The west is being pummeled by one thing after another. Drought, fire, invasives, the list is long.
Many ecosystems evolved to live with wildfire, but the Sonoran Desert is not one of them.
The Saguaro Cactus Was Never Meant to Burn
Sad to hear.
A corny cartoon to lighten the news.
California and the West broil in record heat wave
“Do not jump into your automobile next June and rush out to the canyon country hoping to see some of that which I have attempted to evoke in these pages. In the first place you can’t see anything from a car; you’ve got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbush and cactus. When traces of blood begin to mark your trail you’ll see something, maybe. Probably not. In the second place most of what I write about in this book is already gone or going under fast. This is not a travel guide but an elegy. A memorial. You’re holding a tombstone in your hands. A bloody rock. Don’t drop it on your foot — throw it at something big and glassy. What do you have to lose?”
Abbey bitchin’ again but he is not wrong. The west is under stress and changing before our eyes.