Watch! Me!

I have been told that a photo is worth a thousand words. At two years old those words are coming fast, and in a couple of different languages. I promise, Kiara, we are watching you, and loving every second of it!

This girl is a great traveler, and an even better partier! How lucky we are to have her company. This is a selection of some of the better photos from the summer and fall.

Lastly, in this latest post in my long series of infrequent posts, I share our number one hit video:

White Trinity Granite

I made one of my pilgrimages to the high country of the Trinity Alps Wilderness last week, in the quiet before the Labor Day weekend rush. It is always a gift to get a feel for the White Trinity Granite. In a thought provoking way, going high up on the massif of Thompson Peak was pretty symbolic with my new role in wild advocacy. On the solid granite of the Trinity one feels that they are on top of the Klamath Knot. All the intricate weaving of the river canyons and deep timber tumbling is visible for ever and even further with the view that the granite scrambler has from up high. It is necessary for me to admit, though, that the summit of Thompson Peak still eludes me. My morning attempt was sincere, but I am getting slower and slower, and I did not muster up the batteries for the long push. I won't be too hard on myself. Perhaps more than anything it is the lack of climbing days in this chapter of my life that had my legs burning and sluggish up high. I am sure that if I was getting out more I could keep up with my sporting ambitions a bit better. "Uh-huh, right," says my 45 year-old sarcastic sense of humor.

Regardless of the creak in my bones, I did get up there to the lake for a few nights camping, and for a few hikes a bit higher. The Grizzly Lake Basin on the north slope of Thompson Peak is breathtaking. The falls spilling out of there are world class, and seeing them should be on every backpackers to-do list. How encouraging it is to still get to discover amazing (even popular!) places that I have not seen before, there must still be a few more left out there in the not-so-limitless landscape for me to stumble up to, to stare upon, and to thank for the battery recharge they provide. Even if it is just briefly, it helps in the daily grind of the advocacy job I am surfing these days to have had some real time experience in the wild high country again. It helps to make sure that my heart and soul know, taste, and feel what this gig I am working is really all about.

Dinosaurs and Dynamite -- Part II

My colleague Colin Barraclough has just this week succeeded in getting the editors of the Financial Times to publish his travel article about our January 2008 expedition traversing the Río Pascua watershed. The occasion is perfect for a Patagonia memory lane sort of meandering. I thought I might look back and reference an old blog and see if the trip really was as big a deal as Colin says it was. A few years ago I wrote and posted on this Voz Silvestre blog a short composition in español that I titled HidroAysén--Un Tema de Dinosaurios y Dinamita. No one ever read it then, nor will many read it now, but it helps me put Colin's published piece into perspective.

Yes, in perspective, one can say that the Pascua is a kick ass wild place, on the edge of the Southern Patagonia Ice Field, at the southern tip of the planet, a big roaring river in a canyon so steep and full of cold jungle that no one even gets down in there. It is ludicrous to think putting mega-hydroelectric generating facilities in that canyon would be anything short of ecocide. Three dams too many. Three mega-dams? Only dinosaurs with dynamite would dream up that kind of destiny for the wild Pascua.

It was a long wait for Colin's article. Three years of waiting, in fact. In the months after our expedition he was published in newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle with an article about the issue, but this Financial Times piece was hard in coming.

And it probably never would have been published if it were not for the way the Chileans have massively denounced the May 9, 2011 approval of the HidroAysén environmental impact analysis. A month later and the movement against damming wild rivers in Patagonia is gathering legal traction. For the first time in years of legal challenges the project has met a real and substantial legal injunction from an appeals court, paralyzing the project.

That is the kind of thing that makes the capitalist curmudgeons at the Financial Times sit up and take notice. They sat on it for years. Guess they better run the article after all!

The Pascua is the lesser known of the rivers drooled over by the river dammers in the big mining business plan for the world. It may be unknown, and only so many people have traveled back there, but this jewel of nature's intact legacy is not going to be lost to the Chilenos if they have any say about it. They are even idealistic enough to say "Save Patagonia and You Can Save the World!" I know, it sounds so trite, but I tell you, I think that is pretty right on!

I wrote back in my previous blog:

Dinosaurios y dinamita son los dos ingredientes primarias de la propuesta de hidroAysén—nos queda ver si Chile los traga entera o si se despierta en buena hora para defenderse de una propuesta explosiva y destructiva.

I would say that Chile is waking up and defending itself from this transnational corporation onslaught. Up here en el otro lado, in the land of the redwoods, in the watersheds of the Eel and the Klamath, we celebrate this awakening, and the real possibility of turning the tide on the dinosaurs, and their dynamite. Now it is our turn to do the planet the same sort of favor.

No need to blow up the few refugios silvestres que nos quedan allá fuera. We are going to take care of the global seeds of planet wide restoration. And we won't hold any grudges against the dinosaurs who have been threatening so much damage with their dynamite.

But I do think the old dinosaurs need to try a few

Explosions in the Sky

Ríos Libres Comunidades Vivas ~ Patagonia Sin Represas

Pictures are worth thousands of words. On May 9 of this year the Piñera government in Chile gave approval to the HidroAysén project after three years of irregular and fraudulent review of the dams proposed for the Baker and Pascua rivers in the Aysén Region of Chile's Patagonia.
Suffice it to say that the Chileans are not going to take this laying down. The largest protests since the dictatorship was ended in 1990 have been taking place over the last week, and there are more coming. Reports of up to 80,000 people on the streets in Santiago Friday night demonstrate that Chile knows that the world values Patagonia.

Follow the campaign on the International Rivers website where colleagues continue to do first class work getting the word out. We will not lose this wild corner of our spectacular planet! The world says NO to HidroAysén!

Wild Iris Redux

It is done. The move is complete. We have removed ourselves, and our belongings, from the unambiguously safe shelter of that wonderful rustic home. Amidst the explosion of Wild Irises that happens every spring in the magical mixed forests of the rural Humboldt refuge, I have always found at least a moment of inspiration for my less than prolific blogging. What can I say about taking a new job and moving to Arcata, where the fog always shines? But I have been hanging in Arcata since forever, and I can feel at home because it is a lot like Valdivia in that coastal temperate rainforest way. As a family we are excited for new projects and expanded community, but there is nothing that feels more precarious in this day and age then going down the hill to live on the grid. Sketchy. Do you know where your iris comes from? Kiara's comes from amongst the california fescue on the oak forest floor. Thank you, and onward. We will be back!

MANYHUES MAYDAY UPDATE:
Here is the best series of fotos with Kiara from the wild iris refuge--
how do you say mariposa?

A Real Touch of Winter

We have enjoyed the real touch of winter that has landed on the landscape over the last 24 hours. It is not like we just got back yesterday and had to immediately adapt to the real winter conditions in redwood country; we did enjoy the summer sunny high pressure of a classic California warm spell, including a solid week enjoying the Mission District of San Francisco in full sun for the first week of February. Of course, that was after the forced vacation in glorious México. Yes, we were gone from home, family is like that. It was not all just sitting around on the beach. Though just enough of it was. And it makes the snow day all the more spectacular, the knowing how great the beach was!