September 2021

Books read:

Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
Lila by Marilynne Robinson

Trails walked:

King Lake and Rollins Pass Trestles near Rollinsville, CO (August 31st)
Crested Butte (Labor Day weekend)
Bear Lake to Fern Lake bus stop in Rocky Mountain National Park (Sept 9th)
Little Yellowstone and Colorado River source in Rocky Mountain National Park (Sept 14th)
Blue Lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness (Sept 16th)
Mount Chiquita in Rocky Mountain National Park (Sept 18th)
Inner Basin memorial hike near Flagstaff, AZ (Sept 24th)
Teacup trail in Sedona, AZ (Sept 25th)

Song(s) of the month – Patty Griffin – When it Don’t Come Easy and Making Pies

Scientist Spotlight – Charles Drew – Physician

September Summary: Well, it seems I did way more rambling than reading this month! I guess there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’m never gonna get through my reading list at this rate (honestly, I’ll never get through my reading list ever, unless Elon Musk plants a chip in my head that allows me to instantly read all those books…. wait, can he do that yet?). My wife and I are excited to spend our first autumn in Colorado. The leaves are already changing at higher elevations and it’s stunning. It will never match the color of a New England fall, but with the mountain background it is beautiful. Fall also means baseball playoffs and the start of NFL football (Go Cardinals!....and Broncos!). It also means that we need to do something we never, ever had to do in Phoenix…prepare for winter. I’m learning about all kinds of phrases that I never knew even existed, like “blowing out your sprinkler lines” and “fertilizing your lawn with winterizer.” Luckily, we have a very nice neighbor who is helping me do all of this.

They say you can never go back home, but I did just that when I returned to Phoenix for the first time since we moved to Colorado 10 months ago. I thought that it might be an emotional trip, seeing my home of 40 years again, but it really wasn’t. I enjoyed visiting with friends and family and miss them very much, but we’re making Colorado home now and we have lots of things to do and see here. I’ll certainly return many times in the future, not only to visit friends and family, but also to hike the Superstition Mountains and the Grand Canyon again because those places are in my blood now.

This month we had two nice family and friend reunions: one in Crested Butte, CO and one in Sedona, AZ. The Crested Butte trip showed me just how many beautiful mountains there are in this state and while in Sedona I hiked one of its many spectacular trails and attended a friend’s wedding. The Arizona trip also allowed me to attend a memorial hike and service for my late great Hiking Buddy near Flagstaff. Closer to home in Colorado, I took a college buddy, who came to visit, on hikes in the Indian Peaks Wilderness and in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). I went on a very cool hike with my son on the last day of August, which I included in my September list. Plus, I was able to get out on my own for two long hikes in RMNP, one of which was to discover the source of the mighty Colorado River, high in the northwest corner of the park.

My reading took me across the world to see the unintended consequences of man’s desire to tame the environment, then to a 24-hour bookstore that was home to a 500-year-old secret society, and finally to another brilliant novel by Marilynne Robinson. Enjoy the blog!

Scientist Spotlight – Charles Drew (1904–1950)

Charles Drew was an African American physician who pioneered ways to store blood plasma in blood banks for later transfusion. His process was used during World War II and saved countless lives. He resigned his position at the American Red Cross during World War II when he discovered that the blood from African Americans was kept segregated (The Red Cross maintained this archaic process up until 1950). Drew was raised in Washington DC, the son of a carpet layer and a teacher. He attended Dunbar High School and later received his medical degree from McGill University in Canada (Harvard is the McGill of the United States). He developed a method for processing and preserving blood plasma, or blood without cells. Plasma lasts much longer than whole blood, making it possible to be stored or "banked" for longer periods of time. He discovered that the plasma could be dried and then reconstituted when needed. Drew died tragically while driving home after performing surgery the previous night at a free clinic in Tuskegee, Alabama.

Songs of the month –

Patty Griffin has been one of my favorite artists since my wife and I saw her outdoors in Sedona at Jackson Browne's annual Verde Valley Benefit concert. That was around 1998 when she had just released her second album, Flaming Red. Her first album, Living with Ghosts, was released in 1996 when she was 32. Her voice is strong and clear, and her songwriting is brilliant. In my opinion, Impossible Dream (2004) and her 2002 album 1000 Kisses are her best work. Every song on both albums is solid. Earlier and later albums still have some great songs but aren't 100% strong like these two. When my father died in 2016, I put together a video montage which included a song she wrote for her father in 2013 called Go Wherever You Wanna Go; it's a great tribute to a loved one who has passed away. Her song Long Ride Home is another great song about losing your spouse of many years. She sings about life, love, and death as though she is in on some secret about all of these topics. She released her 10th album in 2019 and it won best folk album at the Grammys; she's still making meaningful music after 25 years of recording.

