Tongariro National Park

View towards Mangatepopo

the first national park established in New Zealand, Tongariro is also one of the oldest national parks in the world. the first parcel of land was set aside in 1887 under the protection of the paramount Maori chief in the area (Te Heuheu Tukino IV, also known as Horonuku) in order to protect sacred Maori land from being sold to European settlers. his family descended from the earliest settlers of Aotearoa (New Zealand), and identified with Ngatoroirangi, the man who navigated the vessel that brought the first people to the island and (according to myth) brought fire to Tongariro. once the land was under his protection, Horonuku gifted the land back to the state for preservation as a national park. while the initial parcel was considered too small to establish a   proper national park (with the example of Yellowstone as comparison), subsequent government actions set aside larger and larger parcels of land for that purpose. in 1894, Parliament passed the Tongariro National Park Act, which comprised some 252 square kilometers (not all of which they had yet acquired). several updates to the Act over the 20th century brought the park to its current size encompassing nearly 800 square kilometers.

Descending from Red Crater

the three main peaks located in the park – Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, and Ruapehu – are tapu to the local Maori and development would have destroyed the mana of the sites. the Maori still have territorial rights over the mountains and when the Te Maari crater on Tongariro erupted in 2012, they declared a protective restriction (rahui) over the area to protect both the mana of the site and to ensure the safety of trampers moving through the area. because of its importance to Maori culture and its natural characteristics, the national park was designated a dual (cultural-natural) World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1993, after previously receiving status for natural heritage in 1990.

although technically established in 1894, it took some decades before transportation caught up enough to bring significant numbers of people to visit the park. the first permanent park ranger began working in 1931, two years after the completion of Chateau Tongariro at the ski resort of Whakapapa. a road to Whakapapa was completed in the 1920s, making the journey much easier than the previous overland trek by horseback or foot. according to our lodge hosts, the park is far more popular for skiing during the winter than for tramping or biking in the summer.

Emerald Lakes

until 2007 the track from Mangatepopo to Ketetahi was known as the “Tongariro Crossing.” however, the difficulty of the terrain and changeability of the weather found many trampers unprepared and the name was changed to include “Alpine” to better convey the reality of the track. we felt well-prepared setting out on the hike – both physically and in relation to gear – and I was still surprised by how much the climate changed on our hike – the limited visibility, bitter the wind and biting the precipitation through the South Crater, up the saddle beside the Red Crater, and past Blue Lake. not all trampers were as well prepared for the trek as we and the view from the trailhead might not prepare you for what was in store. moreover, in addition to the weather-related dangers were legitimate (though distant) volcanic risks. all three peaks in the park have been active in the last century with Te Maari in 2012 the most recent. when we stopped for lunch at the Ketetahi Hut, you could see active vents on the side of the mountain and the damage done by debris during the 2012 eruption. fortunately, that eruption occurred near midnight in August so the hut was not in use, but it remains closed to through-hikers due to its location in the active volcanic zone. in spite of the danger (volcanic and otherwise) some 80,000 people undertake the hike each year, with numbers growing.

Mt Baldy

one novelty of being back in southern California are the mountains. so accessible! within an hour you can be in the foothills or climbing one of the tallest peaks in the San Gabriel Mountains and hiking the highest peak in the San Bernardino Mountains even sooner! it’ll make for much more interesting trekking as we prepare for our next big hiking adventure.

last weekend we headed out for the summit of Mt. Baldy (or, officially, Mount San Antonio), the highest peak in Los Angeles county. it’s part of the Transverse Ranges that lie along the San Andreas Fault and was likely bestowed the name of Mount San Antonio in the 1840s by a rancher, after his patron saint. indigenous people in the area had other names for it, but today everyone calls it Mt. Baldy.

early entrepreneurs took advantage of the water resources of the canyons, building a sawmill (which burned down within a few years of construction and was never replaced) and starting an ice-hauling business. the steep walls of the canyon preserved snow on the northface slopes well into the spring. in the late 1850s, one-time mayor of Los Angeles, Damien Marchessault, and a partner built an ice house in the canyon (hence its current name) and started hauling ice down from Icehouse Canyon and selling it door-to-door. they also used it in their ice cream parlor in the city – the only one at the time.

it wasn’t until the late 1870s that prospectors tried their luck at gold mining around Mt. Baldy, without much success. water levels at the mines proved uncertain and people living downstream from the runoff filed suit over pollution of the creeks. more importantly, however, there wasn’t that much ore to be found and in relatively short order recreation overtook mining as a primary activity around Mt. Baldy.

