March 2022
Books read:
- Good Omens by
Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
- The Big Sleep by
Raymond Chandler
- Lightning Bird by
Lyall Watson
- Homegoing by Yaa
Gyasi
- A Swim in a Pond
in the Rain by George Saunders
Trails walked:
- Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park (March 2nd)
- Moraine Park Loop in Rocky Mountain National Park (March 2nd)
- Sky
Pond in Rocky Mountain National Park (March 15th)
- Williams Lake near Taos, NM (March 25th)
Song(s) of the month – Rhiannon Giddens:
- Ruby Are You Mad at Your Man?
- Waterboy
- Up Above My Head
- Shake Sugaree
- Waterbound
- S’iomadh Rid (The Dhith Om / Ciamar A Ni Mi)
- At the Purchaser's Option
Scientist Spotlight – Ada Lovelace - mathematician
March Summary: My wife was reading the original Curious George children's book to our grandson this month, and as she read it we all were kind of shocked with the story. This has been a beloved children's book since it was published in 1941. My wife and I somehow remember the story fondly. But wow, reading it today is eye opening! Basically a white man with a yellow hat captures a monkey in Africa by throwing a sack over him and then transports him by boat to the US where he "gets to stay" in a nice zoo instead. After reading Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing this month I immediately thought of those slave ships of the 1700s and the capture of black people by white men. I've subsequently read several articles about the authors of Curious George and it seems that they weren't racist in any way. As a matter of fact, they wrote books helping children to understand that physical differences didn't matter. But this first Curious George book sure reads badly in today's light.
This incident brought me around to thinking about book banning, which seems to be having a sort of resurgence (regression?) today. Those on both sides of the political spectrum seem to be unhappy with certain books and want them banned from schools and libraries. Those on the left are unhappy with older books that seem so out of touch with today's social norms (I show some examples below in one of the books I read this month, The Big Sleep). Those on the right are unhappy with newer books that portray LGBTQ people in a normative light (Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel), or with books that they believe are teaching Critical Race Theory (The 1619 Project) which in their view places too much emphasis on racial differences or denigrates white people. And there are people on both the right and left who are uncomfortable with some books' depictions of sex, rape, and incest (such as Toni Morrison's great books Beloved and The Bluest Eye).
So how do schools and libraries deal with all of this? My daughter-in-law's mother (aka my comadre!) was a school librarian for many years so I asked her. She said that, in her viewpoint, and that of most other librarians she knows, the default is to allow all books and avoid any type of ban in order to conform to the constitutional spirit of free speech. Any books that are required classroom reading go through a fairly vigorous vetting process prior to being included. Part of that vetting includes ratings such as Lexile, and Fountas and Pinnell which consider reading levels and content. Reading materials that are not part of the required curriculum aren't necessarily required to go through this vetting process.
In my view there are so many more dangerous places in which kids are exposed on the internet and any type of book banning seems ineffective and counter productive. Plus reading a book requires a lot more effort than clicking on a link. Also, as my comadre pointed out, books with some controversy (racism, sexism, social issues) can give rise to great teaching moments for both teachers and parents.
So let's stop with the book banning, because that will lead to book burning and that brings back memories of Nazi Germany and of intolerance in general. And for those who want to play devil's advocate, no, I don't think materials created specifically as porn or to promote hatred of others should be included in school libraries (there are laws in place to address those issues).
We had a fun spring break family and friends reunion in Taos, NM this month. What a beautiful place. My daughter taught me how to ski at 63 years old! I did ski once before, in Colorado, when I was 19 years old and all I had to wear was a flannel shirt and jeans...I fell down a lot, got freezing cold, and decided skiing was not for me. But here I was, 44 years later, with several loaned layers of appropriate gear so that I didn't get cold no matter how many times I fell down (it was a lot). By the end of the day I mastered managed the bunny slopes and made a couple of passes without falling, and even went too fast at one point and recovered as she taught me by turning uphill. I think a few more bunny hill runs and I'll be ready for the big boy runs, or at least the green and blue ones....Oh, and while my daughter was teaching me, she was also teaching our 2-year-old grandson...guess which one of us fell more times?