When It Don’t Come Easy was on her Impossible Dream album. We need more love in the world and maybe this is why I selected this song. Perhaps one of the best love songs ever written that nobody knows about, When It Don’t Come Easy starts out slowly in the first verse and then the music and the lyrics become more and more powerful in the second verse, and then they slow down again in the last verse. Here’s a sampling of the lyrics:

I don't know nothing except change will come
Year after year what we do is undone
Time keeps moving from a crawl to a run
I wonder if we're gonna ever get home
You're out there walking down a highway
And all of the signs got blown away
Sometimes you wonder if you're walking in the wrong direction

Listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GkCVviu21g

When I first heard the song, Making Pies from her 1000 Kisses album, I just thought it was a nice song about a lady making pies. I usually would play it around Thanksgiving while my daughter was making one of her many amazing pies. But one day I sat still and listened to the sparse lyrics. In only 200 words she tells the story of a woman who goes to work each day to make pies. She’s experienced a tragic loss in her life related to the war (presumably this was set after World War II), but she’s trying to make a life for herself (“you could cry or die or just make pies all day”). Here’s one of the verses:

Did I show you this picture of my sweetheart
Taken of us before the war
Of the Greek and his Italian girl
One Sunday at the shore
We tied our ribbons to the fire escape
They were taken by the birds
Who flew home to the country
As the bombs rained on the world

Listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX9h2wFERiQ

King Lake and Rollins Pass Trestles –

A midweek day trip with my son who took the day off. He's recently started taking up fly fishing and is in search of Colorado's alpine-lake trout. Today's goal was the greenback cutthroat trout in King Lake. Since I'm no longer a fisherman (long, complicated story that I'll write about someday), we combined other adventures, including a very bouncy and long 4WD road, and a hike across some old railroad trestles.

One of several passages across the Continental Divide, Rollins Pass was used by Paleoindians to drive game across the divide. Between 6,000-10,000 years ago they built walls to funnel bighorn sheep and elk towards hunters that were waiting in blinds for the animals. You can see the remnants of these walled game drives today and we passed by one near the Needle’s Eye Tunnel. Rollins Pass was named after John Quincy Adams Rollins who created a path in the 1870s to allow Mormon wagons to travel from Denver to Salt Lake City. Later a railroad and auto route were established but were subject to many landslides and accidents. When the Moffat tunnel was completed in 1928, Rollins Pass was no longer used for rail transport. Remnants of the railroad trestles are still there and are somewhat maintained mainly due to the natural gas pipelines that are now attached to them. Cars used the pass until 1979 when the tunnel collapsed. In 1989 the tunnel was repaired but a year later a sightseer was injured by a rockfall, and they decided to close the tunnel permanently. Now you can access the pass from the east via Rollinsville or from the west via Winter Park, but you cannot traverse it, except on foot.

For the first 4-5 miles past Rollinsville, the Toland Road is a smooth dirt road, but then you take a sharp right onto Rollins Pass Road, and you have 12 miles of very bumpy and slow going 4WD road. Near the top you pass two beautiful lakes, Yankee Doodle and Jenny, and then about 2 miles past Jenny Lake the road ends at a steel and concrete barrier. We parked here and walked around 3 miles, over the pass and down to the beautiful King Lake. On the way, we walked by the game drive remnants, over the collapsed Needle’s Eye Tunnel, and across the old railroad trestles. All along the way were spectacular views of the James Peak and Indian Peaks Wildernesses. Interestingly, we met a guy at road’s end who told us about his family traversing this pass in their VW bus. He remembered being terrified as a small child when the bus had to cross the wooden trestles. After walking across these trestles, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to be a passenger in a car here, much less a VW bus!

