SOUTHERN UTAH ROCKS [and] SHIFTING THE PARADIGM

SOUTHERN UTAH ROCKS

Greetings from sunbaked San Diego, CA where only 9 cm of rain have fallen since 1 January (the average is about 2.5 times that). But an El Nino wind/sea surface temperature event is currently taking shape in the Pacific, which should help California have a more robust upcoming winter rainy season.

Your lead A.P.R. editor is visiting his brother Greg (who is an avid surfer), and sister Mischelle, and soaking in the sights/activities of the area. One thing I've long wanted to do, is tour southern Utah more in-depth, than I have in the past. This was a good opportunity. So, the morning after my arrival here on 9/22, Mischelle, her partner Lisa, and I set out in our little rented car.

First stop was Las Vegas, for two nights. Mischelle and Lisa both love it there. I find it compelling, for different reasons, as an epitome of what our current financial/economic system represents, and an excellent metaphor showing how unsustainable it is. Las Vegas receives only about 10 cm of rainfall a year, yet has a population of 1.5 million, with green lawns, golf courses, and swimming pools evaporating water into the desiccating desert air. Water comes not just from the Colorado River (the entire output of which is allocated to the states it flows through, leaving nothing but a salty trickle for Mexico!), but other smaller waterways in Nevada. Which are also fully used up. Then there is the incredible power load for all the casinos, the lights, machines, etc.. Which uses the bulk of the electricity from Hoover Dam, which will silt up and become useless in 20-30 years, because of the extreme evaporation from Lake Mead (this is not factoring in any drought effects).

So, I think of these things alot when I'm there, but still try to have some fun! And, I did win 500.00 on a keno machine my second evening there at Sam's Town, one of the older casinos, north of "the strip" (which necessitated a trip to REI the next day, to make sure I'd have something to show for it). And a couple hundred the last day on the slots in different places.

We had two objectives for this trip, to spend the bulk of our time visiting Bryce Canyon N.P., then drive back through Zion N.P. An anomalously strong high pressure ridge (imagine that?) was over the western states, and so the weather was perfectly sunny and very warm during our entire trip. The drive from Cedar City, east up through the Cedar Breaks country was very beautiful, the aspens were in full fall yellow/red colours from about 2000 metres elevation up. Unfortunately, in the ten years since I had last been through here, half the high-elevation stands of lodgepole pine and white fir were dead from bug kill and diseases, caused by the warmer winters now, which allow more pests to over-winter. Making for some bleak scenes at times.

This route, Utah state highway 14, east from Cedar City, is highly recommended, for those of you who haven't driven that way. Of course, you won't find it on this old map of the region, but we here at A.P.R. happen to like it, so included it, to serve as a reference. It pre-dates the designation of Bryce and Zion N.P.'s as well, so you'll have to poke around a bit on it.

Lisa reserved us a nice "wet" cabin in Kodachrome Basin state park for three nights, which is about 40 km east and south of Bryce. Not having heard much about this area, I was not sure what to expect.
This is a view of the Basin. Amazing orange/red rocks, with interesting "sand pipe" formations in different shapes and sizes.

There were about 25 km of trails in it in different places, and the lighting at different times of the day made for beautiful views and photo-ops. We all hiked around quite a bit, and I did a few short 10K runs, once in the evening, and again on our last morning there.

One of my favourite rock formations was just down the road from our cabin, a sand-pipe (thought to be composed of sand from an ancient stream bed), next to the orange rocks, which had a strange horizontal groove in them. This picture, taken in the evening, shows how the lighting really accentuates the colours here. I liked having the moon in close proximity as well.

Kodachrome Basin is lower than Bryce, only around 1800 m, so it was quite warm, up to 30C by day, and only dropping to about 10C at night. It is cold enough here in winter for snow and frost, but not cold enough to limit nasty insects. Our second evening there I discovered a 12cm diameter spider with a tan/black body in the shower. Argh! I slipped a paper coffee cup over it, then slid a coffee bag envelope over the cup, and ran it out the door, fast! Just as I took off the covering envelope, it raced up the cup toward my hand. I yelped and dropped that sucker fast! It fell under the floor-boards of the front porch. We are not too crazy about spiders...

Both of our of two days in Bryce NP dawned hot and sunny. What makes Bryce so noteworthy are the tan/pink/orange sandstone eroding rock formations on the east side of a high plateau, which is at an elevation of 2300-2800 metres. The dropoffs on this amazing east-side are around 200-700 metres. You can see these interesting colours from near the start of our hike on the first day, the Queen's Canyon and Navajo Loop trails.

The fall colours from the aspen (and vine maples, where there are denser coniferous stands of white fir, ponderosa pine, and douglas fir) combined with those from the rocks were fantastic.

On our 9 km hike the first day on the Queen's Canyon and Navajo Loop trails, here are some of the interesting sights. Not bad for such a short excursion!

Dropping down into a slot canyon pretty quickly on this hike, the orange rocks combined with the deep blue high-elevation sky were stunning.

