A Culture Lost Beneath the Waters: The Downsville Dam/Pepacton Reservoir

Northern end of Pepacton Reservoir, looking NE.

“(Pepacton)” was the first sign I saw as I drove northward along the Pepacton Reservoir on Route 30, just northeast of Downsville, NY. Interesting, those parentheses. A lost community. There was no evidence of any settlements – just a perimeter road through the forested banks of the Pepacton Reservoir. How many more towns were here once, I wondered?

In upstate New York with a rare free afternoon, I had set out to explore the Downsville Dam – an enormous earthen dam completed in 1954 as part of the Delaware water system. I remember walking with my father along the crest of the dam when I was about 5 years old. Then it had seemed an endless expanse of bare earth stretching from one side of the valley to the other. I recall other sightseers strolling along the crest that Sunday afternoon as if they were on an outing at the Boardwalk.

Dad was always impressed by major events – natural and man-made -- that changed the earth in some way. Large-scale earthworks were a special fascination. I can imagine how the Downsville Dam must have inspired him.

Aerial view of Downsville [NY] Dam. Historic
Postcard.  Delhi, NY: Bob Wyer Photocards, ca. 1960.

The dam is 2,400 feet long, 200 feet high, and 1,800 feet thick at its base. The upstream side is concrete; the downstream side is a long, gently sloping earth embankment. The Reservoir is some 18 miles long, has a shore line of 50 miles, and a surface area of 6,400 acres. It drains a watershed of 370 square miles and holds 150 billion gallons of fresh water. A 26-mile long tunnel transports water eastward from the Pepacton Reservoir to the Rondout Reservoir, thence through the Delaware Aqueduct towards New York City.

The Pepacton was part of the Delaware system first approved in 1931 that included the Rondout, Neversink, and Cannonsville reservoirs. They augmented the earlier Ashokan and Schoharie reservoirs in the Catskills. These new reservoirs were to meet New York City’s water needs at least until 1990.

I traveled to the hamlet of Downsville via Route 30, a scenic route along the East Branch of the Delaware River in Delaware County. I was hoping for a visitor’s center where I could learn more about the dam and its history, not to mention a good viewing point for photographs like they have for the “Big Dams” built during the New Deal. I encountered none.

As part of the New York City water supply system, security is tight around the Pepacton Reservoir. There are no pull outs, no visitor centers. Fishing is allowed in the reservoir, but only by permit. There are only a few places to launch a boat. I saw only one boat on the water that day. Glimpses of the reservoir can be seen through the trees along the perimeter road, but otherwise, the best viewpoint for a photo is taken from a car window as you drive over the bridge at the north end near Margaretville. As for the dam itself, there is certainly no more strolling along the crest. Chain-link fencing and lack of a pull-out discourages any would-be sightseer from stopping for a closer look.

View of valley before inundation by Pepacton Reservoir.
From NYS interpretive exhibit nr. Margaretville, NY.

The story of the Pepacton Reservoir is revealed only in a small installation of several photo boards under a shelter at its northeastern corner. These modest boards provided the basics of the story and some excellent historic photos of the four hamlets that were inundated: Pepacton, Shavertown, Arena, and Union Grove. In all, 974 people were displaced, along with 36 businesses, 8 churches, 5 schools, 4 post offices, and 13 cemeteries, and a number of outlying farms. Subsequent research discovered only one other local history, one video produced in 2007, and one website that considered the building of the Downsville dam and the loss of the communities in the valley. I found numerous articles on the project in the online archives of the New York Times, which were quite satisfying. Perhaps there are more, but I was unable to find them during this search.

In contrast to this paucity, federal dams such as the Grand Coulee, which I visited this summer, are focal points for tourism and ready sources of information. That dam had an excellent interpretive center, which offered written materials, videos, staff, and walking tours not only about the dam engineering, but also the lost Native American culture that lived for generations beside the banks of the Columbia River. The Grand Coulee is remote from major tourist routes, yet the center was filled with visitors, many of whom had driven many miles out of their way to learn about the site.

