Star-gazing

It's been a good week for stars. Which is fortunate, because star-gazing is good for the soul. Maybe it's just my soul, but feeling like a tiny speck on a tiny planet beneath a sparkling, infinite sky can heal most of what ails me. It's calming, inspiring, a way to feel connected to a world larger than I can really know.

This week, my sleeping bag rolled out in the the Big Rocks Wilderness, dwarfed by the boulders of the Pahroc Canyon, the milky way was shining clear. Last month's monsoon clouds have cleared, the half-moon rose late, and the high canyon walls block any faint light pollution from spoiling the view. In the hour or so before I'd drifted to sleep, I usually saw more than 15 shooting stars, big sweeping flashes across the sky. Sleeping out every night in the desert, I am used to seeing a few before I close my eyes, but this show was above and beyond.

Seeing a good shooting star makes you feel special. Good luck, make a wish, etc... But as it turns out, there are millions of meteors flashing across the sky, throughout the day and night, caused usually by sand-sized grains of astronomical grit, burning up with friction through the air molecules of the atmosphere. However, according to space.com, we can usually only see .005% of the sky at one time, bringing our eye's share of shooting stars to an average of 12 per hour. Which means that maybe, if you catch them all, you should still feel pretty special.

Last night, the sky-show got even better. A big electrical storm hung over the Delmar valley to the south of us. We could barely hear the thunder, but the sky flashed and glowed with lightning strikes every minute or two. Far enough away to be fear from the fears of rain (and putting up a tent in a wet, 2am panic) and lightning-strike fire, we just enjoyed the light-show.

Shooting stars diving across the sky into a cloud of flashing light. I sleep well after a show like that, once I convince myself to close my eyes....

How often does the NYTimes speak to you?

Seeking: an absorption in the immediate so intense and complete that the idiot chatter of your brain shuts up for once and you temporarily lose yourself, to your relief.

Camp Cooking

Too many people think that camp food is ramen noodles, freeze-dried mush, or easy-mac (that's right Christy and Clarissa- I'm looking at you) and whenever I go camping with them, they are astonished with what i end up making. I'm not trying to brag, really, it's just that because I'm always camping, if I didn't make decent food in the field, I would never eat anything good. It's like when people are surprised that i floss when camping. If I didn't floss when camping, when the hell would I floss? So gross. But I digress.

The point is that I've been eating pretty well in the backcountry this summer, and I'm pretty pleased about it. My crew takes turns cooking for each other, and we're all a bit competitive, so when it comes to eating dinner, we've all been winning. So, I just wanted to share some of the season's best recipes.

Car-Camping Winners:
Work is lovely because we drive these huge trucks with ample space for coolers and rubbermaid bins with cutting boards, cast-iron skillets, and vegetable peelers (just kidding, i never peel anything, even when i'm in a kitchen- but you get the idea).
#1. Apples and Sweet Potatoes
-Cook up a bunch of couscous or quinoa and let the grains fluff up in the hot water while you chop up apples and a sweet potato. Make a sauce of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and maple syrup and steam/roast the veggies for maybe 20 minutes, covered, stirring frequently. Chop up some soy-sausage and stir in as the veggies get squishy. When the sausage chunks are hot, let your amazed friends serve the mixture on top of the grains and top with feta cheese and crasins.
#2. Easy Curry
-Make instant rice. While it is fluffing, chop up two vegetable- like a zucchini and a bell pepper or onion and eggplant, and some garlic. Most combos are good. Put 1 can coconut milk, the veggies, a scoop of curry paste (which does not need refrigeration, fyi)- i usually use green, but any flavor is good, in the pot, and cook for about 10-15 minutes, until the veggies are getting slightly soft. Chop up some extra firm tofu and stir in. When the tofu is hot, serve over rice, and if you are feeling really fancy, top with cilantro.
#3. Cowboy eggs
-Saute a bell pepper and onion. Dump a bunch of eggs on top, and scramble. When eggs are almost done, stir in some spinach, so that it wilts in the hot mixture. Serve wrapped up in tortillas with cheese and salsa.
#4. Roast veggies.
-Instant rice. Chop up sweet potato, bell peppers, chilies, onion, garlic. Roast in olive oil, which takes about 15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper or a little red curry paste. Optional topping- mix some chopped up cucumber with yogurt and cilantro. This might be the prettiest recipe. And James deserves the credit for this one.

