When An Avalanche Comes Calling

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:29:35 -0700

Writers on the Range; A service of High Country News
By Molly Loomis

On Jan. 24, an avalanche raced down the slopes of Mount Taylor, a 10,352-foot peak in Wyoming's Teton Range. You might think this is hardly worth mentioning, since thousands of avalanches scour mountainsides in the West each winter.
The Mount Taylor avalanche, however, has launched a flurry of debate in the world of backcountry skiing -- a place where there's no admission and few enforced safety regulations. Because even though the parking lot at the base of this popular backcountry ski area was packed with cars, the slide -- which turned out to be massive -- had been intentionally triggered by a local mountain guide. Luckily, no one was hurt, though someone might easily have been; hundreds of skiers were in the area.
Strange as it may sound to non-skiers, intentionally triggering an avalanche is a common safety practice in backcountry skiing. In theory, it allows an experienced skier to blunt the potential danger of a future avalanche from the relative safety of the top of the slope. With this in mind, Greg Collins, who had skied Mount Taylor hundreds of times, deliberately set off the avalanche. He publicly apologized later, explaining that he never expected the slide to be as big as it was. The avalanche tumbled over 2,500 feet before plowing over a creek often crossed by skiers.
"It would have been a fatality (if anyone had been there)," David Fischel told the Jackson Hole News&Guide; he had skied down Coal Creek shortly after the slide occurred. "I hope this will be a lesson for folks who ski up there. They put people like me at risk."
But has any lesson been learned? Comments from people have poured in from the international backcountry skiing community, and they range from outrage and anger to strong support for Collins. Critics decry Collins' actions as selfish and irresponsible -- especially considering this winter's unpredictable snow conditions -- while many of his defenders say uphill skiers bear no responsibility for the people below them. Risk, they insist, is inherent in any wilderness experience. After all, as some have pointed out, "wild" is a part of wilderness.
But does skiing in heavily used areas such as Teton Pass truly constitute an outing in the wild? And where's the line between pursuing your own goals and ignoring the safety of other people in the neighborhood? If this had occurred in a ski resort with rules and regulations, the answers would be easy. But it happened in the backcountry on public land, where we all have equal opportunity to recreate and where the only bosses are usually ourselves.
Moreover, the Tetons aren't the only place an event like this has occurred. Utah and Montana have had similar incidents. If it hasn't already happened in other mountains ranges around the West, it likely will, sooner or later.
Before anyone decides to ski in the backcountry, there are lots of questions to answer, ranging from choice of equipment to current weather and snowpack conditions. Yet there seem to be few rules for acceptable behavior once we're out there. Of course, that's why many of us are drawn to mountain towns where we can escape into crowds of aspens, not people.
But like it or not, the woods are filling up with more and more people doing their own thing. When that is combined with unclear ethics, such as the degree to which a skier is or isn't concerned about other skiers, I'm reminded that Americans have become extraordinarily willing to sue each other. Are we heading toward a future backcountry filled with ski cops and a fat book of rules, or will we be forced to accept reduced access?
It is ironic that for years many skiers have fought to keep snowmobiles out of popular backcountry skiing terrain, in part fearing the hazard of a snowmobile racing up a mountain to "high point" and triggering an avalanche. Now, I fear, we have brought that kind of argument into our own ranks. Are we going to return to the days of tire slashing in the Tetons, as happened at the height of the skiing-snowmobile controversy? One blogger suggested aggressive bumper stickers might be a first step: "I intentionally kick off avalanches. Skiers below beware."
Instead, why don't we thank the powder gods that it didn't take a fatality to get this conversation going? All too often in an event like this, tears drown out the sounds of dialogue. Let us hope that this avalanche -- which harmed no one -- will wake us up to our responsibilities as backcountry skiers. Let's remember that although we choose to ski in a wild place, we are not always alone -- so let's make sure that our fun remains as safe as we can make it.
Molly Loomis is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She lives on the west side of Teton Pass in Victor, Idaho.

