Fundraiser Update: Cancelled Panel + New Target

Let’s get the bad news out of the way: that panel I was hosting about fake religions is cancelled. Things didn’t gel together as I hoped, and rather than present a half-baked idea it’s smarter to cancel the thing and save it for next time. I’ve deleted the original blog post to prevent confusion, but you can still view what I had planned via this archive.

Which brings us to the worse news: I’m running Princess Kaizo Land! The numbers will be a bit dated when this post goes up, but as of this typing the GoFundMe is at $80,231, an increase of $581, and we’ve had $1,694 donated via other means. That’s well beyond the $1,200 goal I set, so far beyond that I’m blown away by the amount.

But, uh, I’ve just committed to playing a Kaizo game. Yes, my choice is on the easy end of the scale, but I’m no shovda. I don’t have anywhere near the same skillz, so this is going to be an exercise in frustration. Yes, that can be fun to watch, but it ain’t fun to play.

So lemmie offer you a deal: clearly everyone wants to see me squirm a bit, but there’s more than one way to pull that off. I proposed playing a randomizer as my first target, but I said I’d play it at the “Way Cool” setting. That swaps stages and exits, consistently randomizes enemies, switches around Bowser’s castle entrances, and does some other minor scrambling. There are tougher settings, though; “Mondo” will also scramble sublevels and warps, shuffle enemy placement, tweak boss locations and difficulties, change power-ups, and randomly add ice and water physics to stages. This sits at a nice point between a full-on Kaizo game and the boring vanilla version, while still being an advancement over “Way Cool”‘s settings.

Not good enough? I’ve got one more thing to add. As you’ve probably noticed, I’m not big on comment sections. I think they can be problematic, and I don’t need the online feedback. My Twitch chat settings are almost as locked down as my blog comments. So how about I run Twitch chat much more openly than I usually do: I’ll hold comments for moderation, but that’s about it. I’ll also be checking the chat after each level, at minimum, which should keep things interactive.

Time for numbers: we’ve raised about $2,275 over seven days, pro-rating that another four days brings the total to $3,576, and adding 15% to compensate for a rush of last-minute donations brings the total to about $4,112. Add that to $79,650, and you get $83,762 as the new target for Friday the 25th before midnight. Time to fire some cash at the GoFundMe, or check the fundraising page for other ways you can contribute. Thank you so much for the contributions you’ve made so far, they’ve helped quite a bit with the legal bills!

Now would you please mind saving me from playing a Kaizo game? Pleeeeeeaase??

Fundraiser: The Panel of Inexpert Discussion

“I think the people of this country,” sniffed Michael Gove, “have had enough of experts.” Perhaps he was right.

He wasn’t the only Brexit campaigner to identify and capitalise upon public distrust. Arron Banks, the multimillionaire behind Leave.EU, cheerfully attributed his campaign’s success to the mantra “facts don’t work”. Speaking after his referendum triumph, he said: “The Remain campaign featured fact, fact, fact, fact, fact. It doesn’t work. You’ve got to connect with people emotionally. It’s the Trump success.”

A non-trivial number of people in the world don’t care for facts or reason. They want something to be right, so they act like it’s correct. Trump perpetually says voter fraud is rampant, the experts repeatedly point out that isn’t the case, and yet groups of Trump supporters have started showing up to polling places to discourage people from voting. As a blogging network devoted to facts and reason, we turn down our noses at such tactics. And yet by avoiding the feelings-trump-facts crowd, we’re ignoring a significant chunk of the people.

This panel is our attempt at getting comfortable with their worldview. A number of people will lecture you on things of questionable truthhood, and if you walk away feeling something afterward then we’ll have succeeded. You can watch the event live on YouTube, where it will be archived afterwards. So tune in Sunday the 27th at 2PM MDT, and feel something. Don’t forget, this is all happening as part of our legal fundraiser; if you like this concept, chip in a few bucks here. Alternatively, check the fundraiser page for more ways you can contribute.

