Nathan Arizona

On the Way to Tuba City, AZ

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It was cool enough this morning, but the sun is now cooking the desert alive and I’m sweating pretty badly. Venturing across Navajoland, I come across the aged shell of an abandoned gas station bathed in graffiti. One mural is two large eagle feathers tide together, with the phrase, STILL HERE, sprayed in red paint below. On the other side K-Town is written, slang for Kayenta, a town close to the east. The wind is cutting through the power lines along the highway and the monster cottonwood creaks. There’s a bunch of dogs barking from a nearby residence while an …

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Traveling and Moving Around

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I’ve been moving around the Southwest far from home. The first journey was a 1,600 mile loop around Arizona passing Hoover Dam, traveling along Route 66, down through Prescott, and as far south as Tucson. This is around the time my brother was getting married to a girl from Mesa, Arizona. On the ancient Colorado, I had the opportunity to be Swamper for Arizona River Runners for one trip and worked my tail off. That is because one of the gals that was susposed to go had a medical condition at the last moment. So this oppurtunity was pretty rare …

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Last Day at Bar 10, Tomorrow

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Well it’s my last two days at the ranch, ten miles from Grand Canyon. Where my path goes from here, is unknown. Bruce at Arizona River Runners is giving me the chance to run the Colorado this summer. It looks like a dream coming true, finally! After an experience on the river, I’ll have enough material to stay busy writing for a while. Tomorrow is the last day for me, so I’ll make it the best one of them all. Today, the desert was a furnace. The mens bunkhouse felt like a greenhouse in Death Valley. There’s honey bees and …

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Bad News

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Every river company I have spoken with have no volunteer work available for folks like me. Yet, river guides like Tom Vail are telling me that I must go down the river 6-10 times as a volunteer before I can be considered for any real job on the river. Maybe I’ll go down the Colorado like good old Buzz Holmstrom; a man with real courage, who by himself, traversed the entire length of the Grand Canyon. It’s larger then life and I am forced to dream. I’m tired of dreaming, I want a piece of the action, thrill, and beauty. …

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Shouting to River Runners

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Peace is in the canyon in clouds passing over massive sandstone and limestone ledges. All is quiet, far from city noise. The deep waters of the Rio Colorado fill the inner gorge as ravens plane the blue sky catching thermals of late winter air. Cloud and cliff shadows mix. In the next few hours private river runners will come around the bend and reach mile marker 187. We will shout hello to them and wave frantically. They’ll raise their oars and shout back, then continue their fourteen day journey to the bottom of the canyon to Lake Mead. I love …

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Surviving In a World of Suffering

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I know what hides from most human beings and its realm is the vast wilderness. Humans have been separating themselves from the experiences of their ancestors. Most of them no longer retain even a hint of their original life ways. We have all lost track of why we are on this planet, which is our mother. Now, we have become so entangled by our own culture of mass consumption. We have forgotten our responsibility to the earth, and our relationship with the rest of creation. We have been cutting off this connection for very long time now, for hundreds of …

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Slow Moving Storm

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Buzzing power lines cut the wind The wind howls and moans as darkness grows. Winter pushes spring feelings away, And brings dark cloud ships that hug mountains, shrouding them in eerie mist. Fog enters the desert basin. Mule Deer gather in cottonwood groves. Flakes of snow start to invade. The sun’s heat has faded. The storm moves slow. By morning, theres eighteen inches of Fresh powder and growing.

Far from Civilization

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Last week the boss gave me a chance to go out alone on a quad, so I packed some food, water, and a camera and left to explore some of the real remote parts of the Grand Canyon. I stopped and looked out over Parashant Canyon, went up to Whitmore Point, and explored countless ranch roads. There is nothing like feeling solitude in the most isolated pockets of Grand Canyon. You don’t feel the same when others are with you. The beauty and aloneness is unrivaled. I spent the majority of time scouting cliff edges, deep ravines, and spiraling canyons. …

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Fact is Stranger then Fiction

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I am always reminding myself that fact is stranger then fiction, it gives me the ability to have faith in the unbelievable. It is not hard to feel the power of this world, but the truth isn’t always in reach. There is a strong force running through my veins to seek the unknown. I have the oppurtunity to experience the world, by the grace of God, and seek infinite truth. Life itself is a miracle and a mystery. The quote below is from a movie titled; Second Hand Lions. It carries a lot of weight in my book. Truth is …

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Out of the Woodwork

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In three months my job is done. It is a stepping stone to achieve greater things, and I am thankful to the folks at Bar 10. I’ve been a tour guide sense August. When April swings around, I’m going camping for a week, alone. I’m tired of people. It’s time to be alone in the pines. One day I’ll start looking for a companion, but I don’t feel the time is right now. This morning I awakened from a strange and terrible dream. But I don’t mention these things often, as dreams are very personal. The events in a dream …

