It’s official: there’s no better way to get to know a group of people than getting completely naked in front of them. Usually, this is accomplished by playing bonding games like step into the circle, where a statement is read (eg. “step into the circle if your parents are divorced”), and everyone the statement applies to steps forward. Sometimes, you get naked by reading poetry in front of strangers or having a discussion about your love lives at 3am. I’m a big fan of all of these methods. But sometimes, you have to cut to the chase.
Here on Semester in the West, we prefer a direct approach. Thus, I am pleased to report that yesterday afternoon, about half of the Westies shed their clothes in broad daylight to participate in an age-old adolescent bonding ritual often known as “skinny dipping”. It started out innocently enough: we went on a hike on a fairly cold day up a stream in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. We reached a place where the stream widened enough to constitute a swimming hole, and our arrival coincided with a small break in sunlight. The possibility of swimming had been mentioned, and I scoffed at the idea, since it was obviously far too cold to even contemplate getting wet. I soon discovered that half of my peers didn’t share my views on this topic, and I stuck my head over the edge of the rock to peer below at the brave few. And to my surprise, I saw about twelve buck naked people shrieking and jumping around in the ice cold water.
So of course, I had to join them. I reached the makeshift beach after most everyone had gotten out. I shed my clothes slowly, until I was down to a sports bra and spandex. I glanced around. Four guys were standing, arms outstretched, drying off in the sun. None had put clothes on. None seemed to mind I was looking at them. And that was enough. I stripped off my underwear and dove in. I came up screaming and hyperventilating and swearing at the freezing cold water. I ran back out and stood, arms spread wide, shivering. I looked around at the naked Westies around me, and I felt what it means to be truly free.
8.30.2010
8.29.2010
Wolves and ranchers
This entry is part of my journal from Semester in the West. For all SITW journal entries, click here. For all SITW posts, including blog posts I wrote while on the program, click here. To learn more about the program, click here.
camp: Salt Creek Summit , Wallowa National Forest, Wallowa County, Oregon
I learned to love the wilderness because of wolves. In high school, after I tired of the gossip and judgment I always seemed to find at summer camp, I decided to try something different. I signed up for a week-long wolf tracking expedition run buy Wilderness Awareness School in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, a few hours outside of Boise, Idaho. On our first night, the counselors asked our group of twelve to sit in a circle with our eyes closed.
“I want you to think about the wolves,” our counselor said. “Now, I want you to feel them. Feel yourself connecting with the wolves and point in the direction you feel them in.”
Skeptical as I was, a part of me felt pulled. I pointed, extending my left arm in a tentative line.
“Open your eyes,” we were told.
I looked around and saw our entire camp (except my best friend, who was never one for hippie-inspired exercises) pointing in the same direction. That night, the stillness of the meadows was regularly punctuated by howls. And the next morning, we saw an entire wolf pack in that same direction.
By the end of the week, I was a convert. I’d dissected an elk kill, made plaster casts of tracks and heard the story of the fight over wolf reintroduction in the Rockies. I came back for two more summers, then continued to follow the wolves’ story religiously. When US Fish & Wildlife began to talk about delisting wolves, I wrote pleading letters to members of Congress and federal bureaucrats, begging them to reconsider. When I found out the decision had been made, I cried. The idea of hunting wolves seemed more than just repugnant; to me, it bordered on sacrilegious. I understood why wolves were controversial. I knew ranchers and hunters had legitimate reasons for wanting to keep wolves from living near them. But the physical act of picking up a gun and deliberately setting out to kill a wolf was utterly incomprehensible to me.
I had come to equate wolves with wildness, freedom and hope for the future of all threatened creatures. Wolves were a symbol of redemption, proof that we could atone for out past wrongs and restore wild places to what they were before we came along to pillage and conquer. Killing a wolf would be violating that commitment to right our past wrongs; implementing a policy allowing hunting would allow no respect for the life on an individual wolf.
