By Gary Lee Parker
Outdoor Columnist
Note: This is taken from a series of first-person articles by Gary Lee Parker who writes about the outdoors and the America's rich history.
The horse tracks are fresh and clean, no more than an hour old. A single, traveling alone, and shod. This one's not wild, which means he's carrying a rider, but we see no other sign of the stranger's passing, and hear nothing but a desolate moan in the easy afternoon wind.
I look to the north, toward the break in the long ramparts of redrock that marks the canyon proper, and I bite my cheek, mulling the discovery over in my fetid mind. We are not alone.
The tiny skulls we'd found earlier on the shanks of a row of low cliffs rattle loosely against each other in the pocket of hiking partner's jacket, the woody sound of bone on dry, brittle bone.
It's warm for March, the beryl sky burning with a cool intensity unhampered by clouds, and a bead of sweat trickles down my back sharply.
Standing at the edge of a long, twisting red wash, known to locals as Halfway Hollow, the inside curve of a clay arched cliff folds us in, squeezing the space around and seeming to bend time. Flash-floods have undercut the bank, exposing the dangling twined roots of a large sage that we've dubbed the root of all evil, for it looks the part.
“Do you see the kingdom over there?” asks my friend, pointing toward hoodoos on a low rise a mile or so out.
“Yeah.”
“Let's stop there for lunch,” she says, and I agree, then move out, my thoughts elsewhere; my thoughts on a lone horse, but more-so a rider.
There is something queer here, slightly ajar, though I can't quite look directly at it, for when I do all seems right and square. I see it flit about my peripheral vision though, and it haunts me.
We shuffle in silence along the sandy floor of the desolate ravine, then leave the easy path for a more direct route as our hunger grows and our feet tire. Soon we're wandering through scattered juniper and scrub, and the sense of another presence tickles my brain-stem once more.
“There's something over there,” I say, pointing. “An animal of some kind.”
We listen, but don't hear anything more, so we move on.
Low, rolling hills covered in lumpy clay soil that forms small, soft pillars across its surface from melting snow and spring rains peal away around us as we climb toward our respite. Occasional unascribable bones lay brittle and eaten about the mesa, but we find few other signs of animal life, tracks or scat, as though bones are all that are left.
Eventually we pull ourselves to the base of the hoodoos and dangle our legs over a ledge as we un-shoulder our packs and grope around inside for a few morsels of sustenance. Sipping at my water bottle, I gaze once more into the maw of the canyon ahead, guarded by towering spectral spires that loom over the valley floor, and I wonder: Who, what, has gone before? What history disquiets this place? What will we find?
I imagine an ancient shaman in a ragged loin-cloth, carrying a gnarled staff adorned with the delicate, rattling bones of an unidentifiable mammal, and I shudder involuntarily, his chant in my ears. I can hear it on the wind.
We eat our gorp and leathery jerky, and give names to the maelstrom of twisted stone ahead. An ancient warrior with a staff in one hand, and the other raised in warning, rears over the canyon ahead. Or it's Aunt Jemima with a baby in her arms. We can't decide.
A stone alter, seemingly concealing a secret entrance to an underground labyrinth lies restlessly in a low crook of distant rock, and we consider venturing in.
We banter and imagine, lighthearted at the surface, dancing in the sunlight with glinting eyes, but it feels like pretended safety at the feet of a sleeping dragon, and I wince inside.
As the sun begins to dip west we clamber down from our perch and solemnly begin our march toward fate, the mouth of the canyon drawing us in. And as we enter, the warrior's eyes following our progress solemnly, more horse tracks appear in the sandy wash, now wet with melting snow. Recent, and we pause momentarily, then walk into the shadows.
A land of arches and waterfalls lies beyond, and we scramble through a magic country of twisted stone glowing red in the fading light. Here and there pockets of winter cling to the shade for life, knowing the inevitable comes.
The wash narrows to no more than a few feet wide, but an unhealthy curiosity presses me forward, forward, into what feels like a trap that I want to heed. I must move on. I am entranced, I can't shake it.
Finally the ravine becomes a gulch, then nothing more than a crease in the rising hillside, and I stop searching for it, though it still flits through my unconscious like a ghost, teasing, taunting me and daring me to keep on.
But the darkening sky breaks the spell, or lessens it a bit, and I lay back on a level sandstone ledge and look up, and it feels like giving up. But it's not. It's the blessed return of sanity.
I just don't recognize it yet. The bones of the mystic are still clattering in my ears.
“We should head back,” says my friend, sitting on a ledge, furiously scribbling in a writing book.
“Okay,” I answer. But my heart isn't in it. I still want just a little more.
The Road:
From Vernal, head north on 500 West, following the curve to the west as the road becomes West 500 North (Highway 121). Follow Highway 121 west toward Lapoint approximately 12 miles, winding through Twelvemile Wash, then crossing an unnamed wash before entering a large basin with oil and gas industry operations to the south. The long basin to your right (north) is Halfway Hollow. Park in the worn pullout along the roadside and begin your hike at the main wash where a culvert runs under the highway.
The Details:
Halfway Hollow is a several-miles-long, empty high-desert wash with a sandy bottom for easy walking. The path is mostly level, rising only a few hundred feet in elevation over several miles. Because there is no defined trail, and because Halfway Hollow is wide and varied, you can make the hike as long and adventurous, or as short and easy, as you desire it to be. Though the entire basin is interesting, the closer you get to Little Mountain, the more spectacular the surrounding cliffs and stone monuments become. There are a few things to be aware of, however. This is high desert country. It is dry and hot. Bring plenty of water, wear light, but covering, clothing and a hat, wear sunscreen, and bring insect repellent. Watch the weather closely. The path winds along the bottom of a dry wash that can fill almost instantly when hit by a flash flood. Ask local authorities for current flash flood warnings and conditions before hiking the hollow. Wear sturdy boots, and bring appropriate supplies. Acquire a good topographic map of the area, and use it. And most of all, let your imagination get the better of you, and have a wonderful adventure.