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While in residence as a Frontier Fellow in Green River, Utah, I took a very long walk to the Crystal Geyser.

Nine miles took me fifteen hours, because I am slow and for part of the way I had to crawl with my elbows along the riverbank through little animal paths through the Tamarisk thicket. Also, I took a lot of breaks.

I fell off a big boulder and all I could think about was James Franco. I ate Thanksgiving leftovers from tiny tupperware. I was stubborn and didn't look at a map for the first few hours, but then I was tired of crawling through thicket and eventually I found a road via Google. I took a nap in the sand and got sunburned.

I crossed through eight barbed wire fences and as the walk unfolded, it became about trespassing, access, public land, private interests and the frustrating reality that I couldn't walk along the river from town to this natural attraction without sneaking over fences and under gates, around forbidden piles of uranium tailings and past abandoned buildings plastered with NO TRESPASSING and DANGER KEEP OUT signs.

You can learn a lot walking in a desert.
The geyser did not erupt. It was dark when I got home.

November 2011
Green River, Utah

Related: Frontier Fellowship