That was before I learned about how we respect individual wolves. In a single season, the take for wolves in Idaho was 188 wolves, a small but not insignificant percentage of the state’s total population. In that same period, the state killed over 200 solves for various reasons, mostly related to depredation. Even in the eyes of the agency reintroducing them, the life of an individual wolf appears to carry little weight.
But should it? Does that wolf matter as much as I thought it did? Is it as important as a cow? A person’s ability to make a living?
I thought I had clean answers to these questions, but as it turns out, wolves are tricky animals. While native to most of the United States, the populations in the west are in a sense artificial, brought here by humans. They’re natural, but they wouldn’t be here without us. Of course, without us, they never would have gone extinct in the first place, but their status seems to hover somewhere between “native species” and “experimental population” in a way that defies easy answers.
And then, of course, we met the ranchers. They told us about regulations they have to comply with to keep from hurting salmon, and as they talked, they seemed to have a lot in common with the fish. Salmon have been driven to the brink of extinction by a large variety of factors—overfishing, habitat destruction, and of course, dams. Would cattle crazing near spawning grounds by the straw that broke their back? Ranchers fear for their existence just as strongly as environmental groups fear for the salmon. They have to comply with regulations about grazing on public lands, have to keep cattle out of riparian areas, all while seeing their children grow up and move to the big city to find a job where you don’t have to work seven days a week starting at four-thirty in the morning. They work hard all year and barely turn a profit, and they do it all while being demonized by people who believe there shouldn’t be any cattle grazing on public lands. Still, they survive, but barely, and if you listen to them speak, they’ll tell you—wolves are going to drive the American rancher to extinction.
camp: Salt Creek Summit , Wallowa National Forest, Wallowa County, Oregon
I learned to love the wilderness because of wolves. In high school, after I tired of the gossip and judgment I always seemed to find at summer camp, I decided to try something different. I signed up for a week-long wolf tracking expedition run buy Wilderness Awareness School in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, a few hours outside of Boise, Idaho. On our first night, the counselors asked our group of twelve to sit in a circle with our eyes closed.
“I want you to think about the wolves,” our counselor said. “Now, I want you to feel them. Feel yourself connecting with the wolves and point in the direction you feel them in.”
Skeptical as I was, a part of me felt pulled. I pointed, extending my left arm in a tentative line.
“Open your eyes,” we were told.
I looked around and saw our entire camp (except my best friend, who was never one for hippie-inspired exercises) pointing in the same direction. That night, the stillness of the meadows was regularly punctuated by howls. And the next morning, we saw an entire wolf pack in that same direction.
By the end of the week, I was a convert. I’d dissected an elk kill, made plaster casts of tracks and heard the story of the fight over wolf reintroduction in the Rockies. I came back for two more summers, then continued to follow the wolves’ story religiously. When US Fish & Wildlife began to talk about delisting wolves, I wrote pleading letters to members of Congress and federal bureaucrats, begging them to reconsider. When I found out the decision had been made, I cried. The idea of hunting wolves seemed more than just repugnant; to me, it bordered on sacrilegious. I understood why wolves were controversial. I knew ranchers and hunters had legitimate reasons for wanting to keep wolves from living near them. But the physical act of picking up a gun and deliberately setting out to kill a wolf was utterly incomprehensible to me.
I had come to equate wolves with wildness, freedom and hope for the future of all threatened creatures. Wolves were a symbol of redemption, proof that we could atone for out past wrongs and restore wild places to what they were before we came along to pillage and conquer. Killing a wolf would be violating that commitment to right our past wrongs; implementing a policy allowing hunting would allow no respect for the life on an individual wolf.
That was before I learned about how we respect individual wolves. In a single season, the take for wolves in Idaho was 188 wolves, a small but not insignificant percentage of the state’s total population. In that same period, the state killed over 200 solves for various reasons, mostly related to depredation. Even in the eyes of the agency reintroducing them, the life of an individual wolf appears to carry little weight.
But should it? Does that wolf matter as much as I thought it did? Is it as important as a cow? A person’s ability to make a living?
