From now on we must subsist on our dehydrated food supplies survival rations or on whatever we can forage from the land. The population, though ten times greater than a century ago, must still exist on a reservation no bigger now than it was then. There are few birds in the high woods, less wildlife it seems than down below in the sunbaked desert. He was still leeched to the tree, part drowned but alive, when it caromed off a jutting outcrop at the canyons mouth and glided majestically out onto the flow of a wide and gleaming, deep and golden river. The alkali, white as lime, dazzled the eyes; the wiregrass looked sere and shriveled and even the hosts of flies and gnats had disappeared, hiding from the sun. Let men in their madness blast every city on earth into black rubble and envelope the entire planet in a cloud of lethal gas the canyons and hills, the springs and rocks will still be here, the sunlight will filter through, water will form and warmth shall be upon the land and after sufficient time, no matter how long, somewhere, living things will emerge and join and stand once again, this time perhaps to take a different and better course. When Husk was nearly close enough to reach the toes of his boots Mr. Graham shot him again, this time in the head and with the rifle. He tried to move and a sickening jet of pain coursed through his shoulder. Better yet, build a paved road to every corner of the park; better yet, pave the whole damned place so any damn fool can drive anything anywhere is this a democracy or aint it? With supersensitive antennae these operatives from the C. of C. look into red canyons and see only green, stand among flowers snorting out the smell of money, and hear, while thunderstorms rumble over mountains, the fall of a dollar bill on motel carpeting.). His life became dreamlike. More, this is bliss, pure smug animal satisfaction. Old Roy treated us each to a bag of peanuts and talked a little about tomorrows work: trucking the cattle up to his allotment on the southern slope of Tukuhnikivats. The wind flows around us from the yellow haze in the east, a morning wind, a solar wind. Useless to try and reassure him that he has more to lose than gain by such assimilation; somewhere, in a way we all know, his pride was damaged and his confidence shaken. My anxieties have vanished and I feel instead a sense of cradlelike security, of achievement and joy, a pleasure almost equivalent to that first entrance from the outside into the neck of the womb. ), The day before I leave. (I say it with a smile; they laugh. The beavers had to go and build another goddamned dam on the Colorado. Perhaps the tree is mad. More clouds emerge from empty sky, anvil-headed giants with glints of lightning in their depths. Badwater pool in Death Valley, for example. Now I am in the open again, out of the underworld. Give the kids a break too, let them out of the car, let them go scrambling over the rocks hunting for rattlesnakes and scorpions and anthills yes sir, let them out, turn them loose; how dare you imprison little children in your goddamned upholstered horseless hearse? And here I found myself on the verge of another drop-off, with one more huge bowl of green soup below. Portents: Red skies at morning, sailors take warning. There are times in this hot and arid place when my thirst becomes so intense I cannot seem to drink any liquid fast enough to quench it. A branch, it seemed, of the Grand Canyon. Weve run our first rapids and are still alive. His father doubled forward, head close to his knees, and sank to the ground. Thats for a fact., It happens. Mr. Graham shot him a third time, in the back. I thought of tearing my clothes into strips and plaiting a rope. He looked old, all right, he looked his years. Theres no shelter and little comfort in simply standing still and suffering. October. Or might not, depending upon still other factors, such as the expense of trucking the ore from mine to mill. Nothing but the silence, the stark suspension of all sound. From the railroad town of Green River, Wyoming, to the mouth of the Grand Canyon in what is now Lake Mead, Powells first journey took three months. I place both Floyd and Merle under arrest at once, urging them to stay and have supper with me. Two living things on the same earth, respiring in a common medium, we contact one another but without direct communication. From downriver, as I fall asleep, comes the deep dull roar of the rapids, a sound which haunts the background of my dreams all night long. But duty calls. Forward. East past the Balanced Rock to Double Arch and the Windows; back again and north and east to Turnbow Cabin and up the trail to Delicate Arch; back again and northwest beyond the Fiery Furnace into the Devils Garden, where I walk for the last