Back to School: The Sul Ross Desk
The Atlas Obscura Podcast
This episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast explores the unique tradition at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas, where a discarded dorm room desk
Key takeaways
- The desk on the mountain serves as both a symbol of isolation and collective memory, blending personal reflection with communal storytelling.
Main topics
- Unusual campus traditions
- Public art and communal memory
Notable quotes
"I can just imagine like little like run times or like just a little back and forth of quipets."
Conclusion
The Sul Ross desk stands as a testament to the enduring human need for connection,
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:03) If I think back to my college years, and yes, okay, it was a while back, this was a familiar pattern for me. I'd be in the library trying to write an essay or something, and the clock would just be ticking by, and I wouldn't be getting anything done, and I could not focus. And then I would notice someone like blowing their nose next to me a couple tables over. And then I wouldn't be able to stop hearing it. And oh my God, if that person wasn't here blowing their nose and distracting me, I could really get some work done. Speaker 1 (0:34) I think we've all experienced that moment when you're studying and you're like, I know I have to keep studying, but I wouldn't give anything to be anywhere else right now. Speaker 2 (0:44) This is Victoria Contreras. She's an archivist at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas. Victoria spends a lot of time at the library. It is, after all, her job. But at her university, there's actually another place you can go if you hit a studying wall like this. It's not at a library. In fact, it's not even indoors. Speaker 1 (1:07) It's only like two miles there and back. And most of it is a very kind of like laid back hike up there. Speaker 2 (1:15) Alpine, Texas is an area basically surrounded by hills and mountains. So yes, we are going up one of them. Speaker 1 (1:24) There is apparently one section that's a little dodgy. So hopefully everyone like warns you when you're like, oh, you're going up there, keep an eye. Speaker 2 (1:35) Don't worry, at the top of this hill, you will be rewarded. You will have this amazing view. The land just stretches out forever all around you. Sometimes it looks dry and yellow like desert, and other times it's lush and green and full of flowers after rain. In the distance, there's the hills and the mountains, and the sky is just huge and beautiful. And there's also something else here. Solitude. And quiet. Should you want to take advantage of this and really get some good thinking done, there's also a desk here. Yes, a clunky dorm room metal desk with a plastic dorm room chair right on top of this hill. Speaker 2 (2:33) I'm Amanda McGowan, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places. For centuries, monks, hermits, and philosophers have retreated to the wilderness to do their deepest thinking. That tradition continues today in Alpine, Texas, at Sul Ross State University, with a desk and a chair stolen from a nearby dorm room, put on top of a mountain. That story after this. Speaker 1 (3:17) I was imagining like a middle of the night, caffeine induced, like, you know what? All of us just lift this desk. We're taking this desk up the hill and we'll study up there. Speaker 2 (3:26) Here's Victoria Contreras again. One of her jobs as an archivist at Sul Ross State University is to be the keeper of the Sul Ross desk notebooks. That is a collection of all of the notebooks that visitors to the mountaintop desk. have filled up