State by State

history

natalia.kowalczyk@gmail.com (Natalia) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 20:00:00 -0600

Short history of New Mexico as depicted on commemorative bronze plaques in the Cathedral Park in downtown Santa Fe:

1504 The first major Spanish expedition to what is now the southwest United States was conducted by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado from 1540 to 1542. Subsequent exploration and settlement of the American Southwest would follow.

Once the area is ethnically cleansed with inadvertent application of biological weapons nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.

1583 On April 19, 1583, King of Spain directed the Viceroy of New Spain to continue with a responsible citizen to settle New Mexico at his own expense primarily to see to the conversion of the agricultural Pueblo peoples. Don Juan de Oñate was ultimately awarded the contract in 1595.

Oh, wait - there are some Pueblos left. Let's convert them.

1598 Fuerza, a Spanish term that connotes strength in every meaning of the word, is but one of many traditions that were passed from generation to generation and continue to define the present day lives of New Mexican families.

Strength! Helping you subjugate the natives since 1598!

1598 Oñate and his group crossed the Rio Grando and celebrated the first American thanksgiving feast in observance of their safe arrival. The settlers would forever change the American West and their pueblo neighbors. Their descendants continue to shape the culture of New Mexico to this day.

American? Spaniards would be surprised to be called that. And what really changed American West turning much of the area into moonlike desert was free range cattle farming in the 19th century so let's not get ahead of ourselves.

1607 Juan Martínez de Montoya founded the village of Santa Fe and established a plaza. In 1610, don Pedro de Peralta designated La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís as New Mexico's capital. Santa Fe is the oldest state capital in the U.S.

Which may change if Puerto Rico becomes the 51th state. San Juan was founded in 1521. And what a great opportunity we missed with Iraq as the 52th state - Baghdad would take us all the way back to the 8th century.

1610 In 1610 construction of the Palace of the Governors began. Today Palace of the Governors is the oldest public building in the U.S.

Place of the Governors

Only if you conveniently forget about all those public buildings in Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. The difference is we didn't keep on rebuilding them. I wonder why...

1712 In 1712 a group of citizens gathered to honor the memory of don Díego de Vargas. In 1693, under Vargas' leadership, Spanish settlers returned to New Mexico after the 1680 Pueblo Revolt in which some 400 settlers, 21 friars, and many Christian Indians died. Fiestas in observance of Vargas' resettlement of New Mexico are celebrated each September in Santa Fe.

Oh my! Thankless Pueblos incomprehensibly revolted. The good thing is apparently none of them died. Only the Christians somehow were the victims. That surely calls for a celebration!

1777 Don Juan Bautista the Anza, considered one of the New Mexico's best governors defeated the legendary Comanche leader Cuerno Verde, pacified the Hopi, broke the Navajo - Comanche alliance. Anza collected about $120,000 in 2002 dollars to help Spain fight Great Britain in the War for American Independence.

And met with such ingratitude. The same colonists who rebelled against Great Britain would soon chase the Spaniards from New Mexico. Conveniently keeping the name. And a few of the oldest buildings. One wonders if Comanche, Hopi or Navajo participated in the fund drive.

1788 Juan Lucero typifies the wide ranging efforts of Spanish New Mexicans as they continued the tradition of exploration established by their ancestors. By the end of 18th century many rivers, mountains and landmarks in the west had a Spanish name.

Strangely many names in Eastern part of US have native origins (Manhattan, Massachusetts) - I guess different traditions of exploration. Also protestants don't have saints handy which makes naming things much harder.

1848 The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended two years of war between Mexico and the United States. New Mexico was designated U.S Territory in 1850. The U.S. Congress made New Mexico the 47th State of the Union in 1912.

Mexican-American war A.K.A. invasión estadounidense a México (American Invasion of Mexico) - because once Mexico became independent from Spain we could safely ignore all that help received during our independence war. Strangely no celebration is mentioned here. But hey, who cares about independence and democracy if we can buy all those old buildings (and California to boot) for a tidy sum of $15 million.

1998 The Santa Fe City Council passed Resolution establishing Cuarto Centario Committee to plan commemoration of the 1598 founding of "La Nueava Mexico". History conferences, cultural symposia, concerts, art shows, craft displays, folk dancing and many educational events kept calendars full all year long.

