Death

A Haiku on Death Valley: 

Heat scorches the sand

Only the tough survive in

The Valley of Death

 

Joshua Tree

The Sonoran Desert and Mohave Desert intersect at a special place in the American Southwest: a home to bighorn sheep, massive boulders, and the famous Joshua Tree. The Chemehuevi, or Southern Paiutes, occupied these lands and I was pretty lucky to see some of their hieroglyphics painted on the boulders out in the desert. This one is of the Joshua Tree.

 

All along the road, these massive yucca palms rise to over 20 feet tall. Like giants standing in the desert, these Joshua Trees are able to communicate with one another. Conserving water in the desert is a group activity thanks to the shallow network of roots.

I went on a trail in the 90 degree heat through the Hidden Valley. This area of the park has plenty of massive boulders. A pile of rocks, it is a paradise for someone who likes to climb (like me). I climbed over to one of the peaks on one of the boulders and got a beautiful view of the forest of Joshua Trees extending into the horizon. There were also quite a few trees that didn't quite make it on this trail...

On my way back to the car on the Barker Dam trail, I noticed two signs. The first sign was about a couple that had gone missing on June 27th and not made it back for over 2 weeks! They had disappeared in a part of the park known as the Wonderland of Rocks...another area I would have loved to go had it not been cordoned off by the Search and Rescue team. The second sign was for bighorn sheep sighting. Low and behold, we ran into these two guys having their lunch on the side of the Boulder!

If one thought that Joshua Tree is beautiful during the day, it is even more beautiful at night. Countless photographers have gone out and captured the milky way sliding delicately behind the silhouette of joshua trees. I couldn't spend the night, but luckily, I was able to catch a glimpse of the sunset on my drive out of the park...and man was it something spectacular.

Padfoot

Los Angeles, the Big Orange, the City of Angels, La La Land. I was lucky to enjoy a couple days down in the city chilling with an old friend of mine, Alec. Alec was also one of my original housemates my first two years of undergrad. As we got some good ol' fashioned tacos, we brought out all the crazy stories of Lawrance Hall, philosophical thoughts on life, and debated random shit that we once used to spend many late nights discussing...good times. Like with any good friend, we just acted like fools (see right).

We took a trip down to Ventura to board the Island Packers ship to the Channel Islands. This boat was packed tight like a can of sardines with retirees and Boy Scouts. Now I know why they call it Island Packers. We got off at Santa Cruz Island, which once used to be a ranch, and hiked along the ridge.

The cloud cover was insane. We couldn't see anything. In fact once we took the 4 mile trip to the peak at Montaña Ridge, we could barely see anything around us. We waited for things to clear, but it was only once we made our way down that the clouds burned off...revealing the surrounding islands off the shore. The Channel Islands are a set of 8 islands off the Santa Barbara coast, but only 5 of them are protected by the national park service. The Chumash Native Tribe (the first inhabitants) called Santa Cruz Island, the big island, Limuw which means "in the sea." While the eastern half is open to the public, the western half is controlled by the Nature Conservancy.

Many people choose to go kayaking, snorkeling, or diving. We did get to jump into the warm water after our hike, but mainly we spent the day hiking. All along the trail were island foxes, sly guys trying to sneak into the campgrounds for a quick meal. This is SeaBiscuit.

King's Canyon

General Grant (270 ft) 

General Grant (270 ft) 

While Yellowstone was the first national park, do you know which national parks were signed thereafter? First instinct would say something like Glacier or Grand Canyon....but none of those are right. Yosemite/Sequoia was #2, and King's Canyon was soon after. Tucked away in the High Sierras these national parks have been fairly well hidden from public view, but Congress thought they were of special importance because of the trees they protected. 

What most people don't know is that Kings Canyon wasn't originally a national park. They had found a sequoia grove in the mountains and named it after President Ulysses S. Grant. In 1940 it was called General Grant National Park, so I returned to Grant Grove, the birthplace of the park. 

Only years later did Congress realize that this area is unique for a combination of reasons: sequoia groves, glacial gorges, and the alpine wilderness of the High Sierras. I hiked into the High Sierras on a short 9 mile roundtrip trail to Mist Falls, coming across the beauty of the canyon walls.

For future travelers looking to hike down here, remember to lather yourself in bug spray. Mosquitos here are aggressive and tend to multiply in the pools of water collecting by the side of the King's River. Every few minutes I was slapping my arms and legs to get these guys off! But feeling the mist of the falls was well worth it!

