Category Archives: travel

Lessons from a 35-day Hike in California’s Sierra Nevada Wilderness

Posted on October 22, 2024 by | Leave a comment

I started my California hike in the wrong direction heading south rather than north trying to reach the Ansel Adams Wilderness on my way to Yosemite National Park. It took me two hours to notice my error and another hour to get back to my starting point. Thus I was already exhaused with blisters on my feet before my hike had even started. “Expert move” my trail diary states dryly, as I had spent the prior 5 months pouring over maps, gear, and spreadsheets. And yet, I could not tell north from south. A more serious error the next day almost ended my big pre-retirement adventure on its second day.

The photo above on the left shows my three U.S. Postal Service packages with food to resupply my backpack filled with the stuff in the center photo. Each food package weighted about 14 lbs (~6.5 kg) to give me 3500 kcal for each of 7 days. So I was planing for a 28-day trip, but it turned out that I spent 35 days in the wilderness and used only 2 of those 3 resupply packages. I also feasted on restaurant food the day before my hike in Mammoth Lakes (a large steak on Aug.-9), the day of my first resupply stop in Yosemite Valley (an unlimited breakfast buffet on Aug.-19), the day of my first shower at Reds Meadow (a double cheeseburger for dinner and a massive breakfast burito on Aug.-26), and the day of my second and last resupply stop at Vermillion Valley Resort (a pizza with 4 beers for dinner and a Lumberjack breakfast on Sept.-1/2). My body shed 20 lbs (8 kg) during those 5 weeks in the mountains.

The map below shows San Francisco, the Central Valley of California, and the Sierra Nevada Mountains with my start (north) and end (south) point in blue. The red symbols show where I pitched my tent. The first part is a loop into and out of the backcountry of Yosemite National Park. Starting at Devil’s Postpile National Monument near Mammouth Lakes, I walked to Yosemite Village in 9 and back in 8 days. The second part was much easier as I stayed mostly on the John Muir Trail heading south for about 17 days. My lowest campsite was at 4000′ (1220 m) in Yosemite Village where I picked up first food resupply package while my highest campsite was at 11,700′ (3560 m) just below Muir Pass where I helped a Park Ranger with the evacuation of a hurt hiker by a police helicopter. You can access the interactive map at

https://caltopo.com/m/T8T7780/EDPCGF0HVB07PMG6

to zoom in for more detail.

On Day-20 I found Ida Bell Hot Springs in Fish Valley. It was rough to get there, because that day I had to climb over and under constant wood piles created by toppled trees. The photo below on the left show the path that is littered by fallen trees along the steeply sloping V-shapped valley. This went on for 3 miles or 3 hours. Without the wood piles I usually hike at twice that speed. A more fun way to get slowed down, though, is to find, collect, and cook wild elderberries (middle photo below). Setting up camp along Fish Creek later, eating dinner with elderberry soup for desert, I went another 1.5 miles to look for the hot springs.

There are several hot springs, the hot water just emerges from rocks in the ground and is pooled (right photo with my blistered feet), but the one I liked best is at 7536′ (my tent was at 7133′). Its location offers a stunning view downstream into Fish Valley from where I had walked that day. The photo in the bottom shows me during a 2 hour soaking. And before I went to sleep at 8pm, I had another elderberry soup that I cooked with a tiny bit of water and the protein/dextrose/sugar mix that usually refurbishes my muscles at the end of each day. My trail diary states “Elderberries and soup were out of this world.” It was certainly one of many highlights of my 35 days walking in the wilderness.

Now, why did my adventure almost fail on the second day? Looking back, I did not know how to read maps just yet. My high resolution paper map has a dotted line that connects Minaret Lake with Cecile Lake, and Iceberg Lake just north of my trailhead (see map below). A dotted line means “Unmaintained Trail,” but I now know that this generally means that there is no trail at all. One thus has to “bushwack,” however, this dotted line was above the tree line near 10300′ (3140 m) without vegitation. Instead it was all rocks, boulders, talus, and scree. My trail diary states “… hard scramble almost vertical at times is hard with a heavy pack …” All was well initially, because I carefully navigated across a field of boulders, but these disappeared near the shore of Cecile Lake where dense vegitation gave the false impression of a more even ground. And here I twisted my ankle really bad. Initially I thought it was broken, but since I could wiggle my toe, I was lucky. Taking off my backpack, shoes, and socks, I cooled my ankle in the lake for an hour to minimize swelling. I then limped slowly along Cecile Lake at 10240′ and down past a tiny glacier discharging into Iceberg Lake at 9774′. Here I camped for the night nursing my ankle.

