Erode the High Road

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As much as this is a brutally tough and rugged appearing land, it is also a very delicate and sensitive one. It will bleed profusely when scratched even ever so lightly. As time goes on, I will show you more photos of what even the fairly benign elements of wind and rain can do to this landscape sporting the tough-guy facade.
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Mark decided to go east to start this week's sign posting chores 'up top'. We had not been through the locked gate at the ranch's end since mid-summer and he was back within the half hour, insisting that I come see the summer rain's work on the road beyond for myself. "No, you won't really appreciate what I ran into unless you see it for yourself, I kid you not. C'mon, jump in the truck!" Since Daisy won't jump into the truck but WILL run herself to death following us, we tethered her to the moving trailer and headed down the road with the ever well-behaved Brou in the back seat. Mark did the honors at the gate and began his play-by-play narration; "Okay, so I'm through the gate and mostly thinking about the crossing at the creek itself when I hit the brakes because I am suddenly looking down eight feet, dead in front of the truck ... right about ... here!" Thanks to that impressive re-enactment, my breakfast was now requesting an instant replay. "Yes, thank you, I can see how this might have commanded your full attention, I can, really."
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Then he noticed a new trail blazed through the rough grasses to the west and pointed the Ram's head to follow. It generously skirted the old road (now a committed arroyo) in a rough and bumpy manner and finally met up with the work of a back hoe which had placed a bridge of dirt across the new gap at a narrowing much further up. At this point, we parked on the other side and walked back to the edge of the old road.
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This photo above was taken after we found a less treacherous path down into the wash. I have placed a yellow line in the photo to indicate the original path of the road as recently as July. Although I cannot describe our rains this season as being exceptional or even plentiful, there must have been just the right downpours in this exact area to incise 8 feet of earth away from the road bed here.
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We wandered down the arroyo to find the matching end of this now defunct road (marked with a yellow spot). It was nearly impossible to imagine this much material ripped away by one season's rains. I thought of a ditty occasionally murmured by an eccentric engineer I once worked with in phone plant; "Rooty-toot-toot, Rooty-toot-toot, We are the boys from the institute, We are not rough, We are not tough, But - we - are - determined!" He'd always turn to face me for that last line, one index finger up in the air for accentuation and that madman grin on his face that I so adored. Now, that may seem like a strange recollection to make at this moment but it struck me that this was how our rains operate; not in vicious assaults but by gently overwhelming their surroundings with a doggedly patient determination. No tsunamis, no crashing white waters, just a constant relaxed flow, unebbing and thoroughly resolute.
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We wandered even further down its now dry course to where its path was less incised, to where it was beginning to make concessions to the normal grade of the land at either side. This photo above shows Mark standing in front of a pile of flotsam caught in an exposed gas pipeline. Perhaps that debris pile will someday become a starter bed for new silts and sands to form a new deflecting bank. In our lifetime? It is more likely that the 40 or 50 feet of newly exposed 6 inch pipeline will rupture and fill our canyon with gas at impressive compressor-driven volumes. I followed the fresh tracks of several cows up to and either over or under this line. Since there are far more hazardous cases of exposed pipeline in the region which have gone long unaddressed, we don't expect any miracle of responsible maintenance to occur any time soon. Tell you what; if you hear of our demise by massive inferno, the first one of you to investigate and prove that it was corporate negligence, you get what's left of the ranch, too, okay? There will still be a goodly amount left, I can assure you. I will only hang around to haunt the corporate bean-counters and budget wonks responsible ... promise. I'm sure any one of them would freak if I performed my infamous Daytona hairspray blow torch demonstration in their living room but it's okay for them to do it to us on the Russian Roulette macro scale.
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I did get a consolation hike in the process. Mark was quite willing to hang out by the truck while I scaled a new mesa bench with Brou. I will admit that it took longer than I had planned (AS USUAL) but it was such a joy to wander through the trees, over one odd formation of worn terraces and rocks to another and yet another. Soft, dense area rugs of pine needles under foot, the natural sandstone steps, the smooth open paths of old rains, the strewn gravel of old glaciers, the hidden niches and shelters in the worn rock. Occasionally, I would pass by a shard of ancient pottery which whispered to me that someone else had once loved this place as much as I. It is in these places where I am most free of time's shackles, most fully aware and most joyfully alive. I hope you all can find a place like this in your lifetime.

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