Nowhere for Very Long by Brianna Madia

Author:Brianna Madia
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2021-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

There is a stretch of desert in southern Utah that is even more nothing-y than most. A network of unnamed dirt roads carved aimlessly into fields dotted with cactus and sagebrush, popping up through pores of red dirt.

A long, lonesome drive west on Highway 70 winds past painted clay hills and distant buttes, past the San Rafael Swell reef—an upthrust of Wingate and Navajo sandstone that juts from the ground like the fins of a dinosaur’s back. Like a mountain range made entirely of sandstone, complete with foothills of purple and turquoise-striped clay. It is, perhaps, the only feature around here that serves to remind passersby that this place once loomed deep beneath an ancient sea.

Twice in relatively recent history, this unassuming stretch of sand has found its way into the limelight. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid—and many other members of their Wild Bunch gang—would hide out here between their famed horseback train heists and daring bank jobs in the late 1800s, ultimately giving this place the name it still bears today: Robbers Roost.

Though the West has long been won, the Roost is still about as wild as it comes these days. Two hundred sixty-five square miles of cell-service-less, four-wheel-drive, high-clearance roads that end mostly in old mines and towering cliff edges. The only reason you might find yourself out there today is for the technical canyoneering opportunities . . . or if your granddaddy’s granddaddy had an open-range cattle permit and you’ve taken over the family business.

Beyond the big black bovines lie slot canyons hidden deep within the folds of the earth. Accessible only by rope and determination, and sometimes impassable from flash floods and obstacles. That’s the kind of adventure a fellow named Aron Ralston was after back in 2003—the next time Robbers Roost made the headlines.

By a series of events he can tell you about in his own book, Ralston found himself stuck in a narrow slot canyon for five days without food and water, lodged in place by a boulder that had fallen and crushed his arm. With no options remaining, Ralston managed to extricate a dull two-inch pocketknife from his backpack and cut his own arm off.

You see, what Butch Cassidy and Aron Ralston both knew was that, out here, nobody’s coming to find you.

I fell in love with the Roost for the reasons both of those famed men did—it was, and still is, a hideout of sorts. A place you go when you don’t want to be found.

The Roost initially presents itself—like much of the desert—as nothing at all. With mountains, the beauty is right in front of you. Their grandeur can be seen from miles away. The shorelines and the coastal cliffs can be felt before you even arrive; telltale signs of cooler winds and sticky salt air, the call of gulls. But the desert is a bit trickier.

Cow-pie- and cactus-covered stretches of sand, dotted with the occasional juniper. Jackrabbits and beady-eyed lizards and that Western-movie whistle of wind and buzz of unforgiving heat.

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