In the last year, we have stayed in over 50 RV Parks. Some we enjoyed for a day or two while others were home for a week or more. The better parks have at least one element that lingers with me. The KOA in Burlington has a beautiful little stream running through the middle of it. There is limited access to it, and fishing and wading are prohibited. But it does offer a respite from the dust and sunshine of the park itself. It reminds us that we are in an extraordinary place shaped by fire and ice, where mountain streams are the last remnants of a much more turbulent time. I do not know anything about this creek other than it is a little bit of peace in a world sadly in need of all the peacefulness we can get.
On Monday, we set out to explore the North Cascade National Park. The hour drive was beautiful, but we watched our warm sunny day in Burlington turn into a gray, cold day in the mountains. We snuck in a quick walk around the Visitor Center, and a few quick stops at the limited overlooks on the Scenic Highway. We found one short trail; the weather was holding off as we braved the riverside trail. Unfortunately, the rain began as we reached the end of that trail, and we headed back to Nakai. When we wander, we have some days that are more challenging than others. This was one of them. (The following story will say more about this little hike.) For now, it is essential to accept the rainy days and Mondays. We wander because we do not control the experiences we seek in our travels. Karen Carpenter's voice echoed in my soul while we returned to our campsite. Yep, rainy days and Mondays get me down, but there is so much more to our journey, especially with my companion in the other seat.
That trail that ended in the rain led to this overlook. Yep, it is of a human-made lake behind a 60-year-old dam built to provide power for Seattle. Usually, a National Park trail leads to a magnificent vista that includes waterfalls or some other natural wonder. Nope, not here. We saw an old dam, a monument to human arrogance and greed. In fact, the entire park that we saw was dedicated to what people have done to this pristine wilderness. The salmon and trout have been cut off from their spawning grounds. The Native people have been denied access to their ancient way of life. The downstream portions of the river are no longer regenerated by the periodic flooding that restores balance to the ecosystem. Why? So that the city of Seattle can receive a tiny percentage of the power they use to light an already light-polluted night sky. To add insult to injury of this eyesore, the National Park uses scarce federal funds to celebrate this waste. I sincerely hope that reason will dawn on the Park Service, and they will return this river canyon to its original state and make some amends for the harm that humanity has caused. Then, they can build a National Park worthy of the title!
Mount Shuksan is next to Mount Baker in the North Cascades. The peak is 9,131 ft. above sea level and was formed when North America collided with another plate 120 million years ago. Mount Baker, its more famous neighbor, is a mere 80,000 to 90,000 years old, formed by a series of volcanos that have come and gone. But Mount Shuksan has outlasted them all. The name, Shuksan, comes from the Native American word for “high peak," "high foot," or "golden eagle." It is home to massive glaciers.
We first saw Shuksan from Artist's Point, but it was covered in clouds that only revealed tantalizing glimpses of its beauty. After 45 minutes, we decided it was time to return to camp for the evening. We turned a corner along the way, and this image opened before us. I stopped Nakai on the side of the road, pulled out my camera, and played with the mountain for about a half hour. Looking at my Flickr page, you will see many of the shots I took while the mountain and I conversed. (Flickr) Shuksan danced in the clouds like a model while I dutifully clicked the shutter many times. The more I looked, the more I saw. The glaciers sparkled with blue and white. The streams fell off the mountain in shining rivulets. Indeed, I was exhausted, and Shuksan was just getting started. But I bid the mountain goodbye with a last shot showing the highway that would carry us away to Koko and a night’s rest. Thank you, Shuksan, for a beautiful afternoon of wandering among the deep geologic history of our home.
