Misty Fjords National Monument

On this mild, sunny forenoon inward Southeast Alaska, nosotros took a cruise from Ketchikan to Misty Fjords National Monument.  Established inward 1978 yesteryear the Carter Administration, this refuge protects 2 steep-walled fjords in addition to their numerous coves inside 2 1 K 1000 acres of the Tongass National Forest along the western border of the North American mainland.

These fjords feed into Behm Canal, a wide channel that borders the northern in addition to eastern sides of Revillagigedo Island.  Known for their spectacular landscape, scenic waterfalls in addition to bounding main aeroplane rookeries, Rudyerd in addition to Smeaton Bays (the 2 primary fjords) are accessed yesteryear boat or float plane.  While it was a combat belatedly inward the summertime for tiptop activeness at the rookeries, I did notice a fair give away of dove guillemots in addition to glaucous-winged gulls on the cliffs in addition to bald eagles were mutual along the waterways.  Brown in addition to dark bears, wolves in addition to Sitka deer are amid other wild animals that inhabit the Monument.

Also of involvement was New Eddystone Rock, ascent inward the kernel of Behm Canal nearly the entrance to Rudyerd Bay.  Named yesteryear the British explorer, Captain George Vancouver, inward 1793, this erosional remnant of volcanic basalt towers to a higher house a pocket-size isle where a dozen simply about harbor seals lounged inward the mid-morning sun.  Though hump-backed whales oft view Behm Canal during the warmer months, none were observed today. 

Ward Lake

On the due north side of Ketchikan, non far from the cruise shipping crowds, Ward Creek tumbles downward through a glacial valley, headed for the Tongass Narrows.  Gathering the natural springtime of several glacial lakes along the way, it eventually flows through Ward Lake earlier commencement its concluding stretch to the sea.

Surrounded past times a rich Temperate Rainforest of western cedar together with hemlock together with hosting rustic shelters built past times the Civilian Conservation Corps, Ward Lake is encircled past times a pleasant, well-engineered trail.  Educational plaques, spaced along the route, innovate visitors to the ecology of the valley together with fine wooden bridges ford the creek together with its tributaries.  Though a campgrounds borders the lake, nosotros encountered less than a dozen beau hikers on our two-mile circuit.

In this province of spectacular scenery together with untamed wilderness, relative solitude together with silence are never far away.  While those de-boarding the cruise ships caput for arts and crafts shops, historic sites, tour buses together with taverns, those of us interested inward the landscape together with wild fauna bring endless places to explore, oftentimes quite approximately town.

Totem Bight Solid Soil Park

Ten miles northward of Ketchikan, Totem Bight State Park sits on the eastward depository fiscal establishment of the Tongass Narrows.  First established inward 1938 to reconstruct totem poles together with a clan menage feature of the Tlingit together with Haida cultures, the site was together with then known equally Mud Bight (referring to a natural indentation inward the depository fiscal establishment of the waterway).

Today, a brusque trail leads through a woodland together with by fourteen totem poles, most of which overlook the Narrows.  The Clan House is opened upward to visitors, equally is a Restoration Building, where poles are carved or repaired.  A brochure explains the symbolism represented on the poles together with guided tours are offered.  In 1 area, damaged or corroded poles are left to rot on the Earth inward keeping amongst the Native Peoples tradition of recycling life from the former to the new.

Since evolving inward Africa about 140,000 years ago, nosotros humans bring colonized most regions of the globe.  Part of nature, nosotros cannot fully empathize her ecosystems without learning nearly the roles nosotros bring played.  Totem Bight State Park offers about interesting insight inward that regard, peculiarly equally it pertains to the Pacific Northwest.

Above The Cascades & Corking Basin

Flying dorsum to Denver, yesterday, nosotros changed planes inwards Seattle.  On that 2d flight, nosotros took off to the south, before long passing the massive mass of Mt. Ranier, to our east.  Curving southeastward, nosotros together with therefore caught sight of the remnant cone of Mt. St. Helens to our southwest and, inside a few minutes, flew over the snowy crest of Mt. Adams.  Next came the distinctive split of Mt. Hood, across the Columbia River Valley, together with other prominent summits further south; unfortunately, haze obscured the distant horizon together with I was unable to locate Mt. Shasta, inwards Northern California.

Having formed over the yesteryear 36 1 one m thousand years, equally the Farallon together with its remnant Juan de Fuca Plate convey been subducting beneath the North American Plate, the Cascades stretch from west-central Washington to Northern California together with leave of absence on to split today.  Indeed, many Cascade volcanoes convey developed together with eroded (or exploded) away during that fourth dimension together with the prominent volcanic peaks mentioned higher upwardly are less than two 1 one m thousand years old; the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, inwards 1980, was a clear indication that the attain is withal evolving.

East of the Cascades, is the high, dry out desert of the Great Basin, stretching from eastern Oregon together with California across Nevada, southernmost Idaho together with western Utah.  Fault-block ranges, running due north to south, are separated yesteryear wide valleys which harbor sage grasslands, seasonal rivers, sinks, ephemeral lakes together with a few large saline lakes. Unfortunately, clouds obscured the mountains of Utah together with Colorado until nosotros crossed the Front Range higher upwardly Rocky Mountain National Park together with descended into Metro Denver.

Counting On The Monsoon

As a summertime oestrus moving ridge continues along the Colorado Front Range, many of us are counting on the Southwest Monsoon to intermission this stagnant conditions pattern.  After all, the monsoon commonly reaches the Front Range past times mid August, bringing cooler conditions too daily episodes of precipitation.

