It can’t be a federal land grab when the federal government is grabbing its own land…just sayin’!
At Bears Ears in Utah, Heated Politics and Precious Ruins : Was it the drying, warming climate that pushed the ancient farmers off their fertile mesas to live within the canyons, or was it a defensive maneuver to meet the threat of raids and other violent conflict? And the more typical question: Where did they go when they departed? For some visitors, those are diverting, and safely distant, concerns. Others may find societal distress and a changing climate rather more immediate. As for me, I’m a little at odds. I may travel to escape, say, political news, for a time: the therapy of forgetting. But in that case, Bears Ears would be a curious choice just now.
In Gold Butte in Nevada, Ancient Rock Art and Rugged Beauty : It was 105 degrees, and I was in the Mojave Desert looking for ancient images of goat-like creatures. I scanned the rock formations with my binoculars and then scrambled over some boulders and descended into a wash that was once a river. I guessed that only a handful of people in the world even know about the goats — they are that obscure. In the wash, I noticed the fine gravel was disturbed by a large animal. There were no droppings of wild burros, so that ruled them out. The only other large animals would be bighorn sheep, mountain lions or mule deer, but they would not compress the gravel in such an irregular pattern.
At Berryessa National Monument, Wildflowers and Rebirth : Here, an hour and a half northeast of San Francisco, the dense press of civilization lifts, and the open wilderness weaves itself into the landscape. The light is somehow ventilated, given more space. I watched a cloud bank slowly roll over a cliff, rearranging itself like a gauzy muslin scarf. In the six o’clock glow of the last days of May, I entered the southern boundary of Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument, one of our country’s newest national monuments. The knobby fullness of the surrounding hills resembles rising bread. Named for the craggy 7,056-foot peak at its northern end, the monument runs along a ridgeline that stretches south through seven counties to Blue Ridge, where I would start my hike. One writer called Berryessa’s outline a long, lumpy Christmas stocking. This is the toe, and I’m dipping in.
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