Okay- now I'm hungry enough that I need to go get some lunch.... I'll write up the best backcountry winners soon.

Half Dome by Moonlight

First, allow me to state the obvious. Yosemite Valley is beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful, especially in the wet, tall, green and granite contrast to the open basin and range, the dry, high desert where I spend my time. But Yosemite is also Crowded, crowded, crowded. Campsites were full, backcountry units were full, parking areas were full. That's what I get for living in the middle of nowhere- I forget that when you travel to one of the nations most popular parks- you pretty much have to plan ahead. And we did not.So, although there was a collection of rain clouds holding tight to the Sierra Nevadas, we knew that the moon was almost full, so I suggested that we hike up halfdome in the moonlight instead of fighting the crowds up in the morning. No campsite? No sleep? No problem. We packed up, rain gear, thermals, and lots of chocolate covered coffee beans.

We started the hike at 10, on the last shuttle to the trailhead. Once our eyes adjusted (we were trying to go headlamp-less as much as possible) we made pretty good time up the very first few miles of the John Muir Trail (which I am now making plans to conquer- hopefully next summer) to the first enormous, moonlight-glowing waterfall. We crossed the stream and headed up a long series of steep, rocky steps past the second falls, only tripping occasionally on hidden roots and slippery rocks.

At the top of the falls we could see halfdome rising in the moonlight, and realised that we were way ahead of schedule. There was not much point in arriving at the summit before sunrise, it'd be too cold and windy to hang out long. So we stopped to nap several times, adding layers and cuddling into a 5-way spoon. After about half an hour of rest, we were too cold to continue and had to resume hiking to regain the feeling in our fingers and toes. So we just hiked slowly- enough to stay warm but not get to the top too fast.

We reached the first summit at first light, after another long rocky staircase. Then, the challenge of the tip-top peak appeared before us, two cable handrails climb the last 300-ish vertical feet along a slickrock slope of 50 or 60 degrees. We climbed it, reaching the peak as the sun just barely broke free of the clouds.

We thought that we would be the first ones to the peak, having passed a few other parties with similar, sunrise on the summit plans within the last half mile. I lead the cable climb, and to my surprise, found 4 guys in sleeping bags sipping coffee on the summit. Probably 15 more people followed us up, but the clouds on the horizon were still dark and omnious, so we choose not to linger. The idea of sliding down the already slippery rock in a rainstorm did not appeal, so we headed down.

The sun rose, and burnt off the clouds. About halfway into our victorious hike down, we ran into the first of several huge packs of dayhikers, the trail was literally packed solid with uphill moving hikers by 8 or 9 am. I am SO glad we hiked in the night's solitude.

We reached the park valley in late morning to discover that we still couldn't get a campsite or a backcountry permit, and that my car had been impounded for violating the no visible food in cars bear-protection rule. Reality sucks. Half Dome was awesome.
We got the car back, some pizza, more caffiene, and hit the Tioga rd back east, through some snowflurries and switchbacks until settling in to a campsite at a hot springs just north of mammoth lakes. We went to sleep at 7pm, and it was so worth it.

Addictions

I have discovered podcasts. I am behind the times. I can freely admit this- living in a tent in remote parts of nevada makes it difficult to stay on top of things like new technologies, films, and celebrity gossip. We work in areas of radio silence sometimes- or the only station we can find is such bad popcountry that silence would be preferable.

But, since this device called an ipod (have you heard of them?) entered my life, this had all changed. I can just play it through the my Dodge SuperDuty's stereo (his name is Sir Galahad, fyi, the white knight) and we are saved from inspirational lyrics like "Baby, I want to check you for ticks," and "He had one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on my.....heart." But, better music is just not enough- i missed NPR- news, this american life, car talk, i even miss the misery of marketplace.

