Cindy McIntyre's Blog

No Rain, Green Anyway

2011-04-02T21:48:00.001-05:00

Cottonwoods along wash near Sam Nail Ranch

Three weeks ago the only spring green to be seen at Big Bend was on the cottonwood trees, which had only lost the last of their tangerine leaves two months earlier. (In Maine the trees are leafless for seven months!) These cottonwoods were sprawled in snaky washes like green apple lollipops. The effect on the landscape after so much brown and beige was startling.

Honey Mesquite

Two weeks later the honey mesquite popped out its softly feathered leaves in vivid kelly green waves all over the desert, and then sprouted pale catkins that vibrated with bees. Walk in a mesquite grove in the heat of the afternoon and the perfume of scented catkins just makes you smile big.

Mexican Buckeye blossoms and new leaves

Buckeye seed pod with tiny little pearl inside

The guayacan has set out its small lavender flowers, and in the Red Rocks Canyon (off the Blue Creek Trail) the Mexican buckeye bloom has already passed by. Succulent green seed pods have swollen quickly, lest the stored moisture of the tree (or the underground water source) dry before they can mature. The buckeye leaves are still nascent, which is not how they emerged last spring. I remember several good sized trees covered with young leaves and fresh blossoms. The drought has perhaps rushed the reproduction phase this year. Get-the-flowers-pollinated-and-the-seeds-set-before-the-leaves-unfurl seems to be the game plan this year. The Mexican (or Texas) persimmons are also leafing out, and a few have flowers.

Ocotillo blooms and one of the Mule Ears

Even cactus are flowering here and there - claret cup in the Chisos, horse crippler and strawberry pitaya here at Persimmon Gap. The ocotillo along the road to Maverick are flowering, but have no leaves on the spiny stems, which they would have if it would only rain.

The greening of the desert at Red Rocks Canyon

I know desert plants store water, and many such as mesquite can send roots deep into the earth to dip into whatever underground springs are there. Indeed, the taproot of these small shrubs is often larger than the trunk itself, and roots can reach up to 175 feet underground. Ranchers hate them because they are invasive and easily move into an overgrazed field. But I love them dearly here in the desert.

Torrey Yucca on Mule Ears Spring Trail

The Torrey yucca are also sending up spires of creamy blossoms here and there, but they aren't doing so in profusion. These are so lusted-after by the mule deer that three of them decimated the one and only yucca bloom at our entrance station last week. In normal times yucca blossoms are like cotton candy to deer and the desert bighorn, but perhaps the drought has made the deer even bolder in the quest. My co-worker Doug tried to scare them off, and cars were pulling up next to them, but come hell or high water they wouldn't budge.

On the Mule Ears Spring trail the leatherstem flowers attracted a female black swallowtail (species unknown).

I looked for the brown-flowered rainbow cactus that had been blooming in profusion last February near the spring, but I couldn't even find the cactus let alone the blooms. I don't know if the deep freeze this February had anything to do with that, but I did find one solitary blossom that afternoon.

Bluebonnet at spring on Feb 2

A few brave wildflowers have made an appearance as well, and I hear even in bluebonnet country to the east there is concern that the fields may not be so lush this year. The only bluebonnets I've seen here at Big Bend were one in the creek near Hot Springs in November, and a lone stem near Buttrell Spring the day before the Big Freeze.

Sunrise tinted by a grassland fire from Mexico

Temperatures have consistently been in the 90s, and even over 100 down by the river, the last few weeks. I saw some billowy white clouds last Sunday, but they turned out to be smoke from a grass fire in Mexico. It was still burning, and still visible, yesterday. Little fires have popped out near Alpine and Marfa the last month as well. It is unnerving, and some mornings there is the smell of smoke. Brown smudges were in the sky this morning. Cumulus clouds foamed to the east this evening, igniting hope, and fear.

And still there is no rain.

Big Bend's Birds of Spring

2011-03-26T14:47:00.000-05:00

Red-tailed Hawk on blooming Acacia

In addition to the Common Black Hawks of my last post, there are many other birds returning to Big Bend from their winter getaways, as well as year-round residents exhibiting annoying testosterone-fueled behavior.

Turkey Vulture eating dead lizard

Turkey Vultures have peppered the sky for a few weeks now, having spent the colder months in Mexico, Central and South America. These birds have extremely acute olfactory organs for finding rotted meat, and have some nasty (to us) habits such as urinating on their legs to keep cool, and vomiting when alarmed. They also have trouble getting out of the way of speeding cars, and can easily take out a windshield. Should a vulture's guts be ripped open in the process, you might just decide to give the car to a junkyard. I understand the smell is Putrid Times Ten. Well, as Jan Allen, one of our volunteer interpreters calls them, they are the Road Kill Cleanup Crew. They serve an important purpose in the ecosystem, and despite their reputations, are a welcome sight to nature lovers.

Gray Hawk in Cottonwood

A pair of Gray Hawks have returned to their nest at Cottonwood Campground. The Vermillion flycatchers, which are year-round residents there, are singing their zippy songs (similar to the Eastern Kingbird - which sounds like fingers zipping along the teeth of a large plastic comb.) There were two males at Cottonwood vying for the love of a particular female, and one Lothario just wouldn't be chased off by the offended and rightful suitor.

Two Males, One Female - the stuff of drama

Vermillions are fidgety little things

These babies have a loose, fluttery flight that makes them easy to photograph

At the Sam Nail Ranch spring, I saw my first Green-tailed Towhee, along with perhaps a dozen mockingbirds, several cardinals and pyrrhuloxias, hermit thrushes, a spotted towhee, sparrows (rufous-crowned, white-crowned, and black-throated), and I'm pretty sure there was a brown thrasher skulking in the underbrush.


Green-tailed Towhee

Hummingbirds are busy visiting feeders at Panther Junction residences, and ash-throated flycatchers are calling "pip...ker-BEER" at Rio Grande Village. Bell's vireos in the campground are performing what I call the "rattle song" even though I can't think of an actual rattle that sounds like it. I just visualize squeaky rattling whenever I hear the songs of these plain-Jane little birds.

Ash-throated Flycatcher in Mesquite

Ash-throated Flycatcher in flight


Ash-throated Flycatcher at Mule Ears Springs trail with blooming ocotillo

Among the annoying behaviors are those birds of the male persuasion who bash themselves against glass windows because they see their reflections and mistake them for intruders in their territory. At the Persimmon Gap Visitor Center last year we had a curve-billed thrasher, er... thrashing himself against the door and window. This year I've seen a roadrunner getting squirrelly at the door after hours, and this week both a Ladder-back Woodpecker and Common Raven were making pests of themselves.

Ladder-back Woodpecker male on Visitor Center door


Maybe he's just mad because the VC is closed?

This is how a male woodpecker ought to behave (below). This fellow at Sam Nail Ranch was cleaning out a nesting hole for the Missus.

"Our" raven George is most distressing, because ravens are supposed to be too smart to fall for such silly deceptions. Zydeco king C. J. Chenier has it right, "Women are smarter than a man any day." Gracie just looks at George (presumably in disgust) pecking at the "intruder" in the window for hours on end. Our volunteer Jim made a contraption that was supposed to thwart his pecks and gouges that are ruining the caulking and UV coating. But it just gets George up a little higher to do his damage. It's just a plain waste of poor George's energy, too, and Lord knows desert critters need to conserve what they have.

George and his "antagonist" - Alas, the Raven Contraption doesn't work

Here are more birds seen this week. My life-listers are the Black and Gray hawks and the Green-tailed Towhee. Woo-hoo!

Canyon Towhee at Entrance Station


Pyrrhuloxia male

Aforementioned Red-tailed hawk taking flight

Aforementioned Ash-throated Flycatcher taking flight

Black Hawks Make Whoopee

2011-03-21T22:55:00.000-05:00

The Common Black Hawks have returned to Rio Grande Village from more southern climes, and were busy today adding to their nest and making whoopee.

Although it's hard to tell the sexes apart, I'm assuming it was the female that stayed at the nest to arrange the large twigs brought by the male. I could hear him snapping them off the cottonwood trees.

Then the female left to perch on a snag, and in a little while the male joined her for some love-making. This happened twice, each time the activity was initiated with a wild hawkish cry.

Then he went hunting and brought her back a small food offering.

After awhile it was back to nest-making. It is well hidden in the leaves of the tall cottonwood, but careless visitors could cause them to abandon the nest.

That's why we have these nifty new signs warning visitors to keep their distance. Another nest, perhaps last year's, is in a more visible location, but was passed over in favor of one more secluded.

Despite the name, black hawks are not common at Big Bend. So give these lovebirds some space, so they can make whoopee. And babies.

Winter's Last Moon

2011-03-20T12:12:00.000-05:00

Composite of the "Super Moon" rising March 19, 2011

It's the first day of Spring.

It was 102 degrees in Castolon yesterday, in the park's southwest end, ushering out the last day of winter at Big Bend National Park. The moonrise was much-heralded as the largest perigee moon in 18 years, because it was closer to the earth. (The moon orbits the earth in an ellipse, the farthest point being the apogee.) I watched it rise from behind the Deadhorse Mountains, along with other folks who had come to hear moon lore from one of our rangers.

Moonrise framed by ocotillo

First the clouds glowed just a little, then more intensely as we waited for the first glimmer of the moon itself. Coyotes sang in the far distance for a few delightful seconds. Through binoculars I watched the moon's rim peep over the mountains, and within a minute or two it had presented itself in entirety. The evening was warm, and Jupiter had already popped out through orange sunset clouds in the west. Sirius, then Orion's Belt and other constellations appeared as the sky darkened. The moon rose through thin layers of clouds until it was bright enough for me to walk in the desert without running into cactus or ocotillo.

Yeah it's a manipulated photo, but it's art, right?

I wouldn't say it was a moon larger than any I'd seen before. I've seen many that blew me away by their apparent gigantic juxtaposition with the horizon, perhaps distorted by atmospherics. But it was a combination of good weather, good scenery, and good people that made it memorable. The ranger said we could all howl at the moon. I wonder what the coyotes thought.

Popped a flash on the ocotillo with moon in center

LAGNIAPPE - a littla this, a littla that

2011-03-19T15:30:00.000-05:00

Sunrise on Winter's Last Day, with Persimmon Mt. to the right

*Big Bend had a little retirement party a couple of weeks ago for a veteran employee. His uniform was a little scruffy and he needed a shave, but he was adored just the same. Jeep, one of the park trail horses, was headed for a well-deserved rest, and the send-off was superb. The park superintendent even presented his retirement plaque, which was signed on the back with good wishes. The school children turned out for the ceremony, speeches were made, a song was sung (by me) and carrots and brownies were served with iced tea.

The song was inspired by one written by a cowboy in 1901 for his horse Chopo, and sung and arranged by Rod Taylor who performed at the Cowboy Poetry Festival in Alpine. I rewrote some of the verses, and apparently Jeep approved because he let out a huge whinny during the song. Jeep’s replacement is a small pony-sized white horse-with-no-name, and the kids will probably have a good time trying to find a name that fits him.

Javelinas in housing area - ain't they cuuuute?

*I saw Venus in broad daylight a couple months ago. I had my binoculars trained on some far-off swifts and spied a very bright point of light. It wasn’t a jet glistening in the sunlight miles above the earth. It wasn’t even moving. I took away my binoculars and couldn’t see it at all. It was sheer luck that I had found Venus in the middle of the day. I later learned that if it is far enough away from the sun like it was then, one can find it in midday if one knows where to look.

George and Gracie

*Gracie, one of our resident ravens, had disappeared from her night roost with George, and he was coming around the Entrance Station without her. This went on for about a month. Doug says this happens every year about this time, and likely Gracie has been sitting on a nest somewhere. I was feeling sorry for George, since he seemed so lonesome and out of sorts, and I thought something evil had this way come for Gracie. But she’s been back, and I’m wondering if there will be little Georges and little Gracies around the Entrance Station any time soon.

*Heard on park radio: “What is the park policy regarding nudity in the backcountry?” Reply: What site are you referring to? (Imagine everyone glued to the radio for answer…)

*At the Entrance Station: Guy presented an Access pass and when I asked for ID of the passholder he held up a small bulky envelope with the woman’s name on it. “Here she is,” he said. She was on her way to being scattered in the park. My son has been asked to scatter my ashes around Mt. Rainier, but I may have him save some for Big Bend.

Terlingua Ghost Town Cemetery

*Spring Break lasts two weeks. The first week was rather mild, and my cousin and her husband from Bridge City visited. Second week is when most schools and colleges in Texas were on break, so it was hectic. I know we’re spoiled, because our brief Spring Break pales in comparison to the everyday crowds in parks like Yellowstone.

*I got Religion. The Order of the Iron…I am a lapsed Ironer, but the realization that my uniform needed creases brought me back into the, er, fold. I also had my eyebrows plucked for the first time in my life by the Holy Order of Mary Kay. I was determined to buy only cleanser at the Mary Kay party, but then I had to go for the tinted moisturizer, then the mineral powder. Later added eye shadow and rouge. When in Texas, do as the Texas gals do….Can’t say for sure it’s a great improvement, but at least I’m making the effort!

Yucca at Entrance Station March 13

*Wildflower season won’t be so good this year, since we’ve had no rain to speak of since Labor Day or thereabouts. The February freeze nipped some of the early bloomers in the bud, as it did the huisache tree at our apartments. It also wrecked the palm leaves and river cane. But there are some compact mounds of yellow flowers starting to show on the roadsides. A few yucca, including the one at the Entrance Station planted in 1995, are blooming. I hope the cactus put on a good show again this year.

Our yucca March 19

It's nearly 90 degrees in the shade - and it's the last day of winter!

Cowboy Poetry - Yee-Haa!

2011-02-26T20:30:00.000-06:00

“West Texas in Spring has its Sunday britches on…” - Sam Watson

That was a line from one of the poems recited at the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Alpine, Texas on Friday, February 25. Cowboys, ranchers, and Western poets and musicians came together for the 25^th year of the gathering, and Doug (my co-worker at the Entrance Station) was kind enough to swap days with me so I could attend.

