisneŚdrain into a single crystalline river, the
Carrileufu, which meanders down the valley for dozens of miles until it reaches
Lake Rivadavia, at the northern edge of Los Alerces National Park.
Butch was punctuation-challenged
and prone to misspellings, but he described Cholila and all of Patagonia with a
plainspoken passion that had seduced me from thousands of miles, and a full
century, away: "This part of the country looked so good that I located, and I
think for good, for I like the place better every day. . . . The country is
first class. . . . I have never seen a finer grass country, and lots of it
hundreds and hundreds of miles." The winters were mild, the summers splendid,
the grass "knee high everywhere," and there was "lots of good cold mountain
water." Even more important, Patagonia offered space: space to run cattle, space
to build homes, space to live unseen. There was so much empty land here that
Butch predicted it would never fill up with peopleŚnot "for the next hundred
I returned one hundred years
after Butch made his prediction, and Patagonia was still a land of hideouts,
hidden valleys, and horse adventuresŚas vast as the American West but with few
roads, fewer towns, and more scenery than one person can appreciate in a
lifetime. I also found some differencesŚamong them, Latin America's most
accomplished tourism infrastructure. In northern Patagonia, towns like Bariloche,
El Bolson, and Esquel offer some glamour, bustle, and shopping. In southern
Patagonia, a state-of-the-art airport has opened up a whole region of glacier
country to visitors. And Argentina's rattled economy has meant deep discounts
and empty hotels. But the essential qualities that drew Butch and Sundance are
in oversupply.
It is still possible to mount up
and disappear into the mountains. I wanted to escape that way, to ride among
gauchos and live in immense spaces without regard for the law or the clock. This
ambition suffered from only two flaws: I have a great deal of experience with
horsesŚall of it bad; and gauchos are usually described with adjectives such as
haughty, humorless, surly, silent, macho, and
even murderous. If I was to fit into the world of these famous knife
fighters the way Cassidy did, or to ride like Sundance among modern hard-luck
cowboys, it was time to get in touch with my inner outlaw.
Early on a Saturday in February,
under summer skies as blue as the pale Argentine flag, boys from up and down the
Cholila Valley began to drift south, riding bareback. In Cholila, caballos
still outnumber cars ten to one. They stashed their mountsŚCriollo half-breeds
mostly, in a kaleidoscope of brown, gray, chestnut, bay, piebald, and roanŚalong
the river, then sat down in the dust and talked. Patagonia breeds patience.
From Tierra del Fuego to the
Bolivian border, every town in Argentina has a gaucho festivalŚor two or three.
The crucial ingredients at these national displays are a massive barbecue (the
famous asado of beef, lamb, and sausage) accompanied by tests of horses
and horsemanship. The Cholila Valley celebration, held in a meadow beside the
glittering Carrileuf·, was small and typical. Beef sizzled over a fire, and the
appetizing smoke drew some 150 residentsŚmuch of the populationŚand 40 horses.
By noon, two score of
wild-looking gauchos had cantered into the meadow, with more horses (and dogs)
in tow. It was easy enough to pick them out from the more ordinary citizens of
Patagonia. Gauchos come in all colorsŚtheir bloodlines are a mixture of Spanish
and Indian, with an occasional dash of black, Italian, or even ArabŚbut their
clothing hardly varies. They wear bombachasŚbaggy, pleated riding
trousersŚand flattish black hats. Their ultimate signature is the fac"n, a long
knife tucked into the back of an ornamented belt or sash.
derives from an Indian word meaning "orphan," and traditionally the gaucho is an
outcast, a drifter on a horse whose great days are always said to be long in the
past, before fences and cellular phones narrowed the world. Hardened by the sun,
disdained by city dwellers, gauchos are still aloof, valuing independence above
all. They distrust paperwork, towns, and religion. (Nick Reding, author of
Last Cowboys at the End of the World, says a gaucho wedding is nothing more
than saying vamos, or "let's go," to a woman.) If I turned my back on the
row of pickup trucks parked along the Carrileufu, there was nothing at this
fiesta that Butch and Sundance would not have recognized. Even the races would
have been familiar: At one in the afternoon, an elderly gaucho lifted his hat in
the air and the pounding of hooves marked the first start. The course was only a
hundred yards long, and two riders sprinted down and back, the winner of each
heat promoted to the next. The drumbeat of hooves continued until finally a
young man with no hat outgalloped the last competitor to cheers.
One of the gauchos, already
inebriated at 2 p.m., rolled off his horse. Egged on by dogs, his bay mare went
wildŚbucking through the meadow, scattering families and throwing hooves at tiny
children. Instantly, horsemanship was no game: Six gauchos leaped into the
saddle and burst across the field. The same hatless boy was first to run down,
bridle, and yank to a halt the bay. The other gauchos tried not to embarrass him
with any praise.
The juegitos, or "little
games," then resumed with a drag race; the gauchos reran the same two-way
sprints, this time leaping off their mounts in the middle to don dresses or
skirts and blouses. This event was organized on the theoryŚa correct oneŚthat
even the best horse will panic at the sight of a gaucho in a dress. One after
another, the heats dissolved into chaos and laughter as the gauchos hurled their
mounts down the field, struggled into flowery sundresses or flimsy black skirts,
and then, tripping on their hemlines, chased their mounts around the field. The
horses would have none of it. The crowd was delirious.
The asado sizzled, and in
the heat of the late afternoon, some older gauchos sought shelter beneath the
trees along the Carrileufu, sipping Mendoza wine from cardboard boxes. Cholila's
other fiesta had been canceled this year as a result of Argentina's economic
chaos, but in the shade of a beautiful valley, exchange rates and IMF missions
meant little. "What happens in the rest of the country doesn't affect us much,"
an almost toothless veteran told me, handing me the wine. "We live from our own
resources here."
The blast of an accordion
heralded a malambo, the traditional gaucho dance. A dozen adolescents
circled and stamped in the field, the girls in white peasant dresses, the boys
wearing the finely woven belts and black bombachas of their elders. At
sunset, the party began to break up slowly. I complimented a black-clad gaucho
on his horse, and he jumped down and insisted that I ride it. I went around the
field twice, shook hands, patted my steed, and missed Cholila already.
I dismounted into the hands of
Jorge Graziosi, my host at the Arroyo Claro fishing lodge, across the road.
Graziosi collects traditional Argentine saddles and tack, and says that Butch
and Sundance may have left an imprint on today's fiesta. Many of the older
Cholila gauchosŚgrandsons of the men Butch and Sundance rode withŚwere wearing
their neckerchiefs tied in a broad triangle, the "bandit" style familiar to any
American child. But in the rest of Argentina, gauchos roll and knot their
kerchiefs. The Cholila men also buckle their spurs across the back, American
style. Gauchos elsewhere tie them with leather straps.
Graziosi bought a ranch here in
1982, fleeing the steady development of Bariloche, Patagonia's main tourist
city. To the south is the vast Los Alerces park, filled with groves of sequoias,
emerald rivers, and rippling ridges. Rolling north is the lightly settled valley
of Cholila, with gravel roads and few telephones. His main guide, Pancho, is a
wry Chilean who had dragged me from river to river all week to catch large
rainbow and brown trout, an arduous routine interrupted only by vast meals and
short naps in the gnarled forests. "I like this kind of life," Graziosi told me.
"We work the ranch. There aren't many people around. No towns with buses, no
telephones. Horses everywhere. It's like living fifty, sixty, or seventy years
Or a hundred. I drove into the
"town" of Cholila the next dayŚa cluster of cinder block houses down the valley,
without a restaurant or a hotel but overrun with horses. Three more were tied in
front of the information booth. Patiently waiting amid maps and handicrafts for
the rare tourist, Karina Quintana confirmed what I'd heard: The cabins that
Butch and Sundance built are still standing, albeit barely. "They are in total
disrepair," she said. "They are just falling down." A plan to preserve them as a
museum has been stuck for eight years in the provincial bureaucracy. There are
so few visitors that it costs more to collect an admission fee than the fee
generates. In the meantime, the unprotected site is vulnerable. "Don't tell
people where they are," Karina insisted. Any publicity draws souvenir hunters,
who have already stripped doors, windows, and even pieces of wallpaper from
Butch's rooms. (If you want directions, just ask anyone, but first take a vow of
Before pointing me in the right
direction, Karina brushed off her leather pants, leaped onto the counter of her
booth, and started shooting. She was imitating Etta Place, riding sidesaddle
while blasting pistols at the posse which had chased the gringos out of town
that last night in 1905.
Never mind that Etta always used
a rifle, or that they slipped away quietly. The legendŚthe mythŚwas close.
