I call this cluster of rocks along the Mace/Tower loop Lower Tranquility Rock, as opposed to the higher Tranquility Rock (or Couch Rock, as some folks refer to it) along the Northridge Trail. I’ve been coming here for years, to sit, think, plan, contemplate, dream, and sometimes, just to be. When faced with a difficult decision about some serious challenge when raising my children, I would come here, looking for, and finding, clarity. When formulating plans to create the MPEC, this rock was my “thinking place.” When troubled by some disturbing or sad news, I would often find solace here.

And so here, once again, I sit. In spite of some big things going on in my life, I am pleased that, right now, on this warm breezy day, nothing in particular is on my mind. I seem to have a kind of free association going on -- I look at something, like a patch of mud, and I am sent off in some direction of thought sparked by the mud. Then I notice something else, and off I go in another direction.

I look up from the page and see a piñon pine. It looks green and healthy, unlike the countless piñons along the road to Ojo Caliente. A recent drive through southern Colorado and northern New Mexico for a quick getaway to Ojo’s hot waters revealed mile after mile of mostly dead piñons, weakened by the drought and killed by the ips beetle. I look around and count nine healthy piñons, a little island of healthy trees, right here surrounding Lower Tranquility.

I hear what sounds like a red tail hawk. But something tells me it is a Steller’s jay, performing one of its many mimics. Yup, there is the trickster’s handsome blueness in the green of a nearby ponderosa pine. I’ve been fooled before, but not this time.

The snow that sat on the trail has melted into a tiny river that is sliding its way down a section of the orange-pink rock that was once liquid itself, a long long time ago. The 10” of snow that fell a couple of days ago is rapidly going the way of the other 117” of snow that has fallen on the park this winter. This is the third consecutive winter of above average snowfall in the park.

I am reminded of some of the reading I’ve been doing lately. One thing I’ve learned is that, in spite of these rather wet years, most of the western United States is still in the grip of a drought. According to dendroclimatologists (scientists who look for climate patterns in the growth rings of trees) and other paleoclimatologists (those who study ancient climate using glacial ice, lake- and sea-bottom sediments, corals and tree-rings), droughts have been a common occurrence during the last 1000 years of western US weather. Not only the occasional dry year, but twenty-plus year droughts -- sometimes with a few wet years in between, but lengthy stretches of very sparse precipitation. The science indicates that widespread forest fires accompany these dry stretches. The science is also saying loud and clear that these patterns are being exacerbated by the irrefutable fact that the planet is getting warmer, due largely to greenhouse gases from human activities.

I think back on a river trip I took down the Colorado River into Lake Powell two summers ago, and how the lake level was 40 feet below the “bathtub ring” of a full reservoir. Lake Powell is now 33% of full. Scientists have realized that the 1920s, when Colorado River water was divided up among several western states, was an unusually wet decade in the river’s watershed. Many are beginning to believe that Lake Powell may never be full again. The common occurrence of droughts, rapidly growing southwestern cities, and a warming planet all point to some very challenging times ahead.

Such are my thoughts on this early spring day. For me, it is important to be informed about such issues, but I need to be careful, because I can easily wind up in a hole of despair about the sad realities of our time. I have found that I must balance my awareness of such issues with the hope and joy that comes from experiencing wild Nature. I think of the advice of Edward Abbey, “Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it.” So, I look up and find myself back in the moment. I see an almost blooming mountain bladderpod and remember that, just an hour ago, I discovered the year’s first bladderpod in bloom. Its many yellow flowers, small but radiant, were the color of the sun come to life in the petals of a little mustard. It’s going to be a great spring, I think to myself.

Dave Van Manen,
March 28, 2005