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Re: expedition to Haleakala

Subject: Re: expedition to Haleakala
From: "Danny Meltzer" dannymeltzer
Date: Tue Aug 15, 2006 8:51 pm (PDT)
Hi Dan,

Wow.  Sounds like quite a hike.  Would love to hear stuff sometime.

You need some sherpas or maybe just more interns to carry all the gear ;)

Danny

--- In  Dan Dugan <> wrote:
>
> I survived my Haleakala expedition, barely--both technically and
personally.
> 
> When I was offered the chance to stay at two ranger cabins in 
> exchange for volunteering to do soundscape recording, I knew that I 
> was in no shape for a 2-1/2 day backpack up and down mountains at 
> high altitude. I didn't want to pass up the opportunity, however, so 
> I trained for three weeks carrying ever-heavier backpack loads up 
> Bernal Hill, a 400-foot hill right near my lab, every other day. That 
> training paid off. I'm sure I couldn't have done it without it, but 
> still I was challenged to my limits.
> 
> Mike stands and my artificial head & shoulders rig were out because 
> they would weigh too much. My intern Brian and I rigged up the 
> windscreen domes that I usually use on my vest on either side of my 
> backpack instead. My Sharp MD recorder was in a camera case on the 
> pack's waist belt. That way I could stop for a recording opportunity 
> on the trail, and also use the backpack as a front-channels stereo 
> array for fixed four-channel recordings.
> 
> Monday morning I signed my research permit and got a Park Service 
> radio for emergency use. That was almost the straw that broke the 
> camel's back; it was heavy. My load was about 32 pounds. I said 
> goodbye to Sharon and started off down the Sliding Sands Trail. On 
> the way down (10,000' to 7,000') I paused to record a couple of air 
> tour helicopters and a passing trail ride group. Other than that 
> there was nothing--the west end of Haleakala is mostly a volcanic 
> moonscape.
> 
> By the time I got to the bottom my knees were hurting. I thought the 
> rest of the way across the crater would be easy, looks that way on 
> the topo. It was easy to Kapalaoa Cabin, in the middle. I enjoyed the 
> only spot of shade in the crater resting on its front step and 
> enjoying four resident nene.
> 
> After that, the rest of the way to Paliku Cabin at the east end is 
> over lava beds, a lot of small ups and downs that don't show on a 
> topo. I was thoroughly wiped out by the time I arrived. I greeted the 
> people renting the cabin and went on to the Patrol Cabin, nicely 
> appointed with chemical toilet out back, solar lighting, and propane 
> stove.
> 
> I had hoped to scout the area and set up some distance away, but the 
> shadows were long and I was pooped. I set up the backpack with the 
> stereo array in the back facing the strip of jungle at the bottom of 
> the cliff. I found a spot on the corral fence for the right rear mic, 
> and perched the left rear in a tree. I was using two Sharp MD 
> recorders for surround.
> 
> The evening recording was slim on species and full of the 
> conversations in the public cabin a hundred yards away. I suppose it 
> has scientific value, but there isn't much I can get from it for an 
> aesthetic composition.
> 
> In the middle of the night I woke to dripping sounds. I checked the 
> mics and it was indeed raining. I got dressed, grabbed the mics, and 
> hauled in the cables, looping them on the cabin floor to dry. This 
> strip of a few hundred yards has a cloud forest climate due to clouds 
> that roll over the cliffs.
> 
> I got up at 4:45 to listen for a dawn chorus. There wasn't any. I 
> dried out my pack and windscreens over the stove, and started hearing 
> birds around 6:00. It was clear, so I set up the mics again. By the 
> time I was done it was soaking mist again, but I went ahead and made 
> a long 4-channel recording which was probably the best of the 
> expedition, quite a few species. No voices in the morning.
> 
> After breakfast, documentation, packing and cleaning up I got off on 
> the Halemau'u trail west. It took me all day to hump my pack back 
> across the crater, with many rest stops. I recorded helicopter tours 
> now and then. They're supposed to stay outside the ridge lines, and 
> almost all did, but one came right over me. Helicopters were every 
> twenty minutes or so, high-altitude jets just a few a day. Otherwise 
> it was the quietest place you can imagine. I took a lot of pictures; 
> from mid-crater the island of Hawaii was visible through the Kaupo 
> Gap.
> 
> Again it was late afternoon when I got to Holua Cabin, and the "Holua 
> Hilton," a ranger cabin nearby. I was pleased my cabin was around a 
> ridge from the public cabin, but the family in the cabin made up for 
> it by being very loud, reverberating off the lava field. Again I was 
> in pain and exhausted and chose to set up from my cabin as base. I 
> propped my pack up again facing the cliffs, put the left rear mic in 
> a juniper tree at one corner of the cabin and the right rear on the 
> water tank.
> 
> As soon as I was ready to record I discovered a popping noise in my 
> right front Telinga EM-23 mic. I changed the extension cable to no 
> avail. I had to go ahead with three good channels anyway. I'm 
> guessing that it might have been moisture from the exposure the night 
> before. I had dried out the windscreens, but didn't think to warm up 
> the mics themselves. It also might have been the way I had threaded 
> the cables through the pack frame. I realized that the cables were 
> under pressure at points while I was hiking. Today they sound fine 
> and the cables aren't sensitive, so I'm not sure what happened.
> 
> While I was troubleshooting a couple set up a tent about a hundred 
> feet away on the blind side of my cabin and immediately went inside 
> and had sex. I was so tired it wasn't even interesting. It may be odd 
> to talk about omni mics having "reach," but the Telingas are quiet 
> and really do reach into the distance.
> 
> There wasn't much wildlife action there in the evening, either. But 
> something unexpected happened. After the almost-full moon rose, there 
> was a quite dense but low-level background of bird chatter. A 
> moonrise chorus? I also heard some wonderfully weird wing swishing 
> sounds in the night.
> 
> In the morning I got in some good recording before the neighbors got 
> up. It was sparse there in the scrublands.
> 
> Wednesday I continued on the trail to where it rises 1500' out of the 
> crater in switchbacks. Sharon met me a little ways down from the top. 
> Back at our hotel in Lahaina a shower was very welcome.
> 
> Thursday we went out to Hana. I put the troubled mics from my pack 
> away and put the rear mics on the shoulders of my vest. We 
> investigated a short nature trail called Waikamoi Ridge, the only 
> publicly accessible part of the huge preserve that the Nature 
> Conservancy administers. I got some birds and wind sounds there.
> 
> Friday morning at sunrise I went out in the large vegetable garden of 
> the native family that rented us our tourist unit in Hana. Three dogs 
> chained by their separate houses started a terrible ruckus, so I 
> continued out a trail in the back into the bush. When the dogs 
> quieted down I was able to get some more morning birds. When I came 
> back the dogs woke up the neighborhood again, and a woman came out to 
> give me a hard time about the disturbance. I apologized.
> 
> That afternoon I hiked the wonderful trail from Oheo to Waimoku 
> falls. Part of it goes through a bamboo forest, and the sound of the 
> wind in the bamboo was delightful. I got some good takes of that.
> 
> -Dan Dugan
>








"Microphones are not ears,
Loudspeakers are not birds,
A listening room is not nature."
Klas Strandberg

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