In 2011, I spent over three months in Nepal traveling and kayaking in various remote areas.  During that time I developed a strong connection and marvel for a country of humble and compassionate people.  This wonder brought me back again in 2014, though with different goals.  There were still rivers and places I wanted to see, though I always found myself wanting to spend more time staying put in the villages than my paddling partners.  From my kayaking experience in the remote district of Dolpa & Humla I knew that I wanted to spend time in area where there were no cars or buses, only walking trails.  I wanted to frequent the same houses and get to know the locals and how they got on in their daily lives.  I had met so many Nepalis who lived the agrarian lifestyle and radiated some of the warmest smiles I had encountered, it was addicting.

Humla

Late November as I wandered the maze of cobbled streets in Kathmandu I found myself in a volunteer office inquiring about teaching opportunities.  I had done some shorter stints of teaching in Upper Dolpa & Mysore, India and knew how energetic the young population could be.  When the coordinator suggested a working with Sherpas on their English in Kathmandu, I stopped her and explained I wanted to be far from these crowded and polluted streets.  So I was place in the town of Surkhe of the Ramechapp District.  To get there I would take a 9 hour bus ride, 3 of which were on mountainous roads and then still have to walk about an hour to get to my host family.  Having just got off a 24-hour bus from Western Nepal, this commute was quite inviting.  The village even overlooked one of my favorite paddling destinations, the Tamba Kosi River.

Surkhe

For the next month I lived with a host family and their 4 adorable children.  Every morning I woke up at 6:00 am had a cup of tea, some corn nuts, and walked about half an hour to the school while the sun rose and caste its first light on the Himalayas across the valley.  I taught English and Literature in the mornings to the upper level (class 11 & 12) before walking home again for lunch.  After lunch, I again took the walk through mustard fields, past chickens & marigolds back to school by 11:00 am for my other classes.  The afternoons was filled with English and some Math for the 8th, 9th, & 10th classes.  Over 80 students were packed into my 10th class geometry course!  In the evenings I returned to my host family for dinner and early to bed.  Six days a week the process repeated.

12th Class Literature

On my days off I was able to explore the incredible landscape that surrounded me.  A 7-hour hike brought me to the top of Sailung (3200 meters) and views of the entire Rolwaling Himal Range.  A morning sunrise atop the meadows of Sailung with prayer flags snapping all around was a rare special moment in life where time seems to stop.  On another weekend I was able to link up with paddlers and run the continuous big water class IV Tamba Kosi River.  The endless single track, hospitable guesthouses, & rich culture create a unique area to explore Nepal and yourself.

About a month ago, two very powerful earthquakes and countless aftershocks struck this area and many other parts of central Nepal.  My host family was forced to sleep underneath their plastic greenhouse because damage to their home made it too dangerous to inhabit.  Since the earthquake, the country I love has been turned upside down with its citizens questioning even the ground they walk on.  Even weeks later the entire country slept outside in the rain as aftershocks continued to rattle the fragile infrastructure and their lives. The stream of social media of friends in the country who have shared first person accounts of the disaster has been humbling.

Many friends locally set up grass roots efforts to respond to the some of the most remote and hard hit areas outside of the major centers.  First response efforts were led by fellow rafting & kayaking guides who used their knowledge of the area, local connections, & money raised from social media campaigns to save lives and assess the situation.  Quickly it became apparent that more long-term projects were needed.  Improvised housings would need to be replaced by more permanent structures, & quickly due to the impending monsoon.

Nepal will take many years to rebuild, though one of the constant messages I see from friends is they want to build a better Nepal by the hands of the Nepalis locals.  These dark haired short statured Mongols have adapted to live EVERYWHERE in their country.  Their resourcefulness and ingenuity of making do with what the land provides is something to marvel at.  Their bonds of social security are held together through families and villages.

Earthquake Resistant House

Temporary School

For a better Nepal to endure they will still need help from the outside.  Programs like Medical Trek Nepal & Mandala Organization continue to take in funds and turn donors money into houses.  Houses for a better Nepal, more resistant to earthquakes, yet extremely cost efficient.  Just $200 is enough to change a family’s life.

Local efforts and outside donations will make an amazing contribution, but Nepal will also need its biggest resource to return, tourist.  Tourism accounts for nearly 10% of Nepal’s GDP and has been growing over the past decade.  Out of 75 districts in Nepal less than 10 were severely affected by the earthquake.  The airport is totally operational and buses in Kathmandu are waiting.  If you have a love of the outdoors and mountains, there is no better destination on earth.  Nepal has it all and can be done on a shoestring budget, just make sure you like rice & lentils.  I can’t wait to get back!

