Walking the Berkshires

Mountainside Memories

I first heard the howl of a wolf by Oval Glacier Lake in the Coastal Range of British Columbia.  The glacier was calving into the icy water with a crack and roar, sending echos up the mountainside and waves across the lake. A misty rain cast a low slung rainbow beneath the slopes.  Amid these wonders, weeks away from any road or settlement, it was still the call of the wolf that set my spine a-tingle.  It brought to mind those classic Jack London tales of the frozen north, and here I was in a similar setting and hearing that haunting cry.  I caught a glimpse of a lone wolf the following morning, trotting along the shore below our camp.

It is unseasonably warm here today where I write in Northwest Connecticut.  On the last day of November winter has yet to make an appearance.  The ground is soft and warmer layers of clothing hang unused on the coat rack in the hall.  While it is nice not to have to crank up the furnace, this warm weather is emotionally and seasonally unsatisfying.  If I had wanted to live in the mid-Atlantic states, this blog would have been called Walking the Delmarva Peninsula. 

So I am revisiting my mountaineering days, remembering that month in July when my world was defined by rock and ice and snow and hard-won views like this one of Regal Glacier on the flank of Mt. Waddington.  This wilderness had a grandeur and an immediacy that still has the power to take my breath away these many years later.  I have seen more than a few extraordinary places in my travels, but these mountains stand alone for their extremes of fatal beauty and utter remoteness from civilization.  Not even Africa seemed so alien, so humbling, or so stimulating.

Sleeping on ice, drinking melted snow, wearing my wet socks next to my skin at night to dry them, were part of the daily rhythm in the alpine world.  Keeping my mind sharp when my limbs were numb was the hardest struggle of all, since the mind is what keeps you alive in extreme environments and the mountains are unforgiving of error.  I nearly killed a fellow climber by letting myself get above him on an unstable slope of scree and kicking loose a boulder that narrowly missed his head.  One might also say he nearly got himself killed by passing below me, but the result would have been the same either way.  I took what I needed to grow from that experience, and it sustains me today.  The autumn of my discontent is made glorious winter by these remembered snows of the north.

"Waiter, There's an Armored Ground Cricket in my Soup!"

When the rains return to Namibia, the armored ground cricket is not far behind.  Acanthoplus discoidalis is an impressive creature, nearly three inches long, encased in thick plates with wicked barbs.  They swarm like wingless locusts, and like locusts they can devastate a millet crop in no time.  People used to dig trenches around their fields and send children out to stomp on the crickets, but with the advent of compulsory education they have turned to pesticides. 

They are also called Gobabis prawns after a town in the Kalahari, but you would not willingly eat one of these crickets and for a long while I was not at all sure that the alternate name fit the beast.  Then I had occasion to find out.

When we lived at the Grootberg Breeding station, we cooked in three legged pots over an open fire.  Before we got the gas refrigerator,  we only had fresh meat for a day or two each month and then only after making a two-day drive in our decrepit land rover to a major town for supplies.

After making one such bone-shaking journey, we returned with fresh chicken and I had in mind a great, bubbling stew.  As the sun dropped low behind the mountains, I diced vegetables, mixed spices, and added chicken parts luxuriously to the pot.  I let it simmer until the meat fell off the bone, lifting the lid from time to time with a wire pot hook set beside the hearth for that purpose.  It was well after dark, under a sky sprinkled with wood ash stars, when I turned on my flashlight and opened the pot to ladle out the feast, only to discover that an armored ground cricket had transferred itself into the pot the previous time it has been stirred.  There it sat in my beautiful stew, pink as a boiled prawn.

There was an old saying in Namibia that you could tell how long an expatriate had been in the bush by his or her response to a fly in the beer.  The first month or so, they dump out the beer.  The next few months, they take out the fly.  After a year or so, beer doesn't taste the same without a fly in it.

