I’m Stalked By a Grizzly Bear, Plus Have an Up-Close Chat with a Giant Brown Bear Over Menu Choices…

July 22, 2026July 21, 2026 / Curt Mekemson / 6 Comments

The tell-tale hump on its back is a defining characterisic of a grizzly bear. This grizzly is actually an Alaskan brown bear. Grizzlies that live on the coast with abundant fish to eat grow much larger than their inland cousins. But whether a bear weighs 700 or over 1000 pounds, you don’t want one stalking you.

On Being Stalked By a Grizzly

I related a couple of tales about grizzly encounters last week. They were worrisome, but nothing in comparison to being stalked by one. That happened when I was leading a 100 K trek across Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula in 1985 as a fundraiser for the Alaska Lung Association. We started at Hope on the Turnagain Arm south of Anchorage, followed the Resurrection Pass Trail through the Kenai Mountains to Cooper’s Landing, and then picked up the Russian Lakes/River Trail to Seward. It’s known for both its beauty and bears.

As always, on my Treks in Alaska, I checked in with the US Forest Service to see if there were any issues I should be aware of. There were a couple. A large grizzly was working the area and had treed one of their rangers near Seward two weeks before the trip. Even scarier, earlier in the season, a black bear had bitten through the sleeping bag of a woman ranger and wounded her leg, in the same area. Both had nightmare potential. They had shot the leg-eating bear, however. All I had to worry about was a large, marauding grizzly.

I vowed to keep my group together and make lots of noise on the Russian Lakes/River Trail.

It worked— at least until the last day. The night before, we had come across a forest service cabin. You can reserve and rent them. I’d done neither, but no one was there, and I decided the USF wouldn’t complain about our using it, given that the grizzly incident had taken place about a quarter of a mile away. It was cozy given our group size but bear proof. I figured we were out of the woods, so to speak.

Early the next morning I was awakened by one of my trekkers getting up. I figured she had to go outside and pee, but checked with her. I didn’t want her wandering far from the cabin. “Actually, I want to go for a short walk,” Debbi explained to me. She was a single mom and had loved her week of escape while her mother handled babysitting duties. Or maybe it was her Ex. She missed her kids on the one hand, but didn’t want the trip to end on the other. The walk was her compromise.

I wouldn’t let her go alone, but volunteered to walk with her. I woke up my assistant leader and told him where we were going. We had fun. I liked Debbi. She was bright, had a great sense of humor, and never complained. We laughed a lot. I figured it would keep the grizzly from being surprised if he was around. We hiked for maybe 20 minutes and came to a roaring creek with a bridge over it that we had crossed the day before. We sat down and enjoyed the river for another 20 minutes chatting about our lives. “Time to go,” I said. I wanted to be back by the time the rest of the group was getting up.

We hadn’t walked more than 50 yards when I heard something big moving through the brush on the side of the trail. “What’s that?” Debbi gasped. Whatever it was, it was hidden. And then I saw it. The distinctive hump on the back of a grizzly. A big grizzly! He was moving parallel through the brush, stalking us. “Oh, crap!” I declared.

“What do we do now? Run!?”

I mentioned in an earlier post about not running. Bears think you are food. Plus Debbi was a marathon runner and fast. While she might not be able to outrun the bear, she could outrun me. I suggested we turn around, walk over the bridge we had just crossed and find a tall tree. If the bear appeared and started across the river, we would climb the tree. Quickly. I had spotted a likely candidate the day before. It might very well have been the tree the ranger had climbed.

Thirty minutes later there was still no sign of the bear. I decided it was worth risking the trip back. Two very nervous people began the very long 20 minute hike. Debbi grabbed my hand. She had an iron grip. A mouse in the brush might have given us heart attacks! But we made it with no sign of the bear.

People were finishing breakfast. I quickly apologized for being late and explained the reason. “Yeah, sure Curt.” was the response, looking knowingly at Debbi and me.

Yeah, sure.

I Chat with a Brown Bear Over Menu Choices

Alaska Brown Bears are giants of the bear world. They can weigh up to 1500 pounds and stand 10 feet tall on their hind legs. My first encounter with them was in Katmai National Park, located at the beginning of the Aleutian Peninsula. It’s a wild, remote area known for its trophy size trout. Fisherman come from all over the world to try their luck at catching them. And brown bears grow to their immense size eating them.

I had traveled from Anchorage with a friend to go backpacking. The backcountry where we were heading was the site of a huge volcanic eruption in 1912 and has a beautiful, almost surreal feel to it. The National Geographic had called it the Valley of 10,000 Smokes shortly after the eruption from all of the fumaroles. A number continue to smoke. You can hear your footsteps echoing as you walk over lava tubes. A bit creepy. During rainstorms, volcanic rocks (pumice) float down the river. The river, btw, is named the Lethe after the river of forgetfulness from Hades of Greek Mythology where the dead go. “Souls drink from its waters to completely erase the memories of their earthly lives.”

We had flown over to Kodiak on Alaska Air and then taken a large float plane to Katmai. Four fishermen from Germany and two from Japan traveled with us. We were all met by a ranger when we deplaned. “I’m here to explain proper bear etiquette,” he told us. The large number of giant bears hanging out and feasting on the trout meant human-bear encounters were inevitable. His first directions applied to the fisherman. “If a bear is fishing in a hole you want to fish in, go find a different hole. If you have a trout on your line and a bear shows up, cut your line. If you reel it in, the bear will take the fish— one way or the other.” The ‘other’ sounded ominous.

Then he gave advice that applied to all of us. “Don’t camp on a bear trail,” he admonished. “It irritates the bears. They may remove the tent and you, if you are in it.” And how in the heck do you know a bear trail? It isn’t hard. They are the freeways of animal trails with two distinctive side by side ruts.

The second bit of advice was “If you meet one on the trail, talk to it and slowly back away.” “Talk to it???” What do you say to a thousand pound creature with long, sharp claws, and big teeth that might be having a bad day?

While the water wasn’t as deep on Kodiak Island as it was on the Katmai pool where the giant brown bear was fishing, the objective was the same. Sushi for lunch.

Our first bear encounter was peaceful, at least for us. Not so much for fish. A large pool above the campground had a granddaddy of a brown bear fishing in it. He wasn’t standing on the edge and flipping salmon out like you see in many documentaries, however. He was quietly walking around in the pool about five feet deep with his head under the water. Only his back was showing. Woe to the large trout that swam by. He would strike with all the speed of a snake, and then sit up for a more leisurely feast. The bear held the fish in his paws and ate it like you or I might gnaw on a corn cob— if we were eating the cob as well as the corn. We could hear him crunching away. Then he was off to catch another one. Over and over. It was prime fishing. No wonder brown bears grow so big.

