Michael Shapiro's Blog, page 8
January 6, 2016
Esalen: Retreat on Big Sur Coast
After failing to get through the gates to paradise years ago, I finally made it to Esalen. To see the story on The Press Democrat’s site with some pictures, click here.
By MICHAEL SHAPIRO
I couldn’t wait to get to Esalen on the Big Sur coast. I love hot springs and though I wasn’t staying there I’d heard that non-residents could enter the tubs of warm mineral water, perched atop impossibly steep cliffs with a panoramic view of the Pacific, after 1 o’clock.
So it was with unbridled anticipation that I approached the 27-acre Big Sur retreat center one afternoon years ago. That’s when I saw the sign: the general public was welcome after 1 a.m., for a couple of hours in the middle of the night.
It would take me many more years to get through Esalen’s gates, but I finally made it recently when I was asked to teach at a workshop hosted by The Sun, a literary magazine.
It was worth the wait. Some of Esalen’s facilities are perched on ledges carved into the Big Sur cliffs, and the baths are among those. After a brief walk through the organic vegetable garden, I shed my clothes in the bath house and plunged into the warm tubs, long thought to have healing properties.
The sun was close to setting, gulls cawed and condors, back from the brink of extinction, soared high overhead. At last, I thought, at last, as my tensions and worries dissolved into the 104-degree water.
The roots of Esalen date to 1869 when Thomas Slate, pained by severe arthritis, found the hot springs at Esalen to be healing and revitalizing. In the 1880s, according to Esalen’s website, he homesteaded the property and opened Slates Hot Springs, the first business to target tourists in Big Sur. ßno apostrophe in Slates>
In 1910, Henry Murphy, a Salinas physician who delivered John Steinbeck, bought the property, and in 1962 his grandson Michael Murphy co-founded Esalen with former Stanford classmate Dick Price as a spiritual retreat center and locus for lifelong learning.
Murphy was a student at Stanford during the 1950s and was on track to become a psychiatrist but gave that up to live in an ashram in India when he had a vision of what his family’s coastside property could become.
“I asked my grandmother (in the late ’50s) if I could take over the property and she said no,” Murphy said in a phone interview from his home in Mill Valley. “She was afraid I would give it to the Hindus.”
In 1961, Hunter Thompson, who later became known for his book “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” was the caretaker. “The scene was totally out of control,” Murphy said. “Hunter was just 21 – he was fully armed with automatic weapons. A gang of gay guys (that he was harassing at the baths) were trying to kill him. They tried to throw him over the cliff one night. … It’s a miracle no one was killed in those days.”
That’s when Murphy gained control of the property: “My father prevailed upon his mother and said, ‘we’ve got to give it to Michael now, otherwise we’re all gonna end up in jail.’ ”
Often dismissed as misfit mystics, Murphy and Price helped launch the human potential movement, suggesting that meditation, yoga, and deep psychological inquiry could lead to richer lives and more harmonious relations.
Murphy said the vision he and Price developed “turned out to be fertile in ways we didn’t anticipate.” For years they were ridiculed, but their timing was good.
During the 1960s, young people and intellectuals questioned society’s prevailing beliefs and congregated at Esalen, which was named for the native tribe that had inhabited this land. Among the leading thinkers and entertainers to expand their minds and open their hearts at Esalen were Aldous Huxley, Henry Miller, Joan Baez, Dr. Andrew Weil and George Harrison.
To date, more than 750,000 people have passed through Esalen’s gates, to soak and study, to reflect and connect, to meditate and do yoga. The campus is in the midst of a three-year renewal project and last month (Dec. 2015) the new Huxley Meeting Room, with a geothermally warmed bamboo floor, opened above the lodge.
I had the good fortune of spending a late October weekend there that was so clear I could navigate the footpaths at night by the silvery light of the full moon.
I co-taught with other contributors to The Sun (including Cheryl Strayed who’d just finished a memoir called “Wild”) in a big yurt that held the 100-plus people attending the workshop. And that’s when the magic took over.
I’m not sure if it was the clean salt-scented air, the drop-dead views or the openness of the participants, but something powerful transformed that room of people into a community of like-minded souls who felt almost anything was possible.
I’m not saying students learned to write well in a weekend – that’d be like saying you could master the cello in a couple of days. But, embraced by this place, I saw people begin to believe in themselves.
“That’s what Easlen does,” Murphy said. “It provides a space for people to grow.” He credited intellectual pioneers who offered workshops in the early days – Abraham Maslow, Fritz Perls, Arnold Toynbee, Virginia Satir and Alan Watts – with helping to make Esalen a place for exploring human potential. “Miracles of revelation and insight were occurring down there,” he said.
But Esalen’s live-and-let-live attitude caused some problems.
“People go off their meds down there. They feel so good, the place just liberates them,” Murphy said, emphatically adding: “We are not, not, not a medical facility. In the ’60s, somebody could get so loaded up on LSD that they’d see that they’re actually Jesus. We had several Jesuses at one point and a couple of Napoleons, and if you get two Napoleons walking across the grounds…” his voice trailed off. “But now it has all calmed down.”
Today, Esalen offers hundreds of workshops each year, with such titles as “Mindful Communication: Truth Without Blame” and “The Life of Poetry.” Other themes include massage, songwriting, psychology and meditation.
Most visitors to Esalen come to take a workshop, but occasionally the center has openings (called A Time to Reflect on the schedule) when visitors can simply enjoy the land, a massage, yoga, and of course the baths. These stays are priced lower than the workshops.
A visit to Esalen isn’t cheap and lodgings aren’t luxurious, but it’s a rare privilege to inhabit this sliver of coastal paradise.
The staff is friendly (well, most of them are; a few have no interest in conversing with guests) and committed to serve, but not in an obsequious, servile way. Everyone here is treated as equal, which is refreshing.
The food is so fresh and nurturing you feel energized rather than comatose after the abundant meals. Much of the produce comes from the on-property garden and the chefs accommodate all sorts of dietary requests, from dairy free to vegetarian to gluten free.
After my workshop ended, I checked out at midday, but was welcome to stay on the property for a couple of more hours. I walked back to the cliffside tubs, undressed (it’s clothing optional) and immersed myself one last time into Esalen’s healing waters. The sound of the waves breaking 1,000 feet below made it even more soothing.
A few other people from our workshop remained, and the conversation ranged as far and wide as the view from this precipitous perch. Now that I’d made it to Esalen, all I wanted to do was stay.
—
Weekend workshops start at $405 per person, which includes the course, food and sleeping in a communal area in a sleeping bag. A private room for a couple is $730 per person. Seven-day workshops start at $900 and cost $1,700 per person for a couple in a private room.
For more information and listings of upcoming courses, see: esalen.org.
December 5, 2015
Ultimate Tequila Tour with Julio Bermejo, American Way (American Airlines)
Julio Bermejo signs a barrel at Arette distillery in Tequila in August, 2013. All photos by Michael Shapiro
In 2004 in Las Vegas I went to a tequila tasting and met Julio Bermejo. A world of spirit opened up to me – not only did I learn how good tequila can be, I was captivated by Julio’s effusive energy and got to know him at Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant in SF. In August, Julio and I traveled to Jalisco after I got an assignment to write a feature for American Way, the magazine of American Airlines.
The story appeared December 2013 in American Way. It’s no longer on AW’s site, but you can read it below.
Read to the end for the sidebar on Julio.
—
Story and photos by Michael Shapiro
“Follow me into the cave,” says Guillermo Sauza, the fifth generation in his family to make Mexico’s sacred spirit. A wide, heavy wooden door creaks open and we go from bright Jalisco sunshine into the near pitch-blackness of a serpentine passageway.
Slowly my eyes adjust to the dim light as we walk gingerly underground. I leap back when I see a skull-topped slumping effigy.
“Watch out for the Cuervo drinker,” Guillermo says. “He’s dead.”
Though the Sauza family sold their brand decades ago – it’s now owned by Jim Beam – the generations-old rivalry between Mexico’s two leading tequila families remains alive.
In 2002, Guillermo got a distillery going on this patch of land in the town of Tequila, about an hour’s drive west of Guadalajara. He now makes an ultra-premium tequila, called Fortaleza, the way his tatarabuelo (great-great-grandfather) did, by crushing agave with a tahona – a wheel-like stone that weighs more than a ton – and distilling it in copper pot stills.
The Fortaleza distillery doesn’t have scheduled tours, but it’s one of many tequila makers in the eminently walkable pueblo of Tequila that welcomes visitors by appointment.
Over the course of two whirlwind days in Tequila and one in the highlands town of Arandas, I visit eight distilleries with Julio Bermejo, beverage manager of Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco and a longtime evangelist for fine tequila (see related story).
At Fortaleza, we – Julio, his wife Lily, Guillermo, his golden retriever Sandy, and I – emerge from the dimly lighted corridor into the caves’ largest “room” where bottles of tequila sit atop a pedestal of golden light.
Guillermo Sauza at his Fortaleza distillery in the town of Tequila in August, 2013.
Guillermo, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and wide-brimmed straw hat, tells us he didn’t plan to base his business on tequila made from stone-crushed agave. But he made a batch and everyone said, “Wow, this is so good,” so the company decided to use the tahona.
The process starts with harvesting the football-shaped agave heads – the root of the plant that can be 2 feet long and weigh 50 to 200 pounds. The spiky leaves are hacked off with a long-handled blade called a coa. Then the heads, called piñas because they look like enormous pineapples, are roasted under pressure in brick ovens.
As the agave cooks, steam fills the air. The smell evokes Thanksgiving: molasses, brown sugar and sweet potatoes with a hint of pumpkin pie. The agave fibers are removed, then the liquid, called mosto, is fermented pot-bellied stills. “It’s like going back in time,” says Julio.
Tilting his glass, Guillermo adds: “When you see me at a party with a glass three-quarters full, it’s not Chardonnay.”
We sample three varieties – the blanco (unaged) is clean and crisp, the reposado has a rich caramel flavor, and the ultra-smooth añejo lingers with a full-bodied aftertaste.
Now that he’s achieved success with Fortaleza, I ask if Guillermo if he regrets that his family sold Sauza. “My heart is here in Mexico – I thought I’d be running Sauza,” says Guillermo as he sips.
“Unfortunately my father sold (Sauza) in 1976 – I was 20 … but I’m fortunate to walk in the footsteps of my ancestors,” he says. “It’s a battle: agave shortages, broken bottles, but it’s a labor of love. There’s a lot of competition in this business. But I thank God every day that I get to do what I’m doing.”
* * *
Across the street is the boutique distillery Arette. Eduardo Orendain, the earnest 21-year-old son of the owner and the fifth generation to work in his family’s business, grew up with tequila.
We talk in the concrete patio where the piñas are unloaded and cut open, surrounded by autoclaves (modern pressurized ovens) where they’re roasted, and greased black gears that power the fiber-removing shredders.
“I love tequila,” Eduardo says. “Since I was little I rode horseback in the agave fields, but my family put me to work – I had to clean the bottles.”
Julio notes that Arette’s tequila embodies the region’s terroir: “pungent, herbaceous, green notes with an earthy vegetal flavor,” he says. “Arette is all of that with a nice body and a strong finish.”
We go Arette’s barrel room and absorb the warm welcoming scent of tequila dancing with oak.
“It smells so good in here, but you know who’s reaping the benefit?” Julio says. “The angels!” Liquor that evaporates during aging is called “the angels’ share” and Julio says 8 to 10 percent of tequila is lost during each year – compared to about 2 percent for cognac. “I’m not sure how much the angels like cognac,” he says, “but I’m sure they love tequila!”
After visiting these boutique distilleries, Julio and I go to see how the big boys work. At the expansive Cuervo compound, with lush gardens, fountains and modern art on the grounds, Sonia Espinola tells us that “it’s don Juan’s vision to make Tequila a destination.”
Cuervo is now run by Don Juan’s son, Juan-Domingo Beckmann, the sixth-generation leader of the company. “He sees Tequila as a place with a legend, a story, everything,” Sonia says. And he’s not the only one. Mexico deemed the town a Pueblo Magico in 2003 and Tequila became a World Heritage Site in 2006.
Many visitors arrive on the Jose Cuervo Express, a train that leaves Guadalajara weekend mornings at 11 a.m. It features views of the agave-spiked landscape and the looming Volcan de Tequila, and all the tequila you care to drink.
Passengers have about four hours to tour the distillery and have lunch, then most depart at 5:30 to return to Guadalajara. But with programs such as the Ruta del Tequila, a route of sights in the town and beyond, Cuervo hopes to encourage visitors to stay a night or two.
And why not? With so much to do – tequila tasting, visiting storied bars, horseback riding, and walking the time-worn cobblestone streets to hear impromptu guitar performances – it’s worth lingering.
