Q&A: Climber Rosemary Saal Reaches New Heights

In four months, Rosemary Saal will embark on Expedition Denali with a team of leaders in the African-American outdoor community. But their mission goes far beyond climbing the highest peak in North America. With a true zeal for encouraging diversity in the outdoors, this group of trailblazers brought together by National Outdoor Leadership School hope to inspire minority youth to take part in nature and the activities it has to offer.

Sierra magazine spoke with Saal, one of the youngest team members, about her fear of mountain lions, the thrill of climbing and why she carries around a headlamp in her purse.

What made you want to start hiking and climbing in the first place?

I just love the way climbing feels. Pulling yourself higher and higher until you reach the top. It is like you are always reaching for the next step.

I feel like a champion after climbing the flight of stairs to my third-floor apartment. What does it feel like when you reach the top of the huge mountains that you’ve climbed?

I just feel really fortunate and grateful to be able to do it. I remember when I hiked the North Cascades. It was amazing because I had been looking at those mountains from my hometown in Seattle all of my life. Now I was climbing them!

What is a must-have item for you on every hiking trip?

I have gotten so attached to my headlamp I started to just carry it around in my purse. You never know when you might need it. But a less technical item would be my journal. It is super important to have when you’re out there.

What convinced you to climb Denali now, with this group of people?

It just seemed like such an amazing opportunity. I didn’t even think about it. I was just like, “Heck yeah, I want to be a part of that.” It is a sponsored trip to climb the highest peak in North America while encouraging youth to get involved in the outdoors. You can’t pass up an opportunity like that. 

Q&A: Tyrhee Moore on Tackling Denali

Washington, D.C., native Tyrhee Moore was 13 before he saw his first mountain. Now, six years later, Moore joins a group of African American climbers setting out to ascend the highest peak in North America on Expedition Denali. Brought together by the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), these climbers are role models in the African American outdoor community, each having a passion for nature and a dedication to encouraging the involvement of minority groups in environmentally motivated activities.

With hopes to inspire people of color to explore, embrace, and experience the outdoors, this team of trailblazers will begin their summit of Denali in June of this year, on the 100th anniversary of the mountain's first ascent.

Sierra magazine spoke with Moore about the outdoors, being a city kid, and what he’ll do when he reaches the top of Denali.    

What originally motivated you to get involved with outdoor activities?

I was in the 7th grade, and my school had this summer opportunities office. I went there looking for something to do over the summer, and they told me about some camp in Wyoming. When I went, it was my first time flying on a plane or seeing mountains. And I was wondering why didn't I know anything about that at 13. I really liked the camp so I kept going back, and they ended up giving me a scholarship for a NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) course. But if it had not been for that camp that exposed inner city kids to outdoor activities, I probably would not be doing any of this.

I understand you are one of the youngest members of Expedition Denali. As a sophomore in college, what made you want to spend a month of your summer vacation climbing a mountain rather than lying on a beach somewhere with your friends?

I can always spend time with friends, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I think that's the reason that we are climbing. It is such a good cause. Right now most of my friends don't do stuff like this, but hopefully my participation in this expedition will change that.

Conservation Art: Jane Kim's Migrating Murals

Mt. Williamson Motel in Independence, California, might be the only place in the world where you’re guaranteed a glimpse of the Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep, one of the country's most majestic -- and elusive -- creatures. Although conservation efforts have helped boost the numbers of the endangered species, only about 500 of them exist today.

A mural of an adult bighorn standing amid the rugged Sierra Nevada bedecks one side of the motel. On the other, a second mural illustrates the sheep's growth stages, from prancing lamb to regal ram, crowned with iconic spiraled horns.

"Not everyone can physically see them, but they can see life-size paintings of them," San Francisco-based artist Jane Kim said of the sheep, which she grew "obsessive" about sighting during a fellowship with the Sierra Nevada Research Institute. The field biologists she shadowed rarely saw the animals, even through their spotting scopes.

Kim finished the Mt. Williamson Motel murals late last year as part of the first installment of her Migrating Murals project to paint endangered wildlife along their migration routes. Mt. Williamson Motel sits at the edge of Highway 395, which roughly follows the bighorn's seasonal trek.

