The Edge of nowhere
by Alexander Martin
The deserts of southern Utah are the result of nature’s anarchy loosed upon the world. Time, wind and water have machinated over centuries to create some of the most spectacular terrain in the lower 48. On the drive alone one does not doubt that this area deserves the protection it has from dozens of national and state parks, the most popular of which are visited by millions of people each year. Driving down Highway 12 through the Dixie National Forest, the traffic starts piling up for one of those giants: Bryce Canyon National Park. As the road leaves the Sevier River valley and winds through the aptly named Red Canyon, cars packed with tourists begin to pull over and the passengers spill out to awe over the magnificent hoodoos, spires and cliffs, which are nothing more than a tease to the beauty of Bryce Canyon’s bowels. It is tempting to follow the herds into Bryce. I have no doubt that it is a wonder and I hope to see it one day. But my uncle Dutch and I have other plans. We continue through the yawning towns of Tropic and Cannonville, make a pit stop in Henriville and at last arrive at Escalante, Utah: the town on the edge of nowhere.
Every landscape for me has its own music: in the Sierra of California it’s the Allman Brothers Band, the basin and range country of Nevada has “Ride of the Valkyries,” the Sonoran Desert is a doleful Flamenco singer. There is often silence among the canyons and plateaus of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument; prolonged moments when the quiet is as profound as the plunging gorges weaving their way through the slickrock. The wind comes like a high-voltage shock that runs through your veins and electrifies the sand below you. It ripples through the cottonwood leaves and branches and echoes off the cliffs and natural amphitheaters, building to a wild crescendo like a stringed symphony by Beethoven. That is this land’s music.
I poured over maps of the area for weeks before our trip, the names of different hikes and locales were at once both tempting and somewhat frightening: Death Hollow, The Box, Carcass Canyon. No matter how well you memorize the intricacies of the contour lines, nothing can prepare you for the immensity of this place. One quickly realizes that there are hardly enough vacation days in a lifetime to explore the vast panorama of canyons and valleys before you and with the few days we had there we would have to make due. From one viewpoint, we could see the Henry Mountains and further south the sacred Navajo Mountain. Between us and those great ranges was land colored deep crimson and purple by the setting sun behind us, with too many canyons and creases to count or name.
Because of our fairly limited time, we chose to spend our days in the relatively tame Escalante Canyon. At our first river crossing we futilely looked for a spot to where we could hop across and stay dry. We found a shallow spot where the river stones are peeking out to form what seemed to be a perfectly arranged crossing onto a sand bar. We managed to get across, but as Dutch scrambled up the cutbank he fell back and later discovered the fall cracked the screen on his cell phone. Technology is not welcome in this land and it does not matter much because even in town there is hardly a cell signal. The pleasant owner of our motel told us sometimes there’s a clear signal near the high school on the edge of town. Globalization’s tentacles have scarcely probed this place and hopefully it remains forgotten for many years.
It was not long before we were forced to ford the river again. This time there is no obvious way across and we reluctantly ditch our boots, don our river sandals and pass through the cool stream. We do not put on our boots for the rest of the trip for there are too many river crossings to count. My advice is to leave the boots at home or bring them just in case, but use your river sandals as your go-to footwear. The water is refreshing on our feet, a perfect foil to the sun’s heat. It is clear, calm and only up to our knees save for a few deeper pools. But no matter how docile it appears at any given moment, storms from miles away can always swell the river to dangerous levels. People have been stranded in the canyon for days before being able to safely get out.
Each bend opens up an immense world of wonder: slot canyons, natural bridges, arches, relics of a lost culture. It is not long before we are deep within the canyon, or another urban obscenity. Dutch is a counselor and as we stop he remarks that he wants to tell all his patients to go hiking in the desert. A prescription he believes would allow at least some of their ailments, depression, anxiety, fear –– to vanish the way his words drift into silence. The notion is reasonable. Walk out to the edge of a sandstone bluff, look around and wonder how your problems can matter if a soft flowing stream or occasional cloudburst can sculpt such beauty. Close your eyes, wait ten seconds, open them and drink in the brave new world before you.
This may be good country for old men. Even restless young ones like myself can find peace here. It feels inappropriate to retire just days after your 31st birthday, but this is a place where that temptation could get the better of me. It must be the same feeling New Yorkers get when they first feel the tropical sun of South Beach bronzing their jaded hides. I cannot stay for too long in these canyon, these monuments of magnificence, because I will become one of those fortunate souls who are consumed by the earth, sung as a hero lost to the world, vanished into the wild. Of course, that would probably mean imminent death, which is not a favorable outcome for me or my family. Plus, my mom would be immensely upset with her brother for letting the desert get the best of me, so a return to society is necessary.
In most towns of Escalante’s size, the best you can hope for is an ossified hotdog under a heat lamp at a gas station, not exactly the type of restorative needed after a day spent trudging through sand, water and desert, and getting eaten alive by sand flies. But Escalante manages to punch above its weight with the Circle D Eatery on Highway 12, the main drag of Escalante. In the days we spent in Escalante, we ate every meal there, as much because of the quality of the fare as from the paucity of restaurants. The house smoked meats would attract foodies, hipster doofuses and food snobs in any major city like scorpions to a glue trap. Yet, with our first meal there, we eschewed the locally raised beef and chicken and both ordered the Wagyu Kobe burgers the Circle D proudly boasts atop the menu. It was delicious, no doubt, how could Wagyu be bad? But neither of us were fully satisfied with the experience. Whether it was the glitz of the lionized Japanese beef or the desert heat skewing our judgment, I do not know, but it felt counterfeit and we each left with a pang of guilt.
We made up for it the rest of the trip. Days of hard hiking gave way to robust meals at the Circle D: smoked beef brisket, bone-in chicken breast, slabs of pork ribs, french fries with mayonnaise. Pure Americana on a plate. I don’t know what to tell you if you can’t appreciate a hefty portion of fatty breast meat, green beans and fries after exhausting yourself in the sun and sand.
Each night we retire to our rooms early and with our bellies fully. Our legs and backs that are used to the idleness of a city are aching from overuse. I go to read from a collection of poetry by Tennyson, but cannot muster more than a page and a half of “Enoch Arden” each evening before I am wooed away by sleep. On our last night before leaving for Arizona, I awake shortly after midnight. The wind has given way to a silence that is beguiling. I step out of my room and walk to the main thoroughfare. There are hardly any lights on, the entire town seems to have turned in for the night. It is so unlike life as I know it in the city, where there are hardly any spaces where darkness, quiet or solitude reign. It pains me knowing I must withdraw from this quaint town and the seemingly interminable wilderness that surrounds it, to return to my cloistered life in an office where I cannot see far. I look up at the stars and see the hazy glow of the Milky Way for the first time in my 31 years. It seems too long to have waited. What is our place in this cluster of incandescence? What small thing could I possibly contribute to this infinite existence? Is there use in asking such trivialities? She does not give me an answer. I am greeted with only silence, vast darkness, and a few flecks of light.
Alexander Martin is a writer hailing from the Phoenix suburbs. When he's not putzing around the desert, he's spending time with his beloved corgi, Lola.