The desert shows no mercy.
The desert is not only hot. The desert is not just cold. The desert is not just windy. The desert is not only dry. It’s hot enough to burn the skin on your back. Cold enough to break your frozen fingers. Windy enough to push you around, big bully. She sucks the moisture from your body until your skin turns to paper.
The desert is fickle. Moody. Unpredictable.
One day, 116 degrees. The next one, 34 degrees.
We humans are chocolate bars that melt in its extreme heat. Our bodies burn with pain in their cold periods.
I don’t mind being hot. I don’t mind being cold.
It’s the extreme that defeats me.
The desert denies me water. Twenty, thirty miles straight without water. The only thing that saves me is the kindness of other people who fill in those water gaps.
The desert floor is full of ants, mice, spiders, flies, mosquitoes, rattlesnakes.
Mice nibble equipment, flies bite, rattlesnakes defend.
None of them care about me either.
Venomous rattlesnakes: one bite and you could die.
They only bite if they have reasons. They are also living their lives. They look for mice to eat, shelter to rest. We have the same goal. They do not intend to attack without reason.
The terrain is full of bushes, pale green and hard enough to stab you with their branches. Joshua trees, bristly, wild-armed creations, are scattered across the grounds. Broken rocks everywhere.
Spectacular blue sunrises that turn pink. Serene orange sunsets turning red.
It’s quiet out here. The only noise is the whipping wind and my own creaking footsteps.
The desert is wild. The desert is extreme. The desert is fragile.
She drinks only a little water. It keeps the bugs running through the bushes. It brings life to the rough, rough mess we walk through.
Without this small food source, the desert would be miles and miles of sand dunes. It would be a land of desolation. She would be nothing to no one.
The desert is marked by fires. Lightning strikes and the desert receives a brutal beating that spreads throughout its body, devastating the trees until they are corpses of what they once were.
Something special is born from fire.
A wild flower.
Only when the seed of some flowers is exposed to extreme heat will they bloom.
Very similar to a dragon.
Surviving the desert, resisting its indifference, walking its dusty and eroded paths changes you.
You become as free as a wild flower. You become as fierce as a dragon.
This website contains affiliate links, which means The Trek may receive a percentage of any products or services you purchase using links in articles or advertisements. The buyer pays the same price they would otherwise pay, and their purchase helps support The Trek’s ongoing goal of bringing you quality backpacking information and advice. Thank you for your support!
For more information, visit the About page of this site.
