Chattermarks

For several weeks I have had the goal of pedaling from the gate marking the seasonal road closure on Highway 20 (near mile post 134) to the snow wall–where clearing of the snow-covered highway ends. Near the end of each winter season, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) begins plowing the North Cascades Highway once the snow has ceased to fall and avalanche danger has subsided throughout the region. This typically occurs in March.

However, it’s a bit different this year as WSDOT was still plowing Steven’s Pass on Highway 2 well into the first half of April, and is still busy with avalanche control as another slide occurred just last week! With the recent heavy snowfall in spring and the majority of the state’s snow equipment on Highway 2, it’s been difficult for WSDOT to swiftly clear the North Cascades Highway. The pass on Highway 20 is usually open by now, but this year it will be a lucky day if it opens before Memorial day–the latest opening since the highway opened in 1972!

» Continue reading In Search of the End of the Road

[The third installment in our ongoing Road Trip series, in which Institute staff visit other amazing places around the country and bring back stories and photos to share! This article is the final installment in a three-part series.]

After spending 11 days on the Colorado River, we took a rest on our twelfth day and set forth on land to discover the wonders of Tapeats Canyon.  There are stories that a waterfall cascades down the canyon wall for hundreds of feet to the canyon floor with feats of grace.  Cottonwoods grow along the river’s edge while mosses and ferns carpet the canyon wall.  After 11 days on the Colorado, where the majority of the plants we saw were of the cactus family, Cactaceae, we were driven up the canyon to explore paradise.

» Continue reading Road Trip: Exploring the Grand Canyon, part 3

[The third installment in our ongoing Road Trip series, in which Institute staff visit other amazing places around the country and bring back stories and photos to share! This article is the second of a three-part series.]

Continuing our journey down the Colorado River, our fearless group reached Hance Rapid (rated an 8 on the Grand Canyon Scale) on day six of our voyage. The entryway to Hance Rapid is marked by a basalt dyke that interrupts the perfectly placed layers of the deep red sandstone of the Grand Canyon Supergroup.  John Wesley Powell described what laid before us:

The gorge is black and narrow below, red and gray and flaring above, with crags and angular projections on the walls… Down in these grand gloomy depths we glide, ever listening, ever watching.

We took Powell’s description in stride as our boats glided down the wet, cold tongue of the Colorado River.  We passed through the entry gate at Hance Rapid and slipped into the dark walls of the Inner Gorge.

» Continue reading Road Trip: Exploring the Grand Canyon, part 2

[The third installment in our ongoing Road Trip series, in which Institute staff visit other amazing places around the country and bring back stories and photos to share! This article is the first of a three-part series.]

On the morning of November 11th, one of our boatmen sat perched on the bow of his raft and read the following from John Wesley Powell’s journal:

With some feeling of anxiety we enter a new canyon this morning.  We have learned to observe closely the texture of the rock.  In softer strata we have a quiet river, in harder we find rapids and falls.  Below us are the limestones and hard sandstones which we found in Cataract Canyon.  This bodes toil and danger.

Shortly after, we pushed off from the shores of Lees Ferry–river mile zero of the Grand Canyon.  For the next 20 days, I would travel 226 miles on the great Colorado with fifteen other people and the words of John Wesley Powell and Edward Abbey.

» Continue reading Road Trip: Exploring the Grand Canyon, part 1