NORTH ATLANTIC ADVENTURE

Flying a Polish  charter 737 from Reykjavic into Kangerlussuaq Greenland (pop. 500), taking a 20 minute bus ride to a rocky beach with small concrete dock and then riding in a zodiac   across the fiord (with plenty of cold spray in our faces) to board our big ship wasn’t exactly how I envisioned starting my first cruise. (text continues below)

Glaciers, icebergs, amazing basalt, small villages/cities and lectures from Harvard & Dartmouth profs filled every day.  The French guides who took us out on zodiacs each day were competent, experienced, smart and fun. After a long day, then we had to stay up late to socialize and finish our five-course dinner.  So exhausting.

Denmark sends Greenland $600 million every year, or about $10,000 per person.  Most of the Inuit locals we saw appeared much better off than the indigenous people of Canada and the US. We visited four towns (Nuuk, Ilulissat, Sisimiut,  Qeqertassuaq) and one ghost town (Ataa).  Many days included rain, wind and high thirties temps.  It was difficult for me to imagine living there in darkness and cold of December and January.  Fishing and tourism are the two main industries and tourism is booming.  No sign of poverty anywhere.

 Flying back to Iceland was a jarring return to civilization, with roads, traffic and lots of people. We spent five days driving and exploring (Stykkisholmur, Vik & Hofn) and then two days in the big city of Reykjavik.  More glaciers, plus volcanoes, endless waterfalls, black sand & rock glacial flood plains (one covered 250 sq miles!) – and hordes of tourists.  It seemed like every time we got to another highlighted view or rock or waterfall, a bus full of Chinese had just unloaded.  Iceland is very popular and places like the little town of Vik are  overrun.

One of my favorites was Thingvellir (Þingvellir in Icelandic) Nat Park, which includes the rift valley between the North American and Eurasian continental plates.  Beautiful rocks and exciting geology, but I couldn’t get any decent photos due to all the Chinese taking selfies.  Þingvellir also is the site of Iceland’s first parliament (Alþingi), dating from 930.  The visitor center had an excellent display about early Icelandic history which I enjoyed.  

We also liked the Berserkerjahraun lava field near Stykkhisholmur.  (Berserkers were the craziest Viking fighters and there is a saga story that is about this lava field in approx 900.)  Weird lava formations mostly covered in thick green moss, which played a part in the Michael Ridpath murder mystery series. 

In Reykjavík, we visited museums, including the Arni Magnusson Institute of Icelandic Studies with original documents going back 700 years.  The National Museum next door and the Maritime Museum were also very good.  Two nights we dined at trendy restaurants mentioned in the NY Times story.  Did I mention that everything in Iceland is VERY expensive?

PIKA 2024 UPDATE

My favorite mammal is the pika, a close relative of rabbits.  Every summer I hike up into Alta to a large rock field near the Sugarloaf lift.  Once there, if I wait quietly, after ten or fifteen minutes pikas appear from under rocks and start running back and forth with mouthfuls of harvested grasses that they store  in their winter food cache.  Last week while watching one fearless pika at my feet, licking salt off my pack, I noticed a marmot standing at attention, chirping shrilly for at least five minutes.  I looked up and saw two golden eagles, a thousand feet above us, searching for lunch.   While the marmot alarm sounded, the pikas sat still near their under-rock homes, halted harvesting, and looked around for danger.  Once the alarm stopped they went back to filling their winter storehouses. 

TAKING SHAPE EXHIBIT OPENS IN ECCLES THEATER

The last of ten large metal prints was hung in the Eccles Theater in August. It is exciting and marvelous to have a permanent display of my images showing the creation of this formidable arts palace, a building that has played such an important role in my life’s work.

For twenty-five years, I booked and managed the Broadway in Utah musical theater series at the Capitol and Eccles Theaters.  I was able to combine my passions for photography and theater by spending time in the theaters with a camera.  During construction of the Eccles (2015-2017), I brought my camera to the site every week or two and documented the rise of one of the most advanced, handsome and audience-friendly performing arts centers in North America.

These are the images you can see in the lobbies of the Eccles.

