Of Mountain Men and Water Fountains
by David A. Ek
“I don’t need no stinkin’ oversized water cask,” I scolded myself as my Honda Accord sped towards the fiery globe that bore upon the western horizon. Was I wrong? No, I asserted—I’m a mountain man, after all. Mountain men pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Soon, my Walter Mitty fantasies turned towards more tangible assets—like the Nalgene water bottles sloshing under the passenger seat and the five-gallon jug stowed in the trunk. Will these last when temperatures top one hundred or more? And climbing. They must. If not, the drought will force me, like any great mountain man, to find hidden and obscure watering holes along the way. That’s what mountain men do, after all—they overcome challenges that wild landscapes throw at them.
Sure, I’m migrating west amid a punishing heat wave and withering drought. But just like intrepid explorers Jim Bridges, John Coulter, and Jedediah Smith before me, I will find a way through. “I’m a mountain man …” As my diverging eyes caught sight of a Nalgene that had grown too empty even to slosh, “Or I used to be,” I sighed. At least back in youthful times, back in my naïve Mittyesque mind, and back before a middle-class life changed and civilized everything. Change is daunting for anyone—including independently-minded dreamers like me. Surely, remnant survival skills buried deep inside will resurface in the nick of time. Like the time the griz charged Hugh Glass. “My water must last,” I whispered. The last thing I, or my Honda, needed was another modern-day calamity of mountain man proportion.
The fiery globe seared across the southeastern states as it re-wetted all paint from the crimson barnside reds to the faded John Deere greens. As I sped past, farmers on green machines busily thrashed dusty fields—hoping for at least one hay cut before the summer heat ended it all. Uncut dusty fields were the least of my worries as I rolled deeper into the heat wave. I pointed my overstuffed Accord toward the western prairies and southwestern deserts—the land of crackling sun, parched lips, bleeding skin, and silent and sunbaked Nalgene.
Why did mountain men carve the Oregon Trail? Why did Steinbeck and Charley hit the road to experience the real America? Why did the Joad family leave Missouri to face horizon-filled struggles along the California Trail? Why did I take on the challenges of a cross-country trip under punishing drought conditions? It’s not as if I didn’t know any better. Then why? … Who knows? I certainly didn’t. The only common thread throughout all these brutal dramas is the romanticized fantasy bootstrapped onto the American mind.
Some claim it’s an infliction. A residual primal instinct from deeply wired and encoded DNA strands. Strands that date back to the days when strife was par for the course. Back when Neanderthals first encountered the saber-tooth cat. Before comfort and conformity set their claws too deeply in modern human flesh. Yes, I rebelled through instinct alone. I needed to wander and these old-time connections. Not just travel for travel’s sake but wander by primal means. Destiny and DNA encoding conspired to lead me straight into the crimson heat wave and swelling Western horizon. Fortunately, for us modern mountain men and women, we have the safety and comfort of highway rest stops—and, foremost above all else—dependable water sources stretched across the vast American landscape.
The Flint Hills did not reveal its tallgrass prairie expanse suddenly. But it was enough to trigger warm memories, lift weary eyes, and heighten dulled senses. The hills and prairies lacked the vivid crispness that memories recall. The Sun and drought had long since faded prairie colors and reduced all to brittle submission. I imagined the Flint Hills’ shallow groundwater aquifer evaporating before my eyes. I also imagined the stressed Ogallala Aquifer located further west was suffering even more so under the Sun’s relentless oppression.
Still fifty miles shy of the modern-day Canton, Kansas annual mountain man rendezvous site, I sought shade and water by pulling off the Purple Heart Combat Wounded Veteran’s Highway. No shade graced the Yates Center Rest Area—only more heat and drought. The dusty mineral-stained water fountain stuck out as stiffly as a bronzed and skeletonized willow at a mud-cracked long-dead Kansas prairie watering hole. However, unlike any natural spring in the area, water from the fountain oozed and sputtered—but only enough to deposit a fresh mineral stain. It looks like today’s travelers will have no more shade or water reprieve than the rest of Kansas’ Flint Hills prairie expanse. Thoughts of droughts, withering prairies, drying springs, and depleting aquifers abruptly turned to other distractions upon entering a historic and hallowed sight—the junction of the Chisolm and Santa Fe Trails.
William Becknell pioneered the Santa Fe Trail and made several crossings. If he crossed without Yates Center Rest Area water, so shall I. However, he nearly died of thirst on his second trip—in May. Mild May. I crossed the same inferno in jarring July. To survive, I vowed that I would need to play it smartly with all my mountain man senses on full alert—and learn from history.
