Zion

The Virgin River

My last little trip of October was a quick jaunt down to Zion National park before the weather turned cold. My weather luck continued to hold and while the evenings were cold, the days were sunny and dry. Zion is just about my favorite place in Utah. I love the narrow slot canyons and dramatic views afforded in the main Canyon. The eastern portion of the park is equally (albeit quite different) beautiful as well. I spent the first full day in the park doing what is perhaps the "signature" experience - a hike/wade up The Narrows. This is the slot the Virgin River flows through the park before it enters the main canyon itself. A short trail dead ends at the river and if you want to continue, you step in and begin slogging upstream. The canyon quickly narrows and it is quite beautiful indeed. I spent the entire day working my way up and then eventually back down again. Every turn brings shifts in the light and a different perspective on water and it's adversarial relationship with rock. Absolutely beautiful.

Switchback trail to Hidden Canyon

The next day I spent doing several short hikes from various shuttle stops. I visited Hidden Canyon for the first time and went up to Observation Point, one of my favorite hikes in the park. The weather was perfect and the autumn colors were just about at their peak. This time of year I always get homesick for New England. Western fall foliage is so muted compared to their eastern cousins, but as I spend more and more time out here, my appreciation for the turn of the seasons has increased. Zion is certainly a great place to experience the slide into winter.

Kolob Canyon

My final day included a couple of short day hikes and then a quick trip up to Kolob Canyon in the northeast portion of the park. This was a part of the park I had never visited. It was quite beautiful although smaller than I had imagined from the park maps. The weather was beginning to turn, so I didn't spend as much time here as I had planned. There looks to be some interesting longer hikes that I'll have to explore some time in the future.

Green River

Vertical Slickrock

One of the first things I thought about when I learned that I was going to have the fall free this year was to do a trip down the Stillwater section of the Green River. This is a trip I had done twice before during Spring Breaks at school, but everyone I had ever spoken to described the Fall as the best time to paddle the river.

Another perfect campsite

Starting this past summer, I began recruiting folks who could take the time in October and I quickly had a group of six hardy souls ready to go. Predictably, two dropped out and we were four. Then another. And another. Soon we were down to a party of two, but Kim was game to carry on. Following some menu-planing and the requisite logistics, we were ready to put a canoe and my well-traveled kayak into the river. The Green is one of my favorite places to paddle and the reports of autumn paddling were dead on. What a fantastic place. We spent five days lazily traveling down the river, camping on sand bars and beautiful shore sites each night. Herons and Canyon Wrens greeted us as we drifted past the red rock cliffs. I got some fantastic pictures, only a couple I have space to post here. The weather was fantastic and we didn't see a lick of rain. A couple of nights were chilly, but the days were sunny and just a perfect temperature.

Face it, kayaks are more fun

With the river giving us a know or so of current, we didn't need to be on the water for more than five or six hours a day. This left plenty of time for lazy mornings, day hikes and an evening glass of wine or two. A very laid-back wilderness experience for sure. We visited the cool slot canyon of Anderson Bottom as well as hikes to ruins of both European settlers and Anasazi cliff dwellings.

Nice spot, eh?

We got pulled off the river and traveled up the Colorado via jet boat. It was then that we learned that the weather was supposed to turn with rain and even snow predicted for the following day. Talk about perfect timing! I have a long list of places I want to visit, but the Green is near the top of my "revisit" list for sure.

Wyoming Bound

Lake Coeur d'Alene

My ultimate destination on this leg of the trip is Yellowstone National Park. However there's a whole lot of Washington, a bit of Idaho and a bunch of Montana between here and there. Central Washington, dry and a bit dull in most cases was quite hazy with several active wildfires burning. It didn't impact my travels, but it was impressive to see all the smoke in the air. I pretty much got through Washington as quickly as possible and really didn't make any significant stop till Coeur d'Alene in Idaho. The huge beautiful lake and the continuing sunshine made for a great two-day paddle stop. This is a beautiful area and I'd love to come back and do some more paddling.

My well-traveled little boat

Continuing eastward, I rapidly passed through through the rest of Idaho and cut the corner of Montana on my way to the West Gate of Yellowstone. My good friends Craig and Karen from the Cape were here on vacation and I was looking forward to spending a couple of days with them before returning home. I was on a schedule now as I had promised to come in and sub for a day at Waterford. Yellowstone was amazing and I took lots of pictures. I had last visited the park some 15 or so years earlier on a winter ski trip so it was fun to see the place without snow on the ground. We did a couple of excellent day hikes and of course visited the prolific thermal features. After Iceland and Lassen, I felt like I was seeing the real stuff now. If I had been able to spend a couple more days I probably would have paid the eight dollars to get a permit to put my boat into the lake. Yellowstone is an incredible place, I hope it doesn't blow up soon...

The visit was too short and all too soon I was driving past the beautiful Tetons and heading back to SLC. Best September ever.

The Olympics!

Northern Washington coastline

I used to go to Vancouver Island all the time. One of the schools I was responsible for when I worked for The School for Field Studies was located on the west coast, and I would travel through Victoria and Nanaimo all the time. Many times I would look across the Juan de Fuca Straight at the beautiful Olympic range and it has been long on my list of places to visit. Departing Portland, I did just that.

