The cake of a lifetime...

The Cherpeachbarb

We don’t distinctly remember how it began. It seems likely that it was after bacon-themed Thanksgiving, as we held our aching sides and marveled at the greatness of America, where bacon is a garnish and portion control means saving room for seconds. We know we were seeking an answer to the great Thanksgiving dilemma of how to sample every flavor of pie, cake, and cheesecake in the last 900 calories of your feast. That other Thanksgiving dilemma of how to avoid salmonella in your stuffing while still pleasing fifteen dinner guests with varied tastes in poultry has been solved by the “Turducken”: a chicken cooked inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey. If the stuffing principle works for the main dish, why not for dessert? Why settle for pie or cake, when you can have pie and cake… in the same bite?

Strawberry, rhubarb, and cheesecake--the bottom layer.

The Internet, of course, has the answer to all such dilemmas. A quick search for cake+pie will introduce you to the "Cherpumple."

Peach and almond--the top layer

In brief, imagine baking an entire pie--whole--inside a cake, stacking three such cakes atop each other, and wrapping the tower in thick icing thick to seal in the bulging, oozing mass of sugar. The Cherpumple embodies at least four of the seven deadly sins in dessert form.


One of many reasons I love my friend Jen is that she will happily stroll with me down the path to extreme eating…and that she wanted to celebrate her wedding with an appropriately memorable dessert. Jen turned up her nose at the selection of pumpkin, apple, and cherry pie in the "traditional" Cherpumple, proposing instead the deliciously fruity centers of cherry, peach, and strawberry-rhubarb. While the details of the date and place of the wedding fluctuated, the one constant was the cake/pie we renamed the “Cherpeachbarb.” Jen may have meant it in jest, and Jordan may have shuddered at the whole thing, but it seemed they were stuck with it. Now I got to see if I could turn this emblem of gluttony and excess into a tasteful and tasty wedding cake.

A slice: the cross-section shows the strawberry-rhubarb pie, sitting on a strawberry cake crust, surrounded by cheesecake, and iced. It's like a puzzle...

Much to the delight of my coworkers, this project required practice. While exploring techniques for baking a whole pie inside a cake, I also experimented with flavor combinations and pan sizes. My first attempt at a two-layer, cherry-chocolate cake/pie caved in at the center, oozing cherry pie filling like molten lava. I soon discovered that it does indeed take a full batch of cake batter to envelope an entire pie, and that turning the pie upside down in the cake pan bursts extra air bubbles and stabilizes the cake. I settled on three flavor combinations: peach pie baked inside an almond sponge cake, cherry pie inside a dense chocolate cake, and strawberry-rhubarb pie smothered in cheesecake and encased in strawberry cake. The bottom layer was baked in a twelve-inch springform pan and was so thick it took about four hours to cook through.

The cake, dissembled: three layers, three flavors.

Cake assembly started around 7:30 in the morning, and ran right up until the time of the wedding. I supported the heavy layers with wooden dowels and cardboard cake forms, and generous globs of frosting to hide the ugly spots. Shannon came to my rescue as I was about to throw finicky fondant stencils across the kitchen. We balanced the tower of cake/pie on a platter dusted with sparkling sugar. The finished product contained three pies, the equivalent of five standard-size cakes, eight 8-ounce packages of cream cheese, and four pounds of powdered sugar. The best way to appreciate the enormity of this endeavor was to lift it. I didn’t weigh it, but carrying the cake was like wielding a rather tall stack of books held together with chewing gum. Perhaps we should have required all wedding guests to weigh the cake before committing to sampling a slice, or two, or three.

Jen and Jordan's celebration was delightful: a warm New Mexico evening spent with good friends and delicious food. Jen's mother cooked Vietnamese dishes for a small army, and still most people found stamina to sample all three layers of the Cherpeachbarb. The bride and groom outshone the food and flowers, and while they will surely carry many New Mexico moments with them to Arizona, somewhere in the bank of memories will be a pie, baked inside a cheesecake, stuffed in a cake, and swirled in cream cheese frosting.

