Time in the Desert

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Food for the Soul

Is planning an adventure an oxymoron? I thinks so, if you believe that the adventure begins when the trouble starts: a philosophical conversation for another time perhaps. I just want to share all the little desert moments on a simple weekend trip that, while perhaps not epic, are still food for the soul.

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People equate the motorcycle with freedom. I have no idea what they mean. For me, its active verse passive. It doesn’t seem like freedom, it seems like focus. If I have the choice, I’d rather play basketball than watch; I’d rather ride a motorcycle than drive in an air-conditioned car. But I don’t equate basketball with freedom; I equate it with challenge and absorption. If I am lucky, I will look back on a play or two that actually worked out with some satisfaction. But regardless, no matter what I was doing at work or going on in my life, the basketball hour completely occupies my attention.

Ride Out

On this trip, the simple moments start with a motorcycle ride out. The ride isn’t particularly adventurous with heavy fall traffic for day trips to Julian. I spent all day before preparing the bike. I hadn’t been on it it a couple of months. I replaced the battery myself: another active verse passive moment. I pay careful attention to how it performs around each bend. Is it really healthy now? Did I tighten every bolt?

Things get interesting when we reach the jeep trail. Riding on sand takes riding to a whole ‘nother level of concentration and apprehension (fear is too strong a word). Concentration follows apprehension, so do focus, relief, and exhilaration.

We stop at a geological feature called the anticline. The anticline results from opposing forces that bend the rock into the shape of an arch. I stop to admire it and I have Cankut take a picture of me from a distance. I want a minimalist photo of me against an impressive physical feature, a contrast in physical size and physical time. In the meantime, geologic appreciation is lost on Chris; geologic navigation is not. He scales a steep chimney working his way up twenty or so feet, enough to cause serious damage should he fall. I don’t think the possibility ever crosses his mind.

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Patio Party

Party, feast, whatever do you mean? We foraged for seeds, skinned the needles off of cactus pads, and fried rattlesnakes that ventured too close to our camp site.

Ah, who am I kidding? Hetal, Chris, myself. Yes, of course there was a party and a feast. The first order of business is to fetch the cooler out of Hugo’s virgin pickup and crack open a beer. Chris doesn’t wait for me to dig out an opener, he cracks open the beers with a rock, the bumper of his car, the edge of a chair, anything. I know if I try, I would end up with a handful of shattered glass.

After the first order of business is taken care of, we move on to the second order of business: more beer. At least we have the coolers up on our little mesa turned patio. Hetal has set up her bar on top of one of the coolers. She whips up a batch of margaritas strong enough to peel the paint off a new car. I think she forgot an ingredient. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Oh yeah, anything other than tequila. Just kidding, there really is a hint of margarita mix in there.

The center piece of our patio is a new black powder coated steel fire pit. You can camp anywhere you want in the Anza-Borrego desert, but fires have to be in a pit. So I bought a fire pit from Home Depot in the morning. Cancut and I assembled it while waiting for the others to arrive at my house. In the style of men, we assemble without reading the directions. It wouldn’t be the first time I put something together and find out that one piece had to be put on about fifteen steps ago. We get away with it this time without much rework.

With the fire pit in place, the next order of business is chairs. The chair is an essential piece of camp equipment. I assemble my new REI four pound chair. At four pounds, I can take this chair backpacking, motorcycle camping or car camping. Once assembled, Chris mocks its fragility. He sits in it like he is walking on a tightrope from one rim of the Grand Canyon to another. Joel has gone the other way. He has a twenty pound Walmart cot that he paid twenty bucks for. It doubles as his bed. Max (Chris’s son) lays on a thick inflatable mattress doing what teenagers do best: nothing. Everyone else sports your typical soccer mom chair.

Time to get the fire started. I finally use some of the firewood from trees I had cut down three years ago when I first moved into my new house. Back at the house, I brought out a stone-age axe from my garage that I bought at a garage sale for a couple of dollars. After watching Cankut and Chris take a swing, I give axe-swinging lessons. There is a technique to it. But it turns out that axes aren’t that great for splitting logs because the blade gets stuck in the wood. With the axe blade seemingly permanently wedged deep in a log, I bring out a heavy hammer turning the axe blade into a wedge. This technique works perfectly. We quickly split the big logs into a size suitable for the pit.

All my responsibilities are satisfied. I’ve provided beer, fire pit, and fire. I kick back in my chair. I love my chair, mock me all you want. Chris’s friend Mike finally arrives. Just in time, because Mike is responsible for dinner. Hetal and Mike put together a feast. He has brought some tins of bread, fruit, and yogurt. For me, this is fine dining. I don’t eat this good at home.

Dinner fades into the evening. Hetal tends bar and makes sure that everyone is fed. We talk about camping, the stars, work, and a myriad other random topics. Joel vaps. Max hangs out on his air mattress. If I had a regret, I wish I had my guitar, but otherwise a very satisfying evening of drinking, eating, talking, watching the fire, checking out the stars, and catching glimpses of the occasional meteor.

Sans Roof

As cool as the little mesa is that we chose to camp on, it still is primitive camping. No bathrooms, no water, no one to go running to if things go bad. Aside from a couple of kangaroo rats and scorpions, I don’t think there is any real danger. We sleep under the stars foregoing the comforts of mattress or even tent. Nevertheless, sleeping under the stars, you can’t lie to yourself about the illusion of protection. You are part of the outdoors, not apart from it.

