The Joy of Hiking in Arizona

Hiking makes sense to me. In these days of mind-numbing alienation, and manifold pretenses of adulthood, it makes sense to get away. Get away from the computer screen, and the familiar walls and ceilings of office and home, the known faces and vending machines and the mundane hums of the fridge and the AC. To get away and get out into open spaces where the skies are vast and dramatic, the plants and trees verdant and the nature unabashedly flourishing and claiming every inch of land under the sky.
Hiking in the West Fork of the Oak Creek, Sedona I sensed a kind of lush green pleasure not unlike the deep foliage all around me. Living in Tempe, a small hot dusty university town in the middle of the desert, the eyes yearn for some real greenery, not the painstakingly artificial kind planted for the purpose of urban beautification. The tall magnificent cacti reaching out for the sky are spectacular, but not green. The Tempe Town Lake is very pretty, but tame, if you know what I mean. The Oak Creek is only a slender, shallow brook, but it flew along the forest, free and full of golden ripples this particular day. I was mesmerized by its beauty and its freedom, and how it reflected the emerald beauty of the forest and the fiery red rocks of the canyon!

The hiking trail was along the creek, and in more than a dozen places, we had to cross the creek, either stepping in the ice cold water or using logs laid out from one side to the other. There were tall conifers along the way, and wild roses, and flowers of every imaginable color whose names I do not know. There were gorgeous dragonflies and spiders and chameleons. Butterflies flitted in the tall grass. Tiny olive fishes frolicked in the sunny, transparent waters of the creek. I was completely mesmerized only to be twitched back to reality now and then, when some cactus thorn or the other pricked me in my bare arms. While coming back, we lost our way sort of, so we had to wade in the gushing water of the faithful little creek to finally spot the designated hiking trail.

The next day was Grand Canyon. Perhaps the syntax of that sentence is not quite right, but there is no other way to describe a day when you experience something that is so mind-blowing, so majestic. It is so unlike Sedona, which is pretty in an intimate, picture-postcard manner. The mind cannot take in the wild, forbidding vision of vast spaces walled by rocks 250-1200 million years old. The beauty of the canyon is distant, menacing, dangerous. No picture postcard can ever capture that.

The tall canyon walls composed of sandstone, shale, limestone, and basaltic lava drop sharply to the dark mysterious rifts more than 1600 feet below. The canyon is more than 450 km long. The formations are strange, they look like temples and ziggurats, castles and cathedrals. Untouched and uninhabited by humans. Water, wind and ice have done a persistent job of erosion creating massive and magnificent sculptures. Apart from some hiking trails, every bit of the canyon lies as distant from civilization as it did thousands of years ago……. unscathed in its primal, unreachable beauty. The only creatures that can pretend some familiarity with the canyon are condors and squirrels, mountain goats and strange insects. The huge harsh rocks do not support vegetation. They do not support any form of life. They are unforgiving, arrogant, and distant. They commune with the sun at various parts of the day to cast bizarre shadows along the rift that look like prehistoric monsters. The strong howling winds brush the red walls in a gesture of unending intimacy. The Colorado River meandering sensuously below is only visible from certain points in the rim. Together they create an atmosphere that seems to cut out all human agency and importance.

There are sturdy trees and shrubs along the hiking trail. We hiked contrary to all accepted hiking rules, when the sun was up and angry, when we didn’t have enough water and when I was experiencing bouts of dizziness looking at the fissures far below. But between gasps and parched throats and aching legs and a drumming heart, I experienced beauty that completely overwhelmed me. The canyon walls— now orange, now ochre, now greenish grey, rose valiantly all around me and above my head, making me feel as if I was inside a giant Cambrian well. The azure sky, the unforgiving sun, everything made up for a kind of psychedelic atmosphere that I couldn’t totally grasp.

After reaching the rim, I perceived a sense of accomplishment and unfettered joy difficult to express in words. My boyfriend, who had hiked in the Grand Canyon all the way down to Plateau Point some years before, (we did not go that far down this time) said he felt the same way every time he completed a tough hike. There is a sense of glory that is rare and unmatched, a far cry from the regular business of life.

We decided we needed to hike to Colorado River, someday, which looked mysterious and beckoning, hundreds of feet below, like a translucent golden brown saree. The wild winds that touched the river and the rocks cooled our sweaty brows. There was an indistinct murmur. Was it the wayward river beneath or the wind blowing through the Utah Junipers? We couldn’t say. Wordlessly we surrendered to the wild beauty and grandeur of the Canyon, as the last rays of the sun painted the rocks red and gold.
(Photographs: Prabuddha Dasgupta. Watch out for more at http://www.pbase.com/p_dasgupta)

~ by feistyfeline on June 14, 2007.