This is a kind of follow up to my number 3 and number 2 scariest camping stories. This isnt my number 1. Sorry to those who were looking for that, still trying to work out how to tell that one in a way that isnt super disjointed and confusing, and it’s fairly stressful to revisit. Patience please.
This is one of my desert stories. They are all true, with the given disclaimer that I am only human and have made mistakes in perception and judgement the same as the rest of us. I don’t drink booze to more than a light buzz most of the time and have only blacked out once, early in my teens, I dont really meas with weed, and avoid hallucinogens.
Deserts are inherently kinda otherwordly places, even if you call one home. Dunes in particular are very odd. I know of only a few places where you can find them in my part of the world. The northernmost are the Kilpecker Dunes in the Red Desert of southern Wyoming, then to the south, Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, and further south yet are the dunes in White Sands National Park. Maybe there are others, but these are the ones I’ve been to, many times. They are some of the few places where i feel reasonably comfortable practicing firecraft in dry seasons, they are an amazing place to learn about what you can and cant do without, and to practice more esoteric bushcraft and survival skills. These three locations are also, by amazing coincidence, where these stories take place. I’ll start here with the one I’ve been to the most.
I grew up in a high desert. They are unforgiving by their very nature, but if you can take what they throw at you they are full of a surprising amount of life and beauty. The forests and mountains may be my sanctuary, but I fear in my heart that I am ultimately a desert creature, and the dry wind that steals away warmth and moisture also calls me home. I love the desert and the winds that allow nothing spare. I love the rocky creek beds where the bones of the fish that once gave them life blew into dust centuries ago. I love the rocky outcrops rotted away to globular non-forms by wind and ice. The desert is my home.
Much like any other home, once you get used to its little tells, a sense of a place forms within you. You know when you’re alone in it, when a cherished knickknack has been moved, a foor left open. Sometimes the echoes of a missing familiar sound can whisper a warning, a slight sense of offness.
Sometimes though, they can scream.
The dunes of the Red Desert are not easy to get to, and depending on which part you are in, entry can be of dubious legality. I, of course, of course, would never advise going where you aren’t allowed, and certainly never have in my hastier, less cautious youth. No sir.
I had been many times, and I tried to avoid camping or tooling around out there in the same spot. Alcohol was usually hauled out, water always was, and usually some lightweight means of defending oneself, but there isnt exaclty a plethora of prey animals to feed a huge predatory population, so its not really all that necessary. Somewhere around a decade ago, maybe more, maybe less, I took something of an on-again, off-again girlfriend of mine out to the red dunes, hopefully for a a night of fun, if not outright debauchery. The pretense, which she later happily confirmed was pretense for her as well, was that we were there to practice air-based water collecting techniques and fire craft. I’ve never been much of a smooth talker, but what can I say, hope springs eternal.
I wont use any real names, but I’ll refer to her by the trait I most associate with her, so let’s call her Grace.
It was a drive and a half, but eventually we got there, and in relative comfort. Like many young women in the mountain west, parental worries of their daughters being stranded somewhere by buying them overbuilt SUV’s with AWD and enough creature comforts to make you feel like you never left home at all. As they have the gas efficiency of a derrick fire, and Grace was nothing if not practical, she had yanked out half the seats and turned the inside into huge cargo space, including a secondary gas tank. I understand that this is not necessarily safe if done by an amateur and is typically outside of the cab in a truck bed, but whatever. Not my vehicle. Anyway, this was good, as we burned a lot of gas to get out there, and the AWD was very handy.
We got there around the hottest part of the day, which in the early fall isnt so bad, and hiked out to where we wanted to set up camp. I had on occasion read about then before, and decided to attempt a travois with a couple of poles i had brought for the purpose. For the time expenditure of around 20 minutes of set up and the purpose of dragging shit along the sand, I gotta say, not bad. I was able to haul all of out bullshit out by myself around three, three and a half miles from where we parked. The dunes cover a truly huge space, and my favorite parts are of course the hardest to get to, as they tend to be the farthest from the atvers. I dont have an issue with them necessarily, but I like the dunes best when its quiet enough to hear them sing. I dont understand it well enough to explain it, youll have to look it up. They are what are known as living dunes, and they make a noise folks call singing.
