Redwoods

Far south on the northern coast of California, a tremendous and special grove of trees have thrived.  The Redwoods of California.  We'd spent the day in Crescent City where seal had come to sun themselves on the rocks in the bay.  On our way home we parked in one of the pull offs along the Redwood Highway.  Towering Redwoods all around us, just taking one step up the trail made me feel we'd stepped into another world.

In fact, the Redwoods were used in the Star Wars film Return of t
he Jedi.

But they are also famous for something else.

There's a sea bird called the Marbled Murrelet.  In the wake of the 1970s when forest management, ecology and nature were reaching new heights, biologists had a puzzling problem.  Where does the Marbled Murrelet nest?  They've seen them on the ocean water where they spend most of their time.  They've seen them fly over the old growth forests such as the Redwoods or the rainforests of the Hoh in Olympic National Park.  But no one knew where they nested.

Then one day, a ranger was way up in a Redwood tree trimming what he thought would be a dangerous limb over the camp ground.  He stepped onto another branch to get better footing when he almost stepped onto a Marbled Murrelet chick.  The moss created a nest of sorts and feathers from the chicks parents could be seen as well.  It was then that they discovered these sea birds won't nest anywhere but in the high canopy of old growth forests.

I love the Redwoods.  They are one of my favorite places to visit.  Where else can you find such a special grove of trees, but then drive 10 minutes further west to a sprawling California coastline?  But I could literally get lost in the Redwoods for days.  No two trails are alike, and yet the trees remind me how small we humans are.  It's dizzying just looking upward.  Patches of sky appear here and there, but mostly, all you see are towers of red and green.

And the forest floor is covered in mosses, lichens and ferns.

And it's home to the Marbled Murrelet among many other animals.

I pointed out the nurse log to my son who was visiting me from back east. I explained that in the Pacific Northwest and up in Canada and Alaska, when a tree falls over, mosses will grow on it and create a living environment for other plants to grow.  Seedlings from the Redwoods themselves will gather on that moss and eventually start growing in what appears to be right out of the fallen log.  But really it's taken root in the moss and dirt that's gathered.  The log will nourish the new growth and eventually decay away giving itself back to the earth.  The new growth will take over.  The Redwoods are full of these.  Nature has a way of taking care of itself in cycles, and the process is happening all around us while we stand in the forest.

Reflections in the Ice update2

I'm now sitting at 40,000 words and all the chapters have been drafted.  My approach now is to start editing the chapters in order, and approach getting them polished for publishing.  My current goal is to be ready to submit by February 1.

This has become quite the experience and I have to admit to you as my readers, that this has been a journey of sorts.  For those of you that don't know me, I have always wanted to be a nature writer since I first ready Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey back in the 1980s.  I now own a hard copy latest edition of the book.  The problem was, I didn't have the true experiences of nature for which to fully turn into a book, my life limited to raising a family and the years I spent in Anchorage, Ketchikan and Juneau.

But when I had to leave the University of Alaska  early, where I was pursuing a degree in Environmental Literature, I changed my major to film and television because I had to redo most of my English credits at the new university.  For a time I thought I was meant to become a nature environmental documentary filmmaker.  That could still be true...

But something awoke in me in 2017.  For one, I spent a summer in Olympic National Park and the winter at Mt. Rainier National Park, both as an interpretive ranger.  Coupled with my experience as an interpretive ranger in Alaska, the training and experiences there gave me two elements vital to writing my book:  fodder for stories and experiences, and the interpretive training for which to approach story telling.  Both of these elements have totally changed my approach to writing and made it essential in my completing this book.

And I discovered something within me sometime in 2017 a short time after I had totally lost a close friend to disagreement.  I found I was living my life for everyone else and it was time to live life on my own terms.  Something deep within me needed to come out.  I needed to tell the story.  And if I were ever wanting to read about Alaska and nature, I would want Reflections in the Ice to be an option.  Of all my books both bought and sought for (Arctic Dreams:  Barry Lopez, A Place Beyond and The Glacier Wolf by Nic Jans, Dominion of Bears by Sherry Simpson, Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams, Desert Solitaire and The Journey Home by Edward Abbey, A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, Travels in Alaska by John Muir among others), I have found that I'd like to read about the experiences I had held and the insights and philosophies I had discovered in my journeys as an interpretive ranger.  I would have looked for Reflections in the Ice.

