The Utah agave is also known as the century plant. But it doesn’t really take a century for this blue-green succulent to send up a long stalk and bloom more like forty years. Just before it blooms, it’s full of sugars. That’s the perfect time to harvest its heart, a culinary tradition among the Hualapai people going back thousands of years.
Lake Mead is lower than it’s ever been, the result of decades of drought and warmer temperatures caused by climate change. The sinking water levels have revealed a different sort of catastrophe; layers of volcanic ash preserved in stone.
Footprints made tens of thousands of years ago may look like they’ve been erased by time and weather, but like invisible ink, they can sometimes reappear under the right conditions.