First Rain of Spring

Smell the rain.  I would have never described myself as a desert dweller, but I guess spending over half our year living out in the desert might come close.   We spend most of our time in the Sonoran Desert, which takes us most of southern Arizona and a big chunk of Mexico.

Last night I became aware of the wind becoming rather strong just before midnight.  I didn’t want to have to chase our chairs into New Mexico, so I decided to get up and secure them under Nitsitapiisinni.  As soon as I opened the door I could smell it. Rain. It was going to rain very soon.  I suppose that I am so much more aware of this phenomena here than anywhere else I’ve lived because we have so little rain and our humidity is so low.  Just the smell is invigorating and exciting.

The night sky was clear enough that I could see the clouds moving in from the southwest.  They were dark and obscured the night sky as the approached.  It was almost like they were gobbling up the stars and leaving us with a grey void.  Many people; maybe most; would call the clouds menacing.  This, however, is not the way the plants and animals around us in the Sonoran Desert would interpret it.  Yavapai County, Arizona gets a lot more rain per year than the other desert counties.   Yavapai County gets an average of 13” of rainfall a year. That is over four times more than the other desert areas and still only a third of the national average of 39”. 

I stood for a while feeling the storm approach.  I tried to imagine what it meant to the plants and animals around me. All living things in the desert have their own ways of surviving the long dry spells and storing or conserving water when it does rain. I couldn’t help but think of the precious liquid I had seen being so casually sprayed on road construction the day before.  What toxic chemicals were we putting in the soil?  How long would it take for that water to be again clean enough to support life?  It made me sad and angry at our wasteful species, and I struggled to bring my thoughts back to the wonderful event I was witnessing.  I could feel the moisture in the wind. It was raining.

The monsoon season, which is basically June to September, has not yet begun.  Was this a special treat to celebrate the beginning of spring?  We got 0.04”. I jokingly told Pamela I think I might have accidently soaked up most of that before I came back inside.  Perhaps it was a celebration of Water Appreciation Day, which ended less than an hour after the rain passed.   #MníWičóni  -  Water is Life!   

#OldConservationist

http://www.un.org/en/events/waterday/

Total Interdependence

(c) BBC

Please don’t tell anyone, because I know it will upset them.  All people, and to a certain extent especially Americans, have long lived under an illusion of independence.  Quiet. Don’t say that too loud. You see, because there was so much self-reliance – which is a totally different matter – involved in the spread of the people of predominantly European descent in the 18^th and 19^th centuries across what is today the United States, that we, as a nation, have confused the idea of self-reliance with independence.  Go to Montana, my adopted home State, and you will be told that we are fiercely independent.  You will hear intellectuals talk about being independent thinkers.  But what does it mean to be independent.

The dictionary definition of independent is “(1) free from outside control; not depending on another’s authority. (2) not depending on another for livelihood or subsistence.”  The problem with this is that, like the ‘clysoptic thingaglober’, it doesn’t exist. 

Wait!  Before you decide that I’m some sort of looney, hear me out.  If you think you are so independent, it definitely won’t hurt you to listen to what I have to say. 

I base my premise that we are not only not independent but totally dependent upon everyone and everything else in the universe upon an indisputable chain of connections and dependences. 

This morning, when you turned off your alarm clock, you touched your interdependence with the universe.  If we follow all of the connections and dependencies related to that simple clock, you will follow them back to the creation of the universe. 

Go ahead, laugh.  When you’re done laughing, stop and start making a list or a diagram.  To make it easy, let’s start with the fact that you had to buy that alarm clock.  That was probably pretty easy. You drove to a store and bought the clock. Period.  Well, let’s take a closer look.  How did you drive to the store?  In a vehicle of some description, I assume.  Consider how many people with whom you are interconnected and interdependent to acquire that car.  I don’t want this blog to end up being a 200,000 word dissertation, so let’s abbreviate: (1) the dealership and those related to and responsible for the existence of the dealership; (2) the person responsible for the transportation of the vehicle to the dealership and the company that employs her/him; (3) the manufacturer, those who work there and those responsible for its existence; (4) those who built the factory and all of the raw materials involved in that building; (5) the raw materials for the automobiles and those responsible for mining or harvesting, getting to the factory, etc., etc. (6) the earth in which the raw materials developed and the universe, most specifically the beginning of the universe, where the raw materials originated.

That was very abbreviated, but I think you get the idea. 

Now we can do the same thing with (1) the road that you traveled to get to the store, (2) the building in which the store was located, (3) the company that obtained and sold the clock, (4) the transportation of the clock to the store, (5) the manufacturer of the clock.  Wow. And we still have a number of steps before we get to  - you guessed it – the beginning of the universe where the raw materials originated.

(c) Science ABC

Think about this and then try to tell me that you’re not related to and/or dependent upon every volcano, glacier and tectonic plate on earth.  Think about this and then try to deny that you are directly connected to the beginning of the universe.  Scientist tell us that we actually have elements from the beginning of the universe pass through our bodies every day. We are totally interdependent upon everything else in the universe.

This same process can be applied to our own existence and continued existence.  There is the biological – our parents and all upon whom they were dependent for their existence.  Then there is the physiological – all the chemistry that makes us. Where did it all begin and upon what is it dependent?   Nothing in us is new or independent.  All of it has developed over the billions of years since life on Earth began, and that development is dependent upon elements and circumstances created by the universe around us such as Earth’s distance from the Sun. We are constructed of the most basic building blocks of the universe, came into being as a result of forces beyond our control, and survive only because of other aspects and results of this marvelous phenomena.

