Time for Some Campaignin'

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Hike China

With the Olympics just a few days away I thought it would be interesting to ponder what backpacking around China might be like. Well, here's a guy that wondered the same thing after seeing an email containing some rather improbably photographs of a "trail" in central China classified as the "world's most dangerous".

Here's a great video of what he saw when he travelled to China to learn for himself the truth of this provocative email forward:



Someday we'll hike that trail!

Summer Hummer

Black-chinned Hummingbird, female

Arizona Monsoon and a Spider

The monsoon activity this season has been particularly colorful, with lots of fun fireworks. Here's a sample of images from last night's storm system.





The lightning was concentrated just over the horizon, so my attempts at capturing a nice bolt weren't quite as successful as I'd hoped. These pictures remind me more of some of the scenes from the recent "War of the Worlds" movie than anything else. I kept expecting one of the machines to rise up over the ridge at any moment.

After the storm we had a visitor to our back step. Might be our last tarantula before we leave in a little over a week.

McCain's Also a Liar!

Either that or:

1) He's already as senile as Ronald Reagan was when he left office; or,

2) He's as big a moron as the current Idiot-in-Chief.

Just watch...

McCain is a Traitor!

I decided to find out what the networks were saying about Obama's trip overseas, so I turned on the CBS Evening News. There I saw Katie Couric interviewing both Obama and Senator McCain. And I must tell you I was SHOCKED when I saw McCain. There he was, sitting in New Hampshire, condescending smile spreading across his ancient, wrinkley features, when I noticed something missing from his lapel. No American flag pin.

He's refusing to wear an American flag lapel pin! Can you believe the audacity of this traitor?!? How dare he show himself in public without draping himself in red, white and blue?!? Don't believe me? Here's the proof (click the image for a larger version):

It's disgusting. I can't believe he still calls himself an American. If this isn't proof that he hates America, I don't know what is!



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See how ridiculous that sounds? It's an ugly, stupid, tacky lapel pin that demonstrates absolutely nothing about how patriotic or unpatriotic someone is. And what's with the double-standard? If the media is determined to hold Obama's feet to the fire on such a meaningless triviality, they should do the same for McCain.

Speaking of which, I was appalled watching Katie Couric's interviews with Obama and McCain on CBS Evening News this weekend. She was playing hardball with Obama left and right, throwing him different variations of the same damn question trying to force him to screw up (which he didn't, by the way. tee hee!).

Meanwhile, she lobs stupid softball questions to McCain like, "You seem frustrated with Senator Obama. Why?" and "Why do you think Obama doesn't think the surge is working?" It was laughable, really. And no different than the coddling way the press has treated Bush for the last seven years.

Katie Couric should be ashamed of herself. How she can justify calling herself a journalist after that blatant display of pandering to the whining right-wingers ("boo hoo, Obama is getting all the press, I want my mommy!") is beyond me.

I encourage anyone who prefers intelligent, honest and responsible journalism to boycott CBS "News" until they hire a journalist who has a little integrity.

Fire in the Sky

The monsoon is in full swing now, which means that the evening skies tend to be filled with storm clouds. I glanced outside about an hour ago and everything had a subdued orange tint, not that different than what it was like in Fairbanks when the city was shrouded in wildfire smoke. No wildfires tonight, though. Just a brilliant sunset illuminating the monsoon storms.

And behind our house was this monster cell. Although it looks more menacing than I think it actually is. We only spotted one flash of lightning in the 30 minutes we were outside with the dogs.

My task over the next two weeks is to try to capture some pictures of some of the lightning storms that we get, like this guy did.

I was playing around with the flash on our way back to the house this evening and got this photo of Sonja (the ghostly figure standing to the right of the yield sign) with Harvey and Luna. I thought it was interesting that Harvey's eyes glow orange, while Luna's glow green. Cool, huh?

¡Viva la Mexico!

