Sodden fall in New Mexico and southern Colorado. While Donald Trump is hyperventilating and bloviating about refugees from Guatemala marching toward his fragile little world, we are wearing rain gear and welcoming remnants of Mexican hurricanes blowing wave after wave of rain and snow over our parched region. Gold cottonwoods blaze against red cliffs in the Chama River country, box elders flame psychedelic pink-yellow in Bandelier, distant aspen groves send leaves spiraling toward glistening creeks wearing cuffs of ice.
These Mexican storms have opened a Colorado ski area early this year. Wolf Creek Ski Area opened on October 21 with 30 inches of snow. The latest storm has brought in at least 3 more inches allowing them to open on weekends. None of the other regional ski areas have enough snow to open, including Monarch, Taos, Purgatory or Santa Fe. This shows the unique nature of the Wolf Creek area and its courtship of storms.
The changing trees are exceptionally spectacular this year. Other colors show this fall too. Blue and red political signs crowd around the road edges, dripping with rainwater, reminding us that the natural world we all depend on for our sanity is all too vulnerable to the whims of money driven and unethical politicians. Right now there are far too many of them and I hope everyone is determined to vote early to bring some good people into office, people like Senator Martin Heinrich and Michele Lujan Grisham for New Mexico governor in New Mexico.
If we need a reminder of why elections matter, we need only look up into the San Juan Basin where Chaco Canyon National Historic Park is besieged by pending oil development right up to the very boundaries of this too-small protected area. Donald Trump’s Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has ignored thousands of people who have commented and protested oil drilling close to the park and among the homes of the Navajo people who live nearby. Organizations of native people have contacted him and asked that no drilling be allowed in this sacred area. They were fully ignored.
While Zinke rushes forward with leasing our public lands without legally required studies, New Mexico’s two democratic senators have introduced legislation to protect Chaco Canyon from oil wells, pipelines, air and water pollution and the glare of flares against the now dark night skies.
Elections matter. Right now the Heinrich/Udall bill to protect Chaco, the Chaco Heritage Protection Act, is just a gesture because the republicans will not block the oil industry in any place or in any fashion anywhere. But with one or both houses of Congress in democratic hands, the bill would be subject to hearings and republicans would be on the defensive about their unquestioning support for all things oil.
Just a little north of Chaco we have Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument which Donald Trump ended protections for a few weeks after he entered the White House. Despite lawsuits from multiple groups challenging the legality of his move under the Antiquities Act, Ryan Zinke has the BLM on the fast track to open the Monument to oil and gas and coal mining. Utah congressmen are trying to turn a scrap of the old monument over to the state. The corporate flies are gathered on the stench of Trump’s oily little power play. You can help with that problem by clicking here.
Speaking of stench, as we drive the backroads of New Mexico and Colorado this time of year we can see many trucks and trailers full of smelly cattle driving away from the mountains. These are cattle that have been damaging our wilderness areas and national forest lands all summer. They defecate in our streams and lakes and destroy native plants. Now they are on their way back to the rancher’s “base property” or they are going to slaughter houses to be turned into meatloaf for Donald Trump (his favorite dish). It’s a great relief to see the cows go away and I always wish that they would somehow never come back and we could have cattle free public lands, full of wildlife, thriving plants and streams.
Meanwhile, its time to get back outdoors once we’ve gone to vote early. How about a hike up Frijoles Canyon in Bandelier National Monument. This canyon was scrubbed by floods after the Las Conchas fire in 2011 but now it is filled with new and old trees ablaze in fall color. Walk from Bandelier Headquarters to Upper Crossing and don’t forget to bring your six pack of Modus Hoperandi from Ska Brewing or 7K IPA from Santa Fe Brewing Company. Those little canned beers are lightweight. Kokoman liquors in Pojoaque has an excellent selection of beers for the trail, including beer from Oregon. (And you can recycle the cans!)
