As I walk farther up Woodenshoe Canyon its walls grow closer together and more sinuous. The floor of the canyon is mostly sand, and the trail I’m following climbs up the canyon floor’s sandy hills and down the other side, and crosses the dry, gravel-bottomed streambed repeatedly. After three hours carrying my heavy backpack up and down the sandy hills my calves and quadriceps burn from the effort.
I have entered a very idyllic section of the canyon. The ponderosa pines grow in great abundance here and their lovely fragrance fills the air with a smell I associate with mountain meadows. Flowers have become more abundant too. Red, yellow, and violet honeysuckle. Barred cactus, with their beautiful pink flowers and yellow centres. Bird calls become more frequent. White butterflies create airy ribbons as they follow each other through the air in long chains.
It is a scene, an environment, a moment that would normally fill me with great delight, and it does, but the delight I feel is eclipsed by a growing worry that I’m about to run out of water. This morning I left a beautiful camp next to a spring and since then I have drunk all but my last litre and a half of water. This is not an emergency, merely an inconvenience. I have enough water to allow me to continue hiking another hour upcanyon. But if I haven’t found water by then, I’ll have to turn around and go back to last night’s camp. And its flowing spring.
I’m in Woodenshoe Canyon, a deep, red cliff canyon. Woodenshoe is a side canyon of Dark Canyon, a large canyon system in the southeast corner of Utah’s redrock country. It’s late May. Today I’m on the 11th day of a 40-day solo backpacking trip.
I pull out the folded map from my pocket and examine it for signs of springs or other water sources. It doesn’t list any springs but it shows a spot about a mile farther ahead marked “falls.” Hopefully, I’ll find water there.
A trail is a long isthmus bordered by beautiful sights, wonders and delights connecting one campsite to another. In this section of Dark Canyon that isthmus is surrounded by a sea of sand, amber cliff walls, yucca, prickly pear, sagebrush, millet grass and juniper trees. The junipers are scattered in small groups among the millet grass, as if grazing.
When I reach the spot marked “falls” on my map, I find a sequence of foot-high, waterworn stone “steps” where falls would be if there was a stream. But the ground is dry. Except for one small pothole of water that remains under the lip of the lowermost step. Upon finding it I just stand there, supremely disappointed at its quality. The water in the pothole is old, the final remnants of a previous snowmelt or rainstorm. The water is greenish, yellowish, brownish. Its ingredients appear to be horse urine, maple syrup and anti-freeze. A thin scum of pollen and dust has formed on top of it dense enough that wasps hovering over it can land on it and walk across it.
The pothole is two feet long and a foot wide. I find a stick and used it to probe the depths of the water hole. I take out my water bottle and drink the remainder of its contents. I then plunge the empty bottle into the water and fill it up. When I disturb the water, two ugly black bugs swim out from the bottom. It’s common to find black water beetles in potholes like this, but these are not water beetles. These strange creatures are about one and half inches long. The ends of their bodies look like the sharp end of a hornet. They are hellgrammites. This water will sting bad enough as it is if I have to drink it without accidentally drinking a hellgrammite. I hold up the water bottle to the light and examine it. It is clearer than I expected it to be. It’s the brownish-yellow colour of tea. “Annabelle,” I say to my trusty backpack, “I don’t know about this.”
But the little watering hole, nasty as it is, is still a major attraction in the area. The yellow butterflies I’ve been seeing all day, light upon the damp mud surrounding the pothole and cool their wings. Wasps, flies and several other insects do the same. Deer, coyote, squirrel, rabbit and bird tracks all lead to the small pothole.
The water looks gross, and I’m sure it will taste terrible too, especially after I add iodine to purify it. But, skanky as the water is, it’s a great relief to have found it. It is a great relief to have my bottles full again. This allows me to continue my journey farther into the part of the canyon I haven’t yet explored.
I do not add iodine to the water. I am hoping to find better water farther ahead and be able to pour this water out.
