Escalante

Just returned from a long weekend in Escalante with Merritt, Sam and Dave Jarvi. Second Annual Canyons for Guys Memorial Day Weekend, and hopefully many more to come. Arrived late Thursday night after driving about 50 miles of the lonely and desolate Hole-in-the-Rock road by moonlight. Found a spot to lay out our bags and enjoyed an extraordinary star-filled night.

Friday we hiked Llewelyn, a friendly little canyon with plenty of clamboring, a nerve-wracking climb out (OK, for climbers it's easy, but even a 5.2 on an exposed pitch with hiking shoes gets my heart beating), and a torturous, seemingly endless up-and-down traverse back to the trailhead. Found a cool little half-pipe that reminded us of The Subway, and a nifty slide into a pool at the end, which made for a refreshing swim before the climb out.

We were bushed Friday night so opted to sleep on the mesa, leaving a long day in and out of Neon Canyon for Saturday. Neon is a stunningly beautiful canyon, with a gorgeous approach hike all the way in. Once at the Escalante River, we had to climb back up to enter the canyon from the top. It's a canyoneer's dream, with plenty of interesting challenges, cold swims, narrow chimneys, potbelly caverns, meandering climbs, ravens-at-guard, keeper potholes and a transcendent rappel through a hole through the rock and into Golden Cathedral. There we were met by the Sirens of Neon, who beckoned us with the promise of real food. We were undeterred, and pressed forward, with Merritt battling deer flies and Dave and Sam taking an unplanned detour up-river, but all finally arriving on top.

The next day was almost as good, starting at Upper Calf Creek Falls and walking in the river to the Lower Falls, where we set up a rappel and dropped 165 feet into the waterfall, which at times felt as if a torrential force was pounding on your head. It was a glorious rap, and we felt all the more manly by the crowd of swimmers and hikers who had come up from the campground and gathered to applaud our derring-do and photograph our exploits. Met a librarian from Salt Lake City who kindly gave us a ride to our car, thinking wistfully about the lack of adventure in his life, I think.

Decided that Egypt 3 wasn't right for Monday, so on a lark we packed up and drove to Bryce Canyon and hiked about six miles, which was extraordinarily, mystically, magically, enticingly beautiful. We got an early start, before the crowds hit, and got back on top for lunch and the long drive home.

And every day I was thinking of how beautiful this land is and what a joy it is to venture into it, and how different it is climb into its hidden places while the masses park, point and click. I would like to share my discoveries with more of the world. But the sacrifice required is a higher price than most are willing to pay. I am secretly glad for that, so these canyons can remain wild and remote and I can still find solitude there, nestled in my bag with the howl of coyotes in the distance, resting my head on a rolled-up sweatshirt and gazing wondrously at the Milky Way above.

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." --Henry David Thoreau, Walden.