A fragile Immensity in space and time

The Colorado Plateau is land of color and contrasts. But, despite the vast expanse of sky and land, there is always an underlying current of the human impact on the land. Even though the above picture seems timeless, appearances of wildness are superficial. First of all the picture was taken from the edge of a major highway, with cars whizzing by at 65 mph. In the distance, if you click on the picture and look carefully, you will see a power transmission line running across the fields. Even more importantly, the very nature of the view has been determined by years of cattle grazing. Although the grass appears to be growing and green, this is a highly unusual condition, there is seldom enough moisture to green up the grass and except in extremely wet years, the land is usually overgrazed.

On the website, Canyons, Cultures and Environmental Change -- An Introduction to the Land Use History of the Colorado Plateau, the Northern Arizona University Center for Environmental Science and Education makes the following observation:

By the time federal forest reserves were proclaimed in the 1890s, ranchers on the Colorado Plateau had become accustomed to unregulated use of public lands as range for livestock. As a result of these excessive stocking numbers, once rich grasslands were seriously degraded even before the turn of the century, after less than a human generation of use. By the early 1900s, overstocking of sheep on many middle-elevation mesas and in the area's highlands had brought forest regeneration to a halt. The forest floor in some places was "as bare and compact as a roadbed." The fire ecology of the region's forests, particularly the once grass-rich ponderosa pine forests, was drastically altered, causing significant long-term changes to their structure and composition.

By 1912, livestock pressures had penetrated the most remote, timbered and mountainous areas. Theodore Rixon, one of the first foresters in the Southwest, described the situation:
"At the beginning the mountains and heavily timbered areas were used but little, but as the situation grew more acute in the more accessible regions the use of these areas became more general and in course of time conditions within them were more grave than elsewhere... The mountains were denuded of their vegetative cover, forest reproduction was damaged or destroyed, the slopes were seamed with deep erosion gullies, and the water-conserving power of the drainage basins became seriously impaired. Flocks passed each other on the trails, one rushing in to secure what the other had just abandoned as worthless, feed was deliberately wasted to prevent its utilization by others, the ranges were occupied before the snow had left them. Transient sheepmen roamed the country robbing the resident stockmen of forage that was justly theirs." (Source: Roberts, P.H. 1963. Hoof prints on forest ranges. San Antonio, TX: Naylor. 151 p.)

Over one hundred years later, the effects of intense grazing in the latter part of the 19th century can still be readily seen in many parts of the Colorado Plateau.

Out on the open Plateau, like the picture above, there is no frame of reference. There is no way to see what the land once was or what it has become. Driving around the state, the only place you can see a shadow of what once was is along the highways between the roads and the fences. Sometimes the difference in the growth of the grasses is dramatic, with healthy grass and other plants along the roads and bare soil and rocks just on the other side of the fences on the range land. In the above link to the NAU website, please look at the two comparison pictures of grazed and ungrazed land in New Mexico.