Thunder Mountain

March 11, 2019 by Will Clausen in Places

The trail to Thunder Mountain really kicks up right at the end. Suddenly I am free of the trees and on a flat ridge which acts as a divide. Looking back, there is sweeping view of the mountains ranges and islands that populate Southeast Alaska. Shimmering water and distant high peaks. Directly below me 2,600 feet down, residential Juneau, the capital of Alaska, squeezes into the narrow strip of flat land between mountain and water. From here I can see the airport, landfill, and jail, the abandoned Walmart, roads and neighborhoods. All of it the ugly and completely normal stuff found in every town. But it is strange to see those things from here because when I turn around and show my back to all of that, I am confronted with the most majestic natural landscape. It’s not just in front of me, I’m actually in it. This cramming together of things which are normally kept apart is what makes Juneau. The experience at the divide is aural just as much as it is visual. It’s actually incredible to experience the shift in sound. On one side is the sound of humanity. Vehicles streaming up and down Juneau’s lone highway, oversized trucks roaring their hearts out, pedal to the metal, frustrated by the reality of two dead ends confining fifty miles of isolated highway. Going a few more steps and just slightly down on the other side of the divide, the sound quickly turns to wind, and animals, and nothing.

Chilkoot Trail Alpine Valley

December 07, 2018 by Will Clausen in Places

A sign sticking out of the snow warns us not to stop as we side slope down from the pass. It’s late morning in early June and the sun is just starting to shine on the west-facing slope above us. The lingering snow is soft and, as the sign warns, avalanche danger will increase as the snow weakens under the afternoon sun. But the view down onto the alpine valley a few hundred feet below is breathtaking, and conveniently my hiking boot comes untied. Taking off my heavy backpack I might as well have a drink, soak up the view, and take a few photographs. It’s still early in the day. That snow above is firm enough.

Fynbos

October 25, 2018 by Will Clausen in Places

Rugged mountains frame this valley, the epicenter of the most botanically diverse region in the world. Light and shadow play on the sandstone slopes overhead while the Palmiet River meanders through shrubland below. It’s a dramatic scene. From the high peaks that form the far end of the valley the wind often blows down, picking up speed as it is funneled to the east and out to sea. In this landscape where few plants are taller than a human, there isn’t much to stop the advancing wind. But on this day everything is calm.

Midwestern Oak Savanna

August 23, 2018 by Will Clausen in Places

On a large scale, ecotones describe transitional landscapes that exist where two or more distinct landscapes converge. Forests that dominate the eastern United States, a land of abundant rainfall and humidity, must somehow become the arid Great Plains. Walking from Denver to D.C. you would encounter innumerable changes in the landscape, minor transitional places. About halfway through the journey you would cross though a much more significant transition zone wending from Minnesota south though Texas; a relatively thin band of scattered trees, predominantly oaks (Quercus sp.), outliers of the forest to the east, with an understory that mostly resembles the prairie to the immediate west. It is a landscape of borrowed parts combined to create something altogether different. This is the Midwestern oak savanna, a melding of prairie and forest.