Sulfur Skyline - Canadian Rockies

Whenever I take my kids hiking they complain ‘this is not normal. nobody goes hiking like this!” They inevitably cite the family reunion in the Canadian Rockies a couple years ago, where all their other cousins hung out at the hotel pools while I forced them to trudge up  6 hour round trip hikes like the sulfur skyline. To which I reply, “suck it up and go grab a bag of dicks.”

Getting to the sulfur skyline trail was an ordeal in itself. The night before, we were driving the Icefields Parkway… the sole road that runs north through the Canadian rockies. Having driven 2 hours from Banff, we were only 42 minutes away from our destination, the town of jasper, when we came upon a long line of stalled cars in traffic. To avoid wasting time we peeled off the road and went hiking at Sunwapta Falls, hoping the traffic would disappear by the time we finished. Instead, when we got back to the parkway fresh with mosquito bites, we found an even longer line of cars in bumper to bumper traffic.

At the southern gate in the park, the guard told us there was a horrid car crash up north, and it might take over a day to clear the roads. (A couple days later, we would drive by the accident site while traveling on the southbound lane: black skid marks and burn marks on the road the only remnant of the tragedy. A van carrying five members of a family from Louisiana was heading north when it collided head-on with a southbound vehicle carrying 4 restaurant workers from Banff. Six people died in the fiery wreckage). At this point, we had 2 options. Drive another hour south back to resort town Banff for accommodations and hope the roads would clear by the morning… or drive a 7.5 hour loop outside the park to get to our destination. Without assurance the original road would be cleared for passage, we decided to go for the sure thing, the 7.5 hour drive. As we headed south, we found the campsites were all filled. At one campsite, everyone was full of sympathy for us stranded unprepared travelers and we were even offered some random assortment of crackers and beef jerky. We debated sleeping in our car but decided to head further south to try to find a hotel.

We passed the Icefields Center and went in to charge phones and see if we could get reception to find the rest of our reunion party. Stranded Chinese tourists were setting up shop, blowing up air mattresses and laying down bedding. It was like they had prepared for this very random situation. We decided to keep driving on but started panicking when all the hotels we passed were full of visitors who couldn’t get past the traffic jam but were wise enough not to waste time at local trails waiting for the traffic to resolve. When we finally got to the town of Rocky Mountain Lodge, we had never been so happy to find and stay at a trashy motel.

On our way to Jasper the next day, I noticed signs for sulfur skyline. I had seen it in guidebooks as a highly rated trail, but I didn’t expect to hike it as it was north of jasper. After a couple calls to my cousins, only one, S and her kids decided to meet us. Instead of the hike, they would meet us at the Miette hot springs at the base of the mountain for a soak.

The trail up was a series of sweaty switchbacks through dense vegetation. The grueling beginning attracts travelers for its rewarding panoramic 360 degrees open views from the summit. The trail is only 5 miles roundtrip, but the elevation gain is 2050 feet in only 2.5 miles, so it is pretty challenging to summit. 1.5 miles in we got sporadic views of the valley below through clearings in the trees. Our shirt backs were completely soaked with sweat. After approximately two hours, we got above the tree line and emerged on the alpine meadow with a peculiar white large rock in the middle. You can enjoy beautiful views from here, but another strenuous scramble up a short rocky trail takes you up to the barren loose gravel and small rock slopes of the Sulphur Skyline summit. It was windy up there, but the panoramic views were incredible. The ridge to the east looked like the great wall of china. The sky was hazy orange from forest fires and the mountains were cloaked in smoke. I asked B if he liked it. He confessed the switchbacks were worth the view.