Merging scientific detail with artistic insight, Kim's murals inform as well as enthrall. For her, science and art have always gone hand in hand. After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2003, she found herself frequenting science museums more than art museums. As she leafed through National Geographic and academic journals, she dreamt about her own illustrations filling their pages.

In 2009, Kim decided to get her science illustration certificate at California State University, Monterey Bay. More than conveying scientific data, she wanted tell stories about science.  

"The visceral connection, the draw of people becoming fascinated with a certain topic because they saw a really beautiful piece of artwork that made them shift their perspective on something -- I thought it could be such a powerful tool to providing new information to a new demographic," Kim said. Ideally, everyone, even those without a scientific background, would understand her drawings.

Kim's love for wildlife began at an early age. Growing up in suburban Chicago, she felt "a lack of connection" with people but felt a deep kinship with animals. She routinely begged her parents for pets and underwent "phases" of drawing a single type of animal.

"At one point I had my bear phase, and then I had my dog phase, my horse phase," she recalled, laughing. "There was a moment where I was really obsessed with sculpting and painting horses, and then I had a fish phase." During her bear phase, she decided to move to California because of the grizzly on its state flag.

In high school, Kim began filling her portfolio with human anatomical and medical illustrations. But it wasn't long before she returned to her first love -- animals. "I actually find more connection with animals than with people," she explained. "There's something just so beautiful about wildlife that you can't find in anything else."

If all goes as planned, Kim will finish the fourth and final Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep mural in October.  Future Migrating Murals will showcase the North Pacific blue whale, whooping crane, and coho salmon. Kim hopes that her art will help raise awareness about these species, a crucial first step toward conservation. Ideally, her art will also foster community, with cities potentially creating programming around the murals, such as bike races or field trips. "I'd really love to see these murals create that opportunity and have that lasting connection," she said.

Read More:

Nature Art: Keeping a Nature Journal

John Muir: Sketching in the Sierra

Nature Art: Fish Printing by the Chesapeake Bay

Garbage Art and the Environment

(Photos © 2012 Cody Tuttle Media, All Rights Reserved)

Melissa Pandika is an editorial intern at Sierra and a graduate journalism student at Stanford University. Her interests include environmental health and justice, urban environmental issues, and conservation biology. She has a soft spot for cetaceans.

Observing Highlights for March: Comet PanSTARRS

Comet 2011 L4 (PanSTARRS) makes its closest pass by Earth on March 5, but at this point it will still be mostly a southern hemisphere object. PanSTARRS has already been showing itself to southern hemisphere observers (along with another comet, Comet Lemmon, which will enter northern skies in April). Try looking to the southwest right after sunset each evening in March.

After March 5, the odds of spotting the comet become better as Comet PanSTARRS moves higher into the sky and brightens. The current brightness estimated for PanSTARRS is around second or third magnitude, similar to the stars in Cassiopeia, the W-shaped constellation above and to the right of the comet. Once the comet rises 15 to 20 degrees above the horizon, it will move horizontally across the sky, passing from the constellation Cetus into Pisces. It passes closest to the sun on March 9/10. On March 12 the comet will lie to the left of a crescent moon and a more-difficult-to-spy Uranus only half a degree below, and on April 3/4 the comet skims past M31, the Andromeda Galaxy.

Saturn enters the late evening sky in early March with the moon lying beside it on March 1 and the star Spica close by. The moon returns to Saturn by the end of the month, slipping in between Saturn and Spica on March 28 and displaying a fat gibbous phase. The full moon occurs on March 27 at 2:27 a.m. PDT.

Year in Yosemite: Moving On

I was worried about moving from Yosemite National Park to Orange County, California. And rightly so. Two more different places could hardly be found. Although it may not feel like it to those who visit in summer, with its crush of people and its bumper-to-bumper traffic, Yosemite, at its heart, is about the preservation of wilderness.

In the mid-1800s, Frederick Law Olmstead (designer of Central Park) pushed for a Yosemite where roads would funnel people into 5% of its landmass. That left the other 95%, an area the size of Rhode Island, alone.

The same could not be said of Orange County. Size-wise, it’s one of the smallest counties in California. Yet, with just over 3 million people, its population ranks it third in the state, just behind Los Angeles to its north and San Diego to the south. It wasn't always this way.

