Everything which is infinite, which is yes

Yesterday I was lucky to go on a hike I’d been looking forward to for some time. A few weeks ago I was at a meeting where the park Superintendent talked about a trail that he said wasn’t ready for prime time, the Blue Mesa to Teepees trail. The trail follows ridge lines through the badlands and was washed out in spots, and in some places footholds had to be chopped out with a pickax. Some sections are only a foot or so wide with a pretty formidable drop on one side and a wall on the other. I talked to paleontologist Bill about going on a hike there and he said I could trail along the next time he went, which turned out to be yesterday. I toted along my hiking poles because I’d heard the horror stories and wanted to be prepared. I didn’t need them.

In the last couple of weeks a group of teenagers has been here in the park, working on that trail and at least one other that I know about. When we hiked the trail yesterday we found footholds chopped into steep sections, foot after foot leveled out, an inner curve secured with stacked rock, and a generally challenging trail, at least for me, but a navigable one. Like the trail down into the Painted Desert that I wrote about some time back, I was sucking wind in spots but it was so worth it.

I’ve posted pictures here before from Blue Mesa, the ones taken from the established loop that visitors can easily see and travel. The views from yesterday’s hike were very different, as they were taken from the top looking down, as opposed to looking up out of the valley the loop trail follows.

One of the ridge lines, where we’re walking on top of the world.

Navigating a steep hairpin turn.

Another ridge line section.

Petrified wood lying in a gully in Blue Mesa, lying where it eroded from. The only place in the park where it’s been moved is in front of the Rainbow Forest museum at the south entrance to the park, where representative samples of the different kinds to be found have been placed. The rule on wood or any other thing found in the park is to leave it where it was found.

Badlands, as seen from above.

Look at the size of the petrified wood log in the background, exactly where it eroded from the surrounding earth.

The Teepees end of the trail.

More teepees, so called because of their conical shape.

I can’t wait to go back and take some time. It might have taken us 45 minutes for this trip, but I’d like to spend at least a couple of hours there. I love this park. Everywhere I look is more and more beauty.

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Thought of the day:

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes. (e.e. cummings) 

Decoration Day

I spent the weekend near Tucson with my buddy Melvin and his son Bob. They're always so gracious and generous in opening their home to me. It's about a six-hour drive from the park to their house, but it goes by so quickly because I travel the photogenic highway 60/77. I called it 60 in an earlier post but the long stretch of it is actually 77.

Saguaro cacti are in bloom everywhere down there. They were beginning to bloom when I was there in April and I was surprised to see the blooms continuing. They grow only in the Sonoran desert but not everywhere in the desert, and grow only to an elevation of about 4000 feet. That leaves us at Petrified Forest out of the loop because we're in the neighborhood of 5500 feet.

It's always so peaceful at Melvin's. No agenda, no expectations, just long conversations and pleasant, interesting, and intellectual company. We didn't leave the covered veranda all day Saturday until it was time for dinner. In the heat of Tucson it was still comfortable there in the shade. We watched hummingbirds, rabbits, flickers, quail (mom and dad and their brood of 12 chicks), and doves visit the water fountain and feeder. We watched the full moon rise and picked out Saturn. Life can be so good with the most simple things.

Highway 77 travels through the Salt River Canyon, some of the most spectacular scenery I've ever seen. This trip was the second and third time I've traveled the road and it hasn't failed to disappoint. The speed limit drops to 25 in many places as the road makes hairpin turns, there are several 7% grades, and every inch of the road offers beautiful, beautiful scenery.

On my way home to the park this afternoon I was approaching the twisty parts of the road where the speed limit drops to 55 to get you ready for the really slow speeds ahead. I'd already geared down on one of the steep grades, was riding the brake anyway, and still found myself hitting 65. You know what's coming, right? An Arizona State Trooper sitting on the other side of the road pulled out, made a u-turn, and just blended into the flow of traffic behind me. Didn't matter; I knew he was gunning for me. This was a smart guy. He waited until I was approaching a pull out before he put his lights on. Before that spot there was nowhere to pull over but I'd already been looking for a place because I knew he wasn't after anybody but me. Now here's the ironic thing. I nearly always cruise at 60, which is usually below the speed limit. I just stick to the right lane and keep it slow. I really don't like to speed because I don't want that clutch in my chest when I see lights in my rearview mirror and because I'm trying to squeeze out marginally better mileage from Grace. 