The best part of the return trip was the anticipation of soaking in the hottest hot springs in the Canadian Rockies, Miette Hotsprings. B and J met their cousins for a soak. They jumped from pools with really hot water into others that were cold. Over and over again, like manic frogs. The adults were content, just soaking in the warm water and resting tired muscles, the sunset disappearing into the trees over the pools. 

accident scene

sunwapta falls

42 minute drive becomes 7.5 hour odyssey

sweat pikachu

Great wall of china

Life in Chiricahua

By the mesquite bushes in the blazing sun we set up our makeshift mesh blockades. When a whiptail scurried like lightning on sand, the group would get excited and holler guiding the lizard into the barricade away from their burrows. Cole would dive for the whiptail lizard against the fences setting off a puff of sand. wiping off the sand from the clothes with whiptail lizard in hand, at 60 years old, his youthful exuberance belied his age. Back in new york, he would breed his lizards and write papers with compelling titles like “Morphological Variation in a Unisexual Whiptail Lizard (Aspidoscelis exsanguis) and One of Its Bisexual Parental Species”. Unusual lizard colonies of 3000 specimens without a single male to be found was confounding. It was found after capture, the female lizards in isolation could somehow reproduce themselves. Cole spent his life as a herpetologist showing how whiptails are parthenogenic - cloning without sexual reproduction. In harsh desert environments where species survival depended on mating, parthogenesis provided a way to overcome the hardships in mating. 

Midway through my 2 year stint in evolutionary biology research, I went to the american museum of natural history’s southwest research station in Arizona for vacation and to volunteer doing field work. Located in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona, the Station is situated in the heart of the Madrean Sky Island Archipelago, which stretches from the tropical Sierra Madre Occidental up to the Rocky Mountains. The habitats around southwest research station included an elevational gradient from low desert to alpine meadows, rich riparian areas, and a unique blend of Chihuahuan and Sonoran Desert species.

At night I would walk up the hill to my tent, careful not to step on a rattlesnake. By day I would arrange to help biologists. Scientists and students from around the world would come to collect field specimens, make observations of the natural world, and then go back to their research institutions. We would gather in the cafeteria and eat meals together. I befriended the Brazilians. Like their soccer idols, my Brazilian friends had 1 word nicknames Jakare (crocodile) and bisteca (beefsteak). I taught them swears and they taught me ‘vai tomar no cu’ (go take it up the ass) and various obscene corinthian soccer chants ‘poha caralho torsida…’ at night we would take guitar and salt shakers and play music in the starlit canyons.

I can’t remember what our transgression was, but I was assigned with the Brazilians to clean the grease trap of the research station. We had to shovel the gray fat oil grease sludge waste from the kitchen plumbing to make sure it wasn’t clogged. The unbelieveable stench of rotting food deposits at the bottom of the grease trap was punctuated by our English and Portuguese curses.

The head of the station, and the initiator of our grease trap cleaning duty was a native new yorker named Wade. His interest was the horned lizard. They look like clowns with frills and spots. On the desert floor they’re completely camouflaged. I remember ward telling ethnographic stories like, “You know if they have a headache, in oaxaca, they take a horned lizard and put it on top of their head. If you have a molar that’s gone bad in your jaw, and it’s really hurting, you get a horned lizard. You rub it on your cheek and it makes the pain go away. I think the oaxacans believe that since horned lizrds inflate defensively sometime, they can pull out the bad spirits or bad airs that cause the headaches.” Wade spent 30 years trying to understand mating and nesting behaviors of horned lizards. Spending an afternoon catching one in the blazing hot desert with wade was enough for me.

It’s hard to imagine surviving in the desert. But for Geronimo and his tribe of 144 Apaches, in 1884 they did just that by eluding capture by a group of 5,000 US military and 500 indian auxiliaries for 5 months in this area. They broke out of the San Carlos Reservation which they were forced to live in—the barren wasteland in east-central Arizona, described as “Hell’s Forty Acres.” Deprived of traditional tribal rights, short on rations and homesick, the apaches led by geronimo revolted. For decades, Geronimo sharpened his survival skills due to the traumatic event that shaped his life. In 1858, Geronimo came back to his camp to find his wife, mother, and 3 children killed by mexicans. He would spend the majority of his life raiding and marauding northern mexico seeking vengeance. Then in ever-increasing numbers, Geronimo fought against both Mexicans and white settlers as they began to colonize much of the Apache homelands. In 1884 Geronimo and and his tribe walked 1,645 miles (sometimes over 70 miles a day) over five months to evade capture. They chased turkeys into the plains till the turkeys were exhausted then seized them. They smoked wild tobacoo cigarettes rolled in oak leaves. They made quivers for their arrows with the skin of mountain lions hunted by arrows. They hunted buffalo on horseback, using their hides to make teepees. They would crawl long distances with a bush in front of them to hunt deer. They were a proud people deeply in tune with the land who were captured and then imprisoned on reservations. In these canyons their spirits roamed.

