West Desert Journal

Tomorrow morning I leave to go back to Northern Arizona. I have to  say hello to Billy the Kid, our live-in road runner who isn’t afraid of people. We feed him live mice which he whips around and swallows. It’s back to visiting the Grand Canyon every day and getting paid for it. The nights out there are quite rare. Even in rural Utah, the stars don’t stick out as boldly as they do there. At night we have frogs croaking, desert pack rats moving about, and so many different insects making noise besides crickets. It almost feels like your stuck in a trance after the sun goes down. I can’t help but wander what I’ve been missing, even growing up in Southern Utah. The Strip is so different. It’s the 80 mile stretch that really changes the aura. Right before I go to bed in the bunk house, I pause to view the busy stars while listening to desert toads and hearing the wind shifting cottonwood branches.

The landscape around the ranch is covered with evidence of previous cultures and people who called this home. It’s so bone dry, you can only speculate as to how they survived such ruggedness and harshness. It’s cooling off a little; they say it isn’t as hot as it was the week before I came. I sure do love educating the folks that fly in from Vegas, they are so overwhelmed by the beauty that the ranch offers, especially in such close proximity to the Grand Canyon.

Billy the kid is the most interesting bird. He hangs out with us, literally. It’s hard to believe he’s even wild. He acts like he was raised and nurtured by humans. I may have to write some more in the journal tonight. Supper is calling…

Death glistens in
the desert like a mirage,
spectors in the diffused shade.
The sun adds a strange glow to the heat.
It has pulled them out into the open.
They spend dangerous amounts of time
away from their towns in the crevices.
The ghosted wind moves the Creosote
and I hear whisperings in the silence.
They hunt and gather in smeltering black seas.
Dust devils sweep by in dreams.

The stars stand bold against trees. The fire is dancing. The smoke drifts in my direction and soaks into my skin. This is a quiet moment in the Great Basin; where the little people roam the night. These individuals are knee tall. They move through the juniper mountains like ants. I can hear their whisperings, as they work in busy networks… preparing for what may come this way, someday… The thunder storms of summer claim these valleys and the thunderheads are in control. Bolts of lightning draw near, and slam the earth. At night the sky seems to clear, but the storms are like power houses, and linger late into the night.

You have to be careful of the little people. They are there. As I search up winding canyons, what surprises may be waiting? This is the middle of nowhere, which is a place for the remote few of us that desire such isolation. The wasteland may not seem like much to a lot of people, but they are afraid of it, and they hide in great cities. But when I visit their cities, I feel really lonely. When I journey out into the wild, it feels like I’m going home every time.

Going down dirt roads, my car eats the gravel. The dust comes in through the windows. I breathe the dirt road into my lungs, and the dust collects in the jungle of my scalp. Sage Brush, tall as trees, grows along the road and I love the smell of sage after a fresh cloud burst. Sometimes, when I’m driving across basin valleys late at night, I imagine those little people roaming around in the eternal hills. I cannot stop thinking about the mysteries of the rolling, Juniper-covered hills.

In my desert camp, I watch the fading sunset burn the low rising ridges and basin hills. Crowded Junipers greet the setting sun. Clouds ignite in orange, pink, red, and maroon, then purple. All colors silently fade without a noise, as the crickets serenade. Coyotes howl in the distance; thunder sounds somewhere far, far away. The stars come out like bold specks against the dark earth. It is not an evil dark, but a pure black darkness that haunts my imagination. It has provided many sleepless dreams.

My new life began on the Arizona Strip about a week and a half ago. I’m working 8-9 miles from the inner gorge of the Grand Canyon at Bar10 ranch. The Arizona Strip is one of the most isolated places in the United States, and it has been called the Tibet of North America, because it is one of the most uninhabited places by human population. The problem lays in the fact there is no water on the strip except for a few springs here and there. The Heatons own this ranch, which spans about 250,000 acres large. They have a spring that they pipe water to the ranch from, which is about six miles away. They have about 1,000 head of mother cows that come to the Bar10 in the winter, but during the summer they are at higher elevations. Where I work is about 4,000 above elevation. My job entails being a trail guide. Bar10 ranch has an airstrip that brings tourists in from Las Vegas to see the Grand Canyon. The Heatons also saw the opportunity to pick up river runners who didn’t wish to journey the whole length of the Colorado (through the Grand Canyon) and on to Lake Meade. We pick them up by helicopter. In the old days, those that wanted to visit the Bar10 had to pack everything out by mule. I’m working as a basic guide giving ATV and Ranger Tours, plus educating guests about the Arizona Strip.

