RunningBarb

After leaving Black Canyon of the Gunnison we embarked on a long drive through some of the most stunning scenery on the planet. There are mountains on either side, with deep green plant life and snow-capped peaks. There are streams and waterfalls gushing and splashing all over the place. There are teeny little towns with old houses and main streets. It’s like you are moving through the set of “The Sound of Music.” RunningBarb knows you remember that one, right?

I thought about how nice it would be to live in such a lovely place. Being immersed in an environment with spectacular terrain, wildness, and nature at its pure and finest. Then I noticed my phone wasn’t receiving a cell signal. I started to wonder where the nearest grocery store was. And hey, how about a hospital? I thought maybe this idyllic spot wasn’t for me after all. But I loved the view every mile of the way.

After a while we arrived at Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Now, here is a great place to live. Grocery stores, a hospital, even great cell service! And it gets better. A river runs through it. You can enjoy white water rafting, paddling around, and (ice cold) swimming. There are bike paths, bike lanes, hiking trails, even regular ol’ sidewalks. Also a downtown area with shops that sell outdoor gear, vintage clothing, pot (very popular in Colorado) as well as tons of restaurants. It doesn’t stop there. There is a classic Amtrak station and local busses that go everywhere. What more could you ask for? Oh, I know – an underground cave where you can go to sweat things out.

The Yampah Spa and Vapor Caves looks like an ordinary building from the outside. You enter, get checked in, and they give you a nice robe. You go into a locker room and change into your swimsuit. Then you are ready to descend into the cave. But first, lots of warnings. The cave is hot – around 110-112 degrees Fahrenheit, 43-45 degrees Celsius. There are all kinds of medical cautions around – check with your doctor, don’t use if you have high blood pressure or a heart condition, blah blah blah. They also recommend that you stay down there no longer than 10-15 minutes and come up and cool off.

As I was going down a woman was coming up, pretty much staggering up the stairs. I asked her if she was all right. “No,” she replied. I asked if there was anything I could do. “No,” she replied. She finally made her way to the top. That steamy heat can really pack a wallop.

Anyway, I kept going. Once you are at the bottom of the stairs there are three rooms you can check out, with benches in each one. The air in the vapor caves is – well- vapory. Also sulphury. It’s dark, although there are lights placed here and there so you can see where you are going. You can observe and hear water flowing and gurgling near the sides of the cave. 

I found myself a seat in an empty room and closed my eyes, soaking in the heat, the smell, the wet. It’s hard to gauge your time in a place like that. I stayed until my body told me it wanted to cool down. Then I went back up the stairs to the atrium, where there were jugs of lemon water and soft music playing, and lots of lounge chairs. I sat there for a while, downing the cool water while thinking about how lucky I was to be in such a cool (so to speak) place. I imagined the first people who found the caves, before there was a such thing as a spa, before there was a such thing as the town of Glenwood Springs. It felt prehistoric and spiritual. 

Then downstairs again, to the second room, then dowsing myself with cold water below, then coming back up, then down, then up a bunch of times. Then it was time for my foot massage, which only made the experience even more delicious.

A few more downs and ups, and then I decided I had to get back to the outside world. I took a shower, got dressed, and went out into the bright Colorado sun. RunningBarb tried to carry the meditative feeling with me for the rest of the day. Really, the rest of my life.

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Next stop, Mesa Verde National Park. This is the site of ancient cliff dwellings built way back when. They were the condos of their time, way before homeowners associations and zoning requirements ruined everything. It was only May but it already felt like an inferno. But these guys looked like pretty clever dwelling places, high up, shaded and sheltered. They were created when people knew it made sense to build with the environment, not against it. There was a lot to look at. There are more than 600 cliff dwellings, Cliff Palace, the “largest known cliff dwelling in North America,” and various houses and temples.

We saw the sites and did a few (hot) hikes. After a few days we moved on to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park.  

Really, in the west, just about everything is a canyon. The Black Canyon is like the Grand Canyon, only smaller. It’s like Kings Canyon, too. According to the website “National Park Posters,” a scientific source of information if I ever heard of one, Kings Canyon is the deepest, followed by the Grand Canyon, then the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Poor little Great Basin Canyon comes in last. Not so Great I guess. Or maybe they used that name just to fool you.  

