Sleeping on the Bear’s Back

Bears Ears #35

2024-06-05

We’re up here in Manti-La Sal National Forest, in the Bears ears National Monument. The morning has been casual, late rising, reading.  We have a breakfast, then it is time for lunch.

A boy, a young buck scampers around, only about 50 feet away from camp. He decides to have a green snack and stops. This isn’t the female who directed us to this spot in the woods last evening. This guy is decorated with emerging antlers. We stand and watch, then, moving quietly, easily; we grab cameras. This gentleman is fearless.

We snap a few as we creep forward. He backs away eventually several feet to match our move. We know his boundaries.

Relaxed, after a restful afternoon, we decide to walk.

I have the numbers and layout of the roads, heading out toward the tip of this peninsula in the sky. It doesn’t appear far. I have a crude map drawn. We’ll head to a known and numbered intersection and then stroll back.

Taking off down the once smoothly graded road, at first it is dug up quite deep from the last rain’s ponding. Motorists have been sinking their tires deep into the surface, but after a few hundred feet on the edge of the morass, we are walking side by side hand in hand in the middle of the road. DF has a button up shirt wrapped up on her shoulder as a cushion for her camera and water bottle straps. I’m doing the same with a kilt. Somehow even this feels a bit overdressed for the occasion. We don’t know what might be ahead. There could perhaps be campers, or a passing vehicle, or Forest Service work, still my sense tells me that that is very unlikely.

This is a comfortable easy trek down this smooth road through more of the pleasant fluorescent green carpets and standalone trees.

It is almost a manicured park-like atmosphere.

We walk past an oak grove, the small scrub oak type. I want to explore this. Oak tend to grow out from an original, making a clear space as the center dies out. There is a tendency for the larger species of oak to create wonderful cathedral-like spaces which are very private, often used as places of worship, back in the day.  These are often reported to be a reflection of an energy vortex. I’ve noticed a few through the years have given me a sense of wellbeing and at times, something palpable.

It has been disturbed by cattle munching and defecation. It is up on a slight hill, a good sign. Places like this can have an artesian water effect, which amplifies the energy. I find a large rock to sit on, after noticing something that makes me feel like grinning. I’ll come back here and give a serious exploration on my way back to camp.

Shadows and sunbeams through the canopy fall onto green grass, as tiny flowers make bold statements.

The air is clear.

Fallen trees dried up and twisted, bare naked grey from disintegrated bark, have become fun art work pieces.

Occasionally, there is the stump of an older monarch that was once a victim of loggers long ago.

The tree rings are still there on the stumps and the fallen appendages that were not hauled off. I do a rough counting process of a couple, finding them over two hundred years old at the time of exploitation.

The intersection that we have for a goal must be behind the next bend and then the next. Finally we arrive at the wrong intersection. We have walked far into the forest, more than our relaxed intent. The roads have been changed since this Nation Geographic Map was published. The road, 333, doesn’t exist anymore.  When we had passed it, it was just a trail with no traffic allowed, gone. We’ve walked way beyond the plan.

One of the two Oak Groves that we passed feels great. I walk up reverently, looking to find a path into it. None appears, but two slabs of rock make the journey’s route appear evidently. And then I sit aware for several minutes. DF eventually joins me. It is peaceful, an interlude in the day.

The sun and temperature tells us to head back to camp. This isn’t far from our home base, so I resolve to come back to this place of healing and spirit in the coming days.

As the road wanders on, I realize that my toe shoes are worn more than I realized. Old hardened rubber is slippery and one of the toes has a crack. It is time to retire my hiking shoes of years and years, an old friend, having supported me through many of an adventure. I think back, to breaking them in on slippery river rock in Aravaipa Canyon, or multiple walks through the Tortolitas on sandy surfaces, visiting with local Javalina.

I take photos. Our short casual walk became a 5 mile walk. We’re feeling exhausted and the sun will be setting soon.

I quickly shrink the size of the fire pit. DF gathers together a quick easy to clean up dehydrated meal.

The firelight gives warmth as it entertains. I get out my guitar. We settle into conversations about memories way back in old shoes. Sometimes eyes closed, sometimes watching the flames, or leaning a head back and gazing the stars. Finally the last wood burns out.

To be Continued….

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