June 27 - Canyonlands

Canyonlands was my favorite of all the places I visited and I'm definitly going to return for more exploration.

	I got up early to get some shots of the sunrise. It had rained a couple of times during the night and a nice cloud cover sat overhead. I was planning on driving to a trail head down the road, but since I figured it would be cooler I was willing to attempt the 14 mile hike. Water was going to be the big issue.
	A look back at my campsite.
	This is the start of my hike. The destination was the Chesler Park loop from the Squaw Flat camp ground where I was staying.
	This tree is one of many that I found interesting. I meant to take a picture of a tree in my camp ground and forgot to get it. I thought of a quote for that tree and this one will have to do. "Even in death some beings retain the integrity with which they lived life". Or "Even in death some beings show more integrity than those still living".
	These "Muffin Tops" were everywhere. If it were just blue instead of read I would be walking through Smurfville.
	This was the trail. You can see the small stack of rocks. It was extremely well marked. A few times I got to a point where I couldn't find the next stack. It was as simple as returning to the last stack and looking around for a bit. The trails were some of the best designed I have ever been on.
	Just some shots of the landscape as I was hiking. It was hard to not stop every few minutes and take more pictures. I took over 100 for the day. Everytime you got to the top of one canyon it opened up into a completely different type of landscape.
	Just strange terrain.
	You can see this arch in the distance in the first shot, then close up as I walked by it.
	Every twist and turn brought new and stranger sights.
	This is the trail headed down into a slot. The last shot is blury because the digital doesn't do well in low light. I was still sort of getting used to it. Next trip, I'm definitly taking my good film camera for those spectacular shots.
	Out of the other side of the slot and a whole new vista appears.
	A wide and zoomed view of the towers in the distance.
	Looking back where I came from there was a little tiny rock pyramid set into a bigger rock.
	The otherside of this canyon was the first dirt/sand surface. The second picture is of "The Needles" in the distance. That was further south than I was going, but like everthing else in this park, wanted further exploration. The pools of water on the granite surface is rain water from the night before. Later in the morning after I had finished my first liter I filtered a liter from one of these rain pools. It was an emergency liter.
	The trail followed a 4x4 road for about a half mile. Much of this park is only accessible by 4x4. If anyone with a 4x4 would like to visit this park, I'm ready to go back!
	This is the closest I got to The Needles formation.
	A few more muffins, then the trail headed down this canyon.
	After climbing this "stairway", I came to the most amazing slot canyon I had seen. This was about at the halfway point for my hike and I stopped here to take a nap. It was nice and cool and bug free. There was a giant rock pyramid in this canyon someone had built. The trail exits out the other end.
	Me napping.
	As I left I bult my own pyramid in the cavern. There were a lot of them around. I wedged a big rock about halfway up the wall, then built the pyramid on top of that rock.
	You turn left after the cavern and head for this slot. It was about as wide as your shoulders, a 100 feet high and went for at least 1/4 of a mile.
	A lot of these shots were blurry because of the low light in the slot. I ended up holding the camera along one wall and trying to get good shots.
	The first set of footprints I've seen all day. It's a single set and the person must have come down the slot and turned around. I never saw anyone else, or anymore foot prints until 1:30 in the afternoon.
	There was a tree wedged in the walls you had to walk under. Kind of a scary looking tree if you ask me.
	Climb out of the slot on these "stairs" and greeted with more of the strange landscape.
	I'm headed to Squaw Flats Campground. At this point I'm a little over half way and I stopped in this area to filter a liter of rain water in case of an emergency.
	Couldn't pass up the opportunity of a "Viewpoint" only 500 feet away.
	Just more formations that required a picture.
	The ranger had told me about an old cowboy camp (a protected part of the national park) about a quarter mile off the main trail. I decided to check it out. There is a bunch of cowboy grafitti on the wall and an old stove. The grafitti is from the 20s (at least that's the dates I could read) and there is a wanted portrait drawn on the wall as well. Mostly faded, but kind of fun to see.
	More of the same kind of scenery as the trail continues.
	On a steep descent I came around a corner to be greeted by thousands of tiny trail markers covering a large flat boulder. Gave me a good smile.
	This was the only portion of the trail that was not as well marked as the rest. I built some more makers where I had problems seeing the trail. Probably because it was in a wash and water tends to destroy the markers. Around this area I decided to extend my route another two miles instead of backtracking on the trail I had started on in the morning. I had the extra water and it was just starting to get hot.
	As I approached the top of this canyon I could see a ladder in the distance. It was at least 20 feet tall and made out of tree limbs. I climbed it slowly and tested each step carefully.
	This is the view from the top of the ladder.
	The view as I crossed over to the next canyon.
	There was another ladder on the otherside. This one smaller and made of metal.
	This is the canyon on the other side. Soon after this picture I passed the first person I had seen all day. Strange as it was, a young asian girl with an umbrella and a camera bag approached me from the other direction. As I passed I asked her if she had enough water. She said "oh, yes!" with a heavy accent, slight bow and a tap on her minerature camera bag. I knew there had to be less than a half liter in the bag. In the direction she was headed all trails were a 10 mile loop. I continued on in a sort of disbelief and stopped soon after under an overhang for a break. I could see her walking in the distance. I ate some food and wrote in my journal how strange it was to see her on the trail. It definitly didn't fit the environment I was in. I started walking again and about an hour later I met up with the second person I had seen all day. He looked just like Jack Black. He looked like he had been walking fast. He stopped and asked me in an concerned tone "Did you see a young asian girl?". "Yes!" I said and showed him the location on the map. He asked me which direction and after I showed him he swore some and said she had taken a wrong turn! He was the bus driver and she was due back at 1:00 and it was now nearly 2:15. We talked for a little bit and as he was going after her I filled up his water bottle with the rain water I had filtered. When I got back to the trailhead there was a bus full (30) of Europeans all enquiring about the asian girl. I showed the other bus driver on the map and then I helped organized a search party as it was getting later in the afternoon. I had two teams of two to walk down two different trails, each carrying four liters of water. By the time they were prepared (I use the term prepared lightly, I figured I was just adding more fuel to the fire by the looks of them) the other bus driver I had seen on the trail had returned. We discussed the options and they asked if I was going with them. "No, sorry, I've already got 17 miles on me today." And I was tired. I would have been more of a liability than anything else. I told him we should go and see the ranger after the teams left and I went to get the car. As we got in the car, there was a yell from up the road at the bus. I drove him back to the bus and she had returned. He was not happy at all, but at least no one got hurt. Kind of a funny part of the hike.
	Another slot to go from one canyon to the next. This one was interesting in that there were logs wedged into the crack. Walking on the logs was the actual trail. Who knows how deep the crack went. Pretty far if I had to guess based on how high up I was on the rocks.