Hanging Glacier is a remnant of the last Ice Age when the Pacific Northwest was buried under a colossal ice sheet. These ice sheets sculpted the modern landscape and created massive gorges and mountain ranges. Hanging Glacier is one of several that still flows down the slopes of Shuksan. The blue hue of the lower ice occurs when the weight of the ice and snow squeezes out the air, and the water reflects the pure blue wavelengths of light in the oxygen-hydrogen bond itself. It is a sure sign that the ice is ancient and formed over thousands of years under the weight of tons of pressure. Glacial ice appearing on mountains that are very close to not-so-ancient volcanos suggests that fire and ice are the basic elements of creation. They combine to shape the chaos of creation into something wonderfully mysterious and magical to the human mind. I can only imagine these ancient neighbors' relationship over the last 100,000 years. Fire is doing its work of destruction and creation alongside its co-creator and co-destroyer, ice. Fire and ice! May you grace our lives with your poetic dance for millennia to come.
This is Sulphide Creek Falls. It looks like a mere trickle of water. Still, given the size of the mountain, it is a substantial cascade of water. It represents one of the tallest waterfalls in North America. The flanks of Shuksan have many of these waterfalls. Each offers a small contribution to the Skagit River, where the water eventually becomes part of Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean. That water will connect this mountain with every shoreline on every continent of our planet. As the Hawaiian legends teach, water does not divide us; it connects us. And this water flows from ancient glaciers where the water has been locked up for tens of thousands of years. It connects us with life from the very depths of time itself. The sheer sweep of the eons and the geography time fills me with awe and wonder. We are indeed one community across both time and space. My eyes are opened wide!
When our time in Burlington and the Pacific Coast ended, it was time to move on to Gingko Petrified Forest State Park in Vantage, WA. We have spent the last three and a half months along the Pacific Coast and have been touched by mystery, wonder, and joy. Even though this was not the original plan for this trip, I am grateful that the consequences have led us to enjoy a part of the world I did not know I wanted to see and experience.
But the 3 ½ hour's drive into the heart of Washington promises a whole new set of wondrous experiences. As we drove over the 5,000-foot Snoqualmie Pass and descended into the hotter, drier high desert, I felt the old wanderlust stirring in my soul. What adventures await us? What more will I discover that I did not even know I wanted to know? I must admit, I love the desert, but we have never been to this part of the Western US, and I can’t wait to see every square inch that our time will allow. Yep, I am excited to be somewhere brand new!
Nope, we are not in the Pacific NW any longer. When Marlene posted our drive across Washington with pictures of the dry landscape, one of our FB friends suggested we turn around and return to the coast. But we didn’t. We pressed on to discover what the next couple of months offer. Our wandering is not walking blindly into a new place. But neither is it about doing months and months of research to build a detailed itinerary, complete with all the activities we might want to do. 40 years ago, I learned a planning tool called Open Space Technology. Harrison Owen developed this method to allow large and small organizations to build a plan without wasting time and energy on strategies that would become useless when one element fell through. Instead, it was designed to capture the energy and passions of the people and help them work together to forge the bare bones of a future path. Then, energized by the adventure, it allowed the company or group to seize the day. However, the day evolved.
Last year, as I was building this trip's outlines, I knew I wanted to see new places. Marlene had a passion for National Parks. It was reasonable to book a campsite or two across the open desert of Eastern Washington. No, this is not a tourist Mecca like the Columbia River Gorge or the Olympic Peninsula. But, if our first day is any indication, this area has many wonders to behold for those in no hurry to rush on to the next tourist destination. We wander on and celebrate every discovery.
Despite our best efforts, we cannot escape the plagues of the 21st century. In this case, it is the plague of religious intolerance and terrorism. This is a storyboard from the overlook at the Columbia River. This magical area is a wonder of geologic history. The major forces shaping our modern world have been working this magic on the land. If you look closely at this picture, you will see that someone has scratched out the numbers that indicate that these processes took place over hundreds of thousands or millions of years. I can only assume that this is the work of some Christian zealot who believes that the world is 6,000 years old and that public monuments should not contradict their faith. They must feel justified in defacing public property and denying the rest of us of genuine science so that we would only be left with the misguided pseudo-science that makes them feel like they are the masters of the universe. This is religious terrorism, not religious freedom! I was angry, at first, when I saw this pathetic attempt at Christian intolerance. But soon, my anger yielded to deep sadness for a people so profoundly and willfully ignorant that they cannot engage any idea that reaches out to them from their own needs. I take heart in the knowledge that the darkness of ignorance has no chance when the light of truth shines. I can only hope these folks will open their eyes and see the wondrous light of reason that can lift them out of their lives of superstition, despair, and fear.
