Miles Barger | Longer

20090406.1

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:31:05 -0800

University of Oregon
Eugene, Oregon

Visibility is unlimited, the pilot says. We’ll be able to see from the Grand Tetons to Arizona. Later, a mustachioed, middle-aged Cincinnati businessman sitting beside me upon noticing that I’m taking in the large breasts of a woman sitting across the isle: I can see the Tetons all right. And they are grand.

The train from Portland is nice. It’s bigger than I expected, quite long with double-decker cars, an entertainment car, a sit-down dining car. The interior is spacious. The isles are wide. The seats have plenty of room, recline, and have foot rests, all making sleep easier for multi-day Vancouver to LA trippers.

The Willamette Valley looks not so different from Kentucky. Wide, flat, with rolling hills to the east and west. There are many farms and small towns spread throughout. Verdant. The only real difference are the occasional large snow-covered volcanic cones of the Cascades that rise up tall and alone. And all the evergreens. And many other things that we’ll ignore right now.

Eugene is quaint, fairly quiet. It isn’t small—200,000 between it and Springfield—but feels it. Buildings are generally low to the ground, streets not too wide, blocks not too long. Bike paths and sidewalks are abundant. There are many people walking, biking, lounging. It feels alive but not bustling.

That’s largely the weather, I think. For people used to a long fall/winter/spring of overcast skies, intermittent drizzle, and 40-50F temps, a sunny 75F day is an even more powerful intoxicant than normal. We’ve all had those days, in college or otherwise. Out come the shorts and skirts, the sandals, the blankets. We kind of read but mostly talk and giddily appreciate the gift of being able to just lay outside, naked or next to it, and not be cold or hot,¹ to feel perfectly comfortable and free, to feel closer to some faraway past of small social groups and constant contact with dirt and damp and sun and breezes.

Remember that it’s not normally like this, I think. Don’t get too drunk on this stroke of weather, get weather-induced beer googles.

It’s 6p and I have no place to stay. I need to check my email, but my laptop’s battery is shot, so I need to find an open plug and free wireless. I wander semi-aimlessly, finally admitting that I don’t quite know where I’m going. I pull out my GPS,² search for the public library, head there.

I pass the main bus depot. Hippies, homeless, anarchists, and ‘alternative’ high-schoolers abound. People-wise, Eugene is living up to its counter-culture reputation.

I find a chair and a plug-in. An email from Gayla:³ no housing. I look up the Whiteaker Hostel, write down their phone number, memorize the directions.

Phone call: We have one bed left. Would you like to reserve it? Yes.

The hostel is in the Whiteaker neighborhood, Eugene’s happy hippie hangout. There are lots of brightly-colored houses with junk-laden porches full of old car seats, couches, signs, oil paintings of Ted Nugent.⁴ Lots of dreads, bro.

The place itself is quaint, a small converted house. Reneia, the girl working the desk, is very cute, spunky, friendly.⁵ From the back: a fenced backyard with some chairs, a garden; a music and entertainment room with some old couches, a raised platform with faux-movie theater seats, a giant relic of a projector,⁶ a keyboard, a drumset, stacks of old paperbacks; a common room with full kitchen, computers, a small table; an upstairs with two rooms (male and female) of bunkbeds; a corridor of private rooms. Everything is clean, freshly painted. The style is generally old-housey with wood floors, solid wood furniture, pictures on the walls from around the world, maps and local advertisements pinned to billboards.

Zoe and Shawn. Zoe has very short hair and a hoop through her septum, Shawn a very slight mohawk with the surrounding hair died a leopard-skin pattern. They’re headed back north from Mexico. Sounds like they hitchhiked most of the way. They have basically no money and have set it up to work some shifts at the hostel (cleaning, maintenance) in lieu of paying for their rooms. The owner, Mac, is cool with that. Good man.