Given the budget issues facing all levels of government these days, there is little chance that a more thoughtful and comprehensive exploration of the creation of the Delaware/Catskill water system will be installed near the reservoirs anytime soon. And yet, I hope that at some point New York will find the resources to better remember the communities that sacrificed their existence for the sake of the larger good and celebrate the marvels of this great engineering feat.

Student posing outside the school at Arena, NY (demolished 1954)  
From NYS exhibit board nr Margaretville, NY. 

Resources:


“A memorial to the towns that were sacrificed for New York City.” The Hudson Valley and the Catskills. Website. URL: http://bearsystems.com/losttowns/lost.html accessed August 24, 2010. Information on lost towns from the Delaware/Catskill reservoir system: West Hurley, Ashton, Glenford, Brown's Station, Olive Bridge, Brodhead, Shokan, West Shokan, Boiceville, Beerston, Cannonsville, Rock Rift, Rock Royal, Granton, Neversink, Bittersweet, Arena, Pepacton, Shavertown, Union Grove, Eureka, Montela, Lackawack and Gilboa.


“Shavertown – Reservoir of Memories.” Video. 2007. Documentary created by students Cheyenne Tait, Carrianne Fairbairn, and Brittany McAdams along with Mrs. Colleen Heavey and Mrs. Wendy Redden of Andes Central School. Project was made possible in part with a grant from the Catskill Watershed Corporation in partnership with the NYC Dept. of Environmental Protection. URL accessed August 24, 2010 [no longer online as of December 2014].


Jacobson, Alice H. Beneath Pepacton Waters. Andes NY: A.H. Jacobson, c1988; rev. 1994.

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Home Again

Appalachin Mountains

 14 National Parks, 10,793 Miles, 23 States, 36 Days. Not that I'm counting.

I arrived back in my home state of New Jersey on Friday July 29, two days ahead of schedule. I'm not sure of the exact moment when I decided that my trip was over, but suddenly going home was my only goal.

That moment may have been when the air started to grow heavy with the sultry summer murkiness so familiar to Easterners. It may have been while traveling along the comforting green folds of the Appalachian chain. All I know that, instead of musing expectantly about the next destination as I had for the past 5 weeks, I longed to sleep in my own bed at home in New Jersey.

So, instead of staying on the orange route across country that I had highlighted in my atlas, I picked up the blue highlighter. Blue was reserved for deviations, usually short cuts. Concessions. Surrender. In this case, I traced over the Interstate highways that would get me home faster than the original scenic routes I had mapped for my return.

Since my homecoming, I have busied myself with putting my life back in order. No longer confined to the back of the car, the things I brought with me and the things I acquired along the way seemed to multiply and explode throughout the house. Piles of books, clothes for all seasons, gifts for family and friends. Suddenly, mounds of stuff are everywhere. I'm still not quite sure how my little Jetta held all those things so compactly.

One of the first tasks was to take the Jetta to the car wash, where the dull film of road dust accumulated since California was scrubbed away. The car emerged gleaming, except for the little round white Park- to-Park tour sticker I had on the back window, which looks proudly weathered. Gifts are being distributed to their intended recipients. Books and other resource materials are moving to a special shelf for the real work that will come later.

Memories of the trip, however, linger on. The sweet scent of dry sagebrush after the rainstorm near Joshua Tree. The odd sensation of traveling half-blind into the fog on “Going to the Sun Road” in Glacier National Park, with the stone cliff rising straight up from one side of the narrow road and a several hundred-foot drop-off on the other. The amazing turn in the road from an arid section of Washington State into the entrance of Mt. Rainier National Park, where suddenly you're in a verdant rainforest. Getting up before dawn to catch the new day coming to the ancient cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde.

The most striking thing I discovered during this trip was the amazing beauty of each park. Each had spectacular aspects that were unique. And each park was preserved thanks to the heroic efforts of a small number of dedicated individuals who believed that these spaces should be preserved - not for economic benefit, but simply for their remarkable, breathtaking beauty.

