Brandon is unimpressed with the Colorado General Assembly's proposal:

I would argue on the basis of this that the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is in fact a violation of the principles of republicanism; that, because of this, Congress has the authority to overturn it if it ever is completed; and that, in fact, Congress has the constitutional duty to do so. While states do have the right to determine how to allocate their electors, the United States has the constitutional duty to guarantee that they do so in a form consistent with republican government.

I am prepared to believe any conspiracy theory whatsoever that involves the Denver airport.

Via Rod Dreher.

Reasons I'm glad I'm Orthodox, #51: Giant schnauzer ministry. On a skateboard.

Hat tip: Chas, who has convinced me that Pueblo, CO is very odd indeed. Not that I needed much convincing; I've been there. And such oddities make it vastly superior to the rest of the front range.*

*When we lived in western Colorado, people asked us with rather appalling frequency, "So, do you visit The Springs [i.e. Colorado Springs, a.k.a. The Protestant Vatican] much?" My undiplomatic response was usually, "Good God no! Why would we do that?"

'Tis the Season

Whan that August with his shoures soote
the droghte of June hath perced to the roote,
and bathed every veyne in swich parfoum
of which vertu engendred is the shroum....

...thanne longen southwestryn folk to goon on pilgrimages. So might Chaucer have ywrote, had he lived in the Southern Rockies and been more interested in fungi than relics.


Everyone's doing it: Chas, Sometimes Far Afield, 14ers.com denizens, and we are not immune. A >12,000' summit plus boletes: that's what I call a successful day! And we even had time afterwards to head to the county fair and feast our eyes on prize-winning swine.





Can anyone identify these hideous alpine thistles, pendulous beneath the weight of their fecund efflorescence? (First shot is in the Pecos Wilderness, high above the mushrooms; below is a specimen up North Crestone Creek in the Colorado Sangres. Click to enlarge.)

Update: Think we've got a fairly positive ID: Cirsium eatonii var. eriocephalum. A big thanks to Al at the highly-recommended Southwest Colorado Wildflowers site for help with this one.

I've been river guiding for a couple weeks now. I'm very tired and don't have much intelligent to say, but I do have some pretty pictures up on the photoblog:

Tamarisk Beetles Found in Grand Canyon:

Researchers previously thought that this species of the tamarisk leaf beetle would restrict its range to above the 38th parallel, which is near the upper end of Lake Powell. The beetles were not approved for release within 200 miles of southwestern willow flycatcher habitat, an endangered species which is known to nest in tamarisk - a dominant species in the Colorado River corridor. Tamarisk leaf beetles are now causing defoliation of tamarisk trees further south than originally anticipated. According to Dr. Dan Bean of the Colorado Department of Agriculture, the small population of beetles recently documented in Grand Canyon National Park is unlikely to overwinter successfully. However, it appears likely that as beetle numbers increase a viable reproducing population will be established in Grand Canyon within the next several years.

Good news or bad? I'd come down tentatively on the side of good. After all, the whole point of the beetle program is to get them out there eating tammies, and if they're able to do it down south it could be very good for a lot of places I love. But it was somewhat comforting to think that they had geographic limitations.

Reporting on the beetle program is generally rather confused; I never seem to read the same details twice. Tamara Naumann, the park botanist for Dinosaur National Monument and a major driving force behind the beetles, told me this summer that there are actually two species in the mix: the northern-adapted one that was released in Dinosaur, and a more southerly version released (if I remember correctly, which I may not) by the state of Colorado. She also said that there are apparently beetle poachers who are collecting some from release sites and taking them elsewhere.

It's been nice during the last couple seasons in Dinosaur to see some decidedly ratty tamarisk stands. It apparently takes three or four good defoliations to kill the damn trees, so with any luck we'll start seeing real death in the next year or two. Of course, being a biologic control, the beetles are not expected to eliminate tamarisk completely, and then go rampaging about for other things to devour. The best case scenario is that the tammy populations will crash, followed by a beetle crash, followed by a tamarisk rebound, etc. The hope is not that the trees will be eliminated, but that the beetles will bring them under sufficient control that native plants can start competing again and other removal methods will become feasible at select sites. Virtually the only Achilles heel of tamarisk is that it doesn't like shade; there's a hope that if box elders and other natives can get saplings establishes, they may be able to shade out the tammies in places.

If you've just tuned in to this story, I should mention that the decision to use biologic controls was not made lightly. The people behind it, believe it or not, are aware of the risks, disastrous historical precedents, and probably even the relevant Simpsons episode. The decision to release follows over twenty years of lab study, the most intensive study on a biologic control ever. The beetles are very tamarisk specific. Tamarisk has no North American relatives at the genus level, and its only relative in the same family lives in very different (i.e. non-riparian) habitat. The risk is there, but it's low, as low risk as a biologic control can ever be.