Elevate Nepal

Come climb and Elevate Nepal on Friday, June 19th from 6pm-9pm at Peak Experiences Climbing Center. Enjoy climbing and Nepali snacks while learning more about Nepal’s needs and people.  Entrance cost to the event will be a donation to support Nepali earthquake disaster relief. 100% of the money donated will be sent directly to a remote village through Medical Trek Nepal for housing during the upcoming monsoon season.

A section of the downtown RVA heron rookery in its glory days. Credit: Nick Kotula

Here are a few things that you should know about me before reading this: When I put together the words “Richmond” and “outside”, I immediately think of the James River. When I think of the James River, I immediately think of wildlife. And when I think of wildlife, I think of herons. I’ve been writing about the heronry (a rookery for herons) at Pipeline Rapids since 2012, primarily for the James River Association for their Today on the James blog. You can read my most recent article here, or you can waste a bit of time reading all of them here!

So, I really like birds. I especially like great blue herons (GBH for short). For the past few years downtown Richmond has been THE premiere spot in the area to view these birds as they court, copulate, and care for their young. In 2015, the Richmond heron world was rocked. Much like the purple martins (I love that that website still exists), the birds were a no show. At least no one had planned a Heron Festival, which actually surprises me, in retrospect.

Even with no rookery, this is a common sight along Pipeline Park. Credit: Nick Kotula

Richmond Times-Dispatch even did a piece on the disappearance and questioned if they were just delayed or perhaps confused from our horrible winter.

In April I only found one lonely bird. Previously, if there were leaves on the trees, there were chicks in the nests. I returned to Pipeline in May, and I think we can safely say that there will be no heronry this year at Pipeline Rapids.

However, while the herons may have abandoned their previous home, they seem to remember where to find the best takeout in Richmond. The fall line was teaming with GBHs taking full advantage of the running shad and assorted other fish.

So, what does this mean? For you, it means Pipeline is still an excellent place to get in touch with nature. For the James, hunting herons are a great sign of water quality. For the usually solitary and territorial herons, the fact that they are still visiting the fall line en masse means that they are probably still nesting nearby. For me, that means further exploration and reporting on where they’ve taken up residence!

Few birds are more impressive than a heron in flight. Credit: Nick Kotula

If you have never been, I highly recommend that you make a visit to Pipeline Park. Click here to find RichmondOutside.com’s Pipeline park page, scroll down and look on the right side where you’ll find a green “Click for Directions” button. That should get you there!

Do you have a favorite spot on the James? Do you have any leads on where the herons are nesting? Let me know in the comments!

The epic mud battle. Credit: Scott Turner

Naturally, I was interested when I got the news that my daughter’s 7th grade class was going on a field trip. Not to a museum, this time. Or to a national monument, or a place where nature’s creatures are partitioned into cages and fed by humans. This was to be a true field trip into the the wild nature surrounding Richmond where creatures only eat if they feed themselves. I imagine the original “field trips” were of this ilk. They were trips away from the schoolhouses and the population centers and into places where children observe the land or refresh themselves in places where water gathers after pouring from the sky. Places where we remember our deepest roots as living organisms, and we read from the green and wet pages of the original text.

Kyle Burnette and Georgia Busch, educators for the James River Association, met our group of teenagers and chaperones at the Deep Bottom Boat Landing 28 or so river miles east of Richmond on the northern bank of the James.  They were to be our guides for a canoe paddle through the mouth and into the throat of Four-Mile creek.

Launching canoes. Credit: Scott Turner

Before launching, Kyle gathered us into a circle to make sure we were all facing each other. He had us each introduce ourselves and mention one original expectation for today’s adventure. I might have been mentally prepared at this point to criticize the pre-packaged learning experience. I was mildly skeptical.  But then it was Kyle’s turn to speak. He said that he was especially interested in this day because most of the educational trips he runs launch in the morning.  He was interested because today’s afternoon paddle offered him the chance of a fresh perspective.  Anyway, he reminded us, it is commonly said that a person can never step into the same river twice.

It was in this manner that Kyle first found my ear. I can only respect a man who recognizes and appreciates the subtle but significant differences that are often the only distinctions between today’s experience and the experience of the day before.

The beginning of an intimate relationship. Credit: Scott Turner

Georgia paddled the lead boat, but I had not learned to appreciate her yet. She hadn’t spoken much, and when she had it was mostly with the intent of young person crowd control. The kids had just finished their last exam, and the intoxicating brightness of summer vacation shined full in their faces. Georgia seemed to recognize that for this trip to become a positive learning experience law and order must be maintained. Using her experience and training, she kept us in ranks and on task as we offloaded the canoes from the trailer and launched ourselves onto the glimmering surface of the James. I would have never guessed at this point that just beneath the outer shell of educator and tactician was poised an unruly and playful child just waiting her turn.