I went on some spectacular winter hikes this month in Colorado and New Mexico. I also had an interesting reading month with books published from the 1930s through present day, dealing with events (real or imagined) from the beginning of time up until now. Enjoy, and thanks for reading.
Scientist Spotlight: Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace was a computer programmer a century before computers were invented. Daughter of the famous English poet Lord Byron, her mother made sure she was educated in science, logic, and math from a young age (perhaps her mom was fed up with her husband's artistic sensibilities at this point and wanted to overcorrect for this?). At 19 she married William King who would become the Earl of Lovelace, which is how she obtained her surname.
Around this time she befriended Charles Babbage who was designing a machine he called the Analytic Engine, a sort of prototype computer which never was built. But she reviewed his designs with great interest and described how codes could be created for the device to handle letters and symbols along with numbers. She also created a method for the engine to repeat a series of instructions, a process known as 'looping' that computer programs still use today.
A century later, Lovelace's notes inspired Alan Turing's work on the first modern computers in the 1940s during World War II.
Lovelace died of uterine cancer at the young age of 36
My wife and I saw Rhiannon Giddens at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix a few years ago (a perfect place for actually listening to a concert). I was floored by the end of the show. It is now on my list of top 5 concerts I've ever seen, and I've been around a while. Her haunting voice, her mastery of so many different instruments, and her singing in multiple languages; I'm not sure if there's a more talented musician/singer around today. Her history is so rich and full and began with her study of Opera at Oberlin Conservatory. She competed in Scottish/Gaelic singing competitions across Ireland and the UK. She's a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and co-founder of the Grammy Award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops. She has been nominated for six additional Grammys for her work as a soloist and collaborator. Giddens has performed for the Obamas at the White House, served as a Carnegie Hall Perspectives curator, and received an inaugural Legacy of Americana Award. She was featured in Ken Burns’ Country Music series, which aired on PBS in 2019, where she speaks about the African American origins of country music. She is also a member of the band Our Native Daughters with three other black female banjo players, Leyla McCalla, Allison Russell (whom I profiled last month), and Amythyst Kiah; and co-produced their debut album Songs of Our Native Daughters which tells stories of historic black womanhood and survival. Named Artistic Director of Silkroad in 2020, Giddens is developing a number of new programs for the organization, including one inspired by the history of the American transcontinental railroad and the cultures and music of its builders. She recently wrote the music for an original ballet, Lucy Negro Redux, for Nashville Ballet (premiered in 2019), and the libretto and music for an original opera, Omar, based on the autobiography of the enslaved man Omar Ibn Said for the Spoleto USA Festival (premieres in 2022).
Is there any more accomplished performer and promoter of music? I've picked 6 songs to highlight:
Ruby Are You Mad at Your Man? is a bluegrass standard credited to Cousin Emmy sometime in the 1940s. The Osborn Brothers and Buck Owens popularized the song, but Rhiannon Giddens took it and now owns it like no other.
Waterboy - Giddens enthralls with her version of this African American traditional folk song, which likely originated during the period of slavery in the south.
Up Above My Head - This 19th century spiritual which was made famous by Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the 1940s will get your toes tapping, and might even make you believe there's a heaven up there.
Shake Sugaree - This Elizabeth Cotten classic comes alive here, plus I love her introduction where you can see her love for music history.
After reading Dave Eggers’ The Circle and The Every, I needed some lighthearted comedy. So why not a lighthearted comedy about the antichrist and the apocalypse? This 1990 book by English authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett was a lot of fun to read. It follows a demon named Crowley and an angel named Aziraphale who have lived on Earth since its beginning (Crowley was the serpent who tempted Eve with the apple). Crowley and Aziraphale have sort of become old friends over the millennia and have grown to like their roles on the planet. So when it came down to starting the Apocalypse, they sort of fumbled their way into trying to assure it wouldn’t happen (to the disappointment of their respective bosses, The Devil and God). When the antichrist baby was delivered to the hospital by Crowley, he managed to swap it with the wrong baby, and therefore the wrong parents which became one of the many fun subplots of the book.