As in the Grand Canyon, you can hike around the rim, or you can take yerself all the way down to the bottom. (And back up, presumably.) It does not actually sound like a walk in the park. The National Park Service warns: Wilderness routes are not trails; they are unmarked, physically demanding, very steep scrambles with loose rock. 

Whoa, you better eat your Wheaties if you want to try one of these babies. One of the trails described on the web site is the Tomichi Route:

This route is considered the steepest South Rim route and is very difficult. The entire length of the route is loose rock and receives full sun exposure. There are several steep inclines near the top of the route that require scrambling. Use extra caution while descending. 

The distance down is one mile, with 1960 feet of descent. For comparison, this is the distance of three and a half Washington Monuments. Good luck!

We did some hiking and tooling around in that park – full disclosure, we did not scramble down to the bottom or back up – and then were on to our next destination: Glenwood Springs, Colorado and one of my favorite places ever, the Yampah Vapor Caves.

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RunningBarb is back in the DC area now. I will be writing more about our amazing trip to national parks in the western United States soon. But I want to mention a trip I took this week to another park closer to home: the National Mall. I had been reading about a lot of changes in DC and wanted to see for myself what was happening.

I started at the Smithsonian Metro Station and walked past the Washington Monument. Here is what I found.

I continued further to take a look at the National World War II Memorial. There, you are free to “Honor Our Veterans” by sitting with your feet in the water.

Next stop, the basin formerly known as the “Reflecting Pool.”

On my way towards the Lincoln Memorial I was surprised to see a new memorial being built. It carries the logo of “USAA,” which I learned is a banking and insurance company.

Saw members of the National Guard at work.

I wanted to keep going with my learning experience, so I headed over to The Kennedy Center. On the way I was stopped by the appearance of yet another memorial being built, the Desert Shield and Desert Storm Memorial.

Ironically, just across the street stood the United States Institute of Peace. According to Wikipedia, this institution is an “American independent, nonprofit, national institute established and funded by the United States Congress and tasked with promoting conflict resolution and prevention worldwide.” I noticed that the name of a president recently had been carved into the wall above the institution name.

Now on up to The Kennedy Center. This is what it has looked like since June:

Next, The White House. Unfortunately, I could not get near it, because areas that used to be open to the public are now closed and inaccessible due to several blocks’ worth of iron fencing and opaque black fabric in every direction.

Well, that was the ending point for my little tour. However, I would like to point out another proposed project: The “United States Triumphal Arch.” At more than twice the height of the Lincoln Memorial, across from which it would be placed, the proposed arch is opposed by veterans groups, local planning authorities, and others. If you would like to share your opinion, please go to this link and type your views by the deadline, July 30. Anyone can comment.

Well, that was my day. A trip to DC used to mean visiting and appreciating iconic and historical structures and landmarks. My trip yesterday left me feeling a little sick.

Have you been downtown recently? How did you react?

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Faithful readers of this blog are aware that RunningBarb’s trip to national parks in California piqued my interest in John Muir, an early environmentalist and founder of the Sierra Club. I wanted to learn more, so I got my mitts on the biography “A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir” by Donald Worster. An excellent and informative book.

Muir’s writings on nature reflected his belief that God (his vision of God) was to be found in the wild places on the earth. He wrote as though canyons and rock spires were churches and cathedrals, better than the real ones.

Muir was born in Scotland and came to the United States with his family when he was 11. His father, Daniel, decided to bring them because he rejected the doctrines of churches in Scotland, which he felt did not adhere to the principals of the Christian Bible. He wanted to be his own clergyman. Once in the United States, John was put to work farming on Daniel’s land from sun up to sun down, six days a week. 

The elder Muir attempted to control the younger’s labor and religious beliefs through threats, beatings, sermons, isolation, and deprivation. Despite the abuse, John managed to learn a little about the ways that others lived. He read and was fascinated by a book by Alexander von Humboldt about his travels in South America.* He sometimes overheard conversations by neighbors that demonstrated a gentleness and open mindedness than his father did not possess. He was looked after by community members who were concerned about his well-being. Muir began to see that not everyone subscribed to his father’s beliefs.