The only possible conclusion is that we are totally interdependent upon all of the rest of the universe.  Another way to say this is that we are one. We are one because everything leads back to the beginning of the universe, whether or not one believes the Big Bang theory. The universe is a living organism of which we are a minuscule part.

(c) Pexel

So, is there any application of this reality?  I would suspect there are a lot more applications than I can think of or report here.  Conservationism and Environmentalism are the first that come to mind; i.e. showing respect to the world and the universe around us.  It is to our benefit to be good citizens of planet Earth.

#OldConservationist

Truth about Nature

Nature is not the enemy. Nature isn’t just in everything.
Nature is everything. To kill Nature is to kill yourself.
  

New Seattle looked more like a plywood shanty-town than a modern city.  The City Fathers did their best. They white-washed most of the building regularly.  House paint hadn’t been available for since they evacuated Old Seattle, but even that probably would not have lasted well against the gale force winds that blew off the Pacific Ocean so much of the time. The high wall that surrounded the city served two purposes. It kept nature out and it protected the fragile buildings from the wind. The wall was originally a tall metal fence, but, as the need grew, concrete and building debris was piled against it to support it until it was close to twenty feet thick on the windward side of town.

This so-called city was built when the waters of the Pacific Ocean finally flooded the City of Seattle.  The mountains between what had been Issaquah, Washington and Snoqualmie, Washington were now islands and even North Bend was under water.  For a number of years the famous Seattle Needle could be seen above the waves, but even that had succumbed to the storms and toppled into the water.  The people had built New Seattle as a refuge. They had no idea that two generations later it would still be here. 

Plants and wildlife had started moving into the area and people were afraid to go out.  Some would occasional attempt to go out into the forest and never return.  From the walls of the city the inhabitants could see vegetation take over buildings until the building seemed to vanish.  Roads that once could be seen disappearing into the rising sea water were now gone.  At night people would lock the doors of their shanties and huddle together in fear; fear that was magnified every time a wolf howled. 

Tiffany Barnhardt had been born in New Seattle. Her Mother barely remembered the old city when they fled the sea water.  For almost a decade Old Seattle had built levees and retaining walls and pumped water out of the city. Her grandparents had lived in the hills of the city and had attempted to stay but they were finally driven out and their hills were now bumps of rock just showing above the water.  So the broken concrete streets of New Seattle was Tiffany’s playground and the often ruthless struggle for survival was her education.

As Tiffany sat in the park; which was literally a couple of vacant lots with some abandoned cars on which the children played; she noticed something green in the sand.  It caught her eye because green was not a color someone normally saw inside New Seattle.  Grey and dirty-white were the colors of the city.  There was no color in their buildings nor in their clothing.  It was like an old tin-type picture.  So, something green caught the eye, sparked interested and demanded attention. 

Kneeling down Tiffany saw a small plant.  She knew it was a plant because she had once been allowed to stand on the wall and look out at the forest.  It had been so beautiful, but she knew that it was dangerous and evil. Well, that’s what she had been told.  Now, here was a plant inside the city.  It was struggling for survival, just like the rest of them. It was so pretty and fragile.  She just sat and looked.

Suddenly a large hand reached down and ripped the tiny plant out of the ground. Tiffany looked up. It was a police officer.

“Nasty thing!” he exclaimed. “Good thing you didn’t get any closer.”

“It was just trying to survive,” said Tiffany holding back her tears. “It was . . . .”

“Was just going to grow into one of those monsters like out there and kill us!” the officer finished her sentence.

Tiffany looked back at the spot where the plant had been.  The ground was grey again. The ground was bare again. The ground was dead.  Sadly Tiffany made her way home.

That evening she told her Mother about seeing a plant, and how the police officer had killed it. 

“Why are we so afraid of plants?” she asked.

“The Elders tell us that Nature is seeking revenge,” her Mother told her.

“Revenge for what?”

“Well,” her Mother was a bit uncomfortable with the subject, but she knew that Tiffany was a bright young girl and would ask these questions sooner or later. “We evidently weren’t very nice to Nature before the floods began. I only remember how beautiful the forest was when we left Old Seattle. I was too young to know anything else.”

“Do you think that Nature really is seeking revenge?”

“I’m not sure.  As soon as we abandoned land or building the vegetation and wildlife took it over and what we had built disappeared.”  Her Mother sat down facing Tiffany. “It doesn’t really matter, Dear.  Inside New Seattle is the only place that we’re safe as long as ….” Her voice trailed off without finishing her sentence. Both Tiffany and her Mother knew the end – ‘as long as the food rations hold out.’

Her conversation with her Mother didn’t make Tiffany feel any better. It hadn’t answered any questions. Over the next several days she began asking questions around town.  Most of the people gave her the same answer as did her Mother, and all of them looked at her as though she was crazy just to be talking about such things.

“Why do we want to kill plants and animals?”  “Because they want to kill us.”  “How do we know they want to kill us?”  “Because the Elders say so.”  End of conversation.

Tiffany tried to go visit the Elders but she couldn’t get past the guards. The Elders lived in the large concrete block building in the middle of New Seattle surrounded by guards.  The guards told Tiffany that the Elders were much too busy to talk to a little girl.

On her way home, Tiffany literally bumped into an old man named Albert.  Everyone knew Albert. He was crazy.  People said that he had been lost in the forest and went mad before he was rescued and brought to New Seattle.  He slept in a hut he built from junk in a corner across from the Elder’s house and survived on scraps the Elder’s servants would throw out the back door to him. Tiffany had been told to avoid Albert.

“I’m sorry,” apologized Tiffany.

