Backpacking in Needles District

Just before entering the park I noticed a field of purple
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Every college student is entitled to an unforgettable spring break. After all, they only get 4 or 5 . . . 6 and some get 7 spring breaks when they’re in college. Most of my friends decided to go to the beach in mexico or california. Some also stayed in their parents condominiums at different ski resorts. Everyone wants to get away and I couldn’t imagine a better way to get away than getting away from civilization.

I decided to spend my spring break with a bunch of people I didn’t know in a place I didn’t know about. To me, it seemed like an excellent opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and learn something. I showed up at 0600 on March 24^th at the CU recreation center with my backpack, which had all the necessary camping gear for the upcoming week. I was greeted by the group leaders Alyssa and Becca. There were two other guys Mike and Jordan and two girls Allie and Rebekah in the group besides me, which made a perfect backpacking size group of 7.

Needles at Devil's Kitcen
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It was an all day ordeal to drive from Boulder to Moab, Utah. On the way, I engaged in a conversation with the group leaders about the “empowerment of women.” They had both taken several women’s studies classes at CU, which meant that they had read several books on how women have been mistreated all throughout society and men are pigs. They believed that women had been stronger than men, which is the case with some species of animals, and adapted to be the weaker sex because of social reasons. I decided to argue from a common sense point of view by saying that women and men simply needed to fulfill certain roles as a means of survival. Men are physically stronger, so they fulfilled roles that required physical prowess such as hunting. Women are weaker, so they fulfilled roles that required less physical prowess such as cooking. This infuriated them but they were very nice about it and changed the subject. It seemed like it was going to be a long week because nobody talked much.

On top of a rock at Devil's Kitchen
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When we arrived in Moab, we had to start working as a team in order to decide where to eat and where the KOA (Kampgrounds of America) campsite was. We successfully found the campsite, and ate at a traditional family restaurant outside of town called the Stage Coach. The Stage Coach’s main dish was steaks. Every kind of steak you could imagine. Two of the girls in the group were vegetarians, so they had about 2 items to choose from on the menu while the rest of us ordered steaks. During the meal, everybody opened up a little bit and I soon learned that I was going to be spending a week in the middle of nowhere with a group of hardcore atheist liberals. Our group was composed of 2 feminists, 2 vegetarians, 1 guy that didn’t talk much, a pothead and yours truly.

Living Soil - fungus and lichen that hold in water
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The next day we drove out to the Needles District in Canyonlands National Park, which was an hour southwest of Moab. We parked the car in the Elephant Hill parking lot and finally embarked on our backpacking adventure around 1000. At our first rest stop for lunch, I decided to take a little stroll and take some pictures. When I returned, I was harshly scolded by Alyssa for leaving without telling anybody even though I had only wandered 30 feet away. As we backpacked into the depths of Devil’s Kitchen, I found a large cave and decided to bust out my head lamp and explore it, but I had to wait for the group to put their packs down and come with me. It was an eerie place with fungus growing on the walls and a large collection of tumbleweeds trapped in a rock wedge. I absolutely loved it while the rest of the group had their curiosity satisfied after a short peek inside to say, “Oh . . . that’s nice . . .” Then, Alyssa told me to stop climbing. I jumped down off the rock and smiled and then she walked away and I climbed right back up and kept exploring. Next thing I knew, Alyssa said, “We’re leaving!”

Scenery of needles near Druid's Arch
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After backpacking a mere 4.4 miles, we reached our first campsite in Devil’s Kitchen. I told Alyssa where I was going and when I would be back and she told me not to explore any further than she could see. At that, she climbed into her tent and in about 15 minutes, I heard a heavy snore and off I went to go exploring. I hiked, climbed and shimmied to my heart’s content. The desert is such an interesting ecosystem. I encountered several lizards, kangaroo rats and all sorts of birds and their nests all throughout the surrounding area. I was careful not to step on the “live dirt,” which is a smorgasbord of fungus and lichen that hold in the precious water for the hardy plants. We weren’t allowed to make fires and I was taunted by the abundant supply of excellent fire wood. In an attempt to make a fire, I started to make kinder by bashing grass with a rock and I strongly desired to utilize the fire making skills that I had learned from the survival shows on the discovery channel and my scouting experience. Nevertheless, I realized the smoke trail from my fire would lead park rangers right to me. Bad idea.

Druid's Arch
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When I returned to camp, the group was making dinner. Alyssa was trying to remove a lid from a water chicken, which is a plastic “blatter” bag used to store water for cooking. Instead of offering to help, I let her struggle with it until she finally asked for assistance. As I approached her, Becca said, “you know she hates asking for help.” I smiled and popped off the lid. After I did this, their facial expressions were relieved. I soon realized that they were arrogant, but they really needed my help. I wanted to teach them a series of lessons by not helping them and then I assumed they would constantly ask for my help and suddenly realize that their feminist ideas worked in a classroom, but not in the desert. However, I decided to do the opposite and help everybody in the group as much as I could instead of standing back and watching them struggle. In case you’re wondering what the other guys were doing, they were idly standing by with their spoon and bowl in each hand waiting for the food. There was plenty of food left after the meal and I took it upon myself to finish it. After dinner, we had a discussion about how the day went and Alyssa asked how she could make the trip better. I shyly raised my hand and asked if I could just explore on my own. She consented and everything was starting to look a lot like . . . Christmas?

Very Rare Snow Storm in the desert
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I arose early the next morning and started to make pancakes. It started to lightly snow. Little tiny white pellets fell from the sky and it seemed like we were on a movie set with somebody pouring snow on us because the snow was not cold and the skies were clear. After the stove blew up in my face and singed my eyebrows, I realized that cooking was hard or maybe I was not a skilled stovesman (I made up that word). I spilled a little pancake batter here and a little pancake batter there until I realized how crappily inefficient my cooking was. I had so much pancake batter spilled on my shirt that it looked like several birds pooped on me. A few of the girls came out and laughed a little bit and then proceeded to help me.

