"[T]he area around Mont Blanc in the Alps is tainted by 'toilet paper under every stone' and SUVs transporting luggage from one stop to another, according to officials."

"This week, new rules were announced designed to limit the number of people walking around western Europe’s highest mountain. Officials also want to ensure that those who do come are genuine backpackers rather than tourists sending 'pink wheelie suitcases and make up-bags' on ahead of them in vehicles, according to Jean-Marc Peillex, chairman of the Federation of Districts of Mont Blanc Country.... 'The word Mont Blanc makes people’s eyes sparkle all over the world,' he said. 'If you sold air from Mont Blanc, you’d make a fortune. I think you could even sell dog poop from Mont Blanc and people would buy it.'... Peillex said hikers were being forced to walk less than a metre apart on some days. 'All they see is the bottom of the person in front of them,' he told Swiss television...."

From "France declares ‘serious hikers only’ on Mont Blanc trail/Walkers must book accommodation in advance and carry their own backpacks under new rules designed to protect the increasingly crowded Alpine circuit" (London Times).

"Govan pushed back on the idea that land art requires plentiful ego. With the typical monument..."

"... he said, powerful people 'caused workers to build things in honor of gods, heroes, battles won and the usual.' Works of land art like 'Star Axis' are 'specks in the scale of the landscape. They’re not monuments to anything except the fragility of our own perception and experience.'"

Govan is Michael Govan, director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

That's from "He’s the Last Great Land Artist You’ve Never Heard of/Charles Ross spent 50 years building 'Star Axis,' a naked-eye observatory in New Mexico. Now his masterwork is ready. How to share it with a changed world?" (NYT).

That's a gift link, and henceforth all NYT links will be gift links. Just yesterday, I was describing the effort of conserving gift links, with only 10 permitted each month, and this morning I wake up to find the new policy is unlimited gift links:

The full moon sets over the prairie as the sun rises over the lake.

Video by Meade. I appear briefly, as the lone figure in a red hat. The music soundtrack is the delightful "Regular Rabbit," with lyrics by a 3-year old. See below, after the jump.

While Meade was doing video, I was doing stills. Here's one:

"This is an outrageous assault on our free speech and ability to educate each other. It’s just bonkers to me that the federal government is imposing these kinds of restraints..."

"... that we’re taking away valuable information from our citizens who visit this park, and that we are trying to dumb everyone down and pretend real weather events don’t happen by not letting you read a simple sign."

Said Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), quoted in "National parks remove signs about climate, slavery and Japanese detention/The removals come after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March seeking to remove 'improper partisan ideology' from federal institutions."

You have beautiful places, the best land and rocks and trees and waters of America, and because people want to come see these wonders of nature, you see it as opportunity to interpose human messages — negative, downer messages, propaganda — on eyesore signs. Let visitors think their own thoughts, read their own books, and speak to each other about what they think. That's the better free speech and shared education, not the speech by the government that is installed in the form of inert signs. 

Pingree complains that the new policy is "trying to dumb everyone down and... not letting you read a simple sign." But if I'm here for the landscape and the government has put up a political education sign, it's not letting me not see the government's speech.

"I learned... what people write. Cultural references, jokes, weather conditions, or the difficulty of an ascent. Sarcastic comments..."

"... about needing to quit smoking or arriving stoned. A lot of humorous begging for a helicopter ride down. Catalogs of wildlife spotted or lamentably not. A lot of misspellings (which I’ve retained). A lot of thanks to God."

From "Why Do We Leave Notes on Top of Mountains? It’s Personal/For centuries, people have left all sorts of notes in summit registers. I looked through 100 years of love letters and spontaneous exaltation, including my own family's, to find out why." (Outside).

You can see trends in handwriting styles (neat cursive, like the kind taught by nuns, giving way over time to chicken scratch), as well as music and literature (lots of Grateful Dead and Dharma Bums). Some writers refer to previous entries. Most seemed not to have thought about what they’d write until they arrived. Instead, the words left in registers are simply tactile evidence that someone was there at a certain point in time: alone, with friends, or with the people they love.

One register entry found by the author: "If you are a single woman and made it this far to read these scribblings: I love you!! Marry me!"

And — this isn't in the article, but — here's a quote from "The Dharma Bums": "Oh my God, sociability is just a big smile and a big smile is nothing but teeth, I wish I could just stay up here and rest and be kind."

Mount McKinley.

I'm reading "Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness," one of the executive orders Trump signed yesterday. Excerpt:

President William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States, heroically led our Nation to victory in the Spanish-American War. Under his leadership, the United States enjoyed rapid economic growth and prosperity, including an expansion of territorial gains for the Nation. President McKinley championed tariffs to protect U.S. manufacturing, boost domestic production, and drive U.S. industrialization and global reach to new heights. He was tragically assassinated in an attack on our Nation’s values and our success, and he should be honored for his steadfast commitment to American greatness.

In 1917, the country officially honored President McKinley through the naming of North America’s highest peak. Yet after nearly a century, President Obama’s administration, in 2015, stripped the McKinley name from federal nomenclature, an affront to President McKinley’s life, his achievements, and his sacrifice....

