It was a new one for us: A national monument that featured turkeys on its entrance sign. Apparently the Ancestral Puebloans, who lived at Bandelier from 1150 CE to 1550 CE, had domesticated them as livestock and herded them like cattle. The models for the turkeys looked like petroglyphs. We were eager to find them. It wasn’t easy.We had a flock of turkeys that lived on our property in Oregon. They weren’t domesticated and we didn’t eat them, but they were entertaining. Here, a group of toms is doing the turkey trot in our back yard, or maybe it’s a Conga line, or a fan dance.
We had planned on going to Chaco National Historic Park the day we visited Bandelier but weather conditions were iffy and the dirt roads into the park can become impassible during bad weather. When I called the park the day before, the ranger had told me that heavy rain was expected during the night and I should call them back in the morning. He sounded grouchy. Given that the park was three hours away and the park’s information center didn’t open until nine, we wouldn’t get there until noon, assuming we could go at all. We decided on going to Bandelier instead. It was located within two hours from where we were staying in Albuquerque, the roads were paved, and the park was open come rain or shine. Its setting among high cliffs of the easily erodible tuff rock, the incorporation of cavates into the Ancestral Puebloan homes, and our search for turkey petroglyphs combined to make the visit special.
The tuff cliffs and cavates of Bandelier National Monument are what make the area special. Tuff is a relatively soft rock that derives from compressed volcanic ash. The holes on the upper cliff face are from natural erosion. The large holes along the base are cavates, caves chiseled out of the soft rock with harder rocks such as basalt by the Ancestral Puebloans for shelter and storage.This satellite photo that we found at the information center shows two things that caught our attention. First, the Valles Caldera is the location of the Jemez Volcano which erupted twice a million or so years ago and spewed out the ash that created the tuff cliffs. It is estimated that each of the eruptions created more than 600 times the amount of ash than the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens did. The second is Los Alamos, a town located 10 miles north of the park. Its claim to fame is being the birthplace of the atomic bomb during WWII. (It’s not a fame I would want for my home town, but it is historic.) Bandelier was closed at the time and the lodge was used to house employees of the project.A towering cliff of tuff overlooking Frijoles Canyon. During the summer months, the Ancestral Puebloans climbed out of the canyon and farmed on top of the Pajarito Plateau as well as in the canyon.An easily walkable paved trail leads out from the information center to the major sites of the Bandelier. A few flowers, left over from spring and early summer, still decorated the trail. This one is known as fire wheel or blanket flower.A checkered white butterfly sips nectar from a golden Aster.Datura gets high marks for its beauty. Georgia O’Keefe, who lived less than 50 miles away from Bandelier, made the flower famous through her paintings. It had a different meaning to the Ancestral Puebloans living here. Datura contains a powerful hallucinogenic that was used by Native Americans to initiate youth into adulthood and by shamans to enter trances to invoke supernatural powers for a variety of purposes ranging from curing people of illness to warding off evil spirits. It isn’t something one wants to experiment with. Misuse can cause death. Other than the cavates, this large kiva was our first view of a structure built by the Ancestral Puebloans in Bandelier. It would have had the double purpose of serving the spiritual needs of the community and providing a meeting place for decision making. Its large size speaks to its importance. The Ancestral Puebloan village of Tyuonyi came next. The walls are standing in the same place they were when excavated and have been stabilized with a permeable mud mortar.The pueblo was built in a circular fashion several rooms deep. A large open area was in the middle.A climb up the hill above Tyuonyi provided an overview. Frijoles Creek with its rich riparian habitat is behind the pueblo. It would have provided the Ancestral Puebloans with water for farming plus wild plants and animals for food. An information board gave an artist’s view of what the structure would have looked like when occupied. There are even some turkeys hanging out on the roofs. (I suspect they would have been down in the center with clipped wings, but…) The three round structures are kivas. Entry for the kivas and the pueblos is from the roof.Another perspective of Tyuonyi from above. This one is with rocks because Peggy and I like rocks. Note the eye-like holes…Peggy used one of them to bring the pueblo ruins into focus. The tall plant is mullein. A Texas blogging friend of mine told me that during the Great-Covid-Toilet-Paper-Shortage, the large leaves could serve as a substitute. And, no, I didn’t try them.Some of the rocks overlooking the the pueblo seemed almost anthropomorphic and I couldn’t help but wonder if the Ancestral Puebloans gave any significance to them.Or possibly carved them. This one certainly looks like it. Was there a Michelangelo among the Puebloans? I couldn’t find any reference to it, however, which leads me to wonder if modern day Puebloans have objected to them being pointed out for religious reasons or fear of their being damaged. Or, were the rocks carved by erosion and my imagination is simply working overtime here? What do you think? The cactus in front is a member of the Cholla family.We climbed the trail above the ruins of Tyuonyi for a couple of reasons beyond its interesting rocks and views. One was to visit the Talus House. It had been reconstructed in 1920 to demonstrate what the buildings the Ancestral Puebloans built in front of the cavates looked like.Our other reason was to check out one of the cavates that Bandelier had made available for visitors. Hiking down from our trip up to the Talus House and the cavate, we found Cave Kiva that had once been available for visitors but was now closed because graffiti had been repeatedly scribbled on the walls. So sad and wrong. It’s no surprise that modern day Puebloans are concerned about exposing their sacred sites.The steep trail down featured attractive rocks and impressive thunderheads. The metal handrails along the walkway can be seen here.I used a hole in the rocks to photograph the dark clouds that were rapidly approaching and threatening us with rain.The most visually interesting part of the park in terms of the cavates was the Long House, so called because it stretched out for over 100 yards and featured a number of the hand constructed caves. Buildings like Talus House would have fronted each of the cavates. The walls of the houses can still be seen in front.Looking back. Note the round holes surrounding the cavates. These were used for the support beams on the roofs of the houses.Some of the building would have been three stories high.Long House was occupied for 400 years. Imagine what stories each of these cavates would have to tell. We focused our camera on the left one to peer inside…And saw what appeared to be a threatening bird warning us not to enter. It would take a brave (or foolish) soul to disobey.We came to a smoother section of Long House where a sign told us there were hundreds of petroglyphs, including turkeys.Finding them was the challenge. Unlike the petroglyphs carved on rocks with desert varnish that are found throughout the Southwest and have contrasting colors, these were the same color of the light brown tuff they were carved in. With careful perusal on site and even more at home with the photos, they gradually begin to appear.Follow the outline around and an elongated cat-like face with ears emerges. This may have been a Kachina.There is power here.Study this for a moment and a horned serpent seems to appear. If so, it could be Awanyu, an important deity of the Pueblo peoples because of its close association with water, always critical in a desert environment.Looking closely at this, we could begin to understand why the park claimed there are hundreds of petroglyphs on the walls. A snake makes its way up the wall on the right and ends with a rectangular eyed face. Another snake parallels it on the left. Check out the two round circles to the left of the hole and another cat man with a downturned mouth emerges. Not a clue what the petroglyph on the lower right represents. Remember, we can only guess, at best, what the petroglyphs meant to the Ancestral Puebloans.Just to the left of the cat man was a guy standing on what appears to be a pedestal with his hands up in the air screaming. Mind you, this is all my interpretation, but with all of the snakes crawling around that’s what I would have been doing. This may have been another Kachina. Check out the two carved circles on the middle right and the cat man reappears.Tail wagging doggy on the left?And finally, turkeys. There are at least three here. Start with the tail feathers top center. Below and slightly to the right are more tail feathers.The circle was more challenging but a faint head can be seen on the left and faint tail feathers on the right.This pictograph was once covered with plaster. It was discovered during archeological work and is now covered in glass for preservation.The prize among the petroglyphs is this large rendition of a macaw that apparently had its own niche carved out. Imported on foot from Mesoamerica some 1500 miles to the south, macaws became a symbol of prestige among Ancestral Puebloans, especially those at the large Chaco site where the Bandelier Puebloans likely migrated from. (According to oral tradition, the Bandelier Puebloans migrated on to the Cochiti Pueblo on the Rio Grande River in the 1500s, which is where their descendants now live.)As we hiked down the trail heading back toward the information center, we took a final look back at the tuff cliffs and cavates of Bandolier National Monument. It had been a great visit and we highly recommend that you check it out if you are in the area.. Next up, we will take you to the large Renaissance Festival in Maryland where we were this past week. After that, it will be back to the Southwest.
