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Sunday June 6 2010
I used to hike a lot. Long hikes. Hard hikes. Peaks. Cross country. Forests and mountains. Now it's only on occasion. Last few hikes I did, I stumbled about gracelessly, the ground feeling foreign. My feet were out of practice, my body uncoordinated. I must get my hiking legs back underneath me.
![](http://www.endurance.net/merri/060710/P6050005.jpg)
Today I head cross country in the Owyhee desert to the Deep Red Canyon of the Hart. The skies are dark, blue-gray and heavy; the rain is moving down from the Owyhees. It begins to fall on the desert, on me, first a soft mist. Then I hear the sound of drumbeats all around me. Then I feel the drumbeats. The earth turns dark, glistening; the flowers emanate intense hues - the Indian paintbrush, purple sage, wild onion, buckwheat, penstemmon, globemallow, lupine.
![](http://www.endurance.net/merri/060710/P6050027.jpg)
Today my feet are feeling the earth, molding to the uneven ground, moving over it without tripping, without slipping on the wet rocks. I smell the wet desert, the sweet sage and flowers of the shadscale. I absorb the rain like the desert.
Today it's just me an a lone pronghorn on a ridge in the distance.
![](http://www.endurance.net/merri/060710/P6050019.jpg)
Before I see the cliffs of the Deep Red Canyon, I hear the roaring waterfalls on Hart Creek far below. The cliffs are red and gray in the rain. Tall. I can't see the bottom of the canyon. Slippery. I don't get too close to the edge today. They rise abruptly from the wide valley floor to become a deep chasm.
![](http://www.endurance.net/merri/060710/P6050032.jpg)
Two empty eagle nests perch on the face of the cliffs. Pigeons fly about in confusion at this rare human intrusion. Canyon wrens sing their melodic downward spiraling tune.
I follow the rim of the canyon. It is magnificent, this hidden canyon in the Owyhee desert,
![](http://www.endurance.net/merri/060710/P6050052.jpg)
the rhyolite rock carved and sliced over eons by water running down from the Owyhee mountains. A lone juniper stands guard over the canyon walls. I stand beside it, dumbfounded by its perpetual view.
![](http://www.endurance.net/merri/060710/P6050049.jpg)
My feet find and follow a game trail down into the canyon. I startle a prairie falcon. It flies away, perturbed, screeching at me. A lush ecosystem crowds this narrow canyon.
![](http://www.endurance.net/merri/060710/P6050047.jpg)
![](http://www.endurance.net/merri/060710/P6050057.jpg)
I climb back up to the canyon rim
![](http://www.endurance.net/merri/060710/P6050038.jpg)
![](http://www.endurance.net/merri/060710/P6050060.jpg)
The flamboyant wildflowers
![](http://www.endurance.net/merri/060710/P6050065.jpg)
![](http://www.endurance.net/merri/060710/P6050074.jpg)
![](http://www.endurance.net/merri/060710/P6050080.jpg)
I have my hiking legs back under me today. I think the Ravens approve.
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