Elephants and Druids in the Desert?! Oh, Wait...

Ambitious. You have to be if you want to accomplish a long day hike in the desert before it gets dangerously hot. Cat and I were on our last day in the desert around Moab, UT, and we were up at 3:30am for the second morning in a row. The day before we had hiked Chesler Park and the Joint Loop Trail in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, and our last hike of the trip was also in that district. Which meant waking up at a ridiculous hour to start our hike before sunrise. We did much better this time around, moving faster than we had for the entire week. The trail was relatively flat, though always gaining a little elevation as we followed a dry wash up Elephant Canyon to Druid Arch.

The sun just starting to light up the Needles.

We kept finding little pools and potholes with water still in them, which absolutely teemed with life. Tiny little spade foot toad tadpoles raced to become adults before their pool dried up in the arid desert. A lot of them already had legs, though still had shrinking tails attached. There was only ever one way we could go up the wash, so we were able to spread out occasionally and take in the view. Starting before dawn meant most of our canyon was shadowed through the entire 5.4 miles to Druid Arch, and with the sun hitting the orange and and white sandstone above us we were enveloped in purplish shadows and glowing cliffs. No wide open views, but the colors were incredible!

Purple shadows and fiery cliffs. I love my desert.

The last quarter mile or so to Druid Arch is what earns this hike a "strenuous" rating: hugging a sheer sandstone cliff while walking on a thin lip of protruding, crumbling rock over a deep green pool of unknown depth; clambering up a rusting ladder bolted into the sandstone as the only way out of a choke point of stone; scrambling up a somewhat unstable rockfall on a poorly marked "trail" that might as well not exist. But once you crest that rockfall and take a turn on the trail, everything is worth it. Druid Arch towers over you, hundreds of feet tall and lit brilliantly white by the mid-morning sun. Cat and I made it to the arch three hours after we started our hike, and took a well-deserved break once there. We climbed around, sat and ate, got up to the arch and backed into the shade again. After three quarters of an hour, we decided to take our leave and head back before the canyon became an oven in the afternoon sun. The walk back was easier, though the scramble down the rockfall and the climb down the ladder killed my knees. We weren't quick enough to keep in the shade for the whole hike, but we were able to find some relief under a boulder or outcropping if we needed it.

Cat climbs a dry fall on the way to Druid Arch. Imagine it full of water!

We hiked quickly, even though we didn't really want to leave the wild desert. Once again, we didn't see a single person on our hike until we were close to the trail head. There is something about being alone in the wilderness, whether desert, mountains, forest or prairies, that just draws me in. I crave it. To rely on yourself, on your feet and your body and your head. Physical endurance, mental stamina. It's definitely not for everyone. But it's certainly for me. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I need to travel, to hike, to be outdoors, and camp, and be alone in order to be happy. I think, moving down here to Texas, I'll have more opportunities to get out and camp. I've already got several trips planned, and more in the works.

On the way out of the Elephant Canyon/Elephant Hill area

Cat and I finished our last hike in the desert six and a half hours after we started, and I spent the rest of the day relaxing and dreaming about the next time the longing becomes unbearable, at which point I'll find myself driving towards the rusty red cliffs of my desert.

Elephant Canyon, view from above the floor of the wash

What I'm listening to: In The Night Of Wilderness by Blackmill