The first cut.

The bride and groom... and their cake/pie creation.

The White Rim Road

Whitecrack: The trail at the end of the road.

I love having a job which forces me into the backcountry. (I love having a computer which I can toss into a bag and carry into the backcountry. Shhh… don’t tell. I know, I’m a disgrace to backpackers everywhere, but most backpackers aren’t trying to turn in their dissertations in a week, and when you have to work away from home for three days, you can’t afford to lose those extra hours of study time.) At the start of the week, every force of nature seemed determined to thwart our White Rim orientation trip. If 50mph winds and flurries of snow weren’t discouraging enough, every time I set foot in the visitor center, it seemed another wrench had been thrown into our plan: LE wouldn’t be available to help us shuttle vehicles around the road closure and headquarters loaned out the only vehicle large enough to carry our group of seven; then, the bicycles were all in disrepair; when we concocted a plan using two vehicles, they told us every driver had to be certified in four-wheel driving before departing. I was up to my ears in scheduling, hiring, and training the regular staff, and it seemed like it would just be easier to back out of the trip and try to catch up on my workload. I felt nothing like a backcountry ranger.

Then, twenty-four hours before our scheduled departure, our trip leader and I had the same brainstorm: if we started one group out by vehicle and a second group by foot, we could meet in the middle and swap out. I spent a couple hours rearranging the schedule and cranked out something which would get us through the rest of the week. Thanks to Bobby’s outstanding preparation, we shifted right into the new plan and on Wednesday morning I was cramming my pack full of as much long underwear as I thought I could carry, telling myself that the job and dissertation weren’t going anywhere in the next few days and it was time to go, go, go.

Ready to go... as soon as that storm blows by.

I led the second group down the Wilhite Trail, 6.1 miles to the White Rim road, where we would meet up with the group in the early afternoon. We hit a minor glitch when everyone showed up expecting the others to have planned our group dinner. After some rummaging through our nearly naked cupboards we managed to pull together a basic pasta dish. One of our seasonals had just arrived in the park 36 hours earlier, but gamely volunteered to contribute and carry a 54-ounce jar of pasta sauce. Between his pasta and my pack half-full of cookies, at least we wouldn’t starve.

Much to my embarrassment, I took the first big spill of the trip—and the second, for that matter. Ten minutes down the trail I misjudged the angle of some slickrock and tumbled face-first into the dirt, tearing the skin off my knee and gashing open a treasured pair of hiking pants which had cost me a huge five dollars at Sierra Trading Post. Later that night, this time in front of the whole group, I hopped on a bike for an evening ride and as I turned onto the road I burrowed my front tire so deep in the sand that I spun the bike to the ground, swallowing dirt for the second time that day. I’m dirty, I’m sunburned, I’m wind-beaten, bruised, and bleeding. And it’s the best day of work I’ve had in a long time.

Traveling the White Rim has made this space three-dimensional for me. From above, the road seems painfully flat, following the table-topped White Rim sandstone for miles upon miles. Driving over the Murphy Hogback, however, seemed more like driving up the table legs, over the top, and straight down the other side. To our left as we rode our counter-clockwise course, the towering Wingate formation pushed the Island into the Sky; on our right, the sheer cliffs of the White Rim kept the river completely out of reach as we rolled along a sandy, rutted, barely-one-lane track through the desert. A half dozen foot trails come down from the Island and two or three routes provide access below the White Rim, but for almost a hundred miles, we stuck to this historic road which snakes between the layers in an ever-changing view of Canyonlands. From the time we passed two backpackers near the top of the Wilhite until we met a party of Jeeps at the Airport campsites, we spent nearly 50 hours without seeing any people outside of our group. We’ve endured high winds and hail, near-freezing temperatures, gritty oatmeal, crowded spaces, and torn clothing, to claim those moments when the air is still and the sun is setting and all we have to do is sit back and enjoy the ride.

Tired crew back at camp.