I get lucky!
After walking 20 more minutes, I do come upon better water. And there is plenty of it. It’s fresh, it’s clear, it’s flowing. At least it’s trying to. The source of the water, coming from somewhere farther up the canyon, is voluminous enough to have flowed down the streambed to this point, but here the dry, hot sand and gravel drink it up.
Upon finding the fresh, clear water my remaining water worries evaporate as easily as the water on the sand.
I am greatly intrigued by this thin desert stream being swallowed by the hot desert sand. What a curious sight. The canyon floor is perhaps 60 feet across and the stream bottom is 30 or 40 feet wide, comprised of gravel, sand, polished stones. The leading tip of the stream is only a quarter inch deep, the width of a person’s tongue. I spend several minutes watching the tip of the stream’s tongue lick forward, lick forward, lick forward and soak into the sand. I watch this for several minutes then continue on my way.
Since leaving camp, I’ve hiked five hours, travelled eight miles. I am tired. I am hot. I have no desire to hike much longer in the day’s increasing heat. It’s shortly past noon. I am ready to find a shady place and make camp.
I am walking up Woodenshoe Canyon – in the same direction from which the water is flowing – and as I walk, I watch the little stream slowly grow wider, slowly grow deeper. I come upon a small pool of water – no larger than a frying pan – where two watersnakes rest in the warm water with only their heads raised above it. They watch me as I approach them and turn their heads following me as I walk by, like twin periscopes.
A mile farther up the trail I come to a place where the juniper and ponderosa trees grow in sudden abundance. I’ve been seeing juniper trees my entire time in the Dark Canyon Wilderness area and I’ve been seeing ponderosa trees since entering Woodenshoe Canyon a few days ago, but here I have seemingly crossed some kind of crucial elevation line, for here I enter a profuse ponderosa forest growing in the bottom of the canyon.
This spot is shady, with ample firewood, and here the stream is voluminous enough to drink from. It’s the perfect place to make camp. I select a flat spot beneath a stand of junipers and ponderosas next to the stream. In the shade beneath the trees the air is easily ten degrees cooler.
I remove my backpack and spend a few minutes resting in the shade. After resting, I walk to the stream to fill one of my water bottles. I first pour out the gross water from the stagnant pothole and fill it with the fresh, cool, beautifully clear water. I drop in an iodine tablet to purify it.
I carry my rain poncho to the bases of the ponderosa trees and use my fingers to rake up dead pine needles from the desert floor and toss them onto my poncho. I carry four or five ponchos full of pine needles back to my camp, pile them up and form them into a thick mattress. I spread my poncho and sleeping bag across it, lie down on my sleeping bag and take a nap.
After napping, I sit up, take a long drink of water and spend an hour or so reading from The Portable Thoreau. After reading I put on my hiking boots and walk down Woodenshoe Canyon, in the direction I came from earlier in the day. I want to stretch my legs, get out some restlessness and shift my attention from 1840s Walden back to present-day Woodenshoe Canyon. I also want to return the water I took from the pothole earlier that day. When I reach the pothole, I unscrew the cap off the bottle and pour the tea-coloured water back into it. As foul as this water is to me, the residents of this part of the canyon still depend on it.
I turn and walk back to camp. As I walk, the late afternoon sun disappears behind the canyon’s western wall, casting the canyon in shadow. The canyon’s eastern wall still glows reddish-gold in the day’s final hour of light.
I take out my pocketknife, open a blade and shear off tufts of long, yellowed grass when I pass some. I also shear off the ends of sagebrush as I pass. I load one pocket of my cargo shorts with the dead grass and the other with sagebrush stems.
When I reach camp, I place the grass and sage in separate piles on a flat rock. I place another flat rock on top of them so they won’t be scattered if a gust of wind arrives. I gather several armloads of dead juniper branches from the canyon floor to use as firewood and create a pile of it next to the yellow grass and sage stems.
