The last of  the series.

I’ve always been fascinated with the sky. As a young boy, I brought my mom outside to show her my discovery of the Big Dipper and Polaris amongst the city lights. It has been a life-long memory for me. Throughout my younger life, backpacking has always opened up the sky. Tall tales told at night while on our backs looking at the stars from rocky outcrops or grassy balds, occasionally catching sight of a meteor shower or the rare satellite. I would point out to my buddies which ones were “spy” satellites because they traversed the sky in a north-south direction where they could “see” everybody as the earth rotated under them. Smile!

Soon after I graduated and had started my engineering career I began saving money for a telescope. Credit cards were not even a real concept for a young single man then. With the money in the bank, I made a beeline to Wolf Camera in Huntsville to purchase a Celestron C8 SCT, complete with a Byers worm-gear drive and equatorial mount. It came in a footlocker with paper sky guides and a list of Messier objects and their coordinates. I wrote them a check. The very first object I observed was Saturn, spectacular with those majestic rings.

Viewing in the east is a challenge. The telescope, looking at the deep cold of space, will radiate its warmth away and cool well below the dew point. An incredible amount of moisture will condense on it without a dew cap and heater. Eastern humidity also magnifies any light pollution. The best observations are alway in remote areas when the temperature is freezing. I remember one time that my friend Charles suggested we try the top of Hench Mountain, near Crossville. So Charles, James, and possibly someone else (LaDon?) drove to near the top, but we were stymied by the locked gate of the FAA station. So we lugged all of the gear up to the high point (I’m pretty sure this wasn’t even legal…) and out of the trees. In order to power the telescope drive motor, we also removed and lugged the 12v car battery out of the Dodge D100 pickup, hoping not to drain it too far. The backup plan was to roll-start the old three-on-the-tree truck by letting it coast down the mountain road and popping the clutch, spinning up the alternator and generating the necessary spark. There was no plan in the case of being under surveillance, because in those days, there was no surveillance.

But it was the West that kept me awake all night. In 1995, I petitioned our host at the Navajo community of Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle (DZ) to allow us to take our youth group to the top of the holy mesa for an overnight sky watch. While I will share this full tale at a later time, it was spectacular. The Perseid meteor shower was incredible and I watched the sun rise. The night sky like I’ve never seen it and have rarely seen it since.

Early in May this year, the BEP sponsored a star party at Goosenecks State Park, and it was great fun sharing the sky with the campers there. The next event was in Monticello at the Discovery Center, in support of the local high school. The Discovery Center had just come under the BEP umbrella, and a legacy grant had just finished up the installation of a 14-in telescope inside a pretty sweet observatory.

Sarah and Carolyn have been checking out the new scope, and wanted to know if I might be interested in helping.

Duh.

They had taken a few truly stunning photos late in April, but they were wanting to make it easier to share in near-real time with a group.

So we had fun tinkering around with the high school group and then even made a dedicated run back up to Monticello later in the week to sort out the system. We snapped photos of the equipment model numbers and pondered how to best get these deep space photons onto the retinas of the unwashed masses.

The observatory dome is not linked to the telescope and requires an operator to move the dome around whenever the telescope is repositioned. And there is a staircase on wheels that has to be managed.

We all kinda fell into different roles and Carolyn ended up moving the stairs and chasing the telescope with the dome. It completely reminded me of Young Frankenstein with Igor at the controls. “Yes Master!“

Since this was just an investigation of how the systems worked, we didn’t turn the Center’s outside lights off. We didn’t even darken the lights in the observatory. And we just did the minimum image capture/stacking to understand how to point the telescope easily. And even with all the glare these images were also pretty stunning.

There is something that happens to me when I see more than one galaxy in an image. It’s estimated that each galaxy contains over 1,000,000,000 stars, and to see two or three at a time is just beyond comprehension. Our little teeny tiny Whoville is such an insignificant speck in the cosmos. Should we get what we get while we can? Should we be humbled by the immensity of it all? Should we reach for the stars? Should we realize that we are living in paradise, today?

The ancients lived by the stars. And a theme that shows itself both New World and Old is a cycle of the moon known as a lunar standstill, or lunistice. While we see a spiral in much of the rockart here in the southwest, sometimes it represents a journey. But sometimes, if you count the spiral, you find about nine lines on either side of the center, totaling 18. I think this is called a Grand Spiral, and it signifies the span of time in years where the moon alternates between its northernmost and southernmost points. And in the Chacoan culture, they have very long-range structures set up to observe phenomena like this.

Talking with a good friend that is into the Hebrew culture, I learned that they too observe a lunar calendar. It makes sense after all. But theirs is 19 years. Modern physics tells us the cycle is actually 18.6 years.

I love it. It makes things real for me. The physics, the spirituality, the essence of existing in this vast world.

G. K. Chesterton was know as the “Master of Paradox.” He speaks a thing, and you say “No, that is not correct.” But then you chew on it a bit and he changes your mind. Here Chesterton is making the case that it’s the logicians, not the poets, that go mad:

Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.

The physical world and the spiritual world are not separate. The Hopi tried to tell us that, as I have mentioned in my last post. There is a reason the Universe excites us.

Carmen is the volunteer that replaced us for June. So when we returned in order to hang out for the star parties, we shared the campground. All I can say is that the more we got to know him, the more humbling it became. A very low-key guy, he had a home in the saguaros and chollas west of Tucson, he knew the desert. In his professional career before retirement, he restored paintings, and he has completed restorations of at least 10 murals in capitol buildings around the country. In his volunteer life, he works in conservation, one goal being to remove defunct and dangerous barbed wire from unused land. His group has removed over 100 miles of the evil stuff.

With a couple of nights to go before the AstroFest, Brandon’s wife Veronica had flown out to join him for a few days. In the afternoon we had dinner at Comb Ridge Eat & Drink one last time, enjoying the friendly staff and our waiter Charles’ tall tales.

Tonight there was a talk on mountain lions. Denise Peterson, and her husband David have spent countless hours backcountry researching them as founders of Utah Mountain Lion Conservation, literally moving to Utah just for the opportunity to study them. Their passion is evident.