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.
This single Joshua tree and sparce plant life backed up by a massive rock monument emphasize what Abby had to say.A yucca claimed its space on the desert floor.It featured curlicue fibers peeling off the edges. They are common to yuccas.Also claiming its space was a cholla and its shadow backlit by the sun. As untouchable as they appear, we found birds nesting in them throughout the Southwest. What spelled danger for most animals (including us), proved to be a safe haven for Curved Bill Thrashers and Cactus Wrens.This tortoise crossing sign reminded us of how much plants and animals that call desert home have adapted to life in an extreme hot, dry climate. Tortoises, for example, are experts at getting water from plants and conserving what water they get. When water is in short supply, they excrete their urine in a toothpaste-like form and hang on to the water! On a more prosaic note, I wondered how fast they can move. They are turtles after all. I learned that Bertie the Tortoise holds the Guinness record of .6 of a mile per hour. I also learned what a group of turtles are called: A creep. You can challenge your friends with this one.Careful observation informed us of other desert inhabitants. Something had scratched the ground here. But who— and what for. I noticed something partially buried at the end of the scratch and looked closer…It was fresh scat filled with berries. When one thinks of buried scat, the first thought that normally comes to mind is a cat, right? That led me to think bobcat. While they are mainly carnivorous, they won’t pass up berries if their favorite food isn’t on the menu. With that in mind, we left thinking it was probably a bobcat that had passed by the night before. That may be older cat-scat just above it. If so, the bobcat was likely marking its territory.Legend has it that the Mormons making their way through the desert named Joshua Trees after the Biblical Joshua who ‘lifted his arms’ to guide the Israelites. These youngsters ‘raising the arms’ may be sprouting from a fallen tree.The usual form of propagation is from seeds, however. We saw several Joshua trees sporting seed pods. A freeze is required for the tree to bloom and produce seeds. (Because of the requirement, global warming may endanger the plant. Forest fires have also taken a toll.)Seed pods. There is one more requirement: Yucca moths. The tiny, rice-sized insects are the trees sole pollinators and the trees flowers are the sole hosts for yucca moth eggs and caterpillars, thus forming an evolutionary, symbiotic relationship.While most Joshua trees seem rather skimpy, this one was a beauty. The trees normally grow to be around 40 feet tall and live around 150 years. Giants can top out at over 50 feet and live to be 300. Lacking tree rings, however, age is extremely difficult to determine. Some may be much older.A forest of Joshua trees.And now, on to the rocks. This skinny Joshua tree and massive rock seem to be having a conversation.The most impressive pile of boulders we saw.For fun, we took a photo of our truck, Iorek, in front of a rock pile. (Iorek is named after the Polar Bear in The Golden Compass. Our travel trailer is named Serafina, after the witch in the movie.) It wasn’t until I was putting together today’s post that I noticed the rock reflection in rear window. What a great optical illusion. It appears to be coming out of the window.This split rock was the most unusual stand-alone rock we saw. Holes in the rocks led to some interesting photo ops.Peggy playing around. Had she been 70 years younger, I can guarantee she would had been crawling through. In fact, there was no guarantee she wouldn’t at 75!We thought, “bird.”Close up. Snoopy’s friend Woodstock, perhaps.A necklace of rock cutting through the granite caught our attention. It was formed after the monzogranite formed and developed cracks. A subsequent flow of molten rock consisting of a mixture of quartz and potassium minerals were forced into the cracks and cooled as lighter colored rocks. When the rocks were exposed at the surface, they broke into blocks somewhat uniform in structure.As the granite eroded away, it left the harder dike rock on the surface.Nearby, a lone oak added a touch of beauty. We were surprised to find it here where Joshua trees dominate the landscape.We were also surprised to find an elephant. Grin. Can you spot its image? An elephant from our safari trip to Southern Africa two years ago. This is a good place to wrap up this blog. Next up: Bandelier NationalMonument in New Mexico.To the Ancestral Puebloans, this was home sweet home.
We used to think of Arizona’s Painted Desert and Petrified Forest as two separate units even though they are located next to each other and are part of Petrified National Park: We went to see petrified wood in the Petrified Forest and colorful landscapes in the Painted Desert. In actuality, they are both part of the same geological unit: The Painted Desert. They both display colorful landscapes and they both feature petrified wood. This photo is from one of the overlooks in the Painted Desert section north of I-40. Colorful? Yes. But it also includes chunks and logs of petrified wood. A petrified log can be seen on the lower center left.This is a section of Petrified Forest south of I-40 known as the Teepees. The colors are soft but close to otherworldly. Visitors have the option of entering the National Park from its north or south entrance. Peggy and I chose the north which makes a loop north of I-40 through the Painted Desert following the historic Route 66. One of our first stops was at the Painted Desert Inn. It sits above the Painted Desert providing visitors with a superb view of the surroundings. Originally opened by a private entrepreneur in 1920, the National Park bought it in the mid-30s and rebuilt it in Neo-pueblo style using CCC workers. Fred Harvey took over its management in the 40s utilizing the Harvey Girls to provide service to weary travelers. In 1947, the company’s architect, Mary Jane Colter, was brought on to remodel and renovate the facility. Today, it is a National Historic Site and museum, well worth a visit. The El Tovar Hotel and Desert View Tower of the Grand Canyon are among Colter’s many other notable projects.A local raven was seeking handouts near the Inn.I pointed out a nearby lizard and suggested that if he wanted food, he should hunt for it.He squawked at me. Something about wanting to be paid with in PB&J sandwiches if I was going to use him as a model.One of our favorite views of the Painted Desert.Our good friends from Sacramento, Tom Lovering and Lita Campbell, joined us on our visit to the Petrified Forest National Park. Here, they are perched on a 1932 Studebaker that the Park has placed along the Route 66 segment to symbolize the historic journey travelers followed along the route. The old car now provides a photo op for tourists. BTW, Studebaker got his start in Placerville (aka Hangtown), 3 miles from where I grew up in the Sierra foothills, making wheelbarrows for miners seeking wealth in California’s 1849 Gold Rush.Leaving the north side of I-40, we crossed over to the south side. Our first stop was at the Puerco Pueblo, a village built by Ancestral Puebloans and occupied between 1250 and 1380 CE. The pueblo had over 100 rooms at its peak. Located next to the Rio Puerco (Pig River), it had contacts from throughout the Ancestral Puebloan region and beyond. Artifacts and petroglyphs found at the site and nearby suggest these wide ranging connections.The best known petroglyph next to the pueblo is a water bird, possibly a white faced Ibis, about to chow down on a frog. The round, white petroglyphs may represent water dripping down from the bird.Numerous petroglyphs are found at the Petrified Forest’s Newspaper Rock located about a mile away from Puerco Pueblo.The petroglyphs found at the site Include a wide variety of subjects.The lower right section of the above series featured a naked man and woman. The ancients appear to have had few of the hang ups with nudity our modern society does. I thought of the woman saying, “Hi honey, I’m home.” As for the guy, apparently ‘size matters.’ We really liked the coyote on the right and immediately thought of Wile E Coyote and the Road Runner. The spiral above is thought to represent the journey of Ancestral Puebloans from the underworld in their search of a permanent home.