the first successful summit of the mountain occurred via Lytle Creek in 1875 by a group of army surveyors and it wasn’t long before the adventurous took to climbing the mountain for recreation, generally via one of today’s common routes (Mt. Baldy Trail and the Devil’s Backbone – which we took). in the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps improved and expanded the Devil’s Backbone Trail, to help stabilize and widen the trail, offering better protection from the occasionally precipitous drops on either side.

the first “resort” went up in 1880 and shortly thereafter the owner of one of the mining support stations (near what is now the village of Mt. Baldy) converted it into a rental resort; by the turn of the century, the latter entertained up to 100 guests per weekend (keeping in mind that at this time the canyon was not yet accessible by automobile). on enterprising mountain guide opened up a “resort” some 80 feet below the summit (really just a set of tents), but after damage from a cooking fire in 1913, it was abandoned.

the shift to recreational use of the canyon resulted in bitter disputes between the camp operators and the San Antonio Water Company, which controlled water rights for the area. the Water Company ultimately wrangled control of the road and closed it off to all comers for several years; eventually, however, they decided to profit from the interest in recreation and bought one of the remaining camps (and hiring the previous owner to run it) and reopened the road with tolls. Camp Baldy, as the Water Company renamed it, became a haven for tipplers during Prohibition, though it was subject to periodic raids (agents only found contraband on one occasion). Foster Curry, whose family was known for running the resorts at Yellowstone, came down to help run the resort with the assistance of a woman he met at Camp Baldy and who later became his wife. under their supervision, the resort grew to include cabins built along the creek, a pool (called “The Plunge), barber and beauty shop, post office, casino, dance pavilion, photography studio and a school.

in 1938, a flood swept through San Antonio and Icehouse Canyons, destroying nearly all of the existing structures, including most of Camp Baldy. the Forest Service (which took over land and leases when the area became a a national forest in 1908) did not permit new structures in Icehouse Canyon, but much of Camp Baldy returned as Mt. Baldy Village, which now includes stores, lodges, fire department, school, and Forest Service information center. the Sierra Club built a lodge near Manker Flats (open to club members) and a ski hut on the Mt. Baldy Trail, near the headwaters of San Antonio Creek and named for the first female president of the Sierra Club (Aurelia Harwood, for whom a peak on the Devil’s Backbone Trail is also named). today, in addition to the numerous hikers in all types of weather, there is also the Mt. Baldy Ski Lifts (which operates the closest ski slopes to Los Angeles, and which runs the lift we rode to get to Baldy Notch on summer weekends). as long as the haze isn’t bad, you can see all the way to Catalina from the top of the peak!

we could only see cities to the north of the mountains; above the haze we could see to the horizon … just nothing on the ground.

Dunquin

Dún Chaoin is the western most village in Ireland (the parish, which includes the Blasket Islands, is sometimes referred to as the next parish to America) and afforded us with a welcome opportunity to take a break from hiking the Dingle Way. compared with many of the towns on the outward portion of our hike, the town didn’t offer much in the way of conveniences; it was a good prelude for the next several days of hiking inland.

options for dinner when we arrived after a long and physically demanding (and breathtakingly beautiful) day of hiking we limited to: purchasing & cooking pasta in the hostel kitchen; hiking to the next town, some 30 minutes further along the road; or hoping the only pub in town still had makings for white-bread sandwiches. we opted for choice number three and stumbled down the hill to Kruger’s Bar, which was a nice change from the crowded and touristy a pubs in Dingle town. a younger woman was tending bar, chatting with a couple of regulars and a grandmotherly proprietor type, who contributed to the conversation exclusively in Gaelic. she may have even been on hand the evening in 1971 when the Campaign for the Revitalization of Ale (promoting real ale, real cider, and the traditional pub) was founded in the same room (now known as the Campaign for Real Ale, the largest single-issue consumer group in the UK).

we ordered our pints and white-bread sandwiches — ham & cheese for Andy, cheese & tomatoes for me — and settled down by a corner window with views of the water. not a lot of competition for seating (all those people who just drive around the Dingle Peninsula, me of several years ago included, don’t know what they’re missing). the grandmotherly woman got up and shuffled back into the kitchen to make our sandwiches which, frankly, were the the best white-bread sandwiches you could ever eat not just because we were hungry but because such a character prepared them for us.

while we waited, I considered the portraits tacked up along the walls — snaps from when film crews for “Ryan’s Daughter” and “Far & Away” visited Dunquin in the late 1960s and early 1990s, respectively. not much of a draw from them now, but certainly potent in their day. plan to watch both to see if anything looks familiar, or if it’s all been made into generic “Ireland” with a coastal flavor.

