Sometime in the Life of a Rock
a short video of an improbable feat. It tells the story of any rock's adventures high up in the Tenmile Range, through the former Iowa Hill mine site, down to the floor of the Blue River Valley.
Made for the Breckenridge International Festival of Art 2015.
v
v
v
Music & Erosion
Because Iowa Hill was so eroded by hydraulic mining in the past, there is very little shade. The trees that exist here are all less than 100 years old. The musicians climbed the trail until they found some shade.
Documenting: Erosion
Day 2
The first good shots of the erosion panel
Interpretive Signage:
The Why
We wanted to tell a story from the rock's point of view and let a viewer experience gravity, water, erosion and uncertainity. Shot around the Iowa Hill mine site, the video shows diverse terrain in a narrow swath of the Tenmile Range.
The project is part of the 2015 Breckenridge International Festival of Art.
- Terry Talty & Steuart Bremner
Links to More
Iowa Hill History by Sandie Mather
The Story:
Certainly wind, water and other weather are the cause of any one rock being exposed and set in motion. Gravity, then, moves it in one direction only. Weather is less predictable. So are the obstacles any rock might meet along its way downhill. Like the simple physics of the billiard table, these will cause a rock to change course or stop, and then weather, wind or water might set it off again.
Water, also playing by the rules of gravity, weighs and wears on a rock. Obviously, water smooths the rough edges as any rock that has made a journey from the top of a mountain like Peak 8 to the Blue River. What volume will move it significantly?
Great volumes of water were damned above Iowa Hill and piped to the top of what we see now as a pretty steep cliff. Men opened flood gates there and water removed all the topsoil, those men took out the minerals, and more rocks than normal rolled downhill to the Blue River.
Map: Reservoir at headend of water supply to Iowa Gulch
