Burning Birds IX

An idyll in a landscape that isn't particularly idyllic.

Burro Creek, AZ. BLM photo.

This is Part 9 of a special essay series for paying subscribers to Letters from the Desert. Letters From the Desert is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Parts 1 through 8 are linked below:

Letter From the Desert: Burning Birds (Part One)

Letter From the Desert: Burning Birds 2

Letter from the Desert: Burning Birds III

Letter From the Desert: Burning Birds IV

Letter From the Desert: Burning Birds V

Letter From the Desert: Burning Birds VI

Letter From the Desert: Burning Birds VII

Letter From the Desert: Burning Birds VIII

The most efficient way of walking on rounded cobbles of varying size that have only recently been deposited by flood and are in no way stably placed is to assume I will twist my ankle, which will consign me to great unpleasantness, as I am thirsty and far from water under the best of uninjured circumstances. I clear my mind of the expectation of pain; a path displays itself to me through the forest of stones. I run almost on tiptoe, landing atop the cobbles on the balls of my feet with toes flexed, ready to push off should the stone give way beneath me. I move two feet sideways for every five feet gained in the direction of intended travel, but I cover ground. Not quickly, you who measure hikes in miles and thousands of feet climbed: one must measure progress in units of time rather than distance, lest one become demoralized. An hour and a half out, two hours back, and no water on a warm day in the desert, a mere ninety Fahrenheit with a good breeze to dry me further.

A clarification is necessary here. I am not, despite my claim above, far from water. I am merely far from water that will do me any good. There are deep pools at the base of slickrock cliffs and in the lee of midstream boulders. Were it not for the creek’s smelling as though a number of range cattle had lately drowned in those deep pools, I would swim. I take shoes off to cross at a shallow spot. The water is cool, if redolent. The algae are well fed.

Across the creek and upstream, across a hundred feet of flowing water, bracketed by sheer-walled bank cliffs that ascend perhaps a hundred feet from the creek, there is a forested bank awash in bloom, small red flowers I cannot identify. My binoculars and camera are with my drinking water. Cascades punctuate the green, a foot or so high and a few inches across, fed by a slot canyon. Their song echoes off the walls. A great blue heron bursts from a hidden pool, wheels overhead alarmed, lands on a ledge a hundred eighty feet up in the saguaros.

Something has been drawing me into the desert these past few days, more so than usual, a siren song that bade me leave the ten essentials behind the passenger seat in the truck. With the backpack, I might spend two days in this canyon in some comfort, if one defines “comfort” rather loosely. The innovation of carrying water and extra skins dates to the Pleistocene, but it is no less insulating for its great age. I am an hour in with nothing, no one knows where I am, and I am vulnerable to mishap. This knowledge opens my pores. Without that bubble of reassurance hanging on my back, I dilate in all directions.