After just a few casts, my son caught his trout, took a picture, and then released it back into the lake. On the way up from the lake we met an older guy carrying skis. We asked him where he was going. He was going to ski the tiny glacier above King Lake! He said this marked 29 straight years of skiing every month of the year someplace in Colorado. These people really love their outdoors! We made our way back to the car where we spotted a mamma and baby moose in Jenny Lake far below us on the trail. Then it was back in the car for that very bumpy road back to civilization after a great father son day out in the wilderness.

The road ends here

Jenny Lake down below with the road winding around it

Needle's Eye Tunnel. We had to hike around it

Yankee Doodle Lake

Ancient game drive walls still intact

Old trestle.. Picture a VW bus going across this

Approaching King Lake

Small glacier above King Lake

Son fishing

Headed back

Old trestle with immense views

No way am I driving across that

Mamma and baby moose far below in Jenny Lake

Crested Butte – We had a nice long weekend over Labor Day in Crested Butte, Colorado. Our son and daughter-in-law were in Montana for a wedding, so we took our grandson and met our daughter and her boyfriend. You can’t do any long hikes with a 20-month-old, but we still got out and explored a bit. On the first day, our daughter’s good friend, who lives in CB, took us on a nice 4 mile walk up to Scarp Ridge for stupendous views of the Elk Mountains. My daughter and her friend took turns carrying our grandson up in a backpack, while I carried him down as daughter and friend continued on to make it a 10-mile hike. We also managed a very short steep walk up to Long Lake to play in the water (this time daughter's boyfriend carried the little guy up). We also walked to the Slate River a few times since it was so close to our Airbnb. Our kids have been telling us how beautiful this area is, and it didn’t disappoint. You are surrounded by mountains, and it seems everyone in town is biking or hiking somewhere. The downtown area is a very classical mountain downtown, with cute shops and nice outdoor restaurants; we walked here several times. Daughter’s boyfriend had several mountain biking friends in town and we had a really nice dinner at a friend’s house in CB where we each got to make our own pizza. As the sun was setting, everyone donned their puffy jackets because the weather really cools down quickly up here at 9,000 feet in September. It was a great, long weekend.

Grandson exploring the Slate river

Outdoor dinner in Crested Butte

The steep walk up to Long Lake..daughter's boyfriend carrying the load

Finally there!

Wife and grandson enjoying the water

Daughter and grandson rafting

Headed back

Back to the parking lot

Headed up Scarp Ridge with daughter carrying the load

Trail art with Lake Irwin below

Wildflowers and green grass along the trail

Near the top with daughter's CB friend carrying the load

Wife making her way with Lake Irwin behind her

Wife and grandson up on top

Views of the Elk Mountains from the top

Stunning views

Big bull moose on the drive back

Bye to Crested Butte

Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolbert –

The title of this compelling book comes from one possible impact of solar geoengineering which involves spewing light-reflecting particles in the atmosphere to reflect the sun and help cool the earth. The sky could turn white instead of blue. Kolbert takes the reader around the world, revealing the various attempts man has made to control the environment. Near the end of the book she says, “This has been a book about people trying to solve problems created by people trying to solve problems.” She doesn’t proselytize on how this is evil, but just presents what happened (what’s happening). The book is separated into three sections. In the first section, titled Down The River, she takes you to the Chicago River and man’s attempts to fence and electrify the river to prevent Asian carp from entering the waterways to the Great Lakes. Asian carp were introduced to the US in the 1960s to help reduce algae blooms in wastewater treatment plants, but they escaped into the Mississippi River and have wreaked havoc on native fish populations. And the only way Asian carp were even able to attempt to enter the Chicago River is because that river was re-channeled in order to move Chicago’s waste away from the city and the Great Lakes and down into the Mississippi. Then she travels downriver to Louisiana and tells all the incredible stories of how the Army Corps of Engineers has rechanneled water around New Orleans to protect the city and the resulting loss of land in the delta region where people have been displaced over and over again.

In the second section, titled Into The Wild, she writes about our attempts to save species and ecosystems from the impact we’ve created. And the final section, titled Up In The Air, talks about geoengineering where instead of (or in addition to) reducing fossil fuels, we change the atmosphere to cool the earth. She seems to be in the school of thought now that we MUST use technology in some way to minimize the damage from climate change because even if we decide to stop spewing CO2 into the air, there is already too much of it accumulated and we have to do something to mitigate the impacts that climate change is already having on our world. The problem is that many of the times we get involved in changing nature, unintended consequences end up being worse than the problem being solved. But maybe she’s right in that the climate change problem is so disastrous, that nothing we do to mitigate it could be worse than the problem itself.