A few hundred yards into the creek Georgia instructed us to “gunnel up,” which is the boater’s equivalent of “huddle up” or “cuddle up.” Our canoes were gathered to become a strange floating barge fastened together by human hands.  Kyle stood up to speak.  He taught us wonderful facts about the river, its history, and its connection to our lives.  There were mumbles and giggles at times from the young floating congregation, but after telling us about the small, yellow Caribbean migrant known as the Yellow Warbler, Kyle called for a 15 second moment of silence that was properly honored. While the dense noise of 7th grade socialization has its own experiential merit, this here was an old-fashioned field trip, and Kyle silenced us to hear the healthy sounds of feathered life. He knew the sound of the Yellow Warbler by its four high-pitched chirps. “There! That’s the warbler!” he exclaimed, teaching our ears to recognize the shrill signature of this migratory bird’s existence. This Kyle was really growing on me.

Kyle looks on as the face painting begins. Credit: Scott Turner

He sat meekly in the “Princess” seat of a 3 person canoe, and I saw little of him except when he stood up in his canoe like a preacher to share with his small flock the facts of the creation. Kyle is a “fact-preacher” to be sure. I heard little of politics or religion in his voice. Only “creation-lover,” “Yellow Warbler-lover,” etc.

The tide was dropping steadily, and we followed the creek to where it narrowed to allow only single file canoe passage, and the boats floated inches from the bottom. We gunneled up, and Kyle stood one more time to caution us that the river and its tributaries are not as healthy as they might be, but since people began taking an active interest in their welfare in the 70’s, they are much healthier than they were and otherwise might still be.

Some of the boys were still goofing off a bit, but I could tell they were more engaged than they probably are on field trips to indoor spaces. They were enjoying what all the children would later acknowledge as their “best field trip ever!” Even the class clowns answered questions and helped to hypothesize the future of the river. This natural museum captured their interest in a way that a Van Gogh or a Matise never will.

My daughter brooke taking off her shoes for the mud battle. Credit: Scott Turner

Georgia watched silently as Kyle showed us how to sample the oxygen content of the water. He made a strong argument for the importance of oxygenated water for subsurface life of many varieties. After displaying the respectable oxygen-content result presently obtained, he shared his optimism that people who care for the river really can make a difference. Even little people like us, if we care, can nurture a healthy river. He encouraged us to dip our heads in the water, and showed us how to do it, and how good the water felt on a hot day under the sun.  The lesson had become interactive, and our relationship with the river and its tributary more intimate.

Georgia led us back down the Four-Mile creek towards its meeting with James, but before we reached the end of our field trip she called us to gunnel up one more time against the bank of a wetland.  For the first time, at least in any measurable or preacher-like fashion, Georgia took to the pulpit.  She explained how this mushy place can absorb the energy of hurricanes, how it provides abundant habitat and relatively safe harbor for the small producers of the food chain, and how it filters the water flowing into the James.  Thick, nutrient rich muck.  “Pick some up,” she said.  The boys had only been waiting for an excuse to dig in, but the young ladies were more hesitant.

Georgia said the marsh mud was a great skin rejuvenator.  “Here,” she said, pointing to a place on her chin.  “I have a blemish right here.”  She picked up a handful of brown slime from the base of the creek and rubbed it first on the blemish, and then smeared it over the rest of her face.  Now she had the attention of the young girls, and the entire group of children squeezed the mush through their fingers and smeared it on their faces.  “Go ahead!  Play in it!” said mud-faced Georgia, and the children did.  They bailed out of the canoes and an epic mud fight ensued, where one might only recognize his own child if he has a good knowledge of the structure and appearance of her teeth.  All of the rest was muddied out. All blemishes, all fashion, all reservations, all muddied out. Then, especially then, the beginning of a healthy, intimate relationship with earth. The greatest reason of all to protect the wetlands, culminated the sermon on the creek — “fun!”

Paddling Four-Mile Creek. Credit: Scott Turner

Kyle and Georgia gathered us into a circle when our feet were set firmly again on the solid bank of Deep Bottom Boat Landing. We were told to each sum up our experience in one word, and everyone must use a new word.  “Awesome!” “So Cool!” “Amazing” from the kids.  “Blessed,” “Peaceful,” “Grateful,” from the adults.

Though nobody signed anything or made public professions of faith, I am sure that converts were quietly enlisted. Small, deeply-centered professions of faith were being made in the 7th grade hearts. Not faith in religion, or faith in government, but a simple faith in the pure goodness of the creation. A faith that can save mountains if not move them. A faith that can save rivers.

Melanie Seiler runs Pipeline rapid in downtown Richmond. Credit: Elli Morris

“Who wants to run down the river with Hala team rider Melanie Seiler?!”