As he grew into adulthood he became adept at inventing devices to save labor in farming and sawmilling. This type of endeavor met with approval by Scots and Scottish Americans, as it was seen as a way of serving God and humankind. His father did not agree, seeing efforts to reduce human labor as the work of the devil.

While in college he and some friends went on a trek in the back country, planning to travel for three months. Although the trip ended after only three weeks, it was enough to imbue Muir with the desire to see more of the wild earth. A few years later he took a “long walk” from Louisville, Kentucky to the Gulf of Mexico. After being struck with malaria there he felt that California’s environment might be healthier, so he travelled by steamship and train to the Golden State. He began exploring Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada Mountains and writing about his adventures. Although lacking academic credentials, he researched the history and movement of glaciers and their role in creating the area canyons. He rubbed elbows with folks like Clarence King, head of the U.S. Geological Survey.**

Well, the guy lived a long life, marrying and fathering two daughters, running a farm of his own, travelling all over the world, writing books and articles, and trying to get the public to appreciate the natural world. He saw that damage that had been done by cutting down trees indiscriminately, damming rivers, and allowing toxins into the air and water. He believed that access to nature should be available to all human beings so that they can experience the joy of it and desire to protect it. Maybe everyone can find (their version of) God.

Muir’s influence carries on today. On the penultimate page of the book we read:

All those efforts at nature preservation, protecting the high and the mighty, the extraordinary and the ordinary, the obscure and the beloved, flow out of the worldview of liberal democracy. Modern societies have not only sought to preserve Nature in all her forms but also to open those preserved places to any and all human beings, regardless of class or ethnicity, far more so than our universities, country clubs, or gated communities. In that preservation effort they have acknowledged a moral obligation beyond the human species. Americans, like other peoples, have followed Muir’s youthful trail of passion toward a more comprehensive egalitarianism in our relations with the earth. 

Amazing how much one person can sway the trajectory of history.

*A great read about Humboldt is “The Invention of Nature” by Andrea Wulf.

** King has an interesting backstory of his own. Late in life he fell in love with an African-American woman, Ada Copeland. Since interracial relationships were banned, the White, blond haired, blue-eyed King convinced Ada that he was Black and worked as a Pullman porter. He would tell everyone he was off on a train trip and instead go to work on a geological project. No one questioned him because why would a White person pretend to be Black? Read his story in “Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line” by Martha A. Sandweiss.

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Okay, now we had visited both the South and the North Rims of the Grand Canyon. How lucky is that? Our next stop was Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, a mere six hour drive across the Arizona desert. What will we see along the way? The great thing about winging it the way we do is that we take all kinds of surprising detours and find out really cool stuff. This time was no different.

I was perusing the 2015 edition of our (paper) road atlas, and I noticed a little square marked “Dinosaur Tracks.” Now if there is anything RunningBarb likes to see it’s the footprints of animals who lived a million bazillion years ago. As we barreled on down the highway to the site, we spotted a giant, colorful, hand-painted sign indicating where to turn. I was a little puzzled, as normally state and national landmarks are noted with brown and white signs. We bumped on down the small lane and were ready to park when a man hurried out of a small wooden hut and held up his hand for us to stop. He approached the car and introduced himself. Turns out this was neither state nor federal land, it was Navaho land. 

Albert told us that if we wanted to see the tracks we would have to pony up some dough to pay a guide, i.e., him. That seemed fair. Why shouldn’t the Navaho earn some $ from their resources?

So we agreed and were on our way. He took us for a walking tour around the site, pointing out tracks of totosauruses, kleptodactyls, and rhinoraptors. Really, I can’t remember all the names of the critters he mentioned but I didn’t care. The prints were incredible. They were large and well-defined. Some were small (babies?) and some were large (daddies?). They looked like they were made when the creatures stepped into deep mud, and the mud hardened and turned to something like stone. In the national parks you are not allowed to get too close to artifacts like this. I felt really guilty stepping all over the site, but it was hard not to. The tracks were everywhere. I also kinda thought that if the area had survived for 60 gajillion years, then my size eights would not cause harm.