Compared to the apaches, field biologists were quite different in their relationship with the land. They extracted information from the desert in a mechanical way. At night, when the desert came alive. I remember hiking out in the darkness to see and record how the bats flutter and pollinate agave plant flowers. For my own entomological specimens to take back to the museum, I set up white sheets with UV light cast upon it which funneled into a jar of ethyl alcohol. The insects would fly to the light slide down the sheets into the jars of alcohol to preserve their DNA for analysis. In heavy rains the spade foot toads would dig out of their burrows. they mate in these conditions, and then burrow back in the soil waiting for the next rain. Since they only mate 1-3 times a year, the toad scientists became very excited when the rain finally came to the desert. I remember driving out in the darkness in the rain with a research group from bristol, england. To find the toads, all you had to do was listen. Male frogs float atop the water and call for their mates. Sexually active males will begin calling once they reach the breeding site, attracting the females towards the pond. The sound is a very distinct explosive grunt or long drawn-out languishing moans. A single call from a male can be heard several kilometers away but not all males will call during breeding but wait for a female to appear and grasp on to them. The process of grabbing onto a potential mate just anterior of the hind limbs is called amplexus. Females choose where the eggs will be deposited while swimming with the chosen male holding onto them. Scientists poached these amorous toads caught in the act for their research.

Back in the labs, us biologists would work to flesh out evolutionary Darwinian origin stories. We would sequence DNA, look at animal morphology, analyze mating behaviours, etc… to piece together how all life was related. For the apache, their origin story was mythic yet no less valid. their stories coded man’s relationship to their world. The world was once covered in darkness. The beasts comprised of dragons, bears, snakes, lions, etc.. warred with the birds led by an eagle. Man was allied to the eagle, but could never prosper under the beasts as the beasts would destroy all man’s offspring. Then one day a woman hid her boy in a cave to evade capture by the beasts. This child, taught by the eagle how to use the bow and arrow, had the courage to confront the offspring-eating dragon. In a duel, the boy bravely shot his arrow through the scales of the dragon piercing its heart, freeing the land for the humans. The boy’s name was apache. And from him descended the proud tribes. The apache lived in equilibrium with the land, taking nothing more or less than they needed.

Chiracahua Mountains

Mequite

Whiptail Lizard

Horned Lizard

Spade Foot Toad

Geronimo

Flowering Agave

Agave flower bat pollinated

Spade foot toad

Katahdin Two Times

Day 1 Katahdin

I was dehydrated, yet soaked. Wet yet thirsty. Nature’s cruelty on the mountain. The forecast for the day read ‘partly sunny’. At approximately 12 PM I had been hiking for 4 hours in the pouring cold rain. At best, visibility was 15 feet. I had taken off my glasses much earlier in the hike cause the rain kept beading up on my lenses and obscuring my myopic view. Better to be blind in the fog rather than dizzy and nauseous from viewing through water droplets collecting on my glasses. I felt I had just landed on Mars. The rocks were red and green. From the baxter trail cut off to the top of baxter peak, the trail was nearly all flat covered with sharp jagged red rocks. It was a sharp contrast to the Appalachian mountain trail’s middle section which had been all grey stone- large unwielding boulders which I had to squirm, pull, jump, swivel and crawl to get past. Because of the flatness of the trail, I worried if would lose the path because I couldn’t tell if I were heading in the direction of the summit. My boots were completely waterlogged and I could feel the water squish out of my socks with each step I took. I was underwater looking at the most peculiar red green ocean floor. Many times, bright lights flashed before my eyes. Was it lightning? If it was, no thunder was to be heard. (if I was caught in a lightning storm, I had nowhere to hide) I was on a flat plateau 5,000 feet above sea level. Upon encountering more bright flashes, I soon realized they were actually harmless miniature clouds whipped before my eyes by the gusting winds.

