Principal Unix System Engineer, Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems
The last of the serious glaciers in the US Rockies are at the north end of the Wind River Range in Wyoming. Those are crucial to the farm and range lands below. I was last in that area just before the pandemic. Any glaciers shown on topo maps at the southern end of the range are long gone. And like a here, a lot of brown beetle-killed pines, though nowhere near as big solid masses of them. Almost everywhere you gotta get up higher into the hemlocks and timberline pine species like foxtails to get away from beetle damage. In the Sierras, any forest below 8,000 ft is pretty much doomed.
Old Dick - yeah, we had to study Forams (short for Foraminifera), Diatoms, Fusilinids. Micropaleontology could be awfully hard on the eyes.
I was on the west side last time, headed on a big long clockwise loop out of the Green River trailhead. Lots of solitude. If I had been headed up on the glacier I would have brought an ice axe and my serious Bibler tent instead of a lightwt Big Agnes one. I once camped in a horrific wind tunnel up there, way above timberline, along with a pretty severe overnight storm. In the Bibler I was as cozy and dry as a bug in a rug. Anything less would have been shredded to bits - and I did have that happen a couple times, and learned that lesson the hard way. Gas prices are too steep for me this year to drive that far; and frankly, I'm not in as good shape as I was back when I was 70, before the pandemic lockdown. Every time I plan a decent high altitude tuneup trip these days, some giant fire seems to start up and spoil the opportunity. We'll see; but at least I got to do strenuous off-trail backpacking a full decade longer than I thought I ever would.
One of several publications that ran the story then:
Canada will be fought over someday. It is currently mostly empty and will be a place of refuge when most of the world goes soylent green.
Last edited by xkaes; 17-Aug-2022 at 04:37.
Bookmarks