A Year for Parks

The year 2016 is the one hundredth anniversary of the National Park Service! For the past few years, the NPS has teamed up with the nonprofit National Park Foundation to promote this centennial. The promotional poster below (composed by their graphic artists) is neat and befits the event well:

The year to celebrate public lands began with men in cowboy hats challenging the very concept of federally-managed public land--in the form of the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon by an armed militia led by Ammon Bundy. Apparently, the Bundys have a utopian vision of a world where the Grand Canyon of Arizona is a giant uranium mine, and one can no longer hike and fish in the National Forests of Oregon, without fearing gunfire from the logging companies to whom ownership of the forest has been transferred. For the record, I put my boots on the ground and markers on the paper in opposition to Y'all Qeada, in a protest at Holladay Park in Portland, Oregon. (The Audobon Society, Center for Biological Diversity, and others worked to organize the event.)

There may be more challenges to public lands, and more armed crazies to come. At least one of my fellow seasonal rangers has told me she is nervous about returning to work at Yellowstone. In response, I noted that national parks carry many calculated risks, including earthquakes, lightning strikes, and falling trees. The Yee-Hawdists are another one, but we must temper our imaginations with reason. The leading causes of death in national parks are drowning and automobile accidents. (And no public employees were harmed physically in the Oregon standoff.) And, of course, terrorists seek to strike terror, so we must not allow them to scare us away.

Now is a great year to flood public lands of all types with your support.  I especially recommend going and playing in some of the not-quite-as-famous gems (such as Crater Lake, Timpanogos Cave, and Chaco Culture.) Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Grand Canyon will be PACKED this summer, so if you go, make good use of the early morning and late evening.

Recommended: Comments by Tim DeChristopher (who went to jail to protect public land) on the Malheur standoff.

A Good Home for Giant Apes, Perhaps

Since arriving in Portland, Oregon, I've been out for a few volunteer projects with Forest Park Conservancy, and also some with Friends of Trees. There's something magical about planting trees, or even ripping up wood ivy when it's needed, an intimacy with the earth and soil, not found by only tromping through the woods on a trail. I found especial reward in working with a team to build a fence (to close a "social trail.") From digging the holes to assembling the fence (which much resembles Lincoln logs for grown-ups) to tamping the soil into place to secure the posts--there's nothing like building something that you can come back to revisit decades later. (As I will keep coming back to a certain stone-pillared picnic table in Whitemoore Park in Morgantown, West Virginia--which was part of my Eagle project back in the day!)

The lush rain forests of the Pacific Northwest are so full of life. A fitting habitat for squirrels, weasels, bears (rarely in Forest Park because we are in the city), Sasquatch (if they exist, probably never in Forest Park because we are in the city.) However, much of the state of Oregon consists of  vast tracts of national forests, occasionally punctuated by a small town. Out there, Gigantopithecus might lurk in relative peace, dodging hunters and logging trucks as needed.

Wild animals are elusive. I have only seen a mountain lion one time in all my years of hiking in the woods, and they have probably seen me more times than I can count. In Norway, brown bears, having been extensively hunted, learned to avoid people. (Biologists even use the term "gun selection" to describe this behavior, which has also been observed in rhinoceros.) People presumed the bears extinct from many areas, until biologists gave it a thorough investigation, and found they yet lived. After this discovery, civilian eyewitnesses to the bears came forward to describe past events, apparently no longer deterred by prevailing wisdom. All over the United States and Canada, there are native peoples who believe that Sasquatch is not only a spiritual being, but a physical one as well. The Sasquatch hypothesis has gained more credibility in recent years, thanks efforts by anthropologist D. Jeff Meldrum, survival expert Les Stroud, and others. As happened with Norway's bears, civilian eyewitnesses to Sasquatch have come forward to describe their hard-to-explain experiences. Les Stroud has propounded the idea that if Sasquatch exist, they must be even smarter than big cats or bears. To have avoided confirmed detection for so long, they must have NEAR-HUMAN levels of intelligence. If Sasquatch is real, it could be cause for a loud new cry for conservation. It could provide not only moral grounds for forest preservation, but legal ones as well. The Endangered Species Act has long been one of the most powerful forces for protecting natural habitats--and it can only be applied to species whose existence has been confirmed.