The
name his parents gave to him (the antichrist) was Adam (of course). Adam grows up with three close friends and at
the age of 11, as the four horsemen of the apocalypse arrive and the world is
in turmoil, he and his friends set off to try and stop the world ending, even if Adam is
conflicted.
Lots
of British humor in this book, along with a bit of social commentary. Here are some of the lines I enjoyed:
That’s
how it goes, you think you’re on top of the world, and suddenly they spring
Armageddon on you. The Great War, the Last Battle. Heaven versus Hell, three
rounds, one Fall, no submission. And that’d be that. No more world. That’s what
the end of the world meant. No more world. Just endless Heaven or, depending
who won, endless Hell. Crowley didn’t know which was worse.
Crowley
remembered what Heaven was like, and it had quite a few things in common with
Hell. You couldn’t get a decent drink in either of them, for a start. And the
boredom you got in Heaven was almost as bad as the excitement you got in Hell.
She
would be quite bright, if she was ever put in a position to find out, but long
ago found that being a scatterbrain, as she’d put it, gave you an easier
journey through life.
They’d
been brought up to it and weren’t, when you got right down to it, particularly
evil. Human beings mostly aren’t. They just get carried away by new ideas, like
dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in white sheets
and lynching people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and playing guitars at
people.
Not everyone appreciated the more stimulating aspects of cost accountancy.
It is said that the devil has all the best tunes. This is broadly true. But Heaven
has the best choreographers.
Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft are written by men.
A man threw himself through the window, a knife between his teeth, a Kalashnikov automatic rifle in one hand, a grenade in the other. “I glaim gis oteg id der gaing og der—” he paused. He took the knife out of his mouth and began again. “I claim this hotel in the name of the pro-Turkish Liberation Faction!”
“I
saw a program. It had David Attenborough, so it’s true.”
and
you had to support anyone calling themselves witchfinders in the same way that
the U.S.A. had to support anyone calling themselves anti-communist.
There’s
one thing you can say for air pollution, you get utterly amazing sunrises.
The
small alien walked past the car. “CO2 level up point five percent,” it rasped,
giving him a meaningful look. “You do know you could find yourself charged with
being a dominant species while under the influence of impulse-driven
consumerism, don’t you?”
Agnes was a bit of a difficult character,” said Anathema, vaguely. “She had no middle gears.”
“We
could go into Tadfield this afternoon and not have a hamburger,” said Pepper.
“If all four of us don’t have one, that’s millions of acres of rainforest they
won’t have to cut down.”
“You
grow up readin’ about pirates and cowboys and spacemen and stuff, and jus’ when
you think the world’s all full of amazin’ things, they tell you it’s really all
dead whales and chopped-down forests and nucular waste hang-in’ about for
millions of years. ’Snot worth growin’ up for, if you ask my opinion.”
Agnes
didn’t see the future. That’s just a metaphor. She remembered it.
what have I ever really done? I’ve never robbed a bank. I’ve never had a parking ticket. I’ve never eaten Thai food—
Pollution
removed his helmet and shook out his long white hair. He had taken over when
Pestilence, muttering about penicillin, had retired in 1936. If only the old
boy had known what opportunities the future had held.
Marvin got religion. Not the quiet, personal kind, that involves doing good deeds and living a better life; not even the kind that involves putting on a suit and ringing people’s doorbells; but the kind that involves having your own TV network and getting people to send you money.
If I was in charge, I’d try makin’
people live a lot longer, like ole Methuselah. It’d be a lot more interestin’
and they might start thinkin’ about the sort of things they’re doing to all the
environment and ecology, because they’ll still be around in a hundred years’
time.”
Crowley
had been extremely impressed with the warranties offered by the computer
industry, and had in fact sent a bundle Below to the department that drew up
the Immortal Soul agreements, with a yellow memo form attached just saying:
“Learn, guys.”
I try to visit a new place each time I go hiking, but there are just some places that are too beautiful not to visit over and over; Emerald Lake is one of those places. I tried to offset that repetition by adding a second hike on this day so I made up a loop around Moraine Park using trails, roads, and some off trail. It was a sunny day with highs in the 40s.