Obama changed the name to Denali, and Trump opposed the change at the time — "Great insult to Ohio. I will change back!" With this order, he's done what he said he would do — though now it's about recognizing a man as a hero and not about a particular state that supposedly cares a lot about that man. Note that "Denali" was not a person's name, so Trump isn't elevating one state's hero over another.

The tree swallow in the Biocore Prairie.

And here's Meade's photo of me getting the picture. Do you see the bird?

"Park officials can’t patch up the fallen rocks and perch them back on their original site. Once people intervene..."

"... the attraction is no longer a product made by Mother Nature. 'If you restore it, then it becomes anthropogenic. It is art rather than something natural,' said Elizabeth Cottrell, a geologist at Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. 'That doesn’t invoke the same wonder and awe of nature.'"

From "Lake Mead visitors caught on video destroying ancient rock formations/National Park Service rangers are looking for information on two male suspects in the vandalism incident" (WaPo).

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An overcast sunrise at 6:33.

Later, the same day, at 3:29 p.m., I was basking under clear blue sky on a rock in Biocore Prairie....

Meade took that picture, and it reminds me of the Harry Nilsson version of "It Had To Be You," which I'd heard on my sunrise walk. He sings: "But with all your faults, it's you I adore/When you stand up, your hands touch the floor/It had to be me/Unlucky me/It had to be me."

Write about whatever you like in the comments. 

Large iceberg the size of a small iceberg... I mean, large iceberg the size of the smallest state.

"'It’s a state-sized iceberg. It’s a big, big iceberg, it’s also equivalent to about the size of Rhode Island,' said Walter Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center."

From "A ‘megaberg’ three times the size of New York City is on the move" (WaPo).

That headline got me. "Megaberg" sounds like it means large mountain, and a large mountain is "on the move."

If you're like me, you thought "Billy the Mountain." 

They left that night, crunchin' across the Mojave desert/Their voices echoing through the canyons of your minds/"Ethel, want to get a cuppa cawfee?"/"There's a Howard Johnson's want to eat some clams?"

"Now that they took care of the garden, what are they going to do about that tower at the school’s main entrance?"

That's the top-rated comment at "Exclusive girls’ school called out after drone footage reveals phallic garden" (NY Post).

"The Trees, The Track and The Carvings - a walk up ancient Hell Lane, Symondsbury, Dorset."

Hell Lane, "the infamous smugglers pathway," is a famous "holloway," it says at Cool Places Britain: "These sunken roads date from at least 300 years ago, many going back as far as the iron age. They would have started as drovers’ roads or pilgrims’ paths, worn down by human feet, hooves of horses and cattle, and wheels of carts...."

"How to Get Behind the Scenes at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin?... The writer gets a room of her own at the architect’s former home in the Wisconsin hills. A weekend workshop offers ample time to explore the grounds."

A NYT travel article. The author, Elain Glusac, takes a baking workshop.

When I read "A weekend workshop offers ample time to explore the grounds," I thought they were saying there's not all that much to see in this part of Wisconsin, but, calming down, I think it just means that you won't be in the baking class constantly, and there will be blocks of time when you can walk around the private property that is part of Taliesin. I don't think they are saying it wouldn't be a good idea to base yourself in this area — Spring Green — for a longer time.

Indeed, they don't even mention the American Players Theater, which is right down the road. This season's tickets go on sale today — here! Of course, there are many hikes beyond the private Taliesin grounds. And probably nearly everyone needs to get a look at the House on the Rock.

Back to the NYT article:

I have 5 TikToks for you this evening. These are the ones I liked.

1. The best way to ask for water.

2. A vertiginous hike.

3. Apparently, in Japan, they like his gingerness.

4. Pickleball — in the Midwest.

5. A springer spaniel running on ice.

Here are 6 TikToks to amuse and distract you for a moment.

1. The journalist and the elephant.

2. The Irishman and the zebra.

3. Disastrously comical falls.

4. Mixing up the humor styles of your 2 friend groups.

5. Hiking to the most isolated hut in the United States.

6. How to tie your scarf.

Here's the rest of the sunrise — at 7:27...

... and, a little later, at noon, here's the picture Meade caught of me walking the Over Lode Trail (at Blue Mound State Park):

 

That was over 17,000 steps for the day.

The view from Pikes Peak... Pikes Peak, Iowa.

The day before yesterday, roaming around the Driftless Area, we stopped at Pikes Peak State Park — "a 500-foot (150 m) bluff overlooking the Upper Mississippi River opposite the confluence of the Wisconsin River."

Like the more famous Pikes Peak in Colorado, it is named after Zebulon Pike. 

Here's a slightly more southward view. The bluff on the opposite shore is Wyalusing State Park, where we camped Sunday night:

We hiked on the Bridal Veil Trail...

Walking the Ice Age Trail.

Frost, this morning.

Yesterday, at 6:18 pm, on the rocks of Presque Isle.

Write about anything you like in the comments.