June 2016 — Gooseberry Mesa, Zion National Park, Utah
My friend Kate runs around with her camera, giddy with joy over the photos she is capturing. I choose (self righteously, it should be noted) to instead sit at the very edge of the mesa, sip whiskey, and write.
The whole idea of her photos, beautiful though they undoubtedly are (I ended up framing two of them when we got home) seem to me a futile attempt at capturing the incredible 360 degree panorama around us. Framing – in this instance cropping out everything but what is in the camera lens – this expansive sight at the mouth of the Zion National Park Canyon, atop a mesa looking down on scorched desert, mountains, and one of the crown jewels of the United States seems like anathema against point of this whole outdoor excursion.
One of the photos Kate took
But then I realize that these words I am writing are really just another side of the same well intentioned and ill-fated coin. There is no writer alive or dead who can accurately give voice to these vistas. Not really, anyway. It didn’t stop them from trying, though. And they describe it quite exquisitely at times, but they, like us, know that there is no replacement for the act of escape to wilderness. To read about it or see a photo or take in a painting is but a small, imperfect, minimal window into the memory of such experience. But there is no substitute. Sometimes, more than we realize, I’d wager, you just have to be there.
The experience is surreal, which, I suppose, is the point of going to such places. To be overwhelmed, engulfed, washed over by a view, a hike, an outdoor experience. It is a window into this larger, more beautiful, beyond comprehensible world and our place in it.