SALT TRAIL
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  EARLY MARCH 2002

Common Raven 11/22/2002 The Salt Trail  Date?

Rock Wren 11/22/2002 The Salt Trail  Date?


salt%20trail.mov  is BIG ONE FOR LATER. I think it repeats these?


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Oops! Steve says the above picture is the Little Colorado I think.




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My brother Tom and I stand on a hill and look down into Salt Trail Canyon just downstream of Bekihatso Wash and see as Don Talayesva did almost a century before, the Little Colorado “shining from the bottom.” This is an obvious passage to the river because from the rim you can see far in the distance below, radiant in the sunshine, the beckoning blue water and rushing white falls. Getting here has been something of a business. The route across the Reservation to the trailhead begins north of the Tuba City cutoff, already close to the middle of nowhere, and then travels on dirt roads over twenty-five miles of red rock and open space. Again, canyoneer Bill Orman has mailed me a detailed road log. But it has been a year or so since he has visited Salt Trail Canyon and he does not know that a small landmark marking a crucial turn, a red metal sign with a number, is no longer there.

On our way here, we have chosen a small side road, and though it was the wrong one, we eventually connect to the correct path and picked up Bill’s other carefully recorded landmarks: three beat up hogans on the left, a small cluster of whitish stones, the round rock foundation of an ancient hogan. Soon we pass a flock of sheep and a pack of sheep dogs tears across the desert to intercept us. A wildly woolly black and white, tassel-eared dog barks angrily at the door. Tom guns the engine but the fast, protective dogs follow a quarter of a mile before they are satisfied that the sheep are safe. I see them in the rearview mirror, no longer running, but still barking and sneezing and licking their noses in the cold air.
Now as we look into the canyon, a bright red Chevy pickup descends a hill and parks beside us. We chat for a while with the driver, a Navajo hired to watch the sheep. He knows quite a bit about the canyon. He tells us that when he was young he once descended Salt Trail Canyon and trekked all the way to the confluence and exited out Beamer and Tanner. He offers few details of the trip except that he had lost his wallet somewhere in the Gorge and that it was returned months later by ichthyologists studying the Little C’s fish.
 “It’s very steep in there,” he says, and points to a small cairn marking a faint trail into the wash above the drainage. “You start there and then go down to where it drops in. It’s very steep.”
“You still go in there sometimes?”
He laughs. “I’m not in condition anymore.”

Talking with him is exceedingly pleasant. Right away I recognize the type. Typical of Navajos, he has a soft Indian accent and a modest manner which might have be mistaken for innocence but which is really only civility. 

Tom and I drag our packs out of the truck bed. They are heavy. We are packed for a winter hike. We’d spent an icy night near Flagstaff where the temperature had fallen to the low twenties and I don’t know how much warmer it will be as we descend into the Canyon. We are loaded with down coats, gloves, sweaters, wool caps, long fleece pants and heavy sub zero sleeping bags. Accustomed as I am to hiking in the heat, it is difficult to put aside the urge to pack a lot of water. We carry a gallon each. 

The trail leads down between two tall cairns which stand like sentinels to the Gates of Mordor. From here the route fairly plunges over the edge. While hiking the Horse Trail with a big pack is challenging, and Blue the   Spring Trail perilous, The Salt Trail is, well, medium dangerous, at least for us. There are few places to make a straight-air fall, but there are plenty of spots to stumble and break every bone in your body. For the hardcore canyoneer, the passage may seem a dreamboat with just enough challenge to make it interesting. For my brother and me, however, it’s different. With the heavy packs balanced on our backs, working down the chute of jumbled yellow blocks is difficult and scary. Tom, in particular, is at a disadvantage. Although he’s a strong hiker, he’s not all that fond of it; he has only come along because he wanted to look at birds. Those heavy, three-hundred-dollar Swift Audubon binoculars swinging from a strap around his neck aren’t helping much. Despite my warnings of what the terrain might be like, he had still imagined walking upright on something resembling a trail. In addition to this, he has ignored my advice and stuffed into his pack many glass bottles of Redhook beer. He has decanted a pint of another specialty brew into a plastic canteen stuffed into a side pocket. The cap is loose. A hoppy aroma follows in his wake. Worst of all, he is a studied doomsayer. At every precipice he imagines a fall and supplies with many adjectives the details of shocking compound fractures. If I point out an interesting rock, he is apt to make dark allusions to its precarious position and comment on the damage such a heavy object would do if it were to trundle over your skull. In the distant roaring of jets, he imagines approaching flash floods and often pauses to evoke appalling visions. All this crepe hanging fills me with dread. My mind is laden with morbid thoughts of tragedy and catastrophe.

