Where trails or primitive dirt roads already exist, the Industry expects it hardly needs to ask that these be developed into modern paved highways. Had the sun moved at all? All night long we thrashed the matter out, burning up half a pinyon pine in the process, transforming its mass into energy, warmth, light, and toward morning worked out a rough agreement. Even if he wanted to join the American middle class (and some Indians do wish to join and have done so) the average Navajo suffers from a handicap more severe than skin color, the language barrier or insufficient education: his acquisitive instinct is poorly developed. This is not primarily a book about the desert. True, I agree, and yet and yet Rilke said that things dont truly exist until the poet gives them names. I dont mean the town itself, of course, but the country which surrounds it the canyonlands. From Turnbow Cabin I drive northwesterly on a twisting road above Salt Valley past a labyrinth of fins and pinnacles toward the Devils Garden. Im worried, I said. Well, that shows you cant ever trust the weather., How much do you get paid for this kind of work?, Too much. And we dont have much food left. On the way I pass a large anthill, the domed city of the harvester ants. Though simple in formula, the solution will seem drastic and painful in practice. Below the garden the cliff curves deeply inward, forming an overhang that would shelter a house; at this point the water is released from the draw of surface tension and falls free through the air in a misty, wavy spray down to the canyon floor where I stand, as in a fine shower, filling my canteen and soaking myself and drinking all at the same time. I hadnt forgotten the moon-eyed horse. My sweat dries as fast as it forms the parched air is sucking at my pores. from Negro colleges deep in the Bible Belt, the Navajo children learn to speak American with a Southern accent. But since I stopped abruptly and froze, she isnt sure that I am dangerous. Down the river we drift in a kind of waking dream, gliding beneath the great curving cliffs with their tapestries of water stains, the golden alcoves, the hanging gardens, the seeps, the springs where no man will ever drink, the royal arches in high relief and the amphitheatres shaped like seashells. Have failed. Sometimes I regret not having brought a decent map. The finest quality of this stone, these plants and animals, this desert landscape is the indifference manifest to our presence, our absence, our coming, our staying or our going. I had one hand on the rope. The event had doubtless been in preparation for hundreds maybe thousands of years snow falling, melting, trickling into minute fissures, dissolving the cements which knit sandstone particles together, freezing and expanding, wedging apart the tiny cracks, undermining the base but the cumulative result was a matter, probably, of only a few noisy and dusty minutes in which the mighty slabs cracked and grumbled, shook loose, dropped and slid and smashed upon the older slabs below, shattering the peace of ages. The Indians never came down to my part of the canyon except when guiding occasional tourists to the falls or hunting a stray horse. Far more interesting is the distinction to be made between civilization and culture. The sun burns in a lovely, perfect sky; the day is very hot. He crumples, theres the usual gushing of blood, etc., a brief spasm, and then no more. Stepping harder on the gas I speed over the sand flats at 65 mph, trailing a funnel of dust about a mile and a half long. Three ravens are wheeling near the balanced rock, squawking at each other and at the dawn. On the flat surface of this tilted slab somebody, maybe a Mormon cowboy fifty years ago, maybe an Indian eight hundred years ago, has chiseled two converging grooves which catch some of the falling water and conduct it to a carved spout at the lower edge. The truck was parked parallel to the rim, not facing it, so Mr. Graham after removing the rocks from in front of the wheels climbed into the drivers seat, pushing Husks legs out of the way, and automatically, out of habit, turned on the switch. I hammer them back together with a stone and continue my descent the hard way, crawling over the rubble until I reach the scrub spruce and the fringe of the forest. He had twice as far to go, taking into account the meanders of the river, but was in no danger of dying from thirst. Every cobbler gets clobbered at last, etc. Endless, too, Im beginning to feel, before I see at long last the glimmer of coals ahead, the embers of a fire, and in the dimness the Outline of the rubber boats, a comforting sight. While out on a cattle mission one day, Abbey learns of Moon-Eye, a legendary wild horse whos been missing for 10 years. But not all the birds have left me. I needed a drink myself but the water here would make a man sick. When