The call went out via Facebook, as all the RVA Swim Team requests do. Seiler was in Richmond racing — and coming in second — at the SUP cross event at Dominion Riverrock.

SUP, or stand up paddleboarding, is not a new sport, but riding a boards through whitewater rapids is still a bit of an anomaly. However, Richmond has a growing whitewater SUP community thanks to our world-class urban whitewater and Bic pro rider Ben Moore, who has helped fostered the sport here in town. (Click here to see his involvement with Richmond’s – and the world’s – only high school whitewater SUP team anywhere.) The local community of whitewater SUPers, who playfully call themselves the RVA Swim Team, eagerly joined in to ride the rapids with Seiler recently.

Seiler hails from West Virginia, where she recently began working for a new nonprofit, Active Southern West Virginia, modeled after Active RVA. She represents Hala Gear, maker of inflatable SUP boards. Seiler also hosts a SUP race in September on the Gauley River in West Virginia, featuring an attainment section and a downriver race through three rapids.

The “RVA Swim Team” during a recent paddle with SUP pro Melanie Seiler. Credit: Elli Morris

Seiler has been active in the whitewater SUP community for a number of years. “I love to encourage as many women to get out as possible. It’s a small crowd but it’s growing. It takes a lot of support and pulling friends in and saying you can do it.”

She says that women often want more instruction. They aren’t necessarily going to just jump in and do it. For her, it’s about “getting friends to help friends to get more women into the sport.”

She wanted to stay after the Riverrock races to meet with anyone who could get out on the river while she was in town. “It was wonderful!” she said of the day out with the Richmond locals.

Wheresoever we landed upon this river we saw the goodliest woods, as beech, oak, cedar, cypress, walnuts, sassafras . . . and all the grounds bespread with many sweet and delicate flower of divers color and kinds”  

– Capt. John Smith, 1607 describing the James River at Richmond

Sometimes I wonder if Mother Nature knows what she’s doing.

Invasive vines and trees along riverside drive.

She made us, didn’t she?  That’s the common scientific assumption today. We humans, so the theory goes, are the most evolved of Nature’s creations.  The result of millions of years of trial and error.  Sometime long ago the opposable thumb was tried and approved, and sometime long ago the ability to stand and run on two feet.  The combination of these freed up those habile hands for tools and weapons.  And some time 1 million years or so ago (just a few ticks of the evolutionary clock), while these innovations were being tested and approved, Nature tried her greatest experiment to date — She tried, and still tries on us, the ability to do what I am doing right now.  On April 3 of the year 2015, Mother Nature allows you and me thoughts, and symbols, and the ability to use our sounds and scribbled characters for communication or expression.  She even tries on us the ability to do what we believe no other living species on earth can do – She allows us to question our own existence.

You and I pose the biggest question that has ever faced our species.  Much bigger than “how?” or “when?” or “what?”  It’s the question that keeps some of us awake at night, or pushes us towards a pulpit on Sunday.  It’s the same question that sometimes leads us along a dangerous brink of life and sanity where even one wrong or missing answer could lead us nosediving with 149 attached souls to the base of a deep precipice in the Swiss alps.  “Why?”  Yes,  at some point in this evolution, Nature allowed human beings to ask the question, “Why?”

Vines cut at the base will die and fall away.

So goes the theory of evolution, anyway – or so goes the fact of evolution if you are one of the modern types who rules out a supernatural first cause or intervention somewhere in the lineage of our species.

But some of our modern behavior makes me wonder if the current evolutionary trial of homo sapiens has already, or will at some point, flip over to the error side of the “and.”  How can a species that has developed and stockpiled enough explosives to gruesomely obliterate itself and most of the nature around it be viewed as anything better?  How can a species that can think or “why?” itself to self annihilation or ideological war on its fellows be viewed as anything better?  Are we good for this planet?  In earth’s delicate balance of interwoven life forms, are human beings an invasive species?

My uncertainty concerning our ecological status stems from the obvious fact that superabundance is never rewarded, or leastwise never sustained, in nature. Dinosaurs may be a case in point.  When life forms take too much, consume too much, or get too large and demanding, Nature either introduces other life forms to prey on the excess, or natural disaster eventually comes to reign in the excess and re-balance the system.  This happens in your yard everyday.  Some of our most common insect problems in the urban landscape are tiny insects that feed on leaves by sucking.  Aphids, spider mites, and scale insects are all just barely visible to the human eye, and usually these pests take only what Nature allows as their fair share of a natural abundance.  In most cases the population of these insects is controlled by parasitic wasps, birds, and other life forms that feed on the smaller insects and take again what the smaller ones had first taken.  Uncontrolled by natural predators, the small suckers would eventually suck all the green life from your landscape.  Its a delicate balancing act, and according to the theory, one that has evolved over millions of years.  But the balance can be disturbed when a stranger from foreign habitats or oceans takes root in a new land.