There's a tree in there somewhere

Traveling clockwise, I traveled along the beautiful coastline, stopping for lunch in the scenic town of Forks. All you Twilight fans out there know this town well. You can go on Twilight tours and dance in the Twilight Club, neither of which I elected to do. Instead, I continued northward and found a place to camp outside the National Park. The next day I went into the Hoh Forest and spent some time hiking. What an amazing place. Huge old growth trees with mosses and lichens everywhere. Ten minutes down the trail and the bright sunshine had become softly muted and my footfalls cushioned by soft loam. The silence was nearly complete.

The Olympic Range

After spending a couple of days on the west side, I traveled around to the northern edge and visited the Hurricane Ridge area of the park. With so many options in the park, I might have missed this gem. My good friend Ellie recommended it to me and boy was I glad to see this place. The weather had remained clear, although there was a strong haze in the air from wildfires in Central Washington. This incredibly rainy part of the world continued sunny and beautiful. I spent a lot more time above tree line than I expected on this paddling trip. The waters I had come here to see - the Strait of Juan de Fuca was completely shrouded in fog below me although I could see the shorter peaks of Vancouver Island sticking out of the fog. Truly beautiful. I did several hikes over the next couple of days, staying at the campground at the base of Hurricane Ridge - one of the few places I had stayed more than one night in a row. Along with the beautiful sights, I also got a short look at an Olympic Marmot, an endangered species endemic to the area. I wasn't able to take the time to get into the backcountry in any sort of significant way, but I now have something new on my ever-expanding list of things I want to do and see.

After over two weeks of sunshine, the weather finally "broke" and a small cold front moved in giving me a couple of days of cloudy weather. Ironically, this meant that while there was no sunshine, the fog lifted and a got a couple of great paddling days on the north coast. I found a couple of embayments that were well protected although one had a strong tidal current that was fun to play in. After only one short paddle in Oregon, it was nice to get out and play with the boat. The water was clear and cold, giving me great views of kelp and sea stars. I'd love to spend some time diving up here, with the correct cold-water gear of course.

Soon enough it was time to head out to Bainbridge Island for a short visit with my friends Ellie and Dave. I got to meet their two beautiful daughters and take a short walk with Ellie. She and I hadn't seen each other in far too long and it was fun to catch up. The next day was a quick ferry ride across the bay to Seattle, an unnerving drive through the city and off across the state. More to follow...

Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest

If you’ve been reading this thing, you know that I had a pretty full summer. That was all accomplished in the time I would have had off from school in a regular year. I was now presented with an entire autumn – something I never expected to see until I retired. Not wanting to waste such an amazing opportunity, I put together a plan to travel to the Pacific Northwest with my kayak. This is a trip I have been dreaming of for a long time and this was the perfect opportunity to strike.

In early September I put the (relatively) new kayak on the roof and headed westward. I had never traveled on I-80 further than the depressing town of Wendover for a poker tournament and it was all new desert as I crossed Nevada. I overnighted in Reno at my friend Bob’s and even got a small amount of poker in. I then continued west and crossed into the Golden State.

Lava flow remnants

Looking at my atlas, I noticed a big green spot between me and the ocean. In northeastern California lies “Lassan Volcanic National Park”, a place I had frankly never heard of. It turns out to be the most beautiful place I had never heard of. If you haven’t been there, put it on your list. Huge volcanic peaks, little cinder cones, thermal features and thick forest litter the park. I spent two days there and enjoyed some amazing hiking throughout the park. The weather was amazing and it was a nice break after two days of driving across the deserts of Nevada.

Coastal Oregon

Departing Lassen, I continued west towards the coast. I quickly crossed into Oregon and made my way up the coastal route. This is much slower than just taking the interstate, but the weather was so beautiful and I wanted to find a place to paddle. Herein lies an irony best appreciated I imagine with a degree in meteorology, with some oceanography thrown in for good measure. Sitting over the entire northwestern portion of North America was a huge high pressure system. The skies were clear, the sun warm and here in the rainiest part of the country was the most beautiful weather you could imagine. However, when warm air meets the cold gyre currents of the North Pacific you get, yes, coastal fog. It was 90 degrees and sunny two miles from the coast and when you got to the beach, it was 65 degrees and a hundred feet of visibility. Beautiful in its own way, but not ideal paddling weather for a solo paddler who doesn’t know the area. So I changed my plans a bit and did a bit of beach combing and hiking in various state parks along the coast. My plan was to get up to Puget Sound and hopefully find some more clear conditions there.

The beautiful coastline on a precious break in the fog

Not every moment was foggy, but between the bold nature of the western coastline and the ample opportunity to play on foot, I kept the boat on the roof of the truck. The seascape in this part of the world is absolutely beautiful and so different from the coves and embayments of New England. I had no problem finding ways to play outside. I particularly enjoyed the beautiful dunes of the northern Oregon coastline. And yes, I did manage to pick up a new beach sand for the collection.  

I made a brief trip inland to visit Reed college and a recent AP Biology alum Jonas. He gave me a great tour of the campus, quite the beautiful place. I've lived in apartments smaller than his dorm room! I then continued northward to Olympic National Park. More to follow....