ON THE STREETS OF NEW YORK

In May, I spent four days in NYC with five other Wasatch Camera Club members on a photographic tour of Manhattan and Brooklyn. We hit the iconic landmarks - Times Square, Grand Central Station, Brooklyn Bridge, the High Line - and many less-touristy areas.  One of my favorites was Williamsburg in Brooklyn, a neighborhood I’d never visited.  Startling contrasts from the hip new waterfront development to sidewalks filled with the traditional Orthodox Jewish community and dark streets covered by rumbling elevated subway tracks.

One half day was spent being guided thru lower Manhattan by street photographer James Maher.  So many streets, views and alleys that were new to us all.  Scenes reflecting the city’s rich history and culture in Soho, Chinatown, Little Italy – and limitless photogenic content.  

Long days, many miles walked, great company, excellent images. Hope to get back to the Big Apple again soon.

DEATH VALLEY - THE PERFECT PLACE TO CELEBRATE YOUR 75TH BIRTHDAY

Death Valley is the largest national park in the lower 48, the hottest place on earth (134 degrees), an extremely dry desert (1.7 inches of rain per year) and the lowest place in North America (minus 282 feet).

Karen and I drove to Death Valley in late February thru a ferocious blizzard that closed parts of I-15 in Utah.  When we arrived at the park, we were greeted with frigid temperatures, a downpour of one-third of the annual rainfall in one day, roads closed due to snowfall and rockslides and a 24-hour power outage throughout the park. These challenging conditions could hardly have been better for producing exceptional and dramatic images, especially with the help of our workshop leaders, Guy Tal and Michael Gordon.

Further Into the Midwest - the Milwaukee Road in Minnesota and South Dakota

The penultimate segment of my Milwaukee Road search took me on a 1100-mile loop through Minnesota and South Dakota.  I learned much about the history of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad and this region. The regional economy is surprisingly strong and it is apparent in the prosperous towns that still have a connection to a railroad.  I drove from the Minneapolis airport west to Aberdeen SD, south to Mitchell SD (home of the Corn Palace) and then east to Albert Lea and Preston MN.  The cities and towns ranged from vibrant and booming to empty and desolate.  (continued below)

Some of the Milwaukee Road routes are still busy with trains of major carriers and others almost impossible to find.    Often there was no trace of the old rail lines at all, not even a bike trail.  Many cities still have active rail lines, now run by the BNSF and CP.  In towns off the BNSF mainline, operations might be run by a small local line or elevator co-op, such as the Twin Cities & Western, the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern or the Wheaton Dumont Elevator Cooperative (Ortonville).  Many of these orphaned rail lines are the end of what was a longer branch line or spur and have adjacent unused rails rusting and overgrown or being dismantled.

Agriculture is the core economy of this upper Midwest region and October is peak corn harvest season. Roads are jammed with semis, fields are full of combines and ethanol plants have long lines of tank cars being filled.   A relatively new business in the MN-SD border area is wind generation.  It is not unusual to see hundreds of giant wind mills stretching to the horizon.  Wind produces almost 20% of all energy generated in Minnesota.

Madison, SD is now the end of a line that originally went another 75 miles west.  A prosperous community of 7000 is where one finds the Madison Farmers Elevator Company, founded in 1908, the anchor of the local economy.  The commercial center is full of storefront businesses and the main streets are crowded with semi-trucks delivering grain to the elevator.  The former Milwaukee Road depot has been renovated and houses the Chamber of Commerce.  Go a mile west and you’ll find the Prairie Village historic tourist site, which has an operating train on the Prairie Village, Herman & Milwaukee RR line.

In Alpena SD, the Jack Links jerky factory is running 24/7 and on a Sunday afternoon there were no empty spaces in the employee parking lot.  Across the highway, a double rail line serves the grain terminal which was loading a grain-hopper-car train at least 40 cars long.

Nearby Virgil, population 16 and named after the poet, has few occupied buildings, no active businesses and no sign of its citizens. 

Montevideo MN has little to offer on a Main Street of empty storefronts, but it has restored its CMSP&P depot and nearby has the most beautifully painted coal tender I’ve ever seen.  Across the street is a yard full of Milwaukee Road passenger cars and two scrapped, partial Hiawatha observation cars.  Maybe some of these relics will one day be restored by the local rail fans.

