Your Butt is a Running Muscle

Not really new stuff -- there were man vs. horse races in the 19th century, and the man could win over distance -- but the New York Times joins the reaction against high-tech running shoes.

Nature is Scary! Get Me Out of Here!

The headline: Rescuers Fear Yuppie 911.

People carrying GPS-enabled emergency beacons ("Onstar for hikers", "Yuppie 911") are pressing them whenever they feel mildly inconvenienced, causing problems for seach-and-rescue teams and other first responders.

In the span of three days, the group pushed the panic button three times, mobilizing helicopters for dangerous, lifesaving rescues inside the steep [Grand C]anyon walls.

What was that emergency? The water they had found to quench their thirst "tasted salty."

Or the woman who activated hers because she was frightened of a thunderstorm. Great-grandmother would have hunkered down and waited it out, y'know?

Charging more people for unnecessary rescues seems like one option. Or fining them, as the National Park Service did the Grand Canyon idiots.

In Colorado, purchasers of hunting and fishing licenses automatically contribute to a Search and Rescue Fund that reimburses at least some costs of a rescue. Or you can buy a state SAR card that does the same thing. Three bucks, and you can get it online.

If a service is free, people will misuse it. Ask this guy.

UPDATE: New Hampshire bills hikers for rescues; other states differ.

Colorado in the 1930s

Rocky Mountain PBS has an online exhibit called "Colorado in the 1930s." (Funny, why all this interest in the Great Depression?)

The photos are good, although navigation is a little tricky.

While some people had "dust pneumonia," others were taking the ski train to Winter Park.

Dad was in forestry school in Fort Collins, having come here from Tulsa where, he used to say, "There was no Depression."

Meanwhile, my mother's family's furniture store in Colorado Springs was going bust, as people put off buying new furniture (or paying for it) ahead of groceries.

As my uncle (her younger brother) said in an email today, reminiscing about the 1930s, "Times were tough, and furniture stores carried their own paper. Customers couldn’t pay the store. Paper profits were not collected."

Blog Stew with Software Skulls

• Trainer killed by ice-skating bear. Because putting bears on ice skates is still a hoot in the former Soviet Union.

• The amazing survival of a coyote. Driver Daniel East, however, not only did not care to check on the coyote, he did not even check his car for radiator leaks, etc. He and sister Tevyn had more important stuff on their minds:  they were on their way to join a community of artists.

•  "Crash-testing" skulls: Video summarizes research on using architectural modeling software to model animal skulls and to see the impact when an animal kills its prey.

Cougars Return (Officially) to Kansas

A Kansas hunter photographs a mountain lion, documenting their return to that state. The photo was taken near WaKeeney, in west-central Kansas.

Since the cat may have come from Colorado, I say, "You're welcome, on behalf of all Coloradans. And please send more quail."

Three Dog Books

Some people think that their dogs are "angels" or "fur babies."

I suspect (but I don't know) that most readers of this blog think that they are, in fact, dogs.*

But the first group probably has us outnumbered, and they are spending jillions of dollars on doggie mineral water, doggie day care, and doggie tranquilizers.

That group is chronicled in Michael Shaffer's One Nation Under Dog: America's Love Affair with Our Dogs.

Think of it as ethnography. And for a bonus, here is Shaffer's review of Alexandra Horowitz's Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know, which sounds more cynographic.

Along with One Nation Under Dog, I have been reading John and Amy Dahl's The 10-Minute Retriever: How to Make a Well-Mannered, Obedient and Enthusiastic Gun Dog in 10 Minutes a Day. I like it because although it is a general retriever-training book, the Dahls address some particular ... issues ... known to those of us with Chesapeake Bay retrievers.

But the very best book on adopting adult dogs (which we have now done twice) was sent by M.'s sister-in-law, who volunteers with Stray Rescue in St. Louis.

It is Don't Dump the Dog: Outrageous Stories and Simple Solutions to Your Worst Dog Behavior Problems, by Stray Rescue's founder, Randy Grim (with Melinda Roth).

Follow Grim's advice and, Mimosa in hand, you can begin to cope with rescued dogs who suffer from separation anxiety, dog-aggression, extreme fearfulness, and many of the other problems that plague adopted adult dogs.

