Crooked

Crooked
(Willis Creek Narrows)
The creek has barely enough momentum to be called a creek. Only the ripples in the water confirm it is moving, and they are almost lost in the greater ripples of the vault enclosing it all. But it’s moving enough to be clear, and mirrors the blue of the cloudless sky overhead. Right now this little stream is on its best behavior. It would have you believe in its innocence, but the canyon tells a different story. When the water rages there is no stopping it. These hallways are scraped and striated from countless floods, when stone and wood slash and divot the softer sandstone, eating at every weak point to widen the cut as it digs deeper. More resistant intrusions in the layers set the course like a rudder that turns the wash first this way, then the other. All the drastic assaults over time have one motive: to make it all straight. I am multitasking, walking the wash as I walk a flood plain of my own thoughts. The what ifs, the I should haves, and the I wishes have as many twists as my physical arroyo. Such deep dives are common when I tramp along, my eyes searching for compositions, my musings searching for answers. Stopped by the aspect of the bend in front of me, I see the next beyond that, where I’ll surely stop again, every turn a fresh canvas. I will back track soon, upstream, and twist through a hundred new landscapes as I return. I tuck it all behind and face what is in front of me.

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Filename: Crooked
Image Size: 1414x2048 / 2.9MB; Willis Creek Narrows Utah UT narrows slot canyon creek desert sandstone landscape desertscape water canyon country Escalante Grand Staircase-Escalante Wilderness hike wash
Contained in galleries: West

Crooked<br />
(Willis Creek Narrows)<br />
The creek has barely enough momentum to be called a creek. Only the ripples in the water confirm it is moving, and they are almost lost in the greater ripples of the vault enclosing it all. But it’s moving enough to be clear, and mirrors the blue of the cloudless sky overhead. Right now this little stream is on its best behavior. It would have you believe in its innocence, but the canyon tells a different story. When the water rages there is no stopping it. These hallways are scraped and striated from countless floods, when stone and wood slash and divot the softer sandstone, eating at every weak point to widen the cut as it digs deeper. More resistant intrusions in the layers set the course like a rudder that turns the wash first this way, then the other. All the drastic assaults over time have one motive: to make it all straight. I am multitasking, walking the wash as I walk a flood plain of my own thoughts. The what ifs, the I should haves, and the I wishes have as many twists as my physical arroyo. Such deep dives are common when I tramp along, my eyes searching for compositions, my musings searching for answers. Stopped by the aspect of the bend in front of me, I see the next beyond that, where I’ll surely stop again, every turn a fresh canvas. I will back track soon, upstream, and twist through a hundred new landscapes as I return. I tuck it all behind and face what is in front of me.