Its been a long hot, fun summer, and its not over yet. A brief overview.

Monument Valley was so impressive. What a wonder. Its so vast and big and open and empty that its impossible to describe or photograph. This was some of the best free camping we have seen. You can't camp in the park but just out side in a lesser known but of equally or even greater awe and beauty known as Garden of the Gods. 

We added more solar panels to the array while in Moab around the Memorial day time of summer. Moab was awesome, until the heat hit. We were enjoying 80 degree days and 50 degree nights while boondocking on some BLM land. It was open range and the cows would bump up against the camper every morning that they pushed through the meadow. Utah has a grass known as cheat grass. It is the bain of every dogs existence in the area. Z got one between the ball and socket of his eye. The vile weed is barbed so its impossible to remove. Good times!!

First, the biting gnats came. Only you don't feel the bite, until about 12 hours later. I chose this time to ad a hitch to the front of my f350 to carry a little dirt bike. that meant laying on the ground for a few hours of gnat torture. then I also added some more solar power panels to the roof which was another afternoon of gnatastic fun. The next morning I awoke covered in large bites. Having a weird  natural pesticide since birth I have never really gotten any bug bites. I know its weird, everyone else gets bit but me, I'm just not tasty. So I have never had to develop any will power for scratching. By the end of the next few days, the hundreds of open wounds on my legs and neck had me looking every bit the meth head. Then the heat turned on. 104 by 11 AM? no thanks. They only sell 3.2 beer in utah? We are outta here. Silverton colorado and a campground at 10,000 feet next to a stream? Yes please.

we love our vintage trail bikes around here! 75 KL 250, honda post 110 and the mighty  95 TW 200. We camped on some friends land out side Cardwell Montana, near the little hamlet of Mammoth. for a couple of weeks around the fourth of July. It was a great few weeks. We crashed their family reunion which brought Jamaicans, Australians, Australia-Jamicans, and American-Aussie-Jamicans. Its no ting man! Don't trust those Jamaicans when it comes to rum punch though...We had a blast dining on jerk pork, shooting bows and arrows (not at each other though, so), hiking to alpine lakes, exploring the Bitterroot Mountains on the dirt bikes, cards against humanity, late nights around the fire and just general vacationing. 

When moab heated up, we headed for the hills. Literally, this campsite is at almost 10,000 feet in the San Juan National Forest, outside Silverton Colorado. The moving water is known as mineral creek. This was mid June, 80 degree days and 40 degree nights. perfection. All of the rivers and creeks were fattened with snowmelt from the upper reaches of the mountains. Its quite the phenomenon to watch the rivers swell all day to a raging wall of water when the snow is at its meltiest, around 3 am. After that the melt as run off and the snow begins to refreeze and slow the flow. By the time we left (16 days) the snow had all but disappeared. When we first got there most of the road into the forest was not passable due to 2 feet of snow. Colorado spring was amazing. We were surrounded by wildlife here. Beavers, blonde black bears, moose and cut throat trout called us neighbors. Really magical spot. Hit me up and Ill send you the GPS co-ords. 

Going Back to Bryce

I am sure you are sick of hearing about my summer at Bryce Canyon way back when, if so move on, this post is going to be chock full of nostalgia, high-jinx, and misadventure of a 20 year old know it all. 

I arrived at Bryce Canyon National Park sometime around early June of 1994. Upon arrival I was ordered to dig the tunnel through the 8 foot deep and 20 foot long of snow blocking the entrance to the lodge. As the lone shoveler under the judging eyes of my superiors, my disdain for the park service officials had officially begun. 

My questioning of the state government of Utah, and government in general,  begun shortly thereafter. Digging through ice and snow to make an entrance into the park lodge took me almost sun up to sun down. After I completed the first entrance to the lodge for the summer season I decided I had earned a drink. As a 20 year old with a fake ID and an overwhelming sense of confidence, I made friends with the lodge's only bartender. Interesting. Utah hates to sell liquor to anyone, yet she was one of the first employees waiting upon the opening of the lodge, to my benefit. I disappeared behind the bar for a much deserved whisky warm up. After pouring a generous, but again, well deserved drink, I was admonished by the bartender for pouring 2 drinks at once. As it turns out, Utah alcohol law is so bent that mixed drinks don't really exist and all beer is 3.2 beer. So my appropriation of booze was sure to go noticed.  I paid the piper and no one got hurt. 

