Posts tagged #National Parks

I've been Dreaming about the Mountains again

Grand Teton National Park

Dreams do Come True

As I am working through all the photos I have collected I start to dream at night. I dream about the mountains that I once walked through. Now I walk through sky scrapers. But my heart is still happy, I am not dying over here. I dream, I dream about adventures we will do. Nothing will be like the Rockies, but it will be a new experience. Once I didn’t know about any of these places, and I lived a good life back then too, I’ve just moved on. If it is one thing I have learned, dreams do come true, maybe not in the exact same way as you imagined, but pretty close. This life is like a whirlwind of adventures.

Fieldwork

That summer in the Tetons, and Yellowstone was incredible. My T-shirt snug to my back by all the sweat I produced while counting tree seedling along a transect covering black soil in 95 degree weather. Counting seedlings and tree stumps. We were dirty once we were done, black of sot, and swam in the Yellowstone river or the lake afterwards. It was one of my best summers. I am happy when I am in the mountains. Mountains makes me happy.

Posted on March 4, 2019 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under The great wide open and tagged Fieldwork fieldseason The Grand Tetons Tetons Grand Teton National Park Wyoming Wilderness Wildfire Rocky Mountains Mountain pink mountains Yellowstone Yellowstone National Park National Parks 2019.

The Wilderness Experience

Black Rapids, Alaska. September 2011

“A person with a clear heart and open mind can experience the wilderness anywhere on earth. It is a quality of one’s own consciousness. The planet is a wild place and always will be. And we’re surrounded by the greatest of all wildernesses — the universe.”
— Gary Snyder, NY times 1994

Wednesday Thoughts

When White Men set aside areas for Conservation so that Tourists could come and see the Beauty of Their/Our? Land or the “Ethnic Cleansing and America’s National Parks”

In 1872 the very first National Park was formed, not only the first in US but in all of the world, Yellowstone National Park. This was not the first time an area was set aside from expansion though, other areas such as Yosemite Valley in 1864 (Yosemite Grant Act) and Hot Springs in Arkansa in 1832 (Supposedly the first National Park but since congress failed to pass legislation, there were no controls over the area). My own impression of the wordings of some of these wilderness acts were that no one, not even the natives were to live in these areas. Environmentalists, conservationists and writers such as John Muir shared those views. To conserve and view the wilderness as something pure and wild, and we should only connect to the wilderness spiritually by observation, and so all the Native American populations across the US that previously had populated these wild and pure areas were moved and relocated to reservations. It was not as easy as the previous sentence make it sound, and ended with wars and massacres between the native Americans and the US Army, for instance the Nez Perce War in 1877. Obviously, to preserve and keep these wild areas free of anyone living there was not the only, and certainly not the main reason for the creation of reservations across the US. Just like in other places, like in Sweden, the country’s relationship with the natives is a complicated one. In some way ironic that white men would set aside these areas for conservation so that tourists could come and see the beauty of the land, but without the natives who once depended on these landscapes for survival, and had roamed these areas for thousands of years. In 1994 we got the Native American Policy, that most recently was revised in 2016, a step in the right direction when it comes to acknowledging the native population and their culture. I think it’s a complicated but important topic, we want to enjoy seeing these protected areas, but sometimes fail to understand the somewhat dark history about the creation of them. And what I am writing here is not by any way short of how many countries have treated their native population, or the whole story about how the US have treated (and currently is treating) their native population. I encourage you, if you are interested, to read more about the culture and history of Native Americans, or any other Native population across the globe.

Denali National Park, Alaska. June 2011

“We took away their country and their means of support, broke up their mode of living, their habits of life, introduced disease and decay among them and it was for this and against this they made war. Could anyone expect less?”
— Gen. Philip H. Sheridan
Posted on February 13, 2019 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under The great wide open, Wednesday Thoughts and tagged National Park Protected Areas Wilderness Environment Native Population National Parks 2019.

Through Active Ancient Land

Adventure Tuesday

Yellowstone National Park - Winter Edition

Mammoth Hot springs

Since we always enter from the northern entrance, by the small town of Gardiner, we get access to the most northern part of the park in the wintertime. Though you can’t get to Old Faithful with the car, you can get to Mammoth Hot Springs. If you can’t go to Yellowstone at all, you can always tune in to one of the many webcams that the national park service provide. There are several covering the northern part, and one of them can be found by the Mammoth Hot Springs. Precipitation (both rain and snow) that falls on the surrounding mountains slowly makes its way down through the soil and continues deep belowground. Eventually the water is heated up before it finally sees daylight again when it leaves the deeper soil and is forced upward and creates the Mammoth Hot Springs.

Colors, Art and Science

It’s pretty cool to see the art that constantly forms with the combination of hot steam and cold air. Snow and ice surrounding the hot springs makes for the perfect art formation. The hot springs at Mammoth are one of the most accessible hot springs in Yellowstone National Park. They are just a few miles from the entrance in Gardiner which makes for an easy excursion. The bedrock underlying Mammoth Hot Springs mainly consist of limestone. When the deep water slowly makes its way upwards it has formed carbonic acid (due to the carbon dioxide that the water has collected belowground) which dissolves the limestone and forms calcium carbonate. When the calcium carbonate finally reach the surface it is deposited and forms travertine which is the rock that forms all the terraces at Mammoth Hot Springs.

Freezing Temperatures and Changing Colors

The hot springs constantly change and that is one of the greatest things about them. Either the flow of the water changes dues to freezing temperatures, or tectonic changes belowground triggers the water to change its route and sometimes even its temperature and other characteristics. Some of the hot springs even dry out for several decades, before they start to flow again. There have also been times when the hot springs flow has increased so much that the boardwalk gets under water. If you can time your excursion through the hot springs with some sunset or sunrise you should. The colors of the sky will reflect in the hot springs, and that is always amazing to see. It will be a completely different experience compared to the daytime excursion. The color of the hot springs themselves, blue, orange and green are caused by differences in temperatures and pH which allow for different bacteria to thrive and live there. Another good thing about freezing temperatures, other than all the art that is created, is that a lot fewer people will venture out at all. If its 10 or 20 below no one will be here.

The Terraces

Mammoth hot springs consist of two levels, the lower and upper terrace. Small parts of the area is wheelchair accessible, but to get to the upper terrace you either have to walk up some stairs, or access it from a different road, which I think is closed in the wintertime. Either way, if you are able to walk around you definitely should check out all the different springs at both the lower and upper terrace. You might see less of the different hot springs after a big dump of snow, so that might not be super fun. The photos below are all from the upper terrace level. All the photos above is sort of a mixture of all the different springs on both the upper and lower level.

Have you ever seen Mammoth Hot Springs in the wintertime?

Posted on February 5, 2019 by Ann Rumbleinthearctic and filed under Yellowstone, Adventure Tuesday, The great wide open and tagged Yellowstone Yellowstone National Park Winter Wonderland winter sun 2019 Mammoth Hot Springs Hot Springs Winter Adventures Wintertime Winter Edition National Parks National Park.