Fundraiser Update: Target Met! Long Live the Target

I know, it doesn’t look like it. Visit the legal GoFundMe, and you’ll see the current total is $79,760. And yet I said earlier that

As I type this, the legal GoFundMe sits at $79,650. Increase that above to $79,950, and I’ll switch from playing Super Mario World to Super Mario World Randomizer at the “Way Cool” difficulty on the 26th.

Some basic math reveals $79,760 is below $79,950, apparently well short of the goal. The missing piece is the very next sentence:

If you insist on donating only to FtB, instead of everyone impacted by Richard Carrier’s lawsuit, I’ll still count your donation towards that $79,950.

And PZ informs me that the PayPal link has raised a whopping $436.98 in one day! That math easily brings the combined total above $79,950, so it’s official. I’m playing Super Mario World Randomizer, thanks to your generosity!

But it’s going to be a pretty boring fundraiser if we hit all our goals in 24 hours. Thankfully, as I hinted at last time, I have quite a bit in reserve. Ever heard of a “Kaizo” game? Wikipedia has.

Kaizo Mario World, also known as Asshole Mario, is a series of three ROM hacks of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game Super Mario World, created by T. Takemoto. The term “Kaizo Mario World” is a shortened form of Jisaku no Kaizō Mario (Super Mario World) o Yūjin ni Play Saseru. The series was created by Takemoto for his friend R. Kiba.

Kaizo Mario World features extremely difficult level designs on the Super Mario World engine. The series is notable for deliberately breaking all normal rules of “accepted” level design, and introduced many staples of later Kaizo hacks, such as placing hidden blocks where the player is likely to jump, extremely fast autoscrollers, dying after the goal post and various other traps. This cruelty and the resulting frustration, as well as the skill level required, is both the purpose of the hacks and the appeal of any Let’s Play videos made of them.

The original hack was so popular that “Kaizo” became a generic term to mean any game mod that includes new levels and significantly amps up the difficulty of the original. As the name implies, Princess Kaizo Land is a kaizo game starring Princess Peach that’s significantly shorter than Super Mario World. It’s considered a “light” or easy kaizo, and has netted rave reviews. I’ve played a bit of it, but never passed the first level.

If you raise the GoFundMe to $80,850 before midnight MDT of September 25th, I’ll switch from playing Super Mario Randomizer (“Way Cool” difficulty) to Princess Kaizo Land. I know, that’s an increase of $1,200, but a) you’ve demonstrated you’ve got the funds at hand, and b) I really don’t want to play Pricess Kaizo Land. I haven’t played Super Mario World in ages, so my skills are pretty rusty. Even an easy kaizo game will be a big challenge! To preserve my sanity, I’ll guarantee to play at least four hours of Princess Kaizo Land, should the target be hit, but I can’t guarantee I’ll pass the game.

As before, any donations to the PayPal account also count towards this goal. My preference is that you donate to that GoFundMe instead of the PayPal link, though; the more cash we stuff in there, the more people will be free of legal debt. Still, it’s your money to do with as you see fit. I’m just happy you spent some of it to help others, in the face of all that 2020 has thrown at you.

Fundraiser: Super Mario World Edition

Like many of you, I grew up playing video games. They were my favorite distraction, much better than TV, and the primary way I bonded with some of my family. I went through a long spell where I stopped playing them, but thanks to a crippling Minecraft addiction I’ve been drawn back in.

When I was considering what to do for the fundraiser, my mind quickly settled on something relating to video games. It’s very much in my wheelhouse, yet not something I’ve shown on this blog. Having said that, I immediately crossed off doing a simple Minecraft stream; I do those way too often to be considered a special event.

Fortunately, I have an excellent substitute: Super Mario World. I played it a tonne as a kid, passing it several times, but I’ve barely played it since my teen years. This is a great excuse to chat about this game and my childhood, then sit down and actually play the thing from start to finish. As the speedrunners would say, I’m aiming for any percent warpless; no Star Road to zip straight to Bowser, though I also won’t take every exit of every level.

