Summer's short at 12,000 feet

We visited Rocky Mountain National Park in late August last year. We hadn’t planned on making a return trip so soon, but were back early this July. The Alpine Visitors Center is at nearly 12,000 feet. We hiked Ute Trail from there both times with very different seasonal views.

White Mountain Avens blooming in July

In early July, the alpine field is filled with blooms.

Parry’s Clover and Alpine Springbeauty

The snowpack was light this year, but even so these flowers only began blooming a couple weeks before. It was like a cool spring walk.

Hiking Ute Trail in July, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Every few feet is a new show of flowers.

Western Yellow Paintbrush surrounded by Alpine Avens and the purple Aspen Daisly

But this display will only last a few weeks.

By late August, the vernal colors are replaced with autumnal ones.

Feathery seed heads and fern-like leaves of Alpine Avens

At 12,000 feet, a hike in August can be very different than one in July.

Ute Trail, Rocky Mountain National Park, August

Burrowing and flying

In June 2020, to escape the confinement of the pandemic, my son Dan and I camped and photographed in Badlands National Park for a few days. One of the highlights was encountering a Short-eared Owl who was searching the prairie just south of the park. When Jane and I visited the Park this June, I asked a ranger where some good spots might be to find owls. She said Burrowing Owls are sometimes by the prairie dogs burrows at Roberts Prairie Dog Town at the north edge of the park. She warned that the owls are about the size of the prairie dogs and are hard to spot since they often stay by the holes.

Not a Burrowing Owl

You can spot prairie dogs through much of the park, often right along the road. Roberts is the largest area for the little critters. Once there we could also see some bigger animals like bison in the far distance and a Pronghorn family a bit closer.

Pronghorn, Badlands National Park, South Dakota

A handsome Horned Lark perched and sang on a buffalo chip.

Horned Lark

We walked through the prairie dog town as they announced our comings and goings, looking to avoid snakes (and buffalo chips) nearby, while scanning the distance for owls. We saw lots of the little dogs.

Then Jane spotted something flying in the distance.

As it got closer, we were sure we spotted what we had come looking for.

The bird would sit on a mound for a while and then fly off searching the area. Sometimes it would come a bit closer, and then fly far away. We saw another swooping over a different area. After watching the predators for a while, we left them to their work, and went to see more of the Park. It might’ve given us a good-bye wave.

Destroy and desecrate

I was thinking last week that the next post might be of cute prairie dogs and burrowing owls. Those will need to get back in their burrows. Nearly every day this administration enrages and exhausts. I’m a bit surprised it took them until this week to take this disgusting action they tried nine years ago and stated as a goal in Project 2025—remove protections of nearly 3 million acres of glorious public lands and open them for mineral extraction and loosened recreation. And they surpassed these expected ruinations by taking power away from the native peoples that were overseeing and guiding the protections of these lands.

Where will this end? — Buckskin Gulch, Utah

We just hiked the trail through this amazing landscape in January, and I wrote about it here: Wire Pass to Buckskin Gulch This area within Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was protected by President Bill Clinton by Executive Order under the Antiquities Act in 1996. In 2017, for the first time, a president claimed he had authority under the Antiquities Act to dismantle a National Monument, and opened nearly all of Grand Staircase-Escalante NM to mining and grazing interests. Lawsuits stalled most actions until President Biden issued a new Executive Order restoring the boundaries and protections. Again, Trump seeks to take away 90% of two national monuments.

In his newest Executive Order signed this week, Trump denigrated President Biden’s order saying it was “flawed” because it stated a “purported need to protect items . . . such as ‘vast and austere landscapes,’ ‘sedimentary rock layers,’ and ‘bold plateaus and multihued cliffs.’ . . . These generic features . . . do not become ‘landmarks,’ ‘structures,’ or ‘objects of historic or scientific interest’ worthy of protection under the Antiquities Act simply because they are scenic.” Trump says these items “are not unique to the Monument, and their relative commonness suggests that the specific instances of such objects found within the Monument are not of particular historic or scientific interest. Examples of these relatively common objects include cultural, paleontological, and geological resources within the Monument that are found throughout the Four Corners region.”