Fun Fact: King's Canyon is known in China as being the sister park of Tai Shan (泰山）. I climbed Tai Shan during my one weekend off my first summer in Beijing. The massive mountain is one of the Five Great Mountains of China.  I remember learning in my ancient Chinese class the old saying that goes "五岳归来不看山", meaning "after you return from the five great mountains there is no other mountain worth seeing." My friend and I only had one day to take the high speed rail from Beijing to Tai'an, climb the mountain, and ride it back. We had bought our roundtrip tickets for that night, however after hiking the whole day we told the taxi driver to take us back to the railroad station and ended up at the wrong one! With limited RMB in my pocket I realized that there was a separate high speed railway station on the opposite side of the city. We took a bus, but the smog was so heavy we couldn't see if we were anywhere in sight. Time was ticking down and we only had 30 mins to board. We got off at a random stop, bribed a guy at the bus stop to take us to the high speed railway. He asked, "How much do you have?"  We emptied our pockets and he took it. He then drove us 2 minutes away (literally around the smoggy block) to the high speed railroad station for us to board our train. Ridiculous.

Both Tai Shan and King's Canyon are recognized for the commitment to preserving the heritage, educating the public, and protecting their respective mountain wilderness. 

Meeting the General

The Sierra Nevada Mountain Range dips its toes into several types of environments: alpine, foothill, etc. But at the southernmost part of this great mountain range, there exists a small oasis where the conditions are just right. Not too much water, not too much soil, elevation is just right. The conditions have selected this one place to be the home of some of the largest trees in the world, the great sequoias. 

I reached the top of Sequoia National Park at the waning hours of the day, when the sun looked most golden and sawdust helped visitors see the rays of light poke through the topmost branches. Man, was this a sight to see.

The Big Trees trail was one of the most impressive trails I have been on. Though it is a short 1 mile loop, you pass by several massive sequoias that surround a central meadow. The meadow serves as their own private water well, and the tallest trees (like the one to the right) stand at around 270 feet tall. 

The Sequoias, unlike the surrounding trees, are immune to many illnesses. Their bark contains tannins that resist disease and insects, their bark is fibrous, felt like felt (get it? hehe) so it resists fires, and their roots are amazing. Check it out! This guy must have fallen over thousands of years ago, shining light onto the amazing network below the trees.

The tallest tree is the Hyperion Redwood (at 379 feet tall), but its location is held secret by the National Park Service and only 3 groups of people have ever found it. However, there is another tree that everyone can visit. No trip to Sequoia National Park is complete without seeing the largest tree (by volume) in the world: General Sherman. The General stands at 275 feet and is about 2,000 years old. To the General, my lifetime is just one blink of the eye. The General was massive, and apparently still lives to this day. Here's to the next 2,000 years bud!

“ It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woods — trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries ... God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools — only Uncle Sam can do that.”
— John Muir, 1901

The Yosemite

The car veered off the highway, falling into the shoulder! It hit a tree, turned sideways, and raised up onto only two wheels exposing its underneath before coming down with CRASH! Rubble, metal, fire, smoke, and wood shattered everywhere. 

This was not my car. 

It was two cars ahead of me, and I watched it all happen as we were racing down Tioga Pass to drive to the Cloud's Rest trailhead. I slammed on my brakes. Put my car into park. Slammed the door, and raced out to make sure people were ok. The driver and passengers were fine, but the engine was smoking. We grabbed water and doused the engine to prevent a car fire... This is how my day started at Yosemite National Park. 

While many credit President Woodrow Wilson with creating the National Park system in 1916, President Roosevelt with expanding the National Parks in 1906 before that, or President Grant with signing Yellowstone as the first National Park in 1872 before even that....many people don't realize that it all really began here at Yosemite with President Lincoln. In 1864, Lincoln gave Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Tree Grove to the state of California, thus launching a campaign by Frederick Olmsted to make it an official national park. This set into motion a chain of events which led to the founding of NPS, something that most people fail to realize. However, let's not fail to realize the brutality to local Native people and naming of several sites at Yosemite. Daniel Duane had an interesting opinion piece in the New York Times on naming of hotels in Yosemite.