Garfinny Bridge

while our guide material made reference to the Garfinny Bridge, it still came as a pleasant surprise. (partly due to the fact that we hadn’t seen a way marker in some time and I’d begun to fear we might have missed a turn.) situated “just” outside of Dingle (if you are in a car … still about an hour if you’re on foot), sources claim it is the oldest surviving stone bridge in all of Ireland. it dates from sometime in the 16th century and, like most bridges of its era, was constructed without mortar — just radial stones and clay to secure everything using a corbelling technique. the apex of the arch stands about 3 meters over the river surface.

the informational plaque indicates that the troops of Lord Deputy Arthur Grey may have crossed this bridge on their way to massacre some 600 Irish, Italian and Spanish rebels at Smerwick Bay. Grey, along with some 6,000 recruited soldiers, had been sent to Ireland in 1580 as Lord Deputy to put down the Second Desmond Rebellion. he was largely successful in stifling the rebellion, but even at the time some of his actions were questioned, such as the massacre at Smerwick. (he also executed a former chief justice for suspicion that the man supported the rebellion.) many say he promised the rebels safety if they surrendered their weapons and position, a promise that he soon broke, giving rise to the term “Grey’s faith.”

by the 19th century, the bridge had begun to collapse and people opted to ford the river a bit upstream. in the late 20th century, the bridge was restored to its current condition, which found us crossing the river by it rather than the nearby modern road.

Anascaul

after the beach at Inch, our second day of hiking brought us into a picturesque glacial valley and the town of Anascaul, which straddles one of the main roads into Dingle. we had our lodging booked in a B&B over a pub right where the hiking path entered town. as we came down the hill, a youngish guy working in the back garden next to our destination stopped and asked if we’d been walking from Camp today and if we had a reservation at (some other) B&B. his inquiry was the only indication that there were more than four of us hiking the Dingle Way on our schedule and pace.

after our usual post-hike shower and lie-down routine, we headed down the road to a different pub, recommended to us by the guy who served us lunch in Inch. the South Pole Inn had quite the crowd of families out enjoying the weather and a bite to eat on a covered patio. to add to the ambiance, a guy with a guitar was set up at a microphone just beside the door to the pub and performed an array of popular music and Irish tunes. there was a little kid (still in diapers but excitedly mobile) who timidly made overtures towards the musician, who tried to encourage him to come up and sing a song, or ask one of his parents to come up and sing a song. in the end the you guy decided he’d rather just run around at full tilt, sometimes towards the busy road to his parents’ chagrin. towards the end of our dinner, a woman chatted with the performer and got him to call her (not really timid) friend up to sing a song with him. she did, after stubbing out her cigarette and taking a slug of her pint, and it wasn’t half bad. I would never consider doing something like that, but it wasn’t the only time we saw it happen.

the pub, which stood next to a shallow river (named after either a local legend, known as the “Ford of Heros” or as the “River of Shadows”), was once home to Tom Crean (about which more later). the other famous local son was sculptor Jerome Connor, who has a notable work in Washington, D.C. it was, as I said, fairly well trafficked, and Anascaul, on balance, was one of the more bustling towns we visited — probably something to do with it’s location on a major road and a fair number of houses in the surrounding valley. as we descended the long straight road into town, we saw a sign for the Anascaul Walkers Club with an advert for an upcoming trek to the lake across the valley in a spectacular U-shaped glacial basin. farther than we’d ever consider adding to our trek on day three, but certainly worth the effort if driving around the peninsula.

Inch Beach

growing up, beaches for me were usually narrow strips of sand eked out along occasionally weedy-looking lakes. when we went to Daytona on spring break my senior year of college, it was completely novel that people were driving out onto the sand and parking. why would anyone take up precious beach space by parking on it?! well, when you have so much of it, it’s less of a concern.