Peggy found several petroglyphs she might include in her next word search book— but don’t expect to find the naked couple.Next we arrived at the Teepee mountains, which I showed in the second photo. The colorful, layered rocks are part of the Chinle Formation deposited during Triassic period between 205-227 million years ago. The colors are determined by minerals in the rocks and the conditions at the time at the time they were deposited. A side road south of the Teepees takes visitors into the Blue Mesa, which provides an up-close perspective on the Chinle Formation. We highly recommend it. The following photos show why.Multiple colors,Including white.And interesting land formations.Another example.And tons of petrified wood. Perspective makes this log on a pedestal seem bigger than it is, but it is big! Broken off pieces surround the pedestal.This brings us to the petrified wood section of our post. I used Tom for perspective in this and my next photo to demonstrate how large some of the logs are.Tom appears tiny down at the end of this long, petrified log. Also, note the petrified bark that is still on the tree.This big fellow was making its way down a hill. Timber!One of the things fascinating about petrified wood is the variety of colors. They are created by different minerals that replace the wood in the petrification process. For example, red, brown and yellow come from iron oxide, white from silicon dioxide, black from carbon, blue and green from cobalt, chrome, and copper, etc.Not sure what made the holes but look how rich the blue is. You can also see the bark here.One can wander around for hours admiring the different logs.There are hundreds of them.A visit to the Rainbow Forest Museum concluded our visit. This large petroglyph of a mountain lion is one of the museum’s prime exhibits and serves as a symbol of the park. I have a T-shirt with it on the back.I persuaded Tom to take his photo with the skeletal remains the museum’s phytosaur, a large crocodile like reptile from 225 million years ago. It’s known as Smiley. That’s a wrap for today. Next up: The crazy trees and fabulous rocks of Joshua Tree National Park.
Canyon de Chelly has been occupied for five thousand years starting with various Archaic people. Ancestral Puebloans called it home from approximately 200 BCE to 1300 CE. Hopi lived there after 1300 up until 1700. Navajo people have occupied Canyon de Chelly since. Today, the canyon is owned by the Navajo Tribal Trust and jointly operated as a National Monument with the National Park Service. The photo above shows pueblos left behind by the Ancestral Puebloans (center caves). They are dwarfed by the high cliffs of the canyon. Their position on the cliff shows why they would have been difficult to attack.
The occupation by the Navajo has been interrupted twice. In 1805, Spanish forces under Antonio Narbona, the future governor of Spain’s New Mexico territory, attacked, killed and captured a number of Navajos because they refused to accept Spanish rule.
By the 1860s, the Navajo faced a new threat. American settlers from the eastern US were pouring into the newly acquired territory and the US Government developed a policy to make room for them by ousting the natives. The Navajos would be required to move to reservations, leaving their homelands behind for the newcomers. Not surprising, they refused. So a decision was made to force them out. The US Army under the command of James Henry Carleton ordered Kit Carson to subjugate the Navajo using a scorched earth approach that involved burning their homes, destroying their crops and killing their livestock.
Earlier, in his efforts to subdue the Mescalero Apaches, Carleton had given the following order to his subordinates: “All Indian men of that tribe are to be killed whenever and wherever you can find them. … If the Indians send in a flag of truce say to the bearer … that you have been sent to punish them for their treachery and their crimes. That you have no power to make peace, that you are there to kill them wherever you can find them”.
In 1864, facing starvation, the Navajo capitulated, signed a treaty, and began a forced march during the heart of winter to Fort Sumner’s Bosque Redondo Reservation in New Mexico. The 300 plus mile hike, the Long Walk as it came to be known by the Navajos, left numerous Navajo dead from exposure, starvation, and exhaustion. Bosque Redondo was equally bad if not worse. Food, space, water and sanitation facilities were limited in the extreme for the 8500 Navajo and 500 Mescalero Apache occupants. Furthermore, it was run like an internment camp instead of a reservation. An estimated one quarter of the population died during the four years of the camp’s occupation.
Finally, in 1868, a new treaty was signed with the Navajo that allowed them to return to a portion of their original homelands, including Canyon de Chelly. Today, the Long Walk, like the Cherokee’s Trail of Tears, is remembered by the Navajo an an important part of their history.
it isn’t a history that the Trump Administration wants remembered however. He has ordered the Department of the Interior to take action to ensure “descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (meaning information like that above), and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.
Apparently, Carleton and Carson are not to be disparaged. My bad. History is to be remembered as Trump wants it remembered. George Orwell’s 1984 comes to mind.
If the administration has its way, books and displays like this are to be removed from national parks and monuments. A similar effort is underway at the Smithsonian.
Today, marks the end of my planned series on the Trump Administration’s threat to our national parks, monuments and other public lands. I believe that I have covered his primary focus and actions as they relate to our public lands. Having said that, I’ll still report on major threats as they emerge and, at some point, do a summary of how successful efforts to protect the parks have been.
I also have in mind doing a post on Mt. Rushmore National Monument. The President has repeatedly expressed a desire to have his image added to those of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. (At one point, Elon Musk even volunteered to carve it, but I suspect that’s off the table.) My objective is to look at the major accomplishments of each of these men who played such an important role in making the nation what it is today and then comment on how the President goal of Making America Great Again, relates to their accomplishments.
But for now, it’s back to sharing the beautiful and fascinating world we live in while Peggy and I continue to ‘wander through time and place.’
I was reading Baby Blues in the comics this past week and it made me think of this Ancestral Puebloan home and petroglyph in Canyon de Chelly. In the comic, Wanda is tucking her son in and says “Sweet Dreams, Hammie.” He responds, “Can you leave the light on? I had a really scary dream last night.” We can attribute his nightmare to stories his sister Zoe has told him about what hides in his room. Now, imagine you are a young boy or girl and your window opens out on the this creature climbing down the wall. Who needs a monster under the bed or in the closet? We really don’t know the meaning applied to this petroglyph, however. We can only guess. Mine is that the ‘monster’ wasn’t designed to scare children but may have been to discourage enemies from climbing up to the pueblo. If it encouraged children to be good, that was probably okay as well. But again, we can only guess at the meaning. The white dots, BTW, are cottonwood tree seeds. It was ‘snowing’ with them.The best known pueblo in Canyon de Chelly is named the White House Pueblo for the white color of the upper building. Initially built by Ancestral Puebloans in 1060 CE, they continued adding to it for the next 200 years. It is estimated there were more than 80 rooms when it was finished.Built on two levels, archeologists speculate that the botton level may have originally reached the upper level. The White House Pueblo is the only place in Canyon de Chelly that visitors can walk to without a guide. Have you spotted the petroglyph? Center on wall beneath the ’snowflake.’ Up close. There are others on the wall even more faint than this one. A view of the lower level of the White House Pueblo.Numerous other ruins left behind by the Ancestral Puebloans are found throughout the park. I rendered this one in black and white. The round building in front is a kiva.Another example.This ruin featured a prominent swastika. (There is also one on the pueblo I rendered in black and white above.) As I mentioned in a previous post, long before the Nazis adopted the symbol to their cause, it represented an heroic journey, good health, and well being to the Ancestral Puebloans and Navajos.Peggy was delighted to find a treasure chest of petroglyphs in Canyon de Chelly and searched “high and low’ so to speak for ones she might use in her next word search petroglyph book. I’m not sure this will make it, but you have to admit it’s unusual and perhaps a bit scary. You wouldn’t want one living under your bed.Speaking of scary, we almost missed these pictograph creatures. They seemed to be hiding in the rock, ready to pounce on us. Talk about Nightmare City. Check out the claws on the horned fellow.Not as scary but quite interesting. The pictograph figure on the left is the humped back Kokopelli lying on his back and playing his flute. We have numerous depictions of Kokopelli from different petroglyph sites throughout the Southwest but we have never seen him lying down. Given his role in fertility and protecting women in childbirth, it may have something to do with the woman on the right who is in the position that most petroglyphs relate to childbirth. Whatever his role, I would say it’s a hands-on experience. And then there is the snake slithering through the scene…This scene shows horsemen closing in on a deer. Since the use of horses in the Southwest by Native Americans depended on Spaniards bringing them to to America in the 1500s, these petroglyphs would have been created in the 1600s or later and are likely done by Navajos. I really like the sense of action portrayed by the deer and horses. And their ‘look.’The man on the bottom horse is holding onto the the reins in his right hand. Not sure what he is doing with his left. Waving. I’m surprised he wasn’t shown holding a spear.These pictographs by Ancestral Puebloans were at least 100 feet up on a canyon cliff. The top left scene shows how hunting was done prior to when horses, bows and arrows were introduced. A throwing stick, known as an atlatl, is being used to throw a spear with greater force and distance than a person normally could throw one. You can see the stick in the Puebloan’s hand. He has hit his target. Ouch. A number of other subjects are included on the panel. I’m intrigued by what looks like a very happy dog in the lower left hand corner complete with ears, nose, eyes, a smiling face and a wagging tale. Surely it’s my imagination.This large ‘canvas’ was similar to what are know as ‘newspaper rocks’ in Canyonlands and Petrified Forest National Parks. It is filled with petroglyphs showing a variety of animals and people. The lighter figure would have been a more recent addition.A closer look. Take a moment to explore the variety. Following are more pictographs that caught our attention:More anthropomorphic creatures coming forward out of the rock.Birds in a row. Are they doing the one legged turkey hop to Kokopelli’s flute music?We were interested in how these animals were positioned to walk on the edge of the broken off rock and even more interested in the reddish brown deer between them.A closer look at the deer.I’ll close today’s post with another unusual pictograph. Note the man holding up the two posts. Lightning seems to be emanating from the posts, or possibly being attracted to the posts in what may be some type of ceremony. Animals are attracted to the scene while the lighting cuts through a yellow shaman/man. Other men hike up the hill, leaving the area. I guess my comment is: What??? But that’s part of the magic of pictographs and petroglyphs.Next up: The ever attractive beauty and geology of the Painted Desert and Petrified National Park.