With chapters like "Dogs Who Lick Baby Snot" and "Cujo in the Dog Park," Grim realistically explains that as much as you can train the dog, maybe you just have to change the environment to make things better. Sometimes, if the dog gets in the garbage, moving the garbage is less stressful than trying to change to dog.

His motto might be, "The perfect is the enemy of the good [dog]."

Animal shelters ought to buy Don't Dump the Dog by the case and give copies to everyone who adopts.

*Dad used to say, though, that "dogs have by nature qualities than humans struggle to acquire," so even we Cliftons can get a little sentimental sometimes.

Skeleton Not Everett Ruess's After All

New tests show a skeleton found in the Utah desert is not that of artist Everett Ruess.

Last spring, I thought the mystery of his disappearance had been solved.

From an AP story:

Everett Ruess vanished in southern Utah in 1934, writing in a final letter to his family in California that "as to when I revisit civilization, it will not be soon" and "it is enough that I am surrounded with beauty."

He was 20 and a gifted poet who explored the Southwest over much of four years. In between journeys, he hobnobbed with famous artists of his time.

Initial DNA tests were termed "irrefutable" months ago by University of Colorado researchers, but one of them said Wednesday he accepted as final the new results from the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Md.

Utah's state archaeologist, Kevin Jones, had questioned the original results, prompting the family to seek a second opinion.

Jones said a recovered lower jawbone was characteristic of an American Indian's, not a man of European descent, and that worn teeth suggested a lifetime diet of coarse grains. It's not known whose remains were actually found.

But I still think he probably was murdered. He remains one of nature religion's saints, Blessed Everett the Martyr, patron of the Canyonlands.

The Peeping Trees

Wet snow is falling, with the temperature just at the freezing point.

I walked the dogs a quarter mile or so into the national forest, the road sloppy underfoot. Fisher's gallops left gigantic paw prints.

Across the valley the snowplow blade rattled on the state highway, hidden in the fog.

And several of the large juniper trees along our walk were peeping—full of juncos and other little birds.

Turkeys at Twelve O'Clock Low

It's too funny. The wild turkeys that normally live near us on the ridges have been right on the property the past few days, running down the driveway (which is 100+ yards long) when I take the dogs for what I think is a "safe" off-leash walk, gliding out of the tall ponderosa pines, and generally driving the canine family members nuts.

A few minutes ago, Fisher, the Chessie, went dashing off down into a ravine and up the other side. Three turkeys came flying across it, low, over my head and over the house. I called him back and gave him a treat. Shelby, the ninja collie, barked from the veranda but was gated in. She has already had her turkey chase for the day.

In seventeen years, I have never seen them all over us like this. Are the acorns better here?

The photo of the hen turkey was taken through the window of our back door.

Chainsaws Rev Up in Northern Colorado

To protect travelers and campground users, the Forest Service is starting to cut beetle-killed lodgepole pines near roads, trails, and campgrounds in northern Colorado.

Cutting crews are to fan out, lugging gas-powered chain saws along trails and roadways and at campgrounds, working to prevent some of the hundreds of millions of dead trees from falling on hikers and motorists on federal lands.

Yes, "gas-powered, " notes Post reporter Bruce Finley. Years of experience have taught government foresters that two-mile-long power cords for electric chainsaws are not practical.

My own little Husqvarna saw sent me a message yesterday. I went to start it, and the starter cord snapped. I think that it was telling me it really wanted a full-blown, in-the-shop cleaning and tuneup, which it has not gotten for years.

So off to Tap's Small Engine Repair we went. Establishments like that are invaluable.

Until I get it back, I am cutting what I can with a bucksaw that is probably ex-Forest Service too.

Firefighters Contemplate Rooftop Solar Panels

Although I have no plans to put them on my house, I like the idea of rooftop solar shingles--especially if they can be integrated with the grid to pick up some of the daytime load.

Firefighters, however, have a different set of concerns. For example:

If there is a solar electric system involved, "pulling the meter" will only kill power coming in from the utility grid. Other circuits may remain live — household circuits if the system has battery backup or an auto-start gasoline generator, and PV circuits whenever the sun is shining. Multiple disconnects for various parts of the system are very common.

Some people in this county have roof-top solar panels. I am not aware of any in my little volunteer department's primary service area, but that is perhaps because I have not seen every single house.

