a Run in the Rain

NOTE: A short essay from last year, at the very beginning of my seven month Season working on the North Carolina Outer Banks.

2nd April, 2009

It has been threatening to rain all day and the skies open as I ride my bike home from work. I pull on some cold-weather running gear and bolt out the door of my quarters into the downpour. I wind through pollen-heavy

southern pines and soon find myself running along an elevated road through a coastal salt-marsh. Birds wheel and cry, cavorting in the rain and I can hear the pounding of the surf out of sight beyond the dune-line.
I make several plunging strides up the face of a dune and trot out onto the beach. When I reach the high tide line, the damp sand is more compacted and runner-friendly so I veer right and begin running along the shoreline which vanishes into mist and rain not far ahead. The waves crash in from the storm darkened Atlantic, and I have to swerve from my course to avoid a few of them.
My calves are beginning to burn, a testament to not having run this distance in quite awhile; I ignore them and take a pull from my water bottle, enjoying the feeling of the water running down my face and neck. A light wind is blowing the spray from the breakers and the air smells of salt; looking out over the seemingly endless waves, fading into murky distance, I can see the why this is truly the “Graveyard of the Atlantic”. The occasional vehicle passes me on the beach, sullying the moment with their fumes and noise. White faces peer at me in confusion, I smile and wave, they drive on, leaving me alone in the rain—the way I like it.
The beach narrows into a point—Cape Hatteras, in fact—and I stop for a moment to take it all in. Waves crash on both sides and the diamond shoals from a neverending procession of breakers that fade into grey. The shoals do end, of course, but not for 15 miles out to sea; it is they who have claimed many of the lives lost off of this desolate coast. It is a place truly rich in both history and mythology; these are the waters where Blackbeard stalked merchant ships and where nearly every building is rumored haunted.
Looking out over the gray ocean, I feel a sense of connection, a realization that these waves also lapped the shores of Africa, Europe, and South America. I try to imagine what it would have been like to be a hand on a schooner, at sea for years at a time, eating molding bread and sleeping in a hammock next to nearly 100 of your fellows. The ocean has seen much, and hides much as well and its surface provides no answers, simply the roiling interminable swell.
The water running down my back begins to chill me and I turn to run back down the darkening beach.

-Charlie Kolb
Buxton, North Carolina

The Presidential Suite

NOTE: This essay was written in my first month as a seasonal Ranger at the South Gate of Yellowstone. Enjoy.