For those of you who keep track, Peggy and I are now back at our home/basecamp in Virginia. We still have several blogs from our journey into the Southwest that I will be posting over the next several weeks as we get ready for another adventure: Leaf peeping in New England, along the Blue Ridge Highway, and at Great Smoky National Park.
The eastern diamondback rattlesnake has been known to grow almost eight feet long.
I’ve have been to Albuquerque, New Mexico several times over the years. One place that I always wanted to go but never managed to was the American International Rattlesnake Museum. They have one of the largest collections of live rattlesnakes in the world. Could it be that whoever I was traveling with didn’t share my enthusiasm?
Peggy, however, is game for almost anything and snake images almost always show up among the petroglyphs that fascinate her so much. So off we went to the museum two weeks ago.
Peggy even bought a rattlesnake T-shirt from the museum. Is there a message here?
That I have a certain ‘fondness’ for rattlesnakes isn’t news to my blog followers. I’ve had numerous encounters with them over the years and have written about several. I’ve even been known to get down on my stomach when they are crawling toward me so I can get better head shots. (Peggy gets a little ouchy about that.) I suspect my attitude would be considerably different if I’d ever been bitten by one. Rattlesnake bites can be deadly, or at a minimum, extremely painful. It’s not something one wants to test.
Fortunately, rattlesnakes come with an early warning system. They rattle. The rattles are made up of keratin, that’s the same thing your fingernails are made of. When irritated, the snake vibrates its tail, knocking its rattles together. It makes a very distinctive sound, one you never forget, one guaranteed to shoot your heart rate up faster that a skyrocket on the 4th of July.
Each time a rattlesnake sheds its skin in grows a new rattle. This makes up for ones it has lost. The bigger the snake the bigger the rattle. The Ancestral Puebloans included a rattle on this petroglyph of a rattlesnake in Petroglyph National Monument, Albuquerque. It’s probably a coyote or a dog beneath the rattler, obviously not worried.
A rattlesnake you see coiled up, rattling its tail, and ready to strike is worrisome, to put it mildly. It’s not a problem, however— as long as you stay clear of its strike zone, which can range from half to two thirds of its body length. For a six foot snake (which is a very big snake), that would be from 3 to 4 feet. If you want to check this out, use a long stick. I have. (Don’t try this at home, kids.)
One you can hear but can’t see is a quantum leap scarier. I stepped on a dead log once ‘that started to rattle’ and found myself an olympic winning 15 feet down the trail before my mind registered snake. There is some evidence that our fear of snakes is instinctive. For example, have you ever come close to stepping on one you didn’t see in advance. Did you find yourself thinking, “snake, maybe I should be concerned.”
Odds are your reaction was more like this guy from another petroglyph at Petroglyph National Monument. Eek!
When I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa, I had a cat named Rasputin that proved the hypothesis about fear of snakes. I discovered if I took the old fashioned spring off my back door and rolled it toward him, he would leap 6 feet into the air and land on our couch or other piece of furniture well out of reach from the deadly ’snake.’ Being scientifically oriented, I did it 3 or 4 times just to make sure.
On the other hand, back in California I had a basset hound named Socrates that seemed to counter the theory. I was hiking with him one day at Folsom Lake near Sacramento when I noticed him walk out on to a granite ledge and start sniffing down into the cracks. Suddenly he began barking like the baying hound he was: Loud. Simultaneously, the rock became alive with rattles. Socrates had discovered a rattlesnake den. They can get big, big like in a hundred snakes. Some have even been found with a thousand. Talk about an Indiana Jones’ nightmare…
It was for me, as well. “Socrates, come here!” I demanded. And then again. And again. Each time louder and more desperate. All, to no avail. He just kept barking louder. Damn, that dog could be stubborn. Finally, there was nothing I could do but walk out on the buzzing rock, grab him by the collar, and bodily drag him off. I was lucky I didn’t pee my pants. Had I not immediately put his leash on and pulled him away, he would have gone right back to barking up a storm at the irritated, poisonous serpents.
Here are a few facts on rattlers:
There are between 32 and 45 species of rattlesnakes, many of which live in the Southwest where Peggy and I just spent five months wandering around outside. They can range in size from 15-24 inches like the pigmy rattlesnake of the South up to close to 8 feet like the eastern diamond back. Peggy’s brother John and his wife Frances found one of these monsters in their backyard in Texas.
They are superb predators. While lacking an outer ear that would allow them to hear their prey, they have an inner ear that allows them to sense the vibrations of a prey’s movements. Vertical pupils aid in depth perception for strikes and pits on the side of their faces serve as heat detectors which allow rattlers to see their prey in pitch dark situations. Being members of the pit viper family they have large, sharp, hollow fangs that are designed to deliver venom. The fangs fold back against the rattlesnake’s mouth when not in use.
And finally, here’s a long word for you to impress your friends with: ovoviviparous. It means the rattlesnake mommy hatches her eggs inside of her body and her babies are born alive, ready for action as soon as they can bite their way out of the protective sack they are born in.
And now for a few of the photos we took at the museum.
The museum had a book of Gahan Wilson cartoons on snakes.One way to recognize a rattlesnake, beside the obvious rattles, is by the distinctive shape of its head, which it shares with other pit vipers.Okay, a bit scary.Beautiful brown.Coiled and ready.Note the vertical pupils.Moving along.
Plus a couple of snakes that weren’t rattlers, but we were fascinated by their colors.
An albino milk snake.And this striking green snake which, as I remember, was a python. (Don’t quote me.)And finally, Peggy and I in front of the museum, which is located in the historic section of Albuquerque. Not sure why they chose the skull and string of peppers instead of a rattlesnake but they are symbols of New Mexico. Next up, we will conclude our posts on Canyon de Chelly National Monument.
Canyon de Chelly (pronounced shay) is famous for its spectacular canyon views and ancient history. Today, the national monument is jointly operated by the Navajo Nation (who owns the land) and the US Government.
Peggy and I have visited Canyon de Chelly twice, first in 2019 in October and then this year in June. In 2019 we drove the South and North Rim roads and then explored the inner canyon. The two roads are open for anyone to drive. The tour of the inner canyon requires that visitors have a Navajo Guide along. Our friends Tom and Lita from Sacramento joined us in June where we did the inner canyon tour but, unfortunately, didn’t have time for the rim drives. I’ve opted to use photos from both visits.
We are going to feature the scenic side of the canyon today. Next week, we will look at the canyon’s ancient history in terms of pueblos that the Ancestral Puebloans built in the canyon and petroglyphs and pictographs from both the Puebloan and Navajo time periods. I also want to discuss the Long Walk where Navajo were forced to abandon their homelands to settlers pouring in from the eastern US. It’s the type of story that President Trump is now trying to ban from national parks and monuments because it detracts from his concept of a great America.