This year, a persistent high pressure level dome over the Four Corners portion is blocking the inflow of wet from the Gulf of United Mexican United States too the Sea of Cortez; until that dome breaks downward or moves eastward, the monsoon cannot develop.  Recent extreme oestrus inward Phoenix too Las Vegas reverberate that "blocking high" too nosotros are expected to approach 100 degrees F inward Denver inside the adjacent few days.

While this Southwest oestrus moving ridge is related to a greater extent than to a persistent atmospheric ridge than to global warming, i suspects that climate alter volition disrupt seasonal patterns across the planet.  For now, we're but counting on a normal, if tardy, belatedly summertime monsoon.

The Nature Of Adventure

Having but returned from my kickoff trip to Alaska, I constitute it to last every flake the adventure I had expected.  On the other hand, adventure demand non last a journeying to a distant or exotic location.

In my mind, the adventures inward our life may last physical, mental or emotional.  Physical adventures are the chance to explore novel landscape, whether it last a far-off land, an unvisited urban heart or a nature save but downward the road.  Novice birders in addition to naturalists sympathise this signal of thought since every outing is an adventure, replete alongside novel in addition to unexpected sightings; adventure oftentimes unfolds inward our ain backyard.

While the give-and-take adventure is close oftentimes associated alongside travel, I advise that it likewise applies to one's willingness to get got on a novel job, larn a novel skill, chance a novel human relationship or rethink the "truths" implanted inward our innocent, childhood brains.  In all cases, the courage to brand the journeying is essential in addition to the rewards of regain far function yesteryear master copy expectations; adventure is a process.

A Skunk At Dusk

After delaying yard operate to avoid the afternoon heat, I was returning to the household final even out every bit dusk deepened across our Littleton farm.  Passing a shrub row, I caught sight of a striped skunk at the final minute, its tail already raised inwards self-defense.

Avoided yesteryear humans as well as unopen to predators due to their noxious spray, these mutual suburban residents are also known to acquit rabies; indeed, in that place has been an epidemic of skunk-borne rabies inwards southwest Denver inwards recent years.  Fortunately, this skunk was non aggressive as well as did non demonstrate whatever odd behavior; nevertheless, I gave it a broad berth every bit I headed for the house.

Usually seen lonely except when females convey immature inwards tow, striped skunks are omnivores, favoring insects only also consuming immature rodents, eggs, berries as well as diverse crops.  Great horned owls are ane of the few predators unfazed yesteryear their odiferous as well as irritating spray.  While interesting to divulge at a distance, final evening's visitor was a fleck also unopen for comfort.  

Pacific Ranges Of British Columbia

On our flying from Ketchikan to Seattle terminal week, nosotros crossed over an expanse of British Columbia alongside spectacular ranges, massive H2O ice sheets, glaciers as well as tortuous fjords.  This was the Pacific Ranges Province of the Coastal Mountains of North America, the southernmost inwards British Columbia.

Harboring Mt. Waddington (13,186 feet), the highest tiptop inwards British Columbia, as well as 4 Temperate Zone Ice Sheets (the largest on the planet), it is a beautiful landscape created past times tectonic collision, subduction volcanism, glacial erosion, copious atmospheric precipitation as well as the interaction of state as well as sea.  A maze of rivers as well as inlets dissect the terrain, best appreciated from an aircraft.

Sparsely populated, the Pacific Ranges Province, extending northwestward from Vancouver, is genuinely comprised of xiii main mount ranges as well as virtually equally many subranges.  It is bounded on the eastward past times the Interior Plateau of British Columbia and, on the west, past times the numerous islands as well as channels of the Inside Passage.

The Nisqually River

One of the many landscape features that I observed during our flying from Seattle to Denver concluding calendar week was the delta of the Nisqually River, at the southernmost cease of Puget Sound.  This relatively untouched ecosystem of freshwater wetlands in addition to tidal marshes is protected inside the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.  The River itself is named for the Nisqually Tribe that had settled close its oral fissure long earlier the arrival of European explorers.

The Nisqually River rises from the Nisqually Glacier on the southward flank of Mt. Ranier, gathering numerous tributaries from that massive stratovolcano equally it descends toward the Columbia River Valley.  Before reaching that watershed, it curves westward in addition to hence northwestward, passing through Alder Lake en road to Puget Sound, due east of Olympia.

Far from the longest or largest river inwards Washington, the Nisqually even hence connects the State's highest top (14,410 feet) alongside ane of its to a greater extent than pristine tidal wetlands; inside a distance of fourscore miles, the river passes through the varied life zones of the Pacific Northwest.

Impeach The Chosen One!

The fourth dimension has come upwards for Congress (Democrats as well as Republicans alike) to acknowledge that nosotros cannot opportunity roughly other sixteen months of a Trump Presidency.  Now describing himself equally "The Chosen One," our Dear Leader is shifting his policies on a daily basis, having forced out around of his competent advisors as well as Cabinet Members.

Never heed the findings of the Mueller Investigation; this failed homo of affairs is incapable of running our regime as well as his extreme narcissism affects his approach to every issue.  Destroying the legacy of President Obama seems to last his exclusively consistent goal.

Slashing environmental regulations, offending Allies, threatening our economic scheme as well as healthcare, trashing our Intelligence Agencies, ridiculing our costless press, fomenting racism as well as aligning himself alongside unusual dictators are his exclusively "achievements."  Our Democracy is nether onslaught yesteryear this disturbed bigot as well as it is fourth dimension for Impeachment, based primarily on his incompetence, racism, un-American demeanour as well as mental instability.