The Minaret Mountains in the west with Minaret, Cecile, Iceberg, and Ediza Lakes to the east along with my first two camping locations. The cross-hair indicates where my injury occured near the “unmaintained trail” indicated by the dotted line. Notice the steep slopes up and down from Cecile Lake.

I walked and limped only 6 miles this day and cooled my ankle again in Iceberg Lake with a view on two small glaciers discharging their ice into the correctly names Iceberg Lake. There are no photos, because I had bricked my cell phone the night before by turning it off to save power not knowing the PIN of my SIM-cards. So I found this image of Iceberg Lake posted by Denise at beaut-tree.net

Iceberg Lake in the fore and Minarets in the back. The view is from north to south. Cecile Lake is above the dam or step ledge on the left. The photo was taken in 2011, but the snow and ice fields were not that different when I limped down with a swollen ankle on Aug.-11, 2024.

I was much surprised how well sleep, rest, and a positive attitude heals the body. As a result I walked 8 careful miles the next day only as my body allowed and felt comfortable. My trail diary states “… I need to be very careful where to place each step … I learnt my lesson. No bushwacking even if there is a dotted line on the map.”

There was another lesson, though, that served me well the next 33 days: Listen to your body and enjoy the moment. If your body wants to stop for a rest, a nap, or the day, do so. Hence I never knew where I would be at the end of the day or sleep the day after. There was a general plan, but the path was the goal and I quickly abandoned any plan or goal that was not fun or caused pain here or there. This, I believe, is why I succeeded to enjoy every day of the 35 days in the mountains. Mental fitness trumps physical fitness.

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Walking Lviv 2024: Legacy of Viking, Russian, and German Occupations

Posted on June 29, 2024 by | Leave a comment

The Russian dictator Vladimir Putin claims Ukraine based on a false reading of “Kyivan Rus” (see map below) about 1100 years ago. With equal ignorance I here claim it for Sweden or Denmark or Lithuania or Poland, because the Kyivan Rus were a mishmash of Slavic, Viking, and nomadic tribes who settled and ruled the forests and steppes between the Baltic and Black Seas between 800 to 1100 AD. Furthermore, while “Rus” is the root for “Russia” (or “Russland” in German), “Rus” derives from the Old Norse “rods” which means “men who row.”

Putting another spin on old histories, I proclaim that Russia is, historically, a fringe principality that belongs to Ukraine. So, lets call Putin’s claim to Ukraine what it is: A colonial, imperialistic land grab along the same lines of an Adolf Hitler and a Joseph Stalin who divided Eastern Europe in 1939 with no regard to the people they both oppressed and slaughtered. Visiting Lviv in the summer of 2024, I find the bloody histories of these “Bloodlands” (Snyder, 2010) everywhere:

On my evening stroll on my first day in Lviv I stumble across an overgrown and unkept green space at the end of a small and winding residential street up a hill. Along my accidental path I find a 10 feet high wooden cross near semi-collapsed and overgrown one-story buildings that resemble barracks. Red poppies and barbed wire enclose the cross while burnt candles litter its base. An inscription in both Ukrainian and English tells me, that I am standing within Stalag-328 where 140,000 prisonors of war (POW) were murdered 1941-44. Nazi-Germany maintained this POW camp where the death rate among its Soviet, Belgian, French, and Italian soldiers exceeded 50%.

Half an hour later I find a huge 3-story building along a busy road that covers an entire city block. Later I find out, that this is the St. Bridget’s Convent for Women built in the 17th century, but it serves as a prison for the last 250 years which perhaps explains its decrepit look on Horodotska Street. On one of its walls I find a plaque in Ukrainian, Polish, and English stating that the Stalin’s Secret Police, the NKVD, shot 1,172 citizens of Lviv in this building on 19th of June 1941. This massacre at the Brygidki prison was part of a mass killing throughout Soviet occupied Poland and Ukraine.

