In my last BCA newsletter article (Lessons from the Desert, Summer 2013) I wrote about some of the things I have learned from the desert and the experiences that I have had out there. Looking back though, I know I left out one key lesson, and this very week I learned that lesson many times over, so it's only appropriate that I follow that article up with the story of the final lesson: patience.
Patience has a tendency to wax and wane with moods and circumstances, but thanks to the desert I have learned to keep a liberal supply on hand at all times, because you just never know what is going to pop up. This week I headed out to the desert on Tuesday, just after 9:00 am. I checked and double checked that I had everything I needed in the truck, since I had unloaded everything the week before due to an unfortunate incident with leaking water on and around my sleeping materials that also helped cultivate some patience. I also checked the weather, as I always do, and noted a 20% chance of thunderstorms; but decided that was not enough to cancel my trip and off I went. It takes me just over three hours of driving to get to the site where I am working, and thanks to the enormous Wyoming sky, I knew I was going to have trouble for probably the last 40 minutes of the trip. As I approached the massive steely grey clouds perched happily directly over the entire proposed wilderness, with no obvious plans to go anywhere, I began to glance nervously at the clay surface of the road. If I can just make it below the checkerboard, I thought to myself as sticky conglomerations of clay began attaching themselves to my tire tread, if I can just get to public land, I'll make camp beside the road and wait for things to dry out.
Probably about 50 yards from the end of the private property mine field known as the checkerboard I began to fishtail...badly. Going no more than five miles per hour, I maneuvered my way perhaps another 20 yards down the road before slow-motion sliding off the road and into a ditch, one tire perched unhappily on the lip of a culvert. Now this was a pickle I had never been in before, and as I said in my last article, attitude is everything, so I skidded and slipped out of the truck in my flip-flops (as I had not even reached my destination yet my hiking boots were stowed in the truck bed), felt the mud squish between my toes, and set about locking in the hubs. Once in four-wheel drive I was able to rock the truck back enough to slide my tire off the culvert (causing no harm to the tire or the culvert, thank goodness!) and slosh through the mucky ditch, up the other side, and along beside the road to a nice flat place where I could wait for things to dry out. I laid in the truck bed reading a book for over an hour waiting for the lightning to subside and the road to dry out. After tentative testing of the road surface (this time in hiking boots!) I felt okay about continuing and even got a few hours of work in before the sun went down.
In the dusky evening twilight I made my dinner and enjoyed some momentary peace, eating ramen noodles and fruit snacks. I hopped out of the truck around 8:00 pm to check on the charging I-pad in the cab, and to my dismay found one mostly flat tire deflating slowly under the rear passenger side of my truck. Patience don't fail me now! I changed the tire in the soft soil and fading light - digging through all of the storage compartments of the truck to find a board to put under the jack and then having to jump up and down on the tire iron to loosen air-wrench tightened lug nuts. I finished with only moments of fading grey left in the sky, and went to bed feeling pretty okay about how everything had worked out and how fast I had gotten at changing a tire.
In the morning new dilemmas presented themselves: if the sidewall of the tire is torn then it will need to be replaced, and if that is the case it will take a few days to get the new tire in and I should return to Laramie. If, however, the tire is merely punctured it can be patched in a matter of minutes and I should drive the considerably shorter distance to Rock Springs. The problem though, is that the tire was still caked completely in the sticky, gluey mud from the day before. All attempts to rinse it off would have completely depleted my water supply in short order, and in the desert I kind of need my water. I decided to hike the road I was on to finish that portion of my inventory, and face this dilemma upon my return after I'd had a good while to think about it. In the end I opted to drive to the nearest gas station, fill the tire with air, and use their water to hopefully locate it's flaw. I was in luck of course, as Point of Rocks lay conveniently on the way to Rock Springs without taking me much further from Laramie, and they provide both compressed air and water and to my delight I determined that there was a nail embedded in my tire and Rock Springs was the clear choice.
