I’m glad someone (or something) finally got around to asking this very question. I don’t believe in the theory that starting anything that requires a lengthy and difficult learning curve is iinherently easier if begun at an early age. While the theory has been around forever, it has also been riddled with holes. The further back we step in time, the more value can likely be assigned to the theory, but our youngest of generations are very different from those who were in the same place forty or fifty years ago. Time has steadfastly moved forward but it could be argued that our young are not learning commensurately with the speed of change. The requisite skill sets have not kept up with the complexities involved in moving today’s ball down the field. It is my belief that getting started early, whether at guitar or any musical instrument, offers only the opportunity to have more combined time to learn over the course of a given lifetime and become highly accomplished at a relatively younger age – given the same amount of learning time.
For me, in particular, once I retired and made the conscious commitment in time and resources to become a solid player of both the electric and acoustic guitar, I knew precisely what I was signing up for. I’ve been at it, in earnest, for fifteen years now. Granted, I have been consciously proactive in living healthy and remaining active to mitigate the inevetable aging process and learning to play guitar is one of the things I subscribed to those fifteen years ago, to keep my brain functioning at the same level, if not higher, than I found it, awash with exhaustion and burnout from a demanding career in large project engineering.
But, after engaging in some smart things to remain smart, I recovered and have gone on to spend this period of my life working on my “creative side” by taking up writing to augment the guitar playing (on average, I play for sixteen hours a week and dedicate about the same number of hours to writing. I spent about an hour a day reading about things that interest me, which does not include the news or current events. I could say that my life post-retirement life has, almost to a fault, has been about learning. I do not recall having the wisdom to thoroughly “apply myself” at a much younger age. Since I’m sure that I’m not alone with having such a midlife epiphany, this would mean that our learning process takes years to develop and (prodigies aside) learning difficult things when we are very young comes far more organically than we’re constantly informed.
I cannot speak to childhood prodigies who, almost as if by magic, are fortunate enough not only to have some sort of major proclivity at something, but who have someone they’re close to be aware of it and point them in the right direction. And, I can only speak to learning guitar as my instrument of choice, but, just like anything else, there is a range when it comes to prodigies. I think it is safe to say that it they’re surrounded by music, perhaps dad is a lead guitarist for a very good local band and mom teaches piano, and, between them they have a large music collection from which to listen and play to, then any offspring they might have is invariably going to have a leg-up on the local competition. Perhaps prodigies are not so much born as such as they are steeped in a musical environment that gives them wings at an early age. I suspect that it’s nearly equal parts of having their brains wired a certain way at birth and soaking in that musical cookpot set swaying over a gentle fire. Again, I do not know enough on the study of childhood prodigies to fully comprehend the mechanisms behind it. But if we limit the conversation you young prodigies getting an early start, then of course they hold the vast majority of players starting at any age at a complete disadvantage. But these tiniest of tiny circumstances have little to do with my overall comparison.
This has all been leading somewhere because, at least for me, I don’t think I would be any farther along in my playing, if, say I began at 12 and was now 27, as opposed to my actual age of 64, with the same 15: playing years under my belt. I would put my own ability to think and learn up there with any of the younger people I meet. And, it’s not just me. I’d bet my last dollar that my 55 year old aerospace engineering wife could be counted on for the same thing, as could many of my professional friends of a similar age. I would guess that there are many middle -aged people who feel precisely the same way. As I’ve said, the cross-section of young people of today is simply not the same as those of the same age bracket three generations ago I see on a regular basis that without their smartphones, they are ill-prepared to supply answers to even the most rudimentary of questions, let alone have the thinking and, therefore , learning ability (and mental discipline) to take on something as daunting as learning to play a musical instrument.
The question asks “Why might adults have an advantage over younger people when learning a new instrument, like the guitar?”. My shorter answer is that adults have myriad advantages over younger people at learning many things, and they’re not confined to learning how to play a new instrument. If a child never learns strong “thinking” abilities (this takes years) they will be forever disadvantaged when it comes to “learning”.