Even with directions, it was
easy to miss the spread. I went half a mile in the wrong direction and entered
the long driveway of the Casa de Piedra, a Welsh teahouse. In this stone refuge
beneath tall conifers, the elderly owners fed me a stream of orange, apple,
chocolate, and dulce de leche cakes, along with the traditional black
torte of Wales. Bruce Chatwin had visited here in the 1970s while researching
In Patagonia; he'd gotten everything wrong, they said. Stuffed with cake, I
nodded and followed a pointed finger toward the cabin, which was almost in
sight. "My grandmother always said that Etta was very beautiful," owner
Victorina called out as I was leaving.
I parked by the road, hopped a
fence, and cut through a field of daisies that smeared my trousers with yellow
pollen. The fugitives had picked their site well: The cabin and two outbuildings
were nestled among trees in a broad, flat valley backed by a steep Andean ridge.
A small river, the Rio Blanco, bursting with tiny trout, caressed a bank behind
the buildings.
A century does real damage. The
main cabin of four rooms had more hole than roof, the doors and windows were
missing. The handiwork of two Americans was obvious in the low structure, built
Wyoming style with chinked logs overlapping at the ends (Argentines build steep
roofs to shed snow, don't chink, and lay even corners). I touched the adze marks
and could smell the sweat and hear the cussing as Butch and Sundance lifted the
timber. Etta's domestic touches are still visible: neat wainscoting and tatters
of wallpaper, pink roses on burlap backing.
When it was finished, this was
instantly the most famous house in the valley. Sundance and Etta had gone on an
international shopping spree and filled the place with fine china, silverware,
furniture, and even special North American-style windows that wowed the locals.
An Italian visitor in 1904 described a scene of frontier luxury, the walls lined
with pictures in cane frames, magazine art, and "many beautiful weapons and
lassos." Butch and Sundance hired gauchos to do the work and, under the
influence of Etta, spent their spare time reading. They also did paperwork: a
maze of purchases and sales, individual and joint stock companies, and a complex
legal claim for homesteading the land. In short, they went straight. When the
governor of the province visited, the Americans threw a fiesta for the valley.
Sundance plucked out Argentine zambas on a guitar, and the governor
danced with Etta before retiring to sleep in Butch's bed.
It has become impossible to
separate Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid from Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid. Paul Newman's crafty, garrulous Butch and Robert Redford's
silent, menacing Sundance may have reversed reality. Sundance learned Spanish
and zambas, while Butch suffered in "Single Cussedness" and struggled to
understand the local gossip. Butch made a mistake, lending a horse to an escaped
prisoner: It was an impulsive gesture of solidarity with a man on the run, but
there was a court hearing. The rumors reached Buenos Aires and then New York,
and in 1903 one of the tireless Pinkerton detectives landed in Argentina with
"Wanted" posters in Spanish (Pinkerton had sent them as far as Tahiti). The
pressure began to mount on their idyll. When a bank seven hundred miles away in
Rio Gallegos was robbed by two other North Americans, suspicion fell on Butch
and Sundance. After the holdup a deputy, apparently smitten with Etta, tipped
them off that the territorial police were coming.
Blamed for a crime they didn't
commit, hunted for those they did, Butch, Sundance, and Etta decided not to
wait. They fled Cholila and rode north, outlaws again. The end of their story is
still hotly debated, but Hollywood got it about right: After a botched robbery
in Bolivia, the men were probably cornered by soldiers and killed.
It was easy enough to hear,
above the tinkling of the RĒo Blanco, the ringing voices and laughter, the sound
of glasses clinking out toasts, even the faint notes of Sundance's guitar. The
windows must have been open, too, on that festive summer night.
Secure," it said in my
Spanish-English dictionary. Seguro isn't much of a name for a horse, and Tommy
isn't much of a name for a gaucho, but Seguro and Tommy took me over the
Continental Divide. By the time we turned down into the valley of Corcovado,
south of Esquel, I'd learned Seguro's bad habits, like scraping me against
trees, stopping for water every five minutes, and lurching automatically toward
home when left undirected.
Seguro did have good qualities.
An Argentine Criollo, she climbed strongly and looked where she placed each
hoof, a vital habit on the almost vertical trails that led us up and over the
Andes. And despite his name, Tommy was all gaucho. He dressed in black (shirt
and hat) and blue (bombachas), spoke little, and kept a straight face
even while watching me mount up. The only thing that made Tommy smile was when I
asked for yerba mate. "Not many foreigners like matķ," he said, grinning as he
stoked a little fire to boil water.
We sipped at the bitter green
tea in a small, aged shack high on a ridgeline over the Corcovado Valley. Twin
threads of the Andes ran north for sixty miles. Chile was visible to the west,
the great, flat Argentine Pampas to the east. Trevelin, a sweetly modest town of
Welsh-descended farmers, was on the horizon.
I'd wandered down from Cholila
over the course of several days, passing first through Los Alerces park and the
classic Hosteria Futalaufquen, a grand lodge built in the 1950s to jump-start
Patagonian tourism. Thirty miles from the park's southern exit is Esquel, the
Bozeman of Patagonia, bustling with rafters and backpackers. Esquel was the
scene of the most famous crime the boys didn't commit. Two foreigners had killed
a Welsh shopkeeper named Llwyd Ap Iwan, a murder that Bruce Chatwin blamed on
Cassidy and the Kid. His In Patagonia convinced a generation of visitors
that, contrary to the movie, a posse of outraged Welsh settlers had eventually
chased down and killed the duo here in Argentina.
But Chatwin should have spent
more time fishing. Heading for the notoriously trout-packed Arroyo Pescado one
afternoon, I cut across the old Ap Iwan estate and promptly stumbled on a faded
gravestone. "Ap Iwan," it read, "1909." Butch and Sundance couldn't have done
the deed: They had fled Cholila in 1905, and by 1906 were posting letters from
Bolivia, asking friends in Cholila to sell the remaining cattle. By 1907 they
were probably dead. I celebrated their innocence, however transitory, by landing
seven rainbow trout on the Ap Iwan stream, and then drifted off to sleep under a
Lombardy poplar, muttering "They'll never take me alive" to no one in
A couple of hours of gravel
south was Corcovado and the Estancia El Palenque. Butch and Sundance had briefly
worked for a predecessor ranch in this area, Pampa Chica, which translates
roughly as "Little Pasture." Tommy (and Seguro) had led me up from Palenque to
just such a little pasture. This clearing was the only flat spot in the steep
terrain, and it was my theoryŚChatwin-esque in its inventivenessŚthat Butch and
Sundance must have ridden these trails. Tommy used his fac¾n to stir tea,
cut bread, chop wood, pick his teeth, and skewer bits of steak. We made it back
down to El Palenque by midafternoon, where owner Jeff Wells was gearing up for
fishing. I strolled up the valley with him to a favorite hole on the Corcovado
River, where Pacific salmon rested under a willow tree. At just thirteen
thousand acres, El Palenque is "quite small" by Patagonian standards, Wells said
in all seriousness. He'd expanded an old farmhouse into a tourist lodge five
years ago, but his passion for Patagonia was more pleasure than business. Like
Butch, he was a Mormon from the American West, and everywhere he looked there
was a distilled essence of home, a dream of the Old West. "That letter is why I
came here," he said of Butch's 1902 missive. "You can still drink from the
streams. The grass is still knee-high."
At the river, thousands of giant
stone flies hatched out of the water, and we stayed until it was too dark to
I finally flew south, to the
region that has changed least since Butch's day, to both the past and the future
of Patagonia. Two immense lakes slid under the wingtips as we approached El
Calafate: first the turquoise-tinted Lake Viedma; and then, after a bleak
stretch of brown tussock, the wind-flecked Lake Argentino, also hued almost
green with glacial melt. The ribbon of rugged Andean peaks was interlaced with
crystalline glaciers. We set down at an inviting new glass-and-steel terminal in
the middle of absolutely nothing. Less than an hour away was the grand Perito
Moreno Glacier, three miles of ice sliding thunderously into a lake. The town of
El Calafate has little to offer except rental cars that take visitors into a
network of small towns, tourist-ready estancias, and national parks.
I headed out in a rented Fiat
toward the trekking capital of Patagonia, the puny town of El Chaltķn, cutting
north across the mouths of lakes Argentino and then Viedma. I was on the
notorious Route 40, a gravel track along the face of the Argen-tine Andes where
flat tires and muffler-mangling mounds of gravel are routine. The four-hour trip
took an extra hour because I had to stop to stare at the glaciers so often.
Dating from just 1985, El Chalten has some two hundred year-round residents and
feels freshly carved from the landscape, with tin-roofed houses, wooden
restaurants, and brick lodgings along a tiny valley. Directly above the town are
the needle-sharp peaks of Egger, Torre, and Fitz Roy, which inspired the skyline
logo of the Patagonia clothing company. The surrounding cordillera is filled
with a compact assortment of glaciers, lakes, deep forest, and superb hiking
trails; the scenery and trekking opportunities are the equal of the more famous
Torres del Paine park in Chile, but without the crowds or the trash. The idea of
this outer space ever "filling up" with people is still laughable a century
after Cassidy dismissed it. Within minutes of checking into El Puma, the best
lodge in the valley, I heard the refrain I would encounter again and again: "We
like it so much better than Torres," an American couple told me.