What started out as a re-creation of the Park-to-Park highway dedication tour of 1920 and an exploration of the architecture and landscape design of the western national parks turned into something much more. First, I developed a deep appreciation for the sufferings that the first tour members endured on their trip. I found that, in many cases, the even the most direct roads taken in 1920 were impossibly circuitous. Much of the 1920 route consisted of dirt roads. Cars lacked the sophisticated suspension systems we have today. The passengers enjoyed only minimal protection from heat and cold. I marveled at the stamina of the group, especially on the road through the impossibly hot and unending plains that stretch from Casper, Wyoming, toward Yellowstone. Although there are times I felt I was “suffering” on this trip as I zipped along at 70 mph in my comfy, fully air-conditioned car, it was nothing to what they endured. We are the happy beneficiaries of the good roads that were built between and within these special places as a result of their efforts.

Second, I was completely overwhelmed by the monumental and dynamic landscape of the American West. Unlike the complacent, undulating hills I have always known on the East Coast, something is always on the move in the West -- earthquakes, landslides, cloudbursts, volcanos, wildfires -- at any moment, a dramatic natural event of enormous proportions might happen. It's somewhat disconcerting to someone like me, who is used to a more sedentary (or sedementary) life.

During the course of this trip, I took some 4,800 photos. Many of these are just visual notes, meant to trigger a memory, record a thought, or document something I thought interesting. Other, more ambitious photos tried to capture a mood, the delicacy of a wildflower, or the fleeting light of sunrise. I am still not sure how successful those efforts were.  It will take a long, thoughtful look through the images to sort that out.

So, this part of my trip is complete. It was amazing. Thank you to all who shared the journey with me along the way. Thank you, dear reader, for taking the time to follow along vicariously. Now the real work begins. I will keep you posted.


National Parks Visited (June July 2010):

Yellowstone (WY); Glacier (MT); Mt. Rainier (WA); Redwood (CA); Crater Lake (CA); Lassen Volcanic (CA); Yosemite (CA); King's Canyon, formerly Gen. Grant (CA); Sequoia (CA); Joshua Tree (CA); Zion (UT); Grand Canyon (AZ); Mesa Verde (CO); and Rocky Mountain (CO).


Most Useful Reference Books on the trip:

Guide to Scenic Highways and Byways: The 275 Best Drives in the U.S. 3rd Ed. Washington DC:  National Geographic Society, 2007.

Kaiser, Harvey H. The National Park Architecture Sourcebook. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008.

Laine, Don and Barbara. Frommer's National Parks of the American West. 6th Ed. Hoboken NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2008.

Whiteley, Lee and Jane Whiteley. The Playground Trail: The National Park-to-Park Highway: To and Through the National Parks of the West in 1920. Boulder CO: Lee Whiteley and Jane Whiteley, 2003.

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Berea, KY - Well-Crafted Living

Handcrafted Birdhouses
Appalachian Fireside Gallery, Main St, Berea, KY

Kentucky had been first on my list of explorations for this trip. It was to have been a simple diversion before starting out on the real itinerary, the Park-to-Park Highway Tour Redux. Unfortunately, time and distance constraints did not allow the luxury of leisurely stops on the way out West, so it was rescheduled for the trip home.

On the way East, however, I took the more southern route from Denver along Route 70. I passed quickly through Colorado, then Kansas, then Missouri and, after a day exploring St. Louis, headed toward Kentucky.

Now, I can't explain exactly why Kentucky has lived so long in my imagination. Certainly it was not horse-racing - I'm not big on horses and I discovered that the season was over by July, in any event. Perhaps I had a vision of myself sitting on a cool veranda somewhere, drinking a mint julep. But then I had an idea of what went into one and didn't think I'd like it anyway.

No, the real reason was Kentucky crafts – a passion of mine. The Kentucky “heritage trail” was billed as a series of places around that state that featured the music, folk art, crafts, and cooking of the Appalachin region. I never did find an actual “trail,” but I did find the town of Berea.