Cheetah and Springbok Credit Lifeandtimessafaris.com
Sparked by this great question, a lot of salient information spilled forth on this time-tested subject while adding other traditional cheetah prey such as the springbok, impala, Thomson’s gazelle (unless this is the gazelle referenced in the question – there are several species). and, ultimately, the tdessebe, yet another high-speed African creature. In some searches, the goitered gazelle comes out on top, and in others, it’s the springbok which is noted for both speed and high-speed agility.
By all appearances, the tsessebe appears to be the most formidable opponent for the cheetah, having much more muscle mass and a step up in overall size, but far less is known about the species in the context of being cheetah prey. I do not know of its level of agility while running flat-out. It’s difficult to think of any form of gazelle besting the springbok in that criteria. Whatever the case, the cheetah’s top speed is listed at between 61 and 70 mph, depending on where you get your numbers. On the low-end, approximately 60 mph, some antelope can come awfully close to matching its straight-line speed. At the high-end of 70+ mph, it is several mph faster than anything on land. While all of this makes for fascinating reading, the question uses the words “better runner” and not “faster runner”. There are several aspects of running which can be measured, but the one thing that was not discussed, at least not at length, is endurance. In the natural world, the typical equation has prey animals being faster while predators rely heavily on stamina, or endurance. Aside from the cheetah, cats tend to be ambush predators that, like the quarter horse, can attain their highest speeds very quickly but, at the same time, can only hold that speed (generally between 35 and 50 mph) in relatively short bursts. Then there are the wild dogs which include dozens of species found throughout the world. These predators tend to work in strategic packs by running down their prey over far greater distances. They tend to have a relatively high success rate by carefully looking for weaknesses among a single prey item and home in on that older, younger, sick, or injured individual. But where does man fall into the spectrum of endurance-based hunters? The answer might surprise you, but even today, a highly athletic human being can out distance any creature on land. Through the eons, it is thought that man began early in our evolution to learn from animals like wolves and dogs like the African Wild Dog as to how to run prey to ground. On the vast, open plains of the Serengeti, those who were deemed as providers for a given tribe morphed over time into being tall (to see long distances, particularly when jumping up and down to take snapshots of the view and keep their game in sight). They were long and lean and carried long, lightweight spears. These hunters succeeded by having ample endurance beyond that of their prey species. They were “running prey to ground” much like wolves do when chasing caribou over long, open distances.
Not enough is known to quantify an accurate success rate or qualify our status as a hunter species using the same basic approach to downing animals as wolves or wild dogs, but they were successful enough to, along with herding cattle and goats, feed the many hungry mouths of the tribe. The Masai of today’s Kenya and Tanzania have continued to evolve in much the same manner as their ancestors and continue ceremonial hunts which are identical to those conducted by Masai tribes centuries ago.
In terms of pushing the limits of human endurance, there is the modern-day example of the Tarahumara people who are indigenous to Copper Canyon, located in Mexico and several times the size of the Grand Canyon. It is the world’s largest. I’m not sure of the particulars. but these people play a ball game which travels up and down the walls of the canyon and going between communities non-stop for days at a time. In the early 90’s, the Tarahumara were “discovered” by a team of American archeologists who have since written books on these special people. The late 80’s and early 90’s marked the dawn of many extreme sports including long distance running races in the mountains of Colorado. The Leadville 100 was among the most covered by the worldwide media. A one hundred mile race with elevations ranging from 9,500 to almost 14,000 feet. The archeologist in charge of the Tarahumara program thought it would be fun to invite two of their strongest runners and enter them in the race. For some reason, the Tarahumaran’s had no footwear for such an event so they were pointed in the direction of the Leadville dump whereupon they fashioned some running sandals from some leather and old tires. I believe the race was to begin on the following morning. From here, I’m sure you can see where this story is headed. There they were in their homemade sandles standing amongst some of the best endurance trail runners in the United States, dressed in the finest and lightest running gear there was at the time, perhaps finishing some high-tech breakfast or protein rich exercise bar. The gun went off (I’m just going by memory here) and a couple of days later, the Tarahumara finished one and two. Some spectator even handed one of them a beer a couple of miles from the finish and he happily drank it down. There have been several books written on the tribe and its running culture, the most read of which is probably “Born to Run” by Christopher McDougall.