For context, the Hitler-Stalin treaty of 1939 divided Poland such that Lviv was occupied by Stalin’s troops from 1939-41. About 1.25 Mil. “Enemies of the People” of Polish and Ukrainian descent where deported in 2 years. This occupation ended when Nazi-Germany invaded the Soviet Union and captured Lviv on 30th of June 1941. Throughout Lviv, Poland, and Ukraine the NKVD committed massacres of local populations. In Lviv alone about 7,000 Ukrainian, Polish, and Jewish citizen were shot or blow up in their prison cells days before Hitler’s troops entered the city to start another massive killing cycle.

Immediately after German troops occupied Lviv progroms of the Jewish population started. Encouraged and supported by German authorities members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) belonging to militias of Stepan Bandera participated in the progroms June 30 to July 2 and July 25 to July-30 (Himka, 2011). More than 6,000 Jews were murdered this first month of German occupation of Lviv. Inciting the local population to round-up, humiliate, and kill Jewish men, women, and children, German propaganda justified the progroms with the NKVD massacres by falsely blaming the Jewish population for it. While OUN leadership never directly endorsed participation in the progroms, they also did nothing to stop their members who participated enthusiastically. Their hatred of Poles and Jews, however, was part of an ideological program modeled on the German and Italian totalitarian regimes headed by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.


“Jewish woman chased by Ukrainian crowd during the pogrom. Yad Vashem Photo Collection, 80DO2″.

The photo above was taken the first day of the Lviv Progrom July-1, 1941 by an unknown photographer who stands on Vesela Street a block north-east of the Opera House. I walked those streets admiring street art and murals not knowing what had happened on these streets 83 years before: A grown woman has her dress ripped off, has her face bloodied, and is chased with wodden sticks by a mob of teenagers. She has only shoes and undergarments left to protect her, as she runs up a hill in terror while a large crowd of spectators in the background care not. Himka (2011) reproduces this photo and places it into a larger context.

On my way home from Brygidki Prison I pass a beautiful mural that brings me back into the present. The blue and yellow of the mural reminds me of the colors of the Ukrainian flag. The braided flowers on the head perhaps symbolize this person as a women from Ukrainian. In my present sad mind, I see the the same human in both the symbol of a Ukrainian woman in this mural and the actual Ukrainian women in the 1941 photo. The paint peeling reveals red brick and an arch, but I also see an accidental thumbs-up sign in red. The mural is about two blocks west of the Opera House and thus near the center where the Lviv progroms took place.

The bottom photo shows the Opera House from the north. There probably is a story in the small peaceful statue and the building directly behind it, but I do not (yet) know it.

Later that day my first Air Raid Alarm woke me up at night. In this war Vladimir Putin wants to re-establish the old Soviet Empire with the boundaries that Hitler and Stalin had agreed upon in 1939. The past is in the present and both are insane.

P.S.: Edited Oct.-20, 2024 by rewriting the last paragraph and removing some ill-fitting photos.

References:

Himka, J.-P., 2011: The Lviv Pogrom of 1941: The Germans, Ukrainian Nationalists, and the Carnival Crowd. Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. 53, No. 2/4, 209-243.

Plokhy, S., 2021: The Gates of Europe, a History of Ukraine, Basic Books, New York, NY.

Snyder, T., 2010: Bloodlands, Europe between Hitler and Stalin, Basic Books, New York, NY.

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Lviv, Ukraine: Cobble Stones, Public Art and Food

Posted on June 26, 2024 by | Leave a comment

Cobble stones pave the streets of Lviv everywhere. The pedestrian Old Town merges sidewalks and streets with its center at Rynok Square. In Old Town restaurants, cafes, churches, museeums, and small shops all spill onto sidewalks in front of the 150-200 year old buildings. On the 2-3 floors up people live in appartments with 10 foot ceilings. My 1-room appartment was in one of these. Exiting the building and turning left, I reached Rynok Square within two minutes. Turning right, I entered Dominican Church within a minute. Along the short ways I pass several shops, cafes, and a small flea market. Electric trams but not cars zip across Old Town and for 20 Hryvnias ($0.50) one can hop on and go as far as the tram goes.