But first, the beauty.
We admired this prominent landmark from inside the canyon in both the summer and fall. First summer…The long view. Not bad, huh.And now for fall.Both summer and fall were beautiful. Do you have a preference? I confess to being taken more by the contrast created by the fall foliage, but it’s close.Fall doesn’t get much more colorful than this.I thought green fit this tree well, however. The stripes on the wall are created by minerals left behind by flowing water.Here, they ‘painted’ an unusual picture worthy of a modern art gallery.This was one of many rock monuments found in the canyon. Note the petroglyphs on the bottom. It is no surprise that the Navajos and Ancestral Puebloans selected this dramatic rock as a canvas. Looking up provided this view of an arch.At first, I felt that the tracks left by all of the visitors took away from the beauty. There were bunches. But then I found the shadows created by the sun made them photogenic. Four wheel drive was essential.Another example.Rocks breaking off the walls add to the beauty and mystique of the canyon. It takes little imagine to turn these into a tree.Speaking of imagination, mine turned this old car into an alligator disguised as a flower box lurking in wait for a tourist dinner. ( Admittedly, my imagination can be a bit wild at times.)Navajos live and farm in the canyon. Some offer horse rides. Our guide on the fall trip raised horses and rented them out for Western’s. He had also performed in some of the movies.The Navajo raise sheep up on the rim of the canyon.Driving the south and north rim roads of Canyon de Chelly provides a totally different perspective on the canyon and its amazing rock formations.Close up.There was no end to the variety of patterns in the rock.Sometimes it looked as if the rock was melting.The most recognizable monument in Canyon de Chelly is Spider Rock, a 750 foot (230 m) spire that is said to be the home of Spider Woman, an important figure to several different Native American tribes. To the Navajo, she is a helper and protector. It’s also said that they tell their children that she will catch them in her web and eat them if they are bad. Way to go Spider Woman. Grin. You can see one of the canyon’s roads working its way up the canyon. A close up of Spider rock.More of the canyons interesting rocks lit up by the late afternoon sun.A last view of the inner canyon in fall.We’ll wrap this post up with a photo of sunset from the canyon rim. Our next post will be on the pueblos and petroglyphs of Canyon de Chelly. I may, however slip in a quick post on one of my favorite subjects: Rattlesnakes.
One of many lakes found in the Tahoe National Forest’s Grouse Ridge Non-Motorized Area where Peggy and I went backpacking last week. I’d asked Peggy what she wanted to do for her 75th Birthday. Her first answer was to visit our son Tony and his family in Florida, which we did and had a great time. The second thing was go backpacking! “I’ll pass on the 750 miles you did for your 75th, however, Curt,” she informed me. “I think 7.5 sounds more reasonable.” We laughed. At 82, I also gave a sigh of relief. Possibly you heard me.Since we were visiting friends and family in Sacramento on a break from our five-month exploration of the Southwest, the Five Lakes Basin was a natural for our trip. This is a view from one of the lakes looking up at the Black Buttes. While there are several ways to enter the Grouse Ridge Non-Motorized area, our normal way is to follow I-80 from Sacramento and take the Highway 20 cutoff toward Nevada City for approximately 5 miles. Turn right on Bowman Lake Road and continue on that road for 5 miles. Turn right on the unimproved, ultra-bouncy, dirt Grouse Ridge Road for 6 miles until you reach the Grouse Ridge Campground. The road has always been a challenge. This time it featured holes that would eat a VW bug! (Slight exaggeration but not much.)I’ve been backpacking in the Grouse Ridge/Five Lakes Basin since 1969, 56 years ago. It’s an all time favorite of mine. I actually remember the exact day I started to backpack: July 20, 1969. The day Neil Armstrong took his first step on the moon, I took my first step backpacking near Grouse Ridge. I made it into the Five Lake Basin in 1970 and camped just to the right of this little waterfall.Twenty years later in 1990, a few months after I had met Peggy, I bought her a backpack for her 40th birthday and took her into my favorite lake. Her only requirement was that I carry in a water bottle full of Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry. I don’t know whether it was the beauty of the area or the sherry, but Peggy came to love backpacking and the Basin— almost as much as I do.This map shows the trail system from Grouse Ridge Campground into Five Lakes Basin and Glacier Lake. Peggy and I followed the Glacier Lakes Trail for her 75th birthday, the Sand Ridge trail for her 40th. In the early 70s, off-road enthusiasts could follow the route I outlined here up to the first lake at the end of Sand Ridge. I did that once with my friends. The following year I watched an off-road dirt bike rider tear up a beautiful meadow doing brodies, which led me to join forces with the Nevada County Sierra Club in advocating for the non-motorized status, an effort that was successful.Having just finished her 75th Birthday backpack trip, Peggy stands with a big smile at the Grouse Ridge Campground with the Black Buttes behind her. We camped just beneath the highest peak at Glacier Lake. The Five Lakes Basin lies just beneath Glacier Lake. (Her T-Shirt features Big Foot, the world’s hide and seek champion.) I’ll include more photos of our trip at the end of this blog.
I’ve done a number of posts on the area over the years. People researching the Basin are bound to come across them. In fact, I was amused a couple of days ago when I was trying to remember when glaciers carved the basin with its lakes and googled the question. 20,000 years ago was the AI response. I looked up the source, as I usually do with AI answers. It was Wandering-Through-Time-and-Place. A fairly reliable source, I’d say. Grin.
I noted in an earlier post that the Grouse Ridge Non-Motorized Area is well-loved. Maybe too much so, especially for someone like me who prefers his/her wilderness rugged, wild and relatively people-free. But I make an exception for this region. It’s an easy place for people to get to and is very backpacker-friendly for families and newcomers to the sport. It serves as a great introduction. There is considerable value in this— for the people of course— but also for our world. People who experience the wilderness in a positive way are much more likely to appreciate it, and want to protect it, which is critically important for ourselves, our children, and future generations. As I have emphasized over and over in this series.
Especially in this era when the Trump Administration wants to open up national forests, BLM lands, and national monuments for logging, mining and housing developments. His most recent target is roadless areas. Information this month suggests that the administration is moving to repeal the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, opening up approximately 58 million acres of national forest lands to road building and logging. I doubt it will include the Grouse Ridge area. But it could.
Here are some photos taken from my posts that emphasize what might be lost.
The serenity of the Five Lakes Basin’s ‘biggest little lake’ could be shattered by the sound of chainsaws. When I see this photo, I always think of Gary Snyder, the Nobel Prize winner, “poet laureate of Deep Ecology,” and who— along with his friends Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Alan Watts— was prominent in introducing Zen Buddhism to America. Living on San Juan Ridge near Nevada City, he fell in love with the Sierras and the Grouse Ridge area in much the same way I did. He even wrote a poem about the Five Lakes Basin:
Old Pond
Blue mountain, white snow gleam Through pine bulk and slender needle-sprays; little hemlock half in shade, ragged rocky skyline,
single clear flat nuthatch call: down from the tree trunks
up through time.
At Five Lakes Basin’s Biggest little lake after all day scrambling on the peaks, a naked bug with a white body and brown hair
dives in the water,
Splash!
