Boreal B[l]og

“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” –Wilderness Act of 1964

I am alone at 9453 feet, on a mountain top the way I imagine it, a quarter acre, maybe half, no trees, drop offs up to 1000 feet on all sides.  Above me, swifts are catching insects, their swept wings making identification easy.  I am dehydrated after hiking up on a hot June day, the 32 ounce drink I had at the start long gone before I even reached Josephine Saddle at 7200 feet. I am more than a vertical mile above Green Valley and 5 miles from the trailhead.  A million people live in the area I can see, but not one of them is within three hours of me by trail, and that is the only way up here.

My thirst doesn’t matter; I am higher than any other person in southern Arizona, seeing a wonderful sunset I will never forget, the reds and oranges stunning.  It was worth hiking up from my Baldy Saddle campsite to the top.  I must leave soon, as it is starting to get dark, and some of the trail will not be safe in darkness.  I will awaken tomorrow, away from the rush hour traffic of a large city, in one of the wilderness areas of Arizona, the trailhead little more than an hour’s drive from my house.  Few ever see this place, the Mt. Wrightson Wilderness, my favorite spot in southern Arizona, where I myself am a visitor and will not long remain.

I have camped here alone in a snowstorm, warm inside my sleeping bag, hearing the snow accumulate and then slide down the tent.  I have camped up here five times, a lot of work needed to haul a pack up the Old Baldy Trail, as it is known, but every bit of it worthwhile.  I have taken day hikes, once playing hooky from work for a few hours to come up in a snowstorm, returning to my job that afternoon, completely soaked, but absolutely happy and thrilled to be alive.  I have hiked up here and down the other side to Gardner Canyon, because I had never seen the Gardner Canyon trailhead.  I then turned around and came back up and over.  Wow, was I thirsty that day.  I came up the north side one day and stayed too long, hiking down in the dark with no flashlight, in old growth forest, never once cut, an owl’s sudden hoot making me almost jump off the trail.  That was a great hike.  They all are.  I know the trails like old friends.

From Baldy Saddle, reached from the west by 33 switchbacks, I see Green Valley and the Catalinas north of Tucson.  To the east, about 30 steps, I see Sonoita, Sierra Vista, and south into Mexico.  From the top, I see all of these by just rotating, as is the Earth.

It took much effort to get up here, but that makes wilderness special.  I am getting my reward tonight. I earned this view, through the thirst and soreness I endured. I don’t yet know that later tonight, I will hear a cougar close by.  I need wilderness.  I can’t explain it or put a dollar sign on it, but I need it.  Periodically, I reach a stage in my life where I know I need to get outside and hike somewhere.  It doesn’t have to be long, but it has to be away from people.  I can’t prove it, but I suspect others might become happier if they went into the wilderness, even a short distance, where they too would not long remain. I think mankind still needs wilderness, but perhaps the need has been allowed to atrophy too much.  I needed Mt. Wrightson tonight. Right now, I need to return to my campsite.  The swifts call, still catching bugs, as I start down the rocky trail, the last bit of red still visible in the west.

Muddy and wet, I reached the end of the portage to Little Saganaga Lake an hour before sunset on a dreary October day.  I pushed the canoe off my shoulders, flipped it over, caught it on my knees and gently lowered it to the ground, pushing the bow into the water.  Wearily, I removed my pack and dropped it in the bow compartment, the sound echoing from the woods across the small bay.  I picked up the wooden paddle, grasped both gunwales, and carefully stepped in, pushing off from the rocky landing.

The rain had finally stopped, but once clear of a nearby point, the cold northwest wind caught me full force, as if to say winter had nearly arrived in northern Minnesota and canoeists were no longer welcome.  For perhaps the tenth time that day, I asked myself aloud why I was out here instead of back in town.  The previous day I had spent in the tent, rain-bound.  After eighteen grueling miles of solo travel through a dozen lakes and as many portages, I was back on schedule but needed to find camp soon, pitch the tent, put on some warm clothes and eat.