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Yosemite has a special place in my heart. It was the first national park that my school's outdoor program took us to. It was also where I competed in the Yosemite Half Marathon earlier this year and placed 17th in the nation. But more than that...it is just a really beautiful place. I had done the Mist trail about a year ago, but this time my eyes were set on hiking up the legendary Cloud's Rest trail (14 mile roundtrip). 

I realized that my pace for most of my trails has been 2.5 miles per hour. I stuck this pretty well on my way up. At 1 p.m. I started on the trail from Tenaya Lake, and by 4 p.m. I was at the peak. From Cloud's Rest you can see everything that Yosemite has to offer. Chipmunks harass visitors looking for a break, ravens caw and perch looking down upon prey, and the forest expanse stretches over miles of granite, while white clouds lay at stark contrast to the blue sky above.

After I had made my descent around 7p.m. I was able to catch the fleeting rays of light, as the sun set behind the Stanislaus mountain range. I quickly turned to Olmsted Point that looks over half of Yosemite Valley, and the burning red sunset had lit up Half Dome unlike anything I had ever seen before. I was speechless.

“There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children’s children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred.”
— Theodore Roosevelt, 1905

The Vulcan's Eye

Northern California is one of the most geologically diverse places in the world. I came down the Cascade Range to run smack into the Klamath mountains to the west, Modoc plateau to the east, Great Valley to the southwest, Sierra Nevada to the South, and Basin/Range to the southeast. 

What stands at the cluster of  these geological peculiarities? Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Lassen is very interesting because it is one of the only places in the world to be home to all 4 types of volcanoes: shield volcano, cinder cone volcanoes, lava domes, and composite volcanoes. Lassen peak itself is a lava dome, which last erupted almost exactly 100 years ago (1915). It is also an amazing hike! No matter where you go, you will see some views of the neighboring landscape!

I began the 2 hour, 2.5 mile ascent to the 10,463 foot volcano early in the day, and got to witness some spectacular views of the snowy countryside. So much snow for August! Jesus! Now I understand why the local Native Americans named this sacred mountain Kohm Yah-mah-nee or "snow mountain."

But soon I made it to Lassen Peak itself where I ran into a group of boy scouts kind enough to take the panorama below! (One kid loved it, so pretty soon they all wanted one too hehe).

The descent took me past Lake Helen, which was glowing particularly vivid shade of light blue. I had noticed it from up above, so I decided to step closer to take a look. Spectacular!

Redwood Forest

Last night I met a hobo at my campsite. He groaned and asked for food. I told him I had none, but then I remembered that I had a nature valley bar that had melted and then solidified into a crescent shape at the bottom of my backpack. I dug it out and gave it to him. After devouring the thing, the man looked at me and started asking me about my car and whether I could give him a ride to a local casino. He had walked several miles to the campsite from Crescent City. I somehow got out of the conversation without offending him.

Then today, I got mistaken for a hobo. I ordered a small coffee at a Starbucks and the barista looked at me, my dusty shoes, the uncombed hair, and the patchy beard. She looked appalled and I could tell when she said, "I've got this one honey" what she really meant. 

I have no idea what this has to do with anything. One of the reasons I looked so dusty was because I visited Redwood National Forest earlier today. The forest bed is covered in powdered dirt that is thrown up by visitors's SUVs, caking most of the forest flora and fauna. I decided I would do the Scout trail in the northern part of Redwood National Park-  Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park.

The trail, a brisk 6 mile roundtrip, takes you past some amazingly dense redwoods. It is slightly different from Prairie Creek Redwood Park, on the southern part of the park, which I had the pleasure of touring about a year ago. Their tall trees trail were truly spectacular. 

But this trail was slightly different because a brief ascent at the end reaches the beautiful Fern Falls- greeting visitors with small fish and a bunch of water bugs. 

I'll end with a redwood joke.

How did the government know that the tree was a communist spy? He was a redwood. He was arrested for treeson.

Swimming in a Crater

What is the name of the deepest lake in North America? Crater Lake! Tucked away in southeastern Oregon, this crater was once the giant Mazama mountain, but collapsed into itself after a massive volcanic eruption. Because Crater Lake is one of the places hit with the most snowfall every year (44 feet...or 1.5 inches/day), over 5 trillion gallons of freshwater have built up here! It is also the clearest water in the world, holding one of the Schecci Disk test records of 143 feet. It's a kind of blue that cannot be unseen. My first trip here was about 15 months ago with a ragtag group of grizzled and gnarled pioneers known as the Material Science PhD students. We had spent several hours snowshoeing our way across the South Rim of the crater, before rolling around in the snow, and running inside for warmth.

