I arrived early for my colonoscopy so I looked around the waiting area for something interesting to read and spotted the February 1, 2010 issue of Time magazine.  I thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at a magazine that has a website that was featured in Steve Jobs’ Apple iPad keynote presentation.  What caught my attention while browsing this magazine was the image of what the author, Bryan Walsh, called foot gloves.¹  Bryan’s article on page 45, “Toe Huggers“, tells how going barefoot (or close to it) might be better for your body.

I have enjoyed going barefoot in the Airstream (and in the house for many years) and was fascinated to learn of the benefits of going barefoot.  The human foot is an anatomical marvel of evolution with 26 bones, 33 joints, and more than a hundred muscles, tendons, ligaments, and sensory receptors.

According to Vibram (maker of FiveFingers), to keep our feet healthy, they need to be stimulated and exercised.  Stimulating the muscles in our feet and lower legs makes us stronger and healthier, while improving our balance, agility and proprioception. The wearing of shoes can impede proper alignment and movement within the ankle and foot.  “Shoes are bad”, says Adam Sternbergh in his article, “You Walk Wrong“, in the New York magazine.  He discusses the benefits of barefoot walking and presents a three-part guide on how to walk better.  He mentions that there are groups, such as the Society for Barefoot Living, which help people learn about barefoot walking and the “barefoot lifestyle.”

See the You Tube video, “The Barefoot Professor: by Nature Video“.  Harvard professor and runner, Daniel Lieberman, shows that barefoot runners tend to land on their fore-foot and generate less impact shock than runners in sports shoes who land heel first.  Barefoot running can be more comfortable and could minimize running-related injuries.  Interest in barefoot running jumped recently with Christopher McDougall’s 2009 best seller, Born to Run, which follows Mexico’s Tarahumara Indians, who run long distances wearing thin rubber sandals or no shoes at all.  See Tarahumara: Pillars of the World.

But running and walking barefoot outside can lead to infections and injuries.  We routinely check every campsite for glass, nails, screws, and anything else that could puncture a tire before we back in the trailer.  So I became very interested in Vibram’s FiveFingers.  See Bryan Walsh demonstrate wearing and running in FiveFingers in the Time video, “Is Running Barefoot Better for You?“.  All of this made sense to me so I found Vibram FiveFingers KSO in my size locally.²  They can be ordered online, but, if this is your first time trying these, it is better to try them on in the store to insure a proper fit.

Read the review in Seattle pi Lifestyle article “FiveFingers foot gloves a runaway hit“.

See Wired Science article, “To Run Better…” by Dylan Tweeney, which includes sidebar tips on “How to Run Barefoot”.

NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz tried on and reported on FiveFingers in NPR’s story, “A Shoe for Barefoot Runners“.

Even poet, author, and artist Marshal South preferred to go barefoot at Yaquitepec during his experiment in primitive living from 1930 to 1947.  He wrote in is article, “Desert Diary 11″, “Ordinarily, bare feet are the rule at Yaquitepec.  Wood gathering however calls often for the navigation of savage sections of rock and thorn where barefoot caution would consume too much time.  So we dig out our Yaqui sandals for the job.  Probably the oldest and simplest human device for foot protection, the sandal is still the most comfortable and healthiest thing man has ever fashioned in the way of footwear… Generations of abuse in ‘thoroughly scientific’ shoes have spoiled civilized feet to such an extent that they have to be entirely re-educated.  But once the sandal technique is learned the foot enters upon a new and better life of freedom.”³

However, there are times when going barefoot or in foot gloves or sandals just won’t do.  So I recently bought what may be the most comfortable shoes that I have ever worn: Merrell’s Encore Groove.  Merrell began in the Green Hills in Vermont and has been providing outdoor enthusiasts with quality performance footwear for over 26 years.⁴

I am now looking forward to taking my FiveFingers and ten toes out on our next camping trip and enjoying what should be a spectacular wildflower blooming season due to our recent rains.⁵  In the meantime, Larry and I have begun taking our FiveFingers (and two corgis) on walk/runs around our local Chollas Lake three times a week and are already experiencing the fun and health benefits.  See Ultra Marathon Running Movie - Indulgence and Copper Canyon Ultra Marathon in Born to Run.