Tonight, as I snuggle into my tent, praying that the wind stays calm so I’ll be able to sleep through the night, my head is full of the big thoughts which creep in while gazing at a sky speckled with innumerable stars. I’m working, but I’m not thinking about who’s going to open the visitor center in the morning or whether my stats reports are up to date. I know that’s waiting for me up above, but today’s job is simply to drive, to watch, and to learn about this new place so I can tell our visitors about what they’ll see when they drive down that White Rim Road.

Right out of the catalog

Have you ever flipped through the pages of an REI catalog and thought, “I bet those models have never even put on a backpack before”? Have you looked at their crisp, colorful clothing and realized that you look nothing like that when you’re in the backcountry? Well, it turns out you are right. Last week I monitored a photo shoot for a major outdoor clothing manufacturer and—I kid you not—as we were walking down the trail to Grand View Point, I overheard one model muse in an airy voice, “I’ve never worn hiking boots before; they are really supportive.”

Anyone who’s seen a John Wayne movie will recognize Canyon Country on the big screen. After the area was discovered by Hollywood, the film crews descended in droves, shooting everything from car commercials to Indiana Jones. Naturally, local landowners saw dollar signs in their eyes, and began charging productions a small fortune to tromp all over their land. Always looking to save a dime, the Hollywood folks looked around and realized that just down the road was a national park, which would let all taxpaying citizens with a camera—even fancy ones—tromp around for nearly nothing. And tromp they did, with their cameras and tracks and dollies and hoods and grips and hundreds of pairs of boots. Eventually, the NPS realized these crews were getting a bargain by filming in the park, and also getting away with tremendous resource damage, so they instituted a more rigorous system for keeping things under control. As part of that system, every film crew agrees to abide by the same regulations to protect the park which are imposed upon all visitors, and additionally have to be monitored by a park employee throughout the shoot. For me, that meant I spent two days reminding the crew to stay on trail and “don’t bust the crust.”

Not that this was a terrible job, mind you. First, I spent a beautiful day outside, from sunrise to sunset, in places photographers dream about shooting in that perfect light. I was paid overtime to stand around and look rangerly, hanging out with fun and creative people who weren’t trying to get away with anything and sincerely wanted to follow the rules. (After all, it would look bad to have a photo in your sportswear catalog showing someone drilling an anchor in the side of Delicate Arch.) And let’s not forget that while they may not have been chosen for their intimate knowledge of the equipment, these models were hired for a very particular reason: because they made those hiking boots look sooooo good! When those brawny models had to swap out a running shirt for a hiking top between takes, I felt it my particular duty to pay close attention to ensure they did not accidentally step off the trail and crunch the crust. It was rough work, but I was diligent—all for the sake of those little, helpless microbes, of course.

To be fair, my job was considerably easier than the work the crew was doing. By the time I met them at the trailhead, a half hour before sunrise, they’d already gone through clothing and makeup to prep for the day. They drove an SUV with a clothing rack hung across the backseat, each outfit sorted according to cue cards which coordinated this top with those pants and these hats, shoes, backpacks, and water bottles. The stylist and makeup artist ran that part of the operation, ensuring everyone had the right clothing, the right models were paired together, and that all the shirts were smooth and zippers were zipped. She seemed very casual throughout the day, rarely fussing with hair or makeup, but she had a critical job. Even the most riveting photo couldn’t be used if the model were sporting a hat from the winter collection with a vest from the spring line.

Perhaps most surprising to me about the operation was that the clothing sent from the company was a sample pack, produced in advance of the product release and therefore somewhat, shall we say, limited. Today’s selection seemed fairly intact, but the crew told me horror stories of sample clothing shipped in the past which hadn’t been stitched on one side or sported gaping holes in the very front. The deadlines are tight, so the crew doesn’t have time to request replacements. One set still had “SAMPLE” written in bold, black letters across the back of every piece, which demanded some creative camerawork, as well as hours of editing in post-production to clean up the clothing.

