Oolitic Sand Page Three

I have been thinking about old things, like sand. Most sands are made of quartz and feldspar. Since quartz has a Mohs Scale hardness of seven and feldspar is six, sand is very durable. http://science.jrank.org/pages/4394/Mohs-Scale Its fortunate that geologic forces weld sand into rock and melt sand into metamorphic rocks, or the whole world might end up being just sand and water. Most people outside of Arizona, think that the whole state is nothing but sand and cactus (except for one large canyon that will not be named). Surprisingly, they are right. It is all sand. Just kidding. Ironically, the most popular sand dune site in Arizona is in California, just across the state line from Yuma. The most extensive sand deposits are in the northeast corner of the state, high up on the Colorado Plateau. The sand there is multicolored. http://geology.utah.gov/online/pdf/pi-77.pdf The color comes from the different levels of iron oxides. One of the strangest sand formations are sometimes called Moki Marbles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concretion They are concretions formed from sand and hematite (crystalized iron oxide). It is not unusual to find rounded pieces of sandstone in small pockets in the rock where they are rolled around by the wind. The larger and darker hematite concretions are formed in the sandstone rocks and weather out as the sandstone erodes away. I guess the challenge is to find something as unique as a hematite concretion and leave it where it was found. I am used to seeing them sold by the bucket full at mineral shows. They run about $5 a pound. They are probably happier sitting out in the rain and wind, than gathering dust in someone’s garage or at the bottom of a drawer. Hematite is the state mineral of Alabama and has been since 1967.

If you have to have a favorite, my favorite sand in oolitic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oolite It is found outside of Arizona, along the shore of the Great Salt Lake in Northern Utah. The most accessible deposit is along the beach, just west of the causeway to Antelope Island and on Stansbury Island. http://geology.utah.gov/utahgeo/rockmineral/collecting/oolitic.htm

Usually, even if I am tempted to pick up a rock now and then, like at the bottom of the unnamed canyon, I am seldom tempted to pick up sand. Unfortunately, I end up with a certain collection of sand at the end of any trip out into northern Arizona.

If understatement is a virtue, then the Grand Canyon is the most virtuous of canyons. Some of the Arizona place names come from Spanish. It sounds much more romantic or something to English speakers to have a name in Spanish rather than the same mundane name in English. El cañon grande del rio colorado, sounds a lot more exotic than the big canyon of the red river. Even the attraction of having the name in Spanish is lost when it is Anglecised. But, like I was saying, “grand” hardly says it. Laying in the bottom of the canyon, in August, of all months, when it is 98 degrees at 6:00 in the morning, looking up through the layers and layers rock to the brilliant night sky and counting the meteors from the Perseids. The music of the Tapeats Creek and the oppressively calm hot air fade in the distraction of the sky. It is not surprising that a significant number of place names in Arizona come from Spanish, since most of the whole area was part of Mexico until 1848 and the rest was purchased in 1853. What is surprising is the all of the Spanish street names in Phoenix and the surrounding area, especially Scottsdale. It seems like almost every street is a “calle” this or a “calle” that. Some of the names should have been translated first, but come to think about it, maybe they were. It is strange that some of the names don’t even mean anything in Spanish, they just use Spanish sounding words.

Walking Arizona Page One

The rocks are a polished mosaic of subtle reds and browns, a carefully fitted, infinitely patient jigsaw puzzle covering the ground as far as I can see. Each unique rock blends into a stoically patient crowd and becomes a foundation for the wind. The wind that never truly stops blowing. Only by degrees it seems less evident. I can hear the wind in my ears. It is a sound peculiar to the plateau. I can hear no human sounds, only the sputtering, stuttering wind. It almost dies and then comes back, shuffling and sliding by, blowing my hair and drying my skin. The wind shapes everything from the short stuffy curve of the salt cedars to the perpetual bend in the grass and weeds. No need for a compass, every plant tells the direction of the wind.