“That is very polite and kind of you,” Albert gave her a toothless smile.  It wasn’t pretty but it was somehow gentle.  He didn’t look crazy.  He just looked old, cold and hungry, like most of the rest of the population of New Seattle.  “Hey, aren’t you the young one who found the plant in the park?” 

“Yes, I did.”

“Did you like it?”

“Yes,” admitted Tiffany. “It was pretty and fragile. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. ”

“And it was trying to survive, just like you and me.”

“Yes.”

That was the beginning of many conversations. Soon Tiffany learned that Albert had not been rescued.  He had been injured and was brought into town unconscious.  When he wanted to return to the forest he was not permitted.  Every time he tried to sneak out he had been caught.  The two became good friends. 

Albert taught Tiffany all about the wilderness, the marvelous plants and animals and the beauty of nature.

Several months later Tiffany’s Mother was killed in an industrial accident.  Without a Father, there was no place for Tiffany.  A couple took her in, but she was made to work for them.  Tiffany ran away.  She ran to Albert.

Over a period of weeks, while hiding from the police in the back of Albert’s hut, she started looking for a way out of New Seattle.  She would go out at night because people were afraid of the night; afraid of the dark; and after roaming along the eastern wall, she found a place where they could climb down a portion of the original metal fence.  This was Albert’s way home and an opportunity for a new life for Tiffany. It was quite a struggle for Albert, but he made it down the metal fence and the two fugitives headed into the forest. 

Over the weeks that followed their ‘escape’, Tiffany fell in love with the forest. It was exactly as Albert had described.  Actually, she thought, it was far more beautiful and he never told her about the smell of clean air and the all of the magnificent sounds.  She loved sitting quietly and watching birds and animals.  She would watch as they came to the stream to drink.

She saw a mountain lion kill a small deer.  She cried for the longest time even though Albert had explained that without predators many species would become over-populated, begin to kill the environment by over-grazing and end up dying of starvation.

“Like human?” She had asked.

“Just like humans,” Albert had said.

She had watched a Mother Bear teach her cubs how to live in the forest.

“She’s just like you,” Tiffany giggled.  Albert just gave her that toothless smile she had grown to love.

As the days began to get shorter and the nights a bit cooler, Tiffany encountered her first humans.  The Elders had told the citizens that no humans lived in the forest.  They appeared rather strange to Tiffany, but they were nice and shared some meat.  Tiffany had never tasted anything like it. They told her it was Elk.

The people’s skin was rather dark. Probably from having been exposed to the elements for so long. They wore garments made out of animal hides. It was called ‘leather’ and was made by a process called tanning and used the tribe’s urine. It sounded nasty, but the garments were soft and warm, and many had been decorated with juice from berries.  They hunted with a device they called a ‘bow and arrow’; a string drawn between two ends of a stick that propelled a narrow stick, with feathers and a sharpened point, called an arrow.  The hunters made it look easy, but as hard as Tiffany tried, she could not draw the string back.  When they traveled they lived in strange looking tents called ‘tepee’.  The tribe had learned how to make them from other people they called Native Americans.

The tribe was heading south for the winter.  It was warmer farther south and there would still be game to hunt.  They spend their summers near the ocean north of Old Seattle where there is good hunting and lots of fish. They carried bags filled with dried fish and meat for their journey and hunted as they went.

Life was good for the tribe and the people were happy.  They had everything they needed. Nature provided for them.  Unlike what Tiffany had been taught all her life, Nature was not evil.  It was not the enemy. It was not bringing down revenge on the people for the sins of their ancestors.  Nature doesn’t show favoritism, so life doesn’t always seem fair, but, to the contrary, Nature provides everything every living thing needs.  Nature is balance.  Nature isn’t just in everything. Nature is everything. To love and care for Nature is to love yourself.  To hate and try to kill Nature is to hate and kill yourself.  The Elders had it totally backwards.

“The tribe has invited us to join them,” said Albert returning from where the Tribe was camped. 

“They’re leaving in the morning and said that there’s room for us, if we’d like to join them.”

“Oh, that would be great!” exclaimed Tiffany.  

“That’s what I thought,” Albert agreed.

The next morning as the Tribe was getting ready to leave, Tiffany walked up to a high point where she could look down on New Seattle. One of the young men from the Tribe followed her and stood next to her. He noticed her crying.

“Why are you so sad?”

“Those people down there; in that city; are dying, and they don’t need to.”

“Why?”

“They believe that Nature is their enemy when it is their life.”

“That’s sad!”

“Do you think I should go and tell them?”

“Would they listen to you?” asked the young man. “Would they believe what you told them?”

Tiffany didn’t answer.  With one last sad look at the plywood shanty town, so afraid of the world around it, Tiffany turned and joined the happy procession heading south to their warm winter hunting grounds.

“I am hopelessly and forever a mountaineer. . . . I care only to entice people to look at Nature’s loveliness.”  John Muir

#OldConservationist

A Climb into Palm Canyon, KOFA, Arizona

Looking up the canyon from the trail-head

The first time I every climbed a mountain beyond my comfort level I learned the real answer to the question “why do you climb the mountain?”  The effort itself pumps so much adrenaline that you almost feel invincible.  I wholeheartedly adhere to the position that the journey is what it’s all about, but I must admit to wavering a bit on that point when I get to the top of the mountain, or in this case reach the palms, and take in the magnificent view from lofty heights.

It was a clear February day when I started up Palm Canyon from the trail-head.  It was almost 10:30 but within a couple hundred yards I was in the shade of the eastern wall of the canyon.  I would not be in sunshine until I exited the canyon at almost 2:00 pm.  My original destination was the spot, which I read was about half a mile, where one got the best view of the palms that grow another 400 feet up the side of the canyon.

