Page 34 - the NOISE February 2013

rEaDErREPORT
It’s 3:00AM and I’m grip- ping the handles of a snowmobile flying 30MPH over steep terrain. Particles of ice blast my face (and oc- casionally my eyeballs) with such ferocity that I’m afraid there will be permanent damage. The handles are vi- brating so violently that I will wake up the next afternoon with numb fingers, unsure if they will ever regain sensa- tion. Other machines blast water and compressed air at pressures high enough to decapitate a person in- stantly, operating at deci- bels rivaling a heavy-metal concert in a small, concrete floored-and-walled venue. Other men, pock-faced and young, grimace as they heft fire-hoses, crank on cold steel hydrants gush- ing distinctively yellow water illuminated by LED head-lamps on loosely fit- ted plastic helmets, and fid- dle with touch-screens on ten-foot-high contraptions resembling jet engines; all in knee-deep snow in a re- mote alpine environment. I grit my teeth and hold the throttle tighter, and duck behind the horrendously inadequate windshield to get to the next work-site in minimal time in order to maximize the production that my supervisor spends sleepless days and nights obsessing over. He doesn’t hesitate to let me know that my snowmobile skills are sub-par.
I want only to slow down and take my time, to admire how the moon casts a pale blue glow over the whole affair, and how I can see for miles and miles over such a unique landscape even in the middle of the night. It should go without saying: I barely lasted a week.
Where would a heady scenario such as this oc- cur, one might ask? Where heavy machinery, des- perate young men, and an insane drive to work all collude and combine
with such vehemence as to produce conditions that scream “AMERICA IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS!” like this one does? On a frack- ing rig in North Dakota per chance, where natural gas is expunged from the ground like a vampire suck- ing blood from a hapless victim’s neck? Or maybe on the North Slope of Alaska, “The Last Frontier,” where in- trepid souls stake their lives for a slice of Exxon’s gargan- tuan profits? Perhaps this is in some futuristic and increasingly plausible paral- lel universe, where humans have terraformed Mars, and go about raping and pil- laging that space-rock with the same mindless fervor that they have this one? In no instance – one might in- fer —would anyone be so stupid as to risk life and limb for a large for-profit corpo- ration and not stand to gain at least some-measure of long-term financial stabil- ity. At the bare minimum, wouldn’t these innocents be putting themselves in harm’s way in order to pro- vide some commodity that the community desperately needs, like heating oil for the winter or fuel to propel their cars down the road, something of utilitarian ev- eryday value that people could not live without?
No, my amply- imagination’d friends, you would all be wrong, for this operation exists not for the benefit of the community as a whole, but merely for the entertainment and recreational purposes of those so fortunately situ- ated as to take advantage of it, and the biggest perks these youngsters get from it is a free season’s pass and a 5% discount on grade-B beef hamburgers in the corporation’s cafeteria. Yes folks, in case it wasn’t abun- dantly clear, snowmaking (or “snow-blowing” if you prefer, and want to raise the hackles on any half-
dignified individual who is employed in the field) is what the aforementioned scenario refers to, and it is happening right now in Northern Arizona’s very own San Francisco Peaks.
I, the author of this article, was personally employed for a period of 8 days with the Arizona Snowbowl, engaging in such deplor- able and morally reprehen- sible behavior. You’re prob- ably not as interested in the personal circumstances that drove me to this de- praved state as you are in the yellowish-hue of the water being used to make the snow (which I already mentioned, and yes: the water is definitely yellow), the opaque brown pigment of the water in the pond gouged about half-way up the mountain (it is brown, I am told, from all the ex- cess mud in the pipes), any smells associated with the water or other aspects of the operation that one might also associate with public restrooms (and un- less the “smell of despera- tion” would qualify, none that I really noticed), or perhaps any adverse health effects or damage to the en- vironment incurred by the chemicals contained in the reclaimed water being used that myself and my compa- triots the Douglas Firs were exposed to (I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, although I did come down with a rather nasty flu-like bugadayortwoafterI quit...Coincidence?)