He came up to the van where I was already kind of laughing about the irony of it, and I told him what I just wrote here. He was very nice, polite, and respectful and all I got was a warning. I didn't tell him his mother would have been proud of his manners. I think that might have been pushing my luck.

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Thought of the day:

On Memorial Day, I don't want to only remember the combatants. There were also those who came out of the trenches as writers and poets, who started preaching peace, men and women who have made this world a kinder place to live.

Eric Burdon

Blue Mesa

Ask just about any volunteer who does roving what his or her favorite part of the park is, and they'll tell you Blue Mesa. The Painted Desert, at the north end of the park, is colored in warm colors of reds and oranges. Blue Mesa, about halfway down the 27-mile length of the park, is mostly on the other side of the color wheel, in blue, purple, gray, and some green. Why the difference in color? Oh, and what's roving?

Roving means putting on a uniform, checking out a car, and heading out to the field to interact with visitors. Rovers answer questions and are a presence, a face representing the park. I've done it officially once and it's fun. No one I've met so far expected me to know everything, and what they really like is personal attention from someone who looks official. I've also done it unofficially many times when I've been out for my daily walks, when I stop to take pictures so whole families can be in the same shot, to chat up bikers, or to offer information about a place, as I did a few days ago at the Painted Desert Inn. 

The Painted Desert Inn, at the rim of the Painted Desert.

Of course I'm not in uniform when I'm off duty and out walking, but I always identify myself as a volunteer. A little PR for the park can't hurt, plus I learned today that I should keep track of that time because it affects funding.

The red of the Painted Desert is due to a high amount of iron oxide in the soil. At Blue Mesa, blue, purple, black, and gray come from magnesium oxide and decayed plant and animal remains, green from chromium and unoxidized iron, and white from gypsum.

People on the Blue Mesa trail.

The trail is only about a mile long. There a few steep sections but it's mostly very walkable for anyone who's reasonably fit.

John Muir first named the area Blue Forest for the blue-gray tint of the landscape. He did some exploring and excavating, but published very little about the park.

 Blue Mesa is 3 1/2 miles off the main road. I always tell people that they're going to see that sign, go "uhhh, no," not willing to make the 7-mile round trip, but they really need to make the drive. It's such a beautiful place and nothing like you would see anywhere else in the park.

The wide blue sky is even better with cloud accents.

 

A big hello from the overlook.

You can see what a gorgeous day it was. I went here the second or third day I was at the park

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Field trip photos, just as bad as the old slide shows, except I won't know if you get up and leave

As promised, or threatened, depending how you look at it, here are the photos from yesterday's field trip to Jasper Forest. Here's an article about the road on the park's website.

Near the entrance to the trail we took, which used to be a loop road people could drive on into the forest. Its use was discontinued in the 1960s, but not until someone took a picture of Albert Einstein and his wife standing outside their car alongside the road. What is so exceptional about Jasper Forest is the amount of petrified wood lying around. It's easy to see the big log sections, but nearly everywhere you step there are stone-sized pieces in a literal rainbow of colors.

Paleontologist Bill told us tons of information that my brain couldn't absorb, but basically it is now known what time period each of these bands of color belong to. This was a major feat, requiring a team to walk the park for two years. This is knowledge they didn't have five years ago.

Bill used his rock hammer to chop steps in this butte so he could pose next to the stump of rock on the right side of the top. It fell over I don't know how many years ago, one of the facts not retained. It's much steeper and higher than it looks as I've cropped off several meters at the bottom.

Here he is, king of the hill, mimicking the pose.

Common fleabane, but extraordinary in its ability to grow in this environment.

All the chunks you see lying around are petrified wood. This is sparse for this part of the park.

Typical formation showing irregular erosion patterns. The horizontal rough band about half way up is sandstone and indicates there was water there, at that level, at one point.

A beautiful day, a beautiful sky, and chunks of petrified wood. This trail, like many others, is available for visitors to walk. I'd like to see them marked at the trailhead but I'm not in charge. I have the advantage of going to Bill and asking him where I should walk next.

A portion of a pronghorn deer antler we found resting next to a petrified wood section. Pronghorn deer are the fastest animal on this continent.

OK, that's it for now. You can go home now if you haven't already.

Field trip!!!

