Off the Colorado Plateau

Oh, my. I was determined today "to be where I am" at every moment. I entered into each stop, engaged my surroundings and the people involved; I relished the scenery, staying present to what we were doing. I succeeded, perhaps too well, in refraining from thinking ahead.

Once we left the Grand Canyon North Rim and began the final leg of our journey back to St George, we enjoyed two final stops.  The first was at Jacob Lake where restrooms, a lovely gift shop and delicious homemade cookies and hot coffee awaited.  (I made this photograph of the signature red Ponderosa pine bark at the edge of the parking lot.)  The second was at LeFevre Overlook where we could gaze out on the whole Grand Staircase.  (See the long, thin photograph at the bottom of the page, my first abysmal effort with photo merge software.)  It was a fine conclusion to be able to view from that vantage point the west-to-east progress we had made at the beginning of the trip. 

Our guides, seeming to understand that many of us were struggling with our time together coming to an end, worked at keeping the mood aboard the coach upbeat and fun.  Since we were going to pass through the northern Arizona town of Fredonia, Chrystal and Marc played video clip of  "Duck Soup," a Marx Brothers comedy about the fictional, bankrupt country of Freedonia.  And, Geri drove us through the town where she resides when she's not driving a bus, Kanab UT.  It's known as "Little Hollywood," a popular location for movies and television series.

But, the moment came when we had to make our descent from the Colorado Plateau at Hurricane Ridge and admit that our travels together were over.  I had to face a sudden encounter with the depression I knew would come. I was, indeed, present even to that wrenching inevitability.

And, it went from bad to worse! For not only were we back to interstate travel and the bright lights of malls and stopping centers, we went straight to what was by then a late dinner at Chuck-A-Rama. It was noisy and overrun on this Wednesday night. Truly a rude reentry -- into another sort of wilderness altogether!

We're in our room at The College Inn, our only real accomplishment after stepping off the bus and getting our key having been retrieving all the stuff we left locked in the car. Thanks to our efforts the place looks like a bomb went off and I'm too tired to deal with any of it.

Things will look lots better in the morning. 

 

The Colorado's work

I have a thing about bridges, so was thrilled at the prospect of visiting Navajo Bridge again. Geri stopped on the south side where the vendors were set up. We stepped off for a geomoment with Marc, followed by a gander at the jewelry for sale and then a walk across the old bridge to the visitor center where Geri was waiting with the coach.

There were two major differences today from our October 3rd stop:

1. The Colorado, with all the rain in the region during the 10-day period, was muddy rather than the clear, greenish-blue we saw before.


2. Three rare California condors were there to entertain us (and to thrill the birders in our group), settling on the canyon walls, soaring and circling, flying back and forth under the bridges, bothering each other, showing off their wingspans which can be up to nine and a half feet. Endangered and counted, each known California condor bears a number on its wing; those with binoculars could read those numbers.

I don't have enough focal length power to zoom in very far, but there is a condor 450+ feet down just above the water in the center of this photograph (near the tallest part of the reflected cliff).

The drive from Navajo Bridge to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon was extraordinarily beautiful -- along and under the Vermillion Cliffs, into groves of red-barked Ponderosa pine around Jacob Creek and then at higher elevations the wonder of the aspen, their autumn gold peaking and contrasting strongly with the deep green of the firs and pines. The photograph to the right is one I made as we were leaving the park mid-afternoon.

We arrived at the lodge just in time for lunch. In fact, we were the first seated in the rustic and very elegant dining room (photo to the left), the canyon just outside the windows. It was hard to live into my "be where I am" intention -- enjoying the whole experience, not longing to be outside already! But, I managed. Warm company, good food, attentive service helped greatly.

Finally, off to Bright Angel Point (named by John Wesley Powell, by the way). Honestly, the experience of getting to the point reminded me of Geri driving the coach over the hogback on Boulder Mountain -- sheer drop on both sides of the very narrow trail. I'd not realized before how troubling heights are for me. I ended up only walking, looking at my feet which I was placing very carefully. If I wanted to look around, I had to stop and do only that! The dizzying discomfort was worth it, though. What a view up Bright Angel Canyon!

This photograph was made from Bright Angel Point. The Colorado River is just out of sight.

The water that passed through Glen Canyon before it was dammed, the water that found its way through Marble Canyon was a significant player in creating "the grandest canyon of them all" (a John Wesley Powell quote?). This location, so beautiful in the afternoon sun today, weathered and carved, has to be seen to be believed. Honestly, now that I have spent an hour or so looking out over it and down into it, I know full well I don't yet grasp the enormity of it all -- either of what I witnessed this autumn 2010 afternoon or of the long-term relentless forces the landscape's transformation required.

