The Slaughter of Owls

     I'm sorry to report that the US Fish and Wildlife Service is slaughtering barred owls in the Pacific Northwest. The barred owl, they say, is an aggressive species native to the eastern side of the United States that is moving into the Pacific Northwest, displacing the northwest-native spotted owl, the notorious icon of the timber wars of the eighties and nineties.

Northern spotted owl. Photo by Frank D. Lospolluto, on savetheredwoods.org 

Spotted owls need old-growth habitat; thus the conservationists' argument that cutting old-growth forests for timber was detrimental to the spotted owl, an endangered species. So timber sales were challenged in court, and again and again, the spotted owl won. Ostensively, the cutting stopped, although in actuality it only slowed.

    And yet the spotted owl has continued its downward spiral, and it seems that those mean bullies, the barred owls, are to blame. 

    So, again we're going to slaughter a species? Think: buffalo, wolves, coyotes. Think: passenger pigeons.

    But Elizabeth Kolbert, environmental writer for the New Yorker, tells us to also think hedgehogs in the Hebrides, rabbits in Australia, mongooses in Hawaii—introduced animals that wrought havoc in native populations of birds and mammals. Where we made the problem, some conservationists say, we have a moral obligation to try to fix it—to rid the Uist Islands of hedgehogs, Australia of rabbits, Hawaii of the mongoose—and the Pacific Northwest of the barred owl. US Fish and Wildlife has concluded that the demise of the spotted owl arose "almost certainly owing to the human transformation of the landscape"—i.e., destruction of old-growth forests, inviting the barred owl into spotted owl territory. 

Barred owl. Photo by Fyn Kynd on savetheredwoods.org 

    So, if we caused the endangerment of the spotted owl, are we not obligated to do what we can to reverse that trajectory?

    My heart, not to mention my mind, doesn't know where it rests because a beautiful barred owl lives in my woods. I cannot bear to think of someone shooting it. I can't bear to think of my nights empty of the barred owl's calls. I can't bear to think of that beautiful bird, that one particular bird, deliberately shot. I love the northern spotted owl in general, but I love the barred owl of my own nights in particular.

    But Fish and Wildlife has identified two main threats to the spotted owl's continued survival: competition from barred owls and habitat loss.

    Nonetheless, both the BLM and the US Forest Service are even now offering timber sales in old-growth and large-tree forests of the Applegate. Wouldn't it be a better solution to the demise of the spotted owl to stop destroying this habitat? Why have we chosen slaughter of birds and of trees instead of keeping the trees and, consequently, perhaps, keeping the owl, as well?

    I recognize the conundrum of invasive species brought into an environment by human acts. I don't know the answer. Still, I say to Fish and Wildlife: Stay out of my woods. Leave my barred owl alone.

    

    

Seven Days of Backpackng North of Yosemite

Diana Coogle, Sarah Nawah, Scott Mattoon
in the Emigrant Wilderness Area

     Standing at the rock edge of a pool of cold, clear-to-the-bottom water, I clasped my little backpacker's towel to my dripping body and gazed at the scene in which I had a moment before been immersed: the long, narrow cup of granite that held the water, the clump of red and yellow wildflowers in a crack of rock at the water's edge, the rush of a little cascade falling into the pool from the long stream down the mountain, and, beyond, occasional stands of pines among the enormous white boulders culminating, far above, in the peak called Granite Dome.

    It was beauty beyond comprehension. Not even a photograph could serve as Gerard Manley Hopkins's latch or catch or key to keep back such beauty, and so the beauty of that moment vanished except in my memory, where it stays rich and vibrant.

    My hiking partners for this seven-day backpacking trip in the Emigrant Wilderness Area were Scott, from California, and Sarah, from Pennsylvania, 

Sarah and Scott at our camp on Gnome Lake

with whom I had hiked in the Wallowa Mountains of eastern Oregon last September. Scott, who is training to be a leader on Sierra Club trips, kept the lead. Sarah hiked next, I last. Day after day we hiked past enormous pine trees, 

through large meadows still vibrant with lupine, groundsel, butterweed, Indian paintbrush, valerian; past tiny streams giving life to still more wildflowers.

 We climbed Mosquito Pass, then rested for half an hour on its flat top with the stark, rock beauty of Sierra-rich views around us. Veins of rose quartz flowed through the granite. A packer with his mule train ambled past, an iconic picture in the high Sierra.  I spread some of my late husband's ashes on Mosquito Pass. 

    On the sixth day, Scott led us off-trail, over granite boulders with flowers tucked in crannies and cracks, up rock steps easy only for giants, on thin, narrow ledges, up flat slabs, or leaping from rock to rock over streams in deep chasms.

