{Prompt: Have you ever been lost?}
When Dianne took over driving the rental Jeep in Northern Arizona, I began to really understand why they call the roll-bar grab handles the “Oh, Shit! handles.”
Navajo Route 13 was marked as a secondary highway in the fold-out official Arizona State map, but it was unlike any ‘highway’ I had ever been on. It was more like a forestry trail. It was paved only with gravel and dirt as it ascended the Lukachukai mountains towards Buffalo Pass, and it seemed like a dry mountain stream was taking the same path in the other direction, its bed meandering from one side of the road to the other.
Navajo Route 16 Scenic Byway
When I was driving (before Dianne), I felt like I was going slowly — really slowly up the road, taking every precaution to keep the Jeep’s undercarriage from hitting bottom. Nevertheless, the Jeep was rocking from side to side and Dianne was looking a bit green around the gills. She asked me to stop.
So we stopped in the middle of this rut-filled road, between Chinle, Arizona, and Shiprock, New Mexico, and we switched drivers. This was back in 1993, or ’94, before we had children — before we had a last will and testament.
I walked to the passenger side, mounted the floorboard, buckled up, and grabbed the grab bar.
Dianne walked to the driver’s side, adjusted her seat, buckled up, and grabbed the steering wheel.
Then she started up this roller-coaster road with good and proper caution, winding across the gullies from side to side.
It wasn’t long, however, before she had the Jeep bouncing up the road, with gravel spitting out from under the tires, at an alarming velocity. She had a smile on her face. She didn’t look the least bit ill, anymore. She was loving it.
I was truly terrified.
I never really realized before how vastly your perspective can change in the short distance between the driver’s seat and the passenger seat. As a driver—the one in control—the road seemed as springy and exciting as a children’s inflatable bounce house. But as a passenger—the one without control—the road seemed as jolting and ominous as the crashing waves of a storm at sea.
I was never so happy as when the road began to level out, approaching the mountain pass, and the “perfect storm” began to resemble a car ride once more.
But now we had a different problem.
There seemed to be a paucity of directional signs. And the signs that we did see were bright yellow, and said something like, “Caution - Gas Pipeline” or “Danger - Natural Gas Field”. It turns out that we were entering the Nacogdoches Oil and Gas Yard, a place for extracting natural gas near Roof Butte in Apache County, Arizona.
We would have happily driven right by, but the road we were on began to split with no discernible wayside markers. Dianne took one turn, in the direction opposite the setting sun, and then another. Each time, the set of road choices seemed nearly identical.
Now we began to pass clusters of metal piping, emerging from the ground, in different places. We were well and truly in the middle of a field of natural gas wells.
A natural gas well in a more serene setting
And then the graveled surface of the road began to disappear into sets of parallel tire tracks. And then the tire tracks began to fade into a fine layer of light snow. It was time to stop.
This was in the early 1990s, before GPS systems were widely available (about 2007) — before smart phones and the internet. Although to be fair, we probably were in just about the least accessible place in the US for satellite reception. This adventure would have been just as ill-conceived today, as it was three decades ago.
Dianne was happy, now, to give up the steering wheel, and we switched drivers once more.
I turned the car around, and headed for tracks that were more recognizable — less covered in snow. Roads that were more, rather than less, traveled by. Channeling my inner Wild West scout/tracker instincts, I tracked our way back to a promising-looking gravel road heading down the other side of the mountains in an easterly direction.
I felt a wave of relief, and my grip on the wheel relaxed. I began to breathe more easily.
We both gave thanks to our heavenly stars that we found our way back towards civilization.
The sun was setting behind us as we made our way down onto the flat plain of the Red Valley of the Navajo nation, and past the awe-inspiring Ship Rock, an ancient landmark on the Navajo lands of northern New Mexico.
Ship Rock at sunset
All in all, this was a trip full of adventure. I think, on this particular trip, we went from Scottsdale, Arizona (the home of Dianne’s Uncle Victor and Aunt Mary) northwest to Canyon de Chelly (National Monument) in Arizona; then north to the Four Corners monument at the convergence of the four states—Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah; then north again to Telluride, Colorado, and the Telluride ski resort; then west to Moab, Utah, and Canyonlands National Park; and then south to Monument Valley in southern Utah before we returned to Scottsdale, Arizona.
The places we went were spectacular. We saw the 800 foot monolith of Spider Rock from the rim of Canyon de Chelly — a place that inspired the cartoons of Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner.
Spider Rock & Canyon de Chelly (Anne McKinnell Photography)
And from the floor of the canyon, we saw the cliff dwellings of the Anasazi civilization at the White House ruins — a backdrop for the Chinle wash, lined by cottonwood trees.
White House Ruins (Jim West - Science Photo Library)
We saw the old western mining town of Telluride surrounded by the peaks of the San Juan mountains.
Telluride, Colorado
And we skied on the wide-open southern slopes above “Mountain Village” at the Telluride ski resort. Before dusk, we carefully followed the meandering and narrow Telluride Trail ski path back down the shaded northern slopes of the ski resort right into the city. The warm glow of the incandescent lights was enchanting.
The lights of Telluride beneath the ski slopes.
We took the Shafer Basin Road up the side of a canyon at Canyonlands National Park, to the Island in the Sky visitor center, in Utah.
Shafer Basin Trail (National Park Service photo)
And we rented bicycles in Moab to go on a “relatively easy” mountain trail overlooking the Canyonlands. Once again, we found ourselves in unexpected difficulty. It was described as “a little climbing” at the start of the trail, but the reality was much worse.
Our little climb was a steep gradient on a fire road with virtually no traction. The road was almost entirely composed of a layer of loose sand, one to two inches deep. We spent at least a half an hour making our way to the canyon rim, alternately pushing our bikes, and spinning our wheels.
Once we arrived at the top of the plateau, the trail was much firmer, composed primarily of red rock, making for a relatively flat and pleasant ride with incredible views across the canyons of the park.
A representative view of the White Rim Trail
When we finished the wonderful excursion at the top, we slipped and slid our way back to the parking area at the bottom, where another group of riders were just jabbering away about how nice and easy the whole ride had been. Dianne focused a piercing glare on their beaming faces and demanded to know, in what world this was an easy ride. Well… it turns out that their tour company had dropped them off — bicycles, gear, and all — at the top of the trail! For them, the entire ride had been an easy pedal and a coast downhill.
The Road Less Traveled
It seems as if (as a matter of conserving our savings, or as a matter of defying the norms) we have always taken “the road less traveled by”.
Sometimes that takes us to an amazing place—a snow-covered pinnacle with a panoramic view.
But sometimes it takes us into a maze of utility roads in the middle of a natural gas mining field…
Somewhere in the mountains of the Navajo nation…
With a crappy map and no emergency supplies…
As the sun is setting.
Appendix
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
No comments:
Post a Comment