Departing Zion Amidst Disturbing News
Welcome reprieve
©Bert Gildart: We departed Zion yesterday following another night of subfreezing weather. The canyons have trapped unusually cold weather and when we awoke, it was about 18°F, cold for this part of Utah, but certainly not like what friends and relatives back home in Montana’s Flathead Valley say they’ve been experiencing. There, we understand, it has been -8°F.
Still, Zion was a welcome reprieve after traveling from Ogden to Spanish Forks. In the entire 90 miles (which includes Salt Lake City) we couldn’t find a single place to pull over and use the bathroom in our trailer. Conditions seemed more intense than driving around Newark, New Jersey; New Orleans, Lousiana, L.A., California. Everywhere were huge trucks pulling two–and sometimes–three trailers of gravel, earth-moving equipment, and mobile homes. There were horns blaring–and new cookie cutter homes everywhere.
What a relief to pull into Zion and spend a few quiet days hiking. Little competition from others on the trail, either, and that was nice, too. In fact, we were one of about six campers in the park’s Watchman Campground.
CANCELLED SPEECH
A friend in the valley also wrote me about some disturbing news, saying that the school board in Choteau, Montana had cancelled Dr. Steve Running’s speech. Running is one of the scientists who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on Global Warming. His speech was intended for Choteau’s high school students.
Looks like they believe the best way to gain ground on an issue is to silence their opponents.
Though I have strong feelings on the issue and wrote a story this summer for the magazine produced by the Wilderness Society (and another –and another –for this blog) I do believe others have well thought out opinions on the subject, and would certainly post opposing views. In a free country the school board’s actions seem unprecedented for good decisions are generally made after all the facts have been gathered.
I’ll bet the Choteau School board gets more grief from its decision than they ever thought possible.
For several days at any rate, all these concerns were pushed into the background by the beauty of Zion National Park–its towering peaks and the slick red rock, which carried names such as Court of the Patriarchs, Temple of Sinewava, The Great White Throne… Together these magnificent forms pushed unsettling thoughts into the recesses of our minds.
The Way to Angel’s Landing
That’s the way it was for us in Zion, and I’ve posted several photographs from our hike toward Angel’s Landing, the latter portion of which was closed because of dangerous ice conditions. Amidst such beauty all else is forgotten–at least for the moment.