Of course, as a younger man trying, in a self-awarely stupid fashion, to impress my date with my muscles and trying to maintain a lively conversation without revealing how winded I was (don’t judge, walking on shifting sands is hard) I wasnt listening for the singing of sand, but trying to catch what Grace was saying over the wind. This story isnt about that part anyway, but I can say, even with something of a bittersweet taste in my mouth now, that it was a pleasant time with a person I once loved, and I wouldnt have traded it for the world.
We set up our camp in the nook between a few dunes, erecting a virginal handmade tent of Grace’s design and manufacture with some difficulty and goodnatured swearing. It was pretty cool, a kimd of low wedge designed to be erected in high wind zones and remain warm. It had a dead air space built in, which was a pretty neat feature to my mind. Along with it, we discovered why a dakota fire pit doesnt work well on shifting sands which should have been obvious if either of us thought about it for more than a half second, and thoroughly chastised by the cruel dictates of basic physics, dug a regular fire pit like folks with functioning frontal lobes. We set up a few frames which held elevated tarps with stones in the middle over half buried buckets to attempt to collect dew as well. I showed her the basics, and Grace lit her first friction fire with a willow bow drill, a cottonwood baseboard and yucca stalk spindle (this is my go to combo in the western steppe, btw) in only a few tries.
As the predusk lightshow that decends every evening, known to the natives as “Golden Hour” (probably to everybody for all I know) rolled across the dunes and mountains of the red desert like so much maple syrup over harsh and unusually topographically variable pancakes, Grace and I were letting some stew cook over the fire while I showed her how to process yucca for fiber.
We had a very pleasant evening characterized by not enough stew and too much whiskey, and a song I wrote (very much not for her, except in the fact that it very much was) accompanied by one of those horrible little broom shaped traveling guitars. As is the way of the fortunes of all young dipshits trying to impress women who they should know have them dead to rights already, the B string broke halfway through. If you can’t make the object of your affection swoon, making them laugh their asses off isnt a bad consolation prize.
We ended the night wrapped in a blanket by the fire, watching the moon rise and the stars do their gentle revolving dance around Polaris until I carried her, snoring like band saw, into her sleeping bag. I settled into mine and let the sound of the wind and the singing dunes carry me to sleep.
As an aside, folks who might still benefit from this advice: take time to remind yourself to remember moments like these as they happen. They are gifts, and they should be treasured as such.
I rested comfortably for a while, maybe an hour or two, before the whiskey reminded me of the debt I now owed it and I went to relieve myself.
I was immediately taken aback by two things. One was the ludicrous brightness of the moon. Despite the residing in the “Red” Desert, the Kilpecker Dunes are infact a kind of creamy tan color, and on nights with a full moon, you might find darker conditions under a storm cloud in the middle of the day. The light seemed like it was pulsing a little, which I assume was probably more to do with dehydration and booze than the actual light sources.
The second thing, I noticed was the calm. Its almost always windy in Wyoming. It just is. I grew up there, walking to school in steady 40 mph winds. Calm does happen, but its usually a relative calm, like only 8 mph winds. This was still. Waking up to the calm is like waking up in a strange room you dont remember falling asleep in. Not inherently bad, per se, but disquieting and alien in a small but pervasive way. I climbed up a nearby dune, because if I have to urinate, I may as well do so from a great height (the men reading this will understand) and because I wanted a good view of the surrounding area under its unusually well illuminated conditions. The only sound was my footsteps, my breath and the gentle hum of the dunes themselves. Not even an owl to be heard.
