Saturday, August 28, 2010
Pictures from Missola to West Yellowstone
Big Sky Country
We've had several personal milestones in the last week or so: crossing the continental divide and the highest pass we've climbed, hitting our highest top speed, passing a truck for the first time (rather than being passed), biking over eighty miles in a day. These moderate accomplishments have a way of building up for me, almost like courses in a meal: with each I feel more full up. They combine with the landscape we pass through, so that I collect images and sensations as I go, and I feel expanded by them, broader.
The challenges of aching muscles, complaining joints, baking sun and slashing rain, frosted mornings and stone-hard headwinds, can and do distract and discourage. I find I oscillate between emotional extremes. A high point was flying down from the pass above Virginia City, MT. After the hard climb, to come over the ridge, and see the broad valley spreading out and out, rolling prairie to the feet of the hazy peaks that are the gateway to Yellowstone. A feeling of filling, almost more than one small person could hold, and at once of being minuscule in the land, a realization of the expansiveness of plain and the massiveness of mountains, all standing and standing one after another after another, for time I cannot comprehend.
At times the feeling of smallness can close in on me. Today we rode through slashing rain and hale to reach West Yellowstone. Just a summer squall in the mountains, but the pressure and power was almost enough to knock us over. After a mile we passed several downed trees, which the ranger said had been laid into the road by a small tornado. Everywhere we go we pass through cycles of uplift and breakdown, our ant-like tracks navigating in the interstices between the grinding teeth of the natural world.
A phrase that has been running through my mind in these moments of fullness and smallness comes from a conversation I had with Dave, about the avant-garde composer John Cage, who believes that all sounds are music, not only organized sound. The shuffling and whispers and laughter and quietness of his audiences are integral components of his composition. What Dave said, and what I keep close in trying times and exultant: 'It's all part of the music.'
Neale
The challenges of aching muscles, complaining joints, baking sun and slashing rain, frosted mornings and stone-hard headwinds, can and do distract and discourage. I find I oscillate between emotional extremes. A high point was flying down from the pass above Virginia City, MT. After the hard climb, to come over the ridge, and see the broad valley spreading out and out, rolling prairie to the feet of the hazy peaks that are the gateway to Yellowstone. A feeling of filling, almost more than one small person could hold, and at once of being minuscule in the land, a realization of the expansiveness of plain and the massiveness of mountains, all standing and standing one after another after another, for time I cannot comprehend.
At times the feeling of smallness can close in on me. Today we rode through slashing rain and hale to reach West Yellowstone. Just a summer squall in the mountains, but the pressure and power was almost enough to knock us over. After a mile we passed several downed trees, which the ranger said had been laid into the road by a small tornado. Everywhere we go we pass through cycles of uplift and breakdown, our ant-like tracks navigating in the interstices between the grinding teeth of the natural world.
A phrase that has been running through my mind in these moments of fullness and smallness comes from a conversation I had with Dave, about the avant-garde composer John Cage, who believes that all sounds are music, not only organized sound. The shuffling and whispers and laughter and quietness of his audiences are integral components of his composition. What Dave said, and what I keep close in trying times and exultant: 'It's all part of the music.'
Neale
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
More Thoughts: On Wildness and the Bitterroots
We've passed through the range of the Rocky Mountains called the Bitterroots, crossing Lolo pass and descending to Missoula, then riding south along the Bitterroot river towards its headwaters and the continental divide. From the valley floor we could finally take in the grandeur of the mountains, their forested flanks rising steeply from the farmlands at their feet to startling and craggy peaks, beneath whose overhanging lees patches of snow still cling. We could see the forest for the trees then, the broad and fierce wilderness through which we'd passed along the Lochsa river, never seeing until now these broken-knife summits, and the deep canyons that divide them, blue with haze and distance.
The mountains, in their austerity and what they hold waiting to be explored, had me thinking on wildness, and particularly on wolves. Grey wolves seem to be back in force in Idaho and Montana, and have also been recently returned to the endangered species list. It's a contentious issue, especially here in the Bitterroot Valley, where wilderness abuts so directly cattle grazing lands. Already we've met two people who represent the opposing sides, as it were: one who was quite happy the wolves were protected, and felt ranchers' claims of livestock loss were exaggerated, or were at any rate a small price to pay to have these important predators returned to the landscape; the other believed the protections were misguided, based on the personal accounts of his rancher friends, who say the wolves are making a deep impact on their business.