What if Bigfoot is proved real? To gain some idea for how human society might react, it is wise to look at the past record. For hundreds of years, legend had it that there were "ape-men" in the forests of East Africa, with various Native tribespeople and European explorers telling stories of their close encounters. In 1902, German officer Robert von Beringe ventured deep into the jungles of Rwanda, and shot two of these simians. With type specimens in hand, biologists named the new species Gorilla beringei. They are more commonly known as mountain gorillas. Europeans generally mistook the peaceful herbivores for aggressive monsters. And, uncomfortably, these behemoths looked all-too-humanoid; they appeared to be "between man and beast." This discovery came at a time when Charles Darwin's revolutionary theory of evolution was still relatively new, and humanity still reeled from the blow to its collective ego--that scientific evidence led to the conclusion that we are animals descended from apes, instead of divine beings who stand apart from the rest of nature. Could the giant ape REALLY be our close relative? This question ignited a firestorm of debate in the newspapers and universities, which became known as the Gorilla war. Scientists and others weighed in, in a dispute focusing largely on the details of comparative anatomy, and representing the conflict between Darwinism and human exceptionalism. An American boy named Merian C. Cooper followed the Gorilla war. After he grew up and became an Airforce pilot and filmmaker, he became captivated by W. Douglas Burden's written account of his expedition to the island of Komodo, where he confirmed the existence of the "dragon lizards." Another mythic beast had turned out to be real! Drawing upon inspiration from these remarkable animals, Cooper conceived an idea for the ultimate adventure movie: African gorillas battle Komodo dragons, with a band of human explorers caught in the fray. He revised the idea to feature a single giant gorilla who would face off against both dinosaurs and men with guns, and fall for the charms of a beautiful woman. In 1933, Cooper co-wrote and co-directed the classic monster film King Kong, with stop motion maestro Willis O'Brien bringing the beasts to life.

Today, Kong is still a movie star, and field studies by Dian Fossey and others have revealed that real gorillas are among nature's gentlest giants, a far cry from the rampaging Kong. And the Gorilla War is forgotten. It is odd how quickly the cryptic "monsters" become normalized as animals once their existence is verified. The giant squid is a recent addition to the beasts of legend who have proven to be real. Perhaps some day, the Sasquatch will similarly be featured in Ranger Rick, Wikipedia, and the San Diego Zoo, and the fifty-year debate over the veracity of the Patterson-Gimlin film will be forgotten.

The name Sasquatch is a variation of sásq'ets, borrowed from the Halkomelem language. The name is often translated as "wild man of the woods," but a better translation is "wild master of the woods," (according to Les Stroud, as he learned from his "native teacher.")  Indeed, if the great hominid exists and has survived and evaded us for this long, he is a greater master of the woods than even the best human trackers and survivalists. His connection to earth far outclasses mine, but still I am still happy to be of service, in replanting small patches of the forests where he might thrive!

Recommended video: 10 Mythical Creatures that turned out to be real by Hybrid Librarian.

The Gorilla War is brought back to light by Monte Reel's recent book Between Man and Beast. 

Artist unknown on the old gorilla image.

Kong vs. T.Rex image was used for promotional purposes by the now-defunct RKO pictures, and is used here for educational purposes only.

The Forest Between the Caves

On the border between Laos and Vietnam, there is a cave so large that it can comfortably hold a city block, with 40-story skyscrapers. Inside the cave there is a forgotten forest, full of hitherto undiscovered forms of life. I must marvel at a forest in cave.

In between my jobs at caves of the U.S. National Park system (yes I have been rehired for Carlsbad Caverns for the winter!), I have ventured back to Oregon, to reunite with my ol' friend Lesley and the evergreen forests. So we can call it a forest between caves, from my perspective. Oregon has come to feel like a home of sorts, having worked multiple seasons at Crater Lake National Park (some of them alongside Lesley), and traveled along winding roads to through bucolic lands, and to the coasts, where waves crash and seals bask in the sun. America is still a nation of wilderness (although it is vanishing right as we speak), and Oregon carries grand examples.

