Such immense time spans and the processes that accompany push the limits of both mental conception and imagination, as well as beg and tease and finally demand that one's place in the grand scheme be placed in proper perspective. A sense of awe and reverence yes, and humility too. The gift of life. The uniqueness of one's humanness. It allows me to experience all this. Absolute fortune!Desolate and rugged as it is, this place still harbors life, just as it did over 300 million year ago in the land of Laurentia and the Panthalassa Ocean. On the shores of that ancient sea there were huge stretches of thick thick forested swamp, humid and hot...and house to Earth's first land creatures...giant insects, large predatory amphibians and little prototypical reptiles who wouldn't come to be terrible lizards for another 50 million years. Us mammals would have to wait another 100 million years or so before we got our first start. Most incredibly, some of these ancient beasts are still with us today, little changed except in size and order of dominance...thank goodness!
Night falls and we prepare our beds on hard dusty earth. The seven inch centipede that was crawling through my backpack pillow earlier in the day has been relocated to a comfortable 20 foot distance. As we sit by our campfire, old toads call all about, their song easily recalling the feeling of ancient time, recreating the atmosphere of those muggy, pest-infested swamps of the distant past. Indeed, these ancient creatures of the Carboniferous are still with us. Yet happily, we humans are no longer at the bottom of this food chain. In fact, these guys scurry away at every encounter with us, allowing me to sleep a bit easier at night. Tracks of bear and cat remind we are not the only mammals out here...
And still not top of the food chain.
Though we share the same watering holes, these top predators of today mostly avoid us humans too.
Funny, our biggest disturbance still stems from the tiniest gnats.
Out in this wilderness the biggest danger we humans face is ourselves. Getting caught in the burning lizard heat without enough water is perhaps the most common danger. Sure, you can fill your bottles with what you think is a sufficient and standard amount. But in this rugged land of sheer cliff and loose stone, slippery scree and relentless heat, it's easy to get caught off guard or get lost real fast.