We start lunch at Cuervo with delicious guacamole and wash it down with a margarita blended with roasted agave (which gives the drink a textured mouthfeel), stirred with an agave stalk. Bartender Hugo Sanchez gyrates from side to side as he shakes the drink. “If he doesn’t dance,” Sonia says, “it doesn’t work.”
The VIP tour culminates with the filling of our own bottle of Cuervo’s finest tequila, its Reserva de la Familia. Sonia hands me a bottle, and I fill it from an old oak barrel. I pop in the cork, invert the bottle and dip it in molten red sealing wax, then stamp it with Cuervo’s insignia.
On the way out, I spot Hugo the bartender. He asks if we want to see something special and leads us down to a cellar with huge, dusty, antique, pear-shaped bottles. In an oak barrel is Cuervo’s Reserva.
He pulls a big cork out of the top, dips in a long narrow ladle called a ladron (thief), and pours me a glass of amber perfection. We’re late for the train back to Guadalajara, but I can’t bear to leave before finishing this work of art in a glass.
* * *
The next morning we start at another tequila giant, Sauza. The three-hour tour includes a visit to the fields, about a 10-minute drive in the Sauza trolley, where you can wield a coa and cut the succulent, thick, blue-green spikes from agave heads. It’s hard work – I can’t imagine how the jimadores cut 200 heads a day.
For the tour of Sauza’s compound, called La Perseverancia, we don hard hats and start with a taste of Casa Sauza X.A., a limited edition five-year-old tequila. Until this moment, I’d thought that Sauza just made cheap tequila. When I taste the X.A., I realize Sauza can make tequila that’s resplendent, an amber symphony of jasmine, hibiscus and almond notes with a coda of chocolate.
It’s still Monday morning. “That’s the way we start the week here at La Perseverancia!” says our tour guide Karina Sanchez.
Covering one wall is a huge mural evoking the history of tequila, starting with lightning striking an agave plant and ending with an image of Venus-like maidens who represent the four states of drinking tequila: happiness, sadness, lust and lack of inhibition.
At Sauza’s bar, mixologist Charly Garcia creates a cocktail with strawberry, kiwi and pomegranate liqueur. As we sip, Victor Martinez of Sauza’s Heritage Center tells me that Sauza has launched a food-pairing initiative. “Here in Mexico we mix culture, food and alcohol, even the wife,” he says. I vow to return for lunch soon.
Driving out of Tequila we pass endless fields of azure agave plants stretching for the heavens as fingers of fog reach down the slopes of the looming Volcan de Tequila.
“Grape fields are all over the world, but agave grows only here,” Julio remarks. “It gives you a sense of place. When you see agave fields, you know where you are – it reminds you everything comes from the land.”
Tequila barrels on a burro at Herradura hacienda.
We drive 15 minutes to Amatitán and the storied Herradura hacienda, a family distillery for seven generations until sold to spirits conglomerate Brown-Forman in 2007. Herradura means horseshoe and hitching posts remain in front of the hacienda’s gates.
Our guide, Angel del Gado, tells us fine tequila is made by cutting the spikes completely down to the agave head and by using very ripe agave for high sugar content.
As we tour the hacienda, we’re joined by Pedro, clad in traditional white shirt and pants with a red sash, and a barrel-laden burro called Cuko. One cask has Herradura’s El Jimador brand, which we sip from a handmade clay cup.
Nearby, in the hills above Tequila, is Casa Noble, which has made a name for itself with triple-distilled premium tequila that’s organic and kosher. Aged in French white oak barrels, Casa Noble is made at the Cofradia compound, which includes lavishly decorated hotel rooms and a restaurant called La Taberna serving everything from fishbowl drinks to locally-sourced lunches.
David Yan in Casa Noble’s “time machine” in August, 2013.
Casa Noble uses atmospheric fermentation, which means its tanks are open to wild yeast in the air. The best way to evaluate tequila is straight from the tank, says our guide, David Yan. “You can’t imagine what tequila really tastes like until you’ve tasted it straight from the still.”
Guitarist Carlos Santana, who was born about 50 miles from here, recently became a part owner of Casa Noble and his image now adorns a line of its bottles, with profits going to Santana’s Milagro Foundation.
As we sit down to taste, David notes that taking a shot isn’t the way to enjoy tequila. “It’s like drinking boiling coffee and getting scalded,” he says. The right way is to sip it, slowly. “It’s not one quick bang – how about the cuddling and kissing – that’s what makes it more enjoyable.”
David shows us Casa Noble’s “time machine,” a collection of hand-labeled bottles from various barrels. “This is seven years of history,” David says. Making fine tequila “doesn’t happen by chance, it happens by studying your past.” Gesturing to the wall of bottles, he adds: “This is like a family album of how a barrel looked and smelled and tasted.”
Returning to town, we stop in to see don Javier Delgado, an 89-year-old bartender, at La Capilla, which means “the chapel.” That seems fitting as the room honors Tequila’s spirit, with bottles from local distilleries and soccer trophies adorning the walls.
Don Javier, on the eve of his 90th birthday, has been pouring tequila in the town of Tequila since he was a teenager.
Wearing a white, button-down shirt, silver-haired don Javier makes his classic drink, the batanga (blanco tequila, Mexican Coke, lime and a stir with his favorite knife, the one he uses to slice chilis for hot sauce). He tells us he’s been pouring tequila for 76 years.
I ask what he’s most proud of in his life. “Pride, no,” he says in Spanish. “What makes me most grateful is everyone who has come and shared hospitality with me. I don’t want you to feel like you are in our house – I want you to feel like you are in your house.”
* * *
The town of Tequila isn’t the only region where Mexico’s national spirit is distilled. Some of the best producers are in the highlands (elevation over 6,000 feet), two hours drive east of Guadalajara, so we travel to Arandas to visit Centinela and Tapatio.
Though Centinela makes more than a million cases a year, the distillery still uses traditional stone ovens to roast agave. As we tour, Julio notices that Centinela’s Classico Blanco, widely available in Mexico for under $15 a bottle, is being fermented with bagazo (agave fibers).
“It doesn’t make sense to make a cheaper tequila with this expensive process, but we do it for the taste,” says our tour guide Jesenia Aracely Davida Jimenez, noting that Centinela means “sentinel.” The company’s chemist Ramiro Morales Galindo adds: “Fermenting with fiber is not new, but few do it and we’re bringing it back.”
Banda musicians play at Carnitas Jamie’s, the liveliest restaurant in Arandas.
After lunch with a side of banda music at Arandas’ best restaurant, Carnitas Jaime’s, we visit Tequila Tapatio. Carlos Camarena, Tapatio’s director, welcomes us and shows us the company’s new bottling line, but he’s most proud of adhering to generations of tradition. A tahona (grinding stone) is used to mash the agave for Tapatio’s premium brand, El Tesoro de Don Felipe.
The process is “old and inefficient,” Carlos says, “but this is the way my father and grandfather did it.”
Also touring that day is Tom Wright, a Los Angeles-based actor who appeared in several Seinfeld episodes in the mid-’90s. We sip divine tequila from the cut tips of bull’s horns, which is how Mexican cowboys once drank it and is the origin of the modern tequila glass.
“When we used to drink tequila,” Tom says, “we asked, ‘where’s the worm?’ It’s amazing how far we’ve come in 25 years.”
We go down to Tapatio’s fragrant barrel room, with rows of casks 20 feet high. Carlos jokes that it would be the ideal bomb shelter: “In case of nuclear war we have our bunker ready, and plenty of tequila. Just bring the appetizers!”
Seagram’s approached the Camarena family and “offered way more than the company was worth,” Carlos says in English, “but you know what, we didn’t accept. One reason is that we don’t want our kids to have plenty of money and nothing to do – it would destroy them.”
Perhaps the most important reason is Carlos’ deep appreciation for the company’s legacy. “To build a reputation takes lots of years – we have 76 years of tradition of making a good quality product. That could be destroyed in a minute,” he says. “We have a decent living. That’s all we need.”
—
Michael Shapiro, author of A Sense of Place, last wrote for American Way about the narrow-gauge trains of Wales: www.michaelshapiro.net
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SIDEBAR:
THE AMBASSADOR OF TEQUILA
Growing up the son of Mexican immigrants in San Francisco, Julio Bermejo worked at his family’s Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant. “I cut tomatoes, shredded lettuce, grated millions of pounds of cheese,” he said. Restaurant work is “the last form of legalized slavery. You better be in love with it if you want to succeed.”
As a young man Julio was embarrassed by the work – until he discovered pure agave tequila. Tending bar at Tommy’s, he began making margaritas with Herradura 100-percent-agave tequila.
“My father went ballistic,” Julio said. Compared to cheap mixed tequilas, “it was four times as expensive! But people could taste the difference.”
In the late ’80s, Julio tried Patron and El Tesoro. “That blew me away,” he said, and propelled him on a pilgrimage to Jalisco, the Mexican state where most tequila comes from.
“I knew Patron and El Tesoro were different but didn’t know why or how,” he said. El Tesoro’s don Felipe Camarena and his son Carlos welcomed Julio with open arms and showed him how fine tequila is made. Julio didn’t just fall in love with tequila on that trip; he became smitten with Carlos’ sister, Liliana.
Lily and Julio Bermejo with Lily’s brother, Carlos Camarena, left, director of Tapatio distillery in Arandas.
“It’s took me 13 years to get a date with Lily,” Julio said. Carlos shot back: “That’s because every time you visited you brought a girlfriend!” Julio and Lily were married in 2006. “I lost every battle,” Julio said, “but I won the war.”
Returning to San Francisco, Julio founded the Blue Agave Club at Tommy’s to encourage customers to try various 100-percent-agave tequilas. The first incentive: taste a number of different tequilas and get a T-shirt; that evolved to a framed diploma.
But people wanted more. So Julio launched a card for graduates. Fill it and score 80 percent or better on a notoriously difficult test about tequila, and you can become a “Demigod” and travel to Mexico on one of Julio’s tasting tours. The club now has more than 8,000 members, not all active, he says.
It’s not just marketing skill that makes Tommy’s a destination for tequila lovers – it’s Julio and his family’s warmth and graciousness. Now beverage manager at Tommy’s, Julio welcomes most returning customers by name, asks about their families and seems to know what kind of tequila they like – and what other tequilas they should try.
Because Julio has shared his passion for fine tequila with so many people and has become so knowledgable about the spirit, the Mexican tequila promotion authority CNIT gave him the title, Ambassador of Tequila to the United States.
Director Mel Lawrence was so taken with Julio and his love for tequila that he’s making a documentary about him. It’s called, of course, The Ambassador of Tequila.
What’s next for Julio and Lily? They’re building their own small distillery in Jesus Maria near Arandas and hope to open and welcome visitors next year.
Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant, 5929 Geary Blvd., San Francisco, Calif., (415) 387-4747, www.tommystequila.com.
—
A TEQUILA PRIMER
What’s tequila?
A spirit made from blue agave harvested in one of five Mexican states. Most tequila comes from Jalisco, the state that has the namesake town of Tequila.
What are the primary types of tequila?
Blanco is clear, straight from the still and unaged. Reposado is aged in oak from two months to a year, and añejo is aged one to three years. A relatively recent category is extra añejo, which is aged for more than three years.
Is all tequila made just from agave?
No, just the finer ones. The spirit must have at least 51 percent agave to be called tequila, but premium tequilas are 100 percent blue agave.
Does tequila have a worm in the bottle?
No, that’s mezcal.
—
IF YOU GO
Regular tours are held at Sauza and Cuervo. Smaller producers will show you around by appointment – it’s best to book a week or more in advance.
Mundo Cuervo
Tours seven days a week, 10am-5pm, until 6pm on Saturday
Jose Cuervo No. 73, Col Centro
Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico
tours@cuervo.com.mx
en.mundocuervo.com
Jose Cuervo Express tequila train:
en.josecuervoexpress.com
Casa Sauza
Tours M-F, 9:30am to 4pm, Saturday until 12:30pm
Francisco Javier Sauza #80 Col. Centro
Tequila Jalisco
tourstequilasauza@beamglobal.com
www.casasauza.com/en-US/distillery-tour
866.510.2250 (US toll-free)
Herradura and its Tequila Express train
The train runs on weekends: www.herradura.com
To visit other times, fill out the form at:
www.herradura.com/contact-us.aspx
TOURS BY APPOINTMENT
Fortaleza
Contact the Sauza family’s Museo Los Abuelos
Vicente Albino Rojas, No. 22
On the central plaza in Tequila, Jalisco
011-52 374-742-0247
Open daily: 10am – 4pm
Info@LosAbuelos.com
museolosabuelos.com
(Note: Fortaleza asks not to list its address because they don’t want visitors appearing on their doorstep.)
Arette
Silverio Nuñez #100, Tequila, Jalisco
Advance notice preferred, visits welcomed between 8am and 4pm
Phone: 011-52 33-3615-0192
Email: eog@tequilaarette.com
Casa Noble
Av. Vallarta 6503 Local C-2, Int. 4 Plaza Concentro,
Zapopan, Jalisco
011-52 33-1404-4014
dyan@casanoble.com
Tapatio
Tours Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday at 10am or noon.
