Luckily Lake Powell is high enough for the boat tour, which cost $145 and took 7 hours, including an hour hike, 30 minutes at the bridge above (see people bottom right for scale) and a beautiful song sung at the site by our Navajo guide. That’s far better than hiking overland for at least two days. At least Zane Grey (below left) had the sense to ride a horse. This is my favorite park to follow in his footsteps. The boat trip alone is marvelous, as Glen Canyon just gets more stunning the deeper you explore into Utah. But the canyon up to the monument is a delight too, with wildflowers, echoing cliffs & alcoves and a spring, allowing you a glimpse of a glen before the dam tragically flooded most of them. Before our Navajo captain navigated the twisting channel for the return trip, a brief shower brought at least half a dozen waterfalls down the towering rock walls. Spectacular!
Sometimes the story is more important than the scenery, and Ranger Danny told it well. In April 1942, US citizens of Japanese descent on the west coast were given 2 days to pack 2 suitcases and check in to temporary relocation centers, losing their freedom and property in violation of the 4th Amendment. They were not given due process in violation of the 5th Amendment. FDR’s order was popular—especially among those who planned to take their property—, and the wartime Supreme Court partly upheld it, in the infamous Korematsu decision, while simultaneously partly dismantling it, in Endo. Reagan apologized and offered survivors small compensation.
Many Americans grew up either not knowing much about this or believing it justified by war. The Japanese military attacked Pearl Harbor without warning, after invading their neighbors, occupying Shanghai and committing atrocities in Nanjing. When FDR’s order went into effect, Japan had taken Hong Kong and Singapore, and they held several thousand American civilians as prisoners for the duration of the war, with insufficient food, forced labor and a high death rate. Americans did not want to prove themselves better; they wanted revenge.
And yet the Germans had acted similarly, with sneak attacks, invading neighbors and taking prisoners, but the US issued no similar order to imprison US citizens of German descent. Americans lost relatives in battle to both foes. Both aggressive countries employed spies. Japanese Americans do not appear different from other Asian Americans, so Japanese spies could still operate on the west coast. There is no justification for abrogating the rights of Japanese Americans, not expediency, not greed, and certainly not racism.
These ten American Concentration Camps were a failure of leadership, imagination, morality, of our government and of rational behavior. Having dispensed with our Constitution, the rules were arbitrarily made up on the fly. The US military defined a huge ‘exclusion zone’ from Washington state to New Mexico, fearing another naval assault in Arizona?!? Hawaii, despite being the location of Pearl Harbor, detained few Americans of Japanese descent. Japanese Americans who already lived in Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado or Arkansas witnessed their fellow citizens arriving in their states and being imprisoned for having the same cultural background as they did.
The US military still wanted to draft soldiers from the citizens they detained, so they created a loyalty questionnaire to invite them to fight in Europe. The government then started using the questionnaire to divide the incarcerated into loyal or not. The questions were convoluted, rewritten in some camps and many were misadvised on how to respond. Since Tule Lake only used the original version, they had a higher ‘failure’ rate, so they got a reputation for disloyalty. Inmates exercised their 1st Amendment right to protest, and the military sent in tanks. Then they had the inmates build a concrete jail inside the barbed wire, machine gun manned watchtower prison. One man was interrogated for 12 days because his mother accidentally played a borrowed radio. Many inmates here were pressured into renouncing their US citizenship.
One reason that most Americans don’t know much about this history, or have mistaken views, is that the US government intentionally misled the public about conditions here. The press was invited in to see the one barracks in Tule Lake where everyone was happy and would receive steak for dinner in return for cooperating, while the remainder of the massive camp was suffering from basic food & water shortages. The image of the ‘happy Japanese interns’ was amplified as propaganda, which some visitors still repeat today.
The highly recommended ranger tour is given on summer weekends out in the field (above) and in the jail, complete with jail cell bars saved by a local to preserve the real story. The camp is 10 miles outside town, per military requirement, and there are a few original buildings, the top of a watchtower and a stone monument, besides the small visitor center. The site is in the far northeast corner of California, in the reclaimed lake bed, quite close to Lava Beds. It’s remote, but important to visit.
One of the surprising number of caves here, this photo is just inside the entrance of Valentine, a large multi-tube lava cave that’s fun to explore. I also like Skull Cave (named after animal skulls, mostly). It used to have a pristine ice floor at the bottom, but that’s turned dark, uneven and much smaller due to people. Merrill Cave used to have an ice floor large enough for skating, but it melted recently due to global warming, drained into a hole, and opened up a warm air vent. The same sort of thing has happened to at least a dozen other caves here, so you’re too late for the underground ice experience here, forever.
