Mark M. Rostenko | The Fear

Come to the edge, he said. They said: We are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came. He pushed them and they flew. — Guillaume Apollinaire

I head west, deeper into the Southwestern desert, where to I’ve not a clue. I’ll know when I get there, wherever the lure of the unknown draws me. No human sign in four… or is it five?…however many days. The horizon slips and buttes emerge to fracture the monotony of desiccated flats. My eyes grow wide and lock in awe. Then an overdue blink as the sting of dehydration snaps me back into my body. Parched monoliths of red, pink and beige striped with chalky green under a dome of flawless lapis lazuli beckon. Mesmerized, I stop atop the final rise before following into the geological labyrinth below.

What is the allure of this stark desert inhospitability? How did it find purchase in my blood? I am not of this place nor are my people but the silence speaks of something universal that precedes my time. Perhaps the ageless stardust that built my bones has aligned like steel filings upon a magnet, drawn by recognition of its brethren in the horizon. Perhaps something of mine has been here before and yearns for homecoming.

I drop into the canyons. On the map, a thin red line indicating an undeveloped road; on the ground, just a dry wash. I am entranced by the desolation, remoteness marked not so much by distance as by mood, by energy, by spirit. I’m no stranger to the deserts but this place is severe, unyielding beyond comprehension, a world unlike any other. The stillness I can only describe as spooky, preternatural… and infused with a palpable, all-encompassing silence so profoundly beyond the mere absence of sound that it looms like a manifest force in its own right. A silence that watches. A silence that knows. A silence that stalks the uninitiated, the unprepared. This is not a place for humans, yet it beckons with a sublime beauty so unfathomably immense it generates its own gravitational pull upon my soul.

This is a wilderness of stone and sand with life but an afterthought; death the default, life the exception. Piñon pine, juniper, rabbitbrush and cliffrose the predominant yet sparse greenery, tufts of yellowing grass scattered about. A curious chipmunk investigates my intrusion, a tiny bird flitters by amid towering mesas punctuated with box canyons and ten thousand alcoves begging for exploration. Red is the dominant vibration here, in color and in mood… in its infinite variations, like frozen fire. Endless labyrinths of crumbling saffron, rust and vermillion water-carved slots interspersed with mounds of chocolaty, weather-worn shale… the earth’s skeleton laid bare under infinite sky, a monument to the irony of harshness and punishing adversity sculpting the most intensely beautiful of character.

The drainage winds deeper into a maze of canyons while an easily-missed jeep trail veers off ahead, carved into the not-quite-vertical wall of a massive butte. Apprehension tugs at the periphery of my awareness. Only one set of old tracks in the dirt; I’m alone out here. Anxiety climbs as I hug the wall on my right, the road scarred from rain’s erosive search for lower terrain, treacherous grooves looming like monstrous claws ready to pluck me over the edge. I pass over the dull pink crackle-skin of a dried puddle and my stomach drops towards my knees as the truck sinks beneath the deceptive crust. A thick desert slurry swallows my tires, sucking them deeper and wrenching the fish-tailing vehicle towards the rock wall. I’m overcome by a plunging gut-level feeling of catastrophic inevitability, dead-certain that my trip is now a split-second from culmination, my truck out of control, about to slam into the rock.

Moments later I’m out, shaken but unscathed, warm relief spiraling outward from my solar plexus to numb the prickly intensity of adrenaline coursing through my veins. Visions of what might have been flash through my head. I grow irritable, anxious, short-tempered, spooked. Morbid fantasies congeal into a dense foreboding gnawing on my guts. Perhaps I’ve been alone out here for too long… I’ve never been this far back, not in the peak desert heat of August. From deep within the abyss where nightmares are born the siren croons and I foolishly listen until my will is no longer my own, hijacked by irrational fear.

I assess the steep and twisting road ahead, a plunging drop-off only inches to my left. No way back and no way out should I get stuck further down. I’m equipped for self-rescue but there’s nothing to tie into out here. Fifty brutal miles to a tow truck, twenty from any sign of civilization. I could carry enough water to walk out in the hundred degree sun, but my old Labs would never make it, not with a surface temperature pushing 140 degrees. A crossroads; make your choice. Am I an explorer or merely a tourist? The way back is horrendous. I should press on. You should go back. Risk it. Better safe than sorry. Don’t push it; too many variables… no margin for error… you’re not thinking clearly.

I turn back to dance with the devil I already know, slogging the tortuous wash and its minefields of axle-shredding boulders to find a camp nearer the entrance of the primary canyon, somewhere I can clear my head before pushing deeper into the foreboding intensity of this place. This isn’t the slick redrock canyon I’m familiar with but fragile, crumbly sandstone and shale, hundreds of jagged, broken layers in varying shades of yellow and red and brown. I need to connect to the spirit of this place to find my internal bearings. I pull into a smaller wash, its bed of flat water-smoothed shards of shale like a carpet of ancient stone coins hinting at unfathomable riches of beauty beyond. I listen to erosion’s song in the rock; it lulls of gentle flow, not violent flooding. It’s safe to camp here despite monsoon season.

The following day offers no relief from the heat. It’s ninety-eight degrees hot and climbing, not a cloud in the sky, the sun blazing directly overhead, no shade anywhere. I plan a short hike up the wash, a leisurely jaunt to get the feel of this place, a couple hours maybe, no need for serious equipment. A small daypack with some basics and a quart of water should suffice.

(Continued)