Departing Iceland

Departing Iceland

It was pointed out to me by several friends, that I ended my entries short of our departure from Iceland. Sorry about that - the end of a trip like this can be a bit hectic and I forgot all about the two or three people who were following along....

Our final full day on Iceland was spent with a visit to a tourist attraction called Blue Lagoon. This is the site of the Island's largest Thermoelectric plant which provides electricity to the much of the

The thermal pools outside of the Blue Lagoon Resort

Southwest portion of the island. The waste water from the plant is passed through a series of open air pools, which have been converted to an outdoor spa. As one guide book described it: this is the worlds largest industrial waste recreational area. It is a pretty bizarre place, with waste-deep aqua blue water filled to the brim with tourists of all shapes and sizes. There were WAY too many European men in speedos. It was a rainy day, which lent a bit of a surreal feeling to the entire experience. Later that day, Jen and I wandered around the city picking up a few souvenirs and gifts and saying goodbye to this amazing place. We got to visit the city's giant flea market and I even met a couple from Kenya selling wooden figurines that I had seen in the Nairobi airport a mere two weeks previous. The woman looked a bit surprised when I greeted her in Swahili.

That evening we spent watching the closing ceremonies at the Olympics. It was interesting to see the entire three-hour event without a commercial. It's a different culture there to say the least. The next morning we walked with all our luggage to the bus station and made our way back to Boston. The trip was uneventful, which is the way I like air travel.

The following couple of weeks were spent touring through New England visiting with some old friends that I don't get to see nearly often enough. I then traveled down to Arkansas and spent a couple of weeks with the family.

I am now touring through the Pacific Northwest. I'll try to put a summary of how that's been going sometime soon....

South Again

Wednesday August 8th. Morning broke cold and rainy. We rose early and made the sometimes hairy drive along rough dirt roads to an amazing  waterfall called Dynjandi. Even with the rain coming down, walking up to this massive curtain of falling water was simply amazing. There are no guard rails or signs warning you away, you can simply experience the thing. Very different from a similar natural area in the States.

The past couple of days had taught us that the roads in the West Fjords region were a great deal slower than we had anticipated. This was especially true in the rain. Jen and I decided to forgo our plan of circumnavigating the entire peninsula and instead heading down to the passenger ferry in the town of Brjanslaekur which would bring us to Stykkisholmur. No, I'm not making these names up! This would turn a seven or eight hour drive into a three-hour boat ride where we could relax a bit. Definitely worth it. The ferry ride was a bit bumpy but uneventful.

On our drive south we were treated to the brightest rainbow I've ever seen. It stayed with us for a good twenty minutes. It was absolutely stunning. If you looked close you could actually discern the green-blue-purple transitions with shades in between. Stunning.

We treated the rest of the day as a travel day to set us up for some things we wanted to do in the Central-South Iceland region. It was a long drive but we made the town of Vik (yes, that's it just "Vik") in the early evening. We had rain the entire way and we decided to get a hotel or hostel room for the night. Ah the best laid plans... There was not a room to be had in Vik. In fact one hotel woman said that they had been calling around for overbooked guests and there was not a room to be had in a 100 km radius of the town. Thank goodness I brought my tent. We found a camping area and settled in for the night. We had rain all night, sometimes coming down in great quantity, but my tent passed the deluge test and we made it through the night relatively dry.

Thursday August 9th. We arose and treated ourselves to a hotel breakfast and then headed off to the black sand beach. Yes, another beach for my collection. This one is dark black volcanic sand. I have another cool black sand beach in Bequia in my collection, but this one is even darker. We hit another beach site but the wind and rain made it difficult to spend much time appreciating the place. While I know there is no such thing as bad weather, just different kinds of good weather, this good weather was pretty cold and damp. We worked our way along the southern coastline and found yet another very cool waterfall called Seljalandsfoss which falls straight down 60 meters to crash and send spray whipping in the wind half way back up again. The raw power of this place is sometimes overwhelming.

After a couple of false starts, we eventually found the road up to one of the local glaciers. There are glaciers all over this part of the island, but they generally require four wheel drive to get to. The road we took up probably required a 4x4 as well, but our little trooper of a car made it up to the top. The mountain spirits gifted us with a lift in the rain and the cloud deck even rose a bit. This afforded us a chance to hike up to the glacier and even climb a bit on its leading edge. This mass of ice was as big as some of the ones I saw last summer in Alaska and there was no way were going to hike very much on the ice itself. We had neither the gear nor the expertise to do that sort of thing, but it was great to see the huge, beautiful glacial valley and enjoy this awesome natural phenomena. It's not looking like we're going to have too many of these ice sheets in our near future, so I feel privileged to have witnessed them in three different parts of the world (Alaska, New Zealand and now here).

Friday August 10th. We found a great little guest lodge west of Vik. When I say "we" I of course mean the excellent internet surfing skills of my travel partner Jen. She has been our accommodation wizard and I'm sure if I were here alone, I'd be sleeping in the tent a great deal more!