The derelict Kansas Pacific Railway well and pumphouse in Kit Carson, Colorado should have been a harbinger, a foreshadowing, of what was to come—an awareness that prairie crossings don’t come easy. I didn’t fully notice. I didn’t learn from history.
Despite unwarranted optimism, I couldn’t help but notice the uncharacteristic heat and thirsty air had depleted my water supplies faster than anticipated. The skeletonized Yates Center watering hole taught me an important lesson that eventually sunk in. From that awareness, I would conserve my scarce water supply and seize all opportunities to refill water casks no matter how full they were or how little they sloshed. Becknell may not have learned his lesson, but I shall. This vow led me to steer the Accord off the highway into eastern Wyoming’s Dwyer Junction Rest Area.
As my car coasted to a stop, the distant Laramie Range filled the horizon above the hustle of the crowds shoving shoulder-to-shoulder to use the stressed restrooms. I soon discovered another modern migration challenge. Throughout the West, managers must prioritize scarce and dwindling water resources—or suffer the consequences. Water for drinking fountains actively competes with water to flush toilets and water for sprinklers—devices that copiously irrigate lawn greenery and reinject moisture into the thirsty atmosphere. We can’t, after all, have lush green aristocratic English gardens in Wyoming’s deserts without sacrificing something. There isn’t enough water to serve all arid land beasts. Consequently, it appears as if facility managers no longer route water to fountains. Once again, I couldn’t refill my Nalgene bottles. Am I re-enacting Becknell’s second crossing?
Don’t worry, I told myself. Becknell didn’t die of thirst. If he survived his ordeals, then so shall I. However, some claim that there are worse fates than dying of thirst—After all, Becknell died a politician. Woe are the dangers and hazards of Santa Fe Trail crossings.
Besides thirst, other water-related disasters befell historic Western migrants. Ten percent of potential crossers died of water-borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid fever, and dysentery. Twenty graves per mile greeted anxious migrants, gnawing upon their psyche—and this, from the relatively well-watered Oregon Trail. The Oregon Trail was a plush and watery oasis compared with the Santa Fe Trail Cimarron Cut-off that my Accura was fast approaching. My mind’s distractions turned from Becknell to the legendary mountain Jedidiah Smith, because I grew closer to where he met his waterless fate. Jedidiah Smith’s party’s water supply also had grown dangerously low. Like any good mountain man would do, Jedidiah volunteered to search for a spring. During his search, he chanced upon local ruffians who did not take kindly to his territorial intrusions. They killed him.
While I’m fully aware of the dangers of thirst, dried springs, and ruffians that prey upon hapless rest area patrons, humans must, I say must, have water. I had to do something. The great prairie states had thwarted me around every bend and every withered tallgrass prairie expanse. I, repeatedly, came upon droughted, cracked, and desiccated watering holes. I drew more and more from my dwindling supply. After emptying each reusable bottle, I cast the carcass into the fast-growing Nalgene mound occupying both my mind and the passenger floorboard.
I switched tactics as Utah began rolling under the Accord’s overheated tires. Family-friendly-looking Roosevelt appeared to be well-suited to try out my new plan. Instead of roadside rest areas, I will look for water within Americana. Many towns have local parks and ballfields. Kind-hearted adults living amongst aridity wouldn’t purposely let their children and little leaguers work up a ballcourt sweat without providing them options to replenish their parched wee throats. Surely, this all-American town, which the residents once called Dry Gulch City, and renamed after the all-American Theodore Roosevelt, would care for their children’s safety and proper hydration.
Google Maps highlighted numerous parks, greenspaces, and ballcourts throughout Roosevelt’s cozy backstreets. Despite numerous family parks and wee-people activity fields, Roosevelt failed to offer a single water fountain or watering hole for thirsty little league patrons or the occasional passing modern-day mountain man. Perhaps residents should revert to calling it “Dry Gulch City.” With cottony throat, overworked Accura, and growing Nalgene mountain, I hit Utah’s dry and dusty roads again heading towards even drier lands further west.
My water fortunes fared better, slightly better, on the next watering hole excursion. No out-of-repair sign greeted traveling patrons at the Grassy Mountain Rest Area. Instead, I watched the slow calcium-laden water dribble from the calcium-stained and calcium-choked orifice. Bitter water—yes, but nonetheless water. I may not meet the same fate as Jedediah Smith—at least not today. After my long re-fill, the Accord merged with slowly crawling dust-bound traffic. The car hadn’t traveled a mile from the rest stop before my mind wandered again. Not to ruffians, Jedidiah Smith, or my typical fanciful Mittyesque imagery, but instead, I wondered if the bitterness would permanently impregnate Nalgene bottles. In typical fashion, I dismiss such worries. On autopilot, my Accura and I had merged with the traffic stream headed to the Western horizon.