The clothes were also one-size-fits-all, or rather, “you’d better select a model who will fit the clothes we’ve provided for you.” Which would be fine if all the clothes were the same size or, in this particular case, if the clothes size coordinated with the shoe size. One of the broad-shouldered, six-foot-tall male models was stuck with shoes which ran 1 ½ to 2 ½ sizes too small. Because ill-fitting clothing shows up on film more noticeably than tight footwear, the photographer must chose a model who fits the clothes, not the disproportionately small shoes. Thus, that shadow of pain in the eyes of the marathon runner in your catalog might be more authentic than you think. Our running-wear model spent two days running trails in shoes two sizes two small. He trimmed his toenails to nubs during the first day, and on the second he showed up with duct tape binding his feet in place. When he pulled that off at the end of the day, well, let’s just say he didn’t have to worry about his toenails anymore.

The women models, of course, had the opposite problem. The petite blonde, exotically called Charumata, couldn’t fill out any of the sportswear, a problem handily remedied in the field by oversized binder clips. In talking to other film monitors, they said they’ve often seen entire outfits pinned onto the model in the field. I wondered how many of those ensembles were pinned into place, and then the models were instructed to jog down the trail. Awkward… In general, I loved listening to the directions from the photographers. Their most common admonition was reminding the models to look like they were having fun. “Smile, laugh, look at each other and talk…. Pretend like you’re talking to each other.” They also choreographed the most minute details: hold the backpack strap with your right hand. Put your right foot down exactly in the center of this puddle. Walk four steps, put down your pack, take off your shell, and then fling your pack back up over your right shoulder. Next time I take a hike, I’m going to work on planning my water breaks so that I’m positioned “just so” in that beam of sunshine in front of a shadowy rock outcropping. I will then take off my jacket, stroking the fleecy-soft liner with the back of my palm, and then pull my water bottle out of my pack with about one-third of the insignia showing beneath my palm. Perhaps that will counteract out the red-faced, spiky-haired, dingy-fleece look I’ve developed during my backpacking trips.

Though I mock the inauthentic crafting of the national park experience I observed during the photo shoot, I have to admit that my favorite moments were when I saw genuine emotion play out on the faces of the models, perhaps while standing at Grand View Point for the first time in their shiny new hiking boots. I watched them play in the wind, heard them shriek in delight when they discovered Sanddune Arch, and saw them sneak out their own cameras to snap a photo of a stunning sunset. Park Rangers work so hard to craft an inspiring visitor experience, which means we often find ourselves out front, leading the way, and directing people to look just there. As a monitor, my job was simply to sit back and observe. I got to witness again how powerful the landscape is at evoking emotion, even (especially!) without my interpretation. To be fair, what I do as a ranger is not so different from what these photographers were doing, setting up a scene where strange and beautiful landscapes become accessible and familiar, places where people can go, and walk, and hike, and jog, and try out their fancy new gear. While Jared and Charumata may never have worn a pack and boots before, for a couple days they wriggled into a pair of (small and uncomfortable) boots and hit the trail—and had an authentic interaction with this inspiring place. As I heard them making plans to return for longer vacations with friends or family, I recognized the power of our parks to stir in even the most naïve observers that inexplicable appreciation for strange and wild places. Who knows? Maybe the next time that model comes to Canyonlands, she’ll be raving to her colleagues about the great new pair of hiking boots she wore during her camping trip last summer. (Though I’m willing to bet she won’t purchase the boots she was modeling—too many blister scars!)

Reporting for duty

Before Park Rangers were invented, the US army administered our National Parks. Actually, in the very beginning, Congress thought the parks would take care of themselves, so they drew some lines on the map and told everyone they couldn’t build their houses there. The first superintendents were volunteers with no administrative budgets. (I’m now unsuccessfully biting back a politically-charged aside about how today’s Congress seems to think the parks should get back to the good ol’ days…) But, it turns that places with herds of wild bison and wide open spaces where no one would notice if you built a little cabin attracted an unseemly lot of trophy hunters and beaver trappers along with the casual tourist. Eventually, someone in Washington realized that park visitors couldn’t entirely be trusted to act in the best interests of preservation, and called upon the military to lend the superintendent some muscle. A temporary assignment of the US Calvary lasted more than thirty years, until the National Park Service was created in 1916. (Avoiding another political statement about military occupation…)