24th of May, 2007

Long day of work today, 0700-1700, working in the booth and stuffing newspapers in anticipation of the upcoming swarm of tourists on Memorial Day weekend (starting tomorrow!). Snow in morning, rain in afternoon. A constant light mist, a female rain according to the Navajos. Not many of them up here, unless they’re on vacation. Nope mainly just the Shoshone, the sheepeaters, from the reservation near Dubois (doo-boys, if you’re local) coming up with kids and grandparents in tow. They flash their tribal ID cards which automatically waive the now $25 entry fee and sends us straight from “hello” to “have a nice day, watch out for those bears!”. Of course they know that, but apparently the photographer that got mauled up Trout creek yesterday wasn’t listening. He survived but I’m sure the bear won’t for much longer as they still haven’t found it yet…
After my shift ended I clean the kitchen and cook a large pan of Dirty Rice (Zatarain’s: Ranger’s best friend) and then venture back out into the rain to send a brief email home. On the way back I stop at the “Presidential Suite” and, stowing my bike around the side, I slip inside. A little history: The Presidential Suite is old park housing that is now considered a historic structure and so cannot be torn down or even renovated to make it liveable again. John (my boss) has written off the place and just keeps it sealed up, using it now and then to store some pieces of miscellaneous equipment.
It is an interesting building, about 50’ by 30’ with exposed rafters and the occasional water stain where the copious winter snows have found a way in. The floor is old hardwood, any semblance of stain long since gone, with scraps of spotty beige carpeting laid out around and under the hodgepodge of furniture. There is no paint on the walls, or even drywall for that matter, and there are various bits of miscellania pinned into the spaces between the exposed studs. The former occupants were students about my age, I’m not sure how many years ago. They leave traces of their presence everywhere; guitar tablature in one of the dusty cabinets, notes to eachother about various aspects of the job long past now. There is a sheaf of green papers in the metal cabinet by the kitchen with a whole bunch of recipes, most of them variations on a theme of Buffalo. I guess after a summer here you do start to hate the huge, dumb bastards. Although I do have to admit though that my heart still skips a beat when one walks through my yard unexpectedly. I go into the small kitchen which fills one corner of the building. Some utensils sit in jars, a mix, no rhyme or reason to what’s there. I count three spatulas. An aborigine stares down serenely from a postcard between two studs above the scarred kitchen table. Other postcards cover the walls, mostly of cities in other countries that I may never see. Old trail signs from deep in the Yellowstone backcountry sit on the rafters interspersed with the occasional Elk antler (illegal to collect those now) or ancient beer can. From one screw hangs a steel cookpot with the bottom burned out.
I like it here, the place has character. It reminds me of a little trading post or other equally interesting structure from another era. There are walls dividing the remaining space into 3 bedrooms and a small bathroom which sports a faded sign on the door that reads “private function”. The filtered grey light of the storm is fading fast and rain continues to drum softly on the roof filling the room with a sort of quiet music. I go in search of the breaker box to see if I can turn on the lights in here. I find it, after a brief hunt, in a bedroom stacked with boxed picnic tables. I open it up and play with some of the switches inside until the lights work. Now the whole place is lit up with the warm glow of the bare bulbs of the simple fixtures. I wouldn’t mind living in here, sure I’d have to share it with some of the woodland animals; no big deal really, since I already share my bunkhouse with a squirrel as well as my roommate. Not sure who is more of a rodent… Ed Abbey shared his NPS airstream with a bull snake for a month in Arches, so why shouldn’t I room with a squirrel or two?
There are some large solar panels which I move laboriously across the room into one of the empty bedrooms so I can work on the living room. I rearrange the some furniture, and take the small coffee table off of the dusty couch. Behind it, between the studs in a shadow is a photocopied drawing of four people; there is no label or hint to their identities but I know them at once. It is Abbey’s Monkey Wrench Gang, with Hayduke glowering through his beard, Doc Sarvis chomping down on his customary cigar, and Seldom-Seen and Bonnie looking vaguely abashed on either side of Doc. Whoever lived here, I think they were my kind of people… I switch off the power and get back on my bike.
The rain has lightened a bit as I ride back to the bunkhouse. This afternoon has been an interesting glimpse of something that I can't quite put my finger on, yet it feels as though I have accomplished or learned something. Maybe it was simply the experience of being in a place so heavy with stories...

-Charlie Kolb, Snake River Ranger Station, Yellowstone

Sand Canyon

NOTE: This was written about a hiking trip I took with my best friend from College. I completed it when I was working my season at Grand Teton National Park in the summer of 2008.



