The Gentle Art Of Wandering

January 6, 2016
by David Ryan
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Wandering in White Sands National Monument

To open 2016, the dogs and I drove down to White Sands National Monument in southern New Mexico. With its miles and miles of uninterrupted white gypsum sand dunes, it is one of the great places of the world. There is no other place like it. White Sands is right up there with the Grand Canyon as a place that will not disappoint you.

Gypsum sand is different than normal beach sand. Gypsum sand is soft and compacts well, so it is great for walking. It also doesn’t absorb heat like regular sand. If you have walked barefoot across a sandy beach in the summer, you know that it is an ouch, ouch, ouch moment. If you were to walk across White Sands on a day just as hot, the gypsum sand will be cool to your feet.

Because the gypsum sand does not hold heat, the temperature drops like a rock as soon as the sun goes down. One time, on a late October day, my daughter Jennifer and I camped out at White Sands on a full moon night. When we reached the National Monument at 4:00PM the outside temperature was 82 degrees. The next morning, when we woke up, there was a layer of ice in our water bottles. Continue Reading →

December 11, 2015
by David Ryan
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Some Bay Area Stair Wandering

Last week the dogs and I had a chance to go to the Bay Area while on a road trip. I was looking forward to checking out some of the public stairways in Berkeley as I had mentioned them and the work of the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association in the book The Gentle Art of Wandering.

After attending to a couple of business items in the morning, we drove to Berkeley to spend a couple of hours climbing stairs. Although I had a Berkley Path Wanderers map (click here if you’re interested in ordering one), I really hadn’t done any preparation. I just drove toward the hills without a clue as to where I was and finally began looking for a place to park the car when we reached a huge old white building, the Claremont Hotel.

I checked the map and noticed that we were not too far from some stairs. Although it was a brisk and unCalifornia-like gray day, we were anxious to get started and walked to the stairways a few blocks away. They turned out to be on the Panoramic Hill just above the University of California football stadium.

We began climbing up Panoramic Hill on the Orchard Lane steps a long field goal away from the Cal football stadium.

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November 15, 2015
by David Ryan
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Wandering in the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah WSA

Last month after visiting Chaco Canyon (click here to read an earlier blog post on Chaco Canyon), a neighbor asked me if I had visited the badland area just north of Chaco. I had been to the Bisti Badlands in northwestern New Mexico (click here to read a blog post about Bisti) but had never been to any badlands immediately north of Chaco.

Obviously I was very curious and checked the Internet for information on badlands near Chaco Canyon. There I found information on Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah, a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Wilderness Study Area less than seven miles from Pueblo Bonito in the heart of Chaco Canyon.

On Saturday the dogs and I finally got the chance to drive out to Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah. The temperature was around 60, it was sunny, and there was no wind. To make the day even better the dirt roads leading out to the area were in excellent shape. You couldn’t ask for a better day to go wandering.

Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah is in the heart of Navajo Country. There were only a few homes scattered in the area, and we saw only one car as we drove in. There was no sign along the road welcoming us to the area or an official place to park the car. And we couldn’t see the badlands from the road. The only indication that there might be something worth checking out was a narrow Wilderness Area boundary marker near the side of the road.

As you can see there’s not much traffic. Chaco Canyon is beyond the ridge you can see in the distance.

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