The Colors of the Desert - The Red Colorado Plateau | Nature Documentary

foreign [Music] [Music] desert is Monumental of course there are these Majestic Landscapes elsewhere in Central Asia South America and at the poles but here they are accessible the road to the gold and silver in the west left scars on the land in 1864 Abraham Lincoln initiated the concept of national parks to preserve natural landscapes but to accommodate the modern traveler today they are crisscrossed by a network of Roads for more than a hundred million years the Colorado Plateau was an inland sea today it is a red desert [Music] the Colorado River that this desert is named after has cut so deeply into the Earth that it can no longer water the land above the views downwards are what make the southwestern United States spectacular Utah Arizona New Mexico and parts of Colorado the canyons and Ravines in this four corners area are full of surprises and reveal bizarre Rock and Sandstone formations everyone knows the ultimate Gorge the Grand Canyon a wild red yawning hole Our Journey Begins there in the Red Heart of America not at the familiar south rim but at a place yet to be discovered [Music] [Music] laughs [Music] he who overcomes fear and walks the glass horseshoe on the west rim is rewarded with a great never before experience a walk Between Heaven and Earth [Music] why do we have this archaic fear of falling actually or is it not archaic at all but rather culturally conditioned willifred watanami from the Hualapai Tribe asserts you don't fall you fly [Music] [Music] what you see behind us see this this is um the the eagle behind us the eagle to most American tribes is a symbol of Honor symbol of respect but here in this area that we call sanyoa or Eagle Point the eagle we believe the spirit of the eagle delivers the prayers of the people from the Earth to the heavens see thus making it a very a very special a very sacred place my uncle he was a very spiritual man and um we always talked about about this development here and he actually gave the blessing for the groundbreaking of this Skywalk even though he was one who was against it but in talking with him he always brought out the fact that you know this is something that's going to affect us you know In Our Lifetime and not only us the future Generations the sacred ran itself has been here for ages and a lot of people have lived here the ones that was not educated the ones that didn't speak English they lived in a Hogan and at that time then when the calories came through here there were ambushed and a lot of our people just died from other gun wounds and being shot and killed and their bodies just blend right into the dirt children right at the beginning of our journey Dolores hunger confronts us with a conflict that dominates this area the expulsion and extermination of the Native Americans by the white man we know how this has been played down from The Westerns the cowboy and Indian movies you know Hollywood has stereotyped the Indian and The Outsiders or the visitors here they still think we're Savage we live in teepees and uh we're always at war with each other's or one another and it's uh it's something that uh like say most most natives you know they they taking offense to that but you know when they come into our areas you know we try to interact with them and to educate them and have them leave with a different impression of you know who and what we actually are the younger people I guess they want to change so they uh they went ahead and voted to have it put here so um so it's here now and nothing we can do about it is here so but but we like coming out here and Performing the preservation of the desert is linked with desert tourism almost everyone makes some money individually like Elvira Otten as musicians Artisans guides and service providers or collectively the wallow pie open their Skywalk in 2007 the enormous power of nature tied to remarkable human achievement North American deserts are rarely Sandy and indeed only 20 percent of all are Sandy deserts weathered Cliffs gravel and boulders are the most common followed by gypsum salt and ice [Music] the coral pink sand dunes are largely reforested only a small number of them reveal the precious Coral wind-blown sand [Music] what is sand actually sand is a quantitative definition a grain of sand can be between .06 and 2 millimeters in size in addition to quartz the most common sand it can also be made of coral lava Olivine or gypsum sand can react as a solid liquid or gas sand temp scientists to enlist the help of a fourth aggregate state and it has various configurations the Ripple marks can be transverse Crescent u-shaped or in the form of a star whichever way the wind blows it looks like the small dancing round grains of sand rise up pause a moment then perform a playful somersault and lie down again this dance is called saltation [Music] because [Music] foreign highways flanked by rugged High cliffs 250 miles lie behind me about A Thousand Miles still to go then I turn on to an even less traveled Road [Music] [Applause] how fragile this Majestic landscape seems when you take a closer look broken and torn up scarred and deserted in my air-conditioned capsule I Glide through intangible heat and loneliness [Music] three almost perfectly sculpted figures raise the curtain on another world [Music] foreign to Legend there are people who have laughed at the coyote God he turned them to Stone as punishment made hoodoos out of them a wide-mouthed frog grins shriveled up masses glance about anxiously cephalopods are staring with their beady eyes Legends fairy tales and science mixed together when it comes to the explanation of the goblins as I give into my imagination my Consulting geologist sticks to the facts they are pillars of stone or uneven shaped rocks that have been unevenly worn by erosion and then processed he can tone down my anxious question about whether the goblins and hobgoblins could disappear other rocks will be eroded and the next generation of hoodoos will replace them [Music] foreign [Music] on the way I wonder who really lives here the motels we are headed for are abandoned restaurants have never existed [Music] way down below I see for the first time Lake Powell America's second largest man-made lake on the Colorado River here at the northern tip Heights Overlook is deserted and the town of height marked on the map is little more than an access ramp to the lake there is no Lodge and no RV park only a primitive camping site all alone I drive over a steel Arch Bridge [Music] a loan cyclist is well on his way from New York to San Francisco we nod wordlessly [Music] for days I cruise through endless red expanses and rarely meet anyone I looked at the warning sign but I didn't see it and then I'm suddenly on the mokey dugway a winding road that the way it feels to me is pulling me straight down my heart is racing as fast as my car I've stopped breathing thank you [Music] foreign figure wearing a sombrero is small but significant enough to give this place a name Mexican hat [Music] the fact that Mexican hat only has 88 inhabitants doesn't bother me on the contrary the intimacy of the lodge and the former Dance Floor once the center of the village gives me the feeling of security I need now a fire and human warmth it is not only the swing stake that gives me strength the stay at the lodge is like a window to my own distant reality [Music] [Music] [Music] the San Juan River Winds its way through the desert a thousand feet below an amazing and rare geological formation known as entrenched meander the popular name goosenecks [Music] Native Americans control tourism here as at the Skywalk they had to fight to the death for many years to win an agreement with the U.S government the tribes collect entrance fees to the sites and determine the rules of the game for example strict prohibition of any photographs on or off the glass horseshoe or on the entire Hopi land almost two hundred thousand people live scattered around the Navajo reservation the Nay the people as they call themselves they make their own laws many produce arts and crafts woven blankets silver jewelry and baskets Sally Black's baskets are popular with collectors as well as arts and crafts museums and galleries I always wanted to be famous when I was about 10 years old yeah I was thinking I want to see my pictures on the wall with all these great basket I wanted to be famous I was still not a good waiver but I picture myself like that and that was my dream from collecting the sumac plant in the highlands to the transport cutting branches to dying washing and braiding her work Sally does it all herself this is the only way for her to be able to control the quality of her craftsmanship my mom used to weave and that's the only way that she gets earning money and that's the only way that she feed us so she had 11 kids seven boys and four girls we had a big family so I decided to help my mom and trying to learn how to earn money too I always say that like when you have a job out there you just have to go by time but when you're at home you just you can take a break you weave the way you want it you know take your time but sometimes when bills are coming you just have to weave you know put more time and so it's up to that so for me right now that's the only way I pay my bills and when you keep waving like every all day by the end of the day your thumb your thumb is going to be all sore and the sides all crack so that's the reason why all the pain that we go through we have to charge a lot for that I usually sell it for like 1250 so that's what I usually do Sally has mastered the traditional patterns and their color palette red symbolizes the Sun we use the basket for ceremonies um that one is going to be our traditional ceremonial baskets and the one that we use for decoration this one like right here this is called the yeah this is going to be the healing dancers they usually dance in the winter but it's gonna be it's it's just a halfway done so it's gonna be all dancing and that's it's gonna be about this big when it's done and it's going to be a little bit big Sally prefers her mobile home to the Hogan in the extreme climate of the desert it has air conditioning in summer and heating in winter feels good being here live by Monument Valley and it means a lot my dad's side my aunt they own this land and we ask them if we could live here and they we've got permission to live here and they say it's okay so all right foreign [Music] it's natural color like close to beige color light color so red is like when it rains you'll have like when you can't wear white pants white shoes you'll get red and it won't come off