So it is a great way to settle down for a while. I’m 80 miles from the nearest telephone pole or oiled road. They have satellite internet out here, so I will be able to post stuff when the chance arises. I work from dawn til dusk… There’s no personal time it seems. When we aren’t giving tours, fixing meals, or entertaining guests, we’re digging ditches, holes, mending fences, etc. It’s a great job though. I live out here five days a week, and spend weekends back in Southern Utah. There’s just so much going on here, that I probably won’t get around to mentioning many details. It’s incredible to see the Grand Canyon every day, and live in such close proximity. I figure by the time this job ends in April, I will have some good experience for something even better down the road.

I’m thinking of some type of job in Law Enforcement through an agency like the National Park Service, or the BLM. I’ll get into certain details later down the road as to why I am pondering this. One reason is, I would like to protect archeological and historical sites from those who would seek to exploit them, or destroy them. I’m tired of seeing these sites and sacred places being jeopardized on a daily basis. I’m not one that wants to dictate things, but I want in some way to protect these areas just because they are so precious, priceless, sacred to so many indigenous and non-indigenous folks, and because they are simply irreplaceable.

So I have great hope for what my future holds…

That subliminal quiet is stirred only by ancient winds. The rocks are timeless, squared away to outlast the human element. Passing through Juniper I observe enormous balloon clouds hovering over the tips of the mountains. Looking out across the valley below, I see the rust stained foothills where one of Southwestern Utah’s largest petroglyph sites lay, a place known as the Parowan Gap. Some say the ageless writing spans 12,000 years ago in age. I’ve heard that the Paiutes say that they were written by the Creator. Others say they were inscribed by tribes coming from the far east on their trade routes. The gap is a strange and respected place that I often find immense silence.

Moving up the steep grade of the hill into a flat opening in the Junipers, I see arrowhead chippings scattered everywhere. I’ve learned to leave the arrowheads and chippings alone, not because it is against federal law to gather them, but out of a respect I have for certain cultures around here. There’s these old fire pits, dozens of them. In some places fire pit is built on top of fire pit in the sediment, sometimes overlapping. There they are, flintknapping, cooking, grinding corn, visiting, telling jokes, telling stories around the campfire for centuries.

The arrival of the Mormons came not too long ago, about 150 years ago they entered the Parowan valley to stay. The Spanish came 200-400 years ago. The Old Spanish Trail runs through the Parowan Valley, up passed Summit, Utah. The history of these settlers, intruders, invaders is so recent in the history of the Southwest. Their presence is barely a glitch on the radar screen of America’s timespan. What happened in this valley 2,000 years ago, when folks were gathering seeds and killing the cottontails just before the winter snows? Some things will have been forgotten in these so-called modern times, when human beings are so busy they forget to listen to that ancient wind, and they become encased in a workaholic lifestyle in a tall skyscraper in Chicago or New York. Bring a New Yorker out to Southern Utah and the isolation would scare the hell out of them. Those tough street-smart gangsters from L.A. would be a cinch to track and intimidate if they were wandering through these canyons.

This land is beautiful. So much of it’s history remains untold, hidden, and the truth lays out there in the isolation and desolation. The gnarly branch of an old Bristlecone can tell many stories. If I walk passed one of these 3,000 year old trees, chances are, many humans crossed the same path to greet the tree, long before Columbus was born. This history resonates up from soil underneath all the temperary structures, buildings, roads, and cities built by this civilization, America. The truth tells the history, not the myths of America’s founding fathers, or the temporary monuments erected to honor certain persons or individuals.

I was born in Utah. I don’t want to be so naïve and ignorant of the landscape and its history. For example, Mount Rushmore is sacred to Americans, because it honors certain presidents that added providence to America’s adolescence. But I leaned that the entire area around Mount Rushmore is very significant and sacred to the Lakota people, and the sculpturing is looked upon by some to be a desecration of a holy site. All of the Black Hills are sacred to the Lokota.

What history is to be learned about Southern Utah’s past? How many undocumented events took place where I live? Before the local Wal-mart was constructed in Cedar City, I remember all the arrowheads, and bits of pottery that were laying around where that superstore now stands! Does anyone care about what happened there in that area? What about all the endangered Petroglpyphs near this big-box superstore and inside the city limits of Cedar City? As I hike the ageless hills and wander spacious valleys of the Great Basin, it really sparks an interest in me to know the truth, and to seek it. I can only ponder most of the time when I stumble across the ruins of Puebloan ancestors, the rock writings, or when climbing the storied canyons of the Colorado Plateau, deep into the beauty of Mother Earth. I realize just how fortunate I am for the opportunity to explore this place; to feel the vastness of the solitude and isolation. This is wilderness in the truest sense, full of human history, habitation, and legend. The stark blue sky and the stony vegetated earth tell the stories of what happened long ago.

This is what peace is for me. I hope the desire to seek answers and truth never fades.

Galactic blue clouds
Fill the turquoise firmament
Deep from within the belly of Mother Earth
The stories unfold.
The winds are singing -
moving the rain and thunder.
The land is so beautiful.
May it always remain beautiful.
A resistant land it is.