In my last BCA newsletter article (Lessons from the Desert, Summer 2013) I wrote about some of the things I have learned from the desert and the experiences that I have had out there. Looking back though, I know I left out one key lesson, and this very week I learned that lesson many times over, so it's only appropriate that I follow that article up with the story of the final lesson: patience.
Patience has a tendency to wax and wane with moods and circumstances, but thanks to the desert I have learned to keep a liberal supply on hand at all times, because you just never know what is going to pop up. This week I headed out to the desert on Tuesday, just after 9:00 am. I checked and double checked that I had everything I needed in the truck, since I had unloaded everything the week before due to an unfortunate incident with leaking water on and around my sleeping materials that also helped cultivate some patience. I also checked the weather, as I always do, and noted a 20% chance of thunderstorms; but decided that was not enough to cancel my trip and off I went. It takes me just over three hours of driving to get to the site where I am working, and thanks to the enormous Wyoming sky, I knew I was going to have trouble for probably the last 40 minutes of the trip. As I approached the massive steely grey clouds perched happily directly over the entire proposed wilderness, with no obvious plans to go anywhere, I began to glance nervously at the clay surface of the road. If I can just make it below the checkerboard, I thought to myself as sticky conglomerations of clay began attaching themselves to my tire tread, if I can just get to public land, I'll make camp beside the road and wait for things to dry out.
Probably about 50 yards from the end of the private property mine field known as the checkerboard I began to fishtail...badly. Going no more than five miles per hour, I maneuvered my way perhaps another 20 yards down the road before slow-motion sliding off the road and into a ditch, one tire perched unhappily on the lip of a culvert. Now this was a pickle I had never been in before, and as I said in my last article, attitude is everything, so I skidded and slipped out of the truck in my flip-flops (as I had not even reached my destination yet my hiking boots were stowed in the truck bed), felt the mud squish between my toes, and set about locking in the hubs. Once in four-wheel drive I was able to rock the truck back enough to slide my tire off the culvert (causing no harm to the tire or the culvert, thank goodness!) and slosh through the mucky ditch, up the other side, and along beside the road to a nice flat place where I could wait for things to dry out. I laid in the truck bed reading a book for over an hour waiting for the lightning to subside and the road to dry out. After tentative testing of the road surface (this time in hiking boots!) I felt okay about continuing and even got a few hours of work in before the sun went down.
In the dusky evening twilight I made my dinner and enjoyed some momentary peace, eating ramen noodles and fruit snacks. I hopped out of the truck around 8:00 pm to check on the charging I-pad in the cab, and to my dismay found one mostly flat tire deflating slowly under the rear passenger side of my truck. Patience don't fail me now! I changed the tire in the soft soil and fading light - digging through all of the storage compartments of the truck to find a board to put under the jack and then having to jump up and down on the tire iron to loosen air-wrench tightened lug nuts. I finished with only moments of fading grey left in the sky, and went to bed feeling pretty okay about how everything had worked out and how fast I had gotten at changing a tire.
In the morning new dilemmas presented themselves: if the sidewall of the tire is torn then it will need to be replaced, and if that is the case it will take a few days to get the new tire in and I should return to Laramie. If, however, the tire is merely punctured it can be patched in a matter of minutes and I should drive the considerably shorter distance to Rock Springs. The problem though, is that the tire was still caked completely in the sticky, gluey mud from the day before. All attempts to rinse it off would have completely depleted my water supply in short order, and in the desert I kind of need my water. I decided to hike the road I was on to finish that portion of my inventory, and face this dilemma upon my return after I'd had a good while to think about it. In the end I opted to drive to the nearest gas station, fill the tire with air, and use their water to hopefully locate it's flaw. I was in luck of course, as Point of Rocks lay conveniently on the way to Rock Springs without taking me much further from Laramie, and they provide both compressed air and water and to my delight I determined that there was a nail embedded in my tire and Rock Springs was the clear choice.
Because I have had several bad experiences with every Walmart tire center, every time I have had to go to one, (but I had to go to them, as the tire was covered by a warrantee purchased there) I tried to make this transaction as simple as possible, and left them only the tire with instructions to patch it. I was instructed that they were very busy that day and that it would take at least an hour and possiblly an hour and a half for them to complete the job. Patience. "No problem", I said, "just call me when it's done." I grabbed a sandwich and a coffee and headed for the dog park with my pup. Three and a half hours later I decided it was time to go check and see how things were getting along, and I headed back to Walmart where I pulled up just in time to see the tech finish up with my tire. I walked right in the door and waited in line behind one other gentleman purchasing a single battery, thinking that I could just get my tire and go. Of course this was not the case, there was only one man working the tire counter, and he had, for some reason beyond my understanding, agreed to ring up the purchases of a woman who was attempting to skip the lines at the front register. Two full carts worth. The battery man and I stood in line and watched him take each item out of the carts, one at a time, and scan it by hand, for over an hour. In the end he rang up nearly $500 in purchases and I rang up at least that much in patience points. Naturally, the woman chose to pay with a check, and the process dragged on and on.
When I finally did reach the counter I was informed that even though I had seen the tech finish with my tire, the paperwork was not ready and I therefor could not be helped yet. I informed him that I would be waiting in the parking lot, and that he should come get me when the paperwork is ready. I took the tire on my way by and debated putting it back on right there in the parking lot, but decided to wait for the paperwork, just in case there were any further complications. My patience paid off in this case, because the tech came over and explained the situation, and feeling badly, put the tire back on my truck for me, in a matter of minutes. The tech and I headed inside, where he explained to the counter person that the reason my tire had taken so long was that it had been put in as the truck, not as a carry in, and when my turn came up in line they couldn't find my truck so they just moved on. Hours later the tech noticed that my tire was sitting by the door and investigated, he found a key tag stuck to the tire matching the key tag for the missing truck and put it all together, at which point he promptly fixed my tire. Since the original paperwork was incorrect (and presumably still lost somewhere in the abyss...) we went through the whole rigmarole of checking me in again, and then immediately back out, at which point I was allowed to sign the paper and leave.
By now it was nearly 6:00 pm and I still had an hour drive back to my field site, so I filled my tank, grabbed a cold drink, and hit the highway. I managed to put in about 45 minutes worth of work when I got back and then made camp for the night. I still had a day and a half in the field left to get some work done before I planned to head home for a break, so I figured I would at least get something worthwhile done this week. The next day, of course, was listed as having a 20% chance of rain, so I don't know why I was surprised when a massive storm rolled in, stopping me in my tracks for nearly two hours of truck-shaking winds and bone-rattling thunder. Peachy.
In the end, I was able to get nearly two and a half days of work out of the four that I spent out in the desert, but that is just how things go sometimes. In this line of work there is literally nothing more important than patience, well, except maybe the perseverance (or in my case maybe stubbornness) that keeps me going back for more. Patience though, can only take this process so far. It is critical for me, during data collection, because of the inevitable difficulties that crop up; that being said though, to you I would still like to convey a sense of urgency. The Red Desert has given me some of the greatest adventures of my life and taught me some of the most important lessons, but it is under attack. Most of these areas are already heavily impacted long before I even get to them. So far I have visited five protected wilderness study areas, areas enjoying the full protections offered by wilderness designation without formal congressional designation, and there was not a single one that did not already contain abandoned oil and gas infrastructure. I have also been to eight citizen’s proposed wilderness areas, areas suggested by citizens and conservation groups as possessing wilderness characteristics, and in all of those I can name only one that was not bordered by, or containing, active oil and gas development.
