Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
2
The Southwest
in Depth
In the Hopi creation myth, the Spider Woman fashioned from clay
all the birds and beasts, men and women. With Tawa, the sun god, she sang a song and
brought forth life. In the American Southwest, the magic of that story is apparent. An
elephant, camel, or medicine man fashioned from stone might dominate the landscape;
great canyons cut through the earth's crust, laying bare centuries of rock-layer stories.
And human artifacts tell their own stories: spear points left some 9,000 years ago, centu-
ries-old cliff dwellings where the scent of smoke still lingers, and grand missions and
fortresses where Catholicism once ruled. It's a land with its own song, one the traveler
can't help getting caught up in, stepping to the Spider Woman's ancient rhythm.
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MORE THAN DESERT & CACTUSES
Those who have never visited the Ameri-
can Southwest tend to have some miscon-
ceptions. The most common one is that
the whole place is a hot desert studded
with saguaro cactuses. In fact, the South-
west has varied terrain, encompassing all
seven of the earth's life zones, from the low
Sonoran cactus country, through the
higher plateaus marked with piñon and
juniper, to the rich forested sections and
even high alpine country. And rather than
year-round heat, the Southwest has a
range of temperatures, including blistering
desert climes, midland regions with warm
summers and cold winters, and high
mountains where the air is always cool and
winter brings world-class skiing.
Major landforms traverse the region.
The southern Rocky Mountains cut down
through central Colorado and northern
New Mexico. The Grand Canyon slices
across northern Arizona, as do other
prominent canyons, which stretch into
Utah. Dramatic stone formations carved
by weather and erosion stud this region,
including those you've likely seen in mov-
ies filmed in Monument Valley, as well as
others such as Shiprock and Natural
Bridges National Monument. In the south,
volcanic mountains, called “sky islands,”
dot the desert and are home to abundant
wildlife, especially bird populations.
Water is the language of the region,
enunciating the fate of what grows and
what dies here. Rain is scarce. Rivers are
scarcer. The Rio Grande cuts New Mexico
nearly in half, barely feeding the towns
and cities along its banks. The Colorado
River snakes from its namesake state across
Utah, Arizona, and Nevada before heading
south to the Gulf of California. Over the
years, it's been heavily dammed, resulting
in grand lakes that supply the desert with
electricity and irrigation.
What water there is feeds a remarkable
array of plant and animal life. In the Sono-
ran Desert, the notable saguaro cactus,
which can reach 40 feet tall and weigh
several tons, stands as a symbol for the
entire region. Many other kinds of cac-
tuses thrive here as well, as does a range of
vegetation, from delicate wildflowers, such
the deep-pink sand verbena and bright-
yellow brittlebush, to hearty pines such as