Right about the time we saw him down his third fish, a younger brown bear came along and decided to join in the fun. Not. Granddaddy charged. It was his pool and his fish! The youngster skedaddled. You’ve likely heard that bears can run fast. The smaller bear was faster than that. The two jumped out of the pool and dashed down the trail through our camp. I’m glad I wasn’t in their way, or peacefully sitting outside our tent eating dinner.

That evening I went out for a short walk. Other than mosquitos, black flies and no-see-ums, it was a pleasant trail. I had it to myself— until I rounded a corner and came upon a brown bear going the opposite direction. We both stopped immediately and stared at each other, from about 15 feet away. While not as large as the Grandaddy bear, he was still appeared huge! The trail was narrow and he seemed to be irritated. Maybe it was the bear that had been chased out of the pool earlier.

“Talk to the bear, Curt,” I admonished myself. But what to say? Smart ass that I am, I punted…

“Um, good evening Mr. Bear,” I stuttered respectfully. “I am an Alaskan, just like you. You don’t want to eat me. If you are hungry, I understand there is some great Japanese food on the menu. Or you might want to try the German.”

The bear stared at me for a long two minutes, barked a growl of annoyance, and detoured off the trail. I quickly returned to whatever safety my tent offered. No Japanese or Germans were eaten that night. Or, at least I didn’t hear any screaming. Happily, when we backpacked into the Katmai wilderness the next day, we encountered no bears.

I’m about to wrap up my bear stories, but I do have one more. So far I’ve been featuring bears I have met up with in the woods, but what happens when they come to visit you at your house, as they did in Oregon. They came by to dine out of our garbage can or steal sunflower seeds from our bird feeders. One decided to open my Weber Grill… The bear way.

We are in the final stages of our two month exploration of Greece, Scotland and Ireland. This is the Liffey River in Dublin that our Zanzibar Locke apartment overlooks. The bridge is Dublin’s historic Ha’penny Bridge. It got its name originally from people having to pay a halfpenny toll to cross. The river has a fun tie in with today’s post. James Joyce connected it with the mythological Hades River, Lethe, in his masterpiece: *Finnegan’s Wake*.

Alaska Bear Tales: Part 1… Backpacking in Denali National Park and across the Alaska Range

July 15, 2026July 12, 2026 / Curt Mekemson / 7 Comments

A pair of Kodiak brown bears have a stand off on an Alaskan river. “Maybe if I pretend he isn’t here.” When our son Tony was flying helicopters for the Coast Guard on Kodiak Island, he and his wife Cammie arranged a trip for us to watch brown bears fishing.

The Alaska wilderness experience is significantly different from what you experience in the ‘Lower 48.’ One of my primary reasons for moving to Alaska in 1983 was to explore the difference.

There is a sense of vastness when you slip on your backpack and head away from your car in Alaska, a possibility that you can hike for days and not see another person. And there is an element of danger. Few well-maintained trails and trail signs are there to guide you. The weather is always a factor. Large storm systems march across the state and bring rain and mists in the summer and biting cold and snow in the winter. Plus there are large animals out there, large animals with big teeth, big claws, big hoofs and big horns.

“The better to eat, scratch, trample or gore you, my dear.”

It isn’t that the animals are out to get you. They just don’t have the same level of tolerance their southern cousins do. Recognizing this, I always went out of my way to be polite when wandering in their territory. The number one rule with bears is no surprises. Bears weigh several hundred pounds and have suspicious minds. Their tendency is to bite first and ask questions afterwards when surprised. So, you make lots of noise when walking through dense brush. Almost all of the wilderness shops sold bells to wear, but I regarded them as dinner bells. Cows wear bells, right? And grizzly bears like to eat cows. I preferred to sing. Cows don’t sing. And believe me on this one: There is nothing like a large pile of steaming bear shit to make you sing loudly. Peggy is known to break into a rousing chorus of 99 Bottles of Beer on the wall.

The number two rule is don’t run away. Behaving like food implies you are. Also, as part of this rule, stand tall. Look like a human being. Such behavior suggests to the bear that you know something it doesn’t. Why would a 100-200 plus pound creature stand up to a 500-1000 pound plus creature? It makes the bear more cautious. Possibly something else would taste better.

Be particularly wary if you encounter a female with cubs. Do not approach the cubs or get between the mother and her cubs. It’s a guaranteed recipe for disaster.

These cubs were delightful little fellows, but definitely called for a telephoto lens. Mother bears are very protective of their kids. The cubs were walking across a a fish dam and ladder on Kodiak that was built to allow salmon to get around a 30-foot falls.

Carry bear spray. If that doesn’t work, play dead. Fortunately, I’ve never had to use bear spray or made it to rule number three. (I don’t count the bear standing on me in Yosemite as an attack. I think he was merely curious about what might happen if you stand on a human. Call it a scientific experiment.)

My first journey into grizzly bear country occurred when I went to Alaska in 1981 to help the American Lung Association set up its Trek Fund Raising Program I had created. A friend came along to go backpacking with me in Denali National Park and canoeing on the Kenai Peninsula. Before we headed out on our adventure, the Lung Association Board Member who had brought me to Alaska, took us aside for some advice.

“You will want to carry a weapon with you, Curt, in case a grizzly bear attacks,” he warned. Now there was a comforting thought.

“I don’t have a weapon,” I told him. “And, furthermore, I would probably just piss the bear off or shoot myself.” But he was not going to let us go off unarmed. He broke out his 357 magnum pistol and handed it to me along with a handful of bullets. With that much fire power, I could at least seriously piss off a bear. I took the gun and bullets and dutifully stuffed them into different compartments in my pack.

I thought of a use for the pistol shortly after we headed off into the backcountry of Denali. My friend was walking in front and was primarily in charge of making noise.

“Here bear, here bear,” she kept repeating, “eat the one in back of me. He’s fatter.”

It was our canoe trip on the Kenai Peninsula that led me to finally break out the weapon. It was early in the evening. I was peacefully sitting back, reading a book and sipping a cup of tea when the silence of the evening was shattered.

“SCHIWISSSSH!”

“What the…” I thought, dropping my book and knocking over my tea.

“SCHIWISSSSH!”

Loosing the tea really irritated me. It included a shot of my 151 proof rum. I made a dash for my pack, the pistol and the bullets.

“SCHIWISSSSH!”

Whatever it was, it was getting dangerously close to camp. I could dimly see a large figure through the thick trees. I fumbled through loading the pistol with eight thumbs and two fingers, took it in both hands movie style, and made a heart pounding stalk through the forest, the Great Hunter personified.

“SCHIWISSSSH!”

