Great recording, Dan. I admire your persistence in getting it. And I
enjoyed the story.
----------------------
Suzanne
Suzanne Williams Photography
http://web.tampabay.rr.com/swilli41/www
Florida, USA
--- In Dan Dugan <> wrote:
>
> I'm eleven months through my project of recording night and dawn in
> Muir Woods every month. I also wanted to add the sound of a storm
in
> the forest to the collection. Last winter, when storms blew in at
> night I had trouble finding the motivation to drive in the storm
for
> an hour and then go out in it.
>
> Day before yesterday a big storm was predicted to hit Friday
morning.
> That was perfect for me; my ambition burns brighter in the morning.
>
> Getting there proved to be a challenge. The Highway 1 exit from 101
> was closed due to flooding. The route through Mill Valley was
mostly
> clear but I was stopped by a tree across the road a couple of miles
> before the park. I went back. Approaching Tam Junction from the
north
> I was able to get onto Highway 1 and get over the ridge.
>
> Going down Muir Woods Road I had to stop twice to drag branches off
> the road. I was starting to think that my heroic plan was perhaps a
> bit foolish. There were no other cars on the road and I had a good
> chance of being stranded for a while.
>
> The park (Muir Woods National Monument) <http://www.nps.gov/muwo/>
> was closed. I parked in the maintenance yard and rigged up with my
> shoulder mics. I had the bad luck of arriving at the parking lot
gate
> just as a park policeman pulled up to make his rounds checking the
> gates, parking lots, visitor center, and cafe. He told me the park
> was closed. I asked him if Mia (the boss) was in her office. He
said
> OK, I could go see her, but I should get out as fast as I could
> because it was a very dangerous place.
>
> I had to pick my way through the shattered remains of a grand old
oak
> on my way through the parking lot. The boardwalk was carpeted with
> litter and branches. The director's office was locked up. I made a
> five-minute recording before going further, so in case the
policeman
> came to check on me I would at least have something. My Sharp
> MD-MS722 recorder stopped responding to its buttons. This was what
> happened to one of the same model when I was recording in the rain
on
> my first nature recording expedition, in New Zealand in 2001. I
> unplugged the mics and put the recorder away, hoping it would run
to
> the end of the disc and shut itself down. Time for MD recorder No.
Message: 2.
Subject: >
> I got to Cathedral Grove, my recording spot in tall old growth
> redwoods. I recorded for half an hour. Being in a steep-sided
canyon
> there wasn't much wind at ground level. The rain was being
processed
> by the redwoods into large drops that made loud impacts after
falling
> a hundred feet. Each wind gust was crowned by a spatter of drops.
The
> drops were pretty noisy on the brim of my cowboy hat, so I switched
> to a knit cap for another half an hour. That was quieter, but of
> course more drops hit the windscreens on my shoulders. With the
> raging storm I didn't have to worry about body noises. I was hoping
> to catch a tree falling, but the best I could do was a branch
> cracking and falling (hear below).
>
> Despite the storm I heard calls of winter wrens and ravens, two
> ubiquitous resident species.
>
> As I was soaked and cold, I stopped at one hour. Tried to stop,
> actually, because my second Sharp's buttons had frozen up, too. I
had
> brought an extra plastic bag to put the recorders in, but by the
time
> I started recording I was pretty exhausted from the circuitous
drive
> in the storm and picking my way through the debris, and I thought
> holding it close to my chest would be shelter enough. It wasn't.
Two
> down.
>
> I let that machine run to the end while I walked back, and when it
> ran out I plugged the mics into my Nagra ARES-M. I stopped in a few
> places to catch the raging of the creek in flood. Back at the
> entrance a tree had fallen across in front of the visitor center
> while I was out. There was high wind at ground level there, and I
had
> to turn my gain way down to keep from overloading. I would have
> switched on the high-pass filter, but on the Nagra M it's in a
menu.
> Later I remembered that I had made a preset with the filter in,
only
> two menu levels down, but again my tired brain failed to connect
> under chaotic conditions.
>
> Back at the lab I put all three recorders in a food dryer for a few
> hours. They recorded their TOCs after many determined presses of
the
> stop buttons. A couple of days later they seemed fine.
>
> Sorry this story has gotten so long. I edited together four of the
> best gusts from Cathedral Grove:
>
> <http://www.dandugan.com/downloads/Muir%20Woods%20Storm.mp3>
>
> I tried to upload it to the group cache, but it was too long (2-1/2
> minutes, 192K b/s).
>
> -Dan Dugan
>
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