West wall of the canyon about 10:30 am

How these California Fan Palms ended up over 1,300 feet above the valley floor is still under discussion.  Palm Canyon is in the Sonoran Desert.  The Sonoran Desert takes up a large portion of Arizona and southern California and is also located in the Mexican states of Baja California and Baja California Sur. It is the largest and hottest desert in Mexico. The US has Death Valley for heat.  The topography of the desert is a conglomeration of low mountains, mostly under 9,000 feet, and high plateau.  KOFA is the only place in Arizona that you will find native palm trees.  The best experts can tell is that the California Fan Palms (Washingtonia filifera) spread into the narrow canyons of the KOFA mountains as protection from the elements while the surrounding area went from ice age to desert.

The first half mile was beautiful.  It is well worth the effort if you go no further.  I took the majority of my 110 pictures in this half mile stretch of trail. To my left (west) the sun was just beginning to strike the steep canyon wall. Straight ahead was Signal Peak out of which Palm Canyon was carved by nature. The east side of the canyon never did see the sun in the almost four hours I was there.  Sitting here writing this blog, 5.6 miles from the trail-head, I can look out our big back window at the distant canyon and see that at 4:19 pm the east wall is still in shadows.  I took a great many pictures of Saguaro cactus defying gravity and growing on the side of the mountain.  If I read the informational exhibit at the start of the trail-head   correctly, I was walking up the open side of a volcano that built this low mountain and eroded to create the safe haven for the palms I was going to see.

A Saguaro high on a cliff.

As promised, a little over half way up the canyon at an elevation of about 2,240 feet, 200 feet above the trailhead a half mile south, I found a simple brown sign with the word “Palms” and an arrow engraved and painted white.  There they were another quarter of a mile away and almost 400 feet above us. I had reached my goal and I stood in awe of these ancient survivors seemingly out of my reach.
Coming up the trail I had waved at a young man who had climbed a short distance up the east flank of the canyon. He approached as I was admiring the view and taking pictures.  We picked up a conversation and soon he was talking about actually climbing up to the trees.  As he talked I kept looking at the magnificent specimen high above us.  I had read that it was possible to get there, but I had never considered such a climb . . . . . . . until now.  “Why do you climb the mountain?”   I looked down the canyon.  I could actually see the cluster of white dots miles away, one of which had to be home.  I looked back up the crevice in the side of the canyon.  Pamela wouldn’t be surprised if  I did this, and so I found myself a short distance behind the young man.

The crevice from the canyon floor. 

We couldn’t see the palms as we began to climb.  He disappeared up the left side of the crevice. I decided to poke around the right side until I heard from him. I couldn’t see any reason to follow him if that wasn’t the right way.  Climbing around the right side of the crevice I saw a narrow passage. A short while later the young man showed up. The left side ran up to a scree field after which there was a steep rock wall.  He headed up the right side ahead of me and disappeared into a narrow passageway.

As I approached the spot where he had disappeared I began to wonder if I should go any further.  I had already climbed areas where I had to ascend by leverage, use of my staff, and crawling on my hands and knees.  Some of that was because of the terrain and some of it was my arthritis, but it didn’t matter. I could neither hear nor see the young man who had preceded me. I looked at the imposing stone wall and sadly decided that I should turn back.

The crevice as I started to climb.

I spent some time resting at the bottom of the crevice. The young man appeared.  He told me that, if I could get past the narrow hole through which I had seen him disappear, I would be able to make it to the palms.  They were just over a hundred yards above the hole and you could see them as soon as your emerged on the upside of the hole. He headed on down. I looked back up the crevice.  From the young man’s description and what I could see from this vantage point, I had climbed over 90% the way. The first time wasn’t easy. Should I do it again?  Obviously you know the answer.  Back I went.

Arriving at the hole it seemed straight up.  Actually, it was but there were some outcroppings of rock. I would scoot my butt up on one of the narrow ledges, find a foothold below me and a place to plant my staff. With that I would raise myself until I was standing on the ledge.  Finding the next ledge, I went through the same process.  I had no fear of falling and my hips were holding out, so I pushed on.  I only had to repeat the process three times. Other climbers could put one foot against the side of the hole and raise themselves up, but my hips wouldn’t let me do anything so simple.  Getting to the top had the first of two great rewards for my effort.  Looking off to my left I could see a palm tree through a very narrow passage. Talk about being excited.

The young man ahead of me just before I lost sight of him.

I had already been warned that the narrows was indeed very narrow and that I should take the radio off my hip.  I loaded everything into my backpack and started making my way through the narrows. It was steep going but the narrowness was what made it difficult. There were a couple of times that I needed to turn my hips sideways but my backpack would get me wedged in if I tried to likewise turn my shoulders. One spot took me several attempts to pass through. Then at last, my head emerged over a ledge of rock, a Desert Honeysuckle bush with its brick red flowers right in front of me. And then there they were - the palms. I had made it.

Moving around the palms growing among the bolder-strewn crevice wasn’t easy, but I didn’t notice.  There are some forty adult trees up there.  Many of them had charred trunks as a result of a fire almost sixty years ago.  Some fool had carved their initials into one of the trees, but I wasn’t going to give into my anger at such thoughtlessness and stupidity.  Just touching one of these giants, one of these unbelievable survivors, was a spiritual experience.

Looking down through the hole where the
young man disappeared. Vertical and tight!