Ailanthus altissima — a space invader from Asia.

Recently my tree care company has been removing “invasive species” from the James River Park System along Riverside Drive. The idea is to restore the park to the way Captain John Smith first saw it 408 years ago.  The way millions of years of evolution designed it to be, I suppose. While carving away with chainsaws at the top edge of the park, we post a sign to educate passersby about the project. On the signs there is a basic description of an invasive species:

 An invasive species can be any kind of living organism — an amphibian, plant, insect, fish, fungus, bacteria, or even an organism’s seeds or eggs — that is not native to an ecosystem and which causes harm.  They can harm the environment, the economy or even, human health. Species that grow and reproduce quickly, and spread aggressively, with potential to cause harm, are given the label of “invasive.” — National Wildlife Federation

Pause here.  Don’t read ahead too quickly.  Try that definition on again.  Try it on yourself.  An invasive species is one that grows and reproduces quickly, spreads aggressively, and so thoroughly displaces the indigenous population as to disrupt and possibly collapse a natural project of diversity millions of years in the making.  Now recall what Captain John Smith saw when he arrived at the falls of the James in Richmond.  Was this white man from Europe no better for the ecosystem here than the first Ailanthus tree arriving from China?  If an Ailanthus tree were able to communicate, if we were able to hear the propaganda of the species, I think I would recognize the rhetoric.  In the political chat rooms of Ailanthus altissimus  I would hear something like this:  “The Taking of the James River Park System is our Manifest Destiny.”

Well, while I am working on a project to remove this invasive species from the park, I look inward to find that I am no saint of ecological good will.  I buy and burn as much fossil fuel as the next American, I suppose, and I keep the lights on and the water running more than I should.  I buy disposable things, and grow a crop of useless grass in my front yard.  What I need to figure out is whether or not I can blend myself wholesomely enough with my surroundings to be considered a “native” species by future generations of life on earth – just one kind in an immense living array of  “divers color and kinds.”  If I can not, I am merely a space invader, and may not be carried forward when Nature makes Her selection.  The obvious moral of Nature’s 4-billion-year earth story is that if I place an excessive demand on the ecosystem, and if I fail to form symbiotic relationships with earth’s other life forms, Nature will one day work her magic to re-balance the system and scrape away the excess. She will remove me and my kind from Her million-year strategic plan for diversity. I, like the dinosaurs, will be written off as an error.

Homo Sapiens.  Successful Trial or Evolutionary Error? Native or Invasive. Nature’s jury is still out. Now and always deliberating (according to the theory).

Students walk to the canoe launch on Presquile National Wildlife Refuge.

Experiential. Dynamic. Impact oriented. These are not words I would have used to describe my high school Environmental Studies classes (all apologies to Mrs. Southall), but that was long, long ago. Today’s students don’t just require, they demand the opportunity to be engaged, to be drawn into the experience of learning. They need to get their hands dirty, get their feet wet. And it’s that demand that has pushed young, creative educators to look beyond the borders and constructs of textbooks and yes, even SOL tests, to seek opportunities for these hungry students.

Enter the James River Association, the 38 year old environmental group focused solely on protecting the James. In 2011, the James River Association opened the James River Ecology School, a one of a kind resource that enables students from across the state to have a deeper connection and understanding of their river. Within two years, the school was at full capacity and teachers and students alike were excited at this new vision of a classroom. Soon the question of “what’s next?” arose. If the demand for substantive outdoor learning is this high, how can we push the boundaries of environmental education even further?

The bunkhouse (left) and the Menenak Discovery Center (middle), part of the JRA’s Ecology School. Credit: JRA

So, what’s next is the James River Leadership Academy, a hands on, project based program for rising 10^th and 11^th graders that begins on Presquile National Wildlife Refuge and ends wherever these incredible students focus their efforts.

If you’re thinking this is a two dimensional sleep-away camp with fish hooks and mosquito repellent, think again. The James River Leadership Academy is designed to begin with a week on Presquile National Wildlife Refuge, 1,300 acres complete with the solar-powered Menenak Discovery Center, a low impact, highly energy-efficient bunkhouse, and a 500-foot-long boardwalk and canoe launch. Okay, so there will actually be mosquito repellent. And fishing. And canoeing. And team building, self-actualization and a profound understanding of the daily challenges facing our river. From here students will design their own action projects to implement within their community to put their new skills into practice.

