Pulling fur on Lake Estes trail

Had a little bit of time on our last morning in Colorado, so headed over to a local parks and rec area nearby called Lake Estes trail. A disk golf course meandered on one side and fly fishers filled the water on the other. There were also fisher fliers.

Osprey

Another adorable family played in the water.

Canada Geese

There was some golden singing in the bushes.

Yellow Warbler

As well as birds seen many times before, I got several to add to my life list, including this one out in the water.

Gadwell

And another bobbed in the creek.

Northern Waterthrush

My most enjoyable encounters were with a common, gregarious show off. While standing looking at some other birds, a magpie landed right next to me on a dead branch. It had a big red berry in its beak. We chatted, and I told it that I had a long lens on and it was way too close for a portrait. It then flew into a nearby bush and to its nest to feed its young. I was able to get a shot of one a little farther away posing with a mountain background in full coat and tails.

Black-billed Magpie

My favorite wildlife encounter of the trip happened as I walked back to the car. I spotted an elk laying under some trees just off the trail. As I looked longer, I saw three elk cows relaxing on the ground. Looking closer still, I noticed magpies were pecking and cleaning the elk’s hooves.

This was a show to sit and enjoy for a while. The elk’s coat was blotchy, losing its long winter fur, and the magpies were jumping up to its haunches and pulling out the long fur. The elk seemed very content to have this team grooming her. Then one of bird really focused on some fur that wasn’t coming off. It dug its beak in and pulled and pulled. The elk had enough, swung her head back, and the magpie flew off. The bird returned, and seemed to apologize. The show was over. Time to get to the car, and head to airport to take wing.

Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge

Close to home, I wander occasionally at the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie, primarily to see birds and wildlife and just to enjoy the prairie. I’ve posted some images from there. A good friend was instrumental in helping to convert that land from use as the Joliet Arsenal into the current state as a major intermodal transport center, Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery and the Midewin Prairie.

On the far western edge of North America’s prairie another army post, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, sat, unsurprisingly, near the Rocky Mountains. Much of that land has been converted into a National Wildlife Refuge.

American Bison at Rocky Mountain National Wildlife Refuge

While Midewin has also introduced bison into the refuge, I don’t think they have prairie dogs yet. Plenty of those critters wander through Rocky Mountain Arsenal NWR.

Prairie dog in Asters

I added a few birds to my life list while enjoying the trails, such as the Swainson’s Hawk soaring above. I still am surprised to see White Pelicans in the West, thinking they could only be in Florida waters where I saw them growing up, as they swam in a big circle and then closed the circle to trap fish.

Swainson’s Hawk and American White Pelicans

More birds are in the trees. The wonderful Merlin App can even identify them by their songs which helps tell me if I should stop and search more for birds I’ve never seen before.

Spotted Towhee, Blue-winged Warbler, Northern Flicker

And many birds forage on the ground and walk along the trail with me or just to the sides.

Horned Lark and Lark Sparrow

Providing habitat for all are the western prairie grasses which always seem to be swaying in the wind.

Wild Basin, Rocky Mountain National Park

On the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park and south of the heavily visited entrances near Estes Park is an area named Wild Basin.

A spring hike along trails up the North Saint Vrain Creek is filled with frogs calls, squirrel chatter and bird song.

Dark-eyed Junco

The pines rise far above you. A moose was too hidden to photograph, but the trees provide patient subjects.

You can stop along the trail to enjoy Copeland Falls.

And sit by the falls to enjoy the rock shapes, the lichens on them, and the water flowing over and around.

The trail continues climbing upstream along the creek. Around 9,000 feet elevation, the ground is covered with snow, and you come to Calypso Cascades.

Another chance to enjoy the light playing on the rocks and the water.

Might that be a fish jumping in the water?

Time to head back downstream toward the trailhead, and through some aspen.

And revel in the tall pines.

Sakura at the Palace

Large gardens surround the palace in central Kyoto. The cherry blossoms were just beginning to bloom.

Sakura, or cherry blossoms, are an important part of Japanese culture. People gathered on blankets under the trees, posed for pictures, and walked among the blossoming trees.