Albert learned about dinosaurs from archeologists who visited the site over the years. Many of the bones found there were dug up and carted away for research at Northern Arizona University. Albert also had some interesting stories to tell. He said that he had spotted Sasquatch in the area a number of times. Unfortunately, no footprints were left to be seen. Also, when he was a boy, Albert had been abducted by aliens. They were small green men with black oval eyes. They took him aboard their spaceship. He does not remember what happened there, but then they brought him back to the area where they had taken him from. 

Dinosaurs, Sasquatch, and aliens. This certainly was a happenin’ spot. I’m glad we still had a paper map that pointed out stuff like this, and that we followed the cool sign. It was eye-opening to see these fossils and learn Albert’s story. 

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Next it was on to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We had been to the South Rim previously, where we hiked down to the bottom, spent two nights at Phantom Ranch, then marched back up. It was a memorable experience. Astute readers of this blog may recall that RunningBarb obtained the reservations by hunching over my computer for countless hours until an opening became available. How lucky is that? I mean, who gets to stay at the bottom of the Grand Canyon?

The South Rim is where most visitors travel – some four million a year. The season of the North Rim is much shorter because of its high elevation: 8000 feet average, versus 7000 for the South Rim. The number of folks paying a visit to the North Rim is far lower than the number going to the South: less than a million.

We were hoping to nab a campsite at the North Rim Campground, but it was closed as a result of the Dragon Bravo fire in 2025. This fire also took down the Grand Canyon Lodge as well as many other buildings. I looked around for other accommodations and came across the Kaibab Lodge, just a few miles from the North Rim entrance. Turns out there were no rooms available, but they did have these RVs you can rent. This was crazy. There were six giant RVs parked up a hill kinda in the woods. The RVs had a queen bed, kitchen, dinette, bunks for the kiddies, and a full bathroom. Just like home! We stayed there for three nights, going over to see the North Rim by day and getting all cozied in by night. While I could not imagine towing one of these babies behind a hulking Ford F-150 on I-70 West, it sure did the job for our time at the North Rim. 

This part of the Grand Canyon is quite different from the South. The South Rim feels dryer and more deserty, with vermilion rocks predominating the view. Along the North Rim you find trees: spruces, firs, aspens, and many others. The smell in the air is piney. Of course we were also seeing acres and acres of burnt trees as well. As I am writing this a new fire has broken out on the North Rim. 

For old time’s sake we decided to hike down into the canyon – okay, not to the bottom – but partway in to get a sense of the geography and geology. Because the Grand Canyon is – well- Grand, it’s hard to get a good look at it from the top. You can only see a little at a time. The whole kit and caboodle is 278 river miles long, and there are side canyons branching off every which way. Going down gives you a better feel for the thing. A taste, at least.

Despite being lesser touristed than the South Rim, we came across quite a number of hikers on our jaunt on the North Kaibab Trail. Guess what, they were going a lot further than we were. Lots of these folks were doing a rim-to-rim hike. That means going down one side of the Grand Canyon and coming up the other. Or, if that is not enough fun for you, doing rim-to-rim-to-rim: going down one side and up the other, then turning about, going back down, and then up on the opposite side. We were passed by several dozen trekkers doing one of these. They were flying.

Going rim-to-rim-to-rim is an adventure over 48 miles in distance with an elevation change of 20,000 feet. It amazed me that ramblers who had reached the North Rim at 10 or 11 in the morning were about to turn around and head to the South Rim, during the hottest part of the day. People die of heat in the Grand Canyon. The National Park Service advises against attempting rim-to-rim in one day. I guess that warning goes double for two times the distance. Lemme tell ya, those guys were inspiring.

Despite that we stuck to our shorter hike and were out by one-ish. No bragging rights, just a sweet walk in a remarkable place. 

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After the thrill of Yosemite we were off to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. The two lie above and below each other and are connected by a common road. Why they are considered two parks I don’t know. But now RunningBarb could check off two more parks that I have visited.

