I decided I needed to do something that I liked, so it came into my head to take a walk and find a miracle.
There’s a way of walking across open country very slowly, considering every step, feeling your way… That’s what I did, and lo and behold, this intuitive meandering led to the site of a collapsed ancient kiva I’d always known about but never found before. No, there’s nothing special to see there, at least not out in the open, and the pottery you see in the photo below is all over the mesa here, but it still felt good to stand at that special spot, take in as much of the 360-degree view as I could in one sweep, and clearly see the circular outline of the kiva in the landscape. It was so obviously THE place you’d have a special structure for ceremonial purposes. The people who lived there back as far as 1,000 years ago might not have had much in the way of possessions, but they had this place, and you have to feel the resonance of that exact spot in the overall arrangement of the distant landscape to appreciate the power of the placement. They were good at that.
The rocks are everywhere, scattered in glittering colorful profusion, probably the result of successive monumental volcanic blasts in the vicinity. It’s funny, though: you find all the igneous crystalline stuff, and then there are round, polished river stones, remnants of the colossal floods that washed giant alluvial fans of sediment down the western slopes of the mountains. That must have been quite a party!
I have too many rocks inside the house now, so I arrange them outside after I empty my pockets…
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Where do you go hiking, John? Been looking for a new place to check out, and your walks always sound so different than where I go!
That’s a big subject, but I mostly go in my immediate neighborhood, which you could say is roughly between upper Llano Quemado and Miranda Canyon (Ponce de Leon warm springs area). That whole area back in there, much of it in imminent danger of being fenced off and ruined by the so-called “Miranda Canyon Preserve,” a huge real estate development… if you drive out 518 toward Peñasco, the ridge on your right (to the west) is one edge of the territory I’m talking about. One could literally walk from where I live, back up toward Miranda Canyon, and then hike various trails for days and days and never cross a road. None of this area is what you’d call spectacular, but it’s very empty of human beings. I can walk 90 minutes and end up in a meadow on top of a mountain where the ground is covered with elk poop…
Unless you know where to go, finding these trails can be a bitch, however, as is knowing where to park your car. Nothing is marked, everything is semi-legal, etc. etc. That’s where I mostly go, though, and when I do, I frequently just head “over the mountain” or whatever, not using a trail. Kinda dangerous, actually — lots of places to break your ankle where your cell phone won’t get a signal — concentrates the mind, as it were.
But for a real thrill, take any of the various canyon trails that go off the ski valley road. They’ll take you up through amazing woods with moss-covered trees to high, alpine meadows of outstanding beauty and isolation. High country! Lord, there are so many places. Above the timberline on the way to Mt. Wheeler is pretty scary. But in those high meadows and tall woods, up above 10,000 feet, there are areas of true primeval nature where you really feel the power.