I joked that I was going to rope me a cowboy and drag him home, but the truth is that as much as I love horses and the romance of the Westerns of my childhood, I stuck out like a sore thumb there. (I stick out like a sore thumb no matter where I am.) I mean, I was dressed in my usual artsy fartsy garb - a chartreuse t-shirt from the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge, multi-colored baubles on neck and ears, and equally multi-colored belt and socks (those distinctive purposely-mismatched Sole-Mate socks so popular in New England.) I did have on jeans, but they were black, and I wore New Balance running shoes instead of pointy, well-tooled boots. Denim was the predominant color among attendees, along with lots of those lovely Stetsons.

“Moral to this story, never judge by what they wear…” (Marty Robbins- Cowboy in the Continental Suit)

So anyway, I was late arriving as it took for-damn-ever to get breakfast in Terlingua thanks to a dirt biker rally, and I wasn’t sure when the gas pumps opened there, so I didn’t leave at 6 a.m. as I had planned. (Gas $3.51 Terlingua, $3.39 Stripes in Alpine. Ouch.) I got to the Sul Ross University auditorium in the middle of a set by Jeff Gore and Washtub Jerry, singing Marty Robbins’ Master’s Call, followed by El Paso. I don’t know why, but I found myself tearing up a little. I mean, I used to hate country-western music as a kid. Yet we all knew those songs, even if we listened to the Top 40 Pop station. This was real singing. A rich masculine voice singing words you could actually understand, instead of growly voices drowned out by electronics, or unsingable drivel about dysfunctional love on today’s pop charts.

Chuck Wagon Coffee Pots keeping warm

Of course, now that I live in Far West Texas for half the year, I figured I’d immerse myself a little in the culture. Like many of the old ways, even the cowboy lifestyle is changed. There was a sea of gray in the large audience, and most of the poets and storytellers were likewise old fellers and gals. The bunkhouses are empty, lamented one. Technology, off-road vehicles, whatever the reason, there are fewer guys punchin’ cows in the backcountry. And with TV and the internet, fewer of them are creating their own stories and tales. The “tribe” needs new blood. Many of the poems recited (often from memory) were written by cowboy poets who have passed on - stalwarts such as J.B. Allen and Buck Ramsey.

Matter of fact, I was most impressed with the juxtaposition of the “effeminate” Literary and the epitome of Manliness. I never saw “Rawhide’s” Rowdy Yates pen a poem on the back of a fruit can label (J. B. Allen, Medicine Keeper) or Gil Favour pluck out a tune while on night guard to keep the “dogies” quiet. Roy Rogers just seemed like an anomaly, but I guess he was more representative of many of the old-time cowboys than I understood.

Stage during Cowboy Poetry Gathering performance

I’m listening now to the CD by Rod Taylor, whose CD was playing in the sales room when I hunted for the Marty Robbins tribute album I mentioned above. It has such sweet melodies - reminiscent of a couple of Lyle Lovett’s tunes (This Old Porch being one.). I’d call it Western Folk, but what do I know? I’ve always considered songs to be poetry set to music. And my poetry instructor at the University of Maine agreed, since we were allowed to do a presentation on a favorite poet or songwriter. (I chose folk singer/songwriter Richard Shindell.)

Cowboys love their horses. They love their cows too. Their poetry and songs are often about these critters that fill their lives, even the ornery ones. I’ve been horse crazy since a little girl, and I’ll watch any movie and read any book about a horse. So I very much appreciated the poem about The Company Horse, who never knew what kind of cowboy was going to ride him, just as a cowboy always hoped for a good string of cow ponies when he worked for “the company.” I cried at “La Rose” (I think that's the name, sung by Jill Jones) whose broken-hearted, broken-down owner needed to sell the “long in the tooth” mare he had since she was born.

The Red Cow by Larry McWhorter was about a young man seeking to prove himself with a mean cuss whose capture was highly prized, but who was, in the end, left alone to her freedom. It reminded me of Townes Van Zandt’s Pancho and Lefty (“All the federales say/ They could have had him any day. They only let him slip away/ Out of kindness I suppose.”)

Chuck Wagon serving lunch

Cowboys in 2023 - the chuckwagon served bagels and choco-latte, the men wore Crocs and spiky hair, “with faces that looked like they fell into a tackle box.” (Sam Noble)

There were poems about people, too, about the land, the cowboy life. Women were not left out, for although everyone knows a good cowboy is made by a good woman - many of whom worked alongside their cowboy husbands - many women wrote, recited or sang poetry. Jill Jones did some mighty fine yodeling, and I couldn’t help think of Prairie Home Companion’s “Lives of the Cowboys.” (Lefty is always playing a poorly tuned guitar and yodeling, to the annoyance of Dusty.)

“I was fifteen before I realized grass was supposed to be green.” - one of the cowboys said about growing up in arid country.

Chuck Wagon truck

One sweet faced grandma wrote verse about her mother’s visit after she’d been a young cowboy’s bride. “ ‘Shucks, golly darn it’ ” just won’t do when your horse falls on you, or the cows you’ve spent a half day rounding up escape because somebody forgot to fasten the gate,” she recited. “This is my life, and just get used to the cussin’” she told her mother (my paraphrase.) She also wrote about bundling in layer upon layer of clothing to move cattle in frigid weather, and the need to shed and restore all those layers when nature inevitably calls. It’s a woman thing, it really is.

There were two things that stuck in my craw, so to speak. One was that this same sweet woman mentioned with a touch of vehemence that the former ranches in Oregon’s Willamette Valley were “being destroyed by environmentalists.” Well now, I know many ranchers have become enlightened in recent years and want to co-exist with the natural ecosystems. But it is a plain fact that ranching has historically, and continues to this day, to destroy habitat for the rightful owners of the land - the wildlife. Here in Big Bend National Park, the former grasslands of Tornillo Flats were grazed out of existence prior to the 1944 establishment of the park, and may never recover. Grassland breeding birds have experienced precipitous decline in population due to destruction or degradation of habitat due to ranching, agriculture and development. The native tallgrass and shortgrass and mixed grass prairies have been pretty much exterminated save for remnant parcels “the environmentalists” saved.

In this same afternoon program, one of the men sang about how ranchers owed their livelihoods to the U.S. Cavalry who cleared out the original human inhabitants, and the buffalo hunter who cleared out the cattle’s competitor for rangeland. He also poignantly concluded the ranchers had blood on their hands as much as these Indian- and buffalo-killers. It’s too late for the Comanches, Apaches, and all the other displaced tribes. But it’s not too late for what remains of native habitat and wildlife. Nearly all early settlers of America’s western lands owe their land and livelihoods to the federal government, which used federal troops to exterminate Indians, and which gave free land to homestead. Their descendants would do well to remember that when they complain about today’s “handouts” and “destruction of livelihoods.”

Dutch Oven biscuits - yum!

It also struck me that this “Cowboy Road” (“The Cowboy Road - it’s just horses, hats and leather…” - Allan Chapman) is exactly the antithesis of the “Good Red Road” of the Indians that occupied my thoughts and activities 20 years ago. I spent several years “being with” Native American peoples of various sorts - that being a whole ‘nother story - and have great empathy for their sorrows - both historical and contemporary. Cowboys and Indians don’t have to be enemies today, and I suspect they often aren’t.

The University Center was crowded for lunch, so I was going to skip it when I saw a chuck wagon set up in a field. I asked if it was for the public, and the fellers there assured me it was, and when I asked where the donation jar was they said somebody had forgotten it. But in hindsight I think lunch was for the performers, and these cowboys were just being kind.

Dutch Oven baking - coals top and bottom

The chuck wagon crew

Apache Adams and the Australian Jack Sammon sat on the hay bales next to me, and one of the artist-sculptors in the “Trappings of Texas” show at the Museum of the Big Bend was on the other side. The tender brisket, the cowboy beans, dutch-oven baked biscuits, and fresh salsa with cilantro, were darned tootin’ good. The cook tasted some of the brisket, then rubbed his oily fingers on his boots (a good idea, I thought). Coffee warmed in the huge pots, and windblown dirt and ashes mixed with our food in true cowboy fashion.

From the campus the small town of Alpine below was backdropped by several mountains and hills. The breeze was cool and the day warm. I could see living here someday.

I stayed as long as I could at the night session, but had to leave at 9 pm for the 2 hour drive back to Big Bend, so I could be at work by 7:30 in the morning. Next year maybe Doug will swap me two days, so I can stay longer . It’s something I will definitely look forward to.

Lower Rio Grande Birds

2011-02-24T19:29:00.000-06:00

I have added some new birds to my favorites list, thanks to a trip to the Lower Rio Grande Valley recently. The above Green Jay is one. I have a fondness for jays, and this is particularly striking in its tropical coloration. It's a Mexican bird that ventures north of the border in South Texas - quite common there actually, but no less of a jewel.

Blue Jays, which we're all familiar with, are also favorites of mine because they're so beautiful and sassy. I've never seen them actually harass birds at the feeder, but their size and brazen swooping onto the feeder tends to intimidate the smaller birds into scattering. So misunderstood!

The Common Pauraque is my other new fave. This bird is in the nightjar family - a nocturnal bug-eater like the whip-poor-will with a tiny bill and huge maw for gathering lots of skeeters and such. It sleeps during the day, and at the Estero Llano Grande State Park they don't seem to mind parking themselves right beside the trail. Two of them were so well hidden in the dead leaves that even though the area was marked off and I knew they were there, it took a few minutes before I could actually tease their form out of the forest floor.

Here is the second one, showing the value of camouflage. A closeup below. They are common in Mexico, Central and South America, but again only show up in the US in South Texas.

The exquisite patterns and earth tones of their feathers, and their supreme confidence in their invisibility, as well as just being darned cute, won my heart. I so wanted to pick them up and pet them.

The Buff-Bellied Hummingbird is also another new favorite. It is quite a bit larger than the ruby-throated hummer which is the only breeding hummingbird on the East Coast. The male is iridescent and this one kept up a steady chipping like that of a verdin. Evidently there was another hummer in the area it was trying to keep from "his" feeders.

Aside from the great birds, I didn't really care for South Texas. For one, it was too cluttered and populated. And they don't clean their roadsides and vacant lots. I've never seen a landscape as littered with white plastic shopping bags as I did in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. One town had vacant lots dotted with fluttering bags stuck on grass stalks as if they were purposely planted there. Plus I could only find a Public Radio station coming in weakly near Estero Llano, and that was from Corpus Christi. At best, three of four radio stations are entirely in Spanish. I know this is a haven for "winter Texans" but I much prefer the wide open spaces of Far West Texas and Big Bend. Anyway, more birds:

The Altamira Oriole is lured in by oranges placed in many of the park and refuge feeding stations. It is said orioles won't eat oranges unless they've been cut open - they either can't or won't penetrate the skin to get at the luscious fruit inside. Good thing, or the citrus farmers might have eliminated them long ago.

An Altamira and Audubon's Oriole, which is more yellow, have a dispute at the feeder. A hooded oriole also visited this prolific site, which was at Salineno. It is worth stopping at the World Birding Center in Roma, a little town just east, for info on how to get to this site, as well as some good books and t-shirts.

The land is owned by the Valley Land Fund and donations bring in seed and fruit that attract so many colorful birds it's as if they're living Christmas ornaments. The caretaker had to keep swooshing away the red-winged blackbirds that were eating her out of house and home, but they finally got the idea and segregated themselves in a far part of the yard near another feeder.

Audubon's Oriole closeup

Some birds at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, which is known for attracting rarities (rare only in America, I should say.) As for overall quantity and variety of birds in general, I found it to be rather sparse.

Black-headed Grosbeak, female

This is a mutation of a white-winged dove - a chocolate color rather than buff

And a hybrid oriole - called by the locals as the "Smudgy Oriole"

Female red-winged blackbird sporting pink epaulets - females typically have no wing color.

Plain Chachalaca, a chicken-like bird that reminds me of the wild turkeys I have in my yard in Maine

I did see the black-vented oriole (from Mexico - rare here) but only have video of it. When I first arrived at this park, I went over to one of the four benches parked near the birdfeeders, where the Chachalacas were greedily feeding. A lady, whom I will call the Bird Nazi, informed me that people weren't allowed in that area because of the crowds of people that have been coming to see this bird. I looked at the lone guy standing behind me, pointed out the benches which were obviously made for sitting on, and the guy insisted that because this bird was "rare" that it would be intimidated by people close to it. So while I obediently stepped back to the "safe" area, little noisy golf carts, bicyclists, and pedestrians walked right by the sacred feeders. Evidently this "rare" bird is scared off only by people sitting quietly on benches.

I was so turned off by that attitude that I stalked off to another area where several birders awaited the hopeful arrival of the also-rare (north of the border, anyway) blue bunting and told them what happened. They were equally incredulous. That bird has been around for weeks and people were regularly a few yards away from it, apparently no harm being done to it. I can see why birders have gotten a bad name from non-birders. That was definitely a first for me.

Falcon State Park and Salineno:

The Great Kiskadee - a very large and stunning flycatcher

Couch's Kingbird

Harris's Hawk

Bobwhite male

Long-billed Thrasher (similar to the Brown Thrasher)

Olive Sparrow

Lincoln's Sparrow

Orange-crowned Warbler

Inca Dove

Common Ground Dove

White-tipped Dove

I will say that Texas has some of the best state parks I've ever seen, and even many of their roadside picnic areas are very pleasant places, with wildflowers and cactus blooms in spring.

And now some water birds from Estero Llano State Park

Fulvous Whistling Duck

Northern Shoveler

Ring-necked duck

Gadwall

Common Moorhen

Spotted Sandpiper in winter plumage

Least Sandpiper

Little Blue Heron

Least Grebe (they fluff up their whitish bottoms like cotton balls)

Gas went up 15 cents a gallon in the four days I was on the road. Every gas pump in Del Rio on Friday was $3.05. Don't tell me that's not price fixing! But while I was there I got groceries at HEB (great produce - what a luxury!), got a haircut for $17.95, bought some summer shirts marked way down at Fashion Bug, turned in my ink cartridges at Staples for a $20 credit, and drank gallons of Dr Pepper (which I try to keep out of the house) and ate Jack in the Box tacos and Dairy Queen Flame Kickers. (I know it's pathetic, but I'm a child of the fast food restaurants.)

