I did the evening drive to Voyageurs at, shall we say, warp speed. In fact, as I navigated northward the lightning bugs glancing off my windshield could have been phaser blasts deflecting off my force field. If, you know, such things were real.

The following morning I rendezvoused in International Falls with Craig Halla of Forest Capital Partners, an investment firm dedicated to sustainable forestry and sponsor of SCA’s Voyageurs crew. An affable, high energy guy, Craig closed the office for the day and led his staff on a field trip to meet up with the SCA crew. But first they loaded two coolers with sandwiches, drinks and ice cream and then we all hopped a park boat for a 20 minute ride on Kabetogama Lake to Cruiser Trail. From there, the FCP team hauled the cumbersome coolers over a half mile in stifling heat, over rugged terrain, and through insatiable insects. Suffice it to say they broke out the cold pop as soon as the introductions were over.

The effervescent crew eagerly shared details of their innovative bear-proofing strategies at base camp (think “open air fruit market,” 10 feet up), a recent visit to a bird of prey handler (estimates on the size of the eaglet they saw ranged from eight inches to three feet), and an excursion to town where they gleefully devoured every no-redeeming-value snack they could find (”Whoopie Pies, Cheetos, Gummie Bears…”).

With lunch out of the way, the crew and Forest Capital team set to building a series of trail cairns. Once the high school kids realized their visitors were willing to hunt and haul rocks for them, they — the crew — quickly settled into the enviable role of supervisor. Soon the job was done, everyone posed for a group photo and then, not afraid to show their simian side, the group sat down picked ticks off one another.

Too bad they couldn’t have just zapped the buggers with phasers.

A conventional timeline suggests that time moves relentlessly forward. A pocketwatch shows that time moves in perpetual circles. All I can say is that time…moves…me.

The local volunteers who hit Wonderland Trail during my Rainier visit ranged in age from 20 to 50. Many different people at many different points in their lives but all made the, yes, time to advance the Mount Rainier Recovery effort. More than one individual vowed to return in 10, 20 or 30 years to inspect and reflect on their work. With memory, experience, and imagination we can be in the past, present or future.

In my previous post I mentioned the 500 year old volcanic ash the crew uncovered. It gave most of us pause. Yet later, during a Meadow Rover training session with another group of volunteers, my group hiked past a Volkswagon-sized rock left by a lahar thousands of years ago. And of course Rainier’s glaciers date back to the Ice Age. The history looming before us seemed taller than the mountain itself.

I understand none of this is classifies as “this just in.” But at least for me it was a reminder of how easy it is to take time — its passage, predictability, and potency — for granted.

For example, after Rainier, I flew to Minnesota to hook up with an SCA crew at Voyageurs National Park. I just assumed my luggage would arrive at the airport at the same moment I did. Not this time…

Most trails take you through parks or forests. This one took us through time.

I’m at Mount Rainier National Park with some SCA crew leaders and local volunteers. Our board of directors was here yesterday, helping to redirect part of the Wonderland Trail after a rain-swelled, ravenous Nisqually River took a giant bite out of the trail near Cougar Rock last winter. Today the directors and other senior staff are in Seattle conducting their summer board meeting, but I stayed behind at the park.

The morning started cloudy and cool, but as long as things stayed dry we were happy. Some people wrestled stumps while others removed a foot or more of loose organic material — known as “duff” — to make way for a more durable trail surface. Just an inch or two into the duff they found a light gray, powdery substance. Some in the group correctly surmised it was volcanic ash from the 1980 eruption at Mount St. Helens. But no one knew what to make of a similar discovery some eight inches deep.

Crew Leader Sam Commarto revealed this layer was also ash from Mount St. Helens but it was much older. Five hundred years older. (I didn’t doubt Sam but I was intrigued, so I later looked it up: St. Helens recorded two major ash spews between 1479 and 1482, a moment in time known as the Kalama Eruptive Period.)

The trail dogs were blown away, kicking up volcanic ash that landed before Columbus. No one needed another reminder of nature’s muscle but it’s unlikely any of us will forget it soon.

