Where Dinosaurs Roamed

Tuesday May 17, 2011

The day before I left Bandelier I happily wore shorts while tackling last minute chores. The following day arrived with the chaotic weather of high altitude spring. I packed my car while shivering in biting wind and swirling snow. Ugh, it is May and I just want to be warm! Determined to find the sun, I pointed my car toward summer. I knew Southeast Utah would be compliant with warmth strong enough to penetrate sandstone.

In Utah, I  hiked through canyons, around arches, fins and up and over huge slabs of red and buff colored sand, cemented hard with time.  I gazed into the eyes of a ram and into the brilliance of paintbrush sparking fire in sage. I hiked until my muscles grew weary and my heart content to be in a place of silence so intense that it became hard to imagine the quality of sound.

 Friends urged me north. “When are you coming? We can’t wait to see you.” “I will be along in a day or two, I just want to do a few more hikes.”   My response was lame, not good enough. Carrie and Paul were persistent.  “You can hike up here.” Our friendship was cemented with the glue of more than three intense years of academic study. We were students of Asian medicine. We spent full days in the classroom, studied and stressed over exams, vacationed together, called each other to say, “Turn on your TV, quick, the Twin Towers are going down in flames.” Our friendship was rock solid.

Each time they called, I told them “just one more hike” and then I would head north. Reluctant to leave the comfort of my tent nestled among pinyons on the sun-drenched mesa, I was “dig my heels in the sand” unwilling to travel north into a latitude of winter. There was one more call. It came as I arrived at Grandview trailhead, “Hey it’s us, we thought maybe you would come up today and surprise us.” There will always be plenty of opportunity for a another red rock hike.  Carrie and Paul beckoned. Their love was hard to resist. I got into the Honda started the ignition and traveled the road north.

They fed me well when I arrived; spinach salad with tomato, onion and avocado, cooked broccoli, sautéed breaded eggplant with spaghetti and marinara, all made fresh, a delight, after a week of simple travel food. We shared stories before a night of dreams. At daybreak, they left for Lander  leaving me behind in the company of swallows.

The latitude kept its promise, I woke to falling snow mixing in a shower of rain.  Now, I sit snug on a leather couch looking out toward red rock hills draped in juniper at Cedar Springs Marina in Flaming Gorge Recreation Area.This boat is cozy, a home complete with an electric fireplace, a  perfect place to wait out a spring storm. 

 The reservoir straddles state lines on a route to nowhere. The marina, tucked in a southern arm stretches down into northeastern Utah. I drove up and over a mountain to get here. Along the way road signs informed of crocodile teeth found in the area, the presence of dinosaur tracks, rock that suggests the presence of oil, marine fossils and of the sea itself. With each mile I journeyed back into geologic time.

Today, alone, I float on top of clear lake water, home to record size trout. I have come here for respite, a time out, to rest my weary body, content to muse about reptilian-like creatures that grew larger than me. I wonder what or whose tracks lay buried under this water that has inched up these canyon walls with the damming of this portion of the Green River. The afternoon drizzle is a good excuse to sit still. Each time the sky begins to clear I think that I should dash out, explore, take pictures and find a trail to hike. I know before the day is through I will do this but for now I contemplate time on a boat.

 

 I have sailed, kayaked, cruised, ran a skiff and paddled canoes, but this watercraft is different. It is not merely transportation. This boat is a nest, a floating home.  Once I was aboard a vessel that carried lots of gear and biologists. The kind of boat where you sleep in a bare bones berth queasy from ocean swells and then at dawn you are asked to gather your things. Unwittingly, before you are truly awake your pile of gear is dumped into a zodiac, where it lays besides your feet as a stiff breeze rudely wakes you into the reality of life on a windswept barren island in the Gulf of Alaska, because that is where you are headed. The kind of place where your tent can barely withstand gale force winds as you cling each night to your survival suit for a pillow hoping no tsunami will find it’s way to your new beach-front property. Why would anyone endure such circumstance? To study storm petrels. Petrels are a small sea bird that spends their entire day feeding at sea on small fish. In the evening they return to land to incubate or feed their young.

In March 1989, I was finishing up my last few months as an environmental educator at a center in New Jersey when I heard the news that the Exxon Valdez split its hull, hemorrhaging gallons of crude oil into pristine Prince William Sound. Black death spread for miles with the tide suffocating the life out of the northern sea.  I did not understand how this event would impact my life. Just weeks after the spill, I accepted a position with the Marine Maritime Refuge in Homer, Alaska.  I headed north to montitor seabirds in Katchemak Bay and on the Barren Islands. The spill changed the focus of my work.

The petrels were vulnerable. They fed far out at sea increasing the likelihood of ingesting species coated with crude oil. Oil in their bellies and oily feathers would mean death to the petrels. But the Barren Islands were so far from Prince William Sound, surely these birds would be okay.

After setting up camp on East Amatuli I walked the shoreline idly dragging a piece of driftwood. What I saw horrified. Oil rose in the sand where the driftwood scraped the surface of the beach. If the oil reached the island it surely reached the petrel’s feeding grounds. How could we know for sure?

My study partner and I set out to find the petrel burrows. We would collect the stomach contents of the birds. We took turns reaching into the burrows in the early morning before the birds returned to sea to feed. We would gently feel for eggs or an adult. We would grasp the adult firmly in our hands and quickly pull it from the burrow poised and ready to collect the stomach contents as the bird regurgitated in defense. Agitated, the petrel would hurl an oily bright orange fishy smelling liquid into a strategically placed plastic bag. Labeled and sealed these bags were sent off be checked for oil to be used as evidence in a government lawsuit against Exxon. This proved to be odd but gratifying work. After two weeks on the island I welcomed the return of the boat that made me want to puke.

Carrie likened her boat to a floating hotel room. Not quite. When I think of a floating hotel I think cruise ship. No, this boat is definitely a small and cozy, home away from home, moored not far, by way of modern travel, from where oil oozes deep in the earth and dinosaurs roamed.