Mapping Meaning, the Journal (Issue No. 1)

Layers Exposed
Brooke Larsen
A smile overcame her face and she said,
“We were strong.”
Injustice births from silenced stories. Hope
lives in deep listening that sparks action.
From White Mesa I biked south to Bluff
and met up with my friend Montana, who
would bike with me over the steep hills in
southwest Colorado. Friends made the
biking easier, not necessarily distracting
me from the heat and steep climbs, but
at least giving me companionship in the
somewhat absurd journey. From Bluff, we
followed the San Juan River east to the town
of Cortez, Colorado. It was unbearably hot.
The sun beat down so strongly and the air
was so dry that sweat instantly evaporated,
leaving a layer of salt on my burnt arms.
Everything around us appeared rusted red.
The red rock inspires passion and awe, but
in temperatures abnormally hot for mid-
June, the fiery appearance of the earth
matched the stark heat that challenged my
sanity. Continuing on required focus. Often
I just thought about getting over each hill,
but the human impact on the landscape also
consumed my mind. While biking along the
San Juan River, I passed oil and gas wells on
the river’s edge. I thought of those signs in
national forests telling visitors to not camp
within a few hundred feet of water. How do
we define harm?
As the temperatures began to cool with
the setting sun, we reached Cortez and the
home where Bill Anderegg, a young climate
scientist at the University of Utah, grew up.
He spends his summers at his parents’ home
to study the aspen die-off in the nearby San
Juan National Forest where he adventured
as a child. Bill has scruffy blonde hair and
a casual demeanor, and it quickly became
clear that he chose his research not just
because of an interest in climate science, but
also a love for the outdoors. Shortly after we
arrived, Bill took his two-year-old twin girls to
bed and then we ate a home-cooked meal of
bison burgers and green chilies grown from
his parents’ garden.
In the morning, we drove into higher
elevations and thankfully cooler
temperatures. Every few miles we’d pull
over on the forest service road and walk into
one of Bill’s many research plots, looking
for the metal numbered tags nailed into his
research subjects. Bill told us that aspen
support more biodiversity than any forest
type in the Mountain West. Each tree in a
stand of aspens is connected, sprouting from
the same lateral roots. They’re also dying
and stand no chance of adapting to climate
change. Bill’s plots ranged from healthy,
dense stands shading a diversity of colorful
wildflowers to a sea of dead stumps. To the
dead plots Bill responded, “I guess I don’t
have to come back here.” As we walked
away, each step felt heavier.
A drought in the early 2000s caused the
aspen die-off still unfolding. The drought
was significant not because of precipitation
levels but temperature; it was two to three
degrees centigrade hotter than previous
droughts. This year was a wet year, but the
aspen are still dying. Bill said, “Aspen death
is somewhat fascinating because it’s sort of
122 Mapping Meaning, the Journal