Pillow Rocks

Bears Ears XXVI

2024-06-02

We’re in Southeastern Utah, camped out near the Butler Wash, alone and free.

The sand around camp is cool and refreshing on bare feet. Soles meet mat-like substrata. Sound and wind is dead still. The Sun is still behind a hill to the east. The light of dawn tells us that the golden glow is nearly ready to burst out, as it rises. In time, there is a slight breeze, a push by the new warmer air, a micro-warm front. I hear the cottonwood trees rustle lightly. Across the valley, the barren ridge is taking on the luminescent colors of the sky.

Then I notice that rumble in the air in the distance. Will it build, or will it occur and go away. I decide to let the mind quiet. With that exercise, the wind also quiets, once again. I smile at a little voice inside, “Purr-fect.”

Last evening, we took a walk to see where this road leads. It brought us to a surreal landscape on the ridge on top of the cliff to the south of camp. On the way, we saw some other unusual geology on the side of the road and later, from above, it became evident that that was a part of a field of other different unusual forms.

After breaking camp, we begin our dusty walk down the road to where it is mere stair-steps up into the field of tufts of stone. I call them tufts, because I don’t really know what to call them. I’m not trying to use the geological term, tuft, to describe them. They look like stone pillows, or bubbles lying next to each other. Most are symmetrical, five sided, as if they had been chiseled and laid into the hillside. They are consistent in size with the next and the next, but eventually, there is variation in size. They line up perfectly in rows most of the time.

They have a texture that is wonderful for traction.

We use them like stepping stones on a checkerboard of staircases.

We climb into this other world to see just how much of this there is.

I’ve never seen anything like these and they are fun, the movement is safe. Doing it with an unencumbered nude body gives such an amplified sense of natural range of motion.

We carry just cameras and DF decides on a jug of water, in case we get carried off further, as usual, by our curiosity. Each step is a joy, secure and a choice for the sheer delight of the diversity of the movement.

The pattern makes perspectives in our photography, as it spreads out.

We find ourselves all over the playground, which expands over hills and back down.

How did this geology come to be?

Later, I find that there is another, but well visited place like this in the region. It has been described as more touristy. This one, we have all to ourselves with the best of dress codes and freedom. Can’t help it if we’re lucky.

After all the time that we care to have on the playground, we begin to find the edges and I wonder if there is more fun to discover, or a trail. As the tufts dissipate, they give way to the flat barren bedrock that we have been finding. These are smooth wavy surfaces the size of football fields.

The sand has supported a common black lichen, which has accumulated more dust and then used that to grow more.

Sometimes there is enough to dam up and make a sand pile. Sometimes these host plant life, small oases in a sea of stone.

Soon, we come across some of the unusual surreal rock sculptures like we walked through yesterday.

I turn south and can see that field of last evening across in the distance.

We are on the same elevation here, but this collection is less populated by pieces.

By now, the sun is up and feels quite good, as the morning air envelopes our bodies. The rock feels cool and then just right, as we sit and then lay down to stretch.

We imbibe and breathe deep as we bake.

This continues for as long as we feel. We have the expansive views in most directions in this unique environment and the freedom to truly enjoy this gift, all of it, completely.

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

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