Welcome back, Moab Man

Last February we had a bad car accident here in Duluth. We were all packed up for a week in Ely and headed out of town when a woman ran a red light in downtown and t-boned our Honda CRV. Almost three months later, we're still nursing some injuries. One of the sadder parts of the whole thing was losing the car and its memories, including the sticker of the Moab Man pictograph.

At least one part of our recovery is complete. After wrassling with the insurance agency over the value of the old car, we bought a new (used) CRV in Phoenix. Same year, a few less miles. I drove the new car back from Phoenix via Moab. I hiked around Comb Ridge, in the Fiery Furnace in Arches and a new trail in Canyonlands. Three years to the day after buying my last Moab Man sticker, I found another one in the same store.

The sticker had to be a different color though. Like most Arizona cars, the new CRV is white.



Putting that new sticker on was a small step to recovering our lives. It felt great.

Yield to the trail

A good trail gives you comfort. There's a reason those blue blazes on the Superior Hiking Trail are called "assurance markers." The SHT is well-marked and easy to follow, but it's still comforting to see those rectangles of paint.

Today I hiked five miles through Canyonlands National Park on the Neck Spring Trail, up in Island in the Sky. The first quarter mile of the trail was very hard to follow. The route ran on slickrock and vandals had knocked down many of the cairns. I felt unsettled. It was not enjoyable. If I'm hiking, especially if I'm hiking alone, I like to walk and enjoy the surroundings, not focus on the turns of the path.

Eventually the cairns got better and the route became clear. And I could relax and yield to the trail. I loved it. The cairns were set up just perfectly so as you approached one, the next one came into sight. The cairns led the perfect route down the Navajo Sandstone to the valley below.



Yesterday I had to yield even more. I had to totally set aside my own need to navigate and simply follow the leader. After at least five visits to Moab and Arches National Park, I was finally able to sign up for the guided tour of the Fiery Furnace (through Recreation.gov, if you're wondering). The Fiery Furnace is a maze of sandstone fins in which it is VERY easy to get lost (ask me, I've been lost there). I tried for a while to keep track of where the ranger had led us, but soon realized I was thoroughly lost...and took comfort in following the group and the ranger through and out of the labyrinth.

Hiking in Canyonlands today, I kept thinking of a scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Not the scene at Double Arch in the beginning, but the scene at the end as Indy works through the final challenges to reach the Holy Grail. In the last challenge, he has to have the faith to step out into the void. Which he does, only to find that there was an invisible stone beam underfoot. He proceeded safely to find the goofy immortal Knight from the Crusades.

A trail through the woods (or through the desert) is a lovely, nearly spiritual thing. I yield to the trail.

Grand Portage: "I'd rather be here than anywhere."

Grand Portage National Monument just announced some great news for North Shore explorers. Entrance to the national monument is now free. It wasn't expensive before...$3 per person, $6 per family. Park Superintendent Tim Cochrane said in a news release, " In these tough economic times, it made little sense to charge fees that kept visitors from coming." That gets you into the reconstructed fort and into the cool new heritage center.

So plan this summer to head to the far end of the Minnesota North Shore and experience some history. Haul a pack of furs at the voyageur encampment. Try your hand (or bloody your fingers) at grinding corn. Hike the Grand Portage itself.



And then take the few bucks you would have spent on entry and drop them into the donation box. It's all for a good cause.

The best things in life sometimes really are free.

4 really good reasons to hike the Grand Portage trail

#1
It's a really well-maintained trail through lovely boreal and subboreal forest.



#2
It's part of the National Park Service, and after watching 10 hours of the Ken Burns documentary, you gotta get to a park now.



#3
You have a daughter named Charlotte, and she says you gotta hike to her own Fort, 17 miles notwithstanding.



#4
You can not pass up the chance to see a 3D map of the route AND look like Roy Orbison at the same time.

Seriously, it's a nice trail and will only get nicer this fall as the leaves come off the trees and the views open up of the surrounding terrain. The new Heritage Center is really cool and very informative.

North Woods death march

Noah and I went to Washington DC this last week and had a great time walking to the monuments, the White House, and a few museums. When Noah announced on Day Two that he didn't like walking and he didn't like museums, it was time for a new plan. On Sunday we rented a car and drove north out of town.

We crossed over some relic Appalachian mountains and through a 18th century village founded by Daniel Boone's cousins (sure sign that we were headed for the wilderness). We even crossed the Appalachian Trail. But I didn't realize how far north we'd gone until I saw this sign:



The amateur forest ecologist in me got snarky. Apparently the North Woods of white pine and northern hardwoods had petered out exactly right here. Apparently, decades of debate among forest ecologists, about ecotones and isotherms had been settled. A National Park Service interpretive sign marked the spot.

In fact, this was at the Antietam battlefield, site of "the bloodiest day" of the Civil War. Just back of this sign is the Corn Field, where about 1000 each of Union and Confederate soldiers died in a massive face-off.

Here's a painting of the battle, from Captain James Hope of the 2nd Vermont Infantry. The soldiers in the front left are Confederate artillery. The "North Woods" are in the back left. The lines on the right are Union soldiers marching to their death.



The symmetry was nice...they marched to their death to protect Washington DC, and I nearly marched Noah to death in Washington DC. Only they were patriotic and I was just trying to be a good father.