I thought I had clean answers to these questions, but as it turns out, wolves are tricky animals. While native to most of the United States, the populations in the west are in a sense artificial, brought here by humans. They’re natural, but they wouldn’t be here without us. Of course, without us, they never would have gone extinct in the first place, but their status seems to hover somewhere between “native species” and “experimental population” in a way that defies easy answers.
And then, of course, we met the ranchers. They told us about regulations they have to comply with to keep from hurting salmon, and as they talked, they seemed to have a lot in common with the fish. Salmon have been driven to the brink of extinction by a large variety of factors—overfishing, habitat destruction, and of course, dams. Would cattle crazing near spawning grounds by the straw that broke their back? Ranchers fear for their existence just as strongly as environmental groups fear for the salmon. They have to comply with regulations about grazing on public lands, have to keep cattle out of riparian areas, all while seeing their children grow up and move to the big city to find a job where you don’t have to work seven days a week starting at four-thirty in the morning. They work hard all year and barely turn a profit, and they do it all while being demonized by people who believe there shouldn’t be any cattle grazing on public lands. Still, they survive, but barely, and if you listen to them speak, they’ll tell you—wolves are going to drive the American rancher to extinction.
A bird's warning
This entry is part of my journal from Semester in the West. For all SITW journal entries, click here. For all SITW posts, including blog posts I wrote while on the program, click here. To learn more about the program, click here.
camp: rim of Hell’s Canyon, Wallowa County, Oregon
Today on our hike, a bird began frantically chirping, sounding an alarm as our group passed by. I wanted to reassure it that we posed no threat to its existence. We weren’t there to hunt or log or extract precious metals. We bore it no ill will, no desire to conquer nature via the death of an inferior being. But I had to stop myself, because I realized we pose a much greater threat. Our existence as a species directly threatens everything that bird has ever known. We’ve created a civilization so complex and so blind that we’ve fundamentally altered our planet past the point of repair, and our actions have and will continue to impact the habitat of every single living thing on earth. A few months of years from now, the forest will be a different place—slightly warmer, with thinner trees and more beetles to eat their bark. The bird will do its bets to adapt to its new habitat, one it never evolved to live in. Will it survive? Will its children and grandchildren continue to live here? Or will they be added to the swelling masses of human and nonhuman climate refugees? I might never know the answers. Neither will that bird. But maybe it can sense that something is different. Maybe it can see the changing tide. Maybe, just maybe, it cried out in sorrow, asking one last futile time for us to wake up.
camp: rim of Hell’s Canyon, Wallowa County, Oregon
Today on our hike, a bird began frantically chirping, sounding an alarm as our group passed by. I wanted to reassure it that we posed no threat to its existence. We weren’t there to hunt or log or extract precious metals. We bore it no ill will, no desire to conquer nature via the death of an inferior being. But I had to stop myself, because I realized we pose a much greater threat. Our existence as a species directly threatens everything that bird has ever known. We’ve created a civilization so complex and so blind that we’ve fundamentally altered our planet past the point of repair, and our actions have and will continue to impact the habitat of every single living thing on earth. A few months of years from now, the forest will be a different place—slightly warmer, with thinner trees and more beetles to eat their bark. The bird will do its bets to adapt to its new habitat, one it never evolved to live in. Will it survive? Will its children and grandchildren continue to live here? Or will they be added to the swelling masses of human and nonhuman climate refugees? I might never know the answers. Neither will that bird. But maybe it can sense that something is different. Maybe it can see the changing tide. Maybe, just maybe, it cried out in sorrow, asking one last futile time for us to wake up.
The first few days
We’re reached our first camp near Hells Canyon, Oregon in Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. When I set off on Semester in the West I envisioned many possible forms of discomfort—being freezing cold, having to pee in the middle of the night, being hungry, having to get up at 5:30 to cook breakfast…I was under no illusion that this semester would be cushy and happy all the time, but I never really thought I would be too wet. After all, we’re staying mostly in the desert. It doesn’t rain a lot here. The defining condition of the West, according to all of the readings we’ve done so far is aridity.
