Japan Visits the Falls

I was on my way back from Footbridge Falls, which is just a few minutes away from The Homestead. As I walked, I could hear some loud voices. After a while, I encountered a pair of Japanese men decked out in the latest, well, adventure gear, I guess you call it. It is that stuff that REI insists you must have in southern Utah. I don't know quite what it is, but, you know, the three-sided, wicking, cooling, shading techno-hat with the long back that looks kind of like a mullet, and all that other stuff. Anyway, in broken English one of them asked me which way to the falls. I gestured, and tried to explain. They looked confused. So, I raised my voice, because everyone knows that when someone does not speak your language the way to help them is to shout. It seemed to work. They smiled, and nodded, and moved off down the trail. Probably they had no idea what I was talking about, but didn't want to risk having me explain it to them with a bullhorn. In any case, I'm often surprised at how the little, local sites that seem so mundane are on the itinerary of the international traveler.

Howard Haight's Graffito

Throw a coke can out the window of your car today, and it is just trash; let it lay by the roadside for 50 years (or more), and it becomes a "cultural resource." Likewise, graffiti: Leaving your tag today is vandalism, but leaving it yesterday is part of our heritage. In southern Utah, and around the west, the bark of an aspen tree has long been viewed as the billboard on which to leave your inscription. To me, an aspen carving from today is an annoyance, but a carving from 50, or 70, or even 100 years ago is worth noting. I stop and wonder, was this the work of a lonely cowboy, a passing tourist, or a ragged hunter? I try to imagine the shape of the forest and the size of the tree on the day it was carved. Could this artist have imagined that his work would last for seven decades?

I found this particular note from Howard Haight in the mountains above Cedar City on a tree that is still alive. Yesterday, I found a carving from 1934 on a dead tree near Yankee Meadows. Since the average lifespan of an aspen tree is probably around 80 years, finding stuff from the 1920s and 1930s is likely to be near the limit. Indeed, the oldest record that I have is from a tree on the Sevier Plateau. It is dated September 22, 1921. When your carving celebrates its 90th birthday, I will no longer consider it to be trash.

Featured Artist

It is a busy week for the talent at Rural Ways: Valerie has entered both the oil painting and mixed media competions at the Escalante Canyons Art Festival. At this event, many of the best outdoor painters in the region put their skills on the line for a chance at several thousand dollars in prizes. Past winners have included Doug Braithwaite, Brad Holt, and Daryl Thomas. Valerie has entered six times before and has collected a prize on five of those occaisons. In my opinion it shows that she can go toe to toe with the big names. Of course, there has never been any doubt that I consider Valerie to be one of the top painters in Utah—and I don't care what anybody else says, I've seen a lot of art work in the past ten years, so I know what is good. Not only that, but Valerie has been selected as the Featured Artist at this year's event. Another well deserved honor. She has painted more than 200 works from the Escalante area. It is a record unmatched by any other painter. Ever. Tired of my bragging? OK, just one more thing: The word on the street is that Valerie is currently creating a masterpeice of Powell Point (pictured). Powell Point is a landmark made famous by John Wesley Powell who is reputed to have mapped the Grand Staircase from its summit. For those who call Escalante home, the first sight of Powell Point coming up out of Red Canyon, with the Sevier Plateau to the north and Johns Valley ahead, is the signal that you're back in your home country. Alright, I'm done. But, if you're in south central Utah this weekend, stop in to see Valerie in Escalante . . . and bring your checkbook.

Carbaryl

Lodgepole pine is a fire adapted seral species that covers vast portions of the western United States and Canada. As a result, it is not practical (or necessary) to "save" it from the Mountain Pine Beetle. Some individual trees are, however, very valuable. These are the ones that have shaded the camping spot that my family and I have visited for generations. While no tree lives forever, maximizing shade tree lifespan is desirable, and avoiding complete camping area mortality is imperative.

One expensive, but generally successful, method for maintaining live trees in the face of an insect epidemic, is to spray each stem five inches in diameter or greater with insecticide. In this image, a contractor is spraying lodgepole in a National Forest campground on the north slope of the Uinta with Carbaryl. They generally spray each tree from top to bottom three times as they circle it . . . hundreds of trees per day . . . it is a slow, costly job.

The Forest Service silviculturist who was supervising this application told me that they have marked 15,000 trees for spraying this year. At $10 per tree, the pictured contractor should experience some fiscal stimulus this year. Of course, he wasn't wearing a respirator, or even a mask, so I'm not sure how much time he'll have to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

Mountain Pine Beetle

Along the north slope of the Uinta Mountains, most of the lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) has been killed by the mountain pine beetle (MPB, Dendroctonus ponderosae). If you drive through the forest and look at the trees, about half of them are red or grey with dead needles, the rest—the green ones—are aspen and fir. Lodgepole is particularly susceptible to MPB attack, so if you see thousands of acres of dead trees, you can count on a beetle epidemic. The tell-tale sign, however, is found on the bark of a beetle hit tree. As the beetle bores into the bark, the tree sends pitch to the wound. The pitch, mixed with sawdust and frass, pushes back out through the hole and forms a sticky white bubble on the surface of the bark. When a tree is under attack it may have hundreds of these "pitch tubes" covering its entire circumference.