Boston Marathon will never be quite the same

One humbling aspect of teaching college students is the serendipity of it all. The surprises. Don’t even try to predict how a fiercely competitive soccer player from Wyoming will apply herself to ethical debates in my classroom. You’ll be wrong. If you doubt that a loud student in skeleton T-shirts will kindly share his skills with his teammate on a semester project, guess again. I’ve actually come to like being wrong. In my experience, life usually brings good ...

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Animals a lot like people when it comes to mistakes

If you’ve ever watched a desert bighorn sheep deftly leap from a precipitous crag to another, it may surprise you to hear that the bodies of such graceful beasts occasionally are found at the bottom of rocky cliffs. They stumble and fall to their deaths. On a hot summer afternoon, a rattlesnake may go slithering across the highway in hopes of a field mouse lunch on the other side. But as we humans know, things don’t always work out the way we anticipate. The farther our ...

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Ranger Trails: Keep nature trash-free 
by helping spruce up park on monument

For every hiker and cyclist who derives pleasure from the scintillating panorama of Colorado National Monument, there looms a window of opportunity to make it sparkle even brighter. Ditto for photographers, campers, astronomers, motorists, botanists, geologists, biologists and lizard-lovers like me. Don’t miss this rare chance to exercise your body and your charitable instincts for a greater cause: keeping nature trash-free. This probably sounds like a silly invitation, but ...

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Ranger trails: Summertime blues: Making the switch from the monument 
to classroom

It’s never too cool to see our summers come to an end. Like most kids whose summer vacation collides with a new school year at this time, bittersweet feelings overwhelm our old prefrontal cortex. Autumn already? Say it isn’t so. But it is almost. Thus, I recently made time to celebrate the summer of ‘12 at Colorado National Monument in a most unobtrusive (no champagne or party horns) manner. I pitched my old two-man tent on a cool, dry, late-summer night in the very ...

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Ranger Trails: Star Power: Taking some inventory of the night sky

Strangely enough, most Americans find ourselves in the dark on the subject of light pollution. I used to figure light pollution was a minor toxic spill — just made fish dizzy without actually killing them. Wrong. NASA, the federal agency that put the first dude on the moon, defines light pollution as “a growing environmental problem that threatens to erase the night sky before its time.” NASA’s experts report on their website, Science News, a proliferation of ...

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Ranger Trails: Littlejohn will never forget his start as cook for workers

His voice sounds like a Louisiana barbecue sauce tastes: sweet and tangy, but strong as a mule’s kick. The words come so fast, it’s hard to believe they describe memories that Mr. Littlejohn must reel in from 70-odd years ago. It’s true. At 91, the Shreveport, La., retiree has instant recall of cooking for a couple hundred young men in a camp of military-style barracks at Colorado National Monument. “Beans cooked for 24 hours,” he says. “I could break ...

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Ranger Trails: Ute Canyon: a perfect place for the serious hiker

Ute Canyon is defined by natural splendor. You might say that about every nook and cranny at Colorado National Monument. Still, Ute’s broad-shouldered expanses instill a sense of awe in the most experienced of hikers. A Wisconsin friend of mine — he’s been almost everywhere and done nearly everything, at least in the wild — once told me the sight of Ute Canyon took his breath away. But he couldn’t say why. Perhaps it was his lack of oxygen. Here are my ...

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Ranger trails: A natural stairway 
to heaven

No Thoroughfare Canyon sticks out among the dozen or so canyons at Colorado National Monument as a special place for hikers and campers in search of something different in the high desert. Red-spotted toads live there. So do frogs, collared lizards, waterfalls and flash floods. In our high desert climate, this narrow, eight-mile canyon along the park’s eastern border tends to attract a lot, relatively speaking, of precipitation. But the only moisture I saw a few weeks ago in No ...

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Ranger Trails: Hike leads GJ woman to discover family ties to national monument

Last year, Leslie Spurlin took a hike at Colorado National Monument that piqued her curiosity about her own past. Led by a park ranger, Spurlin found herself at Buffalo Spring, a stone masonry trough where bison once drank. There was something vaguely familiar about this unusual place but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “I had never been there before,” she said recently. “Or at least I didn’t think so.” Located on the Bench Trail approximately ...

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Ranger Trails: Rattlesnake sighting can be adrenalin rush, but keep safe distance

When a great white shark showed up near Cape Cod this summer, human herds flocked to the beach in hopes of glimpsing that big dorsal fin knifing through the surf. And “Jaws” remains one of the most popular movies ever. There’s a sort of fatal attraction people have with sharks, grizzlies and other wildlife atop the food chain. Nothing to be ashamed of. We acknowledge the fact that when Homo sapiens leaves its seat belts and smoke detectors behind, Mother Nature will call ...

