What It's Like to Live with Me.

I woke up from a very vivid dream in which I had been encountered by Mother Nature who appeared in various forms. The dream was very vivid. Lots of greens and blues and reds and oranges and yellows and…well, it was colorful.

Nothing to do and no pressing reason to get up. I looked to my left. My wife was awake, too, and peering into her cell phone.

“Hey! You’ve got your cell phone!” She chose not to respond. “Mine’s charging at my desk. I need you to look something up!” I was so lazy I didn’t feel like getting out of bed. “I need you to look up Marion Ross!” Carole gave me a funny look. “I need to know if Marion Ross is still alive!”

"Marion Ross?"

"Yeah. You know. Mrs. C.! Richie Cunningham's mom on HAPPY DAYS! Tom Bosley's wife on the show! Did you know that Tom Bosley was Jewish? I mean--Father Dowling? Fuck! That guy went completely under my Jewdar! Didn't see that coming!"

Carole ignores the raving exposition. "Why would you possibly need to know if Marion Ross is alive?"

“I just had a dream about Mother Nature appearing to me and her voice was Marion Ross’s voice! I vividly recall she sounded exactly like Marion Ross! Look her up. Is she dead?”

“Okay, okay. Give me a second.” Then. “Why does it matter if she’s still alive?”

“Because if they make a movie out of my dream then she’ll have to voice Mother Nature.”

Another funny look (as if 'yeah, that's gonna happen'), but by then she had the information. “Yes, she’s still alive.”

“That’s good,” I say, and sit up. “Hey! They have her picture and one of Erin Moran when she was young! She was really cute! Too bad she croaked.”

More funny looks. “Very sad, yes.”

“Do me a favor. Look up the German word ‘jager’ for me! I think it means ‘hunter’, but I’m not sure. Look it up! J.A. G. E. R. YAY-ger,” I add.

“You’re right, it means ‘hunter’.” I know she’s going to ask me why I needed to know that, so I look at the screen of her cell phone and yell, “DAMN! Why do they have a photo of a cool-ass European travel trailer there? That makes no sense at all! That’s a cool trailer! Click on that and tell me about it!”

“You!” She’s angry, of course. Between me raving and pushing my head between her chest and her cell phone she has had it. “Just…just go somewhere else!”

And my job there was done.

Erin Moran and Marion Ross laugh at me.

Video Mistakes

A bit of a break in the schedule today. (I'll get back to the Iceberg Lake posts later.)

Years ago when I started posting stuff on the Internet I soon had to make a decision about where to upload and secure my video footage. Back then there were a fair number of such sites and I had to make some choices. What I ended up doing was placing a lot of my videos at several sites to kind of hedge my bets.

I put a lot of my stuff on Webshots. Alas, that site was abruptly sold some time back and before I could retrieve my videos (some had been lost from my hard drive in crashes), those files were forever lost to me. A mistake in that case, but you takes yer chances.

Another site that I placed too much faith in was Google Video. I figured...damn, they're the biggest name on the Internet--I'm sure their site will always be safe.

Wrong!

I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I suspect that they cut a deal with Youtube and shut down in favor of working closely with the Youtube format. As it was, one day I received a notice that I had a certain amount of time to transfer my files from Google Video to Youtube. I dallied and mainly retrieved them all, but not quite. Again, I lost some material that I had also lost on my various hard drives.

Another one that I used was Photobucket. They're still around, but it became more and more difficult to post files from them to the various online venues that I like to utilize for my blogs and thoughts and fiction promotion.

These  days, I stick with Youtube. Mistake? Well, only time will tell. They seem to be in a unique position akin to a monopoly. I don't like monopolies, but you have to live with them sometimes. Amazon is a growing monopoly, and I don't like that, but if I'm going to  send people to buy my work online then I'm pretty much forced to point them to links to my books there. Sometimes you have little or no choice in practical matters. I am forced to take a similar view in relation to Youtube.

Now...one thing that I did have a choice about was whether or not to "monetize"  my venues on the Internet. So a few years ago I made the decision to do just that with my videos on Youtube. Almost the first week I did so I began to see ads that I would term offensive attached to my postings there. I know that some ads are targeted to your viewing habits, but how ads for products that not only don't I use but to which I am morally, philosophically, and politically opposed is a mystery. It was almost as if they were there just to anger me.  So I shut down the monetization option on my videos.

Then, a few months ago, it was suggested to me by a number of people that I monetize my videos again. As with monopolies, offensive ads were just something I would have to deal with to make some money from my works on Youtube. I'm a capitalist at heart, so I figured, okay. I'll do it. So I ended up monetizing every video I have on that site (which are considerable).

