Around Jordan Pond

Sorry for missing a couple weeks of posting while traveling, but here’s some images from one of the hikes at Acadia National Park in Maine. Jordan Pond is a glacially carved lake with a 3.5 mile loop trail around the shore. The trail starts at the south end, and we headed counter-clockwise as the sun was nearing the ridgeline on the west and spotlighting the changing colors on the eastern shore.

Jordan Pond color

Go this way

The trail on the east side of the lake is an easy, level crushed rock path. Lots of streamways are built on the path to allow water to run off the mountain side into the lake, but it had been dry enough that none of those streams were flowing.

Jordan Pond trail

As you approach the north end of the lake, a few spur trails head up to the Bubbles, a couple mountains overlooking that end of the lake, but it would be dark soon so we continued on around the lake. A couple larger streams enter the lake after flowing down the Bubbles, and idyllic bridges cross them. Can you spot one?

Jordan reflections

Here’s a closer view.

While a little early for peak autumn color, some intense patches made for beautiful views.

The return trail on the west side of the lake was quite different from the east side. First, you needed to scramble over some boulders.

scrambling

Then a very long boardwalk kept you off the forest floor. We were fortunate that our sunset hike had very few other hikers since it would have been challenging to cross paths with people going the other way, especially with a dog on the leash. The Acadia experience was challenging with great crowds even mid-week with parking lots filling up quickly.

Jordan Pond boardwalk

Acadia is a dog friendly park, and like a few other parks, offers a B.A.R.K. ranger program where your pet can earn a badge. The picture below is of the Acadia collar tag, and Chance getting a badge from a ranger at Saint Gaudens National Historic Site.

Many national park sites have understandable restrictions on dogs due to wildlife, safety or crowding, but many provide great opportunities. One of the best is nearby Indiana Dunes National Park that permits dogs on almost all trails, and has a B.A.R.K. ranger program. This weekend they are even offering a ranger led hike for dogs.

Rangers

As we approached the end of the hike, you could spot Jordan Pond House that overlooks the southern end of the lake. Lots of people were gathering near the shore to watch the sunset. We tried to go back to the House the next morning for their famous tea, but the parking lot was full well before the opening.

Jordan Pond House

We joined the folks lined up on the shore to view the fading dusk colors over the Bubbles rising above the north end of the Lake. A beautiful end to the hike.

Bubbles over Jordan Pond

The Waterfall -- Mary Oliver

I’ve shared some images from Obed Wild and Scenic River, a national park area in the Cumberland Plateau in Eastern Tennessee. With lots of opportunities for whitewater sports and rock climbing, the hiking trails are limited. A ranger suggested nearby Frozen Head State Park for hiking. We were off to find some waterfalls.

It was a warm, humid, sunny afternoon, and contrasty light is not favorable for photographing waterfalls. However, the forecast called for some storms and rain, so we headed out hopeful that conditions would change. We past a couple small falls on the way, but the light was too bright, so perhaps a visit on the way back.

We got to a nice twin fall with a big pool as clouds were moving in. About ten young kids were playing around the fall as parents watched nearby. Chance and I took a seat to watch when thunder echoed between the mountains. And — no kids and nice light.

Debord Falls

Few poets can imbue a poem with nature imagery as Mary Oliver. In 1991, Poetry published Oliver’s The Waterfall — For May Swenson. When Poetry received a massive endowment many years ago, all it’s prior publications went online so we can mine this treasure.

For all they said

I could not see the waterfall

until I came and saw the water falling,

its lace legs and its womanly arms sheeting down,

while something howled like thunder,

over the rocks,

all day and night—

unspooling

like ribbons made of snow,

or god’s white hair.

At any distance

it fell without a break or seam, and slowly, a simple

preponderance—

a fall of flowers—and truly it seemed

surprised by the unexpected kindness of the air and

light-hearted to be

flying at last.

Gravity is a fact everybody

knows about.

It is always underfoot,

like a summons,

gravel-backed and mossy,

in every beetled basin—

and imagination—

that striver,

that third eye—

can do a lot but

hardly everything. The white, scrolled

wings of the tumbling water

I never could have

imagined. And maybe there will be,

after all,

some slack and perfectly balanced

blind and rough peace, finally,

in the deep and green and utterly motionless pools after all that

falling?

Mary Oliver, The Waterfall, Poetry, January 1991

Across the Beatles Universe

Several weeks ago I posted some images from the Southwest together with lyrics from Joni Mitchell. I just rewatched Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe and so some Beatles lyrics have inspired me, and I’ve got images from a hike on the Devil’s Hall trail in Guadalupe Mountains National Park in west Texas to accompany them.

John Lennon said the opening lines to the song came to him after an argument with his first wife Cynthia and her words flowing over him, and he went downstairs to write:

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind
Possessing and caressing me

He said in an interview:

"It's one of the best lyrics I've written. In fact, it could be the best. It's good poetry, or whatever you call it, without chewin' it. See, the ones I like are the ones that stand as words, without melody. They don't have to have any melody, like a poem, you can read them."

I remember being surprised in coming across the Lennon-McCartney lyrics for A Day in the Life in an anthology in a college poetry class. Lennon said the line above was inspired by a photograph he saw in a London paper about a Guinness heiress who killed herself in a car crash, and the mundane nature of covering such a story. In only a few years images of him killed outside his New York home would echo back to these lyrics.

The image is of smoke from a fire that closed most of the trails in the park. In many ways the images of fires, floods, draught and destruction sometimes become just another mundane news story.

Well, it’s not a beetle, but coming across this centipede on the trail was a surprise. Paul McCartney’s lyrics he’d started for a different song were plugged into the middle of Lennon’s in A Day in the Life. If you have a Hulu subscription, you must see McCartney 3, 2, 1. You’ll need to wait until the very last episode, but McCartney’s recall of the creation of this song and inspiring orchestration is mesmerizing.

