Two snakes in the reeds

Knowing that full-time employment was impending on Monday, last Friday I shuffled some obligations and plans and gunned the bug-splattered nose of the Tacoma away from the waxing sun, climbing higher on its journey.

I originally planned on setting up base on BLM land northwest of Moab. However while speeding through DeBeque Canyon, the pull of my home was too strong. I decided to shelve any decisions until reaching Moab, which happened a couple of hours later. Gassing up the truck, gaging the position of the sun, the decision to go another 75 miles was easy. I'm going home.

Pulled into my normal campsite. I thought it would be strange since the last time I stayed at this spot I was married. But memories didn't haunt this sojourn. After quickly setting up camp, gunned west again and hopped out of the truck, slung on the pack and off I went - time for some sandstone scampering.







Unfortunately this next photo does absolutely no justice to the scene transpiring at the time. In truth, unless you have a very nice camera and an advanced proficiency of using it, you can never capture The Needles very well.



I started on one side of sandstone, scampered to a sentinel, and then picked my way across the slickrock due south. Sometimes I had to make a leap across a gaping slot, sometimes I climbed up hoping there would be a different way down. All in all I mentally marked three key bottleneck downclimbs and hoped I would find them by headlamp on the way down.

I went 2-for-3, not too bad; the third required only a few minutes of wandering to find.

Saturday I blended my memories. Sometimes time blurs together and two landmarks which are on two separate trails were merged into one journey in my synapses. I hit a nostalgic pass first - encumbered with no distraught - and then continued down Lost Canyon.





Now here is when things got jumbled again. Parts of the trail seemed familiar. Others did not match up with my mental map. I'm pretty sure I've hiked every single trail in this district of Canyonlands. Either way, I enjoyed the time and the unique setting. While I am partial to as much slickrock as possible, I followed canyon bottoms for much of the time.









I came across a couple of watering holes, two snakes and something large which shifted as I passed by. Parts of it where a poor facsimile of what I imagine the Serengeti would feel like - sans the towering canyon walls surrounding me. Dried grass and still green reeds stretched higher than my head at times. An elephant could be practicing yoga 10 feet away from me, and at times, I wouldn't be able to see it.

Finally I came up to another pass, took a nice long break to eat, strip off the boots and shirt and just soak in the place.







After completing the 9-mile hike, I decided to visit an old friend. As a child I spent countless days exploring and daydreaming on the slickrock which butts up against the Squaw Flat campground area. I hadn't been up that way in more than two decades. So I picked a spot and began climbing up. And that is when I discovered you can never go home again.

At some point between Regan's presidency and the waning days of the current Bush's, the NPS decided to build a cairned trail up on the bluffs. I came to a special spot for me - a double hump topping the sandstone mushroom like ocher icing.

Instead of feeling the joys of childhood innocence reclaimed, I felt sadden by the desecration. A USGS marker topped one of the camelbacks and defiling scrawls left by visitors, whose intent was to capture their names for eons on the soft rock, marred the second.



Sunday, armed with a camera, car keys and a Clif Bar I took a hike up in Island in the Sky District before breakfast and coffee - yes, I can actually function before the first cup of coffee. I just prefer not to.

My quick jaunt wound up being a 6-mile wandering. It was good it was cool, overcast and breezy since forgetting a water bottle at the truck would have been uncomfortable if conditions were different.









Grim blackness cloaked distant ranges and towers in three directions. After eating a large, late breakfast in Moab, it began drizzling and canceling the bouldering session I had planned at Big Bend boulders.

I have an established history of driving through snow storms returning from Canyonlands. I wished to avoid that this time - since nothing is better than driving through blinding snow at slow speeds at the end of a 5 1/2-hour drive.

I lucked out with dry roads - the storm went north and hit Steamboat Springs instead - and felt lucky to bring in November with a great trip and probably the last mild weather spell of the year.