The Adventure Continues

I've been so awful at updating this ever since I left California. I don't have a great excuse except that I've fallen so completely into a 9-5 M-F routine, that the lulls in the day often seem to be pre-determined simply because they fall at the same time and habits reigns supreme. Either way, this by no means is an indication that I'm not having fun. Quite the opposite. I've been so busy exploring, adventuring and trying new things that I feel as though the other parts of my life have fallen a little bit by the wayside. Obviously, it's far too late to catch up on the adventures of the last 15 months, so I'll just start now and try to do a better job. However, Kyle and I have done a great job of exploring some of the best parts of the state - on foot, on bicycle, on skis, on boats. It's been a blast!

When you move to Grand Junction, you have to make a decision: you are either going to become a mountain biker, or you're not. The middle ground is narrow, it's hard to be a recreational mountain biker here because the terrain is technical and challenging. There are few options for beginners. If you decide to become a mountain biker, you're going to fall a lot, you'll be covered in scrapes, bruises, and bumps, and you're going to get pretty good pretty fast. I learned this from experience.

I got a screaming deal on a great bike this winter (always buy from people who work at bike shops - they just want the money to prodeal a new bike and they've probably kept really good care of the one they're selling you). It's a hardtail 29-er (for those of you not familiar with the jargon - that means it only has front suspension but makes up for it with 29 inch wheels. It's been an adventure every step of the way. Twice, I've crashed so hard I thought one of my legs was broken but both times I've walked it off and gotten back on the bike. No permanent damage and I'm having some fun too!

Our first big ride this spring was the Slickrock Trail, very possibly the most famous mountain biking trail in the US. It was hard and I hated it, but the views were phenomenal.

Here we are at one of the overlooks. Slickrock riding all around us, La Sal Mountains the east, Colorado River to the north. It was a pretty great backdrop. 

This is what we were riding up, down, through and around all day. It was pretty brutal. It's hard to tell from this picture, but the trail was essentially 10 miles of VERY steep down hill and VERY steep up hill pitches. It was mentally and physically exhausting. I don't think I was good enough to be on the trail, I think I would have had a lot more fun if I had more experience and was quite a bit stronger. There are a few other details these pictures leave out. The "trail" is marked by a dotted white line, like the middle of a highway, for all 10 miles on the rock. It's certainly helpful, but a little strange to see. In most places, you can just follow the black rubber stains on the rock. The other thing that took some getting used to was the OHV (off highway vehicle) traffic. Moab is world famous for mountain biking, sure, but it may be even more famous for the "jeeping" opportunities. Oftentimes these opportunities overlap or butt right up against one another. In our case, the Slickrock Trail was open to dirt bikes and ran up against several different jeep routes so we could hear engines whining almost all day. Slickrock wasn't what I expected. It was hard and frustrating and busy. But now I never have to wonder, I've done it and I never need to do it again.

This past weekend, we rode the Porcupine Rim Trail. After Slickrock, I was a little skeptical about Moab mountain biking. After all, we're only 90 miles away and have great riding of our own, only much quieter and more peaceful. But Kyle really wanted to check this one off the list too, so I went along. This was a completely different ride. We started at almost 9,000 ft in the La Sal Mountains and rode all the way down to the Colorado River at around 4.000 ft. It was still a challenging ride, but for very different reasons. This ride was technical downhill riding all the way, with very little climbing. On the Slickrock Trail, the hills are so steep that if you miss the first move, you walk the rest of the way. Procupine Rim had short climbs that were very doable. The difference was the downhill. A majority of the people that passed us on this trail were wearing some kind of body armor or another. There were drops of 2-3 ft that you either rode down or tossed your bike down. Needless to say, I tossed my bike. Here are some photos from the trail:

Here's a view of Kyle and I on the edge of the rim, La Sal Mountains in the background.

There's Kyle, hanging out over the edge of Porcupine Rim looking down on Castle Valley.

I'm riding down towards Professor Valley in the distance. The Colorado River sits below those cliffs.

Here we are at one of the overlooks. It was probably a 500 foot drop just to my left. It was a little scary riding singletrack with that just off the side of the trail. It was great fun though, this trail has many built-in overlooks and gorgeous vistas. For all the time I've spent in the Moab area, I've never looked down on it from above like this. It was truly amazing. I'd recommend this trail, but everyone who has ever written a review before me has already done that. It was BUSY! As we were getting ready to take off in the morning, three vans of shuttled riders pulled up and took off before us. And they must have kept coming all day long, because we kept getting passed my armed riders on downhill bikes. But everyone was very courteous and friendly. I even ran into three guys I went to high school with on the trail. Small world!

Ok, sorry for the long update. I'm going to try to be more diligent with updates in the future. I love living in Colorado. I love that I have an incredible, driven adventure buddy(/boyfriend) to explore all these amazing places with. I miss the places I've been before, but I love the thrill of something new. Alright, that's enough for now.

12 Months

Recently, I celebrated the one-year anniversary of my move to Colorado. And if you're expecting to read about how Colorado changed my life in the one year, you're reading the wrong blog. That's not to say that being here hasn't changed me, but the biggest change took place before I ever arrived here. I moved to Colorado with no plans of moving anywhere else after. And I didn't. This may sound irrelevant. After all, who ever plans to move somewhere at the same time that they're planning to move away? Me.

My one year anniversary in Colorado is about much more than me and Colorado. It's about me and commitment. It's about staying in one place for long enough to get invested there, to become a part of things. Grand Junction was kind of an unlikely choice given my past locales, but it was more about timing than anything else. The important thing is that I'm happy here.

