Bagging Parks

Today we watched the final episode (#6) in the Ken Burns Series - National Parks, America's Great Idea

If you haven't seen this episode, you need to. Anyway, the video touched on many themes from the 1950s through the present and it made me think of my own experiences with the National Parks. Supposedly i went to Yosemite when i was 5 and rode Sally the Burrow... I however, have absolutely no recollection of that... but i do remember my dad pulling over to the side of the road to empty out the sewage in the rv. Funny what is impressed upon youth.

My first National Park that I remember was Badlands. I was 25. My dad helped me move out west and the goal was after we visited Boone, Iowa, we would only travel on back roads, eat at local restaurants and diners, and stop at as many national parks/monuments as possible. My dad just received his Golden Eagle Pass which is a $10 lifetime pass for seniors. He wanted to stick it to the government and get his moneys worth. During the trip, my dad recorded the amount of money he saved with his pass so he could revel in the riches the IRS could no longer take from him. I honestly believe that trip brought me to where I am now. I also think the trip impacted my dad since he willingly did get out of the car to go explore with me Here are some pictures from that trip, and some other parks i've visited along the way. Enjoy.

Badlands

Mount Rushmore

Devils Tower

Yellowstone

Sawtooth National Forest

Craters of the Moon

Tetons

More Yellowstone

Kenai Fjords

Glacier

p.s heading to Utah on Sunday. An invite just went out for the following open listening session. I'm stoked:

10:00 am – 1:15 pm: Official Public Listening Session at the Radisson Hotel Salt Lake City Downtown – Join Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality Nancy Sutley, and Director of the Bureau of Land Management Bob Abbey, in a program designed to solicit your ideas about how to reconnect Americans to the outdoors and develop a 21st-century conservation agenda.

Place

In class, we have been discussing the creation of the park system and current park designations. For example, most of Olympic National Park and North Cascades National Park are designated Wilderness. We also have been discussing the concept of preservation and expanding park boundaries. One of the girls in my class mentioned that the going statistic is that 90% of people that visit the national parks never get out of their car.

The argument that has been brought up is "How can you convince the public to save a place if they will never see what needs to be saved."

So, in order to either bore you to death, or provoke something in your heart, I've attached a thought piece I had written. enjoy.

Home

Home: A place of residence or refuge of comfort. It is usually a place in which an individual or a family can rest and be able to store personal property. As an alternative to the definition of “home” as a physical locale, home may be perceived to have no physical definition – instead, home may relate to a mental or emotional state or refuge of comfort.

Everyone views “home” as a unique place that inspires comfort, joy or tears when it is discussed. To some, “home” is where they grew up, and discussing “home” evokes a wave of emotions as they describe what used to be. For others, “home” is their current abode that they are now raising their first child in. For them, “home” instills a sense of warmth and happiness as they think about the future that awaits them within its four walls. Then there are some, who define “home” as where there heart is. It could be on the soccer field, on the ocean floating in a boat, or walking on soft pine needles through the forest. For those, “home” is not confined by walls, but is an outdoor sanctuary where they feel at rest.

“The outside world slips away and I look around with the sudden realization – I’m Home” – Saul Weisberg

Over the past week, we have begun dissecting the various meanings of “home” and how this applies to the outdoors. In the readings, we have learned how the sense of community in the Winthrop area provokes a sense of “home” in one author. We also learned how “home” was viewed from the back of a horse while passing through the Pasayten Wilderness. The feeling of being “home” was fostered by a connection to the environment around them and the serenity that the outdoors afforded them. This connection then provided a need to protect the environment and preserve it for generations to follow.

As an outdoor educator, how does one foster a sense of “home” for someone newly exploring an area? How do we provide a platform for that individual to grow from in order begin making that connection?

These are the questions I have been struggling with for the past few weeks. In addition to these questions, I have been struggling to better understand how the North Cascades National Park and North Cascades Institute reach out to the general public, in order to invite them into the heart of the North Cascades. I believe that that the current visitors to both the park and the learning center are people who already have that connection with the outdoors and the desire to preserve it in its current state. But, what is being done in order to invite new people into the woods that do not have that connection with the North Cascades or wilderness in general?

