Bears Ears #33
2024-06-04
It’s time to gather provisions and gas. We’ll be heading up the road that cuts right in-between the Bear’s Ears, on top of its head and then onto its back. We’ll be lounging and exploring in the Manti-La Sal National Forest for a week or so.
In Blanding, Utah, I spend too much time for my liking. I’m stuck shoring up home insurance issues over the phone and checking internet texts and messages, after several days of no service. It has been a pleasure to be out of electronic contact, but this is the price. That process of waiting takes us to the visitor center, where I am able to spend some good time with a new hostess. She once lived up in those hills with her mother. I shamelessly grill her for insider’s information.
Just before we leave to backtrack to where we were this morning, which is 45 miles of carnuding. I pull off of the road at that sign that says ominously “Next services 121 Miles.” We strip, stuff away our clothing and resume down the now familiar road, to out west. For now, the wind blows through partly opened windows and the vent, circling, sensuously dancing all over naked bodies.
We find the road that will take us into the mountains. It is soon dirt. After a pickup truck passes, I get out to switching into 4×4 for stability. We are alone here at the base of this mountain. I turn off the motor. Now in silence, I look up into the steep walls before me. They circle around us. The vast Canyonlands are behind us now. This is the beginning of an entirely new terrain and set of unknowns to set off into, naked. There is a sense of adventure, a new beginning and freedom.
The Free Range Naturist 