Ringo Starr might not be the lyrical genius of Lennon or McCartney, but he wrote a few treasures himself. This image is near the end of the Devil’s Hall trail and the entrance into the Hall by some natural stairs.

I’ll end this post with a photo from the end of the hike when we were greeted by a Canyon Wren, and a verse from one of Lennon and McCartney’s greatest.

Cultural Landscape - Blevins Farmstead

In May, I posted some images from the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area which sits in the Cumberland Plateau in Eastern Tennessee and Kentucky. When visiting the area again last month, I stopped at the Bandy Creek Ranger Station for some ideas on where to visit. I asked about the Oscar Blevins Historic Farmstead that I saw on the map. The ranger told me about it and gave driving directions, but then added there was a loop trail from the other side of the ranger station parking lot that went through the woods to the farmstead. He gave me a brochure about the route, and off we went.

“And dark, dim in the blue haze”

The trail starts along Bandy Creek. The trail brochure speculated as the origin on the name. Apparently, an early 18th century family started a farm nearby, but soon abandoned it—or in the local dialect — “bandoned” it. The bandoned area eventually was called Bandy.

“There, in blotched and cobwebbed light”

Some sandstone cliffs rise a bit above the creek. Archeologists determined that over many centuries natives took temporary shelter under some of the overhangs, but no tribes ever established long-term residence in the area. The land was not too fertile or hospitable for permanent settlement.

“where the Indian village was once”

After winding through the woods for a couple miles, the trail comes to a “bandoned” road where if you search carefully there is evidence of a family cemetery and later Blevins farmhouses, but eventually, the woods give way to the 24 acre main Blevins farmstead.

“The meadow is bright as snow”

Perhaps you’ve noticed the titles to the images. They come from some lines of The Signature of All Things, a 1949 poem by Kenneth Rexroth. He was a conscientious objector during WWII, and was called “the Daddy of the Beat Generation.” He was charged by an academic critic as belonging to the “bear-shit-on-the-trail school of poetry,” which Rexroth took as a compliment. So, a bit from the poem:

. . . .

The meadow is bright as snow.

My dog prowls the grass, a dark

Blur in the blur of brightness.

I walk to the oak grove where

The Indian village was once.

There, in blotched and cobwebbed light

And dark, dim in the blue haze,

Are twenty Holstein heifers,

Black and white, all lying down,

Quietly together, under

The huge tree rooted in the graves.

. . . .

Kenneth Rexroth, from The Signature of All Things, 1949

“I walk to the oak grove”

The image above is from where the trail first opens to the farmstead. The old fence line leads to the “new” farmhouse that was built in the 1950s. The Big South Fork NRRA was authorized in 1974, and began acquiring some of the land in the area. The Blevins began this subsistence farm in the 1870s. As with most of the farms in the rugged Upper Cumberland, farming was never much more than subsistence. The family sold the farm to the government in 1980, and the century’s worth of structures built on the land now tell some of the story of this cultural landscape. The National Park Service has an informative summary of the history of the farm and a long, detailed Cultural Landscapes Inventory it created of this farmstead in 1998. The NPS has many missions to preserve and protect wild lands for public enjoyment, but also is a repository for our national memory and heritage, and the cultural landscape heritage is a part of that mission.

“a dark blur in the blur of brightness”

The image above is of the 1879 farmhouse, which in many ways is in better shape than the 1950s home. Those aren’t dust spots on the picture, but some of the insects buzzing about. It was time to head back on the trail through the woods. Though it may have been more convenient to drive up to the farmstead, the walk through the woods provided a better context for the isolated, challenging life the farmers had in the rugged landscape.

“quietly together, under the huge trees rooted in the graves”

National Rivers and Trails -- Cumberland & Obed

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the fire on the Cuyahoga River in 1969 leading soon thereafter to the creation of the EPA and the Clean Water Act. A year earlier, Congress had passed the National Trails Act, and established two national trails—the nearly 2,200 mile Appalachian Trail and the over 2,600 mile Pacific Crest Trail. There are now eleven national scenic trails and nineteen national historic trails such as the Oregon Trail, Trail of Tears, and Selma to Montgomery Trail commemorating important events in the nation’s history. The National Park Service oversees these 30 trails, and you can look at them at this map.

Sunrise on the Cumberland Trail

The NPS also recognizes over 1,300 national recreational trails. While currently only two-thirds completed, the Cumberland Trail will extend 330 miles from the Cumberland Gap where Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee come together and will end at Chickamauga National Battlefield near Chattanooga. A stretch runs though the Obed Wild and Scenic River Park in Tennessee, and I got a campsite right next to the trail. You can see the trail blaze on the spur trail next to my car, so we could get an easy start hiking in the morning.

Rock Creek campground, Obed National Wild and Scenic River

Also in 1968, the National Wild and Scenic River Act was passed to designate and protect free-flowing (non-dammed) rivers of natural, historic or cultural importance. Eight years later, Congress established the Obed Wild and Scenic River in eastern Tennessee as an NPS site. In addition to the trails, the park attracts white water running as well as rock-climbing in the 500 foot gorge walls. This campsite is on the Emory River, and the picture below is taken on the other side of the Emory and looking downstream to where the Obed River joins it and then continues running off to the right.

Confluence of the Emory and Obed Rivers

A bonus of camping next to a river is falling asleep to the sound of the whitewater. However, when waking near midnight, it took effort to hear the sounds of the river over the loud chorus of frogs and insects. I didn’t want to go back to sleep, but instead just listen to the amazing music. When dawn did arrive, the valley was filled with mist.

Emory River misty sunrise

Emory River morning

The campsite is near a place called Nemo’s landing and one of the few places you can get next to the river if you’re not paddling through it. After dipping to the river at Nemo, the Cumberland trail climbs back up the gorge wall, but you can hear the sound of the river below even as you climb higher on the gorge. When you get to some sandstone cliffs, and the whitewater is crashing over rock below, you hear the sound of the river echoing off the walls above as well as from the river below.