Sakura has many meanings — life and death, beauty and violence. The season is one of vitality and vibrancy, yet the short-lived flowers remind one of the fleeting nature of life.

The gardens, of course, have far more than the fleeting blossoms. Some pines have enormous bark patches.

Ponds dot through the grounds, and Japanese egrets have time to reflect.

As do herons.

Throughout the country, you are never far from shrines. And reflections are common there as well.

A person may clap their hands to attract the attention of the gods. Also, a suzu rope hangs next to the bell at a Shinto shrine that can be shaken to ring the bell as well. So here’s a Sakura Suzu to end our walk through the palace garden.

The Garden of Origins and Journeys

After a very long day of traveling, and a good night’s sleep, what better place to begin a visit to Japan than at the Garden of Origins and Journeys.

This UNESCO World Heritage Site has many names. Long, long ago Prince Shotoku built a villa here, and in 731 Buddhist priest and bodhisattva Gyoki founded Saihoji 西芳寺 temple. You start your visit in the temple, with shoes off tracing the words of a sutra.

Hundreds of years later, in 1339 Master Zen gardener Muso Soseki restored the temple for the Rinzai Sect. Many noblemen and shoguns visited the temple on their trips to Kyoto. Tea ceremony houses remain throughout the grounds.

The temple also goes by the name Kokedera 苔寺 which translates to Moss Temple. There are said to be over 120 varieties of moss on the grounds. Let’s look at some.

The garden is closed in January and February when the mosses rest. Covered with leaves. When the time to wake comes, gardeners tend the site daily, sweeping leaves off the moss.

The pond in the middle of the garden is shaped like the Japanese character for “heart” or “mind.” Boats once took visitors to three islands in the pond— Horai (Endless Happiness), Tsuru (Crane), and Kame (Turtle).

Rocks in the pond are said to be ships anchored off the coast of Paradise.

Muso Soseki who designed the garden in the 14th century wrote, “It is delusion to think that the pure world of paradise and the profane world of the present are different.”

The temple and gardens are only open for a few hours each day. The admission cost is much higher than any other gardens in Kyoto. The city buses stop a long distance away, as must tour buses, to keep the area quiet, reduce pollution, and let this piece of paradise remain still to be able to journey while in rooted in the Earth.

Kyoto Gardens

Natural places abound in this city of a million and half people. The ancient capitol of Japan has volcanic hills and mountains cut through with streams and rivers. At the top of a preserved historic street of Arashiyama is the ancient Buddhist temple Adashino Nenbutsu-ji, and then above that you can walk through a bamboo forest.

Bamboo forest of Adashino Nenbutsu-ji

Next to the neighbor’s house where I grew up in Florida was dense bamboo thicket. We walked through several bamboo gardens and forests in Japan which transported me back to seeing the immense grasses towering above me as a child. Here though, I could play with my camera and try to recreate a Japanese print.

After walking through bamboo and visiting the gardens, graves and memorials above, we returned to the Adashino Nenbutsu-ji temple. By the temple is Sai-no-kawara, the riverbed of souls which is between the pure land and this world. Funeral rites have been performed here for millennia. The temple began in the 8th century when the Buddhist monk Kukai began placing stone statues for the dead here.

Sai-no-kawara

Perhaps that river to separate the souls flows through the mountains above.

Tenryu-ji is one of five major Zen Mountain temples. The view from the porch of the temple is Sogenchi Pond and the garden surrounding it. Designed by Muso Soseki over 800 years ago, the garden was the first designated Special Historical Scenic Spot of Japan. It is a “borrowed garden” meaning it incorporates the landscape behind.

Sogen-chi Pond garden

Sogen means “source of life".” Emperor Saga first founded a temple here around the year 800. Today, it is one of the seventeen (!!!) UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Kyoto. As I viewed the whole scene, Dan spotted a Japanese Little Egret fishing in the Sogen. Again, I was taken back to Florida and the nearly identical Snowy Egret that lives there. Both have the wispy plumage and the yellow feet, sometimes called golden slippers, which is the easy way to identify them. (If they’ll show you.)

Little Egret in the Sogen

So where to next?