                        Photo by Scott Mattoon

It was stupendous hiking. We camped that night not far from an unnamed lake now dubbed Gnome Lake, blue water with undulating lines of green grasses outlining its contours, and a rock at each end for good swimming access. 

Gnome Lake

A waterfall made a long slender silver thread on the cliff above our tents. A glacier, we knew, was tucked up there on Granite Dome, on whose flank we were camped. 

    We hiked 42 miles in those seven days. Scott gave the trip a Sierra Club rating of four (out of five) for difficulty. Our highest altitude was 9370 feet, on Mosquito Pass, but we were almost as high at Gnome Lake. I had nine swims in five lakes, plus four dips in two pools. We spent our nights under brilliant stars. Scott watched the  Perseid meteor show. (I slept soundly in my tent.)

                                                                                        Photo by Scott Mattoon

 We saw an eagle, a marmot, various tiny frogs, a dragonfly caught in a spider web (which we set free), and we heard coyotes and an owl. 

    But there is no way to give voice to the beauty of that landscape. I will return.

Me and Sarah on the last day. Photo by Scott Mattoon

PCT Thru-hiker

        When I returned to my car at the top of Cook and Green Pass after a 12-mile hike partially on the Pacific Crest Trail the other day, a young PCT thru-hiker (Mexico to Canada) was sitting at the campsite there. He told me he had injured his leg and needed a ride to town, where he would "hang out for a few days and let the leg heal." I suggested he spend the night at my house, and I would take him to Ashland the next day, where he could find a motel to stay in.

    So after an hour's ride Nibbler (his trail name, because he was always nibbling on a block of cheese) found himself standing at the door of a lovely house in the Siskiyou Mountains.

   Taking off my shoes just inside the door, I asked him to do the same. 

    He took off his shoes, then said, "My socks are dirty, too."

   I turned to look. They were streaked black with dirt. I suggested he leave them outside.

    He took off his socks. He said, "My feet are pretty dirty."

    I turned to look. Indeed they were! I started to tell him to leave them outside, too, but told him instead to walk around the house to the bathroom door on the deck. There I gave him a towel and offered him a shower.

    What a change after no telling how many weeks or months on the trail! A shower. A good big helping of a tuna-melt casserole, which he wolfed down so fast I gave him the rest of it, too. A real bed, with clean sheets. Total luxury.

    For his part, he was a charming guest. He cleaned the kitchen after dinne r, made his own bed, and entertained me with stories about the trail. 

    I learned, for instance, that hiking the Pacific Crest Trail these days is as much a social as a wilderness experience. Because you are basically hiking the same route in the same time frame as the people you start with, they become your trail family.

    I have long been curious how PCT hikers keep their pack weight low. Did they, for instance, carry tents?

   Some did, Nibbler said. Some use tarps, some just bivy sacks. Some people don't carry rain gear. Some cut the belts off their backpacks to lighten the load. He himself had cut the strap off his headlamp and velcroed the lamp to his hat. Some people, he said, considered headlamps extraneous, but he sometimes walked after dark to escape the heat, and thought a headlamp a necessity.

    I asked about bear canisters. He said people carry them where they are required, as in the high Sierra, and then get rid of them. When I asked how campers keep bears out of their food, he said most people sleep with their food in the tent.

    I was aghast. A bear that smells food wouldn't hesitate a minute to rip into a tent. Weren't the hikers taking a huge risk? 

    Well, he said, there are so many people at the campsites that the bears don't come around.

    That many people?

    Everyone has their luxury item, he said. I pointed to my Kindle—that was mine, I said. (I didn't mention the camp dress.) He said his was an extra pair of socks.

    The next morning, on my way to a hike on Mt. Ashland, I left him, refreshed and well fed, in front of the Columbus Hotel in Ashland. He would stay there a few days, then rejoin his trail family farther up the trail when his leg felt better.

    Later, on my hike, I saw a thru-hiker with a big pack. "Smart girl," I thought.

    

The Birthday Hike That Wasn't

    Sometimes the good and the bad happen in rapid succession.

    The intended good: A 12-mile hike in the Red Buttes Wilderness with my son, Ela, for my birthday last week. 

    The first bad: A flash from the "overheating" light when we're six miles up a winding, uphill, gravel road headed for the trailhead. Steam billowing from the hood.

    The good: A lovely little waterfall at the side of the road from which I fill the water bottle. Ela pours water into the radiator. And again. And again.

    The bad: A leak in the radiator. We are going nowhere.

    The bad: No cell service.

    The good or the bad, depending: A 12-mile hike before us, after all, just not where we intended.

    The good: Cell signal after three miles. Ela texts a friend for rescue.

    The bad: No response.