Notes

1.  Also known as shoe gloves, foot socks and barefoot shoes.

2.  REI in San Diego was temporarily out of stock in this model, so I found mine at Adventure 16. Model KSO, “Keep Stuff Out”.

3.  All 102 articles and poems written by Marshal South for Desert Magazine from 1939 to 1948 can be read in Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles: An Experiment in Primitive Living, 2005, Edited and with a Foreword by Diana Lindsay and Introduction by Rider and Lucile South, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA.

4.  History of Merrell

5.  See DesrtUSA’s Desert Wildflower Reports 2010 - Southern California

Bert and I have each been here before, but never at night.  So we packed our gear and took a late afternoon hike on New Year’s Day up Ghost Mountain in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park to experience and photograph Yaquitepec and the night sky.

Yaquitepec is the name Marshal South (poet, author and artist) gave to his adobe house that he built atop Ghost Mountain, where he and his family lived from 1930 to 1947 in an experiment in primitive living.  Some consider Marshal and his wife, Tanya, as the original hippie family.  It was the time of the Great Depression of the 1930s, when people were without money, jobs and houses and went back to the land to survive, some, including Marshal and Tanya, by homesteading.

Years earlier they enjoyed camping trips to this area and loved the peaceful beauty of this desert wilderness, which enabled them to be creative in their writings after establishing a home here.  Marshal wrote articles for Desert Magazine and monthly drove his 1929 Model A Ford 14 miles to the town of Julian to pick up mail and supplies.  Some in Julian considered him an outcast because of his lifestyle.  Even though he painted a frieze for the Julian library, he was buried in the Julian Cemetery in an unmarked grave in 1948 (it is now marked with a headstone placed by his son Rider in 2005).

Along the way, Bert photographed this Agave plant, called Mescal by Marshal, who used it as a food and fuel source, among other things.

We started photographing the deteriorating ruins under increasingly cloudy skies.

After four prior hikes up here, I finally found and photographed the Souths’ kiln where they fired their pottery.

It is located about 500 feet east of the house and was built from the surrounding granite rocks.

Although it was mostly cloudy, the night sky had pockets of clearing, revealing stars.  Bert lit up the opposite side of this structure with a strobe light and took the image seen in his article, “At Yaquitepec, Atop Ghost Mountain in Anza Borrego, January of 1940 Was a Very Good Year“.  Afterward, he reviewed his photos (below).  Tall agave stalks are seen against the night sky lit up by El Centro, fifty miles away and the largest U.S. city to lie entirely below sea level.

Bert’s headlamp lit up the yard in front of Yaquitepec.

Earlier during the magnificent sunset, I reflected on the ongoing return of Yaquitepec to the earth and, like Marshal, I celebrated the life, beauty and spirit of this special place.

Marshal wrote in his first article for Desert Magazine, “Desert Diary 1 - January at Yaquitepec”, “And New Year is somehow a joyous finale of the glad season.  A wind-up and a beginning.  And it doesn’t matter much whether the wind is yelling down from the glittering, white-capped summits of the Laguna range and chasing snowflakes like clouds of ghostly moths across the bleak granite rocks of our mountain crest or whether the desert sun spreads a summer-like sparkle over all the stretching leagues of wilderness.  New Year’s day is a happy day just the same.”

And, all in all, for Bert and I, New Year’s Day at Yaquitepec was a happy day and a great way to start the new year.

(All 102 articles and poems written by Marshal South for Desert Magazine from 1939 to 1948 can be read in Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles: An Experiment in Primitive Living, 2005, Edited and with a Foreword by Diana Lindsay and Introduction by Rider and Lucile South, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA.)

Also see Diana Lindsay’s website, MarshalSouth.com, for additional information, articles, images and links.

And see the video trailer of John McDonald’s 76-minute documentary, The Ghost Mountain Experiment.

We celebrated New Year’s in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park under the light of the blue moon.  A blue moon is the “extra” full moon in years that have thirteen full moons and occurs every two to three years.  In early English usage, some interpret this “blue moon” as relating to absurdities and impossibilities.