Because I have had several bad experiences with every Walmart tire center, every time I have had to go to one, (but I had to go to them, as the tire was covered by a warrantee purchased there) I tried to make this transaction as simple as possible, and left them only the tire with instructions to patch it. I was instructed that they were very busy that day and that it would take at least an hour and possiblly an hour and a half for them to complete the job. Patience. "No problem", I said, "just call me when it's done." I grabbed a sandwich and a coffee and headed for the dog park with my pup. Three and a half hours later I decided it was time to go check and see how things were getting along, and I headed back to Walmart where I pulled up just in time to see the tech finish up with my tire. I walked right in the door and waited in line behind one other gentleman purchasing a single battery, thinking that I could just get my tire and go. Of course this was not the case, there was only one man working the tire counter, and he had, for some reason beyond my understanding, agreed to ring up the purchases of a woman who was attempting to skip the lines at the front register. Two full carts worth. The battery man and I stood in line and watched him take each item out of the carts, one at a time, and scan it by hand, for over an hour. In the end he rang up nearly $500 in purchases and I rang up at least that much in patience points. Naturally, the woman chose to pay with a check, and the process dragged on and on.
When I finally did reach the counter I was informed that even though I had seen the tech finish with my tire, the paperwork was not ready and I therefor could not be helped yet. I informed him that I would be waiting in the parking lot, and that he should come get me when the paperwork is ready. I took the tire on my way by and debated putting it back on right there in the parking lot, but decided to wait for the paperwork, just in case there were any further complications. My patience paid off in this case, because the tech came over and explained the situation, and feeling badly, put the tire back on my truck for me, in a matter of minutes. The tech and I headed inside, where he explained to the counter person that the reason my tire had taken so long was that it had been put in as the truck, not as a carry in, and when my turn came up in line they couldn't find my truck so they just moved on. Hours later the tech noticed that my tire was sitting by the door and investigated, he found a key tag stuck to the tire matching the key tag for the missing truck and put it all together, at which point he promptly fixed my tire. Since the original paperwork was incorrect (and presumably still lost somewhere in the abyss...) we went through the whole rigmarole of checking me in again, and then immediately back out, at which point I was allowed to sign the paper and leave.
By now it was nearly 6:00 pm and I still had an hour drive back to my field site, so I filled my tank, grabbed a cold drink, and hit the highway. I managed to put in about 45 minutes worth of work when I got back and then made camp for the night. I still had a day and a half in the field left to get some work done before I planned to head home for a break, so I figured I would at least get something worthwhile done this week. The next day, of course, was listed as having a 20% chance of rain, so I don't know why I was surprised when a massive storm rolled in, stopping me in my tracks for nearly two hours of truck-shaking winds and bone-rattling thunder. Peachy.
In the end, I was able to get nearly two and a half days of work out of the four that I spent out in the desert, but that is just how things go sometimes. In this line of work there is literally nothing more important than patience, well, except maybe the perseverance (or in my case maybe stubbornness) that keeps me going back for more. Patience though, can only take this process so far. It is critical for me, during data collection, because of the inevitable difficulties that crop up; that being said though, to you I would still like to convey a sense of urgency. The Red Desert has given me some of the greatest adventures of my life and taught me some of the most important lessons, but it is under attack. Most of these areas are already heavily impacted long before I even get to them. So far I have visited five protected wilderness study areas, areas enjoying the full protections offered by wilderness designation without formal congressional designation, and there was not a single one that did not already contain abandoned oil and gas infrastructure. I have also been to eight citizen’s proposed wilderness areas, areas suggested by citizens and conservation groups as possessing wilderness characteristics, and in all of those I can name only one that was not bordered by, or containing, active oil and gas development.
I have come to love the very places that present these daily challenges, and it pains me to see the destruction left behind by the constant push of development. This is not just my battle though, the BLM needs to hear from concerned citizens like you. So please, if you love the desert, spread the word, because the best way to ensure it's protection is to show the BLM that people like you care. This is public land, and you have a say. For more information about the areas BCA hopes to protect or for ways that you can help, please contact me at shelby@voiceforthewild.org.
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