Mille Lacs Kathio

Two weeks ago my boyfriend and I went camping in Minnesota's Mille Lacs Kathio State Park with our dog, Izzy. Located two hours north of the Twin Cities and about thirty minutes outside of  Brainerd, Kathio is conveniently located for a weekend excursion. We were there for a Thursday and Friday night in early May, when it can still be cold and rainy, so there weren't as many people as there might normally be in the full summer camping season, but the park has sizable campgrounds with numerous group and individual sites and has a large network of trails, so it can absorb a lot of people for its comparatively small size. However, if you, like us, want a more secluded experience, you definitely need to make reservations. There are only four hike-in "primitive" sites (pit toilet, fire grate, picnic table, and sand tent pad provided, so not the most primitive by the standards of other MN parks) and reservations are necessary to get the one you want. We wanted the Black Bass Lake site, which can be reached by trail or canoe, but it was not available both nights so we opted for the Glacial Ridge site, very pretty and on its own side loop trail unconnected to any other, so there was little chance of people wandering by.

The entire park stretches from the shore of Mille Lacs Lake, along a chain of smaller lakes, toward Onamie Lake, and is largely made up of marsh, bog, and other wetlands. it has upland trails, as well as paved trails for biking. Horses are also allowed in some areas and there is a designated lot for horse trailers. In the winter there is skiing and snowshoeing. We learned the hard way that trails marked for skiers but not labeled on the "summer" trail map are impassable when not covered with snow. We did see some beautiful wetland plants but were unable to get through to our destination and had to turn around. Fortunately the entire trail system in the park consists of interconnected loops and rings so it isn't hard to find a new path. Numbered intersection markers make it easy to navigate for those with less experience handling a map.

There are also a handful of historical and natural interpretive sites in the park. The historical ones trace human occupation from the first recorded inhabitants all the way through squatters in the 1920s. It is common to see Native American artifacts and sites (the area was an important source of wild rice) treated as important archeological data, including trash piles. It takes some mental adjustment to view evidence of more recent occupation such as foundations (some with concrete), evidence of gardens (lilacs), and modern trash (discarded steel and car parts), with the same amount of historical importance. As a former history major I a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I still found it odd at first. I completely understand, after all, we want to understand an area's entire history and all people's relationship with it (a relationship that is constant and ongoing and continues to be shaped even by the visitors and parks department that manages the sites), but even for someone trained in historical thought it takes a bit of prodding to recall that we are all still participants in, as well as observers of, both the historical and natural record. So, while it is odd being asked not to disturb old mufflers and cans you may encounter (please do disturb and dispose of modern ones), it serves as a reminder of our place and continuing role in the construction, meaning, and value of these places.

The park also has an observation tower that can be climbed in good weather. This is definitely worthwhile, but is not for those who have a fear of heights. It is about a hundred feet high and leads to an enclosed (with windows) observation platform big enough for a handful of people at a time. It allows for a survey of the entire park landscape, enabling the viewer to see the drainage of Mille Lacs Lake through the Rum River and the chain of lakes. In fall or early spring I imagine it is particularly stunning. Unfortunately it is possible to see the nearby casino, but that is only in one direction.

While there aren't any stunning vistas in the park, there is lots of natural beauty as well as a large number of wild flowers and wetland species.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Marsh Marigold

Yellow Trillium

Horsetail

A beaver lodge (didn't see the beaver)

Sound and Light

Just a short post (and apologies for not posting in a while, it has been a busy month looks to continue being busy for the next few weeks but that really shouldn't be an excuse) on things that are both important and frequently overlooked: sound and darkness. When one thinks of nature, the first things that come to mind are often landscapes, sometimes animals or plants, but the idea is almost always dominated by the visual. In fact, many people probably think of nature as a place where it is silent, only realizing that it is actually filled with myriad noises of its own, from the wind and water to the sound of insects, birds, and other animals, all of which contribute to the soundscape (and not in the cheesy, "sounds of nature" relaxation tape way).