For us, it was a time to relax and enjoy the ambiance of this peaceful and beautiful desert setting.

Larry brought along a juniper wreath made from the Hollywood junipers from our home, which looked quite festive as it held a candle lantern on our picnic table (seen above).  He also brought two delicious homemade artisan sourdough bread rounds, made using the “No Knead Bread Baking Method” (seen below).

I joined Charon and Alex, Rich, and Bert on a hike up Hellhole Canyon.

Hellhole Canyon hike is a popular introductory backpack trip for many youth groups.  It is located south and west of the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Visitor Center that climbs up toward Culp Valley.  According to Diana Lindsay in her book, Anza-Borrego A to Z: People, Places, and Things, 2001, Sunbelt Publications, this canyon was named by William Johnston “Wid” Helm, who used the canyon to move his cattle on and off the desert for winter grazing.  He reportedly said that this canyon was “one hell of a hole to get cattle out of”.

A sign at the beginning of the trail alerted us that mountain lions have been sighted in the area.

Bands of ancient metamorphosed sea beds can be seen on the north canyon wall.

Indeed, we found a marine shell here (as seen below, held by Rich).

Also along this canyon we saw new growth (due to recent rains) of lush, green ovate leaves and bright red flowers of the Ocotillo.  This provided an opportunity for Bert to use his photographic skills and capture a stunning image of the blossoms.

Bert wrote in his recent post, “Hellhole Canyon — Or What’s In A Name?“, “To dramatize the flowers I needed two strobes, which I always carry. I then set the  camera to manual mode, enabling me to overpower the light from the sun. To do that I set the shutter speed to 250th of a second and the aperture to f-22 or less.  Look through the view finder of your camera and you’ll see the dial (at least on the Nikon D300) shows an under exposure of about three stops. Without the strobes your picture would be mighty black, but the strobes are set correctly, and they illuminate the subject. However, you’ll need an additional set of hands to hold one of the strobes.”

I gladly became the additional set of hands, while picking up photography tips from an expert!

My next article will cover what Bert and I experienced and photographed during an evening hike up Ghost Mountain.

Meanwhile, I’ll relax to the music of Blue Moon, accompanied by ukulele.

We ventured in between winter storms to another fun location in the Anza-Borrego Desert, this time to Borrego Springs.  After three years of going up and over our local mountains, both the hard way with many switchbacks, and the magical way using the flux capacitor, we have found that it is more pleasant and easier to go around them (and circumvent Julian) by traveling north on California State Route 79 and taking County Highway S2 down to Scissors Crossing and then 78 and Yaqui Pass to Borrego Springs.  Going this way we avoided potential patches of black ice and snow seen in the Volcan Mountains from San Felipe Valley along S2.

Our mountains usually hold back rain clouds from the desert…

Resulting in mostly sunny days that we enjoyed by hiking and visiting the local farmers’ market and Gomphotherium and other free-standing art structures (such as the tall cactus below) created by artist/welder, Ricardo Breceda, at Galleta Meadows. (More about this in subsequent parts of this article.)

When we drove into Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, we saw another Airstream and someone cheerfully waving to us.  It was Mark and his wife, Mary, who had arrived earlier and were just finishing setting up camp directly across the road from our reserved site.

The following day I joined Mark and Mary on a hike up Palm Canyon (shown above) as Larry and the dogs relaxed at the campsite.  (Dogs are not permitted on the trails.)

Mark and Mary have a 2010 Classic Limited FB (with two solar panels) pulled by a 2008 GMC HD bright red diesel truck with a 52 gallon Titan fuel tank.

They are from Cape Cod and have spent the past two months on the road and have put over 6000 miles on their new trailer.

On the trail they marveled at the size of the palm trees and large boulders that had been washed down the canyon during the 100-year flash flood of 2004.

After hiking one and one half miles up the canyon, we reached a lush oasis of California fan palms supplied by a trickling stream.

(Above photo credit: Mary and Mark)

Over the next few days we enjoyed lively conversation and shared good food as we celebrated this festive season.

