Sept. 2001
It was getting dark fast and for a day and a half we had no fresh water in sight. We had been going off water from a cow tank midway across Buzzard Roost Mesa and we could still taste the brackish aftermath it left behind in our mouths. As we came to the edge of the mesa, we found a steep cliff and could glimpse in the evening shadows, a verdant and fertile valley below. We could hear the water running and see a strip of what were probably tall sycamores and cottonwoods running through the valley. The sun had gone down and to find a way around the cliff would take hours in the dark. We did not have flashlights, only homemade pine-pitch candles, so finding a way down the cliff face was out of the question.
To my surprise, little Jessica who was seemingly nonreligious said, “Lets say a prayer.” We were all a little surprised. Ashlee looked at her for a moment almost as if to say, “Did I hear you right?” Jessica had just turned 14 a few days earlier and must have suddenly felt she should take charge. “Come on, were wasting day light. Fine...I’ll say a prayer.”
So there in the fall twilight hours, the four of us knelt at the cliffs edge amongst the sacatone and sage. Jessica prayed as best she knew how.
“Dear Jesus, We’re like in a real fix. We can’t find a way down on our own, but we know that with your help all things are possible. Please show us the way….Oh, and bless the food we are going to be cooking when we get there.”
Suddenly a spindly old cow came bursting through the manzonita bushes at the cliffs edge. Where did she come from?! We looked and sure enough, slightly over-grown very sketchy cow trail zigzagged down into the shadows beneath. I guess all things are possible.
Jessica dropped to her knees. “Thank You, God! I knew you were listening!”
We quickly made our way down the steep rock face. We were moving so fast that we hardly noticed the deep cuts and scratches we earned bushwacking through all the thickets of catclaw. We trudged and tripped our way through them. I was breaking trail in the lead so I took most of their barbed fury. I did not know if my forearms were wet from sweating or from blood…nor did I notice the hole that was torn in my food bag and the flour pouring out of it.
We made it to the stream and set up camp in a grove of sycamores. To my delight, we made it down safe and had fresh spring water. This greatly outweighed my concern about losing a good portion of my corn meal and flour on the way down. The girls offered to share but I knew that they would need every ounce of food they had to make it through the week. I knew I was going to have to get a little primitive from here on out and try to substitute edible plants and maybe catch a rabbit or quail.
The next morning I said a prayer that I would have a little help in finding something to eat. I started collecting wild black berries, water cress, sour dock, and canyon grapes along the rivers edge as I akwardly hop-scotched form rock to rock. Then I saw movement at my feet under the placid water glaring in the early dawn light—brown trout and blue-gill fish darting up and down through the river rocks into a pool. As chance would have it, the week before, I had collect 3 or 4 barrel cactus needles that were curved back like hooks-- I had heard that the Sinagua and Mogollon Indians used them to fish with.
It was getting dark fast and for a day and a half we had no fresh water in sight. We had been going off water from a cow tank midway across Buzzard Roost Mesa and we could still taste the brackish aftermath it left behind in our mouths. As we came to the edge of the mesa, we found a steep cliff and could glimpse in the evening shadows, a verdant and fertile valley below. We could hear the water running and see a strip of what were probably tall sycamores and cottonwoods running through the valley. The sun had gone down and to find a way around the cliff would take hours in the dark. We did not have flashlights, only homemade pine-pitch candles, so finding a way down the cliff face was out of the question.
To my surprise, little Jessica who was seemingly nonreligious said, “Lets say a prayer.” We were all a little surprised. Ashlee looked at her for a moment almost as if to say, “Did I hear you right?” Jessica had just turned 14 a few days earlier and must have suddenly felt she should take charge. “Come on, were wasting day light. Fine...I’ll say a prayer.”
So there in the fall twilight hours, the four of us knelt at the cliffs edge amongst the sacatone and sage. Jessica prayed as best she knew how.
“Dear Jesus, We’re like in a real fix. We can’t find a way down on our own, but we know that with your help all things are possible. Please show us the way….Oh, and bless the food we are going to be cooking when we get there.”
Suddenly a spindly old cow came bursting through the manzonita bushes at the cliffs edge. Where did she come from?! We looked and sure enough, slightly over-grown very sketchy cow trail zigzagged down into the shadows beneath. I guess all things are possible.
Jessica dropped to her knees. “Thank You, God! I knew you were listening!”
We quickly made our way down the steep rock face. We were moving so fast that we hardly noticed the deep cuts and scratches we earned bushwacking through all the thickets of catclaw. We trudged and tripped our way through them. I was breaking trail in the lead so I took most of their barbed fury. I did not know if my forearms were wet from sweating or from blood…nor did I notice the hole that was torn in my food bag and the flour pouring out of it.
We made it to the stream and set up camp in a grove of sycamores. To my delight, we made it down safe and had fresh spring water. This greatly outweighed my concern about losing a good portion of my corn meal and flour on the way down. The girls offered to share but I knew that they would need every ounce of food they had to make it through the week. I knew I was going to have to get a little primitive from here on out and try to substitute edible plants and maybe catch a rabbit or quail.
The next morning I said a prayer that I would have a little help in finding something to eat. I started collecting wild black berries, water cress, sour dock, and canyon grapes along the rivers edge as I akwardly hop-scotched form rock to rock. Then I saw movement at my feet under the placid water glaring in the early dawn light—brown trout and blue-gill fish darting up and down through the river rocks into a pool. As chance would have it, the week before, I had collect 3 or 4 barrel cactus needles that were curved back like hooks-- I had heard that the Sinagua and Mogollon Indians used them to fish with.