Having over 40 mountain lion encounters under her belt, including moms guarding their kittens, Denise is a wealth of knowledge on their behavior. And she sums up any encounter with two points:

1. Understand what the mountain lion is trying to tell you, and
2. Formulate your response accordingly

For example, if a big cat is actually stalking you, you want to be big and scary. But with an agitated mom protecting her cubs, you have to deescalate. She showed us bits of the (in)famous clip of the Kyle Burgess encounter where, over the course of 7 minutes, he continually moved down the trail trying to get away from a mother with cubs.

According to Denise, the cat has raised her front paws repeatedly and is telling Kyle to go away. But his focus on videoing the encounter just kept the pressure on her. When he finally picked up a rock and tossed it, she turned and ran back to her cubs.

Denise even called Kyle to talk about it. Because the stigma of scary animals has profound consequences, both in the wild and politically. Denise discussed how the State of Utah, in a last-minute rider on legislation, passed a resolution paying hunters and trappers to exterminate mountain lions by any means necessary in several hunting units. Snares, traps, and guns, kittens as well as adults. Deemed a “study,” it is to “investigate” how removing the predators might affect the ungulate population. There is no serious science behind this, and of course once the mountain lions are gone they’re not coming back anytime soon. We seem to treat anything other than “us” with great contempt. Back east, I’ve heard folks say that the declining turkey population is due to raccoons and possums eating their eggs. A little research on my part shows that most biologists believe it is much more likely to be habitat loss, probably due to development.

CWD, or Chronic Wasting Disease, has become a significant problem in the west for deer and elk, and it is moving eastward. The disease is not viral or bacterial, it’s actually a protein called a prion that is malformed, and its presence causes others to fold the same way. The animals just get weaker and weaker and in a couple of years they die, it’s 100% fatal. Meanwhile, while infected, they are spreading the prions around in the soil where they congregate. The prions can last for decades in the soil and are very resistant to decay, boiling the meat has no effect.

As it turns out, initial research shows that mountain lions and wolves that feed on the infected carrion can greatly reduce, maybe by over 95%, the amount of the CWD prions that make it into the soil. Mountain lions and wolves go for the easier, weaker targets, thereby boosting the herd’s overall health. As a hunter, would you go for a sick or ailing deer or elk? Or would you avoid it because of the tainted meat or emaciated look?

It’s something to think about. Denise’s argument is that it will be impossible to do a study of the effects of the predators if their populations are too low to begin with.

It was an excellent talk and we were glad we were able to attend. Later in the evening, several of the BEEC staff, volunteers, and even the Bluff mayor congregated around a picnic table in the courtyard and we just had a great time talking and laughing. I even recited poetry found on my beer can…

The next night I tested the setup and operation of one of the portable computer-controlled telescopes on Carmen and Patricia before our big night at Natural Bridges. It all went pretty well I think. I recounted how Messier, in the 1700’s had discovered smudges in the sky that did not look like stars, and had compiled a table of them. Today, known as Messier objects, or “M” objects, they tend to represent the visual limits of most amateur telescopes. These “smudges” can be distant galaxies, planetary nebulae, or clusters of stars that no one could discern back in the day. What would Messier have thought if he found out that his M65 was in fact a smudge of three galaxies close together (now known as the Leo Triplet) and comprised of over 3,000,000,000 stars?

After I had shown them that I could easily navigate to a few smudges, we called it a night.

Arriving at Natural Bridges the next evening, the rangers were just beginning to set up. They were in the process of getting AstroFest up and going after a few years of largesse and had asked Sarah and the BEP for help. With three telescopes, we were ready for the night.

Carmen greeted someone from across the parking lot. I recognized that it was Matty! On our first day last year he had rolled into our camp area in his camper van to use the BEEC shower. An avid trail runner and rock climber, he had just traded a successful corporate life for a life helping others connect with the land. At about 6’4″, built like a lumberjack, with rasta hair and pink toenails, he is a commanding presence. Coming across the parking lot he saw us and came over. “You are…Jeff, right? And you are Pat?” Wow, we had only met briefly that one day last year! We talked for a bit and then I asked him, “How do you know Carmen?”

“Who doesn’t know Carmen?” he answered matter-of-factly.

On a scale of 1 to 10 for dark skies, Antartica is a 1, the darkest sky on our planet. Natural Bridges is a 2, and this was becoming apparent as the sun glow receded. While it was getting dark, a little poetry was read, and there was some Q&A discussion on the night sky with the group. Matty asked Sarah how many stars were in a galaxy? “Billions.” And how many galaxies there were? “Billions.”

Unlike Chesterton’s logician, Matty was happy to just get his head into the heavens.

And then, just before the small crowd was released to look through the telescopes, Sarah gave a “constellation walk.” With her mega-laser pointer that literally seemed to reach the very stars, she used the entire universe as her planetarium, and it was amazing. I loved it, and accused her of vaporizing at least a dozen stars with that laser. But hey, there are billions and billions… Know who said that?

With a good polar alignment, the “little” Celestron was pretty happy finding objects and the smudges were quite a bit more distinct than last night. Probably the best find was the Ring Nebula. Like a ghost, to look at it directly through the eyepiece was to make it disappear. One had to look around it and use peripheral vision. Doing this would make it jump out and you could hear people gasp as they found it.

One ranger had their telescope on Jupiter. Matty asked, “How far away is Jupiter?”

“4.9 Astronomical Units,” the ranger replied. Yeah, I thought, that answer’s not gonna fly….

“What’s an Astronomical Unit?” Matty responded immediately…

The night sky is now crawling with satellites, an increase from around 4,500 in 1984 to over 13,000 satellites today. So much has changed in 40 years! With SpaceX recently garnering approval from the FAA to launch over 1,000,000, what will it be like in another 40?

We rolled back into the BEEC around 1am and were able to get about three hours sleep before heading east and home! We decided to push pretty hard and see if we could make it in two nights.