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Ranger Trails: ‘Tween Extreme’ campers thrive in 10-week program

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God.” — Diary of Anne Frank As young Anne realized when her freedom to go outdoors was tragically lost, the human spirit thrives on experiences in the natural world. However, simply telling a kid to go play outside often falls on deaf ears. Especially during summer when it’s warm enough to fry a proverbial egg on a ...

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Love nature? Catch up with summer books

With apologies to “Prairie Home Companion’s” Garrison Keillor, it’s been a noisy week at Colorado National Monument, where all the bighorn sheep are good-looking, all the restrooms are strong, and all the lizards are above average. Thunderstorms rolled in. Lightning struck. Rain fell so hard one afternoon that park visitors from Seattle thought they’d never left home. One park ranger was congratulated after admitting she’d done a rain dance the night ...

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Just when you thought you’d heard everything

Before diving into the earth-shaking topic of noise pollution, it’d be only right to mention some of my lesser-known weaknesses: ■ Our family dog used to jump into the shower with me whenever the hot water steam set off a smoke alarm, triggering a mechanical scream that made him whine and me laugh. ■ I honestly wish my cell had a Harley-Davidson engine ringtone doing its potato-potato-potato crescendo because I can’t afford an actual motorcycle. ■ When a ...

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Just another day in the park

Just another day at Colorado National Monument. Twenty thousand acres of canyons and cactus under baby-blue skies, relentless sunshine and astonishingly few gnats greeted park visitors on a recent Saturday.  All traipsed beneath Old Glory, which flapped loudly, as they entered a sandstone beehive of activity known as the Visitor Center, or simply VC. Four people left the VC in the cool morning to meander along the Canyon Rim Trail with a park ranger. A woman from Eagle brought her ...

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Be active, die doing what you love to do

National Trails Day is Saturday, June 2, when park rangers are expected to encourage Americans to hike their booties off.  The idea, developed in 1993 at the behest of a presidential commission on the outdoors, is to leave the house and take a hike. None of this “Saturday’s my one day to lay low” garbage. Mow the lawn some other day. “C’mon, you lazy schmucks. Shake it or break it. Move it or lose it. Hup, two, three, four…” If that ...

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Get up and experience life in the ‘great’ outdoors

There we were, bobbing up and down off the coast of South Africa when a great white shark erupted from the ocean depths to catch and devour a fur seal in one gulp of flashing teeth. Very nice! Now let’s see that again. Such a spectacle we’re certain to forget by next week. We may replay this particular “Planet Earth” video. You know, we weren’t actually “there” at sea but witnessed nature’s drama from the comfort of our stuffy office. While ...

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New displays highlight park’s science, history

This is the last in a series of weekly columns about Colorado National Monument in honor of the park’s centennial anniversary on May 24. When the monument’s visitor center was built in 1964, its museum-like exhibits of geology, wildlife and Native American culture were considered state-of-the-art. But that was 47 years ago. For some time now, the bloom’s been off the rose. Today, those vintage displays are gone, making way for a complete overhaul of the exhibit hall. ...

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Info from a ranger’s notebook

This is the 13th in a series of weekly columns about Colorado National Monument in honor of the park’s centennial anniversary on May 24. Park rangers carry tiny notebooks scribbled with nuggets about everything under the sun. Random facts come in handy when the curious stop to quiz us. Ink-smeared by rain and sweat, my ragged notebooks present our knowledge on the half-shell: each wrinkled page a tender morsel of non-earthshaking information. Camping? Backcountry campers need a ...

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Civilian Conservation Corps left twisting blacktop legacy

This is the 12th in a series of weekly columns about Colorado National Monument in honor of the park’s centennial anniversary on May 24. Of all the mind-bending experiences out here, nothing quite compares to skirting the canyons from Rim Rock Drive. Whether you drive it, bike it or run it, you gasp for air (a plentiful commodity out here) while yelling “Holy smokes!” (or something like that). A wild road trip indeed. The primary reason? Design. Sixty-one years after ...

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Monument at 100: Artifacts offer intriguing clues to human activities

This is the 11th in a series of weekly columns about Colorado National Monument in honor of the park’s centennial anniversary on May 24. Not long ago, a young hiker found a rusty old Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco tin that he misidentified. “Whiskey flask?” he asked. Nope. He had never seen a tobacco tin before, and learned at that very moment that smokers rolled their own in the old days. So the artifacts rust away while winds slowly bury them in sand. Historic objects ...

