4 0.3 (1.9)
This is another different point of view. You’ve come only a little way, you look at the same things (plus a few new ones), but it’s different.
Lichens
Lichens: Patches of color, bright or somber, like a thin crust on the rock. Blue, black, orange, red, brown, green, yellow and other colors. These represent another odd plant community. Lichens are a lot tougher than the cryptogamic crust, but it seems a shame to walk on them. They are algae and fungi that live intertwined lives. Neither can live alone; each is utterly dependent upon the other. Such things are called “symbiotic” or “symbiotes.” Incidentally, you’re a symbiote, too, in a way.
Crossbedding
“Crossbedding” is all over the place, and you can see it all through the Monument in cliffs, exposed rock faces of many kinds, boulders, etc. It is the numerous groups of thin layers of rock intersecting at odd angles. They are the result of wind-blown sands drifting across the landscape—a very different landscape than that you see. The Cedar Mesa Sandstone is largely made up of sands that drifted here in great dunes. The loose grains were later covered by more sediments, cemented together by other minerals, and are now being uncovered and worn away by erosion. With each step, you free grains of sand that have been locked in place for about 180 million years. Those grains will now move on, eventually to come to rest and again become frozen in time. Rub the sandstone with your hand and feel the sand grains break loose.
There is an Indian ruin across the canyon. Can you see it?
The douglasfir community grows on the more shaded side of the canyon, for it cannot tolerate the hotter and drier environments on the sunny side or on the mesa top. In fact, the tops of most douglasfir growing near the cliff rise only to the level of the cliff top. Many have dead tops even with the cliffs edge. Hot dry winds from the mesa apparently kill the tops of these mountain forest trees, but we’re not really sure that’s the reason for the dead tops. Can you think of a better one?
Douglas Fir
5 0.1 (2.0) Sipapu Bridge viewpoint
Natural bridges are often described in terms like young, mature, and old, but the words have nothing to do with age in years. A “young” bridge has a great, massive span above a relatively small hole. An “old” bridge has a very thin span over a relatively large opening. A “mature” bridge is intermediate between young and old. The same terms can be used to describe natural arches—which form in a very different manner than do bridges. Remember, the terms reflect stages of development, not age in years (a mature bridge could be older in years than an old bridge!). Sipapu is mature.
Sipapu Bridge
6 0.8 (2.8) Sipapu Trailhead
You came here to see bridges and you got a good view of one at the last stop. Here is an outstanding opportunity for another, but different, view of that bridge. Two different views, in fact.
A trail starts here, proceeds about halfway down into the canyon and out along a ledge to an outstanding view of this beautiful, graceful bridge. It’s a fairly easy walk with guard rails, metal stairs, and other aids. You have to climb one short ladder. You can see an ancient Indian ruin, may learn quite a bit about the douglasfir community, and will get an excellent chance to photograph the bridge. You can walk out and back in about half an hour, but you may find that you want to take longer.
About halfway to the viewpoint, another trail takes off and goes right down into the canyon. DO NOT take that route unless you’re prepared for a much more ambitious hike. You need good footwear (like boots with a good sole for rock), drinking water in warm or hot weather, and plenty of time (allow 2-3 hours at least). It’s a nice trip and you’ll never really appreciate how huge this bridge is unless you stand under it, but we do not recommend the hike unless you are physically fit and properly prepared.
SPECIAL WARNING: When you make a trip into any canyon in this part of the country, beware of flash floods. Even if the weather is fine where you are, be on the lookout for thunderstorms or heavy rain upstream from your location. If it’s raining upstream, or if great towering clouds are building up, STAY OUT OF THE STREAMBED in the bottom of the canyon. NEVER CAMP in or next to a streambed in this region, even if it is dry. If you get caught by a healthy flash flood, you’re dead.
