I started my hike cold and uninspired. Isn’t the desert supposed to be hot in May? Am I crazy to have assumed it wouldn’t snow while I was here? Even under my layers of clothes my delicate southern thermostat did a downward plunge. I hiked up the road from my bunkhouse towards the mountains. There was rumoured to be quite a nice hike up this way: past the last house on the right and around the cemetary. It took you up near the top of the mesa (spanish for ‘table’ but in this context meaning big stone mountain). No one else staying on the grounds with me had been up this way. We’d all been told about Amber, a young woman my age who’d nearly died on this trail last year…almost to the day. The story had put out ghosts in the air and the mesa appeared menacing looming over us with great heights.
My mind had become clogged—writer’s block—like too much beauty had been witnessed. All that I could possibly put into words about this land had become bottlenecked. I wasn’t used to this. I was used to the prose falling out of my head like water out of a bucket. The amount of inspiring things I see while traveling is usually so boundless. So on this trip I’ve become frustrated because I am finding zilch to write about (despite being exposed to views that have inspired people like Theodore Roosevelt and Frederick S. Dellenbaugh). Factor in too that all my plans for hiking for the day were postponed due to snow and ice. After a few hours of Count the Dots on the Cabin Ceiling and after the rain finally let up, I went for a walk. I put on every clothing item I brought, laced up my boots, pulled my beanie far down over my ears and went…aaaand immediately came back inside. Damn, it was cold.
When I managed to actually leave my bunk and build momentum, my brain clog instantly grew smaller. The sky was marbled with contrasting colors; the dark snow clouds against the sunlight that desparately wanted to peak through. They hung low around the peaks of the mesas heavy with snow. I trudged up the steep dirt road until it gave way to the mountain. This was as far as I had planned to go until I saw a small trail that had been etched in the mountain’s side by those before me. I thought to myself I’ll only follow it for a bit. It wound itself into tight narrow switchbacks that were loose from the recent rain. Every few steps or so there would be shards of bright orange pottery, we call them ‘birds’ in the south. Near each of the exploded remnants of the clay birds were the plastic intestines of a shot gun shell. Great, target practice. I looked around trying to ensure I was alone. I continued up the trail, the whole time I wondered what Amber could have seen. What would have made her climb to the top? She started the hike near the same time I did, only slightly later. She would have known she only had an hour or two of light left. Perhaps she underestimated the darkness of a desert night. Even I had, I spent one evening out on a nearby reservation to see the night sky. After I turned off the headlights and let my pupils adjust it was so dark it was disorienting. In fact, I was too afraid to get out of the car convinced I would fall even though I knew I was on flat ground. Before I turned off the car, I had made sure nothing was around me that could harm me while I stumbled around under the stars. But the darkness was so thick it frightened me and distorted what I knew to be true. It pressed itself up against me and made itself the only thing I could see.
Each switchback I’d tell myself that was far enough but something pushed me farther up the mesa. It’s like something called to me. At each point I would say stop but then I’d continue up even farther. I went near to the top about 600ft up the mountain, where the trail ends and you have to climb the remainding 200 ft of shear cliff face. The call stopped and I knew this was high enough. Amber continued up, maybe her call was louder, higher. But it got darker and colder and she fell 100ft. She then spent 28 hours stranded in the cold desert weather with several serious injuries. Fortunately, she was rescued and survived, read more about her experience click here.
The wind had a sharper voice up at this height. It whispered to me and I didn’t feel alone. It was peaceful to just sit and see the road from this view and feel like I had the world at my finger tips. From here my brain was clog free. I wanted to stay in that oasis of clarity forever but the snow clouds were getting closer and it would be dark soon. I knew that I needed to make the climb down while the light was still peaking through. I climbed back down the steep bit. It was so much harder to get down than to go up which is also how Amber had described it. I slid with the small stones and often had to squat down to go from level to level. When the land finally evened out I sat down again to grasp the clarity once more. The wind suddenly howeled from atop the mesa as it began to rain and it struck me. The mesa had pulled me up whispering her calling. She brought me to her level so she could see through me. And then she let me stay and rest and be one for a while. Her lure wasn’t malicious or menacing from here, it was beautiful.
But now it was time to go. The snow clouds had caught up with me and the air was ice cold. It howled around me and I knew I couldn’t stay. I stood and quickly tried to memorize the colors of the desert as if later my mind’s eye could ever recreate such a palette.
I trekked back down to the dirt road. The rain was at my back now pushing me away from the trail. I turned to look back at the mesa and a gust of wind met my shoulder spinning me forward. Go home, she seemed to say. She was protecting me, the desert climate was relentless and I was already too far from home. She knew the exact time I needed to get back to my cabin, for the minute the door was behind me the desert unleashed the freezing sleet. The ghosts of the mesa vanished, she protected me as she had protected Amber after her fall. I sat by the heater inside, damp but wide open. The mesa called me to visit her rocky abdomen and then she brought me eye to eye and unleashed me.
The Way U Carry It 