Miyajima National Forest

The United States has 25 World Cultural Heritage Sites designated by UNESCO. The city of Kyoto, Japan has nearly as many. We will visit some. Today, we are going to one just outside Hiroshima, Japan.

A ferry boat ride from downtown Hiroshima takes you across the bay to the island of Miyahima. One of the first sites after walking into the island is the Ohtorri Gate, also known as the floating gate. A Shinto shrine sits on the edge of the bay looking out to the gate which at high tide seems to float on the water.

O’Torri

As you get closer to the shrine, more objects like lanterns envelop you.

Above you is the Gojunoto, or Five-Storied Pagoda.

The forest with blossoming trees beckon you to climb the holy mountain like Kobo Daishi did in 806 CE.

The forest itself is part of the World Cultural Heritage Site. Most of it has never been disturbed. A peaceful path dotted with shrines leads you up the mountain.

You often cross small streams.

Eventually, your pilgrimage takes you to the Miyajima Ropeway; two aerial rope systems that lift you to the top of Mt. Misen. We started in fog and rose into the clouds. At the top, we could look back toward Hiroshima.

Kobo Daishi founded the Buddhist Shingon Sect in the eighth century. Returning to Kyoto, he stopped on Miyajima to climb Mt. Misen. There he performed Gumonji, a 100 day meditative practice before a fire.

The fire has burned for over 1,200 protected under a shrine. Prayer candles are lit from the flame. The flame was taken into to Hiroshima to light the Flame of Peace in the Peace Memorial Park, another World Heritage Site.

The mountain is filled with buildings connected to the Shinto-Buddhist syncretic religion, including the only hall dedicated to demon gods.

The fog did not clear during our stay on the mountain, and we needed to return to the ferry before the tide got too low to return to Hiroshima, and Ground Zero.

X marks the spot - Total Eclipse 2024

In August 2017, I ventured to the Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois to see my first total solar eclipse. I posted that story here. To witness dusk suddenly approach in mid-day, then the light switch off, and seeing solar flares shoot out was a phenomenal experience. The area boasted that the next total solar eclipse in the U.S. would cross that very spot.

Image created by Ernest Wright/NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

The astronomical odds of an eclipse coming through a specific part of the planet is once every 375 years. I hoped to return to the spot where this occurrence would strike twice in less than seven years. While planning the return, I learned there would be an annular eclipse in late 2023 in the western U.S., so that was a good excuse to head to one of my favorite places to witness that event.

A week before the eclipse, cloudy skies were forecast, but predictions improved as the event approached. But the morning started with dew dripping from the trees enveloped in heavy fog.

Devil’s Backbone, Bell Smith Springs Scenic Area, Shawnee National Forest, Illinois

In 2017, the morning also started cloudy but cleared by the afternoon. Monday, as the fog lifted, blue sky began to show between the clouds. We explored around Mill Branch where I’d watched the prior eclipse, but decided we’d head closer to the Interstate to avoid some traffic when everyone would leave for home.

Mill Branch Creek, Shawnee National Forest

People gathered, blankets were spread, viewing glasses came out, the light dimmed, and the temperature dropped.

Then the switch turned off, the sky darkened, the horizons glowed in sunset colors, and a planet twinkled in the dark sky.

The lights in the corner of this image were from a jet following the path of the eclipse.

For four minutes, we watched the corona dance. In 2017, Southern Illinois was the spot the eclipse lasted the longest at 2 minutes and 40 seconds. That year, the sun was nearing solar minimum meaning fewer coronal ejections. This year, the moon was closer to the earth, blocking more of the sun, and the sun was approaching solar maximum with flares and loops streaming further out.

Then a hint that the show was about to end: the sun began to peak out.

Diamond Ring

As the eclipse was ending, more high circus clouds moved in. But for four minutes, time stopped and the clouds stood by. One orange solar flare at the edge of the sun now peaking from behind the moon cast its last glow.

Chiricahua National Monument

The Chiricahua Mountains rise out of the Chihuahuan Desert in southeast Arizona and extend into Mexico. Driving from the relativity lush, cactus-filled Sonoran Desert to the east, the Chihuahuan Desert is pretty barren and bleak. Then suddenly, high mountains with snow at the peaks rise up. These areas are called Sky Islands with richer biology.

Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona

The spectacular geologic features of the area led to the creation of this national monument in 1924. The Rhyolite rock created by massive volcanos over 25 million years ago has been uplifted and then weathered away.

When the lava cooled, vertical joints formed. Over millions of years, water froze and cracked open the joints. Further erosion carved pinnacles, spires, and columns. Time to get your hiking boots on.

As you hike down among these features toward the creek running below, you wonder when some of these features may come crashing down.

Many of the rocks seem like giant creatures keeping eye over visitors to this wonderland.

Or perhaps a massive mummy walking among the cliffs.

The hike we took into Echo Canyon was certainly one of the most fun, spectacular hikes at a national park site. It reminded us a lot of the Queens Garden Navajo Loop trail at Bryce Canyon. You walk thru hoodoos and giant rock features, down into a high elevation garden of trees and other greenery. Unlike the red rocks of Bryce, here they are brown and grey and covered in green moss and colorful lichens.

In this year of its 100th anniversary at a national monument, a bill is in Congress to designate it a National Park. While it certainly has the vast wonders of many of the western Parks, the current infrastructure would not handle the likely crowds that would follow such a designation. Single road into the park is narrow and twisty and the parking lots are small. I hope the change does not occur. The beauty and diversity of the place will be the unchanged. Just more people will visit. Now you know about it, so come and enjoy the Sky Island wonderland.

Grand Views

Still travelling in Arizona, but here’s some quick views of the Grand Canyon.

Grand Canyon National Park

These images are from the east end of the South Rim Drive at an area called Desert View where there’s a great tower designed by Mary Colter, who is sometimes called the mother of National Park architecture.

Desert View

Looking West

A little further west on the rim drive is this view into the canyon. You can see one of the trails heading down to the river.

"Secretly, joyfully, clearly"

A last few images from Iceland as it is now almost exactly a year since they were taken. A couple weeks ago I posted images of the Reynisdrangar sea stacks taken from the east side of the mountain Reynisfjall that runs to edge of the Atlantic. It’s a bit of a drive to get to west side. Here is that western view of what the legend says are two trolls who tried to land a ship here and froze into rocks when daylight came.

Reynisdrangar

In Snow Geese, Mary Oliver writes of her experience of once, and only once, seeing snow geese migrating overhead. She starts the poem:

Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!

What a task

to ask

of anything, or anyone,

yet it is ours,

and not by the century or the year, but by the hours.

. . . .

Skaftafell glacier

. . . I

held my breath

as we do

sometimes

to stop time

when something wonderful

has touched us

. . .

Dawn on Diamond Beach at Jökulsárlón

. . . .

I have never

seen them again.

Maybe I will, someday, somewhere.

Maybe I won’t.

It doesn’t matter.

What matters

is that, when I saw them,

I saw them,

as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.

excerpts of Snow Geese, from Why I Wake Early, Mary Oliver 2004

Sunrise on Diamond Beach at Jökulsárlón

I hope we see some things today. If you’d like to read the entire poem, click here.

My son Dan edited a video of these and other south Iceland locations. If you’d like to enjoy it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na43YW3Smow

Rise and Fall(s)

When sea levels were higher, Iceland was smaller. Waves crashed into the coast forming cliffs. When the sea receded, the cliffs remained, and waterfalls started carving through the cliffs.

Seljalandsfoss

This waterfall is not far off the Ring Road and an easy walk from the parking area as you can see from the folks walking up. When there’s not ice, you can walk behind the falls. The Seljalandsá river splits above the cliff, with most of the water coming down the main falls, but you can see one of the small falls to the left. Here’s a better view.

You can keep walking below the cliffs. A little over a mile you’ll come to another falls from the Gljúfurá River that is hidden behind a gorge. Here’s a peek.

Gljúfrabúi

It is said that huldufólk, or hidden folk, live inside the gorge. They, and the icy boulders, kept me from exploring inside.

As the climate warms and the water level rises, will the sea be returning?

Addendum

While working on some of these images yesterday, the sun came out for the first time in days, and it warmed up enough to take a walk with just a sweater. So Chance and I circled a nearby lake. And perhaps some huldufólk were living beneath the water. (Though I suspect geese left some footprints.)

