Nicky Leach - Arches National Park: Where Rock Meets Sky

ARCHES NATIONAL PARK

Where Rock Meets Sky

By

Nicky Leach

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SIERRA PRESS

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Sierra Press

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Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personalenjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away toother people. If you would like to share this book with anotherperson, please purchase an additional copy for each person. Ifyoure reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was notpurchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.comand purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard workof this author.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Any journey in Canyon Country is as much ajourney into self as it is into landscape. This new book on Archesis no exception. My appreciation to the following people foraccompanying me into the field, sharing stories, and expanding myvision: Arches National Park Chief of Interpretation Diane Allenand Southeast Utah Parks Chief of Interpretation Paul Henderson fortaking time out of busy schedules to review my manuscript, rangerMurray Shoemaker for help with Arches human history, and MiriamGraham, an enjoyable trail companion and fellow music lover; BradWallis, former executive director of Canyonlands Natural HistoryAssociation, whose friendship, insights, and constant, quietsupport I value highly; and US Geological Survey biologist TimGraham and family, who made a trip into the Arches backcountry themost pleasurable and interesting Labor Day excursion ever. Backhome, I am grateful to editor and valued friend Cindy Bohn forhelping cross the Ts and dot the Is. Last, but never least, myappreciation to photographer and publisher Jeff Nicholas, whosecreative vision and wonderful spirit is woven into every part ofthe beautiful book you hold in your hands.

N.L.

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CONTENTS

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Sunrise in the Windows Section.

Dont step lightly in the wildwood becausea government agency

or a book tells you to do so. Tread lightlyout of affection, out of respect,

out of a generosity of spirit toward theland and its wild inhabitants.

David Foreman, EarthFirst!

Its an unusually cool summers morning inArches National Park. Heavy monsoon rains the day before havebroken southeastern Utahs unprecedented drought conditions andwashed away the dust of the last six months. High clouds stipplethe soft blue sky. To the east is 12,000-foot Mount Tukuhnikivats,one of the highest summits in the La Sal Mountains. Its name meanswhere the sun lingers in the Ute language. I wonder what namesnative people had for the landmarks in Arches. Did they, like theNavajo, believe the rocks in their homeland were once alive?

A breath of wind exhales gently over thehigh desert of the Paradox Basin. Still moist from the rainstorm,the great rolling plateau of eroded Entrada Sandstone seems to glowfrom within. It is a vibrant artists palette: salmon, vermilion,ochre, buckskin. The colors of the desert.

What would New Mexico artist GeorgiaOKeeffe have made of this landscape, I wonder? A lover ofelemental forms and sensual textures, OKeeffe would surely havebeen fascinated by the thousands of keyholes, windows, spans, andhoodoos at Arches. Whole canvases could be filled with flyingbuttresses of stone, framed mountain views, junipers clinging tosandstone, the enormous white trumpets of sacred datura at dawn. Ican imagine sculptor Henry Moore, whose pale, holed, abstractedsculptures dot verdant British hills, peering through Double Archand murmuring appreciatively over the clever use of negativespace, then returning to his studio reinspired.

Artists filter the natural world through thelens of their unique perceptions. Landscapes are never justlandscapes but a human experience of what is thereas individual asa fingerprint. Nature is the artist here, though. Working in themedium of sandstone, using the twin chisels of water and flowingunderground salt, she uplifts, collapses, sculpts, and molds.Landscape is a work-in-progress, a performance art piece that isnever finishedand therein lies its very perfection.

Artist Christo wraps up whole landscapes,giftwrapping them for us as if we were Christmas shoppers.Everywhere we turn, Delicate Arch is being used to sell somethingin our consumer society. Fortunately, Delicate Arch and the otherrock landmarks at Arches cut through all our preconceived notionsand still have the power, as Edward Abbey put it, to startle thesenses and surprise the mind out of its ruts of habit.

In this overscaled Zen rock garden, rocksbalance precariously on pedestals. Massive sandstone arches are soimpossibly slender, only a wing and a prayer seem to hold them up.Cliffs tilt at steep angles like dominoes caught in a slow-motionfreefall. Our photographs may freeze-frame Delicate Arch, LandscapeArch, and the 2,000 other known arches in Arches, but in life theyare always changing. Gravity is constantly at work on the exposedfins, taking down, grain by grain, 200 million years ofsedimentation, lithification, uplift, and erosion. Sandstone tosand, dust to dust. All things must passeven our most cherishedlandmarks. This is as it should be.

At 10 a.m., I arrive in the parking lot ofthe Fiery Furnace for a three-hour hike with Ranger Miriam Graham.While another ranger guides a tour, she will be roaming the jumbleof sandstone fins, checking on climbing groups and backcountryhikers with permits who have elected to explore on their own. Theseoccasional unfettered moments in a park rangers busy day offersome of its greatest pleasures. Like many rangers, Miriam leads afull life. After work today, she will head home to a second job:tuning the pianos of world-class musicians at the annual Moab MusicFestival.

We enter the Fiery Furnace, walking inwashes and on slickrock to avoid cryptobiotic crust, the darkbiological soil alive with the cyanobacteria, lichens, and algaethat form the building blocks of life in the desert. The twistedbranches of ancient shaggy junipers point the way at the junctionof parallel canyons. They begin to look alike. Im glad that Miriamis familiar with this maze. Life narrows down into a pleasingrhythm of one boot in front of the other, heartbeats and breath. Ifeel completely in the moment, all memories and future plans onhold. How simple it is to be happy, I think.

Beneath Skull Arch, we stop and eat trailmix, drink water, and sit for a while in companionable silence. Iwrite notes in my journal. Miriams radio crackles. We watch asclouds give way to blue sky through the eye sockets of the arch.Beyond the Fiery Furnace, the temperature is climbing. Inside here,its cool and protected. In a neighboring corridor, we can hear agroup of climbers calling to each other. Miriam winks at me, takesout her wooden Indian flute, and begins to play a haunting refrain.The voices suddenly go quiet.

As we leave, we come upon the strewnbackpacks of the climbers. In a moment of playfulness, we debatehiding the packs behind a huge rock before our better judgmentprevails. We settle for moving the equipment tidily to one side.But I cant resist having one last bit of fun. I tear a sheet ofpaper out of my notebook and, remembering the ancient flute playerwhose humpbacked form is found on canyon walls throughout theSouthwest, I write KOKOPELLI WAS HERE. Then, laughing, we continueon our wayback to the real world.