I have come to love the very places that present these daily challenges, and it pains me to see the destruction left behind by the constant push of development. This is not just my battle though, the BLM needs to hear from concerned citizens like you. So please, if you love the desert, spread the word, because the best way to ensure it's protection is to show the BLM that people like you care. This is public land, and you have a say. For more information about the areas BCA hopes to protect or for ways that you can help, please contact me at shelby@voiceforthewild.org.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Friday, June 21, 2013
I'm on a Roll...
Evidently I am really hard on trucks. I mean, I think it might have something to do with my job and the terrain on which I travel, but I can't help but feel partially responsible. As you have probably guessed, I am back in Laramie, with a (once again) malfunctioning truck. But let me back up, because last week I did go to the desert and was somehow able to stay out for the full 5 days as I had intended (despite the desert's best effort to break me down), and this week I did get a whole 2.5 worthwhile work days in...so at least I'm making progress, albeit in short and frustrating bursts.
So last week I left for the desert on Monday, got there late afternoon, and managed to put in several productive hours of happy and distraction-less inventorying. I was feeling good, I was remembering everything I love about the desert, and I was really enjoying it. It felt great, I had my positive energy back! By day two my positivity was flagging, as I wrestled with a pounding headache in the 95 degree heat of the desert, shadeless and unforgiving. I drank roughly 3,596 gallons of water, took a 10 minute power nap mid-day, and powered through, still somehow putting in a 12 hour day, but feeling decidedly less happy about the whole thing.
Day 3 proved a tad frustrating when a swiftly deteriorating supply of gas sent me out to town and then, because I was already down that way I tried to access the southern part of the unit and found first that an oil/gas road had been built on top of a portion of one route that I had hoped to use for access, causing the latter half to be difficult to access and therefor abandoned. Then, a second effort landed me on the path of an old two-track that had also since been buried by a large constructed oil/gas route, but one that had been abandoned, and if you have ever done any traveling in the desert you know that these constructed roads do NOT age well. After the first washed out and rocky hill I felt hesitant, but continued. The second had me paying attention, and the third washout left me concerned that I might somehow get myself into a place that I would find I could not get out of. Frustrated I paced around the truck, mulling over my options: Waste half a day driving back to the part of the unit I knew I could easily access, waste half a day hiking the remainder of this route to decide if traversing this washout would simply land me in the thick of several more, or wing it and risk getting stuck. Just as I was stomping around proclaiming to the heavens that "this s#!t only happens to me", a wild horse happened by and my puppy exited the truck via a flying leap out the window and took off running through cacti and sage brush to see if it would be her friend. Fortunately she's a smart dog, and she quickly realized that the retreating horse was not interested in her friendship, so she turned around and returned to the vehicle, not the least bit sorry for having ignored my angry screams for her to come back. That was it, I loaded her into the truck, buckled her harness into the seat belt (she did not like this), and turned this whole mess around for territory that I knew would present far fewer challenges.
Day 4, opened with a long quiet walk, cool and pleasant just after sunrise. On a winding road alternating through sand dunes and clay flats, I strolled along happily with my puppy. A small threatening exchange took place with an offended wild horse, much to the confusion of non-horse-savvy puppy, but other than that the walk was pleasant and uneventful. And so I naively thought perhaps the entire day would follow suit. By 2:00 pm the wind had picked up to such an extent that attempting to take a photo with the I-pad became akin to resistance strength training and large, Audrey Hepburn style sunglasses were required just to keep my contacts from blowing out of my eyeballs. I have no way of knowing, but I'm confident that these winds were in excess of 50 to 60 mph, as they were consistently rocking the entire pickup truck and opening the windward door became exceedingly challenging. By the end of the day a great deal of dust had blown into and around everything that composed my entire view of the world, my teeth were gritty, my ears had small beaches in them, my hair was an absurd rat's nest of sand and dust, and my normally black dog was an awkward shade of khaki. It was 5:00 pm; when in the field I usually try to work 6:30 to 6:30 and so I had an hour and a half to kill but had found myself at the mouth of a road leading into the WSA (Wilderness Study Area) where mechanized transport is forbidden, and I knew I had a walk of several hours to capture the entire road. Rather than quit early I decided to inventory the road as far as the first spur route to a reservoir, and capture all of that so that tomorrow I would be able to race through the first part and start just beyond that spur. After quickly stuffing water and maps, snacks and a compass into my pack I set out, puppy by my side, onto this two-track, and straight towards an ominous looking cloud. Experience told me that this giant cloud would, despite it's best effort, drop only 10 or 12 raindrops on the desert floor, the rest evaporating in the insanely dry air before ever reaching the ground, so I felt confident in my choice to continue on.
Unfortunately experiences breeds confidence that some might describe as "false", and in this case that would be an accurate assessment. Although I was correct in assuming that very little of the rain would reach the ground, I was incorrect in assuming that this would cause no problems for me. You see, immediately preceding those 12 drops of rain was a wall of wind the likes of which I daresay I have never experienced on foot before, and carried along by that wall of wind were millions upon millions of grains of sand. So literally the instant I reached the spur route that I had intended to hike I turned to see a dust storm reminiscent of those I encountered in Mauritania, headed my way. I quickly turned and quite literally ran, full backpack on and dog leash in hand with a confused, frolicking, and tug-of-warring puppy on the other end, back the way I had come, hoping beyond hope that I would reach the truck before the sand reached me. I didn't. 10 breathless, awkward, lumbering minutes later I dropped to my knees and wrapped myself over my doggies eyes as the stinging sand blasted the outer layers of skin off the backs of my legs. To make matters worse, the winds barely slowed throughout the entire evening and picked up with a vengeance sometime after 11:00 pm, shaking the truck of side to side and generally destroying any hope I had of getting a good nights sleep.
The final day of this trip was uneventful, ended early, and I was back in Laramie by nightfall. Thunderstorm warnings kept me from returning to Adobe Town this Monday morning, and my return Tuesday went well; I was even able to get in two full, uneventful days before disaster struck again. This time I was camping somewhere near the center of the entire unit, but at the southern end of the WSA, generally speaking in the middle of nowhere, on a little eroded two-track route that was frequently buried in sand dunes. In the morning I got up, fed my pup, and cooked my oatmeal all while still cocooned in my sleeping bag in the 40 degree desert morning. When I finally felt ready to emerge and take on the day, I stalled out the truck. Odd, I thought, I've been driving a standard since I was 17, shouldn't I be able to get the truck moving without stalling it out at this point in my life? A second effort yielded the same result, and on the third I stamped the gas and completely let off the clutch immediately and rolled away without incident. Now that I was moving I decided to investigate the clutch pedal, because that's apparently how my priorities worked out in my head: 1) get truck moving, and 2) now determine whats wrong with it. Seems wise.