even though you wash it'll never come off it'll stay red that's how you know that's how it is out here Lorraine black a relative of Sally only uses her traditional Hogan for ceremonies it is located directly in the tribal Park she rents it out to tourists as she prefers her prefabricated octagon she shows us what a traditional Hogan looks like from the inside poster Hogan it represents a female female pregnancy the woman so that's why it's called female Hogan a Hogan is traditionally built round or Square with logs a windowless one-room Hut which is smeared with red clay a fireplace in the center with an opening to the sky that is also a sundial for Spiritual reasons the door is Facing East we still live without running water and electric because you know the part won't allow it it's just the way it is they they just wanted to weigh the way it is so it's like tour attraction we're used to it so we live like that by the time the sun goes down we're tired we'll just go to sleep and then we get up like in the morning six o'clock feed the courses and then we're ready to go on a tour again well I live live and uh and town before I had electric and the water but you know it was okay but you know you pay for electric and water but here it's different it's more different and it's more likely not to have like chicken running water you know it's not very important to us because you know if we did had it we'll be struggling with you know running water electric pain for every month you know what I mean Lorraine's family is one of the last 11 families in Monument Valley new permits to live or to graze their animals there won't be issued whoever wants to stay must accept this part in life the Navajo government plans to use the park exclusively for tourism their son rodel Nelson does work with them he takes care of the horses used in the family business but he lives outside the park with his girlfriend and two babies in Mexican hat [Music] open I was born and raised here and I was raised by my grandparents I dropped out of school and I had that choice of coming to Carpenter but it didn't happen for me so I came back and then that's how I got into horses at first I didn't know at all with horses so we I learned techniques from my dad [Music] and then from my grandparents what I learned is that you can't really go out like don't be out there too late at night there's like um people out there Skinwalker is what we call them that they can get on to you that's their beliefs and I just took their words they're dressed as animals they go crawl into the skin of an animal and they'll be out there at nine I've never seen one but who knows uh might be true or not it's a mystery for me [Music] I'm pretty happy free world out here nothing to be stopped from and all these stars at night is pretty good too if you look up into the sky get to see the Big Dipper small Dipper maybe also the Scorpio Alders you know rodale seems to know every single Mesa Butte and Pinnacle this is where he feels at home Shield Mustangs will be that they belong to the spanger once they came across the sea and they used to fight here but one day the Indians we were called Indians once we cut the horses loose from them and we got the name Navajo from the Spaniards which for them is Navajo as the knife people maybe in my death you know just be with the horses be like a horse in 1924 a Fearless young white couple arrived in hostile Indian country Harry and Mike Goulding lived in a tent for four years before they built a wooden house they learned the new language made friends and worked together with the navajos in the depression they attracted the film industry and brought work and money to Monument Valley and John Ford's westerns in turn attracted the first tourists the navajos still speak with veneration of the gouldings on the way to the southern shore of Lake Powell the cowboy Motel beckons us to stop what's behind the black and white silhouettes a woman from Kansas purchased the dilapidated Hotel a few years ago and decorated the rooms individually lovingly and with humor [Music] then the view of Lake Powell of celestial Beauty in the midst of a petrified country a perfect Lake in an ideal environment but something is missing vegetation there isn't any road that goes around this Lake no Tree Line Promenade nothing growing only additionally provided and filled in a reservoir pumped full that has changed forever a part of the desert landscape of the Colorado Plateau 96 Canyons I can only begin to imagine the sunken landscape of Glen Canyon it's like I fly past a lake on the moon oh no place in the world you know you find desert like this this entire Sandstone world with all this water around it it contrast of the beautiful blue skies and the blue green water and the red Sandstone it's just visually stunning and I've never found anything like it anywhere in the world Steve Ward has dedicated his work and his life together with the late Globetrotter Stan Jones to the artificial Lake definitely love the lake I I got to see the lake fill up I got to see the lake the area before the lake some of the beautiful places some of the famous places I was able to visit those when there was less than a foot of water in some of the places and I watched them fill up and be covered I felt bad about that but as the lake filled up those Canyons we explored