I hung with other SCAs at Paradise in the afternoon for Meadow Rover Training. I’ll fill you in on that next time I get a wireless connection.

On his way to document SCA interns working in Waveland, Mississippi, our colleague Garrett passed through New Orleans and sent back these photos. Stay tuned for more photos — of gulf restoration work around Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, especially hard hit by Hurricane Katrina almost two years ago and then a marine biology project in Padre Island National Seashore off the coast of Texas.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a nice guide of wildlife refuges that are located near airports for travelers to also take refuge on extended layovers. - link

Corn-based ethanol not cheap, not green. - link

And on a completely different note, Kurt Vonnegut’s take on the Military Occupation of Iraq from 2003. - link

Forestry experts and scientists from Oregon State University have just published an article that shows forests are naturally regenerating in the wake of searing forest fires.

Though natural regeneration generally took longer to produce pines and firs, it created a more varied forest, even after brush had become established, which is likely to benefit wildlife, concluded to the study by scientists from Oregon State University appearing in Wednesday’s issue of the Journal of Forestry. - full article

This is an ongoing debate and one we are facing as an organization with the Mt Rainier Recovery. What are your views on this?

I’m generally of the notion that living simply has a direct correlation to environmental responsibility and overall happiness, so when I read about No Impact Man and his family in the New York Times this week, I was intrigued.

No Impact Man, otherwise and formerly known as Colin Beavan, is shepherding his wife and baby daughter through a year-long lifestyle experiment to minimize their impact on the planet. The rules of the experiment, as the New York Times explains, are constantly evolving, but are focused on eating only local, organic food, producing no waste, using no paper, shopping for nothing but food, and using no carbon-fueled transportation. It’s an ambitious goal for anyone, but more so for a family living in the heart of Manhattan and accustomed to the conveniences and luxuries of upper class urban life.

(more…)

So I’m watching the Oscars last night (has there ever been a less entertaining television broadcast?), and among the endless Coke and Cadillac commercials is a spot for CSI: Miami. Apparently, a man-eating grizzly bear is rampaging through the Everglades. Yeah, the Everglades.

The episode doesn’t air until tonight, but my guess is someone had a grizzly cub as a pet and later flushed it down the toilet. You know what happens then. (more…)

by Joshua Stearns, SCA Board Member and Alumnus

Bill McKibben’s new initiative, Step It Up!, is creating quite a buzz in the green corners of the internet. Although McKibben has been a long time advocate for various environmental causes through his writing (The End of Nature, Enough, Hope Human and Wild, etc…) in the last five years he has become an increasingly prominent face and voice for the environmental movement, especially the fight against global climate change. Through his op-ed pieces in support of the proposed Adirondack wind park, his Vermont Global-Warming March, and his new book Deep Economy, McKibben is charging ahead on as many fronts as possible. He writes with beauty and passion, he speaks with a poetic urgency, and he is quickly proving himself an able organizer as well. (more…)

These stories may not have the drama of falling birds or giant ice shelves breaking free, but they do a little to lighten my enviro-heart. At the same time, my inner skeptic can’t help but ask: Are these law-makers legit? And do sportsmen really appreciate nature the same way that I do? As environmentalists, doesn’t it seem like we just have to take what we can get?

Bills on Climate Move to Spotlight in New Congress
The New York Times
January 7, 2007
Legislation to control global warming that once had a passionate but quixotic ring to it is now serious business. Congressional Democrats are increasingly determined to wrest control of the issue from the White House and impose the mandatory controls on carbon dioxide emissions that most smokestack industries have long opposed.
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Conservation Group, Union Joining Forces
The Washington Post
January 16, 2007
The Union Sportsmen’s Alliance is getting behind conservation efforts as a way to protect’s sportsmen’s rights. Worried that hunters and anglers are being barred from prime playgrounds, the Union Sportsmen’s Alliance will push for increased federal conservation funding and for access to public lands.
link