By daylight, the frog chorus has been replaced by bird song and different insects continued to play their tunes. And though it’s hundreds of yards away and on the other side of the gorge, when a train roars by, it actually hurts your ears that have become accustom to the quiet of the woods.

Old hornet nests

Some of the mist and fog collects on the leaves and drops in loud splashes. Although larger, more popular National Park sites are experiencing record crowds hiking here was a solitary experience. Lat week in hiking nearly 25 miles on five different trails here and at neighboring Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, we didn’t meet a single other hiker.

Misty woods

colorful floor

The trail followed the ridgeline along the Emory River and then turned to follow the Obed valley. While the Cumberland trail continued on its route north to Virginia, a spur trail led down to Alley Ford. This spur is wide and rocky and is the old wagon road bed leading up from the ford where the river could be crossed and a small community once lived. Periodic floods wiped out the tiny communities of Nemo and Alley’s Ford. When we also camped at Nemo last spring, a ranger said that two weeks earlier the campsite had been under six feet of water!

Approaching Alley Ford

Swamp Milkweed along the Obed

As the sun started to rise over the other side of the gorge, the mist began to burn off.

Sunrise on the Obed Wild and Scenic River

Time to rest and enjoy the view before climbing back up to the ridge.

Obed reflections

Eventually, the Cumberland trail will run its full length across Tennessee, but for now segments come to an end. Thanks for coming along on a hike.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

In southeast New Mexico, tucked snug on the Texas border and Guadalupe Mountains National Park, is Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Both parks are in the Permian Basin alongside what was once an ancient sea. The view from the cavern entrance looks over the Basin.

While the caverns are the highlight of the park, the parkatechure fits into the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert.

At sunset, early summer through fall, hundreds of thousands of Brazilian free-tailed bats who live in the caverns, swirl out of the cavern to fly 20-30 miles distant to eat insects. For bat safety, the Park Service does does not permit photography or videography of the sublime event. You also need to remain seated during the exodus as the bats may fly just a couple feet over your head as they exit.

The next morning, we hiked down the natural entrance to the cavern that the bats returned through at daybreak.

As you first enter the cave, you feel the cool air moving out of the cave, and hitting the humidity near the entrance.

During Covid restrictions, there are no ranger tours, and you are limited to the “Big Room,” which you can take an elevator down to or walk the mile and a quarter down 700 feet through the natural entrance. It is a spectacular hike that should not be missed.

A Broadway lighting designer helped create the lighting for the cavern. The Big Room is over 4000 feet long, 625 feet wide and 255 high at the highest point. The hike around and through the Big Room is breathtaking.

One small side chamber is named the Chinese Theater.

And while a Broadway designer created the lighting, you might see a monster right out of Hollywood. Time to take the elevator back to the surface!

Cuyahoga -- Ledges

Yellowstone National Park just released its visitor count for July 2021, and had over 1 million visitors for the first time ever, and despite the remote location is often ranked as the second most visited park. Cuyahoga Valley National Park is between two major metropolitan area of Cleveland and Akron, and is the seventh most visited park. Most of the places we visited mid-week in August had manageable crowds, and slightly busy on the towpath. On Saturday morning, we stopped at one of the most popular spots—the Ledges.

Portal, Cuyahoga Valley National Park

You drive into a large grassy plateau with parking areas, shelters and visitor center, and wooded, sandstone ledges surround the area. To get to the 2 mile trail below the ledges, you need to go through one of the many portals cut into the forest.

Before going down to the trail below the ledges, an area called the Overlook awaits.

The overlook

It seemed the sandstone was taking some inspiration from the beech trees and carving look-alike branches.

The trail below reminded me a lot of the Giant City trail in Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois. Some large tree grew out of the sandstone.

And ferns were spot-lighted on the forest floor.

You might encounter a monster or two on the ledges.

With an early start, there weren’t too many hikers, but by the time we finished the trail and looped another trail, the trail was getting more crowded and the parking lot was filling up.

Cuyahoga -- Crooked Water

I remember the news, a couple weeks before Apollo XI launched, that the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was on fire. Soon we were going to be driving from Florida to Michigan and passing nearby, and I followed the bizarre story of a river so polluted it was aflame. The images became symbols of environmental degradation and helped create Earth Day and the Environmental Protection Agency the next year, and a couple years later, the Clean Water Act.

Public domain image of Cuyahoga River fire

Two years later, between Cleveland and Akron the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area was established , and a quarter century later redesignated as a National Park. The Park is a patchwork of public land between small towns and among highways and rail lines. The Erie and Ohio canal and towpath runs north to south mostly paralleling the river for the entire length of the park. Along with the river, plenty of wooded areas cover the park, but one of the most important features are the 1,500 wetlands.

In 1984, with the help of the Sierra Club, the NPS began to clean up a newly acquired auto repair shop and the area surrounding a creek along the E&O canal that was filled with old cars and other junk. Soon beavers, who’d been absent for a century, moved in and dammed the creek and a marsh began to form.

Cuyahoga is believed to be the Iroquois word for “Crooked Water.” The straight lines of canals and roads are surrounded by the crooked water of rivers, streams and wetlands.

NPS photo of 1970s junkyard where Beaver Marsh would one day be

Before visiting a National Park, especially one I’ve never visited, I consult QT Loung’s Treasured Lands. QT was featured in Ken Burns’ documentary on National Parks as the first person to photograph all the National Parks, and when a new park is established he rushes to photograph the park. Not only is his book beautiful, it is great resource for photographers with tips on locations and times to visit. Cuyahoga Valley is not a place of great vistas or open spaces, so a promising sunrise location is not around every corner as it is in some parks. QT suggested Beaver Marsh, so that’s where Chance and I headed for sunrise, and we were rewarded with a misty golden glow in a view across the valley.

Beaver Marsh sunrise, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio

Perhaps Mary Oliver reflected on a scene of healed land as this when she wrote Rain

. . . .