Being a competive endurance trail runner and cyclist myself, I never cease to be fascinated by the athletic abilities of many animals, man included. It is interesting that we are comparitively poorly put together when compared to the most beautiful and athletically prone species found throughout the world and, unless carrying weapons that can even the odds or make them certain, few would argue that we are easy prey for most medium to large-sized predators. It’s too bad that we’re caught and immobilized quickly enough that our one strength, physical endurance, virtually never comes into play.
Cheetah vs Thomson’s Gazelle vs Impala, Credit Daily Mail Springbok and Tsessebe, Book on the Tarahumara People of Mexico
From Antique Tortoiseshell to Italian Celluloid, to Epoxy Resin
Originally Posted to Quora
My favorite part of a guitar isn’t the beautiful woodgrain, ornate wood figuring, the shape and size of the instrument, or the nice appointments like a maple binding, or the style and colors of the back seam, it’s the pickguard the builder chose to use to augment the overall beauty and particular look of the guitar. Vintage style nickel “Waverly-style tuning machines are something else that immediately catches my eye.
Some years ago, when there was a shift toward more pickgaurd styles and a much broader range of designs and colors, I began to be curiously fascinated by them, particularly tortoiseshell guards. I spent some time researching the history and materials used over the last century.
The first tortoiseshell pickguards didn’t come from a tortoise, at all, but from the now endangered hawksbill sea turtle. What a beautiful animal. The practice of using this obviously gorgeous creature to make all manner of ornate things such as ladies hair combs, belt buckles, mirrors and hairbrushes, was first used over a hundred years ago. Pickguards from this era are so rare that I couldn’t find one online. These pickgaurds would be still attached but in very poor condition on guitars more than a hundred years old, and not many guitars from that period have survived. Other extremely old pickguards would have become detached from their guitars and would have been unceremoniously thrown away. I did load one photo of a modern pickguard for you to compare along with examples from my guitar collection.
Hunted for centuries, a CITES moratorium was placed in the early 1970’s on hunting, sale, or trade of this creature and it’s beautiful shell. Suddenly, the use of “tortoiseshell” became illegal, but I recollect seeing guitars from the late 70’s still adorned with turtle shell pickguards. I suppose, in practice. it took a few years for the moratorium to settle in on remaining stocks. The Hawksbill turtle has recovered but populations are still far from what they once were.
Since then, several materials have been or are still in used today, such as various forms of plastic including nylon and PVC. It wasn’t until the advent of “genuine Italian celluloid” after WWII that a material as beautiful as tortoiseshell began to make inroads and, within a decade, became the preferred pickguard material for the entire industry. Suddenly, all sorts of color combinations became available and every major guitar brand used nothing but high-quality celluloid acetate. You can see some of those different options in the photo showing celluloid sheets, from which pickguards are manufactured or made one at a time, by hand. Today, the number of boutique pickquard makers is growing and for prices ranging from $35 to over $100, a fair amount of money can be spent on buying a custom, handmade pickguard. These custom made pickguards can be absolutely beautiful and when the right one is chosen for a given guitar, it can give that guitar an entirely new look. The process for removing an old pickguard and installing a new one is not difficult but does require some focus and attention so as to not cause damage to the guitar’s finish. As always, you can reduce any angst you might have by taking the job to a qualified luthier.
As they say, “all good things come to an end” and, today, there’s a shortage of high-quality celluloid stock. For a brief period thirty-plus years ago, celluloid acetate was being made in the US, but environmental regulations made it impossible to compete with Chinese manufactured celluloid, which is where the bulk of the world’s supply comes from today.
