The Great Basin like most of the West and Southwest is in a severe drought. Really, we've had drought conditions for more than a few years already, but this year has been brutal. Reservoirs around the area are at the lowest levels of water since they began to fill. Water allocations for residential and agricultural users has been curtailed. Wildfires in the forests of California, Oregon, and Washington have been burning for months now and smoke plumes carried by the prevailing winds have heavily blanketed Nevada, Idaho, Utah and Colorado. Seen from space the plumes have carried clear across the U. S. at times.
I can only imagine what my friend, the Oracle of the Great Basin is experiencing.
If you recall, the Oracle is an ancient Bristlecone Pine living high on a mountain in the Great Basin National Park. I imagined what "he" would say, if I could speak the language of trees. I have interviewed the Oracle twice and would like to again, but I'm wondering if he would speak to me after being bathed in the smoke of the funeral pyres of his cousins all summer long.
Likely he is weeping. Sorrow at the loss, angry at my kind who have ignited these fires and who have also driven the planet's climate to this extreme.
The photo above was taken on a fairly clear day. If it had been taken today the Sun would have been a dull red orb in a gray sky and the mountains would have been totally obscured.
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