Ponder Your Place In Nature: Ghost Bird

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:45:28 -0700

By Molly Loomis
"IT'S A BIRD!" Tim shouts through the fog.
Anywhere else in the world, his phrasing would have struck me as lame and obvious. But here, I drop my shovel into the cache I am digging and look up, frantically scanning the sky—afraid that, like a shooting star, the bird might vanish before I see it.
This is Antarctica. Deep Antarctica—a windswept glacier in the icy interior called the Branscomb, from which the continent's highest peak, Mt. Vinson, rises. Here, no penguins waddle through rookeries, no seals slip between waves, no albatross glide over icebergs. It has been 43 days since I last saw a living creature other than a human. In fact, in my three summers working in Antarctica I have yet to see any animal other than Homo sapiens.
The white body of a snow petrel blends into the dense fog—the outline of its outstretched wings, oversize sails for its delicate body, is barely visible. The bird hovers like a ghost, bobbing on a wave of wind. Its beady coal eyes and obsidian feet are the only signs of color. It circles, etching a carving into my memory.
With the subtle shift of a wing, the snow petrel charts a new course—evaporating into the milky soup that surrounds us. It is gone.
Later, during the daily radio check, I tell our base crew at Patriot Hills, 120 miles to the south, about the unexpected visitor. I am curious how many other birds have been seen at Mt. Vinson. I poll the Antarctic veterans. They tell me snow petrels are sighted at Patriot Hills maybe once a year, but no one has ever heard of a sighting here at Vinson Base Camp. That night, with my hat pulled hard over my eyes to block out the ever-present daylight, I listen to the rat-tat-tat drumbeat of graupel against my tent. The image of the petrel keeps resurfacing. Our encounter was brief—less than two minutes—but the lone bird swoops back and forth across the canvas of my closed eyes.
Despite their delicate physique and thin veil of feathers, snow petrels live in Antarctica year-round. They spend much of the year at sea, then at breeding time fly up to 200 miles inland to reunite with their mates and scratch out nests high on rocky outcroppings. Back and forth the birds fly from the land to the ocean, where they snatch krill, mollusks, and fish from the icy waters. The food sustains them and their chick until the fledgling is ready to fly.
I burrow deeper and listen to the wind grow to a whine. I think of the six plane rides it took to get here—Jackson to Salt Lake to Dallas to Santiago to Punta Arenas to Patriot Hills to Vinson. In a few weeks, we'll retrace our journey back to warmer climes. And when we get home, we'll share photos and stories and brag about our ability to survive in this stark, inhospitable place.
But the petrel, it will stay.
Right now, though, I find myself wondering whether I really have any business on this ice cap. If it weren't for the minus-40- degree-Fahrenheit sleeping bag I'm swaddled in and my 800-fill down parka, I wouldn't last more than a few days. And if my survival was at stake, I'd quickly pluck the petrel's feathers to warm myself, then eat its carcass raw. These are the thoughts that creep in during Antarctica's relentlessly sunlit summer nights.
Sorry, little bird. I meant to say, thank you.
Molly Loomis writes from her home outside Grand Teton National Park.