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Desert bighorn thrive atop precipitous cliffs

This is the 10th in a series of weekly columns about Colorado National Monument in honor of the park’s centennial anniversary on May 24. The desert bighorn sheep is a relative newcomer to this rocky old neighborhood of deer, coyotes, ravens, rabbits, lions and lizards. Prior to 1979, bighorn hadn’t resided in Colorado National Monument for centuries. There were none to be seen here. “Extirpate” is the word wildlife officials use to describe the bighorn’s ...

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Trails can lead to introspection, inner peace

This is the ninth in a series of weekly columns about Colorado National Monument in honor of the park’s centennial anniversary on May 24. No Thoroughfare Canyon, the wettest place to hike in Colorado National Monument, has a reputation for attracting amphibians to its pools in spring and ice climbers to its frozen waterfalls in winter. For many visitors to this high-desert climate, it’s surprising to discover lush, green vegetation deep inside canyon walls. When flash floods ...

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Annoying bugs just doing what comes gnat-urally

This is the eighth in a series of weekly columns about Colorado National Monument in honor of the park’s centennial anniversary on May 24. At Colorado National Monument, the desert bighorn sheep is our Big Whopper. A bighorn ram can tip the scales at 250 pounds. This massive indigenous species attracts significant numbers of hikers to Lower Monument Canyon year-round. No surprise. It’s human nature to be wowed by sheer bulk. Meanwhile, more “size-challenged” ...

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Hikers and joggers aren’t the only ones rattling around the monument

This is the seventh in a series of weekly columns about Colorado National Monument in honor of the park’s centennial anniversary on May 24. Last July while jogging the Monument Canyon Trail, I came to a sudden halt at what sounded like dry leaves crackling. There wasn’t a dry leaf around, however. The scratching must be coming from something alive, I thought, something alive and maybe packing two venom-loaded fangs. Sure enough. No more than half a step from my right New ...

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MONUMENT AT 100: Tree researchers discover that old age is relative

This is the sixth in a series of weekly columns about Colorado National Monument in honor of the park’s centennial anniversary on May 24. It’s never been a secret that most of the Utah junipers and pinyon pines at Colorado National Monument are old trees. With their gnarly, twisted gray trunks, junipers look positively ancient. (Some pinyons remind me of a wise old lady in a new green dress.) But until recently, actual age of both species has been a mystery. Not anymore. To ...

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Monument visitors indebted to Otto

This is the fifth in a series of weekly columns about Colorado National Monument in honor of the park’s centennial anniversary on May 24. One advantage of working as a national park ranger — besides the Smokey Bear hat, of course — is the chance to hang out with experts. These folks have, through their education and experience, already have forgotten more than many of us will ever know. Don Regan is one of the experts at Colorado National Monument. He knows rocks like ...

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Lizards are cool, even when it’s 90 degrees out

This is the fourth in a series of weekly columns about Colorado National Monument in honor of the park’s centennial anniversary on May 24. Desert bighorn sheep and golden eagles consider Colorado National Monument their home. So do lizards. Guess which species attracts the most visitors? If you said lizards, you’ve been out in the desert sun way too long. Your average Nikon-wielding tourist wants to capture the majesty of those curiously strong mammals with their curled ...

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The monument at 100: What to call a monolith (besides big)

This is the third in a series of weekly columns about Colorado National Monument in honor of the park’s centennial anniversary on May 24. Curious visitors to Colorado National Monument often ask me, “Like, where’s the monument?” As a park ranger expected to answer this question, I am often tempted to say, “You’re, like, looking at it.” That would be true. That would leave many visitors scratching their heads. No, not from the gnats. People from ...

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Civilian Conservation Corps: blood, sweat and teamwork

Too bad Leroy Lewis isn’t around to help celebrate the 100th birthday of Colorado National Monument. He’d have loved to share the limelight with other men who remembered what it was like to bust their tails on the monument’s road-building crew. Lewis died last year at 98, I’m sorry to say, but not before he took the time to reminisce. He grew up on a ranch near Hotchkiss in the early 20th century, a skinny kid whose work ethic made him succeed beyond his wildest ...

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Park ranger Hank Schoch was jack-of-all-trades for 17 years

This is the first in a series of weekly columns about Colorado National Monument in honor of the park’s centennial anniversary on May 24. When Hank Schoch was hired as chief ranger for Colorado National Monument, it was not exactly love at first sight. The high desert isn’t for everyone, not even a man with a dry-as-dust sense of humor whose maiden voyage with the National Park Service began in the Grand Canyon. But he was in his mid-30s and needed a good job to support his ...

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