Desert Solitaire

After gathering supplies for their trip, Abbey and Bob Waterman visit Bundy, a garage mechanic, to get directions to The Maze. In their jeep, they follow Bundy’s directions, turning off the highway onto a dirt road and camping overnight in the Green River Desert. The next day, admiring the distant La Sal Mountains, they bounce down the path past red dunes and clusters of sunflower.

As the terrain slowly rises, it starts looking like the Grand Canyon. Junipers appear, first as individuals then in small clusters. The females grow berries that taste of gin. At a fork in the road, Abbey and Waterman take the older path, figuring that the newer is an oil exploration road. Stopping to explore an abandoned granary, Abbey spies a pornographic photo on the wall of the cabin next door.

At another fork near the Flint Trail, the path becomes more drastically disused. It was once a horse trail, later enlarged by uranium prospectors. Now, all the soil has eroded, exposing bare rock. Not worrying about how to drive back up such an obstacle, Abbey and Waterman push onward, excited to get to The Maze. Finally, Abbey gladly leaves their gasoline-reeking jeep to lead on foot while Waterman slowly drives behind. Descending the four-mile slope, Abbey clears brush for the jeep.

Abbey and Waterman stop to admire some petrified wood and the musical sound of the trees’ leaves overhead. Music is an apt descriptor for the desert: if Bach is the sea, Debussy the forest, and Beethoven the mountains, then which composer captures the desert? Abbey thinks that Mozart is too agreeable, and that jazz is too reminiscent of indoor clubs. Instead, the bleak work of Berg, Webern, and Schoenberg fit nicely. These composers are atonal, emotionless, and inhuman—like the desert.

Like Ralph Newman back in Glen Canyon, Waterman confesses that he doesn’t want to return to civilization. America is engaged in another war—Abbey forgets exactly where—and Waterman has been drafted. Abbey encourages him to stay and hide out—he’ll bring him supplies and news regularly.

Abbey and Waterman drive on along a ridge, peering at their destination: the tangled Maze of rock canyons below. The sandstone is striped like Neapolitan ice cream. Building a juniper fire at sundown, the men watch the colors change on the canyon walls and on the four distant spires on the horizon. Abbey asks what they should name these formations, but Waterman protests that they need no name—to name things is a greedy thing to do. Abbey agrees but wonders, like Rainer Maria Rilke, whether things can truly exist for people unless they are named. As Abbey ruminates on the relationship of reality to language, Waterman drifts off to sleep.

After readying their supplies in the morning, Abbey and Waterman hook up their rope and rappel down a steep rock face to the first canyon entrance of The Maze. Abbey is scared the rope will snap, but Waterman reassures him. After a three-hour descent, they both make it down safely. They must find water before they do anything else, so they hike toward the Colorado River. Soon spotting some trees and wild cane, Abbey digs and finds drinkable water. Hydrated and relieved, Abbey sings a verse of Burns about green rashes. Then, he whittles a reed into a flute, which he plays in a strange scale that he thinks has never been heard before.

As Waterman naps, Abbey explores the labyrinth of canyons and bathes in a refreshing pool. Waterman finds him, and they explore a ledge together. When dusk comes, they decide to leave The Maze in order to return tomorrow. They spot a Native American petroglyph on a canyon wall, concluding that, other than this relic, the place has been completely untouched. But they have yet to reach the heart of The Maze, where they’ll find out for sure.

In the morning, the sky seems to forecast rain or even snow—an uncommon but not impossible phenomenon in the desert. Abbey panics, since the rocky path they took to get here will become impassable if wet. Since they both have to return in a day—Abbey to his ranger duties, Waterman to Colorado University—they agree to abandon their exploration after a hearty breakfast. After packing their things, they hike back to the jeep, and Abbey daydreams of festooning one of the lonely junipers in Christmas tree ornaments.

Luckily, they make it back up the Flint Trail before the snow picks up. They stop at the park “shrine” to sign the register. Abbey scribbles a plea to leave the land alone, “for God’s sake,” signing his name. Waterman writes the same plea but “for Abbey’s sake,” signing it “God.” They race back through the 40 miles of unpaved desert road to the highway, which they follow back to Arches National Monument in time for cocktails.