Beyond the Mountains of Madness, or a Salute to a lost Adventurer

I know this is late, but I have been thinking about how to approach this topic for awhile now. I want to fore warn you that I did not personally know the individual that will be the subject of this post. I do not know his views, nor his family's. These are purely my musings and are not meant to represent anyone or anything but myself.

On January 24, 2016, only seven days ago (at the time of me writing this), the world lost an Adventurer. His name was Henry Worsley. He was an ex-British Army officer and had made a goal of hiking from one end of Antarctica to the other. A lofty goal, indeed. Unfortunately, only 30 miles from the end of his journey, he had to call in for back up. He was tossing in the flag. Not long later, he would be pronounced dead from total organ failure.

Often, when we think of the word "adventurer", we think of Indian Jones, Lara Croft or Nathan Drake (my personal favorite). However, in the real world, adventurers don't normally find themselves fighting Nazis for the Holy Grail, Escaping a cult on a lost island, or fighting a war criminal for eternal life. Here, in reality, they are men and women who choose to take on daring feats, often enduring extensive journeys by boat, balloon or foot. Sometimes they travel horizontally and sometimes vertically. They travel through mountains, jungles, deserts and the sky. Mr. Worsley chose the desolate land of ice and snow that is Antarctica.

Admittedly, I know little of Antarctica. After all, my imagination runs through the desert more often than not. My first real foray into the continent came from the novella "At the Mountains of Madness" by H. P.  Lovecraft. In the story, a group of explorers from Miskatonic University find themselves lost and pursued through a system of super-ancient corridors and tunnels built by intelligent beings from beyond Space and Time. Aside from the lurking fear (another Lovecraft story), the blistering winds, frigid temperatures and utter desolation plague the misguided heroes. Despite the science fiction, Lovecraft evoked a real sense of awe when describing the southern fringe of the globe. Antarctica has always carried with a it a sense of mystery and wonder. He would not be the only author to suppose what lie beneath the sheets of ice. In all honesty, I can only imagine that a similar since of awe and wonder for the continent is what sent Mr. Worsley there in the first place. I don't feel like that's too much of a stretch.

Mr. Worsley was an admirer of Sir Ernest Shackleton, the most famous of Antarctic explorers. Sir Shackleton, born in 1822 was an accomplished explorer and adventure by any definition. His sailing and overland expeditions were most often focused on Antarctica. On January 5, 1922, Shackleton himself died on an expedition in Antarctica.

Henry Worsley was using this expedition to raise funds for injured soldiers, an admirable cause, but it was not just about the charity for him. Adventure was the main draw. The task was to travel Antarctica, coast to coast, completely unaided. A daunting task to be sure. But one that Worsley tackled head on. He made it 70 days before he called for help. All in all, traveling 913 miles (1,469 KM for the rest of you) before feeling as though he needed to throw in the towel. Even then, he has been quoted with saying, "I will lick my wounds, they will heal over time and I will come to terms with the disappointment." A man seemingly as undaunted as the continent he sough to conquer. After calling for help, he was airlifted on the 23rd of January to a hospital in Chile. There, while undergoing surgery, he would die of total organ failure.

This is undoubtedly a time of grieving and mourning for the family and friends of the 71 year old adventurer. I can't help but be a little sad myself. It seems to me that the sense of wonder with the world and determination that it takes to tackle adventures like this are growing rarer and rarer. With technology, it is easy to think of the world as a smaller place. A place where everything is written down and photographed and put on Wikipedia for the world to see. This is nowhere near the truth, but the message permeates our culture. All that being said, this is a salute to Mr. Worsley. Wherever you are. You dared to dream during the day, as T. E. Lawrence said, and while you did not make your goal, it was in no way a failure. Few can truly say they died doing what they loved.You are inspiration to me, and I am sure to many others as well.

From: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/01050/fc24386a-c454-11e5_1050832b.jpg

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35398552

Far too Long...

While I have known this for a long time, recently my feelings have come to a head and its time to get them out. Indeed, its been far too long since I've written in this blog. Since the last time I did this, a lot has gone on in my life. So much so, that my entire outlook on what it means to be an explorer and an adventurer. Beware, this might get a tad preachy, but that is by no means my intent.

