Desert Solitaire

One summer 15 years ago, on the way to Los Angeles, Abbey abandoned his travel companions to explore Havasu, a remote branch of the Grand Canyon. It’s difficult to reach, and on the 14-mile hike, one passes through the Havasupai Indian village. After stocking up on supplies there and renting a horse, Abbey rides past cornfields and pastures to an old abandoned mine where he decides to stay for the next 35 days. He craves solitude, and although there’s nothing wrong with the neighboring Native Americans, Abbey doesn’t want to be interrogated about his language or religion.

Once alone, Abbey strips naked and smacks the horse, sending it back to the village. He swims in the waterfall and, after sunset, watches bats hunt fireflies. The next five weeks in “Eden” pass by without Abbey doing a thing. He catches fish, receives occasional food deliveries, and meets a few friendly locals. In the village, he races horses with them (even though he’s cheated out of a victory) and joins their annual Friendship Dance, where musicians and a medicine man preside. To Abbey’s great admiration, the Natives have denied a lucrative offer from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to blast a highway into their village.

Abbey explores the abandoned silver mine and listens to the “astonishingly human” voices of Havasu Creek. He dreams away his days there, stark naked as Adam, wondering about butterflies’ dreams. He slowly loses the difference between himself and nature: Abbey befriends a snake, and soon his own hand seems to be a trembling leaf on a branch.

Abbey does most of his wandering alone, and this can sometimes be dangerous. Once, while traversing Havasu Canyon, Abbey becomes stranded in a deeply recessed pool. Trying to find a way out, he only descends deeper down the rock face until he realizes there is no way back up a sheer 80-foot drop. In panic, he imagines his bones rotting in this location for the amusement of future travelers.

Abbey collects himself and tries to find a way out. He could tear his clothing—a T-shirt, some jeans, and an old straw hat—but the strips would never make a long enough escape rope. There is no way to make a signal fire and no one around to see the smoke anyway, so he sits down and cries in desperation. But he soon wonders if he could put some weight on his walking stick while nudging up the rock wall. Like a slug, he oozes his way up the slick sandstone. Halfway up, he makes it to a ledge and gives up. Once more, however, after noticing an angled rock that might support his weight, he continues inching his way up until he can swing himself back onto ground level. On solid earth, he bursts into tears of joy, and the clouds thunder in response.

Hiking back to his hut in Havasu, Abbey bellows “Ode to Joy.” When the rain starts to pour, he ducks out of the storm under an overhang and strikes a fire with twigs and coyote droppings. He spends a cold, wet, hungry night in this coyote den—one of the happiest nights of his life.