Occupation of Independence

  What is the fastest way to the canyon floor?  The rocks are so sharp on top that the poor little dog needs to get to the round gravel quickly!  How could a place be so un-earthly and so hostile to life? There was a narrow and eroded ridge close to my campsite that got us down to the canyon floor quickly.  One step off the centerline of the ridge and we would have fallen to a serious injury.  And normally the cellphone signal disappears in the bottom. Worse yet, there were eroded cavities a foot or two off the ridgeline.  It was impossible to tell how collapsible they were.  It was horrifying to think of these holes as a sentient Malevolence that swallowed and destroyed my little dog.  Ahh but she was so happy on the canyon floor when I unsnapped her.  Free to blast around!  And yet confined by the near verticality of the canyon walls.  There were no coyotes or biological life of any kind to hurt her. We walked "downstream."  There is always something metaphorical and satisf

The freakish calmness of the Southwest has ended, and "horizontal gravity" has returned.  (That means the wind.)    I am not complaining.  The calmness was great while it lasted. The wind was from the north.  It actually took effort on my part to face my trailer door to the south -- it is so against the habit formed in summer.  But it was wonderful to have that little island of warmth and calmness just outside the trailer door.  Despite the chill I kept the door open to allow the sun to warm up the solar screen.  The wind sped up my backcountry "babushka" (laundry) duties! How many ways can I say 'wonderful?'  It is almost funny how this little trick of facing the door towards the sun and away from the wind seems to escape me.  It would be beneficial to think of other examples of playing the same game. Going through my photos of "weather and sky", it is remarkable how few photographs there are of the wind.  It is difficult to photograph wind, odor

It's not for nothing that the word 'pagan' meant rustic or country-living person in Latin.  Over the years, the idea has insinuated itself into my mind that a camper (gardener, backwoods home dweller, etc.) is more pagan than a normal person who lives in a sticks-and-bricks house.  The sticks-and-bricks liver is so insulated from the forces of nature that nature is relegated to nothing more than pretty scenery or sentimentalism about cyootsie-wootsie animals. The paganism of a camper comes out more strongly as we near the winter solstice.  Half of the year the sun is oppressive.  Escaping its cruelty is the primary fact of our existence.  And yet, all of the year our battery is charged by solar energy!    Hours of daylight, angles, and shadows are very real to the camper.  Campers are essentially farmers of solar energy. And then mid-winter happens.  That horrid monster up there in the sky becomes so wan and sickly.  It's like moving to a different planet.  Or, conside

  I usually look for a change in my walking route down through the canyon system.  I couldn't remember if it was possible to get into the last side-canyon from the south.  So I took my best stab at it and was immediately rewarded with rounded gravel, rather than the sharp rocks that are hard on doggie paws. And indeed I made it down to the bottom and felt pretty cocky about it.  Soon there was a rock cairn.  I dismantled it. Please don't think that I am unable to look at things from other people's point of view.  The person who built the cairn probably thought it was harmless or even helpful to other people or themselves.  They thought they were improving the situation, and that is a positive thing, isn't it? But it destroys the mood that other walkers are trying to slip into.  Some people love getting confused and trying to make a route work.  That is why they use the term "adventure."  They (and I) can get annoyed by other people's "improvements&qu