The past year I have managed to travel all the way across the country and back. I met some of the most amazing people at a far away place called Chestnut Lake. I also managed to survive a long stint in the midst of our Nation's Capital. For a boy that grew up under the wide open Nebraska sky, not seeing the horizon on a daily basis really drained me. That, and the twice daily bout of motion sickness from my metro ride to the State Department where I worked. I road tripped back across the country to New Mexico with my father, survived an earthquake in Oklahoma and actually found myself saying that Texas did indeed have some pretty country. I have also just started my student teaching and am currently in love with my Junior High students. Well...most of them. No matter how great the rest of them are, there are always going to be shitty teenagers. And now that I am back, I have been trying my best to stay in touch with the people that matter to me. I have rekindled at least one old friendship. My imagination is now running at full blast and I find inspiration every day.

What does this have to do with adventure and exploration? Its all part of life, man! Maybe its finally seeing a beginning of the rest of my life not so far off, or maybe its part of finally coming to terms with who I am. But I am finally coming to realize that the adventure and discovery doesn't just come from treasuring hunting, lost ruins and haunted caverns (although its definitely part of it). It is every where in life. My aunt was right, even my daily routine in 8th Grade Social Studies is an adventure (Thanks Pat!). Suddenly I see a future. It probably won't be what I imagine it to be, no matter how bad I want it. But maybe that will make it better still. In the mean time, I will do what I can to leave my mark for the better in this world. I will love who I love and treat my life as the adventure that it is meant to be. So many times, I have been asked, "why do you get up in the morning?" I usually answer, "why not?" Now, I can truly say that I wake up in the morning because I can't wait to see what happens next. That's the real adventure.

Enough of the mushy, feely stuff. Get out there and explore!

Mein Tile.

    Just the other day, I had gotten a hair cut from a very pretty girl at the hair college and then opted to walk down the the public library and see if they had a couple books I've been wanting to read. I got done with the hair cut at 9:30 and the route I took to the the place where knowledge lives (not the brain house) took me roughly fifteen minutes. I felt a mild sense of adventure as I wandered through alleys the morning light had yet to touch and slunk through restricted access areas of parking garages. When I finally reached the from door of the downtown library I was shocked to see it didn't open till 10! I still had fifteen minutes till open.
     So I just continued on my way knowing a quick walk through downtown would be an easy time killer. It was kind of interesting to see all my favorite bars closed up, knowing full well that these very side walks would be filled with tight jeans, short skirts and drunk partiers in less than 12 hours. I rounded the corner near a new Ramen joint I must try and then found myself on the corner of Centennial Mall and M street. There I was, looking up at our giant, less than vaguely phallic, capital building and all of a sudden I am filled with any overwhelming sense of place.
    I was standing on an insignificant street corner in a less than large capital of an under-populated state in an equally underpopulated region of the United States. My country, fairly large and dense with people, is only one of three on this continent, one of seven total. Only seven on the only planet yet discovered that supports life. We circle a single star, one of a seething roil of countless balls of light that fill the black, abyssal universe. Needless to say, that is a lot to have sink in on a Saturday morning walk.
     Its not that I have never realized it before, I actually think about it quite often. This time was different. It seemed heavier. Thick and tangible. As I continued my jaunt I wondered to myself how many other people recognize this. How many people are fully aware of where we are in the universe? How many people think about this stuff on  regular basis? I am sure more than a handful are just like me, but I'd wager that most have never had the idea cross their mind.
      There is a man, Dr. David Wishart, whom I infinitely respect; he teaches geography at my college and once said something that made me more than a little sad. He relayed to our class that hardly anyone has a sense of place anymore. They go on runs down wooded trails but their ears are plugged with head phones. People walk up and down city streets peering down at their smart phones. The do not hear the wind in the trees, nor do they see the bustle around them. People become absorbed in the tiny bubble that they have created for themselves.
     This can lead to strange consequences like disassociation of where one is, where they came from, why they are there and how they interact and effect the world around them. Why do people do this to themselves? I have no idea. Maybe its safe and sound when you have a false control over what you see and hear. Maybe its an ingrained need to stay connected to others, after all we are social creatures. Perhaps being conscious of the knowledge of exactly where one is in existence is too heavy a burden for some to bear.
     Do me a favor. Next time you are out and about just sit and think about where you are. Close your eyes and listen to your surroundings, take the time and look at the finer details of the world around you and think for a second why that matters to you or you matter to it.