Relative Commonness - Valley of the Gods, Bears Ears National Monument, Utah

In 2017, my old website got infected with many viruses and I needed to shut it down and create this one. One of my lasts posts on the old site was about Trump’s acts to destroy Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. My first post on this site in June 2017 regarded a petition fighting the Bears Ears reduction.

I would guess if I did an inventory of places that I’ve posted about on this blog, Bears Ears National Monument may well lead the list. Its remoteness and beauty have captured me. And I agree with the five nations — the Hopi, Navajo, Ute, Ute Mountain and Zuni — who petitioned President Obama to create Bears Ears, that it is holy land. In his Executive Order to eliminate most of Bears Ears, Trump defecates on these beliefs: “The relative commonness of these cultural resources with the broader area suggests that the specific instances of such objects found within the Monument are not of particular historic or scientific interest. For instance, lithic scatters, projectile points, prehistoric campsites, petroglyphs, and pictographs are found across the American West and are not unique to the Bears Ears region. Accordingly, a monument reservation was neither necessary nor appropriate to protect these items.”

President Obama’s order creating the National Monument established the Bears Ears Commission with representative of the Five Nations to help govern the Monument. This week’s order dissolved the Commission, and created an advisory committee. That committee will have one representative from each of the nations, six representatives appointed by the Utah Governor, who stood next to Trump as he signed this Executive Order, and county and city representatives. One of the governor’s appointees is to be an “off-highway vehicle user” and the order immediately allows motorized use on any trails on which they were banned after President Obama’s order.

Relative Commonness — Butler Wash Ancestral Puebloan site

No map was attached to the order showing exactly what areas remain protected, even though the order said there would be. Some areas near Butler Wash are to still be protected, but it is not clear whether the above structure or hundreds of similar sites will be within the new restricted boundaries. Of course, mining and drilling near such fragile structures creates an enormous risk of damage. But it is clear what the higher priority is:

The land “should be put to a higher-priority use.  The Bears Ears region contains several resources that are vital to energy and resource independence and, in turn, critical to national security.  These resources — which include critical minerals such as silver, copper, molybdenum, lead, uranium, vanadium, and zinc — create jobs, fuel prosperity, and are essential to important sectors of the economy of the United States, including defense, manufacturing, and transportation.” 

Procession panel, Bears Ears National Monument

The Native Nations will soon file suit to reverse Trump’s orders. Likely a coalition of conservation groups such as the National Parks Conservation Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Wilderness Society, Sierra Club and similar organizations will join together in legal actions to stop this destruction. We will support them. A detailed analysis of the Executive Orders was written by Jonathon Thompson.

Tatanka

While visiting Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, we heard the Lakota emergence story a couple times. Wind Cave gets its name from the small natural opening of the cave which blows in or out as air pressure changes between the atmosphere and the underground. It is a holy place for the Lakota and the passageway to spirit world.

Bison, Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota

People lived below in the spirit lodge while the Creator Takuskanskan worked at getting the earth ready for them. Tricksters above ground convinced some people to leave the spirit lodge and go above to the earth. When winter came, they began to freeze and starve, and they returned to the opening asking the Creator to let them return. Takuskanskan was angry at the disobedience and punished them by turning them into great, wild beasts who could survive winters.

Bison, buffalo, tatanka

When the earth was ready for people to live on it, they were led through the passageway of Wind Cave. When they saw bison hoof prints, the Creator instructed them to follow the bison from whom they could get food, tools, clothes and shelter. The tatanka would lead them to water. Everything they needed to survive could come from the bison.

In 1800, an estimated 40 million bison lived in North American. By the end of the century less than a thousand remained. A few conservationists saved the few, and helped protect and restore land for them.

The largest population was in Yellowstone, created as the first National Park in 1872. After miners disputed the ownership of Wind Cave which had become valuable not for mining, but for tourism, the Department of Interior said the miners had no valid claim on the land since there were no valuable minerals. In 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt signed legislation to create the eighth National Park. Fortunately, the legislation protected nearly 34,000 acres of beautiful, rolling land above the cave.

