Chattermarks

By Kurt Hoelting
May 3, 2010

My new book The Circumference of Home: One Man’s Yearlong Quest for a Radical Local Life grew quite seamlessly out of a yearlong experiment in car-free local living in 2008. I had been concerned about climate change since it first surfaced as an issue in the 1980’s. Yet my own carbon footprint had only grown larger in the ensuing years. The gap between what I knew to be true, and how I am actually living my life, had grown steadily larger. My wake up call came after I took my own carbon footprint online. I thought I’d do fairly well. After all, I was driving a hybrid car, actively recycling, keeping my thermostat low. But I was also flying a lot for work and pleasure, not noticing how thoroughly this jet travel was trumping all my other conservation efforts. I was shocked to see the size of the discrepancy between the two.

Yet fashioning an appropriate response proved elusive. I was too enmeshed in my high-carbon lifestyle to see any obvious way out of the conundrum. Feeling thoroughly stuck in the mire of this contradiction, I found myself sliding into a chronic depression. I had almost given up finding a way forward at all when the genesis of a creative response ambushed me one morning over breakfast with a friend. “What would it be like,” I found myself musing, “if I didn’t get into a car for a year? What would it be like if I spent an entire year living car-free within walking distance of home.”

Something in the audacity of this idea grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let me go. I started scheming about places close to home that I could explore under my own power, hidden gems I had neglected in my rush to more distant places. I drew a circle on the map sixty miles in radius with my home at the center – a circle that traced a nearly perfect circumference around the Puget Sound basin. I took a sabbatical from all work and travel that would take me outside this circle, and on the winter solstice in 2007 I parked my car in the garage for a full year. Armed with my boots, a bicycle and a kayak, and public transportation, I set off on the adventure of a lifetime.

» Continue reading Reflections on “The Circumference of Home”

North Cascades Highway is nearly open. The snowmobiles are put away, the traps are closed for the season and the wolverine crew has moved on to other endeavors. A few camera stations wait to be collected—hopefully holding a few late-season wolverine pictures on the memory cards. Yet there is one last aspect of the 2010 season that we all wait on.

Somewhere on a shelf in the office are vials with dates and GPS coordinates carefully recorded. Inside is blue desiccant and wolverine hair. In a drying box outside the office door is a collection of wolverine scat. This is the culmination of yet another aspect of the wolverine study in the North Cascades—following wolverine tracks to collect hair and scat.

To this end, members of the crew took several trips into the backcountry in search of the elusive wolverine. Multi-night trips. Backcountry skis and sunblock. Other people do this sort of thing for fun, but this was for science. Someone had to do it, right? In our defense, it is a bit of work. Heavy packs and cold nights. And a lot of GPS work. Everything had to be recorded—the exact route followed, any tracks encountered, and a plethora of details of weather and snow conditions. Not your usual backcountry trip in search of slopes of deep powder. A scientific expedition in search of wolverine tracks. But hopefully a few good turns in the process.

(Title) In search of wolverine tracks on the east side of the Pasayten Wilderness (Above) Brandon and Adam begin their search on the way to Sawtooth Crest

» Continue reading The magic of wolverine tracking

The Institute is venturing over to eastern Washington the weekend of May 15-16 for a very special field excursion with biologist and geologist Mark Darrach. “Bunchgrass Dreams: High Desert Ecology” explores the Arid Land Ecology Reserve, located within the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near the Tri-Cities in Eastern Washington, which is the largest remnant of native sagebrush-steppe habitat in the state. An unspoiled refuge for an indigenous landscape disappearing throughout the intermountain West, the ALE is home to an entire community of diverse and unique plants, reptiles, birds and mammals, including Rattlesnake Mountain milk-vetch, Rocky Mountain elk, Piper’s daisies, burrowing owls, sagebrush lizards, Swainson’s hawks and more than 45 species of butterflies.

This excursion is extra-special because the ALE is off-limits to the general public and there are very few guides that have permission to enter it. We’re very fortunate that Mark has access to this landscape and is willing to lead an Institute exploration for us. There are a handful of spots still open for registration — you can sign up via our website or by calling Kacey at (360) 854-2599.

And finally, here are an Institute staffer’s reflections from attending this field excursions a few years ago:

Our weekend on Rattlesnake Mountain is one I will never forget. I’d seen that mysterious hump across the shrub steppe ranchland of southeastern Washington as I criss-crossed the state by car, but never knew much about it.  It’s big! At more than 3,500 feet, it’s one of the tallest, treeless mountains in the world and you can see vast stretches of Washington from its crown. It’s also impossible for casual hikers to visit because access to it is very limited. The Institute’s entree under Mark Darrach’s guidance is something special. When Mark unlocked the access road gate at the foot of the mountain, and we quietly entered, I felt like we were being allowed “backstage” into one of the most mysterious and complex landscapes in the Northwest.