Wait, what? Are we now celebrating the founding of the province that we conquered and vanquished in that 1848 war? Well, as long as it keeps the calendar full. And who am I to say no to folk dancing!

The Santa Fe Plaza

People of Santa Fe, NM are rightly grateful to Spanish settlers that established their city. Thanks to Laws of the Indies introduced by the Spanish Crown in the 16th century, Santa Fe has been built around a central plaza. Were it settled by the British, it would have had a main street and thus be less likely to resist the destruction of the city fabric in the 20th century caused by growing reliance on cars as primary means of transportation.

There are plenty of things to like about Santa Fe and New Mexico. Culture, art, architecture here are distinctly different from the rest of the US. Many aspects of those are influenced by native people and Spanish colonists. An attempt to celebrate shared and complicated ancestry by erecting bronze plaques that weave the historic narration with all the grace of Soviet propaganda is neither proper nor decent. Once you water the historic fact down to fit on commemorative tablets it becomes so clueless that it often fails to be perceived as offensive.

You can do better Santa Fe. You should do better.

liftie

dkrzemin@gmail.com (Damian) — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:00:00 -0700

It all started one windy and snowy morning. Nature was being its ambiguous self: snow was promising fresh powder tracks but wind was going to hold up access to the slopes.

Some places you need to hike to...

I was glued to my computer trying to decide if it's OK to leave now, or if I should wait some more and let Alpine Meadows crew spin more lifts in addition to the always exciting Magic Carpet. The r key on my keyboard (as in Refresh) was getting a lot of action and I was spending my time watching my browser download completely unnecessary and uninteresting stuff instead of the updated lift status. I thought it should be simpler. And then it hit me: I am actually more or less qualified to make it simpler. And this is how liftie.info was born.

The most important thing to realize when you look at ski resort web pages is that they are not created for skiers or snowboarders. We are rarely interested in discovering our passion, taking the journey to the extraordinary, or not exactly roughing it. No amount of inventive wording can fool us into believing that the icy patches are just packed powder. Even the information on which trail was groomed when is not that high on our list, unless our goal is to avoid them. Mostly we just want to ski and ride.

What we do want to know is which lifts are running, where to park the car, and how much are lift tickets. Alas, this is rarely considered important enough to merit above the fold placement.

Instead we get golf courses, real estate, mini-golf, event calendars and groups & weddings! Or is it group weddings? All is there with the exception of, you know, skiing. May be I should go to a wedding website to find out which lifts are on wind hold?

And with regard to event calendars: they might work a tad better if resorts post something about future events. That torchlight parade last December, while I am sure was great, probably was not memorable enough to be featured in the Upcoming events section till the end of winter.

Randomness of content aside, the form in which that content is served is even worse. If you ever find yourself longing for Clinton years, you should absolutely keep visiting ski resort websites, since this is where all the technologies popular in the '90s have come to retire.

Once you actually guess how the fancy navigation works and by luck or a sheer clicky persistence land on the lift and snow condition page, the joy does not end. Designers seem to compete in the art of careful hiding the very information one expects to find on such a page. The prominent placement is reserved for stock photos of smiling models, who - although dressed for the occasion - probably could not ski or ride if their life depended on it. The multitude of striking colors and the cornucopia of fancy fonts do not help either.

If you keep scrolling down you may find the lift status displayed in the finest possible print. Every resort considers it a point of honor to invent their own way. Okemo goes for subtle, proudly pronouncing: open trails and lifts are in bold. Obviously. Beaver Creek until last week was using 8 pixel by 8 pixel icons to display the status. Which I am sure worked great for them back when computers had screens smaller than today's phones. Mighty Aspen for inexplicable reason is using a red check icon to mark the open status of its many lifts. It looks like they themselves find it confusing since recently they added a legend. It's a relief their web developers are not in charge of traffic lights. Telluride does not display lift status at all. Instead they have a live map, which is carefully hidden between weddings and real estate, takes forever to download, almost crashes your browser (Flash anyone?), displays in a minuscule window in the middle of the screen and requires clicking on mysterious icons and hovering over thin red lines to see which lifts might be open.