Because we will be leaving Arizona at the beginning of August, we thought it was about time we ventured south of the border. Besides, Sonja had never been there and we just couldn't justify living in the Grand Canyon State for nearly two years without going to Mexico at least once. We did have another excuse to go, though, since some friends of ours wanted to throw us a party before we left. I mean, how can you pass up free cake and margaritas??

We didn't go very far into Mexico (I think if we had actually measured the distance we traveled from the border fence it wouldn't even come to a quarter mile), but we were officially on the "other side."

That wall is a depressing reminder of the ugly side of our country's immigration issue. It's also a stark reminder that many Americans view our southern neighbors with a great deal of mistrust and more than a little contempt. But the four of us (we went with Andy and Matt, two friends from Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument) all had a great time.

At lunch, the very first thing our waiter brought to our table (before any chips, water, or even menus!) was four shots of one of Mexico's most famous commodities. As a result, Sonja got to "enjoy" her first ever shot of tequila! She was actually disappointed to discover that it didn't really taste like much.

As always (sheesh, I've been to Mexico twice now and I make it sound like I go every weekend), the contrast between the American side and the Mexican side of the border was quite pronounced. Not that you can tell from this picture, but everything just "felt" like we were in another country, even when we were standing right next to the wall, with the U.S. just an easy egg toss away. I can't really explain why, but I like it. Not the obvious poverty that surrounds you, of course, but the sensation that you have crossed an imaginary, yet very real boundary between two completely different worlds. It's an experience far too few Americans get to have.

Too bad the experience crossing the other border (the one we'll be moving next to) doesn't provide the same experience. Unless you count the sudden appearance of Tim Horton's on every street corner and poutine on every menu.

Nah, not the same.

Madera Revisited...One Last Time

One of things I'm really going to miss about living in Arizona is the (relative) ease with which one can access some of North America's premiere birding hot spots. Take Madera Canyon, for instance. I've been there three times in the last four months and have seen some of the most amazing birds I've ever encountered. Sure, it's a three hour drive to get there. But the payoff is so worth it.

This trip was no different. Sonja had to work which meant I was going it alone. I don't think she minded all that much, though. She seemed to be getting a little tired of driving so far just to go birding. I left home around 3:30am in order to make it to the canyon before the heat of the day. As it turned out, I could have left an hour or two later and had just as much success, considering how quiet it was for the first couple of hours.

The morning started out exciting, though, as I spotted what I thought was one of my three main target species for the day, a White-eared Hummingbird. Alas, my excitement faded as soon as this little guy took to the air and two brilliant white patches appeared on the tip of its tail. Still, it's not often that one gets a chance to admire a Blue-throated Hummingbird, so even though it wasn't a lifer for me I still took the time to enjoy watching it get chased off the feeder by a noisy Black-chinned Hummer.

Another non-lifer I was hoping to see again was Madera Canyon's resident Flame-colored Tanager, particularly because I wanted to try to get a better photograph of it. My last attempt at trying to capture this bird in a photo was less than satisfactory due to the fact that the damn thing refused to leave the very tops of the 30 foot sycamore trees. Things worked out a little better this time around.

After singing his little heart out at the top of a tree (of course), he finally decided to descend a bit and put on a little show for me (I was surprisingly the only birder around for the first hour or so). I did miss my greatest opportunity to snap a picture when he landed no more than ten feet from me. I was so thrilled to see it so close that I sorta forgot I had my camera around my neck.

This one's kind of a weird angle, but I like how it shows off the brilliant plumage that gives this bird its name.

The other bird everyone comes to Madera Canyon to see is another that has never disappointed me (at least not in Madera): the Elegant Trogon.

By the time I heard the trogon's croaking bark in the distance over three hours had elapsed since my arrival and I still hadn't seen any of my target species. As soon as I heard it, though, any disappointment I was starting to feel quickly vanished and I began to focus on simply enjoying the experience of birding in Madera. It's hard not to enjoy it when you get a bird like this looking down at you from just overhead.

Such a cool bird. Seeing (and hearing) him again made the whole trip worthwhile for me.

