Backcountry, Part III

Snug in my sleeping bag, opening my eyes in that first moment of waking up, it’s not so much a thought as a feeling that I want to stay here. This place has a way of getting into me, of holding me in its arms, it’s a feeling of being loved.

But today, our third, is the day we leave. Kathleen and Tom are rustling, I roll over, do I have to?... I get out of my warm nest, pull on my clothes and boots, slither out of the tent and check in with the world. Parts of me, some I didn’t even know I have, hurt. The sun is shining on the very top of the west wall. It will be a while before it reaches us, but standing here, shivering in the cold greyness it’s good to know it’s on the way.

My sister once told me there are only three people she will hike with: her husband, her best friend and me. At the time this struck me as awfully exclusive, but in recent years I’ve come to appreciate her point of view. As we gather around the table rock, all a little grumbly, all, no big surprise, looking like we’ve spent a night sleeping on the ground, I can’t imagine doing this with people I don’t know. We crack a few small jokes and get to heating water. We’re in this together, standing in the chill, yearning the magic of hot coffee and tea.

We needn’t rush, but with leaving on our minds we set ourselves into motion. The hold of the place, the spell, is slowly disintegrating. After breakfast we start breaking camp and I return to the stream to wash my face. The squatting here, the icy water and the sounds are like yesterday, but it is early enough there is no sun. And so it is cold. I think about and savor the memory of the sun soaking into my back, the warmth and comfort, but what I feel is only a faint glimmer of the real thing. I pry myself away from the stream. Parting is such sweet sorrow.

I take down my tent, pulling stakes as it were, and fold the sheets of delicate fabric. Amid the faint clatter of activity I look over to where Kathleen and Tom are doing the same. Their tent is down, it seems now a great void. What was there in that space, the presence, is not. Something more profound than a tent is missing as slowly we are disappearing. Breaking camp. That word: breaking. In a small way, my heart is breaking. I get on with folding and rolling and stuffing my gear into my pack, and lug it over to where Kathleen and Tom are finishing up.

I ask if there’s any community item I can carry and Kathleen holds up the cook pot. I need some levity so take the pot which is made of titanium and weighing of a feather, but handle it as though it weighs a cement block and we all have a laugh. I stash it away, close my pack, hoist it up and put my back into it. The load is a few pounds less than when we walked in here and this is ok. The pack fits me perfectly, it actually feels good putting it on.

Time to go. I scan the surroundings one last time to be sure not the slightest little doo-dad is left behind. All that remains of our time here are some bent grasses and the chunk of obsidian on the table rock, and perhaps as the ancestral people did, we have left some part of our spirits. This makes me feel better, for our time here has been joyous and our spirits good.

Hiking, getting the blood moving, is a relief. The ancient, simple work of putting my body into the weight on my back feels good. Rewinding our hike, what was behind is now before, the morning is fresh and so is our perspective. Down canyon we stop and admire some beautifully curved vaulting in an escarpment of rock. As though formed by the careful swipe of a comb, the columns hang there in perfect order, still and quiet. None of us noticed this on the way in.

Rows of cirrus clouds march across the deep blue sky, “mare’s tails” they’re called. We’re up above the Rio Grande, I hear red wing blackbirds call and a strange plaintive hoot. Just one voice, not the honk of a goose or the quack of a duck and I never see the source. Just one odd hoot now and again, without answer, spreading out across the gorge. Coming to Kiva House we take a short break, which although welcome is dangerous for me. A body at rest tends to stay at rest, I immediately feel the same tugging of the place as earlier this morning. I sit in the shade and wonder, why can’t we just stay here? Instead, we decide to push for the mesa top between Lummis and Frijoles Canyons before we stop for lunch. And so we get moving, create momentum, there’s lead in my boots that’s slow to go away.

We walk the country, in and out of canyons, pick our way up and down rock escarpments, follow contours around hillsides. We become quiet, each in our own worlds sharing the pace. When we reach the mesa top Kathleen comments on this past section of the hike feeling like a long haul. For me, the haul is before us, even though without any big ascents it’s the long trek across the mesa. It’s about noon and calm, and suddenly hot. The sun is directly overhead and shade is hard to find. Finally we locate a large juniper on a slope providing a small cool nook, it’s lunchtime. Hungry and fatigued, it feels good to get out of the pack for a while. I eat my last hard-boiled egg and piece of cheese. I peck at the few remaining odd bits of trail mix.

With lunch in me, sitting in a shady spot with the long haul smack dab in front of me… again, can’t we just stay here? I mean after all… I don’t see Kathleen or Tom exactly jumping up and putting on their packs and chomping at the bit, so I guess I’m not alone. We hang for a few moments but inevitably begin to stir. So ok… putting on my pack, I recall a lesson from yoga: the mind gives out before the body. It will be the better part of four miles and four hundred feet elevation gain to the rim of Frijoles Canyon. We get moving, there are parts of me starting to hurt. Right now would be a good time to be four years old again, so I could get away with a few minutes of excessive pouting and whining. Instead I discipline and strengthen my mind to this walk ahead of me. We find a pace and move quietly.

We pause at the place where the big snake used to be and are relieved there is no snake, big or small, here today. We move on, we are in cruise mode, steps turn to miles.

Reaching the rim of Frijoles Canyon I am long-haul-whooped. I am having beer thoughts. Correction, make that cold beer thoughts. Standing on the rim for a moment, we are greeted by the sounds of some mindless machine laboring against a load, probably a backhoe, and a car horn tooting the two strangled little toots they give when someone is locking or unlocking the vehicle with the remote. Even when I’m fresh and perky and having a great day, those two strangled horn toots bug me. What ever happened to a simple click? Then a child cries, screams bloody murder over what? Not getting the eighteenth Tootsie Roll for the day? For a moment I consider turning around, and running, ok, hobbling, back up on the mesa, sitting myself down and staying there. This is what a few days in the back country does to me. That first exposure to the madding crowd is just so jarring.

I consider my options, which frankly are limited, as in no food or water. Like that wolf, the first one to edge close to the human, hesitate, quiver in its thought processes, the tidbit is snatched from the human’s fingers, the choice, the trade-off, the relinquishment of wildness to domesticity… the push the pull, millennia distill to the briefest instant as it all runs through my veins.

Ok, civilization has a few redeeming qualities. But only a few. Domestic hot water for instance, like, for the purpose of a hot shower. A hot shower? Ok, you got me, I am a domestic creature. Then there’s refrigeration. Sounds like a yin yang thing… hot shower / cold beer. How about a cold beer while standing in the hot shower? Ok, ok, now you really got me. I squint my eyes, steel myself for the assaults of civilization and step off the rim and into the canyon. I snatch the tidbit, and it’s a steep and quick descent from there. Turning the last bend, Kathleen and Tom stand on either side of the trail at the trailhead. They raise their hiking poles creating an arch for me to walk under. These guys are true-blues. We give each other high fives.

On the drive back to Santa Fe we get stuck in a traffic jam. It takes us and everyone else an hour to cover a quarter-mile. “Cold beer hot shower, cold beer hot shower,” becomes my mantra. And all the while images of Capulin Canyon float in my mind, simply and quietly being the exquisite place it is.

Gordon Bunker