In most cases you can forget about trying to use those websites on your phone. And if you do it's going to eat through your monthly data allotment in 3 clicks without actually showing you anything relevant. To tell the truth, some resorts do have mobile pages with their own long list of sins against taste and logic. Most however just want you to install their reward winning app of some sort. Which gives them yet another chance to display stock photos of happy smiley people who would never ski.

To show that we can do better, and not just whine and complain, I give you Liftie - a clean, simple, easy to read, fast, refresh-free ski resort lift status website. It shows lift status and not much else. It works on your computer and on your phone. You can view all the resorts that it supports, or just a single one. And if you frequent 2 or 3 in your area you can star them and create your own page, which you can bookmark.

Liftie is open source so if you don't find your favorite resort just ask this special geek in your life to add it.

If you have questions or suggestions Liftie is on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and, yes, it even has its own e-mail address. Share us and like us so we can efficiently inform the entire world about the status of ski lifts.

And to prove we can be as bad at marketing as people who came up with The Beast loves a good deal here's our motto: Some places you need to hike to, for everything else there is Liftie.

online

dkrzemin@gmail.com (Damian) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 23:00:00 -0700

The condo clearly had wireless network since all our devices were happily connecting, but we could not find anything resembling an access point. Normally we would not even bother, but the Internet seemed sluggish and we were hoping some magic wave and dance (reboot, technically speaking) may help. We spent 30 minutes walking around the apartment watching minute changes on the wireless signal strength heat map, checking all possible boxes connected to electrical outlets. And it was a small flat.

Free WiFi

Finally we found a cheapo Android phone carefully velcroed to a shelf under the TV stand. It was set up to share a 3G cellular connection and, judging by its quickly rising temperature, getting overpowered by all our promiscuous devices trying to retrieve updates whenever open network happens to be in range. I guess it could have been worse: do you remember modems?

It's easy to forget but Natalia and I live in a self-imposed Internet bubble. And I don't mean the dotcom one, which we barely noticed, being busy inflating it for our personal gain. I mean the one, in which the entire world is interconnected by information pipes. The world, in which all we wish to know can be looked up, all we need to buy - ordered, all we want to listen to and watch - legally downloaded. We are sometimes surprised that people still have TVs, or stationary phones, or printed phone books, or wooden book cases. To us a post office is just a place to pick up packages. Or drop off the ones already labeled and paid for on-line. Customers buying stamps bring to mind aliens from other - underdeveloped - worlds. American institutions' continuing insistence on using faxes as primary means of transmitting written words has to be part of a global conspiracy to destroy environment one tree at a time.

Between the two of us we have several practical skills, like cooking, sewing, knitting, basic carpentry or speaking in foreign tongues. But let's face it: in the world without the Internet we would have precious few options of making a decent living.

So when we decided to travel across wild swaths of the USA, spending weeks and months on the road, we made certain we would stay on-line. And in most cases we succeed. We travel with 2 routers, 3 laptops, couple hundred feet of Ethernet cable and a bagful of wireless devices. Nonetheless we don't expect to stay connected in National Parks, on remote hiking trails or when crossing Iowa corn fields. We realize it's a large country. We understand that American mobile service only comes in 2 flavors: no signal in low populated areas, and congested network in areas where their Majesty by the Grace of FCC (a.k.a. Verizon, Sprint and ATT) decided to install their towers.

Cell tower

Also, a hotel clerk handing us a cable, so that we can connect to the proudly advertised free WiFi, does not faze us. We are less amused when we are told to connect in the lobby and then walk slowly to our room hoping the connection will hold. We have a T1 told us one receptionist when we complained that the Internet was not working. We - differently than her - actually know what a T1 is, but were nevertheless impressed with the mastery of the lingo.

We don't need much, but if we are to stay in one place for more than couple of nights, we do want our Internet. And we are absolutely OK with what passes for high speed in good old USA. It's not like we expect developed world standards here. Pretty much any DSL or cable service is fine. But our experiences taught us to triple check everything. A mere declaration of high speed Internet in the listing is just a beginning of a thorough investigation. We want numbers, technology, speeds - preferably in blood on a digital scan of an ancient looking scroll.