The flourishing little town of Berea not only has many talented crafts people, but it also a remarkable history – one that is still being lived today. One of the central reasons for its prosperity is Berea College, the campus of which is located just off the main street.

Fairchild Hall (ca. 1872), Berea College, Berea, KY

The school was founded in 1855 by Kentucky abolitionist John G. Fee to provide a low-cost, high-quality education to students of all races. Not only has Berea College continued its commitment to interracial education and harmony among all people but it has developed a guiding philosophy that emphasizes the importance of service to communities in Appalachia and beyond, stewardship of natural resources, and preservation of regional culture and traditions.

For more than 150 years, the school has provided tuition-free education to its students. The school brochure notes that Berea College is probably the only school in the United States to turn qualified candidates away because they don't have financial need.

All of the some 1,500 students it admits each year work at least 10 hours per week in College jobs, which funds a portion of their college expenses. Among the jobs students hold are staffing the Boone Tavern Hotel and Restaurant, an historic hotel owned by the College in downtown Berea, producing regional crafts for sale in several student craft outlets such as the Log House, and myriad other jobs within the school's 100 academic departments and administration. The rest of the funds come from contributions, grants, and other funding sources.

The students I met admitted that the academics were challenging, but that they really loved being there. A more polite and considerate group of young people would be hard to find. The town is “dry,” meaning no liquor is sold or served anywhere – a fact that some hotel guests find incomprehensible at first, but perhaps contributes to good performance at school. Given the poverty of the region, it was inspiring to see how one school could not only live up to its mission, but thrive – even today – without charging its students a penny for a quality education.

Old Artisan Village, Berea, KY

And yes, I did eventually find my crafts in Berea. The student crafts store downtown offered wonderful woven goods, furniture, and pottery – all favorites. And in the “Old Town Artisan Village” about a mile away, there are many other types of regional crafts represented among the several stores. Great finds. Some of the artisans were former students of the college who had stayed on to practice their craft in this supportive environment.

I left Berea much poorer in terms of my wallet, but much richer for having shared in the story of this remarkable community.


For more information about the region, see:

Children of the Mountains Struggle to Survive, Diane Sawyer Reports on Children in Central Appalachia, by Keturah Gray (Feb. 13, 2009)  URL: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=6865077

Berea College Website   http://www.berea.edu/  

Berea - Where Arts Live. Website of the Berea Tourism Center, 201 N Broadway, Berea, Kentucky 40403. URL http://www.berea.com/

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Storms in the Rockies

There is nothing half-hearted about weather in the West. Extremes are the order of the day.

Last week, I headed east on Colorado's Route 160 after my early morning exploration of Mesa Verde National Park, thankful that I was finally leaving the oven that was the “Four Corners,” where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet. The mountains on the horizion promised cooler weather at last.

Durango was the first stop – a well-preserved, chic, and busy town in southern Colorado. For the first time in days, temperatures were tolerable. I enjoyed walking around the main street and driving through some of the historic residential neighborhoods, then returned to the road to continue on to Pagosa Springs, as the route rose into the Southern Rockies. I crossed the Continental Divide via the spectacular Wolf Creek Pass in the San Juan National Forest, and turned southeast towards Alamosa.

Ominous clouds started to gather over the peaks as I approached La Veta Pass, which takes the road over the eastern Rocky Mountain mountains into Walsenberg and down to I-25. At first they were a pleasant diversion. The land was so flat that it was easy to see where the rain was already falling. The storms looked pretty serious but, at least so far, it looked like my route was going to successfully skirt the worst of it.

 
However, as I started the climb into the pass, the first drops appeared on the windshield. Then the rain became steady, but no one slowed down very much. When the hills disappeared into a gray torrent, cars started to slow, although the 18-wheelers continued to roar past my car. I finally pulled over to the side and turned on my hazards when my wipers, going at full tilt, made absolutely no impact on the amount of water on the windshield – I couldn't see a thing.