This morning the water lilies are no less lovely, I think,

than the lilies of Monet.

And I do not want anymore to be useful, to be docile, to lead

children out of the fields into the text

of civility to teach them that they are (they are not) better

than the grass.

. . . .

Mary Oliver, Rain, from New and Selected Poems: Volume One, 1992

Dawn reflection, Beaver Marsh

A little while after this image was taken, a beaver swam across the water. Muskrats scurried through, frogs and turtles moved the lilies, and bird song surrounded the scene. Runners and bikers crossed the boardwalk on their journeys on the towpath, another photographer set up his tripod nearby, one lady brought her chair to sit and watch the sunrise, and Chance curled up under a bench.

In the distance, it looked like a Japanese garden,

The park’s work to restore the native habitat continues. One struggle is invasive species. Purple loosestrife is a significant challenge, but it sure looks beautiful, and highlights a willow getting a foothold.

QT mostly uses a large format camera, and so is a landscape photographer and not wildlife, and so offers few tips on birds and wildlife. I was surprised with the number of birds here and didn’t bring a long lens with me. So we got back on the towpath, and headed to the car to get some new equipment.

Erie & Ohio towpath

Back with the big lens, I could focus on some birds. The noisiest ones in the marsh were red-winged blackbirds. And the babies were calling, “Mom!!”

This was probably the second set of hatchlings this year, and mom’s feathers looked pretty worn.

And a tender moment before heading back out for more food.

And dad helped.

And many other little ones were flying between the bushes and snags.

Warbling Vireo Willow flycatcher Barn swallows

Beaver Marsh demonstrates that concerted efforts to heal and restore the natural environment can have remarkable effect and bring peace to residents and visitors alike. Maybe the storms, fires, floods and heat will finally push us on to take major action to reverse the destruction we do to the climate and home. The walk back on the towpath was along the remnant of the old canal. There to say good-bye was a family of wood ducks—I think a young girl and boy with mama.

Wood duck family

Oh Dear, Mr. Matthiessen

Chance and I are camping, and the wonder is, we have an internet connection—but very weak. So this post will be very short, and hopefully these images can get uploaded.

Giant’s Bathtub, Matthiessen State Park

Last week, I posted images of the sunflower field at Matthiessen State Park. Time now to hike down into the upper Dells of the Park. Frederick William Matthiessen purchased the park land in the late 19th century, and opened it as a private park. He populated it with many deer, and so named it “Deer Park.” The image above is one of the highlights of the park. The pool below the falls is called the Giant’s Bathtub. If you turn around, the scene is the next image.

Upper Dells

The north end of the Upper Dells area is a waterfall coming off the dammed Deer Lake. Hope you enjoy. I’m off to visit my 200th National Park Service unit tomorrow. Hope to get posts of that next week.

"Gauguin likes them extraordinarily."

A couple weeks ago at Starved Rock, I was giving location tips to an out-of-state photographer who was visiting the area for the first time. He asked if there were any sunflower fields nearby. I said I didn’t know of any. When I got home, I searched and discovered that the state planted a field nearby at Matthiessen State Park. Time for another trip!

Sunflowers were domesticated about 3,000 to 5,000 years ago in the Arizona, New Mexico, Mexico area, and the crop spread through the continent, and was quickly brought to Europe by explorers.

The flower became a favorite subject of Vincent Van Gogh. When Paul Gauguin came to stay with Vincent in Arles in southern France, Vincent decorated his room with paintings of sunflowers. Vincent wrote to his brother Theo that “Gauguin likes them extraordinarily.” And that another painter had the peony, and another the hollyhock, but “I have the sunflower.”

One of Vincent’s paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago is Madame Roulin, the cradle rocker. Vincent included a sketch in a letter to Theo that this peaceful, domestic portrait of a new mother should be displayed with paintings of sunflowers on each side.

Arles is near the Mediterranean port city of Marseille where the famous Provencal fish stew was created.

“I am hard at it, painting with the enthusiasm of a Marseillais eating bouillabaisse, which won’t surprise you when you know that what I’m at is the painting of some sunflowers. If I carry out this idea, there will be a dozen panels. So the whole thing will be a symphony in blue and yellow. I am working at it every morning from sunrise on, for the flowers fade so quickly.” Vincent to Theo, 1888.

I had a college friend from Arles, and was fortunate to visit him. It was during the summer Olympic games in Moscow that the U.S. was boycotting, and we watched some of the games between many walks around Arles— soaking in many of the scenes that Vincent painted. The hot, sunny, bright light of Arles is contained in a field of sunflowers. Further in his letter to Theo, Vincent wrote:

“In the hope of living in a studio of our own with Gauguin, I’d like to do a decoration for the studio. Nothing but large sunflowers.”

Preserve Illinois

I went out early Tuesday to photograph a field of sunflowers in Matthiessen State Park. Unfortunately, the gates to the park were closed when I arrived. (I tried all four entrances!) In the course of driving between entrances, I noticed a field I’d been in several years earlier, and pulled over to see the prairie flowers. Fortunately, I just had a dog, not a horse. At least I think that sign means no horses, or at least don’t pack another horse on top of your horse.

The 700 acre Starved Rock Nature Preserve lies mostly between the two state parks. The Illinois Nature Preserves Commission is a division of the state’s Department of Natural Resources, and has jurisdiction over 607 preserves and reserves across the state in size from 1 acre to 2,000. Some are publicly owned as is the one entirely within nearby Matthiessen State Park. Others are privately owned, but are given certain state protections and control.

Morning, Starved Rock Nature Preserve prairie

While the view west hinted at the smoke blown in from the fires in the U.S. and Canadian West, looking east, the sun was an orange ball behind the particles in the air.

Bergamot, Rattlesnake Master, Compass Plant and Coneflowers in bloom

Wild Bergamot, or Bee Balm, was used by Native Americans to dress wounds, settle stomachs and treat colds and mouth diseases. It is used in many teas today, and likely is a help to many breathing the smoke blanketing the country. Bergamot’s been blooming since early June and will likely keep doing so most of the summer.

