Photos - Winter in Southern States

Phoenix, Arizona

Key West, Florida

Tallahassee, Florida

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans, Louisiana

Pascagoula, Mississippi

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Houston, Texas

Views of US National Monuments To Be Reviewed

Bear Ears  in Utah

Berryessa Snow Mountain  in California

Canyons of the Ancients   in Colorado

Gold Butte  in Nevada

Gold Butte  in Nevada

Grand Sequoia  in California

Grand Staircase - Escalante  in Utah

Grand Staircase - Escalante  in Utah

Grand Staircase - Escalante  in Utah

Hanford Reach  in Washington

Ironwood Forest  in Arizona

Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine  in Atlantic near Connecticut

(Photo Credit:  NOAA)

Organ Mountains - Desert Peaks  in New Mexico

Papahanaumokuakea Marine  in Pacific near Hawaii

Lonely Roads - Photos

Western Wildfires

With an incredibly wet month of May, Colorado does not have any wildfires at this time.  However, one of the local newscasters said that there were six large wildfires burning, so I decided to look them up.  This is one of my favorite information sites about fires:  http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/   I have to admit that I was surprised to see 17 fires listed on the map.
   I also have to admit that while I subconsciously knew about a wildfire in Alaska, I had not realized there were six fires in Alaska, and the Chisana River 2 Wildfire at the Alaska and Canada border is at 17,179 acres.  The other eleven fires are within the contiguous United States.
   In Oregon, the Little Basin Wildfire is 90% contained, but has burned an estimated 630 acres in Wallowa County.  Just above the border with California, the Buckskin Wildfire is estimated to have burned 2,600 acres (an 8% increase in burn area since yesterday).
   In California, the Saddle Wildfire is now 95% contained, but has burned 1,546 acres in Trinity County.  In San Bernardino County, the Lake Wildfire is only 5% contained, and has burned over 13,000 acres.
   In Coconino County, Arizona, the Horse Tank Wildfire is uncontained and has burned 1,515 acres so far.  The Camillo Wildfire, also in Coconino County, has burned 3,300 acres.  The Kearney River Wildfire in Pinal County has burned 1,100 acres ( a 265% increase from yesterday); none of these fires are contained.  The WhiteTail Wildfire in Gila County has destroyed 600 acres and is uncontained.  In Cochise County, the Hog Wildfire has burned 1,670 acres (an increase of 149% from yesterday), and is also uncontained.
   In New Mexico, the Pinon Wildfire in Catron County has burned 110 acres and is uncontained.
  The wildfires in Alaska are the Card Street Wildfire at 7,578 acres, the Sockeye at 7, 066 acres, the Stetson Creek Wildfire at 500 acres, the Healy Lake is at 10,000 acres, the Tanana Slough Wildfire has burned 718 acres, the Michigan Creek is at 600 acres, and then the Chisana River 2 Wildfire mentioned above.
   That means 48,141 acres have burned in Alaska, and 26,071 acres have burned here in the west. That equals 74,212 acres, or 115.956 square miles of destroyed habitat.  And the western fire season is just beginning...

Ghost Towns in the American West - Photos

Animas Forks, Colorado

Bannack, Montana

Bodie, California

Calico, California

Gleeson, Arizona

Rhyolite, Nevada

South Pass City, Wyoming

St. Elmo, Colorado

Unite Against Mining Historic Apache Site!

I just read the following article and it made me terribly upset.  If you agree this is a travesty, and an act against our Native Americans, please contact your Senators and Congressmen, and President Obama.  We, Americans, do not need copper so badly that we destroy the sacred places and historic sites of our native peoples - people who welcomed the white-skinned strangers from across the sea, offered them food and shelter, and then stole their native lands, homes, and hunting grounds.  It's just sickening!   The article is titled:
"Planned Arizona Copper Mine Would Put a Hole in Apache Archaeology

By 

Zach Zorich 

10 December 2014 3:00 pm

 

Archaeologists and Native American tribes are protesting language in a Senate bill that would approve a controversial land exchange between the federal government and a copper mining company—a swap that may put Native American archaeological sites at risk. The bill is needed to fund the U.S. military and is considered likely to pass the Senate as early as today.

The company Resolution Copper Mining hopes to exploit rich copper deposits beneath 980 hectares of Arizona’s Tonto National Forest. The land, however, also contains important archaeological sites and places sacred to local Native American tribes, especially the Apache. “This is the best set of Apache archaeological sites ever documented, period, full stop,” says John Welch, a former historic preservation officer for the White Mountain Apache Tribe and a professor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada.

