Dry River Bed, Sep 3, 2012

Dry River Bed

Sep 3, 2012

Walking in the dust up a small canyon ingeniously named “Dry River Bed” just outside of the Badlands (east of Bend), I had the small incling that I was to be in this place, that it was one among many that was in my destiny to visit. For some reason, the experience spoke to me, not necessarily out of some mystical sense of being there before, bu more out of an idea to make use of the place in a story. 

We had been invited along this hike by some old friends who now live in Bend, Jim and Sue who have been getting themselves together--quite literally--over the past few years. We all brought our kids, making our party eight in number. Their kids, Samantha and Ben are younger than Gavin and Rachel, though not by much.

The impressive aspect to me about the hike was the snake-like shape of the little canyon as it wound through the high dessert, fissure in the land spanning what must be twenty miles in length. The trail followed the basin of the canyon, which was carved by glacial ice and lined with columnar basalt crumbling in places, but offering some sweet climbing in others. Juniper, sage, and scrub grass provided alternating shade, punctuated by occasional Ponderosa. The preponderance of rocks and the slightly undulating terrain made the walking interesting, but with very little ascent in the five or so miles we walked before turning around. 

The other impressive feature of the hike was the dust. The road into the trailhead and the trail itself was composed of four to six inches of a fine particulate that must be a sort of sand mixed with debris from the sage and brush. It was the sort of dry dust that billows when you step on it and clouds around your calves. Our feet and lower legs were almost immediately coated with the stuff after only a half-mile into the canyon, and Cedar’s constant running around our party assured that we walked in perpetual airborne dust. None of us wore masks, so we tried to monitor our injection of the material by coughing, spitting, or otherwise expelling it from our lungs, eyes, mouths and noses.

It may sound a little hellish, but in fact the intrigue of the canyon visuals was worth the walk. I got the sense of timelessness in the canyon, a certain peace that only comes from geographic rest, and generally light use of humans. It was quiet. Only a few bird chirps accompanied the pom-pom of our footfalls and the odd scrape of shoe rubber against rock. Throughout the walk was a pervasive scent of sage, bringing me back to my first experiences in the dessert as a child. We walked in reverence to all this.

We walked, talking only in the small moments afforded by our proximity, but largely within ourselves. “Dry River Bed” is aptly named, after all, I thought after walking for some time silently with these seven companions. The place forces the walker inside himself, while always glancing upward to survey the cliff walls or the ridge where the flatness of the dessert resumes. We were mere animals, I thought, moving along this canyon in search of, of what? Other species hunt, forage. What do we do in such places and why? We walk. It is our way to walk into strange places, cultivate the place inside ourselves, and to emerge with certain knowledge, not only of the geology, the flora and fauna, but of ourselves. We walk into such places because we are drawn to them.

Indeed, Dry River Bed is the best name for the place. The receding glacier of more than 17,000 years has left this canyon to nourish our own sense of wonder and exploration. A river long gone, or perhaps only present as a small creek in the spring, still echoes off those canyon walls. It is an echo for us to hear and grasp. It is an echo that now resonates in the hearts of the eight who stepped into that canyon last Saturday expecting nothing and receiving in return a gift of boundless mystery.

What we walked with that day was something growing in our minds and cultivated by the rock and juniper. We walked quietly together, content in the silence and aroma of sage to ponder what it is that compels us.