If
you visit Emerald Lake in the summer, or even on a weekend in the winter, you
will be joined by hundreds, if not thousands, of other people. I know many people that try to avoid crowds
like this, but I’ve found that there is usually a reason for the crowds; actually three reasons: It’s spectacularly beautiful, it’s fairly short and
it’s easily accessible. Hiking it on a
winter weekday certainly cuts down on the crowds and its beauty in the winter
is stunning. There are other hikes in
the park with this kind of beauty, but you will have to work a lot harder to
see them (Andrews Tarn and Sky Pond come to mind). It’s just over a mile and a half with 700
feet of elevation gain to reach the lake.
You’ll pass by Nymph and Dream Lakes on the way. It’s a
completely different hike in the winter because you can walk right across all
three lakes, which adds to the magic. When
I was up here last winter, the wind at the lake was howling at over 40 mph, but
on this day it was just a slight breeze, which allowed me to hang out at (and
on) the frozen lake and enjoy the views.
I
headed back down Bear Lake Road to see if I could walk a loop around Moraine
Park. If you’ve been to RMNP, you’ve
seen Moraine Park on your right near the beginning of Bear Lake Road. Many people stop on the road here for that incredible view made famous by the
artist Charles Partridge Adams. During the summer this loop would have been a
piece of cake, but in the winter I had to deal with waist deep snow on the
South Lateral Moraine trail. I
eventually tired myself out and decided to walk off trail across the meadow to connect
with the Cub Lake Trail and then on to Fern Lake Road where the walking was so
much easier. Just before Fern Lake Road
intersects with the Moraine Park Campground Road, I spotted a trail that
eventually took me back to my car near the Bear Lake Road and Moraine Park Road
intersection. The views along this loop
are the highlight. I didn’t spot any elk
or moose on this winter day, but I’ve seen huge herds of elk here in the
fall. All the deer and elk I saw on this
trip were from my car, near Estes Park and the entrance to Rocky Mountain
National Park.
 |
| Difficult to reach the informational sign |
 |
| Sweeping views on the way up |
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| Crooked twisting tree shot |
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| View from the edge of Dream Lake |
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| Same view in landscape format |
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| Panorama from Emerald Lake |
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| Shot from on top of Emerald Lake |
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| View from the other side of Dream Lake heading back to trailhead |
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| View of Moraine Park from Bear Lake Road |
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| View of Moraine Park and peaks while in Moraine Park |
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| Trail art |
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| Frozen winding Big Thompson River |
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| Dead tree shot |
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| Moraine Park from near Fern Lake Road |
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| Artsy black and white shot |
Published in 1939, this novel was included in Le Monde's "100 Books of the Century” and in Time magazine's 2005 "List of the 100 Best Novels". Those are probably the reasons it was on my reading list. And I have to say that I really enjoyed the story. It was the first of Chandler’s novels featuring the detective, Philip Marlowe who was played by Humphrey Bogart in so many of the movies adapted from Chandler’s stories. Reading Marlowe’s dialogue in the book I couldn’t help hearing Bogart’s voice speaking them. It’s a fairly complex crime thriller featuring many twists and turns for which Marlowe always seems to be prepared. Chandler differed from many of the crime writers of his day in that atmosphere and character development were more important than neatly tying up the plot at the end of a book. His descriptiveness was really entertaining for me, and I’ll include some of them below. But like many novels written during this period there are cringe-worthy lines that would fall flat today for their misogyny and stereotyping. I’ve included some of those below also.
The
story begins with Marlowe meeting an old wheelchair-bound general in his
home. The general has been blackmailed
and needs the help of a private investigator because he doesn’t want the police
involved due to reasons revealed later in the book. The general has two adult daughters who are a
bit wild and cause him grief in his old age.
During Marlowe’s pursuit of the blackmailers, he uncovers a pornography
ring, gambling tycoons, assassins, and a James Bond worthy list of femme
fatales all willing to go to bed with him.