The Nalgene water tasted that much sweeter upon learning the next rest stop offered no potable water—bitter or otherwise. However, this water depravity was not the typical maintenance neglect or prioritization of lush landscape greenery. Instead, the root cause was a police officer glut, blue-flashing cruisers, and copious investigation barrier tape barring access to the entire rest area. As the Accura crept past their strobing lights, I strained my neck attempting to peer into the bluish ruckus. Had a hapless traveler forgone bitter waters earlier and succumbed to the elements? Had a deranged murder taken place? Had a dehydration-fueled water war erupted? Some questions strained necks are far too ill-equipped to answer—for the neck, like political will, only bends so far. Instead, I turned my eyes and attention toward the continuing expanse of the arid Great Basin in the throes of an intense heat wave. Oh, the torment that mountain men must endure to satisfy their wandering urges.
#
Thoughts of ruffians and police brigades recalled a tense situation I stumbled upon in southern Arizona two summers ago during a drought-infused stupor far removed from the relative safety and security of modern-day rest stops. The same Nalgene bottles ran dry on my long retreat from the precise spot where the San Pedro River crosses from Mexico into the United States. One cannot drive to this ecological wonderous crossing. One must park on a remote dusty backroad and walk along an unmarked public access corridor that twisted, weaved, and ducked around private property and homes that gave every impression their occupants do not like and do not tolerate trespassers. As I soon learned, route finding to the San Pedro River through the twisting public land holdings is easier than on the return march. There were no horizon-filling cottonwood trees to bear upon and keep one from wandering astray. Like a Rubik’s cube with all the color stickers removed, on the return trip, I could discern no clear pathway that kept me safely on the public corridor. Inadvertently, I become a trespasser—amongst people who do not care for excuses or explanations.
A wandering drunken stupor without the benefit of alcohol graced my every step, and misstep, as I kept coming across the sight of privately-owned rooftops. I wished I had carried more water, wasn’t dehydrated, and had a clearer mind. I wished I had taken better notes of whatever nuanced landmark that would have helped guide me back. I gave each distant roofline a wide berth with ever-increasing drunken spirals–desperately trying to remain non-intrusive and unnoticed. Once past one such flanking maneuver, I lifted my glazed-over eyes and suddenly entered fight-or-flight mode. I fixed my gaze upon a jeep filled with camouflaged, automatic rifle-festooned, paramilitary personnel staring back at me through binoculars.
While I’ve never belonged to an armed fanatical militia, I’m a thinking man. What looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, is, most likely—a duck. A flock of ducks now bore down on me with high-power weaponry and twitching fingers. No blue-strobing lights and police cruisers will save or rescue me now. I instantaneously processed my options—none were desirable. A thought flickered, to avoid suspicion, diving for cover is not a good optic. Also, the longer I prolong their mystery the worse my situation would become. Quick, David, think. Think like a paramilitary fanatic.
It’s not like I haven’t had guns pointed at me before by scared trigger-happy wingnuts—I have, after all, been a federal employee living and working in the rural West. No further delay, David—act! I instinctually took the most non-threatening and naïve approach I could summon within the milliseconds I sensed I had to decide.
“Hey-ya, folks! Have yuh seen any birds around?” I shouted in as much of an excited and naïve tone that I could muster, “I’ve been out taking bird photos, but I’ve not seen any,” I said with a smile as I pointed to the camera still slung around my neck. “Must be the heat,” I cursed as I walked briskly toward them. “Must’ve scattered or hunkered down.”
Stopping fifteen feet shy of their muzzles, “Birds? Seen any birds?”
Silently, each armed and camouflaged zealot turned their heads to one another, as if searching for words or an explanation. I suspect it helped that I wore a T-shirt emblazed with an immense red, white, and blue-colored American bald eagle that read, “Liberty Eagles.” I received the T-shirt for supporting my son’s Liberty High School “Band Booser” events—yay, Eagles.
“I probably won’t see any more birds here,” I chirped as their eyes continued flicking back and forth and their fingers remained twitchy, “so I guess I’ll head back to my car. It’s parked just down the road a few minutes,” I deadpanned, as I nodded in the direction I believed, I hoped, that I parked my car. Apparently satisfied I wasn’t a Hispanic crossing the border, the crusader sitting in Jeep-center raised his right hand, and with a circular gesture that I’ve seen in the movies that commands co-patriots to roll, he signaled the driver to gas the jeep. As they sped away, the tires spat dust that stuck to my perspiration-coated skin.