Over the next few months the students will reconnect to share their projects and continue developing the leadership skills it takes to see those projects through. The culmination of the year-long program is the Gerald P. McCarthy Environmental Youth Symposium which will give students the opportunity to present their experiences and ideas, helping them build momentum around their action projects.

What the James River Leadership Academy strives for is impact. Regardless of what career path these students choose, they will carry with them a relationship and understanding of their natural world. Their future impact will be seen and felt in communities throughout the watershed. As Bill Street, James River Association CEO proudly shares, “the James River Leadership Academy is designed to engage, inspire and provide youth with the resources necessary to become the next generation of environmental leaders.”

Leadership begins right here, right now.

The view from City Hall’s observation deck.

January in Richmond was a wet month.  Cold and wet.  February in Richmond has also been highlighted by an abundance of H2O, but the coldness has deepened to the point where wet is impossible without the human intervention of mechanized warmth or the sowing of salt.  Our air has been so cold in the last couple weeks that water drops falling from the sky crystallize into floating flakes.  Two times in as many weeks 5-6 inches of these flakes have accumulated on and around my house. For us Richmonders this is a rare enough occasion that it’s hard not to be at least a little bit excited about it.  Time seems to stop on the morning after a Richmond snow, and the dreary winter landscape is transformed.  The grey and brown ugly duckling of the leafless forest behind my house becomes a shining, beautiful bride.

February 2015 has also been noteworthy for the deepest freeze Richmond has felt in 40 years.  Even the surface of the James near my house became mostly covered in ice (I don’t have a comparable image anywhere in my memory).  On a record day when the high temperature was 13 degrees, my daughters and I walked down the frozen surface of the Rattlesnake creek to its confluence with the James, and when we first leveled our eyes on the strange, crystallized landscape we encountered, Brooke said it looked like the whole world had been paused.

The inside of the observation deck. Credit: Richmond.com

Yes, that’s the word that best describes a snowy, frozen day or two in Richmond.  Its a strange and interesting “Pause.”  On the first morning after a snow, before streets have been made passable, even the soundtrack of our life near the Huguenot Bridge is paused. There is no background swish and groan of human transportation.  Audible signs of animal life are returned to pre-historic eminence.  In the lowland behind my house, the solitary squawk of a blackbird becomes a trumpet blast.  I hear not only the haunting question of a lonely bard owl, “Who cooks for you, who cooks for yooooooooo!” but I here the far-distant voice of the one owl responding to the question by repeating the question.   In the frozen landscape my own human sounds and motions seem almost out of place.  I become more acutely aware of my own pulse, my own inner warmth, and the animation of my daughters.

But life and play outdoors can be difficult in these conditions, so I thought it might be a good time to share with you a special, still cold, but at least wind-sheltered viewing place of the Richmond landscape.

One of the highest elevations within the Richmond city limits is the section of Broad street alongside the Medical College of Virginia and Richmond’s City Hall.  Richmond’s City Hall is far from the tallest building in the downtown district, but owing to its perch on this plateau above the shockoe valley its upper deck is at or above the level of our loftiest skyscrapers.  While in those other buildings a successful business person or client thereof may enjoy a unidirectional view of Richmond and surroundings through an office window, the observation deck of Richmond’s city hall may be one of the only places where a 360 degree panorama of our unique spot on the planet can be fully enjoyed.

Though always open during business hours to the general public, most Richmonders don’t even know of this place.  I only learned of it because one of the arborists in my company used to be the Director of Urban Forestry in Richmond.  He described it as a place where he could escape the often insane bureaucracy tying itself up in ineffectual knots on all the lower floors of the building.

Dogs aren’t allowed in City Hall, but its hard to stop them from exploring a frozen James River.

If you prefer a hike to enjoy the achievement of altitude, you can take the stairs, but a slow elevator ride can get you there as well.  Floor by floor you can watch the administrators pass from the elevator into their designated perches.  When you find yourself alone, or accompanied only by one or two people holding cigarette packs with anxious hands, you’ll be near the top.  The observation deck is the only smoking area in the building, but the thick glass separating observer from  observation does not connect with the ceiling, so the air stays fresh, and you can hear any wind as it howls past this high place and blows strange sounds through the openings.

To the west your eyes can follow the straight line of Broad Street as it skirts by VCU and Monroe park and disappears into the Goochland forest.

To the north you can see the way the Shockoe Creek cuts a deep groove in the city as it digs its way to the James.

To the east you can look down on Church Hill and the cradle of Richmond civilization.

The most dramatic view is to the south.  The concrete and glass heart of modern Richmond reaches for the sky, and flowing into our economic heart from the west and out of it to the east and south you can see the glimmering reason we are here now, and the reason humans always have been here — the James River.

