Nature Blog - Prompt Entry #6

The air in the mountains of Star Valley, Wyoming, tastes fresh with an aftertaste of pine. Every time I stepped out of the car and onto the gravel driveway, I knew exactly where I was by the way my lungs expanded more fully and by the tingling on my tongue. The smells were familiar, though we only visited a couple of times a year at most: earth newly turned over, dusty gravel pebbles, bark peeled back from the branches, and depending on the season, moisture from recent rain or snow. And among everything, weaving in and out of all other fragrances, was the scattering of pine needles above and below.

My grandparents built their dream cabin in the mountains when I was about eight years old. Every year since then (and a year before, too), my family and I have come to this quiet haven during the summer to spend a week, maybe even two weeks, with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins--especially cousins. There were seven of us whose ages went in order, and we were an inseperable gang of noisy, rowdy, inventive children. I was the oldest, then Mike, Nigel, Rachel, Eliot, Ethan, and Alexis. Grandma and Grandpa's cabin meant sleeping on air mattresses and giggling late into the night; card houses that covered half the living room; board games for hours; swimming and sunburning every day; fand adventures in the untamed outdoors. Each year, we begged Grandpa to take us for a ride in his 1967 Volkswagon Dune Buggy. Seated on the back of the car's frame and clinging to a safety bar in front of us, we screamed and shrieked as Grandpa tore around corners, up and down inclines, and occasionally drove straight up the mountainside along a rutted dirt road that seemed nearly vertical on the way back down. It was terrifying and exhilarating--our special treat. Star Valley became synonymous with family and with all the adventures and games and good food that came with being a member of a large and loving family.

In the early mornings, I would wake up in the upstairs loft and blearily pull myself over to one of the tall windows facing the front of the house. I watched as squirrels--our favorite one named Chester--chittered and squawked at each other, spilling birdseed from the feeders my Grandma tended. Birds flew in to peck at the seed, chirping their aubade to the morning. My favorite were the chickadees whose calls I soon learned to recognize: chick-a-dee-dee-dee. Every year, it seemed a new herd of deer had adopted the area and most mornings I watched a few of them quietly meander through the yard, ears pricking at the sounds of human life from within the cabin. One summer, we were on the alert to see the moose my grandparents claimed had wandered through several times. We caught glimpses of it through the shadowed trees and trumping through dense underbrush, but my mom was somehow always absent for these sightings and insisted that we had made it all up. It became a long-standing family joke that "faith precedes the moose." In the evenings, I sat with my mom and her parents on the porch, slathering mosquito spray over my bare arms and legs, while irridescent hummingbirds darted through the pine boughs to fight over one of the several feeders around the house. Nature, the natural world, wildness were all around us, taking away from the human worries and fears that I kept with me, allowing me just to be.

The first several years at the cabin were devoted to exploring all that the Star Valley Ranch and small surrounding towns had to offer. We hiked through the mountains, discovered small streams and quiet copses. We golfed, fished, and swam in all three of the public swimming pools. We went to the RV campground and rode the "bumper boats," boys declaring war against the girls, until we were too big to fit on the soaked rubber seats. We found favorite restaurants in Afton and Thayne and we visited the cheese factory that closed about ten years after we started going to Star Valley. We went horseback riding and several times made the hour-long trip to Jackson Hole. In the winters, we went sledding every day on the mountain roads leading to the cabin. Our favorite hill was a quarter of a mile long road that ran steep and straight and gave us hours of exhilaration and screaming as we occasionally crashed into the snowbanks lining the road. It didn't matter if we crashed or made it all the way to the end of the road--we always went back for more. It was a child's simple pleasure, the pure delight of freedom.

