david taus

Terra Incognita

music: Bob Dylan- Bringing It All Back Home

Now that the trip to Utah is less than a week away, I can safely start to let myself get excited about it. The south of Utah is one of the most incredible places I’ve ever been, possibly one of the most incredible places on earth. The drainage of several of the major rivers of the West have created some mind-boggling rock formations and hundreds — perhaps thousands — of canyons. The Grand Canyon is a prime example. It is of course the largest and most famous of the canyons of the Southwest. Its hype is well-deserved; the Grand Canyon is indeed a staggering thing to take in, and I’m sure the millions of people who drive up to the edge and snap a quick photo will agree.

But some of the lesser-known parts of canyon country hold the most wonder. The tributary to the Grand Canyon occupied by the Havasupai Natives, for example, is a bona fide desert oasis, complete with hanging gardens and the most spectacular waterfall I’ve ever had the fortune to see. And while the natural wonders of places like Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Arches are well known and recognized, I can’t help but wonder what some of the lesser known corners of canyon country might hold. My friend Molly, who visited the south of Utah this past winter, gave the sage advice to spend more of our time in Canyonlands. The lesser-known (and much bigger) national park is home to a handful of smaller canyons carved out around the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers, and is often passed by in favor of those parks whose paved roads lead directly up to their main attractions. Canyonlands NP, however, is still a highly-trafficked area. The undiscovered magic of canyon country, I’d wager, lies outside the bounds of the National Park system.

Unfortunately, one of the most spectacular canyons of the American Southwest is under water. What we now know as Lake Powell was once the Glen Canyon, a stretch of river-carved rock that was apparently one of the most beautiful places on earth. The story of the demise of Glen Canyon went something like this: the government, in an attempt to meet the water demands of the American southwest in the 1950’s and 1960’s, decided to dam rivers, which would flood certain canyons and turn them into reservoir “lakes.” They were considering flooding the Grand Canyon, but environmentalists convinced them otherwise. One of their suggested flooding sites, the Glen Canyon, was not as well-known largely because it was not heavily explored (aside from John Wesley Powell, namesake of lake Powell and allegedly the first white man to float the Colorado through the Grand Canyon). After the legislation was passed, David Brower, the leader of the Sierra Club took a trip to Glen Canyon, immediately realized what a horrible mistake he had made, and spent the rest of his life trying to restore the Glen Canyon. What was so inspiring to him and the handful of others who had the fortune to visit (including Edward Abbey) was submerged under the backflow of the mighty Colorado river. Lake Powell and its immediate tributaries is now supervised by the ironically named Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

In planning our trip to Utah we thought only of the National Parks: Zion, Bryce, Canyonlands, Arches. Until, that is, AJM forwarded along a little piece of news: because of the drought and demand for water, Lake Powell’s water levels have dropped off significantly, revealing some of the all-but-forgotten features of the original Glen Canyon. One of these features is the Cathedral in the Desert, a natural sandstone ampitheater with sandstone walls, hanging gardens, and a waterfall of its own that is supposed to rival any natural wonder of the world in terms of scale and beauty. It has been under water for over 40 years, but this spring it has resurfaced. The catch is that when runoff from the Rocky Mountains makes its way into canyon country, Lake Powell will rise again and the Cathedral (along with hundreds of other canyons) will be resubmerged for an indefinite amount of time. They are saying this will happen by the beginning of June.

It appears, then, that we’ve planned a trip to the south of Utah in the short time window that these uncovered remnants of the mythic Glen Canyon will be available to explore. While it’s uncertain whether or not we will be able to reach the Cathedral itself on foot, there will be other recently exposed nooks and crannies in canyon country to explore. And explore means just that; this is as close to unexplored terrain as we will ever come to. There are no maps here. Rather, on all the maps you can buy (and I bought a map of the Rec Area today) it just shows water. But no more, at least not for the next couple of weeks.

In a paper I wrote last year, I made the argument that humans can no longer truly experience the wilderness because the frontier is no more. Everything has been discovered and mapped out. How many places have we gone in our lives that have not been quantified by cartographers? Even in our “wilderness” travels, how many times have we forsaken maps and walked from the path into unknown land? For a few short weeks it will actually be possible to walk off the edge of the map in a corner of Southwest Utah, and it appears that 1ey, tmo, and I will have a chance to do just that.

Posted by davidtaus at April 10, 2005 01:12 AM | TrackBack