Walking the Peninsula

2025-06-17

Utah 2015 #8

A couple of days before, we drove down a tough ‘ol road out on a piece of butte, a peninsula, looking for a place to camp. With the focus on that and the usual insulation of traveling by car, we could tell that we were missing something beautiful and fascinating. One must get out and feel, touch, be touched, take it slower, and take the time to appreciate and discover the Earth’s treasures. Last night, we decided to do that, just that, get out there on foot and hike that peninsula.

We took four and a half hours strolling out and then one and a half to march back uphill for some exercise. That made for a very good day. Whatever and whoever goes down must come back up. Take it all in, slowly and thorough and then march back.

We crawl out of the tent, everything prepared the night before. We’re both in a mild stupor. The air is noticeably clean, mountain air with that cool refreshing morning quality. It wraps around, caressing a nude body, feeling better than cloth could. In a breath, it penetrates the nostrils, “Wake up, life’s good and here to greet you.” Amongst this sensuous greeting, we’re generally having one driven thought, “get down the road.”

We walk out of camp down toward the main road. The forest is a bit thicker on the other side.

A few hundred feet down there is the turnoff. It meanders through the contours of the hillside into deeper shady forest. Last night, I watched a couple pull up, get out of their SUV, look down this turnoff and decide to not try it. There is a mysterious vibe. I had found it on a map, just a tiny squiggling grey line, between two topographic  lines in an area where there was little else, but more topo lines. It had to be remote and with it being in a region with a handle like “Hell’s Backbone.” How many visitors might the area get? Probably, these are several miles that people plan only to pass through on their way elsewhere. The few vehicles that we have watched pass by have all been 4×4 with special outfitting.

Back along the trail, I’m not listening for anyone else. The odds are not looking like any possibility of an encounter. We have a sense of liberation, naked in a near perfect morning.

I find a fairly newly cut stump. Rings going back to around 1989 are thin, as I count them. Noticeably, the previous 60 or 70 years to that have consistently wider gaps between the rings. We’ve got a leader saying it’s a hoax, with the second in command, rocket/computer geek, claiming that it won’t show for another 15 or twenty years,” or so.” Where do these self-absorbed egos get their information? We’re getting record heat, and dry, again, with a huge fire choking us out at the whim of the winds. I’ve seen rings like this all over the southwest. Normal, stopped, back in 1989. You just don’t need a weatherman, or climatologist, just step outside every day and observe nature.

In spite of the climatic trends, it is darn pretty, as we get started through the forest. Eventually, we find ourselves out of the density and on the plateau ridge, a peninsula surrounded by air. If we keep walking off of the road, the drop is huge and many cliffs.

Below, are pillow rocks, or almost. That’s how they form, bare bedrock cracked and then smoothed by the elements.

There is a nice campsite. It could be dusty so close to the seldom traveled trail, but the other drawback is the diminished width of the peninsula that provides little to no windbreak. Looking at some of the plants, wind sometimes howls through here. We’re grateful for the perch that we left behind this morning, before this exploring.

We find cat tracks, there is a smell, which is vague with an old meat smell. We had just driven this road not two days ago. The kill must have been fresh then.

Here, there are sparse numbers of trees. Many grow out of rock and get minimal water to eke out a living. The not so nutritious topsoil is shallow. A stunted, yet very old a carpet of manzanita provides green space, holding life giving nutrients down.

DF questions, “What kind of tree is this?” She is pointing to a specimen with very old puffy leaves and needled. It is an unfamiliar species, or an unrecognizable variation adapting to its environment?

Sand turns into sandstone at times and then back to sand. At this stage, in this spot, it is like a beach, soft, powdery, something that would be nice to walk on with bare feet. Our feet sink in deep. It erodes and will slowly wash back down to the Sea of Cortez and the ocean of its origins. In this powder, sand tracks show up. The movements of large and small deer and cats get exposed to us. Fat belly tail dragging lizards and a chipmunk, cavort around with squirrels, all leaving tracks.

The manzanita, oddly, as a green carpet, has green berries.  It is in patches. We can’t walk far in a straight line because of it. There Is just some exposed rock, sandstone, behaving like stepping stones, which are in-between to walk upon.

Green mountains rise behind us.

Before us, a vast wilderness stretches to ill-defined horizons.

The terrain is mostly colorful barren rock, yet that which is nearer, is generally in shades of dull whites. These vistas are captivatingly beautiful.

A hoodoo greets us from the side of the road. These things take forms, they have presence as beings in a human mind. It’s as if souls live in the structures.

DF bends down to inspect what looks like a water faucet and pipes in front of a hoodoo.

Fresh water in the middle of nowhere is unlikely, yet this is a trail which leads to a fauceted well of poisonous gas, too. A lot of character, the rock looks like a big piece of burl, all twisted. It sports many layers from an ancient sea’s beaches.

Hopeful pine cones fall and collect in spots.

White flowers are a pleasant surprise and then there are a few others found in time.

We decide to stop at the place that we pulled off the other day, an old road to camping, that we had walked before. It is a good place to have a light snack lunch at noon.

This huge mass is deceiving. The valley below is further down than it feels. I measure it with the heights of the pine trees that grow on the slopes. In my mind I stack them up. These cliffs are hundreds of feet tall. Quite a bit of water has to drain from these hills when it rains. I wonder where the runoff goes. It must be rivers during any thunderstorm, torrents falling down these cliffs and collecting in the Canyonlands below.

A great arch can be seen far down in the distance. It may be the one in Arch Canyon that we didn’t get to last year.

The smoke, which is just beginning again today, is evident in the distance.

A curious tree holds up a hoodoo, it would seem.

The sun is much warmer, as we march back up the trail, reviewing our discoveries during the day’s explorations. There is little shade, now.  

It is a good aerobic, we are breathing hard. Our nude bodies are being cooled by the passing air, as the sun’s radiation heats shoulders and arms.

We rest for a time in the cooler deep forest and then, walk up the main road. No one is coming. We hear only forest. Our chairs and a cool drink await us in the shade.

This week, I’m leaving my older computer and software (18 years on the same systems!) and moving into a new Mac experience. The ‘ol box has been grinding to a halt and making publishing difficult. There will be some learning to do and adjustments. Wish me luck, that there will be no delays in the next post because of this.

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

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