What a relief. All I had to contend with was the rain and driving wind. When you’re wet and cold, you have to keep moving to maintain your body temperature. And when there’s wind you can’t peel your wet layers off because of the wind chill. You could say I was in equilibrium hiking up mt. katahdin. Hiking just fast enough to retain body heat and avoid hypothermia, not peeling any clothes off because of the piercing cold wind, not putting any more clothes on because I didn’t have any, not walking up a steep incline, nor descending an incline, just walking forth in the fog towards the peak.

Once in a while I would see a dark form through the fog. ‘an apparition, a lost spirit wandering the top of the mountain,’ I thought. Like odysseus, I had entered hades, ghosts of the past passed before my eyes through the heavy fog. Well not exactly. They were dejected hikers descending. One of the passerbys suggested I turn back. It was over an hour to the top and they said it was incredibly windy. He and his team hadn’t managed to make it up to the top, they had given up and were on their way back.

I was tempted by good reason to get down the mountain and dry off and hike when the skies had cleared. But that would have been the rational thing to do. I kept on hiking. Once I got to the top I wasn’t really impressed. The view was similar to the view at the bottom of the mountain: foggy, visibility 10 feet. The wind was a lot stronger though. And I was cold. After another minute at the top, I was really cold, and faced with the prospect of finishing what I had started. What goes up must go down. My whole body was drenched and I started plodding down. For miles at a time, I didn’t see a single soul. While the world was going about its business at the bottom, I was battling cold rain, wind, and fog through a field of red and green rocks on the top of katahdin. Meanwhile it must’ve been quiet at the base of the mountain and noone there could’ve imagined the experience I was engaging in. actually they probably could’ve imagined my situation, and perhaps that was the reason they elected to remain at the base of katahdin. People who won’t hike up the tallest mountain in maine simply because there are deep dark ominous gray clouds around. To these cowards, I had little to say, for they had not tested themselves to nature’s elements. They are but the ‘fair weather sunny day hikers’.

Descending the middle of the ‘Hunt’ trail was grueling. At every boulder, my hands became increasingly more raw from climbing and desperate grappling for cold rock crevices. My knees started to ache from the impact of landing jumps. By the time I arrived at the base, I was wet, tired, sore, raw, dehydrated and cold. The catch 22 of baxter is that campsite availability for waitlist arrivals is known at 8 AM but the park opens at 6 AM and the sun starts setting at 4 PM and a roundtrip hike to the summit takes 9 hours. So you either hike or get a camping space but never both if you don’t reserve a coveted camping space a year in advance.

By far, the worst news I received on completing my hike was the weather report for the following day calling for a beautiful day and lots of sun….

Having hiked up katahdin in the rain and not seen the panoramic view, I had to leap at a chance of hiking katahdin in good weather. Not knowing there would be any clear days for the rest of the week I was there, logically I decided to hike katahdin again the following day. two nine hour hikes back to back. Some people never get to the summit of katahdin, and here I was, planning to reach the summit on a daily basis.

Day 2 Katahdin

I got up at 3:20 AM the following day. I usually wake up early, but when I have to wake up early, I get nervous I won’t wake up, and then have a hard time going to sleep because I fear I won’t wake up on time. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep before hiking Katahdin again. Since I didn’t have a camping slot, I had to go to the nearest town and stay at a motel 12 miles away. I decided to get to the park entrance early. Thoreau hiked this mountain and wrote about his journey. In the past, access to the mountain was via the androscoggin river, nowadays, it’s a drive on dirt gravel roads. Baxter state park was established with donated land by the former governor of Maine. It’s unique in that they set a quota of visitors per day.. so the trails are not inundated with crowds, and the tranquil nature experience is preserved. This is great for the hiking experience but a little annoying in terms of hiking. I remember arriving at the entrance to the park and pitching a tent so I could ensure entry into the park on the day of arrival. The sounds of the night are haunting. The loons make primeval calls that echo through the valleys. You hear the ‘barking’ sounds of the bears too. Even though the park opens at 6 AM, people line up at the entrance to get the limited day parking spaces available at the lots. When I arrived at the gate, there were already cars lined up at the gate at 4 AM. Nature’s groupies and nuts waiting in cars.