I waited. And waited. No let-up. I watched rivulets turn into small rivers along the dirt pull-out. I worried about being caught in a flash flood, something news reports always warn about in this region, but the water seemed to be successfully disappearing somewhere behind my car. When I could at least see one hill in front of me, I set out again but pulled over around the next curve with several other out- of-state cars unused to the force of this kind of storm.

This happened several times through the pass – the world would disappear into a grey shroud, the biggest drops of unrelenting rain I have ever seen would pelt down upon my car. I was happy they weren't hailstones. Huge washes of water crossed the road and carved out a streambed at the edges of the dirt pull-out where several of us had stopped. Finally, after about an hour of starts and stops, my fellow travelers and I felt confident that we could continue on and left the safety of the side of the road.

My friend Joey, a childhood friend and Colorado resident who joined me for the final leg of my P2P tour, insisted that this was normal for the Rockies. And, sure enough, the mornings dawned with sparkling blue skies; wispy clouds appeared by midday; and by afternoon towering thunderheads dumped torrents of rain somewhere or other, driving people off the roads and into shelter.

Impressive. Scary. I'm not sure I could stand the constant excitement of life here in the Front Range.

Heatwave

Keys View Promontory, Joshua Tree National Park, CA

It has been some two weeks since I left the cool of the northern California coastal redwoods. And, although I complained about how tired I was of the residues of volcanic activity, at least my tour there kept me on the tops of mountains, where snow still occasionally lined the roadway at depths of 10 ft. or more.

As I descended down through California's Central Valley, the temperature jumped to amazing heights. 104 degrees in Redding, at the northern end of the Valley, was the start of it. Leaving the glare of I-5, I detoured through the Napa Valley on my way to Martinez in the Bay area, where a family gathering was planned. This provided some relief from the heat, but not the traffic. Napa is now a major destination for city dwellers who don't really want to leave the city behind on their vacations. It reminded me of the posh Hamptons on the South Fork of Long Island.

After spending two wonderful days getting reacquainted with the West Coast wing of my family, Betsy, Dan and I left for Yosemite National Park, King's Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks, in the Sierra Nevada mountains. (These will get their own little stories when I get my thoughts together.)

When we left Sequoia via the Three Rivers exit on the south, we had no idea what lay in store for us. By this time, the Central Valley near Fresno had been experiencing record heat and very poor air quality – a fact noted by the park rangers in Sequoia.

To reach our next destination, Joshua Tree National Park, our route skirted the south end of the Sierra Nevada range and into the Mohave Desert, on the east side of the Sierras, where temperatures climbed to over 110 degrees. Nothing appeared to be moving on the hundreds of square miles of brush, red dirt, and rocks, except for the traffic.

Red Rock Canyon State Park, near the Mojave Desert, California

We turned east at Victorville, silly us, and continued deeper into the desert. 29 Palms is an artsy outpost at the north entrance to Joshua Tree, where we spent the night vowing to get an early start in the morning.

Dawn comes to Twenty Palms, California

It was already in the 80s by the morning when we started out, then it quickly rose to the 90s. We saw a variety of reptiles, desert rodents, and birds – along with Joshua Trees, of course. We ended with a brief respite at a Keys View promentory, where we peered down into the Coachella valley near Palm Springs, along which runs the San Andreas fault. The valley was murky with days of unbroken heat and pollution.

View of San Bernadino Mountains near Palm Springs, California, from Keys Point.

Los Angeles was no different – and millions of people were leaving town for parts north. Las Vegas promised no relief – it was in the high nineties there as well. I continued north to Zion and Grand Canyon National Park, where I hoped the higher elevation would save me. I was wrong. The winner of the high temperatures for the week was in Kanab, Utah, which reportedly reached 114 degrees the day I booked a room there.

Intense heat, coupled with hundreds of miles of wide open wilderness, is nervewracking for this gentle Easterner. First, heat and I are not on the best of terms. I think it is my Irish blood, yearning for fisherman's knit sweaters and a cool mist. This part of the trip would have been better attempted in the winter, in retrospect.