What got me thinking about this topic was a profile I read about a month ago about Davyd Betchkal and other members of the Denali National Park sound capture team. Their goal is to record a month's worth of sound from around the park and despite the remoteness of the location and the fact that they have been at it for six years, they still have only 36 days of audio without combustion engines. Some sites have recorded as many as 78 planes in a 24 hour period. Another captures some kind of motor  every 17 minutes. While human activities undoubtedly affect wildlife, it is unclear if there is a minimum level of disturbance that can coexist with a healthy, "natural" ecosystem and soundscape. Part of why it is so difficult to determine is because it is so difficult to record days without disturbance, let alone multiple days at once. It is hard to know what to change when there isn't even a well-defined baseline to use for comparison. Combine that with the inherent uncertainty behind observation (the Observer Effect and the Uncertainty Principle can be particularly pronounced when dealing with sounds and wildlife for obvious reasons) and it can seem like an almost impossible task.

As difficult as the task the Denali recorders have set for themselves may be, it is an important one and when I read about it I immediately was reminded of Maya Lin's beautiful and ambitious, multi-media memorial/exhibit/installation/activism called What is Missing? This piece, at home on the internet but partnered with organizations and individuals worldwide, is meant to draw attention to the disappearance of species from the planet, in part by using audio and video pieces to highlight what is or, more often, isn't there. We don't often think about the world in terms of what used to be or what is absent, but this piece forces us to confront that and urges action to prevent a world where all the sounds (and sights and smells and ecological contributions) are limited to just a handful of the most common, most opportunistic, or most invasive species.

While it isn't exactly the same, I would say that a similar idea relates to darkness. Darkness isn't actually dark, at least not in the open wilderness (caves are different), but it is important. Light pollution, like sound pollution, separates us from the world around us, concentrating our attention on the ground level experience and reducing our awareness of the greater world and universe around us. There is something about being able to look into a truly dark sky and see to incomprehensible distances that changes one's outlook, I would say for the better, and opens the mind to the existence of things and people beyond the immediate experience. While urban areas will always have light pollution, there is much that can be done to reduce it so that safety concerns are still satisfied but the ugly brown glow blotting out the sky and spreading over the horizon is minimized.

So those are my quick thoughts on sound and light. I know I haven't done them justice but I hope that just by talking about them I can help bring them out of the background, where they are often upstaged by the showier, more breathtaking scenery.

Bonneville Power, Wind, and Surplus Energy

When people think of the Pacific Northwest they may think of Seattle and Portland and their associated populace. They may also think of volcanoes, the spotted owl, old-growth temperate rain forest, or the perpetual battles over dams and salmon in the Columbia-Snake watershed. While there are many things to be said about all of those topics, today I mean to discuss something that less associated with the region (in large part because it is generally an issue only in the sparsely populated Eastern regions of Washington and Oregon), wind power.

While many are probably aware of the presence of dams in the region and their importance to regional electricity generation (and their effect on endangered salmon), it is less well known that there is a growing wind energy sector in the high desert areas of central Washington and Oregon. While both hydropower and wind are generally thought of as "renewable" resources because they do not emit carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases, most dams are not as environmentally friendly as they are sometimes portrayed (and have a host of complications and serious effects on river health and aquatic animals and plants), though they are on the whole more desirable than coal-fired plants. In the Pacific Northwest the relationship between dams and wild salmon is particularly fraught, with long-running legal challenges and battling scientific evaluations pushing back and forth over which dams should be re-worked, which decommissioned and removed, and how much water must be allowed to flow through to facilitate both up- and down-stream migration of the anadramous fish. When America's inadequate and aging electric grid and an expanding wind sector get dragged into it as well it only serves to complicate all the issues further, but provides a valuable example of why we need to upgrade to a smart grid that is connected to a more diffuse electric generation system.

