Spring 2022 (20th issue)

MIDDLEBURY GEOGRAPHIC

BROWN

68-73 | Sunsets by Wolf Moller '25.5 74-79 | Salamander Rave by Brett Gilman and Ethan Rising '24.5 80 - 101 | Death Valley by Julia McClain

Photo by Wolf Moller

Contributors

B ret man ' 24.5

Passionate about native plants and pollinators, Brett Gilman ('24.5) is an independent scholar in Socio-Ecological Studies in Landscape Architecture from Connecticut. An organic farmer for over ten years and an Accredited Organic Land Care Professional, he designs and installs landscapes at the intersection of aesthetics and ecology. When he's not digging in the dirt, he enjoys reading, hiking, hammocking, and hanging out with friends.

Julia’s strong eye for nature, light, textures, and people in different environments has been developing since third grade. She discovered her love of photography while participating in a 4-H project in her hometown of West Bend, Wisconsin and finds joy in sharing her passion and photos with others.

Jess Quirk ' 25.5

Jess is a baby feb from Topsfield, Massachusetts. She enjoys eating good food with good people as well as traveling around, especially road trips and national parks.

HaleyHutchinson ' 23 .5

Megan is from Urbana, Illinois, and she's always seeking out new adventures to embark on!

In her free time, she plays guitar, reads, and gets outside as much as possible.

Haley calls Mendocino, CA home. She enjoys exploring the Sierra backcountry with her sister, swimming in the ocean, and discovering new trail runs around Middlebury.

Julia McClain ' 22

Megan Pal ' 25

SK loves to read, write, spend time with animals and explore the outdoors. She hopes to pursue a combination of her passion for environmental advocacy, animal welfare advocacy and communications.

SylvieLyu '24

Sylvie was born and raised in Beijing, China. She has a passion for creative works; through writing and drawing, she has been exploring ways to live with awe, faith and vision in an increasingly rationalized world.

Having grown up in New York’s suburbs, Wolf has a newfound passion for experiencing and capturing the visual glory of the natural world. He has a particular fondness for the often-overlooked beauty of afternoon clouds and how they mix with the setting sun. Wolf enjoys traveling, reading, and biking, and is training to become a recreational pilot.

EthanRising '24.5

Ethan spends a lot time outside birdwatching, fly fishing, and photographing wildlife. He loves learning new things about the world we live in and sharing that with others. Jify

Jiffy Lesica is a 20-year-old photographer from Wilton, Connecticut with an interest in scenes of civic engagement, cultural identity, and environmental sustainability/climate change. While taking two years off before college, he developed an interest in photography as a medium to tell 'global stories'. In photographing with this intention, he hopes to frame a connection between people and their environment, chronicling and sharing scenes of tomorrow’s history.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Earth’s Tones

Earth’s landscapes evolve, ripen, deteriorate, and ultimately adapt at the hand of seasonality, human development, and changing climate. While environments are vulnerable to such external impacts, our understanding of the spaces around us are equally dependent on our own perception of them. The earth can take on new forms, new colors, and new meanings with a mere shift in perspective.

Our relationship with planet Earth is not one to be taken for granted. While we may be lucky enough to have opportunities to bask in its glory, we must also acknowledge the inherent role we as a species play in determining its fate. Much of the damage done to this planet is irrevocable. However, I urge us not to forget the power we do have in making progress in the days that lie ahead. Just as we are capable of destroying, we are also capable of mending. Doing so requires altering our relationships with space itself.

By shifting perspective, we can appreciate the diversity of the places we call home and develop a broader definition of what is considered environment in order to foster deeper attachment to the spaces we interact within and between. This 20th edition of Middlebury Geographic seeks to do just that by enhancing our collective perspective of the spaces we inhabit, infiltrate, and care for.

These pages hold stories that together create a novel palette of Earth’s tones – a colorful illumination of the interconnectedness between natural ecologies and the organisms and communities that depend on them. Readers are encouraged to navigate this collection with peaked curiosity, an intention of reflection, and a motive to learn more about the spaces that they hold close to their hearts as they relate to broader ecologies. It is with a hope that these pages promote a greater and more holistic appreciation for the planet we all inhabit, a place we are lucky to call home, that we leave you to explore.

Words by Haley Hutchinson, Editor-in-Chief

Photo by Drew An-Pham

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The Grays: A wall of clouds conceals the skyline of the Cortina Dolomites, leaving a (nearly) blank canvas for a chough to glide over (Italy, 2021)

Photo by Jiffy Lesica

GRAY

Plants as Art, City as Canvas

WORDS & PHOTOS by BRETT GILMAN '24.5

by BRETT GILMAN

This past January, I ventured into New York City with the Middlebury College History of Art Department for a weekend of education and exploration. Although I had been to the city many times on day trips, I had never before immersed myself entirely in the cityscape, nor lived and breathed the urban environment for three days. I went in with the goal of learning more about my passion: ecological landscape design. I professionally design ecologically-functional landscapes grounded in an aesthetic that focuses on intentional patterns of native plants. While it felt somewhat unordinary to go looking for wildness in the urban environment, by the end of the weekend I came to see urban design and landscape architecture as intricately related. When so many environmentalists are calling for increased human aggregation in cities to minimize environmental impact, I recognized a paradox in concepts like Edward O. Wilson’s Half-Earth vision.1 Our current extractive worldview rests on the foundation that humans are distinctly separate from nature. Increased settlement into cities would only exacerbate that problematic worldview. I sought to understand how to reconcile the urban with a design methodology for landscape architec-

ture that sees ecological regeneration as critical to bolstering biodiversity in our fragmented landscapes. After immersing myself in countless works of art, I left New York City with a broader, more complimentary coalition of knowledge. I experienced New York City in three distinct ways. The first was the fact that I saw landscape designs in everything. The second was in a coming-of-age expansion of individuality and a maturation of my own self-confidence as I explored the city on my own and became comfortable in that newfound freedom. Thirdly, I experienced a creative explosion of the self, brought to life by the city as I realized the connections between landscape design, fine art, and the beauty of everyday people sharing smiles and interacting. As I walked the streets and took in the present, I reflected on the truth that we are incessantly creating our world and our reality. Most often, people think of themselves as devoid of agency, but there is power in becoming aware that with every choice, we design our world. Architecture is a language that mirrors societal values. Since the built landscape is highly determinant of how humans interact with the world, specifically nature, we need to start thinking about what landscapes communicate.

