Post #5: A New Wild West
“Broad, wholesome, and charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” -Mark Twain
Public land, there are 640 million acres of it in the United States. If you do the math, that’s almost 2 acres per United States citizen. Tons of vast open space to spread out and enjoy a little nature. I pay for it, you pay for it, and we all get to use it. Funny to think that the nation that grew exponentially from the fruits of capitalism engages in such a massive socialist ideal of shared land. Boy, do we use it too. Over 500 million people visit public lands each year. We even call it “America’s best idea”. American's recreational use of our country’s natural wonders is fundamental to our identity. Without access to these lands who knows what we would do.
Coronavirus gave us that answer, and I grew restless to get back out and explore. By late March, the federal government had shut down a good portion of these public lands including 58 of the 62 National Parks. Sitting at home in Zionsville, Indiana scrolling around in Google Earth planning the next adventure once the first parks started to open. Pre-lockdown the Grand Canyon had provided Me and my friend JP with an epic experience of knocking off the bucket list hike that is Hiking rim to river in one day. That high quickly vanished as it would be the last little bit of adventure we would get before getting confined to our homes while the pandemic spread like wildfire across the country. Grand Canyon National Park promptly closed the day we left Arizona.
On May 22nd, Grand Canyon National Park reopened and was one of the first National Parks in the continental U.S. to reopen. Three friends and I were driving towards Arizona the next day. It wasn’t that dramatic though. Of course, I had been scouring the internet and researching for weeks before about potential trips out to the western states once it was safe to do so. We knew that the Grand Canyon was preparing for a reopening and had prepped for a trip to the southwest that coming week. It just felt right. Pick up right where you left off right? Almost like an obligation to our individual life stories as some sort of ironic “back in the same spot after a life-changing event” plot.
The pandemic had fundamentally changed everything in the entire world that leaving the comfort of your quarantine space really felt like leaving a spaceship to go on a spacewalk. As four 20-year old’s I can’t stress how much this felt like stepping out into the new world our generation would live in for the rest of our lives. We can’t remember what it was like the days after 9/11, we’ve never fought in wars or lost all our money in a stock market crash. The pandemic was our first introduction to a shot heard round the world event. The earth got a hard reset during the early stages of the pandemic and going out to explore the changes was exciting and nerve-racking. I remember, just as where we’re getting close to the Grand Canyon, watching the sunset over the San Francisco peaks in Arizona. The warm orange rays shooting over the peaks and casting golden light onto the surrounding desert floors. It felt like being in a Thomas Moran painting and just like many easterners before me, in disbelief of the landscapes illustrated before me. Reflecting on it now. I can say all of it felt like we were Spanish Conquistadors exploring the American west for the first time, the nature around us made it feel like the morning of creation.
The Grand Canyon was quiet, which reiterated the lonesomeness that the American cowboys have expressed in centuries before. Less than half-filled parking lots and empty hotels made the rim feel like an abandoned ghost town. My Subaru outback acted as our figurative pioneer wagon as we rolled into the town area. Worn out from the trail and looking for the views that we had been told about just like the first brave visitors coming through on the Santa Fe Trail. Our travel party explored the eerily tranquil sunrise views from the rim. Usually compromised by thousands of tourists trying to take comically bad selfies in the present day. This new world was different, and maybe we had just gotten a glimpse of what it must’ve been like back in the westward expansion days?
Now feels like a good time to introduce the hearty travelers accompanying me on this expedition to the west. There are three. Sirs John Daerr and Blake Munz, and Miss Amelia Wampler. They all have gunslinging cowboy potential. John, a lifelong friend who’s been by my side on some wild expeditions to new places all over the country. He follows me down whatever crazy trail I got down and is always one step behind me, if not in front. Blake, he’s been hardened by harsh weather on previous expeditions but never losses his determination and wiliness to experience whatever is thrown at him. Not to mention he’s going to school in the swamps of Florida and no doubt has seen the wildest cultures of this country. Not to be upstaged by these two cowboys, Amelia might be the hardest and strongest of them all. A college soccer national champion she won’t blink twice at any obstacle thrown at her. One could ask her to go climb Denali right now and she would say yes, and she would succeed too. The three of them had easily convinced me to partake in another rim to river to rim hike so that was the plan for our day in the park. So, we set out down into the depths of the canyon excited to suffer away.
We ran the eight and a half miles down, passing the few who had set out before us. Blake and I got to the bottom first, and with only two others we had met on the trail, it felt like we had the whole canyon to ourselves. It looks like middle earth when you’re all the way at the bottom of that massive canyon. Rightly so too considering you’re standing next to the mighty Colorado river who’s carved a mile-deep gash into the earth’s crust. The dark red cavernous walls shooting up around you limiting your view of the big blue western sky along with the lush greenery supported by the crystal-clear waters of the river create your own personal little middle earth oasis. Needless to say, we jumped in the refreshing water and hung around for a bit before starting the not so fun part of hiking the 5,280-foot vertical trail to get back to the rim.
The way up is really where the challenge of our new world adventure really kicked in. Major dehydration kicked in for John as he thought about getting a helicopter ride halfway back up, all Blake and I could think about was a nice steak dinner, and Amelia was probably thinking about how dumb her decision was to come along on one of my “trips”. Our posse was tired, but unlike the Donner Party, we made it through without having to lose any of our members. A playful tradition on these types of hikes is to leave the stragglers behind with a playful goodbye as one galivants ahead on the trail. That’s just what Blake and I did halfway up as we kicked in the afterburners, finishing the hike in just under six hours. John and Amelia came in just 45 minutes later. After the successful expedition, we headed into the outpost of Flagstaff to replenish our weary bodies with warm food and restock on necessities.