Early Spring, 2008

The sky is a forbidding slate gray. From my home in Hesperus, which winter still holds in its viselike grip, I gaze out the window at the roiling sky and smile. Perfect time to go to the desert. An hour later my best friend and fellow biologist Jesse and I race down the highway through the little town of Cortez and into McElmo canyon: the nearest access to the slickrock deserts. We munch on Girl Scout Cookies (how could I say no to her?) and listen to Bob Marley, talking about our various woes; women for him, schoolwork for me—no women to worry about at the moment thankfully. As it transpires, there is no snow to worry about either.
We arrive at the trailhead and contemplate what to do next. A weathered old sign by the roadside, almost illegible, reads: NO NATIONAL MONUMENT. Poor soul, whoever put up that sign, there’s been a National Monument here for nearly ten years. Canyons of the Ancients national monument, to be precise. National Money-mint as Cactus Ed used to say. Not that it’s changed the place much, other than posting cleaner looking signs and having the occasional BLM employee walk the trail, hoping to happen upon a pothunter ransacking one of the many ancient dwellings.
I have hiked Sand Canyon trail many times ever since I was a little boy and Jesse nearly as much. The official trail winds its way up the slickrock bench above the canyon, occasionally happening upon mysterious dwellings over the course of the climb; you only get to see the canyon floor once, and this is from a viewpoint. Our plan is better, if slightly less legal, we plan to see the canyon floor.
We start down the trail and take a quick right, creeping along the backside of Castle Rock, past the crumbling Castle Rock pueblo, and begin to pick our way east, to the canyon mouth. We choose our steps carefully to avoid treading on the cryptobiotic soil, walking only in drainages or on slickrock. We cross several side canyons each one deeper than the last, before following one down to the main drainage, carefully avoiding the deep mud, easing gently over pour-offs.
We walk in the boulder-strewn canyon bottom and soon the walls close in about us. The sky continues to threaten snow, but nothing is falling as of yet. A side canyon comes into view and a dwelling can be glimpsed high on the cliff face. I suggest we climb to it on the way back unless we decide to leave the canyon farther up. I turn to look back down-canyon. The sun pierces the clouds, illuminating the snow-heavy Sleeping Ute Mountains in stark contrast to the redrock below and the churning clouds above. We continue on, desert varnish streaks the walls and the canyon tightens, growing steadily deeper. We have lunch where a small side-canyon comes in from the west, sitting on the boulders rather than the still-soggy ground. A bare cottonwood stands resolute against the ever-darkening sky.
The canyon widens into a small meadow, the brown grass still flattened from the snow. In the center of the meadow lies the bleached skeleton of a small fox, complete and broken only from the weight of the snow. What had caused this little creature to die so peacefully, its body untouched by scavengers, buried until so recently under the protective blanket of snow? What is your story little fox? Jesse cradles the skull in his hand, it is white and perfect against his palm. We take it with us; as it is rare to find a complete canid skull in such condition.
We debate on venturing further up-canyon but decide to turn back to have a look at the dwelling we had seen earlier. We turn back the way we come, the little fox skull resting peacefully in Jesse’s pack. The bare skeletal cottonwoods sway gently, we can smell snow on the wind. The sleeping Ute mountains loom back into view, still illuminated by a ray of sunlight that has managed to pierce the clouds. White and snowladen, they look like another world suspended between the leaden sky and the red walls of the canyon.
We locate the side canyon with the dwelling and walk up it until we hit a large pour off. We each find a route up and eventually reach the dwelling by traversing out to the alcove on a narrow ledge of white stone. People have already found this place, and it as been looted. But it is still in excellent condition and commands an impressive view of the canyon floor. The occasional potsherd or corncob still stick out of the riffled sand of the alcove floor, reminding us that these people had actually made a living in this place. Were they happy, these people? What gave them joy, what gave them peace? It is hard to fathom living so simply and lightly as these people must have done, especially in these entitled times that follow in the wake of that terrible fallacy that is the American dream.
Jesse and I scramble out of the alcove as the sky continues to grumble. We decide to find our way back to the road on the opposite rim and each find our separate ways to the top. We meet on an oil and gas road that has been gouged impersonally from the mesa top by a bulldozer. I announce that I have to piss and proceed to do so in the middle of the road, explaining that I have finally found something worthwhile to piss on. Jesse goes down the road to do the same, when he turns to look back, his gaze focuses over my left shoulder and he motions for me to turn around. About a quarter mile down the road, there is a single stone tower standing above the shrubby trees, it is illuminated by a single ray of sun, as the clouds continue to shift, the glow disappears and the tower fades back into the leaden background.
We descend from the mesa top, treading lightly through private property strewn with tires and the shells of long dead cars, waiting for the inevitable rifle shot or half mad dog to cut our hike woefully short. This paranoia was half true, and we got the dogs to bark at us when we were almost to highway, but they were ancient and toothless animals that inspired more amusement than terror.
We walk up the highway to the car, past the peeling sign of protest, another hike over with and reluctantly make our back to civilization, back to school, women, and the other pressures of day to day life. But the desert will always be there for us to run to and maybe someday, if we’re lucky, we can curl up nose to tail like that little fox and simply fade into the background…

-Charlie Kolb, Jenny Lake District, Grand Teton National Park.

On the Porch

NOTE: This was written while I was working a season as a Park Biologist at Big Bend National Park on the Texas/Mexico border. It's another of my favorites.