In the past when I visited art museums, the exhibitions focused on the works of artists responding to political events in the distant past. Before this trip, my perception of art was full of distant Greek figures in Renaissance settings, religious imagery, and beautiful—albeit static—landscapes. This January, I was in awe of the abundance of art featuring modern responses to today’s cataclysmic political shifts. At the Modern Museum of Art and the Whitney, at the Brooklyn Museum and David Byrne’s rock spectacle American Utopia, I noticed recurring themes of the current moment, and it gave me hope. If people respond to the events of today and process them through the creation of art, then people are also recognizing that something is deeply wrong. More importantly, they are envisioning and demanding a new future built by, and for, the collective. This realization was not inspired by art depicting magnificent landscapes and gardens. It bubbled forth in abstract

line drawings, in surrealist process diagrams, in cathartic charcoal portraiture, in pastel drawings of Navajo textiles, in the thundering cries of a Broadway show, and in the unedited humanity of a cork board equestrian statue assembled by the public.2 Now, more than before, I am aware of the linkages between art and the realm of socio-environmentalism. Art is more than aesthetics. It is the telling of a story, and in this current moment, there are so many stories that need telling— stories of dissolving institutions and rising worldviews, stories of tragedy and collective suffering, stories of belief and identity, stories of place and relation, stories of connection and collective action, stories of a future yet to be written. Perhaps landscape and the language of plants can tell those stories as well. Maybe I can design spaces that are not hewn out of an outdated traditionalism, but embody and monumentalize this impassioned hope for a future desperately felt by so many.

Landscape architecture must be viewed as a language capable of communicating social and ecological values.3 We must reclaim the built environment as a space of collective social agency and employ the methodology of design to communicate values of biodiversity and community regeneration. It therefore becomes essential not only to grasp how design interventions interact with the landscape, but to consider what those interventions are saying in the context of the unique spirit of place. With this as the starting point, I ask: What is it to be human in the world? How should we show up in the world? What we build and what we plant is a declaration of how we answer these questions.

I was first inspired to think of the nodes of intersection between landscape architecture and fine art through my struggle to find a prop-

er landscape design book. While I grasped the main methods for arranging plants in the New Perennialist style, I struggled to see how to tie these blocks of plants together in the context of place. Although I could conceive of plants together, I couldn’t picture how to draw these curving drifts in unison. When traditional landscape architecture books failed to provide me with a suitable answer, I turned to fine art to study how great painters, specifically abstract artists, utilized the fundamentals of line, shape, and space to convey essential themes. And so I found myself wandering the halls of the exhibits intentionally, stopping when a piece caught my eye. When someone else might see the subject of the painting, I instead saw arrangements of plants in blocks and drifts hiding amongst the forms.

In the alluring tangle of lines and angles in Dorothy Dehner’s Nocturne, I saw juxtaposed blocks of blooming perennials arranged in a brutalist style to reflect an urban streetscape.4 Clyfford Still’s untitled masses of jagged color, described by the artist as, “[...] not paintings in the visual sense [but] life and death merging in fearful union,” became impassioned drifts of native grasses and flowers conveying a similar feeling.5 During the day I zipped from museum to museum roughly sketching in a style of visual notation. At night I walked the streets of Chelsea listening to jazz as I sketched on the street and during the last few hours of evening exhibitions.

A few months later, I sat down at my drafting table to reexamine these sketches. With planting season on the horizon, I revisited these notes as inspiration for upcoming designs. As I flipped through inked pages considering the landscape of a client, I found myself envisioning the sculptured forms of a mountain lion lunging at a hunter imprinted on the landscape, inspiration from a piece I had sketched

at a museum a few months before. The same theme of dualistic tension was now conveyed through curving drifts of native plants in emotive juxtapositions. I united these distinct forms with inspiration from another work, Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s Movement of Lines, an abstracted drawing of twirling lines of`` various colors.6 I saw the fusion of these two as a means of communicating a central duality: that of pollinators and plants. Locked in a relationship of reciprocal exploitation, the two are intimately tied. In this way, I developed a style of thinking impressionistically about how a subject made me feel. After studying the artist’s techniques for communicating that feeling, I abstracted those forms while dramatizing key elements as a means of understanding how to use fine art principles to represent patterns of life with plants. Plants are a medium for art with green space as an art form and lawns as a canvas. I seek gardens that aim not to be impositions upon the landscape, but to be functionally a part of it, both ecologically and in design.

On this journey, art also unveiled itself as a model for environmentalism. Many pieces of the twentieth century communicated intense social struggle. In creating these artworks, artists evoked the power of the collective to overcome institutionalized structures of injustice, and I noticed the connections between movement-building in these contexts and the need to envision a new world, a green future for all in the face of climate change today. Surrealists, for example, dared to challenge the limits of consciousness with imaginative, dream-like conceptions, such as a model train rushing out of a fireplace or an armoire opening to different worlds.7 In one of my favorite pieces, avant-garde painter Kitawaki Noboru attempted to grasp the fundamental essence of a seedling and the universal truths at its heart.8 In doing so, surrealists imagined a world beyond the constraints of current established orders,

offering the possibility of transformation. The movement relied upon a view of the collective as capable of achieving what could not be accomplished by any one individual. Ted Joans’ Long Distance, a thirty foot long drawing sent around the world to a suite of artists captured this collaborative spirit, highlighting the creative potential of the collective.9 The experiences of the individual are inevitably bound to those of the broader community. In a country where homeowners own the majority of the land, lawns and cities can no longer be ignored as critical landscapes for regenerating biodiversity. Urban design must seek to rectify the paradox of a separation from nature by reintroducing wildness into human-dominated landscapes. Wilderness can no longer be viewed as virgin and untouched, as distant and separate.

In an era of life on Earth defined for the first time by the actions of one species, our species, we can no longer afford such a luxurious perspective. We must engage with all disciplines in a regenerative mindset that seeks to work with nature rather than against it. The idea that humans are distinctly separate from and above the natural world is an illusion. Inspired by this thread, environmental historian William Cronon writes, “If living in history means that we cannot help leaving marks on a fallen world, then the dilemma we face is to decide what kinds of marks we wish to leave.”10 Landscape must be a space in which this shift in worldview can take place.