    The good: After another mile: a car coming up the road. William! He takes us to his house, where I call AAA.

    The bad: On hold interminably.

    The good: AAA response.

    The bad: My AAA membership is in Oregon, but the car is just over the border in California. AAA won't cross borders. More long holds to talk to AAA California. 

    The good: AAA response. They will send a tow truck from Yreka, California. I explain that it would be closer to send one from Grants Pass, Oregon.

    The bad: Rules are Rules.

    The bad: More long holds while they try to find a tow truck driver.

    The good: Response from a tow truck driver. We send the GPS coordinates for the location of the car. He would meet us at the car at 2:00.

    The good: A car to drive while mine is in the shop—William's parents'. They are vacationing in Alaska and won't mind, he assures me. 

    The bad: Ela and I wait another hour at my car for the tow truck. He watches the road. I write a poem. The two truck arrives with a very unhappy driver. The road had been terrible. His big flatbed trailer had buckled and fishtailed over every pothole. 

    The bad: I'm not happy, either, with my crippled car.

    The good: The tow truck diver hauls my car to my mechanic in Grants Pass. Ela and I go home in the Prius.

    The bad: Modern radiators are plastic, throw-away parts. 

    The good: Lighter cars have better gas mileage.

    Conclusions of the bad: A long, tedious day. I had missed my birthday hike.

    Conclusions of the good: Good friends to help. A car to drive while mine is being fixed. AAA assistance at no cost. Best of all, the competent and cheerful companionship of my son on a frustrating day.

    Conclusions of the day: Not so bad, after all.

The 800th Mile

    My goal for my 80th birthday, on July 20, 2024, was to have hiked 800 miles during the year. 

    By June 18 I had hiked 796.2 miles. Then I stopped so I could share the 800th mile with my sister Sharon in the Swiss Alps.

    On June 25 we got off the gondola at Schreckfeld and started on the trail towards Scheidegg. Wildflowers colored the hillsides.

The snow-encrusted  peaks of the Wederhorn, Jungfrau, and Eiger rose above the trail. I kept an eye on my mileage. Suddenly I stopped. 

    "The 800th mile!" I cried. Sharon congratulated me and took pictures.

That night she raised a toast to me at our hotel.

    By July 10, I had hiked 856.3 miles on 90 different trails. I invited everyone who had hiked any of those miles with me to join me for brunch at the Jacksonville Inn on Sunday, July 21.

    On July 15 my son, Ela, came down from Washington to hike with me and help me prepare for the party. We created a chart of my hikes, one axis showing the chronology, the other the distance, each entry naming the trail and the people with me. I added notes: "Downed trees!" "Swim!" "Skied this trail." 
    We mounted photos from the hikes and pinned them to the wall of the patio at the restaurant.

We displayed a large poster Sharon had sent me of my victorious moment at the 800th mile (see below). It was a wonderful party.

    Here are the stats from the year.

        Total number of hikes: 145

        Total miles: 868.3

        55 hiking partners

        70 solo hikes

        Person who hiked the most miles with me: Cheryl Bruner (306 miles)

        Person who traveled the longest distance to be at the party: Traci Esslinger, from LA

        90 different trails (40 in the Applegate, 10 in the Rogue Valley, others elsewhere in Oregon and in Switzerland)

        Swims in 16 different lakes, rivers, and creeks

        Longest hike: 80 miles in 10 days (Lower Rogue River trail)

        Steepest hike: Bort to Waldspitz, Swiss Alps, 1643 feet in one mile

        Longest descent: Männelichen to Grindelwald, 4295-foot descent in 9 miles

        Highest elevation: Ice Lake, in the Wallowa Mountains of eastern Oregon, 7980 feet.

        Biggest disappointment: Car trouble that waylaid my birthday hike

        Most fun: The whole darn year.

Highlights from Grindelwald

     The Swiss Alpine town of Grindelwald is, as it has been for two centuries, a tourist destination, crowded these days with Asian, Muslim, European, and American bicyclists, hikers, zipline riders, paragliders, and other sports enthusiasts and thrill-seekers, including many families with small children and teenagers. They zoom down the mountain in three-wheeled carts, fly across canyons on zip lines, and throng the easier trails under the famous Eiger, Jungfrau, and Monk mountains. In winter, mountain climbers and skiers flock to Grindelwald, too.

    I was there last week, along with my sister Sharon, for the hiking. It did not disappoint, on any level.

(1) Every trail offered astonishing expanses of wildflowers—

yellow globe flowers; deep purple, yellow-eyed spurred violets; lavender-hued, heath-spotted orchids; Carthusian pinks; the Alpine rose; azaleas; and then, just as I thought I had seen the epitome of Alpine beauty, astonishing clumps of deep purple, neon-glowing gentians. 