I really liked these Douglas Fir (Pinaceae Tseudotsuga Menziesii) trees in the narrow slot. This one was almost 30 metres tall and and had a one metre diameter trunk at breast height.

The bright orange colours even made me look like that. The warm and dry conditions, combined with the high altitude, made me have to carry lots of water and fuel. Even on this short hike, I must have drank two litres of water.

At the tail end of the hike, at the top of the rim near Sunrise Point (at an elevation of 2700m), was this interesting bristlecone pine. I named it the Walking Tree. Erosion has been steady, but slow enough, for the tree to keep pace with it by extending its roots. Interesting. The late afternoon colours were of course amazing here. There are about 15 km of trails above the rim that are groomed for skiing in winter. What a beautiful place to get some nordic skiing in, something we'd love to do there.

I had wanted to do a full 48km fast-pack of the Under The Rim Trail from Rainbow Point north to Bryce Point, then the Rim Trail to the visitors center. But that saturday night it was so hot in our cabin, none of us slept well, and instead of getting up at 0630, so I could be on the trail by 0900, we slept in until 0930. So, I decided just to do the first half. Starting at Rainbow Point, the southern terminus of the park road and trailhead for the 38 km Under the Rim Trail. I got to the Rainbow Point trailhead at 1330, and ran the first 10 km downhill, from 2780m to 2260m. I was able to keep a good pace on the downs and levels, but any upslope, and I had to walk, with that altitude. It felt like 30C, even that high, with strong sun, so used alot of water and fuel, more than double than I would at home in the lowlands of interior Alaska. By the time I finished my 23K, 3 hours later, I had gone through 4 liters of water, 3 energy gels, and a lunch. Since there was no water available on the trail, it would have been difficult to carry twice that much for the full 48K. My pack on this outing was just about 8 kg.

The Under The Rim trail drops down from the high plateau, to the base of the rim, which all the multi-coloured rock formations jut up from. This it follows, in up and down sections through three drainages, to Bryce Point. I cut out though halfway through, to get back to the highway, where Mischelle and Lisa could pick me up. Scenes like this were common though, looking up through the fir and aspen trees to the bright orange rocks toward the top of the rim. I was warned by a ranger the previous day to be careful of the altitude, but I just felt a little more tired than usual, the heat was just as much a factor.

After our three days exploring Bryce Canyon and Kodachrome Basin, we had to drive back to Cedar City, and hop south on I-15 to Vegas, then San Diego. But were able to drive a different way, south on US-89, to Utah 9, which bisects Zion NP.

Zion was even more stunning than Bryce. The rocks are more solid sandstone here, and are almost reminiscent of Yosemite's granite, except with more colour. Which makes for incredible scenery, with sheer vertical rock walls 500-1200 metres high.

The hot, dry weather continued, under the high pressure ridge. Since the highway through Zion descends here to only 1200 metres, it got quite hot, up to 35C! And this is the last day

in September. But the deep blue sky and dry air made the colours of the rocks, that more vibrant.

Unfortunately, we didn't have time to stop and hike any of the many trails there. So, a multi-day exploration here will be necessary some time in the coming years. Preferably in a cooler month.

We got to Vegas in the evening, where we stayed at the Fitzgerald. The largest casino in the old area north of the strip, 34 stories of hotel rooms, with a casino at the bottom. None of us did very well this time. It was even hinted at by one of the workers there, that the casinos aren't paying out as well as they used to, because fewer people are coming in, due to the poor economy and higher unemployment.

SHIFTING THE PARADIGM

From Wikipedia...

"Another use of the word paradigm is in the sense of Weltanschauung (German for world view). For example, in social science, the term is used to describe the set of experiences, beliefs and values that affect the way an individual perceives reality and responds to that perception. Social scientists have adopted the Kuhnian phrase "paradigm shift" to denote a change in how a given society goes about organizing and understanding reality. A “dominant paradigm” refers to the values, or system of thought, in a society that are most standard and widely held at a given time. Dominant paradigms are shaped both by the community’s cultural background and by the context of the historical moment. The following are conditions that facilitate a system of thought to become an accepted dominant paradigm:

Professional organizations that give legitimacy to the paradigm

Dynamic leaders who introduce and purport the paradigm

Journals and editors who write about the system of thought. They both disseminate the information essential to the paradigm and give the paradigm legitimacy

Government agencies who give credence to the paradigm

Educators who propagate the paradigm’s ideas by teaching it to students

Conferences conducted that are devoted to discussing ideas central to the paradigm

Media coverage

Lay groups, or groups based around the concerns of lay persons, that embrace the beliefs central to the paradigm

Sources of funding to further research on the paradigm"

For all of modern U.S. history, and especially since the 1980s, when a concerted effort seems to have been undertaken by the "power elite" and corporate media to reinforce this, the dominant paradigm of our culture has been that the "free market", or unregulated capitalism, would see to all of our needs. That although capitalism is based on greed, market forces would weed out the "bad apples" and the general population would benefit greatly from commerce unfettered by government regulations. And, the last four U.S. administrations (and seemingly now, the fifth) have driven policy by this paradigm.