It's a funny feeling when the shiny newness of things wears off. The routine sets in and a life that would seem fabulous, meaningful and worthwhile from the outside looking in takes more than just work, sleep and play to be great. After each coffee shop has been tried, each trail run embarked upon, each park tested for dog friendliness, it's the little things, the daily interactions and the people you know, not the people you see on the street, that make the difference. It's the assurance that your job is going somewhere, that your gym membership (which lasts for 18 months!) will get used, that the woman that makes your coffee on the mornings you forget to make your own knows your name and even says hi to you when you see at the movie theater. It's about becoming a part of a place rather than using a place up. Contribution instead of consumption.

I live in Colorado.

There are lots of reasons why it worked here and not anywhere else, not the least of which was the timing. But the people, the work, the landscape, all those things that I loved about previous home-like places, combined with desire to be here, nowhere else, right now makes Colorado home.

Beginning again, beginning anew.

"Write honestly and thoughtfully about what moves you."
-Molly Wizenberg

I've been reading more recently. And writing too. I've forgotten the sheer pleasure of combining words to form phrases that bring color and meaning to your imagination and of reading the combinations of others for new ideas. I didn't write for awhile, for a variety of reasons, but now I'd like to write again.

For a long time, I think the biggest roadblock (or mental block) to my writing was wondering about audience. Who is out there? Why are they reading my words? What do they think of them and of me? With wondering came worrying, with worrying came stagnation. And with that I forgot the reason that I do this. For me, writing has always been less about the creation of something and more about the remembering of something. I write because I want to remember feelings and days, moments and people. Ultimately, it's a selfish endeavor and that's the way I've always done it.

Modern Day Wild West

During the fall of 2008, my senior year of college, I participated in a set of field courses called Semester in the West. During this experience, we traveled through 8 western states and northern Mexico learning about the various environmental, political, ecological, social and humanitarian issues of each particular place. We learned that the American West is an idea, not one contiguous region; that there are different kinds of issues in each specific locale and many different ways of searching for solutions. We learned that it's hard to talk about the West as one coherent area. Rather it should be addressed as a large collection of smaller regions, each with it's own unique culture, ecosystem and associated issues. We learned that making generalizations about the West is like saying there's only one way to wear a bandana.

Upon graduating, I was lucky to spend a couple of seasons in Lee Vining, CA working for an environmental non-profit organzation who's work focused primarily on water policy and education. For several months, I lived in a water-loving, outdoor oriented bubble that was exactly what I needed at the time. I could find inspiration from people who's views were like mine - they gave me fresh perspective on the same old issues and helped me find a way to start thinking about these issues in terms of action and involvement. That's not to say that dissenting views didn't exist. Far from it, in fact. Eastern California is full of red counties, and Mono County is no exception. There are many ranch families that have been in the area for much longer than any of us "environmentalists" and they let us know it at town meetings and on the street corners. They gave us hell for many of the things we proposed. New education center? What about the native american artifacts that might exist on the land? Re-vegetation of the old airport strip? Where will the county get the money for that? But on an everyday basis, the people I worked and interacted with held the same general views and values that I did. It helped me put shape to my ideas and prioritize the issues and actions I felt were important. Sometimes it's good to agree.

After almost a year with the Committee, it was time to move on and stretch my wings a little bit. Now I find myself working on a ranch in Western Colorado where the priority is the bottom line, making sure we end up in the black, hopefully well into it, every year. The people that work at this ranch come from a very different background from those at the Committee. No Harvard-graduate, tofu-loving, prAna-wearing people here (sorry for the cascade of cliches). My new co-workers were raised on ranches all over the country. They are cattle men and women, horse men and women, hunters, and fishermen; a whole different category of outdoorsperson. And they're wonderful. They don't recycle because it involves a ninety mile round trip drive to the nearest facility. They drink bottled water because the water from the ranch cistern is laced with minerals and bugs that don't agree with our stomachs. They drive big, noisy trucks because the roads aren't plowed everyday. Even when they are, the mud can get as deep as a new snow. This time, I'm looking at the same issues from a completely different perspective that often comes to very different conclusions than I'm used to. My views are getting challenged daily by the people who. Sometimes disagreeing is important too.

Once again, my views of the West are being challenged and changed. I'm so lucky for the time I've had to explore this vast, empty part of the world and I can't wait for every new opportunity to further broaden and deepen this love and appreciation that I've developed for it.

Well, I'm here!

So I've tried to blog a bit since I've been here, but every post has either gotten interrupted or been too boring to publish, so here I go again. Here's hoping this one sticks.

I arrived in Grand Junction on January 2nd, exactly one month after I left Lee Vining. I spent a glorious month at home skiing, spending time with family and friends, buying my first car, and enjoying a full month with no work and few committments. Every time I return to Bozeman I go through a new set of emotions. It's still home, but that feeling of belonging has started to slip away. My Bozeman friends have either moved away or created new lives for themselves with people that I don't know. Much of the town itself has changed as well, and many of my favorite businesses are either gone or have moved somewhere else. I've begun to feel like a visitor in my past life when I'm in Bozeman and though that can be fun for awhile, it's also important to me to keep moving.

