I am not sure that much could change in a week as fast as it had changed this last week. At the beginning of the week, life was going on as normal. By Tuesday, they had cancelled the NCAA Tournament due to Covid-19. Having tracked every basketball game all year long with a new statistic that I came up with, I was really interested to see what would happen this tournament. Gonzaga was the #2 team in the country, only behind Kansas. Not having the NCAA Tournament in March felt sacrilegious and overall it was sort of depressing.
Then on Friday morning we all met in the library packed in nicely as a big group to talk about what was going to happen with Covid-19. It seemed likely that the first week back from Spring Break was going to be a transition to online learning. This was unbelievable to me. I never thought that teaching would enter this world. Yes, we are educators, but we are also glorified babysitters. My thoughts were maybe this would last a week, but if they were taking this rash of a step, what was the exit strategy? I had been enjoying this school year. I was feeling very confident in the curriculum. I was all for it, though, as it would give me a new perspective.
I didn't plan to work too hard on online teaching as a viewed it as a short term deal. Regardless, it was now Spring Break and you bet I was going to head out to one of my favorite hikes. I went somewhere quiet where I was confident that I wouldn't run into any other people. I was right as the East side of Zion never disappointed. It was just so different from anywhere else with so many canyons to explore. Feeling as if I had explored nearly every single one of those canyons, finding something new to explore was going to be difficult. So I picked a place I had already been to get to a place that I had not.
The canyon between Checkerboard Mesa and Crazy Quilt is one of the quickest ways to access the slick rock plateau of the East side. It takes some hiking and some work to get up and out of the canyon but I had done it numerous times. Then it was continuing on past that to get to somewhere new. The goal was east today. Years ago, Jacqueline, Eric Lassance, and I had come out of the Barracks a little early. At one point, we were going to try to go up another canyon to get out. Rightly so, we decided that wasn't a good idea and made it out fine. Today I was going to go up one of those canyons to see what I could find above rather than down below.
The rock wasn't in the greatest of shape as it had been raining a lot lately. Still it was nice out, though the vegetation was still a little bare being not quite spring yet. It just always felt so empowering to be on the east side, crossing slick rock wastes that many people never went to. I continued east for some time before I found my canyon. I believe it was the upper part of misery canyon. At first it followed a wash and I had to pick my way around obstacles. Eventually it opened up more and being back there I could really feel I was in a place that was not visited often if ever. What purpose would someone have to come back to this spot unless they were like me where they had visited so many places already. There was no reason for me to be here except curiosity. As I climbed further, I got a workout and saw features like potholes and slickrock bowls. Eventually I followed it far enough where the end was hitting the actual wall. There is a feeling when you are out in new territory that you don't get anywhere else. That is why I kept exploring is to feel this sense of first exploration. Once it is done, I can leave and go back on this journey through many miles of things that I had seen before and think more clearly. The impending decision on staying in Utah or going back to Oregon was still there made ever more complicated by Covid's introduction into our world. I could think clearly out here enjoying a day to myself exploring the east side of Zion.
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