I’ll never learn. How many times have I gone on “just a short hike, no need to carry much” only to find myself miles from camp, lured farther and deeper into wilderness by this faint voice beckoning me to trek “just a little bit more, just around this next bend, just over this next hill, just far enough to see what’s beyond”? Obviously not enough times to get into serious trouble but the numbers could soon catch up…
Camp is in a dry wash just off a jeep trail where this complex of canyons starts to get interesting. This isn’t the slick redrock canyon I’m familiar with but fragile, crumbly dry sandstone and shale, hundreds of jagged, broken layers in varying shades of yellow and red and brown, depending on the depth. Flat water-smoothed shards of shale cover the bed, like a blanket of ancient stone coins. I listen to erosion’s story told in the rock; it speaks of gentle flow, not violent flooding. It’s safe to camp here.
(Continued)
I head west, deeper into the Swell, to where I don’t yet know. I’ll figure it out when I get there, wherever “there” turns out to be, wherever these dusty unmarked roads lead, wherever the lure of the unknown pulls me. Fifteen miles in I’ve passed no one, seen none but one truck perched atop a lonely ridge to the south early in the drive, the only hint of humanity I’ve witnessed in four… or is it five?… however many days. The eastern faces of buttes marking a series of canyons emerges in the horizon. My eyes grow wide, so wide for so long that only the sting of dehydration snaps me back into my body with an overdue blink. Parched monoliths of red, pink and beige stone dotted with green specks under a dome of flawless lapis lazuli beckon. Mesmerized, I pull over atop the final rise before this road descends into the geological labyrinth below.
I want to record this breathless moment, to bring this place back with me to share with others, but words fail. There are none. How might a speck of dust describe a mountain? I don’t know what it is about places like this that calls to me so. What the heartless, the uninspired and passionless, the ranchers, exploiters and developers, the men who bore holes into Her flesh to steal and package and squander and sell her blood and precious innards, what dead souls driven exclusively by economics would call a “wasteland” is to me, paradise.
(Continued)
Evening creeps silently over the desert, the long shadows of sunset unfurled and settled upon the land like a cool blanket. No perceptible movement, not a sound save the rhythmic chirp of some distant cricket, its particular direction masked and muffled by waves of captured heat radiating off the rock. I’ve had a day of exploring, destinations in mind, but now it’s time to walk… just walk… without purpose, without intention, just to be here, just to be a part of this place.
When there’s nowhere to get to you can truly become present to where you are.
(Continued)
I figured on leaving the first of August, on my birthday. That was the plan. But my plans consistently fail to account for the fact that I’m the world’s biggest procrastinator and that a departure date tends to loom not so much a goal but as a target to be deliberately avoided, for what reason I can’t imagine, other than perhaps to maintain my identity as a procrastinator. For all I know, the earth might shift off its axis and tumble into oblivion were I to make it out as planned. Don’t mess with the order of things, I say; best not to tempt fate with such craziness. So it’s the third of August and I’m off.
The date’s irrelevant. What matters is that I’m on the road for thirty days. No specific plans, just drive and explore through Utah, Nevada, up the coast of Oregon, into Portland for a spell and then head home… I need to shake things up; I’m stagnating, falling into routine, taking too much for granted. Thirty days of the unfamiliar, away from routines, a string of small, possibly large adventures is just what I need right now.
(Continued)
Obstacles aren’t always roadblocks. Sometimes they’re detours into mystery leading down unexpected paths. Recently I’d had a hard time getting out to canyon country. Bags packed, dogs with the sitter, I was ready to go solo, deeper into the canyons than ever. Then my water well blew out; three days for repairs. Then a water fitting in my camper broke. Another delay, another day lost. And by the time I was finally ready, the weather report called for days of rain. Odd that water, of all things, should keep me out of the desert. But meteorology be damned! There’s exploring to be done…
Off the highway, over the cattle guard and onto an old dirt road winding towards a canyon I’d discovered on a previous trip… Mud everywhere, truck slipping and sliding in sticky ochre mess. I’d never seen this place so wet, never witnessed this particular mood of Hers. I set up base camp atop a slab of redrock where an old mining road intersects a slot canyon camouflaged by a short stretch of level terrain. Beyond the cottonwoods lies a hidden gem I’d briefly surveyed on a previous expedition, a marvel of red, orange, pink and yellow rock, narrow chutes, expansive atriums, slickrock walls weaved with bands of impossible colors and layers of texture, too small to be noted or named on any map, yet immense in the scope of its beauty.
