National Monuments Archives ~ Rambling ranger

March 24, 2023

Spring!

What does spring mean to me? That’s the question posed by Sofia of Photographias in this week’s Lens-Artists Photography Challenge. For me, spring equals two things: road tripping and wildflowers.

This way of celebrating spring started for me when I used to work winters as a ranger in Death Valley National Park. There, I fell in love with the desert spring bloom. You would not think a land that averaged less than 2 inches of rain a year would have many wildflowers. Surprisingly though, in more years than not, it does. Due to the great diversity of landscapes and elevations, even in a dry year you can find some wildflowers somewhere.

Death Valley Wildflowers — Wildflowers in Death Valley’s Saline Valley

It can be one of the most astounding natural events you’ll ever witness in a good year. During a Superbloom, the flowers start in January and just keep coming. Dry, rocky, barren land is suddenly completely carpeted with color. The variety is phenomenal. They are so thick on the ground that you can hardly take a step without crushing a half dozen blooms. Once I saw a real superbloom, I never wanted to miss another.

Spring wildflowers Joshua Tree National Park — Superbloom in Joshua Tree

So I started following the bloom. I would spend a lot of time in February and March traveling between my two favorite desert wildflower spots, Death Valley and Anza-Borrego State Park, and spending a few days at Joshua Tree National Park along the way.

Spring wildflowers Carrizo Plain National Monument — The wildflowers should be amazing in Carrizo Plain by mid-April.

Slowly starting my trip back home to Alaska in early April, I would try to visit Carrizo Plain National Monument. In a good year, this is the best place ever to see wildflowers. Despite the hype that is out there, this year is not a superbloom year. For that, you need a good soaker storm in the fall to get the seeds going. California did not receive all that rain until January. Carrizo Plain is starting to get some color but no big displays yet. I think it could be fantastic in a couple more weeks, though, as more and more flowers germinated in January bloom.

Sierra Nevada spring wildflowers — Wildflowers could be incredible in the Sierra Nevada foothills, too.

Traveling north, I edge along the western foothills of the Sierra and make a fly-by visit to Yosemite’s waterfalls, another spring phenomenon. I think the Sierra foothills are where the real superbloom will happen this spring.

I would continue north through the Redwood Sorrel and Trilliums of northern California to my last big spring wildflower extravaganza, in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon. Since there were very few wildflowers blooming further north, I would beeline home from there, going back into winter along the way.

Spring wildflowers Siskiyou Mountains — Arrowleaf Balsamroot in the Siskiyou Mountains

This year is a little different. I have spent the entire winter in one spot, northern Washington’s Orcas Island. I’ve kept my carbon footprint low, only using two tanks of gas through the entire winter.

But that’s about to change. Although there are domestic flowers beginning to bloom here now – crocuses, hellebore, fruit trees – there are no wildflowers. As I said last week, domestic flowers don’t thrill me. I need a wildflower fix before I head back into winter.

So starting April 2, I’m road tripping down to the closest place where I can see good wildflowers, the Siskiyous in southern Oregon. I’m in love with the trees of that region also, so I am really looking forward to it. I’ll visit a few friends and a few beaches along the way down, too.

When I start heading home from there, I may detour into the southern Cascades for a day or two in search of mossy waterfalls to photograph. It all depends on how far spring has progressed by then.

Spring waterfall — I’ll be looking for waterfalls, too.

As I move north of the border, it’s time to start looking for spring wildlife instead of spring flowers. If I take the AlCan Highway, I may be rewarded by sightings of Woodland Caribou and the rare Stone Sheep. I will certainly see Wood Bison on that route. If I take the Cassiar, I will probably catch a glimpse of a bear or two.

Stone Sheep in Muncho Lake Provincial Park — Stone Sheep

By the time I reach the Yukon, I will have traveled back into winter. Well, it will look a bit like winter anyhow. Actually, it will be that in-between season, known in the Northland as Breakup.

Kluane National Park — It’s still winter in the Yukon in April.

Breakup is a rough time to try to travel off the paved roads. The snow is soft and soggy and will collapse and suck you in. It’s slick and icy in the morning from all the melted water. Wherever it’s not snowy, it’s muddy. The rivers, no longer frozen, are running full, and full of ice. Springtime in Alaska.

Kluane Lake — But there are signs of Breakup.

There’s a third thing spring means to me. Home. It won’t be long before I’m home, back in McCarthy, trying to figure out how to negotiate the lake in my ATV trail and the downed trees on my walking path. But that’s another story for another time. Right now it’s spring!

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park — Home Sweet Home!

February 4, 2023February 4, 2023

Messages

Sometimes messages are loud and clear and easy to read. We especially try to do this with warnings.

McCarthy Road — Getting to McCarthy is not always easy.

Sometimes they need a little interpretation.