Herrick Lake

Cosmic Calendar

We sapiens think so highly of ourselves. Yet we’ve been here for such a ridiculously short period. And something like writing is not even a blink of an eye.

February

Astronomer Carl Sagan described the history of the universe in a one (earth) year calendar. The big bang occurred at midnight January 1st, with the basic elements created in the first three seconds. It took until February for the oldest stars and galaxies to begin to form.

March

Around mid-March our Milky Way began to form.

September 9

Our solar system was starting its formation around September 9th.

So what wisdom resides within these rocks and simple elements? How might we tap into that? A hummingbird sees different light wave lengths than we do, and the speed at which the bird travels might be perceiving a different shape of the world. Might a centuries old tree sense time and the environment around it in ways beyond our imagining?

September 14

Earth began to take shape a few days later, and perhaps only ten days more, the very first simple life forms started.

These images are from Reynisdrangar beach near the village of Vik, Iceland. Vik means Viking, and they had a legend that the three-masted troll ship you see in the back ran aground here. Iceland is new land on this planet. As the European and North American continents pull apart, right here lava flows up. After millennia of erosion, these basalt formations take shape. A camera can lengthen time a bit, and let us see the sea dancing and playing with these rocks—eroding and shaping them and pushing the black sand to the shore.

December 20

Around December 20th, plants began to take root on the Earth. Four days later and for five days, dinosaurs spread in the sea and on land.

December 31, late in the day

About 10:30 p.m. the first humans appeared. At 11:59:51, the alphabet was created. Buddha and Jesus were born about 400th of a second later. Around 11:59:58 some of those Vik Vikings might’ve made their way to the North American continent.

Skaftafell National Park

We’ve had nearly a week here of temperatures below freezing, and several more days to that to come. So it’s appropriate to think of a place called Iceland. Skaftafell National Park sits between the ocean to the south and the giant Vatnajökull glacier to the north. In the park, you can hike up the mountain for a view of a giant tongue of that glacier breaking through the mountain and working its way to the sea.

Skaftafellsjökull

Jökull is Icelandic for “glacier,” so I suspect you can figure what Skaftafellsjökull means. Here’s the view south from the same vantage looking as the glacier moves toward the ocean. I trust you can spot my son Dan.

Skaftafellsjökull

If you look at the highest point of the top of the mountain on the other side of the glacier, you can imagine piecing the two images together to get a sense of the full view. And here’s a switch from the wide angle lens to the telephoto to get a closer view of that peak.

The three mile loop trail continues away from the glacier view to several waterfalls that come down the mountain. Oh, and the Icelandic word for waterfall is foss. So here’s one of the more dramatic—Svartifoss. You can see it carving through the columnar basalt created as the lava cooled.

And I just checked the weather report. Yep, colder here today in Northern Illinois than Iceland.

Svartifoss

Epiphany

Marriam-Webster:

a(1): a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something

(2): an intuitive grasp of reality through something (such as an event) usually simple and striking

(3): an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure

b: a revealing scene or moment

St. James Farm Forest Preserve, DuPage County

Marriam-Webster:

capitalized : January 6 observed as a church festival in commemoration of the coming of the Magi as the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles or in the Eastern Church in commemoration of the baptism of Christ

St. James Farm Forest Preserve

To celebrate Epiphany, our community sang a song written in 1857: We Three Kings of Orient Are. John Hopkins’ verse is definitely mid-nineteenth century turgidity. (Marriam-Webster: Turgidity: excessively embellished in style or language) Then it ends in a wonderful last verse: “Alleluia, Alleluia” sounds through the earth and skies.

Blackwell Forest Preserve, DuPage County

How to be attuned to the Alleluia that sounds through the earth and skies? It is always there, and most everywhere. But winter storms in a forest let it resound.

St. James Forest Preserve

And sometimes a friend stops to say: “Look here.”

Herrick Lake Forest Preserve

So let’s look closer.