I had seen what the inside of an armored ground cricket looked like on numerous occasions.  One could hardly get about without stepping on them in their season.  Suffice it to say I was not about to sample this uninvited delicacy and see whether it had more in common with prawns than its color when cooked.  This left the matter of the stew.  We could discard the feast and settle for monotonous, imperishable fare, or we could pretend nothing had ever happened and proceed with our meal.  I confess the decision took me several long moments - we had not been in the bush that many months at that point - but really there was only one choice.

The stew was delicious.

"I Think That I Shall Never See..."

"...a tree so bizarre as the Desert Kohlrabi."  Words to that effect might well apply to this post, an offering of some of the more unusual trees of the Namibian desert for which I can also provide halfway decent accompanying photographs.  Some of life's most remarkable variations arose in harsh and restricted habitats and shrubs and trees are no exception.

Adenia pechuelii resembles its namesake kohlrabi and is endemic to a band of Namibian semi desert running north from Walvis Bay to central Kunene province.  Another common name for this extremely uncommon plant is "elephant's foot", and indeed its squat, gray-green stem has something of the pachyderm about it.  This plant has woody branches and perches on rocks, like this enormous specimen.  It bears either male or female flowers.

Or consider the highly toxic Euphorbia virosa, whose milky sap means death to many but can be digested by black rhinoceros.  Careless campers who have attempted to burn the wood of this tree have died from the smoke.  It is sometimes used as an arrow poison and is the most venomous, if such a term can apply to a tree, of the euphorbia species.  Spiny succulents, they are unrelated to cacti and are found in the hottest and driest parts of Namibia.  This particular euphorbia grew just beyond our little house at the Grootberg Breeding Station in ≠Khoadi //Hoas Conservancy.

Then there is the Herero sesame bush (Sesamothamnus lugardii), another Namibian endemic. Its stiff, swollen stems and fleshy trunks bear yellow flowers that swell at the base of the tube.  Perhaps for this reason, an extract of the root is used medicinally by the people of this region as a treatment for venereal disease.  Other endemic trees have common names with modern associations. Acacia robynsiana, the radio tree, is so called because its slender, whip-stick stems were used by Afrikaner farmers at remote outposts to suspend their shortwave aerials.  It grows high on mountain ridges from a clump of dense vegetation and then projects its drooping stems as much as 45 feet above the ground.  Because of its atypical form and growth habits it is also called Heaven's broom.  There are two specimens of this tree in the photograph at left, the one of the left with its characteristic stems and a second at the right showing only its shrubby mass at the base.  Far below is a tributary of the dry Kakatswa, or "anus dropping" river.  Plenty of dung there from grazing animals, particularly elephants and goats.

The most unusual tree of the Namib must be Welwitschia mirabilis, truly the missing link between cone-bearing gymnosperms and flowering angiosperms and with characteristics of both groups.  The female cones are clearly visible in this specimen, and if you look closely you can also make out the welwitschia bug, Probergrothius sexpunctatis, that feeds on the sap of the tree and may aid in pollination.  The woody trunk is seldom more than a foot or two above the surface of the desert and the tree itself bears only two true leaves that grow continuously in tattered strips from the stem.  As some Welwitschias have been Carbon 14 tested at over 1,000 years or more, the leaves must be that old as well.  These are but a few of the reasons why this tree may be the strangest vascular plant on Earth.

A poem so lovely as a tree?  Perhaps to eyes accustomed to noble crowns and mighty forests these desert dwellers may appear unlovely.  Yet as Katisha sagely - and poetically - said to Ko-Ko;

"There is beauty in the bellow of the blast,
There is grandeur in the growling of the gale,
There is eloquent outpouring
When the lion is a-roaring,
And the tiger is a-lashing of his tail!" - W. S. Gilbert, The Mikado

Tunnel Vision

Sometimes a narrow focus broadens possibilities. I took this photograph inside a culvert in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania as part of a photography class during my senior year at Haverford.  The only part of the picture that is in sharp focus is the rim of the drain and the riffle of water at the lip.  I was an English major and aware of the suggestion of sexuality and birth in the composition of my shot of what is essentially a storm drain.  What I like about the photograph is the soft diffusion of light, the corrugated rings drawing the eye both inward and beyond the frame.  It looks like a keyhole, if we could only find the way to unlock it.  What are those shadows on the walls of the cave?  The water is just a trickle, now, but that tunnel can accommodate a flood.  Like the womb, and this mortal coil, one cannot linger indefinitely before passing beyond.