Tom, a young bloke from London. His accent is impeccable standard educated Londoner. He’s a Cambridge man, an English major, who’s using his gap year to travel the west coast, through Mexico and Central America, throughout South America, then back to London. He seems young and has the well-intentioned, harmless haughtiness that very smart but inexperienced and so bewildered and scared people often produce for self-defense.⁷

Brad. A wandering mid-20s nouveau-hippie. He’s been in and out of Eugene over the years, stopping over between music festivals and time in the woods. Sandals, a big pack, lots of hemp clothing and ornaments (scarves, necklaces) in layers. He has a very slight mullet with a long, thin dread falling down his back. He’s very good looking—tanned skin, a short beard, large brown liquid eyes—and pulls off the hippie look with an rare elegance that’s striking. Soft-spoken stoner-inflected voice. I just wanna kinda put down roots, start settling in, you know? I’m trying to find a place and kinda calm down, he says. He doesn’t seem to know how, but I hope it works out.

Dave. This dude is a trip and beyond being done justice by anything less than a long, personal encounter. 40s-50s, shoulder-length straight thin hair, a big belly, mustache, squat puffy face, not-really-cowboy straw hat, thin-from-wear festival and band tees. Dave’s a member of the Rainbow Family, a loose community/religion of super-hippies that started in 1972. It was post-Woodstock, and this group decided to organize a big meeting in a National Forest for singing, drum circles, emanating vibes of peace, and generally freaking out. They’ve been having a gathering every year since. This year, they’re having a special shindig for the recently-deceased Grandpa Woodstock, or, as Dave always called him, The Grandpa.

Dave has clearly done so many psychedelics that he’s in a constant liminal state between regular existence and tripping the fuck out. One small example:

A 15-minute diatribe on the profundity of Eragon—yes, that’s right, the fantasy movie about a dragon. Apparently, it’s the oldest legend ever told. And, like, dude, the person Dave looks up to more than anyone—except his father, of course—is… MERLIN, dude. He’s, like, a wizard and shit, you know? He makes luuuuuuuuv to mother earth, bro.

Another guest asks, Isn’t that a kids movie? How many dragon movies have you seen?, Dave asks, with a very serious, challenging look on his face. Um… [long pause] none, I guess. But [looking at a nearby DVD of El Topo] I’ve seen some movies with midgets.

Midgets! says Dave. Oh man… They look so small and harmless but… I mean, I’m a big dude, right? I figure, Hey, I can beat that little dude’s ass. But they’re so hard to catch! They just keep movin’ around, and you can never catch ‘em, and you’re like, Slow down, little dude! Come ‘ere ya son of a bitch, ya know!? But watch out man… that little dude’ll have you down on your knees man, make you lick the sweat off his nuts, ya know? Fuckin’ Lillaputians, he mutters.

Well, alright. We proceed to watch the “film.” Dave constantly responds to statements made in the movie much like a devout follower might do during a religious ceremony. To call the dragon, you must touch the source. Uh-huh. If a dragon dies, his master lives on. That’s right. But if the master dies, so too his dragon. Yes.

Etc.

The only thing I’ll add: I’ve never seen someone so thoroughly enjoy taking off their shoes. Late at night in the bunk, Dave de-shoed and just started Uuuuuuuuuunhh- and Ummmmmmmmmmmmphfff-ing long and loud again and again in his deep, gravelly basso. And throughout the night, he moaned and snorted and everythinged so, so loud. I didn’t begrudge him the pleasure and self-satisfaction, but it did make it a little hard to go to sleep. A fellow hosteller got up in the middle of the night: I can’t fuckin’ take this anymore.