Bison vertebrae

Bison had been removed from the land, but in 1913, the American Bison Society sent 14 pure blood bison from the Bronx Zoo to the Park, and in 1916 sent six more from Yellowstone. The ones in the park today are decedents.

The Park herds are kept at about 350 to 500 animals. In most years, extra animals are able to be herded and sent to Native American lands or other park lands in the country.

The images are from some we saw on drives and hikes through the Park last month.

Sunset, Wind Cave National Park

My summer love affair

My love affair began on May 11 when this lady showed up at our kitchen window. We have several feeders just outside, and I fortunately had my phone camera in hand when I saw our first orioles of the year.

The next morning, I’m nearby and I hear tapping on that window. I go over to look and see nothing. Then I notice, partly hidden by a planter by the window, the oriole tapping on the window. She does it several times, but when I get my phone ready to video, she flies away. The same thing happens the next morning. “Hey Google, why does an oriole tap on the window?” Google tells me a male oriole may be defending his territory. “But Google, what about a female oriole?”

Google says orioles are highly intelligent birds and may be returning to a place food had been before. If the food’s not there, they may express their frustration. While I had put bird seed and suet out, I hadn’t put any fruit out this year as I had in the past. So I cut an orange in half, put some grape jelly in it.

Her request was fulfilled.

The orioles were really singing to each other, but the male would make only very brief appearances.

The orioles had quite a chorus with their beautiful songs. This was about one month after Palm Sunday, which in our church you take a small palm frond home. I had placed a couple fronds in a planter and happened to take it outside on the porch. I looked out and saw the female oriole trying to break pieces off, I assumed for their nest. She tried and tried, but couldn’t. Eventually, she flew off with the whole two foot piece, but it was too heavy and she soon dropped it. I picked it from the lawn, broke some into smaller pieces and hoped she would take them for the nest. Some disappeared. I hope they are part of their nest.

Orioles make beautiful hanging nests. I suspect which tree it is in, but haven’t been able to find it. I figured it was now time to give my new friends names — Cali and Rip. Perhaps baseball fans will understand why I gave the Orioles these names as an honor to an all-time great player. Cali was very protective of her area and one day I saw another female oriole come by and Cali quickly chased her off.

A few days later, squirrels had gotten the oranges, and Cali knocked on the window to let me know I needed to get more out. Once in a while, Cali would go to the feeder on our window.

Cali and Rip would fly in the trees in the yard catching bugs. Cali would pose occasionally, but Rip moved too fast for a photo.

I’d sit on the porch with my morning coffee, and Cali would stop by. We’d chat a bit as she kept her eye on me.

She would often have a bit to say.

It’s a nice way to start the morning with a visit.

I keep hoping to see some baby orioles by the feeder one day, but for now I’m very happy to see Cali and catch a glimpse of Rip once in a while, and listen to them chatter and sing.

Pronghorns

I remember the first time I saw a Pronghorn. I was 14 and with my parents visiting the National Bison Range on the Flathead Indian Reservation in southwest Montana. One of President Biden’s last acts was to sign a bill transferring care and ownership of the Bison Range from the National Wildlife Service to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation. Somewhere I have a snapshot of Pronghorn from my Kodak Instamatic.

I’m reading The Animal Dialogues, a terrific book by Craig Childs in which he beautifully writes of amazing encounters with animals throughout his life. I’ve read several of Childs’ books and quoted them in this blog, but those were mainly about his extensive work with Ancestral Puebloans sites. This morning I read his chapter on Pronghorns.

Pronghorn herd, North Dakota

At 16 he got a job photographing an oil rig and workers in Southwest Wyoming. In the morning he awoke to Pronghorn nearby:

“A herd of pronghorn antelope stood north of the rig. Fourteen animals. Their bodies were sleek. Color on their throats and breasts was a necklace work of tans, blacks, and whites. They were like gazelles, refined in muscular detail, with outlines striking against the horizon. They faced the same direction, as if the wind left hem here momentarily.”

“Pronghorn eyes are seated farther to the outside of the skull than those of most prey animals, giving them wider vision in this open topography. The eyes are large enough to belong to a draft horse while the body is less than half the size of a small thoroughbred’s. They are meant solely for an animal who lives in the open, in places where you can see from one level horizon to the next.”