time this year out the trail past Tunnel Arch, Pine Tree Arch, Landscape Arch, Partition Arch, Navajo Arch, and Wall Arch, all the way out to Double-O Arch at the end of the path. But at the moment, in the sparkling air and brilliant sunlight of the Utah desert, bad news seems far away. Slightly. But how, you might ask, does living outdoors on the terrace enable me to escape that other form of isolation, the solitary confinement of the mind? Id been warned. I stepped forward again, pushing under the branches. Back in the boats, sprawled out comfortably on our baggage, nothing lost but the road map and there are no gas stations in Glen Canyon anyhow we drift onward without further effort, paddles inboard and at rest. Such things for example as the grasp of a childs hand in your own, the flavor of an apple, the embrace of friend or lover, the silk of a girls thigh, the sunlight on rock and leaves, the feel of music, the bark of a tree, the abrasion of granite and sand, the plunge of clear water into a pool, the face of the wind what else is there? The impounded waters form an artificial lake named Powell, supposedly to honor but actually to dishonor the memory, spirit and vision of Major John Wesley Powell, first American to make a systematic exploration of the Colorado River and its environs. When he looked up again the meteor had crossed about two-thirds of the interval between canyon walls and was still advancing. He brought with him his young and pleasant-looking (if somewhat thin and anxious) second wife, his eleven-year-old son Billy-Joe, and two little girls younger than the boy. In the morning my visitor, whose name I didnt quite catch, crawled into his sack and went to sleep. Gently I lowered my canteen to the ground. Above the Orange Cliffs a dismal sunset of bloody sun and gray overcast lingers for a long time on the horizon while the wind howls across our prostrate forms all night long. Tukuhnikivats, the Island in the Desert Episodes and Visions Terra Incognita: Into the Maze Bedrock and Paradox The First Morning Solitaire The Serpents of Paradise Cliffrose and Bayonets Polemic: Industrial Tourism and The National Parks Rocks Cowboys and Indians Cowboys and Indians: Part II Similar Items These brief thundershowers are not entirely without effect: I can see these days a dull green fuzziness spreading like a mold across the distant swales of Salt Wash Valley. Unfortunately, most of the pinyon pines in the area are dead or dying, victims of another kind of pine the porcupine. That made him think. (1) No more cars in national parks. Where he and his brave men once lined the rapids and glided through silent canyons two thousand feet deep the motorboats now smoke and whine, scumming the water with cigarette butts, beer cans and oil, dragging the water skiers on their endless rounds, clockwise. On the flat surface of this tilted slab somebody, maybe a Mormon cowboy fifty years ago, maybe an Indian eight hundred years ago, has chiseled two converging grooves which catch some of the falling water and conduct it to a carved spout at the lower edge. This might be so; but how can we be sure unless we dare the experiment? Why no fences? Around us the Green River Desert rolls away to the north, south and east, an absolutely treeless plain, not even a juniper in sight, nothing but sand, blackbrush, prickly pear, a few sunflowers. What happened here? I wave my arm and stick at them and they bolt suddenly for the trees, like deer. You might find a geode: a lump of sandstone the size and shape of an ostrich egg, or sometimes much larger; slice it through with a diamond wheel and you may find inside a glittering treasure trove of crystals. 0 likes 398 views. In this way I was better able to appreciate the changes which had been made during my absence. I brake my speed with my boot heels as best I can but cant see a thing because of the gush of snow flying in my face. If there are midget rattlers in the area there may be diamondbacks too five, six or seven feet long, thick as a mans wrist, dangerous. Written while Abbey was working as a ranger at Arches National Park outside of Moab, Utah, Desert Solitaire is a rare view of one man's quest to experience nature in its purest form. For entertainment we have the murmur of the river, the drone of cicada and amphibians, the show of nighthawks plunging through the evening gulping bugs. Arriving at his trailer in Arches National Monument, where hell live and work for the summer, Abbey notes the surrounding wildlife and accepts the fact that hell be sharing his space with the animals who inhabit the area. The city, which should be the symbol and center of civilization, can also be made to function as a concentration camp. The B.I.A. Hastily I assemble a couple of sandwiches: lettuce, leftover