Tucson Area, Arizona - A Manner of Traveling - Nov 2024 - May 2025

We are not our age.  We are our energy.

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Sombrero Peak

Last winter was spent in the Tucson area instead of Phoenix.  The landscape isn't as varied as in the Phoenix area but still beautiful.  Tucson, however, is full of history, older than Phoenix.  Enjoy!

Grand Canyon of the North: South Nahanni River - NWT - Canada (part 2)

 If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick every day.

Leonard Cohen

Beautiful waterfall along the South Nahanni River
Stopped there for a small break

Bracing oneself to witness towering and sprawling canyons, hot springs, mountains, rapids, wildlife, alpine tundra, deep gorges, and waterfalls still doesn't completely prepare you for what one sees and experiences on the silty water of the South Nahanni River and its surroundings.  Leave the planning to the guides and the enjoying to you.

Grand Canyon of the North: South Nahanni River - NWT - Canada (part 1)

You filled me with a wild desire to know everything about life.

Oscar Wilde

Dryas, so wispy and whimsical
Fields of them on the river's edges

The Nahanni River became the very first UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1978.  Others included the Galapagos Islands, Mesa Verde National Park and Yellowstone National Park.  It is considered an ‘antecedent’ river. While many rivers are created by mountains, the South Nahanni had carved its meandering path hundreds of millions of years before tectonic plates pushed up the mountains around it.

Ode to Distant, Ancient, Wilderness: Firth River - Yukon - Canada (part 2)

Good judgment comes from experience.

And experience?

Well that comes from poor judgment.

Fred Rose, Rotary Club

Andy, our Team Leader, is going down the Class IV rapids first. 
Notice the rug at the front of the raft to protect it if/when hitting sharp rock walls.

I am not sure if I mentioned it before but the Yukon is approximately the size of Spain yet it only has 40,000 inhabitants (of which 75% live in its capital, Whitehorse) versus Spain's 47 million people!!!  Can you say remote?  We flew for 80 minutes to get to the start of this trip, near Margaret Lake, and only saw one or two small cabins along tundra lakes and no roads nor trails.  Most people travel by water or on ice depending on the season.  

Ode to Distant, Ancient, Wilderness: Firth River - Yukon - Canada (part 1)

 She was here on earth to make sense of its wild enchantments.

Boris Pasternak

John Evans, Canadian co-traveler on this adventure, was an artist.
His rendition of me looking at caribou crossing the mountain across the river from us.
With the usual cup of coffee in a gloved hand, looking through 45x telescope.
The caribou went by for at least 18 hours (and it doesn't get dark in the summer)!

Visitors come for various reasons, the thrill of rafting the cold, white-water sections of a Class IV river, the rare experience of encountering abundant wildlife and diverse Arctic flora, or simply to embrace the natural rhythms of an utterly primitive, less hurried place.  Above all, traveling down the Firth River provides an unrivaled showcase of a Canadian panorama that can be found almost nowhere else, a glimpse of what a mountain landscape would look like had glaciers never scoured it.