Weeks and months passed. I decided to check my stats and total up what I had earned with the many tens of thousands of hits my videos were racking up. Indeed, my moving images there had garnered an impressive array of views. I was eager to see how much I'd earned.

Imagine my surprise when I found that I'd earned exactly: zero dollars and zero cents.

What the heck??!!

Like all shyster organizations, Youtube has a system in place that allows them to make a lot of money from your work, but which also allows them not to have to legally share those profits with you. I compared notes with folk who have been doing this for a much longer time than I and discovered that Youtube had changed the rules arbitrarily. People who had been making a decent amount of money from their videos had now seen their income stream dammed at the source and all of the profits staying with the parent company.

Alas.

People who had been going to my videos to view them were having to sit through the damnable ads and all I got was nothin'. You all have my apology.

I cancelled the monetization option on my Youtube channel. At least I think I have. You never know with giant corporations like Youtube. Greedy men, like Nature, always find a way.

And here are some videos that I shot that I quite like and which are now once again available without stupid ads mucking up the views.

The exact point where I first got altitude sickness.

Probably the most magical moment I ever experienced in the wild.

Another great experience where every step was a note of rocky music.


The view from Mount Craig. Often overlooked online because it's the second highest summit in the eastern USA and not the highest. In fact, though, the views here are far superior than those from nearby Mount Mitchell which is less than fifty feet higher.

Feel free to peruse all of my videos.

Alpine Illusion

Sometimes when I show people some of the photos I've taken here in the east, they think the pictures were made in western states. This is because of the practice of clear-cutting and fire in our eastern mountains during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Although it's hard to understand, if you'd come to the southern Appalachians around 1920 or so, you would have found almost no mature forests. Instead, from horizon to horizon all you would have found were shattered lands--all of the forests had been felled. And when I say "all", that's what I mean. Rare were the spots where the timber companies had not been. And when they passed, they left nothing but stumps, poorly cut roads, and rail beds for the ever-present narrow gauge steam engines that were invaluable for the harvest of timber.

Often, when the timber companies had left, the land was allowed to fester. Summers would come, often with drought. The acreage would become tinder-dry and all it would take is a single spark or a lightning strike and fire would be set. Since what had been forest was now just a litter of shattered stumps and broken limbs and underbrush, the fires would rage unopposed across the landscape. If the droughts were severe enough--and they often were--then even the top soil would burn away, all the way down to bare rock and mineral soil. When rains finally did come--and they often did so in sudden cloudbursts to break the droughts--what little soil remained was washed down into the creeks and rivers to briefly foul the waterways before being carried along to the lowlands.

After all of this destruction, the forests would struggle to recover. On the tallest peaks and in the highest valleys the young trees had to contend with little in the way of organic soil and with the cold winters and harsh winds that rake the southern high country. Some shrubs and grasses would take root, but trees struggled to regain lost territory.

This is why, more than 100 years after the rape of the southern high country by the timber and land companies the forests are still fighting for restoration. This is why those places appear to be alpine environments, which they resemble but do not match ecologically.

One of the best examples of the false alpine environment in the South is the area known as Grayson Highlands in southwest Virginia. 5,000-foot peaks covered in mainly rocks, scrub, and grasslands.

I need to head back to this area. It offers great terrain for hiking.

Not far from Grayson Highlands (and considered part of it) is First Peak. Almost all grass and shrubs and heavily eroded because of its popularity with the horseback riding crowd. Steer clear of this particular spot unless you enjoy hiking in muck.

One of my favorite false alpine peaks--Sam Knob.

In West Virginia the best example of this setting is in the Dolly Sods Wilderness. What looks to be at this point a field is, in fact, a vast wetland. Impossible to hike, it's actually a sea of soggy peat and rare plants.

Another view in Dolly Sods. You can understand why it's so very popular with hikers and backpackers.

Nature Heals

In the absence of Mankind wrecking the Earth, Mother Nature can move in and quickly hide the wounds. A classic example of the boom and bust of human greed and the reclamation by Her Graciousness is illustrated in the brief history of one horrible place called Volcano, West Virginia.

The town was founded on the abundant oil fields that once lay beneath the crust here. An enterprising capitalist bought up the land and began to drill for oil. Rail lines came in and soon the place was thriving. Of course the land was raped in the way that only the oil industry can commit such a crime. The town burned down not once, but twice. The first time it burned the community recovered, but the last time was it. There just wasn't enough oil remaining under the soil for any effort to be made to preserve and rebuild, and so Volcano was left to die. Which it quickly did.

Many people wring their hands over the destruction that Mankind has wrought on the natural world. And this worry is for good reason. But most of these people think that when we're done, and when we're gone, there will be no way for Nature to repair the damage.

