Alone with my thoughts...SE Utah Solo in December

[Moody]

After the expectations of Christmas had come to a close, I decided to take a solo trip to SE Utah to 'reboot' my mind. It would be an understatement say I had the place to myself....

I made a quick stopover in Moab as I had to get out and do a little hike. I found the obscure dirt road and became acquainted with silence all over again.

I made it to my preferred spot off of Comb Ridge, and made camp for the night. My truck's temperature display showed 17 degrees as I pulled into camp. I had packed a bunch of wood, and found some more to enjoy the night for a few hours. I slept in the back of the truck, and woke to a crust of snow on my sleeping bag. I quickly packed it up, and after a nice hot cup of coffee I was on my way to see about some ruins that the author Craig Childs had told me about. I found the dirt road, and figured I had just better start hiking.

After leaving the road, I found these tracks...I figured they know the area better than I do, so I followed them...

 

[HARDTRAILZ]

Subcribed

 

[Moody]

Following the tracks out the rim of the canyon, I spotted some ruins across the way and a tower at the head of the canyon:

Climbing down the the ruins (and finding more than a plethora along the way) I came across some various petroglyph panels, as well as some markers from past excavations:

 

[Moody]

As the area had been excavated, it was nearly completely devoid of all artifacts. I did, however find some corn cobs in one set of ruins:

Scrambling around, crunching snow as I went, I found a lone piece of corrugated being guarded by lichens:

 

[Moody]

I sat alone amongst the ruins for quite some time...somehow, Nikon, Goretex, Outdoor Research, and Nature's Valley granola bars seem so out of place. I was a visitor here. Much like when you go into a neighbor's house when they are not home, the silence told me to walk softly, reverence was expected here...

 

[Moody]

On the Colorado Plateau, with its considerable share of wildlands, a natural world more or less intact, the most exotic terrain may be the plateau's own history. During my recent journeys this history felt foreign and unnervingly off-the-Map, even as I lived in its heart. Gaze out from the mesa, and you will meet my duplicitous lover. You will see eternity, a desert that like no other place exudes the timelessness of nature as the final arbiter. Scrape off our century, and you will find its usurper, pressed into a nugget of inorganic matter, the single greatest threat to the continuity of life. The history inscribed itself on the Map's most alarming folios; ignoring it was no way to earn Home.

—Ellen Meloy, The Last Cheater's Waltz


I spent the next couple of days reading. I moved very little...a noise in the distance caught my attention. I turned to it. A small jackrabbit paused and we shared a few moments of interest with one another. He turned back to his path, and mine back to my book, The Last Cheater's Waltz. It was scripture out here. I devoured it with religious fervor. I read, I slept, I drank coffee, and ate some food. Finished that book, and I found myself packing up. Packing consisted of throwing my chair and a coffee cup in the truck. Nothing in mind I drove east. I followed signage to Hovenweep National Monument. Like a stranger entering a quiet town, people peeked out through their curtains to see this strange bald man pull into the campground.

 

[Moody]

I was treated to a magnificent canopy of stars...I began to set up to take some photos, but I found myself listening to the sound of drumming in the distance. It was coming from everywhere and no where all at once. I couldn't place it. Wherever it was coming from, it was fitting...the rhythmic heartbeat of the earth perhaps?

I enjoyed a nice warm fire and read some information about the Hovenweep area, and planned my day out.

At the visitor center, I was told by the ranger it was 13 degrees the previous night. She commented that they don't see many people this late into the season, and they gladly accepted my parks pass and my twenty spot for a book on the Wetherills ( an early local SE Utah family). I overheard the ranger and the cashier commenting about the drumming. "Cars driving over the cattle guards" the ranger said. I chimed in with, "Naah, too long in duration and too rhythmic." The cashier seemed to nod in agreement. We continued discussing it all for awhile, each with our own theory. I told them I was off to the Holly Group (outside of the main park). The ranger mentioned I should keep an eye out for offerings that local Native Americans had perhaps left behind with the recent winter solstice...

 

[roverrocks]

Very nice pictures.

 

[VDBAZFJ]

I wanna go! It looks beautiful and I bet it was a great piece of solitude! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Moody]

I had better finish this up:

“There are people who have no engaged conversation with the land whatsoever, no sense of its beauty or extremes or limits and therefore no reason to question their actions in a place that is merely backdrop.”

-Ellen Meloy

I spent most of the day out at the Holly Group, a short (but long enough) distance by blacktop and dirt away from the main Hovenweep visitor center. A brief wind would sometimes break me free from my trance, and upon picking up a small stone from the ground where I was sitting, I thought about my place in this corner of SE Utah. I found myself wondering in amazement the magnitude of the landscape around me-a formidable chunk of earth that was delicately maintained and cultivated by a people with a handiwork nothing short of omnipotent.

As the sun was beginning to make it's way, turning down the clouds to ready itself for slumber, I began working my way back to the truck. I took a long, deep breath and exhaled. "Goodbye," I said before beginning the drive back home...

"Thank You Land, Thank You Mother Earth, Yes, I Know of Your Worth" -R.J.M. 1976-1997

 

[1leglance]

very cool trip report and I like the way you wrote it up...great pics also.

Funny that when I do solo trips I usually don't bother with pics or reports...might have to change that

thanks for posting

 

[mtnbike28]

Great post, thanks for sharing.

 

[suntinez]

Your pics are breathtaking and your prose just sings the silence, I could feel it. Thank you.

(oh and I haven't been paying attention lately, nice Tundra!)

 

[Rot Box]

I love solo trips I have to take them often or I go crazy! LOL. Great report thanks! :sunflower

 

[matthewp]

Very beautiful! Thank you.