towards the end of the trip, I joked that we spent more time on beaches in Ireland than we did on our “beach vacation” last year to Key West. miles and miles of long, sandy stretches with surprisingly warm water. the water in San Diego certainly wasn’t this warm to wade in while I was there last month! (apparently the gulf stream keeps the water around Dingle peninsula warmer than elsewhere, and keeps the climate more temperate throughout the year.)
the beach is backed by a series of dunes — reminded me a bit of Coronado beach — but is on a peninsula jutting out at an angle from the Dingle peninsula. Inch Beach is popular with surfers, apparently, and we saw several surfing schools soliciting participants. 
we arrived a bit early in the day for beach-goers, apparently. it was a Sunday and people hadn’t yet arrived for their afternoon lounging. we saw one hatchback get stuck in the soft sand just at the edge of the marked lane onto the beach, though by the time we headed back up the hill to return to the Dingle Way after lunch they’d managed to extricate themselves. during the course of the time we sat, enjoyed Bob Marley, half pints of Guinness, and filling meals, a fair number of cars made their way onto the beach. lots of families, some with vertical windbreaks of a style we saw a lot of during the course of our trip. maybe we’d just arrived to early for families — lifeguards supervise the beach from noon to 7:00 p.m. in July and August.
apparently part of the film “Ryan’s Daughter” was filmed at Inch Beach. as I’ve never seen it, I kept confusing it in my head with the horse race scene in “The Quiet Man,” which I know was filmed farther north in Connemara as I’ve driven through the village that claims the film. the pub we ate at in Dunquin also claimed some of the filming; part of me feels I should now watch it. (apparently it’s an adaptation of Madam Bovary?! set during the 1916 Rebellion …) the beach also served as setting for a film adaptation of “Playboy of the Western World” as well.
ultimately, Inch was the only beach at which we put our feet in the water. it was early enough in the trip that the more persistent and problematic blisters had yet to form, but far enough in that taking off boots and walking along the sand to put our feet in the water was an imminently satisfying thought. it was also the one on which we spent the least amount of time, as the Dingle Way does not actually intersect or follow along this beach. just the ones at Ventry, Smerwick Bay, Cloghane, Camp …

Killelton oratory

as with anyplace whose history and tradition of building erection stretches beyond two centuries, the Dingle peninsula has plenty of abandoned, tumbled-down, excavated, and over-grown structures. one of the first excavated and preserved buildings we encountered was the Killelton oratory near Camp. the first written mention of it dates from the mid-19th century and excavations and fortifications were made in the 1890s — shoring up a wall that had collapsed due to subsidence caused by a drain in the floor.

complete excavations and renovation work took place in the late 1980s, beating back the vines overtaking the site. today, the walls of the oratory stand between 5 and 6 feet high, with space evident for both an eastern window and the western-facing door. I don’t know quite how it works, but evidence also exists for a hinged door. it dates from the 10th or 11th century, but evidence from the more recent excavation indicates habitation on the site prior to the construction of this oratory, and remaining foundations adjacent to the structure suggest more modern occupation. the sign indicated a grassy patch had been used for adult burials into the 19th century, while evidence suggested that infants had been buried inside the church “in recent times.” no items of particular archaeological significance were unearthed in the excavation, simply some quern fragments, hammer stones and polygonal black glass beads.

the oratory is on the old Dingle road from Tralee, which is to say it’s now mostly a grassy, shaded track filled with biting flies and livestock leavings. we also saw several abandoned and tumble-down buildings along the same route, none of which were spruced up or maintained as the oratory.

finding the Dingle Way

first day on the trail brought us lots to see and lots to photograph. the path follows a towpath out of Tralee and into the village of Blennerville, whose claim to fame is a functioning windmill that also serves as point of tourist interest, thanks to the Tralee Urban Council, who procured it in 1981.

after passing through Blennerville — and the last shop (for procuring useful goods such as sports drink, chocolate, or peanuts) we saw for several days — we headed up onto the shoulder of the Slieve Mish Mountains. one of the peaks we passed, Caherconree, is named for a stone ring fort found two-thirds up the peak and overlooking the “road of stones.” myth claims the Cú Roí mac Dáire, a one-time king in Muenster rumored to possess magical powers, was able to raise the stones of the for up at night and spin it around so that enemies could not find the entrance. in another myth, a woman held captive in the fort by Cú Roí signaled her rescuer by pouring milk into a stream. that stream that originates near the ring fort is now known as the Finglas, a name derived from a word meaning “the white stream.”

the day stayed cloudy enough to be pleasant without a hint of rain (as it remained throughout the entire hike). the guide pages upon which we relied routinely cautioned how mucky various parts of the track could become given a bit of rain, and it was easy to identify those sections and give thanks that we hadn’t faced that challenge. we saw an assortment of all the livestock we’d see elsewhere along the hike — cows, sheep, horses — though some of the terrain was restricted from grazing. at one point we encountered a herd of brown and black cows grazing directly on top of a crossroads through which we were directed to proceed. we opted to tramp off over the boggy ground rather than get too close to an unknown herd of mothers and their calves. once past the mucky bit we had our first encounter with the biting flies and humid closeness of hedgerows we’d come to know so well. then down over the Finglas river and up into Camp for a much anticipated sit.

