December 26, 2021, one day after Christmas and 11 days after the catastrophic wind event that toppled so many trees, smashed homes, and caused a 48 to 72 hour power outage in subzero temperatures that affected thousands of people in Taos County. This mural is part of a small cemetery behind a gasoline station in Ojo Caliente, a 45 minute drive from Taos. It depicts the Virgen de Guadalupe, the patron saint of New Mexico.

January 30, 2022, six weeks after the extreme wind event that augured the continuing devastation of our forests. It was my first chance to survey the damage visible from highway 38 near Bobcat Pass (elevation nearly 10,000 feet above sea level). You can see that many trees, felled by the wind, are lying prone in the snow.

By February 14, 2022 (one month later), fallen trees were already being shaped into logs and stacked up like bodies in the Taos Ski Valley. To this day huge piles of trees and severed root balls cover the area near condominiums, restaurants, and the ski lift.

February 5, 2022, Taos Winter Wine Festival at the Ski Valley. Despite all the "natural" disasters that had been jeopardizing Taos for months, after three years of Covid-19, crowds flocked to the Ski Valley for the thrill of skiing (and drinking wine) in this beautiful environment. Tourism is Taos' economic lifeblood, and while skiing and socializing, the downed trees on the mountain could be temporarily forgotten.

Jumping ahead to May 15, 2022, exactly five months after the extreme wind event, a wide view of the Taos Ski Valley where the Winter Wine Festival took place in February. The logs and root balls of destroyed trees are still piled up just as they were four months ago, and from this angle downed trees are still laying prone all around the ski lift where the February festivities took place.

February 7, 2022, Canyoncito Trail, El Salto (Taos), where a thick blanket of snow helped to hide what the wind storm had wreaked. Even large root balls from big pines, unearthed and leveled by the wind less than two months previous, were mostly covered by the snow on this popular trail.

February 7, 2022, Canyoncito Trail, El Salto (Taos), is on private land maintained by the El Salto Water Association. In fact the full name of the trail is El Salto del Agua Cañoncito Trail, and after so many trees were downed by the wind, the association members have been cutting, moving, and burning smaller branches to reduce the fire danger. This is one of the burn piles from this process. The heat melted a circle around it in the snow.

May 10, 2022, almost five weeks after the Calf Canyon wildfire ignited on April 6, merging with the Hermit's Peak fire on April 19 and becoming the largest wildfire in New Mexico history. With 50 mph winds nearly every day and humidity in the single digits, the fire exploded and its smoke plume hovered over downtown Taos for many days, even though the actual conflagration was 30 miles away. If you look closely at the mountains to upper left, you will see an old burn scar from the Encebado Fire, that burned more than 5,000 acres on Taos Pueblo land in 2003. It was a caused by a lightning strike on July 4 that year. It appears enormous, but it pales in comparison to the 2022 fires.

May 10, 2022, another view of the smoke plume from the Calf Canyon/Hermit's Peak wildfire, from the entrance to the Taos Pueblo. This is where the native Tewa people have lived for centuries. The burn scar from the 2003 Encebado fire on Pueblo land is visible from this area above the fire danger sign.

May 15, 2021, about one year previous to these climactic events, the festival of San Isidro took place in Arroyo Seco, about five miles north of Taos, very close to where I live. San Ysidro blesses the fields, brings rain and discourages drought. He is the patron saint of farmers, and is venerated today in feast days and processions throughout Spain, Latin America, and Hispanic communities of the Southwest. In the tiny village of Arroyo Seco, a local Azteca Indian group invites the community to pray with them for rain and a good season. In this photograph, the woman is burning copal, which many cultures consider sacred. She is inviting me to join in the ceremony.