Granted, he isn’t enjoying my company much either. My pedagogical lectures on the use of a walking stick are wearing him down. I can’t help it. He considers the stick an inconvenience, just something else to carry or trip over. When I express my exasperation at his refusal to be instructed, he suggests a use for the stick not mentioned in the REI brochure.
There is also the matter of his shoes. Tom doesn’t have any heavy- duty boots so I have lent him my old pair of freshly-resoled Zamberlans. They are not working out. Behind me I hear a hair-raising shriek which chills my bones. I turn to see him doing a sloppy pirouette against the sky. Then he lunges for the rock and clings for dear life with both arms to a coffin of sandstone. I’m thinking that this prophet of doom may be right. “It’s the shoes,” he says. The new waffle tread, he claims, sticks to the rock. I don’t know what he’s talking about. “It’s like walking across glass with suction cups,” he insists. I think he’s crazy but we swap shoes. Surprisingly, this seems to help.

Below the worst of the boulder jam soars a towering pillar of Moencopi sandstone. Leaning against the base of this pillar was once a rock adorned with carvings and paintings of chickens, the Chicken Shrine. I see no pictures on any of the stones here now, but when Don Talayesva hiked the Salt Trail in 1912, he and his companions left offerings of dough and feathers here and crowed a little in order to assure success with poultry. The other places chronicled in Talayesva’s account are perhaps impossible to recognize because the descriptions of them are vague. The Chicken Shrine, however, was undoubtedly at the foot of this unmistakable spire. Along the way, I have looked for rock art or pottery, but there is nothing. Bill Orman has told me that he once discovered, a little off the route, a large portion of an Anasazi pot decorated with a jagged black and white design. He also described to me a place where straightened sticks, looking a little like arrow shafts, were concealed in a small cave. I find the spot and take some pictures. Just what these sticks mean or how old they are is a mystery, though they appear as if they are some kind of an offering. In another small alcove lower in the formation, I find another dowel-like stick.
Bill Orman has also told me that atop the Redwall above the river lie two large cairns of jasper. A Hopi friend told him that these were built by Hopi pilgrims over the centuries. At the end of a Salt Expedition each devotee would, it was said, leave a single stone. If this story is true, it might well provide a documentary record of the expeditions from ages hence. An archeologist could count the stones and arrive at the number of devotees who had made the journey. It would be reasonable to assume, of course, that the tradition of placing a rock did not necessarily start with the first or even the hundredth pilgrimage, but it would tell how many had worshipped at the Salt Mines or the Sipapu since the tradition started. Another Native American friend of Bill’s, however, said that these cairns looked like graves. The story behind these rock piles may never be known. Looking to Sun Chief does not help to resolve the question; Don Talayesva mentions nothing of these cairns in the record of his Salt Expedition.
Tom and I descend farther into the canyon following cairns. It’s easy to stay on course and the canyon relents a little from time to time; we sometimes find ourselves striding along on an obvious trail. On the left-hand side of the canyon, for instance, a long, flat stone “walkway” traverses an overhang along a wall. Nearby, in a sandy little basin above a huge, dry plunge-pool, we drop our packs. Getting dark. We have passed small tinajas full of water, each of them reminding me of the weighty load I’m bearing on my back. I haven’t drunk one drop. We spread out our flimsy pads and drape our heavy Hollofil bags on top.

Winter is a quiet time in the canyon. We have seen no lizards, no squirrels, not even insects, aside from a few pallid winged grasshoppers. Tom’s total bird count: one rock wren. We boil water on my tiny Honeybird gas stove and pour cups of boiling water into pouches of freeze-dried backpacker stroganoff and lasagna. I’ve left my wood burning stove at home. Though it is convenient on a long trek, on a short one it is not worth the hassle of keeping the thing stoked and putting up with soot begrimed pots.

I prepare dinner with such care that I wonder a little if cooking is not the entire object of the hike. Into the lasagna I dump the entire contents of a small container of parmesan cheese which I stir in with chopsticks. I also add a square of real longhorn cheddar, a handful of dried mushrooms and a spoonful of dehydrated onions. I’ve got something else also. Wonderful Mexican Cotija cheese, salty and rich. I crumble a chunk over the top. To make it even better I include a special ingredient–chile pequin. This is in the form of an orange powder I have prepared by pulverizing the small, dried chiles in a coffee grinder and sifting the result through a wire mesh so that no remnants of the yellow seeds remain. Hotter than the hubs of Hell, a small pinch sprinkled over any dish will add the necessary fire. Every hiker has his own crazy ingredients; dreaming up recipes is half the fun. The light continues fading, and as we finish eating, I feel a sense of satisfaction that we have timed things well enough to avoid the misery of cooking in the dark.

