More Digital Potlatch for you! Here’s another GRACK! episode, a story from June, 2006 about a hike in the wilderness just a few miles from home that I could probably never duplicate again. Not only was it physically challenging and dangerous, I nearly got terribly lost, and in the process discovered a spot so incredible and strange, I knew I wasn’t supposed to take a picture of it. I also scared myself significantly, which is partly why I do these things. NOTE: To protect locations described below, I’ve mostly used photos taken recently in a similar area. The “guide tree” and “top of the ridge” images are authentic, however. I can’t retrace my steps, in any case, and really don’t know how I got there. Just as well.
Please remember that I’m republishing these columns in no particular order other than what’s suggested by the “Hey, that’s a good one!” reaction to going through the list, and with all the original images intact. This is a long one, so you need to jump to the full article for the whole column. Oh, and here’s your raven’s squawk, too. Enjoy!
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Dowser Man
Some people find water, I find other things.
About two and a half months ago I was sitting at a friend’s place when I had the very unusual experience of feeling my solar plexus vibrate, I kid you not, when I turned to face a particular spot on a nearby mountain. Regardless of what anyone may think, it really did, and I felt something urging me to take care of my body. It turned out I needed to, and a couple of weeks later I had hernia surgery just a few miles away. (Do I need to underline where I felt the jab?) We have no health insurance. But now I’ve recovered and don’t owe a cent, thanks to Taos County and a family check.
This is nothing to take lightly. Within a circle of places almost in sight of each other, I got the message, had the operation, recuperated, and learned it all was paid for. Think about that for a moment: what a wonderful completeness it embodies. What compassion.
Naturally I was set on hiking to that location on the mountain once I could go exploring again. Last Sunday I did, or tried to.
I thought I knew exactly where to go. After all, I’d studied the topography intently with binoculars on that visit back in March, memorizing how I’d have to climb. But after I’d parked and left the dirt road on the valley floor, the going turned immediately rough. I started off just fine but soon realized that landmarks look different when you’re right on top of them. There was no way to follow the picture in my mind, and I knew I’d have to rely on logic and instinct.
The terrain was forested in piñon and juniper, very rocky, extremely dry, and sometimes nearly vertical. On steep slopes my boots slid sideways in the loose soil. There were no trails, no footprints except those of animals. No fences, of course. Just miles and miles of sloping mountainsides cut through with deep arroyos, some with sides too precipitous to cross. There was no trash. I saw lots of elk poop once I’d climbed highter up, where the stiff wind from the west felt positively cold in the blazing sunshine.
I was no longer looking for my special spot. After working my way farther up the slope than I’d intended to go, in search of a vantage point from which to get my bearings, I’d decided to simply keep moving higher. This is amazing, I thought to myself. There must be a hundred ways to break my leg, I’m climbing completely blind, I don’t know where I am, and I’m having the time of my life. It was also getting scary with the loneliness and the wind, and I knew how much steeper things would look going down. Down? I didn’t have any idea how to get down, I was still going up! My pulse was thudding. I had to remind myself to loosen up and breathe. I could die here, just fall down and snap a femur, bleed to death like a butchered hog, I told myself, and it was true. Also agreeable, if it came to that, and far more natural than dying in a hospital bed with needles in my arm.
Everywhere I looked was clean. Despite the dryness, there were wildflowers everywhere, and cactus blossoms I had never seen before. The air was pure, the ground unmarked. I studied the surroundings as I climbed: here and there were freshly-leafed aspens above me on nearby slopes, their bright green color a possible indication of water. A spring, perhaps, in a tiny pocket canyon. This was exciting. I felt like a first-time explorer. I knew I had to be getting closer to the top of the ridge, which ran roughly north and south. Would I be able to see over to the other side?
There was no climbing in a straight line. I had to invent my own switchbacks by allowing my eyes to pick out the best ten steps ahead, then stop, and do it again, over and over. Aways patiently, calmly, settling on the smoothest path after letting the landscape tell me which way to go. This was deeply satisfying, this reading of the ground, something so basic to human nature as letting my senses tell me where to put my feet. I saw a magnificent hawk soaring high above the valley and knew I’d be all right. Finally I saw the tops of the trees ahead recede. A few minutes more, and I would reach the top.