And I’ll do it all for the low, low price of $0.

No really, if not a single soul transfers a single penny into the fundraiser by midnight Friday the 25th, I’ll sit down and play Super Mario World at 10 AM MDT on the 26th.

Here’s the brilliant part: playing Super Mario World is kinda boring. It was the launch title for the Super Nintendo, sold 20 million copies, and often came bundled with the system. Pretty much everyone has played it, so while you can wring a bit of enjoyment from reflected nostalgia, it isn’t terribly compelling.

But that popularity also means a lot of other people have hit the same wall, and instead of moving on a few of them tried to find ways to make the game interesting again. A “randomizer,” for instance, is a bit of code that scrambles up a video game. Levels are done out of order, power-ups don’t do what they used to, and sometimes there are text or art changes made to the game. It turns something everything has played into something no-one has, and makes for much more compelling viewing.

As I type this, the legal GoFundMe sits at $79,650. Increase that above to $79,950, and I’ll switch from playing Super Mario World to Super Mario World Randomizer at the “Way Cool” difficulty on the 26th. If you insist on donating only to FtB, instead of everyone impacted by Richard Carrier’s lawsuit, I’ll still count your donation towards that $79,950. I can’t guarantee I’ll complete the randomized version, as it’s possible to encounter a version that’s impossible to pass (or beyond my skill level!) and nobody’s verified this version is passable, but I’ll give it a go for at least four hours.

So click the link and donate to the legal GoFundMe. And don’t worry about blowing past that goal, I have plenty more up my sleeve. If you want to see what else is happening this fundraiser, we’ve also got you covered.

[HJH 2020-09-14: Whoops, forgot to complete a sentence. I also added a link to the fundraising page proper, now that it’s live.]

Trying an Experiment

Usually when I get addicted to something, obsessing over it for a week or two is enough to get it out of my system. My Minecraft addiction has been going strong for a month and a half, though, with [no] signs of abating. The time I used to use to daydream posts has instead been turned to testing the best design for a lava blade or roughing up a flexible design for a mountain home in Blender.

When pondering what to do about the situation, though, I realized something: I’m a noob, but not a complete one. Yes, I can say “mob grinder” with a straight face, but I’ve also died tonnes of times in order to establish my base. I still don’t have any enchantments, I can count the number of iron bars I own on one hand, but much of that tardiness is because I’ve been more focused on finding the right location for a home. I’m not bragging about my amazing builds or redstone skillz, but I’m also not flailing around either, and I haven’t seen a lot of Minecraft players with that intermediate skill level.

I figure it might be watchable. And if I’m putting in the hours, I might as well try my hand at streaming the game. And so, I have. I’ve currently got five videos up, in fact, though I hear Twitch deletes old videos unless you fork over cash. If videos start disappearing, I’ll archive them on YouTube.

Until that point, here’s a quick overview of what I’m hoping to build and the constraints I’ve placed on myself, then four more videos where I start executing on it. Looking back on the series, I’m still a bit amazed at the pace of improvement, on a technical level. There’s no way I can keep that pace up, but at least I can always craft more mines.

A Year-End Wrap Up

… You know, I’ve never actually done one? They feel a bit self-indulgent, but having looked at the data I think there’s an interesting pattern here. Tell me if you can spot it, based on the eleven posts that earned the most traffic in 2018:

[Read more…]

The Boghossian Experience, in Audio

If you somehow missed my series of blog posts on this “grievance studies” debacle, or you’d just like the info in audio format, you’re in luck! Cory Johnston caught wind of what I’d written, and invited me on the Skeptic Studio podcast to summarise it. I was interviewed just as the third in that series came out, if you’d like to properly situate it in the timeline.

Cripes, I’ve done five posts on Boghossian and friends? Sorry, but the trio are fractally wrong.

Anyway, Johnston is part of the Brainstorm podcast network, a series of skeptic/atheist shows that tick all the CanCon boxes. They have Twitters and Books, and if you like what you see consider tossing them some cash via their store or Patreon.