I found I had no tension in the clutch pedal anymore until the very last instant, and sometimes even with the clutch to the floor it continued to move. If you knew me when I lived in Saint Thomas, then you know that I have experienced such issues before, only that time with our old jeep, aptly named the adventuremobile, and stuck in bumper to bumper cruise-ship-day-traffic. So this time at least I didn't have seven safari trucks full of tourists on all sides to watch me shove the darn truck into gear with all I'm worth and quietly pray my way through every stop sign, at least there was that. At any rate I was so far in, on a road I had already inventoried the far end of, and I really didn't want to have to drive it again. So I parked the truck and went for what I thought would be a two hour but turned out to be more like a four hour long hike, to finish that road, all the roads coming off of it, and a reservoir smack dab in the middle of nowhere. When I got back to the truck I locked in the hubs, and wrestled it around, and slow and steady, picked my way all the way back to a county road. There I called my pops to talk me through adding some clutch (brake) fluid and carefully headed for the highway, and eventually home.
So here I am again, back earlier than I intended, heading back out later than intended, but Grimace the purple truck needs his R&R time too...so that's that. And hey, at least it wasn't a tire, so I didn't have to go back to Walmart, which I don't think my delicate psyche could have taken at this point.
If you are reading this and thinking "man, somebody should get that girl a better truck!" then I urge you to go to BCA's website and make a small, one-time donation, and feel free to send us an email requesting that the money be spent on fixing up poor old Grimace. Alternatively, you may call any wealthy friends that you may have and ask them nicely if they'd like to buy me a new truck. You also might be thinking, "man, that girl kills trucks, I would never hire her to do anything ever because she just destroys everything she touches" but I assure you that I asked a reputable source and I am under the understanding that there is no way the slave cylinder could have been caused to leak by my driving, and it's more likely that it was a re-manufactured part that was faulty and failed well before it should have, regardless of how it was driven. So if you feel that way you should still go to BCA's website and make a small, one-time donation and let them know that you know I'm not a truck killer, at least not on purpose...
Here, I'll even give you the link! Because I'm so thoughtful! http://www.voiceforthewild.org/page.php?id=donate#.UcTlQ_ksmys
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So last week I left for the desert on Monday, got there late afternoon, and managed to put in several productive hours of happy and distraction-less inventorying. I was feeling good, I was remembering everything I love about the desert, and I was really enjoying it. It felt great, I had my positive energy back! By day two my positivity was flagging, as I wrestled with a pounding headache in the 95 degree heat of the desert, shadeless and unforgiving. I drank roughly 3,596 gallons of water, took a 10 minute power nap mid-day, and powered through, still somehow putting in a 12 hour day, but feeling decidedly less happy about the whole thing.
Day 3 proved a tad frustrating when a swiftly deteriorating supply of gas sent me out to town and then, because I was already down that way I tried to access the southern part of the unit and found first that an oil/gas road had been built on top of a portion of one route that I had hoped to use for access, causing the latter half to be difficult to access and therefor abandoned. Then, a second effort landed me on the path of an old two-track that had also since been buried by a large constructed oil/gas route, but one that had been abandoned, and if you have ever done any traveling in the desert you know that these constructed roads do NOT age well. After the first washed out and rocky hill I felt hesitant, but continued. The second had me paying attention, and the third washout left me concerned that I might somehow get myself into a place that I would find I could not get out of. Frustrated I paced around the truck, mulling over my options: Waste half a day driving back to the part of the unit I knew I could easily access, waste half a day hiking the remainder of this route to decide if traversing this washout would simply land me in the thick of several more, or wing it and risk getting stuck. Just as I was stomping around proclaiming to the heavens that "this s#!t only happens to me", a wild horse happened by and my puppy exited the truck via a flying leap out the window and took off running through cacti and sage brush to see if it would be her friend. Fortunately she's a smart dog, and she quickly realized that the retreating horse was not interested in her friendship, so she turned around and returned to the vehicle, not the least bit sorry for having ignored my angry screams for her to come back. That was it, I loaded her into the truck, buckled her harness into the seat belt (she did not like this), and turned this whole mess around for territory that I knew would present far fewer challenges.
Day 4, opened with a long quiet walk, cool and pleasant just after sunrise. On a winding road alternating through sand dunes and clay flats, I strolled along happily with my puppy. A small threatening exchange took place with an offended wild horse, much to the confusion of non-horse-savvy puppy, but other than that the walk was pleasant and uneventful. And so I naively thought perhaps the entire day would follow suit. By 2:00 pm the wind had picked up to such an extent that attempting to take a photo with the I-pad became akin to resistance strength training and large, Audrey Hepburn style sunglasses were required just to keep my contacts from blowing out of my eyeballs. I have no way of knowing, but I'm confident that these winds were in excess of 50 to 60 mph, as they were consistently rocking the entire pickup truck and opening the windward door became exceedingly challenging. By the end of the day a great deal of dust had blown into and around everything that composed my entire view of the world, my teeth were gritty, my ears had small beaches in them, my hair was an absurd rat's nest of sand and dust, and my normally black dog was an awkward shade of khaki. It was 5:00 pm; when in the field I usually try to work 6:30 to 6:30 and so I had an hour and a half to kill but had found myself at the mouth of a road leading into the WSA (Wilderness Study Area) where mechanized transport is forbidden, and I knew I had a walk of several hours to capture the entire road. Rather than quit early I decided to inventory the road as far as the first spur route to a reservoir, and capture all of that so that tomorrow I would be able to race through the first part and start just beyond that spur. After quickly stuffing water and maps, snacks and a compass into my pack I set out, puppy by my side, onto this two-track, and straight towards an ominous looking cloud. Experience told me that this giant cloud would, despite it's best effort, drop only 10 or 12 raindrops on the desert floor, the rest evaporating in the insanely dry air before ever reaching the ground, so I felt confident in my choice to continue on.
Unfortunately experiences breeds confidence that some might describe as "false", and in this case that would be an accurate assessment. Although I was correct in assuming that very little of the rain would reach the ground, I was incorrect in assuming that this would cause no problems for me. You see, immediately preceding those 12 drops of rain was a wall of wind the likes of which I daresay I have never experienced on foot before, and carried along by that wall of wind were millions upon millions of grains of sand. So literally the instant I reached the spur route that I had intended to hike I turned to see a dust storm reminiscent of those I encountered in Mauritania, headed my way. I quickly turned and quite literally ran, full backpack on and dog leash in hand with a confused, frolicking, and tug-of-warring puppy on the other end, back the way I had come, hoping beyond hope that I would reach the truck before the sand reached me. I didn't. 10 breathless, awkward, lumbering minutes later I dropped to my knees and wrapped myself over my doggies eyes as the stinging sand blasted the outer layers of skin off the backs of my legs. To make matters worse, the winds barely slowed throughout the entire evening and picked up with a vengeance sometime after 11:00 pm, shaking the truck of side to side and generally destroying any hope I had of getting a good nights sleep.
The final day of this trip was uneventful, ended early, and I was back in Laramie by nightfall. Thunderstorm warnings kept me from returning to Adobe Town this Monday morning, and my return Tuesday went well; I was even able to get in two full, uneventful days before disaster struck again. This time I was camping somewhere near the center of the entire unit, but at the southern end of the WSA, generally speaking in the middle of nowhere, on a little eroded two-track route that was frequently buried in sand dunes. In the morning I got up, fed my pup, and cooked my oatmeal all while still cocooned in my sleeping bag in the 40 degree desert morning. When I finally felt ready to emerge and take on the day, I stalled out the truck. Odd, I thought, I've been driving a standard since I was 17, shouldn't I be able to get the truck moving without stalling it out at this point in my life? A second effort yielded the same result, and on the third I stamped the gas and completely let off the clutch immediately and rolled away without incident. Now that I was moving I decided to investigate the clutch pedal, because that's apparently how my priorities worked out in my head: 1) get truck moving, and 2) now determine whats wrong with it. Seems wise.
