Moominmama's Adventures

Wherein Moominmama is amazed and inspired by glaciers and a hike up the Athabasca... Moominmama will never tire of the pure blue of glacial ice and water. Having seen this only in video and pictures, it thrilled me to my core to find myself actually on a glacier. I had to apologize to my guide, Mel, that I was 60 going on 6 because I couldn't stop exclaiming over the wonder of what I was seeing. And it hurts in a uniquely personal way now to understand how quickly these ice fields are melting.  A piece of tape on a pole drilled into the Athabasca Glacier was already eight inches higher off the ground only four days after that tape had been applied at then-ground level. Well above our heads was the measurement for the previous month. Much of the meltwater flows in rivulets, sparkling and cold, atop the glacier, as well as below.  The trained glacier guides not only have to spend their days leading groups, but re-routing the stony ascent to the glacier because water is rushing d...

In which Moominmama arrives in the Canadian Rockies and finds a surprising connection with the Japanese miners she learned about on Vancouver Island... Mount Robson is the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies, and it is rare to see its peak, which is typically cloud-bound. So it was an auspicious start to Moominmama's time in the Rockies to arrive at the foot of Robson and see the mountain in all its glory. Still trying to pick my jaw up from the ground. Another surprise came in the form of a photograph on an informational placard outside the visitor center. Glare obscures the image, but these are Canadian-Japanese men removed from the Vancouver Island town of Cumberland, which I wrote about in the last post. In 1942, after Pearl Harbor, the Canadian Japanese men -- many of them now Canadian citizens and some even World War I veterans -- were forcibly evacuated from Canada's Pacific coast and sent to road camps, their forced labor contributing to the construction of the Yellowh...

  In which Moominmama joins a cult and visits Mount Washington... Behold the holy circle of Altoistes (photo thanks to Pete Henley!) Moominmama joined with 15 other Alto trailer owners (individuals and couples) on the eastern side of Vancouver Island, British Columbia for several days of hiking, campfires and conversation. It may help to know that the Moominhouse was built by a Canadian company Safari Condo, which makes travel vans and trailers -- the latter line known as the Alto.  Altos come in 17-foot, 21-foot and 24-foot lengths with a 17-foot version that has a retractable roof. (The Moominhouse is a 17-foot "fixed" roof model). But there are similarities and differences in all the trailers that make it fun to compare. And individual touches made visiting one another's traveling abodes a lesson in great ideas! When Altoistes gather, they form an Altogather, labeled a "cult" by one of the participant's daughters. This was Moominmama's first Altogathe...

Of waves, waterfalls and welcomes... Moominmama has been loving the Pacific Coast. Starting in Crescent City, California and heading up to Bandon, Oregon, the waves exploding against the rocks and rolling up the beach have been a hypnotic pleasure. Tectonic plate action has surfaced enormous rocks all along the coast, creating wild formations and nesting areas offshore, as well as turning the beaches into a treasure chest for rock hounds. Although work projects and connectivity issues set Moominmama back in terms of updating the blog, her travels have continued. After leaving the redwoods, I drove to Eugene, Oregon and met with my brother for the weekend as he revisited the town where he went to college.  Before he arrived, I stopped at the Saturday market in Eugene, a combination of the Lane County Farmers Market and an open-air craft fair billed as the oldest in the U.S. Moominmama was delighted to find Swedish cardamom buns, but took a pass on Ganja gummies.  And of course,...

Wherein Moominmama communes with the world's tallest trees... Moominmama is camped in a shady grove called the Mill Creek Campground in the Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park. When I first arrived and strolled around the campgrounds, I was on the lookout for old growth redwoods, the impossibly tall trees for which this area is known. All I found were stumps, giant garage-sized stumps with younger redwoods growing right up next to them. They looked like little families gathered around their felled ancestor. Turns out that's not far from the truth. This part of the redwoods was once heavily logged, and Mill Creek is called that because it once held a mill. Because the redwood tree is incredibly dense at the base, loggers set up platforms attached further up the tree, 10-to-12 feet up, where they could more easily drill, saw and chop.  The cut-off stump responds to the insult by sending out basal sprouts, which grow into genetic copies of the original but still rely on the roots ...

Wherein Moominmama observes granite, trees and trails in Yosemite and compares them to the Granite State... The granite in Yosemite National Park appears to have been scoured clean. Trees may cluster in the valleys and in isolated spots on the top, but there are vast expanses of grey rock overlooking the valleys. Rough to the touch, it seems smooth from a distance, with no space to capture dirt for a wind-blown seed. These features share common factors with the granite in New Hampshire - a combination of underground forces that first formed the granite from magma then shoved it up toward the light of day. Wind and water tore off the other layers of dirt and stone until the granite remained. Then glaciers, like giant scouring pads, ground the sides even steeper and left a detritus of broken rock below. In New Hampshire's White Mountains, it appears the rock broke off in large chunks and left jagged cliffs and plenty of room for soil to collect, allowing plants and trees to grow. The...

In which Moominmama learns how much climate (and culture) can differ on one side of a mountain versus the other... Driving into Carson City on the western edge of Nevada, the snow capped peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains are a stunning sight after miles of desert. Moominmama had only just settled in when she realized it was a short drive up and over the western hills to get to Lake Tahoe, the second deepest lake (after Crater Lake in Oregon) in the U.S. After hiking along part of the Rubicon trail on the southern rim of the lake, the brilliant colors compelled me to break out my folding kayak. I wanted to be closer to the glittering turquoise near the beaches and the saturated aquamarine further out. The photo at the top was taken from my kayak pointed at the beach. And this photo was taken from the Rubicon trail that runs high along the rocky cliffs. It still doesn't capture the colors! I'd gone from sagebrush to piney woods. I'd gone from the wild west to the wild weal...