This time around the pristine snowy landscape was replaced by smoky haze. Apparently a fire had broken out on the western side of the national park. This had two unintended consequences, it was much cooler and there were no mosquitos! It was beautiful...

One thing I really wanted to do that I couldn't do last time was swim in the lake. I actually wanted to see how clear the water was, and was surprised at how deep I could see. Several hundred feet below me I could make out stones as the cliff dropped off. The deepest part of the lake is about 1900 feet. 

Now things would have been pretty normal and I would have been on my way, had I not stopped at the visitor center first. I needed to check on some directions to my next destination and was about to leave, when I ran into Tanya, my labmate, from the Nanoheat group!  [shoutout to the Goodson group :P ]

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My favorite part of the entire Crater Lake experience was the Cleetwood Cove trail. It was one of the only trails open today (due to the fire) but still the only one in the entire park that gets you down to the shoreline and into the water. Some visitors take this trail to go on boat tours. The tours are famous for passing by a large 40-foot log named the "Old Man".  This log has been bobbing around the lake since the later 1800's apparently, and as become more of tourist attraction and now a federally protected one too!

The Olympic Mountains

While most visitors would prefer to hike Hurricane Ridge on the northern part of Olympic National Park, I decided to do a trail slightly off the beaten path. On the southeastern side of the park there is a magnificent rainforest which many of the locals rave about. But the Olympic Mtns are known themselves for their snow-capped majesty. I wanted a trail that gave me the best of both worlds, so I decided to start on the 10 mile Upper Quincene/Marmot Pass trail. 

This trail had pretty much everything. Picturesque brooks babbling, moss growing on everything, mushrooms thriving like mounted wall lamps on the rainforest oak savanna, and Seattle Seahawks fans. This was the trail to be on.

About 3 miles into the trail I came across a beautiful waterfall and dipped my toes in. It was not long before I saw a whole crew of volunteers fixing and repairing part of the trail. I noticed their shirts read "Washington Trails Association," this is the same website where I had found the Marmot Pass trail, and I struck up a conversation. Apparently this team of volunteers is one of many project teams and these projects are available every weekend at different parts of the park. 

 

 

One thing I noticed wherever I went in the park was an army of pink flowers storming across the countryside. It wasn't until I asked the park ranger did I find out that these are the famous smooth Douglas's that clump in the alpine wilderness.

Unfortunately this trail is pretty rocky and steep. The elevation gain is about 3500 feet, which isn't too bad going up, but can be dangerous coming down. A couple times I didn't look too carefully and I rolled my left ankle, so be careful. 

But once you get to the top of the mountain, Marmot Pass greets you with some spectacular views of the Olympics. An even better view awaits those who brave the steep ascent to Buckhorn Mountain! 

Moony

I spent the day exploring Seattle (Warning: a number of touristy things in this post). Part of what I wanted to do was explore all the parts of the Emerald City that people had told me about. Of course, no trip is complete without a visit to the Space Needle. 

Rather than going inside the Space Needle, which I heard was not as glamorous as they make it out to seem, I decided instead to go to Chihuly Gardens. Dale Chihuly is a famous glass sculptor and is known for his glass blown works of art at this museum. 

The moment you enter the Gardens it seems as though everything has a life of its own. Beautiful baskets inspired by Native American art, large chandeliers with curved arms and bulbous legs, and plate-like flowers are hung from the ceiling. 

Every half hour or so, one of the museum docents holds an informal tour of Chihuly's works of art. The piece to the left was made using a cone-like metallic mold that the molten glass was blown inside. The curves/texture of the glass were the result of hours of painstaking effort to get it just right.

 

Perhaps one of the coolest rooms in the entire exhibit is of Chihuly's chandeliers. There is a cool movie at the end of the museum exhibit where you can see how he assembles these works. A wire frame cylinder hangs from the ceiling, and one-by-one his assistants take the bulbous and curved glass pieces and thread one end through the frame. The end product is a masterpiece that looks more like Medusas serpentine hair than any chandelier I have ever seen.

