After living for nearly two decades on the Texas Gulf Coast, where we owned
a 21-foot Wellcraft and fished the estuaries, the flats, the surf and the offshore
waters, I find it somewhat disorienting when I see sailboats, inboard and outboard
power boats and even houseboats towed or hauled along the freeways across the
desert. It seems like a non sequitur.
After living for awhile in the Southwest, however, I have come to understand
that mountain streams, rivers, wetlands and lakes lie at the soul of the region.
Prehistoric peoples gave expression to their reverence for water in the images
they painted and scribed on the walls of secluded rock shelters and on the surfaces
of boulders, in the designs on the surfaces of ceramic vessels, and in the textures
of ceremonial dress and weavings. Historic peoples have staked their livelihoods
and futures on water, reshaping much of our landscape to reach, store, channel
and control this most vital of all desert resources. Like our predecessors, we
turn to water for spiritual renewal in the mountain ranges and desert basins
of the Southwest.
The Mountain Streams
In summer hiking and camping trips in mountains of western Texas and southern
New Mexico and Arizona, for example, you can follow streams as they trace a sinuous
and rocky course through a canopy of Ponderosa Pines, Narrowleaf Cottonwoods
and various willows. Dappled by sunlight, wildflowers often grow along the banks
of the stream, and lupines gather on the nearby forest floor beneath the Ponderosas.
At pools, lovely and peaceful, moss drapes over rocky outcrops, and, perhaps,
trout hover in the crystalline cold waters. At a stream-fed mountain pond, water
striders skirt the edges of the still waters. Damselflies prey on aquatic insects.
Swallowtail butterflies decorate low-hanging willows. Beavers leave their mark
on the cottonwoods or, in the higher elevations, the aspens. A lone elk, or,
with luck, a herd – startlingly large animals when seen up close suddenly
in the forest – browses on the grasses, streamside sedges and broadleaf
plants. In the early morning, a Common Raven flies, very businesslike, through
the upper branches of the pines toward his daily appointments. Through the day,
Hairy Woodpeckers hammer away at insect-infested trees, their drumming rising
then fading. With the sun falling, a Great Horned Owl begins his hunt, his wings
and soft feathers spiriting him through the trees as silently as a moving shadow.
With the coming of the dark, a wind wanders up the stream bottom, strumming
the foliage of the trees gently. The water hisses and gurgles through the darkness.
The Whip-poor-will begins his persistent nightly call. Coyotes take to the chase.
(Once, encamped beside the Mimbres River up in the Gila Wilderness, we had a
pair of yelping coyotes crash right through our camp, yelping as they closed
in on their prey. Pokey, our strawberry blonde cocker spaniel, barked bravely
when she first heard the coyotes well downstream. She grew more tentative the
closer they came. She dove into my sleeping bag, with me, as they tore through
our camp. She re-emerged and barked bravely well after they passed.)
In passages where the stream bottomland widens enough to permit cultivation,
you may discover prehistoric farmers' lodges – perhaps small, five-foot-deep
pits walled with cobbles and once covered with timbers, grass and a mud cap – on
the first bench above the valley floor. Looking closely among the forest debitage,
you might find fragments of ceramics bowls, jars and dippers. You might find
flakes of stone concentrated at the spot where a master flint knapper carved
projectile points and tools. (Please resist the temptation to collect the artifacts.
Leave that to the archaeologists.)
As streams issue from the mountains, some may simply die in the desert sands,
with their waters gathering in aquifers beneath the surface. Others may join
to form the rivers that have sculpted our desert landscape.
Rivers
While the streams flow merrily through forested mountain valleys and canyons,
the Colorado River and the Rio Grande and their major tributaries march purposefully
toward an anticipated rendezvous with the sea (although, with the river waters
taken away by cities and farms, those rendezvous are now seldom kept). Along
the way, they spawn wetlands and they fill (or, at least, partially fill) manmade
impoundments. From late spring into early autumn, you may feel drawn to the rivers'
promise—cascading water, wooded banks, primordial canyon walls, secluded
alcoves and passageways, placid and wooded fish-filled runs.
White waters beckon the most adventurous. (I almost got too much adventure
early one summer many years ago, on the white waters of Ontario's Nagagami River,
which swiftly taught me about the thunderous power of crashing rapids.) Rafting
trips, for example, through the Big Bend National Park's Santa Elena Canyon in
western Texas, the Rio Grande Gorge in north central New Mexico, the Canyonlands
National Park's Cataract Canyon in southeastern Utah, and, of course, the incomparable
Grand Canyon in northwestern Arizona, draw you into rocky chasms, with billions
of years of the earth's history written in stone.
