TREES

Hoosiers often ask, "What's so great about living out there?" There are plenty of replies ranging from the wide-open spaces, the different cultures, the amazing geologic evidence of time and pressure equaling wild rock formations, the serenity and solitude, the adventure, the sunshine, etc. Then the question about trees comes, "Don't you miss the trees?"

Yeah, I miss the trees of Indiana. Off the top of my head I could rattle off five different kinds of oaks, four different kinds of maples, three different kinds of hickories, and at least 20 other species of trees found in the forests and surrounding the fields of Indiana. They are amazing and beautiful. When you drive through the Rez, you will see mainly two types of trees. They make up the pygmy or "PJ" forests. They are the pinons and junipers. Obviously the lack of water narrows the list of possible trees growing in the rocky, sandy, acidic soil of the Rez. If you get away from the roads and search, you will find water and with it more kinds of trees. The evidence of water is everywhere, but the actual site of it is scarce. As author Craig Childs says, "There are two easy ways to die in the desert, dehydration and drowning." When water does come it will most often come in violent thunderstorms and gain more energy and violence as it rushes over the sedimentary rocks and collects in narrow canyons and arroyos. Besides that there are incredibly many springs of water bubbling up from ancient aquifers to the high desert's surface that sustain native plants and animals. Finding spring water or a deep water hole in the desert is a special treat.
As you travel up in elevation, your chances of finding water increase. At around 7000 feet elevation you will begin seeing ponderosa pine trees, which need much more water than the pinons and junipers. At around 8000 feet or so you are likely to start seeing one of my favorite trees, the aspen. The pure white bark of the slender trunks is a brilliant contrast to the brown and green surrounding the aspens. They form clonal colonies by shooting out their roots to form identical trees, so from one aspen tree you could witness hundreds of offshoots. In fact, some scientists say the largest organism in the world is a colony of aspen trees in the Uinta Mountains of Utah. An even more brilliant contrast happens in the fall as their leaves turn startling golds, oranges, and even reds. The slightest breeze will cause their leaves to tremble, and when you stare at several aspen trees quaking in the wind you will think that your mind is playing tricks on you or that you are tripping on something.
The Navajo kids call them "money trees" because the shaking, flat leaves remind them of coins falling or turning.





These "naked" aspens are on a seasonal pond on top of the Chuska Mountains. There aren't nearly as many trees out here as in the midwest, but the high desert is hardly barren.