In every location there is a people density below which mutual acknowledgement is required. Close to the parking lot we have achieved critical density to make interactions rare, but the crowds fall away as the trails diverge and the difficulty increases.
A kid about kindergarten age speeds past toward me, his feet desperately trying to find the pedals. His dad following behind, to me, “Ah! He recovered…” Then to him “Well done Mark!”
An elderly woman rides a nice looking bike uphill. She’s loaded for bear, and it doesn’t look like it’s her first trip. Her bell sounds like a windchime.
The trail wraps around but I can see people above me and I wanted to find my own path. Shortly I mount a particularly prominent blob which calls out for sitting. If the sun were out it might not be ideal, but today it’s the right spot. I snack.
Dried banana tastes too much like banana in those pieces that didn’t get dried enough. I like bananas, but these fall into an uncanny valley.
Today I’m climbing Bell Mountain, the Hershey’s Kiss of the valley, a dollop of red pudding plopped into a lumpy cone. I can see the highway bridge again, though this time it points vaguely towards me.
I spent some time in a very pleasant conversation with a barefooted local before pushing up the slope, picking my route nearly randomly at distance but carefully up close. Micro and macro decisions don’t always align.
I’m far past the end of the trail now, heading up paths which exist despite the map. Mostly I’ve been finding my own path, sometimes zagging around one side of a giant stone blob, sometimes the other. In the last bit there seems to be only one viable route. I’m not at the official mountain top, but I’m on a lovely spire that doesn’t look like it will collapse soon, in human scale timelines. Probably.
I’m still very nervous about heights. I was never afraid of them until I visited the Grand Canyon about eight years ago. Something about the immense dropoffs was off putting, knowing that if I fell I’d have plenty of time to think about it on the way down. I’m not incapacitated by the fear, after all I have 270 degrees of view to the valley both far below and at the same time, three little feet from me. But it feels different now, my stomach trying to pull itself to safer altitudes through my ass, and my breath never fully caught.
I made my way down as I did up, with trails a vague suggestion. It’s important not to trample the dirt here, but there are plenty of rock surfaces to bound among. The trick is to avoid being rimrocked: unable to go either up or down safely. Interestingly I’m much more comfortable going down here, but there are places where you can’t see what’s next and avoiding those is my objective.
Across the small vallley I sit in a seat of power, a waterfall between two trees, only there’s no water today to carve the ledge. It’s the perfect height and has a backrest, and I’m facing the mountain I just climbed. I’m playing a game called “find the trail” since I’m far from the official route, but there are lots of options.
I feel alone on this mountain as I try to skirt it. And then I find a hair tie. Fortunately Sedona is very clean, very little trash, so I’m compelled to pick this up. I keep forgetting to bring a garbage bag.
Despite the traffic noise from a mile away, I can still hear people talking and crying on the other mountain. I’m far away but all the exposed rock reflects sound.
I didn’t get rimrocked but I got wrongrocked, unable to proceed without trampling the fragile crusty dirt and microorganism habitat. I loop back. The trail is below me, I need to find a safe way to descend. Fall lines are usually good, where the water slowly divides the mountain. Probably slick when wet, but that’s not today. Still the occasional puddle has tracks next to it. Any dirt there is thoroughly churned and undisturbed by my feet. Plus, plenty of rocks to hop, each slowly rolling toward the someday river.
I’ve made it down to the trail, the sting in my thigh telling me I strayed too close to something green and pointy.
This trail loops around the mountain and doesn’t go to the top of anything, so it’s not heavily traveled. I’d definitely be in the “must greet” range of the human density scale, but I’ve not been within a quarter mile of anyone for hours. Also, it’s getting late in the day again and I expect most have moved back into areas with running water and flush TVs.
It’s overcast today, so there will probably be no brilliant sunset, just increasingly darkening gray. I need to be mindful of the time again, though at least today I remembered my headlamp.
Here there is a large dome, a single blob of red, with rounded sheer sides and a row of eyes at the top. Its face flakes in thin sheets like the bark of the wizard trees below, revealing rawer red after sloughing lichen gray.
The trees begin to smell rain and I, in turn, them. The gray deepens. I choose the shorter tine of the fork.
The second mountain I ringed today is lately called the Courthouse Butte, and the trail I’m ending my hike with is called the Big Butte Loop, depending on who you ask.
I made it back to the the RV before the all-the-way dark.
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