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve — Residents of the Wrangells really like their guns.

McCarthy, Alaska — But are generally kind, loving people.

Sometimes we read messages from the past, but can no longer understand them.

Dinosaur National Park — These petroglyphs are nearly a thousand years old.

El Morro National Monument — What does this mean?

Sometimes what might seem like a message is just a coincidence.

Radium Hot Springs, B.C. — Truth in advertising?

But sometimes we think a clear message is just a coincidence.

McCarthy Road mudslide — Melting permafrost due to climate change is trouble for Alaska roads.

Nature sends us lots of messages. Some are easy to read.

messages in the sand — A Kangaroo Rat came by here last night.

This message I read loud and clear every autumn.

The view from my front porch — Leaves are falling all around
It’s time I was on my way

Sometimes Nature’s messages need a little interpretation. For instance, when an animal turns its back to you like this, they’re saying, “I’m pretending you’re not there. Now go away and leave me alone!”

Or when the fireweed reaches the top of its stem, it means summer is over.

Summer is over message — Summer is ending!

We ignore some of nature’s messages at our own peril.

Here’s another one we are ignoring at our own peril. Global climate change is real. Sea levels are rising. I awoke one day last month to find that the sea had invaded the yard and the ocean was throwing logs onto the lawn. The homeowners say this has never happened before, but I’m willing to bet it won’t be long before it happens again. Mother Nature is sending us clear messages. You might even call them warnings. We need to pay attention.

Thanks to Wind Kisses for this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Messages.

January 13, 2023

Favorite Images of 2022

For this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, we’ve been invited to share our favorite images of 2022. I’ve been sharing this year’s favorite images in my last two posts, so I won’t be revisiting those images here. You can go back and look at those posts if you missed them!

One of my favorite images of 2022 — The God rays are still one of my favorites!

But I would love to share some other favorites. A few of them I’ve published in earlier posts, but most are brand new. It seems my favorite images change weekly! Because of the scarcity of electricity and internet access during my summer months in Alaska, I have still not caught up with my image processing for the past year, and I discover new favorites every day.

Cascade Falls Moran State Park, WA — This is becoming my favorite abstract image for 2022.

There are so many photos I haven’t even really looked at yet, including winter in Arches and most of my fall shots from Alaska and Washington State. It’s like Christmas every day for me as I continually find new favorite images.

I saw some amazing places in 2022. One that has been on my mind continually this week is the California Coast. Most winters I spend either January or February on the California Coast. I’m not there this year, which may be a blessing. My heart goes out to all the folks struggling with too much of a good thing, with the atmospheric river and torrential flooding.

I spent the month of February 2022 housesitting in Pacific Grove on Monterey Bay. I was 4 blocks from the coast and made a point of doing photography nearly every day while I was there. That is also the batch of work I am currently processing, so a lot of my favorite images in this post are from that visit.

Another fantastic roadtrip was driving the Cottonwood Canyon Road in Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument. It was on my bucket list for years, but usually this is a road that requires 4-wheel drive. I called the ranger station to see if it would be safe to drive in just a couple of miles to do some dispersed camping and the ranger told me the road was in great shape and my little Toyota truck would make it end-to-end just fine! Quick change of plans for me, I could not miss that opportunity. The highlight was visiting Grosvenor Arch, and it was every bit as beautiful as I had imagined it would be.

I’ve also spent a lot of time in Olympic National Park this year. I haven’t processed the fall images yet, but I’ve included a spring sunset in this collection.

My last post included a lot of my favorites from the time I spent at home in Alaska, but I am revisiting my favorite flower photo from this summer.

Bog Bean flowers — I love the pattern displayed by the flowers and their shadows in this image.

My best sunset/sunrise of the year was traveling south down Canada’s Cassiar Highway. Every image in the series is so rich and so different. That sunset went through every shade a sunset could possibly have. Intense. I did a series on Instagram last week with a few of these images, 7 Shades of Sunset.

This image looks like I tweaked the color in LightRoom, but honest, it was really that red. I did not saturate the color, I even used Adobe Neutral as my color profile. I published a different swatch from that evening’s palette of hues in last week’s post, ‘cuz this one looked too over the top to me. But now I think it is my favorite.

I traveled the Mt. Baker Highway for the first time this fall. Although the conditions were less than ideal due to wildfire smoke, I was amazed at the astounding views and the easy access to hiking in the alpine. I can only imagine how stunning it must be when there’s no smoke. A new favorite place, I will definitely be checking that road out again!

And of course now, I’m on Orcas Island for the winter, where there are some lovely waterfalls. This image is a favorite.

I look forward to seeing what favorite images 2023 will bring. If you have been following my travels on Facebook, though, it seems that Facebook has not been circulating my posts much lately. I urge you to subscribe to my blog instead, so that you won’t miss a post.

Happy 2023!

