Memory of the Week - Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge
Last week I visited Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, an oasis so named for the velvet ash trees that congregate like sentinels around fossil waters supporting the second largest concentration of endemic species in North America. In the non-sylvan sense of the word, “ash” refers to the remains of a fire and not infrequently evokes a sense of loss. There is something about watching a fire give its last flame and transition to a remnant state that scratches the primal part of our brain that holds awareness of endings and mortality commonly subsumed by the hum of commitments we make to life.
Ash Meadows is all that remains after 10,000 - 15,000 years of freshwater system decline in the Death Valley region. In the 20th century Ash Meadows was nearly resigned to ash by extensive groundwater tapping for farming and plans for tract housing development.
Luckily a group of people from Iran, France, and England valued living memory more than dead memory. Their work on the global conservation of wetlands culminated in the signing of the Ramsar Convention on the Caspian Sea in 1971. Subsequently, the Nature Conservancy purchased Ash Meadows lands in 1983, turning them over to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in 1984.
The two hour journey by car from Las Vegas to Ash Meadows takes you past the edge of suburbs that somehow continue to accrete to the city, the most lonely mountain in Nevada - “topographically prominent” is the technical term, an air force base holding something called the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Battlelab, a prison where you are advised for a number of miles not to pick up hitchhikers, and onto Route 160. After a few miles on Route 160 you hang a right into the unincorporated community of Crystal made famous by its collection of legal brothels. Eventually asphalt gives way to a rocky road that dumps you into the northeastern part of Ash Meadows.
The first site of interest is Devils Hole. Devils Hole is a water-filled cavern at least 500 feet deep with an unknown extent. Water is known to slosh inside the cavern when earthquakes occur as far away as Japan. It is the only habitat in the world for the Devils Hole Pupfish.
Approaching Devils Hole from road you are greeted by extensive fencing and monitoring devices.
What does it say about us that we need to effectively imprison living memory in order to preserve it?
Moving deeper into Ash Meadows you arrive at Point of Rocks boardwalk. Freshwater streams and pools are surrounded by stands of honey and screwbean mesquite trees. The mesquite trees are key to this ecosystem. Bacteria on mesquite tree roots convert nitrogen in the air to soil nitrogen that supports plants throughout the area. If you look closely at the video below you can see another type of endemic pupfish flitting around.
It is quite a thing to experience this water and the life it sustains. Seeping slowly upward from another age, a lifeline from the past, preserving the present.