With this shortage, inventors have been hard at it making hybrid celluloid -epoxy resin pickgaurds. All- resin pickguards are also being made.This may be the way the industry is headed, but to my knowledge no single manufacturing company is making them on a production scale. These pickgards can be beautiful to look at but have a rubbery, flexible feel and are about twice as thick as celluloid sheets. Some people love them and some haven’t gotten used to the idea. Prices range from $35 to around $70. Some of these makers have more experience working with this resin based material, so it may be worth spending a little more on a more established maker. Personally, I prefer celluloid but I do not know if the current shortage is long or short-term.
Here are some celluloid pickgard examples from my own guitars:
Examples of Various Celluloid Acetate Pickguards
I have switched-out the stock pickguards with some custom made pickguards on several of these guitars. I was completely happy with the stock pickaurds on others.
A Couple of Examples of Resin Pickguards, Resin and Genuine Turtle Shell Picks
As you can see, we’ve come a long way from using the extravagant shell of the Hawksbill turtle. It wasn’t just Americans that hunted the hawksbill, but indigenous people had coveted its shell for centuries. Among the most obvious uses for its shell was in making beautiful, ornate bowls. At that time, it must have seemed like the hawksbill’s numbers were limited. The real pressure on its existence was around the period of the civil war, on into the early twentieth century when their numbers declined enough to become noticeable. Tortoiseshell was also used in making guitar picks one at a time. I can’t say that I’ve followed the most recent trend in making “boutique” picks, but with celluloid getting more and more difficult to source, there are a number of changes in guitar pick materials some of which are very expensive (between $15 and $65) per pick. You can still buy a bag of your favorite picks for under $10, so this is going to be an interesting new subject, one that I will write about after I’ve learned a bit more.
It’s no secret how popular climbing Everest has become. Here’s a few statistics to digest before tearing into the story. I know, there are two different figures shown for “Successful Climbs”. What do you expect for AI?!
Courtesy AI Summary
I just got done watching “Dying for Everest”, a 2007 documentary based on double amputee Mark Inglis’s triumphant summit bid on Mount Everest and the existential happenings during that climb.
Image Credit: Unsplash
Starting at a relatively young age, Inglis had been a professional mountaineer and member of an alpine rescue team based in his home country of New Zealand. He was already a gifted and highly experienced mountaineer when he spent twelve days on New Zealand’s Mount Cook, after being caught high on the mountain with his partner in an extended blizzard before they were finally rescued. As a result, severe frostbite brought an end to his legs and feet (from the knee down). While undergoing a brutally painful and lengthy rehab, he was fitted with prosthetics and began the long road back to seeking adventure.
Fast forward to the mid-2000’s when Inglis made the decision to be the first double amputee to reach the summit of Mt. Everest and went about joining an experienced team, several of whom had summited Everest on two or more occasions and were old friends. Anymore, most people are familiar with Everest, the tallest of the world’s 8,000 meter peaks at over 29,000 feet ASL (Above Sea Level) and the endless stream of climbers of all ability levels who make the attempt each climbing season (lasting just a few months). From both an ecological and spiritual standpoint, the mountain is truly under siege. Strewn everywhere are non-biodegradable trash such as plastic water bottles and used oxygen cylinders from around base camp at 17,000 feet to the furthest reaches of the mountain, a testament to the thousands of people who have attempted the climb. Only a fraction have made it safely to the summit and the return cimb down.
