Outdoors

John Wesley Powell and ten other men loaded food and provisions into four boats in Green River, Wyoming on 24 May 1869. They followed the Green River to the Colorado and traveled through the Grand Canyon. One man left after the first month. Three more left in the third month. Those who remained finished the expedition on on 30 August. They were the first Europeans known to pass through the Grand Canyon. Powell was appointed the second director of the US Geological Survey. His scientific study of the southwestern United States convinced him that agriculture and deserts should not mix.(Wikipedia).

Terry Tempest Williams writes him a letter in The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks. This is an excerpt.

I have learned from your history Major Powell, that it is only through the power of our own encounters and explorations of the wild that we can cultivate hope because we have experienced both the awe and humility in nature. We can passionately enter in to the politics of place, even the realm of public policy and change it, if we dare to speak from the authority of our own residencies.

From The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks:

Wilderness is the source of what we can imagine and what we cannot—the taproot of consciousness

* * *

It will survive us.

From The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks:

The legacy of the Wilderness Act is a legacy of care. It is the act of loving beyond ourselves, beyond our own species, beyond our own time. To honor wildlands and wild lives that we may never see, much less understand, is to acknowledge the world does not revolve around us. The Wilderness Act is an act of respect that protects the land and ourselves from our own annihilation.

The Wilderness Act

100 years ago today the National Park Service was born. National parks are, as the Ken Burns documentary put it, America’s Best Idea. Unfortunately, I will not be able to participate in any of the celebrations today, nor am I likely to make it to a National Park this year, but I am delighted to live in a country that has placed such value on wild and beautiful places. I practically grew up in Yellowstone, and I’ve visited many other National Parks. Please take some time today to celebrate our good fortune, and if you’re close enough to a National Park or National Monument to visit, please consider taking the time to stop by and thank the Park Service employees for their service to our country.

National Geographic has made available nearly all of the topographic quadrangle maps from the US Geological Survey as PDF download.

They are pre-packaged using the standard 7.5 minute, 1:24,000 base but with some twists:

• Page 1 is an overview map showing the Quad in context
• Pages 2 through 5 are the standard USGS Quads cut in quarters to fit on standard printers
• Hillshading has been added to each page of the PDF to help visualize the topography

I use regularly use a GPS when I’m in unfamiliar territory, but it is even better to have a topographic map to refer to. I’m delighted to have found this resource.

Printable USGS PDF Quads from National Geographic