After a phenomenal Continental breakfast (they do a REAL European Continental breakfast here in Iceland) we headed back out. Today was our day to be tourists and we visited the three major stops on the "Golden Circle". First was Pingvellir National Park, the site where you can view the rift valley. This is the spot where the Mid-Atlantic ridge can be seen separating the North Atlantic plate from the European plate. For a science geek such as myself, this was a cool place to experience. The area was quite beautiful and again the rain paused long enough for us to get to see it. We spent about an hour walking around the rift and I really enjoyed seeing the unique rock formations.

Stop number two was at Geysir - the original thermal feature for which the English word "Geyser" comes from. It was here that I first really felt like a tourist. Geysir has a huge Visitors Center which is really just a giant gift shop. There were people everywhere and a constant stream of busses came in and out of the huge parking lot. We stood around the thermal pools with nearly a hundred people to see the bubbling water and one geyser shoot off. Frankly, Yellowstone is much more impressive and Rotorua in New Zealand much more so. Time to move on.

Our last stop of the day was also filled with huge crowds. However, this was a sight to behold. It was another waterfall, and the granddaddy of them all, Gullfoss. I don't have the words to describe how magnificent this huge mass of water is. There is so much water falling into the gorge below the lower falls that you cannot see the bottom for all the spray. I could feel the power of the water as a bass rumble against my chest. Amazing. Again you can get very close to this huge water feature without much in the way of safety. I suspect that if you tried to sue Iceland for hurting yourself for doing something stupid, you would be laughed at.

Tomorrow we are back in Reykjavik and Monday we leave for Boston. This has been an amazing, amazing vacation. 

West Fjords

Tuesday, August 7th: Today found us in the north western part of Iceland. This is an area called the "West Fjords"  and is among the most wild and remote parts of the island you can reach with a regular (non 4x4) automobile. Our little car has been a trooper. It is smaller than the my first car, a 1973 Ford Pinto, but charges up rutted dirt roads and zips along these narrow highways. Jen and I have the thing packed full with camping gear, shoes and assorted gear. Bags full of crackers, cheese and other sundries that can survive a lack of refrigeration complete our little mess in the back.

The going is slow, but the sights are amazing. Each bend in the road brings a new vista of sea and volcanic cliff. This place is just one amazing view after the other. The clouds have moved in but the rain has held off so far although the remainder of our week looks bleak. 

We didn't make it as far as we thought we would and evening brings us to the town of Patreksfjordur. That actually isn't the proper spelling, however this computer doesn't have the font for the two letters (the "o" and the "d") that don't occur in the English Language. It's a quaint little town nestled in a deep fjord on the west side of the peninsula and we find a little rooming house for the night. Since it will still be light for hours, we drove over to a special little beach at the end of a long, very sketchy road about 30K from town. The beach is called Raudasandur (again not the exact spelling). It's claim to "fame" other than being a truly spectacular place, is that the sand here is bright red/orange. The color comes apparently from a specific type of volcanic rock in the region. We parked next to an amazing little church sitting all by itself just above the high tide mark. The tide was low and in the misty rain we passed several intertidal sheep and trekked the kilometer or so to the water's edge.

The sand was an amazing red color and I duly collected some for my collection. Many who know me know that a hobby of mine is collecting sand from beaches I've visited in my travels. Between grad school, SEA, SFS and other assorted opportunities, I have a lot of sand. This one is going to stand out in the collection.

On the beach was a dead Minke whale. It looked to have been there no more than a week or so as it was pretty much unmolested and intact. Sad to see, but it was fascinating to get so close to such an amazing animal. Walking back to the car we met a German couple camping near the church with their car. They were on a month-long vacation and we discussed the merits of the American versus European vacation plan. Hard to argue our side of the difference! 

Grimsey

Monday, August 6th: Morning dawned early as always and I was up by 6:00. There was a bit of a wrinkle to my plans for the early morning however. I learned (the hard way unfortunately) that "white spirits" in Iceland, is not the same as "white gas" in the States. It is in fact turpentine and not very suitable for my camping stove. No coffee this morning. Sad.

We broke our little camp, decidedly uncaffeinated, and drove from the backyard of the school to the reason for our trip to Davick: the ferry to Grimsey Island. Grimsey is a small island north of Iceland, known for two things, fishing and the geographical oddity of spanning the Arctic Circle.

Now, for my non-nautical, non geo-geek friends, the Arctic Circle is not just a Utah fast food chain. It is the imaginary circle around the pole where on the Summer Solstice the sun just touches the horizon but never sets. 24 hours of daylight. This line is "imaginary" like the equator and its sister the Antarctic Circle, but it is cool landmark nonetheless. I had never been that far north and was excited to get there. 

The ferry was fairly small, able to transport three or four cars and maybe 75 passengers. This trip had one small pickup truck and perhaps 40 folks, mostly tourists like ourselves, intent on seeing the island. The weather was windy, the seas quite calm for such a high latitude and the skies were amazingly clear. The passage took about three hours and we even saw a humpback and Jen reported Orca, but I missed seeing them. Soon enough we were landing at the small pier which was the lifeline for the 80 or so people who live on the island.