I forced myself not to look back as I briskly shuffled towards my only escape. Please, please, I prayed, my Accord had better be there. It would not be good for me to have to come back looking for the paramilitary wingnuts to ask directions.
Later, I heard stories that such encounters with immigrant-focused paramilitary zealots are not unusual along the rural Arizona border region. If I had been Hispanic-looking or caused them any suspicion, the encounter would likely have had a significantly different outcome.
#
We are increasingly facing a world with both a rapidly changing climate and social demographics. Change is always hard—more so for some than others. Some people deny, some fight, while others adapt. While these conditions are uniquely modern, in many ways, the underlying challenges remain remarkably the same to all those forging new paths and setting new trails. History has taught me that successful mountain men then, and now, adapt. However, the brief encounter that I had with the so-called “patriots” along Arizona’s Mexican border gave me the impression of a sub-culture unwilling to adapt. Since I have no further means to understand or sway this mindset, I instead turn my thoughts to the patriotic act of exploring the scenic roads and byways of the grand and diverse American landscape. I, therefore, steered my Accord back onto the well-patrolled highway rest stops—complete with their broken water fountains and opulently lush lawnscapes.
#
Despite drought, heat waves, and waterless trepidations, I made it to the Pacific Northwest without succumbing to the elements. However, to call any mountain man crossing successful requires a safe return home—as did Lewis and Clark after they reached the Pacific Northwest. Consequently, the return voyage had me again running the gauntlet of America’s arid highways and byways.
I was not alone in this gauntlet. Modern-day mountain men and women must share their favorite watering hole and traveling respite with other weary souls—especially interstate truckers. An overwhelming percentage of our nation’s commerce moves on open American highways. Truckers use our public rest areas throughout all hours of every day and every night. Using just one example, the hypnotizingly open roads linking economic powerhouses San Francisco and Salt Lake City require a near-constant conveyor belt of trucks moving goods to and fro. How troublesome would this commerce move through northern Nevada without the water and rest afforded by highway rest stops?
Truckers, as much as mountain men and women, require safe places to drink, sleep, and rest. No one wants a dehydrated and drowsy driver in only partial control of a swaying and swerving fifty-thousand-pound truck careening at seventy miles per hour. If there are no safe places for them to pull off and rest, drowsiness forces truckers to remain on the open roads longer than prudent for everyone’s safety. It’s for this reason that truckers and their lobbyists are the first to speak up whenever states attempt to close rest areas in a nonsensical attempt to grapple with their depleting coffers. Few decision-makers want to mess with the mighty interstate commerce that keeps America’s economic engine purring.
However, without a safe harbor for weary souls and eyes, American highways would be that much more dangerous. The twenty graves per mile along the old Oregon Trail would pale by comparison. Although states closing rest areas may save money in the short term, it is more costly in the long term. Unwilling to make the hard decision needed to chart a path forward, as if change won’t occur if we remain on the tried-and-true paths of old.
#
Skeletal water fountain remains, and their exposed innards greeted the burgeoning crowd of truckers, patriots, and modern-day mountain men and women milling about at the next rest stop. The fountain’s destruction was so complete it conjured images of a raving and pillaging Viking horde having swept through—leaving a swath of eviscerated and flayed remains in its wake. Norse scribes nor the Saga of the Völsungs didn’t mention Viking exploits within Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flat Rest Area. Later, I may research what happened to the Bonneville Salt Flat’s decrepit water pipes.
Typical maintenance dysfunction greeted me in rest stops from Grenville, New Mexico to nowhere Oklahoma. At an Arkansas rest stop, I discovered a fountain that could ooze only a trickle. Nonetheless, the trickle eventually filled all my empty Nalgene bottles. Before reaching the car, I hand-delivered a hastily scrawled note to the worker actively mowing the rest area’s copious green lawnscape. The note thanked him and the good state of Arkansas for having a water fountain that actually worked. With a chuckle, he confessed that the fountain I used was the only one within the rest area that wasn’t out of order, “The others hadn’t worked in years.”
Tennessee’s Buffalo Valley Rest Area allowed me to refill my bottles one last time before arriving at the sweet groundwater of my deep-seated Piedmont well. I had made it through America’s waterless expanse where other more acclaimed mountain men had not.
Once free from the constant search for a dependable supply of safe water, I could afford the time to delve deeper into the mystery of the waterless fountains. The degree of non-serviceable public water supplies along our nation’s highways was far too numerous to chalk up to chance or a statistical anomaly. If not an evil conspiracy to keep this mountain man down, there must be a logical reason.