Four hours in and still no lifers (or so I thought...turns out I wouldn't identify one until I got home Monday night and examined my photos), but I didn't care. I was having a great time relaxing in a lawn chair at one of Madera Canyon's "Birding B&B's" taking photos of the gorgeous Broad-billed Hummingbirds that seemed to be everywhere.

You can't ask for a more photogenic bird than this one. But the excitement of the chase quickly returned when two guys in the chair next to me asked if I was still looking for the one bird I wanted to find more than any that day, the Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher.

Then they pointed up to a branch overhead. Turns out there was an active nest in a tree no more than 30 feet from where I was sitting.

Not only did I get to see a Sulphur-belly, I got to watch them fly in and out of a nest cavity as they brought an endless supply of bugs to their demanding brood.

But the most exciting bird for me that day was one I hadn't even considered looking for until one of the birders I had been chatting with mentioned that they had seen dozens of them a ways down the road. So, on my way out of the canyon, I made a quick stop at a pull-out and headed down the trail in search of a little bird I really hadn't thought twice about, the Varied Bunting.

None of the pictures I've ever seen of this bird come remotely close to how gorgeous it really is. The deep maroon, violet and indigo of its plumage blend together in a way that is almost indescribable. It was one of the most surprisingly stunning birds I've ever seen.

When the day was done, I left Madera Canyon with three new lifers: Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher, Varied Bunting, and the Cassin's Vireo I couldn't properly identify until I got home. If those three birds (plus all the others I saw) weren't enough to convince me that the trip was worth it, the Gray Hawk that flew over my car as I was driving through suburban Tucson in search of a gas station most certainly was.

Glacier National Park is going to be an incredible place to live and work, there's no doubt about it. I'll even get to flesh out the grouse section of my life list a bit. But I will most definitely miss the world-class birding we've been able to experience during our time here in Arizona.

The Jumping Point

On Monday I went for a hike down a trail not far from our place with a friend from Flagstaff. We hiked the four miles in to a place along Beaver Creek called "The Crack" nice and early to avoid the heat of the day. But we both decided we wanted to get back home by mid-afternoon, which meant turning an easy four-mile walk into a not-so-easy four mile death march in 106 degree temps with little to no shade.

So, to prepare ourselves for what we knew was going to be an unpleasant afternoon, we opted to take one last dip into the creek before hitting the trail. We just happened to be passing by one of the more popular "dipping" spots, too: The Beaver's Tongue (named for its tongue-like shape and the fact that it's perched 18 feet above Beaver Creek, I suppose).

I won't belabor this too much, since it's really not a very interesting story. Suffice to say that jumping off the tongue is not necessarily an easy thing to do the first time...unless you've got balls of steel. Which I don't. Here I am pondering the pending dip.

Note the impressive physique. Yeah, baby. That's what I'm talkin' about!

Anyway, it took me about eight minutes of standing at the edge, staring down into the deep green pool below me before I finally got the nerve to leap off of the ledge.

Ok, so it wasn't so much a "leap" as it was a dorky power-walk off the edge. With a loud and impressively high pitched little girl-like scream accompanying my descent.

You can call me "Grace", thank you very much.

As fun as this looks, the amount of water that shot up my nose made it decidedly less so.

Zion: Angel's Landing

I've hiked a lot of trails that many people would consider crazy. From climbing Long's Peak in Colorado, to traversing a cliff in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park wearing a 50 pound backpack. There have even been a few times on a trail when I seriously questioned my judgement (or lack thereof). While Zion's Angel's Landing trail doesn't necessarily top my list of "crazy" hikes it certainly deserves a placement near the top.