I found I had no tension in the clutch pedal anymore until the very last instant, and sometimes even with the clutch to the floor it continued to move. If you knew me when I lived in Saint Thomas, then you know that I have experienced such issues before, only that time with our old jeep, aptly named the adventuremobile, and stuck in bumper to bumper cruise-ship-day-traffic. So this time at least I didn't have seven safari trucks full of tourists on all sides to watch me shove the darn truck into gear with all I'm worth and quietly pray my way through every stop sign, at least there was that. At any rate I was so far in, on a road I had already inventoried the far end of, and I really didn't want to have to drive it again. So I parked the truck and went for what I thought would be a two hour but turned out to be more like a four hour long hike, to finish that road, all the roads coming off of it, and a reservoir smack dab in the middle of nowhere. When I got back to the truck I locked in the hubs, and wrestled it around, and slow and steady, picked my way all the way back to a county road. There I called my pops to talk me through adding some clutch (brake) fluid and carefully headed for the highway, and eventually home.
So here I am again, back earlier than I intended, heading back out later than intended, but Grimace the purple truck needs his R&R time too...so that's that. And hey, at least it wasn't a tire, so I didn't have to go back to Walmart, which I don't think my delicate psyche could have taken at this point.
If you are reading this and thinking "man, somebody should get that girl a better truck!" then I urge you to go to BCA's website and make a small, one-time donation, and feel free to send us an email requesting that the money be spent on fixing up poor old Grimace. Alternatively, you may call any wealthy friends that you may have and ask them nicely if they'd like to buy me a new truck. You also might be thinking, "man, that girl kills trucks, I would never hire her to do anything ever because she just destroys everything she touches" but I assure you that I asked a reputable source and I am under the understanding that there is no way the slave cylinder could have been caused to leak by my driving, and it's more likely that it was a re-manufactured part that was faulty and failed well before it should have, regardless of how it was driven. So if you feel that way you should still go to BCA's website and make a small, one-time donation and let them know that you know I'm not a truck killer, at least not on purpose...
Here, I'll even give you the link! Because I'm so thoughtful! http://www.voiceforthewild.org/page.php?id=donate#.UcTlQ_ksmys
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Wild Horses
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Wilderness Doggy
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That's some strong dirt!
Adobe Town
Adobe Town
Sunset Road
DUST STORM!
Ominous cloud...
Adobe Town
My Faithful friends
Sunset
DUST STORM!
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Adobe Town Valley
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Field Season 2013: Off to a Great Start!
Oh. My. Gosh. Where do I begin? I feel as though I have not provided an update in CENTURIES! So here's a quick run through of some goings-on since I last wrote a post:
First, that last post, begging you to vote...yeah, we didn't get that grant. BUT we did make it into the top 6 votes-wise, which is pretty impressive for an organization as small as ours, not to mention that we are located in the least populated state of them all, so kudos to you! Our voting and adoring fans, we really appreciate the support you showed us and it meant a lot to have your support through that process. So even though we didn't win, we still did in a way, because it feels wonderful to know that so many people are supporting us and the work that we pour our hearts into every day.
Next, obviously I finished my 2012 inventories and submitted them. The PDFs of these documents are now up on BCA's website, and I have to say I'm darn proud of the final result so I'll give you a link here, to see them. Check them out, read through a bit of the narrative (don't go crazy, a paragraph or two will give you the right idea) and then if you are in Wyoming, please by all means, VISIT these places! Visit them, love them, and advocate for them. Because as of this month the BLM has only found wilderness character in ONE of them, and it's not clear if they even intend to protect it just yet (I'll try to keep posted on this, I'm sure I'll forget to update, but if you have questions then please contact me!).
Now it is just the beginning of field season 2013, and this year I have a full plate, with a ton of units (14 to be exact) to get through, including the amazing and impressive, and evidently very hard on truck tires, Adobe Town! So I headed out this past Tuesday, the 4th. I left in the late afternoon, reaching the bounds of Adobe Town in time to make camp, enjoy a beautiful desert sunset, and snooze before starting the inventory work itself the next morning. In traditional Shelby fashion I merely lucked out in a lot of ways: I have been to Adobe Town once, almost a year ago, and I followed my boss out, missing most landmarks in the cloud of dust kicked up by his car. This time I grabbed some maps, but obviously missed the one that I really needed, because that's how I roll, and had only the map just east of where I needed to end up. I got out there and drove west, knowing eventually I would bump into the 130,000 acre proposed wilderness area at some point. I should clarify that I had all the right 1:24,000 maps and the wrong 1:100,000 map, so I could navigate to the edge of where I needed to be and then drove blindly west until I just happened to show up on one of my 1:24,000 maps. Magically, and with the luck that seems to follow me around out there (thank the stars!) I bumped right into the most pertinent map fairly quickly and with no back-tracking or getting lost.
So there I am, in the "Crown Jewel" of the Red Desert, maps and snazzy new I-Pad in hand, early on the morning of Wednesday the 5th of June. The desert looks different in June, it is green and birds chirp, wild flowers dot the hill sides. This was just what I needed, to be back in action, in the relaxing setting of the silent desert, my new puppy Mia by my side, just inventorying the day away. This is what I live for. Of course things never go that well, and I discovered a confusing maze of new oil and gas roads covering, shadowing, and crisscrossing the original two-tracks that I was hoping to travel. Covered with recently crushed sharp gravel and laying huge swaths of ugly destruction across the desert. In my line of work though you not only have to roll with such things you have to completely document them with photos and GPS points. So this is what I did, for a tedious 12 hours, jumping in and out of the truck, enduring the yelled suggestions of passers-by (assumed in general to be oil and gas industry employees, all very nice, all very confuddled as to why I should be out there with my dog, just hanging out in an active gas field) regarding being aware of rattlesnakes and mud, deep sand, and gravel, and such. Sometimes I wonder if they don't talk to me just to make sure they aren't imagining me, because after all this country isn't exactly beautiful anymore, with gas wells dotting the countryside, so why would a girl and her dog, all dressed up in hiking gear, be traipsing around the place anyway?
So at the close of my day, as the sun is setting and the silence of the desert is closing in (my favorite time of day out there) I prepared my truck for sleeping in and promptly passed out at 8:15 in the evening, the sky still lit with rays from the setting sun, and don't wake up for an instant for a solid 9 hours. I guess I should have worked back up to this...
Day two of field season 2013 started great, warm breakfast, happy puppy company, and a beautiful sunrise accompanied by singing birds, what could possibly go wrong? Well see here is where I run into trouble, because as soon as things start to seem idyllic I should always know trouble is on the horizon. So on this beautiful Thursday morning I start by hiking a long some bits and pieces of an old two-track route that has been mostly covered by a brand spanking new gravel super highway to a not-yet-been-drilled wellpad and the camera on my I-Pad app starts malfunctioning. It can't focus and sits on a white screen and no matter what I do I can't seem to fix it (here I guess any remotely tech-savvy person would probably tell me to try rebooting the I-Pad, but on this I claim ignorance, I had no idea that was even possible) so after frantic text messaging with our business manager it is decided that I should head back to town and get on the phone/internet and figure this out.
