Water break! The call goes out every half hour, echoing off the rust-colored sandstone cliffs and across the mocha waters of the Colorado River. Puffs of dust rise as the archaeologists drop shovels and clipboards, sit down in the dirt, and rehydrate. Talk stays to a minimum. Even in October, the bottom of the Grand Canyon is brutally hot in the afternoon, and the view is enough to silence most chatter. The river sweeps in a wide curve toward the faint hiss of rapids at Unkar Delta, a low, broad mass of sediment that marks the mouth of Unkar Creek. The cliffs rise straight up almost a mile to the canyon's eastern rim.
This commercial for a 1964 Chevy Impala features a car on top of Castleton Tower, one of the classic tower climbs in Castle Valley near Moab, UT.
The film crew used a helicopter to hoist a hollowed-out car--just the body and chassis--to the top of the tower, along with a nervous model in a white dress.
Apparently a bit of a blow came up after they were done filming, and she had to wait a few hours on top before they could safely come get her.
Castleton is one of my favorite climbs. I've done it twice: first up the Kor-Ingalls route, the route of the first ascent in 1961; then up the (much better) North Chimney. It's astounding, spending most of the day climbing and then topping out on that summit platform, about the size of a small house. A whole line of towers curves north and west. To the west is the Colorado River; to the east are the snow-capped La Sal Mountains.
After climbing the North Chimney, starting the rappel down the north face is hairy. Going over the edge always sets off the evolutionary alarms (This is not increasing the odds of passing on our genes, your brain says).
But for some reason going over that one, to multiple hanging belays far below, is extra sphincter-tightening.
Especially when you see one of your climbing partners, who shall remain nameless, get his hands caught under the anchor chains and lay their squirming, legs hanging over the edge, until he can unweight the rope and pop them out. Good times.
The remains of Everett Reuss, the poetic vagabond who disappeared in Southeast Utah in 1934 at age 20, have been found on Comb Ridge west of Bluff.
Reuss spent years wandering the Sierra and the desert Southwest, accompanied most of the way only by a horse or burro. He wrote evocative descriptions of his adventures and made woodblock prints of the landscapes he disappeared into for months at a time. He was photographed by Dorothea Lange, corresponded with Ansel Adams, and inspired Chris McCandless of Into The Wild fame.
He was last seen in Escalante, UT in November 1934. After that he rode down the Hole-in-the-Rock road toward the Escalante River, camping in Davis Gulch. That was the last anyone saw of him until now.
I always envied Ruess's freedom and self-sufficiency when I lived in the Southwest. He made it sound so easy: just pack up your burro and go. His story is worth a read, even though the mystery that made him a legend has been solved.
Some shots from my recent trip
down to the bottom of the big ditch for Archaeology magazine. the dig is part
of the biggest series of excavations in the canyon in 40 years.
It's amazing that people once lived there by the hundreds, a thousand or so years ago. But it makes more sense when you realize that the canyon offers vastly different ecosystems basically right on top of each other: from pinyon-juniper woodlands on the rim, at over 7,000 feet, to full-on cactus-studded desert at the bottom (a little over 4,000 feet elevation)...but with a big fat river right there.
With such a variety of food sources and agricultural growing seasons available from rim to river, the canyon doesn't seem all that inhospitable any more.
I've put a small album of photos from Moab (Slickrock and Sovereign, with one in there from Fruita) up here.
About Me
I'm a Portland, OR-based writer and photographer specializing in travel and science. Here's my website. This blog is a grab bag of things related to my books and articles, photos and other goodies.