Despite the Border Patrol checkpoints and their numerous white-and-green vehicles everywhere, it was a great birding trip, with a little crass consumerism thrown in, and I can't wait for my next foray of birding. Stay tuned!

Brutally Cold!

2011-02-03T21:42:00.000-06:00

The water has been running from my faucets for two nights and days, going on a third, to keep them from freezing. We’re having the kind of frigid weather this area doesn’t see very often - eight degrees this morning at my house in Panther Junction, one degree in the Chisos Basin. Heck I was hiking in short sleeves on Monday! There was even a light dusting of powder snow, which mostly sublimated (evaporated) at PJ by 6 p.m. The Chisos Mountains are still dusted, as you can see by the above photograph, but there was nary a flake at Rio Grande Village. It was so windy there that facing the wind was extremely painful after only a few seconds. The wind chill must have been minus 30 at least. (Hey I'm from Maine, so I'm not a wimp!) Despite that, here’s how it looked today in Big Bend.

Sierra del Carmens with a stacked layer of clouds mid-afternoon

Looking toward PJ from the east, late afternoon


Ice Patterns on pond at Rio Grande Village


Trees wore ice garters

These ice orbs look suspiciously like turtles. I hope not.


Vermillion Flycatcher looks miserable Golden-fronted Woodpecker on store roof, RGV Even the fishes huddled together from the cold Pyrrhuloxia Sun peeking through the gray


Sierra del Carmens as the clouds cleared toward evening Last light Sun Pillar Pulliam Peak near sunset p.s. I hate blogspot - it handles photos very poorly - any ideas for a new blog host?

Northeast Rim in January

2011-01-24T08:36:00.003-06:00

Sunrise from Southeast Rim of the High Chisos

The weather forecast was delightful, and the moon would be full. In two weeks the trail would be closed because of the peregrine falcon nesting season, so I decided on the spur of the moment to stay overnight at Northeast Rim in the High Chisos.

I ditched my faithful 25-year-old Jansport backpack when I had my yard sale back in Maine, since it was no longer comfortable on my more ample body, and adapted my lovely REI daypack to carry my new Big Agnes 15 degree sleeping bag, the air mattress, and my fat warm jacket. I borrowed a tent from the Rio Cache at the park, spent an hour struggling with it in my living room so I knew how to set it up, then decided I'd leave it behind because I simply could not jury-rig it onto my daypack with the other stuff. The chance of precip was nil, so I figured it wasn't a huge risk.

My daypack adapted for an overnight trip

Teal Jansport on Free Pile (sob!)

I learned my lesson from last year's day hike to the South Rim, when I returned dehydrated. I brought lots of water (man was it heavy) and made myself drink every half hour or so. I've always been a slow hiker, even when I was young, thin, and hiked or backpacked every weekend. But now that I'm, er, a woman of a certain age, it was just a little harder to go from 5400 feet to 7400 feet elevation with enough stuff hanging off my pack to make me look like a bag lady.

I went up the steeper Pinnacles Trail, since I am convinced that the Laguna Meadows Trail is about twice as long as the official markers say, plus I really wanted to see a Mountain Lion. Many people have had one appear right in front of them, then perch itself serenely on a rock for a photo op on this trail. I kept looking. Once again, no luck.

Mexican Jay

I did hear the spotted towhees singing, which was a version of the Eastern Towhee's "drink your teeeeeaaaaa..." that I hear in Maine. Even saw my first juncos of the season, about eight of the gray-headed type. And I discovered that the noisy Mexican Jays can warble. Several were close to me and their warbles were soft, quiet, and lovely.

I met one of our volunteers about halfway up Pinnacles. What took me an hour and a half took him about 40 minutes, since he was traveling light and kind of jogging up. What an animal. I finished my snack and my sips and trudged gamely upwards.

Arizona Cypress

I converted about a half pound of apple, cheese and water to body mass during lunch at Toll Mt. - the site of The Worst Night of My Life (see Feb 2010 blog) - and continued along the Boot Canyon Trail.

Boot Rock

Boot Rock was backdropped by the desert hills and the Sierra del Carmens, and I soon entered a lush canyon of relict trees from the era when the entire area was more temperate and wet. Huge Arizona cypress, with their cedar-like bark and tight gray-green cones loomed high, along with large oaks of various species, some evergreen, many sporting brown or orange deciduous leaves long dead, but still reluctant to let go. This is the place to be in summer when the heat bakes the desert below and makes climbing an exercise in masochism. But this was winter, and my goal was a few miles away.

Last April, there were many slimy pools of water in the drainage of Boot Spring, but today - thanks to our drought - there was only one. And perched on a branch over this slime pool was a little bird I first thought was a ruby-crowned kinglet. But a closer look revealed it was a flycatcher, and it would fly down from its perch to snap up one of the numerous bugs over the pool, and return to await another delectable morsel. It exhibited a frizzy crown, and pumped its tail slowly up, then down. When I examined the photographs on my Nikon's screen, I realized it had a strange looking beak. Hmmm...

Mystery Flycatcher

There was also a canyon wren at the pool, and after a few minutes chasing bugs and butterflies he hopped back up the rock and gave me two bars of his exquisite song as he left. The first time I ever heard a canyon wren was in the Havasu Canyon of Arizona, and I thought it sounded like a child's flute with a stem that you pushed in so the notes kept descending. Paul Winter incorporates this distinctive song into his "River Run" composition on the "Canyon" album. It is perhaps the most representative sound of canyon country.

Canyon Wren

I ws at camp in NE4 by 4:45 p.m., nearly 8 hours after I left. (I allow a mile per hour of backcountry hiking - always have. Gives time for birding, looking at rocks and plants, taking pictures, and catching my breath.) The moon was already up but couldn't be seen because of the haze at the horizon, but in no time it was glowing nearly full over the rosy landscape below. My my my. I couldn't have improved on it one bit.

I walked along the SE rim where the views were even better, and watched as the last of the sun touched the soft hills below. The sun set behind a peak which cast its shadow far into the distance, and even onto the haze above the horizon, as if it were some solid object floating in the sky.

Shadow of a peak rising above the eastern horizon at sunset

My campsite in NE4 was sheltered, which was ideal for someone who had brought no tent. I dug out my stuff from the bear boxes and fired up the Pocket Rocket stove. I put a cup of Minute Rice in the boiling water, and let the packet of Indian sauce with peas and mild chunks of cheese warm in the steaming rice. Then I poured and mixed for a tasty meal. It was too much for one person, so I put the rest away for breakfast. After reading "Apollo 13" for awhile, I crawled into Big Agnes and slept under the stars cowgirl style. I kept reading, my Black Diamond headlamp providing great light until I was sleepy.

I never sleep well on the ground, and though I wasn't freezing, I wasn't completely toasty either, even though the temps were probably in the mid to upper 30s. (It had been below freezing, so I was lucky.) The moonglow looked green, perhaps because the trees lent a certain color to the usually silvery light, or perhaps I just imagined it, but it was greatly welcome. I get claustrophobic when I can't see my hand in front of me. It was windless until probably 2 a.m. when a gentle breeze arose. I pulled the sleeping bag over my head. The long dark hours passed in a state of dreaming and semi-wakefulness, and I nearly missed the sunrise. So I hurried into my boots and made it to the viewpoint as the sun peeked over a hazy landscape.

Standard-issue pinyon pine framing the foreground

Breakfast was leftover Indian food and rice, and Emergen-C powder in my water bottle for vitamins and electrolytes. I had brought a teabag of Lapsang Souchong but didn't feel like cleaning out the cooking pot for the water, so I ate some Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips for my caffeine hit. Packed up camp, and off I went.

I studied the topography below from the Southeast Rim, thinking of the astronauts who could recognize the topography of the moon and all its named landmarks, and wishing I could do the same with what I saw below. I didn't have a big enough map with me, but figured I would work harder at it next time.

Dusky Flycatcher

Before I knew it, it was one p.m. and I was sitting on the trail overlooking the slime pond at Boot Canyon again, hoping to spot the crazy flycatcher. The canyon wren was back, even more beautiful in the filtered light. Then I heard "Wheep. Wheep." The flycatcher returned, darted for bugs for awhile, then flew away. At least three pine siskins took up watch in the nearby oak.

As pleasant as it was, I needed to move out, and soon met Joseph the park packer at the corral in Boot Canyon. He and six mules had been bringing up "water logs" and metal poles for tripods to move rocks so that more water diverters could be put in place. There are dozens of these on the slopes to keep water from eroding the trail. If there had only been an extra saddle, I could have hitched a ride down.

Lunch again at Pinnacles, this time sardines and crackers. Sardines are my emergency larder, but they are excellent protein when working hard. I like to save them for the last meal before home, since the empty cans are smelly and need double-bagging in freezer bags. Don't need no hungry bears following me.

Down Pinnacles, again hoping for a Mountain Lion. Again skunked. But I was exhausted, my feet hurt, shoulders sore (though my pack was 10 pounds lighter I think), and I was anxious for a shower. The last half mile is always the longest. But thanks to plenty of drinking water, the next day I was up and at 'em - energized and hardly sore at all. And can you guess which was the first picture I looked for when I downloaded the photographs the next day?

Why, that crazy flycatcher! Three bird experts hashed it out and decided it was a Dusky Flycatcher, definitely one of the look-alike epidonaxes. But that bill, it was definitely put on sideways. The little guy adapted his bug-catching style just fine, thank you.

Closeup of crazy flycatcher's sideways bill

Just like I adapted to get myself up to Northeast Rim for a lovely moonlit night.

All text and photographs on this blog are copyrighted by Cindy McIntyre and may not be used without permission.

Ice Fog in the Chisos 1-11-11

2011-01-11T18:37:00.000-06:00

Casa Grande

When I couldn't see the mountains this morning from my front window, I knew something glorious was happening up there. In Panther Junction it was in the 20s, and combined with little droplets of moisture up higher, hoarfrost would surely be the result.

Road to the Basin

Sure enough, near the Lost Mine Trail it was at its peak - as if snow had settled on every leaf and blade.

Just beyond, as the road dipped down, the sun was shining in the Basin. But here the wind chill froze me to the bone. I knew this wouldn't last, and by 10:30 - as the sun warmed the thickly coated trees - the wind began knocking off the icy shards.

White tendrils of fog crawled down little creases in the mountains, while chunks of it were blown quickly through others.

As the vista cleared, it became apparent that this ice fog only affected a fairly small segment of the Chisos, mostly alongside the road it seemed, perhaps because of the way it funnels the wind through the pass.

High up on Casa Grande, the muted golds and siennas of the fall oaks appeared to be untouched. There had been a coating of frost in the Basin, judging from what was on car windshields, but it seemed that the ice fog with its transformative power preferred to linger only on certain slopes, at certain elevations.

Trees higher up, at base of Casa Grande, appear untouched

Pinyon pines seemed to grab onto this ice most tenaciously, probably because of the amount of surface area each needle offered it.

Sotol and grasses appeared to be sheared flat at the tips, and a close inspection revealed that the points were indeed still there, but the ice rime just built up and out and was shaved flat by the wind.

A very large orb spider web was collapsed by the ice, but strong enough for its main shape to hold up under the onslaught.

Fog and sunlight varied second to second, altering the landscape, highlighting first this century plant, then that crag, and then hiding them both.

Last year my buddy Shanna was enraptured with the hoarfrost that decorated the landscape during a similar event, and she made a video of the beauty she found. What I remember most is the look of wonder captured in her eyes.

Indeed, who wouldn't be bewitched by such a transformation?

The Window from Lost Mine Trail parking area

Census for the Birds

2010-12-30T19:04:00.000-06:00

Vermillion Flycatcher male

I spent about five months in 2009 and 2010 helping the U. S. Census Bureau count people for the 2010 tally. I spent the last two days counting birds for the 111th annual Christmas Bird Count. About a dozen of us covered two circles fifteen miles in diameter here at Big Bend National Park, one in the Chisos Mountains area, and the other in the Rio Grande Village area. People came from Austin, Las Cruces, NM, and other places to help us "locals" with this important (and very fun) duty.

The CBC began just as the country was getting the idea that indiscriminate killing of birds for fashion and "sport" was immoral, causing the drastic decline and sometimes extinction of innocents. From the National Audubon Society website:

Prior to the turn of the century, people engaged in a holiday tradition known as the Christmas "Side Hunt": They would choose sides and go afield with their guns; whoever brought in the biggest pile of feathered (and furred) quarry won.

Beginning on Christmas Day 1900, ornithologist Frank Chapman, an early officer in the then budding Audubon Society, proposed a new holiday tradition-a "Christmas Bird Census"-that would count birds in the holidays rather than hunt them.

Bushtit in pinyon pine

The count helps gauge the health of bird species and to determine if conservation measures need to be implemented if a precipitous decline is noted. It also tells us which birds are expanding their range and population.

In Big Bend, many of us have noticed a decline in the quantity and variety of birds this fall, most likely due to the extremely dry conditions which cause lack of food. For instance, last year there were juncos all over the place - most of the color varieties were frequently seen on the Chisos trails. This year I've not seen a one. These guys rely on seeds and they will jump on grass seed spikes and bend them down, running their conical beaks along the stem to strip the seeds. No rain, no seeds.

Butterbutt (Yellow-rumped warbler, Audubon's variety)

The mechanics of being "citizen scientists", as Audubon calls us, are simple. You see a winged shape zip by and you try to identify and tally it. If it hides, you "pish" and hope it's one of the curious species that responds by popping out to see what the fuss is about. (Pishing, for you non-birders, is when you go "pwsssssh pwsssssh pwsssssh" repeatedly, which is supposed to be an alarm call or possibly just an annoying noise that birds can't resist. I was taught as a kid to make a squeaky noise by kissing the back of my hand, and I also resort to that.