On Thursday night Marlene and I sat out under the stars hoping to glimpse the forecasted Aurora Borealis. I started testing my iPhone camera to see if it would be sufficient for capturing the elusive lights. But in the process, I started looking at the night sky, and the voice of John Denver came to mind as he sang the melancholy ballad that I knew as "Starry, Starry Night." I heard the words as the darkness deepened and the stars began to shimmer in the sky.
“Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.”
Echoing in my soul.
As usual, I spent the rest of the evening bathed in the darkness, intrigued by the stars, especially the Milky Way, as it arched far overhead. I no longer cared if I saw the Aurora. This had been a magical night.
The magic lingered into the next day, and my curiosity led me to explore this song. I learned that Don Mclean wrote this song after being inspired by the painting “Starry Starry Night” by Vincent Van Gogh. In fact, he titled the song “Vincent” in homage to the life and death of Van Gogh and the crippling mental illness that led him to paint the “Starry, Starry Night” in the asylum where he lived at the time. I have been listening to this song for over 50 years, and in the last 12 hours, I learned a great deal about the music, the writer, the inspiration for the song, and myself. The final chorus sums up much of what I have come to believe about the future of humanity and our need to listen to poets, artists, and songwriters. They have much to tell us, even when we are not listening.
Here is the final chorus.
“Now, I think I know what you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They would not listen; they're not listening still
Perhaps they never will.”
(Words and music by Don Mclean)
Thank you, Vincent Van Gogh, for helping me understand your struggle, even when I did not know I had heard it. Thank you, Don Mclean, for having the courage to sing Vincent's truth into our lives, even though you knew most folks were not listening. Most of all, I am grateful to the web of life that helps me to absorb understandings far removed from my knowledge or willingness to learn. Life has a way of sharing itself when all we think we are doing is looking at the stars or listening to a 50-year-old song. I hope to keep on learning and growing.
15 million years ago, the area around what is now Vantage WA with a lush, tropical environment. Forests and wetlands stretch to the edges of the volcanos that sit at the edge of the tectonic plates. Over the millennia, the ashfall from these volcanos buried the forest and marshlands. As the land built up over the buried fauna, the groundwater mineralized the tree trunks, and the wood turned to stone. As the area experienced an uplift, the soil began to erode, and 15,000 years ago, the massive Missoula Flood that covered much of Eastern Washington exposed the now petrified wood. In the 1920s, geologists started documenting more than 50 species in this forest. The Civilian Conservation Corps did much of the excavation, and their work led to the site being made into a National Landmark, and the State of Washington designated it as a State Park to protect the area from looters. They covered most of the trunks with soil to protect them. A few were encased in concrete and steel mesh bunkers to keep them safe. These relics of life from 15 million years ago speak to the change inherent to life. We would do well to listen to these soft-spoken witnesses to the power of time to erase and rebuild life. Their whispers can help us appreciate the gift of the present. May we listen and learn well?
We have spent much of the last 6 weeks along the Columbia River. We saw the mouth where 100s of ships were lost crossing the Bar. We watched the incredible waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge as they sought out the river. We followed the river through lush forests carrying salmon and other fish into their spawning grounds. This view is of the very same river behind the Wanapum Dam. It sits in the high desert of Eastern Washington. But it was formed by the very same forces. This river and its predecessors predate the volcanoes, the mountain ranges, and the vast open plains.
