The Woman in the Canyon

Prelude

Welcome to draft content that will feed into my next book, The Woman in the Canyon: A Journey of 100 Trails to Uncover the Secret of Resilience.

Prelude

What was I thinking? Here I was onboarding with Human Resources for a job that didn't pay livable wages. No health insurance. No retirement accounts. I had just finished writing The Woman on the Ferry: A Journey of 1,000 Miles to Redefine Success and Discover Joy, and had worked hard to disassociate income and job title from "success." But still . . . to be paid so little felt like an insult. Yet, I had sought out the job and accepted the low wages. Why?

The job came with perks that money couldn't measure. As an ATV Guide, I'd take visitors to the northern rim of Bryce Canyon National Park, where ancient hoodoos stood like silent witnesses to time. Between tours, I'd rent ebikes to visitors eager to explore on their own. My office would be the outdoors—clean air, birdsong, and that endless Utah sky. For a small fee, I secured a spot in the employee campground with full hookups for my “Dream Big” rig. With a 3-day/4-day rotating schedule, I'd have long stretches to hike new trails, discover hidden viewpoints, and write under starlit skies. I'd gather stories from wide-eyed tourists, weather-worn co-workers, and the ancient land itself—all becoming raw material for this book.

At noon on Thursday, I walked into HR for onboarding, and by 1:00, I was thrown into the job. I shadowed other ATV Guides, but even on that first day, with zero preparation, I was expected to deliver the informational talk to guests as we stood at Bryce Canyon's rim. No formal training. No step-by-step instructions. Just dive in and figure it out. Definitely not my style.

Snowcapped Bryce Canyon National Park

Each night and morning, I huddled in my RV, working on my talk. I cut out myths that had no basis in fact and wove in my own perspectives on the geology and history. Friday morning greeted me with a surprise—a thick blanket of snow and temperatures well below freezing. "Time to go to work," I told myself, grateful for the heated vest I'd bought a few years back. That first run through the fresh snowfall was pure magic. We drove the only tracks through powder between pines and firs dusted with white. At the canyon's edge, Bryce revealed itself anew—hoodoos crowned with snow, their bands of yellow, orange, red, and white intensified against the winter landscape. Standing there, watching visitors' faces transform with awe, I wondered if this view would ever become ordinary to me.

Watch a video of our ATV run through the snow here.

Even with a round of hail and cold biting through our gloves, we had eager ATV riders. Over the next few days, I refined my presentation, mastered the tricky sections of the route where the trail wound through the “obstacle course,” and learned the basics of our booking system. I also encountered the one element of employment I never missed—workplace politics. "Mitch," a fellow member of my RV co-op in California who had helped me land this position, proved challenging to work with. And he clashed with another strong personality on our team. Their tensions created a field of discomfort that the rest of us navigated carefully. What human drama had I stepped back into?

Now, as I write these first pages, I recognize the parallel between last year's 1,000-mile hike and this new uncertain journey. Different landscape, same blank page ahead. But I've learned to trust that emptiness, to welcome the unknown path. I'm here to absorb this place—its textures, colors, stories—and let them transform into narrative. Where this leads remains unclear, which feels both thrilling and unsettling.

My first week at Bryce revealed where this story truly begins: with the hoodoos themselves. Most visitors are surprised to learn that Bryce Canyon isn't actually a canyon. No river carved these cliffs over millennia. Instead, this "canyon" is a series of amphitheaters—massive, bowl-shaped depressions etched into the edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. The land's history spans 50 million years—from seabed to lake bottom to desert—each phase leaving its signature in stone. But the true sculptor is frost wedging: water seeping into tiny cracks, freezing at night, expanding with irresistible force, and slowly prying the rock apart. Year after year, century after century, this process shaped the landscape into something almost intentional in its beauty: tall, improbable spires in wild, sometimes human-like shapes. Hoodoos. Standing among them, you understand why they inspire both wonder and unease.

“When lighted by the morning sun the gorgeous chasm is an immense bowl of lace and filigree work in stone, colored with the white of frost and the pinks of glowing embers. To those who have not forgotten the story books of childhood it suggests a playground for fairies. In another aspect it seems a smoldering inferno where goblins and demons might dwell among flames and embers.” (Union Pacific Archives Publication, 1929)

In my research, I learned the stories of the Southern Paiute people, whose connection to this land predates European arrival by thousands of years. In their tradition, the hoodoos were once the Legend People—powerful spirits or beings who could take human form. They moved across the landscape, but many harbored darkness—they were selfish, greedy, and cruel to both the land and each other.

