Arches: A wilderness lost in crowds

Sunrise at the most famous arch of the world: Delicate Arch. 

Arches National Park: a cathedral of stone, a wilderness teeming with arches - more than anywhere else on Earth. Awe eclipsed by the press of crowds. Reservations are needed to enter, except if like me, you get in at 5 in the morning - geolocation. 

John Wesley Wolfe came here in 1898. A rugged man on unforgiving land. His cabin stands yet. For how long? Nobody knows. 

Wolfe Ranch or Turnbow Cabin.

Nearby, a wall etched with Native American art. Silent voices, ancient whispers recorded on the rocks.

Devil’s Garden. A hike to the fragile, yawning Landscape Arch. It's the longest in North America. Ephemeral, tenuous. A giant poised to vanish. The power of time and erosion. Destiny.   

Landscape Arch. 

Then a stop at the Balanced Rock. 3,000 tons adrift in the air. Not far off was Edward Abbey’s old trailer - read Desert Solitaire. 

Abbey, with his scorn for asphalt and motorized herds, dreamt here about dirt roads and untamed expanses. He was right and the National Park Service got it wrong. Disneyworld isn't wilderness. The heart of the wild belongs to those who tread lightly with their spirits weaving into land and dust. He wrote:

 

A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles.

American wilderness should remain wild. Let it breathe. Let it be.

Bear experts about bears

Polar bear killed by gunshots in 1891 - from the book of Josephine Diebitsch Peary, My Arctic journal: a year among ice-fields and Eskimos.

The web is full of anecdotal evidence and regurgitation of anecdotal evidence. Should we believe occasional tales or the serious scientific research when dealing with bears? Let's check what some experts say.

First defense against wild bears is knowledge according to Chuck Bartlebaugh - 30+ years taking photos and monitoring bears.  

Being well armed with knowledge is the greatest asset for safe travel in grizzly country. Being ignorant is dangerous.

He advises to carry bear spray.

Dr. Lynn Rogers - studied black, grizzlies, and polar bears for 48+ years -, bets on protecting food and controlling odors in the camp. He also favors bear spray for deterrence, quietness and stillness to observe bears and noise to avoid them. 

Dr. Lynn questions tales that he sees without evidence. This one is controversial - I'm not fan of running from bears.   

The thing I’ve always heard is "don’t run from a bear, it could trigger a predatory response." But I took to asking the people who say and write that, can you give me a "for instance". I have yet to get one.

(Source: Gear Junkie, "Bears: Tips from a controversial expert.")

This comes from another guy that has spent some time with bears:

I started hearing things, like "Don’t stare a bear in the eye." They used to say you’re supposed to wave your arms overhead. Ten years later, I was like, "Why am I doing that? This is stupid. Am I a deer with antlers? Do you think a bear can tell if you’re staring at it in the eye?" This is not only baseless but dangerous—since really what you should be doing is paying attention to your surroundings.

(Source: Backpacker, "9 Bear Safety Tips From a Bear Biologist".)

Tom Smith also points that conventional wisdom and science tend to be apart. He thinks that bears not familiar with people can be a problem. His advice is to be vigilant, make noise, carry a deterrent, and keep distance from the bears. Hiking in groups is wise because bears are risk adverse. Bright colors attract their attention and the same goes for body smells - please, no perfumes in the wild. Protecting food is a must. Smith suggests for a bad encounter: 

...if you’re being mauled by a griz? Stay face down, legs spread, and cover your neck with clasped hands. Let the bear unleash its fury on your backpack. Stay still, and don’t move until it’s done. Black bears only attack to kill, so playing dead with one of those will be facilitated by the fact that you will, in fact, be dead soon enough.

Web tales or research? What to believe when dealing with bears? You have the right to choose because it's your life. 

Dispersed camping near Moab

Camping in BLM land. 

My basecamp north of the city of Moab in Klondike Bluffs. I camped here in a couple of spots. 

Plenty of space. 

The burning sun of the desert. 

Amazing mornings. Amazing evenings. Beautiful planet.  

The Colorado River by Moab, Utah

The mighty Colorado.

I took the picture from the bridge - geolocation. Green is scarce, red is the favorite color in this part of Utah, What's the buzz about Moab? Biking, overlanding, hiking, camping and... of course, Arches National Park.

Ancient underwater burials in Florida

They were old, very old - older than the pyramids of Egypt. The burials happened in sunny Florida close to the well-known Kennedy Space Center. 168 bodies buried into the peat of an ancient pond. Interesting the visualization of how the bodies were kept underwater. Check the tale of the Windover Archeological site in this article. 

The simplicity of a flat world

Round celestial bodies and eclipses. Page of De sphaera mundi from Johannes de Sacrobosco - circa 1230. 

Before Copernicus, we had De sphaera mundi or Textus de sphaera or De sphaera of Johannes de Sacrobosco - aka John of Holywood. This text of the Middle Ages took Cecco d'Ascoli to his dead by fire. Yes, spheres may be dangerous. 

A quote from Sacrobosco's text:

THE EARTH A SPHERE. -- That the earth, too, is round is shown thus. The signs and stars do not rise and set the same for all men everywhere but rise and set sooner for those in the east than for those in the west; and of this there is no other cause than the bulge of the earth.

Now all is simpler: Earth is flat again. We are back into Homer's times. Let's hope we don't bring back the fires. 

The earth together with its surrounding waters must in fact have such a shape as its shadow reveals, for it eclipses the moon with the arc of a perfect circle.

          Copernicus (1473-1543)

Mesa Verde National Park

The amazing Cliff Palace. 

High mountains with a twisting road and then the small museum surrounded by the ruins in the deep canyons. Mesa Verde surpassed my expectations. The Nat Geo photos can't compare to the real thing. You have to walk the walk - geolocation.  

The mysterious maze of the Sun Temple.

The only carved rock in one of the villages. 

Camping in Mesa Verde National Park

Nice campsite. 

Morefield Campground was very convenient to explore the old Native American ruins of Mesa Verde. Many daily visitors wandering around my camp - geolocation.  

Daily company.