An Outward Bound group rafts in, and are lectured to in the Trex seating arranged for “camp fire talks” here in the campground. I find it really bizarre, when there a thousand ‘natural’ places to sit for a dialogue, they make a bee-line to the plastic composite seats. I guess they got lectured on the tamarisk mitigation work around Echo Park, I didn’t ask, as I was too busy prepping for the day. They later went into the woods between the campground and the river and were doing something. Wonder if they saw the carnage I wrought on the tamarisk behind site #7!

Batten everything down, and cycle out to look at the posted topo map, for a bit more orienteering info. Run into an older couple, chat with them a bit, they rafted in privately, and were looking for petroglyphs — the others in their group wandered up Lower Pool Creek Canyon to the ‘official’ petroglyph stop. I show them the really nice ones up the cliff face right there from the info stand with binocs. They are impressed. They are from Cedaredge, of all places, and are retired geoscience folks.

Cycle on up to one of the lower ranch fields, stash the bike behind some huge sage bushes, and head out.

First a long hike up Trail Draw, just to see what that intersection of the Red Rock and Mitten Park faults really looks like. Not enough time to actually go into the base of the intersection another mile or so along south-westward, that will wait for another visit. Find a nice cave in the up-turned Weber sandstone, a bit of a stretch to climb up and into it, but it makes a good lunch stop.

At one point, after climbing to another cave and coming down from the steeply faulted area, I arrived at a place. Looking down — a notable instance as I have been primarily looking up and around, especially when the trees are big enough to have substantial branches above eye level, branches that can harbor a 50-pound juvenile cougar practicing ambush predation — looking down, I see one chip, then two, then many more, they are very fine, very thin, of high quality chalcedony and jasper, then I see many more chips and worked stones. I hunt around the area, looking intently, and wondering at the quality and concentration, suddenly appearing like this, in a pretty random place, no caves nearby, no particular visual vantage. Anyway, nice objects in a particular place. Clearly made by someone who had significant and focused skill in the process.

Decide to curtail this part of the walk to a relatively short reconnoiter of Trail Draw and subsequently head into Upper Pool Creek Canyon at least as far as the fault line and the spring. But it’s too beautiful to stop, and although I have some serious predation vibes happening in the same place as three years ago on the Solstice, they finally dissipate as I go much further into the canyon than before. It’s extremely rugged at times. The wash above the spring shows recent and heavy flash-flood evidence, about five or ten feet up on each side, and there is plenty of drying red mud and wet pools. This was from Tuesday night’s flood. Would have been cool/harrowing to be up here at that time! I make it to an area below the really huge spire (+500 feet!) on the south side of the canyon, and see to the north side, a long and wide semi-circular bench, several of them higher up, but with debris fans that looked climbable. Make it to one, have a second snack, and then realize that I can get to a higher and much larger bench which has a good overhang. I make it up there, it runs along the canyon about 100 yards, and after exploring one end, I make it to the extreme other end to find a classic corn granary from Fremont times — mud-daubbed with cobbles, a wooden stick roof with mud on it. It’s mostly collapsed on itself, but the structure is clear, and there are even cobs of corn sitting on one side and the finger-prints of the maker in the sealing clay. Amazing to see this up here.

That caps the hike, and so I decide to slowly head back, with the final two miles a coast down the canyon on the bike — it’s been eight hours on the trail. Excellent weather, no bugs, no mountain lions or bears, too early for snakes. Only beetles, lizards and raptors and other birds.

Edges. Borders. Approaching the edge, approaching my edge, pushing you to your edge, going over the edge, edgy, close to the edge, walking a fine line: swerving onto the shoulder, drunk-bumps thumping and gravel flying, then across the shoulder into the guard rail, through that, launched into space, over the edge.

The edge is approached gingerly, or is stumbled upon without prior awareness. The edge gazed upon with either macro- or micro-scopic intention. Doesn’t make that much difference. To see the edge is to see the transformation of energy from one transitional state to another.

All roads lead to Rome. Because that’s the way it always has been.

try a couple more timelapse shots, but they are unsatisfactory with all the technical drawbacks. Stability, resolution, quality, etc. Nothing to be done about it without a 10K investment, or more.

