The desert is calling

When I met my Drifting Grace friend, Cheryl, last summer, she told me about hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon some years earlier and wondering, with despair, what she'd gotten herself into. Getting into the Canyon is one thing; getting out is another. (I know this long distance, never having had the nerve to go into the Canyon myself, doubting my ability to haul my carcass out.) But with her hike leader's encouragement and instruction, she not only made it out just fine, but had a great experience from then on. After all that time, she remembered this leader with respect and fondness, and wished she could let her know just what she'd done for her; as Cheryl put it, "She changed my life." Then Cheryl told me who her leader was - Denise Traver - and I said, I know Denise!

Denise's husband, Brad, is the superintendent at Petrified Forest (PEFO) and I met Denise when I volunteered there the first time, two years ago. I had no idea who this nice, nice woman was, other than the super's wife, and only learned of her legendaryness much later, when Cheryl told me that Denise's story (including the fact that she created and led the first all-woman hike into the Canyon) is in the book Grand Canyon Women. I loved it that I could put my two friends in touch with each other again.

I'm on the email list for Denise's website Hit The Trail, which is devoted to Phantom Ranch, Grand Canyon, Sedona, and the Southwest. Denise was a backcountry ranger at Grand Canyon for years. If ever there was a woman who will always have the Colorado River running through her veins, it's Denise.

This is a long work-around to say that I got an email from Denise's website a couple of days ago with the news that the fledgling Petrified Forest Field Institute (PFFI) will begin outdoor programs in August. I was overjoyed to see this, to say the least. PEFO is the gem that people drive right by on the way to the Grand Canyon, the one people adopt a quizzical look about when I say, Don't leave Arizona without going to Petrified Forest!, the one about which others say, Oh, yeaaahh.... I went there when I was a kid, I think. It's world-class but people don't know it, and this is why I was overjoyed - but not at all surprised. More than one person has told me that Brad has done more to open the park to visitors than any superintendent before him; he lives in the park; he hikes the park; he loves the park. This is not just a job to him. So while the news of the Institute is very, very good, I would expect nothing other than this kind of bridge-building vision from him.

The photos here aren't indicative of the classes being offered, just a reflection of my love of the place.

Here are examples of some of the sessions:

Dig with the park's paleontologist, Bill Parker, one of the world's foremost authorities on the Triassic Era. 

Take classes with prominent photographers who have spent decades photographing America's southwest deserts. 

Hike widely different areas of the park with guides who specialize in its geology and natural and cultural history. 

Explore expansion lands with the park's archeologist, Bill Reitze, to document previously unrecorded petroglyph galleries, some with hundreds of rock art panels. Learn archeological techniques while also learning how information from the petroglyphs is used to understand and interpret the lifestyles of the area's prehistoric peoples.

I want one of each, at least. If you go, you might have your own life-changing experience because Denise is leading tours along PEFO's 28-mile length.

The other night HH and I watched an episode of Ken Burns' series on the National Parks, one featuring Petrified Forest. Anyone who has read much of anything here knows how I love that place. The place, and the people there, were a safe and welcoming harbor for me when I desperately needed one. I didn't know how much I missed it until I saw its spectacular scenery again on television. To paraphrase John Muir, The Painted Desert is calling, and I must go. 

Soon, I hope. Soon.

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Thought of the day:

Does it call you, too?

Bodie in living color

Last weekend my HH and I went to Bodie, the old mining town that's now a California state park on the National Register of Historic Places. To get there from where we're plugged in, we have to go through Yosemite, meaning we have to go through an entrance gate because we live outside the park. We got an early start last week so had no problem on the way over, and were pleasantly surprised to also not find a line a mile long when we returned, re-entering the park at the Tioga Pass entrance.

This weekend we decided to stay far, far away from the park. As the saying goes, we may be crazy but we're not stupid. For a couple of weeks there have been emails at work about heavy crowds expected for the July 4th weekend: come early, expect delays, lots of people, nowhere to park, assume misery. We took their advice and went to see some things in Fresno instead, in the complete opposite direction, but because I haven't loaded photos from that trip yet I'm exhuming a second round from Bodie.

