John Treadwell Dunbar is a freelance writer
Grand Canyon, Arizona
When 16th century Spanish conquistador García López de Cárdenas stepped out of the towering ponderosa pines that blanket the South Rim of the grandest of canyons and stared dumfounded at that reddish convoluted maw, stared in disbelief at the depth and width and breadth of that crinkly crack, he most assuredly was moved with a profound sense of humility like counted millions since his day that have paid homage from the corners of planet earth.
Like many in contemporary society, Cardenas struggled for words to describe this geologic anomaly, this thing, this increasingly polluted void carved out of the Colorado Plateau over the course of eons that has brought man to the brink of tears with its incomprehensible beauty.
- Monday, February 28, 2011
It was a craving for rancid whale blubber that drove Captain William Clark of Lewis and Clark expeditionary fame to trek 25 miles south of the mighty Columbia River in January, 1806, to lofty Tillamook Head on the northern Oregon coast.
Beached whale near Ecola Creek was on the menu, but had the famous explorers known what that rubbery mammal tasted like they might have stayed put.
Some claim it rivals horse meat, has the texture of dirty socks marinated in olive oil, and boiled to perfection smells like your dog's colon. Others argue it tastes just like A-1 Steak Sauce if you're generous.
Lincoln has been heralded as the best preserved cow town in the American West. Sadly for many of its earlier inhabitants, it also became the epicenter of the notorious, blood-splattered Lincoln County War that waged off and on through 1878. It was a war which claimed the lives of 22 men, wounded nine others and vaulted Billy the Kid to the pinnacle of outlaw fame whether he deserved it or not.
If you seek drama and the noisy struggle of life over death in a political and legal environment essentially corrupt to its core, this tale is for you, and it's fact, at least those aspects agreed upon.
There's no need to embellish or feed into any number of myths that have evolved over the years.
Rarely visited and off the beaten path, Kodachrome Basin State Park is a sumptuous buffet for the senses, an immovable feast hidden smack dab in the middle of nowhere far out on the edge of nothing.
You'll find it midway between lost and wild, up in the rugged high desert of southern Utah's Colorado Plateau on the northwest fringes of 2-million-acre Grand Staircase - Escalante National Monument.
If you're a crow, fly 30 miles southeast of Bryce Canyon National Park and stop when the pavement ends.
If you bring the kids to Kodachrome Park be sure to cover their eyes. Some of the monolithic spires known as sedimentary pipes that stand erect on the valley floor are downright obscene.
When I first heard the screaming and yelling I wasn't sure if I should leap off my bench and run into the evergreens, stand my ground and fight, or finish lunch. I opted for the latter, chewing my ham and cheese sandwich in disbelief as the blood-curdling howls grew louder and the clip-pity-clop of shod hooves drew near.
Then, with a flutter of feathers and heavy breathing, out of the forest galloped a man on his horse, kicking up clouds of dust as he ground his painted pony to a halt before me.
Yelling “Yip! Yip! Yip!” and a throaty “AAARGGH” while his trusty steed reared and pawed the air, “Chief Howls-A-Lot” shook his pointy spear in my direction, daring me not to be afraid. I stopped chewing.
New Mexico's 52-mile Turquoise Trail National Scenic Byway, or simply the “Turquoise Trail,” is a popular alternative to Interstate 25 if you're venturing between Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Highway 14 east of the Sandia Mountains traverses a broad, high desert and low rolling hills with long views of mountains in the distance. This dry country of pinion-juniper, brushy grasslands and too much dirt has played host to adventurers of all walks of life including pre-Columbian Native Americans, Spanish conquistadors, Mexicans during a time of Mexican supremacy, and more recently Anglo-Americans.
Two small towns in particular along the Turquoise Trail are worthy of this popular detour; Madrid (pronounced MAD-rid) and Cerrillos, about 25 miles south of Santa Fe. These little gems are rich in history, rich in lore, and like so much of the American Southwest are seeped in a mining tradition that reaches back to A.D. 1,500 and beyond.