(2) Every trail was stunning—winding, climbing, and flowing under and among mountains spotted and streaked with the late snow. I hiked up to Bäregg, eye to eye with Grindelwald Glacier. (Until the 1980s, you only had to walk to the edge of the town to meet the glacier).

The hostel at Bäregg

On the way down just past a split in the trail, I saw fresh blood on the rocks, a good cautionary tale for a solo hiker: danger is only one false step away.

    I took a gondola up to Männelichen, meaning to hike up to and along the Eiger trails, but these high-altitude trails were closed because of snow and snow-melt flooding. so there was nothing to do but hike down—and down and down and down, for nine miles. Total exhaustion.

    I rode a different gondola to First (at 7165 feet) to hike from there to Waldspritz on what turned out to be a long, high trail over snowmelt streams and across tundra-like, fog-wrapped landscapes so lonely I was glad to keep in view the only other two hikers on the trail. 

    Another day I climbed from Bort to Waldspritz, with an elevation gain of 1643 feet  in less than a mile on tight zig-zag switchbacks. I kept passing people coming down, not another soul going up. (I mean, who would?) Finally, finally one of the hikers passing me said what I had been longing to hear: "You're almost there." 

    In short, the hiking was everything I had wanted—rugged trails, breathtaking scenery (and trails!), all in Alpine splendor. I was in my element.

(3) Actually, I was really in my element at Bachalpsee, a pretty lake at 7432 feet under snowy Alpine peaks, at the end of an easy two-mile trail. Snow clung to the lake's edges; two long, thin, mushy-ice lines on the surface of the lake stretched from the shore towards its center. When Sharon and I got there, we watched a young man in shorts (or undershorts) walk into the lake, quickly dip in, and rush gleefully back to his companion on shore. A few minutes later two young women arrived. One stripped to her underwear, walked into the lake, dipped in, screamed with the cold, came back grinning. 

    Yes! I stripped to my underwear, walked into the water,

Just before submersion and swimming

submerged, and swam, stroke after stroke, towards the center of the lake. In the video Sharon took, I swim until I disappear; then I reappear, swimming back towards shore. It wasn't a long swim, but it was a great one. Total exhilaration.

(4) Fondu. Of course. After all, we were in Swirzerland.

Sharon enjoying fondu

Me enjoying fondu

Yoga in France

     When my sister Sharon, an Iyengar yoga teacher in Georgia, suggested I join her for a six-day yoga workshop in Beaune, France, I said, "Yes, if you will hike with me afterwards in Switzerland."

    Deal struck. We met in France on June 20.

    Beaune was a delight—narrow cobbled streets lined with centuries-old houses and beautiful flower boxes,

 the ramparts of the walled city, the good food and wine. Every morning we walked through town to the yoga studio, stopping for coffee on the way.

    The yoga was intense. The teachers, Mary and Eddie, had studied in India for decades with B. K. S. Iyengar and his daughter, Geeta ("The best yoga teacher in the world," Mary said). Everyone in the class except me had studied with Mary and Eddy before. Avid followers, they had come from around the world for this workshop: from San Diego, Georgia, England, Thailand, Spain, Scotland, France. The class was beyond my skill level, but when I sneaked a look around, I saw that although some students were better in some poses than I was, I was better in other poses than they. I would do all right.

Me preparing to enter the yoga studio

       Eddie and Mary alternated teaching days. While one was teaching, the other walked around helping students. They taught the same routine every day, an approach that I thought would be repetitious but that instead brought deeper understanding every class period. Their teaching style was what B. K. S. and Geeta's reputedly was: barking orders and sprinkling instructions with sarcasm. I wasn't sure I liked it.

    But it produced results, and, in truth, both Mary and Eddie were more sympathetic with our hard work than they let on while teaching. By the fourth day my muscles were rebelling. And yet, every day, after a long and directed savasana, I walked out of class as exhilarated as I had been tired only an hour before.

    Between yoga in the morning and yoga in the late afternoon, Sharon and I had lunch in town, walked on the parapets, toured the Hotel Dieux, the 15th-century hospital with its beautiful Burgundian architecture, famous glazed-tile roofs, and, in days gone by, gracious nuns who cared for the indigent sick of Beaune. We ate regional specialties: boeuf Bourguignon and chicken in mustard sauce. (Dijon is nearby.) We had crepes.

Sharon with a crepe and egg

We had cheese from the market with good French bread. One of the best things I have ever eaten was a gazpacho with goat cheese sorbet—gaspingly delicious—at the RenDez Vous brasserie. 

    And the wine was good, too. Very good. 

