Day 4: Thursday, April 16, 2020

After all the excitement of yesterday, today was a chill day. It was another logistics day because tomorrow we are heading out for the Bryan Mountains on a Search and Recovery for someone who was left behind by his group about a month ago.

None of us have ever been to the Bryans, partly because they are not what you would call accessible. We will have to hike in 11 miles from the nearest road, the Camino del Diablo, just to get to our search area. Therefore, in order to do a thorough search, and to use the opportunity to explore the area to seek to understand how people are travelling through it, we are spending the weekend out there.

I feel that no one is interested in the details of my food preparation, truck check, camping crate or the additional precautions we take to keep our COVIDs, should we have any, to ourselves. So, I am going to take this opportunity to share something I get in my feelings about….

That something is, items left in the desert by people travelling. Generally I believe in the principle of “leave no trace” in the wilderness. I pack out my trash and pick up water bottles that we have left in the desert at our drops. But, when it comes to items left behind in the desert by people travelling, I definitely do not pick them up and pack them out. Why not?

First, I do not consider these items to be “trash.” I think of some of these items as artifacts, tools that people have made a conscious choice about. For example, pantouflas (carpet slippers) that people get for a specific purpose, in this case covering their tracks. Like pottery, or other cultural artifacts that you see in museums, pantouflas have a cultural relevance to life in the Sonoran Desert in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Second, I see these items as providing signs and guides for others travelling through the desert. They might help someone to navigate the easiest way through an area. This is especially true when there are multiple apparent canyons going through a mountain range. Some of the canyons will dead end or lead to high cliffs. By following the signs of other travelers, people may be able to identify which canyon leads through the mountains. Items can also identify safe or unsafe places to rest depending on what they are or how they are arranged. For instance, a circle of camouflage clothing can indicate a detention site.

Third, sometimes items can be re-used, a water bottle that has recently been left can replace one that is leaking or it could be cut in half to make a bowl for eating the beans that we leave or collecting water from rain or a natural rock tank.

I have ideological reasons for not picking up items too.

Items left in the desert. Photo from PBS.

I want people visiting the desert to see the impact of Prevention through Deterrence on people and on the desert. Sometimes the number of items can be overwhelming. Every water bottle, every tuna packet, every backpack, blanket, jacket, pair of jeans, shoe represents someone who has traveled through the heat, the cacti and the surveillance to save themselves or to search for a better life. It is hard to believe that anyone could see the endurance, determination and resilience that these items represent and not feel compassion for their fellow humans.

Finally, there is the hypocrisy of the land managers. Their complaints about the environmental impact of items left behind in a desert that is, and has since 1941, been an active military training ground. We find all kinds of military debris, from bullets to tow darts, flares and even full-size missiles. The military says it is too hard to collect their debris because of the terrain and the distances they have to travel to pick it up. Usually I am all about community rather than individual responsibility, but as the military has, arguably, dropped more “trash” in the desert than anyone else and as, also arguably, it is militarization of the desert that is causing people to travel through wilderness areas and leave items behind, it is, again arguably, the military’s responsibility to clean it up.

One simple solution to all this would be open borders (my personal preference) or at least the end of Prevention through Deterrence and an humane and respectful immigration system that means that people no longer leave anything behind in the desert, because they no longer have to cross it. Then, the desert, which has resisted everything from mining to ranching to bombing can go back to being wilderness. Then I will pick up any, and all, items I find out there.