There's not much to do on Grimsey but walk, and that's what we did. We passed the three-hole golf course, took a picture of the signpost that listed distances to remote places like Sydney and New York and headed north toward the sea cliffs. Our crossing of the Arctic Circle was uneventful. There's no marker or sign and I marveled at the fact that I was in the real, Gods-honest Arctic walking around in my shirt sleeves. There are many the dead Viking and long-gone polar explorer who are quite annoyed with how easily I just strolled into territory they had to spend a life's effort to explore. What a world.

As we got further north on the island, we encountered high sea cliffs with huge numbers of Puffins nesting on the cliff face. I've seen these birds before in Maine and Nova Scotia but usually only glancingly as they flutter by at sea fishing. They are awkward fliers but graceful swimmers, gifted by evolution for some reason with the brightly-striped beak of a parrot. The beak is good for fishing, but very funny looking on a sea bird. These guys were everywhere, sitting in large groups on the sea cliffs and weaving by as we sat on the grass watching them. Amazing to get so close to such a beautiful animal.

We only had three hours or so on Grimsey until we had to reboard the ferry and head back. The trip was totally worth it. Six hours on the boat enjoying the Iceland coastline and three beautiful hours on the island made for a wonderful day. Returning to our car, we headed out of town.

We had about a two-hour ride along the north coast heading back to the west. It was a beautiful coastline and we stopped several times for pictures. Jen is actually very patient as I constantly request a "quick stop" to photograph this or that piece of stunning scenery. If one out of twenty of my photos come out at all, I'm going to have a great collection to show from our trip. 

The only other event of note was the series of tunnels we passed through on our way out of town. The Icelanders, faced with huge fjord cliffs have chosen to drill directly through the volcanic rock to get from valley to valley. Jen was driving and I'm not sure which one of us was more unnerved by the new game of "Icelandic Chicken" we were learning. These tunnels were one single lane with traffic going both directions! Every so often there would be a small indentation where you could pull the car over if a car was coming the other way. It definitely leant a degree of tension to the drive. We made it through unscathed however and got to Skagafjordur where we found a boarding school that acts as a hostel during the summer. We got a cheap room in the mostly-empty place and crashed for the night. 

Heading North

Sunday, August 5th: 

Sad day, today we had to give up our Ikea catalog apartment and pack up to leave. We had a quick breakfast, packed and then walked down to the bus station. The car wasn't much bigger than a Volkswagen Bug, but it was a hatchback, so for two of us, it worked out perfect. Two backpacks and plenty of room to pull stuff out as needed. A quick stop at the grocery store and we were on Iceland Route one on our way north.  

The drive was stunning and relatively uneventful. Traffic is incredibly light in the north part of Iceland. There were half hour periods where we didn't see more than two or three cars going the other way. The views were stunning and the weather perfect - blue skies and mild temperatures. By late afternoon, we found ourselves in the town of Akureyri on the central portion of the north coast. Iceland is not a big place.  

We had a great fish and chips meal at a little hole in the wall and then spent an hour or so in the town walking around and enjoying the waterfront. The city sits at the head of a beautiful fjord and as the sun sank lower, the long shadows spread a wonderful light on the large central church and small shops on the main street. As the sun continued to drop lower on the horizon we headed north to Davick, our destination for the night. 

Davick is a tiny little town sitting in an absolutely gorgeous fjord. By the time we got there (around 9:45) the town had pretty much closed its doors and rolled up the sidewalks. We followed the signs to the local free camping area, which as it turned out was the football pitch for the local school. We set up the tent and hit the hay. Tomorrow we had a boat to catch.

Reykjavik

Aug 5: Jen and I have been having a blast in Reykjavik. We spent our second day walking all over the city. According to her pedometer we covered 14 miles and that doesn't count a ferry trip out to a local island and then back along the waterfront. The city has a remarkable amount of open space and I'm continually struck by the large amount of residential space right in the city. Three blocks from the shopping/tourist district and you see small single-family homes each with their own neatly-kept yards. Many of the buildings are built out of concrete, which I imagine is a cheap building material for a nation that has to import nearly everything. Many buildings are unpainted, but a lot are painted in bright primary colors which reminds me of Nova Scotian towns like Lunenberg. 

Yesterday we took our first foray out of the city and went sea kayaking in a fjord north of the city. It was one of the few "packaged" tours that we plan to take, as getting our own boats here would not have been possible. The guides (one Icelandic, one British) were great and we had a too-short paddle down a magnificent landscape that was once home to British and American naval vessels. Across the bay was a whaling station that is still occasionally used. Iceland is still a whaling nation, much to the consternation of those who want to halt all whaling. We saw an anti-whaling group gathering petitions at the dock where the tourist boats come in to town. 

Last night we went into town, walking into the bright sunlight of 9:30 p.m. We walked around a bit and found a pub with live music and had a pint. Beer like everything else is expensive here but it was pleasant to sit and listen to the music and watch the local scene. Later we walked out into the twilight and strolled down along the waterfront. We didn't get home till nearly 1:00 a.m. but it was never fully dark. The entire western sky remained lit with a soft light making it difficult to see even bright stars. Jen and I tried to pierce together a couple of constellations and we figured out where the North Star was. Here at 65 degrees north, it is quite high in the sky!

This morning we are picking up a car and heading north. Accommodations will likely be a combination of camping and small hostels, so I don't know how often we'll have internet. 