they reached the junction with the Green River something went wrong; the motor failed and they drifted helplessly into the forty-mile millrace of Cataract Canyon, a place where they had not planned to go. I put on boots and shirt, stuffed some cheese and raisins in my pocket, and went for a walk. When the sun passes beyond the rim I get up and start to return to Newcomb and our camp. A fine morning a sweet cool stark sunlit silent desert morning before the heat moved in and the deerflies, the sweat, the dust and the thirst came down on us. The wind is coming from the north, much colder than before we may have sleet or rain or snow or possibly all three before nightfall. I slowed to a walk; he did the same. Deliberately I compose my mind, quieting the febrile buzzing of the cells and circuits, and strive to open my consciousness directly, nakedly to the cosmos. Ill survive, maybe.. Leaving the headquarters area and the lights of Moab, I drove twelve miles farther north on the highway until I came to a dirt road on the right, where a small wooden sign pointed the way: Arches National Monument Eight Miles. Abbey obsessively tracks him down one day, and when he finds him, he and the horse enter a standoff that lasts hours. We argued all night long. I dragged the wooden picnic table close to the fireplace and this became my office and dining room. That screen of words, that veil of ideas, issuing from the brain like a sort of mental smog that keeps getting between a man and the world, obscuring vision. The great Balanced Rock floats a few inches above its pedestal, supported by a layer of superheated air. The glade is quiet except for the whisper of aspen leaves and running water, the air warm in the late afternoon sunlight. 2 pages at 400 words per page) I rear back and throw the stone with all Ive got straight at his furry head. At times I hear voices up the road, familiar voices I look; and no one is there. A second truth of equal weight contradicts the first, proclaiming through art, religion, philosophy, science and even war that human life, in some way not easily definable, is significant and unique and supreme beyond all the limits of reason and nature. My Saturday night campfire talks are brief and to the point. For the rest of the afternoon, keeping to the shady side, we drift down the splendid river, deeper and deeper and deeper into the fantastic. Simply breathing, in a place like this, arouses the appetite. Embittered little bastards. I could see the blue of the sky between his ribs, through the eyesockets of his skull. The Park Service, established by Congress in 1916, was directed not only to administer the parks but also to provide for the enjoyment of same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. This appropriately ambiguous language, employed long before the onslaught of the automobile, has been understood in various and often opposing ways ever since. Descend to the alkali flats of Salt Valley and you find an entirely different grouping: shadscale, four-winged saltbush, greasewood, spiny horsebrush, asters, milk vetch, budsage, galletagrass. Mr. Graham showed him his pilots license and that helped a little. What do the pilgrims see? Late that evening, after sundown, Ralph and I beach our boats and make camp on a sandy spit near the outlet of a deep, narrow, labyrinthine side canyon, its name, if it has a name, unknown to us. Not until the afternoon does the wind begin to blow, raising dust and sand in funnel-shaped twisters that spin across the desert briefly, like dancers, and then collapse whirlwinds from which issue no voice or word except the forlorn moan of the elements under stress. I paused. I am content, however, to view the remains from below. This is true. Munching raisins, I climb and scramble over the rocks, which sometimes seesaw under my weight or start sliding, adding the hazards of surprise, twisted knee, sprained ankle or crushed foot to the general interest of the ascent. The clouds multiply and merge, cumuli-nimbi piling up like whipped cream, like mashed potatoes, like sea foam, building upon one another into a second mountain range greater in magnitude than the terrestrial range below. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Again he stopped, the eye on me. Your chances of dying, in case of sickness. Also, he suffered from sciatica and shingles and like me was allergic to tumbleweed. On top of one of the walls stand four gigantic monoliths, dark red, angular and square-cornered, capped with remnants of the same hard white rock on which we have brought the Land Rover to a stop. My visitor is still waiting beneath the doorstep, basking in the sun, fully alert. Hard work for game-legged Newcomb but he makes no complaint. Gratefully I empty the overflowing garbage cans, read the soggy old newspapers we believe that the Constitution of the United States has finally expired collect the scattered beer cans and soda pop cans and burn them, along with the garbage, in the dump. Unequipped to hold their own in the ferociously competitive world of White America, in which even the language is foreign to them, the Navajos sink ever deeper into the culture of poverty, exhibiting all of the usual and well-known symptoms: squalor, unemployment or irregular and ill-paid employment, broken families, disease, prostitution, crime, alcoholism, lack of education, too many children, apathy and demoralization, and various forms of mental illness, including evangelical Protestantism. The Balanced Rock and the pinnacles stand in petrified silence waiting. Well, I couldnt tell you. What we must do, prodding the Park Service into the forefront of the demonstration, is provide these young people with the opportunity, the assistance, and the necessary encouragement. The shallow-drafted almost weightless boat tends to turn in circles, pivoting beneath my seat; in order to make any headway I have to shift the paddle quickly from side to side, an awkward and tiring procedure. Gently I lowered my canteen to the ground. Too dull-witted to get out of the way, they trot along in front of the truck for a quarter of a mile before I can pass them. He drank the water and bathed his eye. Listen lady if I saw a TV out here Id get out my cannon and shoot it like I would a mad dog, right in the eye., The vacuum tube, madam. Billy-Joe saw his father stop, grab at his stomach, and lunge again at Mr. Graham. When late in the afternoon I finally stumbled sun-dazed, blear-eyed, parched as an old bacon rind upon that blue stream which flows like a miraculous mirage down the floor of the canyon I was too exhausted to pause and drink soberly from the bank. Divert attention from deep conflicts within the society by engaging in foreign wars; make support of these wars a test of loyalty, thereby exposing and isolating potential opposition to the new order. Or a centaur? The fear born of nightmares, the nightmares that rise from fear? Use ILLiad for articles and chapter scans. Rainy season in the canyonlands. There was nothing that had to be done. He wasnt listening to me. Nice for pictures but my God Im glad I dont have to live here., Im glad too, sir. The mere sight of cold mountains on the horizon refreshes Abbey, leading him to believe that all of nature, by simply existing, plays a similar role in refreshing urban city dwellers. Nothing but the silence, the stark suspension of all sound. At night whenever he awoke for a few moments he saw flashes of lightning reflected in the sky. I think of Viviano, of old Roy, and of another I knew for a while, Leslie McKee, who was both cowboy and cattleman, since he ran a one-man outfit. I know how you feel, I thought, but by God youre just going to have to stand there and suffer. For example, in settling a given area they did not scatter themselves abroad over the landscape in isolated farms and ranches, each man for himself and the devil take the hindmost, but rather built small, rational, beautiful and durable towns in which all could live together, centered about the Church, which served not only as a religious center but also as a social and political focal point for the community (in this respect harking back to the model of New England). Pine nuts are delicious, sweeter than hazelnuts but difficult to eat; you have to crack the shells in your teeth and then, because they are smaller than peanut kernels, you have to separate the meat from the shell with your tongue. Hoping to domesticate this sleek, handsome and docile reptile, I release him inside the trailerhouse and keep him there for several days. On each side rose the canyon walls, roughly perpendicular. The verb greet is also significant, as it conveys the idea that the sun is a human shaking hands with Abbey. Powerlines now bisect the scene; a 100-foot pink water tower looms against the red cliffs; tract-style houses are built to house the protectors; natural campsites along the river are closed off while all campers are now herded into an artificial steel-and-asphalt campground in the hottest, windiest spot in the area; historic buildings are razed by bulldozers to save the expense of maintaining them while at the same time hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on an unneeded paved entrance road. No one has a definite answer to that question but several possible explanations come to mind when you see them, in their strange and isolated settings, for the first time. You'll also get updates on new titles we publish and the ability to save highlights and notes. Like a solitary diamond Venus glows on the soft flare in the west, following the sun. It is my duty as a park ranger to protect, preserve and defend all living things within the park boundaries, making no exceptions. I