Needles: The Drive

The Canyonlands is a large enough national park that it actually has three distinct districts: Island in the Sky, The Needles, and the Maze. Highway 313 leads to the Island in the Sky District and is 10 miles north of Moab. Highway 211 leads to the Needles District and is 40 miles south of Moab. The Maze is remote and only accessible by foot - and only when accompanied by a professional guide already familiar with the flood-prone and twisting sandstone canyons of that region.

We have decided to tackle the Needles today.

Was given my tour of modern and classic country music. Turns out that I am more familiar with country music than I expected. Must have something to do with living in Texas all of these years.

We passed Hole "N The Rock gift shop and roadside curiosity. It is allegedly an historic attraction and natural treasure; but it is also unquestionably a roadside curiosity. It is a home (and gift shop, as they so frequently remind you) blasted out of solid rock over a period of twelve years by a man with a dream. There were probably a few other things wrong with him, too. Had they also possessed the world's shortest donkey, or Utah's Largest Ball of Twine, we might have stopped. As it was, they only had a petting zoo full of normal animals and no two-headed mutants, so we had to carry on to our primary destination.

Newspaper Rock

Newspaper Rock

On our way into the park, we pass "Newspaper Rock". As these glyphs have been carved into the surface of the rock, it is difficult to impossible to identify how long they have been weathering in the open. Cultural context or meaning has been difficult to determine, as has the significance of any of these carvings because many persons from the time of the earliest settlers to the area to the new-agers of today have contributed to the symbols on the wall.

As always, we began our journey at the Visitor Center and Ranger station. They had another amazing three-dimensional map of the park. Grabbed a few brochures, another map to carry with us on our travels, and I caved and purchased a book on hiking the geology of the American Southwest.

Roadside Ruins and Rain

As we travel towards the ancient granary, it begins to rain. At first, it is a mild drizzle, but then the lightning storm begins. I have no problem with hiking in the rain - it reminds me of my youth and the warm wonder of a Singapore monsoon, but lightning on the open desert is not a pleasant thought. Other than a few twisted and blasted juniper pine, there aren't a lot of tall things out there to help exchange a charge other than your natural salt column. The NPS recommends that the safest action for an individual is for them to return to their vehicle immediately. Failing that, they recommend that one get low and stay low in a sheltered location... but hopefully not in an area low enough to be prone to flash floods.

Zapped if you do, drowned if you don't.

We make a hasty retreat back to the car.

Then it really begins to rain. For that part of Utah to be called 'the high desert', it has to get an average of nine inches of rain per year. In the month of September, it has historically received 0.83 inches of rain. I suspect it may have received four or five of those inches on that afternoon alone.

Thank goodness I brought my travel Scrabble(tm) set. We sat and played a close game for nearly an hour.

 I guess we don't have to worry about dying of dehydration today, do we?

Green Mars

At this point, the lightning had subsided, and I had come a long way to see some geology, so I wasn't going to let a little rain stop me. While Dana had more sense and stayed in the car, I had to go on a short jaunt by myself. Drove out to the next point of scenic interest: the live pools. In normal weather, these pools remain filled year-round with a thin layer of briny water, sheltered from evaporation by the shade of nearby rocks. Water is life in a desert, and these pools are often inhabited by an interesting and unique microecology of desert creatures found nowhere else in the world. They are capable of bursting to life with the addition of water, as dried spores rehydrate into complex organismal life, who can rapidly pass through an entire lifecycle in only a few days time, eager to replace themselves with another generation, ready to survive as dry eggs hidden in the dust collecting in pits in the rock.
At this time, these pools were recharging their stores.

It is raining, but there are still things to see. The Needles themselves peer out through the mist at me from the distance. I still can't get over how unreal it all sometimes looked; like the universe had dropped a matte painting from a fantastic movie in for my own personal backdrop.

It reminds me of what can only be described as "green mars":

As I returned from my brief side-excursion, the rain finally tailed off, and we travelled to our next destination within the park. Got more pictures of alien scenery, and then began what for me would be the most breathtaking hike of our journey. The rain had driven off all other visitors, and left us alone with each other and the whispered wind and the world and our thoughts. Liberation. Freedom from our ghosts and ourselves at last.

Water, Earth, and Air

We learned to trust in the design of the National Park Service. Stick to the trails - not only are they safer for you, and better for the ecological health of the park, but those guys really do know how to take you to the best vistas.

Finally at Peace

A number of good things seen... blasted juniper, odd red plant further enhancing my image of this place as a green mars, speckled pools in the slick-rock. INSERT TABLE HERE. End of evening becomes a race to make it off the rockface before the sun falls and we have to stagger around blindly in the dark. Make it to the trailhead and watch sun set. Pass a group just heading onto the trail who announce that while they do not have a flashlight, they have "been eating their carrots". We wish them well, and make our way back to the car.

The Road Home

The road back to Moab snaked just ahead of our headlights through a blackness that only an overcast and remote wilderness can provide. Absence of human presence.

It was good that we had not left earlier, as we passed several spots in the road that signs indicated had been flooded closed just a few hours before.

feed us! Hit a jackrabbit on the way out. I tried to avoid him, but the application of mild brakes and changing lanes would not deter his course. He continued across the road and met my right fender. He was flung out and forward into space, only to be crushed again by my left tire. Horrible and terrible. Guilt takes me, but this time there is no wreck, and we survive the rabbit's passing.

We finish our evening at Eddie McStiff's Bar and Grill. Known for its many microbrews. Not bad - I manage to stay vegetarian again entirely by accident. I most highly recommend their green chile salsa.
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