So of course, it poured rain our entire first day and night. I had packed my rain clothes in the very bottom of a stuff sack in my duffel bag, assuming I would rarely, if ever, use them. I had warm layers galore—a down jacket, synthetic puffy, multiple long underwear tops and bottoms, fleece pants and insulated overalls. I was ready for cold. And instead, I found myself relying on a single, well-worn rain jacket to keep me dry. Needless to say, I was not thrilled.
Except that camp was still fun. We had great bonding moments last night. We set up the Pleasure Dome—a giant tent shelter with room for all 24 of us to have chairs—and ate fettuccine together. We practically peed ourselves laughing when Max spilled ¾ of the pepper on his pasta because he forgot there wasn’t a shaker lid. We tried in vain to find the toilet (called a groover) after Dave explained how to get there by telling us to “walk that way until you see your headlight illuminating the handwashing station, then go through the portal and over a dead log and over another dead tree and it will be in the middle of a grove of trees”. We huddled together in the trailer and marveled at our mobile library, which has several hundred books on the West organized by subject (politics, nature essays, anthologies, geology, Native American studies, etc.) And even though it was cold and wet, I was incredibly happy.
We’ll be here for one more night, and then we’re moving not very far to elsewhere in the forest for one more night. I don’t actually know what we’re doing today yet, except potentially taking a hike to a lake where we would be swimming and meeting with some guy about something foresty. I hope the rain has stopped or else I’m going to run out of dry socks, but if it doesn’t, I’ll find a way to make it work.
So of course, it poured rain our entire first day and night. I had packed my rain clothes in the very bottom of a stuff sack in my duffel bag, assuming I would rarely, if ever, use them. I had warm layers galore—a down jacket, synthetic puffy, multiple long underwear tops and bottoms, fleece pants and insulated overalls. I was ready for cold. And instead, I found myself relying on a single, well-worn rain jacket to keep me dry. Needless to say, I was not thrilled.
Except that camp was still fun. We had great bonding moments last night. We set up the Pleasure Dome—a giant tent shelter with room for all 24 of us to have chairs—and ate fettuccine together. We practically peed ourselves laughing when Max spilled ¾ of the pepper on his pasta because he forgot there wasn’t a shaker lid. We tried in vain to find the toilet (called a groover) after Dave explained how to get there by telling us to “walk that way until you see your headlight illuminating the handwashing station, then go through the portal and over a dead log and over another dead tree and it will be in the middle of a grove of trees”. We huddled together in the trailer and marveled at our mobile library, which has several hundred books on the West organized by subject (politics, nature essays, anthologies, geology, Native American studies, etc.) And even though it was cold and wet, I was incredibly happy.
We’ll be here for one more night, and then we’re moving not very far to elsewhere in the forest for one more night. I don’t actually know what we’re doing today yet, except potentially taking a hike to a lake where we would be swimming and meeting with some guy about something foresty. I hope the rain has stopped or else I’m going to run out of dry socks, but if it doesn’t, I’ll find a way to make it work.
8.26.2010
Finding home
After months of planning, scheming, purchasing excessive quantities of synthetic fabrics and reading about the American West, I’m finally here. We’re all finally here, except “here” is a concept that seems somewhat distant and not applicable when the physical location I’m sleeping changes every two or three days. We’re about halfway through orientation at the Johnston Wilderness Campus, which is a piece of land with some cabins that Whitman owns in the Blue Mountains. So far, we’ve gone over logistical things like camp chores and how our impressively large kitchen works to feed twenty-four of us (21 participants plus three program staff). Let’s just say that the smallest pot we have is about twice the size of anything you’d find in a normal kitchen.
