Human As Destroyer

Has anyone ever noticed that humans seem to be hell bent on self destruction?  Yes, tons of people have pointed out that we are essentially a literal virus on the host body of the earth.  But really let it sink in.  Every other animal has instincts that guide it towards life.  Every single one.  Every plant.  Every animal.  Everything with life in it seeks more life.  Except humans.

Imagine a world with no humans.  Imagine the tremendous zen of this concept.  An entire planet covered in things all striving for more and more life.  Death exists, because without it, life could not.  But no animals killing each other for no purpose.  No animals killing themselves.  No animals killing thousands of other animals for the sake of money or prosperity.  No prosperity.  No money.  It would be nature, naturally.

But we are here.  We, the creators of guns and bombs and poisons and nuclear reactor meltdowns and medical testing and pollution.  We are here.  Correct me if I am wrong, but no other species has such a thing as suicide.  Imagine it, the very concept of a dolphin deciding that it has nothing left to live for.  A cactus wren resting on the desert floor, waiting for a bobcat.  It does not exist.  All animals are geared for life.  There are rare instances in which one animal inhabits the brain of another and forces that animal's body to commit itself to death (see: thousands of videos about parasitic worms that make ants stand out on branches waiting to get eaten).  It could be argued, I suppose, that this happens to people, too.  That our "parasitic worm" that takes over people's minds and makes them act against nature is something we call "mental illness."  Or, we could more realistically examine our lives.  We live on giant fields of concrete, formed of the crushed memories of mountains.  We sleep hundreds of feet in the sky, on top of fake ducks.  We eat things that do not grow.  We create food.  So arrogant as to think that there is not plenty available already, we make more.  And then we throw it all away.  We create wars, since suicide isn't fast enough.  We create great machines that collapse and kills hundreds or thousands at a time.  We have accidents, and whole countries get cancer.  We have cancer.  We are not some supreme destroying force.  We are a supremely self-destructive force.  We will not destroy the earth.  The rest of creation simply tolerates our presence.  One day, when our air is too thick to pass through our lungs and into our bloodstreams, when our water is too blackened to swallow, when our food is made only of plastic, we will simply cease to be.  And dolphins will still swim.  And cactus wrens will still fly.  And bobcats will still try to eat cactus wrens.  There will be fewer of them, but they will not be destroyed by us.  We are an accident.  We are not the proof of evolution, but rather the DISproof of it.  What other animal evolves to point of self-destruction?  None.  Or if it has, it surely does not matter all.

Don't Forget

"The mere athlete becomes too much of a savage, the musician is melted and softened beyond what is good for him. The two should therefore be blended in the right proportion." -Plato

Havasupai Trip: Wednesday

We wake when we wake. With the sun, I suppose. I have fantastic granola in air temperature soy milk. Very good. Kind of weird though. We prepare slowly, and I strap Chaco sandals to my Camelbak.

The end of camp is punctuated rather dramatically by Mooney Falls. It is the tallest fall that we will see.



To get to the bottom of Mooney, we must descend a rather treacherous path made even more so by my mother's slow movement.




(this one is a shot from the bottom up, the chains are for climbing, as it is pretty much straight up)

We hike past Mooney into some dense greenery that is sort of ridiculous. It is all dominated by what appear to be grape vines.



We were hoping to get to Beaver Falls, but my mom didn't want to do the second chain climb, so we turned around (there is a second - more intense - chain assisted climb later on in the hike to Beaver Falls). We stop and have lunch before turning around.


(this is where we stopped to take a shower)

Havasupai Trip: Tuesday

Tuesday:

We wake up early to shower and eat (peanut butter and jelly sammies and some fruit). We have about 70 miles to drive to the Hualapai Hilltop where we will leave the bags that are to be packed into the canyon on mules. We leave our stuff and head out.

From the hilltop there are some amazing and daunting vistas.

(this picture was actually taken on the last day as we left...the weather was more clear on the first day).

The hike begins with a 1 mile steep descent reminiscent of Squaw (Piestewa) Peak in Phoenix. Then, a 9 or 10 mile flatland hike through small canyons to the Supai village and eventually to the campground below Havasu Falls begins.

The 9 or 10 miles to the village are largely uneventful, and mostly boring looking (other than their vastness), so I didn't take any photos until we started to get into the verdant bottom, where water flows freely. The first 6 miles are just desert desert desert, and then all of a sudden:




(that's water in the bottom right)

We walk through overgrown foliage like this for another 2 miles or so, crossing the creek a number of times. The creek is sourced by melting snow in mountains far away, rain, and water that seeps slowly out of the stone cliffs themselves (more on this later).

Wi'igliva (spelling varies) marks the arrival at Supai. These two stones are supposedly ancient protectors of the Supai.



The Supai village is a little bit of mindfuck. In the words of my dad, "It's got a bit of that 3rd world thing going for it, doesn't it?" This is a fairly accurate description of the shitty attempts at farming, and emaciated horses tied tightly in the sun next to dilapidated houses. The place is spotted occasionally by flowers (cactus flowers are in full bloom during this trip), but the road is heavy heavy sand, like beach sand. The going gets really slow, and our shoes fill up. We stop for a quick bean burrito at the cafeteria, and then proceed. Just outside of the village, we hit our first real water.



This sort of water yields fantastic greenery. We continue:



Here are the first real falls that we found. These peak out of a green cliff side and fall a total of about 50 feet.



Then we proceed another long ways on that beach sand until we actually see Havasu Falls. It is impressive, indeed. This falls a little short of 100 feet I think.



And it forms the first of the famous terraced pools. The water is a sort of luminescent green-blue because of lime deposits in the sand.



Ugh, I'm tired of typing, and hungry. We keep going, get to the camp site, it's packed. We carry our bags in about halfway down a mile long campsite. I rinse off in the river, and we eat and then sleep.

Total mileage for the day: approx. 14 miles.

I look pretty rough before going to sleep:

Havasupai Trip: Monday

Monday:

I wake up at 6:15am to finish packing and go to my parents' house. Ashbaby and Lou Bega had just cleaned the house (aka moved all my shit) so that last little bit of packing took way longer than I expected. This didn't really matter though, as my dad takes forever to do everything, so we didn't hit the road until two hours later than we wanted.

We drive to Flagstaff and eat at an Olive Garden. Cute hostess

We continue through Williams (Road Kill Cafe) to Seligman and eventually to a hotel called Caverns Inn or Canyon Caverns Inn or something. The hotel is located near the Grand Canyon Caverns (which really have nothing to do with The Grand Canyon other than maybe some air from the cavern exits a Grand Canyon wall). We toured these caverns, which are dry (they are no longer growing, probably because of tourism and such). They weren't too bad. Some cool selenite formations, and a dead bobcat, and some 50 year old government rations (the gov't wanted to use it as a fallout shelter during the Cuban missile crisis, so they stocked it with a bunch of crackers and candy and shit). We eat at the cafe there afterwards.