One thing that I would like to focus on over the next two years is identifying and creating new outreach programs for the North Cascades National Park to bring in new visitors. While bringing in new visitors is only the first step, I would also like to work on programs to support these visitors to allow them to foster their continued growth within the park. During our discussions with Andrew Pringle, NPS Interpretive Director, he identified that nearly 40,000 visitors step through the doors of the North Cascades National Park visitors center annually, while nearly 400,000 drive through the park on highway 20. What can be done to have the additional 90% step out of their cars and access the parks? Furthermore, there are two significantly large cities in a three-hour radius of the park with over one million citizens. What can be done to entice those residents to journey into the park and have a memorable experience leading to a future connection? When taking public transportation in Seattle, you see photos of glacier capped peaks and mountain goats advertising the beauty of Montana. Why is there nothing being done to educate our local Seattle population that by journeying a few hours north they can have the same exact experience?

Last summer I was standing in front of the wilderness boundary at Slate Peak admiring the view, when a couple came up and stood next to me. At that spot, there was conveniently located a sign from the forest service describing that the area before you was designated wilderness and was a very small percentage of such land in the US. It went onto explain the benefits of wilderness and why this land was so unique and necessary. I distinctly remember the couple saying, “I had no idea this was even here. It’s sad to know there aren’t more places like this.” What I remember thinking at that moment was “it’s sad to think that no one knows this is here, and we can’t preserve more land like this.”

“To know the future we must know the place we call home. The stories of common landscapes are as powerful as human histories and as knowable” – Saul Weisberg

Hannegan Pass - part iii (the conclusion)

After getting my mind completely blown on rocks and ice yesterday, it would only be fair to give our minds a break and put our legs to work... so that's exactly what we did.

We headed out and circumnavigated Table Mountain.

The map above shows our route around table (kind of) and the proximity to Mount Baker

Table Mountain is a giant pile of lava that was formed approximately 310,000 years ago. The rock on Table Mountain is called Andesite, a close relative of Basalt. Basalt is in the "igneous rock" family which is formed from melted rock or magma. When the Magma flows out onto the earth's surface (lava), it will quickly crystallize and cool into rock. When this happens, it creates these columns that can look like this:

not table mountain, just an example.

So, fun fact. The reason that Table Mountain has received its namesake is because of the flat top surface from the original thick lava flow. Some geologists actually think that the Table Mountain lava flow was so thick that it must have flowed into a constraining canyon. Also, if you look at Table, you'll see that some of the andesite columns jut out all over the place, and they believe this was caused by a glacier that constrained the flow.

So, here was the view of Mount Baker after we reached the top of Herman Saddle

Table Mountain is the peak to the left, and Mount Baker is in the background

Okay. So, to move away from Table Mountain and Andesite/volcanic remnants, i'll return back to the trail i hate most: Hannegan Pass.

Hannegan Pass was on the path to redemption until we learned about the rock that made up the area. Here's a quick easy to understand description from my book:
As the trail to Hannegan Pas ascends the avalanche-scoured slopes of upper Ruth Creek, the dark cliffs of Mount Sefrit rise impressively across the creek to the southwest. Most of this mountain is underlain by a dark gabbro pluton of the Chiliwack batholith, a rock richer in iron, mangesium, and calcium then most of the other batholithic rocks. The Mount Sefrit gabbro is the slowly cooled, coarse-grained equivalent of basalt and could represent the primordial subduction zone melt that fed the Chilliwack batholith, but without the compositional changes induced by magmatic differentiation. (Geology of the North Cascades - pg. 99)

Yep, that totally made sense.