I would have stayed much longer but everyone around me had started back down the narrow crevice.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cautioned people to always be aware of their exit – how are they going to get down. Well, I hadn’t taken my own advice. I had been so intent upon getting up through the hole that I hadn’t given any thought to my egress.  I decided that I needed to stay at least within yelling distance. Of course, with the narrowness of the crevice and the depth of the canyon almost 400 feet below, a voice carries a long way.

Actually descending turned out to be easier than the ascent.  I knew the combination in the narrows and when I got to the hole I would sit on a ledge, dangle my legs until I found a foot-hold and lower myself down.  There was quite a crowd of people down at trail watching those of us who were making our way up and down the crevice.  They asked a lot of questions. “Maybe I’ll go up next time,” one of them said.  I hope they have a next time. I went this time because you’re never guaranteed that there will be a next.

The narrows just before the Palms

First glimpse of the palms

The magnificent California Palm growing in Arizona

A Saguaro cactus with Signal Peak and Palm Canyon
in the background. 

A Day in the beautiful Mojave Desert

We arrived at Hole in the Wall Campground in the middle of the Mojave National Preserve on Monday, February 12^th. We had been boondocking about 119 miles away in the desert about seven or eight miles from Lake Havasu City, Arizona when the cold front passed through. It had hit us near Havasu late Sunday night and its chill was evident as we climbed from just under 1,000 ft elevation to our current 4,140 ft in Mojave on Monday.


Tuesday morning was overcast, but the desert was still radiant in its beauty. Pamela even noted that not having a bright sun might have given me an advantage when taking pictures. While Pamela was having great fun finishing up a baby quilt she is making for a new grandbaby, the mountains weren't just calling, they were screaming at me. Pamela was working at the table and able to look out our big picture window at Baker Peak a few hundred yards west of us. I double-checked my backpack, dawned my wool felt rifleman shirt, pulled my gaiters over my boots and headed south toward the trail-head for the Ring Loop. I was soon quite happy that I had selected the wool felt rifleman shirt – a heavy outer-wear shirt common among mountain men of the 17^th and 18^th century – because it was rather nippy. It never got above 51 degrees.

Rings in the wall to help climb up the canyon.

I had two hikes on my agenda, assuming that I had enough time. The first was the Ring Loop through Banshee Canyon and the Barber Peak Loop. Both trails were no more than a quarter of a mile from where we were camped.

The Ring Loop through Banshee Canyon is a one-mile loop which is relatively flat and easy for the first 0.8 mile. That's when it gets really interest and fun. The last 0.2 mile is through a narrow canyon that provides metal rings that have been secured to the side of the canyon to enable one to climb through some narrow, perpendicular parts of the canyon. It is extremely physically demanding and tight. It could rival my climb up to the palms in Palm Canyon, just quite a bit shorter.

The Banshee Canyon is a geological wonderland. It is a deep, narrow canyon. From the point I entered the canyon on the west side to the point I exited on the east side, I climbed at least 200 feet in elevation and the surrounding mountains were still well above me. The walls are pock-marked with holes, the result of erosion, some of which are quite large enough to be used as dens for wildlife. In fact, park literature tells hikers inclined to explore these holes that they need to make sure that the hole is unoccupied. A surrealist painter could not have created a place of such flow and mind-boggling imagery. I had to stop several times just to try desperately to take it all in. I could sit in one spot and, looking at the sheer canyon wall, see faces and science fiction alien communities built into the side of the mountain. It was nature at its best!

Top of Banshee Canyon, a geological marvel

While there were some beautiful clusters of the magnificent Mojave Yucca just outside the west entrance to Banshee Canyon, the Ring Loop trail through Banshee Canyon was the geological wonder for the day. The canyon's eastern side is no more than a third of a mile from our camp. The Barber Peak Trail headed off to my left and the Ring Loop headed back to the visitor's center to my right. My Bucknell Backtracker GPS device said that Nitsitapiisinni (home) was only 540 yards almost straight ahead. I set out eastward through an amazing live and vibrant desert. There were no less than twenty, and most likely many more, different types of plant life around me. I wanted to stop and admire and identify each one. That's part of the reason that I ended the day with almost two-hundred pictures. Despite my slow pace and frequent stops, home was soon in sight.

Beautiful Fishhook Barrel and Buckhorn Cholla cacti 

Pamela was still enjoying her quilting which included frequent stops to admire Barber Peak which was changing constantly as clouds passed overhead. We had a nice lunch together after which I headed generally north, moving along the eastern flank of Barber Peak. I soon picked up the Barker Peak Loop trail. Barber Peak is a 5,505 foot mountain that dominates this part of the desert. It is like a giant exhibit of a wide variety of geological formations, out-cropping and basic geological history. The trail circumnavigates the mountain, joining the Loop Trail and passing through Banshee Canyon. As I was climbing in elevation I suddenly came upon a group of Junipers. I looked in wonder. For the past several weeks I had been wandering and exploring the Sonoran desert in lower elevations. I hadn't thought about being at a higher elevation. I pushed the altimeter on my watch. Sure enough I was well over 4,000 ft. That begins juniper country.

A magnificent grouping. 

I had read in the hiking brochure that there was a spot about a mile or so from the end of the campground that had a particularly awesome view. This was my goal and it was phenomenal. It was a pile of large volcanic boulders atop a layer of volcanic ash, called tuff, that created a wall that, with the eroded holes looking like windows, appeared like a whitewashed structure. From this vantage point I could see out across a vast valley called Gold Valley. I could easily see three of the thirty identifiable habitats found inside the park. I would assume this because there was an obvious difference in vegetation. To my northeast was an open desert with no large plants and dominated by the ubiquitous Creosote bush. To my northwest I could just make out the edge of the area where the land rose from the 2,100 feet basin to our valley at 4,100 feet through Juniper and Pinyon Pines. Looking back toward home I saw the desert floor heavily covered with Yucca, Cholla, Buckhorn, Creosote, and a host of other plants.

