| On
the second day, bicycling along the Flint Trail, past Bagpipe
Butte, we arrived at the Maze Overlook, where we would camp
for two days. This whole area of Canyonlands is extremely fragile
and approximately 70% of the living ground cover is cryptobiotic
soil. This soil is found throughout the world in arid regions
and is a combination of cyanobacteria (blue-green algae), lichens,
mosses, microfungi and bacteria which forms a knobby black crust.
This careful admix binds soil and rock particles with sticky
filaments and an otherwise unstable surface becomes very resistant
to wind and soil erosion. These small islands of soil fix nitrogen
from the atmosphere and convert it to a form that plants can
use, hence, these are islands of life in a desert of rock. This
Island In The Sky of the Canyonlands desert is characterized
as such by having less than ten inches of moisture annually
and where evaporation and transpiration from plants (evapotranspiration)
may exceed precipitation. These specific and unique conditions
are not found in any other desert of the world.
That
night Rod’s running shoes separated at the sole: an emergency.
They were over a decade old and were brought to use for biking
and walking. Luckily, two other campers in a newly arrived
SUV not only gave us a roll of duct tape, but also two beers.
Rod soon cobbled together a set of silvery slippers that would
prove to last the trip. Rod stayed in camp the next morning,
for fear the shoes might not survive, as the rest of us descended
a not easy 600 feet into The Maze to visit the Harvest Scene.
At the bottom we fortunately turned the wrong way and there
was Rod, up high, in the wrong place, hollering down at us
and perilously crawling along a ledge wishing now to
join us and. We cajoled him in the right direction and within
two hours, we were at the Harvest Scene pictograph.
A
tantalizing drawing at one end of the scene really stoked
one’s imagination. It was three-dimensional in the sense
the image contained a human form as its center, either side
of which was a plant. One was rice grass (oryzopsis hymenoides),
which is a most important dietary item, and the other was
the Utah version of datil yucca, also important as it was
used for string, shoe making etc. Each plant had an animal
in association with it: rice grass having some rodent, maybe
a ground squirrel, while the yucca had a hummingbird.
Opposing
the human form were two hummingbirds. Drawn large, they
appeared to 'float' in front of the human form. Rather small,
in the background, were multiple depictions of the ground
squirrel, large alongside the rice grass, and receding smaller
in a series circling toward the 12 o'clock aspect above the
human form. Too, a fair sized hummingbird accompanied the
datil yucca which also receded in an arc of smaller hummingbirds
toward 12 o'clock to meet the squirrel/rodent. In a visual
sense, this arc of very large to smaller to smallest, created
a dimensional halo surrounding the human figure. In a transfixed
moment of interpretation it profoundly spewed forth as knowledge
of the cycle of interdependency of the human to Nature, of
farming as created by animals and insight stemming from becoming
agricultural in a hunter gatherer society, rather than being
totally dependent upon foraging. This image on the Harvest
Scene panel was most beautiful … and, apparently this
knowledge was known for over 7000 years.
However,
in participating with boundless space and a non-existent relationship
to what we could call a city, or center for a multitude, of
owners, serfs and rulers, the attributes of what humans do
represent as important to life and meaning, as Luther Standing
Bear notes as The Great Mystery, is basically the same. It
is curious to note, as an artist, the portrayal of these peoples
lives is interpreted through their art making… which
includes these paintings and certainly the decorations placed
upon ceramic works of everyday use.
Each
day we rode 20-25 miles, starting at 8:30 am, stopping near
6 PM. With an hour for lunch, another for various rests; we
were in the saddle about eight hours of three miles/hour.
The going was easy at times and the remainder difficult. As
noted prior, weather was in our favor and everywhere the desert
was in bloom: fecund and verdant. A favorite, the Desert
Tufted Evening Primrose, blooms at night, a white, luscious,
petal semi tinged with lavender, of faint perfume turning
to face the dawn. As the morning advances, UV light 'kills'
the blossom, turning it the light lavender color of ultraviolet
itself; as if the blossom plucked energy from solar rays in
a narcissistic melding.
Three
various cacti (prickly pear, barrel and mammilaria) were in
bloom as were larkspur, penstemon, phlox, mallow, verbena,
yucca, blackbrush, aster, puussytoes, beardtongue, sego-lily
and countless other plants. All was prolific. The region was
enjoying fertility.
Riding
back to the Flint Trail through the Elaterite Basin and through
Big Water Canyon gave us views of Cleopatra’s Chair.
We across and past Lands End and set camp just below
Teapot Rock. That evening, while walking a mile from camp
to use the baño natural, I found what appeared to be a small
forest, now exposed and petrified. The site, as we found later,
was probably Permian and about 250 million years old, and
here, we stood touching the stony bark and roots. Next morning
we rode past dozens of newly flowered primrose to the Squaw
and Papoose, now described as Mother and Child, where we followed
the topo map a mile and a half to a year-round spring. It’s
always a good feeling to refill the water bottles in such
dry and possibly sizzling desert country… sort
of like money in the bank. That evening, our fourth, dinner
was served at the furthest campsite at The Doll House. We
had, as usual, a couple of drinks of tequila and some smoke
as the moon rose full and luminous over the red and white
landscape.
