Knapsack Sierra Club Page

04/25/2022

A short Sierra Club Outings promotional video.

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02/06/2022

“Food” for thought: “…for many people, hunting and fishing are a means to that visceral appreciation — let’s call it love — of the natural world that makes a person want to act to protect it. That feeling is big, an expansive common ground that needs to be filled with as many people as can be mustered, whether they get there armed with shotguns or birding binoculars or bright pink, Barbie-branded children’s fishing poles. After all, we, too, are animals reliant on imperiled ecosystems. Save the habitat, save ourselves.”

With “MeatEater” on Netflix and a growing roster of podcasts, he is teaching a new kind of hunter about how killing animals can be part of loving nature.

01/08/2022

All over the park, underneath several feet of snow, there are thousands little froggy popsicles. Frogsicles?

Frogs are cold blooded amphibians and yet one can see them leaping around over 10,000 feet in the Sierra. Sierran Tree Frogs (Pseudacris sierra) are especially common, even at high elevations. Frogs can bury themselves under leaves, logs and rocks which will protect them from the harshest of the winter elements, but they can’t escape the freezing temperatures.

Every autumn frogs in the mountains begin to store up larger amounts of glucose and glycerol in their livers (remember those from high school biology?). Both of these substances, called cryoprotectants, protect the frogs the damaging effects of water in the body turning to ice. Just like that bottle you forgot about in the freezer that exploded, water inside bodies can cause rupturing if it freezes beyond the capacity of the organs and skin. The glucose and glycerol work to dehydrate around the sensitive organs and push water towards the legs and arms. They also inhibit crystal formation which minimizes the expansion of water in the body as it turns to ice.

Another adaptation is as temperature begins to fall rapidly the frogs respond by increasing heart rate and body temperature to a melting point for the first several hours. Slowly the heart rate will decrease until the frog begins to freeze, but in a controlled way which again minimizes the possibility of damage from freezing too fast.

When spring comes and the snow melts frogs will thaw out and slowly bring their heart rate back to normal within a few hours. This adaptation to freezing temperatures means that Sierran tree frogs can have a much wider range in which to survive.

12/07/2021

11/28/2021

"We have until May 22, 2022...to receive public comments...not a single tribe in California has made it entirely through the federal acknowledgment process in 35+ years...where non-ratified treaties still haunt us."

Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation

11/15/2021

"We are still here. Yosemite is home. Since the beginning of time, we the people now known as the Mono Lake Kutzadikaa Tribe, Bishop Paiute Tribe, Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians, Bridgeport Indian Colony, North Fork Rancheria of Mono Indians of California, and Tuolumne Band of Me-Wuk Indians have stewarded the lands now known as Yosemite. As you walk through this park, remember who walked here before you and imagine who will walk here after you. Please join us and Yosemite National Park in protecting and preserving our ancestral homelands for our future generations". : , ,

06/18/2021

Land managers and gateway communities struggle to keep up.

04/01/2021

It's about that fat.

Although it rarely receives it, your backpacking food weight deserves at least as much consideration as the weight of your gear.

03/02/2021

Official rock piles, or cairns, on trails are there for a reason; altering them or adding new ones can be harmful in many ways.