I converted the photos I showed last time to black and white because the monochrome lent an age-old feel to the buildings and landscape; it gave me the atmosphere of unchanged time that was important to my interpretation of the place. I left several in color though because conversion removed, rather than added, character. Herewith I present them, but first, a black and white of Mono Lake, 

and a shepherd, his dog, and his flock. I have never seen this before in my life. This was on the road over Tioga Pass. We noticed green, green fields that looked cropped or mowed to the ground, and soon saw the reason. I'm sure the shepherd thought I was off my rocker - he saw me aim the camera and waved - but I thought, This is a scene that I would expect out of Basque country. It seemed as exotic to me as it was mundane to him.

HH was looking over my shoulder as I was writing this and saw this photo. He said he saw a sign somewhere that said these actually are Basque sheepherders. I went on a hunt just now to find documentation for that, and found that Peruvian sheepherders are also used. 

I also found out that in 1869 John Muir was hired to shepherd a flock from Yosemite Valley to Tuolomne Meadows for $30 a month, which "suited him fine." After one season of seeing the devastation the grazing sheep left behind, he became a fierce critic of what he called "hoofed locusts." Grazing is no longer allowed in the park; this area is on National Forest land.

Now, on to Bodie in living color. 

I wonder how much credit can be given the doors for holding up this wall.

Siding made entirely out of metal strips.

Two views of the same thing. I couldn't decide which to show.

I love old hardware and commonly find unusual assemblies in cemeteries. When I saw this latch, mounted in the middle of a door, I thought it was new, but look at the worn edge of the wood above it. This is an old 'un. ...although it's not obvious how it works: there's no room to move in either direction.

A wood-burl door knob that's on the same door as the latch above.

What a treat it was to find this siding, apparently made from embossed ceiling panels, hidden in an alcove at the back of a house.

It's a Hollywood product. What better endorsement is there?

This rusty roof glowed like copper.

All that remains of the bank. The rest of the building may have crumbled, but no one is getting through the door.

The bank's safe, made by Hall's Safe and Lock Company. This is seen through the bars at the bottom of the door above.

Up the hill from the town is the last of nine stamp mills that pulverized ore into sand. This water tank is next to the mill.

Down the hill.

One of the crushers with five bosses waiting for power and ore to work again. The 350-pound bosses dropped 90 times a minute, twenty hours a day. I feel insanity coming on.

A watercolor scene through a mill window.

Valiant flag irises bloom before...what? What building was this? There's not enough left to say.

I've been trolling the internet, looking at other people's photos of Bodie, and have discovered a couple of things: lots of folks take show-stopping photos of the place, and I saw just a fraction of what there was to see. We really do need to go back.

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Thought of the day:

Wisdom begins in wonder. - Socrates

Goodbye, God, I'm going to Bodie

There has been a lull in the activity at my house. HH was gone for over a week, and the two weekends I had by myself were filled with hanging out in the house in sweats, studying Spanish, reading, getting in early-morning walks, and binge-watching Friends on Netflix. There's not much blog fodder in any of that, but golly, I love streaming.

He's back and yesterday we went over the mountains again, this time to Bodie, the site of a gold mining town that was known as the "most lawless, wildest, and toughest mining camp in the West." Bodie is on the National Register of Historic Places, is a California Historic Landmark, and was made a California state park in 1962. 

Founded in 1859 by W.S. Bodey and E.S. "Black" Taylor, it became one of the richest gold and silver strikes ever. The mill was established in 1861 and the town began to grow, starting with about 20 miners. Over 25 years, one source says it yielded almost $15 million in ore, another says $34 million.

