I had been in the high desert with the dingos for a few days watching the lessons in the winter classroom when it was time for three of the students to have their solo night. Their parents would arrive in the morning with their therapist to see them for the first time since they entered the Utah wilderness. They had high hopes for the visit and they were both nervous and excited. The adult guides helped the three students find appropriate campsites for the visits. It was one o’clock in the afternoon when the solo students found their special places. They had four chores to complete before the temperature dropped below freezing and the desert was shadowed in the vale of nighttime. First they would need to build a dart, a tent formed from a tarp, complete with roof, floor, and door. The simple shelter of an advanced woodsman with knot tying skills and versatility in different terrains, yet simple enough that children can quickly master the dart shelter. Second they needed to dig a fire pit for their campfire approximately 1.5 feet wide by 2.5 feet long and 8 inches deep. Third they were to hang a tarp about 6 feet high above the fire to act as a roof for their main camp. This tarp was stretched by four corners with paracord to nearby trees and when drawn tight with a truckers hitch creates a dry fireplace when rain and snow descend from the winter clouds above. Fourth they were to gather a pile of firewood and get a fire going for the night to cook their meal.
They worked on their camps throughout the afternoon while the sun quickly descended towards the horizon of the indian peaks. All three students struggled with their solo camp learning the lessons from their teacher that day. One boy struggling with various emotional traumas worked into the darkness and found himself alone in an unforgiving wilderness with only one task completed, his dart. He stood there in the snow, temperatures falling toward the teens, no firewood, no fire pit, no tarp overhead, and wet clothes from sitting in the snow for most of the afternoon.
I sat warm, cooking a potato soup in the main camp surrounded with friendly voices and the comforting cracking from the fire giving us heat and pleasant aromas of various foods that were being prepared by students and staff. I heard his voice, trembling in desperation. He called out into the darkness and his words were haunting: “I need help” he pleaded. “It’s dark I don’t have any firewood I can’t dig a fire pit because the ground is Frozen I am cold and I am hungry”. My eyes met the eyes of another staff member. We both stood up. We carried coals from our fire toward his solo camp the snow crunching beneath our feet. As I walked I snapped twigs from the trees I passed and had an arm load by the time I reached him. I shined my headlamp into his face and his eyes revealed fear. His cheeks looked cold but relief filled is countenance when I thanked him for asking for help and told him I was going to build a fire so he could get warm and dry. I dropped my armload of dry sticks on the snow, shredded juniper bark on top of them and dumped the burning coals from the main camp into the nest and blew fresh flames that soared heavenwards, together with the other staff member we gathered firewood and made a large winter blaze under a cold moon. We worked quickly, efficiently, silently. The student stood there in the snow watching us. The flames reached above my head. This was a hot fire. I stood there looking at the flames, reached my hands out to warm them and looked again at the scared eyed student. His eyes were not fearful now, he was sporting a smile and his eyes were gentle, grateful, relaxed. I asked him: “are you going to be okay now”? He replied with positive affirmation. We left him there, his wet clothes steaming the moisture away from his body. He would be warm, I knew that, I glanced back at his camp, a broad smile adorned his face, three more steps around a thick juniper and again he was alone on his solo. His voice calling through the night still haunts me. He spent 8 hours that day on his camp. And in less than 5 minutes of focused work we created for him a roaring fire that warmed his body, provided his warm dinner, healed his fearful mind, cast light upon the darkness of his world. It was easy for me to build that fire. In fact it was nothing. In my 46 years on this Earth I have built a hundred fires in exactly the same conditions of snow, and frozen ground, and crisp winter skies. This was his classroom and the teacher had a stern lesson as the sun disappeared and the desert was still. I sat alone in main camp thinking. The other students and staff in the tent preparing for sleep. I looked to the west above the Utah junipers, 50 yards away there was the gentle glow of a bonfire. Again in my mind his call for help haunted my thoughts. Later in the early hours I woke to my own dreams they were restless. In my head someone was calling, their voice was desperate, they were a stranger to me, and the call was more than a need for a simple fire beyond their emotional power to conjure up. It was a plea for their entire life and existence. I did not go back to sleep. The classroom had a new student and I laid there in my goose down sleeping bag, warm and comfortable trying to understand the lesson of the teacher.