So, if your fingers and toes are too cold to find much enjoyment outside, head up to the City Hall observation deck and put a thick layer of glass between you and the elements. Pick out your favorite Richmond landmarks and wander with your eyes through the past and the present of one of America’s oldest cities.  Not exactly an outdoor adventure in Richmond, but a great place to get a bird’s eye view of your next one.

If you’re a dog owner, a hiker, a runner, a bicycle rider, a bird watcher, a playground enthusiast, the parent of a playground enthusiast, or even just the outdoorsy type then you’re more than likely familiar with a little malady I’ve come to think of as Favorite Park Burnout Syndrome.

Parks are built so we can have a safe and close to home way of enjoying nature, but they’re also meant to give us a little excitement.  They’re our outdoor gyms and weekend escape locales, our jogging paths and fence-less zoos, but after too many visits they can begin to feel a bit stale.

To dogs, every park trip is fresh and new.

They become second homes, but that’s not how a park should feel. Driving to the same spot every single visit, knowing the location of every bump in the path, every fallen tree, and every water fountain as well as you know the arrangement of furniture in your living room. Adventure requires at least a few surprises. Like an overplayed song, the park begins to lose its soul.

Familiarity breeds contempt.  Having near-photographic recall of an area creates
Favorite Park Burnout Syndrome.

I struggle with this myself.  I bike, hike, and have two dogs with more energy than any suburban backyard can handle, which means I’m more than a little familiar with all the local parks.  And I mean all of them.

Having lived in the Richmond area for over 37 years, I could navigate the paths of Bryan Park park blindfolded. I’ve been to Crump Park in Glen Allen so many times I could probably guess the number of steps it takes to get from the lake to the Sheppard family house (422).  When I close my eyes I can see the entire James River Park trail system in Google Street View style (a.k.a. Terrain360.com style). And I’ve been to Belle Isle so many times there aren’t many wingless animals that could find their way from the east bank to the west faster than me.  There’s no cure for cabin fever when you’re already outside.

But there is a way to prevent it. Winter.

Just as people go on and on about Spring; the newness, the freshness, the green, the colors (blah, blah, blah), winter is equally worthy of gushing descriptions, and just as vital to enjoying the outdoors.  Winter shows the true beauty of nature without the makeup. Winter is the velvet rope that keeps one kind of person out of the parks and lets another kind in. A nice long walk in summer makes you long for the car, but a nice long walk in winter makes you long to walk some more.

The JRPS trails, like Buttermilk (shown here) are often much more lightly traveled in winter.

Winter makes old parks feel new. All along Buttermilk Trail, startlingly attractive views of the river can be seen through the framework of the now leafless branches. Mud puddles along the path we would usually think of as dirty, path-blocking obstacles can now be enjoyed as a cool, shiny invitation to test out the skate-ability (or, if the ice is too thin, the water resistance) of a new pair of hiking boots.  All those annoying, stinging, biting insects…. gone. And you know that section of the park that’s kind of your favorite, but maybe gets a little too crowded during the summer months? Right now it’s as barren as the surface of the moon. All thanks to a gray sky and a chilly breeze.

So pull up out your extra thick socks, lace up your boots, grab the big coat, and put on (or go scrounging around the bottom of your closet for) your warmest gloves. A low temperature isn’t a reason to stay away from the parks. It’s a whole new way to enjoy them.

Any small warmth I enjoyed while the sun teetered atop its lazy winter zenith tumbles now with its maker towards the southwest horizon. The bright one leaves center stage, the temperature drops, and I become more aware of the blue curtain of air separating me from outer space. Richmond’s sky is never more blue than it is on these clear, cold January days.

Sky above, sky below.

As it is with everything else on earth, the character of the sky changes with the seasons. The higher leap of the summer sun spawns heat and humidity, and the curtain of gas between us and interstellar darkness is bleached and hazed by a more direct radiation of white light.  Not so today. The shallow, soft glance of this winter sun inspires our sky into its deepest and most perfect performance of “The Color Blue.” Primal and primary blue. The one for which we rummaged through crayon boxes in our earliest attempts to color the sky on paper, or to put the proper curtain behind our trees and stick figures

I might have ignored the quality of the performance today had I not gone out for a jog alongside its mirror image.  The James River displays at least as many moods and expressions as you or me, but the gentle gaze of the winter sun tends to call it into a mostly reflective mood.  The James becomes a flowing river of sky.  During my morning jog the cobalt luster of sky below directed my appreciation to the crystal blue of sky above.

