The next morning, the adventure began.

We awoke well before first light, at 4:30 a.m. Once we were all showered, dressed, and ready to go, we drove the motor home to the long-term parking lot at Lee's Ferry, where we awaited our shuttle to the White House Trailhead.

And there, we waited, and waited, and waited.

The shuttle was supposed to pick us up at 6:00 a.m., but she did not arrive until 6:15. For a moment, we began to get a little worried that she was not going to show, even though we had called her the day before to confirm our reservations. Just moments before she arrived, we tried to give her another call, to see where she was, but the cell phone signal was very weak in long-term parking (though we had a good, strong signal in the campground, only minutes away). Bill stepped outside of the motor home in hopes of improving the signal, and as he did so, she finally arrived in her full-sized white van.

Our driver was a very small woman who worked for the Marble Canyon Lodge. She had just opened up her shuttle service, knowing that it would be a lucrative business in that particular area, what with all of the backpackers and white-water rafters who came to Lee's Ferry. However, she had not had much business in the past few weeks, and she attributed that to the tragedies of September 11, mainly because people were too afraid to travel. The rafting companies on the Colorado River had seen a lot of cancellations, and so had she.

That was one of our topics of discussion on the way to the trailhead. Although none of us personally had lost anyone in the disasters that took place on September 11, the events of that day had touched us all. After the initial shock wore off, as we got back to "business as usual" and prepared to leave for Paria Canyon, our thoughts turned to the future, as we talked about what could happen. Danny, who is in the Army National Guard, could have been called to active duty. (He still might be called.) There was speculation in the news that another attack was possible, on September 22, while we were in Paria Canyon. What would happen to us if they blew up Glen Canyon Dam? All that water has to go somewhere. When were they going to let skydivers back up in the air? Did my mother make it to Baltimore yesterday, or did she cancel because she was afraid to fly in the wake of the hijackings? So many questions…I guess you could say that it was best for us to talk about these things now, so that we could focus on the task ahead once we reached the trailhead.

Were we afraid to do this trip? No, not at all. We were going to do this trip anyway, no matter what happened. Those terrorist bastards weren't going to take our adventures away from us.

John made one comment that left us with food for thought: "Could you imagine if we had begun our backpacking trip on September 10? And then, to come back to civilization and hear that two hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Centers and one into the Pentagon?" What an eerie feeling that is, to think of that.

We put that subject to rest once we reached the BLM Ranger Station at the White House Trailhead, sometime after 8:00 a.m, Utah time. We asked our driver to stop at the ranger station so that we could get some last minute updates on the conditions of the canyon. She did so, and just as she had made us wait for her earlier, we now made her wait for us at the ranger station, as it did not open until 8:15 a.m., Utah time. ("Last year, they were open at 8:00," John said.)

It did not take us long to confirm with the ranger that all of the springs were flowing in the canyon. Once finished, we continued on towards the trailhead, which was two miles away on a light-duty dirt road.

Upon our arrival, we got out of the van and quickly geared up to begin our hike…and that was when John realized that he had left his brand new hat at the motor home! He had purchased a new hiking hat at Popular the week before our trip, and now it was sitting in the motor home, completely useless. "That last day is going to suck," he said, referring to the "death march" that we would have, hiking through the desert after mile thirty.

We asked our driver to take a picture of our group at the trailhead sign before paying her and sending her on her way home. Once she was gone, we began our forty-mile adventure into Paria Canyon.

After John signed us in at the trail registry, we followed a narrow dirt path down to the Paria River, which, to John and Bill's surprise, had water in it! They explained that, last year, the upper regions of the canyon were bone dry and the banks were all sandy. They didn't find water until later on that day. This year, the river was flowing, and there was mud everywhere. Slippery mud - my favorite stuff!

As soon as we stepped into the river, Bill counted to three, and he and Erika and I called out to John, "ARE WE THERE YET?" He had done that to John last year, at the exact same spot. I think John was prepared for it this time, so he immediately replied to us, "YES, WE'RE THERE!"