Once the novelty of exploration had worn off, we looked forward to the familiarity of activities, places, and people. Going to the cabin was comfortable, a retreat and respite. It had become a second home. We learned the rhythms of the house and recognized the sounds of where we were. It was quiet without traffic or busyness, but it was rarely silent. There were too many birds, squirrels, and above all, clacking insects to ever be completely silent. We loved to listen to the rain patter on the leaves and trees outside and plunk! on the tin roof above us. The wind was a gentle whooshing sound as it rushed past the tall pine trees surrounding the house and covering the mountain sides, usually bringing a much needed breeze to relieve the summer heat.

Only once did I ever hear complete stillness in the forest. It was late at night and the moon was full and bright, so bright that it looked like a muted spotlight had been pointed at the forest. I crept out of bed and went silently down the stairs and to the kitchen door. I let myself out, barefoot and in my pajamas, onto the front porch. I stood next to the stairs that led to the yard and driveway, leaning against the railing as I stared up in the silvery white moon. I could see the house, the trees, the mountains almost as clearly as I could during the day. It felt almost like I was looking at an undeveloped picture and at any moment the colors would start to appear before my eyes. I cupped my hands together and imagined the light was liquid, something I could drink and take inside me. It was then that I noticed the silence. The breeze had fallen away, the birds and animals and insects were asleep or burrowing where I could not hear them. The open space was too vast for sound to echo, and the slight scraping of my pajamas against the wooden railing or the padding of my feet on the porch were almost muted by the night. I rested, listening, breathing, drinking the light. I felt a presence beyond myself, something spiritual and sacred and very real. Aware of the mountains and pine trees stretching far above me, I silently greeted the world, unseen spirit to unseen spirit. Through the pine branches, I could see stars, glinting presences around me.

Nature Blog - Place Entry #5

Monday March 1, 2010 5:45 pm

Today I saw sunlight on Bridal Veil Falls for the first time this winter. Perhaps it's due to the lengthening days and the slow turn of the earth away from the North Pole, moving the sun a little further south every day. The pale orange sunlight was not strong enough to reach me as I stood looking up at the waterfalls, but it was there, illuminating the snow with a golden tint that stood in sharp, warm contrast to the blue of shadows.

Strangely, the natural light made the icicles look more frozen than ever. The direct sunlight made them less translucent and more opaque, winter's claws digging into the mountainside in defiance. I naively expected them to be melting in the bright light that has finally come after weeks of frozen gray, but no, they were clinging to the rock face more tightly than ever, immoveable, unchangeable, glowing, solid.

I thought I saw less ice and more cracks next to the bridal veil, but it might have been wishful thinking. The same large crack was there from earlier visits, but the snowpack below the falls looked as dense as ever before. The rushing water was crunching down the mountain, eating into the snow and ice, straining against what is frozen. I imagined its impatience with the long cold months, chomping at the bit to flow freely again. I know that's how I would feel.

Late winter and early spring often run together in Utah, trading off days and hours like the best of friends. It makes for some interesting days. We can have sixty degree weather for a week and then wake up Monday morning to six inches of snow. I've seen it happen, and no doubt it'll happen again this year. It dawned on me a year or so ago that it's actually a blessing that the weather freezes over periodically. If it warmed up and stayed warm, all the snow and ice would melt all at once and Provo would be flooded. With the schizophrenic weather, the melting can happen more gradually and we can stay dry.

As I looked up at Bridal Veil Falls, sunlight and rock and watter and snow and sky combining to complete the picture, I wondered how the picture would change in the next few days, and weeks, and months. How many more days of frozen icicles and when would the snow pack below the falls disappear, and what shades of blue and gray would the sky see before summer arrived to dehydrate all the colors? When would the colors seep back into the landscape?

As contented as I am with the evening sunlight on the waterfall and mountain rock and the glimmer of spring ahead, I know that one of nature's true allures is its unpredictability. And yet, it is also remarkable the same. The seasons shift and blend into each other, but it happens consistently. The weather may be something like playing roulette, but we can count on playing, every year. And though I know that eventually the ice will melt and Bridal Veil Falls will burst forth in a rushing, roaring cascade, I don't know when or how or what it will be like when it does. Nature certainly does know how to keep us coming back for more.

