On a recent trip to Arizona, I had occasion to do a little hiking in the foothills around Scottsdale. The terrain is quite different from what I grew up with back east. No lush forest floors cushioned with pine needles and moss, no towering pines and broadly spreading oaks, and no pools of ground mist rising in the early dawn to mask the valleys below. Instead the trails are rocky and filled with loose shale rock, the landscape is cacti and scrub trees with the occasional desert wildflower peeking through, and the air is clear and bright—almost too bright except at the horizons. I don’t want you to think it was bleak, far from it, but different in a way that requires one to take notice; as if the mist of New England had been blown away revealing a new and as yet unformed land.
Earlier in the week we had visited Sedona, a terrain as different as can be imagined from both the Sonoran Desert and the eastern forest. Magnificent towering buttes of deep red shot through with layers of beige and brown presented themselves as guardians presiding over the red dirt ground that felt almost sacred, from a time when no one walked the earth, only the spirits. It was pure romantic conceit on my part to imagine this landscape as it once was, without the touristy shops, gas stations and fast food restaurants done up in pseudo southwestern fake adobe. But there were a few vistas preserved from the blight and with a little effort one could see what men must have first encountered a long time ago.
I was thinking about this as I made my way up the last 800 feet of elevation to the summit of Squaw peak. Oh, you won’t find it under that name on a map—in the age of cultural sensitivity it has been renamed for a veteran, a woman who gave her life for this country. Surrounded by imposing peaks that rose up in every direction the idea of giving one’s life for a place, an idea, seemed a good deal more understandable than words appearing in a guidebook or on a bronze plaque at the head of the trail. That feeling stayed with me as I navigated the switchbacks of rock and dusty brush to a summit of bare rock. From here the view was spectacular in every direction and a cool breeze wicked away the sweat and dust. It felt good to stand here and rest a while.
At one point I looked up, a reflex caused by a passing shadow, and saw not one but three hawks surfing the thermals from the slopes beneath us. Wings spread, soaring effortlessly, these ancient raptors were unperturbed by my presence, intent on scanning for unwitting creatures down below. Many writers have observed how humbling it can be to stand at the top of a peak and gaze across the landscape spread out as a quilt of indistinct colors and shapes. I was humbled, by the hawks, by the scenery, and by the effort it had cost me to stand where I was. It seemed only a few years ago that scrambling up a few thousand feet would have been a stroll not a climb that left my legs a little weary and my knees a bit sore.
We are drawn to such sights—the towering mountains and the vast sea. They offer a much-needed perspective, reminding us that our affairs matter very little in the vastness of the Universe. When the world is “too much with us” it’s good to get away from our usual surroundings and go to a place where the sheer scale of our surroundings reminds us that our problems and preoccupations are small in the scheme of things and that we humans have been here only a short time. I recommend it to you as a worthy tonic for whatever ails you. A good walk by the ocean or up a steep mountainside will clear your head and offer you a small measure of peace. Let your spirit glide effortlessly on the wind and your mind be stilled by the silence.