Follow the Heart

Dark comes early evening, late Fall, in Utah's west desert. I didn't care. I needed to get away. I took a dirt road leading into the sunset. The western vista was nothing but tints and shades of plum and pomegranate. The longer I drive, the darker the shades.

I have to clear my mind. Heading into remoteness one of my ways to do it. You could say I was running from issues, but I was taking them with me, and looking for a place to bury them; a place where no one else would find them--a place with few footprints.

I turn left at a fork in the road and take the lower road along a volcanic outcropping. The broken rock blacker than dusk. Soon, the sky and rock will blend and become one. I turn off the main dirt road onto a very poor turnout and follow the rocky base of an old railroad grade for several hundred yards. I park and immediately hike up the ridge and into some rolling hills.

The sun is just below the horizon but still casting long shadows of sage and rabbitbrush like long arms with hundreds of reaching fingers. I walk with a quick pace dodging the fingers as they try to grasp my ankles. Ahead, I see a set of rocks that invite me to sit, think, and listen. I angle up the side of a sloping hill, reach the rocks, and sit down.

Now what? Dig a hole? Bury my heart? Listen? I decide to listen. Coyotes howl and yip, organizing for the evening hunt, or more likely, notifying the packs of my intrusion. Surround sound at its best. I've heard this yipping and howling often, but I am never able to determine how many coyotes are involved. It always sounds like hundreds. I read once, that after a coyote howls, he is unable to howl again for some time. If this is true, then there really are hundreds of coyotes around me. Eventually, all the singing stops, and all that remains is silence. Stillness.

From my rock seat, I look around and realize I can't see distance anymore. I see blackness. I'm out far enough that there is no ambiant light. No city light pollution. No moon. Dark!

I stand and try to see a landmark. Just as I knew would happen, the sky and rock have mixed together. Which way did I walk from the truck? How far have I walked? This doesn't happen to me. I am lost! All the things I have learned were running through my head. Did I leave a detailed trip plan at home? No. Did I bring the minimum amount of survival gear? No. It was just a drive and a hike to get away. I had nothing but a pocketknife. What good is a pocketknife in this situation? All I need to do is locate my truck and get out of this black landscape.

What have I learned about traveling in wild places? What have I learned to do when lost? I remember the number one survival tool is the mind. Remain positive! No need to panic. The truck is out there. I couldn't have hiked that far. Relax. Stop. That's it stop. Now think.

There's the Big Dipper. Follow the two stars on the bottom of the dipper out in a line until it hits a bright star. There it is, Polaris, the North Star. That direction is north. So what? I have no clue from which direction I came. North is meaningless. Or is it? Let's see. I know I hiked uphill facing the setting sun, that would be west. I know that the area I'm in is approximately forty-one degrees north latitude so if I was walking toward the setting sun I must have walked from the north--so the North Star is helpful. Stay calm.
I remember I drove along an old railroad grade for a few hundred yards. All I have to do is walk down the hill until I hit the railroad grade and then follow it northward until I see the truck.

I reach into my pocket to make sure I still have my keys. I pull them out and remember that my key ring is a single LED mini-flashlight. Added security. It's light isn't much, but surprisingly bright in a very dark desert. The light improves calmness and slows adrenaline.

I come off the hill and find the railraod grade. Angling toward the North Star I head down the grade. It seems I walked much farther than I remember. I pause to question my direstion. Surely, I did not hike this far. Think again. Follow your mind or follow your heart? I dislike that question. That question is one of my most difficult. Think! Thinking has to do with the brain. Something doesn't feel right. Feeling has to do with the heart. I've already done the thinking. Follow the heart. Heart says, keep going in the direction I'm going. I do and find the truck.

I get into the truck, drive out to the main dirt road, and head out of the desert. It's a little over two hours drive. As I finally get out of the sage flats and up over the last small range of mountains, I can see thirty or forty miles into the distance, the gleaming lights all along the Wasatch Front. My mind now clear--I'm heading home.