Having changed our plans to explore Arch Canyon, Utah, I must make alternate arrangements. There are several hikes and archeological sites in the area. We can remain busy, but I have to research routes particulars and make some strategic choices.
We’ve taken an evening after dinner walk to the top of the local hill next to camp. Up here, we can be alone, bare ourselves to the lovely elements and watch the 360 degree panorama changing with the fantastical coloring of the sunset. Our western view leads up the white, now turned blue, ridge of solid rock. It looks like a small mountain, but we know that it turns into a plain above the cliff walls of Arch Canyon and other canyons in the region.
There is a surprise. We notice a small white light up there. There gives no sound with its movement, it is simply just too far away. Could someone be camping up there?
As dusk’s light fades into darkness, the light begins to move down the long slope. We watch a steady stream of ATV lights snaking down the hill of stone. Perhaps they have been having a sunset cocktail party up there. So there must be some sort of road, or road-like route. One map showed the possibility. One crude drawing showed a route roughly to Hotel Rock, simply a black line.
When these vehicles finish their descent, we can see where the road meets the turnoff below us. This is clue enough. Tomorrow, we’ll explore. At the least, we will find a stunning view and get our exercise, naked. On the other hand, we may have found the way to Hotel Rock.
In the tent, I get out a crude map under the night light.
When we left off last time, we had been exploring Arch Canyon’s ruins. We have a goal in mind up the road that should keep us busy for the next few days. Fellow explorers on quads have disappeared. We are left happily enjoying the air, sun and sense of free ranging freedom. Encounters with others will be very few from here.
Driving on down this challenging 4×4 route, my neck is getting sore and my back tired from the strain. I consciously let up on my grip, but I must also keep a sustained alert eye out for sharp objects and other obstacles. There is a constant turning of the wheel on the up/down weaving thread of a trail, avoiding the potential for catastrophe. We are not alone. ATV’s and well-appointed jeeps are out here, too.
The road is absolutely narrow, and the brush thick. Anyone sharing the route must pull off to the side and there are few spots for that. At one point, a string of professional looking jeeps have pulled off of the side of the trail. They are politely making room for us. I’m thinking that our lone truck would be the one to yield.
We got to the mouth of Arch Canyon in time, happy to get a spot under a tall shady cottonwood stand. There’s a colorful stone wall face on one side and an actual ancient ruin next door.
I found this canyon on a map in a travel book. There are several archeological sites in the vicinity. The scenery is as is the usual in southeastern Utah, beautiful and rugged. There is a 12 mile 4×4 road running through the length of the canyon, which ends at a view of an iconic stone arch. I figure that there will be a spot or two around there to car camp, for a few days. Also, at the end of that road, are three feeder canyons. We can hike one nude each day. It looks remote enough to get away from the Labor Day Weekend crowds. Well, that is the initial plan, but things change.
We’ve just spent over a week out in the desert wilderness of Bears Ears National Monument. It has been monumental and we have acquired a compelling interest in the local archeology.
It is time to take a deeper look into our options. We’ll need some gas. Each week we’ll need fresh blocks of ice. We’ll need fresh produce for our microbiology’. Blanding is the most likely source. I’ll need to get on the internet to research where we might go next and get the bills paid. There will be cellphone service there to check on home.
Civilization feels like a return into a strange and busy world.
During our Bear’s Ears trip we spent many evening’s ends and several times in between, reading to each other. Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness: A Celebration of the Beauty of Living in a Harsh and Hostile Land” was a favorite. On pages 261 and 262, I found this excerpt when he was a park ranger exceedingly relatable. I identify with much of his expressions of exasperation.
QUOTE:
“Ranger, where is Arches National Monument?”
“I don’t know, mister, but I can tell you where it was.”
