Tag Archives: Red Canyon

Old Growth

I take lots of photographs of trees. I often take similar photos: I look straight up to the sky searching for the circling branches. I also take photos of leaves, pine needles, acorns, nuts, and twigs. I mostly haven’t been satisfied with my photos of trunks, but I keep trying. I’ve had a close relationship with trees my entire life and, if anything, I feel closer to them as I grow older.

Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, Fairfax County, Virginia

First Trees I started climbing trees when I was very young at our home in Detroit. The tree–I think my dad called it a silver maple–was also quite young and I was able to shinny up it and climb pretty far up the branches. I remember being proud of my skill because I was the youngest and the girl. My parents also planted a little cherry tree of some kind in the backyard. I remember swiping a maraschino cherry from the jar in the refrigerator and sticking it on a little twig and announcing that the tree had produced a cherry!  I didn’t fool anyone.* The street trees in our Rosedale Park neighborhood were elms. The trees from each side of the street met in the middle and made a comforting leaf canopy.  Back in the 1950s Christmastime was still reliably cold in Detroit. One night I walked around the block with my dad looking at the Christmas lights.  There was a blue spruce glowing with lights. I must have known it was a blue spruce because my dad told me its name. The magic was so strong that I feel it now, 66 years later.  That mix of the cold air, the holiday lights, the blue tree, and my kind father keep me–even through many long and sometimes trying years–looking up at the trees and sky.

A few years later, my family moved to a lake near Milford, Michigan. When we first moved to our house, trilliums still bloomed nearby in the springtime and we saw deer tracks on the beach. My parents made sure that the builders did not cut down any extra trees when they built our house, so our new world was guarded by a grove of tall oaks and hickories along with the odd little sassafras and wild cherry.  In most of the lawn, the grass grew a little bit thin, but the trees were almost like benevolent gods to my young nature-loving self.  When I miss my home, which is often for a place that I haven’t lived in since 1972, I sometimes miss the trees as much as the people who lived there.**

brother George’s photo of winter dawn with lake and trees from our house

*These early memories  are slightly fuzzy; I might not have been the only one involved in the maraschino gambit.

**(Some of these words are adapted from Losing It: Deconstructing a Life, unpublished work © Lynda Terrill, all rights reserved)


More Trees Through the years, I have been lucky to encounter many trees.  I’ve walked through Michigan woods, Appalachian and Piedmont forests, the grand ponderosa pine forests of the Kaibab Plateau, the bristlecone pines of Great Basin National Park, the redwood and sequoia cathedrals of California, and so many more tree lands. Not every forest or tree needed to be grand for me to love it.  I fondly remember the single small tree on a minuscule pull-out on U.S. Route 89A–then, the only tree to be found on the Arizona Strip between Fredonia, Arizona and the Kaibab Plateau. I can’t remember the species of that tree; it might have been a pinyon pine.

I only started taking photographs (first on little Nikons, now just on phones) about 13 years ago. Nonetheless, I find that I have hundreds of tree-related photos. Below are some of my current favorites.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake Shore, Michigan

redbuds, Sky Meadows State Park, Virginia

Eastern hemlocks, Cathedral State Park, West Virginia

autumn, Arlington, Virginia

Mathews Arm Campground, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

sycamore, Theodore Roosevelt Island, Washington, D.C.

cherry blossoms, Tidal Basin, Washington, D.C.

Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest, Utah

Widforss Trail, North Rim, Grand Canyon, Arizona

November: Frick Park, Pittsburgh

Frick Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Great Basin National Park, Nevada

Beach Road, Meher Spiritual Center, Myrtle Beach, SC

Beach Road, Meher Spiritual Center, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Sequoia feet

Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park, California

North Rim, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

red mangrove, Florida

G. Richard Thompson Wildlife Management Area, Markham, Virginia

black walnut, Ft. C.F. Smith, Arlington, Virginia

Enough photos for now, I think.

