Water

I shoved the army blanket off and sat up in the sand that I had scooped to make a nest for a bed the night before. It was dark and early, and none of the other thirty eight of our a group had awakened. The night had been cold; so cold that I had slept with my hiking boots on. I brushed the ashes off of my face that had floated from our tiny campfire. I had slept with my empty water can (a discarded pop can I had found) looped over my head with a necklace of heavy twine. I held it as I got up so it wouldn’t make any noise and walked toward the stream next to our camp to refill it. I listened to hear the comforting sound of the water. In the dark it was hard to see, but it was easy enough to walk right out to the middle of the stream. I walked there without hearing any sounds of sloshing water or even the sucking sound of mud and knelt in the middle -- not caring if I got wet or not. My knees didn’t feel any water or even wet sand, and so I dug with my hands, but there was no water there at all. The stream was gone, sucked back into the dry desert sand.

About two and a fourth days before, our bus had dropped us off somewhere south of Tropic, Utah. The instructors (BYU Leadership 480) had told us to drink all of the water that we could hold, because the next water we would drink would be what we could find. They further instructed us that they had the directions to a couple of springs, but that it had been three years since they had been to this particular area, and the chance of the water being available depended on many factors; one of which was how much spring rain the area had received. With that thought in mind, we eagerly followed their directions and dipped our paper cups repeatedly into the fifty-gallon drum of water that had been stored on the bus. Then we helped load the empty water barrel back onto the bus and watched it disappear down the dirt road. It would return and pick us up in Boulder, Utah twenty-eight days later. We looked wide-eyed at each other and the dry desert plateau that surrounded us. The instructors said, “Let’s go pilgrims. Daylight is burning!” This phase of the program was called “Impact.”

Twenty-one hours later we found water. It was at the base of a huge canyon wall and the puddle was covered with scum and bugs. We didn’t care. Without a second thought, we covered our mouths with our bandanas and sucked the water through it. We followed the dry streambed that occasionally rewarded us with more of water until it turned into a little stream. None of us left the side of that stream. We walked the rest of the day, slept, woke up and walked on with only the water to sustain us. We arrived at our base camp, and food, eighteen or so hours later. Since then we had been in base camp. We had rested up, killed a sheep, eaten food for the first time, seasoned and dried the extra meat, and had had a continual supply of water from our little stream.

Early in the morning and alone, I discovered that the water was gone. I was a different person than the one that had gotten off of the bus. During those hours, I had learned many lessons. I learned that it was possible to go a long, long time without food, that canyon walls could be scaled, that I could repel down cliffs, and that sucking rocks helped thirst. I had also learned to plead with the Lord, not just pray, and trust that all we needed to do was to progress toward our destination, without question, no matter what happened, and we would be guided and protected. In fact I felt that I could handle just about anything (except being without water.)

The sky had turned from dark black to dark gray as I knelt there. I looked back up the dry streambed that led to and between the high salmon colored canyon walls that we had walked down a couple of days before.

I looked back toward the fires surrounded with the others of our group still asleep, and decided to walk up the streambed until I found some water. I knew that it was Sunday and that we weren’t scheduled to break camp until the next morning and didn’t really care how much of that time it would take.

As I walked I thought about the major lesson I had learned so far on this survival----Trust and proceed toward your goal. Learn the lesson that the process teaches.

Thinking about this thirty-seven years later, I can’t really tell how long I walked or how far I went, but I do remember that I was in high spirits, full of confidence, and loving my beautiful surroundings and the cool early morning air. Anyway, after I had gone far enough and learned enough, I came around a bend and far ahead of me I saw a reflection of light on water. I stood where I was and waited as the water gathered itself until it turned into a tiny, tiny stream that made its way down the streambed and puddle around my feet. I stooped over and scooped out sand to make a puddle big enough to dip my can in and fill it to the top. When the can was full, I lay on my belly, not caring about the sand or the wetness, and drank my fill. Then I picked the can up by its cord, replaced it around my neck, turned, and started back to camp.

It took a long time to get back to camp, and I far outran the streams slow, sure progress. Just before I got there I met a guy from our group coming up the dry streambed towards me. He was somewhat anxious. He said that there no one at the camp had any water at all, the stream was dry, and that they were getting ready for sacrament meeting and there was no water for the sacrament. Wordlessly I took my full can from around my neck, handed it to him, and we headed back to camp together.