S is for Sangre de Cristo Mountains and Great Sand Dunes

 

Down at the southern end of Colorado, the southernmost segment of the Rocky Mountains is known as the Sangre de Cristo mountains (they continue on down into New Mexico, ending near Santa Fe).  At at the base of these conveniently S-named mountains are the Great Sand Dunes, also S-named a really cool.  And we've had fun with both.

The Sangres are the site of the first "real" backpack trip we did with our boys, with no packers and no outside help (except a car shuttle).  They were barely 5 and 6 1/2, and about as big as their tiny backpacks. The trip was, alas, before our photography went digital, so I don't have much available to post, and those I have are scanned from slides.

I can't help looking at those chubby baby-knees and wondering what we were doing!

Snack stop--a very frequent event

Day three--the top of Venable Pass, and more snacks

The trip was amazing for what it was--three nights, 13 miles, from one side of the range to the other via three passes (we ran right along the divide for a couple of miles).  We started near Crestone and ended near Westcliff.

Approaching the Phantom Terrace, the amazing cliffy trail from one pass to the next.

The Great Sand Dunes we have visited several times (including the same trip as the packtrip above).  They are amazing--sand dunes, surrounded on 2.5 side by 13- and 14-thousand-foot peaks.  In the spring, the mountains have snow, and the creek around the base of the dunes surges like waves breaking over the shore.  The dunes are among the highest in North America, with the tallest being over 700'.*  And I'm pretty sure they are the ones at the highest altitude--the base of the dune field is nearly 8200'.

In addition to the cool creek (and how cool IS it to have a creek at the edge of a dune field?) the dunes are one of a handful world-wide that "sing" when conditions are right.  The shifting sands will set up harmonic resonances that are akin to the bass note on the biggest pipe organ you ever met, and can be felt through your whole body.

These photos are from a trip in 2012.

The edge of the dunes is abrupt, although there is plenty of sand in among the trees and sagebrush

The first hikers atop the main dune that morning, though it was a calm night so there were old prints.

The dunes are on the edge of the San Luis Valley in Colorado.


*Two other sets of dunes also claim to be highest: the Eureka Dunes in Death Valley National Park and the Kelso Dunes in the East Mojave National Scenic Area.  The Kelso dunes are another "singing" dune.

And I leave you with two filthy boys, enjoying the post-pack-trip tradition: ice cream!

Not Death By Ice Cream, but ice cream as the elixir of life!

R: Last of his Kind, by David Roberts

It's a shame I didn't need W instead, but there it is.  Instead of pegging it to the amazing mountaineer whose story this is, I've tied it to the biographer's name.





Title: The Last of His Kind: The Life and Adventures of Bradford Washburn, America's Boldest Mountaineer 
Author: David Roberts
Publisher:William Morrow, 2009

Review:
This one needs no summary, because it's all there in the subtitle.  It is the life of Brad Washburn, June 7, 1910 to January 10, 2007.  Washburn was an adventurer, an early climber and explorer of Alaska's mountains who began a love affair with climbing in the Alps as a teenager.  He was also a photographer and a pilot, and he was David Roberts' mentor.  The accounts of climbs are concise and vivid, and the personal relations are treated with gentle care, so that we do see Washburn as a whole person, but I never lost sight of the fact that Roberts loved and admired his mentor. 

Roberts insists that Washburn's greatest accomplishments are in his first ascents of a number of remote Alaskan peaks, with a secondary nod to his truly extraordinary photography (several examples of which are in the book).  But I agree with Washburn, who considered his greatest accomplishment to be his work with the Boston Museum of Science, where as Director for many decades he took the museum from the dusty do-not-touch model common at the time to be one of the leaders in the hands-on interactive museum style.  Helping to pioneer that movement is, in my opinion, a truly great act.

My only other complaint about the book is that Roberts spends a long chapter near the end recounting a couple of his own expeditions.  They are interesting to read about, and Washburn was instrumental in setting him off on them, but they are not really part of Washburn's story.  Roberts can be forgiven this bit of self-indulgence, however. 

Recommendation: For those who like mountains, mountaineering, and stories of the great adventurers of a nearly a century ago.  Also those who don't mind just a touch of hagiography.

Full Disclosure: I was given The Last of His Kind  by a friend with no connection to the author, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Q is for. . . Questioning our Sanity

Okay, right up until I started writing this I meant to make my Q post all about writing Queries.  But the thing is, I don't actually know squat about queries.  I haven't done one for years, since I gave up on traditional publishing and became an author-publisher.  Besides, it kept making me think about questions, and questioning, and finally realized that being a writer means you are always going to be asking some big quesetions.  So here it is. . .

The biggest question every writer faces sooner or later is not "self-publish or traditional" nor "vampire or werewolves."  No, it's "What was I thinking when I decided to become a writer?  Was I absolutely NUTS?"  It sounds easy and fun when you first think it--turn the story-writing thing that you can't stop doing anyway into a career.  But at some point, while struggling to find a cover or a plot or an editor or the right way to say that really really important thing that the character needs to just toss off but which holds the key to everything. . . you realize that writing is a lot like work.

Then the questions begin.  Can I do this?  Am I really good enough?  Should I get another day job?  And, of course, "am I crazy?  Crazy enough to be hauled off by the nice men with the white coats?"

Odds are, the answers to all of those are "yes."

What say you, writer-buddies?  Are we all crazy? 


While you think about it, have some ice cream.

Death By Ice Cream.  Available from Amazon, B&N, and after long hikes with the author.