Cabin Fever, or "A Winter's Tale"

     As my fellow Mid-westerners know all too well, it is the dead of winter. In fact, we have a recent wave of frigid cold and layers of snow that dwarf any from earlier in the season. This generally puts a damper on the outdoor adventures. It isn't so much the cold or frozen snow that keeps me inside. Its other people. It seems to me that during the warmer months the majority of people completely forget how to drive n snow and ice. Far more dangerous than the freezing temps and blistering wind are the people who drive atop layers of frozen water as though it were normal road surface. This make for a nerve wracking, tiresome slog to the nearest trail head, all of which I am intimately familiar with. I have recently returned from a long stint of work in New Mexico where I spent every day exploring the high plains. It has been a rough couple months since then, readjusting to a mundane life and erratic work schedule. It doesn't help that when I get the time, the weather is at its worst.So how do I get my fix during these hard times?
     Recently I have rediscovered a show on Netflix that I adored as a teenager, Destination Truth. The premise is that a group of people, led by intrepid adventurer Joshua Gates, travel the globe in search of the truth behind mysteries and legends. A lot of people scoff at the fact that people still believe and search for things a kin to big foot. I will tell you that I a firm believer that there are things in the world that we have yet to discover. In this technological world we have created, it is easy to fall into the misconception that we have found all there is to find in the world.  With Google Maps able to give us a birds eye view of nearly everywhere in the world we can forget that places exist that have yet to be explored. While the Amazon Rainforest is rapidly shrinking, there a vast tracts that are untouched, the Himalayas, the Congo, even parts of Canada are unexplored. While the cast of Desitnation Truth never truly finds "the thing", some of the episodes do bring to light some unexplainable evidence.
      Watching the explorers jump from Brazil to Zambia to Vietnam definitely helps ease the wanderlust that is tugging at my heart. It also causes a tinge of jealousy to rise in my heart. I would really like to know how these people get approached to do these kinds of shows! I am more than willing to uproot everything and globe trot, to anyone who might be reading! Travel shows like the one I mentioned also give a nice, quick view of the far off places that the world has to offer. Did you know that there is a lake in the Congo the size of Connecticut? Me neither, till this morning. I also really enjoy watching the interactions of people from the United States and say...the Nepalese. The meeting of two different cultures is fun to watch, but some can be quite agitating. I am not usually one to sit in front of the tube and watch TV shows, but with little else to do it is nice to see a little bit of the world and learn something at the same time.
     Fortunately for me, spring is upon us and soon I will back at my summer job where I will be outside every day. Then as fall rolls around, I will be taking off to a new destination for Graduate School and a new place to explore will be at hand. Right now I am sitting and looking out the window and dreaming of fish by the lake, scuba diving and hiking...ugh....spring you could not come sooner...

The Longest Hajj: Explorer of the Month

     It is thankfully the last day of February and Spring is right around the corner. It has also been a full 28 days and I have yet to post an Explorer of the Month. Never fear.

 Ibn Battuta, brought to you by Ibn Battua Mall in Dubai.

    I love the so called "New World". I love mountain men, and cowboys and treasure hunters and Conquistadors and natives and all of that New Worldy stuff. However, there is much more to the world than that and I decided I should talk about that as well. Not that I don't love it as well, it just isn't my specialty. So that brings me to the Explorer for this month. He is a man that traveled many thousands of miles during his life time and saw more people, places and things in his journeys than many explorers of European descent. Yet he still remains obscure to many. His name was Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Abdullah Al Lawati Al Tanji Ibn Battuta. Doesn't ring a bell? Perhaps you know him simply as Ibn Battuta.
    Ibn Battuta was born into a family of Islamic scholars in Tangier, Morocco (making him a Tangerine!) on the 25th of February of 1304. At the age of 21, Ibn dropped everything and left his home, family and friends behind in order to complete his Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. This feet would take him sixteen months to complete but he would not return to his home for 24 more years. His travels would take him across nearly every corner of of the Old World.

Believe it or not, this map is courtesy of "Fuck Yeah Cartography!", Google it.

