2004 HIGHLIGHTS ACROSS NEW MEXICO

This years review includes a summary of temperature and precipitation data for Albuquerque and New Mexico, the status of the drought situation across the state, a summary of the summer precipitation including a comparison 2003 vs. 2004 precipitation, a recap of the fire weather activities and the hydrologic year. The final sections include a review of the significant weather events across New Mexico, record temperatures and precipitation set at the Albuquerque Sunport in 2004 and a brief look at the weather extremes in Albuquerque.

RedNova News – There’s More to the Mimbres Than the Pottery by Barbara Harrelson

The famous black-on-white Mimbres pottery and this culture’s unique mortuary behavior are depicted in various chapters, as are the complex tiers of Mimbres social organization. Details on the bioarchaeology of the NAN Ranch Ruin summarize “the most comprehensive study ever undertaken of a Mimbres skeletal population.”

“The Mimbres culture holds a certain fascination for those who have an interest in southwestern archaeology due to the artistic legacy of their painted pottery,” Shafer notes, adding, “This decorative style has no equal in the American Southwest: the stylistic images of the pottery symbolize and identify a unique cultural heritage.” …

By the way, the name Mimbres comes from the Spanish word for willow, with the river and surrounding valley being named for the trees growing along the water. The Mimbres Valley and the NAN Ranch Ruin are northeast of New Mexico’s Boot Heel. (Western New Mexico University in Silver City is home to a distinctive museum of the Mimbres culture.)

“The site was named after the ranch cattle brand, NAN, by C.B. Cosgrove, who, with the help of his son, Burt Jr., in 1926, was among the first to excavate at the site,” Shafer explains.

MIMBRES ARCHAEOLOGY
AT THE NAN RANCH RUIN
By Harry J. Shafer
University of New Mexico Press
304 pages, $59.95

Tribal park a ‘must see’ says prestigious magazine BY JOHN R. CRANE

Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park is one of 80 world destinations that should be visited in an around-the-world tour, according to National Geographic Traveler.

The magazine highlighted the park in its 20th anniversary issue in October, citing it as a “little-known gem tucked into the southwestern corner of Colorado.” …

Site stabilization of the park’s dwellings began in 1971. Encompassing 125,000 acres, Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park covers more than twice the area of 52,000-acre Mesa Verde National Park and getting around isn’t always on neatly-paved roads. …

Anyone interested in arranging a tour call toll-free 1-800-847-5485, call 565-9653 or contact by e-mail utepark@fone.net.

Ute Mountain Tribal Park: Archaeology in Southwest Colorado

Tribal Park

CVO Menu – America’s Volcanic Past – New Mexico

Volcanic Highlights and Features

Partial protection for Hovenweep lands

The Utah office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has wisely decided to withdraw some lands near Hovenweep National Monument west of the tiny southwestern Colorado community of Dove Creek from an oil and gas leasing auction set for Friday.

Unfortunately, the agency opted to keep only two of the five contested parcels — those to the south of the national monument — off the leasing list. The other three parcels, which are north and west of the monument, will go on the auction block Friday.

When even officials with the National Park Service, which manages Hovenweep and is a sister agency to the BLM, express concern that drilling so close to the monument could potentially damage Anasazi ruins within the monument, the BLM has to take notice.

Petrified Forest expansion may yield treasures Mark Shaffer, Republic Flagstaff Bureau

Two weeks ago, Congress gave its long-anticipated blessing to a bill that will more than double the size, to 222,000 acres, of this northeastern Arizona national park, famed for its calcified wood, dinosaur remains and petroglyphs.

The expansion will protect the new acreage, allow blight removal and yield many new archaeological sites. …

On a tour this week of the stark snow-covered area, park officials excitedly pointed out many of the features that soon will receive federal protection.

Like a 14-mile strip of the multicolored badlands of the Chinle formation, rich in petrified wood and fossils. And all the ruins and rock art from Native American cultures of nearly 1,000 years ago on distant ridge lines. And even a few extinct volcanoes, curving gently upward from the high desert. …

Hays-Gilpin said there are at least 50 rock-art panels within the new lands that are more extensive and of better quality than the national park’s Newspaper Rock. That petroglyph contains hundreds of ancient Indian carvings and is visited by tens of thousands of tourists annually.

“This is some of the best rock art in the world,” Hays-Gilpin said.