The lake, dotted with islands, was undoubtedly pretty in summer, but my mood matched the dark water and low nimbus clouds.  Only with difficulty was I able to keep the canoe on course as I crossed the quartering waves, the splash further chilling my mitten-covered hands.  I was therefore satisfied to land in the lee of a half acre rocky island containing a few groves of cedar and scraggly jack pine.  The campsite would have to do; it was too late and I too tired to continue looking for another one.

I carried the pack thirty feet uphill from the shore to a flat spot, then pulled the canoe up and turned it over, tying the bow to a nearby root.  I unpacked, placing food, tent and personal gear into three piles.  Grabbing a pot, I slid down the gravel bank to the lake to scoop up some water.

I lit the stove and started heating the water as I erected the tent under a small group of cedars.  With a half hour, I had changed into dry clothes, stowed my gear and had a few handfuls of trail mix with hot chocolate.  Marginally warmer, I obtained more water and started preparing my usual macaroni and rice dinner.  As I worked, a change in light heralded sunset, but clouds were too thick to show either color or detail.  The night would again be cold, but I hoped to sleep warm.  Eleven lakes and fifteen miles awaited me the next day.

Eating my rapidly cooling meal, I looked at the gray and rapidly darkening scene, wondering yet again why I had come out here.  At least I was dry and my tent sheltered from the persistent wind.  Had anyone been near to ask, I would have said there was a Hunter’s Moon that evening.  But I hadn’t seen anybody in four days, and seeing the Moon was far from my mind.  Under skies that threatened snow, I retired early, quickly falling asleep in my cedar hollow.

The geese awoke me.

I didn’t know the time, but I immediately recognized the sound.  I hadn’t heard geese since my childhood in upstate New York.  Their honking triggered fond memories when I was a young boy, looking up, fascinated by the formations, wondering how and why they did it and where they were going.  Realizing I still didn’t know those answers made me smile, as I listened to the different calls high over the island, heading south, away from the frozen waters of Ontario and Manitoba.  From the light on the roof of the tent, I realized something else as well.  It was clear.

I unzipped the tent door and slowly crawled outside, stiffly standing, barefoot, on the hard soil.  It was cold, but I was barely aware of the temperature.  I saw a brilliant Hunter’s Moon above the darkly forested south shore, its light rippling towards me across the nearly calm water of a wilderness lake.  Overhead, heading towards the Moon, were scores of geese, honking.  It was magical.  Knowing at last why I had come out here, I watched and listened, silent, until the geese were no longer visible and their calls blended with the light wind that just stirred the trees.

This appeared in the first edition of Firegrate Reviews, put out in 2010 by The Friends of the Boundary Waters

(The Echo, Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Chapter’s quarterly paper).

I’m deep in a channeled wash for at least the sixtieth time, alone, removing buffelgrass along the concrete berms and anywhere else I find it.  It is nasty, difficult and dangerous work, since rattlers are out.  I duck under a mesquite, noting its thick, luxuriant growth, put the shovel into the deep soil, and lever out another plant, a thorn nailing my arm again.  I will remove between 200 and 300 plants today, bag them, tie the bags, and with great difficulty haul them out of the wash, because there is so little traction on the berms.  Dig, bag, tie and haul.  Over and over again.

Buffelgrass is like Kudzu.  It was imported from Africa to Mexico as cattle forage about 70 years ago, and has spread like wildfire.  And that’s the literal truth.  Buffelgrass grows and burns hot–1500 degrees–and uses the heat to spread seeds.  The Sonoran desert is adapted to fire, but not fire that hot, so if buffelgrass crowds a cactus or a mesquite and burns, the native growth dies.  I don’t know if we can eradicate it from the entire American Southwest–Sonora is a lost cause–but many of us think we can, and in addition to my adopted wash, I help monthly on another section with other people.  I’ve taken out at least 11,000 plants, and as a side benefit, I’m getting a good upper body workout.

In one five day stretch, I dug out 1400 plants, using over 120 bags.  I gained maybe 50 yards up the wash.  Probably less.  In the past six months, I’ve worked my way about a quarter mile, slow going, as I hack, bag, tie and haul.  But I’m noticing changes.  First, if there is no buffelgrass around mesquites, there will be no hot fire if lightning strikes.  That will save a tree.