Like Snyder, my spiritual views of the world are more Eastern than Western, but it really doesn’t matter what your religious perspective is when it comes to the value gained by connecting with nature. I agree with John Muir’s statement: “The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.” Here, in this photo by Peggy, I am reading Hermann Hess’s classic about a young man’s spiritual journey at the time of Buddha, Siddhartha. I suspect that Snyder would love this twisted manzanita I found near his biggest little lake.And this ancient juniper. I’m a fan of reflection shots. Every lake in the Five Lakes Basin provides examples of why. This is morning on a lake I once named Peggy’s since I couldn’t find a name for it.Evening on the same lake.Just for fun, I’ve discovered that turning reflection shots on their side can provide interesting results. This one had a wonderfully-fat-monster-insect look. Start with the feelers and work down.Another example from a normal perspective.Flipped it on its side. Beyond the monster look, there was the woman in a green dress with the long green hair.The basin is filled with granite. I liked the green contrast of the manzanita growing on the boulder.As you might imagine, Peggy and I have taken hundreds of photos of the Basin and Non-Motorized Area over the years, but I’ll conclude our quick tour of the basin with a sunset photo and move on to Peggy’s 75th Birthday trip to Glacier Lake.Peggy poses for her ‘official’ backpacker photo looking snazzy. Note the hiking sticks (poles). ‘We don’t leave home without them’ when venturing into the woods. They are essential for balance, even more so as we age. My hips and knees were screaming at me as we made our way down Grouse Ridge, like “What the F are you doing.” (Growing older is so much fun.) The sticks assured we stayed upright.The area was much drier than we had expected from previous trips in July, thus we were grateful when we came across this meadow. One look and we simultaneously thought CAMP!One tired, but happy, puppy. Or maybe that should be old dog. That’s my food bag draped across my legs. Camp was set up. We’d had a cup of hot soup, cheese, a beef stick, and a celebratory shot of Irish liqueur. I still had to cook Peggy a post-birthday dinner, but that consisted of boiling water, pouring it into a container of freeze-dried backpacking food, letting it sit for five minutes, and eating. Mmmm, beef stroganoff. All was right with the world. Just don’t ask me to get up! Peggy managed to abandon her Therma-rest seat for this photo. Good thing I married a younger woman.The next morning we found a snow bank on our way up to the lake. I don’t think Peggy has ever found snow without lobbing a snowball at me!She followed up by carving a heart with P+C in it. Aw….The trip up to the lake was relatively easy, considering we took two days to do what is normally a one day trip. (I’ll note here that some of these photos here are from earlier trips since we were only carrying our iPhone to save weight.)An obligatory photo of camp. Looks peaceful, doesn’t it. Shortly afterwards, a group of 35 teenage girls and their adult leaders showed up and camped next to us. Must say they were relatively quiet, polite, and only spent the night. The most noise was their scream as they jumped into the lake’s snow fed water. While the group size was too large, I appreciated the effort their leaders put into introducing them to backpacking and the beautiful area. They left their camp immaculate. After the girls packed up and left, we had the camp and lake to ourselves for the day.While the moon was only partial, at 8000 feet it was like someone was shining a flashlight on our tent at night.Bone, who had joined us on the trip, insisted on having his photo taken before we headed back for Grouse Ridge.Naturally, we took a selfie when we made it back to our truck— happy to be back but ever so glad we had gone. That’s it for now. Peggy and I are in Albuquerque, New Mexico for a week before we begin our journey back East. Next up…Canyon de Chelly National Monument
This is view of Mt. Shasta from the Marble Mountains Wilderness. My 750 mile trek down the PCT gave me northern views of the mountain, western views and and southern views. This was one of the best. Given its mystical/magical look, it’s hardly surprising that tales of beings like Bigfoot, Lemurians, and Lizard people are associated with it. The local Native American Modoc Tribe, whose legends include Bigfoot sightings around the mountain, refer to him as Matah Kagmi, meaning keepers of the woods.I like it. The Lemurians are a New Age creation connected to highly advanced lost continent of beings that live under the mountain. As for Lizard People, think aliens and UFOs.
As part of our series about protecting national parks, monuments and other public lands, I’ve been reading news releases from the directors appointed by President Trump who oversee these areas. It’s not a task I would wish on anyone. It isn’t surprising that the directors all support the president’s objective of significantly reducing many public lands in size and opening up others for profit making operations. That’s why they were appointed.
The news releases are full of statements designed to hide their real purpose. Here’s an example:
“President Trump promised to break the permitting logjam, and he is delivering,” said Energy Secretary Chris Wright.“America can and will build big things again, but we must cut the red tape that has brought American energy innovation to a standstill and end this era of permitting paralysis. These reforms replace outdated rules with clear deadlines, restore agency authority, and put us back on the path to energy dominance, job creation, and commonsense action. Build, baby, build!”
Let’s did a little deeper. By ‘permitting logjam’ and ‘red tape’ and ‘outdated rules,’ he means rules that have been developed to protect our air and water quality, save rare and endangered species from extinction, and maintain areas of great beauty and/or cultural significance that the majority of Americans support protecting. The Administration’s perspective is that these rules get in the way of progress. Who needs clean air or water. “Build, baby, build!”
And how about American energy innovation and dominance? Obviously, he’s not talking about solar, wind and water power. We’ve been moving ahead quickly in the development of clean energy. The Trump Administration is actively discouraging this progress. Incentives designed to encourage their use have been cut. His passion is for coal, gas and oil, all three of which are nonrenewable resources and have been prime factors in the development of global warming that has been having such devastating impacts on the US and the world. The Texas floods of this past week are but one of a multitude of examples.
Several countries in the world have now reached the point where 80-100% of their energy needs are supplied by renewable clean energy. I’d argue that they are the ones achieving energy dominance, one that will last long beyond our nonrenewable resources and is vital to our battle against global warming.
On another subject, it’s interesting that right-wing Republicans played an important role in blocking the administration’s plans to sell off millions of acres of public lands in the West. Here’s what Christopher Rufo, a culture warrior and leading supporter of Trump in in the state of Washington had to say:
“Pre-2016, you’d have the small government argument against a kind of federal domination over the land, but Trump and MAGA is a nationalist movement,” he said. “I think many conservatives are now reassessing these questions, and many of us in the West understand that part of a great nation is the preservation of its natural beauty.” There is hope.
The Marble Mountain Wilderness, the subject of this post, is an example of this beauty.
On the subject of ‘far away views’ seen from the PCT in the Marble Mountain Wilderness, here are two more. These are the Trinity Alps.Beautifully green.When I left off in my last post, I was just coming up to Paradise Lake. I was captured by the reflections, in the lake and……this outcrop of lime above the lake.The sign told me that I had left Paradise Lake and was on my way to Marble Valley. It seemed like an easy walk, but don’t quote me. Some photos from along the way.One of the names of this Mariposa Lily is cat’s ear. It’s easy to see why.Always a favorite: Penstemon.The value of this tree isn’t in its board feet, which is how the Trump administration sees it. It is in its beauty. Old growth forests deserve our protection.I’m glad I wasn’t around when this gorgeous chunk of limestone came rolling down the mountain.I came on this patch of snow shortly afterward. I planned my trip to allow time for most of the snow along the trail to melt. Hiking in snow is hard and requires extra caution in the summer when it often melts beneath the surface. The trail then took me past this limestone outcrop up close.Looking up, a view of Marble Mountain was one of the treats I found in Marble Valley.As was looking down. Dozens of butterflies in the mud next to a stream provided a photo op.Close up!My hike through the rest of the Marble Mountain Wilderness featured hiking across scree/talus covered slopes…Past serene mountain lakes…Through a high mountain meadow with an rock filled stream…And covered in flowers. Including rosy spiraea.Red mountain heather.Siskiyou lewisia.And Western Pasqueflower also known as Dr. Seuss mop heads.Past more old growth giants,More mountains,And forests.Until I came to this rock. “We’re all mad here. Be you!” Bone, who’s never been anything but, insisted on having his photo taken with the rock. I found several of these rocks along the way, usually near a trailhead. I was getting excited.Peggy would be somewhere near with her welcoming smile and cold beer.She caught a photo of me hoofing it up the mountain!I got an extra long and tight hug for having finished/survived my first solo section of my 750 mile Trek down the PCT. And a cold beer. Cheers.As you read this post, Peggy and I are on a backpack trip into the Five Lakes Basin north of I-80 in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It’s where I made my first ever backpack trip in 1969, a while ago. It’s also the first place I ever took Peggy on a backpacking trip. That was in 1990 just after we met. She requested that we hike in to the basin as part of her 75th Birthday Celebration. This is a photo of the Black Buttes that overlook the basin at sunset. The trip will be our next post. Can a 75 year old and an 82 year old still pull it off? Grin. Wish us luck!Our post after the Five Lakes Basin will take you into the Canyon de Shelly with its towering cliffs and marvelous pictoglyphs and petroglyphs, which brings me to a reminder: If you enjoy word searches or know someone who does, Peggy’s new book on the unique and magical petroglyphs of the Southwest makes an excellent gift, either for yourself or a friend. It’s available on Amazon.