On the road to Kanab, UT. Temperature 113 deg. F.

Second, although my new Jetta wagon has been a stellar perfomer, I worry about having a flat tire, engine trouble, or some other event that will strand me in the heat, along the side of the road. This fear is compounded by the fact that I can go for a hundred miles without a cell phone signal. I brought along a CB radio for emergencies, but that requires a functioning car battery – something that I am not convinced will work when I need it.

Finally, it makes it hard for me to enjoy anything in this beautiful landscape, if it means that I have to leave my air-conditioned car. Sightseeing? Forget it. Shopping at some out of the way trading post? Ridiculous. All I really want to do is get as close as possible to the boundaries of the next amazing park I am going to visit, check in to an air-conditioned hotel with WiFi and a cell phone signal by 2 in the afternoon, and hide out in the cool until 5 the next morning, when I can streak into the park before those pesky [other] tourists get up.

How exhausting!

Lassen Volcanic: Close Encounters of the Bearish Kind

Up until this morning, the total sum of my experiences with the fauna of the Northwest United States on this trip consisted of a marmot, squirrel, and a chipmunk; a herd of elk; a deer; some bison, and a roly-poly mama black bear and two cubs.

However, all of these were sort of discounted, in my cynical Easterner's mind. For instance, the marmot and chipmunk were rather cute and no threat. The squirrel? Well, we have a lot of them in New Jersey. The herd of elk was way off in a meadow – hardly something in which one would take more than a passing interest. The bison in Yellowstone – big, impressively scruffy – but seemed all too often to be playing to the cameras. They rolled around in the grass at the side of the road, huffing and snorting, and causing a traffic jam of some twenty cars at a time, all the while posing for the audience. The black mama bear with her cubs also feigned shyness on the bank above the road, as forty to fifty cameras whirred and clicked to immortalize every move. Park rangers were even out there directing traffic.

No, these were not true wilderness encounters, to my mind. But they would do, certainly. After all, who really WANTS to run into any of those larger species in the middle of nowhere? Certainly not me. I didn't even feel comfortable straying very far from the safety of my car when I jumped out to take a photo of a scenic vista .... from the side of the road.

Today, however, in Lassen Volcanic National Park, I had my first real encounter with Ursa Major. Actually, it was an Ursa Horribilis (Ursa = bear; Horribilis = grizzly). They say that the last Grizzly in California was shot and killed in 1922. But you can't convince me of that after today.

Lassen is a strange place. It is the only national park in the United States that is the site of what is still considered an “active” volcano. Its last series of eruptions occurred in 1914 - 1917. The landscape in the Devastated Zone, which suffered the greatest damage from mudflows, lava, and debris, is otherworldly, even now – almost 100 years later. There are bare areas of granular pumice. Areas completely covered with jagged rocks that look like rip-rap provided by some quarry for road construction. Grassy areas where boulders as big as a small cabin landed after exploding out of the crater.

In other places, however, the mountain boasts verdant meadows and tall stands of ponderosa pines, firs, and other evergreen trees. It's spring there, even though it's the middle of July. Tender green shoots of wetlands plants are still less than a foot high, growing in and around soggy drainage streams from the remaining snow drifts. The first wildflowers are starting to appear along the margins of the roads. And in the midst of all this beauty, there are few people to intrude on one's reveries, as Lassen is one of the least-visited of all the national parks.

I was enjoying just such a moment of peace and solitude, puttering along at about 20 miles an hour through a particularly beautiful stretch, when a huge golden-brown hulk bounded from the right bank of the road about 30 feet in front of my car. 1000 pounds of pure bear-flesh was galloping faster than I would have thought possible towards the other side of the road, obviously focused on something more interesting than me. He paused just long enough to throw a startled glance in my direction, as if to say, “Don't even think about coming near me with that thing [my car].” Needless to say, I didn't.

Now THAT is what I call wildlife! Just close enough ... and far away enough ... for me.

