How Can Plants Survive the Dry and Heat of this Tortured Land?
"… it’s already too hot to sleep. … Beyond the pines are burned grass and clumps of earth and sand so bright they are hard to look at. The heat, silence, and barren hills and blank sky give a feeling of great, intense space. .. Not a bit of moisture in the sky. Today’s going to be a scorcher. …"
Shadehill Reservoir, SD. This photo was taken in the "badlands", some 70 miles ahead. Most of my photos generally show lots of green vegetation in this area of the Dakotas and Eastern Montana. This is a considerable contrast to what the Narrator emphasizes again and again in ZMM. He repeatedly says how desolate and dry and burnt-up this landscape is. Especially from Lemmon, SD. to Locate, MT. Remember that Pirsig arrived at this reservoir soon after the construction of this campground, There would have been little recovery of the grass and thus would lots of eroded bare earth, with rain deposited sand in places. Also remember that Pirsig came through nearly a month later than I did and well after water from winter snow and spring rain could have been completely exhausted. Yes, “burnt to a crisp” landscape could, in addition, be the finishing result of the “duesey of a heat wave” they experienced as they traveled from here into Eastern Montana. The facts do fit Pirsig’s writing concerning the Narrator’s “scorcher” heat wave. An 108 Degree Fahrenheit heat wave, in EXACTLY this same area, IS confirmed in the 9 July 1968 weather record!
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(Photo = Summer2006 0344 ...... ZMM Page = 057 ...... WayPt = 068 2210ft. Photo at 088`|w|' 2715ft)