Inglis and his team which included a climber known as “Cowboy” who had designed and fabricated Inglis’s highly specialized climbing legs were well funded and well prepared, enough so that they were able to contribute $80,000 to a charitable group that involves amputees. The team had ample media coverage commensurate with covering such a huge human interested story. I can recall the ferver surrounding the climb as the date closed in. There aren’t many “firsts” remaining on Everest or, for that matter, in mountaineering, adventure or extreme sports, discovery, or exploration in general. The turn of the twentieth century and the twenty years on either side were banner times with the races for the poles, polar travel, arctic and antarctic attempts and crossings. It seems that “firsts abounded”. We even made it into space by the late 1960’s. Everest is not considered the most difficult of the 8,000 meter peaks. Though they are seldom used, there are far more difficult routes on the mountain than the one taken by probably 99% of the people attempting the climb. In comparison, K2 has an unbelievably low success rate coupled with the highest death rate which is one in every four climbers. With that in mind, it’s all but inconceivable that people attempt it at all. Imagine being a father or mother and having your adventure seeking husband or wife inform you that they’ve made their decision and will be joining their team of three or five others to climb K2 during the next climbing season. In the 1970’s with the world’s climbing community saying it was impossible to do Everest without oxygen, a forty year old debate, German-Italian Reinhold Messner, one of the all-time best mountaineers not only proved them wrong once, but twice while taking one of the most difficult, but direct routes up the mountain unaided by the use of oxygen. These were feats that went unchallenged until a super-climber named Ed Visteurs repeated it sometime in the early 1990’s. So, attempting to climb Everest while being a double amputee would garner a lot of press and the climb was followed by millions.
Image Credit: NBC Sports
The rest of this story isn’t so much a chronicling of Inglis’s remarkably successful climb (much has been written about the endeavor), but something that occurred along the way to the summit and its aftermath. There is a point on the mountain (generally described as being over the 26,000 foot mark) above which is considered the “Death Zone” and it is thought by all to be the most dangerous aspect where an individual climber can spend only so much time within that space and the summit, on the way both up and down. This includes spending time trying to get some windblown rest at Camp 5, perched precipitously several thousand feet below the summit. There is absolutely no margin for error including ailments such as cerebral edema which happens when the blood no longer carries enough oxygen to the brain. If it goes untreated for even a full day or two, it can lead to certain death. The primary treatment for getting someone who is suffering its ill effects is getting them down to a much lower elevation, as quickly as possible. Once at basecamp, the symptoms wii disappear on their own, that is, unless more permanent damage to the brain has already occurred.
Many climbs have ended for entire teams so that the life of one of the members can be saved in an all-for-one effort to get that team member back down the mountain. Working as fast as possible, with the death zone surrounding them, often leads to more than just the one casualty. None of the climbers have their wits about them. Some more than others, but any kind of injury is made exponentially worse simply by being that high up on the mountain. Often a climber will stop to rest for what was supposed to be just a few minutes and when they try to get up and move on, they find that they can go no further.
What many people aren’t prepared for is the area known as Green Boot Cave named after a dead Japanese climber whose green mountaineering boots are still quite visible wrapped around his feet. There are some ten or eleven other dead climbers from ill-fated expeditions in the past couple of decades whose frozen bodies decorate this part of the mountain. At that elevation, it takes decades for bodies to even begin to decay, but, since they are no longer of this world, even their own climbing buddies elect to leave them on the mountain rather than risk becoming another casualty in an attempt to haul these bodies all the way back to base camp. But in the moment that Inglis and his team were passing through this frozen battlefield, there was another body in the crack in the rock, a body which was still moving ever so slowly and trying to speak, Inglis’s team stopped for enough time to decide that there was nothing they could do for him. The stricken climber was all but gone and that was the consensus amongst the team members. Throughout the day and into the night, an estimated 30 other climbers passed the man, many without knowing he was still clinging to life. Sad to say, but even if a rescue effort had taken place now, it is highly unlikely that anything could have been done for the severely frost bitten and nearly braindead climber. From the various accounts, it is all but certain that he would have been brain dead and incapable of surviving the grueling trip down the mountain. Too much time had lapsed in a place where there is no time.
