Looking into New Corners in a Long-Loved Place

             "This is the most beautiful place on earth.

          There are many such places. Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or unknown, actual or visionary. A houseboat in Kashmir, a view down Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, a gray gothic farmhouse two stories high at the end of a red dog road in the Allegheny Mountains, a cabin on the shore of a blue lake in spruce and fir country, a greasy alley near the Hoboken waterfront, or even, possibly, for those of a less demanding sensibility, the world to be seen from a comfortable apartment high in the tender, velvety smog of Manhattan, Chicago, Paris, Tokyo, Rio or Rome--there's no limit to the human capacity for the homing sentiment….  For myself, I'll take Moab, Utah. I don't mean the town itself, of course, but the country which surrounds it--the canyonlands. The slickrock desert. The red dust and the burnt cliffs and the lonely sky….”  Ed Abbey, Desert Solitaire

We’d never been to Dead Horse State Park or Island in the Sky in Canyonlands, and we hadn’t hiked in Arches since the 1990s.  It was time to go back to Abbey Country, and, with Sylvie, the Prius Utility Vehicle, we could bring our bikes and a whole lot more.

Staying in one of the three yurts--huge wood-frame tents--at Dead Horse Point State Park requires planning (we reserved in January for May), but they make an excellent home base for hiking and biking in the state park and at Island in the Sky. 

 The three yurts share outdoor water spigots and restrooms, and each has heat and air conditioning, a ceiling fan, double-mattress-sized bunk bed, a futon, and a table and chairs.

Looking East toward...

...the La Sal Mountains

Their decks have gas grills, tables, lounge chairs, big skies, and views of the La Sal Mountains and out into canyon country.  

At the Buck Canyon Overlook

Wonderful to have bikes with us!  We met someone riding an early-80s-vintage, lovable Bridgestone bike like mine making the long ride from Moab to Island in the Sky’s Grandview Point (70 miles round trip), but we drove from the yurt to the Mesa Arch trail head and biked from there to Grandview Point—12 miles round trip with a wide margin in the day for moseying.  Out in Canyonlands, we walked to Mesa Arch and to Grandview Point.  Back in the state park, we walked along the mesa edge.

Biking Back toward Mesa Arch

Mesa Arch

The White Rim from the Grandview Point Trail

Looking toward the La Sal Mountains from Dead Horse Point

Our home base for wandering around town, hiking in Arches, and biking the Potash Road was the greenest motel we have ever seen, with not only the usual compostable coffee cups and prominent recycling bins but also more than 280 photo-voltaic panels (we tried to count).   
And, endearingly, their wind vane has a bike on it.

Near the End of the Potash Road Pavement

Colorado River and Potash Road

Jug Handle Arch

For biking the Potash Road (Utah highway 279), we drove to the end of the pavement at the Intrepid Potash Mine and then rode back upriver until we were ready to turn around, taking our time in the neighborhood of Jug Handle Arch, the Colorado River, and lots of red rock.

Pine Tree Arch

At Arches, we watched storms circle and blow through the park, learned some sandstone/siltstone geology from a ranger, remembered Ed, and walked between the sandstone fins and arch-itecture.

Landscape Arch

Between the Fins

Snow

Pattee Canyon

We have had a remarkable early winter with frequent snow, cold temperatures to keep it, and beautiful bright-dark skies.  NOAA has forecast a dry, warm winter for us, so we expect that will arrive, but for now we have skiing near town and walking in the neighborhood on clean, creaky, dry snow. 

Rattlesnake Valley Out the Window

Great Weather, Great Falls, Great Path, Great Art

First Avenue Weissman Bridge with Underpass for Trail

Crossing the Missouri River on the Weissman Bridge

Entrance Pillar for the Weissman Bridge by Alex Smithson

The River's Edge Trail rolls and swoops through Great Falls, on both shores of the Missouri, along railroad rights-of-way, through parks and parking lots, into tunnels, and between bridge abutments.  Benches, vistas, art--what a string of surprises!  There is sculpture along the path on both sides of the river, and the bike/pedestrian Weissman Bridge paralleling the First Avenue bridge for cars is especially beautiful with entrance pillars on the downtown side and bright murals on its concrete abutments.  

Grizzly Bear by Nathan Bread

Sundial Built in Memory of Gary Trescott by Friends & Family

 

Tunnel under Giant Springs Road at Lewis & Clark Visitor Center

Approaching the 15th Street Bridge Underpass

Art plus function: the tunnels and bridge-abutment underpasses along the trail help cyclists avoid conflicts with cars; there are miles and miles of cycling on both sides of the river without the need to stop at all, though there’s plenty to stop and admire.  

Path & Tables near Giant Springs State Park

Sacagawea, Lewis, Clark, and Cyclist Pointing Upriver

There is more information on the Trescott Bowstring Sundial at http://thetrail.org/august-2012-trescott-sundial. 