Here are some lines from the book that I thought were interesting:

The reversal of the Chicago River was the biggest public-works project of its time, a textbook example of what used to be called, without irony, the control of nature.

Plaquemines (Louisiana parish) has the distinction—a dubious one, at best—of being among the fastest-disappearing places on earth. Everyone who lives in the parish—and fewer and fewer people do—can point to some stretch of water that used to have a house or a hunting camp on it. This is true even of teenagers.

Since the 1930s, Louisiana has shrunk by more than two thousand square miles. If Delaware or Rhode Island had lost that much territory, America would have only forty-nine states.

“What good are pupfish?” they’d demand. “What good are you?” Pister would respond.

For the last few decades, the weapon of choice against invasive rodents has been Brodifacoum, an anticoagulant that induces internal hemorrhaging. Brodifacoum can be incorporated into bait and then dispensed from feeders, or it can be spread by hand, or dropped from the air. (First you ship a species around the world, then you poison it from helicopters!)

In 1776, the first year Watt marketed his (steam engine), humans emitted some fifteen million tons of CO2. By 1800, that figure had risen to thirty million tons. By 1850 it had increased to two hundred million tons a year and by 1900 to almost two billion. Now, the figure is close to forty billion tons annually…. Thanks to this intervention, average global temperatures have, since Watt’s day, risen by 1.1 degree Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit). This has led to a variety of increasingly unhappy consequences. Droughts are growing deeper, storms fiercer, heat waves deadlier. Wildfire season is getting longer and the fires more intense. The rate of sea-level rise is accelerating.

With just four percent of the world’s population, the United States is responsible for almost thirty percent of aggregate emissions. The countries of the European Union, with about seven percent of the globe’s population, have produced about twenty-two percent of aggregate emissions. For China, home to roughly eighteen percent of the globe’s population, the figure is thirteen percent. India, which is expected soon to overtake China as the world’s most populous nation, is responsible for about three percent. All the nations of Africa and all the nations of South America put together are responsible for less than six percent.

From the novel The Leopard: “If we want everything to remain as it is, everything must change.”

Researchers who looked into using solar geoengineering to offset carbon dioxide levels of five hundred and sixty parts per million—levels that could easily be reached later this century—determined it would change the appearance of the sky. White would become the new blue. The effect, they noted, would cause “the sky over formerly pristine areas to look similar to the sky over urban areas.”

Greenland ice sheet: About a hundred and forty feet down, there’s snow dating from the American Civil War; some twenty-five hundred feet down, snow from the time of Plato; and at a depth of five thousand three hundred and fifty feet, snow from when prehistoric painters were decorating the caves at Lascaux. As the snow is compressed, its crystal structure changes to ice. But in most other respects, it remains unchanged, a relic of the moment it formed. Every layer contains tiny bubbles of trapped air, each a sample of a past atmosphere. To someone who knows how to read them, the layers are an archive of the sky.

I was contemplating another trip to Greenland…when COVID-19 hit. Suddenly everyone’s plans were upended, including my own. As borders closed and flights were canceled, travel to the ice sheet—or, for that matter, pretty much anywhere—became impractical. Here I was, trying to finish a book about the world spinning out of control, only to find the world spinning so far out of control that I couldn’t finish the book.

…scientists can only make recommendations; implementation is a political decision.

Bear Lake to Fern Lake bus stop –

I guess I could have called this the six-lake hike and shuttle. From the busy Bear Lake trailhead, it was around 11.2 miles (1,500 feet up and 3,000 feet down – glad I didn’t hike it the other way…) to the Fern Lake bus stop, counting an extra mile of off trail to see Ptarmigan Tarn above Lake Helene. The six “lakes” were Bear, Two Rivers, Helene, Ptarmigan Tarn, Odessa, and Fern. It was a cool morning in the upper 40s when I started out at Bear Lake. Once I took the turn towards Odessa Lake, there were very few people on the trail. At just under three miles I reached Two Rivers Lake, which is a beautiful lake, with large rocks poking out and trees surrounding it. I stopped here for a snack. Next it was on to Lake Helene which is equally beautiful. From here I decided to see if I could find Ptarmigan Tarn above Helene. It was a bit more complicated as there really is no trail. I had to bushwhack part of the way, and I noticed that I had lost one of the hiking poles I was carrying in my pack, so I backtracked to find it; talk about a needle in a haystack! It took me nearly an hour to find that pole, but thanks to my GPS track I was able to finally spot it buried under a bush that I had bushwhacked through. I finally made it up to the tarn and it was beautiful. Great views below me of Two Rivers, Helene, and Odessa Lakes.