011-52 348-783-1666
tequilatapatio@hotmail.com
(Directions and address provided when tour booked.)
Centinela
Tours by appointment
Rancho el Centinela
Arandas, Jalisco
011-52 348-783-1192
ccenteno@hotelcentinelagrand.com
HOTEL IN GUADALAJARA
Quinta Real
Av México 2727, Vallarta Norte,
Guadalajara, Jalisco
011-52 33-3669-0600
www.quintareal.com/switchlang/en
HOTEL IN TEQUILA
Los Abolengos
Calle Mexico 138, Zona Centro CP46400
Tequila, Jalisco
011-52 374-742-4242
HOTELS IN ARANDAS
Hotel Centinela Grand
Obregon No.48, Arandas, Jalisco
011-52 348-783-1192
hotelcentinelagrand.com
Hotel Santa Barbara
Prolongación Fco. Medina Ascencio #553
Arandas, Jalisco
011-52 348 78-337-37
-end-
American Way: Ultimate Tequila Tour with Julio Bermejo
Julio Bermejo signs a barrel at Arette distillery in Tequila in August, 2013. All photos by Michael Shapiro
In 2004 in Las Vegas I went to a tequila tasting and met Julio Bermejo. A world of spirit opened up to me – not only did I learn how good tequila can be, I was captivated by Julio’s effusive energy and got to know him at Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant in SF. In August, Julio and I traveled to Jalisco after I got an assignment to write a feature for American Way, the magazine of American Airlines.
The story appeared December 2013 in American Way. It’s no longer on AW’s site, but you can read it below.
Read to the end for the sidebar on Julio.
—
Story and photos by Michael Shapiro
“Follow me into the cave,” says Guillermo Sauza, the fifth generation in his family to make Mexico’s sacred spirit. A wide, heavy wooden door creaks open and we go from bright Jalisco sunshine into the near pitch-blackness of a serpentine passageway.
Slowly my eyes adjust to the dim light as we walk gingerly underground. I leap back when I see a skull-topped slumping effigy.
“Watch out for the Cuervo drinker,” Guillermo says. “He’s dead.”
Though the Sauza family sold their brand decades ago – it’s now owned by Jim Beam – the generations-old rivalry between Mexico’s two leading tequila families remains alive.
In 2002, Guillermo got a distillery going on this patch of land in the town of Tequila, about an hour’s drive west of Guadalajara. He now makes an ultra-premium tequila, called Fortaleza, the way his tatarabuelo (great-great-grandfather) did, by crushing agave with a tahona – a wheel-like stone that weighs more than a ton – and distilling it in copper pot stills.
The Fortaleza distillery doesn’t have scheduled tours, but it’s one of many tequila makers in the eminently walkable pueblo of Tequila that welcomes visitors by appointment.
Over the course of two whirlwind days in Tequila and one in the highlands town of Arandas, I visit eight distilleries with Julio Bermejo, beverage manager of Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant in San Francisco and a longtime evangelist for fine tequila (see related story).
At Fortaleza, we – Julio, his wife Lily, Guillermo, his golden retriever Sandy, and I – emerge from the dimly lighted corridor into the caves’ largest “room” where bottles of tequila sit atop a pedestal of golden light.
Guillermo Sauza at his Fortaleza distillery in the town of Tequila in August, 2013.
Guillermo, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and wide-brimmed straw hat, tells us he didn’t plan to base his business on tequila made from stone-crushed agave. But he made a batch and everyone said, “Wow, this is so good,” so the company decided to use the tahona.
The process starts with harvesting the football-shaped agave heads – the root of the plant that can be 2 feet long and weigh 50 to 200 pounds. The spiky leaves are hacked off with a long-handled blade called a coa. Then the heads, called piñas because they look like enormous pineapples, are roasted under pressure in brick ovens.
As the agave cooks, steam fills the air. The smell evokes Thanksgiving: molasses, brown sugar and sweet potatoes with a hint of pumpkin pie. The agave fibers are removed, then the liquid, called mosto, is fermented pot-bellied stills. “It’s like going back in time,” says Julio.
Tilting his glass, Guillermo adds: “When you see me at a party with a glass three-quarters full, it’s not Chardonnay.”
We sample three varieties – the blanco (unaged) is clean and crisp, the reposado has a rich caramel flavor, and the ultra-smooth añejo lingers with a full-bodied aftertaste.
Now that he’s achieved success with Fortaleza, I ask if Guillermo if he regrets that his family sold Sauza. “My heart is here in Mexico – I thought I’d be running Sauza,” says Guillermo as he sips.
“Unfortunately my father sold (Sauza) in 1976 – I was 20 … but I’m fortunate to walk in the footsteps of my ancestors,” he says. “It’s a battle: agave shortages, broken bottles, but it’s a labor of love. There’s a lot of competition in this business. But I thank God every day that I get to do what I’m doing.”
* * *
Across the street is the boutique distillery Arette. Eduardo Orendain, the earnest 21-year-old son of the owner and the fifth generation to work in his family’s business, grew up with tequila.
We talk in the concrete patio where the piñas are unloaded and cut open, surrounded by autoclaves (modern pressurized ovens) where they’re roasted, and greased black gears that power the fiber-removing shredders.
“I love tequila,” Eduardo says. “Since I was little I rode horseback in the agave fields, but my family put me to work – I had to clean the bottles.”
Julio notes that Arette’s tequila embodies the region’s terroir: “pungent, herbaceous, green notes with an earthy vegetal flavor,” he says. “Arette is all of that with a nice body and a strong finish.”
We go Arette’s barrel room and absorb the warm welcoming scent of tequila dancing with oak.
“It smells so good in here, but you know who’s reaping the benefit?” Julio says. “The angels!” Liquor that evaporates during aging is called “the angels’ share” and Julio says 8 to 10 percent of tequila is lost during each year – compared to about 2 percent for cognac. “I’m not sure how much the angels like cognac,” he says, “but I’m sure they love tequila!”
After visiting these boutique distilleries, Julio and I go to see how the big boys work. At the expansive Cuervo compound, with lush gardens, fountains and modern art on the grounds, Sonia Espinola tells us that “it’s don Juan’s vision to make Tequila a destination.”
Cuervo is now run by Don Juan’s son, Juan-Domingo Beckmann, the sixth-generation leader of the company. “He sees Tequila as a place with a legend, a story, everything,” Sonia says. And he’s not the only one. Mexico deemed the town a Pueblo Magico in 2003 and Tequila became a World Heritage Site in 2006.
Many visitors arrive on the Jose Cuervo Express, a train that leaves Guadalajara weekend mornings at 11 a.m. It features views of the agave-spiked landscape and the looming Volcan de Tequila, and all the tequila you care to drink.
Passengers have about four hours to tour the distillery and have lunch, then most depart at 5:30 to return to Guadalajara. But with programs such as the Ruta del Tequila, a route of sights in the town and beyond, Cuervo hopes to encourage visitors to stay a night or two.
And why not? With so much to do – tequila tasting, visiting storied bars, horseback riding, and walking the time-worn cobblestone streets to hear impromptu guitar performances – it’s worth lingering.
We start lunch at Cuervo with delicious guacamole and wash it down with a margarita blended with roasted agave (which gives the drink a textured mouthfeel), stirred with an agave stalk. Bartender Hugo Sanchez gyrates from side to side as he shakes the drink. “If he doesn’t dance,” Sonia says, “it doesn’t work.”
The VIP tour culminates with the filling of our own bottle of Cuervo’s finest tequila, its Reserva de la Familia. Sonia hands me a bottle, and I fill it from an old oak barrel. I pop in the cork, invert the bottle and dip it in molten red sealing wax, then stamp it with Cuervo’s insignia.
On the way out, I spot Hugo the bartender. He asks if we want to see something special and leads us down to a cellar with huge, dusty, antique, pear-shaped bottles. In an oak barrel is Cuervo’s Reserva.
He pulls a big cork out of the top, dips in a long narrow ladle called a ladron (thief), and pours me a glass of amber perfection. We’re late for the train back to Guadalajara, but I can’t bear to leave before finishing this work of art in a glass.
* * *
The next morning we start at another tequila giant, Sauza. The three-hour tour includes a visit to the fields, about a 10-minute drive in the Sauza trolley, where you can wield a coa and cut the succulent, thick, blue-green spikes from agave heads. It’s hard work – I can’t imagine how the jimadores cut 200 heads a day.
For the tour of Sauza’s compound, called La Perseverancia, we don hard hats and start with a taste of Casa Sauza X.A., a limited edition five-year-old tequila. Until this moment, I’d thought that Sauza just made cheap tequila. When I taste the X.A., I realize Sauza can make tequila that’s resplendent, an amber symphony of jasmine, hibiscus and almond notes with a coda of chocolate.
It’s still Monday morning. “That’s the way we start the week here at La Perseverancia!” says our tour guide Karina Sanchez.
Covering one wall is a huge mural evoking the history of tequila, starting with lightning striking an agave plant and ending with an image of Venus-like maidens who represent the four states of drinking tequila: happiness, sadness, lust and lack of inhibition.
At Sauza’s bar, mixologist Charly Garcia creates a cocktail with strawberry, kiwi and pomegranate liqueur. As we sip, Victor Martinez of Sauza’s Heritage Center tells me that Sauza has launched a food-pairing initiative. “Here in Mexico we mix culture, food and alcohol, even the wife,” he says. I vow to return for lunch soon.
Driving out of Tequila we pass endless fields of azure agave plants stretching for the heavens as fingers of fog reach down the slopes of the looming Volcan de Tequila.
“Grape fields are all over the world, but agave grows only here,” Julio remarks. “It gives you a sense of place. When you see agave fields, you know where you are – it reminds you everything comes from the land.”
Tequila barrels on a burro at Herradura hacienda.
We drive 15 minutes to Amatitán and the storied Herradura hacienda, a family distillery for seven generations until sold to spirits conglomerate Brown-Forman in 2007. Herradura means horseshoe and hitching posts remain in front of the hacienda’s gates.
Our guide, Angel del Gado, tells us fine tequila is made by cutting the spikes completely down to the agave head and by using very ripe agave for high sugar content.
As we tour the hacienda, we’re joined by Pedro, clad in traditional white shirt and pants with a red sash, and a barrel-laden burro called Cuko. One cask has Herradura’s El Jimador brand, which we sip from a handmade clay cup.
Nearby, in the hills above Tequila, is Casa Noble, which has made a name for itself with triple-distilled premium tequila that’s organic and kosher. Aged in French white oak barrels, Casa Noble is made at the Cofradia compound, which includes lavishly decorated hotel rooms and a restaurant called La Taberna serving everything from fishbowl drinks to locally-sourced lunches.
David Yan in Casa Noble’s “time machine” in August, 2013.
Casa Noble uses atmospheric fermentation, which means its tanks are open to wild yeast in the air. The best way to evaluate tequila is straight from the tank, says our guide, David Yan. “You can’t imagine what tequila really tastes like until you’ve tasted it straight from the still.”
Guitarist Carlos Santana, who was born about 50 miles from here, recently became a part owner of Casa Noble and his image now adorns a line of its bottles, with profits going to Santana’s Milagro Foundation.
As we sit down to taste, David notes that taking a shot isn’t the way to enjoy tequila. “It’s like drinking boiling coffee and getting scalded,” he says. The right way is to sip it, slowly. “It’s not one quick bang – how about the cuddling and kissing – that’s what makes it more enjoyable.”
David shows us Casa Noble’s “time machine,” a collection of hand-labeled bottles from various barrels. “This is seven years of history,” David says. Making fine tequila “doesn’t happen by chance, it happens by studying your past.” Gesturing to the wall of bottles, he adds: “This is like a family album of how a barrel looked and smelled and tasted.”
Returning to town, we stop in to see don Javier Delgado, an 89-year-old bartender, at La Capilla, which means “the chapel.” That seems fitting as the room honors Tequila’s spirit, with bottles from local distilleries and soccer trophies adorning the walls.
Don Javier, on the eve of his 90th birthday, has been pouring tequila in the town of Tequila since he was a teenager.
Wearing a white, button-down shirt, silver-haired don Javier makes his classic drink, the batanga (blanco tequila, Mexican Coke, lime and a stir with his favorite knife, the one he uses to slice chilis for hot sauce). He tells us he’s been pouring tequila for 76 years.
I ask what he’s most proud of in his life. “Pride, no,” he says in Spanish. “What makes me most grateful is everyone who has come and shared hospitality with me. I don’t want you to feel like you are in our house – I want you to feel like you are in your house.”
* * *
The town of Tequila isn’t the only region where Mexico’s national spirit is distilled. Some of the best producers are in the highlands (elevation over 6,000 feet), two hours drive east of Guadalajara, so we travel to Arandas to visit Centinela and Tapatio.
