Flinging our shit across the world, we are the monkey on this planets’ back. We burn our fuels, our oils, our coal and our wetlands. What does it get us? Electricity? Transportation? These fuels have already been deemed inferior to greener technology. Why not return to when we relied on the power of flowing water and constant wind to keep us going. Why can’t we stop being the monkeys that we are, and start being the humans we ought to be? We can, the only problem is we are just too stubborn to change. We believe that it is our right to exploit the world, when our real duty is to protect her from such terrible exploitation.

We cannot protect her because we are humans. We are dumb and ignorant humans. Monkeys are far more intelligent than us. If we were being monkeys there would be no issues. There would still be forest and lush lands for miles to see. There would be no cars, and there would be no toxic waste. The world would be how it naturally should be. She would be going on her natural cycle, not the cycle humans have set up for her.

The earth is sunbaked, wind streaked, snow crushed, and ice cracked. This land is subjected to harsh enough natural factors without us riding on her back, hooting to each other like the apes we have evolved into. We are the monkey on this planets’ back, if we don’t lose weight soon our steadfast support system will have her spine broken. The earth will be disfigured, and we have already started to see the nerve damage that we have caused. We see the damage in the gully. We see the trampled land, lined with our foot prints, and the footprints of the cattle that we brought up into a foreign land. Sadly, there is no cure for what we have done; there is only treatment, then hospice.

This is the Dry Gully. Dry Gully is about 2,755 feet from North to South, and is about 310 feet across. Talus slopes seem to surround the gully almost completely, except for the South East corner. The basin can be broken up into four areas, dried wetland, the talus slopes,  the outlet out of the basin, and dry land. The dried wet land is characterized by the alkali dirt that has dried up at the bottom of the basin. The wet land has become so dry that all of what use to be mud has lost its moisture and started to crack. The talus slope area is surrounding the edge of the gully. Over time the basalt rocks have fallen from the cliffs, and made the edges of the gully slope into the basin.  In the area that does not have talus slopes cascading into the basin, there is a large grouping of sagebrush. This area is much like the dry land. The dry land is anywhere that does not have dried alkali, or basalt rocks. On the dry land many shrubs and grasses grow.

This is the Giant’s Footprint. This was the pothole that we gathered field notes on. The potholes dimensions are 300 feet by 55 feet. In the environment of the pothole there were many different types of plants, there were shrubs, lichen and grasses. The most common shrubs in the pothole were, Sagebrush, Golden Current, Serviceberry, and Red-Osier Dogwood. In the Giant’s foot had one specific type of lichen called Pleopsidium Chlorophanum, which was a lime green lichen that grew on the rock faces. There were also many different types of grasses growing out of the base of the pothole. Those grasses included, Bluebunch Wheatgrass, Basin Wildrye, and Cheat Grass. On the talus slopes, surrounding the pothole on the North, South, and West side, there were many plants growing. On the sides of the pothole the plants seem to grow uniformly. There is an eight to ten foot dead space around the top edge of the bowl, and then grasses start to grow for about twenty feet. Shrubs start to take over the bottom of the pothole, until it meets with the grassy patch on the other side of the pothole. At the lowest point of the pothole, there seemed to be a higher density of green, living plants. This may be because this is where the ground water collects the most.