Blog Stew is Warming or Cooling

• Greenpeaceniks have climbed the Houses of Parliament to "raise the temperature of the debate," but the BBC admits that the data are confusing. I was looking a pictures of shrinking glaciers in Glacier National Park (I think it was), and that evidence was incontrovertible, but could glaciers be lagging indicators?

• Recent Google searches bring visitors: "mad mountain bird feeders slave labor," "nature bear man blog," "on a map what does a blue line mean," and "beautiful suicides."

• Did things go really wrong on your last walk in the woods? Maybe it qualifies for Hiker Hell.

A Plot for Black Hills Bears

I wonder how many people drive past the Bear Country USA private zoo on US 16 near Rapid City and find themselves modifying Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi." (Video here.)

It would be something like, "Took all the bears, put 'em in a bear museum / And charged the people fifteen dollars just to see 'em."

(Doesn't scan as well as the original. Blame inflation.)

All through our recent trip, I would do something like leave the cooler outside our pop-up trailer, catch myself—"A bear might get into it!"—and then realize that there are virtually no bears in the Black Hills.

Sadly.

I read that the last Black Hills black bear was shot in 1968 near the hamlet of Rochford, which means there were a few around when I was a boy, but I do not recall anyone needing to be too "bear aware" with garbage cans, etc., back then. (Grizzly bears were extirpated earlier.)

If you see a black bear, you are supposed to inform South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks, which categorizes them as "state threatened," and fill out a "Rare Species Report Card," available as a PDF download from the web site.

But if I had (a) lots of money and (b) some close-mouthed co-conspirators, I would acquire the following:

• one or more large culvert-style bear traps
• one or more small cargo trailers, modified with additional air vents
• large pickup truck to pull the above

And we could do our own bear-reintroduction program. After all, there are plenty in Colorado, where they have been taking food out of the mouths of the poverty-stricken Aspenites.

From capture to release should not take more than ten hours, on average—not too long for the bear to be confined. It's feasible.

Really, I am surprised that more black bears have not wandered over from the Bighorn Range or elsewhere in Wyoming. Too much open country, coal mines, Interstate 90, etc. in the way?

Quieter Skies in the Black Hills

Just a couple of things left to say about our trip to the Black Hills. One sneaked up on us after we had been there two or three days--the quiet skies.

Wherever you go in Colorado, you are under some air route centered on Denver International Airport. High-altitude jet noise is just part of the background--and the higher you climb, the closer the airplanes are.

I remember how quiet it right after the Sept. 21, 2001 hijackings when all air travel was shut down. I was sitting over a spring in the Sangre de Cristo range during muzzleloader season when a Learjet streaked overhead (Mr. Big coming back from the coast?) and all I could think was, "Oh shit, we're back to normal."

But Rapid City Regional Airport has far fewer flights, and about a third of them go eastward to the Twin Cities or Chicago, making for much quieter skies.

The Siloam Stage Road and an Unbuilt Railroad

What we call "the old road" runs from our house to the national forest boundary. As far as I can tell, it is a piece of the 1870s Siloam Stage Road, which connected Pueblo with the Wet Mountain Valley before a new wagon road was built, more or less where Colorado 96 now goes.

(That is to say, Colorado 96 before the construction of Pueblo Dam, early 1970s, and the Jackson Hill realignment, late 1980s.)

This photo was taken this morning before the sun burned through to start melting yesterday's little snow.

But apparently, in some alternative steampunk universe, I can catch the train coming up from Pueblo and travel to the San Luis Valley, before transferring to a light-rail car to zip from Alamosa to Saguache, for instance.

One hundred years ago, the Wet Mountain Tribune reported,

Incorporation papers have been filed with the secretary of state for an $8,000,000 company which is to build a railroad from Pueblo across the Sangre de Christo mountains and down into Costilla County where an interurban electric system will be established connecting all the towns in the San Luis Valley. According to the plans, a line will be run from Pueblo southwest into the Wet Mountain Valley. Thence it will run southwest into Huerfano County until it reaches the Sangre de Christo range. It will cross the range into Saguache or Costilla counties at a point not yet decided and then proceed to Alamosa, Monte Vista or Del Norte. The electric railway system spreading up and down the San Luis Valley will run spur tracks into the mining regions, the timber areas, the agricultural districts and the quarries.

Yeah, what happened to that?