Though Centinela makes more than a million cases a year, the distillery still uses traditional stone ovens to roast agave. As we tour, Julio notices that Centinela’s Classico Blanco, widely available in Mexico for under $15 a bottle, is being fermented with bagazo (agave fibers).
“It doesn’t make sense to make a cheaper tequila with this expensive process, but we do it for the taste,” says our tour guide Jesenia Aracely Davida Jimenez, noting that Centinela means “sentinel.” The company’s chemist Ramiro Morales Galindo adds: “Fermenting with fiber is not new, but few do it and we’re bringing it back.”
Banda musicians play at Carnitas Jamie’s, the liveliest restaurant in Arandas.
After lunch with a side of banda music at Arandas’ best restaurant, Carnitas Jaime’s, we visit Tequila Tapatio. Carlos Camarena, Tapatio’s director, welcomes us and shows us the company’s new bottling line, but he’s most proud of adhering to generations of tradition. A tahona (grinding stone) is used to mash the agave for Tapatio’s premium brand, El Tesoro de Don Felipe.
The process is “old and inefficient,” Carlos says, “but this is the way my father and grandfather did it.”
Also touring that day is Tom Wright, a Los Angeles-based actor who appeared in several Seinfeld episodes in the mid-’90s. We sip divine tequila from the cut tips of bull’s horns, which is how Mexican cowboys once drank it and is the origin of the modern tequila glass.
“When we used to drink tequila,” Tom says, “we asked, ‘where’s the worm?’ It’s amazing how far we’ve come in 25 years.”
We go down to Tapatio’s fragrant barrel room, with rows of casks 20 feet high. Carlos jokes that it would be the ideal bomb shelter: “In case of nuclear war we have our bunker ready, and plenty of tequila. Just bring the appetizers!”
Seagram’s approached the Camarena family and “offered way more than the company was worth,” Carlos says in English, “but you know what, we didn’t accept. One reason is that we don’t want our kids to have plenty of money and nothing to do – it would destroy them.”
Perhaps the most important reason is Carlos’ deep appreciation for the company’s legacy. “To build a reputation takes lots of years – we have 76 years of tradition of making a good quality product. That could be destroyed in a minute,” he says. “We have a decent living. That’s all we need.”
—
Michael Shapiro, author of A Sense of Place, last wrote for American Way about the narrow-gauge trains of Wales: www.michaelshapiro.net
—
SIDEBAR:
THE AMBASSADOR OF TEQUILA
Growing up the son of Mexican immigrants in San Francisco, Julio Bermejo worked at his family’s Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant. “I cut tomatoes, shredded lettuce, grated millions of pounds of cheese,” he said. Restaurant work is “the last form of legalized slavery. You better be in love with it if you want to succeed.”
As a young man Julio was embarrassed by the work – until he discovered pure agave tequila. Tending bar at Tommy’s, he began making margaritas with Herradura 100-percent-agave tequila.
“My father went ballistic,” Julio said. Compared to cheap mixed tequilas, “it was four times as expensive! But people could taste the difference.”
In the late ’80s, Julio tried Patron and El Tesoro. “That blew me away,” he said, and propelled him on a pilgrimage to Jalisco, the Mexican state where most tequila comes from.
“I knew Patron and El Tesoro were different but didn’t know why or how,” he said. El Tesoro’s don Felipe Camarena and his son Carlos welcomed Julio with open arms and showed him how fine tequila is made. Julio didn’t just fall in love with tequila on that trip; he became smitten with Carlos’ sister, Liliana.
Lily and Julio Bermejo with Lily’s brother, Carlos Camarena, left, director of Tapatio distillery in Arandas.
“It’s took me 13 years to get a date with Lily,” Julio said. Carlos shot back: “That’s because every time you visited you brought a girlfriend!” Julio and Lily were married in 2006. “I lost every battle,” Julio said, “but I won the war.”
Returning to San Francisco, Julio founded the Blue Agave Club at Tommy’s to encourage customers to try various 100-percent-agave tequilas. The first incentive: taste a number of different tequilas and get a T-shirt; that evolved to a framed diploma.
But people wanted more. So Julio launched a card for graduates. Fill it and score 80 percent or better on a notoriously difficult test about tequila, and you can become a “Demigod” and travel to Mexico on one of Julio’s tasting tours. The club now has more than 8,000 members, not all active, he says.
It’s not just marketing skill that makes Tommy’s a destination for tequila lovers – it’s Julio and his family’s warmth and graciousness. Now beverage manager at Tommy’s, Julio welcomes most returning customers by name, asks about their families and seems to know what kind of tequila they like – and what other tequilas they should try.
Because Julio has shared his passion for fine tequila with so many people and has become so knowledgable about the spirit, the Mexican tequila promotion authority CNIT gave him the title, Ambassador of Tequila to the United States.
Director Mel Lawrence was so taken with Julio and his love for tequila that he’s making a documentary about him. It’s called, of course, The Ambassador of Tequila.
What’s next for Julio and Lily? They’re building their own small distillery in Jesus Maria near Arandas and hope to open and welcome visitors next year.
Tommy’s Mexican Restaurant, 5929 Geary Blvd., San Francisco, Calif., (415) 387-4747, www.tommystequila.com.
—
A TEQUILA PRIMER
What’s tequila?
A spirit made from blue agave harvested in one of five Mexican states. Most tequila comes from Jalisco, the state that has the namesake town of Tequila.
What are the primary types of tequila?
Blanco is clear, straight from the still and unaged. Reposado is aged in oak from two months to a year, and añejo is aged one to three years. A relatively recent category is extra añejo, which is aged for more than three years.
Is all tequila made just from agave?
No, just the finer ones. The spirit must have at least 51 percent agave to be called tequila, but premium tequilas are 100 percent blue agave.
Does tequila have a worm in the bottle?
No, that’s mezcal.
—
IF YOU GO
Regular tours are held at Sauza and Cuervo. Smaller producers will show you around by appointment – it’s best to book a week or more in advance.
Mundo Cuervo
Tours seven days a week, 10am-5pm, until 6pm on Saturday
Jose Cuervo No. 73, Col Centro
Tequila, Jalisco, Mexico
tours@cuervo.com.mx
en.mundocuervo.com
Jose Cuervo Express tequila train:
en.josecuervoexpress.com
Casa Sauza
Tours M-F, 9:30am to 4pm, Saturday until 12:30pm
Francisco Javier Sauza #80 Col. Centro
Tequila Jalisco
tourstequilasauza@beamglobal.com
www.casasauza.com/en-US/distillery-tour
866.510.2250 (US toll-free)
Herradura and its Tequila Express train
The train runs on weekends: www.herradura.com
To visit other times, fill out the form at:
www.herradura.com/contact-us.aspx
TOURS BY APPOINTMENT
Fortaleza
Contact the Sauza family’s Museo Los Abuelos
Vicente Albino Rojas, No. 22
On the central plaza in Tequila, Jalisco
011-52 374-742-0247
Open daily: 10am – 4pm
Info@LosAbuelos.com
museolosabuelos.com
(Note: Fortaleza asks not to list its address because they don’t want visitors appearing on their doorstep.)
Arette
Silverio Nuñez #100, Tequila, Jalisco
Advance notice preferred, visits welcomed between 8am and 4pm
Phone: 011-52 33-3615-0192
Email: eog@tequilaarette.com
Casa Noble
Av. Vallarta 6503 Local C-2, Int. 4 Plaza Concentro,
Zapopan, Jalisco
011-52 33-1404-4014
dyan@casanoble.com
Tapatio
Tours Tuesday, Thursday & Saturday at 10am or noon.
011-52 348-783-1666
tequilatapatio@hotmail.com
(Directions and address provided when tour booked.)
Centinela
Tours by appointment
Rancho el Centinela
Arandas, Jalisco
011-52 348-783-1192
ccenteno@hotelcentinelagrand.com
HOTEL IN GUADALAJARA
Quinta Real
Av México 2727, Vallarta Norte,
Guadalajara, Jalisco
011-52 33-3669-0600
www.quintareal.com/switchlang/en
HOTEL IN TEQUILA
Los Abolengos
Calle Mexico 138, Zona Centro CP46400
Tequila, Jalisco
011-52 374-742-4242
HOTELS IN ARANDAS
Hotel Centinela Grand
Obregon No.48, Arandas, Jalisco
011-52 348-783-1192
hotelcentinelagrand.com
Hotel Santa Barbara
Prolongación Fco. Medina Ascencio #553
Arandas, Jalisco
011-52 348 78-337-37
-end-
November 11, 2015
Kayaking to see bears at Alaska’s Pack Creek, Alaska magazine, Aug. 2015
There are a number of places in Alaska where you can see bears, but when I heard that Admiralty Island near Juneau has a protected bear reserve and that the best way to get there is by paddling a kayak for a couple of days, I couldn’t resist. The irony: it took us three days of paddling and while we were there a crew from the Today Show flew in on a float plane to shoot footage for the following morning’s broadcast.
You can see the story online here, and see a photo of Jacqueline Yau paddling, or read the text below:
By Michael Shapiro
“Don’t run,” I tell myself as a pair of young grizzlies leap out of the forest and scamper down the beach toward us. Then I say it out loud to my wife: “Don’t run!”
Two young bears at Pack Creek on Admiralty Island. Photo by Jacqueline Yau.
We had just beached our kayaks on Admiralty Island, part of Tongass National Forest near Juneau. Our guide, Ed Shanley from Above & Beyond Alaska, had us check every pocket to make sure we weren’t carrying any food that might attract bears. Yet the grizzlies seem to be running through the drizzly afternoon straight at us.
We freeze. The Admiralty Island National Monument ranger accompanying us, Carl Koch, a former paramedic from New Jersey, says the two bears are three-and-a-half years old and that this is their first summer on their own.
Never run, Koch had said in his briefing. “Even if they are not going to hurt you they would love to chase you. It’s instinct.” Koch carries a .338 rifle but assures us he’s never had to use it.
It’s early July, the bears have been awake for a couple of months, and the salmon are running late this year, so there haven’t been many fish in Pack Creek. The bears get closer. Suddenly they’re within 20 yards of us. Jackie follows them with her camera; I implore my feet to stay planted in the sand. Then with a deft motion the bears veer left around us and shoot back into the spruce forest; they’re gone.
We exhale and share the exultation of seeing bears in their natural habitat. We’ve paddled three days to see them on their own terms, carrying all our gear, camping in the rain, becoming part of the surrounding environment. But nothing can prepare you for such a close encounter.
***
Our five-day trip begins on an overcast Sunday evening when we meet Shanley in Juneau, get outfitted with Wellington boots and raingear, and drive across a bridge to Douglas Island. We board a motorboat and chug through the Gastineau Channel to Oliver Inlet.
That’s where we unload our kayaks and put them on a manual tram atop rails, then begin pushing the rig about three quarters of a mile to our home for the night: Seymour Cabin. Two bald eagles in a towering spruce across the bay stand over us; we sip Alaskan Pale Ales as dusk envelops the forest at about 10 p.m. The spartan cabin has a wood stove and bunk beds, utter luxury compared to what awaits us in Alaska’s wilderness.
Jacqueline Yau paddles her Kayak off Admiralty Island near Juneau, Alaska.
The paddling begins the next day but not until we portage our heavily laden kayaks about a mile through the shallow water of Seymour Canal until we reach open water. We’re entranced by the caw of the ravens, the laughter of the loons. At King Salmon Bar, dozens of seals perch on a rocky shelf, then slide into the water where they feel safer, curiously surfacing to peer at us with big aqueous eyes.
On a beach we lunch on smoked salmon, admiring snowcapped peaks – in July! – and catch sight of a humpback whale spouting in the distance. After an afternoon of paddling alongside orange and blue jellyfish, the halibut tacos for dinner complete a perfect first day.
A relentless downpour hits us the next day. Paddling into battering headwinds is futile; we’re barely making progress. So Ed, an easygoing guy, leads us to shore. In the forest, he erects a tarp to shelter us and heats some water for hot chocolate.
I pull out a bottle of Knob Creek bourbon and pass it to my wife. A virtual teetotaler, she declines, but I say, just try one sip. She lifts the bottle to her lips smiles as she’s warmed from the inside out, takes another swig then pours a generous shot into her hot chocolate.
***
Day three is the big day: we paddle from our camp on Swan Island to Admiralty Island National Monument, a 955,000-acre preserve on the east side of Admiralty, where bears are protected from hunting. The island has 1,500 to 1,800 coastal brown bears (grizzlies) on its 1,646 square miles, one of the highest ursine concentrations in the world.
The Pack Creek Bear Viewing Area has been established to protect both bears and people. When we get out of our kayaks we have to line our craft at least 50 yards out to sea to keep our food from the bears. It’s not just to protect us – no one wants the bears to get a taste for human food.
After the heart-racing encounter with the two juvenile bears, Jackie and I hike to a viewing area, passing paw prints as long as our feet and twice as wide.