As its name implies, Orange County once supplied citrus to the world. At the very same time that Olmstead was laying out his vision of Yosemite, farmers were planting Orange County's first Valencia orange trees. By 1948, 5 million trees were under cultivation on 67,000 acres of land. Yet 30 years later, only 4,000 acres remained. By 2005, less than 100 acres of Valencia oranges still existed. What happened? Development. As the aerospace and defense industries of the Cold War years moved to Southern California, the people who owned Orange County’s farms discovered the land had far more value when the only thing cropping up were office buildings and housing tracts.

Tree and Human Health May Be Linked

Our deep connection with nature has roots seemingly as old as humanity itself. Ancient Celts viewed trees as sacred symbols of fertility and rebirth. Conservationist John Muir believed that everyone should have a sanctuary where “nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” A recent study from the U.S. Forest Service now suggests that this primordial bond goes beyond metaphor, providing scientific evidence that tree and human health may be intertwined.

“I basically tagged onto one of the oldest ideas in the word,” said lead author Geoffrey Donovan, a researcher at the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station. But “the quantification is a new thing.”

Donovan and colleagues combed through demographic, human mortality, and forest health data from about 1,300 counties in 15 states from 1990 through 2007. Their findings? In counties where trees were plagued by the invasive emerald ash borer, about 15,000 more deaths from cardiovascular disease and approximately 6,000 from lower respiratory disease were reported compared to uninfested areas. The researchers focused on these ailments in particular since trees can filter particulates and other pollutants, improving air quality. Even after controlling for demographic variables, such as race, income, and education, they observed the same trend.

Q&A: Vegan Long-Distance Hiker Sam Maron

Sam Maron met the Appalachian Trail (AT) in eighth grade and fell for it, hard. He was at summer camp, where a four-day backpacking trip through the Maine end of the nearly 2200-mile path settled in his bones. Maron finally trekked the whole thing almost a decade later, hiking 12 to 20 miles per day for six months in 2009. But when Maron finally did it, he wasn't eating meat anymore. Or dairy. Or honey. Maron, now 26, is working toward a masters degree in environmental advocacy and social justice from Antioch University New England. He also runs the blog Backpacking Vegan to show it can be done.

Q. What called you back to the Appalachian Trail? And why vegan?

A. What appealed to me is that it is one interconnected wilderness experience that goes thousands of miles. You’re always in the environment, you’re always in nature. That doesn’t exist many places. I transitioned to being vegan in college. That was 2005. Definitely an interest in activism and wanting to live my life in a way that is less impactful to the Earth is the primary reason. The more I learned about the environmental and social impacts of the meat and dairy industries, the more strongly I felt that I didn’t want to be a part of it.

Q. How did you prepare for the AT?

A. When I was thinking about it in the years leading up to when I actually did it, I started researching [hiking vegan] and I couldn’t find anything about it. When I started hiking, I decided I was going to try as hard as I could. I also decided I was going to start with an open mind. It’s totally doable. It’s also a challenge, but it’s really important to me. Why would I compromise something that’s important to me when I wanted to travel?

Q. Did you do this alone?

5 Nature-Inspired Innovations

The shifting hues of squid skin, the stickiness of gecko toes, the self-cleansing of lotus leaves. Understanding these and other natural phenomena can yield not only fascinating biological insights, but also fresh solutions to today’s most pressing environmental challenges. Biomimicry — applying the design of natural systems to human problems — has gained momentum in recent years. Last August, the San Diego Zoo opened its Center for Bioinspiration, which works with companies and research institutions to translate zoo scientists’ findings into practical applications. Taking cues from nature makes sense. Plants and animals have a 3.8 billion year head start on scientists in adapting to natural pressures, whether that involves using sunlight efficiently or keeping cool in hot, arid climates. Here’s a look at five biomimicry advances that emerged within the past year.

Mercury, Jupiter, and Solar System Rubble

The always-tricky-to-catch Mercury creeps up into the evening sky in February. It will remain low to the horizon, fighting against the glow of sunset for most of the month. Mercury and Mars lie less than a degree apart after sunset on February 8. A flat, unobstructed western horizon will be needed to see them, along with an absence of light pollution.

