My DIY Camcorder Bike Mount

I took apart a handlebar mounted reflector and modified it to make a mount for my little camcorder.  The only parts I needed were a 2" 1/4-20 machine bolt, 2 nuts, a wing nut, a lock washer and a flat washer.  

Lea and I took it on a test run on a bike path through "Camp Richardson" to the historic "Tallac Estate" in Lake Tahoe.  The bike path is pretty cracked with lots of bumps from the pine tree roots which really shook up the camcorder ..... but not too bad considering.  Here's the video of that first test run. 

By the way ..... Lea and I love our bike riding in Lake Tahoe!

*Important*  For those of you unfamiliar with viewing videos online ...... they need to load for a little bit or they will keep stopping while the buffer catches up.  So .... here's what you do .... click play and then as soon as it starts to play ..... pause it by clicking on the play button again, it should look something like this ..... ll ..... and the play button looks like a sideways triangle.  If your cursor is over the play window you can see the progress of the video loading.  Usually if you just pause it for around 30 seconds (depending on your internet speed) that should do it but for the best experience you may want to wait for it to completely load before resuming play.

DIY Camcorder Bike Mount from Marlene DeGrood on Vimeo.

Mt Tallac Trail

Mt. Tallac has a domineering presence in the Lake Tahoe area. The elevation of Lake Tahoe is around 6500 feet and Mt. Tallac stands at 9,735 feet, with snow remaining on the mountain until sometime in July. I love this mountain and someday I plan on hiking to the top, but for now, I was happy with taking the Mt. Tallac trail to the small alpine lake at it's base, Cathedral Lake.

There are hundreds of wildfires raging in Northern California forests right now and the Lake Tahoe area is full of smoke ...... reminiscent of last year. In this video you will see some of the damage from last years fire on the ridge between Mt. Tallac and Fallen Leaf Lake. I actually find some beauty in the charred landscape. There was too much smoke to see Lake Tahoe which would normally be quite visible from the ridge, just beyond Fallen Leaf Lake.

This trip's hikers were just myself, Lea and Sharon. The total milage we hiked was 4.2, it would have been an additional 4.8 to complete the trip with a climb to the top of the mountain, making for a 9 mile round trip. We had a great time and I for one would do it again tomorrow if I could get anyone to go with me :) maybe next year ...... all the way to the top.

For some reason I can't upload this video through my blogger account so I uploaded it to my Vimeo account.  It's a higher definition than the other video's I've posted so it will take longer .
Mt. Tallac Trail Hike from Marlene DeGrood on Vimeo,div>.

Mt Tallac

Just a little 30 second clip of one of our favorite areas to go for a short hike that's close to home. 

Tomorrow we'll be heading out towards Mt. Tallac (seen in the background of this clip).  So this is just a prelude to our longer and probably much more strenuous hike.  The trail we'll be taking will lead to the top of Mt. Tallac at an elevation of 9,735 ...... but we'll be stopping a little short of that ..... this time :)   Actually, how far we get depends on how much Lea gets sidetracked by what she sees through her camera lens.

By the way, the following footage was not shot with my new little 9 oz. camcorder.  I'm learning to use a stabilizer mount with my Canon HD videocamera ..... learning is the key word here as you'll see in this video.  We'll see how much I learned by the end of the summer.

The video does have sound ..... just not for the first 8 or 10 seconds. 

Green

Lea is very into the often unseen world of the forest.  Here is a sample of her macro videography titled "Green".  The small size and compression used for this blog doesn't do this High Definition footage justice so Lea will soon be posting her HD work on Vimeo.  I'll put up a link when she does.  

Enjoy!

green from lea lysett on Vimeo.

Beach Dogs

The answer to the contest of "Who Beached Norman" lies in the following video.  

Very little words are needed here regarding how much our dogs, and Barb & Ginny's dogs, love the beach at Lake Tahoe.  We try to go at least a couple times a week.  The community of Lake Tahoe is very dog friendly and we are fortunate that they have designated beach areas for dogs.  This is a true pleasure for our dogs and I hope this video shows just how much they love the beach at Lake Tahoe.

Who Beached Norman

Ginny & Barb brought Norman to the dog beach today ..... a dangerous place for a little guy.  Here lies a contest ....  Norman took a header into the sand .... watch the clip and decide who beached Norman.  Of course I have "videospectoranalysis" software and have already determined who the culprit was ..... can you?  The video answer will be posted within a week.

.

Quaking Aspen is a great wood to carve or whittle when it's green.  We're not going to be hacking up any live trees so we search for the trees that recently broke and fell from heavy snow loads.  A few years ago we found a dirt road that leads to Burnside Lake and is at a high enough elevation where the snow is really heavy and you can find green Aspen that has fallen. 

If you've ever seen some of Barb Post's great carvings then you know why Sharon, Kathryn, Lea and I took a trip out to Burnside Lake Road yesterday to get her, and us, some Quaking Aspen.

Sharon did most of the work while Lea shot some great high definition footage of the beauty, I shot footage of Sharon working and Kathryn ..... well .... let me just say that she's very entertaining to hang out with.  

Here's a short video depicting the day.

Cascade Falls Hike

Some people love to buy new clothes, jewelry, even cars but I love to buy ipods, video cameras and computers.  My latest "toy" is a Canon FS100 tapeless video camera.  It's just 5" long, 2.5" high,  2.3"wide and weighs just a little over 1/2 pound. It can fit easily in my pocket and can go anywhere with me.  So it went with me on Thursday for a hike to Cascade Falls.  It was the first time I really got to test it out and I'm pretty happy with it.  I'll be taking it everywhere this summer and good or bad, I'll be posting some of the clips here in my summer blog.  

So here's my first post, first video and first hike of the summer.  This was to Cascade Falls above Cascade Lake. An awesome hike with great views .... you will see Cascade Lake and a little bit of Lake Tahoe in the background.   Shown in the video is fellow hikers Sharon, Kathryn and Lea.