With my last few hours in the city before boarding the train back to Vermont, I returned to a place that I visit every time I find myself in Manhattan—the Highline. Floating above the streets and winding its way from Hudson Yards to Chelsea, the one and a half mile elevated park is a masterpiece of urban design and landscape architecture. Once an abandoned rail line servicing the Meat-Packing District, millions of visitors per year now enjoy walking, lounging, and eating on the park in the sky. After a weekend of immersion in art, my perspective on the rustling grasses, sculptural seedheads, and arching winter forms of hardy perennials was quite different. In the past, I had completely been absorbed by this landscape created by one of my favorite designers, renowned Dutch plantsman and New Perennial master Piet Oudolf. Inspired by the wild plants that had colonized the unused structure, he deftly shaped intricate drifts of meadows and woodlands nestled among artistically placed rails. Surrounded by a meadow among skyscrapers, I realized that landscape architecture as a discipline is more than planting, more than designing. The future of landscape architecture is multidisciplinary, and up-andcoming practitioners must be able to draw from a wide breadth of knowledge to create intentional landscapes. The goal of naturalistic landscape architecture, as Oudolf says, “[…] is not to copy nature, but to give a feeling of nature.”11 I now see this goal as just the beginning: landscapes can be so much more.

Notes:

1. Wilson, Edward O. Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life. Liveright, 2017.

2. Ramírez Jonas, Paul. The Commons. The Slipstream: Reflection, Resilience, and Resistance in the Art of Our Time, 14 May 2021- 10 April 2022, Brooklyn Museum, New York.

3. TEDx Talks. Architecture Is a Language. YouTube, 19 Sept. 2012, https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=yEkDosanxGk. Accessed 21 Feb. 2022.

4. Dehner, Dorothy. Nocturne. Labyrinth of Forms: Women and Abstraction, 1930–1950, 9 Oct. 2021- 13 Mar. 2022, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

5. “1950-E (1950), Clyfford Still.” The Collection: Modern and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/484683.

6. Taeuber-Arp, Sophie. Movement of Lines. Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction, 21 Nov. 2021- 12 Mar. 2022, Modern Museum of Art, New York.

7. Surrealism Beyond Borders. 11 Oct. 2021-30 Jan. 2022, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

8. Noboru, Kitawaki. Diagram of I Ching Divination (Heaven and Earth). Surrealism Beyond Borders, 11 Oct. 2021- 30 Jan. 2022, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

9. Joans, Ted. Long Distance. SurrealismBeyond Borders, 11 Oct. 2021- 30 Jan. 2022, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

10. Cronon, William. “The Trouble with Wilderness.” Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, edited by William Cronon, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, NY, 1995, pp. 69–90.

11. McGrane, Sally, and Herman Wouters. “A Landscape in Winter, Dying Heroically.” The New York Times, 31 Jan. 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/ garden/31piet.html. Accessed 21 Feb. 2022.

Back to the Wild

SK Hurlock '24

At the end of a gravel drive lined by tall grasses and prickly shrubs sits a tired, concrete building. It’s not a particularly remarkable building nor is it a beautiful landscape, but housed inside are all the many creatures that make this bland, overlooked place come alive. The clock on my dashboard shows 8:00 AM as I pull my car onto the cracked, weed-pocked pavement at the farthest edge of the lot. First to greet me at the door is Piper, a rescue mutt who has found a home with Zach, the weekend vet tech. From an office to my left emerges Bling, the rescued African tortoise who now calls the New England Wildlife Center home. Throwing Piper’s ball down the hallway and scratching the back of Bling’s shell (her favorite spot) I make my way down to the baby ward, where the race against the clock begins. Here, there are sixty-two orphaned gray squirrels, more than half of which need to be fed four times a day. But this is one of the easier, if more tedious tasks. The racoons never fail to give us a much harder time with feedings.

I mix up some formula and warm it in the microwave, fitting a rubber nipple to a syringe and testing the temperature on my wrist, as the vet techs have taught me. I sit myself in front of the first crate, and gently feel through the blankets. Locating a squirrel, I lift him onto my lap as he latches on to the syringe. The smell of the warm formula has woken up his siblings, and they chatter and wrestle excitedly in their nest of blankets. Joey, the handyman-turned-vet-techwhen-the-pandemic-hit, pokes his head in.

“Morning! Need some help with the QID’s?” (This is how we refer to the squirrels still young enough to need four feedings per day).

“I’m alright, thanks, Joe. Kaity should

be in soon!” I respond, returning the fed squirrel to his nest and putting one of his litter mates in my lap. “How’s the new house coming along?” Joey and his girlfriend, the head vet’s daughter, have just bought a house on the south shore, and Joey is practically putting the place together with his own two hands.

“Oh, it’s coming. My dad’s helping me put in the kitchen floors tomorrow. I hope we can get it all done in one go.” He pulls plastic gloves over his tattooed hands, and checks one of the clipboards hanging on the larger squirrels’ cage. “Looks like these guys will be ready for soft release soon, they’re massive huh?”

I laugh, “We won’t be sad to see ‘em go. That big one in the corner’s given me some better bites than the swan.” Joey laughs.

“I’ll talk to Greg and see what he thinks about moving them outside later today.” Dr. Greg Mertz is the head vet who built and founded the New England Wildlife Center, an exotic vet clinic which pays for a wildlife rehabilitation program. People bring us orphaned and injured animals they find on the roads, in their backyards and sometimes even in their houses. Our goal is to treat them, raise them, in orphan cases, and ultimately release them back to the wild. The squirrels Joey is looking at are almost fully grown and ready to begin the release process. We call the first step a “soft release” where we still provide food, water and shelter, but move them to outdoor cages where the doors are left open so that they can come and go as they please.

“I think I hear Kaity pulling vin,” Joey says, “I’ll head downstairs and start on the raccoons if you’re good in here.”

Back to the Wild

Sure enough, tank and overhead lights begin to flicker on in the medical ward and the reptile room. The mute swan with lead poisoning hisses from the medical ward, flapping his wings in protest at being awoken so suddenly. His hissing frightens the red tailed hawk in the cage above him who lets out a shriek, and the squirrel in my lap burrows into my sweatshirt with an instinctual fear that even two weeks on synthetic formula can’t stifle.

An hour later, with all sixty-two squirrels cleaned and fed, I meet Kaity down in the kitchen where she is preparing bowls of chopped vegetables and guinea pig for the omnivores.

“Thanks for getting on top of the QID’s,” she sighs, “what are we going to do with all those squirrels? I think I’ll go crazy if we get another single one.” I join her at the counter and start chopping lettuce to prepare salads for the turtles.

“Joey says we can move the biggest ones outside to start soft release. He’s in there feeding the racoons so we can talk to him about it when he’s done.”

“Thank god,” Kaity wipes her brow in a theatrical show of relief.