A large, ungainly moose (all moose are large and ungainly) was methodically stripping the leaves off of a tree. He would grab one end of a limb in his gargantuan mouth and work his way down, ripping off leaves as he went, schiwissssh. My 457 and I high tailed it back to camp in hopes that the moose would find greener leaves elsewhere. Old timers n Alaska will tell you that the moose is more dangerous than the grizzly.

Looking ungainly but not very dangerous. A moose that Peggy and I found in Alaska.

Peggy provides some perspective with moose antlers on one of our drives up the Alaska Highway. How would you like to wear these on your head, or worse, have them charging you? This set weighed close to 50 pounds.

My actual encounter with bears waited for when I moved to Alaska. Two involved grizzlies and the third a larger Alaskan brown bear. The first happened on an off-trail trek I was planning to raise funds for the American Lung Association of Alaska. I decided going cross country would be fun and selected a section of the Alaska Range for the adventure. I invited two people, Margaret Timmerman and her friend Tracy, along to help preview the route.

Both were experienced Alaskan outdoor people. Tracy was a glacier guide and Margaret taught mountain climbing for the local community college. She was also my travel agent. Once, when I visited her to arrange for a trip to New Orleans, she related an experience she had leading a group on an expedition up Mt. Denali. They had been caught is a serious whiteout storm on the mountain side and been tent bound for several days. Since I couldn’t imagine leading groups up Denali much less being stuffed up in a tent for that long, I recruited her to be one of my Trek leaders.

Other than fighting off the usual hoards of insects and spending hours walking in the rain, our Trek review went smoothly. But that was before we ran into the bear.

We were hiking happily along on a rare sunny day through relatively open country when a caribou came flying out of a small valley. I mean it was moving. We had seen several earlier. They would bounce up to us, take a look, and bounce off. They weren’t worried and neither were we. But this guy had a problem. Within seconds he had disappeared over a ridge. We looked over in to the valley but didn’t see anything except some snow that hadn’t quite succeeded in melting. I could see tracks in the snow, though, and persuaded Margaret and Tracy to climb down with me and take a look. The story of what had happened was obvious, at least to me.

“Do you guys see what happened here?” I asked. They replied “no,” so I gave them a quick lesson in animal tracks 1a.

“Look over there,” I suggested, pointing down the valley. “See the Caribou’s tracks. He is strolling along without a care in the world. Now look up on the hillside coming out from the brush. See the snow thrown every which way. Something big came barreling out of there heading straight for the caribou. Now look at the caribou tracks here.” The caribou’s nice little stroll has turned into huge bounds. It had gone from 3 to 30 mph in 3 seconds.

“Guess what?” I asked with a nervous grin.

“What?” came the mutual query.

“Somewhere close to here is a hungry, irate grizzly bear.” Three pairs of eyes suddenly got very busy searching the surrounding area. We spotted him almost immediately. He was sniffing around on a hillside looking for marmots to crunch. I pitied the poor marmot he found, but figured better the marmot than us. Besides, I knew that marmots are pretty good at taking care of themselves.

I once watched a grizzly try to catch one in the Canadian Rockies. I had backpacked into a remote area with a geologist from the University of Arizona in Tucson who was doing a study on the origin of the Rockies. The bear provided after dinner entertainment one evening.

He had chased a marmot down its hole about 50 yards away from our camp and was pursuing it with all the passion of a 300 pound NFL lineman pounding after a skinny quarterback behind the line of scrimmage. Dirt and rocks were flying everywhere. After about five minutes, the marmot poked its head up out of another hole a few feet behind the frenzied bear, watched with interest for a minute or so, and then whistled. The grizzly whirled and leapt in one blinding motion but the marmot was faster. Once again the air was clouded with flying debris as the frustrated bear doubled its efforts. Three minutes later the marmot poked his head out from yet another hole and whistled again. I swear it was playing with the bear. “Come on over here big boy.”

Tracy, Margaret and I didn’t wait to see whether our irate friend found its marmot. We quietly exited stage left.

My next post will involve two more encounters. Both were much more close and personal than the one described above. In the first, I am stalked by a grizzly bear. In the second I work to persuade an Alaska brown bear I am not a menu item.

Peggy and I are now exploring Northern Ireland as part of our two month jaunt through Greece, Scotland and Ireland. This is a photo from one of the beautiful, glacier created nine valleys coming down from the Antrim Plateau to the Irish Sea. The one we chose to hike up is known as *The Queen of the Glens* for its tumbling waterfalls. There were several in the section we explored. This coming week, we will be in a remote farm house, apparently without wi-fi or phone service!

Yosemite Bear Tales Continued: A Bear Empties My Backpack 5 Feet Away, Another Towers Over Me While Growling, and a Third Grabs Me by the Head (sort of)

July 8, 2026 / Curt Mekemson / 9 Comments

Yosemite National Park is world renowned for its beauty. For backpackers, it is also renowned for its bears.

At the end of my last blog, I had backpacked 18 miles into Yosemite Valley to resupply the food the bears had consumed— and alcohol. (I would have loved to witness the reaction of the bear that bit into my plastic bottle of 151 proof rum.)

My intention was to stay in the Valley that night, but it was a zoo, absolutely crawling with tourists. So I shouldered my pack and hiked back into Little Yosemite Valley. My body was not happy. The hike added a 2000 foot climb plus another five miles to an already-long day.

The area’s proximity to the Valley means that it is a popular camping area for backpackers, either as a first-night stop or destination. I found a small, one-person site with a convenient log in the middle for sitting against and used my pack and Thermarest mattress to make a comfy chair. I whipped up a quick dinner, topped it off with a cup of wine, and prepared for bed. (My 151 proof rum was not available in the Valley.)

The popularity of the area for backpackers also means it is a popular area for bears— a dine in or take out restaurant. Given my experience of the night before, I was a tad paranoid. I carefully stuffed my food, and anything the bear might find tasty (wine, toothpaste, etc.) into my food bag and used a cable the park provided to hang food beyond a bear’s imagination.

I also made sure that every pocket in my pack was open, including the top. Although the food was out of the pack, there might have been lingering smells to attract a bear. Closed pockets can lead to bears opening them. It’s rather hard on backpacks. And even if the bear doesn’t stop by for a snack, lots of other woodland creatures, mice for example, are happy to chew holes to get at food— especially in popular camping areas. I’ve had that happen several times over the years.

It should be noted here that several bear/rodent-proof containers are available for today’s backpackers. They weren’t in the 70s. I nodded off that night listening to backpackers yelling and beating on pans as bears worked their campsites, wondering when my turn would come.

I woke up around 11 when I heard a noise on the other side of the log where I had placed my pack, about five feet away. Heart pounding, I sat up to look. A bear was methodically emptying the pack, checking to see if there was any food. I watched with clinical interest as it shoved his head into the pack, pulled out an item, dropped it on the ground and then stuck his head back in the pack. By then I had enough, and suggested rather loudly that the bear go elsewhere. After one more foray, it did. The only damage I suffered was bear slobber, all over everything. My old Basset Hound, Socrates, the world champion of slobberers, would have been jealous.