Black-crested Titmouse

Too much pishing is considered harassment, so one must be discriminating. (And woe to those who use taped bird calls to lure in the target - this adds stress to birds thinking an intruder has arrived and must be fought off.) Most birds ignore us anyway, so we hope for that one little glimpse to tell us the bird is a black-throated sparrow instead of a white-crowned, or a black-tailed gnatcatcher instead of a blue-gray. We look for that flash of tail of a soaring bird a quarter mile in the air that tells us it's a red-tailed hawk, and listen for that twitter in the bushes that tells us the bird we never see is a verdin.

Black Phoebe

I'm amazed at how good some people are at birding. They have better eyes than mine, and better memories, and can identify quickly a bird I struggle with. (Oh those pesky sparrows - so many shades of brown!) That's why it's good to bird with others - yes "bird" is a verb - even though it's an activity I often do alone, and find enormously relaxing.

Of course, we all went down to Daniels Ranch to see the illustrious Tufted Flycatcher, but even though we got there minutes after the sun struck the cottonwood trees, only a few people there before us saw it before it went elsewhere. It did get on the Count, though - woo hoo for Big Bend!


Looking for the elusive Tufted Flycatcher at RGV- it was shirtsleeves weather a couple hours later

Why do people "bird?" I guess it's part of the hunting instinct our ancestors needed to survive, ours being the "thrill of the hunt" to find, not to kill. It also fulfills a need in some of us to "collect" - and many birders have a Life List. (I won't even mention those who spend tens of thousands of dollars and petroleum products chasing rare birds for their lists. This may be a type of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or maybe just somebody who can afford to do what the rest of us would love to do if we didn't have to pay our bills.)

Ruby-crowned kinglet showing his ruby

But mostly, I think it's that we appreciate beauty, and birds are indeed beautiful and even mysterious. They migrate by means even scientists can't fathom, and return to the same bird box the following spring. Mystery! Even the piercingly squeaky calls of the starling are, in their own way, marvelous, no matter what one may think of the species itself.

Rufous-crowned sparrow

I pity the poor souls who are not moved by birds, who do not thrill at the spring song filling a deciduous woodland, or marvel at the glistening colors of a hummingbird. When I did the people Census in Maine, I noticed a great many people had bird feeders in their yards. Birdwatching is one of the top hobbies in this country. In the same way ladies of fashion gave up their hat feathers a century ago to save the egrets who were killed on their nests for their plumage, I think the backyard birder today can be motivated to support conservation measures that will help "their" birds survive. The Christmas Bird Count is one way to do this.

Black vulture

Sun Dogs and a Sun Pillar

2010-12-03T19:53:00.000-06:00

Sun Dog on Right of Sun

A pair of sun dogs flanked the setting sun this evening, formed by ice crystals in the cirrus clouds.

I photographed this from the Persimmon Gap Entrance Station where I work, just as I was closing up. This shows the panorama of their relationship to the sun.

Sun Dog to left of sun

The red color of each sun dog faces the sun.

Sun Pillar behind the Corazones at sunset

A half hour later, a sun pillar decorated the orange clouds of sunset behind the Corazones.

For the technical scoop on this atmospheric phenomenon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pillar

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/halo22.html

Tufted Flycatcher

2010-11-29T18:41:00.001-06:00

I would not have known about this rare bird at Big Bend National Park if a fellow who worked in Southern Florida hadn't come through my entrance station on Friday to tell me he drove 30 hours straight to see it after it was posted on the North American Rare Bird Alert. It was number 731 or something like that for this young man! Evidently this is only the third US sighting ever of this Mexican bird, as far as I can tell, and the second for Big Bend - the first was in 1991.

Other people came looking for this addition to their life lists - from Fort Worth, San Antonio, Louisiana... There was a rumor that a sharp-shinned hawk might have gotten it (gasp!) But it was still there this morning, first in the open with sun illuminating its cinnamon breast just before I arrived, and then in the shady cottonwoods immediately across from the Daniels Ranch trailhead at Rio Grande Village. A young fellow from Louisiana located it around 11 a.m., and the San Antonio fellow came running down the trail (bless his heart!) where I was photographing a vermillion flycatcher to tell me he had a "better bird" for me.

I was entranced by its antics - it darted after its prey faster than any flycatcher I'd ever seen, making sharp turns and quick forays from its perch, then when landing, without fail, gave several sharp flicks of its tail - more like "vibrating" it. It had a single and double noted call, very soft, very flycatchery. I even heard the snap of its beak a couple of times as it snatched a bug in mid-air. Eastern, black, and Say's phoebes were nearby - the first two in the same tree, and the latter by the river.

It amazes me that people travel so far to add a bird to their Life Lists. My own list is probably 300 something birds - it's a very casual list. I've been a birder since I was 9 years old, but I'm not sure I'd travel 30 hours for a bird that made a wrong turn in its travels and landed in the US. But I feel very fortunate that I've added another rare bird since being at Big Bend (the first the Colima Warbler) and have spent many blissful hours watching birds here - many of them new for me.

River Virgins in Santa Elena

2010-11-24T07:04:00.000-06:00

A poem and photo essay

Deep in Santa Elena Canyon

It finally happened.

My turn on the river,

one of the few here

who has not canoed or rafted or tubed

down the Rio Grande.

In Rock Slide

Which is not grande. Not now

at low water,

diverted upstream by

dams and irrigation

to a little creek here

at Lajitas, where we put in.

At "metates"

Me up front in gleaming Number 30,

also a river virgin,

born in Old Town, Maine.

Bud at stern;

on patrol, John and Elaine

in trusty Number 21.

Tricky spot at Rock Slide

November.

No wind, sleeveless,

dipping oars quietly

in the low water

gliding

then “running” the little riffles,

sometimes hanging on rocks,

good New Balance shoes (also Maine made) soaked.

Darning needles and mosquito hawks

in tandem flight

joined tail to head in love,

webbed wings a glistening escort.

Bobcat ears twitched.

Mexican horses and cows switched allegiance.

Grinding hole at "metates"

Metates and a coiled fossil

lured us ashore,

jay-blue sky

rimmed by an ancient white seabed

hugging intrusions from a hidden furnace.

By four-thirty, tents, sleeping pads, the required toilet,

cooler, life jackets, table, chairs, day packs

and an old tire

found their places ashore

where the river

when swollen and grande,

wipes away the landscape.

Bud brought little round steaks

bordered in bacon,

and vegetables and potatoes

snuggled in foil.

A little wine (Bud again) and he read

Elaine’s favorite poem by

Robinson Jeffers about the vulture

who thought him dead:

That I was sorry to have disappointed him. To be eaten by that beak

and

     become part of him, to share those wings and those eyes--

What a sublime end of one's body…

Bud asked, “What makes empires collapse?”

I didn’t have an intelligent answer,

though I thought I should have.

The incurious stars, the extravagant ribbon of Milky Way

burn over all empires past and future. Later,

Orion’s Belt peeked through the tent at several

awakenings,

panning across my reluctant vision.

Apprehensions about Rock Slide

drove my car into a flash flood

but I found an air bubble and

escaped in my dream

so I was not haunted come morning

when life jackets were zipped.

Rock Slide

Elaine and Bud preparing strategy for maneuvering

I was on the Penobscot once, in Maine,

rafting with my son and nephew

and two fat ladies,

oars frantically

rowing air

as we sailed over treachery.

But with Bud, who knew what to do,

I think woo-hoo

that was easy,

past Rock Slide and Fern Canyon,

darting black phoebes, sandpipers rocking,

past a watching hawk, a bufflehead

and Smuggler’s Cave

onto a shallow reflecting pool,

waving to hikers

at the mouth with Chisos teeth

to the takeout.

We stopped at Castalon

for a V8 and Klondike bar,

a final ritual

and tribute

to the long-awaited seduction.

Wile E Coyote

2010-11-17T06:43:00.004-06:00

I'm back in Big Bend - will fill you in about the trip, etc. later (after my college classes are over) but I thought I'd just post these photographs of the campground coyote at Rio Grande Village. This guy/gal trotted right through the RV park, and as you can tell, paid me little attention.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 12

2010-08-29T18:52:00.006-05:00

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Mt Rainier by Ryan McIntyre

September 12. I am going home.

I hope I am ready.

Eleven miles today and I recall the tortured eleven miles of my second day. Fog muffles sound; the wind does not stir; dew beads on every leaf. My boots are soon soaked. I notice small things now, particularly the profusion of beargrass. I recall baskets I’ve made with cedarbark and dried beargrass; between my fingers the long, narrow leaves are rigid and rough.

I am a bit sad. I do not wish to leave. But I am not a marmot who can hibernate until the snow melts. Nor am I a deer or a hawk or a pipit. I do not belong here any longer. I have accomplished my purpose.

“The hero/ine learns to live in two worlds. This is perhaps the most important teaching of the Vision Quest. One world is sacred, spiritual, eternal. The other world is mortal, material, and subject to change.”

The wet six-mile descent to Mowich River is made in three easy hours. I cross a Jökulhlaups washout, unsure of the trail, and climb uphill through misty forest. I sing. Loudly. “Val-er-eee, val-er-ah, val-er-ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaa. Beneath God’s clear blue sky.”

It is a significant moment when I come into the clearing at Mowich Lake, twelve days from the time I left it. I let out an Indian yell. I did it. Tim is not expected until eight, so I have five hours for lunch. The ranger has closed up shop and left hikers’ food caches on the porch. I hope a bear doesn’t get the Alabama guy’s stuff in the cardboard box. Aw, there’s no danger: it’s freeze-dried. Garbage would taste better.

The day is exactly as it was when I began this journey. Foggy.

“The willingness to be a channel of vision takes great courage and endurance and is not lightly assumed. There will be times when you stumble and fall. Then you will want to crawl away to the sacred mountains. These are times of the greatest potential, when you are looking the dragons square in the eye. Only you know what you have hidden away, growing steadily and surely with its magical roots in your subsoil. As you grow, the vision grows. There is no other way.”

I’ve crossed a hundred creeks, counted a million stars, named all the glaciers, wore feathers in my hair. I’ve been to the Garden of Eden and I was created first. And only. I am part of the cosmic consciousness, knowing that I am in God and God is in me, and I am connected to everything else in the universe. I have had the most profound spiritual experience of my life.

I know that I am an original blessing, not an original sin. I know that I am a co-creator with God and his created. I am an artist. A woman. A mother.

And now I go home.

Tim, Cindy and Ryan McIntyre
20 years ago

Ryan McIntyre, age 24, did a backpack trip around Mt. Rainier (Tahoma) with his girlfriend Amy and their friends. Their experience wasn't as idyllic as mine, thanks to a significant snowstorm and much rain. Here is his photo account of that trip in September 2009, 19 years after my own trip. (I'm still waiting for the dramatic journal entries.)

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 11

2010-08-29T18:49:00.004-05:00

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Where the Red Ferns Grow (they weren't really red) Hand-Painted BW photograph

September 11. Eight miles to Golden Lakes.

It is an easy three miles to the North Puyallup River. Corydalis and ferns are plentiful. Here, as in the rest of the park woodlands, is a complete collection of mushrooms and fungi: big beige boletes (edible), fluted cups, retracted anemones, huge orange shelf fungi, Bilbo Baggins toadstools, black leafy things, inky caps, tiny orange umbrella cities, Pillsbury Doughboy pop-ups that break forest duff and jump onto the trail.

An orb spider has ingeniously hung her web high between two trees, anchoring it on the webs of other, more conventional sisters. Sidelit bugs shoot around it like fireworks, but score no direct hit.

A woodland squirrel is displeased with me for the mere fact of my existence. He chitters like a squeeze toy and signs off with rapid staccato, jerking his body out of sight like a wind-up at Pike Place Market.

By early afternoon I enter the silver forest of Sunset Park. This area burned in the 1930s and is now a paradise of bleached trunks, beargrass, and huckleberries. These are my favorite, tall bushes with jumbo black berries that I don’t have to stoop to reach. I wish to see a bear. The sun is warm and the glaciers are farther now.

I am at Golden Lakes camp before I know it. No one is at the ranger cabin but I make a log entry and read about Jökulhlaups and giardia. I abandon thoughts of cross-country camp when the fog comes in suddenly. Soon it is a whiteout. And it’s damp. I gather my things under a tarp and haul out the plastic that is my substitute tent. Its rope is being used to keep food from the mice, so I drape the plastic over the sleeping bag. Soon the world is as wet as if it had rained.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 10

2010-08-29T18:44:00.003-05:00

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Tahoma Glacier, hand-painted BW photograph

September 10. Tim’s birthday.

I have camp huckleberries in my oatmeal and discover empty plastic bags in the pack. In the place of cashews are mouse turds. The raisins are gone. AND SO ARE MY CHOCOLATE TEDDY GRAHAMS! Evil little bastards. How could they do this to me? I repair the hole they chewed in my Jansport, feeling betrayed. Then I laugh.

I am anxious to leave this place. The trail to Klapatche Park appears to have been neglected for years. I slog through cow parsnips with their huge maple-like leaves and seed-heavy umbels. I had told my mother the Wonderland Trail was a well-maintained, adequately signed, heavily traveled loop. I even took her to Sunrise and showed her a sign, beautifully made and quite confident looking. It seemed to indicate a Disneyland attraction ahead. I check my compass.

My laundry dries on the back of my pack. It is a challenge to keep upwind of the damp wool socks that smell like mouse turds.

Finally I achieve the ridge with its huckleberries and views. Mount Adams looks like Tahoma’s twin, and Mount St. Helens – which erupted a decade earlier - smokes serenely. Hills to the west appear to be clearcut right up to the park border. It is obscenity. The Puget Sound basin is under clouds and I wonder if my friends know what good weather I’m having. The half moon is low in the sky.