Both parks are home to tens of thousands Sequoia trees. Sure are big. The largest one is the “General Sherman” (lots of these trees have people names) and holds enough wood to build 120 houses. Its height is 275 feet, almost twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty. Its diameter at the base is 36 feet. That’s the length of two and a half Honda Civics. The volume of this tree is equivalent to that of 15 adult blue whales. Looking up at these trees all day gave me a neck-ache. And I could barely even see the tops. The superlatives – “huge, gigantic, gargantuan, enormous, immense” – don’t even begin to capture the size. In fact, maybe we need a new word: “Sequoiaish.”

In these parks, and in Yosemite as well, you can’t go five steps without reading or hearing the word “fire.”

Fire is necessary for the trees to reproduce. Sequoias create a number of cones containing seeds, and the cones need fire to dry them out and allow them to spread said seeds on the forest floor. Fire also destroys shrubs and brush around the base of Sequoias, opening up areas for the seeds to germinate and flourish. In addition, fire loosens the soil, allowing seeds to fall into the earth and absorb the moisture that would have been consumed by the plants that otherwise would have been growing there.

The signs of fire are all around, from burned swaths of mountainsides to black dust seemingly smeared on individual trunks. I thought of the many California wildfires that destroy homes and communities. Seems like we need a better way to live in harmony with Mother Earth.

After a couple of days in Sequoia we journeyed on up to Kings Canyon. I was curious about who this guy King was – after all, everyone knows we have No Kings in the United States – and I learned that the canyon was named after the Kings River. Which begs the question of whom the Kings River is named for. From Wikipedia I learned that a Spanish explorer, Gabriel Moraga, called it “El Rio de los Santos Reyes (“River of the Holy Kings,” i.e. the Three Magi), later shortened to Rio Reyes, Rio de los Reyes or other variations thereof.” Go figure.

While Sequoia trees are tall, Kings Canyon is deep – 8,200 feet so at its deepest points. Kings Canyon has two main visitor areas: Grant Grove, which is close to the park entrance, and Cedar Grove, which is farther away and much less visited, therefore calmer and quieter. Our campground reservations were at the Cedar Grove section, not because RunningBarb is so clever (experts might disagree), but because that was the only campsite available when I was ready to book one. It turned out to be a great choice. While on a hike one day we managed to spot four bears snacking in Zumwalt Meadow. Another time we hiked up to Cedar Grove Overlook in the foggy mist, and while we did not see much of the promised Cedar Grove, we did spot a hummingbird that flitted on by. Plus the fog and silence were dreamlike. 

Rangers we spoke to at Kings Canyon had some good-natured complaints about Yosemite. “Our canyon is deeper than theirs.” “Half Dome – where’s the other half?” I saw their point about Yosemite being the better known and more visited destination. While Kings Canyon receives 700 to 800 thousand visitors per year, Yosemite gets four million. Even Sequoia has double that of Kings Canyon, at 1.5 million annually. 

I was glad that others were busy chasing the sights at other parks. I agree that Kings Canyon is under-appreciated. But not by me. 

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Our next stop was Yosemite National Park. There are five entrances to the park, four on the west side and one on the east. Since we were coming from the east naturally that would be the closest one to use. But normally that entry does not open until July since it is at high elevation and covered with snow until then. In fact, most of the main road is impassable until late in the season. However, this year there was a dearth of the white stuff in the Sierra Mountains. This is bad, because snow on the mountains later results in water down below. No snow means less H2O is available. 

At the same time, no snow also meant that the road was open, so we got to travel through the park from one side to the other, viewing all the different environments Yosemite offers. We entered at the Tioga Pass entrance at 9945 feet of elevation, moseyed through Tuolumne Meadows, one of the largest high-elevation meadows in the Sierra Nevada, stopped for a picnic at beautiful Tenaya Lake, took a short hike from Olmstead Point, and eventually exited on the west to our camping home for the next few days.

The most prominent features of Yosemite are the domes: Basket Dome, Daff Dome, Doda Dome, Domey Dome Dome, etc. They are giant, and I do mean giant, slabs of granite formed from geologic activity about a bazillion years ago. It’s fun to imagine the earth stretching and shaking to give birth to these babies. These stone walls make rock climbing here very popular. You may recall Alex Honnold’s free solo climb of El Capitan. RunningBarb did not attempt such a feat. This time.

