All Good Things, letter 7: Gila Wilderness
All Good Things is a collection of letters I wrote to my dear friend Caleb Bouchard between Summer 2020 and Spring 2022. It was published as a small chapbook by Analog Revolution Press in 2022. I’ve compiled the letters here, with additional photos, for you. So make yourself a nice cup of tea, and enjoy.
November 20, 2020
Now I’m in Klondyke, Arizona, population: 5. The moon is waxing enough that it makes going to sleep difficult. This is the same moon that finally becomes useful again for night hiking. Its been a long two weeks since the moon has been bright enough and positioned well for guiding my way. It's perfect for walking down dirt roads, but never quite enough to navigate canyons, or cross-country travel with no trail. It also leaves stargazing a little lackluster compared with last week's new moon. The sun sets at 5:15, but it doesn't get dark for another half hour. If you have any sense about you, you hike on for another hour and a half to two hours to squeeze out the last four or five miles from the day. It's a welcome respite from the punishing Arizona sun. I first heard about Klondyke from my buddy, Gasket, who recommended I hike this route when I told him I didn’t know what I was going to do the last couple months. He told me there was a resupply point where you have to ship a flat-rate USPS box full of food to Klondyke Arizona, but instead of an address, hikers have to write “C/O Klondyke Store / freezer behind store,” and trust that your next five days of food will be waiting for you. Lo, it was, along with a beer! Two of the town’s five residents were kind enough to allow me to sleep here in their yard after offering me a glorious shower —the first in 120 miles. Klondyke lies just east of Aravaipa canyon, a glorious oasis of cascades and wildlife that I won’t get to travel through because I didn’t win a permit in the lottery. Instead, I’ll be taking Turkey Canyon, which I’ve heard has some cliff dwellings, and definitely wont have any people. Sounds like a deal to me. I'm listening to Bill Callahan's latest full length, last year's Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest with accompaniment by the Coyotes of Klondyke. Watching for meteors of the Leonid meter shower and trying to drown out the drone of fighter jets doing training exercises. It's been non stop, usually by the time you hear them they're well out of sight.
Remind me to tell you about Mounaintair, NM and how I met my new friend Jodi while he visited a childhood friend he hadn't seen in 37 years. I met Peoplez that day. And his mother, nephew, two nieces, daughter, girlfriend, her friend, brother, and seven of his cousins. I'll leave the rest of the story for in-person delivery, but I was offered drugs I’d never seen before, and spent the night in a semi-truck cab (top bunk).
Also remind me to tell you more about Beverly (and her adamant belief in Bigfoot) from my last letter in Monticello. I ended up spending four days with her. The next morning I got to drive Beverly's Subaru 15 miles through the snow to go rescue the only other thru-hiker on this entire trail. Beverly spent a few decades living on a boat in the Caribbean. Then we had a beautiful dinner at Carlis' house. He's a Navajo artist, I'll show you the print I bought from him when you visit the shack I’m going to build in Ellijay. His grandfather was a medicine man and we drank a lot of good beer together. He invited me to the reservation with him when Corona chills out, then insisted we watch The Last of the Mohicans.
Then there’s Bo. I don’t think I’ve ever met such a kindred spirit. He quoted William Blake and Walt Whitman. He told me stories about whitewater rafting down the Gila river, doing tree work for Michael Jackson, meeting Terrence McKenna at Eselan in Big Sur, driving across the country with his friend in a stolen 1967 Porsche 911, saving his classmates life on a Nols expedition up an 18,000' mountain in Mexico, being a two-time tree climbing national champion, losing his dog to a mountain lion, building the house I was staying in, meeting William Blake's great great great grandson, and mountain biking around Big Sur in the 80’s. We bonded over Tom Waits, he cooked me some very-local steak, he rapped a song he wrote about his cat, Willie, he showed me his 1987 Porsche, we talked about Psychedelics, consciousness, and how its going to take a lot of compassion to heal our country's divide. I helped him clear some fuel and brush from the property adjacent to his house. He shared his outdoor bathtub with me (not at the same time of course). I took care of his cat while he drove into town for some doctors appointments he had. I also made the worst blueberry crepes in the world, but they were delicious. We walked down to the river, talked about osprey, spotted owls, golden eagles, and his girlfriend in Santa Fe. He showed me his book about Straw Bale Houses, and I found a book on his shelf recommended to me by a Chicago bellhop fifteen years ago. I cooked an entire pack of hot dogs and ate them with green chiles (New Mexico's greatest gift to the world) and cheese sauce.
He said he hadn't had a single guest since all this corona virus stuff started but that he had a good feeling about me. I believe his exact words were “I may look like a devil, but I know how to be a trail angel.” He’s not really that ugly. He prayed over me, performed a small cleansing ceremony, showed me his skull collection, taught me about javelinas, and explained the physics of a basic block and pulley system used in tree work. I got to explain to him what Wikipedia is, and how Spotify works. He doesn't have cell service, internet, or a TV. He lives an hour from town, surrounded by the oldest Wilderness in the United States. Before allowing me on his property, he explained that for the last 25 years this has been a place of peace and sanctuary for him. How right he was.
All good things,
Ryan