“LABOR DAY. Flux and influx, the final visitation of the season. They come in herds, like buffalo, down from The City. A veil of dust floats above the sneaky snakey old road from here to the highway, drifting gently downward to settle upon the blades of the yucca, the mustard yellow rabbitbush, the petals of asters and autumn sunflowers, the umbrella-shaped clumps of blooming wild buckwheat.
“What can I tell them? Sealed in their metallic shells like mulluscs on wheels, how can I pry the people free? The auto as tin can, the park ranger as opener. Look here, I want to say for godsakes folks get out of them there machines, take off those fucking sunglasses and unpeel both eyeballs, look around; throw away those goddamned idiotic cameras! For chrissake folks what is this life if full of care we have no time to stare? Eh? Take off your shoes for a while, unzip your fly, piss hearty, dig your toes in the hot sand, feel that raw and rugged earth, split a couple of big toenails, draw blood! Why not? Jesus Christ lady, roll that window down! You can’t see the desert if you can’t smell it. Dusty? Of course it’s dusty—this is Utah! But it is good dust, good red Utah dust, rich in iron, rich in irony. Turn that motor off. Get out of that piece of iron and stretch those varicose veins, take off your brassiere and get some sun on old wrinkled jugs! You sir, squinting at the map with your radiator boiling and your fuel pump vapor-locked, crawl out of that shiny hunk of GM junk and take a walk-yes, leave the old lady and those squawling brats behind for a while, turn your back on them and take a long quiet walk straight into the canyons, get lost for a while, come back when you damn well feel like it, it’ll do you and her and them a world of good. Give the kids a break, too, let them out of the car, let them go scrambling over rocks, hunting for rattlesnakes and scorpions, and anthills—yes sir, let them out, turn them loose, how dare you imprison little children in your goddamned upholstered horseless hearse. Yes sir, yes madam, I entreat you, get out of those motorized wheelchairs, get off your foam rubber backsides, stand up straight like men! like Women! Like human beings! And walk—walk—WALK upon our sweet blessed land.”
UNQUOTE
So, we saw this, lots of able-bodied travelers with huge investments in RVs of all sizes. Even the owners of ATV’s who would sit in their open-air rigs, having the other three seats filled with mom, grand-mom, kids, or beer cooler, all missing the point. They scare away the wildlife, they disturb the natural quieting, they just stay in-between those rails. They can never feel the wonders missed around them. Never realizing their rude transgressions, or what they are missing. I feel sad about them. Mr. Abbey, forgive them, for they know not what they do.
There are millions on this planet who can only dream about the mobility to fully immerse into the gift that so many squander. How ever, by whatever means, I implore, use what you’ve been blessed with, sit and listen to the night, the morning, feel the sun everywhere, allow the touch of the earth on the feet which will respond to the sand, or the dew laden grass. Even if your body has been made to feel little, or nothing, you are of “it,” not separate, it effects you.
One very gratifying reason that DF and I hike and live nude in nature is to indulge in all of that which is. Our intention is to naturally not miss a thing, to realize the most authentic experience possible. We relish knowing these places with all of our natural senses, unrestricted.
Feel the real “it.” Sense the smell, hear it, taste it. Know it without the buffers, intimately. Be there with all that you can, to know it in the moment. So, strip!
I am on the forum of FreeRangeNaturism.com often, if you would like to converse.
Some people might die of embarrassment, shrink in humiliation, or feel violated by the exposure of their bodies. DF and I don’t have that anymore. The hesitation so many feel when disrobing, with its connotation of striptease, is buried under healthy natural behaviors and practices. What was uncomfortable is now simply what it is, removing clothing.
We have climbed to the top of a mountain in Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah. We are sitting on the top edge of the Comb Ridge. We’ve been taking in the awe of the massive rock formations and its vistas from this peak.
There is no want to leave, but we must. Down slope, the five finger shoes engulf my toes, as my feet slide through toward the tip of the shoe. The feet are held back by the structure, stopped by the inner toe next to the ball of my foot, unlike a regular shoe. I will lose no toe nails. I’m grateful to have these expanding toes. A couple of miles of this would definitely take my toenails in any other shoes.