But when we're done, and when we've killed ourselves off (which we assuredly will do), then the forests will move quickly in. Vegetation and rot and rust and rain and gravity and wind will soon scrub away all sign that we were even here.

If you don't believe me, walk the woods where once a thriving town and booming oil industry stood in a spot called Volcano, West Virginia.

Hotel, Volcano, WV.

Power Station, Volcano WV.

Interior of the power station.

Town Hall, Volcano

Residences and oil derricks.

Homes, including that of one physician.

Part of the old downtown Volcano.

This was once a thriving city. Unless you look for the hidden details, you can't tell that there were once rail stations, oil wells, opera houses, grocery stores, general stores, doctor's offices, banks, barber shops, schools, churches, mansions, and thriving neighborhoods on this land reclaimed now by the forests.

Here and there, you can see foundations and even the remains of rock-walled rooms.

To see what's left of this house, the mansion where the town's richest man once lived, see the photo below.

Here is just about all that remains of the mansion where the oil tycoon who founded the town once made his home. Later, it was sold to some suckers who were told they could make it into a hotel and turn a profit. That's hard to do when the railroad pulls out (taking even the rails with them) and 99%of the population vanishes into the hills. Later, hobos used it to take shelter, eventually burning it down (seemingly the fate of all buildings).

Wanted: Solitude!

I need to go to a state park or wilderness. I need some solitude and clean air and Mother Nature's silence (no machinery).

Linville Gorge Wilderness area, taken along the Kistler Highway (name of the "highway" is misleading--it's actually a sometimes poorly maintained gravel road. the name is left over from days long past when it was, in fact, considered a major road).

Cathedral State Park in West Virginia. One of only a handful of patches of virgin hemlock forest remaining in the entire state.

Blackwater River Gorge in Blackwater Falls State Park in West Virginia.

Lindy Point, Blackwater Falls State Park, West Virginia.

South Mountains Game Lands, North Carolina.

Mackey Mountain old growth forest, Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina.

I honestly can't recall the name of this waterfall. I want to say "Blue Hole" in eastern Tennessee.

Roan High Knob, Tennessee. (One of Tennessee's 6,000-foot summits.

The summit of Unaka Mountain on the TN/NC border. Walk west and you're in Tennessee. Stroll to the right and you're standing in North Carolina. The Appalachian Trail runs over the top.

Spruce trees in a heavy mist, summit of Unaka Mountain.

Exertion

I love to hike and backpack. But sometimes when I'm laboring up a giant freaking mountain in the heat with a heavy pack on my back and I still have a couple of thousand vertical feet to climb to the summit I stop and say "WHAT THE HAIL AM I DOIN' THIS FOR??!!!!". But then I get to the top and Mother Nature flashes me her goods and I know it's all worth it.

Mother Nature is a hottie.

The Nature of Nature

There is no better analogy for our planet than the name many of us use to refer to it:

Mother Earth.

She has given us everything. She gives us breath and drink and food. She presents beauty to us every moment of every day. Mother Earth is life and desire and sustenance and mystery. She gives us a reason to wake and roam. There is no better analog for Nature than Woman.

And there is no plainer way to describe what we have done to Nature than rape. Even if we are not directly involved in the brutalities perpetrated against Her, we are a party to it. We stand by and watch and do nothing to stop it. Some of us whine about the way Mother Earth is treated, but we do not act to halt these crimes. No corporate board members are executed. No industrialists are tried and imprisoned. No architects of mountaintop removal are taken out and shot. These vile among us are allowed to enjoy the wealth of their crimes and to die in bed, at the ends of long lives.

Eventually, those brutalities we condone will result in a final death. We will have murdered She who birthed us. We’ll realize one day that the bosom against which we have so long been held so lovingly will be cold and dead.

And we’ll follow the others down into that lightless pit we call Oblivion. We’ll deserve what we get. We will. But the others—the companions with whom we travel this globe—are not deserving of our own fate. The tigers and elephants and rhinos did not take part in our crimes. They did not contribute to the rape and murder of Mother Nature.

But it won’t matter, they'll have been destroyed all the same, preceding us into the void.

I see it coming, and there doesn't seem to be a damned thing to be done about it. There's nowhere to turn for justice. And perhaps that's what our own extinction will be: a cold kind of justice. But no one will be left to call it so.

Whenever I encounter a giant dead or dying hemlock tree that stands alone I usually take its photo. We're the reason that they're all dying, and I just like to record the standing corpses, to acknowledge our collective guilt. This one was well over 100 feet tall, probably as old as our nation. It likely took this tree 200 years to reach this height. It's now dead--I'd say its life was gone this past year. And all because of us. Say goodbye. This is what we're doing to Mother Earth. This is the same fate that awaits us at the end of the road we're gouging into Her flesh.