Old Growth, Part 1 In March 2020, Tom and I heard environmentalist Joan Maloof speak about old-growth forests. Maloof, “Professor Emeritus at Salisbury University, founded the Old-Growth Forest Network to preserve, protect and promote the country’s few remaining stands of old-growth forest. (www.joanmaloof.com/).” Since hearing Maloof’s presentation, Tom and I have been visiting more of these special forests, most recently last month when we walked in the Youghiogheny Grove Natural Area in Swallow Falls State Park, Maryland. I was going to make a bulleted list of the old forests we’ve hiked in, but I realized I don’t really know how many we have encountered. I don’t want to sound like a gaga old woman, but I have two ideas to share. First: not only do forests provide the earth with oxygen, food, shelter, fuel, etc., but they provide me with a sense of wonder and contentment that I don’t often feel elsewhere.  Second, while I am a proponent of  preserving all the old-growth forests that are left, I also want to acknowledge that a tree, a grove, a forest, doesn’t need a special designation to be awe-inspiring.  I do encourage tree lovers to investigate the Old Growth Network and I still want to list a few of Tom’s and my favorite forests below:

  • Kaibab National Forest, Arizona
  • Great Basin National Park, Nevada
  • Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park, Michigan
  • Cascade Falls, Ottawa National Forest, Michigan
  • Congaree National Park, South Carolina
  • Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest, Utah
  • Fishlake National Forest (including Pando and Singletree Campground), Utah
  • Cathedral Forest, Cook State Forest, Pennsylvania
  • Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias, Yosemite National Park, California
  • The Giant Forest, Sequoia  & Kings Canyon National Parks, California

Old-Growth Forest Network sign, Swallow Falls State Park

Youghiogheny Grove Natural Area, Swallow Falls State Park, Maryland

Old Growth, Part 2 I realize that I think, talk, and write quite a bit about trees. I might even repeat myself sometimes. Part of that may be because I am old and prone to reverie, but mostly it is because trees (and birds, bugs, plants, and rocks) help me focus on beauty amid the terrible news that surrounds me almost daily. Side note: I once had an employer who gave me job–at least in part–because, she said, I was a life-long learner. Maybe I am. Now, though, I just want to grow like a tree–like a tulip poplar in flower or just hang on like a pinyon pine on a canyon rim.

tulip poplar flower, Arlington, Virginia

pinyon pine, Colorado National Monument, Colorado

Staircase to Heaven, Part 3: Photos

Happy New Year!

Below are some photos from the Grand Staircase area of the Colorado Plateau.  Plant photos to come soon, and then, finally, words.

Kolob Canyons, Zion National Park

Kolob Canyons, Zion National Park

Altar of Sacrifice, Zion National Park

Altar of Sacrifice, Zion National Park

Trail to Angel's Landing, Zion National Park

Trail to Angel’s Landing, Zion National Park

Zion near the East Entrance

Zion near the East Entrance

Wahweap Creek, Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument

Wahweap Creek, Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument

Wahweap Hoodoos. GSENM

Wahweap Hoodoos, GSENM

Moccasin Mountain Dinosaur Tracksite, GSENM

Moccasin Mountain Dinosaur Tracksite, GSENM

dinosaur track, Moccasin Mountain Dinosaur Tracksite

dinosaur track, Moccasin Mountain Dinosaur Tracksite

Vermillion Cliffs, Kanab, GSEENM

Vermillion Cliffs, Kanab, GSENM

 Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest

Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest

The Needles, Canyonlands National Park

The Needles, Canyonlands National Park

Southeastern Utah

Southeastern Utah

Natural Bridges National Monument

Natural Bridges National Monument

Hovenweep National Monument

Hovenweep National Monument

 

Staircase to Heaven, Part 2

Colorado River (1973): Jackass Rapids/Jackass in the Rapids *

In the summer of 1973, one of my former eighth grade students (from Page, AZ) invited me to hike down to the Colorado River from near the Bitter Springs Arizona Highway Department outpost where she lived. This would be a walk down to the first rapids within what is generally considered the beginning of the Grand Canyon, not far below Navajo Bridge that spans Marble Canyon. My student said the locals called the area Jackass Rapids. I was a fair-to-middling red rock hiker back then, but it took fancy footwork to keep up with the sure-footed young girl. As my memory of the day comes into clearer focus, I think this trip might have been the girl’s answer to the environmental living elective (see Grand Staircase to Heaven, Part 1). She had not participated in the class, perhaps because, being of local pioneer stock, she already knew much more than I did about the local environment, or maybe it was just that she was already in band during the elective hour.