Normally it would have been out of character to drive this far for a glimpse of something as common as graffiti. I can find that scratched on the toilet seat at my local Walmart. But these etchings, hundreds of years old and scrawled into the base of a towering sandstone bluff in the high desert of western New Mexico at El Morro National Monument, are special.
Mostly a vast collection of names, some historical accounts and even a poem, the sandstone chalkboard at El Morro is a mesmerizing window of times past, a testament to thirsty Native American Puebloans, Spanish colonial governors, Anglo-American homesteaders, soldiers and surveyors, and 25 confused camels that traversed this well-trod corridor.
The jagged and spectacularly beautiful peaks and valleys of million-acre Glacier National Park that anchors the north end of America's Rocky Mountains represents some of the purest, most scenic wild lands in this country.
The Crown of the Continent, or Backbone of the World, has long been revered and reached sacred status with the Blackfeet Indians long before it became a national park in 1910, or was designated the world's first International Peace Park World Heritage Site in 1995.
Today the honor of achieving Peace Park designation is shared with Waterton Lakes National Park just across the Canadian border.
For better or worse, Arches National Park and the nearby resort town of Moab have been discovered. Once a dull and dusty uranium mining town, Moab abruptly evolved into a recreational mecca of world-wide acclaim.
A small, bustling community of 5,000 in the shadow of the La Sal Mountains near the Colorado River, it has become a minor cultural and artistic hub teeming with the young and athletic, and the old and lazy, all determined to have a rousing, and occasionally sweaty, good time.
For those dismayed by the evergrowing crowds in Yellowstone, a sane alternative is the far northeast corner of the park and beyond where the mighty Absaroka and Beartooth Mountains soar to great heights. In particular, point your compass toward that spectacularly rugged and beautiful land enveloping the rustic old mining town of Cooke City, Montana. I’m not the only one who's had an affair with this isolated mountain kingdom. The late, great writer Ernest Hemingway was similarly captivated by the lofty peaks and narrow alpine valleys, spending a fair amount of time during the 1920s and 1930s drinking, writing, fishing the Clarks Fork River and hunting endangered species to the brink of extinction. But beware. This is not an amusement park. There are things out there that will eat you - alive.
Like so many writers, artists, actors and a steady stream of celebrities drawn to Montana’s splendor where landscape is muse, the late, great motion picture director “Bloody Sam” Peckinpah likewise succumbed to the lure. Known for such iconic Western masterpieces as “Ride the High Country” (1962) and “The Wild Bunch,” (1969) Peckinpah settled in Livingston, sixty miles north of Yellowstone National Park, where he lived out the remainder of his complex and contentious life.
From 1978 to 1985 when he died of heart failure, Peck called an expansive upstairs suite at the four-story Murray Hotel home. Whether he came for inspiration or respite, judging by the epics he assembled during his fabled career and his wild, drug and alcohol-fueled life, Sam Peckinpah belonged in Livingston; he has become part of the rough-edged, Western fabric that shapes the region’s lore to this day.
The United States of America is indebted to dreary Eureka.
Had this northern California coastal region not been so forlorn, isolated and depressing back in the 1800s, the great Civil War general and 18th president of the United States Ulysses S. Grant might not have resigned his commission as commanding officer of F Company at Fort Humboldt in the 1850s.
And we can only imagine how things would have turned out without General Grant leading the charge against the rebellious South.
Hardened mountain men and explorers like Jim Bridger, and John Colter, a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, were dismissed as crackpots and whack jobs during the early 1800s when they emerged from the northern Rocky Mountain wilds spinning fanciful tales of gushing geysers, misty psychedelic hot springs, an earth that rumbled like thunder and belched scalding water, and pots of boiling mud bubbling like oatmeal.
