April 19, 2022: Bisti Badlands and the Hogan

 

Badlands, you gotta live it everyday
Let the broken hearts stand as the price you've gotta pay
Keep movin' till it's understood
And these badlands start treating us good
 Bruce Springsteen

      Today, we left our comfy airbnb and headed toward the Bisti Badlands.

    This allowed us to cross a large section of the Navajo reservation in which there is a massive agriculture presence on vast mesas that have no water and sit at over 5000 feet. There are huge irrigation systems for growing beans/corn and a flour mills and they're all out in the literal middle of nowhere. 

The Navajo have major irrigation and agricultural products across northern New Mexico. We drove past these for many miles.

    

    Our destination today was the Bisti Badlands/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area. Wilderness area is an understatement! The Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness is a rolling landscape of badlands which offers some of the most unusual scenery found in the Four Corners Region. Time and natural elements have etched a fantasy world of strange rock formations made of interbedded sandstone, shale, mudstone, coal, and silt. The weathering of the sandstone forms hoodoos - weathered rock in the form of pinnacles, spires, cap rocks, and other unusual forms. Fossils occur in this sedimentary landform. Translated from the Navajo language, Bisti (Bis-tie) means "a large area of shale hills." De-Na-Zin (Deh-nah-zin) takes its name from the Navajo words for "cranes." Some of the most amazing dinosaur finds in North America have occurred in this region. 

Badlands (the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness) offers one of the closest approximations of an unknown alien world as can be found right here on Earth.
The area takes its name not only from the striking stone formations that litter the landscape, but the desolation of the area. It's literally nowhere. Archeologically, the area was once a the shores of an ancient sea. 

Perspectives on the size of the formation which vary quite a bit from underfoot to several hundred feet high.

 It was once an ancient riverine delta on the shores of an ancient sea, somewhere 70 million years ago. As the time passes the water gradually receded, lush foliage grew along the numerous riverbanks and several prehistoric animals wandered the area.

Therefore, when the water disappeared completely. It left behind layers of jumbled sandstone, shale, mudstone, and coal. However, an abundance of the coal burned away in ancient fires that lasted centuries. Moreover, erosion then formed the characteristic features of the contemporary landscape of the Bisti Wilderness.

The grey and black areas and shards of petrified wood are punctuated by oxidized formations of red and pink.

   There's a lot of petrified wood here lying virtually everywhere.

Paul holds petrified wood in his hand.

And yet it is easily breakable. 

   This was a beautiful area although we explored it and our way back to civilization on dirt and hard pack bumpy roads in a 30mph wind. 

Our thirty mile trek back to sorta kinda civilization in dust and among a legion of oil and gas wells for whom these roads exist. Be prepared. It's bumpy!

We still can't believe that on the side of the road, totally anticipated, we saw these beautiful and somewhat rare migrating adult white face ibis. 

    After thirty miles of bumps (and maybe a little anxiety), we reached HWY 550 and shortly before our destination for the night, The Hogan on a mission site for Christ For All Nations, established to support those of the Navajo culture who experience poverty and hunger in the region. They have a small but very cozy and comfy hogan out in the middle of the hoodoos and mule deer and we are lucky to stay here for the night. 

The Hogan. Most of the day, we were in 30mph winds and as you see, the flag is waving straight out. 

Sunset on the road to the Hogan.

Cracked egg formation. These are unique to these parts. 

We hiked over the hilltop to see the hoodoos above our hogan. 

The Christ for All Nations complex on which we are staying . Most everything is closed right now so we pretty much have the place to ourselves. 

  We had a very nice day from a wildlife perspective. We didn't see a lot of it, but we were happy with what we did see. Why not? Who gets to see this everyday? We are beyond grateful.

The downy woodpecker joined us on the mesa and entertained us with his song, then disappeared into a hole in a tree.

We loved watching the mule deer (about eight in number)  run away from us and then jump high over a fence. Beautiful animals. 

Today I will walk out, today everything negative will leave me
I will be as I was before, I will have a cool breeze over my body.
I will have a light body, I will be happy forever, nothing will hinder me.
I walk with beauty before me. I walk with beauty behind me.
I walk with beauty below me. I walk with beauty above me.
I walk with beauty around me. My words will be beautiful.
In beauty all day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons, may I walk.
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With dew about my feet, may I walk.
With beauty before me may I walk.
With beauty behind me may I walk.
With beauty below me may I walk.
With beauty above me may I walk.
With beauty all around me may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.
My words will be beautiful…

----Navajo Prayer

This food is the gift of the whole universe,
May I be worthy to receive it.
May the energy in this food,
Give me the strength,
To transform my unwholesome qualities
into wholesome ones.
I am grateful for this food,
May I realize the Path of Awakening,
For the sake of all beings.
are present in the gift of this food.
Let us receive it in love
and gratitude...
among living beings of every kind
who are hungry or homeless,
sick or injured,
or suffering in any way.

Each morsel is a sacrifice of life,

The joys and pains of all beings

And in mindfulness of our sisters and brothers

-- Buddhist Meal Time Prayer

Paul's Ponderings: Another great day out in New Mexico, where you realize how empty a lot of the western US really is!   Very windy today in general, which is not unusual....the Bisti bandlands were a big blast of sand in the face on our return walk in the amazing scenery we were surrounded by.....but still an amazing experience.   The big surprise was the Ibis's we saw randomly driving out; what a surprise and even more so after we figured out they were migrating and seen here only randomly.  Another woodpecker variety awaited us near Counselor, NM, but also more wind and mule deer jumping over fences.   

We drove about 25 miles on classic New Mexico dirt and slightly paved roads to get to our lodging for the night.   We saw almost no other human existence besides oil/gas wells during this time.    

We're in a Hogan at a mission development that was started in the 80s tonight; despite the rural setting, it's quite nice and very dark here tonight -- looking for meteors late at night.