keely – Page 57 – State of Wilderness

Book Recommendation: Last Child in the Woods

Last Child in the Woods, by Richard Louv, is a quintessential handbook to the ways that the natural environment impacts children. Over the three hundred so pages of text, Louv makes a case for why nature is important, what the benefits are to not only children but all of us, and how this “frontier” has changed over time and how it will continue to change, and what we can do about it. I don’t think many of us in this generation have to look far to see evidence of how much the world has changed since we were children, but some might not have stopped to understand the legacy implications of this.

For myself, reading this book was a bit like Louv “preaching to the choir”, and I am curious if anyone outside the “choir” would be able to sustain interest throughout the whole thing. Even for someone like myself who was interested already, it was hard to wade through the early rhetoric. At the same time, having finished the book I do feel like I have a broader understanding now of the bigger picture, and am more inspired now after reading it to actually make changes not only in my life, but in my children’s lives, and perhaps other children around me.

At the end of the 2008 edition of this book, it lists 100 Actions We Can Take, which include both activities with children and within the home, and ways we can act locally and nationally to open up people to the wonder of nature and inspire them, or change practices, to become more conservation minded, to save nature before it is all taken away, to get children out and involved in it, and to understand the value. This is a valuable list that you might find yourself returning to time after time as a guide. I know I will return to it, and to the book as whole, to keep myself focused on making this world a better place.

PAUL BARCLAY STASH: GC67

Last summer on our road trip vacation, we had some specific high-value targets in mind: “grandfather caches”, which is a term cachers use for oldest active caches. Specifically, ones hidden in the first year of geocaching, 2000.

The first morning we were in Colorado, we were in pursuit of one of these: Paul Barclay, the 36th oldest active cache in the world. I was very excited about the prospect, because this particular one looked like it was just southeast of where I used to live when I lived in Colorado back in the late nineties. We reached an access area to the Bear Creek Nature Area, I think it was called. The roads began to get a little more windy and scenic as we made our way up Gold Camp Rd, and we stopped for a couple of cursory caches before continuing on.

We actually missed the turn off to High Drive, which is where we needed to get to in order to access the closest parking spot to Paul Barclay, the first time around. We ended up at Helen Hunt Falls, which was spectacular in itself, but not something we had time to get out to explore further, because we were on a mission and trying to figure out where we went wrong. We ended up coming out of the park, getting gas, and then trying again, retracing our “steps” until we found the sharp right turn we missed the first time around.

Now it was time to make the hike up. It doesn’t really seem that far, as the crow flies – it is only 0.19 from parking ;-), but when you start at around 5000 ft and go up to 8299 ft, that 0.19 really is tough! Also, since it is a mountain cache, you aren’t really going directly up – there are a hiker’s least favorite word to contend with – switchbacks!

During this time period in my life, I had been exercising regularly, so the tax on my cardiac and lung function was not unbearable, but J wanted to stop towards the top of the climb about every 100 ft or so to catch our breath, and I didn’t mind. We finally made it to the top…what a view!

We didn’t immediately find the cache, which I think it is because the coords may be slightly off – in 2000, gps units didn’t have the kind of chip that a lot of them have now that makes them more accurate. It didn’t take us very long to find it, though, when we started using our caching senses. Then we took lots of pictures. Here are some below of the view at the top, and around the cache site:

After this began our long descent. We took a different way down that took us further away from the truck at first, but was a slightly easier path in terms of elevation changes and steepness of trail.

We hadn’t brought water with us on this hike, which was foolish of us, so when we came down, we were a bit dehydrated. In high elevation areas like this, you get more dehydrated than at lower levels, mostly from what I understand because your seat evaporates before you notice you are losing water, so you don’t think to replace it sooner like we do in the salty south. I knew that back when I lived in Colorado before but I had forgotten.

We had to race back to our hotel to check out at this point, because we were behind checkout schedule. In fact, the maid had already cleaned our room, throwing away the only thing we left behind, but what was a critical element of our trip: the dog food bowls. After getting them back, we headed for a delicious lunch at Meadow Muffins, and some well-needed ice tea.

This was the end of our trip to Colorado Springs this time around, but we’ll be back. There are still some grandfather caches close enough for us to make this home base for a drive or two later on, and we have a lot of exploring left to do in this area. For this day, though, it was time to get on the road and head to Rocky Mountain National Park.

Here are some more photos from our drive into, through, around the Bear Creek Nature Park area and Paul Barclay:

W.G Jones Forest: “An Urban Wilderness”

Today we went hiking at W.G. Jones Forest Recreation Area. This park is located off 1488, just east of I-45, north of the The Woodlands, Texas. It offers 1722 acres of multi-use trails for hiking, biking, or horseback riding.

Today we were on foot, with our GPS in hand, looking for geocaches. In the past year, about fifty new caches have been hidden out this way, mostly in this series of caches hidden by LogDawgs named for presidents. We found five of these today, and a couple of others in the park that were not part of the series, one of which has been on my “radar” for a long time.

This last one I mention, “Woodpeckers Retreat”, was a tough one to get to, but not a tough one to find. It required about 350 ft of “bushwacking” – the term for going off the trail and having to force your own way through to an area past overgrowth. On our way back to the trail after finding this cache, J was a little ahead of me and I was trying to keep an eye on his moving figure in the woods ahead of me when something large and brown flew past me. I watched it briefly, then caught up with him, where he was standing with his binoculars out, trying to get a good look. We didn’t get a picture, and it is hard to say for sure because we never got a good look at its face, but I think at this point (after wasting an hour or more googling owls tonight) that it was an Eastern Screech Owl.