Setting Sail: Enthusiasts spread their wings and fly over snow

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 12:41:47 -0700

BY MOLLY LOOMIS
PHOTO BY WAYNE PHILLIPS
It’s a cold February day. Strong winds have compacted the snow into a hard, breakable crust. Fred’s Mountain at Grand Targhee Resort is veiled in a storm cloud. Instead of enduring a drive up Teton Pass and a Shackelton-esque outing into the backcountry, we turn toward Tetonia’s potato fields, lying cold and dormant under a blanket of snow.
We aren’t the only ones that figured today would be a great day for kite skiing—already half a dozen cars are parked alongside the road. Brightly colored sails fill the air, and skiers and boarders rip across the barren, white ocean of snow. I unwind the lines running between my steering bar and the kite, don my harness, and orient my sail to the wind. Meanwhile, my husband Andy pumps air into his kite—a different design than mine, with inflatable baffles. I clip into my skis, pull down on the steering bar, and spend a few minutes reacquainting myself with the steering motion of angling one end of the bar towards me and then the other, while the sail floats high above in an elegant figure eight. I cut the turn short and hold the kite at the edge of the wind. The yellow nylon grows taut and off I go, racing over the snow.
Yep, just when you thought you had all the winter stuff you needed, here’s an excuse to add yet more gear to the collection. Kite skiing is gaining momentum in the Tetons as one more way to get outside when snow blankets the ground. In fact, kite skiing conditions are often best on days when sitting on a chair lift or backcountry skiing above tree line is less than appealing. When the wind is howling, that is.
Relying on wind for travel in winter conditions was a practice used as early as 1911, when Roland Amundsen and company used sails for their return journey from the South Pole. More recently, European daredevils have brought attention to kite skiing as they careen down steep mountainsides in the Alps before launching into the air in a heart-racing combination of skiing and paragliding. The sport was slowly making inroads in the United States, until an important equipment innovation new just five years ago—a safety release that allows kiters to exit the system if headed toward dangerous obstacles—helped kite skiing’s popularity surge here. Kite skiers (and boarders) can now be seen on winter days around the country, whipping across fields, launching off jumps, and even getting tugged uphill by the force of nature.
Tetonia-based Steve Shepro started kite skiing seven years ago, after being introduced to the sport by his uncle, an avid windsurfer.
“I had flown small stunt kites at the beach as a kid, so the mechanics made sense,” Shepro says. “But what really excited me about it was realizing the power you get when you harness the wind, even with something like a small trainer kite. It’s amazing.”
Shepro recommends that newcomers to the sport use new gear if they’re going to fly anything bigger than a trainer. “The equipment has gotten much, much better in terms of ease of flying and safety,” he says. He also recommends a lesson: “It’s like going rock climbing—you don’t want to climb on an old hemp rope and you want to know how to be safe.”
For those seeking formal instruction, local kiting guru Wayne Phillips provides a free lesson with kite rental; he’s the contact person for Jackson Hole Paragliding, which also offers lessons. Phillips started experimenting with the sport back in 1998, when he’d use an old stunt kite to pull him around on a skateboard. The next year he upgraded and has been hooked ever since. He is now at the core of a group of locals helping to put our region’s potato fields, sagebrush flats, rolling hills, and expansive frozen lakes on the kite skiing map.
Phillips acknowledges that the sport has been slow to catch on in places like the Tetons, where so many people come specifically to ski. He finds that many kiters are ski bums who, after decades of sliding down the slopes at the resorts, are searching for a new experience. With a kite, Phillips loves having the ability to not only ski downhill, but also uphill.
“There’s one spot by Craters of the Moon [National Monument & Preserve] where you can climb up over three thousand feet in less than fifteen minutes,” he says. He predicts the sport will continue to grow, especially in Teton Valley, in part because of relatively easy access to a number of good sites. One of his favorite places is a hilltop just north of Hatch’s Corner between Tetonia and Driggs.
Phillips is enthusiastic about sharing his passion for the sport with others and highlighting the area’s fantastic terrain. He posts wind and condition updates, as well as links to videos from recent exploits, on his Jackson Hole Kiters Facebook page.
“This is a really windy place, [and] there are a lot of rolling hills that are easily accessible from the road,” he says. “You can find wind any day, from ten minutes to two hours away.”
Blowin’ in the Wind
Wayne Phillips is planning a kite skiing gathering for January 2012. Check out the Jackson Hole Kiter’s Facebook page for more information—although some details, like the exact location, will be dependent on the wind.

A Piece of Quiet—Backpacking with a leading natural sounds activist

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 21:43:56 -0600

America’s leading advocate of wilderness silence shows the way to Mt. Rainier National Park’s quietest corner. Plus: 9 more campsites with life-list listening.
by: Molly Loomis

As the Seattle skyline grows closer through the plane’s oval window, I wonder if Gordon Hempton is listening. If he is, I’m sure he’s annoyed. Hempton, part natural sounds recording artist and part silence activist, regards it as his personal mission to protect our parks from noise. Airplanes, like the 737 I’m on, are the biggest offenders. It’s an ironic start to my quest. For the next three days, I will join Hempton on a backpacking trip into Mt. Rainier National Park in search of quiet fewer than 200 miles away from a major city. Looking down on the expanse of concrete and asphalt stretching in every direction, I feel skeptical. But Hempton has a plan.

He has chosen our destination of Palisades Lakes strategically. By targeting the park’s northeastern corner, the Rainier massif should block noise from Seattle and Tacoma. On a micro level, a series of small ridges running east to west should deflect sound from the nearby town of Enumclaw. Plus, Dicks Lake, where we’ll make camp, is situated in a naturally muffled cirque whose walls will further insulate us from traffic and park sounds.

