Our trips are often tightly scripted affairs. We usually know when we'll be at a certain location, where we'll finally allow ourselves to unwind and appreciate events as they unfold. Sure, we've had some minor delays and inconveniences, but we haven't endured a major derailment - until now.

Mean Time Between Failure

Our regular readers know that last year, my `98 Jeep Grand Cherokee barely made it from Denver to Moab in time to attend a Maze trip. Tired of my recent frustrations with the Jeep, I traded it in for a Nissan XTerra, and ever since I've been waiting, patiently, to take it off-road. But our group hadn't exhausted all of our vehicles that might throw a tantrum. One of our usual suspects (who owns a late model truck) couldn't go on this trip, so we had to rely on our next best bet: An old Toyota pick-up.

Our plan was to backpack through a popular segment of Grand Gulch, gaining access through some of the minor side canyons. It required a car parked at the Todie Canyon trailhead and another at Sheik's Canyon. The short distance should make for a very easy three day hike. So far, so good.

Planned obsolescence, circa 1992

Our team began driving through Cedar Mesa, over the rolling hills of State Highway 95. I imagine that the occupants in the Toyota felt a sense of pride when the odometer clicked off its 300,000th mile. The feeling that the owner was doing everything right. And he was: Before the trip, he'd had the car checked out. He changed its oil regularly, and heck – he was even the original owner. A few miles after the watershed event, the clutch went out, only a dozen miles shy of Kane Creek Ranger Station. Cellular comms and walkie-talkies did their best to attract attention to the lost cause.

Disappointment came & went, and cool heads prevailed. The Toyota's owner took a AAA tow back to Moab, and its single passenger joined up with the XTerra contingent for Moon House Ruin, which began immediately after the ceremonial backing-up over his belongings.

Media = Exploitation?

You now need a permit to visit Moon House, because the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wants to restrict the number of people visiting. The reason is clear: At about 45 rooms, the Moonhouse complex is one of the largest ruins in Cedar Mesa. Its popularity is fueled by media – in numerous guide books, websites, and on Google Earth – where the built-in coordinates make finding it (and other ruins) trivial. It doesn't help that I made a ten minute long video and put it on the internet:

Visit to Moonhouse Ruin

While most believe (as I do) that popularity leads to disintegration, I don't believe that photographs, videos, or other media are very controversial. Moonhouse and the other Cedar Mesa ruins are already so popular that the BLM is effectively charging admission, like a little Mesa Verde. Would a video taken of Cliff House draw similar ire?

In the few years that I've been interested in ruins, I've collected photographic evidence of their slow decay. Human visitation takes its toll, but not nearly as much as cattle hooves, or even nature herself. Yet these are nothing compared to treasure hunting with a pick and shovel. Most folks know that all of the best archaeological sites in the southwest, including those in Cedar Mesa, were already well-ravaged by the late 19th century, the artifacts often sold for profit. Antiquities laws were subsequently developed, but that has had little effect. Today, no modern day pot hunter would have any interest in Moon House, or any other popular site in the Southwest. So it's not the little videos you have to worry about. Indeed, perhaps media like this will actually raise awareness.

Killing time in SouthEast Utah

We spent a chilly night along Snow Flat road along the ridge, where we had a tentative island of cell phone reception. The next day we had breakfast at Comb Ridge Coffee in Bluff, and then visited the Wolfman Panel and Fishmouth Cave along Comb Ridge Road as we worked our way back to Moab to reunite with our other half.

We returned to Moab via the Edge of the Cedars State Park. This is much more of a museum than a park, and we usually avoid these sorts of places. But we heard that it had a good collection of artifacts found in the region. Well, prepare to be amazed: Macaw robes! Bones! Arrowheads! Discovery stories! The original ladder from Bullet Canyon's Perfect Kiva. And scads of ancient pottery. This spectacular collection is well worth visiting.

You too could live in a cave

After the museum, we met up with the Toyota owner in Moab and swapped stories. We had barely reconvened at the Moab Visitor Center when I saw the distinctive visage of Daniel Suelo, aka The Moab Cave Man, bicycle through the parking lot. I let out a whoop, grabbed my camera, and ran after him.

I first heard of Daniel through a Denver Post article, which describes how and why he lives without money. Daniel comes into town regularly and maintains two websites: Living Without Money and Zero Currency. Daniel is particularly interesting for me because during a recent writing class, I'd loosely based one of my novel's characters around him.

I generally don't mind embarrassing myself. I'm sure I was even more gushing than your average groupie, because I had studied him. I didn't realize it at the time, but for me, I was meeting the character from my novel. I mentioned the book to Daniel, who took it all in stride. Indeed, I might have to tweek my character: Daniel is the most chill dude I've ever met.

Can we live without possessions? The clutch repair cost $1000 – more than the value of the truck itself. At what point do you walk away?

---