In Austin MN, the home of the Spam Museum and Hormel factory, the Milwaukee Road depot houses the Catholic Charities office.  Across the street is the decrepit Hiawatha Bar, which probably entertained many tired travelers in its heyday.

I read about restored Milwaukee Road cars and grain elevator in Preston MN, so I stopped there.  Driving around town, I could find no of a rail line, so I went to the County Clerk’s office and asked if they knew where the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul rails used to run.  After three people consulted, I was shown an original CM&SP map from 1918 with the route thru town, which was abandoned in 1976 and is now hidden by new buildings.  With their help, I did find a park with a caboose, box car and elevator from 1902.  The bike trail starts just behind the elevator and follows the Milwaukee Road route out of town. 

As was true in my travels further west, the demise of the CMSP&P devastated small towns across the midwest.  Many communities were first established by the Milwaukee Road to serve its new system of rails.  Those that managed to salvage and continue rail service into the 21st century have survived. Those without rail service withered, sometimes disappearing altogether.

The remaining section of the MR that I have yet to explore is Wisconsin, its home state – and mine.  It crisscrossed the state and also went north to the Upper Peninsula and Lake Superior.  I plan to search the Dairy State in 2023 and expect to visit the northern terminus in Calumet Michigan, which is a few miles from Houghton, where my father John Butler Ballard was born. 

Links to previous CMSP&P chapters:

Part One - April in Washington - Looking for the CMSP&P

Part Two - East Portal to Lavina - the CMSP&P in Montana

Part Three - Into the Midwest - Roundup to Aberdeen

On Commissary Ridge with Hawkwatch International

Last weekend, as a representative of the Wasatch Camera Club, I went to Wyoming to learn about a HawkWatch International raptor counting program and plan for another visit next fall by a larger group of photographers from the club.   High on Commissary Ridge, in a remote location north of Kemmerer, three researchers showed us how they collect data about the fall raptor migration and taught us a great deal about the magnificent birds they were watching.

The Wasatch Camera Club organizes field trips once a month, and I got involved with organizing a bird photography trip in conjunction with HawkWatch International, a Salt Lake City-based organization that I have known for many years.  Danice and Carrie, two other members of the Wasatch Camera Club, and I had an outstanding, educational trip to Commissary Ridge to learn about the raptor counting work that HawkWatch has been doing there for twenty years.  (continued below)

Commissary Ridge is one of 5 or 6 western US counting sites that HawkWatch operates, with the purpose of tracking long-term population trends of raptors – hawks, eagles, vultures, owls.   The information gathered enables them to better understand the life histories, ecology, status, and conservation needs of raptor populations in North America.

The objective of our visit was to learn about HawkWatch’s activities and to plan a future club field trip.   We drove 150 miles to some wide open spaces twenty-two miles north of Kemmerer, where five HawkWatch workers are camped August 27 thru November 5, weather depending.  There are no permanent structures at the campsite, just cars and tents.  From the camp, we hiked a mile up to Commissary Ridge (8850 ft elevation), where the researchers have some primitive rock walls for shelter (which look like they might have been constructed by ancient indigenous residents) and count birds eight hours every day.  One of the observers told me he gets one day a week off to go into Kemmerer and shop for groceries, go to the gym, do laundry and take a shower.  Very weak cell signals on the ridge top and a few solar panels for basic power needs make for a primitive existence.  In October they get snow, often enough to have to shovel out their shelter before starting the count.  Quite a life.

We spent a few hours there in very pleasant weather – 65 degrees, not one cloud and a 10 mph breeze -  but too mild for good sightings.   The crew told us the birds are usually much closer on cold windy days when the thermal updrafts are stronger. A few clouds for background would make the sightings much easier, too. 

We saw dozens of hawks and eagles, but almost all were distant dots that weren’t much good for photography.  Most were positively identified by the skilled binocular-equipped observers. They could even determine male or female when I was barely able to follow the bird in my binocular.   I learned a new ornithological term – eyebird.  One you can see without a binocular.

HawkWatch also traps and bands birds, usually a few every day.  We thought that banding a big raptor could be an excellent photographic subject, but none were captured during our visit. 

James, the crew leader was smart and helpful.  His two associates, Elly and Coburn, spent most of their time with binoculars aimed, scouring the blue sky, exchanging location & species information and making notes.  I easily doubled my raptor knowledge with James’s explanations and answers to my questions. Everyone was friendly. 

