Now I know, so now I can go

In my travels around the West I’ve passed many amazing hiking spots. Because I didn’t know they were there, or I didn’t know how to get to them. And I didn’t know whether they were actually worth driving miles down sketchy dirt roads, far from civilization and help. Or whether they were within my abilities.

Well, thanks to Roxy Whalley I have the answers. I met her. I watched some of her videos. Yes, the places are incredibly beautiful, and she can get there and hike them—often alone. Now I want to go and experience it all myself.

In one of her videos, Roxy recommended Michael R. Kelsey’s Non-Technical Canyon Hiking Guide to the Colorado Plateau. (The Non-Technical part really caught my attention.) Descriptions, directions, maps, photos and piles of information on places you can hike without special skills (other than common sense and a desire for self-preservation).

Just a few months ago, on the way to hiking in Capitol Reef National Park with my sister and brother-in-law, I saw signs for the Devil’s Backbone, between Escalante and Boulder, Utah. What was that all about? Connie and Kent didn’t know much. Kelsey knows a lot. He has hiked hundreds of trails in the region, from Dinosaur National Monument, to Grand Canyon, to Mesa Verde, and has made notes about it all. I ordered the book and it arrived yesterday.

So I guess I’ll have to get out there and do more walking, get in shape. And find a hiking partner or two.