Canyonlands Mega-Hike #2

I went on another mega-hike yesterday, this time to Lathrop Canyon: a 13.6 mile out-and-back trip to the White Rim...which means, of course that there are also 1,400 feet of elevation involved...it's a given. If there'd been a few more hours in the day, I might have tacked on a quick round trip to the Colorado River as well. There's a mountain bike trail that takes off from the bottom of Lathrop and would've added 8 miles and 600 feet. I had an abundance of energy yesterday and was itching to go, but sun sets at 5:00 these days, and the thought of searching for cairns in the dark brought me back to my senses. The hike I took was enough. Challenging, ever so slightly terrifying (I've still got occasional issues with steep drop offs...especially when descending), and stunningly gorgeous. Treasures for the eyes on a large scale...

...and on a small one. 

Here I stopped to BEG that these precarious sandstone pillars would stay standing for...at least a few more hours. (Check out the waning moon at bottom left)

I'm starting to become acquainted with the pacing of these hikes below the rim. Every rock layer has a character. There's a particular feel to descending the imposing Wingate cliffs by picking my way down a boulder field of Wingate, and Kayenta, and maybe a little Navajo Sandstone thrown in for good measure.  

There's the trail...see it? Yeah...me neither. It descends from the upper right of this photo and eventually straight down the middle in a tight series of switchbacks. I moved very slowly in this section. Cairn to cairn. Lots of sliding on my butt. 

Then there's the slightly more gentle Chinle, and (maybe my favorite) the chocolate-peanut-butter-ice-cream-layer cake of the Moenkopi.

And then I'm at the bottom--and its smooth sailing and lovely views all the way to the White Rim. 

Here's where the mountain bike trail continues on to the Colorado...a journey for another day. 

For now, there's lunch! 

And then it's back up those cliffs. 

I love how much things are different on the way back. Even though it's the very same trail--I can even follow my own footprints--by the time I head up after an all-day hike, the light has changed, the shadows have changed, I approach little nooks and crannies from a new angle and find old mining equipment...

The hoofprints I followed on the way down...

...reveal their creators on the way up. (Woo hoo! The first time I've EVER seen bighorns in the wild:)

And the evening light falling over this maze of canyons--there's just no good way to describe it. 

Check out the reflections on that bend in the Colorado...

Up...and up...and up...

And then looking down on my lunch spot. Right at that tip of that little canyon so far below. 

The colors of the Navajo Sandstone come alive in the evening light. And check out this crazy bush! It's angled perfectly to collect the most light it can in that one spot--roots and branches totally bare on the back side--flat as a pancake. 

Here comes Peter Cottontail...

Hoppin' down the bunny trail...looks like bunnies follow cairns too. 

And to cap it all off, the last mile of the trail crosses a big open grassland, punctuated by little bluffs and buttes, and just as I was coming up on my car, I heard the trilling wails of a flock of migrating cranes. A little V of them circled around a bit--maybe catching their bearings, maybe gaining altitude--and then they took off to the south east--straight toward New Mexico. 

A Journey

I Hiked the Murphy Loop Trail on my day off—my first “long” hike below the canyon rim. 10.5 miles. 1400 ft. down to the White Rim Road, & 1400 ft. back up to the mesa top. Here are some thoughts.

How do you climb down from an Island in the Sky?

Very carefully.

You have to find the right break in the perimeter.

One that’s not so sheer, but falls away a bit more gently, and allows for nimble feet to trace a path through the buttressed wreckage of an ancient stone cascade.

One boulder at a time.

One cairn to another.

Altitude is lost.

And soon the Island looms above—a shadowy fortress so solid and hulking that you wonder how it made its way up into the Sky to begin with.

Once settled onto the firm flat ground below, you might assume that there will be no way back. The only place to go, then, is Forward.

All around you are monuments to other fallen travelers.

Some still reach toward their Skyward origins.

Others settle in to the Earth beneath—bowing down before clouds within which they once stood, and breathed, and danced.

The distance between Sky and Earth continues to grow.

Curious meanders dig ever deeper and reveal new Islands below.

Rooted worlds that yawn and stretch as sunlight reaches further and further into their slumbering depths.

They remember this sun.

In untold ages past it shone down as sand rippled under flowing water.

As it blew into dunes cut through by the ancestral courses of today’s mighty Green and Colorado.

The birth of new worlds buries the memory of what came before. But the young are restless. Eventually they run away to far off shores, leaving their forbearers alone to observe and recollect their previous lives.

To remember.

And sometimes to build…

…and reach again toward the Sky that called to them in their youth.

There are ways back into that Sky, though the route is often more winding.

The fortress walls stand impenetrable and guard well the secrets of their ascent. 

Still you climb.

Bending toward sheer rock as Sun and Wind and blowing Earth conspire to throw you from the path.

Step by step.

Boulder by boulder.

From one cairn to the next.

The distance between Earth and Sky grows shorter.

When again you rest on the lip of this Island in the Sky…

…looking down over distant roads that now bear impressions of your passing…

…consider the journey.

A passage through many transient worlds.

Emergence.

Collapse.

Memory.

Indulgence.

Loss.

Recovery.

Aspiration.

Gratitude.

Linger on this, last.

And welcome home.