Essays

Moseying: Locations of Interest

Gomez Peak
May 26, 2004

I had a little biological survey job on a ranch out near where I-20 meets I-10 under Gomez Peak of the Davis Mountains. I had never stopped at the junction of the Interstates, except for one time when I was driving an RV and got blown and buffeted by the winds of a giant thunderstorm and got scared of tipping over. That time, I just parked against a roadcut and read a book until it was over. Everybody on the highway is always just ripping down the road – except for a few truckers that pull into a pullout for a rest west of the junction. (About the only reason most folks drive that highway is to get to a destination far-away and there is normally no reason to tarry!)

I got to the ranch early and had to wait for the ranch manager to meet me and unlock the gate, so I got to looking at the geology along the highway and got off on the access road and took a few minutes “to see what I could see.” In the space of a few miles I saw the basalt of the Davis Mountains, limestone hills, and some outcroppings of sandstone. Any time there is jumbled up geological formations, there is the possibility of a diverse flora and fauna.

I am not enough of a geologist or geohydrologist to know how rainwater percolates down through the soils of and the bedrock of different types of stone – I just know that some plants are “obligates,” meaning they need a certain type of soil with a specific retention capacity and specific percolating ability. West of the rest stop past the junction I found “Blue Mist Eupatorium,” a wonderful butterfly-attracting plant that many people now grow in their home landscapes here in Midland. I had previously seen it at the mouth of Madera Canyon on a ranch southwest of Toyahvale and Balmorhea, so I was not surprised to see it. Interestingly enough, I later spent about four hours on the same type of soil on the ranch I was visiting and did not see another plant of the species. Years ago that ranch was sheep country, so it made me wonder if blue mist eupatorium is “ice-cream” forage for the “woolies.”

Not far from the eupatorium, I found several yellow prickly poppies on the basaltic soils. I had just seen the white variety along the road back towards Toyah. The leaf structure and color were the same. Sometimes soils will affect the color of a flower – for example the blue blooms of Spiderwort are white on the sanddunes at Monahans. Long-flowered gilia performs in the same matter. I stopped and flipped through Dr. Barton Warnock’s “Wildflowers of the Davis Mountains” and found no mention of a yellow variety – and that fine gentleman spent 60 years “botanizing” in the region. I grabbed Correll and Johnson’s “Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas” and found that only two species are known to be yellow, but one was recorded in west Texas, so my interpretation that it was a soil’s derived color change was wrong. I took a second look at the plant, and after a few minutes saw what I had missed – there were twice as many stamens on the yellow species. I only saw it on the basaltic soils that morning, and not again the rest of the day.

Several draws wiggle down from Gomez Peak and go under the Interstate to the north. As I crossed them I noticed no “nogalitos.” These little walnut trees are common in draws in limestone rock, and I had just seen them back towards Toyah, much further down along the watershed. If a person has a lot of patience and a hammer, tiny bits of tasty nut wait inside what seems as hard as a ball-bearing. They need soils with excellent water storage capacity. I have planted them at the Sibley Nature Center in the flower bed in the parking lot, and they died out due to lack of water (everything else in the bed lived.) Why in the world don’t they like the Gomez Peak draws? Surely there is more available water – Gomez Peak generates many a thunderhead thanks to orographic uplift winds.

Talking to the ranch manager later in the day, I found out that certain regions of the “neighborhood” received widely varying amounts of rain. The further north from Gomez Peak, the less rain fell. Due east of the peak the landscape receives more rain. The recent storm that took out a highway bridge on Interstate 20 reflected that history – the part of the watershed that fed the flood was to the northeast of Gomez Peak. I could see that the area around the rest area had received “goodly” amounts of rain however – the deposits left by sheet erosion lay across a ranch jeep road on the other side of the fence, along with new gullies cutting it into what must be a bone-jarring ride. Plant diversity of the region was determined by the sky -- subtle rain shadows created by how the winds play around the north end of the Davis Mountains, as well as by soil types.

The ranch manager was a fine young man in his mid-30s, a 4th generation Trans-Pecos rancher. His great grandfather had come out to Fort Davis during the Indian wars and after leaving the Army ran a stage stop down towards the Chinati Mountains. Members of his family had hosted (unwillingly) various Mexican revolutionaries during the “19teens” and 1920s. After spending a few years of his 20s in the Metroplex he returned to the Trans-Pecos, realizing there were actually better chances at “advancement” within the widespread rural and small-town community of the region.

His succinct explanation for his decision -- “What matters is a safe place to raise kids, respect of your peers, and involvement within the community – that is the best advancement a man can have” -- encapsulates the sure and confident attitude that is easily found in west Texas. We still have the sense that we create the society we live in, here in “the big dry” or as others say -- “the empty quarter.” In big cities, people feel overwhelmed, tiny blobs in a teeming maelstrom of humanity, and find it almost impossible to make sense of it all or to determine and shape the structure of one’s life.

When you match that self-determinant attitude with the lessons we learn about endurance from dealing with heat, drought, and the other forces of nature beyond human scope, it helps create and shape a shared “social character” that is unique. Just as plants adapt to specific conditions, so do humans. I love the character of west Texas folks! (This story is a paean to a classic book on New Mexico by Ross Calvin.)