With the exception of long river trips in the Grand Canyon, it’s been over a year since I’ve done a multi-day trip in the backcountry. In college, it seemed like I was off the grid every chance I could get; from weekend to week-long trips, I was constantly switching my phone to airplane mode, exploring, photographing, and writing about my adventures. The world is a different place now, between COVID-19 and the apocalyptic blanket of smoke along the Front Range from the West’s wildfires. And I too, am in a different place now. I seem to be endlessly working, paying my own bills, and trying to stay fit. No more studying though, hurrah!
This new chapter in my life is busy, so I jumped at the chance to do a five-day trip in The Maze when a friend from college invited me to tag along nearly a month ago. The day before our departure date crept up quickly, and before I knew it I had to get my sh*t together: buy food for myself for five days, do a load of laundry, tie up loose ends at work, run by REI, and dust off my backpacking gear. But somehow, I just wasn’t excited. Something about this trip didn’t capture my interest as trips have done in the past. I have no earthly idea why, and as I look back on what became one of the best trips I’ve done in a long time, I can only smile.
The last five days we spent in The Maze District in Canyonlands was different than my previous trips there, we piled into my friend’s lifted Toyota FJ Cruiser to tackle the hardest sections of four-wheeling roads in the park. There would be no 14-mile approach to The Maze, no 30-pound packs, and no worrying about campsites and water sources. I was grateful for that.
It turns out that the Maze from a 4wd vehicle is as good as it gets. We packed 22 gallons of water for the four of us, plenty of food and snacks, beer, hard kombuchas, a bag of wine, camp chairs, books— and we could go far enough out into the canyons of Utah to see only a handful of people over five days. We day-hiked in the Maze itself and camped at Standing Rock and Doll House. The stars were epic and the desert was silent among its colorful cross beds and thick brush of juniper and pinyon pine.
On day three, we left the FJ parked at Doll House and loaded up our packs for an ultra short backpacking trip out to the Confluence Overlook, the one major sight I hadn’t seen in The Maze. The trail wound its way through Needles-like spires and fields of cryptobiotic soil. We laughed at how old we all felt—we used to hike 10+ miles per day through the desert with a minimum of 10 pounds of water on our backs! And yet this little 5-mile hike was killing us!
Eventually. the trail ran up to the edge of a 2000-foot cliff overlooking the Colorado River. We were close to the Confluence, and the sheer drop and empty space before us shocked our souls. We continued North along the trail for another mile or so, until we reached a point where the Confluence could be seen. We made it to the overlook.
We scrambled out to a point and made our way around the rock ledges carefully, avoiding the deadly drops that were on three sides of us, with the fourth being a narrow path back to safety. We were on the edge of the world, the canyon walls cascaded down to the river, the mighty Colorado River, which was met by the Green in the heart of Canyonlands. All of this was set by the stunning backdrop of the La Sal Mountains outside of Moab.
We spent the rest of the evening playing bocce ball, reading, cooking our delicious curry dinner, and watching the stars peak out through the darkness. We found a few scorpions near our tent and headed to bed, hoping they wouldn’t find a new home in our shoes overnight. In the morning we sat up on a rock at the Overlook, made coffee and read Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, specifically the chapter “Terra Incognita,” where Ed and his friend Waterman descend into the Maze. We chuckled at Abbey’s libertarian ideas and related to his struggle getting into the Maze. As we read the sun began illuminating the canyon walls and they glowed a brilliant red. The sky was golden, the river blue and cool below.
In the decades since Abbey and Waterman explored the Maze, it has remained largely untouched. The nearby Arches National Park, and even the other two districts of Canyonlands, see significantly more people. The Maze is incredibly challenging to get to—you must commit at least a few days when planning a trip. And for that, it sees so few people. For us, and likely for Ed Abbey, the Maze is a solitary miracle. Especially in the crazy time that 2020 is turning out to be, places like the Maze can save us all. Keep them quiet, keep them lonely, and keep them wild, so when we start to lose our excitement for visiting these amazing places, we can quickly remember all they can teach us.