"Hello, Coalmine. May I come in today?" I say aloud.
Mike, a long time ago, told me that it's important to ask Coalmine Canyon if you can enter it. Sounds pretty woo-woo, I know, but a number of years ago, I asked and the canyon said 'No,' and I didn't go in. Guess I'll never find out why Coalmine said 'no' that day, but then again, do we really ever know what bad didn't befall us when we listen to our intuition, and not make that one choice, whatever that choice is.
The answer is 'Yes' today. Great.
The windmill pumping water for the cows is still where it's always been. Some cattle are grazing near the canyon's rim, to the East. But the old barbed wire fence is gone, and it looks like the old dirt road that used to dead end here, now loops behind the concrete picnic tables. Used to be those cement tables were like old rocks that no one ever ate at, sitting in the middle of nowhere. Judging by the deep ruts in the ground, this sandy road is getting more traffic these days. Arizona Highways did do a photo feature on Coalmine Canyon a few years ago, which frankly I wasn't too happy about. Just what we need. More tourists.
The drive up this morning was easy. I had good intention of driving through the night from Tucson, but left at 8:00 a.m. instead. It's now just before 2:00 p.m. Sunny and a bit warm for October. Just a few high clouds. I grab the Camelback, put some crackers in one of its poaches, and the Brownie in another. As I'm stowing down the truck, I notice something I've never seen before in all my 19 years of coming to the Western end of Coalmine Canyon: Tourists. They must have come on the new loop road. Off a couple hundred yards to the north by the picnic tables, is a late model white four door sedan. Four white people are getting out of the car, one of those new boxy no-style automobiles that both America and Japan are making these days. I check out the white folk. They seem harmless, but I'm uneasy for I've never left any vehicle of mine at Coalmine with an audience. Mike told me a story years ago,that he was hiking out of Coalmine one day and saw a number of Navajos on the rim, taking pop shots with a pistol. Not at him, just shooting at the rocks, but scary enough that he laid low until they left. And every time I've left a vehicle here, I always wonder what I'll find when I return. But these white folk are pretty obviously tourists: bad shoes for the area, weird printed shirts, 30 pounds overweight. But I'm still a little nervous.
Ah, screw it.
I lock the truck, shoulder the Camelback and head toward the steep talus slope of coal that descends a hundred feet down to the trail head that lead out into Coalmine. The tourists are milling about just north of the talus slope, with small digital cameras in their hands. They don't notice me at first, but then they do. I'm watching them like a hawk as I get to the slope. I think once about waiting for them to leave before I descend and then think twice and decide to just go. The small voice inside says it'll be fine and I'll trust that. I step onto the black fine coal slope and slowly, gently slide down the hill, like skiing on black snow. Within a minute I'm down in a steep slot canyon, walking on the old primitive trail that has been there for years. I smile. It's great to be here.
The trail winds around the sides of the canyon and gently descends, by steep red and white sandstone walls. I remember the first time I came here, over 19 years ago. I was 31 then, I'm 49 now, and I'm a bit surprised that hiking is so easy today. The altitude isn't bothering me today, and I'm taking the trail well. I have been hiking and shooting a lot over the past couple years which has helped my conditioning. And the last time I hiked down into Coalmine, I was very depressed over the ending of Meghan and mine's relationship, and even Coalmine didn't cheer me up.
Today, I do feel somewhat hopeless over the narcissism of my country, and sad for those who have become cannon fauder for selfish American policies here and abroad, and also angry that innocents have died in the deserts of Iraq and here, at home, in the Sonoran Desert. But I'm also filled with hope at the slow burning light inside of my friends' eyes, and joy that good people are still doing good things, for those who have less. And I feel blessed, with the reasonably good health I have as I approach 50, a lover who laughs at my jokes, and friends who are loyal and true. I'm a wealthy man by world standards, able to spend $50 in gas to come to a beautiful sacred place like Coalmine Canyon. A rich man in much more than just money.