Juniper at 5,000 ft. 

While Banshee Canyon was the geological wonder for the day, the Barber Peak Loop was the biological wonder. The desert is an amazing diversity of life, thick with plants and animals. The animals are generally unseen during the day. The area was awash with varying shades of greens and yellows and even reds. The beautiful Mojave Yucca provided the palatial effect. They seemed to take the role that the Saguaro fills in the Sonoran Desert. Mojave does have plenty of beautiful cacti. The Teddy Bear cactus just makes you want to hug it. I don't think I've seen such large and health specimen. The Buckhorn Cholla are magnificent. In the Mojave they are large and awesome. The Barrel cactus are a magnificent red at this time of year. Besides their impressive size, they add a wonderful contrasting color to the desert view. Then, of course, there are the Prickly Pear. Sorry, I think they are beautiful, hence so many pictures of them, but I can't help but think of dinner. (They are delicious!!) When I was showing Pamela my pictures and I came to one of a beautiful Prickly Pear plant she very calmly said "dinner". Then there were the bushes and grasses. The Creosote bush is a major plant in the area and is, by far, the one that has been here the longest. The Creosote is supposed to be the oldest living bush in the world. Park info says that there are colonies in the park that are 11,500 years old. There was a lot of Brittlebush and the deep purple of the Desert Rue was just beginning.

Looking out over the high Mojave desert there is an expanse of mind-boggling life apart from the phenomenal plant life. We have seen Blacktail Jack Rabbits and Golden Eagles, and the park boasts Bighorn Sheep, Gambel's Quail, Kit Fox, Desert Tortoise and the Coyote. So many people think of the desert as a lifeless wasteland. Even the desert tundra of the North Slope of Alaska is teaming with life.

Wall of volcanic ash. 

I sauntered another half-mile or so beyond the volcanic ash wall and its marvelous panoramic view. Realizing that it was getting late and I was soon going to lose light, I headed home. Even though much of the return trip was backtracking I still had to stop numerous times to take pictures of beautiful plants and geologic formations I had missed on the outward trip. It had been a most marvelous day. It reinforced my love of the desert. It confirmed why I am such a preservationist. It made me want so much for everyone to share my joy and my passion.

Buenos Aires Destruction

Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge is an arid grasslands on the Mexican border in south central Arizona.

My way out of the wash. 

I started my journey around 10:45. I waited until the temp was over 40.  I started heading due east. I watched my topo map and headed north-east to a spot I could easily descend into the deep and narrow wash east of our campsite. I put a small cairn by the place I entered and then followed the wash northward. The wash I had descended into starts well south of me and flows into the much larger and quite wide Arivaca Wash.


 I experienced all sorts of emotions. I knew this deep scar in the earth didn't exist until after 1900 and is the result of humans introducing invasive plants and overgrazing the land until it could not sustain itself when a bad drought hit.

While not as big as the Arivaca Wash, the little contributory I was exploring more dramatically showed the effects of errosion. The scarp would often be thirty to forty feet high. Because the overgrazing and the invasive plants killed the native grass when the drought hit there was nothing to hold the soil and store the moisture. Result, the water ran off more quickly, leaving the land dry, and started eroding the land creating these washes and causing the cycle to repeat.

Some of the eroded walls were over 30 ft. high. 

The wildlife was also devastated by what happened to the land. The hooded bobwhite and quail left. Nature was totally out of balance. As I walked along I found scat and prints; evidence of Coyote and a small undgulate suchas a Mule Deer. We saw a Mule Deer yesterday.

About noon I came upon a large grassy plain. By this time I was searching for signs of recovery. It was not to be. The grass was Johnson grass ( Sorghum halepense)  , an invasive species, with clumps of mesquite, also invasive here, and human trash under every tree. There were ATV tracks where ATVs are not supposed to be.


Actually the first sheep rancher who gave Buenos Aires its name, was the first to try to rectify what we had done. Now the US Fish and Wildlife Service are working hard to restore the land. It is a slow, thankless task. I salute their efforts and wish them success.

Human abuse is still a problem. 

ATV tracks in the Johnson Grass. Neither good.

Gandhi and King

I was just reading an interesting October 8, 2014 monogram by Mark and Paul Engler entitled "How did Gandhi win?"  It was a fascinating article which prompted a follow-up article March 17^th, 2017 entitled "Gandhi's strategy for success — use more than one strategy" The first thing one learns is the difference between "instrumental" and "symbolic" victories in the world of nonviolent protest and revolution. In short, instrumental is where you gain small practical victories, such as a change in a law. The symbolic victory is when you change the entire political environment so that it is ripe for significant change, such as a country's independence, getting rid of a dictator, or civil rights.

Gandhi's "salt march" was a 200 mile march to the ocean where "Gandhi waded into the edge of the ocean, approached an area on the mud flats where evaporating water left a thick layer of sediment, and scooped up a handful of salt.   Gandhi's act defied a law of the British Raj mandating that Indians buy salt from the government …." (Engler & Engler, 2014) It was the beginning of the end of English rule in India.


As a student of history in the early 1960s, I remember that many scholars felt that, after the turmoil this nonviolent act of civil disobedience caused, Gandhi really screwed up the negotiations. It didn't seem that the English gave up anything. But that's just how it appeared. Subhas Chandra Bose, a skeptic and critique of Gandhi's agreement traveled with Gandhi after the pact. Gandhi biographer, Geoffrey Ashe, describes Bose's experience on that trip. He "saw ovations such as he had never witnessed before. The Mahatma had judged correctly. By all the rules of politics he had been checked. But in the people's eyes, the plain fact that the Englishman had been brought to negotiate instead of giving orders outweighed any number of details."

