“It’s so beautiful,” They told me before I moved here. “Think of the lake and the red rocks!” Yes. The desert has its own kind of beauty even to one accustomed to pine trees and aspens. Undeniably such a large volume of water right in the midst of the desert is a thing of wonder. It is beautiful. But it is hot. So hot that a coveted morning hike turns into merely a walk that must be taken before 6:00 am. So rocky and barren I must drive an hour or two to find a shady canyon in which to stretch my legs on the weekend.
What do you do to pick yourself up when you are down? When you are blue, how do you make yourself feel better? If you are agitated, how do you calm yourself? How do you engage in self care – manage your mental and emotional health?
Making ourselves feel better is how we cope. What is your coping mechanism? Do you gravitate toward a crowd? Have a cigarette? Music? Sex? What makes you feel all better? How we cope can become an addition. Who doesn’t want to feel better all the time? I do. So when I feel myself ready to drop into that downward spiral, I walk. I run out the door and hit the trail. But it is hot. Too hot to hike.
Having once discovered the piñon-pine forests of Navajo National Monument (established 1909), I returned again to hike all the short trails and snap more photos. The most popular of the short trails will take you to an overlook from which you can see Betakin in the distance. A second trail descends down the side of an inverted mountain. Beginning at 7,000 feet, the inverted mountain goes down, down to where the canyon floor hosts similar flora to that normally found high up a mountainside – an aspen forest and conifer trees. It was cooler here and with a more regular source of moisture. It has to be to grow aspen trees. This type of canyon is situated such that parts of it never see the sun. So narrow one of the sides is always in the shade. The snow is slow to melt.
And suddenly, I knew the answer to the oft asked question as to why the Anasazi were cliff dwellers rather than living up top where it appears life would have been easier-less precipitous. And now, I understand why certain folks mourn the loss of Glen Canyon as was, and want to drain Lake Powell.
It is too hot to hike – except in lush, deep, narrow canyons.