I've been walking for about fifteen minutes when I have that experience of someone looking at me, a first for me on the Rez. They're behind me, I think. I turn around, to look back up the quarter mile of canyon I've hiked down and way up on the rim, I see the silhouettes of a half dozen people, small black figures against the blue white sky. They aren't moving, but I have the sense they are seeing me. I don't like it very much. I look at them for a few moments and turn to continue hiking. I'll be out of view in just a few feet, behind a canyon wall. I smile again. Must be quite a view for them, with the added element of a human being in the canyon, to give it scale. Just don't mess with my truck. In a minute, I out of view of their gaze. I immediately feel better.
Fall and Winter are great times to be up here on the Rez, for the sunlight is low in the sky most of the day, giving sharp highlights and shadows on the canyon walls, even in the mid-afternoon. It'll just get more dramatic as the day slowly ends. Up ahead, I can see the final descent to the relatively flat floor of the main canyon. I turn and measure the amount of light I have left. The width of my hand at arm's length equals a hour. I place my hand so the bottom lines up with the distant horizon line, and then count up. One, two, three, plus. About three and a half hours. Plenty of time to go to The Ghost, take some shots, be in the space and get back before dark. Good.
I enter the Coalmine Canyon Flats. Just slowly plugging along. Can't see The Ghost yet. But soon. I'm surround on three and a half sides by 800-foot cliffs. Easy walking.
Suddenly, I begin to cry. I'm not thinking about anything, nor looking at anything beautiful in particular. I'm just sweep up in Joy and I'm crying. I stop and breath in the space. I feel held by this canyon, like the walls are big hands. I look at the afternoon light on the red walls. The wind is picking up, a nudging breeze, just pushing me a little. Then a thought comes. That I've been coming here for so many years, either this, the West Canyon or the East Canyon of Coalmine, that this piece of land has been holy ground for me, and for many before me. And that this is Heaven to me.
"If there's a Heaven, this is Heaven" I say out loud. I say it a second time.
I stand a little longer and cry a little more and then continue walking North toward The Ghost.
The Flats aren't completely flat. Occasionally, there's the gentle rise of a small hill, a slight depression where the runoff flows. I'm climbing a small hill right now, when at the top, I see two brown ears, two big eyes and nothing else. No body. Just an ear, two eyes, and then another ear. Dead still. I'm not frightened for I know what I'm look at. The eyes and ears are soon joined in my view, by a head and then half of a visible cow body. Then she begins to run away, along the hill line. I laugh softly to myself.
"No need to run," I say, mostly to myself. I can't help laughing for this cow trotting away, looks like a fat woman dancing. Soon she's out of my view, behind the hill. I wonder how many friends she has with her today. Within a couple of minutes, I know the answer to that, as I crest the hill. About a dozen or more cows are running North, away from me. They are raising quite a cloud of dust. The cows eventually stop running, the dust settles and they go back to walking. The Fat Lady must have gotten them going.
The canyon begins to widen even more, and then, off to the East, I see The Ghost peek out behind an eastern ridgeline. Still standing, all 800 feet of it, apparently unchanged. It's great that some things stay the same. I see a trail leading up to the 100-foot low ridge that is adjacent to The Ghost. Within minutes, I'm heading up the trail, a path not make by humans but by cows, heading over the ridge to the East Canyon. I step into the large soft holes left by the cattle, like walking up a series of round stairs. Harder than it looks but I make it up. I walk just to the East of The Little Ghost, a 50 foot pillar of rock. I slowly make my way to the ridge where years ago, I felt a swirling of good and bad spirits. The wind blows steadily now. Not strong, just there. A windy day in other places but not here, where the winds sometimes blows for days, so hard that residents of Tuba City put bath towels at the base of their front doors to keep the sand from blowing in. Today is just a breezing day.
The Ghost stands alone at the end of this ridge. I climb to the top of the ridge and sit on a rock. I pull out some crackers and drink some water from the Camelback. No spirits today, other than my own. At least as far as I can tell. The water is incredibly refreshing and the crackers ain't bad either. Off to the West, below a long and high sandstone cliff are The Fat Lady and her cow friends moving North toward what looks like a bit of water in a low cow tank. I drink more water. I have a smoke. I sit and sit and sit some more. My mind empties. Time stops.
