I went hiking in the desert again, not wanting to waste the last couple of days left from this halcyon summer rerun before colder temperatures set in once more.
(The warming trend after the first frost used to be called Indian Summer, but I suppose that name has become anathema along with all the rest of the terms being restructured for political reasons, and I have not yet heard the new term for this re-summertime. Not that the season cares what we call it — it simply is. And besides, in the desert, the summer was never this lovely, so perhaps the current mild weather isn’t a rerun at all, but the real thing, no matter what the calendar says.)
The trails I took today were a lot easier than the previous ones, mostly because they were wide enough I could chug uphill on the smoother parts and zigzag my way down on the steeper slopes.
I wasn’t the only one making use of the fine day, but I don’t want to ruin the experience by mentioning all the boys of all ages with their noisy vehicular toys zooming along the trails. (Oops. Do you see what I did? I mentioned the noise after all!) I really shouldn’t complain about the motorized toys — after all, if it weren’t for vehicles, most of the trails in the desert would be as treacherous as the one I climbed the last time I was there.
The hardest parts were balancing me, my trekking poles, and my phone so I could take photos. Usually, photos seem more vibrant than the natural subject, but for some reason, these photos don’t pop the way the real scenery did, maybe because there is nothing to show the scope of the slopes. (I suppose I could have done a selfie or two, but that’s not my style. I prefer to be outside the photo looking in, rather than inside the photo looking out.)
Still, the photos are good enough to show the beauty of my walk without showing all that isn’t beautiful, such as the roads carved into the desert floor by the ATVs and the garbage strewn everywhere. But let’s not talk about those things, and remember only the intermittent silence and the beauty.
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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Unfinished, Madame ZeeZee’s Nightmare, 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.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.
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