Running along Riverside Drive and through Pony Pasture Park, I am also cheered along by a dense throng of long time friends. Loblolly Pine, Tulip Poplar, Sweetgum. The Oaks. The Maples. Sycamore and River Birch. Eastern Red Cedar (my best tree friend). Along road or trail the figures of the natives are silhouetted handsomely by that blue curtain of winter sky. Its good to be among them again, even after a week-long excursion to the earthly perfection of a tropical Disneyland resort a couple latitude lines south of here in Florida. It was quite beautiful there. Extraordinarily thick and green to an altitude of 10 or 15 feet. In Florida, where Wind and Sun are A-list earth actors and trees dig their toes into loose, sandy soil, higher growths can be punished for their reach. The most common silhouettes waving around above 30 or 40 feet are those of slash pine, live oak, or that signature silhouette of the tropics –  the exotice palm.

Exotice palms in Florida.

Yes, a quite beautiful landscape, but one with which I enjoy only a leisurely, fleeting relationship. It forms the picturesque backdrop for some of my excursions, but I know little of its ecology. I don’t understand what the plants and animals do for each other, or the associations they have formed. I don’t understand their strategies for survival, or the way they mate pollen to flower for reproduction. I don’t clean up their droppings from ground and gutter. I don’t use them for heat and shelter.  Their motions, their shade, and even their sounds are foreign to me. I don’t even know how to climb some of them! In short, though the evergreens of Florida are quite beautiful trees, they just don’t happen to be the trees I know. My friends.  Those tropical trees don’t cheer me along in the same way my friends do.

I found myself looking for my friends during the drive home. Yes, we drive. If you want to draw out the strangeness of the last day of a big winter vacation to Florida you get in your car just west of Orlando and point it north along Interstate 95 as the sun rises over your right shoulder. You hold pace with downward pressure from your right foot in an attempt to drive your way out of a warm season and into a cold one all in the same calendar day. Strange times, indeed, and I wouldn’t trade those 11 hours of my life for anything. The drive forces a type of meditation one can never achieve on a plane, or even as a passenger at all.  As driver you must stay awake.  You must stay aware.  And you must give at least reasonable attention to your thoughts, your reflections, and your apprehensions.

In this situation a simple clock or digital display of numbers is no safe way to measure progress home. Whether your attention is on the moving hands or the changing numbers, during a long haul on I-95 you will find these indicators accelerating and decelerating in unrealistic, dreamlike fashion. When you combine this edge of reality with the steady drone of 2012 Japanese driving technology, you can easily develop a longing that becomes a deadly admiration for the backside of your eyelids.

Flower bracts of tulip poplars.

I think of other, more interesting ways to measure progress north. I read the changing message of the billboards.  I note the temperature of air outside my window.  I  follow the shadows on the dashboard like a sundial.  I note the decrease in bug splatter on the windshield. Any of these is more interesting and less hypnotic than watching numbers change.

But yesterday after calibrating these observational timepieces, I remembered my friends.  Already we were in Georgia and I had barely seen any of them.  Gathered along I-95 were still only the skinny and weak looking slash pines, and the thick profusion of pointy green growth in the understory. We skimmed the surface of swamps much of the way through southern Georgia watched by a strange throng of natives, but closer to South Carolina I found my first close friend in the crowd. The familiar Sweetgum, immediately recognizable in winter by its spiked, hanging ornaments. Slightly farther north and into South Carolina the understory growth was still unfamiliar, but the Sweetgums had been joined by another ornament-hanging Virginia native, the pasty-skinned Tulip Poplar, whose delicate bracts hang on its bows in winter like wooden flowers.

Sycamore seed pods.

On the billboards for a couple hundred miles a sombrero-wearing cartoon character named Pepe encouraged me north to a place called “South of the Border,” and as we crossed into North Carolina I began to see oak trees near the farmhouses, and River Birch and Sycamore in wet areas or river basins. Deep into the drive now, with fatigue setting in, I was boosted by my first sighting of Juniperas virginiana, or Eastern Red Cedar. This one had wandered all the way down to the middle of North Carolina to cheer me home. The more stout Loblolly Pine gradually took the place of its skinnier southern relative, and American Holly trees began to gather with cedar in the understory.  Sunlight had dialed all the way from right to left on the dashboard as we plunged into Virginia, where almost every fence line and median was crowded with Red Cedar.  Taller Virginia natives, naked of leaves and blushed pink by the setting sun, urged me into the heart of their realm. White Oak, Red Maple, Hackberry, Wild Cherry, Elm. Beneath them the understory was now full of the smaller species I walk with in the Virginia woods.  Redbud and Dogwood had joined Holly, Cedar, and young, brown-leafed Beech.

A full dashboard sundial and 32 thermometer degrees away from my starting point under a Florida sunrise, I knew now I was back in my own forest. Though darkness fell while the tires of the CRV still turned, I didn’t really need a measure of progress any more. Cheered along by friends, I knew I was almost home.