Today’s post is on California’s Marble Mountain Wilderness in northwestern California. I led backpacking treks through the area in the 80s and 90s but the photos on this blog were taken from my 750 mile backpack trip down the PCT in 2018. I started this section of the trail at the Grider Creek Campground in Klamath National Forest about 12 miles from the wilderness border. A significant portion of my trip up to the wilderness was a pleasant hike along the creek. Big Foot, towering forests, flowers galore, and butterflies entertained me along the way.
This post is part of Peggy and my series on national parks, monuments, wilderness areas and other public lands with an emphasis on their unique beauty, geology, flora, fauna and history that makes them so important to us today— and to our children, grandchildren and future generations.
There are a couple of interesting developments in the Trump Administration’s efforts to sell off public lands and post signs at national parks urging visitors to report on any negative historical signs or comments about the past. An example of the latter would be the forced removal of Native Americans from their homelands to make space for settlers from the East.
The Sierra Club reports that the plan to sell off public lands was stripped from the Administration’s ‘Big Beautiful, Mega-Deficit Bill’ in the Senate. This doesn’t mean that the Administration won’t move ahead in selling lands by claiming it doesn’t need permission from Congress.
As for public comments generated so far by the signs, an analysis done by the National Parks Conservation Association and summarized in the Washington Post shows strong support for the parks:
“The comments overwhelmingly praise the parks as beautiful national treasures, with dozens complimenting rangers for their knowledge and navigational help. Many called for undoing funding cuts and rehiring staff who were fired by the Trump administration.”
On the other hand, some felt that there were too many mosquitoes and not enough moose.
I think the message to the Administration might be “to watch what you ask for.” Whether the Administration chooses to report on the responses, select out the ones that support its policy, or simply bury the results, is another issue. I seriously doubt that it will report on the overwhelming support Americans show for national parks and other public lands.
Just before my solo trip through the Marble Mountains, Peggy and I had concluded a 60 mile section of the PCT from Mt. Ashland in Southern Oregon to Seiad Valley in Northern California. Naturally, we had to reward ourselves. Cold beer was part of it. And no, I didn’t drink the other five! Just two. Our travel van is behind us. We had parked it in Seiad a few days earlier. Peggy would take over driving it from here as my backup ‘trail angel’ and meet me once a week for resupply and a break.Eating was another reward. The Seiad Cafe welcomed through hikers with its ‘Infamous Seiad Pancake Challenge.’There’s this thing about long distance hiking, you get hungry. Think about burning 5000 calories a day and taking in around 1500. There’s a deficit. By the end of my 750 mile trip, I resembled an escapee from a concentration camp. Each time I completed a section of the trail I stuffed myself. I had permission. I felt entitled. And manners? Grin. I was goofing around here. The actual pancake that the Seiad Cafe offers as its challenge is umpteen sizes bigger than the one I am chowing down on. Eat the whole thing and it’s free.A little hallucination can be expected when you are out on the trail for weeks or months. Especially if you are hiking by yourself. This handsome fellow was hanging out in the small Seiad Store where we bought the beer. That’s when I decided that a six pack was called for.Peggy drove me up the six miles to Grider Creek camp from Seiad. It was ‘cheating’ in PCT lingo, where every foot of the 2, 650 mile journey is supposed to be walked, even if it’s walking down a paved or dirt road. Through-hikers take that seriously. Admittedly, I was under pressure to reach my goal of backpacking 750 miles for my 75th birthday, but, truth be told, my trip was primarily an excuse to be out in the woods. This was the first section of the trail I would be hiking alone. Peggy was a bit nervous, as were our kids. Me? Not so much. I had done lots of solo trips over the years. Still, at 75… Okay, I was a little nervous.I started out slowly.
Once people got over their concern about my hiking alone, they wanted to know how in the world I would entertain myself. It’s easy. Just be aware. Walk quietly. Explore your surroundings in detail with your eyes, ears, nose, and even touch. There are always things to discover. They can be entertaining, educational, beautiful, or a combination—like this snail. Or they may present something of a conundrum, like the image below.This had a wow factor of 10. I came across the image in a burned tree trunk and could only wonder. Was it there before the tree burned? Was it a natural growth of the tree or had it been carved. I tend to think the latter, but over the years, Peggy and I have seem some amazing images created by nature. Then I let my imagination run wild. I was traveling though Bigfoot country. A number of ‘sightings’ had been reported in the Marble Mountains over the years. Could this be a self-portrait by Bigfoot!?The many moods of Grider Creek caught my attention many times: Its beauty, the unique character of a riparian habitat, the sound of rapids, even the cool touch of its water. I took a break and dangled my feet in the creek.Trees provided shade for my hike up the creek. The first one I stopped to admire was this madrone. If you come on one, be sure to run your fingers over the smooth bark. It borders on sensuous.Old growth trees reached for the sky. Hopefully, Trump’s plans to open up millions of acres of new forest service lands for cutting down trees won’t include these beauties. Lumber companies drool over these giants with their potential for high profits. So what if they took a couple of hundred years to reach their size. Or a thousand. Getting to the trees would involve bulldozing a road up the creek.Even the leaves were impressive. Some of them came close to rainforest size. I liked the light and shadow contrast here.Then there were flowers galore, a lot more than I can put in this post. But here are a few. This is golden brodiaea, sometimes known as prettyface.A thimbleberry with its future fruit in the center.Scarlet Gilia.And snow brush ceanothus that a butterfly has apparently captured and is claiming, “Mine, all mine!” What I noticed when I looked at the photo, however, was its long proboscis buried in a flower sucking up nectar. The proboscis rolls up when not in use, like a party noisemaker. This was the first of many butterflies I would meet along the trail.And finally, I have to say, the hike up into the mountains was one the most pleasant I’ve experienced over the years. In the Sierras, especially on the east side, it seems like the first day is always straight up.My first priority was water. It had been a few miles since I left the river behind. I drank the second third of my water supply and went in search of Buckhorn Spring, which as I recall was a few miles ahead. And here it is, the Buckhorn Spring— a 2 by 3 foot pool with a muddy bottom and a bunch of happy water bugs scurrying around. Appealing? You bet! The water was fresh and cold and I was carrying a water filter to take care of bugs, or more nasty things like Giardia. In 15 minutes I was sipping pure water that was a match for anything you might get out of a faucet or buy from a grocery store— or better. And much more appreciated. In addition to filling my water bottles, there was plenty for cooking. I had done my miles for the day and could settle in for the night. I was one happy camper!I was up early the next morning and on the trail by 7:00. Through-hikers, who have to average between 20-30 miles per day, tend to get up and be on the trail as soon as there is enough light to see by. Some even get up earlier and walk their first miles using a flashlight. I did 15, which accommodated my years and allowed time for lollygagging. My first objective of the day was to hike over a pass just to the right of the seemingly tiny peak in the middle of the photo. Part 1 of my post on the Marble Mountains ends there: Here are a few photos from along the way.A photo op I can never resist: A live or dead tree draped over a rock.This intriguing creature with its delightful ears obviously had something to say to me. I listened carefully. “Come closer,” it whispered. I declined.Almost there…The route up.One of my favorite photos from the Marbles. For me, this pine tree symbolized the power of nature to survive, thrive, and add beauty to a what was basically a rocky, barren peak.Arrived.The other side. My first good view of the ‘white’ of the Marble Mountains, which actually isn’t marble but is lime laid down by an ancient ocean. Given a few million years under intense pressure and heat far underground, however, it can become marble. And there are marble deposits in the Marble Mountains.Next post: I continue my hike along the PCT through the Marble Mountains. This is a reflection shot taken at Paradise Lake. There is mist on the Lake.