Iceland

I had a great day with my friend Karen in Massachusetts. We had a great breakfast and I enjoyed listening to that great accent. After generously picking me up, putting me up and dropping me off - I met Jen at the airport for yet another long airplane ride.

While Delta is not nearly as cush as British Airways, the flights were uneventful and we landed in Reykjavik to a brilliant blue-sky, crisp morning. As we glided across smoothly paved highway on our way into town. On one side of the bus was the blue Atlantic, on the other flat volcanic plain, strewn with chunks of rock. It was remarkably reminiscent of the plains of Amboseli National Park - without the herds of zebra of course.

Our veranda looking north

We are staying in an awesome little fourth floor flat a short 15 minute walk to the center of town. We face south west and our landlord pointed out a distant glacier across the water of the Bay south of the city. Magnificent. After quickly checking out the place, we promptly walked into town. We strolled along the waterfront enjoying the mixture of utilitarian cement and stone building mixed with very modern glass and steel buildings. The town is tiny, considering that it is a national capital. We plan to be here a couple more days and then we will rent a car and circumnavigate the island. I don't know how often we'll have internet access, but hopefully I can post an update.

35 Hour Monday

Our departure from Kenya was uneventful. The four-hour drive from the Center got us to the airport at 3:00 for our 11:15 p.m. departure. This early drop-off was necessary as it isn't safe to drive after dark due to crazy drivers and a lack of headlights on many vehicles. What this meant was a long, relatively boring wait to check in and eventually board the plane. I amused myself by browsing in the many duty free shops and taking thirty or so dollars off of Jim in Chinese Poker. 

Our trip to California entailed leaving Nairobi just before midnight Monday morning, traveling 8.5 hours to London, a 9 hour layover there, and then 11.5 hours to San Diego, landing at 6:00 the same day. Monday just wouldn't end! The plane rides wouldn't end and in fact I am typing this in the air a mere 19 hours later as I make my way back eastward - heading to Boston. 

The flights were uneventful and the only reason I'm describing this portion of our "adventure" is to mention our London visit. With the prospect of sitting for nine hours between two long plane flights, Jim and I decided to take the tube into London and walk around. We got into Picadilly Circus around 8:00 and enjoyed our first real cup of coffee in two weeks. Kenya, a world-class coffee producer exports its crop to the world, leaving its citizens to drink instant.

We had arrived in London on day 3 of the Olympics and while we had no time (or budget!) to attend any of the events, we did get a nice flavor of the city and the excitement of the games. There were Olympic banners everywhere with road closures and bike parking areas seeking to channel the flow of attendees to the various events. We walked past several venues as well as several landmarks like Buckingham Palace. The day before, I had watched a portion of the cycling event on a small television in the staff area of Amboseli National Park in Kenya. Now I was crossing the course on my way to Paddington Station. What a world. 

In Paddington Jim and I enjoyed a 10 a.m. pint. It was far later than 10 a.m. on my personal clock and in fact I couldn't wait to have a second pint with my fish and chips which we proceeded to do. The Brits can certianly do beer! It would have been nice to see an event or two, but frankly I can't see myself paying several hundred pounds on a ticket! I'm not surprised to see all the empty seats on the TV in the pub. 

The remainder of the trip went well and it was nice to be welcomed by Michel at the San Diego airport following our second long flight. I am now heading toward Boston to again cross the "pond" for two weeks in Iceland. I'm looking forward to this trip to be sure, but I'm pretty tired of airplanes! I land at Logan at 11:40 p.m. to complete a short Tuesday to partially balance the Monday that would not end. 

Wildlife Census

Three times a year Amboseli National Park and the Kenya Wildlife service conducts a census of the wildlife of the National Park. This is a pretty large effort involving thirty or so people and eight vehicles. The census is coordinated by Dr. Shem here at the SFS Center and we were fortunate enough to have it fall exactly on our last day in Kenya.

Dr. Shem invited Jim and myself to participate in the census and we of course jumped at the opportunity. Rising bright and early we headed out to the park with several of the Center's staff. Following a brief orientation, we were each assigned a specific region of the park and we set out to do the census. I was in a car with two KWS staff, a Kenyan student in her third year of University studying tourism, and SFS intern Jenna. We were in Sector 3, which included a huge track of swampy area where many animals come to drink. It was pretty clear that we were going to have a busy day. We would drive for a hundred meters or so and then stop, scanning the area for any and ALL individuals we could see. By all, I mean all. We counted 187 Wildebeest in one herd, several of which of course were lying in the grass making them difficult to see. We had to divide animals into male/female and juvenile and sub-adult. In addition we were looking for several species of birds and elephant remains - which we found on several occasions.

What an amazing, exhusting experience. I saw several species I'd never seen before including Water Buck and Jackals. The census activity allowed us to drive the landrover off-road in order to get close to the high grass of the marsh. Vehicles are not allowed off-road in the park, so this was a unique experience and we spent several hours bouncing across some pretty inhospitable terrain. I kept waiting for a lion to stick its head out of the tall weeds, but we didn't see any predators on this trip. We did see lots and lots of elephants- including a randy one who's amorous advances were decidedly unwelcome by the much smaller female he was pursuing. Not to get too graphic here, but an elephant penis when deployed with intent is larger than you might imagine - we're talking "does that animal have five legs?" large. The entire event inspired a bit of comic relief from the endless counting.