According to Wikipedia, "the district's name was changed from "Bodey," "Body," and a few other phonetic variations, to "Bodie," after a painter in the nearby boomtown of Aurora, lettered a sign "Bodie Stables." The website DesertUSA disagrees, saying that the change in spelling of the town's name has often been attributed to an illiterate sign painter, but it was really a deliberate change by the citizenry to ensure proper pronunciation.

By 1879, Bodie had a population of 5000 -10000 people (every source has a different number) and around 2,000 buildings. Toward the end of the 1870s, some of the single, get-rich-quick miners had moved on to new horizons and families moved in, along with robbers, more miners, store owners, gunfighters, prostitutes, and people from every country in the world. At one time there were reported to be 65 saloons in town. Among the saloons were numerous houses of ill repute, gambling halls, and opium dens – an entertainment outlet for everyone. There’s a story about a little girl whose family was moving from San Francisco to Bodie; depending on who tells it, she wrote in her diary either “Good, by God, I’m going to Bodie.” -or- “Goodbye God, I’m going to Bodie."

California coined the term "arrested decay," which means the structures that were in place in 1962 when Bodie became a state park will be maintained as they appeared in that year, but only to the extent that they will not be allowed to fall over or otherwise deteriorate in a major way. By putting new roofs on the buildings, rebuilding foundations, and resealing glass that is in window frames, the State is able to keep buildings from naturally decaying. Nothing, though, can stop the wildfire and lightning strikes and time that have destroyed all but a hundred or so buildings, nor can anything now protect the land from the cyanide and mercury used indiscriminately in gold processing.

Except for the stamp mill, farther down the page, and the area of the poisoned land, visitors are free to wander the town. There might be a building or two that's open to walk into, but generally, to see inside, you have to climb on a rock or a log to peer through the grimy windows. It has the effect of a visual eavesdropping on the lives of Bodie's former inhabitants.

I took a ton of photos and got them all processed. Some I left in color, when conversion to black and white just didn't look right, but the following have the look of the past that I hoped to convey. Some have no commentary from me; I think the buildings can tell their stories just fine, on their own.

Electricity was introduced in 1892 when the Standard Company built its own hydroelectric plant thirteen miles away. This pioneering installation marked one of the country's first transmissions of electricity over a long distance.

The Methodist church:


The sky wasn't this dark and forbidding; I did this because I liked the effect.


The windows in all of the buildings have probably not been cleaned in decades. My initial thought was, great, there goes my photos, but the results were perfect: the mists of time, and all that.


Everything in every building is as it was left. For whatever reason, when people left Bodie they took themselves and nothing else. HH thinks it might be because the furnishings belonged to the company, not to the inhabitants, but we don't know. I for one am astonished that it wasn't cleaned out by thieves decades ago.












I once paid almost $1000 for a dresser like this one, and now wonder who that woman was. I did it because it was similar to one that my grandmother had; why was that so important?




That's a bone. Don't ask me.

One of four or five fire stations but the only one left.

I think this was the jail.


The general store.




We toured a stamp mill, the last one of nine remaining. It was the processing facility that pulverized ore to particles as fine as sand. Inside this building were, among other machinery, 350-pound cylinders, called bosses, attached to the end of a long rod. The rods were lifted by cables powered by an engine, and dropped about twenty feet onto double-fist-sized rock, ninety times a minute, twenty hours a day. The noise must have been the stuff nightmares are made of.




This didn't strike me as eerie until I uploaded it to the computer. Once I saw it on the bigger screen, I would not have been surprised to see a face in the shadows, just beyond the curtains, looking forward through time at me. 

Two people I talked to asked if I'd been to Bodie before. When I told them no, they both said it's a place that calls you back, and you will return. I understand what they meant. It's a fascinating place, and every glimpse through a window is just one of many stories. It's not a museum or a curated presentation of what we think life was like; it's time and lives frozen in place. Yes, I'll be back.

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Thought of the day:...a sea of sin, lashed by the tempests of lust and passion. - Reverend F.M. Warrington's take on Bodie, 1881

Sources: Bodie dot com website
Wikipedia
DesertUSA
California State Parks brochure