Archaeologists fear that the standard process for approval of a land exchange is being sidestepped. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) lays out a process to determine a land transferal’s potential impact on the environment, archaeological and historic sites, and places sacred to Native Americans. The language inserted into the defense spending bill states that the land will be transferred to Resolution Copper 60 days after an environmental impact statement, part of the NEPA process, has been completed. That prejudges the outcome of the evaluation, says Jeffrey Altschul, president of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) in Washington, D.C. “The bill says that Congress has already decided that the land swap will take place,” he says, “so we’ll do the land swap and then we’ll do NEPA.”

Resolution Copper has pointed out that there will be an environmental review in any case. In a statement published in 2013, the company says that the NEPA review will take place “[u]nder any circumstances,” including if work on the exchange begins at the same time. 

The swap has been controversial for years. Between 2005 and 2011, bills proposing it diedin committee five times in the House of Representatives and six times in the Senate, says David Lindsay, SAA’s government affairs manager, who tracks legislation for the organization. Those bills faced determined opposition from Native American tribes. Attaching the land exchange rider to the defense spending bill is a way to circumvent that opposition, says Michael Nixon, an environmental lawyer who works with the Maricopa Audubon Society and has fought the land exchange since the beginning. “Stuffing riders into... bills that are not germane to the subject is undemocratic,” he says. 

What is at stake is a landscape that has remained essentially unchanged, except for a few modern roads, since the Hohokam people lived there more than 500 years ago, says J. Scott Wood, an archaeologist for the Tonto National Forest. The area was once a trade center where the Hohokam exchanged goods from as far away as the Pacific Coast. It also preserves a full range of Apache archaeological sites, which are rare. Little is known about Apache history prior to contact with Europeans.

The most important historic site is called the Apache Leap, where a group of Apache who were being pursued by U.S. cavalry plunged off a cliff to their deaths rather than be captured. The land exchange rider exempts Apache Leap from becoming part of the copper mine, but it’s right next door, says Vernelda Grant, who is the tribal historic preservation officer for the San Carlos Apache Tribe. She says that having a working copper mine next to the site will change how people experience it. The same holds true for other culturally sensitive sites nearby, such as a place called Devil’s Canyon “where the spiritual beings that represent healing live,” Grant says. “We have songs and ceremonies that are sung there—it’s a place to just pray and pray for healing.”

The Senate is expected to pass the defense spending bill as early as today; the House has already passed it. Next, it will go to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signature, and archaeologists don’t think there is much chance of changing or removing the rider. “They should be going through the standard process that everybody else uses to get a mine going,” says Simon Fraser University’s Welch. “It’s really suspicious to be coming up with new laws every time somebody wants to put in a mine.”

Posted in Archaeology, Funding Budget 2015 "

 ***Please, if you love history, archaeology, and/or the American West - contact your US government representatives and say that this proposal is unacceptable!!! ***

Apache Mountain, where warriors plunged to their deaths rather than surrender to the US Cavalry, could soon overlook an open copper mine.

Mourning the Granite Mountain HotShot Fire Fighters

Another wildfire in another state took the lives of 19 elite, specialist fire fighters yesterday.  The blaze is believed to have been started by lightning, near the town of Yarnell (population 700) in Arizona.  The Granite Mountain HotShot Fire team came in to help local fire-fighters.  As the wind shifted, one member of the team went back to move their truck containing the extra gear.  At that time, unusual winds swirled and 18 members of the team, as well as one other volunteer, died in the firestorm.  Apparently, they knew the winds had changed, and had deployed their special in-field tents that should have given them oxygen and turned back the heat and flames; but the tents did not work.  Nineteen good men lost their lives trying to protect people they had never met...   Two hundred homes have been lost in Yarnell; the fire was reported at 2,000 acres last night, but is at 8,374 acres this morning.  Our entire nation is in mourning for 19 brave men - and my thoughts and prayers are extended to each and every firefighter and their family in America.  My husband was a volunteer fire fighter - I know what absolutely wonderful work each and every one of them performs.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
    The East Peak fire here in Colorado is now 95% contained, and the burned area is at 13,572 acres.  Fire fighters hope to have the East Peak fire completely contained on 4 July.  Thanks to clouds and low temperatures yesterday, the West Fork Complex fire is now 4% contained, while burning over 95,775 acres  (or 149.67 square miles).

American West Photos

Crater Lake, Oregon

 

Sunrise at Yosemite National Park

 

Wolf Creek Pass, Colorado

 

Snow and fog in the Grand Canyon, Arizona