Bummin' Outside Zion (2023)
I always look for dead end roads. You never know what you're gonna find. Sometimes it's like finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow because I'll stumble upon hiking trailheads that take me off the beaten path away from the haughty fleet of tourists or to the outskirts of town where I can peacefully read a book, relax, enjoy the tranquility of nature, and camp in seclusion nestled back in the woods. I can watch the sun rise through the steeples of trees or see it set through the colorful canyon, the shadows creeping up its cliff walls masking its jagged face in a montage of humps like a silhouette of camels slowly trekking through the night. And when it's completely enveloped in darkness and those bright stars twinkle in the sky like vibrant, little eyes, so close it feels like I can reach up and grab them, it's a priceless sight that money can't buy. It's why I wander around. Yesterday, I looked for a nearby water tower close to town. They're normally private roads that lead to tall points in the city for maximum head pressure. It was easy to find as I scanned Google Maps, Water Tower Road made it pretty obvious. The asphalt road meandered up through desert scrub brush, prickly pear cactus and red rocks sprinkled across the clayey silt slopes until I reached a plateau with a buildo. It wasn't a house or at least I don't think it was because on the map it was labeled a retreat center, but nonetheless, it was vacant. It offered a 360 degree, panoramic view of the canyon walls that surrounded the park in painted curtains of red, brown, orange and tan, the rocks poking out like crags of terracotta puzzle pieces, mismatched yet beautiful. I found a culvert to pass the time lying in an alcove between cacti and juniper. Its needles drooping over my head shielding me from the cloudless blaze in the sky. Zion is much lower in elevation so it feels like a dry Vermont summer here in April without the humidity. I'm not used to it. My body is still acclimating to the climate change. I spent hours splayed out across the ground on my Thermarest reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond waiting for the sun to rest, and the moon and the stars. I watched the iridescent sapphire streaks of feathers glow down the tails of mountain bluebirds like the twinkle of sun staring at glass. They fluttered back-and-forth hiding in the crooks of branches as the bees buzzed and the wings of flies whistled circling the air in a sinuous fashion. I napped. I ate. I watched Yellowjackets and Champions and the day seemed to melt away in silence on this desolate road. The sun bled down behind the canyon walls and the true colors of rock came to the surface. I made my way to the buildo and scaled its corrugated walls, crimping the rusted steel with my fingers and pulling myself up onto a wooden crossbeam that added an artsy feel to the rustic building, and then scaled the roof. It wasn't a hard climb by any means, or even that tall, but I wanted to stand on the roof and watch the sky melt away into darkness, which is what I did. The stars came to life sprinkling the sky like white crystals and I spent an hour sitting on the duralast rooftop watching them in quiet bliss. My head jerked to the road that went to the water tower as beams of headlights hit the chain linked fence that blocked access to the water tower. I was nowhere near it, but I panicked. My gear was near there. I didn't know if it was a nightly security check or if someone had called the local police and they contacted local security to deal with my presence. A Maglite shot rays of bright light through the scattered desert zigzagging through darkness, down the slopes and into the culverts and I had no way of knowing if security had spotted my camping gear I had left behind in an alcove of thick juniper. Maybe he had. Maybe he hadn't. I stayed put for a few minutes weighing my options and decided it was best to get off the roof.
My feet whispered through the cracked earth leaving footprints between the maze of scrub brush, dead wood, mounds of rock, and splintered cactus, which I had managed to avoid as I wandered blindly in the shadows. I tried to find a better view of the road to see if they would wander up the fork in the pavement to the buildo as I hid behind a massive rock that looked like a lump of coal in the thick of night.
Their flashlight wove through the black desert in complete chaos like they were stabbing the night sky in desperation. Eventually after 20 minutes or so they capitulated. Looking for a man in the shadows was like finding a needle in a haystack. They didn't get paid enough to care, and they simply didn't give a shit. They gave it their best effort or that's what they told their superior, and off they went down the hill, back to the endless scroll on their phone in some dark parking lot at the end of town.
After they left, I ran down the hill, and quickly packed up my gear, hoping they didn't patrol the area again or I would clearly be fucked. When I strapped that last bungee to my rear rack, I pushed my bicycle up the steep hill, which proved harder at night as the wheel dug into the soft soil from the weight of the bike, but after much effort I made it. I rode that sucker with both hands on the brakes, and no headlamp, trying to focus on the road that slithered downhill to a closed gate.
The wheels zinged and the gears croaked. I desperately needed new tires, a derailleur, cassette, chainrings, basically a whole new drivetrain, but whatever. I spent 50 dollars on this mountain bike that I got off of Facebook Marketplace and it has gotten me this far.
Work starts tomorrow…until next time…