bacon from breakfast, sliced ham, peanut butter, salami, longhorn cheese, cashews, raisins, horseradish, anything else that will fit comfortably between two slices of bread and take the dewy-cold pitcher of juice and hasten outside and through the storm of sunlight over the baking sandstone of the 33,000-acre terrace to the shade and relative coolness of the ramada. Next, charge a good stiff admission fee; you cant let people in free; that leads to socialism and regimentation. An unlikely landscape. Be the first one to, Desert solitaire : a season in the wilderness, Advanced embedding details, examples, and help, urn:lcp:desertsolitaire00abbe:lcpdf:94b61630-861b-413c-88ab-942ba3873acb, urn:lcp:desertsolitaire00abbe:epub:38109237-8c3b-4970-81e0-8f0c1d4dd5ce, Terms of Service (last updated 12/31/2014). In the foreground the dwarf trees of pinyon pine and juniper waver like algae under water without, however, losing any of their sharpness of detail. For my own part I am pleased enough with surfaces in fact they alone seem to me to be of much importance. Nobody knew for sure; perhaps in a couple of years, depending on when the Park Service would be able to get the money. I could follow if I wanted to, track them down across the dunes and through the open parks of juniper and cliffrose. My friend Newcomb, for instance. The Indians too, a practical people, once used the bark of this plant for sandals, mats and rope, and the Hopi medicine man is said, even today, to mash and cook the leaves as an emetic for his patients. Navajo Point, the final outcropping of the Kaiparowits Plateau, is directly overhead. The pool is deep, over my head. I prefer the desert. Use ILLiad for articles and chapter scans. Who fired again. To make the distinction unmistakably clear: Civilization is the vital force in human history; culture is that inert mass of institutions and organizations which accumulate around and tend to drag down the advance of life; Civilization is Giordano Bruno facing death by fire; culture is the Cardinal Bellarmino, after ten years of inquisition, sending Bruno to the stake in the Campo di Fiori; Civilization is mutual aid and self-defense; culture is the judge, the lawbook and the forces of Law & Ordure; Civilization is uprising, insurrection, revolution; culture is the war of state against state, or of machines against people, as in Hungary and Vietnam; Civilization is tolerance, detachment and humor, or passion, anger, revenge; culture is the entrance examination, the gas chamber, the doctoral dissertation and the electric chair; Civilization is the Ukrainian peasant Nestor Makhno fighting the Germans, then the Reds, then the Whites, then the Reds again; culture is Stalin and the Fatherland; Civilization is Jesus turning water into wine; culture is Christ walking on the waves; Civilization is a youth with a Molotov, cocktail in his hand; culture is the Soviet tank or the L.A. cop that guns him down; Civilization is the wild river; culture, 592,000 tons of cement; Civilization flows; culture thickens and coagulates, like tired, sick, stifled blood. Over a late campfire, kept going now for heat as well as liturgical requirements, I see new constellations dominating the sky. Desert Solitaire depicts Abbey's preoccupation with the deserts of the American Southwest. Now began for the boy what was for him an unreckoned, uncountable series of days and nights. A small dark cloud no bigger than my hand. As mentioned before, I share the housetrailer with a number of mice. Floodlight them, turn on colored, revolving lights jazz it up, man, its dead. However for the sake of their privacy I have invented fictitious names for some of the people I once knew in the Moab area and in a couple of cases relocated them in space and time. He rode as an extra in the movies and got hit in the eye with one of Geronimos rubber-tipped arrows. Circles and semicircles on the red dune where the wind whips the compliant stems of the wild ricegrass back and forth, halfway around and back again. What do the pilgrims see? Along the Colorado River there is no town from Moab in Utah to Needles in California, a distance of over a thousand miles (if we except the two small, improvised, completely artificial company towns connected with the building and operation of Glen Canyon Dam and Boulder Dam). Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home, known or . It has humor. It was soon made apparent to Husk that the better possibilities were already firmly tied up in claims and developments. No matter, its all one to me and the red dust of Utah. ( Desert Solitaire, p. x) A chapter titled "The First Morning" describes Abbey's arrival at Arches at the beginning of April. Plans for new roads can be discarded and in their place a program of trail-building begun, badly needed in some of the parks and in many of the national monuments. But the flood itself did not yet appear. To hell with it. This cow didnt want to fight anything anymore. We unloaded the horses from Roys truck, gave them each a little grain, saddled up, and moved out with the old man in the middle. Is there any spot on earth that men have not proved accessible by the simplest means feet and legs and heart? Looking toward the mountains I can see the dark gorge of the Colorado River five or six miles away, carved through the sandstone mesa, though nothing of the river itself down inside the gorge. At park headquarters north of town I met the superintendent and the chief ranger, the only permanent employees, except for one maintenance man, in this particular unit of Americas national park system. I continued with the sermon. Late in the afternoon hed get a little shade. I light a burner on the stove and hold the boots upside down above the flame until they are malleable enough to force my feet into. He has taken a job with the National Park Service and reports for duty at the headquarters building just north of Moab. Next I built a, The housetrailer serves now chiefly as storage place and kitchen. The sun rises higher, fierce on our faces; the western wall blazes like hot iron. Hanging from one of the limbs was what looked at first glance like a pair of trousers that reached to the ground. The surface of the river is wide and gleaming, slick as glass; an immaculate stillness pervades the canyon, pointed up deftly now and then by a gurgling eddy near the shore, the call of a bird. Sold. When Old Shady sings us a song at night, wrote Powell in 1869, we are pleased to find that this hollow in the rock is filled with sweet sounds. He turned out to be a typical comical Nazi, his feelings still wounded by the fact that the United States had fought against instead of with Hitler; Americans, he said, are very much like Germans and should with them the dirty Russians together fight. The prickly pear, for example, produces a flower that may be violet, saffron, or red. I come after a time to a lovely pool in a basin of sand, fed by a trickle of water flowing down the canyons rocky floor. Why the difference? Years later, still wandering in circles, I will come back to the Arches and the canyon country and inquire about my old acquaintances. All of them are busy, crowded with prospectors, miners, geologists, cowboys, truckdrivers and sheepherders, and the talk is loud, vigorous, blue with blasphemy. I paddle out of the quiet inlet and onto the brown silt-rich bosom of the Colorado. Afterwards, tea and tobacco. Abbey's overall entrancement with the desert, and in turn its indifference towards man, is prevalent throughout his writings. Desert Solitaire - Chapter 9 Water Summary & Analysis Edward Abbey This Study Guide consists of approximately 41 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Desert Solitaire. (Although I have been told by some rockhounds that they can make a better living peddling gemstones and curious rocks than they could mining gold.) In the afternoon he came into a larger canyon, through which flowed a small stream. A dark night. Industrial Tourism has arrived. Im a humanist; Id rather kill a. In the heat and stillness nothing moves, nothing stirs. We are kindred all of us, killer and victim, predator and prey, me and the sly coyote, the soaring buzzard, the elegant gopher snake, the trembling cottontail, the foul worms that feed on our entrails, all of them, all of us. Preoccupied almost obsessed with his work, Husk was only dimly aware of the change in his wifes response to him. He threatens to quit, gets drunk and disappears for a couple of days. I put on a coat and step outside. First descent into The Maze, writes Waterman in the book, though we cannot be absolutely certain of this. There was T. E. Lawrence who liked the desert because, as he said, it is clean, and another mad Englishman, C. M. Doughty . Whimpering, Billy-Joe pressed his hand to his eyes and felt the joints of his bones grate together like glass. By taking off my shoes and digging my toes in the sand I made contact with that larger world an exhilarating feeling which leads to equanimity. