October 25th, 2016

Writing from the The Paria Outpost

Mood: Shook up, anxious. Happy I got to see what I got to see, but distracted by mechanical issues.

#Vanlife tidbit: Vans are by nature small spaces. They can be organized as all hell, but they are still small spaces. That means that if things don’t get put away in their places, they can easily become clutter. Clutter can pile up fast…it compounds on itself because the space is so small. This makes keeping the van clean an order of magnitude more difficult than a normal room or house. In a house, you can place something down out of place and it wont be a big deal. Do that once or twice in a van, and soon you’ll look like a homeless hoarder living in a meth den. Don’t live in a meth den.

Today was something else. So I got the permit to go to Coyote Butte South for today and I left after fixing up a few things at 10am. I got there at around 12pm, and then hit the trail around 12:30 because the road there sloshed so much stuff around the van I had to spend a bunch of time fixing stuff. Thankfully though, the road was still wet from the rain the night before, making the deep sand much, much easier to deal with.

Coyote Butte South, although less well known than the north, was something out of a Salvador Dali painting. Seriously, you feel like you’re walking around on psychadelics because of the landscape. The Teepees as they’re called, the swirled rocks, all of the waves everywhere….it’s really something else. The light was also good today due to clouds, so it made taking photos pretty fun. I’m not too sure how they came out, but it was really nice to just sit and look around on the cliffs and stare out into the beauty. I saw one other couple while I was there and no one else. That alone has a huge effect on how the experience. Don’t think it would have felt like such an adventure if there were others around.

I got to know the land pretty well since I ended up going out twice. The first time I went out, I explored the lower altitude and walked down the creek trying to sneak a peak at the North Coyote Butte but just turned around. To my delight, the view was absolutely incredible. Seeing the whole thing from the bottom was incredible. It’s one of those views that pictures just doesn’t do it justice. While I was sitting enjoying the view on top of a rock, a few clouds that at first looked fine, turned into massive, grey storm clouds coming right towards me. I won’t call it a panic, but I picked my butt up and ran back to the van — like actually running in the direction of the car, uphill. After relaxing in the van for a minute and watching the clouds go by, I went back out to explore for another few hours. I could have stayed there all night, but something wasn’t feeling right with the van’s steering system….great.

After cleaning up and warming up the car, I was right, the van’s power steering must have been shut off. I literally have to crank with all of my strength to steer the thing, and of course it happens when I’m stuck up probably the hardest road of my entire life. Safe to say I made it back after what was the scariest drive of my life. To keep this post brief, there was only one really scary moment during the drive back. I couldn’t make the turn so I ended up going through a tree and up/off the road. The van leaned so far over that I was sure it was about to tip.

At any rate, I’m back at the Paria Outpost. I wanted to stay out for another day and night to check out Pinnacle Valley, White Knolls, and Soap Creek which are all deep out on the plateau, but I just had to come back and get this steering thing worked out. Hopefully Steven is willing to help me again, or else I’ll have to go to Kanab to get this fixed.