On the drive back to SLC, we stopped in Kemmerer, a town of 2600 that appears to have missed the mining and oil boom that grew the Wyoming economy for the last four decades.  Surprisingly, it is the home of the first JCPenney store.  The picturesque town square has a large bronze statue of James Cash Penney and is surrounded by photogenic old buildings, many sadly empty.  The Stock Exchange Club, Mandarin Garden, Tinsky’s Fossil Fish, the bright pink Chateau Motel and the Mother Store of the J. C. Penney Company are just a sampling.

We hope to set up a club trip next fall for 15-20 members.  We’ll precede the trip with a lecture by one of HawkWatch’s PhD experts.  Should be a good outing.  I will be going again.

Brigham Street Service

Thanks to my friends and business partners, Bruce Granath & Steve Boulay, I’ve had a fun photography project recently. They sent me to their favorite garage, Brigham Street Service on the south side of downtown SLC and asked me to document this two-generation business. I’ve been to the garage four or five times so far. Getting to know the three friendly mechanics, Todd, Mike and David has been a most rewarding part of this experience. Here are a few of the images I have collected so far.

Into the Midwest - Roundup to Aberdeen

By the time I had walked from the Billings airport terminal to my rental car in the lot, I was soaked.  In one of the driest years the West has ever seen, I chose two days of monsoon weather for my next trip along the old route of the CMSP&P.  In Roundup, where I started following US 12, I saw the old CMSP&P station, now serving as office for the Fergus Electric Co-Op and had enough rain to keep me hiding in my car.  On to Ingomar, the first photo bonanza of the trip.  As in other abandoned and photogenic towns I visited, one must drive a few miles off the main highway to find the best history.  Besides the ancient Jersey Lilly Saloon (which is for sale) the only building in decent repair was the well-maintained original RR station.  Out in the field nearby was a large black coal tender with the Milwaukee Road insignia. (continued below)

In Miles City the old rail line is a BNSF line with a few long trains every day.  The CMSP&P station is being used by the city schools, for storage and shop class.   I also found the Northern Pacific station, fancier than the CMSP&P’s, but on the verge of disintegrating demise.

The next day, the weather improved and allowed me to spend more time with my camera outside of the car.  Seven miles north on a gravel road took me to Ismay, which at first looked like a ghost town.  But I found a friendly rancher working in the grain elevator along the active BNSF tracks, who explained that 70 years ago 150 residents lived here, before the main highway was re-routed to the south.  Today’s population is under twenty and the only building remaining from Ismay’s founding days is a sturdy brick jail, built for $675 in 1910.  I’ve seen numerous towns along the Milwaukee Road in the West that were founded around 1909 during the construction of the route to Seattle.  When the railroad went out of business in the 1980’s, quite a few towns disappeared along with the CMSP&P. 

Mobridge, SD is where the railroad crosses the Missouri River, over an impressive span still in use.  Overlooking the Missouri is the monument to Sitting Bull, the Lakota chief, whose tribe controlled half of South Dakota before the white man arrived.

Further east on US 12 was the town of Java, one of the few places where I found the old CMSP&P rails abandoned, but not taken away for scrap.   In Bowdle, I met a 22-year-old volunteer fireman, polishing the fire truck because it would be part of his wedding the next day.  On to bustling Aberdeen, where the CMSP&P station is in excellent condition, used as offices by the BNSF.

I followed a different route back to Billings, which included Little Bighorn Battlefield Nat. Monument, where Lakota and Cheyenne warriors, led by Crazy Horse, defeated Custer’s 7th Cavalry Regiment. The Little Bighorn monument is a sobering memorial to the last major victory by native Americans fighting the western tide of settlement,. The monument is surrounded by the Crow Indian Reservation today.  I was fortunate to be there during the annual Crow Fair, the second largest powwow in the US, attracting over 20,000 native Americans. 

The Little Bighorn battle took place in 1876 only seven years after the Golden Spike was driven into a tie by Leland Stanford, marking the completion of the first transcontinental railroad.  The new railroad drove the final phase of the conquest of the West and the end of native American life on the open prairies.  The Union Pacific, Northern Pacific, Great Northern and the Milwaukee Road brought settlers, ranchers and civilization west and changed North America forever.

