Canyonlands’ Call

Midafternoon in the barren, blistered desert of southern Utah. My older brother, Bill--the history scholar of the family--has just re-expressed his opinion that this isn’t really such an awful, Godforsaken place. Who knows? The Paleo-Indians who 10,000 years ago inhabited these primordial canyons and washes might have been pretty happy folks, living in a kind of Rock Garden of Eden.

We are sprawled on a picnic-table-size slab of rock, content as lizards, soaking up the sun and the solitude. The parallel walls of Trin Alcove Canyon, which stand no more than 20 feet apart at this particular bottleneck, poke toward the baby-blue sky, enveloping us in a corridor of stone that twists and turns as far as the eye can see.

We have the world to ourselves. A world seemingly frozen in its temporal tracks at about 1 million BC. The nearest signs of civilization--providing you consider video stores and car washes and Butch Cassidy’s King World Water Ride the trappings of an advanced society--lie about 40 miles away in the small tourist town of Moab. The nearest means of transportation--namely, our aluminum whale of a rental canoe--is beached on a sandy lip of the Green River about a three-hour walk due east.

Some folks’ notion of a dream vacation is lots of golf and lots of frosty drinks with umbrella swizzle sticks. My brother and I prefer a week of eye-popping isolation and semi-deprivation. This is Bill’s third foray down the Green River: a 50th birthday present from his wife. This is my first trip: a no-special-occasion gift to myself. I am anxious to see firsthand the famous, flame-broiled canyonlands of Utah. They’re hot news of late, emblematic of the ecological tug of war going on all over the West.

*

Local control versus federal authority. Short-term prosperity of the inhabitants versus long-term preservation of natural beauty. The political debate resounds in Washington, D.C., my adopted home. Legislation floating around Capitol Hill aims to redefine, if not eliminate, the government’s role in public land management. One bill being pushed by Utah’s five-man Congressional delegation seeks to reduce by nearly half the 3.2 million acres of federally designated wilderness in the state that is currently off limits to development, while opening up an additional 19 million acres of semi-protected land to commercial and heavy-recreation use. Conservationists claim the policy changes would destroy Utah’s unique canyonlands. They insist companies are itching to get at the coal and mineral deposits buried beneath these other-worldly red-rock formations.

However, we’ve flown across country to try to forget about politics and everything else. Jobs, money, hair loss, Howard Stern. Whatever. Canoeing and hiking the Green River presents the opportunity to lose one’s self mentally--and, at times, physically--in a wild, untrammeled place; a grand-scale sort of place that has a way of making people feel refreshingly pipsqueakish. Humility National Park.

Bill and I chose an early spring paddle to ensure privacy. In eight days on the river, which cuts roughly a 320-mile vertical path through eastern Utah, we will briefly cross paths with only two other canoe parties. A quick glance at our map conveys how far afoot this is from Main Street America, what with the preponderance of exotic monikers such as Hell Roaring Canyon, Pucker Pass, Squaw Spring, Bull Bottom and Dead Horse Point. But remoteness has its price. We must pack in all our food, first aid supplies and water (25 gallons stored in five, hard-plastic bladders)--and pack out all our waste (including the human variety, which we are dutifully depositing in a metal portable potty that resembles a stagecoach strongbox).

While the canyonlands aren’t hostile terrain, they allow little margin for error. There are no riverside phone booths, no network of access roads. Break a leg or burst an appendix, and you either crawl/paddle until you bump into a good Samaritan (which could take days) or resign yourself to becoming a gourmet dinner for buzzards and worms. Furthermore, we are doing a relatively placid part of the Green River known as Labyrinth Canyon, not far north of Canyonlands National Park. Although the waters don’t run deep here, they do run awfully cold. The water temperature is a hypothermic 40 degrees when we put in. Hardly ideal capsizing conditions.

Nonetheless, Bill Schroeder, the local river rat who drives us from the canoe-rental office in Moab to our lunch location about 30 miles northwest of town, offers this piece of unsolicited advice. “You should satisfy your curiosity,” he says. “That’s why we have people who come every year. There’s a million places to check out.”