As for me, I want to polish off an illustration before formally launching my Patreon thing. Give me another day or two, I pinky-swear.

Ridiculously Complex

Things have gotten quiet over here, due to SIGGRAPH. Picture a giant box of computer graphics nerds, crossed with a shit-tonne of cash, and you get the basic idea. And the papers! A lot of it is complicated and math-heavy or detailing speculative hardware, sprinkled with the slightly strange. Some of it, though, is fairly accessible.

This panel on colour, in particular, was a treat. I’ve been fascinated by colour and visual perception for years, and was even lucky enough to do two lectures on the subject. It’s a ridiculously complicated subject! For instance, purple isn’t a real colour.

The visible spectrum of light. Copyright Spigget, CC-BY-SA-3.0.

Ok ok, it’s definitely “real” in the sense that you can have the sensation of it, but there is no single wavelength of light associated with it. To make the colour, you have to combine both red-ish and blue-ish light. That might seem strange; isn’t there a purple-ish section at the back of the rainbow labeled “violet?” Since all the colours of the rainbow are “real” in the single-wavelength sense, a red-blue single wavelength must be real too.

It turns out that’s all a trick of the eye. We detect colour through one of three cone-shaped photoreceptors, dubbed “long,” “medium,” and “short.” These vary in what sort of light they’re sensitive to, and overlap a surprising amount.

Figure 2, from Bowmaker & Dartnall 1980. Cone response curves have been colourized to approximately their peak colour response.

Your brain determines the colour by weighing the relative response of the cone cells. Light with a wavelength of 650 nanometres tickles the long cone far more than the medium one, and more still than the short cone, and we’ve labeled that colour “red.” With 440nm light, it’s now the short cone that blasts a signal while the medium and long cones are more reserved, so we slap “blue” on that.

Notice that when we get to 400nm light, our long cones start becoming more active, even as the short ones are less so and the medium ones aren’t doing much? Proportionately, the share of “red” is gaining on the “blue,” and our brain interprets that as a mixture of the two colours. Hence, “violet” has that red-blue sensation even though there’s no light arriving from the red end of the spectrum.

To make things even more confusing, your eye doesn’t fire those cone signals directly back to the brain. Instead, ganglions merge the “long” and “medium” signals together, firing faster if there’s more “long” than “medium” and vice-versa. That combined signal is itself combined with the “short” signal, firing faster if there’s more “long”/”medium” than “short.” Finally, all the cone and rod cells are merged, firing more if they’re brighter than nominal. Hence where there’s no such thing as a reddish-green nor a yellow-ish blue, because both would be interpreted as an absence of colour.

I could (and have!) go on for an hour or two, and yet barely scratch the surface of how we try to standardize what goes on in our heads. Thus why it was cool to see some experts in the field give their own introduction to colour representation at SIGGRAPH. I recommend tuning in.

 

The Cold Calculus of Hiking

For part of the trip, I couldn’t decide which was the tougher scramble: Crowsnest Mountain or Mount Sparrowhawk. That debate was conclusively squashed in the crux of Crowsnest: picture a gully a few metres wide but a good dozen meters tall, filled with loose scree that makes grinding up the channel a slog, and sprinkle in a few upclimbs just to further piss you off. Those two metal chains did indeed make the near-cliff at the top of the gully easier to exit, but there was an awkward section between them with few good footholds. The angle of the rock strata was down-slope, too, which I noted would make that section extremely dangerous when wet.

I didn’t know the half of how treacherous it could get.

===

Weather reports in the mountains are like the Pirate Code. The mountains themselves cause weather and redirect the wind, and tend to be more prone to moisture and wind than the surrounding valleys, making forecasting difficult. I ruled out hiking in Lake Louise or Banff due to 50% chances of rain, but I thought Crowsnest Pass had a 0% chance of rain that day, which didn’t offer much room for a weather surprise. I later learned I’d misread the report and there was a 20% chance in the afternoon, but at worst I’d just have been more slightly more alert to the weather. I would have been on alert anyway, as the high winds of the Crowsnest Pass only make weather surprises more likely. Reading the conditions while on the hike is far more reliable, for obvious reasons, but when scrambling a mountain you spend most of your time with half the sky blocked by said mountain. As unreliable as they can be, weather reports are still vital.