This other photograph, while not as well composed or focused, repeats the image in natural forms. Here an arch in a sea stack along the coast of Washington's Olympic Peninsula frames a more volatile world beyond of crashing surf and distant islands.  The water in the lee of the rock is calm by comparison, but the tide swirls in at the mouth and refuge is far from secure.  Forces far greater than I bored the hole in the rock. Do I dare to step through the door?  Must I retreat from the waves?  Are those sheer islands always out of reach, or will I one day pass over the water and rest in the shade of the trees?

Life and death, twining forces in ebb and flow, commingle in the waters by these gates.  Change and transformation are certain. Perception narrows in the neck of the hourglass, where the sands cycle in both directions. 

1/3 of the Water Planet

I fell in love with deserts on a a trip to the southwestern United States in the summer of my 8th grade year.  Prior to that, my travels were largely confined to the northeastern seaboard, exploring the stone walls and cobble shores of New England and the salty rocks of Maine.  In the canyon lands of Utah, Arizona's Painted Desert and the cliffs of Mesa Verde, I marveled at weeks on end without a whiff of cloud, and horizons so vast that both ends of a freight train were at all times plainly visible.  I find comfort and hope in the mere fact of not simply persistent but resilient life in these stark, inhospitable places.

I spent nearly four years in southwest Africa, where the diversity of arid habitats encompasses dark red sand dunes 300 meters high, salt pans of blinding white, and a rugged escarpment of table mountains where semiprecious stones can be gleaned like seashells from the dry riverbeds.  There are places along the poetically named Skeleton Coast that receive less than 50mm of rain annually and where many plants and animals get the moisture they need from the heavy fogs that roll inland from the upwelling Benguela current. There are rivers here that break through to the sea in flood only once a decade, yet with riparian belts of leadwood and camelthorn that sink their thirsty roots to tap the water that still lies beneath.

The world's great monotheisms - Islam, Judaism and Christianity - were born of deserts, which cannot afford to be profligate with their deities or resources and where the only absolutes are the certainty of all-encompassing heat, and thirst and the necessity of adaptation.  In times of drought, when the margin of survival is wafer thin, a pregnant Oryx gazelle may reabsorb its fetus rather than bring it to term.  This animal contends with heat in extraordinary ways, raising its brain temperature 5 °C warmer than its body core during the day and then cooling down at night.  The Oryx at left was still alive when I took this photo and is drinking water from my hat.  It became trapped between the double line of a cordon sanitaire between the large communal cattle herds of northern Namibia and the commercial farmland to the south.  It allows Namibia to export its meat to the EU disease free, but is a death trap for wildlife.  This animal, as you can see from its visible ribs, was in terrible condition when we came upon it and managed to run it down and pull it through the fence to freedom.  It may have gone weeks without water, and was probably too far gone when we discovered it.

Still, deserts are alive, and have supported life of remarkable variety and resilience.  This giraffe was one of over 50 we recorded on a game count in the Klip Rivier section of  ≠Khoadi //Hoas Conservancy in northwest Namibia during one afternoon in 1997.  I had no telephoto lens on my camera.  This giraffe simply stood and observed us as our 4 x 4 clambered over the rocky trail before it as we explored this remote desert Eden.  Endemic Hartmann's mountain zebra negotiated the steep walls of the river canyon as we continued our journey, and there was leopard spoor at several of the waterholes.

