Lost but Found

2024-05-28

Bears Ears XVIII

We’re off to explore north of Arch Canyon, along the rock slope west of Comb Ridge, Utah. I’ve been aligning a series of canyons, what I can see, with lines on a crude map.  On the map, there is marked a cave, pictographs and ruins in a few of the several canyons. Which canyons are which, at this point I’m reasonably sure about, but heading north through the canyon on winding roads, trails may get confusing.

Then, there is a blank piece of the knowledge. I have no information about any trails, or routes to get to each canyon. There may be none. We’ll have to keep an eye out for any clues along the way. We may even find ourselves bushwhacking.

We wake up to quiet. Memorial Day is over. This entire playground is apparently emptied of holiday revelers and campers. I’ve been looking over my shoulder to remain nude for days now. There is a completely different feel to my being, now that we are left to just ourselves.

The top is off of tent. I look up into the grace of the winding branches in tree tops and the blue skies beyond. I’m listening, actually feeling engulfed in the quiet. There is a peace that greets us this morning. It is as if I am tuned into, sharing something with the rest of the beings that inhabit this place. The animals are free to roam, no longer hunkering and running for shelter, struck in fear of the unnatural loud noises and large destructive beings of both metal and flesh. Even the plants seemed relaxed. A natural order has returned, the storm has left a calm. Feeling all that I can be aware of, my perceptions of the other’s senses match my senses inside and throughout. I feel one with.

Climbing out of the tent, into the clear morning air, the new beginning and into the freedom, I stretch away the tightness. Feeling self in my nude body with the grand pleasure that it is meant to bestow, I want more of this. I want to move and feel all of the different sensations and visual wonder. I begin step by glorious step.

I walk out of my flip flop sandal shoes.  Barefoot all over, the secure touch of morning moist earth and plant life at my soles, step by step. I’m noticing intricate body movement, watching its form. I’m pleasuring in everything. I cross into the sand where the traffic of vehicles has eroded the earth. It has been cooled by the night in contrast to the heat that it consumes during the sun’s rays.  The fine powder floats in a puff as a foot falls into its light airy touch and then finds the solid stop below.

A few more steps bring me out of the great trees, shady and sheltering and into the sunlight, as it beams over the rock ridge behind us.

It warms my body, bringing me alive in all of those mysterious and not so mysterious ways. I stretch arms and elbows back as far as they will go, then around and over my head, joining palms. Then there is release and they fall slowly back. I feel the invisible energy. Under these beautiful cottonwood trees people are leaving us to ourselves, for the first time in days.

I wander, turning in circles. DF joins me and takes my hand. We walk, uninhibited, unconcerned. We stretch out our arms, reaching out to know and somehow taste the boundless freedom’s expanse, to be embraced by it.

A walk, the creek’s waters are clearing up, less mucky brown. Naked in shade, shadow, sun, warm, cool, embraced, just a series of moments, life is so strikingly real.

The Journey:

We have our chores, our preparations, bodily fuel storage process, a list. We’ll drive as far as we can, getting closer to the canyons and then explore on foot. It is miles across this bare stone untouched ridge. We’ll take the dirt road up through the middle of the valley.

The dirt road is well-graded as we tool along freely in the SUV. “Good,” but just as DF says that, it becomes one of those “fun” tracks. Fun tracks for people’s off-road toys, but not for any convenient transportation. The soil is a terracotta, mostly a powdery sand with a thin veneer of accumulated microbiology. Yellow/green grasses are punctuated by more verdant bushes. The short pinion pines are frequently abundant. Downhill is like a slow roller coaster, the road weaves where it can and the truck rocks side to side, dips and climbs. Dodging trees, we’re looking for a cave on the side of the hill.

We drive out to the end of a westward fork in the road. Soon, it has led us a circle near the rock entrance to the canyon. I park between two squat pines, just tall enough to provide for some shade in the low morning sunlight. The air is getting warmer. We climb out of the tall truck.

No clothing has been needed today and other than perhaps a wrap over the shoulders, there will be no need throughout. This can be a good private campsite. There is a pile of stone fashioned into a fire pit.

Nearly straight above, looms the cave.

We make it down part of the trail, as it slides out from under us. It is very tricky slippery and steep. DF gets prickly pear needles in her skin. As she sits on a square rock, I get tweezers out to play doctor.

These tiny prickers have a toxin in them and dive deep into the skin. They must be pulled. It sometimes takes a squint to find them, even though the pain is evidently felt.

That done, down into the canyon’s channel, we find that it is a trail straight up and of course very slippery back down for a few hundred feet.

We’re not in the mood for precarious effort. The new high power binoculars will be enough to inspect the cave. Mission aborted.

I climb down into the bottom of the rock, where the canyon washes out into a broader more sandy channel.

I’m hoping that this wash will take me further along the base to the next canyon, but there is no clear access and no evidence that others have taken this route.

Back at the truck, we take off back to the main trail and venture along more 4×4.

No turnoffs are found, no clear paths are leading back toward the rock slope and to the latter of the series of canyons along this rock face. These have promised ruins and petroglyphs.

The main road becomes a 4×4 track. It will soon dissipate into a walking trail according to the map.

I had enough 4×4 the other day. Today, I’ll drive until my body hurts, we are on a mission. However, very soon we are pulling over to stop. I’d just rather get out and walk.

We travel for much more than a mile, looking for any turn off leading into the next two canyons and finding nothing. The prizes in the canyons are actually getting further away. As the valley’s trail heads up and over a pass, past the sloping ridge, we turn back to the truck.

I realize after so much of these 4×4 roads, how much abuse both us and the truck get. The sight where we parked looks so extreme! Where I parked is contorted, an example of the twisted stress on the shocks and bars under the chassis.

It is no wonder that my made tough truck probably hurts like my body.

We have searched for three hours and have come up with nothing but a hole high up in a cliff. We are frustrated of course, having not quenched that fever for discovery, but all in all we had one heck of a nude hike and natural experience, freely.

It is hot and past our lunch time back at camp.

It isn’t all about the destination. Just as much, it is about the getting there. At the end of the day, we look out at nothing in particular and say, “Thank-you for your blessings.”

I am on the forum of FreeRangeNaturism.com often, if you would like to converse.

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