    But the best part was sharing the whole experience with my sister.

    On June 24 we hugged everyone good-bye and took the train to Switzerland.

Gazpacho with goat cheese sorbet

"In a Landscape" Piano Concert

     Pianist Hunter Noack founded "In a Landscape" as a way, his promotional material says, "to bring together the two things he loves most: classical music and the great outdoors." Ah. Two of my favorite things, too.

    I received my headphones at the top of the lawn that sloped down to the the Applegate Lake. A piano sat on a platform at the lake's edge, with the snowy peaks of the Red Buttes above it. I set my camp chair for a good view of piano, lake, and mountains and waited for the music.

   This was not a concert hall. "Wander around as you listen," Hunter Noack said. "Wade in the lake. Go out on your paddle board." 

    With Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody" in my ears, I walked into the lake. Careless of my dress, I waded thigh-deep.

    At first, hearing the music through the earphones bothered me. I might as well have been listening to recorded music. It was only when I looked at the pianist and let the motions of his hands and the bend of his back sync with what I was hearing that I knew I was at a live concert. Then the water, the music, the mountains, the clear, warm air came together for music in a landscape.

    Introducing Beethoven's Pathétique sonata, Noack talked about the great composer's deafness, reminding us that he had cut down the legs of his piano so the vibrations of the music would resonate through his body. "I invite you to come to the platform and lie under the piano as you listen," he told us, "so you can experience the vibrations that Beethoven felt." 

    What an opportunity! I waited my turn, then scooted under the piano. Now my whole body was receiving the music. I could have finished the rest of the concert there except that other people wanted to lie there, and, besides, I was missing the landscape while I lay under the piano.

    Later in the program was John Cage's famous piece "4 minutes, 33 seconds," for which the pianist is instructed simply to sit at the piano and play nothing. Ambient noises would be the music. This was a marvelous idea for a concert in a wild landscape. In the silence of the piano, I heard children's voices from the lake, a bit of talk here and there, and I was just beginning to find the distant birdsong when Noack ended the piece by starting to play again. It is true that Cage didn't hold the pianist to four minutes, thirty-three seconds, but I was disappointed not to have had more time to listen to this remarkable composition. Noack might have underestimated his audience's attention span.

    The last piece, by vote of the audience ("Liszt or Chopin?"), was a polonaise by Chopin. The sun was now slanting across the lake. Waves rippled in its light. My eyes blurred. The waves seemed to come onto the keyboard of the piano itself. 

    In his poem, "The Idea of Order at Key West," Wallace Stevens, as he describes hearing a woman sing by the sea, distinguishes between her song and the landscape: 

            "It may be that in all her phrases stirred

            The grinding water and gasping wind;

            But it was she, and not the sea, we heard."

    Here, though, was the opposite experience. I was seeing Hunter Noack's fingers on the sun-sparkled waves. The lake was his instrument; from it came Chopin. It was the lake, and not the piano, I heard, and what an exquisitely beautiful music it has within it.

Hiking the Rogue River Trail, Part 2: Illahe to Graves Creek

      One of several surprises as Cheryl, Sandy, Janet and I hiked back to Graves Creek was that the irises were gone! Farewell-to-spring had come into bloom, but we didn’t see a single iris.
    Another surprise was awaiting us at the slide, where we had had to make a dangerous crossing on the way downriver.  (See previous post.)

    Janet, who had tumbled off a trail down a steep mountainside some years ago, was anxious about this spot and had thought she might leave the trail at Marial Lodge, where she could call her husband to pick her up. But when we got to Marial, we learned that the Forest Service, that very day, was sending a crew to fix the trail. 

    On we went, all four of us. We walked across the slide without difficulty.

    The difficulty had to do with bears.

    To deal with frequent bear raids in the lower Rogue, the Forest Service had placed big metal containers at campsites, with locks complicated enough to fool a bear At Brushy Bar (where, in fact, a bear had raided my camp seven years ago), we gratefully put our packs and food in the bear box. It was hard to get the lock to work, but we managed at last and went to bed secure in the knowledge that our packs and food were safe from bears.

    So safe, in fact, that the next morning none of us could get the box unlocked. We tried for half an hour. All our food and supplies, except our tents, were locked tight. Like refugees, then, with only the clothes on our backs, we set out to hike the three miles to Paradise Lodge, hoping someone there would call the Forest Service for help.

    A sign on the trail above Paradise Lodge reminds hikers that only guests with reservations were welcome. We, of course, went down anyway. We found the manager, Bill, in the dining room. He was scowling.

    We explained the situation. He was still scowling but said he would call the Forest Service for us. 