started down. Most desert plants have only rudimentary leaves, or no leaves at all, the better to conserve moisture, and the singleleaf ash seems out of place here, anomalous, foredoomed to wither and die. I have entered into this one. The unknown birds continue to creak and chirrup. Since I have no tennis shoes I take off the boots and sling them over my shoulder, proceeding barefoot. I love all things which flow, said the deepest of Irishmen. The gelding operation had not improved his disposition. I sit down to rest, daydreaming of iced limeade, chilled tomato juice, Moorish fountains. All of my old cedar posts and juniper logs have gone into one last magnificent bonfire, flaring like a transparent rose on the open rock, my signal to the world unheeded. Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. A low gray ceiling of clouds hangs over the desert from horizon to horizon, silent and still. To keep them out of the canteen I had to place a handkerchief over the opening as I filled it. Keep the tourists out, some tourist from Salt Lake City has written. The herd is for ungulates, not for men and women and their children. So much for the stars. How about Tombs of Ishtar? Creating notes and highlights requires a free LitCharts account. When I come to a very steep pitch the rear wheels spin, the motor stalls. After the entrance, the inescapable spasm. The river looks terribly immense and powerful, swollen with snow-melt from the western slope of the Rockies and from the Wind River Range in Wyoming, a veritable Mississippi of a river rolling between redrock walls. Old Moon-Eye took a few steps away from me, stopped. In the foreground the dwarf trees of pinyon pine and juniper waver like algae under water without, however, losing any of their sharpness of detail. This is one of the significant discoveries of contemporary political science. It slithered over his back like a hairy snake, scaring him into a few quick steps. As they plumb potentially unexplored caves, grottos, cliff paths, and shorelines, as well as the great Rainbow Bridge, Abbey comes to believe that its a divine area. I stopped to swab the sweat from my face. Wed find good water farther up the canyon at Cigarette Spring. How much later? The desert will still be here in the spring. On the very first day Merle and Floyd had mentioned something about developments, improvements, a sinister Master Plan. Fifty thousand? But perhaps it is true. Dry, odorless, still and silent, he looked like the idea without the substance of a horse. THIS IS YOUR NATIONAL PARK, ESTABLISHED FOR THE PLEASURE OF YOU AND ALL PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. This Turnbow had consumption. Hire a crew of pretty girls, call them rangerettes, let them sell the tickets and give the campfire talks. Suddenly and simultaneously they discover me, prone on my belly a few feet away. Moon-Eye was still around. Click here to review the details. In the year 1880, eleven years after Powell had passed this way, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints commissioned a group of the faithful, living then in south-central Utah, to establish a new settlement in the southeast corner of the state near what is now the village of Bluff. He eats again. Unidentifiable birds call to us from the dark depths of the willow thickets solitary calls from the wild. Be the first one to, Desert solitaire : a season in the wilderness, Advanced embedding details, examples, and help, urn:lcp:desertsolitaire00abbe:lcpdf:94b61630-861b-413c-88ab-942ba3873acb, urn:lcp:desertsolitaire00abbe:epub:38109237-8c3b-4970-81e0-8f0c1d4dd5ce, Terms of Service (last updated 12/31/2014). After lunch we get into the cab of the government pickup, all three of us, and tour the park. Regrettably I have found it unavoidable to write some harsh words about my seasonal employer the National Park Service, Department of the Interior, United States Government. This being the case, why is the Park Service generally so anxious to accommodate that other crowd, the indolent millions born on wheels and suckled on gasoline, who expect and demand paved highways to lead them in comfort, ease and safety into every nook and corner of the national parks? Lets get on up and out of here.. GRANDVIEW POINT, TUKUHNIKIVATS, I refer to the tiny oasis formed by the drilled well, its windmill and storage tank. I had to swim to the farther side. Alone-ness became loneliness and the sensation was strong enough to remind me (how could I have forgotten?) Like it or not I am on my way: It does not, after all, sound unpromising. The water is lapping at the sand less than a foot from my sleeping bag. To vary my diet I ordered more exotic foods by telephone from the supermarket in Grand Canyon Village and these were shipped to me by U.S. Mail, delivered twice a week on muleback down the fourteen-mile trail from