I had originally planned to do the hike as sort of a celebration for the exciting news I got earlier in the day. Unfortunately due to Sonja's sore knee she couldn't go along. So, in order to make for a safer hike everyone wanted me to do it in the company of one of Zion's interpretive rangers, who was doing a guided hike up to Scout's Lookout at the top of the Walter's Wiggles section of the trail, rather than go it alone. But after speaking with the ranger prior to her hike, she suggested that if I wanted to make it to the top I should probably just do it on my own anyway. It was already 6pm and sunset was in three hours, so if I was gonna go, I had to just do it. I figured there'd be plenty of people on the trail with me if something did go wrong, so I went for it.

This was my destination, the top of that large sandstone "fin" in the center of the picture. The trail begins right about where I'm standing and proceeds along the left base of the cliff until it cuts sharply uphill, then scales the left side of Angel's Landing.

This was the lower half of the uphill section, looking down from near the base of Walter's Wiggles, one of the more famous sets of switchbacks in the national park system.

Now, I had mentally prepared myself for one helluva strenuous hike. I mean, I'd seen pictures of the wiggles and heard stories of it taking almost three hours to just get to the top of them. So when I reached this section I started climbing it with the belief that this was just the warm-up for the big push up the wiggles once I got to the top of these. I mean, it hadn't even been 45 minutes and I was already within two or three switchbacks of the top of this set. There just had to be more to go. Or so I thought.

Imagine my surprise when I climbed over the rise to see this in front of me. That's Angel's Landing, which meant that the section I had just powered through was "Walter's Wiggles". I seriously turned around in disbelief and asked a guy who was journaling nearby, "That was it?!?" He kind of looked at me weird and then nodded.

It actually wasn't until after my elation at discovering the "hard" part of the hike was over that I got a good look at what I still had to do.

Just looking at this picture it doesn't look so bad. I mean, there are steps carved into the rock and a handy chain to hold onto. Doesn't really look so bad. At least, not until you glance to either side of the trail...

This was the view directly to my left as I ascended the Landing. That ground you see above my hand is more than 1,600' below where I was crouching. And it wasn't a nice sloping descent to reach it either, but rather a sheer, vertical cliff straight down to the bottom. I didn't actually have the nerve to poke my head over the edge to look. It was hard enough to stretch my hand that close to the cliff. I wasn't about to actually lean out over it.

Now, it would be challenging enough to have to endure this view from one side of the trail. But no, on the hike up to Angel's Landing, you get it from both sides!

To really get what I'm talking about you'll need to click on the above picture to enlarge it. This is the section known as "the bridge". On the left, no more than 12 inches from my left foot, is a sheer drop of over 1,600'. On my right, no more than three feet from my right foot, is a sheer drop of over 800'. And directly in front of me the trail actually gets narrower by about a foot or two! Nice, eh?

The image is a little deceptive, since my grip on the chain doesn't really look all that desperate, but in order to click the shutter button on my camera I needed to use my right hand. Unfortunately, the chain was also on my right, and I wasn't about to stand there without holding onto something attached to the rock. So, I contorted myself to be able to capture the scene in two photographs without having to release my death grip on the chain.

Of course, it didn't really occur to me that it might be a little easier to just turn around and face the other direction. At least not until about five minutes ago as I was typing this.

This is looking back down towards the bridge section from about 2/3's of the way to the top. The entire time I was climbing, fighting vertigo and taking photographs to document the hike, I kept thinking about how much more difficult this was going to be on the way back down.

But the view that grew more impressive the higher I went kept spurring me forward and upward.

And I really mean upward. This was the last 50 yards of the trail to the top, and to take the picture I had to look practically straight up. This trail has been officially designated as non-technical (meaning it doesn't require ropes and harnesses), but I think that's being very generous. If they hadn't installed the chain there's no way it was pass muster. Not that it would prevent crazies from trying to scale it anyway.

And the requisite self-portrait from the summit, with the setting sun turning the cliffs of Zion Canyon brilliant shades of crimson and gold.