And so I am just a few months away from submitting this book to publishers.  I need support!  Please advertise this book far and wide and get the word out.  I'm confident it will be a wonder work of literature.

Reflections in the Ice - Update1

Reflections in the Ice:  Glacial Seasons in Alaska.

I've been working on a book for the past few months.  Currently I'm sitting just shy of 40,000 words.  The book is a personal nature book about the seasons I've spent as a ranger, especially focused on the season I spent on glacier boats.  Some of the essays in this blog have in inserted and modified into the book.

The book will touch on all things Alaska:  glaciers, mountains, bears, fishing and special places.  It'll take you from Ketchikan to Barrow, but focused mostly on south-central Alaska and the Kenai Peninsula.  I also have a few essays I'm including from Olympic and Mt. Rainier National Parks.

It's a reflective piece, thus the name.  It reflects upon my journey into the wild, my witness to receding glaciers and the effects of climate change.  It's also a reflection upon myself.  Much like the writings those of you have read here in my blog.

The difference is the format.  Everything will be connected and themed together into a long read--the kind of book I would have wanted to read if I had interest in Alaska.

I'll keep you updated.

Grave Creek

I'm shifting gears.  A little bit of history.

Those that know me know that I love to delve into historical places, especially when it comes to the old West:  Ghost towns.  Vintage locomotives.  The history is darkly vibrant.  Or vibrantly dark.  I seek to hear the whispers of the past.  What stories would they tell?

I drove up to Sunny Valley and stopped at the Applegate Museum which I was quite impressed with, with interpretive displays of the Applegate Trail and its history.  Just down the road from the museum is the covered white bridge, which crosses Grave Creek. 

According to HMdb.org, or the Historical Marker Database, the year was 1846.  The Crowley Family on their last leg of the Applegate Trail (southern alternate route to the Oregon Trail) heading north stopped at the creek to bury their daughter, who around the age of 15, died of Typhoid fever.  They buried her just beyond the bridge.  Due to the event, the creek was named Grave Creek.

I stood at the edge of the creek, looked through the covered bridge and wandered over to Martha's grave site.   My mind tends to wander in moments like this.  What if you could take away the bridge, the roads, the houses and put yourself back to 1846?  What if we took away our modern conveniences of heated (or air conditioned) vehicles that can travel 70 miles an hour on the interstate getting us 120 miles in just 2 hours?  What if we had to be on foot, or on horseback, pulling a wagon at a whopping speed of 3 mph, taking us months to cross the Western territories through the heat of summer and the cold of winter?  What fears would we experience?  Native Americans fighting for their homeland?  Predators such as wolves, bears, or cougars?  Or what about a worse fear, such as starvation, hyperthermia or just plain being lost in the wilderness? 

Standing there at the face of the grave of Martha Crowley, I could hardly imagine with a family's hopes and dreams of completing the journey to the promised land of Oregon, setting up a farm, finding prosperity and watching your daughter grow into a woman, get married and bring grand children into their lives.  But that's not the history.  So much of it is skewed.  So much forgotten.  All that is left is the grave site, and the name of the creek, and a covered bridge that marks a moment, a long forgotten moment of history to those who pass by on Interstate 5 with only the distant view of a white wooden covered bridge in the distance--hardly noticeable unless you look.

Looking out over the hills imagining their time in 1846, and looking down at the deep green mossy creek and how the wagon train must have crossed it, there were no whispers.  There were no stories.  Just a gentle breeze of a long forgotten moment on a late summer day in southern Oregon. 

Smoke at the Bolan Mountain Fire Lookout

Bolan Lake as seen from below the fire lookout.

I stood at the edge of Bolan Lake, it's clear waters rippling in the gentle breeze.  Serene lakes always seem to deepen the mind and reflect upon the soul.  Across the water the deep green trees covered ridges surrounded the lake like mountain cathedrals.  In my own life's pain and confusion, I look to the forests for solitude and solace.  Paths intertwine with one another and life normally finds clear views ahead.

But the valley was somewhat obscured here as it is in my own life.  Smoke from the Nachez fire just south across the border in California shrouded the valley all around us as a fellow ranger and I began our trek up to the Bolan Mountain Fire Lookout above the lake.  It was mid morning, 70 degrees, and our hike would take us 1.7 miles  to an elevation of 6242 feet.



