• Red pin indicates our location, the “moss-bottom” pothole
• Yellow pins indicate our observations of interest

Measurements:

< 75 feet diameter

75 feet deep

Composition:

As throughout entire Dry Falls location, there are dry grass clusters and sage brush covering the outside land around the potholes

Semi-perminent talus makes up the hole’s walls, covered by moss and lichen

Lots of dead grass, mostly dry and yellow

The bottom is more or less flat and its area is about half of the total area of the pothole – the other half is rocky slopes.  These slopes consist of first ledges, then piles, and finally slopes of fist to head-sized rocks of basalt.  The rocks here are even more crumbly than at the Dry Falls Lake location and large piles of sediment and dormant lichens and mosses have collected everywhere.

Observations on soil:

Firm to ground or all clumped together

From a medium shade of brown to a dark brown

Culture:

Power lines visible in distance

Jeep trail, the trail we came on

Other Notes:

We are all sitting at the edge of the pothole facing it

A Redtailed Hawk flew out of the neighboring pothole

Concentration of Life within: bird activity within, plant-life within

Lots of deer scat and deer trails around

Signs of recent rainfall

Mostly reddish-brown, some gray rocks

No concrete evidence of what caused the cavitation tornado (perhaps disapeared over time)

Does not currently contain any water at the bottom, but does hold moisture

Unable to see the bottom because of the density of plant life

The vast open space of the general area lends to an awareness of what’s to come, a safe place for wildlife?

Cliff faces feel like walls of a place

Higher elevation (than camp and Dry falls lake)

Cliff faces seem to have more talus, potholes themselves have lots of talus. (Rocklayer less stable at higher elevation?)

Rocks are not smooth

Pothole is very circular

Trees are deciduous, small leaves, more shrublike, as if stunted

The trees must rely on the precious water and shelter this natural feature provides to grow at all in this region.  The only other place trees can survive in this region is directly adjacent to a substantial water source such as a lake or creek.

The trees are about twenty to thirty feet in height and are made up of thin, branched trunks with many, many branches waving and shooting up in wiry spires.  At this point in the season about half of the year’s leaves have fallen to the ground while the other half remain in the trees.  They are a variety of green, orange, yellow, and red.  Some of the bushes and trees have small berries all black and dark purple and shriveled up, but are gone, either eaten by the birds or fallen to the ground.

Many fallen leaves concentrated on the pothole floor, and vibrant moss

Most plants fall into the tan, light golden, or yellow shades of this arid region

The silence and therefor volume of any action makes this a very dramatic place, by contrast

There are many of bushes and shrubs at the bottom of the pothole.  Their colors range from deep, burnt orange to pale, guacamole green.

Life at the Lowest Areas

What do I see? It’s a dry pothole with trees at the lower areas so that you could not see the bottom. The rocks that surrounded the upper half of the hole seemed very unstable. I looked at the scene from afar and examined it as a space. I saw an unstable, rocky, 75 foot- diameter pothole with a lot of plant life and nests in it, nothing more. It was difficult to “see” this space as more than what it looks like.

What else could have been in that pothole? What should I have seen? I closed my eyes and embraced the energy. I opened them and my vision blurred until I saw a brown and gray canvas with a green, pink, yellow and orange paint splattered design in the middle. It was beautiful. I looked with my heart, seeing a completely different place. There was a palette with many colors of plant life at the deepest part of the hole. With my new eyes, I saw that there is life in the lowest of areas.

There is life in the lowest of areas. As a human being, a lot of things seem insignificant to me especially if they are smaller and lower than I am. However, I am not very big at all. I remove myself from relation to these lower life forms although it is exactly what I am and where I am. They are what turn these lifeless spaces into booming places. This pothole is a sanctuary for birds. This is also a place for the plants to survive and hide themselves from the harshness of the desert sun. We forget to give our green neighbors much thought. They tend to form no bonds. They do not speak a language nor do they make eye contact. They do not cry, laugh or smile but we learn in science classes, that they are indeed alive. Are we the judges of all life? Do we have that right to “put them in their place”?

If we think about it, we are just a tiny blue dot to the entire galaxy. To the galaxy, we might be as expendable as trees are to us.  However, we know the truth that in that speck there is life. We human beings think, act, love and live. We should share our planet with everything in it because everything is a servant with its purpose in the great circle of life. Nothing is small.

However, does that mean we treat everything, no matter what size, like royalty? Do we treat bacteria like human beings? Do we have to please all matter? Are we wrong to have vegetarians or even eat anything at all? I believe it is a matter of balance, survival and knowing our role in the grand scheme of things. Yet it’s a question with no answer but a million more questions. Now I “see” that this pothole is not 75-foot diameter cavity but a bottomless pit of questions with answers to which only God knows.