“They do not run like deer, who will gather speed with hesitation, glancing back, jumping and weaving between trees. Not like elk, the ones that crash and gallop, heavy and solid, moving toward a forest into which they can vanish. The pronghorn were gone with grace, sprinting into the open. The moved like birds, swerving together as they aimed for a single point. They are the fastest long-distance runners on the continent, some of the fastest land creatures in the world, clocked at nearly sixty miles per hour.”

Pronghorn, Ft. Union National Monument, New Mexico

“On each, male and female, was a set of short black horns. Those on the males were more ornate. They were different shapes, hooking inward or to the sides or down toward the skull, rooted just above the eye sockets, in front of the ears, where a bone core was encased in smooth black keratin.”

“The pronghorn’s speed is overkill, outpacing all predators so well that there is no sense in a chase. The pronghorn was once hunted across Wyoming by the North American cheetah, which explains why the pronghorn came to run more like a cheetah than a deer. The two species nearly match speeds. Twelve thousand years ago the cheetah vanished from this side of the planet and the pronghorn survived. Embedded in the pronghorn’s ability to run so outlandishly fast are the cheetahs in their memory.”

All quotes, The Animal Dialogues, Craig Childs copyright 1997, 2007

Travelling with friends

We had lunch yesterday with friends, once neighbors, who have three children the same ages and sexes as ours.

Sunrise, Sterling Pond, Smugglers Notch, Vermont

We’ve travelled together a lot. Mainly by just living three houses apart and raising families.

But we’ve also vacationed together—Wisconsin, Wyoming and yesterday we talked about a trip we did over two decades ago to the Northeast.

After lunch, I went back to look at pictures from that trip. These are some from a hike in the Green Mountains of Vermont to a foggy sunrise on Sterling Pond.

Here’s to much more travelling together.

Oh Sheep

I ended last week’s post with a ewe and cry about The Sheep Detectives movie opening. We did go see the very enjoyable film. And that inspired foraging up some other Scottish sheep images.

A short bus ride from Edinburgh, Blackness Castle, shaped like a ship, juts into the bay. If you’ve watched Saoirse Ronan’s Mary, Queen of Scots, or Outlander, or Mel Gibson’s Hamlet, the very rocky interior of this 15th century castle is unmistakable. Taking a stroll along Blackness Bay outside the castle, you might run into some of these black-faced creatures.

Much farther out in the Atlantic on Garry Beach on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides was another of these black faced ovines enjoying the sea-sprayed flavored grass near the shore.

Farther south and closer to the mainland lie the Inner Hebrides. A few years ago, I posted of a place I hope to return—the tranquil Isle of Iona. To get to the ferry to that island, you first need to get across the much larger Isle of Mull. Of the many beautiful sites there, is another 15th century castle called Moy which you get to by a lovely stroll along Loch Buie. You’ll share the route with some grazers.

Moy Castle on Loch Buie

The road map indicated an ancient stone circle not far away, so I found a place to park and walked through some boggy farm fields. There, I had two memorable animal encounters—one enchanting and one very uncomfortable. Because much of the land is so boggy, you need to stay on the narrow path near a farm fence most of the way. Several cattle were in the field but fortunately a distance away. You finally get through yet another farm gate, and in the distance are the Lochbuie standing stones—and some sheep.

Lochbuie Stone Circle, Isle of Mull

One of the sheep seemed to take a liking to me and followed as I walked among the Neolithic structures, and continued as I headed back to the gate. We chatted and I told him he’d need to stay. He seemed disappointed that I was leaving.

The walk got more interesting. While I was enjoying the standing stones, the Highland cattle had moved from the field to along the path. One young fellow was being a bit frisky with the ladies. As I slowly walked through the cattle, he approached from behind and gave a few gentle but firm headbutts. I’d grown up next to cattle in Florida, so I knew a little of their language, even if the accents were different here. I had a few words with him and walking backwards with my eyes on him, assured him I had no interest in the ladies in the field. And he let me pass.

This fella seemed to find some humor.