By the time the story had been picked up by the media and reached the world, the public outcry was merciless and, because Inglis’s story was already being covered heavily, the story became a story within a story and Mark Inglis and his team were being blamed for the death. Judgement wasn’t nearly has harsh within the climbing community even though the mountaineering world is traditionally unforgiving and harsh when it learns of mishaps that were largely due to poor judgment, they knew that this wasn’t one of those occurrences. This case of death high up on a Himalayan mountainside was scrutinized by a general public that knows absolutely nothing about the conditions these climbers face at such extreme altitudes. Inglis’s “trial by fire” was not conducted by an objective judge and a jury of his peers. When mountaineering accidents happen, people from both inside and outside the mountaineering community want answers and above all, they want to see real accountability. But this was extremely hurtful to Inglis who’s only real crime was being there after the crime had already been committed. Where was this climber’s team? Ostensibly, having left their comrade behind, they were off chasing the summit. Though there were several teams in that general area at the time, it is difficult to get a straight story. Again, each of these climbers wouldn’t have been functioning at their normal levels, mentally or physically. Many were simply mute or mumbling, in a hurry to keep moving toward the summit with the primary goal of summiting and getting back down below the death zone.
When looking at the full measure of accidents and catastrophic events that have occurred on Everest over the last thirty years, it is clear that there are too many climbers on the mountain at almost any given time. And, at just a few months, the climbing season is very short. I can imagine sitting in a small Tibetan cafe and “feeling” the eyes upon me from the people who have lived for centuries in the shadow of this great peak and be viewed as another clueless American who has come to desecrate their most holy of religious and cultural places. Perhaps a mother of a Sherpa who lost his life trying to make a living for his community by ferrying loads for the thousands of foreigners just passing-through each climbing season. On the other end, you’ve got a huge cloud of pressure that resides over the mountain and everyone who travels so far from home and family to pay their $50K to one of the many guiding operations with the unspoken promise of getting them up the mountain. For most, just arriving at base camp is the culmination of saving money and getting physically and mentally prepared for years. If they don’t end up among the fortunate climbers who summit and make the even more hazardous trip down to complete the climb, many are willing to literally die trying. They understand that this is the downside of what they signed-up for. With that level of commitment and focus on a dangerous goal, self imposed or otherwise, you can picture the amount of collective angst that is on Everest every single day of each climbing season. I’ll venture that it’s nothing short of being palpable. No matter how well prepared your typical Everest climber might be, there are few things in ordinary, day to day life that prepare them for that kind of pressure. As the numbers have steadily risen, there are fewer and fewer climbers that have the experience or wherewithal to even step into base camp. But at roughly $50K per climber, there is big money at stake and many people simply talk their way onto a climb.
It’s not like the route taken is difficult. It is the easiest way to get people up and down the mountain and is a predominantly well-marked and maintained path interspersed with a number of quasi-technical features to best along the way. But it is not for the faint of heart. It is the sheer number of climbers that has become the greatest challenge (and hazard). During a Camp 5 to summit,-push, there may be eight, or more, teams of six to twelve climbers vying for very limited space the entire way up and down. In most places, there is a single path to be taken with invariable “log jams” occurring in places like the “Hillary Step”, a moderately technical section of the route that spells mishap for numerous climbers each year. When looking down from this vantage point, there is a seemingly endless stream of people that have been forced as if like cattle from a herd into a confined, singlefile corridor. If you stumble or fall, you’re causing an undesirable stoppage. Now picture people of all abilities from guides and those who may already have summited four or five times to work-from- home gym rats or even a celebrity or two. This all makes for a day in the life of a climber on a push for the summit, typically a sixteen to twenty hour stint when finally getting back into Camp 5.
Additional pressure builds during instances where a storm is on its way (this happens often and accounts for many bad decisions) and climbing against the greatly reduced time allotment pushes many people beyond their ability to cope with the added physical and mental strain. Perhaps they’re feeling the effects of altitude sickness, are already running low on their oxygen appropriation for the day. Or, their guide who senses that a particular climber isn’t up to the task at hand has to make the never enjoyable but hugely important decision to send them down along with another guide to ensure their safety during the long and hazardous trek back to base camp. The team leader will now become the one and only guide. If the weather holds, only a fraction of those who began their summit push in the wee hours of the morning, in the pitch black darkness of this other-worldly mountainscape, wiill summit that day. It is one of the single most difficult 24 hour periods in all of sports.
