The plan is to head on up the trail from the ruins and into the canyon where the crowds rarely go. There, we can look for any more signs of ancient life and explore in natural pleasant nudity with little chance of being interrupted by others. There is always something fun and of interest in these remarkable canyons. We figure that we’ll spend another hour or so, up the trail and then return, depending on the heat and comfort.
As soon as possible, we are once again naked in the sun, but maybe within sight of those people who are above, near the ruins, hidden in the brush.
DF Takes the Pack for a While, More Air for me, Everywhere
These ruins! Discovering pictographs and petroglyphs is addicting. We know that there are likely more. This area was just too rich and big to not be inhabited by more ancient farmers.
We had been up with the sun, yet here we are still getting a later start. This time however, the timing is best later in the morning. We’re heading for The House on Fire ruins. It faces away from the morning sun, now. We’d like to arrive when the refection of the sunlight on red rock makes the roof of the ruins look like fire.
It is a short hike, just maybe 30 minutes, a quick mile or so and there is no slope each way.
We grab a fee to pay for this more popular site, but when we arrive, there is no bucket at the trailhead. There is just one car. The trail registry says two people. This is good, very good, good potential. We may have things to ourselves, instead of the shuffle of too many tourists. There had been a half a dozen cars when we passed by during the previous afternoon.
We carefully make our way down a slope and into dense foliage accented with various red soils, sand and rock. As we walk along, the evident path is comfortably shaded, off and on. We haven’t gone far, just minutes, when we bump into an older couple. They are from Germany in full hiking regalia. He reports “very nice” in a very thick accent. She is silent. By her demeanor, I suspect that she is not confident in our foreign language. Helpful and beaming, nearly giddy, as if he had just visited something of memorable awe, he states, “20 minutes, follow the wash.” They disappear down the trail toward the trailhead. One car, two people heading back to it, so I know that nobody is ahead. My kilt is quickly off and it feels so wonderful. The air is beautiful and I’m feeling lucky. I didn’t expect this.
Curiously, when we arrive at the ruins, there is no clear trail for such a popular remarkable spot. We must climb through a tangle of bush and roots on a sharp slope and then up a bare rock slope. There they are, still in the shade, several stone masonry structures, connecting the lips of a rock floor and ceiling. We drop daypack and water bottles. We plan to hang out for a while, waiting for photo opportunity.
The ceiling is everything that the pictures have purported. There is a chipped strata of red and yellow tones that rise up, suggesting fire. It is massive and beautiful. DF playfully sings a phrase from a song. It sticks in my head, inspired by this sense of flame, “We don’t need no water let the MF burn, burn MF, burn.” The crude tune from the 1990’s has lost its anger. It is joyous excitement.
As I Focus My Attention the World Around Me Comes Alive
I disrobe and close my eyes. I simply notice my body, with that intention, the awareness is allowed to travel, making its own itinerary. Soon enough, it glances about to its surroundings and back. The naked body remains the basis of awareness of existence.
I focus on the sensations and the details. Similarly, the world becomes more vivid when I focus on its many details. As I concentrate, my senses come alive.
Then with eyes open, colors are brighter, sounds sharper, and everything that touches my skin –a loving touch, the warmth of a fire, a gentle breeze, heightens my perception and anchors my awareness in the present moment.
My focus enlivens my inner world as well. Time spent in mindful contemplation floods my awareness with the grandeur of so many small things. I notice the feelings, the inner transformations, the raw physical sensations of emotions alone without mind. Now I open my eyes and turn my ears to the divine, as it is expressing all around me, as magnificent beauty and wondrous diversity. All of it, simply right here, right now.
The more I focus my attention fully without the dialog, the more easily I discern the divine expressing all around me. I know that I am of that.
Now, as I walk on in primal nudity in naked nature, it is as I began this experience, anchored with the natural sensations of body.
Just give this a try.
Next week, a story about hiking to the ancient House on Fire.
I am on the forum of FreeRangeNaturism.com often, if you would like to converse.
During the summer of 2023, we spent a month in retreat, glamping in the bell tent in a wilderness area of the Arizona White Mountains. We hiked or walked each day. This was one….
We have been out in this forest by ourselves for long enough to feel very comfortable nude. Nude is our norm. However, each evening we’ve bundled up, or lit the wood burning stove in our glamping bell tent. Often we’ll just cuddle in the luxury of a cozy bed. The need for clothing has been caused by an onslaught of determined mosquitoes just before each sunset, which necessitate textile armor from head to toe. Generally, things have been lovely enough that most of our time has had no consideration of coverings, save the shade of a friendly tree.