And on a final note, so ewe don’t forget.

"Ocean" by Mary Oliver

As I’ve written before, Mary Oliver’s poems and the Scottish coast seem to fit so well. Of course, she lived on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean. From the coast of the Isle of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides, it’s water all the way to Cape Cod where Oliver lived. Here are some sunset images from the Stac a Phris arch, so probably around mid-day across the pond on the Cape.

I am in love with Ocean
lifting her thousands of white hats
in the chop of the storm,
or lying smooth and blue, the
loveliest bed in the world.

In the personal life, there is

always grief more than enough,
a heart-load for each of us
on the dusty road. I suppose
there is a reason for this, . . .

. . . so I will be
patient, acquiescent. But I will live
nowhere except here, by Ocean, trusting
equally in all the blast and welcome
of her sorrowless, salt self.

Mary Oliver, Ocean in Red Bird (2009)

If you look carefully at the images above, you can see I stayed on the same cliff to watch the waves crash, sun set, and the clouds play and I just changed lenses to zoom in on the distant isles.

Now a bonus for any of you who might go see Sheep Detectives this weekend. Scotland has a terrific law nicknamed “the Right to Roam.” Meaning you can walk through lands if you respect the owners’ rights and not disturb the land and animals. The trailless hike to Stac a Phris arch is several miles through farmland, bogs, moor, and along rocky coast cliffs. You get to climb some stiles or squeeze through gates. But you also sometimes get accompanied by (or ignored by) the sheep grazing. Here’s one fellow from a little earlier that day.

I am the eagle

After several prior visits to Zion National Park in Utah, we explored a lesser visited area. Right off I-15 on the west side of the park sits the Kolob Canyons area, while most of the 5 million annual visitors concentrate in Zion Canyon in the center of the park along the Virgin River. Snaking north-south between those two areas is Kolob Canyons Road. Travelling and stopping for hikes along that road mid-week in January, we saw very few other visitors while enjoying the quiet beauty of Zion.

We did see lots of bald eagles.

A couple adults in their bold black and white were soon joined by several juveniles who displayed a range of colors and feather patterns.

Let’s just enjoy them soaring, playing with the Ravens and resting on rocks.

Along with some lyrics from John Denver.

I am the eagle, I live in high country
In rocky cathedrals that reach to the sky

And all those who see me and all who believe in me
Share in the freedom I feel when I fly

Come dance with the west wind and touch on the mountaintops

Sail o’er the canyons and up to the stars

And reach for the heavens and hope for the future

And all that we can be and not what we are

The John Denver Show, The Eagle and the Hawk, 1974

Of Mere Being by Wallace Stevens

Reading a beautiful examination of a poem by Wallace Stevens this week, I wanted to share it with you. A.O. Scott used to be a movie critic for the New York Times and then switched assignments to be a literature critic and often explores poetry. The staff at the paper create beautiful graphics to accompany his writing and Aliza Aufrichtig did a beautiful job with this poem. I hope this link works for you. If not, searching for the article should get you a working link, though it might be behind a paywall.

The palm at the end of the mind, 

Beyond the last thought, rises 

In the bronze decor, 

A gold-feathered bird,

without human meaning, 

Without human feeling, a foreign song. 

You know then that it is not the reason 

That makes us happy or unhappy. 

The bird sings. Its feathers shine. 

The palm stands on the edge of space. 

The wind moves slowly in the branches. 

The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

Of Mere Being by Wallace Stevens, 1955. As A.O. Scott notes this poem was published after his death and may have been the last poem he wrote.

The images are from close to where I grew up in Florida all during visits to my mother. The last one was taken the morning after Mom died.

Midwinter spring is its own season

Last week’s images of looking at what’s by your feet continues. I’m still sorting some older images from Scotland. Instead of rocks on a Scottish beach, today on the first day of spring it’s ice on a highland lochan.

In windless cold that is the heart’s heat

I previously posted images of the grand scenes on Rannoch Moor in the western highlands and the incredible midwinter fog that covered Loch Ba and surrounding mountains on the morning we visited. The hoarfrost on the plants and the ice patterns on the surface of the lochan (the little lochs) captured me as well. As pictured in the earlier post, there was a moonbow when the sun first came up with the fog. But as the sun began to clear the fog, it seemed to light afire the fog and one of the few trees in the bog.