*

As if to prove his point, he digs a hand into his shirt pocket. “This is what I found yesterday,” he announces triumphantly, pulling out a pale pink arrowhead he had discovered while artifact hunting. The finely chiseled piece of chert is an example of Paleo-Indian handiwork that he figures is between 2,000 and 4,000 years old.

We weren’t lucky enough to unearth such a prize. However, we did manage to satisfy our curiosity. Our plan called for covering about 50 miles of river, but without the hassle of being tied to a fixed itinerary. We paddled as little as two miles a day and as many as 17. If we spotted an ideal campsite and our arms felt sandbag heavy from stroking, we’d knock off. If the map indicated a petroglyph site or abandoned uranium mine somewhere up ahead that was worth seeing, we’d push on.

After finishing our six-hour hike through Trin Alcove Canyon, which dead-ended in a rocky cul-de-sac, Bill and I camp on an elevated patch of ground several hundred yards from the river. We pitch our nylon-domed tent at the base of a concave canyon wall. Its band-shell shape offers protection from the rain, but nothing can stop a determined desert wind. As we start preparing dinner, a dust devil kicks up. Our tent momentarily levitates, then gets twirled cockeyed. Sand pelts our faces. The invisible storm scatters our lighter gear. But as quickly as trouble blew in, it moves on. We re-stake the tent, whip up a cheese-and-broccoli casserole, heat some tea and stretch out before a blazing wood-scrap fire.

“It’s interesting,” Bill says. “We just spent an entire day in a landscape untouched by human beings. It’s just like it was thousands of years ago.”

It certainly appears the sky hasn’t changed much. Desert stars by the hundreds glint like freshly polished silver. Venus shines as bright as a next-door neighbor’s porch light. It’s a planetarium-perfect celestial show. No wonder the Green River’s unspoiled ambience has garnered rave reviews over the years.

The great explorer John Wesley Powell and his crew were the first to map the river. On a July day in 1869 he noted in his diary: “There is an exquisite charm in our ride down the beautiful canyon. We are in fine spirits. Now and then we whistle or shout or discharge a pistol, to listen to the reverberations among the cliffs.”

Powell wrote those words while navigating a section of Green River that his men dubbed Bowknot Bend. It’s aptly named because the river makes a sharp and sudden U-turn, doubling back on itself before rolling the last 60 miles to its appointed rendezvous with the mighty Colorado River. The customarily high canyon walls make a dramatic dip as they approach the tip of Bowknot Bend. It’s a 25-minute scramble from the riverbank. to the narrow, depressed saddle of the ridge, but hikers are rewarded with two wide-screen views of the drunken river, both coming and going. A black plastic cylinder is tucked under a large rock that sits in the middle of the Bowknot saddle. Inside is a spiral notebook that passersby can use to record their fleeting thoughts for posterity. I flip through the pages, trying to picture the kindred spirits who have preceded us.

Ray, perhaps recently jilted by the love of his life, had tersely scribbled, “You missed a great view, Nancy.”

Some spaced-out chowderhead named “Sticky Fingers” proclaimed: “I like the alluvial fan created by sheer willpower and psychedelia.” (Huh?)

Jan, from Washington state, waxed poetic despite a November chill: “Water supply semi-frozen. . . . Feet perpetually numb, but who cares; ‘cause it’s magic down in here. There’s not a soul around. The depth of solitude gives me vertigo.”

Bill and I feel that magic. We linger for several hours; snapping pictures, gobbling granola bars, admiring the graffiti carvings on a smooth outcrop of sandstone. “E. Shores” etched his or her name on July 4, 1910. “N.E.W.” passed this way in 1905; “Con Rodin” in 1927.

We don’t stoop to adding our names or initials to the clutter. After all, we are grown men. Instead we carry on like moronic summer campers, bellowing “Hell-o-o-o!” and “Qui-i-i-iet!” at the top of our lungs, listening as the echoes boomerang through the surrounding canyons.

The Bowknot’s beauty earns a vocal salute. In contrast, the majesty of Two-Mile Canyon leaves us nearly speechless. Bill Schroeder highly recommended it as a side hike. At the top of the canyon wall, he said, is an open-faced cave called Five-Hole Arch.

“It’s like a huge version of Yoda’s house,” he crowed, referring to the benevolent character from the “Star Wars” movie “The Empire Strikes Back.” “It’s like a condo!”