11th of March, 2009

Three days left in Big Bend National Park, two more of work. Today I have driven into Terlingua to bid farewell to the town that has been my home and haven these past few months.
It rained all night last night, the first rain since I’ve been here, the first real rain since September. Winter is dry here in Big Bend, most days are clear and scorching hot; reports of snow and ice from friends and family back in Colorado seem surreal against such a backdrop.
The desert blooms this time of year, the cactus is budding and asters appear like tiny stars on the edges of the roads and trails. The ocotillo is blooming; a plant that looks dead for much of the year is now set afire with crimson racemes of blossoms that burst from the end of each snake-like branch. The thorny mesquite have leafed out as well, giving a false hope of water to any weary traveler unfortunate enough to mistake them for a distant cottonwood.

~

I sit on the Terlingua porch, a tin-roofed edifice of crumbling brick and concrete. This is the first time I have been here in daylight, and it is a different place. Usually the porch is packed with people; parkies and locals and the occasional bewildered tourist. Missing are the slurring conversations and the strumming of a bawdy barroom ballad; the clink of glass on glass and the scratchy padding of dogs’ feet on the pavement.
Today it is quiet, tourists filter in and out of the store and locals stop briefly; some sit and drink, others pace and gaze out at the cloud-wreathed summits of the Chisos, grey blue in the distance. The view from the Terlingua porch is an awesome one. The Christmas Mountains dominate the left side view along with Study Butte which looms over the town that bears its name. The Chisos comprise the center of the view, their slopes dark with the only real trees in the region. The right side of the scene is a descending scale of mountains; Mule Ears, Sierra Castellan, and Punta de la Sierra, can all be recognized from my perch on this ancient bench. Santa Elena Canyon can be seen to the far right, cleaving the otherwise unbroken cliffs of the Sierra Ponce in the Mexico, the Mesa de Anguilla in the USA. All is capped with dark, rain-fat clouds.
The rain is on everyone’s minds, water on the brain. I can hear it in conversations around me, commenting on how lucky we are to have it, how long it was in coming. Rain. God’s greatest gift to the desert, some say. Not so, I say; rain is certainly a necessity here and is made precious by its scarcity. I say true gift of the desert is the desert itself. Now this may sound a bit cryptic or stoned, but bear with me. The desert is a place unlike any other, it is a place that is built of scarcity and the ecosystem, while resilient, is perfectly balanced on a razor’s edge. Introduce too much or too little of any one thing and watch the house of cards come crashing down around your ears.
I deal with the consequences of this every day as I work to restore a grassland (now wasteland) that does not want to come back. The desert itself is a gift, a near perfect machine, it works best when all the cogs mesh and no parts are missing. It is a beautiful and terrible land of extremes. I love it dearly.
The cool breeze brings the heady smell of creosote and the damp scent of dust. No sage like the Colorado Plateau and its absence reminds me just how far from home I am, once again. But this isn’t the Tetons or Yellowstone, this is entirely foreign. This, is Texas.

~

The Chisos are again hidden by the fog when I look up again, and the damp breeze carries with it a chill. Snow? No, not here, not in March, although it is not entirely unheard of. I zip up my fleece vest and think more about my time here and my experiences on the porch.

~

At the far end of the Terlingua porch is the old Starlight Theater which has a “burger night” every Monday. This is the primary social event for parkies and locals alike and people flock to it in droves. My usual burger buddy is Mark Yuhas, a mechanic for the NPS who came to Big Bend when he was about my age and liked it so much that he decided to stay. That was awhile ago, but he is still here. Mark is an avid cyclist and rides to burger night almost every week, permitting that he can find someone to drive his car as the shuttle. This is a ride of roughly 30 miles over the gently rolling terrain on the park highway.
After several burger nights, I joined Mark on his weekly ritual; decked out in old bike shoes, borrowed spandex shorts, and a t-shirt. I started out some time earlier than Mark to give me a head start, handy for a greenhorn. After sweating my way up the first hill, I cruised along the flats, utterly enthralled with the experience. The mountains rose sharply on my left side and the setting sun set their basaltic cliffs aflame, the only clouds were on the western horizon and helped lessen the glare. The desert rushed by, and, unlike riding along in a car, I felt a part of it; the sounds and smells, asphalt hissing under my tires. I was in Terlingua before I realized and sitting on the edge of the porch, grinning ear to ear as Mark pulled up, bewildered that he hadn’t caught me.
I am reminded of another evening, perhaps a month later when I lay on the pavement beside of the door of the Starlight in a whimpering ball of agony, cramped and exhausted from dehydration. I had “bonked”, as the cyclists say, by doing my 30 mile ride after hiking the 13 mile South Rim trail, on far, far too little water. I lay there on the porch as my friends looked down at me and wondered what to do, eventually coaxing me back to life with some Gatorade and saltwater. The porch represents much to me, content and agony, drunkenness and sobriety, cold stars and blazing sun. It is difficult to comprehend my departure.