On my 2nd hike, I decided to explore the east face of the mountain and picked a set of different trails. helen traylor and chimney pond, and knife’s edge. The helen traylor, chimney pond trails were the standard beautiful black diamond trails you know. Boulders, streams, plateaus, hemlock and birch lined forests. My body was sore all over, especially the upper body from all the climbing on the previous day. beautiful katahdin revealed without her shroud of clouds. The clouds were held by the other mountains in the range… and as you hiked, you could actually see the tops of low lying clouds till the horizon. I felt I was hiking a different mountain from the previous day. step after step till I came upon the great ridge of katahdin.

This time, Katahdin didn’t disappoint. It’s the highest peak in New England, with 360 degree panoramic views. From the top is a trail called knife edge with a big red warning sign saying people with heart trouble should not hike it (some people have succumbed to cardiac arrest up there, others stumbled on wet rocks). Throwing caution to the wind, I hiked the trail in my sneakers. It is a rocky narrow spine with vertical drops on either side, hence the knife edge name. The wind howls at that high altitude. I could feel my heart pumping. One bad step, and I would be finished. Crawling on the edge, there is no time for ego.. just thoughts of survival.. taking one step at a time. This is how I ideally lead my life.. not thinking too much, just doing... In awe of beauty, on the edge, exploring new places and confronting new experiences.

Knife’s edge
Jagged rocks like the teeth of a spine,
Enter all thouse crazy enough for the climb,
Hold on tight,
With all your might,
Or else the winds will take you to flight.
And you’ll fall off the mountain,
With death nearly certain
On the side of katahdin.

When I got back to the summit I saw several people cry emotionally. They had just finished their 2200 mile journey from Georgia to Maine. Katahdin is the terminus of the Appalachian trail. They had pushed themselves to the edge and let their emotions out.

Baxter Peak
I meet you again Baxter Peak,
But now the weather is not so bleak,
At 5200 feet,
It’s quite a feat
To complete.
And thus ends our tale,
At the terminus of the Appalachian trail.

Returning to civilization I ended creating bad poetry in my head to keep my mind off my sore muscles.

Katahdin Base at Roaring Brook
I’m running out of lines,
Which I can force to rhyme,
But luckily I made it to the base
And can save face
By ending this now
Like a fat dairy cow.

Katahdin - The Greatest Mountain in Penoscot  Indian Language

Knife's Edge

Celebrate

Point Reyes

In the early morning I made a watercolor of irises for my cousin Pam to thank her for letting me crash at her place the night before. I was in San Francisco looking at potential architecture grad schools. Pam suggested a trip to Point Reyes and invited her friend Cathy along.

10 am arrival. we labored up the winding slopes of the forest trail. By 12 pm, we finally arrived at a promontory overlooking a grand view of the pacific ocean. From the vista, I could see the trail continued, uncoiling like a snake down the mountain. Fuck that! I had enough switchbacks in the morning. I just wanted to go straight down. Of course I thought I saw a shortcut through the bushes. I put on my thick sweatshirt and told the girls to meet me at the bottom. The trail I saw ended after 25 feet. Rather than admit defeat, I decided to bear with it. The shrubbery was intense. All I could see were thorn bushes and what looked like poison ivy, and masses of branches. I was crouching,limboing, and struggling with each step. Sweat poured down my face. There was no end. I tried to see paths that deer would take... indeed I saw deer shit all over the place. At times, I turned my body 180 degrees and just forced my way down through vegetation. When I finally poked out of the bushes at the bottom. My cousin and her friend were there waiting for me. I was drenched in sweat. When I told her my fear of poison ivy, Pam responded we don’t have poison I’ve here.... we have poison oak.” “Great,” I thought.