I must be the only person on the park’s entire West Side. For the first time, I am lonesome. I know I am soon to enter the final phase of the vision quest, reincorporation. I must return to my world. I must share what I’ve learned. I must be a whole person for the benefit of the people.

But I know its dangers. The clutter of life will hammer the silence into shards, and my inner peace will be tested. I fear another descent into darkness; I am afraid uncertainty will return. I question whether my peace is illusion that will evaporate with little provocation.

Steven Foster says of returning home, “No one seems to speak your language. You come back, a stranger with a vision. This reincorporation can precipitate a crisis. The true power of the Vision Quest cannot be measured except in terms of the process of reincorporation. You can either let the flame die, or you can decide to begin the vision quest of your life and seek the places where there is fuel to feed your fire. You realize that the only way to communicate the experience is not to talk about the vision, but to live it. Truly, the quest has just begun.”

By mid-morning I am at St. Andrews Lake, a huge green bowl. I find a spot off the path and take my bath; I am less shy about it now. I cook soup, wash my clothes and, knocking off spatters of pipit poop, lay them on rocks to dry. The little birds dote along shore, probably getting caddisfly larvae out of their submarine tubes of cemented twigs and tiny pebbles. A pipit interrupts her foraging and begins to bathe. What inner calling of this creature made it decide, at this moment, to clean itself?

It is idyllic here but I grow lonelier. My friend had given me a prayer before I left. It ends this way. “Through the transforming power of My love which is made perfect in weakness, you shall become perfectly beautiful. You shall become perfectly beautiful in a uniquely irreplaceable way, which neither you nor I will work out alone, for We shall work it out together.”

I am alone. And I am not alone.

I have drunk from the Cosmic River. It has taken my flimsy raft where it needed to go. It has brought me to people who have been the source of my greatest anguish and my deepest joy. It is a mystical, life-affirming, creative body, and we need only empty ourselves so it can fill us. So few know of it. I grieve for those who don’t.

I do not merely complete a circle around this mountain. I travel a spiral, for I return on a higher plane, with greater understanding, a fresher perspective, a deeper love born of intense pain. Yes, my life has had flashes of divine illumination. I remember them now, for I had once felt this way.

It is time to move on. Slash burn haze obliterates the pristine, and I am indignant at the insult to my fellow creatures. Tahoma and I commiserate over our sad state of affairs. A mile and handfuls of huckleberries later, I see Aurora Lake has dried to a grass-choked puddle. A decade ago I photographed it with a sunset reflection of Tahoma. Now it is dead.

I choose my campsite and go back to St. Andrews Lake for a fresher source of water than the small tarn nearby. There are red critters in there, like the kind I used to feed my tropical fish. I decide to boil the water in camp.

For the first time in 28 hours, I see two-leggeds. A mother-daughter pair, and I am strangely happy that I will not spend the night alone. I pick huckleberries for Tim and Ryan and watch deer play on the dry lakebed. The fawn bursts headlong into the woods then back out again. The ground vibrates as if it is hollow. Mother is oblivious to the antics, and when the baby quiets they touch noses for a long time. I think of my son and me.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 9

2010-08-29T16:31:00.003-05:00

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Mt Rainier at Indian Henry's

September 9. A grouse wakes me, clucking her pleasure at being alive. I can eat huckleberries without leaving my sleeping bag. No one knows I’m here.

By 8:30 in the morning it is warm and still. The meadows are a-hum with bee noise. I watch a bumblebee crawl deep into the narrow indigo gentian. In the process of obtaining food for herself and the next generation, she fertilizes the source of her food so that the flower, too, will bear progeny. However, in doing so, the bee is for a moment vulnerable. Deep inside the blossom, backside exposed, she cannot see her enemy. She risks her life to live. Mitakuye oyasin!

We insulate ourselves from life, fearing the risks. We avoid plunging headlong into the flower, into the depths. My parents did not understand my need to do this “stupid” thing. My mother wrote me and said for my son’s sake I shouldn’t do this. I tell her it is for my son that I must do it. To risk is to grow, and failure is a lesson learned, not proof that I shouldn’t have tried.

I watch the bee. There is harmony in what she does. Do we plan for regeneration of that which we take from nature? We dig, cultivate, harvest, cut, burn, and deposit our waste in Mother Earth. We know it is almost too late to save her, yet we still do it. We do not know enough to respect the rest of creation. We are too busy making money, too busy using up the world.

To each person of strong body, I say “Come. Be alone here for 12 days and nights, and learn what respect means.”

There are sweet huckleberry smells here, mature odors, scents of life and living. Soon the ripeness of decay will permeate these meadows. Snow will follow and will seal away life until July. This is a harsh world. I am privileged to see it at its most fruitful.

I wish to wash my hair, but not in these turbid pools. It would be profane to disturb the tadpoles with chemicals. I will wash it later, in a running stream that will cleanse itself in a few moments of roiling passion.

A helicopter delivers supplies to the ranger station, a rude but necessary intrusion. Two Army Reserve Chinooks come and go all afternoon, removing spent fuel tanks and debris, bringing staples and firewood logs.

A gray hawk circles me. Does God marvel at her, too? Yes, because I see her. God is in me and I am in Him. Or Her. Whoever. God needs us, too. I understand better now.

At 1:30 I leave the meadows and cross an endless suspension bridge over the raging Tahoma Creek. I think of the Jökulhlaups – glacial outbursts that frequently tear through here, moving boulders and uprooting trees. This phenomenon is the reason the park’s West Side Road has been closed, leaving me in greater isolation.

I trudge upward through the forest, and at the top of Emerald Ridge I walk alongside the Tahoma Glacier. It is sheathed in a rough skin of rock the color of raw umber, and pieces continually roll off. The noise is, at times, disturbing. I stay here awhile, knowing it will be the last sun before my descent into the forest.

I read Matthew Fox’s “Original Blessing.” He says the Native Americans define cosmic wisdom as this: that the people may live. “Living implies beauty, freedom of choice, giving birth, discipline, celebration. Living is not the same as going shopping or buying, nor is it the same as making a nest in which to escape the sufferings of one another. Living has something to do with Eros, love of life, and with the love of others’ lives, others’ right to Eros and dignity.”

Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux, tells about the ritual of the sweat lodge, a rite of purification and prayer. Within a womb of willow branches and blankets, the Indian people gather to pray. Water is poured over hot stones and steam brings forth impurities from the body.

When the central altar is constructed, where the heated rocks will be placed, there is prayer. “O Grandfather and Father Wakan-Tanka, maker of all that is, who always has been, behold me! And you, Grandmother and Mother Earth…we have come from You, we are a part of You, and we know that our bodies will return to You…I think of Wakan-Tanka, with whom our spirits become as one. By purifying myself in this way, I wish to make myself worthy of you, that my people may live!”

The ritual of the sweat lodge, inipi, is like a vision quest. There is separation from the real world, a return to the womb and its darkness, a cry for help (“We wish to live again. Help us!”), and rebirth into the Light.

I reach the South Puyallup Camp and find it as dark and dismal as its reputation. Nearby on a damp cliff are stripes of columnar basalt, honed as if by a carpenter’s plane, evenly serrated and stacked. Some of the columns lie shattered in the ferns, reminiscent of Greek ruins.

I realize with dread that I will be alone in this godforsaken place. The closest person is the ranger at Indian Henry’s, four miles, two ridges, and a suspension bridge away. I set my sleeping bag on a ledge over the river, with barely room to stretch my legs. Evil spirits are about, and I hunker in my sleeping bag wondering if a bear will get my food. I tell God I don’t like it here, that I am just a bit afraid, but I know “She’ll be all right.”

The rush of the impatient Puyallup River is a cacophony of uninvited sounds: truck engines, people conversing, laughter, bears, the hollow thud of walking on forest duff, clatter of pots. It does not make for a restful night.

I am near the birthplace of the river that flows through Tacoma. My son’s school, Riverside, is on the agricultural floodplain of this river. Two glaciers spawn the Puyallup, one bearing its name, this one, and Tahoma. At its terminus in Tacoma’s industrial area, Puyallup tribal fishermen set up gillnets to take salmon coming in from Commencement Bay. The Puyallup drainage was once their home; their reservation had been swindled, stolen and coerced into the small remaining plots. The tribe recently made history when it received a multi-million dollar settlement, including $20,000 per capita payments to its members, to relinquish claims to disputed lands.

I spend an uneasy night beside this significant river.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 8

2010-08-29T16:25:00.004-05:00

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Ancient Forest below Indian Henry's - Hand-painted BW photograph

September 8. Tim and Ryan wait for me at Box Canyon, with five days’ food for the final leg. I hop a ride to Longmire, skipping 13 miles of the trail that parallels the Stevens Canyon Road. I have heard it is a long, boring stretch, devoid of wilderness qualities. The road trip was always part of the plan; I am still completing the circle. My family is with me for this segment, and it is appropriate for they have a place on the hoop of my journey.

We go to Paradise, above the fog. With binoculars I see Camp Muir, 10,000 feet. It looks like a precarious placement of dark brown buildings. Did I REALLY walk up there six weeks ago? At the Visitor’s Center I have a half-raw hamburger (real food, nonetheless), then we drive down to Longmire and I say goodbye at the Rampart Ridge trail.

It is cloudy here. The trail seems steeper than the killer one to Mystic Lake. God, it’s awful. Hikers fall out like canaries in a gas-filled coal mine. Then the trail descends to Kautz Creek, site of a devastating mudflow from the Kautz Glacier more than 40 years ago. In its wake were dead trees and a re-arranged landscape. Such glacial outbursts happen without warning. I cross with a touch of anxiety.

Up again, past Devil’s Dream camp, in the gloom (minimum impact, say the rangers, for their assignment of campsites.) I soon ascend into the mystery of fog and sunbeams until I reach Indian Henry’s.

There, in the meadows, the sun is hard and clean. Tahoma shows another facet, sharp, unrecognizable. The ranger cabin is positioned as the artist would have it, and the lady ranger cooks dinner on her porch. I tell her I want the most profoundly spiritual place to spend the night, and she directs me to the trail toward Pyramid Peak, where I will see many such places.

The sun lowers and I stop at Mirror Lakes. I expect a Kodak sign “Take Picture Here.” I am tired, hungry, but I am being called. I go closer to Tahoma, and the meadows get better. On the other side of Copper Mountain, just before sunset, I ascend to a flat bench overlooking the valley. The glaciers turn mauve as I cook dinner. I am wearing everything I brought.

A slight breeze is at my back; I have a feeling of being unprotected. From what? Animals, perhaps. The wind. My luck’s been too good; there’s surely a bear in this script. I move my sleeping bag into the conifers and still have a view of the moonlit mountain.

I wait for God to speak.

Yet I know I’ve already been spoken to. I know what I feel. God speaks in that “still, small voice.” I have come to trust it. And to trust the world, knowing much is beyond my control however much I wish to direct it, knowing bad things happen to good people, and good things happen more frequently than we give credit. I feel strong now.

This journey would have had a different outcome were it not for what Matthew Fox calls the via Negativa, the darkness, being emptied. “Facing the darkness, admitting the pain, allowing the pain to be pain, is never easy. This is why courage – big-heartedness – is the most essential virtue on the spiritual journey. But if we fail to let pain be pain, it will haunt us in nightmarish ways. We will become pain’s victims instead of the healers we might become.”

More: “Pain helps us understand other people in pain. There is no way to let go of pain without first embracing it and loving it – not as pain but as a sister and brother…. Liberation, he says, “begins at the point where pain is acknowledged and allowed to be pain.”

The noises of the night are magnified when one sleeps alone. The whistle of air through nostrils, the rub of eyelashes on nylon, the rustle of the sleeping bag as shoulders move with breathing. These noises are a bear in the underbrush. My heartbeat is a herd of elk.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 7

2010-08-29T16:21:00.003-05:00

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Mt. Rainier from Spray Park

September 7. A goat bleats mournfully from the hill behind me. I have heard it for the last two hours. Finally I see it, a baby, and he calls for his mother. The herd is below and he scampers off to join them. Is that why the she-goat visited my camp last night? Was she looking for her baby? I feel somehow responsible, for I am an intruder here.

After breakfast (sardines) gray clouds suddenly come in. I pick my way down the rock gully and make it to the shelter before the raindrops. Thunder rolls tenuously, and the shower seems half-hearted. I don my poncho and go out to pick huckleberries for Tim and Ryan. Everyone else has left; again I am alone. Finally the storm comes, a little salvo just to let me know my place in the scheme of things. I will later learn that Tim is working on the 15th floor of the First Interstate building in Tacoma, looking at Tahoma and thinking of me, when suddenly a mass of clouds roils up to the mountain like an explosion. It is cause for concern on his part. But the storm is brief, and when the sun comes out I wash my hair and bathe. My head goes numb from the icy water. An hour later the clouds return and it drizzles for awhile.

I find the logbook in the shelter and read about mishaps, wonderment, awe. There was a hailstorm, baseball-sized, two weeks earlier. I would have been here then, had not my parents flown in unexpectedly from Texas. I am glad they saved me from the summer’s worst two weeks of weather. It was also the last time I saw my father before he died of cancer. Someone writes in the log that he feels insignificant in a place like this. I know what he means. As for me, I feel somehow very significant. I know I am blessed, even chosen. I have been granted a great gift. I am being taught by my brothers and sisters, two-leggeds, wingeds, crawling things, four-leggeds, the plants, rocks. Tahoma. The Mountain that Was God; Breast of Milk-white Waters.

I make my entry into the book. It takes awhile; I have much to say.

After lunch I am on the trail again. It is seven miles to Nickel Creek, mostly downhill. I like to allow an hour for each mile, but I suspect I’ll make it to camp sooner. The climb out of Indian Bar is stunning. A different mood prevails; it is overcast, the rain is slacking. At the top of Cowlitz Divide, 800 feet above Indian Bar, I see Tahoma catching the clouds. Her chartreuse skirt is flocked with yellow hellebore and lavender herds of lupine. Ribbons of brown rivers and lake mendings are stitched randomly, precisely. To use N. Scott Momaday’s words, “It was beautiful all around.” It is a place I do not wish to leave.