Upon reaching the first bit of flat ground in the last three hours, my initial impression was a bit of a bust: I was at the summit, all right, but I couldn’lt see anything. Aside from being flat, the top was very much like the slopes, and wider than I’d expected. I walked 100 yards or so to the south, found a little open meadow where I could look out, and decided that the rocky plunge beyond was best avoided. Turning north, I passed through a grove of piñon trees and came to a narrowing of the ridge. Now this was more like it: from one side to the other, the top was maybe 20 feet across. Standing in the middle, I could look down into the valleys to the east, turn 180 degrees, and be looking far out to the west. I realized with a chill that anyone in that exact spot would feel the first warmth of the dawn and also see the last glimpse of the sun as it slipped below the horizon. Only then did I look down at my feet, and there in front of me was a fire circle!
This was no ordinary circle of rocks. The stones were chunks of thick flagstone-like material, chosen for their flattened sides, and set into the ground at an angle, so that each one lay flush against the other. The circle of dirt inside, perhaps five feet across, was utterly clean and smooth, with not a trace of ash. In the center of the main circle was a small circle of little rocks less than a foot in diameter. In the middle of this circle was a perfect, tiny conical arrangement of little straight twigs like a miniature tipi frame less than six inches high. There was nothing else around, not even a tiny fragment of trash, no footprints, no nothing.
The location of the fire circle was stunning, with open views perhaps 100 miles in both directions. The circle itself was pristine and obviously sacred. I touched nothing and kept my distance. Unusual for me, I even decided not to take a picture. I just knew I shouldn’t, not in any way, except with my eyes and memory. At this point, I wasn’t comfortable with remaining much longer in the area, either, and decided to explore a little farther north.
The ridgetop widened again just beyond the circle. About 30 yards ahead I found what looked like an area of black dust, barely visible in the dirt. If these were ashes, they’d been ground into the finest powder and carefully scattered. There wasn’t even a tiny piece of charcoal, and no other evidence of firebuilding to be seen. I kept on walking. About 200 yards beyond, the mountain fell away again, revealing an impassable cliff and beautiful views to the north. As I started walking back to the fire circle, the enormity of what I was experiencing began to filter through the chatter in my brain: relying only on my own intuition and desire and allowing my being to merge with the landscape, I’d climbed up a mountain with no trails, emerged at the top on a 300-yard-long notch that couldn’t be reached from either end, and encountered an obvious power spot, a sacred ceremonial site. What are the odds on that, I wondered.
Passing the circle again and giving it an even wider berth, I was hugely grateful I hadn’t taken a picture the first time. Briefly I searched for any sign of a trail, especially one coming up from the other side of the mountain, but all I could see were boulders and trees hanging out over the cliff. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t a trail, period. At this point I wasn’t too confident about finding where I’d come up either, but in short order I did and slowly started down.
Oh, Lord.
Yes, things look very different when you’re descending. I didn’t recognize a thing and couldn’t believe I’d walked up the slope I saw in front of me. My rubbery knees threatened to topple me forward at every step. I could see my destination far below and out there in the distance, but in between were humps and canyons I had no recollection of. At least there wasn’t any need to hurry, as I had plenty of daylight. And here’s a thing that happens when you’re out in God’s own country, dealing with your self: you see and understand the danger, you watch your thoughts and fears, but ultimately you have to let them go, knowing that salvation lies in acceptance, patience, and letting the earth and trees and animals speak to you.
I needed to cross a deep arroyo that had been cut out of the mountain with a knife. My eyes fell on deer poop and broken ground underneath a Ponderosa pine. The animal trail that led from there was insanely steep, but if deer could manage, so could I, I told myself. When I got to the bottom and tried to use the dried-out streambed for a shortcut, I discovered it meandered where I didn’t want to go, but I was stuck. Fortunately a little farther on I found another deer trail leading up and out. I marveled that my thighs still lifted me, but they did.
At various vantage points as I descended, I was able to orient myself to the surrounding hills with more precision. Suddenly, about two-thirds of the way down, I discovered my own footprints! A short way beyond was a dead tree lying on the ground that I recognized from before, my guide tree, I thought. From there it was easy in terms of finding my way, but I was exhausted, every step a slow, deliberate accomplishment. As above, so below. As in the heart, so goes the world. Separation is an illusion that vanishes with letting go.
Sunburned, bleeding, thirsty, spaced-out, I knew I’d lived that day, and nothing else would matter.
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