In uncrowded El Chaltķn, the
biggest problem was finding anyone to hike with, and I had to set out alone
before dawn on a trail that led me up a twisted canyon and two hours along a
milky river to a cluster of expedition tents. There I joined guide Yamila
Cachero and a Brit, a German, a Canadian, and two Uruguayans for a daylong
assault on the Torre Glacier. We pulled ourselves over the river on a steel
cable, then hiked to the face of black, gravel-strewn ice (glaciers are filthy
at first glance). Once we had strapped on our crampons and climbed on top, we
faced a sea of white rippling moguls, broken and craggy, riven by deep-blue
cracks filled with ice water. A slip was a bad idea. Yamila shepherded us over
the crevasses and then spent several hours on belay, instructing us in the
basics of scaling ice walls with an ax and ropes. The white expanse was really
four separate glaciers that flowed together into a single frozen river,
thundering with unseen avalanches. The ice steadily cracked, rumbled, and
vibrated under our crampons.
The scale of Patagonia has
always impressed meŚindeed, it is the central characteristic of the placeŚbut
the next day's trip to Perito Moreno National Park must have been a
hallucination. Route 40 unrolled from the horizon for a full ten hours. The lack
of trafficŚa car an hourŚwas unnerving, and in the solitude, even the static on
the radio had a comforting sound. On a high hill, the Fiat's AM band finally
caught a whisper: "Pops, I'm out of the hospital," a voice said. And then,
"Murillo, I will call Thursday at four." This was a "messages" broadcast, where
families sent missives of startling intimacy over the public airwaves to gauchos
in remote pastures ("Your children need you," I heard once; and "Alejandro,
there isn't anyone else"). The silence that engulfed me in the next valley made
Patagonia a synonym for loneliness. At sunset, a sign for the Perito Moreno park
greeted meŚand then nothing. Only six hundred people visited the 284,00-acre
park last year. Eighty percent of it is closed to visitors, permanently, a
wilderness for pumas and condors. There is no infrastructure beyond a single
dirt road, some campsites, and two places to stay, both working ranches.
The first was Estancia Menelik,
where I landed in the midst of preparations for an asado. Inside a tin
wind shelter, manager Augustine Smart, round and red-bearded, was overseeing his
gauchos as they banked a red-hot fire, skewered an entire lamb, and staked it
over the coals. Estancia Menelik is the showcase property of Cielos Patag¾nicos,
an investor group aiming to save failing ranchesŚand the gauchos on themŚwith
green tourism and a dash of development. Smart spoke of Cielos Patagonicos as a
project whose goal was "to conserve the ecology, the history, and the culture of
each place." But part of the funding to save a failing ranch like Menelik might
come from developing two hotels and vacation homes in El Chaltķn. Cielos
Patag¾nicos president Lionel Sagramoso conceded that the Chalten proposal was "a
total real estate investment," but the money raised would fund the group's
conservation mission elsewhere.
Like some locals, Yvon Chouinard,
the founder of Patagonia Inc., is critical of this blend of development and
preservation. "I've made lots of trips down there and I just love that place,"
he says of Patagonia. But the plan to build a lodge outside El Chaltķn in order
to fund preservation elsewhere is "horrible," Chouinard says. "Development like
that is something we want to stop." He thinks El Chaltķn is already overbuilt
(something of a purist, he calls the adorable town "a horrible, junky, trashy
little place"). He is a board member of the Patagonia Land Trust, which buys up
large estancias in southern Argentina and dismantles rather than develops,
ending ranching and removing fences in the hope of someday converting the land
into national parks.
Around the fire at Menelik, as
we tucked into slivers of seared and tender lamb, this duel between development
and preservation seemed totally abstract. Like Butch, I could not foresee
Patagonia "filling up." The park's six hundred visitors a year don't justify
development of anything. Ten hours from the nearest airport, with snow closing
the roads for two months every year, this region will probably still offer a
terrific hideout for some twenty-second-century Sundance.
The next day, i moved to
Estancia La Oriental, the other lodging in Perito Moreno National Park, where I
slept in a cold but comfortable room, and saw a condor while drinking coffee at
8 a.m. The bird's eleven-foot wingspan was silhouetted against the sky like a
splayed hand as it drifted over the house, into the backcountry. GuanacosŚfleet,
short-haired cousins of the llamaŚgalloped everywhere in herds of a dozen or
more. Gray and red foxes slinked through the dry sage grass. Armed with
binoculars, I spent a cold and fruitless morning hiking on the Belgrano
Peninsula, scanning the windfalls of timber for a puma. The population has
stabilized at about twenty-two cats.
The last morning at La Oriental,
owner Manuel Lada just handed me a horse. Like Butch helping that fugitive, Lada
didn't ask where I was going, or why, but simply caught, bridled, and saddled a
chestnut for me at the first suggestion of need. He didn't even know the
creature's name. There were abandoned horses all over the property, and they ran
feral in the park approaches.
No Name took me over a ridgeline
and then across a wet valley to the base of the thousand-foot cliff where that
condor had come from. Dozens of broad white guano stains made it easy to spot,
high overhead, the nests of the rookery, one of the largest gathering sites for
these rare birds in all of the Andes. No Name was jaded from long exposure to
condors; she merely ate her way across the meadow while I waited, binoculars in
hand. After an hour, I was rewarded by the sight of a single condor stretching
its neck, shaking out its massive wings, underlaid with white, and then
awkwardly heaving from the cliff to soar high into the park.
It is still easy to get lost in
Patagonia, deliberately or not, and on the way home I forced No Name down the
wrong path, detoured somewhere, and encountered a wire fence. I dismounted and
put a hand on the steel strand cutting through this immensity, convinced that if
I turned back, we could head wherever we wanted. We'd live off the land for a
while. No one would find us down here, in 1903 or 2003. Overfull with light and
space, I burst into an off-key rendition of "Don't Fence Me In."
No Name snorted with derision, a
throaty sound that flushed a pair of tall brown guanacos from the underbrush a
hundred yards away. They ran and took the fence in a bound, their hooves
clicking over the top wire, thump, thump. Under the tips of my fingers I felt
the instant telegraph of their break for the backcountry.
A hundred years from now, you'll
find them here.
Published in September 2003.
Prices or other information may have since changed.


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ASMP provides you with access to the best industry experts and information. Take advantage of these great courses, webinars and seminars. Many with deep discounts for ASMP members.
This week:
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The Art of the Estimate
February 19
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An experienced Art Producer who has worked on both sides of the table, Kat Dalager knows exactly what makes or breaks an estimate. Our conversation will focus on the estimating process – from the questions you should ask before developing your numbers to presenting your estimate and following up, you'll learn how to build an estimate that will convince the client that you're the right photographer for the job. Register Today!
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Emmy-award winning Stillmotion Presents:
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Touring the U.S. and Canada February 3 – April 8, 2014
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February 27 – March 1, 2014
Texas Photo Roundup
Austin, Texas
ASMP members enjoy additional discounts
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February 27 – March 6, 2014
WPPI Conference & Expo
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WPPI Conference+Expo is the premier industry event for photographers and image-makers specializing in the creative and business aspects of wedding and portrait photography. ASMP is proud to sponsor 2 important sessions at WPPI:
You, Amplified: Standing Out in the Attention Economy
with Colleen Wainwright
Tuesday, March 4 • 6:30 – 8:00 pm
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Wednesday, March 5 – 3:00–4:30pm
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March 6 – 9, 2014
SPE National Conference
Baltimore, MD
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text:
A brief coffee break at the town of Yea. Delegates enjoy hot cross buns, given that it was Easter weekend.
The first of our stops was a site near Yea where the Silurian beds have produced the articulated remains of a single fish, Yealepis, described by Carole Burrow and Gavin Young in 1997. Yealepis looks like an acanthodian-type fish, but has no fin spines. Fancy that.
John Long holds a specimen of Yealepis and directs our attention to the Silurian beds exposed along a road cut. This photo was taken near the site where Yealepis was recovered. Sadly, the exact locality is not known.
The evening of the 9th was spent at the Mansfield Backpacker's Inn (which I recommend). We headed out to a site on a farm in the Mansfield district where some Carboniferous sand- and siltstones were cropping out in a field and along a river. Sadly, we didn't see a platypus or any snakes.
The fossils here are very rare and and the rock exposures are rather limited. However, in these beds, a number of important fossil fishes have been discovered, including early actinopterygians and some of the first-known rhizodontid material. More recently, a large and disarticulated skull and articulated fin of the rhizodontid Barameda was discovered here. It represents one of the most anatomically informative rhizodontid specimens and is to be published in the next issue of Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. I will say no more until that time.
Conference delegates dig in to the Carboniferous sand and siltstones at Mansfield.
Beautiful vistas seen from the outcrops.
Anne Warren (La Trobe University) points out unusual sedimentary structures in the rock exposed in the creek bed. In this area, numerous spines of gyracanth fishes have been found.
