Make Your Next Hike an Outdoor Art Gallery
Plus, finding a favorite tree, treasure beneath a dying lake, mysteries of Chaco Canyon, cherry-picking the PCT, and the joy of being a certified human author
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If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know I’m a big-time proponent of hiking your own hike. It doesn’t matter if it’s a long hike or a short hike; a multi-day backpack or a pre-brunch stroll; a solo hike or a group hike; a hard hike or a soft hike. As long as you’re outside and getting some quality time with the natural world around you, it’s all good in my book—no need to rank, list, or compare to others.
Now there’s a new way to hike—and it involves strapping canvases to your body and marching up a mountain with a group of like-minded enthusiasts.
It’s called ‘Art Hiking,’ and it’s the brainchild of Lauren Powell, a gallerist in L.A.’s Thai Town neighborhood (my old hood! Be sure to pop into Obet and Del’s for great coffee and Ruen Pair for the best papaya salad in town!). Powell calls this group her Sunset Hiking Club, and it was featured in the Los Angeles Times recently.
The club meets monthly, carries or straps canvases to their bodies, and hikes through the neighborhood into Griffith Park and up to the Berlin Forest. Once there, they unload the artwork and stage a free outdoor gallery. According to Powell, not only is a great way to get people outside and active, but it’s also a nice way to expose more people to art and remove art and artists from traditional gallery spaces, which can sometimes be intimidating and transactional.
As an added bonus, the artwork also sometimes takes on a life of its own in the outdoor setting. Deborah Vankin of the Times noted a series of sunset paintings staged in the Berlin Forest often seemed like they were melting into the landscape itself as the sun set behind them, which I think is a pretty awesome way to recontextualize the entire experience of seeing art. And as a big-time proponent of Griffith Park’s position as one of L.A.’s few true melting pots, I love that it's happening there.
Powell also leads plein air painting workshops in the park, if you were looking for a way to get even more hands-on with art in the outdoors … though I do think hauling a canvas up a mountain really is quite a good amount of effort, too. You can sign up for her gallery’s email list and check out future art hiking events right here.
Your Parks
Your Places
Cherry-Picking the PCT
We’ve all heard about how the changing climate has affected the experience of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, whether it’s droughts and fires or floods and washed or snowed-out passes. An article from San Francisco’s KQED looks at the recent increasing trend of ‘cherry-picking’ the PCT, that is skipping sections of the trail that have been closed or diverted. The piece not only looks at what that does to the experience of hiking the PCT itself, but also what it does to the remote communities that often rely on thru-hikers for their economies (and just the general good vibes that thru-hikers and trail angels bring).
It's a great read and an interesting look at a very boots-on-the-ground development on the trail. Just ignore the fact that they pluralize “Sierra” in the second paragraph. ((Shakes fists at air))
A Chaco Canyon Mystery
If you are ever lucky enough to find yourself within driving distance of New Mexico’s Chaco Culture National Historic Park, you need to go and visit. I spent some time there during a trip to the Land of Enchantment a few years back and it absolutely exceeded every expectation I had. The park preserves the massive architectural ruins of the Ancestral Pueblo civilization, which were built between 850 and 1200 CE and were the largest apartment buildings in North America until the 19th century (!). But one question continues to puzzle archeologists: how did they move more than 200,000 timbers here from over 50 miles away?
An article in National Geographic highlights a new theory from researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder—they used their heads. Literally.
The technology is called tumplines, and it involves strapping whatever you’re carrying to your head as you walk with it. This was used by indigenous cultures from Mexico through South America, and despite looking uncomfortable, it’s a remarkably efficient way of carrying things. To prove their point, the researchers from the University of Colorado used tumplines to carry a 132-pound timber over 15 miles in less than 10 hours.
The researchers acknowledge there is still no definitive proof the Ancestral Puebloans used this method to move timbers, but the Ancestral Puebloans used tumplines for other objects and this study proves the feasibility for the large timbers.