The story is entertaining but I have to say that I really enjoyed
Chandler’s way with words and descriptions; I found myself smiling at many of
them. So even though there were scenes
that would be totally inappropriate in today’s world, you only have to realize
the timeframe in which the book was written to blow them off, but not without
cringing a bit first. Here are some
lines:
…an
old red Turkish rug was laid down and on the rug was a wheel chair, and in the
wheel chair an old and obviously dying man watched us come with black eyes from
which all fire had died long ago…A few locks of dry white hair clung to his
scalp, like wild flowers fighting for life on a bare rock.
CRINGE: (she had the) face of an intelligent Jewess.
The General spoke again, slowly, using his strength as carefully as an out-of-work show-girl uses her last good pair of stockings.
Dead
men are heavier than broken hearts.
I
went to bed full of whiskey and frustration.
He
sounded like a man who had slept well and didn’t owe too much money.
There
was nothing on his desk but a blotter, a cheap pen set, his hat and one of his
feet.
She
gave me one of those smiles the lips have forgotten before they reach the eyes.
CRINGE:
all this in the daytime had a stealthy nastiness, like a fag party.
CRINGE:
She started to go hysterical. I slid off the desk and stepped up close to her
and gave her a smack on the side of the face.
Probably all her boy friends got around to slapping her sooner or later.
I could understand how they might.
“This
is a big town now, Eddie. Some very tough people have checked in here lately.
The penalty of growth.”
“Such
a lot of guns around town and so few brains.”
“A
half smart guy,” she said with a tired sniff. “That’s all I ever draw. Never
once a guy that’s smart all the way around the course. Never once.”
I
grinned at her. “Did I hurt your head much?” “You and every other man I ever
met.”
CRINGE:
a pansy has no iron in his bones, whatever he looks like.
His office had the musty smell of years of routine.
Her
mouth looked like the prelude to a scream.
THE
GOOD OLD DAYS: With fifteen grand I could own a home and a new car and four
suits of clothes.
What
did it matter where you lay once you were dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble
tower on top of a high hill? You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep,
you were not bothered by things like that.
Well this was unlike any other book I’ve read. Lyall Watson was a South African botanist, zoologist, biologist, anthropologist, ethologist, and author. During his work in South Africa, he happened upon a mysterious man named Adrian Bochier. This book is not only about Bochier’s life in Africa, but also about the customs and mysticism of native tribes of northern South Africa and of our own human origins and beliefs.
Published
in 1982 the book tells the true story of Adrian Bochier, an Englishman whose family emigrated
to South Africa when he was 16. The move
to Africa was a dream for him because he had educated himself on 19th century African explorers since he was a small child. Within a week of arriving in Johannesburg Bochier
left home on foot and headed into the African bush with only a pocketknife, a
blanket, and some salt for trading. This
was in 1955. He had taken survival
courses in England, but this was a true test and he managed to survive (in and out of the bush for more than 20 years), with some help from the tribes of the area who
believed he was filled with spirits due to his epileptic seizures. He had a knack
for catching dangerous snakes and carrying them around in sacks. The tribal members referred to him as Rradinokga,
or father of snakes. He would occasionally
leave the bush and return to the city.
It was during these city visits that he met not only the author, but also
anthropologist Raymond Dart who had discovered the first fossil ever found of
Australopithecus Africanus, an extinct hominin closely related to humans. Dart had certain theories about ancient human’s
use of bones for tools which was controversial during this time. Brochier had encountered tribal members using
bones for tools and he showed one to Dart who was ecstatic by this discovery. Dart filled Bochier’s arms with books on anthropology
and encouraged him to go back into the bush to explore further. This he did with enthusiasm because he was doing
the work of those explorers he’d read about growing up.
All
the stories were fascinating as Bochier went back and forth between the bush
and the city. His relationship with the
native tribes grew and he eventually apprenticed under one of the powerful spirit-diviners
who helped him to understand the tribal view of creation and our relationship
with our ancestors and with their spirits.
He discovered many rock art panels, the oldest known mine discovered at
that time, and a set of sacred drums that had lain hidden for years when tribal
members were condemned by the religious missionaries for worshiping their ”pagan”
gods. His discovery of the sacred drums
and subsequent revelation of that discovery to the nearby tribe was the
highlight of the book. Elder chiefs shed
tears when they heard this because they knew the story of these drums whose
hiding place was never known because the shaman who hid them died with their
secret location.