I have seen four backpackers this morning, all men. I have not seen a solo woman on this trail. Descending Cowlitz Divide, I scarf huckleberries here and there. It is a fast descent through the forest, and I am lost in thought, content with the day. It has been perfect. I reach the Nickel Creek shelter by 5:30, and exchange trail chatter with the three people eating dinner there. I hear more about the beloved Ranger Randy of Mystic Lake and add another lucky star to my pack, that I didn’t meet this guy.

I leave to meet my husband at Box Canyon, a mile down the trail. Fog comes in while I wait, and at eight it is too dark to stay. I head back up, without a flashlight. There was a time I would have been terrified to do this. But I had embraced the darkness a year earlier, with the Huichol teacher on the Nisqually River, at the base of this very mountain. And in spring, I walked along Crescent Lake in shadows so deep I could not see my shoes. I stayed on the trail by feel alone. Now I hear loud crashing noises and I think “elk.” I hope elk, anyway.

I cross the bridge over Nickel Creek and grope around in the shelter for my flashlight. I tie up my food, for I’ve heard of the harassments of shelter mice. They scamper about all night, whizzing past my head like my frisky cat when she wants out.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 6

2010-08-29T16:12:00.004-05:00

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Moonset from Summerland - hand-painted BW photograph

September 6. Summerland. On Tahoma’s east side.

I wake just as the sun opens the day and the moon sets behind the peak. Fellow campers lend me binoculars to see mountain climbers resting below the summit. So I did see headlamps in the morning’s wee hours.

The hike to Panhandle Gap feels different. The light is weaker. There are no goats. At the Gap I take a self-portrait with Mount Adams as a backdrop. It is only four more miles to Indian Bar and from here it’s a leisurely descent through wide open meadows. A hawk screams below and I wonder why she announces her presence to potential prey. Watching her soar, I have the feeling I’ve done that before. I know what it’s like to fly.

I think of the Cosmic Christ and what Matthew Fox says of him. This Catholic theologian was silenced by the Vatican recently, presumably for his unorthodoxy. Like most prophets, he must endure censure of the religious bureaucrats who need control of the hearts and souls of others. It is a dangerous thing to set someone free.

The Cosmic Christ is Cosmic Wisdom, he says, and “is by no means a Christian invention.” There is a path to this cosmic wisdom, the “awakening of heart knowledge and of entering the darkness that is called mysticism.” The result is metanoia, change of heart. It creates compassion and justice, healing and celebration. It is deeply ecumenical. Creation theology says that we mustn’t delay the experience of heaven in anticipation of rewards in the afterlife. We are called to enjoy heaven here. Joy, in the gift of creation and the gifts of ourselves and our loved ones, is our birthright. Oh, what damage St. Augustine has done to us with his notion that we are born tainted with original sin. The inner child grieves to know it is a blot on creation. Matthew Fox says we come into this world as an original blessing! This is a revelation to me.

Indian Bar. Did the Indians come here to gather huckleberries? I wonder about their influence here. I remember the tale of the Indian Sluiskin who tried to persuade General Hazard Stevens and Philemon Van Trump not to climb the summit of Tahoma, for fear of the evil Tamanawas (spirits) that belched fire and caused avalanches. The climbers spent a nauseating night in the sulfurous summit steam caves, and when they returned the Indian mistook them for ghosts.

Native peoples have traditionally been connected to creation. They affirmed these connections with ritual, singing, drumming, ceremony. I wonder about the Yakimas and Klikitats and Nisquallies who may have walked these meadows. What did they feel here? What ceremonies affirmed their relationship to the Great Mystery?

This is the first place I have encountered huckleberries, low-growing bushes with powder-blue fruit at the peak of ripeness. I have been told there are over a dozen varieties of huckleberries. I see four kinds on this trail, and my favorite is the tall bush with large black fruit. My hands are purple from the harvest; I have never had huckleberries so perfect. My usual autumn hikes are three to four weeks later, when the leaves are stunningly crimson, but the fruit is mushy.

It is warm and the insects go about the business of living. I pick up a sluggish grasshopper in my path and see “it” is a mating pair. Winter is just weeks away, and grasshoppers are making babies!

The stone shelter at Indian Bar has the most picturesque setting of any in the park. The river bar is broad and many-channeled; mountain goats graze the slope; snowy ridges sweep around me and obscure the summit. The meadows are thick with the last flowers and seed heads; two weeks earlier it would have been riotous color. Bear sign is everywhere, huckleberry blue, but no one sees a bear here.

Four couples are in camp this afternoon. A lady from Seattle bathes across the river. I seek the “comfort station,” and I half expect hot water, mirrors and piped-in music. But that funny Ranger Randy was at work: there is only a box with a seat and a view.

There has been a lenticular cloud above Tahoma all day, and one shaped over Mount Adams to the east. These shaven, disk-like clouds mean rain or snow. Cirrus thicken to partial overcast but we are optimistic. As long as the caps don’t settle onto the peaks there will be no storm. We hope. But from here we cannot see the summit, and we take the sunset’s thinning clouds to be a good omen. I visit the other travelers, then head off cross-country to my power spot.

I find a goat track up a mountain, high above the shelter. I unwisely choose a steep course; I need my hands to make it up. On top, a ring of campfire rocks is overgrown with partridge foot. It is likely no human has been here in years. Tahoma’s summit is visible and I know the spirit guides have led me to this place. The goats will come at dusk; their tracks are everywhere. If it rains I will not make it down to the shelter because I cannot follow this trail in the dark. I will have to make a pup tent with my tarp if it does. I sleep with one eye on the sky.

It is a powerful feeling to be alone at night, with stars and darkness for company. I want to feel the entirety of the night, the passage of stars and tread of the moon, to see Tahoma change from a flat, minty blue monolith to a sharply delineated sculpture of ice chips, to watch the thin clouds and wonder what they portend. Alone under such a sky, there is the sense that Somebody wants to talk to me and I’d best be ready.

The moon rises behind the eastern crags, full and with its praying Indian. The Indian is hard to see without binoculars. He sits with bent head, as if in the sweat lodge, feathers arching over. He fills the whole visage of the moon.

Finally I sleep. Precisely at midnight I awaken with a yell. A she-goat gallops through camp, then stops, silhouetted in moonlight. Her bleats are the sound of grass stretched between the fingers and blown like a whistle. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” I whisper, more to soothe my own nerves than hers. As I speak she trots directly toward me. Alarmed, I wave my arms and say, louder, “I’m here. Yes, I’m really here.” She stops, turns, and runs away. I do not know why she came toward me. I should have kept still; perhaps she had something to say to me.

To an Indian, her visitation might have been significant. Traditionally, Native peoples would seek spirit guides on a vision quest. There would be a sign: a peculiar visit by an animal, a thunderstorm, a sudden wind. The spirit guide could be an eagle or bear, a beetle or rock. A Plains Indian would seek out a mountaintop for this experience, “crying for a vision.” (Hanblecheyapi in Sioux.) A Northwest Salish quester might spend the night in a graveyard or beside a lake known for its malevolent spirits. Somehow, somewhere, a sign would come. Power would be bestowed. Hunter. Warrior. Healer. Artist.

I wonder what the mountain goat means?

I am awake more than I am asleep tonight. The moon travels slowly. Wind changes from east to south; fish scale clouds fill the sky. At dawn the moon has a ring. Something is coming.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 5

2010-08-29T16:08:00.003-05:00

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Summerland meadow - hand-painted BW photograph

September 5. Ryan’s first day of kindergarten.

I walk a mile to the Fryingpan Creek trail and mosey through old growth forest. Neatly shattered cones pockmark the trail, like the Wicked Witch melted and shingled. The fragments are the color of new wood, and I am mystified until I see a heavy cone the size of a small bomb. I believe it to be either Pacific silver fir or grand fir. I pry out a seed and bite it. A sweet, orangey flavor permeates my mouth and trickles down my throat with a turpentine aftertaste. Not a bad breath mint, actually.

After awhile I am in the meadow below Summerland. False hellebore are dead; everywhere in the park they are dying. In spring they are graceful broad-leaved groupings, robed fairies; now they are yellow and full of holes. But for some plants summer still reigns; bees and butterflies attest to that. Pearly everlastings are a bitch in heat to bees. Asters and lupine are drying up; other things have long gone to seed or berry. I like hitting seed vases of avalanche lilies; missiles fly out with aplomb. Lupines rattle like snakes when my ski pole brushes them.

I lunch in a glade before the final switchback to Summerland and notice a doe and fawn resting across the trail. We have a staring contest; she wins.

The camps at Summerland are the best on the Wonderland Trail, and I do not feel compelled to go cross-country. I am, typically, the last in camp. But they leave me the best spot: the most wide-open place, the sunniest, warmest, with the best view of Tahoma. How can I be so consistently lucky?

Here is something new: an experimental solar latrine with canvas walls and a trowel, with instructions for a scoop of peat after each dump. Admirable.

The meadows are wide open here. Little Tahoma, a prominent sub-peak visible from Seattle but not Tacoma, dominates the views. I hike, sans pack, to Panhandle Gap. Gentians abound, purple and yellow monkeyflower decorate streambanks. Higher up it is all moraine stubble, and it is a challenge to find the rock cairns marking the trail. Katydids do a mid-air dance, wings making a pattern of clicks, presumably to find a mate. I walk around the glacier of Meany Crest and the meltpools below it.

The sun is warm and nourishing. I am part of all creation, yet respectful of the forces that turn a wonderland into a fierce battle for survival. I know beyond doubt that I am fortunate. I have the best weather imaginable. I am strong now, feeling my woman power, knowing I can trust what I feel and what I know in that way beyond knowing. I feel it in my whole body, and in my hands. Healing power through my hands. I am healing myself.

I reach the Gap, elevation 6750, and gaze into new country. Mount Adams is partially obscured by clouds, and the panorama is wide open, green, sunny. I read Matthew Fox, about the 21 characteristics of a mystic. “Mysticism takes us into the darkness of pain and doubt,” he writes. “Some allow the darkness to penetrate them and others resist and deny it.” I think of someone I know, whose own “dark night of the soul” put her three times in mental hospitals for suicide attempts. She resisted treatment, failed to embrace the pain, and came out of it unchanged. She did not learn her lessons; she does not love. It is a good lesson for me.

I head back to camp. A herd of mountain goats crosses my path; five babies at least. Before I am back I count 26 goats in all. The moon rises just past sunset, and again I am in the gaze of Tahoma as I sleep.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 4

2010-08-29T16:01:00.003-05:00

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Tahoma from Summerland

September 4. Another perfect sunrise.

I am on the northeast side of the mountain, and the descent into the parklands of Sunrise is one of ecstasy. I am captivated by the rolling meadows, crossed with streams and boulders and flowers and smells of life. I see the fire lookout on Mount Fremont and wonder if I am being watched. On a clear day, like today, the Space Needle can be seen from there. It is not difficult to see Mount Baker and Glacier Peak to the north.

After an hour I stop and eat a roll with peanut butter. This has been my pattern. First, two packets of instant oatmeal (peaches ‘n cream type), then peanut butter an hour later. As always, I drink water. Lots of water colored with little iodine tablets. It occurs to me that maybe I’m not putting enough of the buggers in. I fear that between the warm tadpole feces water and insufficient iodine and turbid lake water and debris-filled streams that I’m definitely a candidate for giardiasis. Oh well. More little pills for that.

At least my food stays fresh. I eat fiber bars and health food conglomerations, cashews, sardines. I had kippered snacks in Cajun sauce once and the empty can stunk up my pack. Cous-Cous soup with semolina wheat granules or Nissan Cup O’Noodles make up lunch. Dinner is Top Shelf: glazed chicken, chicken Acapulco, sweet and sour chicken, BBQ ribs (make Sylvester the Cat noises here), spaghetti, lasagna, beef roast.

Sunrise Lodge is just a couple of miles away. I ditch the cursed Jansport at the crossroad to Second Burroughs Mountain, and I feel like I’m floating. It’s nothing at all to make this steep ascent with only my camera and water bottle. The sun soaks into my bones; the wind is cool. I wave to whoever is in the fire lookout on the next ridge and I go up, up, farther up than the down I have just come. I can nearly touch the Winthrop Glacier. The nearby Emmons gives birth to the White River, a thin, bright etching of foil far, impossibly far below. I will be down there within hours.

Standing on Second Burroughs, at the trip’s highest point of 7400 feet elevation, I am at the gates of Heaven. I have seen five people since dawn. I masticate jerky and look down on the slope at Skyscraper Mountain, where I spend the night. It occurs to me that climbing the summit of a mountain is a typically male thing, to be on top of something. The woman’s way is to admire intimately, to observe from all sides, to experience the soul of the other in this way.

I failed my summit attempt six weeks earlier because I could not do it the macho way. Two of us women stayed behind at Camp Muir as the party went up by headlamp at 2 a.m. We got up again to watch the sunrise and count volcanoes: Adams, St. Helens, Hood, Jefferson. We congratulated ourselves for making it this far, the 10,000 foot level, and validated our decisions to stay behind. But we wished the unspoken: that we had tried harder. Our party returned eleven hours later. Some reached the summit on their knees. Two got left behind in sleeping bags on glaciers, to be picked up on the descent. There had been little time for pictures. No time to drink in the beauty, the splendid sunrise, the awesome achievement. Hell, the guides wanted to clock out of Paradise by five.

So I did it the woman’s way. I walked around it. And I admired Tahoma as I would a beautiful sculpture, a Venus de Milo. For Tahoma is indeed female. One of the Indian names for her means “breast of milk white waters.” Another means “the mountain that was God.”

So God’s a woman.

Tahoma, the breast, gives life to dozens of rivers and creeks, hundreds of streams. It nourishes the entire Puget Sound basin, this one lone nipple piercing the clouds. Her sisters, too: Adams (Pahto, son of the Great Spirit), St. Helens (Lah-we-lat-lah, person from whom great smoke comes), Baker (Koma Kulshan, white steep mountain), Glacier Peak. All birthing, continually creating.