And it’s definitely a cave park. Except for parking lots, few walk around above ground. In 2000 the 85,000 acre Caldwell Fire burned 2/3 of the park, so I’m not sure what’s left to see besides dead trees and, of course, the lava beds themselves, which are black, rough and inhospitable. I recommend going to the visitor center to borrow a large lantern if you don’t have one, otherwise it can be hard to see down the more distant passages. They also have helmets if you’re a smaller, more flexible person who is willing to try the many more challenging caves. And, if you’re wondering what type of caves they have here (Goblin, Lizard or Vampire), I have to say Ghost. The caves have a haunted atmosphere with many strangely cold corners deep in the earth. Enjoy!
Since the cave was discovered in 1874, explored and expanded early, humans caused very significant damage to geologic structures making it hard to find beautiful natural features. The ‘cave drapery’ above is at the top of two flights of metal steps up to the Paradise Lost high ceiling above the Ghost Room in the far back of the cave tour. The cave has a stream pouring out from the entrance, and there’s a pretty pool there in front of the Château, which is closed pending renovations. There are also several pretty hikes above ground, including one to a very large Douglas Fir. Easy to get tickets at rec.gov or at the visitor center in Cave Junction, before driving all the way up to the cave itself. Be sure to check in as soon as you arrive at the other visitor center next to the cave, as they often let folks take an earlier tour when space is available, especially in the morning.
John Day was merely an unfortunate trader who got robbed along the river here, but the event was noteworthy enough that this Columbia River tributary was named after him, then the whole region in Oregon. I first explored the area in 2017 when finding a campsite to observe a full solar eclipse, but I skipped the fossils. I really should have visited the museum earlier.
The John Day River flows through a huge volcanic landscape that contains the best Cenozoic fossils discovered in the country. Layers of forests and ash preserved some of the most important fossils used to understand evolution. The Cenozoic is the age of mammals, including the John Day Tiger above and the big entelodont (pig/hippo) behind it on the left. There is a camel skull, a gomphothere (elephant) jaw, mastodon teeth, horns of a giraffe-deer, bones of a short-faced bear previously thought to live only in Asia, rhinos, and some kind of giant dog-bear called a nimravid. There are also fossils of the Dawn Redwood, which still lives in China. The fossils I’ve seen at Fossil Butte, Florissant and Agate are all from periods covered here. If you have time, it’s possible to hike in the three separate remote park units, but the exhibits above are in the Condon Visitor Center in the Sheep Rock unit near the scenic Picture Gorge.
My remaining parks are fewer and far between, so starting today I’m posting every other day.
Yes, I took the ferry. No, there is no other way to visit. As a reminder, I have two goals: first to visit the parks without using any carbon fueled vehicles and second to enjoy the parks even if that requires brief carbon vehicle use. So I arrived in NYC by car, walked to Castle Clinton—which is an official Statue of Liberty park office (stamp available)—, and then took the ferry. I wasn’t going to skip it, as it is my favorite iconic park.
I’ve been here before, as a boy, a tourist, with my kids, and now on my own. As usual, some folks visiting from abroad ask me to take their photo, since this World Heritage Site is the highlight of many trips to America. For 62 years immigrants came past the statue on their way to Ellis Island, now a fascinating part of the park. America, an immigrant nation, welcomed them to this huge city in this grand harbor under Lady Liberty’s torch, young and old, rich and poor, from all parts of the globe. Now, together in the city, we share cuisines from around the world, and we learn to overcome the petty ignorance that must never separate us.
“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.”
I figure I climbed Mt Katahdin in Maine over a dozen times as a kid, so I decided just to hike out here to Orin Falls (above), about 6 miles round trip. Surprisingly little has changed in the decades since I last visited. The logging roads are still long, unpaved, bouncy and largely unmarked, and they still have lean to’s for the Appalachian Trail that officially ends on the mountain. The Swift Brook Road one lane bridge is still spectacular, and there are still moose here, wandering out in the roads and ducking into the woods to avoid being photographed. (Definitely a “save this park for offline use” ahead of time if you’re using the NPS app, otherwise you could get lost. My watch kept asking me if I wanted to send an SOS.)