As i got to the top, a mountain came into view. Actually, several did.This isnt an unusal experience in the Rockies, as visibility can often be hundreds of miles in clear conditions and farther feom elevation. What was of note was that above the ones to the north of me there were flashes and flickers of light. Thunderstorm up north was my first thought, which would have been the safe bet. But I saw no clouds past them. I then noticed the ghostly colors of the lights and realized I was watching the Aurora Borealis, which i was hitherto unaware could be seen from that far South. I took a moment to relax and enjoy it, before scanning around me to see what other sights the moon would show me.
It was then that I spotted, down below me in a flatter area, what appeared to be many numerous 4 legged creatures. Cows, sheep, antelope, hell, even deer or elk wouldnt be that strange. I honestly couldnt tell you what they were, only that where were probably more than 20 and less than 50, more about that in a moment. But in the middle, I swore I saw an old school I-shit-you-not covered wagon. Not the pioneer kind, but the blockier, fully roofed shepherds hut on wheels that dotted Wyoming like freckles a hundred and twenty years ago. Folks think it was the cattle that built the West, but Wyoming first and foremost was built on sheep. However, whatever I was seeing, it was all back lit by the moon, so they were casting shadows from the side facing me.
Now, I’ll be honest with y’all, i don’t have the absolutely clearest vision. It’s not bad, better with glasses, but I don’t usually bring them with me to throw a leak in the middle of the night.
So when I say the movement of these critters and the wagon looked strange, almost flickery, I expect you to take it with a grain of salt. I expect you to say it had something to do with the aurora or my eyes being tired, and those are all legit.
Thankfully I have really good hearing and olfactory perception. What my mediocre vision doesnt explain is why I was looking at something probably less than a mile away and I couldn’t hear it on a still night. Wagons are noisy. They creak worse than boats, even when new. Livestock are noisy, and I’d find it odd to see a group that size with no bells around their necks. Nothing. Silence.
Furthermore, why would you try to travel by night? It was bright, sure, but its not like thats a common practice, at least not according to anything I’ve ever heard. You want your critters together and easily defended from predators, thats what I understand.
I watched them for a while, moving slowly across the ground almost like they were underwater. Slow enough I broke off a yucca stock and stuck it into the ground to mark the progress. Slow, but it was there. I stayed up there, watching the lights and the procession of shadows for a long time.
Eventually, I decided to whistle at them, the two fingers in the mouth super loud angry dad whistle. I heard it echo back at me, and then nothing. I yelled a loud, “Hello!” at them as well. Echo and nothing, again. Huh. No change in pace, no lights. I started to think the progress my be the moon moving across the sky and not whatever I thought it was.
So, I decided to go grab my binoculars, and try to wake up Grace to at least see the lights. It was a little treacherous descending but i made it in one piece. Camp was as i had left it, and i relaxed a little. I opened the tent flap and dug around a little, found my nocs but my attmepts to rouse my lady friend were unsuccessful. She was not having it. Not at all. She rolled over and went back to sleep, and chastised, I went back up to the top of the dune.
It took me a little longer this time, I was definitely feeling the climb by the time I got to the crest again.
It looked like a little progress had been made, according to my yucca stalk markers. Curious as hell I decided to use the binoculars to try to make out what I was looking at.
I couldnt find the shadows in the binoculars. There are two possible influences on that, one being these were old binoculars and they had been stuck in maximum zoom since i had gotten them. The other would be it was in the wee hours of the morning and I had, several hours earlier imbibed some booze.
But try and try again, nothing. I couldnt get eyes on the critters or the wagon. Couldnt hear them, couldnt get a long distance look at them. What was I to do?
I said fuck it, and went back to bed. Whatever i was looking at wasn’t hurting me, it was just curious, and I had grown drowzy and cold lying on the cold sand.
I narked the direction with one of the stalk segments, slid down the dune on my ass, and crawled back into the tent.
