Desert Trip 2022: Day 4
Sunday, November 6th, 2022: 2022 Trips, Mojave Desert, Regions, Road Trips.
As at home, Saturday was to be my day of rest.
The wind was only a memory. And as I finished breakfast, sitting with my back to the sun, facing the dramatic peak north of camp and watching the occasional bird swoop from boulder to boulder, I was suddenly struck by the silence. At home alone, I’m always listening to music – usually streaming radio from some distant city. It keeps me company. But now, after that relentless wind on the plateau, the silence was welcome.
As occasionally happens, after taking a pain pill the night before, my back pain had vanished by morning. I’d started doing all the right things – stretching, walking a lot, lifting mindfully and using lumbar support – and it troubled me no more on this trip, which after a week under the threat of paralysis was a huge relief.
In the shade of the big boulder at the north end of camp, there’s a little alcove that at this time of year provides shade for one person, so I sat there reading for a couple of hours. I was so still and quiet that a covey of Gambel’s quail came within a couple yards of me, foraging for about a half hour, without ever noticing I was there.
Again, I scanned this landscape of precious memories – the ridges, slopes, canyons, bajada, washes. When I got up to pass from shade to sunlight, I felt the extremes of temperature – it felt like going instantly from the 60s to the 80s – something we’re not used to when living indoors – the power of the sun!
Despite the cool weather, I was frequently pestered by flies, in all sizes. I decided to revisit my old stash above camp – miscellaneous materials for the over-ambitious projects we had three decades ago: a 100 gallon galvanized water tank, some PVC pipe for a well lining, a wheelbarrow, a roll of barbed wire. It was eerie, like stumbling upon the work of a stranger – is that the bail I built, to clean rocks out of the well? Those projects will never materialize now – those materials will likely never be needed by those who come after.
This whole place goes on without me. Despite my early ambitions, I haven’t really made a difference. I’m so little a part of it, virtually insignificant, and that’s probably a good thing.
Back at camp, I discovered sunburn from the past two days of hiking. I’d forgotten to apply sunscreen – a hat protects me at home, but here, the pale, reflective rock, gravel, and sand that cover most of the ground bounce the sunlight up from below.
After lunch I moved to a sitting spot on the now-shaded east side of the boulder. In the past, in really hot weather, I’d always hiked up to the shade house in the side canyon with all the mining ruins. But now, this boulder shaded me enough that I didn’t need to leave camp.
By mid-afternoon the whole camp was in shade of the peak above, and the temperature quickly dropped. I hadn’t been planning to shower, but I had to gather more firewood, and that got me all sweaty again.
It felt like that windy, cold Thursday night on the Plateau had been my test, my trial, and this calm day had been my reward.
The meat I’d bought in Flagstaff last Tuesday had been sitting in my cooler for four days and nights, so I planned to grill it all tonight and keep the surplus for the following nights. I still wasn’t sure how long I could or would stay.
It took a while for the meat to cook – previous campers (maybe even myself) had set the rocks in the fireplace a little too high, and I had to remove some to get my new grill closer to the coals.
As the moon, Jupiter, the stars and Milky Way came out, I was reminded of my lifelong history with the night sky. The reflector telescope I had as a small child, the refractor I got a few years later. That led me to all the science stuff I had growing up, mostly from my dad: the telescopes, a microscope and collection of mounted slides, the Visible Man and Woman models, rocket models.
Life has led me away from science, and all that’s left is the images, the memories they evoke, seeing these things like the night sky as my life draws toward its close, like old friends.
My Dad wanted to do what I’m doing now – he was on that path. One of the inevitable tragedies of my selfish life is that I can’t pass on that desire, that momentum to the next generation.
Part of me wants to believe that only the time I spend here in the desert is real – but that’s not completely true – it’s only a fantasy I’ve believed in deeply.
Moving around camp, I began using my new headlamp out here for the first time – an innovation I finally picked up from other desert friends. At home, it allows me to hike longer, because I can return in the dark. Here, I was figuring out how and when to use it, versus my trusty oil lantern. The problem was I kept forgetting I had the headlamp on!
When the firewood ran out, I went to bed, the screen keeping me safe from buzzing mosquitos, and I saw another falling star before dropping off to sleep.