I made a fly-swatter of sorts with some yucca fronds and went about whopping grasshoppers and bumble bees for bait. With a stick for a pole, sinew for string, and live bait, I caught 14 small fish with the cactus needle hooks in about 2 hours. Before cleaning and prepping them for cooking, I found a secluded spot, and followed the example Jessica had set and thanked my Father in Heaven for the abundant catch.
I apologize but my story now takes it's tangent. I tell this story as a precursor to another. You have to know the back ground to know why I constantly feel the urge to go back to that valley at the head of Buzzard Roost Mesa again and again.
You see most people never have a chance to live the primitive life--never have the need to wonder how they will get through the day. I don’t live it now. I live a life of luxury and ease in comparison. I have just about everything I need at my beck and call. In town, if I come to a road block on the way home, I merely follow a detour like a mindless sheep until I eventually get home. Not a calorie extra burned on my part. If I was low on food, I would just run to the store, or if things were tight, I guess I could ask my parents to spot me some money until pay day. Worst case scenario, there's food stamps, soup kitchens, government programs. If I was sick or hurt I could whip out the old cell phone or drive a block away to the nearest Urgent Care.
Often times in the wilderness though, things can quickly escalate beyond one's own ability and the terrifying realization sets in…there is no 911, no doctor’s prescriptions, no homeless shelters, no soup kitchens… there is only one source to turn to--God. Yet in the city, it is too convenient to turn to our golden calves of technological advances and government aid. So why has society become more godless? One reason, social constructs and bureaucratic agencies have become our savior.
So this is why I go back to Buzzard Roost Mesa as often as I can. It’s a place so rugged and remote, one must face hardship head-on. Often enough, even meeting these hardships squarely on, it is not enough to rely on my own strength and skill.
A couple of weekends ago I found myself needing some answers and direction in life--I needed to clear my mind. A friend and I arrived at the same cliff with our 40lbs. packs just as the sun was setting. We quickly found the obscure cow trail and started the switch-backs down. The brush was extra thick on the way down due to all the rain and snow this year. After the arduous hike down, we finally made it to the valley below, and found a spot that the cows had cleared out under a juniper tree.
I pulled out my brand new Coleman blow torch lighter to get a fire going. The wood was a little damp from the constant monsoon rains that had been falling for the last two weeks. No worry though, I have a blow torch! I set up my kindling and twigs, clicked the torch…about 2 seconds of flame…and then it went out. Not a single flame after that. So I went primitive.
I took a shoe lace and a mesquite bow, a piece of dry saguaro, a yucca stalk, a stone socket and made a fire-starting bow drill. Problem was this, even if I did create a coal off of the friction, everything was so wet. I tried anyways, several times actually, to no avail. Then it dawns on me, “This is the place that I learned a valuable lesson in prayer with Jessica. Why have I not prayed yet!?”
We knelt and asked that we would be able to get a fire going because we needed to cook our food. Most of what we brought to last for 3 days and 2 nights needed to be cooked. There was also the rumblings of thunder and the distant flash of a lightning storm coming...we could use the camp fire light to make a shelter out of our rain ponchos.
After the prayer, our faith was high, and I went back to the bow drill. It has to work...I caught 14 fish last time...with a cactus needle! But two hours later my arm was too cramped up to even hold the bow anymore. I was doing everything right, why was the fire not starting!? We set up a shelter made from our ponchos in the dark, and shortly after, every square inch was being put to the test. He slept dry and warm. The next morning, everything was so wet that we knew there was little chance of starting a fire. I did not want my friend to hate my guts making him stay so I suggested that we could climb out and drive down to a dryer climate. As we climbed out, we ate juniper and manzonita berries to give us energy to carry our heavy packs out. By the time we made it to the top, our legs were shaking as we wobbled to my truck.
I couldn't help but feel a little let down that this place of miracles in the past had now failed to deliver. Was I still going to want to return now that the place had lost some of its magic? Was it me? Have I lost it?
Two days later I noticed I had a few chigger bites around my sock line and a few on my back and chest. Chigger bites are the worst and you usually don’t know they are around until 1 or 2 days after they bite. It’s like having a mosquito bite, but when you scratch it, it feels like a hot needle is stabbed in you. I had about 12 bites and they were painful and annoying. I called my friend.
“Hey, you notice any red bumps on your body.”
“Yeah, did we get into some poison ivy?” he asked.
I told him about chigger bites and that they were probably going to hurt like crazy for the next week.
“I have about 12 bites, how about you?” I asked.
“I quit counting at 85. I am covered....I'm hurting pretty badly, I already went through a bottle of that pink lotion!”
I suddenly had a realization—we had been in danger. If our prayer had been answered, if we had started a fire, we would have camped there for 3 days. Imagine how many chigger bites we would have had after that. Get bit by enough chiggers and a person can have a urticarial reaction. Our shelter was the only warm spot in the entire valley. Even more chiggers were headed for our shelter with out us even being aware.
I realized that it was still a special place but even more so now. This valley at the head of Buzzard Roost Mesa that once held so much enchantment for me because of miraculous answers to prayers now had a new dimension…the miracle of unanswered prayers.