The heat of the desert fades into the clear night with no clouds to hold in any of heat. I feel the chill in the air even though I sleep next to our still glowing fire pit. I pull my neck gaiter up over my ears, put on my winter hat and tuck the sleeping bag under my back to keep the slight breeze off of it. I should zip it up and sleep in it instead of using it like a blanket over my self-inflating sleeping pad. I sleep in my motorcycle jeans and long underwear and a t-shirt; which seems warm enough for the moment.

I wake up, re-position myself. The ground slopes down away from the fire pit. I keep sliding off the edge of the pad. I try to level off the pad by sticking the top part of my motorcycle boots under the side of the pad that is lower, so I don’t roll off it and onto the silty dirt. I look up at the night sky, brilliant in the seclusion of the light free desert, but the view is limited by the canyon walls of Split Mountain.

I mark the time by watching the stars transiting this natural outdoor skylight. The half moon drops behind the ridge to the west. I can tell when I have a good stretch of sleep or not. Orion comes up to the east. I wake up a couple of times and it still hasn’t cleared the canyon wall. Probably only a couple of twenty minute stretch of sleep.

A meteor streaks brightly overhead. It’s getting a little colder. I put on a pullover shirt. And I have to go to the bathroom, I’m too old and had too many beers to wait for the morning. This is primitive camping. There are no facilities. I climb down our little mesa and find a convenient spot, hopefully making some desert plant very happy.

I wake up again. The fire is completely dead. I see the big dipper. I know I dozed for at least a couple of hours. Another stretch of sleep, I wake up and the stars are gone. It won’t get any cooler but I dig deeper into the sleeping bag anyway for a little more sleep before the camp site stirs to life.

I like to think that John Muir would be proud. At least for this night, I’m not one of those city slickers that always need a roof over their head.

Morning Hike

We start off the morning with a little exploration. Beyond our camp site, lies a wash. The walls of the wash converge to a point. We have to climb over a ten foot vertical incline if we are to continue up the wash. Baseball size rocks embedded in the sandstone matrix easily give way to the weight of a person. Joel tries first, the smallest of us. A couple of rocks loosen and yield under the pressure of his probing foot. He abandons the attempt. Hugo tries. He stalls near the top but manages to belly crawl his way over the lip. Success.dsc_0160_hugo Chris goes and makes it look easy, without any hesitations. I watch his path and handholds and follow suit. Cankut and Joel soon make their way up the wall.

The trail proceeds down a slot canyon. Chris goes left up the steepest wall with Hugo. The tallest peaks are to the left. They head on to their own adventure. I go right finding a path up the right wall. The scree makes the path challenging but not impassable. I think I chose wisely. I hike up to the top of a peak, not quite as high as the other side where Chris and Hugo explore, now tiny specs on the distant slope. The summit offers a great view of the badlands. I’m on the side that leads to wind caves and the elephant knees. The wind caves look like an abandoned adobe village. The elephant knees, somewhat imaginatively named, grace a mesa in the distance. The badlands contain the driest patches of the desert, ironically formed by water flows. Badlands define ruggedness; the few plants that live there, define minimalism. Every plant stands by itself, a testament to the tenacity of life. I want to take a picture of each and every one of them.

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Sand in My Face

I hate riding in the sand, worse, I’m not that good at it and I’m out of practice. Chris and I have driven a couple miles down Split Mountain jeep trail and the sand is getting worse. The best place to ride is in the tracks. The edges have rocks and walls and the center has soft powdery sand. The trick is to keep up your speed so the bike will pull through the sand, but that is easier said than done.

Standing up on my clips, I come to a sharp turn in the trail as the wall forces the trail to turn right. I can see that it is sandy. I shift back down to first gear to make the turn. The sand feels squishy under my tires and I can feel a little wobble. I give the bike some throttle. I make the turn but I’ve given it a little too much gas. I head into the deep sand in the center of the two tracks. I try to give it some more throttle to pull out but I can feel the front tire buckling under me. I know I am screwed.

The bike drops on its right side throwing me forward over the right side. Before I can blink an eyelid, the bike is down and I’m in the sand. The weight of the bike catches my right calf as I try to clear it. For I a second I think leg will be pinned but I’m able to pull it out. Fortunately, at slow speed and in soft sand, the only thing that gets hurt is my pride. And my mirror. And some plastic that I can’t quite identify.

Chris helps me right the bike. It sputters a little bit but starts up. The only way out is to ride. I get the bike back in the tire track, drive off, stand up, and pop the bike back into second gear. The bully desert has kicked some sand in my face. I’m not nearly so confident as I was a few minutes ago.

Simple Moments

The little desert moments separate this weekend from others. In ten or twenty years, I won’t remember most weekends. I remember the trip I took with Dave twenty-five years ago with Dave when he literally cried tears of disbelief when I made him drive two hours and hike two miles to see an elephant tree. To him it was nothing more than an bush; to me, it was an exotic desert plant full of beauty and mystery. And the hike Dave and I took to the Elephant knees, which I identify immediately when I see them again, like a long lost sibling. Or the pickup truck ride I took with Steve (think Theresa) through the squeeze and the big dropoff. I will remember this weekend. What I did last weekend? Hell, I’ve already forgotten.

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