During our stay, we might have only seen a quad, or an ATV passing during the day, enabling us to roam freely and unconcerned. However, the Fourth of July weekend crowds are upon us. This day, we will find ourselves heading out into the more populated areas, but still determined to stay nude. We’re not here to have hassles, which are unlikely; we’re not here to be seen. We may use stealth tactics to stay out of sight. We just want to explore in the pleasant natural state that we have become accustomed to.
I had an article published in the last issue of “N” Magazine, the quarterly for The Naturist Society Foundation. TNS is one of two primary naturist organizations in the United States, kind of like British Naturism (BN). Their publication is excellent naturist reading, if you’d like to invest in a copy, or membership.
I sent some illustration photos with it, as usual. Then one day, I got a message. They wanted to use one of my photos for the cover! Flattery will get you somewhere quite often, “Sure, let me okay with DF.”
When I called up DF, I sang “The Cover of the Rolling Stone” Doctor Hook’s old song (written by Shel Silverstein) about a rock band getting on the mag’s cover. She had heard this before and knew what it meant. Once, or twice, she had been in a group gathering photo on the cover and I had sung it to kid her.
Gotta love the Nick Jagger parody.
One other time, my body had been edited out of a photo and that cover featured her backside in front of an Arizona vista. Each time, I kidded her with the comical song. This cover would feature her smiling identifiable face nude in Utah. It would go with the article that I wrote about nude travel in the region.
Our nude images have been in the pages of the magazine numerous times over the years. The first times that I had sung the song her alarmed eyes got big, “wha?” This time she just shrugged her shoulders with a grin, giving me a nonchalant, “sure.”
My image had also been on the heading for their website http://www.naturistsociety.com and I was like a Mr. March, or something, in one of their calendars, but still, to me, there’s something very cool about a magazine cover photo.
Here are photos of the cover and the article.
The text and those photos follow further into this post. I had to wait to publish here, until the issue was established for exclusivity. The new edition just came out. I have two more articles in the new issue; one about desert nude gardening and one addressing killer bees during naked hiking. Eventually, they will also turn up here.
From, “N”: The Magazine of Naturist Living.
Vol. 44 Issue 2 Spring 2025
Published by the Naturist Society Foundation, Inc.
“Naturally Nude in Bears Ears National Monument”
Last June/ July, we visited Bears Ears National Monument for the first time. DF and I packed my SUV to the brim and drove up from Tucson freely nude. The wide open spaces just continued to expand.
The dusty Utah back road called Cottonwood Creek takes us to Kodachrome State Park. It was recommended by friends. In the distance, as we approach, odd shapes grab our curiosity.
We slip on coverings to enter the visitor center to ask questions and get orientations. A bright cheery, seemingly very young pair of attendants greet us. They are happy and seem eager to do something in their lull. Huckleberry ice cream is in a bin before us. “A double, please.” We study the park map, as we delight in a tub of smooth cool lavender cream.
I’ve still got some stories left from our Bears Ears trip in 2024. That series has been chronologically presented over the last year, yet now, we’ve collected a few more Utah tales during this year’s trip. Actually, there are a couple of hangers-on from glamping in the White Mountains, from the year before that! We haven’t been idle during the rest of the year locally, either. Every few stories, I like to throw in and article, some naturist thoughts, things that pop out of my head. It’s all there, in the works, for future publications.
The only solution, I’d suppose, will be to just present a chronological chaos and a variety of posts bouncing from location to location, over this next year. That’ll be starting right now.
For a few months, we had been busy with annual parties, fundraisers, stucco and paint on the house and sauna, stashing away the BnB business to instead accommodate a new renter’s needs. I also needed to get ahead of the publishing, so this website didn’t just suddenly stop while on vacation. We like to leave by mid-May, but the twelfth of June is the way things rolled out….
We embark knowing that it is this time of year that the deserts of southeastern Utah typically begin to heat up. The only solution during the hot times is to head into the mountains and further north, to cool off. Utah has some wonderful green peaks and heck, plans change, we could end up in Idaho, the sky’s the limit. We have this four wheel drive SUV packed to the gills. Everything that we need is in here, but for shopping for fresh produce. We are on an open timeline, 3 to 6 weeks.
It all starts out well. I chant a Ganesha mantra, a catchy tune, all the way through the Phoenix megalopolis. The guy who clears obstacles is at work. The freeway rush hour congestion seemingly magically disappears before us and we end up on a hilltop in Dewey with our friends Ken and Amie on the first evening.
