Travel

To the Land of the Black Sun

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9-hours in my faithful black Jeep, and maybe longer, as Google Maps just shunted me off the highway and now I’m rolling through small beach towns (signs flash Ogunquit and Kennebunk), where tourists stroll the streets and mill around in trendy bars, hanging out beneath tall gas lanterns on this cool summer evening — but I’ve got a dull ache in my butt (piriformis syndrome from doing squats again) and I just want to get to Millinocket – or anywhere, honestly.

Strictly speaking, this is vacation, but my mindset is all business.  My mission — to climb the state’s 4,000-footers, of which there are 14.  With long driving times between mountain ranges and interruptions for work calls that can’t be rescheduled, the schedule has little slack.  And it’s not like I can just bang out these peaks.  I hike barefoot.  My pace is slow.

A few weeks ago, this strange thought popped into my mind – that Maine was the “land of the Black Sun.”  The intuition being, I guess, that if you journeyed far enough from home, you’d find places so radically different from the familiar, that common attributes might shift into their opposites.  Like when Clarence King traveled west from Connecticut to join the California Geologic Survey and then, as soon as the expedition was under way, begged permission to climb a mountain.  Any mountain.  How about the tallest one in sight.  This was 1864.  When he and a companion finally reached the summit of Mt. Tyndall, King looked into the sky and saw the darkness of vast yawning hollow space.  While the desert basins below were blindingly bright.  It was a “strange reversal.”  The opposite of familiar sunlit skies and dark cool earth.

On occasion I, too, have experienced strange reversals.  For example, I’ve noticed when wearing sunglasses with polarized lenses, that when I tilt my head, the contrast shifts.  The brightness flickers.  Shadows come awake.

I roll into Millinocket at 2 am.  An envelope with my room key is taped to the door, just like they said it would. Continue reading “To the Land of the Black Sun” →

To the Land of the Black Sun

The Little White Lie in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

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Heart of Darkness ends with Marlow calling on Kurtz’ fiancée in a dimly-lit mansion in an unnamed metropolis which Marlow calls merely the “sepulchral city.”  Still in mourning more than a year later, she wants to know Kurtz’ final words.  Marlow tells her that Kurtz called her name.  But this is a lie – as he lay dying, Kurtz whispered, “The horror!  The horror!”

Marlow’s little white lie was meant to shield a woman’s feelings from an ugly truth.  By the end of the narrative, however, the author Joseph Conrad’s made the point that civilization is based on lies – although we may call them faith, beliefs, ideas, or “the great and saving illusion.”  And we need these lies, he implies, to shield us from the primeval darkness which lies deep within the soul.

But is this really the case?  As someone who spends a lot of time in wilderness, this question nags at me.  I recently reread Heart of Darkness, as I was preparing for a trip to Maine, a place that seems plenty mysterious and primitive, if not quite so far off as Africa. Continue reading “The Little White Lie in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” →

The Little White Lie in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

Running the BMW Dallas Marathon

Barefoot Ken, , 1 Comment

After due deliberation, I made my decision.  The BMW Dallas Marathon, if I successfully completed it, would be my 101st race of marathon distance or longer.

Of course, my mind was immediately filled with images of dalmatians. I made an effort to clear my thoughts of such clutter because these numbers are important.

You see, for an aging marathoner like me, 100 holds this significance — that beyond it there lies no obvious next stopping point.  To go past 100 marathons would be like pushing an aircraft to Mach 1 and then breaking the sound barrier — which produces an impressive bang no doubt — but that doesn’t mean you’ve reached the maximum possible speed.  (OK, I confess to being fascinated with fighter jets and pilots.) Continue reading “Running the BMW Dallas Marathon” →

Running the BMW Dallas Marathon

Homeless in Dallas

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Black tarmac slips into view — tires impact — with jolt and bounce we arrive.  I’ve left New York behind, and with it, family, friends, routines, familiar places – in a word, I’ve left behind my home.  Traded it for a city with a herd of larger-than-life bronze bulls and a brassy sun.  By the way, I like it here fine.  For a two-week stay, anyway.  The issue is, splitting my time between two places – not to mention other travel too – leaves me feeling spread a little thin.  Like Bilbo Baggins, who told Gandalf, “‘Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.”  Then he briefed Gandalf on his plan: to leave his home in the Shire, to see the mountains one last time, to find a place to rest, and maybe finish writing his book. Continue reading “Homeless in Dallas” →

Homeless in Dallas

Barefoot on the John Muir Trail

Barefoot Ken, , , 9 Comments

The John Muir Trail is a famous 210-mile hiking route that traverses California’s Sierra Mountains, which Muir referred to as “the range of light.”  I visited the Sierras in 2018 and was impressed by the spectacular landscape.  After some consideration, thru-hiking the JMT became a goal for 2020.