so, quick definitions (if you haven't figured out yet, this post is more for me trying to understand then keeping your attention)
Gabbro - when basaltic magma crystallizes slowly but without differentiation. The plutonic equivalent of basalt.
batholith - Very large mass of slowly cooled intrusive igneous rock. Must be at least 50 square miles in exposed area
Chilliwack batholith - an area of exposed rock north of the Chilliwack River.
Subduction - Process of one crustal plate sliding down and below another crustal plate as the two converge.
Subduction Zone - the area between the two plates, somewhat like a giant thrust fault.
Magmatic Differentiation - When magma begins to crystallize, the first crystals to form are commonly those of minerals richer in iron, magnesium, and calcium. These are dark minerals (hornblende, pyroxene & calcium rich plagioclase feldspar). As a result, the remaining melt has proportionately less iron, magnesium and calcium and relatively more elements such as sodium, aluminum and silicon. So, when the melt from the magma chamber reaches the earth, it can turn into any of those types of rocks based on whatever stage the magma was in the differentiation process.

WHEW. so, now that entire paragraph on one single section of one trail, kind of makes sense... until you look at this picture and see quartz.

anyway, I'll end this post with one cool piece of information i learned from my geology book:
A black outcrop of rock sticking through the glacier near the summit of Ruth Mountain is made up of black phyllite rubble, now cementer together. This mass of older rock is a remnant of a landslide that slid off the Hannegan Caldera walls when the volcano was erupting. This occurred about 4 million years ago.

Hannegan Pass - part ii

So, on Thursday we pull up to Hannegan pass where low and behold it was socked in. shocking. However, something miraculous happened.

The state department got the memo that their trail sucked and fixed it.

no lie

no rock falls

no devils club

no feeling of death and despair by its users


instead, it was nicely redone, and even came with a new sign!

Anyway, we met with our grad students who were going to teach us about glaciology and rocks. Here are some fun facts:

.01 million years ago - latest ice age in Puget Sound
.03 million years ago - mt. baker as we know it was formed
.03 - .05 million years ago - ptarmigan ridge & black buttes formed
1.1 million years ago - Kulshan Caldera was formed
4.4 million years ago - Hannegan Caldera was formed
35 million years ago - Cascade Volcanic Arc was formed
90 million years ago - Terranes of non-native rock transported by faults to N. Cascades
1600 million years ago - oldest existing rocks in N. Cascades

so, the reason im just putting in this quick timeline is to show you how wacked out this placed is. And by that i mean, there are so many rock types, formations and miscellaneous whatnot in the North Cascades that it's a geologists dream (or a grad students nightmare). You look over at table mountain and the area surrounding Mount Baker and you see these amazing basalt columns, remnants of it's volcanic life. Then you look the other way and you see Shuksan that is made up of a completely different rock type called Schist.

Just to clearly display some of the different rock types and how my mind is completely blown right now, here are some general explanations that will hopefully clear everything up for you (but mostly for me)




yep. totally makes sense.

rocks & ice

No, i'm not referencing the magazine, but instead our teaching topic for last Thursday: rocks and ice of the North Cascades.

Our original plan was to hike out on ptarmagin ridge, which is a ridge up to Mount Baker, but we were thwarted by crappy 50 degree weather in July. Not only was it 50 degrees, Heather Meadows was essentially in a cloud, so you could barely see the next car parked next to you. So, sighting glaciers and rock formations in the distance was obviously going to be a long shot.

So, we made due and went to the trail that i would honestly consider my arch nemesis: Hannegan Pass. This trail and i have history. bad history. quick explanation:
July 2009 - my trail running book expounded on the natural beauty and exquisite trails of the Hannegan Pass trail with a solid running grade and 2000 feet of vertical over 4.5 miles to this pass. Well, the book lied. a lot. this is what happened:
1. the road to the trail was closed. This meant, i had to run 5 miles up the damn road to get to the trail head.
2. once on the trail, it was so over grown with devils club & stinging nettles that my legs were in pain and swollen within the first 5 minutes.
3. there were numerous ROCK slides that had occurred since the book was written, and very little trail work, so i spent more time climbing over rocks then actually running on a trail.

it was so bad, i turned around nearly on the brink of tears, ran out to the main road and then hitchhiked back to Glacier. My dad has a good story about what ensued after that, but lets just leave it with me apologizing for still not paying him back for the $30 collect call he accepted.