Instead, after the driving rain all night, start a fire in the morning, still raining, but gradually it tapers off, though it is very cloudy. The guy who came in late yesterday in a Ford Explorer with a Rocket Box on top left at some point in the morning. Gah. No place to go! He’ll end up in a ditch somewhere.

I decide to do the traverse from the Pool Creek road over to Sand Canyon since the lower mouth of the canyon is not accessible because the Yampa River spring run-off level. On the way, I decide to drive up to the Bench fork to see where this guy drove — I am stunned to see that he took the branch up to the Harper’s Corner road, with the 18% grade. No way, after a night of rain, and, as I see when I get out of Pool Creek Canyon, snow down to about 6000 feet, so the last two miles of the road would be absolutely impossible. Just the drive to the fork is bad with the red clay sticking in the treads on the tires making them useless aside from the fact this is a relatively level road, so, no problem. I see his tracks, and even the difference of a few hours (time for the road to dry some), he was having more trouble that I was. I could see the difference of a few hours of drying time. I can only hope that there is no additional rain before Friday when I have to head out, south to Glade Park. I imagine that he is stuck somewhere on the road, though, hopefully not blocking traffic! (Of which there will be none, because after that weather, they for sure closed the top of the road for people coming in.)

The traverse the wide and clear bench to Sand Canyon is subtle but effective. Several kills, and between those and the barrel cactii colonies and the Indian Paint Brush (Castilleja linariifolia) flowers, plenty of that counterpoint coloration that is so outrageous in the West. The silver-green-blue of the sage, then these absolute vortices of color with the flowering plants, stimulating in the soft and wet Light. Found another 14-point rack, gah, these animals are big! Wouldn’t want to encounter a mad one! End up on the canyon rim, just across from where Sebastien, Jeff, Chris, Wendy, and I hike to from the old camping place, years ago, there are some extant shots of folks sprawled on a small bench of sandstone, resting, and eating M&M’s. I recall looking across the canyon at that point, thinking how it looked, how it impressed form into eye. Today, climbing down that formerly observed face was steep and tricky. All the while, wondering about cougars. A series of nice overhang/caves at the top under the limestone cap rock, so, continued the series of cave panoramas, hope to have three decent works to perhaps make into large-scale print works.

The psycho-geographic process in this situation, this environment, this weather, is strictly controlled by the contingencies of the total situation. There is little choice, per se, but rather the application of experience, or lack thereof, to the movement through, across, into, and of the essence of the place. Movement is dictated by will throughout the body, but it also immediately comes up against the contingencies of place. Unlike the Sonoran Desert, the actual number of spiny plants is not near as great, but the small size means easily overlooked, heavy boots are a necessity. And care becomes more about the stability of the foot-fall rather than what the foot might intersect. Some time is spent exploring several small side-canyons where there is plenty to absorb.

Sleep difficult, not sure why, whether simple discomfort, though the back of the truck seems very comfortable in the immediate impression, warm, soft enough, but body cannot find a comfortable position, side to side, somehow, problems. Could be that yoga hasn’t been happening in the last days. Hiking is a challenge for the body as well.

Drive up to the head of Sand Canyon, intent on doing a hike, but what looks like bad weather coming in, a heavy front across the whole west, sends me back after a short recon along the Bench Road. It seems doable as an alternative escape route, if this end is the worst, though, in wet conditions, forget it. And it totals thirty miles to Elk Springs, not just the three miles I did on recon. Almost all of it is in the red and yellow clay-sandstone alluvium, and this is precisely this same stuff which sits at the top of the Echo Park Road — from the 2000-foot displacement on the Mitten Park Fault, so, no real solution in heavy and widespread rain. However, this doesn’t seem the case — the rain is sporadic, fast-moving, and interspersed with bright sunshine and the roads are basically still dry after two days of ‘winter storm,’ so fretting about it is a waste of energy. Either I get out on Friday or I don’t and have to wait a few days. Plenty of water, fuel, and food, so that is no problem. The only locked-in point is the flight next Wednesday evening to Portland. But I’d still hate to miss the yurt-raising in Glade Park at Collin and Marisa’s this weekend!

