Earth Explorations

I am still blogging about exploration but taking a short break from Earth Explorations while I document an expedition with educators called Exploring Badlands National Park through Science and Storytelling.  I'm using the Open Explorer platform which is a National Geographic open platform where anyone can write about their exploration and expeditions. Once the debrief phase of the expedition wraps up in a few weeks, I'll be back here.

These are the latest additions to the bag that functions as my purse but which is actually an 18L daypack.  They are a to-go ware set of bamboo utensils with a steel straw that I tucked in there and a collapsible Sea to Summit container with leak proof lid. These live in their own zippered compartment along with an occasional stainless steel mug. I am stepping up my efforts to remove single use plastic from my life. National Geographic has launched a Planet or Plastic initiative aimed at protecting the ocean by reducing the amount of plastic that gets washed into the sea. Since most of the plastic comes from developing countries with insufficient trash and recycling infrastructure I know that my part to reduce single use plastic will have practically a negligible impact on the amount of plastic in the ocean. And yet. In modeling carrying reusable utensils and collapsible food container as well as beverage container and shopping bags, I am making a difference in my river...

John Muir, the founder of the Sierra club, explorer of Alaskan wilderness, champion of Yosemite park, was a journaler. The University of the Pacific maintains many of John Muir's papers and has made them accessible by putting the digital images online. They have invited the public to participate as citizen curators and assist with transcribing the journals to make them more accessible. From the university website : Word-for-word transcriptions open up many more possibilities for researchers and the general public to find, read, and understand Muir's thoughts as he experienced them. It also facilitates online searching to locate information by specific topics. Volunteers can transcribe an entire journal or even just a single page. Even transcribing one or two pages increases the discoverability for historians, Muir enthusiasts, students, or anyone searching the internet. I spent the better part of a Friday evening recently trying to decipher...

I traveled to Seattle for a few days between my last post and this one. This was my first visit and according to the locals I was there during a stretch of especially nice weather, sunny with temps in the 60's and 70's. Indeed, I expected more rain and Starbucks. My work required staying on a ship which did not sail anywhere. The ship was docked in the port of Seattle next to massive fishing trawlers that were so huge that I did not take a picture because I knew I could not do justice to their size. My colleague on this trip, John Mitchell, wondered at the biomass these trawlers take out of the sea. One of the trawlers in port was the SS Ocean Phoenix . At 680 feet long, it is as long as city block. I don't know how tall it is but 10 stories at the highest point above the pier feels about right to me. It can hold 4,200 tons of what its owner Pacific Premier calls product or the all the different forms of Pollock it fishes and processes. I suppose this helps answer the q...

Being an explorer means being responsible. It's not just me saying this, it's National Geographic.  Responsibility is one of the attitudes of an explorer, an essential attribute of the explorer's habit of mind and approach to life. In case you are fuzzy about what being responsible means allow me to clarify. When I spoke to the middle and high school girls Women in Science conference I told them that responsibility meant being respectful of everyone, having integrity, and—this is the big one—to do no harm to and help where you can, both people and  the Earth. Leave No Trace  or LNT is an excellent organization that equips you with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to do no harm to the Earth and be responsible in both the back and front country.  I think their training should be required for everyone who considers themselves an explorer because being LNT competent and compliant helps protect and conserve wild places. And even if you don't think of yoursel...

In my post below I talked about the struggle of an ant to remove a small sprout of vegetation near the opening to its nest. I promised I would return the next day to give an update. Well, the next day was rainy and cold and I got busy. You know how it goes. I did go back the day after the next day. The first time I went back it was about 10am. A sprout was there... but it looked like it was in a slightly different place. I could not tell if it was the same sprout or a new one. After all, we've had a lot of moisture lately and all that warming. A new sprout was possible. As an aside, this is why EXACT siting is so important in research. The human memory is not that good at precision recall. I decided to call it uncertain, determined to be more precise in the future. I returned a few hours later, around 1pm, and noted a completely sprout free surface around the ant nest. Regardless of whether or not the sprouts were the same or different, they were gone. Ants - 1 (or may...

I read Thoreau's essay  ant war  in high school, or maybe it was first year composition in college— more than a few years ago—but the essay topic was sticky enough that throughout my adulthood I have stopped and watched ants whenever opportunity and time presented themselves.  I had a happy confluence of both on a walk yesterday. I came upon many ants, Harvester ants, huddled around the hole with a few busily scurrying in and out carrying small pebbles. I don't know what the huddlers were doing (beyond huddling, though I doubt that is the proper ant behavior term), nor why. I suspect it had something to do with this being early days of ant activity and just coming out of whatever dormant state they enter during the winter. The huddlers while interesting were not as interesting as this stalwart little ant in the video who was determined to cut down a sprout of vegetation. Harvester ants clear the areas around their holes of any vegetation and I imagine th...