Winston Churchill reaction demonstrated the truth of Gandhi's victory. "In a now-infamous speech, Winston Churchill, a leading defender of the British Empire, proclaimed that it was 'alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi… striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace… to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor.' The move, he claimed, had allowed Gandhi — a man he saw as a "fanatic" and a "fakir" — to step out of prison and '[emerge] on the scene a triumphant victor.'" Gandhi had risked his life and nonviolently gone after the ultimate prize . . . the English now had to deal with he and his people as equals! Now he could talk not just about salt but about national independence!


The authors point out that many scholars felt/feel that Martin Luther King, Jr gave away the store in the 1963 Birmingham Agreement, but the astute student realizes that anything they got in the Birmingham Agreement was a drop in the bucket compared to the big prize – the government was forced to deal with black people as equals. That set a precedence which would lead to greater victories.


I haven't finished their second article, but, as you can see from the title, it addresses the fact that to effect dramatic and permanent change you must use a combination of strategies. There is no doubt that the symbolic victory is exceptionally important but momentum is maintained by the instrumental victory, which generally gains its negotiating position via the symbolic. This is why we need young people, as well as the rest of us, participating in nonviolent civil disobedience providing moral, symbolic victories, while at the same time we need the highly skilled and motivated attorneys to provide the essential instrumental victories.


"Gandhi's victory in 1931 was not a final one, nor was King's in 1963. Social movements today continue to fight struggles against racism, discrimination, economic exploitation and imperial aggression. But, if they choose, they can do so aided by the powerful example of forebears who converted moral victory into lasting change."

Two articles well worth reading at  Waging Nonviolence, Org.   


#OldConservationist

The Agreement

     In a time not too different from now, those who promoted Capitalism and technology (CTs) were in a political struggle for control with those who were socialists and environmentalist (SEs). It really wasn't going well for either side. There were accusations and claims by both sides. When the element of the professional politician and super-rich was introduced, it started getting difficult to tell the truth of any statement.  Both the Socialists and the Capitalists were being played for the benefit of the One-Percent.

     In a move of sheer desperation, one of the sides; it doesn't matter which; proposed that the Capitalist-Technologists just take the cities and leave the Socialist-Environmentalists to survive out in the surrounding country.  The CTs would get all of the technology, industry and wealth of the cities. The SEs could have social programs to their hearts content and all be John Muir wannabes living outside of "civilization" and in the wilderness.

     Well, the idea caught on. Both sides were happy and The Agreement was formalized. The CTs would get the pesky SEs out of their politics and the SEs wouldn't have to worry about CTs constantly trying to destroy nature. It seemed like a win-win deal.

      Sometime later two friends, one a CT and the other an SE, met when the CT was found wandering through the woods not far from the city.

     "What are you doing out here?" the SE friend inquired.

     "Oh," replied the CT, "I just came out to see how you're doing."

     The two men sat down by a babbling brook under the shade of a large cottonwood tree. The sun was shining and the air was cool and clear.   The SE noticed that his CT friend was looking around with a sad expression on his face, but he said nothing.

     "I'm glad you came to see me," said the SE, opening his back pack and pulling out a small package along with a jug of water.  CT smiled as SE unwrapped the package, laying pieces of meat and some sort of root vegetable on a rock.

     "I hope you'll join me," SE smiled. "It isn't a four-star restaurant, but it is healthy and tasty.

    "Thank you," CT accepted a piece of the meat.  SE noticed how his friend devoured the meat as though he hadn't eaten in weeks, but he said nothing.

    "So, how's life in the city?"  SE asked.

    "Oh, fine," said CT.  "It must be tough out here. You doing okay?"

    "We're doing great," said the SE with enthusiasm. "We're already seeing recovery in many areas. We found that we do best as hunter-gatherers so we had to relearn hunter-gatherer skills. We really weren't prepared for that. It was rather difficult for a while, but the hunter-gatherer life-style lends itself well to a socialist community structure."

     "We are being very careful with electricity. We don't have any problem generating the power; there's solar and wind a plenty; but we know that some day our solar panels, wind generators and batteries are going to wear out. We're hoping they will last until we can find a solution. Cooking and heating are another problem. If we keep our population in check, we shouldn't have to worry about pollution, but much of our land has not recovered from the deforestation and other ravages of previous humans. We must figure out how we are going to cook and heat without putting more stress on the environment. We're doing a lot of experimentation with solar and thermal cooking, and we're exploring other alternatives."

     "Then," concluded the CT, "life is pretty tough."

     "Oh, no!" exclaimed the SE. "Not at all. We have plenty of time to explore and work on these issues. Each of us hunts or gathers until the larders are full. A few do a bit of farming. Working together it doesn't take long to have plenty for everyone. Usually we only have to go hunting once or twice as week.  Besides, being omnivores, like the bears, there is still lots to eat even if we don't get a lot of meat."

    "So food isn't scarce?" CT looked down at the piece of meat he was enjoying.

    "To the contrary," SE replied, "if we had any more we'd all have to start going on diets." The two men laughed.  SE didn't miss that CT's laugh was rather forced.

    "How do you hunt? Aren't you out of ammunition?"

    "Just about," admitted SE.  "We have to be really careful with ammunition and most of our guns are already useless."

    "Then what do you do?"

