Notes from Westwater
The climber swung from a long crack bisecting the Wingate sandstone. He continued to swing high above the ground as his partner worked the ropes to keep him from falling. Even from a distance, Ted and I could hear him call, “I hurt my hand!”
We were hiking in the Indian Creek area northwest of...
“It’s your choice today,” Ted told me two weeks ago.
I stuck the last of the breakfast dishes in the dishwasher as I considered and finally suggested Robbers Roost. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to see Robbers Roost except legends abounded about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, part...
Ted, Kenidee, and I were booking along the North Cottonwood Road on Elk Ridge in our little side-by-side when we came to a huge puddle blocking the road. The water looked blackish after running off the charred ground. Ted stopped, got out, and gingerly stepped onto the ground bordering the water....
Ted and I hiked up a trail in an otherworldly, volcanic landscape. Certainly, some of the formations could have been the spine and ribs of a mythic serpent that had coiled so tightly around a mountain in a thunderstorm that the rocks melted (Clark, Ella, Indian Legends in the Northern Rockies, 193-...
“That’s a cool pouch.” I gestured toward a leather bag hanging around the neck of a tall mountain man.
He and his friend, Tailgunner, had just walked up the embankment from their camp.
As I snapped their photographs, they turned around, joking about their most photogenic side.
They were dressed in...
Ted, Kenidee, and I walked through the Old Carney Cemetery in southern Missouri with the sun beating down on us.
The heavy humidity made it feel like we were swimming upstream. Sweat prickled along my back and dampened my forehead.
The cemetery was small; no building housed an index of the plots;...
Our mountains were burning, and Monticello residents had been notified to be ready to evacuate if necessary.
Except for our prayers Ted and I were powerless to help, so we decided to do an overnighter in Flagstaff to escape the smoke and heat.
On the way there, we wanted to see White Mesa Arch on...
On June 27, in Washington City, UT, I received a text from a friend in Illinois: “How is the Babylon fire affecting you? (Besides breaking your heart.)”
She sent a series of photos showing huge plumes of smoke rising from Elk Ridge, one looking like an atomic bomb had gone off.
Our son in Missouri...
A papercutting/painting by Ada Rigby hangs above my desk. Ada was a renowned paper artist, and in this piece, she cut Elk Ridge out of blue paper and snipped pines, firs, deciduous trees, and bushes out of black paper, gluing them in front of the Ridge.
Then, she painted an orange sun setting...
Etched on a glass panel are the words: “Within the lives of Southern Paiutes, there is an inherent understanding that all things are placed on this land with the breath of life, just as humans.
“This land is considered to be their home, just as it is for man, and it is taught that one must consider...
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