By Jessica Rath

​Northern New Mexico has its fair share of strange and unusual landscapes, but nothing can top the badlands south of Farmington in terms of being otherworldly, bizarre, and utterly surreal. The 45,000 acres belong to the most unique scenic areas on this earth.
 
A quick note about the pronunciation: when I first heard about the badlands, people always pronounced Bisti the way you pronounce “misty”: the stress is on the first syllable, ˈmɪs.ti. But that’s incorrect, the name comes from the  Navajo word bistahí which means “a large area of shale hills” and is pronounced “Biss-tah-HEE”, from what I could gather. De-Na-Zin, from the Navajo word Dééł Náázíní, means “Standing Crane”. 

The desolate, semi-arid terrain is adorned with magnificent rock formations and stunning colors: mushroom-shaped hoodoos (also called tent rocks or earth pyramids) are ubiquitous, as are spires, stone pillars, and pedestals suggestive of castles and mystical figures. Huge logs of petrified wood, adorned with patches of brilliant colors: yellow, orange, rust, and red dot the landscape. Layers of sandstone, coal, silt, mudstone, and shale form distinct stripes of mauve, greys, beige, rust, and bronze. Abundant fossils of dinosaurs, crocodiles, turtles, fish, and even mammals have been found. 

There’s actually a dinosaur called Bistahieversor, which means “Bistahi destroyer”, known also as “Bisti Beast”. They belong to the Tyrannosaurus family and lived some 75.5 to 74.5 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous Epoch. It’s estimated that the animals were up to 30 feet long and could weigh nearly 3 tons! The Bisti Beast has been found only in New Mexico.

It’s hard to imagine that today’s barren badlands once hosted abundant vegetation and animal life.  We’ll have to look back millions of years – approximately 74 million. Actually, one has to start even further back: at the time of the Western Interior Seaway which connected the Arctic Ocean with the Gulf of Mexico and split the Northamerican continent into two landmasses. Just imagine – what is New Mexico today,  was covered by a shallow sea! That was 100 million years ago. At its largest extent, it was 2,500 feet (760 m) deep, 600 miles (970 km) wide and over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) long. In the late Cretacaeous the sea levels fell several times and created swamps with lush plants and prehistoric animals. 

Eventually the water completely disappeared. Massive amounts of plant matter and organic material became compressed over time and left a 1400-foot layer of mudstone, shale, sandstone, and coal. And then erosion gradually formed the spires, towers, and hoodoos. They exist because everything around them has eroded. The mushroom-like caps and thin stems of the hoodoos for example are made of harder material and withstood the wind, rains, and floods that washed out the softer stuff.

The area around Bisti and De-Na-Zin is about 6,500 feet above sea level, but the badlands are about 200 - 400 feet below that. After the last ice age some 6,000 years ago the floods which resulted from the melting ice washed much of the sandstone away and revealed lots of fossils, petrified wood the size of huge trees, and the bizarre and unique formations so worth a visit.

​Paleontologists have found that the area has been occupied by humans since at least 10,000 BC. The prehistoric Great North Road, which connected many ancestral pueblos belonging to the Chacoan Anasazi, crossed the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness. 

A woman and her horse maybe? Taken on two different days, from opposite sides. 

​Each time I visited – always with one or two friends – I didn’t meet another soul. The area is truly desolate, and you better come prepared. There are no services, there is no water, there is no shade; no marked trails, no signs. Better not to expect a visitor center, and cell phone reception is sketchy. Depending on the time of the year, daytime temperatures can be rather hot. Plenty of water, sunscreen, a hat, and a GPS or compass are absolute necessities. Don’t forget sturdy shoes – while it is fairly easy to follow the main washes and there isn’t much climbing involved, the ground can easily crumble and you should make sure that your ankles are well supported. 

​Another thing to be aware of: the unpaved access road can become extremely slick when it rains and driving is almost impossible. I learned this the hard way on one of my visits. While we were hiking, it started to pour and soon everything was soaking wet. Well, no big deal, I thought – after all my car has  four-wheel drive. So we took off, but the tires were immediately caked in mud, without any tread – I was spinning around and sliding, getting all worked up in the process. Steering was impossible and I slowed down, but that was a bad idea, because soon I was stuck – literally stuck in the mud! 

​We were lucky. Although the area is sparsely populated, a car showed up shortly after I had dug myself into the clay-like gloop, and a friendly couple stopped to help. The man soon managed to get my car free and I drove on for a bit, trying my best not to get stuck again. The couple followed behind us, keeping an eye on my progress, but soon I saw them flashing their lights – they wanted me to stop. The reason: they had noticed that my right front wheel was loose; it leaned at a 45-degree angle! 