Another ubiquitous feature of Yosemite is the name John Muir. John Muir this, John Muir that, blah blah blah. I knew he was instrumental in getting Yosemite designated a national park, and he was also the founder of the Sierra Club. I didn’t know much else, but by happy coincidence I went to a park ranger talk on a “topic of [the ranger’s] choice,” and that topic turned out to be John Muir. Does RunningBarb live a charmed life or what?

Muir went backpacking over mountains and into forests with little more than the clothes on his back. Spending weeks in the woods at a time you might think he picked up a few hunting skills and ate himself some nice fat fish or a succulent squirrel. But no, he brought along his generation’s version of a Cliff bar, which was hardtack. That’s it. Actually, a Cliff bar tastes better. A lot better, to be honest. And, okay, I guess he ate a few berries here and there, but this careful-don’t-break-your-tooth meal was his go-to. And he didn’t drop in at his local REI to forage for a hyper light tent or a toasty roasty sleeping bag. That man was austere. Ranger Bob acknowledged that the National Park Service would never give him a backcountry permit today. 

While in the park book shop, I picked up a book called “Meditations of John Muir.” This book showed me how Muir found holiness in nature. Here is one of his contemplations:

The most famous and accessible of these cañon valleys, and also the one that presents their most striking and sublime features on the grandest scale, is the Yosemite, situated in the basin of the Merced River at an elevation of 4000 feet above the level of the sea. It is about seven miles long, half a mile to a mile wide, and nearly a mile deep in the solid granite flank of the range. The walls are made up of rocks, mountains in size, partly separated from each other by side cañons, and they are so sheer in front, and so compactly and harmoniously arranged on a level floor, that the Valley, comprehensively seen, looks like an immense hall or temple lighted from above.

But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its walls seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose; others, absolutely sheer or nearly so for thousands of feet, advance beyond their companions in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly aware, yet heedless, of everything going on about them. Awful in stern, immovable majesty, how softly these rocks are adorned, and how fine and reassuring the company they keep: their feet among beautiful groves and meadows, their brows in the sky, a thousand flowers leaning confidingly against their feet, bathed in floods of water, floods of light, while the snow and waterfalls, the winds and avalanches and clouds shine and sing and wreathe about them as the years go by, and myriads of small winged creatures birds, bees, butterflies–give glad animation and help to make all the air into music. Down through the middle of the Valley flows the crystal Merced, River of Mercy, peacefully quiet, reflecting lilies and trees and the onlooking rocks; things frail and fleeting and types of endurance meeting here and blending in countless forms, as if into this one mountain mansion Nature had gathered her choicest treasures, to draw her lovers into close and confiding communion with her.

He gives words to the feeling I experience when I am in nature. Awe. You look around, and all you see are miracles. 

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After driving all the way to Fernley, Nevada, we couldn’t just turn around and go home. That wouldn’t make sense, right? Next we made our way to Lake Tahoe. We stayed in South Lake Tahoe, California, which hosts a slew of hotels and restaurants. Plus, you can walk a block down the street to Nevada and gamble your vacation savings away on slots and blackjack! But even with all that, there is the turquoise of the lake, the scent of the pines, and the image of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada mountains in the distance. Plus, once you are off the main road you are in the woods where it feels like wilderness.

The day we arrived we took a walk around town to get the lay of the land and to plan our next moves. We saw there was a nice shared use path and wanted to rent bikes to get out on it. Oddly, though, most of the shops only had cruiser type bikes or electric bikes. Really, people? What ever happened to normal biking? But then we found Tahoe Sports Limited, which had what we were looking for. The guy working there, Patrick, set us up with Specialized hybrids well fitted to our body frames. The next day we set out. Wow, it was like pedaling on a cloud. Plus, the actual clouds above us were white and puffy. The air was cool and dry, and the sun warmed us. It was a great day to roll.

We set out on the path along the lake, with the water on the right side and the ponderosa pines on the left. Our first stop was Pope Beach, which is located on United States Department of Agriculture National Forest land. Because we were on bikes we were able to enter for free. I don’t know why I always get a good feeling when I enter a park for no money because I am on a bike. Maybe it seems like validation for doing the right thing. Shouldn’t all of us be on bikes a little more?