[to be continued…]

--Footnotes-- --Links--

like the body-temperature bath at Baden-Baden, where you float in water so still and so close to your exact body temperature that it doesn’t feel like water at all. ↩
I’m skeptically raising my eyebrows at myself, too. My mom bought it for me as a gift, okay? ↩
The Graduate Program Coordinator for the Environmental Studies program at U of Oregon. ↩
Yes, really. ↩
She plays accordion well and let’s me try. I always think that I’ll be able to just pick up an accordion and kill it like the world’s greatest Klezmer-band virtuoso at a pimped-out Bar Mitzvah, and I’m always wrong. The same thing happened when I was couchsurfing in Prince George, BC with Jillian. ↩
You know, like, 2.5 x 2 feet, three huge lenses on the front for each color, that textured beige plastic that all the early-90s electronics were armored with. ↩
I’ve been guilty. ↩

Canyonlands National Park

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:37:00 -0800

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 6     5    4   3  2 3  4   5    
 4   4   4   4   4   4   4   4

Driving to The Needles, the southeast district of Canyonlands National Park, I’m listening to Fresh Air. Terry Gross is interviewing Mudresh Mahanthappa, a jazz saxophonist and composer who combines post-bop jazz with Carnatic music traditions. He’s describing the rhythmic structure of “IIT,”¹ a piece he characterizes as “mathy.” Indian classical music (like much non-Western music) is not conceived in time signatures and measures but in beat cycles. For this piece, the cycle of beats is 6 5 4 3 2 3 4 5, a shrinking then expanding rhythm. The total number of beats—32—can also be divided into eight groups of four, or eight bars in 4/4 time. In “IIT,” these two rhythmic structures are co-present, one atop the other.

I become trapped in the rhythm, unable to stop saying,² clapping, hearing, and feeling it for the next two days.

An era. The earth’s skin is a record of its past; sandstone landscapes make long patterns of time especially clear. As seas advanced and receded and sands blew in first from one direction then the other, alternating layers of sediment were deposited. Pressure and time compacted them into the soft rocks they’ve become, change through dazzling lengths of time encoded into the present like a music performance recorded to tape.

An epoch. Erosion records shorter though still unimaginable units of time. Despite being dry most of the year, creeks here flow with an incredible ferocity, carving canyons through layer upon layer of multi-colored rock. Various layers erode at different rates, creating odd shapes: mushrooms, hamburgers, castles. The most stunning examples here, The Needles, took shape as water washed particles from already existing cracks leaving multi-colored spires.

A millennium. In many sandstone layers, particles aren’t uniformly compact, so small areas will erode faster than others. As a small pocket forms, it tends to gather water, snow, and ice, increasing the rate of erosion and becoming a pothole. Over the years, small bits of sand and soil begin to accumulate. However, this small patch of nutrient-poor dirt isn’t enough to sustain larger, more complex organisms. Instead, biological soil crusts—communities of cyanobacteria, mosses, and lichen—develop. Once in place, they tend to prevent erosion, and greater amounts of soil accumulate until vascular plants can begin to outcompete. Soon, a small garden, an island of green surrounded by bare rock, takes shape.

A lifetime. Dead, dried up, eyes rotted out, lying on the sandstone of the Slickrock Trail, it would be easy enough to pass by what was a lizard,³ saying, “Ew. A dead thing!” or registering nothing more than some little brown blob. But stop, crouch down, start looking. See: how the skin’s iridescence gently takes in the sun, separates its colors, and throws them back into the air; how the limbs’ plate-armor scales unfold in perfect ratio, like a sunflower’s florets or a rose’s petals; how subtly shifting hues of green and brown alternate with dots of turquoise, seeming out of place at a grave.

A day. I scramble over slickrock, see these things, think these thoughts, recognize these patterns. I make my own patterns: footsteps, tissue, neural pathways. I wonder about the value of art, what qualities the art I find compelling share, what I should strive for in my own work. I think, “Imitation of nature is a dead end. No replication or rehashing of this place, of being alive and in this place, will ever be anything but a detractor, a cheap knock-off. But tapping into the connection between underlying pattern and infinitely varied result, creating a unique core separate from any other and allowing its expression: that’s closer to worthwhile.” I circle Chesler Park,⁴ feel intense heat in the sun and tingling cold in the shade, breathe dry air, see 100 miles in all directions, feel the present joy.

