land of enchantment

I am quite enchanted with this state. Over the weekend I travelled to San Antonio Hot Springs, two hours to the west and up in the mountains. Santa Fe's elevation is around 7000 feet but it's fairly flat here. That said, you can see good sized mountains to the north and west. My EBV (Earth Based vocations, that's the program i'm in) friend Julia and I arrived at the hot springs in the early evening, after traversing an extremely bumpy dirt road for the last five miles of the trip. These hot springs are amazing. They're situated on a moderately steep hill side facing south, which is great because you get a lot of sun and you can watch the sunset. Four small pools have been set up with the abundant rocks all around - one pool on top of the other. The hot water is flowing at a good rate such that the little pools are constantly being cleaned and replenished, and there's icing on the cake with a "shower" at the top pool, where the water exits from underground through a pipe. The water is perfectly comfortable, around 100F, and the scenery is spectacular. We went, expecting nudity to be the standard. Apparently that's how hot springs work in the west, everyone here tells me. We arrived to see everyone - all twenty or so people there - in proper swim suits, save for one older man. So I stayed in my boxer shorts. No matter. We lavished in this warm haven for several hours, enjoying friendly company.

Up in the mountains there, probably around 9000 feet in elevation, the landscape is completely different. Mixed forests of pines, firs, spruces, aspens, and shrubs cover the land. Creeks flow in every valley, small or large. Golden brown grasses stretch for miles in some of the larger valleys. A little bit of snow even held on in the shadows of north facing slopes. it looked a lot like Colorado (and I should make it clear that it's just a couple hours drive north to Colorado from here, even less from that area). But here it looks completely different. It looks like a desert here. Other than the cottonwoods and box elders that line the dry creek beds (which flow a couple months or less each year), there are only two common kinds of trees: junipers (a cedar) and pinon pines. sand blows with the wind, hearty shrubs like chamisa and sage intermittently cover the ground, along with prickly pear cactuses. like i said, creek beds are dry. even the santa fe river does not flow these days.

but it used to. or at least, it used to flow for more of the year. as the story goes, water from the mountains doesn't stay in the land as much as it used to. when trees - like junipers and pinons - are cut down to clear space for development, or for firewood or whatever, less rain water is absorbed as it flows down a slope. the roots, and the soil that they support, are not there anymore to slow down and absorb water. other factors like lots of concrete covering the ground add to this issue. so now when it does actually rain a lot, the water mostly collect in flood fashion into the santa fe river and is gone from the area quite fast. that water was once absorbed much more into the land, and so there was much more moisture close to the surface all year round. so instead of the riverbed occasionally swarming with flood, there was a more regular, slower flow of water. this slower flow came not just from rain water but from that wealth of water held in the ground.

one way of imagining this system is by comparing it to your own body. a slow, steady flow of food is what does a body good, just as a slow, steady flow of water does a landscape good. if your body is worn down, or invaded by some defiant pathogen, you might get sick, and be unable to hold and digest your food properly. your body flushes out water and food, and you feel crappy. in the same way, a landscape cannot thrive when all its water is flushed out too fast. trees and plants are to the environment what villi are to your intestines: those millions of finger shaped protrudances that take up nutrients. when I had e-coli two months ago, the bacteria's toxic byproduct broke down my villi enough that I couldn't really ingest any food for a couple days. similary, when too many trees are taken away from a landscape, its ability to take in water and nutrients is reduced. . .

i'm supposed to be writing about this land of enchantment, and i do apologize for getting all environmental with you. these issues certainly are dry compared to tales of magic and adventure, but they have been just as important in my experiences here so far as wonderful evenings in hot springs. so for me they go together. i'm learning a lot about how landscapes work - about weather, geological processes, water and resource flows - and I am being opened up to a new way of perceiving every beautiful place I visit.