Wheeler Peak

Last weekend I climbed Wheeler Peak, which is the highest point in New Mexico. The trail starts at about 9,200 feet and follows a creek up a gully with quite a bit of elevation gain, so the first few pictures here were thinly veiled excuses to stop and catch my breath.

This is Thiru, one of my co-workers, who suggested we do this hike. He generally outpaced me. The aspens behind him were in full fall color.

I'm afraid I was completely unable to identify this bird; it was larger than a pigeon by several inches. The morning light didn't capture the color very well, but it was mostly gray but for that white head. Two of them politely stood still for me to take pictures.

Once we got up high enough, there was snow in shaded areas. Not a lot, because a little higher up and we were out of the treeline.

About 5 miles leading up to the summit followed the ridgeline, mostly above the trees. The crest in this shot is not Wheeler Peak, but it was the highest thing we could see for most of the morning.

About a quarter mile from Wheeler Proper was Mount Walter, which was little more than this sign in a pile of rocks. We reached the summit shortly after that.

If that plaque's not legible, the salient point is: 13,161 feet.

This is looking down at Taos ski area, which is where we parked and camped the night before.

The trail approaching the summit.

We took an alternate route back down, which entailed dropping about 1500 feet through very steep loose rock like this. Not very pleasant - if I do this hike again, I won't go this way.

This is Lake Williams, 2000 feet below the peak. A popular destination for more casual hikers, as it's a mild 3.5 miles from the ski area.

The last few miles are on a low-intensity downhill ski trail, which is punctuated by cabins such as this. The Taos ski area is a large complex of resorts - there's apparently a helipad somewhere on the outskirts.

Overall a great hike - challenging, but I'd do it again.

Pictures of Canyon Road in Santa Fe

Hello Woodward Family!
On October 1st I flew to New Mexico to visit Jimmy. We did lots of stuff (I mean LOTS) so here's just a small taste. Hopefully I'll post more pictures later.

That Sunday Jimmy took me on a tour of NCGR and then we went over to Canyon Road where all the galleries are. Here are some pictures of the sculptures on Canyon Road.

Fun and Games in New Mexico

On Friday June 25th I flew to Albuquerque, where Jimmy picked me up and we headed to Santa Fe for a long week-end of sightseeing, hiking, and hanging out with 2 of my college roommates. On Saturday we started out with an update tour of Jimmy's lab. Here we see him in the genotyping lab, with some of his fun new equipment in the background.


From Santa Fe, the 2 of us drove north on the scenic by-way through the mountains and scenic villages to Taos. After checking out the town we went out to the Taos Pueblo, which we decided is 1 great reason to go to Taos. Here are a couple of views of the pueblo. Native Americans still live there, as they have for almost 900 years.



From the pueblo we drove about 10 miles to this famous bridge over the Rio Grande. The view of the canyon is spectacular.



We decided 1 day in the Taos area is not hardly enough, but our time was up, so we headed back to Santa Fe, where we found my roommate, Jeff Morgan, who'd just arrived from his home in Kansas City. On Sunday Jimmy, Jeff & I went on a beautiful 11-mile hike in the Sangre de Christo range east of Santa Fe. The trail started out 18 miles north of the town of Pecos. We found some rain, lightning and thunder as we hiked, but it didn't hamper our enthusiasm.


On Monday we added roommate and Santa Fe resident Jerry Rightman to the mix, and the 4 of us headed for Acoma Pueblo, roughly 2 1/2 hours southwest of Santa Fe. It is famous for it's amazing location, and for being the oldest continuously-inhabited community in the U.S, dating back to approx. 1150 a.d. In the photo below the pueblo is atop the large mesa in the center.


Our tour guide said that about 10 of the tribal elders still live full-time on the mesa. The rest of the (probably 100) dwellings are owned by families and used for visits during festival days. They keep them all pretty-well maintained. Unlike the Taos Pueblo, Acoma has no water source, so now their water is either collected from rain or brought up in trucks. You can imagine how it was brought up before they had trucks and a road to the top! There is no electricity at either Taos or Acoma.


This is a view from Acoma east to the Enchanted Mesa. Before living at Acoma, the tribe lived on the Enchanted Mesa for defensive reasons, and they farmed the land around the mesa. The story goes that during a fierce storm, lightning struck the stairway going up to the top, destroying the route. Most of the tribe members were below, and they survived. There was no way to rescue those left on top however, and they perished. After that disaster the survivors relocated to Acoma.


Notice how much older and uglier my roommates are than I am...

On Tuesday Jimmy, Jeff and I drove northwest of Santa Fe to Bandelier National Monument for our big hike to find the Stone Lions. The trail in and out is 13 miles, and the challenges are the canyons. We started in Frijole Canyon, climbed 450' out, then over to, into and out of 2 smaller canyons, then to Alamo Canyon, below. That was another 450' down, then back up again.