Repeat.

The Indian Institute of Technology ↩
ONE two three four five six, ONE two three four five, ONE two three four, ONE two three, ONE two, ONE two three, ONE two three four, ONE two three four five ↩
Or still is? If “lizard” is a concept of form, this dead form is about the same as a live one. If “alive” is part of the definition, then what’s this? ↩
What can you say about this place that won’t sell it short? Chesler Park is listed among the most incredible backcountry experiences in the world. Three miles of a winding slickrock maze brings you to the park, a circular field of desert grasses surrounded on all sides by spires of red and white needles, an incredible walled garden. ↩

San Rafael Swell

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 07:07:00 -0900

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The canyon country does not always inspire love. To many it appears barren, hostile, repellent—a fearsome, mostly waterless land of rock and heat, sand dunes and quicksand, cactus, thornbush, scorpion, rattlesnake, and agoraphobic distances. To those who see our land in that manner, the best reply is, yes, you are right, it is a dangerous and terrible place. Enter at your own risk. Carry water. Avoid the noon-day sun. Try to ignore the vultures. Pray frequently.

Edward Abbey
The Journey Home

The San Rafael Desert of southeast Utah is a vast, flat tract of dark, sandy soil. Few plants survive. Statuesque outcrops and the Henry Mountains dot the horizon.

Many would find this place desolate. They have a point. If you let the mind wander—what if I ran out of water? what if my car broke down and no one came by? what if I were simply dropped off and left to fend—you begin to feel the danger, the closing in of an ominous force.

Goblin Valley State Park

In this valley of hoodoos, more erosion-resistant rocks near the surface have weathered less than the soft sandstone beneath, creating the goblins. The park is far from any town. The fee collection station doubles as a visitor center. Inside the park, a few roads, three trails, a campground, a parking area.

At first, the metaphor seems a stretch. But after hiking in the valley, crawling over and through the globs, crevices, ramps, and pillars, the goblins start to appear.

A dirt road leads to the trailhead, sunset, and sleep.

Little Wild Horse
and Bell Canyons

The swell forms an impediment to the water of the desert, which more than makes up for its infrequency with violent intensity. When the rain falls, the soil, too dry and hardened by sun and bacteria to absord, simply funnels. As drainages and washes fill suddenly with torrents of brown, soft sandstone walls do little to stop them. Aided by gravity, the streams finds weaknesses and slice deep slits in the earth.

It’s hard to imagine how these canyons were first discovered. A slot might be just over a hill, yet you would never know it. Looking left and right, you see sloping desert, perhaps a small dead-end or two. But if you find the right wash and follow it upstream, you access a secret gateway to dreamscapes.

Navigating the terrain is a constant challenge. Snaking, ducking, climbing, jumping, squeezing. The first modern settlers to encounter these places found them so hard to get around, over, or through, they called them reefs. Another danger: flash floods. Dozens of feet high, they carry boulders and whole trees and can arrive suddenly, sweeping you away.

Closer to its headwaters, the canyon widens into oases of sorts. Wide, sandy washes are bordered by hearty trees, uncommon sights. Walls of various colors rise on both sides. The broadest bends leave small islands. Each of these places feels like a garden specially planted and carefully arranged.

Finally, the top of the swell. Cutting through towering gates, lined with junipers, swathes of land wait for your feet, rich colors for your eyes.

Shirtless, hair flying in the breeze, baby blue bandanna tied around my face to keep the high winds from blowing sand and grit into my lungs, I feel as if I’m on an endless journey through a lucid dream, a study in the sublime. That ominous feeling? Perhaps it’s a reaction to being so close to the heart of nature, to the uncaring wildness of chance and change.