Picking up US highway 160, we followed it east into the sunrise and across Colorado. Such a beautiful drive! And the only time I’ve ever used the spare gas can — I hadn’t planned on climbing to nearly 11,000 feet at Wolf Pass on the way to Alamosa.

Crossing I-25, we angled northeast up through Rocky Ford, Kit Carson, and Cheyenne Wells before reaching I-70 at Oakley, Kansas. A Hail Mary of a day, we wrapped up 750 miles with a sweet spot on Wilson Lake. I had even driven by the Sternberg Museum in Hays without stopping, and that was hard to do! We had decided to take the fastest route, even willing to pay the bogus Kansas turnpike toll if it helped. And actually, up until this point, the driving was pretty lovely.

Upon reaching Topeka the next day, things got hard. They were adding lanes to I-70 and there was a concrete barrier literally within 6 inches of the white line on the left. And the right-hand lane was straddling the rumble strip and up against the guard rail, claiming the battered emergency lane. It was tough to stay right, it was rough and I was concerned I’d blow a tire. But the left lane was intimidating. There were passenger cars not willing to squeeze into the “slot canyon” between the bouncy trucks and that concrete barrier on the left. And this went on for miles.

Timidity can be as dangerous as recklessness at times.

Getting through Kansas City, I’m down to 12 miles of fuel left. A sign showing conveniences indicates two gas stations. But after exiting into the big, busy intersection, new signage shows that they’re both left across the interstate, one is over a mile away? Nope, not in this traffic, it will be a half-an-hour of pain. I roll on through, hoping just to pop back on the interstate and find something further down the highway.

But we end up in a Walmart parking lot and it’s crowded. I swing around to their fuel pumps on the far side, but there are cars everywhere and it is tight. Seeing a way to do a “U” through the pumps, I pull in.

People are parked all over the place. In front of our truck, and along the edge of the parking area there is an old truck with a camper top, packed with lots of stuff. An older man, probably the truck owner, and a younger man are having a conversation.

I try my debit card at the Murphy pump. I’m presented with a list of 4 choices on what type of savings and tremendous deals I might want. I find “skip” and move onto the next screen, which is a big paragraph without any noticeable way to advance. Nothing on the 8 buttons to tell me what to do next. And it won’t give me my card. I hit cancel a few times on the keypad and get my card. I try it again but get the same result.

I hear a voice being raised and I see that the older man is getting louder. The other guy is still talking quietly.

The pump supports contactless payments so I grab my iPhone. I go through the same process but can’t advance, stuck at the big paragraph. I know if I cancel I’ll be kicked out, so I try enter. Again nothing happens. A notification on my phone indicates that a transaction of $0.17 occurred somewhere in the process.

Now the older guy is yelling at the other guy. He’s waving his arms and telling hime to “get the f— away!” over and over. I’m wondering why they just don’t walk away from each other.

I’m outta here, we’ll find gas somewhere else. As I begin to pull out I see that a police car is now in the parking lot and the officer is watching the two men. Working across the four lane to the short on-ramp, we hear sirens and see two more police cars en route. Probably got out of there just in time. Why couldn’t they just walk away from each other?

Merging back onto I-70, I’m looking for a more friendly exit. Apple Maps has inexplicably locked my location to the service road running parallel to I-70 on the north side and is desperately trying to get me to take the overpass and get back on the interstate like I should be! Technology can be exhausting.

I thought that when we got past the city center things would lighten up. But there is no city center, it’s just sprawl. The signs for each exit listing conveniences are all copies of the previous one. They all show the same brands of fuel, food, and accommodations. As we continue moving, I look up and to my right as the next exit ramps up to the big intersection at the overpass. Its two exit lanes are joined by two more, and I see a young man off to the side with his makeshift cardboard sign, trying to make eye contact with whoever might dare look his way. Another young man passes me on the left in a small car. One hand on the wheel, one hand holding his phone to his face, he’s probably doing 80.

All I can think of is the documentary koyannisqatsi.

Living a life that requires a different way of living.

Pulling off at a Petro with two miles left in the tank, there was not a single vehicle in a dozen bays. We re-evaluated the route and found that for an extra 15 minutes, we could take secondary roads and avoid the interstate and the bogus turnpike toll. Screw the toll.

And the road was lovely all the way to Hermann, Missouri. An old German enclave, it sits on the banks of the Missouri River and has a nice feel to it. This is our second time here at the city park, and tonight we enjoyed a pleasant evening. The park had warned us we might need to move quickly if the water rose, but with the truck still attached, we were ready. Riverside, we watched an Amtrak train roll in and out. The Big Muddy was out of her banks, and I couldn’t believe the number of logs and branches drifting by.

In our many travels, we seem to be blessed with our timing. I practice what I call coyote mode, which is to bed down when people are out and about, and travel when they are not. It doesn’t always work, but we were able to get on the east side of St. Louis just before peak morning rush hour. The westbound into the city was already backed up a long way. Swinging over to I-24, there was once again lots of construction, but not as bad. Our timing was good through Nashville, reaching it just after lunch hour.

I parked Ooo Shiny in the driveway with a plan to give it a much needed wash and make her shiny again before putting her back in the barn. That night a strong thunderstorm rolled through and we listened to the lightning crack, the thunder roll, and the wind in the trees. Our first rain in over 50 days I think. A good soak before the big bath.

We’re home. Memories and emotions rapid-fire for the next few days. We pray for blessings to all of you that we met, until we meet again.

#8 of  the series.

“Clear and copious!” bellowed the colonel to his troops. Well, they weren’t actually his troops. But he was accompanying his son on Boy Scout Troop 142’s assault of Standing Indian Mountain in North Carolina.

My good friend Bob, also accompanying his son Jon, had invited me and Cinder the Wonder Dog along for the multi-day trip. Cinder was always about the outdoors and to leave her behind would be heartbreaking, so I made sure I cleared it with Scout Master Ralph first.

This section of the Appalachian Trail is unique in that it circumnavigates the headwaters of the Nantahala River, the high ridge creating a nearly complete wagon wheel around the watershed with Standing Indian campground at the hub. About 35 miles in length, it provides several opportunities to loop out of the hub up one of the ‘spokes’ and come back to the vehicle.