Gray-Headed Conflower

The sun provided some drama for the Gray-headed Coneflowers. While the heads are dark brown once in bloom, you can see some of the green-gray heads that haven’t bloomed yet. Did you spot the beetle near the bottom?

A Chance at Bergamot

Chance’s hair as well as my shoes and pants were soaked from the dew-covered plants. Speaking of insects, if you look carefully, you can spot the tick between his eyes. He’d taken his flea and tick medicine and I’ve sprayed my clothes with permethrin, and doused myself with Off before heading out, but we did a thorough tick check and shower once home, and only found one traveler.

Purple Coneflower

The dew, the sun and the haze provided drama and atmosphere to capture, but looking west provided some nice portrait views of the wildflowers.

Governor JB Pritzker has approved filling the vacancy for the position of the Director of the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission which was vacant the entire term of Governor Rauner. During Rauner’s term, the budget for the Department of Natural Resources was severely cut, and the effects are still evident in the terrible conditions of most of the hiking trails and several gutted roads at Starved Rock and Matthiessen State Parks.

Purple Coneflower — Echinacea purpurea

While the gates were closed for the intended sunflowers, the nearby “fall back” scene was a wonderful surprise. Perhaps I’ll post sunflower images next week, though I’ll also post some on my Instagram page if you want to take a peek.

Gray-headed Coneflower — Ratibida pinnata

This is land taken from the Potawatomi and Kaskaskia peoples. The Nature Preserve also protects some archeological sites of theirs still on the land. Gwen Nell Westerman, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, is director of Humanities at Minnesota State University. In her first book of poetry, Follow the Blackbirds, she wrote Genetic Code. From that:

On the edge of dream,

the songs came.

Condensed from the fog,

like dewdrops on cattails,

they formed perfectly clear.

. . .

Always on still morning air,

they come,

connected by

memories and

song.

Gwen Nell Westerman, Genetic Code, 2013

Do yourself a favor. While looking at the final image, listen to her read the entire poem.

On the edge of a dream

Lurie Garden Blumes

Alongside Michigan Avenue is the Millennium Monument entrance to Millennium Park.

Millennium Monument

Walking further along Michigan Avenue is the Crown Fountain.

Crown Fountain

Go behind the hedgerow, and the wildflowers of Lurie Garden grow.

Lurie Garden

There’s a warning sign for the territorial Red-winged Blackbird keeping watch over his nest.

Redwinged blackbird on compass plant

The tips of the Purple Coneflower are aglow.

Red Admiral on Purple Coneflower

And the bees were buzzing while the orchestra practiced Beethoven in the background.

White Coneflower and bee

Globe Thistle

Like the Globe Thistle, Rattlesnake Master has globe-shaped flowers. The Black Spider Wasp provides a dramatic contrast, and when they turn the right way, their wings glow blue.

Black Spider Wasp on Rattlesnake Master

The Black Spider Wasp shares a trait with the Great Golden Digger Wasp—besides great names. They dig a hole in the ground, then look for prey. On finding a spider, katydid, grasshopper or other critter, they inflict a paralyzing, but not lethal sting, and drag the victim back to the hole. After putting the prey in the hole, they lay an egg on the victim who will will still be alive to provide nutrition when the egg hatches.

Golden Digger Wasp

After that uplifting story, how about gentle images of a Monarch Butterfly on Milkweed. The Monarch’s scientific name—Danaus plexippus—means “sleepy transformation.”

Monarch butterfly on milkweed

Or on a coneflower.

Monarch on purple coneflower

Starving for Rain

Following a wet late spring, it’s been a dry summer. Finally, after a couple days of rain, Chance and I headed to Starved Rock State Park to see whether the waterfalls might be flowing. Our first stop was the Y-shaped trails of Ottawa and Kaskaskia Canyons, where a flat walk up the creeks lead to two potential falls. It was raining when we arrived, so with hat, boots and raincoat, it was time to head up to Ottawa.

Starved Rock State Park

And go behind the falls. With it still raining, a second ephemeral fall cascaded down.

Ottawa Canyon Falls

Back to the Y junction and up Kaskaskia Canyon with a view of the falls in the distance.

Kaskaskia Canyon

And then close to the pool and the fallen trees. If the dry weather continues, in a month the pool will be empty, and you can walk into the cave.

Kaskaskia Falls

No one else was hiking on the rainy morning, so Chance had fun off leash splashing through the mud and water.

The rain stopped by the time we got to the parking for LaSalle Canyon. Still saw no one on the hike until we got to the falls, and a couple was there enjoying the view with their dog.

LaSalle Canyon

Time to get the tripod legs wet.

LaSalle Canyon falls

The trail from LaSalle to Tonti Canyon has a bridge out. The state has terribly underfunded the parks for over a decade and trail maintenance is minimal, and Tonti Canyon is essentially closed off. The access from the other direction is fenced. However, we walked under the bridge to see whether the rain brought the double falls at Tonti. The distant view looked promising.

Indeed, the smaller falls on the side was flowing.

Tonti canyon

And the main falls in the box canyon was flowing with purpose.

Tonti Canyon falls

So a treat to see the double falls

Tonti double falls

Chance patiently waited while I photographed and tried to stay out of the picture.

On the way back to the car, we decided to try a small canyon that rarely has a waterfall. The only time I’d seen it flow before was when it was actually raining pretty hard, but we decided to give it a try. We were rewarded with a small flow.

Owl Canyon falls

Chance knew it was time to go home for a bath.

0.01% -- June Prairie Flowers

Illinois is nicknamed the Prairie State from the time the northern two-thirds of the state was nearly entirely tall-grass prairie. By a century ago, the prairie was nearly all gone. Today, an estimated .01% of native prairie remains; plowed under for farms, roads and homes. Trains brought settlers and development throughout the state, and those trains helped preserve a six acre remnant is less than a ten minute walk away from my home.

