Stories From the Trail
I have an essay in a lovely newly-published anthology from Wayfarer Books,
Stories from the Trail:
Field Notes on Moving Through the Wild.
For my “story from the trail,” I ponder my two distinct versions of strolling through the landscape. I go on a “hike” to enjoy a place, to exercise—and often to share the pleasure of the experience with my spouse and friends.
And then there’s “fieldwork,” which I generally do alone. I could be walking the same trail or mountainside where I might hike, but I’m there to soak up the spirit of the place for a writing or photography project. I’m paying more attention, I’m looking harder, I’m listening more fully.
In my essay, I take you—the reader—with me on a hike in redrock country and then out into the Great Basin for a bit of fieldwork. On both journeys, in real life I photograph my way up the trail. In the anthology, I can’t show you the pictures. But I can share them here.
Chimney Rock is one of the iconic images of Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park, and the Chimney Rock Trail is one of the most heavily used trails in the park. That doesn’t mean crowds. We often have the trail to ourselves, and we rarely meet more than a couple of other families. It’s an easy workout in an incredibly beautiful place.
We watch the Wingate Sandstone change color with the light. Today the cliffs are burnt orange against flawless blue sky. Another day, the rock takes on the deep
intensity of raw meat. Gray days mute the colors, tan to brown to violet.
For fieldwork, I think immediately of the Great Basin, where I’m working on an update of my book, The Sagebrush Ocean. One of my favorite places is the Mount Moriah Wilderness, just north of Great Basin National Park in Nevada. In my essay I describe my efforts to capture the supermoon rising over The Table, with its scattering of bristlecone pines:
I want to be on The Table at sunset,
when the autumn supermoon rises. I’m not just hiking; I’m looking, intently. Closer
and closer, smaller and smaller, the natural world transforms into an endless series
of patterns. Aspen and fir on the facing hillside, a mosaic of textures. The path leading
in suggestive curves between the white boles of the aspen.
Two miles of walking and a thousand feet up lies a tundra-like plateau, The Table, a sculpture garden for scattered Great Basin bristlecone pines
I have The Table to myself. What a privilege. As the light changes, I work my way across the plateau, looking for the perfect snag for sunset light.
I click my shutter, composing, recomposing, bracketing. I move forward, I move back, I crouch low in a dance that would surely look absurd to anyone watching. I crank up my tripod, I splay out its legs. I try to capture every photographic idea that occurs to me.
The golden glow on the bristlecone wanes. The sky is fading to black.
I’m done. I put away my camera, turn, and head for my camp, leaving The Table in a hurry to beat the dark.
The downhill run is a hike, not fieldwork. I fantasize about dinner.
I leave behind two ravens, bristlecone pines, soft-edged evening stillness fast turning to night. And unseen, but satisfying, the possibility of bighorn sheep.
