Pariah Canyon

Coming out of Pariah, after following the river for nearly forty miles, the canyon widens. The trail leaves the river and starts to cut the meanders. The good news is the trail may actually be shorter by doing this, the bad news is the trail leads into huge sand dunes. As you walk in the brilliant sun, you suddenly realize why Navajo, Hopi and Zuni jewelry uses turquoise, jet, coral and mother of pearl. The sky is turquoise, the canyon walls are coral, the shadows are jet and the clouds are mother of pearl. Unfortunately, this insight is not helpful in climbing the huge hills of sand. As the trail crosses the flat canyon floor, you keep looking hoping that the trail goes around the hills. You keep saying to yourself, "The trail can't go up that hill," "The trail can't go up that hill." It does go up the hill. The struggle is whether the sand is worse than the heat or whether the heat is worse than the sand.

Time doesn't erase the feeling of climbing sand dunes. That feeling is part of the intense feeling of strangeness you feel at the bottom of the Colorado Plateau canyons, especially at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The canyon world is so restricted and yet expansive at the same time, that it is like coming home after a long absence, like a half remembered dream or the smell of dinner when you were young. It is the essence of existence in the light and shade of canyon floor that carries you through all those days when the canyon is only a faint memory. Once there, you never really forget. The canyon is in your soul. There have to be canyons in heaven.