Februaryish 2010: Ruth Mountain

I thought I was going to die. I'm pretty sure that Frankie still chooses not to speak to me about this trip based solely on my desire to have someone pull me through the woods and up this mountain. It all started when i couldn't side hill on my skis. Actually, scratch that. It started when i didn't sleep the night before because of a dog, and then had to get up at 5am for this tour.

back to the story

once we got to the trailhead, we started traveling up the valley, and i couldn't side hill to save my life on my skis, so i started boot packing. But this is only after i slid down some death ice wall to alder zone. Really, i only fell about 5 feet, but i was tired and upset. I then just booted the rest of the time up to the saddle right below Ruth Mountain. Then an argument between our trip leader and newly self designated trip leader ensued, people went separate ways and i stayed put in the saddle with someone else. Then, after the summit attempt was made, we rode down a few thousand feet, which was fun, but then had to hike back out the 5 miles of avy debris and rock slide disaster. We got back to the car 12 hours later and i passed out in the parking lot.

Here are some of the photos to survive that trip.






which brings me to Thursday morning. and i'll leave that for tomorrow.

Going to Utah!

So, my tickets have been purchased, and next weekend i'll be heading down to the grand old city of Salt Lake. I'll be impressed with their large city block system and the magnificent way that the valley holds in the smog of the oil refineries surrounding the city. I'll marvel at the city center where a ginormous church stands, and supposedly you need special underwear to enter on sundays.

Really though, i actually am excited. I'll be going to continue work with the Eco-Working Group and to present the approved phase 1 documents for the Product Manufacturing Sub-Group. I've worked with the EWG for over two years, so it's really exciting for me to finally see the work that both myself and many many others have done is finally out there for our first round of public review.

So, if you happen to be at OR or in the Salt Lake area on August 2nd & 3rd, come on by the Eco-Working Group Seminar at the Marriot downtown. Information provided by the OIA/EWG is as follows:

Eco Index Pilot Program Announced
In order to gather the stakeholder feedback necessary to refine the Eco Index in advance of the formal Phase 1 launch (anticipated early 2011), a pilot program will be conducted, set to begin in August 2010. The pilot program will allow outdoor industry companies to test the Eco Index in its current form and provide feedback to ensure its usability. Details on the pilot program will be confirmed shortly. If your company is interested in participating, please email Beth Jensen, Corporate Responsibility Manager, OIA at bjensen@outdoorindustry.org .

Pilot program participants are strongly encouraged to attend one of the Eco Index workshops at Outdoor Retailer Summer Market in Salt Lake City:

Monday, August 2: 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Eco Index Workshop — This four-hour workshop is aimed at training suppliers and product designers how to use the Eco Index and will include an overview of the pilot program. The workshop will be held at the Downtown Marriott, Salons D-E. Register here. http://www.outdoorindustry.org/events.php?category_id=3

Tuesday, August 3: Noon - 1:30 p.m.
Eco Index Seminar: Brands — This seminar is aimed at educating outdoor brands about the Eco Index, and will be held at the Downtown Marriott, Salon F. Register here.

Thursday, August 5: Noon - 1:30 p.m.
Eco Index Seminar: Suppliers — This seminar is aimed at suppliers and will be held at the Downtown Marriott, Salon F. Register here.


More information on the Eco-Working group can be found here.

Ode to my dad

He sent me this email last week, which was so fantastic i just needed to share:

Subject: Organic to the Max

By the way back from the 1000 islands we took a little country road to Watertown and saw a sign for adirondack chairs and took the turn and arrived at an Amish farm. No electricity , one of the 12 children was splitting wood, another who was about 4 was on top of a huge draft horse which his older brother was leading and were in the process of plowing out weeds. we bought two chairs made of Canadian white cedar for $80 each and a dozen homemade sugar cookies for $2...Nice to see people who can still live "comfortably" carbon free(except for fire wood and horse shit)...Not sure if they read any books except the bible so what do they really know? Reflect on that! Love Dad