We do know people are not well versed in the technological side of things. (Nor should they be, we have to make money somehow.) What surprises us is that they take offense when we try to get some concrete answers from them.

One lady was particularly miffed. Our initial inquires revealed that high speed Internet advertised on the long list of features that her condo offered, was actually Internet connection in the common meeting room of the condo association. I use my iPhone there, the lady wrote, I can just jump across the driveway, I don't think it would be too inconvenient for you to walk to.

Hiking boots

We should have given up at this point. The whole jumping across the driveway does not seem like a protocol we would like to follow. But the place looked nice so we asked, politely, if we could just order Internet service for the winter making it obvious that we were willing to make the arrangements and pay for it ourselves.

We might as well have admitted to satanic tendencies. We received a long rambling voice mail (voice mail! - one more thing that we don't quite get) in which we were lectured about (1) the beautiful nature in which we want to spend our time rather than using the Internet (2) the technical impossibility of delivering bits in any shape, color or form to this specific location (3) the direct connection between Internet usage and hacking (the lady mercifully conceded she is not going to alert authorities about our unhealthy obsession). Four pairs of completely worn out hiking boots and a thousand miles of trails per year (the actual number, not a figure of speech) may beg to differ but we are clearly not interested in nature, or beauty, just the Internet.

I still have that voice mail - Google Voice failed to transcribe it, but did not mind saving it for eternity. Whenever I feel too good about myself I just listen to it and I am put in my place: a cyber Gulliver in the world full of Luddites.

death

natalia.kowalczyk@gmail.com (Natalia) — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 19:00:00 -0700

Death Valley is the hottest place on Earth where the lowest temperature ever recorded in July stands at 69°F (21°C). The record highest temperature is almost twice that: 134°F (57°C). Only mad and Europeans visit outside the high season (November to March). 8am in October is the latest when you want to stay outdoors, and during hot autumn nights swimming pool may seem more inviting than your not-so-cheaply rented hotel bed.

Plan Your Visit

Despite its name and well publicized incidents of vanished Germans, stranded mother and son, marathon speed hiker, Death Valley is not particularly deadly. Despite ample potential for heat stroke, dehydration, rare but destructive and sometimes fatal flash floods, it doesn't make the list of the deadliest parks.

Taking the recommended precautions renders a visit to the Death Valley in the summer not so much dangerous as uncomfortable. Thankfully, the Death Valley - the lowest point in the United States - is surrounded by a mountain range exceeding 10 thousand feet. Telescope and Wildrose Peaks are perfect summer hikes affording amazing views and plenty of cool breeze. Or you can travel by night and stay in an air-conditioned room during the day like a pair of French cyclists that we've met. Then again, if your goal is to pedal in pitch dark, a stationary bike, a pair of black goggles and an occasional trip to the fridge are probably a more economical option.

7:49 AM

Having done the obligatory tour of the most popular points from Devil's Golf Course to Zabriskie Point to Mosaic Canyon on our first visit years ago and hiking the Telescope Peak last year, we opted this time around for a drive through the one-way Titus Canyon followed by a stroll into the nearby Fall Canyon. Walking up the canyon on a cloudy day in late November it's hard to believe you are in the place that can harm or even kill you. It gets even harder to believe when, after one of the numerous turns, we meet a group of happy hapless hippies with way too many musical instruments and certainly not enough of hiking boots. They can't be older than 20 and their shoe situation (or lack thereof) ignites my usually well hidden parental instincts: helping them negotiate one of the down climbs is rather like helping a stranded dodo. But all ends well and we leave them to continue enjoying the life devoid of any problems before they share the fate of extinct flightless game.

Telescope Peak

This time of year the worst that can happen to you in the Death Valley is a dragon lady behind the bar at the Badwater Saloon. She seems to be really unhappy about the unholy European invasion of French, Italian, Spanish and Belgian origin. She demands passports of everyone and proceeds to carefully examine them as if the date of birth was printed on all possible pages with the exception of the one displaying a photo. The fact that you can't legally buy beer in America unless you are 21 is mercilessly drilled into everyone who wants or does not want to listen. She adds 18% automatically to the price of drinks and happily accepts tips on top of that, which turns 2 bottles of Fat Tire into a $20 dollar affair. She grudgingly announces to a frightened foreigner: Well, speak up - I do not know what you want. What do you drink in your country anyway? A moment later she explains to a rather confused German couple that she stopped drinking Budweiser after it was acquired by a German (as in Belgian-Brazilian) company and is not American any more. If it was up to her she would not even serve it. I happen to agree with this sentiment although corporate ownership is not the deciding factor. But I am not trying to make a living selling beer.

Titus Canyon

We spend the evening sipping our overpriced drinks and waiting for some kind of international disaster to transpire. Patrons, however, seem to treat the entire scene as part of the Death Valley experience: a desert, a salt flat, a canyon hike and a lady who missed her calling as a Stasi interrogator and in a strange twist of fate ended up serving alcoholic beverages. We leave after she starts a loud argument with one of the waiters. It's one thing to be rude to those pesky foreigners, offending your compatriots is where we draw the line.

One stunning, misnamed valley and two faces of America: one too happy to care, one too rude to put up with. Both equally oblivious to the world watching.

vortex

natalia.kowalczyk@gmail.com (Natalia) — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 20:00:00 -0600

Did they believe in vortexes as we do? asks 8-years old boy. We don't know, USFS volunteer who shows us around the Palatki site patiently answers. This is a typical answer when it comes to ancient ruins and their builders in the American Southwest. The question however is only typical to Sedona where New Age belief in psychic influence of red phallic protrusions reins supreme. At least boy's grandfather looks vaguely embarrassed.

Bell Rock

According to various websites when approaching a vortex one is supposed to feel tingling and vibrations indicating that the spiritual energy is flowing. During couple of weeks I spent in Sedona I did my share of vortex approaches on bike, on foot, on hands and knees when steepness demanded it. Alas, either cosmic energy had a month off or it did not manage to penetrate my skeptical frame of mind: transcendental tremor was conspicuously missing.

Honanki Ruins

All descriptions of otherworldly manifestations strangely resemble symptoms that accompany approaching thunderstorm. And Sedona has a fair share of thunderstorms in the summer. The monsoon season is a more tangible phenomenon than imaginary energy vortices (or as they saying Sedona: vortexes): every other afternoon it pours for a brief moment. In any case, probability of lighting strike, although low, is still a magnitude higher than probability of prana flow disruption. In case your hair tips start sparking I recommend abandoning spiritual pursuits and descending to lower elevation.

Pink Jeep Tours

Sedona is not only the place famous for its red rocks and, to a lesser degree, native ruins and artifacts. As luck has it, it is not protected by the national park system, which allows a profusion of jeep touring companies to drive overweight tourist around dusty roads and slick rock. Touting magic in ethereal settings is just one more way of distinguishing itself.

I wholeheartedly applaud this marketing ploy: with everybody flocking to a few designated spots to experience illusory sensations, there are plenty of trails devoid of people. If you are willing to forgone unseen, you can discover Sedona rocks' incredible beauty in perfect solitude.

So let’s leave vortexes for naifs and go hiking.

plan

natalia.kowalczyk@gmail.com (Natalia) — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 01:00:00 -0600

It is a beautiful morning, you get up, look around and decide to hit the road. And just like that you are off heading toward endless string of adventures, one of a kind attractions, magnificent vistas, local restaurants serving tasty food, and comfortable motels offering clean sheets. A dream road trip, where you can be your spontaneous self yet every minute of it is fun, every road interesting, every place unique.

welcome

And there is another kind of a road trip when unbounded spontaneity turns into unmitigated disaster: roads are jammed, motels crawl with roaches, views consist of particularly enticing trash dumps, and local dives serve unappetizing bricks of protein ineptly disguised as food. Trips after which you feel lucky if the worst that happens is a drunken bar brawl.

The reality of travelling falls usually somewhere in between. Which does not stop me from attempting to increase my chances of ending up on the happy side of the spectrum. To that end I used to surround myself with guidebooks, fire up Google maps in one window, my favorite hotel booking service in another and proceed to figure out how to see all the attractions in always too short amount of time.