Our last full day

I cannot believe it. Tal and I have looked forward to this adventure for months. This morning, though, we are packing our things here in the Best Western Lake Powell, will walk across Lake Powell Boulevard for a breakfast at the Glen Canyon Steak House just as we did yesterday (though later, thank goodness) and then board the coach to head back to St George, for one night in a room at the College Inn, our car, I-40 east. It's over.

But, of course, it isn't. We have today -- all day -- and many wonderful miles. On the itinerary are at least five notable places of interest: (1) Navajo Bridge (see the blog of 3 October for my first impression of that location as we travelled to St George), the North Rim of the Grand Canyon with (2) lunch in the dining room of the lodge and (3) a walk to Bright Angel Point, (4) the trading post at Jacob Lake, (5) the Le Fevre Overlook for a view of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. So, what's the problem. Why am I -- as usual -- anticipating the negative rather than simply living what is before me?

I have taken up keeping a journal of favorite quotations. It's helpful in many ways. Today I have found a few words that may help keep me from anticipating too much what tomorrow is going to bring. These are words written by Thomas Transtromer, a Swedish writer, poet and translator, from a work "Sentry Duty," which he wrote after being taken into the Swedish army for several weeks:

Task: to be where I am.
Even when I’m in this solemn and absurd
role: I am still the place
where creation does some work on itself.

So, my task for today is to be where I am. That's it. After all, creation is at work. Thanks Mr Transtromer!

Another new name

Well, on Saturday (as I think I wrote) I found myself a little embarrassed at having never heard of John Wesley Powell. And, this afternoon it's happened again.

We arrived back at the hotel following our five-hour Rainbow Bridge boat tour on Lake Powell and the stop at the Glen Canyon Dam with a couple of hours free time before the coach departed for supper. Free time is most unusual on this trip; Tal and I wanted to take advantage of having a choice! We headed up Lake Powell Boulevard to take in the John Wesley Powell Memorial Museum two blocks from the hotel. Unlike the museum at Green River this one is small, even cramped, doubling as a visitor information center. Like the museum in Green River it's full of interesting detail -- some of the detail different from that Saturday stop, too.

While there we came upon an exhibit about a young man, Everett Ruess, an artist/explorer who wandered the uninhabited wilderness southeast of Escalante UT in the early 1930s. His poetic letters home nearly sang, so captivated was he by the beauty of the land. He disappeared without a trace in 1934, probably dying before his 21st birthday.

The exhibit left me wanting to know more. Like the museum in Green River, this museum had an attractive and comprehensive bookstore. Believe it or not, I refrained from purchasing a book on Ruess, as I have two books (which we're carrying around) on hold already while I finish "Desert Solitaire." His is a story, though, I will explore -- and soon.

We had dinner at a busy-to-chaotic oriental restaurant and then were treated to a star-gazing opportunity. Geri took us on a short drive away from town to a point where we could stand in an open field and see the stars in a way most of us never have. Without competition from other sources of light the heavens were alive with twinkling stars and the steady radiance of planets. The Milky Way is, indeed, a swath of white across the sky.

The combination of these past few days in the bigness of the west and now having stood outside under the bigness of the nighttime sky leaves me here at bedtime with the one best word I can scrape out of my vocabulary: unfathomable. One thing I know for sure in this moment ... nothing that bothers me, none of the problems I think I have matter in the face of all this boundless space, the space on which I have been walking since coming west and the space into which I gazed tonight.

I've written about Geri for days now. Here's a face to go with the name, this photograph taken as I approached the coach while we boarded before dinner this evening.

With heaviness of heart

This has been a most difficult of days. Something of a surprise, given the beauty and memorability of yesterday. And, one would think that a day long cruise on Lake Powell would be a highlight rather than a challenge. Too much reading, perhaps.

We were up incredibly early. Breakfast at a great little diner, the Glen Canyon Steak House, across the street from the hotel before 6:00 and on the bus by 7:00 in order to be at Wahweap Marina before 7:30 to board our boat. Getting there from Page required crossing the Glen Canyon Bridge and a good view of the Glen Canyon Dam, a long-time controversial project. (Go to the link for a really great photograph.)

The marina is beautiful and so is Lake Powell. For most of the morning I listened to the on-board commentary through my headset, but could not bring myself to venture outside the cabin, not wanting to find the 186-mile-long reservoir alluring.

As I have written before, through this trip I have been reading "Desert Solitaire," by Edward Abbey -- an outspoken, abrasive misanthrope who loved and advocated passionately for the environment. Following is a paragraph from the essay in "Desert Solitude" about Abbey and a friend traveling the through Glen Canyon on the Colorado River before the dam was finished.

Once it was different there. I know, for I was one of the lucky few (there could have been thousands more) who saw Glen Canyon before it was drowned. In fact I saw only a part of it but enough to realize that here was an Eden, a portion of the earth's original paradise. To grasp the nature of the crime that was committed imagine the Taj Mahal or Chartres Cathedral buried in mud until only the spires remain visible. With this difference: those man-made celebrations of human aspiration could conceivably be reconstructed while Glen Canyon was a living thing, irreplaceable, which can never be recovered through any human agency.(152)

All I could think about as we moved up the lake was all history, the art over which we were moving.