At the trailhead, as rain drizzles in air cold enough that we can see our breath, Hempton advises me to keep an open mind about what we won’t—and will—be hearing. Most hikers don’t know what kind of “music” is out there until they really start listening, he says.

At Hempton’s request, we walk the first mile without speaking, allowing us to “shed the baggage of daily life.” I’m bursting with questions, but I keep it zipped. It feels strangely liberating.

Hempton has dedicated his life to recording the natural world. He sells his work to galleries, musicians, and corporate clients like Microsoft and the Smithsonian, and you can buy his clips on iTunes. He won an Emmy for a PBS documentary in which he literally chased dawn, capturing its sounds on six continents. A stickler for quality and authenticity, Hempton does not alter his recordings—if a plane buzzes by, the integrity of the audio is ruined. Over the course of the last 15 years, Hempton has found it increasingly difficult to locate places where he can record for more than a few minutes without man-made interruptions, which led to his work as an environmental activist.

On Earth Day, 2005, he launched the One Square Inch of Silence campaign. OSI is a one-inch by one-inch speck in Olympic National Park’s Hoh Rain Forest that Hempton has spent the last six years lobbying to keep devoid of unnatural sounds. If he can protect one tiny area from human noise, his theory goes, an exponentially larger area will benefit. In the case of Olympic, which Hempton calls “the listener’s Yosemite” for its diversity of sound, he estimates a 20-mile radius would be freed from human-made noise if we preserve that single square inch.

Hempton stops at a creek just off the Palisades Lakes Trail, and explains how the highest sound frequencies are the first to fade, while the lower ones carry farther. Sure enough, the stream’s tone brightens as we approach, tinkling high sounds joining the initial baritone rumble. He points to rocks lodged in the water’s path, refers to them as notes, and explains how the stream will “tune” itself, or change pitch as rocks move. I nod, pretending to understand, but I’m lost somewhere between the real and the real esoteric. Clearly, I’m not the first to straddle this fine line. He reaches into his bag to fish out his equipment.

“I use these microphones to demonstrate what is possible to hear,” he says. “It’s a dichotomy of the modern world. We’re biologically prepared to listen, but we’re not hearing anything meaningful because there’s so much din in our lives.” I put on the headphones, and it’s like I’m hearing the woods for the first time. The forest swells with a symphony of subtleties like the flap and buzz of birds and insects.

My ears feel newly calibrated as we hike-listen-hike our way to Dicks Lake. We pause so often that it takes us four hours to cover the three miles to our basecamp, even though Hempton, 57, has the stamina and physique of someone half his age. He has backpacked much of his life, tackling long, challenging routes, but his discovery of sound changed all that.

“As soon as the microphone went on, I was like a five year old, ‘Why must we go so soon? Everything is so fascinating right here,’” he says.

After dinner beside the small tree-lined lake, I scurry to my tent, dodging raindrops. Lying in my sleeping bag, I recall one of Hempton’s favorite facts—that humans have eyelids, not ear lids. I listen intently to rain pattering on my tent fly—interrupted by Hempton’s snoring, the loudest sound he’s made all day.

A clear morning at dawn is typically when natural sounds travel best—the air is cool and less humid, and the world hasn’t woken up yet. This is when Hempton determines whether or not a place is quiet. How does he define it? Fifteen-minute periods without any intrusions of man-made noise. In 1984, Hempton identified 21 places in Washington with consistent noise-free intervals of 15 minutes or longer. By 2007, just three of those places were still quiet. Today, Hempton says, the average noise-free interval in wilderness areas and national parks has shriveled to less than five minutes during the daytime.

“We should ask ourselves not how much noise we’ll tolerate in our national parks, but does that noise have to be there at all? Does somebody flying from China to Los Angeles have to fly over Olympic National Park? No, they definitely do not,” says Hempton, who has calculated a detour that he claims would add less than one minute to the flight time and one dollar to the ticket price. “If you could go to Kayak.com and see that an airline is going to help keep our parks quiet, how could you not choose that airline?” he asks, as a mid-morning drizzle adds percussion to our soundtrack.