Living at Bryce was where it all began for me. Sure, I had been west before. My parents, thought it was a good idea to let me, along with three of my friends, take an Amtrak out to New Mexico from Chicago, and back over a week, unsupervised, at age 14 .  I am now convinced they were hoping we wouldn't return…But venturing out west, on my own, entirely in charge, this time was different. 

This trip was so different. I had to chart my own course and site my own camps. Find my own food, fuel and fun. And the latter proved to be the easiest quarry. 

I occupied my free time volunteering for the park service, as a environmental biology major I had just enough talent to get me a spot on the Utah Prairie Dog Project. The dogs were endangered back then and we mapped, tracked, and counted the shit out of those prairie dogs.  I am proud to say that this visit to Bryce showed me that the hard work paid off. Utah Prairie Dogs are no longer endangered. But they are still delicious….joke.

I made friends that summer with a couple of different individuals who I still think about today. One was a law dog and the other was a thieving local. The law dog would turn out to be the cooler of the two, much to my dismay. 

The local worked with me during the evenings in the kitchen. My paying job was cooking in the lodge for the tourists. Local dude was an unscrupulous waiter and overall shifty individual, which usually is a deal breaker for me. But this guy, once I told him that I was a climber and had ropes, shoes, and gear asked me if I wanted to see some wonders. Being a curious guy I agreed. 

We repelled into some Indian caves with remains of pottery artifacts that were not intact and of no value to him. He did tell me of the whereabouts of a giant golden cross that the Spanish had taken from South American Indians during their conquests and pillages.  This legendary cross was too heavy to get over the southern Utah mountains and was left in a hidden cave. I may know the exact location of the cave, but I need a helicopter to get there. The waiter, as it turns out, was a thief of petty Indian artifacts that he would brag about to me. I told him that he was one of the worst Americans I had ever met. He would laugh in that big Panguitch Utah way and now I wish I had turned him in to the law dog. 

The law dog, NPS ranger,  was my guiding light while exploring the American West in earnest for my first time. I don't remember his name or rank but he was an older dude. Since I was 20 at the time that puts the ranger squarely in the 40-45 range. He led me to Capitol Reef (then monument area) NP, Mesa Verde, Zion, Arches and many other sites I would have missed had he not made me aware. He also made me aware of one of the other interesting sites in the campgrounds that I had not been aware of. Girls. Since I lived in the dorms in the park, I had no need to visit the campgrounds. My friends, when they visited, stayed with me, in my room or we headed deep into the back country. It was epic. 

But when ranger “Ron” asked me one busy summer weekend if I had any plans and my response was, "counting prairie dogs” he said “well you can make that fun”. My interest was piqued. He extolled his plan about a sure fire way to meet girls in Bryce Canyon Park. “take your mountain bike and a full backpack and ride from the dorm to the campground and work up a sweat.” his advice continued, “this is a holiday weekend, the campgrounds are sure to be full” going into further instruction, “ride your bike around the campground, look for a group of cute girls, avoid the single girls, your approach will seem creepy”. Upon finding a fun group of females. “tell them you rode from Zion to work on the prairie dog project,  and was hoping to get a campsite but they were all taken by the time you got there and could you just camp on the edge of their site?” He assured me good time would be had by all and memories would be made. He was right. 

Bryce hasn't changed a bit. Still the little corner of wild land thats its been since I was here. Hoodoos dominate, big ponderosas overwhelm the olfactory, and the moonlight is like none other. Zion was amazing too. We are making friends ouT here, similar souls, traveling full time like us. We are happy.

Zion and beyond

The view of Zion canyon from the summit of Observation Point, a 9 mile round trip trail with a 2,000 foot elevation gain.  The trail winds through hanging gardens, slot canyons, and an alpine meadow.

Buckskin Gultch. Longest slot canyon in the world.

So we made it to Zion National Park. I have been before, but have been wanting to return for 22 years and I have been dyeing to show this place to A. It was everything I had remembered and more, more exactly in the form of an undone hike that would challenge everything I ever thought. 