I do however, feel that I owe it to myself to explain generally how I got there. In a few words: I needed a job, and was one of the few people in the whole state that had previous snowmaking experience (I worked at Sugarloaf Moun- tain in Maine in the 2003 season, and in my brief two- month tenure there I man- aged to light a trash-can on fire and flip a snowmobile
offacliff,andifanyofmy references had still been employed there, I probably wouldn’t have got the job at the Snowbowl in the first place!) If I could glean a les- son from this whole experi- ence, it would definitely be that snowmaking is not for me.
I quit two days after Christmas after a solid six- day stretch of blasting close to 2 million gallons of treated sewage efflu- ent on to the Peaks, frozen into a skiable form from the hours of 12:00PM to 8:00AM for $10 an hour. When I realized that I wouldn’t be enjoying much of the fruits of my labor (I am a skier), I decided to quit while I was ahead and still had all my extremities intact. My at- tempts to unionize the other snowmakers failed miserably, and to these kids (and everyone else at the Snowbowl) I have one ques- tion: why?
Is it really about hav- ing fun and recreating in the snow at this point, or is there something deeper, more sinister, lurking be- neath the roiled brown surface of the containment pond at the top of the Sun- set Chairlift? Do the ends justify the means, especially when the ends mostly end up in the pockets of a half- dozen already dazzlingly wealthy people?
To the USFS: WTF? To my mind, this is just one more example of a whole system built on the backs of honest laborers, and from the fruits of Mother Nature, both of whom are exploited to the fullest extent with government approval for the profit a few. I for one, want no part of it.
| Grayson Light- Lookner was recently quoted in the New York Times’ Green Blog by Leslie McMillan graysunlight@
gmail.com.
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of his hearts and, for the first time, I observed someone who received it with some reservation. Coincidentally, we looked down and Robert spied a heart-shaped piece of apple in their picnic fare. Robert headed up to the top of Warrior Rock to play his flute while I stayed behind to speak with the couple.
With Robert’s flute music floating on the air around us, I spoke to Bill and Debra of Missouri about their experi- ence of the heart rocks in the trees and of receiving one directly from Robert. They were visiting Sedona for the second time to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding an- niversary. Bill said, “I had picked up on the hearts all the way up the trail. It spoke to me as a message of love from Mother Earth and I felt quite connected to that.” But his wife had an alternative viewpoint.
“We were just talking about that because I had a very different experience of them,” said Debra. “I feel similarly to how I feel about the rock cairns and other ways that people leave their mark out here. I just don’t think peo- ple need to do that. To me, it’s a bit of a distraction. Sure it’s helpful to have the cairns there for people that have never been here before and to keep you on the trail but sometimes it’s a bit much.” Bill countered: “When I think about people leaving their mark, when I see something like those hearts, I can see that someone else found presence in that moment and I can connect with that.”
Bill laughed and said that he thought about trying to convince his wife that he had arranged to have the red rock hearts placed in the trees in honor of their anniver- sary. “But I gave myself away by seeming so surprised when I saw the first one,” he admitted.
With all of the politics and controversy surrounding the Red Rock Pass and other matters concerning the USFS in Sedona, it was a pleasure to experience some- one who has a real love for the land and a real interest in helping people enjoy the time they spend in Sedona’s natural places. There are those that immediately pick up on the energy and the love that come through the red rock hearts, but there are others that find them to be a disturbance of the natural environment and an interrup- tion to their hike.
Personally, I would rather hear the echo of Robert’s flute music through the forest air than the cacophony of airplanes, helicopters, and heavy equipment – which was also in the background as we sat near Kachina Woman, overlooking the Enchantment Resort. I would rather see red rock hearts in the trees than more “facilities” and
“day use areas” being constructed, not for the benefit of the forest and the land, but as an attempt to justify ad- ditional recreation fees. And I hope that more and more people learn to walk the Earth with the love and respect that Robert shows it every day.
Robert runs a free Reiki share on Wednesday evenings at 6PM at Peace Place on Jordan Road in Uptown Sedona. He invites both Reiki practitioners and newbies alike to join him there.
| Cindy J. Cole likes the idea of seeing a heart rounding the trail. cindycole@live.com
34 • FEBRUARY 2013 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us