Near Elephant Canyon
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Throughout the trip, I cooked, cleaned, navigated and helped the group through several difficult trails from campsite to campsite. One of the girls Ally, developed a serious problem with her meniscus, which is the cartilage in the knee. So I had to carry extra pots and pans, her tent and other group gear. During the course of the trip, only a very small compartment of my backpack was filled with my personal gear such as sleeping bag, clothes etc. and the rest was filled with group gear. I helped the girls up and down rocks, through narrow passageways and up and down latters. I finished every meal and volunteered to fetch water at every campsite. Everyone was dead tired whenever we reached a campsite except for me, so I felt like I needed to do most of the work, but I honestly found great joy in helping people.

Between the needles district and island in the sky district
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One night, our group finally started opening up to each other under a star filled sky. We swapped stories and played cards late into the night. There was no obstruction to bonding because we happened to be in the middle of dadgum nowhere. At night, everything was dead silent. The only thing you could hear is the subtle ringing sound in your ears. There’s no point in trying to describe how wonderful it is to hear absolutely nothing and behold nature’s beauty without the sound of cars or worry of not completing an assignment that was due soon. Sure I had assignments due the next week, but I was able to fully let go and witness the awesomeness of God’s creation.

One day, we were hiking through a very narrow passageway, and everyone could barely fit through a small opening at the end. Ally somehow got stuck and I had to position myself between the walls and wall walk over to where she was and pull her out. She was extremely grateful for it because everybody else just laughed at her. She was hilarious because she talked like a surfer, but she was from Vermont. The other girl Rebekah would never stop smiling. She reminded me of those Burger King commercials where a guy wakes up in bed and the “king,” with his permanent smile, hands him a burger. She said she smiled so much that the muscles in her face hurt every now and then. The other guy Mike was a complete band geek, but he had some funny stories about his small town in Illnois where he grew up. Jordan was suffering from some kind of post traumatic stress from when his close friend died a year ago. He was a mellow guy that talked like a stoner, but once he cracked a smile, I couldn’t stop smiling. Becca, one of the leaders, was absolutely hilarious. She developed these horrible blisters by day 2 of our trip and to forget about them, she just sang . . . a lot. In order to make her feel better, we all sang along to Disney songs from when we were kids. Alyssa turned into a gracious leader and eventually bestowed complete trust in me and basically let me take over the group. It was difficult to follow some of the trails because they were not clearly defined. Some trails had carins, which are just piles of rocks that are great natural trail markers. In the beginning, she kept asking to see the map if I ever acted on instinct when we reached a fork instead of consulting the map. She would always say, “are you sure you’re going the right way?!” and I’d always hold out my hand like in the Aladdin movie and say, “Do you trust me?” in the cheesiest voice possible. She just blushed and I never got us lost, but we had to do some bush whacking to get back on the trail a few times. They called me the “navigator newt” because I would lead them to areas that nobody thought I could climb and then I would crawl right up it with 90 pound pack and all.

On the last night, the girls insisted I rest after I returned from a Lost Canyon day hike. They cooked dinner for me and we had a delicious meal of noodles and chicken. After dinner, all 7 of us crammed into a 2 man tent and told everybody what we appreciated about them the most. In short, everybody said that I was a great natural leader and a complete badass. They appreciated the fact that I was willing to do all the work if necessary and that they needed me on the trip. It was a symbiotic relationship because I loved to see the appreciation on their faces when I helped them out. Everybody wore their heart on their sleeve that night and it was obvious how close we had grown together. I mean . . . we were packed in that tent like sardines.

On the last day, it snowed like crazy and it was freezing. It rarely snows in the desert, and nobody was prepared for super cold weather. Everybody backpacked the last 3 miles from the campsite to a parking lot 5 miles away from where we parked our van. The plan was to have Jordan, Becca and me walk/run/hitchhike back to the Elephant Hill parking lot and get the van and drive it back and pick the rest of the group up. Nobody wanted to give us a ride because we looked absolutely disgusting after not showering for a week. Jordan and Becca talked a big game about running all the way. They ran for about 400 meters and got tired. I was freezing and wanted to get warm, so I offered to run the 5 miles and get the van. Of course they gave me the keys and the rest of the group only had to wait 45 minutes in the cold instead of the planned 2 hours. When I drove up, the group cheered and cheered because they said I showed up as soon as it started to get cold. After driving through a snowstorm on I-70 back to Boulder and almost getting in several car accidents, we made it to Boulder and we said our good byes and parted ways and I was truly glad that the chance I took of going on a trip with people I didn’t know to a place I had never been turned out successful.

All in all, I backpacked 22 miles, side hiked 25 miles and explored, which involves mostly climbing and some hiking, 18 miles and ran 4.75 miles. It was a wonderful experience where we set aside our differences and bonded quite well. Nobody in the group ever argued and things turned completely different than I imagined. I guess the moral of the story is that you can get along with anybody by expressing your feelings and treating them as you would like to be treated.

4.4 (elephant hill-DP1-pack) + 4.9 (DP1-EC3-pack) + 4.8 (EC3-Druid's Arch and back-hike) + 1 (EC3-EC1-pack) + 3.8 (EC1-SQ2-pack) + 6.5 (SQ2-through Lost Canyon and then loop back around from north to south through Squaw Canyon-hike) + 2.8 (SQ2-Squaw Flat Parking Lot-pack) + 5 (Squaw Flat Parking Lot to Elephant Hill Parking Lot-run)