day 15 -- north rim to zion; starvation camping

dutifully dragged my camera out of bed before sunrise so as to make up for missing the grand canyon sunset...though I doubted that even that would top the dazzlingly starry and meteor-y night sky. strapped on the vibrams for more free advertising (kids love 'em) and wandered out to bright angel point with the intrepid masses. the standard cast of characters...talkative bespectacled middle-aged guys from chicago with fancy cameras, can't-miss-this-moment families with disinterested kids, showoff teenagers clambering around on rocks as if a foot higher/closer to the south rim will make a difference in photos of cliffs five miles away, the tai chi guy, southern europeans in their hiking-inappropriate footwear (only americans, brits, and germans wear hiking boots to walk a paved, level path...or any hiking trail for that matter), and chattering japanese with their backpacks full of who knows what. the show was predictably stunning though a summer haze was in the way, the sort of scenery you can't really capture with a camera. peaceful and quiet with the exception of a couple of loudly unaware english kids yammering away in that inimitable english way. snapped some decent shots of hummingbirds on beebalm and headed back to the lodge to sit on the balcony and catch up on writing. and listen to more visitor varieties, like brooklynites giddy at the big skies but at the same time nervously filling in that unaccustomed space w ith shouts of 'echo.' repeatedly. chatted with a handful of passersby, but not the same as the locals I'd encountered before...that local contact slipping away was inevitable in the park detour section, but I missed it.

back up over the humpbacked kaibab plateau on the way to bryce and zion. hadn't really worked out how to cover southern utah, only that I knew there was too much to cram in without losing time later on in the trip. I figured that saturday night in zion was a no-go on campgrounds, esp with a likely late-ish arrival, so I aimed the bike straight up US89 toward bryce with a loop up to cedar breaks for a campground stop in mind. but the cliff-dwellings siren was activated when I saw in fredonia a sign for pipe springs national monument. I had no idea what was at pipe springs, but nat'l monuments are usually human-made sites. I also could have checked on it, but I like the surprise, so I detoured west and on the spot changed the plan to zion first. so pipe springs was nothing like what I expected...instead of cliff dwellers I found mormon homesteaders and, later on, an LDS tithing ranch. steer donated to the church by cash-strapped faithful were shipped south to this unexpected spring in the desert, in what everyone thought was utah but was actually across the arizona border. milk and butter and occasional steer fed on arizona rice grass were then sent back to st george to feed the men building a temple there. what remains at pipe springs is a grand house/fort that was erected as a bulwark against raids from all comers...indians and the feds alike. not quite the case of mormons-barging-in that some would like to tell, since the original paiute inhabitants were already encamped some distance away since hanging around the springs exposed them, one of the more pacifist tribes, to slave raids from apaches and utes. these settlers weren't very good at accommodating the native way of life, naturally, and their cows ate the rice grass on which the paiutes subsisted, but blaming the mormons doesn't work perfectly. anyway, just as interesting was the use of the ranch as a shelter for illegal wives. when LDS honchos realized that the ranch was in arizona and hence a different federal court jurisdiction, they sent extra wives there to hide out when the feds conducted anti-polygamy raids. no direct evidence of multiple wives-in-residence, no arrest.

all this from a drawly NPS ranger speaking to a group with only one native english speaker (me). pretty sure everyone followed, though one dad was translating the best parts for his kids along the way. the stop turned out especially fortuitous when the next town I rode through on the revised route west was colorado city. western town signs as you probably know record two of three bits of information (whichever two are most notable?) -- population, elevation, and date of foundation. this one had #1 and #3, and I took a double take when the foundation date was 1985. now I know the arizona strip is rough country, but it was likely filled in more than 25 years ago. stopped briefly at a car wash to check the map and adjust luggage, saw a woman in a long orange and yellow plaid dress washing a minivan, and rusty gears started to crank. warren jeffs, fundamentalist mormon separatists, and federal raids came to mind. dawned on me that this is was the core of breakaway polygamists now on the run from not only the feds but split from the mainstream church as well. same factors in play as in the 19th century...arizona jurisdiction not so dialed in on polygamy, out-of-the-way towns that the feds can't be bothered to raid (though not nearly so wild as it's often portrayed). of course jeffs doesn't exactly inspire much sympathy as a crusader for his religious beliefs given his penchant for expelling dozens of young men for the community so there are more wives to go around for the community elders, but in broad outline not much has apparently changed. and at a gas station in laverkin outside of zion I saw the expected 15-passenger van crammed with a conservatively-dressed crowd of women and kids. later on I checked up on colorado city and learned that it's not exactly brand new, but the result of a schism within the schismatic community engineered by jeffs, and that recently arizona authorities (state, not federal) have moved against the community, seizing municipal records and alleging misuse of public funds (though surely they were checking marriage records, too, right?). heartwarming to see gov brewer acting with equal opportunity suspicion against all 'immigrants' to arizona.

at this point I was on the wrong side of zion to get to bryce or cedar breaks, so I headed for the one campground that I figured might have open sites...the 'primitive' campground at lava point, high above the canyon in the northwest corner of the park. I knew it was a long way up and far away from services, and likely waterless, so I vaguely considered stopping at subway to grab a sandwich to take with me and fill up on water. but I was pessimistic that I'd find a campsite even there and in a go-go mood, so I just fired up the long twisting hill past the western cliffs of the park, burned out juniper forest, and cattle grates when I came to the turnoff from the main route through the park. so the good news was that only three of six campsites were occupied when I arrived, the view over the park from a nearby overlook was sublime, and the campground was quiet except for chirpy chipmunks. the bad news was that I had no food and only an emergency liter and a half of water. really this was only a problem because I was thinking more about food than about enjoying the sky and the views and the serenity...I considered muscling in on the neighbors' campfire feast (they had a fully-stocked SUV and trailer), but figured I'd make it. in retrospect the real problem was that I had to drive down to the park entrance and explore the canyon from the shuttle bus instead of hiking down a long trail into the canyon from lava point (named for a thick cap of basalt on top of the sandstone layers for which the park is famous), and then finding a ride from the various outfitters who advertised trailhead rides from the visitor center. but this was the cost of not over-managing the trip, so in the end it was fine. waited for the hunger to subside, took in the view, watched the spectacular sky until I caught some more perseids, and turned in early for a pre-dawn rise.