Column by Hal Walter
Drought – November 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
It’s fall at timberline and I am camped high in the northern Sangres at a lake that shall remain nameless though by context the observant reader may be able to guess. In checking the register at the trailhead, it appeared fewer than a dozen people had visited this place in the last year.
There’s a reason. The hike in was a five-hour march with one lunch break and two steepish headwalls, one heavily timbered and the other heavily screed. This last pitch is not recommend for horses, although my small string of burros managed to pack about three weeks worth of gear and food up it for our two-night stay.
I am a lazy camper and morning duties are always difficult for me. I recently purchased a tent with two side doors so I could set my cooking kit right outside and operate my small backpacking stove, coffee cone and thermos without actually waking.
This way I can prop my back with jackets, saddle pads and such, make the morning coffee and drink it from the comfort and warmth of my sleeping bag while watching the sunshine climb the talus slopes. A civilized person should not arise before the sun kisses the tent. Unfortunately, most campers, including myself, find themselves walking barefoot through deep frost to pee before diving back into the bag to recover from the brisk wake-up call.
On the way up here I thankfully noticed no political signage along the trail. I despise the word “signage” as it sounds vaguely like something that might come out of one’s nose. Since banning all forms of corporate “news” (contrary to popular belief, the mainstream media are merely cleverly disguised PR firms) in my home last year, I have found signage to be a new and effective approach to making good decisions regarding elections. With a head full of thin air and caffeine, I am able to offer these sound guidelines, based entirely upon signs, for voting in the upcoming election.
First, and foremost, never vote for a candidate who puts his or her own mugshot on a sign. Remember Mark Twain’s notion that our political system has produced the nation’s only truly criminal class.
A political sign with the not-so-subliminal design suggesting the Denver Broncos’ logo indicates a candidate who is honestly in touch with the mindset of the constituency (more people annually watch the Super Bowl than turn out to vote). But this does not necessarily point to wise public-policy decisions.
Never, ever, vote for anyone whose sign is not red, white and blue. It’s un-American. To dispel all doubts, check the list of contributors to campaigns for candidates whose signs are not red, white and blue.
If you have the opportunity, go ahead and vote for a congressional candidate named Curtis Imrie. Do this because his signs were purchased without corporate bribery funds and because a person who gets his first “day job” in his mid-50s is likely to have a fresh attitude.
If all of this is too confusing, simply don’t vote. Not voting saves money, fuel, energy and time, and discourages further cluttering of the landscape with tacky signs at the most beautiful time of the year.
Oh, one more thing … if you notice two candidates engaging in an apparent “sign war” in which a sign goes up, and a day or so later the other candidate’s sign appears on a neighboring property, simply write in “none of the above” on the ballot. Why reward grade-school behavior?
Speaking of wars, both real and imagined, one of the big questions this fall seems to be whether we should go to war in Iraq. From up here Iraq looks less like a red herring and more like a fuchsia barracuda with lime-green racing stripes, a purple mohawk and multiple gill piercings. To me the most “credible threat” seems to be the lack of cheap oil.
Perversely, and sadly, our addiction to cheap oil is so sick that we are apparently willing to wage war in order to drive around in vehicles with bumper stickers that ironically proclaim “UNITED WE STAND.” Few people actually stand while driving, but we all use too much oil.
Which brings us back to the lake. It’s not even half full. More like one-third. It looks like a bathtub that’s been slowly drained, leaving behind a ringing record of various heat waves and the resulting drops in water level. Depressed trout swim lazily around in water that looks more like pea soup than Rocky Mountain spring water. None of these fish show an interest in any of the flies that I have in my box. This lack of action allows me to take a closer look at the surrounding rock.
When I was a journalism student at the University of Colorado, I took more geology classes than journalism because I liked the field trips which were really field parties, and I also found more truth in rocks than in the people I had to question in order to be a good journalist. I would have switched majors were it not for a fear of chemistry, physics and calculus — and the lure of big bucks from magazines such as the one you’re reading.
The northern Sangres differ geologically from the middle of the range. While the central part of the range is made up predominantly of reddish Paleozoic sediments for which the range is named, the northern end is composed largely of precambrian igneous and metamorphic rock.
Above this lake where I am camped is a blockfield of immense acreage, the probable result of mass-wasting. These blocks of rock likely fractured from the steep mountainsides, probably due to frost action, and were carried by gravity to their resting place. Several times while camped at this lake I heard the sound of falling rock as another block was added to the field. I believe that a sizable but rapidly shrinking rock glacier resides within these rocks, and it’s a likely source of water for this lake. My geologic theory is given credence when an amused pica pokes his head above a rock to watch me suffer through an ice-cream headache brought on by drinking from the icy spring that bubbles forth.
Mixed with the giant blocks of bedrock are some truly huge chunks of quartz, white and pure, perhaps a metaphor for those who think outside the consensus in a society that resembles an immense field of fractured rock.
In less than a month the elections will be over. With few surprises, we already know who will win. The blockfield will remain largely a blockfield. The campaign signs will disappear from the landscape. We will or won’t go to war with Iraq. People will continue to arrogantly use resources and contribute to environmental problems. And unless something changes drastically, this little lake will continue to go dry.
These were my thoughts after taking a long hike, wrangling some jackasses up a scree slope to a remote lake, spending a night outside in the thin air, and drinking a good cup of mud, tentside. Now I’m looking up to the slopes and hoping to discover more quartz among the rubble.
Writer Hal Walter would have to use about two gallons of gas to get to and from the nearest polling place.