Hempton wakes me from an afternoon nap later that day, noting that the birds and insects have gotten louder. “I think we might have a break in the weather,” he says, smiling from under his red and white umbrella. We hike up the trail to a small creek running into Upper Palisades Lake, which Hempton noted as having remarkable tuning.

He equips me with a set of earphones and two microphones on a portable stand, positioned to mimic the distance between my two ears.

“Have fun,” he says. “Just experiment.” I head off to create my own sound portrait—the audio equivalent of a photo essay.

The scrape of my raingear screams in my ears as I walk toward the small creek, and I immediately understand why Hempton—dressed in a pair of brown canvas pants, an army-green cotton vest, and cotton layers—wears all natural fibers, no matter the weather. Even his equipment bag and backpack are heavy cotton canvas.

Carefully, I poke the microphones into crevices and hollows between mossy rocks. I am transfixed by all of the intricacies I’ve never heard. Every inch of the creek carries its own distinct sounds: whooshing, flushing, crisp rat-a-tats, hollow plunkings. I continue downhill, and the creek grows louder, losing some of its delicate finesse as the angle steepens. I stop, muddy and smiling, at the lake. As a professional mountain guide and climbing ranger at Grand Teton National Park, I spend more than half of my year in the backcountry. I’ve appreciated the thrumming of a sage grouse and the tinkle of aspen leaves shaken by the breeze. But this is an awakening.

“How long do you think that took?” asks Hempton.

“Thirty minutes?” I guess.

“More than an hour,” he says. Losing sense of time is one of the reasons Hempton always records alone, not tied to anyone else’s schedule.

“If you’ve only got two hours, forget it,” he says. “That’s like saying, ‘Honey, I’ve got two minutes, let’s make love.’”

Back at camp, over tea, we recount some of the creek sounds (and the frequent interruption of airplanes). The gurgling water and rustling wind I recorded today are obviously anything but silent. “You’re right,” Hempton says. There is no such thing as true silence. The whole world vibrates.”

But the absence of sound isn’t really the goal. While “silence” makes a great buzzword, what Hempton really wants might best be described as sound preserves, places where you can listen to nature’s vibrations without interruption.

“Man-made noise is an emission that’s being dumped into the most sensitive areas in the country,” he says.
For Hempton, the solution is simply a matter of getting people to tune into the wilderness and recognize that what they hear should be treated like endangered species. “Hikers know the serenity this brings better than anybody,” he says.

The sky clears on our last night, and before going to bed, Hempton predicts, “Dawn should bring a wonderful listening opportunity. It’ll be clear, and the birds will have a pent-up need to reestablish territories.” That’s a need Hempton can appreciate.

Trip Planner
Visit Mt. Rainier’s silent side.
>> Get there From Enumclaw, take WA 40 33 miles southeast to the White River Entrance Station. Go 10.5 miles up the winding road to the parking lot for Sunrise Point.
>> Permit Required (free for walk-ups, $20 reserved). Pick up at the White River Entrance Station or Sunrise Visitor Center. Make reservations from March 15 through September 30 (see contact).
>> Guidebook and map Day Hiking Mount Rainier, by Dan A. Nelson and Alan L. Bauer ($17, mountaineersbooks.org); Trails Illustrated Mount Rainer National Park #217 ($12, natgeomaps.com)
>> Access On October 14, the road closes at the junction with WA 410. It typically reopens by July 1.
>> Bears Pack bear-bag gear and hang food 10 feet off the ground and four feet from the tree.
>> Contact (360) 569-6575; nps.gov/mora

SEEKING SILENCE
9 more hikes where natural sounds rule

(North Carolina)
Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Memorial Forest
Trek into the white noise capital of the East.

If the sounds of babbling water and wind through the leaves soothe a frazzled mind, then the 13.3-mile Slickrock Trail might just be the country’s most relaxing hike. You’ll cross Slickrock Creek 12 times in the first six miles and pass three named waterfalls on your way to a breezy campsite at Naked Ground Gap, a tree-covered pass at 4,000 feet. From the Slickrock Creek trailhead at 1,060 feet, wind along the creek, heading upstream along a gentle grade. Seven miles in, listen to the crash of 30-foot Wildcat Falls and its four separate drops. At camp, perk your ears for great horned, barred, and screech owls. Hike out the way you came.
>> Map Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness and Citico Creek Wilderness ($10, fs.fed.us)
>> Info (828) 479-6431; joycekilmerslickrock.org

(Minnesota)
Boundary Waters
Canoe Area Wilderness
Hike beneath airplane-free skies.