“Don’t be too relieved,” Joey chuckles, emerging from the racoon nursery. “The baby birds will start coming in soon and then you’ll really learn the meaning of screwed.” We all laugh. It’s a joke, but we are all too familiar with the physical and emotional commitments that caring for these animals requires. It’s an exhausting rush, day in, day out and one that’s wrought with emotion if some of our orphans don’t make it, or if some of our arrivals are simply too injured to save.

I head upstairs to run a bath for the swan and the ducklings, juggling bowls of food for the hawk with the injured leg, the great-horned owl who fell from her nest, and the crow with a hurt wing. While the baths run, I make some bowls of seed for the doves and the goldfinch, and mix up some sugar water for the hummingbird. The small songbirds have to be kept in incubators like the very youngest squirrels and rabbits to maintain their body temperature and prevent increased stress.

With the bath full, it’s time for my least pleasant task of the day: wrangling the swan

for his swim. He can bite, and has some of the strongest legs of any animal here. My first day on the job I learned the hard way that he has small talons on his webbed feet, that he can use to his advantage if I don’t pick him up just so. I brace myself and reach into his cage, grabbing his body with one arm and pulling his head against my chest with the other.

“I know, I know, I know,” I coo in response to his hisses. In a few steps, we make it to the tub, and I place him gently into the water where pellets and chopped lettuce float as a bath time snack. My next task is a much more enjoyable one: putting the ducklings in their bath. One by one I pick up their downey bodies and place them in a smaller tub where they paddle excitedly.

By the time I have cleaned the bird enclosures, the ducklings are exhausted and ready for a nap under their heat lamps. I dry them off, one by one and place them back into their pen where they bask lazily in their fresh blankets. The swan is not so grateful for his removal from the tub, and soaks my scrubs in his protests. I can’t blame him, as the next part of his day involves receiving intravenous fluids and oral medicine to treat his lead poisoning.

I hear Piper barking out in the lobby, which usually means that Greg is here or that someone is bringing us a new animal. With the swan safely settled back into his enclosure, I go to see what all the ruckus is about. Thankfully, it is Greg. Intakes, or new patients, are never a welcome surprise, even if we do receive a rare animal. It never gets easier to see an animal in pain or afraid, and our incubators are too full to accept any new orphans today.

“Hello Piper, what’d you bring me today? Oh, a ball! Such a good girl! Fetch!” Greg makes sure to properly greet Piper and Bling before moving onto us humans.

“Morning, Dr. Mertz!” I say, carrying a tub of water in one hand and Dunkin the bearded dragon in the other. Dunkin got his name because he was found abandoned outside a Dunkin Donuts just down the road. I set him in the tub for his daily soak, which helps keep his skin healthy.

“Morning! Look at you hard at work. I have a rooster surgery to start in a few. Infected eye wound. You in?”

Back to the Wild

“Absolutely! Let me check that Kaity’s all set with the QID squirrels and I’ll meet you in surgery.” Greg wants his interns and techs to get as much hands-on experience under his tutelage as possible. He readily pulls one or another of us into surgery with him to familiarize us with various procedures. I have only assisted him with rat and rabbit neuterings before, so this rooster will be a new experience for me.

In surgery, I take a seat across the table from Dr. Mertz as he prepares his tools.

“Pull that rooster out for me will you?” he motions to a crate on the floor next to him and points at the plexiglass box we use for anesthesia on the table. I follow his instructions, and soon have the rooster in the box of isoflurane, preparing him for surgery. Dr. Mertz switches on an old radio that sits atop the cabinet behind him. Seventies rock crackles from the speaker as the rooster grows groggy.

“Alright, mister. Here comes the fun part,” Dr. Mertz mutters as he gently pulls the limp rooster from the anesthesia box. I turn down the iso flow and put a small mask over the rooster’s beak to make sure he stays under during the procedure.

“Breathing?” he asks.

“Normal,” I respond.

“Alright keep it coming.” He begins to gently drain the eye wound and disinfect the area.

It’s quiet except for the music until I ask, “Dr. Mertz, do you believe in naming wildlife?” I am taken aback when he answers without hesitation, “Oh absolutely.”

“Really?” I ask, “You don’t think it makes people too attached?”

“That’s exactly the point, my dear.” His mouth is covered by a mask, but his eyes smile up at me from behind his crooked wire glasses. “People care entirely too much about themselves and entirely too little about other living things. Once you give an animal a name, and you care for it, it stays in your heart the rest of your life. I once had a man say that to me about a hurt hummingbird his kids found in the backyard. They named itSal or Susy I think, and they still talk about that hummingbird when they’re all together for holidays to this day. Now this is 10 or 20 years ago, probably before you were born. But it stays true.”

“I never thought about it that way.”

“Now don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty of

cases of people naming wildlife and getting too attached and keeping it wrongly, but those cases are far outnumbered by the amount of cases where people just don’t care enough to help.”

“Wow. I guess you’re right.”

“Now, for people like us, who already care too much - I mean look at me I’ve thrown away my life for these creatures - naming ‘em can be just a step too far. We already feel it enough when we lose them, and it's enough of a gratification for us to release them back to the wild that we don’t feel the need to keep them. But for the vast majority, naming an animal makes it just enough their own that they start to care. And once they care about one, the floodgates open for ‘em to care about them all. How’s that breathing?”

“Normal.”

“Good. Almost done. Anyway, that’s just my take and I’m by no means the arbiter of right and wrong. But anything I can do to get people to care, even just a little, is a win in my book. Alright that’s it. Iso off and help me clean this mess up, huh? Bleh.” He was right, the aftermath of the surgery was not pretty, and I gently placed the rooster back in his crate before diving into the mess Greg had made.

“Thanks for your help. You watch that rooster and make sure he wakes up ok. Let me know how he’s doing in thirty alright? And keep asking your questions. I like ‘em.” He gives me a friendly wink before leaving the surgery room to go check on the animals in the med ward.

“Ok Dr. Mertz, thanks.”

Once the isoflurane wears off and the rooster can hold up his own head, I let him rest and start afternoon racoon feedings. I smile hearing their happy chatter and watching them wrestle their siblings. They’re growing stronger every day. Soon they’ll be big enough to move to the outdoor cages, and eventually be released back to the wild where they belong.

Note from the author: All wildlife was legally and humanely housed and treated under licensed veterinarians and wildlife rehabilitators at New England Wildlife Center, a nonprofit wildlife and exotic veterinary hospital and science education facility.

Blue’s Emergence: The Himalayan skyscape begins to trickle down the rolling hills of the Bumthang Valley (Bhutan, 2019).

