Satori in the Canyon
April 1974

In April, 1974 three friends and I pulled off the greatest academic scam of my career in school.  We arranged to get a semester’s credit for tramping around in the canyons and mountains of the west.  Along the way it became the single most important event of my life, reverberations from that trip still echo to this day, more than thirty years ago.

Growing up in Middle Tennessee I had always enjoyed messing around in the woods, and I had spent many weekends car camping with the boy scouts.  When the opportunity of trip presented itself, our intrepid band on the run made it happen.  The first major portion of the trip was to the Grand Canyon.  Our plan was to go down the tourist trails and overnight at the camp at the bottom as a shakedown, then spend five days alone in a wilder portion of the canyon. 

The overnight was successful with some interesting occurrences along the way.  Remember that this was the mid seventies and things were different then, especially the common use of drugs.  While at the bottom, as we entered the dude ranch mess hall for some grossly overpriced Coors beer, there was a long hair obviously blissed out on psychedelics chanting his mantra, “peaking… peyote peaking…”  There was also a wonderful swimming hole up the side canyon to cool off with and wash the trail grime off. 

That evening we met others who were also over-nighting at the camp with us.  This was one the first times that I had met others from different parts of the country (not southerners.) For the first time I experienced the joys of a community of fellow travelers in a wilderness (of sorts.)  The next day climbing out of the canyon was enlightening in another entirely different fashion.  I learned the importance of salt and water.  Just a couple of miles from the top I ran out of both and had severe problems with muscle cramps and dehydration.  A kind hearted follow walker helped me with my pack and I made it out.

That night, our band ate like kings, and drank from a large jug of red wine.  That night the moon was full and human howls echoed across the campground.  We were restless and went through the campground looking for others to commune with.  We came across a couple who were having trouble with their fire.  Striking up a conversation we offered to help them and a couple of us went out into the woods and returned with some kindling and slightly larger wood and soon their fire was in fine shape.  We shared our wine and they brought out their weed – Thai Stick.  After refining our buzz, the man mentioned that he was a musician of some note and played with some well known San Franciscans.  We accepted what he said on face value, having no reason to disbelieve him.  Bringing out his mandolin, he played for us.  Between the wine, weed and the situation we, the band on the run, were blown away.   That impromptu concert was among the best music I ever had experienced.

After a couple of days of rest and recuperation we were off for our adventure in the eastern part of the Grand Canyon.  Our trip was down the Tanner Creek trail.  The trail was one of the longest and toughest from rim to river due to a six mile up and down traverse of the Tonto Platform (a large plateau halfway down the canyon and running along most of the south side of the canyon.)  To avoid water shortages on the return trip we carried several extra gallons of water that were cached near the top of the platform.  After caching the water, reaching the bottom was easy.  We were, by that time, in really good shape; camping and hiking does wonders for one’s physical condition.

At the bottom we were greeted with a very pleasant setting.  The area near the river was smooth and sandy with mesquite and willow trees scattered about the large boulders.  The river ran fast, green, and cold (the result of the Glen Canyon Dam upstream of us.)  We had a small bay that offered shelter from the current for dipping and refreshment.  We did little that first day at the bottom except lounge about “nude in the sand” as the Jefferson Airplane spoke of in the song “Lather.”  The next day we proceeded east to a point under “Comanche Point.”  Here there was less shelter, but the scenery was much more impressive with the point above us and Lava Butte across the river.

  It was at here that we had our planned psychedelic experience.  We had brought some psilocybin mushrooms.  Early that afternoon we divided up the stash and ingested them.  They are completely natural, but powerful.  Soon the effects were apparent, in a quiet sort of way.  It had been my experience that such drugs created an experience that was largely a product of the environment that you happened to be in.  On campus, among all of the students, such an experience could easily be rather frenetic and sometimes rather confused.  There in the canyon the mood and the experience were quiet, even reverential.   We split off into smaller groups and I went off by myself with my camera.  My mind was moving far faster than my eyes.  I began to experience the marvels of that unique environment in ways that I could not see with my eyes alone or with my camera.  After a while I found a rock and sat down looking over a small side canyon (Espejo Creek.)

On the other side of the side canyon was a long thin plant silhouetted against the dark rock waving in the breeze.  For me time stopped moving and I was mesmerized by the plant’s motions.  While seated there I was taught some of the profound truths that the wilderness has to teach us, if we only stop to listen.  The most profound of these, was the durability of life.  No matter what action we took, Life would prevail and eventually prosper anew.  Life itself was all powerful; humans as individuals and humanity as whole, pale in comparison.  This truth is still my guide today, from it, all else follows.  I was humbled by the power and majesty of the temple that I was allowed to experience that afternoon.  After that afternoon, I consider that place and any other wilderness a temple to the Creator, God, or the Life Force; however you wish to express it.

After awhile I was released from my meditations and an incredible bliss and peace filled me and my soul.  I am a child of the fifties and sixties and the threat of annihilation had swung over me all of my life.  …At any moment, and with no warning at all, all of civilization and me along with it could be destroyed…  Even the Bible had spoken of the second cleansing of the world by fire…  That afternoon I knew that it did not matter.  Life would survive, and prosper.  This joy still allows me to carry on, even in what would later be unimaginable hardships and deprivations.  I had received the gift of Grace and Faith.

You might say that this was all a hallucination and therefore not real, I beg to differ. Although my consciousness had been altered with psychotropic drugs, the thoughts in my head came from within me and were not the result of any sort of suggestion from others or the result of any, possibly faulty, perception.  The perceptions I experienced that day, were of the real world there at the bottom of the canyon.  They were filtered only by my thoughts as I meditated on that rock.  Ultimately, regardless of how they came about, the experiences I had, that day, were real to me.  Being real, they were true.

That evening our band regrouped and the topic of conversation centered on what it would take to destroy the Glen Canyon dam and release the sacred Glen Canyon from its watery grave.  This morphed into a discussion of nuclear war and of a more general destruction.  I stated my new believe and faith in life itself, stubbornly refusing to accept the consensus of the others that such an event would be the end of all life.  Thus I acquired the moniker of Big Chief Full of Shit.  This name stuck with me even after our adventures were over. 

We returned to the canyon rim after another day at the bottom, experiencing few of the hardships encountered on the first climb out.  We even had little need of the cache of water we carried down with us earlier.  After a day’s rest we then turned north to Colorado for other adventures. None of them were as profound or faith affirming as that afternoon at the bottom of the Canyon.

After that trip out west, I was changed.  At my core there was a faith and knowledge that gave purpose to life.  I began to seek out wild places and find what was offered to me there.  I learned to be able to go into the wilds on my own and hear what was there.  I began to listen to what the silence had to say. 

A few years later I had the opportunity to return to the west, this time to the Pacific Northwest.  There I met the same spirit in a whole new form — Mt. Rainier, the product of fire and ice, and an environment I came to refer to as “Gun Powder and Ozone.”  I also experienced the tragedy of the enforced separation from my wilderness temple.