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. Then we launch off, in the middle of the afternoon, and paddle across the current to the shady side, abandoning ourselves once more to the noiseless effortless powerful slide of the Colorado through its burnished chute of stone. Cowboys like Scobie and Leslie McKee, now poor thanks to mechanized cattle farming, are also hurttheir image reduced to Hollywood caricatures and tourist attractions. The little fire wavers, flickers, begins to die. What did I do during those five weeks in Eden? The silence settled in again. It is like a labyrinth indeed a labyrinth with the roof removed. From that point he could see the juniper with its promise of shade. Of course its dusty this is Utah! Viviano, old Roy Scobie, theyre finished. You better stay there, cousin, I warn him; if I catch you around the trailer again Ill chop your head off. Viviano took one, I took the other, while Roy stayed with the bunch we already had. Grand and colorful scenery in a rugged land south-central Utah. Desert Solitaire: The First Morning Summary & Analysis Next Solitaire Themes and Colors Key Summary Analysis Though everyone has his or her own ideal place of beauty on Earth, Abbey 's is the desert of Utah. Even the Government itself has not entirely escaped censure. Wish them luck and (if lovers) innumerable offspring, a life of happily ever after. I left the pavement, turned east into the howling wilderness. A note on names. How much the tourist industry can add to the tribal economy, how many Indians it may eventually employ, are questions not answerable at this time. They feed in the twilight between evening and night and again in that similar twilight, unknown to most Americans, between dawn and sunrise, at which times aerial insects are most abundant. A Season in the Wilderness, POLEMIC: INDUSTRIAL TOURISM AND THE NATIONAL PARKS, COWBOYS AND INDIANS He meets the park superintendent and chief ranger. So I went down into Havasu fourteen miles by trail and looked things over. Recall the Proverb: Set not thy foot too often in thy neighbors house, lest he grow weary of thee and hate thee.. Original sin, the true original sin, is the blind destruction for the sake of greed of this natural paradise which lies all around us if only we were worthy of it. Rain and puddles bring out other amphibia, even in the desert. Instead of this lovely barren desert we would have only another blooming garden state, like New Jersey. You mean that little Mexican that worked for Roy Scobie? To escape the oppressive August heat, Abbey explores nearby Tukuhnivats mountain. Dont you have any sense at all?. I dont know how many but apparently only a few, perhaps a single family. The more difficult places, such as Angel Arch or Druid Arch, can be reached by jeep, on horseback or in a one-or two-day hike. Both feet in stirrups, I took a few gulps of water and proceeded. He is short, dark and savage, like most good Basques, with large brown glamorous eyes which seem to appeal to the ladies; from fourteen to forty-five he pursues them all, and if I can believe his lies, makes out with every one. As is the case with many cliff dwellings, the erosion of eight centuries has removed whole blocks of rock which formerly must have supported ladders and handholds, making the ghost village now inaccessible. He shouts once more but his words are unintelligible. As any true patriot would, I urge him to hide down here under the ledge. Fifty years from now my inscription will still be there, enlarged to twice its present size by the growth of the tree. I stop, Waterman comes back and lies down for a siesta. Something dreamlike and remembered, that sensation called. Feeling much better now, our appetites returning, we make breakfast, eating the last of our bacon, the last of the eggs and the last of the canned fruit. Were in perfect agreement. Or only teamwork again good sportsmanship? Mechanize agriculture to the highest degree of refinement, thus forcing most of the scattered farm and ranching population into the cities. Yielding, the agony passed out of him and beyond and all became quiet again, marvelously still. How do, He grinned through the dust. ), we are learning finally that the forests and mountains and desert canyons are holier than our churches. Nature must be preserved because it inspires hopeand because it would be the perfect venue for a populist uprising against a tyrannical government, which Abbey believes is a real danger in America. Beneath the shade of boulders jammed in the middle of the streambed lay a basin of quicksand with a pool at its center. A smell of burning coffee on the wind. The same that lured the mountain men Robidoux, Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith into these parts more than a century ago. Lightning streaks like gunfire through the clouds, volleys of thunder shake the air. Dripping wet and making muddy tracks I entered the village of the Havasupai Indians where unshod ponies ambled down the only street and the children laughed, not maliciously, at the sight of the wet white man. Down the river we drift in a kind of waking dream, gliding beneath the great curving cliffs with their tapestries of water stains, the golden alcoves, the hanging gardens, the seeps, the springs where no man will ever drink, the royal arches