The following lettered paragraphs are coordinated with numbered stakes along the trail to the viewpoint. They help explain features as you see them. If you are not taking advantage of the different points of view here, turn to [page 16]. (It’s OK to read the trail guide even if you don’t take the walk.)
6
A How’s this for a different point of view? It used to be, when people wanted to do what you are doing, that they scrambled out on the rocks, crawled across these logs and climbed down the tree. That was the only way down the cliff. Now you gain access via the stairs, which cost a few thousand of your tax dollars. Your dollars, remember, not just “Government funds.”
Now, some folks say we ruined the trip, that it’s no fun anymore. Others say we should have built wooden stairs, not metal. Some think this is fine and a few want nothing less than an elevator or tram. What do you think?
How does the difficulty of getting to a place affect your feeling for that place? How does it affect your opinion of the people who will not (we don’t mean those who can not) do what you are doing right now?
White Throated Swifts
6
B A thousand years ago this summer, a man stood where you now stand and he watched the white throated swifts sweep in and out of cracks in the cliff above you. He didn’t know they were white throated swifts nor did he care. His main interest was to see if any baby birds had fallen from their nests into the pile of manure. Many do, each year, and the occupants of this land used any food they could find.
In that 1,000 years, nearly a thousand generations of swifts have come and gone. Each year they return, nest in the cracks, wing their way through the canyons catching insects, and produce a new generation from the stuff of their environment. A thousand generations have passed; the swifts are still here. There are neither more nor less than the previous owner of the land watched a thousand years ago, and a thousand generations have left the environment ready for a thousand more. What of us—of Man?
Less than 50 generations of man have passed since the day your predecessor watched the birds from this point. Our numbers have increased to many times the number there were then and each of us uses many times as much from our environment.
Today we endure shortages of food, services and materials. Twenty-five years from now there will be twice as many of us. What will become of us? In fact, come to think of it, what became of the guy who watched the birds 1,000 years ago?
6
C A few minutes ago we wrote of a previous owner of this land who gathered dead birds. Well, this is his house. It may not look like much now (and probably didn’t look an awful lot better then), but it has become a little rundown after 1,000 (800, or whatever) years. He may have been quite proud of it (it’s bigger than most) and he built it all himself. No planes, trains, barges, boats, trucks, or even wheelbarrows. In fact, no wheels! A family of Anasazis could have anything they wanted, just so long as they could get it by themselves.
Anasazi Home
Please do not enter the ruin. In doing so, you can easily and innocently damage it. What we call “innocent vandalism” probably results in more irreparable damage than is caused by deliberate vandals.
The Anasazis probably did a little farming down in the canyon, growing and storing some corn, beans and squash. They gathered wild fruits and seeds and made fiber from native plants. They apparently led a difficult life, and probably ate anything they could get: lizards, snakes, birds, mice, squirrels, rabbits, and rarely a deer or bighorn sheep. Some scientists say they also ate each other, but we don’t know if this is true.
But the Anasazi lived within certain environmental limitations, just as we do. They needed food, water, fuel, and other resources, just as we do.
There came a time, about 700 years ago, when the environment here changed just a little. Annual rainfall patterns changed, there was a serious drought, and other factors may have contributed. Whatever the reasons, the Anasazi world changed and Man could no longer survive here. Man, ancient or modern, can adapt to a certain range of environmental change. There are limits to adaptability, though, and if the changes exceed those limits, Man must move to a more suitable place or die. The Anasazi moved.
Your environment is changing very rapidly and the changes are world wide. Where will you move to?
6
D Here it is, Sipapu. In Hopi Indian legend, the Sipapu is a passage between two very different worlds. Some visitors see a similarity here. Beneath your feet and all around you is a world of slickrock: nearly barren expanses of sandstone. But through the Sipapu you can see a world of vegetation: a softer, less harsh, more pleasant world. One can almost imagine that the Sipapu is a gateway to another world.
As you go back up the trail to your car, consider again the different points of view along the trail.