~

A cleft, barely discernible on the flanks of the distant Chisos, marks the location of one of the most incredible places in the park, Cattail Falls. Wisps of cloud shroud the cleft now and it appears dark and forbidding, but I recall a day not so long before when it was not so. The sun beat down on my back as I walked a trail across the open Sotol Grasslands that cover the flanks of the Chisos. Last year’s flowerheads tower from green and vibrant Sotols and the wind hisses through the dead stalks and stirs the feathery golden grasses in between. The wind helps with the heat somewhat and I walk on, soon reaching the edge of an old river terrace, a massive slope of gravel and smooth, round stones.
Volcanic cliffs loom overhead, and my eyes follow the sharp angles of the cleft downward. They meet at a spot maybe ½ mile away, and it is marked with the vivid green of trees. Water. I clamber down the terrace and start toward the patch of green. I hear the falls before I see them; it is not a roar like a mountain waterfall, but rather a trickle, like the emptying of a bucket into a still basin.
The water pools at the base of the cliff and the waterfall trickles down from high above. Hardly a waterfall at all, one of my co-workers had remarked earlier in the week. She may be right, but is enough; and the dripping water resonates and echoes off the slick black walls of the canyon, draped with hanging curtains of maidenhair fern. Live oaks shimmer in the cool canyon breeze and the water cascades down through a series of deep pools before being swallowed by the thirsty creekbed. Frogs hop into the safety of the pools as I pass and birds sing in the treetops; an onslaught of life, a true gem in the desert. A place so delicate, the NPS has had it removed from all of our maps. Cartography on a need-to-know basis.

~

I look out on the cloud-layered Chisos and smell the sweetness of the rain on the desert air. I sigh and take a sip of my drink. Leaving soon, for the ocean no less; I wonder what that will be like. Not like this, that’s for damn sure. I look sideways as a bearded fellow in an overcoat endeavors to start an ancient “moped” and turn back to the view. The park, my park, soon to fade into memory; to be filed next to my other parks, other places I have called home in the past few years. Each has had its share of challenges and treasured experiences. My life is a transient one, enviable but not unattainable. Each place has shaped me in some indescribable way, and I savor every moment; I am constantly on vacation.
I glance at the wood of the bench on which I sit, worn smooth by use and the desiccating desert winds, and then turn back toward the mountains. Images and emotions from my time here in Big Bend float to the front of my mind and, as if watching a movie on fast-forward, they blur together in a miasma of heat and light, smells of the river and of desert wildflowers float by like phantoms. The stars wheel over my head as I lie on my back in the hot springs, I crouch in the shade of a boulder as the sun glares on the crushed rock and twisted vegetation of Sierra del Caballo Muerto. The crunch of deer hooves and the cries of nightbirds lull me to sleep under dark volcanic cliffs; the sun shimmers on an endless plain of creosote and dust, tumbleweeds roll by and the heat is so intense I feel the upward press of its waves on the underside of my cowboy hat; I pull a bandana over my nose and mouth and get back to work.
The images come faster now, and I wipe the sweat and dust from my brow, kneeling to sharpen my chainsaw under a furiously blooming Acacia; I dig my paddle into the water as I paddle against the wind blowing down the crevasse of Santa Elena canyon, a newspaper blows across the deserted street of a Mexican border town. Water drips, wind blows, birds call, and the Rio Grande flows on. Sights, sounds, and smells; overwhelming memories of grandeur, simplicity, joy, and occasional pain. I get up from the bench and discard my bottle; I look back at the porch one last time, my hand on the door of my truck, get in, and drive slowly away.