I open a packet of rice and pour it into my only cook pan. I pour some water over the rice and leave it to hydrate. I don’t cook it. I don’t heat it up. On previous backpacking trips I discovered the rice will hydrate perfectly fine if leave alone for an hour.
With the rice hydrating in a pan, I sit down cross-legged on my sleeping bag and prepare to meditate.
I watch the trail-weary muscles in my legs twitching like Medusa’s shower cap. After eleven days hiking and other desert exertions, my body is depleted of salts, minerals and electrolytes. I should have brought salt tablets. I meant to. They were on my list of things to bring, I just forgot to get them. After I meditate, I’ll have to gather some green ephedra and make tea. Green ephedra is a good source of electrolytes.
Okay. Focus. I breathe in. I breathe out. I close my eyes, and continue my breathwork. I have meditated every day of my journey through Dark Canyon and it has become one of the highlights of each day. It is calming, it is centring, it is grounding and, because I am sitting still, the area’s animals often pass in and out undisturbed by my presence. During today’s meditation, a group of pinyon jays, about 15 of them, fly down canyon from my left to my right on their beautiful powder blue wings. A lone elk, perhaps the same one I heard bugling mournfully yesterday, walks into view from my left. He’s about two years old. His still-budding antlers are covered in velvet. He stops and looks around, then walks to the edge of the stream that border the western edge of my camp, lowers his head and drinks. He is less than 40 feet away from me. After taking a long drink, he raises his head and looks around again. He still doesn’t notice me. He takes another drink then walks slowly away, deeper into Woodenshoe Canyon. Wow! That was amazing! Several pale yellow butterflies – the colour of an Asian pear – flutter past. I hear a tiny bird calling, “sip-sip, soop-soop” and from a different part of the desert forest its neighbour return the call. “Sip-sip, soop-soop.” And somewhere out there, a canyon wren calls her sweet diminuendo.
During the 45 minutes I meditate, I watch the sunlight climb up the canyon’s eastern cliff wall – like a garage door disappearing into the ceiling – until only a short, golden hem of it remains. After meditating, I put on my socks and hiking boots and go in search of some green ephedra for tonight’s tea.
Three years earlier, while attending a two-week desert survival school, I learned from one of the instructors that green ephedra contains electrolytes. It also contains, as its name suggests, ephedra, an ingredient commonly used in cold medicines. He told us that if we’re ever on an extended desert trip and start feeling worn down, start seeing our muscles twitch involuntarily, start getting muscle cramps, that drinking some Brigham Tea will help with that.
Green ephedra, more commonly known at Brigham Tea, is fairly abundant throughout southern Utah and I don’t have any trouble finding it. Within minutes of looking, I find several full, healthy bushes growing on a low sand hill behind my camp. I use the scissors of my Swiss Army Knife to clip off the ends of ephedra stems and put it into a plastic bag. With that done, I return to camp.
It’s now deep dusk. The sky a midnight blue river in the narrow rift of canyon sky above me. The stars become visible, like neighbourhood porch lights being turned on, one by one.
A previous backpacker has camped in this spot before and they left a fire ring. It’s been a while since the fire ring has been used. The outer rocks remain, but grass now grows in the ring’s interior. I prepare to make a campfire by pulling out the grass. I use my thick-bladed tanto knife to split the juniper branches into thin strips of kindling. When I have a small, neat stack I pick up a quid of pine needles. I hold the needles a few inches in the air and light it from beneath with my lighter. The dry needles leap into flame and I drop them into the fire ring, then lay strips of juniper kindling on top. I steadily add larger and larger kindling until the fire is blazing strong enough to add thick sticks.