Herrick Lake Forest Preserve, DuPage County

In 1914, following urging by landscape architect Jens Jenson, and urban planner Daniel Burnham, the voters of Cook County established the first forest preserve in the country. The next year, neighboring DuPage County, where all these images are taken, voted to create forest preserves there. The following year, Congress created the National Park Service. All places to hear the Alleluias.

Herrick Lake Forest Preserve

Walking in the woods was like being in a snow globe.

Herrick Lake Forest Preserve

Epiphany was celebrated as a holiday even before Christmas. Eventually, the church set Christmas Day as December 25 and Epiphany as January 6. Epiphany Eve was called the Twelfth Night. This winter we saw a wonderful production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. It starts: If music be the food of love, play on.

Herrick Lake Forest Preserve

Father and son Ben and David Crystal have just published a new book—Everyday Shakespeare: Lines for Life. They have a theme for each month, a quote for each day, and some commentary. For March 26th, they have a line from Twelfth Night, and provide this context: “The sea captain Antonio has been arrested for setting foot in Illyria. He asks the disguised Viola for help, supposing her to be his friend Sebastian (who turns out to be Viola’s lost twin brother) . . . When he/she refuses, Antonio is distraught, and harangues him/her for being so shameful.”

In Nature, there’s no blemish but the mind,

None can be called deformed, but the unkind.

And the Crystals comment: “Perhaps the only blemish (“fault”) in life is the way we think, or the way we treat each other. Be kind. (Especially to yourself.)

St. James Farm

Nebraska

The last large state to cross on the return of my fall trip was Nebraska. I started in the southwest part of the state crossing over from Colorado. The autumn colors were still strong, though not the aspen and cottonwoods. Definitely on the plains.

Not many animals to see except for a variety of raptors searching the rolling land for prey I could not see.

After visiting Scots Bluff, I continued north to another National Monument—Agate Fossil Beds. Near the end of the 19th century, James and Kate Cook found fossil bones on a hill on their ranch. It became the largest collection of giant Miocene mammals ever found.

Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, Nebraska

While there’s not much to explore on the land of the monument, the visitor center museum displays a phenomenal collection of the fossils. But that’s only half of the amazing collection. The Cooks became trusted friends of the Lakota who gifted them with many artifacts including a buffalo hide with the story of the Battle of Greasy Grass a/k/a Little Bighorn.

Chief Red Cloud was a good friend and Lakota and Cheyenne would visit the Cooks filling the surrounding lands with their tepees. You need to image them and the bison today.

After camping in Nebraska National Forest (yes, it surprised me, too, that there was a forest in Nebraska), I awoke to a land covered in fog.

The sandhills along the Niobrara River had a special beauty as I travelled the entire length of the state in fog.

A few cottonwoods appeared out of the mist.

It was a quiet, peaceful end to the trip as I headed eastward, home.

Capulin Volcano

A gift of travel is finding spots on maps that grow and come alive. As I planned earlier trips to the area, Capulin Volcano National Monument hung up on the northwest corner of the map of New Mexico just south of Colorado. I kept looking at the spot, and wanted to visit, but the logistics just did not work out on prior trips. On this trip it would be the final stop before leaving New Mexico.

Capulin Volcano

Approaching from the south in the morning, you can see the road that winds up the cinder cone. The road ends on the little bright spot on the top left. From there, you can hike a mile around the top ridge or head down into the crater.

Capulin Volcano crater

By finally scheduling a stop here, I was lucky to arrive at peak autumn color at the end of October. Looking down to the lava flow plateau below the rim trail, the clusters of fall color popped out. Capulin erupted about 60,000 years ago, so enough time has elapsed for soil to level the ground and plants to grow.

And more color erupts right at your feet.

The pinyon pine is the state tree of New Mexico. This one on the rim likely gave lots of nourishing nuts to birds, squirrels and deer over its life. It now provides some drama to the view.

In all directions from the rim, a smooth plateau of old lava flows extend to more distant cones and shield volcanos. All the dots on the map came alive.

Badlands on the Divide

El Malpais National Monument is tucked into the northwest corner of New Mexico. My faster travels the day before and a full campground where I planned to stay had me arriving here a day early. Unlike most national park sites, El Malpais (spanish for the Badlands) allows dispersed camping (i.e., not in a designated campground, a/k/a boondocking.) Heading down a backroad, I found a spot for the night on the edge of the lava field right along the Continental Divide.