The site has been well picked over, but a lot of exposed rock remains. In the relatively distant future, more great discoveries may be made here, once the rock has had more time to erode.
We visited a family of Cunningham skinks tucked between layers of Carboniferous rocks.
On the 11th, we visited a Devonian fish site atop the hills of the South Blue Range. The fossils here are also scattered and rather rare. Moreover, there are not really any articulated remains but mainly isolated head and shoulder plates from placoderm fishes. Moreover, to even find those scattered fossils, one needs to find the few restricted layers that are yielding them. However, with about two dozen conference delegates scouring the hillside, we ended up doing pretty well.
Making our way to the top of the South Blue Range
The incline was steep. Don't drop your water bottle, it would almost certainly roll to the bottom of the hill. We had to be careful not to send rocks tumbling down on the people below us! Kangaroos and wallabies were spotted darting though the forest.
Damn! A centipede absconds before I can get my macro function set!
Zhu Min (IVPP) examines some placoderm bits recovered at the top of the hill.
More fish are found. More placoderms, but a few other diverse bits are showing up too. Here, John Long (Melbourne), Robert Gess (Witwatersrand), and Daniel Goujet (Paris) zoom in on some placoderm plates.
The effects of bush fires can be seen over the region. As devastating as such events may be, the forests here dominated by eucalypts depends on long, intense fires for growth and regeneration. Without fire, eucalypts will not sprout new buds and seed germination will not occur. It also bodes well for palaeontologists in that it can clear out plant cover and reveal new rock exposures! Unfortunately, the aftermath can create hazards and one of the field trip sites at Mt. Howitt had to be cancelled.
Over the hills and through the spectacular Yarra Ranges National Forest.
We travelled next to the south coast of Victoria to a Mesozoic-aged sea cliff at a site called Flat Rocks, near Inverloch. In these cliffs dinosaurs and mammal fossils have been recovered following decades of dedicated and painstaking prospecting, quarrying, and even tunnelling. The sand- and siltstones here preserve coalified wood and tree trunks. A sharp eye is needed to spot the often similar-coloured bones in the blue-ish gray rocks.
Theropod dinosaur teeth recovered from the site.
An isolated dinosaur footprint. Rare occurrences of dinosaur footprints happen here. This one is a bit beat up, but it is believed that there are two prints, one inside the other. I only see one.
One of our guides on this part of the trip, Mike Cleeland, points out a large, fallen petrified tree.
The site is particularly special, for the researchers working there believe that it represents a polar dinosaur fauna. A number of lines of evidence have been cited to suggest this. The most important has been the geophysical evidence of permafrost. A layer of intermixed mud and siltstones showing a distinctive pattern known as cryoturbation is typical and, apparently, indicative of permanent ground freezing.
The palaeogeography of this part of Australia has been considered to have been polar in the Early Cretaceous when these beds were laid down. Thus, it seems to have been the case that these dinosaurs were living in a polar climate for at least some part of the year.
Mike again, pointing out the cryoturbation. It's difficult to see, so don't squint too hard. We couldn't get close due to the hazard of falling rock.
The field trip concluded at a second, related Mesozoic fossil site near San Remo. While we didn't find any additional fossils, I think it was easy to be distracted by the spectacular beach and gorgeous sunny day! However, this site was the provenance of what is probably the latest-occurring temnospondyl amphibian, Koolasuchus. This type of amphibian occurs very early in the fossil record, during the Carboniferous not very long after the first appearance of land-living tetrapods. However, the group persists well into the Triassic period. Koolasuchus thus represents a very late survivor of this lineage.
Mike poiting out the geology near the Koolasuchus site.
Edit: Plenty more pictures can be seen at the CAVEPS site. Including this picture of yours truly taking flight! Enjoy!
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AngelHack's Global Demo Day F'12
Thursday, January 24, 2013 from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM (PST)
Join us on January 24th, as we welcome the 27 AngelHack finalists from around the world to present their finished hackathon projects and win seed capital investments.
Judged by Google Venture's Wesley Chan, AngelList's Naval Ravikant, Andreesson Horowitz's Frank Chen, and more. We're expecting A LOT of people at this event, so come early if you want a good seat.
Food and tasty beverages will be provided.
Schedule: Demos: 4-7pm. Cocktail Reception: 7-9pm
Global Demo Day Judges
Naval Ravikant
Wesley Chan
Anthony Ha
Robert Scoble
Blake Byers
Frank Chen
AngelHack F12' Finalist teams
1. SharePops (Tel Aviv)
2. Home Dine.in (Tel Aviv)
3. PhoneMe (NYC)
4. Sign Up as a Service (NYC)
5. Addicaid (NYC)
6. BnkPositive (London)
7. Testlio (London)
8. Penny (London)
9. SurfScore (Boston)
10. SnowCast (Boston)
11. StatSense (DC)
12. Tuee (DC)
13. BetaStore (Santiago)
14. Dooten (Santiago)
15. Lugga.Me (Paris)
16. Explee (Paris)
17. Basketto (Seattle)
18. Mbilify (Seattle)
19. Airpost.io (Toronto)
20. Raffi (Toronto)
21. BOSScaster (LA)
22. Birdsai (LA)
23. Feeding Forward (SF)
24. FireMap (SF)
25. Snap Barcode (SF)
26. Call Me Maybe (SF)
27. Smart Recruit (SF)
28. Project Policy (London)
In order to purchase these tickets in installments, you'll need an Eventbrite account. Log in or sign up for a free account to continue.


text:
|2011-06-27, 13:10
|Link #22
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2009
Did anyone read Chapter 70?
I didn't think this series could surprise me anymore, but W.T.F. at that last panel?!?!?!?!
Aito has finally reached a (perverted) league of his own. Sahoto's like 100% immune now (still gotta laugh at her face), and poor, poor Sena hahahahhaha.
This guy has like one of the best harem ever!!!
|2011-07-10, 10:36
|Link #25
Know who you are
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Resides within the depths of Ned infested Glasgow
Odd thing about this series, from what I remember I picked it up when there was like 5 chapters out and that would have been more than enough to get me on board the harem band wagon but I never thought that, it was always just about Aito and Ashisu.
But then after reading a few more chapters it started to change to full on "harem get!"
Oddly another thing is how my focus has shifted to Mihari, the DFC has won out!
I have no idea why as some one like the 30 year old virgin(?) would be right up my alley but Mihari sits at the top.
I will admit I prefered her highschool look alot more, wish she kept with the long hair.
As for the series on the whole I like how things have been, I do enjoy Aito's inner and outer pervert, he's such a honest fool
But I wonder if the author can keep it up, cause I know if it goes on too much longer I'll get bored without anything juicy happening.
Well he has got himself one hell of harem, mulitple tsuns and deres, lolis and older women.
Lastest chapter reveals he's got one hell of a ability, I'm sure thats gotta bag him some huge brownie points if he was ever in a relationship
|2011-07-20, 21:15
|Link #30
Le fou, c'est moi
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Las Vegas, NV, USA
Age: 29
Well, Mihari has always had a soft spot for Aito since the day when she thought he was dreamy for a total of fifteen seconds or so.
Classic tsundere editor, she is.
Apparently they were so "close" her mom thought it was natural she was staying with him for the night.
|2011-07-21, 09:18
|Link #33
Know who you are
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Resides within the depths of Ned infested Glasgow
YAY! My favorite girl starting to shows signs of cracks in her wall against Aito!
Mihari is just too cute but still wish she had her longer hair or at least have her hair down more.
Hope we character profiles for the rest of the cast!
|2011-07-22, 04:49
|Link #35
I am a Boxer
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Where hot girls are fighting!
Mihari-Sahoto-Rinna-Sena... All hot.. And different style...
In chapter 52, Mihari was hot.. Hahaha.. The cat...
I like this manga because the girls, Are really different...
I hope.. This have a good conclusion...
what will be the girl who will win?
|2011-08-12, 01:12
|Link #38
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: bakanki.blogspot.com
Aito finally know the identity of chief editor
And Sena is so tsundere it's so cute
And yay, Mihari with normal clothes. I wish Aito was there on Sena's apartment too. Little bit weird though seeing "little girl" like Sena living alone on nice apartment like that
|2011-08-18, 03:17
|Link #40
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: bakanki.blogspot.com
New chapters is out
Aito's reaction knowing big hit mangas don't have panty shot on it is hilarious. And Rinna-chan apparently really like Aito if she went so far did what she did. Wonder what will she react if Mihari didn't come
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An easy way to burn and share your high-quality, HD videos.
Denver, Colorado (PRWEB) April 09, 2012
NCH Software, the leading provider of audio, video, business and other software utilities worldwide, announced today a new release of their CD, DVD and Blu-ray burning software, Express Burn, which now includes video Blu-ray burning, and expanded DVD authoring features and menu templates. Previously, Blu-ray burning was limited to recording data discs, but this new release also allows anyone with a Blu-ray burner to create HD Blu-ray movies.