Who knows, a half hour goes by, and the quiet voice says it's time to go. I begin to take an image with my Brownie camera of The Ghost but I know it won't show up well. It'll be too small on the neg, seem too insignificant. Doesn't seem right.
"Go," say the still voice, "You'll shoot on the way back."
Will do.
I stop near The Little Ghost on the way down the ridge and get out the little camera again. Just take a quick shot.
"Not here, Stu. Later," says the voice in my gut.
Hmm. Not just one, I think?
I can see a shaking head somewhere off to my left.
I guess not.
I hike down the cow path to the flat canyon floor and make my way South. The hiking's a little tougher now. Then I realize that the entire hike into Coalmine was gradually downhill and that hiking out is a slow incline with a big hill at the end. I chuckle to myself. No wonder it was easy coming in. Might be a bit different on the way out. Not too bad yet. I walk between the tumbleweeds and bear grasses, slowing making my way back. The Sun looks about an hour plus from setting. Time to pick up the pace.
In less than an hour, I'm in the very center of Coalmine again, the canyon beginning its long slow closing-in-on-itself. I feel comforted by the surrounding rock. Directly ahead is a car-sized boulder that has broken off from the cliffs above. That rock's been here many years, at least as long as I've been coming here. The Sun hasn't set in the world above on the mesa, but it is setting here in the Coalmine Flats. I suddenly realize I may be losing the light. (The Brownie only has slow 100 ASA Croatian black and white negative film in it, and it only has one shutter speed. About a 1/30 of a second, from what I can tell.) The Boulder in shadow is fine but I need strong light on the cliffs beyond. I pull out the camera very quickly, compose, and squeeze off a few shots. A triptych. Then another triptych up canyon. Then I take my time changing the roll, putting in a fresh one. The sun is gone but it looks so good right now. Wind still there but pleasantly blowing. Starting to get cold. I take a few more images and then just take in the space. Close my eyes. Allowing it in.
"If there's a heaven, this is heaven," I say to myself again and to the canyon. I can't wait to get home and write some music about this place. Sure hope these Brownies are OK.
I'm halfway across the flat valley floor, between the boulder and the steeper path out, when it happens again. Not thinking. Not looking. Just walking, and I get suddenly overwhelmed with tears of joy. I stop for a moment and just cry, feeling so happy, so complete, so in the right place at the right time. Then I begin to walk and the tears subside. I wonder if this is just a Joy Spot, like when you sometimes swim in a lake and you pass through a small cold patch of water. The feeling of joy doesn't go away completely. The tears do, but not the joy. I'm carrying some of that with me out of here.
Only sunlight that is direct, shines on the Eastern cliffs. Temperature's dropping. Hope I get out by dark. I reach the head of the trail that leads along the base of the cliffs, up the side canyons and out. I'm tired but good. Real good.
I reach the spot on the trail where the tourists earlier were in the distance, looking at me. No one's there now. I notice a small yellow flower blooming on the edge of the trail, rooted in the poor sandy soil. Only one yellow flower. A small miracle it exists here. I continue to climb out. Past the cliffs that look like a pipe organ. Past the cliffs that look like a pointy head. Past the cliffs that look like nothing other than swirls of orange and white and red.
Climbing slows now. Not far to the talus slope. Took a shot of another boulder, another cliff face. Probably won't work. Too close to something too big, but it's OK.
I reach the base of the talus slope and begin the 45 degree climb out. Twelve quick steps, then rest. A dozen more and stop. Another dozen. Then another. Easier than I thought, but this climb is giving my heart a workout. Twelve more. More. Almost there. There. I'm out.
No cows. No tourists. Truck looks fine. I quickly walk to a rocky perch near the edge and watch the last bit of Sun hit the Eastern edge of Coalmine Canyon. Way off to the north are the Flats. I can't see the car boulder but I know it's there. I can't see the Joy Spot, but it's there. And I also feels a little of that Joy Spot, up on the rim, inside of me.