Exploring the rivers by raft – or, in early autumn, after the snowmelts
have passed – by canoe or kayak, you experience the emotional high of rushing
waters, a test of the human will set against one of nature's most elemental forces.
In the occasional stretches spared by the forces of development and agriculture,
you may pass through riverine woodlands, dense with cottonwoods and willows or,
since historic invasions, Tamarisk and Russian Olive. Gliding down quiet waters,
where you have time to deliberate, you may feel humbled by towering canyon walls
that speak to universal and timeless forces. Hiking from streamside campsites
up narrow and winding stone passageways that spill into your river, you may find
a sense of anticipation welling up in your chest as you realize that you could
discover something – perhaps an image rendered centuries ago by a shaman
on a spiritual quest – no human before you has ever seen. Climbing to quiet
alcoves above the river, you may find the ruins of rocky walls of homes built
by extended families of prehistoric agriculturists, who – in an unimaginably
isolated setting and time – raised corn, beans and squash; hunted elk,
deer, mountain sheep and rabbits; crafted rudimentary clay bowls and pots and
stone tools and projectile points; and invoked mystic forces. Wading in shallow
waters with quiet pools like those of the San Juan River below the Navajo Lake
dam in northwestern New Mexico, you can send out a fly line in a graceful arc
and maybe hook an 18-inch trout that strikes softly, almost delicately, but,
once you set the hook, fights like a speckled trout in San Luis Pass on the Texas
Gulf Coast. You may find the lure of a Southwest river irresistible, a place
to come back to year after year, for it changes, not only from season to season,
but from day to day.
Wetlands
If the rivers invoke a sense of discovery and adventure, the wetlands, with
their placid and mysterious waters, hold out the opportunity to regain a sense
of wonder about humankind's companions on this earth.
From late fall through winter into early spring, they may offer comfort and
sanctuary for migratory waterfowl, raptors and other birds—seasonal additions
to a rich community of wildlife. At sunrise, you may hear a thousand geese in
a slow-rising chorus that culminates in an explosion of birds lifting from the
water and taking to the air to head to nearby fields to feed, leaving stillness
in their wake. Near sunset, you can hear them returning in scattered flights,
their calls intensifying as they approach in a steep descent to land, sometimes
almost on top of their companions, gathering in a dense feathered raft on the
water where they will spend the night squabbling and gossiping about the events
of the day. Through the day, you may see raptors, for instance, Red-tailed Hawks
or, with luck, Bald Eagles, waiting arrogantly on the skeletal branches at the
tops of dead trees, surveying the waters and the shorelines for potential prey.
A raptor may take a careless duck or desert cottontail, ripping at the flesh,
leaving behind a scattering of feathers or fur to mark the site of the kill.
During the change of seasons, especially fall to winter, it seems to me, you
may find that a watchful day in Southwest wetlands can produce surprises, sometimes
a little too much of a surprise.
I recall once in September, in the Bosque del Apache wetlands in central New
Mexico, my wife, Martha, and I watched a Mule Deer doe deliver a brand new fawn,
with the outlandish ears of its species and rows of spots along its back and
sides. We wondered whether it could possibly survive. The season was late. The
mother was tattered and thin. Cold weather would come in a few weeks.
Another year at the Bosque, at about the same season, we had come to look
for early migratory waterfowl, and we discovered a solitary male Scarlet Tanager,
a small bird with a dazzlingly red body and black wings and tail. From its perch
on top of a post beside the water, it would fly short distances and return, an
act it repeated the entire time we watched it. We learned later that that the
species appears at the Bosque only rarely, perhaps once every few years.
Early in November one year, a friend named Jimmy Stevens and I had climbed
up the slope of a mesa not far east of the Bosque, toward a small cave just beneath
the formation's massive basalt caprock. We had come to see the images chiseled
into stone surfaces by Puebloan peoples perhaps a thousand years ago. Just as
we reached the cave, we saw a Western Diamondback Rattlesnake crawling toward
the cave, then another, and another. The snakes, along with a lot of close friends,
were coming to den in the cave for the winter. Jimmy and I withdrew quietly.
And watchfully. And carefully.