So, after one successful day and two nights in the desert, I hea back towards civilization to try to find a solution to this problem. It takes nearly an hour to get from where I was to the nearest gas station and I was feeling irrationally confident about my gas situation when I reached the paved road so I decided to not go 20 minutes out of my way to get gas and instead continue on the additional hour to the nearest gas station on my way. This proved to be possible, but more than a little nerve-wracking as I rolled into the gas station with the arrow on the far side of E a little over an hour later. Perhaps it was the low-on-gas related anxiety, or just general disappointment at heading back so soon, but for whatever reason I was able to roll right up to the pump, fill my tank, and head inside to grab my receipt without noticing that somewhere along the way one of my tires had become completely flat. On my way back from the receipt collecting mission I did happen to notice a disturbing tilt to my truck, and the deflated tire soon claimed the spot on the very tippy top of my to-do list. I slowly drove it away from the pump (there was a line forming behind) and begin the tedious procedure of dragging out all the bits and pieces required to change the tire. Happily I was at this point in the parking lot of a truck stop, and it only took about 20 seconds of me jumping up and down on the tire iron in an attempt to loosen air-wrench tightened lug nuts for a kind soul with bigger muscles than mine to offer some assistance.
Another set of hands made the whole process so much easier, and so with many thanks to my kind stranger at the Rawlins' Loves, I was on my way again soon at the breakneck speed of 55 MPH required by the donut I had just torqued onto my truck. The kind stranger's last words to me were "you might want to check out that front one too, looks a little low," and he was off toward the truck that he likely currently calls home. There are 100 miles of highway between Rawlins and the nearest Walmart Tire Center (where I had a warrantee on my tires) in both directions, I chose the eastern route, as Laramie is where I could sleep in my own bed that night. Upon my arrival I checked the truck all in, called a coworker to pick me up, and left Grimace the Purple truck in the (assumed) capable hands of the Walmart Tire Center staff. A few hours later they called to say my truck was done, but a conversation needed to be had about my tires when I return. Ominous, I thought, so I headed back up there with my coworker only to find my truck still in the bays with no tires, no wheels even, on it at all. Uh-oh.
The staff calmly informed me that they had thought it was done because they had tested the Firestone (read: donut, that clearly features the words "temporary tire, max speed 55 mph" on its side) and found no issue but later realized that (as I had mentioned at check in) the flat was in the truck bed. Upon further inspection, they had apparently also found that I had also, somewhere along the way, punctured a second tire as well. Finally they informed me that these particular tires were not in stock at the moment, and one to seven days would be required for them to come in on order. Super.
A lengthy discussion about tires ensued, somewhere in the middle of which we decided a slightly higher quality tire might be more appropriate for my line of work and an order was begun, at which point it became clear that the wrong tire size had somehow been taken initially and in fact the tires currently on the truck were actually in stock at this very moment, but it was too late. We had already decided on better tires, and better tires we would get! So, order placed, approval received, receipt in hand, we parted ways with Walmart once again under the understanding that I would be getting a phone call when the new tires came in, sometime in the next one to sseven days. The very next day though, I came to realize that among the gear I had left in the bed of the truck, I had also left behind a few essentials that I now needed to go pick up, so I popped back by Walmart to grab a few things and learned, to my surprise, that at some point during the day my new tires had come in, though they still were not on my truck, and that they were "just about to call me," but had "misplaced my number." Okay, I said, put them on please. We again completed a redundancy of the checking-in process of the day before and I was told I would be back on the road the very next day, they took my phone number again (this time even entering it into the computer) and we parted ways on promises that I would receive a call as soon as my truck was ready. This was two days ago now, and yet somehow I am clearly still in range of internet access, so if my having returned to the desert seems unlikely to you, you'd be correct.
In other, more splendid news, the app problem that I was having with the I-Pad turned out to be easily solved and the solution does not require internet access, and so can be preformed in the field. So I am thrilled about that! I am packed and ready to head back out, as soon as I have a truck again, and when that day comes I will be sure to share the trials and tribulations that are sure to occur on my next trip; because if these first few days are setting the tone for the entire summer than it is sure to be interesting to say the least!
Tomorrow morning, first thing, the Walmart Tire Center will be hearing from me, but for now I am enjoying my weekend and having a glass of wine. Wilderness Inventory Specialist: The impatient and easily discouraged need not apply.
First, that last post, begging you to vote...yeah, we didn't get that grant. BUT we did make it into the top 6 votes-wise, which is pretty impressive for an organization as small as ours, not to mention that we are located in the least populated state of them all, so kudos to you! Our voting and adoring fans, we really appreciate the support you showed us and it meant a lot to have your support through that process. So even though we didn't win, we still did in a way, because it feels wonderful to know that so many people are supporting us and the work that we pour our hearts into every day.
Next, obviously I finished my 2012 inventories and submitted them. The PDFs of these documents are now up on BCA's website, and I have to say I'm darn proud of the final result so I'll give you a link here, to see them. Check them out, read through a bit of the narrative (don't go crazy, a paragraph or two will give you the right idea) and then if you are in Wyoming, please by all means, VISIT these places! Visit them, love them, and advocate for them. Because as of this month the BLM has only found wilderness character in ONE of them, and it's not clear if they even intend to protect it just yet (I'll try to keep posted on this, I'm sure I'll forget to update, but if you have questions then please contact me!).
Now it is just the beginning of field season 2013, and this year I have a full plate, with a ton of units (14 to be exact) to get through, including the amazing and impressive, and evidently very hard on truck tires, Adobe Town! So I headed out this past Tuesday, the 4th. I left in the late afternoon, reaching the bounds of Adobe Town in time to make camp, enjoy a beautiful desert sunset, and snooze before starting the inventory work itself the next morning. In traditional Shelby fashion I merely lucked out in a lot of ways: I have been to Adobe Town once, almost a year ago, and I followed my boss out, missing most landmarks in the cloud of dust kicked up by his car. This time I grabbed some maps, but obviously missed the one that I really needed, because that's how I roll, and had only the map just east of where I needed to end up. I got out there and drove west, knowing eventually I would bump into the 130,000 acre proposed wilderness area at some point. I should clarify that I had all the right 1:24,000 maps and the wrong 1:100,000 map, so I could navigate to the edge of where I needed to be and then drove blindly west until I just happened to show up on one of my 1:24,000 maps. Magically, and with the luck that seems to follow me around out there (thank the stars!) I bumped right into the most pertinent map fairly quickly and with no back-tracking or getting lost.
So there I am, in the "Crown Jewel" of the Red Desert, maps and snazzy new I-Pad in hand, early on the morning of Wednesday the 5th of June. The desert looks different in June, it is green and birds chirp, wild flowers dot the hill sides. This was just what I needed, to be back in action, in the relaxing setting of the silent desert, my new puppy Mia by my side, just inventorying the day away. This is what I live for. Of course things never go that well, and I discovered a confusing maze of new oil and gas roads covering, shadowing, and crisscrossing the original two-tracks that I was hoping to travel. Covered with recently crushed sharp gravel and laying huge swaths of ugly destruction across the desert. In my line of work though you not only have to roll with such things you have to completely document them with photos and GPS points. So this is what I did, for a tedious 12 hours, jumping in and out of the truck, enduring the yelled suggestions of passers-by (assumed in general to be oil and gas industry employees, all very nice, all very confuddled as to why I should be out there with my dog, just hanging out in an active gas field) regarding being aware of rattlesnakes and mud, deep sand, and gravel, and such. Sometimes I wonder if they don't talk to me just to make sure they aren't imagining me, because after all this country isn't exactly beautiful anymore, with gas wells dotting the countryside, so why would a girl and her dog, all dressed up in hiking gear, be traipsing around the place anyway?