We
did climb the steep mile and a half to the Colorado River
at Spanish Bottom. Rod did not venture this time due the decline
of his taped shoes and the four or miles to the river and
back. He’d be in deep trouble sans soles. Descending
the quick and steep terrain we encountered rafters who had
a lot of supplies, including more duct tape and who also provided
us with sandwiches of smoked roast beef, pickles, mayo, mustard,
tomatoes, etc. and a 12 pack of Bud Light beer. With our talkativeness
and persuasion we convinced a young woman to make a gift of
her shoes for Rod. Then, making an extra sandwich, walked
out. Another astonishing day of exercise, beauty and gifts.
It did not seem the onus of experiencing the road tragedy
followed us. No, we were engaged to Mother Nature.
It
took two days to ride and push our way out, up sixteen hundred
feet and fifty miles to Hans Flat. The route was embroidered
with wild flowers and blooming bushes. We were more mentally
fit and physically able than when the quest began. After discussing
pertinent points and putting queries to the rangers, we packed
and drove pell-mell to Green River, a motel, shower and a
damned fine burger ‘n fries washed down with pitchers
of beer at Ray’s Tavern.
The
next morning we parted: Sam and Bill headed west to Bryce
Canyon and Rod and I took Ben to the Moab airport to catch
his plane. On the way there we drove over the portion of highway
191 where the mark of burned memory was darker than the asphalt.
As a plane lifted into the gray sky, that perhaps each
of us were a phoenix rising… each of us a beautiful lone
bird.
Emerging
from the stupor of sleeping in a motel, due to a rain storm,
(we NEVER sleep in motels … however extra money jingling
in the jeans seals the deal when it comes to a little comfort
at age sixty) we visited small museums in unpretentious towns
with large collections of Anasazi (Native Americans from the
period of 1000- AD in a specific area of the southwest) pottery
and big fossilized bones from dinosaurs found in the Morrison
formation of Utah. Too, we visited Anasazi ruins and panels
of pictographs tucked into cliffs and found Cow Canyon trading
post in Bluff, Utah w/funky contemporary Ute sculpture, good
jewelry and crafts and a superb place to eat dinner run by
a wonderful spirited woman, Liza Doran.
Before
reaching Hurricane we took a meandering route from Moab
past Mexican Hat into Arizona through Monument Valley, Navajo
Country, across to Glen Canyon Dam, over past Pipe Spring
and back into Utah, stopping here and there, chatting with
locals, photographing and drawing. Two places, which were
actually one place in virtually no place was Colorado City
in Arizona and Hildale in Utah. It was muddy from the rain,
somber, with architecture uncomely and environment devoid
of humanity. It is obviously a quick growing town,
originally named Short Creek, of renegade Mormon polygamists.
The homes are owned by the local church which, in the beginning,
named the town, The First City of the Millennium in 1935.
The majority of the homes are unfinished because of a quirk
in tax laws stating that a new home cannot be taxed until
it is completely built. I felt we were walking through a Grunewald
painting with the elements transposed into discount farming
community. Memories from our just completed bicycle journey
plagued us, placing an odd twist on the experience of this
area of fertile fugitives. Did those who sinned, burn in flames?
Was there such a thing as celestial matrimony?
Crossing
from the geology of Utah into that of Nevada we progressed
through inclement and clement weather situations. Vistas were
enormous, filling total 180°+ panoramas with that portion
of our western world known as Basin & Range. If you look
at this geologic spread from the air, it has been noted the
area appears similar to stretch marks on a woman’s body
after giving birth. We crossed 7000’ ranges that descended
into infinity stretching basins… sometimes straight sections
of the highway were a dozen to fifteen miles long… hazed
blue by water vapor reacting to the sun's insistence yet defeated
by elephantine enveloping clouds dropping storms on mountains
and valleys. All of each storm's outline could be viewed clearly
due to the fact of that much space to see.
The
rest is now history. As for finding God in the desert…
that aspect eluded me, but a true sense of spiritual well
being did not. Perhaps, if by yourself, and in some form of
deprivation, you can find hints of the Great Spirit, and get
a handle on the Great Mystery, but, in this case, we had reckoned
on the irony of our delicate survival, the quick death of
that young family, and the abated proposal due to the lost
ring. Truth came in the form of the flowering of the desert
carpet, kaleidoscopic skies, the slight tears in our hearts
and tears in our eyes.
|
Return
to the start of Desert Quest 
|
|
See
Jack Fulton's current exhibition in the 1000 Windows
Gallery. Click on the Gallery link below.
|
| This
article and associated images are © Copyright Jack
Fulton 1999 and may not be copied or stored in any
retieval system without permission of the author. |
|