    As we talked I kept eyeing the urn of Noble's coffee on a nearby stand. Oh, how I wanted a cup of coffee! It wasn't offered, so I finally asked if we could have some. Grudgingly, Bill said yes.

    Gratefully, we took our coffee to the deck and waited. Finally Bill came back to tell us that the man who could help us was on his day off and couldn't be reached. Essentially, the Forest Service had said, "Good luck to them" and left it at that.

    Well, okay. Hoping the problem was just a rusted-shut mechanism, we asked Bill if he had some WD40 and a screwdriver we could use. By this time he had softened to our plight. Yes, he would get those tools for us. And we hadn't had anything to eat, had we? The cook was going to open the kitchen back up, he said, and make us breakfast. He waved away our promise to bring him payment when we got our packs back. "It's on the house," he said.

    We had a very good, very full breakfast of eggs, sausage, potatoes, and more good coffee. Then, armed with WD40, we walked the three miles back to our camp, opened the lock with a couple of squirts of the magic potion, and retrieved our packs and food, broke camp, and were back on the trail. We stopped at Paradise Lodge to thank Bill and return the tools. 

    By now we were meeting group after group of hikers, maybe because it was Memorial Day weekend, or maybe the trail has simply become more popular since I hiked it seven years ago. Cheryl, who enjoys chatting with people, told so many of them I was hiking 80 miles for my 80th birthday that I became legendary.

    Cheryl, Sandy, and Janet were great hiking companions. Sandy was our constant reminder to express gratitude for the river and the wilds, suggesting a circle each morning before we left camp. Janet, besides being my good tentmate, used the app on her phone to identify birdsong for us—and oh! how beautiful it was to listen to the birds at river's edge at evening. Cheryl filled me in on the interesting people we met—the graduate student from Humbolt, the eighth-grade school group on a graduation trip, Southern Oregon University students, many others.

    And not to forget Bill, at Paradise Lodge. I talked to him myself. Nice guy.

Hiking the Lower Rogue River Trail, Part 1: Graves Creek to Illahe Lodge

     Cheryl, Janet, Sandy, and I planned to hike the Wild and Scenic Rogue River trail 40 miles from Graves Creek to trail's end at Illahe Lodge. After a night at the lodge, we would hike the 40 miles back. Eighty miles for my 80th birthday. 

    We started up the canyon on May 16.

    The wildflowers were amazing. Yellow tarweed flowed down the steep canyon walls like water, bringing flotsam of blue gilia and white buckwheat with it. Wild azaleas stopped us in our tracks with their sweet aromas. Wild irises abounded—white and cream ones with purple veins; deep yellow irises and, farther down the trail, gorgeous white ones with deep purple tips. All down the trail, the wildflowers were stunning. 

    The jewels of the trail, though, were the swimming holes. First stop—a beautiful swim in Whiskey Creek. What could be better? Well, maybe Kelsey Creek, with its deep blue pool, or the swimming hole on Paradise Creek, or the swim under the long waterfall of Flora Dell, but the crowning jewel was the swimming hole on Mule Creek—turquoise water, large rocks, a long pool for swimming. I was in Paradise.

    But Paradise is a variable concept. Lying on a river beach, soaking up the sun as the river gurgled over rocks and lapped at the shore, Sandy said, "This is my Paradise." 

    In other places, mosquitoes blemished Paradise, as did, a bit, the fact that in the confusion of packing, the poles for Sandy and Cheryl's tent got left behind. Ingenuity came to the rescue. At Russian Creek, where there were no trees between which to stretch a rope, Sandy rigged up the tent on the bridge. Hikers who came later had to clamber over the railing and jump onto the trail, at the other end. No one minded.

    Other campsites had more convenient trees for setting up a tent using ropes and hiking poles. 

    When we were on the river beach, we all slept without a tent.

    The day after we started our hike, the Forest Service put up a sign at the trailheads warning hikers about a slide on the trail. We, of course, were unaware of the danger. On the third day Sandy and I, hiking ahead of Cheryl and Janet, came to the slide, which was slippery with scree and intersected by a chasm. Sandy, taller than I, leapt the chasm first, then held out a hand to help me across. Done, and on we went. I hardly registered the danger.

    A few days later we were at Illahe Lodge. 

    First things first: showers. Then, wearing the oversized tee shirts on loan from Coleen, lodge owner, we stuffed the washing machine with our trail clothes. My friends Margaret and Bryan were there with supplies for the way back. Janet's husband drove in to join us for the night. We had a real dinner, complete with a birthday cake for Cheryl, who had turned 76 on the trail 

    We slept well that night, in real beds, and breakfasted well the next morning. Then we packed up and set out for the return trip to Graves Creek.