Getting places, visiting friends. This is something I do that others don’t seem to do quite as much. With or without kids, people go on vacation to some elsewhere which is not local. But why this nagging impression that without me making repeat and sustained contacts, that Others have little interest in doing so. Of course, they have a life too, but so do I (I think): what trumps one over the other in considerations of time to maintain contact? It’s my job, perhaps. Is this a general un-sustainability of contemporary social conditions — at least as it sustains social relation beyond the immediate in-your-face people engaged with? Distance, obviously, can increase from there and is measured by the face-time, life-time, and life-energy spent. We do not do well spreading our attentions widely, except for those who crave (are craven) to have the attention of many. There are humans who can capture the attention of millions of individuals. This is only through mediation, however. With increasing numbers roughly equivalent to increasing mediation. Bang for Buck.

Does it matter, this wide-scaled exploration of the apparatus, the anatomy of power relations in the social system I am embedded within? Is it again merely something done to fill the time of being here. And will have little or no use in the long run except as a legacy substitute for being here? Ach, it is all looking towards that eventuality, as far as I can see. And what is that? Whilst reading on a early 20th Century historical treatise on Augustus (Octavius), a paean to the Caesar, successor to Julius Caesar, and master of the Roman Empire for many decades. The understanding must be embedded in a living praxis.

Suit-up later despite the weather for a relatively short but very intense hike to check out the small bench area above the soft red hills that are immediately above Lower Pool Creek Canyon. Dimension is distorted. Small- and smooth- looking becomes large and rugged (as usual). Slow pace, looking for access up the bench face. Strange smell, noted. Noted again about ten minutes later. And five minutes after that, the first fresh, very fresh paw-print the width of my hand. Thank god no overhanging trees of any height or size up here. With the near presence of a sizable carnivore confirmed, looking becomes a multi-dimensional immediacy. But then the sunLight breaks through after a squall, and I race through the juniper around to the west side of the bench trying to find a strategic vantage for some photos without foreground trees. Can’t get to it quick enough to capture sunLight glistening on wet uplifted fault faces of Harper’s Corner. Looks damn nice, though. Didn’t become someone’s dinner at the expense of a couple good photos either.

Back to the east rim, to plot a way back down, I spy a strange sight 200 yards below in the fading Light. A tremendous elk rack still attached to whitened skull apparently hanging in a juniper tree. No easy way down the bench there, I have to back-track to find an accessible egress. Finally make it to the rack. Amazing, 14-point, other bones strewn around. Blood still on some of it, so, not too old. A scattering of the rest of the stripped skeleton on the ground in the area.

Then a few minutes later, stumble on some large chunks of petrified wood which I trace to a deposit in a loosely consolidated conglomerate sandstone layer. Strange that the wood would remain intact in such an environment. The pieces are internally fractured, but exhibit good detail in the re-mineralization of the wood structures.

Finally back to the bike for the two miles downhill back to Echo Park. More severe weather rips through the entire night. The road is definitely closed. No humans in sight.

Two days here in Echo Park already. Three nights, one night alone, Friday and Saturday there were a couple of people in, then tonight, Sunday, no one around at all. A bit creepy, especially with the mountain lion kill I just discovered over in the middle of the walk-in camping site. Saw that on the way back from Mitten Park this afternoon. Been thinking of the cougars the whole time I’ve been here. Seeing evidences of kills scattered widely across the entire space. Wondering what the total range in for a single cat? I just don’t want to meet one. Having fantasy imaginations, and on the way back from Mitten Park had composed an Ode to the Puma, not able to memorize it sufficiently to record it, but recite it loudly on the way back.

The trail is choked with small purple flowers where it starts from Echo Park. Then there are the vague petroglyphs, then one set of rafters float by, small against Steamboat Rock. Looking at things great and small, it’s all relative to the eye, and the unfolding context.

