[photos and reference links coming in May]
Slept along Kane Creek, tucked at the foot of a 1,000-foot sandstone cliff, atop its rubble pile with the snaking road below. (Later in the morning I walk past a sign about BASE jumping in this canyon; I wonder when was the last time someone jumped off my cliff.) Lots of cars and ATV’s roar up and down the road. I see why people do the alternate over Amasa Back to escape it. I’m doing the guidebook route because 1) after meeting Mike Coronella I want to do his route; 2) I want to see ‘Hurrah Pass’; and 3) I missed the turnoff for the alternate anyway. The night was completely still, starry, warm enough for a t-shirt.
I woke at 0530 and departed by moonlight 45 minutes later. Huge walls all around loomed like titans’ headstones. Oddly, it got colder as I walked. My best guess for the reason is katabatic air flowing downhill, which I avoided in my camp rather high off the canyon floor. Rock wren, white-crowned sparrow, common raven, northern flicker, and green-tailed towhee (drink drink drink your teeeea!) all singing. Shortly after breakfast I walked past Kane Spring dripping from a rock wall, so I filled my pot and drank 1L raw. It was good. My stomach started talking to me; I’m not sure if because of the uncooked oats I ate or if this is my first run-in with alkaline water. Likely the former. I’m braced for worse with the alkaline water.
I imagined being a teacher as I walked. I thought about various people from the past who haven’t crossed my mind in years. I made up songs to ridicule the most odious ones. That’s how it is when I walk all day: my mind alights on people, silly pointless memories of people I don’t even know, a monologue of gossip. I can’t help it, I’m a social creature.
Perhaps I haven’t described the landscape well enough. I find that kind of thing boring — that’s why I’m here myself, no longer just reading about it. The number one thing is the colors. I’ve walked through a technicolor rainbow each day so far and I don’t expect that to change. Start with pink, red, orange rock and a sky the color of an Easter egg dipped in the blue vinegar dye for too long. Add green and yellow highlights from the vegetation; maroon, purple, cream and black in the rock. It is absolutely delicious to have the entire spectrum arranged in such fantastical shapes. The landscape remembers every raindrop that’s fallen for millions of years. The reason is that the Colorado Plateau is a geologic eddy in the sea of Western mountain ranges. No revolutions come with upheaval to wipe the slate clean. Because of the aridity, there are few plants or animals or fungi or bacteria to make a muddle of things. Here is a hoarder’s lair — a hoarder of time. A kingdom immensely wealthy in moments.
At 10AM, as if on cue, off-road vehicles begin to pass me every 2 minutes. Roaring, fume-spewing, dust-raising buggies. It’s not exactly an original take to point out that these things are obnoxious. If there is a case to be made for them beside their ability to allow pasty flag-toters entry to places previously only accessible for the price of respect, I’ll leave it to someone else to make. Raven caws to my left, Americans at play to my right.
From Hurrah Pass a strange complex of giant man-made pools are visible in the desert across the river. You can also see them from Dead Horse Point State Park, where I correctly guessed they are evaporation pools for a mining operation. At Hurrah Pass I overheard a buggy tour guide explain that they are for potash, a salt-rich earthen ore. A company takes the potash from the Earth and water from the Colorado, combines them with other chemicals in the pools, and thus produces potassium for fertilizer. I get it (pending unease about where all that fertilizer is going), but I still think the pools are ugly. Maybe someday they’ll go out of use and become a cool historic site, like the borax works in Death Valley.
The buggies don’t let up. If I hiked this section again I would take the Amasa Back/Jackson’s Hole to 1) get a break from them, 2) get on singletrack trail for a while instead of dirt roads, and 3) because I’m curious. The buggies turn the desert into a wasteland: acres of sand ripped up by tire tracks. I wanted to take a black and white but couldn’t find an angle I liked. The whole section along the road after Hurrah kind of resembles an urban vacant lot. The smell of the Colorado River reminds me of playing sports on Randall’s Island in middle school and the smell of the East River when the wind blew. Would I drink the East River? No. I took 2 liters from the Colorado. Hayduke lives and so must I.
The afternoon wears on. It’s the first hot day of the trail. Everything is red. It’s less than pleasant. I don’t know if it’s the heat, the redness, or the poor sleep at the hostel two nights ago, but I’m ready to be done. A thought enters my mind. Do I even like hiking? What if I don’t, what will I do then? Open yourself to the thought. See where it leads.
I wind around countless arms of a canyon on two-track road. At least the buggies are gone now. This morning I passed a funny rock formation called Devil’s Golf Ball, but this whole land could be the Devil’s. The towering mesas, the Devil’s citadels. The choking-purple Kremlins, his pleasure palaces. The distant Pyramid Butte, his seat of power. The buggy people, his subjects. The Devil’s birds — rock wrens, apparently. Even his river: the Colorado, gray as a mud wallow. And the Devil himself? Out pasturing his flock? Or strolling up the road in a wide-brimmed hat?
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Finally, sunset and camp. Two bats circle, followed by a moth a few minutes later. When the rocks wrens and house finches aren’t singing, it is so silent here. Ear-ringing. A family sized packet of dried mashed potatoes takes more water than I expected, and now I only have about 3 liters to get through all day tomorrow unless I make an annoying 4-mile detour to the Colorado River. I’ve been seeing a line track of Altra footprints all afternoon, off and on in the dust. Guessing they’re at least day ahead, could be much more.