While providing excellent directions Google maps are not very helpful in estimating how long one is going to travel from, say, Boston to San Francisco. It will tell you the total driving time (2 days and 2 hours) and will dutifully warn you the route has tolls. But it won't tell you which day you'll be watching sunset on Fisherman Wharf if you leave Long Wharf this morning. It won't because it doesn't know what you want see along the way.

trips

The booking service will happily reserve hotels for you, but won't help with figuring out for when exactly you need those reservations. Trying to find out how much time you can spend looking for this perfect lunch place and still arrive to the picturesque canyon before the sunset should not require logistic skills of the package delivery service.

We knew there has to be a better way and we tried various services, but we could not settle for one that would do exactly what we wanted. And one day we just started to write our own. It grew and changed and evolved with our experiences during trips and, while we plan to add more features to it, we feel it deserves to be tried out by others.

So this is how I plan my trips nowadays: I still stack all my guidebooks around me, I go to furkot and I click on the map for every place I like to see while furkot recalculates the driving times, suggests stops for the night and warns when I am trying to see too much for the intended duration of the trip. It let's me decide how much time I want to spend at any given site and calculates arrivals and departures accordingly.

stop

Furkot shows me hotels around any given point and when I am ready to book, it gives me a choice of different services I can use. But regardless which one I click on, it leads me to a page that has my dates and location filled in. I don't have to worry anymore about booking on the wrong day, or in a town hundreds of miles away just because it has the same name but is in a different state.

It displays information that we've found useful to know when travelling: the time of sunrise and sunset, day and night temperatures, reminders that the weekend is coming and reservations should to be made in advance.

For Google Chrome users we've made it available from the chrome web store. And for owners of smart phones there is a mobile version to use on the road that connects to phone's navigation app.

Furkot is free to use, so check it out: plan your next trip, book hotels. And, most importantly, email us or give us feedback to let us know what you think.

And hopefully tilt the scales toward a perfect road trip.

oasis

natalia.kowalczyk@gmail.com (Natalia) — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 03:00:00 -0600

Spending every afternoon in a swimming pool gives one a poor vantage point to criticize use of water, but Palm Springs' 540 gallons per person per day is truly impressive. Despite its desert location this is a green place. Not green because of its environmental credentials. While over 3000 turbines of San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm are an inspiring and a bit scary sight, Palm Springs is green in the original meaning of the word: green as trees, grass, golf courses and - obviously - palms. Which are no longer confined to occasional oases fed by natural springs.

Golf Course 1

Countless backyard pools dot the streets and gated communities decorate their gates with fountains and their walls with strips of grass watered by rotating underground sprinklers that routinely soak the pavement as well. It takes guts to display this careless watery abandon, with which denizens of Palm Springs defy the arid reality.

Golf Course 2

One has to admire their ingenuity in pursuing water. When the first farmers came to Palm Springs, they drew water from artesian wells. They were so successful that the water table dropped and water stopped flowing. But they were undeterred and brought water from the Colorado River to recharge the aquifer.

And now they can sustain not just 125 golf courses in the area. They create artificial oases replete palms on every street corner. They provide misters around restaurant patios to spray patrons and especially passerbys.

Golf Course 3

Resourceful residents of Palm Springs don't fall for stinginess of the conservation ideology. The mayor tells people to abandon desert-style landscaping for greener alternative: You can't have all dirt and cactus. In my opinion, Palm Springs isn't lush enough. This quote may be 20 years old but judging by the greenery on major thoroughfares locals continue to heed it with vengeance. More recently water officials while dealing with ground sinking caused by pumping water out of aquifer proudly declare: our goal is to not have water be a constraint to growth. Because growth, especially when it comes to golf, is what counts.

dam

natalia.kowalczyk@gmail.com (Natalia) — Sat, 05 May 2012 01:00:00 -0600

We take a turn and here it is. A dam. Not particularly huge, not a very handsome one, but a dam nonetheless. Complete with a power station and a reservoir. Also, amazingly out of place. There is, or there was, quite a picturesque valley with several waterfalls around it. The dam actually makes for a great viewpoint. If you venture on the other side you can even hike through the wet tunnel and reach thoughtfully placed bridges under Wapama waterfalls. Very impressive even now, they must have been quite a sight before a raising lake level met them.