Nature Blog - Prompt Entry #4

Someone once asked me why there are seagulls in Utah. The question absolutely baffled me. Why wouldn't there be? Whoever I was talking to pointed out that they are SEA-gulls, sea birds, and Utah was almost a thousand miles inland. My mind struggled to comprehend a question I had never considered before. Why are there seagulls in Utah? Because....there are. I had never wondered about the birds that flocked menacingly at parks, eyeing the food and scraps of picnickers. The white and gray birds were everywhere, their raspy cries background noise to walks around the neighborhood, trips to the movie theaters, recess during elementary school. They were like the robins and sparrows that nested in my neighbor's pine tree. Why are there seagulls in Utah? Why shouldn't there be?

In fact, the California Gull is the state bird of Utah. It was made official by state legislation in 1955, but the bird had been a part of Utah's history since 1848. The Mormon pioneers first arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in July of 1847. Without delay, they hurried to plant crops and make the most of what was left of the growing season so that the next year, they would have enough food to support themselves. The next summer, however, their fields and crops were being devoured by a plague of Rocky Mountain crickets. Without the harvest of those crops, the pioneers would starve through the winter, and all hope seemed lost when in swooped flocks and flocks of seagulls to save the day. To those pioneers, it was a miracle from God. According to accounts, the birds feasted until full then disgorged and continued feasting on the crickets for several days "until the pests were vanquished and the people were saved." (Orson F. Whitney, http://pioneer.utah.gov/research/utah_symbols/bird.html) It became known as the Miracle of the Gulls. The Sea Gull Monument in downtown Salt Lake City commemorates that event, and I'm sure that naming the California Seagull as the state bird was also a direct result of that story.

Though that bit of folklore could be taken as the reason for the gulls' presence in Utah, it doesn't explain how seabirds are able to thrive in a land-locked state. True, the Great Salt Lake could act a mini-ocean, though it is much saltier than the oceans are because it doesn't have an outlet. As it turns out, California Gulls live and breed in lakes and marshes across the western United States. They migrate to the Pacific Coast every winter, but they don't need coastal climates or locations in order to survive. They eat insects and fish, but are also scavengers who forage at dumps and docks. This is the capacity in which we know the best here in Utah, and explains why they are so numerous at parks, schools, and parking lots.

It seems strange to me that a scavenger bird, often classified as a pest, would be the state bird of Utah, whose symbol is the beehive (for hardwork) and whose people are clean-living, frugal, and conservative. Yet when I close my eyes and listen to the wailing calls of the circling gulls, I can't help but remember what it is like to be far away from home. I remember what it is like to be divided between two places, two halves of myself planted in different landscapes. Year after year, the birds return to their ocean, home for a few months at least. Then back to the world of nesting and breeding and foraging and surviving. Many of those early Mormon pioneers came from the British Isles, and though they came willingly for their religion's sake, I'm sure they missed the sigh of the ocean, the salt of the air, the green of the hills when they heard the cry of Utah's California Gulls. They are scavengers, yes, but maybe they are also reminders of what is beyond, calling us back to where we have been, urging us forward to new adventures and heights.

Nature Blog - Place Entry #4

Sunday February 21, 2009 3:30 pm

February has days that are cold, gray, uninviting, and uninspiring. That is just the way of winter, and if there weren't days and weeks and months of such weather, we would be much less excited for spring. Today, however, is a winter day that promised beauty and light, making the cold glorious and the snow sparkle again. Mount Timpanogos dominates the landscape on days like this, the snow so clean and smooth on its crests and dips and the sky so evenly blue that it looks like a painted backdrop. I spend the day on the set of a movie, every breath fresh and every line even because of my surroundings.

