Nature

Dinosaur

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This is the Canadian World Heritage Site in Alberta, not the American Dinosaur National Monument.

Josh guided us into the restricted area, explained how to look for fossils and we sat down on a bone bed to look. I saw something with a pretty pattern, picked it up and showed it to Josh. He confirmed that it was part of a T-Rex—Gorgosaurus libratus—tooth, roughly 75 million years old. I just sat there for a while, stunned to be holding a real fossil like that in my hand after picking it up off the ground.

The park is the most productive dinosaur fossil ground on earth. And it’s also very beautiful, with camping and hiking along the river among the Cottonwood trees, some 200 years old. I saw a family of deer on the trail. Even the Badlands in Canada are nicer than the US.

It’s definitely worth signing up for a guided tour, although there’s also a drive with exhibits and places to look for fossils on your own. The above diorama is in the visitor center. Most of the assembled skeletons are at the Royal Terrell Museum a couple hours drive north, but the field work takes place here, especially in summer. Josh even stopped to mark and protect a new find from another group a week before. Impressive!

Ross Lake National Recreation Area

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Ross Lake is atop three dams on the Skagit River which provides power to Seattle, but it still has some old growth forest near the visitor center which you can hike through on the River Loop and To Know a Tree Trails. Since the park is managed and surrounded by the North Cascades National Park, they run the visitor center. The Gorge High, Diablo & Ross Dams can all be seen in short hikes, and the good news this year after decades of tribal petitioning is that ‘fish passage’ will be added to all three dams! Hydroelectric power is zero carbon, but it must not be at the expense of salmon and other species that we’re driving extinct.

Anyway, I highly recommend those two hikes which total about three miles, and include waysides explaining the different types of trees, their niches in the forest and the natural cycle of wildfire. Another improvement would be building wildlife bridges along the highway & over the river, so that animals like Grizzly Bears could migrate between north and south sections of the park more easily. Well, in any case, Ross Lake extends to the Canadian border and has many paddle-in campsites for folks who rent gear from the resort or somehow portage their kayak around the Ross dam after paddling across Diablo Lake. Seemed like too much work to me to explore an artificial lake, but maybe if I had more time to try fishing, it would make a nice vacation.

Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve

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In the 1970s locals wanted to prevent a housing development in this historic area, one of the first settlements in Washington, still mostly unchanged from the 19th century. The result was our first ‘historical reserve’ where all landowners sold their development rights in perpetuity to the government (or a private natural conservancy). It makes for an interesting park, where the town is protected from development, but otherwise operates normally. There’s a good museum in Coupeville, and there are three state parks to visit, Fort Casey with a lighthouse, Fort Ebey with nature trails and a kayak launch, and Ebey’s Landing with a section of beach along the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Jacob Ebey’s blockhouse above is a good place to start a 4 mile hike along the bluffs returning on the beach. Jacob’s son Isaac settled here first, inviting his parents to join him from Independence Missouri, but Isaac was killed by natives in a reprisal for US attacks on native villages. Jacob’s home is open on weekends during the summer, and the staff will tell you the gory details if you ask. The bluffs are not for the feint of heart, but the views of the strait and the mountains are stupendous: Olympic, Rainier and Baker.

Lake Chelan National Recreation Area

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The Stehekin River in Washington state naturally formed a lake before emptying into the Columbia River, but a small dam was added to raise the water level. To get to the park, you have to take the 1.5 hour ferry ride from the resort town of Chelan (shuh-LAN, rhymes with man), which can be done as a day trip with layovers from 1.5 to 6 hours, or else you have to hike in on the Pacific Crest Trail or some other route, likely overnight through Grizzly territory. The ferry is the best way to get a look at the whole, long lake, including a large stretch of fire damage. I recommend bicycling, but the ferry company doesn’t allow bicycles on some boats, perhaps to aid their bicycle rental business at the arrival dock. Wenatchee Washington is a 45 minute drive south of Chelan, but its hotels are half the price.

Along with Lake Ross, this park is part of the North Cascades Complex, three distinct contiguous park units established simultaneously, so technically I visited all three by EV when I stopped at the main visitor center. The remote village of Stehekin is worth spending some time exploring, as they have a museum, a lodge with restaurant, a couple gift shops, a traditional apple orchard with free-pick-your-own in the fall, and an excellent bakery. Lodging, campgrounds and seats on the ferry do fill up, so reservations are wise. There are also very scenic hikes along the glacial river and above the glacial lake. Due to lack of easy access, the park has a relaxed old-timey feel to it, where folks wave as they pass on the road and people seem to slow down to enjoy themselves. But don’t miss your return ferry, which leaves promptly.

Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area

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A couleé is an old French Canadian word meaning a flow, such as a spring creek that carves out a gully. Roughly 15,000 years ago the giant glacial Missoula Lake melted, ice dams broke and the floods carved a giant gorge here. The Columbia River used to roll on through the grand couleé until the giant dam was built, providing power and irrigation to an extensive area. FDR approved the project, so the man made lake that stretches all the way back into Canada is named after him. The dam has a museum showing old propaganda films about how wonderful dams are. The 12 bands of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation couldn’t stop the dam, but now they own the lake and co-manage it with the park service. They also hold ceremonies to ask for the return of the salmon.

Fort Spokane—rhymes with ‘man’—has an old school built to force Native American children to be like white kids, and it still hosts Buffalo soldier descendant reunions. The fort is also part of the Nez Perce story, as Chief Joseph and refugees were forced to winter here, receiving some emergency supplies from a trading post named Fort Colville after the governor of the Hudson Bay Company, and some Nez Perce are still here. Many Chinese settled here when there were mining camps, but then they were excluded from immigrating by law, driven out of many northwest communities and massacred in at least a few cases.

There’s a scenic drive up the northeast coast of the lake, past farms, a ferry and a few boat launches. The town of Colville is mostly underwater now, but the mission remains on park grounds. I hiked a few miles looking for the remains of the original townsite of Kettle Falls that was moved to accommodate the lake. There was some fire damage and fireweed blooming, and there’s a large plywood operation nearby. I found the wetlands above between the park service campgrounds and a day use area. There were many geese around here, a few hikers, and I disturbed a large white-tail deer on the trail. It was hot in July, but cooler in Washington state than most of the country.

Ozark National Scenic Riverways

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Nature requires pristine conditions to sustain diverse species, and here they exist undiminished. Cave Spring above is fed from Devils Well, a huge underground lake in a Karst cavern 100’ below the surface. The water is so clean and cold that bright green watercress grows in thick clumps underwater. I saw baby swallows above the cave mouth, baby ducks following their mother down the rapids, a river otter, great blue heron and bald eagles. The air was thick with mayflies over the water and butterflies on the wildflowers. Lovely.

Carr’s, aka Current River, offered to provide their equipment for the same price as a shuttle, so I paddled from Akers Ferry to my campground at Pulltite. There’s tubing downstream, but when the water is high enough, upstream is more scenic. There’s an excellent cave tour at Round Spring where I saw cave salamanders, but tickets are limited. The other river in the park is the Jack’s Fork, and there’s a scenic mill at Alley Spring where I saw baby skunks. The largest spring is unimaginatively called Big Spring, and it’s strikingly beautiful with hundreds of millions of gallons of aquamarine water pouring out of the rock daily. Blue Spring is one of the deepest in the world, but I didn’t have time to explore everywhere. This Missouri park is my favorite for kayaking, so I’m planning on returning to paddle another stretch soon.

Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area

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The Big South Fork is a 76 mile tributary from the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee that joins the Cumberland River between Cumberland Falls and Lake Cumberland in Kentucky. The Falls are the second largest east of the Rockies and are the best place to see a moonbow on this side of the planet. Unfortunately, Kentucky has a littering problem, so Cumberland Falls State Park is also a place you will see trash in and along the river.

The Big South Fork looked better when I kayaked from Blue Heron to Yamacraw above (Sheltowee Trace Adventure Resort has a shuttle). Non-native insects killed many pine trees years ago, so the forest has more hardwoods now. Pollution upstream still degrades the water, but Appalachia is recovering from the damage done by coal mining. Blue Heron campground made a good base to charge my car and explore the old mine exhibit there, even though the tourist rail line to town is under repair.

The gorges and remote roads make it difficult to get around, so I recommend paddling if there’s enough water. I saw a young deer and a bald eagle on the river and enjoyed looking up at the cliffs. The hiking is excellent too, and my favorite was hiking under the huge rock shelter behind 113’ Yahoo Falls. There’s also a large natural bridge called Twin Arches. The area is thick with trees, which makes it difficult to see all the geological features of the gorges, but the lush dense foliage gives the river a primordial feel, especially since I saw not a single person while kayaking.