The path continued to weave through a forest growing Jeffrey pines, sugar pines, lodgepole pines, and all sort of other piney pines. Soon we were passing through Camp Richardson, a historic hotel and lodging site. Shortly we arrived at the turnoff for Fallen Leaf Road, a route headed to the area known as the Desolation Wilderness. After a few minutes of uphill, Fallen Leaf Lake came into view. As if beautiful Lake Tahoe wasn’t enough, here was another gem to regard. There were many historic cabins and houses wedged into the hill alongside the lake. Idyllic. Continuing on, the road became narrower and pothole-ier. It is closed in winter, but even in the summer I’d rather take that road on a bike rather than in a car. 

After a while we noticed the temperature dropping a bit and the wind picking up. It seemed like a good time to head back. As we pedaled the next few miles it became colder and windier. By the time we were alongside Lake Tahoe, the water looked like an ocean, with six foot waves pounding the shore. A big contrast with the calm paradise we had viewed earlier. By the time the bike shop was in sight the temperature had plunged to 30 degrees, and icy snow was pelleting our faces. That crazy mountain weather!

We returned our bikes to the shop, happy that we had had a good ride, happy that we ended it when we did. The next day we hiked in the Desolation Wilderness, climbing on the other side of Fallen Leaf Lake and passing three additional ones. You really can’t have too much of a lake view, right?

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Mr. K and RunningBarb have been on the road for two weeks now. We drove to Fernley, Nevada, to participate in a Sierra Club service trip. Driving here took a week. The United States sure is big! Fernley is pretty small, with a population of nearly 23,000 residents, it is the seventh most populous city in Nevada. The space here is wide open. A high desert, it experiences around five inches of rainfall per year. Readers of this fascinating blog know that we have been traveling quite a lot during the last few years, with trips to Alaska, the Dakotas and, and the Grand Canyon and Southwest, and who knows where else. We have appreciated so much these beautiful places and benefitted from the work others have done to keep them that way. So we decided to step up and make a contribution of our own.

Our service trip focused on support for the Paiute Native American tribe situated around Pyramid Lake. 

Our service activity consisted mostly of pulling stuff out of the ground. We yanked out tons of pepperweed, an invasive plant. It is a pernicious creature, with tap roots extending up to ten feet deep into the soil. Removing it seemed like an overwhelming task. For as many as we took out, there were far more of its brethren lined up behind it, happy and healthy and ready to spread. Naturally, to make a significant impact on the environment, you have to pull the plants out by their roots. This involves hunching over a specimen, grabbing it as close to the soil as possible, and pulling hard, using your body weight as leverage. Sometimes body weight wasn’t enough, and the thing just wouldn’t budge. It became pretty clear which of us was the tougher one. No matter, with 12 of us pulling and wrestling these bad boys, we cleared a lot. On the second day of extraction the time went a little faster, since it was in a patch next to the water, and the soil was a little softer. By the end of the Day Two we had filled three pick-up truck beds with the nasty stuff. We felt satisfied and rewarded for our work.

Our third day of labor involved repairing a haba, a traditional shelter to block the strong rays of the sun, and pulling (even more!) weeds in the medicine garden next to the Paiute Tribe museum.

Man, if I put that much effort into my yard it would be a Better Homes & Gardens showpiece.

When we weren’t working we were super busy soaking in the goings on in the area. We watched some Paiute traditional dancers who put on a show just for us, stopped by the Marble Bluff Fish Passage and Research Facility, visited the Palomino Valley Wild Horse and Burro Center (where you can adopt a horse if that is your kind of thing), got up close and personal with Pyramid Lake, hiked a trail on Nature Conservancy property, listened to a lecture and attended a craft fair at the Pyramid Lake Museum, and I don’t know what all. The week’s time seemed to go by slow and fast at the same time. We barely knew what day it was. 

Another benefit of the trip was getting to know the other participants, who came from all over the United States and brought their own skills, interests, and experiences to share. It was gratifying to spend a week with them and the volunteer leaders, who planned and carried out the trip all for no pay. Got that? The volunteer leaders planned and carried out the trip all for no pay. Unbelievable.

We are looking forward to our next Sierra Club adventure.   

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