Through Swarovski spotting scopes provided by the park, we watch as a bear with a pair of cubs catches a salmon after a long pursuit. The cubs had squealed with fear when their mama went into deeper waters and they couldn’t follow, but when she emerged with a fish they bounded with excitement.
Another bear, with silver-tipped ears and walking with a limp, trots out of the forest and heads toward the creek. She had broken her femur several years before; the rangers thought she’d die. But she emerged the next spring with a cub, showing how resilient bears can be. She lumbers over to the creek, takes one swipe with her enormous paw and emerges with a writhing salmon. Eagles circle overhead, ready to collect the scraps.
“The fact that you can just watch bears being bears, that’s what I love about this,” says Ken Leghorn, who guides day-trippers to Pack Creek via floatplane. Leghorn tells us that “generations of brown bears have become habituated to seeing, but not fearing, human presence at Pack Creek,” ever since a homesteader named Stan Price cared for an orphaned bear in the 1950s.
Those who arrive aboard floatplanes have to leave by 7 p.m. But since we came in kayaks we can stay a bit longer, and we see a large adult bear chasing the two juveniles we saw when we first got to the island. Their speed is astonishing.
By the end of our day at Pack Creek we’ve become as comfortable among the bears as they are among us. We don’t want to leave, but camping overnight is not an option. We reel in our kayaks and paddle away, leaving the island to the bears.
—
Outfitters
For multiday kayak trips: Above & Beyond Alaska: beyondak.com
For day trips via float plane: Pack Creek Bear Tours: www.packcreekbeartours.com
Kayaking to see bears at Alaska’s Pack Creek, Alaska magazine
There are a number of places in Alaska where you can see bears, but when I heard that Admiralty Island near Juneau has a protected bear reserve and that the best way to get there is by paddling a kayak for a couple of days, I couldn’t resist. The irony: it took us three days of paddling and while we were there a crew from the Today Show flew in on a float plane to shoot footage for the following morning’s broadcast.
You can see the story online here, and see a photo of Jacqueline Yau paddling, or read the text below:
By Michael Shapiro
“Don’t run,” I tell myself as a pair of young grizzlies leap out of the forest and scamper down the beach toward us. Then I say it out loud to my wife: “Don’t run!”
Two young bears at Pack Creek on Admiralty Island. Photo by Jacqueline Yau.
We had just beached our kayaks on Admiralty Island, part of Tongass National Forest near Juneau. Our guide, Ed Shanley from Above & Beyond Alaska, had us check every pocket to make sure we weren’t carrying any food that might attract bears. Yet the grizzlies seem to be running through the drizzly afternoon straight at us.
We freeze. The Admiralty Island National Monument ranger accompanying us, Carl Koch, a former paramedic from New Jersey, says the two bears are three-and-a-half years old and that this is their first summer on their own.
Never run, Koch had said in his briefing. “Even if they are not going to hurt you they would love to chase you. It’s instinct.” Koch carries a .338 rifle but assures us he’s never had to use it.
It’s early July, the bears have been awake for a couple of months, and the salmon are running late this year, so there haven’t been many fish in Pack Creek. The bears get closer. Suddenly they’re within 20 yards of us. Jackie follows them with her camera; I implore my feet to stay planted in the sand. Then with a deft motion the bears veer left around us and shoot back into the spruce forest; they’re gone.
We exhale and share the exultation of seeing bears in their natural habitat. We’ve paddled three days to see them on their own terms, carrying all our gear, camping in the rain, becoming part of the surrounding environment. But nothing can prepare you for such a close encounter.
***
Our five-day trip begins on an overcast Sunday evening when we meet Shanley in Juneau, get outfitted with Wellington boots and raingear, and drive across a bridge to Douglas Island. We board a motorboat and chug through the Gastineau Channel to Oliver Inlet.
That’s where we unload our kayaks and put them on a manual tram atop rails, then begin pushing the rig about three quarters of a mile to our home for the night: Seymour Cabin. Two bald eagles in a towering spruce across the bay stand over us; we sip Alaskan Pale Ales as dusk envelops the forest at about 10 p.m. The spartan cabin has a wood stove and bunk beds, utter luxury compared to what awaits us in Alaska’s wilderness.
Jacqueline Yau paddles her Kayak off Admiralty Island near Juneau, Alaska.
The paddling begins the next day but not until we portage our heavily laden kayaks about a mile through the shallow water of Seymour Canal until we reach open water. We’re entranced by the caw of the ravens, the laughter of the loons. At King Salmon Bar, dozens of seals perch on a rocky shelf, then slide into the water where they feel safer, curiously surfacing to peer at us with big aqueous eyes.
On a beach we lunch on smoked salmon, admiring snowcapped peaks – in July! – and catch sight of a humpback whale spouting in the distance. After an afternoon of paddling alongside orange and blue jellyfish, the halibut tacos for dinner complete a perfect first day.
A relentless downpour hits us the next day. Paddling into battering headwinds is futile; we’re barely making progress. So Ed, an easygoing guy, leads us to shore. In the forest, he erects a tarp to shelter us and heats some water for hot chocolate.
I pull out a bottle of Knob Creek bourbon and pass it to my wife. A virtual teetotaler, she declines, but I say, just try one sip. She lifts the bottle to her lips smiles as she’s warmed from the inside out, takes another swig then pours a generous shot into her hot chocolate.
***
Day three is the big day: we paddle from our camp on Swan Island to Admiralty Island National Monument, a 955,000-acre preserve on the east side of Admiralty, where bears are protected from hunting. The island has 1,500 to 1,800 coastal brown bears (grizzlies) on its 1,646 square miles, one of the highest ursine concentrations in the world.
The Pack Creek Bear Viewing Area has been established to protect both bears and people. When we get out of our kayaks we have to line our craft at least 50 yards out to sea to keep our food from the bears. It’s not just to protect us – no one wants the bears to get a taste for human food.
After the heart-racing encounter with the two juvenile bears, Jackie and I hike to a viewing area, passing paw prints as long as our feet and twice as wide.
Through Swarovski spotting scopes provided by the park, we watch as a bear with a pair of cubs catches a salmon after a long pursuit. The cubs had squealed with fear when their mama went into deeper waters and they couldn’t follow, but when she emerged with a fish they bounded with excitement.
Another bear, with silver-tipped ears and walking with a limp, trots out of the forest and heads toward the creek. She had broken her femur several years before; the rangers thought she’d die. But she emerged the next spring with a cub, showing how resilient bears can be. She lumbers over to the creek, takes one swipe with her enormous paw and emerges with a writhing salmon. Eagles circle overhead, ready to collect the scraps.
“The fact that you can just watch bears being bears, that’s what I love about this,” says Ken Leghorn, who guides day-trippers to Pack Creek via floatplane. Leghorn tells us that “generations of brown bears have become habituated to seeing, but not fearing, human presence at Pack Creek,” ever since a homesteader named Stan Price cared for an orphaned bear in the 1950s.
Those who arrive aboard floatplanes have to leave by 7 p.m. But since we came in kayaks we can stay a bit longer, and we see a large adult bear chasing the two juveniles we saw when we first got to the island. Their speed is astonishing.
By the end of our day at Pack Creek we’ve become as comfortable among the bears as they are among us. We don’t want to leave, but camping overnight is not an option. We reel in our kayaks and paddle away, leaving the island to the bears.
—
Outfitters
For multiday kayak trips: Above & Beyond Alaska: beyondak.com
For day trips via float plane: Pack Creek Bear Tours: www.packcreekbeartours.com
Winged Wonders: Great migrations of sandhill cranes, Horizons, March 2014
One of the most remarkable migrations on our planet is the journey of the sandhill cranes. Some fly all the way from Siberia to Texas. And they’re remarkable for all sorts of other reasons. This is one of the stories I most enjoyed writing, in Alaska Airlines’ Horizon magazine. Click here to read the story online — highly recommend as you can see Lon Yarbrough’s gorgeous crane photos — or see the text below:
When we hear his call we hear no mere bird. We hear the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution. He is the symbol of our untamable past.
– Aldo Leopold writing about cranes in “A Sand County Almanac”
By Michael Shapiro
We hear them before we see them: the rolling-R trilling sounds from a mile away. Then they fly into view, long necks straight out, broad gray wings stretching almost as wide as the horizon, crimson-crowned heads like points of fire in the gathering dusk. After a day out feeding, the Sandhill cranes are returning to roost in a flooded field near Lodi in California’s Central Valley, about 35 miles south of Sacramento, exuberantly calling to their mates and to their young.
Michael Shapiro’s story in Alaska’s Horizon magazine with photo by Lon Yarbrough.
Unlike geese, cranes don’t typically fly in big flocks, they stick to family groups and descend three or five at a time from the darkening sky. With a wingspan of more than 6 feet, the greater Sandhill crane is one of the world’s largest flying birds.
During Lodi’s annual crane festival in early November, I join a group of about 30 people on a birdwatching tour to observe these elegant behemoths coast toward the shallow water, meeting their reflections as they land.
Accompanied by squawking migratory geese, who seem like bodyguards or groupies, the cranes seek wetland areas where they can spend the night in 4 to 6 inches of water. They can’t roost in trees or in the ever-spreading vineyards of the Central Valley – their wingspan is too wide. So cranes seek the protection of water, where the slosh of an approaching coyote or other predator will create an aquatic alarm, giving the birds time to flee.
Like many people in California and the West, I’d heard about cranes but hadn’t seen them up close. After I learned about the Lodi Crane Festival, I signed up for a couple of tours, led by knowledgable naturalists and interpretive guides, to discover more about these majestic birds.
And there are many other events celebrating cranes, such as the Othello Sand Hill Crane Festival in central Washington state, to be held March 28-30, 2014 (see related story).
When Aldo Leopold wrote about Sandhill and whooping cranes in his 1937 classic “A Sand County Almanac,” these magnificent birds were on the decline; some populations appeared destined for extinction.
Cranes suffered from habitat loss, powerline electrocution, poisoning and human predation – hunters called the greater Sandhill cranes, which stand 4 to 5 feet tall and weigh 10-14 pounds, “flying rib-eye.” Only five breeding pairs of Sandhill cranes remained in California.
Three quarters of a century later, with an assist from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, crane populations have rebounded dramatically, though habitat loss and hunting continue to imperil these graceful birds. Hunting is still legal in 13 states, including Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Alaska.
“The hunting is a real problem for the smaller populations of greater sandhill cranes. They can be heavily hunted and this does real damage,” says Gary Ivey, a Bend, Oregon-based research associate for the International Crane Foundation. “It’s a little sketchy because cranes don’t raise a lot of young. It takes a long time for populations to grow.”
At least 40,000 Sandhill cranes that winter in California, Ivey says. The majority of these birds are lesser cranes (about 30,000), about 9,000 are greaters and approximately 1,000 are the intermediate Canadian subspecies.”
Ivey is with ICF and not retired – he’s not with Fish & Wildlife.
The lesser cranes, at 3 to 4 feet, are almost as tall as the greaters but weigh about half as much (6 to 8 pounds). Though its numbers are rising, the greater Sandhill crane is still listed as threatened in California. The Mississippi Sandhill is a federally listed endangered species, and the Florida and Washington crane is on those states’ Threatened list. And cranes in Cuba are listed as endangered as well.
I’m concerned about too much info in graf above – perhaps we can break out this and related info into a little sidebar so it doesn’t disrupt the flow of the narrative?
* * *
Sandhill cranes spend the winter throughout their ancestral ranges in the western half of the U.S., from Washington to Texas. In March and April, up to 750,000 cranes spend a few weeks feeding in Nebraska before returning to their summer habitats in Canada, Alaska and Siberia.
Some 300,000 or more cranes can be seen at the Audubon Society’s Rowe Sanctuary, just a couple of miles from Highway 80 in south-central Nebraska. Some cranes traverse Oregon and Washington en route to Alaska. Others cranes breed in Montana, Idaho and British Columbia.
Known for their ecstatic mating dances, lifelong pair bonding, and epic migrations, cranes have long been revered by humans. In their dances the cranes jump high, kick, call to one another and tilt their necks skyward in one of nature’s most balletic spectacles. During migrations cranes typically soar about a mile high, but when necessary to fly over mountains, they can travel 15,000 to 20,000 feet above the earth.
In an average migratory day, cranes fly 200 miles but daily distances of 500 miles have been recorded. The longest migrations, from Siberia to Texas or northern Mexico, can span 5,000 miles, and take up to a month, Ivey said. Perhaps because cranes are so large, groups of them aren’t called “flocks” — they’re “herds.” And the young are called “colts.”
Aesop celebrated cranes’ ability “to rise above the clouds into endless space, and survey the wonders of the heavens, as well as of the Earth beneath, with its seas, lakes and rivers, as far as the eyes can reach.”