I first assumed the lack of sufficient funds forced managers to make hard decisions—decisions that minimized and marginalized the importance of safe drinking water. To assess better the true reason, I sent inquiries to four states: Tennessee, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Out of four requests, I expected to receive one cryptic bureaucratic reply. Tennessee, Wyoming, and Utah surprised me by sending timely and thoughtful answers. Only New Mexico failed to respond.
Our nation’s first wave of rest area construction started in the early 1960s. Since then, states have not replaced many facilities. In addition, many have a long list of outstanding water fountain maintenance needs. This backlog became even more acute after the COVID-19 emergency. For public safety, state maintenance crews shut down all rest area water fountains during the pandemic. The closures created a series of unintended headaches. Like vacant homes, buildings rarely fare well if not actively kept in use. Once reopened from their long closure, rest stop water fountains joined the long list of outstanding repairs.
Wyoming reported having only a three-and-a-half-million-dollar budget to support the operational and maintenance needs of their thirty-two rest stops spread throughout the state. Despite budget limitations, they proudly reported that only five rest stops were without water. They were actively resolving the remaining issues the best they could, given their budget constraints. The legendary mountain men only needed to open new travel corridors, they didn’t have to contend with the substantive challenges of managing and maintaining them with a dwindling budget and under a worsening climate crisis growing each successive year.
Groundwater supplies most rest stops with water to flush toilets, irrigate lawns, and fill Nalgene bottles. However, contaminants are increasingly finding their way into rural aquifers. It’s wise to remember that most deaths along the old West migrant trails were due to tainted water, specifically, cholera, typhoid fever, and dysentery. While our water treatment abilities have increased with time, water quality remains a distinct challenge even in modern times.
It’s expensive to treat groundwater. Managers in one Utah rest stop shut off the fountains and only kept water flowing for non-potable needs, such as flushing toilets and irrigating lawns. As American rural aquifers continue their decline in water quality, hard choices will likely increase in frequency and severity.
Besides water quality, many regions of the country suffer from low or diminishing water quantity—especially in the arid West. Our nation’s most severe groundwater depletion challenge is within the Ogallala Aquifer—centered under western Kansas. More water is pumped out than nature can replenish. As groundwater levels continue to decline, states may need to adapt to this new reality by shutting down rest stop watering holes or seeking alternative solutions. Increasingly, we are discovering modern-day water management challenges are more daunting than a Jim Bridger blizzard, a Hugh Glass grizzly, or a Kit Carson conundrum.
While the mountain man’s mental horizon stretched to infinity, their time didn’t. Civilization and the changes it wrought followed closely in their footsteps. Since their time on the tiny blue-balled Earth was short-lived, historic mountain men needed only short-term solutions to meet the challenges of the day. Even their legendary Rocky Mountain Rendezvous gatherings lasted only thirty-one years—a mere cloud shadow upon a southern Arizona asphalt parking lot. Our interstate highway system and rest stops have lasted over twice as long.
The dynamic changes within our Eisenhower-era highways and water fountains are much more daunting than anything the most epic mountain man could have envisioned. As such, we require new thinking, new paths, new crossings, and new maps—especially considering our increasingly fractionalized and divided landscape. A new breed of mountain people is needed, for no overland party from the past will come to our rescue, nor will any nostalgic Walter Mitty fantasy save the day. A new day has dawned. A new wilderness awaiting exploration for those with a mountain man’s will, metal, and fortitude. Perhaps it is also time for a modern-day reimagined Rendezvous, one focused not just on the Rocky Mountains, but instead on all of humankind—and global. A Rendezvous ready to overcome challenges that industrialized landscapes had thrown at them—for the future of mountain men, mountain women, and the sustainability of the American experience.
— The End —
© Copyright 2025 David Alan Ek. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. This story is nonfiction. It reflects the author’s present recollections of experiences over time.
Through TAR, we travel and experience the diverse Americana landscape. The last post had us taking flight with a legendary Greek Muse through Arizona’s borderland region. In TAR’s next post, come explore how a bat cloud and trickster coyote provide insights into the nature of humanity. Look for “Bat Wings and Coyote Tales” on February 1.
In the meantime, please check out my website’s Portfolio page for a description of my compelling novels, Pedro’s Pickles and the American Dream and Lizard People: Death Valley Underground, and my relatable literary nonfiction book Nowhere Bound—A Spud’s Reflections on Climbing, Caving, and Other Useless Toils. I encourage you to like or follow my Facebook and Goodreads “Author’s Pages.” Until then, take care and I look forward to our next glimpse into Americana on our next TAR adventure. See you then.