The congressional action also didn’t happen a day too soon to protect what’s left of Anasazi ruins, primarily east of the existing boundary.

Pothunters dug into about 300 ancient graves in the Wallace Tank area three years ago, and Hays-Gilpin said that a 300-room pueblo northeast of Wallace Tank has been pillaged by vandals in recent years.

“But we still have a lot out there that’s intact or half-intact,” Hays-Gilpin said. “A lot of times the pothunters don’t get to the floor, and that’s where we find a lot of information about the environment of the time.”

Parker said the new lands are expected to double the more than 700 archaeological sites already documented within Petrified Forest.

Hays-Gilpin also said there was a lot of excitement about the potential of more discoveries about so-called “paleoindians,” who lived 7,000 to 10,500 years ago in the area when it was considerably cooler and wetter.

10,000 Birds

There are approximately 10,000 bird species on this beautiful planet. Welcome to the 10,000 Birds blog, wherein we chronicle the Core Team’s ongoing effort to see every one of them.

BLM – Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Home Page

“. . .But it’s big country out there. With a topo map and a beat-up jeep–or better yet, a backpack–there’s still solitude to be found, adventure with the smell of danger, and the wonder of a raw, unfinished, and awesomely beautiful world.” -William B. Smart

The National Atlas of the United States of America

Work on a new National Atlas of the United States® began in 1997. This Atlas updates a large bound collection of paper maps that was published in 1970. Like its predecessor, this edition promotes greater national geographic awareness. It delivers easy to use, map-like views of America’s natural and sociocultural landscapes. Unlike the previous Atlas, this version is largely digital.

Also, BLM Directory

Redlands Daily Facts – Travel
The rock era
Petrified forest, limestone dwellings offer hard evidence of the way things were hundreds – and hundreds of millions of years ago
By Story and photos by Eric Noland, Travel Editor

Petrified Forest National Park is one of several fascinating preserves in a little-visited expanse of Arizona. Also here are the precisely striped clay hills of the Painted Desert, as well as 800-year-old remnants of ancient villages – pueblos, cliff dwellings, even masonry homes made of hunks of petrified wood.

Protected as national parks and monuments, the sites are convenient to Interstate 40 east of Flagstaff and to U.S. 89 to the north.

PETRIFIED FOREST NATIONAL PARK: There is an entrance to the northern reaches of the park from Interstate 40, but eastbound travelers might want to consider getting off I-40 in Holbrook and taking Highways 77 and 180 about 20 miles to the park’s southern entrance. Then you can conclude your visit with an easy hop onto the interstate. Currently the park is open from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., but at the end of this month its hours will shorten to 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Entry fee is $10 per private vehicle, good for seven days. www.nps.gov/pefo; (928) 524-6228.

WALNUT CANYON NATIONAL MONUMENT: A little over seven miles east of Flagstaff on I-40, get off at Exit 204 and drive south three miles. Currently it is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; the park maintains shorter hours in December and January and is open longer during the summer. Entry fee is $5 per adult (age 17 and up), good for seven days. www.nps.gov/waca; (928) 526-3367.

WUPATKI NATIONAL MONUMENT: Take Highway 89 for 31 miles north of Flagstaff, then head east on the park road for 14 miles to the monument. (Wupatki can also be reached on Loop Road through its sister national monument to the south, Sunset Crater Volcano.) Currently it is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; the park maintains shorter hours in December and January and is open longer during the summer. Entry fee is $5 per adult (age 17 and up), good for seven days; this fee also permits entry to Sunset Crater Volcano. www.nps.gov/wupa; (928) 679-2365.

APOD: 2004 November 3 – A Time Lapse Lunar Eclipse

Very cool timelapsed photo of the lunar eclipse — looks like a smile. mjh

Backpacking Destinations – Along Ancient Trails
Cliff dwellings, petroglyphs, ancient pottery-Utah’s Grand Gulch is thick with history
By Janet Marugg, December 1, 2000

Ever dream of exploring wild, remote lands in search of relics from ancient times? I have, and that’s why I headed to southern Utah’s Grand Gulch Primitive Area, where amateur archaeologists and history-minded hikers can get a taste of the real thing.