The mountain is a convergence of culture, natural history, politics and botany and I can’t imagine anyone knows more about it than Mark Darrach. We spent two days with him and the questions and conversations ranged widely; I don’t believe we ever asked him a question that he couldn’t answer. A luxury of intellect in a remarkable natural setting.

–Kris Molesworth (Photos by Carl Molesworth)

You would think it wouldn’t work.

First of all, the wolverine is an elusive creature. It inhabits the untrammeled heights of mountain ranges and is rarely seen or documented. So far this season, with ten traps open every day, we’ve captured just one wolverine. We’ve seen few tracks. But still, this winter we’re trying something new—getting photographs of the chests of wolverines. It is an idea only recently pioneered by Audrey Magoun, a wolverine researcher in southeast Alaska. And it is a brilliant idea.

Wolverines, it seems, have variable markings of light fur on their throats and chests. So variable, in fact, that each wolverine, if looked at closely, has a unique chest pattern. And therefore, with the right picture, we could tell them apart. A brilliant idea, truly, but in practice… It would seem that getting any picture of a wolverine would be a lucky convergence of circumstance, but to get a specific picture—a wolverine in a specific pose, well, it seems like wishful thinking. But then again, most great accomplishments start as silly dreams. The credit for the accomplishment of this silly dream lies to the north, with Magoun and her team of field people, who took an idea—getting pictures of wolverine chests—and made it happen. We’ve just followed their lead. But it is still exciting.

» Continue reading Capturing the Cascades wolverine

It is the radio call we’ve been waiting for all season.

Adam and I linger beside the truck, waiting to unload a couple of snowmobiles and get on with our assignment for the day—setting up our first camera station. But our attention is focused on the Forest Service radio. Waiting. Sherrie and John are up Twisp River checking on two wolverine traps that emit a “closed” signal from their radio transmitters. They have checked the first, and found it occupied by a marten. They should be at the second trap at any moment.

After fifteen minutes of fidgeting, kicking at snow and checking our watches, the radio comes to life. We eavesdrop on static and garbled voices, and finally make out words that change our day. There’s a wolverine in the trap. Our afternoon becomes more interesting. And longer. We pile back into the truck and drag our snowmobiles toward Twisp River.

This winter, ten or more Forest Service employees and volunteers tend ten wolverine traps on the outskirts of the North Cascades. We’ve been at it for two weeks already—replacing bait, checking the function of the traps, dealing with radio transmitter malfunctions and shoveling snow off of the traps. The status of the traps is checked each morning with radio receivers. We physically inspect and test the traps every three days or so. It is a fair amount of work, and the crew comes home each afternoon a bit weary and smelling of snowmobile exhaust. So far we have caught nothing but martens.

» Continue reading Encounters of a wolverine kind

An alder leaf on a trail. A chance encounter between a weasel and a hawk. The mad rush of a waterfall.

These images – and more – were captured in words by the participants in the North Cascades workshop Sit, Walk, Write: Nature and the Practice of Presence, held at the Environmental Learning Center on October 23 – 25, 2009.  For the past two seasons, Kurt Hoelting and I, Holly Hughes, have had the pleasure of leading this workshop the last weekend in October. At this workshop, we literally sit, walk and write as a way to more deeply engage with the natural world. Kurt- a writer and teacher of meditation – and I -poet, essayist and teacher of writing – both believe strongly in the value of combining meditation with writing as a way to deepen and reflect on our experience of the natural world.

Our time together goes like this – We begin the day with sitting meditation, followed by a brief period of walking meditation or Qi Gong, eat breakfast together in silence, then gather to read poems and prose that illustrate the practice of paying attention that meditation encourages. In the afternoon, we hike with an North Cascades Institute naturalist, learning more about the woods around us, and spend the rest of the day writing and reflecting on what we are observing. In the evening, we gather to share our writings then end the day by sitting together in meditation. Throughout, we are practicing attention – attention to our breath as we meditate, attention to the shimmering gold of the aspen leaves as we hike up a trail. Our hope is that by paying attention, we will become more present to ourselves and our world, and in doing so, we might feel called to bear witness.

» Continue reading Watching the waterfall, bearing witness

Over the second weekend in September, 12 photographers joined me (Benj Drummond) at the Learning Center for a weekend seminar on digital photography. We enjoyed clear sunny days and took advantage of the beautiful fall light from dawn until dusk (and then kept shooting). After returning from the field, we edited and tweaked our images in the computer lab. On Sunday we wrapped up the weekend with a group critique of the weekend’s work. Below are a selection of favorites, though it was a hard edit to make!

Above © Jason Ruvelson

© Russ Dalton

© Seaton Gras

© Ed Gastellum

© Emily Weisberg

© Shelley Langton

© David Green

© Louise Kornreich

© Beth Wisotzkey

© Don Fisher

© Seaton Gras