On the holiday dinner table below are Larry’s deep-fried potato pierogies, homemade banana-walnut bread, and sun-dried tomato-cilantro hummus.  Mary provided a couscous dish and sliced baguette, Brie cheese, exceptionally sweet strawberries and Medjool dates from the local farmers’ market.

Holiday cheers! Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas!

(Above photo credit: Mary and Mark)

We camped in a desert oasis that is supplied with water at various times by rainwater draining from the Sawtooth Mountains via the Potrero Wash.  While hiking this wash, I saw many wild animal tracks in the sand, including those of the coyote.

The coyote (click here to see photo), Canis latrans, the “barking dog”, is a member of the Canidae (dog) family, has an average weight range of 15-46 pounds, and is found throughout North and Central America.  The name “coyote” is a loanword from American Spanish and is derived from the Nahuatl word cóyotl, meaning “prairie wolf”.  The coyote, known as “the song dog” by Native American Indians (according to Project Wildlife in California), often appears in Native American Indian tradition and folklore and is often portrayed as the trickster (and survivor) in these Native American Trickster Tales.

The coyote is a very adaptable, wide-ranging predator with an excellent sense of smell, vision and hearing, and hunts alone, in pairs, or in packs.  Each night at sunset, we heard the first calls of the coyotes, high-pitched sounds variously described as howls, yips, yelps and barks, most often heard at dusk and at night.

We closed the trailer windows against the approaching chilly night air, fed the dogs and got them inside before they could become dinner for the coyotes.  Coyotes have been known to attack pets and livestock.  We also secured trash and food containers with lids and weights (rocks).

The coyotes usually waited well into the night, when our trailer was silent, before exploring our campsite.  We could tell that they had visited.  Sometimes we could hear their sounds right next to the trailer.  By morning, the dog’s water bowl was empty and marked with coyote urine.  Nearby was a fresh pile of coyote scat, consisting mostly of mesquite beans, which are plentiful at this oasis.

Coyotes are opportunistic and eat what is available, including the Back-tailed Jack Rabbit…

and Gambel’s Quail (named after William Gambel, an American naturalist, who died of typhoid while crossing the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1849).  They inhabit and roost in brushy and thorny vegetation of southwestern deserts.  Listen to Gambel’s Quail here.

The coyote’s adaptability has helped it to survive the encroachment of “civilization” and has led to its success as a native North American species.  Coyotes are now thriving, even in suburban settings and some urban ones, and causing alarm and unease, especially after the recent fatal coyote attack on singer-songwriter, Taylor Mitchell.  Coyotes are causing flight delays at some airports.  Two recent incidents of coyotes biting people at Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California, prompted the authorization to kill coyotes, resulting in the death of eight coyotes and a public outcry.

Environmentalists believe that coyotes are necessary to maintain the balance of nature (for example, coyotes help control rodents and feral cats).  The coyote is a persecuted predator, according to Project Coyote, founded in 2008 “to create a shift in attitudes toward coyotes and other native carnivores by replacing ignorance and fear with understanding and appreciation”.

Project Wildlife says that humans need to learn to coexist with coyotes, and offers these tips.  Griffith Park is now taking a more positive approach by posting ‘Do Not Feed The Wildlife’ signs.  Additional information on the coyote and protecting yourself and your pets is found in these Frequently Asked Questions, presented by DesertUSA.com and in this video.

Coyote sounds enhance our desert experience and I always look forward to hearing them, just as I enjoy listening to Peter and the Wolf at this time of year.

Yaquitepec (pronounced YAKeete-PECK and coined by Marshal South from “Yaqui”, the fierce freedom-loving Indians of Sonora, Mexico, and “tepec” referring to the hill) was Marshal South and family’s home from 1930 to 1946 on an obscure ridge they named Ghost Mountain, owned by the Bureau of Land Management before it became part of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.  Yaquitepec, where Marshal and family lived close to nature in an experiment in primitive living, was bathed in spring flowers earlier this month.

A beavertail cactus greeted us as we approached Yaquitepec after trekking up the 1 mile trail.