This particular issue began last spring when the Columbia River had unusually high water levels and the Bonneville Power Administration claimed that it needed to let more water through its generators than normal in order to keep river conditions suitable for newly hatched salmon fry heading downriver to the sea. Because of the way dams are designed, this meant any water let through the generators had to be used to generate electricity (spillways would not have worked in these circumstances the agency claimed because they would have caused too much turbulence for the fry to tolerate). This led to BPA hydropower surging into the grid which would have been overloaded had the agency not ordered local wind projects to suspend operations in an inversion of the usual order of operations (in which dams release more water to generate power during times when the atmosphere is too still). This, naturally, upset the wind project owners, especially since BPA did not make any efforts to direct surplus wind power to fossil fuel driven plants in the grid area, a practice called negative pricing, that is common in other areas of the country.

Now there has been a resolution to the dispute. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled that the BPA was wrong in its actions and was required to rewrite its rules for handling future occurrences of surplus power. How the monetary damages will be distributed between the wind producers and BPA has not yet been finalized.

While having a truly national energy grid would be greatly helpful in eliminating these sorts of situations, where local production is so great that it threatens to overwhelm the system and cannot be exported because of transmission bottlenecks or other issues, that will not completely solve the problem or eliminate conflicts or risk. Denmark has had problems where its large coastal wind installations have generated so much power the nation's grid cannot absorb it all and it must actually pay its neighbors to take it off its hands. While this is rare in the United States and Canada, it can occur and is common in some areas (as I mentioned above). A national grid run by a unified, central system (whether governmental, intergovernmental, public-private partnership, or concerted private action) will largely eliminate the need for such practices except under the most exigent circumstances (though people still need to agree that power lines can and should be built and then decide where to put them so that they are effective but also do the least harm to both the built and natural environments). Additionally, we must continue to invest in research on ways to store energy produced during daylight or windy hours for use during off-hours that might still have high demands from consumers. This must include traditional ideas of storage like batteries as well as research on more innovative ideas like molten salt reserves, thermal gradients, repurposing, and other methods that may not yet have been devised. And, to show that I am not vilifying BPA, I'll finish by recognizing some of the innovative work it is doing in this area. While that doesn't excuse their behavior (and I feel justified saying that since the FERC smacked them down), or get them out of vigilant monitoring, there are far worse environmental and economic actors out there, especially in the realm of energy production. And it goes to show how complicated things can get when you start combining incredibly powerful and important agencies and laws with unexpected circumstances and infrastructure devised to serve the needs of a bygone era.

Arches

So over New Year's my boyfriend and I went out to Arches National Park in the Red Rocks country of southern Utah. And it was beautiful and relaxing and immensely enjoyable. Far nicer than going to an overcrowded bar and paying way too much for drinks. While there were far more people than I would have expected for the middle of winter, the park was by no means crowded. In fact it was quite easy to avoid people entirely by taking trails that were even moderately difficult or by getting started for the day at sunrise while others waited for it to get warmer. (The weather in December and January is generally quite nice, highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s, much nicer than the regular 100+ days present in the summer season). While I often started the day with several layers, and finished it the same way, once I started hiking and the sun got higher I quickly shed them for lighter gear. Much more pleasant and easier to try to get warm than stay cool, though the dry air, even when cold, dehydrates you faster than you realize.

While we didn't slip and fall this sign is quite accurate, the rocks are very slippery.

For a park that is only three hours from Salt Lake and six from Denver and has a high yearly attendance, going at a time that minimizes crowds certainly is a priority. This is another point in favor of going in the off-season. Many trails are loops or out-and-back and therefore quite prone to congestion and crowding. As it was there was one place, Delicate Arch (famous from Utah's license plate) where the number of people all wanting to get photographed with the formation almost prevented us from getting a quality picture (I snuck mine in during the only 30 second window no one was standing in it). The rest of the park generally had some people, we were only alone on our early hikes, though there was none of the traffic or half-mile car lines waiting to park at some trailheads that some road signs indicated could occur during summer.

 

Delicate Arch

The amenities in the park are quite good. A new visitor center has excellent and interactive geology and wildlife exhibits that are accessible to kids but not boring to adults. There are also, during summer, numerous ranger-led programs including tours of the Fiery Furnace area of the park (off-limits without a special permit and inadvisable to those without knowledge of the area due to its maze-like nature and the fragility of the desert soils). Sadly we were not able to hike in the Fiery Furnace or do backcountry camping or hiking. Those will have to wait until our next visit, perhaps one that will add Colorado National Monument and Canyonlands, both nearby. There is only one campground that is first come, first served in the winter and by reservation in summer. It is quite beautiful (the best views are from the sites 20-25) but could be improved by better enforcement of park policies and the separation of trailers/RVs from tents, but those are minor issues in the grand scheme and were addressed more fully in my most recent post.

