The Climb
When we ventured into Coyote Valley in Anza Borrego State Park it was frigid and the wind cut through my three layers of jackets like a knife. I’m pretty sure we were all shivering in our hiking boots, but we walked on, looking for flora and fauna to make some observations in this new place.
I had been striking out on lizards (they are just too quick for me to snap a picture sometimes) and there barely are ever any mammals in sight. But there was something different about this place that I did notice: the flowers. At first I saw a couple here and there but as I walked on and wandered off path, I noticed the entire canyon was in bloom and it was a truly magnificent sight to see. I had always been excited by flowers and their ability to bloom in the harshest of places. As I continued to photograph the flowers, though, I kept hearing faint tweets fading in and out in all directions. There were hummingbirds galore. They loved the wildflowers just as much as I had and were zipping through the brush faster than I could keep up.
I followed the stream that supplied the water to these flowering plants that gave excitement to the hummingbirds and found myself in a small oasis, covered by looming trees and half hidden by the mountainside. The hummingbirds continued to buzz and I continued to try and capture them with my camera, but I was almost always too slow. Just as I was getting frustrated, striking out on nearly every animal I tried to photograph, the urge I always have to climb came over me, just to get away, and I scaled the side of the mountain that overlooked the small oasis.
When I made it up a fair distance, I laid back on a big boulder and soaked up the warm sun and cool breeze. After scanning the landscape, I again noticed the hummingbirds below, swiftly bobbing in and out of the trees surrounding the stream. Suddenly my frustration with them all fell apart, and I watched them for a good while. I realized just how many there actually were, probably four or five at least, in this little oasis. They were almost dancing through the air, stopping only briefly at a flower but never ceasing to rapidly beat their wings faster than the eye can keep up with.
I notice that often times I can be like a hummingbird, always going and going, barely stopping to take a breath. But climbing that mountainside made me take a step back and look at the bigger picture. I was able to see a whole community of hummingbirds and the trees they were feeding from, the stream that was giving all of this life, and the desert and mountains beyond. It all made me feel so small and insignificant, but in a good way that made me put things into perspective. And I think that’s why I like to climb so much.
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