Peggy and I often get a question about where we are now, given that we wander a lot and our blogs may reflect a recent adventure or be back in time. Right now we are in Safety Harbor, Florida. Peggy and I flew out here from Sacramento to celebrate Peggy’s 75th Birthday with our son, Tony his wife, Cammie, their three sons: Connor, Chris and Cooper, plus…
Lyla, the Golden Poodle, who had interrupted her summer haircut for a photoshoot with Peggy’s foot. Actually, she was irritated about sharing the limelight with a foot. Here’s what she had to say about it….
There is a fascinating world to be discovered on America’s pubic lands. For example, you will occasionally find a pile of sawdust next to a dead tree. Odds are that carpenter ants have been at work building an apartment complex. This ‘cut-away’ view in Granite Chief Wilderness provides an inside view of their home. If you are lucky, you will see the ants plying their carpenter trade. They appear out of a crack or hole in the wood with mandibles filled with sawdust, which they drop on their pile and then return to chew/break out another load. Unlike termites, they don’t actually eat the wood. The ants provide a valuable service in the forest breaking down dead wood (not so valuable when it’s the lumber in your house).So, who or what opened up the tree? Clue, it wasn’t me. Nor was it the caterpillar, obviously. I photographed it just above the ant apartment complex for perspective on the size of the slashes just above it. They tell the tale. They are bear claw marks. A bear had torn open the log for breakfast. Or was it lunch?While I was backpacking through Lassen National Park on my 750 mile/75th birthday trek in 2018, Peggy caught this photo of a bear and her cubs opening up a log on a trail near the park’s road. “Dust and wood were flying everywhere!” she told me. Peggy quickly vacated the premises. You do not want to get close to a mama bear with cubs!
Today, Peggy and I are continuing our series on national parks, monuments, wilderness areas and other public lands with an emphasis on their unique beauty, geology, flora, fauna and history that makes them so important to us today— and to our children, grandchildren and future generations. I can only repeat how vital it is at this point in history to let decision makers know how we feel about protecting and maintaining public lands.
In my last post, I discussed a bill by Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah to be included in President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that would require the government to sell of 50-75% of BLM and National Forest Lands in America over the next five years. Here’s what the Southern Utah Wilderness Association has to say about the bill:
It bypasses public process, allowing public land to be sold with minimal transparency, and depriving the public of input on the future of their public lands. It also bypasses any environmental, cultural resources or endangered species reviews.
While Senator Lee attempts to make his bill more palatable by claiming that it will create opportunities for affordable housing, it does no such thing. There is no requirement that any housing developed on sold public lands would be affordable or meet any affordable housing requirements.
There is no provision to prevent lands sold under Lee’s bill from being developed into high-end vacation homes, Airbnbs, or luxury housing projects, which would be especially desirable near scenic or high-demand areas.
The bill will primarily benefit real estate developers and speculators rather than addressing real housing needs.
The Pacific Crest Trail Association also noted this week that the bill would have serious implications for the PCT by blocking access to the public lands that the trail now crosses over. The 750 mile trip I did for my 75th birthday would not be possible. But that’s nothing compared to the millions upon millions of people who would forever lose future access to these lands that now belong to all of us. Please, let your Senator know Lee’s bill will do irreparable damage.
But, now on to my post about hiking through the Granite Chief Wilderness on the Pacific Crest Trail.
I began this section of the PCT where I hiked through the Granite Chief and Desolation Wilderness areas on historic Highway 40 near the Sugar Bowl and Donner Summit. Before it was replaced by I-80, it was part the Lincoln Highway, America’s first cross country road. Like most of the Sierra Trails I know, the PCT here begins with a climb. The peak you see up ahead is Tinker’s Knob. The Knob, BTW, was named after James A. Tinker, a freight-hauling teamster in the area. Legend has it that it was named after his nose, which was said to resemble the knob.Having got a late start after Peggy dropped me off, I camped that night with a view of Tinker’s Knob. As far as I know, not one other person was camped in the valley. That’s one of the beauties of backpacking.The views from my campsite were gorgeous.I watched as the sun set on Tinker’s Knob, outlining it in golden, warm colors.And then went for a short walk and watched the sun set in the west. A note here: Tinkers Knob is just outside of the Granite Chief Wilderness in the Tahoe National Forest. It’s part of the land that Lee’s bill might open for sale. I can see a land speculator grabbing this and making it available to developers for huge profits who would then sell it to multi-millionaires for homes at even greater profits. No trespassing signs would quickly follow.This map of the Granite Chief Wilderness provides a fairly accurate view of the trail system. Tinker’s Knob is on the top, just outside of the wilderness to the north of the 9005 Granite Chief Pass.I caught this photo the next morning. There are two Needle Peaks in the Granite Chief Wilderness. Needle Peak and Little Needle Peak. This is the former. Both are made up of volcano cores.Leaving my camp, the PCT took me through an extensive field of corn lilies.I came across this old PCT Trail sign placed before the name of Squaw Valley was changed. The name squaw had become controversial. Since the 1960 Winter Olympics were held at the Squaw Valley Ski Resort, the name was changed to Olympic Valley.The Granite Chief Wilderness is just behind the mountains. All I had to do was hike over them.I actually made two trips though the Granite Chief Wilderness on my 750 mile PCT Trek. The first was with my grandson Ethan. We took the tram up from the Olympic Valley floor to reach the wilderness area and then hiked through Granite Chief Wilderness and part of the Desolation Wilderness when Ethan sprained an ankle. I decided on a do-over starting at historic Highway 40. I needed the miles given the areas I had to skip because of forest fires. The following photos are from both trips.Ethan and I spent our first night at Little Needle Lake beneath Little Needle Peak. It’s a relatively short hike from where we got off the tram and an old favorite of mine going all the way back to the 1974 when I first started leading hundred mile backpack trips through the Sierras.Instead of following the PCT through the Granite Chief Wilderness, we dropped down off the ridge to Five Lakes Creek. Once, this trail marker, known as a blaze, would have marked the trail along the creek. It’s likely that carpenter ants carved the holes.Another old blaze on a tree that still lives. I’ve followed blazes many times over the years. Especially when the trail disappeared under the snow.A limb came out of this snag when the tree was young. The rings take you back in time to its youth. I thought it made a neat photo.A small amount of water was still flowing in Five Lakes Creek.The trail follows the creek for five miles and reaches what is known as Diamond Crossing where I have often camped.Earlier in the season there is a small, but photo-worthy waterfall just up Five Lakes Creek from Diamond Crossing.With a great swimming hole to cool off in.The trail leaves the canyon at Diamond Crossing and heads up a long steep climb following Powderhorn Creek. I heard something splashing in Powderhorn on my second trip when I was by myself. I snuck up and discovered two bobcats frolicking in the water. They took off before I could get my camera out but I was able to pick up one very wet track left behind.I continued to follow their trail out of the canyon. Here kitty, kitty, kitty.By late August most of the flowers were finished, but I did find abundant goldenrod…And Queen Anne’s Lace.There is ample evidence of volcanic activity throughout the Sierras. This view is of a basalt lava flow that cooled and contracted into vertical hexagonal columns can be seen from the upper section of the Powderhorn Creek trail. The tree on the right is a red fir. Unlike pine cones, red fir cones disintegrate. Another view of ancient volcanic activity: A volcanic mudflow. I believe the talus slope in the background is from the basaltic lava flow.The climb up from Diamond Crossing is no joke. Ethan had every reason to celebrate! The Granite Chief Wilderness stretches out to the farthest peaks in the background where Ethan and I started and I had hiked twice in a row. You can barely see Big Needle Peak below Ethan’s right arm. The Barker Pass road provides and easy exit or entry point for both the Powderhorn Creek Trail and the PCT.
Peggy and I will be taking a break from our blog over the next three weeks. We are in Sacramento this week visiting with friends and relatives. Next week we are flying to Florida where we celebrate Peggy’s 75th Birthday with our son and his family. The following week we fly back here and will continue to celebrate. This time with a backpack trip retracing the route of the first backpack trip I ever took— in 1969! Then we will continue our exploration of the southwest and blog series.
Wandering through Time and Place 