The next night I was leaving my camp for an evening walk when I met a bear coming to visit. I bent over and picked up a rock. He took off like a dog: It was my kind of bear. And thus my summer went. By the time I had led two back-to-back hundred-mile trips into Yosemite, I had my fill of bears. Each time a bear visited in the night, I’d hear a scream, “Curtis!” I considered myself an expert bear chaser.

It was almost my demise.

At the end of the second Trek, my friend Jean, her sister Mary and her husband Tim joined me at Tuolumne Meadows to hike the John Muir Trail. We spent the night at the Tuolumne RV/car campground. I had eaten backpacking meals for 18 days. It was time to celebrate. We grilled up steaks, broke out a fifth of Jack Daniels, and threw in several cans of beer.

Tuolumne Meadows, Yosemite National Park

As the night progressed, I was feeling no pain. So it wasn’t surprising when a bear came to visit our neighbors from Iowa, I was prepared to do battle. They had left their cooler out on the picnic table and the bear was leisurely opening it. The Iowans were hiding out in their camper, making nary a peep.

“Hey bear,” I yelled as I strode across the road, “Get out of here!”

Well, Mr. Bear had found himself a cache of fresh food and wasn’t about to leave. He turned around, stood up on his hind legs, raised his front legs over his head and said “GRRRROWL!” He was one big fellow, towering above me. Stone cold sobriety was instantaneous.

It looked like this stuffed bear at the Tonopah Motel in Nevada.

“OK bear, it’s all yours,” I mumbled as I scurried back across the road to my own camp and safety. “Eat all of the Iowan food you want. Heck, eat the Iowans.”

By this time though, 20 flashlights were shining down on the bear. Campers are packed into Tuolumne Meadows like tenement housing in a barrio, and all of the neighbors were checking out the action, worrying. Thus disturbed, Mr. Bear went grumbling off over the hill, more than a little pissed to have his fine feast disturbed. You could almost make out in his growling, “I’ll be back.”

Of course the Iowans left their cooler out on the table. No way were they budging from their camper. I pictured them driving nonstop back to Des Moines the next day.

Finally things settled down. After another beer, or two, we crawled into our sleeping bags. Tim and Mary disappeared into the security of their truck while Jean and I crashed on the ground.

Not surprising, there came a time when Jean had to visit the restroom. Beer will do that. Equally unsurprising, the bourbon helped me sleep right through her getting up. But I did hear her come back. Except it wasn’t Jean I heard through my alcohol-induced grogginess. It was the bear— coming back for revenge.

“GET OUT OF HERE!” I screamed with all of the passion I had used when I had awakened with the bear standing on me. Jean, not knowing what to do, grabbed me by the head and said, “Curt, it’s all right, it’s only me!” This was undoubtedly the right thing for her to do, except now the bear had me by the head. As you might imagine, my yells increased in volume. By 10.

Picture 20 flashlights shining down on this happy little domestic scene.

That was my last bear encounter of the season. There would be many more in the Sierras, but my next post will discuss encounters with grizzlies and the giant, brown bears of Alaska. If you find encounters with black bears scary…

Consider this fellow. I was stalked by a grizzly bear when I was leading a backpack trek across Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.

Tales from UT-OH: It’s 4 AM and a Bear Is Standing on Top of Me

June 22, 2026June 22, 2026 / Curt Mekemson / 16 Comments

Peggy and I are in the Scottish Highlands of Northern Scotland now, and continuing our summer adventure of exploring Greece, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Today’s tale from my WordPress blog-a-book, UT-OH!, is about the time I woke up at 4 a.m. with a bear standing on top of me.

Black Bears aren’t nearly as big— or as likely to attack you as their bigger cousins, grizzlies and brown bears. This doesn’t mean they can’t be scary, especial when you wake up with one standing on you. This guy was wandering around our neighborhood when we lived in Oregon.

Bears like me, or at least they haven’t eaten me. They’ve had numerous opportunities over the years. It goes with the territory of backpacking throughout North America for six decades. My scariest encounter took place in the summer of 1969.

By the fifth year of the 100 mile Sierra Trek I did as a fundraiser for the American Lung Association, I had worked my way southward from Lake Tahoe into Yosemite National Park. Since we were utilizing a new route from Yosemite to Kennedy Meadows, I had to preview it. (Besides being another excuse to head out into the wilderness and get paid for it, I didn’t like to take people out on a trail I wasn’t familiar with.)

My friends Ken Lake and Tom Lovering joined me on the first three days from the Yosemite Valley floor to Tuolumne Meadows. Day one found us climbing several thousand feet out of the Valley and camping above the Little Yosemite Valley. The bears dropped by for a visit on our first night in the Park.

Half Dome, Yosemite. Little Yosemite Valley is on the other side.

After carefully hanging our food bags from a cable provided by the park service and burying the left over fake freeze-dried raspberry cobbler (it was made from apples), we trundled ourselves off to our sleeping bags. The problem was we buried the food a little too close to Lake. I think Tom may have been up to his usual mischief.

The next morning, a very excited Ken asked if we had seen the bears in our camp the previous night. Neither of us had and we attributed his sighting to an overactive imagination. Believe me, if a bear had been digging up food next to my head, my two companions would have known about it, immediately.

Day two was tough. What I hadn’t counted on was the amount of snow still left on the ground. The fact that it was melting simply made the hike more challenging. We spent most of our time slipping, sliding and slogging through it. By three in the afternoon, Tom was ready to set up camp right in the middle of a snowfield. Ken and I threatened to leave him with the bears and he committed to another hour. Fortunately, that night was bear free. They would have found little resistance from the three of us.

Eventually, we made it into Tuolumne Meadows where I was faced with another challenge: hiking over 70 miles of snow-covered trails by myself while Ken and Tom returned to Sacramento and work. The journey was fraught with opportunities for breaking a leg, or losing the trail, or being washed away when crossing streams raging with water from melting snow. None of the above was a desirable outcome for someone hiking alone.

My other option was to return to Sacramento with Ken and Tom, which was not acceptable. I had a week off to wander in the woods and I was going to wander in the woods for a week. I compromised by heading back over the mountains toward Yosemite Valley. My fractured logic concluded that it was better to break a leg and get lost where I had been than where I was going. I also promised myself to be really careful. This included keeping my food from bears.

Hiking out of Tuolumne Meadows took me back around Cathedral Peaks shown here.

The first day was non eventful and the second idyllic. I was exploring new country, doing what I most love to do. As evening approached, I found a delightful campsite on the Cathedral Fork of Echo Creek. Amenities included a babbling brook to put me to sleep, a flat space for my sleeping bag and a great food-hanging tree with the perfectly placed limb. A hot dinner topped off by tea spiced up with a shot of 151-proof rum and I was ready for sleep.