    "In our small group we have a fellow who has learned to make a really fine bows and is teaching others how to use it.  In fact, he and some other bow-makers have gone from tribe to tribe teaching the skill."  SE paused and handed his friend a piece of meat. "This dried meat comes from an Elk I saw him bring down with one shot.  That's been weeks ago, and we're still eating off it."

    "Wow," is all CT could say.  Being his third piece, he did take a bit more time eating.

    "We have people in our tribe who already knew about dressing, drying, tanning hides, and making use of every part of the kill.  Personally, I hate killing other animals for food, but we don't kill them for fun and nothing goes to waste."

    "What about housing," CT asked. "Where are you living?"

    "A few of us live apart from the common areas, but most of us live in small groups of  fifteen to twenty close enough that we can share."  SE had to frown. "Unfortunately, many brought campers and RVs when we left the cities.  Now we have to figure out what to do with them if we decide that  we need to move on."

    "Really?"  CT seemed almost relieved that they had a problem.

    "Yes, we didn't think about not having vehicles.  We're working on incorporating our RVs into their surroundings so that they don't have a negative impact if we must abandon them. Historically some hunter-gatherers in history stayed in areas for several generations. We're hoping that we'll have enough time to figure it out."

    "Don't you miss your truck?"

    "Naw.  We never need to go that far. Even when we trade with another group we all walk to a place between us and do our trading.  Sometimes we'll have ponies to carry the goods."

    "Sounds rather ideal,"  CT could not help but to admire his friend's new life.

    "Well, we don't have all of the conveniences and comforts that you have in the city," SE said, "but we elected to give them up.  Medical care was almost an immediate issue. We put a lot of emphasis on preventative care and there is a lot of good medicine out here - after all, most of your drugs started out as a plant extract - but we know that we're not going to live as long.  There isn't any bypass surgery out here and a lot of things are going to kill us that don't concern you.  We've had a number of people die who would have survive with your technology, but everyone I know accepted that reality before they came."

    "So you'd still rather be out here?" CT asked.

    "Absolutely!  It's a good life!"  SE was beaming.  "How are things for you?"

    "I have to be honest," CT hung his head. "I didn't come out here to see how you were doing.  I ran away from the city."

    "Really?"

    "Yes," CT continued. "we can't survive much longer."

    "Why's that?"  Actually SE knew the answer. He had tried to tell his CT friends for years, but no one listened.

    "Food and water have become currency.  If there is a square centimeter of soil, someone is trying to grow something to eat and having to stand guard or it will be stolen.  Pets and zoo animals were eaten a long time ago, and now there is even cannibalism. I can't tell you the last time I tasted meat.  City people didn't think about the fact that food doesn't originate in a supermarket."

    "Clean water is non-existent and air pollution is appalling.  People are living in cars that were abandoned in the middle of the street because there isn't any fuel.  We probably haven't done a life-saving surgery since the day the Agreement went into effect, and people are dying by the hundreds - mostly of starvation, violence over food and water and then from disease."

    CT looked at his friend with tears in his eyes. "For years you told us about our interdependence with all of nature.  Even if we didn't want to live in the wilderness, you wanted us to respect and protect the country and the wilderness because it was our source of life. But we didn't believe you.  We had been thoroughly convinced, by the One Percent, that technology could do everything. We were wrong. DEAD wrong!   We can't make water. We can't make air. We can't produce food.  Technology can't do or make  anything without the nature around it."

    "I'm truly sorry," said SE, putting a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder. "I wanted you to learn. Not die."

    "We have doomed ourselves," said CT.  "Soon after all of you left, we built a high wall around the city so that you couldn't come back."

    "You built a wall to keep us out?"

    "Yes. Isn't it ironic?  We built it because we didn't want you trying to sneak back into the land of opportunity."  CT gave a sardonic laugh.  "We didn't want you to come groveling back to enjoy the fruits of our labor.  The wall that was to protect us and our way of life is now our prison wall.  People are climbing the wall at night to escape."

    "The government doesn't want us leaving.  They keep telling us that everything is fine, that you SEs are practically extinct already,  and that they have a technological solution that will soon be unveiled." CT paused. "We know they're lying.  We're dead."

    "I feel like such a coward,"  CT continued after a short pause. "I went over the wall last night.  I drank water from a stream!  The purest most wonderful water I've tasted since the Agreement.  I thought I was going to freeze to death during the night, but I somehow felt free.  This morning I found these berries."  He reached into his pocket and came out with some white waxy looking berries. "They made me sick as hell, but at least I ate."

    "Those are Snow berries," SE tried not to laugh at his distraught friend. "Even the bears don't eat them. In fact, I don't know that any animal eats them."

    "How about that?"  CT almost smiled. "My first free meal and I chose a non-edible."

    "Are all the cities as bad?"

    "I think other cities are just as bad, maybe worse. We don't really know because transportation and communications have been gone for a long time."

    SE gave his poor CT friend the rest of the food in his bag.  There was nothing he could say.  For years the Capitalist-Technology majority had berated he and his friends. They had controlled government and refused to protect the sources of life.  Now they were dying from their own greed, delusions and myopia.

    "You can come with me," SE finally said. "Our tribe can handle one more, but I don't know what you're going to do about the cities."  SE felt ashamed for this thoughts. He knew that, if they were to open the gates of the cities, the people would come pouring out like starving locust and things would be as bad or worse than before.  He thought that, as inhumane as it might be, they needed to keep the wall to protect life on Earth from the cities. The cities were filled with death.

    "If only we had listened when you warned us,"  CT said as the two walked into the forest together.  As the woods began to engulf them  CT took a moment to glance back toward the city. "If only we had listened."