farther back into the canyons and found beautiful places Beyond there years ago Glen Canyon was largely unknown and mostly inaccessible today 3.1 million people traveled to Lake Powell annually the star of the region [Music] any visitor who prefers privacy or even a houseboat can find his own bathing Beach among the many inlets the lake has to offer [Music] Ed no no mud good what gets really narrow but straight down the lake is not only a vacation Paradise it is a water resource ninety percent of the water comes from the Rocky Mountains cities such as Phoenix Los Angeles and San Diego depend on Lake Powell for water all the same there are ongoing attempts by conservationists to drain the water from the artificial Lake maybe it was wrong to build it to to make the lake but it would be just as wrong to to drain it so I think two wrongs will make a right I don't think it will ever go away too many people rely on the water 27 million people alone in the Los Angeles Basin all water is used over and over again so what we swim in here they're drinking in Los Angeles [Music] foreign the multi-layered soft Navajo Sandstone which surrounds the lake consists of petrified sand dunes millions of years old its color ranges from beige to Bright Scarlet when I look closely I can see red spots caused by extremely high concentrations of iron oxide also known as hematite and that's what the dnae the Navajo call the red color even today the blood of the Living Stones [Music] suddenly a cave entrance and a dark fissure in the ground you could easily Miss Antelope Canyon inside we penetrate deeply into a breathtaking Rocky desert a world of flaming waves gentle curves and bizarre sculpted underground tunnels spirals in flesh-colored Rock a noise in shades of red to Yellow to dark purple that by means of the incidental and reflected light changes in minutes and continually creates new worlds of wonder is this the red heart that pumps the blood of the Living Stones the slot canyons to locals a slot is a dream world of swirling Canyon walls that have been shaped over millions of years by water and wind [Music] still The Waters from an intense Monsoon rain rush through the soft Sandstone Eddies whirl around erode the sand grind and leave wavy patterns in the Grain on the walls petrified whirlwinds or a giant ice cream twist [Music] they are however not innocuous the narrow passageways the entrances and exits that are difficult to access can in case of a sudden downpour become a lethal trap in seconds since the tragic flash flood in 1997 that literally World a group of tourists to death it is no longer permitted to enter the canyon without a guide [Music] penny is the visiting group disturbs the calm a calm you can read meaning into after a while or hold dialogues with The Luminaries [Music] [Music] and again my view is magically drawn downwards between the Sandstone walls of the canyon deche in a 984 foot deep gorge is an elongated green Oasis that was formally used by 60 Navajo families as farmland [Music] thank you [Music] today the Hogans are used more and more just as a retreat during the summer months for ages nobody has lived in the dwellings left behind by the former inhabitants the Anasazi which later offered the nomadic Navajo shelter whoever enters the canyon deche can say goodbye to paved roads picnic and camping sites and mobile phone reception tourism from which now everyone in the region Lives who doesn't want to be on welfare is regarded as a necessary evil the communication between locals and visitors is regulated or even prevented and the chance to explore the canyon on your own is virtually impossible [Music] the canyon to Che however offers a Stillness and untouched quality we have rarely seen here down below we find water which permits the flourishing of life and traces of the desert varnish the long eyelashes painted on the rocks Russian olive Oak cacti and grass the canyon deche in retrospect became one of the finest moments of our travels foreign the young people are like they don't very much like to tend to sleep anymore as everything is modern today TV music and that is more interesting than to them than than cheat now so it's like all the sheeps are going away so I imagine you'll be obsolete one of these days lamb is now sold in the reservation Supermarket Frozen expensive and imported from New Zealand Kyle mon doesn't think it replaces the tender meat of his own grass-fed animals [Applause] [Music] I still want to eat some of our body it needs it like everybody needs to stay performance so you tend to Crave for uh the money yeah you don't waste anything you're gonna get incised intestines everything is used for food even though we use it for sausage flat sausage we call it we eat even the the head all of it you know we don't waste anything and with the height we use it for uh weaving weaving the rugs and then we use them for uh a bit a bad pelt [Music] we put your sheep the arm will go to my mom first thank you for your cooking and the other arm goes to my brother thank you for hauling water all the week I knew you had other things to do but thank you and then the leg will go to me because I've been hurting sheep all day all week all weekend [Music] on our journey across Sandy red roads my car shrinks to the size of an ant [Music] thank you [Music] the colors are psychedelic and the dry