Topocoba Hilltop. All of this is now under change, of course, and in the accelerating process of urbanization the Mormons of Utah are already discovering their interdependence with the rest of the nation and with the world. The mice are silent, watching me from their hiding places, but the wind is still blowing and outside the ground is covered with snow. Fear no more the heat of the sun. His spoor will not be seen much beyond the campground. Rapids. At last, groaning and farting with exaggerated self-pity, she hoisted her rear end, then her front end, and plodded off to rejoin the gang. Or the departing Indians, having no domesticated animals except dogs, may simply have been unable to carry away all of their possessions. Ahead lay the highway, the Colorado River, the outskirts of Moab. and the sounds that come back to us, far off and fading, are so strange and lovely, transmuted by distance, that we fall into silence, enchanted. He owned a flying service light planes and helicopters for hire or charter carried a pilots license, and operated as well the only car- and truck-rental agency in town. Light and space without time, I think, for this is a country with only the slightest traces of human history. We even supply the firewood, in the form of pinyon pine logs and old fence posts of cedar, which it will be my task to find and haul to the campgrounds. The gusts of wind blew sand and twigs into their fire, into the open pan of corned beef and beans. They are the Negroes of the Southwest red black men. Gusts of sand swirl before me, stinging my face. Still, I wouldnt want to live here. My friend Newcomb, for instance. Written in an eloquent and provoking style, the book urges us to reconsider our relationship with the natural world. The habits of a lifetime are impossible to break. Search the history of over 804 billion And a big one feet like frying pans.. He is interested in my opinion and listens at first with some care. Certainly Mrs. Husk was impressed. The song is so laconic and melancholic that it very nearly takes all the joy out of my smoke. My only reservation concerning the mice is that they do attract rattlesnakes. We were deep into the desert summer now and the stream had shrunk to a dribble of slimy water oozing along between sunbaked flats of mud. Too much for some, who have given up the struggle on the highways in exchange for an entirely different kind of vacation out in the open, on their own feet, following the quiet trail through forest and mountains, bedding down at evening under the stars, when and where they feel like it, at a time when the Industrial Tourists are still hunting for a place to park their automobiles. Abbey also describes his difficulty finding the language, faith, and philosophy to adequately capture his understanding of nature and its effect on the soul.[16]. The automobile, which began as a transportation convenience, has become a bloody tyrant (50,000 lives a year), and it is the responsibility of the Park Service, as well as that of everyone else concerned with preserving both wilderness and civilization, to begin a campaign of resistance. Wheres that rum we were going to bring along?, And the case of beer we were going to tow instead of a dinghy?. I get out and load rocks into the back of the bed, adding weight and traction enough to climb the grade. Fatal. Youve been out here in the wilderness long enough, old man. He lived now a dream. Taking the Windows road first, I drive beneath the overhanging Balanced Rock, 3500 tons of seamless Entrada sandstone perched on a ridiculous, inadequate pedestal of the Carmel formation, soft and rotten stone eaten away by the wind, deformed by the weight above. Im just starting up to investigate the ridge when Waterman appears, tracking me up the canyon floor. The great horned owl calls again, once or twice every few minutes, concerned but not anxious. Some like to live as much in accord with nature as possible, and others want to have both manmade comforts and a marvelous encounter with nature simultaneously: "Hard work. (You could set your watch by them). He claimed to be an anarchist, a man against the state, but his life's work was dedicated to federal protection of desert wilderness. Better, in fact. How about a signal fire? Thus we meditate upon the strangers death. Now customize the name of a clipboard to store your clips. Over a late campfire, kept going now for heat as well as liturgical requirements, I see new constellations dominating the sky. From there the land falls away for another fifteen hundred feet or more to the Colorado River. I was sure that Moon-Eye would not go far from water in this weather. The floor of the boat is nothing but a single layer of rubberized canvas and sags like jelly beneath my weight. Slowly, laboriously I struggle upward, clambering over the tricky slabs. He followed the water. And