Sand Canyon

NOTE: This was written about a hiking trip I took with my best friend from College. I completed it when I was working my season at Grand Teton National Park in the summer of 2008.



Early Spring, 2008

The sky is a forbidding slate gray. From my home in Hesperus, which winter still holds in its viselike grip, I gaze out the window at the roiling sky and smile. Perfect time to go to the desert. An hour later my best friend and fellow biologist Jesse and I race down the highway through the little town of Cortez and into McElmo canyon: the nearest access to the slickrock deserts. We munch on Girl Scout Cookies (how could I say no to her?) and listen to Bob Marley, talking about our various woes; women for him, schoolwork for me—no women to worry about at the moment thankfully. As it transpires, there is no snow to worry about either.
We arrive at the trailhead and contemplate what to do next. A weathered old sign by the roadside, almost illegible, reads: NO NATIONAL MONUMENT. Poor soul, whoever put up that sign, there’s been a National Monument here for nearly ten years. Canyons of the Ancients national monument, to be precise. National Money-mint as Cactus Ed used to say. Not that it’s changed the place much, other than posting cleaner looking signs and having the occasional BLM employee walk the trail, hoping to happen upon a pothunter ransacking one of the many ancient dwellings.
I have hiked Sand Canyon trail many times ever since I was a little boy and Jesse nearly as much. The official trail winds its way up the slickrock bench above the canyon, occasionally happening upon mysterious dwellings over the course of the climb; you only get to see the canyon floor once, and this is from a viewpoint. Our plan is better, if slightly less legal, we plan to see the canyon floor.
We start down the trail and take a quick right, creeping along the backside of Castle Rock, past the crumbling Castle Rock pueblo, and begin to pick our way east, to the canyon mouth. We choose our steps carefully to avoid treading on the cryptobiotic soil, walking only in drainages or on slickrock. We cross several side canyons each one deeper than the last, before following one down to the main drainage, carefully avoiding the deep mud, easing gently over pour-offs.
We walk in the boulder-strewn canyon bottom and soon the walls close in about us. The sky continues to threaten snow, but nothing is falling as of yet. A side canyon comes into view and a dwelling can be glimpsed high on the cliff face. I suggest we climb to it on the way back unless we decide to leave the canyon farther up. I turn to look back down-canyon. The sun pierces the clouds, illuminating the snow-heavy Sleeping Ute Mountains in stark contrast to the redrock below and the churning clouds above. We continue on, desert varnish streaks the walls and the canyon tightens, growing steadily deeper. We have lunch where a small side-canyon comes in from the west, sitting on the boulders rather than the still-soggy ground. A bare cottonwood stands resolute against the ever-darkening sky.
The canyon widens into a small meadow, the brown grass still flattened from the snow. In the center of the meadow lies the bleached skeleton of a small fox, complete and broken only from the weight of the snow. What had caused this little creature to die so peacefully, its body untouched by scavengers, buried until so recently under the protective blanket of snow? What is your story little fox? Jesse cradles the skull in his hand, it is white and perfect against his palm. We take it with us; as it is rare to find a complete canid skull in such condition.
We debate on venturing further up-canyon but decide to turn back to have a look at the dwelling we had seen earlier. We turn back the way we come, the little fox skull resting peacefully in Jesse’s pack. The bare skeletal cottonwoods sway gently, we can smell snow on the wind. The sleeping Ute mountains loom back into view, still illuminated by a ray of sunlight that has managed to pierce the clouds. White and snowladen, they look like another world suspended between the leaden sky and the red walls of the canyon.
We locate the side canyon with the dwelling and walk up it until we hit a large pour off. We each find a route up and eventually reach the dwelling by traversing out to the alcove on a narrow ledge of white stone. People have already found this place, and it as been looted. But it is still in excellent condition and commands an impressive view of the canyon floor. The occasional potsherd or corncob still stick out of the riffled sand of the alcove floor, reminding us that these people had actually made a living in this place. Were they happy, these people? What gave them joy, what gave them peace? It is hard to fathom living so simply and lightly as these people must have done, especially in these entitled times that follow in the wake of that terrible fallacy that is the American dream.
Jesse and I scramble out of the alcove as the sky continues to grumble. We decide to find our way back to the road on the opposite rim and each find our separate ways to the top. We meet on an oil and gas road that has been gouged impersonally from the mesa top by a bulldozer. I announce that I have to piss and proceed to do so in the middle of the road, explaining that I have finally found something worthwhile to piss on. Jesse goes down the road to do the same, when he turns to look back, his gaze focuses over my left shoulder and he motions for me to turn around. About a quarter mile down the road, there is a single stone tower standing above the shrubby trees, it is illuminated by a single ray of sun, as the clouds continue to shift, the glow disappears and the tower fades back into the leaden background.
We descend from the mesa top, treading lightly through private property strewn with tires and the shells of long dead cars, waiting for the inevitable rifle shot or half mad dog to cut our hike woefully short. This paranoia was half true, and we got the dogs to bark at us when we were almost to highway, but they were ancient and toothless animals that inspired more amusement than terror.
We walk up the highway to the car, past the peeling sign of protest, another hike over with and reluctantly make our back to civilization, back to school, women, and the other pressures of day to day life. But the desert will always be there for us to run to and maybe someday, if we’re lucky, we can curl up nose to tail like that little fox and simply fade into the background…

-Charlie Kolb, Jenny Lake District, Grand Teton National Park.