North Cascades National Park — I had to include some fall color.

April 2, 2021June 1, 2021

Geometry in Ages Past

When I saw that this week’s Lens-Artist’s Photography Challenge was geometry, I was at a bit of a loss at first. After all, I do primarily nature photography and although Mother Nature loves a circle or a sphere, she isn’t much into squares and cubes.

Colorado Plateau — Trapezoids, circles and ovals

Then I happened to notice a similarity in the rock art of many of the ancestral peoples of the desert southwest. These folks were really into geometry! Even their sheep were made up of squares and rectangles.

Squares and circles on this petroglyph from Three Rivers Petroglyph Site in New Mexico.

Stylized, geometric depictions of people and animals can be found in rock art from the Fremont culture of northern Colorado and Utah to the Ancestral Puebloans of the Four Corners region to the Mogollon culture of southern New Mexico and Arizona.

Mogollon culture — Rectangles and squares – These ruins at Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument in southern New Mexico date back to the 1200s.

Most of the ruins and rock art date back 700 to 1100 years. There are thousands of sites throughout the canyons of the desert southwest, some in quite remote locations. It is so thrilling to walk around a bend in a canyon and discover these traces left behind by people who lived there a thousand years ago!

Petroglyphs — Rock art panel near Moab, Utah

My first backpacking trip into the desert was in Grand Gulch, Utah. Back then it was just BLM land, in the middle of nowhere. Now it is part of the disputed Bear’s Ears National Monument. After walking around many bends in the canyon and discovering rock art and ruins here, there and everywhere, I was hooked for life. Searching out Ancestral Puebloan sites on the Colorado Plateau became a hobby and a passion of mine every spring.

Dinosaur National Monument — The trapezoidal body shape of this petroglyph is typical of Fremont Culture rock art.

By the end of the 1800s, many ruins were damaged and destroyed by pothunters, who would tear up the dwellings in their search for the buried treasure of the artifacts left behind. In 1906 the Antiquities Act was passed by Congress to protect these national treasures.

Agate House in Petrified Forest National Park was built out of petrified wood.

Since then, only 5 presidents have not used the Antiquities Act to protect additional lands (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush Sr. and Trump). Trump is the only president who has attempted to remove lands from Monument status.

Ancestral puebloan rock art — Many rock art panels have been defaced by bullet holes and graffiti

Theft and vandalism are still major problems faced by those trying to preserve both ruins and rock art. When I worked at Death Valley, we were not allowed to publish any pictures of rock art in the park or disclose locations to visitors because people would literally chip the panels right off the cliffs!

Graffiti and target practice deface many rock art panels. This damage is difficult and often impossible to repair. I can’t help but wonder why some people feel this need to destroy the work left behind by others. I just don’t understand it.

Thompson Utah pictograph — Triangles – Why would someone deface a painting that had lasted a thousand years?

Since enforcement is so difficult, the key may be education. If we can convince others of the value of these ancient artifacts, and how that value is enhanced by being left in place for future generations, perhaps we, and our grandchildren’s grandchildren, may enjoy the geometry of ages past for many more years to come.

Fremont Culture — Rock art in Dinosaur National Monument

Thank you to Patti of pilotfishblog for this week’s Challenge, Geometry.

January 28, 2021

Stripes and Checks – Lens-Artist’s Photography Challenge #132

This week’s Lens-Artists Photography Challenge is stripes and checks.

When I think stripes, zebra is the first thing to come to mind.

Stripes are easy, I thought. There are lots of stripes in nature. I thought of the multi-layered sedimentary rock that makes up so many of the spectacular landscapes of the desert Southwest.

There are lines of light and shadow.

You see stripes everywhere.

Checks, not so much.

After all, Mother Nature is not really into squares and rectangles much. That’s more of a human thing, in most cases.

But there are exceptions. The guinea fowl is the exception in this case. They totally sport the checked look in their wardrobe.

Isn’t biodiversity grand?

April 16, 2020

Going Back – Chasing the Bloom

I usually spend April chasing the bloom, following the wildflowers north as I travel on my way home to Alaska. When John of Journeys With Johnbo proposed Going Back – The Second Time Around as the theme for this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, I thought I would revisit my usual April travels, canceled this year by Coronavirus. I miss the flowers!

My wildflower journey starts in the California desert. There are three don’t-miss locations, each with its own unique flora, that I revisit every spring if I can.

Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

The first is Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. This is California’s largest state park, and it’s a beauty. Anza-Borrego often has one of the best spring wildflower displays in the country.

The first time I visited Anza-Borrego it was during a rare cold spell in January. I wasn’t even thinking about flowers. Temperatures got into the teens overnight, unheard of in this region. I wasn’t expecting that! Pipes froze. I froze. I went to Agua Caliente Hot Springs to warm up, and my bathing suit froze into a solid block of ice as soon as I took it off.