Hidden in the canyons below a piñon pine- and juniper-covered plateau, Grand Gulch contains some of the most fascinating Anasazi tribal real estate in the Southwest. The Ancient Ones inhabited the canyons from about 200 to 1300 a.d., when they abandoned the region for unknown reasons. Seven hundred years later, it looks like they just left. Stunning slickrock alcoves and amphitheaters hold the well-preserved remains of cliff dwellings, granaries, ceremonial kivas, and mysterious rock art. Pieces of shattered pottery litter the ground.

There’s only one way to experience Grand Gulch: Hike into it on the same trails the Anasazi did centuries ago.

Drought Unearths a Buried Treasure By SANDRA BLAKESLEE

What Mr. Abbey and the Sierra Club couldn’t or didn’t do nature has now accomplished. A severe Western drought – some say the worst in 500 years – is shrinking Lake Powell at the rate of up to a foot every four days. Since 1999, the vast reservoir has lost more than 60 percent of its water.

Glen Canyon is returning. It is open and viewable in much of its former glory. At the confluence of Coyote Creek and Escalante River, where boaters once motored by to see famous rock formations, backpackers now pick their way up a shallow river channel. Fifteen-foot high cottonwoods grow amid thickets of willow, gamble oak and tamarisk. Where fish thrived, mountain lions prowl.

The change may be permanent.

“Short of several back-to-back years with 100-year runoff, Lake Powell will never be full again,” said Dr. Tom Myers, a hydrologic consultant in Reno, Nev. Downstream users now consume 16.5 million acre-feet of water, but on average only 15 million acre-feet flow into the system each year, he said. Add more than a million acre-feet of water lost to evaporation and it is obvious that only during relatively wet years is it possible to add water. …

The changes are stunning. When it was full five years ago, the lake had 250 square miles of flat water and thousands of miles of fractal shoreline. Each year, two and a half million people came to enjoy vacations with boating, swimming, fishing. The lake was rimmed by a starkly beautiful landscape; filmmakers shot movies like “Planet of the Apes” and “The Greatest Story Ever Told.”

Today the lake is down 129 feet, back to the size it was in 1970, covering 131 square miles. Canyon walls are plastered with a chalky white bathtub ring of calcium carbonate 10 stories high, where the water once reached. Towering benches of silt line the former lake bed. This year 1.8 million visitors are expected. …

In two years, depending on the weather, Lake Powell could reach what hydrologists call inactive pool, meaning the water stored in the lake will not produce enough flow to generate hydroelectric power. A year or two after that, water could drop another 120 feet.

At that point, because of the steepness of canyon walls at the dam, Lake Powell would still have two million acre feet of water spanning 32 square miles, offering continued recreation opportunities.

At that same point, hundreds of miles of side canyons would emerge into sunlight offering backpackers a chance to see what was lost. … Canyons that would be exposed include Dungeon, Labyrinth, Anasazi, Iceberg, Moki, Last Chance, Mystery Rock, Hidden Passage, Twilight and Lost Eden.

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: New power plants may affect parks’ air By Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post

In the past four years, power companies have deluged regulators with applications to build power plants in locations that could affect air quality and visibility in national parks or wilderness areas, according to federal statistics compiled by the nonpartisan Natural Resources News Service.

Since 2000, the number of permits sought for plants within 62 miles of park boundaries has quadrupled compared with the previous five years, and 33 of the 280 proposed plants would be coal-fired. Both trends have sparked concern among federal and state officials.

Utilities between 1995 and 1999 built only 10 coal plants nationwide, none within that distance of a national park or wilderness.

The trend is particularly pronounced near some popular tourist meccas in the West, where Park Service and state officials say visibility-obscuring haze is on the rise.

Several recent studies indicate that while visibility is improving in many parks on the east and west coasts, the overall number of low-visibility days is increasing. A federal report found that, as of 1999, on the 20 percent of days when skies are haziest, “most parks show at least some degradation or worsening of conditions, especially in the Southwestern U.S.,” compared with 1900. A Park Service report last year concluded that, “poor air quality currently impairs visibility in every national park and most, if not all, wilderness areas.” …

Outside Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park, home to ancient Anasazi cliff dwellings, three power-plant applications are pending, as well as a plan to drill 10,000 gas wells over 20 years, said George San Miguel, the park’s natural-resource manager.

“If all these things happen, Mesa Verde could be negatively impacted,” San Miguel said.