More Petzl Nomic pick feed back?

This from Petzl America recently:





"- We are NOT bringing back the Cascade pick for the Nomic. Perhaps this rumor is based on availability of the Cascade pick for the previous generation Quark, which is still in production.



- Same story for the 1st generation Griprest. We have no plans to bringthis one back, although there still may be some stock out there which could be feeding these rumors.



- There is no new Griprest on the horizon, however, the latest (post* Quality Alert) generation of the Nomic Griprest will fit the 1st Gen Nomic."



The still available 1st gen Quark Cascade picks can be easily cut down and used in any version of the Nomic for those that preferless "stick" water ice pick. And for durable dry tooling the old 4mm T rated Quad pick will work with little effortas well. Quad is my choice in the alpine if a lot of rock is involved. Might be better tothink of the Nomic as having 4 different picks available directly from Petzl.








Ally's originalQuad pick in a 1st gen. Nomic with a CT hammer. Winter of '10/11in Chamonix.




Either way easy enough to copy the Nomic blade pattern and reshape the lower back section of the older Quark picks to fit the Nomic. Only adding the clip inhole, if required, is difficult. The Quark Cascade pick tooth and back edge patterns are exact copies of the older Nomic Cascade picks. A few minutes work with a grinder and files. Add a spacer,bolt the new pick in and you are ready to rock!








Older Quark Cascade pick on the bottom, Nomic Cascade on top.

Obvious where you need to remove metal on the earlier picks to fit.

Hodge Podge

Pink Peony.



Yellow ?



Mauve Rose.



Petunias.



Temple Square Gardens – Tuesday, June 7th

Passion Playing

Since my passionvine does not look like the photos of Passiflora 'Incense' from other sites like Tom Spencer's, it was apparently mismarked when I bought it a few years ago. I've been scrolling through a bunch of sites and think it may be either 'Amethyst' or 'Lavender Lady'... apparently they look quite similar, but 'Amethyst' can set fruit if pollinated by another passionflower.

Did you know there's an entire Passiflora Forum at GardenWeb? That forum sent me off to other sites. The sites don't agree with one another, of course, and only some of the photos look like each other. Before I started forum-hopping I'd taken closeups to see if any readers knew the name, while playing with the camera to see how it photographed the blues and purples.


I may have gone a little overboard with this! All photos were taken in afternoon so they're a bit washed out. All were cropped and reformatted for size, but that's all - no brightening, contrast, color balance, or sharpening. I took the photo above while the flower was still attached to the vine.

Then I popped off the flower and poked the stem into the passionvine to show the bud, leaf and flower.

Hmmm, let's see how it looks over here in the shade with the Buddleja lindleyana...

To me the color of the petals looks purple, with guard filaments that look blue. Let's put it in sun next to a true blue flower - the Blue Butterfly Pea. That blue makes the passionflower tendrils look deep violet, I think.


Okay, let's go back in the shade - will it still look blue next to Salvia guaranitica?

Now for dark purple contrast - the 'Black Prince' buddleya davidia. Oh, dear, the flower has been handled and dropped so many times by now!

A final portrait in the shade with light blue Plumbago auriculata. I love the way these flowers look together... maybe some plumbago needs to grow near the passionvine.

Total immersion in purple passion works for me! I hope you enjoyed it too. Maybe I should just call this one 'Probably Lavender Lady'. Pam from Digging commented that she just bought an 'Incense' - I'll bet hers will match the label.

Another Round of Glory

More maroon morning glories in my garden.

Beartooth Highway

Yesterday I took a break from sorting and deleting photos from my hard drive and decided to follow U.S. Highway 212 from Red Lodge, Montana south into northern Wyoming. This route is also known as the Beartooth Scenic Byway or the Beartooth All-American Road, and, according to an acquaintance, Charles Kuralt put this highway on his list of the top 10 spectacular drives in America. It is also the highest elevation highway in the Northern Rockies. And, it definitely lives up to its reputation!

Looking northeast from Rock Creek Vista Point (elevation 9,190 feet) in the Custer National Forest, Montana. The highway is that ribbon of white way down in the valley.

Looking northwest from Rock Creek Vista Point. The speed limit was 25 mph along this stretch of winding switchbacks that traveled up the south side of the mountains.

The view to the north, a short distance from Rock Creek Vista.

From Rock Creek Vista, the road continued upward and into Wyoming where the peaks were viewed from across wide-open meadows.

Stopping at almost every overlook along the way, I was taken by surprise when I saw this view as the lake was not visible from the road. The wind was quite strong and several times I had to brace myself when a big gust came along.

Taken from near the summit (elevation 10,947 feet at Beartooth Pass) in Wyoming, looking towards the north. It was windy and cold, and the short walk to get this picture was quite exhilarating.

Terminated

This is a macabre post, so avert your eyes (or check out this site) if you don't like to think about anything really, really, really cute being injured, shot or killed!

As you can see, we have "Pickles." Pickles is a Cascade Fox. And unless you're an insensitive brute, most people would consider him a very adorable little guy. The problem is, Pickles was so charming, that he attracted a lot of friends, and with those friends came problems. This week, Pickles had to be euthanized (i.e. shot) because he was seriously injured. The general feeling is that he was injured because he was fed by humans.

So the story goes, Pickles was injured (or ensnared) a few weeks ago. Since then, he's been seen pathetically limping around the park near the road between Longmire and Paradise (let me say that this was not a very pleasant sight to witness). No one is sure what it was that exactly injured him, but something did destroy his right front leg. The general thought is that it was probably a vehicle, but maybe a trap. We really don't know. What IS known is that Pickles loved human food and became habituated to humans behavior. With that habituation came problems. The NPS biologist had this to say on the matter,

"After consultation with two wildlife veterinarians, we decided that this animal did not have reasonable prospects for survival in the wild. The leg injury was severe and there was some indication that there was head injury as well. This Cascade fox was fed by people well prior to the injury (even after the injury). Fed animals like this one quickly found that hanging around the frontcountry and roads between Longmire and Paradise was really rewarding. What the feeding public does not understand is that what they do has consequences - some very serious consequences.

This was the third Cascade fox/vehicle collision recorded since 2005. All were fed animals or cubs of fed animals. Vehicle occupants and wildlife are at risk when aimals are fed. Like the old adage with bears - fed wildlife most often result in dead wildlife.

Addressing the park's wildlife feeding problem is a big task that is going to take a while. We've been working to increase awareness of the issue with park staff and visitors but have a long way to go. We're seeking help from social scientists, trying different ways of getting information to the public, and are seeking funding to help reduce the problem. Please help me get the word out.

So here's the word. Don't feed the wildlife! Or...

Yucca

We had a yucca growing right beside the horse pen this year. Stormy, our little pony decided to sample the blossoms.