-Charlie Kolb, Terlingua, Texas

Riverwalk

NOTE: As you can see from the date below, this essay is about 3 years old, and comes from a body of work that I typed up while I was working my summer season at Yellowstone National Park.

22nd of June, 2007

Flowing past my home at the South Gate of Yellowstone is the Snake River. It is a constant presence at the station, and most of us here have used it to calm our nerves a time or two when the booth was threatening to drive us to distraction. I was working a late shift tonight and decided to take a river walk before it got dark.
Being the day after the summer solstice, darkness does fall fully until about ten o’clock at night so I had two hours between when I got off at eight and full darkness—it always seems twice as dark in grizzly country. I change out of my uniform and throw on some shorts, a t-shirt, and my Chaco sandals and walk down to the riverbank. I cross several small channels and am soon confronted with the main river. It is swift and wide but I am able to cross it with little difficulty at a shallow portion. I am now in the area closed for Bear Management until next month and where off-trail travel is illegal. Remembering that I had just seen the Backcountry ranger hanging his clothes out on the line as I left, I leave the trail, confident that I would not be seen.
I wade through the lush forest undergrowth and emerge into a large meadow that extends up to the edge of Huckleberry Mountain to the southeast. Cranes and geese call from an unseen marsh. I continue to walk north along the river soon coming jumping and swearing occasionally as I tread on an overlooked thistle. I see a point of bone sticking out above the grass and I reach down to grasp it, coming away with a massive elk antler. I weigh it silently in my hands, contemplative, wondering where it’s previous owner was. I return it to its grassy bed; by summer’s end it will be gone, giving calcium and sustenance to the many small critters that love to gnaw on antlers. Osteoporosis suffers might be better served to simply gnaw on the occasional antler rather than swallow pill after pill… I continue my riverwalk and come to a small thermal stream, I test the water, it’s not steaming down here by the river and is pleasantly warm like a freshly drawn bath. I wade into the river and enjoy the odd sensation of hot thermal water clashing with the cold snowmelt of the Snake.
I follow the stream toward its source, wading through a small field of thermophilic yellow flowers. I stop short of the stream’s source, however, as I am getting dangerously close to the Wolf den. Not that wolves are a danger, in fact it’s not unheard of for humans to enter a wolf den—with wolves in it and come away unscathed. No, I am primarily worried about disturbing the pups, who are too young to move which is the alpha female’s usual course of action when humans intrude too much. I haven’t seen them yet, but maybe next week I will. The only wolves I have seen in my month and a half here were across the Hellroaring valley through a very powerful spotting scope. I haven’t heard a wolf yet either, although some of my friends here have. I hope to hear one soon.
The sun is beginning to set behind the pitchstone plateau, and I start looking for a place to cross. I start across a patch of riffles but it is too deep and swift for me to cross. I start walking back toward the ford I had used earlier which was now out of sight. The bugs are terrible. Mosquitoes attack any exposed flesh and night begins to fall. I realize that I need to cross soon, since I am on the wrong side of the river, in shorts and sandals, with no Bear Spray (courage in a can!). I walk by a calm, deep stretch where the water slips silently past.
It is in this silence that I heard it. A faint but unmistakable wail, soon joined by others. Wolves. I am listening the ancient primeval music of the wild, a sound that sends chills up the spine of even the most seasoned outdoorsman. I smile and stand still, listening, drinking it in, the bugs forgotten for the moment. The wolves stop their serenade and I look back at the darkening river. I decide to cross at the deep spot and peel off my clothes holding them in a bundle over my head as I cross. The water is cold but not compared to the icy rivers back home.
The water is up to my chest but I sink down further as the bugs begin their assault on my bare back. I crawl out on the opposite shore and pull my clothes back on and begin to walk back to the complex. I look at my watch, only 45 minutes have passed since my first crossing…

-Charlie Kolb, Snake River Ranger Station, Yellowstone

Water Reflections

NOTE: This essay was written maybe 5 years ago, and was written while I was in college. It needs work, but it is one of my favorites. Enjoy

Memories of water send chills down my spine and bring tears to my eyes. I will share a few of them though they will not be as powerful in the retelling…

I stand with the burning hot stone of the canyon wall at my back with sweat running in rivulets down my spine. My hat brim shields my face and sunglasses cover my eyes, yet still I squint against the glare. Suddenly the wind shifts down canyon and brings a cool wet breeze that a moment before had been swirling around a high waterfall, I inhale the sweet, clean scent and listen to the distant thunder of the falls reverberating off the high red walls of the canyon.

