USA 3 - VOBS
Filmkommentar und Wortschatzliste
The United States of America (3): The Rocky Mountains
Of all the 50 states in the United States of America, Colorado is considered by many to be the best example of a Rocky Mountain State.
Denver / Rocky Mountains / National Park
Beyond the skyscrapers of downtown Denver, the capital of Colorado, the snow capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains appear on the horizon.
Denver, often called the „Mile High City“, is situated right where the Great Plains rise towards the foothills and the Front Range of the Rockies.
The Rocky Mountains are a long broken chain of mountains, rising in the western part of the continent, from Alaska all the way down to Mexico.
They were formed between 60 to 70 Million years ago, around the same time the Dinosaurs became extinct.
A short 70 mile drive from Denver, through the Front Range, brings us to Rocky Mountain National Park.
When the first settlers crossed this continent, they had little time to worry about conservation or the enviroment. Today a system of National Parks does just that. It conserves areas of outstanding natural beauty throughout the United States.
Trail Ridge Road takes visitors up to snowfields and glaciers.
The Continental divide runs along these peaks and from here the great Colorado river starts his long journey to the Pacific.
The North
Yellowstone National Park
A two day trip takes us up north to the fantastic world of hot springs and geysirs, to Yellowstone National Park.
It’s the end of October and the huge crowds have gone, but still a few hopefully sit and wait for the eruption of Old Faithful, while in the parking lot, totally undisturbed, a coyote forages for a few leftovers from lunch.
Old Faithful is true to his name.
He erupts in a great burst of steam day by day, every 60 to 90 minutes.
Yellowstone National Park was born from the fires of volcanoes. It sits on a sunken volcanic plateau.
Hot water bubbles and gushes up through fractures in the earth’s crust.
When water from the surface filters down towards hot igneous rocks, it then bursts back up to the surface to form a hot spring or geysir.
Steamclouds dance in the cold autumn air.
On its way to the surface hot water transports minerals from inside the earth. In the cooling water of these shallow pools, the minerals form colorful deposits.
Grand Teton National Park
The peaks of the Grand Teton Range glow in the early dawn light.
Below them moose nibble on shrubs and trees in the meadows of the Teton National Park.
The Park is situated in a valley known as Jackson Hole. Hole simply being the name given to high-country valleys ringed by mountains.
Moose, bison and bears once roamed the continent, Today they only survive in the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem, which includes the Teton Range and Jackson Hole.
As the day progresses the moose will leave the open meadows and will disappear in the surrounding woods for the rest of the day.
Until the snow falls, the elk and mule deer will also remain in the security of the woods.
They’ll spend the winter at the bottom of Jackson Hole Valley.
When the first settlers came and fenced in this land for their livestock, thousands of wild animals starved to death.
Today part of the valley is set aside for the National Elk Refuge, where animals are fed in the winter.
It now acts as a buffer between the wilderness to the north and the ranches to the south of Jackson Hole.
Ranchers
At the end of fall, right before the first snowfall, the ranchers take their animals off the open range, herd them back to their own land.
Sorting out sixteen hundred head of cattle is hard work even for seasoned cowhands.
This herd consist of 800 pairs, a heifer with her calf.
They belong to two ranches south of Jackson Hole. These ranches are in an area where land values have skyrocketed over the past years.
Wyoming is the ninth-largest state in the Union, but the least populated. Only half a million people live here, and yet the wasteful use of land is causing problems.
Ranchers complain that more and more of good grazing land in the valleys is used to build houses, while livestock and wild animals compete for the remaining land. This escalates the ongoing conflict between ranchers and conservationists.
At the end of October cold and humid air from the northwest brings the first snowstorm to the northern part of the Rocky Mountains.
Many ranchers sell their livestock even though prices are now at their lowest.
These calves are going to a feedlot in Nebraska.
A representative of the Rancher Organization makes sure all animals being loaded belong to the Pfizer ranch, while the feedlot manager counts them and checks whether the animals he bought are well fed and healthy.
Southwest
Zion National Park / Tourism
Heading South through the Rockies the road repeatedly crosses the Continental Divide.
The first Europeans who ventured into these mountains were prospecting for gold and silver.
Today, that’s history.
Nowadays, deserted mining camps and ghost towns bring more tourists than prospectors to these valleys.
In the long run tourism will probably turn out to be more profitable anyway.