(Continued)
Lots of rattlers (Western rattlesnake, Crotalus viridis) in the high desert this spring. I hadn’t seen nary a one in years but have already run into two within as many days this season. Not to mention the twisty, windy tracks on nearby dirt roads. I can’t be sure it’s rattlesnake sign (there are other snakes in this area as well) but I’d bet so. Every rattler I’ve seen up here has been traveling in the same general vicinity and the same general direction so I’m assuming there must be a den in the rocky slope behind my cabin. Hopefully I’ll find it during one of my explorations. (Continued)
We’re not a graceful species. Top-heavy, unbalanced, stuffed to the gills with brain matter and intelligence, living upstairs, in our heads, disconnected from our bodies and whence they came. Clunky shoes to protect our feet, clothing to seal out the elements, sunglasses to block the light… ham-fisted and heavy-footed we plod through the wilds totally insulated from the very experience we seek.
Witness deer gliding through the forest and you will hear nothing. Watch a human and you will hear little else. We announce our presence to the wild things long before our arrival and all the critters, save for a handful of birds scurry off in our wake. The mysteries and the magic seek cover, replaced by a curtain of the unknown and unperceived, mere camouflage for the esoteric and extraordinary. It is only in silence and stillness that the mysteries are coaxed out from behind the shadows to play in the light of awareness, beckoning those who tread lightly, those who have earned the right through humility and respect to join the dance. It’s not that we don’t belong in the wilds; it’s just that we’ve forgotten how to be there.
(Continued)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: wilderness speaks. And I mean it.
A few weeks I ago I ran into Larry Kimball of Pronghorn Wildlife Photography and we got to chatting about the wild things. I wanted to know who’s been nibbling on my ponderosas. Abert’s squirrels, porcupines, probably both, Larry figured. I thought as much but remarked how despite years of searching I’d never seen a porcupine up here.
Fast forward to last Friday night. An hour or so after sunset, the cloudless sky still blue but inching towards smoky gray, I took to preparing dinner. Master-chefing par usual, I had completed the painstaking culinary prep-work of pre-heating the toaster oven and was now focused upon gingerly peeling the plastic wrap off a frozen pizza so as not to disturb the symmetrical pepperoni arrangement. (Symmetry being, as you know, a critical factor in bringing forth the gustatorial subtleties of dead oversalted pig.) Time for a relaxing evening of mindless lounging and movie-watching.
(Continued)
So many places to explore… Where, when will I find the time? Life is short, the earth is huge, my days are numbered. Sometimes I worry that I’ll never get to all the enchanting places, that I’ve squandered too much time on trivial, material pursuits, that I’ll too soon grow old and frail, well before I’ve had the chance to stamp a gentle footprint upon Her most brilliant landscapes. But how much can one see in a world so vast that it’s impossible to touch a meaningful fraction of the whole? Is more better than one? Shall I have a hundred casual acquaintances or one intimate lover?
Much is gained in getting to know one place, an intimacy that is unavailable to those moving swiftly down a trail, scurrying off to the next landmark, ticking off a list of summitted peaks, paths hiked, routes climbed. Wilderness is like a lover: the deeper you explore, the more is revealed, the more you discover. And just when you thought you had her figured out she flashes another unexpected facet of the jewel that is her finest creation. There are no limits; there’s always another, deeper level to explore. Thinking you’ve seen it all, that you know her cuts yourself off from an inexhaustible wellspring of variety and beauty. Boredom, familiarity is your creation. Hers is ever-changing and always fresh.
(Continued)
I’m walking in the desert at night, propelled by an inner wind of unknown origin. Is it me or is it this land? I want to walk forever, to ride the wind wherever it takes me. I can’t stop; nor would I want to. The switch has been flipped, I’m rambling through the infinite Now, this moment, the only moment that ever really was, the only time that ever will be. Connected to this land, the boundary between me and place disintegrates under starlight that began its journey here long before I ever was, the arriving glow of an unfathomably distant sun tapping eternity into my flesh, blurring the illusory distinction between self and All. I am now this place, truly Here, fully present, the mundane world left behind, plucked from my mind by an all-encompassing silence that drowns out dissonance like a flash flood scrubbing redrock clean.
Yearning, striving, agitation, dissatisfaction: gone. These are the fallout of the discontented world of man, illusions stripped of meaning and potency under the illumination of penetrating desert night, an infinite vacuum that absorbs all dross you have the courage to release. There’s no room for that here, not for one who is fully present. Is this the elusive inner peace and stillness of which mystics speak?
(Continued)