The short day is brightest, with frost and fire

And the color was reflected in the ice that the sun would likely soon melt. You need to watch where you step. Much of the ground is sodden, and would get more so as the day warms. The day and the seasons can change quickly. And some things stay constant.

As well as the end of winter and first day of spring, Ramadan ends and the feast of Eid al-Fitr begins. And our self-proclaimed Christian nation along with the Jewish state, both led by autocratic minded leaders, bomb a Muslim state led by an autocrat. And children die.

Reflecting in a watery mirror

A practice for me this Lent is to meditate on T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets. He wrote the last of the four poems, Little Gidding, as Germany was bombing London and Eliot was a fire warden in the city. It begins:

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart's heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul's sap quivers.

The soul’s sap quivers

As any good poet, Eliot begins with concrete images that provide layers of metaphor. He often has many allusions to Dante’s Divine Comedy. As quoted above, Eliot frequently refers to frost and fire. In The Inferno, the many of the levels of hell have fire, but ninth, the deepest level, is ice in which Lucifer is frozen.

With frost and fire

And perhaps he refers to our own seasons of life.

There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time's covenant. . . .
Where is the summer, the unimaginable
Zero summer?

This is the spring time

Yesterday on the last day of winter in my backyard with snow on the ground, the air was warm in the sun. Frogs sang in the pond nearby and Sandhill Cranes sounded somewhere in the distance as they begin their trip south. May ICE melt everywhere.

Where is the summer, the unimaginable Zero summer?

"On the Beach" with and by Mary Oliver

Somehow my images from Scotland and Mary Oliver’s poetry seem to fit. If you search Mary Oliver and “ocean poem” or “the sea” or something similar, my dinky blog pops up high in the search with pictures from Scotland.

Marram Grass, Bosta Beach, Isle of Lewis and Harris

The wonderful island of Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides has massive, dramatic seascapes. But I was just as enchanted by the forms, textures, colors at my feet. And these sights will be gone when the wind blows or the tide changes.

Bosta Beach

Mary Oliver lived for over half a century across the Atlantic in Provincetown on Cape Cod. Undoubtably, she was looking at her feet for some inspiration, too.

On the beach, at dawn:

four small stones clearly

hugging each other.

How many kinds of love

might there be in the world,

Tolsta Beach, Lewis and Harris

and how many formations might they make

and who am I ever

to imagine I could know

such a marvelous business?

When the sun broke

it poured willingly its light

Garry Beach, Lewis and Harris

over the stones

that did not move, not at all

Tolsta Beach, Lewis and Harris

just as, to its always generous term,

it shed its light on me,

my own body that loves

equally to hug another body.

Mary Oliver, On the Beach from A Thousand Mornings, 2012

Black Canyon of the Gunnison

I recently posted some images from Curecanti National Recreation Area on the Gunnison River in western Colorado. Curecanti is immediately down river from Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. I realized I’d never posted images of an earlier visit to that park.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado

The canyon is not nearly as deep as the mile depth of the Grand Canyon or Hells Canyon in Idaho, but the canyon is narrow and dramatically steep, and 2,200 feet at the deepest.

At this view the canyon is over 1,800 feet deep and only 1,100 feet across. The park is on the eastern edge of the Colorado Plateau. The uplift was also topped with volcanic debris and sandstone. Only 2 million years ago the river started quickly cutting through those softer upper layers and then down into the ancient rocks eventually reveling some of the oldest rock in the world. Look down.

The day we visited in April a few years ago was very snowy.

I previously posted about the story of how the river got named after Captain John Gunnison who was surveying the area for a route for a transcontinental railroad. When he saw this canyon, he appropriately determined this would not be a good route. The post also explores the mystery of who soon killed Captain Gunnison—the Mormons or the Utes, both of whom did not want a railroad in the area.

You can see how the walls of the canyon are “painted” by the igneous rock which is the cooled and hardened magma that flowed through the older gneiss and schist. The image below helps give a perspective of the size of the formations with the trees on top.