Along with the White House and Area 51, the Boundary Waters prohibits planes—even float, bush, and fire-detection flights—from flying below 4,000 feet. Result: no drone. Take the Angleworm Trail on a 14-mile short-handled lollipop loop that gradually wends 500 feet up a granite ridge, through groves of red and white pines. Angleworm, Home, and Whiskey Jack Lakes each have a symphony of loons, geese, and occasional wolves. One of our scouts even heard canis lupus devouring a kill near here. Can you handle -30°F nights? Snowshoe this route to hear whines, gurgling, and gunshot cracks as ice forms across these narrow lakes. One ranger says it sounds like whale song. Typically, this annual sonorous event occurs in December or early January. Camp on the eastern bank of Angleworm, near mile seven at a site overlooking the water.
>> Map Boundary Waters Canoe Area West ($12, natgeomaps.com)
>> Info (218)-365-7600; bwca.com

(Arizona)
Navajo National Monument
Hike through the Southwest’s best-preserved ancestral pueblo.

Northern Arizona’s celebrity attraction, the Grand Canyon, hogs hikers’ attention—but it is also plagued with tourist flyovers. Navajo National Monument’s 17-mile (round-trip) Keet Seel Trail is reliably empty and quiet. It’s more than two hours from Flagstaff, the nearest city larger than 10,000 people; the trailhead is literally at the end of the road (AZ 564) in Navajo Nation; and strict permitting limits access to 20 daily. From the Keet Seel trailhead, drop 1,000 feet through sandstone rubble and dunes to the canyon floor, where you’ll cross Keet Seel Creek. The only hubbub is the wind in the junipers.
>> Map Provided at orientation
>> Info (928) 672-2700; nps.gov/nava

(Idaho)
City of Rocks National Reserve
Camp in a Martian landscape with noise-canceling formations.

Marooned on a high desert plain of sagebrush, just outside of Almo (population 150), City of Rocks’ granite domes and spires once served as a crucial landmark for pioneers traveling west to California. Today, the surreal surroundings are a stomping ground for rock climbers, hikers, and solitude-seekers. Spend a night in one of the City’s campsites tucked into the aspen groves, then dayhike. From Pinnacle Pass, head north cross-country, using the west side of the formation as a handrail to reach the least-visited pocket of the park. Next day, hike seven miles from Circle Creek Overlook trailhead to the Indian Grove campsite. From here, scramble 8,867-foot Graham Peak. Listen for red-tailed hawks, scurrying rabbits—and ghosts. Some hikers say they have heard train robbers hiding gold amongst the rocks.
>> Map Sawtooth National Forest Map ($10, fs.fed.us)
>> Info (208) 824-5910; nps.gov/ciro

(California)
Kings Canyon National Park
Follow the footsteps of John Muir, one of our country’s first natural-sounds enthusiasts.

Although Muir trod through the West’s wilderness long before the era of microphones and digital recorders, his writing captures the sounds of nature in thoughtful and captivating prose. (Hempton once spent an entire summer searching out the sounds of Muir’s writing in Yosemite’s backcountry.) But instead of battling the crowds and tour buses clogging Yosemite Valley, head to Tehipite Dome, 1.7 miles inside Kings Canyon’s western boundary, which Muir argued rivaled its famous neighbor in splendor. Start at the Sierra National Forest’s Rancheria trailhead, and as you hike the 13.5 miles to its base, see if you can hear the difference between Jeffery, fox tail, and lodgepole pine. Really. Camp creekside near Deer Meadow or Crown Creek.
>> Map Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks ($12, natgeomaps.com)
>> Info (559) 565-3766; nps.gov/seki

(California)
Death Valley National Park
Let your ears ring in Nevada’s Funeral Mountains.