When we hit Two-Mile Canyon, we secure the canoe, walk about a mile in from the river, and find ourselves standing at a veritable Times Square intersection of mini-canyons. We sample the far left canyon, free climbing for more than an hour until the boulder-strewn incline becomes too steep and too precarious for a couple of middle-age adventurers.

We descend that troublesome canyon and try another. And another. And another. Sunset arrives. The desert glows. We decide to stay overnight. The next morning we return for another look and find a tell-tale string of cairns in one canyon. There’s no sweeter sight in the middle of nowhere than a conical pile of stones, the hiking equivalent of Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumbs. Who knows who left them, but God bless ‘em for taking the time. We follow the markers, lose the markers, find them again, and march onward and upward, eventually slipping through a tiny cut in the upper canyon wall. After five hours of paying dues--knees bashed, fingers pricked by cactuses--we “rim out.”

Ohmigod.

I feel like a daredevil ant who has miraculously arrived on the summit of the kitchen table. Behind me is an endless expanse of high-desert plateau. Below me, more than 1,000 feet down, courses that familiar ribbon of khaki-colored water. Our river. In the far distance, clinging to the edges of the Earth in the east and south, are the snowcapped La Sal and Henry mountains.

*

We scurry around the rim for an hour, searching for more bread crumbs. Bill spots a lonesome cairn hidden amid the riffles and undulations. It leads us over a curled wave of rock and onto an exposed shelf. The lip extends perhaps 50 yards. The back wall is honeycombed from eons of wind and rain, forming an open-face cave. Yoda’s penthouse condominium. My older brother and I trade high-fives in the living room. Best hike of our lives, we say, fumbling to put it in proper perspective.

“I can’t believe we made it. Unbelievable!,” I stammer. “GREAT hike,” declares Bill. “Not just for the view, but for the challenge of finding everything. You’ll sleep well tonight.”

That I do. Under a star-splattered sky, I sleep like a baby. Like a man who has forgotten that he has a round-trip plane ticket back to civilization.

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GUIDEBOOK

Down the Green River

Getting there: Moab is the popular starting point for the lower reaches of the Green River. From Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, a four-hour drive northwest of Moab, fly nonstop on Delta and Southwest; fares start at $120 round trip. Alpine Air offers twice-daily commuter service for $126 round trip from Salt Lake to Moab. Budget and Thrifty both have car rental facilities in Moab.

Grand Junction, Colo., is a 2 1/2-hour drive from Moab, but airline choices from Los Angeles is limited. United connects through Denver, America West through Phoenix, Delta through Salt Lake, with fares beginning at about $210 round trip.

Where to stay/equipment rentals: Moab is a favorite outdoor destination of mountain bikers, boaters, campers, rock climbers, canoeists, off-road-vehicle enthusiasts and the Winnibago crowd. Consequently, accommodations lean toward motels and bed-and-breakfast rather than luxury hotels. In-season room rates (March 15-Oct. 31) run $40 to $100, double occupancy.

There are about 25 raft/boat/canoe outfitters in the Moab area. Canyon Voyages (401 N. Main St., tel. [801] 259-4121); Red River Canoe (497 N. Main St., tel. [801] 259-7722); and Tex’s Riverways (691 N. 500 West, tel. [801] 259-5101) cater to canoeists with guided and unguided trips. We used Tex’s Riverways, which charges $15 per day for a canoe, plus a $40 per person round-trip shuttle charge.

Necessities: Desert weather is capricious; bring rain gear and all-weather clothing. A good first-aid kit is a must. The extra-cautious may want to tote a cellular phone. You’ll need sandals or some type of waterproof footwear and a pair of gloves. A map is a necessity. Belknap’s “Canyonlands River Guide” served us well and can be found in Moab bookstores. Edward Abbey’s “Desert Solitaire” and “Down the River” are both set in the canyonlands.

For more information: The Moab/Green River Visitors Information Center (P.O. Box 550, Moab, UT 84532; tel. [800] 635-6622) publishes a free brochure with lodging and river outfitter listings. The Moab Chamber of Commerce (tel. [801] 259-7814) is another source. Or the Utah Travel Council, Council Hall/Capitol Hill, Salt Lake City, UT 84114; tel. (801) 538-1030.