The Deep Experience of Natural Beauty

Last week I read an excerpt from the autobiography of Bede Griffiths, and Englishman whose profound experience of Nature led him to first become a Christian monk and then to immerse himself in Hindu spirituality in India. I suspect many of you who feel my images have had the experience of a profound witnessing of Natural Beauty. You will resonate with this excerpt, and I hope it will remind you of the importance of that experience, whether it involved the awe of big Nature like towering granite walls, giant surf, or huge trees in an old growth forest, or it was something small like a close visit of a singing sparrow, or the dew on a spider web. Such experiences are to be honored, and never forgotten, so we remain open to many more, and so allow them to shape our experience to life on Earth.

Raquette River, Adirondaks

“One day during my lat term at school I walked out alone in the evening and heard the birds singing in that full chorus of song, which can onlu be heard at that time of year at dawn or sunset. I remember now the shock of surprise with which the sound broke on my ears. It seemed to me that I had never heard the birds singing before and I wondered whether they sang like this all the year round and I had never noticed it. As I walked on I came upon some Hawthorne trees in full bloom and again I thought that I had never seen such a sight or experienced such sweetness before. If I had been brought suddenly among the trees of the Garden of Paradise and heard a choir of angels singing I could not have been more surprised. I came then to where the sun was setting over the playing fields. A lark rose suddenly from the ground beside the tree where I was standing and poured out its song above my head, and then sank still singing to rest. Everything then grew still as the sunset faded and the veil of dusk began to cover the earth. I remember now the feeling of awe which came over me. I felt inclined to kneel on the ground, as though I had been standing in the presence of an angel; and I hardly dared to look on the face of the sky, because it seemed as though it was but a veil before the face of God.

These are the words with which I tried many years later to express what I had experienced that evening, but no words can do more than siggest what it meant to me. It came to me quite suddenly, as it wer out of the blue, and now that I look back on it, it seems to me that it was one of the decisive events of my life. Up to that time I had lived the life of a normal schoolboy, quite content with the world as I found it. Now I was suddenly made aware of another world of beauty and mystery such as I had never imagined to exist, excpt in poetry. It was as though I had begun to see and smell and hear for the first time. The world appeared to me as Wordsworth describes it with “the glory and freshness of a dream.” The sight of a wild rose growing on a hedge, the scent of lime tree blossoms caught suddenly as I rode down a hill on a bicycle, came to me like visitations from another world. But it was not only that my senses were awakened, I experienced an overwhelming emotion in the presence of nature, especially that evening. It began to wear a kind of sacramental character. I approached it with a sense of almost religious awe, and in the hush which comes before sunset, I felt again the presence of an unfathomable mystery. The song of the birds, the shapes of the trees, the colors of the sunset, were so many signs of this presence, which seemed to be drawing me to itself.

As time went on this kind of worship of nature began to take the pace of any other religion. I would get up before dawn to hear the birds singing and stay out late at night to watch the stars appear, and my days were spent, whenever I was free, in long walks in the country. No religious service could compare with the effect which nature had upon me, and I had no religious faith which could influence me so deeply. I had begun to read the romantic poets, Wordsworth, Shelly, and Keats, and I found in them the record of an experienc like my own. They became my teachers and my guides, and I gradually gave up my adherence to any form of Christianity. The religion in which I had been brought up seemed to be empty and meaningless in comparisson to what I had found, and all my reading led me to believe that Christianity was a ting of the past.

An experinece of this kind is probably not at all uncommon, especially in early youth. Something breaks suddenly into our lives and upsets their normal pattern, and we have to begin to adjust ourselves to a new kind of existence. This experience may come, as it came to me, through nature and poetry, or through art or music; or it may come through the adventure of flying or mountaineering, or of war; or it may come simply through falling in love, or through some apparent accident, an illness, the deth of a friend, a sudden loss of fortune. Anything which breaks through the routine of daily life may be the bearer of this message to the soul. But however it may be, it is as though a veil has been lifted and we see for the first time behind the facade which the world has built around us. Suddenly we know that we belong to another world, that there is another dimensio to existence. It is impossible to put what we have seen into words; it is something beyond all words which has been revealed.

There can be few people to whome such an experience does not come at some time, but it is easy to let it pass, and to lose its significance. The old habits of thought reassert themselves; our world returns to its normal appearance and the vision which we have seen fades away. But these are the moments when we really come face to face with reality; in the language of theology they are moments of grace. We see our life for a moment in its true perspective in relation to eternity. We are freed from the flux of time and see something of the eternal order which underlies it. We are no longer  isolated individuals in conflict with our surroundings; we are parts of a whole, elements in a universal harmony.”

—Bede Griffiths, from Winding the Golden String

San Francisco Traffic

“That mysterious Presence which I felt in all the forms of nature has gradually disclosed itself as the infinite and eternal Being, of whose beauty all the forms of nature are but a passing reflection.”

—Bede Griffiths, from Winding the Golden String

Lichen, Rocky Mountains

“O thou Beauty, so ancient and so new, to late have I loved thee, to late have I loved thee.”

—St. Augustine

From my “Parking Lot” collection. Once you are sensitive to beauty it can strike you in unexpected places.

Prints of all images available. Tomreed.com is being rebuilt and should be up by 5/1/23.

In the meantime the old site is still up at https://tomreed98.wixsite.com/photography

Back Country Surfing

While organizing my gear room I found some papers from hikes to Big Flat, a remote point in Northern California’s Lost Coast. It’s the most difficult beach walk I’ve done; nine miles, carrying a full backpack with four day’s worth of food, a wetsuit, and a 7’6″ surfboard, crossing long stretches of various sizes of cobbles and gravels as well as sand. The hike has to be timed to enable passing a few places where the rock bluffs point into the surf at low tide. Here are a few notes from a couple backpacking trips:

Excitement of beginning a trip

On my way up the coast on highway 1, the majesty of the North Mendocino Coast at winter Solstice, after a big storm, strikes me deeply. The clouds on the Western horizon look like a mountain range. One cloud peaks higher than the others, looking like a volcano; Like Illiamna stands above the Alaska Range.