Where the Green Grows: A well-trodden path weaves its way through the unkept meadows of Alpe di Siusi (Italy, 2021)

Where the Green Grows: A well-trodden path weaves its way through the unkept meadows of Alpe di Siusi (Italy, 2021)

The Blues: Waves crash upon rocks, wrapping their jagged edges in the cool blues of the sea (Rhode Island, 2019)

BLUE

BROOKLYN to PORTUGAL

WORDS & PHOTOS by MALICK THIAM a bikepacking story

This past August, we loaded two weeks’ worth of gear, a few cameras, and a Portuguese-English dictionary onto our bikes to ride the most beautiful 600 miles of our lives. Full of curiosity and excitement, we clipped into our bikes to pedal the roads that wind through Portugal’s farm towns and beach paradises. Growing up in Brooklyn, the three of us spent our high school days cycling the streets of New York City, continually mesmerized by its vibrance and diversity of culture, food, language, and life. Biking was a means of discovery, feeding our curiosity each time we stumbled upon hidden treasures we had never seen before. The more we discovered, the stronger our desires became to explore beyond our city.

We all started college mid-pandemic, so when the summer of 2021 finally rolled around we were thrilled to put our online lectures to rest and clip into our bikes for a new adventure. Hoping to get a real change of scenery, we reached out to a few companies about collaborating with us on a project that would let us discover new places while also inspiring other young people to do the same. We were lucky to connect with Specialized and Apidura, two companies who share our values of inspiring more young people from all backgrounds to get out and explore their communities on bikes. They supplied us with three gravel bikes rigged out with Expedition series Apidura packs, allowing us to travel with our belongings on the bikes and nothing but our cameras on our backs.

Between summer jobs and academic calendars, we had a limited window of three weeks where our free time overlapped. In or-

der to make the most of the opportunity, we searched for a country that offered high biodiversity and terrain types within a relatively small landmass. With less than 350 miles from top-to-bottom, massive cliffs, medieval castles, striking sand dunes, beautiful vineyards, modern cities, and amazing food, we settled on Portugal.

Our adventure began with the Specialized Portugal team getting us oriented to life in this small but special country. The following morning, we dragged our jetlagged bodies out of bed and left Lisbon Destination Hostel, our beautiful and friendly hostel located inside an old train station. After a few sun salutations in front of the Praça do Comércio, we hit the road, pedaling through the enthralling city. Zipping through the crowds of mostly French and Spanish tourists, we had to be careful not to let our wheels get caught in trolley tracks, which was exhilarating in and of itself.

This first morning of biking felt almost as heavenly as eating the pastel de nata we’d gotten from Pastéis de Belém the night before. At the suggestion of Ricardo José Gouveia from Specialized, we hugged the coastline north and endured the strongest wind gusts we had ever experienced to take photos at Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of continental Europe. With smiles glued to our faces, we launched in picture-perfect Sintra with its steep streets and colorful buildings. Our long first day ended with bacalhau in Ericeira. Exhausted but fulfilled, we couldn’t wait for the excitement that the next day would bring.

Alejandro and Malick, standing in front of Belém Tower, Lisbon’s 25 de Abril Bridge in the background.

Our adventure began with the Specialized Portugal team getting us oriented to life in this small but special country. The following morning, we dragged our jetlagged bodies out of bed and left Lisbon Destination Hostel, our beautiful and friendly hostel located inside an old train station. After a few sun salutations in front of the Praça do Comércio, we hit the road, pedaling through the enthralling city. Zipping through the crowds of mostly French and Spanish tourists, we had to be careful not to let our wheels get caught in trolley tracks, which was exhilarating in and of itself. This first morning of biking felt almost as heavenly as eating the pastel de nata we’d gotten from Pastéis de Belém the night before. At the suggestion of Ricardo José Gouveia from Specialized, we hugged the coastline north and endured the strongest wind gusts we had ever experienced to take photos at Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point of continental Europe. With smiles glued to our faces, we launched in picture-perfect Sintra with its steep streets and colorful buildings. Our long first day ended with bacalhau in Ericeira. Exhausted but fulfilled, we couldn’t wait for the excitement that the next day would bring.

The days that followed were a blur of color, scenery, delicious food, and new people. A bikepacking lesson we learned pretty quickly? Everything takes longer than you think. It was so easy to stop for just five minutes to take photos or videos. We had to balance our curiosity to explore every new place in depth with our need to stick to our itinerary. The spontaneous stop in Nazaré proved to be one of the best decisions we made.

Our jaws dropped at the sight of the biggest waves we had ever seen, and we wished we could have stayed longer to further explore the miraculous cliffs and waves. Yet, darkness was fast approaching, and this would be just one of many captivating rest stops on our journey.

After four nonstop days of riding and fixing flat tires through Peniche, Caldas da Rainha, and Leiria (to name a few), we were met by breathtaking views of Coimbra crossing the Ponte Pedonal Pedro e Inês over the Mondego River. A rest day was just what we needed as we explored the 12th and 13th century architecture of this former capital of Portugal. Following the Portuguese Camino de Santiago route, we sped through farm villages and sweet-smelling eucalyptus groves with the wind constantly blowing against us as we descended into Porto.

The bustling cobblestone streets of Porto charmed our city hearts as we biked over the Luís I Bridge, a marvel of engineering, and we were excited to lose ourselves exploring this metropolis. After loading up on Doner kebab for lunch (an affordable favorite found all over Portugal), we took the train back to Lisbon. It was surreal to watch what had taken a week by bike, fly by in a matter of hours.

By staying in hostels rather than camping each night, we might have bent the rulebook of true bikepacking. But because Europe has many more hostels than the US, staying in them proved to be incredibly affordable, and we found ourselves paying as little as eight euros for a comfy bed, warm shower, and breakfast.

Malick, squinting as sunlight mixes with ocean spray from the massive waves of Nazaré. Known as one of the best surfing locations in the world, it was just a resting stop on our trip

Miles, Crossing the Mondego River with the University of Coimbra in the background at the top of the hill

The second leg of our journey took us south to the Alentejo and Algarve regions, a wildly different landscape from what we had just seen. Through Setúbal, Tróia, and Sines, the Alentejo was a drier and hotter region with fewer signs of civilization between towns. We took frequent stops to take photos on beaches or cool off in the refreshing waters of the Atlantic and sustained ourselves on Delta Cafes, cheap bakeries with lunch deals and free wifi found in virtually every town in the country. With not a single day of rain, the summer sun made for hot but clear weather.