We’re in Bears Ears National Monument. I believe that we have found a remote and less used canyon etched into the Comb Ridge near the Lower Butler Wash Road. Arriving in the afternoon and scouting, we had been blasted by a massive dust storm into last night. It brought us cooler calmer weather this morning, quite peaceful in contrast. This morning, we’re heading up into the canyon to explore the rugged geological awe and search for evidence of an 800 to 1500 year old Native American lifestyle.
After finding our way out of the Valley of the Gods, we’re turning back onto the asphalt road. Before heading out into some hiking along the Comb Ridge, we need to visit another unknown, Bluff Utah. We’re hoping for gas and ice. It didn’t look like much on the satellite image. Again, we just don’t know what to expect in this region. We pass and nearly miss a turnoff onto a dirt road. Strikingly, this is the Lower Butler Wash Road, which is the main conveyance north along the east side of The Comb Ridge. It looks desolate, empty and the map shows that it goes for dozens of miles.
After Bluff, the plan is to double back and drive up this surprise, looking for hikes and solitude, in random canyons and whatever else that we encounter. My information tells of well-known canyons, cliff dwellings and petroglyphs in the area. I’m hoping to find the canyons less traveled, where I’m told surprising rich experiences abound. The plan is not a trek through such a bland looking desert!
As we slowdown from highway speed as per the signage, Bluff begins to unfold. Still, it doesn’t look like much. The outfitter store/pizza restaurant is regrettably closed, but there is a Bears Ears Visitor Center next door. Generally, my experience with visitor centers is to be simply channeled toward crowded tourist places to glean my money, a tool of manipulation of the local Chamber of Commerce. This information center looks small and the signage shows the support of other entities, preservation people. It is called “Bears Ears Education Center.” It somehow gives me the impression that it isn’t just a tourist trap. We decide to check that out on our way back. I still have a very muddy knowledge of how to find the solitude and freely nude experience that I’m looking for. I need more than books and a few tips from friends. I need local’s knowledge and experience.
This morning and the previous, have tended to train us to wake up with the sun, then emerge into excitement. Eventually, the wonder, sometimes surreal, that surrounds us, begins to teach.
This morning, while DF sits with a journal, I venture out for my latrine building duties. I find only a thin layer of red sand, just inches and the bedrock. I try a small indentation of a wash, hoping to find thicker soil that has built up around the bushes that are surviving there.
As I stated before, we always play our game of stepping to not disturb the delicate floor and flora. There are signs to caution humans to not trample the precious soil and biology, but here there is evidence of cattle grazing. In the distance, I can see them standing in the Monument. The cattle’s weight and hooves have destroyed way more than the simple paths that we may make. The effect of their prints can be seen. I follow a trail, an indentation paved with loose sand, made by them. They rip out plants that we walk around and admire. This plant life takes many years to root and then grow. The flora do this and flower with only a couple of opportunities each year. Even the lichen wait.
Today, the vegetation is almost all new, displaying a different green and blooming. All of this is rare.
What I know as a Mormon tea plant is different here, because of its stature and structures. Here, it also commonly grows in mass, as a dominate adaptation, unlike at home. A green ground-cover stretches out to the Gods and Goddesses. The iconic Monument Valley can still be seen on the horizon.
The soil is sand on rock. Here it has become particularly fluffy from when it rained and froze. We sink to our ankles where we walk off of the trails. It seems a shame to walk on it. It’s like freshly fallen snow, so beautiful, but you know that your tracks will change it forever. I’m feeling a bit guilty, as the black biology is protective and it will not be back until the moister meets it again, when conditions are just right.
This place is one of those places where morning brings contemplation.
Here, naked on a fallen boulder’s wide surface, I sit. At similar times, the world may seem to pass by. In this valley, it is evident that it is us that pass by this world.
The Free Range Naturist 