The Surf is huge (the fourth swell of the season, coming from gale to hurricane force winds in the Gulf of Alaska days ago) and a light offshore breeze sends rows of spray out to sea. There’s a chill in the air. Vultures find fenceposts to stand on and turn their backs to the morning sun, spread their wings to dry them. It was a rough night, cold and wet. The ocean is still bumpy. It’s the noise still echoing from yesterday’s raging seas. Pelican recover on offshore sea stacks. Big sets of waves break on offshore reefs. The swell registered 39′ last night at the 250 mile buoy. Yesterday I saw a wave break across Noyo River harbor entrance. It had a 20′ face.

I’m tired from a pool workout yesterday. I hit my Christmas goal of 100m in 1:10, and surpassed it with a 1:07. Now i’m training for the 1912 Olympics. That year Duke Kahanamoku took gold with a 1:03. I feel like I can survive out there in the big, heavy cold surf.

The Lost Coast is a section of the California coast that is too rough to build a road through. It is dedicated wilderness bisected by a road to a coastal village, creating two sections of wilderness park. The North section is more mountainous, home of the Kng Range. I’ll take the road to the village and hike North from there, but first I have to drive inland to get around the mountains. Highway 1 leaves the coast and goes up a dark hollow where the sun never shines this time of year. Course red sand was sprinkled on the icy blacktop before dawn. Sycamores are still turning gold, and alders haven’t yet dropped their leaves. The Big Leaf Maples only have a few leaves left. I am in love with this land, but I can see that it’s not what it once was, and it makes me sad to think of the grandeur that was lost. I can imagine how spectacular this forest was only 200 years ago.

A spent flare on the centerline and a giant alder bucked up and laying in short logs on the side of the road. Road crews were busy keeping this route open.

Deep in the redwoods it almost looks like summer, but the iris and trillium that cover the hillside have no flowers, and the sword ferns are verdant from the fresh washing, not dull with summer dust. Blackberries have just a few red leaves, here and there, as if decorated for Christmas. The streams are all full and flowing fast.

The radio warns of “High Surf Warnings,” telling listeners it is dangerous to walk on the beach.

At the intersection with highway 101, I turn North and pass the few roadside attractions: a house carved into the base of a giant redwood, Confusion Hill, the house made of one log. Eventually I turn West and head for the coast. the radio cautions a “Hard Frost Warning.”

Cresting the pass through the King Range, at almost 4,000′ I look out over the Pacific corduroy. Giant parallel lines of swells that reach to the horizon.

At the coast I park and prepare. My well-worn boots feel like bedroom slippers. Everything packed and secured, I grab my board and set out. Mounds of basalt discs the size of wristwatches alternate with a black sand beach. For the first few miles the water is very deep just off the beach, so the waves hit as a pounding surge, standing 15 to 20′ tall and stalling in the current of water rushing down the steep beach from the previous wave. This wall of water then pounces into knee-deep water, just 30′ from dry sand in slow motion with the sound of thunder. It is an incredible sight. Awesome. My body would get broken if caught. It happens to people.

After one detonation a surging carpet of brilliant white foam races up the beach, chasing me to higher ground, and quickly retreats, leaving a gunmetal blue on the wet black rocks. I cross streams. At one I scare a mink and it runs into the ocean. Bad choice. I’m trying to stay as close to the water as possible because there is more firm sand. I’m avoiding slogging through loose cobbles, but it is risky, and eventually I pay the price. I monster wave stands up and the explosion upon impact sends a flood of fast water charging up the beach like it was tossed out of a giant bucket. I sprint up the beach faster that I thought was possible under the burden of my pack and board, but am overtaken by calf-deep water. I brace to fight the backwash, but the cobble beach is so porous the water instantly percolates into it and is gone.

With only one mile to go I climb up onto the south end of the Big Flat–a coastal bench at the base of the King Range. I scan the view. A freighter in on the horizon, passing Cape Mendocino. Looking North to the point I see the waves. It’s big. The swell wraps around the point and that attenuates the wave volume, and cleans it, settling it into a near-perfect (depending on the wave angle) right, peeling into a cove. The offshore breeze has become a light wind that is throwing a spray into the air that is taller than the wave and is lit by the late afternoon sun. I scare seven turkeys off the flat and they run for the woods. Again I look at the break and see a surfer drop down a face like an ant, make a bottom turn and rise up the wall that is close to triple overhead, just as surfers were predicting.Upon arrival at the point I am fatigued–too tired to paddle out. I’ll wait for the morning. I watch. Truly amazing waves and experts mastering them. There are a few 4′ tall driftwood log shelters–crude log cabins on the point. Flickers come by and peck for the insects in them. I set up my sent and cook dinner, and eat on foot as I visit the handful of surfers who paddle in as the sun hits the horizon.

Next morning: eight foot faces and perfect. Three-hour session. Afternoon at low tide: six-foot faces and windy. two-hour session.

Second morning: Ice covers the deck of my board. 10′ faces, occasional 12′. Perfect. Two-hour session. Wind turned South in the afternoon and made it too choppy.