Walking past Old Town, I quickly found street vendors and a farmer’s market within a mile or so. Both local (currants, strawberries, cherries, gooseberries) and foreign fruit were sold. I bought half a pound of cherries and half a pound of “mirabellen” (small yellow plums) to eat during my first morning stroll through Lviv. Initially I spit the pits into the street, but I stopped when I noticed how clean both the streets and sidewalks were. This differs from all cities I have visited previously. Lviv expunges any and all litter in public places. So, my cherry pits went back into the bag.

Later I discovered that fruit and vegetables are grown within city limits in small garden plots that people nurture. On half the space of my Delaware gardens they grow twice the fruit. The soil in the Lviv gardens is a dark and black. One such plot nestled in front of a large residential appartment complex adjacent to a religious shrine. Three sides of the shrine are framed with stained glass window pains similar to those my wife Dragonfly Leathrum makes. Looking closely, I discern identical designs of the flowers, however, the variation of the glass color and its arrangement is not. It is only now that I see the design and its symmetries, but I do recall the soothing and calming effect the shapes and colors had on me when I walked past it 15 days ago.

The tiny garden contained an apple tree, several Red Currants bushes, grapes growing up and along the fence, beans, carrots, beets, and cucumber. The stage of all these plants was similar to those that I grow in my own garden. A plastic bag of kitchen scraps for a compost was hanging over the door to enter the plot. It almost seems that neigbors left these for the owner to work into the soil. My sister Christina does the same for me when she visits sundays and leaves her kitchen scraps for my compost.

Rain moved me away from the shrine and its adjacent garden to seek shelter. I quickly found a restaurant with covered outdoor seating. My first meal since arriving in Ukraine was Borscht. Tiny rib bones with meat were in the soup, the pure white pork belly fat was on dark rye bread, and a shot of vodka came with it at the end. The presentation of the plate, too, reveals artful intent. The red onion, pepper, pickles, garlic, and scallion are all arranged carefully. Even the sprinkles of red chili flakes on the white fat are no accident and like a painting complement the red of the soup. The outstanding restaurant has a website, e.g., https://marinad-meat-bar.choiceqr.com/, as I just learnt 😉

Talking about art in public places, I return to a mosaic sculpture at the farmer’s market. The market sits on a wide corner at the intersection of two large cobblestone streets. A tram line goes towards the shrine and the restaurant where I had my late lunch. A low wall encloses the fruit and vegetable stands inside and on one side this wall contains an exquisite mosaic of tiny colorful tiles. From afar colorful strands emerge that intersect and overlap smoothly without any color or strand dominating. Someone had to design this and someone had to put this together and I do not know who did this when, but I admire their love, care, and dedication to colorful and diverse cultures.

Notice also the mural on the wall above the market of the residential building. Two women tend to something and a line of symbols emerges along the base. Like most street art in Lviv, this one is not signed by the artist(s) either. I discern a peace dove and a sunflower … Again I only now notice this detail in the photo.

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Lviv, Ukraine, 2024: A Traveler’s Perspective on History, Culture, and Conflict

Posted on June 24, 2024 by | Leave a comment

Lviv lies about 40 miles east of the Polish border in Ukraine. It is closer to peaceful Hamburg in Germany (1200 km) than it is to destroyed Mariupol in Ukraine (1250 km). Leaving Hamburg by train, I arrived 20 hours later in Lviv where I spent the next 7 days. As a scientist I planned to collect my own data to calibrate media reportings. I wanted to test second-hand opinions to perhaps revise them based on first-hand observations to better anticipate the future and my actions within it. How can I best support Ukraine in its current war with Russia?