I also had the opportunity to meet up with an old friend, Kevin. Kevin was my roommate more or less for two years in undergrad. He took me to see some cool places like the first Starbucks in Pikes Place, the yachts near South Lake Union, and we even got to go inside the Amazon Go (beta supermarket). Pretty crazy! Amazon employees whizzed past us, picking up snacks and groceries off the shelves and walking straight out. 

Also, huge shoutout to my good friends Rina and Krystal for hosting me in Seattle. From hosting awesome Rains study breaks and early morning coffee/bagel breakfasts, you both are the best!

We Didn't Start the Fire...

Yesterday, wildfire personnel performed a controlled burn on the side of Highway 97 near Loon Lake in British Columbia, Canada. However 15 minutes after the back burn began, shifting winds pushed the fire over the highway thus spreading beyond the team's control. Now over 80,000 hectares are burned and by 7 p.m. yesterday evening the entire state of Washington was under a plume of smoke. 

I woke up to go see North Cascades National Park this morning, but quickly drove headfirst into a grey haze that had blanketed most of Seattle. The North Cascades is split into two parts (north and south). I had headed to a beautiful trail called the Hidden Lake trail, but was disappointed to see that visibility was so poor even up high in the mountains. So I turned down to the north part of the park, near Diablo Lake, pursuing the Thunder Knob trail instead.

One of the things several park rangers will tell you this time of year is that the blackberries are everywhere and are ripe for the picking. Thus, several black bears and grizzlies have been spotted in the park by the lake. Luckily I still had my bear spray.... This region is known for many beautiful elements as was stated by the Enabling Act of 1968 "majestic mountain scenery, snow fields, glaciers, alpine meadows, and other unique features."

The short 2 mile ascent to the top of the trail overlooks Diablo Canyon with a Mount Shuksan towering in the distance .I was surprised despite hiking in the smoke how beautiful it all was. Gorges with water falls, lakes, and snow capped mountains. Even the warm smell of burning wood greeted my nose like I had entered into a Seattle Starbucks and the aroma of Pikes Place roast was all around me. While several people complained on the trails and at the visitor center, I thought it kind of reminded me of my time in Beijing in someways. The thick haze, the smell of burning, the intense heat, and the ability to see the sun without sunglasses on at midday. Hopefully things clear up by Friday.

Mt. Rainier

John Muir, the famous conservationist and friend of President Teddy Roosevelt, once said "of all the fire-mountains which, like beacons, once blazed along the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest in form." To his point, Mt. Rainier is spectacular. The most dangerous active volcano and the highest peak in the Cascade Region, the sheer magnitude of this mountain goes without saying. 

Muir continued to say that Rainier was "the most luxuriant and the most extravagantly beautiful of all the alpine gardens I ever beheld in all my mountain-top wanderings." An alpine garden indeed, the mountain was covered with several varieties of wildflowers. White, orange, yellow, purple, and red dotted the trail sides as I hiked the Skyline Loop Trail.

I made the climb up to the Panorama Point and caught a glimpse of Mt. Adams and Mt. Hood in the distance. To the north and east side (out of view) loomed the North Cascades and Olympic National Park ---to be visited in the coming days! 

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Of course, no trip to Mt. Rainier is complete without jumping into a lake. So I took a cold plunge into Louise Lake after clearing it with some of the park rangers...

...and decided to act like a fool.  (try balancing your camera with a 10 second timer on a wooden log in the middle of an abandoned lake by yourself while flipping your hair back.)

An Inconvenient Truth

My thighs burned on the Highline Trail. I climbed an 18 mile variation of this trail through Glacier National Park, taking me past the most picturesque panoramas of the Continental Divide. I had gotten up at 5 a.m. to be on the trailhead at Logan Pass by 7 a.m. Logan Pass is special because it is the one notch in the Garden Wall, a massive stone wall separating the east and west portions of the national park. At 7 a.m. the sun had barely poked over the ridge and left the trail shrouded in darkness.

No matter where one looked on this trail, you were bound to see the best that nature had to offer. I had met two grandparents who were hiking the trail and telling me about their life story. Avid hikers, even they were impressed by the views we had seen! Luckily the start of this hike was relatively flat, allowing for some amazing views of the snow capped mountains.

Below you could hear car’s whizzing by on Going-to-the-Sun road, the famous 1932 roadway that takes visitors across the many overlooks. At mile 7, there was a 2 mile roundtrip detour that climbed several hundred feet to an overlook. It was the Grinnell Glacier overlook.  