I find my spoon and my pan of rice and sit on a log near the fire and eat my humble dinner. The rice is lukewarm but taste’s delicious on my empty stomach. My diet during my 40 days exploring Dark Canyon consists of one granola bar, two Clif bars and one packet of Lipton rice per day. No meal is enough to satisfy my hunger, nor my caloric requirements. I slowly chew and savour each bite as I watch the campfire flames. When I finish eating, I use my thumb to squeegee-clean any remnants of rice and sauce from the inside of the pan.
I throw more juniper branches on the fire, and by its light, I clip the stems of green ephedra into the pan until it’s half full. I use another juniper branch and use it to push the burning sticks in the campfire to one side of the firepit, and sweep a mound of coals together on the other side. I pour water into the pan of Brigham Tea and place it on the coals to steep.
I go back to the log beside the fire, but instead of sitting on it, this time I sit on the ground in front of it and lean back against it. I listen to the crickets chirping, the hoosh of soft wind blowing through the tops of the tall pine trees, and the pop and crackle of the campfire. The Ponderosas, having spent the day soaking up the rich sunshine, gave off a warm-wood, caramelly smell.
From its spot on the flat rock, I pick up some of the dried grass I cut earlier in the day and toss it on the fire. It flares up and fills the chilly air with a lovely fragrance. It’s a smell that takes me back to spring days in the small farm town where I grew up. Every spring, the town’s farmers burned off the dried grass that remained on their pastures from the summer before. The fields were blackened for a few days, but fresh, green grass quickly sprang up from beneath it.
I throw on larger sticks of juniper, then lean back against the log and watch it. Just watch it. And think. And as I watch I enter into a meditative space.
Fire is as fluid as any fluid, and its flames are beautiful to watch. The flames leap and transform. Like a plant, it springs forth from the mulch of its ancestors. The flames sniff the air with its myriad forked tongues. The flames look like antlers, like leaves. Tassels of corn. Petals. Blossoms. The shapes of things shed and regrown. Fire is a hungry creature. Its sparks are seeds, drifting on the wind looking for fertile ground; tindery spots where they can land and grow again.
Thought is often portrayed as flame. To look into a fire, to watch the supple antlers changing shape, to stare at the blue embers, is one of life’s most meditative experiences. Inspiration too is symbolized by fire, as is revelation. So is ambition, purification, hope, love, desire; all symbolized by fire.
And passion.
Fire has forever been the companion of the pilgrim. Whether it’s a humble people returning to a holy land or travelling to a new promised land they always carry their fire with them. Whether they’re seeking new hunting grounds, new opportunities, a better life. Some leave to escape poverty or oppression. Some go in search of peace, some go in search of riches. Some are just motivated by curiosity.
Whether they made it with flint and steel, bow and drill or merely struck a match or, like me, thumbed their lighter, pilgrims carry their fire with them.
Pilgrims of any sort travel light. They’ll bring some water and hope they’ll find more along the way. They’ll bring some food and hope they’ll find more along the way. Maps if they can get them. And they brought their fire. Fire was needed to cook the venison or soften the salted pork, warm the beans, soften the corn meal. Water for cleaning was heated over the fire. The fire was used to warm cold bodies, dry wet clothing. To the pilgrim with no blanket, the fire may be kept going all night.
There is, of course, a second fire the pilgrim brings with him. A fire burning within. It is this second flame that makes a man or woman a pilgrim. It is this fire that fuels them to their new destination. He need only add a little water with his fire to produce enough steam to drive him up the next hill, across the next plain, across the next ocean, across the next land bridge, across the next continent. This second fire illuminates their path. It is the pilgrim’s fire that drives them on.
Most of us are familiar with the modern definition of passion, meaning a strong desire or emotion. But fewer of us know that passion is derived from the Latin pati. Also stemming from pati is our modern word patience; meaning to suffer, to submit, to undergo, to bear calmly.
A pilgrim needs passion. A pilgrim needs patience. As I sit against the log and stare into the fire, I meditate on the subject of passion and patience and conclude that I can measure my level of passion by how much I am willing to suffer for it.
