Dan's Outside

Tracking the 'year of the falling stars

A fascinating look at how the Lakota Sioux used ‘winter counts’ as their calendar for generations. [Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories]

If you had to chronicle your family or personal history without the benefit of a calendar, chances are that you’d link important events to each other – ‘that was the same year we bought the new house,’ or ‘that happened just after I graduated.’

The Lakota Sioux used just such a system to preserve their own past, using a specific incident to anchor each year in their oral histories, and the time between first winter snowfalls to determine the year’s length. The resulting Lakota Winter Counts form the basis of a new online exhibit by the Smithsonian Institution, and you’d be surprised at just how much history can lie behind a single, simple image.

Lakota Winter Counts: An Online Exhibit can be found at http://www.wintercounts.si.edu.
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May 17, 2005 Posted by gdanmitchell | News | Comments Off on Tracking the 'year of the falling stars

Tioga Pass Opening

Speaking of Yosemite… at this time of the year, the attention of Sierra afficionados (at least those in the Bay Area) turns to the question of when Tioga Pass will open, offering access to the Yosemite high country and the eastern Sierra.

I hear that the plowing is going quite slowly this year due to deep snow and late (and continuing!) storms. Some are betting on a late June opening. Of course, if the unusually cool and wet spring continues it could be later. During one season in the late 90s the pass was not fully open until early July!
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May 10, 2005 Posted by gdanmitchell | News | Comments Off on Tioga Pass Opening

Time to Go to Yosemite!

***Yosemite Drapes Itself in Its Splendid Liquid Veils, and Preens
(New York Times):

It poured again on Sunday in the Yosemite Valley, but people were smiling in their ponchos and galoshes. It has been that kind of spring here: dreadful weather and delighted visitors.

Like many lakes and rivers and waterfalls in Yosemite National Park, Mirror Lake is fed by melting snow, much more of it this year than usual.
With extraordinarily heavy snowfall in the higher elevations, and lots of rain elsewhere, the rivers and waterfalls in the Sierra Nevada are gushing. Hikers must hopscotch around muddy puddles, and much of the park remains closed because of impassible roads, but the Yosemite water show is at its best in years.

I can get there in a day – time to go!
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May 10, 2005 Posted by gdanmitchell | News | Comments Off on Time to Go to Yosemite!