NIGHT HIKE FEVER
I am lucky enough to have a friend in Phoenix who will get up at the crack of dawn and go on hikes. He knows all the good ones, too. The desert in the dark is as close as I will ever get to diving in a deep sea exploration pod. It was underwater back in the Cambrian period after all…Â
When Gavin and I get out of the car at South Mountain at 5 a.m. it’s 32 degrees; there's moisture in the air and on the rocks and plants. An unusual sensation. The creosote smells are intoxicating. It’s still dark and we are the only ones there. As we head up a creviced trail we settle into our usual pace, talking our heads off about nature and heavy metal and prehistoric birds. We are so caught up we don’t even notice the changing altitude. The moonlight is silver on the sage leaves and makes it possible for us to go without flashlights. An occasional bat squeaks by. Coming around a corner I’m startled by a saguaro cactus in the shape of a human. Or, maybe we are shaped like saguaro cacti? I have to laugh at myself, I’m in saguaro territory not the other way around. With every step the sky gets lighter and the sounds increase – more bats making their way home, city noises not far off, and, best of all, coyotes giving their final yips and howls before bedtime.Â
Downhill is harder than uphill, so I’m grateful for the tiny increments of light and especially shadows that outline little crevices and loose rock. I have a tremor of grief shaking my groundwater which is the realization that I would not be making this hike without my friend who is a large, powerfully built human man. It just would not be safe for me. Not because there is safety in hiking with a partner should you fall or break your ankle, but because I’m a woman-ish human. Again. My friend knows this too and does not take it for granted which makes me feel very respected and loved. I ask him to always take the notion of me with him on his solo hikes and he agrees. I am so grateful to have such a friend.
It never looked like this growing up, Phoenix. Definitely not as many lights. But the descriptions of the cacti and the smells of the desert at night are still the same. Those were what I noticed as a little girl. My most prominent memory of the desert at night was camping with my class at Lake Pleasant. It was only a campground back then, nothing else around. I was terrified to walk alone but not because Phoenix was a scary place. It was because I'd seen the movie Gargoyles and I was a kid so the monsters were real to me 😉. But those smells, intoxicating!!! I cannot find words worthy enough to describe them. I became a Legal Eagle Saver at this campground...I still have my badge somewhere. A friend in high school used to drive us to Lake Pleasant on weekends and we'd hike over the mountain and sit by the water and owls would fly over us, their wing spans were so wide that they would block out the moonlight. And you couldn't see the bats, but you could hear their squeaks and feel their movement in the air around you. There was no greater peace back then. I moved away from Phoenix in 1991, and regretfully I haven't been back. South Mountain isn't the same and Phoenix has developed far, far into what was only dirt and cacti and critters. I wish you could've seen it back then. So magical. The last hike up South Mountain was with my son who was just around a year old. He's thirty-two now and has moved to the ocean, my second magical place. But I'll never forget my desert. Thank you, Neko, for bringing it back to me for a little while. xxx
Neko (& everyone), this sounds weird, but during downhill walking, try landing on the balls of your feet first instead of your heels. It really saves the knees.
I walk like that all the time, it's helped me recover from some severe back problems.