Wandering to and fro

“From where have you come?“…
….”From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”

Joan and I spend much of our outdoor time together. We wander over the Colorado Plateau and enjoy roaming the more obscure nooks and crannies. Most of our time gets spent with each other.

But sometimes, not very often, we spend time with like-minded high desert travelers.

Among them are Holly and her partner Dan. Holly started as a ranger working with Joan, and we have a friendship formed over the past couple of years. Holly will soon depart for another position at a nearby national monument. While Joan will miss Holly, we know it’s a position that she’ll enjoy. And we’ll continue to see Holly and Dan all over the Colorado Plateau.

Before Holly departed for another place, we went camping and hiking for a couple of nights in southern Utah.

We did our usual hiking in a stunning area with equally stunning archaeology.

And the more we roam the area, the more we appreciate, the more subtle aspects that indicate the life lead in this area hundreds of years ago.

A loop we did connected the structures and images with logical routes via map reading.

And we found images at the places we climbed up or descended.

Further down these ancient travel paths, we found more structures and images.

We returned to our vehicles at the small “trailhead” and to a camp that Holly and Dan had used the previous night. With our cold weather gear, the unseasonably cold temps did not seem bad at all. Less so for other campers, in the distance, seemed to start their cars throughout the night to run their heaters and left at first light. It might be springtime via the calendar, but the high desert weather suggests otherwise in the high desert.

We got on another hike after a leisurely morning and then saw some unique images –

Including some long-fingered hands –

And we spotted some significant green markings high up on the canyon wall –

And the expected structures near these images.

After the hike, we departed, grabbed dinner in a nearby town, and drove through a Sunday snowstorm that made me thankful for my formative New England driving years. Perhaps more memorable than anticipated to end a weekend.