THE BLACK CANYON
Posted by Erik Frey Tue, 23 Mar 2004 05:30:00 GMT
lots to think about. alternatively, lots to let sit at the bottom of the barrel, collecting sediment, clogging up the injectors.
taking i-40 across arizona was uneventful. i stood on a corner in winslow, arizona, and it really wasn’t such a fine sight to see.
but the desert in nevada did something strange to me. maybe it was the driving at 3 in the morning, or the joshua trees, or the glow of vegas on the horizon, still 80 miles away, but i felt another person in my skin, holding the steering wheel, looking at the land with a sinister grin.
hoover dam was startling. the only encounter i’d ever had with such a thing was in zork I – the great underground empire. as we drove across the dam, we passed massive stone angels. their wings pointed skyward, and everything was so immense – they’d made gods of men.
that water was so cold. the dirt, air, and rock was scorched. i wish i could show, or explain, the overwhelming notion of such powerful extremes, hooting and hollering down the canyon, dealing with such massive yet simple building blocks – temperature, moisture, gravity. millions of years to make a physics playground.
many of the canyon walls had ascent routes, and eric and i found them. down below, joe and steve yelled up to us about breaking our necks. from that height i could see miles of river flowing along deep and dark, and the exposure made my heart race every time. being that high up was beyond rational. beyond fear. i’d do my “on three” trick, and as i was sailing off the edge, suddenly remember i was still wearing my hat :)
you fall, and you fall. and you fall some more.
we flipped canoes. we flipped kayaks (and paniced and floundered underwater when we couldn’t flip them back). eric fished with a branch fashioned into a spear, and i scouted ahead for camping spots. we climbed up into different canyons and found swimming-pool-sized hot springs and waterfalls. we found a cat-walk that had been built in the 40’s, high above the river, bolted to the side of the canyon with bent, rusting rebar and wooden planks. they creaked and warped as we tiptoed across. we yelled, and the canyon roared back. we ate home-made cornbread and brownies, drank red wine, and horfed down a shitload of pork and beans.
during the drive back, eric and i had a very self-indulgent conversation about life, being crazy, being alone, and not understanding women. in the frame of that weekend’s events, a lot of what we discussed made sense. it was nice.