Part of the Fiery Furnace

In addition to its stunning geology the park also has the standard desert flora and fauna (we didn't see any rare ones but did see plenty of critters and the beautifully weathered desert plants, especially Utah juniper). It also has easily accessible prehistoric petroglyphs and rock art, as well as markings made by Spanish explorers and settlers. Unfortunately these are faded now because they were vandalized in the 1980s and the restoration process reduced their vibrancy. Still, well worth seeing (and a surprise to us).

Seeing cacti covered with snow was unexpected.

Junipers are long-lived and self-prune dramatically to conserve water leading to their beautiful, weathered appearance.

 

Some of the petroglyphs at Arches

It really doesn't do much justice to the park to describe it or even to post pictures, particularly since when you are there almost everything you see is so stunning you feel the need to photograph it. Indeed, it is difficult at times to put the camera away and just appreciate the place for what it is, but I did manage to do that at least a few times while I was there. I'll post a few more pictures of my trip but you'll just have to go for yourself.

Sunset from our campsite

The famous Landscape Arch

The spectacular Double Arch with Andrew for scale

Me looking off during a break on the Dark Angel trail

Campground Etiquette

On my New Year's trip to Arches National Park I stayed in the only campground in the park. It has nice, well-maintained, spacious sites with spectacular views. They are pretty close together, though some are semi-sheltered by large rocks and juniper trees. In the winter it is only half open, but at peak season it could easily have 300 people or more at any time. As it was, the available spaces were almost filled every night. It also had trash disposal and some recycling collection as well as modern bathrooms with dishwashing space. Unfortunately it also is a mixed tent/RV/trailer site with no designated areas for different types of camping and, at least in winter, little to no enforcement of noise and generator curfews. This significantly detracted from the overall experience, especially since we had initially planned on trying to get a backcountry permit at the park office. They are available but there aren't any designated sites or areas and in the winter we didn't want to deal with that without doing a bit more research. Perhaps next time we are out there.

Unless you happen to live in the vicinity, you are going to need to stay somewhere when you visit a park. Generally the options are camping in some form in the park, camping at a BLM, Forest Service, or state park in the area, or staying at a hotel in a nearby community. In the case of Arches, all are options and the town of Moab is actually a neat place, at least in the winter when it isn't overrun by tourists. It even has identifiable local businesses and eateries that actual residents support. However, many people, myself included, view camping as a major reason for visiting a park and an essential part of the experience. While sleeping in a tent and cooking on a stove or fire is real camping, it is not for everyone and there are different degrees of alternatives. Some involve elaborate tent cities and grills. Others involve unpowered camper trailers or truck bed campers. Some people use RVs or powered trailers. All of them do have conceivable uses and some people actually do other things in a park besides sit in or around their vehicles (though I did see some who appeared to spend the entire time in their trailer). But there are some guidelines people should follow to maximize the enjoyment of everyone that come down to basic courtesy and common sense.