Grinnell Glacier is one of the 25 remaining glaciers in the park. At the end of the Ice Age there were 150, by 1968 there were 50, and by 2030 there will be none if the current rate of global warming persists. At this current rate our children will never get to see this.

Global warming. What can we do to address the great challenge of our time? Some say electrify everything, bring renewables online, and hope everything works. Or crack the materials science key to energy storage for commercial and utility applications. Or perhaps, the hardest...change human behavior. We could stop driving cars, become vegetarian, and get rid of our air conditioning systems. But who will do so? A recent Science Magazine article talked about what we could do to reduce our carbon emissions. The picture to the right summarizes the points. It has been 10 years since Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth brought this issue to the international stage and this week An Inconvenient Sequel hopes to return our attention to the topic.

I thought about this a lot on my hike past Granite Outlook to the Swiftcurrent Mountain Lookout. By simply visiting these parks... am I not contributing to the problem? Does mere existence lead to the demise of beauty? And what is beauty without existence, for isn't beauty in the eye of the beholder? A conundrum indeed. Much of this reminds me of the Story of Four. There once was a group of four called Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important problem that needed to be solved. Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it. Nobody realized that it was Everybody’s job. Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done. 

After my hike was over, I returned to Jackson Glacier overlook. This is the largest glacier in the entire park and in the 85 degree summer heat was probably melting just like I was. I caught one last glimpse and headed back. How do we keep the beautiful things?

When the Tiger met the Bear

Five years ago I began writing my first blog. I had just started on a year long program studying Mandarin at two universities in Beijing. The first thing you get when you study Chinese is a Chinese name. My intro Chinese teacher looked at the name Rahul and decided it sounded very similar to 瑞虎 (Ruìhû). It meant tiger. Lucky tiger.

Everywhere I went in China, people would call me the lucky tiger. One time when I was in Xi'an a lady got me confused with Obama. "噢爸妈来了!" she screamed. (Obama has come!) I told her she was mistaken. She asked me what my name was. I told her Lucky Tiger and she burst out laughing instead. Henceforth, the tiger was born.

I spent the day hiking alone through Grand Teton National Park. Around Jenny Lake, up to Inspiration Point, and far into Cascade Canyon there are several amazing panoramic views of the Teton Range. Since I was all alone, I needed to be careful. Bear sightings had become more frequent this time of year, especially when mama bears would teach their cubs how to hunt and scavenge for food. Bears don't attack groups, but they do attack individuals. Quiet individuals. At first I thought..."what are the chances I will run into a bear?" So I started the 10 mile trail up the mountain, but decided that it would be better if I made the investment in some bearspray (which I have now added to gear list).

The store owner showed me how to remove the safety, lock and load, and fire. "Never run" he whispered "it will trigger their internal bear instincts... they will chase... and that is one race you will never win."

Scared shitless by the old man, I wandered to my doom in the great mountains, the Grand Teton Range. Up and up, several slopes and trails I traversed, crossing the river pass between String Lake and Jenny Lake and noticing several of the beautiful flowers that had come to bloom along the way. Yellow and purple colored the mountainside and by the lake, the colors were most vivid. Everything was going well until I turned one corner...

I held my hand on the bear spray canister. Trigger was ready to be pulled. But I had the intense urge to video record this...just in case this was the way things would end for me. Camera in the left, bear spray in the right, and mouth on the orange safety...I backed away slowly.

I had already passed a tour group of horses earlier and met up with the leader to tell them that a cinnamon mama bear and two black cubs were up by the river side. The group leader made a bunch of noise, and the group pushed the mama bear back. After that I was known no more as a Tiger, but as Bear Bait. I would go ahead of the horses, scout the area and tell the group it was clear. I was surprised by the number of frightened international people I met on the trail who did not have bear spray. They were all relieved and excited that I had a can. Pretty soon I was leading a group of Germans, Italians, and Lebanese through the woods (Left- see the pic of confused people). We split our way at the river and I started the long trek up to Inspiration Point. 

The trail wasn't too bad and I had packed a full 2 liters for the venture up. My plan was to go once around the lake, and hopefully reach the car before things started getting dark. It was all going well, until I turned another corner... and saw....Diva Bear.  