The wind talks to me. It tells me stories of time past time and when there was no time. It talks to the rocks with the voice of grass. It talks to the cliffs with the voice of longing for days of sun, blinding and fierce. It talks of nights with stars like searchlights, lighting the soul of the fugitive from the sun. It tells of jasper and quartz. It moans of sandstone and limestone. It weeps of granite and basalt. It cries of clay and sand, of mud sticking to your boots and drying hard as the rock. Sometimes the wind isn’t my friend, its voice is no comfort. It talks of thirst and dryness.

The land is always my friend. Trees that are bushes are my companions. Cactus, yucca and agaves are my guideposts. Lizards doing pushups on the rocks are my audience. I walk without a sound. Silently gliding across the powder-fine dust, breaking the pattern of the rocks with every step. This is a good place to wear a hat. The land is deceptively featureless. From a distance it looks like a blue and gray backdrop, as I walk, it becomes an endless maize of cliffs and canyons. Men build roads straight--out of defiance and for convenience. Nothing is convenient on the plateau.

The clay hills curve and twist. Their loads of rocks gather in piles in the gullies at their base. The hills have a crust, like French bread. As I climb, my feet break through the crust and sink deep into the soft centers of the hills. On the ridges are petrified trees sticking out of the clay like gravestones for a wetter world. The washes form a fractal world zooming out to a satellite view and then in again to the smallest crack and crevice, a highway for ants.

Ants and flies abide. When we take the garbage to the dump thousands of their relatives and friends gather for the viewing. Uninvited, we take some of them with us, opening the windows and driving fast to let the last of them return home. I am certain that anthills live forever. Absent some cataclysmic movement of the crust of the earth, the anthill will be there to greet the Millennium. Ants and flies don’t talk to me at all. The flies become sticky and fly in your eyes and nose just before a storm.

It does rain. The landforms testify of the rain. But even Noah’s flood wouldn’t be enough to keep the land from looking dry. It seems dry even when it is raining. The wind shifts from the south and the islands of clouds send down their veils of moisture. I think it is funny how the people pray for moisture, instead of rain. Its as if God would be offended if we asked for good old honest rain. We need moisture, they pray. I suppose they don’t want to leave out snow, hail and sleet. I must have been born praying for rain. In Panama the people thought I was crazy to go outside and watch the rain. You never get over living in the desert.

When the storm comes, I go outside in my geezer shoes and watch the wind blow the trees. They dance infinite patterns. I keep waiting for the gust that will break the branches but it almost never comes. When it does come, it is dark and we have to run and get saws and ropes to save the fence and house. Dust outlines the wind pattern and races the leaves down the street. Nobody else is watching the wind.

When I was very young, the car stopped and I ran for the cinder hill. I kept running until I reached the top. I had a grandstand seat for the clouds and the lightning. The wind blew and told me of the rain. The land whispered its history of fire and molten rock. I felt, without understanding, the primal forces lifting rock thousands of feet into the air. There were no houses, no cars, except my father’s, nothing but the sky, the clouds and the lightning. In one sharp impression the world became part of my soul. The plateau wind in my ears would always speak to me. I ran down the hill and I was old.

I lay on my back in the dark, looking up through the cliffs to the sky highway. The ground is warm, still reflecting the sun. The night noises echo against the rocks. There is no color, no red and ocher. No mauve and beige. No manganese stains on the rocks. The sky is black and clear, the stars are on the sky highway and move slowly. I can feel the earth turn. I can almost feel it rushing through space around the sun. An airplane passes over and I imagine the people tired, trying to sleep in their uncomfortable seats while I am on the soft earth, in the wilderness only a few thousand feet and many days from their civilization.

I step off into the ice cold water. My sandals catch the current and I slide forward, carefully stepping on the sand and rocks, using my stick to remain upright. The cold water bites into my legs. I know that soon it will not seem cold, but I am happy to reach the dry sand. Within a few steps, my feet are coated with sand. I flip my sandals, shooting wet sand all around. The sun is hot. The tops of my feet begin to dry but the sand is still under my feet rubbing against the soles of sandals. The second time, the water feels good. It washes away the sand and cools my feet. A rock stays. Caught by my foot and the sandal. I stoop to pick it loose. I think I should have worn my boots but then I remember to lift my foot away from the sandal and let the water remove the rocks. A few more steps and I forget sandals and sand and rocks, I begin to see the trees, the birds and the canyon walls. I see the giant saguaro, on the cliffs above the trees, standing guard, never coming close to the water, as if afraid of the grass and trees.

