Subterranean

I am not subterranean by nature.  Quite the opposite; I tend to look up at mountain summits.  The sky and those rocky projections that seem to reach for it have held me in fascination ever since that wayward girl sneaked out to the mountains behind our Altadena home.  I camped at Hennigher Flat, and then slunk home scared of my father’s impending words.  Had I not loved him so much, that downward hike would have been easier.

Here in Southwest Utah, I followed an ordinary-looking dry wash downstream until it seemed to end in that dark hole in the left of the picture.  People speak of the ends of the earth, places beyond normal geography—the South Pole, the Amazon, the Sahara.  I entered this deep slot thinking it is that extreme.  

I slunk into the slot, like entering through the eye of a needle.  Suddenly I was in land dimpled with innocence or guile, a slot cut into the earth, both intriguing and scary.  The seemingly unending tunnel I was trekking through made me feel trapped in a maze.  A sensation of being stalked by shadows came over me.

It would have helped to know that today would not bring a flash flood, but the forecast is always the same—twenty percent chance for thunderstorms.  It’s not like you can look at the sunny sky and know you are safe, for rain falling fifty miles away in Bryce Canyon can send a wall of rushing water this way that arrives six hours after the rain stops.  Such a flood brought this pile of debris.

And how did this boulder get here?  If it were jagged, I’d guess it fell down from the top in some shaking, but since it’s rounded, some tremendous movement of water must have carried it from upstream and wedged it solid.  I climbed over the boulder using a wood post that some prior canyoneer had left.

The route this canyon led me on was twisty and unpredictable, yet inescapable as a pipeline.  The tunnel seemed to have no end.  I was wondering whether I had left Kanab behind and was doomed to roam some crevice in the earth forever.  I wonder sometimes where my common sense disappears to.

I traveled the canyon at a wriggling pace.  Silence filled the slot.  My own breathing was loud. 

Finally there was light from downstream, and I knew I was somewhere near the surface of the earth.  I emerged from this cave-like hole and was back again in an ordinary-looking dry wash