Marshal South described a spring scene at Yaquitepec in his article, Desert Home 1, in the May 1941 issue of Desert Magazine:

The squaw-tea [Mormon tea or ephedra] bush in front of the house is sprinkled thickly with clustering chrome-yellow blossoms; and down by the yuccas the white and yellow headings of my tiny desert daisy bushes nod beside the budding beavertail cactus. The barrel cacti too are crowned with flower circlets and the lone creosote bush by the great rock is already dressed in its bright new covering of varnished green leaves and is sprinkled with yellow blossoms. New pink and cream heads nod on the buckwheat. The whole world of desert growth throbs to spring.

(Note: all 102 articles and poems written by Marshal South for Desert Magazine from 1939 to 1948 can be read in Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles: An Experiment in Primitive Living, 2005, Edited and with a Foreword by Diana Lindsay and Introduction by Rider and Lucile South, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA.)

Ephedra funerea, Mormon tea bush, has tiny leaves and most of the photosynthesis takes place in its green jointed stems. Most Native Americans in the Southwest and some of the Mormon pioneers brewed or boiled the Ephedra stems to make a tea that was considered refreshing and therapeutic.  Marshal’s ephedra, which he called squaw-tea, was just a few feet from his front door.

Encelia farinosa,  or Brittlebush, is prolific at Yaquitepec, and helps to soften the look of its dump of rusting cans a ways down on the southeast side.  (Marshal drove his 1929 Model A Ford 14 miles monthly up the Banner Grade to the nearest town, Julian, where he mailed in his articles to Desert Magazine, bought gasoline, and brought back library books, goods and supplies, including canned goods.)

Spring also brings warmer nights to Yaquitepec. Marshal South described one such night in his article, Desert Refuge 9, in the April 1942 issue of Desert Magazine:

Last night was warm and at midnight I went out to open another shutter of our screened sleeping porch… I did not at once go back into the house. Instead I sat down on the upper of the two rock steps that lead past the cisterns to where the woodpile is. Upon my bare body the chill of the night air struck with a tingling, electric glow that was almost warmth.

 Far off, through a mist-rift above the shadowy ridges, the North Star gleamed. Almost I seemed to hear the deep, measured breathing of the earth…

 The night air was like a garment of peace, and the overhead arch of the desert stars, appearing and disappearing through rifts in the canopy of haze, was a glorious procession of the Heavenly Hosts, streaming forward triumphantly across the fields of Paradise… One gets very close to the heart of things, sometimes, in the desert silence.

(All 102 articles and poems written by Marshal South for Desert Magazine from 1939 to 1948 can be read in Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles: An Experiment in Primitive Living, 2005, Edited and with a Foreword by Diana Lindsay and Introduction by Rider and Lucile South, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA.)

Plans were already in place for us to spend four nights just below Ghost Mountain, so when Rich L. and family arrived in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park with their friends Adam and Susan earlier in the week we were poised to go on a joint hike with them and celebrate their last full day in the desert with a sumptuous feast prepared by Larry.  We had already agreed on a hike to see the pictographs near Ghost Mountain and I was especially interested in seeing the nearby morteros for the first time. Adam and Susan had recently viewed the short film, Ghost Mountain - An Experiment in Primitive Living, shown in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park’s Visitors’ Center, and they were interested in hiking up to see Marshal South’s former home site, Yaquitepec, on Ghost Mountain. So we decided to do all three hikes in one afternoon.

(Pictured above are Adam, Susan, Emma, Rich and Eleanor)

Zoe the cat enjoyed viewing the sites from the vantage point of Emma’s day bag while both Rich and Emma kept their eyes open for any curiosities along the trail.

Bright yellow flower mounds of  Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa) are prolific here at Yaquitepec right now. (The Laguna Mountains are seen along with the Mason Valley below.)

The Creosote Bush (Larrea tridentata) and the Brittlebush brighten Marshal South’s dissolving adobe ruins.

Desert Agave (Agave deserti) is also very abundant here.  Standing below are two Agave flower stalks.  Native peoples (as illustrated in Marshal South’s frieze in the former Julian Library) once roasted young agave stalks in rock-lined roasting pits for two days which resulted in a sweet, molasses-flavored agave which was consumed.