Big Flat

Third morning: Wind still South and sloppy seas. I’m tired and ate more food that on a normal backpacking trip. the cold water demands more calories. I pack up and begin the long walk, carrying a wet wetsuit. I stop to rest and find myself so stiff after the rest that it’s not worth it, so I don’t allow myself to stop again, plodding on into the cold wet wind. I make my truck at sunset. the ocean a milky blue between choppy lines of indigo. The horizon is a brushfire of color with pastels above it: lilac, mauve and powder blue. The first blade of the next pinwheeling storm passes overhead.

late afternoon at big flat

Hiking the South Section

A grey whale calf just surfaced inside the cove, just beyond the surf. He’s following his mother who passed by a few minutes ago. They are heading to Alaska for the summer. The last sunlight of the day is reflected as gold sparkles on the surf-wet rock of the arch in the North rim of this walled cove. Above the arch pelagic cormorants nest on the cliffs. I wonder why they continuously drop from their perch and fly in a hundred yard diameter circle only to return t another perch near where they left. Do they lose their balance and fall? Did they lose and argument over their perch or did they just decide to take a different one. On the beach two black oystercatchers have been bathing in the creek and and now they are hunkering down on open black sand for the night. Three seals want to join them, but they are cautiously watching me before they come ashore. Behind me, on the other side of a wall of three and four-foot diameter redwood beach logs, a pair of black-tail deer are browsing beyond the corridor of alders that line the creek. I think they like the flower buds, about the size of a child’s fist, of the cow’s parsnip. They wander through clumps of wild irises in full purple bloom.

There are many wildflowers here on the Lost Coast at this time of year; late April. The intensely orange California poppy and the bushes of tall indigo Lupine stalks are two of the most enjoyable, but the abundance of wild irises cannot be outdone. The triads of silky petals are so feminine, and the blade-like leaves so masculine. Indeed this sword leaf must be why this is the flower of the samurai, and why a similar and related plant is called a gladiola.

Sitting here in the sand, contemplating my location on the planet, I think about the samurai who lived straight beyond my horizon, and how the vast pacific allows the maintenance of a culture very different than here, despite modern communication and transportation and the demands the western nations put on all cultures to westernize.

Detonation on the Reef

Foggy Autumn Morning

I’m sitting on the edge of a coastal bench. Grey whales spout offshore as they migrate to Baja California. Grebes and seals dive for fish. Pelicans patrol by in tight formation, riding the air cushion on the faces of unbroken waves. Behind me, mountains rise directly from the beaches where heavy surf rumbles the cobblestones. There is a pulsing roar ever-present at this time of year, whe big swells dissipate their energy on this coast.

These waves were born of the winter gales of the Gulf of Alaska, or even farther in the remoteNW corner of the Pacific, near the Kamchatka Peninsula. They’ve been on a march for thousands of miles across open ocean, rolling along deep water with no resistance until they feel the roots of this continent and stand up and pitch forth with fury, or so it seems.

This morning a high ceiling of fog covers the surf and nestles into the contours of the mountains. Above, the sun has been shining for over an hour, piercing through an occasional gap in the fog layer and illuminating the mist below like wide laser beams. These beams find things like a searchlight; a cops of trees on a slope, the crest of a turquoise wave. The wildlife has retreated from the bench. bear, raccoon, coyote, puma, deer and skunk have gone for cover if not a den or a bed. For now there is no wind and I wait for the tide hoping it stays calm so I can ride the long glassy rights peeling off the point.

Zen and the Canyons

zion zen

Business and athletic competition took me to Saint George, Utah last month, and I took the opportunity to spend time out in the canyons of the Southwest corner of the state.

First I went to Zion, knowing that my favorite hike was still closed due to the landslide that blocked it a few years ago, and grumbling that our tax dollars go into so much nonsense and waste and not into outdoor recreation—so important to the mental health of our people. 

It would be a hit and run visit. I arrived in the evening to a full park. No surprise. My plan was to continue the celebration of my athletic victory (reward myself for the austerities of months of training and preparation) by having a few beers at Zion Brewery, located at the front gate of the park, and sleep in my van among the fellow dirtbags—hiking and climbing guides—in the parking lot (an outfitter is next door).

In the morning I decided to go hike the closed trail. It’s a nine mile round-trip up to a lookout at the northeast end of the canyon. I figured it was only the first mile that was taken out by the landslide that I saw from the opposite rim the last time I was here. But I happened upon a ranger who told be that the landslide had taken out the shelf—an exposed rock strata—that allowed the trail to cross a sheer wall. So the trail would be impassable. I had to do the West Rim hike again—the only real hike from the valley floor. This route shares the first couple of miles with the paved “trail” to “Angels Landing,” the top priority of, I’d say 95%, of Zion hikers. It’s a zoo, and I was in great condition, so I blew by everyone on the trail, seeking peace at the fork, where I’d turn left and they’d turn right. Beyond the fork, once I calmed down, the beauty of the canyon began to erode my displeasure with our national parks and the crowds. This canyon is spectacular, and now, out alone, moving along the rim, the enchantment came that always comes, and I hiked in awe. 

I was reminded of the last time I was in this area—just a few years ago—and my thoughts as I hiked then. Thoughts I had wanted to develop and never did. Questions I wanted to pose and never did. 

I have given presentations to photo clubs, beginning with the statement, “I’m not really a photographer. I’m an artist who uses a camera.” I don’t know much about the technical aspects of photography. People who appreciate my images have a particular sense of aesthetics, and respond to my compositions. I don’t mind anyone blaming me for being arrogant, or delusional if I say that these people have a refined sense of aesthetics.

I have a natural eye, but that was just the raw material that I was able to develop a bit more by studying Japanese aesthetics with Dr. Shozo Sato, a genius and master of the subject. Unfortunately, I still fall way short of his comprehension of aesthetics, but the Japanese approach—more accurately the Zen approach—to aesthetics suits me. It is in accordance with my own way of appreciating beauty. 

Japanese Tea Ceremony, Chado, was created as an opportunity for the samurai and nobility to calm down and appreciate beauty. The beauty to be experienced during tea can be very subtle, yet sublime. I do not have the expertise in Zen aesthetics to be writing anything educational here, but I can tell you what comes to my mind. My thrill at the sculptures in the red sandstone walls reminds me of the raku and other types of pottery tea bowls that look like stone—indeed that are masterful imitations of the work of nature.

sandstone

And the occasional twisted, bent and wind-pruned juniper reminds me of bonsai trees, but who (yes, I think of them as individuals), due to their freedom from any pruner, have developed themselves in such a way to express what I call “grace in the face of adversity.”

old juniper

And the lone pine, growing majestically on some small ledge of the huge vertical wall expresses a thriving in wabi-sabi, vitality in an environment that is lonely, forlorn yet serene, intensely quiet, yet intensely vulnerable to the forces of nature.

pine on canyon wall

I was reminded of my solo river trip on the Green River, when I spent a week paddling my folding kayak 100 miles through Canyonlands National Park. It was a nonstop gallery of sculpted walls that I admired all day, every day, for a week. I’d photograph some, analyzing my options for compositions within the rectangular viewfinder. This seemed like it was my duty—as a human with a rectangle—to study the wall and isolate the best composition of cracks and fissures and stains. I take the challenge seriously, and I have no idea why. It just the natural thing to do—its obvious.