With that, the hike commenced. We crossed the river and began hiking through the slick mud on the opposite shore. Almost immediately, John slipped and fell into the slippery mud, and that was when we learned that this type of mud just does not wash off too easily. John spent the next several minutes trying to wash his hands and knees off in the river, and he still was not able to get all of it off of himself.

The rest of us hiked ahead, while I began to check our progress in The Hiker's Guide to Paria Canyon, a book and detailed map that I had purchased from the Bureau of Land Management on Central Avenue. The book cost $8.00, and it proved to be the best trail guide that we had ever seen about the Paria River. The map of the river was so accurate that we always knew exactly where we were, what landmarks we were about to encounter, and how many miles we had already traveled. I enjoyed the map so much that I ended up with the job of navigator; I kept track of our progress for the group and announced to them when we were coming up on our next major landmark.

Naturally, I managed to get the map dirty almost immediately, too, when I fell for the first time. After John caught back up to us, he took the lead, and we all followed him. With John as our leader, he was able to find the quicksand before the rest of us and warn us about it. When we found our first patch of quicksand, a mile later, he made it a point to show it to me, because I had never seen it before. "Step in it," he said, poking at the soft sand with his hiking stick.

I only meant to touch it with my foot, but for some reason, I ended up putting all of my weight on it and sinking into it, ankle deep! The shock caused me to lose my balance, and I fell backwards onto the muddy ground, dislodging my ankle on the way down. The rest of the group laughed at my misfortunes, and John said, "I told you to step in it, not fall in it!"

I got up and washed my hands and legs off in the river, only to discover that the mud did not come off so easily. As the afternoon progressed, I learned that the best way to get rid of the mud on my legs was to wait until it dried then scrape it off. Otherwise, I would have driven myself nuts trying to wash all of that thick mud off of me.

Around the second mile, we came to a series of little caves, some of which were just big enough for one person, others for two people. These caves were caused by water erosion on the Paria River, which easily ate away at the Navajo sandstone that composed the walls of the canyon. Here, we stopped to take a photo break, so that we could takes pictures of each other in the caves. In one picture, John had Bill, Erika, and me stand - or, in this case, kneel - in three little caves that were side-by-side. As I crossed over the mud pack to go into my little cave, I slipped and fell onto my butt, and unable to get back up again, I had to sit down for the picture. After the photo op, John and Bill had to help me back up again so that we could keep hiking.

At mile three - one hour after beginning our hike - we took our first break. John took the opportunity to relieve himself in the river, as the book had instructed him to do. Once finished, he took the Hiker's Guide from me and cited the passage that instructed hikers to urinate in the river. Then, he pointed out that, several paragraphs later, it said, "Paria River water must be treated as it might be contaminated from upstream usage." "There's something to send to Jay Leno," he exclaimed.

As we kept hiking, we soon came to the power lines, which marked the beginning of the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area - our twenty-eighth wilderness area! John and I shared a new wilderness kiss there before continuing our hike.

When we reached mile four, it was time to enter into the Narrows. I had seen Narrows before, in Zion National Park - even Aravaipa Canyon has narrows, though they really aren't that narrow - but nothing could prepare me for the shock I was about to receive when I stepped into the Paria Narrows.

All I could say was, "Wow!" over and over again as I walked through the canyon, where the walls towered some five hundred feet above us, through passageways that were so narrow that there were areas of the canyon that never saw sunlight. Then, everything became silent as we hiked in quiet wonder. The only sounds that we heard were those of our footfalls as we sloshed through the wet mud and the silty river bottom, and those sounds echoed gently off of the walls.

Wow! It was all so amazing. One of my co-workers, who had done the same hike several years ago, had said that Paria Canyon was a trip that transcended all others. Walking through the Narrows, I realized that he was right, and now I knew why.

John knew that I was enjoying the Narrows, and he said to me, "I try to take you to pretty places." This was definitely among the best of the best.

Hiking through the Narrows proved to be a little bit easier than it appeared to be. Although the canyon floor was completely covered with mud, and there was not a single dry surface to be found, we were able to avoid the muck and the mire for the most part by avoiding puddles and sticking close to the trickling river. John pointed out the quicksand patches every time he found one, and that helped the rest of us to avoid them completely.