Marshal South wrote in his article, Desert Refuge 35, in the June 1944 issue of Desert Magazine:

Mescal roasting is a family affair. Tanya and I find and bring in the sprouting plants that are ready for the baking.  Rider helps dig the pit and fetches stones to line it.  Rudyard and Victoria trot hither and thither, lugging in fuel…  you leave your mescals cooking in their primitive oven for two days… Take a knife or a hatchet and carefully trim off the outer crusting, and the prize lies before you.  Brown and golden and rich!

(All 102 articles and poems written by Marshal South for Desert Magazine from 1939 to 1948 can be read in Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles: An Experiment in Primitive Living, 2005, Edited and with a Foreword by Diana Lindsay and Introduction by Rider and Lucile South, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA.)

After hiking the mile back down to Rich’s Armada, we piled back in and continued down a sandy road to our next stop, Morteros Trail.  This .25 mile walk leads to an area where Native Kumeyaay women used rock pestles to pound seeds in the bedrock mortar (mortero).

Along the way we spotted numerous lizards of various colors.  Emma wanted to see a large one so she performed her “Homage to the colored lizard” by repeated bowing with arms outstretched.

We then climbed back into the Armada and continued down the road to our next and final hike of one mile into Smuggler Canyon to see the pictographs.  Emma’s homage worked because the next lizard that we saw was the largest one of the day.

We found the rock art pictographs (pictures with applied color, as contrasted with petroglyphs which have pictures etched into rock) on a prominent boulder.  Manfred Knack says in his The Forgotten Artist - Indians of Anza-Borrego and Their Rock Art, 1968, Anza-Borrego Desert Natural History Association, this rock art may have been associated with girls initiation ceremonies… The diamond chain or “rattlesnake” may have represented a messenger from the god Chinigehinish (or Chinigchinix), who would punish those who disobey his divine laws… Paintings at the conclusion of the rites of passage reaffirmed the final lessons of the ceremonies.

So after a total of 4.5 miles of hiking…

We were ready to find out what Larry had been preparing back at camp just southeast of Yaquitepec.

In Larry’s own words: “Wednesday afternoon involved preparing dinner while Bill went hiking with our friends. A majority of that time was used to assemble the vegetarian pot stickers and cook the falafels. We found that another picnic table had been moved to our campsite. We aligned them end-to-end and set out a Mexican serape as a table cloth and hung 2 Chinese bamboo flutes with red tassels, which danced in the wind, on the branches of the grove of picturesque mesquite trees. This made for a festive ambiance with plenty of seating and a buffet table for serving. The weather was beautiful with mild breezes.

I had fixings out for salad and/or pita sandwiches, which included falafels, tomatoes, onion, pepperoncini, hummus, tahini, pita wedges, vegetarian pot stickers (which were a favorite), lemonade, poppy seed short bread cookies, and celery sticks. Allowing guests to pick and choose their favorite eats always makes for a successful meal. Our guests (Rich, Eleanor, Emma, Adam and Susan) brought a bottle of wine and a delicious Julian apple pie topped with a crispy streusel topping.”

Larry enjoys researching and preparing food, recipes, and menus that are inclusive and compatible with guests’ dietary limitations.

I enjoyed the food and company so much that I forgot to take out our camera to capture the moment.  Perhaps we can entice the Man In The Maze to post some of his shots of this dinner gathering in his next post.

It might be snowing where you are, but it’s spring wildflowers in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California.  That’s how I started a similar post almost exactly one year ago when Larry and I rendezvoused with Rich Charpentier and Sadira for a celebration of the beginning of the wildflower season and the turning point in Rich’s fortune.  Two years ago Rich visited this area in Borrego Springs and immediately felt happy.  From here he went on to find his happy home base in Prescott, Arizona and establish his very successful career, R.L. Charpentier Photography, and gallery.

Last Saturday we received a report from the Anza-Borrego Foundation and Institute that the desert is blooming.  We were not disappointed, even our campsite was surrounded with wildflowers.

The blooms are just beginning and should be prolific this year due to our recent rain.