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Joe Stylez - George Jung [Unsigned Hype]
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ST. CHARLES – As they made their plans for Independence Day, Perry Golz and Kathy Greer knew they wanted to go somewhere different this year.
And that's when Greer recommended St. Charles' Pottawatomie Park as their Fourth of July destination.
"There are a lot of places we could go, but I had been here years ago, and I remembered there was a pool, the river, volleyball nets," Greer said. "So much to do here; this was the place."
Greer and Golz, both of Marengo, on Thursday were among thousands of people packing the park on the east bank of the Fox River to celebrate the holiday.
Many more people still were filing into the park by late afternoon, lugging in folding chairs, tents, canopies, small barbecue grills, coolers and many other accoutrements for an afternoon and evening in the park.
And many more people still were expected to crow the park as the evening drew on and the time neared for fireworks to be launched from nearby Boy Scout Island, across the river.
For those already in the park, the afternoon was passed with games like baggo or volleyball, while others tossed footballs, baseballs and Frisbees. The scent of grilled meat rose from nearly every picnic site.
Others simply whiled away the day seated in the shade or the sunshine, listening to music, chatting with friends or just sitting back and taking in the scene.
A summer day that offered warm temperatures and mostly sunny skies, without oppressive heat and humidity, drew many to the park, staking out their picnic and fireworks-viewing spots in some instances well before noon.
Golz and Greer, for instance, arrived at about 11:45 a.m. and cooked up some meat of their own.
They said they were pleased to learn that the celebration also would include live music.
"Just an added bonus for us," Golz said.
Others like Jinny Goral of Elgin, and Dave Flood of South Elgin, arrived later in the afternoon. Goral said she was making her sixth consecutive trip to the park on Independence Day.
Goral and Flood noted the crowds seemed much larger this year than last, as the weather was a marked improvement over last year's high temperatures near 100 degrees.
"This is just a really nice place to set up a picnic," Flood said. "So this year we brought the grill and some other stuff, and decided to do it up right."


text:
Back in 1986 when I retired from the State of Michigan my fellow workers gave me an electronic fish finder as my retirement gift, believing that bass fishing was going to be my retirement hobby. My wife gave me a look which said: "You don't really believe you are going to spend a lot of your retirement time away bass fishing, do you?"
No, come to think about it, I guess I really didn't. But I did start to convert my Jon Boat into a poor-man's bass boat and spent a lot of time looking the Bass Pro Shops catalog.
I had fended off the oil and gas companies, utilities and law firms who wanted to hire me full or part time or use me as a consultant or lobbyist. I was determined to really retire, period.
As I mentally inventoried my interests I came up with canoes (I am a long time member of the Wooden Canoe Heritage Association); history, particularly Michigan history; genealogy and maps. I have a large collection of Michigan topographic maps as a result of being on the State Mapping Advisory Board and I was a topographic engineer in the Army during World War II.
Enough background and bio: A while after retiring, I'm not sure what year, Elaine and I were down at the riverfront in Lansing during "Riverfest" and there was this campsite set up with a group of people in voyageur costumes. In addition, in the river was this 26 foot fake birchbark Montreal Canoe made of fiberglass but looking quite authentic. It turns out that this was some organization called Project Lakewell (I'm still not sure why it is called that) that was a fur-trading days reenactment group.
I was immediately fascinated and since their dues were cheap ($15) I signed up to become a member of Project Lakewell on the spot.
The guy who signed me up was this skinny-legged guy in a skimpy voyageur outfit called "Pierre" who apparently steered the canoe. I later learned he was Jim Meyerle. There was another guy, middle aged I would guess, with a big, gray handlebar mustache, dressed in black. He was supposed to be Father Marquette. It was Ken Kuester who promptly gave me a "Bless you my son" greeting. There were some female role-players, also in costume, one of whom I believe was that well-known author of children's books, Janie Lynn Panagopoulis. Enough name dropping.....I could add many more Lakewell people whom I got to know and respect like Dave and Jack and Frenchie.
That winter I got an invitation to come to a meeting of Project Lakewell at Ken's house, the subject participation in something to be called Grand River Expedition '90. There I learned the group intended to paddle their big canoe the length of the Grand River under the leadership of the world-famous long-distance canoeist Verlen Kruger and his then-wife, Valerie Fons Kruger.
If it hadn't been for that meeting I would probably only have watched Grand River Expedition '90 from the river bank as the canoes floated down and would never have become involved with the Krugers, who ended up as dear friends and neighbors.
At that meeting it became clear to me that because of my work with Michigan maps that I might knew more about the Grand River than anyone present. It later became obvious (to me at least) that I was better informed about the Grand than probably anyone else involved with the expedition, particularly with respect to the headwaters.
When the regular monthly planning meetings for GRE '90 got started I met Verlen and Valerie and shortly started accumulating assignments. Verlen was the designated Rivermaster and Valerie became the expedition's chairperson and ramrod.
I first volunteered to take the lead on headwaters activities. I drove Jim , Ken and I forget who else to Jackson and Hillsdale Counties and showed them the streams and dams and ponds from which the Grand flowed.
On that trip I met Art Hunter (?) and his wife, proprietors of the Liberty Mills General Store, who became interested and involved with GRE '90 and led the charge and greased the skids for all that was done at or about the headwaters. They owned the dam (the first on the river) which became to focus of headwaters activities both for GRE '90 and GRE 2000 ten years later. I was the MC for the opening day ceremony in July of 1990 (a whole other story) and in 2000.
I also became responsible for the two historical markers sponsored by GRE '90, one an official State of Michigan Historical Marker on the Riverwalk in Lansing, and the other an engraved glacial boulder at the Liberty Mills dam. That boulder came from Bunday Hill, the highest elevation in the Grand River watershed. The words on both markers are mine.
I also helped the Krugers by scouting out campsites for the 13 days the expedition would take going down the river. My late canoeing buddy George Voorhis paddled with me for three days on GRE '90.
Another life changer resulting from my Project Lakewell membership is the annual Hugh Heward Challenge and the 2009 Ultimate Hugh Heward Challenge. More on that later.
In 1990 I read an article in the Lansing State Journal by history writer Birt Darling about a 1790 trip in two birchbark canoes by the British trader Hugh Heward and seven French-Canadian paddlers from Detroit to the Chicago River. They crossed the Lower Peninsula by going up the Huron River and, after portaging across the Lake Erie-Lake Michigan divide, paddled all the way down the Grand River to Lake Michigan. Thus they went down the Grand exactly 200 years before GRE '90 was to go down the same river. I was thereby inspired to determine exactly how the Heward party got from the Huron to the Grand.
"Topology" is defied as the topographic study of a place in relation to its history. I consider myself to be a topologist and that topology is my retirement hobby. In the winter and spring of 1990 I studied my topographic maps and made many trips by car reconnoitering Heward's possible routes until I became convinced I knew exactly how and where the Heward party paddled and portaged between the Huron and the Grand.
I shared this information with Verlen and he decided to prove me right or wrong his way, by launching his canoe in the Huron and paddling and bushwhacking to see if he could get to the Grand the way I believed Heward did. It took him two days, but he did it and it was my way. Since, many adventurous paddlers have followed Verlen's path, usually stopping in Hell for beer and pizza.
According to his journal, on April 28,1790 Heward's party, having encountered "an ill looking band" of renegade Indians the day before, paddled nearly 50 miles down the Grand River in one day before they felt safe to camp. In the aftermath of GRE '90 I issued a challenge by letter to a number of mid-Michigan canoeists, including Verlen, to try to try to match the Heward expedition's sprint by birchbark canoe with their sleek, modern canoes.
To make a long story short, my smart-alec challenge has become the Annual Hugh Heward Challenge, a 55 miler from Dimondale to Portland, a money raising function of the Verlen Kruger Memorial Association complete with T-shirts and feeding and speechifying at Thompson Field at Portland where Verlen's life-size bronze statue is to be erected. The first year 5 canoeists completed the challenge. Last year, the 10th I believe, 110 canoeists participated.
I have become sort of famous among a select group of canoeists for this affair and the related Charlie Parmelee 2008 Odyssey and the 2009 Ultimate Hugh Heward Detroit-to-Chicago Challenge and it all started with laying $15 on the table to join Project Lakewell that day at Lansing's Riverfest.
I have been honored by being presented with the Eaton County Heritage Award for 2001, the Verlen Kruger Award at the Quiet Water Symposium in 2004, and a bronze statuette of Verlen in 2007 for my initiation of the Hugh Heward Challenge.
Further, there is a series of self-published narrative/monographs that I have authored whereby I used the topology techniques I perfected in working out Hugh's route. I have done "The Search for the Route of LaSalle's 1680 Walk Across Michigan", "Locating Michigan's Old Canoe Portages" (2 volumes) and "Across Lower Michigan by Canoe-1790". Other monographs that deserve Project Lakewell inspiration credit are "LaSalle's Elmbark Canoe", "Michigan's Whitewood Dugout Canoes" and "Hiawatha's Canoe". All are in significant Michigan historical libraries and museums.