	This shot is looking back to the slot I had come through.
	It was hard not to take picture after picture. I've only put about half of the pictures on this web site and feel that that might be too many already?
	Sometimes it seems that the most beautiful creations grow in the harshest settings. Kind of a nice metafore when life gets difficult.
	In this last shot, I'm still about a mile from the camp ground. The last half mile was a walk across a flat trail full of sage and sand..

I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing (after the excitement of the asian girl lost in the desert). Had a good dinner and was planning on sleeping under the stars. At least until the sand storm started. I kept in my tent and even that didn't do much to protect form the sand storm as the rain fly is open at the bottom and the tent is mostly netting. A summer tent, but good for rain. Bad for sand storms.

I decided to leave a day early for the Grand Canyon, because I didn't want to drive on my birthday and we were getting closer to the July 4th holiday weekend. There was another hike I contemplated for the morning, but that would put me in later at the Grand Canyon and it was already going to be problematic getting a campsite.

I wrote this essay in my journal on the 27th (it says), but I'm sure it was the 26th based on the context and how I have my days outlined here. I probably have it wrong here? Anyway, it went like this:

<RANT>

McDonald's Culture And National Parks

Sitting through the evening discussion (free ranger presention at 9pm) in The Badlands has caused me a lot of thinking power. The discussion on becoming a National Park especially so. I think it went like this: 1. Acquire land (I have no problem with this) 2. Build a road through your most scenic terrain. This is where I start to have a problem. I feel much more spiritual about seeing something magnificent if I have to work to see it. Also, the culture this attracts is what I'm calling the McDonald's Fun Zone [Probably ® here?] crowd. All this means is that you will have kids climbing all over your most attractive scenery like they're at McDonald's. I've seen this over and over (on this trip). The scaring on The Badlands features near the turnouts was highly disappointing. Good thing on much of the trails this was no the case.

I don't have a problem with McDonald's. I grew up as a McDonald's kid. I've been a vegetarian (except when backpacking [turkey jerky] or when eating food as a guest in someone else's house and I don't know them well enough to be rude) since I was 18, but that's not the point. The point is our culture that expects everything handed to them with no wait and no effort. It's something I don't think will every change?

Maybe we should explain the problems of supersizing, obesiety and lack of exercise to the National Park Service? Maybe we can get them to tear out some of the more abusive roads? McDonald's stopped supersizing, why not National Parks?

Arches just seemed this way to me. So much so that I didn't even go up the hill. A completely drive and shoot park. When she (the ranger) explained to the woman next to me that Delicat Arch just formed a few years ago and I looked on the map to see that there is a trunk road directly to it, I began to wonder if the road was built within weeks of the appearance/creation of the Arch? It was at this point that I decided to vote with my example and turn and leave the park without even a peek. It makes me wonder if a Disney building crew was strangely on vacation the week that Delicate Arch was create/discovered/appeared/formed? Whatever arches do to be brought into the world?

</RANT>

I know I wrote some of this in the commentary above, so my appologies if you had to read it twice. I had further thoughts on the Canyonlands trails and considering how amazing the place was I could only hope that no one got the idea to build roads through the park. I know I would be very disappointed to see roads created through such an amazing place. I know I would like to visit some of the areas only accessable by 4x4, but I wouldn't mind if they took out those roads as well. If they decide to pave them, I hope you will stand with me against such a crime?

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