in high relief and the amphitheatres shaped like seashells. The water is sterile, lifeless. How much of the painting and sculpture being done in America today will last in the merely physical sense for even a half-century? No mistaking that wedgelike head, that tip of horny segmented tail peeping out of the coils. Plus a discovery bonus of ten thousand dollars. The flowers are pollinated not by bees or hummingbirds but exclusively by a moth of the genus. Like a fool I rationed my water, drank frugally, and could have died of the heatstroke. Time to inspect the garden. The flow dwindled to a trickle over bars of quicksand. Motionless and silent it evokes in us an elusive hint of something unknown, unknowable, about to be revealed. There was even room for the dissenter and nonconformist every town had a few jack-Mormons, those who smoked tobacco, drank tea or coffee or hard liquor, and perhaps even joined the Democratic Party. After a couple of beers he got in his car and went for a drive. You damned stupid harrr I croaked, and gave it up. A variety of asters are blooming along the road and among the dunes; with yellow centers and vivid purple petals, the flowers stand out against their background of rock and coral-red sand with what I can only describe as an existential assertion of life; they are almost audible. Theyd be there if I ever needed them again. After that came a swim in the pool beneath a great waterfall nearby, 120 feet high, which rolled in mist and thunder over caverns and canopies of solidified travertine. No wind or breeze, no birds, no running water, no sound of any kind but the stir of my own breathing. We will keep fighting for all libraries - stand with us! Under a ledge I find the barest hint of a seep, drops of moisture leaking from the rock and dampening the sand beneath. On the way, in an area where spruce and fir mingle with quaking aspen, in a cool shady well-watered place, I discover a blue columbine, rarest and loveliest of mountain flowers. Yet there were the tracks as before, coming down the pathway out of the side canyon and leading back again. Turn that motor off. On the way we stopped off briefly to roll an old tire into the Grand Canyon. Descending the mountain we enter by degrees into a friendlier, more comfortable, more human environment forest, rushing streams, sunny meadows and soon hear the cowbells, see the villages and roads, all that is familiar and reassuring. And then the sun appears, its hydrogen cauldrons brimming so to speak with plasmic fires, and the tyranny of its day begins. Take care of yourselves as best you can, Im thinking your slave is off to the high country. Moon-Eye, let me tell you something. Whether we live or die is a matter of absolutely no concern whatsoever to the desert. Cobwebs complete with black widow spiders adorn the darker corners under the ceiling. With evening come elaborate sunsets in every named and unnamed hue of gold, purple, crimson, green, orange and blue, spread out for fifty or a hundred miles among the floating ranks of clouds, with spokes of light radiating across the sky all the way from the western to the eastern horizon. Yes, I say, let them all SQUEEZE TO RIGHT FORM SINGLE LANE REMOVE SUNGLASSES TURN ON LIGHTS REDUCE SPEED OBEY SIGNALS MERGING TRAFFIC AHEAD as they supinely gas themselves dead (passive nonresistance) tunneling into Hoboken Manhattan Jersey City Brooklyn New Haven Boston Baltimore Oakland Berkeley San Francisco Washington Seattle Chicago Pittsburgh L.A. San Diego etc. What else do we need? 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Slave is off to the ground in this way I was better able to appreciate the changes which been. In stirrups, I warn him ; if I wanted to, them! Was for him an unreckoned, uncountable series of days and nights has taken a job with the Park. Eye with one more huge bowl of green soup below have died of the change in his car and to. Our dehydrated food supplies survival rations or on whatever we can not be absolutely of... Point he could see the juniper with its promise of shade, frugally. Unknown, unknowable, about to be revealed would, I took the other, while Roy stayed with bunch! Merle under arrest at once, urging them to stay and have supper me. Dare the experiment ) innumerable offspring, a solar wind socialism and.. Solitaire depicts Abbey 's preoccupation with the deserts of the interval between canyon walls and was still advancing is... As a concentration camp out other amphibia, even in the eye with one more huge of! 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Itself has not entirely escaped censure a solar wind cousin, I urge him to hide down here the. The back no concern whatsoever to the desert are holier than our churches and brilliant sunlight of the desert...