Obed Wild and Scenic River

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Lilly Bridge is down to the left from the Lilly Bluff Overlook above. There’s a short trail from the small parking lot, a medium trail down to the bridge and longer trails too. The timing didn’t work out for me, but in theory on weekends you can ask at the Lilly Pad Hopyard near the bridge to help shuttle you to a kayak launch or pick you up. There’s a 2 mile class II trip on Daddy’s Creek and several longer and more challenging trips on the Obed & Emory Rivers and on Clear Creek, all depending on river flow levels, of course, and understanding the limited put in/ take outs available in these protected waters.

The park film showcases the paddling, climbing, hiking and wildlife, with a Tennessee ‘mountain dew’ vibe, and the area feels remote, with hog hunting permitted in the area. Moonshine distilleries must have operated around here for centuries (which may explain why I prefer Tennessee moonshine to their rye whiskey). The US also secretly enriched uranium nearby in Oak Ridge for the Manhattan Project. It’s a lovely area, and I should have budgeted more time to visit.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore

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There are three main outer banks—‘OBX’—islands in the park: Bodie, Hatteras and Ocracoke, from north to south. Each has a lighthouse: Bodie is currently open for climbing, Hatteras is tallest and Ocracoke is oldest. I brought my kayak and stayed at Oregon Inlet campground across from the Bodie harbor which has a kayak launch, but there was some construction, commercial traffic, and strong, cold winds in May. Also, since the islands are so long and thin, it’s easiest to see the main sights by driving the 70 miles, including the free vehicle ferry to Ocracoke.

Hatteras island is the biggest, with several year round towns and thousands of residents outside summer, when hundreds of thousands visit the OBX. The road gets damaged in storms, and wind often blows huge drifts of sand onto the road. Many of the residents have anti-Biden signs, which is counter intuitive, since he is trying to defend them from the Climate Crisis, which will steal their land, take over their businesses and even invade their homes. But they ignore the science, the melting glaciers and ice caps, the strengthening storms, the sea level rise and the increasing erosion. The lighthouse has already been moved many times. The OBX is one of the fastest growing real estate markets on the NC coast, worth tens of billions of dollars, even as homes are falling into the sea. Money appears inversely related to intelligence.

The delightful nature walk above is Springer’s Point Trail at the southern tip of Ocracoke nearer Cape Lookout, the northern tip of which can be visited by passenger ferry leaving from Ocracoke’s picturesque Silver Lake Harbor. There are some ‘banker’ (OBX) horses on Ocracoke, but they’re penned, not really wild.

New River Gorge National Park & Preserve

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The bridge over the gorge is huge; it’s one of the highest in the world and the largest single arch bridge in the western hemisphere. I took some nice pictures of it, when I drove the old Fayetteville Station Road and crossed on the old one lane bridge. Some of the commercial raft trips end there, and it’s fun to watch them take their last rapid. The most crowded part of the park is the Canyon Rim Visitor Center near the bridge, where many folks stop to have ice cream or picnic.

But the bridge is not the point of the park. The New River watershed is huge and very old. It starts in North Carolina near the Blue Ridge Parkway, includes the Bluestone and Gauley scenic rivers, and flows up to the Kanawha which is a major tributary into the Ohio River. The photo above shows folks fishing at Sandstone Falls, far upstream of the famous bridge. It’s a lovely spot with plenty of birds, an easy hike and a boardwalk.

The point is that the whole area was ruined by coal mining. This was the land of John Henry, if you know the old song about a railroad tunnel dug here. Now coal is more expensive than renewable energy, and many of the mines here have closed, becoming ‘exhibition mines’—fascinating tour in Beckley—, historic sites or slowly forgotten. A few coal trains still run through the gorge, but the park is now protected and recovering. Tourism generates more income and jobs now, and West Virginia is one of the most beautiful states in the US. The park is proof that we can change and improve. The point is that we can choose to save nature, instead of destroying it, and that it’s never too late to start trying.

Well every Monday morning
When the bluebirds begin to sing
You can hear John Henry a mile or more
You can hear John Henry’s hammer ring, Lord, Lord
 You can hear John Henry’s hammer ring

—A folk song