Redwoods

Feeling parched from the last few days of volcanic activity -- well, witnessing the after effects, anyway -- at Mt. Rainier, St. Helen's, and Crater Lake, I felt I need to take the day off. I turned my car towards the coast for a day of moisture, green plants, shady groves, and a different kind of inspiration: Redwood Country.

I soothed my conscience by noting that exploring Redwoods National and State Parks was indeed, a worthy enterprise. It did, you see, qualify as a member of the target group of my investigations. But it was off the official track of the 1920 Park-to-Park dedication tour route.

I reminded myself that the original tour members were slackers in some cases. They never saw Crater Lake (the Rim Road was not completed until later), nor did they ever see Lassen Volcanic National Park (there were no roads into that park in 1920). I felt I could be forgiven a slight diversion from the tour especially since it was my birthday.

And a wonderful birthday it was, too. In my race around the parks of the Northwest, I had been flying. My tight schedule forced me to cover huge distances and digest enormous of information in a short period of time. Once I picked up the kids in San Francisco, I can take it easier. At least that's what I tell myself.

In Frommer's guide to the Western National Parks, I found the Historic Requa Inn, a bed and breakfast housed in a 1914 inn overlooking the Klamath River, between the northern and southern sections of the Redwoods parks. The inn lies in an area of delicate balance between fog and sun. As I look out from the sitting room windows, the top of the hill across the river is swathed in a cottony layer of mist. But the tree line along the river is clear, as is the road and the inn itself. Sun seems to be breaking through in one spot, marked by a brilliant patch of fog, just over the next hill to the east.

Mouth of the Klamath River, near Requa, CA.

Yesterday's explorations took me south of the towns of Requa/Klamath to the peninsula that marks the beginning of the southern section of the parks. I drove first the Klamath Beach Road, which curls around the tip of the peninsula at the south side of the river's outlet to the sea. There, the spectacular views of the coast were unsullied, for the most part, by other cars filled with tourists like myself. Wildflowers populated the road side in great abundance Foxglove, wild roses, tiger lilies and many I couldn't name. Maybe I will get lucky and find then in the wildflower guides for the western region I purchased yesterday.

There were a couple of interesting sites along the road, including the old entrance to a memorial bridge, since replaced, which was guarded by enormous statues of bears one at either side. Then, there was the radar station from World War II, disguised as a farmstead. From a distance, no doubt, it would have looked authentic. Viewing it up close, however, it became a concrete-block bunker, with a reinforced roof made to look like wood shingles.

Leaving those sites behind, I turned south to follow the Newton B. Drury Scenic Drive through magnificent stands of enormous redwoods, some 15 feet or more in diameter. Golden light filtered through the tops of the trees and splashed the ferns at the base of the trees. In the shadows, plants and flowers took on a blue cast.

I stopped at Big Tree, a pullout where there were several paths that seemed about my speed. Still suffering the effects of a broken foot suffered last winter, I still didn't feel sure-footed. And also ... there were the bears. I did not want to get any closer to bears than the ones that guarded the defunct memorial bridge over the Klamath.

Big Tree offered not only Big Tree itself (a specimen over 1000 years old), but also a perfect stroll through the Cathedral of Trees” and several other well-worn footpaths. Fortunately there were other people around. The bears would probably prefer those other people, I thought, if they weren't already frightened away by our shear numbers or the whoops of small children discovering hidey-holes in the trunks of these massive trees.

As I entered the grove, it was magical. In spite of the whoops, the people, the well-worn paths, it is impossible to become unmoved by the majestic redwoods. You feel you are in the presence of great spirits. Wisdom, endurance, constancy, strength - the trees embody these qualities and more.

Like most of the places I have been, I try to study up before I write about them. With the redwoods, the primary impact is not intellectual, but emotional. Yes, I will eventually study more about them, I will explore the history of how they were saved from destruction from being clear-cut by the logging interests, which only occurred only within the last 50 years. But, first and foremost, the redwood country is a magical place where intellect is secondary. It is a place where wonder dominates.