We were headed to Rainbow Bridge National Monument, the largest natural bridge in the world -- 290-feet tall, spanning nearly 275 feet across, a spot long-sacred to the Navajo people, accessible only by water or a long, difficult hike. I realized that refusing to see Lake Powell, hiding from it, couldn't make it not exist, wouldn't lower the water. My heaviness of heart is something of a gift, requiring engagement, inviting introspection. I certainly didn't want to miss Rainbow Bridge, a treasure that because of its elevation survived the rising water.

On our trip back to Page we stopped at the dam for a turn through the desplays in the visitor center. It's quite an impressive structure, that dam (check the first link above). Five million cubic yards of concrete which took 24-hours a day, 7-days a week for three years to pour. Enough for a four-lane highway from Phoenix to Chicago. It was a subdued location today, law enforcement chief for the Glen Canyon Recreation Area and another National Park Service ranger having died in a small plane crash over the weekend.

Subdued. A good descriptor for the day.

Swirling color

Our first evening in Page was a treat -- an immersion into Navajo life and celebration. How beautiful and inspiring it was!

We arrived at the Navajo Village Heritage Center -- a small, unassuming complex behind a gas station at the intersection of Coppermine Road and Arizona Route 98 and within sight of the Navajo Generating Station -- just as the sun was setting, a golden time of day, the evening breezes refreshing, even cool.

We were treated to powerful personality (on the left), story (a people's past), dance (theirs and ours), food (Navajo Tacos, consisting of a plate size piece of fry bread, smothered with chili, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and salsa), tradition (demonstrations of rug making, silversmithing), music (Native American flute). The entire evening was about movement, sound, taste, an evening of impression rather than of thought. Once back at the hotel I drifted off to sleep, the evening's experience an internal, visual lullaby.

They danced for us, several lovely, lively stories in movement ...
... and we were encouraged to dance with them. Tal, on the left margin of this photograph (grey jacket, red hat), is the last of our group and the leader is all the way to the right, head of a long, undulating line/circle dance.

I was using my Panasonic camera without flash. While the photographs are grainy (digital noise), I like this cropped version of one of the first dancers performing a shawl dance. An abstract, graceful swirl of color.

Time's relentless march

Leaving Moab this morning we travelled south into the four corners region, the evening's destination being Page AZ. We had a wonderful mid-morning stop at Edge of the Cedars State Park in Blanding UT. It's a museum and archaeological site focused on pre-Colombian Puebloan culture. Like so many of the other places we have visited, Edge of the Cedars has a captivating introductory film, which we viewed in a room also housing a photography exhibit of Dave Manley's black and white images. And, like so many other places the exhibits were simply too much to take in -- words and images, artifacts and history.

For relief from that overload I retreated to the outdoors, admiring the landscape of distant mountains, the 1000 year-old ruins, the gardens and sculpture. Pictured here is a time piece, "The Sun Marker," by sculptor Joe Pachak. It is an illustration of archaeoastronomy, the study of prehistoric cultural connections with the sun, moon and stars. The images do, indeed, march across the open spaces of the sculpture, depending on the time and the time of year. (I particularly like the addition of the contrail in the upper right corner.)

This is a very special place, deeply silent, drawing the visitor into contemplation, even located as it is in a residential neighborhood. I sort of envy them, the people living nearby. But, do they visit any better than I do the places of interest near where Tal and I live? Probably not. Sigh ...

Time marched on, though, and we had to re board the coach and hit the road. Our lunch at Goulding's Lodge awaited. But first, an entrance into Monument Valley! Huge and wide-open ... Although I've always at some level understood and embraced the concept of honoring the wilderness just because it is, now I know that I claim it.

Stopping on this stretch of road through the tribal park is, let's say, not encouraged. Geri pulled the coach off the road at this spot -- where Forrest Gump decided to go home -- and I leapt off, to take a shot for the group. Tal, ever helpful, declared the he finally knew why he'd lugged the Canon all the way across the country!

Lunch was great, both the food and the welcome from the staff. Goulding's was interesting to the max, the museum detailing the (many) films made in Monument Valley; the contributions of the native people to the United States -- the WWII "code talkers," for example; the rich history of the valley, geological as well as human. And, the view ... well, this image was made from the dining room.

We arrived in Page in the late afternoon, at the Best Western Lake Powell. Sumptuous, luxurious and inviting ... meaning for Tal and me: nap. So nice.

The days are passing too fast. I am trying with all my mental might to pay attention, not to miss anything. But, oh, how swiftly our time is making its way into the past. Our return to St George will be too soon to suit me. Sigh.