As I lay there, waiting for sleep in the warm and dark, I heard that gentle dune noise again, and the wind pick back up. My lullaby. Just as I was drifting off, though, I thought I heard a whistle echo across the sands but from very far away. I put it doen to my ears playing tricks on me, and when I next opened my eyes it was morning.
Problem was, I was sitting next to the still crackling fire, not in the tent, and Grace was leaning against me as we sat wrapped in a blanket.
I know, I know. “Fuck you, this was just a dream, you dick!?” I can hear you just fine.
There are a few problems with that hypothesis, though. One was, I put out the fire before going to bed. Im camping in a giant ashtray with a shovel in hand, it was effortless to put out and I remembered doing so very clearly. Another was that I was wearing shoes, which I hadmt done to go relieve myself and I hadnt done since we started the fire the night before, since I wanted a better grip on my baseboard to show Grace how to light a fire with a stick and bow. I have monkey feet, judge away.
Here’s another: I could see my footsteps up the dune and the trail from my impromptu derriere-sledding session.
Ookaaay. I woke Grace up, and she said that she thought we had slept in the tent. I concurred, and we sat there bleerily blinking at a fire we didn’t remember building. I asked her to start the coffee, and climbed back up the dune, this time with my compass and my binoculars. My yucca fragments were there, and I got a heading, scoping out where I thought they were the night before. Still didnt see anything that would have made sense, so I headed back down once more on the Asscheek Express, and talked to my girlfriend about what I had seen.
She wasnt particularly freaked out by any of it, confidently told me i was still asleep or sleepwalking when I saw lights and the bizarre caravan. She was a little concerned by the lost time and not remembering getting up, but I think, to her credit as a reasonable person, she thought I was winding her up. I wasnt offended.
I was, however, racked by curiosity. What the hell had happened? Im not a sleep walker as far as I know, and I as I am now, writing this, have lost time before out in the wilderness but never before this incident. Was it just weird shadows? Had I been asleep? My markers were there, so I had been pretty lucid for a somnambulist.
One simple test I thought of would confirm or deny it. I decidd to throw on my boots and hike over to where I thought the trail should be by my best guess, while I let Grace do her morning routines.
A short, brisk walk later, and i found nothing. No prints of any kind. This part wasn’t as sandy as some others, so prints wouldnt have been everywhere, but there were none. Likelihood of sleep and booze fueled hallucinations increasing.
I did a fiarly thourpugh aearch of a few hundred yards in several directions, leabing my water bottle as a guide for where I thought it should be. No prints.
I didnt give up. I trust my senses most of the time, and I’m stubborn. Also, I wasnt seeing anything that, given the angle of the moon, should have cast a shadow like that. Scrub, low brush. No trees, no boulders.
I kept looking, first along the route I thiught they would have cone from. No prints again. Something di catch my eye though. In a less sandy patch, I saw a long stretch of depressed clay. A rut, I realized, and some mild depressions in the rock here and there. A rut from a wheel made of something harder than modern tires, with a less gentle suspension. Now that I was looking for it, I saw more here and there. Headed to bisect the dunes, from one grassland to the next.
Just an old, old trail from long ago.
I don’t know what any of that was. I easnt of sober or clear mind, although I was far from blackout drunk or sleep deprived. Grace got angry at me after a certain point of talking about it, so i stopped bringing it up. We finished out our outing. Our water collectors were successful in that they collected dew and unsuccessful in that it was about a cup and a half from the three of them together. We made a bolo out of some rocks and yucca cordage (premade, its a process and what we had made while we were there was minimal and strictly as a tutorial), we practiced atlatl skils, ruined some perfectly good flint in the attempt to make a pair of blades. We shared many good meals together. Still, overall, a very pleasant trip.
After another couple of uneventful nights we headed home. I hadn’t discussed it with anyone since really. I have no good explanation.
I have however been out there again, and while I’ve never seen anything like that again, twice in my recollection I whistled at the top of the dunes before going to bed, and later that night, I was sure I heard one back. Probably just another camper.
Probably.