An Impressive Show of Siskiyou Wildflowers for My Sister from Georgia

    My sister Laura, who lives in Atlanta, is a wildflower enthusiast, a botanical artist, and, though she's not a scientist (she repeatedly said she wasn't), she's also not an amateur (she bristled when I called her that), but certainly she's an astute and knowledgeable botanical observer. When she planned a visit here in mid-May to see the wildflowers I have been raving about for years, I set out to prove I had not been exaggerating.

    For weeks I was checking out the trails for the best wildflowers. I chose a different hike for each day she would be here—Bolt Mountain at the south end of the Applegate Valley; Lower Table Rock outside of Medford; the East Applegate Ridge Trail in the center of the Applegate; and Baldy Peak, in the southern part. The displays were amazing. Fingers crossed they would not have faded before Laura got here.

   They did not disappoint. We saw 98 species on the four trails. Forty-one of those species were unique to a particular trail. We marveled everywhere we hiked.

    We called flowers by name as we hiked—an astonishing 35, 40, up to 50 species on each trail. Some of the Siskiyou flowers were familiar to Laura from their East Coast relatives (Indian paintbrush, vetch, columbine, etc.), but many were completely new to her (rough eyelash, tarweed, mission bells, fritillaria recurva, among others). She was a quick learner, recognizing flowers on one hike she had only learned the previous day. She hunkered over flowers with her magnifying glass. She carefully pulled apart partial blossoms to examine their parts. ("I feel like a gynecologist," she said.) 

    We saw the very unusual woolly Oregon sunshine on the Baldy Peak trail. I jumped up and down in excitement to recognize on that trail a rough eyelash, which I had never seen before. Laura especially loved the Siskiyou iris, with its creamy petals and purple veins. When she took a picture of a fritillary (recurva) from underneath, with the sun shining behind it, we discovered a phenomenon I had never known: the petals are transparent, like stained glass. When the sun shines through them, they glow yellow, as opposed to the opaque red they present when viewed from the top. It was extraordinary.

    The spreads were spectacular—lupine and mule's ears on Baldy Peak; sea blush interspersed with goldfields on Bolt Mountain; tall blue-eyed Mary and bi-colored vetch on Lower Table Rock, where wildflowers stretched to the horizon on the flat the top of the mountain. 

    Each day, we returned to my house with my list of identified flowers and photos of the unknowns, then opened books and websites to find the names of the latter. We identified the flower Laura had called a DYC (damn yellow composite) that was so widespread on Bolt Mountain I was embarrassed not to know it—nodding microseris. We identified the unusual Hooker's Indian pink on Bolt Mountain and the singularly distinctive summer snow (leptosiphon parviflorus). We learned to distinguish between blue dicks and ookow (count the stamens; six on blue dicks; three on ookow) and between mule's ears and balsam (by the leaf structure). We made guesses, dug deeper, changed our minds, narrowed down the possibilities, consulted with Siskiyou wildflower experts, finally made indisputable identifications. We worked late into the night, then got up the next morning for another hike and more new flowers. 

    The Siskiyou wildflowers put on an A+ performance. 

    Laura said she didn't know anyone else she could "geek out with" over wildflowers as we were doing. It was a sisterly thing and lots of fun.

    Laura enjoyed everything during her visit: the massage; the yoga class; brunch at the Jacksonville Inn; dinner at the Lindsay Lodge; buying wine from an Applegate winery to give as gifts back home; working the jigsaw puzzle she had brought to me; buying dresses together at a shop in Jacksonville; hiking with my friends—but nothing could equal the impressive show of the Siskiyous' wildflowers. 

    I was so pleased.
    Next time, I told her, she should come in July, for the high-country flowers. What a good time we will have geeking out over even more Siskiyou wildflowers. I can't wait.

Memories of Mike, on the Anniversary of His Death

     A few days ago, on May 7, Dignity Memorial sent me an email, reminding me that May 7 was the day Mike died, four years ago. Following their suggestion, I am sharing some memories of my dear late husband on this blog because I loved him and miss him.

(1) Mike greeting me as I landed in the canoe at my wedding site, joyously gathering me into his arms, his face aglow with happiness. (Mine, too.)

(2) Dancing to Alice DiMicele's rendition of "Dance Me to the End of Love," our chosen wedding song, later that day. I hadn't known Mike could dance until we started practicing in his living room, and then I thought how much fun we would have going out dancing in the Rogue Valley. That never happened, making the wedding dance even more poignant a memory for me. 

(3) The car-camping trip Mike dreamed up and planned for us the summer I hurt my knee and couldn't hike. Car-camping? But I'm a backpacker! But Mike knew what he was doing. It was so much fun!

