hiker's suspension bridge over Deep Creek, San Bernardino Mountains/Mojave Desert divide, California, photo by Ruth Nolan copyright (c) 2009
Suspension Bridge
I've hiked 2.5 miles
from the spillway
at Mojave Forks,
a 2,000 foot ridge
on my shoulder,
the creek at my feet
I'm halfway to the hot springs
mine, the only footprints
going in
for the soak
patterning my passage
upon 6 inches of snow
There's an ocean to one side
of the divide, a parched desert
on the other
and I walk between
sycamores, boulders,
drum sounds, small and large
watefalls forced through gaps
I've reached the suspension bridge
time to walk across
the frigid green expanse,
cross from one side to the other,
I'm halfway
to the sandy beaches,
to where the water is warm
all year round, winter is deep
but optimistic here,
a few more miles
of my soul, here
we part ways, the shadow
self and the body
that seeks the sun, but
the river, the river
stays the same here
and in many
eternities
flowing as one
by Ruth Nolan
c. 2009 by Ruth Nolan 12.31.09
Deep Creek is a place I've hiked since I was 19 years old. It was literally in my backyard, growing up in the Mojave Desert town of Apple Valley. Much to my intense joy, it is currently listed as a potential Wild and Scenic River, under the proposal outlined by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, CA, to expand the California Desert Protection Act of 1994. It is a wild, unique river, flowing from the San Bernardino Mountains through a deep gorge cut in rocks and between mountains, flowing from pine wildernss to open desert at the headwaters of the Mojave River. The Pacific Crest Trail follows its journey nearly from exit to birth, more than 16 miles. It's one of the most amazing places I've ever hiked, and the hot springs along its banks, deep along its course, are the best, hands down, I've spent time at. Here is to bridge crossing, as we exit the sometimes turbulent, sometimes passive, and always surprising turns of the current in the year 2009. Here, in my picture and mind's eye, is calm. Sere, silent, winter wonderland calm, in the heart of this wilderness.