Two weekends ago, Lesley and I visited Summit Lake in Deschutes National Forest, alongside her Tsonga comrades Jamie and Eli. Lesley lives like a true Homestead type, and drives like one too, with an old manual-transimission Toyota. It was late and dark when we ventured to the wilderness, along country roads (which had been paved for logging trucks) most of the way. Until we came to the final stretch, a road of rocks and pits. The vehicle bumped a boulder and got stuck. A figure with a flashlight came towards us from among the trees. As luck would have it, it was Eli. We were hung up only 150 yards from the campsite! We shouldered our gear, and walked the rest of the way. Once camp was set up, we returned to the site and jacked up the car, so it wouldn't rest on the rocks. Lesley had a scheme to build ramps of rocks and brush under the wheels and back the vehicle up and off its stone entrapment. I thought we should call triple-A (which I alone among our group had) but we would first have to go somewhere with a cell phone signal, a long drive perhaps.

I awoke and emerged from my sleeping bag at dawn, and crept softly from the tent, leaving Lesley to her rest. I scurried to the woods to dig a hole and use it for excretion. I found a one stick good for stabbing soil and another for scooping, and leaned them by the big tree at the campsite entrance for re-use.

Summit Lake at dawn sported blues to almost rival Crater Lake, and silhouetted trees, and exuded mist and more mist. Eli also got up early, and when a large pickup truck rumbled down the bumpy road, he seized the opportunity and waved them down. A father and son hunting team, in insulated flannel shirts, were happy to assist with our predicament. They strapped their truck to Lesley's Toyota, of which Eli took the driver's seat, and steered from neutral. Their big engine roared forward and pulled the little Toyota backward, and it was free from the rock. Then I returned to my project of making morning tea, first searching for the various components (stove, pots, tea bags etc) from various places in the two vehicles, and gathering water from the lake to boil. Tea, or anything else, is warmer and better when it takes work to create.

Running by our campsite was a stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail. We followed it for a ways, and then entered the bush. Eli was psyched for an off-trail bush-wacking hike to end in a secluded lake, and Lesley shared the enthusiasm. I was a little reluctant, but did carry a high quality compass, and Lesley brought a topographic map. I also made sure to pack warm clothes and firestarters and a surplus of granola bars, in case we found ourselves in a survival situation. Off we went, among hemlocks and spruces, past piles of bear skat, and weird mushrooms and fungi. Surrounded by trees, and then more trees, and more. It would be an awful place to get lost, with no stream to follow, and no mountaintop views of the landscape as a whole.

We didn't find the lake we sought, and so made a meadow, the site of a seasonal pond probably, our destination. The grass and moss was soft on bare feet, and rejuvenating to the soul. Like Swamp-Thing, I felt that I might regrow my body from out of the earth, and re-emerge in whole. Jamie hadn't trained enough for the hike, and was a trifle sore and ready to turn around after the meadow. Also, we should haul back before dark, and so we left the lakes undiscovered, for now.

It was a winding trip back, walking across logs and through prickly brush. The compasses kept us on an approximately straight line, and we kept watch of our topographic position. I kept expecting to see trail around the next bend, and we kept walking through more trees. The process continued for miles. Finally, to set feet back on the trail was a welcome relief. The trail felt like a familiar small town, the mark of civilization. We had experience some wild and raw nature; I would tell Tom Brown Jr. that I am learning.

That night, we made a campfire on a peninsula, and cooked and ate a blessed mixture of pasta, tomato sauce, potatoes, cheese, and vegetarian chili. The potatoes baked in classic fashion in aluminum foil on the coals, and removing them while facing the heat took the full combined efforts of Lesley and Eli. We joked and laughed and told survival stories. I was sorry to leave the wilderness the next day, but carried the memory of life in its pure form, in touch with the earth, with all senses engaged, where one must use one's hands and wits to stay alive. Maybe next time I'll reduce my amount of high tech camping equipment, and feel the wilderness in greater purity. But when I return to caves, my assortment of headlamps and flashlights--aka 'golden sticks'--will be indispensable.

Image Credits:

'Ross and Lesley' and 'Ross in Grass' by Eliahu Naftali

'Fire' and sketch of the nighttime trees by Lesley McClintock

'Summit Lake at Dawn' by Ross Wood Studlar

© to respective creators.

Bats Over the Water

When first I encountered a bat up close—close enough to touch—I rapidly sketched the critter, and wrote beside it “I am amazed by the live bat, how fuzzy its body, how delicate its fingers, and stretched between them—that's real skin! No photograph can capture it, nor can the sketchbook.”