Then there are the courageous junipers. Each with their own form. And it seems to be my duty to acknowledge the best of them, but they are SO difficult to isolate for a composition. I get a little frustrated because it seems like a waste for them to develop themselves in such exquisite form and not be photographed—like a great singer never to be recorded. There is only my mental message to them: “I see you. Well done”.

All of this involved judgement and evaluation, analysis and decision making. Seems crazy. But I hike these canyons to experience this, even if no photo comes of it. 

Side note: Studying Geography at Rutgers in the 70’s, I’d sometimes take an easy class to lessen my burden while meeting my credit requirements. The best of these was “Ideas of Nature” taught by Cal Stillman. Professor Stillman was an old man who taught me to ask questions about my experiences in the wilds. The one phrase that he offered and that I will never forget—like so many of the teachings of academia—was his concept of “Appreciation without appropriation.” That is, can we appreciate nature without coming home with something, even a photograph. 

chemtrails

From Zion I went to the Escalante region to explore. unfortunately the skies were filled with chem trails most of the time, but I had some good hikes. after a few days, continued up to Capitol Reef National Park to hike the length of a ten-mile canyon I had seen some of during my last visit. It is exquisite, and the upper section is inhabited by a particularly joyful band of ravens that I enjoy watching. 

ravens

I love the Utah landscapes, and will return for the experience of rapture; a filling of the soul with the provision of divine beauty. I’ll honor it with my little rectangular viewfinder, offer my best images for a few people to enjoy, and write about my experience for a few people to read. Most people would see it as wasted time, this effort, but just seems like it’s the thing I have to do. 

capitol reef

Prints of all images are available. See www.tomreed.com for prices. Email me at tomreed@mcn.org to order prints

High Lakes of the Wallowa range

A friend told me his son loves new shoes. I was the opposite as a kid and to this day I love old shoes. They fit so well. 

In the late summer and early fall of 2018 I wore my old backpacking boots out during three long backpacking trips in the High Sierra, but even though the boots were too far gone to take on another multi-day hike, I still used them on several monster day hikes into the high peaks of the Rockies in late summer/early fall of 2020. 

In 2021, After a summer of smoke, the air cleared for a few days and I got up into the Wallowa Range of NE Oregon for a three-day hike, wearing new boots. I had only done one hike this summer—an eight-mile lap around a small mountain in the Elkhorn Range—and I had worn my low-cut day hikers.  Even though my legs are strong in the gym, they were not ready for this 25-mile tour. But worse was that the boots hurt my feet. Sore feet can make you dread every step, so I did not do my usual off-trail exploring. I stuck to the trails.

I hiked about nine miles from Wallowa Lake, at 4400 ft, up into “Lake Basin” at 7200 ft. The ecosystem was drier, but not too different from that around my Alaska Cabin. Huckleberries, watermelon berries and salmon berries were abundant. There was an occasional patch of fireweed. There were plenty of vulnerable grouse along the trail, and the lonely peent of the red breasted nuthatch in the otherwise silent woods, just as September in the woods at my cabin. But the trees of the forest, though similar, are different, and I don’t know them. 

I made camp on the top of a 20 ft vertical granite cliff over a deep clear lake, with no one around. In the middle of the night a big animal came into camp. It took a while for me to determine, from the sounds, it was an elk. In the morning I realized I had been wrong. The tracks showed it was a horse!

I had not been impressed by the first day’s hike. I was just a long walk in the woods gaining elevation and access to the high country. It tired me, but I slept well despite the sub-freezing temps in pre-dawn hours. I have taken very good care of my sleeping bag, but after 25 years it is simply worn out. I bought it as a two-bag system when I was planning to climb a volcano in Ecuador. The first part of the trip would have been in warm tapir-filled forests where I would use the liner bag. The middle part of the trip would be in cool temps, where I could use the outer bag, and once I got up into the snow, above 10,000 ft I’d combine the two bags that could zip together. The trip never happened, but the outer bag has served me well on countless adventures from Alaska to Argentina. Now it has been demoted to a summer bag, good to 40 degrees only.

The air at dawn was much colder than the water of the lake, so the lake was steaming as the sun rose over the ridge.

Lake Smoke

I felt good when I got on the trail again in the morning, and the landscape quickly improved as I entered the high lakes surrounded by granite peaks. This kind of country is what makes such hikes. And at this time of year the fall colors of the tundra touch my heart in a more masculine way than the green heather and flowers of summer.

Looking to the NW from Glacier Pass

Crossing over Glacier Pass at 8600 ft, I descended into the fine-art landscape of Glacier Lake, tucked below a wall of granite on the south shore—several hundred feet tall. I lounged in the tundra with a granite backrest at the lake while having lunch. A camper told me it had been a cold and windy night, and I was still 12 miles from the trailhead, so I pressed on down the impressive canyon, enjoying the beauty despite the pain of each step.

Wallowa Canyon

At a stream crossing I walked among big boulders of white marble—I suppose the result of the grnite intrusion baking a layer of limestone. After 10 miles I made camp in a meadow by the Wallowa River. 

six mile meadow

The problem with camping in a north-south valley near equinox is that the morning sun comes late, so I broke camp in the shade, with frost still covering my tent. Those aluminum tent poles always kill my fingers on sub-freezing mornings. 