The latter believed that those who sought to protect the wolves had an image in mind of something cuddly and cute. He wanted to assure me that wolves were in fact vicious, did not kill only what they could eat, and fought savagely among one another over their prey though they'd worked together to take it down. If wolves do hunt for sport, then they share that with Americans. If they have been portrayed as gentle then it is as much propaganda as the billboard reading 'Idaho's #1 Poacher' beneath a snarling wolf. What I thought when looking at those mountains was that nature is ferocious. Wolves, and waters that carve out mountains, all savage. In fact, it is often what we admire about wild places, great vistas. We long to go among those peaks, into their steep gorges. If the wild waters had not cut them, if the savage forces of plates and magma had not upthrust them, these mountains would not be mountains; they would be a blank slate. It is the death of the stone between the peaks we love to see.
And here our wolves, the very symbol of ferocity, of wildness. The argument goes that we have emptied their habitat of their natural prey; now they prey on our livestock, whose meat powers me as I pedal on. Some say shoot the wolves, at least a few of them; though that calls up images of government hunts that cleared the wilds of their great predators, their great prey. At once, leaving them be, if the ranchers are right, may make ranching unprofitable. Ranchers at least have a chance at stewardship; factory farms are the opposite of stewardship.
Is there a middle ground? I think of wolves and their ferocity and am not afraid. I see another animal being itself. I try to be a pragmatic pantheist and see reason in being; the mountains are there to be mountains, the wolves, wolves. All trying to make their way and live on. Humans the same; our trouble is we have created permeable bubbles that appear organized within, chaos and wildness without. We have placed our expectations of order cheek to cheek with wildness. Nature is a fluid conversation between order and disorder, integration and dissolution, conflict and cooperation. Wildness arises in that fluidity; it will not be held at bay. I don't know the answer to the question of wolves in our midst. But, for me, a world with diminishing wildness is a world less worth living in.
Neale
The mountains, in their austerity and what they hold waiting to be explored, had me thinking on wildness, and particularly on wolves. Grey wolves seem to be back in force in Idaho and Montana, and have also been recently returned to the endangered species list. It's a contentious issue, especially here in the Bitterroot Valley, where wilderness abuts so directly cattle grazing lands. Already we've met two people who represent the opposing sides, as it were: one who was quite happy the wolves were protected, and felt ranchers' claims of livestock loss were exaggerated, or were at any rate a small price to pay to have these important predators returned to the landscape; the other believed the protections were misguided, based on the personal accounts of his rancher friends, who say the wolves are making a deep impact on their business.
The latter believed that those who sought to protect the wolves had an image in mind of something cuddly and cute. He wanted to assure me that wolves were in fact vicious, did not kill only what they could eat, and fought savagely among one another over their prey though they'd worked together to take it down. If wolves do hunt for sport, then they share that with Americans. If they have been portrayed as gentle then it is as much propaganda as the billboard reading 'Idaho's #1 Poacher' beneath a snarling wolf. What I thought when looking at those mountains was that nature is ferocious. Wolves, and waters that carve out mountains, all savage. In fact, it is often what we admire about wild places, great vistas. We long to go among those peaks, into their steep gorges. If the wild waters had not cut them, if the savage forces of plates and magma had not upthrust them, these mountains would not be mountains; they would be a blank slate. It is the death of the stone between the peaks we love to see.
And here our wolves, the very symbol of ferocity, of wildness. The argument goes that we have emptied their habitat of their natural prey; now they prey on our livestock, whose meat powers me as I pedal on. Some say shoot the wolves, at least a few of them; though that calls up images of government hunts that cleared the wilds of their great predators, their great prey. At once, leaving them be, if the ranchers are right, may make ranching unprofitable. Ranchers at least have a chance at stewardship; factory farms are the opposite of stewardship.