It was in the Narrows that we first encountered the "Jell-O" ground, a phenomenon that John and Bill had encountered last year, but not until the second day. (In 2000, the Narrows were almost completely dry and sandy.) The "Jell-O" ground was completely safe to walk on, as long as we stepped lightly on it, but it didn't look that way. As we stepped onto it, the ground began to sink, but it would never give completely. The best way to describe it is to imagine that you are walking on a bowl of gelatin that has already set. It will not open up and swallow, rather, it will "bend" under the weight of your footballs. It was very weird to walk on, too, because it felt as though the ground was alive and moving under my feet!

At mile 6.5, we came to our first landmark on the map: Slide Rock Arch…or, as Bill called it, "Slid" Rock Arch, because, to him, it looked as though the rock had already slid down. Basically, the arch looked like part of it had collapsed, and one of its "legs" was now leaning against its other "leg".

We did not linger long enough to take pictures of it, mostly because the only one courageous enough to brave the mud and the quicksand to stand under the arch was John. Erika quickly took a picture of him while Bill and I continued hiking.

Shortly after that, at mile 7.2, we came to the Confluence, where the Paria River meets Buckskin Gulch, one of its tributaries. At the Confluence, where the two canyons merged into one, there was a little trickle of water coming from Buckskin Gulch, which appeared to be nothing more than a little slot canyon, barely more than four feet wide at its entrance, and dimly-lit due to the lack of sunlight.

It was almost 11:00 a.m., Arizona time - we had traveled 7.2 miles in three hours, which was excellent progress, considering all of the mud that was involved. Our good progress meant that we would have ample time to explore Buckskin Gulch, which, as John described, was well worth the time. We dropped our packs onto a sandy bench in the Confluence and rested for a few minutes before beginning our exploration of the Gulch.

Erika and I went in first and began to hike upstream through the narrow slot canyon, probing the ground ahead of us as we went in order to check for quicksand. I managed to find one patch, into which my stick sunk about halfway, and I called back that I had found quicksand.

Meanwhile, John and Bill followed only a minute behind us but stopped when they realized that they had left their hiking sticks in the Confluence. Bill returned to go get them, so John went on ahead, only to get his right leg caught, crotch deep, in the same quicksand that I had found earlier. With his left leg, he managed to drive forward to pull himself free. By that time, Bill had returned with his hiking stick, which he was now grateful to have.

We ventured forth, and as we passed out of the first set of narrows, the canyon widened out a bit. There was a campsite there, set up on a high bench, under the shade of some trees. A single ray of sunlight was shining down upon it - probably the only bit of sunlight that the campsite ever gets. It was also the first campsite that I had seen in the canyon, so it gave me an idea of what we would be camping in later on.

After passing the campsite, we once again entered into the narrows, into an area where the walls of the canyon stood some four feet apart. Here, we had to walk with extreme caution, because there was quicksand everywhere, waiting to swallow up our legs as we passed through. John took the lead, probing ahead of himself with his stick to point out the soft spots, so that the rest of us could avoid them.

About five or ten minutes later, he came to an area that was nothing but quicksand. No matter what John did, he just could not find a way to get around the quicksand - it was completely blocking our path. He poked and prodded the ground for a long time before deciding to give up on it. "I just don't see a good way around it," he said. "Let's just go back."

So we did so, a bit disappointed that we weren't able to go further into Buckskin Gulch. Maybe someday, we'll come back under drier conditions and be able to explore the entire length of the canyon.

On the way back to the Confluence, upon entering the wider part of the canyon, Bill found another patch of quicksand…and down he went, with both legs together. He sunk into it about hip-deep before he was able to get himself free. Like John, his shorts and legs were covered with mud, and for the rest of the day, the two of them had to walk with sand in their underwear!

It was lunchtime by the time we made it back to the Confluence. We sat and rested for about fifteen minutes while we munched on apples and other snacks to build up our energy before moving on. That was when we also began to discuss our options for the remainder of the day. We had hike at a good clip to get to the Confluence, hiking at an average pace of 2.5 miles an hour. In addition to that, we now had a lot of extra time, because we were not able to do as much of Buckskin Gulch as we had planned to do. At that rate, we were going to end up in camp (the campsite at mile ten) by two o'clock…and we certainly didn't want to set up camp that early! On top of that, we were all feeling quite good, despite our battles with the quicksand - we wanted to keep going, as long as we could keep going.

