By Rob Bettaso

It was late afternoon, in late September, and most definitely on the hot side of autumn. The air was very still and I decided to rest in the shade of a broad Utah Juniper. With the sun’s slanting rays behind me, I put my daypack on the ground so that I could rest supine, with my head propped up so that I could gaze along the eastern horizon. Other than a few flitting sparrows, there wasn’t much movement so I tipped my cap over my eyes and dozed off for what felt like a few minutes but must have been more like an hour because when I awoke and looked around, I noticed the sun was getting low.

I pushed myself into a sitting position and resumed my easterly watch. The movement of a hawk across the sky, north to south, caught my eye and I reached for my binoculars so that I could see what type it was: a dark breastband and broad, two-toned wings (light wing-linings and dark flight feathers) suggested that it was a Swainson’s. At this time of year, it was likely that this bird was already migrating to its wintering grounds in Latin America.

Since it was possible the hawk was migrating with others of its own kind, I scanned back and forth along the Swainson’s trajectory. I didn’t see any other hawks but I did run my binos past a bright object not too far above the horizon and along the ecliptic (the route that the sun, moon, and planets appear to trace as the Earth rotates on its axis). Fixing my binos on the bright orb, I thought at first it was a weather balloon but soon realized that it was ascending planet. It struck me as somewhat odd that a planet was bright enough to be up and visible well before the sun had slipped below the opposite horizon. By Jove, it must be Jupiter, I thought, since it seemed too big and too bright to be Venus, or any of the other, typically dimmer, planets. It actually struck me as rather like a small, full moon but, of course, I knew that wasn’t the case. Besides, I could also see the waxing gibbous moon, which was much farther along in its arc and would be setting in a matter of a few hours.

Regardless of whatever phase our heavenly bodies were currently in, I took the daylight Jupiter sighting as a good omen for this, my first afternoon of a 4 day, solitary camping trip. The excursion had been somewhat impulsive in that originally I was going to go camping with a friend but when he wrenched his back doing yard work (something I assiduously avoid, as my disapproving neighbors will attest) a couple of days prior to our planned departure, I decided I would keep the dates and just do the trip alone. I also figured it made sense to keep the destination the same, which meant that I was in the rolling hill country about 2 hours north-east of Pinetop/Lakeside.

As I walked the couple of miles that would take me back to my truck, I took in the evolving colors in the western sky and reveled in openness of the terrain. Unlike Pinetop, where we are mostly surrounded by horizon-obscuring Ponderosa Pines, this area is mostly junipers and has expansive views in all directions. When I lived in Missoula, Montana, back in the mid to late 70’s, I initially wondered why the state’s nickname was “Big Sky Country,” since from where I lived and roamed, much of the view was blocked by densely forested mountains. It wasn’t until I visited the eastern half of Montana that I realized the expression must have come from the wide open spaces that are far from the jutting Rocky Mountains. In Arizona, that same difference is reflected in the shift from the White Mountains and Rim Country to the flatter country only a short distance to the north. I love both types of terrain but need a change from one to the other on regular intervals.

When I arrived at camp the sun was nearly down. In the early twilight, it was obvious that it was going to be a starry, starry night. The sky above already revealed many of its brightest stars and once it was fully dark I was confident I would be able to stare into the fathomless Milky Way and hunt for the constellations on either side of its broad swath. Before I had headed out on my hike I had collected wood for a fire so now all I had to do was strike a match. Bare, sun-baked juniper wood was abundant in these parts as at some point in the land’s recent history, ranchers had used tractors to drag-chain the area so there were places where piles of dead junipers could picked apart for firewood ranging in size from kindling to massive logs that could burn all through the night.

I built up a hearty fire and after about 30 minutes, I used a shovel to scrape away from the main fire a segregated pile of glowing coals to use under my camp grill. On the grill I placed a chicken thigh that I had microwaved at home, so all it needed now was another 10 or so minutes of cooking. I had done the same with a spud and set it on the grill next to the chicken. While the thigh’s fatty skin popped and sizzled, I gnawed on raw carrots -- not only are carrots my favorite veggie, but I also hope that they will stave off the poor night vision that seems to be so common once we reach a certain age.

After dinner, I split my attention between the campfire and the heavens above and let my mind wander. About a week ago I had talked with a pal from the old neighborhood whom I had known during my K-12 years in the public schools of Detroit. He told me about a mutual friend, Greg, who had recently died from a heart attack, at roughly the same age as us – mid 60s. I hadn’t been super close with Greg, but he lived right around the corner from me so I hung out with him a fair amount, back in the day. And while I hadn’t kept in touch with Greg once I moved from Detroit to Missoula, the news of his death was a jolt and I wasn’t surprised when he quickly popped back into my thoughts while sitting alone in the wilds, next to a crackling campfire and beneath a sparkling night sky.

The next morning I was awakened by the tremolo call of a Western Screech Owl, about an hour before first light. I was thrilled to hear the vocalizing bird (much less frequently heard that the ubiquitous Great-horned Owl) and was content to just lie on my cot and listen to him (arbitrarily assuming it was a “him”) for a long enough period of time that I decided it was appropriate for me to give him a name – Otis, which was really just a riff on the Latin name for his scientific genus, which is Otus. Eventually, my coffee craving became more than I could resist and so I rousted myself and fired up the single burner backpacking stove I placed on the tailgate of my truck.

After a banana, oatmeal, and coffee I headed out for a long hike and spent the cooler hours of the morning covering quite a bit of country before returning to camp to lounge about during the heat of the day. I occupied my time by munching on apples from the trees in my yard and homemade brownies; reading and writing; exploring a wash near camp; studying nearby birds, lizards, plants and insects; and just generally passing the time by watching a few lonely clouds float slowly by while lying on my cot in the shade. In my solitude, it was good to give careful consideration to the natural quiet of the area and it definitely seemed as though I could hear the sound of autumn both in the calls of occasional ravens that would pass overhead and in the chirps of a lone cricket that was near my cot. I have to say, the effect these forlorn sounds had on me was to provoke a mood of mild melancholy, but, I’m certainly no stranger to isolation and so I’ve learned to accept my emotions in all their many hues and not let them settle in for a prolonged period of depression nor exhilaration. Life is both happy and sad, so it seems reasonable that our reaction to it should run the emotional spectrum as well.

The cliché that “life is what you make of it” applies very much to how I approach each and every day. And one thing I realized early on, is that time in Nature is almost always time very well spent. If someone else achieves fulfillment by building a new addition on to their home; or by dining in a fancy restaurant; or by watching their kid’s little league game on a fine summer afternoon; well then, that’s just peachy keen for them. But for me, I’m at my most contented when I’ve done nothing much more than watch the sunrise and the stars shine in some chunk of wild land where the coyotes sing, the wind whispers, and every pebble and every grass blade springing up from the soil is worthy of my time and my attention.

My four days and three nights passed all too quickly but I returned home rejuvenated. After a day of catching up on must-dos (you know, the little drudgeries of modern life including paying bills, laundry, grocery shopping) I’m happy to report that I’m back on the trails near my home. And while the local woods are unfortunately within earshot of honking horns and revving engines, there is still just enough of the natural world to sustain me for the days and weeks that will pass by before I’m once again fleeing to more remote country to remind me of how good the simple life can be.