I carefully hung my food bags at the recommended 12 feet off the ground and 9 feet away from the tree trunk and then snuggled down in my sleeping bag. As was my habit at the time, I slept out in the open, only using my tent when rain threatened.

It was somewhere around 4 am and very dark when I awoke with a pressure on my chest. I couldn’t see very far but I didn’t have to. Approximately five inches away from my face was a long black snout sniffing at me. It was filled with grinning teeth and topped off by a pair of beady eyes that were staring at me with a hungry look.

I let out a blood-curdling scream and vacated the premises, in like three seconds!

As I flew in one direction, the equally surprised young bear that had been standing on me flew in the other. I don’t even remember getting out of the bag. The next thing I knew I was standing up, yelling and shining my flashlight into the woods where not one, but two pairs of orange eyes were staring back at me. I lost it. Never have so many rocks been hurled with so much vigor in such a short period of time. The bears wisely decided to head off over the mountain.

But the damage was already done. My camp was a disaster area. My carefully hung food was scattered all over the ground with literally every meal torn open and sampled. All I had left was a chunk of cheese and it had one large bear bite out of it. I hid the cheese under a heavy rock.

As a further insult, one of the bears had chomped down on my plastic rum bottle and all of the rum was gone. I couldn’t even drink. With that option eliminated, I policed the area, crawled back in my bag and went back to sleep. When I awoke in the morning it was obvious that the bears had come back into camp to clean up anything they had missed. Once again the previous night’s trash decorated my campsite. At least the bears let me sleep this time. And they had missed my cheese.

So I ate it for breakfast, cleaned the area again, packed up my gear and hiked 18 miles into the Yosemite Valley to resupply. But my week wasn’t over; neither were my bear experiences. The summer had only begun.

I’m going to be off from blogging for a week or two. We flew back from Greece to attend our grandson Cody’s graduation and naturally I had to catch a bad cold while traveling. Now we are in Scotland getting ready to explore the Scottish Highlands for two weeks and have a full schedule. After that we will be in Northern Ireland for a more relaxed visit and I should be able to catch up!

A Tale of a Tail from UT-OH!… Backpacking into the Grand Canyon

June 12, 2026June 7, 2026 / Curt Mekemson / 8 Comments

Peggy and I are off journeying through Greece, Scotland and Ireland over the next several weeks, so there won’t be much time for blogging. I’ve decided to republish some of my favorite posts from the past 15 years that will eventually make it into the book I am blogging: UT-OH!.

I was working in Alaska in 1986 when I decided to give myself a present for my 43rd Birthday, a six-month escape to the wilderness. I resigned my job, said my goodbyes, sold or gave away anything that wouldn’t fit in the bed my Ford Ranger, and dashed down the Alaska Highway to California. I stopped in Sacramento just long enough to turn down two job offers, see my dad, and visit with friends before zipping off to the Grand Canyon for a backpacking trip.

Looking down from Lipan Point at the start of the Tanner Trail. The sharp bend in the Colorado River… far away, is where I am heading. (The photos in this post are from a later trip down the trail that I made with Peggy.)

My first day at the Canyon was devoted to preparing for my hike into the Canyon. Seventeen years of backpacking in all kinds of terrain and climate had taught me that there was no such thing as being too careful. I approach compulsive when it comes to backpacking alone. Had I resupplied my first aid kit? Was my stove still working? Did I have adequate fuel? Did I have my flashlight, signaling mirror, whistle, compass and maps? Did I have enough but not too much food, water, clothes, reading material, etc. etc. etc?

Safety, comfort and even entertainment are important but weight is always an issue.

Having satisfied myself that I could survive seven to nine days in the Canyon, I headed off to the backcountry permit office. The more environmentally inclined within the Park Service are seriously into minimizing impact and promoting safety. Requiring wilderness use permits is their primary tool in achieving these goals.

I patiently waited behind six other would-be canyon explorers and had memorized the minimum impact lecture by the time my turn was up. The ranger frowned when I mentioned the Tanner Trail.

“The trail is poorly maintained, rarely used, 10-12 miles long and arduous, and may be washed out in places” she cautioned strongly.

“And that,” I replied, “is exactly what I want.” I was especially enamored with the ‘rarely used’ part. I had no desire to share my experience with dozens of other people, much less armies of cantankerous mules that leave lakes of fowl smelling pee on the trail. If I had to face a particularly tough physical challenge and be extra careful to avoid a tumble into the Canyon, it was a price I was happily willing to pay.

At 8:30 the next morning my pudgy, pasty white body was having an animated discussion with my mind over the wisdom of my decision. I had started my day by splurging for breakfast at the elegant El Tovar Hotel and then driven out to Lipan Point.

I was now poised to begin my descent into the Canyon. It looked like a long way down. I gritted my teeth and banned any insidious second thoughts.

They came rushing back as I struggled to hoist my 60 plus pound pack. It was filled with seven days of food, extra water and all of my equipment. I had cursed the day before as I struggled to find room for everything. Now I was cursing I hadn’t left half of it behind.

The steep trail seemed to disappear under my feet as I began my journey and descended through millions of years of earth history. About a half of mile down it disappeared for real, having been washed away by winter rains. “I told you so,” my body whispered loudly as I mentally and physically hugged the side of the canyon and tentatively made my way around the washout.

Steep drop offs are a common factor in all trails leading into the Grand Canyon. The first trails were created by Native Americans. Later miners, rustlers, and entrepreneurs interested in promoting tourism would enhance the original trails and create new ones.

I am not sure when my legs started shaking. Given the stair-step nature of the trail and the extra weight of the pack, my downhill muscles weren’t having a lot of fun. Fortunately, Mother Nature provided a reprieve.

The erosive forces of wind and water that have sculpted the mesas and canyon lands of the Southwest are more challenged by some types of rocks than others. Somewhere between two and three miles down I came upon the gentle lower slopes of the Escalante and Cardenas Buttes, which allowed me to lollygag along and enjoy the scenery.

I escaped from the sun beneath the shadow of a large rock to drink some of my precious water, nibble on trail food and take a brief nap. It would have made a good place to camp, others had obviously taken advantage of shade and flat surface, but the Colorado River was calling.

Ignoring the ever-increasing screams of my disgruntled body parts, I headed on. At mile five or so my idyllic stroll came to a dramatic halt as the trail dropped out of sight down what is known as the Red Wall. (It received this imaginative name because it is red and looks like a wall. The red comes from iron dissolved in water that runs down from the rocks above. Think rust.) Some fifty million years, or 625,000 Curtis life spans, shallow seas had patiently worked to deposit the lime that makes up its 500-foot sheer cliff. It is one of the most distinctive features of the Grand Canyon.