Bochier
died suddenly in 1978 at the young age of 39 while swimming with friends in the
Indian Ocean. It was supposed that he
had an epileptic seizure while underwater.
I enjoyed nearly everything about the book, but it left me wanting to know
more about Bochier. I did find a 2012 documentary film about him that helped
fill in some of the blanks, but it was a bit uneven in its presentation of the
man. I guess maybe it was difficult to
pin him down. In today’s world he would
have been seen as a bit crazy and eccentric, but the native tribes treated him
like an important shaman filled with spirits.
Maybe they know something we can never know. In the same way that Native Americans know
about how to treat the land and nature that our culture seems to have
forgotten.
Each
major section began with a Sotho (South African native) proverb which I loved. Here are some of them:
-
The
lizard that lives on the rocks, still carries the dust of long ago
-
The
body may be broken, as a cairn of stones is scattered, but the spirit is there
all the time
-
Blood
is heavy; a man with it on his hands cannot run away
Here
are some interesting lines from the book (which, by the way I could not find in
digital format, so I read it the old-fashioned way by turning actual paper
pages):
There
is a raw and elemental energy in Africa that does not seem to exist anywhere
else in the world. It may have something to do with the fact that Africa is the
birthplace of all humanity.
There
is, in African custom, an essential harmony, an equilibrium with the land which
seems to be lacking in our lives.
There
are few things in traditional life in Africa that can be identified as distinctly
sacred in the sense that they can be separated from the rest of life. For Africans, the whole of life is sacred.
In
many African languages, the same word is used for both “yesterday” and “tomorrow.”
The present is the center of time, but distance from the present is more
important than direction. Past and
future are not seen as opposites, merely as more remote forms of the
present. This makes the ancestors very
real, and well capable of exerting a profound influence over everyday
activities. “The duty of we who live is to act as a link between the dead
ancestors and all as-yet-unborn generations.”
Rrasebe,
one of the spirit-diviners, while pointing to the Milky Way, said, “When the
rocks were still mud and people left their footprints in them, the first
children of the great spirit walked along that road toward the rising sun where
the lightning bird comes from. Which is
why we call it Molatatladi, the resting place of the lightning bird.”
Google the most stunning hikes in Colorado and this will probably be on the list. I had hoped to have done this hike during the previous summer, but I never got around to it. I’m glad I saved it for the winter because I have to say that this was the most stunning hike I’ve been on so far in Colorado. Being able to stand on the frozen waves of Sky Pond while, er, pondering the beauty of it all, without another soul in site was breathtaking in both the literal and figurative sense.
The
best trailhead for the hike is at Glacier Gorge, but it was full on this late
winter weekday because spring break had started. So I began from the Bear Lake parking lot which
was nearly full also. The distance from
each trailhead to the lake is similar, but parking at Bear Lake means a half
mile uphill stretch at the end of 9 miles to get back to your car. Bear Lake was hopping! Lots of kids on spring break practicing their
snowshoeing and microspike fittings. Most
of the folks here walk around the nearby Bear Lake, while others head to Dream
and Emerald Lake which I’ve described above in this month’s blog. A few head from here to Alberta Falls if they
couldn’t find parking at Glacier Gorge. This
is where I was headed to begin my day.
The
falls are completely covered with snow and ice so not much to see here for many
of the tourists who then turned around.
A few more folks headed from here up to either Mills Lake or Loch Vale. I took the junction to Loch Vale, which was
around 3 miles from the trailhead, and saw maybe 20 people here today. The background is beautiful. I took a few photos and then walked across
the frozen lake to the other side where the crowds thinned out considerably. The trail starts climbing in earnest at this
point. I passed the junction to Andrews
Tarn which is another spectacular hike that I wrote about in my August 2021
blog. The junction sign was completely covered,
and I only knew I was here from a previous GPS track. I wouldn’t try the Andrews Tarn hike in
winter, but I’m sure some diehards do. About
a mile and a half from Loch Valle you reach the steep climb up to Lake of Glass
and Sky Pond. I’ve heard that this part can
be sketchy with Timberline Falls flowing and all the wet rocks, but on this winter
day, the falls were covered in snow. But
this added the challenge of traction, or lack thereof. There were seven people at this point, three
who wouldn’t go further, and four who were just sliding down. My spikes didn’t help much on this steep
grade, so I proceeded to use my hiking polls to pull me up, along with punching
my boots into the snow to create footholds.