See Spot. See Spot Lead.

Spot Leads the Way

Falls below the breached dam along the Catawba Falls Trail.

When Jack and I started our hike I saw a solid black blur of motion coming at us. It was a huge, playful, black Lab. She was soon leaping and jumping beside us, apparently eager to go hiking.

Jack told me that he'd read about this dog and that it was reported to join along in the hike. Sure enough, she did join us. Or, rather, we joined her. According to the big red collar on her neck, her name was "Spot". She was extremely friendly and seemed eager to show us the way to the waterfalls.

All along the way she would rush ahead and then wait for us at places where, I reckon, she assumed we might take a wrong turn or get lost. At the first creek crossing she led us to the water and looked back at us to make sure we were coming. However, Jack figured there would be an easier (drier) place to cross upstream and so we went that way. I'm sure Spot thought we were a couple of sissies, but she went with us to where we found a dead hemlock across the creek and went over there.


Sometimes she would disappear for a few minutes while Jack and I stopped to take photographs. But she would always come back to see what was keeping us, or to poke around to see what the heck there was that we found so interesting about hanging out in one place.

Soon enough, though, we were at the Catawba Falls. It's a really nice waterfall and the water volume was high due to all of the rain, ice, and snow we've been getting in western North Carolina. The noise of tumbling water was great and the views were tremendous. But Spot wanted to keep going and pretty soon she was leading us along the steep and treacherous semi-trail to the Upper Catawba Falls.

It must be easier to climb and scramble on four legs rather than two. Because Spot raced ahead of us in places where we had to pick our ways very carefully and tentatively on rock faces, along ledges, and over slick patches of ice. Spot just dug in and hauled ass and was waiting for us as we topped out. When I got to the upper viewing spot she was sitting there looking at the waterfall. "See? Ain't it beautiful?" she seemed to be saying. Indeed, Spot, it is a great place.

Spot stayed with us while we took dozens of photographs and lauded the handiwork of Mother Nature. And then we began to carefully pick our way down the rough trail to the lower falls. Spot was right there with us, trying to show us how it was done. And later, she followed us all the way back down to the trail head. By then, other hikers had arrived and were beginning to trek up to the falls. But Spot seemed to have had enough for one day and merely watched the others for a bit, then walked across the road to where she lived.

Good job, Spot!

The Upper Catawba Falls. One heck of a tough scramble to get to them, but well worth the effort. One of the most spectacular waterfalls I've ever seen.

Catawba Falls. The lower of the two. Very nice in its own right.

Jack coming down from the steepest part of the scramble to the Upper Falls.

Anchor and bolt for the rope. Don't use it to support your full weight. Not advised.

The Southern Appalachians have to be one of the greenest places on Earth. Even in winter.

I Can Feel It

Mother

Earth

Is

Dying.

Don't say we weren't warned.

I've long thought it fitting that as our hemlocks die off and slide into extinction, that they shed their bark to reveal the bloody underlying color.

Outdoor Goals

Don't waste any more time!

In the past ten years or so I've been frantically trying to climb every mountain that was on my old to-do list of places to see before I croak. Time is short. Barring an accident, I have maybe twenty or thirty years left to crawl across this mudball. And of course I have no way of knowing how much longer I'll be physically able to hike up steep slopes and pull myself up rock walls. So time's a-wasting!


I've almost exhausted the East coast of the USA of my major hiking goals. The Black Mountains are just about my favorite hiking spot, but I've been there many times. Mount Rogers and the Grayson Highlands in Virginia, likewise. The heights of the Smokies have been among the most beautiful hiking destinations I've had, but I've mined them out. Katahdin, in Maine: got it done. The White Mountains of New Hampshire, yes, with Mount Washington bagged--an amazing climb!

Just about the only major spot of eastern highlands that I want to see that I haven't experienced are the high peaks of the Adirondacks. I'd like to climb Mount Marcy and some of the other higher Daks before this mortal coil unwinds.

But, for now, my focus lies on the west coast. Carole and I have been trying to book our spots at Yellowstone for next year. But so far we haven't had much luck in getting lodging in the park. We're going to keep trying, though, because I want to climb in the Tetons and I want to hike into the back country of Yellowstone and see the land where the old Pleistocene megafauna still hang on, and where I'll be nothing but a lonely visitor.

With any luck, though, we'll have our western itinerary mapped out and we'll begin making serious plans to visit western USA's true high country. Life goes on.

The beauty is out there. Waiting for us.