The scariest thing on my mind lately is that I will be graduating from college in thirteen short months. Between applying for internships, figuring out summer plans, figuring out life in general, and listening to my senior friends worry about their lives as a real-life, fully-functioning adult: I have been a strange combination of stressed, worried, and excited for my future. A week-long escape to the desert was greatly needed to reset.
A few months ago I did some reflecting on all of the incredible places in Utah that I’ve been to so far: Arches, all four districts in Canyonlands, Bears Ears, Zion, Bryce, San Rafael Swell, Goblin Valley. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was the last major wilderness area I had yet to visit. I’ve heard countless stories of the magic of Grand Staircase-Escalante, so a few friends and I decided to dedicate our spring break to the Monument.
The week began with the typical group of messy college kids stuffed into a small car, with a trunk packed so full that the rearview mirror was essentially useless. We drove ten hours to camp outside of the small desert town of Escalante, Utah, found our campsite in the dark, and woke up to sand, dry air and junipers. We spent the next few days day hiking and car camping along the Hole in the Rock Road and explored Escalante classics such as the Peekaboo and Spooky slot canyons, and Coyote Gulch. We were so happy to be wearing shorts for the first time in months, and didn’t care at all about our pasty, reflective legs that hadn’t seen the sun since September.
On our third day of adventures, we woke up at the Egypt Trailhead and began our hike to Golden Cathedral. I remember seeing photos of the Cathedral in a Moab hotel room on my first visit to Utah with my mom in 2015. I’ve seen countless photos of it on the internet and on Instagram since then and it’s always been a hike I’ve wanted to do. But the hike and the Cathedral itself were nothing like I expected.
We descended into the main artery cut by the Escalante River that runs through the Monument down to Lake Powell. The rocks were the typical Utah-red, stained by years of magnesium and iron oxides. We met the muddy Escalante at the bottom of the canyon, and waded through its chilly waters until we reached our side canyon on the East side of the river, which we would follow to the Cathedral. Here everything changed.
As we walked up the side canyon, the rush of the Escalante River quickly disappeared and I instantly realized why it was named Neon Canyon. The walls were perfectly orange, and the way the sun reflected light off the canyon floor and onto the walls allowed the canyon to glow. It seemed almost artificial. The canyon grew more and more silent as we hiked up and waded through puddles, which cast unique patterns of water onto the walls and which shifted as we disturbed them. The birds were chirping—the canyon was alive. With each step through Neon Canyon we were more amazed, our voices reverberated throughout the eden we had entered until finally, we rounded a corner and reached the end.
There stood Golden Cathedral, in all its glory. There was a wide hole in the ceiling, but no sign of eroded debris in the pool below—it must have been swept away by flash floods throughout the ages. The sun hadn’t hit the Cathedral yet, so the walls continued to glow their neon orange and ferns grew out of the walls of sandstone, feeding off ancient spring water. It was like nothing I had seen before and I was certainly impressed. We were at peace, inspired by the silence, stillness, and divinity of the Cathedral.
My friends and I spent an hour or so at the Cathedral, watching the sun illuminate its interior, until we left for our walk back out of Neon Canyon to the Escalante River, and eventually back to our car, where a hot dinner and night under the stars was waiting for us.