I’d say there was about 200 yards of this and it’s where I expended
probably 75% of my energy on the 9-mile hike.
I
finally got to the top and the wind just about blew me back down. It was howling across Lake of Glass. I added a few more layers at this point and
headed across the lake (but not before the last of the 4 guys to slide down the
chute offered to take my photo before he headed down). Sky pond was another quarter mile from Lake
of Glass. Following any tracks here was
impossible because the wind covered your tracks almost instantly. I just followed the most logical route and when
I got to Sky Pond I couldn’t believe it; the wind stopped (I guess because the lake
is much closer to the cliffs that surround it)!
And I was the only one there! And
it was incredibly beautiful. I spend quite
a bit of time here taking in the scenery and walking across the lake. I stood in the middle of the lake for a while
looking all around me and taking some panorama shots. Like I said, breathtaking.
I
reluctantly headed back because, well, it’s winter and the sun only stays up so
long. As I got to the lip of the chute,
a lone woman hiker was just reaching the top.
She was exhausted. I told her
that she just completed the toughest part and that it was a piece of cake to
Sky Pond…she liked hearing that. I then
slid down the chute which was terrifying and also a blast. I checked for any injuries at the bottom and all
was good! Then it was the long 4.5 mile
walk back to the car and that darned half mile uphill at the end because I had
to park at Bear Lake. But that was ok because
I was smiling and well satisfied at a fun adventure completed in this beautiful
national park.
 |
| Cool cloud formations |
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| Cool snow formations |
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| Nice views from Loch Vale |
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| Panorama from Loch Vale |
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| Me at the top of the chute by Lake of Glass |
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| View from on Lake of Glass |
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| It's so windy and cold that the lake freezes mid wave |
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| View looking back from the other end of Lake of Glass |
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| Sky Pond in all it's wonder - See the wind ripping up high? |
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| Along the edge of Sky Pond |
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| Panorama from Sky Pond |
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| The Sharkstooth from Sky Pond |
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| Sky Pond panorama |
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| Me on Sky Pond - wind was ripping up high but fairly calm down low |
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| View of Loch Vale from on top of the chute |
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| Lake ice art |
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| Large snow drift with a view |
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| Sun and snow and rock art |
This is an epic tale covering 250 years of African American history told in novel form from the Gold Coast of Africa during the slave trade up to modern times. It’s been compared to Alex Hailey’s Roots. Nominated for several prestigious awards, including the Dylan Thomas Prize and the National Book Critics Circle, this book tells the story Gyasi says she wished she had read when she was 15 years old and trying to understand the complex world in which she lived. She was 2 years old when her parents emigrated from Ghana to the US and by the time she was 15 she was living in a white neighborhood in Alabama trying to understand her place in this world. When she finished her Bachelor of Arts in English at Stanford University, and Master of Fine Arts from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and after she finally went back to visit her native country of Ghana, she was ready to write the book she never had as a teenager.
There
is an ancestry chart at the beginning of the novel that I found myself
returning to many times to make sure I understood all the relationships. The book is separated into 14 chapters, each
one telling the story of one of the descendants of an Asante tribe member named
Maame. Each chapter portrays a certain
major event in African American history while also telling the specific story
of one of Maame’s descendants. From the British
Colonization and slave trade on the Gold Coast, to the brutality of slavery in
the south, to the Jim Crow years after the Civil War, to the Great Migration to
the northern cities, and on up to modern times. And the final chapter comes so full circle that
it will makes your eyes well up. Brilliant.
The
history of this time period which I was taught in high school was so sanitized
as to make it seem like, well, history.
