Camping in the National Forest

Lee Marsden had decided that he didn't want to pay rent that summer. It was summer vacation, and he didn't see why he should rent an apartment in San Cuencas, New Mexico just for three months. Marsden had had enough classes and enough books. He had saved a little money working off-campus during the school year. He figured the amount he had saved wouldn’t go far if he spent it on rent, but it would easily cover his expenses if he lived in a tent. He could pitch his tent for free in the nearby national forest, where there were two million acres of public land. He doubted a park ranger would find him. They couldn’t patrol two million acres, and he might be able to find a hidden spot.

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All he needed was a tent and a car. He had already purchased a white ’66 Dodge Coronet with a red interior from a fellow student for $500. It was a nice old car, and ran well (for a $500 car). It had a powerful muscular engine. Marsden went to a local camping supply store and got a brand new adobe-brown and sunshine-yellow two-man tent on sale for $75. As it turned out, he needed the tent more for privacy than to keep rain off. It rarely rains in the New Mexico highlands.

Marsen wondered how far from town he needed to pitch his tent so that it would not be disturbed. All Marsden left outside was his tent during the day. The rest of his stuff he put in his car, and most of that fit in his trunk. He had a couple of plastic bags filled with clothing, some cooking gear, a sleeping bag, backback and blankets. Everything else he owned (books, records, stereo, typewriter) was in a not very secure storage room on campus.

The white '66 Dodge Coronet with a garish red interior looked like it had rolled off the set of "Dragnet". From a modern perspective it was a strangely designed car. In 1966 the "fins" of car design had evolved into bizarre angle-edged juttings. The idea was to convey a futuristic effect, which now looked ludicrous. This styling theme had been carried over into the dashboard interior. The dashboard design employed multi-leveled chrome cones around the gauges and heavy metal buttons. Red plastic made up most of the dashboard, surrounding the chrome. This red plastic was melted, cracked and bubbled- the designers hadn’t taken into account the scorching New Mexico sun.

The Dodge was temperamental and had a tendency to refuse to move at the most inopportune time. The best thing about the old Dodge was that there was not a speck of rust on the entire car. It was too dry in New Mexico for rust. The worst thing about the Dodge was that it leaked oil prodigiously. Also, Marsden never drove on the freeway, because there was something wrong with the transmission. If the truth be told, mechanically it was patched together with spit and twine. Marsden never knew when it would simply stop cold and be impossible to re-start. This happened now and then as Marsden drove the streets of San Cuencas.

Marsden figured he would pitch his tent a little ways out of town. He was limited to how far off the paved road the old Dodge could go. As soon as the pavement ended, the dirt road had deep ruts and was impossible for a car like Marsden's to negotiate. Marsden would have needed a four-wheel drive vehicle with high clearance to get very far off the paved road.

Marsden was quite familiar with the foothills in which he intended to pitch his tent. He frequently roamed the hills after class and on weekends. The huge national forest was completely undeveloped except for a few unpaved roads and fire breaks.

There was a spring that Marsden had found while walking in the hills. The spring fed a tiny creek which had carved out a little gully. In New Mexico these little gullies are called arroyos. The embankments of the arroyo leading down to the little creek were quite steep. About halfway down the right side of the arroyo, as Marsden walked up toward the mountains, was a small ledge that started out just wide enough to walk on. As Marsden walked along the ledge it widened out to about fifteen or twenty feet wide. Just where it was widest there was a single pine tree. The green spreading boughs of the pine provided shade, shelter, and a soft blanket of weathered pine needles below. Next to the pine tree was a boulder, something to sit on and lean against. If a person were to design a perfect place to pitch a tent, it would look just like that ledge in the arroyo. It was almost as if someone had bulldozed the arroyo, flattening out the earth to make a ledge and placing a boulder and pine tree there. It was even hidden. You could walk by at the top of the arroyo and not even see the tent. There was fresh, cold mountain water flowing past at the bottom of the arroyo. Marsden could keep food cold there, wrapped in a plastic bag.