Inglis summited and spent a bit of time at the top. By the time he reached Green Boot Cave hours later on the now dark trail, the stricken climber would be no more. By the time the world heard the story, it was apparent that Inglis had been singled out from the thirty-two other climbers who were there that tragic day on Everest. In fulfilling his double -amputee dream, his story was the best one for the media to latch onto and embellish. It took considerable time for the “Trial by Public Opinion” to calm (months ) and sift fact from fiction. Numerous climbers had been informally interviewed upon returning to basecamp and it seemed that with each telling, there was a different story. But there were ample similarities, perhaps, the most important of which was that not a single climber had assigned a speck of blame on Inglis as it related to any other climber or the whole of the ignominious failure to do “the right thing”, as the world would perceive the dilemma. To comprehend what occurred (or didn’t occur) on the mountain that day, it is of paramount importance to remind ourselves that the accident happened in Everest’s”Death Zone”, a place where no one on earth could still be 100% in control of their mental faculties. It was later found that many of the climbers who passed the body that day either thought it was dead just like the other bodies they’d come upon, or didn’t see him crouched in the crack (“cave”) right next to the long-since frozen Japanese (“Green Booted”) climber.
I don’t think many of us understand the motivation behind trying to have immediate closure to some sort of tragic mystery, particularly when it involves a dead body or a person who seemingly vanished from the face of the earth, but, as we’ve all seen on TV shows like long-aired CSI, rushing to judgement rarely turns out well, especially for those persons who initially appeared to be a primary suspect or person of interest. Their lives have almost invariably been changed for the worse even after being formally ruled-out of an investigation or exonerated. It was no different for Mark Inglis whose only crime was being a celebrated person for having the intelligence, grit, and determination we all wish for but never seems to find us. It can only come from knowing the darkest of places and having the temerity to wriggle back out and never, ever throw in the towel. To attack him personally and professionally for what happened that day was wrong and the people who never went so far as to find out what really happened before pointing the finger own him one huge apology. I hope he one day gets it, at least a modicum of it.
Tibetan Prayer Flags Against an Everest Backdrop Credit Shutterstock
I have been fortunate to spend large portions of my life living, working, and playing in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, the Rocky Mountains of the Intermountain West, and the wonderfully remote parts of Texas. The Adirondack Mountains which is where my family on both sides dates back to the 1830’s was where I spent much of my younger life. What an incredible place to grow up hunting and fishing,bskiing, canoeing, hiking, cycling, and watching an Olympic-bound older cousin training at, what was at the time, the only bobsled course in the United States, Mt. Van Hovenberg, just outside Lake Placid where the 1936 and 1980 Olympics were held. I then left for the bigger mountains of Colorado and the West just after graduating from college. I’ve done rough calculations and, from what I can guess, I’ve taken over 40,000 photographs. Of those, I would anticipate that half were of my adventures to wild places and communing with wild things. I just turned sixty-four but have been forced by a quickly deteriorating spine to dial things back such that I am no longer able to take the long road trips which were my life’s blood until just a few years ago. But I had a good, thirty-year run in Colorado and went on countless adventures throughout Colorado and into New Mexico, Wyoming, and Utah. I am in the daunting process of going through them but will post some of those photos in written pieces to come.
About thirteen years ago, my younger wife landed a wonderful job in Texas and, since I was much closer to the putting a cap on my career, I joined her to come to where we now live in rural Central Texas, about an hour s drive equidistant from Austin and San Antonio. The closest I can get to my Colorado mountains and the Colorado Plateau is by driving the seven hours to what has become my favorite place in Texas, the Big Bend Region and Big Bend National Park (BBNP), roughly two hours south and west of El Paso. This is a very remote area of the United States, with some of the darkest night skies anywhere in the world. All part of the Chihuahuan desert which extends across the border and the Rio Grand deep into Old Mexico. I’ve spent considerable time roaming the area and backcountry camping in BBNP where I’ve hiked many a mile and enjoyed the last of my mountain biking and trail running days. In February of 2014, I made my first trip to the park and camped for six nights, seeing just four people on my daily hikes and rides. Heaven on earth! What a wonderful break from humanity and all things touched by man. It felt pristine and wild and was still largely undiscovered by the throngs of people I’d grown accustomed to seeing in other National Parks throughout the American West.