Zion is am amazing piece of the earth. Treacherous and death defying by its animal and plant life but also to its hikers. Zion can boast, or not, that six people have died hiking on one particular trail in the park. The mountain goats tip toeing up and down ledges are evidence of the type of individual would thrive here. 

We camped along the virgin river in a lovely cotton wood grove in a bend in the river. all free! This part of the country is rugged, isolated and desperate. You need to rely on yourself and your know how. We are getting fairly dialed in with living totally off the grid. Its becoming a lot of fun, in a challenging way. I added a third, and likely final, solar panel to the roof today and it was a complete success. more on that later. Seven months in, at least five to go. 

So onto the hike that was left undone. It has vexed me for two decades. Had I known it was one of Americas deadliest hikes probably would have incited me to do the hike. Instead we were trad climbing just out side the park doing 5.11’s and thinking we were the shit. Which we kind of were…

Had someone told me that there was a hike that would lead you long a knife edge of sandstone with chains you could maybe grab onto in case you felt you might fall off the sheer ledge down the the 1500 feet to the canyon floor I might have made time for it. Instead it was described to me as “a really neat hike” by a ranger, so I skipped it to climb cracks and chimneys for a few days with some pros. 

Reading, years later in several outdoor mags about an epic hike in zion, things like, “you wish you had ropes” raised my interest. That hike described as a “neat hike”, was actually one of the coolest hikes and climbs and scrambles allowed, un accompanied,  still in the Park System. So upon my return to Zion it was a given that I would do the hike. Epic. So as adventurous as I thought i was back then, looking down my nose on “neat little hikes” I should have listened, and learned. 

I have been on climbs and portal edges at over 1000 feet. With a harness. totally at ease. Scrambling the ledges with no protection and a slippery chain as your only lifeline had me a little shaky, ill admit. But it was worth it, if at least to no longer have the regret. regret is a terrible, terrible feeling.

Alicia on Antelope

We visited Antelope Canyon on Navajo land just south of the Utah border. The slot canyon is 250 million years old, carved by water, and is made of brilliant orange yellow Navajo sandstone. Our guide, Kendrick, is a young Navajo who was a dishwasher in the oil fields before getting his job as a tour guide with Dixie tours. 

The Navajo require visitors to be on a guided tour from a Navajo guide. Kendrick told us he has learned more about his people's history, land, culture, and language as a guide than he did in school. He also learned photography and how to operate almost every popular camera and smart phone to help visitors get the best pictures. He learned Spanish, French, Mandarin, and Japanese that he needs to communicate with his tours. He learned the traditional flute to play magical melodies while walking through the ethereal, glowing, curving canyon. 

Kendrick loves his job. It's a great job. He gets to be in a glorious slot canyon, one of the most famous in the world, one of great significance for his heritage, and he gets paid to do it.  

The tours are so popular that the canyon is as crowded as Disney. About 2 million people visited this remote corner of northern Arizona to go to Antelope Canyon. 

The Navajo nation and their young people are enjoying good jobs and making some money sharing their tribe's treasures with the world. 

I recommend a visit to Antelope Canyon for the breathtaking scenery and for the knowledgeable, interesting, and passionate young Navajo guides. 

Do you ever feel like your country doesnt love you back?

sweetie against sandstone...

Boondocking in what I have always thought of as a secret pocket of wonder in the USA, since my time here in the 90's, is a dream come true. Doing it like i wanted to back then. This part of the world has been a source of inspiration for me after spending a summer here when I was 20. I learned to explore here, ride bulls here, read a compass, ration, reason and rely on myself. Its where I rounded out becoming a man. This place completed me. One can learn alot growing up in the cut throat biz of Chicago construction and those tools can go a long way. But surviving alone with what you carry on your back requires a similar confidence but a different arsenal. The country shared between southwestern UT and NW AZ is wild. Its mostly indescribable, all lava flows, Navajo sandstone and eons of erosion. Water is a much sought after resource in this part off the country. Washes give way to slot canyons that feed the Colorado river. We are finding some incredible parts of this area. Slot canyons and river bends that insight fantasy and dreams of other times and places. These canyons are magical and only inspire adventure and exploration. But dont take whimsy for granted. A small shower can fill a slot canyon to deadly levels in minutes. So we need to be protected, right? No.