My father told me one day when we were out burning old grass off a pasture, “Fire is a good servant, but a poor master.” Meaning, if you can maintain control of the fire, you can make it do useful things for you, but keep an eye on it, don’t let it get away from you. As easily as it serves you, it can escape your control and destroy you or that which you find valuable.
There is yet another word that stems from the Latin pati: passive.
Desire and passivity seem at odds with each other. It seems strange to me that they’re derived from the same Latin word. Desire is to act with great emotion. Passivity is to let the actions of others, or the forces of the world, act on you. I need passion on this trip, yet, I definitely need some passivity too. I will learn nothing, gain nothing if I explore Dark Canyon for forty days inflicting my will upon it. I’m not here to teach anything to Dark Canyon, I’m here to let it teach me. For years I have regarded the desert, the mountains, the woods, the wild rivers as my mentor and I want this tutelage to continue during my days in Dark Canyon. I want Dark Canyon and all its inherent hardships, beauties, trials and wonders to teach me. And this can only happen if I let it happen. If I surrender to it. If I’m passive enough to let that happen. Now, I can’t be so passive that I just sit cross-legged on the ground looking around me. No, this is very much a trip of exploration, and exploration is not a passive undertaking.
The fire causes the shadows that surrounded me to inhale and exhale. Advance and retreat. Grow and scatter. Waver, cower. Gain courage and falter. On the hillside behind me, my shadow moves side to side with the wavering of the firelight, like a shy child peeking from behind its parent.
I grasp two sturdy sticks, reach into the fire with them and grasp the sides of the pan with them. I extract the pan of tea off the coals and place it in the sand to cool down. I throw some of the sagebrush I gathered earlier onto the flames and the air is filled with its purifying, pungent-sweet fragrance.
There is a third fire the pilgrim will encounter on his journey. It’s not one that he carries with him. Or in him. It is one he encounters along the way. It is the refiner’s fire.
The refiner’s fire is any situation that requires the pilgrim, the explorer to give more than what he has to get through it. It’s the fears, sufferings and trials that accompany every pilgrim on his journey. It is any situation that is beyond his strength, courage, maturity, knowledge or skills. It will bring the pilgrim face to face with his weaknesses, his mortality, his demons.
Traveling through the refiner’s fire is painful, scary, inconvenient, undesired, but it’s also a necessary part of the pilgrim’s journey. Pilgrimages are often taken to holy lands or promised lands and it’s usually the successful arrival at the holy land or promised land that proves a pilgrim’s worth; yet it is the lessons learned from the tribulations and challenges he faced along the way he will find the most valuable, the most educational. A good challenge or trial is the light that illuminates the pilgrim’s imperfections, weaknesses, shortcomings. Challenge and trial are sisters. They both possess the same characteristics that try a person’s mettle. The only real difference between trial and challenge is that a trial comes to us unsolicited, whereas a challenge is often purposely or knowingly sought out. Both lead to increased enlightenment, understanding, patience, growth. Like the farm pastures of my youth, the refiner’s fire burns away the old dead stubble clearing the ground for new growth. The life devoid of challenge or trial is a life devoid of growth. Fear is the trellis upon which the vine of courage grows. Failure, the stone from which the temple of success is built. And it’s built on a foundation of persistence. Virtue is nothing more than our faults with the impurities burned away. Confidence is insecurity with the impurities burned away. The refiner’s fire turns adversity into strength. In the pilgrim’s fire, weakness is forged into understanding and compassion.
The man who has been through the refiner’s fire is less likely to judge another who is experiencing hard times. It burns away the impurities of character, tempers our mettle, turns pride to ash. Builds empathy.
The pilgrim utilises the lessons learned from one challenge to help him conquer the next one he faces. The challenge that seemed an unclimbable wall two years ago is now the stepping stone he uses to help him climb over today’s “unclimbable” wall. And it’s a wall worth climbing, for on the other side lies pastures of freedom, understanding, improvement: the fruits of transcendence.