Alas, the forecasts were wrong even before we stepped out of the vehicle. Webcams from the Crowsnest Pass region showed smoke-free skies the previous day, another plus over Lake Louise/Banff, but we arrived to find quite a bit of smoke in the air. To understand why that’s annoying, consider the view when there isn’t much smoke about.

A teeny bit of the view from the top of Mount Sparrowhawk. Click for a bigger version.

This is a small slice of what you see from the top of Mount Sparrowhawk. That long “lake” on the left is actually the Spray Lakes Reservoir, while the stubby one is Goat Pond. There’s a bit of Mount Lougheed in shadow, and dead behind it are The Rimwall (7km away), the Three Sisters (10km), Mount Rundle (25km), and Cascade Mountain (38km). All of those are beneath you! There may only be two mountains higher than Sparrowhawk visible here, Bonnet Peak and Mount Temple, and the closest of them is 70km away. That’s not my record for mountainspotting, but you get the point: clear air on a mountain top earns you spectacular views of distant scenery.

The view from the final ascent of Crowsnest Mountain.

Smoky air is more like this. The pretty boomerang is the Seven Sisters (2km away), the sun-kissed mountains are Allison Peak and Mount Ward (7km), and that black mass behind the Seven Sisters is part of the High Rock Range (no more than 15km). It doesn’t have the same impact, right?

It was a lot more alarming, though. This shot was taken above those chains, about 200m short of the summit, and the more I looked at it the more worried I got. The biggest tell for rain is dark tendrils coming down from puffy Cumulus clouds, because that’s precisely what you’re looking at. All that smoke in the air led to deep dark cloud shadows and poor visibility, though, blocking my view. I had to rely on more qualitative tells, which fell outside the frame of this shot: really tall Cumulus clouds and “smearing” that blurs normally sharp boundaries. Overall, I figured there was maybe a 30% chance the haze was hiding rain. On the other hand, those clouds had been building for hours and slowly marching towards us from the North. Shortly before taking this shot, I called an audible: we should turn back. The risk side of the equation outbalanced the reward, even though the flag was waving at us from the summit. There was no way I wanted to be caught between those chains in the rain. We were all hungry and tired from the grind, so I recommended a quick break for food and photos before we retreated.

Shortly after taking this shot, I saw a lightning bolt over Allison Peak.

As we raced back down, I first saw the first clear signs of dark tendrils rapidly coming at us from the High Rock Range, as well as an ominous white “fog.” The rest of the group were pressuring me to find shelter immediately; I agreed and had a place in mind, but it was past those chains. Maybe five minutes before reaching the pair, the wave of rain hit. It really brought down the temperature, and made it tough to navigate through wet sunglasses. There wasn’t much lightning, thankfully, but we couldn’t be more exposed. I almost led us into another gully to the West of the chains, but caught sight of a cairn and was able to steer us true. I was shouting directions to the rest of group as they descended down, as by this time the wind had really picked up. The white fog chose that moment to reveal it was actually pea-sized hail. Fortunately, I saw a ray of hope: there was a bright spot behind Allison Peak, where the sun appeared to be shining through the clouds. This nastiness would pass shortly, and if only briefly we’d have a window of better weather.

But that was only the first half of the treachery.

===

I have a reputation for being impervious to cold. But I’ll let you in on a secret: there’s nothing special about my body. I was that kid who had to come indoors after ten minutes in the cold, and eventually it pissed me off enough to try to find workarounds like how to dress in layers. That was so effective, I wound up ditching my winter coat in favor of a thin raincoat I’d layer over one or two sweaters and a shirt. I could easily adjust for the conditions, or swap out layers as they got wet. And it was cheaper than a proper coat! Nowadays, my standard hiking clothing is a thin exercise T for moisture wicking, a beat-up puffy fleece sweater for insulation, and said raincoat for wind protection. For the lower half, I wear convertible pants as shorts for the outer layer, with some thick tights for insulation and a pair of thick wool socks for either feet or hands.