Today, the Park Service’s military legacy shines through in key ways. First and most noticeably, we owe them our uniform. We can thank the army for scratchy polyester dress pants, skull-squeezing flat hats, and footwear which requires us to spit and shine after every guided walk. Perhaps because our uniform smacks of soldiery, people often ask rangers whether they get transferred from park to park, as if on assignment. Officially, the answer is no, but another legacy, cultivated by our position within the executive branch of government and sustained by the free-spirited souls who wander into these careers in the first place, is the NPS culture of relocation and reassignment. A career park ranger will typically work in dozens of parks and monuments, from a handful of seasonal gigs, to that obscure historic homestead where you grab your first permanent assignment, until someday you land a job at that big flagship park, working behind a desk and dreaming about the days when you were footloose and seasonal. The superintendent’s ability to move people from park to park is limited, but most people find that the best way to advance to higher pay and jobs with health insurance is to pack those bags and go after it.

I can’t blame all my rootless wanderings on the Park Service and its army roots, but for the last ten years it has certainly contributed to the problem. And problem it is indeed. Last month, when I crossed the threshold of my new home in Canyonlands, I began my 43^rd move since I first went away to college. (For the record, I’m defining a “move” as relocating myself and a good portion of my belongings to place where I resided for at least six weeks. Thus, a month of backpacking in Europe does not count, but a six-week winter in Yellowstone does.) Now, I’d welcome comparisons from any of you lifetime military sorts, but I’m willing to wager that 43 moves in 15 years will rival just about any army career.

Thanks to the Park Service, I have mastered the art of moving. I have become proficient at packing my possessions into a Geo Metro or onto a snowmobile tow-sled. I know exactly how long it takes to drive from Albuquerque to West Yellowstone, and who will give me a bed to sleep in along the way. I have cleaned dozens of refrigerators and scrubbed a thousand aluminum slats on hundreds of mini-blinds. In all this moving, however, I’ve never acquired that essential flair for cutting all ties and disappearing into the wind. Problem is, I deeply value the people I know in these places. I am so lucky to have wonderful friends in each of my several hometowns, but moving every few months is deadly to human relationships. When all my friends quit making plans with me for more than a week in advance, I realized that perhaps my social calendar, my back muscles, and my emotional stability would benefit from spending an entire year without packing a box.

And so, after 15 years of darting north and south like a spastic and confused snowbird, the park service offered me the golden apple of a “permanent” job, and I find myself gathering boxes from my parents’ basement, plastic dishes from my disposable Yellowstone household, and clothes and furniture from my Albuquerque home, into a single location where I could potentially (though far from certainly) stay for more than three months. Gasp! 

I believe the number one reason people take permanent jobs with the government is so the feds will foot the bill for a team of professional movers to pack, load, transport, and even unpack their worldly goods. As I was packing last weekend in New Mexico, I cheered myself to think that if I choose a career with the Park Service, the next time I pack a box I’ll be carrying it to the retirement home. Fortunately, I had a hearty team of volunteer movers—loads more fun and far better looking than a contract crew—who pitched in generously to help me finagle everything “just so” until we had crammed every nook and cranny with bookshelves, office chairs, and Tupperware. We strapped an animal-print futon mattress to the top, lashed it down, and I was ready to roll. I felt like I’d escaped from a Hollywood film set as I rolled down the interstate, pots and pans clanking and mattress flapping on a top-heavy, oversized moving wagon rocking in the wind.

Nothing’s settled here in Canyonlands, including my own living quarters, but for the first time in a long time there are no dates on my calendar circled in red to mark my next moving day. Like those early solders coming to the nation’s first park to do some quick clean-up work, I cannot see the end of my duty station here. When I start building five-story brick houses and hauling in topsoil to build a parade ground, someone please remind me to put in for a transfer.