Spiderwort

As spring turns to summer, the grasses and flowers grow taller. A couple weeks ago spiderwort blanketed big portions of the prairie, but has already faded and taller grasses grow over it. Now Pale Purple Coneflower and Bergamot keep that part of the palette on display.

Pale-purple coneflower and bergamot

In 1902 you could pay 25 cents to ride from Aurora to Chicago on the new electric train line, and the next year ride the branch that cut over in Wheaton to Elgin. The Chicago, Aurora and Elgin line transported people throughout the western suburbs for the next three decades until going bankrupt in the Depression. The CA&E became active again after WWII, but the automobile and the Congress Expressway finally killed it when the expressway took some of the right of way and cut off direct access downtown. The CA&E struggled for a few years, but at noon on July 3, 1957, it abruptly stopped running trains stranding passengers. Much of the right of way was eventually made into the country’s first rail-to-trails program—the Illinois Prairie Path.

Michigan lilies along the Prairie Path

Decades earlier, another rail line ran parallel just south of what would be the CA&E. Eventually, the Chicago Great Western Railway linked Minneapolis, Kansas City and Omaha with Chicago. Though mostly a freight line, some passenger service ran on the line, until it too was abandoned in the 1960s.

In the patch between the two lines’ right of way lay prairie that was never plowed or developed. Bison and fire maintained grasses and forbs for thousands of years.

“. . . I started with surprise and delight. I was in the midst of a prairie! A world of grass and flowers stretched around me, rising and falling in gentle undulations. . . . We passed whole acres of blossoms all bearing one hue, as purple, perhaps, or masses of yellow or rose; and then again a carpet of every color intermixed, or narrow bands, as if a rainbow had fallen upon the verdant slopes.” Eliza Steele, Summer Journey in the West, 1840.

Michigan lilies and bergamot

Carl Sandburg lived just a few blocks north of these rail lines, though he probably commuted to his job at the Chicago Daily News on the Chicago & Northwestern line. But perhaps he rode the Great Western back to his old home in Galesburg, when he wrote Limited:

I am riding on a limited express, one of the crack trains of the nation.

Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark air go fifteen all

steel coaches holding a thousand people.

(All the coaches shall be scrap and rust and all the men and women

laughing in the diners and sleepers shall pass to ashes.)

I ask a man in the smoker where he is going and he answers:

“Omaha.”

pollinating purple crown vetch

Invasive species such as purple crown vetch get into the native prairie. Sometimes the periodic planned burns will kill the invaders while letting the deep-rooted native plants survive.

Eastern Bumble Bee

Yellow toadflax, another invasive species, is poison to grazing animals, but it is pretty.

Yellow Toadflax from above

Chicago is derived from the Algonquin word for wild onion. A small patch are just getting ready to bloom.

Nodding Wild Onion

If you’re a passing Monarch butterfly perhaps you’re looking for some milkweed.

Milkweed

Or if you’re like me, you’ll sample a ripe berry.

Blackberry

Or perhaps you’re not willing to sample some vervain even though Hildergard of Germany wrote: “Let whoever suffers rotten flesh, from ulcers or from worms…place the tea of vervain on top of the linen until the putridness has drawn out.”

Blue Vervain

Or maybe you’ll want to get some vitamin C and other benefits from the delicate Pasture Rose, though I like the Latin name.

Rosa Carolina

As June ends, the prairie plants are getting taller. Big Bluestem grasses are shooting up. Above them all are the eight to ten foot high Compass Plant with leaves that point north to the Great Western Line and south to the Chicago, Aurora and Elgin, and yellow flowers beckoning the sun and finches. And their roots go down fifteen feet still feeding on the soil built after the glaciers left.

Compass Plant

Shadow & Light -- Joni Mitchell

The New York Times just published an incredible interactive story on the 50th anniversary of the release of Joni Mitchell’s Blue. Along with great images, it has interviews of 25 artists inspired by her with links to the songs. She’s my favorite musician, so here are some images from our recent trip along with some of her lyrics.

Refuge of the Roads

And I went running down a white sand road

I was running down a white sand road

I was running like a white-assed deer

Running to lose the blues

To the innocence in here

Highway 54, New Mexico

These are the clouds of Michelangelo

Muscular with gods and sungold

Shine on your witness in the refuge of the roads

Permian Plain, Carlsbad Caverns National Park

In a highway service station

Over the month of June

Was a photograph of the earth

Taken coming back from the moon

And you couldn’t see a city

On that marbled bowling ball

Or a forest or a highway

Or me here, least of all

Joni Mitchell, Hejira, 1976

Moonrise, White Sands National Park, New Mexico

In straightening the river and constructing a wall along the Rio Grande River to protect our “homeland,” we destroyed the home ecosystems of wildlife that lived there. An effort to restore a small portion of those wetlands has been created in a water treatment facility south of El Paso.

Borderline

Every bristling shaft of pride

Church or nation

Team or tribe

Every notion we subscribe to

Is just a borderline

Good or bad, we think we know

As if thinking makes things so

All convictions grow along a borderline

Joni Mitchell, Travelogue, 2002

Black-necked Stilt, Rio Bosque wetlands, Texas

Incredibly, Joni was 21 when she wrote one of her most enduring songs. Both Sides Now was first commercially recorded by Judy Collins, and made the Top Ten in 1968. Joni didn’t like Collins’ version and she used the song to title her next album Clouds. However, the song has far greater depth when she rerecorded it in the her 50s, earning another Grammy, and the song then drew tears from Emma Thompson in Love Actually.