This past stint in Lee Vining is the longest I've been anywhere for several years. I really started to nest there and feel at home. It was hard to leave a place and a community I loved so much. However, it has inspired me to create that kind of community in any place I live. This never happens overnight, and as a result my first couple weeks in Colorado, in addition to being ridden with minor house dramas and the settling in phase at my new job, were a little rough. Beth and my work schedule is a little crazy - 8-5 with an hour long commute on either end - so we were spending a few hours each night trying to get our house furnished and livable while fighting with first frozen and then burst pipes, no dishwasher or internet.

But with a first week like that, everything else looks easy and over the last couple weeks we've really begun to settle in and enjoy our house. We live in a quiet neighborhood near the college and not too far from downtown. We've got a huge fenced backyard for our dogs (two black labs, one 11 year old, one 6 month old) and beautiful old wood floors. Grand Junction is really beginning to feel like home and I'm beginning to measure my time here in years rather than months.

In our time off, we try to adventure and explore as much as possible. We spent a great weekend in Laramie with good friends from Africa. We watched lots of football, reminisced about study abroad experiences and went to a phenomenal country show at a cowboy bar. We spent a weekend skiing on the mesa and are planning for many more.

On top of all of this, I've been playing some volleyball at the Gold's Gym here and meeting some really great people. One new friend even spent a good deal of time in Lee Vining/June Lake and is the nephew of a park ranger that I knew there. I never cease to be amazed by the connections between people.

One final note - Beth and I are working really hard to train for a half marathon. She'll run one on March 12th in Little Rock, AR and depending on her recovery, hopefully run one with me the following weekend here in Gateway, CO. In order to motivate ourselves to keep up the training, we've registered for a 10k in two weeks in Fruita. I've done a bit of running here and there in my post-college life, but I've never really had races to train for (not because I want to do well, simply because I don't want to keel over and die) so it's really nice to have that date looming in the back of my head each morning when I wake up at 4:45 and think, "Wouldn't it be easier just to go back to sleep?"

All in all, things are going well here. I'm keeping very busy and enjoying most of my daily goings on. I don't have any pictures to post because I've been super lazy about taking pictures, but hopefully soon that will change. We skied Powderhorn on Sunday and the view from the top of Grand Mesa was breathtaking. Flat-top mountains that fold in onto themselves and form this crinkle-scape that catches light and casts shadow with incredibly minute detail. It's unlike any place I've lived before and I'm looking forward to becoming intimate with this landscape.

Saying Goodbye

This place has been home and it's going to be hard to leave. Here is a brief list of some of the things I'm going to miss:

-The mountains. They are the landscape here. They divide our quiet slice of the state from the hustle and bustle of the west side. They provide recreational opportunities during every season and they are the reason that most people live here. Some people feel insignificant in front of huge mountains. I feel protected. It reminds me that there still are wild places out there, they just have to be found.

-The lake. After all, it's the reason I came here in the first place. Because of the lake, I have become an educator. Because of the lake I have found love. Because of the lake I have challenged myself intellectually, socially, physically and emotionally. Because of the lake I've had a home here for the past 7 months.

-The people. This is a transient place. People here are generally nomadic. This is both amazing and the most tragic thing imaginable. It means that each season a whole new crop of young, energetic people arrive in town. In a town of 400 people, you never expect to find 30 people who could potentially be your best friend. That's how summer is here. But then fall comes and everyone leaves. Everyone always leaves. And then you discover that there is a whole separate community aside from the seasonal sector. There is a school here with kids and parents and all the things any other town has, just smaller. One of the best things I did here was to get involved with that side of the community. Coaching at the high school has introduced me to some of the best people and most rewarding relationships I could have hoped for.

-The solitude and quiet. You don't move to a place like this without knowing how to be alone. I'm so grateful for the good friends I've made here, but I'm also grateful that I've gotten to spend time by myself - hiking, swimming, biking, thinking - and have really begun to understand who I am and what makes me happy. I'll take the wind rustling through the Jeffrey pines and a Great Horned Own who-whooing under a spectacular array of stars on a frigid fall night over traffic and sirens and neon lights any day, even if it means I have to drive 30 minutes for the nearest cup of coffee.

-My job. I don't know how I got so lucky. Every day I get to spend time with kids teaching them the value of spending time outside. Together, we discover things they never knew about themselves and about the world. We talk about stream ecology standing ankle deep in Rush Creek. We think about the differences between a Jeffrey pine and a pinion pine with a cone from each in our hands. We discuss climate change standing in the shadow of Califonia's biggest refrigerator - the Sierras. We address real world issues while we're out there, in the real world, apart from computer screens and cell phones. My co-workers provide me with support, new ideas and many, many laughs. I have the best job in the world.

It's time to move on now, and my feelings are very mixed. My next step will take me to a new and different place, but so many of these little details will be missing. Surely I'll find many things to love about Colorado too, but for now I'll be dreaming of following a great blue heron down the Lee Vining Creek Trail, of standing on top of Glass Mountain and seeing the entire Eastern Sierra laid out in front of me, and of wandering through the tufa with Violet Green swallows darting and weaving through the air around me.

Lee Vining, Mono Basin, Eastern Sierra: I will miss you.

Why I'm Thankful

Apparently it's trendy to make lists of why you're thankful. I've never been one to follow trends - I'm doing this simply because for me, the biggest thing is always family and friends and this year I was not with either. But don't worry, this is not going to be a whiny, you should all feel sorry for me kind of post. Rather, I hope it will be quite the opposite.

