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| The story behind the picture |
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Mesa Arch
Thank you, Steve Irwin
The cat that waited for me
The one that got away
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Mesa Arch
Every trip seems to have its defining moment, the one detail that's remembered long after everything else has become a blur. It might be a close encounter with a bobcat, or my first glimpse of a rare species. Or it could be a memorable quote from a local character, like the waitress in Montana who had lived in a tent for three years: "It was the seventies, I thought I was Sacagawea." Or Sam, the tow truck driver near Baker: "I been out in this desert twenty-five years and ain't seen one God-damn flyin' saucer." In Canyonlands National Park, it was Laurie.
 Even if you've never heard of Mesa Arch, chances are you've seen a photo of it. It's not the tall, flat-topped one that's pictured on Utah's license plates – that's Delicate Arch. Mesa Arch is long and low, and curves gracefully out over the canyon below. What makes it unique – and attracts a crowd of photographers every morning, each of them planning the perfect shot – is the way the rising sun lights up the underside of the arch.
As a Californian, I've grown accustomed to having my wilderness experience punctuated by warning signs and guard rails, the result of too many people in too little space. But the parks in Utah are different, and nowhere is that difference more apparent than at Mesa Arch. There might be a caution sign at the trailhead, but once you get to the arch you're on your own. You're expected to know what gravity is, and how to avoid getting too much of it.
 The arch is located at the edge of the mesa, on a cliff that would make Wile E. Coyote nervous. On my topographic map of the area, all the contour lines between about 5,000 and 6,000 feet are squished together into one solid band. In other words, if you were to stand at the edge and drop a rock held out at arm's length, it looks like that rock would fall about 400 feet before hitting anything, and then roll for another 600 vertical feet before finally coming to rest a thousand feet below you – and still less than a quarter mile away horizontally.
Now that I think about it, if you were to stand at the edge for any reason I'd have to congratulate you, because that's something I wasn't able to do. I've never thought of myself as being afraid of heights – I've scrambled up and down some pretty steep slopes – but whenever the distance from my feet to the edge of the cliff was roughly equal to my height, my legs would just quit working. The only way I could look over the side was to lie on my belly, keeping my feet as far from the edge as they would reach.
Geologically speaking, it's a pothole arch – a piece of rock that is eroding away from the rest of the mountain, and will eventually land in a pile of rubble at the base of the cliff. The south end looks like it's barely holding on, an illusion created by the way it attaches to the cliff face about twenty feet below the edge, leaving a four-foot gap at "ground level." The north end, on the other hand, appears firmly attached, and in fact a person could walk from there right out onto the arch – that is, if a person really wanted to walk across a narrow, uneven strip of slippery rock with a thousand-foot drop on either side.
And that's where we met Laurie.
 My cousin Jeff and I had shot a few photos and were mostly just enjoying the grandeur of it all, when suddenly we saw her. She walked from the north end, moving with long, confident steps, neither hesitating nor hurrying. At the center of the arch she paused to look over her shoulder at her boyfriend, and then continued to the south end, where she turned around and walked back. As she turned around, Jeff turned away, saying he just couldn't watch. Meanwhile, I was in emergency shooting mode, running and crouching here and there, looking for the best angle and background for a moving subject. In less than a minute, she was back on solid ground.
Well, what could we say? She was either the bravest or dumbest person we had ever seen, so the least we could do was show her the photo on my camera's monitor (and ask her to sign a release, of course). And for the rest of the trip, whenever our hiking brought us to a particularly challenging situation, we asked ourselves, "What would Laurie do?"
We already knew the answer: She'd go for it.
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Thank you, Steve Irwin
 Driving home from Mount Diablo in the early evening, I saw a pickup truck stopped in the road, with a large rattlesnake crossing in front of it. The driver and his young son had gotten out to take a look, and I pulled over to join them. Forgive me for stereotyping, but based on his appearance – early thirties, muscular, driving a big shiny pickup – he seemed like a guy who, just a few years ago, I would have expected to run over any snake that happened to get in his way, stopping only to cut off its rattle as a souvenir. His actions, though, were just the opposite. His only weapon was a point-and-shoot digital camera, and he kept a safe, but not fearful, distance from the snake. Instead of giving his son the usual warning, "watch out, that thing can kill you," he said things like, "when she raises her head up and buzzes her tail, that means she's scared, so we have to move back." He consistently used the feminine pronoun: She doesn't like it when we get too close. Look at the green color on her back. She looks like she's been eating a lot.