One last thing that I can trace back to that day at Riverfest, my home "The Riverhouse" on the Grand River in Delta Township of Eaton County west of Lansing. I think it's the best place on the river. An acre of woods and meadow about 400 yards upstream of the Kruger Canoe Base with all of the land across the river an Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary. My wife found it while I was giving her a tour of places I visited during GRE '90. When the leaves are off I can see across the river the top of a big cedar tree in Hillside Cemetery, next to which Verlen is buried.


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Great Barrier Reef, complex of coral reefs, shoals, and islets in the Pacific Ocean off the northeastern coast of Australia that is the longest and largest reef complex in the world. The Great Barrier Reef extends in roughly a northwest-southeast direction for more than 1,250 miles (2,000 km), at an offshore distance ranging from 10 to 100 miles (16 to 160 km), and has an area of some 135,000 square miles (350,000 square km). It has been characterized, somewhat inaccurately, as the largest structure ever built by living creatures.
The reef actually consists of some 2,100 individual reefs and some 800 fringing reefs (formed around islands or bordering coastlines). Many are dry or barely awash at low tide; some have islands of coral sand, or cays; others fringe high islands or the mainland coast. In spite of this variety, the reefs share a common origin: each has been formed, over millions of years, from the skeletons and skeletal waste of a mass of living marine organisms. The "bricks" in the reef framework are formed by the calcareous remains of the tiny creatures known as coral polyps and hydrocorals, while the "cement" that binds these remains together is formed in large part by coralline algae and bryozoans. The interstices of this framework have been filled in by vast quantities of skeletal waste produced by the pounding of the waves and the depredations of boring organisms.
European exploration of the reef began in 1770, when the British explorer Captain James Cook ran his ship aground on it. The work of charting channels and passages through the maze of reefs, begun by Cook, continued during the 19th century. The Great Barrier Reef Expedition of 1928–29 contributed important knowledge about coral physiology and the ecology of coral reefs. A modern laboratory on Heron Island continues scientific investigations, and several studies have been undertaken in other areas.
The reef has risen on the shallow shelf fringing the Australian continent, in warm waters that have enabled the corals to flourish (they cannot exist where average temperatures fall below 70 °F [21 °C]). Borings have established that reefs were growing on the continental shelf as early as the Miocene Epoch (23.7 to 5.3 million years ago). Subsidence of the continental shelf has proceeded, with some reversals, since the early Miocene.
The water environment of the Great Barrier Reef is formed by the surface water layer of the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The reef waters show little seasonal variation: surface-water temperature is high, ranging from 70 to 100 °F (21 to 38 °C). The waters are generally crystal-clear, with submarine features clearly visible at depths of 100 feet (30 metres).
Forms of life include at least 300 species of hard coral as well as anemones, sponges, worms, gastropods, lobsters, crayfish, prawns, crabs, and a great variety of fishes and birds. The most destructive reef animal is the crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci), which has reduced the colour and attraction of many of the central reefs by eating much of the living coral. Encrusting red algae Lithothamnion and Porolithon form the fortifying purplish red algal rim that is one of the Great Barrier Reef's most characteristic features, while the green alga Halimeda flourishes almost everywhere. Above the surface, the plant life of the cays is very restricted, consisting of only some 30 to 40 species. Some varieties of mangrove occur in the northern cays.
In addition to its scientific interest, the reef has become increasingly important as a tourist attraction. Growing concern over the preservation of its natural heritage has led to increased controls on such potentially threatening activities as drilling for petroleum resources. The extensive use of tourist craft and the sustainability of commercial fishing were controversial matters in the late 20th century. The reef's health, however, is also threatened by other factors; some marine scientists noted that coral coverage on the reef fell by nearly 50 percent between 1985 and 2012 as a result of damage caused by coral bleaching, invasive species such as the crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci), and tropical cyclones.
Supervision of the reef is largely the responsibility of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (declared in 1975), which encompasses the vast majority of the area. There are also smaller state and national parks. In 1981 the Great Barrier Reef was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List.


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April 29th, 2013 at 12:59 PM ^
Ohio is not the #1 team in the country. Mark Schlabach is really buying into the hype machine.
He said OSU is probably not better than Alabama, but have a much easier schedule and path to a 12-0 record which is true.
Have to beat the hairless nuts this year!
What a stupid reason. These are rankings, not standings. I don't want to know who has a better record, I can figure that out pretty easily by myself. I want to know who is better.
Who u think will go undefeated. They are supposed to be based on who is the Best team in the country. Schedule is a horrible reason to put them number 1
I'm not saying the Buckeyes are a better football team than the Crimson Tide; I'm saying Ohio State has an easier path to an undefeated record this coming season.
Schlabach made his reasoning clear in the introduction and I don't disagree with him. OSU's schedule is Charmin soft for 2013. I could probably lead OSU to a 10-2 record with their schedule next season.
Just because he made it clear doesn't make it any good. If he said that he drew names out of a hat I wouldn't like it just because he made it clear beforehand.
So here's the question:
What's the difference between projecting them undefeated and ranking them #1 for being undefeated after all is said and done? I'm sure many thought that OSU and ND were both pretty weak teams last year, but they still ended the season in the top three due to their record (prior to the NCG).
Both are inherently wrong, as they reward record over ability, but they are in essence doing the same thing. If Bama goes undefeated, does anyone question that they will be #1 at the end of the year?
What is inherently wrong for ranking an undefeated power conference team in the top three? Championships are base on winning on the field. If you ranked based on ability on paper there would be no point in playing a single game an sports would suck.
If I thought there was another team better than Bama, then yes I would question it. Just because a team has the better record does not make them the better team. If Northern Illinois goes undefeated, should they be #1? If the whole point of a top 25 was to simply list the teams by their record, then no one would be interested. In most people's opinion, this should be a subjective ranking, and if Schlabach thinks Bama is better than OSU, he should give a shit how tough their schedules are.
Just because you disagree with it doesn't necessarily make it "bad", either.
I know a lot of people get into insanely heated debates about the reasoning behind Top 25 polls but I happen to fall on the side of those who feel you should vote on who you think will have the best seasons not who you feel are the best teams.
Trying to determine who the best teams are is a futile exercise as teams only play 12-14 games against a wide range of opponents of vastly different qualty so it ends up just being an opinion poll. Whereas, voting on who will have the best season (e.g. your #1 team will win the MNC) can at least sort of be proven by the results on the field. Ergo, I have no problem with his reasoning.
"I happen to fall on the side of those who feel you should vote on who you think will have the best seasons not who you feel are the best teams"
This logic is exactly what is wrong with the college football ranking systems. I really hope the rankings matter very little when it comes to the new 4 team playoff.
I have always hated this mode of thinking, and the big problem is that a lot of the voters that are deciding where the teams are ranked feel the exact same way. This is a reason why teams play such soft schedules. A 12-0 team is always* viewed as better than an 11-1 team.
*Well, not if the 12-0 team is from the MAC or Sun Belt or something, but anyone from a major conference and a lot of teams from mid-level conferences as well (ie Boise, etc.)
It makes sense that he would do the rankings that way. In Dec / Jan he is limiting his exposure for having his preseason rankings raked over the coals.
If he thinks Alabama is one of the two best teams in the country, and that they're better than OSU, why doesn't he just rank them #1 and OSU #2?
Until somebody beats Ohio, they have as much right to be called #1 as anyone else. I hope the "unbeatable juggernaut" waltzes into the Big House undefeated this November. The Ohio hype reminds me a lot of 1969; everybody just assumed that nobody could stop the mighty Buckeyes.
We all know how that turned out.
I completely disagree. Why does OSU have as much right to be called #1 as the defending national champions who actually beat really good teams last year, and by a lot. What was OSU's best win? Edging us out at home? Alabama laughs at that, for sure.
I'd love for them to be #1 when we play them too, but they do not deserve to be #1 right now.
alabama would beat OSU by 3 touchdowns.
For the whole 42-14 thing. I don't want to finish second to Ohio in anything.
I thought elite defenses won championships - so what is OSU doing on that list?
But they have Noah Spence and Adolphus Washington! That's like, what, 30 tackles and 2 or 3 sacks between the two of them returning from last year!
But seriously, they do have some great talent on the defensive side. But a lot of it's still young. If it blooms into the projections based on recruiting rankings, they'll have an elite D. I think. The one thing I can say about OSU's D even from last year, which also had really good talent (probably better than UM's raw talent) is that they play undisciplined. That could sink the D no matter how talented they are.
There needs to be more OUTRAGE when these columnists use reasoning for these rankings that includes "Team X has this easy/difficult of a schedule." What does that have to do with how good a team they are!