Pride is a prison. If the challenge before us is a large one, we can then expect many slips and failures along the way. If we’re too prideful to let people see us fail, then we won’t embark to conquer the challenge before us. Or we may quit before it’s finished. Others have likely faced the same challenges and trials that we face. But maybe they were too proud to ask for help, directions, guidance or advice how to get through it. Perhaps the trial that’s before us isn’t one of our own choosing. We may say “I am too good for this,” or “I am too scared to go through this,” or “I don’t deserve to endure this.” Then the refiner’s fire will consume them. The refiner’s fire has maimed many. It has also helped many. The difference between being burned and being cleansed, I believe, is humility, and persistence. The passive part of patience.
Fire is a genie. And the common Bic lighter I carry in my pocket is the lamp where it resides during the day. When I release it at night, it grants me the same three wishes: Light. Heat. Companionship.
One of the greatest challenges of my 40-day solo journey through Dark Canyon is loneliness. It is omnipresent. Sometimes it’s a low-grade nuisance, sometimes it’s consuming and crushing.
One of the things I miss most on this journey is sharing. I miss sharing meals. I miss sharing the day’s discoveries and magic moments. I miss sharing the risks and rewards, the decisions and the consequences, the setbacks and victories. I miss sharing the burden of doubt, worry, second-guessing. I miss conversations.
During the day I talk to my backpack, Annabelle. She’s a great listener. And thank God for that because most of the time it’s just me and her out here. Or way out there. Out there in lonely places. Out where it’s very nice to have a companion to talk to. I say things like, “Well, holy cow, Annabelle. I think we’d be hard-pressed to find a better campsite than this. What do you think? Should we camp here?”
I got Annabelle five years ago. She has been with me on overnight trips and long weekenders and since then she has become my most trusted confidante. A great many worries, fears, doubts, anxieties, hopes, dreams, curious thoughts and feelings of awe, wonder and reverence have come upon me while I’ve been alone in the deep and lonely backcountries of the Colorado Plateau, and I have found it helps a great deal if I can express my feelings of doubt, worry, anxiety, wonder, hope and reverence out loud. Only Annabelle, who always has my back and leans in close, has heard my greatest worries, fears, doubts, anxieties, hopes, dreams, curious thoughts and feelings of awe, wonder and reverence expressed out loud. She’s heard things no person has.
A great many of my favourite memories occurred with her. A great many of my favourite adventures and explorations occurred with her as my only companion. I quite often find myself thinking about her the same way someone might recall happy memories of an old friend.
During the day I talk to Annabelle, but at night while we’re in camp I let her rest. She lies on her back, emptied out, beside the tent. At night I commune with the campfire. I don’t actually talk to the fire, like I do Annabelle, but we silently enjoy each other’s company. Like the old friends that we are. Loneliness’s power is greatly diminished in the presence of a campfire.
The Brigham Tea has cooled enough that I can drink it. The pan has cooled enough that I can hold it. I bring it to my lips and take a drink. I have drunk Brigham Tea every night for the last four nights and I am familiar with its bitter, astringent taste. It tastes the way I imagine mosquito spray would taste. But, I believe its electrolytes, ephedra, minerals and vitamins are helping me stay healthy, helping my body recover after hard days of hiking.
After 90 minutes sitting quietly with the fire and my own thoughts, I feel a deep level of contentment, the same deep level of contentment I feel after a long meditation, which is pretty much what I’ve been doing on some level. My eyelids are heavy. I am ready for bed.
I stopped throwing wood on the fire 20 minutes ago and since then it has burned down to coals. I stand, my muscles a little stiff, a bit sore and kick sand on the coals of the fire. I walk over to my mattress of pine needles and re-arrange my sleeping bag on top of it and climb inside. I look up at black sky, pinched between two jagged parentheses of Woodenshoe’s jagged cliff walls.