First, let me start by saying that as the years go by and especially now that I'm not in school anymore, I'm beginning to really learn and appreciate the value of family and friends. These people have made me who I am today, they continue to support me as I move forward in my own endeavors, they let me lean on them, depend on them, call them at all hours of the day (and night), ask ridiculous favors of them and give me their love. I wouldn't be who I am or where I am without them. So naturally, it was a little difficult to spend the day without any of these people. Last year, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a great group of friends when I was stuck in a far away city. Here is a picture from our wonderful night:

And to my family, there are not enough words to explain how important you are to me. I'm so glad we've had the opportunity to travel together and visit each other even though we live in different states (and sometimes different countries). This photo was taken during the week of my college graduation:

Today, I actually had to work. I've mentioned previously that I teach environmental education to at-risk youth from Los Angeles. I've learned more about the diversity of lifestyle and experience within our own country this summer than I have in all of my previous travels throughout the US. The group we have right now is an group of high school alumni that have made an almost annual trip up to the Mono Basin for the past 7 years. They come from very different backgrounds and have very different interests now that they're a little more grown up and some are even in college, but a trip to Mono Lake is an important way for them to stay connected to one another. Some have very close knit families, some have no families at all, but this trip and this holiday was important to each and every one of them because for these five days they are surrounded by people who love them and know them better than any other people in the world. To watch their interactions, their respect and appreciation for one another, the way they crack each other up for no apparent reason (at least it's not apparent to me), they way they look up to Santiago, my boss, is absolutely inspiring. I've only known them for two days, but they have included Michael and me in every part of their tradition and are open and honest with their feelings and thoughts about this place. Rather than feeling sorry for myself today, I felt blessed to be around such kind and caring people.

-I'm thankful for my job. I get to work outside every day with kids who's eyes are opened to a whole new world beyond the city during the time their with us.

-I'm thankful for my co-workers. We've had our ups and downs this season, but at the end of the day, they are kind men who have the best interests of our team and the kids we work with at heart. They give of themselves to provide an amazing opportunity for kids who may not have a chance to experience something like this again. And they support me as I learn and come into my own as an educator.

-I'm thankful for this wonderful place that I've gotten to call home for the past 7 months. Each cardinal direction holds a different view equally beautiful and worthy of exploration.

-I'm thankful for my friends who love me even when I go for 6 months without contacting them. They make me laugh and give depth to my existence. To quote one of my kids this summer, "You're like elevator music. You make the ride more fun."

-But most of all I'm thankful for my family. To my parents who taught me curiosity and to have a sense of adventure and who understand when that takes me to Africa or Ecuador or the middle of nowhere in Colorado. And to my sister who has taught me to use my imagination. With those three tools, what else could you possibly need? I love you guys and I'm missing you today.

Moonlit Glides and First Turns

I have a love/hate relationship with the state of California. I mean, what's to love about a state that pulls money from education programs and state park funding to pay our politicians? That pulls people out of prison rather than raise taxes to balance the budget? But how can you possibly hate a place that opens its ski hills the second week of November? That has the highest mountains and the lowest valleys in the country? My relationship with California: it's complicated.

I'll be leaving this state soon so it's nice to go out on a positive note, or should I say a snowy one? I've missed real winter for the last couple years, but growing up in Montana I developed a healthy appreciation for snow and cold weather. When our forecast began calling for feet of snow last week I got ridiculously excited. I stared out the window just waiting for the clouds to begin piling up behind the Sierras, for the sky to darken and for those first feeble little flakes to begin falling. It was hard to remember what feet of snow was like. I started making all kinds of plans for the snow - skiing, sledding, skiing and more skiing. And snow it did. Between Friday night and Sunday afternoon we logged about 9 inches here in town with between 3-5 feet falling in the mountains.

The clouds finally began to clear a bit on Sunday afternoon so my housemate Julia and I took advantage of a beautiful full moon to ski out to Panum Crater. Highway 120 had not been plowed and as soon as we skated away from the car it felt like we were the only people in the world. Snow inspires an incredible stillness. It muffles the sounds of crunching gravel, snapping branches and rustling leaves, and the quiet at Panum Crater was almost deafening.

http://www.blackcatweavery.com/LakeTahoe2007.htm

The next morning, my other housemate Morgan and I left the house early to get to Mammoth Mountain in time for an 8:30 opening. The wind must have been blowing 40 mph most of the day, but that didn't stop us from getting in some early season turns. We both just purchased telemark equipment, so I was showing Morgan how to drop her knee and ski for real! The snow (that hadn't blown away) was fluffy and beautiful and we had a great day! Even met up with friend Clif for the afternoon and challenged ourselves on some steeper slopes.

Photo courtesy of http://4-mammoth-condos.com/

These Sierras have been a truly remarkable place to call home. I know I say too often and it starts to lose its meaning, but the variety of ways to play out here (and people who want to play) continue to astound me. Many thanks to all who have made this place home for the past two summers. I'll miss you and these sentinel mountains more than I can ever express.

A compliment

"As we drove through Wyoming and Utah I thought of you, because even though it's not Colorado, for some reason you just remind me of the west :-)"

Thanks, ex-roomie!

Perspective

I have been incredibly lucky to call Lee Vining, CA home for the last 7 months. Aside from the fact that this is one of the most beautiful places in the world, I've met some remarkably wonderful, loyal, energetic and passionate people here. In ten days I'll be packing up my entire life, loading Sebastian to the gills, and heading up north to Montana for the month of December. And I know I'll start missing it here as soon as I lose sight of the lake in my rearview mirror.