I made it to Inspiration Point despite two bear encounters and keeping a calm hand on the trigger. After, I made it the rest of the way around Jenny Lake without seeing a bear. Hiking alone definitely is mentally taxing. Any second, something could attack and you are hyperaware of all noises in the wild. I got around the fear of the unknown by imagining a bear coming out of the bush and the actions I would take to save my skin. Perhaps that calmed the nerves, or perhaps it was dipping my feet in the lake after the hike was done.

Yellowstone

Where waters have carved the Gallatin,
Heat of the earth pushes, ebbs, rise,
Blue pools boil from the depths of the inferno,
And sulfur pushes tears from our eyes.

Black necked elk graze in the meadows,
Creeks bring life wherever they go.
Visitors peer at the boiling soup from above,
Thermophiles ferment down below.

This is the land of bears and bison,
The land as old as time,
The land of water and fire,
Where orange and blue intertwine.

Yellowstone.

Oh wistful wanderer! Traveler,
Thou may try to replicate, but tis a ruse.
How can one recreate such masterpieces,
For God has not given you such tools.

The paintbrush is not adequate,
The lens may fall short of what is desired,
The eye can behold but not recreate,
The land of water and fire.

This is the land of bears and bison,
The land as old as time,
The land of water and fire,
Where orange and blue intertwine.

To the northeast sharp cliffs do rise,
Patterned with a yellow wildflower sea,
The northwest carries vessels of black, orange, and white,
Pools for mammoths they may be. 

To the southeast a great lake does traverse,
Miles upon miles of the imagination.
And to the southwest a great geyser emerges,
Old and faithful to our nation.

This is the land of bears and bison,
The land as old as time,
The land of water and fire,
Where orange and blue intertwine.

Yellowstone National Park was awesome, I got to hike around and explore for two days. One of my favorite hikes was up to the Observation Point behind Old Faithful because it overlooks the Upper Geyser basin, which is known for having the highest density of geysers in the world. Half of the world's geysers are located there. Paragraphs cannot describe this place or evoke the right emotions, so I wrote a poem instead. Hope you enjoyed! 

Teddy

President Roosevelt's Maltese Cross Cabin

President Roosevelt's Maltese Cross Cabin

The most strenuous of all presidents, President Theodore Roosevelt was very different from most. He read a book a day, climbed the Matterhorn on his honeymoon, rafted down the Amazon when he was a middle age man, and had energy so uncontrollable that he rocked himself all around his room on his rocking chair! What people don't realize is that Roosevelt was not only an outdoorsman, but was an intellectual too- he wrote forty books, over 150,000 letters, and a serious political strategist.  He had huge drive, and thirst for adventure that was quite unrivaled. It is this combination of intellectual curiosity and raw ambition that is pretty rare, and as such, I paid a visit to his ranch at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.

Yellowstone had become the first national park when Teddy was a young man. Although the national park had been established, there was little federal oversight on maintaining the park as only local army leaders would maintain them, not park rangers. Together Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot, the first US forester, decided they would change things. The conservation leader of the US, Teddy was known for doing a ton without Congressional approval - 150 million acres of national forest by executive order, created the National Wildlife Refuge system and named the first 51, he signed the Reclamation Act and signed the first 24 projects, signed the National Monuments and Antiquities Act- starting with Devils Tower (which I had camped out by earlier yesterday) and named the first 21. And doubling the number of national parks from five to ten.

Perhaps the most important story about Teddy Roosevelt, or the one that I think of the most, is that between April and June of 1903. Roosevelt had ended a difficult legislative season and decided to make the longest presidential road trip of any president before that time. His plan was to spend 2 weeks in Yellowstone with John Burrows and then go to several states to give speeches. But in early May he ended up at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. He heard that there were plans from the Santa Fe railroad people to make a hotel complex and install a railroad spur, lay tracks. Peering over the rim he said the following:

“Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children, your children’s children, and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights which every American if he can travel at all should see....Keep the forests in the same way. Preserve the forests by use; preserve them for the ranchman and the stockman, for the people of the Territory, for the people of the region round about. Preserve them for that use, but use them so that they will not be squandered, that they will not be wasted, so that they will be of benefit to the Arizona of 1953 as well as the Arizona of 1903.”
— - T. Roosevelt, 1903

He tried to make the Grand Canyon a National Park, but House of Representatives Speaker Joseph Cannon famously opposed this and said, "not one cent for scenery." 

Roosevelt was pissed and did what any logical person would have done. He made the Grand Canyon a national monument and set aside 828,000 acres of land overnight. The Grand Canyon became a national park in 1919, the year that Roosevelt died.