I had made it to the summit in a little more than an hour and a half. Not bad for an old, fat, out-of-shape park ranger, eh? While I was sad that I couldn't share the experience with Sonja (who was also sad she couldn't go along with me), I was relieved that she didn't try it. Attempting this hike without being 100% would be begging for a disaster. Besides, even at our best I would have been a nervous wreck, worrying about Sonja slipping on the rocks or not holding onto the chain tight enough. Next time we're in the Southwest we'll summit together, though.

I'm really glad I did it. The hike was pretty damn amazing.

Zion: The Call and The Narrows

One of the most memorable experiences I had at Zion was receiving the phone call from Glacier informing me that I was being offered the job. Now, normally, I can't stand seeing people talking on cell phones in national parks. In fact, I usually have to resist the urge to rip it out of their hands and throw it over the edge of the cliff. Seeing "that guy" blabbing away on his phone (it's never a woman doing this...it's always a man) when he should be enjoying his vacation is a source of constant irritation for me. So, you can imagine my disgust when I suddenly realized I had, at least temporarily, turned into "that guy". Not only that, but my father-in-law just happened to be ready with his camera to capture it.

Of course, the fact that this was an extremely important call that would ultimately reshape the course of Sonja and my lives, I think I can forgive myself for the temporary lapse in judgement. And, yes, this photo does actually capture the precise moment when I learned I got the job at Glacier. Pretty cool, huh?

So, after all the excitement of "the call" we all needed to go cool down in the Virgin River that flows through the heart of Zion Canyon. We headed up the Riverside Trail to the beginning of the Zion Narrows, one of the more famous and popular hiking spots in the park.

No one but Sonja and I had the guts to go wading upstream, though. So while Mom, Dad and Nick relaxed at the end of the foot trail, Sonja and I splashed our way up into the Narrows.

There were a lot of other people with us, so it wasn't the most tranquil experience, but it was a lot of fun. It also felt really nice to be partially submerged in 58 degree water while the sun was baking us overhead.

Next up: Angel's Landing and Antelope Canyon

Exploring Zion National Park, Part 1

With Sonja's parents and nephew visiting for a little while we felt it was appropriate to take some time off and do a little exploring with them. This is Nick's first trip out to Arizona and thought it would be a good opportunity to show him some of this beautiful state. So we decided to take him to Utah. He can see Arizona some other time.

Our first big destination of their visit out here was Zion National Park. Neither Sonja nor I had ever been there, so this meant that all of us would get to see something new. Of course, I knew it was going to be beautiful, but what we saw just took my breath away. Zion is by far one of the top five most beautiful places I've ever been.

But we had to get there first, which involved an eight hour drive (including side-trips and meandering back-roads) from our place to the Bumblebutt Motel just outside the park entrance.

Even though it was ungodly hot outside (the high that day was 109), Nick seemed to enjoy his first view of the Colorado River when we crossed over it at Marble Canyon.

Sonja also enjoyed taking in the view.

We opted to take a more meandering scenic route past the Vermillion Cliffs, location of the original California Condor release site. We didn't see any condors, but the views of these monstrous red cliffs were spectacular.

Uh, yeah, I realized after I wrote that how not monstrous those cliffs look in that picture. Oh well, you'll have to take my word for it that they're big.

Speaking of enjoying the view, as you can see Nick was often so moved by what he saw that he felt the need to turn away and text his girlfriend to keep from weeping.

We spent most of the day on Monday exploring some of the trails along the scenic drive in Zion Canyon. It really doesn't matter where you go in the park, it's all gorgeous. This is one of the views from the Emerald Pools trail.

The Emerald Pools offered a chance to walk behind several small waterfalls, which was very refreshing as the temperature slowly crept its way up the thermometer throughout the morning.

By the time we reached the upper pool we were all pretty relieved to be out of the sun and enjoying the towering cliffs surrounding us. But it was still early and we had a lot more to see...

Next up: Exploring the Zion Narrows and Angel's Landing...


**All the photos in this post (and the subsequent vacation posts yet to come) were taken by me even if you don't see my name on them (it's easy to take nice pictures when you visit a place like Zion). If you want to see them a bit larger, just click on the image.