Ms. Naumann is humble regarding the introduction, and aware that "future generations may curse my name." She has also worked against other biological control projects where the outlook was more dubious. But she likes to point out that doing nothing was a choice as well, a choice whose consequences were predictable and disastrous, given the high value of the riparian habitat that tammies invade. Of particular concern in Dinosaur are the tammies moving up the Yampa canyon to invade some of the very last cobble bars where the highly-endangered native fish spawn. Introducing the beetles was a calculated risk ; leaving things be was guaranteed to be lousy.

Click here for dystopian tamarisk sci-fi, by a Paonia, CO author.

Sometimes you get the b'ar, and sometimes, well.... Never ends well for the b'ar these days though. Hard to muster much sympathy for such pig-headed human stupidity.

Sundries

Outdoors: A situation very reminescent of Into the Wild resolves unhappily in Colorado. So many people view these situations asking, "Was he an uncompromising idealist or was he mentally ill?" as if it were an either/or question. I have a fair store of sympathy for these folks, and mental illness does not mean that they're idiots, devoid of self-awareness or free will. But these stories are very sad however you look at them.

Food: Michael Pollan is still worth reading, and you can read a lot of him here, on the paradoxical popularity of cooking shows and unpopularity of actual cooking.

Opera: La Traviata was excellent, hardly a surprise. Natalie Dessay is every bit as good as one could hope, and I also quited liked her husband Laurent Naouri's performance as Germont, a roll which can easily drag. Staging and costuming were interesting and creative without being at all extravagent or distracting. We may see if we can find standing room tickets for another round.

But I'm really looking forward to The Letter this Friday. Librettist Terry Teachout's latest take:

...the pressure is off. It seems clear--gratifyingly, gloriously clear--that
Paul and I have succeeded in writing a modern opera that goes over with
audiences in a big way, which is what we set out to do. From here on, I'm going
to sit back and enjoy myself.

Me too. That one sentence feat in the preceeding paragraph is no small achievement, not by a long shot. Everything I've heard about the piece sounds wonderful, and I can't wait. Here is more on how it feels to create a good opera.

Photography: I've emoted to this effect before, but I do love living somewhere when 24 hours after watching Natalie Dessay as Violetta, I can spend the night here, in the Chama River headwaters (Mrs. Peculiar providing scale):

Water controversies on the Yampa make it to NPR. I just took the Mr. Tierney quoted in the story down the river last week. There's much that I could write on the subject given time, but it will have to wait at least until I'm done running the Selway. For better visual aids to Dinosaur's river than NPR provides, click here.

Colorado Winter Weirdness:

Ever imagine what would happen if you went off the road on Red Mountain Pass? Why the Ouray Mountain Rescue Team would be along in five minutes, of course, on their way to make some turns.

When you go skiing, be polite to the lifties. Why? Because bad lift karma will leave you upside down and pantless. As former lifties, Odious and Peculiar make no apologies for their schadenfreude.

I've just added a gallery to my photo site from my backpacking trip last week in Colorado's South San Juans. Check it out.

A victory for the anti-mining faction in Crested Butte. Some background here. As I said in the earlier post, I have mixed feelings about this; however, I can't say I'm unhappy about the news.

Another sunset, last night, looking into the West Elk Range:

Please enlarge!

Some photos from a couple weeks back, in our local canyons. Colorado has a pretty decent spread of redrock canyon country, but these areas are thankfully overshadowed by the better publicized Utah canyons, just over that arbitrary state line. Here's an ephemeral snowmelt waterfall on a warm afternoon:

And here's a local resident:

Turns out there are downsides to living in gorgeous Rocky Mountain villages:

Lake County Commissioners have declared a local state of emergency for fear that this winter's above-average snowpack will melt and cause a catastrophic tidal wave.

The water is backed up in abandoned mine shafts and a 2.1-mile drainage tunnel that is partially collapsed, creating the pooling of water contaminated with heavy metals.

County officials have been nervously monitoring the rising water pressure inside the mine shafts for about two years. An explosion could inundate Leadville and contaminate the Arkansas River.

Governor Ritter has asked the Feds for help, and apparently someone's doing something. But it's really a very long term problem, as Chas points out:

...the work will have to be done forever. Forever. Until the mountains crumble or someone invents a permanent cure for water trickling down through the rocks, leaching out the cadmium, etc., and then draining through the tunnel conveniently provided in the 1940s, which drains into one fork of the Arkansas.

In related news, there have been plans afoot for a while to mine Molybdenum inside Mount Emmons, near Crested Butte, Colorado. Naturally, lots of people are upset. Kobex corporation argues their side here, but the Leadville situation must be giving their PR department a real headache.

My feelings on the issue are very mixed. My most selfish, not-in-my-backyard reaction is that the Kebler Pass area is extremely beautiful even by Colorado standards, which is saying something. Even if one believes the company's claim that the mine itself will be unobtrusive, the necessary "improvement" of the roads would be doing the area no aesthetic favours. Furthermore, as we are currently seeing, mines definitely cause major problems. The companies love to claim that technology and regulation have come so far that environmental impacts are no longer a concern; but when the potential impacts of the project happen on a geologic timescale, the burden of proof is definitely on the miners.