Our trip had started at Deep Gap and we were a couple of miles in, climbing our way to the Standing Indian peak. It was summertime, and the temperature and the humidity were pretty much the same value, 90.

The colonel had taken the Boy Scout motto to heart, resulting in a crushingly heavy backpack. By the end of the second mile (it’s called “Deep Gap” for a reason), he was red-faced, sweating bullets, and having some knee trouble. A decision was made and the adults divvied up a few of his items to lighten the load. This must have been a humbling experience for an Air Force colonel, but he was a pretty good joe and he took it well.

Humility is the virtue of the world. And possibly its salvation.

The trip was both difficult and awesome, Albert Mountain never disappoints. Jon and the other boys found a rival scout troop member’s shirt on the trail and had much fun taking pictures of it in various places along the way. Cinder was even honored with a cameo role. During a raging thunderstorm one night, Bob beckoned Cinder out of the vestibule and into his tent where she lay meekly between us, shaking us both throughout the storm. She really hated thunderstorms.

This flashback occurred because we were now in the Escalante – Grand Staircase National Monument. We had extended our stay in Utah a few days so that I could support the BEP with a couple of AstroFest Dark Sky events that both Canyonlands National Park and Natural Bridges National Monument had invited them to attend. While I will discuss this more in my next post, the extension was filling up our personal schedule, but I felt I could really help them with their telescopes, and it looked like so much fun!

Escalante was named at the suggestion of John Wesley Powell to honor Silvestre Velez de Escalante, a Franciscan missionary. The name means “ladder” in Spanish and is fitting for the area, as the Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument, comprising nearly 2 million acres, steps its way down to the Grand Canyon. With place names in the area including Death Hollow, The Box, Devil’s Garden, Burning Hills, Death Ridge, Carcass Canyon, Scorpion Canyon, and Spooky Gulch, maybe one should pay attention here.

Brandon has spent a couple of decades roaming around Escalante-Grand Staircase and suggested we spend a few days here. About five hours to the west of Bluff, the elevation is higher and there is actually flowing water in many of the canyons, so it’s a popular backpacking destination. So we booked three nights at Escalante Petrified Forest State Park and set out to do some of his recommendations.

“I don’t like this road,” Patricia said quietly.

“I can tell by the way you are wadded up in a ball and hanging onto both grab handles. You know that won’t make much difference if I run off the road, right?”

“Well, it makes me feel better.”

“I could look in the back for a blankey.”

“If I had a blankey, I would get it!”

And such was our first trip down Hogback Ridge on Utah’s highway 12, an incredibly scenic road that climbs to over 9,000 feet and skirts the eastern edge of Boulder Mountain. We had traveled down Fry Canyon and traversed Capitol Reef National Park, amazed at the changes in the landscape. But when you hit the Navajo Sandstone of the Southwest (an estimated 230,000 square miles of exposed solid rock) it just gets pretty crazy.

Our first hike was to Lower Calf Creek Falls, a popular 6-miler up the canyon from the Escalante River. Brandon had warned us to get there early because of the crowds, and we had the parking lot to ourselves at 7:30am. It was a beautiful canyon, with the creek carving out the sandstone and creating, with the help of a few industrious beavers, quite an oasis of birds, deer, and fish, including trout.

I’ve heard it said that if you have great soil, you can probably thank a beaver. And I believe this to be true. Generations and generations of beavers altering the landscape. Even while millions were hunted and trapped almost to extinction for European hats, we have been blessed with the alluvial soils they’ve left behind while we yet curse the problems they cause us with their comeback.

Along the way we realized that the sheer rock face on the far side was actually Hogback Ridge, and you could catch glimpses of the road markers along the spine (there are no guard rails as they are a distraction to the effect, and Patricia had the full experience on the passenger side the previous day).

The sandstone is playful, forming all sorts of shapes. In The Secret Knowledge of Water, Craig Childs talks about how for decades geologists considered temperature change, wind, and freeze/thaw cycles to be the primary erosion mechanism in these desert places. But they’ve come around to realizing that it’s the flash flooding that really does the carving. When you add silt and grit to the power of rushing water, serious things happen…fast. In fact, he mentions that the indigenous that lived and live here, are not so worried about drought, they’re worried about flash floods that sweep whole communities away!

“Wow, that’s a Holy rock!” Patricia says.

“What makes it Holy?” I ask, intrigued at the concept.

“Well, it has holes in it.”

Ah, a holey rock. I think sometimes (most of the time) I try to read too much into things…

We had the falls to ourselves for a little while, and it was stunning. A blue hole with a sand surround, trout darting about, alcove columbine blooming all along the far side. Nice and cool.

Another couple joined us in a few minutes, and then we started heading back. A few more folks came along, and then a few more. The sun was fully shining on the trail side of the creek and it was warming up fast. About a mile from the truck we met a group of 30 or more, and by the time we had reached the parking lot at 10:30am it was full and the overflow area was beginning to fill in. Patricia had counted 100 people on our way out. Most had short sleeves, or no sleeves, shorts, and not much water.

Since it was only 10:30, maybe we should drive the Hogback to the Upper Calf Creek Falls trailhead and visit it as well? Brandon had mentioned it was a short hike, and that the pools above the falls were pretty amazing. So another run up the ridge to a little dirt side road with no sign. The dirt parking area was a couple of hundred yards off the highway and not a single car was in sight! We found the trailhead kiosk and signed the register.

For some reason my mind mixed up the elevation profile for this 2-mile round trip with another hike down on the Escalante river. And even though it was pretty obvious that it was not going to be a level hike, my brain just wouldn’t let it go. And Ffej must have really wanted to check out those pools!

“Are we going down there?” Patricia asked. “Well, I think it’s supposed to be pretty level and it’s only a mile to the top of the falls,” I replied.

It became obvious that we were, in fact, going down there. About 600 feet, practically all of it in the first half-mile, on slick rock guided by cairns. And it’s getting hot.