I've spent a lot of time on this blog describing the places that I've seen and the adventures I've had but I have never quite been able to elucidate exactly what it is about this place that makes me feel at home. There's a particular comfort that you achieve once you reach a certain level of familiarity with any place and to me the Mono Basin has been special because that familiarity has been reached with places that are innumerable and hidden, yet easily accessible. I think just about every person here would have a different answer for the question, "Where is your favorite place in the basin?" and for all different reasons. There are so many possibilities, but unlike the unfathomable vastness of the Sierras or even Yosemite, the Mono Basin is relatively small and each place is remarkable for its own unique detail. There are grand vistas, certainly, but that comfortable familiarity comes with being able to note the minute differences in each vista, to recognize the new perspective that each angle gives, to increase the depth of your knowledge and understanding of the place.

This weekend my housemate Morgan and I made the trek up to the top of the Mono Craters, a place neither of us had been.

The Mono Craters are the youngest mountain range in North America and they run on a north-south trajectory almost into the south shore of Mono Lake. They also happen to fall in the rain shadow created by the San Joaquin gap, so the east side of the craters are covered in Jeffrey pines, the edge of the largest single stand Jeffrey pine forest in the world.

The trek to the top of the craters is a steep slog through very loose pumice sand which is quite the workout for the calves/quads/glutes/lungs, but the view from the top is absolutely worth the pain. A friend mentioned to me this summer that it is nearly impossible to see every piece of the lakeshore at any given place. Mono Lake is generally round, but has several little contours that keep parts of it hidden from most vantage points. The only place I've been that has an almost complete view is Warren Bench, though you're missing sections of the western shore that are almost immediately below you. The view from the Mono Craters is so close to complete that it makes you wish that second to last volcano hadn't erupted 1200 years ago. The only sad thing is that the lake is too big for my camera to fit in one frame. Here is the western shore.

From the top, you can see June Lake and Grant Lake Reservoir at the same time, something that I had never really thought was possible considering that they are at either end of a very narrow horseshoe loop with a mountain in between them. It also offers you a spectacular view of Pumice Flat and the Sierras. Sometimes living directly underneath these mountains, we forget how spectacular they are. This view reminded me that though the Sierras are the cause for our sun disappearing at 3:30 everyday, we are quite lucky that this is the view out our back window, not some freeway or industrial complex.

The top of the craters kind of looks like a moonscape with strangely shaped and colored rocks strewn over a surface of pumice sand. Additionally, there are large chunks of shattered obsidian lying around. It almost feels like the volcano erupted last week, not 1500 years ago. It's no wonder that the Kuzedika's chose this place as their home - the stockpile for arrowheads and spear points was inexhaustible.

I was glad to finally make it to the top of the craters. It's a great vantage point for most of the basin, and helps shed new light on the relationships between all these places I've visited countless times this summer while teaching my students the natural history of the basin. I highly recommend a trek to the top of the craters for any Monophile who is interested in a new perspective.

I'm coming to the end of my stay in the Sierra's. It's been a great run and I've enjoyed every moment of my time here. I'll be sad to leave this home place, but eager to explore and develop a new one when I move to Colorado in January.

Hiking Barefoot

Fall is quickly turning to winter here in the Mono Basin. All the aspen have lost their leaves and frost coats the grass each morning. It's getting cold at night and we've been lighting a fire in the wood stove almost every evening to keep the house cozy. I love fall, but more than fall, I love seasons. I love the change. I love the anticipation of waiting for snow on a frigid, cloudy evening and knowing that after four months of glorious skiing spring will come again.

That said, I also love being able to escape to places where I can hike year-round, regardless of the weather at home. Death Valley is one of the places. I took a long weekend last weekend and headed South to visit the lowest point in the United States, at least that's what I thought I was visiting.

It turns out that Death Valley is MUCH more than just the lowest point in the United States. It's a series of mountain ranges with seemingly desolate valleys between, hot springs, beautiful slots canyons, glowing golden sand dunes, thunderstorms, endemic species, and a huge range of diversity that is very different from what my mountain upbringing had prepared me for. The days I spent in Death Valley were refreshing, educational and definitely enjoyable. Here is a sneak peak of what I did.

The first night I arrived after dark and set up my tent without really knowing where I was. I had arrived at the parking area for the Eureka Dunes, but I had no idea where they were, how big they were, or what they looked like. When I awoke the next morning, this is the view I had out of my tent:

I spent the morning exploring the dunes - trekking up the steep ascents as waves of sand cascaded down and between my toes (I learned early on that it's actually much easier to hike barefoot) and slide/skiing down in mini avalanches. I watched little beetles paddling their way through the great sea of sand and leaving little scuttle-mark trails behind them.

I saw the individual grains dance when the wind kicked up. But above all, my favorite thing was the play of light on the ridges of the dunes. I began hiking around 8 am so the sun was still pretty low in the east and I got to see every little impression highlighted and cast in shadow as the sun moved across the sky. It was incredibly beautiful.

An interesting thing about Death Valley is that the entire northern section is connected by dirt roads. That part of the park was annexed sometime in the 1990's, so it's relatively new to the Park Service and for whatever reason, they've decided to leave the roads undeveloped. This makes for pretty slow going as many of them are deeply rutted with washboard. I spent several hours that afternoon making my way to the central part of the park and on the way stopped at Scotty's Castle and the Ubehebe Crater.