The following days found us wandering around the territory of Arizona. Spending time cliff jumping in Sedona, summiting the volcanoes of the San Francisco Peaks, and swimming in the waters of the Colorado River. We even ran into My Cousins in the frontier town of Phoenix! They kindly let us stay the night at their homestead and fed us! These times with good friends spent logged off from the modern world really narrows your focus. The only things that matter to you are eat, sleep, explore, and have fun. Boy is it fun. You feel like you’re in control of everything. All that public land we share. It feels like it's yours when you’re in the moment. Because at that moment, you’re the one that is getting the most enjoyment out of it. You don’t get that feeling of power over your own destiny “vegetating in one corner of the earth” do you now?
The campsites were the highlight of this leg of my summer migration out west. They amplified the vastness of it all. With all that land accessible to you. It would seem atrocious to go to the places packed with people, especially with a plague going on. Blake, Amelia, and I watched an unobstructed sunrise over the entire Sedona valley from one of our campsites. It was completely silent the whole time the sun's light reached towards the red rock formations 3,000 feet below us. Giving us all time to reflect on what lay ahead of us in our lives. Another night, we all had a spaghetti dinner at a campsite on the rim of the Grand Canyon. We spent hours joking and sharing stories about our dumb past selves as the day came to a close. The next morning Blake and I sat on some rock formations measuring distances on our GPS attempting to comprehend the vast canyon landscape that lay before us. We calculated that were we’re looking at over 1.2 million acres of canyons, mountains, and grassland. Due to the isolated area that we were in, and the fact that there were no raft tours going on in the Colorado river at the time. It came to our attention that no one lay in the expansive area before us. We were truly alone in our exploration.
We crossed into Utah later that day and retired to our tents early that night for and 4 am wakeup call the next morning. The next day was special. There’s a hike in Zion National Park called The Narrows. It takes you back into the depths of the canyon. Only leaving you, the rushing water of the Virgin River, and 2,000-foot sandstone walls shooting up on either side. Because of the pandemic, the National Parks Service was only letting a limited number of cars to park in the parking areas in the canyons scenic drive. The parking lot for the Narrows hike, all the way at the end of the drive, only has about 40 parking spots. Basically, limiting the number of hikers to right around 100 a day during this time. Instead of normal times where 100 hikers getting dropped off by park shuttles every 15 minutes leading to amusement park levels in an area that should be a quiet temple to nature's fascinating work. The early wake-up time made us decide to not start the hike when we got to the trailhead, but nap for a couple more hours and let others finish the hike before.
We started around noon and were one of the very few people left on the trail. There were 30-minute sections of this hike that we were completely alone. Just us and mother nature. Every turn and twist of the slot canyon revealing another masterpiece of twisted waves of red sandstone towering over us. We got to the end of the trail where the rushing water becomes impassable and rested our eyes. The only noise, a nearby waterfall trickling down the canyon walls. Not another soul bothered us the entire time. The intimate experience we got in that canyon will probably never again happen during human existence on earth, as more and more tourists will flock to the canyon every year. Congesting the hike and interfering with the pure natural wavelengths that radiate through the narrow canyon.
Amelia Walks looks back as we turn a corner in the cavernous slot canyon
The Paiute Tribe, who are indigenous to that area, call Zion Makuntuweap. Which means Straight up canyon, boy did they nail that one. It’s a complex issue surrounding the subject of overlapping Native American land and public land owned by the federal government. Zion is no exception. Mormon settlers to the area pushed all of the Native peoples out in the mid-1800s. That’s when Zion Canyon was placed in the public, European-American, eye. While it’s been generations since this change occurred. Being in the depths of that canyon, all alone with a few close friends, I felt a connection to the original inhibitors of the land. Gaining an understanding of what it was probably like for them before Manifest destiny despicably steamrolled their entire culture. The pandemic gave the Canyon, and many more native spiritual places, a time to heal from the generations of disregard from the European tourists. That of course includes me, but the perspective I felt that day, gave me an immense amount of respect and understanding about the past.
We spent the next couple of days resting and seeing the classic sights of southern Utah, the desolate San Juan Canyon providing us with a perfect final camping spot as a group. Central Utah City lights flickered in the distance as the sun dipped below the horizon. The cities being a slow introduction back into society and acclimating us for the culture sock of Las Vegas coming the next day. On the six-hour drive to Vegas that day, no one spoke almost the entire time as if we were all in deep thought reflecting on the once in a lifetime experiences that we’d had over the past ten days. It was the end of the road for Blake and Amelia as they were headed back towards the Midwest to resume their normal lives. John and I were to continue all the way into California to complete unfinished business from my spring break trip and get into whatever trouble we could find. We said our goodbyes in the scorching 100-degree heat outside the airport terminal and talked about plans to meet up when we were all reunited. John and I got back in the car and headed down Interstate 15. The Mojave Desert surrounding us as we crossed into California. The desert sun creating mirages along the highway pavement as the car thermometer crept over 116 degrees. John and I meant business in California, there were mountains to climb and unexplored places to see. That’s where this part of the expedition comes to a close though. California is a whole different story.
Looking down onto the San Juan River from our final campsite.