We need to be able to access our lands when we want. We need to be treated like real Americans and allowed to go into the parks and public spaces when we want. Restricting the number of people that can hike a certain hike a day is insanity. But thats what our Park Service and Bureau of Land Management are doing. They seem to be more concerned with grazing leases, There is a super cool hike in National Widerness Area known as The Wave, it pales in comparison to the magical navajo canyons pictured here but is still tp restricted to 20 hikers a day. The navajo canyons can be hiked by anyone who can afford the permit and guide fee (28$) and they had 2 million visitors last year.  This country is not going to hike a hike out of sustainability. Lets be honest. Another thing that they do is set aside certain forest road areas in the National Forests for camping that are totally unreachable from the road with nothing less than a bull dozer. Then, when you do find that perfect meadow, its always marked No Camping. So the eggheads in DC can point to a map and say, "These public lands are your lands, you can camp here and here and her and all of over here." Everyone in the room nods in agreement that that seems fair and we are truly allowing honest Americans to use the land to connect with their country and reap a small benefit of the overwhelming tax burden most Americans suffer under. Not true. Most of the lands that are dedicated public are not capable, at least here in the SW. More on the NW this fall. Areas dedicated wilderness areas you can't even bring a cell phone into, technically.  Then, in the name of erosion management, they trough the sides of the "roads" about 18-24 inches deep and a couple feet wide. They do this to manage water during monsoon which I get as a trained environmental biologist (TU 98), but they leave huge areas of the set aside camping unavailable to most vehicles. If you aren't driving a Dakar Rally rig, you are out of luck. We are getting the hang finding epic camping though. Our next site will knock your socks off, but thats another post. The Feds that run the Parks from WDC have no idea how the parks are being used. Their decisions are arbitrary and dislocated, of course these are just my first hand observations, but I can tell you, they don't want us enjoying our land. At least right now. Im on a mission to change that.  

they call this one the lion. its the image that launched this canyon

Shame on you! These are your parks and you should make time to seek them out. The foreigners do. Right now we are in the most international city in America, Page AZ, established 1957. The city grew out of the construction process of glen canyon dam which was completed in 1966 but did not achieve full pool until 1980 and has a max depth of 2300 feet. The area, home to some breathtaking backdrops, has become as one local put it "the destination instead of the gateway". Pages proximity to nearby Grand Canyon has always had an "if we have time" sort of spot. Not anymore. This place is flooded with foreigners. They are everywhere. Asian, Euros, Brazilians, you name it. 

Get this, we are at the above pictured Horse Shoe Bend NP taking photos and gawking at the raw beauty of moving water, light and sandstone and this gentlemen, representing a group of about 7 others asks sweetie, "excuse me, do you speak english" with a hefty french flair. We were puzzled and I was reminded of Richard Edsons line in Ferris Buellers day off when they hand off the keys to the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spider (droooool) to the garage attendant and Ferris asked the same question. His response, and mine that day, "What country do you think this is?" I snapped a couple pictures for them and then they asked us. "where are you from, your english is superb?!" We answered "Washington DC" they all looked at each other and mumbled french mutterings to each other, as the french tend to do. After seeming to agree on a common question they all turned to us with puzzled french faces and their spokes frog asks with a strange hint of concern, "you are american?" As if he was truly amazed that he could bump into an American in AMERICAN PARK!!!! Thats how bad it is, Get yourself an interagency pass for 80 bucks its good for 365 days and gets you into every national park, forest, monument area etc...just don't expect to be able to backcountry camp where ever you want. Im working on that. 