As I drive my familiar route up the canyon to Bridal Veil falls, I watch as the mountains become three-dimensional, a process that still captures my attention and fascination. I have to remind myself to watch the road too. I notice the ridges that give Timpanogos its defining shape, the crevasses etched into the side facing Utah Valley, the carved out peaks. I remember what my husband told me after one of his geology classes.

"Did you know that glaciers flow?" He was very excited.
"What?"
"Glaciers aren't true glaciers unless they flow."
"But aren't glaciers frozen water? How...?"
"The pressure and weight moves them forward. Like, think of a river. If all the water froze but it was still moving..."
"Oh!" I exclaimed, the image and his words suddenly making sense. "Wow, that would really carve out a path."
"Exactly!" He was really excited again. "That's why Timpanogos is so disinct. It was carved out by glaciers and there might still be one up there."
"Oh yeah," I said, "when you hike up to the top, you have to cross it. Or slide down it, or something. The glacier. Yeah, it's there."
"But it's not flowing anymore. At least, they don't think so. It might just be a snowfield."

I had never before questioned the existence of the "Timpanogos Glacier" that I'd always heard about, but I did a little research after that. I found several reports of crevices that had appeared and disappeared over the years, lending substance to the case for an actual glacier that is still moving. However, during the drought years, nearly all the snow melts and leaves the "glacier" almost completely dry, which means it's probably a snowfield or a rock glacier. One site summed it up nicely: "By most definitions, Timpanogos Glacier is not really a glacier at all, but rather a snowfield. However, it has been called a glacier by climbers at least since 1916, so rather than break with tradition we will continue to call it a glacier here."

All of this runs through my head as I continue up the canyon, noticing the sharp lines carved into the sides of Timp that are mostly lacking on Cascade. Mount Cascade's sides seem convex, whereas Mount Timpanogos looks more like a bowl, steep sides with a scooped out middle, then flowing outward and becoming more gentle foothills. I can almost see where the glaciers had, millions of years ago, crunched and skidded and cut their way down the mountain's sides, leaving scars and spines and trails of jagged rock behind. It is strange to think of how vastly different this landscape would have looked millions of years ago. Strange to think it is old when it just seems timeless.

Driving through the winding Provo Canyon reminds me of the time it took to create what I see now. One of the most fascinating things about Provo canyon is the way layers of time are etched into the walls and rocks. The canyon walls and mountain sides have clear horizontal lines, compression and compaction literally shaping what I see. The darker bands where rock layer comes in contact with rock layer are thin, almost delicate, sensitive to the slightest jolt and jiggle of the earth's movement. The snow still rests on the stone sides, collecting along those linear breaks to highlight the earth's history. Just before I go around the last bend before turning off the main road, I see, as if for the first time, a curve in the mountain's lines on my right, a gigantic dip that defines the entire surface of the cliff before me. It is a geologic fold, a bending and curving of the elements. I try to put into words what it looks like: like a ribbon, like a slingshot, like frosting slowly dipping down the side of a cake. Like it is alive. Like it can be grasped, handled, stretched. If I were a demi-being, a god, a force of nature, I would be able to hold it and feel its irresistable pull. I drive past it, under the shadows of geologic forces that have been at work since before I can comprehend.

With my newfound way of seeing, I watch the water tumble down the side of the canyon, icicles still growing like lichen, and I wonder why the canyon wall behind the waterfall isn't more eroded. The flow of water hasn't stopped for winter, though it is partially frozen, and the freezing and melting of the water would be incredibly erosive, and yet the mountain looks untouched. The natural spring from somewhere above my eye line must have affected the shape of Provo Canyon, yet I can't see its fingerprints in the scene before me. I wish the snow would melt so I could see the shape of the canyon wall better.

I realize, though, that what I see is the result of thousands of millions of years of erosion and gravity and plate tectonics. The whole canyon has been carved out by the small Provo River, and perhaps once upon a time, the spring produced another river that slowly carved its way out and down until it became Bridal Veil Falls. I couldn't judge by what I saw now. Too much had changed, and events beyond knowing could really only be guessed at. If I could catch a glimpse of Provo Canyon or Utah Valley ten million years before, I probably wouldn't recognize my home.


