Day 17

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States: Utah
Miles driven: 68
Miles hiked: 4.5
Slept: Didn’t sleep. Stayed up all night talking with a new friend.
10 words or less: Steep slickrock hikes. Lots of solitude today. Love the Canyonlands!

Run for the hills!

Up before dawn, I left all my gear at camp and drove the short drive to Mesa Arch for the popular sunrise glow under it’s rim. Quiet a crowd built up and there was a lot of jockeying for position. You can climb on top of it. Walk beside it. And just stand in front of it. One tourist decide to do all three, one after the other, non-stop, for 90 minutes while we waited for the sun to finally pop up over the low hanging smokey haze. It was like watching Wimbleton in the canyons. We all hated him. I know this because after 90 minutes of this, you just had to make eye contact with another person to see the exasperation they shared with me.

Finally the sun popped, there was a very faint glow, not as spectacular as everyone had hoped for though. After a few shots here, then there, I dared walk in front of the ping pongy tourist. He shouted “HEEAY!” The heads of 20 people turned in unison to him as I spun around to face him and reply “seriously dude?” He shut up until I walked away, then said something in German to his pals and they all had a good laugh. It’s ok though. I mentally cursed him with the runs for the rest of his trip.

After packing up camp I headed for Aztec Butte. Another solo hike – not another person in sight. Though it was only a 2 mile hike, 225 feet of it was straight up to the top of a butte. Slickrock isn’t exactly slick, but steep slickrock is a little unnerving. There’s nothing to hold on to! At the top there were grainery ruins – kinda cool – and a great view across the land. I shimmied my way down, keeping glued to the steep slopes as best I could. Just shy of the trailhead, a girl went trotting past me. I smiled and said hello, but she ignored me and kept on trotting down the trail. Whatevs, bitch.

Upheaval Dome, Island in the Sky district of Canyonlands National Park

I drove to the next trailhead, a giant parking lot at Upheaval Dome, found a tiny speck of shade and took a nap. An hour and a half later I started off on my hike to the second overlook viewpoint of the dome and canyon. Again, there was lots of elevation change, this time up and down, and up and up and up. There were quite a few people on this trail, but after the fork to the first overlook, the crowd thinned to just little old me. But wait! Who’s that? The grumpy, trail trotter from the last hike was gaining on me! She was jogging the trail. Jogging. What the hell? She blew past me as I strolled at my leisurely “I’m on fucking vacation I’ll go as slow as I damn please” pace. Following the cairns with my eyes, I could tell she’d taken a wrong turn though. A big wrong turn. She had to climb up and over a HUGE mound of rock, two stories high or more, then, I don’t know, tumble roll down the other side? Who knows, but she ended up behind me again and, again, raced past me. I could see that she’d reached the overlook point no more than 50 foot ahead of me. By the time I closed the 50′ gap, she was jogging back down the trail. What did she do? Just run all that way to look for 2 seconds at this glorious geological wonder then high-tail it out of there? Was she on some sort of mission to do every Canyonland trail? Or was she trying to race me? “Haha! You may have won the Aztec Butte challenge, but I kicked your ass here! Muwahahahaha” Again I say whatevs. Weirdo.

I had the view to myself for as long as I wanted. I headed back to Moab to catch a live band playing at Woody’s. I met some amazing people that night. Truly amazing. I hardly paid attention to the band, but I’ll never forget the conversations that lasted till dawn!