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Unexpected rain held Stefan and I in Moab for longer than planned, leaving us little time to explore this national park. Nevertheless, Canyonlands provided me with the most challenging and rewarding hiking day so far, a great chance to test my endurance on rough terrain.

Island in the Sky, the north part of the park, is a broad mesa at the heart of the Colorado Plateau, split from the Maze and the Needles by two canyons carved by the Green and Colorado rivers. The view from here stretches across canyon after canyon to the horizon 100 miles distant. This is an area of arid soil where water and gravity have been the prime architects cutting flat layers of sedimentary rock into hundreds of canyons, mesas, buttes, fins, arches and spires.

I had an action-packed day starting with the steep descent of Upheaval Canyon: a wilderness of broken rock, stunted junipers, solitude and silence. My existence means so little in this harsh, self-regulated environment. Desert creatures have battered themselves against the elements until they developed strategies for survival, which link them all together in a frail yet ferociously, strong living chain. I'm literally just a speck. Add to that the uncertainty whether I am or not following the right direction (when tracks seem to disappear underneath my tired feet) and there it is: a good recipe for feeling vulnerable.

A few stops for a bit of bouldering on irresistible blocks and pocketed walls (I miss climbing!), and Crater Spur Trail comes next, following a wash through the canyon in the middle of a huge crater. Salt crystals on the ground indicate water has been collecting here after rain comes down the sandstone walls, just to leave the ground dry again as it quickly evaporates in the staring sun. The trail ends in an anticlimax just as I had been told by a couple of lady-hikers having their lunch in the shade of a large boulder. "Never mind," I cheer myself up with the traveller's moto "The journey is the destination." When I return, I take the hikers lunch spot in the diminishing shade; by then they must have been reaching the trail fork.

I take the long way back following the Syncline Loop. At this point I'm at the bottom of the canyon besides a small stream where trees grow and birds sing. Ahead, at the end of the canyon, all I can see is a steep, very high pile of boulders. I wonder what way the trail is going to take. Surprisingly, there's no other way out but to scramble the balancing boulders all the way up. I meet the lady-hikers half way up, cooling their bare feet in a pond on a big boulder. That sounds like a good idea but I press on, not willing to break my pace. At times I take wrong directions and am forced to go back and find the trail. I imagine the parking lot is right there above the rim, but later I find out I'm wrong; I'm still far away from it. The trail seems never-ending, meandering through a valley, going round a huge rock formation and following a wash for another four miles or so.

I get back to the van glad I've completed that trail. 11 miles sounds great for a day hike! But I feel like I could push myself a little more, so I drive to Grand View Point Overlook and jump on the 2-miles trail. Awesome! Fantastic views and a total of 13 miles in a day. 20 km! Do I feel proud of me old legs?!!

Stefan and I played a game of cards before going to sleep in the warm night. The following day I drove to Salt Lake City and said goodbye to the friend who'd travelled with me for the past two weeks. It must have been hard for Stefan to put up with a man who craves the solitude of the wild, as it was hard for me to share my space and my routine on the road. But we experienced fantastic places together, for which I'm glad. Soon I would be on my own again, in this magic opportunity of being in touch with nature, making my own decisions as I go along: no set time to eat nor to sleep and plenty time to try and understand nature's ways and my own ways under the hot sun.

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