Sipapu Bridge
7 0.3 (3.1) Horse Collar Ruin trailhead
Now here’s an opportunity to adopt a truly different point of view: as different as it could be. We’d like you to be an Indian. Even if you already are an Indian, this walk will offer a different point of view because we want you to be an Anasazi Indian of about 800 years ago.
The trail is easy and has few hazards. Of course, you always have to exercise reasonable caution on trails or in any unfamiliar environment, but the main thing to beware of on this walk is the cliffs further out on the trail. There are abrupt, unfenced drop-offs and you and the kids have to be careful around them.
If you take the trail, try to put yourself in the place of a man of 800 years ago. We know you can’t simply forget your own rich heritage, but try for a brief period to set it aside, try to look at the things about you from a different point of view.
7
A Na’va produces tangy, tart fruits in good seasons. I like it; it’s one of the few really tasty things in my diet. You can eat the rest of the cactus, too, after you scorch it, but I don’t like it very much.
Prickly pear cactus
7
B Mo’hu is a good plant. We eat the seed pods, which usually have tasty grubs in them. My woman braids or twists the leaf fibers and makes the nets, cords, and other things a man needs. Mo’vi, the bottom of the plant, helps make me clean when I wash with it and cleans me inside when I eat it.
7
C Ersvi in hot water makes a drink I take when my belly hurts or to cure sickness. Many of us, mostly the children, die from bellyaches and fevers, but our medicine always makes me well—or it has so far, anyway.
7
D Na’shu is a really good tree, for you can use it for many things. The timber is good building material, and the big seeds are good to eat when the cones ripen and open. Some years there are many of them, and then the women need not work so long for a supply.
7
E Ho’taki is another very good tree, like Na’shu. We pull the long, shaggy, coarse ho’lpe from the trunk and branches to line our roofs. Shredded very fine, it’s useful for lining our baby’s clothes and my woman needs it sometimes. I use the wood for roof beams, too.
7
F Owa’si, the rock flowers, are the food of my war gods. We do not eat them.
Potholes
7
G I drink water from little pools like these, sometimes when I have no other water. The water often tastes funny and has bugs in it. The deer, bighorn sheep, and other animals drink from these pools, too, when there is any water.
7
H Almost always, I can find lizards in places like this. Even in winter, on warm days, they come out and lie on sunny rocks. Some years, when our food is gone in late winter and early spring, I eat them—but there isn’t much meat on them.
7
I There is our home! When I’m hunting up here, I like to look down at our village. It is a good place to live. The sun shines under the cliff in winter, warming the whole village, but the cliff shades our houses in summer.
The fields along the canyon floor have good crops most years, and our storage bins are usually full at the end of summer.
Well, I must leave you now, for I have much to do before dark. Good hunting!
You have come out here trying to see the world from the Anasazi point of view, we hope, but as you return you may wish to consider a 20th century point of view.
The 800-year-old buildings across the canyon and 500 feet below are called Horse Collar Ruin. It is a village of several homes, two kivas (ceremonial and religious building used by men only), and numerous storage bins. It may have been home for about 30 people. The brush covered flats along the stream were probably farmed, producing corn, beans, and other storable crops. Many other food sources were used; native plants and animals were eaten and provided numerous necessary “side products.” Hides, bone, horn, feather, bark, wood, etc., were the raw materials for many tools, implements and supplies.
Anasazi villages were often located so as to be bathed in winter sunshine and shaded in summer. A somewhat more technological use of the sun’s energy provides most of the electricity used in the Monument today.
Horse Collar Ruin
Lizard
7
H You may see lizards just about anywhere in the park. The more common varieties in slickrock areas like this are whiptails (very sleek, streamlined; tail much longer than body), eastern fence lizard (rough; spiny; blue patches on throat and belly), side-blotched lizard (long tail; spiny; blue patch behind front legs).