Photos of Vista Encantata in the Grand Canyon by Curt and Peggy Mekemson — The Red Wall, seen across the canyon here, is a prominent land mark and geological feature of the Grand Canyon

My trail guide recommended I store water before heading down so I could retrieve it when I was dying of thirst on the way out. I could see where people had scratched out exposed campsites as a place to stop for the night. The accommodations weren’t much but the view was spectacular.

The rest of the five-mile/five month journey was something of a blur. (It was closer to five hours but time was moving very slowly.) I do remember a blooming prickly pear cactus. I grumbled at it for looking so cheerful.

I was too tired to fully appreciate the beauty of the inner Canyon.

My lack of appreciation included a cheerful cactus flower.

Looking back up the trail provided a perspective on how far I had come. The small, needle-like structure on the rim (right) is Desert View Tower.

I also remember a long, gravelly slope toward the bottom. My downhill muscles had totally given out and the only way I could get down was to sidestep. I cackled insanely when I finally reached the bottom.

Setting up camp that night was simple. I threw out my ground cloth, Thermarest mattress, and sleeping bag on a sandy beach. Then I stumbled down to the river’s edge and retrieved a bucket of reddish-brown Colorado River water, which appeared to be two parts liquid and one part mud. I should have waited for the mud to settle. Instead I used up a year of my water filter’s life to provide a quart of potable water.

Sitting beside the muddy Colorado River.

My old yellow bucket, a veteran of dozens of backpacking adventures.

All I had left to do was take care of my food. Since people camped here frequently, the local critters would see me as a huge neon billboard that blinked ‘Eat at Curt’s.’ Not seeing a convenient limb within three feet, I buried my food bag in the sand next to me. Theoretically, anything digging it up would wake me. Just the top was peeking out so I could find it in the morning.

As the sun went down, so did I. Faster than I could fall asleep, I heard myself snoring. I was brought back to full consciousness by the pitter-patter of tiny feet crossing over the top of me. A mouse was worrying the top of my food bag and going for the peanuts I had placed there to cover my more serious food.

“Hey Mousy,” I yelled, “Get away from my food!” My small companion of the night dashed back over me as if I were no more than a noisy obstacle between dinner and home. I was drifting off again when I once more felt the little feet. “The heck with it,” I thought in my semi-comatose state. How many peanuts could the mouse eat anyway?

The river water I had consumed the night before pulled me from my sleep. Predawn light bathed the Canyon in a gentle glow. I lay in my sleeping bag for several minutes and admired the vastness and beauty of my temporary home. The Canyon rim, my truck and the hordes of tourists were far away, existing in another world.

My thoughts turned to my visitor of the previous evening. Out of curiosity, I reached over for my food and extracted the bag of peanuts. A neat little hole had been chewed through the plastic but it appeared that most of my peanuts were present and accounted for. The small contribution had been well worth my solid sleep.

I then looked over to the right to see if I could spot where the mouse had carried its treasure. Something on the edge of my ground cloth caught my eye. It was three inches long, grey, round and fuzzy.

It was Mousy’s tail!

Something had sat on the edge of my sleeping bag during the night and dined on peanut stuffed mouse. Thoughts of a coyote, or worse, using my ground cloth as a dinner table jolted the primitive parts of my brain. Had I had hackles, they would have been standing at attention ready for action.

I ate a peanut in honor of Mousy’s memory and tossed a few over near his house in case he had left behind a family to feed. I also figured that the peanuts would serve as an offering to whatever Canyon spirits had sent the night predator on its way.

I had my instant oatmeal, dried apricots and coffee breakfast, packed up, and prepared to hike up the river to the Little Colorado. It wasn’t to be. My legs went on strike! Ut-Oh! I hiked about 50 yards, found an ideal location that provided shade and a river view, and set up camp. I happily spent the day watching rafters fighting the rapids while I read a good book and tanked up on water. Over the following five days I explored the canyon, became less pudgy, and gained a tan. I hiked out in three hours, half the time it had taken me to hike in.

The view from camp looking across the Colorado River and up.

Monday’s post: I encounter a radical group of killers and kidnappers out practicing with automatic weapons on a remote mountain road. This story gets a capital UT-OH!

The Southwest: Where Geology Lives, Deserts Thrive, and Ancient People Speak… 2025 Wrap-up

December 29, 2025December 29, 2025 / Curt Mekemson / 30 Comments

As we noted in last week’s post, our 2025 wrap-up is based on three trips we made during the year and blogged about. The first was Hawaii, which I posted last Monday. Today’s post features our Southwest journey where we wandered through the Southwestern US for five months visiting national parks, state parks, and national monuments. Next week’s post will cover our three week leaf-peeping trip through New England in the fall.

The photos used in the three posts are all from ones we selected to include in three calendars we developed for our extended family, each focused on one of out trips. (Not all of the photos here made it into the calendars, but it was a flip-of-the-coin type decision.)

We discovered the towering rock above in Chiricahua National Monument, which is located in southeastern Arizona. The monument is named after the Chiricahua Apaches who roamed the area prior to it being occupied by pioneers from the eastern US. A couple of notes. One, the park is filled with a fascinating variety of rock structures. Two, we have discovered over the years that national monuments often include scenery, geology, history, plants and animals that easily match those found in national parks. They are definitely worth visiting and are usually far less crowded.

Petrified Forest National Park is found just off of I-40 in eastern Arizona. There are thousands of logs like the one above found in the park. You can still see the bark on this petrified wood that was once a tree that fell 200 million years ago.

While most people come to the park to admire the petrified wood, there is also much beauty such as the colorful ‘Teepees’ found on the main road. Each color has a different story to tell representing millions of years in geological history.

The Blue Mesa side road includes many other interesting and colorful land forms such as this. If you visit the park, be sure to take the short detour. A walk out in the desert on well maintained trails is definitely in order.

Ancestral Puebloans and other indigenous tribes left a view of their ancient world in Petrified Forest NP in petroglyphs on Newspaper Rock. While our understanding of what they were communicating is limited, there is magic in contemplating the possibilities.

While we are on the subject of petroglyphs, we found this unique one staring out at us in Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque, NM. Over 20,000 petroglyphs have been discovered in the monument. Peggy has plans to include this one in the revision of her word search book: *Artistic Word Searches, Unique and Magical: Discovering Petroglyphs from the Southwest.*

Canyon De Chelly (pronounced shay) is located in northeastern Arizona. Jointly operated by the Navajo Nation that owns the property and the National Park Service, Canyon De Chelly features striking canyon views plus Ancestral Pueblo ruins and petroglyphs left behind by both the Pueblo peoples and Navajos.