We walked to the waterfall. Imagine a giant waterfall by the ocean, the fresh water gushing down the sand into the salty sea. A few other waterfalls were further along on our trail too. They were a bit weaker. The beautiful thing about these smaller waterfalls was the water would disappear into the sand and not even make it to the ocean. Water into sand by the ocean.

For the next couple hours we walked by the rocky sea shore. It was like walking on glass. I eventually crawled into the tidal pools. I could see a huge starfish and a hermit crab with a shell on its back. The starfish was hard and intractable as I tried of lift it. it's arms detached. oops. I guess that’s what happens when they get old. Far from being pacific, the Pacific Ocean waves crashed violently onto the rocks creating a mist to arise cloaking the cliffs and mountains in a purple haze.

“Let’s try catching another trail back home down the coast” my cousin suggested. At 2 pm. In the middle of our trek, I joked to my cousin, “wouldn’t it be funny if the tide came up and our trail was submerged?”

Misreading the map and interpreting the landscape features wrong, we thought the trail was close at hand, we actually took our pants off to wade through certain sections, thinking that the trails was right around the bend in the cliffs... it wasn’t.

4:45 pm. My hands clung to the rock cliff. i was trying to scale a cliff to check if there were any trails beyond the bend. Down below, the Pacific Ocean roared. “Luke, we have to go, the tide’s coming up!” they screamed. my camera was in my bag, along with my water color pads... all would be ruined. I clung to the cliff. it sounded hollow, as if the rock would crumble from my weight. i got to a bend in the cliff where i could go no father. I couldn't see any rocks around the bend. two feet below, the water swirled. i could see translucent gray rocks beneath the green sea.. but they were 3 feet away and i was 2 feet up. they screamed at me. leap of faith. i sent my hand to the other side of the bend hoping to grab a rock... before i could think, i was submerged in the Pacific. soaked from head to toe i grabbed a rock in the ocean, regained my balance and skipped from submerged rock to submerged tock till there was some sand. the trail had gone under water and i had escaped death by pacific rip tide.

5:30 i ran to the arch rock. beyond it was the coastal trail back to the entrance. i climbed part of the cliff till i could climb no more to see if it was passible. it wasn't. shit. i saw some caves carved out by the ocean. tranquil beautiful flowing sea anemones anchored to the underwater rocks below. arch rock looked like a bridge. the sun was blinding. surrounding the arch were angular rocks, stoics in the sea. it looked so primitive. i wished i could've stayed, but i had to get back, the girls were waiting for me.

we hastened to the waterfall. that is where the wild cat trail ended. we had just spent 3 hours trying to find another return trail along the coast but failed cause the high tide caught submerged everything. another 15 minutes and we would've been dead meat.

6:10 at the waterfall. the sun was about to set and we had 6 miles of hiking up and down the mountains, through the mountains and streams.. ughh. i tried to buy some shorts or pants off various campers along the way to no avail. by now, the sunset was covered by clouds. majestic pinks and purples over the grey green sea. i hiked in wet jeans and wet t-shirt. there was a hole in my underwear. i wore the rattiest pair of underwear i owned that day. when i loosened my pants, the girls started giggling and laughing hysterically... but i had to do it.. my wet jeans were cutting into my thighs. ughh. i took it like a man. it smelled like rain, but it didn't rain. and we ran an we hiked though mud and rocks and narrow trails, and we held hands for the last 3 miles taking each step with trepidation seeing only the faint glow of the path in the midst of imperturbable darkness which was the forest trees. i whistled and ate a whole bag of granola to pass time. the silence of the walk would have been too scary. cathy asked " would you be content being killed by a deranged lunatic in the woods right now" "No" i said, " i haven't done all the things i've wanted to do in life." she replied "at this point, i wouldn't care too much, then we would be out of this jam..." she walked ahead.. i couldn't see her anymore. i was alone. pam and cathy were walking in underwear to avoid their wet jeans cutting into their skin like mine. all i could see were the open skies, the stars and the shadow of dark trees.