7
G Potholes, or rock pools, are a common feature of flat sandstone beds. Some reach great size and depth and not all the steps in their development are understood. Once a slight depression is formed by erosion, it holds water for a while after each rain. The moisture dissolves some cement and encourages more rapid erosion, thus deepening the depression. The depression thus holds water longer, and so grows faster. Wind may sweep away the loosened sand grains when the pothole is dry.
7
F Lichens are a “symbiotic” plant association, as you may remember. An alga and fungus grow together, each providing to the other an element necessary to life. Neither can live alone; each is dependent upon the other.
Lichens are rather effective agents of erosion, which seems a bit surprising for a thin crust on the rocks, but it’s true. Like most plants, lichens tend to make the immediate area more acid. The “cement” that holds sand grains together to make sandstone here is very susceptible to acid. The lichens create acid conditions, the acid dissolves the cement, and the sand grains are freed to blow or wash away. And that is what “erosion” is all about.
7
E Juniper [Juniperus osteosperma]. Various species of juniper are common in the arid southwest. As you climb from desert grasslands to higher elevations, the junipers are usually the first trees you see. With pinyon pine, they often form a dense “pigmy forest” of short, burly trees. At slightly higher elevations, where it is a little cooler and moister, ponderosa pine and other trees replace the pinyon-juniper. The tiny scale-like needles on the twigs, and abundant bluish berries make junipers easy to identify.
Juniper
SIDE TRIP: This side trail will take you up to a knoll where you will have a 360 degree view of the Monument. It is the only place on your tour where you can gain such a view.
Pinyon
7
D Pinyon [Pinus edulis]. Usually found growing with junipers in the pinyon-juniper woodland or pygmy forest. Under ideal conditions, pinyon may grow into quite respectable trees! The seeds are still used as a staple diet item by Southwestern Indians. As pinyon “nuts,” they also find their way into gourmet and specialty food shops. The inconspicuous flowers appear in spring and the cones mature a year and a half later, in the fall.
Mormon Tea
7
C Mormon tea [Ephedra viridis]. Used by Indians and pioneers as a stimulant and medicine, the beverage is still used as a spring tonic by many.
Ephedra is really kind of a neat plant. Like most desert plants, it has evolved methods of conserving water. For one thing, it has no leaves. Look at it closely—it’s all stem. Plants can lose a lot of water from their leaves and many desert plants have leaves modified to reduce water loss, but Mormon tea has dispensed with leaves entirely (Well, almost entirely: they get very tiny ones in the spring, which soon fall off). Plants usually need green leaves to produce food, but Ephedra has many green stems that carry out that function.
Yucca
7
B Yucca [Yucca brevifolia]. The yuccas are very common throughout the Southwest, from low desert to mountains. There are many species, but they share one great peculiarity. They are symbiotic with a little white moth, the Pronuba.
Female Pronubas live in the blossoms. After mating, the moth collects a ball of yucca pollen and jams it onto the stigma (female part) of the flower. Yucca pollen is heavy and sticky; it doesn’t float around in the wind. Other insects do not transport it. The Pronuba insures that the plant will produce seeds by fertilizing the blossom and then she lays eggs in the base of the flower where the seeds will grow. The larvae that hatch from her eggs eat many seeds, but a lot of the seeds mature, too. The moth will not lay her eggs anywhere else.
The Pronuba must have yuccas to reproduce. The yuccas must have Pronubas to reproduce. Neither can get along without the other.
7
A Prickly pear cactus [Opuntia]. Like all desert cactus, these are well adapted to the arid environment. Like Ephedra, cactus are all stem, have no leaves, and the stems (or “pads”) contain green chlorophyll, the critically important element in food production. Cactus spines are modified leaves that serve as effective protection, but are not functional food producers. When moisture is abundant, cactus pads get plump and smooth. During extended dry spells, the pads shrink and wrinkle as the plant uses the stored water. How has the weather been around here recently? Look at the cactus and you can tell!