So, here's a photo of my clandestine visit to Yellowstone National Park during the federal government shutdown.

We (my husband and three other friends, one of whom, Gary Spinner, took this photo) had made plane and lodging (outside the park) reservations eight months ago, so of course we went, leaving New Haven on October 6 and hoping things might reopen for at least part of our week-long visit.

We arrived in Gardiner, Montana, the northern gateway to the park (which is mostly across the border in Wyoming) and visited the Roosevelt Arch at the entrance, inscribed with the words, "Yellowstone National Park, created by an Act of Congress, March 1, 1872" (the nation's first national park), and, in bigger letters across the top, "For the benefit and enjoyment of the people." The entrance was barricaded and nearby a sign flashed, "Due to  government shutdown/Yellowstone Park closed."

We stopped in to the Yellowstone Park Association building across from the park.  It's a private, non-profit, and therefore was open.  Staffers provided lots of information, then directed us to visit a couple who were volunteering nearby as park caretakers, who had an animal kill in their spotting scope, which might provide a chance to see a predator like a wolf or mountain lion feasting on it (but we didn't see any). These folks were in about their third year of volunteering for a three-month stint at the park -- something that sounded awfully appealing to me  -- and told us about a hike we could take along a stream that feeds into the Yellowstone River, while remaining outside the park boundaries. We descended an incredibly steep, rocky trail that then leveled off for a walk through the high desert landscape, seeing tons of sagebrush, quite a few small cacti, old, abandoned water wheels, and an amazing number of large animal bones (probably elk), picked clean and bleached white.

Along the way we passed a couple going in the other direction. They were from Minneapolis and said they hike often in the park, and we were almost the first people they'd ever seen on the trail. They were heading to the Black Canyon of the Yellowstone, which was inside the park. We followed them.

The view of the whitewater tumbling through the narrow canyon, with a backdrop of snow-covered peaks from a snowfall the previous week, was stunning. And the clean air! Living near the confluence of I-91 and I-95 in New Haven makes for really dirty air, and I was delighted all week just to breathe deeply.

All the other hikes we did were outside the park, and they were stellar, with long views of snow-capped peaks and close-up views of animal tracks in the mud or snow. We even saw a grizzly bear about ten feet from our car, and a black bear down one of the trails. We passed a mule train and three guys on horses on a very narrow trail, who had just set up their hunting camp on the other side of a rushing stream. If we'd gotten into the park, we would have seen a lot more animals, plus the geysers and the mud pots and all the other cool things the park is known for. I felt especially bad for the busloads of Asian tourists we saw, who came over planning to visit many national parks and faced barricades everywhere they went. 

As I write, we've been home three days and the Senate and then the House are about to vote to start funding the government. Thanks, Congress, for your incompetence (or blatant attempts at political arm-twisting).  As one shopkeeper in Gardiner put it, "What they (Congress) did was illegal. They don't own the parks. The parks belong to the people." Just read the words on the arch.

I just got back from the International  Women's Earth and Climate Summit, which brought 100 women environmental leaders from 35 countries to a hotel/conference center outside New York City for three days of plenaries, work sessions, meals and celebrations of the earth and women's role in combating climate chaos. As a reporter, I felt a little side-lined because the delegates were all so excited to be talking to each other that it was a little hard to insinuate myself into the conversation.  Still, I left the summit with several interviews and many hours of plenaries recorded.

Many of the delegates wore traditional clothing (like Casey Camp Horinek, pictured, a leader of the Ponca nation in Oklahoma, who created all the beautiful clothes she wore).  Others wore colorful African prints and head wraps, while most of the women wore "business casual" or even dress up clothes. I saw only one message t-shirt the entire three days ("Democracy is not a spectator sport"). Quite a change from the old days of radical gatherings -- which this definitely was, if "radical" means going to the root of the problem.

Attire aside, what all these women had in common was an incredible array of successful or  still pending struggles to preserve their own communities while linking them to the fight against climate change.  (Also, some losses.) The women introduced themselves -- scientists, business women, government officials and non-profit leaders -- and said what they'd like to see come out of the summit. One that stuck in my mind was Colleen Ross, a farmer and organizer from Canada, who said, "What I want to get out of this conference is not just a talkathon, that we just don't academonize -- I call it -- what we need to do here. What we need to do is rise up. We need a resistance movement."

I did a 6-minute summary feature for Free Speech Radio News and two interviews for Between the Lines -- one with Jacquie Patterson from the NAACP who's in charge of environmental justice programs, talking about how to bring together the folks fighting environmental racism with the mostly white climate change campaigners in the U.S. It was eye-opening for me. The other was with a woman from the Maldives, who described climate change on her low-lying island chain, and the role of democracy in combating it.

I also just submitted a half-hour show for WINGS (Women's International News Gathering Service) that'll be out in a week or so, at www.wings.org. It includes six minutes of Casey Camp calling the four directions one morning, which I found inspiring.

Despite the exciting goings-on indoors, I was dismayed that every room I was in (including the bedroom at the hotel) had no windows. The weather was gorgeous all weekend, and I had to run outside periodically to connect with the earth and the air (if not the fire and the water). Alas, the building was in the middle of nowhere and mostly surrounded by parking lots.

Anyway, by Monday, the delegates had agreed on a draft Climate Action Agenda that will be finalized by January and shared with leaders and grassroots activists around the world. They also took immediate action by going on the record on several issues, including opposing the Keystone XL pipeline and urging the president of Ecuador to not exploit fossil fuels in the Amazon, despite failing to get international financial support in exchange for keeping the oil in the soil. Go to www.iweci.org for bios of all the delegates and info on the action agenda.