My record for remaining comfortable in a T-shirt and shorts is 0 Celsius. But I managed that while snow-shoeing in a dense forest on a sunny day; there was no wind to accelerate the loss of heat, the sun was warming my skin, and the physical exertion was just able to compensate for what I was losing to the surrounding atmosphere. When you’re a cardio junkie with the resting heart rate of an athlete, “keep moving to stay warm” is easy advice to follow. It’s one reason why I rarely throw an extra layer on when I stop for a snack, because I know that any chill I get will be gone fifteen minutes after we move again. Conversely, if I threw on the layer I’d overheat at roughly the same time and be forced to stop and change.

So when I snapped that photo on Crowsnest Mountain, I was wearing only my wicking layer and shorts. By the time we reached the chains, what little body heat I’d earned from that exercise was canceled out by my wicking layer dutifully using the rain to rip heat from me. I instinctively stuck to the back of the pack, thanks to years of experience, but that also meant I had to sit tight while the rest of the group descended the chains one-by-one. I could feel my core temperature dropping.

Alas, the layer system has flaws. If there’s only a drizzle, throwing on just the rain coat may temporarily keep you dry, but as moisture accumulates the coat will cling to your skin and suck the heat out of you. The sweater usually fares better in the short term, but offers no protection from the wind and will eventually get wet enough to suck heat even faster. Combining both will overheat you and build up sweat, which again sucks the heat out. I’d wanted to try out a new coat aimed at this middle space, and intended to use it as my insulating layer in case things went sideways; instead, I forgot the coat at home. Everyone else had all their layers on, so my only option was the rain coat destined to cool me down.

And there was no place to run. I could try to work up some heat by marching up and down the mountain, but that would increase my exposure to a lightning strike. To my left and right were cliffs, and the descent would be slow, methodical, and destined to generate little heat. Chilling down isn’t just dangerous because it slows your movement or causes shivering, it also saps your brain power. You become less observant and make more mistakes, which could prove fatal when descending slippery rock. The rest of the group was also counting on my experience to lead them back down the mountain, so I had to stay sharp. And the cooler I got, the longer it would take to warm back up.

I was faced with a difficult decision: I could launch down the chains ASAP, or I could pause to throw on my rain coat and tights. The former sacrificed some cognition and increased the risk of an accident, while the latter allowed the rain more time to wet down my footholds and increased the anxiety of the group below. I let the hail bounce off my helmet for a few seconds as I weighed each option, and cursed my rotten luck.

A puny hail storm that I’d have shrugged off below treeline had just put me in one of the most dangerous situations I’d faced.

===

I reached for my coat. It felt wonderful to be protected from the wind. Unfortunately, trying to pull my tights over my pants and hiking sandals cost me a fair bit of time, and I could hear shouted inquiries from below when I finally reached for that first chain. I debated what to do about my gloves. They were intended to protect your hands while belaying, but had proven useful for scrambling. Now, they were waterlogged and cooling off my hands. I decided to leave them on anyway, as the rain was slacking off and they’d help me on the chain.

I wrapped the first chain once around my dominant arm, to maximize friction, and began carefully inch-worming down the line. I shouted back commentary as I descended the chain. Dangling off the end, I probed the very top of the awkward section. I found an unappetizing mixture of mud-like rock dust and slick footholds. By this time the hail had stopped and the rain was dwindling. The distant bright patch wasn’t the Sun breaking through the clouds, but it was still a rain-free oasis of thin cloud rapidly advancing on us. I called down to the group: I was going to wait between the chains for fifteen minutes, to give the rock some time to dry.