Indian's Paintbrush

Our feet crunched beneath the deep rich soil, rocks and pine needles that had scattered.  Douglas firs filled the forests  around us as well as various shrubs and ferns that carpeted the forest floor.  As we gained elevation, the Douglas firs were replaced by subalpine firs and mountain hemlock.  Wildflowers scattered upon the occasional meadows we'd come across.  Blues, purples, oranges.  Fireweed.   Indian's Paintbrush,  and others I'm not familiar with being new to the region.  The forest was alive with color and contrast.



The trail to Bolan Mountain Fire Lookout

The trail pushed us further up.  We crossed over a section of basalt piled up from a landslide long forgotten-its gray jagged forms covering all things living.  My partner mused the rock pile could easily be a covering for a cave for a mountain lion or a bear.   I stood looking down through the narrow openings between the rocks and wondered if that could be true.  I thought about climbing down to the face of the mountain below us to find out, but decided against it.  We had to get to the fire lookout. 


The trail continued upward with switchbacks changing our direction often until we went over the saddle and down into the adjacent valley.  More paths intertwining with each other.  The trail hit a junction where we had the option of continuing on to Kings Saddle just south of Grizzly Peak, or turn right and head down a small valley and back up toward the lookout. 

Pondering the mindset of people over time and the naming of Grizzly Peak.  Oregon hadn't seen grizzlies since the early 1900s--the result of heavy predator hunting by pioneers of the time.  Still the name gives one pause as to its origins.  I wondered what these mountains may have been like back in the 1800s, when hiking similar trails was more out of necessity rather than recreation, and the fear of America's monarch of the wild, the grizzly bear, was among the greater fears of being present in these rugged mountains.  It was the mindset back in the day to kill all bears and make the mountains safer.  Many still feel that way.  But the whole concept that a keystone species like the wolf and the bear are actually better for the environment making forest ecosystems stronger wasn't considered until recently.  Discussions of returning grizzlies to the Cascades in Washington and other places are now at least  being talked about. 

Change happens. 

I have to wonder if some day I will walk these mountains with a feeling of danger and wariness with the idea grizzlies could be here.  The thought excites me.  We look for change in the drywalled and concrete canyons of the halls of government, but it's here in the mountains that the real changes are inflected.

At trails end, we found the road to the lookout and made our way to the top.  Bolan Mountain Lookout stood on the top of the ridge, as most lookouts do, for the purpose of detecting fires.  Replaced by modern technology of air craft and other resources, many fire lookouts have been decommissioned.  They either stand empty, boarded up and forgotten, or they become cabin rentals.  Bolan falls into the latter of these with its latest occupant having picked up the key the day before on her two day adventure. 



Bare necessities inside the Lookout.

But the parking spot was void of any vehicle and the lookout locked up and quiet.  The occupant had departed early.  I climbed onto the deck that wrapped around the entire lookout and peered in the windows.  The scientific and radio equipment was removed and replaced with the bare necessities for a cabin rental:  table, chairs, bed, cabinet and amazing views.  An outhouse sits about 20 feet below. 

All the modern conveniences of life. 

While standing on the decking and looking both inside the lookout as well as at the smoky views around me, it gave me a moment to wonder what the summers were like for fire lookout rangers.  Most stayed in these primitive settings for months at a time with little contact with the outside world besides the occasional radio checks and shopping trips for food.  Solitude is what I think of.  No internet.  No cellphones.  Just the quiet of being on top of a mountain.  Viewing a lazily soaring red tail hawk.  Looking for fires.  Experiencing the violent rush of lightning storms crashing all around and then looking more aggressively for fires afterward. 

Then returning to the quiet.  


Author standing on the decking amid smoke filled skies.

For some, fire lookout duty undoubtably  would be an extremely loud silence.  Exhaustive to spend so much time alone.  For me I think I would have embraced it with long hours of writing, exploring and deep contemplation about life and spiritual connections.  I'd get lost in my own muses and likely come back down off the mountain a different person when the fall turns to winter and the snows cover the mountain blanketing it in cold hard change and driving me to other adventures.

To be someone who is willing to take a long moment to pause in the vast geologic expanse of time and open yourself up to become something more profound--so profound that words cannot express it.  Nothing can.  To see the world differently.  To see the mountains for what they are.  To see the bears for what they are.  To allow yourself to breathe in the world around you in its stillness and listen to the voice within.

Change.

