I took a trip on the semester break. I needed freedom. Freedom from school, from work, from people. From everything. Life has stung me. I came across a sequence of situations I didn't know how to deal with. Or more exact, situations I didn't want to deal with; Homework that was due weeks before, exams that were near to come, bills that needed to be paid, and work that kept me suffocated. I was like a new airport security passenger, going on my first flight; I was moved from one place to another, told what to do, but couldn't figure out what they wanted from me and what I wanted from them. Situations and obligations I could not deal with anymore, and if you don't want to deal with life, what else can you do? So I fled to the desert hunting for stars. I wanted to feel ripped off and disconnected, just me in the nothingness of the sand dunes.
Alone in my old blue Subaru, on the road heading south. Behind in the backseat my photography equipment mixed with a backpack and cooking kit. Bob Dylan plays through the speakers, pleading me to have one more cup of coffee before I go.
But I don't sense affection
No gratitude or love
Your loyalty is not to me
But to the stars above
After several hours of driving, I reach the final stretch of road that leads to the park. The dunes come in view. “So small” was my first reaction. Despite the tallest being over 220m, the dunes are dwarfed by the surrounding somewhat 2,000m higher peaks of the Rocky Mountain Range, they seemed like little mounds of sand, reminding me of the sandbox I used to play in during kindergarten. An amount you could pick up and move with a few plastic buckets. As I neared the dunes I could see tiny specks moving around them. People! This was when I realised the massive scale of the dunes. Any feeling of disappointment I felt when I first laid eyes on them was gone and replaced with excitement, and the thought of my kindergarten sandbox disappeared from my mind.
I stopped by the park visitor centre and picked up a map and permit for camping in the dunes. Inside I found one of the park rangers, a young woman wearing the park uniform. We talked briefly about the weather and I explained to her that I was planning to sleep in the dunes. She explained the rules and regulations and said that other than myself no-one would be sleeping in the dunes tonight and that it should be a unique experience to sleep in the dunes completely alone. “Perfect!” I told her. Isolation. Exactly what I wanted. On my leave, she wishes me success on my adventure.
I parked my old Subaru at the parking lot several kilometers deeper into the park from the visitors’ centre and got my equipment setup. Carrying a fully equipped backpack, I start walking up the sand mountains. The place is filled with families climbing the dunes, playing in the sand. None have more than a small day pack with some food and water. People stare and wonder what someone is doing with such a large backpack and several approached and ask questions about my intention in the park, astonished that someone is willing to camp so far within the sand.
The hike is difficult and exhausting. climbing mountains of sand, each step leading only a few inches forward. At the highest peak, the view is breathtaking! the wind is howling but I believed it would calm down in an hour or two. After a short break, I easily walk downhill to the far side of the dune where I could camp.
Finding a relatively flat area, I pull out my tent from its bag. The bag slips through my fingers and flies away by the non-stopping wind. I rush forward to its direction and reach out my hand to grab the bag, when the wind blows again and sends the bag deeper into the dunes, lost from my grip. Not to upset I return to my belongings and build my tent.
Tent up, I notice I forgot a sleeping mattress, now without any insulation between the cold ground and sleeping-bag. Equipment set for the night I go explore the dunes. Using a GPS watch to pinpoint the location of my camp and track my whereabouts. The wind is howling strong with no notion of stopping. I walk around looking at the view in sporadic intervals, whenever the wind takes a short break. The view is breathtaking and I wish the wind will finally stop so I could fully absorb my surroundings. After some time of exploring, I go back to camp, with the thought of making dinner. I try lighting my compact stove, but unable to do so with the strong wind. Cooking is out of the question. Instead, I eat sand that flies in my mouth. Before the sun is set I already finished most of my water, I put aside the last remaining liquid for later.
The floor getting colder and damp with the lowering temperatures and the wind showing no notion of clamminess, I decide to end this trip and walk back to the car. I break the poles of the tent and shove everything into the backpack without folding or organising a thing. The wind never stops. Backpack full of equipment and sand I start to slowly walk back in the direction of the car. Falling every few steps by the strong wind hitting me from the side. Suddenly I noticed that my GPS watch fell off my wrist and is lost. It has gotten dark and I lose my sense of sight and navigation. The wind still has not stopped for a moment. I decide to make camp where I am. Not knowing where that is. Too dark and windy to rebuild the tent I crawl into the nylon dome unbuilt, using my backpack to block the wind, wrapped around an emergency blanket inside my sleeping bag.
I laid in the tent on the brink of freezing, tired, and hungry. I hugged the bag tightly with me, while the wind whips the nylon sheets around me. I remembered a News article I read earlier that year, about a German tourist who went camping in these same dunes. It was also a windy night (one of the windiest days of the year if I recall), just like this one. He supposedly got lost in the sandy mountains and was found five days later, dead, buried under the sand.
“Body found in Great Sand Dunes National Park” read the title, below it a photograph, looking as if it was taken for a high school yearbook, of a young man, with curly blond hair, a thin blond mustache, and big rimmed glasses (the same kind my dad wore when I was a kid). I remembered he looked as if he had just come out from the ’70s. In the photograph, he was smiling. An innocent smile of a man with hopes and dreams for the future. Never did he know that not long after, he will breathe his last breath, lost and hidden in the sand.
I didn't know what was going to happen. I was afraid. But in the storm and the noise around me, I was calm.
I did not object to the forces of nature. I was part of it, I did not fight it, I didn't try to repress, I accepted the death that will most likely arrive, I got it all in.
Everything was silent. I did not see or hear, neither attended nor missing. I wasn't. I was so present that I was nothing.
I don't remember darkness, but when I returned it was quiet around me. Quietness out of this world as if deep down in a well without a sound reaching the bottom. I noticed that my hands caught in the bag until they became white.
I let them go.
I look at the sky through the window of the unbuilt tent. Outside a desert night, the sky is black and shining full of stars, only a few clouds caress the black sea above. The same dessert that struck me so powerfully was in front of me, resting peacefully, like an old dragon on its treasure.
Take me, I thought and welcomed my fate. Closing my eyes with no intention of opening them again. I wondered how the German tourist felt? Did he also see the unimaginable beauty of this magical place and accept the fate that has come, or did he panic and clenched to life for as long as he could, afraid to let go of himself?
I hoped he didn’t suffer and didn’t object. Sometimes forces are stronger than our existence, and all we can do is accept.
I will remember that desert forever.