Central Adirondack Mountains, Ausable Valley Floor from the Family Homestead and the Ledges on Ebenezer Mountain (Rising from Behind the Family Homestead)
I would go on to make numerous trips to West Texas and the Big Bend region. Here are a few highlights:
Images from Fort Davis State Park Near Marfa and Various Locations in and Around BBNP. The last Photo is of the Chisos Mountains and Mount Emory. At Almost 7,825 feet, it Stands as the Park’s Highest Point, 2,000 feet Above the Valley Floor. The Rio Grand, Which Marks the Park’s Southern Boundary and Border with Mexico is at 1,875 ft.
Most of my travel to the Big Bend Region has been a solitary endeavor. While dogs are allowed, there are enough restrictions that it hasn’t been worth bringing them along. For me, having grown accustomed to sharing wilderness experiences with my dogs, this by itself is a difficult pill to swallow, but Big Bend is a Natural Park and such park restrictions are put in place for good reason. Plus, having a dog along for a long run or hike in 100+ degree heat with virtually no water to be found simply wouldn’t be a good idea, extending well into foolhardiness.
On one trip (Christmas of 2018)), my wife and dogs joined me for a West Texas excursion to the town of Marathon, an historic oil boom and railroad town, located roughly 90 miles north of BBNP. We’d rented a two room Sears and Roebuck catalog bungalow and used it as our base of operations. Though from San Antonio, she had never been to the Big Bend region, so I had the pleasure of showing her the sights. This included daytrips into BBNP and exploring the towns of Alpine, Fort Davis, and Marfa. Some of you may be familiar with the area around Marfa as it was the primary filming location for the film epic “Giant” featuring a young and beautiful Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, and Rock Hudson. But I fell in love with the less traveled and much less populated town of Marathon, where we were staying. When I wasn’t in the backvountry on previous trips, I stayed at the historic Holland Hotel which had been build during the 1930’s. But the only hotel time we spent on this trip would be having New Year’s Eve dinner at the historic Gage Hotel, in Marathon, another grand hotel from the same period, the heyday of the oil boom, cattle ranching, and the newly built railroad, which, back then, was the primary means of travel between Houston, College Station, San Antonio, Austin, and Alpine.
View to the North from the Town of Marathon, TX
The Historic Gage Hotel in Marathon. Texas
The Historic Holland Hotel, Alpine, Texas
To me, whenever I’ve taken a road trip to some remote location for another sort of adventure getaway, I attempt to mix in a couple of days on the tail end of that trip and stay at some historic hotel to clean-up, get a good meal, and some much needed rest before the return trip home. I have a number of favorites in Colorado. Victorian Grand Hotels which were built between 1880 and 1930 during the mining boom when these now resort towns were in their heyday. In West Texas, the Holland and Gage Hotels have served as my newfound favorite places to stay.
Needless to say, the Big Bend Region draws a lot more people now than it did during my first stay in 2014, but when compared to other National Parks in the country, it still feels relatively wild and it is not difficult to find places that are off the beaten path. I’ve spoken with several park rangers and within the National Park system, Big Bend has long been considered the crowned jewel for its rugged and remote nature and relatively few park visitors. Many senior rangers put in for it as their final assignment and remain in the area after retirement. It is, by any measure, one of the most priestine, beautiful, and wild places remaining in the American West.
Note; More recent photos were taken using a Sony Xperia I IV smartphone. The associated camera technology and capabilities are top tier.
Older photos were shot with an HTC M7 or a Motorola Edge (3rd Generation), phones also known to have superior picture taking capabilities.
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