Since dogs are not allowed on the trails, we took turns going with Rich on day hikes.  Larry and Rich hiked up Palm Canyon with its many displays of the Brittlebush (big grayish-green dome-shaped bush covered with bright yellow flowers on thin stalks) and the Pink Sand Verbena.  Then on the same day, I joined Rich in his Titan on a drive to Ghost Mountain where we hiked one mile to see the pictographs in Smuggler Canyon.

Along the way Rich discovered a lizard on a rock.  And the lizard contemplated its options.

Rich came well equipped with two cameras, an assortment of lens, tripod and waterproof bag.  Rich is gaining quite a reputation for his spectacular HDR images.

We found the pictographs and my images will appear in my next post, along with more about Marshal South’s and his son’s visit here when they lived at nearby Yaquitepec.

The brief report comes to you from the field, as it did one year ago, complements of Rich’s WI-FI connection.

More desert trails and mysteries will continue after my next post, Desert blooms 2009.

Modern-day Peg-legger, writer and photographer Bert Gildart arrived at our campsite below Ghost Mountain bright and early with enthusiastic, positive energy and sensitive curiosity.  He took notes as we showed him our space-saving solutions inside our trailer and then we sat around the picnic table under the mesquite tree and chatted for the next two hours on a variety of topics, issues and concerns.

I pointed to one of the ridges on nearby Ghost Mountain and said that is Yaquitepec, where Marshal South and family had their experiment in primitive living as detailed in Diana Lindsay’s, Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles and brought to life in the recently released full-length documentary, John McDonalds’s The Ghost Mountain Experiment.  Last week Bert hiked up to Yaquitepec, and now he was interested in retracing Marshal’s monthly trip into Julian, 14 miles away up Banner Grade, where he mailed in his monthly articles to Desert Magazine, picked up mail and supplies, painted a frieze in the Julian Library, and where he was buried.  So I grabbed my camera and day pack and Bert drove up to Julian for the first time (going from an elevation of 1500′ to 4000′ and from a temperature of near 70 degrees to near 50).  Upon arrival, Bert shared a sandwich that Janie had made and then I took him up the Casket Walk of the Julian Cemetery and showed him Marshal South’s gravestone marker (with its symbols of the cactus, eagle and sun) that his eldest son Rider had placed in 2005, after the site had been determined by David Lewis of Julian based on information in a letter written by former Julian librarian, Myrtle Botts, who befriended Marshal.

(In 2008, 4th generation Julian resident, David Lewis wrote, Last Known Address - The History of the Julian Cemetery, published by Headstone Publishing, Julian, Ca., which also tells interesting stories of the early families of Julian, and curiously leaves out any mention of Marshal South’s interactions with Julian and of his burial location in the Julian Cemetery.)

As the cold wind picked up and the rain clouds rolled over, I took Bert down the hill to the center of town for an opportunity to photograph the frieze that Marshal painted in the Julian Library in the fall of 1946 in exchange for Marshal being able to live there in the library with the permission of librarian Myrtle Botts. (Marshal’s spending more time in Julian was one of the factors leading to his wife, Tanya, taking the kids off Ghost Mountain and seeking a divorce.) This former library is now the home of Julian Realty and is next to the Town Hall.

I suggested that Bert go in first and, if getting permission, do a photo shoot. After a few minutes, I started to see flashes from his camera so I knew he had succeeded.

After 20 minutes or so he came out and took me back in and introduced me to the one lady there and, after getting her permission, I quickly took photos of the frieze on the upper portion of all four walls, which must have been just above former stacks of library books. Using historical, spiritual and religious symbology, the frieze depicts the story of people from the cradle of civilization (Egyptian pyramid) to the horrors of World War II (planes flying over a city in flames as bombs and rockets fly).  Much of history is subjective and I’m sure much of what I saw can be interpreted in many ways.  For example, the frieze image below suggests to me the beginnings of the town Julian, which was at first a tent city when quartz gold was discovered in 1870 by Confederate Drury Bailey, from Georgia. He homesteaded 160 acres of land, laid out a town, and named it after his cousin Mike Julian.