I made my way back to the main trail and headed down to Odessa Lake. The trail here follows a steep cliffside and the hiking reminded me a bit of the Grand Canyon trails. Odessa was yet another beautiful lake and I had my lunch here with high peaks jutting out past the end of the lake. At this point I was considering heading back to my car, but I was curious about Fern Lake and Fern Falls. I knew that if I decided to proceed then it would be a one-way hike and I’d have to catch a park shuttle back to my car. So, I continued down to Fern Lake. Here’s where I was able to see the damage done by the East Troublesome and Cameron Peak fires in 2020. Fern Lake was basically surrounded by a bunch of burnt sticks. It was like a war zone. Rocks were scorched and flaking, the trail was baked a dark gray color, and most of the trees were blackened. On the flip side, there was new green grass growing, and some wildflowers, plus you had a basically unobstructed view of the lake. From death there is life, and from fire there is new growth. When I hiked the Cub Lake loop in June, the trail to Fern Lake was closed, and when I was there, I saw firefighters heading up the Fern Lake trail to clear trees. I really appreciated their efforts on this hike as there were no burned trees blocking the trails, and it looks like they removed many of the trees along the trail that may have eventually fallen. What a tough job. Even on this day’s hike there were park volunteers repairing parts of the trail. I thanked them for their work and offered snacks. Next, I made my way to Fern Falls which were a lot bigger than I’d expected. Maybe 100 feet tall? And roaring. It was nice and cool here. Then it was 3 more miles, mostly along the Big Thompson River to the trailhead, and then another three quarters of a mile to the bus stop where I waited around 5 minutes for a shuttle that took me to the Park and Ride, and then another shuttle up to my car at Bear Lake. That last 3 miles was actually very warm as it had risen to the lower 80s at this lower elevation. It’s the first time I’ve felt hot in Rocky Mountain National Park so far! Not many animal sightings on the hike other than some elk near Bear Lake, a few pikas and marmots, and lots of turkeys on the Bear Lake Road.

Some turkeys on the road to Bear Lake

Elk in the early morning light near Bear Lake

Two Rivers Lake

Two Rivers Lake reflections

Lake Helene

A 3-Lake view of Odessa, Helene, and Two Rivers

Glacial Pond above Helene

Artsy sun shot

Trail art

Fern Creek emptying out of Odessa Lake

My lunch spot at Odessa Lake

Fern Creek and Odessa Lake

Rosebay(?) growing up out of the fire

Yellow, black, gray and blue

Fern Lake

New stables against the burned trees

Trail and rocks charred by the fire

Fern Falls

How is this tree still standing?

Split wood

Little Yellowstone trail and the Colorado River source –

“No river can return to its source, yet all rivers must have a beginning.” The Grand Canyon is still one of my favorite spots on earth. I’ve hiked it and rafted it many times. It never gets old. My daughter was a river guide in the canyon for many years and still does a couple of trips a year. In 1993 I rafted with my father and father-in-law; that trip turned out badly as my dad was critically injured and had to be flown out (he survived the broken neck and heart attack). The Colorado River that carved the canyon means a lot to me, so I decided to search for its source. From all the maps I’ve studied, the source appears to be in the remote upper northwest reaches of Rocky Mountain National Park. So I headed north towards Fort Collins, then west on Poudre Canyon Road for around 50 plus miles, then took a left on Long Draw Road, a 13 mile dirt road that’s in pretty decent shape considering there was the big Cameron Peak fire in this area last year. At the end of the road is a parking lot for La Poudre Pass; here is where the Continental Divide decides which ocean to send the water (unless man intervenes..). From my maps, I knew the Colorado River source was near the parking lot. I followed the Little Yellowstone trail where it passes a closed ranger station (no permit needed here!), and then over the Grand Ditch. Here I went off trail across a marshy area to where the maps show the start of the river. I found it! I straddled it. I took selfies. I dipped my hand in it. This is the source of that great river that provides water to 40 million people, and the river that carved the Grand Canyon. It was an emotional moment for me. I savored it.