Proof that the best things in life are never easy? Hiking into Death Valley’s Red Amphitheater area in the Funeral Range. There are no trails, it is brutally hot for much of the year, and backpackers must carry in all of their water. But the silence is absolute. Rangers say that the air can be so still that the predominate sound is your own heartbeat. Drive to the end of Hole in the Wall Road (4WD required) and hike up the obvious drainage. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure-area ripe for exploration. A ring of 7,000-foot peaks encircle the drainage. Situated in Death Valley’s eastern sector, this area escapes the bulk of the military overflights which boom through the rest of the park. However, if you’re lucky, you may hear grasshoppers, crickets, bees, or tarantula hawks flying through the air. Bigger birds include Merlin, peregrine, and prairie falcons.
>> Map Death Valley National Park ($12, natgeomaps.com)
>> Info (760) 786-3200; nps.gov/deva

(Colorado)
Great Sand Dunes National Park
and Preserve Camp in the country’s biggest sandbox.

Sand dampens sound waves—some recording studios even use it. So it’s safe to say that any peep in this 30-square-mile dune field doesn’t stand a chance. There are no trails either—hike more than 1.5 miles into it, and you can camp anywhere. Target Star Dune, the tallest dune in North America at nearly 1,000 feet high, and listen as the sand vibrates beneath your boots, alternately sighing, whistling, grunting, groaning, and barking. Then head north out of the dunes to link the Sand Ramp and Sand Creek Trails. Go north up the Sand Creek drainage to alpine terrain housing the turquoise waters of Sand Creek Lakes (13 miles). Listen for the bugles of the resident elk herd.
>> Map Sangre de Cristo Mountains ($12, natgeomaps.com)
>> Info (719) 378-6399; nps.gov/grsa

(Pennsylvania)
Susquehannock State Forest
Find deep silence in the state’s largest roadless area.

North-central Pennsylvania is a world away from Pittsburgh and Philly: It’s home to the state’s largest roadless area and darkest skies. It’s perfect then, that the Susquehannock Trail System, an 85-mile loop, is right in the middle of its deepest reaches. Start from East Fork Road, near the hamlet of Cross Fork and hike five miles to The Pool, a deep 30-foot diameter pond (a local astronomy group’s favorite tent site). Camp, or continue three miles gaining 1,100 feet to a plateau covered in mountain laurel. Then drop 800 feet to the waters of Cross Forks. Keep your ears alert for the slap of beaver tails in dammed areas. Shuttle, retrace your steps, or finish the whole circuit to join the 1,000-plus strong Circuit Hiker Club.
>> Map Guide to the Susquehannock Trail System ($8, see Info)
>> Info (814) 435-2966; stc-hike.org

(Michigan)
Isle Royale National Park
Mingle with moose in one of the country’s quietest parks.

This rugged island is one of our least-frequented national parks. Add to that its location 75 miles from the mainland—in Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes—and it’s no wonder that this 571,790-acre park is also one of the five quietest, according to the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees. Leave the chug of the ferry to access the 40-mile Greenstone Ridge Trail, which runs the length of the island’s craggy backbone. Spend your trail days listening to the soft rustling of white spruce, balsam fir, and, on the island’s western end, maple, aspen, and birch. Pass your evenings on the shore of small inland lakes, with water lapping around your toes. Lucky listening: The splash of a moose’s hooves as it snacks on vegetation in the shallows or as it thunders away from hungry wolves.
>> Map Isle Royale National Park ($12, natgeomaps.com)
>> Info (906) 482-0984; nps.gov/isro