But prior to this, Native American Indians, the Kumeyaay, lived here, and their ancestors, the San Dieguito Paleo Indians, can be dated back 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.  Marshal shows them hunting and gathering…

And tending fires.

In 1542 Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the first documented European to sail the Western shore of North America, sailed under the Spanish flag into what is now called San Diego Bay and named it San Miguel.  His burial place is still a mystery.

More trails and mysteries will be explored in my next article, “Desert trails and mysteries, 2″.

Meanwhile, here is music to listen to while contemplating the first California Gold Rush.

We are preparing to revisit the area near Ghost Mountain where we enjoy the quietude of non-hook-up camping while savoring the yipping of  coyotes under the starry Anza-Borrego desert night skies.  As you may recall, this is the area where I saw strange lights in the sky last fall that I investigated with the help our our vertical thrusters. This is also the area where I spotted a possible UFO while on a hike up Ghost Mountain last spring with Rich and Sadira.

Although the above “UFO” is actually a lenticular cloud formation, what lies below the sky on this mountain is just as fascinating.  It is Yaquitepec, the home site of the Marshal South family experiment in primitive living from 1930 to 1947.

One year ago, writer and photographer,  Bert Gildart, and his wife, Janie, also hiked up here, explored the ruins of Yaquitepec, and he recounted Marshal South’s story, and reflected on the “Lessons From Yaquitepec“.  I also contemplated the story while sitting on Marshal South’s melting adobe walls…

and peering eastward out of the door that he and his family passed through for over 15 years.

In 1946 Marshal South’s wife, Tanya, took their three children and left the mountain and Marshal.  In 1948 Marshal died of heart failure in nearby Julian, CA, where he had obtained supplies to build Yaquitepec, collected his mail, and mailed in his 102 monthly articles to Desert Magazine (which were praised by Wally Byam and documented in the article, “Marshal South & Wally Byam - Parallel Roads, Different Destinations”, pages 36 to 39, in the Fall 2008 issue of Airstream Life).  Marshal had also painted a frieze on the walls of the Julian Library and befriended, the librarian, Myrtle Botts (who was at Marshal’s side when he died). The exact location of Marshal South’s unmarked grave on the hill in the Julian Cemetery had been lost for years.  David Lewis, a 4th generation Julian resident, civil engineering designer, and historian of the Julian Cemetery, determined the site of Marshal’s grave, based on information in a letter written by Myrtle Botts. (1)  (Last year David Lewis wrote, Last Known Address - The History of the Julian Cemetery, published by Headstone Publishing, and he curiously left out any mention of Marshal South in his book).

In 2005, Marshal’s son, Rider, placed a headstone on his father’s grave.

Marshal’s grave marker bears the sacred symbol of the House of the Sun - “that of a sun, an eagle and a cactus - carrying thus, in symbology, the truth of the upward passage of men’s souls from the thorny bitterness of earth to the higher realms of light.”(2)

Marshal wrote:

Let my House be a house of Love and Understanding.  Let the pillars thereof be the mountains and the trees and its pavement be the wide earth.  Let its roof be the arch of the sky, and its music the songs of the birds and of the wind and of the harps of the rain.  Let its lights be the lights of the sun and the moon, and of the glow of the everlasting stars.  Let Fellowship and Peace and Brotherhood dwell therein.  Of man and of every creature.  And I, the Spirit, shall dwell in that House, and walk beneath its arches, and bless it, from Everlasting to Everlasting. (3)

Note 1: Page 38,  “Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles - An Experiment in Primitive Living“, edited and with a forward by Diana Lindsay and with an introduction by Rider and Lucile South, 2005, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, California, ISBN: 0-932653-66-9.

Notes 2 & 3: The quotes in the above two paragraphs are provided with the kind permission of Diana Lindsay and Sunbelt Publications from pages 28, 29 and 30, “Marshal South and the Ghost Mountain Chronicles - An Experiment in Primitive Living“, edited and with a forward by Diana Lindsay and with an introduction by Rider and Lucile South, 2005, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, California, ISBN: 0-932653-66-9.

Note 4:  The newly released DVD of John McDonald’s full length and uncensored documentary, The Ghost Mountain Experiment, is now available and previewed here.