I don’t have any deep thoughts about the American West yet, but orientation has made me start thinking seriously about how you define things like home in a constantly shifting environment. In a way, this problem isn’t unique to Semester in the West. To be a young adult is to be constantly moving between dorm rooms, apartments, tents, houses, countries, family members and friends, probably without staying somewhere consistently for more than a year. If home can’t be defined by living space, what does the concept become? Is it about a broader area, like Walla Walla or Eastern Washington? Can home be an area as large as “the American West”? Is home about the things you have with you? Or does the space just become smaller, so that my home for this semester is my sleeping bag and whatever extra clothes can fit in it with me? Maybe home is about companionship and people more than anything else. Maybe through this semester, I’ll be able to redefine my comfort area to be anywhere I’m with this group, anywhere I’m outside with enough to stay warm and full and engaged. Or maybe home is a goal, something in the future that you build for yourself or find after years of searching.
I don’t have any deep thoughts about the American West yet, but orientation has made me start thinking seriously about how you define things like home in a constantly shifting environment. In a way, this problem isn’t unique to Semester in the West. To be a young adult is to be constantly moving between dorm rooms, apartments, tents, houses, countries, family members and friends, probably without staying somewhere consistently for more than a year. If home can’t be defined by living space, what does the concept become? Is it about a broader area, like Walla Walla or Eastern Washington? Can home be an area as large as “the American West”? Is home about the things you have with you? Or does the space just become smaller, so that my home for this semester is my sleeping bag and whatever extra clothes can fit in it with me? Maybe home is about companionship and people more than anything else. Maybe through this semester, I’ll be able to redefine my comfort area to be anywhere I’m with this group, anywhere I’m outside with enough to stay warm and full and engaged. Or maybe home is a goal, something in the future that you build for yourself or find after years of searching.
8.16.2010
Things I learned on scramble leader training
I just got back from Scramble leader training, which consisted of three days of climbing in Smith Rock State Park (which is near Bend, Oregon). There are about 1800 routes in the park, and the rock is absolutely gorgeous basalt and volcanic tuff. So without further delay, I present the list of Things I Learned During Training:
1. Drinking a half gallon of carrot juice over two days will wreak havoc on your digestive system for the next week.
2. When you have a twenty foot runout between bolts, not looking down is a very good idea.
3. It is possible to spend five hours climbing and survive with only a small scrape on your knee, only to trip on the trail on the way back to camp and emerge with your ankle skin completely skinned and dripping blood. If this does happen to you, the best course of action is probably just to laugh at yourself.
4. Having climbing shoes which are not full of holes will enhance your ability to stick to the rock, thus meaning you will be less likely to fall off a really easy climb, smash into the rock and have everyone laugh at you.
5. The best way to make your bathroom awesome is to cover it in signed posters of famous climbers and put cams by the toilet to play with.
6. It may be possible to feed twelve people for a week on $194, but it is not easy. However, it does help if the Whitman College Outdoor Program generously allots you eleven pounds of rice and six pounds of dehydrated beans.
7. Some people think it's a good idea to bring person-sized inflatable orca whales to the crags where they're climbing. These people will be entertaining to watch, but you probably should not let them belay you.
8. When people who are lactose intolerant drink a milkshake, it does not bring all the boys to the yard.
9. Being legally blind, or anywhere close to it robs you of the ability to fall asleep watching a meteor shower. It also means that when you emerge from your sleeping bag shortly after sunrise and try to orient yourself, you will have no idea which people the fuzzy hands waving good morning at you belong to.
10. It's a good thing if the number of scramblers you set out with roughly matches the number you return to camp with at the end of the day. If all else fails, kidnapping a nearby highschooler from the South Eugene Cross Country Team might help you disguise your shortcomings as a leader.
1. Drinking a half gallon of carrot juice over two days will wreak havoc on your digestive system for the next week.
2. When you have a twenty foot runout between bolts, not looking down is a very good idea.
3. It is possible to spend five hours climbing and survive with only a small scrape on your knee, only to trip on the trail on the way back to camp and emerge with your ankle skin completely skinned and dripping blood. If this does happen to you, the best course of action is probably just to laugh at yourself.
4. Having climbing shoes which are not full of holes will enhance your ability to stick to the rock, thus meaning you will be less likely to fall off a really easy climb, smash into the rock and have everyone laugh at you.
5. The best way to make your bathroom awesome is to cover it in signed posters of famous climbers and put cams by the toilet to play with.