trudged on. Something dreamlike and remembered, that sensation called. Dont want to run them little beeves right into the ground.. The desert, however, has been relatively neglected. The walk gets wet. Where is the heart of the desert? With relief I turn my back on this melancholy ruin and take the golden trail up the long ledge of Navajo sandstone which leads to Delicate Arch. Im going to bring a boxful of Christmas tree decorations silver-blue tinsel, red candles, peppermint canes, silver bells, golden stars and frosted baubles and Im going to pick out the loneliest, most forlorn of those little junipers and dress it in splendor, gay and glittering, and leave it there shining in the wilderness for a season or two, until the winds and the sun and the birds strip it bare again. Farther down a few boulders were wedged between the walls; I climbed over and under them. The sun roars down from its track in space with a savage and holy light, a fantastic music in the mind. For there are the bad moments, or were, especially at the beginning of my life here, when I would sit down at the table for supper inside the housetrailer and discover with a sudden shock that I was alone. Assuming, however, that population growth will be halted at a tolerable level before catastrophe does it for us, it remains permissible to talk about such things as the national parks. Yet it can hardly be called a humane environment; what little human life there is will be clustered about the oases, natural or man-made. As we loaded the horses into the truck for the return to the ranch I asked Mackie how he liked this kind of work. And no wonder, for theres precious little fresh meat abroad. A new and formidable canyon opens on the left, with a broad delta of pebbled beach, mud banks, rocks and boulders and driftwood issuing fanwise from its mouth. What about the Indians? Opinions on the matter are revised, exchanged, forgotten and revived with comforting regularity, just as in the other hard or exact sciences. You could put it all in a bushel sack. Well theyre no chickens here, I said. Moon-Eye was listening, he seemed attentive, but I sensed that he wasnt really much interested in what I was saying. How can I descend to such anthropomorphism? We rode steadily up the canyon, now and then splashing through the water, passing under the high red walls, the hanging gardens of poison ivy and panicgrass, the flowing sky. Drunk as a Navajo I pull off my boots and crawl into the snug warm down-filled womblike mummy bag. In sailing the ocean we reach the other shore and find, as we should have expected, everything much the same on either side. On top of that hed been dude-spoiled, for old Roy had used him for many years since he made a poor cow horse in his string of horses for hire. Down at the beginning of the new road, at park headquarters, is the new entrance station and visitor center, where admission fees are collected and where the rangers are going quietly nuts answering the same three basic questions five hundred times a day: (1) Wheres the john? Storms and flash floods are the most noteworthy phenomena. Beyond the side canyon the walls rise up again, slick and monolithic, in color a blend of pink, buff, yellow, orange, overlaid in part with a glaze of desert varnish (iron oxide) or streaked in certain places with vertical draperies of black organic stains, the residue from plant life beyond the rim and from the hanging gardens that flourish in the deep grottoes high on the walls. Maybe he didnt care. Very good. Nobody lives in this area but it is utilized nevertheless; the rancher we saw probably has his home in Hanksville or the little town of Green River. Old Roy had something on his mind. We are indeed enjoying a very intimate relation with the river: only a layer of fabric between our bodies and the water. Altars of the Moon? That particular painted fantasy of a realm beyond time and space which Aristotle and the Church Fathers tried to palm off on us has met, in modern times, only neglect and indifference, passing on into the oblivion it so richly deserved, while the Paradise of which I write and wish to praise is with us yet, the here and now, the actual, tangible, dogmatically real earth on which we stand. As we climb up out of the Moab valley and reach the high tableland stretching northward, traces of snow flying across the road, the sun emerges clear of the overcast, burning free on the very edge of the horizon. Lizards palpitating on the rocks. As any true patriot would, I urge him to hide down here under the ledge. To Abbey, the desert represents both the end to one life and the beginning of another: The finest quality of this stone, these plants and animals, this desert landscape is the indifference manifest to our presence, our absence, our staying or our going. 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