Tronsolo Dot Com: She Blinded Me With Silence

So now it's day...whatever. I don't know. It's been 3 weeks since getting back from my trip and I'm trying my best to remember everything given limited documentation. It's weird because at work or whenever, I try to hold onto an image in my head of somewhere I've been on this trip. It's proving quite difficult and I hope that I don't lose those over time. It's pretty cool when I can make it happen though. Like sitting at my desk and all of a sudden I'm on that trail in the Grand Tetons staring at the lakes below. Interesting how the mind works.

Anyway, after a full day at Arches and a restful night once again in a hotel, I was off to Canyonlands. This post could very well also be called "Driving, Hiking, Sitting, Staring" because I certainly did a lot of all of those. Today was booked with a huge hike down into and around the Upheaval Dome (as previously posted in real time). All told, the hike was over 12 miles round trip and if I truly thought about it beforehand, I would've been crazy to try this.

As I mentioned, this hike was "not advised" during the months of July and August. Of course, I found this out at the trail head. Oh well, another bad sign but I was doing it regardless. Everything was going fine (sort of) on the trail. I mean, it was severely sloped but not too bad. That is, until I came to this point. And I hope you enjoy the commentary (throat was a little dry).

I'm really glad I decided to stop there and turn around. But before I made the trek back up, there was a perfect natural chair in the rock immediately behind me where I shot that video. Given this, I decided to sit for about 30 minutes and have some really good inner conversations. But in just sitting there eating my Clif bar and drinking my water, I noticed something really, really weird. There was no sound. I mean nothing. Try this out...next time you think it's really quiet where ever you are, pay close attention. It seems there's aways crickets or an air conditioner kicking on or a dog barking or even the wind. Worse yet, we have cars and planes and all that other stuff that contributes to the noise of our daily lives. But imagine nothing. It's hard, yes but still imagine the loudest thing being your body exhaling or your foot hitting on the trail. It was something that I've never experience before but for all its weirdness I hope I do again. And for the record, there were no other people on this trail. Usually I would see people coming and going and milling about but this hike there was nobody...and that made me smile (given my increasingly introverted notions).

So here are some pics of the Upheaval Dome from up top since my trek to get pics from inside the thing didn't work out. For a sense of scale (something I always like to point out), the dome itself is over 3 miles across. Of course, there were these overlooks where I could've stood with the masses so I chose instead to find a quiet spot away from all that and chill with my thoughts. Chill, of course, being merely an expression...yeah, it was hot. Here's some info on the dome if you're interested...http://www.nps.gov/cany/naturescience/upheavaldome.htm

And then there's wiki too...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upheaval_Dome

(These shots below are intended as a panorama going from left to right.)

For the remainder of the day, I just hit some of the pull-offs and soaked it all in as best I could so here are plenty of pics from the rest of Canyonlands. I tool a lot more but you get the idea. Pretty amazing, huh? I can honestly say I've never seen so far in my life.