Both Sides Now

Rows and flows of angel hair

And ice cream castles in the air

And feather canyons everywhere

Looked at clouds that way

Soapstone Yucca trio, White Sands National Park

But now they only block the sun

They rain and they snow on everyone

So many things I would have done

But clouds got in my way

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down and still somehow

It’s cloud illusions I recall

I really don’t know clouds at all

Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now, 2000

Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico

My friend Judy introduced me to the music of Pat Metheny in college, and then she snagged tickets to Joni Mitchell’s tour performing Charles Mignus inspired songs with a great jazz band of Metheny, Lyle Mays, Jaco Pastorius, Don Alias, Michael Brecker and the Persuasion. The live album of that tour is my favorite.

Shadows and Light

Every picture has its shadows
And it has some source of light
Blindness, blindness and sight

Joni Mitchell, Shadows and Light, 1980

Sunset, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico

She started down her jazz road a few years earlier on Hejira, (with Jaco Pastorius’ bass being amazing on this song), and she was recorded on Scorcese’s great The Last Waltz.

Hejira

We all come and go unknown

Each so deep and superficial

Between the forceps and the stone

Tracks, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas

Well, I looked at the granite markers

Those tributes to finality, to eternity

And then I looked at myself here

Chicken scratching for my immortality

Socorro Mission cemetery, Texas

In the church, they light the candles

And the wax rolls down like tears

There is the hope and the hopelessness

I’ve witnessed thirty years

Socorro Mission, Stations of the Cross

We’re only particles of change I know, I know

Orbiting around the sun

Joni Mitchell, Hejira, 1976

White Sands National Park

Joni is a painter as well as a song writer and musician, and the visual images in her songs are as vivid as paintings. She recorded Amelia with Jaco Pastorius in 1976 on Hejira, and then again on her live album Shadows and Light four years later, and yet again in 2000. So we’ll end these photo with her word images.

Amelia

I was driving across the burning desert

When I spotted six jet planes

Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain

It was the hexagram of the heavens

It was the strings of my guitar

Amelia, it was just a false alarm

Joni Mitchell, Travelogue, 2000

Salt Basin Dunes, Guadalupe Mountains National Park

Valley of Textures -- Valley of Fires

A few weeks ago I posted a view from the Three Rivers Petroglyph site that looked across the Tularosa Basin to the White Sands in the distant southwest and the black lava flow in the distant northwest. Let’s visit that lava flow of many names— the Malpais, the Carrizozo volcanic field, and what the government tourism marketers came up with: the Valley of Fires. Don’t confuse that with the Valley of Fire state park in Nevada or El Malpais National Monument in northern New Mexico

Ropey Pahoehoe lava

The 50 mile flow in east central New Mexico is four to six miles wide and over 150 feet deep. The flow occurred about 5,000 years ago, and so it’s one of the youngest lava field in the country. I was quite shocked when I first crossed this stark, black gash in the Chihuahuan desert ten years ago driving from the Bosque del Apache wildlife refuge on the Rio Grande in the western part of the state across to Three Rivers Petroglyphs. Suddenly, the highway crosses this barren lava field. It’s quite an unexpected sight when you’re travelling a mile a minute through the brown, gray, dusky greens of the desert. Must’ve been even more unsettling when traveling on foot or horse.

Carrizozo lava field

The Spanish explorers named these areas “malpais” as “bad lands” and the name continues to be used to describe these largely uneroded lava fields. The Bureau of Land Management is the caretaker of this land, and has a boardwalk nature trail that winds into the lava field. It quickly becomes clear that what appeared desolate is rich in plant and animal life growing in the lava. The ground and the life in it is a wonder of texture.

Malpais Nature Trail, Valley of Fires Recreation Area

If you look carefully in the image above, at the curve in the upper right part of the trail is a large juniper tree. Four hundred years ago, when Coronado was killing native people and exploring this new colony for Spain, this tree started growing in a crack in the lava.

Ancient Juniper

Visiting in May offers many blooming cactus. The prickly pear alone has flowers of many colors from yellow to orange to red. One description is that the prickly pear blooms in all the colors of the sunset. These are no frilly, insubstantial petals, but bold, thick declarations of survival and persistence.

Other cactus show flowers off even more variety.

Claret Cup Cactus, Echinocereus triglochidiatus

The Jornada Mogollon people who lived in this area a thousand years ago, and the Apache and Pueblo people who followed had many uses for the sotol plant that shoots flower stalks high into the sky. The sugary juices contributed to an alcoholic drink, the fibers were used in mats, baskets, ropes, and thatch, and the dried leaves could be used as spoons.

Charismatic Cane Cholla is also called Walking Stick Cholla. When dead and dry, it shows off it’s beautiful lattice work underneath. It’s much more approachable and friendly than the Jumping Cholla in the Sonora desert to the west. Walk anywhere near that nasty creature and you’ll be covered in tiny spine sections that break off and “jump” on you.

Cane Cholla, Cylindropuntia imbricate

The signs said there was a good chance of seeing Collared Lizards along the trail. Despite looking carefully, and seeing some smaller lizards, birds and lots of insects, we saw none of these bigger fellows. That is, until we got to the parking lot, and there was one displaying for us. We’ll end this desert trek with some human-made texture to show off this fellow. Like the Cholla, the Sonoran desert has a different species, and this guy said that he, too, is much friendlier than his western cousin.

Eastern Collared Lizard, Crotaphytus collaris

Mary Oliver: Mysteries, Yes

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous

to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the

mouths of the lambs.

How rivers and stones are forever

in allegiance with gravity

while we ourselves dream of rising.

How two hands touch and the bonds will

never be broken.

How people come, from delight or the

scars of damage,

to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those

who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say

“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,

and bow their heads.

Mary Oliver, Mysteries, Yes

from, Evidence, 2009

A Peeling Tree in West Texas

Snug against the New Mexico border in West Texas sits Guadalupe Mountains National Park. The mountain ridges have the highest peaks in Texas including Guadalupe Peak at 8,751 feet. The limestone mountains are the remains of a massive coral reef that grew at the edge of the ocean when the land nearby was the supercontinent of Pangea 250 million years ago.