6. It may be possible to feed twelve people for a week on $194, but it is not easy. However, it does help if the Whitman College Outdoor Program generously allots you eleven pounds of rice and six pounds of dehydrated beans.
7. Some people think it's a good idea to bring person-sized inflatable orca whales to the crags where they're climbing. These people will be entertaining to watch, but you probably should not let them belay you.
8. When people who are lactose intolerant drink a milkshake, it does not bring all the boys to the yard.
9. Being legally blind, or anywhere close to it robs you of the ability to fall asleep watching a meteor shower. It also means that when you emerge from your sleeping bag shortly after sunrise and try to orient yourself, you will have no idea which people the fuzzy hands waving good morning at you belong to.
10. It's a good thing if the number of scramblers you set out with roughly matches the number you return to camp with at the end of the day. If all else fails, kidnapping a nearby highschooler from the South Eugene Cross Country Team might help you disguise your shortcomings as a leader.
8.11.2010
Grassland
I've arrived in Walla Walla and have renewed my Semester in the West pre-departure reading list efforts. I just started a book called Grassland by Richard Manning, which discusses the destruction of prairies and grasslands in the US. He starts out with an interesting take on the environmental movement in the United States, which I think is largely accurate. He posits that the conservation movement began as a reaction against industrialization and separated man from nature by designating places like Yosemite and Yellowstone to remain wild. He goes on to say that conservation efforts have largely focused on "charismatic megafauna"--the polar bears and wolves who look so good on posters for environmental organizations--at the expense of less glamorous organisms and ecosystems. Everyone can appreciate that a clearcut isn't beautiful (no one would hang a poster of a clearcut in their room), but people celebrate the beauty in rolling hills of wheat, although they represent deforestation of the grassland ecosystem in the exact same way.
I hope I can get through Grassland before we leave. It touches on a lot of issues which have defined Western land management--the impacts of ranching and monocrop agriculture, the evolution of a conservation ethic, the meaning of environmentalism. And I'm guessing it's going to raise the same questions that have been bothering me since I started thinking about how we should go about fixing the world we live in.
Books like this invariably lead me to conclude that our civilization is not sustainable in any sense of the word. Certainly the way we feed ourselves, beyond just the sheer distance our food travels, isn't sustainable. Wheat, soy, anything grown as a monocrop, depletes irreplaceable topsoil and requires chemical fertilizers and pesticides to grow. The question then becomes--in a world of seven billion people, what is the right course of action. Last year on an environmental studies excursion, we visited a wheat farmer who challenged us to confront our bias towards organic, "sustainable" food production.
"If we only produced organic food, there'd be some really healthy people and a lot of dead people," he said.
And he's unfortunately, absolutely right. We're severely overpopulated to the point where speaking of sustainability without speaking of population reduction seems meaningless. But where does that leave me as an environmentalist? Urging everyone to eat local, organic food ignores the poverty that billions of people live in. Saying that continuing to deplete finite resources to feed ourselves makes sense seems to condemn future generations to an ever larger population crash.
Bottom line: I don't know, I'm excited to learn what I can, and I like this book.
I hope I can get through Grassland before we leave. It touches on a lot of issues which have defined Western land management--the impacts of ranching and monocrop agriculture, the evolution of a conservation ethic, the meaning of environmentalism. And I'm guessing it's going to raise the same questions that have been bothering me since I started thinking about how we should go about fixing the world we live in.
Books like this invariably lead me to conclude that our civilization is not sustainable in any sense of the word. Certainly the way we feed ourselves, beyond just the sheer distance our food travels, isn't sustainable. Wheat, soy, anything grown as a monocrop, depletes irreplaceable topsoil and requires chemical fertilizers and pesticides to grow. The question then becomes--in a world of seven billion people, what is the right course of action. Last year on an environmental studies excursion, we visited a wheat farmer who challenged us to confront our bias towards organic, "sustainable" food production.
"If we only produced organic food, there'd be some really healthy people and a lot of dead people," he said.