As had become custom on this trip, we decided on a last minute detour through Sagres, formerly known to Europeans as the end of the world. Afterwards, we cycled to La-

gos where we found the most incredible cliffside beaches and plenty of good restaurants. As we cruised through our last bittersweet miles into Faro, we found ourselves wondering how the time flew by so fast.

The days, we would come to realize, were long and exhausting, full of novel food, people, and geographic wonders. Looking back, the “detours”, when we allowed ourselves extra time to explore, are the memories that now feel the most fulfilling and rejuvenating. We stopped as frequently as we wanted, letting our curiosity get the best of us whenever possible. Immensely grateful for this opportunity, we hope this story encourages many others like us to indulge their curiosity and find more ways to explore.

Malick’s struggle to maintain traction on this Portuguese beach at golden hour highlights the juxtaposition of beauty, freedom, and challenge we experienced on our trip during the height of the pandemic.

Alejandro, just as we hopped on our saddles following a cheap and quick lunch at a Delta cafe in the cute town of Águeda.

Beautiful Things Don't Ask for Attention

The sky does not beg for the consideration of its subordinates. The mountains do not yearn for the appraisal of their inhabitants. The stars do not require the validation of their watchers. As James Thurber wrote in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, “Beautiful

things do not ask for attention.” If you are familiar with this story, perhaps you remember this quote. If you are not, maybe you are able to realize its truth, for we are mere observers of the beauty around us. We must be humbled by its height, intrigued by its idiosyncrasies, and enlightened by its endlessness.

The truth is I envy the effortless beauty of the world – the ability to exist without question. The abil-

Jess Quirk '25.5

CANNON BEACH OREGON

Everyone tells you the world is wide and worth exploration. But no one tells you where to start. Maybe that is because no one can. It is something you must decide. I, myself, decided on a spot tucked away on the northernmost coast of Oregon: Cannon Beach. Haystack Rock protrudes from the gray Oregon sand the same way I would imagine a dragon’s spikes protrude from its scaled spine. As if it were buried just beneath the surface, with only parts exposed. A land iceberg if you will. Its image reflected perfectly in the shallow water below, like an image from a dream. An image from another realm.

CRESCENT CITY CALIFORNIA

Being from New England, I thought I knew the meaning of a ‘fishermen’s town’, but a small town in the north corner of California re-defined it for me. If Crescent City were a color it would be a periwinkle blue. If Crescent City were a sound it would be the low rumble of a foghorn. If Crescent City were a taste it would be the slight saltiness of the air. How else to describe it, I do not know. I

have come to learn that language cannot address all that we experience. To account for this gap in vocabulary we must utilize other forms of communication. Forms such as perception and sensation can transcend culture and language barriers, something that mere words will never accomplish. For feelings are universal to us all.

AVENUE OF THE GIANTS CALIFORNIA

To understand size and relativity is to sit below the redwoods and realize the insignificance of your presence. A mere fly worshiping the giants. To sit in their shade and breathe their clean air is to reflect. In this forest, as I relatively shrunk, so did my problems. When you sit and realize that some things make you feel small, you notice that some other things make you feel large. In this sense, size is not determined by matter and volume as science tells us, but rather by how big you feel in relation to your surroundings. In this forest, I found peace.

MOJAVE DESERT CALIFORNIA

There is an unparalleled beauty to a sunrise. Some may argue its counterpart, the sunset, is superior. But one cannot ignore the novelty of a truly great sunrise. It is a sight that not everyone has the discipline to wake up for. In this sense, it is special. The air was dry and cold as my alarm went off at 6:38 AM. Above the cacti and yucca trees was a perfect fusion of purples and reds. A painter's palette spilled to create a masterpiece in the sky. Here, the Mojave Desert, was the last stop on my journey. I had been to the mountains, the oceans, the deserts, the valleys, the cities, the farms; I had completed what I set out to do. I had found peace and passion in the shutter of a lens and its ability to capture more than just an image. Beautiful things do not ask for attention. It would be cliché to end this story with a sunset, so I will do the opposite. I will end it with a sunrise. For in this end, I mark the beginning.

Photo by Wolf Moller

Thoughts on the Colorado Trail

WORDS & PHOTOS by MEGAN PALUSKA '25

You're brutal, trail.

Heat. Blistering heat, and pain – pain clenching my muscles and making my stomach twist in knots.

I’m so thirsty I could chug a dozen gallons of water, but I have to preserve what I have left until the next river.

Every hill we go over feels like it should be the last, and yet there is always another waiting. I try to count them, but soon I lose track and the inclines blend together.

This dusty strip of dirt trail stumbles over hills and winds through valleys, and when I step off it for too long, it feels like I am missing a friend.

There is never enough trail mix, and my weekly ration of Oreos never makes it through the first night after resupplying.

Why did I do this to myself again? I can’t remember, but I also can’t stop walking.

There’s something extremely satisfying in ripping off your socks after a long day of trekking up and down mountains. Sometimes the blisters tear off in the process, which means more moleskin.

We take turns leading, staring down at the boots in front of us. Somehow, this game of follow-the-leader takes us 500 miles across the state of Colorado.

The majestic peaks and sweeping vistas at the tops of passes are just as stunning as the vibrant green pine needles that emit a comforting scent as we pass.

After just a few days, the dirt finds its way into everything you own, and it doesn’t leave until the end of the trail.

Thru-hikers are not a picky crowd–we’ll take dirt in our mac-and-cheese if that’s what’s for dinner.

You’ll remember the people you meet on the trail long after you’re done backpacking.

And the people you hike with? Well, you’ll remember them for your entire life.

It doesn’t take long for me to become used to the constant sounds of nature: gurgling streams, chirping birds, and the rustle of leaves in the trees which all become background noise throughout my journey.

Who knew I would remember the lyrics to so many songs? (Also, belting out a song while trudging uphill is a lot harder than it seems).

Lightning, rainbows, hail, fog, cow manure: the trail has it all.

I have never seen such gorgeous fields of wildflowers.

Falling in a creek is a rough end to a long day, but so is moving the tent to a new location because of a looming thunderstorm after already having set up camp for the night.

The quality of the bear hang depends on the quality of the day.

Any rock feels like the comfiest bean-bag chair in the world when you sit down on it after hiking for five hours straight.

It’s crazy how quickly a piece of fabric and some metal poles can feel like home when that’s all you have.

Pink, orange, and gold meld together in the sky each morning, combined with the crisp morning air.

The perfect way to start your day.

What motivated me to keep going? I’m still not sure, but I think it had something to do with the mountains, a constant presence during a month full of uncertainties.