Hiking out, I followed the tracks of a family of elk for miles, until they drifted off the trail into a meadow. 

Once at the trailhead the boots came off and I was ready for the traditional post hike beer, but first I used my Photon Signature Disc to inform the water of Wallowa Lake.

Wallowa River

Prints of these photographs are available. just email me at tomreed@mcn.org.

The Green through Canyonlands

In the mid 90’s I was phasing out of a five-year period of intense training in the art of aikido. I had been training at a dojo in Ventura, California, where there were lots of students and a full schedule of classes. But between the crowds and the expense of living in Southern California, it seemed I should find another place to live, and maybe open my own dojo. I got on the road in October.

I was a lifelong coastal resident, but I thought I should consider living inland, so I took a tour, just to see how it felt in places like Moab, Utah, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Flagstaff, Arizona.

At the time my vehicle was a priceless 1982 Toyota four-wheel-drive pickup. It was an amazing truck that could go anywhere. While in the Moab area, I drove the rocky cattle roads and jeep trails of Canyonlands N.P. (including the 100 mile “White Rim” loop and the Shafer trail down the most amazing set of switchbacks I’ve ever seen), and was captivated by the Green river, which carves through the park. Indeed, it made the park. The green water was flanked by golden cottonwoods as it passed below canyon walls of rusty red-brown Navajo sandstone.

The Green originates in the Wind River Range of Western Wyoming and flows south until it meets the Colorado River in Southeast Utah. For the last 100 miles before that confluence, the Green meanders through spectacular Canyonlands. I needed to float that stretch of river.

By the following spring I had organized a trip. Three couples would paddle the through the canyons for a week. Two couples were in canoes. I had my folding kayak. My girlfriend had no boating or river experience, and no outdoor skills. Once I had my kayak assembled and packed I told her we were ready to go. We stood in knee deep water in the desert brush at Ruby Ranch, which had road access to the river above the canyons. The river was moving quickly with the spring runoff from the mountains upstream. “Which way are we going?” She asked. “Whichever way you want.” I replied. She surveyed the river. “Lets go that way.” she said, pointing downstream. “Good idea.” I said.

packing the Folbot at the put-in

After a couple miles of paddling by flat desert scrub, we saw the banks rise as we entered the canyons. This 100 mile stretch flows through two canyon systems: Labyrinth and Stillwater canyons. I had a little plastic camera with a roll of 36 exposures to record the trip.

entering the canyons

thrilled to be in the canyons and nowing we had six more days to enjoy the sculpted walls

there was an excellent lunch stop every day

the Folbot is a good vessel for this trip

One of our crew had written the first and most popular of guidebooks to mountain biking the area. He lived in Moab and was well educated about the trails that led from the river into various side canyons or up to the rim, so on most of our seven days of the trip we had a good hike.

hiking up the canyon wall

The river is so snaky in Stillwater canyon that at times you round a bend of 180 degrees to paddle the next section of river in the opposite direction you were traveling in the last stretch. This meant that on a windy day you could paddle a few miles into a headwind, only to round a bend an have a tailwind for a few miles. We took advantage of one of the tailwind sections to rest. I lashed the three boats together and rigged a tarp as a sail between our vertical kayak paddles.

It’s an easy trip. One of the most difficult aspects is spotting good places to camp. Established camps are often hard to see because they are behind a wall of tamarisk brush. To find them you have to look for a tunnel through the brush, and they are easy to miss. indeed I missed one, which cause us to miss a great hiking trail from that camp.

Evenings were festive, and in the tradition of river trips, we even had a costume night, but we didn’t bring costumes! So it got creative.

There’s nothing like floating along a river through majestic canyons, and this trip is unique in that there are no rapids until the confluence with the Colorado. Once on the Colorado River there is one long riffle to run before the beach where a jetboat will come to pick you up and shuttle you 40 miles or so up the Colorado to Moab.

About 15 years later I was craving some adventure during a winter surfing on the Mendocino Coast of California. I decided I would spend the spring running rivers in the West. With no small stroke of luck, I was invited on an early season kayak float of the Owyhee in SE Oregon, and also won the lottery to get a permit to float the San Juan in SE Utah. I also got a tip from an old friend from whitewater guiding days that he knew of a crew that needed a boatman for a Grand Canyon trip. And the put-in dates for all these trips worked well, except for a big 10 day gap between the San Juan take-out and the Grand Canyon put-in. I decided to run the Green again, alone. River trips are almost always done in groups. I had done countless solo backpacking trips, and rowed my dory on solo trips around Katchemak Bay in Alaska, but although I’ve probably done over a hundred river trips, I never ran a river by myself, so I threw the folding kayak in the back of my pickup when I left the coast in April. I’d have two months of back-to back river trips, culminating with the mother of them all, the Colorado through the Grand Canyon (for my 3rd time).

Once again the Green was a magical float, maybe more so, with fewer distractions from the majesty of the landscape. Admittedly, nights were not even nearly as much fun. This time I had a real camera with me and got a few photographs:

majestic buttes stand like castles along the river

dramatic lighting always pleases me

the abstracts of the canyon walls were my daily delight and contemplation

I studied the art of composition: selecting what would be included in a rectangular frame

Prints of these photos are available. Just contact me through www.tomreed.com

Barrancas del Cobre

Backpacking in Mexico’s Copper Canyon

I have to move again, so I am reducing my belongings, and part of that effort is to digitize old photos. As you may know, for years I traveled with no camera. I grew weary of carrying the camera and lenses and film in my adventures. When my camera was run over by a truck while I was sailing in the Caribbean in 1980, I chose not to replace it. I went for years with no camera, but in the mid 90’s I got a little plastic one—just for snapshots. One of the first trips I took the camera on was a Christmas trip to backpack in Mexico’s Copper Canyon, a huge area of six canyons, larger than the Grand Canyon of Arizona, and sparsely populated by the Tarahumara Indians—“the running people”—and by cougars. 