Rowing for the Gold: Skier-turned-sculler aims high

Fri, 5 Aug 2011 21:36:27 -0600

Rowing for the Gold
Skier-turned-sculler aims high
BY MOLLY LOOMIS

Part of being a kid is dreaming big, and Tetonia’s Abby Broughton was no exception. Inspired by northern Rockies Olympians like Picabo Street and like Tommy Moe, who used to ski with Broughton and her ski-team cohorts at Grand Targhee, Broughton decided that someday she was going to be just as good of an athlete. She wasn’t sure how she’d get there, but with the optimistic determination of an eleven-year-old, she knew she would.
And she did. But what’s surprising is that her day on the podium would have nothing to do with skiing or snow, but with rowing.  It wasn’t until the spring semester of Broughton’s freshman year at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, that she even considered skimming along water in its unfrozen form. Recognizing that the young student was challenged by the stresses of adjusting to college life, a music professor took her under her wing and urged Broughton to join a sports team. Sparked by a friend’s interest in rowing, she decided to give that sport a try.
The coach took one look at her and told her to come back in the fall.
“If I’d been really tall, really strong, she probably would have said ‘yes’,” recalls Broughton—who, at five foot six and 130 pounds, doesn’t fit the stereotypical rower profile. Not to mention that she had never rowed before.
But Broughton was undeterred. She returned in the fall, joined the novice team, and found herself completely hooked. “There was something about the motion of the blade going through the water,” she says. “It’s the most amazing feeling.”
By spring, Broughton had earned a seat on Lewis and Clark’s varsity team. Soon, coaches were dropping hints that her numbers were good enough for her to think about trying out for the U.S. Rowing national team.
For her summer break in 2004, Broughton headed to a sculling camp at Seattle’s renowned Pocock Rowing Center. At the end of the six weeks she was invited to stay and train with the Pocock Elite Sculling Team, composed of fifteen men and women, all with national team aspirations.
“Ultimately, that’s what I wanted to do, but I didn’t think it would happen that quickly,” she says.  After graduating from Lewis and Clark in 2005, Broughton returned to Seattle to continue rowing at Pocock, now a far cry from the inexperienced rower from landlocked Idaho that couldn’t even make the team three years earlier. After placing second out of twenty-six in the New Jersey Regatta in 2006, she realized that her determination, dedication, and coach-ability, which she attributes to her background in ski racing, were paying off.
“I had no idea, because I had only raced against teammates,” Broughton explains. “It wasn’t until after the New Jersey race that I thought, ‘Whoa, I could actually do this and be on the national team this year.’ I got really excited.”
Broughton’s roll continued, and in August of 2006 she placed fifth in the lightweight women’s quad at the World Championships in Eton, England.
Then tragedy struck in the fall of 2006. A car accident that paralyzed Broughton’s father, and the death of her brother, gave her reasons to pause. She tried to continue training, but ended up taking the next two years off to spend time with family and reassess the role rowing played in her life.
“I wasn’t 100 percent sure I wanted to go back to rowing,” she says. “It’s hard. You know it’s going to take months and months to get back into that kind of shape. It was really daunting.”
But after finding herself glued to watching the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, Broughton decided it was time to dive back in. She returned to Pocock in the fall of 2008, and over the next two years would represent the United States at the World Cup and World Championships in places like Spain and Poland.
In spring 2010, Broughton met her current rowing partner, Ursula Grobler. Like Broughton, Grobler had come to rowing later in life, at age twenty-six, but that hadn’t stopped her from breaking a world record on the rowing machine in 2010 at thirty years of age. With just two weeks left to train, Broughton approached Grobler about teaming up for the National Selection Regatta in the lightweight women’s double.  Grobler agreed, and the pair won the selection regatta. Two weeks later, they headed to Slovenia, where they captured gold at the World Cup, winning by a decisive margin. Broughton says it was an absolute highlight of her rowing career.
“There was relief, but at the same time the moment you cross the finish line, it’s like, ‘Okay, on to the next thing.’ We won this so now we have a chance at the World Championship.”
At that championship, held in New Zealand, Broughton and Grobler placed eighth out of sixteen teams in the lightweight women’s double—unfortunately, the only Olympic event for lightweight women. After such varying results between the World Cup and World Championship, Broughton and Grobler realized they needed to give their bodies a rest from the abnormally long season of training and racing.
As of press time, Broughton was debating what her next step might be. “In European countries, their rowing and sports teams are government funded,” she says. “In Great Britain, rowers are salaried. They get to put down their heads and train. Here, there are a lot more logistics [for the athletes to contend with].”
Broughton says she and Grobler are committed to being more a part of the U.S. rowing system, which would better situate them for the Olympics. But financial realities—such as having to provide their own boat—are making it challenging.
“Going to the Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it’s totally within my reach,” Broughton says. “But whenever I’m feeling just a bit burnt out with rowing, it’s easy to think about the other things I’d like to do.” She misses spending time with friends and family, she says, and pursuing other interests like biathlon, writing children’s books, or possibly a career in outdoor education.
But whatever Broughton decides, based on her track record, she’s bound to excel—despite the odds.

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