Stress. There’s stress for some reason now, where once packing for a backpacking trip seemed so easy, so care-free, “If I forget anything, I don’t need it.”
Stress eats away at my consciousness each moment, the itch at the back of my neck, the wicked sensation that tickles your self-doubt, “You don’t need it, but they do”.
Stress that laughs while you drive away, sick to your stomach of the pending court date you never wanted to attend, yet volunteered for.
I’m dying of stress and I can’t think of a goddamned thing other than if I have everything I need in my stuffed-to-the-gills truck, loaded up with all accouterment seemingly important for 9ºF desert campout in Canyonlands national park. It fades for a moment, and the moment melts into an hour while I cruise down the highway with the dog popping her head out of the window on occasion. Warnings from further south about traffic jams, car crashes, and sketchy roads give the trip a sense of pending dread, but once I pick up Taylor that dread fades away, and we indulge ourselves on that most menacing of meals: McDonald's. It’s while we’re eating that the voice of Stress cackles in the back of my head, echoes down my spin,e and makes my hairs stand up, an auditory sigh is the only conscious reaction I can muster at first, followed by “Oh my fucking god”.
I forgot the stove.
Stopping into the last Ace Hardware for the rest of the trip, we pull out a lucky find with a stand-up Camp Chef on sale for nearly half-off the sticker price, and $150 grill for just $85. I snag it and somehow tetris-fit the box and its contents into the shallow allowance of my bed, and then we are finally off on the long drive to Moab, or the next destination for gas and treats. The road winds down corridors that shine a reminiscent veneer of a time not so long ago that now feels to have been a lifetime away; It’s funny to me how even passing through space can bring back ghosts of yesterday, whether they meet Heidegger’s definition of Dasein or lesser than conscious in even some diehard panpsychistic belief. My old Nissan Murano, who would bless me with nightmares any time I’d travel with it, where I nearly died rolling off a muddy hillside with it in 2021. The friend I took here during a turkey hunt some miles up the road. A time when I would cram into the back of a red Chevy S10, Crew Cab, with a single access seat and a space on the floor affectionately titled “the bitch seat”.
Cigarettes come to mind, a long-time favorite of mine during desert camping sessions I used to attend at all times of the year. It’s interesting to look back, at how much of a desert rat I used to be, far down South or in the dry dead West. I wish I could have one, but I know how miserable I feel anytime I even taste one, so the desire fades and I’m back to where I’ve been all along, driving with my fiance and our husky down the wide open, white-out blizzard January roads of central Utah. We’re strung along the road for a few hours before things clear up, and when they do we’re in that long, monotonous drive between Price and Green River with views of the jutting San Rafael Swell can be seen far on the Western horizon. Dust curls on the still air when heavy trailers blast past, leaving a whipping wind of sand and brake dust long enough to spray our windshield.
We make it down to Moab as the sun is setting, but our destination is still an hour out, so we throw on some campfire stories and make our way further into the dark, an anticipatory excitement leaks into my mind as I remember again those days more than a decade ago when I first saw the red rocks of Southern Utah the morning after we arrived. Taylor’s in for a surprise, and I can’t wait for her to see just how much of a playground this vast landscape is.
Setting up camp is a mad dash after rousing an own from its hiding hole, as the temperature outside has plummeted down into the teens, the stars clearer than any other campout we’ve been on in months. Zipping up the vestibule to my rooftop tent to provide a little buffer against the cold is a great idea, and even better is when we get the heater kicked up inside the small room and things get cozy FAST. It’s hard to think about anything but sleep, and we cuddle up for a little while but it’s only about 730, and we’ve still got to eat our dinner on the fancy new stove. I head out and start cooking up some tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and all our energy came flooding back, but the temps outside left us opting for quick explorations around our Hamburger Rock campground then swiftly returning to the warm tent to chat, listen to music, and eventually head to bed.
Then the next day would be the one we went on the big adventure, initially planning on hitting Elephant Hill but then opting to run a “moderate” rated trail on a 4-LO drive out to a Colorado River overlook. A little over a mile in, I opted to air down the tires and see if it make a big difference: We’ve aired down before and loved the results, but this trip will be the first time I have a portable air compressor with us that we can pump back up anywhere we need, and I’m eager to see how much my Tacoma–and my skill as an offroad driver–can go. It’s not long before we start having some really fun, bumpy trails with tricky terrain mixups, high hill climbs, and some good old-fashioned hitch kisses. About an hour of driving later, we’re at the loop for the overlook, and we head out over the rocks.
The view here is the same that often leaves one at a failure to describe, and even photos fall short of capturing the sheer vastness of the landscape around you. A chasm nearly a mile wide stretches from where we stand to the other side of a relentlessly tall cliffside, that juts nearly straight down to the icy flows of the low and slow Colorado that seems impossibly far below. I’ve only seen these rivers in warmer weather, and it’s a real trip to be here with just us looking over a landscape that leaves me in awe at each glance, conjuring thoughts of what it must’ve been like to cross or live in these lands during the bloody expansion of Manifest Destiny.
As we make our way back towards the main road, my tires still aired down, I tell Taylor we should at least go see what Elephant Hill is like. I came here once years ago with that old Murano and knew I wouldn’t be doing much else than hiking the 4x4 trail; I’ve seen videos of guys in stock Tacomas running the wild pass, but those guys always have something like 3 or 4 other trucks rolling around them like a brazen tribe of mechanical nomads slugging over rocks that threaten to wipe out their advance from a simple slide. Once we arrive, I feel a burst of confidence when I see the road, and we blast up the stark hillside, only a few cars in the nearly vacant parking lot and not a soul around. Once we hit the first real ascent, Taylor’s insecurity immediately takes hold and there’s a lot of desire from the passenger side to stop now and get out while we can. Begrudgingly I obliged, but in hindsight, the detour was probably the smartest thing I could have done since the sun was beginning to peek down behind the jutting Needles to the West.
We drive back down to our same campsite out East, the sunset at our backs and illuminating the landscape and storms some miles away into a blast of color: Blue-black, hazel, brilliant orange, and blasts of green from the shrubbery dotting the sunny buttes. As we arrive at Hamburger Rock again, we are gifted with one of the most impeccable desert sunsets I’ve ever seen, and again I flow down into a flashback of consciousness. I’ve seen so many breathtaking sunsets in these parts of the world, my typical bewilderment being met with jokes at my expense by friends who’ve already had more than I would drink in a weekend now. But here, this sunset is beautiful, and the company I have with me fills me with joy and warmth as the cool air descends our cozy little campsite once again. After the fire and the tacos and the laughter in the little vestibule room, we crawl into our warm blankets and cuddle up as a family, and I sleep better than I’ve slept in weeks.
Tonight, the stress is gone away.