In his elegiac book The Birds of Heaven, Peter Matthiessen notes that throughout cranes’ ranges, from Asia to Europe to North America, the birds represent “longevity and good fortune, harmony and fidelity.” And some cultures believe cranes, with their heavenly flights, transport the souls of the dead.
Yes, cranes in general, not just sandhills.
* * *
Near the Woodbridge Ecological Reserve near Lodi, California Fish & Wildlife guide Mamie Starr tells tour-goers that farmers, a group that used to try to cull cranes because they eat grain, are now working with preservation groups. “We have lots of cooperation from farmers,” she says, noting that winters are typically fallow times for grain growers so some are willing to flood their fields to support cranes.
Cranes have been coming here for thousands of years, says Kathy Kellogg, a volunteer co-leading the tour and former interpretive aid with California Fish & Game. But the number of acres of wetlands in California has shrunk from 440,000 to 40,000, as walnut orchards and grape vines have proliferated, and housing tracts consume ever more land. Similar issues confront cranes throughout the west.
“This is one of the few places that Sandhill cranes can come,” Kellogg says. “If we don’t cooperate with them, they will have nowhere else to go. They’d be homeless.”
As darkness envelops the reserve, the cranes quiet down, standing erect, as stars appear in the blackening sky. Less than a mile away cars zip by on Highway 5, their drivers unaware of the wild spectacle nearby.
* * *
The next morning I rise well before dawn. Our 12-person tour, held in conjunction with the Lodi festival, meets at Hutchins Street Square in Lodi. An enthusiastic bird watcher gets out of his car, spreads his arms wide and shouts: “It’s crane season!”
During the 10-minute ride to the Woodbridge Ecological Reserve, Paul Tebbel, a volunteer for the preservation group Save Our Sandhill Cranes, says, “Cranes are very tall and conspicuous – if you can’t find the crane, give up bird watching and take up bowling.” He says he’s drawn to cranes because “they are very animated – there is dancing and aggression, … always something going on.”
David Moore, a California Fish & Wildlife interpreter and the other guide on the dawn tour, says that juvenile cranes grow very quickly, gaining up to 10 percent of their body weight in a day.
“They grow at a phenomenal rate. Within 10 months of development they grow almost to full size,” Moore said. “They need to fly (migrate) that first fall.”
The greater cranes we see are from northeast California; their migration is only about 200 to 300 miles. In the 19th century, miners and prospectors, who called cranes “foothill turkeys,” almost wiped them out.
We shiver at a roadside viewpoint by a marshy area as the sky begins to lighten. “There is no colder place than a wetland at dawn,” Tebbel says.
At this early hour, when there’s little background noise, we can hear distinct crane calls, the males louder than the females. The trumpeting of unison calls, when mated pairs sing out together, rolls across the plane. An adult crane’s trachea is coiled and would reach 4 feet long if stretched out, giving the birds the ability to make a deeply resonant vibrating sound that can be heard over great distances.
The crimson patch atop their heads, Tebbel says, is not composed of feathers but is crimson skin. They use this patch to communicate happiness, excitement or anger. “They put their heads down, take aim, and send a message. It’s as if he’s saying ‘All right hon, let’s get em.’ ”
Steam rises from the marsh as the sun emerges and the cranes wake up. “It’s loudest just before sunrise,” Tebbel says. Ducks and geese take off before the cranes, who “like to sleep in.”
A few cranes start hopping around, the juveniles especially energetic, almost like junior high school kids practicing their steps before their first dance. Cranes dance for all sorts of reasons, especially as a prelude to mating in late spring or early summer. They hop, bend, strut and pirouette, and flush their scarlet head patches.
“Sandhill cranes love to dance with their mates or with others,” Tebbel says. “They don’t need much of an excuse. They just love dancing.”
Moore adds: “Some say they dance out of sheer joy.”
* * *
When one member of a crane family is ready for liftoff, she stretches her neck in the direction she wants to fly. Soon the other members of the family lean so far in the same direction that they’re almost parallel to the ground. Then, with a signal we can’t detect, they take off.
This can be done by males or females – hard to tell the difference from a distance. Then juveniles follow their lead. Male or female can be the first to start signaling – I chose to say “she” because “he or she” sounded too wordy.
A half hour after sunrise, it’s mostly silent. “When we first came (to Woodbridge Road at dawn), it gave me goosebumps to hear them,” said Lynn Schweissinger, a guest on tour. “Now it’s like someone turned it off.”
A coyote appears near the cranes, but they don’t seem too disturbed, knowing they can fight it off with their beaks and claws. “The real predators are right here,” Tebbel says, pointing to a PG&E powerline. The utility has hung bird diverters (5-inch disks that sway in wind and glow in the dark) to help cranes see the line. This has reduced crane injuries, but some are injured or killed by colliding with the lines, which they have trouble seeing, Starr said.
Starr said electrocution not the main issue here – it can happen but primarily it’s because cranes fly at high speed into the lines which can injure or kill them. Seems odd to me they don’t see the line – I’ll try to get more info on this.
And below it’s a reference to NY’s Staten Island and its famous ferry – feel free to delete parenthetical phrase if it’s not clear or if it’s distracting.
Later that morning we visit nearby Staten Island (no, we didn’t take the ferry), a 9,200-acre reserve managed by The Nature Conservancy to provide habitat for migratory birds. Thousands of geese fly in, joining hundreds of cranes. Several Sandhill cranes fly right over our heads, giving us a sense of these birds’ grand size.
The tour is over but no one wants to leave. “You guys are now officially craniacs,” Tebbel says.
That afternoon at the crane festival we join hundreds of other craniacs to peruse the paintings and photos for sale, learn how to make origami cranes and hear talks about these birds, which have endured for 10 million years.
A festival highlight is a slideshow by California wildlife photographer Lon Yarbrough. He calls cranes “a gift of nature” and says they “add a chorus to the valley.” To observe and appreciate cranes, Yarbrough says, “all you have to do is show up.”
—
Michael Shapiro is the author of A Sense of Place and writes for National Geographic Traveler, Islands and the Washington Post.
SIDEBAR: SANDHILL CRANE VIEWING LOCATIONS
Alaska
The city of Homer is a good place to see lesser Sandhill cranes from May through August, where about 150 cranes spend the summer. Cranes have become relatively tame around Homer and are easy to approach and photograph. www.cranewatch.org.
The Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival is held in early May: www.homeralaska.org/content/kachemak-...
The Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge in Anchorage provides excellent opportunities to view migrating lesser Sandhill cranes in April through September. This state-owned refuge also supports a few nesting pairs of lessers. www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=vi...
Creamer’s Field near Fairbanks is an important staging area, where the sandhills stop along their migration to rest and feed to replenish energy and gain enough energy reserves for the next leg of the migration, for cranes migrating to and from the Platte River in Nebraska. The best time to visit is April and August. Tanana Valley Crane Festival, late August, www.creamersfield.org/Crane_Fest_2013...
California
The Lodi Sandhill Crane Association hosts the Lodi Sandhill Crane Festival annually in early November and offers tours. www.cranefestival.com.
Sacramento River National Wildlife Refuge (6 miles east-southeast of Ord Bend). Moderate numbers of greater Sandhill cranes (up to 2,000) roost on the Llano Seco Unit of Sacramento River National Wildlife Refuge along 7-Mile Road,, from November through March. The Altacal Chapter of the Audubon Society hosts an annual Snow Goose Festival in late January which also celebrates Sandhill cranes, www.snowgoosefestival.org.
The City of Galt hosts the Galt Winter Bird Festival, annually and provides tours to see cranes in early February. www.ci.galt.ca.us/index.aspx?page=495
Merced National Wildlife Refuge (10 miles SW of Merced). Large numbers of lesser Sandhill cranes (up to 15,000) use this refuge, primarily from October through February. www.fws.gov/refuge/merced/public_even....
For more on crane tours in California, see: www.dfg.ca.gov/regions/3/cranetour
Oregon
Sauvie Island Wildlife Management Area (15 miles NW of Portland). About 4,000 Sandhill cranes stage in this region during spring and fall migration. Best times to view cranes here are October and mid-March through mid-April. There is an observation platform where cranes can often be seen along Reeder Road.
Ranchlands of the Silvies Floodplain near Burns host up to 10,000 lesser Sandhill cranes during spring migration (mid-March through mid-April) and also supports a large population (about 80 pairs) of nesting greater Sandhill cranes. The Harney County Chamber of Commerce annually hosts the John Scharff Migratory Bird Festival in early April and provide tours: www.migratorybirdfestival.com
Scharff site doesn’t list 2014 date yet. If they don’t update soon maybe we could try to reach local chamber of commerce.
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, 32 miles SSE of Burns, hosts about 200 pairs of breeding greater Sandhill cranes. Best times to observe cranes are May and September, while cranes are abundant there from April through mid-October. For tour info, see: www.malheurfriends.org/events.html
Washington
Columbia National Wildlife Refuge near Othello. Up to 20,000 of the lesser Sandhill cranes in the Pacific Flyway stage near Othello from mid-March to mid-April. The annual Othello Sandhill Crane Festival (March 28-30, 2014) offers tours: www.othellosandhillcranefestival.org
Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge near Ridgefield, Washington. About 4,000 Sandhill cranes stage in this region during spring and fall migration. Best times to view cranes here are October and mid-March through mid-April. The Friends of Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge hosts an annual Birdfest and has crane tours: ridgefieldfriends.org/birdfest
Source: Gary Ivey, International Crane Foundation
Winged Wonders: Great migrations of sandhill cranes (Horizons)
One of the most remarkable migrations on our planet is the journey of the sandhill cranes. Some fly all the way from Siberia to Texas. And they’re remarkable for all sorts of other reasons. This is one of the stories I most enjoyed writing, in Alaska Airlines’ Horizon magazine. Click here to read the story online — highly recommend as you can see Lon Yarbrough’s gorgeous crane photos — or see the text below:
When we hear his call we hear no mere bird. We hear the trumpet in the orchestra of evolution. He is the symbol of our untamable past.
– Aldo Leopold writing about cranes in “A Sand County Almanac”
By Michael Shapiro
We hear them before we see them: the rolling-R trilling sounds from a mile away. Then they fly into view, long necks straight out, broad gray wings stretching almost as wide as the horizon, crimson-crowned heads like points of fire in the gathering dusk. After a day out feeding, the Sandhill cranes are returning to roost in a flooded field near Lodi in California’s Central Valley, about 35 miles south of Sacramento, exuberantly calling to their mates and to their young.
Michael Shapiro’s story in Alaska’s Horizon magazine with photo by Lon Yarbrough.
Unlike geese, cranes don’t typically fly in big flocks, they stick to family groups and descend three or five at a time from the darkening sky. With a wingspan of more than 6 feet, the greater Sandhill crane is one of the world’s largest flying birds.
During Lodi’s annual crane festival in early November, I join a group of about 30 people on a birdwatching tour to observe these elegant behemoths coast toward the shallow water, meeting their reflections as they land.
Accompanied by squawking migratory geese, who seem like bodyguards or groupies, the cranes seek wetland areas where they can spend the night in 4 to 6 inches of water. They can’t roost in trees or in the ever-spreading vineyards of the Central Valley – their wingspan is too wide. So cranes seek the protection of water, where the slosh of an approaching coyote or other predator will create an aquatic alarm, giving the birds time to flee.
Like many people in California and the West, I’d heard about cranes but hadn’t seen them up close. After I learned about the Lodi Crane Festival, I signed up for a couple of tours, led by knowledgable naturalists and interpretive guides, to discover more about these majestic birds.
And there are many other events celebrating cranes, such as the Othello Sand Hill Crane Festival in central Washington state, to be held March 28-30, 2014 (see related story).
When Aldo Leopold wrote about Sandhill and whooping cranes in his 1937 classic “A Sand County Almanac,” these magnificent birds were on the decline; some populations appeared destined for extinction.
Cranes suffered from habitat loss, powerline electrocution, poisoning and human predation – hunters called the greater Sandhill cranes, which stand 4 to 5 feet tall and weigh 10-14 pounds, “flying rib-eye.” Only five breeding pairs of Sandhill cranes remained in California.
Three quarters of a century later, with an assist from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, crane populations have rebounded dramatically, though habitat loss and hunting continue to imperil these graceful birds. Hunting is still legal in 13 states, including Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Alaska.
“The hunting is a real problem for the smaller populations of greater sandhill cranes. They can be heavily hunted and this does real damage,” says Gary Ivey, a Bend, Oregon-based research associate for the International Crane Foundation. “It’s a little sketchy because cranes don’t raise a lot of young. It takes a long time for populations to grow.”
At least 40,000 Sandhill cranes that winter in California, Ivey says. The majority of these birds are lesser cranes (about 30,000), about 9,000 are greaters and approximately 1,000 are the intermediate Canadian subspecies.”
Ivey is with ICF and not retired – he’s not with Fish & Wildlife.