El Malpais National Monument, New Mexico

In the image above, you can see some of the cinder cones in the distance as well as the lava that makes up much of the monument. I didn’t have time to do much hiking in the park, but amazingly an ancient trail crosses the lava field near here. Call the Zuni-Acoma trail, it has been used for generations by the Zuni and Acoma tribes on either side of the barren land as a trade connection between the peoples.

The volcanic activity here is due to the thin crust since the center of New Mexico is split by the Rio Grand Rift Valley, one of only four major rift valleys in the world. I wrote about (the confusingly named) Malpias Lava flow a couple weeks ago, and about the massive Valles Caldera while I was traveling. I hope to post about Capulin Volcano soon.

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge lies along the Rio Grande. The river runs mostly north-south through the center of the state where the continent is ripping apart. Slowly.

The oldest of the five major lava flows at El Malpias NM was over 1115,000 years ago. The most recent is only a couple few thousand years old, certainly within the oral traditions of the indigenous peoples who live nearby. Where I camped, the lava flow was near more forested land that led up to nearby mountains. A golden sunset led to a peaceful night filled with stars.

The National Monument is mostly surrounded by BLM-protected land named El Malpais National Conservation Area. Sandstone features are throughout the area where lava has not covered. I went to see one of those features called La Ventana Natural Arch. As the sun began to peek over the arch, I chatted with a fellow whose trail name is Blacklight. He was heading to the Mexico border hiking the Continental Divide Trail from Canada to complete the Triple Crown of Thru-Hiking. In earlier years, he had completed the Appalachian and Pacific Crest trails. His work leave-of-absence was ending and he’d need to decide whether to continue this lifestyle or return to software engineering. Life on the Divide.

La Ventana Arch, El Malpias National Conservation Area, New Mexico

A to Z -- Annular to Syzygy

In 2017, I viewed my first total solar eclipse in Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois. On April 8, 2024, the next total solar eclipse will track from Texas to New York, and the place the path will cross the 2017 eclipse is Shawnee NF. I plan to go back to the same spot. While doing some planning for that trip, I discovered there would be an annular solar eclipse in October 2023 tracking from Oregon through Texas. Unlike a total eclipse, in an annular the moon is too far away from earth to completely cover the sun. What results is often called a “ring of fire” as the edges of the sun shine around the moon. Seeing that seemed like a good excuse to plan a trip back to the Four Corners which would be right on path of the eclipse.

Sunrise Kansas

To view an eclipse, of course, you want clear skies, and I hoped the desert southwest would deliver such weather. My first sunrise in Kansas on the drive west was a good omen.

I’d be staying in the Navajo Nation for the event. Many Navajo believe it is bad fortune to be outside during an eclipse. Some places, such as Monument Valley, would be closed to visitors. As I wrote in this week’s Tuesday Travel post, I decided to go to a remote area called Lower Butler Wash in Bears Ears National Monument. Turned out, many people had the same idea. My second night camping in the wash, there were seven other vehicles around me—more than I’d seen on entire day on my prior visit. Many more were parked up and down the washboard road.

Campsite near Comb Ridge

The day before the eclipse, after the hikes I wrote about in Tuesday’s post, I drove the sandy, slick rock, rutted road out to the highway to see some other petroglyphs and to go to the small town of Bluff. Some Navajo were taking advantage of having so many people visiting and had set up some cooking tents. Pork on Indian Fry Bread and a hatch chile was a clear invite that I would not need to cook dinner.

Driving back to Comb Ridge, I began thinking that I might leave the area the next morning before the eclipse since it would not be the isolated location I planned, and I’d not found a place I wanted to use as a foreground for images during the event. On my turn of the highway down Lower Butler Wash Road, I saw three motorcycles in my rearview mirror, and decided I’d let them go ahead since they’d likely navigate the rough road faster than my SUV. As they passed, I thought, “These guys are quite a bit older than me, and wow, I didn’t think you could get that much gear on a motorcycle.” A bit down the road, one of the cyclists stopped at the top of a hill while the other two went down a steep, very sandy drop and I stopped behind him to wait. Soon, boom, boom, both guys tipped and fell with their overloaded bikes on top of them. Neither were hurt, but we had to help lift their bikes off them as they walked the rest of the way down. My decision was made. I was not going to get caught in the inevitable traffic mess that would occur after the eclipse.