May 15, 2021, Azteca ceremony in Arroyo Seco, NM for San Isidro Labrador, the patron saint of the farmers. Alejandro Lopez, writing for the New Mexico Acequia Association (who maintain the century's-old Spanish tradition of keeping the irrigation waters flowing), says this: "What lessons do we, fast-paced twenty first century people, have to learn from this historical personage in the small agricultural communities and Indian Pueblos of Northern New Mexico? Does the example of San Isidro not serve to remind us that the miracle of life sustaining more life in our fields is just that – a miracle? A miracle which ultimately cannot be mediated or understood by means other than a deep sense of spiritual awe, reverence for life (or the divine), appreciation, and a willingness to share with others, knowing that the Source of All Life is inexhaustible." But is it?

On June 13, 2022, when the wind shifted to the southeast, the pyrocumulous plumes of smoke from the raging wildfires in northern New Mexico abated. Instead, a thick layer of brownish haze began to fill our air and render it "unhealthy" for everyone. Air quality and smoke alerts filled our computer and cell phone screens.

By June 16, 2022, the smoke was so thick that it smelled like a campfire inside my house and I had to stay indoors. This photo was taken right outside my home in the same area where I photographed the rainbow in the first picture that introduced this story. To conclude, I want to share my experience hiking to a high alpine meadow on July 4, Independence Day. It's been raining for about two weeks now, and the forests have reopened (stage three fire restrictions had been in effect for nearly a month which meant no access at all). I hope the following photographs illuminate both the beauty of this land and the terror of climate change in the American West.

On July 4, Independence Day, I hiked to celebrate the last few weeks of monsoon rains. The rains did bring floods to recent wildfire scars, but I had to keep trekking, as they say. Gavilan is one of four trails that start from the Taos Ski Valley Road in the Carson National Forest. The trail traverses mixed pine, conifer and aspen, and it ascends about 2.5 miles and 1500 feet up to a beautiful alpine meadow at 10,400 feet elevation above sea level. This is my favorite of all the area hiking trails. It is challenging, but a revelation that lifts my spirit every time. It is pristine and peaceful. This photograph, looking back down toward the valley, shows what climate change has put at risk.

To conclude this photo-essay, I'm sharing an account of my Independence Day hike, because it is so telling of what climate change has wrought. It's a long-term problem, particularly in the arid American West. Even though the last eight months have been graphic indicators, drought is endemic and only getting worse in the West. Many trees show the evidence of disease, fungus, bark beetles and so on. Trees are suffering, and not every downed tree in these photographs collapsed because of the December 15 wind event. These aspens are good examples. The splitting open of the trunk on a living tree, and the discolored bark on the dead one that bisects it, show that the trees have been struggling for a long time.

This photograph shows recent damage. Healthy aspens are bowed and leaning precariously as a result of the extreme winds roaring through Gavilan Canyon.

More recent damage. These aspens simply snapped from the extreme winds, and they will die.

The Forest Service has been clearing the trail for hikers, so trees have been cut and moved aside, reminders of the December 15 wind event that felled them.

Healthy trees were completely uprooted on December 15, 2021, and that is a sight that continues to shock and distress.

A close-up of the bizarre shape of roots in mid-air. It is so unreal, because these roots belong in the earth.

Leaning pines that will slowly perish over time, felled by the wind.

When I saw the vivid orange color of the heartwood of this fir tree, I knew I would have to sit with the tree and study its fragmented contours. Over the past year I have sat with many trees and made their portraits. Each one is an individual, unique to the end. I feel that these portraits are monuments that honor them.

As I sat with this majestic tree, two small ground squirrels appeared. They were living in the remains, and had made a home in the splintered wood. They weren't afraid of me at all. Rather, they were inquisitive and gave me some comfort, to see the cycle of life continue through me, the tree, and them.

Further down the trail, as I descended, I saw many flowers and then these blue beetles, also foraging and making a life from the debris. The flower is a harebell, and the beetle is called a "pleasing fungus beetle." A tree that had fallen before the wind event was now host to shelf fungus and other life forms that had moved in.

To close, I return to this one monumental tree. I hope that viewers will feel the awe and wonder that I do when I leave the "civilized" world for the "natural" one. The thing is, this dichotomy doesn't hold, because humans are part of this "other" world, and there is no more urgent time than now to protect it.