Cedar Mountain

The focus of this blog is the tremendous diversity of this portion of the Colorado Plateau.  Grand Canyon to the north and the Mogollon Rim to the south with unsure boundaries east and west.  It's an area that gets millions of visitors every year but is only really explored by a few.  Almost everyone who comes here has one goal.  Get to the Grand Canyon.  This is a worthy goal. There is no place like Grand Canyon. I love it. But this highland area of forest, woodland, and prairie continues to astound me in what it reveals.  I have spent a lot of time out "in" it and I want to put some of those observations here. Hopefully, they will give a taste for this landscape and its beauty but mostly it's variety and what we can learn from it. On a recent walk on Cedar Mountain here are some things I encountered.

This is a banana yucca sending up a flower stock on the south slope of Cedar Mtn. The date is May 27.  A little later this year due to our cold winter and spring.  The number of yucca that bloom in a given year is related to the winter/spring moisture conditions. This year we had about average winter precip though maybe a little more in the form of snow but a somewhat dry spring.  Some yucca blooming but not a lot.

An aspen sprout emerges from a crack in these north-facing rocks on Cedar Mountain.  You would never expect to find aspen in these parts but there are two small clones that have hung on for thousands of years from when the climate was much cooler and aspen and other high mountain species were abundant.  What is called a 'relict' community.  During the severe drought of 1999 - 2002 I expected we had lost these clones.  Some of the individuals died off but in recent years they have been expanding again.

Living on the edge of things is exciting.  The rim of Grand Canyon is a perfect analogy but anywhere in this striking landscape you can find yourself on the knife's edge of change. Much like the abyss seen at the canyon's edge.  From dry, harsh to reassuring green.   Yucca to aspen.  All adapted to this erratic mix of factors. These plants are tested time and again when we go from 40" of precip a year to 11".  From 20 degrees below zero to 100 above.   It's truly astounding.