Day: April 1, 2024

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NY 23 Near Catskill Creek

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Driving the Catskill Expressway, NY 23 outside of Catskill, crossing the Catskill Creek, blasted out of the hills in the area.

Worse thing about wilderness camping is learning about people’s deaths when you leave the wilderness ⚰️

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I do a fair amount of wilderness camping these days in places without cell service. In recent years since my radio broke, I don’t even keep up with the news from the wilderness. Calls, emails, texts about a friend or a love one’s hospitalization or passing go unanswered.

You don’t know how many times I’ve left the wilderness only to find texts and voicemail on such topic – often in a tone of like how didn’t you know – it happened five days ago. Yet the wilderness doesn’t share such secrets of urban society with me until I return to the series of beeps and chimes as my phone returns into cell service area. It’s tragic to find out days late in such a way but so is the nature of being disconnected from urban society in the wilderness.

What Wilderness Means to Me

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I am often very critical of efforts to deem public lands as wilderness, as a form of statutory or constitutional protection of the lands, forever condemning motorized uses, and severely limiting other uses of the land, especially if the land has previously been farmed, logged, or otherwise changed by man. Certainly there are some unique parcels that should be preserved in such a pristine state, but many others are just wild lands to be used by man and nature alike.

Across Alder Pond

I really do not like the legal definition of wilderness. I don’t think it captures my view of the forest lands I belove, the real wilderness in my imagination. Wilderness is the state of being wild and natural, largely uncontrolled by society’s social structures. It’s a land where man is free to use, largely without the control of government dictating how it is to be used except for minimal standards to protect its quality for future generations. Wilderness is a place where you go to get away from it.

Route 312

Wilderness is any wild location in a rural area. It could be a hobby or even a professional farm, run by it’s operator. Or it could be any forest privately or publicly owned. It could be a hunting camp. It could be a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, or a state forest. It could be a wild forest in Adirondacks, a National Forest, or some other wild land. It could be a state truck trail or a back-country location. It does not have to be road-less or totally untrammeled by man, just wild and free without excessive government control and oppressive populations.

… wilderness is a place to escape, a place to get away from it all.

Penn Yann

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Penn Yan, the name of the village, is said to have been contrived from the first syllables of "Pennsylvania" and "Yankee", as most of the early settlers were from Pennsylvania and New England; the latter were known as Yankees. It became a trading center for the agricultural county, with mills for lumber, buckwheat and other grains. The village was the western terminus of the former Crooked Lake Canal.

Aerial surveys show US landfills are major source of methane emissions | Reuters

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Aerial surveys show US landfills are major source of methane emissions | Reuters

WASHINGTON, March 28 (Reuters) - Over half of U.S. landfills observed by aerial surveys are super-emitting sources of methane, according to a new study in the journal Science published on Thursday. The study is the largest assessment to date of methane from landfills, the third-largest source of U.S. methane emissions, and suggests an opportunity to tackle climate change by targeting a prevalent and potent greenhouse gas. It was led by research group Carbon Mapper, with researchers from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Arizona State University, University of Arizona, Scientific Aviation, and the Environmental Protection Agency.