Links to previous CMSP&P chapters:

Part One - April in Washington - Looking for the CMSP&P

Part Two - East Portal to Lavina - the CMSP&P in Montana

East Portal to Lavina - the CMSP&P in Montana

Chapter two of my rediscovery of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific railroad route took me across Montana from the Idaho border to Billings. The route stays close to I-90 in much of western Montana, though it is difficult to access in the higher mountains.   I had a bona fide adventure biking the Hiawatha Trail near Lookout Pass at the Idaho border.  The 15-mile ride included stunning mountain scenery, seven breathtaking trestle bridges and nine tunnels, including one that was cold, wet, muddy and a mile and a half long. (continued below)

On Saturday, we attended the annual Railroad Days in Alberton, pop. 555. The original train station now houses the town library, but the librarian wasn’t aware that she worked in the station!

 Missoula and Butte still have magnificent brick Milwaukee Road train stations with impressive towers.  In Deer Lodge, I found one of the famous Little Joe engines. GE built 20 of these electric locomotives for Joseph Stalin’s USSR after WWII, but worsening relations meant they went to the Milwaukee Road at a bargain price instead. Three Rivers has an excellent new railroad museum, housed in the Northern Pacific station which was moved from Trident, a few miles north.  A good collection of CMSP&P memorabilia was found, including the schedule for the Milwaukee to Chicago train I rode as a youngster.    

At Manhattan the rail route follows a path to the north of the main Interstate through a very sparsely populated part of the state.  My favorite stretch was Manhattan to Ringling, where the gravel road turns to deeply rutted dirt and the only road sign said “Impassible During Rain or Snow”. The mostly ghost town of Maudlow was where the mailman told me, “Nope, I’ve never driven the road to Ringling, but I’ve been told you can get through.”  I made it as far east as Livina, where I left the Milwaukee Road route and followed the BNSF south to my hotel near Billings.  The next leg of my quest will take me east to North and South Dakota.   

APRIL IN WASHINGTON - LOOKING FOR THE CMSP&P

When I was growing up in Milwaukee, I often rode trains on the Milwaukee Road . I still have a sentimental attachment to the railroad that took the name of my hometown. I was sad to learn of its demise in the 1980’s. It began as the twenty-mile-long Milwaukee & Waukesha Railway in 1850 and eventually reached Seattle in 1909. In April I drove across Washington state, looking for the route of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific railroad. On my three-day drive thru mostly rural Washington, I discovered there wasn’t much left of the Milwaukee Road, except for a superb 250-mile bike trail, the Palouse to Cascades State Park Trail. Some of the trail wanders thru abandoned arid farm land in the south central part of the state. Carry lots of water if you ride it. Farther west, the route includes spectacular scenery over Snoqualmie Pass and the two-mile-long Snoqualmie Tunnel. Don’t forget to bring your headlamp.

Maui in April

The first plane flight in over a year brought us to Hawaii for a week in post-Covid (almost) paradise.  After thoroughly checking our QR codes and negative test results, the authorities allowed us to enter Maui at Kahului Airport.  Warm surf, hanging with friends, biking, snorkeling, good food, sunsets and walks on the beach made one feel like life will be relaxed, fun and social again, soon.

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Capitol Reef in October

Our first camping trip in fifteen years.  I had just read The Capitol Reef Reader by Stephen Trimble, so we chose a remote campsite in Capitol Reef National Park.  When we passed the  “Next Services 109 Miles” sign on I-70, I started to worry a bit.   From the last pavement of Route 72 to our campground was 13 miles on narrow, bumpy  4WD roads, but at least there were signs telling us we weren’t lost.  From the campsite down to Cathedral Valley was the most challenging road I’ve ever driven.  Extremely rough, narrow, with tight switchbacks, plunging down 500 vertical feet of slope that couldn’t quite be called a cliff.   If the road wasn’t rocky, it was covered with an inch or two of superfine dust.  The destination was well worth the drive.  The valley is a collection of impossible rock castles and spires – and very few people.  The night skies were filled with countless stars and galaxies, and a moon so bright, we needed no lights for our hikes.