That’s all, time to glow.

Turn around

This past Wednesday was the beginning of Ramadan and Lent, both seasons of fasting, prayer and reflection.

Shiba Park, Tokyo . . . Joel 2:12

One ancient practice of prayer is called Lectio Divina, Latin for divine reading, which begins with slow, repeated reading of a short passage. Another practice is called Visio Divina, for divine seeing, which begins with a slow, immersive gaze at an image or object.

Great Sand Dunes National Park, Colorado . . . Matthew 4:1

The texts inserted in these images are from Ash Wednesday and the five Sundays of Lent. For Ramadan, one common practice is to read the entire Qur’an over the 30 days.

White Sands National Park, New Mexico . . . Matthew 17:2

Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar living in New Mexico, describes one form of prayer as "wide-eyed seeing", or the simple act of being present and aware of the current moment.

Curecanti National Recreation Area, Colorado . . . John 4:10

Eight hundred years ago in 1225, Francis of Assisi, as he approached his death wrote what is considered one of the first poems written in vernacular Italian. In Canticle of the Creatures he writes of

Sister Water,
so very useful and humble,
precious and chaste.

Monarch Cave, Bears Ears National Monument, Utah . . . John 9:11

At about the same time Francis wrote those words, Ancestral Puebloans were putting their hand prints and other divine images on the walls where they lived.

Carlsbad Cavern National Park, New Mexico . . . John 11:35

October 3 of this year marks the 800th year of the death of St. Francis. Murray Bodo, a Franciscan Friar born in Gallup, New Mexico surrounded by the Navajo Reservation, and decedents of the Ancestral Puebloans, wrote:

“Then when Father Francis came to die, he sang the final stanzas of his Canticle, knowing full well the words would give him hope and courage to make the passage into the kingdom that already dwelled within him, a mirror of the kingdom he was about to return to.

Praised be you, my Lord, through our Sister

Bodily Death from whom

no one living can escape.”

Hoodoo you think you're foolin'?

Last week I posted about a hike through Wire Pass. Later that day we took another, easier nearby hike to the Toadstool Hoodoos in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah.

This image is from the first time I visited the area in November 2016. The sunny day lit up the colorful white, red and yellow Entrada sandstone. You can also see the harder caprock Dakota sandstone in the center atop one toadstool and a collection on the top cliff. The softer Entrada erodes away while the caprock becomes balanced above creating the toadstools or hoodoos.

This trail is just off U.S. 89 between Kanab, Utah and Paige, Arizona. Last week, I mentioned the lottery for the Wave hike. In January 2020, we sat in the BLM ranger office in Kanab where they used to do the lottery like picking Bingo number balls out of roller bin. (Today, it’s all on-line and electronic.) After losing (again) we drove that very cold morning to the Toadstools. As we got closer, with clear blue sky above, a thick cloud lay low on the horizon. We drove into the heavy fog shortly before the trailhead. Eerie hoarfrost covered the few desert plants.

And lay tight on the ground.

This January, storm clouds gathered that would result in a big snowfall the next day which diverted our planned travel, but made for dramatic skies on this visit.

I’d not noticed the toadstools pictured above on my prior visits; they are a couple hundred feet above the ones you hike to. I spotted them further back on the hike and got this image using a long lens. Some millennium in the future this may be eroded down after the others disappear. These were above the rock layer you see in the image below.

As I was working on this post, an apt Paul Simon song played. It seemed he sang it a bit differently:

“I’d say now, hoodoo, hoodoo you think you’re fooling? . . .

My mama loves me, she loves me

She get down on her knees and hug me

Like she love me like a rock.”

Was this creature singing that song?

Or maybe I was.

Wire Pass to Buckskin Gulch

In south-central Utah, right on the Arizona border, sits Coyote Buttes North a/k/a “The Wave” that only a few hikers a day can get a permit to enter. I’ve entered the lottery many times over the years and never got drawn. Fortunately, the area is filled with other amazing hikes, and this year we tried a new one that starts on the same trail as The Wave.