Second, I’m noticing native vegetation moving in where the buffelgrass stands once were.  We finally got average winter rainfall, and it helped.  Third, I am amazed at the deep soil that has washed down from the mountains; there are shade trees, quail, white-crowned sparrows, pyrrhuloxias, and black-tailed gnatcatchers.  Lately, the black throated sparrows have arrived.  They are difficult to see, but I hear many of them.  This wash with its thick growth is a park; an oasis, with condos, roads, and people just above the fence.  The above walkway is frequently used by joggers, cyclists and dog walkers, all enjoying the quiet, the green, and the lack of people below them.  Maybe it isn’t a greenbelt, but it is a green garter.

I could do without the trash; a sign reads a fine of $2500 for littering, but I wonder if anybody has ever been fined for doing it.  Some of the litter ends up in the trash bags with the buffelgrass.

This wash would need a rain we will likely never see again to flow bank to bank.  But it does get some water coming off the berms and from the west end of the nearby Catalina Mountains.  And even in Arizona, it won’t be developed, so if I can remove the invasive buffelgrass, there can be a dense growth of mesquites and palo verdes, good habitat desperately needed; an island of calm in a noisy sea of stucco and steel.

We must preserve the major rivers in this state–the Colorado, the Verde, the Salt and the San Pedro.  But washes abound, and they are part of the riparian network, too.  Visit one some cool morning, before the snakes wake up, and walk where you can.  Dress appropriately, because the mesquites are thick.  You may find you can’t even go far because of the growth.  That’s just great, because the fewer people disturb the area, the more wildlife can live.

Never thought I would adopt a wash, clean it up, and enjoy it so much.  Never realized how much life was in one.  Remember the little guys.

(Appeared in Tucson Audubon Society’s Vermilion Flycatcher)

6 a.m. on the Platte.  It’s dark and it’s cold. 

Upstream, I hear a sound like a jet engine warming up.  The high pitched whine gets louder and closer until it reaches me, and I begin to distinguish crane and geese calls among tens of thousands of birds simultaneously lifting off the river.  Because it was still early, and because I’m more auditory than visual, the intensity of the sound caught me by surprise. 

This was my third trip to see the crane migration and my first year as a volunteer at Rowe Sanctuary.  The Iain Nicolson Audubon Center has five permanent staff aided by many volunteers.  I’m selfish.  I wanted to see Cranes every chance I got, so I forged the following schedule:  early morning, while still dark, I snuck into a blind.  Trying not to freeze, I watched the birds gradually increase their activity, until the engine noise and the sudden explosion into the air. 

During the day I’d paint, dig holes for posts, set up rooms, take down rooms, hang things, fix what I could, try not to break what I couldn’t fix, run errands and wash dishes.  My dish washing ability seemed to be appreciated more than anything else.  If I got a chance to work outside, I could see flocks of cranes and geese overhead, with an occasional eagle and red-tailed hawk.  One day the redwing blackbirds suddenly appeared.  In the evening, I’d rush back to the house they put me up in, quickly eat dinner, and then return to one of the blinds where I would see the reverse, with the backdrop of a three or four layered colored sunset.  Once, I counted 10,000 cranes in a half hour, from only one direction. 

On the drive from the house to Rowe, I got used to seeing thousands of cranes in nearby fields, where they were eating waste corn.  Near the end of my stay, I spotted a large flock coming from the east.  High overhead they flew, spanning a quarter of the sky, sunlight reflecting off their feathers giving them a grayish-white cast.  Acting like a first time viewer, I stopped and got out to watch the flock pass, their primitive-sounding calls easily heard.  Cranes do that to me. 

Rowe takes good care of their volunteers.  Next year, after I tag along four times with certified field trip guides I will become one myself.  Am I lucky or what?  I will show people cranes and see the birds at the same time.  I was even interviewed for the Grand Island Independent:  “I love the cranes,” I was quoted.  “They’re large and they’re loud.  The first time I saw it I was in awe of the experience.  And I still am.”

The pictures not only show cranes but some of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever encountered.  South central Nebraska in March.  It’s a must see!