I don't know of anyone who has ever been able to tell me what a poll really is. Is it:
1. A ranking of the best teams, in your opinion, where #1 should usually beat #2, #2 should usually beat #3, etc. if they were to play tomorrow.
2. A ranking of what teams have accomplished to date (schedule comes into play)
3.. A prediction of what the final standings/polls will be (schedule comes into play)
I think we all want it to be #1, but the long-standing model where we count losses, and if you lose you drop (even if you lose to a team ranked higher than you) blows that up. So, #2 and #3 are factors and schedule matters. QED.
But really, who cares in April and it just gives us something to blabber about.
No kidding. I was most shocked to see Louisville at #4. But then he goes on to say "The Cardinals might not be the country's fourth-best team based on talent and depth, but which opponent is capable of unseating them in the depleted Big East?" ...wtf
I hate preseason polls. Without Jake Ryan, an unproven O-line, and no clear number one running back #9 is way too high.
Could've played in the spring game, granted this is assuming injury has no complications, but still:
I disagree with you. The OL should be solid with our returning starters as well as the myriad of stud underclassmen we have. Our clear number 1 running back will be decided in the fall, and it'll likely be a freshman, but that is the easiest position to acclimate to as a freshman. We'll be good there too. Jake Ryan hurts, but our LB core is solid, and our defense should be very good so long as the DL steps it up.
I found it interesting Schlabach didn't even mention Jake Ryan's injury. ESPN crack reporting.
I actually like OSU being #1 and I hope they are still #1 and undefeated when we beat them at the end of the season.
Well, they won't be number one when we beat them the second time in the BTCG.
That part will be a little disappointing. But only a little.
wow we are on completely different pages, I hope they lose every fucking game ever. I would completely be fine with Michigan beating a 0-11 Ohio team every year. My favorite team is Michigan and my second favorite team is anybody who plays Ohio.
I agree and cannot stand Ohio being in the positive spotlight. I hate them and wish nothing but bad things for their program and fans.
Hype them up please. Just will make it that much better when we beat them. Can't wait to hear how great Ohio looks after beating up on their non conference portion of the schedule.
It will be about Urban's first "ligit" year and Miller for Heisman all season.
Ohio State and ND way too high. One doesn't have a defense the other, lost its best player on defense and on a offense that was already struggling.
Notre Dame also lost the big d-lineman Kapron Lewis-Moore? Without him and Teo ND's defense is going to look weak.
Pretty sure that Louis Nix book ended by Stephon Tuitt and Sheldon Day will be just fine. The secondary is also greatly improved with actual returning Corner Backs and not converted RB/WRs.
I wouldn't expect the defense to drop off much. After all Teo was a fraud, right?
Also as an aside its good to see the old guard taking their spots back near the top of the polls.
Having Osu and ND over-ranked just means it makes Michigan look that much better when we beat them.
does have a easy schedule until Nov 30. They will probably be undeafeated till that point.
I'd rather be #9 than #1... no where to go but down.
With a #1 preseason ranking, OSU will get the benefit of doubt if they lose a game. They won't be kicked out of the Top 10. Also, being ranked this high and losing to Michigan during the last game if the season, but beating us in the B1G championship game means they still go to the NC game.
Not a chance. With OSU's schedule, if they lose one game, they're out of the NC discussion.
To be replaced by who? You never know what teams are gonna lose.
Think of how different we might look at Alabama if Okie State hadn't lost to Iowa State, or if KSU didn't lose to Baylor (and you can include Oregon losing to Stanford too)
Besides Michigan, the Buckeyes will likely face no more than a couple of fringe Top 25 teams throughout their season.
|2013 Ohio State Buckeyes Schedule
|Sat, Aug 31
|Sat, Sept 7
|Sat, Sept 14
|Sat, Sept 21
|Sat, Sept 28
|Sat, Oct 5
|Sat, Oct 19
|Sat, Oct 26
|Sat, Nov 2
|Sat, Nov 16
|Sat, Nov 23
|Sat, Nov 30
Cal and SDSU aren't horrible non-conference games. Their Confrence schedule does looks pretty weak though without Nebraska and Msu
Cal and SDSU aren't horrible non-conference games. Their Confrence schedule does looks pretty weak though without Nebraska and Msu
Cal was 3-9 last year. San Diego State is a solid team, but probably the best non-conference game they've got. If that's the marquee game, it sounds like a pretty easy road into Big 10 play.
Also, being ranked this high and losing to Michigan during the last game if the season, but beating us in the B1G championship game means they still go to the NC game.
I strongly doubt this happens. Even if we split with Michigan, assuming both teams make it there, OSU would be headed to the Rose Bowl. In fact, I don't really understand how most [OSU] fans can even think the national title is a possiblity this year even if OSU ran the table. Their success and chances of a national title has more to do with the success of the conference teams versus their own. If teams start to lose several OOC games, thus weakening their SOS, it probably won't happen for OSU.
I'm a realist and even I think being #1 is a huge reach for a team that had several close games last year and several question marks going into this season. Moreover, who ranks teams because of their schedule or what they did last year? Look at what happened to USC after they got off sanctions. Great year despite sanctions, gets ranked #1, then finished the year 6-7 when everything is on the line. Any thing can happen to teams and being ranked #1 is almost a curse. I'm not exactly buying into the hype and would much rather fly under the radar than be a target.
Finally, lets be honest here, when OSU plays Michigan for the second time in Indy, which I believe will happen, it will be to determine who is playing for a berth in 100th Rose Bowl and Big Ten Championship. That's about as good as it will get for both teams this year.
Read WAY too quickly. Thought this was a basketball poll and thought "what the hell is Alabama doing here!"
PS I LOVE that seeing U-M in the top 10 in Fball AND Bball is real


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Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 23rd May 2011 22:13 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
Yes, it's still being updated.
OS/2 eComStation 2.1 has been released by Serenity Systems International and Mensys BV. The market for eComStation may not be particularly huge, but it still has its niches here and there. Since there might be folks here that aren't in the know: eComStation is the commercial continuation of IBM's OS/2, developed to support modern hardware.
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Comment by Kroc
by Kroc on Tue 24th May 2011 06:18 UTC
Wow, installing a boot loader into track 0, old skool. Just brought back memories of disk-based turbo loaders on the Commodore 64 that would install some code in the small area in track 0 before the main data so that the code wouldn't take up any space from the disk's reported capacity.


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HUNTINGDON, Pa. – The Juniata football defense held Centennial Conference rival McDaniel College scoreless for over three quarters to help the team pull out a 24-7 win on their annual Pink Game at Knox Stadium Saturday afternoon. It was the Eagles first home win of the season. They improve to 2-6 (1-6, Landmark) on the year while McDaniel dropped to 0-8 (0-7 Landmark).
"To finally get one on Goodman field is very rewarding to our team and it shows our appreciation to all the folks helping us get that turf," said Juniata Head Coach Tim Launtz. "We control what happens to us. It's just about execution and doing our jobs and that's what we did today and you see the result."
This was the fewest points the Juniata defense has allowed all season and marked the fifth time the Green Terror have been held to 10 points or fewer this year.
Pacing the Eagles defense was junior Brandon Feelus (Columbia, Pa./Columbia). The defensive lineman finished with a game and season-high 10 tackles, five solo and five assisted. He also had a game-high three sacks, his most in a single-game this season, and finished with 3.5 tackles for a loss of 23 yards.
"Defense really rose to the occasion today and played very, very well," commented Launtz. "The whole defense, they came up with plays when they had to. Brandon today was a man possessed. He just dominated."
Sophomore Ward Udinski (Doylestown, Pa./Central Bucks West) continued his stellar year on the field. Passing for over 308 yards and a touchdown, Udinski also led the team with 79 total rushing yards and two more touchdowns on the ground.
"Ward doesn't have a lot to say, he lets his actions and his caliber of play speak for him," said Launtz. "He just continues to improve game in and game out."
Udinski completed over 70-percent of his passes with zero interceptions in the win. He currently leads the team with 1,944 passing yards and 320 rushing yards.
Juniata had three receivers with over 80 yards on the day. Seniors Dominic Bornman (Mechanicsburg, Pa./Cumberland Valley) and Quadir Christian (Johnstown, Pa./Greater Johnstown) led the team with 94 and 90 receiving yards, respectively. Freshman Michael John (Osceola Mills, Pa./Phillipsburg-Osceola) finished with 83 yards of his own.
"That whole core of seniors have just been a real mainstay for us and provided Ward with a good experienced group to throw to," added Launtz.
Christian's 30-yard touchdown pass from Udinski in the fourth quarter sealed the Eagles victory with 2:56 to play.
For the first time since 2003, Juniata has two wins with at least two games remaining in the season. They are looking for the first three win season in almost 10 years but have two tough conference games left on the calendar with only one more home game left in the 2012 season. They face league rival Moravian on Saturday, Nov. 3 at 12 p.m. It will be senior day in Knox Stadium as Juniata says goodbye to 12 Eagles.