Scotty's Castle is pretty bizarre. A narrow highway winds through a desert canyon and suddenly opens onto the Scotty's Castle grounds - palm trees, a small stream and a castle that looks like it came straight off an Italian vineyard. It was built by a millionaire for his friend and Death Valley prospector Scotty Johnson in the 1930's. It's a beautiful castle but seems somehow out of place in the desolation of Death Valley.

Ubehebe Crater is equally bizarre. The road takes you right to the rim of the crater and there in front of you is a 700 foot hole, as though someone has taken a gigantic ice cream scoop out of the earth. It is vibrantly colored in orange striations and is of volcanic origin.

I spent the night at the campground in Stovepipe Wells and weathered an impressive wind/rain storm that had my tent whipping and drumming all night long.

The next morning I headed back north and into the Grapevine Mountains. I hiked up and around a large alluvial fan and into Fall Canyon, one of the most beautiful slot canyons I've seen. The path was paved with small round rocks and the walls were striated and colorful.

I was completely alone and the only sound I could hear was the occasional plane flying overhead. The difference between a Death Valley slot canyon and a slot canyon in Southern Utah is that the canyons in Death Valley are actually in mountain ranges. This means that they're really steep. In Utah the canyons are a lot more gentle so that even though you are hiking uphill, it feels relatively flat. Fall Canyon was steep and the loose gravel of the trail made for quite the calf workout. A couple miles us the canyon you run into the fall - basically a wall of smooth marble that is about 18 feet tall. I brought my climbing shoes, but did not feel comfortable climbing without a spotter; this was the end of my hike.

That evening I went to Salt Creek, a sink in Death Valley proper that is about 262 feet below sea level, only about 20 feet higher than the lowest point in the US. Salt Creek is cool because it is entirely colonized by a plant called pickleweed that has special salt and heat resistant adaptation.

Salt Creek is also home to the endemic Death Valley pupfish. It's hard to imagine anything living in the hyper-saline water of Salt Creek that recedes to almost nothing in the summertime. Nonetheless, these pupfish persist year after year in the little water available in such a harsh environment. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see any pupfish because they had all followed the water upstream to little pools that remain even in the heat of summer. I did, however, get to see Salt Creek begin it's annual rewatering. Both nights that I camped in Stovepipe Wells it rained which was enough to get Salt Creek flowing back downstream. I was there right at sunset and it was incredibly beautiful.

My last day in Death Valley I woke up to more rain. I ran up to Mosaic Canyon because I figured most other people wouldn't be hiking up a slot canyon in a rain storm and I was right! Again, I had the whole place to myself. Mosaic canyon is so named because of the interesting conglomerate that forms the western wall of the canyon. It is basically cement with chunks of marble stuck in it creating a beautiful, natural mosaic.

It was amazing in the rain because the moisture brought out even deeper colors in the rock. This canyon also had a fall - about 30 feet tall this time - but the trail bypassed it through a series of climbs and traverses on the canyon wall. It was a very satisfying hike and I think the narrows in this canyon were the best I've seen.

On the way home I made a stop at Darwin Falls, a total anomaly in the midst of the dry desert scrub and sand. Darwin Falls is set a couple miles back in Darwin Canyon and is absolutely unexpected. The hike takes you up a gravel strewn wash among mesquite trees and russian thistle, but suddenly you come around a corner and there are willows and cottonwoods. Hike a little farther and you can see ferns and other water plants growing right in the little creek. The trail winds back along a rock wall of a gorgeous little falls that empties into a small pool back in a creviced corner of the canyon. What a refreshing way to end a weekend in the desert!

Death Valley is strange. There's really no other word for it. It's not what you expect at all and ecologically speaking, it's more diverse than you can imagine. Inside the park, the elevation varies from -282 to over 11,000 feet. The country is incredibly wild and much of the park is under visited. These few days that I got to explore only whetted my appetite for many future Death Valley trips.

More visitors!

It's so fun to live in a place that people want to visit. Yosemite, the Sierras, Mammoth, Mono Lake - climbing, hiking, camping, canoeing, biking - it's a place for everyone. This summer, our little house has been bursting with visitors from the beginning of July until now.

This last visit was particularly special. Some great friends that I haven't seen in a long time made the trek from WA/OR to stay for a few days and play with me. Emily and Brett are friends from college that graduated a few years earlier than I did. We saw each other here and there after they finished school, but it's been a couple years now since we've all been in the same place. They came for a couple days of hiking, swimming, climbing, etc. It's always fun to have visitors because I get to show them the places here that are special to me and that make this place somewhere I really love to live. I took Emily and Brett up to Lundy Canyon on the hunt for some fall color and to show off the awesome work of the Lundy beavers. Fall seems to be taking it's time this year, so while some of the trees are beginning to turn a burnished gold sort of color, we don't yet have any of the brilliant oranges or reds. But a hike up Lundy is always enjoyable, and the beavers never fail to impress with their amazing feats of engineering.

That afternoon we went to the rope swing at Gull Lake to take advantage of some of the last warm afternoons of the season. By the time we got there, the sun had already disappeared for the day, but we still took the plunge into the chilly water.

It took a bit of convincing and some serious pep talks, but there's nothing more invigorating than submerging yourself in a cold mountain lake on the last day of September and once we were in, we were glad to have jumped.

