Down the river with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell

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The creek gurgled softly, reflecting a trembling light on an overhanging roof of limestone. Here we sat, backs resting on shelves of the polished gray rock while contemplating Ed Abbey’s words, the river, the cliffs that soared beyond our view, the whole river trip experience. Fifteen high school youth, a few scientists, and several boatmen who liked to call themselves “sub-adults,” calling on a scientific terminology heard regularly throughout the course of a day, as we classified endangered humpback chub. And if we boatmen were sub-adults, there was one super-adult among us; a mother, executive, and United States cabinet member. Some would have called her Secretary Jewell. We called her Sally.
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A woman of considerable outdoor experience, it surprised me to learn this was her first multi-day river trip. Quite the one to pick—the Grand Canyon’s lower half—where the first day saw three boatmen swept from their seats in the surging peaks of Hermit Rapid. The secretary picked this trip, a Grand Canyon Youth / USGS joint venture, because her own journey had been profoundly shaped decades ago by an adventure youth program, and because science, education, and the natural exuberance of youth filled the evenings, rather than five-star meals and cocktail hour.
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At times she presented as a politician, holding court on policy, offering vignettes of life in Washington D.C.; but mostly she was simply one of the crew, eager to help in the dish line, willing to learn the secrets of Dutch Oven cooking, ready to hold a bow line. When the indefatigable youth engaged in an evening abdominal workout, Sally was all-in, holding plank position with the teens at 60 years young.
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The earnest and sometimes naive inquisitiveness of teenagers must’ve been a refreshing change from the entrenched attitudes of D.C. When else does the Secretary of Interior get asked, without judgement, “what makes you qualified for this job?” Those of us who overheard the 15-year-old’s query got a chuckle. The curious teenager got some insight into the makings of a cabinet member. Sally, maybe, got a fresh perspective on the honorable responsibility of her position.
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Answering questions is a normal day’s work for Sally, as is making speeches and listening to a hundred different agendas, so when she slipped away early from our contemplative limestone overhang, I gave her a few bends of the canyon before following, at some distance. Every ten minutes or so I would see her far ahead, a puny figure beneath inconceivable millions-year-old canyon walls. I supposed she was thinking about her ensuing presentation at the South Rim, but I hoped she was simply experiencing the awesomeness of it all, taking a break from thought, feeling that spiritual connection to nature that is more powerful than any policy speech.
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It seems Sally was doing a little of both, because a day later she finished her talk at the park with a haiku, penned during a period of quiet among high school kids and sub-adults, under a dancing limestone roof. Who knows if this moment of reflection will influence national policy before Secretary Jewell’s term expires. Either way, our world must be a better place for it.

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Climate candidate Bill Barron atop Kings Peak

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The lake was less than a half-mile away and there was still thirty minutes of daylight left, so one might think that our timing was perfect. But within that half-mile lay a heap of table size boulders, each one leaning precariously on the next, ready to shift with the weight of the next step. The night was going to catch us.
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In hindsight, we’d have been smart to retreat from the summit of 13,528-foot Kings Peak, go back to the trail and descend in dusk. But from the eminence of Utah’s highest point, possibilities seemed endless. There was no going back, only forward, as perilous as that might be, toward our destination.
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It was day two of Bill Barron’s senate campaign trek, leading across Utah from its highest point to its lowest in a bid to raise awareness about climate change, and maybe even get some votes along the way. A single issue candidate, Barron’s platform is carbon fee and dividend policy—the most practical and essential step our government can make toward slowing climate change. Bill hopes to gain ten percent of the vote this November, because ten percent has been proven to make a statement, and a difference.
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The current momentum of our changing climate will be around for decades ahead, but with carbon fee and dividend, scientists believe we can stop global warming at 3 degrees Celsius. That would keep ecological changes at a manageable level. It would at least stem the bleeding.
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And that was just what we were doing now—in the fading light among the rocks—recovering from earlier questionable decisions, making the best of what was before us. We stepped carefully and slowly, knowing that pitching camp in the dark was not ideal, but it was infinitely better than breaking a leg at dusk, at 12,000 feet.
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The five of us gathered at the lake as stars emerged, got warm food in our bellies, then hunkered in for a night of 60-mile-per-hour wind gusts. At first light we got below treeline, and birds chirped beneath a warm sun. Like humanity might do, we had stumbled, and then recovered. The way ahead was long, but achievable, so we strode out of the mountains with purpose. It was the only way out.

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Conifer Cruising Klamath Country

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Lunging up granite steps in the trail, I was glad to have nothing but a skinny day pack, but I couldn’t help thinking about carrying a loaded kayak. This was the trail to Bishop Pass, and the Middle Fork of the Kings River. It’s a run I have never done, but it must be the ultimate whitewater journey in North America—8,000 vertical feet in 50 miles from the high Sierra to the low foothills. I reflected on Doug Tompkins, millionaire philanthropist and total badass who made the first descent of the river in 1982. I wrote about Doug’s last kayak trip, and his environmental legacy, in this summer’s issue of Canoe & Kayak magazine. Life for someone like that is so full and long, but also so short, at age 72.
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The Sierra was not my mission, however, I was en route to the Klamath River Mountains to research a story for American Forests. First stop: Duck Lakes Basin, and the greatest conifer assemblage on the continent, maybe the world. I counted 17 different  species, and probably just didn’t hike high enough to find the 18th.
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Pack rafting on the South Fork of the Trinity brought me to an outstanding grove of Pacific yews, slow growing little trees that natives favored for fishhooks, and scientists once coveted for their cancer fighting chemicals before artificial laboratory reproduction was developed.
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The Klamath Knot, coined by author David Rains Wallace, is a mountainous redoubt in northern California and southwestern Oregon containing 38 different conifers. The only place on earth with more is New Caledonia, in the South Pacific.
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My last destination within the Knot was the Trinity Alps, and a stunningly beautiful drainage called Canyon Creek. With national park-like scenery, the word is out, and I passed at least 60 backpackers coming out of the basin over the 4th of July weekend. Still, the place wasn’t terribly trashed. Impacted, yes, with some curiously deposited toilet paper and random trash, but I was thankful the forest service hadn’t implemented a permit system, otherwise I’d have been a criminal, or not there. Education, not regulation, is my credo for such environments. One day following the holiday, mine was one of just a few camps in the valley.
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I woke to a tumbling mountain stream before hiking out to meet my friends for an afternoon run on the Trinity River’s Burnt Ranch Gorge. Three years in a row of paddling class V on my birthday! I sense a streak starting.

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Pack Rafting Oak Creek

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Maybe a dozen years ago, I decided that 200 cubic feet per second was the minimum water level for paddling Oak Creek. In a hard shell kayak, this still seems about right. It’s a diminutive stream for sure, but still worthwhile—more water than rock, anyway.
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This season I had a revelation. Pack rafts draw less water than kayaks, they slide over rocks and logs easier, they fit into small eddies better, and if the river disappears completely, they are simple to portage. So, as I drove along Oak Creek at a winter base flow of 95 cfs, I tried to imagine myself out there, in a pack raft.
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My first trip down was a total experiment. If it was turning out to be ridiculous, I’d chalk it up to research and go home. Three rapids into the run, I was having a blast! Pack rafting at 95 cfs was about the same as kayaking at 200 cfs. Low water boaters, there’s a new game in town.
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It took some convincing to get McNaughton and Govi out there, but a promise of cold beer at Indian Gardens afterward worked its magic. At 200 pounds in the high performance Alpackalypse model, McNaughton needed more water. At 150 pounds in our Yak models, Govi and I were floating free. Paddlers, the Oak Creek season just got longer.

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