Is there a middle ground? I think of wolves and their ferocity and am not afraid. I see another animal being itself. I try to be a pragmatic pantheist and see reason in being; the mountains are there to be mountains, the wolves, wolves. All trying to make their way and live on. Humans the same; our trouble is we have created permeable bubbles that appear organized within, chaos and wildness without. We have placed our expectations of order cheek to cheek with wildness. Nature is a fluid conversation between order and disorder, integration and dissolution, conflict and cooperation. Wildness arises in that fluidity; it will not be held at bay. I don't know the answer to the question of wolves in our midst. But, for me, a world with diminishing wildness is a world less worth living in.
Neale
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Mountain Time!
Several milestones in the works. We've arrived in Missoula, which means we've entered a new time zone (hard to believe we can go far enough on our bikes to warrant changing our watches) and we crossed our first mountain range- The Bitterroots of Idaho. For anyone who ever thought Idaho was a boring potato state, we could not have found anything to be further from the truth. We've been traveling through some absolutely beautiful country.
We've been on the road for two weeks now, which means we're starting to settle into something of a travel routine. Our days have basically centered around food, sleep, food, biking, and food. We've picked up some hobbit-like eating habits. On a regular day, we'll usually wake up, make breakfast, get on the road, stop for "second breakfast" after an hour or two, bike some more, stop for "tea-time" (which consists of making gatorade from powder), bike, stop for lunch, finish our day of biking, settle down to camp, make whatever delicious and filling dinner we can muster, and go to sleep.
Every day is different- we often travel through several micro-climates and landscapes in a day- but the one great consistency I've found is that there are kind, helpful people EVERYWHERE. Vastly outnumbering any difficult or unpleasant people, we've met:
-strangers who are all too happy to give us directions,
-egg and goat farmers who invite us to eat lunch in the shade of their backyard tree,
-neighboring campers who invite us to join them for lattes,
-locals who tell us to find little gems like hot springs, ice cream stores, wifi cafes, etc....
-people who welcome us into their homes with the utmost generosity
But enough talk- in a nutshell we're having a great time. Here's some pictures!
We concluded that Lewiston, Idaho is ruled from Safeway Castle.
Looking back on our climb up to a plateau outside of Lewiston.
Peanut butter banana soft tacos for lunch. These will carry you over mountains.
More wonderful countryside, climbing up to Winchester, Idaho.
After a long, hot day of uphill grades, salty clothes are our trophies.
Sunrise at our campground in Winchester, Idaho.
Sometimes helmets are the best stylists.
Montana! We made it to a new time zone!
Lunch at our host's house in Missoula, Montana. We relish the chance to use a kitchen and make food that you can't carry with you in a bike pannier.
We've been on the road for two weeks now, which means we're starting to settle into something of a travel routine. Our days have basically centered around food, sleep, food, biking, and food. We've picked up some hobbit-like eating habits. On a regular day, we'll usually wake up, make breakfast, get on the road, stop for "second breakfast" after an hour or two, bike some more, stop for "tea-time" (which consists of making gatorade from powder), bike, stop for lunch, finish our day of biking, settle down to camp, make whatever delicious and filling dinner we can muster, and go to sleep.
Every day is different- we often travel through several micro-climates and landscapes in a day- but the one great consistency I've found is that there are kind, helpful people EVERYWHERE. Vastly outnumbering any difficult or unpleasant people, we've met:
-strangers who are all too happy to give us directions,
-egg and goat farmers who invite us to eat lunch in the shade of their backyard tree,
-neighboring campers who invite us to join them for lattes,
-locals who tell us to find little gems like hot springs, ice cream stores, wifi cafes, etc....
-people who welcome us into their homes with the utmost generosity
But enough talk- in a nutshell we're having a great time. Here's some pictures!
Looking back on our climb up to a plateau outside of Lewiston.
Peanut butter banana soft tacos for lunch. These will carry you over mountains.
More wonderful countryside, climbing up to Winchester, Idaho.
After a long, hot day of uphill grades, salty clothes are our trophies.
Sunrise at our campground in Winchester, Idaho.
Sometimes helmets are the best stylists.
Montana! We made it to a new time zone!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Some thoughts from the road
These dry lands of eastern Oregon and Washington have to go by at a human speed now, no getting around it. It is difficult, or impossible, to capture in pictures. I feel the car window is a snapshot; passing at a high speed the image flashes in one’s slideshow, and is soon replaced. At the rate we’re going, the landscape must penetrate the senses, often in an uncomfortable way; it will not be ignored. Here are some impressions:
Scents – Dry sage, carrion, rail tie tar, green river water, hot stone.