So, Grand Ditch! What is that thing? It’s interesting that I read Elizabeth Kolbert’s Under a White Sky this month since it’s about man’s efforts to control nature and their unintended consequences. The Grand Ditch was dug in the late 1800s and early 1900s, mostly by Japanese laborers, using picks and shovels. It’s 14 miles long and its purpose is to divert the natural runoff from the Never Summer Mountains. Currently 20-40% of those mountains’ runoff is diverted from its natural flow (which is to the Colorado River and the Western Slope). That water now goes over La Poudre Pass, to Long Draw Reservoir and on to the Poudre River to provide water for the Eastern Slope. Now that the cities and farms along the Colorado River basin have declared a water shortage, I wonder how much they’d like to have that runoff from the Never Summer Mountains? I do know that the National Park Service has had many battles with the various companies that run the ditch, but I need to study it a bit more before I can come to any conclusion. All I know is that it’s just one story in the drama that is water in the American West (read Cadillac Desert to see how it all started). The day I was here the flow from Grand Ditch was dammed up by some construction project that’s going on. I couldn’t tell what it was, but Long Draw Reservoir was really low when I passed by.

Why is it called Grand Ditch? Well, from Wikipedia: “Prior to 1921, the upper Colorado River above the confluence with the Green River in Utah had assumed various names. Fathers Dominguez and Escalante named it Rio San Rafael in 1776. Through the mid-1800s, the river between Green River and the Gunnison River was most commonly known as the Grand River. The river above the junction with the Gunnison River, however, was known variously as the Bunkara River, the North Fork of the Grand River, the Blue River, and the Grand River. The latter name did not become consistently applied until the 1870s. In 1921, U.S. Representative Edward T. Taylor of Colorado petitioned the Congressional Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce to rename the Grand River as the Colorado River. Taylor saw the fact that the Colorado River started outside the border of his state as an "abomination.” (I guess he didn’t know Spanish). On July 25, the name change was made official in House Joint Resolution 460 of the 66th Congress...”

Back to the hike. After finding the source, I headed back down the Little Yellowstone trail towards Lulu City. The Little Yellowstone got its name from the small canyon up here carved by the Colorado River that has yellowish rocks and looks very similar to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in Yellowstone National Park. It’s around 4.5 miles from the trailhead to Lulu City. Lulu City (named after developer Benjamin Burnett’s daughter) was founded in 1879 based on the discovery of silver ore in the area. The town population was around 500 in its heyday and included a hotel, saloon, drug store, and general store. But the town only lasted a few years due to the low grade of the ore and the long distance it had to travel to be processed. Today, you really can’t even tell there was a city here as the only remnants are some corners of log cabins. I will say that they had a beautiful spot! It’s a large grassy meadow on the banks of the Colorado River (I guess it was the Grand River then). I sat down on the bank and ate my lunch while enjoying the view. I headed back to my car, up the long hill and drove back the 2.5 hours home. It was a beautiful drive all the way and I saw a bunch of bighorn sheep and a bull moose along the Poudre Canyon Road.

Long Draw Reservoir was very low

Grassy meadow near the source of the Colorado

Look ma! The source of the Colorado River!!

Here's a better photo without my ugly mug

A bit larger Colorado River near Lulu City

Log cabin remains

The site of Lulu City

Some trees starting to change along the trail

Waterfall making its way over a cliff

Pretty canyon carved by the Colorado below

Interesting rock formations

Grand Ditch, defying the Continental Divide

Closed ranger cabin along Grand Ditch

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan –

JK Rowling meets Dan Brown in this very entertaining debut novel. This novel was chosen as one of the best 100 books of 2012 by the San Francisco Chronicle and was on the New York Times Bestseller list as well as the NPR Bestseller List. The story seems to exist on the border of ancient, dusty books and e-readers with the latest technology. Clay is an out of work software developer in San Francisco, looking for a job when he sees a help wanted sign in a strange, very tall and very narrow bookstore. When he walks in, the owner (Mr. Penumbra) asks, “What do you seek in these shelves?” Something about the owner’s demeanor and his phrasing rings a bell and he’s sold on the place. When the owner finds out that Clay’s favorite book is The Dragon Song Chronicles, he hires him. The only customers Clay sees are strange, old people and very few of them. From here, the story takes off and I enjoyed all my time with these characters, which (in addition to Clay and Mr. Penumbra) include members of a 500-year-old secret society trying to uncover the key to everlasting life, a brilliant young woman software developer at Google, Clay’s best friend from childhood who is now a tech startup entrepreneur, and a roommate who is an artist that shuns technology and only works with raw materials. All of these characters end up involved in an exciting mystery trying to decode the secret to life. A really fun read. Here are some lines I enjoyed from the book:

