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The Grand Obsession

Water, ah. In the desert you can't help but admire the stuff.

By Michael Wolcott

Springtime splashes the inner Grand Canyon with fresh, new colors: a yellow confetti of blackbrush flowers, splotches of flaming magenta in the hedgehog cactus, the violent purple of turpentine broom. The king of all desert blooms - Utah agave or century plant - hasn't unfurled its lemony petals yet, but those emphatic and undeniably phallic flower stalks are reaching skyward. Hiking in last week I passed one plant that was barely knee-high; today, on the trip out, it stands seven feet tall. If you stood next to a century plant for a half-hour, you could probably see the thing grow.

I am walking west along the Tonto Trail, which ripples across the top of the Tapeats sandstone for close to 100 miles, mostly on the level. Unlike the knee-bashing rim-to-river routes, the Tonto is easy on your cartilage, and not particularly difficult to follow. So while the body trudges, the mind can wander.

Today I am scrolling back over the week just past, remembering the two hummingbirds in Serpentine Canyon, how they zipped around camp and touched the surface of the ankle-deep pool in the slickrock, apparently dipping a quick drink on the fly. Bats drank there, too.

Water seemed to be everywhere on this trip - not always the case in Grand Canyon. Every side canyon held at least a trickle. The water in Serpentine was especially good-sweet and not brackish as it was in Bass Canyon. Ruby Creek had good water, too, including a nice little gusher that popped out of the Muav limestone in the upper drainage. When I came upon it in the afternoon heat a few days ago, I opened my mouth and sipped from the rock, practically kissing it.

Water, ah. In the desert you can't help but admire the stuff. It was a wet winter in northern Arizona, which can only be good news for the Grand Canyon's flowers, birds and bees. It was clearly good fortune for the frogs.

The amphibians of Serpentine Canyon were jubilant last night, seeming to celebrate the essential fact of water in the desert: it keeps you and yours alive. The frogs were raucous in the half-dark, croaking and belching and trilling like crazy, bellowing and keening under a full moon that hung in the night sky like a tipping bucket of cream, and spilled pale light over the mesquite and catclaw, the stony cliffs and the boulder-filled creek bed. It lit up the silver thread of water gliding down the drainage, and bounced off the little pools in the slickrock where the frogs were placing bets on their kind's future.

Dozens came hopping and plopping through our campsite, hell-bent on life's most interesting and important mission, maybe its only mission: making more life.

Most of the frogs we shared Serpentine with were Hyla arenicolor, the canyon tree frog. It's a small critter, barely two inches long, but has a gigantic voice. Love-crazed males puff up their throats to the size of marbles and send out advertisements to potential mates that echo off the canyon walls and incite their competitors to amp up their own voices. This noise does not sound the least bit romantic, though it apparently pleases the females. It could be mistaken for the bleat of a sheep - a very large, very hoarse sheep. It rattles inside the bones of your skull. It starts before dusk and continues until . . . well, until you start making coffee in the morning.

Despite their name, canyon tree frogs seldom hang out in trees. During the day they hide among rocks or bank overhangs along the creek. At night - at least in spring - they come out to party. For hours we watched them court - hop-hopping here and there, investigating possible mates, inviting pursuit. When pairs formed, the little double-decker frog units depended (as most species do) on the strength of the females.

By morning the water held fertilized eggs. They faced an uncertain future. Tadpoles will mature into adults in about 70 days, but only about two percent will make it that far. Of these, only ten percent will survive the first year.

But the lucky few will be hiding in the rocks at Serpentine Canyon next spring. When dusk sweeps down off the rim the frogs will hop toward the silver pools and fill the night with the song that never ends. Without being taught, they will know exactly what to do.

Michael Wolcott's obsessions are explored in this space every month.