People have lived in Namibia's deserts for tens of thousands of  years, as an abundance of petroglyphs and rock paintings attest.  It has been called "a prospector's Paradise and a miner's Hell." Historically, the human settlements in this desert were as heavily reliant on the few natural water sources as contemporary communities are on their deep boreholes today, and local herders share with wildlife the requirement to shift pasture when the rains fall elsewhere.  I have seen these stony rivers come to life after heavy rains, and each time it was as if the great, muddy heart of the desert had thrashed into life to pump its dry arteries into brief and spuming flood.  I have seen the bones of the earth laid bare.  I have not heard the terrible voice of the Lord in a burning bush but have no trouble imagining a desert producing such wonders.  1/3 of our water planet is desert, after all, and far from lifeless.

The Good (Planets), the Bad (History) & the Ugly (Holidays and Roast Possum)

Good Planets, a monthly carnival celebrating photographs of the natural beauty of our planet, is at Tortoise Trail this month.  A feast for the eye and soul. One of my Mt. Waddington mountaineering photographs is in this edition, and at left is another, capturing alpine glow on the north face of this tallest mountain in the Coastal Range of British Columbia.

The Carnival of Bad History is at Philobiblon this month.

As for the Ugly, you can take your pick.  A Carnival of Hijacked Holidays throws a wet blanket the commercial holiday season with posts like Why We Skip The Holidays Altogether, and last week's Carnival of the Recipes included a recipe for - gulp - Roast Possum . 

Delicious.

Wild at Heart

I took this photograph during an early morning ascent of Mt. Waddington in the Coastal Range of British Columbia.  It was July, 1989, and we had traversed the range for nearly three weeks to get to this point.  After bushwhacking through devil's club and slide alder we reached a treeless landscape of rock, ice and snow.  Except for a helicopter dropping supplies at a food cache and another one dropping four mountaineers on a glacier, the only other souls we saw were members of our expedition.  I was 21 years old.

That summer with the National Outdoor Leadership School was one of life's truly formative experiences.  I found my independence, and discovered a pioneering spirit that would lead me to Africa and to a career in conservation.  I realized I had the strength and stamina to carry ninety pounds for sixteen hours over ice fields and scree, but also learned humility in the mental discipline of mountaineering and the thin line between the contingencies for which one can control and the events one cannot.

The alpine wilderness, like its kindred the desert and the immense, rolling ocean, is utterly indifferent to those  who venture beyond the confines of civilization.  Yet we who do so are often transformed by the experience.  Our senses quicken.  We notice tiny worms swimming within the brilliant blue of glacial pools, and the insects blown over the mountains and strewn across the face of the ice.  We draw ever nearer the surf on the rocky shore, testing the margin between ourselves and forces far greater and beyond our command.

When I was younger, the wilderness appealed to me not because I hoped to dominate it, daring the odds of survival with every extreme undertaking, but because of its promise of solitude, discovery and awakened sensitivity.  I climbed mountains in confidence that I could do so unharmed, yet learned in those vast spaces that I was vulnerable.  I wandered in deserts seeking mysteries.

Now I am no longer young, with bones that ache with the dropping barometer and a stronger sense of my own mortality.  I am no more the solo wanderer, trekking from peak to peak, but a husband and father who moves to the meandering pace of his little  people as we explore the world together.  There are mysteries in a blade of grass, a wilderness in our own backyard.  I would love to see the glaciers again, to climb the Grootberg and stare out over the Namibian escarpment while my tracks mingle with those of elephants in the sand of riverbeds below.  But for now these adventures are part of my past, recaptured in my mind's eye and informing that inner wilderness of the heart.

Are You A Short Snorter?

"A good luck charm and drinking game all rolled into one", the Short Snorter was a uniquely American tradition with obscure origins but popularized by air crews during WWII.  Back then, a "snort" was slang for a stiff drink, and a short one was something less than a full pour.  A "short snorter" was both a member of the military who had flown across the Equator or from country to country, and the membership card of this fraternity: a one dollar bill signed by two other short snorters.  The currency of other nations and territories were often added to a short snorter in chains that could reach over six feet in length.

