Thursday 13 October 2011

central coast

Now we are back on the Coast. Back at sea level, high summer - and the living is easy. Except getting down to the coast itself, we hit a traffic jam and get stuck for over an hour. The cause? Wait for it - a farm selling pumpkins (still a month to Hallowe'en, guys!)
We are travelling down the Coastal Highway, stopping off first just south at Carmel. A well heeled, lovely little town - famously Clint Eastwood was once the Mayor. Well, it made our day anyway. We drove along the 17-mile drive that leads to Mendocino. 20 years ago this seemed a lonely and magnificent bit of coast, and still is spectacular, but houses and golf courses are encroaching at an alarming rate.

to the city of zion

We leave early - frost on the car roof but still feeling comfortable in the still, sunny, extenuated air - because today we are driving down through Idaho and Utah to Salt Lake City. Another 300 miles ahead of us, and again we are going through many different landscapes - semi-arid mostly, like those classic western movies, with scrub oaks along the rivers and dusty ground hugging plants. Occasional valleys of farmland, with elaborate irrigation systems, great scaffolds that rotate infinitesimally to water circles of alfalfa so big they can be seen from space.
We are approaching Mormon country. You can tell it's their town - very green, estates of modern, tidy, big houses grouped around the whited sepulchre of a temple.
Then a glimpse of the Great Salt Lake and we are in the City itself. It stands up proud against the Wabash Range towering to the east. At sunset the clouds whip up into a biblical scene that would have got Turner in a tizz.
If the USA were designed by Disney, it would all be like this. Rows and rows of very prosperous houses, perfectly maintained and landscaped. Driving around town, it's clear that something is going on. The conference centre is holding a convention for the Latter Day Saints. It seems like all those young men who go out to evangelise have returned to Mormon ground zero for the day. Hundreds and hundreds of them, all in business suits, white shirts and ties (Tierack must do well here. - Ian) and with tidy short hair and polished suits, on this warm Saturday afternoon, are wandering about, laughing, chatting, debating - begging for tickets to the event. It is surreal, when compared to any other slacker, slobbily dressed western town - taken over by Stepford missionaries for the night, all robotically identical.
Interestingly, only about 60% of Utah is signed up to LDS nowadays- and only half of the members are active. But on this day, they dominate the city visually as they no doubt do politically.

Saturday 8 October 2011

The death of Yellowstone?

The Rockies are dying. We saw whole hillsides of grey dead, lodgepole and ponderosa pines, victims of a fatal combination of global warming, poor management and a sudden aggressive change in the behaviour of the tiny mountain pine beetle, which bores into the trees and rapidly kills them if their numbers are great enough. Previously they only killed mature trees at low altitude. The warmer weather has allowed them to greatly expand the territory and the amount of time each year they can operate – and to reduce their life cycle from two to one year. Coupled with an under funded park service, the result is devastating. A whole forest of dead trees will inevitably lead to huge forest fires in years to come.
We may well have unwittingly come to Yellowstone in the last year when it looked so stunning. The creeping grey plague is spreading even in the high altitudes here, and there is no stopping it. Though immature trees are pushing up between the dead hulks, they are extremely slow growing and it may take at least a couple of generations to restore the forests of this region, even if they can develop resistant strains and see off other effects of global warming. Meanwhile the stress on the rest of the ecosystem will be enormous. More at:

http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2252

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/garden/02tree.html

Yellowstone

Despite its green (for now – see next) appearance, this region is the product of a terrible cataclysm. 650,000 years ago a huge pool of magma just below the surface broke through and split the crust in a circle of eruptions. The centre collapsed forming a caldera 50 miles wide. Eruptions continued until very recently, pushing great lava flows out across the floor of the crater, which are still very much in evidence. The magma is again building up underneath and pockets of heat produce geothermal vents all over the area. The last eruption was one of a series at this hotspot that have been recently, and perhaps worryingly, at roughly 600,000 year intervals.
There are more geysers, hot springs and thermal vents in Yellowstone than the rest of the world put together. The flora and fauna provide a calming patina that does not entirely disguise the raw energy ready to burst out from beneath. There are many areas where you can see the steam rising almost from horizon to horizon. There are deep clear, extraordinarily blue pools of boiling water, steaming away; and of course the geysers are spectacular. We visited Old Faithful, the most famous, though not as regular as it used to be. However, when we got there, a rumour went round that it would blow at 1.30, and sure enough it did. Steam emerged, then a few spurts of scalding water, then sudden;ly a huge plume 15 or 20m high for a few seconds, gradually subsiding to just steam again. However, the razzmatazz in this area we found less attractive than some of the other less visited thermal sites.
Add to all the volcanic stuff the action of glaciers and fast moving rivers, which have rapidly cut deep, narrow gorges into the whole area, and you can imagine what a fascinating area this is to visit.
Finally, the endless treescapes and glimpses of wildlife add yet another level of interest. We saw many buffalo, deer and elk, and very fleetingly, a cayote and even, yes, a black bear, that ran across the road two cars ahead of us.
We were lucky to go in autumn when visitor numbers are much lower, but we had perfect weather. Bright sunshine all the time, temperatures dipping at night but perfect for walking around in the day. We have been over a mile above sea level (or more – over 3000m on some passes) and you can really feel the shortage of oxygen, that makes you at times catch your breath.

Grand Teton

Grand Teton
Hitting Jackson after two days, we were at the gateway to the twin national parks of Grand Teton and Yellowstone. Our strategy was to book nights at different entry points and so travel through the parks during the day on different routes. This worked very well. Other nights we stopped in Gardiner to the north and West Yellowstone.
Jackson is the most well heeled: shops with Swarovski and alligator handbags will give you an idea.
They all have a slightly Disneyfied self conscious wild west feel to them. Sarah told us to look out for the shoot out that occurs every Saturday at the Cowboy Saloon, but we gave it a miss...
It is very hard to write about this area without just spouting a load of travelogue superlatives. It really is as good as we hoped and in many ways better.
The Grand Teton range runs north of Jackson, presenting its jagged profile to the wide glacial valley, filled with meadows. This is a wonderful Alpine scene, with lots of black cattle, as well as deer and elk. The early morning views across the little lakes at the foot of the range are particularly good.

Travelling the Rockies

I’ve always wanted to visit Yellowstone but thought I never would, as it’s well off the beaten track. But this time we were determined! Even Amtrak only took us to within 600 miles of the parks, but here was a chance to see more of the Rockies and other areas on the way. We took a car at Denver and drove in a sweeping arc, up to Yellowstone, then back to Salt Lake City, taking in four states and covering 1400 miles. You can fly into airports nearer to the parks (expensively), but I am glad we had the time to do it this way because of the variety of scenery on the way.
Colorado is one half mountains and one half planes, with Denver at the divide. We chose the mountain route, up and up through pleasant wooded countryside around Idaho Springs, an old gold rush town, then to the foot of the Rocky Mountain National Park, through increasingly sparsely populated areas set between mountain ranges. Time after time we would cross a pass to find another huge vista stretching ahead, beneath an even huger cloudscape. Now I understand the phrase the big country. We crossed the route of the Oregon Trail (about which I am reading a book) and you can only admire the spirit of the people that made this journey in a few ox carts across this desolate landscape. Desolation has its own beauty and we loved all of it.