[Here are some of the sites I found that were more useful than others]
http://www.summitpost.org/article/186144/100-years-on-the-timpanogos-glacier.html
http://www.utahtrails.com/Backcountry%20pages/Timpanogos.html
http://geology.utah.gov/surveynotes/gladasked/gladglaciers.htm

Nature Blog - Prompt Entry #3

Cascade Mountain watched over me throughout my childhood. He saw me play tag in the front yard, saw me ride my bike up and down the streets of my neighborhood, saw me climb and subsequently fall out of my neighbor's tree. Under his watchful gaze, I walked to school and later, waited for the bus. When I played imaginary games of unicorns and princesses and cloaked enemies, he indulged my fantasies and allowed himself to be the safe place, the source of magic, the eternal "far, far away." He was always, first and foremost, my playmate.

I could always gauge the weather by her looks and reactions. When she was frosty, snow catching on her sides in uneven lines, I knew to take a coat. When she was blanketed in white, I knew to wear my boots, too. When she was green, I looked forward to warmer, longer days, and when she grew tired of the heat and faded to yellow, I, too, wilted a little under the sun. She put on her brightest and finest colors for only a few weeks in the fall, but I danced with her and her falling leaves every year. She was a guide, a compass for my life.

An old friend, a constant companion, he was always there. He was firm and unyielding where he stood, and though the rest of the world might change around him, he did not budge. I took him for granted for most of my childhood, never questioning his complacency or patience. Overtime, I grew to recognize the cracks and wrinkles on his wide, large face and body, and when I close my eyes, I can still see his shape, mellow peaks and shallow troughs, rocky sides and evenly falling slopes, foothills that stretch out and make him three-dimensional. He was my protector, sheltering me through his familiarity and constance.

There were other mountains, other friends, but none that I recognized so immediately as Cascade. Their faces were vague in my mind, maybe one or two distinguishing characteristics standing out to me. Cascade, on the other hand, was almost as familiar to me as my own body. Though I grew up, it seemed she never did. She was as old as the hills and stayed that way, the years doing nothing to change her except her clothes. It wasn't until I left and came back that I saw what the years had done to her, millenniums of sun and wind and snow and rain. But she's still there, right where I left her, always watching and waiting with me.

Nature Blog - Place Entry #3

Tuesday February 9, 2010 9:45 am

I was as confused by the weather this morning as the weather seemed to be. At first, I thought the translucent gray haze that hovered over every horizon was more inversion smog. We've had a lot of inversions lately, which are when the air closer to the earth is colder than the air above, which keeps the cold air from moving and traps any pollutants as well. This creates a heavy smog that can last for days and is terrible to breathe. It happens most frequently in valleys, which is why it is such a problem for our small valley here. However, as I got closer to Provo Canyon, I saw that the haze extended upward until it faded out the tops of the mountains. Those were clouds, pulled apart like cotton but still thick enough to blend the earth and sky together. They almost looked like they had snow in them, but the sun was up, though weakly filtered through the strange clouds. I wondered if it was a combination of low clouds and inversion air to make the weather so unsure of itself.

As I started up Provo Canyon, driving the winding four miles to Bridal Veil Falls, bits of cloud start to swirl around me, single pieces of white that seemed to appear out of nowhere. They had gotten lost on their way to the blizzards in the East, and looked almost like leaves falling from trees, individuals caught on the same wind. The sun was stronger in the canyon, slanting from across the mountaintops to illuminate the north canyon wall in soft light. The snowflakes were coming from the light.

I was able to spend only a few minutes outside. I started down the trail toward the falls, but the wind was sharp, freezing, cutting, and strong. When I turned back toward the car, I was walking directly into the wind and had to fight for every step. I had come to observe, experience, engage with the natural world, but I had been turned back. Nature was too much for me today.