Soon it is night. Satellites fall across the sky and the long white needles of meteors flare like sparks struck from flint. We watch Orion, the seven sisters, and just under the canopy of stars, the silent lights of passing planes which I imagine are glittering indecipherable codes, each spelling a single word over and over. We lean back against a stone drinking cold, bottled beer. Tom says he sees ghost lights twinkling like fireflies against the black shadow of a cliff and I’ll be damned if I don’t see them too. After a while the rising moon turns the sky into a mistiness full of light and depth, the cliffs emerge from the shadows, and the mysterious lights disappear.
You don’t see such shows of light either real or imagined with a roof over your head. My friends who don’t hike often seem appalled when they learn that I rarely pack a tent. They shudder to imagine a night uninsulated by at least a protective film of nylon.  But having walked away from the machinery of civilization, I am completely at ease. The closest automobile is the one we left at the rim miles away. But aren’t there mountain lions, they ask. Not many, and what good would a tent do? The claws of a lion bent on my demise would slash like straight razors through any fabric. But snakes, they insist. Aren’t you afraid of snakes? Not really. Rattlers are uncommon here and I would count seeing one as a benefit. I have yet to see a pink Grand Canyon rattlesnake.
Admittedly, a snake bite here would be nothing but trouble. Tom’s doomsaying makes me dwell on this a little. What exactly are the chances of a rattlesnake bite? Aside from their scarcity, the fact that rattlesnakes are not particularly aggressive makes them unlikely assailants. I have read that the profile for a rattlesnake bite victim generally involves the following scenario: male in his twenties, drunk, holding snake. Most other bites occur when the dumbbell is trying to harass or kill the rattler. Stumbling upon a rattlesnake or sharing a sleeping bag with one are not common ways of getting bitten.

I recall a snake story which occurred near the ultimate terminus of this very drainage. In his classic account of his 1907 expedition to Sonora’s Pinacate mountains, Camp-Fires on Desert and Lava, William Hornaday recounts an anecdote which suggests that even a snake in the hand may not at times be any more dangerous than one in the bush. The story regarded his geographer, Godfrey Sykes, who wished to set his aneroid for a more accurate measurement of the Pinacates’ elevation. The only sure way to do this was to walk to sea level, to the sandy shores of the Sea of Cortez, a couple dozen miles to the south. There he could set the pressure-altitude indicator of the device to zero.

Aside from being a good geographer and as respected a writer as Hornaday, Sykes was also one hell of a hiker. One morning, without telling the others, he set out for the sea. Having made the difficult crossing of the sand hills, he found walking across the flats easy. At the gulf, he adjusted the scale of his instrument and after gathering a few shell specimens for Hornaday, he started back. The full moon illuminated the way and he arrived at camp at half past one that morning. His pedometer measured 43 miles. There was, however, an incident on the way back. I best let Mr. Sykes tell the rest of it himself:
“The net zoological result of my pasear was a few little birds of unknown species, a jackrabbit or two, a coyote and a little coiled up rattlesnake evidently suffering from the chilly night air. I put my hand on the snake, thinking it was a shell, and never discovered what kind of snake it was until, as he slid through my fingers, I felt his rattles! At that I bid him a hurried adieu and left him to find warmer quarters.”

I know only one person who has suffered a rattlesnake bite. My friend of many years ago, Joe Kraig, was once bitten by a sidewinder. He was trying to force feed a pet rattler by stuffing a mouse down its throat. In the process he inadvertently inserted his thumb into the snake’s mouth. Both fangs got him. In this case the bite should not have been a dangerous one because, as a precaution, Joe had milked the sidewinder just before attempting to feed it. Joe squeezed his thumb and two pure red droplets appeared. No venom seemed to have been injected. Thinking he was in the clear, he put the snake back into its cage and went about his business.

A half hour later he noticed a dark red line of discoloration moving slowly up his arm following the course of the radial artery. His wife called the hospital and soon he was greeted by the excited staff of doctors, nurses, candy stripers and janitors who were waiting eagerly at the emergency room door. By now Joe’s face was swelling up. I don’t remember whether he was given antivenin or not, but the snake nearly killed him.

Joe was always careless with snakes. He was intrigued by them and collected all kinds. One day on the Reservation along I-40 near Sanders, Joe stopped to pick up a hitchhiker, a guy he knew, Emerson Roanhorse, who was hitchhiking along the frontage road. “Ya’ ‘at eeh, Emerson. Where you headed?” Emerson pointed ahead Navajo-style with a pursing of the lips and an upward nod of the head. “Goin’ to my Aunt’s, Joe. Right up here by Houck.”