In any case, the sky was perfect blue and the sun was scorching and I already had sunburn from some recent hikes in Zion National Park. When we finally got down to the Colorado River, I did what I always did back then—I jumped in the water. The air temperature was probably in the mid-90s, the river was around 40°, and my back was already burnt. The resulting pain was intense and I felt like I was the jackass the place was named after. For several years afterwards my arms carried the marks of the sunburn and nowadays in the shower, I wince at cold water on my back. My memories of those Arizona and Utah times, though, remain bright: sky blue, rock red, pine green, and Colorado River brown.

sky blue, North Rim, Arizona

sky blue, North Rim, Arizona

 

rock red, Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest, Uta

rock red, Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest, Utah

pine green, Singletree Campground, Fishlake National Forest, Utah

pine green, Singletree Campground, Fishlake National Forest, Utah

Colorado River brown, Kings Bottom Campground (near Moab, Utah)

Colorado River brown, Kings Bottom Campground (near Moab, Utah)

*(adapted from Losing It: Deconstructing a Life, unpublished work © Lynda Terrill, all rights reserved)

Road Trip 2014: The Road Goes…

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say

J.R.R Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Kolob Canyons, Zion National Park, UT

Kolob Canyons, Zion National Park, UT

 

I am here to tell you that, just as Bilbo said, the road does go ever on and on. Furthermore, as he implied (see above), this road goes on both literally and figuratively.

In our travels I sometimes wear a maroon hooded sweater that makes me look like one of the dwarfs in The Hobbit (not, I note, at all like a hobbit wearing a hooded Elven cloak from Lorien).

maroon hooded sweater with orange knapsack

maroon hooded sweater with orange knapsack

Before I go farther on this path: Yes, I am one of those The Lord of the Rings junkies, common in my generation. I first read the trilogy when I was seventeen and I have read it at least eight times since. Two of Tom’s and my happiest parenting times were when we read LOTR aloud first to our older children and then later to our youngest.* I am going on about all of this because, as a supposed  “literature” person, I feel a bit defensive about reading the trilogy eight times instead of ever wanting to go back to The Magic Mountain or In the Heart of the Heart of the Country.

I am speaking literally and figuratively here:

  • I always traveled with a dear companion, who, day after day, kindly hurt my broken wrist–my P.T. exercises–so I would heal, and then warmed my side of the winter bed for me.

    Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest, UT

    Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest, UT

  • Sometimes the road was cold and lonely. I remembered the dead and worried about the living.

    winter road

    winter road

  • Sometimes the trail was alight with the sunlight glinting on the wings of hundreds of butterflies freshly transformed in the pine woods of the high country. I didn’t manage to capture a photo of this, but the magic remains within us.

    Glacier Trail, Great Basin National Park

    Glacier Trail, Great Basin National Park

  • Sometimes the path seemed dangerous—high and winding and steep—but I think it was only the fear within me.

LaVerkin Creek Trail, Zion National Park, UT

LaVerkin Creek Trail, Zion National Park, UT

  • Sometimes we joined family and old friends along the road or met new friends–warmth and safety amid the cold, the heat, and the winding road.

*In my family, I am famous for always crying over the death of Boromir. I want to be a hobbit—merry, strong, and steadfast—but I am more like the frail man of Gondor (inside, of course, Boromir was a doughty warrior on the outside).

Beach Road, Meher Spiritual Center, Myrtle Beach, SC

Beach Road, Meher Spiritual Center, Myrtle Beach, SC

More to come, I think.

What I See Close to the Ground

adybug on purple hyacinth bean vine, Charlottesville

ladybug on purple hyacinth bean vine, Charlottesville

Myrtle Beach, SC #3

Myrtle Beach, SC #3

New Orleans

New Orleans

Mi Tierra, San Antonio

Mi Tierra, San Antonio

Saigon Bowl, Denver

Saigon Bowl, Denver

flax, Denver Botanic Gardens

flax, Denver Botanic Gardens

ice plant, Denver Botanic Gardens

ice plant, Denver Botanic Gardens

ravens on the South Rim

ravens on the South Rim

horned toad #2, North Rim

horned toad #2, North Rim

Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest

Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest

roses in the Kolob

roses in the Kolob

Wheeler Peak, Great Basin N.P.

Wheeler Peak, Great Basin N.P.

Lukens Lake, Yosemite

Lukens Lake, Yosemite

fritillary, Yosemite N.P.

fritillary, Yosemite N.P.

Sequoia feet

Sequoia feet

Coming soon: sentences and paragraphs.