"Things are changing here," said Launtz. "And whatever happens in the future, the seniors have played a large role in that success."
Juniata is 26-28-2 all-time against Moravian who is 2-5 in conference play this year with league wins over McDaniel and Dickinson. The programs have been meeting since 1932 and the Eagles haven't found a way past Moravian since 2003. The Greyhounds won the team's last meeting 28-3 back on Nov. 5, 2011.
Follow Your Eagles! Stay up-to-date on your Juniata College Eagles by following us on twitter (@JuniataEagles) and on Facebook (Juniata Eagles).


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With Connecticut facing the prospect of sharply higher costs for Metro-North service, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and Sen. Richard Blumenthal on Thursday both publicly proclaimed that fare increases wouldn't be justified.
But the railroad said fares for Connecticut riders are entirely dependent on decisions by state government — not by the railroad.
By one calculation, using Metro-North's most recent budget projections, Connecticut's share of the New Haven line costs could as spike by nearly 60 percent this year because of an anticipated labor contract with enormous retroactive payouts to thousands of workers.
But even if that happens, the railroad said state officials — not...


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Stokes's Wish
ANTHONY Stokes wants to stay at Celtic, fight for his first team place at Parkhead and prove to Irish manager Giovanni Trapattoni that he is worth another look.
Stokes has been linked with a move back to England as Celtic comes to terms with the financial implications of the implosion at Rangers.
After missing Euro 2012, the Dubliner is also waiting with baited breath for Friday's press conference in Donegal when Trapattoni will announce his squad for next month's friendly against Serbia.
Stokes told the Irish Sun, "It was difficult watching the Euros because things didn't go to plan. We were playing against very good teams out there.
"The first game killed us a bit but Spain went on to win the competition. It was a very tough group and I am sure the fans and the players probably wanted a bit more but it wasn't to be.
"I would have loved to have been there but it wasn't to be. I just have to focus on my club football and I am just focusing on the Champions League and hopefully doing well in that.
"If a recall happens then it would be brilliant but I just need to concentrate on my club form. I think it is clear to see that Trapattoni is pretty rigid with his squad and unless that changes I might not have a chance of getting back in.
"He is probably right with what he has done because you only had to look at our form in the run up to the competition because I don't think we had lost in 13 or 14 games.
At club level, Stokes is also determined to prove his worth to Celtic boss Neil Lennon ahead of the Champions League campaign.
He added, "Playing in the Champions League is massive for any player and any club. It is one of the best competitions in the world and we are all up for it."
Russian side Lokomotiv Moscow have also been linked with a move for Stokes but he insisted, "I am happy here. I am in the last year of my contract and things are going well and I don't even want to worry about things like that.
"We have big games coming up and the Champions League is the main thing I am focusing on because it is the first game. I would like to extend my contract but I don't know what the situation is to be honest."
Celtic boss Neil Lennon says he wants to keep Stokes, but knows he may have to sell players due to the financial implications of Rangers' removal from the Premier League and their presence in the Scottish Third Division next season.
Lennon told the Daily Express, "I've not heard a thing about other clubs being interested. He had a great season last year. He's still young -- still only 23 -- even though he's been around the British game for what seems a lot longer.
"There is scope for him to improve. He's a goal scorer and I wouldn't be in too big a hurry to let him go.
"But Anthony is in the last year of his contract and that's something we'll be looking at over the next few weeks once we get back and talk things through."
Lennon is busy on the transfer front, with Celtic linked with South Korea international winger Kim Bo-Kyung, Leeds United youngster Aidan White and Polish full-back Sebastian Boenisch, who has just left German outfit Werder Bremen.
Irish striker Daryl Murphy, back at the club after a loan spell at Ipswich, could also stay as Lennon adapts to the new financial reality in Scottish football.
Celtics's poor pre-season form continued when they were beaten 1-0 away to German third division side Stuttgart Kickers on Sunday.
Airtricity Results
ST. Patrick's Athletic have received a bye into the quarterfinals of the FAI Cup after Monaghan United withdrew from senior football. The Saints will miss the third round of the competition with the pick of the draw the all-Premier clash between Shamrock Rovers and Cork City.
The third round draw for the FAI Cup is -- Waterford United vs. Mervue United; Malahide United vs. Dundalk; Shamrock Rovers vs. Cork City; Bohemians vs. Avondale United; Drogheda United vs. Wexford Youths; UCD vs. Derry City; Shelbourne vs. Cherry Orchard. Bye: St Pat's.
Drogheda United are up to second in the Premier Division table after beating St. Patrick's Athletic 2-0 in Dublin on Sunday, but Sligo are still ahead of the pack after their 2-1 win in Derry.
Shamrock Rovers stuttered again with a 1-1 draw at Dundalk, while Bohs bounced back from their European exit to beat UCD 1-0 at Dalymount Park. Shels won a five goal thriller away to Bray Wanderers
There were mixed fortunes for Irish teams in Europa League action last week when Stephen O'Flynn scored a late goal to earn St. Pat's victory on the away goals rule against IBV in Iceland.
There was no such luck for Bohs, however, as they crashed out 5-1 to Thor, also in Iceland.
Soccer Shorts
COVENTRY City are ready to sell Dubliner Gary Deegan after he was suspended for posting a pro-IRA comment on Twitter. Irish winger Roy O'Donovan also looks set to leave the club . . .
DUNDEE will replace Rangers in the Scottish Premier League after the Gers demotion to the Third
Division following their financial woes . . .
LIMERICK FC will host Premier League champions Manchester City in a glamour friendly at Thomond Park on August 5 . . .
FORMER Irish international defender Alan Maybury is talking to Hibs boss Pat Fenlon about a move to Easter Road . . .
BLACKBURN Rovers, Middlesbrough and Birmingham have been linked with West Brom's Irish striker Simon Cox . . .
IRISH defender Paddy McCarthy is to sign a new contract with English Championship side Crystal Palace . . .
DEFENDER Cliff Byrne has signed for Oldham Athletic after 10 years with Scunthorpe United . . .
SEAN McCaffrey has left his job as manager of cash strapped Dundalk by mutual consent . . .
SLIGO Rovers striker Danny North has signed a new contract with the club.


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posted by Thom Holwerda on Sun 18th Apr 2010 09:52 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
"IBM has radically improved the bang for the buck on its Power7-based Power Systems 701 and 702 blade servers this week, and is expected to soon deliver similarly priced entry rack and tower servers. And now it has a new, lower-cost AIX 6.1 Express Edition that will match the less expensive hardware and therefore help Big Blue's AIX platform better compete against Windows, Linux, HP-UX, and Solaris alternatives. The new AIX Express Edition takes the special low-cost pricing that was available only on JS series blade servers and now makes it available across the Power Systems line, including logical partitions on the largest Power 595 (and before too long Power 595) servers."


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April 13, 2012by Carolyn SzczepanskiIt may be the first year for National Bike to School Day, but San Francisco has been celebrating and growing its local event since 2009.
April 12, 2012Join the National Bike Challenge: Win Prizes Before It Even Starts (Now that's what I call win-win!)by KatieSo I'm sure that you've heard a lot about the National Bike Challenge by now, and if you haven't, you can watch this video to learn more.
April 12, 2012by Carolyn SzczepanskiBy the end of the month, cycling fans can get their day started with a pair of star athletes: Matthew Busche, USA Cycling Professional Road National Champion, and track cyclist Dotsie Bausch!
April 11, 2012by Carolyn SzczepanskiFor more than a decade, millions of students have participated in Walk to School Day each October. Now, in partnership with the League, the National Center for Safe Routes to School has taken the successful concept to two wheels, launching National Bike to School Day.
April 10, 2012by Carolyn SzczepanskiFor many of us who travel by bike, our daily commutes have happily become more crowded. When I leave the office in the evening, the cycletrack up 15th Street is full of fellow downtown employees, many of them young professionals. Just last week, a new report from the U.S.
April 9, 2012by supportWe blogged about Pennsylvania's four-foot safe passing law that went into effect last Monday.
April 6, 2012by ScottThe League's Club Leadership Webinar topic for April was Making the Most of Bike Month.
April 6, 2012by KatieOk, I'll admit it. I'm not a big cyclist. Now, don't get me wrong, I ride my bike every day. I ride to work, I ride to the grocery store, I ride to friends' houses. But I rarely ride "just for fun." But last weekend, I found a great middle ground for my love of biking as transportation and being a tourist in my own city.
April 6, 2012by Carolyn SzczepanskiLast month, the League announced its latest round of Bicycle Friendly University awards and the news took flight on Twitter. Students and staff tweeted the good news and, yes, a bit of friendly competitive banter emerged among rival colleges.
April 5, 2012by supportSpring has sprung and that means crunch time for many state legislatures. Across the country, bicycle advocates have their eyes and ears turned toward their state capitol to ensure policymakers advance, rather than curtail, cyclists' rights and safety. With that in mind, here's this week's advocacy roundup: