Notes From Deep Springs III

Bennet Bergman attends Deep Springs College in California and will be writing about his life in the Sierras. Read Volume I and II here and stay tuned for more “Notes From Deep Springs” in the coming weeks.The floor of the valley I live in is covered in desert scrub—mostly sagebrush—so even in the wettest months of the year the desert barely achieves a greenish hue. To be sure, Deep Springs has a sparing beauty for its thousand shades of dust, and climbing a ridge to watch the occasional storm spill over the lip of the valley is striking in its own right. But spend a few months out here and you start dreaming jungle scenes. With that in mind, last weekend I tripped up to Dead Horse Meadow in the White Mountains, where I was told I could find some real greenery. It’s true, it’s up there—something short of a jungle, but not half bad.MP3: Wild Belle - Take Me AwayI hiked the five miles up from the trail head with a group of boys from Deep Springs. All told, the ascent is a couple thousand feet from the floor of our valley, but the change of scenery is complete. On the way up we passed through some stands of Bristlecone pine that are supposed to be the oldest living organisms on the planet, and by the time we reached Dead Horse we were moving through creeks and green meadows that elsewhere might not seem so spectacular if it weren’t for the desert we scrambled up from.It happened that there were two cowboys, both recently-graduated students from Deep Springs and good friends of ours, camped at Dead Horse for the week. It's their job to push the cattle up from our ranch and into summer pasture in the White Mountains. They came to greet us as soon as we'd set down our packs and showed us where we could fill our bottles from springs that spat clean, cold water right out of the ground. Then, like real gentlemen, they invited us to spend the night in their camp.We had come with the standard fare in our packs: sleeping pads, bags, a white gas stove and a tarp (no tent), but I'll tell you, it's a whole different kind of camping up there. The cowboys sleep on cots in a pretty enormous army green tent-cabin and cook on what looks like a well-loved stone stove. They’ve got a solar water heater attached to a hose that runs up from the creek, and a pretty nice set-up for using the lou. Also, four horses to ride around on and a cold mountain spring. In other words, those two are well outfitted.That night it got colder than we’d prepared for. We abandoned our plans to sleep out and bedded down instead on top of saddle pads next to the halters and horse brushes in the cowboys' tack tent, where we kept much warmer than we would’ve under our tarp. In the morning, after some strong coffee (brought to you by centrifugal force), we traipsed around a bit, stuck our feet in the creek, and hiked out after a shady nap and some tuna from the pouch.The cowboy camp at Dead Horse Meadow was of a distinctively older outdoor sportsman’s culture than the one I know—no ultra-lightweight gear, no technical packs, no Crazy Creeks. I don't know what camping in the '50s was like, but I can't imagine it could've been much different, and I was totally suckered in. Not to be misunderstood, I like my nylon as much as the next guy, but being up there got me thinking about how it might be to kick off my boots and stay out for more than a night. Really settle in. Heck, plant a garden. I do like the idea. It’s a different world up there.

CS and Woolrich

Over the past couple of weeks, Cold Splinters, with the help of superstar Justin Thomas Kay (who gets an average of two to three messages from me a week asking about a font I found on some old thrift store book), worked with Woolrich to create a series of 12 posters that will be used at the PA-based company's OR booth. The images will highlight Woolrich's Spring 2013 collection.Read more about the collaboration here and see the rest in Salt Lake City this weekend.

Redwood Bowmen

Over the weekend, I spent a wonderful morning shooting arrows at cougar, turkey and rabbit targets at the Redwood Bowmen Archery Club in Oakland, CA. The course is in the woods, and the club, which has been around since 1939, owns an equally impressive (from the outside, at least) clubhouse adjacent to the practice range. California, I tell you...MP3: Grateful Dead - Hell In A BucketMore photos after the jump.

California Etc.

Cold Splinters is headed out to California tomorrow, and for those of you living in the Bay Area, come on down and hang out with me and the wonderful folks from Juniper Ridge this Saturday. We'll all be one of my favorite stores out west, Gravel and Gold, from 1-5 pm distilling White Fir from a recent JR trip to Carson Pass (a few of Obi's photos from that trip are after the jump). So if you want to smell better than all of your friends, come on down and watch the magic unfold.Learn more about Field Lab, Juniper Ridge's "aromatic snapshots of life on the trail, here.