From a jetliner, these are merely white bumps on rippled fabric. From the perspective of a creature on its skin, a mountain is a living being. Especially these – Cascade volcanoes. And so I have to think of myself, merely an ant, a creature foreign to the landscape yet not entirely out of place. Who am I to think myself insignificant? Who am I to think my life touches no one? I have only to look at the glaciers, and the hawks and chipmunks, marmots and flowers, butterflies, pikas, the ants. We are all related. Mitakuye oyasin. “No man is an island, entire of itself…” How easily we forget our place.

Matthew Fox says “The mystic (which is in every person) is keen on the experience of the Divine and will not settle for theory alone or knowing about the Divine.” How can one not experience the Divine in a place such as this?

I came down from Burroughs Mountain, again waving at whoever is in the Mount Fremont lookout. I heft my painfully heavy pack another mile-and-a-half to Sunrise Lodge and gobble a pitiful hamburger as if it were a gourmet meal. I write two cards as I eat, bum stamps to mail them with, get a permit to continue the trip, wash hair and socks, and slurp a vanilla ice cream cone on the steep trail to White River Campground. The White River looks to be days below. But an hour and a half later I meet the river.

This is a car camp and I wait for Tim to come with food and clean clothes. When he does I ditch the tent, five pounds of Canon F-1 and the telephoto lens, the Huichol rattle, and extra clothes. Good weather is predicted for the next three days and there are shelters at the next three camps.

It seems safe here. But the mountain has the final say.

In 1963 an enormous avalanche fell off Little Tahoma Peak onto the Emmons Glacier. The barrage of rocks and ice careened four miles into this river valley, coming to rest a mere half mile from here. Some of the boulders it brought are as large as buildings. Some scientists believe volcanic heat had something to do with it. Had the avalanche occurred in summer, many hikers may have been killed.

I sleep tonight on a picnic table.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 3

2010-08-29T15:41:00.004-05:00

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Tarn near Mystic Lake - first light of dawn

September 3. At dawn I crawl from my tent and nearly jump out of my skin. Behind me is the tarn, and behind it in Widelux 3-D Cinemascope is Tahoma and the Willis Wall. The Carbon Glacier has been up my spine all night. Sun tints the snow pink and a lenticular cap hovers over the summit like a UFO. Tahoma is so close I cannot enclose it and its reflection in the tadpole tarn with my 28mm wide angle lens. I remember I accidentally drank that water last night, unboiled. What exotic germs, I wonder, incubate in tadpole feces?

I bathe with warmed tadpole water from my cooking pot. The sun is a miracle. My camp is soon sucked up into bags and pouches and I salute Tahoma before I descend to the valley. Tahoma disappears behind a ridge and at Mystic Lake is nearly obscured. Another gloomy tree camp, and I hear from its denizens about Ranger Randy, bed-checker and bad-direction-giver extraordinaire. Wonder if he missed me last night?

There is a washout just past Mystic Lake, and I slog for 45 minutes through mud, over trees, under trees, around trees. My ski pole walking sticks rescue me on this greasy slope. Finally I emerge and find myself in sunlight at the toe of the Winthrop Glacier. On the other side I enter forest again and glimpse the high moraine wall that parallels the trail. Another steep climb, and by god that pack is heavier than the day I started. I have to take a nap.

I do not fast on my vision quest. Usually seekers will find a place of power and they will stay there for three or four days and nights with only water for sustenance. I cannot fast on a trip such as this. Yet I have many of the same feelings a fast induces: “weakness, intensity, vacancy, fertility, openness, heaviness, lightness, disorientation, harmony and spiritual awareness.”

I sleep for an hour and a half. Then I force myself into my pack harness (I cannot lift it; I develop a rather amusing method of hoisting it onto my back, much like lifting a dead man onto one’s shoulders.) I slog upward. I am supposed to be in Berkeley Park tonight, in the northeast, below in a valley. The forest opens to a yellow grassy slope that ends in a ridgetop. I am nearly dead, and I cut across and collapse behind a small spruce. Two Clark’s nutcrackers frolic and an elk bugles to his harem. It is a primordial sound.

I check the map and determine I am at 6740 feet, at the base of Skyscraper Mountain. I drag myself to the cliff edge and to the north I see the enormous flat expanse of Grand Park, gold in the late afternoon light. Below are green meadows of Berkeley Park and Sunrise, and beyond are waves of Cascade peaks, blue and clean.

I rest, eat, write. Cumulus clouds flow over my ridge, around Burroughs Mountain where I will be tomorrow. This will be a good place to be scared out of my wits by a thunderstorm. Perversely, I WANT to be scared out of my wits. I want a rollicking storm with maximum effects. I also want snow sometime before this trip is over. I want to see a bear.

I do not set my tent tonight. The wind is from the east, gentle, and the sky mostly clear. I begin to read Matthew Fox’s The Coming of the Cosmic Christ. “A mountaintop is not just about beauty but also about its counterpart, terror. Lightning strikes mountaintops; great storms gather there; and clouds often shroud it. Immense silence and aloneness can be tasted at mountaintops.”

I read until the type blends into blots, then I use a flashlight. Rough clouds to the east are aflame; the moon rises. In the faded light I see a herd of elk coming down the far ridge. I am in their path. I hope they don’t step on me as I sleep. The call of the bull is resonant and throaty. He is king here; I am an intruder. I realize there is nobody around for miles.

Tahoma’s glaciers are silver and close. My wool hat is on and I am warm in my down bag, except where wind blows my cheek. The moon crests the hill and it is nearly full. There is no skin now between me and the Great Mystery.

I’m supposed to be in Berkeley Park, down in the valley. It is the place where angels gather. But God is up here, and I am with Him tonight. I have become very thankful on this journey. I have laughed a lot, smiled, too, cried some. I have thanked God numerous times for the perfection of this day. Even the exhaustion, the touch of altitude sickness, aching hips and swollen knees are perfect. They made me camp here, didn’t they? I take delight in all that I see, all that I am.

Steven Foster says, “Can it be that Death assumes the mask of an unrequited longing to be filled?” If I die here, it will be a good place. A good day. My mother can say “I told you so.” But it will be good. I will die whole.

I miss no one, though I think of them. I am at peace with the moment. I am one with the place.

Long, hard moonshadows ribbon the slope. Tahoma looks as if she will fall on me. Clouds cling here and there, afraid to be on their own. Let go, I tell them. Simply let go. It will be terrifying. But you must. You cannot go to other places if you do not.

It is not easy to sleep on a slope. It is not easy to sleep exposed to the stars and the stares of animals. Alone. There is a primordial trickle of horror that something out there wants to eat you.

I think I am awake more than I am asleep. I watch the moon traverse the field of stars, see the Big Dipper grow huge and set; Orion’s Belt comes up near dawn.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - Sept 2

2010-08-29T15:28:00.004-05:00

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Observation Rock from Spray Park - Hand-painted BW photograph

September 2. At 6:20 a.m. Tahoma greets me.

There are only a few clouds, and the pristine glaciers are edged with the first sun. It is revelation, emergent from obscurity, harbinger of mornings to come. I am to see The Mountain on all mornings save the last.

I photograph the morning’s gift to me. Observation Rock is the highest point on Ptarmigan Ridge. In its crotch is the Flett Glacier; Liberty Cap is a smooth scoop of ice cream at the summit. I fill my water bottle at the stream and know I am among the earth’s most privileged. I am alive, fully alive.

The vision quest is a symbolic dying to the old, fearful self. “By making yourself ready to die you give birth to yourself.” This is a creative death. It has already been accomplished in me. That is why I live.

I delight in all I see; brown pipits at a tarn, the jumble of shale-like rocks, streams everywhere. It looks easy to climb Tahoma from here, and I long to. There is nothing so wondrous as the first light of morning, full of promise. Clouds smother the Puget Sound basin to the west and wisps of fog flit about near camp. I cut the reverie short, afraid it will sock in again. Breaking camp, I find the trail and, alone, I walk farther into myself.

Ascending to the 6400 foot ridge to Seattle Park, I am even more aware of my solitude. It is a windswept place, rocky and barren. It is beautiful in simplicity, a rugged scrabble of debris and mat plants and thin sunshine. I think of the young man I met yesterday, walking in the fog with a Walkman sucking his ears. “Christian sermons,” he explained. “Good preaching.” I wanted to tell him he missed the point, but I just smiled and walked on.

A transparent lenticular rain cap forms over Tahoma, to the east of the summit. Mare’s tails, too, hint at bad weather. I am prepared. I will take whatever comes.

Descending, I cross the only two significant snow patches on the entire trip. Two men pass me, coming from Cataract Valley four miles below. The meadow gives way to patchy woodlands and flower fields; there are waterfalls and the clouds are coming in. I stop to apply Second Skin to my downhill blisters, and figure how to keep the healing goop from squishing out. Purple Lewis monkeyflowers (and a patch of albino) cluster along the creeks; clearly summer is not over. In the woods are strawberry bramble with sweet but impossibly tiny fruit. Devil’s club is here, deer fern, twisted stalk with dangling red berries underside. It is all good and beautiful.

Steven Foster writes of the phases of the contemporary vision quest. The first is severance, separation from all that we call our world, our home, family. I think, strangely, of the Oregon Trail pioneers, leaving behind a secure world to find something better. Graves of their loved ones mark their passage into a new life. Graves of the Native peoples they displaced also scar the land. I am a pioneer, white-skinned. My people came from Italy, France, Ireland. It is said my father’s grandmother was a quarter Indian. I call it the family myth. I want to believe it.

The second phase of the vision quest is crossing the threshold into the unknown. “Armed with symbolic tools of self-birth, (the participant) enters a universal order that is sacred and immortal. During this threshold period, secret knowledge and power are transmitted and confer on the individual new rights, privileges and responsibilities upon returning.”

I lunch at Cataract Valley Camp. I pity the conventional folk who camped here in the gloom instead of the meadows; I congratulate myself for insisting on a cross-country permit. It is six miles to Mystic Lake, where I’m supposed to be tonight. I’ve already walked six and I am tired; the added 15 pounds over my normal pack weight is taking its toll. I cross the Carbon River on a suspension bridge and trudge uphill alongside the snout of the Carbon Glacier, the lowest accessible glacier in the park. The trail is filled with Labor Day hikers from Ipsut Creek; many ignore warning signs and clamber near the glacier’s dangerous tip. Rocks fall constantly and erratically, but the tourists are oblivious.

I have descended 3500 feet since this morning. Now I must gain another 3900 with a pack half my body weight because of my camera gear. I learned from my failed summit climb six weeks earlier (yes, fool that I am, I gave it a try) that rest, rehydration and good blood sugar are essential to my well-being. As long…as I can…get enough…of…those things… I will… make it…

It is the longest four miles I have ever walked. Or maybe it is only three. Or six. I don’t know. I go through Moraine Park in the fog and can’t stop long or I’ll chill. It is 7 p.m. and I reach the top of the pass and see the sign, “.8 miles to Mystic Lake.” I am hypoglycemic, sore, exhausted, cold, sweat-drenched, and it will be dark in an hour. I see a lake, or a tarn. For all I know it’s Mystic Lake herself, mystically shrouded in fog, and the camp’s another mile away.

To hell with this.

I pull off, figuring this isn’t a cross-country zone but it’s an emergency. I have my story ready should an officious uniformed person question my camp. “What do you want, a few crushed flowers or a hypothermic body to cart off this mountain in the morning?” It would not be wise to tangle with me this evening. Fortunately, company never shows up.

I apologize to the lupines under the tent and untangle the mess of ropes on the rain fly while my meal heats to lukewarm. I flop into my sleeping bag at 8:30, bundled in all of my winter clothes, and fall mercifully to sleep.

Again, it is a fitful night. Sometime in the middle of it the moon emerges from behind a silhouetted hill. I have a nightmare. I talk to God a lot, out loud. I pray for my family, my friends, and for me. I have some decisions I need to make. I tell Him I expect his reply within ten days. Avalanches keep me awake. I am not sure where I am.

Ninety Miles Around Tahoma - a Quest for Meaning - Sept 1

2010-08-29T15:15:00.007-05:00

This is the account of my solo backpack trip around Mt. Rainier Sept 1-12, 1990. I will be posting one journal entry each day.

Spray Falls in the fog - Hand-painted BW photograph

September 1, 1990. Spray Park backcountry. Mount Rainier National Park, Washington state.

There is no noise in the fog, none save the white sound of an invisible stream.

My tent faces Tahoma – Mount Rainier. I had seen Ptarmigan Ridge momentarily, before the fog settled, but I see nothing except my meadow and dewey flowers. It is the first day of September, and for the first time in my life, I am spending the night alone in the wilderness.

Why?

My parents had been baffled. My husband Tim initially refused to allow it. I stopped telling family that I was going on the 90-mile Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park. Alone.

Why? They had all asked.

It is necessary, I said. I must do this to live.

I am here on a vision quest. I am 35 years old, and I have entered a place I didn’t ask to be, a place I know I must embrace before I can leave it. It is a mid-life thing. That’s what the books say. The Native Americans have a saying when they pray in the sweat lodge. “Mitakuye Oyasin. All my relations.” On this first day of a 12-day journey, I realize I am going into the wilderness not just for me, but for all my relations. I go seeking wholeness. Renewal. Indeed, I seek Life itself. My family, my friends, deserve no less of me.

It is the result of a several-year-long spiritual quest. I would say this trip is the culmination of the search, but I know the path is never-ending. It moves, spirals, allows growth. This is merely a high point, one that comes at great price.

It is an act of desperation. But it is not foolhardy. I’ve hiked and backed for 14 years. Tahoma has always been a place of power for me. My photographs of the dormant volcano are featured in my two coffee-table books, on postcards, posters, calendars, numerous publications. It is only appropriate that it be the place of my own Searching.