I spent most of my time hiking up where Teddy and his group of ranchmen like Bill Sewall and Wilmot Dow would ride. I'd highly recommend the Wind Canyon and Ridgeline trail, you might even run into a couple bison holding up traffic!

The First National Monument

I woke up to a beautiful view this morning. I had driven in pretty late and got my tent setup in the dark with the critters crawling all over me the previous night, but the moment I poked my head out of the tent I knew I was in for quite a surprise- a spectacular view of Devils Tower. 

This was my first time in Wyoming. I was going to write a Wyoming joke here but all of the ones I googled were so mean that I won't. It's what you don't say. 

Devils Tower is is over 1,200 feet tall and was officially made the nation's first national monument in 1906 by President Roosevelt after he had made a hunting trip through the Black Hills. From miles away it is a sight to be seen. Native Americans called it the Bear Lodge and to this day find it to be sacred. I hiked the loop around the base of the tower and scaled some of the large boulders at its base. Almost everywhere I went I saw Native American prayer flags and blankets tied on tree branches. I also saw a good ol' longhorn grazing in the meadow adjacent to the structure.

 

You're probably wondering...how did this form? Some say that it was a volcanic plug, the neck of an extinct volcano, or that it was trapped in a large mushroom rock that was then eroded over time. Who knows. 

One thing is for certain...it's a ton of fun climbing up these rocks. I saw a bunch of climbers traversing the igneous pillars of the tower. And I even ran into two of my friends from the Wild Cave spelunking tour (shoutout to Martha and Jacob of New Haven!). Jacob was going to try his hand at scaling the walls. For me, I just crawled over boulders.

BePaDoBeDe

The Black Hills region is home to more than just a few prairie dogs and the famous Wall Drug store. On the western side of Rapid City I visited two American classics: Mount Rushmore and Wind Cave National Park. Other than being the most photographed thing in the area, Mt. Rushmore lies above a massive amphitheater and mall area. George Washington’s nose is about 20 feet long and the parking garage to get into this national monument has 6 entrances. Fun fact that I learned while in line at Mt. Rushmore: Thomas Jefferson was apparently the creator of the first ice cream recipe…which they just so happened to be serving at the monument entrance.

The morning was a mad rush getting to Mt. Rushmore (no pun intended). Soon after, I raced south to Wind Cave National park for their 1:00 p.m. tour. I had gotten pretty lucky and registered as #10 on a list of ten people to participate in their famous Wild Cave tour. This tour has visitors spelunk down 275 feet below the earth’s surface in caves that have clearances as small as 11 x 36 inches. Armed with headlamps, helmets, kneepads we descended into the 52 degree wind cave looking at beautiful boxwork formations and frostwork from all corners of the cave. Unfortunately I was not allowed to take any pictures, but I can show you a map of what the wind caves look like. Apparently over 147 miles of cave have been found in 1 square mile of the park. 

For 4 hours we crawled, slid, maneuvered, and jiggled past the cave walls. One part of the cave took us to a room where we saw the signatures of the first cave explorer, Alvin McDonald, on the wall signed using the smoke of their candles from 1893. The room opened up to an atrium with a bottomless pit. One wrong step and you would have been gone. There were 5 explorers who had found that pit and saw that it connected to another pit…they named it after the first two letters of everyone’s name:  BePaDoBeDe.

I had mentioned to one of the park rangers that I really wanted to see the bison. Wind Cave is special because it is one of four locations in the United States to have a free roaming bison herd. The bison had almost gone extinct in 1890, with the last herd living in Yellowstone. In 1913 the American Bison society helped reintroduce the bison into the Wind Cave National Game Preserve.  They are especially important to the Lakota people who pray for the bison, who provided them with food, shelter, and necessary equipment. Legend says that the bison emerged from the cave entrance of the Wind Cave and at the time the cave entrance was huge. Once all the bison had escaped into the world, the cave entrance shrunk back down. As a result the bison were forced to stay. To this day several native American tribes refuse to enter the Wind Cave National park or take part in the spelunking/caving activities as they treat the place as a sacred temple.

Since then the number of bison has steadily recovered…so I was interested in seeing them. At the southernmost part of Wind Cave National Park is a giant prairie, here two to six hundred bison come to roam and eat. One guy even played around in the dirt a few hundred yards from my car!