“What draws us into the desert is the search for something intimate in the remote.”
— Ed Abbey
“Time and the need of time have ceased entirely.”
— Everett Ruess
Succumbing to the draw of the desert came early this year. Spring fever had misplaced its calendar. The cusp of February and March seemed close enough.
But, what with southern Utah and the “big rez” of Arizona and New Mexico not nearly warm enough to satisfy the relocation needs brought on by this winter, a trek to more exotic climes became essential. And what destination flaunts a more curious cachet and exudes a more alien allure than does Death Valley?
So it was off to the western edge of the “basin and range” province and on down to a few hundred feet below sea level and, let me tell you, as Kid Shelleen once put it, “It was just fine!” Sure, there is a bit of the kinky and outlandish laying about, but to balance it out, there are also wide expanses of the strange and the strikingly unfamiliar. The joint flat out rocks!
And, as it turned out, it wasn’t just about getting into shorts and a T-shirt and spending hour upon hour sprawled out gawking at the night sky with nary a shiver. No, there was much more to it. It seems that the combination of drying winds, lack of recent rainfall, and warming temperatures had all served to speed up the coming of the wildflowers this year. Go figure!
There’s this stretch of roadway north of Furnace Creek that cuts through a sea of early-blooming Desert Gold (Geraea canescens) that, according to all reports, should be soon nearing its peak. If something isn’t done about it in a hurry, there could be some serious mishaps thereabouts. Please do not feed the photographers! What a way to run a desert.
The wags running the campground posted all the relevant scores on a daily basis for those in their midst who might be missing their morning sports page. Rather civilized, I thought. “Coyotes 1, Pets 0,” seemed to be the prevailing outcome.
Although fellow campers swore coyotes made it their regular business to trot through our neighborhood after dark, the fond memory of their serenades, not tracks, were the only hints of such activity once day broke.
Before the first stars appeared each evening, it was all about the bats partaking of their all-you-can-eat buffet and the ever-so-smallish scorpions who never once tipped their hand. A very strange bunch, they! As the evening wore on, cigars and snifters would come out to play. Indeed, it’s a jungle out there!
Once the stars were out, well, then, all bets were off. The deep night sky at Death Valley rivals that of Chaco Canyon for pure numbers. If you didn’t identify constellations early enough, there would be way too many attendant stars for you to do it later.
Although it was a no-brainer to point out the stomping grounds of Cassiopeia, its signature first-magnitude stars were impossible to identify. “Come on out, we know you’re in there. Just back away from the Big Dipper and put your hands on your head.”
Prior to heading off to Death Valley, there had been rumblings in the Utah press concerning a month’s worth of upcoming Everett Ruess commemorative events taking place in theaters, art galleries, bookstores, and on screen down in Salt Lake. Even without such alerts, however, it would have been difficult to tramp that terrain without having the old “vagabond of beauty” trek across your thoughts.
Although I’m unaware that he ever set foot in Death Valley, it would have fit in alongside his other exploits perfectly during the cooler months anyway. If they thought Death Valley Scotty was a character, they should have got a load of the teenaged Everett.
He came to mind a few times during the trip, most especially while walking out on the salt from Badwater in hopes of descending the final couple of feet to the lowest point of the Western Hemisphere land mass. You can just picture him gazing up from 282 feet below sea level to the snow-covered Telescope Peak at 11,049 feet elevation.
His poetic muse would have had much to whisper in his ear once he turned to camp. And you can just imagine his signature landscape block-print portrayals from Zabriskie Point and Dante’s View. Being a longtime muleskinner of sorts, Everett also would have been totally impressed by the manner in which the famous “twenty-mule teams” communicated with each other as they hauled out the precious borax.
With careful planning, which admittedly wasn’t his forte, he could have easily sandwiched Death Valley in between his forays into the Sierras and those of his now-legendary adventures crisscrossing the Southwest from where he would vanish in the Escalante canyon of Davis Gulch in 1934.
And, as far as the hoopla for the Ruess-heads out there, “The End of the Horizon,” a new play on how Everett’s thirst for freedom affected his family, runs from March 14 through 30 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, while at their gallery a set of 25 of his block prints will be on display.
The Tower Theater hosts a free screening of Diane Orr’s film, “Lost Forever: Everett Ruess” on March 18. Ken Sanders Rare Books, as usual, will be ground zero for most-all-things Everett including two major exhibits that run from March 17 through 30 with the opening reception and Gallery Stroll erupting the night of March 21. Please don’t feed the Ruess-tafarians. Ken will!
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and a free-lance writer with a background in commercial and community radio, among other pursuits. He has been a columnist and feature writer for various Park City publications going back to 1973.