This memory was of a constant and predictable water source, guaranteed to be there even in the driest of years. Another memory involves a less predictable source of water: rain…

I am driving my car down a lonely stretch of highway, the windshield wipers sweeping away the final remnants of a violent summer storm. The rain has stopped where I am now but in my rearview mirror the grey curtain of rain continues to drift across the land behind me. Even though the day had been hot before the storm’s passage, a chill runs through me as I roll down my window. I let the cool wind rush through the car and laugh as the occasional stray raindrop hits me in the face. But what is overwhelming is the smell that the storm has left behind. It is the sharp sweet fragrance of crushed desert sage and the smooth earthy scent of wet sand mingling together with a myriad of other smells such as those from the occasional desert flower and even the acrid scent of the wet asphalt beneath my tires. It is an incredible smell and the moment in time seems to last forever, but then the sun returns and the smell dissipates into the thirsty air.

Rain is an amazing thing in the deep desert. Plants that had seemed brittle and half-dead the moment before suddenly come alive with green and by the next morning the entire desert will be carpeted with wildflowers.
Water is vital. I have run down canyons with a pack full of empty water bottles hoping to find a solitary pool to sustain my group for the next day. Water is also a force of nature. I have run from water with my heart in my throat praying that I would make it out of a rain swollen canyon, before the wall of a flood sweeps me into oblivion.
There is one final memory of water I would like to share, it is the quietest but is somehow more powerful than the waterfall or the storm—it is the desert pool, the oasis:

I am hiking across a long, hot cirque of redrock. Twisted juniper trees send gnarled branches skyward from a few hollows where enough sand has collected to cover their roots. Around them, upthrusts of white-capped Cryptobiotic soil forms miniature mountain ranges, holding together the small bowl of sand and catching any droplet of moisture that falls on it. An Ephedra or “Mormon Tea” has also found purchase here, along with an Opuntia cactus (also known as “Prickly Pear”).
I continue across the semicircular valley, feeling the heat of the rock through the soles of my boots; around me red and white banded pinnacles of Cedar Mesa sandstone reach for the sky like misshapen fingers. The rock cairns marking the trail disappear into a small gully, which I enter using steps of piled rock and the occasional juniper root. The National Park Service attempts to maintain their trails using natural materials and usually succeeds unless the terrain is too severe (e.g. the ladder into Salt Creek Canyon near Peekaboo Spring that is five times my height). After a short time walking in the dry wash, I climb onto the side to skirt a small pour-off and soon come beneath it.
I have entered Eden: The air is noticeably cool and wet here in the shade of the stone and trees surrounding this green jewel—a prime example of what is often referred to as a “Hanging Garden”. This name is well deserved for I can see vast curtains of mosses and ferns growing straight out of the slick sandstone. Water drips from the walls of the canyon, and off the tips of the ferns; this water was originally rain which is just now seeping from the rock one drop at a time eventually collecting in the smooth bowl of the pour-off. I look into the pool and can see tadpoles of the Great Basin Spadefoot toad (the only toad with vertical pupils, like a cat) wriggle their way along the bottom of the pool in pursuit of Fairy Shrimp which scud hastily away, upside down, their translucent legs motoring.
A few caddis fly larvae crawl laboriously along the pool bottom, their cumbersome homes of pebbles and juniper twigs making rutted trails in the benthos. Jewel bright dragonflies dance on the pool surface, looking for other insects to sate their ferocious appetites. I place my hand gently into the water, taking care not to disturb its many occupants, relishing its cool caress on my dry, sunburned skin. I stand up and look around the hidden oasis one last time before plunging back into the heat.

