A Rocky Path

by Bea Dark

Sometimes you need to get out, take a step back and look at everything from a different perspective.  Luckily I’d had a place to go in mind for some time.  The best places to go are places that you have to find and the finding provides  perspective and achievement in itself. 

I love looking because the finding is an accomplishment; it’s the same with learning, you set your goal and you strive to reach it even when you don’t know exactly where your path may take you.  Sometimes the finding of the end is a let down: Where do I go from here? I got here now what do I do? Do I explore or just hang out and enjoy what I found? Do I make a new goal to see what is up ahead, just a bit further, and a bit further from that?

So with my goal in mind and armed with a guzzler map, my camera (you never know what you may want to take a picture of), a sturdy walking stick (for fending of wild beasts), and  a general knowledge of the area, I set out.  The map had a spring marked as not far from the dirt road and only a little ways up the mountain, though not visible from the road.  This was my goal.

Boy can I read a map!! Not to brag or anything.  On my map, the spring was marked by the summit of the pass, and as I drove up, I could see the 4WD track leading off just where the map showed.  The track went back a short distance; down a steep wash – up the other side – sharp turn to the left as it went down again; and then almost straight up towards the sky! There the track ended It was time to get out and start looking. 

I stood on the arm of the mountain looking at a ravine; water definitely ran there part of the year.  Looking down the mountain side there wasn’t much to see, but looking back up the mountain into the ravine, there were low growing conifers and lots of green.  It seemed that would be the place to start looking for the spring.

Horse droppings! A couple of days old and not even twenty feet from the jeep. A well-worn trail was in evidence.  Across the side of the mountain it went; past a pine tree; down into the ravine; climbed up the other side; leading back and up.  These horses knew where they were going, and I did too.  The further back I went, the more I began to see:  dragonflies – big red ones and little blue ones; large black wasps; rabbit droppings; mouse droppings; coyote droppings. This was definitely a high traffic area. 

The variety of terrain was awesome to traverse.  Over bare rock and up the lip of the mountain, not a stroll in the park. To follow a trail like this horseback, you would have to trust your horse absolutely, she would have to trust you.  Give her her head; let her pick her way through; be a passenger, don’t try to lead!  How did the horses know they could get through here? Weren’t they afraid they would slip? But the water is here. They know it. And they will go over or around any obstacle in their way to get to it.

There it was – a clear pool of water just underneath the cliff face surrounded by all that green.  Almost it could be called a shallow cave.  The water could be heard – drip, drip, drip – out of the rock, and into the pool.  Bees are all over the rock and around the water; dragonflies swoop and dart; life that congregates where there is water in the desert.  You could see where the horses probably stand to drink; one or two at a time, no room for more.  Coyote and bobcat come here too, same as the rabbit and ground squirrel; all drawn by the water surfacing in the desert.  

Above the spring, I stop to rest before turning back.  I reached my goal and climbed just past to see if I could go farther.  Should I stop and be satisfied with where I am now? Or do I keep climbing from this point, and see what else I can find, or learn.  The trail keeps going, and it gets rougher up ahead.  Am I going to keep following it? Or turn back satisfied with what I have accomplished?

Of course I had to turn back; it was getting late and my water was in the car three-quarters of a mile away. But I want to return and keep climbing.  The trail doesn’t end at the spring. It starts there.

• September 8, 2011
• Desert, Hiking, Outdoors
• 1 Comment