„.. in the nobility and beauty of the sculptures there is no comparison“ a geologist wrote in 1880 while travelling through this wild and rugged country of little-known canyons and plateaus.
The startling red and orange sandstone formations which have eroded into fantastic shapes and the spectacular cliff- and canyon landscape draw thousands of visitors to Zion National Park every year.
Spring break kicks off the travelling season, when Americans all over the country pack up the family and hit the roads.
„Where ‘re you going, man?“ – „Don’t know, but we got to go.“ Wrote Jack Kerouac in „On the Road“ and expressed the state of mind of an entire nation.
Heading southwest through the Rockies the land changes, from high peaks to flat mesas. Dry land too poor to support even a few head of cattle.
Often people have to drive a hundred miles and more to get from one little town to another.
When you get there, sometimes all you find are a few houses, a gas station, a motel and a quiet main street.
In a town like Sedona on the other hand, travelers crowd the sidewalks.
This small town has become a popular stopover on the trip through the canyons.
Hotels, motels and houses have filled the valley and they’re still building.
Space is not yet the real problem in the Southwest.
The problem in the Southwest is water.
Irrigation / Phoenix / The Desert
The first extended irrigation system in the Salt river valley was built by a native tribe called the Hohokam hundreds of years ago. Irrigation and this hot sub-tropical climate made it possible to bring in a harvest twice a year: corn, beans, pumpkins and cotton.
Farmers here still use irrigation to assure rich harvests, but fields are not what the valley of Phoenix is all about.
The water of the Salt River is used for fountains and in condominiums.
Phoenix, the blob that is eating Arizona, as the writer Edward Abbey called it, is today the sixth largest city in the USA and still growing.
There are now 2.8 million people living in the „Valley of the Sun“.
People come here on vacation, move here to retire and more and more companies move their operations to the Sun Belt.
Communities with names like Paradise Valley or Carefree have filled the valley and are now growing up mountains and into the desert.
1000 liters of water per day reportedly are used in an average household. This area is not home to the flower beds, but rather to the towering Saguaro cactus.
The saguaro prefers slopes, where water trickles down after a rainfall to the flat desert.
It grows so slowly, a sixty year old saguaro will reach only six feet.
It takes about a lifetime, 75 years for the characteristic arms to develop.
Grand Canyon / Lake Mead / Hoover Dam
Our flight over the desert at the western edge of the Colorado Plateau brings us to one of the earth’s great natural wonders, the incomparable Grand Canyon, carved by the Colorado River flowing below us.
The colored layers of rock reveal the fascinating geological profile of the earth.
The youngest layers at the top, the oldest ones, one mile below us, at the bottom of the canyon.
Because of human intervention, the river running along the bottom of the Grand Canyon is not the same river that flowed here just a few decades ago.
Back then, the river water varied tremendously over a yearly cycle.
Now the Glen Canyon Dam controls the water upstream, while downstream the water of the Colorado river flows into Lake Mead, an immense reservoir in the middle of the desert.
This man-made lake contains the water supply for Southern California and the communities of the Southwest.
The over seven-hundred-foot high concrete wall of the Hoover Dam was completed in 1935.
Hailed as one of the wonders of the world, the Hoover Dam controls the waters of the Colorado river and its seventeen gigantic generators supply electricity to Arizona, Southern Calfornia and to Las Vegas, Nevada.
Las Vegas
Las Vegas is more than a gamblers paradise today. It has become a theme park, a shop ‘til you drop destination just right for a family holiday.
In bright daylight, Las Vegas is a not very pretty city with enormous hotels where one million people live and work, many of them in the entertainment industry.
The gambling industry brings thirteen billion dollars a year. New casinos are springing up in the surrounding desert, along with golf courses.
Twenty-eight million Americans play golf.
Casinos and golf.
Will this be the future of the Rocky Mountains?
Indian Reservation
We head back to Arizona, to the small Kaibab Paiute Indian Reservation.
Much of the land in Arizona is owned by the native tribes. Reservations are self- governed tribal land.
Here we meet Ben Pikyavit.
„My name is Benn Pikyavit. I am a member of the Kaibab-Paiute tribe. I live here on the reservation. I, like a lot of people, live off the reservation at times.“
Like many other members of his tribe, however Ben has returned to live on the reservation, because there he can find everything he needs.