Chasing the Bloom in Joshua Tree National Park — Fishhook Cactus Flower

For my second time around, I made sure not to go in January! Now I go for the flowers, a little later in the year, anytime between mid-February to mid-April. I often visit twice, or even three times during a wildflower season, so that I can photograph different flowers as the bloom progresses.

The next time I go to Anza Borrego, chasing the bloom, I hope to hike Hellhole Canyon since I’ve never been there. Not only does it have great flowers, it’s a favorite hangout for Desert Bighorn Sheep. The Peninsular Bighorn is the subspecies that lives here. It’s usually found in Baja California, and Anza-Borrego is the only place in the US where you can find this animal.

Joshua Tree National Park

Going north, I’ll stop at Joshua Tree National Park. I don’t spend much time in the northern part of the park, with the iconic rocks and namesake Joshua Trees. I spend most of my time near the southern border, because that is where the wildflowers are.

The next time I go to Joshua Tree, I might spend more time up in the rocks. Maybe I’ll even get a campsite there. It looks like an incredible place to explore if I wasn’t quite so fixated on the flowers. I would like to catch a good sunrise, and sunset, from one of those northern campgrounds. I would also like to hike Porcupine Wash and find the petroglyphs I’ve heard are out there somewhere.

Death Valley National Park

Then there’s Death Valley. It is a place close to my heart, as I was a ranger there for 8 winters. During some years the wildflowers are sensational, but in other years there is just not enough rain in the driest place in North America for a good spring bloom.

Death Valley is always worth a visit in the springtime, even if there aren’t a lot of flowers. You’ll probably find a few, and you might even find a flower that lives nowhere else in the world! There are literally thousands of untracked, remote, nameless canyons to explore. There are sand dunes and salt flats. And oh, the colors! You don’t need to have a bloom going on to find every color in the rainbow in Death Valley. I look forward to using my new Nikon camera there the next time I visit.

Carrizo Plains National Monument

Chasing the bloom, last year I visited Carrizo Plains National Monument for the first time. It won’t be the last. In a good year, Carrizo Plains has THE best wildflower display in the country! I’ve never seen anything like it. It boggles my mind to think that the whole Central Valley looked like this once, in the days before agriculture and oil wells. The flower fields go on forever, mile after mile of solid color. It looks like a monoculture in places, entire hillsides or valleys dyed purple or gold. But when you get out of your car and walk around, the variety is astounding. And the perfume in the air! The delicate scent of the flowers is the best thing about Carrizo Plains in my opinion, pure nirvana.

The next time I visit Carrizo Plains, I would like to visit the area near the campground. I never made it to that part of the Monument because of mechanical issues with my little truck. It was tired of all the dirt road back roads I was taking it on and went on strike! When I got back to pavement and went to the coast to get it fixed, the check engine light magically disappeared!

Sometimes I travel up the coast on my way home. There are some flowers, but no big displays, at least not of native flowers. Plenty of beautiful invasives, though!

Sierra Foothills

Usually, I head for the western Sierra foothills. When I get there in the middle of April, it is the peak of the spring bloom. It’s a different ecosystem with different flowers. There are lots of butterflies, too. My favorite bloom, though, is the Redbud tree.

Wow! I had never seen this tree before my first spring journey to the Sierra foothills. Pink, pink, pink, pink, pink! They’re gorgeous. I’m sorry I’m missing them this year.

Of course, I usually do a drive-thru of Yosemite to check out the waterfalls along the way. I camp for a couple of nights on BLM land along the Merced River. The flowers are great there, it’s close enough to the park for a visit, and it’s not crowded. Maybe the next time I visit the Sierra foothills and Yosemite I’ll actually camp in the park and spend a little more time there. I tend to make my visit short because the park is so loved to death, but if there has been a good snow year and the waterfalls are raging, I can’t resist.

Yosemite National park — A Yosemite Waterfall

Continuing north through the redwood forest, the flowers grow scarce. Nothing but Redwood Sorrel and Trillium in April there. But the trees make up for any lack of flowers.

Southern Oregon

I’ll continue chasing the bloom into southern Oregon, catching the last spring wildflower season I’ll see on my April journey North. Once again, different ecosystem, different flowers. Lilies abound, with a plethora of different varieties. There are shooting stars, too, one of my favorite flowers.

The next time I make it to southern Oregon in April, maybe I’ll spend a few more days there. I’m usually running out of time by then, with a deadline imposed by my return to work in Alaska.

I really miss the flowers this year. But maybe when I can travel, I’ll see a host of new varieties since my timing will be different. It’s something to look forward to.

Tag: National Monuments

Spring!

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Messages

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Favorite Images of 2022

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Geometry in Ages Past

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Stripes and Checks – Lens-Artist’s Photography Challenge #132

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