At first I had insisted I would only work at a company with a mission I believed in. Then I thought maybe it would be fine as long as I was learning something new. After that I decided it just couldn’t be evil. Now I was carefully delineating my personal definition of evil.

San Francisco is a good place for walks if your legs are strong.

…why do bookstores always make you do uncomfortable things with your neck?

This girl has the spark of life. This is my primary filter for new friends (girl- and otherwise) and the highest compliment I can pay.

She’s wearing the same red and yellow BAM! T-shirt from before, which means (a) she slept in it, (b) she owns several identical T-shirts, or (c) she’s a cartoon character—all of which are appealing alternatives.

He’s dressed like a skater, so I assume he has a PhD in artificial intelligence.

Neel takes a sharp breath and I know exactly what it means. It means: I have waited my whole life to walk through a secret passage built into a bookshelf.

Your life must be an open city, with all sorts of ways to wander in.

Blue Lake – There are many lakes called Blue Lake in Colorado. This one is in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, and I’ve written about it before in my August 2019 blog. On that August hike, my daughter and I got snowed on; on this September hike to the same place, it was warm and sunny. A college buddy was in town visiting and we hiked here to look for moose and to see this beautiful alpine lake. The moose didn’t disappoint as we saw a mamma and baby on the drive in, and then two bull moose and a female during our hike! At one point a giant bull moose crossed the trail just ahead of us probably 20 feet away…that got our hearts pounding as they can be unpredictable. Luckily, he just kept walking, and grunting a bit as I’m sure we annoyed him with our presence. This is such a beautiful area and would likely be a national park if Rocky Mountain National Park hadn’t already existed just to the north. This hike is around 2.5 miles each way with around 1,000 feet of elevation gain (from 10,500 feet to 11,500 feet). It’s a great and moderately easy introduction to a beautiful alpine lake.

Mitchell Lake in the early morning light, about a mile from the trailhead

Light streaming along the edge of Mitchell Lake

One of many unnamed ponds in the area

Water pouring out of Blue Lake above

The dramatic Blue Lake

Fancy B&W shot of Blue Lake

Female Moose on a ridge

Bull Moose crossing an unnamed pond

Mount Chiquita – Another hike with my college buddy before he had to head home. We made a day out of it to include not only the hike, but also a drive up Old Fall River Road and then down the famous Trail Ridge Road. Mount Chiquita is part of a three-peak hike that people call the CCY (mounts Chapin, Chiquita, and Ypsilon). We decided to only summit Mount Chiquita in order to give us more of the day for the drive along Trail Ridge Road (also doing all three peaks seems really hard…also because we wanted to climb the lowest 13er in Rocky Mountain National Park, because, why not?). Still, it was a tough and steep hike, with 2,000 feet of elevation gain in about 2.5 miles, from 11,100 feet to 13,100 feet. The entire hike is spectacular with views that go on forever. Up on top there are wind shelters built out of the many rocks you have to climb over. We had snacks here while admiring the views east. Walking around the perimeter of the peak you have a 360-degree view of the park and surrounding mountains. We didn’t spot much wildlife on the hike but saw lots of elk on the drive back and heard the males bugling as September marks the beginning of mating season in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Roots everywhere!

