Even the sky seemed to want to scratch out something that day. The first Wednesday of November an early morning drive-by of news headlines was harsher than a peacock’s cry, screaming “we are in rats’ alley. Where the dead men lost their bones.”**
I threw my tent and sleeping bag into Red Pony and headed for the hills. Sierra Diablo. The Devil’s Mountains. The Black Range. Into a snowstorm. I needed to sleep on the ground. Recalibrate my breathing to the earth’s rhythms.
As Red Pony and I climbed Emory Pass, there was just a light dusting of snow on old burn scars, the first of the season. In the clouds and cold wind was the promise of more snow on the way.
Peacocks welcomed me at Faywood Hotsprings campground, supervising all aspects of setting up camp.
Because of this free roaming flock of peacocks, I had no qualms about snuggling my 20 year old REI dome tent up against the vegetation surrounding the sheltered and secluded campsite which I had chosen. India’s national birds were protection enough, serving to keep rattlesnakes and scorpions at bay.
Of course the major attraction of Faywood, for me, is not that I can wake up and find myself in India (wouldn’t that be wonderful, but didn’t I already do that?) but the hotsprings pools.
With a snow storm brewing, I pulled the tent fly sheet as taut as possible, anchored it with rocks (there’s not a lot of holding power for stakes in desert sand) then wasted no time getting into the hottest water.
I’ve been to Faywood Hotsprings often during this decade of enchantment so have favorite pools. Midweek it can sometimes be quiet and peaceful. I lucked out. My only companions that first afternoon were the familiar poolside family, mute, gently rusting witnesses to the passing parade.
By the time the first drops of rain and floating snow flakes appeared I was warm to the core, deeply relaxed and happy to retreat with a book to my tent. A lullaby of rain falling on tent and surrounding forest soon lulled me to sleep. In breaks between squalls and sleeps, I returned several times to the hot water during the night.
The hotsprings weren’t my only reason for choosing this campsite. It offered a good base camp for some autumn hiking in the Gila National Forest. On day one of this hiking venture, though the night’s storm had passed and all was brilliant blue skies and golden sunlight, I got a slightly late start. In attempting to recharge my iPad (which I use to read books), I somehow managed to completely drain the Red Pony battery. Apple does not play well with Ford. Lesson learned. That AAA membership proved worth the annual fees.
After that small delay, I found my way, without getting lost once, to the Catwalk Recreation area, a US Forest Service site, where I wandered up Whitewater Canyon, following the Catwalk Trail.
The first mile or so of the trail has been made ADA accessible and is an easy stroll through a wondrous geography of towering canyon walls, rocky pools, little waterfalls and sometimes on a very well constructed metal catwalk which follows the original line of a water pipe to the gold mining operations here in the 1800s.
Again I lucked out. I was only the third vehicle in the trailhead parking lot. It felt like I had the whole canyon, picnic area and ruin of a gold mine all to myself.
The Catwalk Trail has long been on my to-do list.
Talk was, in leaf peeping circles, that it is especially good for autumn color the first week of November.
Maybe the commentators are right: it’s just not been a good year for autumn colours in New Mexico. On this day, it was a very lovely hike, but not because of autumn leaves specifically. The place has bucketsful of beauty any time of year, and doesn’t need to rely on an extra veneer of seasonal decor, pretty though that is.
I can imagine walking this cool and shady trail in the heat of summer, or during spring’s surge of rebirth.
Just the linear grey green of Sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri) scribbled against dusty rose pink canyon walls is enough to fill me up.
After that immersion in an enchanted canyon, and another night of hotsprings soaking, under brilliant stars this time, I was sufficiently grounded, earthed enough to come down off the mountain.
We might still be in rats’ alley but immersion in this beautiful earth’s wondrous wild places holds the key to resilience. For me.
Looking in the heart of light, the silence.**
Go play outside.
Recommended Reading:
** For post title, the rats’ alley and light quotation I have used words from a very long poem about trauma and collapse, both personal and global, The Wasteland by TS Eliot, published in 1922, in the aftermath of the First World War. This important poem has been referred to in recent times as a PTSD poem. I highly recommend reading it, but at over 420 lines I’m not reprinting it here. Incidentally the late great Robert Beverly Brooks is the only other person besides myself whom I know to have memorized the whole poem. I’ve forgotten some of it now, casualties as my brain releases superfluous stuff: preparation for the great emptiness.
The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times. Jane Goodall and Douglas Abram’s. 2021. By no means saccharine or influencer idiotic, this book takes the format of an extended interview and conversation between the two authors with Douglas Abram’s doing most of the questions, Jane Goodall the responses. I listened to the audio version so had the benefit of hearing Jane’s words and wisdom in her own nonagenarian voice.
Hope does not deny the evil, but is a response to it
‘As your days, so shall your strength be.’ When I’m lying awake the night before having to make one of those speeches, I say that to myself. It reassures me.”
“What does that mean to you, that text?”
“That when the trials of life come, you’ll be given the strength to cope with them, day by day. So often I’ve thought at the start of a dreaded day—having to defend my Ph.D. thesis, giving a talk to an intimidating audience, or even just going to the dentist!—‘Well, of course, I shall get through this because I have to. I will find the strength. And, anyway, by this time tomorrow it will be over.
What a beautiful gorge.