On the other hand, there is a solid argument that outsourcing all production of the minerals we consume to other countries, countries with weaker environmental and labour standards, is irresponsible and selfish. (Incidentally, if you think your job sucks, spend a few minutes with these photos of sulphur mining in a Javanese volcano.) Furthermore, having attempted to live for the better part of a year in western Colorado in the absence of a trust fund or real estate portfolio, I have a lot more sympathy for the concept of creating jobs. My current town of residence is still a living community largely because of three ugly, carbon-spewing, traffic-generating coal mines five miles to the east. Without this industry, the valley would have either no economy at all (granted, it doesn't have too much now); or else, lacking the deterrent of the mines' unsightliness strategically placed along the road from Aspen, it would be just another leprous Colorado service/tourist economy, real estate through the roof, no use to man or beast but only to trustafarians, "guest workers" and millionaires. Crested Butte is just such a community, and I have few tears to shed over the mine's impact on its property val..., hem, scenic virtues. I personally feel that Crested Butte would be rather improved by some truck traffic and redneck bars, and if the mine happens I hope they route the transportation right through town instead of over Kebler or Ohio passes.

And I do appreciate the glee with which the mine points out that molybdenum is used to make skis and mountain bikes. Mrs. Peculiar suggests that perhaps what Gunnison County needs are some Rossignol and Gary Fisher factories to complement the molybdenum mine. Wouldn't that be a politically incorrect manifestation of localism?

Seriously, these are tough choices, and those who advocate sustainability and distrust globalization face some difficult decisions if we stick to our guns. But let's end on a light note, and recall this classic Monty Python sketch, which really ought to be the Official Comedy Performance of Paonia, western Colorado and the New West.

"Tungsten carbide drills? What the bloody 'ell is tungsten carbide drills?"

Sunset last Sunday:

And the first of 2008: The canyons of far western Colorado, yesterday morning, with Utah's La Sal Mountains behind.

Be sure to enlarge the first two. Even large, Blogger compresses the detail.

Year's End Outing with Rock Art

Here are some scenes of my last hike of the year, yesterday, in a very fine, moderately isolated canyon in western Colorado (the diligent can surely deduce the location, but my current stance is that nowhere needs any publicity whatsoever). First, the context, with frozen waterfall. The bedrock is basement metamorphic schist, overlaid by some odd red granitish stuff I couldn't place, followed by cliff-forming Wingate sandstone:

Unsurprisingly, the Indians liked this place. Inhabitants included Desert Archaic culture, possibly the Fremont and certainly historic Ute. One sees hand prints pretty often, but I was pleased to find one that strikes me as a bear print:

Some abstracts, in their spectacular gallery:

The same up close:

Historic Ute presence is clearly visible here. I hesitate to identify the beastie. The first thing that leapt to my mind, somehow, was horny toad, but it seems hard to justify any taxon with close examination:

An elegant pecked herbivore body, reminds me of the graceful forms of Old World rock art:

Another panel in splendid context:

Detail of above. Again, hand prints are common enough, but the unusual inclusion of the arm here conveys a reaching, grasping which is highly evocative. Though hardly objectivly warranted, thoughts come to the mind of desparation, clutching at the stone:

Finally, what can this engraving evoke save hunting magic? The bighorn sheep, perched in a high place, surveying the territory; likewise the artist/hunter, eulogizing his prey in stone as he too scans the canyon for another animal.

And so the author, high against the cliff, crouching and looking at the canyon, red stone, frozen stream, the tribes gone, the sheep still here.

Long time gone.

Still on the farm, harvest has been crazy but is beginning to mellow somewhat. The toads, alas, are becoming scarcer, and surely this is the deepest root of all autumn melancholy.

The harvest rolls on apace, however. Our compost heap is full of beautiful tomatoes and melons such as you cannot purchase in stores. The tomatoes especially are a heartbreak: gorgeous striped psychedelic orange and yellow ones, which also happen to be especielly delicious, sit rotting in the soil. Sic transit gloria. We simply do not have time to preserve any substantial number. Mrs. Peculiar has been successfully sun-drying a few, however, so perhaps we'll have some fond memories of September come winter.

If one were growing crops for survival, cucurbits would seem a good horse to back. Our summer squash and cucumbers are appallingly prolific. They do require a measure of tolerance for creeping, crescent, Lovecraftian vegetable horror, though. I'm fairly convinced that if left alone for a week, many of our plants' arms would become mobile and prehensile, sprout suckers and reveal a snapping beak in the middle. It is still far too warm; a frost would bring great peace of mind. Our edamame, on the other hand, merit much praise. Our farmer saved seed he acquired in Japan, and the things are friendly, easy to harvest and carry, actually seem like they enjoy being domesticated. If only more crops desired happy symbiosis instead of despotic overlordship!

In personal news, it looks very like Delta County, Colorado will be our long-term home. Mrs. Peculiar landed laudable employment at a cider mill/distillery (there's success for you!!) in Paonia, and we have found housing. We are quite pleased.