After about six or seven hours in the field, we returned to the National Park headquarters for a meal. We were served in true Kenya style - boiled meat of some unidentified origin, boiled kale and ugali. Ugali is a staple of Kenya. It is made by taking finely ground corn meal and mixing it with water and then baking the plaster-of-paris thick paste. The result is a white block of material with the consistancy of bread dough. The meal is served without fork or spoon - instead you break off a piece of ugali, make a depression with your thumb and scoop it into the meat and vegitables. It's pretty messy and I'm not certain Miss Manners would approve.

We got back to the Center in the early evening and got the opportunity to head out for a couple of Tuskers (beers) for our last night in Kenya. The Center staff have been wonderful and welcoming and I am truly sorry to be leaving. This morning we saw the students off on their safari day and there were hugs all around. It's a nice group and we've felt very welcome in their community. We leave for the airport this morning and it's going to be a long couple of days travel till we get to San Diego. Jim and I have a nine-hour layover in London so we may go into the city to see the Olympic craziness. 

Oloitokitok

July 27. There hasn't been much going on the last couplee of days. On Wednesday Jim and I took the students from the Center down to the "local" spring to take our final samples. This spring is within walking distance from the Center and we had a bit of a parade as we took 15 people to do the job of two. Those samples were the last of our field work here as we have literally run out of deionized water and several of the chemicals needed to do our work. We've been more productive than I ever imagined we would be.

Thursday was spent with light cleaning of the lab and the beginning of the process of sorting and packing our gear for heading back to the U.S. Thursday evening Jim and I gave a short presentation of our data with a view of explaining to the students what we had been doing over the last week and a half. The presentation went well with several excellent questions from students and staff. The Kenyan staff in particular seem to really appreciate the work we have been doing. I really hope that we will be able to turn this into a long-term project in years to come.

Today, with very little to do other than wait for our bacterial plates to "cook", we took off to the border town of Oloitokitok. This used to be a two-hour trip back when I was working for SFS in 2000, but now it's barely a half hour drive along a nicely paved road. This place has really changed over the past decade. Our expedition included Jim and myself as well as the Student Affairs Manager, Tara and our intrepid driver Moses.

We drove to the outskirts of town and took an amazing hike down into a river valley to a gorgeous waterfall. We didn't see any wildlife other than some safari ants which we carefully avoided. I learned my lesson with those buggers on out first day in the field. They are tenacious and have a very nasty bite. We spent a few minutes at the waterfall and then an hour or so rock hopping our way downstream. We did a bit of mild bouldering and generally just enjoyed the peaceful little stream. It felt wierd to be walking along a stream bed without taking a sample or making a measurement. It was also nice to spend some time around clear water!

We returned to our starting point and headed back into town for a nice lunch. Service was a bit slow, but the food was excellent and it was nice to chill a bit after such a busy schedule we've been maintaining. Following lunch we drove up to an HIV support center where local women have set up a small craft store to help support their efforts of improving the life of folks with AIDS. Treatments have gotten better, but HIV is still a huge problem in Africa.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Kenya and we have had the wonderful opportunity to join the Wildlife Management faculty here at the Center in a wildlife game count in Amboseli National Park. Yes, we're getting another trip to the park! I am quite excited. More on that later....

Market Day

July 23: We departed right after breakfast, as has become our pattern. Today was spring day - we visited four different springs that provide water to local communities. Water here is funny. The landscape is dry - southern Utah dry, but every so often water bubbles out of the ground, having traveled many miles from the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. You don't see the little oasis until you are right on it. We never could find these things without our local "ambassador" Sipaya. The work went well and we got four stations in while seeing a great deal of landscape the safari-going tourists will never dream of.

July 24: Just two days of sampling left. We hit two more springs this morning and then went into the town of Kimana as Tuesday is Market Day. The place was packed with locals selling to each other. This is not a tourist event but a real, honest-to-god local market. We were the only white faces we saw the entire day, and not a few folks turned to look at the three muzungus (foreigners) walking between the stalls. You name it and it was for sale. All sorts of vegetables, housewares, shoes/clothing and lots and lots of Maasai fabric and beads. It was a cacophony of sights, sounds and smells. I loved it. It's fun to see the mix of people dressed in western clothing walking among men and women dressed in the traditional red and purple robes of the Maasai.

We also took the time to go to the local livestock auction. Groups of Maasai men stood around with cattle offered for sale. In this part of the world the cow is king. Buying, selling and breeding cattle is a way of life. There was a whole fenced off section, devoted to goats and in one corner of the property cloth, beads and swords were for sale. Yes, I said "swords". Maasai men carry what is the equivelent of a 12th century short sword to kill snakes and defend themselves against predators as they move their cattle from place to place. Life is a bit different when you aren't at the top of the food chain...

Our work is almost done. We have pretty much run out of deionized water and some of the chemicals we brought from the U.S. Jim and I have both been surprised how much sampling we've managed to do over a very short amount of time. Our time in Mexico has served us well.