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Quiet December Night

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It’s another dark night at the ranch, in the lodge. I’m spending the evening alone, but I love the isolation and personal time out here. A few minutes ago, I got back from turning the generator off for the night. The batteries have enough juice to power a few lights, the T.V., and the computer in the lodge. They are generous to allow me to use their PC, which uses a satillite connection. It’s dark in the deep desert. The grand canyon is covered in black with nothing but the stars. The moon will probably come out later. A bobcat …

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A Few Wintry Thoughts

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The frigid weather that hung around for a while is now passing. It’s warming up. It was nice in the sun, here in Cedar. So I took my dog and went for a drive out into the desert. At night, I’m dreaming again like when I was younger. These dreams are very real and inspire me to write something tonight. As for today, my brother and I devoured pizza for lunch on top of a parking lot roof, downtown, while watching smoke rise from chimneys into the blue sky. The mountains and the desert sprawled beyond the outskirts of town. …

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The Company of a Woman

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I was storytelling with a co-worker tonight over at the old ranch house around a burning pile of weeds. The fire reminded me of simpler things; the isolation of the canyon, the smell of the elements, and all the mysteries of the surrounding mountains. Not too far north of the ranch is Hell-Hole wilderness where people rarely visit except for the occasional hunter or prospector. Up in there, it gets real dense with stands of Ponderosa Pine and hearty clusters of Manzanita. I’m thinking of the intense quiet and the dark shadows. I’ve been spending enough time in Whitmore Wash …

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Looking for Pollywogs

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Tonight’s an evening at the ranch that becomes eerie. We left the lodge late in the afternoon to catch spade-footed pollywogs at a nearby pond. We started telling stories about shapeshifters, if you know what I mean? It’s not easy sleeping when you dwell on such things. Crickets and frogs start sounding louder. Every little movement, voice, drop of water, becomes an atmospheric sound scape. The night is surreal. I’m sleeping a lone out in the bunk house; no crew are staying over. Just the boss, his wife, and me. As we strolled into the ranch after dark, all the …

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The Great Unknown

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I went for a walk with some of the ranch employees under the stars down a dirt road tonight. We were walking in the black of starlight. Coming back I realized how fortunate I was to be on a casual stroll near one of the seven natural wonders of the world, Grand Canyon. I mentioned some of my stories that I sometimes fear to tell, and my co-workers started to listen; then they grew uncomfortable as I started going into detail. So I remained quiet, and ponder the mysteries of the landscape on my own. So many folks fear the …

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One Expensive Mistake

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It is exhilarating to live far from the fenced confines of the “sophisticated’ modern world. The Grand Canyon is a mystery. It is far from the reality of the miserable suit and tie people. This morning I flew into the canyon by chopper, with a pilot named Rahn. We were supposed to pick up river runners on the Colorado. They never showed up. We sat down there for an hour and a half, visiting, waiting, talking about religion, life, and our different views on the existance of God. We decided to fly up the river to see if there were any rafts headed our way. It turns out …

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Living in Isolation

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I’m out living, working, and breathing isolation every day now. My life is far from a phony reality that once enslaved my poor spirit. I’m on the edge of the enourmous Grand Canyon now and hear the  wind, and the lonesome happy singing of gentle ravens gliding along buttes of Hermit Shale, Toroweap Sandstone, and Kiabab Limestone. The Creosote bushes span as far as the horizon. So many cacti cover the lower portions of the Canyon; three species of Prickly Pear, Hedgehog Cactus, Barrel Cactus, and Fishhook Cactus. Spanish Bayonet, also known as Banana Yucca intermix with creosote, sage, Ephedra Bush, and Desert Holly. Jimson Weed (Datura) grows everywhere, around the ranch, over by the hen …

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Billy the Kid

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Tomorrow morning I leave to go back to Northern Arizona. I have to  say hello to Billy the Kid, our live-in road runner who isn’t afraid of people. We feed him live mice which he whips around and swallows. It’s back to visiting the Grand Canyon every day and getting paid for it. The nights out there are quite rare. Even in rural Utah, the stars don’t stick out as boldly as they do there. At night we have frogs croaking, desert pack rats moving about, and so many different insects making noise besides crickets. It almost feels like your …

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Black Rock Wasteland

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Death glistens in the desert like a mirage, spectors in the diffused shade. The sun adds a strange glow to the heat. It has pulled them out into the open. They spend dangerous amounts of time away from their towns in the crevices. The ghosted wind moves the Creosote and I hear whisperings in the silence. They hunt and gather in smeltering black seas. Dust devils sweep by in dreams.