This bluff makes it easy to see the river's power to shape continents. Much of its present shape was formed when an ancient glacial ice dam across the Clark Fork of the river burst and sent a massive torrent of water into the Glacial Lake that covered much of Eastern Washington and the Willamette Valley of Oregon. In time the lake drained, only to with each new glacial period. The present shape was created by the last glacial period that ended 15,000 years ago. With that resulting flow came a new creature, humans, to the gorges and valleys. This new species migrated from Asia and, over the millennia, has changed the river's flow with dams and wiped-out whole categories of life. But we had better listen to those petrified trees above the river. Our time represents less than .001% of the 15-million-year history of this river. Our time is precarious. We are perched on a high bluff over this time. We should enjoy the view while we can.
The name of the State Park, Gingko Petrified Forest State Park, was very intriguing. I had heard of the Gingko Tree. It is an Asian ornamental, and I could not imagine why this park was named after it. This picture is of the leaves of a tree they planted outside the Interpretive Center. This tree grew all over the world but now only grows in a small area of China. It has not grown in the wild in North America for 2 million years. But petrified Ginkgo wood is found in very few places beyond this small state park in Eastern Washington. It would have gone entirely extinct except that the Chinese revere the tree as sacred and having healing properties. Thus, it was propagated in gardens throughout the continent. It was brought back to North America as an ornamental tree. The wood is used in making furniture and casks for sake'. The berries are used in Asian holiday cooking. The essential oil in the seeds is still used as an herbal medicine despite the toxic nature of the chemicals in large quantities. It is so revered in Japan that the fan-shaped leaf symbolizes Tokyo. Who would have thought a piece of mineralized wood would have attracted us to the High Desert of Washington?
The Wanapum Cultural Center in Mattawa, WA, is a do-not-miss museum along the Columbia River just south of Vantage. This center was built and is operated by the Wanapum tribe, that have lived on these lands for thousands of years. No one really knows how long. These people have not simply survived but thrived in this arid landscape. They never accepted a treaty with the US Government and have stayed on their land, in part because few White People would be able to survive here in the 1800s. When the government wanted to dam the river and flood the land, the Wanapum did not sell their land. They negotiated an agreement to be co-creators of the dams and have a significant say in their destiny. This grows out of deep respect for their land, their traditions, and a radical belief in hospitality. Literally, all are welcome on their lands. They refused to make the Federal Government an enemy and found ways to co-exist. Incidentally, the center is free, and they do not take donations for touring the exhibits. Guests are welcome; I felt it when we first walked in the door. I am in awe of people who have discovered that radical hospitality for the stranger is the key to life in a harsh, unforgiving land. This is not unlike the radical hospitality of the desert people in the Old Testament. It is a shame I had to relearn this in a culture far removed from my roots in Christianity.
We made the drive from Vantage on a windy and hot Sunday afternoon. As you have learned, I enjoy driving days and seeing new places. The first part of the road was dotted, literally dotted, with center-pivot irrigated fields. Signs along the way said what was planted in each field. Acres of sweet corn, field corn, potatoes, alfalfa, and Timothy (livestock fodder) surrounded us on both sides of the highway. In time, however, the Geologic name for this area became apparent. These are called the Channeled Scablands because they are composed of a thick basalt shield scoured by glacial movement. Most of the land is barren grassland, inhabited by cows and little else. I must admit, I preferred the desert of West Texas. But, in time, the arid landscape yielded to trees, a creek, and a river. The hills began to return, and by the time we reached Spokane, we were again in a beautiful area. (I realize this is my prejudice, and I hope you, the reader, will consider this.)
We arrived at Spokane KOA Journey in Spokane Valley, WA. This will be the last stop in Washington for this trip. And there is much to explore. We continue to make wonderful discoveries in the most unlikely places. The Museum in Wanapum, the signs along the highway, the Gingko Trees in Vantage, a starry (starry) night, glacial blue ice, and the people and places few have encountered along the way fill me with joy and anticipation.
I look forward to having you with us on FB and next week's blog.
Bob
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