„...and this is where we all need to be. We need to listen. We need to slow down. We need to be able to grasp, what Mother Earth has provided for us.“
„To grasp what Mother Earth has provided for us“ - isn’t that something we should consider? It rings true, not only for National Parks and Indian reservations.
Vocabulary List / Wortschatzliste
Denver / Rocky Mountains / National Park
to consider - betrachten, erwägen, der Auffassung sein
beyond - jenseits, hinter (etwas)
skyscraper(s) - Hochhäuser
snow capped peaks - Schnee bedeckte Gipfel
to appear - erscheinen, auftauchen
Front Range - erste aufsteigende Gebirgskette
extinct - ausgestorben
conservation - Erhaltung, Bewahrung, Umweltschutz
to conserve - konservieren, erhalten
environment - Umwelt
glacier(s) - Gletscher
continental divide - kontinentale Wasserscheide
The North
Yellowstone National Park
geyser(s) - Geysir
eruption(s) - Ausbruch
parking lot - Parkplatz
undisturbed - ungestört
to forage - auf Futtersuche gehen
leftovers - Essensreste
to erupt - ausbrechen
volcano(es) - Vulkan
sunken volcanic - vulkanische Senke
plateau - Plateau
to bubble - sprudeln, blubbern
to gush - sprudeln, sich ergießen
fracture(s) - Bruch, Spalte, Riss
surface - Oberfläche
igneous rocks - Eruptivgestein
steam cloud(s) - Dampfwolke(n)
shallow pool(s) - flacher Teich
deposit(s) - Ablagerung(en)
Grand Teton National Park
Grand Teton Range - Grand Teton Massiv
to nibble - knabbern
meadow(s) - Wiesen
situated - gelegen, befindlich
hole - Loch, (i.d.F. Hochtal)
valley(s) - Tal
moose - Elch, Elche
to roam - umherwandern, umherschweifen
to include - beinhalten
progress, to progress - Fortschritt, voranschreiten
to remain - bleiben, bestehen bleiben
security - Sicherheit
starved to death - verhungern
wilderness - Wildnis
rancher(s) - Farmer, Viehzüchter
open range - offenes Gelände,
- i.d.F. staatl. Weideland
seasoned - i.d.F. erfahren
heifer - Kuh
to complain - sich beschweren
grazing land - Weideland
livestock - Vieh
to compete - wetteifern
humid - schwül, feucht
Southwest
Zion National Park / Tourism
to venture - unterfangen
prospecting - schürfen (Gold etc.)
deserted mining - verlassene Minencamps
camps
ghost town(s) - Geisterstadt
prospector(s) - Goldschürfer
profitable - ertragsreich, gewinnbringend
nobility - Adel, i.d.F. erhebend
comparison - Vergleich
rugged - hart, ausdauernd
to erode - abtragen
spectacular - überwältigend
travelling season - Reisesaison
entire - gesamt
main street(s) - Hauptstraße
traveler(s) - Reisender
stopover - Zwischenstopp
space - Platz
Irrigation / Phoenix / The Desert
to extend - erweitern
irrigation system - Bewässerungssystem
native - Einheimischer
native tribe - Indianer Stamm
irrigation - Bewässerung
harvest - Ernte
corn - Mais
beans - Bohnen
pumpkin(s) - Kürbis
cotton - Baumwolle
condominium(s) - Ferienhaus, Apartement
blob - Fleck, Haufen
average - Durchschnitt
to trickle - tröpfeln
Grand Canyon / Lake Mead / Hoover Dam
desert(s) - Wüste
incomparable - unvergleichlich
to carve - schnitzen, aushöhlen
human intervention - menschliche Eimmischung
varied tremendously - Schwankungen unterworfen sein, sich verändern
upstream - stromaufwärts
downstream - stromabwärts
reservoir(s) - Speichersee
to contain - beinhalten
community(ies) - Gemeinschaft(en), Wohnanlagen
concrete - Zement
to complete - fertig stellen
to hail - begrüßen, i.d.F. gesehen als
Las Vegas
gambler(s) - Glücksspieler
shop ‘til you drop - Einkaufen bis zum Umfallen
destination(s) - Reiseziel
entertainment(s) - Unterhaltungs(branche)
industry - Industrie, Geschäft
gambling industry - Glücksspielbranche
Indian Reservation
native tribe(s) - Indianischer Stamm
tribe - Stamm
to grasp - nehmen, benutzen, verstehen
to provide - zur Verfügung stellen
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