What's that I hear? or: Finally, a River Runs Through It

This is the high desert. Although I don’t think of it that way – plenty of green, after all – that’s what the experts say. In the desert, high, low and in between, there are three types of watercourses: perennial, intermittent and ephemeral, the latter being most typical. An ephemeral stream is one that only runs with water under certain conditions. There are plenty of ephemeral streams in our area; in our neighborhood alone we cross 3 or 4 stream beds walking Nutmeg and the house in which we’re living is bounded by two. I’ve wondered when they would run full. We’ve been here one year and three months. I’ve seen trickles, dribbles, slicks and droplets. But no stream, crick, run, or riffle. Not even during the monsoons we had last summer. Now, that’s here in Silver. Up in the Gila is a different story. There are perennial creeks and streams up there; the forest at elevation gets 30-40 inches—yes, those are zeros after the 3 and 4—of rain most years and the record snow depth (although not from one snowfall) was 12 feet; this at elevations of 9- to 10,500 feet. The Gila is not high desert, being made of up as it is by the Black Range, the Pinos Altos Range and the Mogollon (pronounced locally as Muggy-yown). But we are. So: few perennial creeks, few intermittent creeks, but many many ephemeral creeks. So: enough didactics and a little more real-life experience.


My friend Gail walked with me one day on my regular morning Nutmeg-walk. We walked through the neighborhood. It was about when we crossed the 3rd dry creek bed that she said, approximately, “I really like to hear the creeks when they run. They don’t run too often, mostly in the winter when we’ve gotten a lot of snow.” I was put on notice. We have gotten a lot of snow. A “lot” is several snowfalls of 2 to 6 inches each. At that moment on that walk, the stream beds were still ephemerally dry. Another snowfall and a couple of days later: I stepped onto the patio just before dawn with Nutmeg and while I waited for her to sniff and pee, found myself listening intently, trying to identify that sound. That noise. That…bubbling. Gurgling. And it dawned on me (pun intended). The creeks were running. For my loved ones of the East, you might think I wouldn’t forget that sound. Or you might think I would not even notice what is so commonplace, there. Spend a year in the high desert where the only things running in most stream beds are lizards and dust devils and that sound becomes an event.

So we hustled over to our property, which just happens to have a large arroyo running across the eastern end, with – usually – a dry stream bed. Not dry now. And not just a trickle. A wide, full, bubbling stream with pools and riffles and rapids and meanders. You bet I took pictures. You bet I took video with sound. Now, anytime we wonder whether life has deserted our little stream and when it might come back, we can just run the video and listen. This is what it sounds like when the snow melts and the rain soaks down from the sky islands of the Gila and turns our ephemeral stream into a running, living thing.

And then, last Saturday, I took Nutmeg out much earlier than usual. In fact the sun had only just come over the ridge to light up the fields and yards. What the sun lit up was a world of diamonds and spun glass. A heavy frost had fallen during the night, and every grass blade and stem and seedhead, every tree leaf and fir needle, even the hairs and spines on the cholla cacti and yucca were coated in moisture that had frozen into crystals. Wherever I looked, from ground to the tops of the trees, the sun created a fairly land of sparkle. It was enchanting. Of course, I was without a camera. I took in as much as I could, literally breathing in the beauty and magic. By the time I got around the block, the intensity of the sun was melting the ice crystals and coatings. Trees and grasses were literally smoking as they gave up their moisture into the warming and drying air. But for a few moments…transported.