Life's getting wilder and more curious

This last week I went on another adventure. I am fortunate in that I have work that let's me justify going on adventure and get paid for it.

I took a group of young women out to the edge of the San Rafael desert on the east side of Thousand Lake mountain in an area called Garden Basin. It's well named because the area is dotted with springs and meadows, and filled with pinyon pine nut trees and service berry bushes, bull berry bushes, and wild currant bushes. On the east side of a particular spring and meadow is a gently sloping hillside that is covered with stone circles that were once the foundations of ancient Indian houses. The first time I noticed the stone circles I saw only two. Then I was shown a very large one on top of the hill, then I started seeing the circles of stone all over the hill. Most of the circles presently have pinyon pine trees growing in the center which helps to camouflage them, but once your eye gets trained to see them the trees actually helps identify rather than hide them. There are many pieces of flint flakes, actually chert, left over from knapping arrow heads and stone knives. There are pottery shards though not big ones.

About a third of a mile away there is another hill where you can stand in one place and see hundreds or even thousands of chert flakes, where the people must have come for generations to hunt and gather and make arrow heads and atlatl spear heads and blades. There are also pieces of grinding stones called "metates" and most fascinating for me I've found several "hammer stones" in the area. These are quartzite stones used to knock off the flakes that were then used to make arrow heads. It's a beautiful area with green grass meadows and clear clean and cold springs, and groves of quaking aspen trees, but the people stopped coming there around a thousand years ago. I'm sure they had their reasons, and I sure that any reasons we come up with would be pure speculation. I've managed to visit the place a few times - you can't drive a car in there, and shouldn't drive a truck either. It's not easy to get to, and I don't know when I'll be there again, but I'm fairly confident that the place will look about the same if and when I do.

These small adventures are great, and I'm lucky to be able to do them, but I feel the need for more adventure. I think of the quilled peccary that is so common in the jungle where I lived but is as of yet unknown to science and undocumented. There is the ancient breed of dogs kept by the Indians in the jungle, which are still distinguishable from the European type dogs, that should not only be documented and DNA tested, but I'd like to bring some up to the States to raise here, They are amazing dogs. Then there's the aquatic black panther that is well known to the natives but still unknown to the scientific world. This is a large jungle cat slightly larger than the jaguar though very different in appearance from a black jaguar. It appears to be heavier than water in that it doesn't swim into the water, but rather walks into and under the water.

I've got to figure out how to go do some of these explorations that are waiting for me, and there are quite a few others just as intriguing, and I know from experience that as I do these adventures I will discover others besides. If anyone reading this blog has any suggestions please let me know.

Michael Porter