• Keep the electronics to a minimum. Yes, I know you really want to listen to the Cowboys game or have a dance party or watch a movie on your laptop, but you can do that at home, or in a motel, or anywhere else. You may not appreciate the experience and the location, but there are many others around you who are trying. Don't disrupt them, and if you cannot last, keep it quiet and use headphones.
• On the same topic, lots of the ridiculous things you might have brought and inexplicably find essential require power. If you use your car or a generator please try to park in a cluster with others in a similar situation and leave at least part of the campground free for those who want a quieter experience and absolutely abide by the posted curfews for shutoff. Yes, it's a drag having to use a flashlight or firelight or even sit in the dark or sleep once the sun goes down, but that's part of the deal. There are great stars in the world's darker places, try looking at them.
• Please keep your pets on leash and clean up after them. I love and own dogs and have gone camping with them, but in a campground even the best behaved ones can create a problem if not controlled, especially if there are several. They love playing and exploring and it can quickly create a culture where other polices slip, waste accumulates, and the quality of the campground deteriorates. Campgrounds, especially in parks, are often islands in a sensitive ecosystem. While many people don't take warnings about fragile soils seriously, animals have no awareness of it whatsoever, nor do they have any reservation about digging or hunting indigenous wildlife. As for the people who have cats in their campers, that's just weird.
• Get your kids involved. Good for you bringing your kids out to experience the natural world, even in one of its Disneyfied, theme park forms. Now try to build an appreciation by getting them to engage with different aspects of the experience. Star gazing. Fire building. Assembling a campsite. Cooking on a stove. Taking nature walks (at Arches there is a great one that essentially leaves from the campground and can take all day if you do it in its entirety, another one gives you a few hours). Get them to do things they couldn't or wouldn't do at home. Kudos to the family that brought their bikes with them so they could take the road through the red rocks. That was much better behavior than our neighbors at the campground who brought their gymboree in their pickup and let their kids watch DVDs all night (probably to alleviate the screaming fury that resulted from any dissatisfaction).
• Clean up after yourself. At Arches the campground was generally pretty clean but I've been to some where there is garbage everywhere (don't burn it, for a lot of reasons) and it is repulsive. Additionally, just because something is food doesn't mean it is "natural" and doesn't mean it will "compost." Composting takes time and some things will not decompose in all ecosystems. You also don't want to attract animals to campgrounds. They can be nuisances and it can be unsafe for people and for the animals (many get hit by cars after being attracted to food). It is also bad to get them acculturated to human food in some seasons only to have it disappear later in the year.
•  Finally, everyone likes sex, but if you must have sex in a campground, remember that it is a semi-public space and you are in close proximity to others with very little sound barrier, so have some discretion. Loud, screaming sex is generally inappropriate for such a campground. If you want to engage in that, pick a remote, backcountry site or a hotel.

So there are some general rules of etiquette for large campgrounds. It's not exhaustive and not particularly original, but you would be shocked how many people don't realize that they are doing anything inconsiderate at all. Perhaps this will help.

P.S. Despite our immediate neighbors, the rest of the experience in the Arches campground was fantastic and I give it (in its winter form) a solid four stars, segregating tents from RVs and enforcing generator limits are the only major things I'd change.

Yet another news roundup

More substantive posts are coming, I promise, now that work is back to a normal level.

This is an interesting development, and one I think is very promising. The federal government is the largest landowner in the nation, and the biggest consumer of energy. Within that, the Department of Defense is by far the biggest, representing 80 percent of all federal energy use and 1 percent of the entire nation's. It has also made clear its desire to move in a more sustainable direction for both economic and security reasons. So it is very promising that they are seriously discussing developing large scale solar installations on DoD lands, many of which are already "disturbed" and therefor unlikely to harbor endangered or threatened wildlife. Whether used to satisfy base needs or sold to the grid (which would require very little new infrastructure as bases already well connected), it would be an excellent way to scale up the idea of the parking lot "solar grove" that has been proposed by other would-be renewables developers. Also, as a massive landowner and supplier/purchaser and research funder, the DoD would be able to leverage a huge gain in solar efficiency and productivity with comparatively small (when looking at private R&D) investment.

Farms (and logging/silviculture) have long been a source of water pollution that is difficult to regulate under the Clean Water Act. CAFOs (feedlots) are generally considered point sources, but the the others generally are not subject to the same permitting and data requirements and so relatively little is known about specific contributions and even less is often done to reduce agricultural runoff, a serious problem that causes huge dead zones at the mouths of major rivers worldwide. While it is only a tentative first step, and doesn't go very far, it is good to see that Minnesota is making a small effort to induce farmers to clean up and reduce their runoff voluntarily. Count me as a skeptic. I hope that it works, I really do, and that it proves to be a wildly successful program that can be a model for other states, but I strongly believe that it will generally be a disappointment for a few reasons. First, the funding is far too low to have any major impact. Second, the funding is uncertain going forward; there really isn't any long-term commitment to keeping this program running. Third, enforcement will be difficult without either more staff to do compliance testing or much better data collection with stiff penalties on those trying to game the system. Good for Minnesota for making a small effort, but it has the ability to do so much more given its position as a 100% headwaters state.

