Feets

For the past week I had been hiking some of the toughest trails in three of Utah's national parks. I had walked along Zion Park’s Virgin River, tramped to the canyon floor at Bryce National Park, and now I was hiking Arches’ tough paths. And, frankly, I was beat. So I whimsically told the girl: "I'll be a sight better when the helicopter finally gets here."

"You do need help," the girl said.

Her concern touched me, so I told her: "No, I'm fine. Really." Perhaps I wasn't fully fine -- I am a middle-aged, deskbound writer with twisted ankles, aching legs, even sore arms -- but I was optimistic enough to get the girl to take her leave.

Besides, I intended to finish this blasted trail -- this aptly named Devils Garden -- even if it killed me. And I am comforted by a thought given to me the day before by a park ranger. We were hiking the "Windows" trail, Arches' most famous, and I found it a beautiful, relaxing walk. When I commented on how easy the trail seemed, the ranger said: "This is March. Come back in July. No trail is easy at 110F."

Chew on that. Most tourists flock to Utah's national parks in June through September when daytime temperatures soar over 100F. Hikers are admonished to carry a gallon of water and if they don't they parch as dry as desert sand.

It is a totally different world in the parks in the other three seasons. Daytime temperatures rarely cross 70F. Rattlesnakes, most of them, will still be asleep. Trails are empty and, the ranger told me, "every hike is half as hard" as it will become in the scorching summer sun.

Nothing could be twice as hard! That is what I was thinking as I hoisted myself off the slickrock and laboriously resumed my hiking -- "stumbling" would be more accurate -- towards Double O Arch. When finally I got there, I knew why I persisted. The sense of triumph, of putting yet another of Arches' main sights literally within touch, is delicious.

Just what are these arches that pull one forward along these trails? It seems a simple question; answers, alas, are complex. Nobody even knows how many arches are in Arches National Park because nature is continually making new ones. Sixty years ago the park's superintendent reported he had seen 47 arches. A few years later his successor upped the total to 81. In '84 a Brigham Young University geographer undertook a meticulous count and he soon reported a total of 450.

What's the right number? On the trail, it scarcely matters. What does matter is that, inch by inch, we are immersed into a mind-boggling natural wonder where wind and rain and snow have combined to erode holes in soft Entrada Sandstone, a rock that's held together by unevenly distributed calcium deposits that act as a geological glue. The uneven distribution is crucial. Where the calcium isn't, holes emerge -- and the results are, for instance, the stunning Double Arch, with its dual openings. The larger hole is 163 feet; the smaller is 60 feet. Hike there -- and this is an easy 0.4 mile trail -- and you are enveloped by the shadows of the giant arch. "It's like a cathedral," an awed woman hiker gasped as she stepped inside the arches.

I felt the same awe. A few feet removed from Double Arch, the desert sun shines brightly and the harsh wind blows. Inside the arch, all is silent and darkly cool. To experience that, though, you've got to get out on the trails. Arches, like Utah's other national parks, is equipped with numerous "viewpoints," where motorists are encouraged to park and enjoy a few minutes looking at a distant arch. But that is an ultimately unsatisfactory experience. The arches remain too many yards removed. Bring binoculars and you can close that gap but you still cannot touch an arch and literally feel portions crumble under the gentle probing of fingers. Do that and you know why you are here.

"On foot, on horseback or on a bicycle [you] will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles," wrote onetime Arches ranger and author Edward Abbey in his book DESERT SOLITAIRE. "Those who are familiar with both modes of travel know from experience that this is true; the rest have only to make the experiment to discover the same truth for themselves."

The Virgin

Oh, yes, I had originally fought Abbey's admonition. When I drove into Zion National Park nine days earlier, I arrived with every intention of pulling into the viewpoints, scanning the rocks, and moving on. Then I noticed the joy -- an exhausted bliss -- on the faces of those who were hiking the park's multicolored cliffs. Just what were they experiencing that I wasn't? Soon enough I found out.

But first, keep in mind, that Zion may be only a few hundred miles from Arches' hostile desert but this is an utterly different world. Zion, in southwestern Utah, is a lush canyon, carved out of durable Navajo Sandstone, through which the Virgin River courses. This is a tougher rock than Arches' Entrada Sandstone -- indeed there are few arches in Zion, but there are uncountable massive rock sculptures (The Court of the Patriarchs, The Great White Throne, The Watchman), where nature has done the artistry. There also is a plenitude of life in Zion -- deer, beaver, and wild flowers abound -- and indeed when Mormon pioneer Isaac Benuhin set foot in the canyon in the early 1860s he was moved to name it Zion after the Biblical reference (Isa. 2:2-3) that mentions a place called Zion "in the top of the mountains" where "the Lord's house shall be established."

Celestial or no, Zion indeed is a thoroughly captivating place that ranks as the most civilized -- certainly the least wild -- of Utah's national parks. Hiking trails are numerous in Zion but virtually all are designed to be pleasant [read: safe] walks in the park. Prove this to yourself by walking Zion's most popular trail, the Gateways to the Narrows (which incidentally is even wheelchair-accessible). The path is concrete but it is a rewarding one-mile stroll along the Virgin River which runs quietly, strongly by, reminding us that it is the prime architect in Zion National Park. Along the way, there are surprises, too -- a spring that forever maintains a 70F temperature; the canyon tree frog and its goatlike call; and Zion snails, a tiny (1/8th of an inch in diameter) snail that alone is found in Zion Canyon.

More water marks Weeping Rock, the end point of an easy two-tenths of a mile trail. It is an amazing sight: This is arid Utah but ferns are everywhere under Weeping Rock, so-named because it continually "weeps" water through its porous grains. Standing here, I understood why I had taken to hiking these trails. Primitive, tactile sensations -- the feeling of water dripping on my neck -- can occasionally be the most profound of all.

But I don't leave Zion without violating Abbey's advice because in this park there is a drive unlike any other in the nation -- the Zion-Mt. Carmel Highway. When proposed in the 1920s, the idea was simple: Open the park to the east, providing both an exit and a fast way to loop over to Bryce Canyon National Park. The problem: Mile after mile of sheer canyon walls blocked every eastward route. The solution: atomize mountains until a roadway emerges. Consider this statistic: 146 tons of dynamite were used in literally blasting a road where before there was impenetrable rock. At the road's start, 3.6 miles of switchbacks pile one upon another to cover what amounts to less than a quarter-mile. Soon there is a tunnel, a bit over one mile in length, that is unlighted except by "windows" cut through the rock that allow motorists a glimpse at the canyon below. No drive offers better testimony to man's engineering talents: Nature, sometimes, can be tamed and this highway vividly proves it.

Let Me Be Your Hoodoo Man

But, sometimes, nature cannot be tamed and the badlands of Bryce Canyon National Park in southcentral Utah colorfully prove that. When Mormon pioneer Ebenezer Bryce, arrived in the 1870s he initially thought he could civilize this high country -- the park starts at 7600' and climbs to over 9000' -- but in 1880 he gave up in despair and moved to Arizona, leaving behind only his name and the catchphrase which still today conveys the defiant essence of the place: "This is a hell of a place to lose a cow."

The Paiute Indian name for the canyon is a better one, though -- "Unka-timpe-wa-wince-pock-ich," meaning "red rocks standing like men in a bowl-shaped recess." That's because Bryce Canyon is populated by hundreds of pinkish red rocks called "hoodoos" that have been weathered into eerily anthropomorphic shapes -- Alley Oop, the Silent City, Wall Street. Gaze out at these fantastic shapes and the effect is a psychedelic swirl of colors that change hues constantly in keeping with the movement of the sun. Look at the Silent City now and it is white... minutes later it is pink...now it is red.

The Paiute blamed it all on Coyote, a demi-god. It seems the inhabitants of Bryce Canyon were a bad people so Coyote turned them all into stones that would forever have to live in these bad lands. At least that is the Paiute myth. Geologists tell us the hoodoos are the result of soft sedimentary rocks ravaged by winds and Bryce Canyon's wild temperature swings (in this high altitude the thermometer can move from near 100F to below freezing in the space of a few hours).

Take your choice of the "why" of the hoodoos but know that the one fact that is beyond dispute is that these lands are indeed bad -- les mavaises terres a traverser, "the bad lands to cross," according to the 18th century French fur trappers who coined the term. What makes a land bad? Take a box canyon, one lined by sheer walls, then let the wind blow away all the soil. Now remove the water so that, absent an immediate rain or snow shower, there is not a drop to drink. That is the formula for a bad lands but Bryce Canon aggravates matters with its thousands of hoodoos that block lines of sight in any direction. Hike to the canyon bottom and if the Queen's Garden Trail, a one mile series of switchbacks, weren't well-marked there would be no finding a way out. With hoodoos in place, this canyon is transformed into a multi-hued maze.

The miracle is that, despite all this, Bryce Canyon teems with life. It's just about the last home for the Utah prairie dog, an endangered species that nonetheless are plentiful here. Chipmunks are everywhere, as are raven (clever birds who have learned it is easier to perform antics for humans with food than it is to scavenge in bad lands). Look closely and you may even see elk and mountain lion. Soil is scarce in Bryce Canyon but, paradoxically, it is thickly forested, with giant Ponderosa pine, silver-barked aspen, and white fir.

The other miracle is that Bryce Canyon remains the least visited of Utah's major national parks. On a late March trip, more German voices were heard than American, but there were few voices of any kind. But for those who were there it was splendid -- fresh snow draped the hoodoos but plentiful sun raised the daytime temperature well into the 50s. Rangers hurried to clear away enough ice to open a few hiking trails and snow plows made sure the main road through the park was clear.

I decided to hike down the Navajo Loop Trail to the canyon bottom. It was not easy going -- the trail's mud had transformed into semi-frozen glop that afforded unsure footing -- but I kept going because the trail put me right by Thor's Hammer, Bryce's most famous hoodoo. The hammer head is held in place by the thinnest rock -- how many more years will it be here? From the canyon rim, the hoodoos seem enormous but close up they seem delicate, so easily crumbled.

On the canyon floor streams have spontaneously formed to carry away the melting snow. An unseen woodpecker methodically tapped on a tree limb in search of bugs. Nature is busy but there also is a deep stillness. It is welcoming on the canyon floor and I wanted to linger but I recalled the earlier warning of a ranger. Another storm might be coming, he said, and if it's a blizzard and it hits hard and fast there will be no help for anybody trapped on the canyon bottom.

So I lifted myself up and began the long trudge back up the trail. At 8000' no climb is easy but that wasn't why I did not want to leave. The fact is, there is a Utah national park for everybody. The desert rats have Arches. The river lovers get Zion. And for those of us who belong in bad lands, the very best place of all is Bryce Canyon.

This article originally appeared, in slightly different form, in WESTWAYS Magazine

More information: contact rmcgarvey3@yahoo.com