It wasn’t until the 1870s that the director of the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, Dr. Ferdinand Hayden, along with the renowned artist Thomas Moran, the famous landscape photographer William Henry Jackson, and others, embarked on an official expedition to verify the fanciful accounts of this otherworldly planet. After they returned with their findings, Congress got the point and designated 2.1 million acres of this wilderness wonderland as Yellowstone National Park on March 1, 1872. Since then, outdoor recreation in America has never been the same.
Leavenworth, Washington is not some cheesy, fly-by-night theme park, but an architecturally honest replica of Germany’s Bavaria.
All things considered, the buildings are large and true, the smells genuine and the food tasty, although they could lay down a bit more cobblestone.
Located on the sunnier eastern side of the Cascade Mountains in Washington state, Leavenworth is surrounded by an alpine world of craggy peaks, rushing streams and lush green meadows along the banks of the Wenatchee River.
With a population of 2,500, it offers a refreshing and rare measure of Bavarian authenticity unmatched in the continental United States.
I should know as I was raised in south central West Germany, attended their schools and traveled extensively throughout Bavaria, Austria and Switzerland.
No wonder Bandon, and especially the historic Old Town district, is regarded as one of America’s finest small communities and a sheer pleasure to visit, even during brutal winter storms.
Perched on the southern banks of the Coquille River, Bandon offers up quaint shopping, a picturesque small harbor, fine dining, fine art, superb golfing, and mile after mile of empty, wide, dune-swept, pristine beaches that have attracted visitors in the know for years.
It also boasts some of the most profoundly beautiful sea stacks, spires and towering rock formations found anywhere on the world-renowned Oregon Coast.
You know you’re not in Dallas anymore when the anti-Bush bumper sticker reads: “Chop His Head Off,” and the locals don’t drag the driver out of the front seat for a pummeling, but honk and cheer instead. That’s the way it was in extreme northern California a few years ago, and attitudes haven’t changed much since. So if you’re a hard-core redneck, my guess is Humboldt County won’t be your cup of tea.
Like beached whales, hippies of old, and the new, have washed ashore in droves in this northwest corner of the state. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing since genuine hippies are basically harmless and friendly, but as you look around you get the feeling the county took one big hit off the community bong - and forgot to exhale.
If California ever breaks off and falls into the Pacific we’re going to lose some outstanding oceanfront property, especially along that hidden gem of a coastline that stretches 120 miles north of San Francisco along curvy Highway 1.
While not remote, it’s off the beaten path and laid back in that unique California way. And compared to any stretch of jagged cliffs, hidden coves, deep green pastures and pristine sand beaches in North America, the Sonoma and Mendocino coastal region is sublime; it is highly romantic. It is stunning.
My first recollection of the wind-battered hills took place on a cloudless day in July a few years ago. The fog had lifted, the sun was bright and shining and the sky was deep blue, though not as blue as the white-speckled ocean that sprawled to the distant horizon.
Due to Kanab’s convenient location as a central hub, if you plan to visit the north rim of the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and Lake Powell, you should consider making Kanab your home base like many visitors from across the globe have done over the decades. With ample lodging, wide tree-lined streets, stately brick dwellings and friendly residents, recently “discovered” Kanab caters increasingly to the tourist and is decidedly unpretentious. It’s the real deal - a conservative slice of the authentic republican West built on a strong Mormon heritage, like much of rural Utah.
Isolated in the southwest corner of Utah’s red rock country, Kanab’s placid demeanor and impressive Old West architecture do little to convey its storied past as Utah’s “Little Hollywood.” The drive-by tourists headed for the big parks have little reason to suspect that roughly 300 mostly-western motion pictures and television shows were filmed in and around this small town of 3,800 from the 1920s to the present.
The great 19th century French novelist Gustave Flaubert, who wrote that “the three most beautiful things ever created in this world are the sea, Hamlet, and Mozart’s Don Giovanni,” had obviously never been to southern Utah because if there is a paradise on earth, this place is a top contender with its many parks, monuments and fertile desert wild lands. And of all those red-rock gems, Zion is the most visited.