Arriving very naked, all the way from Tucson, it is always a pleasure to climb out of the drive barefoot all over and into their free living enclave. Somehow the concrete walkway is nearly always shady and cool and strolling around the house on their cushy green lawn is a sensual delight.
There is a sign at the base of the drive declaring a liberated place of no nude shame, fear, or concerns. Ringing the doorbell there is a sense of a world as it should be, bare and greeted by bare bear hugs from familiar faces.
I don’t really need the approval that being fashionable brings. I’d rather just hear someone notice that I’m healthy. I’d rather put my effort into doing things that are healthy, rather than fashion. I’d rather be healthy, than try to cover up and only try to look that way.
Why am I wearing these clothes?
I know walking down the street naked is not everyone’s cup of tea, or preference, and if someone wants to decorate themselves that’s certainly okay and fun. It’s not right to tell people to get undressed and it’s not right to tell people to cover up.
BUT, the simple truth is that when a nude body, especially one’s own, becomes an issue, then something is out of whack. Nude is actually normal. Obsessed with being dressed is not so normal.
So, why am I wearing these clothes?
While we are away, mostly in a world without internet, telephones, Walmart, or dress codes, I have a few articles caught up with and scheduled to publish, but also, I have this series of shorts. I had planned to make a video of this and perhaps I still will, but I thought that it might be something nice to fill in, until we return with a ton of new tales to tell and show to you.
I am on the forum of FreeRangeNaturism.com often, if you would like to converse.
Clothing is rarely authentic. The meanings of clothing are just a daydream, something that somebody made up.
Seriously, why am I wearing these clothes?
The sun feels so very good all over, the breeze does, too. The touch of the earth, the textures of every contact with this body, it is a miracle and it is amazing. What a fun experience to be natural.
I climb and stretch better unconfined, my body does fascinating things and I feel gratitude to experience them.
I feel free and wonderful, my arms out wide, walking and feeling the wonder of just being alive, nude.
I appreciate mango sorbet and I appreciate being in this body. Appreciation and gratitude is so very much mentally healthy and healing.
Why would I want to wear these clothes?
While we are away, mostly in a world without internet, telephones, Walmart, or dress codes, I have a few articles caught up with and scheduled to publish, but also, I have this series of shorts. I had planned to make a video of this and perhaps I still will, but I thought that it might be something nice to fill in, until we return with a ton of new tales to tell and show to you.
I am on the forum of FreeRangeNaturism.com often, if you would like to converse.
It’s the anniversary. I started this website 10 years ago with one hundred and eight of my previous trip reports from a deleted forum that I participated in. I spruced them up and published them here and added new as our nude life unfolded. There are now hundreds of newer posts. So, where do we go from here?
I still have several reports from our Utah trip last year. I now have even more from the month that we recently spent in Utah this year. We just returned home Saturday. There are stories of trips and trails in Arizona that we have been to between the longer jaunts and before. I have several thoughts and articles that are drafts, which have been sitting around. So, there are already months of The Free Range Naturist.org material to share with readers.
A Morning on Mars
The visitors to the website are consistently arriving in higher numbers. Thank-you, we’re glad people are enjoying our content. We hope many are being inspired and getting about naturally.
So, I mentioned that we just returned this Saturday from Utah. Apparently my scheduled content has worked out. There are still a couple more to come, pre-posted, if we had returned home any later.
We arrived a few weeks later this year and were hit by the heat that comes at that time of year in the desert and by smoke from a fire west of Bryce National Park. This fire burned for the entire journey, as we traveled north away from it. We were still affected by the smoke into higher cooler elevations and the travels back.
We did manage to get into a fun Utah slot canyon and had a major part of Goblin State Park all to ourselves in spite of the desert heat. We visited mountain trails nude in places with names like Hell’s Backbone.
We camped and climbed at nearly 11.000 feet at a Lost Creek in the height of a super bloom.
We visited with friends and made new ones in beautiful Torrey near Capital Reef National Park.
We found freedom while overlooking grand vistas, including the Grand Canyon’s North Rim. Sadly, we had lunch in the impressive 90 year old wood timber grand lodge there, just two days before it burnt to the ground. Our remote ideal nude campsite and trails were isolated from news and we escaped unwittingly, 30 hours after the evacuation of the entire North Rim had happened. We were just in time. The forest was seen burning less than two miles down the road in the other direction, as we headed east through thick smoke and the odd light given by a dark orange mid-day sun.
Despite the sad drawbacks, we had several delightful adventures to share and share we shall, as time goes on, here at the TheFreeRangeNaturist.org.
I am on the forum of FreeRangeNaturism.com often, if you would like to converse.
The Free Range Naturist 