Learning about all these events in this format brings that history alive
and allows you to feel the pain and the hardship and the cruelty. The wonton racism after the Civil War which
has continued to this day in changing forms will give the reader of this novel
a much better understanding of how we got to the Black Lives Matter moment that
we’re in.
Instead
of listing many of the really great lines in this book, I’m going to reproduce
a paragraph from the chapter on Marcus, who is going to Stanford,
trying to write some sort of history of the African American (maybe loosely based
on the author???). Anyway, this pretty much
says it all:
“Originally,
he’d wanted to focus his work on the convict leasing system that had stolen
years off of his great-grandpa H’s life, but the deeper into the research he
got, the bigger the project got. How could he talk about Great-Grandpa H’s
story without also talking about his grandma Willie and the millions of other
black people who had migrated north, fleeing Jim Crow? And if he mentioned the
Great Migration, he’d have to talk about the cities that took that flock in.
He’d have to talk about Harlem. And how could he talk about Harlem without
mentioning his father’s heroin addiction—the stints in prison, the criminal
record? And if he was going to talk about heroin in Harlem in the ’60s,
wouldn’t he also have to talk about crack everywhere in the ’80s? And if he
wrote about crack, he’d inevitably be writing, too, about the “war on drugs.”
And if he started talking about the war on drugs, he’d be talking about how
nearly half of the black men he grew up with were on their way either into or
out of what had become the harshest prison system in the world. And if he
talked about why friends from his hood were doing five-year bids for possession
of marijuana when nearly all the white people he’d gone to college with smoked
it openly every day, he’d get so angry that he’d slam the research book on the
table of the beautiful but deadly silent Lane Reading Room of Green Library of
Stanford University. And if he slammed the book down, then everyone in the room
would stare and all they would see would be his skin and his anger, and they’d
think they knew something about him, and it would be the same something that
had justified putting his great-grandpa H in prison, only it would be different
too, less obvious than it once was.”
Wow
Last summer I hiked Wheeler Peak, the highest point in New Mexico. Two miles into that hike is a trail junction; you go left for Wheeler Peak and right for Williams Lake. On this winter day I decided to take that right junction to the lake. It was a warm day for this hike from 10,000 feet to 11,000 feet, creating very slushy snow conditions which had me post holing up to my hip on occasion. I decided to turn that into an adventure with a good whole body workout. There were maybe 10 people total on the hike, but luckily for me I had the frozen lake all to myself up on top. I didn't need spikes, but snowshoes would have come in handy in spots. The view from the lake is spectacular in winter and at 2.2 miles each way it's a very manageable winter hike. After my walk I met the rest of my family and friends who were skiing for the afternoon. The trailhead is at the base of lift number 4 in the upper portion of the Ski Valley.
The lake was named for William Frazer who was a gold miner in the early 1900s in a mining district near Taos. According to Wikipedia, Frazer discovered copper and gold in the canyon east of what would eventually become the town of Twining, and persuaded New Jersey banker Albert C. Twining to invest $300,000 in a smelter. On its first firing, molten ore froze to the sides of the furnace, making it unusable. Bankruptcy followed, and the townsite was abandoned by 1910. So, basically, the lake was named after a failed gold miner...also, the lake's name should have an apostrophe since it was named after a guy named William. Anyway, Ernie Blake bought the site in 1955 and created the now famous Taos Ski Valley. Blake's story is fascinating. He emigrated from Germany in 1938 and helped the US Military interrogate Hermann Goring and Albert Speer after the war. He ran both the Santa Fe, NM and Glenwood Springs, CO ski areas while flying himself between the two. On these flights he discovered the Taos Ski Valley which he developed into one of the world's most famous ski destinations.
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| Inaccessible informational sign at the trailhead |
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| Better than average trailhead sign |
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| Typical trail terrain on this day |
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| Cross country skiers were having fun here |
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| Wheeler Peak junction sign nearly covered in snow. Below is the same sign last August from my eye level:  |
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| Snowmen welcoming you to Williams Lake |
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| This must be the place! |
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| Snow covered lake surrounded by snow covered mountains |
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| Williams Lake panorama |
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| You can better see the outline of the lake here |
