• AT HAND: Deuce Lee, RoBear
• LOCATION: Death Valley NP, CA
• DATES: January 8-10, 2021
• STATS: 3 days/2 nights, 28 miles – 4,151 feet EG

Man-made cathedrals pale in comparison to the work of the infinite cosmocrat. Humanity’s construction process involves the compounding of materials to create something new; a puzzle of sorts where the proper pieces, placed correctly, result in something greater than the sum of its parts. On the other hand, the demiurge starts with a whole, and over the course of millennia transforms it molecule by molecule into something worth prostrating oneself to. Who needs to work quickly when you have immortality to fall back on? Walking through the chasm of Marble Canyon is awe-inspiring. Tracing the path of the canyon’s story (scrawled in non-sequiturs and unfinished proverbs flagellating in the collective mental jet stream) quickly brings about the awareness that your own is written in miniscules; an afterword, a poorly phrased footnote, an errant mistake in an unremarkable paragraph, a smudge on a page torn out of a book that no one has ever bothered to read. Stepping out and away from the walls sweeps that laconic insight back under the spiritual rug-a spring cleaning task perpetually procrastinated.

Of consequence: Wild horses grazing peacefully; giant spaces that stretch beyond understanding; a single spring water source; a painfully frigid night in an exposed valley; the enduring smoothness of the walls in Marble Canyon; wayfinding without landmarks; Trona.