Weissman Bridge from Bench along the Trail

Ninth Avenue Bridge

Black Eagle Dam & Falls from End of Northside River's Edge Trail

Upstairs in the Paris Gibson Square Art Museum

 

















We also reveled in art at the Paris Gibson Square Art Museum, housed in an 1896 stone building that served first as a high school and then a junior high school.  While some gallery rooms have false walls covering the original classroom walls in order to preserve history and provide backgrounds for artwork, some rooms still have chalkboards on their walls. 


Presently the main floor of the museum holds work by Montana ceramicists and a permanent collection of human figures made from tree trunks, branches, and various found objects like jar and bottle caps, buttons, and cans. These figures, made by Lee Steen (1897-1975), an untrained folk artist in Roundup, MT, provoke a train of thought about why people make and share art.  Why did Steen make his tree people?  Why do we support and love public art?  What does art do?  While David Foster Wallace was speaking of literature, his thoughts crossed my mind at the museum and on the trail.  He spoke of “a kind of Ah-ha!” he got sometimes in “brief flashes or flames,” moments of feeling “unalone--intellectually, emotionally, spiritually,” “human,” and “in a deep, significant conversation with another consciousness.”  We were pretty high from biking along the river in the sun, but the butterfly and trout murals under the bridge and all the art we saw took us higher, happier, humaner.  

On the Trail East of the Lewis & Clark Visitor Interpretive Center

Stained Glass Window at the Museum

Sitka: Music, Mountains, Fish, Boats, Water

Note: This is the last post from our June-July 2015 Alaska trip.  The others are in the archive below:  
                introduction (July 26)

                Tatshenshini people (July 27)

                Tashenshini raft trip (August 3)

                ferry (September 7)

                Juneau (September 17)

Table at Picnic Area on Harbor Mountain

Looking from Harbor Mountain toward Olga Strait

Sitka, like Missoula, full of people who care about fish, boats, and water, also rings with music and is ringed with mountains.  

A day did not pass during our eight there without our saying “So Missoula!” about something or someone, though, of course, the fish, boats, water, music, and mountains have their own distinct flavors in Sitka. 

 





Sitka, for example, has views across the sound from a road that goes from zero to 2,000 feet in 5 miles. 

 









It’s probably just a matter of time, though, before we have fish-shaped bike racks 

"Heads Only" (!) Boxes at Fish Packing Plant on Katlian Street

Crescent Harbor, Mt. Verstovia, and Nunataq on Dock behind Closest Boat

and a grocery store with “welcome” and “thank you” painted on the pavement. But then there's Sitka Sound just past the Sea Mart pavement.
 















Sitka also has a whole different relationship with fish, evident at Katlian Street’s fish packing plants,















and has very, very different boats, evident at the ferry terminal, harbors, and anywhere within sight of the water.













Xtra Tufs--Sitka Sneakers--will not appear at 4^th of July parades in Missoula.

Still, Sitka's ukulele band at the farmers’ market,

brass quartet in a pocket park,    

and camper-shell window full of stickers that include "Love one woman…many guitars" and "Vita brevis, Carpe Guitarum," would fit right in back at home.

Unique to Sitka: a Russian history that began in 1799 and pervades the town still. 

St. Michael's Russian Orthodox Cathedral Built 1848

On Top of Castle Hill

And unique to our experience of Sitka: learning about the much longer history of Tłingit clans on what they called Shee and is now called Baranof Island.  Castle Hill, a Tłingit village site, later a Russian fortress, and later yet (in 1867) the place where ownership was transferred from Russia to the United States, now holds layers of history.  

Nunataq in Jamestown Bay

Katlian Bay

Also part of our Sitka experience: paddling trips starting from Crescent Harbor and Starrigavan Bay and hours of walking around the docks. 

Loons in Starrigavan Bay

Sidewalk Ovoid at Crescent Harbor

These paddles and walks led to seeing all around something Jonathan Raban writes about in Passage to Juneau--a design element strongly present in Pacific Northwest art. 

Ovoids on the Surface of the Crescent Harbor

Ovoids on the Owl and Thunderbird Wings

The ovoids, one of three shapes--formlines--that distinguish the art of coastal tribes, look like lightly squashed ovals.  







Having seen the ovoids on the surface of the water as he sailed between Seattle and Juneau, Raban hypothesized this natural source on the water for their ubiquity in coastal native art; I believe him.  We saw them everywhere--on a sidewalk, calm harbor surfaces, and Tłingit art like the Raven Crest totem pole.

Most of our nights in Sitka we stayed in the Forest Service cabin in Starrigavan Recreation Area.  It was built on an overused creek-side campsite from 44 Sitka spruce logs harvested while thinning dog-hair (densely crowded new-growth) stands in the Starrigavan drainage, the construction done by students in a 2-week log-cabin-building course at the University of Alaska Southeast in Sitka in 2008.  In addition to this cabin with sleeping loft, picnic table, and wood stove, Starrigavan has a beautiful bay, trails, and an estuary-viewing platform.  Sitka was the seed that grew into our plans for this trip, and it felt like pulling up roots when we left on the ferry and headed home.

Donna on the Boardwalk at Starrigavan Estuary

Eric at the Creekside Bench by the Cabin

Great Blue Herons at the Starrigavan Estuary

Looking Back toward Sitka from Olga Strait