I started writing this last night when I was thinking of the route we’d be traveling today. Earlier in the week week, I had hemmed and hawed as I couldn’t fix on a destination, go far away, or stay closer to home. Last December, when I created the itinerary for this year, I had penciled us in to drive up to Great Basin National Park. It’s been nearly 20 years since we were there last, which its 600-mile distance out into the middle of nowhere might have something to do with. On the other hand, Chiricahua National Monument in southern Arizona is only 250 miles away.
Telling someone of my dilemma and saying out loud that a 1,200-mile (almost 2,000km) roundtrip drive for a hike to some 4,500-year-old trees and a disappearing glacier in Nevada seemed excessive, well, that sounded weak to my ears because, 20 years ago, that wouldn’t have figured into our thinking. So it was fixed that we’d not be taking the easy way, we were returning to Great Basin National Park.
Initial plans had us stay in Cedar City, Utah, for the first night out, but we got away earlier than we thought we’d be leaving Phoenix, so we set our sights on Beaver, Utah. The photo above was taken when we were not yet in Utah but on the western side of the Navajo Bridges after crossing the Colorado River down below. Both Caroline and I had the sense we’ve been up here more than a few times this year. Maybe it’s just a few, but at the time I’m writing this, I’m feeling too lazy to scroll back through the 120 earlier blog posts I’ve published this year to figure it out exactly.
In just three weeks, we’ll be up here yet again as we’ll be staying a night at the Marble Canyon Lodge before taking a hike up the river a short way at Lee’s Ferry. The Spencer Trail is what we’ll be aiming for, and I’m putting this out there right now as I try to build my resolve to hike this strenuous trail, but let me be clear: it is not the steep ascent that is bothering me but the narrow trail with butt-clenching drop-offs. If we can make it to the mesa top, we’ll be offered some spectacular views, but even if we only make it part way up, we should be able to look back here at the Navajo Bridge for a perspective we’ve never seen before.
When I took this photo, Caroline and I had already been marveling on our way north at how green everything was. Well, between Phoenix and Flagstaff during and just after our monsoon season, that’s normal, but this far north, it is rare. So, someone who lives in an environment that is seriously green might wonder, what green? But to our eyes, these are levels of lush desert greenery that make us stop and capture the infrequent hue found among the Vermillion Cliffs.
We’ve never grown tired of these views; they look as exotic to us as they always have. A rarified sight that continues to be a constant reminder of how parts of the earth still look when not taken over by people. This is also the area where condors have been re-established, and come mid-October, we’ll not forget binoculars and my telephoto lens in the hopes of grabbing a couple of good photos of these rare birds.
As we were about to turn west and head into the high plateau where the North Rim of the Grand Canyon is found, we were running out of sunlight. This would be the first time in a long while that we’d be passing through the notorious town of Colorado City, Arizona, just south of the Utah state line. Back when we first drove through the area, Warren Jeffs and his nut-job father Rulon (Uncle Rulon to his followers) were both in charge of this polygamist enclave. Not satisfied with no less than 50 wives each, Warren was living a life that included rape, incest, and sexual assault of children. That was all traded for a life in prison, though he’ll be eligible for parole in 2038. I almost forgot to mention that Warren married all but two of his father’s wives, which I think means he married his brother’s mothers. The more I refresh my memory about Colorado City, the more I think we need to visit this outpost of depravity to walk among the many children of the Jeffs clan.