Valerie in Nature

Found me a new trick for editing the map, which is really nice for confirming that other people also see the paths I see. The Strava Global Heat Map . They seem to be getting quite a few to participate and, while the heat may not be strong, it often extends into backcountry routes. You can get it as a background for editing Open Street Map via Strava-iD . The background here is not as detailed as can be found on the heat map if you are logged in and may be an older data set. I'm not sure. I am sure that it is useful. For instance, I found that my path and the marked path for climbing Medicine Bow on the popular eastern side did not match up. They were very much of the same shape, which is always a warning bell that some GPS might have transposed itself sideways. Both paths seemed to be following a line that could be a trail, but frankly the pictures aren't that great for that spot. Which is correct? Mine was the only GPS trace uploaded to Open Street Map, so that layer wasn...

What was a looking for? I don't remember now. But I found this most excellent shaped tarp that speaks to me. I give you the Penta Tarp . (You'll have to click that to actually see it.) There's also a couple YouTube videos, one from the prototype and the other from starting to sell these things . I know maybe I should sit down with a tarp and some instructions and get started on learning some configurations well enough to pop them up as needed in the wild. A flat tarp can become anything you want it to be given the situation. However, the simplicity of a shaped tarp is wonderful, and this pentagon shaped solo tarp is simple from start to finish. It comes out of a single 72 inch wide piece of fabric trimmed into the shape with one small seam plus reinforcements. Watch how quickly and easily it goes up in either one of those videos! Then, if you really want one, support him in his evening job of becoming a gear designer and manufacturer by buying one. What I would want it fo...

California Desert Trails was the third and final travel book written by J. Smeaton Chase. After taking on the coast and the mountains, there was still the desert. It seems to also have ostensibly been a guide. He included two chapters and an appendix devoted to the area plants. A second appendix reproduces helpful travel suggestions from USGS. (It may be noted that although this was included, it was after many chapters in which he clearly did not manage to follow quite a few of the suggestions.) A chapter on "desert lore" and geography complete the set of introductory material before finally setting off on the travel. (But there are some smaller travel stories in among these early chapters.) The route he takes on for this book is the circumnavigation of the Colorado Desert. This is the desert area between the Sonoran Desert and the Mojave Desert, not an area of the state of Colorado. He does this in the heat of summer and, I must say, his horse Kaweah is an absolute superh...

There are a couple of projects to look forward to around the Eel River that could be part of an epic piece of unpowered travel. First, the state of California has a Rails-to-Trails project they are calling the Great Redwood Trail. Second, the Wildlands Conservancy has a project to conserve the wild portions of the largely private river canyon in a project they are calling the Eel River Emerald Necklace. Map showing the Great Redwood Trail and Eel River Emerald Necklace projects in southern Humboldt, Trinity, and Mendocino Counties. The Great Redwood Trail is to follow the Northwestern Pacific Railroad "connecting San Francisco and Humboldt Bays". It is the dark red line running up the map. It includes some hundredish miles along the main Eel River, the most interesting part being between where US-101 leaves the main stem in Humboldt Redwoods State Park to where the two routes rejoin. This section of the tracks was the most expensive railroad line to maintain in its day....

Yosemite Trails was ostensibly a guide book, but I expect that if I were getting it for that purpose, I'd be rather disappointed. It's rather like the posts on my own blog in that it describes the route that was taken including remarks about the quality of the trail and excellence of a campsite. Sometimes options are mentioned. When an opportunity arises, a little camp etiquette might get thrown in. However, he even spends a week of one trip not knowing for sure where he is. It is actually a story of traveling the trails of Yosemite. The first part contains a couple small stories plus a circumnavigation of the rim. The second part goes further afield in traveling the high country near the park. Published in 1911, he describes a familiar and unfamiliar place. The Tioga road, which I should follow for some fifteen miles, is a rough track built in historic days by the owners of the once famous Tioga mine, which, long since abandoned, lies near the crest of the Sierra about t...

Once upon a time, while having some amazing Zion National Park rocks to look at, I took a moment to observe the flowers. There was one quite pretty penstemon getting pollinated by a bee. Except there was something wrong. The whole of the scene was very very still. The bee hung in front of the flower without so much as a wing flap. Where was physics? The natural laws were not being obeyed. A frozen tableau in Zion. I looked closer and found I wasn't seeing all of the bee. At first I saw something like two fangs and the negative space resolved itself into a large spider. The integrity of physics was restored, but flowers had just become very dangerous places. The things you find when out and about! But it does make a bit of sense. You hear that watering holes are one of the most dangerous places for wandering animals. This would just be the bee equivalent. I then returned home to those nice, safe flowers I'd known. A very familiar blue-dick hosting danger. Sp...