The U.S. Department of State advises “Ukraine – Level 4: Do not travel” in dark red letters, because it is a country at war. I ignored this advice, but nevertheless registered details of my travel plans with the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program. I also followed my government’s advice on how to prepare for travel to high-risk areas such as making a notarized will and to communicate daily with my wife. I do the same when backpacking for 30 days in Yosemite, Adam Ansel, and John Muir Wilderness areas in California. Looking back, I believe that visiting Lviv is less dangerous than visiting Fordyce, Arkansas (population 3,400). Death by random shooting in this town is about 1 person killed for every 1000 residents as of yesterday. In Lviv death by random Russian missile is about 1 person killed for every 100,000 residents. The last Russian missile hit Lviv (population 700,000) a year ago and killed 7 people. Air defences, too, have improved the last 12 month thanks to Norwegian, U.S., and German systems.

My voyage to eastern and across central Europe brought me into spaces that were violently contested during the last 1000 years. Recall that the current border between Poland and Ukraine was drawn in 1939 when Adolf Hitler of Germany and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union divided Poland (as well as Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) a mere 10 days before World War Two. The Yale historian Timothy Snyder calls these lands “Bloodlands” where the totalitarian regimes of Germany and the Soviet Union killed between 10 and 20 Million women, children, and men from 1933 to 1945. My father was born 1934 and my family celebrated his 90th birthday the weekend before I left for Lviv.

My voyage started at my parents home in Neustadt on the western edge of the Baltic Sea at 6 am. A first train got me to the old Hanseatic town of Luebeck, a second train to Hamburg, and a third train to Berlin. Here I bought the missing train ticket #5 from Przemysl in Poland to Lviv in Ukraine before boarding train #4 from Berlin to Przemysl. My reserved seat for the next 10 hours placed me opposite to a young Ukrainian artist traveling home to Kyiv. Along the way she introduced me to Lviv where she had lived in a prior life. Her pointers of Lviv places to visit, eat, and walk provided me with major initial reference points. As she had crossed the border into Ukraine many times before, we went for a evening stroll in Przemysl and found a busy beer-garden where we had a beer and gin tonic. Despite this “delay,” we still had to wait for 3 hours to be allowed on the next train that was 2 hours late. A large group of perhaps 20 Orthodox Jewish men with U.S. passports were waiting as well. I asked one of them what language they were speaking and he replied “Jiddish.” Bente Kahan’s music from her album “Farewell Cracow” was on my mind even more now than it was prior to this voyage. Once this last train left Poland just before midnight, the mood became somber.

Ukrainian border guards checked passports on the train while different heavily armed military personel counted the number of passengers at least 3 times independently of each other. It was pitch dark outside without any lights visible anywhere. The train, too, had lights dimmed. After a very short 45 minutes the train to Kyiv made its first stop in Lviv and I got off.

It was about 3:30 am local time and I had no idea how to get the 2 miles from the train station to my bed. During the general curfew from midnight to 5 am all public transportation stops. Nobody at Lviv’s station spoke English and I could not read the cyrillic signs. So I stumbled along dead tired hoping, first, that my GPS would lead the way and, second, police enforcing the curfew may be sympathetic towards a tired and lost American tourist.

Sun light came out when I arrived in my small appartment at 4 am. The Wifi worked flawlessly and I called my wife via WhatsApp. It was only 9 pm in Delaware and we talked for an hour on what had happened this long day. Then I let my Ukrainian AirBnB host, Olya, know that I had arrived:

Olya: Everything went well. A person found me at the train station. He did not speak English, but I had pen and paper prepared as well as lat/lon of your place on my GPS that I use for hiking in the woods. He followed my direction and got me within 200 m. The rest was easy including the hour-long WhatsApp phone call with my wife from inside your appartment using your Wifi. It “only” took me 22 hours total door-to-door, so I will now head for some sleep … which is hard, because it is light outside, curfew is over, and I already saw so many cool stuff in the dark that I want to head outside to explore more, but my wife told me to sleep a few hours and wise man is one who listens to his wife … or so i am told by wiser men than myself. ~Andreas

I was writing the above lines with this view of the bed, desk, fridge (red), and the door to the bathroom, shower, washing machine and dryer. The entrance is the door on the right. This was my home away from home for the next 7 days where I rested after long walks to explore Lviv, its culture, history, public life, and people. The internet speeds in Lviv were faster than those in either Germany or at home in Delaware.

As a teaser for my next post I show the first three photos that I took the next morning after 4 hours of sleep within 5 minutes walking from my bed in Lviv.

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