     As you can see from the map, this guy went a lot of places. He saw parts of Africa, Europe, Arabia, India, Indonesia and china. It no wonder that his trip took as long as it did. Ibn Battuta made his way to Mecca by way of Syria, he would stop in Medina to visit the tomb of Muhammad. On his way he visited many holy sites including Jerusalem and Bethlehem as well as the great port city of Alexandria. Upon reaching his destination he decided he would keep on walking in order to see the extent of the Muslim Empire. All along the road he wrote about everything he saw and compiled an autobiographical text about his journey, known today as the Rhila. His next destination was a Mongol Khanate called Ilkhanate that was centered in Persia. This is merely the beginning of his epic journey to see the world, which is the one thing he desired the most. After ending his wanderings he relayed all of his quest to a scholar named Ibn Juzzay, to whom he said "I have indeed - praise be to God - attained my desire in this world, which was to travel through the Earth, and I have attained this honour, which no ordinary person has attained." I could go on and on about what he did and saw and where Ibn Battuta went. However, I merely would like to wet your appetite for knowledge and hopefully you will take it upon yourself to learn more about this great man. I here by deem Ibn Battuta as the Explorer of the month for February 2013, 708 years and three days after his birthday. I do so on the grounds that he was a man who wanted only to see the world and to learn from what he found. I can think of no better definition of an explorer than that.

There are a ton of books about Ibn Battuta and his travels; here is a link to Amazon.com that will provide a good jumping off point for those interested.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_5?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=ibn+battuta&sprefix=Ibn+B%2Cstripbooks%2C142&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Aibn+battuta

Discovering the Undiscovered

   The air was crisp but I knew that it would rapidly warm as the desert sun rose above the jagged peaks  to the east. There had been frost lining the edges of small, leafy plants nestled in the shade of tall desert trees not but minutes earlier. The sand beneath my feet was cool and damp from the rain and melting mountain snow from the previous days. As I walked slowly through the lowland desert landscape, weaving between huddles of dense Mesquite trees I felt alone. The only other footprints were those of small white tailed deer that crisscrossed the barren sand where the dry, golden grass refused to grow. The morning sun reflected  from small pieces of white and rose quartz that dotted the red, gritty earth. It is hard for me to walk in the wilderness with my head raised to the horizon, years of archaeology training has forced my eyes to scour the ground for signs of past inhabitants. Hundreds of years ago, men from Portugal and Spain came to this desert as well as many other lands, claiming it a "New World", an entire continent now discovered and ripe for the taking. One after another, my steps led me through the low canyon; something caught my eye and I stopped. The distinct rust red of an ancient fragment of Hohokam pottery stood out just enough from the sand and rock to be noticeable to anyone who was looking. I had somewhat of a revelation just then...perhaps not so much a revelation as a realization; a sinking in of sorts. I had known for some time that there have been people here far longer than we know. I suppose being involved in archaeology had led to a kind of disassociation with the world. Maybe this was something I had thought before, or known all along, or some repressed notion hidden away by my romantic ideas of discovery. Whatever it may have been, it was apparent now that there was no real discovery here, not even when the Conquistadors and colonists came. Thousands of years ago this land had already been seen and settled and tamed. It had all been stamped out or forgotten and now I realized what I was discovering was no more a discovery than the New World. It is but a rediscovering of the lost. Maybe this is the true discovery.
    The question of who the first "discoverers" of the "New World" has always been a point of contention.  It has been taught for decades that those that would become what we call Native Americans traipsed here over the frozen Bering land bridge during the the thick of the last Ice Age. Popular opinion would have you believe that these people migrated from Asia by following giant Mega -fauna, mammoths and their ilk, through a convenient ice free corridor that existed in modern day Canada. Over the decades their has been numerous pieces of evidence that place people in the Americas long before 10,000ish B.C., when this corridor "would" have existed. Now it appears that there were multiple waves of colonization from Asia. It has been proposed that it one wave made their way along the western coasts and finally settled in South America long before North America became inhabited. This is shown in a number of artifacts found in the southern jungles that date well before any artifacts in the United States. These people would have been the first men and women to see these new continents, they were the first discoverers.*
      Not far from where I stood, perhaps only half and hour's walk, I knew that that long ago, maybe one thousand years or more someone had stayed for a night, I had seen it before. A few years ago, my wife, good friend Abraham and went hiking down a canyon while researching the legend of the lost Escalante Mine in the Santa Catalina Mountains. The trek was quite arduous, their were spots in the path heavy with deep sand, in other places large boulders blocked our way. Abraham and I scaled the northern slope of the canyon in order to see if we were still continuing on our intended path and on the way back down I slipped and nearly slid into a large diamond back rattlesnake that did not take kindly to the handful of loose rock I had just kicked his way. We eventually came to the end of the canyon as I we hoped we would, although unfortunately it did not perfectly fit the story we were following. Here we were met with a very steep and well worn cliff where water cascades when the winter snows are melting. Pools of green tinged water where clusters of wasps hovered and drank. Atop the dry falls we met a couple of women who had followed a trail alongside the canyon and had been watching us. This was rather disheartening as we had thought the canyon would have led farther into the mountains or would be more remote. Never the less, we talked to the duo and offered some insect sting ointment from our first ad kit to one who had been bit by some crawling thing or another. Before we parted, one of them told us we should investigate a small area jutting out above the canyon. She claimed she "felt an old energy". I am not one to readily believe claims of being psychic but what we found there left me thinking.

