You’re looking at Canada geese and what may be a pair of goldeneyes moving upstream in the background. It’s such a kick to see these here. What you can’t see is how high the cliffs are above this scene. Think eight hundred feet plus and you’ll be close.
The gorge is even deeper farther north; this 2010 article about the largest freshwater spring in New Mexico may open your eyes a bit. (“…could fill a large tanker truck in ninety seconds,” etc.) It’s a similar but somewhat different environment than shown above, deeper and more isolated. Three million year-old lava tubes are “common features in the canyon walls,” according to authors Paul W. Bauer and Peggy S. Johnson.
Lava tubes, man. Freakin’ lava tubes a thousand (?) feet long. Water collects in there, the river cuts across the tubes, boom you get artesian springs. Notice that we get agua in the desert now because of one enormous lava eruption three million years ago. Considering the depth of the canyon, imagine how thick the molten rock was! Holy god, man. Right here, in this place. That’s a lot of burning hell.
John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on .png)
Thanks, I learned something! I enjoyed the geology lesson. It’s good to see some geese happy in their environment. My son cleaned one out of a jet engine not so long ago, did quite a bit of damage. I guess that’s why we don’t see very many flying over us anymore.
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