Anatomy of a Composition - Windy Ridge: House of Rain

Many of the Bristlecones in this particular grove have lived just over a thousand years. That would mean the sprouted to life when Mesa Verde was on the rise, and southwest agrarians could take advantage of greater than usual rainfall. This rainfall was channeled and reserved for drier times in the year, and crops and population flourished.

A sudden change in the weather patterns ended this wetter period in the southwest, driving populations out of the more concentrated areas, with no real clear understanding of where they went. The author Craig Childs describes this migration in amazing detail in the book “House of Rain,” and while he specifically states he’s not an archeologist, just a mere observer, he offers evidence of migrations that occurred over the previous millennia, with travelers trekking north to south, from the central plateau of what is not northern Mexico, into the Four-Corners regions of the Southwest United States, as seasonal and yearly cycles disrupted life in one area and offered better prospects in another.

Are we in a similar position? Are seeing unprecedented climate events just the warnings we should be looking for? Did this grove only survive because of one climatic shift? Will it fall victim to the fires sprouting up now, that the rains won’t squelch? What foolish folly are we repeating in the time of peril. Certainly our lack of compassion isn’t our only crutch.

30 images shot at 20mm, stacked in Starry Landscape Stacker, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Windy Ridge: House of Rain - ISO 6400 | F/1.8 | 13 sec. - Sony a7iii - Sony FE 20/F1.8G