Utah is not like anywhere else. It goes on and on forever in a seemingly endless mass of rock that lies in exposed layers before your eyes. Red, white, black, brown, yellow layers representing millions of years in earth’s history. Making one very aware of the blip in time our own existence represents. I found myself wondering if our period in time would be a rainbow stripe of plastic a millions years from now. Instead of the Holocene period maybe it should be called the Plasticene period?
A 2 week excursion of exploration and for me, image hunting, began with 14 hours of driving overnight through the California and Nevada desert putting us Monday morning the 26th of April in Zion National Park. We were here to get the best views of rock, water and sky that we could manage and in Zion the view from Angel’s Landing is just one of those. Like a lot of spectacular out of the way views this one comes with some hard work to get there. The last half of the hike is on a narrow fin of rock with sheer cliff drops on either side. Just you and the rock and a bit of nerve. The payout at the end worth it with breathtaking views in very direction. This is what we had come for.
From Zion we continued to Bryce Canyon National Park where a 2 day backcountry hike on the Under the Rim trail became one of the more intense backpacking experiences I’ve ever had. Day 1 was a casual 10 mile hike through wide canyons, sand dunes and chasms where earth was just swept away in what must have been colossal landslides. A hoodoo is what you call the formations that are characteristic of Bryce. Rocks perched atop yet more columns of rock with names like The Hatshop and the Pink Cliffs.
It was all quite quaint until day 2 when Bryce decided it wanted to remind us who was boss in the wild. With 13 miles ahead of us and a snow storm coming in we had a lot of ground to cover. That was fine but when we discovered that the southern end of the park was under considerably more snow than anticipated we knew then it wasn’t going to be easy. Hiking our way through snow drifts that had all but swallowed the trail up we were depending completely on the Topo map. A quick exit through an adjoining trail was abandoned upon realizing that digging through snow while on steep cliffs was probably not the best idea. The short way out could cost us our lives. It was going to be the long way round. I’d put my camera away. I wasn’t relaxed enough to shoot. Besides the wind was gusting at about 35mph on the ridge I was standing on. I was trying to stay on my feet. Photos weren’t important at that time and I was a little concerned. We’d still 4 miles to go and most of it through snow clambering up slopes to get a lay of the land as we progressed. It’s times like this when energy is all but depleted that you know you’ve no choice but to give it every ounce of what you’ve got left. It was time to dig deep.
Times like this too when you realize the importance of a good experienced wilderness hiking partner. And I had one in my friend Miles. He drove the pace and never once made me think we wouldn’t get out that evening. A half hour before sunset we walked out of the wild and into the carpark at 9115ft at Rainbow Point with a storm on our heels. When it snowed on me that night I didn’t care. We were safe in our sleeping bags and tent . Like Yvon Chouinard says ‘It’s not an adventure until something goes wrong”.
The rest of the trip took us through the Grand Staircase of the Escalante where I made new friends and ran into old ones by the side of the road, Carol and Mike from Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Our group was expanding.Together we explored and clambered around some of our first slot canyons like Peek a Boo and Spooky in the Escalante. Spaces so narrow you could rub your nose off the rock as you squeezed through sideways.We hiked through valleys where Anasazi Indian ruins surrounded us. We scrambled up scree slopes and jumped across streams to get better views of Indian petroglyphs. We stood in awe of waterfalls and rock walls.
In Capitol Reef National Park we ran up the Golden Throne trail so we’d catch the rock in time for sunset. We drew attention to ourselves when the RV campers, mostly retirees wondered how we had rigged a shower station using our solar showers and our tent flys. We mused over whether people had forgotten how to really camp. With work commitments to stay apace of, my personal challenge somedays was finding internet. For Carol and Mike it was not making a mess when you filled the tank of the camper with vegetable oil. For Miles it was figuring out how he was going to get his meat for the day when dinner was vegetarian.
In the San Rafael Swell a vast area of wilderness in the Northest corner of the Colorado Plateau, a seemingly endless landscape of canyons, sky and buttes was upon us. If you want a perfect wide open sky with a few puffy clouds chances are you’ll find it in Utah. Beer is different. You won’t see billboards for beer ads and chances are when you go to find some alcohol to purchase you’re scavenging around in the back of a gift shop buying wine covertly over a counter. My wine habit had gone underground.
Time always runs out. Goodbyes to friends I was never good at. I’ll see you in the Tetons, I promised as I drove away choked up with tears and the desert dust blew in the car window. With that we left the Swell behind and headed to Moab.
Arches National Park is a veritable mind boggling experience of natural arches in nature. Rock is architecture everywhere in Utah with formations that look like temples, fortresses and castles but sights such as Delicate arch and Landscape arch are like Gaudi in Barcelona.
Just as our trip began it ended by driving all night through the Nevada desert till we reached the mountains of California and watched as the sun brightened a new Sierra Nevada day. Almost 16 hrs after we had left Moab and the red rock of Utah behind, we were back in the San Francisco bay. Experiences always have a purpose but sometimes the purpose doesn’t reveal itself fully until you’ve embarked upon it. I said goodbye to Miles, closed the door to my apartment and thought about it. The purpose of this was to remind me that nothing is ever a coincidence.