Beautiful views to the northwest part of the park and valley along Chapin Creek

Views east towards Estes Park

College Buddy enjoying the views

College Buddy making his way to the top

Tremendous views from up here

Views south

Ypsilon Lake below

College Buddy enjoying shelter from the wind

Wider view with Ypsilon Lake below

Panorama from up top

Some color starting in the trees

Bugling elk harassing the females

Lila by Marilynne Robinson –

Wow. Just wow. I’ve written about two of Robinson’s other novels, Gilead and Home in previous blogs. Lila is a sort of companion book on the background story of one of the characters that inhabits this sparse, but deep world of Gilead, Iowa. In the previous novels you know that Lila was the Reverend John Ames’ second wife, and you sort of know that she has a hidden past, but not much beyond that. Well, now we know what that incredible hidden past was, and it was grievous. I won’t go into the details of that life but suffice it to say that she is lucky to be alive because she lived life mostly as a homeless orphan during the depression and dust bowl years and was involved in morally questionable activities, mainly due to her desperation to survive. The story of how the reverend found her and started courting her is beautiful and haunting. She writes like no other author (well, maybe Cormac McCarthy) and I had this to say in one of my previous reviews: “She combines issues of the times, religious scripture, and philosophy to iron out the meaning of family, friendship, and life.” I can add love and redemption to that list now.

The novel won the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award. It has received many outstanding reviews. Robinson is a gift to readers.

Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:

He shrugged. “Since you are here, maybe you could tell me a little about yourself?” She shook her head. “I don’t talk about that. I just been wondering lately why things happen the way they do.” “Oh!” he said. “Then I’m glad you have some time to spare. I’ve been wondering about that more or less my whole life.”

And she said, “…I don’t trust nobody.” He said, “No wonder you’re tired.”

Existence. Why does he want more of it, with his house so empty, his wife and child so long in the ground?

It felt very good to have him walking beside her. Good like rest and quiet, like something you could live without but you needed anyway.

“Somebody like me might marry somebody like you just because you got a good house and winter’s coming. Just because she’s tired of the damn loneliness. Somebody like you got no reason at all to marry somebody like me.”

She had seen women bearing their children in a shed, at the side of a field, babies that the light of day shouldn’t have seen for a month or two but the women’s bodies just gave them up out of weariness.

“The best things that happen I’d never have thought to pray for. In a million years. The worst things just come like the weather. You do what you can.”

That sound of settling into the sheets and the covers has to be one of the best things in the world. Sleep is a mercy.

Some dogs bite. So you keep them away from people. You can’t just get rid of them for being the way they are. And now and then you can be glad to have them around, to snarl the way a good dog never does.

All she had was that knife. And dread and loneliness and regret. That was her dowry. Other women brought quilts and china. Even a little money sometimes. She brought hard hands and a face she could barely bring herself to look at in a mirror because her life was just written all over it. And that knife.

Boughton had to be there because he was always there when he thought he might be able to help, bony old thing that he was, eyes full of tears.

The day you were born there was just wind enough to stir the curtains a little, and there was just light enough to make it seem like evening all day long. And there was quiet enough to make it seem as though sound had passed out of the world altogether, leaving the wind behind to sweep up after it.

Can a soul in bliss feel a weight lift off his heart?

Inner Basin Memorial Hike – Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know that my Arizona Hiking Buddy (HB) passed away very suddenly and shockingly last November. Family and friends of HB planned a memorial hike to the Inner Basin near Flagstaff, Arizona to spread his ashes. The Inner Basin is one of the most beautiful places in Arizona and was HB’s favorite place to be outdoors. He and I hiked here often. So, 12 of his friends and family members met there for the 5-mile hike and for the memorial service. It was very emotional, as HB’s lifelong friend gave a moving eulogy and played Jim Croce’s I Got a Name. He is resting in a beautiful meadow with the San Francisco peaks surrounding him. In the winter he’ll be peacefully buried under many feet of snow, but in the summer, he’ll have that view, and his friends and family will be able to visit and share that view. Rest in peace my friend.

Teacup trail – We had a friend’s wedding planned in Sedona, so we rented a home that was 2 blocks away from a trail access to many of Sedona’s extraordinarily beautiful hikes. Unfortunately, it rained on the day of the wedding, but for our hiking day, the weather was perfect. I walked with my wife and her sister for just over five miles and there was lots of beauty packed in those miles. We took a side trail up to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain for great views of the city, and then we continued on the Teacup trail until it ended at the Devil’s Sinkhole. The wildflowers, crooked trees, red rocks, blue sky, and white clouds conspired for a perfect day. My wife and sister had lots of catching up to do, so their conversation lasted most of the hike, and when we got home and I showed them the photos, my sister-in-law said, “Wow! Were we on the same hike?!”