Are you sick of motherfucking snakes in the motherfucking Everglades? (I apologize for that.) If so, you will be happy to learn that the Fish and Wildlife Service is officially listing four species of constrictors as "injurious" and prohibiting their import, export, or transport and/or sale across state lines. While it won't result in the pythons in the Everglades magically dying (though recent cold weather in Florida is certainly a helpful occurrence) it will create a ban with some serious enforcement teeth. From the moment the regulations become active, it will be a crime under the Lacey Act to buy, sell, bring into the US, or transport across a state boundary, any of the four species listed (Burmese python, northern and southern African python, and yellow anaconda). That in and of itself is a positive development. We haven't gotten rid of the invaders yet but we are have now taken real, enforceable steps to stop making the problem worse.

News Roundup

Kind of a lazy post, I have a series of more substantive topics that I hope to post soon but have been very busy this past month (when I wasn't on vacation in beautiful Arches National Park, which I will write about in depth with pictures soon). I'm hoping to write more frequently this year, maybe making that commitment on the internet will help? We shall see.

Why is it so important to protect open spaces and wild places? Because you never know what you will find there. The latest discovery is a brand new species of snake, the Matilda's Horned Viper, recently discovered in Tanzania (the exact location is being withheld from publication due to the rarity of the species and the threat posed by a sudden rush of collectors, trophy hunters, and other miscreants to what appears to be a very small population. Most new discoveries are small organisms, insects or microbes, but there are still large species that turn up from time to time.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has officially extended a moratorium on new mining claims around the Grand Canyon. I wrote about this issue last year in a piece critiquing media coverage of environmental issues. I'm not at all surprised by his decision, though he certainly didn't do much to publicize or celebrate it. In fact it looks like he is trying to hide it based on the timing (right before the New Hampshire primary when all media attention will be directed elsewhere). Look for various mining interests and their shills allies in Congress to continue complaining about this and making absurd claims about jobs created, minimal environmental impacts, and other outright falsehoods.

And speaking of hiding from the media while doing something laudable, today President Obama visited the EPA to give a campaign speech pep talk to agency employees on the importance of the work they do and the value of a clean environment. From the brevity and content it sounds to me very much like test driving campaign talking points for use against a republican opponent who will have spent years trying to be more anti-environment and anti-science than any other and not like a president actually praising an agency and its workers (remember, he let his Law and Economics friend and OIRA head Cass Sunstein kill the proposed smog rule based on industry lies and exaggerations about economic impact and without properly considering the value of health improved and lives saved, not to mention jobs created via regulatory forcing (it takes a lot of research and manpower to update all those factories and plants or replace unsustainable capacity)).

This is a light, yet interesting, article about what one of John Muir's great-great-grandsons is up to with the family name.

Yet another reminder that even once renewable energy projects are built or capacity installed it still needs to be connected to the grid and that can be a hassle. Sometimes its logistics, sometimes its infrastructure, and sometimes its corporate resistance or regulatory turf battles. The point is, renewables aren't like Field of Dreams, it takes more than just building it for the power to come.

Update 1/12: Today's NYT has an op-ed today by two fisheries scientists about some of the problems with the General Mining Law and some very needed updates and safeguards. There's not a chance of any of them happening any time soon, but it's important to keep raising these issues and building awareness for when conditions are more favorable. What struck me is how many of their proposals would bring hard rock mining into much closer alignment with coal and how that mining process is managed (the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act is a much more effective statute that raises more revenue for the sovereign, allows more land use flexibility and prioritization, and has much stronger and more effective environmental safeguards. If SMCRA were simply expanded to cover all mining that would be perhaps the biggest public land reform since FLPMA, if not ever and would be a huge accomplishment).