18 years past and I find myself here once again. Connemara is a place of legends and wild rugged landscape. It is an environment of delicate peat bogs, lakes, stone walls, craggy peaks, sheep, and a sense of peace. There are few places more uniquely Irish than Connemara. In a country that has gone through (and continues to do so) profound social and economic upheavel one can still come here and get a sense of something above the rush of the cities and modern life. Connemara is not just a place it is a feeling. Situated in west County Galway the people there make a clear distinction between this place, themselves and the rest of Galway if not the rest of Ireland. You couldn’t fault them for doing so. It is wild, peaceful, magic and mysterious. But it can also be loud with the sound of wind blowing across it mountain tops, it’s people laughing and traditional music escaping from bars and halls. It is home to Connemara National Park and the Twelve Ben peaks in the Maumturk mountain range where you can hike for days with sheep watching your every move. The Glencoaghan Horseshoe is one of the best hikes I’ve done anywhere and is an Irish classic. Not to mention the Diamond Hill hike which is a great way to get your day started.
It has forever been a hub for artists and writers for it’s easy to be inspired here. The main town of the area is Clifden and if you’re lucky enough to be in Connemara this week of October you’ll catchClifden Arts Weekwhere Irish Poet Laureate and Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney will be in attendance. Whilst in Clifden I had the pleasure and good ‘craic’ of strolling into the Lavelle Art Gallery where I met owner and himself a talented artist Gavin Lavelle. Gavin is a graduate of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. We mused over the state of the art world in Ireland and I left laughing with promises to return to continue the conversation. If you’re one for acommodations that strike at the heart of you and ooze with character I’d highly recommend the Old Monastery Hostel in Letterfrack. Situated 35 paces from the National Park entrance. If you need to write a book, make decisions, or just be in a hospitable relaxed atmosphere you’d stay here.
This is a special place and a unique one. You won’t find the likes of it anywhere else. And that’s fact. The people who live there know it and when they say goodbye they do so with a cheeky smile because they know chances are you’ll be back. They wave with one hand and with the other they have a tight hold that lasts forever.
A little techy moment now for all of you geeks. The video is shot with the new 5d Mark II and edited in Final Cut. The mark II presents it’s own challenges when it comes to editing it’s files and getting them into a format where I could edit natively in Final Cut but after much digging round the internet I worked a few things out.
Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park was drowned in 1913 to create a reservoir that would bring water and energy to the sprawling cities of California as far south as Los Angeles. A lot of people never really think about where their water comes from besides out of their tap or in a plastic bottle. A lot of us have lost our connection to the source of our water and our food. For many it starts in the aisle at the supermarket where most food isn’t even found in it’s original state.
In 2006 I made my first trip to this part of Yosemite. A few weeks later I found myself in the central valley of California near the Salton Sea after being in Joshua Tree National Park. In this part of the state where the land is basically desert and doesn’t naturally support growth of anything substantial lies vast swaths of land that is developed for industrial agriculture that feeds on the water of Hetch Hetchy. This water is transported almost 400 miles to grow food for over burgeoning populations. Not forgetting of course the use of large amount of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. In the space of 2 weeks I was seeing the water at both ends of it’s journey. From the crystal clear fresh snow melt waters of Yosemite’s majestic Tuolomne River that roars through granite canyons until the O’Shaughnessy dam disturbs it’s flow, to the fields of unnatural food and industrial farms that defy nature. The result of which unless we change our ways will ultimately defy us. If we have lost our connection to the basic things that sustain us, food and water, and we fail to understand that they are not to be taken for granted and not to be manipulated in ways that are not sustainable then soon it will all backfire on us. For thinking we’re pretty smart we can be awfully stupid as well.
These pictures were taken on a 4 day hike on the weekend of June 13th 2009 into the backcountry of the Yosemite wilderness. we went into an area called Jack Main Canyon and our final destination a place called Wilma lake. We covered a total of 46 miles round trip starting at 3815ft and reaching just under 8000ft at Wilma. Many areas were water logged as we were still in melt run off season. Twice I had to wade in water and there was plenty of bushwacking. The toughest part of it was climbing out of the mouth of the canyon on the way back out. The first night at Backpackers campsite was marked with what I thought was a strobe light going off in my face and then realizing no I was not in the studio anymore. That was a nice bolt of lightning. 3 seconds later it was followed with one huge crack of thunder right over our heads. I turned to my backcountry partner and gave him a little smile. Despite it’s obvious danger in the mountains I do get excited sometime by a darn good electrical storm. It’s the elements. Mother Nature doing her thing. The storm clouds lingered for the whole entire time we were there, menacingly overhead, but the storm never came. The rain began to drizzle down on our last day when we were only just a mile from our exit from the wilderness.
No bears at all on this trip which has to be the first trip in a long long time into Yosemite that I have not seen a bear somewhere. Managed some twilight visits from deer to our camp though. One was a big guy with horns and he wasn’t shy. He looked rather stately. The mozzies were present in large numbers as they usually are this time of year but fortunately my friend had remembered the repellent and we managed to empty the bottle.
There isn’t much that a walk into the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada can’t do for me. It challenges me on all levels and gives me the space, solace and comfort to think about who I am, what I want out of my life and how I want the planet to be and finally to accept everything that comes my way no matter how it comes. It revitalizes and it inspires. When I walk in nature, nature walks in me and life is good.