The lesser cranes, at 3 to 4 feet, are almost as tall as the greaters but weigh about half as much (6 to 8 pounds). Though its numbers are rising, the greater Sandhill crane is still listed as threatened in California. The Mississippi Sandhill is a federally listed endangered species, and the Florida and Washington crane is on those states’ Threatened list. And cranes in Cuba are listed as endangered as well.
I’m concerned about too much info in graf above – perhaps we can break out this and related info into a little sidebar so it doesn’t disrupt the flow of the narrative?
* * *
Sandhill cranes spend the winter throughout their ancestral ranges in the western half of the U.S., from Washington to Texas. In March and April, up to 750,000 cranes spend a few weeks feeding in Nebraska before returning to their summer habitats in Canada, Alaska and Siberia.
Some 300,000 or more cranes can be seen at the Audubon Society’s Rowe Sanctuary, just a couple of miles from Highway 80 in south-central Nebraska. Some cranes traverse Oregon and Washington en route to Alaska. Others cranes breed in Montana, Idaho and British Columbia.
Known for their ecstatic mating dances, lifelong pair bonding, and epic migrations, cranes have long been revered by humans. In their dances the cranes jump high, kick, call to one another and tilt their necks skyward in one of nature’s most balletic spectacles. During migrations cranes typically soar about a mile high, but when necessary to fly over mountains, they can travel 15,000 to 20,000 feet above the earth.
In an average migratory day, cranes fly 200 miles but daily distances of 500 miles have been recorded. The longest migrations, from Siberia to Texas or northern Mexico, can span 5,000 miles, and take up to a month, Ivey said. Perhaps because cranes are so large, groups of them aren’t called “flocks” — they’re “herds.” And the young are called “colts.”
Aesop celebrated cranes’ ability “to rise above the clouds into endless space, and survey the wonders of the heavens, as well as of the Earth beneath, with its seas, lakes and rivers, as far as the eyes can reach.”
In his elegiac book The Birds of Heaven, Peter Matthiessen notes that throughout cranes’ ranges, from Asia to Europe to North America, the birds represent “longevity and good fortune, harmony and fidelity.” And some cultures believe cranes, with their heavenly flights, transport the souls of the dead.
Yes, cranes in general, not just sandhills.
* * *
Near the Woodbridge Ecological Reserve near Lodi, California Fish & Wildlife guide Mamie Starr tells tour-goers that farmers, a group that used to try to cull cranes because they eat grain, are now working with preservation groups. “We have lots of cooperation from farmers,” she says, noting that winters are typically fallow times for grain growers so some are willing to flood their fields to support cranes.
Cranes have been coming here for thousands of years, says Kathy Kellogg, a volunteer co-leading the tour and former interpretive aid with California Fish & Game. But the number of acres of wetlands in California has shrunk from 440,000 to 40,000, as walnut orchards and grape vines have proliferated, and housing tracts consume ever more land. Similar issues confront cranes throughout the west.
“This is one of the few places that Sandhill cranes can come,” Kellogg says. “If we don’t cooperate with them, they will have nowhere else to go. They’d be homeless.”
As darkness envelops the reserve, the cranes quiet down, standing erect, as stars appear in the blackening sky. Less than a mile away cars zip by on Highway 5, their drivers unaware of the wild spectacle nearby.
* * *
The next morning I rise well before dawn. Our 12-person tour, held in conjunction with the Lodi festival, meets at Hutchins Street Square in Lodi. An enthusiastic bird watcher gets out of his car, spreads his arms wide and shouts: “It’s crane season!”
During the 10-minute ride to the Woodbridge Ecological Reserve, Paul Tebbel, a volunteer for the preservation group Save Our Sandhill Cranes, says, “Cranes are very tall and conspicuous – if you can’t find the crane, give up bird watching and take up bowling.” He says he’s drawn to cranes because “they are very animated – there is dancing and aggression, … always something going on.”
David Moore, a California Fish & Wildlife interpreter and the other guide on the dawn tour, says that juvenile cranes grow very quickly, gaining up to 10 percent of their body weight in a day.
“They grow at a phenomenal rate. Within 10 months of development they grow almost to full size,” Moore said. “They need to fly (migrate) that first fall.”
The greater cranes we see are from northeast California; their migration is only about 200 to 300 miles. In the 19th century, miners and prospectors, who called cranes “foothill turkeys,” almost wiped them out.
We shiver at a roadside viewpoint by a marshy area as the sky begins to lighten. “There is no colder place than a wetland at dawn,” Tebbel says.
At this early hour, when there’s little background noise, we can hear distinct crane calls, the males louder than the females. The trumpeting of unison calls, when mated pairs sing out together, rolls across the plane. An adult crane’s trachea is coiled and would reach 4 feet long if stretched out, giving the birds the ability to make a deeply resonant vibrating sound that can be heard over great distances.
The crimson patch atop their heads, Tebbel says, is not composed of feathers but is crimson skin. They use this patch to communicate happiness, excitement or anger. “They put their heads down, take aim, and send a message. It’s as if he’s saying ‘All right hon, let’s get em.’ ”
Steam rises from the marsh as the sun emerges and the cranes wake up. “It’s loudest just before sunrise,” Tebbel says. Ducks and geese take off before the cranes, who “like to sleep in.”
A few cranes start hopping around, the juveniles especially energetic, almost like junior high school kids practicing their steps before their first dance. Cranes dance for all sorts of reasons, especially as a prelude to mating in late spring or early summer. They hop, bend, strut and pirouette, and flush their scarlet head patches.
“Sandhill cranes love to dance with their mates or with others,” Tebbel says. “They don’t need much of an excuse. They just love dancing.”
Moore adds: “Some say they dance out of sheer joy.”
* * *
When one member of a crane family is ready for liftoff, she stretches her neck in the direction she wants to fly. Soon the other members of the family lean so far in the same direction that they’re almost parallel to the ground. Then, with a signal we can’t detect, they take off.
This can be done by males or females – hard to tell the difference from a distance. Then juveniles follow their lead. Male or female can be the first to start signaling – I chose to say “she” because “he or she” sounded too wordy.
A half hour after sunrise, it’s mostly silent. “When we first came (to Woodbridge Road at dawn), it gave me goosebumps to hear them,” said Lynn Schweissinger, a guest on tour. “Now it’s like someone turned it off.”
A coyote appears near the cranes, but they don’t seem too disturbed, knowing they can fight it off with their beaks and claws. “The real predators are right here,” Tebbel says, pointing to a PG&E powerline. The utility has hung bird diverters (5-inch disks that sway in wind and glow in the dark) to help cranes see the line. This has reduced crane injuries, but some are injured or killed by colliding with the lines, which they have trouble seeing, Starr said.
Starr said electrocution not the main issue here – it can happen but primarily it’s because cranes fly at high speed into the lines which can injure or kill them. Seems odd to me they don’t see the line – I’ll try to get more info on this.
And below it’s a reference to NY’s Staten Island and its famous ferry – feel free to delete parenthetical phrase if it’s not clear or if it’s distracting.
Later that morning we visit nearby Staten Island (no, we didn’t take the ferry), a 9,200-acre reserve managed by The Nature Conservancy to provide habitat for migratory birds. Thousands of geese fly in, joining hundreds of cranes. Several Sandhill cranes fly right over our heads, giving us a sense of these birds’ grand size.
The tour is over but no one wants to leave. “You guys are now officially craniacs,” Tebbel says.
That afternoon at the crane festival we join hundreds of other craniacs to peruse the paintings and photos for sale, learn how to make origami cranes and hear talks about these birds, which have endured for 10 million years.
A festival highlight is a slideshow by California wildlife photographer Lon Yarbrough. He calls cranes “a gift of nature” and says they “add a chorus to the valley.” To observe and appreciate cranes, Yarbrough says, “all you have to do is show up.”
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Michael Shapiro is the author of A Sense of Place and writes for National Geographic Traveler, Islands and the Washington Post.
SIDEBAR: SANDHILL CRANE VIEWING LOCATIONS
Alaska
The city of Homer is a good place to see lesser Sandhill cranes from May through August, where about 150 cranes spend the summer. Cranes have become relatively tame around Homer and are easy to approach and photograph. www.cranewatch.org.
The Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival is held in early May: www.homeralaska.org/content/kachemak-...
The Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge in Anchorage provides excellent opportunities to view migrating lesser Sandhill cranes in April through September. This state-owned refuge also supports a few nesting pairs of lessers. www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=vi...
Creamer’s Field near Fairbanks is an important staging area, where the sandhills stop along their migration to rest and feed to replenish energy and gain enough energy reserves for the next leg of the migration, for cranes migrating to and from the Platte River in Nebraska. The best time to visit is April and August. Tanana Valley Crane Festival, late August, www.creamersfield.org/Crane_Fest_2013...
California
The Lodi Sandhill Crane Association hosts the Lodi Sandhill Crane Festival annually in early November and offers tours. www.cranefestival.com.
Sacramento River National Wildlife Refuge (6 miles east-southeast of Ord Bend). Moderate numbers of greater Sandhill cranes (up to 2,000) roost on the Llano Seco Unit of Sacramento River National Wildlife Refuge along 7-Mile Road,, from November through March. The Altacal Chapter of the Audubon Society hosts an annual Snow Goose Festival in late January which also celebrates Sandhill cranes, www.snowgoosefestival.org.
The City of Galt hosts the Galt Winter Bird Festival, annually and provides tours to see cranes in early February. www.ci.galt.ca.us/index.aspx?page=495
Merced National Wildlife Refuge (10 miles SW of Merced). Large numbers of lesser Sandhill cranes (up to 15,000) use this refuge, primarily from October through February. www.fws.gov/refuge/merced/public_even....
For more on crane tours in California, see: www.dfg.ca.gov/regions/3/cranetour
Oregon
Sauvie Island Wildlife Management Area (15 miles NW of Portland). About 4,000 Sandhill cranes stage in this region during spring and fall migration. Best times to view cranes here are October and mid-March through mid-April. There is an observation platform where cranes can often be seen along Reeder Road.
Ranchlands of the Silvies Floodplain near Burns host up to 10,000 lesser Sandhill cranes during spring migration (mid-March through mid-April) and also supports a large population (about 80 pairs) of nesting greater Sandhill cranes. The Harney County Chamber of Commerce annually hosts the John Scharff Migratory Bird Festival in early April and provide tours: www.migratorybirdfestival.com
Scharff site doesn’t list 2014 date yet. If they don’t update soon maybe we could try to reach local chamber of commerce.
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, 32 miles SSE of Burns, hosts about 200 pairs of breeding greater Sandhill cranes. Best times to observe cranes are May and September, while cranes are abundant there from April through mid-October. For tour info, see: www.malheurfriends.org/events.html
Washington
Columbia National Wildlife Refuge near Othello. Up to 20,000 of the lesser Sandhill cranes in the Pacific Flyway stage near Othello from mid-March to mid-April. The annual Othello Sandhill Crane Festival (March 28-30, 2014) offers tours: www.othellosandhillcranefestival.org
Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge near Ridgefield, Washington. About 4,000 Sandhill cranes stage in this region during spring and fall migration. Best times to view cranes here are October and mid-March through mid-April. The Friends of Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge hosts an annual Birdfest and has crane tours: ridgefieldfriends.org/birdfest
Source: Gary Ivey, International Crane Foundation
August 14, 2015
Yosemite with Ansel Adams, Press Democrat (Aug. 2015)
Went to Yosemite in July with my wife to visit a photographer friend who introduced me to Evan Russel, the curator of the Ansel Adams gallery. Our visit with Russel and the gallery became the centerpiece of my story about Yosemite’s 125th anniversary in the Press Democrat.
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By MICHAEL SHAPIRO
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
“Let’s move back about 100 feet for another look at Yosemite Falls,” said photographer Mike Reeves. About 10 of us on the free photo tour in Yosemite Valley re-compose our shots. This time we see the waterfall framed by a pair of the valley’s towering pine trees.
“Sometimes just taking a few steps back can make all the difference,” said Reeves, a staff photographer at the Ansel Adams Gallery.
With Yosemite preparing to celebrate its 125th anniversary (Oct. 1, 2015), my wife and I spent four days there in midsummer seeking new perspectives on the park. And what better way to see the park in new ways than through the eyes of those who have photographed the splendors of this national treasure.
Ranger Yenyen Chan on Lembert in Yosemite’s high country.
We began at the Ansel Adams Gallery, perused photos by Adams and others, and signed up for a Saturday morning photo walk.
On the 90-minute tour, Reeves showed us how including just part of a mammoth sequoia tree in an image is a good way to suggest its size, and how it’s sometimes advantageous to shoot during an overcast day if you want high-contrast images.
Starting our visit with a photo tour sharpened our vision of Yosemite and led us to appreciate the park in novel ways.
And we tried another approach on this trip: Rather than camping or staying in a lodge, we rented a Jucy mini-RV (jucy.com). It’s a Dodge van with a gas stove, small fridge, interior dining table, little sink, and pop-up sleeping tent on the roof.