Hetch Hetchy Dam

A strange place for a dam. Not that any place is a particularly good place. Dams are decidedly unfashionable these days. No other dam though has been built in the middle of a national park. And not just any park. We are in Yosemite. And the dam in question is the infamous Hetch Hetchy.

John Muir: Should Hetch Hetchy be submerged for a reservoir, as proposed, not only would it be utterly destroyed, but the sublime cañon way to the heart of the High Sierra would be hopelessly blocked and the great camping ground, as the watershed of a city drinking system, virtually would be closed to the public.

Not many people know about this place. The Yosemite valley attract around 4 million visitors a year. Hetch Hetchy area: 50 thousand. Those who do come find themselves in the middle of a 100 years old, yet ongoing, discussion on the purpose of natural environment. Visitors are offered two leaflets: one written by park employees detailing history of the Hetch Hetch Valley and the beauty of untrammeled nature. The other, by San Francisco Water trust, touting benefits of fresh clean water for 2.4 million people 5 hours drive away. For most howeverer the most important take away is that you cannot swim in the lake, or camp on its shores: the water has to stay clean.

Hetch Hetchy Reservoir

San Francisco has been vying for a good water source since 19th century and Hetch Hetchy has always seemed like such a good idea: deep valley with a narrow outlet high in the mountains feeding it pure, crystal clear water. Declaring a national park was a wrinkle but Congress, moved by a devastation wrecked by 1906 earthquake, has given the city rights to that coveted resource. Apparently the federal heart has hardened since, as New Orleans is still waiting for its slice of Everglades after Katrina.

San Francisco didn't quench its thirst at Hetch Hetchy: it has built 8 more reservoirs and Hetch Hetchy now hold less the 25% of its water supply. Don Pedro Reservoir, downstream on the Tuolumne River, holds twice as much water as Hetch Hetchy making Yosemite reservoir mostly redundant. The removal of the damn however is neither cheap nor easy. And scores of well placed politicians continue to oppose the idea of restoring Hetch Hetchy to its former glory. Not shying away from catchy puns.

Dianne Feinstein: All this [restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley] is for an expanded campground?... It's dumb, dumb, dumb.

Wawona Golf Course

We exit Yosemite National Park in Wawona where the same fight goes on. The battlefield: Wawona Meadow. Weaponry: clubs against shovels. On the upper portion of the meadow park service continues to restore water flow to the state before development. On the lower portion players fire barrage of golf balls toward hapless hikers. Lawn mowers rumble nearby cropping grass grown without chemicals (it's a national park after all). After a dam, converting a mountain meadow to a golf course seems almost benign although pleasure of avid golfers sounds less compelling than thirst of inhabitants of a major city. Which may be why the defenders of the golf course trot out the nebulous economic impact.

As I duck a stray ball I feel anger and then pity. Someone should take Diane Feinstein camping, someone should take those golfers for a hike. Clean water, golfing -- those are not the best things that Yosemite National Park has to offer. But to know that one has to be less dumb than a politician. Or see beyond a golf club.

quiz

dkrzemin@gmail.com (Damian) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Conversation on the lift #3055. Participating: yours truly and a lovely lady in her prime. It starts after we've already exchanged the views on trails, weather and disappointing snow conditions.

So, where are your from? she asks.
Where do you think I am from? I do get this question a lot and I have a list of rotating answers. She gets to play name this country game - mostly because I am a bit bored. And a bit evil.

On the lift

Oh, I am not good with accents. Apparently, neither am I or we would not have this conversation.
Why don’t you ask me a few questions, you’ll figure it out soon enough. I smile saying that and now she can’t refuse. Natives are so predictable.

Europe? I can tell it’s going to be good.
Yes.
Germany? Which, as everybody knows, is the Europe’s default country.
No.
Am I getting close?
Yes, you are. Very close. The country I am from actually borders Germany. Am I giving up too much? We'll see.
Switzerland?
No.
Austria? We are skiing after all. So staying in the Alps seems understandable.
No.
France?
No.
OK, I give up. I don’t really know any other European countries. Those who now start to suspect that Americans are ignorant should know that this is below average. Most people here are perfectly capable of naming more than 4 European countries. Great Britain, Spain and Italy have a good chance to end up on the short list.