There was a sort of “mental whiplash” from expecting an easy hike, realizing the creek was far below, seeing the “trail” run straight down the canyon, and then starting off the rim onto a slippery, sandy and very steep slope. The descent was stressful and really slow going as we navigated cairn to cairn.

The truth is, I’d rather climb than descend. Descending forces you to heel strike first and is uncomfortable for balance, it also adds extra stress on the knees. The whole body tenses for the repeated shocks and unexpected slips and slides. And we need eyes in our toes to find those hidden steps that we know lurk just below the ledges.

In fact, why do we have world-class climbers but no descenders? Yeah, I know Alex Honnold has climbed El Cap, but has anyone ever descended it without a rope? Completely absurd to even think about. And why does my iPhone count flights up, but not down? So here’s to the unsung heroes, the descenders! Always out of their comfort zone, stress hormones maxed out, just trying to catch a break and get down the damn thing. But I digress….

Patricia and I have a discussion. I agree to put Ffej back in his lamp and she agrees to be more forceful in calling me (him) out. We decide we will proceed carefully. I scout out the last bit and although rocky (did I need to mention that?), it levels out near the top of the falls. There is a side trail that scrabbles another couple of hundred feet to the bottom of the falls, we will not be doing that today.

As the trail begins to flatten, it is pushing noon and getting hot. The entire area is completely exposed with a handful of piñon to provide shade. At the 3/4 mile mark with only 1/4 mile of, ostensibly, mild descent remaining, I am seriously considering turning around. We have enough water but I am worried about the heat. If we continue, we will want to hang out a while and then climb out when it is even hotter. We should have done this earlier in the day!

And then, wow. How can you have such a hard rock oven of a canyon and the water be so stinkin’ cold that it takes all of your gumption to jump in it? We have found a little desert paradise. A cluster of shady trees surrounding a little blue hole with its own little waterfall. I eventually managed a breath-taking plunge but Patricia couldn’t make it past her knees, the water had to be in the low 50’s.

Fully refreshed, we prepped for the one mile hike out. Just in case, I treated a quart of paradise’s water for the climb. I also filled a silicone ziplock with the cold water for dunking our bandanas. With such low humidity, evaporative cooling is a tremendous asset, and a wet bandana on the neck can really help keep the core from overheating.

Working our way to the top was a lot quicker than our trip to the bottom. Mentally we were ready for it and we just took our time, resting along the way in the shrinking shade of the little trees until we were up near the final climb. The cairns were well-placed, nudging us to the proper side on the wide slick rock for the best purchase as we moved upward.

I remember the colonel’s words to this day. And he’s talking about pee. It needs to be clear and not cloudy, and there needs to be a lot of it. Otherwise dehydration with energy loss, creaky joints, and generally bad things are on the doorstep.

We had planned our water well, clear and copious indeed.

The parking lot was still empty when we arrived…

The state park was pretty nice and very well maintained. The blue reservoir looked so inviting that we immediately prepared to break out the paddle board. But the eye can be deceived and the reservoir was low, I’m guessing well below half full. Between the vegetation in the shallow water and the ever-present wind white-capping the surface, we eventually lost interest. But the petrified forest loop was quite nice and the more rugged “sleeping rainbows” trail was a treat. I never knew there could be so much color in the fossilized wood!

Coming out around noon, I was again amazed at the number of people that were just starting the climb into the loop. Families with child backpacks and dogs, but very little sun protection or water during the heat of the day. I guess we can get away with these short excursions, but they can get serious pretty quickly. I have the T-shirt.

The campground is pretty dynamic, with groups using it as a basecamp for various activities. One group of teens was nearby for a night, and one of them had a guitar. It must have been a cheap guitar, as it only knew one song. So they all sang it…over…and…over…and…over…again. With exuberance. I chuckled to myself as it all wound down for a nice…cool…quiet…evening once again.

Escalante is a nice little town, and we covered all the bases. Patricia scored a couple of deals at Blue Crow Gear and Gifts, we sampled the goods at Escalante Mercantile, and ate at Escalante Outfitters a couple of times, legendary for their salads and pizzas. And Kiva Koffee was a wonderful space near the river.

In general, this area is considerably more popular and busy than Bears Ears. But so far it seems to be manageable and maintains the small town feel. And it was a bit curious to me that there was so much touring motorbike traffic. Kinda cool, actually. Not really the big Harley’s, these folks were generally self-sufficient and out for the experience of the expanse of it all.

As we rolled out of Escalante, the Hole in the Rock trail branched off toward the Colorado. It’s dozens and dozens of miles of bad washboard road down to the actual spot where the Mormons blasted their way to the river and dragged their wagons across on their way east to, you guessed it, Bluff, Utah. To me it seemed like a bad idea then, and it still seemed like a bad idea today, so we just took highway 12 back up the now-familiar Hogback and over to Hanksville, where Brandon said there were the best milkshakes ever.

Not impressed. Sorry Brandon.

Heading east across highway 95 felt like completely different scenery! We had only driven this road west when we left last year. Once again it reminded us to occasionally “just turn around” on any adventure, what’s behind you can really be surprising! We have experienced this time and time again…when we remember to do it.

Coming back into Bluff from the west was a treat. We met the new volunteer, Carmen, and just settled back in for a couple of days to get ready for the AstroFests. Oh, and the upcoming mountain lion talk!

And, maybe unsurprisingly, Carmen was yet another force of nature and kindred spirit that we wouldn’t have gotten to meet if we had left “on schedule.”

Stay tuned for the next episode….

#7 of  the series.

She had picked up a BLUFF bumper sticker from the rack at the desk.

“Sooo…why do they call it Bluff?”

“Ummmmm…”

I’m dumbfounded. I got nothin’. I just kinda kept my head down, hoping it was a rhetorical question. The teenager had gotten out of her family’s car first, and I guess she had walked into the BEEC while looking at her phone, not seeing, well, the bluffs.

