Exploring otherworldy beauty in Mike Canyon

“For those to whom a stone reveals itself as sacred, its immediate reality is transmuted into supernatural reality.” – Mircea Eliade
“I’ll walk to lessen the weight on my side,” I told my hubby as I crawled out of our Pioneer 500 at the base of the steep trail to Mike’s Canyon, named after Jim Mike, who ran sheep there in the early Twentieth Century.
The road was washed out with just enough room in many places for our 50-inch chassis to navigate through the deep fissures and rocks.
Earlier that week, we had driven part of the Piute Pass trail where our friend Ned and my hubby had done a lot of road building. This road looked every bit as challenging. I hoped Ted thought my offer was altruistic.
“Okay,” he said, “but wait at a flat place because it’s hard to stop on an incline.”
I hurried up the slope to a bench where Ted paused to pick me up.
“It could’ve been worse,” he said as I climbed in and clicked on my seatbelt. “Somebody else had been up here.”
Four-wheeler tracks showed that someone else had, indeed, dared to drive the trail which continued to deteriorate. I rode until we came to a stretch which may not have been maintained since the 1970’s when the road was built by drillers.
Ted had packed a pickax and shovel, and this time I helped more than I had at Piute Pass by throwing rocks, some as heavy as I could carry, into the cracks while he broke up the soil and shoveled it in. Finally, he said, “I think we’ll be okay.”
“I’ll walk,” I told him. Again, I climbed as fast as I could, straddling the deep gaps as I listened to the little chitty chugging up behind me.
Ted picked me up at the top, but as we bounced along, even on that relatively flat part of the trail, we had to stop and rebuild several more times.
The hard work soon proved worth it because it looked like we’d broken through time and space to another planet with rolling clay humps where absolutely nothing grew, deep purple and gray hills, and a wild chicory sky.
The landscape continued to morph as we drove, and, much to my surprise, we eventually came upon a small pond surrounded by grass, sedges, and tamarisks with dragonflies and birds flitting in and out of the vegetation.
Ted backed up, turned around, and followed another path through the high desert, not as barren as the alien planet nor as lush as the little oasis, but with blackbrush and rabbitbrush dotting the earth.
He finally put on the brake and turned off the ignition. “Want to go for a walk?”
“Sure.” He’d promised me earlier that this area, which he’d explored a few years ago with a good friend, was even more spectacular than the backside of the Tables of the Sun. I doubted that was possible.
After we pulled on our backpacks, I followed my hubby for about 20 minutes until we came to a valley where two purple-and-white goblins, topped by orange capstones, stood as sentinels.
Baby hoodoos reared their heads all over the canyon’s floor with other rocks swirled into all manner of shapes along the sides, sculpted out of purple-and-white sandstone.
Orange talus slopes and mesas formed the backdrop. Even though our ride had already been full of strange and unearthly beauty, nothing prepared me for the wonder of this area.
It felt like we’d entered a holy place. I’ve visited some of the great cathedrals in New York City and the United Kingdom, but none evoked more awe than this isolated canyon full of earth beings.
As I took in the different formations, I wished I could travel back to Jim Mike’s era and hear his stories about the hoodoos, which seem to have a life and intelligence of their own.
Although I couldn’t time travel, I’d read stories about Sinawav, the Creator, who had formed not just the physical reality of the earth, but also landscapes imbued with sacred, divine power. I felt that power now.
Suddenly, a solitary bird started singing. I listened as the melody wafted across the canyon, amazed songbirds would make their home among the hoodoos, but soon, we spotted a rock wren bobbing around on the boulders and opening its beak to pour out its sheer joy in living.
We explored the area and then ate lunch before heading back. I hated to leave, knowing I might never return, but also grateful I didn’t have to sleep among the earth beings.
We had to stop and build road again on the way down. After Ted gave his, “I think we’ll be okay,” I decided to walk to the bottom.
“How did it go?” I asked when he picked me up.
“Good,” he said. “I just closed my eyes and went for it.”
I laughed. “That’s what I would’ve done!”
When we finally made it back to our 4-Runner, loaded the Pioneer, and readied ourselves for the trip home, my hubby said, “Next time we’re bringing Ned.”
He unscrewed the top of his water bottle and took a deep drink.
“That was a lot of road building,” I agreed, “but I helped more this time, right?”
Ted looked at me sideways and kept drinking.