And he's unfortunately, absolutely right. We're severely overpopulated to the point where speaking of sustainability without speaking of population reduction seems meaningless. But where does that leave me as an environmentalist? Urging everyone to eat local, organic food ignores the poverty that billions of people live in. Saying that continuing to deplete finite resources to feed ourselves makes sense seems to condemn future generations to an ever larger population crash.
Bottom line: I don't know, I'm excited to learn what I can, and I like this book.
Packing and unpacking
I'm off for Whitman tomorrow, where I will spend a week having training and preparing for the rock climbing trip I'm leading the following week. My bags are relatively packed, though the giant Semester in the West duffel isn't quite organized, due to the fact that many of its ingredients are needed for Scramble training and leading as well (sleeping bag, anyone?)
So, what did I end up bringing? Aside from the obvious basics (hopefully 22 pairs of underwear will be enough), there are a few things that I decided on which I hope will make the semester a bit more homey and interesting. Here's the list of Things I Packed Which I'm Really Excited About:
1. My new Carhartt overalls. For those of you who aren't acquainted with the Carhartt brand, they make fantastically durable clothing for people who do hard physical labor in the outdoors, like farming and ranching and stuff. So I got a pair of their quilt-lined double-knee-padded overalls for when it gets cold and miserable, and I'm hoping they're warm enough to make up for my lack of down pants.
2. A deck of American Environmental History cards. These were a Christmas present from my dad last year, and will allow me to annoy and/or amuse everyone in the van by informing them that the area we're driving through was once the site of a pristine wilderness preserve, before we put a dam downriver and flooded the whole thing.
3. A cowboy hat. This is not actually mine; I borrowed it from Clive on the grounds that he won't need it this semester, whereas I clearly will. I'm looking forward to wearing it with my dirty jeans and plaid flannel shirts. Extra points if we actually get to hang out with cows.
4. Planet Earth on DVD. I'm hoping we'll occasionally have enough free time to watch some of the BBC's spectacular footage of our planet, and where better to watch it than in the middle of the desert at night?
5. A copy of Mammal Tracks and Sign by Mark Elbroch. This book weighs about three pounds and is an absurdly comprehensive guide to mammal tracks, scat, dens, hair and just about everything else you could ever find. I doubt we'll have much time for tracking, and I've always been terrible at journaling tracks anyway, but I hope I'll at least be able to read about some of the animals we'll be leaving near.
6. My pillow. I have this awesome square pillow with a tree pattern on it that my friend Anna made me for my birthday in 7th grade. It's probably the most useful present I've ever gotten. I've taken it on almost every outdoor trip I've been on since, because it's the perfect size, super-comfy and really cute. I'm sure by now it's impregnated with a bunch of hair grease, but I still love it dearly and am looking forward to sleeping on it.
So, what did I end up bringing? Aside from the obvious basics (hopefully 22 pairs of underwear will be enough), there are a few things that I decided on which I hope will make the semester a bit more homey and interesting. Here's the list of Things I Packed Which I'm Really Excited About:
1. My new Carhartt overalls. For those of you who aren't acquainted with the Carhartt brand, they make fantastically durable clothing for people who do hard physical labor in the outdoors, like farming and ranching and stuff. So I got a pair of their quilt-lined double-knee-padded overalls for when it gets cold and miserable, and I'm hoping they're warm enough to make up for my lack of down pants.
2. A deck of American Environmental History cards. These were a Christmas present from my dad last year, and will allow me to annoy and/or amuse everyone in the van by informing them that the area we're driving through was once the site of a pristine wilderness preserve, before we put a dam downriver and flooded the whole thing.
3. A cowboy hat. This is not actually mine; I borrowed it from Clive on the grounds that he won't need it this semester, whereas I clearly will. I'm looking forward to wearing it with my dirty jeans and plaid flannel shirts. Extra points if we actually get to hang out with cows.
4. Planet Earth on DVD. I'm hoping we'll occasionally have enough free time to watch some of the BBC's spectacular footage of our planet, and where better to watch it than in the middle of the desert at night?