After 5 hours we got to the Stone Lions, ancient stones that used to look like cougars - the tails are still distinct. They date back several centuries, and are reportedly still sacred to the Pueblo Indians. At this point we were not looking forward to returning to Alamo Canyon, so we opted for an alternate route that added 2 miles to the trip but took us upstream, so the canyon crossing was not so daunting. Somehow we made it the 8.5 miles back in 4 hours. We were parched and exhausted, but very glad the hike was so successful.



That was the end of the adventures, but I must say, we all sure had a fun time!

More from Mother's and Steve's Visit

It was a great visit with Mother and Steve. Here are a few more shots--this is lunch at Ogunquit, the whole crew minus Tom Foster, the photographer.

And a reunion after how many years?

We all managed to climb up onto the drawbridge.

And the next day, to escape from all the boiled water, we headed west for lunch and a walk on the Wellesley College campus.

Woody

Our Boston Visit 4/30 - 5/3/10

Mother and I flew to Boston for a fun and busy week-end with Woody and Kathy. Friday night Danny and Suzanne arrived from Vermont, and they joined us on Saturday when we drove up to Ogunquit, Maine and met up with Tom and Lori Foster, who now live in Belfast, ME. Tom and I go back to 1961, and he's just as fun and upbeat as ever. First shot: Woody & Mother before we took the 1 mile walk from Ogunquit to Perkins Cove.

Next up: Tom and Lori with Mother. He's starting to look like a lobsterman!

On Sunday a.m. D & S headed back to Montpelier, and the rest of us took a walk around the Wellsley College campus, went out to lunch, and in the afternoon enjoyed various activities around the house, including a delightful private piano performance by Kathy. Here is the audience:

Woody and Kathy were gracious hosts, particularly adept at dealing with the Great Water Main Disaster. We thoroughly enjoyed the visit and look forward to future New England adventures.

I'm on a Nature paper

I've been working at NCGR for nearly two years now, and I can now say that I'm a published scientist - our paper, Genome, epigenome and RNA sequences of monozygotic twins discordant for multiple sclerosis has been published in the journal Nature. We sequenced the full genomes of a pair of identical twins discordant for multiple sclerosis, and found no reproducible genetic variation - this is somewhat expected, as ideally identical twins have identical genomes, but this is the first time anyone has performed a whole-genome twins experiment. We also generated mRNA sequence data for that pair and two other pairs, to study gene expression variation in T lymphocytes - these cells were chosen because MS is an autoimmune disorder where the myelin sheaths of nerve axons are attacked by the immune system. As with the genome sequencing, no significant variation was found. The last bit of sequencing was done to study the methylation state of the genomes of all 3 twin pairs - cytosine methylation is an "epigenetic" modification, meaning it is a heritable change to the DNA structure that does not directly change the DNA sequence. The MS epigenetic data were compared to similar data from cancer patients - while the tumors showed drastic epigenetic changes, no major variation was found within identical twins.

All these negative conclusions are at first glance kind of discouraging, but they are an important result. MS unquestionably has an inherited component, but we couldn't find genetic or related variations between twins, which likely means that environmental effects are an important factor in causing MS. One caveat with our study was that the sample size was kind of small - 3 pairs of twins, and only one pair was fully genome-sequenced. The other major caveat is that the tools used in the study are not perfect - in particular, the resolution of the gene expression and epigenetic analyses will probably seem particularly crude in a few years as technology improves.

My own contribution to this study was primarily in the generation of the DNA and RNA sequencing data, which was done in the winter and spring of 2009. I'm proud to have been a part of it, and hopefully there will be more publications to come!

BONUS CONTENT -

Brian and Sarah on a hike in Inverness in February.

President's Weekend Trip to Inverness

Hi everyone,

Nine Woodwards + 2 girlfriends spent a fun, fattening 3 days and nights at an 100-yr-old house in Inverness, CA, near Pt. Reyes. Rained on the way over but the rest of the weekend we had foggy mornings and sunny afternoons. Steve made beef stroganoff, Sarah & Brian baked salmon in a memorable marinade, Jimmy stir-fried veggies, and on Sunday Don & Carol collaborated on chicken enchiladas with beans & rice. All meals complemented by Carol's Nieman-Marcus chocolate chip cookies and Ghirardelli brownies. Four A-1 outings to the visitor center, Mt. Vision, Limantour, and the Great Beach below the lighthouse. A 1000-piece jigaw puzzle was completed by the "girls." Hope you enjoy these pix! Love, Jan & Steve


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