Sunrise on Butler Wash Road

Despite a questionable forecast, Saturday morning did not have a cloud in the sky. Shortly after the sun cleared the eastern ridge, I headed south. Butler Wash empties into the San Juan River, a major tributary of the Colorado. I read there were some ancestral homes and petroglyphs on the south side of the river, so I scouted there to find them and watch the eclipse.

Composite image of annular eclipse, Navajo Nation

In this space, Chance and I were the only ones around to watch the event. (We never did find any ruins, though we did see some old Navajo hogans.) In the image above, the trees grow along the San Juan River in front of us. The sun was actually behind us, but there were no close features to picture there since the sun was high in the sky. The composite helps see the event and the location. In the image, the eclipse started with the lower left image of the sun as the moon dropped in from the top and continued its journey across the face of the star. In the top right image, the moon is exiting its transit.

Syzygy

Although Chance and I and some Navajo horses were the only ones in the area, there was a campground on the north side of the San Juan. When the moon covered the sun, a cheer carried across the river. Somewhere else in the distance some drums began to beat. While it didn’t get dark as in a total eclipse, instead of clear-sky, mid-day desert light, the landscape looked as if night would descend soon. If you saw my Tuesday post of a petroglyph on the other side of the San Juan, the creator of that image 1,200 years ago created something that looked like the annular eclipse. It possibly meant This is one of those places.

I took many images when the moon just transited the edges of the sun. I’d read that you might get an effect of a ray or starburst as sunlight travelled through a mountain or crater on the moon. That didn’t happened, but you can see the rough bit of light on the moon’s south pole where some features are blocking the light near where the Indian Vikram lunar lander explored a couple months earlier.

If you’re anywhere near the path of totality in April, I’d encourage you to hope for clear skies and witness the event. For that, the moon will be much closer to the earth, covering the sun for a relatively long time. Also, this is a period of great solar activity, so there may be a big corona to view.

I thought the solar show was over, but a week later I got another solar ring. Planning this trip, I discovered that the following Saturday, the Trinity Site where the first nuclear bomb was tested, would be open to the public. It’s only open two days a year. More on that visit later, but as I finished seeing the monument and was returning to the car, I looked up to see two sun dogs on either side of the sun. As I walk on, an entire halo circled the sun. People were walking back-and-forth oblivious to the sky show. I stopped to some to say, “look at that!” Then, a cloud formed from a passing jet pierced the sun. This is one of those places.

Thankful

My prior visits to New Mexico had always included incredible sunrises or sunsets. This trip had mostly clear skies—which was perfect for the day of the eclipse—and days with clouds just had nice, but not spectacular displays. One event the trip was planned around was the twice-a-year Saturday that the Trinity Site would be open to the public. I wanted to camp close by, so I could get in line before sunrise. I choose to camp at a Bureau of Land Management site I’d hiked at on prior trips to the area. A meteor shower was predicted for the night, so clear skies would be great.

Valley of Fires Recreation Area

The area is the northern part of the Tularosa Basin, and here about 5,000 years ago, the Malpais Lava Flow covered the basin. Today, yucca, sotols, cactus and other desert plants grow within the lava rock. Following a hike through a trail cut among the lava, we returned to our camping spot where we had a high look out behind us. Lots of clouds began to move in. Would they cover the sun, or would the Valley of Fires have a blazing sky?

The sun set with nice golden color behind the distant San Andres Mountains. Another photographer had come for some images and left. But sometimes the best color arrives well after the sun goes down. We sat among the rocks to enjoy the changes.

And we were rewarded for the show. The next morning we’d be on the other side of the first ridge of mountains where the Trinity Site was the test for the first atomic bomb in 1945.

The show was mostly done. Time for the flashlight to help get back to camp. The clouds would block the meteor shower for that night, but the sunset was a terrific exchange to miss that sky show.