Cabin Journal

Soaring Above It All

 

Driving down to the San Luis Valley last week to see the sandhill cranes, the world felt uprooted, out of sorts. Fierce winds—the same ones that have been causing wildfires all week in Colorado— blew dust across the valley, creating sandstorms and blocking out the Sangre de Christo mountains. Tumbleweeds danced across the road, and the dust-filled landscape looked like something from the Dust Bowl days.

It was the opposite of last year, when this southern Colorado valley was covered in snow, and blizzard conditions kept us in the car, peering out at the ghostly outlines of these tall, stately birds. This year, it was the strong winds that made it unpleasant to be outside, so I had to roll down the windows to hear the sound of the cranes, a croaking vibration that spreads throughout the whole flock. To me, it’s the sound of spring, of the arrival of an animal that has survived thousands of years of climatic upheaval,  who have lived through wet and dry, warm and cold, volcanoes and ice.

Only to find themselves here, in this high altitude valley that gets only 7 inches of precipitation a year. To distribute the water that comes down from the mountains, a vast network of ditches has been created, while wells bring up water from the aquifer. Vast center pivot irrigation machines spew water on the dry fields in order to grow potatoes and barley, the latter for Coors beer.

In this unnatural alteration of nature, the government pays farmers to leave crops on their fields from the previous year, so the cranes have food for their spring stop in their migration north. And irrigation pumps keep the Monte Vista wildlife refuge filled with ponds, so the cranes have a safe place to roost at night, away from predators.

It’s a strange world we live in, with climate change causing warmer winters that exacerbate our drought conditions, so we take more artificial measures to keep potatoes growing and the cranes feeding, while sandstorms and wildfires become the new normal.

And yet, throughout it all, the cranes seem oblivious, adjust their flight patterns to fly parallel with the strong winds, keep their heads down as they feed, while the wind ruffles their feathers. They continue their acrobatic feats: taking advantage of the wind to leap into the air, their wings outspread, either to challenge their neighbor, impress a possible mate, or just some spring time exuberance.  Despite the strong winds and dust, they take to the sky, their powerful wings stroking the air and their sweet chortles filling the sky, while those of us who are earthbound can only crane our heads (pun intended) in admiration and amazement.

A part of me worries, of course. In this time of climate change, how much longer can this web of life sustained by human intervention keep going? There’s no way of knowing, so, for now, I’ll be happy that they are here and keep craning my head to keep them in my view as long as possible.

Long Live the Ponderosas

I was at my cabin several weeks ago when the moon was full. I stood looking out the bathroom window, which faced east, and watched as the moon came up. But the longer I stood there, the more I realized I wasn’t fascinated by the moon so much as the large ponderosa pine across the yard. It’s not just large but tall, 100 feet or so. Bathed in the moonlight, it took on a powerful presence, some symbol of longevity and the ancient forest.

While California has its redwoods and sequoias, and the Midwest its huge oaks, these ponderosas are Colorado’s giants. They soar above other trees and above rocky hillsides, somehow holding their own in the poor, rock-strewn soil.

I was glad to find out recently that other people are just as passionate as I am about them. In an effort to make the forest healthier—lessening the chances of beetle kill as well as fires—the Forest Service has been cutting down trees in my neck of the woods. Its philosophy is that you remove some of the big ones as well as the small ones. By cutting down the old ponderosas, you open up the forest and provide more sunlight for the younger ones, as well as more nutrients, and get rid of some older trees that are diseased.

But seeing your favorite old trees cut down and a new landscape that’s empty of them is devastating, and some residents in the Taylor Park area near Allenspark have made their grievances public. In the Allenspark Wind, our local newsletter, tree lovers, the Forest Service, and forestry experts have been debating the wisdom of taking down these old trees, some of which are 100 feet high and 200 years old.

In a recent issue of the Wind, the editor, Gene Mackey, wrote about walking through the area after the large trees had been cut down. ”While I look around the forest and see the open canopy of fire defense I miss the large friends that I had in the big trees. I stand on their stumps one by one and think of the view that each tree had for all of its life.”

It’s not just a chunk of wood that’s being removed, but a complex system of growth,  starting from a seed and pushing up from the forest floor toward the sunlight, growing limbs that strive out and upward, providing food and shelter for countless squirrels and birds. Some of the trees around my cabin were here before there was a Meeker Park, an Estes Park, or even a Denver. Native Americans were still hunting bear and elk and deer in this valley below Mount Meeker when these trees began their lives.

Two weeks ago, I was snowshoeing in Rocky Mountain National Park on the Fern Lake trail where there are several old and tall ponderosas. One was dying, its needles red and its bark oozing the ugly yellow sap that indicates it’s been attacked by pine beetles. It breaks my heart to see these ancient and proud trees succumb. How many more will we lose before the beetles are done? It’s hard to imagine this mountain landscape without the ponderosas and lodgepole pines, both victims of the pine beetle.

I don’t know what’s right or wrong here, if the Forest Service’s plan to cut down the forest will save the forest. But with the double whammy of climate change and overuse of our  resources  threatening our environment, surely we should do all we can to save as many big trees as possible.