As I drove past the overlook for the falls, I caught sight of a small brown building, dilapidated and worn from disuse. It was all that remained of an aerial tramway that had been built in 1967 and traveled to the cliffs above the falls where a restaurant had been. The tram was the only way to get to the restaurant, and was known (though not confirmed) as the "world's steepest aerial tramway," rising at a 45 degree angle and then a 65 degree angle before reaching the top. My parents could remember watching the six-passenger tram travel up and down the canyon. I had never seen it myself, because it had been destroyed by two major avalanches, the second of which was in 1996. After the first avalanche, the tramway was rebuilt but after the second, the tram station at the bottom of the falls was abandoned. Nature had reclaimed its territory.

I looked at the broken station and the bits of history left over, and I was very aware of the towering walls of the canyon, their rocky faces, their presence and weight. I watched the powerful flow of icy water pound down the mountain, and I noticed that the wall of ice to the right of the waterfall had cracked, a huge piece starting to slide away. All around me were powerful forces: ice, water, snow, rock, and the pull of the earth. Human power was so little in comparison.

And yet, as I turned my car around and returned to the hazy valley, I wondered if the inversion would affect the air quality if we weren't producing so much pollution. Maybe our power and effect was significant after all.

Nature Blog - Place entry #2

Saturday January 30, 2010 3:30 pm

Today is the first time I've come to my place when it's been sunny. Last Saturday I came during a massive snowstorm and I didn't even get out of my car; the snowflakes were rushing past the windows in white streaks, the wind was bending tree branches back and forth, the temperature was dropping swiftly. Today, however, the cold seems to settle lightly on my hair and coat and jeans, seeping so slowly to my skin that I hardly notice. The sun is already descending toward the western horizon, but it is still bright, with the snow's glitter adding to the light. I have to squint as I crunch down the path toward Bridal Veil Falls.

I am following many sets of footprints, but I'm alone on this trail. The bare branches of trees cast shadows that are lengthening as I walk among them. The air smells cold. It is crisp and numbing and distinct. I can still hear the cars speeding along the highway, but louder than that is the Provo River to my left, a sound barrier between me and the road. It's only a river by virtue of it's being in the desert--it's only ten to fifteen feet wide on average. Its rushing rustling seems louder than usual, perhaps magnified by the cold. I break a new trail in the snow to overlook the flowing water, and am fascinated by the ice skirts that have formed around the rocks. Even the river isn't immune to winter.

The mountains tower above me, lifting my eyes to the bluest of clear skies. The peaks are rocky and stark against the sky, softened only by the slanting sun and the blankets of snow. They are majestic, secure in themselves and their place. Their horizonal lines of rock speak for centuries of history and change and stability. I notice cascading levels of icicles, the "Stairway to Heaven," on a shaded cliff face. They are bold and huge and intricate at the same time, seemingly cemented to the rocks and each other. I wish I could get closer, touch their frozen sides and edges.

A new sound filters through the river's hissing: it's moving water, but higher-pitched, distant, hushed. Bridal Veil Falls is still crescendoing down the mountain from the natural spring high above. It is two levels (a "double cataract" waterfall), and while both are still flowing, the second level (the "bridal veil") seems diminished by half. As I round the last corner and face the falls directly, I can see how much has frozen to impede the normal roar of the tumbling water.

The falls trickle down into a pool that has a layer of ice over it, broken only by a few rocks and the force of water still flowing. Just above the pool, where the water slopes more gradually, snow and ice cover the rocks but the movement of the falls can be glimpsed through small patches. A subversive continuation of motion, in spite of winter's grasp. I step back and survey the whole picture, waterfalls and icicles, flowing water and frozen pond. It is beautiful, nature at its most stunning, frozen but still flowing. Fighting against the season to remain true to its nature.