Eight years ago, I leave a stone from Iceland in a cavity of the standing carcass of a burned pi�on, the stone is now gone. Where?

hike up Pat’s Draw and around the fault area, up a steep talus slope below the high scarps of Harper’s Corner, as far possible, and even some slow trundling down some very unstable and steep terrains. Seeing more 12-16-point elk racks, more mountain lion kills, and the weather is warm.

A nice hike with Neal, his last day before heading back to London (despite the volcano!) into the Toano Raptor Observation Area at the south end of the Toano Range. No big raptors except for a turkey vulture who didn’t fly away from a sheep carcass at the side of the track in until we were just 20 feet away (oi, pew!!). That’s as close as I’ve been from one of those huge birds. The hike in gets into snow pretty quickly, including corn snow coming down. But the sun is warm on the south-facing side of the canyon, and with the elevation gain, the view to the east over the playa and all the way to the Wasatch Range is fine. Apparently in the fall, during migration, more than 50,000 eagles, hawks, and falcons pass through the area.

Morning, mourning notes on encounter, in no particular order.

It is on a pathway, the pathway, in the mode of movement, in the shifting of unknown situations, where encounter occurs. These encounters are traced with the full presence of the body and all aspects where they occur.

There is the general rule on a hiking trail, uphill gets right-of-way: those struggling and straining to make it to the top of whatever heights that you’ve just been on should be given precedence. It’s always a question, though, what the precise character of the encounter will be. Whether you have seen (or heard) the approach of an Other, through dense forest, or whether you round a turn to be confronted by a gaggle of silent walkers. Encounter is a culturally specific regime overlying that of the embodied, the animal. On trails in the West the density of hikers is generally low, except in National Parks which can see crowds as dense any on Fifth Avenue in New York City at lunch-time. This is one criteria on which to judge a trail — not merely the views afforded, but the number of people encountered. Escaping from human presence is as prominent a thought as what other ‘natural’ phenomena might be encountered.

Silence, or the absence of human-created noise, relates to presence of other humans as well as other beasts. While walking in bear country complete silence is not a safe option, so encounters with other humans in bear country usually begin at a distance, either with bells or simply boisterous activity. Encounters with bears are sometimes at a distance, but sometimes not. I have found that the presence radiated by large hairy carnivores with big teeth usually precedes any sight.

Bush-whacking is a situation where encounter with an Other becomes so rare as to evoke a certain fear if only from the statistical improbability of encounter whilst specifically not on a trail. Sadly, it is a probability that rises as the global population increases. Too many folks out there! And one has to be aware of the timing of the off-trail experience: hunting season is not a good time to bush-whack!

Enroute, one suspends the closed-ness of daily routine. The sameness of daily regimen is upset and in its place is the jarring uncertainty of arrival in unknown, medial, places. In between here and there. Starting point, ending point. Suspended animation is an apt term. Animate, moving, but somehow suspended by the vagaries of being someplace in particular, some nameable place, some identifiable locus.

It is in this liminal space, on the thresh keld, thresh hold, the border between the space of known nutrition and the potentialities of the unknown, where all learning and change takes place. As a setting for the encounter with the Other, partaking food, sharing nutrition with a stranger is an exceptionally powerful meeting of ritual.

Of course, there is the argument that says movement can be only in mind, and such mental travel is as efficacious in bringing transcendence as any physical movement. But the movement I write of here is not a simple Cartesian transposition of body, of point-of-view, it is the processural space of encountering the unknown Other. This will precipitate something of a shift in point-of-view, no matter how small in that Cartesian sense — it is the principle of change that matters — and in an open encounter, change occurs. This demands embodied motion. Turning to face the Other.

Over the years, I observe that I take very few photographs in the place where I live. With a few exceptions of concentrated exercise to see the unknown within the known, it is on the road where sight opens and newness brings that rushing tension of encounter. That tension, when unchecked, concentrates in the shoulders and subsequently crawls up the gall-bladder channel to root behind the eyes, migraine. Gotta deal with that. Opening the shoulders, the channel, to allow the movement of difference, the tension of change to simply transit the body without leaving damage in its wake. This will be a theme of movement. To pass through and allow a passing through of the energies of encounter.