For today, the world is obscured.  The paths here are intertwined and it's hard to see my way ahead.  It's obscured not only by the smoke that surrounds the peaks around this fire lookout, but also by the limited time spent here.  For being here for just a moment in a day is much less significant than an entire season, and a season much less than a lifetime.  But we all play our part.  Each of our life's experience changes us in minute ways, sometimes as quiet and unseen as the carving of sandstone over decades, or as explosive as the strike of lightning across dry forests in southern Oregon engulfing it in smoke and fire.  Eventually the smoke clears and a new way forward is seen.  The burn scars remain but regrowth happens.  Time heals all wounds.

My moment has ended.  It's time to head back down the mountain.  Some day I'll be back here, or perhaps to another fire lookout for I'm hooked.  Maybe I'll stay for a night or two.  Maybe I'll stay for a season. 

It might even change me for a lifetime. 



The Wandering Ranger

I'm looking for new inspiration to write, to share and to illustrate the deeper thoughts and feelings within me.

On a quiet Sunday evening while working on my book, I find myself taking the time away from writing to think about all the adventures I have been graced to witness in my life.  Not that I'm gloating but rather that I feel blessed.  I've been to Canada and Mexico, driven the Alaska Highway 6 times, lived in Germany and Holland and have traveled as far as the middle eastern country of Kuwait.  Each place has had it's unique qualities and differences from one another.  Primarily, those times when I found myself in desert, I longed for the mountains.  Or when I was in the mountains, I longed for the ocean.

My hero is Edward Abbey.  I first read his book when I was a teenager in high school.  My 10th grade biology teacher had given my brother and I the book as an end of year gift.  He didn't do that for many, but I guess he felt a connection with us.  I read the book.  I was intrigued with the experiences a park ranger could have in Arches National Park.  The crudeness.  The dry humor.  The passion.  When I sought to be a writer back in the 80s and 90s, I always found myself falling way short of things to write about.  After all, I wasn't a park ranger in a pretty awesome place like Arches National Park.  What would I have to write about?

But writing is about experiences.  It's what is in us each and every day.  My writing was limited to occasional attempts at journaling typically in the fall season when I felt inspired.  But ultimately, I had been only trying to emulate my hero.  Everything crumbled.  I prayed to become a writer, and the only response I got was "write!".  But I wasn't writing for myself.  I was writing to perform.  Within that, it was never me.  I had lost my voice.

My voice came when I was hired as a ranger in 2015 aboard the glacier boats in Prince William Sound, Alaska.  I started by journaling my experiences.  As I reread my journal of that time, I recognize quickly that I had begun with the same mistakes of the past:  to perform.  But over time, I discovered 30, 50 or 100 pages in, that what I had been writing was in me.  I was finally pulling out from the depths of my soul my inner thoughts and passions.  On occasion, I even found passages I was truly proud of.

Since then, I found myself on a journey I didn't expect.  I couldn't find work locally in southern Oregon, but quickly got picked up by Olympic National Park with job offers from 4 other national parks or monuments that same spring.  I went to Olympic and guided people on nature walks, patio talks, and campground presentations.  I lived on a lake with Western Red Cedar and Douglas Fir as my primary protection from the world around me.  My summer was filled with awe and wonder with the changing weather, the high altitude views and the ability to be in wilderness.  I'd move on to Mount Rainier where I lived in a 19 foot travel trailer with snow falling, leading snow shoe hikes atop of 17 feet of snow, and sitting in a small museum looking out at the winter around me.

Glaciers, mountains, ocean and temperate rainforest.  They were a far cry from the desert solitaire of Arches National Park.  But it was my world, not Abbey's.  I was a wandering ranger.  I had found my voice.



And with that a new inspiration to write, to share and to illustrate the deeper thoughts and feelings within me.

A Morning Visitor

On a quiet morning at a lonely ranger station in the obscure town of Cave Junction Oregon, I found myself out by one of the back gates of the compound waiting for the sunrise when an unexpected sound hit my ears.  The rustling of leaves told me it was likely a  squirrel who I'd seen many times before.  But the size of the animal was a bit bigger than a rodent.  It didn't take long to figure it out was one of southern Oregon's residents:  A gray fox.  From the brush he looked at me while huddling close to the protection of a Douglas fir. 

We played a staring game the gray fox and I for some time.  He at times would change position by moving to the other side of the tree, then the staring match would continue. 

I, on the other hand, remained still and quiet curious what my new found friend would do.  I could tell he was both cautious and curious at the stranger in black and green.  I always wonder what the natural world think of us loud and obnoxious humans.  This human would remain quiet and watch.