(4) Rogue Valley Symphony Orchestra concerts. It seemed such a bonus that Mike liked the same kind of music I liked—besides the hiking and cross-country skiing, besides reading books together and sharing political views and enjoying good food and wine. After he died, I couldn't listen to classical music without crying. I didn't return to the symphony concerts until this past season.

(5) Just about any moment on any trail and especially any moment in the Dolomites, but specifically, from the Dolomites: I had broken down in tears for the pain in my heel, which we doctored with an ace bandage and Tylenol, then continued to the top of the pass, where a crucified Christ hung on a cross. Mike suggested I prostrate myself before it and ask forgiveness and maybe Jesus would heal my foot. Funny-Mike.

(6) I loved looking back at Mike on the trail, hiking or skiing, his eyes sparkling with joy.

Gems from My Life

Diamond

Some jeweler somewhere

long ago fashioned a featureless rock

into a diamond's tiny facets

from which the sun strikes fire,

Fourth-of-July sparklers

over Crater Lake's lapis

as I swim.

Ruby

No rubies gleamed among the rocks

Along the shore of Ruby Lake,

Nor did the water splash red as I dove in.

But if rubies are the gemstones of the sun

(As Hindus would have it)

Or the king of all gemstones

(As jewelers' ads would have it),

Then, with mountain peaks clasping Ruby

Like prongs gripping the stone of a ring,

The lake was a genuine gem.

Emerald

I have swum in Emerald Lake in the Trinity Alps

in Emerald Lake in the Sierra Nevada

in Emerald Lake in the Rocky Mountains

and could no doubt swim

in an Emerald Lake on many mountains

because a lake as green as those

could not but be named Emerald.

Garnet

They're called garnet yams

Though the rich orange mash

Merges not with our vision

Of the shiny red gleam of garnet gems.

And though the rough red skins

Might resemble unpolished garnets,

We never really see garnets in the rough

So can hardly identify the yam with the gem.

But give anything the name of a gem

And it will sell.

Turquoise

Once, while I wandered lost in psychic hinterlands,

God told me Satan had thwarted all efforts

to give me the ring that would prove

my initiation into the hermetic circle.

I wound in its place a string on my finger.

Later, wandering in mental peregrinations

around the grounds of the mental hospital,

I sat for a spell at a picnic table,

catatonically uncommunicative

even with the man who joined me there.

Years later, I looked often at the turquoise ring I wore

and wondered what had made him give it to me.

Opal

My mother, an October child,

wore opal earrings

which, I was pleased to know,

when we opened her will after she died,

she had opted to leave to me

But, alas!

She had bestowed those opal earrings

long ago on her granddaughter

who had not the will

to offer them then

back to me.

Pearl

I wish you to be an oyster

And turn these grits of irritation

Into gifts for appreciation

Pearls to love

Along with the other gems

Of my personality.

About Those 800 Miles

     I dreamed the other night that I was following my father up a very steep hill. He was hurrying fast, carrying two very heavy suitcases, the sweat streaming off his face as he huffed and puffed, walking fast, struggling, and suddenly he keeled over backward and slid, head first, down the hill. I ran after him and picked him up—he was, then, like a four-inch piece of cardboard—and set him on my knee and said, mournfully, "Dad! Oh, Dad. Dad. You didn't have to work so hard."

    Now, my father died at the age of 98 1/2, in the puttering days of old age and retirement. He certainly did not die of overwork. 

    The dream, I think, was about me.

    I suppose it's possible I could keel over and die on a hike, but I don't think the danger is great. In the first place, I don't huff and puff. I measure my energy carefully and climb hills still breathing through my nose. In the second place, all doctors have proclaimed my heart strong, and, in the third place, I am not hiking 800 miles in ten months from point zero. I have been hiking for years.

    In the fourth place, I am well aware that my goal wouldn't be all that ambitious for some people. My friend who is a year older and lives in Colorado, for instance, hikes 1500 miles a year (but he says, "There are all those Colorado Mountains that need to be climbed"). My friend in California, several years younger, easily hikes 20 miles a week. 

    Anyway, hiking is not a competitive sport, and the hike itself is not a race. I'm not trying to beat anyone. I am just setting a goal and striving to meet it. If it's harder or easier for me than it would be for someone else, if someone else gets to the top of the mountain before me, so what? 

    Nonetheless, the dream affected me enough that I took a few days off from strenuous hiking. 

    Then, feeling well rested, as my yoga instructor used to say, I put on a 22-pound pack and hiked up Stein Butte. That was a tough one. At the top, sweating but not huffing, I thought, "Diana, you don't have to work so hard." 

    But there is something satisfying in working so hard. As long as I'm not in danger of keeling over and ending up flat as a piece of cardboard, I think I'll keep on doing it.