Eventually the rest of the family trickled in, angling for the restrooms. It’s not uncommon and it’s perfectly fine. I mean, we have a big “VISITOR CENTER” sign by the highway, and the entire strip in front of the BEEC, the Tsé Kooh River Outfitters, and the Mokee Motel is a bit of a landing zone when entering town from the west. Lots of folks stop to check their rigs and such.

But yeah, looking out the car window still has its uses!

This could be my favorite question of the month…

Retrospective – Part Two:

I grew up in an interesting time. I remember when the Cuyahoga River flowing into Lake Erie was so polluted that it actually caught fire. In fact, it caught fire 15 times in a single year! There became a serious interest in trying to clean up our toxic messes and keeping us healthy. Efforts like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Montreal Protocol (to ban ozone depleting chemicals), all were either enacted or substantially improved through the ’70’s, ’80’s, and ’90’s. And these have been important laws with bipartisan support from Congress for the people.

President Richard M. Nixon, to his credit, strengthened the first, and enacted the second. The Montreal Protocol was endorsed by Ronald Reagan. Staunch conservatives through and through, they also understood the importance of these programs.

It took years for lead, a toxic heavy metal, to be phased out of our gasoline. But as a result, tests have shone that the amount of lead in children’s blood has been reduced from 15 μg/dL in 1970 to 2 μg/dL by 2000. There is no known safe limit of lead in the human body. Interestingly, other than all of the lead shot, bullets, fishing sinkers, and the like, lead is the most recycled metal in the world.

In the 1980’s, the conifers in the Great Smoky Mountains were dying. We saw it ourselves as frequent backpackers in the region. It was determined to be “acid rain,” the result of beautiful, clean coal seeding the air with sulphur (and other toxins, remember Paradise) to create weak sulphuric acid. It was a serious threat to the southern Appalachian forests.

The Clean Air Act forced changes across the country, and as a result we can breathe much healthier today! In addition to lead being removed from our gasoline, air “scrubbers” were installed at coal plants across the country to trap the toxins in the fly ash. Our quality of life increased and our children’s future was a bit brighter.

Fly ash contains all sorts of heavy metals like lead, arsenic, chromium, and mercury. Most of it ends up in landfills, and it is typically collected and stored in containment ponds temporarily. In 2008, massive rains breached a containment pond at the Kingston plant in Tennessee and well over one billion gallons of fly ash slurry spilled onto over 300 acres of land, with some making its way into the Clinch and Tennessee rivers.

TVA spent over one billion dollars on the cleanup, with many of the properties becoming uninhabitable. Many of the employees contracted for cleanup became sick, developing various cancers. Over 30 people died within 10 years of the cleanup, which was deemed complete in 2015. Nothing beautiful or clean about coal.

It seems a crazy connection. Our new neighbor from Kentucky, the Hopi and Navajo here in the southwest, the Kingston plant in middle Tennessee. Or is it?

When we spend billions to create an industry, extract billions of tons of coal with the effluent injected into the air and water, and then spend more billions to try and clean it up, what is it we are trying to do?

Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

A long, long time ago around the time of Christ, a people began to thrive in the Four Corners area. Known today as “ancestral Puebloans,” they did not become extinct as first considered. It is estimated that there are well over 60,000 descendants existing today that include Hopi, Zuni, Acoma, Ute, and Laguna cultures.

The primary meaning of the word Hopi is “a behaving one, one who is mannered, civilized, peaceable, polite, who adheres to the Hopi Way.” These people were not warriors, and they were very spiritual. In fact, the Hopi believe they have been given special knowledge by the Creator and are tasked with sharing it with the World.

Did you know that the Hopi have spoken four times at the United Nations?

Wha?! Yep, in 1948,1959 ,1976, and lastly by Thomas Banyacya in 1992.

They consider their 1992 speech to be their final message. It fulfills a prophecy where one day world’s leaders would gather in a “Great House of Mica” to solve world problems without war. It’s fascinating that the U.N. building on the east coast has an exterior that is all glass!

This last message has been preserved, and I encourage you to read it, it’s pretty striking. The photo is linked to it. A pdf is available too.

Back in the day when TVs had knobs, you were lucky if you could pick up 5 channels with a motorized antenna. PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service, was a go-to for me. In the 1980’s I remember catching a glimpse of a documentary where a spent rocket stage was tracked through a telescope as it plummeted to Earth. I was so intrigued! But with broadcast TV literally streaming over the air waves, you couldn’t pause and rewind, and it wasn’t easy to find the show’s name unless you had maybe subscribed to TV Guide. You just had to be patient and keep an eye open.

Years later I eventually found out the name of the documentary…but I couldn’t watch it. There were legal issues on who had the rights to it. But finally it was made available.

Koyaanisqatsi, from the Hopi language, was released in 1982. Rated 8.2 on IMDB and 92/100 on Rotten Tomatoes, surely you’ve seen it?

Directed by Godfrey Reggio, filmed in 70mm by Ron Fricke, and with a musical score by Philip Glass, it is a mind-bending visual experience on our modern approach to life on earth (I have a DVD-quality copy to loan if you are interested). All I can say is that this wedged itself deeply into my mind. It is a raw look at what we’re about. And it was done over 40 years ago. Many of the things I’ve discussed in my Retrospective are described visually here.

This country has worked hard over the past 50 or 60 years trying to improve the lives of its people. And while contentious at times, it has been a bipartisan effort in Congress. And the three branches of government have seemed to understand, at least to some extent, the importance of the will of the people and the pursuit of happiness.

All of this is being torn down. And the impacts will be far-reaching. A wrecking ball does not know how to rebuild, it only knows how to swing. Its time will pass, but if we want something better for our grandchildren, then things will need to change, and we will need to roll up our sleeves.

There are two paths. The first with technology but separate from natural and spiritual law leads to these jagged lines representing chaos. The lower path is one that remains in harmony with natural law. Here we see a line that represents a choice like a bridge joining the paths. If we return to spiritual harmony and live from our hearts, we can experience a paradise in this world. If we continue only on this upper path, we will come to destruction. — Thomas Banyacya, from his 1992 U.N. speech.

Patricia and I did a short study on the Gospels a couple of years ago. One thing that has stayed with me is how easily we can lose the true meaning of the translations. Take Matthew 4:17 for example, where Jesus says:

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

He’s echoing what John the Baptist has previously said. And I, for most of my life, have believed this to mean, “Confess your sins, there’s not much time!”

But looking at the original greek meaning of the words repent and near, it’s more like, “Change your heart and mind, for heaven is right here!” Acknowledging (confessing) sin is just a natural result of the change.

Is it that simple? Just change our behavior, how we perceive and feel, and paradise is revealed? Isn’t that what Banyacya is also saying?

Paradise was lost to the small-town people in Kentucky. Paradise may be lost to the Hopi and Navajo of Black Mesa when the water runs dry. The folks in Kingston unknowingly gave the ultimate sacrifice and lost it all.

Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

On the San Juan

In Utah, the San Juan river is the northern boundary for the Navajo Nation all the way from Montezuma Creek to the Colorado River. It is silty, carrying about half of all the sediment that enters Lake Powell.

Our host Kirsten and her husband Josh offered up a Memorial Day float on a mild and scenic section of the river. Sarah graciously loaned us a two-person inflatable canoe (known as a “ducky” in these parts) and Spencer ensured it was seaworthy with a little patching and testing. Brandon joined in with his packraft, and we put-in early in an attempt to beat the heat and the wind.

It was cloudy, and at first the wind was pretty stiff, and of course up-river! But it eased after a bit and the morning was cool.

Our first stop revealed some interesting cultural finds. A lot of pottery sherds indicating a very busy location over a long period of time.

Josh mentioned that this structure is in some sort of celestial alignment. Possibly marking a solstice event that would be seen from Great House in Bluff, a couple of miles away.

In the same area up above the structure, there are a couple of deep holes seemingly drilled into the stone and large enough to accommodate telephone poles. Intriguingly, if you sight along the holes you will see a boulder all the way on the far side of river just above the greenery. According to Josh, there are two holes over there too!

What were they used for? I’m no archaeologist, but it seems to me it had to be an ancient zipline! And that is probably why I am not an archaeologist.

Brandon may be dreaming about whitewater. I think I see his arms twitching…

Just before our takeout at Sand Island, we spotted more artwork on a rock face that turns the San Juan south. A few figures, along with seven mysterious panels all neatly lined up.

Off the water by 1pm and, all in all, a pretty fine day.

As our (supposed) last week was coming to a close, we learned that the BEP had been invited to a couple of AstroFest events in the Needles of Canyonlands and at Natural Bridges the first weekend in June. And they could use a little help with their telescopes.

Hmmmm, this sounds like fun….

#6 of  the series.

Three pair of beautiful handprints in featured image. Notice the misfit in the middle? 1,000 years ago that person chose differently. Even 1,000 years ago, there’s always one, right? And, more than we might like to admit, that radical might be saying something we need to hear. But more on that a little later…

Patricia had me worried. I had installed a fancy roof vent in the camper and when I set it to “automatic” just before bedtime, a super bright green LED indicator illuminated the entire camper!

“Are you okay with this light? I’m happy to turn it off,” I said.

“I sleep with my eyes closed so it won’t bother me,” she said facetiously. And then I heard a giggle. Then a chuckle. “Uh oh,” I’m thinking to myself.

Then a brief cascade of hysterical laughter. Terrified, I refused eye contact and I dared not engage in conversation. I’ve seen how these things go.

The laughing convulsions ebbed and flowed, subsiding before midnight. And we worked our way through it. For my part, I was as quiet as a church mouse.

Back around 2016 or so, we took the grandkids to a movie at a fancy venue in Huntsville. While eating at the restaurant, Lainee, the youngest, posed a knock knock joke to Patricia:

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Interrupting cow.”

“Interup…..”

“MOOOOOOOO!!!“

Grandmommy lost it. Out of control. It was so bad that the other waitresses came over to witness it in wonder.

Yes folks, joke hysteria is a thang.

And maybe genetic. I’ve seen the daughters and a granddaughter fall into this miasma, it has been a family team effort to pull them out! I would say there should be a treatment, but then again, it is a treatment. To experience one is to have a light heart for days, grinning to yourself every time you think about it.

Retrospective – Part One of Two:

John Prine was one of the great singer/songwriters of our time. By the time I had reached my teenage years, he’d penned and sung a couple of his greatest works in his 1971 debut album. He could transform a volume of prose into a single lyric like no other. Just thinking about Mr. Prine has placed Sam Stone in my mind, and the lyrics have rolled around in my head for at least three weeks now.

And the gold roared through his veins 
Like a thousand railroad trains

And eased his mind in the hours that he chose 
While the kids ran around wearin’ other peoples’ clothes

Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm.

And then there is the song Paradise.

John Prine was from Maywood, Illinois but spent many a summer on the Green River in Paradise Kentucky with his family. He had described it as “a real Disney-looking town.” While serving in the Army in West Germany (remember that Germany and its capital city Berlin, were split after WWII until the wall came down in 1989), his dad had written to tell him that the Peabody coal company had ruined the town.

Peabody Energy got their start in 1883 in the coal business, and in the 1960’s won a contract with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to strip mine thousands of acres in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky in order to feed a new coal-fired power plant being built in Paradise. It was a small town of about 900 folk, but nearly three times the size that Bluff is today.

To strip the land, Peabody had the world’s largest coal shovel, “Big Hog,” built to feed the new TVA Paradise Steam-Power Fossil Plant. Patricia remembers seeing it as a child.

But in just a few years time, the town was abandoned due to the toxic flue gases and fly ash causing sickness. People were relocating, often losing their businesses and value in their homes. TVA finally bought the entire town in 1967 and it is now a ghost town, with only the cemetery remaining. As the master sings:

Well they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken

Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

TVA was created in 1933 as a “public corporation.” I’m pretty sure the public paid for the purchase of the town of Paradise, and not the corporation. The coal furnaces were eventually shut down, with two being eventually converted to natural gas. Peabody Energy was unaffected.

