114 lines
6.7 KiB
Markdown
114 lines
6.7 KiB
Markdown
# The Looney Tunes Badlands
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The Bisti is, without a doubt, the single weirdest place I have ever been in
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my life. It turned my understanding of how natural formations came to be right
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on its metaphorical head. It is so bewildering that it exceeds description,
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but I will try anyways.
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The BLM-managed Bisti/De-Na-Zin wilderness, as the name implies, has two named
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sections. The area these two wilderness areas cover is quite large, and trekking to
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the heart of the region and back is probably not feasible in one day. Both are
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known for absurd formations and an abundance of exposed petrified wood. It's
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extremely dry, and is prone to large amounts of blowing dust in the spring.
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The Bisti has no developed hiking trails, nor are you able to follow anyone
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else's footprints except on the occasional sandy areas. I found some vague
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descriptions online of what direction to try going first, but ended up feeling
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like the coolest stuff I found was not there. It is very much a choose your
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own path adventure. I didn't take any GPS tracks to share with you.
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Admittedly, the view from the parking area is not impressive. None of the
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weird stuff is there to see unless you commit to really hiking in. But it's
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worth it.
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On my first trip, I packed my things for an overnight backpacking adventure,
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and set into the wilderness in the early afternoon. The first encounter is a
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fairly large "plain" that is surrounded by small hills. Its inviting to look
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at, and suggests that one can use it as a little highway into the wilds. I
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first headed toward some of those low hills to see what I could find. A
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staircase-like arroyo winding through the large mounds was one of my first
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observations. The surface of the Bisti, it's flats and it's hills, are mostly
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shale. Its like clay, when packed in it is quite hard but other times, like on
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hillsides, it will collapse under your step. The hard parts look smooth and
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the soft parts are very pitted, almost looking like a thick gravel. This
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material seems to erode easily with rainfall, making the arroyos very dramatic
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in appearance. This was far from the weirdest thing I would see on this trip,
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but I was already pretty enamoured.
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The shale came in hues of gray, yellow, red, and black. I'm sure the different
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colors are made of different compounds (and shale may not even be the right
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term for it), but I'm not a scientist. My first bewilderment of the region is
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that there are many mounds, hills of various colors in close proximity. One
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could be pitch black, and the one next to it would be vibrant red, and the
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space between them would change colors quite abrubtly. The entirety of the
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Bisti is not as dull looking as the drive to the parking area may suggest.
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The next oddity I observed was an abundance of small caves and tube-like
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erosions. The Bisti is filled with pits, crevices, holes, and small caverns.
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Most of them are too small to walk in, but I did find a few that I could walk
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into. I wonder what formed these. I often found myself looking at things that
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were obviously eroded by water, but didn't actually make any sense to me. The
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pipe-like formations that went up and down seemed to defy gravity, I was
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staring at things wondering what could possess water to do that. It almost
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seems like the water was jetted through the ground, like there was a lot of
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pressure. There is also an abundance of paths that the water cut straight
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through a mass of shale, but these made sense because one could track where
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the water flows horizontally. At least *some* things make sense, but a lot of
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it simply did not.
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Then comes the petrified wood. Its essentially an ancient log that turned into
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a rock. There were surely trees here at some point in the past, but the
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petrified wood that is here is just casually sitting on the ground as if
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someone just plucked them out from someplace else and just set them down
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there. It's fascinating and fun to find.
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There are some deposits of pristine looking sand, perfectly rippled from the
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wind. There are no dunes of it that I found, but the bottom of some bluffs and
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hills would have pools of it. It looks soft, I want to run my hands through
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it.
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Now, the hoodoos. And weird balancing rock formations? A lot of this stuff
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looks like clay mushrooms. Some of it looks like big massess of very solid
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rock sitting on thin pillars of softer looking material. The colors of the
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heads and stems of these formations can be completely different. They look
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like little goblins created them. Some are small, and others are sitting
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well above the head and into the sky. These multicolored cliffs, rock
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deposits, and hoodoos need to be seen to be understood or believed. And also,
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flats between the hills with many rocks and boulders interspersed, just
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sitting on the ground as if someone arranged them.
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I set up camp at the base of a shale hill. The place I decided to sleep was
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not quite as extravagent as what I had seen so far or what I would see in the
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morning, but it was still inviting and I enjoyed it. I cooked dinner and drank
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tea. As the night went on, I noticed that it was completely silent. No sound
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of insects or plants blowing in the wind of any kind. Just silence. I really
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liked it. I walked out under the moonlight and drank it all in. Silence, a
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great view of the night sky (as anywhere away from the cities), and plenty of
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room to walk. I had a peaceful day exploring and a peaceful night
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appreciating.
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In the morning, I took a new route. I found a lot of red stuff. And I do mean
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*red*, very vibrantly so. I wound through the hills for a couple miles, not
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finding a lot of hoodos but definitely weird caves and tunnels carved by
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water. More and more weird stuff here. At this point I was heading back to my
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car because i was running out of water. And then I left, not to return for
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over a year.
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My second trip, I had driven there for hours, only to realize once I was
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getting close that the horizons were very hazy from blowing dust. I knew it
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would be a bad idea to go out but again, I packed the overnighter bag and set
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out into the badlands. It was extremely windy, and dusty, and by the time i
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made it a couple miles in, my eyes were irritated. I did find some cool areas
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and took some good pictures though.
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Eventually I tried to set up camp, but it was a disaster. The intense wind
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ripped my tent stakes out of the soft ground, and my food cooker was
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collecting lots of dust into my food. I realized this was a lost cause and
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packed my things up, trudged directly into the wind for two miles, and left to
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go back where I came from. My eyes were filled with dirt, and I'm lucky I
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didnt get some sort of eye or respritory infection. I was still happy to see
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the Bisti again.
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This place is really unique, and I'm glad that I went. It is a place of
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extremes, very dry, very dusty, very barren of life, very bizarre.
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