Heart of the Great Basin

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The stars stand bold against trees. The fire is dancing. The smoke drifts in my direction and soaks into my skin. This is a quiet moment in the Great Basin; where the little people roam the night. These individuals are knee tall. They move through the juniper mountains like ants. I can hear their whisperings, as they work in busy networks… preparing for what may come this way, someday… The thunder storms of summer claim these valleys and the thunderheads are in control. Bolts of lightning draw near, and slam the earth. At night the sky seems to clear, but …

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Working on the Arizona Strip

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My new life began on the Arizona Strip about a week and a half ago. I’m working 8-9 miles from the inner gorge of the Grand Canyon at Bar10 ranch. The Arizona Strip is one of the most isolated places in the United States, and it has been called the Tibet of North America, because it is one of the most uninhabited places by human population. The problem lays in the fact there is no water on the strip except for a few springs here and there. The Heatons own this ranch, which spans about 250,000 acres large. They have …

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The Landscape and its History

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That subliminal quiet is stirred only by ancient winds. The rocks are timeless, squared away to outlast the human element. Passing through Juniper I observe enormous balloon clouds hovering over the tips of the mountains. Looking out across the valley below, I see the rust stained foothills where one of Southwestern Utah’s largest petroglyph sites lay, a place known as the Parowan Gap. Some say the ageless writing spans 12,000 years ago in age. I’ve heard that the Paiutes say that they were written by the Creator. Others say they were inscribed by tribes coming from the far east on …

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My New Pal, Jesse James!

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I have somewhat a little announcement to make. It’s not a big deal to many, but for me, it was. I’ve been living a solitary life for the passed 4-5 years without much responsibility but myself to care for. Things have changed though, I finally went and found me a dog and named him Jesse, after Jesse James… He’s a blue heeler, english pointer mix. I’ve had him for over two weeks now, which puts him roughly at 8 weeks old. He was born on a farm on the outskirts of Provo, Utah, where I was staying to visit relatives. …

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The Clouds Know

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Four days ago, after weeks of cloudless blue sky, I finally grew tired of the intense heat and asked the rain clouds to return to the land. It seems they heard me… Two days ago when I first saw the return of the clouds, I was so brilliantly happy, and relieved to see a possible end of the relentless bone dry days of summer. Then last night, the rain fell so hard on our ranch house, I couldn’t ignore the beautiful pounding raindrops splashing. I opened the sliding door and let the droplets try to invade the house and I …

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Is Blogging Still the Thing?

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Man, is it just me or are things kind of dying down in the blogging world? Some blogs I visit haven’t been getting as much attention as they used to. I don’t get as many travelers stopping through here any more, yet I’ve won some awards for my writing, and even a scholarship for a poem. It’s kind of nice though, because this space has become like a personal journal once more. I’m starting to write more material that I wouldn’t have mentioned otherwise. I’ve learned my lesson of posting articles to the more traffic-chocked collaborative weblogs, realizing that I don’t like …

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Looking Back

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It hits like a freight train, I get this uncanny urge to wander off into the mountains. It builds up like water against a weak dam. When I try to describe this to some family members, it angers them. When I was in high school, some of my friends thought I might be suicidal when I would venture into the wilderness, alone. On one occasion they went looking for me, because of this. At first I was surprised that they would consider this, but grateful that they cared enough to do so. Maybe people thought I was shy? In reality; …

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The Shadows of the Land

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i am leaving home to join my soul, the wild. leaving my loved-ones for earth’s darkness. the universe sings forever. the desert calls. i’ve been patient in my planning. no one really hears the mysteries, or why the heavens weep. The land’s transforming. old ways dance in my heart. my spirit is fiery. the horizon waits. i’ll find the place where nothing ever sleeps. tonight, i pack travel food and journey into the desert. the wind whipped wasteland is glistening. my dreams haunt bottomless basin mountains. my heart is in the tower of stars. the desert is calling. in this …

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Yes, I believe in him

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I just moved from Saint George, Utah, back to Parowan – Which I heard means Evil Waters to the Southern Paiute. Anyways, there’s stories around here of a hairy man, especially over by Enterprise Utah. I avoid certain parts of that country when going in alone… There’s an extreme feeling of melencholy there, because of a massacre site known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre, where Mormons killed over 200 people that were passing through back in the 19th century. My grandpa has a bigfoot story, and he says the creature moved around him taking strides longer then that of a …

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Dreaming of the Afterlife

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A boy sat outside the village looking at the grave yard at the mesa’s edge. “What ever happened to the dead?” he pondered. “Are they living some where else far away?” Skeletons walking around after the day turns to night inspires the boy to dream of the darkness and deepness of rivers. “Are the dead living somewhere else?” Out on the mesa edge he prays every morning. He prays, waiting for the sun to come up; to come over and talk to him. Every night, he dreams of the medicine that will make him dead. He wants to go see …

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