The decade-long drought has taken its toll, here, in the heights of the Chiricahuas. Many Ponderosa and Apache Pines are dying but not simply because they are starving for water. They're dying because the Pine Beetles have attacked them. The trees are weaken from the drought and open to the drillings of the bugs. Sad to see. The trail up isn't hard. Isn't easy either, passing so many dying trees.
Not all of the trees are dying though. Some have inexplicably been spared by the beetles. No rhyme or reason. Just a tree here and there, dry and thirsty but green and alive, unlike the brown dead poles that were once Apache Pines.
I'm a tree hugger. I admit it. Not ashamed about it either. But I don't hug Pines. Too much sap gets on your clothes and it's hell to get off. But I have been known to talk to trees and today I do.
"Hey guys, " I say. "Some good news. It should be raining here hard in a few days. There is a big hurricane out in the Gulf of Mexico and it's going to hit near the Texas/Mexico border, so a good deal of moisture should get here, so you should get some hard rains in about..." (I stop and calculate it in my head) "...in about five days."
No answer from the trees. Don't expect one really.
"So it'll help some I hope," talking to a near by Ponderosa Pine.
The air is hot and sticky now. Summer monsoon season. I saw some clouds building to the south when I drove into the Monument. Usually folk drive up higher on the windy park road, to hike the narrow canyons and walk among the hoodoos. I did drive up to see the ridge called Cochise's Head, but I quickly descend down to this lower trail. Don't know why. Just intuition. Been hiking about 15 minutes. Probably head up to the first plateau. That's all today. Just a little hike.
"You hang in there, old boys," I say to the forest in general. I stop on the trail and briefly close my eyes and say a prayer for the forest. Cicadas shurp. A bit of wind hisses through the mostly dead branches. Mostly silent. Eyes closed. A little sad for the trees, the forest, the Apaches that don't live here now.
There is a very small movement by some of the Apaches on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico to get some of the Chiricahua Mountains return to the Indians. A pipe dream I suppose but stranger things have happened. I wish them luck. Somehow I got on the group's e-mail list. It's a good thing.
Before too long, I'm on the top of the plateau, singing songs I've written about the Apaches , singing as I walk. Actually, I'm trying to write some lyrics to the tunes that don't suck. Not too sappy.
I walk a ways on this high flat part of the Chiricahuas, this odd assortments of volcanic rock that have been weathered down by wind, rain, and sun into a mix of rough columns, odd plateaus and balancing rocks. I hear the Apaches called this place, "The Land of Standing-Up Rocks". Good name.
Up top here, there are few trees, some living, many dead. Some Manzanita bushes. A shitload of Shinbusters. A bit of grass. Tons of rocks. Then I see an old Alligator Juniper tree. Not healthy, not sick particularly, just hanging on in the dryness. I walk up to the Juniper.
"May I take a bit of you," I say to the tree.
"Just a bit is all I can spare," says the Juniper.
"I'll only take a bit."
I pull off a small bough from a branch overhead, just enough to rub in my hands. It's dry but not dead dry. I rub the Juniper into a ball in the palms of my hands and breath in the heady resinous scent. I breath it in again and a third time. I feel invigorated.
"Thanks, Old Boy," I say.
"You're welcome," say the old Juniper tree.
[Postscript: Hurricane Emily did hit the Mexican coast hard that weekend, causing some damage, yet later in the week, about 5 days later actually, the remnants of the hurricane brought much needed moisture to the Chiricahua Mountains and to the trees that live there.]
Copyright © 2005, Stu Jenks