(no subject)

This is what you shall do:
Love the earth and sun and the animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labors to others,
Hate tyrants, argue not concerning God,
Have patience and indulgence toward the people,
Take off your hat to nothing known or unknown,
Or to any man or number of men,
Go freely with powerful uneducated persons,
And with the young and with the mothers of families,
Read these leaves in the open air,
Every season of every year of your life,
Reexamine all you have been told,
At school at church or in any book,
Dismiss whatever insults your own soul,
And your very flesh shall be a great poem,
And have the richest fluency not only in its words,
But in the silent lines of its lips and face,
And between the lashes of your eyes,
And in every motion and joint of your body.

-Walt Whitman

Expotitions: Ancient pathways - and pathways diverted (Beaverhead Route, Grand Falls)

Okay, two very cool places to share with you from last weekend.

Beaverhead Route
On our hike on Saturday, B & I decide to walk along the Beaverhead Route. This pathway is more than 1200 years old, created by the Hopis to travel from their Mesas down the Mogollon Rim to points further south.  The Mogollon Rim, basically a hundreds-of-miles-long cliff, is very steep in most places, and you just cannot go around.  The route they chose is amazing - it follows a steep but workable incline, requiring no scrambling.  We were simultaneously impressed by the selection of the route - surely the easiest way up the cliff - and appalled to imagine driving a horse-driven wagon up or down it.

Until the Schnebly Hill Road was built, this route was the *only* wagon road between Sedona and Flagstaff.  (89A through Oak Creek Canyon was built in the 1930s, and I-17 was built in the 1950s. Schnebly HIll Road is now a forest road suitable only for 4wd / high-clearance vehicles, and is closed the entire winter season. Beaverhead Route is a hiking trail, not suitable for (and closed to) vehicles.)

 

As a hike, it's great. One mile one way, 1,000 elevation change, but it didn't kill us.  As you climb, and up at the top, the view is fantastic.  We walked on for a bit to see if we could find a vista looking toward the north, but didn't see one. We did see a jackrabbit.

 

Judging by the footprints along the trail, since the last rain, the only other visitors to this trail were one other hiker, and an entirely family of elk. 
 

Grand Falls
On Sunday, we connected with Kim and her colleague up in Flagstaff and headed out to visit Grand Falls, on the Navajo Reservation (about an hour? from Flagstaff). This seasonal waterfall runs in the spring during snowmelt, so this was the time to go.  

 

The falls were caused by a lava flow that pushed the Little Colorado River out of its canyon for a stretch, creating an untypical meander around the lava, then returning back to its canyon, plunging over the side.  
Here's a great aerial view showing how the lava pushed aside the river: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/43508956 (the river flows from top left to bottom right in this photo. Isn't that SWEET!!!)  
Here's a few of the falls themselves: http://www.google.com/images?q=%22grand+falls%22+navajo&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1280&bih=899

We might want to go back when it's not flowing, actually, to see more of the underlying geologic structure.
 

Paths were walked. Coats were buffeted in the wind. Rocks were scaled.  Picnics were eaten. It was a ton of fun.