Sights at the roadside – records curled by the sun, bed sheets in the scrub, dead hawks, dead snakes, dead raccoons, dead deer, dead possums, dead skunks, dead mice, dead grouse, mirages, freight trains, herons hovering up from marshes, ospreys perched on phone poles feeding on fish, bands of bronze grassland and green farms warbled by heat.
Sounds – hush of tires on pavement, the grumbling wasp sound of high tension lines, mourning doves in low trees at dawn, passing trains in the night.
Sensations – morning breeze cooling my arms and drying my throat at once, salt crusting on my skin and clothes, a deep oven heat in the air, sticky plum juice filling my mouth.
In these long stretches of the Columbia Gorge, where few people choose to live, where there is little but the broad grey river and the crumbling lava bluffs and yellow grass, there is nowhere to go but ahead to the next oasis. In a car I think I would say how beautiful these bluffs are
and speed on. On a bike, this heat, these bluffs are awesome and terrible too. Both things.
I find, upon climbing out of that desert river gorge, the rolling green farmlands to be brilliant. The pipes and sprinklers, their mist lit white by the sun, the colorful American flag whipping like a horse tail about its pole. They are peaceful and comforting to me, having left a beautiful wasteland. And beside that lies a sense of what has been lost in the natural world, all across America as well as here. This exquisite and wounded land.
Neale
Scents – Dry sage, carrion, rail tie tar, green river water, hot stone.
Sights at the roadside – records curled by the sun, bed sheets in the scrub, dead hawks, dead snakes, dead raccoons, dead deer, dead possums, dead skunks, dead mice, dead grouse, mirages, freight trains, herons hovering up from marshes, ospreys perched on phone poles feeding on fish, bands of bronze grassland and green farms warbled by heat.
Sounds – hush of tires on pavement, the grumbling wasp sound of high tension lines, mourning doves in low trees at dawn, passing trains in the night.
Sensations – morning breeze cooling my arms and drying my throat at once, salt crusting on my skin and clothes, a deep oven heat in the air, sticky plum juice filling my mouth.
In these long stretches of the Columbia Gorge, where few people choose to live, where there is little but the broad grey river and the crumbling lava bluffs and yellow grass, there is nowhere to go but ahead to the next oasis. In a car I think I would say how beautiful these bluffs are
and speed on. On a bike, this heat, these bluffs are awesome and terrible too. Both things.
I find, upon climbing out of that desert river gorge, the rolling green farmlands to be brilliant. The pipes and sprinklers, their mist lit white by the sun, the colorful American flag whipping like a horse tail about its pole. They are peaceful and comforting to me, having left a beautiful wasteland. And beside that lies a sense of what has been lost in the natural world, all across America as well as here. This exquisite and wounded land.
Neale
Oregon Coast to Walla Walla, WA
Hello everyone,
We've made it about 400 miles and completed the Oregon section of our transcontinental bike trip, and we figure we're legit enough to have a blog. Here's an update of the trip so far, mostly in picture format:
The true beginning of the trip, at the Pacific Ocean beside Gearhart, OR.
Buying fuel at the Shell Station . . . (i.e. isopropyl alcohol for our stove)
Tinkering with the bikes, Ruth's driveway, Portland, OR.
Multnomah Falls, Columbia River Gorge.
Whoa.
Never seen anything like that before. Called 9-1-1, but they already knew about it. Nothing to do but record in pictures.
Is Dave upside down, OR IS HIS ALIEN SHADOW RIGHT SIDE UP???
Rowena Crest viewpoint, looking down on the Columbia River.
And the highway we left the viewpoint by.
Self-explanatory.
So hungry. Why wait?
Bustin out the bandanas for the Eastern Oregon heat.
Leaving Hat Rock Campground. Can you spot the top hat shaped rock? Can you spot Abe Lincoln Rock underneath it?
Leavin Oregon for good, at least on this trip. Get ready Walla Walla!
That's it for the photo update as of now. Check back soon if you'd like to see where we are.
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