On February 11 you can try to spot the 4-percent-lit moon, just a day past new, setting in the west after the sun. Mercury, at magnitude -0.9, will be below the moon and an even dimmer Mars will be below that. The weekend of February 16 and 17 brings Mercury highest into the sky but it will already be dimming, down to magnitude -0.3, and will grow darker on succeeding evenings as it falls back toward the horizon.

For an easy planet to bag in February, Jupiter will be shining brightly among the stars of Taurus. On February 17 and 18 a first quarter moon lies on one side and then the other of the giant planet. Take some time with binoculars to explore Jupiter and its moons, our moon, and the nearby cluster of the Pleiades. All three objects are some of the best targets for binoculars and are a great way to bring new observers into the hobby. Ask a new observer how many stars they can count in the fuzzy Pleiades cluster with their eyes alone and then show them the dozens more that pop into view through binoculars.

February’s full moon reaches its peak at 12:26 p.m. PST on February 25. The moon will be just below Leo the Lion as the sky gets dark. Late on February 28, look for the 87-percent-lit moon rising in Virgo in the east, and the constellation’s brightest star, Spica, about 1 degree away from the moon.

Small solar system objects seem to be flinging themselves in our direction lately, begging for attention. The asteroid that will make its close approach to Earth on February 15 at around 11:30 p.m. PST is named Asteroid 2012 DA14. At only 45 meters across, it’s not going to be a good observing target for the amateur astronomer.

However, another object headed our way, Comet 2011 L4 (PANSTARRS), will pass close to the sun in March and is brightening every day. Making its closest encounter past Earth on March 5 and its closest encounter past the sun on March 10, the comet could become bright enough to rival the brightest stars in the sky. Comet PANSTARRS will be in the west after sunset passing from Cetus into Pisces. On March 12 the comet will appear to swing past Uranus, an opportunity to catch that distant planet in binoculars. More precise information on the comet’s brightness will be available closer to March.

Photo by John Chumack. Peering out the observatory window, Orion lies below Jupiter in Taurus. The Hyades cluster is below Jupiter and the Pleiades cluster floats above.

Kelly Kizer Whitt loves clean, clear, and dark skies. Kelly studied English and Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and worked for Astronomy magazine. She writes the SkyGuide for AstronomyToday.com. You can follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/Astronomommy.

Giant Celestial Hot Gas Cloud Looks Like a Manatee

Just in time for Florida's Manatee Festival, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory reveals the Manatee Nebula, a celestial gas cloud that bears an extraordinary similarity to Florida's most adorable (but anti-Biblical) endangered species. And the similarity doesn't stop there, says the NRAO:

• The cloud is the remnant of a star that exploded in the constellation Aquila, about 18,000 light years away, and is impossible to spot with a common telescope; you need a radio telescope like the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array that can detect the low-energy radio wave light radiated by the nebula’s gases. Manatees can be hard to see in murky shallow waters. Spotters detect their presence by air bubbles and wakes.
• The nebula bears arc-like scars carved into it by particles blasted from the jets of the exploded star’s remnant, a black hole, at its center.  The scars bring to mind the scars many manatees bear from boat propellers that have gotten too close.
• The nebula took more than 10,000 years to assume its manatee-like shape. Manatees also have a long gestation and infancy period – well, at least compared to other earthly creatures. Gestation lasts 12 to 14 months; infancy, two to five years.

Sierra Club Outings sponsors regular "Manatees and Mermaids" kayak trips. You could get on the waitlist for this year's trip, or watch the Outings listings for future opportunities. Or, you could turn your telescope to the constellation Aquila . . .

W50 supernova remnant in radio (green) against the infrared background of stars and dust (red). Credits: NRAO/AUI/NSF, K. Golap, M. Goss; NASA’s Wide Field Survey Explorer (WISE). A Florida Manatee rests underwater in Three Sisters Springs in Crystal River, Florida. Image used with permission from Tracy Colson.

PAUL RAUBER is a senior editor at Sierra. He is the author, with Carl Pope, of the happily outdated Strategic Ignorance: Why the Bush Administration Is Recklessly Destroying a Century of Environmental Progress. Otherwise he is a cyclist, cook, and father of two. Follow him on Twitter @paulrauber.