The Navajo Sandstone began in the Jurassic Era, and the wind from that time is petrified into rock and sculpted again by wind and water. Soon the trail heads into a slot canyon called Wire Pass.

After climbing over and under huge tree that had been swept into the canyon during the flash floods that carve and smooth the walls, the gorge opens briefly into a wonderland of twisted, curling rocks before heading back into the slot canyon.

Wire Pass eventually enters into Buckskin Gulch, which at 17 miles is the longest slot canyon in the world. At the junction of the canyons, a thousand years or so ago, the Ancestral Puebloans carved petroglyphs into the wall.

The opening where the canyons intersect allows you to see how deep the canyon is since you usually can’t see the top while hiking in the narrow gorge.

Buckskin Gulch goes for miles in each direction.

And look in the other direction.

Despite the long dry period, some water still flows at your feet reminding you how the gorge was carved over eons. It also creates lots of mud as the canyon narrows, and discouraged us from hiking further up the canyon.

After a snack to sit and revel in the view, it was time to head back up Wire Pass.

And enjoy the open space of twisted rocks before heading back into the slot.

The slot canyon ends with chances to enjoy more expansive views while walking past the trail to The Wave and hoping to win the lottery some day and hike again in this magical place.

Fluttering Friends

I had a couple fun close encounters with some birds this year. In Estes Park, Colorado this August, we were surprised to see many hummingbirds that were getting ready to migrate south.

Broad-tailed Hummingbird

Rufous Hummingbird

One patient lady sat in the grass holding a flower, and a hummingbird enjoyed feeding from it.

As a very young boy, I remember visiting a lady’s house near the beach who left her front door open, and Florida Scrub-Jays would fly in to get the food she left out. That Jay is endemic to Florida and is on the Endangered Species list as its habitat shrinks. It has recovered somewhat.

We were visited by its cousin the California Scrub-Jay while hiking in Utah this month.

California Scrub-Jay

We were having PB&Js while soaking up the sun on the Petrified Sand Dunes in Snow Canyon State Park. That interested the Jays. While they wouldn’t eat out of my hand, they would come close by to find some bread.

In the Fog . . . with Hermann Hesse

A couple months ago I posted about a visit to a beautiful geographic feature in Nebraska that I camped next to and hoped to explore more the next morning, but the rain from a tropical depression coming up from California chased me away. I continued on to my next planned stop of Badlands National Park in South Dakota. The whole drive was through rain and fog, and when I first got to the park, there was little to see beyond a few hundred feet. Eventually, the fog lightened a little.

I’ve mentioned in a couple posts of a time I backpacked in North Carolina and awoke to a flooding Pigeon River that I camped beside. Another post about that hike I used a favorite poem from Anishinaabe poet Gordon Henry, Jr. Sleeping in the Rain. That night in the rain-soaked tent I was reading Sidhartha by Hermann Hesse. He was also a poet.

In the Fog, by Hermann Hesse

Strange, to wander in the fog.
Each bush and stone stands alone,

No tree sees the next one,
Each is alone.

My world was full of friends
When my life was filled with light,

Now as the fog descends
None is still to be seen.

Truly there is no wise man
Who does not know the dark
Which quietly and inescapably
Separates him from everything else.

Strange, to wander in the fog,
To live is to be alone.

No man knows the next man,
Each is alone.

Blessingway . . . Colorado

While Navajo reservation land is currently in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, and the Ute have tribal land in southwest Colorado, and the Paiute assert rights to land in the area, the Navajo Blessingway graces all land. The Way of Harmony seeks to bless those on a journey. And mountains are a particular holy place for the Dineh. These are in southwest Colorado.

“Now I was surrounded by Sun’s surroundings,

when with the aid of a beautiful one I walked about,

Now I am long life, now happiness . . .

Behind me blessing is extended to mountains

Before me blessing is extended to the mountains

Below me blessing is extended to the earth

Above me blessing is extended to the sky

At dawn I walk.

Behind me it is blessed where I walk, before me it is blessed where I walk,

I walk, at dawn I walk.”

Text Blessing Way: With Three Versions of the Myth Recorded and Translated From the Navajo, Fr. Berard Haile, O.F.M., 1970