air narcotic and I'm one with a breathtaking Solitude of the desert [Music] thank you [Music] why is it so hard after an extensive look at Shiprock the sacred mountain of the Navajo I drive into Hopi land that is surrounded by the Navajo Nation a reservation inside a reservation with nearly 6 000 inhabitants we've got the rare permit to shoot there taking pictures is strictly forbidden among the Hopi Ramson Lama tawama explains why it's not that we don't like people coming out here but the preconceptions that they bring with them about Hopi may not be so correct we grow up here in a culture that recognizes two types of knowledge basically one we call common knowledge common knowledge is available to everyone and then we have an idea called privilege knowledge and privileged knowledge can only be gained by going through certain initiations more knowledge is available but it's only available to a limited group of people and our culture tells us not to share of that part because that it's very sacred to us the Restriction is not only to directed against Outsiders even within the tribe not everyone knows everything at any given time a child's rights may be announced but their rituals remain secret until they are performed the child is initiated introduced into adult life the Hopi also earned money with arts and crafts I have chosen one that is based on Sand I've learned how to do some traditional Arts like carving Kachina dolls I was in my 40s when I learned how to blow glass and when I look at glass art I look to the future you know I rely on my past and my history but hot glass art is a very non-traditional Hopi art form I believe I'm the first Hopi glass artist to begin blowing glass so I look to my children I look to my grandchildren and all the other people who are waiting to be born maybe a hundred years from now will have a strong community of Hopi glassblowers too respect the path best learn from it but involve the future hoping Notions of time are fluid they involve what exists the same as what is coming or what has already been the color red as I understand it is a directional color it has to do with warmth has to do with heat I tend to connect the idea of the sun and the color red the color red can also be a color that alludes to Warfare because Warfare is connected to Bloodshed and blood obviously is red so it all depends on what I'm thinking am I thinking blood or I'm thinking warmth and I try to think warmth when I put the color into the glass Ramson lives with his extended family on land that an uncle had passed on to him right now they share a one-room container but the larger house he has been building for years will soon offer more space for everyone his Workshop will be huge as well he does everything himself takes his time rushing about plays no role in his life the piece that I just made we call Spirit figures and they're based on prehistoric rock art that we have here in the southwest they depict spirits that would oversee or protect us in addition to glass blowing the whole family weaves carves and paints they live from the meager crops a corn field on one of the three Windswept Table Mountains the mesas presents a challenge a vertebrae on the horizon a long freight train Glides silently across the landscape [Music] before my journey through the red desert comes to an end I visit the Painted Desert I don't know of any country that depends so much on light and moisture as this one and once again it is revealed only by looking downwards Far Below you can almost miss it as you drive along the edge of the cliff [Music] fleecy clouds float across the barren plain the heavier they are and the closer they come to the ground the more they reflect the red of the Earth the never-ending southwesterly wind blows up to 60 miles per hour that dries up everything the attempt to measure it fails due to getting sand in the equipment The Painted Desert part of the chinla formation is one of the least explored deserts of North America and the uniquely preserved ancient Meandering River delta even amazes geologists [Music] above the land looks velvety and inviting but the Badlands can be vicious among the small rock fragments which seem to be sitting on a pedestal only the slightest moisture transforms the mudstone of volcanic ash into a vicious slippery mud if you step or drive on it [Music] relax Bentonite shrinks during drying like a sponge and expands when it gets wet completely Barren the country is vulnerable to erosion I imagine how a giant painted the mountains with a giant brush geologically speaking the different colored Stripes provide information about the different types of deposits and stages of oxidation red pink and yellow have been exposed to the weather longer than blue and gray finally Gallop the Indian commercial center of the region where we stop at the legendary El Rancho the old movie star hotel from the days of the western movies [Music] why is it so hard for you to love me I want you to love me foreign [Music] and once again the sun sinks down in a red hot sky but now it takes its time it struggles against dying flares up doesn't want to leave and for us too it's hard to say goodbye I've heard your sad story good [Music] it breaks my heart into [Music] people say you'll never change [Music]

2023-05-19 07:55

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