Wow, really?
Yugoslavia? That’s new.
It does not exist any more. You know that, right? Should I add that when it did exist, Germany was not among its neighbors?
Oh, I am old. Are you Scandinavian? I am assuming here she knows Scandinavia is actually not a country either.
No. But I can give you some clues. I am from Gdansk.
?
You know - the Solidarity. 1989. The fall of communism. If I was in more charitable mood I would have mentioned Lech Wałęsa. That usually does the trick. Chopin and Marie Curie are way more sinister clues.
???
There are almost 40 million people in my country
Really? Now she is surprised. I don’t think she realized until now there are that many people in the entire Europe.

Off the lift

It’s an EU member. The 6th biggest EU member to be exact.
EU? I start to wonder if we even live on the same planet.
And until recently one of the best allies of the United States. We went to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Although why I haven’t got a slightest idea.
Oh - I should know that. My husband is a Marine. She seems genuinely distressed now. For some reason women who pull out their husbands out of ski helmets bring the worst in me.

Great. Ask him.
Oh, come on - tell me.
I am not telling. Look it up. Am I making a leap of faith here? They do have Internet in California, right? Or libraries?

OK then. Just tell me where you live in the States.
Boston, mostly. No more games for today. I don't want to push my luck.
Boston! I went to high school there.
Really, that’s surprising?
Why?
I always thought they had decent high schools in Boston. And I time this perfectly to be able to slide off the chair and just ski away avoiding an offended look.

I choose a steep slope full of icy moguls to punish myself properly. Life is good.

heavenly

natalia.kowalczyk@gmail.com (Natalia) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0700

According to their website skiing and snowboarding at Heavenly presents you with a number of different choices. At the moment this number is limited to bare rocks and man made snow, falling a tad short of Experience of a Lifetime trademarked by Vail Resorts that owns Heavenly since 2002. No amount of grooming and reverse tiling can hide wind-polished sheets of ice covering ski runs.

Famous corduroy

Americans are never beginners at anything. They put themselves in an intermediate group 5 seconds after stepping into their ski bindings for the first time. But even those who clearly would be lost should nature blessed us with white powder over carefully prepared corduroy are not above complaining about the quality and quantity of snow.

Apart from lack of the requisite precipitation the weather leaves little to complain about. It's been ages since we've seen a cloud on the very blue sky; Lake Tahoe offers numerous vistas ready-made for snapshots, and the temperature during sunny days slowly but surely edges north of 50°F (10°C). Around noon people start abandoning sweaters, jackets, scarves and gloves giving the place a distinct atmosphere of a make-shift clothes bazaar. For single track minded lift riders absent snow provides a never-changing conversation topic, which saves us from answering awkward questions about our ethnicity, profession and uncommon enunciation. Everyone is in a waiting mode: the avalanche control crew and their dogs, in the absence of avalanches to control, ski around doing PR work: chatting people on lifts and starring in commercials.

Avalanche crew at work

We are diligently watching weather patterns expecting the ridge (whatever that may be) to build over the Pacific and tunnel cold air from the Arctic. So far none of the snow storms decided to veer south when making landfall. There is hope it may happen in the next 10 days, except we've been a week away from a major snowfall for over a month now.

All drinks half price

Faced with the shortage of snow Heavenly unapologetically turns to sex and alcohol: half price drinks and scantily clad girls are known to bring guys to seedier places than icy slopes. What about the women though? A chance to win a title of Heavenly Angel may be enough to lure them to post their bikini photos online but I doubt it persuades any female skier or rider to shell out full price of the lift ticket. It's really hard to figure out what the marketing team is thinking. Either they are stuck in the pre-equality era after watching Mad Men and not realizing that it takes place in the early 60s. Or they are under impression that seductively posed chicks are more compatible with the family friendly resort image than go-go boys would be. The sexism though is so adorably inept that it's almost too hard to take offense. Still I'd rather Heavenly unstuck itself and provided some masculine muscle for the enjoyment of the other 50% of the population.

In the meantime, until some real snow falls, we are taking advantage of a dense network of hiking trails and unseasonably warm weather and experience beautiful Sierra Nevada) mountains on foot. It's ironic, the last time when we visited Lake Tahoe in June 2011 most hiking trails were inaccessible because of snow. And yes, we complained about it too.