All Alone and Very Scared (and Tired)

I’ve been thinking a bit too much about my death lately.  It’s weird, but I’ve become concerned about how people will think of me when I’m gone.  I write in my journals primarily when I’m upset, which could give the impression I’ve lived an unhappy life, unappreciative of the amazing people around me.  Sure, there have been some unhappy times (July-August, for example, my theme was “Everything is stupid, everybody sucks”), but my life is overwhelmingly awesome.  Just last week I went on a solitary vacation full of hiking, spectacular views, and lots of time to contemplate the good things in life.  And when I’m not by myself, the people around me are pretty great.  So, if at some point the forces I talk about below make their move to take me out, try to remember me as a bad ass out doing awesome things (not the scaredy cat who wrote this huddled in my car with a hatchet).  

The view from my most recent adventure.

Being on a solitary adventure gives me a great perspective on all the ways I haven’t died yet.  I wasn’t struck by lightning, mauled by a bear, or tumbled down a talus slope - they were all remote possibilities though. In fact, I spent the first night of my adventure sleeping with a hatchet inside my tent because I was worried about deer.  That night I was out like the fire that I never got started; Benadryl, a long day working with Canvas, and six hours of driving saw to that.  But I woke up suddenly at 1:00 am to noise in my campsite, specifically around my car.  I knew it was deer, or maybe a very large raccoon, but I still sat right up, shaking, trying to see my assailants in the dark.  Then I said, “Get out of here” and went back to bed.  A similar, but more dramatic thing happened five years ago when I was camping by myself in the Henry Mountains.

Mt. Hilliers.

At 11:59 on July 17, 2010 I was alone as I could possibly be at the Starr Springs Campground in the Henry Mountains.  The Henry’s are one of the most remote ranges in the country; in fact, they were last range in the Lower 48 to be surveyed or added to maps.  I had come there to be alone.  Having just acquired my master’s degree, I had some serious soul searching to do about my next steps.  Plus I had been obsessed with the Henry’s for years.  I stared at them constantly and pointed them out whenever possible (I still do that because you can see them from everywhere in Southern Utah).  There’s something so fascinating about that much remoteness sandwiched between Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Lake Powell.  Plus it’s a bunch of steep, igneous rock in the middle of the Colorado Plateau.  Why?  Buffalo and beryllium, why? 

Henry Mountains and the surrounding desert

I was pleased with my campsite: empty, remote, shady, water tap present and a clean pit toilet.  Awesome.  I zonked out early that night, too, but at midnight I literally bolted upright in bed because SOMEONE WAS OUTSIDE MY TENT!  And it was dark and I was ALL ALONE IN THE MOST REMOTE MOUNTAIN RANGE IN THE STATE!  My heart was pounding like I’d never felt it, but it seemed my assailants couldn’t hear it because they just kept circling my tent.  Or maybe they could hear my heart and my fear was part of their ritual.  On the chance they were part of that last free-roaming buffalo herd or fellow travelers who were just mistaken I said, “Hello?”  They didn’t startle, so they must not be bison, and they clearly weren’t surprised by my presence inside the tent, so they must have been stalking me.  I tried bluster, “I have a gun.”  – Some hesitation in movement – 

  

The scene of my intense, frightening moment

Time to formulate a plan.  I did not have a gun and whoever was out there probably knew it because my voice was shaking hard enough that my lie statement sounded more like a question.  I did have a multi-tool… in my truck… which had a 50% likelihood of starting (battery troubles).  I was trapped in a nylon prison!  I couldn’t see who was after me or escape them quickly.  I could tell there was more than one set of feet… that occasionally wandered into the woods and came back… and I hadn’t been raped or murdered yet… or gored.  So I shook the sides of my tent as hard as I could and yelled, “Hey!  Get out of here!” and the assailants startled a little, one ran off.  My heart was still pounding insanely hard, so I lay down to further formulate my plan. 

Then I fell asleep, immediately.  I slept like the dead, except I wasn’t dead because wandering deer weren’t trying to kill me.  I searched the ground the next day and all evidence points to deer.  Turns out that day I had run (and won(!)) a 5K race in Cannonville, 150 miles away, had my first sit down meal all by myself, hiked up a wash in the Monument I was sure had drug lords guarding a marijuana plantation, and it was still 70ºF at midnight.  I was tired.  Additionally, in the moment of my intense fear (really, the most scared I’ve ever been) I remembered the best advice my mom has ever given me:

“No one will spend three hours creeping slowly down the hallway to kill you, they’ll just do it.”  

That advice came from experience watching murderous hallway shadows intensely while my dad was out of town.^*  Whenever I find myself accosted by deer or convinced someone has just crawled in my window I tell myself, “Go to bed, Becka.  Let your death be a surprise like Gosh intended.”^{^} While it is likely that anyone who came all the way to the Henry Mountains to kill me would be into some crazy rituals, it’s highly unlikely that someone would come that far just to kill me, which is strangely comforting to remember.  Similar situations have played out on other camping trips but I find myself far less frightened, more startled and annoyed.  I figure if I live my night in fear of the terrorist [deer], then they’ve won. 

All the evidence my assailants left

*Second best advice came from my Auntie Boo, who told me to buy a clear shower curtain when I moved into my first apartment, that way I wouldn’t have to get scared and check for intruders hiding in my shower.  Ten years later I still buy clear shower curtains. 

^Except the night I wrote this in the Abajo Mountains.  Dogs, cows, bears and wind.  Too much noise and too many bad options for what was waking me, so I slept in my car.  Plus I was within hearing distance of a road with its own OHV speed limit full of literal hooting and hollering rednecks.  I should never have watched Deliverance.