Rocks and Hard Places

Shiprock

San Juan County, New Mexico

Late March, 1997

The Rock: The Navajo call it Tsé Bitʼaʼí, Rock with Wings; and yes, on this turquoise-sky early spring day, the 1500-foot-plus volcanic monolith looks as if it may well levitate and take flight across the desert floor.  Constituted of igneous dikes and fractured breccia, Shiprock holds religious and cultural significance for the the region's Native peoples.  We move close enough to the rock for photography only: the Navajo frown upon hiking and climbing their soaring Rock with Wings, and we don't want to anger the Ancient Ones-- or the Contemporary Ones. 

The Hard Place: Perusing a well-thumbed road atlas (remember, we are traveling in the days before GPS-enabled portable devices entered our lives and vehicles), the passenger/navigator determines that the most direct route to the destination in Chinle, Arizona, would be to traverse the Chuska Mountains, a sparsely-populated range straddling the Arizona-New Mexico border.  We soon, but not soon enough, realize that subtle color gradations on the road map represent not-so-subtle transformations on the real road: from narrow paved highway to graded dirt road to steep, unimproved, unmaintained, snow-covered, completely impassable, God-forsaken horse path. 

Shiprock, from a Hard Place

Our intrepid driver utters mild oaths, justifiably glowers at the blanching passenger/navigator, and takes one nice photograph of the Hard Place before coaxing the rental car through a white-knuckled 180-degree turn on an exposed cliff and retracing a rutted path down the mountain.  Few words are shared until the party reaches Mexican Water, sixty miles or so along the no-shortcut route to Chinle, and then only because there are cows on the road.

Wall Street

Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Early April, 1998

The Rock:  A series of switchbacks descending from the canyon rim into a slot canyon, Wall Street leads hikers to the Navajo Loop and Queen’s Garden Trails.  In sunlight or in shadow, sandstone walls suffuse the canyon with blood-orange radiance and rich sound. 

The Hard Place: As we approach the trailhead, a diesel-fuming bus deposits a group of tourists in the parking area.  Our soon-to-be trail companions, conversing energetically in a language we don’t recognize, are wearing Keds and what must be described as tropical-weight cabana wear. 

Wall Street is snow-covered and slick as we begin our descent: a treacherous proposition with thermal wear, hiking poles, and thick-treaded boots.  Edging down the trail, we overtake several former bus passengers, now whimpering and shivering, clinging to canyon walls in bare-handed, ultimately futile efforts to remain upright on the slippery slope.  Others-- presumably the more physically fit of the party-- whiz by us in uncontrolled glissades, apparently having prostrated themselves at the Altar of Gravity, Packed Snow, and Poorly Chosen Footwear.  A Hard Place, indeed: the blood-orange April air is punctuated by exclamations in foreign tongues--and resounding thuds! and thwacks! as tourists ricochet off canyon walls far, far below.