Sandstone Mission: Redrocks, NV and Zion NP, UT
Winter lets up, I awaken friday morning to birds singing shyly in the bushes near my window. It's still cold in Salt Lake City, but my thoughts drift further south to sagebrush country and sandstone. I am a simple human animal. I eat, sleep, work and scratch out my existence in the city. I have dreams, visions the backdrop of my existence. Too much time in the city makes the human animal unhappy. What is it that keeps the spirit alive and well? It is nothing more than a possibility, a dream or believing that around the next corner something unexpected will happen, good or bad it doesn't always matter; change=opportunity. The weather here is changing, the sun shines and temperatures in the desert are favorable if not ideal for climbing. Zion NP and Las Vegas appear to be the warmest, that is where we will go. Always take what is graciously given, go with the current of life.
Fishes are born in water,
man is born in Tao.
If fishes, born in water,
Seek the deep shadow
Of pond and pool,
All their needs are satisfied.
If man, born in Tao,
sinks in to the deep shadow
Of non-action
To forget aggression and concern,
He lacks nothing
His life is secure.
-Chuang Tzu
Saturday, we crag. Crowds of tourists park their cars along the Redrocks park road. We find a spot and then find a narrow canyon, not far from the road where there are no other people. It is peaceful, we climb 15 degree overhanging walls until we cannot hang on any longer and our cups are full. Night time and we are relaxing with a friend in LV. Our generous host has a reputation for being able to pick locks, we get bored, he teaches us. Turns out I have a knack, I picked six different locks in three hours, which was at times very aggravating work. Eleven-o-clock in the evening, Las Vegas shows no sign of slowing down. Brendan on the floor is carefully folding, creasing and packing his parachute. Jess is snoring on the couch. I am sitting having a beer.
One-o-clock. Jess is up. Brendan is stuffing the last folds of his chute into the pack/harness.
Three-o-clock in the morning. I sit chain smoking cigarettes in the parking lot across the street as my two comrades make final preparations to jump off an unfinished skyscraper with parachutes. Actually they are going off the crane, which is anchored to the building and overhangs the Las Vegas strip. I get a text message "were at the end of the crane."
I am smoking and very anxious, keeping a watchful eye on the street, revelers with drinks are walking by never looking up. With a sore neck and eyes fixed on the end of the crane, two very tiny and barely visible black figures, silently one begins to bow forward, then the other until they're off the crane...slaves to gravity's will.
Little sleep saturday night. Early Sunday morning humping packs through Oak Creek Canyon in Redrocks. We are alone with pools of green, clear water, moving smoothly over boulders, under branches. Upward through manzanita, mesquite, cactus, oak, dwarf agave; right turn at ponderosa pines.
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