Water is the antithesis of the other desert elements such as scorching sun and parched stone; it is the other side of the balancing act, and there is just enough of it to sustain the myriad of flora and fauna that call the deep desert home. We humans try desperately to harness the desert’s precious water in a vain attempt to make this alien environment seem more like our homes in greener places where water is not an issue. What we fail to realize is that the desert is our home and it is not it that must change; it is ourselves. We seem to think that we need yards of cultivated grass, carefully manicured to the same height as our neighbor’s (except that one guy down the street with all the dandelions—You know, the one that they talk about every year at the homeowners meeting?)
This need for a lawn is so great in some places that people will even illegally water at night during a water ban. Lake Powell (which I have mentioned before and will keep mentioning until they drain the damn thing…) is an example of how we cater to our water-rich lifestyles—at the desert’s expense. I am just as guilty as the next person for taking advantage of water, especially glorying in a long, hot shower after spending several days in the backcountry (you get sand in places that you didn’t know you had). Or maybe by letting the water run while I brush my teeth or do the dishes. Little things—that build up to be big things. I really admire the people in the cities whose Xeriscaped yards (think “gravel lawn”) are surrounded by the lush green lawns of their covert, night-waterer neighbors.
I am not saying that we shouldn’t grow anything in canyon country-not at all-I’m saying that we should think “is this necessary and/or useful?” when deciding if we should invest water in anything. I have seen the desert bloom under the right pair of hands using little or no excess water. Many farmers use ancient varieties of corn, beans, and squash which grow using what little moisture the Colorado plateau receives. This is known as dryland farming. An excellent example of this are the small organic farms you’ll find surrounding most desert towns like green satellites. Many of these farmers use the dryland method so know as you bite into a large, peach from the Cortez farmer’s market, that it is not a product of waste or excess, but that it is one of those hard-earned rewards of maintaining the desert balance.
Outsiders (water-fat scions of soggy eastern cities) decry the desert as being “too dry” and “inhospitable”. They are wrong, the desert is not too dry nor is it too wet. “Cactus Ed” Abbey states in Desert Solitaire that “there is exactly the right amount of water in the desert unless you try to build a city where no city should be.” While many cities once had a reliable water source, they have outgrown it and have to rely instead on augmented sources of water especially reservoirs made by damming a river.
Some cities should not exist at all. Phoenix, Tucson, Scottsdale, the shimmering pit of Las Vegas to name a few. Albuquerque was a nice place once, so I hear, as a cluster of mud and adobe huts strung along the banks of the now much damned Rio Grande. Now the city has exploded and is a mire of retirees and drug runners that is sucking water from reservoirs and aquifers many miles away. The Sandias stand like a black cloud on the city’s edge, a dark and brooding wilderness. But even the tortured face of the Sandias is a relief from the dirty diapers, soft drink cups, and occasional body parts strewn along I-25.
Some people like it here, even prefer it. They are mad but I am glad that they are living happily in America’s armpit—it means that I don’t have to. Nothing throws off the balance of the desert like a city, but take heart! After we run ourselves into the ground at the end of the oil dependent roller-coaster, the ensuing population crash will empty the cities. Some will bounce back, the smaller towns, like Durango, Mancos, and Dolores with their rivers. Moab will keep right on ticking, the mountain bikers drinking by firelight and lamplight once Salt Lake goes under and turns off the power.
The west will survive and will be wild once again; the roads will decay from lack of maintenance and the great tombstone blocking Glen canyon will begin to erode away, finally a great crack will appear and the Grand Canyon will be scoured with a great flood of silt, tepid water, beer cans, sunken boats, monkeywrenched bulldozers, dead bodies, anasazi mummies, and all-around, all-american filth.
Lake Foul’s demise will be like the lancing of a boil—with 50,000 cfs of water to cleanse the wound. Centuries later, our descendants (those of us who survive) will ride their horses across the silent desert and wonder at the crumbling strips of asphalt, drifted with dunes, leading to skeletal buildings of twisted metal and glass. Perhaps they will make a national park out of it like Mesa Verde, a monument to America’s one size fits all greed.

-Charlie Kolb, Hesperus Colorado