So that last story reminds me of a very awkward conversation we have almost daily. People ask us where we are from. Well we lived in a house last In Washington DC, but neither of us are from there (Lombard and Los Alamos respectively) and beyond that, where we are from right now is a camper that moves frequently so right now I am from the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and next will be from the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument (horrible name, tremendous country) and if I campout  at a walmart for a night am I from walmart? My drivers license has a TX address on it so am I from Texas? We are conflicted about how to decide to answer the simple question of "Where are you from" 

The most awkward and potential incarcerating was at a border patrol stop when were were camping just 30 miles from the border. The agent steps the vehicle and asks us the question. I blurt out DC, Alicia chimes in "New Mexico" I follow her and say well I am from Chicago" The confused agent asks for my ID, and says "This says you are from Texas". Getting worried that were about to be cavity searched I, in a ham fisted fashion, tell him that we aren't from anywhere right now and that we live in a van down by the river. His look grows more concerned. I babble on and he lets us through. We still don't really know where we are from these days. 

New Beginings.

Another new start has become a reality. We no longer are tied to the grid for electricity. Our solar panels have allowed us to go completely off grid.  Our 100 gallon fresh water tank can keep us hydrated and clean for 10 day as we found out on our first time in the boonies. We are getting better at it and have switched over to low flow water and total LED lighting is on the way. The solar panels are amazing. We are able to listen to vacuum tube stereo and have toast for breakfast. delightful. JUst so you know, It's taboo to talk about solar, or the black tank, with other campers because it quickly descends the pleasant, friendly convo into RV nerd hell. I learned the easy way. It has been rainy for a few days, and on this rainy day we identify wildflowers. This is Coulter's Globemallow. Really rolls off the tongue, nice work Coulter. You can stop naming things now.

We have begun our grand ascent north.  We have loved our time in Arizona. Wonderful things have happened to us, because of us, by us and for us. Wouldn't trade this winter for the world. But, now it is time to venture north. We are headed to Montana for the month of July, by way of Colorado and Utah for now, eventually to arrive into the Pacific Northwest for autumn. Of course, that can all change at the drop of a hat.  Along the way, we are making camper friends that are of the same ilk. It's cool to know there are other weirdos out there to join us on the road. We are not alone. So venture into the forest with us. Leaving Arizona for southern Utah. We are currently camping in Southern Utah on the shores of Lake Powell where a giant monolith rises from the reservoir like a fist. They call it Lone Rock Beach. 

Southern Utah is a special place for me, I ventured out here as a young 20 year-old to work a summer in Bryce Canyon National Park. I was armed with an '86 Jeep, an overwhelming sense of confidence, and just the right amount of naivety. The lack of experience of surviving out west was quickly overcome as I was assigned back country trail maintenance as my job for the NPS. The feds paid nothing. I got a backpack, a chainsaw, a World War II trench digging shovel, some other miscellaneous hand tools, and about an hour of instruction of "trail maintenance" Naturally, I was already a pro. In my own mind. My first four day trip went something like this; rapidly run out of water well out of range of a water source, seize the chainsaw by vapor locking it repeatedly, forget the tent poles, remembering the dehydrated food as my only nutrition and woefully under preparing for the the freezing cold temps that occur on the desert floor in Bryce. 

I made it out, after eating dehydrated food with little to no water, trails maintained as best I could. I got better, and I like to think Bryce trails got better. I ended up loving it. making the park a better place so my fellow Americans could enjoy. Then I realized about half (or more!) of most of the park visitors were not American. Huffing and puffing out of the canyon, covered in four days of pine saw dust, red Bryce Canyon dirt, carrying a back pack with a chainsaw, a shovel, and a helmet strapped to it (they made me wear the helmet) and happening or sometimes "happening"  onto a crowd of single European young ladies enjoying the American park system made for a nice summer. Let's just say I didn't have to pay for too many Heineken's. I also worked in the kitchen of the lodge where I am pretty sure three Mormon sisters were trying to get me to marry all three of them at one. That's another story.

Here we are at Lone Rock Beach off of Lake Powell. A little side camper action...

One of our new camper friends, Jase, busted out his drone and took a few aerial shots of our group camp in the Walnut Canyon National Monument. That is Flagstaff Mountain in the background.  So, camping off the grid changes everything. We can camp just about anywhere and with a little water conservation we can go anywhere that the law allows. Or maybe doesn't? There is some wander-worthy, wonderful country out there. Come find us, if you dare. It is the 100th NPS anniversary by the way. Its true what they say, you do meet the nicest people in a campground. Update: doing yoga everyday. I've lost weight and feel great. dont tell the bikers.