5. A copy of Mammal Tracks and Sign by Mark Elbroch. This book weighs about three pounds and is an absurdly comprehensive guide to mammal tracks, scat, dens, hair and just about everything else you could ever find. I doubt we'll have much time for tracking, and I've always been terrible at journaling tracks anyway, but I hope I'll at least be able to read about some of the animals we'll be leaving near.
6. My pillow. I have this awesome square pillow with a tree pattern on it that my friend Anna made me for my birthday in 7th grade. It's probably the most useful present I've ever gotten. I've taken it on almost every outdoor trip I've been on since, because it's the perfect size, super-comfy and really cute. I'm sure by now it's impregnated with a bunch of hair grease, but I still love it dearly and am looking forward to sleeping on it.
8.05.2010
The pros and cons of hair
As I prepare for Semester in the West, there are a lot of questions swirling through my head. Will two pairs of pants be enough? Should I get a second journal that I don't have to turn in so I can write about how annoying everyone is? Do I really want to spend most of my semester wearing a shirt that says Beer Mile on it in large yellow letters? But nothing has come close to the debate I'm having about hair.
There are two schools of thought on wilderness hairstyling. Option one: cut it all off. No hair, no worry. Just wake up and go. Option two: grow it long enough to put up and out of the way.
I really like the idea of running around barefoot in the desert right before sunset, when the sun's rays are at a low enough angle that they don't burn your eyes. It's that time of day when everything takes on a golden halo that makes you think you've left reality and wandered into a cowgirl themed fashion spread in Seventeen. And long hair is an absolute prerequisite for pulling this off. No advertisement in any medium has ever featured someone with short hair wearing a brown dress and staring suggestively off into the distance at a barren, rocky landscape. So for the aesthetic value of windswept desert beauty--advantage: long hair.
However, there's also reality. My hair is longer now than it's ever been, and while that's not saying much, I don't have a ton of experience managing this many dead cells at a time. My hair is quite like me, in that it thinks it's awesome and refuses to listen to anyone else's instructions unless it feels like it, which means that while I respect my hair immensely, sometimes I don't like it. So I'm worried that if I let this go on for another four months, I'm going to come home with accidental dreds and an entire nest of desert creatures lurking somewhere in its recesses. For hygienic pragmatism, then--advantage: short hair.
I think I'm going to leave it where it is, because I'll be able to french braid it most of the time, and anything short will grow out enough to be a pain by the end of the semester. Anyway, if I change my mind mid-semester, I can always go for the hacked-off-with-a-Swiss-Army-knife look.
There are two schools of thought on wilderness hairstyling. Option one: cut it all off. No hair, no worry. Just wake up and go. Option two: grow it long enough to put up and out of the way.
I really like the idea of running around barefoot in the desert right before sunset, when the sun's rays are at a low enough angle that they don't burn your eyes. It's that time of day when everything takes on a golden halo that makes you think you've left reality and wandered into a cowgirl themed fashion spread in Seventeen. And long hair is an absolute prerequisite for pulling this off. No advertisement in any medium has ever featured someone with short hair wearing a brown dress and staring suggestively off into the distance at a barren, rocky landscape. So for the aesthetic value of windswept desert beauty--advantage: long hair.
However, there's also reality. My hair is longer now than it's ever been, and while that's not saying much, I don't have a ton of experience managing this many dead cells at a time. My hair is quite like me, in that it thinks it's awesome and refuses to listen to anyone else's instructions unless it feels like it, which means that while I respect my hair immensely, sometimes I don't like it. So I'm worried that if I let this go on for another four months, I'm going to come home with accidental dreds and an entire nest of desert creatures lurking somewhere in its recesses. For hygienic pragmatism, then--advantage: short hair.
I think I'm going to leave it where it is, because I'll be able to french braid it most of the time, and anything short will grow out enough to be a pain by the end of the semester. Anyway, if I change my mind mid-semester, I can always go for the hacked-off-with-a-Swiss-Army-knife look.
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