Indian people traditionally went on vision quests as adolescents. It was a rite of passage, an entry into another phase of life. For contemporary people, the vision quest often comes in adulthood. It is a symbolic enactment of death and rebirth, an ancient ritual deep in the collective consciousness of humankind, a necessary journey for those who are called. It is an immersion into the very source of life, the Great Mystery. Aloneness is required, and we fear it. We leave behind the shells that insulate us from nature; our roles, rank, wealth, responsibilities. We are, in comparison, naked and helpless.

So on the first day of September, 1990, I say goodbye to Tim and my five-year-old son Ryan and bounce along with high spirits, great determination, and a 65-pound pack. I am to rely only on myself, my wits, the little house I’ve packed with me, and a friend’s words, the words of his Chippewa grandfather, that whatever happens, “She’ll be all right.”

I begin in the northwest corner of the park, at Mowich Lake. It is a cloudy Labor Day weekend, and the trail to Spray Park is crowded. People express concern that I should do this thing alone. I smile, and continue my steady pace through ancient forest. In three miles I emerge into open meadowland.

The fog is definite; there is no promise of sun. The ranger on the trail predicts (in terms of lenticular caps and meterological jargon) that it will rain. I am not dismayed. Fog aids the interior journey, the sorting-out time, the time of letting-be. The sub-alpine meadow is serene in the fog. This is the stillest time there is. Revelations come suddenly, and small things become visible. Gentians the color of indigo ink pots cluster in tight groups like crocus, distinct from dewey lupine and paintbrush. Butterflies do not go about in a fog. Nor do bees or mosquitoes. Fog is a perfect beginning.

I depart from the trail, using compass to mark the return route. Tim and I have been here before with Ryan, when he was a 7-month old baby. I want to find our spot again. After a half hour of careful walking, I see Ptarmigan Ridge and a flat glade. The place calls to me. I will stay here tonight.

Before the tent is up, the fog has hidden the ridge at Tahoma’s base. I want to heat water for dinner, and supremely confident in my abilities, I screw in the fuel canister without bothering to read instructions. It sputters out of my hands like a loosened balloon, fuming propane and collecting ice crystals. Well, I can laugh about this. I’ve got another one.

I’m careful this time, for I have no more fuel. Fortunately, Top Shelf lasagna does not require boiling water to be edible, so I heat it just enough to save gas. A hard roll and chunk of semi-sweet chocolate top off the meal. It is getting dark. I take out my Huichol Indian rattle and sing the two Huichol songs I know. “Mother Earth, I give you my life. Great Spirit, I want to live.” In Huichol I sing them. To the Four Directions I sing them. Then I go inside the tent. The nylon is like a skin between me and the Great Mystery, but it is cold and wet and I need it.

This is an important night. I have entered the realm of the vision. My path here has been most unconventional.

Steven Foster authored “The Book of the Vision Quest,” about the traditional quest for meaning in a contemporary culture. He calls the vision quest a “heroic passage” where “separated, alone, given over to the Great Mother, the hero/ine enters the fearful darkness and confronts the naked self, the apparitions and shadows of the mortal state of being. Here the solitary battles against the inevitable monsters must be fought. “The hero/ine does not court fear; but fear must be faced. The treasure of the quest cannot be found without enduring the despair of ever finding it. The trials of the heroic passage exist because strength and courage exist, but these traits are found only in combination with vulnerability and fear.”

I have a lot to say in my journal tonight. I use up two sets of batteries. It is eleven p.m. when I shut off the light, and I feel vulnerable. Dark shapes blend into dark ground; the rush of the stream hides animal noises. There is no one around for miles. I know this. No one. The animals won’t hurt me. I know this. I hear the voice of my friend. “She’ll be all right.”

I don’t sleep well. Sometime during the night the fog lifts and the moon shines into my eyes. I awaken with a suffocating panic. What the hell am I doing here? But it goes as quickly as it has come. I know it’s okay to be afraid. I come here to meet my fears. I come to grow strong in spirit, mind and body. I come to face the dark and light within. “She’ll be all right.”

Summer's End

2010-08-27T05:48:00.007-05:00

Raspberries and blueberries from my garden

Well it's happened again. Summer's end. Not much time for blogging, although I did get a bit hooked on Facebook for awhile before I decided to just quit cold turkey. I got tired of eavesdropping on all these private conversations going on between friends and family. Didn't seem right. And I wasn't getting enough work done. Plus I feel compelled to rant and rave when somebody says something that "ain't right." Gotta stop that. But I'll do a post now and then, just to let folk know I'm still alive.

Papa bluebird feeding his kiddoes

So I did what I usually do - took care of the yard and gardens, though not as aggressively as I usually do. I did the art shows to sell out of inventory and save up money for a new vehicle to get me back to Big Bend in October. And I spent a little time with friends. Here are photographs of the summer here in Maine.

Edmund my Garden Muse and loosestrife

I also began to clean out the house and studio of all the stuff I'll never use, even though I thought 15 years ago I'd really really really make a quilt someday with all those fabric scraps, or do a stunning found-object sculpture with those flattened catalytic converter rusted metal parts. So what I can sell I'll put out in my yard sale Sept 11-12 (Ya'll come now, hear?) or list on craigslist or Uncle Henry's.

Turkey family

I've got ads out to rent my house year-round. My goal is full-time work for the Park Service, preferably two seasonal parks. I bit hook, line and sinker when I worked at Big Bend this winter, and I also have a goal of visiting all of the national parks in my lifetime. It's a leap of faith, but I've got the Wanderlust again, and I'm ready for a big change.

Day lily with dew

It seems like every 18 years there's a Big Change in my life. First joining the Army at age 18. Then being married and living in Washington state for 18 years. And now it's been nearly 18 years in Maine and the road calls again. It's harder this time. But I'm excited despite the uncertainties. Life's given me a lot of lemons the last few years, but I do like lemonade. Needs lots of sugar though. Sugar can be hard to come by sometimes. Maybe some day I'll tell you about some of the summer lemons, but for now I'll focus on the peaches.

Yeah, real peaches. They came off my very own trees. I planted them 3 years ago and they finally produced. The Reliant gave lots of small, sweet fruits, and the New Haven gave fewer very large peaches. Next year whoever rents the house will be soooo lucky.

Peach ripening and the August harvest

There was lots of bird activity. A flock of turkeys consisting of 3 hens and 17 pullets has been visiting regularly and is tamer than I've ever seen turkeys. I threw out scratch feed the other day when the flock was in the yard, and not only did they not skedaddle, but one of the babies came running up to within three feet of me!

Part of turkey flock

Bluebird baby

My bluebirds successfully raised a family, although they didn't hang around after they fledged. The catbirds barely had the first crew out on their own before mama built another nest in the wild rose bush. Tree swallows, mourning doves, song sparrows, common yellowthroats, and who knows what else found nesting spots in my yard.

Catbird with yummies for babies

I had a boarder this summer, though he didn't pay any rent. Matter of fact he stole from me. Woody Woodchuck dug a hole under the living room (my house is on a slab) and thinks I planted the zinnias and daisies for his snack bar. But he's just too cute to evict, though I'll encourage him to leave in a few weeks by shoving the dirt back into the hole. Don't want a skunk to take up residence there over winter!

Woody Woodchuck

Yeah I'll miss all this critter activity. I love my yard. But I hate winter. Hate hate hate. And I love America's natural places. Love love love. And I love helping people respect and enjoy them, too.

The most beautiful gladiolus (gladioli? gladiolusus?) in the world

Another little thief

My cats have been tormented by a chipmunk which they sometimes "attack" through the screen door. This little guy has been raiding my bird feeder and storing seed under the deck. I'll probably have sunflowers popping through the cracks next year. The red squirrels (below) have also been busy, but the blue jays are the champions when it comes to tucking away sunflower seeds in their throat pouches and caching them for winter use.

Red Squirrel

What? Me? Steal the bird seed?

One of the banes of my existence is the Japanese beetle. Thanks to the early spring, the roses were more voluptuous than I've ever seen them, blooming long before the beetles emerged. But once they did, every emerging petal was covered with ravenous beetles and I never got a rose past mid-July. Does no good to spray, since new beetles just take their place.

Japanese beetle - so pretty, and so HORRID!

Another garden heartbreak - late blight. Again. The tomatoes were huge and green. And the blight, which first appeared in Maine last year, got 'em again. I hope my friend down the road did a prophylactic copper fungicide application, as she has probably 100 tomato plants. I salvaged a few, but even a long soak in a chlorine bleach solution didn't keep the brown blotches from showing as the fruits ripened. I salvaged what I could and made fresh salsa. Yum.

Sweet pea

Birdhouse my friend "Mama" Gay gave me, and climbing sweet peas

Late summer flower arrangement

Well tomorrow I'll hit the Speed Limit (55) and I guess that means I'm supposed to slow down. But as long as I have meaningful work, and good friends and family, and a lovely place to live, how can I? We must move toward the Light in the world, and try not to let its Darkness overwhelm us. The best revenge is a well-lived life.

Here's to living well!

Full moon setting at dawn

Alewives a Sight to Behold

2010-06-30T18:50:00.008-05:00

Alewives

The return of the alewives to the lakes where they were born is a time of celebration - for people and critters alike. While many of the rivers in Maine host the return of these once-abundant fish, the most dramatic migration happens in the hamlet of Damariscotta Mills. The old fish ladder was recently restored, and there is now a festival to welcome the human pilgrims who want to witness this ancient ritual.

The stream is dark with alewives

Alewives are anadramous fish, meaning they are born in fresh water, migrate to the sea as juveniles, and return to their birthplace to begin the cycle anew. Unlike salmon, the majority of alewives do not die after spawning, and return the following year. Also known as river herring, they were once plentiful all over New England. Dams and over-fishing have eliminated many runs, and some towns like Waldoboro are trying to restore their alewife populations.

One gulp and it's gone

Alewives are typically smoked, and it has been a long tradition to give a bushel of these oily fish to town widows. Some of the widows prize the taste while others will resell them to lobstermen for bait. Although these fish are 10 to 12 inches long, herring gulls will swallow them whole, then go back for more. Photographers from all over set up phalanxes of tripods and monster telephoto lenses for a chance at catching an osprey snagging a fish.

Osprey hovering while scoping out the perfect prey

Got one!

Got another one!

Lots of mouths to feed

This year the run was exceptionally dramatic, and since the fish move up from the Great Salt Bay into Damariscotta Lake via the fish ladder, they are concentrated at this spot. The early spring kept the water warm, which encourage the fish to move out of the bay. The lupines were also in early and full bloom. May is typically the month the alewives return, and from July to October the juveniles will make their way to the sea.

This is what May 9 typically looks like in Damariscotta Mills

What it looked like on May 23 this year

Double-crested cormorant at the entrance of the stream

Alewives Fabrics

Gulls digesting their feast

Mulligan's Smokehouse

For more information about Maine alewives

Gardening Ain't for Sissies

2010-06-15T20:19:00.011-05:00

Foxglove, columbine, heliopsis and roses in front yard

I was going to just give up, to surrender. The garden didn't get "put to bed" properly before I left for Texas in mid-October, and spring came so early that the weeds were out of control when I returned. But after the first rush of irises, dame's rockets, poppies, and wild mustard, I noticed the perennials and bulbs I nurtured last year pushing through the chaos. My protective instincts kicked in, and I started ripping out three-foot tall grasses and invasive flowers by the roots. Soon the lawn was lined with weed piles, which I let dry for a day or two and then ran the mower over them. Along with the cut grass they made a nice mulch for the blueberry patch and flower bed presided over by the totem Edmund.

Edmund the Garden Totem; Foxglove

Poor Edmund. I swapped him for an original hand-painted photograph, and I liked his beech face. I should have chosen a cedar totem, however, for he had been harboring carpenter ants which attracted pileated woodpeckers that fall, and apparently every fall since. His smile persists through the indignities, however, and with it he will eventually molder and crumble.

Clematis flower

I have two acres, and like the greedy glutton I am, I kept adding flower beds and expanded the veggie garden since I moved in seven years ago. I lusted after peonies and poppies, delphinium and wisteria. I scattered sweet william seeds and transplanted home-grown foxglove. I added dwarf daylilies to the driveway island and spent $70 on five blueberry bushes that give me $5 worth of berries every year. I wanted Beauty and more Beauty. When finances became tight, I made do with seeds and a few seedlings from the high school horticulture program, and cuttings from my wintered-over geraniums. Besides I had most of the perennials I needed. Now all I needed to do is maintain all this Beauty.

Tiger Swallowtail on Dame's Rocket phlox

Gardening isn't for sissies. It's for people who will get their knees black with dirt, and will go around for months with soil stuck under their fingernails. It's for people who bang their foreheads on nails on an old fence post, and cut their hands bloody yet keep on pulling weeds. Gardening is for people who will scratch their arms tending roses and endure painful stabs pruning wicked barberry. And of course it's for those who can tolerate mosquito and blackfly bites, squishing cucumber beetles, plucking plump hornworms off the tomatoes, and getting tangled in bird netting over the strawberries.

Siberian irises around frog pond; lupines and yellow wild cinquefoil

After the heartbreak of late blight ruining every tomato last year, I feared loving and losing again. But I bought a six-pack of the reliable Jet Star and one cherry heirloom tomato, willing to take the risk. No peas or spinach this year, and little of anything else that wasn't already growing such as garlic, sage, Jerusalem artichoke, and my beloved strawberries. There's the farmer's market for the rest.

Rambling Roses

But my flowers, I can't abandon. The early spring gave me my first baby peaches and wisteria blooms, and rambling roses more full of blooms than I ever thought possible! Even the rosa rugosa gets to keep its flowers, because the horrid Japanese beetles haven't hatched yet. If you've ever seen all your rosebuds covered with the greedy little bastards, you know for sure gardening isn't for sissies.

So here is what I do battle to protect, my little pretties, my babies, my darlings.

This is my sanctuary.

Water lily in bloom

Ameraucana hens - braaaak braaak braaaak

Wisteria in bloom over arbor