“How’s your sister doing, Emerson?”

“She’s okay. Working at Whiting Brothers.”
At this point, Joe braked for a stop sign and a burlap bag slid out from under the front seat. A rattler slithered out.  As a general thing, Navajo men are not much shaken by rattlesnakes, but the unexpected appearance of one inside a car is enough to test anyone’s resolve. Joe’s passenger must have weighed two hundred pounds, but he went through the window like a jackrabbit. The window was rolled half way up and how he got through without breaking the glass is hard to say.

Joe was immediately contrite. “Damn, I’m sorry, Emerson. I didn’t know that would happen. Hang on. I’ll resack him.
“Ah, Ch’iidii!  You dumb bastard. Why don’t you tell me you got a snake in there. Are you crazy?”

“Sorry. Sorry.”
Emerson cooled down.

“Just put him back in the bag. Hurry up. I’m already missing dinner.”

 Another time, on holiday, Joe was tubing down the Salt River near Phoenix when he came upon a fine black and yellow king snake in the brush along the shore. Enthusiastically, he grabbed it and wrapped it around his neck and began paddling to meet his party of friends at an island in the middle of the stream. Now the king snake has a reputation for being an amiable creature, a fair pet as far as snakes go, but this one opened its mouth and grabbed the soft flesh of Joe’s throat like the clamp on a jumper cable. At the island Joe paced up and down the shore cradling the snake, followed by his sympathetic companions.
Meanwhile, floating clusters of tubers, many beery and unsteady on their feet, arrived at the island full of pitying interest. A crowd began to gather. Joe and his snake had become a riparian attraction. “Over here!” someone would yell across the water. “A guy’s got a snake on him. Hangin’ on his throat!”

“No shit?” Then, “Damn! I’m stuck in an eddy. Don’t let him get away. I’ll be right there.” (The sound of furious paddling)
Joe was thinking that he could do without a portion of this attention. His main concern was how to dislodge the snake without injuring it. Every one of the hundred and ten spectators, though, had the same idea. “Burn him off!” they cried. “Here!” and they each thrust a flaming Bic lighter in Joe’s face.

Even with the snake hanging painfully from his neck, Joe couldn’t help but marvel at the excitability of these wet, slightly-toasted individuals. Almost all of them had lighters which they adjusted so that a foot of orange flame gushed out. Inspired by many twelve packs, they were fired with an earnest desire to serve him, a boozy sympathy, a philanthropic zeal almost. But at this point all Joe wanted was for them to go away.  “Jump in the water,” one suggested. “Drown the sonofabitch off.”
That seemed like a fair idea. Joe jumped in.

In the annals of human arrogance there is scarcely an example which equals Joe Kraig’s attempt to hold his breath longer than a king snake. In short, he couldn’t do it, and these two marvels of nature remained connected until the reptile tired of the game and dropped off of its own accord.

In the morning Tom and I leave our packs at our camp in the wash and trek down to a deep fissure with huge impassable pour-offs. The route crosses the wash above and ascends in the form of a faint trail to the top of the Redwall where it continues a long pace before dropping down to the river. We trudge up the steep slope. Below we see the shining water. The bluest river in the world? I have no doubt, though as I have mentioned, it has another face when it runs a walnut brown and at the confluence it mixes with the green water of the Big Colorado the way cream swirls into coffee.

We’ve been here long enough.  I’ve promised my young son that I’ll stay closer to home. He worries that I’ll never come back. He shouldn’t. The eight days I spent in the Gorge with my brother Jeff were the longest time I’d ever spent away from him, and I wonder a little that it has already been two years since Jeff and I walked along the sands of the turquoise waters below Salt Trail Canyon. Just what dreams compelled us to hike the Gorge are already fading into memory.

Many wilderness travelers express their desire to find a spiritual enlightenment in nature, an answer to the mystery of their lives. I am all for this, but personally have long since given up such seeking, for to me the answers seem only to appear in the form of the most arcane metaphors, at best disquieting and always indecipherable. I count myself then, superfluous?  fortunate to have been so untroubled by spiritual longing for I suspect that this is because I have found enough to satisfy me. An experience itself unencumbered by a recondite quest is more than sufficient.
I remember a Navajo woman I once bought jewelry from asking, “Why do you do that? Why do you go down in there?”

“For fun,” I told her, and it was a true answer.
The river is just as I have remembered it, a milky blue. We have no time to linger here. We have jobs and obligations. Against my inclinations, I try to sense something of myself in the huge and timeless canyon and find nothing. Time flies more quickly for a man than it does for a canyon and a canyon has no promises to keep. We ascend to a high place overlooking the shining blue river and listen to the white sound of rushing water.
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