2010 May

Near Dammeron Valley, UT

Being active seems to make my cold recede into the background, so I go with Ann for another outing today. We ride the bikes ten miles into Snow Canyon State Park, lock them at the Three Ponds trailhead, and start up the trail.

It’s less than two miles to the “ponds”, but the hiking is in loose sand, and it’s hot. We stop in the shade of a live oak for a while on the way and “meditate”, looking up into the deep blue sky where an occasional hawk or turkey vulture drifts by.

Continuing, we encounter a mossy puddle that I guess may be one of the ponds. We turn and continue up what must be a side canyon, but see no more. On our return Ann notices the other two carved into the shadowy carved notches above the first. We climb around on the sandstone to look at them – one has a little rock dam at the base. The water in all of them is thick and green, but significant nonetheless in this desert.

Home again, it feels like we’ve had a huge outing.

(No map of this one, forgot the tracker).

Near St George, UT

I have a cold and my nose is running like a faucet, but our friend Justin wants to climb again, and somehow a few routes at Chuckawalla still sound good. Justin leads his first climb after a practice run on toprope and we move our rope left to toprope the next three. Ann and I are relieved when Justin finally falls on the last route – we were starting to wonder if he might just be too good for us out of the gate. Some guys with curly hair, reflective shades, jeans, and no shirts lend a 70′s vibe to the scene. My nose feels better while we’re climbing, then starts running again as soon as we head back to the truck.

Near St George, UT

The forecasts have been calling for colder weather, but the morning is so clear and warm we don’t believe it. Canceling plans to return to the sunny Zen Wall, we drive instead to the north facing Soul Asylum. This is a remote limestone crag, higher than town, and cool and breezy when we arrive. There are two other parties at the crag, one has come from Salt Lake City where they say it was snowing this morning. We’re relatively warm in the sun, but when it disappears the cool wind drives us off. The wall next to the parking is more sheltered and sunnier, but there is only one route there easy enough for me to try. It’s steep and seems to have only sideways holds. I’m shaky and fall a lot, but make the anchors. We toprope the route and look for some hiking to do. No one we’ve talked to has been to the biggest wall in the area, The Diamond, probably due to a rough approach. We hike up without climbing gear, and find the view and the towering wall are worth the trouble. It hasn’t been the best climbing day, but looking out over the earth and walking among the wildflowers restores me regardless.

Routes: Righteous Indignation 5.7, Joy! Joy! 5.9, Santa Clara Warm-up 5.10b

4 shared photos

Much like his autobiographical books, Chronicles, this movie flirts with the personal life of Bob Dylan as a way of drawing our attention elsewhere. The real focus is on the swirling mythic interaction of his music and its audience, and that subject really is pretty fascinating. Dylan is played by multiple actors who all do a great job, and left me feeling more appreciative of and curious about the music.

This project began with a sad irony – a Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation website dedicated to curing paralysis had become paralyzed itself. My browser froze for four minutes the first time I tried to load it. Fortunately there are cures for this type of paralysis. Marker clustering was the primary treatment, backed up by some performance enhancements for database queries. The site is much more responsive now, and quite moving to see the thousands of individuals affected by paralysis who have participated on the site spread out on a map, each with a story and many with pictures. If only their afflictions could be cured with some reprogramming… www.campaigntocureparalysis.org

Near St George, UT

Justin, who we meet at the natural grocer here in Saint George, expressed interest in learning to climb. It’s hot this afternoon, so we take him to the Green Valley gap where we hope to find a little shade. This works pretty well, and we enjoy the short, featured sandstone routes into the evening. Justin climbs everything we throw at him without much apparent struggle – it’s probably too early to give him rope gun duty, so we might have to find some harder topropes next time.

Routes: Unknown ~5.7 across from Perky’s Playground, fail on the hard route that shares the anchor, The Wave 5.10b, Puppet Strings 5.10a, Shotgun Baptism 5.10+ TR

Near St George, UT

It’s another long run for me today. Ann drops me off at the Chuckawalla trailhead where I start running barefoot. My feet feel like they’re hungry for trail, and I quickly get into a flow that feels like I could maintain forever. But of course I can’t. After three or four miles I descend into Snow Canyon on gravelly trail, heading toward the sharp rocks of a lava flow, and stop to protect the feet. After that the flow slowly drains away, but that belief that I can keep going holds strong. When I exit the trail system I’m already stumbling a little here and there, but I figure I can make it home on city streets, which I do, though it feels like my limit for now. If I know what my limit feels like – maybe one should stick to object evidence like falling down, throwing up, etc. There’s so much to look forward to!

• GPX Viewer Track Map and Graphs (scout-cave-20100518)

The subject of love and war in a Civil War setting are not my usual interests, and so it took some effort to get into the story. The effort was rewarded with a telling full of finely crafted details. A reverence for the natural world permeates the writing and resonates with me, even though the Appalachian setting is mostly unfamiliar. The form of the story provides the framework for all this detail, and this never wanders too far from the familiar.

Near Dammeron Valley, UT

I read about a monthly vegan potluck in the area and decide to go. In the morning we hit the farmer’s market where I buy a load of local collard greens and onions. I take those home and prep them. We’d like to sneak a hike in before the event, so we find the well-disguised trailhead for Hellhole Canyon. It’s in a nice neighborhood now, which supplies a gutter to park in and a new name: Kayenta Canyon.

It’s soon clear we won’t get as far as we hoped. The going is wiggly, sandy, and rocky stumbling up a wash toward the canyon. We still make it to some amazing big red walls. It’s hot enough that when I suggest that Ann does her headstand in some shallow water, she goes for it.

We’re ready for some vegan food when we return. Upon arriving at the park we’re greeted quietly by Jeanette, who was selling homemade sun hats at the market this morning. I need to sauté my collards still, which separates me from the group. Once the food is ready we’re all a little awkward and the conversation sputters, but there is a genuine kinship to be felt in the diet alone. This is not vegan territory, and these folks find the fortitude necessary to survive here in their own ways, some with righteousness, some in quiet solitude, and others uncertain how long they can keep it up.

• GPX Viewer Track Map and Graphs (hellhole-canyon-20100515)

Near St George, UT

We take a very Zen approach to climbing today, hauling our gear a few miles up a mesa to climb nothing at all. Every plant seems to have produced different colored blossoms to compete for our attention. The boulders hulk right next to the trail as if ready to give us a good-natured nudge as we go by. Clifftop views display mile upon mile of tread through the red and gray badlands below. I keep stopping to examine and photograph things. When we approach the edge of the wall, we first find a perilous-looking knotted rope descent, then wander further to a short ladder made of rebar drilled into the stone. Too late to climb? Oh well, chop wood, carry water. The hike back is just as nice, if a little bit longer.

11 public photos

• GPX Viewer Track Map and Graphs (zen-wall-20100514)