This weekend, the weather in Texas finally turned from the scorching hot drought conditions to something akin to fall, with cooler temps and a nice good wind, brought in from Tropical Storm Lee. Unfortunately, when you combine the drought conditions with a strong wind, you get wildfires. And Texas has gone wildfire-crazy this weekend. We are ON FIRE down here! The eastern side of the state has been hit hard. The past two days, firefighters have been battling blazes in Bastrop, where a 16 mile long fire is sweeping in a southernly direction from the state parks down. Little fires have been cropping up in Magnolia, just east of where we were today, and there was a controlled burn going on north of us, in the Lake Conroe area. This forest we were in today, in fact, had several controlled burns recently. We saw the evidence of that. Mostly, though, we felt the evidence of all these fires, past and current. The air was warm and a little hard to breathe in, feeling heavy in our chests.

Today we were getting our “nature therapy”. I’ve been reading this book, Last Child in the Woods, about the importance of nature in the lives of children, and in all of humanity, really. I spent a little time discussing that book today, and the restorative effects of a walk in the woods. I am preaching to the choir, though; my partner here is the one who states on his Facebook page that “Nature is my Church”. I thought about that a little, today, too; how when I go to church, I feel like my soul is wiped clean, but when I spend time in nature, it is like my mind is wiped clean. Maybe that is what he means – that feeling – or maybe it is the feeling of awe at the complexity of God’s creations.

Today, the wind was spectacular. It was whipping the tops of the trees around, creating this glorious, relaxing music that needs no musical accompaniment or vocal melody. When I was looking at our mystery bird through the binoculars, I was watching it whip this big tree around in the background, green leaves flying in a complicated dance. I never can record it to share it with others, but here is a picture of the scenery, so imagine for yourself the sound, feel, and sight of the wind making these trees dance.

Yay for the smell and feel of fall in the air. Boo for wildfires and drought. The pond at the front of the park, where I usually see people fishing, is all dried up and cracked. But the weather is turning crisper, and hopefully we will see some rain down here soon, and camping season is coming right around the corner, and I am very excited for the chance to go on long hikes, bike rides, caching adventures, and camp out weekends with my wonderful partner and young sons.

HILL COUNTRY HEAVEN Part 3

After the high terrain hike we took in Garner State Park, the dogs and Jason were all wore out. I wanted to go find one of the great swimming holes of the Frio River, but the river was just about dry this year due to the drought and they were just too tired. We headed back to the cabin, made some dinner, and then took a brief late night walk.

We were hoping to see some wildlife along our walk, as it was around dusk and we were near the “swimming hole” – a part of the Sabinal River near Foxfire that is used for this purpose – but nothing was stirring. J was taking some pictures of this part of the river when something swooped over it…must be an owl. I didn’t see where it went after but I saw an oddly shaped something on the ground between two trees, and starting creeping towards it to investigate, thinking it was probably a tree stump, but maybe it was the owl. As I got closer, the something lifted into the air, and landed on a pole for the volleyball net. Definitely owl. I called J to come over to get a picture, and at that point, the great bird flew to a tree, then another. We got a few shots before it flew off for good; not terribly great ones, but at least enough to identify that it was a Great Horned Owl.

The next morning, I was really tempted to go hiking again in Lost Maples SP. The problem with that was, the only trails, and geocaches, we have left to explore in that park are the high terrain ones, and we had two hikes already scheduled for today, plus we were sore from the day before. Also, J wanted to get home sooner rather than later. So instead, we made an odd breakfast involving potatoes, and then checked out of the cabins, heading to Hill Country State Natural Area instead.

We were still working on our Texas Parks and Wildlife Geocaching Challenge – Hill Country Passport, where we have to find the specific geocache in ten of the eleven state parks in this particular region. It’s not like you can choose which trail or geocache you want to find, based on how you feel that day or how hard the difficulty or terrain is. Like preschool children are taught, “you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit”.

This particular one was a little daunting, in terms of terrain (rated a 3.5 out of 5), and at eleven am in August in Texas, it was HOT when we got out of the truck. Still, this is what we came for, and so we set off.

This park had a lot of equestrian action. Of course, it didn’t help that the trail to the cache was, in fact, an equestrian trail. As we set off on foot with the dogs, we were soon tailed by three horses and riders. The whole hike we spent trying to make sure we were walking fast enough to stay out of their way, or dodging them once we got to the rough hilly spot and cedar thicket where the cache was hidden. I want to say it was about a mile or two round trip hike. Great views, hot sun, little shade, lots of rocks. See for yourself:

After this, we drove to Government Canyon SP, and got the TPWD cache there. Well, I got the cache there, Jason sat in the truck and waited for me, he was worn out, and the hike was not far…although it was frigging hot out there at 1:30 pm. I felt like I was melting. We also found ten other caches along the way between the cabin, the two parks, and home. The coolest one was the last one. I had been eyeing this cache for a long time but I never could figure out how to get to it. J figured it out with his mapping software, backroads style. The cache was an ammo can about 500 feet down the top of an outcropping, about 50 feet away from a fence around an exotic animal ranch. I scored this picture of one of the zebras I saw:

How’s that for Texas? Also, when we were driving around the hill country, I snapped this not-that-great snapshot of some exotic undulates, which, after much researching later, I discovered were scimator horned oryxs, which are extinct in their home country of Africa at this point due to overhunting, but are thriving in Texas, where they often end up at the losing end of a gun at an exotic animal hunting area. This is sad to me. Here is the picture: