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Post by acidohm on Dec 12, 2018 21:37:55 GMT
Although Stonehenge is not alone in Wiltshire for neolithic construction....Avebury circle is less immense stone wise but large in area, Silbury hill is the largest purpose built structure in Europe (apparently 🤔) www.britainexpress.com/counties/wiltshire/ancient/index.htmFigures engraved on hillsides, barrows....many many hill forts. Even today places like Glastonbury are a haven for the esoterical and open minded (so....hippies....) However if you ever visit the place, id challenge you to not sense some sort of peacefullness or serenity in the beauty of the area. Theres nothing dramatic like grand canyon, but there is something magic about it... (Im taking my sandals off and extiguishing the incense...normal broadcasts will now resume...) I must admit Silbury Hill is interesting having climbed to the top of it then think it was made by layering turf ** having tried to lay a lawn I have some idea of the effort involved. Wasn't there one of the people saying: "You want to do WHAT???" **Turf == Sod for the US audience. Sod as an entirely different colloquial meaning in UK Probably originated from those who had to move the stuff at Silbury.... Maybe the stonehenge builder queried "you want to get the stones from WHERE!!??"
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Post by sigurdur on Dec 13, 2018 2:27:56 GMT
Sod in UK is found in the ale.
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Post by missouriboy on Dec 13, 2018 7:55:01 GMT
GOD'S COUNTRY - Just make sure the water's off.
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Post by Ratty on Dec 13, 2018 12:45:43 GMT
GOD'S COUNTRY - Just make sure the water's off. If it stared raining, I would be out of there in a flash ... PS: Is that where the Stonehengers got their supplies?
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Post by missouriboy on Dec 13, 2018 22:47:37 GMT
GOD'S COUNTRY - Just make sure the water's off. If it stared raining, I would be out of there in a flash ... PS: Is that where the Stonehengers got their supplies? You would be "flushed" out in a "flash". That is Southeastern Utah ... Buckskin Gulch, a tributary of the Paria River that enters the Colorado River a few miles south of Glen Canyon Dam. Hundreds of feet of Mesozoic sandstone. Have to pay close attention to the weather. One small intense thunderstorm up drainage, that you never see, can ruin your day. I caught the Canyon Country bug on a trip after high school graduation and made multiple sorties into the area over the next three decades. No place like it I've ever seen. You should visit ... but ya gotta carry your house. Hundreds of sq. miles of deeply incised sandstone plateau.
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Post by Ratty on Dec 13, 2018 23:56:50 GMT
Slightly reminiscent of Bungle Bungle:
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Post by icefisher on Dec 14, 2018 1:45:27 GMT
GOD'S COUNTRY - Just make sure the water's off. I am one of the last persons alive to have seen first hand the entire length of the original Colorado river underlying Lake Powell back in the summer of 1958. It was an incredible trip by 2 man canoe. We (7 canoes) paddled 120 miles and shot dozens of rapids, hiked into to ancient cliff dwellings, and Rainbow Bridge and explored a cavern. To this day the images of the towering cliffs lining both sides of the river are etched in my brain. It was a trip like in "Deliverance" except we did not see another single human being (not a small detail in Deliverance) or anything manmade that we hadn't brought with us for the 8 days we traveled from Hite, Utah to Page, Arizona. 12 kids, 13 and 14 years old (I was 13) and two adults. Everybody took took dunkings in the rapids, picked up our gear floating down river, dried out and kept going. Crossed no roads except the abandoned Hole in the Rock road built by the Mormon's in the 19th century (how they navigated that road with wagons is still a mystery to me as it was tough just hiking up it.) They built the road to connect to a planned settlement on the east side of the river avoiding a 500 mile detour. We got through with only one injury as one of the kids broke an ankle jumping out his canoe. Capped the trip off with a guided tour of the construction site of the Glen Canyon dam where they were in the process of building the water diversion systems and then an overnight hike through the Grand Canyon from the north rim to the south rim. If you are into hiking this is a great area to do it. Its simply amazing how the water courses in the area have carved themselves into the landscape everywhere. Even today there is no development over thousands of square miles. Only one road even approaches the river in that 120 mile stretch and while the road continues on the other side of the lake there is no bridge. The big difference is the lake allowing access to the area by motorboat, but bring lots of fuel.
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Post by missouriboy on Dec 14, 2018 3:26:04 GMT
“In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.” (PS -personally I think Teddy meant Glen Canyon as well.) Theodore Roosevelt I was too young to see Glen Canyon before they flooded it. I know. I know. Lake Powell keeps the Imperial Valley and Las Vegas in business ... not to mention lawns in Southern California and Phoenix ... and let's not forget the marina owners. After looking at those supposed marvels of man one might be forgiven for wondering if the trade was worth the cost. On one of my many Grand Canyon trips in the employ of the USGS, a couple of wandering boatmen claimed to have personally seen the ghost of "Seldom Seen" Smith dropping to his knees before the dam and praying for a large, precision earthquake. Of course, they were highly intoxicated.
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Post by Ratty on Dec 14, 2018 4:32:10 GMT
Crikey Ice !!!! If you did that trip in 1958, you'd better get busy and finish that paper you are working on.
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Post by icefisher on Dec 14, 2018 5:52:59 GMT
“In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.” (PS -personally I think Teddy meant Glen Canyon as well.) Theodore Roosevelt I was too young to see Glen Canyon before they flooded it. I know. I know. Lake Powell keeps the Imperial Valley and Las Vegas in business ... not to mention lawns in Southern California and Phoenix ... and let's not forget the marina owners. After looking at those supposed marvels of man one might be forgiven for wondering if the trade was worth the cost. On one of my many Grand Canyon trips in the employ of the USGS, a couple of wandering boatmen claimed to have personally seen the ghost of "Seldom Seen" Smith dropping to his knees before the dam and praying for a large, precision earthquake. Of course, they were highly intoxicated. Progress has its downside for sure. There is no question in my mind that if the dam had never been built this stretch of the river would likely be one of the most popular floating rivers in the nation. It was far from the most challenging but it had it everything you could possibly want in such a trip but river floating didn't become popular until a decade later. Back then Rainbow Bridge was about a 5 to 6 mile hike from the river up a small canyon and we were told that only about a 100 or so other people had actually seen the bridge in person. Not sure that's true but it wasn't easy to get to. Now you can take a power boat to within a mile of the bridge as the lake also floods the 5 or 6 mile long canyon the bridge is on. The organizers of our trip did it in large part because they knew this would be one of the last opportunities to see it in its natural state. I was really blessed to get the opportunity. I was underage at 13 as it was supposed to be for Explorer scouts of 14 and older but not enough of them signed up. Only 2 of us were under 14. Had to pass some rigorous swimming tests to get the permission to go.
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Post by icefisher on Dec 14, 2018 6:30:57 GMT
Crikey Ice !!!! If you did that trip in 1958, you'd better get busy and finish that paper you are working on. You are right. Others around me have been urging me to get busy on it too. I have just gotten a bit busy.
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Post by missouriboy on Dec 14, 2018 6:48:20 GMT
“In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.” (PS -personally I think Teddy meant Glen Canyon as well.) Theodore Roosevelt I was too young to see Glen Canyon before they flooded it. I know. I know. Lake Powell keeps the Imperial Valley and Las Vegas in business ... not to mention lawns in Southern California and Phoenix ... and let's not forget the marina owners. After looking at those supposed marvels of man one might be forgiven for wondering if the trade was worth the cost. On one of my many Grand Canyon trips in the employ of the USGS, a couple of wandering boatmen claimed to have personally seen the ghost of "Seldom Seen" Smith dropping to his knees before the dam and praying for a large, precision earthquake. Of course, they were highly intoxicated. Progress has its downside for sure. There is no question in my mind that if the dam had never been built this stretch of the river would likely be one of the most popular floating rivers in the nation. It was far from the most challenging but it had it everything you could possibly want in such a trip but river floating didn't become popular until a decade later. Back then Rainbow Bridge was about a 5 to 6 mile hike from the river up a small canyon and we were told that only about a 100 or so other people had actually seen the bridge in person. Not sure that's true but it wasn't easy to get to. Now you can take a power boat to within a mile of the bridge as the lake also floods the 5 or 6 mile long canyon the bridge is on. The organizers of our trip did it in large part because they knew this would be one of the last opportunities to see it in its natural state. I was really blessed to get the opportunity. I was underage at 13 as it was supposed to be for Explorer scouts of 14 and older but not enough of them signed up. Only 2 of us were under 14. Had to pass some rigorous swimming tests to get the permission to go. I envy your experience. In the late 70s when I moved to Denver, I teamed up with a couple of other yahoos and we began renting 16-18 foot skiffs with a 25 horse outboard out of Bullfrog and began exploring the side canyons in the center reach of the lake ... camping on slick rock. Amazing stuff out there and not many people. For those of us that have seen the lower sections of the remaining drainages that still reach the river unflooded, we know what was lost. Above lake level, the Escalante River still has many wonderful side canyons running back many miles into the Kaiparowits Plateau. But I was a pack horse then.
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Post by icefisher on Dec 15, 2018 4:11:17 GMT
I envy your experience. In the late 70s when I moved to Denver, I teamed up with a couple of other yahoos and we began renting 16-18 foot skiffs with a 25 horse outboard out of Bullfrog and began exploring the side canyons in the center reach of the lake ... camping on slick rock. Amazing stuff out there and not many people. For those of us that have seen the lower sections of the remaining drainages that still reach the river unflooded, we know what was lost. Above lake level, the Escalante River still has many wonderful side canyons running back many miles into the Kaiparowits Plateau. But I was a pack horse then. Clean water was a preoccupation most of the trip and we found the best springs in the Escalante River canyons. The first night we set up camp on a small island in the river while the adults shuttled the truck down to Page and catch a plane back to Hite. We were completely grossed out about the river water as it was so muddy you couldn't see a spoon an inch under the surface. So we filled our large cook kettle with it and let sit undisturbed all night long. Next morning when we looked it hadn't cleared up at all. So we had to choke it down with iodine pills. Finally after a 2 or 3 days of paddling we got to the Escalante and found cold pristine spring water. So we filled everything we had that would hold water. The next place we found water like that was at the base of Rainbow natural bridge. Previous visitors had left mason jars under the bridge where cool clear water was dripping out of the rock. A trip of a lifetime. One of my favorite verses comes from T. Roosevelt. "But there are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm. There is delight in the hardy life of the open, in long rides rifle in hand, in the thrill of the fight with dangerous game. Apart from this, yet mingled with it, is the strong attraction of the silent places, of the large tropical moons, and the splendor of the new stars; where the wanderer sees the awful glory of sunrise and sunset in the wide waste spaces of the earth, unworn of man, and changed only by the slow change of the ages through time everlasting."
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Post by blustnmtn on Dec 15, 2018 13:17:48 GMT
I can’t match you guys. A few years back I motorcycled from Phoenix to the South Rim. Then rode around by the Vermilion Cliffs to the North Rim. From there I went to Zion and then onto Bryce. From there down through Page to Flag and then back to Phoenix. Best vacation ever. Hiking in the parks and riding those roads with those views is incomparable.
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Post by blustnmtn on Dec 22, 2018 16:34:55 GMT
Prediction of the strength and timing of sunspot cycle 25 reveal decadal-scale space environmental conditions www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07690-0"Our ensemble forecast indicates cycle 25 would be similar or slightly stronger than the current cycle and peak around 2024. Sunspot cycle 25 may thus reverse the substantial weakening trend in solar activity which has led to speculation of an imminent Maunder-like grand minimum and cooling global climate." Leif Svalgaard’s forecast. Though I have no wager in this contest of prognostication, I am interested in the outcome and believe the “Boy Scouts” axiom to be sound advice.
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