Just getting ready for the JMT was a big operation, as the trip entailed competitive and thus hard-to-get permits, extensive route-planning, careful selection of gear and provisions, and travel logistics that were complicated by the COVID pandemic.  Additionally I decided to take on the JMT in an unconventional format by hiking as much as possible barefoot.  Why barefoot?  For the extra challenge, the special feeling of lightfootedness that comes from moving naturally, and the distinction of doing something important a little bit differently.

The 23-day journey turned out to be an incredible experience; indeed, it contained enough impressions to fill a book.  In the interest of brevity, however, this blog post will consist of a short synopsis of each day on the trail and a photograph or two.

Continue reading “Barefoot on the John Muir Trail” →

Barefoot on the John Muir Trail

Vantage Point Over Zion

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Heading west from Moab, I’m hearing reports that Zion National Park is pretty crowded (someone mentions the main valley can be accessed only via shuttle bus).  Thus I’m delighted when my friend Anna tells me of a hike that bypasses the crowds.  Drive to Zion Ponderosa Ranch, she continues, and they’ll point you to the trailhead a short distance away….

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Vantage Point Over Zion

Down into the Grand Canyon, and Back Up Again

Barefoot Ken, , 3 Comments

A year or so ago casting around for new challenges, I google’d “barefoot Grand Canyon,” and that’s when I discovered Thea Gavin, a free-spirited writer and self-styled “suburbanite chronically injured running grandma,” who’d hiked from one rim of the Grand Canyon to the other, descending roughly 5,000 feet and them climbing back out, for a total journey of 24 miles, all without shoes.  When conventional boot-clad hikers in the Canyon asked why, she responded, “It’s fun.”

This spring I began planning a western trip to the Grand Canyon and other places I’d never been.  Business matters interceded, the trip was delayed, put on hold, and then finally thrown together at the last minute with destinations to be figured out on the fly.

Now it’s late morning, August 7, and I’m pulling in to Kanab, Utah, which I’ve designated as my final staging point prior to entering Grand Canyon National Park.  Priority of work: lunch, laundry, gas, obtain a wi-fi connection to download maps and review the route, and hopefully find an espresso.  The strategy is to enter the park after dark (avoiding the crowds and the heat), attempt a barefoot descent of the Bright Angel Trail to the Colorado River, and then turn around and climb back up.

Continue reading “Down into the Grand Canyon, and Back Up Again” →

Down into the Grand Canyon, and Back Up Again

Setting Foot in Yosemite (for the very first time)

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My four-week southwestern pilgrimage is drawing to a close, and what stands between my current location in Mammoth Lakes and the San Francisco airport is. . . . Yosemite National Park, John Muir’s temple of the wilderness, in which “every rock seems to glow with life.”

This is sacred ground, with 4.3 million visitors last year.  This year, having just reopened after a month’s closure due to forest fires, no doubt the park will be thronged.  What’s needed is a thoughtful plan:  an infiltration route from a remote trailhead to a suitable vantage point overlooking the valley, sparing me the crowds below.  A chance encounter with a friendly trail volunteer supplies me with exactly this:  a 16-mile route from Porcupine Creek Trailhead to North Dome and the top of Yosemite Falls.

Continue reading “Setting Foot in Yosemite (for the very first time)” →

Setting Foot in Yosemite (for the very first time)

A Visit to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes

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Working on the route from Zion to Grand Canyon, a little dot pops up on the map:  Coral Pink Sand Dunes.  Who doesn’t like scrambling around in sand?  How could you not want to check out dunes with such a distinctive color?

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A Visit to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes