The outdoor perks of living where I do seem to multiply every day that I’m here. Every day can be a new adventure, as there is such incredible beauty all around… even hidden in places you’d never imagine to find more than sand and scrub. Red Canyon, known as Peek-a-boo to locals, is one such place that arrives out of nowhere and leaves a lasting impression. Oddly red, even for this area, the canyon lives up to its name. A tiny slot tucked away down a dry wash just a couple miles from my office, it is reached only after a bumpy and winding off-road adventure through deep sand.
Despite warm, sunny temperatures around 60 yesterday, the crisp cold of the shadowy canyon bit through my sweater as I wandered the meandering curves of rock with my dog and a few coworkers. Surprises peeked out around every corner. Perhaps the name “Peek-a-boo” is just as fitting as “Red Canyon.”
Logs are jammed high above, showing just how deep the water runs during flash floods. Indian steps in the rock, footholds which once served as a ladder to higher ground, now start over six feet off the sand. Not much help if a flood were to occur today, but once upon a time, when the sandy ground was five feet higher, they could have saved a life.
In one area, melting icicles hung like chandeliers above us, dripping their cold water down. The droplets that didn’t bounce off the rock and hit our faces would instead hit the dirt and roll up the red earth with it. They’d continue downhill, now brown, and slide under a sheet of ice, giving them a resemblance to demonic bugs creepily darting for your feet.
And as is only natural for this area, beauty lived outside the slot just as well as in. Up a small path to the right, an alien-like rock spire pierced the sky. The contrast between the red rock and blue sky was almost blinding.
Yeah, I dig it here.
by Sarah
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