THE CREVICE

PRESCOTT, ARIZONA
2002

My road-dog, GG Shepard was about six months old; she was a German Shepard mix with a sweet disposition and who was loyal to a fault. We were alone, camping outside of Prescott in a gorgeous rocky area known as the Dells. These granite rock are amazing…I still don’t understand how they were formed; boulders of all sizes, some as large as a house, scattered with evergreens and streams and all above a mile high in elevation. It was not an easy place to traverse, with all the climbing involved, but it was an excellent place to camp unnoticed.
As with any illegal campsite the secret to safety is distance; it is vital to get far enough away from civilization that you are not followed by human monsters or reported by homeowners to the police. Our campsite was perhaps a mile and a half from town. That might not sound like a lot, but when you are climbing hundreds of rocks and boulders to get there, it is plenty far enough. Another vital aspect is to get to camp while there is sufficient light to see by, and one day our luck ran out. GG and I were visiting with friends when I realized that the sun was setting. We set out immediately, but I knew that if we were to make it safely we would need to take a short cut, one that involved a much more rigorous climb. GG was okay with climbing, in fact she often scared me with her prowess, so we made our way as quickly as we could. Then we came to the crevasse.
Now, technically this was no large crevice. It was a space between the boulders perhaps three feet across which, even with my full fifty-pound back pack on, I could easily leap across. However, in between the stone megaliths was a gap with a drop of about forty feet straight down onto another collection of rocks. The jump was tricky – we were in a narrow space between two large boulders with just enough space for me and my backpack to squeeze through, and jumping to another set of boulders with a narrow ledge. But I was careful and successfully made the jump. I continued on, thinking only of the sun setting; we did not want to get caught sleeping outside without our gear. We would be ok, I was sure, but we would not be comfortable. Still, we had made excellent time so far, and there was a good chance we would make it back after all. Then I heard the faintest, smallest little whine and my heart dropped.
Sure enough, I turned around, and there she was, my six month old puppy, on the other side of the crevasse. She was crying and shaking, and she had buried her nose into her paws as though she understood exactly what I understood. We were in an emergency situation and GG was too afraid to jump. Normally I would have simply jumped back, picked her up and continued on our way (I had carried her across the Oklahoma City Interchange just a month before!), but this was different. I could not turn around on the ledge I was on which meant that I would have to jump back between those boulders with the heavy packback…one slip of any kind and the pack would pull me into the crevasse.
Watching the sun get closer and closer to the horizon I begged GG to jump, then I yelled, then I cried. She tried…she would wiggle, and turn and yelp and whine, but she just couldn’t. I think perhaps it was the sheer darkness creeping in all around; we were simply never out at nighttime and she wasn’t used to it. So, resigned, I prepared to remove my pack. It contained a fresh supply of food and water, so I sorely did not want to lose it, but there was no choice; there was nowhere to set it down except at the bottom of the dark crevasse.
I am not ashamed to say that this was one of the most terrifying moments in my life.
These backpacks are meant to carry a couple hundred pounds, and so it had a belt that goes around your waist…this belt is crucial because it keeps the weight from crushing your shoulders. I knew the moment that I released the waist belt the fifty-pound pack would pull my shoulders back, in this case back over the crevasse. I would have to ditch the pack as fast as possible, and I prayed that it would not catch on my coat, or hair, or…my mind raced with all of the things that could go wrong. Leaving GG was out of the question; little puppies and even grown dogs do not often make it alone in the wild.
Closing my eyes (I didn’t want to see the fall) I took a deep breath and fumbled for the belt buckle that would release the backpack; then I heard the thump and there she was. GG had made the leap! To this day I believe that she knew…she understood how much it meant for her to make that jump.
Night did fall, but we made it back to camp, though it took GG’s nose and wonderful sense of smell to get us through the darkness for the last few yards. I praised her loudly the entire time.

My sweet girl lived ten years for me. ❤️🐾