Enjoy The Silence

About three years ago, I drove to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument to do some solo hiking.

It’s not somewhere you happen to pass through – it has to be a deliberate visit. In fact, it’s one of the most remote places you can imagine. It’s nowhere near any big cities. The closest place of any size is to the south – the town of Puerto Peñasco, across the border on Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. The nearest American freeway is a long way north. To get there, you pass through a tiny community named “Why.” Many travelers in this remote desert might ponder that question.

I stayed in a little town named Ajo – a former copper mining town. With the mine now closed, the place is very quiet. I only ever saw three or four people. But each of them waved and said hello. It’s become a favorite place of mine. There is nothing to do other than enjoy the warm desert, the sounds of the birds, and the vividly clear stars. When it gets dark, the town shuts down. The couple of restaurants in town, if they are open that day, close around six. They used to stay open until eight, to catch the folks heading back to Phoenix from the Mexican coast. But when the border crossing changed its hours to close earlier, the customers dwindled to zero.

Instead of a hotel, I stayed in a former classroom in a converted school. I never saw any children in town, so assume the school closed when the mine did and the families left. It’s become a conference center and art hub. The town is trying to increase its art community, with murals and sculptures everywhere. Unlike some other desert communities, this does not feel forced. Instead, it feels like a natural evolution to fill the empty spaces of a town that’s lost its original purpose.

I stood outside at night, listening to coyotes howl, and looking for the Andromeda Galaxy. The faint smudge in the sky is two and a half million light years away, and the most distant thing most human eyes can see unaided. Just when I’d found it and was pondering the wonders of the universe, I was startled into the most primal reaction. The hairs on my neck rose as I heard an animal rustling through the chaparral in front of me. The contrast was stark. It turned out to be a benign-looking javelina snuffling around.

Three years ago, I’d woken before dawn and driven out to the National Monument trailheads. It was a warmer time of year, and I knew I had to get up and down from my climbing before it grew too hot.

I saw one other car the whole time, and no other people hiking at all. The solitude was wonderful – desert silence, broken only by birdsong.

I intended to climb up to a rock arch on the end of a mountain ridge. Before I began to climb, the rising sun appeared through the arch and perfectly spotlit a patch of valley floor. It was magical – even more so because I was totally alone, and seeing it only because I was there at dawn. It’s one of the features of a photography talk I give.

I began an eight-hundred-foot, steep climb up the rocky back of the mountain. It pushed me to the limits of my physical abilities. But I couldn’t stop, because if I did, I’d risk being on the mountaintop in uncomfortably hot temperatures.

Once at the top, I looked down at the tiny dot that was my car, and the dirt road vanishing behind it. There were no other vehicles, and no other signs of life. Although I had been very careful to tell people where I was going and when I could be expected to reestablish contact, I was aware of the extreme fragility of life, and remoteness of my situation. I remembered astronauts on the moon sharing similar feelings. They had Mission Control to talk to at all times. But no help could reach them if they punctured their space suits.

Can you spot my car?

 I felt like I had challenged myself, and succeeded – but barely. And besides, there was an even tougher trail in the park I wanted to try also.

It was a time of major transition in my life. One phase was ending. Some new, positive opportunities were ahead that I did not foresee. Also ahead were some of life’s biggest challenges and disruptions.

I did not know if I would ever be back out that way, but I hoped so. As it was, it took three years. I was doing very much the same thing as before – dropping off some space donation items in Tucson, and swinging through this area too. It’s a long way from Tucson – the vast Tohono O’odham nation straddles the desert between them – but it was in the right direction from home.

This time, I hiked solo for two days. I began by hiking the tallest mountain.

Mount Ajo is 4808 feet tall. I can't find a Tohono O'odham name for it, but some suggest it is derived from au’auho, their word for paint. It's a nine mile hike that took me five and a half hours — three hours up, two and a half down. While much of the rest of the country was under deep snow, I was hiking in a T-shirt, under cloudless skies.

It was a steady, challenging climb, through some of the most breathtakingly beautiful desert, climbing up sheer canyons and ravines of magnificent, ever-changing geology. As I got higher the plants changed from cacti, to manzanita, and finally small trees. And at the top, I felt like I was in the sky — dramatic views in every direction as the steep slopes dropped away sharply.

I didn't see another person the whole time. I heard bees, and birds, and my footsteps. I enjoyed the silence.

The next day, I challenged myself to go back to the arch.

I reflected on what had changed in those three years. I’d been a healthy eater and a regular hiker then, but in the time since I had made other changes. I’d become even more mindful of my food – so much so, I now am asked to give talks on nutrition around the world. Along with that, I’d sharpened my exercise habits. The Mount Ajo climb had been quite a challenge. I was wondering how I’d do with the arch the next morning.

It was gratifying, in a way, to see that the climb was just as steep and challenging as I remembered. It was still not easy. But I was able to ascend much easier than I had in the past. When I climbed the final two-hundred-foot drop down into the mouth of the arch, I felt great.

The arch is about ninety feet across, and looks impossible. It’s rocky and bulky, but it’s also fragile – pieces of rock have flaked from its ceiling and litter its base. It’s clear it won’t last forever. Not even mountains endure eternally.

The next morning, I climbed the much smaller Tumamoc Hill overlooking Tucson. Before doing so, I attended a Navajo sunrise ceremony. I attend every time I am in town. It is a guided opportunity to reflect on the past, and what lies ahead. I thought about the past few years. Of hurtful cruelties but overwhelmingly of the enormous kindness of so many people. I thought about the impermanence and delicate nature of life – and how that is okay.

Every time I go to the desert solo, I return feeling like someone pushed a reset button inside me. So often in life, we need that.

This second visit to hike Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument had still had its risks, to be sure, and remained a challenging workout. But it now felt within my capabilities. I'm proud of how far I have come and what I can do.