While not nearly that old, the Texas madrone tree is a relic that is found only on slopes between 4,500 and 6,500 feet. It has relatives that go as far north as British Columbia, but the Texan ones may have stayed after the Ice Age retreated. Whatever their history, the trees stopped me in my tracks while hiking—and not only for the shade they provided in the desert heat, but their striking character and beauty. Since this was once an underwater reef, this tree could resemble a fan coral waving deep in the ocean.

Much of the Chihuahuan desert has muted colors of grey, greens, and brown, so the tree’s remarkable glowing orange jumps out even across a mountain valley. A local name for the tree is Manzanita, which is “little apple.” Or if you prefer Latin, Arbutus texana.

The tree’s bark does not expand as it grows. Instead it cracks and breaks away—providing one of its many nicknames—The Peeling Tree.

One of the other names the tree has is Lady’s Leg. Indigenous peoples used the beautiful wood for bowls, spoons and other tools. The high tannin content led it to be used to tan hides and the fruit can be eaten or used to create alcoholic drinks. Interestingly, the tree is part of the Heath family and so is closely related to blueberries, cranberries, and azaleas.

The tree’s fruit looks, and apparently even tastes, like strawberry, and so it gets another name — The Strawberry Tree. These cousins are found in the Mediterranean, and the Strawberry Tree is the symbol of the city of Madrid, Spain. The Texas madrone is apparently very difficult to prorogate, and frustrates gardeners who try to grow it. We were frustrated because a fire that started in the park by a lightening strike on May 11 closed most of the trails.

A couple rangers and pack horse came down the trail from the fire. If you look carefully at Ranger McBride’s magnificent beard, it’s even the color of the madrone tree. While the firefighters’ efforts have significantly contained the fire, 2,000 acres are still burning today keeping many of the trails closed.

The madrone also faces risks from a fungus that blackens their limbs. Climate change certainly creates risks for a tree that thrives in such a narrow niche. This tree below, which might be a century old, seems to be losing the fight, yet it remains a beautiful desert wonder.

Walking with the Jornada Mogollon

A thousand years ago, the Jornada Mogollon people lived in houses similar to this reconstruction. These farmers raised the three sister crops — corn, beans, and squash — to supplement the wild foods and animals. In the east the Sierra Blanca rise above the village.

By 1200 C.E. this was an important village in the Chihuahua desert, and the villagers traded with peoples throughout what would be the southwest U.S. and Mexico. The village would reach its greatest size by 1300 and then decline until abandoned about 1400, and the Jornada Mogollon peoples would fade from history. They left for us art and symbols important to their lives. Rising above the village for about a mile is a volcanic basaltic ridge. Here is a view from high on the ridge looking down to a lower part of the ridge into the valley where cottonwoods grow along the river and the village settled.

Using stone tools, the people would remove the patina on the rocks. Over 21,000 petroglyphs of birds, animals, fish, people, masks, sunbursts, hand and foot prints, geometric designs, and other creations of stories and imaginations where created in the half millennium the Jornada Mogollon lived here.

The Sierra Blanca and Sacramento Mountains form the eastern side of the Tularosa Basin. Thirty to sixty miles to the west rise the the San Andres and Oscura Mountains, and the basin stretches 150 miles north to south. This is an endorheic basin meaning what little rain falls does not flow out of the basin. Some water to the south accumulates in playas which evaporate forming gypsum crystals which in turn blow to form white sand dunes which you can see in the distance. If you were standing here nearly 76 years ago to the day, you would have seen the mushroom cloud rising over the Trinity Site of the first nuclear explosion.

The north end of the basin had a lava flow about 500 years ago soon after the Jornada Mogollon people left. In the image below you can barely see the black streaks of lava forming the Malpais. In future blog posts there’ll be images from White Sands and the Malpais.

We were the first to hike up the trail in the morning, but before we got there a roadrunner had walked most of the way up the dusty trail to the first ridge. We followed its footprints just as the Jornada Mogollon had a millennium ago.

One of the frequently shared glyphs from this Three Rivers site is the Bighorn Sheep pierced by three arrows. A thanksgiving of a hunt? A prayer for a hunt? A metaphor for some other beliefs of the people who lived here?

We know so little of these people, but they left art to let us try to enter some of their beliefs, experiences and dreams. Fortunately, this accessible site visited by thousands is respected and shows very few signs of vandalism or degradation.

What do you see?

Big South Fork

In eastern Tennessee, the Big South Fork River cuts a gorge though the Cumberland Plateau as it flows north into Kentucky before emptying into the Cumberland River. For centuries, Woodland Indians and Mississippian Indians lived here farming, hunting and building communities. The Shawnee and Cherokee lived on the land until settlers began moving in and the Cherokee ceded the land to the new U.S. government in 1805.

Big South Fork from Bear Creek Overlook

The nineteenth century saw Scots-Irish settlers creating subsistence farms in the area, but in the early twentieth century, logging, coal mining, gas and oil drilling began to exploit the land and the people. In a half century the resources were exhausted, and the companies pulled out.

Blue Heron mine

In 1974 Congress authorized the nation’s first joint national river and recreation area. Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area starts near the Victorian utopian community of Rugby, Tennessee and works its way along the river northwest into Kentucky before the river flows into the Cumberland. The river’s aquatic life was nearly destroyed by pollution from the unregulated mining and logging, and is recovering under the park service stewardship.

East Rim overlook into the Big South Fork

The area is known as one of the best wildflower areas in the eastern U.S. and some of the spring beauties showed off in early April.

Halberd-leaf violets

Trillium

Rue Anenome

Bloodroot

Dozens of natural arches are found near the gorge walls. All the flowers pictured above are from a trail that runs near Split Bow Arch just across the border in Kentucky.

Split Bow Arch

At the far north end of the park, is the tallest waterfall in Kentucky. Yahoo Falls drops 110 feet, and the view behind the falls is magical while the sound of the water echoes in the alcove behind as the land heals.

Yahoo Falls

Light