Safety Japan

Just had another few days in the mountains, on the famous route from Kamikochi, over Hotakadake and along the Daikiretto ridge to Yarigatake. We'd be planning to do the Jounen-Yari horseshoe in reverse, but at this point, the wind and rain started up, so the next day we quickly ran down the mountain and back home.

The walk is one of the most adventurous in Japan, with the Daikiretto ridge in particular coming in for a lot of hype (eg), but really so long as you have a decent head for heights and are capable of a bit of scrambling there's nothing very technical and lots of chains and fixed ladders on the difficult bits. We've met people including both young children and their elderly grandparents on it. 

More pics to come, but in the meantime, we were both puzzled and amused by the changing trends in mountain gear. This time, lots of people were wearing climbing helmets, and (presumably not coincidentally) the huts all had helmets available to rent or buy, advertised by posters with "a helmet saved my life" stories. I assume that it's the latest thing to sell to walkers who are by now running out of kit to spend their money on. There was also a map up showing last year's accidents across the region, which apparently consisted of 70 incidents (blue) and a total of 9 deaths (red). Three of these are clustered on the Daikiretto itself, and there are certainly places where a fall could be serious (click for bigger version of pic). 

For the first time, we also encountered several groups of people who were actually roped together while walking along the path (not even on the Daikiretto itself). When I passed this heavily kitted-up group below, I initially assumed they had completed some proper rock climb up to the ridge, but then they proceded to use ther harnesses, slings and carabiners to dutifully clip themselves on to each section of the fixed chain on the left before walking along clinging grimly onto it. After she had taken the photo, jules sauntered up the slab past them.

[jules' pics] RMNP

Had to find another Nat'l Park to visit to make the annual pass truly a discount. Luckily, Rocky Mountain National Park was not far away.

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 8/22/2013 08:30:00 PM

[jules' pics] Nice marmot

Marmot pretends to be invisible. Husband calls out "marmots, marmots!". Marmot wonders if it might not be invisible after all. And hippity hops away Now cleverly disguised as rock, invisible again. Phew! Safety marmot!

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 8/21/2013 09:41:00 PM

Geoscientific Model Development: the world's best journal just got better!

Disclaimer: although I'm one of the founding executive editors, I'm not speaking on their behalf.

GMD was set up about 5 years ago "to promote model development as a serious and worthwhile activity, by providing a home for papers covering a wide range of aspects of the subject." I previously blogged a little about it here on the occasion of it first being included in the ISI list.

We recently got our new impact factor, which now is a shade over 5 - an impressive value that places the journal a whisker behind the front-runner ACP in the EGU stable, and in the top 20 of all of the vast array of relevant geoscience-type journals (according to another ed who looked at the list - it seems broken at the moment). For context, GRL and Journal of Climate are about 4, the JGR family around 3. Basically, little beyond the tabloids and some review journals are more highly cited. Submissions are also still rising strongly. So clearly we were right, there was indeed a gap in the market and by any reasonable measure GMD has been wildly successful.

So we've changed it.

It had always been our hope that papers describing new models would be accompanied by the actual code. This would ensure persistence and traceability of models, and hopefully help to propagate good practice. But as a new journal (and one that was establishing an entirely novel niche) we didn't think we were in a position to require this. And while it was always encouraged, this wasn't enough in practice - only a very small number of authors actually provided the code. Now we are much better established and successful, and have decided it's time to take this step:

The paper must be accompanied by the code, or means of accessing the code, for the purpose of peer-review.

Just to be clear, the reviewers are not required to review the code - this in some cases will be wholly impractical. Some models are massive, and/or tied to specific computer architectures. But the principle is clear. I'm hopeful that this requirement, together with a new mandatory section on wider code availability, should help the push towards open access.

There are various other more minor modifications (eg rationalisation of manuscript types) which we have made in light of what is now several years of experience. The full editorial is here, which also includes a link to the original proposal, as supplementary info.

[jules' pics] Driving home...

By now, on the way back to Boulder, we'd picked up one or two extra passengers. Due to my propensity for driving off the road (so says my fussy husband) I wasn't allowed to steer our bus along the relatively precipitous last part of the road to Ouray. Ouray itself is a good place to stay, with an historical town centre and nice places to eat. But I'm not sure about these astonishing coffees. I had just a regular latte, which seemed harmless enough.

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 8/20/2013 09:28:00 PM

[jules' pics] Train etiquette

Much like in Scotland, where it is important to dress like your dogs, in Japan you should dress to suit the train on which you are intending to travel

Shonan-Shinjuku Line 

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 8/20/2013 09:13:00 AM

[jules' pics] Ancient peoples

The 6th bear of the trip was the hardest to spot of all - the inlaws spent some time stomping around in the sun saying it did not exist - it was only visible from a particular angle. Apparently some of the doodles are older than others. I wonder why so many of the ancient people are depicted carrying beachballs. The cool thing about the ancient peoples that lived in what is now the USA, is that quite a lot of their being ancient was done rather recently. This must be great for those who study the evolution of ancient peoples. This (Mesa Verde, in Colorado) is about the same age as the Daibutsu.

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 8/19/2013 09:10:00 PM

[jules' pics] Utah tree #2

Another Utah Tree (dead, naturally) especially for David B Benson.

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 8/18/2013 08:51:00 PM

How to run for fun in the sun

I expect this may be too late for the UK 'heatwave' that was in the news a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, in case it happens again, I may as well write down what I've discovered. Last year we didn't run in July and August, but this year James decided to try to run a marathon in autumn (silly boy) so feels obliged to keep totting up some miles in his legs.

In the cold of winter it is only natural to try to keep warm by getting to your destination as fast as possible. But in the blessed warmth of summer this is not necessary. The goal each week is still to beat your previous time, but the other way around. If last week in 26C you did 1hr 20mins, then this week in 29C you do 1hr 25, or even 30. You can and should further slow yourself down by carrying water. The idea is to run so slowly that you finish feeling like you could run forever. Given the altered goals there is plenty of time for taking in the views, so the run needs to be scenic, and of course as much in the shade as possible. Early morning may be slightly cooler than midday. Dress as naked as is decent in your culture and wear a hat. And that's about it. The astonishing thing is that it actually works. Still not as fun as mountain biking of course.

Oh yes, finally - remember to dodge the very very danger hornets. The air in the woods is thick with them this year.

'Scuse my white belly... 

[jules' pics] Beach

A break from jules' unpaid advertising of the the US National Parks.

Weather update: it is now nice and warm here in Kamakura. Fiery red sun!

So, for more fun than you can bear, and if you don't want to pay 2 USD to swim energetically at the relatively clean pool, you can get pissed at the beach instead. And thousands do. By 5pm everyone is getting tired, life guards included, and those that have not already passed away will soon head home.
I'm including this photo just because I'm amazed the panorama worked at all. All I have is some HP photo-stitching software that came with a now defunct printer.

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Posted By Blogger to jules' pics at 8/11/2013 04:22:00 PM