the pasture, the sound of mules, a couple lights, the parking lot, hallelujah car. when i awoke in the backseat in my ripped underwear we were back in san francisco. what a hike.

the morals:
don't hike off trail
allow for time getting back during the daytime
don't wear ripped underwear
bring extra clothes to leave in the car
hike with others
check the tides
don't mess with the pacific

Antelope Canyon

I first saw antelope canyon on my computer as a screen saver for my Microsoft operating system. The forms and color looked so unreal I remembered its name. When we went to Utah to hike Zion national park, I noticed antelope canyon was just a 5 hour drive east in Arizona... so I included it in the itinerary. There are a lot of slot canyons in the Southwest... canyons which are cut by water flows and erosion. Some canyons have shallow water streams running through them in spring, making for cool refreshing shady hikes between canyon walls. All the slot canyons we hiked in Utah were at the base of a larger mountain systems.

To get to antelope from Utah, you traverse flat, red desert. The largest feature by the antelope canyon area is an enormous power station. There were no mountains around. Not what you would expect for a tourist destination or famous slot canyon. Founded by a Navajo shepherd 80 years ago, the antelope canyon has been under their control ever since. The entry process is tedious. You park your car in a large lot, wait in long lines in the sun, descend in groups of 10 with a Navajo guide. The entry to antelope is a unassuming fissure in the ground. Once you descend 30 feet to the sand floor, the canyon comes alive — the walls glow orange red and white. At times, the canyon walls constrict to the width of a body, other times, the canyon splays open to form caverns. The light is ever changing and bounces off the walls in dynamic ways. Rock formations resemble different animals inside the cave. Formulaically, the Navajo guide points out all the angles to take the optimal photos from.

I saw one curious bulbous formation above and asked the guide what kind of animal it was jokingly. He told me it was an elephant head and then continued
“Twenty years ago people clung to that elephant’s stone ears during a flash flood.”
“Really?”
“Yes. It’s the reason we have metal escape ladders in the canyon, flood detection systems upstream, restrictions on canyon access due to weather, and required tour guides for each group that comes visit. Back then, there was a large group of 11 French tourists visiting sites in the southwest. They hired an impromptu guide to take them to antelope. The guide for some reason, was 2 hours late picking them up from the hotel. Two of the French tourists’ children didn’t want to hike, so they stayed at the hotel to relax while their parents went. The guide took them to antelope. They had a great time... one person from the group requested to go back in to take some more pictures, so they re-entered the canyon. Meanwhile, 30 miles upstream, a summer storm dumped a lot of rain that started to flow towards antelope. The water gathered debris and rocks and started barreling towards the tourists. While the guide was helping take pictures for the group, the ground started shaking violently, the sand started jumping. The tourists start trying to climb up the walls to try to escape. That water channeling through the narrow slot canyon rose 20 feet all the way up the elephant head. The water was deafening, sounding like a 1000 jet engines. The people were hanging onto that elephant head for dear life, but were knocked loose. Only one person would survive the flood, the guide. He was found downstream battered and cut totally naked. When asked what it felt like to go through the canyon, he said it was like tumbling in a dryer lined with sand paper... every time he hit a wall or rock, another swatch of flesh or clothing would rip off. It took him a year to recover from his skin injuries.”

As I walked the rest of the canyon I started thinking about the extreme forces of erosion and water forces that formed the canyon... the children at the hotel who waited for their parents who never returned.... Having visited bridal veil trail Yosemite where people were swept off the waterfall, horseshoe bend where a tourist lost footing taking a selfie, Fort Worth water Gardens where a family was sucked into a fountain drain.. all the same year as my visit to antelope... I came to the conclusion the most beautiful places in the world always have tragic stories associated with them. Some people lured to the edge beauty never return.