The counselors/ environmentalists who brought us here as summer campers to teach us about nature would be pleased that this is now a national monument, but they would see that not everything has remained unchanged. Man has dramatically altered our climate, so the species here are virtually all in decline. The environmentalists may have won a battle over the logging industry here, but we’re losing the war. On the tour road I stopped at Lynx Pond—one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen as a teenager—, but it was surrounded by dead trees and was much drier than I remember. The slow growing forests of Canada and the northern states are at risk of wildfire, if they’re not burning already. It is not enough to save places like this. We must also save the climate.
Three different forts on this New York City island, part of harbor defenses including the star fort base of the Statue of Liberty (above left), were built just before the war of 1812, so the British didn’t invade the city again. Great.
But the amazing part is the rest of the island, which is both extremely close to and completely different from the city. The view above from a replanted woody hill extends around the whole harbor. While many military buildings are still empty waiting for renovations and more ideas, most public spaces are wonderful. There are hammocks, Adirondack chairs, picnic tables, grills, bike rentals, a day spa with pools facing the skyline, an excellent Neapolitan pizza place, a cafe, a patio bar, an oyster bar, and a taco truck with unimpeded views of the Brooklyn Bridge. And there are lots of birds! And an oyster shell recycling operation that builds new oyster beds, and a solar powered plastic recycling 3D printing enterprise. And there’s space and art and no crowds and the ferry only costs $4. Perfect side trip while passing through Manhattan!
The English sited a fort here in their Virginia colony at the mouth of the James River to protect Jamestown and the deep water entrance to the Chesapeake known as Hampton Roads, and now the Norfolk Navy Base sits across the river. The current fort is the largest masonry fort in the US, and although it was not directly involved in any battles, the Monitor v Merrimack battle was witnessed from its lighthouse, the oldest on the Chesapeake. Lincoln planned the capture of Norfolk here. Confederate leader Jefferson Davis was imprisoned here, decades after Lt Davis had been involved in sending captured Chief Black Hawk to prison here. Robert E. Lee improved the moat system above. Edgar Allan Poe served here (and later returned to recite his poetry).
But the most important history here began in 1619, when the first Africans were brought here by British privateers who stole them from the Spanish, and they were immediately put to work by the English colonists beginning the abomination of slavery in the American colonies. The first African American child, William Tucker, was born here in 1624. (First, unless you include Spanish St Augustine Florida, where there were 16th century slaves, as well as slaves in the Coronado and DeSoto expeditions).
The day Virginia seceded, three slaves, Baker, Townsend & Mallory, escaped and sought refuge here. Their owner sent a Confederate officer to claim his property. Without any official policy, the Union General Butler decided that the three men were illegal property or ‘contraband’ and refused to return them. Butler supported educating, training and enlisting them. This ‘contraband decision’ was widely published in newspapers and became Union policy until Emancipation. Many other escaped slaves similarly sought protection at this and other Union forts and camps, and communities with contraband schools began. Nearby Hampton University began as one of those schools, attended by 16 year old Booker T. Washington in 1872, fully 253 years after slavery started here in this country.
Harriet was born in remote southeastern Maryland, and her knowledge of survival skills in the marshy fields and forests of the area helped her free 70 slaves directly and many more indirectly through her instructions. Now, the NPS NHP, Maryland State Park, and National Monument within the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge are managed jointly. Unlike her home site in Auburn NY, there are no structures from her time here, but the visitor center has exhibits telling her story and busting many of the myths about her, such as the ‘secret messages’ in quilts. The brochure further explains that she could not have sung “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, since it was written by an Oklahoma Cherokee after the Civil War. But she did sing “Go Down Moses” and “Bound for the Promised Land”.
“I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other, for no man should take me alive.”
Harriet Tubman
The stories of her childhood, her Underground Railroad missions and of the Combahee River raid are all told here, as is the story of her friendship with the Abolitionist Thomas Garrett. While he did not risk his life as Harriet did, he was involved in almost three thousand escapes over four decades, at considerable personal financial cost. His partnership with Harriet must have felt serendipitous to both. She was a natural, simple, pure person of faith, from childhood, but especially since her injury-caused epilepsy. The Quakers held strong convictions of faith, even over the law, and prized simplicity, humility and doing good deeds. Each was exactly what the other needed, a Moses leading her people out of the wilderness into the promised land, and a network of believers willing to contribute time, money and help to end the abomination of slavery. Yet despite their acts, millions remained enslaved.
Zero Carbon Travel 