I talked a friend into going with me on this adventure. We flew to Tuscon, got on a bus to the border, walked across, and got on another bus to the city of Los Mochis, on the Eastern shore of the Sea of Cortez. We got a cheap hotel and spent a day walking around that town eating street food and waiting for the Ferrocarril Chihuahua al Pacífico or “ChePe” train to take is on the famous ride through the main branch of the canyon, along the sides of cliffs, through many tunnels, and across numerous bridges, to hop off in the little town of Creel, at 7,677’ above the Sea of Cortez, and in freezing temperatures.

We found topo maps (military), and got supplied with food for a five-day trip at a little grocery store.

Soon we head out via bus to find a trail indicated on the map. The adventure began as we found what seemed to be the trailhead. Our route of travel from the snowy pine-forested rim to the bottom of the canyon was only suggested by the topo maps. In reality the trail forked about every 50 yards (due to use by goatherds), and at each fork we had to decide which to take. My decisions were as much intuition, based on years of trail hiking, as they were based on the map and observation of the trail itself—its width and the amount of overgrowing vegetation. 

As we entered the canyon views of its expanse were impressive. It’s green. The canyon walls are much more vegetated than the Grand canyon.

The next day we were at the bottom of the canyon, where we had to cross the clear cold river. To do so safely, I chose the shallowest part of a deep pool to avoid having to deal with whitewater and rocks. I was not certain how deep the pool was. I stripped, put my pack on top of my head and walked on the sandy bottom. The water reached my chin at the deepest part. My partner was a bit shorter, so he knew his challenge: to follow my route and allow the water to rise up to his forehead, knowing he would resurface for air in 4 or 5 steps.

On Christmas eve we were camped on a sandy beach, a few thousand feet into the earth and in a pleasant climate. 

Now I will tell a funny story: 

I stashed my backpack in a hollow space between big boulders beside the river, and occasionally, as I needed things from my pack, I would lean over the boulders and rustle though the pockets to retrieve an item. I was doing this when I heard a voice coming from my pack! Can you imagine? My first thought was that it must be the acoustics of this hollow between the boulders. Maybe the sound of the gurgling river was entering the hollow from a gap between the rocks and the sand and resonating upwards. I explored the hollow by moving my head around in different positions where the acoustics might coalesce to simulate a voice. Nothing.

I told my partner. Of course he thought I was nuts, and laughed. But I knew what I had heard. Later I was looking for something else and heard it again! WTF?? I pulled the pack out and went through everything. Mystified and in a twighlight zone, I decided that maybe the little repair kit I had, which included some coiled baling wire, some safety pins, and was contained in an Altoids can, was acting as a radio receiver and picking up a broadcast.

I proposed this theory to my friend. “Tom,” he said, “The nearest radio station is probably over 100 miles away, and even if there is one closer, we’re in the bottom of a deep canyon. There would be no reception here even if you had a radio.” I was losing my mind. I knew what I heard, but there was no explanation for it.

Still searching my pack for some source of the voice, I finally I pulled out a little package from the top pocket.

I had recently met a beautiful woman and was drawn into a passionate romance. We lived four hours apart, so she mailed me a Christmas gift that I was instructed to take into the canyon and open on Christmas morning. I held the package up. “This better talk to me when I open it up tomorrow morning.” 

Sure enough, the gift was an alarm clock with my girlfriend’s sweet voice as the wake-up sound. It had a button that would play the recording, and my rustling in the pack would cause the button to be depressed. What a relief.

Reading the card that came with the gift on Christmas morning. The stick in the sand is our Christmas tree. It was decorated with things found along the river’s edge: underwear and strips of cloth that I later learned were what the Indians upstream used as toilet paper!

We worked our way along the river for a little while and then spent two more days climbing up out of the canyon. At the rim we flagged down a bus and got a ride back to Creel to restock, and after a day of rest and big plates of the regional favorite foods we got on another bus to a different part of the canyon complex for another five-day hike. This time we’d drop down to see an old mine and mission ruins at the canyon floor.

At the bottom of the canyon we crossed the river on a cart suspended by a cable. A short climb up the other side brought us to the ruins of a mission. We made camp right in the ruins. To our surprise, we were met by a miner. Quite the character, this Indian was squatting in the rectory of the mission, which he rehabilitated to be a viable shelter. There he housed is wife and four kids while he pecked away at the walls of the abandoned mine, discovering an occasional hunk of turquoise, or other colorful rocks which he considered to be precious. It was from him that I learned the Spanish word for lead, ploma, which I could never forget because of the association with lead pipes and plumbing. 

Our visit was an event for the family. We arrived on new year’s eve, and they insisted that we hike up a trail to the south, to arrive in an Indian village that would have a New Year’s celebration the next day. 

My partner had been a Theravada buddhist forest monk in the back country of Thailand for seven years, so it was important for us to mediate on the first morning of the year. This turned out to be a strange experience, since we were camped in the “dungeons” of the mission, where it was likely that slaves were kept, and who knows what atrocities those slaves were subjected to right where we sat. It was a strange vibe, even after 300 years.

But of course we followed the commands of our hosts, and after meditation and breakfast, strolled up to the village. We were met with great surprise and welcome. The first people we me led us into an adobe room which was fiesta central—where the barrel of tesguino was kept. Tesguino is the traditional Indian corn beer that is immensely important for bringing in the new year. The people spend many hours growing the corn and fermenting it properly to create a high quality beverage for festive occasions. At the time my Spanish was limited, but the demands of our simple conversations were not great, so I held my own. My partner had only his smile to communicate.

Our cups were refilled constantly, as is the way of poor people’s generosity, and after a while we were overtaken with an inebriation that came on suddenly. When another round was offered by ladle, my buddy declined. This created a cultural disconnect and confusion. It took a while for me to realize that, in their culture, you don’t turn down the offer to refill you cup. My partner was rubbing his belly trying to convey that he was too full to drink any more. The men didn’t get it. So I explained that he was pregnant, and the baby’s name was Tesguino. This brought them all into hilarity, and all the tension was relieved. We were able to stumble out of there on good terms and somehow made it back to the mission before dark. 

