I still haven’t turned off my computer for an entire day, but I have been curtailing my online activities in an effort to live more of an offline life.
A couple of days ago, I went on a quest to find a trail to the top of a local mountain, but I never even got to the other side of the mountain to find the trail. Distances are deceiving in the desert, since there is no human-made structure for comparison, and it took me two hours just to get to the mountain and swing around it a bit. I had to save enough energy, strength, and water to get back, otherwise I would have made it around the mountain.
Bell Mountain. Elevation 3848 ft. The 30120th highest peak in the US.
Today I did the next best thing — drove to the other side of the mountain and tried to hike up the far side. Did well for a while, but the steepness defeated me — even on flange of the mountain, there were places where it sloped greater than 45 degrees. (It’s the steepness that makes it a mountain, apparently. Otherwise it would be just another desert knoll.)
Getting closer!
Still, it was an interesting trip, and maybe I’ll try again someday.
The world below.
I didn’t have any great insights, just the same one any intrepid mountain climber has about halfway up a steep slope: What goes up, must come down.
My car, far below, circled in red, near a water tank.
***
Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Follow Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.
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May 30, 2013 at 4:43 pm
Nice story and pictures. That mountain looks a lot like a volcanic cinder cone. Do you know if it is?
May 30, 2013 at 8:50 pm
It looked volcanic to me, too, which would have been interesting since I lived for twenty years at the base of a dead volcano, but this mountain is actually an erosion remnant.
May 31, 2013 at 10:28 am
That’s quite the vista! I don’t think you have to reach the pinnacle to say you’ve come a long way… in fact or as an analogy. 🙂
May 31, 2013 at 12:53 pm
Carol, that’s a good point about pinnacles. Just moving beyond where you are can be a long way! We tend to focus on the pinnacles we reached or did not reach and discount the real achievements.
May 31, 2013 at 1:30 pm
Wow–that’s some serious hiking! The beauty of emptiness! I can see why you enjoy it.
May 31, 2013 at 2:04 pm
I never imagined I could be fond of the desert. I’m more of a cool green climes sort of person, but yes, I do enjoy it.
June 2, 2013 at 7:11 pm
Quite a view!
June 2, 2013 at 7:51 pm
I like being able to see a long way. Oddly, it makes me feel not quite so alone.
June 3, 2013 at 1:25 pm
Now I have to go look up “erosion cone.” Wind? Doesn’t seem like there has been much water there for an eon or two.
June 3, 2013 at 1:59 pm
Has to be wind. There is one heck of a lot of wind out there!!!