According to Paiute folklore, Sinawava—the coyote spirit—is a complex figure who helped shape the world through both wisdom and mischief. Tired of the Legend People's destructive ways, Sinawava invited them to a magnificent celebration. "Come wearing your finest colors," the invitation specified. The Legend People arrived in spectacular attire—brilliant reds, fiery oranges, deep ochres, dazzling whites—each trying to outshine the others. At the height of their revelry, Sinawava, seeing the wickedness in their hearts, transformed them into stone. Their colorful clothing became the vibrant layers we see in the hoodoos today—a permanent reminder of their vanity and cruelty. Even the term "hoodoo" carries this memory, derived from the Paiute word oo'doo, meaning "something that evokes fear."

This story resonates with visitors, but on Saturday morning, an encounter brought myth into reality. As our ATV group made its way past a pair of rodeo bulls, a coyote stood motionless. Not running, not hiding—just watching us with amber eyes that seemed to hold ancient knowing. The moment stretched as we stared at each other. Was this Sinawava himself, judging our presence? Were we modern versions of the Legend People, bringing noise and disruption to a sacred place? Or did the coyote see something different in us—perhaps the attention we gave to the amazing traits of the pronghorn and the prairie dogs, or the reverence in our voices when discussing the land's history? The coyote held its ground for half a minute before turning unhurriedly toward the trees, leaving me with questions that lingered for days.

The world has never been simply divided into good and evil. But America in 2025 seems ruled by forces intent on chaos and division. Have we fallen collectively under the influence of modern Legend People—those who take without giving, accumulate without sharing, destroy without creating? The parallels are troubling. Yet when that coyote stared into my eyes, I felt something unexpected: HOPE. If the ancient Legend People who damaged the earth were eventually stopped, perhaps today's destructive forces aren't invincible either.

No magical intervention will restore our democracy, science, humanity, or natural world. But together, we might embody Sinawava's spirit. Through collective action and shared purpose, we could yet reclaim what's been corrupted and imagine new possibilities beyond mere restoration. We might relegate our modern Legend People not to stone formations but to history's cautionary tales.

America's darkest side is now visible to the world. This nation was never the utopia depicted in sanitized histories—not for the enslaved, the indigenous peoples displaced, immigrants exploited, or anyone deemed "different." Progress toward genuine equality has always been painfully slow. But the current erosion of rights, democratic norms, and environmental protections moves with alarming speed. We face a long struggle to reestablish human dignity and heal our planet. For this marathon of renewal, we need more than fleeting outrage or fragile optimism. We need deep resilience.

As I explore this extraordinary landscape and listen to the stories it holds, I'm seeking signs of that resilience in all its forms. Too often, we think of resilience as purely individual—a personal capacity for enduring hardship through willpower alone. This misses the truth evident in both human communities and ecosystems: we don't build resilience in isolation. The lone tree on an exposed ridge falls first in a powerful storm; the person who needs no one remains most vulnerable to crisis.

True resilience emerges from connection—to others whose strengths complement our weaknesses, to purposes larger than ourselves, to the land that sustains all life. Rooting these connections are the values that give resilience direction: Humanity recognizing dignity in each person. Justice balancing accountability with opportunity. Compassion responding to suffering with action. Community weaving individual lives into collective strength. And reverence for the Earth—understanding we're not separate from nature but part of it.

On this journey, I'll hike 100 different trails across southwestern Utah. Each path will serve as both literal exploration and metaphor, illuminating different aspects of resilience and hope. Some trails will be well-marked, others faint and hard to follow. Some will lead to breathtaking vistas worth every drop of sweat, others to disappointing endings. Through this practice of hiking, I hope to embody the resilience I seek to understand.

And perhaps, when the final page is written, when the last trail has been traveled, the coyote will return. We'll share that moment of recognition across species, acknowledging the understanding that comes only through navigating the tension between destruction and creation, between despair and hope, between hatred and love. That even in a landscape defined by what has been lost to erosion, beauty and meaning persist—and perhaps exist precisely because of what has been carried away.