After we had both gotten the photos we wanted, and the snake had moved on to take shelter under a tree, we said goodbye and went on our way. I thought about how respectful he had been, and how he was teaching his son to respect the snake as well, to admire it for what it is. I realized this wasn't the first time I had been surprised by someone's reaction to a snake, and wondered if our culture's attitude toward reptiles was really changing.
And then it hit me: Steve Irwin. He took a lot of criticism from scientists for his unorthodox approach and showmanship, but the Australian TV star found a way to teach millions of ordinary Americans that the appropriate response to a snake is not "Let's kill it," but "She's a beauty!" I only saw Irwin's show a couple times, but I think I'm starting to miss him. Crikey!
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The cat that waited for me
 After a miserable night at Red Rock Canyon – a howling wind that blew dust and whipped the tent all night, plus a too-bright moon and a migraine – Tuesday was a predictably lousy day. By mid-afternoon I was exhausted and just wanted to be home, or at least someplace familiar. So I headed for Wildrose Canyon, on the western edge of Death Valley.
I don't know why, but Wildrose has always felt like home. Maybe it's just because it was the first place I camped in Death Valley, more than thirty years ago. It's a wide canyon (or narrow valley, if you prefer) full of sagebrush and creosote, rocks and springs – in other words, it's much like any other canyon in the Panamint Range. But, as familiar as it is (I've camped there at least twenty times), Wildrose can still surprise me. In a wet year its hillsides are carpeted with wildflowers. In 2005 it was overrun with cottontails. One year I found a rare panamint daisy – the first I'd ever seen – practically growing out of the pavement at the side of the road. Its springs are a haven for warblers, finches, orioles, and dozens of other birds, while the rocks are home to chuckwallas and collared lizards. And, while I tend to avoid the noise and crowds of official campgrounds, preferring the solitude of more remote areas, the campground at Wildrose seems to be ignored by most park visitors.
I arrived at the Wildrose campground at about 5:00 and was happy to see that my favorite spot was available. (In fact, twenty-one of the twenty-two campsites were available.) I immediately felt better, so I set up my tent and decided to look around.
At the far end of the campground is a trail that passes between a steep hillside on the left and a small spring, thick with mesquite, on the right. A few steps down the trail, I saw a bobcat on the hillside, just above my eye level and no more than ten steps in front of me. I stopped. It stopped. I took a step back; it took a step back. Neither of us knew what to do next. It was so close, and so unexpected, that it took me a few seconds to really understand what it was. I ran through a checklist in my mind: tufted ears ... short tail ... long legs ... spots ... twice as tall as a house cat ... this was definitely a bobcat.
Have I mentioned that my camera was still in the car, a hundred yards behind me?
For the next few seconds, while the cat and I stared at each other, I had two conflicting impulses. The first, of course, was to run back for my camera. The other was to stay where I was and enjoy the moment – I had never been this close to a bobcat before, and might never be again. And besides, did I really expect a bobcat to just sit and wait for me?
I decided to go for the camera. All the way to the car, and all the way back, I cursed myself. How could I be so stupid as to walk away from my camera in a place like Wildrose? I knew I'd never see the cat again, at least not that close.
I guessed the cat would go up the hill, so on the way back I went up the hill myself, coming over a low ridge a few yards above where it had been. I stood for a while, scanning the hillside as well as the trail and spring below. Nothing. Then I thought I saw movement behind a sagebrush about twenty feet below me. Something was different about that bush; the ground behind it was the wrong shade of brown.
 I aimed my camera at the bush, trying to focus beyond the branches on whatever might be behind them. When the cat's face popped into focus I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Yes, the bobcat had sat – literally – right where I had left it, and waited for me to return with my camera. Thank you, Mother Nature!
I moved left for a better view. The cat looked at me for a moment, then walked downhill toward the spring – and lay down in the shade of another bush. A minute later, it stood up and disappeared into the mesquite.
And that was it. I stayed for two days and never saw the cat again. I had three photos, and one more surprise from Wildrose.
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The one that got away
Sometimes you do everything right ... you approach slowly, stealthily ... inching forward, doing your best to be just another part of the landscape ... falling back when the animal seems concerned ... until finally you're in camera range ... you lean this way or that for the best composition ... steady yourself ... carefully press the shutter ... wait, where did it go?
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