A much more civilized hike today. I lounged in camp til nearly 8, enjoying the luxury of sunshine and no wind.
I hiked the couple of miles out of Big Wash and on to Eagle Mtn Rd where I had cached water. I had also cached a Coors tallboy but a rock put a pinhole into him and he was dead. I buried him with full honors and much regret.
I turned north and began striding across the Pinto Basin, smooth country that slopes gently down to a central wash and the up again toward the next mountains. There was a walk by an enormous solar power facility, several miles square, but the rest of the hike was a venture into emptiness.
Into the big empty
The views were outstanding, and the easy walking let me keep my head up to enjoy them.
The light on the surrounding ranges was accented by just the right amount of shadow from puffy clouds. I’m not enough of a poet to describe it, but maybe pictures and videos can capture the feeling.
It was a dreamscape, a landscape fit for gods. Not the Olympian ones, who loved to eat and drink and fornicate. But the older gods, the ones who lived in the land, who are the land. The ones whose appetites were savage and unrestrained and sometimes monstrous. They are sleeping now, but this is their country. I am just passing through.
Saturn devouring his son. By Francisco Goya
For all that I love the desert, I don’t forget for a moment that it devours its children.