RELATED: Some Great Hikes in Chaco Canyon via Modern Hiker
Tech Talk
Gadgets, Technology, and Hype
A Lithium Lifeline / Death Sentence?
In middle school, everyone in my earth science class picked an element to do a report on. I picked lithium, mostly because of a Nirvana song and also mostly because its atomic number was low enough that I didn’t have to spend a ton of time sketching out its structure for class. Fast forward (mumbles indistinctly) years, and lithium has become one of the most important rare(ish) elements, as it’s necessary for rechargeable battery technology in electric vehicles, mobile phones, laptops, and lots more.
A new study had found that a slurry of minerals thousands of feet beneath Southern California’s Salton Sea may contain enough lithium to create more than 375 million electric vehicle batteries. This single deposit could put the United States on the path to being a lithium exporter just in time for current supplies—mostly in Australia and South America—to start to run dry. That’s good financial news for California’s Imperial County, one of the least populated and most economically depressed areas of Southern California. But potentially very bad news for the Salton Sea, a rare desert terminal lake that’s already on the ecological ropes from decades of fertilizer inflows. Ecologists are also concerned that a drying Salton Sea could expose people to carcinogenic sediments kicked into dust while also potentially reducing the risk of a major earthquake on the San Andreas Fault.
Despite its problems, the Salton Sea is still an important stop for many migratory birds … and fellow desert weirdos.
Leafing Out
Plants!
You Should Have a Favorite Tree
Brendan Leonard (aka Semi-Rad) has been writing and drawing about the outdoors since 2011. I’m pretty sure I saw this piece of his a few weeks back on social media, but it hit Outside this week and reminded me how much I enjoyed his comic on his personal favorite tree, and how it’s worth finding and keeping an eye on your own personal favorite on your outdoor adventures.
As Brendan notes, your favorite tree doesn’t have to be a famous one or even one that’s exceptional in any way—in fact, it’s even better if it isn’t! I have a few vine maples in my local park that I like to keep an eye on, and even though I know it’s well-known, I will tell you that whenever I’m flying into L.A. I always look for the Wisdom Tree in Griffith Park. Just knowing it’s still around somehow tells me things are OK with the world, you know?
One More Thing
Oh yeah, before I go …
As I was reading Brendan’s piece in Outside, I noticed that above his byline, it said “Certified Human Author.”
Now, Brendan is a funny dude, so I assumed this was something he did on his own. What even IS a “certified human?” Before I nuked my Facebook account, I listed my job as “Economic Unit at Human Capital Stock,” after a depressingly dehumanizing remark made by former White House advisor Kevin Hassett.
But NOPE. That’s something Outside puts on the pieces written by the dwindling number of human writers it still employs. At a recent tech conference, guests and experts kept saying things like “AI isn’t coming for your job, it’s coming to help with your job,” and yet I have multiple writer friends who have lost their jobs to artificial intelligence bots in the past few months. I can also tell you that the majority of job listings for writer-types these days are either people who know how to talk to artificial intelligence or people who can come in and just add a touch of humanity to auto-generated blocks of text. And that’s … man, that’s such a bummer.
So let me just thank you, dear certified human readers, for reading, commenting, sharing, and (especially!) supporting this certified human author here via paid subscriptions, on Modern Hiker, or by buying one of my books (on Amazon or from me directly).
It’s hard not to look at these sorts of things and not feel like I’m re-arranging dangling participles on the deck of a sinking literary cruise ship … so let me tell you, that support really means a lot, especially as the Modern Hiker website celebrates it’s 17th anniversary this weekend (celebrate by hiking a good trail for me!)
So until next time, or until ChatGPT scans this without my consent and feeds it to you in a search result,
Happy Trails from an Actual Human Being.
Wonderful dispatch, Casey. As a PCT cherrypicker for 15 years, I appreciate the link to the Dixie Fire PCT piece. Thanks!