I was like a magician as I fascinated the miner’s kids by playing my girlfriend’s voice over and over for them. They did not tire of it. After dozens of plays they were still captivated by the voice from this little box.

The next day I bought some turquoise from the miner as a token of appreciation for his hospitality, and we continued our sojourn through the canyon, eventually arriving on the rim, where we played fungo—using our oak hiking staffs (my old marital arts weapons) to bat pine cones to be fielded—until a bus came along.

Soon we were delivered to a small log building at a remote intersection where were were told to wait for the bus to Los Mochis.

It was a memorable trip that satisfied my need for some adventure in mid-winter.

Ascent of Long’s Peak

Last month I went up to the top of Long’s Peak. This is the dominant Mountain in the area of Rocky Mountain National Park at 14,259’  https://www.nps.gov/romo/planyourvisit/longspeak.htm,   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longs_Peak   

In the summer, mountaineers begin their ascents as early as 2am to be sure to avoid the afternoon thunderstorms that are common, but in the fall the thunderstorms are few. I left home at 4am and was on the trail at 5, beginning at 9,200’. I hiked for a couple hours with a headlight until first light came just as I left tree line, having gained 2,000’ of elevation.

sunrise from treeline

The wind was stiff as the red sun rose among clouds and smoke.

Plodding along on what was, in areas, an excellently crafted stone path (see: https://www.facebook.com/TheGraniteAvatarsOfPatagonia/videos/716972245564586), I passed a woman, then a man.  My plan was to refill my water bottle (I carry a UV light to kill microbes, instead of carrying lots of water) in an area of talus aptly called “the boulderfield.” But the water level had dropped since I was there in the summer, so I had to retrace my steps back to water deep enough to fill my bottles for the ascent, and the man and woman both passed me. The wind got stronger. Soon I had my long underwear on, with gloves and raincoat hood drawn tight, a belly-full of water and one-and-a-half liters to carry. When I hit “the keyhole” pass, the wind was howling through it. I took out the shoulder strap I had made for this trip, and slung my 5’ hickory staff over my shoulder so I could use both of my hands. In the pass I caught up with the two ahead of me. The guy was “DJ” a roughneck from the oilfields of Wyoming. The woman was Jelena, a mountaineer from Serbia. There was no decision or agreement made, but we began traveling as a trio, traversing the steep north slope of the peak; so steep that a slip and fall would mean death or worse. Once completing that section, we ascended a steep couloir, made difficult because the early snow of 10 days prior had not melted in this shaded chute. This ascent gave us most of the elevation to the summit.

Jelena and DJ traversing the East face

Next we had to traverse the East face on ledges across cliff faces to get to the final ascent up a crack in the steep granite wall of the East face. At 14,000 feet the oxygen is sparse, and after 7.5 miles and over 5,000′ of elevation gain, the thighs burn as you are forced to make long steps to the next foothold.

looking to the northeast while ascending the granite face to the summit

the crack that leads to the summit

The top of a mountain is always fairly uneventful for me, because there is no photographic composition to be made.

see a video on the peak: https://www.facebook.com/TheGraniteAvatarsOfPatagonia/videos/689754581637511

The wind was gusting to 60 mph, so we looked around a bit, got a bite to eat, and began the long trip back to the trailhead. In the 10 minutes of sitting on a boulder, my thighs had stiffened significantly, making the descent of the steep section more difficult that they should have been. It was a long 7.5 miles back to the trailhead. Our trio split up once we got down the coulior, and after the keyhole, survival was guaranteed as long as you put one foot in front of the other for a few hours. I hit the trailhead just before 5pm, and drove to the Knotted Root Brewery in the little mountain town of Nederland to ease the fatigued thighs with a world-class unfiltered IPA, and met DJ there for a celebratory pint.

It is quite a mountain–about all I’d want to do without ropes. in fact, people die on it every year when the slip and fall in a bad spot. but it’s a beautiful mountain. Albert Bierstadt recognized this an painted its portrait:

Bierstadt’s Long’s Peak

The Summer of the Shovel

I’m back from two months on my property in Alaska. My time was spent working hard to dig a water catchment pond and dam, dig a 5’ deep hole under the old cabin and a trench to allow a 1,000 gallon tank to slide into it. I also dug turf from a two-foot-wide border around my buildings and filled the space with washed gravel (wildfire protection).  It was “The Summer of the Shovel”. Even though I was in decent shape before, (I had won the Denver Indoor Rowing Championship in February) my body went through some uncomfortable reorganizing to be able, at the end, to shovel dirt into a wheelbarrow and move it around the land for 7 hours straight. My hands are so calloused so that I cannot feel things like hair or tissue paper. I am lean and wiry, and my spirit renewed.

As every other year, I was once again thrilled with the view of the mountains and glaciers across the bay and the dynamics of the weather upon them, thrilled to listen to the biophany of bird songs at 4am in the peak of nesting season, thrilled to be able to harvest wild vegetables every day for my meals, and thrilled to experience the wilderness just beyond the edge of my little development of cabins and sheds. I witnessed a big black bear capturing a moose calf (I was chased my the frustrated mamma moose), and a bald eagle pouncing upon a snowshoe hare and taking off with the prey in its talons. Various birds landed beside me as I sat on my balcony, giving me smiles and goosebumps.

Video: The Biophany at my Alaska Cabin

Here is a collection of photos from this summer, all captured from my balcony

(prints are available upon request):

 

Revealed

 

 

 

Nunataks of the Dixon

 

Mystery

 

Clouds over the throneroom

 

Valhalla

 

Storm on the Throne

 

Midnight Moon

 

 

 

 

 

Canoeing the Adirondack Autumn

“Raquette Reflections”

It has been a bit of a drought for outdoor adventures due to my acceptance of a job managing the installation of 400,000 square feet of tile on a project just outside on New York City.  I was there for over 7 months, and only took weekends off. Most of those summer weekends were spent in my home town on the South Jersey beach, playing in the warm ocean and hanging out with my old rowing partner Kevin McFadden, and other friends from lifeguard days in the late 70s.