So at the close of my day, as the sun is setting and the silence of the desert is closing in (my favorite time of day out there) I prepared my truck for sleeping in and promptly passed out at 8:15 in the evening, the sky still lit with rays from the setting sun, and don't wake up for an instant for a solid 9 hours. I guess I should have worked back up to this...
Day two of field season 2013 started great, warm breakfast, happy puppy company, and a beautiful sunrise accompanied by singing birds, what could possibly go wrong? Well see here is where I run into trouble, because as soon as things start to seem idyllic I should always know trouble is on the horizon. So on this beautiful Thursday morning I start by hiking a long some bits and pieces of an old two-track route that has been mostly covered by a brand spanking new gravel super highway to a not-yet-been-drilled wellpad and the camera on my I-Pad app starts malfunctioning. It can't focus and sits on a white screen and no matter what I do I can't seem to fix it (here I guess any remotely tech-savvy person would probably tell me to try rebooting the I-Pad, but on this I claim ignorance, I had no idea that was even possible) so after frantic text messaging with our business manager it is decided that I should head back to town and get on the phone/internet and figure this out.
So, after one successful day and two nights in the desert, I hea back towards civilization to try to find a solution to this problem. It takes nearly an hour to get from where I was to the nearest gas station and I was feeling irrationally confident about my gas situation when I reached the paved road so I decided to not go 20 minutes out of my way to get gas and instead continue on the additional hour to the nearest gas station on my way. This proved to be possible, but more than a little nerve-wracking as I rolled into the gas station with the arrow on the far side of E a little over an hour later. Perhaps it was the low-on-gas related anxiety, or just general disappointment at heading back so soon, but for whatever reason I was able to roll right up to the pump, fill my tank, and head inside to grab my receipt without noticing that somewhere along the way one of my tires had become completely flat. On my way back from the receipt collecting mission I did happen to notice a disturbing tilt to my truck, and the deflated tire soon claimed the spot on the very tippy top of my to-do list. I slowly drove it away from the pump (there was a line forming behind) and begin the tedious procedure of dragging out all the bits and pieces required to change the tire. Happily I was at this point in the parking lot of a truck stop, and it only took about 20 seconds of me jumping up and down on the tire iron in an attempt to loosen air-wrench tightened lug nuts for a kind soul with bigger muscles than mine to offer some assistance.
Another set of hands made the whole process so much easier, and so with many thanks to my kind stranger at the Rawlins' Loves, I was on my way again soon at the breakneck speed of 55 MPH required by the donut I had just torqued onto my truck. The kind stranger's last words to me were "you might want to check out that front one too, looks a little low," and he was off toward the truck that he likely currently calls home. There are 100 miles of highway between Rawlins and the nearest Walmart Tire Center (where I had a warrantee on my tires) in both directions, I chose the eastern route, as Laramie is where I could sleep in my own bed that night. Upon my arrival I checked the truck all in, called a coworker to pick me up, and left Grimace the Purple truck in the (assumed) capable hands of the Walmart Tire Center staff. A few hours later they called to say my truck was done, but a conversation needed to be had about my tires when I return. Ominous, I thought, so I headed back up there with my coworker only to find my truck still in the bays with no tires, no wheels even, on it at all. Uh-oh.
The staff calmly informed me that they had thought it was done because they had tested the Firestone (read: donut, that clearly features the words "temporary tire, max speed 55 mph" on its side) and found no issue but later realized that (as I had mentioned at check in) the flat was in the truck bed. Upon further inspection, they had apparently also found that I had also, somewhere along the way, punctured a second tire as well. Finally they informed me that these particular tires were not in stock at the moment, and one to seven days would be required for them to come in on order. Super.
A lengthy discussion about tires ensued, somewhere in the middle of which we decided a slightly higher quality tire might be more appropriate for my line of work and an order was begun, at which point it became clear that the wrong tire size had somehow been taken initially and in fact the tires currently on the truck were actually in stock at this very moment, but it was too late. We had already decided on better tires, and better tires we would get! So, order placed, approval received, receipt in hand, we parted ways with Walmart once again under the understanding that I would be getting a phone call when the new tires came in, sometime in the next one to sseven days. The very next day though, I came to realize that among the gear I had left in the bed of the truck, I had also left behind a few essentials that I now needed to go pick up, so I popped back by Walmart to grab a few things and learned, to my surprise, that at some point during the day my new tires had come in, though they still were not on my truck, and that they were "just about to call me," but had "misplaced my number." Okay, I said, put them on please. We again completed a redundancy of the checking-in process of the day before and I was told I would be back on the road the very next day, they took my phone number again (this time even entering it into the computer) and we parted ways on promises that I would receive a call as soon as my truck was ready. This was two days ago now, and yet somehow I am clearly still in range of internet access, so if my having returned to the desert seems unlikely to you, you'd be correct.
In other, more splendid news, the app problem that I was having with the I-Pad turned out to be easily solved and the solution does not require internet access, and so can be preformed in the field. So I am thrilled about that! I am packed and ready to head back out, as soon as I have a truck again, and when that day comes I will be sure to share the trials and tribulations that are sure to occur on my next trip; because if these first few days are setting the tone for the entire summer than it is sure to be interesting to say the least!
Tomorrow morning, first thing, the Walmart Tire Center will be hearing from me, but for now I am enjoying my weekend and having a glass of wine. Wilderness Inventory Specialist: The impatient and easily discouraged need not apply.
Adobe Town Proposed Wilderness:
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Help me get the word out!
Do you want to give mother nature a really great Christmas present this year? Do you love Wyoming's wild places? Do you wish that you could make some sort of contribution to offset that inherent damage that your energy consumption does to the environment in the extraction of fuels? Are you apathetic about the environment but love me? Well boy oh boy do I have an opportunity for you! Here's the deal: The little non-profit that I work for in Wyoming is trying to get a grant this winter from the EnviroKids program by Nature's Path Foods and we need your help! Because we are such a small organization working in a not very populous state we start out with a handicap right out of the gate, we just don't have influence over the same number of people that a non-profit in say NYC or San Francisco has. Last years winner won with something like 27,000 votes and we operate in a city that barely has that many people in it. BCA fights for the responsible management of public lands in Wyoming, but the pocket gophers, wolves, elk, deer, and sage grouse can't vote, they don't have facebook accounts. YOU do.
We could be the underdog story of the year! I have no facts to back this up, it is merely conjecture, but I'm pretty sure a non-national, Wyoming based non-profit has never won a FB voting based grant on any sort of a large scale. I can't confirm nor deny this, but no matter how many different ways I google "Wyoming non-profit wins grant through facebook voting" I still come up with nothing. Help us change that, BCA does a lot of good work, with only a few great employees, and a severely limited budget because we can't imagine not doing it; this is our passion and our life's work, help us keep it up!
MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS WHOLE POST BELOW:
How to Vote:
1. Go here.
2. If it doesn't come up automatically, find the project titled: Protecting Wyoming's Wildlife from the Oil Industry by Erik Molvar
3. Click "Vote Now"
4. Do it again every 24 hours until Dec 15th at midnight
"P-p-p-p-please help BCA help us!" -Pronghorns
Friday, November 16, 2012
Yet Another Call to Action...
"For unnumbered centuries of human history the wilderness has
given way. The priority of industry has become dogma. Are we as yet
sufficiently enlightened to realize that we must now challenge that
dogma, or do without our wilderness? Do we realize that industry, which
has been our good servant, might make a poor master?" ~Aldo Leopold
I know that I have always been conscious of the quiet, but steady destruction of wild places that human consumption necessitates, somewhere in the back of my head there has always been an awareness that natural places that I have known and loved in my life will not always be there. Its a reality I have been uncomfortable with for a long time, but one that I know I thought, and I think most people think, that they can do nothing about. How does one person stop the inevitable grind of progress in defense of the wild places they have come to love? This is an adversary against which the average person cannot possibly compete, right? But in my more recent work I am beginning to discover the ways in which each of us, in our own way, can make a difference. I am finding them, and I want to share them, because this is a fight that is truly worth fighting, not just for the environmentalists and the outdoors enthusiasts, but for everyone and let me tell you why.
I recently listened to an episode of the podcast called "Too Much Information" with Benjamen Walker called "4 Big Ideas From Sept 17th, 2012" and I highly recommend it to everyone, and I mean everyone, not just environmentalists, even though I know that my audience of the 4 people who read this blog is heavily biased on the environmental side, please share this, because this matters. It's about the book Small is Beautiful by the British economist and author E. F. Schumacher and it talks about economics of scale. My favorite quote from the episode is by the author Andrew Sims, who says:
"If a business goes bankrupt you can set up elsewhere, if the biosphere, if the ecosystems upon which we depend are bankrupted through over-exploitation, well, there might be no coming back from that."
I love it because I think it completely explains the sense of urgency I feel about protecting the planet that we depend on, not just because I am a nature-loving tree-hugger, but because I can see that in a very fundamental way this planet sustains us, and if we don't take care to preserve at least some of it, eventually we will bankrupt it. Consider this statistic: According to the Pew Environment Group 6000 acres of open land are lost each day...each day! That is 2.19 million acres of land that are lost each year, every year or alternatively 250 acres per hour...until somebody says that's enough. I'm saying that's enough now. We cannot live as though our resources are infinite, we cannot assume that growth is always the answer. Try to imagine a world with no open spaces, no wild lands, no wilderness. It should be unimaginable, because it is illogical and unnatural, but I've met people who say they would prefer it. I think this is a preference borne of a lack of understanding.
So what can you do to help change this?
Educate, teach your children about the environment and wildernesses that you love, your parents, your friends. Talk about it, tell people why you care. I can't help but be passionate about these things, and it just bubbles out of me all the time. Ask any one of my friends, I am one of the most annoying hiking buddies ever, because I just spout information about ecosystems, air quality, endangered species, habitat loss, and anything else that pops into my head. I can't help it, but I like to think that every once in a while I inspire someone else to care, and that is the best outcome that I can think of.
Support, not everyone wants to do the kind of work that I do, and that is absolutely fine. Not everyone has to, but if you support the efforts that people in my line of work are making, show it. I know so many people who agree with what I do, and congratulate my efforts to protect these wild lands, but getting people to lift a pen and share these feelings with others is like pulling teeth! Writing a letter to the editor, blog post, facebook post, or tweet about a local wilderness area that you love can be so inspiring to someone like me who spends their days making efforts that most people never even notice. Like the Campaign for America's Wilderness on facebook, find the person closest to your area who is out there inventorying public lands to find eligible wilderness areas and shake their hand, write them a thank you letter, or donate to their organization. Write to your congress person urging them to give lands near you wilderness protection. These things can take 5 minutes, but if you don't show anyone that these issues matter to you, no one will ever do anything about it.
Warning: Shameless plug of my own work to follow...
If you are in Wyoming, have traveled to Wyoming, or want to travel to Wyoming, consider doing me the favor of writing something about your appreciation of the lands that I have inventoried. If you hunt in Wyoming, consider voicing how crucial winter ranges for big game need better protections so that there will continue to be healthy populations of game for sport hunting. If you appreciate desert landscapes, consider writing to the to a local paper and expressing how important it is that we realize deserts are not simply wasted space, sitting on top of possible energy reserves, but are instead valuable habitats and ecosystems. If you like backpacking and back country camping, write to your favorite magazine or publication urging readers to recognize that many of the areas they enjoy are not yet protected, and could in fact be developed at any time.
Do something! Do anything. Express what you care about in your state and why to anyone that you can, because tomorrow's 6000 acres could be the forests and fields of your childhood, and if you stay quiet today you'll forever regret it when that fateful tomorrow comes.
"The most striking thing about modern industry is that it requires so much and accomplishes so little. Modern industry seems to be inefficient to a degree that surpasses one's ordinary powers of imagination. Its inefficiency therefore remains unnoticed." -E. F. Schumacher
Friday, November 2, 2012
In the wake of Sandy
It happened during Irene, and now once again I am far away when disaster strikes the East Coast. My thoughts and prayers are with my friends and family, and really everyone effected by this terrible storm, and the chaos it has left in it's wake.
I was in the Red Desert for work on the night that Sandy hit New York and New Jersey. It was very surreal, sitting in the peace and quiet of the desert, listening to horrifying reports of the destruction on the radio. I hate the feeling of helplessness such an experience causes, I have many friends who live and work in and around the New York Metropolitan area and I didn't even have a way to contact them from my campsite in the desert with no cell phone service. You were all in my thoughts, and I am facebook stalking you all diligently, now that I have returned to civilization. My heart goes out to the families of those who did not survive the storm, I can't even imagine what you are going through, I keep you in my heart daily.
Because once again I am unable to volunteer my time to relief effort (and my time is what I have the financial capacity to be the most generous with) I am hoping instead to inspire a few others to help. Please check out the Corporation for National and Community Service Website, who provide an easy to understand list of ways that you can help through volunteering, monetary donations, donations of items, and donation of blood, compiled directly from FEMA.
A special thanks to all of the AmeriCorps Members donating their time and efforts to Sandy recovery, I have a great respect for the AmeriCorps program and all that it does for our communities, environment, and people. Over 800 AmeriCorps members have been deployed to aid in the Sandy relief efforts, if you happen to see one out on the ground, please thank them and commend them on their service. For more information about the involvement of AmeriCorps members check out the National Service Update.
Here are some of the organizations I know of that you can support:
Karma Cat and Zen Dog Rescue Society
The Staten Island Marathon for Sandy Relief
The Steven Stiller Tunnels to Towers Foundation
You can also always donate through the National Donations Management Network or the Red Cross
Thanks for reading, and please give if you can, any and every amount is appreciated.
I was in the Red Desert for work on the night that Sandy hit New York and New Jersey. It was very surreal, sitting in the peace and quiet of the desert, listening to horrifying reports of the destruction on the radio. I hate the feeling of helplessness such an experience causes, I have many friends who live and work in and around the New York Metropolitan area and I didn't even have a way to contact them from my campsite in the desert with no cell phone service. You were all in my thoughts, and I am facebook stalking you all diligently, now that I have returned to civilization. My heart goes out to the families of those who did not survive the storm, I can't even imagine what you are going through, I keep you in my heart daily.