During this same period, around 1964, Peabody’s subsidiary, Peabody Western Coal, signed leases with the Navajo and then two years later, the Hopi, acquiring mineral rights to Black Mesa, located near Four Corners. Both tribes consider the mesa ancestral and sacred lands and there was a tremendous amount of opposition to the leases.

The real kickers are that not only were mineral rights secured, but water rights as well. And the attorney working on the behalf of the Hopi to negotiate the leases also worked for a firm that represented Peabody in other matters. Hmm.

I mentioned in my last post how the U.S. government manipulated the Navajo, surrounding and shrinking the Hopi lands because of their resistance. Our government also knew there was coal in Black Mesa and they worked the rules hard to get at it.

As for their remaining paradise, the Hopi and Navajo were promised all good things. Good paying jobs and of course cheap energy. But also a promise that there would be no impact from the mining.

But why did Peabody Western Coal want water rights to the aquifer?

This aquifer, known as the N-aquifer, is the primary water source for over 5,400 square miles in the area. It’s ancient, pristine water tens of thousands of years old. Its recharge from rain in the desert is incredibly slow, making it subject to depletion from over use.

Absurdly, Peabody wanted the water only to transport their coal. They built a 272-mile slurry pipeline to the Mohave Power Plant in Nevada! When operating, it drew over 3 million gallons of water everyday from the aquifer. How could they do this? Because it was the cheapest way to transport their coal and it was perfectly legal. Free resources are always cheap and desirable to corporations.

Did it actually harm the aquifer? According to Cultural Survival,

“The Navajo Aquifer is showing signs of serious decline after decades of pumping by the Peabody Western Coal, according to an October 2000 Natural Resources Defense Council report. Water levels have decreased more than 100 feet each year in some wells on Black Mesa since PWCC started pumping the water for slurry.”

Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

Stay tuned for Part Two.

It’s been a whirlwind, both literally and figuratively! Cool in the mornings but hot and dry during the day, with the humidity hovering at an unheard of 8%! Red flag warnings for wind-whipped fires have been common. It’s best to get out early and be back by 1 or 2 pm before the wind picks up and the sun gets too intense, a real convection oven.

During our hikes, we usually start by tanking up at the truck and carry around 3 liters each for the hike. It’s rare that there is a need for a “pee break.” Sweat evaporates almost instantly and you really have to work at staying hydrated. While doing a bit of reading on heat stroke, I learned that the stomach can typically process only a liter of water an hour. And under heavy exertion, you can expend one and half times that. In other words, with strenuous activity, you will be in a water deficit no matter how much you drink.

We have called off or turned around on more than one hike. In fact, as much as we love loop hikes, we have found that out-and-backs give us options and allow us to see things we may have missed in the area.

There were a set of structures in one canyon that were intriguing. A series of four windows in the living space with what appears to be granaries on both sides. Patricia noticed that the granaries have a different style, maybe they were added later?

The structure sits on a ledge of stone under an overhang. Through the window on the left, I spied a series of white dots. Not wanting to touch the structure, I decided to stay off of the ledge. So I backed up and used the telephoto. There is something celestial going on here. An arc of dots, I counted 13, or was it 14?

With 13 full moons in a year (sometimes), is this what they were counting? There are about 14 meteor showers each year, could that be it?

And what about that arc? Being on the ceiling inside the room, what and how is it tracking?

While in Sacred Valley, Peru, we visited Puca Pucara, one of the many ancient Incan observatories. The observatories have shallow pools that, when filled with water, would reflect the sky.

The astronomers could observe while comfortably seated. A possibility here?

Three styles of handprints. One is just a painted hand placed on the stone, another is a “negative” of that with maybe the pigment blown from the mouth. The third is stylized with spiraling on the palms.

A little ways down the canyon, a different structure is seen. Beautiful prints, including our radical friend’s.

Once you know what to look for, many of the granaries used for food storage become easier to spot. But the one in the following picture was probably nearly invisible to see! The shape followed the Kayenta mudstone contours closely.

Heading out, we’re walking the “primrose path,” it was blooming everywhere. Should we be worried? Maybe the pale evening primrose is not the harbinger of destruction inferred in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Yeah, the desert is just a dry wasteland.

Wait, is that a beaver dam? And a crayfish?

There is water in the desert, if you know where to look.

Craig Childs, in his book The Secret Knowledge of Water, discussed that where mature cottonwood trees are found, water will be within 10 feet of the surface. If you can find cottonwood saplings, expect 3 feet.

If you are to dig for water, do it around midnight. During the day, the intense transpiration of the plant life will lower the water table. Once the sun is down and it cools off, the water will rise. Sometimes it will even rise above the sand, forming a magical, ephemeral stream in the night. Wild.

Driving out of this area, a quick thunderstorm caused some concern, the sandy/silty roads become impassable pretty quickly.

To the north, the rampart of Comb Ridge always impresses. Looking south, the thunderstorm has wet the face and it is glistening. A reminder that water sheds quickly here and flash floods are far more unpredictable than the desert heat.

We got in another great hike with Brandon! On the trail by 7:30am when it was cool, we worked the slick rock into a canyon. Maybe this balanced rock was used as a guide to the top of the dugway leading us in.

Dugways were cobbled into the bluff in later years to allow the movement of cattle in and out of the canyons. I am still amazed that they can navigate these.

The black beetle in the following picture (no, not Brandon!) is a bombardier beetle. When threatened, these guys can mix two chemicals (hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone) together in a special chamber. The exothermic reaction heats the mix to the boiling point and they can fire it quite accurately for quite a distance. So when you see one stand on its head, beware, you are on notice!

And one last magnificent sight to see. Look tucked underneath the rock…

Just beating the heat, a satisfying climb out of the canyon.

A little downtime the next morning for some shoe repair. I didn’t have a large enough needle, but running the drill at high-speed in reverse melted nice holes through the synthetic materials. Hopefully the waxed nylon lacing will hold up!

Time to chill. Next will be a nice float on the San Juan, and Retrospective – Part Two.