Yesterday, as part of seasonal training given to new employees and volunteers, the staff paleontologist took us on a vastly interesting and wow! factor tour of the park. I can't possibly begin to tell you everything he said, not only because of the volume of information he passed along but also because I don't remember it. Oh, to have my buddy Melvin's memory. Fortunately, there were handouts that I'll have to refer to a lot.

The walking part of the tour was to Jasper Forest, a favorite of his (let's just call him Bill because that's his name). Of course it's not a forest; there are a scarcity of trees here, but what is does have is an abundance of petrified wood in a rainbow of colors in sizes from pebbles to large boulders.

In a few brief, shining moments a couple of nights ago, I was able to get the holy grail: a wifi connection while I was sitting in Grace. For once I didn't have to sit outside the post office on a folding chair, wrapped in fleece. It lasted one evening and into the next morning but since then it's been as elusive as warmth in a landlord's heart. I have 15 good photos from the field trip that I will post tonight, whether I have to take a mini field trip to the post office or lounge in the luxury of Grace's upholstery.

Sugar high

When I was in Show Low last week to pay $90 plus gas to have a switch flipped, I also stopped to have my propane tank filled. All I use it for, now that heating season is over, is cooking, a relative rarity, but I still wanted it filled.

When I went to the office to pay there was a box of World's Finest Chocolates candy bars on the counter. I love those things. I've been eating very well lately, no junk food at all, but I had to have one. Just one, caramel and milk chocolate, a combination that is the food of the gods. It was as good as I remembered and worth every single calorie.

I have a story about World's Finest Chocolates and I may be the only one who remembers, or chooses to remember. When the kids were little they played soccer and baseball and one season they were given boxes of WFC to sell. I took a box to work, others got sold here and there, and the surplus was put on top of the kitchen cabinets. At the end of the selling time, we toted up the money and retrieved the boxes from on high to return what wasn't sold.

Well, well, well. There was nothing to return because the boxes were empty. Oh, yes. I knew immediately which kid had eaten his way through, oh, I don't know, several dozen candy bars. I'm not naming names but it's the second-born and his first name rhymes with 'blames.' It's apt, isn't it? He'll probably still deny it.

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Thought of the day:

I can resist everything but temptation. (Oscar Wilde and the kid whose name rhymes with blames.)

The color purple (or green or gray or blue)

People have asked me how hot it is here. I would ask the same thing. It's Arizona, it's the desert, and it's close enough to summer to touch. But it's not hot at all, yet. From what I hear, it's going to be blistering but we're not there yet.

What we are is windy. We're so windy I have to close the vent over the fan in the roof or it would be ripped from its hinges. There's enough wind to push me a foot or so over on the road when I'm out walking, to make me tie my hat on or have to take it off. Enough to whip branches on trees as though they were string and not wood, whistle through open windows, and rock the van. I've never lived in a place so consistently windy in the afternoon. It wasn't like this when I got here but as we've progressed toward summer and the desert heats during the day, the wind awakens.

What often accompanies the wind is a dramatic sky. One evening last week the neighbors and I were sitting around, watching a storm over the desert. As the clouds blackened and grew, they pushed powerful gusts of air toward us. Great dark clouds moved eastward, sometimes filling the sky, other times allowing blue to come through. We watched until a light rain compelled us inside. Yesterday afternoon a flat plane of threatening clouds hung over the Painted Desert, pushing gust after gust. They morphed to ragged strips of varying gray but the wind persisted.

A small portion of the Painted Desert taken from the historic Painted Desert Inn.

 
















Rarely has it rained, maybe a smattering, enough to speckle Grace right after I washed her, but a couple of weeks ago I woke to heavy rain in the night. Within a day or two, what an amazing sight to see that the floor of the Painted Desert was a green haze.

The sky here is sometimes the purest Southwest blue, sometimes leaden with unfulfilled promises of rain, and sometimes cluttered with flat-bottomed white puffs, but it's always wider than wide, from horizon to horizon. This part of Arizona, at least, has a 180 degree bowl arced over it, changing by the minute and always eye-catching, enough to make you pause to look. It's as much the Big Sky state as Montana.

I'm waiting for the impressive, theatrical thunderstorms that come with summer. I can't wait. When I was a girl our father always called thunder, whether deep rolling rumbles or the whip-crack that accompanied lightning, sky booms, and I was never afraid of storms. How could anyone be afraid of sky booms? I wonder if they sound the same in Big Sky Arizona. I'll keep you posted.

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Thought of the day:

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. (Alice Walker)