A Walk on the Wild Side

May 3, 2010, 12:52 a.m.

Existential questions have a way of flowing through the brain when you wake up at 5:30 a.m. on a moonlit Saturday morning. Questions like, “What path has my life taken to this moment?” and “Why am I biking across campus on three hours sleep?”

The answer? Walk The Farm.

A Walk on the Wild Side
(ZOE LEAVITT/The Stanford Daily)

This ambitious annual event, now in its fourth year, takes a select group of undergraduates, biologists, professors and others on a 21-mile walk around the perimeter of Stanford land. Led by Jon Christensen and David Kennedy ‘63, co-director and executive director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West, respectively, the route meanders from Y2E2, around Lake Lag, past the Dish and under route 280, through Jasper Ridge, around SLAC, down Sand Hill Road and finally loops back around the Quad.

This year’s walk focused on climate change; at various stops throughout the walk, Stanford scientists met with the group for short talks about environmental shifts. By exploring the outer reaches of campus, Walk the Farm aims to use Stanford as a microcosm of the American West to display the changes climate change has wrought on the environment.

After signing a rather intimidating waiver form, the group of 43 set off from Y2E2 shortly after 6 a.m. The light of the day was just beginning to shine, and an “if these people can do it, I certainly can do it” sentiment seemed common among the younger set of walkers.

After rounding Lake Lag, we entered the Dish by Narnia and started up the hill, with a short introductory talk by Christensen. With less than a mile under our belts, spirits were high. Past the Dish, we took a sharp left turn off the path into the fields, trekking through tall grasses. Talk of butterfly biology, poison ivy versus poison oak and species extinction filled the air.

The first thing I learned from the Walk–Stanford supports a heck of a lot of cows. More cows than any university should know what to do with. We walked past their dour stares on our way out of the Dish area, through a tunnel under the 280 freeway. Soon, we approached a massive, ridged grass hill–the dam for Felt Reservoir, a body of water on Stanford land. Upon our approach, a massive hare raced in front of us and across the entire dam. Flocks of birds scattered. The cows relaxing around the water’s edge showed little emotion.

We stopped at Felt Reservoir, where we learned about how climate change would push snowmelt earlier and earlier, depleting the water resources for later in the season. It seems that Stanford’s penchant for palm trees apparently has a cost: over one million gallons of water per day are used up for irrigation around campus. Though Stanford uses only about one percent of the area’s water, the school is currently turning its focus toward increased efficiency and reuse methods.

By 8:30 a.m., a time when I’m normally turning over to avoid the sun in my eyes, we had already hiked six miles and were arriving at our first bathroom stop. The Sag wagon (Supplies And Gear) carted a few hikers home at that point, before we set off for Jasper Ridge.

The second thing I learned on the Walk–Stanford owns a heck of a lot of land. Most students only ever see a small fraction. Our walk to Jasper Ridge took us through Webb Ranch, a private farm on land that Stanford owns but has leased out for years. Then, of course, there’s Jasper Ridge itself. A stunning 1,189 acres of rolling hills and waving grasses, the Ridge is closed to visitors except on organized tours.

However, the Ridge may not look the same for much longer. Scott Loarie, a post-doctoral fellow in global ecology, described the harm global warming inflicts on native butterfly populations. While areas of Jasper Ridge were once teeming with butterflies, as temperatures began to rise, group after group has gone extinct. One species of butterfly has died out from Jasper Ridge entirely, and the nearest population now resides near San Jose. Loarie told us to reshape our thinking about global warming from degrees per year into kilometers per degree: As temperatures rise, how far will animal populations have to migrate to reach climates in which they can still survive? The answer, often, is too far in too short a time.

We moved on. I encountered my first rattlesnake–curled up under a bush, we could still see the lump in its belly from its last meal. I envied that snake.

The third thing I learned–comfortable shoes may not feel so comfortable after 12 miles through mud and up hills. The last mile and a half before lunch, my toes were crying out for mercy.

Finally, 12.6 miles in, we arrived at Jasper Ridge’s Leslie Shao-ming Sun Field Station, where bagged lunches were waiting for us. Bill Lane himself made an appearance, decked out in a Navajo print jacket, bright red shirt, cowboy hat and turquoise neckband. At the ripe age of 91, he was quite the personality, pulling me in to kiss me on the cheek when I introduced myself as a Daily reporter.

“The West is the ideal laboratory for this kind of study because of the diversity and geography of the 13 Western states,” Lane said.

The group, from undergraduates enrolled in Christensen’s class to Pulitzer Prize winning historians, received a first-hand illustration of changes taking place throughout the American West and the world–and perhaps the Walk, for some paying close attention, helped encourage a new generation to come up with innovative climate change solutions.

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