Then we drove to Minaret Vista for the sunset which was absolutely spectacular. The San Joaquin River Valley glowed as the sun lit the sky on fire. The Minarets provide a dramatic backdrop with their rugged toothlike shape. The glowing orange you see in the picture is smoke from the Sheep Fire in Sequoia National Park. Generally we haven't had too much smoke this summer (other than when the craters were on fire) but on days when the wind blows a certain direction we pick up a bit from this fire which has been burning for over 2 months now. Makes for a nice sunset at least.

We concluded the night with a dip in the hot springs outside of Mammoth. The moon has been rising pretty late so we had a sky full of stars to admire as we soaked. Overall, a wonderful day with great friends. Thanks for visiting, guys!

Big Changes

Wow, so epic fail on the blogging for the summer. I think that's mostly because I did very few of the things I was planning on blogging about. I stopped running in June and stopped hiking a few weeks ago because of a knee injury. So while the blogging was a failure, the summer itself was not. I had a wonderful second summer in Lee Vining and am so very grateful for the fantastic friends I made and the great times we had. I know that's vague, but if you're out there reading this, you know who you are and what I'm talking about.

The next two months are mine. Things have really slowed down in Lee Vining - many of the seasonal employees have headed home along with the majority of the tourists. My job continues until the end of November, so that means I get to live in this place as a pseudo-local for the next couple months. And the list of things I have to accomplish is long.

I want to start running again. It was such an enjoyable pastime while I was doing it earlier in the summer - a great way to have an hour or so to myself each day. As the days begin to cool down, it increases the number of hours I have to run. Additionally, I'm coming off a torn MCL - a great story, though one I'm not going to share on the internet, if you don't already know ask me - so it'll be slow going to start. But I'd like to get back into the routine, and the new half marathon date is for sometime before next August. I know that gives me WAAAAAAY too much time to train, but I have no idea what my life is going to be like after November. I'll get to that in a minute.

The list also includes a lot of hikes to places I haven't yet visited. I'm focusing mostly on areas within the Mono Basin for the next two months because...here it comes...after November I'm leaving. I'll go home for a month, then come January, I'll be headed off on a new adventure - both eerily similar and completely different from the life I've been living here in Lee Vining. I've accepted a job on a ranch in Western Colorado for the year to work with a close friend designing an education program that will involve working with kids from surrounding communities. The ranch community is very small and the work is similar to what I've been doing here, but the Western slope of Colorado is a completely different landscape from where I've been living. I'm excited about the opportunity and the challenge, but I'm not looking forward to the leaving.

Throughout the summer I steadily grew to love and appreciate this place even more than I did last year, more than I thought possible. As I became more and more at home here, I began to look for opportunities to stick around (semi?)permanently. For those of you who know me well, you know how big of a deal that is for me. I haven't live anywhere longer than 6 consecutive months since I left home for college at 18. But something about this place has really grabbed me - could be the incredible landscape, but it also has something to do with the quality of the people here. I've made some of the best friends of my life in this place and that will be very hard to leave. It's difficult to describe to someone who's never been here exactly what it's like to live in a place like this. I feel like my sentences are full of hyperbole and lack any real quality or meaning that can be grasped from an outsider's perspective. I suppose that sounds kind of condescending and that's not how it's meant. It's just difficult to explain the little moments that make up living in a town of 400 people on the side of some of the most incredible mountains and wild places our country has to offer. So the next two months I want to spend exploring those nooks and crannies that somehow, over the 9 months that I've been here, have escaped me. I know there are way more than I can possibly discover in that much time, but it'll leave me something to come back to someday. And I do plan to come back. I love it here too much to leave forever so soon.

Mono Lake from Warren Bench 9/22/10

My parents came to visit!

Hence the lack of blogging...I'm trying to catch up now.

First, let me introduce my parents:

Sorry guys, I know you like anonymity, but I don't actually know if anyone other than you guys read this, so I think you're safe. My parents live in Montana where I grew up. They were the ones who taught me to love and appreciate mountains in the first place, so it's really fun when they come visit me in the Sierras. The mountains here are just a little bit more of everything than the mountains in Montana: a little steeper, a little more rugged, a little (well, actually a lot) higher. My parents are currently in training for a pretty epic 14-day trek through the Alps for their 35th anniversary (!!!) so it was great for them to come to the Sierra's and get some practice hiking steep mountains at higher elevation.

Our first hike took us up Lundy Canyon, over the crest, through the Twenty Lakes Basin and out at Saddlebag Lake. This hike is incredible diverse and satisfying, though there is one section that is a little treacherous. Because of this, I would probably only take this hike from Lundy to Saddlebag, not the other direction.

Lundy Canyon is one of the jewels of our area. It's steep walls are vibrantly colored with different kinds of rock interspersed here and there with aspen groves, white bark pine stands, occasional juniper trees and lush meadows full of gorgeous wildflowers. This year we've had mariposa lilies, sierra lilies, larkspur, indian paintbrush, mountain pride and many many more. There is an active colony of beavers that are constantly recreating the landscape, damming Mill Creek in different places to create new ponds, moving their lodges from one area to another, and generally re-engineering the place so that it seems like it's never the same from day to day.

Busy beaver hard at work

This hike starts at the Lundy Canyon trailhead and the first three miles follow Mill Creek up the canyon. The climbing is generally pretty gentle with a few steeper pushes that are well masked by the beautiful scenery alongside the trail - a waterfall, a gorgeous beaver pond, some really neat geology, etc. After about 2.5 miles, you reach a long, cascading waterfall that marks the end of the canyon. From here, the only way to go is up. A beautiful waterfall descends from the southwestern edge of the canyon and the trail switchbacks up alongside it for awhile before it's lost in a slope of scree that, according to summitpost.com "has not yet reached its angle of repose." That is the most apt description I can think of. You fight your way up in a two steps forward, one and a half steps back manner that is both tiring and frustrating. It also has the potential to be dangerous to any hikers below you so it's important that you keep an eye out for sliding rock.