      Nestled between rocks and dry desert grass was a small ring of stone. Abraham was curious as to why I was so interested in the anomaly. I explained to him that it this was what archaeologists call a rock circle; this had once been an ancient campsite. Upon further investigation we found a great deal of pottery sherds* and lithic* fragments scattered about the area. Abraham expressed that he would have simply written it off as an abandoned hiker's camp site. By that time, I had seen many features such as this during archaeology field school and the evidence here was enough to say with a great deal of certainty that this site was left behind by the natives of Tucson River Valley quite some time ago.
      This is not the only place in the world where the sands of time have washed away memories of the past. Humans have been on this planet for over 200 thousand years; while a mere blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things, this is a massive amount of time and during that time span humans have walked over nearly every place on Earth. Again I stood amidst the desert landscape, the spirit of ancients, settlers and legend danced on the winds around me, the high granite peaks loomed above and at my feet lie the shattered memories of a forgotten people. Now I fully realized that I was not discovering the undiscovered but in fact remembering the unremembered. That is not to say that there is nothing to be found that hasn't already been seen; the woodlands of Canada, the Amazon, the Himalayan Mountains, all fortresses still resisting the advance of man...or are they?

 

*For more information of the pre-contact Americas, check out 1491 by Charles C. Mann
*For whatever reason archaeologists deemed it necessary to say pot sherd instead of pot shard
*Lithics are simply worked stone tools

Books and Maps

     It has been a very busy Christmas vacation and I haven't had a lot of time to write a new complete blog but I promise there should be one up in the next couple days. In the meantime I want to leave you with something to think about. My wife, roommate and I have just returned from seeing The Hobbit: an Unexpected Journey (a fantastic movie by the way) and there was something that Gandalf said that I found very poignant.

"The world is not found in your books and maps."

Just something to keep in mind.

                                        -LDW

A Walk Beneath the Long Dead Sea: or "My Trip to the Badlands of South Dakota" Part 3

     Following the series of stone monuments that had been left for travelers like me, I made my way through the tall emerald grass accented with the brilliant whites, yellows and purples of the native wild flowers. The trail edged along a eight foot or so drop off that acted as a kind of barrier between the viewer and a gallery of strange sculptures carved from the ancient stone. There were windows and doors and twisting pillars and a whole menagerie of petrified creations. It is funny how time changes things, changes all things, even those that seem the most solid, the most resistant. These monuments were once grand and imposing, part of another much more mammoth work of creation. Now they are little more than the size of us. Wind, water, and the flow of time had already sealed their fate long before the sea tides ever peeled away and revealed what it hid to the world. As the layers chip, crack and fall the remnants of ages undreamed reveal that all things are born, crumble and are born anew.

In this age of concrete, steel and computer chips, it is easy to see that humans are dominate in this world. We have managed to conquer nearly every environment, defy gravity, travel continents in hours. It is easy to think that we are unstoppable, invincible, that the tides of fate do not apply for we are the chosen ones, masters and creators of our own destiny. For countless eons this planet has harbored lifeforms great and small, they engulfed the Earth with enumerable species of all kinds. And yet here we, a product of the continuing cycles of life. It is foolish to think that humanity will last forever, despite the towers, the technology, we too will pass with time and in the wake of our going, it will be the turn of another.
     As I continued down the trail I came across something that I had not really expected to find. Atop a small island raised above the ground was a small patch of Prickly Pear cactus. Out west this type of cacti and its brethren are everywhere, in the Great Plains, not so much. Cacti are native to the central corridor of the United States and can be found in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. When thinking of the plains many envision endless prairies and fields of corn, perhaps some cattle ranches thrown in the mix. There is actually a great number of smaller ecosystems interspersed, such as the Badlands and the Sand Hills of Nebraska. Some of these areas have the kinds of stuff Cacti love to live in. My grandfather actually grows one in a garden and it manages to live throughout the often harsh Nebraska winters. I have many less than fond memories of pulling spines from my calves and forearms after trudging through the desert on survey. When in the desert it was normal, perhaps a tad mundane to see this plant, as common as grass in Nebraska. Here it was somewhat of a gift. An unexpected reminder that within a world of lines and grids and barbed wire fences there are some things that can transcend the arbitrary boundaries that we assign to the world we live in. I recently listened to a piece on NPR that spoke of a a journey to the sea floor in Antarctica. This particular voyage was searching for a an elusive three-eyed tube worm that colonizes around volcanic vents on the ocean floor. Instead of these worms, they found fields and fields of yellow "fluff". This fluff turns out to be one of the oldest organisms on the planet. The piece ended with a very poignant statement, that nature does not care what we expect to find, it will be where it is whether we want it to be or not.

