Outdoor Retailer - Summer 2016 - 46

The Voice of the Parks
ing gear, rather than buy things online.
"With online outlets, you don't get the expert
advice," said Croft. "Nomad will not only sell you
climbing shoes that fit great, but they can tell
you things like, 'Hey don't climb there, there are
nesting falcons.' "
Since 1986, Nomad Ventures has outfitted
climbers and backpackers for an environment
that poses unique challenges.
"We sell about 100 rolls of tape a week," said
Kelsey Gaardner, assistant manager, explaining that athletic tape protects climbers' hands
from Joshua Tree's rough granite boulders.
The 2,400-square-foot store also sells
loads of down jackets to visitors from Europe
and Japan. "They expect warm weather," said
Gaardner, "but it can be cold here, and unpredictable, so you need all of your layers."

Terry Tempest Williams

UTAH NATIVE AND BELOVED

author Terry Tempest Williams
has long been an advocate for
the primacy of wild lands and
understanding our emotional
grounding within them. She
is also a fervent conservationist who recently bought BLM
drilling rights, only to let them
sit as part of the "Keep It in the
Ground Movement" and has
brought many a crowd to tears
at her Outdoor Retailer talks.
Her latest book, The Hour of
Land: A Personal Topography
of America's National Parks,
explores how these celebrated
lands resonate in our personal
and public consciousness.
What was the inspiration for
your upcoming book, The

YOSEMITE
NATIONAL PARK

The Dreamer: Tommy Caldwell, climber
Tommy Caldwell was just three when his
family began to vacation each summer in
Yosemite. "I did the Lost Arrow Spire Tyrolean
traverse when I was six, which was pretty intense for a six-year-old," said Caldwell.
At age 38, Caldwell has free climbed 11
routes in the park, and in 2015 he and Kevin
Jorgeson completed the first free ascent of El
Capitan's Dawn Wall, a feat which garnered
mainstream media attention. While that
climb is hard to beat, Caldwell said his first
ascent of Salathe Wall at age 18 was also especially memorable.
"I had watched people climb that wall since
I was three, and it seemed like a crazy, improbable thing," said Caldwell. "It was such a dramatic experience, because the climb builds
to an incredible crescendo at the top, and you
lunge for a hold."
Continuing the family tradition, he now
takes his own children to Yosemite, including
his 3-year-old son. "Actually," said Caldwell, "his
first words were 'El Cap'."

46 OUTDOOR RETAILER

/ Summer 2016

Hour of Land: A Personal
Topography of America's
National Parks?
We, the people, have made mistakes. We have made mistakes in
our relationships with those who
came before us and the land that
holds their histories. We have
made mistakes in how we have
managed and misunderstood
the wild. But after spending a
lifetime immersed in our national
parks, I believe we are slowly
learning what it means to offer
our reverence and respect to the
closest thing we as American
citizens have to sacred lands.
Our national parks are places
of recognition. When I see a
mountain lion's tracks on pink
sand in the desert, I am both
predator and prey. When I see
the illusive Everglade kite hovering above sawgrass, I am that
manifestation of hope and survival. And when I visit the Women's
Rights Historical Park in Seneca
Falls, New York, and listen to
Sojourner Truth's speech, "Ain't
I a Woman," her voice becomes
the voice of courage I want to
cultivate.
We are at a crossroads.
We can continue on the path
we have been on, a path that
privileges profit over people and

land; or we can unite as citizens
with a common cause-the
health and wealth of the Earth
that sustains us. This year marks
the centennial of the National
Park Service, so I wanted to explore these ideas that honor our
public lands.
Is there a transcendental moment or two you have felt in a
park, an experience that goes
beyond all the gear and athletes and politics and business
talk of our mundane world,
that you could share with us?
On June 2, 2015, my husband
Brooke and I celebrated our 40th
anniversary. We chose to spend
it in Yellowstone. We rose before
dawn in the Lamar Valley not far
from where wolves were reintroduced 20 years earlier. A silhouette of coyotes feasting on a bison carcass surrounded by bald
eagles and ravens appeared in
our binoculars. As the light grew
stronger, the coyotes became
nervous and left. The eagles flew.
The ravens vanished. A large
gray wolf entered.
Morning light illuminated the
bison body, now more bones
than flesh. We watched the wolf
disappear into a red cavern of
ribs. He emerged stained. In the
several hours we watched, the
wolf's stomach expanded with
each mouthful of bison ripped
from the scaffolding of bones until he stopped eating, looked over
his shoulder, sniffed, and walked
back into the woods.
At dusk, we returned to the
Lamar Valley. We wondered if the
wolves might be back on the car-

cass. Instead, two coyotes were
picking on bones covered by a
buffalo robe. The coyotes disappeared into the shadows with the
last light of day.
An indigo sky deepened. A
mile away, a herd of a hundred
bison or more grazed unconcerned. Seven left and walked
single file toward the remains.
They circled her twice, sniffed
her, nudged her body, and tightened their circle as they lowered
their heads. They stayed with her
until it grew dark. Then the bison
left as they came, walking single
file back toward the herd-save
one lone bull who stayed behind.
How are our national parks
uniquely American?
America's national parks were a
vision seen through the horrors
of war. On June 30, 1864, not
long after the Civil War's most
deadly battle at Gettysburg,
President Abraham Lincoln
signed the Yosemite Land Grant
into law, protecting for the first
time-for all time-land secured
for the future. Yosemite Valley
and the Mariposa grove of giant
sequoias were written into federal law as America's inaugural
nature preserve. Private land entered the public domain.
Though this war-torn
president would never see the
glory of El Capitan, he experienced it through the images of
photographers like Carleton
Watkins, Timothy O'Sullivan,
and Eadweard Muybridge,
after learning of this magnificent place through the testimonies of those who had been to
Yosemite. These lands were alive
in Lincoln's imagination. He believed they might offer a unifying
peace for a nation divided.
To protect land for its own
sake and for the enjoyment of
the people is an American ideal.
Public lands are our public commons. This ideal is now under
siege as many lawmakers, especially in Utah, want to sell off our
public lands as though it were
real estate and take it out of the
federal trust into the hands of the
states. I think this is a bad idea.
Our national parks are our inheritance, our wealth as a people
and a nation.
The parks belong to all of us.

Outdoor Retailer - Summer 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Outdoor Retailer - Summer 2016