I am sitting on the roof of my car in the middle of the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada.     I’ve made camp in this broad valley on my way to look at a property which The Wilderness Land Trust has the opportunity to purchase in the East Fork High Rock Canyon Wilderness.  

 

The sky is darkening overhead, with just the last hints of the sun’s glow on the western horizon.    The crystal clear crescent moon set about fifteen minutes ago, the top of it like a shark fin dropping below the wave-like edge of the mountains.    Four juvenile hawks circle above me then hover three or four feet above my head.   I think at first that they are coming to steal the last bites of my sandwich, but then I realize they are checking me out since I am new to their neighborhood.   After taking a few passes by me, they land about a hundred yards away in what must be their nest.   They settle down and are quiet.  Just to the north, I hear coyotes howling to one another.   I’m hoping they don’t come to check me out too.  

 

The horizon is massive, emptiness all around me, with this gigantic dome of a sky.   I feel like I am part of a wagon train on the expansive prairie.   Maybe that is on my mind since I am on top of the emigrant trail to California.   Thousands of Americans crossed this desert in route to California in the 1840s in search of riches.   It still feels like the frontier out here, a vast desert, so far from civilization that it is hard for me to even remember cities.   Sitting here it’s almost like they don’t exist.    It’s miraculous looking up at all the stars.   The majesty of it is overwhelming.   It seems more reasonable when surrounded by this magnitude of beauty that there is some greater power.   The burden of proof switches from how could there be a God to how could there not be a God.   

 

Car lights appear to the north turning off the Soldier’s Meadow Road onto my small two-track side road.   The car inches along and then stops at the cattle gate a few hundred yards from me.  I hear voices and a car radio.   The car starts moving my way and soon the lights are illuminating my camp.   It is scary out here running into people at night with absolutely no one else around; really scary, like someone has entered my house.  Who is in this car?   Are they dangerous?  Do they have a gun?  Have they been drinking?  There is no law out here, no police, no accountability.   People’s actions are dependent upon their own definition of right and wrong at the moment.  I figure the car contains decent people, probably like me, out for a wilderness experience, but I don’t know. 

 

I suddenly understand why people like to carry a gun.  It is a great equalizer.  Packing a pistol says, “Don’t mess with me.”  “We are both on equal playing fields here, and we can shoot each other, so just leave me alone.”   It strikes me that maybe I look scary to them.   After all what kind of idiot sits on top of his car in the middle of nowhere just watching the sky?    That makes me feel better.   Maybe as long as I look sketchy they will keep their distance.   I puff up a little.   This is my space, keep moving on….they do.

After tossing and turning all night, I’m outside in my sleeping bag looking to the east toward Orion and the Pleides.   Lying on my back on the solid ground, I almost feel the curve off the Earth stretching in all directions.   Shooting stars play above me like gnats or fireflies.   The Milky Way stretches from horizon to horizon.   The Big Dipper has rotated in the sky around the North Star, almost a half circle since I first saw it yesterday evening.   I look at my watch—4:45 AM on September 1^st.   I await the rising sun so can I start moving north.  

 

The coyotes make the first call of the morning at 5:15.   One band is on the east side of the valley and another band answers from the west.   They sing together in convoluted chorus of excitement.  I look forward to seeing my hawk family waken.

 

My car is my covered wagon.  I’m wondering why I didn’t bring extra gas, extra keys, an extra tire.   If anything goes wrong, I’m stuck.   There is no cell service out here.  I send a message to my family with my Spot tracking device.  I push a button and it connects with one of the satellites I see tracing across the sky above me.   Minutes later my wife receives an e-mail from Spot that I entered before I left, “I’m having fun and doing fine….”

 

I’ve camped many times in the wilderness in the mountains and seen a similar amount of stars, but this feels different, bigger.   Perhaps the wilderness in the mountains seems lined in, defined.   Like the Wind Rivers or the Sierra.   You know as you come down out of the mountains you will run into a town.   I haven’t been into any towns in this area.   I’m unfamiliar with what is around me.   Somehow sleeping in this flat, open, exposed valley gives me this endless feeling, like the Earth goes on forever.   No paved roads, no freeways, no trucks, no oil development, no lights.   In most places development has pushed outdoor lovers from the valleys up into the mountains.   Like the elk, deer, bear, and bison that used to call the great grasslands and meadows home, we have taken refuge in high altitude wilderness and forgotten that all the Earth around us was abundant in wildness.

 

The first hint of sun highlights the mountains to the east, very soft, but it starts washing out the stars.  I retreat back in my sleeping bag to savor its warmth and comfort.   It wraps around me like a womb.   I lie still and look upward to hang onto the wonder of the night a little longer.    Sleeping outside without a tent (and passing in and out of partial sleep) blurs the distinction between night and day, reality and dreams.   In my fuzziness, I become a part of the Earth’s rotation; day and night weave into one, my consciousness floats upwards.

 

Soon I am grounded; I have to go to the bathroom.   A toilet would be a nice touch of civilization.   I’ll have to squat like a deer or antelope, exposed for anyone to see me for miles around.  Humbled by this most basic act (even my dog has an embarrassed look on his face as he does his deed) I cover my cow patty the best I can with the sandy soil.  

 

The sky lightens and the background stars disappear allowing the constellations to reassert their dominance in the sky:  Orion, Sirius, Perseus, and Casseopia look down on me.   These will be the night sky constellations in the winter, but I’m getting an early glance at them for this one-audience dawn premiere.  Saturn is bright overhead, a beacon at the top of the sky.  A bird passes by.  I see its shadow and then its flight path sounds like a flare going over my head.   Farther away, a goose calls, trumpeting the passing of his flock flying in formation up the middle of the valley.   Their rhythmic wings are illuminated by the orange glow on the horizon but then become dark shadows as the flock passes in front of the mountains.

 

The Earth is stirring; it is time to move on.