     After pulling myself back up to the trail I continued to walk in peace. According to the map I would soon come to a cross roads that would lead to a parking lot in one direction and a path back towards where I came from in the other. I had not seen any people thus far and enjoyed the solitude although there were times it was somewhat eerie. In my everyday life it is very difficult to come across loneliness and silence. It is true that while in nature I had still not found neither loneliness or silence but I had found an escape. Here there were no cars, no television, no computers, even my phone was off (I always carry it in case of an emergency). Being without these things are nearly heresy in modern times. There was still the wind, the birds, and insects all around me but I would gladly take them over sirens, traffic and commercials. Regardless, I knew it would not be long till someone ventured across my path and lo and behold, I had found them. At the cross roads were an older couple, probably late fifties or early sixties, the wife peering through a pair of binoculars and the husband scanning a wrinkled brochure.
     I walked up to them, looking what I would deem imposing with my large pack, knife strapped to waist and black bandanna wrapped around my head. This couple saw me and waved vigorously and I returned the wave with a smile. We greeted each other with handshakes and smiles although our names were never shared. This couple was lively and friendly, on a road trip across the U.S. vacationing from Canada. They were searching for the Big Horn Sheep that were supposedly roaming this area and asked if I had seen any. Unfortunately I had not, they seemed somewhat disappointed but still undaunted. They inquired as to how far I'd walked and we shared a bit of conversation about the great outdoors. I noticed the portly man red and sweaty and they were both lacking in water. Anyone who knows the first thing about hiking knows you need water, dehydration is a very serious thing. Being an Eagle Scout I am always prepared and had ample amounts of water bottles in my pack and they were grateful to have some. After a bit more chatter we parted ways and I wished them a safe and enjoyable trip. Before I left they thanked me for both the water and for being interested and caring about the outdoors. They said that far too many people my age just aren't interested. I thanked them and left with a feeling of pride. I am glad I had met these strangers and that our brief intersection had meant something to all of us.
     The last leg of this section took me to the edge of  the plateau where I could look out into the bulk of the Badlands. It was a barren, wasted land. Rocky spines and crags lifted above deep, shear gorges where little grew. At the bottom of these canyons were pools of muddy, brackish water. It was beautiful and terrifying as I looked out over the blasted heath and stared down into the crevasse below. Far off in the distance was a sea of green, a safe haven from this little patch of hell. This had been a rewarding venture for me, a chance to walk through time, to imagine the ages that came before, to see a still wild place nestled in the farmlands of Middle America, to meet people that I have never met and to share something with them. There was more that I saw and experienced in this almost alien terrain, but if I told you everything there would be nothing left for you to experience if you have the chance to go and see it for yourself. In nature some are driven to see God, others peace and the sublime, for others like me it is beauty and realization of place.

 
 Thanks you for following me on this journey, I hope you enjoyed it and continue to read.

-Logan

A Walk Beneath the Long Dead Sea: or "My Trip to the Badlands of South Dakota" Part 1

     Over last summer I found myself with a distinct excess of time. My wife was away in Greece, my job super flexible and the money was ample. There were few places for me to travel to that I was interested in and only a day's drive away so I fixed a course to the Badlands of South Dakota. I had been there once before, as a child mind you, a child so young as to not remember a damn thing. This was the perfect opportunity to return and see what I had missed. I am somewhat of a cheapskate and I was going alone so I opted to book a room online through Econolodge in the small town of Wall, South Dakota. This is home to the famous tourist trap Wall Drug and also the town my family and I stayed at when I was a child. I loaded up my Jeep Liberty with food and snacks and a suitcase full of enough clothes to last me the weekend. I left my home in Lincoln, Nebraska early in the morning so as to be in Wall just in time for dinner, and also allowing me enough time to visit my favorite attraction in Nebraska, Ash Fall Fossil Bed (expect a post on this in the future). I won't bore you with what was most definitely a very long, monotonous drive through the central plains.
     It was nearing five o'clock in the evening, I had just rediscovered where I was on the map, and I was driving down the a lonely stretch of highway when I saw it.