The gray fox made his way down to the road, stopping and watching.  He crossed the road and again stopped to stare.  His curiosity of me was getting the best of him.  He cautiously edged closer and closer bobbing his head to make sure I wasn't on the attack, stopping just beyond the gate to the ranger station compound. 

As our staring match continued, I have to wonder about the natural world and its clash with human development.  To the fox, the forest with its predators, seasons, food and protection is all they need to live a relatively fruitful life.  The human animal is different.  We build shelters creating artificial heat and cold, changing our own environment to live well beyond the needed core temperature environment of near 98 degrees.  Roads are developed.  Loud vehicles pass.  Cities take over forests and deserts and mountains.  Ecosystems are encroached upon and removed.  Animals scatter from their natural environment sometimes behaviorally adapting to new habitats for which to survive.  For this fox, he lives in the woods of a Forest Service compound where buildings and trucks and people frequent.  We've learned to live together in some unique way. 


I found myself in deep contemplation at the chance to see a wild animal at the gate of the forest district compound.  A rare occurrence I can assure you!  Why was he there?  Was he always there?

I thought about the fires that had engulfed the region.   Taylor fire near Grants Pass.  Klondike fire near Selma.  Nachez fire down just south of Page Mountain in California.  I was literally surrounded by fires and the daily smoke told the story.  Dense smoke that made even the smoggiest cities jealous engulfed the entire region.  Was this fox homeless?  Displaced from the shelter and forests it knew and called home?  Maybe he was only here for survival.  Maybe his curiosity in seeing me was more merely having never been close to people before.  I felt a certain profound sorrow at this as I stood there at the ranger compound looking back at my new found friend.

Within a short time, the fox retreated and went back into the woods for which he came, not even looking back.  I found myself a little in awe of the situation.  Perhaps it wasn't as exciting as seeing the black bear in Alaska with her cubs.  Nor was it quite like running into a moose on a winter morning outside my front door.  But anytime I get to experience some level of wildlife, I stand in wonderment. to experience even that of the elusive fox.

I looked in the direction of his departure for some time following, but he was gone.  I wonder if he'll be back on some other morning.  I turned to go only to be greeted by the morning sunrise.  Life is pretty amazing.

Reflections in the River

My wandering ranger days continue.  Hired as a naturalist in the Cascades of southern Oregon, I found myself just south of Crater Lake national park walking a trail to the headwaters of Wood River.  Standing on the bank, I found myself totally drawn to the green reflections beneath the waters.  Green.  The symbol of ecology and natural preservation.  My job here was to shape the young minds of tomorrow into understanding the deeper meaning of a greener world.

Leaving my familiar territory of Western and Mountain Hemlock that I was so used to in the Olympics as well as Mt. Rainier, I quickly had to adjust to the tall and spread out Ponderosa forest mixed with Douglas Fir, White Fir and a cedar I wasn't familiar with.  Mixed cones of Ponderosa, sugar and Douglas scattered the trail, and after a winter of inactivity, pine needles scatters obscuring the trail often times losing our way.

We made our way down to the head waters of Wood River where the clear cold spring waters erupted from beneath the earth to create the river.  The spring filtered through rock is clean enough to drink.  Rare in this day and age.  Basalt and pumice, evidence of the eruption of Mt. Manama can still be seen scattered everywhere, the pumice creating a green tint to the river.  The spring is said to come from Crater Lake, many miles away.  I suppose the waters have to go somewhere.

Everything is within a cycle.  We see seasons of warm summers where rivers retreat, animals thrive, and life continues in a lazy way.  In autumn, bears push hard for their last chance calories before hibernation and elk and moose rut hard for the chance of continuing on their genes while the leaves of trees change color ready to fall to the earth to pass on their own nutrients.  In winter, the world rests mostly, although life teams in full concert beneath the snow as mice, picas and other creatures continue on.  Then spring brings renewal.  We humans are mostly desensitized creating environments that match our own luxury rather than adapting to the world outside.  But we too have a cycle.  We live....we die...  Perhaps our own renewal happens on a different place, a spiritual one.

Every forest is unique.  If you take the time to listen, you'll hear something different, or that of nothing at all.  But in it's quiet, depth of solitude unmatched anywhere else.  I'm find I'm happy to have been able to witness but for a day a different place, a different sound, a different solitude.  I'll be back and often throughout the summer shaping young minds into hopefully seeing the reflections I do in nature, and yet obscuring the private reflections within my own life.