Then, I discovered that you can download all of these amazing radio programs, and many more, straight from itunes to my computer for free. I catch up on my weekly news with Wait, Wait, Don't tell me, a pop news quiz in which I never know any of the answers any more. We listen to This American Life and Science Friday on our way to work for the week. On my personal time, I drool over the Splendid Table and laugh at Savage Love.

And I've discovered new podcasts I never knew i was missing- like WYNC's Radiolab- a science meets culture show that is brilliant, and The Moth- a live, storytelling series performing in NYC. PRI's Life on Earth is fantastic. Scientific American has these 60-second clips on new discoveries and research. Slate.com's book club podcasts has expanded my reading list. I'm devouring the back episodes of Radiolab, thinking about how exciting science is and how many fascinating ways there are to turn science into stories. Maybe they need an intern?

I never thought i would become so addicted to an ipod- but it's enabled me to get back in touch with the world outside of the Ely BLM district- excited about what good reporting and good storytelling can do to an audience. Addict them. See me, example A.

Bryce Canyon

I spent the past few days in a beautiful place- hiking the under the rim trail of Bryce Canyon National Park. We were practically alone on a spectacular trail, the kind of being in a place that makes me wish I had more talent to describe the power of the experience. All of the authors who have inspired me recently, as a writer and as a being, have an incredible sense of place. Edward Abbey, Wendell Barry, Barbara Kingsolver, Tim O'Brien,Terry Tempest Williams, John McPhee, Micheal Pollan, Paul Theroux, and the woman who just wrote The White Mary, which was excellent, to name a short list, all bring the settings of their stories to life. And I am so jealous.

Sometimes I feel like I'll never be able to compete. I'll never be Abbey's lone wolf in the wilderness, or have Barry's emotional connection to the land he has lived and worked his entire life. They have already found the poetry in red rock desert, the intrigue of basin and range fault lines, the magic of the sprouting spring garden, and the adventure of being alone in an unfamiliar land.

I feel the power of the places in my life, from the mundane, staring at the stars through my windshield as I spend yet another night sleeping in the honda, the snowpeak of Mt. Wheeler just illuminated by moonlight, to the extreme, reaching the crest of the ridgeline, 33 miles later, to finally see Bryce Canyon opening out in front of us:The problem is that in all of the places that I find myself, I end up wishing that I had more talent, a greater ability to find truth in the telling, to bring the places I live alive to people who will never wander in the million-dollar wildflower blooms on the Hiko-Stewart fire in Lincoln County Nevada (an essay on this to come, I promise) or climb over the Mormon mountain range carrying several days worth of water to follow fires in the wilderness.

I'm addicted to maps, the names of the mountains and canyons and trails, that all of this nothing out here was actually somewhere to someone, at least long enough to name it. I think that the best I can do, until I hopefully grow up into more talent, is to experience each place that I find myself, as fully as a can. Sometimes, I just take a step back and think, "is this really my life, in this place? this is ridiculous, if only my friends could see me now;" slicing up t-shirts sleeves at 8,000 ft, 15 miles from a trailhead, to make emergency tampons, or lying on my belly, my hair tangled in a spikey-endangered shrub, digging with my bare hands like a dog to claim a piece of it's root's for cloning. These places feel more real, the landscapes that really make up my life.
And of course sharing them sometimes with the people who make up my life as well- Joanna and I on the trail above- once the snow stopped and the sun came out. What a great hike.

Ely Baby!

It's SNOWING in Ely.

This is not surprising, except that it was 80 plus as I was packing up my vegas apartment last week. 4 hours later, the temp had dropped 60 degrees and I had arrived at my new home. And by home, i mean where I pitch my tent. Brrrr....

So, to say my goodbyes to southern nevada- here's the best of my new camera:

Desert Tortoise hanging out in a Krameria erecta.

This awesome Lily who's name I can't remember, and the Jepson is in my car and it's snowing outside....
And the narrows of Lake Mead, receding behind us, as we rushed off to search for endangered and very small Astragalus geyeri....

So goodbye to the Mojave, and the friends I made there, the Great Basin is calling my name!!