Because once again I am unable to volunteer my time to relief effort (and my time is what I have the financial capacity to be the most generous with) I am hoping instead to inspire a few others to help. Please check out the Corporation for National and Community Service Website, who provide an easy to understand list of ways that you can help through volunteering, monetary donations, donations of items, and donation of blood, compiled directly from FEMA.
A special thanks to all of the AmeriCorps Members donating their time and efforts to Sandy recovery, I have a great respect for the AmeriCorps program and all that it does for our communities, environment, and people. Over 800 AmeriCorps members have been deployed to aid in the Sandy relief efforts, if you happen to see one out on the ground, please thank them and commend them on their service. For more information about the involvement of AmeriCorps members check out the National Service Update.
Here are some of the organizations I know of that you can support:
Karma Cat and Zen Dog Rescue Society
The Staten Island Marathon for Sandy Relief
The Steven Stiller Tunnels to Towers Foundation
You can also always donate through the National Donations Management Network or the Red Cross
Thanks for reading, and please give if you can, any and every amount is appreciated.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Wilderness
I have been on hiatus for....oh since about the day that I got to Wyoming and moved into a truck in the Red Desert. My truck-inhabiting days are coming to a swift close though, thanks entirely to the Wyoming winter that dropped 8 inches of snow on us over the last 2 days. So now I feel it is time to share some stories of my wilderness inventorying and of what this has all come to mean to me. First, a bit about what I really do, because I have come to find out that many of you have no idea, and that is okay! I am quite happy to educate you all! Below is an excerpt from an article about my work that I wrote for the winter newsletter sent to members by the non-profit I work for, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, to read the whole thing please consider joining BCA and supporting the great work that we do!
"Even those who are conservation minded don’t always have a strong grasp of what a wilderness inventory is, and why they are important. So what do I really do? I map routes, roads, and human influences in otherwise predominantly un-human influenced areas. Why does this matter? Because if I can prove that these areas possess “wilderness characteristics” such as outstanding opportunities for solitude and primitive recreation, than I can potentially be a catalyst in their lasting protection, and what more can I give to the generations to come than the joy of a wild place preserved?"
So this is what I do in a nutshell, but what I really seem to do is take a lot of photos of roads and change a lot of flat tires. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my job, it is perfect for me, I love the challenges and the beauty, and the fact that I have the real potential to bring about lasting change for at least 5 small corners of the beautiful Wyoming Wilderness. And I am really good at changing tires. Here's the wonderful part, I think when you are doing good work, good things come to you, and although I have had 3 flat tires in the course of this summer, at least 2 of them happened at just the right time. By this I mean that when I am in the desert I rarely have cell phone service, and I tend to stay out for between 4 and 8 days at a time, i.e. longer than the accuracy of the weather forecast that I checked before I left. Rain in the desert means slippery and dangerous roads and no chance of getting any work done, not to mention a greatly increased chance of getting stuck. The second to last flat tire that I got forced me to leave the desert 4 days earlier than planned, but just in time to miss 3 straight days of rain. The last flat tire was this Sunday night, in the dark I might add, and it sent me into town 6 days early and just in time to find out that 3 cold fronts were headed right for me; dropping not only temperatures, but also several inches of snow. So I appreciate my flat tires, for all the trouble that they have caused, I suspect that they have saved me from quite a bit more.
Plus I love the challenge, changing a truck tire is no easy task, and I've had some doozies, tires so flat that I can't fit a jack under them, in darkness, and rain, and cacti were often involved. Every time I finally get through changing a tire I feel like a rock star; yeah, I just did that, all by myself, and I could do it again if I wanted to. I love that, almost as much as I love the feeling of completing an inventory, now that is a victory. By the time I am done with an inventory, I know every route, road, fence, and structure on a property; all the folds of the topography, and all of the property bounds. I can navigate like a pro, I can hit any little 2 track road, no matter how small, and know exactly where I am, I can point to every hill I hiked and every arbitrary property line that I surveyed. I love that, I love the feeling of accomplishment that comes with the completion of something like that; yeah I memorized those 12,000 acres, and now I'm going to go do it again with 10,000 more, no big deal.
It's not all fun and flat tires though, the advocacy side of things (what I'm getting into now, since my field work is wrapping up) is a challenge of another sort. The term wilderness means different things to different people, and many tend to visualize pristine mountain streams and dense forests when wilderness is brought to mind. That's great, because those are wildernesses and also deserve protection; but a desert is too, although many have trouble recognizing this as wild land and not waste land. The definition of wilderness that I follow comes from the Bureau of Land Management, because they are the ones who will make the call as to whether the land that I wish to protect qualifies for wilderness protection, but folks who have no experience in wilderness designation and its official definition tend to have a definition more like this one in their heads:
wil·der·ness (wldr-ns)
n.
1. An unsettled, uncultivated region left in its natural condition, especially:
a. A large wild tract of land covered with dense vegetation or forests.
b. An extensive area, such as a desert or ocean, that is barren or empty; a waste.
c. A piece of land set aside to grow wild.
2. Something characterized by bewildering vastness, perilousness, or unchecked profusion: the wilderness of the city; the wilderness of counterespionage; a wilderness of voices.
I resent this definition, especially part 1.b., which describes wilderness in deserts as "barren," "empty," and "a waste." These are the attitudes that I face in my efforts to encourage others to protect these areas, a sentiment that there really isn't much there worth protecting. It's not their fault, usually they have never been, have no idea what is or is not there, and some of them don't even know that Wyoming even has a Red Desert, at least not beyond the run down gas station at the Red Desert exit on interstate 80.
There is a lot more to this area than what can be seen from the I-80 corridor, acres and acres of beautiful buttes and sage brush country, wild horses and pronghorn herds, startlingly beautiful sunrises and sunsets, million upon millions of stars in the night sky. These beautiful natural treasures are slowly being encroached upon by various energy and mineral extraction developments in such volume that it will take decades for the land to recover, if ever. Below is a picture of the Jonah Field, the poster child of inefficient and destructive energy developments, from The Daily Climate. This is the kind of development that I wish to prevent. Don't get me wrong, I am not "against" the energy industry or fuel extractions as a practice, I am a realist and I know how heavily we depend on them in every facet of our lives. The goal of my work is not to stand in the way of energy development (wilderness designation is one of the few designations that protects land from energy and extraction based leasing) but I am hoping to encourage innovations in smarter growth and development. In short, I know I'm not going to stop the interested companies from getting at the fuels in the earth underneath my proposed wilderness areas, but at least I can ensure that in order to get at it they have to be smart about it and not destroy the land above it.
So this is my life these days, each day a wonderful adventure trying to protect the Wyoming wilderness. Obviously I am enjoying it, but I am also saddened by it too, the mere fact that I need to fight the fight that I am fighting means that despite how far we have come as a society, in general people still forget that without this beautiful planet we would be nothing. Nature has created a perfect, balanced system all on its own that we are slowly taking apart, one piece at a time; the least I can do is to try to be the proverbial barefoot hippie girl, trying to hold my ground against the bulldozer of development.
"The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only those who know the most about it can appreciate how little we know about it. The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: "What good is it?" If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering."
-Aldo Leopold
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