Author Archives: Marjorie

Desert solitaire – Utah

Posted by Marjorie

Without planning it, we spent most of our USA time in Utah, a state where 80% of the population lives in Salt Lake City; the rest is desert and canyon, all singular, all beautiful.

In his book “Desert Solitaire”, Edward Abbey explains how these rough, arid and fragile landscapes have become over the years protected national parks, accessible to the public via roads. And the border remains thin between preservation and universalization of places. Some parks now look like great tours of point of view, drive-in photography, selfie paradise.

Without sulking the infrastructures set up, it was necessary to find a balance between tourist attractions and solitary exploration, to capture, with our microphones, the silent beauty of the desert.

The off road:
in the margins of these busy roads, 4×4 vehicle tracks crisscross the parks and remain less crowded. Sometimes dizzying, dangerous, these off-road transform any person into an explorer, give back sensations of adventure and allow to discover quasi-desert areas. The ideal environment for our sound recordings. We gravitated a long way around the Canyonlands Park, whose tracks turn heads:
the “Shafer Road” took us straight into the scene of the final scene of Thelma and Louise, the “Potash Road” made us lose a car’s plastic protection, another made us give up. All gave us the thrill and sensation of total immersion, loss of landmark in the immensity of the desert.

The nights :
Far from the official campsites within the parks which display “no vacancy” even out of season, we could establish our evening camps in all freedom.
Spot like in “Mad Max” movie with crazy machines desert or alone at the edge of a canyon, the moods are unique.

We took advantage of these lost bivouacs to leave the microphones on certain nights. These s”ound traps” are ideal to surprise animal activity from sunset to sunrise, it is here that everything happened.

The hikes:
The hike is the best way for total immersion in the parks. Just a few kilometers, even on the popular trails, to find yourself (almost) alone and trying recording some sound. Little marked, the trails naturally follow the curves of the terrain, without bypassing obstacles, and give this sensation of intuitive exploration. Devil’s Garden Trail in Arches, Elephant Hill in Canyonlands, Peek-A-Boo Loop in Bryce Canyon, Angels Landing and the Narrows in Zion.

Alternatives :
Because of lack of time or money, we missed somes parks. This is the case for Antelope Canyon, very popular for these famous slots canyons, narrow and glowing.
By exchanging tips between travelers, we have found alternatives that are worth seeing. This is the case of the Red Canyon at Kanab. Twelve kilometers of walking in the sand, to have the canyon for oneself, to make some shots of sound and a beautiful phonography.

The glaciers of Alaska

Posted by Marjorie

After our immersion in the the northern Alaska via the Dalton highway, we naturally turned to the Pacific coast and especially the Kenai peninsula, known for its famous glaciers.

Alaska has more than 600 glaciers, mostly inaccessible. But since nothing resists to human, this precious and fragile treasure is fuels polluted and is becoming noisy with it luxuary tourism, for anyone in a hurry: cruise, boat, helicopter tour, everything is planned to see a max in a minimum time. Our luxury is to have time and hiking shoes to reach accessible glaciers at a modest price and some effort.

GLACIER PORTAGE
A short hike from Whittier makes it easy to see the front, which remains very distant, as it is declining from year to year.

An extra walk along the lake, an icy knee-high river crossing and a bit of climbing offered us a tense head-to-head with the high glacier.
Unstructured, broken, compressed forms build cathedrals with translucent and vibrant walls

Below, it’s a whole network of caverns, invisible, but audible: it creaks, drips, breaks, and falls.

We advance towards the front of the glacier, overlooking it. The blocks are detached from time to time and drift along the lake.
We spend the day here, alone, listening and recording this living glacier.

EXIT GLACIER
It is accessible from Seward, a small fishing town, for which we had a crush (blue sky, heat and northern lights as a bonus)

This glacier is also declining, but continuously, since 2006, winter and summer. The approach walk to observe the front is more and more longer and retraces 195 years of decline. The trail has experienced several extensions, but there will be no other, the glacial tongue being surrounded by a terrain considered too abrupt now. We opted for the harding field trail, an all-round hike of 12 km, to admire the ice field on the heights of the Exit glacier. After crossing a forest of dense poplars, grasslands with marmots, we finaly arrive in front of the immensity of the ice field. It can be said that this was a highlight of the trip, which is self-explanatory.

During this long contemplation, where we made a few recordings, out of nowhere, we see a runner in the distance, shirtless in shorts … We total hallucinate!

SALMON GLACIER

This glacier is located in Hyder, ghost town of former miner, end of the world border with the British Colombia. On the way, we discover Fish Creek, a salmon river and observation platform for Bears.

The road to the glacier is really bad, but it’s worth it. The icy tongue glacier was a perfect spectacle, admirable until the extinction of our fire.

BYRON GLACIER

It is located 50km from Anchorage, near the portage lake. We lingered on its ice cavities, to capture this particular sound and make a 360 phonography: