Utah Adventure Journal

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  The ground gives way abruptly at my feet, sloughing off as a massive sandslide; the only overland trail into the Bobway. I know below me are red slickrock narrows like worm holes carved from the Escalante River corridor. Graceful, serpentine hallways of red rock, continuous and smooth from the top of one 200 foot […]

“Where’s your husband?” the ranger asked. My husband? I looked at him blankly. “The rest of your party?” he continued, scanning the canyon. “I’m it.” I grinned as though this was no big deal, a matter of course.  I grinned as though the assumption that I should have a husband didn’t bother me.  The BLM […]

  I used to believe that stoicism was the higher virtue, that when heading to the desert, I needed to prove I could survive with basically nothing. Wanting to be comfortable made me weak, a liability; a girl.  After years of camping and backpacking, I know I can “go light,” I know I can make […]

In general, I’d rather be naked.  Preferably outside.   This passion of mine doesn’t get much exercise in Winter, though; desert pot holes are frozen over or empty, rivers build ice bridges that crack and are carried downstream, and  layers and layers of capilene, fleece and wool keep my poor skin warm but suffocating.  Which is […]

Despite the fact that the calendar has just flipped over to September, here it’s still very much Summer.  We’re in the desert. It’s Labor day weekend.  It’s evening, around 5:30 or so, and it’s still at least 80 degrees.  We have just dropped off the west side of Highway 12’s hogback; a narrow, windy, slip […]

Mill Creek and Indian Creek Everyone knows, or at least they should, that the Millcreek swim hole in Moab rocks. Only a mile from the trailhead off Powerhouse Lane., surrounded by slickrock and deep enough to jump into from ledges eight to ten feet above the pool, this easy refuge sees a lot of traffic.  […]

On the way… Salt lake to Green River Right now I’m sitting at Ray’s, but I am headed for water. And as far as I’m concerned, I’m headed for the best kind of water—so silty you can’t see your hands or feet once they’re submerged—water churning thick with flash flood runoff, running cold with snow […]

Every one of the 60 plus people surrounding me is either headed to or coming from Lake Powell; you can tell which by the shade of their sunburn.  You can also tell that I’m the odd one out by simply looking at the parking lot:  a heat haze of large to superhuge trucks pulling trailers […]