As you can see, this was taken from a moving vehicle, not advised.

     The jagged peaks rose from the flowing fields of emerald grass like a worn saw blade. The sky was a deep blue hue and and behind me were hundreds of miles and a soon to set sun. The sight was impressive but I was dead tired and my left arm was sun burnt from hanging out the window all day so I drove through park on a winding highway and called it a day. I ate at a BBQ place across the street and walked down to the Wall Drug store for some overpriced sun screen and I hit the hay.
     The next morning I rose, stopped at the gas station for a doughnut, picked up some protein bars and headed back towards the remnants of the prehistoric ocean. The morning was a little humid and clouds still lingered from the storms the evening before. Driving south, I passed the park entrance, which was closed and had a sign posted advising to come back later and pay upon my exit. Good deal. After about ten minutes of driving through bright green prairie I came to the edge of a shear plateau that looked down into the valley of spires and spines, to the east the sun was attempting to peer through the ashen clouds that slowly meandered along the horizon.

     State and National parks can be hit and miss when it comes to that feeling of true wilderness. I was happily surprised when I was greeted by a massive, dare I say herd, of wild turkeys that seemed to care very little of my presence. Just a little farther up the road I encountered a large field of prairie dog burrows. I sat and watched for a while and saw the heads of the residents poke up from time to time. I have seen my fair share of turkeys but never had I seen wild prairie dogs before. I was giddy, my adventure was off to a good start. I found a parking area nearest the trail head of the longest trail where signs warned to not venture to close to the wild bison and bighorn sheep. After stepping onto the asphalt I took a deep breath of fresh air, looked at my map, and headed in. I was standing at the base of a cliff much like the one I had previously looked down from. The way up snaked through a series of tall, rocky columns. The earth looked hard packed but to my surprise it was soft and loose. The spires and rugged landscape are the product of the ancient inner sea drying up and leaving the sandy floor exposed to the elements and time. I scrambled up the steep slope, almost slipping once or twice, it was less of a hike and more of a climb and the trail was nearly non existent, only marked vaguely by orange markers. Wind and water had whipped to and fro through the slots and crevasses of the rugged range, molding shapes out of the barren soil; all around were tiny petrified toadstools sprouting from the ground.
      Higher I climbed  until I pulled myself up and over the final ledge. Before me was a wide open prairie half encircled by the almost alien crags. Millions of years ago I would have been standing upon the bed of a shallow sea; a home to a multitude of prehistoric sea life.I stood and imagined the the depths above me, a metaphor for the depths of time that also encompassed my surroundings. One of my favorite authors, H. P. Lovecraft, capitalized the theme of feeling insignificant and alone in the universe with his tales of cosmic horror. I sat for a moment and basked in the remoteness I felt. Eons have passed through this place, through all places, and there at that spot, I was alone in the vastness of time, like being adrift on an endless sea. 

     That ancient sea once teamed with life of all kinds; primitive sharks, pleisosaurs, mosasaurs, a multitude of fish and crustaceans. This inland sea, also known as the Cretaceous sea way, existed over 100 milllion years ago, when North America was divided into two small sub-continents. Time and Earth however, are always changing and eventually the rise of the Rocky Mountains lifted the sea floor through 2,500 feet of water along a 2,000 mile expanse. All that remained of this once great sea were a series of brackish lagoons that would eventually give way to the Great Plains. With time it would be decided that the age of reptiles would end and give way to the a new kingdom of mammals. While the great sea way is impressive and worthy of note, the Badlands are highly recognized for their fossils from the Oligocene, another remnant of the a age long past and another reminder that we are but a scratch of the the surface of the Earth...

