Rewilding

I drive to Hite Marina the next morning. Here, I am expecting something. I am expecting people. Apparently, I hadn’t done my research, Hite Marina’s closure means everything is closed, the entire place. I am like Chevy Chase at Wally World – except now I’m a hundred miles from lunch.

I stop at the ranger station, which is also closed. I call Las Vegas from the dusty pay phone. I tell Jane about the furry white bat. But then she says that my four-month old boy just slept through his first night. A monumental moment.

Hite Marina was created as a boating center at the far northern edge of Lake Powell. For decades, Americans dropped their boats in the water here, and sped through the flooded canyon alleys of the lake. But now, the water level at Hite Marina is so low, the whole place has become abandoned.

Thankfully for my belly, I have plenty of food in the Jeep. That food is part of an experiment in reducing expenses on the road. Back in Las Vegas, I packed a single grocery bag with enough food for a week. My only road expense has been a green salad, and a beer. A few loaves of bread, cheese, apples, salami, peanut butter will be my best friends for the days to come. Weary from hours on the road, and many walks in the sun, simpler food simply tastes better anyways. When I most curse myself for carrying too much stuff while traveling, I always come back to the paper grocery bag. When I most curse myself for all the unnecessary stuff I carry with me, I ask myself if I could challenge myself to travel my continent only carrying a grocery bag of belongings?

I walk down the gentle slopes that once were the banks of the river. Caked in the mud is all the sins of a thousand boaters – Clorox bottles, engine parts, broken-apart coolers.

As I draw nearer the water’s edge, the cracks between the mud grow wider. I keep walking, but conscious that a misstep could mean a twisted ankle or a broken leg. A few minutes later, I realize I am jumping between mud-cracks. I can no longer see the mud-crack bottoms. When I measure the cracks with my extended tripod, I realize they are seven feet deep. Then, I am jumping from mud tower to mud tower, like a giant across the Manhattan skyline.

When I emerge on the other end of this cracked landscape, nearer the waterline, I enter a buffer zone of plant life. When I emerge at the waterline, I realize that the river water isn’t even a river. It’s a big puddle of still water, slowly seeping into the Earth.

Hite Marina is like an allegory for North America in the 21st century. Man made this once flourishing Lake Powell marina possible, by damning the Colorado River in the 20th century. We damned it along with all our other rivers - only about 42 of America’s largest 3,000 rivers are undamned.

When we blocked up the Colorado River, much of Glen Canyon – the enormous canyon system of southeastern Utah created by the confluence of the Colorado and San Juan rivers – went underwater. Lost were thousands of archeological treasures and unspoiled American habitat. Now, through a changing climate, the water levels are lowering again – it’s a brave new world, even out here in the middle of nowhere.

I decide to head further south into the evening. On the road, I imagine Jane’s expression at waking to find she slept uninterrupted through the whole night. What a moment I missed. Why, then, am I here, by myself, once again?

But that is a question I consider only momentarily, as light slips off a thousand sandstone faces and moonlight floods the canyons. Driving in such solitude is exhilarating and transformative. There is no traffic, and it is unlikely I will see any headlights tonight. There is only a road ahead of me, a soft moonlit palette on which to ride, and consider, and to paint thoughts about tomorrow.

The next morning, I continue driving early. When I surprise a prairie falcon off its post-fence perch, he launches in the same direction as me. For a few hundred yards, his flight approximates my speed and direction. From the open windows of the Jeep, I see this magnificent raptor up close; it’s helmet face, brilliant beak, those eyes.

He reminds me that, once, just five hundred years ago, the skies of the southwest were filled with a gigantic bird – the California condor. They were among the largest animals of the North American deserts, with wingspans nine feet.