The steepest scree slope of all time (not really, but it felt like it)

Once you reach the top, the view is incredible. You've crested in the Twenty Lakes basin, a gorgeous basin surrounded by huge, jagged mountains whose names I do not know. Lake Helen is the first lake you pass, and its sparkling cobalt waters look so inviting! We didn't have time to swim, but I can only imagine how cold the water was.

Lake Helen with some beautiful mountains in the background

The rest of this hike is very mellow. You climb up and over a saddle and through the lakes basin passing by a few more lakes on the way to Saddlebag. Once you reach Saddlebag you have the option of taking the water taxi across the lake and to the parking lot, or you can walk around either side of the lake. We chose to walk along the east side because the trail on the west side was still partially covered in snow, but the east side trail is probably about 3/4 mile longer (though you can't tell at the start).

This hike is really beautiful. I definitely recommend doing it and even considering camping overnight in the Twenty Lakes Basin. The only downside to this hike is the shuttle. One car is left at the Saddlebag Lake parking area, most of the way up Tioga Pass. This drive is beautiful but it's slow moving and if you're lucky enough to catch it during road construction (which my parents and I did) it takes FOREVER. At least it felt like it. The other car is left at the Lundy Canyon trailhead, about 7 miles north of town on 395 and then 7 more miles up the Lundy Canyon road. It takes almost an hour each direction. However, all that aside, this hike is definitely worth taking!

Glass Mountain 7-12-10

I've been doing a lot of solo hiking lately. For me, hiking solo is both a challenge and a luxury. Simply put, I can push myself as hard as I want and take breaks whenever I want, but I don't get to share the beauty of the places I'm seeing with anyone else - except all y'all out there in cyber-world. The other great part about solo hiking is that it takes little-to-no planning. If I want a lazy morning and then decide to hike around 1:30, no problem. I'm the only one to blame if I end up missing dinner because I left too late. I pack my backpack the same if I'm hiking 6 miles or 16 miles, so even if I hop in the car planning to go one place and getting side tracked by another, it's no problem.

My latest adventure took me up to the summit of Glass Mountain which is, according to my boss, "one of the most obscure peaks in the Mono Basin." I've been wanting to do this climb for awhile for several reasons. When you live in a place like Lee Vining, it's really easy to get seduced by the grandiosity of the Sierras and forget that the landscape extends out in all directions. Glass Mountain sits out on the edge of the basin between the Whites and the Sierras, slightly north of Crowley and south of the Adobe Valley and has an incredible view for miles and miles. I'm also curious of all the things that exist east of me, because I haven't spent much time out there, even in the Whites. Finally, Glass Mountain is one of the simplest mountains to climb around here. There isn't much of an approach, yet you still reach just over 11,000 ft.

Some kind of buckwheat hugging an obsidian edge

Glass Mountain is on the northern edge of the Long Valley Caldera, one of the biggest calderas in the country, that erupted around 760,000 years ago. Glass Mountain itself is a gigantic volcano that went through a series of eruptions between 2.1 and .8 million years ago. To this day, the mountain is covered in broken chunks of obsidian and pumice that form a patchwork across the slopes. As one of the witty entries in the registry said, "I've never hiked a trail strewn with so much broken glass."

The "getting there" is the hardest part of this hike. There are at least a hundred dirt roads that criss-cross this section of Mono County (I NEVER exaggerate) so not only do you have to find the right one to take off of 120 East, but then you have to make all the right turns (marked and unmarked) to get to the little two track four-wheel drive road that eventually peters out into a little footpath that will eventually take you straight up the side of the mountain. From what I've read, there are multiple ways to ascend Glass Mountain. You can hike straight from Sawmill Meadows, a really beautiful, remote campground that is mostly abandoned, from the north somewhere around Crooked Meadow, from the west (which looks and sounds like death) or from my little two-track. This route appears to be the simplest, most straightforward route up. The key word here is UP. My guess is that the "trailhead" starts around 9400 ft and takes you almost straight uphill to the summit of the mountain. There are a few meanders here and there along the trail, not even big enough to call them switchbacks, but for the most part you are walking uphill through pumice sand.

Initially you pass through a wooded area, lots of aspen that collect near the seeps and springs in small valleys, and tall, puzzled barked Jeffrey's that eventually give way to white bark pine as you begin to climb. The white bark pines take on krumholtz characteristics once you pass about 10,500 feet, so the view becomes clearer and more accessible as the trees become shrubby. Eventually you crest the ridge leading to the summit. From this vantage point, you can see Crowley and have an amazing view of the Long Valley Caldera. The Minarets peak over the ridge and inch into view the higher you climb.

View of Crowley and the Sierras from the top

View of Mono from the top

Once you reach the top, the 360 degree panorama is amazing. You stand on the highest point between Long Valley and the Mono Basin and can see for miles to the north and south. A summit register chronicles the highs and lows of others journeys to the top. I summited on July 12th, but there hadn't been an entry since June 26th. What a remote spot! I highly recommend this hike to anyone looking for a quiet, beautiful area. The hike is challenging but very short, and the view is worth the burn in your quads.

View of Glass Mountain from Hwy 120