Trail of Time

as the snow thwarted our plan to hike down into the canyon, we opted to walk along the rim instead. starting near the Grand Canyon Village, the “Trail of Time” introduces visitors to the geological stages and rock formations that make up the Canyon. bronze markers embedded in the trail every meter indicate the passage of one million years of geologic time, from about 2 billion years BCE to the present and examples of various rock formations march along the side of the trail.

the oldest rocks of the Canyon lie more than 3,000 feet below the rim and aren’t visible from the rim. the Elves Chasm Gneiss is only found near the Elves Chasm and while its origins aren’t precisely known, some geologists suspect it was part of an old continental crust. the oldest rocks visible from the rim are the Vishnu basement rocks, which consist of ancient igneous and metamorphic rocks formed deep beneath the earth’s surface when island arcs (like those found off Asia today) collided with a continental mass. the Vishnu formations are primarily crystalline in structure — schist, gneiss, and granite — which differs significantly from the layers of Canyon above it, which are primarily sedimentary in composition.

the Grand Canyon Supergroup, layers of rock that have tilted, make up the next set of geological features of the Canyon. both sedimentary and volcanic in nature, the layers of the Supergroup formed over some 400 million years as continents separated and a new ocean basin formed in the new space between. precise dating for the Supergroup proves somewhat challenging; normally fossil records would aid in those determinations but these layers formed prior the diversification that resulted in hard skeletal structures of creatures.

above the Supergroup are a series of sedimentary layers collectively known as Layered Paleozoic Rocks. despite being lumped together, each layer illustrates unique characteristics that resulted in its formation — the presence of coastal sand dunes, the bottom of an ocean, etc. they show similar characteristics so some of the other National Parks found nearby and which are also part of the Colorado Plateau (Zion, Bryce, Arches, etc.) — an area of mostly flat-lying sedimentary rocks that were elevated thousands of feet above sea level some 70 million years ago (when the Rocky Mountains formed) and were then carved out by erosion. it’s easiest to see the effects of this erosion in these layers; each type of rock deteriorates in its own manner and the result is the recognizable stepped-pyramid look of the Canyon walls. shale erosion forms slopes; sandstone and limestone, cliffs; metamorphic, steep slopes as seen in the Vishnu basement rocks near the river.

the layer that forms the rim was the most recent set down. the Kaibab Formation formed in a shallow, warm sea about 270 million years ago — before dinosaurs roamed the earth. it covers a huge portion of the southwest, stretching from Northern Arizona into Utah, Nevada, and California.

the trail ends at the Yavapi Museum of Geology, originally dedicated as an observation point for studying geology in 1928. it now houses various interpretative exhibits, a topographical representation of the canyon, and binoculars to give people a chance to glimpse the river rushing  along at the base of the Canyon. it was also rather sweltering, trying overly hard to keep the bright, sunny, 40-ish weather outside.

first glimpse of the Catedral de Santiago de Compostela

once we regained the usual Camino, we made our way through a series of towns clearly devoted to serving peregrino purposes. for the first time I saw a sign indicating facilities were for guests or customers only. slightly off-putting considering the generally warm welcome we received virtually everywhere else along the Camino; but then, a lot more people travel this stretch of the Camino. busloads of people; people who might not have spent the previous month trying to be good stewards and respectful travelers.

in any case, just before we stopped before breakfast at a lovely stone casa rural (where the proprietor was cleaning up after the previous night’s guests and not quite ready for those inclined towards breakfast) we passed through Lavacolla where medieval peregrinos stopped to wash and purify themselves before making the final trek into Santiago. in the Middle Ages, average Christians bathed infrequently and peregrinos pretty much not at all. whether mandated or a matter of personal preference, peregrinos used the stream to bathe. apparently, purification practices differed in their complexity and thoroughness, from washing only portions of the body to cleansing all the dirt from the journey and changing clothes. (both the modern name and Latin name of the town refer to simply washing ones privates. I’ll leave it to the truly interested to translate Lavamentula [Latin] and Lavacolla [medieval Romance].) those peregrinos were often accosted by advance men for taverns, inns, restaurants, and other services in Santiago, warned of the scarcity of lodgings in the city and encouraged to hand over a deposit or full night’s payment to secure a bed. unscrupulous tavern shills offered samples of wine that never tasted quite as good in Santiago.

Cathedral spires!!

after Lavacolla, we passed the studios for TV Galicia (the highest point of this day’s hike, as lamented by our now-derided guidebook) and ascended the Monte de Gozo (Mount Joy), so named for the euphoria peregrinos experienced as they reached the summit and looked down on Santiago de Compostela. eager to get to the city, we kept going and got into a leap-frogging pattern with a group of day-trip Germans until just outside the walls of the old city. and just before we caught our first glimpse of the Cathedral at the heart of the city …