"Let's do this," John suggested. "Let's just get to the campsite at mile ten and decide from there if we want to go on to the campsite at mile twelve, which is the next site after that." We all agreed to that.

It was nearly noon when we began hiking again. As soon as we began hiking, we stepped across the Utah-Arizona border and found ourselves once again in our home state. A half-mile later, we left Arizona again briefly, when the river turned sharply north and skimmed along the border for about five hundred feet. After that, we remained in Arizona for the rest of the trip.

Sometime after we left the Confluence, the canyon became a bit wider, and we began to find more of the high benches - that meant that we would have a little more dry land on which to walk. We also began finding the first of the Paria campgrounds that were located within the canyon, as well as the first of the springs, from which we would get our water. The first of these springs was Wall Spring, located at mile 9.5. The name was certainly appropriate, too, because Wall Spring was nothing more than a seep coming from the walls of the canyon.

Although the canyon became wider, we still remained in the Narrows, and the walls of the canyon still towered some five hundred feet above us. In this part of the canyon, the walls were quite impressive. Some of them had large amphitheaters - and even caves - carved into them; others appeared smooth and were blue-tinged, a phenomenon called Navajo varnish. There were also some places where the rain had caused black streaks to form on the walls, almost as though the rain had burned its impression into the rock. Again, all of this made hiking very difficult, because we kept craning our necks to look up and around at the wonders that were in the canyon.

At mile ten, we came to the second spring - First Crack Spring - and the campsite. There, we stopped to take a short break and to decide if we wanted to continue on. It was only 2:00 p.m., meaning that we had plenty of daylight left, but Erika was beginning to drag a little bit, and I was starting to get a hot spot on my little toe. However, we all voted unanimously to keep going until we came to the campsite at mile twelve.

It took us another hour and a half to get there, as we stopped frequently to take breathers along the way. Then, just as we arrived at the campsite, Bill fell into the quicksand…again! Like last time, he sunk down about hip deep, and it took both his strength and help from Erika to pull himself free.

Meanwhile, John went on ahead to the campsite to find a place to camp…and as soon as he climbed up on the bench, he yelled out, "Full!" And our hearts nearly sank. Having hiked a total of thirteen miles that day, we were now completely exhausted - we could not have gone another mile to the next campsite!

Fortunately, the campsite at mile twelve was quite large, and we were able to find a place to set up camp without bothering our neighbors.

Before taking off our boots, John and I gathered all of our water jugs so that we could get water from Big Spring, which was located directly across the river from the campsite. Big Spring was gushing with fresh water from several different sources, and all we had to do was place the jugs underneath the flow to catch it - no filtering was necessary. The water did not have any sort of odd flavors to it either - it was some of the best tasting water I had ever had on a backpacking trip.

As we returned to the campsite, we met one of our neighbors, who stopped to talk to us for a while. He and his friend were from Alberta, Canada, and they were on their second day in the canyon, having spent the first night in Buckskin Gulch. They said that they had driven across Kanab County on Monday and had seen a huge storm in the area, with lightning and thunder and torrents of rain. Upon hearing that, we suddenly realized where all of the mud had come from! The rain had caused some flooding in the canyon, and that had dramatically changed the whole landscape. For John and Bill, who had hiked Paria Canyon only last year, this was now a completely different trip for them.

We thanked him for sharing that information with him and returned to our campsite, where it was time to sit down and take off my boots. Ah, what a wonderful feeling that was to be able to remove my wet boots and let my feet dry out! I never wanted to move again after that!

That evening, the four of us relaxed and ate dinner while waiting for the first star - the signal that it was bedtime. We finally saw that at 7:30 p.m., and soon thereafter, we all went to bed.

I had trouble sleeping, though. Being used to sleeping in a tent, I found myself quite distracted by the night sky. There was no moon, and above me was a stunning display of stars, so fantastic that I kept looking at them. It took me hours to finally fall asleep.

Return to Paria Canyon.

Return to Naked in the Woods.