What has it gotten us? Well, just since 2001, two immoral, illegal, and un-necessary wars, leading to the deaths of at least 1.2 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan (with millions more homeless and unemployed). A semi-depression economically, with true jobless rates approaching 25 percent, brought on by the near-demise of many of the largest financial institutions in the U.S. Who through their greed and short-sightedness, and abetted by the deregulation of the financial industry over the past 25 years, bankrupted themselves through greedy and short-sighted decisions, and keep begging the government for more aid, since they are "too big to fail". Not to mention the thousands of corporate lobbyists in Washington D.C. working on behalf of the defense, fossil fuel, financial, and insurance industries, who are intent on keeping the system unchanged. As well, increasing atmospheric CO2 and methane concentrations from our fossil-fuel based way of life are continually increasing, with no real end in sight. Which will unleash global climatic catastrophe unless concerted action is taken within 10-20 years, at most.

With all these problems as a result of the "dominant paradigm", isn't it time for something new and different?

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2009/10/02

I urge you all to look at this link, and see Michael Moore's new movie, when you can. He puts everything we just discussed in great perspective, and in a very convincing, yet entertaining way.

I came across this article last week.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/30-14

I thought it was an excellent summary of where we are at, concerning the Obama administration, and very disheartening. We knew Mr. Obama, from his senatorial record, was not going to effect much change, on his own, and warned you in several previous posts. Yet, it still is discouraging, to see this borne out.

I'd like to present you with the best part of this article:

"And given the global financial meltdown that has hit working people so hard, can anyone really say that those who critique the entire capitalist system don't have a point?

Rather than being a mere "abstraction," as Obama claimed, capitalism is an economic system that functions on a set of rules that we created, which inevitably leads to massive inequalities between the haves and have-nots and the easily avoidable deaths of millions around the world every year who simply cannot afford basic medical care or food. It rewards greed and is based on a belief that continual, limitless economic growth is not only possible, but necessary.

The planet's atmosphere and natural resources, however, are finite and being quickly exhausted by the developed world's gluttonous consumption.

In his new book, All My Bones Shake, Robert Jensen succinctly sums up our predicament: "Capitalism is fundamentally inhuman, antidemocratic and unsustainable. Capitalism has given those of us in the First World lots of stuff (though much of it of questionable value) in exchange for our souls, for our hope for progressive politics, and for the possibility of a decent future for children. Either we change or we die -- spiritually, politically, literally."

Obama's dismissal of mass nonviolent action was disingenuous for other reasons as well. Behind his desk in his Senate office, Obama prominently displayed pictures of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

In an interview last year, he explained that the portraits were there "to remind me that real results will not just come from Washington, they will come from the people." And only weeks before the G-20, during his "controversial" address to school children, the president brought up Gandhi, calling him "a real hero of mine."

Could anyone possibly argue with a straight face that King, who was killed while planning the Poor People's Campaign, would not be on the streets with those calling for economic justice? Would Gandhi not oppose the diversion of $700 billion this year from meeting people's basic needs to fund the Pentagon and the military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan?

The interview with Obama also revealed a growing chasm between his approach to social movements and that of Franklin D. Roosevelt, to whom he is widely compared.

After listening to the concerns of the legendary labor organizer and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph during a meeting, as the famous and perhaps apocryphal story goes, FDR replied: "I agree with everything that you've said, including my capacity to be able to right many of these wrongs and to use my power and the bully pulpit ... But I would ask one thing of you, Mr. Randolph, and that is go out and make me do it."

During his presidential campaign, Obama even used this story. He told his supporters that he was just one person who could not make the changes they wanted to see by himself. Obama's final message was clear: "Make me do it."

Now that Obama is in the White House, however, he is singing a different tune. Rather than encouraging grassroots protest to help push the public debate and further a progressive legislative agenda as Roosevelt did, Obama is unfortunately publicly trying to quash pressure from the left.

As a counter to the recent mobilization of right-wing tea-baggers, it would seem that now is as good a time as ever for the president to embrace the protesters who are championing at least some of the causes that he once claimed to believe in.

Instead, Obama disgracefully sent in the militarized police -- with the National Guard on the ready -- to silence their dissent."

This sums things up nicely. It really is time for a "Paradigm Shift", because the future of the planet, and the human race, is at stake. Instead of a system based on greed, how about one based on empathy and concern for one's fellow man/woman?

What would such a system be like? Very much like what the Green Party espouses. A governmental system with tightly regulated capitalism, universal health care, education, gainful employment and housing as human rights, and vastly reduced military expenditures, combined with an end to all overseas military operations.

The closest analogues to this can be found in the social democracies of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Western Europe (and Japan to a certain extent). If more people in this country could visit these countries, especially those who are blue collar and socially conservative, traditionally voting Republican, they would understand how they are being manipulated. And we would become much closer to being able to realize the dream of a more sane and just political and economic system. But since this is impossible, we have to try and educate people about what is possible here, since other countries are providing for their citizens much more effectively than ours. And work in our own lives, to promote peace, tolerance, and justice. Then change can really occur. Cheers.