​We had to call a tow truck. This was harder than it sounds, because there was no cell phone reception where I got stuck. The helpful couple drove my friend further up the road, they knew a spot with higher elevation where phone calls were possible. And I sat in the car and waited, bemoaning my bad luck… 

As it turned out, we were actually quite fortunate. When the tow truck from Bloomington arrived, the driver told us that we should count our blessings: he was the only towing company in the whole area with a four-wheel tow truck, and without that, he said, he would have never come out: it’s more slippery than ice, he said, and a rescue would have been impossible. But more importantly, on a dry road the wheel might have held until we reached the freeway, US 550, where the speed limit is 70 miles/hour. Which means I would have driven close to 80. Quite likely, the wheel may have come off, causing a serious accident.
​
Just be sure to check the weather report before you visit the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, and it’ll be an immensely rewarding adventure.

Note: BLM Rules

• Camping is permitted within all units of the National Wilderness Preservation System administered by the BLM in New Mexico.  
• Visit the Farmington BLM District Office website for possible advisories or restrictions.
• The Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area is closed to motorized vehicles and mechanical forms of transportation (mountain bikes included).
• Also prohibited are campfires, collecting fossils or petrified wood, climbing on delicate geologic features, traveling in groups of more than eight people, and trespassing on adjacent tribal lands.
• Tread lightly on the land and leave no trace of your visit.
• The use of drones is prohibited.
• A BLM issued permit is required for commercial video and photography.
• When using a motorized vehicle for camping, limit your parking and vehicle-based camping to parking areas and set-up no more than 300 feet from an established road.
• Permits are required for uses such as grazing, scientific research, and commercial guiding.

By Sara Wright

​Republished from 5/19

By Sara Wright​

​About two weeks ago my dogs and I had a glorious experience in a remote well wooded area. I had identified fresh bear sign and the three of us were following bear tracks into a steep gully when we came upon a young golden brown bear who emerged from behind a boulder to regard us with curiosity. When I spoke to him/her quietly the bear watched me intently; I lost time. Unafraid, the youngster eventually meandered on.

And then, twice in the last week, I attended presentations during which people literally winced and moaned when the subject of Black bears was raised.
 
As a researcher who conducted a formal fifteen year academic study of these remarkable animals, I experienced the usual crushing dismay that Black bears continue to be perceived as such a threat to humans, when the truth is that they evolved as a prey animal, and remain so today. Black bears are cautious around humans unless they have been terrorized by them; then they avoid people at all costs. A human has a one in a million chance of being killed by a Black Bear; one is 17 more times likely to die of a spider bite.
 
How has the Black bear become such a perceived threat to humankind, especially in this country?
 
 One reason is that we are a culture that is hell bent on keeping the outdated “man against nature” paradigm alive. This perspective pits humans against all nonhuman species with a vengeance. In addition, the unconscious psychological mechanism of projection allows people to ascribe human killer tendencies/evil onto hapless animals giving us permission to kill them indiscriminately. We also imagine that we are separate and superior to every species but our own. How else could we continue to destroy the planet that is our home without whose resources we could not survive?
 
Of course, this cultural attitude of senseless fear of Black bears in particular (and all wild animals by extension) is also generated in this country by powerful special interest organizations like the NRA that deliberately uses the myth of the killer bear for its own benefit while pontificating that we have the “right” to bear arms, regardless of character or self responsibility. This current explosion of men with guns has created a crisis of monumental proportions at the cost of lives, human and non-human alike.  
 
One critical lesson I have learned in my life is to watch what people say and what they actually do. If there is a split between the two, pay attention to what these folks do and not what they say – talk is cheap. The so called state Wildlife organizations say they are interested in caring for/saving animals but what they do is to make money from ordinary folk and support hunters who slaughter animals as a matter of course. These people also expose their colossal arrogance/ignorance by stating as “truth” that all wild animals need to be managed by humans when animals have been around for 350 million years and humans for about 200,000 years. How utterly absurd.
 
There is something deeply repellent to me about the state fish and game folks who want us to slaughter bears for “fun” and for trophies, rarely for food. In fact, here in New Mexico, the head of a black bear is the symbol for our state wildlife organization.
 