The van is cleverly designed and comfortable, but ours had been bombed with a powerful disinfectant that made being inside it almost unbearable, and the smell got into our clothes and food.
Still, the Jucy van is convenient. Outside Yosemite we could pull over and camp almost anywhere, but in the national park we needed to reserve a campsite.
We spent part of our time in Yosemite Valley, starting with a hike up to Vernal Fall (3 miles round-trip), catching sight of rainbows in the mist created by the pounding waters.
Then we drove up to the high country of Tuolumne Meadows. Most visitors to Yosemite spend time primarily in Yosemite Valley and don’t see the sheer granite peaks and sculpted domes of the park’s higher-elevation regions. Which is a shame.
While nothing compares with the Valley’s views of Half Dome and El Capitan, the high country has its own majesty. You can hike along trails with few people to nearly deserted lakes, even in summer, and scale peaks for commanding vistas of snowcapped mountains.
“I like the high country of Yosemite, the mountains, lakes and meadows,” said park ranger Yenyen Chan, who is stationed at Tuolumne Meadows. “I find the higher elevation inspires me, … the openness, the vast space. That’s what drew me to this place, this part of the park.”
Chan said she enjoys the sense of wonder in first-time visitors to Yosemite. “There is this real joy to be in the mountains. I’m struck when people come on a star program, and they look up at the night sky on a clear night,” she said. “There are so many stars. It’s so different from the stars at night in the city.”
Getting caught in a blizzard near Tioga Pass is humbling too. That’s what happened to us – in July! – so we sought shelter at the Tioga Pass Resort, warming ourselves by the fire and fueling up for our next hike with plates of eggs, bacon and potatoes.
The trail to the top of Lembert Dome meandered through forests that gave way to sheer, but not too steep, rock (about an hour to make the 1.4-mile hike up, 900 feet of elevation gain) with sweeping views of Yosemite’s jagged terrain.
The following day we walked along the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River, where we spotted a pair of muskrats and were soothed by the sounds of flowing water, a mostly flat hike that intersects with the John Muir and Pacific Crest trails.
On our way back to the Valley, we detoured to the trailhead for May Lake. We couldn’t have made the two-mile jaunt from Highway 120 to the trailhead in a big RV — oversized vehicles aren’t allowed, but with our Jucy van we could drive in.
The hilly trail took us through stands of giant sequoias to a glassy lake with thick mist swirling just above it. “It’s like ghosts ice dancing,” my wife, Jackie, said. The mesmerizing scene held us for a while – how long, we’re not sure as we lost track of time.
On our final day at Yosemite we returned to the Ansel Adams Gallery for a look at prints made by Adams himself.
“This is the oldest national park concession that’s still running,” said gallery curator Evan Russel. It opened as Best’s Studio, a gallery for painters in 1902, run by Harry Best, a painter and political cartoonist. Best’s daughter, Virginia, married Ansel Adams in Yosemite in 1928, and she turned the gallery into a showcase for his photographs.
Russel led us to a back room and told us that Adams’ goal was “clear vision with a sharp focus, not painterly or romantic.” He opened wide file drawers to show us photographs that Adams had printed, some from the 1930s or ’40s, others as recently as the 1970s.
Compared to his early work, the later prints typically were sharper and had more contrast, Russel noted, showing us a photo of Mt. McKinley printed in the 1950s and another from the same negative made two decades later.
“Most of the time you don’t get to see pieces without something (like a sheet of glass) between you and the art,” Russel said as he brought out photographs worth $50,000 or more. “There’s nothing like getting up close and personal with a print.”
He’s right – seeing photos that Adams created in his darkroom was thrilling and left me feeling like these works should be on display for all to see.
“People think we are a museum but we’re not,” Russel said. “We’re an active gallery supporting Ansel and other contemporary artists.”
Similar to the gallery, Yosemite remains as alive as when it was designated as one of our first national parks in 1890. The 1,190-square-mile park is not a relic, but an ever-changing wonder open for all to explore.
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Park entry fee is $30 per car ($25 November through March). For information about Yosemite: nps.gov/yose
Ansel Adams Gallery: anseladams.com
For more about the park’s 125th anniversary: www.nps.gov/featurecontent/yose/anniv...
Jucy’s Bay Area depot: 1620 Doolittle Drive, San Leandro. Reservations: jucy.com.
May 23, 2015
Grateful Dead documentary: North Bay has starring role (May 2015)
Martin Scorsese is the executive producer of a forthcoming doc about the Dead, but it may not be released for a while. To read the story online, click here.
BY MICHAEL SHAPIRO
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
If you happened to visit Olompali State Historic Park near Novato last November, you might have come upon an arresting sight: a camera crew encircling Grateful Dead rhythm guitarist Bob Weir under an old oak tree.
The seven-person crew was part of a team making an authorized documentary, helmed by executive producer Martin Scorsese, about the Grateful Dead over the course of the band’s 50-year career.
Olompali, where the Dead lived in 1966, is just one of the North Bay locales featured in the film, said co-producer Justin Kreutzmann. The documentary isn’t quite finished and may not be released this year.
“It will come out when it’s ready,” said Kreutzmann, 45, the son of Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann. “It would be nice to hit the 50th anniversary, but making a better film is more important than trying to capitalize on the hype around that. We’re still editing. There’s so much great material, as you can imagine, to go through.”
The early days of the Grateful Dead.
Co-producer Eric Eisner, CEO of Double E Pictures, said, “Our film is not a celebration of the band’s 50th anniversary. It’s a celebration of the band as a whole. We hope our movie exists for many years as a legacy piece, so we have no problem waiting until all the festivities of the 50th have passed somewhat.”
The film will come out first in theaters, Eisner said, and long-term, may play at midnight on weekends “in the ‘Rocky Horror’ slot. We want … future generations to know what the band was all about.”
The film remains untitled, Kreutzmann said. “Do you just call it ‘Grateful Dead’? Do you call it ‘Long Strange Trip’?”
Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux is music supervisor for the film, which will be directed by Amir Bar-Lev (“The Pat Tillman Story”). Both declined interview requests, saying they would prefer to talk when the film is complete.
It’s unclear what will make the final cut, but Kreutzmann said the North Bay is an essential part of the band’s story.
“The band’s studio was in San Rafael. ‘Touch of Gray’ was recorded in San Rafael, and everybody (the Dead and their extended family) lived in Marin at that time (1980s),” Kreutzmann said. “The crew all lived in Petaluma.”
Bassist Phil Lesh was filmed at Terrapin Crossroads, his restaurant and music space in San Rafael, and drummer Mickey Hart was interviewed at his home near Sebastopol.
Scorsese has a long history of making rock music documentaries, starting as an assistant director on “Woodstock” (1970) and including 1978’s “The Last Waltz” about The Band’s farewell show, 2005’s “No Direction Home” a look into the life of Bob Dylan, and 2011’s “George Harrison: Living in the Material World.”
“Millions of stories have been told about the Grateful Dead over the years,” said the Dead’s surviving members — Weir, Lesh, Hart and Kreutzmann — in a statement last fall. “With our 50th anniversary coming up, we thought it might just be time to tell one ourselves, and Amir is the perfect guy to help us do it.”
Beyond the band members, interviewees include lyricist Robert Hunter, Trixie Garcia (Jerry’s daughter), band manager Dennis McNally and Sen. Al Franken, a longtime fan.
The Dead considered making a film while recording the album “Workingman’s Dead” (1970), so some rare archival footage exists from that period, Kreutzmann said. “When I saw this footage I thought, Wow, you can do a whole film just on this.”
The Dead and the film’s co-producers are thrilled to have Scorsese on board, he said. Director Bar-Lev will present a rough cut to Scorsese, and he’ll respond with notes and suggestions, bringing “fresh perspective” to the film.
“You know, he’s Martin Scorsese,” Kreutzmann said. “So we will listen.”
During Weir’s day at Olompali last fall, state archaeologist Breck Parkman showed the 67-year-old guitarist around his old stomping grounds.
Weir, Parkman and the film crew spent about four hours at the park with Bar-Lev, finding the old oak tree under which they were photographed for an album cover, checking out the ruins of the Burdell Mansion where the band lived and examining the cement platform that was once the foundation for a commercial bread-baking oven. It became the stage on which the Dead and their cohorts had impromptu jams.
As cameras rolled, Weir’s tour concluded at Olompali’s visitor center, which houses remnants from the Dead’s time there such as old record albums that melted in a fire.
Said Parkman: “Bob seemed to enjoy the thought of being archaeological.”
May 13, 2015
Boz Scaggs still smooth after all these years (May 2015)
As a kid in the ’70s, I enjoyed Boz Scaggs’ hits, such as “Lido.” But it wasn’t until I heard his blues classic “Loan Me a Dime” that I realized what a masterful musician he is. It was a pleasure to interview the easygoing and gracious Scaggs recently. The conversation below ranges from his recent albums (as good as ever) to his winery in the hills above Napa. Click here to read the story in the Press Democrat which includes a video of “Loan Me a Dime.”
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By MICHAEL SHAPIRO
FOR THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
May 13, 2015
Boz Scaggs is having the time of his life. His new album, “A Fool to Care” has just been released, he’s packing theaters across the U.S. and worldwide, and when he’s not making music he tends a small vineyard with his wife, Dominique, at their mountainside home in Napa County.
The new album, recorded in Nashville, segues deftly from soul to jazz to R&B. It’s easy to listen to, like hanging out with an old friend.
Southern influence permeates the record on songs like Curtis Mayfield’s gem, “I’m So Proud.” Yet Scaggs isn’t afraid of venturing into new territory: Some songs have a Latin flavor, such as “Last Tango on 16th Street.”
The suave and debonair Scaggs, now 70 though he doesn’t look it, seems more comfortable than ever.
Growing up in Oklahoma and Texas, he started out as a blues singer, briefly joining Steve Miller’s band in the 1960s, (Scaggs and Miller went to high school together in Dallas).
Soon afterwards, Scaggs made a splash in 1969 singing an extended blues song, “Somebody Loan Me a Dime,” with Duane Allman on guitar. The song is still on Scaggs’ set list.
Then came the commercial peak of Scaggs’ career. The 1976 album “Silk Degrees” produced two mega-hits: “Lowdown” and “Lido Shuffle.” Like the Steely Dan albums of that era, the songs perfectly melded jazz, pop and rock.
Scaggs appears Wednesday, May 20, at the Wells Fargo Center and plays on Saturday, May 16, at the Masonic Center in San Francisco.
In a phone interview in late April, Scaggs said he’s still fond of his long-ago hits and enjoys playing them live. “I love that material, and certainly it connects me with an audience in a way that nothing else can,” he said.
The classics remain fun because “I never play a song the same way twice,” Scaggs said. “It’s different every night; if it weren’t I think I would be bored, and I probably wouldn’t want to do it. It’s a different feeling, a different stage, a different audience. It’s a different vibe every night, so it’s always fresh.”
That said, Scaggs relishes playing his new songs. His two most recent albums, 2013’s “Memphis” and his most recent release, give him plenty of strong material. “I can mix it up quite a lot,” he said. “We keep a pretty broad playlist in front of us.”
Scaggs and his band (including guest appearances by Lucinda Williams and Bonnie Raitt), recorded the new album in less than a week. Scaggs has become a master craftsman; he and his bandmates know where they’re going so it doesn’t take them long to get there.
A couple of years ago, Williams and Scaggs sang together and vowed to collaborate again. Scaggs heard her sing a song by The Band called “Whispering Pines” in tribute to Levon Helm, so he asked Williams to sing that song with him on the new album.
The pairing with Raitt was natural: “I had another track, (‘Hell to Pay’), and it just seemed to have Bonnie all over it,” Scaggs said. So he sent Raitt a demo, and she agreed to play and sing on it.
Their voices remain distinctive even when they’re singing together, and Raitt’s slide guitar fits the song like a glove.
Scaggs’ voice, like a fine wine, seems to be improving with age.
“I’ve gone from a tenor to a tenor baritone,” he said. “I’ve been doing a lot of vocal work, and I think the voice in my head is closer to the voice that comes out of my throat than it’s ever been. I am finding an inner voice too.”
Reaching those depths comes in part from his quiet time at Scaggs Vineyard, the home he shares with Dominique near a ridge in the Mayacamas mountains, “up in the hills and a kind of remote place,” Scaggs said, just east of the Sonoma County line.
“It’s proven to be a really good balance for me,” he said. “We moved out of our apartment in San Francisco about a year ago, and I really thought we would be missing the urban experience.
“But I am touring a lot now, and when I get off the road and away from the crowds there’s no place I’d rather be than home. I’ve really become very attached, in a way that I never knew before, to our little place here.”
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Michael Shapiro, author of “A Sense of Place,” writes about entertainment for The Press Democrat. Contact him through his site: www.michaelshapiro.net.
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