Another year, in early November, Martha and I had gone to the Bosque for
the Festival of the Cranes, an annual celebration of the return of the migrant
birds. During the event, an organization that rescues injured raptors returns
rehabilitated birds to the wild. A young woman came with a Golden Eagle clasped
in her arms. She had tears in her eyes. "How long have you had this bird?" I
asked her. "Six months," she said. "And I love her so." She
kissed the bird gently on the back of its head. She opened her arms. The bird
took flight, struggling at first to stay aloft, then it found its wings and turned
across the quiet Bosque waters, gaining altitude above the shoreline trees, and
disappearing into freedom.
Lakes
The Colorado River and Rio Grande basins' lakes – manmade impoundments
designed to bank water for municipal and agricultural use, throttle flows to
prevent downstream flooding and, in some instances, generate hydroelectric power
for the region – bring mixed blessings.
On the one hand, they can degrade the riverine environment, lose prodigious
water volumes and inundate scenic and historic sites. For instance, Hoover Dam,
which impounds the Colorado River's Lake Mead on the Arizona/Nevada border, has
altered temperatures, volumes, sediment flows and nutrients in waters downstream,
imperiling riparian wildlife and plant communities. Altogether the lakes of the
Southwest, with their broad surfaces exposed to the desert sun, give up millions
of acre feet to evaporation every year. (An acre foot, that is, the amount of
water required to cover an acre of flat land to a depth of one foot, equals nearly
326,000 gallons, enough to support a typical household for more than a year.)
The Colorado River's Lake Powell, on the Arizona/Utah border, drowned the magnificent
Glen Canyon and some 2000 prehistoric Native American sites. Elephant Butte Lake,
located on the Rio Grande in south-central New Mexico, inundated numerous prehistoric
sites as well as famous frontier forts and settlements.
On the other hand, the lakes can create new and fruitful environments, help
manage water, establish new economic opportunities, and offer exceptional recreation.
For example, the Glen Canyon Dam, which impounds Lake Powell, has helped create
a downstream riparian corridor for wildlife and world class waters for anglers.
The dams that impound Elephant Butte Lake and its immediate downstream companion
Caballo Lake have helped reduce destructive seasonal flooding in New Mexico's
rich Mesilla Valley and the El Paso/Juarez metropolitan area, and they have helped
the river bottom farmers optimize the timing and flow of their irrigation waters.
In producing hydroelectric power – clean energy! – the Hoover and
Glen Canyon dams have saved the equivalent of burning tens of millions of tons
of coal and the atmospheric release of hundreds of billions of pounds of carbon
dioxide. Lake Mead has been the source of most of the water that allowed the
explosive growth of Las Vegas. Since the onset of the current drought and global
warming, Lake Mead, Elephant Butte and others have fallen to historic and even
alarming lows, but they still hold true to their promise of recreation.
For instance, the "Lake Mead National Recreation Area [which includes
lakes Mead and Mojave] offers a wealth of things to do and places to go year-round.
Its huge lakes cater to boaters, swimmers, sunbathers, and fishermen while its
desert rewards hikers, wildlife photographers, and roadside sightseers," says
the National Park Service in its Internet site. (See DesertUSA's Lake
Mead page.)
Lake Havasu, in the lower Colorado River basin, on the California/Arizona
border, may offer the broadest range of recreational activities in the Southwest.
You can, for instance, tour the lake by jet boat, paddlewheel, canoe, kayak or
gondola; fly over the lake by bi-plane, seaplane or hot-air balloon; fish from
beaches, piers or watercraft; explore four National Wildlife Refuges; visit ghosts
at London Bridge; and, in your spare time, play golf, go rock climbing, and race
go-carts. (See the DesertUSA's Lake
Havasu page and
Lake Havasu Convention and Visitor Bureau's http://www.golakehavasu.com/recreation.html.)
Navajo Lake, on the San Juan River (a tributary to the Colorado River), in
northwestern New Mexico, just below the Colorado state border, offers a much
quieter and more bucolic fare. Through the summer, you can take a boat to secluded
alcoves – beyond the reach of automotive traffic – and pitch a tent
in a quiet wooded shoreline. You can explore canyons where Navajo and Puebloan
farmers once joined to build small hamlets, raise crops, hunt mule deer and battle
Ute raiders. You can fish or swim or just simply decompress. (See the New Mexico
State Parks Internet site http://www.wildernet.com/pages/area.cfm?areaID=NMSPNALA&CU_ID=1.)
Every lake throughout the Colorado River and Rio Grande basins offers a unique
setting, distinctive wildlife and plant communities, its own prehistory and history
and diverse recreational opportunities. Whichever one you choose, you can count
on a special adventure as you explore the waters of the Southwest.