The End of the Highway

When I look out the front window of my house in Canylonlands, I feel a little guilty. I feel guilty because the view from my porch is the kind of view you should have to earn by trudging a dozen miles uphill in the blazing heat. When you climb a mountain, you put your sweat into the climb, trading energy and willpower for the chance to see the world from a completely new perspective. After thousands and thousands of steps, you reach that place where you can’t step any higher, and then you look around. When you’re standing up there, looking down at the blanket of tree-tops and semi-trucks the size of matchbooks, you can tell yourself that you’ve earned that view, that you worked for that rare moment when the light would be right and the clouds would be just so, and the world would be clear and perfect.

That is the view I see from my front window. Every morning, when I drag myself out of bed and stumble into the kitchen, I see The View. And every morning, for just a moment, it takes my breath away. But then I realize that I’ve done nothing to earn that view and the teensiest feeling of guilt creeps in. By walking just a dozen steps in my slippers, I can watch the sun rise over red rock and pink buttes and blue mountains layered up as far as the eye can see. I can go for a run from my front door, and in less than a mile sit down and dangle my sneakers over the lip of a 500-foot cliff, which terraces down to another 500-foot cliff, and then another below that, and another and another, until they reach the unseen river in the deepest gorge. My commute has no smog, no traffic, just a quiet five-minute walk as I wait for the sun to crest the La Sal mountains, casting the warm morning light upon mesas still capped with snow.

Of course, there are more substantial things than easy sunsets to feel guilty about when you are living on the Island in the Sky. For instance, not only are we living in a desert where less than ten inches of rain falls each year, but up here on the canyon rims we cannot drill for water to drink and bathe, so we truck it in. Every few days the water truck drives thirty miles to stock our water tank with twice-chlorinated H2O. If that  doesn’t convince you that no one should be living here, consider this: the BLM land outside the park is biannually allocated for cattle grazing. The cows have the same problem we do: no water. So, the ranchers also tank up their trucks and haul water thirty miles to the mesa top so the cattle can have some vital water to wash down those dry native grasses. Clearly, none of us should really be here.

Or, you might feel guilty because you live in this beautiful landscape, a once-in-a-lifetime destination for millions of visitors from around the world, and yet you’re endlessly annoyed because your cell phone doesn’t work. Begrudgingly, after searching for a way to get mobile broadband, high-speed Internet, or one of those fancy all-in-one gadgets, I called up the phone company to beg for a “land line” in my wilderness home. For the price you pay for your cell phone/mobile hotspot/camera/GPS/heart-rate-monitor communication device, I can get a DSL connection which runs at the whopping speed of 3 mbps. At that rate, I can watch a three-minute YouTube video in just under eight minutes! Imagine the guilt I felt when a seasonal ranger who’d worked here from 1965-67, the first three summers after the park was established, told me how he’d commuted to work every day along a twenty-five mile unimproved dirt “road.” There was no housing up here at the time, so they made the commute every day. Three miles from the main road, where today’s Highway 313 takes a series of switchbacks down to the canyon floor, the old road dropped sharply into the bottom of the wash. This steep trail was continuously and unexpectedly being washed out, so when they got off work and headed home for the night, they would often drive 18 miles down 313, only to discover that the road had crumbled over night. At this point they could either get out their shovels get to work, or turn around and go rough it at the Island for the night, only to come back and dig out the road in the morning.Today, thanks to my 3 mbps Internet connection, I can order my groceries, my shampoo, "Lost: The complete series," and a new sofa from Amazon, and the UPS driver will drive his air conditioned van down the paved highway to drop those packages off on my doorstep.

When they told me my delivery address here I laughed aloud, anticipating the very worst for living at "End of Highway 313, Moab, Utah." But each night as I sit on the blanket in the middle of my empty living room, watching the sunset out my front window, I am humbled by the chance to be here, for the possibilities of a great new job, and to have a huge apartment, clean and freshly-painted, waiting for me when I arrived. When I think of what it would take to make it here on my own, without the conveniences of the modern-day Park Service, I am amazed that for this little while I have to opportunity to live at the end of the highway.

A snowy day in Canyonlands. My outdoor dining room, come warmer days.