Our trip this past spring and summer took us into Califonia where we visited family and friends in San Diego, LA, and Sacramento. We also took time to visit Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California, known for its strange trees, after which it is named.

We found the rock structures to be of equal, if not greater, interest. Some of which could be said to possess personalities.

In addition to being known for its outstanding rock forms (think of the Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce and Arches— plus what we visited this year), the Southwest is noted for its deserts and cacti, none of which is better known than the Giant Saguaro. We’ve often stopped to admire these huge plants in Saguaro National Park but have never been in Arizona when they are blooming. Things were about to change. Note the buds popping out on top of the arms.

This time we were lucky. The blooms are almost other-worldly, in addition to being a source of food for numerous insects such as the bee coming in for a landing.

A number of other cactus flowers also lit up the desert.

Like plants, animals adjust to the deserts of the Southwest. Several birds choose to nest among the needles of various cacti including the curved bill thrasher Peggy found raising her family in a cholla cactus. The thrasher was not happy when she sneaked up to it and her hatchlings to catch a photo with her iPhone. It’s probably a good thing Peggy couldn’t understand what momma was saying.

Bandelier National Monument, located mere miles away from where the first atom bomb was created at Los Alamos, New Mexico, features the ruins of homes built by Ancestral Puebloans that included natural and carved caves (cavates) with pueblo structures once built up against them.

Peggy and I climbed up to one of the cavates. It was quite cozy inside. “Honey, I’m home.”

Just beneath the cavate, this outcropping of rocks overlooked the large Tyuonyi Pueblo at Bandelier. A corner of the ruins can be seen here. It was built in a circle and contained contained 400 rooms.

This tall rock was among the rocks in the outcropping. My first thought was wow! Nowhere in our travels though out the Southwest have we seen a statue like it carved by Ancestral Puebloans or any other indigenous tribes. We had a guide to the trail we were walking on, but there was no information on the statue. Nor was there anything in the information center. The emphasis was all on the scenery, cavates, petroglyphs and pueblos. Human or nature carved, I would think that the park’s literature would at least comment on it. That’s it for today. Next up:

We wrapped up our year of travel with out trip to New England so it’s proper that we finish off 2025 with the trip.

Happy New Year to everyone and thanks for joining us on our adventures in 2025. It’s much appreciated. Costa Rica, Bali, and Scotland are coming up in 2026! Curt and Peggy

Leaf Peeping at Acadia National Park and Mount Desert Island

November 20, 2025November 21, 2025 / Curt Mekemson / 19 Comments

Whatever the sun was up to here, other than being the sun of course, its selective lighting created a colorful photo op that Peggy and I could not ignore— even though it involved fitting our long F-150 into a space it was clearly not designed for. “Good job!” I told Peggy. I was impressed. Had there been some park rangers around, they might have had another opinion. But given the government shutdown, none were to be found. Acadia National Park was packed with leaf-peepers and visitors were on their own. Our infraction was mild in comparison to some we saw.

This was our second time visiting Acadia during leaf peeping season. The first took place in 1999 when Peggy and I both took sabbaticals from our jobs to explore North America with a focus on National Parks. (We visited 50.) Before reaching Maine, we had already been enjoying fall colors for three months! Our adventure had started in June with a drive up the Alaska Highway to Alaska. By the time we finished exploring the state, backpacking, and kayaking, it was mid-August. The leaves were already changing. We followed the advent of fall down through western Canada and across the northern tier of midwestern states to Maine. It was color the whole way. And It continued for another 2000 miles as we traveled down the Appalachian chain of mountains into Georgia.

I concluded my last post with a photo of what we considered the most colorful section of the park. This was from the same area. The combination of being close to the trees and bright sunlight made the colors pop out.

With distance and lack of sun, the colors faded in this view across Jordan Pond…

And blended, like an impressionistic painting. Still beautiful.

Roads continued to provide the opportunity to get up close and personal with the fall foliage, however— and traffic.The roads were full. Wherever there was a pulloff meant to feature the beauty of the park, it was packed. Even large parking areas were filled to the brim with people fighting to get into spaces whenever they opened up. While Peggy and I normally avoid national parks during peak season, we knew there was no option when peak-season is defined by peep-season. Still, it was a bit much for us. We headed for roads just outside of the park where the views were similar but traffic was minimal.

We came on a small local park near Northeast Harbor named the Asticou Azalea Garden that demanded our attention. It was too late for the azaleas, but the fall colors made up for it…

Providing a backdrop for a large granite boulder…

And hosting an Oriental sculpture with brilliant red.

The pond provided an interesting perspective on fallen leaves and pine needles floating on water while being divided between light and dark

Peggy got into the act by providing an opportunity for a final photo of the garden’s colors.

Having worked up an appetite, we headed into the nearby town of Northeast Harbor for lunch. It was busy shutting down for winter. Our waitress told us it was the restaurant’s last day for the year. After lunch, Peggy captured this colorful collection of pumpkins and squash on the sidewalk outside with her iPhone. Few things say ‘fall’ better.

She was also attracted by a unique sculpture made out of shells in front of the Maritime Museum. It made us think of Davy Jones Locker in *Pirates of the Caribbean*.

We found a small road (Sergeant Drive) leading out of Northeast Harbor along Somes Sound that fit our needs perfectly. It had all of the beauty of Acadia National Park with minimal traffic. Make that zero. We didn’t see any.

It provided a number of views across the sound.

Dark grey skies provided interesting silhouettes of the trees. I was particularly fascinated by the one on the right with its matching curves.

Suminsby Park, created in memory of a beloved scoutmaster and selectman whose efforts helped preserve the area, provided us with closer views of Somes Sound and a peaceful stop.

A golden, brown rockweed in the sound added to the fall colors.

Looking down the sound from the park. Note the rockweed’s contribution.

A wrap-up for today: Christmasy red and green leaves hovered above the memorial to Bob Suminsby. I couldn’t help but believe that the old scoutmaster and local leader would be well-pleased with the park that had been given his name. That’s it for today. Next up Peggy and I travel down the Maine coast to the town of Belfast, where we discover Curtis Island. I insisted we check it out.

Curtis Island, Maine with its lighthouse. The island, btw, isn’t named after me, sigh, it’s named for Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis, founder of the Saturday Evening Post.

El Malpais… The ‘Not so Bad Lands’ National Monument

September 22, 2025 / Curt Mekemson / 26 Comments

When the Spaniard explorers came through here in the 1500s searching for the Seven Cities of Cibola and untold (unfound) treasure, they looked at the lava covered fields below and declared them El Malpais, the badlands— good for nothing. They would travel around them instead of through them. The Zuni and Acoma, whose ancestors had arrived at least 700 years before the Spaniards, considered them part of their homelands. Food, water, shelter and medicine plants were here for those who knew where to find them. Their trails crisscrossed the ‘not-so badlands.’

A road takes visitors out to Sandstone Bluff, shone here and above. Visitors can walk along the bluffs and look down into extensive volcanic flows of basaltic rock. While the sandstone that makes up the bluff dates back some 160 million years, the most recent lava flows are a mere 3000 years old, babies in geological time. If you go back to the first photo, the latest flow is the darkest.

This map shows an overview or El Malpais National Monument. I-40 is at the top of the map, as is the Monument’s Visitor Center. El Morro National Monument, that I blogged about earlier, is off to the west. Most of our photos are from the Sandstone Bluffs, the Acoma-Zuni Trail, the La Ventana Arch, the Narrows and Lava Falls.

The first four locations are shown above in the close up. The four photos below are from the Sandstone Bluff area.

Water catchments such as this on top of Sandstone Bluff, provided a ready source of water after rainstorms for the Ancestral Puebloans, more ancient peoples, and wildlife that lived and wandered through the area. Various little water bugs took advantage of the pool when it was full. As did frogs, who laid eggs that turned into pollywogs. Looking at photo, I’m still trying to turn the stick into a skinny frog.

Ruins of the Garret Home are found along the road to Sandstone Bluff. The family built their homestead in 1934 on the edge of El Malpais as a way to scratch out a living and survive the Great Depression.

We found this barren space next to the house. It was about 6 feet across and interesting but we carefully avoided walking across. It marks the location/territory of a red ant nest. Had we walked over it, ants would have come boiling out to attack and bite us. And, believe me, their bite hurts! I know from experience. Various reasons are given for the cleared area. Among them: It makes it easier for the ants to leave and return to the nest when they are foraging, enemies, like other ants, have a harder time attacking, and the direct sun makes the nest warmer on cold days.

Lunch? These ants seemed to be chowing down on this bug. Or maybe they were working cooperatively to drag it to their nest.

Sandstone cliffs along New Mexico 117 on the eastern side of El Malpais National Monument provided us with numerous views of impressive rock monuments.

This provides a good look at cap rocks. Being harder than the rocks immediately below them, they resist erosion more and provide for the multitude of interesting shapes one sees when traveling around the Southwest.

We liked the contrast between the tall ponderosa pine and the cliffs here.

Once again, we liked the contrast. But it was the sheer size of this monument combined with its coloration that insisted this was a photo op.

This is a ‘draw’ in Western lingo and quite likely a box canyon. Cowboys liked them because they often provided water, shelter and forage for their cattle. If it’s a box canyon, it could also serve as a makeshift corral.

This rock, peeking out from among the trees marks the beginning of the ancient Acoma-Zuni Trail on the eastern side of El Malpais. We found it amusing that it is named the Zuni-Acoma Trail if one starts from the west. Historically, and today, the Zuni lived/live on the west side of El Malpais and the Acoma on the east. The 7 1/2 mile trail provided the main route for the two groups to travel back and forth between their pueblos. It’s been in use for at least a thousand years. Today, people backpacking the 3100 mile (4989 km) Continental Divide trail are still using it! Some of the cairns (rock markers) used by the hikers to follow the route were set in place hundreds of years ago by the Acoma and Zuni.

La Ventana (the window) Arch is found about halfway down New Mexico Highway 117 when driving the length of El Malpais National Monument. It’s the second largest natural arch in New Mexico and definitely worth a stop.

A closer view. A short trail leads up to the arch from the parking lot. Picnic tables are available for those who would like to stop for lunch. We found a group of hikers who were doing the Continental Divide Trail, eating lunch at one of the tables.

We also found: A single Indian paintbrush…

And a Cholla cactus on a trail leading up to another rock monument.

Instead of eating lunch at La Ventana, we chose to drive down to the Narrows and eat lunch at a BLM park, where we treated to views like this. The brilliant white rock two thirds of the way up is sitting on a rock that is 60 million years older. In geological terms, it’s known as an unconformity. The intervening 60 million years of geological history were wiped out by erosion!

Peggy and I finished our visit to El Malpais National Monument by driving down to the end of the park and going for a hike along the Lava Falls Trail (noted on the first map above). We quickly learned about the importance of following the route marked out with the rock cairns. One part of the lava flow looks pretty much like every other part. Getting lost is a distinct possibility.

Large collapsed sections that would be difficult to cross and possibly dangerous.

Fortunately, the cairns are relatively easy to follow. It’s important, however, to locate the next one before you leave the one you found! Its hard to see here but it was across the crack off to the left.

Peggy stopped to take a photo of the crack while crossing it. Of course. That’s it for today’s post. We have two left in our Southwest series. The next one will be on the campgrounds we stayed at while following sections of our trip that took us along historic Route 66. Our last post will feature some of the interesting petroglyphs we found at Lyman Lake State Park in Arizona and the Petroglyph National Monument in Albuquerque.

We stayed at a KOA campground just outside of Grants, New Mexico off of I-40 when we exploring El Morro and El Malpais National Monuments. Historic Route 66 ran through the town about a mile away. While at the campground, we were treated to this gorgeous rainbow.

Weird Trees and Gorgeous Rocks… Joshua Tree National Park

September 1, 2025September 1, 2025 / Curt Mekemson / 25 Comments

Joshua trees are a bit strange as trees go. They are actually monocots, more closely related to grass than trees. If that seems weird, up until recently they were thought to be lilies, related to onions and other members of the family. The park sign still claims the relationship.

As much as the trees are worth blogging about, we found the rocks of the park even more intriguing.

Massive piles of monzogranite boulders reach for the sky in the park. Originating far under the ground as lava oozing up from the earth’s mantle some 80-100 million years ago, the lava cooled and hardened into a batholith of granite. Nature in the form of earthquakes and water cracked it into rectangular blocks while mountain raising and erosion brought it to the surface. Along the way, erosion also wore the rectangular blocks into the massive rounded boulders that visitors admire today.

This was our second visit to the park. Peggy and I spent a whole day driving 30 miles through the northern portion of it. We stopped a lot.

An information board at the beginning of the park, made the following observation: “Look around you. Perhaps you see a stark land that nature never got around to finishing. Or you may see potential mineral wealth, defense testing grounds, alternative energy sources, or a vast recreational playground. Or maybe you see the desert for what it is— a diverse, thriving, ecosystem.”

I would add that deserts are a place of rare beauty and endless fascination, the equivalent of any of the other natural wonders we find in the world.

A quote from Edward Abbey was also included on the board: “It seems to me that the strangeness and wonder of existence are emphasized here, in the desert, by the comparative sparsity of the flora and fauna: life not crowded upon life, with a generous gift of space for each herb and bush and tree, each stem of grass, so that the living organism stands out bold and brave and vivid against the lifeless sand and barren rock.