 My new partner, Don McEachern, and I took 2nd in the Alumni Race (Kevin beat us)

But as the project neared completion I was able to get away for a long weekend in the Adirondack Mountains of New York with Lauren who lives in Vermont. She wanted to canoe there, as we did 10 years ago. On that trip we paddled a series of lakes, portaging between them and making a 4-day loop. This time I wanted to paddle a river. The many river trips of my life have all been one-way, due to the flow, and so they require shuttle-driving between the put-in and take-out (sometimes hundreds of miles), but I found a slow-flowing river that allowed us to put-in and take-out at the same spot.

So we paddled up the Raquette River. This took a little focus and intention to make headway by staying out of the current. Having read many stories of the adventurers of the last few centuries who routinely paddled upriver as well as down, it was an interesting experience. We were six miles upriver in less than three hours. There we found a quiet lean-to just below a long stretch of rapids and falls which ended the possibility of up-river travel except by the tedious work of lining the boat from shore and portaging around each of the falls.

Canoes are cargo vessels, especially the lake canoe which we were paddling, so provisions were plentiful for an enjoyable Italian dinner. Wet wood made a fire something that needed constant tending and fanning (the cutting board was an ideal flame-fanner)

The next morning we hiked up a few miles along the fast water and enjoyed the remote forest in the early stages of fall color. It was a Monday, not a soul was around.

The float downriver was easy and peaceful. I enjoyed watching the reflections of the foliage in the glassy river, and watching the river bottom slide by. A black bear was swimming mid-stream as we rounded a bend, and it burst out of the water and up the bank with that bear speed that looks effortless, but is awesome once you look at what the animal just did, and imagine how long it would take you to do the same.

kingfishers and red-brested nuthatches, chickadees and blue jays, warm autumn sun, the smell of wet leaves, and the delight of the colors on the trees. The silence of the canoe passing over the river bottom, leaves drifting crazily off the trees after a puff of wind.

 

 

Unexpected Old Growth Forests in Autumnal Foliage

I just drove about 6,000 miles, from San Francisco up to the Columbia River, and then crossing the country, with stops in Colorado, Vermont, New Jersey and North Carolina.

On the way I hiked in the woods, beginning with my favorite redwood hike in Prairie Creek State park.

 

I wasn’t thinking of fall color because I knew I’d be hitting Vermont after the colors had peaked, but I was in for many surprises. The first of these was the intense color of the underbrush of the old growth coniferous forest at the crest of the Cascades in Oregon.

I crossed hundreds of miles of high plains sage in Idaho and semi-arid scrub in Utah, and when I visited my favorite put-in of all whitewater rivers, Deerlodge Park on the Yampa River in NW Colorado, I was surprised that I was lucky to catch the riparian old growth cottonwood groves in peak color.

Further on, after passing Steamboat Springs I was in the Rockies enjoying the brilliance of the aspen groves on mountainsides of dark coniferous forests.

When the road passed through an aspen grove, I’d stop and walk through the splendor.

It was a long haul from Colorado to Vermont, and the forests of the midwest, East of the Mississippi were not memorable. Even when I got to the hills of Eastern Ohio and Pennsylvania, the colors were not impressive. New York had a few nice groves along the thuway, but the western edge of Vermont was well past peak color, cold and rainy.

Southward, New Jersey’s Garden State Parkway was a pleasant surprise, as was I-95 south through Delaware and Maryland. I decided to detour into the Shenandoah of Virginia, and was rewarded not only with some beautiful color, but with occasional groves of old growth Eastern Hardwood Forest.

This brought back great memories of college days when I spent so many autumn weekends in the Appalachians. Old growth forest is rare in the Northeast, but my school of agriculture and environmental science had its own majestic grove of huge oaks, maples, ashes, hickories, sweet gums and more of the many species of the East. After school I spent one fall walking through Vermont and have fond memories of old growth beech forests–massive elephant-skin trunks in an atmosphere and carpet of yellow leaves. These can no longer be found. Because they are so rare, the mature Eastern Hardwood forests probably fill my heart more than it did the painters of the Hudson River School, who have had such an influence on my eye as well as my heart.

Imagine then, what I thrill it was to discover the abundant old growth forests of the Southern Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. I had never been in this area before, and I had assumed old growth forests were as rare here and anywhere else in the East. Indeed, the maps I’ve seen of the last vestiges of virgin forests in the United States have never shown anything in the Southern Appalachians. I had my mind blown by the extent of mature stands of trees with a diversity beyond anything I’ve ever seen in North America. Species of the North, like Maples, grow in the shady north-facing coves, while on South-facing slopes I saw my first huge mature ancients of Southern species like Sassafras. There are well over a hundred species here.

It turns out that there are over 100,000 acres of virgin forests in the Southern Appalachians. ( https://www.blueridgeoutdoors.com/magazine/july-2005/ancient-appalachia-the-southeasts-old-growth-forests/ )

The first question that comes to mind is “Why?’ I assume these areas escaped the pressures that the industrialization of the North put on those forests. Also, these Southern species tend to be softer and not preferred woods for shipbuilding.

They can tower 125 feet tall, with trunk diameters of 4 feet or more, like this majestic oak:

But even the areas of younger trees had a charm:

Maybe it was because they were enchanted, or maybe it was me that had been enchanted.

 

Blog readers are welcome to buy prints of these photographs at a holiday discount of 50% until December 15. Because I am on the road, I cannot sign the prints. They will be shipped to you directly from the printer. the discount prices are:

11×14″ $78,          16×20″ $150,             24×30″  $225.              tall aspen photo, 8×16″  $70.

Not all photos an be printed at any size. Please email me to inquire: tomreed@mcn.org