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Show ZEPHYR/ AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2005 Creatures seen: Ra ven; Golden eagle; two unidentified birds chasing the eagle; ground squirrel. Skip to the meetings. They go on for five days. Great time. Now I’m homeward bound, driving southeasterly in Oregon”’s great high desert country that reaches across the Columbia and meets more desert lands to the south. I came to a “special interest” parking area. The sign told me and other visitors that a tremendous geological event had occurred here. A lake had broken out, gouged a very deep and winding canyon, draining itself. Ages of desert wear and tear went by and now a paved highway rides its rimrock. I walked through sandy soil, noticing early summer herbs and grasses and came to a startling sight, a spread of rusted cans in rich bright brown sunglare. Not one item of plastic there. The solid jumble of cans looked good, spread out among other earth colors, a roadside dump from another time. I was looking for a break in rimrock, found one and worked my way down the steep jumble of cliffs and old junipers. A slow care-taking process. The bottom of the old fossil river was pale dry sandy soil winding among junipers and mountain mahogany. I stood still, next to a massive juniper. Subtle sounds, mere wisps of air motion. Nothing from the highway. Why? I don’t know. The silence persisted; I stayed with it. Suddenly a cry from around the next bend. Prairie falcon. Later, I saw it, patrolling the cliffs. I drew a peace symbol in the sand to mark the exit and walked a couple of bends of the old river, amazed at the size of the junipers. The shapes of things. Climbing out was easy, four-footed and slow. Found one piece of obsidian. LOSING SOLITUDE Tracks and signs: rabbits (cottontail size), two sand-grain ant colonies, ant lion pit under a rock overhang (out of the rain?) one big-tooted human; range cattle; deer. U.S. 195, south toward Lakeview, Oregon, noticed that no fencing paralleled the road. By Martin Murie Off Road I was driving to the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment biennial conference at the University of Oregon, fourth day out. A small deer bounded out of the night, smashed a headlight. A lot of research next day revealed that headlights for Dodge four cylinder pickups are I found a parking place and walked toward the near-looking high ridge, but that ridge kept its distance as the land opened up, a complex of windblown sand that had built valleys interconnected by passes, like a miniature model of mountainous terrain sparsely vegetated by brush, grasses and a few herbs adapted to sandy life. Miniature yes, but with a design of its own, having been constructed by wind rather than by uplift from the restless crust of earth. I always know it's going to happen, this opening up, this drastic spreading out and enlargement of land that at first looks so narrow and confined, and yet I'm always a mite surprised. We need a word for such surprises, a word that suggests a reconsideration of expectation, of self. Power adjustment? no longer in stock. | crossed Montana, a big state and Idaho, another big state, found a Dodge dealer and repair outfit in Twin Falls, Idaho. They found a headlight froma junked Dodge pickup, installed it, charged me less than a fortune and I was legal again. Feeling I'm reminded here of something my conservationist mother said: "We need happy people." Well, that's true isn't it? We can't stand tall for the environment and literature liberated, and very lucky, I headed south from Twin Falls, into Nevada. No, this is not a road trip story, but I would like to tell you about a few western places where I poked around on foot, off road, going to and returning from the ASLE meeting. The reason is that at the meeting one of the plenary speakers, Robert Michael Pyle, opened his talk with this: “”We all ought to get outdoors much more often.”” He followed that with demonstrations from his own experiences. He is a wilderness defender, but he was without some happiness in our lives, can we? making the point that one does. not have to find, untrammeled wilderness in order to connect thoroughly and enjoy immensely nature's'goings on. J liked that. I liked that very Walking the talk has to show signs of delight. much. The trick is to stop, look, listen. Aldo Leopold said that the question of what to do with wilderness land is the same question concerning what to do with any land. That's not an exact quote, but his meaning _ is clear enough. Let's put it into the context of the current world environmental terror injustice crisis: To save wilderness everything has to be saved. I know, you can make theoretical arguments against that sentence, but I seriously doubt if those arguments would make a person happier or deeply satisfied. I'm reminded here of something my conservationist mother said: "We need happy people." Well, that's true, isn’t it? We can't stand tall for environment and literature without * some happiness in our lives, can we? Walking the talk has to show some shades of delight. Happiness lurks, among other places, in an alert intimacy. Simply being outdoors with mist or rain or hammering sun can bring a strong draft of happiness. Just be there. And, often, there's a surprise, not always a good one, but we do need those tests, don't we? Eons of evolving created mammals and among those amazing creatures, one turned out to be us. We're equipped, let's use it. So, back to Twin Falls and south into Nevada. Jarbidge Mountains, Pole Creek Ranger Station. (They used to call them patrol cabins; that was when federal land managers ranged outdoors on horseback or webs or skis, boat or canoe, or afoot. Now most of them are inside, spick and span). The pole creek station looked abandoned. (Federal budget problem?). I parked and walked ridges overlooking the Jarbidge river. You can't see the river; it's hidden, way down there, by great folds of land and vegetation dominated by _ tremendous cliffs, conifers and mountain mahogany. The wind was light, scented by pine. ‘The sun was out. Just being there was it. v Tracks and signs: rabbits; coyote; front leg of range cow, thoroughly dried tendons, hide and bone. Following solid sand ridges or dipping into their valleys, I kept stubbornly on, wanting the base of that faraway skyline ridge. Finally forced myself to give up because of sun glare. My shades were in the truck; a person could go snowblind out here. Sheldon Antelope Refuge, Nevada. No fences, the range cattle are gone, though there are still too many un-owned horses and burros using the over-used land. I had my pick of basalt-rimmed mesas. Rain had been good to this desert this year. Imagine tall wild onions blazing hot purple flowers in the pale green of sage, or against the bone-dry shreds of dead sage branches. Imagine golden composites in the form of hefty bushes scattered across this chocolate brown of basalt, tawny patches of dry, gritty soil and fragile seeming grasses hanging onto little pedestals of dirt in the glare of grit and black-black shards and flakes of obsidian. I walked quite a while in that brilliance, long enough to damp down highway alertness. A new alert state intervened, tuned to a new situation. There's one of the simple gifts that stepping out of your vehicle can offer. Just walk long enough, it will come. North of Rifle, Colorado. Fences, black cattle, some irrigated meadows. Found a steel gate, was able to slip through the bars, the only (knowing) trespass of this entire trip. Followed a dirt road through sage. Three kinds of butterflies suddenly there. One was, I think, ablue. lam nota lepidopterist, but to see three species at once was anice little surprise. ORDER SIGNED COPIES DIRECT FROM MARTIN MURIE: LOSING SOLITUDE: cowtown....$14.95 ~ Chronicles BEREAN nd A contemporary Western. Developers invade a WINDSWEPT: Birdwatchers & a biker from Montana tangle with corporation extremists in Medicine Bow, Wyoming....$14.95 BURT’ S WAY: Environmentalists labeled ‘terrorists, keep a chuggin’ on the Quebec/New Y ork border...$12 RED TREE MOUSE CHRONICLES: Forest animals on assignment: What is the future of the forests? They turn activist.....$6.00 SERIOUSLY INSISTENT: 80 pages of activist critique...$7.00 “GR? S RARER WE MILURTR Plus Postage---$2.20 for the first book, $1.00 for the second. 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