The rain faded away. The damp rain coat slowly sucked away my heat. I kept up a conversation with the rest of the group, unseen below. It soothed their nerves. It soothed my nerves. And it helped me assess my cognitive abilities. The others had made it down safely. They weren’t in the place I’d called a shelter, but they had sheltered and could wait. I meditated over the awkward few metres of rock below me. I hadn’t realized how narrow the walls were on the ascent. I could use that.

I grabbed the end of the chain again and probed. There was a teeny bit less moisture, but more importantly I could see my first few steps. My core temperature was cool but OK. I paused for a bit, contemplating, then called down: I was descending the tricky section.

I’ve never been interested in climbing, but I used to boulder a fair bit and had absorbed a few tricks. When faced with a chimney just wide enough for their bodies, climbers wedge themselves sideways and used friction to overcome missing footholds. The vertical rock was much less likely to be wet than the horizontal footholds, though the friction is strong enough that any wetness didn’t matter. I keep typing “footholds” instead of “handholds” because climbing is really about your feet. Your hands are there to help steady you against the wall and help distribute the pressure a bit, but to a first approximation climbing is just standing in places no sane person should.

Carefully, I tried to examine the rock for a potential foothold. I slowly probed with a foot until it touched potentially-friendly rock. I looked where it landed. I scraped around a bit, to clear off any water or mud-dust, and assess what sort of friction I could get out of the rock. I braced against the sides of the little canyon. I eased myself onto the foothold, not fully trusting it. When I was confident, I did the entire process again. And again.

Three metres down, I noticed the little canyon was getting wider. Bracing against the side was increasingly less viable, yet I was still a good two metres from the chain. A small wave of panic passed over me. I looked up and down the length of the mini canyon, debating if I should head back up or continue on. With a deep breath, I had a look down for my next foothold.

Then I blinked and was standing next to the chain. I’m not sure why I don’t remember those next few metres; I had successfully fought back that brief bit of panic, and while I was cold I still felt mentally sharp. Maybe I was so focused on the rhythm of easing myself down that I lost track of time? Whatever the case, I announced I was at the second chain and eagerly grabbed it. Thus began another rhythm: release dominant arm, awkwardly slide it down the chain, grip, release the other hand and slide it to meet, look for a place for one foot, look for a place for the other foot, repeat. Within a few minutes, I could see the rest of the group huddled below. Alas, it felt like forever until I was next to them; had someone moved the footholds I used to get up this section? It wasn’t a big deal given my body temperature, so I ambled down like I was pondering chess moves.

I checked in with the group, this time face-to-face. They were in much the same shape as I was, chilled but unharmed and calm. They had blasted through the awkward section without trouble, as they’d been too busy concentrating to let fear overwhelm them. I gave some pointers on how they should descend the rest of the gully, as scree made it terribly easy to send rocks flying into any person below. I took my time to grab a quick snack and readjust my gear, deliberately letting them get well below me. I could descend scree a lot faster than they could, though I kicked up a lot of rocks in the process. As started down I grumpily noted they weren’t sticking to my plan, but they had enough distance between them to be safe.

We reconnected at the base of the gully. The danger level was rising again: the trail split into multiple similar-looking paths, the bright horizon had again been replaced with dark shadows moving in our direction, yet we had one more down-climb left to do. This wasn’t over yet.

===

Just kidding, it pretty much was. That second rain burst was shorter and less intense than the first, with no hail and barely any lightning. It finished before we hit the second down-climb, and that section of rock was surprisingly dry. The rest of the group did try to pick the wrong trail, but after a bit of shouting and wild gesturing on my part I got us all back on what I remembered as the proper track. And my memories proved true.

As we made the final descent down steep scree to the safety of the trees below, the clouds parted and that smell you get from a freshly watered forest wafted up to us. The Seven Sisters were bathed in a beautiful light, the greenery was lusher than we remembered. I tried to rain on things a bit by pointing out that there was a chance the creek we needed to cross had become bigger, but it was unchanged from earlier.

We spent the hike back to the vehicle debating which mountain to try next week.