A Walk in the Park

July 22: Saturday was a lab day and Jim and I stayed on site and got caught up with sample processing. We did get to go out that evening into Kimana and drink a couple of Tuskers and shoot pool on a scale model pool table. The balls were about 2/3 the size of standard pool balls, which did nothing for my not-so-great pool game. Good fun though.

Today (Sunday) was our only scheduled day "off". This is not a complaint - this trip has been a lot of fun, tramping around the backcountry looking for water. However today we scheduled a trip to Amboseli National Park which is less than an hours drive from the Center. We got up early to take advantage of the animal's activity in the morning and headed out.

We hadn't even gotten to the park's gate when we encountered a female cheetah with two kittens. Cheetahs are rarely seen so it was pretty amazing to encounter one, even for the brief look that we got.

Entering the park, we had a brief meeting with one of the Park Scientists and arranged for them to take some water samples for us. We'll hopefully get them later next week to run before we depart on Sunday. Following that meeting, we headed out into the park. What a fantastic experience. We saw loads of elephants, wildebeest, Grant's and Thompson's gazelle, zebra, warthog, secretary birds and water buffalo. The wildlife was amazing and there was something to look at around every corner.

Lunchtime brought us to one of the lodges in the park where we had a 5 star buffet and then hung around on an amazing veranda looking out at the savannah. We stayed there for three hours or so as the animals are very inactive in the noon-time heat. It was very peaceful and I really enjoyed the downtime from running around in the field and running samples until well into our evenings. We left the hotel around 3:30 with the plan to drive around a bit more before heading back to the Center.

The only thing we hadn't seen on our safari was lions. During the morning, we had gone into plenty of the palmetto habitat that they tend to frequent, but other than seeing some prints along the side of the road, there were no Simba to be seen - we had pretty much lost hope. One last pass through some of the territory we had covered in the morning brought us some success though. We found a male lion with a female and a couple of cubs sleeping in the shade of a palmetto patch. The males usually group with more than one female and indeed after a bit of watching we saw two more females away from the group of four. We watched them for the better part of an hour, but they didn't do much more than ocassionally raise their heads or roll over. Still, it was amazing to see them there about 40 feet from the side of the road. I swear the male's head was gigantic and his paws were the size of dinner plates. Amazing to watch. It was a very good day.

End of the Line

July 20: Our plan had been going well. Each day we have been getting further down the river. We figured that two more days and we would have the whole transect finished. It was going well, perhaps too well....

We departed the Center directly after breakfast, just like the previous three days. The plan was to head downstream from where we had left off the previous day. However, soon after leaving the main road, we encountered the first of the day's snafus. A large irrigation ditch which ran across the road was full of running water. It was unusual to see so much running water out of the river, which was interesting. It was also problematic as we needed to get across. Our vehicle is an 11 passenger Land Rover, the work horse of Kenya, and our intrepid driver Sapaya gunned the engine and started across. Half way we heard (and felt) the undercarrage land firmly on a large rock. This entailed us piling out of the vehicle while local appeared out of the bush to help us dig the rock out and work the vehicle across the ditch. The entire process took about a half hour and really demonstrated the challenges of traveling in the Kenya backcountry.

Ten minutes later saw us again stuck in an irrigation canal, and again pushing the vehicle out of the mud. I was surprised to see all the water flowing in the canals, but we soon discovered the water's source...

When we arived at the river bank, there was no river to be seen. A thin muddy trickle remained from the flow we had seen a mere two kilometers upstream the day before. Every bit of water had beeen diverted to the irrigation canals we had crossed. Speaking to the Maasai who were gathered near our vehicle when we stopped, we discovered that since there was so little water, a committee had been organized to allow farmers along the river to divert the water, each in turn, to feed their fields. The group we spoke to were cutting brush in preperation for their turn to divert the water the following day. It is truly amazing how little water is keeping this community alive.

Instead of going back and dealing with the irrigation ditches, we drove across the empty river bank and drove upstream to where the diversion had been constructed. It was just below the station we had sampled the day previous. The farmers had build a dam out of brush and logs which diverted the flow into a large hand-dug canal flowing along tomato fields. The entire process looked extremely labor-intensive and there was not a tractor or backhoe to be seen. It is a back-breaking existance these folks live.

With this development, it was clear that the river portion of our project was over. The second leg of the work involves the sampling of boreholes (a kind of well) and natural springs. We spent the next three hours or so bouncing across parched landscape to sample two different boreholes. These are holes dug into the desert with pumps attached to supply water to folks who live too far to walk to the river. The first of these had a large T-handle pump to bring the water to the surface. The second, suprisingly had a small generator-powered pump which could be switched on to make the water flow into a trough for cattle to drink. In this part of the landscape, there are only cattle and goats - there's not nearly enough water to farm anything. It's only adjacent to the river where farming is at all possible.

We only managed to get stuck in dry ditches a couple of times on our way out of the bush. The entire adventure took us a bit longer than planned, but we made it back to the Center by mid-afternoon and Jim and I returned to our little lab set up off the main dining area. Saturday is going to be a "lab day" where we catch up on some of the chemical analysis that needs to be done. We plan to sample some of the water from the spring-fed stream that flows through the Center's property though. We thought it would be nice to give our hosts some "local data" on their own water.