Smuttynose Island

Cold Splinters spent last weekend on Smuttynose Island (yes, that Smuttynose) in Maine, located in the Isles Of Shoals, six miles off the coast of New Hampshire. It's best known for the murders that allegedly took place in 1873, but now it's a private and very primitive 25 acre home to two structures, The Haley House and Gull Cabin, large amounts of loud, angry gulls and a beautiful trail that stretches the length of the island. The public is welcome to use the island during the day to picnic and hike, but in order to camp overnight, you have to be a member of the Maine Island Trail Association. The only other people on the island are the stewards that live in the Haley House for a week at a time.When the boats started go home and we were left to our own devices in the middle of the ocean, I tell you. One of the best sunset/star shows I ever saw. Below is a recording of the crazy seagulls on the north side of the island as went for an early morning hike.MP3: Gulls of Smuttynose Island

R.I.P. Cookie Lady

For over 30 years, Jane Curry, also known as the "Cookie Lady," welcomed bikers into her Afton, VA home to clean up and eat, well, yes, cookies. Curry was 91 years old. From The Hook's obituary:

"I asked how much for a dozen cookies?" Parker recalls. "She said, 'Oh, honey, the cookies are free, but you need a bath. Go on up and take a shower,  and then come down for some cookies."

Cold Splinters wrote about the Cookie Lady back in January, so if you happened to miss it, click here for more info. She was a pretty amazing woman.MP3: múm - Slow Bicycle

Ecstatic Camouflage

The first time we mentioned Daniel Chamberlin here on Cold Splinters, we were referring to "Uncle Skullfucker's Band," an article he wrote as an editor at Arthur Magazine. Chamberlin, who now resides in Southwest Texas, is also the creator of the art above, which he calls "Ecstastic Camouflage," and describes as "explicitly psychedelic post-landscape photography.” Many of the photographs in the series were taken near his home in the Chisos Basin and Davis Mountains. (The photograph on the top is a close up of cactus from Terlingua, TX and sits proudly above my couch as you enter my apartment.) A little bit more from the artist on EC:

“It is a post-landscape photography that explodes anthropocentric notions of perspective by way of repetition and rotation, an organic visual drone. It is an attempt at revealing my communion with the so-called “plant mind” of shamanistic lore.”

Chamberlin is also the host of Inter-Dimensional Music, a fantastic show on Marfa Public Radio that you can listen to every Sunday night. I highly highly recommend it.MP3: Peaking Lights - Beautiful Son

Heady Topper

Cold Splinters spent the last weekend up near Stowe, VT and head the extreme pleasure of trying Heady Topper for the first time. We don't usually get too excited about beer, but holy moly, this is the one. Unfortunately you can't get it here in the New York area, though going back to Vermont ain't such a bad idea...

16 East Coast Habitats

When John Davis was finished with his TrekEast journey - which took him 7600 miles from Florida to Canada - he put together a list of 16 key habitats on the East Coast that we need to protect (and the organizations working to protect them). They're not in order of importance, but #1 on the list is South Florida's Caloosahatchee Crossing:

The last remaining stronghold of the panther (puma, cougar, mountain lion …) in the East is in South Florida. Dredging of the Caloosahatchee River and development along its banks, together with high road density, is blocking panthers from recolonizing habitat north of the Everglades. A safe wildlife crossing of the Caloosahatchee is urgently needed, along with creation of a large Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and provision of wildlife crossings on major roads, including Interstate 4, which bisects the state from Tampa to Daytona and poses another major obstacle to south-north movement of wildlife.

Read the full list here.

Agate

On the night of July 4th, I drove 30 minutes to a ranch somewhere between Marfa and Fort Davis, TX, all while staring at two West Texas agate bracelets I had made by Paul at Moonlight Gemstones for my friends' wedding. I was listening to - no, rather blasting - John Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" on Marfa Public Radio while eating Ak-Mak from a box on the passenger side seat. That moment, needless to say, has stuck with me for the last couple of days, though I suppose whenever I get back from Texas I have AGATE on my mind. Have a quick read here about where that handsome rock gets its name and how it's formed.And that's all for my recent trip to Texas on this rag. Until next time...Watch: John Coltrane - My Favorite Things

NATURE NOTES

As previously noted, I spent a couple of days last week in the Trans-Pecos, doing some work and visiting friends in Marfa. There are endless amounts of things that I love about that part of the country, but the one that stays with me after I get back east is the wonderful Marfa Public Radio. There's loads of great programming on the"Radio For A Wide Range," but for Cold Splinters, we thought we'd point you towards Nature Notes. Here's some more info:

Why do rattlesnakes rattle and hummingbirds hum?How do flowers market themselves to pollinators?Why do tarantulas cross the road?Nature Notes investigates questions like these about the natural world of the Chihuahuan Desert region every week on Marfa Public Radio. Through interviews with scientists and field recordings, this Marfa Public Radio original series reveals the secrets of desert life.

Listen to a few episodes here (they're very short), and learn about that handsome javelina, pictured above.