The Climb

Ain’t about how fast I get there
Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side
It’s the climb

-Miley Cyrus

We finally hit a legit trail today! After 5 days of awesomness I feel like for the first time this trip we did what we set out to do. Last night at dinner we asked Ranger Mike for hiking suggestions at Canyonlands and he mentioned the Murphy Trail. We hadn’t made any specific plan there and his description of it sounded appealing.

We enjoyed another legit breakfast – I had a taco (burrito?) Stuffed with eggs, pulled pork, salsa, guac, and cheese. Then started the drive to Islands in the Sky. We stopped briefly at the visitor center to pick up jr ranger books for the girls and confirm that we were looking at the right wash on our map since it wasn’t actually marked as a trail.

From the parking lot it was about a mile hike across the mesa to the near vertical, 700 foot cliff that we would climb down. Since it was still pretty early in the day we had full shade the entire way down, but I could already sense the heat we’d feel on our way back up in a few hours.

The entire hike was stunningly beautiful. We could see all of the Western half of Canyonlands spread out in front of us. Somewhere out there was Horseshoe Canyon, and that caused me to think about the people who had been living here a thousand years ago. Hopefully they found a good source of water!

After reaching the cliff bottom we hiked out 2 more miles onto a lower level mesa. During that time we rounded a corner to the South and we’re able to look back at our entire path so far. At about that point in the trip I decided to take a look at the map I’d brought to figure out where we were. When I did locate our position my exclamation of “Oh!” caused everyone to stop in their tracks. What shocked me so much was that there were bathroom marked on the map just ahead of where we currently were.

After just a few more steps the promised pit toilets materialized in front of us. It’s rare to come across a bathroom while hiking, I can only think of a handful of places we’ve been that have a backcountry pit toilet. This particular pit toilet is situated not only along the trail we were hiking, but also along the White Rim Road. A Jeep road that runs a circle around the central mesa of the park. Apparently the rangers felt that people who drove through the park couldn’t be trusted to bring along poop bags. Since we had our own poop bags, and since no one needed to make a stop anyway we just kept walking.

The trail we were on actually dead ended at the Jeep road so we turned South and followed it for about a mile and a half another 300 feet down to the lowest level of the landscape of our general vicinity. From there we began following the Murphy Wash back up to our starting point. The ascent was generally gradual and there were even a few shady spots to stop and rest for a couple minutes and eat PBJ&C.

Seeing the point where the trail we had taken out met back up with the wash was both a blessing and a curse. It meant that we had finished most of the distance of the hike, about 8 miles so far, but also that it was now time to begin our 700 foot ascent of the mesa wall. It was a tough climb for me, I must have been feeling the heat a bit, and I certainly felt the effort of every step. At some point there were literal steps, really just a series of rocks a foot wide and one to two feet up. At other points the trail brought us an incline, but a much more severe angle than the wash had offered.

At some point, not too far into the climb, Miley Cyrus’s song “The Climb”, a road trip playlist tune, got stuck in my head. I started singing out loud and pretty soon everyone joined in. The only thing better than a Miley Cyrus tune to get me up the side of a cliff is Ellie. She was a rock star motivator today. She set a goal for how many switchbacks we should do before our next rest and then kept count. I don’t know how I’d’ve done it without her. I’ll also add that Miley is at least partially wrong in her lyrics. The ice cold Coors Light that was waiting for me on the other side did indeed matter.

The afternoon was taken up with ice cream, swimming, showers, laundry, and blogging. Tonight we’ll head to the Moab Brewery for some good beer and passable food.