My friends on the trail also inspired me to keep putting one blistered foot in front of the other; they’re the main reason that I made it through those long, brutal days.

You would think that there would be a lot of time to think when you’re hiking all day, every day, and there is, but there’s also a lot of time to not think. It’s those not thinking moments where you look around and realize where you are.

On the last mile of the Colorado Trail, I cried.

Not because I was excited to be done, but because I already missed it.

I have neither felt so much pain nor so much joy.

You're beautiful, trail.

Speaking For the Trees

WORDS by HALEY HUTCHINSON '23.5

PHOTOS by WOLF MOLLER '24.5

If a tree falls and no one is there, does it make a sound? While I will not attempt to dissect the philosophical complexities of that inquiry here, such a perplexion can serve as an appropriate premise in the context of recent timber harvesting protests in Mendocino County of the Pacific Northwest where I call home.

Wandering along the rugged coastline of northern California, turbulent, frigid waters pound against steep, rock-laiden cliff-sides to the west, and dense, green mazes of rusted redwood groves to the east. In between this ecological divide is where I grew up, living off the misty air that travels from the sea and clings like damp laundry to the forests inland – the same forests that first drew settlers and loggers to the region, and that have continued to play an economic role in the local community.

Although geographically expansive, Mendocino County boasts a miniscule population in comparison. Nevertheless, its pockets of natural beauty hold a special place in its residents’ hearts, diverse as these may be. Conflicts of interest regarding the meaning of Mendocino’s precious old-growth forests are not a new phenomenon. But debates of this nature have recently resurfaced as private logging companies continue to encroach upon ecosystems that have grown more vulnerable in the face of a changing climate and a long history of timber harvesting.

At 48,652 acres, Jackson State Forest is the largest demonstration forest in the state of California composed of Douglas firs, redwoods, and two substantial watersheds that feed into the Pacific. Within the forest, sustainable timber harvesting is operated by Cal Fire, however, the majority of logging is actually done by private companies looking to make a profit from softwood yields. These companies may be practicing “sustainably,” but turning ecology over into monetary value comes at a cost – a cost that under recent circumstances has grown to bear a tremendous weight. While timber companies benefit monetarily from logging within Jackson State Forest, there is another side of the story, one that is much more dire. Where dollars accumulate at one end of the chainsaw, the fates of humans, indigenous cultural traditions, critical habitats, plant and animal species, and a global climate attempting to adjust to the challenges such continued destruction poses, suffer at the other.

The community that resides on the Mendocino Coast is woven into the landscape –human and ecological interconnectedness is unavoidable. However, the implications of such an intimate relationship are variable depending on individual culture, values, and lifestyle. While the most well-documented conflict surrounding forest management has

historically focused on Western-cultured environmentalists’ battles against timber corporations, such a narrative denies a very crucial factor within the story – the importance of indegenious relationships forged with the land and trees in question. Mainstream environmentalism within the United States has no doubt played an eminent role in historical battles in the interest of protecting forests around the nation; from EarthFirst! protests of the 80s and 90s to modern tree sits in communities all over the Pacific Northwest including Mendocino, CA, environmentalists and forest advocates have illustrated their dedication to preserving the natural ecologies of old-growth ecosystems. However, the story is in need of a kind of narrative rewiring in the interest of validating broader communities’ interactions with the forest.

The Pomo are the native people of the Mendocino area, modernly associated within the tribal coalition known as the Redwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians. Jackson State Forest land is a major region considered home to this community. Even so, Pomo voices have historically been muffled in logging debates Recently, however, the movement in Mendocino County has taken a new form, working to prioritize indegenious viewpoints and needs within the battle. To the Pomo people, redwoods serve important ecological and spiritual purposes. As Micheal Hunter, the chairperson for the Redwood Valley coalition, told the LA Times, “Those redwoods are our relatives…When they’re cut it’s painful.” The Mendocino redwood groves represent a deep ancestral history of ecological connection, spirituality, and comradery to the native community. Continual logging on these lands not only disrupts natural harmony, but also cuts deeper into the wounds of historical indegenious exploitation by white settlers and a Western capitalist industry.

Jackson State logging protesters have begun to take this unfortunate reality to the forefront of the tree fight. Advocates for the preservation of Pomo ancestral lands from multiple tribal heritages as well as non-native communities have joined forces with the aim of preventing further timber harvesting in Jackson State forest. Elders, educators, mothers, fathers, children, students, and devout environmental

advocates have visited or participated in the long-standing tree-sit in “Mama Tree,” chained themselves to forest service fences, and exhibited solidarity in standing with the trees and the Pomo.

The conflict over the fate of trees in Jackson State Forest has posed a prime example of collaboration in the face of confrontation. A new generation of environmental activism is evident in Mendocino’s woods and is seeping into other outlets of ecological defenses around the country and world. Although the preservation of natural species may be a common ground that activists find, this activism runs much deeper. Its roots reach into the agency and cultural values of indegenious peoples and help to amplify the voices of the unheard; its limbs stretch into the sky of a compromised climate. Its leaders are members and ancestors of the Pomo Indians of the Mendocino region. The movement is woven through the trees, through the curious children who have grown up under the evergreen shade of redwood groves, and through the heavy scent of lingering rain on damp forest floors. It is in the community that is fostered between environment and people of all cultures that such a movement is capable of gaining momentum.

For the time being, the efforts of the Redwood Valley Band of Pomo Indians and other advocates have been effective in halting logging efforts in regions of the demonstration forest. But the fight for social and climate justice is never over. While the conflict of interest fundamental to the logging dispute may never be completely solved, it is necessary to continue to prioritize the voices of novel individuals and identities, who in fact belong to the oldest, most knowledgeable communities of all. Together, we can stand in unity, holding onto what is left of this sacred place and each other.

Do your part to help save Jackson State forest and educate others by visiting https://savejackson.org/volunteer/ today!

Photo by Wolf Moller

BROWN

Wolf Moller Sunsets

College Street: one of my favorite views, cast in a beautiful post-storm afternoon light.

Evening sunshine accentuates the variation in Middlebury's fields south of College Street.

A house comfortably nestled in Chipman Hill's autumn trees.

by WOLF MOLLER

We often take the beauty of simplicity for granted.

A Cirrus SR-20 Aircraft getting ready for an evening flight in Stowe, MA.

Salamander Rave

WORDS & PHOTOS by BRETT GILMAN AND ETHAN RISING

On a rainy Vermont night hovering around fifty degrees, the darkness sat thickly upon the fog. While most people would want to stay huddled inside, for naturalists, the first signs of spring were out and about calling for an adventure.