"Some guys had short snorters with more than a dozen bills covered with names. They became something to do, something to show off and something to talk about(e.g.)who we flew with, where we flew, and a way to remember some of those who signed who had gotten shot down. They were also considered to be a lucky token to have on our persons. Sort of kept the Flak
away and kept the engine, etc., running smoothly."  Howard R. Dentz, USAF Res. Maj., Ret.   

The more signatures one had on his short snorter, and the longer the list of countries visited or length of bills taped end to end, the greater the status of the bearer.  Airmen at the bar could be asked "are you a short snorter", and the one with the shortest snorter picked up the tab.  One could also collect the signatures of famous personalities, and there are existing examples of short snorters signed by Charles Lindbergh, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Bob Hope, among others.

My grandfather, Dr. Robert H. Barker, Lt. Commander, USNR, was a short snorter while a  surgeon with Marine Air Group 15 in the Pacific in 1944-1945.  His short snorter was a 1935 Hawai'i territory Silver Certificate 1 dollar bill.  The obverse of this bill is printed at the head of this post, and the reverse at right is inscribed on the edge "SNORT SNORTER BARKER."  He must have started his short snorter in Hawai'i before boarding ship for the Gilbert Islands.  Although faded, you can trace the places and islands he visited along the margin of the bill:  San Francisco, Oahu, Apamama, Majuro, Engebi, Mullinix, Tarawa, Makin, Kwajalein.  I have no idea were "Mullinix" was. The signatures of the two other short snorters that made his official are equally faded but can just be made out as "Harold H. Marshall" and another man with the surname of "Libby."  Click to enlarge.

Perhaps he was not a particularly active member of the short snorter fraternity - though by no means a teetotaler - for in some respects his snorter is short.  All the island hoping he did certainly took him to many places, as indicated on his short snorter, as well as others like Saipan that he did not record.  I suspect that the importance of his short snorter was as a talisman of good luck and a form of insurance to bring about a safe return to wife and family.

The short snorter tradition was maintained by Apollo astronauts but in this age of global air travel it is no longer practiced.  Every short snorter has a story, and each is a unique record of the people who served in those extraordinary times.

How Now, Gilded Mao?

An old icon is getting a makeover.  The 7 meter tall statue of Mao Zedong that has stood in the village of Changsha in Hunan Province since the Cultural Revolution is soon to be plated in 24 carat gold.  Hunan is a center of mining and metallurgy with a growing economic base, so perhaps this is a natural choice.  Had it instead been a center for confectionery, they could have dipped him in chocolate.

The spot market for gold shows it trading above 628 USD per ounce today, and if one of my astute readers would like to work out the cost in gold of gilding a statue 4 times the height of the average Chinese person I'd be very grateful to learn the results of your calculations.

Meanwhile, I bet all those hasty reformers in the Russian Federation who dragged their discarded statues of Lenin off to the scrapyard are eating their hearts now over the missed opportunity to have their own gold-plated icons.  Maybe they can bronze Khrushchev's shoe.

Proverbia

The accumulated wisdom of the tribe comes down to us in many forms.  I am partial to proverbs, particularly in translation, which afford both sage advise and humorous incongruity in equal measure.  Africa in particular has a great wealth of proverbial lore:

The Ashanti caution that "it is the calm and silent water that drowns a man" and "when the cock is drunk he forgets about the hawk." 

In Congo "those who are absent are always wrong", which has a corollary in our own "if you don't vote, you can't bitch."

In Senegal "an intelligent enemy is better than a stupid friend", which I swear I heard Connecticut Republicans saying about Joe Lieberman.  In Ghana they say "the chicken is never declared in the court of hawks."

In Namibia I learned  "when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers."  I also heard a proverb in the making, when a friend teaching in the Peace Corps who was trying to grow out his facial hair was told by a female colleague that "a kiss without a beard is like an egg without salt."  As one who has not seen his upper lip since graduating from high school and is getting increasingly long in the tooth, I heartily support the propagation of this profound understanding of the desirability of the older man.

There are many more African proverbs here.  For a more scholarly exploration of meaning and context, The African proverb of the Month and also of the week are good resources.