The event was our first bat survey night of the summer season at Timpanogos Cave National Monument, sometime back in June. The Natural Resources staff run the operation, to discover what bats inhabit the canyon and forest. The method: find a quiet spot on the American Fork river somewhere in the National Forest land, and stretch a net across. Wait for the bats to swoop in for a sip of water and get caught in the net; handle with gloves; identify the species, gender, etc; weigh the animal, photograph it, record its echolocation call; then release the furry flyer. Not having had my vaccinations, I just watch (and draw and photograph, as I can.)

I have been to three more bat nights since; all have provided an opportunity to listen to the river and watch the moonlight draw patterns in the ripples, under the canopy of silhouetted trees and rockfaces. As for the bats themselves, the level of activity has varied. On some nights, only a few get tangled in the artificial spiderweb. On the second bat night of the summer, we had a bonanza.

We most often catch the small bats of the genus Myotis (We can generically call this group “little brown bats.”) These streamed in on that special night in June, but so did one hoary bat—a larger and feistier type—followed by another and another. These fellows don't take kindly to being grabbed, and bite and flail, captives to no one, not even the pale-skinned Kaiju. For hoary bats, two pairs of gloves are recommended.

Up close, bats provoke incredulity: so like us, as mammals, and yet so alien—with small size, skin and veins stretched like a latex glove across wings and tail, and a different sensory world by flight and echolocation. What goes on in their little minds is hard to fathom, and that such animals can exist can be hard to believe. We might seem just as strange to them, were they not caught up in the struggle to escape our clutches at bat night. Let us hope that they can continue to awe us, and escape the wrath of White Nose Syndrome.

Back at the studio, I made tribute to the winged mammals on scratchboard. I chose the Townsend's big-eared bat, which we see sleeping or flying about in Hansen Cave (part of the Timpanogos Cave system) from time to time. I intend to create more stories on bats, in words and pictures. I'll make the time somehow.

Third picture (Hoary Bat) by National Park Service, public domain.

Cascade Springs, in bright green and yellow

Ralph Waldo Emerson said “the earth laughs in flowers;” Gary Larson pointed out that the earth engages in sexual activity through flowers. Whether your leanings are emotive or biologic, there are a lot of beautiful wildflowers at Cascade Springs in Uinta National Forest, Utah. This past Saturday, it was my duty to deliver a guided walk at this verdant artesian spring (even though I work for the National Park Service.) The American Fork Canyon hosts a rare level of cooperation and partnership between the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service: Forest Rangers join the staff of the National Park Service visitor center, and Park Rangers deliver guided programs in National Forest areas. (The USFS and NPS belong to separate branches of the federal government, and have very different approaches to land management. Look it up on Wikipedia to find out more.) 

In preparation for the guided event, I visited Cascade Springs solo, and created the watercolor painting at the bottom of this page. Against the backdrop of purple mountains, the springs are quite full of yellow monkeyflowers, with aspen and water birch growing about the shoreline. Stellar's jays, hummingbirds, and western tanagers fly through and about; dragonflies dart through the skies in pursuit of tasty mosquitoes, occasionally a rubber boa slithers past. I took note of a web in the bush, the home of a tiny, almost translucent spider. I watched a small insect (I'll say a tiny moth) land in this web, and become tangled in its strands. The spider coiled back, and felt the web strands, to assess the situation. She prepared to spring into action. I got ready to see the drama of life and death which pervades nature at all scales, from spider and insect to grizzly bear and caribou. The moth thrashed about, ripped free of the web, and flew off. Also at all scales, the prey escapes most of the time.

My students a few days later were a few families and and a middle-aged couple. The kids were glad to learn about some trees and insects, and the art and science of field watercolor painting. (Or en plein air if you want to sound like a fancy artistic type.) And their mothers were not too proud to join and give it a try. I had one school teacher on vacation on board, and she could not resist but to jump in and help out with all setup and take-down. 

My next task was to rove Cascade Springs, and entertain questions and complaints which I wasn't much prepared to answer about entry fees for the Forest Service area. I also listened to gripes about the absence of running water (for the drinking fountains and bathrooms) at the Springs. I too was a bit puzzled as to why the water was still shutoff for winter, even on June 21^st. I noted that I was of a different agency, then moved further from the parking lot and sought areas where there were more trees and fish to discuss. There is always a bit of tumult in the oasis, and that is why we have rangers.

My watercolor painting of CascadeSprings is for sale on Etsy for $200. (Framed, free shipping to United States.)