After a couple nights under the stars, a forecast of 15 degrees and snow sent us to the Rim Rock Inn in Torrey for a night.  More spectacular geology in the center of the park, before we headed south over Boulder Mountain and through the endless white Navajo sandstone of the Escalante Canyons.  As we got closer to the home stretch drive on I-15, the blizzard hit and we passed a pickup and its 30-foot trailer in the ditch, but still upright.  We made it home by sunset. 

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Treemageddon

On September 8, the Wasatch Front from Salt Lake City north to Idaho was hit by an unprecedented windstorm. Gusts were recorded at 112 mph at the University of Utah. Trees were down everywhere, especially large old trees that add so much to SLC’s quiet residential avenues. Most streets were blocked or barely navigable. Traffic lights were out. 45 semi-trailers on I-15 were blown over. Getting anywhere was frustrating and slow. 180,000 homes and businesses were without power, for 24-36 hours and longer.

Below are a few photos from the SLC Avenues neighborhood. We’ll miss all these beautiful arboreal friends.

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Pika, Pica, Pica

For many years, my favorite mammal has been the mouse-sized pika. They are found throughout the mountains of the western US, in talus fields and piles of broken rock that are fringed by vegetation in alpine areas, usually at or above the tree line.

I often find them when I am hiking in the higher elevations of the Alta ski area, at 9500 feet and above.  Because of their gray-brown fur, pikas can be difficult to see, but they are very vocal and their “nreeee” calls

https://vimeo.com/147811494

make it easy to know they are nearby.  Recent studies suggest some populations are declining due to various factors, most climate change.

The American pika (Ochotona princeps) is a relative of rabbits and about 6 inches in length.  Pikas are herbivores, eating grasses, weeds, and tall wildflowers. To prepare for winter, pikas  save up food during the summer. A pika will collect a pile of  wildflowers and grasses and put them out in the sun to dry.  The plants are stored in the pika's den until winter.

A relative, Ili pika  (Ochotona iliensis), was discovered in Xinjiang, NW China in 1983 and is larger than the American pika.  The Ili population has declined severely and is a threatened species.

Pica is a size of type, 10 characters per inch.  In the seventies, I spent much time creating newspaper ads for my business, which meant I had to pay attention to pica and elite (12 characters per inch) and other type specifications if I wanted the ad to be correct.  As a result, I misspelled “pika” for many years, using the “pica” spelling I had learned in advertising work.  Pica is also an eating disorder that can be exhibited by the consumption of dirt.

I’ve heard that the pika inspired the character Pikachu in Pokemon, maybe the Ili pika.  There is definitely a similarity, tho Pikachu’s ears are much longer. 

Most of the images here were taken this summer.  A few are from September a couple years ago, when Alta got an early blanket of snow.

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Covid Days on 18th Avenue - July

It’s ninety-five degrees and the virus is exploding – in Utah, Arizona, Texas and Florida.  Can’t you all just wear a mask and stay distant?   At least the mountains are overflowing with wildflowers.

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Covid Days on 18th Avenue - June

Covid Days on 18th Avenue - May

It’s been a month and a half since our world shrank. I’m still looking out the window and seeing the variegated, multi-cultural, multi-generational parade of hikers, bikers and dog walkers every day. And monitoring new holes being dug in the front yard. Never a dull moment.

Covid Days on 18th Avenue - April

”Our world has changed” is what you hear everywhere these days. Someday, maybe in a year or two, the world will be normal again. But until then we all must live in a different, very small, and unresolved world. Since I am at home with little to do, and every day there is a parade of hikers, bikers and dog walkers going by, I plan to post at least one photo per day of what I see from our window and nearby.

Prize-Winning Photograph

In mid-March, just as the seriousness of the Covid-19 epidemic started to sink in, I heard from a Wyoming friend that one of my images had been awarded a prize. Woo hoo! I had entered a winter shot in the National Juried Photography Show at the Sage Community Arts Center in Sheridan Wyoming. The theme of the show was “Solace of Open Spaces”. I won second prize. What wonderful news to distract me from the ubiquitous end-of-the-world pronouncements.

This image was taken outside Victor, Idaho last March on a very cold afternoon following a day of powder skiing at Grand Targhee. Walking down a snow-covered gravel road, I was looking around for something interesting for my camera. The late sun cast a perfect shadow. I called the image Winter Furlough.