Page 22 - Wood Plenty, Grass Good, Water None

a high prairie devoid of snow, and nearly destitute of trees."
Whipple's handwritten diary (unpublished, O k l a h o m a State Historical Society) contains additional information on the landscape and vegetation:
"We are upon the edge of a long prairie surrounded by pine forests and enclosed by mountains and hills most of them volcanic, ap parentlyisolatedsufficientlytoaffordapassage between. They are covered with snow and with trees excepting the conino peaks which are solid rocks of molten lava. Below them ,upon a slope o f t h e m o u n t a i n is a d i s t i n c t l y d e f i n e d c u r v e t h e "limit of pines" found by measurement to be 4169 feet above the valley of Leroux Spring. At that height no one was able to mount on account of snow but the trees seemed to be of a new species."
Thus, Whipple estimated the elevation of the timber lineonSanFranciscoPeaks(whichhewasthencalling "conino" peaks). He also notes that the trees higher on the mountain were of a different species than those existing near their camp. In a sense, he was prescient here,recognizingthelifezoneswhichC.HartMerriam later named while viewing these same mountains.
Government Prairie is still an open grassland sur rounded by ponderosa pine. It now has some young ponderosa pines scattered through it, suggesting that some encroachment by trees may have occurred over the past 130 years. Whipple's comment about "dwarf oaks" west of the prairie is interesting, because oak is p r e s e n t l y s c a r c e a l o n g t h a t p o r t i o n o f h i s r o u t e .W h i p p l e had been passing through stands of Gambel oak since entering New Mexico, so I have to wonder why he bothered to mention it here and if, possibly, the spe cies was more abundant along this route in 1853 than it is now. Regarding oak, the handwritten diary states: "...Afterward we entered the forest where abounded timbers of oak and pine with large cedar trees covered withsweetberries."Theword"dwarfwasaddedlater
tothepublisheditinerary.WhiletheGambeloakinthis immediateareaisnowscarce,itgrowsinatreeform. Relativetooaksineasternforests,perhapsitcouldbe considered a dwarf form. Nonetheless, the need to add the diminutive in retrospect seems odd.
Based upon the location where they were mentioned, the "sweet-berried" cedars are probably alligator-bark juniper. This species is conspicuous along this part of the route. Rocky Mountain Juniper also occurs in this vicinity, but is neither conspicuous nor large. It tends to occur only at higher elevations or on cooler sites. Dr. Bigelow (1856) had difficulty identifying the various
junipers. In his report on the botany of the expedition (p. 20), he wrote:
"On the bluffs of the Llano Estacado, and from that point west as far as the Cajon Pass, occur in many places, and sometimes in great abundance, two or three other species of cedar. Of a collection made by Dr. Woodhouse, Dr. Torrey, in the Report of an Expedition down the Zuni and Colorado Rivers, by Captain Sitgreaves,observe 'thatone may beJuniperus occidentalis. (Hook) the second J. tetragona, (Schlect.), while the third is probably new' Mine areprobablyincludedinhislist;andifso excellent a botanist as Dr. Torrey is in doubt in reference to the species and varieties of these plants,itwouldbefollyinmetoattemptto reduce or determine them."
I do not know the identity of the bunch grass that was present and "quite green" at this elevation in midwinter.
Dr. Andrew Wallace (unpublished manuscript) has devoted considerable time to locating the hillside where thepartycampedonDecember31andthespringthey visited on the morning of January 1,which Whipple named New Year's Spring. Wallace presents strong evidence that the hill they climbed on December 31 is the one now called Radio Hill, located in Range 2E, Township22N,Section3,andthatthespringmayhave been near the present site of Hitson Tank about a mile to the northwest in Section 4.
Radio Hill is now covered with ponderosa pine, Gambel oak, a few pinons, and a scattering of large, oldalligator-barkjunipers,someofwhichmaybethe same trees used by the party for shelter on N e w Year's Eve, 1853. The blue mountain range Whipple noted to the southwest is the combined ridges of Picacho and Mount Floyd (Sierra de la Laja). Whipple's estimate ofdistancewasoffsomewhat,FloydandPicachoboth being over 30 miles direct line from Radio Hill. M y camera was unable to penetrate the haze on the day I tookaphotograph,hencethebluemountainrangebarely shows (fig. 10). Whipple's description of the area to the west and southwest as having a dense growth of cedars corresponds with the view today. However, the vegeta tion to the northwest of Radio Hill may have changed since 1854 (fig. 11).The country he describes as nearly destituteoftreescertainlynow holdsasignificantstand of alligator-bark juniper.
Whipple's notes forJanuary 1,1854 say:
"The morning was bright and clear. Upon leaving camp, we visited New Year's Spring, about a mile west....After travelling about
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USDAForestServiceRMRS-GTR-177. 2006.