After hibernating underground to survive the frigid Vermont winters, salamanders emerge from their earthen slumber ready to party. On the first night of warm rain in April, they travel underneath the leaves in search of ephemeral bodies of snowmelt, vernal pools, and other shallow wet areas in which they can mate and lay their eggs. For this brief interval, salamanders can be seen in droves as they make their yearly migration.

After piling into my Jeep and driving deep into the woods, my friends and I arrived at a quarter mile stretch of dirt road marked by a unique yellow road sign marking the occasion: “Salamander Crossing Ahead.” We walked past a steady line of cars pulled in against the slope at the base of the mountain and were met by a hearty naturalist in full rain gear, a bucket hat, and a fuzzy reflective orange vest. With the hatch open, the tailgate of his car became the home-base of operations as he plotted the course for the night and gently directed the steady stream

of volunteers of all ages.

Around him we huddled in a shared sense of anticipation, eager to discover if the salamander hype lived up to all that we had heard. As we passed around the containers with a few specimen salamanders the naturalist had temporarily secured for demonstration, we embraced the rain, immersing ourselves in the experience of a raw, earthen wonder. Excitedly, we gathered together, ready for the night’s task of collecting, counting, and transporting salamanders. With flashlights illuminated, we ventured forth into the depths of a dark country road flanked by curving trees, their branches arched overhead like a gabled roof shielding us from the slight drizzle.

As we turned the corner and set ourselves to the search, salamanders began to appear. In the leaf layer on the shoulder, in shallow puddles, even in the middle of the road, they cautiously wriggled. With each find, we ran over to the lucky discoverer, our flashlights momentarily converging as we determined the species and marked it in our field notebooks.

As these amazing (albeit slimy) creatures squirmed in my hand full of life, I sensed their tiny bodies brimming with raw wildness – an unbounded, pure energy. Aiding them on their journey from mountain to marsh, we wet our hands and carried the salamanders across the road to safety and the promise of a summer of fun.

Because almost the entirety of the populations of salamanders in the Northeast emerge in just one or a few nights, these organisms are especially vulnerable to habitat fragmentation and anthropogenic hazards. Crossing the road presents the biggest threat. Ensuring that a sufficiently large percentage of the populations reach their destination is critical for securing genetic diversity and protecting the continued survival of salamanders. Citizen science events like this one hosted by the Otter Creek Audubon Society and Middlebury College’s own Wild Midd provide excellent opportunities for collecting species data and contributing to long-term data sets that indicate the condition of salamander populations over time. On just that first night, almost sixty volunteers tallied 919 amphibians.

A week later, rain came again in the evening, but it was colder. By this time, word had spread around campus of the excitement of seeing salamanders bigger than hands, and Midd Kids flocked to the well-worn country road in chattering groups.

The salamander rave had become a social event of the season. That night, a dirt road deep in the Vermont countryside had become a fantastic spectacle—the road lit up in fluorescence by fluttering flashlights as if the quarter mile stretch were a rare museum exhibit, the salamanders now hidden details of some magnificent painting. While some may argue this was a crude objectification of nature, as humans came together with salamanders a subtle dynamic was at play. The evening represented something else entirely: a moment of transcendence. On a random Thursday night in April, families, students, and volunteers had come to attune themselves to the sparkling vibrance of the wild, to excitedly walk among nature, to share in service to an enthralling creature. Everyone was unmistakably captivated as a hidden world came into the light in a spectacle of earthen magic. Here in Vermont, a tale as old as time unfolded. In service and celebration, we bore witness to the primordial event of migration. Peering among the leaves became an exercise in close looking. With each gentle transport of a salamander across the road, novel connections blossomed in the early spring night.

Blue-spotted salamanders are members of the genus Ambystoma, the “mole salamanders,” and are known for their large size and subterranean habits. In fact, many of these salamanders only breach the surface for the brief breeding season in late winter, resulting in a nocturnal migration phenomenon that is overlooked by many. When handled, blue-spotted salamanders often erect their tail and secrete a sticky substance as a defense mechanism; this salamander was left alone and paused momentarily on the road before scurrying off into the wet leaf litter.

While four-toed salamanders have a large range spanning from Florida to Maine, their unique habitat preference can make them difficult to find. Strongly associated with sphagnum moss, they are seldom seen away from bogs and swamps. Their camouflaged dorsum and small size contribute to their elusivity, but those lucky enough to find a four-toed salamander can guarantee identification by looking at the checkerboard pattern on the belly. This individual posed on a leaf before continuing its quest for a sphagnum sanctuary.

For many, wood frogs are the first sign of spring. Their remarkable ability to hibernate below freezing temperatures means that they are among the first amphibians to emerge after the snow melts, and their quacking calls can be heard everywhere from ponds to puddles. While they are active throughout the warm months, they rely heavily on ephemeral pools that form in the early spring to breed and are often found in high concentrations. Wood frogs are not overly colorful, but their subtle patterns allow them to blend in perfectly with the leaves and grasses they hop through on their way to water.

Easily the most ubiquitous of our local amphibians, the wellnamed spring peeper is a frog that anyone can hear on a warm spring night. Their high-pitched “peeps” are surprisingly loud, especially considering that most spring peepers could fit comfortably on a quarter. Their small size can make them difficult to find, but anyone with enough time and effort to spare can revel in the joy of these bite-sized frogs. Spring peepers can be visually identified by an “X” mark on their back, but the chances of seeing one before hearing one are slim—and there’s no mistaking that sound.

DEATH VALLEY

Julia McClain '22

MESQUITE FLAT SAND DUNES

The Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes are created by a combination of eroding mountains from the north, wind that carries the sand, and mountains to the south that prevent the sand from moving any further. Less than 1% of the desert is covered in dunes, despite the amount of sand that exists in the area.

A woman sits atop the highest spot in the Mesquite Flat Sand Dune field.

Wind forms beautiful, untouched ripples in the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes

Dried clay from an ancient lake creates the floor of the Mesquite Sand Dunes.

BADWATER BASIN

The sweeping view of Badwater Basin and the surrounding mountains, as seen from 5,575 feet at Dante's View.

One of numerous dried up alluvial fans in Death Valley.

Artist's Palette is an unique explosion of colors that derive from the oxidation of natural metal deposits in the mountains. DEATH

ZABRISKIE POINT, DEATH VALLEY

A pair of hikers meander their way through the Badlands below Zabriskie Point.

Morning shadows on the badlands surrounding mountains from Zabriskie Point