Mud Road to Coyote Buttes

My approach to questionable driving conditions has always been to take it slow.  But Betty needs to maintain forward motion.  On an uphill slope, losing momentum would mean sliding into the creek, a fifteen foot drop.  So Betty moves at a fast clip.  When we approach a hilltop, we can see the slick downhill beneath us.  Betty has no choice but to keep moving.  The downhill slope is nightmarish: I cling to the truck and brace myself for going over the ledge.  Betty loses all traction with the tires, and they become like dull skis on ice.

Incredibly, she sails the truck down the road, and when we hit the bottom, we break through mud.  We go through this sort of thing for four miles, and now I wonder, how do we get back? When we get to a creek, Betty says, "There's another way out."  She is thinking the same thing as me.  "Really?" I say, relieved.  "Yeah, its longer, but it meets up with the 89A.  Problem is, this creek is really running."

Betty decides to try the creek elsewhere.  "Looks okay here," she says.  "So, should we keep going?" she asks me.  What do you say to that?  Of course.

We ford the creek easily, but the next four miles to the trailhead only get worse.  "Did I scare you?" Betty asks.  But I can tell she's not comfortable with our situation either.

When we make it to the trailhead, I tell Betty that I'll try to be back by sundown.  It dawns on me that Betty is handicapped – if the roads get worse, hiking out would be impossible.

This is when rain clouds envelop the valley and it begins to rain.  Just a few years ago, about twenty percent of hikers wouldn't even find Coyote Buttes.  But now the ranger station offers detailed instructions – eight pages of maps, photos, text and GPS coordinates. 

It is only three miles to Coyote Buttes, but incredibly, it starts to rain and the dampness makes the ink on my instructions bleed.  I follow them as clearly as I can – but the weather makes it hard to spot the landmarks I'm supposed to follow.  To make up for the weather and my failing directions, I start dragging my foot deep in the sand to make a sort of notation for my direction.  As I progress, I am confounded by the intricate slickrock wilderness I've just entered into.  Buttes and gullies and hoodoos.  But how do I find my way through all of this in this rain?  I look at the map again, but by now it has completely bled itself unreadable.

I consider turning back, but I figure as long as I keep marking my way, I'll find my way back. 

Soon, though, the sand gives way to slickrock, and while I can no longer make tracks, the geography starts to make sense.  I realize too, that up here on the slickrock, I see occasional footsteps in pockets of sand.  And from time to time, I'll notice a cairn.  I pocket the directions, and walk.

The rain fails to relent, but I gain confidence.  I note fresh coyote tracks, and jackrabbit tracks.
At a streambed, I note more tracks.  Several coyotes had come here to drink water.  And even mule deer.  Among these, feline prints: bobcat.

Another mile and I know I am nearing Coyote Buttes.  Another stream and more animal tracks.  But here one print is deeper than the rest – cougar. 

I walk up a sandy incline, now clearly able to follow footsteps from previous hikers. 

Coyote Buttes is actually a large area, and it is administratively divided into two sections: this, the more famous North, and several miles south of here, the southern section, which many believe to be even more spectacular than this.

But walking into the 'Wave', the entrance to Coyote Buttes, is an experience like no other.  This structure of yellow, red and orange sandstone is sculpted into shapes that are so brilliant, so strange, they seem unreal, unfit for this world.

Photographers have learned that within a two mile radius of the wave are countless subjects; pink sands, rocks sculpted into lace.  Tracks of dinosaurs found embedded on exposed rock.  

The rain picks up, and then a stiff blast – a single hurricane-force puff, blasts through the wave.  I am pushed to my knees, and I yell in surprise!

But then the sky turns blue and a rainbow appears over a mesa, and all of the intricate and fragile glory of this place opens up.  I look out over a landscape of rocks shaped like tents, of twisted forms, and I cannot stop but imagine this place as anything else but the backdrop for speculative drama.  And just as soon, I see eight or nine arks crossing along slickrock cliffs.

Their crews live in perennial fear of cougars, which is why they do nearly everything within the confines of their machines.  These people, isolated from survivors on the Grand Canyon's south rim, have little knowledge about the dawning civilization on that flat plateau.  The two groups only confront one another (suspiciously) when the Colorado River dries up completely, and they can ford the mud at Lee's Ferry to trade honey and coal, and to recount common stories of hatred for the girl on the horse.

I promised myself to leave not one minute later than four-thirty, to guarantee light my entire walk back.  I leave promptly, and walking back in good weather, I have none of my fears of getting lost.  I am surrounded by my simple story; it keeps me company the entire way.

When I return to the truck, I realize how late it is.  It has been dark for half hour.  Betty breaks from her book.  She had collected dozens of photos from her album for me to look at.  While I look through her photos, we agree to exit House Rock Road to the south.  Stars come out brightly, and in the clear night, we see a layer of clouds lit by moonlight a hundred miles south: it's snowing in the Grand Canyon.

When we reach the highway, Betty's cell phone beeps.  "I have to call my friend before eight.  Because if she doesn't hear from us by then, search and rescue come after us."

This is when I call my parents and tell them I am off the trail.  When I hang up, I explain to Betty that this is my habit. "My parents embedded that in me in grade school.  If they didn't hear from me, they called all my friends parents, looking for me!"

Betty, who must be fifty-five years old, says, "I didn't tell my mom where I was goin'."

Betty is the daughter of ranger-parents.  She was raised in this setting while her parents moved through the Grand Canyon area.  When her father passed away, she settled in a small town near Lee's Ferry with her aging mother.  "This entire valley has only a population of about one hundred in the winter."  She tells me about how electricity is generated, and water is collected from the Vermillion Cliffs area.  "My sisters moved to civilization.  But I like this land, it speaks to me."

When its clear we have good cell reception, Betty calls her friend.   It turns out her mother is worried sick over her, and they had even called her sisters in Texas.  "You better call your mother!" the woman says.

While we drive through the starry night, I hear Betty's mother on the other end.  It turns out Betty didn't want her knowing she was taking clients on the mud roads in winter.  When she hangs up, Betty slouches in the driver's seat and says, "My mother really chewed me out."   Better than fiction, I think, and I say, "see!  Always tell your mother where you're going!"