ARCHIVE - Landscapes of Change: Dry Falls » Dry Gully http://blogs.evergreen.edu/dryfalls Writing & Mapping the Future Mon, 11 Feb 2013 22:36:50 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2 ARCHIVE - Daytrippers’ Dry Gully Collage Essay http://blogs.evergreen.edu/dryfalls/2012/10/25/daytrippers_dry-gully_collage-essay/ http://blogs.evergreen.edu/dryfalls/2012/10/25/daytrippers_dry-gully_collage-essay/#comments Thu, 25 Oct 2012 18:46:00 +0000 http://blogs.evergreen.edu/dryfalls/?p=2197 Continue reading ]]> The earth was like the Sistine chapels ceiling, cracking beneath our feet. Why does the earth crack that way? The sky robs the ground, to give it all back again in the end. The water flows down from the clouds, and then is absorbed by the soil. The soil becomes mud, then clouds roll away, and the sun works the way that she has for millions of years. The soil, cracking under the immense heat from the sun, dries up and lets the water become cloud vapor again. Those clouds then wait. They wait so they can make the cracking ceiling become a swampy valley once again. The plaster rained down from the rim rock where we sat. Roots, soil, flowers, exposed to our heedlessness, used to similar treatment by smaller interlopers. Mouse droppings scatter the rocks around us, turning back to soil, feeding the dying soil. These mouse droppings help the earth, unlike what humans leave behind.

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.

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ARCHIVE - Daytrippers’ Dry Gully Map http://blogs.evergreen.edu/dryfalls/2012/10/24/1841/ http://blogs.evergreen.edu/dryfalls/2012/10/24/1841/#comments Wed, 24 Oct 2012 23:04:13 +0000 http://blogs.evergreen.edu/dryfalls/?p=1841
 Dry Gully

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ARCHIVE - Daytrippers’ Dry Gully Gallery http://blogs.evergreen.edu/dryfalls/2012/10/24/daytrippers-dry-gully-gallery/ http://blogs.evergreen.edu/dryfalls/2012/10/24/daytrippers-dry-gully-gallery/#comments Wed, 24 Oct 2012 22:56:37 +0000 http://blogs.evergreen.edu/dryfalls/?p=1835 [nggallery id=20]

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ARCHIVE - Daytrippers’ Dry Gully Field Notes http://blogs.evergreen.edu/dryfalls/2012/10/24/dry-gully_day-trippers_field-notes/ http://blogs.evergreen.edu/dryfalls/2012/10/24/dry-gully_day-trippers_field-notes/#comments Wed, 24 Oct 2012 22:49:04 +0000 http://blogs.evergreen.edu/dryfalls/?p=1740

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.

 

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