Big fires are big news, but when the fire dies, the black trees and black earth gather no interviews. No one is there to watch once the flames and color die. I step into the ash and it coats my boots with black against brown and red. The dead trees lie like pick-up-sticks, in a random pile. There is supposed to be a trail somewhere in this tangle. But I am high off the ground, stepping from tree to tree, hoping that they do not shift and dump me to the ground. The edge of the Rim is steep and the piles have shifted downhill blocking the turns in the trail. Suddenly, the trail appears and I float through an eddy of green shade and flowers. Fires are untidy, they leave patches of trees untouched. The older burn scars are a tangle of weeds and brush, exposed to the brilliant sun. I am in the cool shade of the trees.

Wind blusters Page Two

The wind blusters through the juniper bushes on the high plateau. The ground is rough with small blackened ridges. I am careful not to step on the blackened soil because it is alive. It is one of the oldest living things in the world, cyanobacteria or blue-green algae. Its ancestors’ fossils date back over 3.5 billion years. The ridges are formed by the sticky, mucilaginous sheaths of the bacterial filaments. The soil is commonly called crypto (from the Greek word for hidden) and gamic (marriage or to marry). There are a number of names for the soil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_crust and http://www.xmlgadgets.com/home.pl?site=mwikt&query=cryptogamic

One step can destroy a crust that may take hundreds of years to rebuild. The fragile nature of the soil crust reminds me of a story, now folklore, about a scientist who cut down a bristlecone pine tree (Pinaceae Pinus Balfourianae) to find out how old it was. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/08/23/SC72173.DTL Some of these trees may have been alive for 5000 years and are considered the oldest single living organism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristlecone_pine The operative word here is single. It seems that the age of these trees is emphasized by the record they keep. They are old, but they are only recognized as old because they keep a record. It may be that the cryptogamic soils or creosote bushes (Larrea tridentataor) aspen trees (Populus tremuloides) are older, but it is only the methodical yearly tree rings that can prove the age of the bristlecone pines. Walking through stands of creosote you can speculate on its age, http://www.lucernevalley.net/creosote/photo_tour.htm but I wonder how many other, less attractive and less obvious plants there are in the world that may be older? http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0601.htm#oldest Maybe the bristlecone pines only have the best publicity agents? Maybe, on the other hand, we should all walk a little more carefully and respect our elders?

Now, the trail leads upward like a snake coiling around a staff, winding up through the rocks and trees until the trees lose to the trail and the rocks win. At the edge of the tree line, the ancient bristlecone pines stand like solitary picket soldiers. The view is worth the climb and the trees have always had the view. If we sit and listen, we can hear their story.

I always carry more food than I need. The first days of walking kill my appetite to the same degree that they increases my thirst. Juice, soup, anything with water, anything with salt. Walking from water to sand, from sand to rock, from rock to water or sand, the first days are like battling upstream, pushing against the current. The sun stands still overhead. Slowly, as the hours pass, I focus on my feet, on the creaking of my pack and the rocks, sand and water start to flow around me. I feel like I am swept along in the stream. The rocks begin to live. They bend and sway with each step as the world collapses into the next step and the next. The whole world is nothing more than one more step on the trail of existence. Time is no more and eternity stretches from one bend of the stream to the next, and the next.

I try to imagine how long it took the stream to cut through all that rock. Why do the rocks remain? Is this big rock in the trail more resilient than its brothers and sisters? Why did the trailmakers go straight to the rock, just so the trail could wind around and break my pace? I think about the difference between sandstone and granite, between rhyolite and tuff, between basalt and conglomerate. I walk without hope towards the sand hill, repeating over and over, it can’t be that high, it can’t be that high. Halfway up, I wish for granite, for sandstone, for anything other than sand. Maybe, the trail doesn’t really go up here through the sand, maybe we missed the trail and we will have walk all the way back. How long does it take to turn sandstone into sand and back into sandstone?