Whether because or in spite of these things, I’ve fallen in love with the canyon country, with its colors, shapes, remoteness, and danger. I’d stay.

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:18:00 -0900

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After miles of the winding canyons and passes of the Gunnison Basin, you enter southern Colorado’s San Luis Valley. It’s vast and flat, a section of Kansas lifted to 8000 feet, ringed in snow-capped peaks. And hidden in the corner are 30 square miles of the tallest sand dunes in North America.

The terrain ranges: a 14,000-foot peak, an alpine lake, a mountain wilderness; a creek, Medano, that hugs the dunes, surging with the waves of constantly shifting bed sands for a few months then flowing secretly beneath the ground for the rest; a field of towering dunes home to species found nowhere else; and an abutting wetland.

I arrived at 2pm, became acquainted, and started walking. The Sand Ramp Trail follows the space between the western dunes and eastern Sangre de Christo Mountains. It’s pleasant, easy hiking.¹ I made camp at Escape Dunes, whose thick firs were just high enough to pitch a shelter beneath. As the sun set, the trees’ dense needles kept the air below 10 degrees warmer than the clears. Asleep at 8pm, I woke around 5am, read, watched the sun rise.² After a hot breakfast, I broke camp and left the trail, headed straight for the towering wall of sand.

Following the ridgelines is best. But sometimes the dunetops don’t connect, forcing a steep trip up shifting sand. Each step starts a mini-avalanche, sand spilling down with the soft sound of faraway waves.³ You push and pump your legs, dream of firm footing, pant and grunt, scramble.

And then you’re up, greeted with whipping winds, an alien panorama, and brunch. Walking across miles of barren dunes, shoes filling with grit, you finally take them off. It’s February, and you’re barefoot in warm sand, walking dunetops, running down near-vertical walls.

Well, except for the snow still on the trail. Snow on trails gets packed from foot traffic and lacks the heat sinks that vegetation provide, so it melts more slowly. Hiking early helps: cold night temperatures harden up the snowpack, allowing you to stay (mostly) on top. But I was hiking in the late afternoon, when warm late-winter temperatures had turned the snow to mush. Oh postholing, aren’t you lovely? As soon as I started sinking in to my knees with every step, melting snow soaking my boots and socks, I realized:
1. I should have worn my gaiters.
2. Wait… I didn’t bring a dry pair of socks.
3. This is going to suck.
And it did. I did the best I could, putting my wet feet in stuff sacks to form a vapor barrier layer, then wet socks for whatever warmth they had left, then my big puffy mitts to both warm my toes and prevent the socks’ evaporating moisture from wetting out the footbox’s down. But it was still cold, especially when putting on those frozen-solid shoes in the chilly morning. Lesson learned. ↩
It’s amazing how quickly living with the sun and generally being outside resets your biological clock. I never, ever comfortably go to sleep or wake up at those kinds of times. But whenever I camp (and especially on this trip and along the coast, with the long winter nights), it just happens. And rather than feeling like separate things, the days melt together. Time becomes more cohesive. ↩
Once, standing on the edge of a sharp ridge, I ran my trekking pole back and forth across the top to start a biggish avalanche. It was beautiful, with the shifting lines and moderate whitenoise. Then I began to notice a faint rumbling, which became a completely-new-to-me shaking underfoot. It felt like it came from deep within the dune.

And when you run quickly down a dune, you learn that sand squeaks, and that what your foot finds after sinking two feet into a slope is a sea of grainy cold. ↩

The B.F. Look

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:00:00 -0900

After a summer spent patrolling the backcountry of Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, my friend and her husband, whose hair and beard had been spared the blade for many a month, were walking the streets of Juneau during an Alaska Marine Highway stopover. A (very drunk) man walked out of a bar and up to Bill, grabbed Bill’s beard, and gave it a good tug. “You’re a bushy fucker, aren’t ya?” he proclaimed.

The B(ushy)F(ucker) look. Classic. Sexy. Refined.