Jackson Hole, North Side

Jax and I found a place where when the ground collapses it takes long slab rocks down the side and they are all angled. Many of them still elevated. 

It is very hard to live in silence. The real silence is death and this is terrible. To approach this silence, it is necessary to journey to the desert. You do not go to the desert to find identity but to lose it, to lose your personality, to be anonymous. You make yourself void. You become silent. You become more silent than the silence around you. And then something extraordinary happens: you hear silence speak.” – Edmond Jabes

Occasionally we came across markings, probably miner's claims. In the day all you had to do was mark out four sticks and that was your claim for some period of time to look for various minerals.

“I bought a cactus. A week later it died. And I got depressed, because I thought, Damn. I am less nurturing than a desert.” ― Demetri Martin

“Out in the desert what doesn’t kill you just pisses you off and will probably kill you the next time.” ― James Anderson

“The sand has rules. Fucked up rules, but rules nonetheless.” ― Kameron Hurley

“Returning home is the most difficult part of long-distance hiking. You have grown outside the puzzle and your piece no longer fits. ~ Cindy Ross

Jax and I have taken the outer area to Jackson/Jacobs Ladder and now we'll push up against Jackson Butte on our way back. But just before we head out we see a man and woman coming on bicycles. They were on top of the Amasa Back yesterday and saw the trail coming up so have decided to conquer it by riding from town to carry their bicycles up and return to Moab via Cliffhanger.

Not long into our return we come across the old phone line that was run from Prommel Oil Well #1 all the way up Jackson Ladder and into town.

A few minutes later Jax comes across six mule deer. Just a few hundred yards from us and he takes off in their direction. By the time he gets to where they were they are a mile from there. You can see them in the middle of the picture far off in the distance.

Jax and I are almost back to the side by side. I use to get nervous if I was in town longer than an hour or so. I was missing where I lived. Now out hiking every day for weeks I get nervous when I'm going to return to Base Camp.

“Hiking’s not for everyone. Notice the wilderness is mostly empty.” ~Sonja Yoerg