Exploring Red Canyon, Warm Springs

We could hear the loud pulsing noise even before we rounded the corner, a noise that didn’t belong in Red Canyon. The sound startled us, and as we kept walking up the wash, it grew louder with every step.
Earlier that morning, Ted had parked the 4 Runner in Red Canyon and unloaded our little ATV. I drove it up the well-maintained dirt road until it morphed into an old drill track. I stopped and turned the wheel over to Ted. I’m still not sure how he followed the trail because it disappeared completely in the washes, but we rocked and rolled down into those washes and bucked up on the other side and then across cobbled ground, rabbitbrush, yucca, and cacti until he found the road again.
I held onto our little schnauzer with one hand and grasped the safety handle with the other while trying to view the wonders of Red Canyon. The spectacular canyon contains mile after mile of mesas, variegate clay hills, huge blocks of red rocks, and strange formations that look like aliens, swans, or giant stone people, depending on your imagination.
After twenty miles of rocking, rolling, and bucking, Ted finally parked the ATV in a boggy wash. We scrambled up a deeply riven embankment through tamarisk, tumbleweeds, and cheatgrass. Above the wash, we found shade in a shallow cave, ate our lunch, and trekked a little farther until we could see Castle Butte’s turrets rising from Lake Powell.
Then, we tromped back to the embankment, shouldered our way through the weed arsenal, and headed upwash toward the whomping noise where water gushed out between two ledges. Warm Springs wasn’t seeping, bubbling, or gurgling. It was pumping to the surface with a power that belied the fact we were deep in canyon country. Willows, canes, sedges, and cattails lined the banks of Warm Creek which flowed from the spring toward Lake Powell, and vivid green moss floated on its surface.
Ted jumped to the other side of the spring to take pictures, so I followed. After the photo shoot, he carefully lowered himself onto his rear and stepped down into the water. I was nonplus. My hubby hardly ever resorted to backside sliding although I did all the time. This was just one step down, easy even for me, so I stepped down into the water—and down—lost my footing and tipped over to the left.
After a long pause, Ted came to pull me out, saying, “Didn’t you know it was deep?”
“It’s not super warm,” I said, now an expert on the water’s temperature, “but it’s not cold either. It’s . . . refreshing.” I kept the refreshing aspect in mind as I slogged back to the ATV, part mud, part water creature, glad I hadn’t fallen face down.
The next week we traveled to St. George. My brother and his wife were there, visiting Liz, their daughter with brain cancer, and other family members. The week before, in her wheelchair, Liz had been at the St. George marathon, cheering on the many loved ones who had made the run for her. Later that week, she and her husband, my brother and his wife, her son and his girlfriend toured the St. George Temple during its open house.
By the time we arrived a few days later, however, she lay in her home hospital bed in intense pain, often incoherent from the medication.
“I think her body gave up after the marathon and temple,” my brother said.
As I bent to kiss my Iron Woman niece, I asked, “Where does it hurt?”
She rubbed her forehead, “but more here,” she mumbled, pointing to the back of her head.
Her condition worsened while we were there, and not long after we returned home, her husband called to tell us he didn’t expect her to live much longer.
With nothing we could do but wait and pray, Ted, Kenidee, and I returned to Warm Springs last weekend, this time with our water shoes. As we walked upcanyon from the spring, the red cliffs framed a cobalt sky with a half moon. We crossed and recrossed Warm Creek which, in the 80-degree canyon weather, felt deliciously refreshing. Kenidee splashed through the crystal-clear water with abandon, sometimes running so fast all four feet left the ground.
Because of the improbable spring in the desert, Isaiah’s words in the Old Testament echoed in my mind. Later, I looked up their exact phrasing: “and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and . . . they shall see the glory of the Lord . . .. for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. . .” (Isaiah 35: 1, 2, 6, 7).
As we walked, I couldn’t stop thinking about Liz and the last time we’d seen her—weak, incoherent, in pain—and wished she could walk beside me in the glory of that canyon. But because of her courage and pure intent to serve God and others, I had absolutely no doubt that when she finally transitions to that land of living water, she will behold God’s unspeakable glory and rest, pain free, in his ever-loving arms.