There are a number of theories that attempt to address why bears in particular are so feared by humans. One of the most popular (not scholarly) of these is that humans were originally prey animals so we “instinctively” fear black bears and all wild animals. In this way of thinking the story is written into our DNA. The problem with this theory (and please remember that theories are intellectual ideas, and not truth with a capital “T”) is that it contradicts a multitude of children’s studies that indicate just the opposite – namely that very young children appear to be universally drawn to wild animals, especially bears, and are not afraid of them. There are many European children’s fairy tales that focus on the special relationship between bears and children. The helpful bear saves, protects, or imparts hidden knowledge to the children (especially girls) – like how to trust one’s instincts. In this country Native peoples honor the bear as a great healer/protector. Children who are afraid of animals have been taught to fear them by the adults around them.
 
And this brings me around to the power of the image to influence human perception. Look at any hunting magazine and you will note the frightening predatory look of the animal on the front cover. In Maine I used to dread August not just because it ushered in bear hunting season but also because in every store the covers of all the hunting magazines portrayed a GIANT Black Bear as a vicious bloody killer roaring with a huge open mouth full of teeth (contrary to popular belief, bears don’t roar at all). Exaggerating the size of an animal to generate unrealistic fear is something that every hunting magazine and state agency routinely does. Most adult male Black bears run about 250 pounds and yet these magazines/agencies always use the pictures of the exception to the general rule - the one that weighs 400 pounds - and is probably a captive animal. Most Black bears don’t survive long enough in the wild to attain a weight that even approaches this number, because the majority are shot as yearlings or sub adults. Yet, these horrific images work on us below the threshold of our awareness especially if we have no relationship to the wilderness and the wild animals around us. We have all been socialized/inculcated into a culture that supports the idea that any wild animal is “automatically” dangerous to humans. And creating mindless fear and revulsion for profit is something advertisers do well.
 
In reality Black bears are extremely shy, intelligent, curious animals that learn to avoid people unless people choose to befriend them as I did. My trust-based study was based on my ability to develop a personal relationship with any bear that would tolerate my presence and allow me entrance into her/his world. Needless to say, many would not. Too shy.
 
What I discovered early on was that Black bears always clearly communicated what they needed/wanted from me. My initial challenge was learning to understand their language. For example, most bears needed me to respect their need for space. Even the bears that chose to interact with me let me know when I got too close by huffing or slapping the ground, twig, bush, tree with a paw. I learned quickly that talking to them quietly relieved their anxiety. When badly frightened, Black bears moan like children, or do the opposite, hiss/chop and slap branches while hugging the upper limbs of their trees which they co–evolved with. Too often a bear’s anxiety is interpreted as aggression. It’s worth repeating that the Black bear evolved on this continent as a prey animal who was/is totally dependent on tree cover for protection (Infant bears begin climbing shortly after birth, exploring the den, long before they emerge in the spring).
 
In New Mexico we have a population of about 6000 Black bears that live in remote mountainous terrain, always close to some kind of water. If you happen to meet a Black bear while hiking, please don’t panic. Speak quietly to the animal and give it the space it needs to go on its way. For anyone who is really terrified of bears it is useful to carry a whistle. When blown the bear will disappear in an instant, I promise you.  

Testing the limits of human capabilities.
By Zach Hively

Are you a morning person or a night owl? Me, I don’t know what I am anymore. I’m whatever creature functions best for about three hours a day—from, say, just after a late breakfast until that lull just before an afternoon siesta.

During this time, I had best accomplish any and all laundry, errands, social engagements, and (time permitting) ignoring work-related emails.

Basically, I am neither an early bird nor a nighthawk. I am much more of a house pet. Not saying I could sleep fifteen or more hours a day. I’m just saying I have never truly had the chance to try. 

For the last couple decades, it sure has felt like I could use fifteen more hours of sleep. This exhaustion explains why it took so long for genius to strike, which it did recently, much like William Tell struck Newton’s apple: What if—stick with me here—I went to bed early?

Surely I would get enough sleep to wake up all on my own, no series of alarms required, in time for my leisurely breakfast. I could then give my actual best for those three hours a day. My hypothesis: I could ignore emails more effectively than ever!

The experiment is still in progress. Early results indicate, however, that I would make a most excellent house pet. No one would have to let me out for eight, eleven hours at a stretch. Because if I grant myself more time to sleep—this is empirical science, people—I will fill it.

I’m dedicated to seeing this experiment through. It might take decades of field research to pay off my sleep debt and discover what happens. In the meantime, more hours resting means fewer hours waking. The only pragmatic cuts I can make come from that so-called “productive time,” as the rest of the day literally has nothing left to cut.
​
So be it. This is why we have auto-reply; I’ll get back to you in about twenty years.

***
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