I'm not sure this is how the West was Won. But there is a difference between a full time RVer and a vacationer. Perhaps it would help to say that we gained a thousand feet and a whole new viewscape the first day. We camped right on the rim of the San Rafael Valley.
'Valley' is a strange term for what seems like a high plateau when you are at the edge or rim.
A few feet away was a...well, different words apply: a breaks, a slot canyon. The rim was split like human finger tips in this ungodly dry climate. We could have backed the trailer up until it's rear axle was a couple feet from the abyss. Then our bed at the back would have hung over free space. Nothing would have stopped us. No rangers, no brown signs.
It started all at once, with a vertical wall three feet high, and then another and another. This was not solid rock like the red sandstone of the Colorado Plateau. It was just dirt. You could dig it with a shovel, or at least a mattock. What held the walls up?
Although the gash was V-shaped at the top, it became more vertical as you descended into its subterranean depths. That happens each time you hit a layer of agglomerate, which is a surprisingly hard mixture of pebbles and dirt. I have learned not to underestimate this humble "rock" wannabee.
Notice how there is an overhang, a negative slope, beneath the layer of agglomerate. Gradually the negative slope will be worn to pure vertical--that is how running water a half-foot deep fashions vertical walls in dirt banks. Then it is worn into a V shape.
Naturally we went down to the mouth of this slot canyon--the easy way-- and walked up it as far as we dared. But first I must mention how serendipitous and delightful it was that this humble exploration took place on the same day that one of my favorite blogs showed astonishing photos of Antelope Canyon, near Page, AZ.
Apparently the Artful Ones work at the opposite end of the glamor spectrum from me. Still, the fact that our respective adventures occurred on the same day shows that our fates our somewhat linked.
It didn't bother me to look down from the top into this lethal obscurity, about 100 feet deep. Heights don't bother me. It is Pluto, god of the Underworld, that I fear. My little poodle and I started walking up the mouth of the slot canyon. It started out like a common dry wash. Sidewalls soon appeared and the gravel bottom narrowed, but that was OK.
But it kept narrowing. There were bends to go around. I braced myself for something horrifying on the other side, and wasn't disappointed. It had narrowed into a slot that was as wide as my shoulders.
But this wasn't a slot of solid rock, sculpted over a million years. It had a briefer history. Maybe it was jumpable when Spanish black robes explored this area. Or maybe it dates back to the last ice age. In either case, how brief is this chapter in earth's thick book of history! If geology was a sculptor, this would be his mock-up in clay--not his finished work in marble.
We were being swallowed up, not by inanimate topography, but by a living beast. If I balanced myself against the sidewall, would I touch a rock that was the keystone? If a single pebble had slid off the sidewalls at that moment, I would have jumped out of my skin.
Think of the scene in one of the earlier Star Wars episodes when the heroes were on a desert planet, and they encountered a sand crater with a red-toothed maw at the bottom, oozing digestive juices...
Still, I was willing to turn sideways and push onward, just for the sake of my readers. The little poodle looked uncomfortable. In fact, he turned around and high-tailed it out of there. Reluctantly I was forced to follow.
