Dartmouth – David Kotz

New Zealand – Dusky Sound

First stop on a 10-day cruise around New Zealand.

several people on a muddy trail in the rainforest — Our group moves slowly through the New Zealand rainforest.

two legs, deep in the mud — Deep mud along the trail.

My feet plunged into a muddy pool as we scrambled along a crude track through the temperate rainforest, surrounded by huge ferns as tall as trees and other unfamiliar flora and fauna. The guides warned us it would be muddy – after all, they measure annual rainfall in meters, here in the remote fjords of southwestern New Zealand. Fortunately, I was wearing calf-height muck boots with waterproof rainpants over those. I was just happy to be in the forest, my eighth hike in eight consecutive weekends, spread across three continents and four countries.

Chantry Wood hike

An extended walk in Chantry Woods with about twenty other Dartmouth alums.

I had my third opportunity to hike, today, in an outing jointly organized by the Dartmouth Club of the United Kingdom and the Tuck alumni club of the United Kingdom, to the Chantry Wood area around Guildford in Surrey. About 20 Dartmouth alums and three dogs came along. The day started cloudy, shifted to hazy, and ended with blue skies, leaving all in a wonderful mood as we settled in for a late Sunday lunch at the Seahorse Pub. As the photo gallery shows, the trees were beginning to show their autumn colors, and the route exposed us to a wide variety of meadows, forests, fallow farm fields, and country lanes.
A beautiful day! [Slideshow]

A farm with vast fields, with distant view of farmhouse and barn.

Second College Grant

A wilderness refuge in northern New Hampshire.

Regular readers will have seen my three posts about hikes this past weekend –Sugarloaf, Magalloway, and North Percy Peak – all in far northern New Hampshire. I was visiting that region for a Dartmouth event in the Second College Grant – a Dartmouth-owned township spanning 42 square miles of forest, wetland, and wilderness. Dartmouth manages it for sustainable timber production, recreation, research, and education. It has a fascinating history dating back before the American Revolution.

the Dead Diamond River, near Monahan’s Bathtub. Dartmouth’s Second College Grant.

Moosilauke

Revisiting old friends at our beloved lodge.

It’s always a pleasure to return to Mount Moosilauke, and especially to Moosilauke Ravine Lodge. One of my best friends – from our student days in the Dartmouth Outing Club – was visiting from Australia. I joined a group of common friends at the Lodge on Friday evening for dinner and conversation. The evening was cool and the skies were clear as we watched the first stars appear in the late twilight of summer solstice. This morning, we stoked up on a hearty Lodge breakfast before striking out on the Gorge Brook trail for our ascent to the summit. The skies were sunny, with a light breeze and mild temperatures, a perfect day for a hike. Read on!

A stream on Snapper Trail, Mount Moosilauke.

Bangalore

Like a second home.

Ah, home. I was excited to return to Bangalore, after having been away for six years. Bangalore, especially the area around the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), still feels a bit like home (we lived here for a year in 2008-09). This week, I am in Bangalore with a group of Dartmouth colleagues to explore a potential academic relationship with IISc, and for me it is also an opportunity to reconnect with colleagues and friends from our life here 16 years ago. Read on!

Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) building at Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

Autumn 2024

It was a beautiful fall season.

Autumn has ended, and we are now well into what locals call “stick season.” After summer comes the fall, when the hardwood trees turn various shades of yellow, orange, red, and brown, bringing new color to the hilly New Hampshire landscape just before it tucks in for a long winter’s nap. This year we have had a beautiful fall season, with sunny/warm weather and brilliant fall colors. In this quick blog post I want to share a few photos from three of my favorite aspects of autumn at Dartmouth and in New Hampshire: fall foliage, the homecoming bonfire, and Diwali. Read on!

Mount Crawford in fall foliage

Absolutely spectacular!

It was still dark as I drove north through the dense valley fog, confident I would encounter a brilliant sunny day once I turned east and climbed away from the Connecticut River Valley. My destination was Mount Crawford, a popular peak in the heart of the White Mountains. At 3,128′ it is not one of the 48 ‘high peaks’, the four-thousand-footers that inspire so many people to “bag them all” and earn the AMC’s Four-Thousand-Footer patch. (And for some, like me, to do them all more than once; I finished my second round in August.) But, frankly, Mount Crawford is far better than many of its higher cousins: it has a splendid view – earning it a spot on the list of 52 with a view. Today, in full fall foliage, the view was absolutely stupendous. Read on!

View of Mount Washington and the southern Presidential Range,
along the Davis Path to Mount Crawford.

Japan, day 10 (September 12): Sea of Japan

Swimming in the Sea of Japan.

We spent this entire day at sea, transiting the Sea of Japan to the east-northeast across blissfully calm seas. Indeed, the weather was so calm that the crew stopped the ship, shortly after lunch, and deployed the Zodiacs – allowing those who might be interested in a swim to motor away a safe distance from the ship and swim in the open ocean. What a treat! [Photo gallery]

Pam and others take a swim out in the Sea of Japan.

Lapland

Northern Finland – Sami culture, reindeer, dogsleds, and more.

After our day in Helsinki (Finland) and our day in Tallinn (Estonia), we hopped on a Finnair flight to the northern tip of Finland – specifically, to the tiny town of Saariselkä, where one can downhill ski at the northern-most lift-skiing resort in the world, cross-country ski on an extensive trail network, explore reindeer farms, experience dogsledding, and more. We stayed four nights at the “Northern Lights Village,” a delightful resort in the middle of all these delightful opportunities. Read on, and check out the photo gallery for more!

David skied on nordic skis to the summit of Saariselkä, Finland.

040 years on the faculty

The power of two.

Like most people, I find round numbers appealing. There is a reason people celebrate events like a “tenth anniversary” or “fiftieth birthday” as somehow more special than others. So today, on the first day of classes, I am celebrating a special anniversary … joining the faculty of Computer Science here at Dartmouth 040 years ago. In other words, I have spent 0x20 years on the faculty! For readers who are not accustomed to thinking in octal (base 8) or hexadecimal (base 16), I have spent 32 years on the faculty. We computer scientists love powers of 2. 🙂