     I am going to opt to end this here and make this a series of two or three posts. During my trip I saw nearly all there was to see of the Badlands National Park and there is quite a bit for me to talk about and think about. I thought this would be an appropriate cliff hanger, leaving you just before I begin my trek into the interior of the the Badlands plateau. I would also like to state that this is my first time writing something like this and if any of you readers have any questions or comments, maybe tips on writing and keeping interest, please, don't hesitate. Thank you very much for taking the time to read of my travels, I hope you have enjoyed it so far and that I have left you a little something to think about.

-Logan
    

The Search Begins

     We are deep in the midst of an age of vast technologies. Men and women all across the world can be connected to seemingly any information that they could want with a mere press of a button. In seconds as an interactive map of the world can be brought up and nearly any place on the globe can be pinpointed, brought to within spitting distance and rendered in 3D for your viewing pleasure. It seems as though there is nothing left to be found that hasn't already be mapped, charted and placed on a grid. This easy access to a constant flow of information can be deceiving. It can make the world seem small. I am looking out my window right now and see houses and yards with doors and fences. I by no means live in the most populated of urban jungles, but I feel trapped. As I said before, the world can appear small; it is in fact OUR world that is small. I feel I must make a distinction between the world that we, as members of a technologically advanced western society, live in, and the world that remains free and wild.
    When I was younger I was very much a product of the technological age, I loved television, computers, movies and video games. I saw very little reason for me to venture into the realm outside. My father, an avid lover of all things western, would show me classic movies about man's struggle to tame the savage land. There was a beauty existing in the rugged mountains and arid desserts that truly escaped me. I once saw a film by my all time favorite director, John Milius, called "Jeremiah Johnson". It is the story of a man. That is all. No villian, no main set pieces, no sub plots; just a man and his life and how he chooses to live it. I am sure you can see how, as a child, I would find this boring as hell. More on that later. I joined the Cub Scouts in first grade, there was camping and hiking and all of that scouting jazz and, looking back, I feel this was my first real experience with that other world. Albeit I was on the controlled, self contained fringes of where our world meets the other. However, the fact of the matter was that I still didn't appreciate what was out there. In a Rocky-esque montage we can see my life change through a failed Criminal Justice 101 class, a bad break up, a move across the country and a couple of classes in field archaeology. Things were about to change.
     During a summer interlude I made a decision that would change the rest of the course of my life. I picked up a book. I had always been an avid reader although not a very fast one, but this particular book was somewhat out of my realm. My usual genres stayed firmly in horror, fantasy and sci-fi. This was a western. Well, sort of. My father, who I owe much to, sealed my fate long ago when he named me after a character in a Louis L'amour novel. That summer I vowed to start reading the Sackett series so I could discover the man of my namesake. The first novel "Sackett's Land", is not even a western at all, but a historical adventure about a Welshman that leaves England to head to the New World, all funded by a sack of Roman coins he found in a dyke by accident. There it was, treasure, the ultimate goal, the one thing that would pull me out of my cage. Don't worry, this is all leading somewhere.
     I was now living in Arizona, a land filled with tales of outlaw loot and lost Spanish gold, I was going to find some. This is what led me to the outdoors, the promise of adventure and fortune. Well, I haven't found that gold yet, but I have learned what has probably been the most valuable lesson of my lifetime. There is more. More than pink houses with white picket fences, more that business degrees and part-time jobs, more than action movies and video games. There was something out there to see. I stood alone on a mountain top, much like the unnamed character in Bob Seger's "Roll Me Away". I was triumphant but also vastly unsatisfied. Now that I had found the gateway to this other world, I needed to see more of it. I had once turned to Jeremiah Johnson (told you I would get back to it), for its sense of loneliness that comforted me during that terrible break up, now I finally understood what Robert Redford and John Milius had wanted me to know. There was freedom away from the world we created, and now that is what I felt. Freedom.
     Now I sit at a shoddy desk in an unkempt room staring out at the Sparrows in my neighbor's tree and procrastinating on the studying for finals I should be doing. I am still deeply embroiled in the world that society has created, but now I know that there is a difference between here and there. I long for a time when I can once again make my way through groves of ancient oaks, climb atop the red rocks of the Santa Catalinas, swim through the crystalline ocean, and maybe even find some treasure. This is the story of my adventures and how I see the world. I encourage all to go and find out for themselves. But if all you can manage to do is read what I write and look at some pretty pictures I feel as though I have done my part in showing you that there is more to the world than what Google Earth can show us.

- Logan


Coming soon: "A Walk Beneath the Long Dead Sea, or My trip to the Badlands of South Dakota