That spot on the map

Have you ever found a spot on the topo map that captured your imagination? Where lines do unusual things so you can’t even dream what it’d look like to be there?

The sensible thing to do when this happens is to pull up google earth and have a look. Takes just a few minutes to fly over to the spot, view it in 3D from all directions. You can see all the rocks and cliffs and trees. Really all you need to know. Then you can stay in your comfortable home and watch netflix and eat ice cream.

Instead, I went out and saw it for myself. I’m glad I didn’t peek beforehand at google earth. I like surprises. I like the challenge of having to figure out how to get there on my own.

More food would have been nice though. For this overnight trip, I knew there would be rock scrambling, that it'd be mostly off-trail, and I had no hope of finding water. Even with skimping on food, my pack was still heavy to begin (26 lbs total) given that I’m still only 2 months out from surgery. No getting around 6 L of water.

After I left the main 4WD road, there were two sets of footprints. Not recent. Maybe it was a sign that there would be something to see.

Then the footprints went off somewhere else.

A skull possibly from a rabbit glistens in the sun. One of my students is really into fossils and bones. We did owl pellet dissections and I’ve never seen anyone work so carefully or be so totally fascinated. Now, whenever I see him (which is practically every day), he asks me if I have any bones. I consider picking it up and bringing it back for him. I want to support his curiosity. We need more of that in the world.

What are the rules about taking bones from BLM land? I have no idea so I leave it.

Climbing up.

Around this way.

I scramble up and follow slickrock and find a pile of stones, not much of a wall.

Not much but perhaps something.

Then I notice a chip of chert. It catches my eye because I’ve seen no other chert in this area. Could it be a lithic fragment left behind from making stone tools?

I wonder if someone has held this before. Then I put it back exactly where I found it.

Then, I keep going and soon enough, I am at the top. I peer over the edge and there it is. The view. It makes me giddy because I can see places I've been and I'm roughly 1700 feet above the river and I forget to be scared of heights.

The view.

I want to follow this rim forever. Or at least until I run out of food. So I spend the rest of the day doing so and stopping every few hours to have a snack.

Slickrock superhighway

Down below, the scars on the land stand out. It makes me laugh at myself for how carefully I leap from rock to rock and tiptoe through the crypto. Does what I do even matter?

More signs of civilization. I wonder what it is and who left it.

More views

I spread out my sleeping bag down below the rim, hopefully out of the wind. Sunset is dull and cloudy. I shiver all night under a starless sky and curse at myself for bringing a lightweight bag and not my winter bag to save weight.

Bed of slickrock

I wake up every few hours shivering, try eating peanut butter, bust out my chemical handwarmers. But still, better than being at home, right?

Finally, sunrise.

Similar but a bit more of the landmarks are visible here.

My body finally warms up from the morning's hike. Finally I get to the spot that inspired this whole trip. It’s even more colorful than I’d imagined.

This is the spot.

Then I compare it to my geological map app. Which maybe is cheating just like google earth. Who can say. It helps me make sense of it all. To be able to name the layers and see the fault lines.

Then, I follow the rim to a high point and find a jar at the top with a slip of paper inside. Apparently this is the summit register. Two other names before me, the first from March of 2016 and the other from Feb of this year. More answers to the "who has been here before" question.


The fun ends at that point. I made a loop so needed to go down a different way than I came up. It's hard to tell from this perspective which way to go and where I might get cliffed out. It doesn't help that I'm low on food and water. But at least my pack is lighter, right?

Choose your own adventure down.

Turns out I make good choices and the topo map doesn't hide any surprises. I polish off the last of my food and water with about 4 miles to go. Licking the last of the pudding from the baggy with a level of attention that is usually reserved only for ice cream.

The day heats up and the off-trail travel saps my energy. With two miles left, I take a break in a pathetically small pool of shade. One mourning cloak and five whites flutter by. I don't even twitch. That's a bad sign that I don't even chase the butterflies!

The truth is that backpacking is not always spectacular views and fun. Often, it far from comfortable.

But it is always worthwhile. Especially when you go not to where the trails are, but instead, go to exactly whereever you most want to be.