Seeking a little quiet

I need quiet the way an alcoholic needs a drink.  By “quiet” I don’t mean absolute silence, the kind that can only be found in an anechoic chamber.  My version of quiet is free from man-made noise, anthropophony, in Bernie Krause’s terms.  No machines, no screaming and yelling, no loud music.  Sometimes I really crave nature’s voices: the whisper of the wind in the trees; the gurgle of a small stream; the trills, warbles, and chirps of my avian friends.

Although I live in a rural area surrounded by mostly native vegetation and lots of wildlife, quiet has been harder and harder to find at home.  I’ve learned to live with the distant trains, the local traffic, the barking dogs, and even the emergency helicopters flying over the house – all of those sounds are intermittent, leaving me with a few minutes of quiet now and then.  But lately, the military has taken over my valley, and the sounds of helicopters, attack and fighter jets, and cargo planes is almost non-stop during the day.  The helicopters are the most annoying, flying back-and-forth patterns so low over the valley that it’s difficult to hold a phone conversation.

So sometimes I need to get away to find some quiet.  Earlier in April, I set off for the Dragoon Mountains, about 50 miles southeast of Tucson.  Although close by Arizona standards, there’s no easy access.  There is a pitiful campground on the east side of the mountains that’s a long way from anywhere.  There’s a lot of nice dispersed camping sites on the west side of the mountains, but it requires driving all the way to Tombstone (yes, it really exists), then 20 miles of dirt roads.  I chose the latter site, hoping the difficult access might increase the probability of solitude.  I also went on a Thursday, hoping to beat the weekend crowd.

Two and a half hours later, including an hour on increasingly difficult roads where once again I had no business taking my Honda CR-V, I finally pulled into a nice campsite in Stronghold West Canyon.  I had seen hardly anyone on the way in, just a VW bus parked near one of the popular rock climbing areas, and a van from the University of Arizona.   So I thought there was a good chance I might actually have the canyon to myself.  I got out of the car and I thirstily drank in the quiet.  Just a light breeze and a few birds chittering.  Ahhh.

The site I’d pulled into was large enough for several vehicles.  I parked in the center to “claim” it, and with so few people around, I figured I wouldn’t have to worry about anyone else trying to share the site with me.  So I grabbed my pack, and Shadow and I walked up the road to the trailhead.  There was one vehicle parked near the trailhead, but they didn’t appear to have any camping gear with them, so I assumed they were just hiking.  We hiked up to the crest, and were rewarded with lovely views to the east and west.  Shadow and I kicked back in the shade of a small juniper and just enjoyed the quiet for awhile, letting the tension ease and melting into the dirt.  We hadn’t even heard a plane since we’d arrived in the canyon.

That changed shortly after we’d headed back down the trail.  A pair of A-10 attack jets zipped through the pass, low and fast, on their way back to Tucson.   A few minutes later, the quiet resumed.  When we got back to the trailhead, the truck that had been there was gone.  And I silently rejoiced at the thought of having the canyon all to myself.   But when I got back to my campsite, I discovered two pickup trucks had moved in, on either side of my car.  They had started to set up camp.  An older gentleman inquired as to whether I was planning on camping there, and when I said yes, he complained that they didn’t know if I was hiking or camping (I hadn’t set up a tent or anything yet).  I mentioned that there were some really nice sites further up the canyon, but they seemed set on staying there.  I quickly set up my camp, hoping to convince them to leave, but they just moved both vehicles together on one side of the site, still within 50 feet of my camp.  They seemed put out by the fact that I didn’t leave, even though I had been there first!  It was late in the day, and I was too tired to negotiate the rough road of the canyon, so I decided to stick it out with my neighbors.   As far as campers go, they were actually pretty quiet.  It was a little girl (about 7-8 years old), her parents, and grandpa.   I’ve certainly had worse campers pull in right next to me, but they were still close enough that it was difficult to do any recording without getting their voices, truck doors slamming,  or the sound of their campfire crackling.

As darkness fell, I saw a few bats flitting around the oaks and junipers.  Great Horned Owls, Whiskered Screech-owls, and Poorwills called distantly throughout the night.  The first light of dawn was greeted by the birds, with towhees, sparrows, jays, quail, and meadowlarks adding their voices to the chorus.  I managed to get a few minutes of recording before my neighbors also rose and started slamming truck doors.

I rose, ate a quick breakfast, packed quickly and pulled out.  It was obvious they weren’t going anywhere, so I headed down the canyon, carefully easing my car through the rocks and dips. I explored some of the other campsites for future reference, before heading back home.  I still don’t know why, with more than a dozen quality campsites to choose from, they had to choose the one with a car parked in it.

Top photo by dedhed1950, via Flickr Creative Commons.