A Night Hike Through the Haunting Hoodoos

Samwise and Emily in front of the King Toadstool.

Good morning.

It's 4:00. The sun won't rise for more than three hours. Mostly, we keep to our east coast sleep schedule. At home, it would be 6:00 am. We've just come in from twenty minutes out in the backyard.

At this hour, the cliffs are not visible, but oh, how the stars are. On the outskirts of this small desert community, they are both impressive and nearly oppressive. They excite and frighten me and hover so intimately I can almost feel their breath.

In New Hampshire, I quickly pick out Orion and the Big Dipper in the winter sky. It's not so easy in southern Utah, where the vast array floods the eyes. It tends to overwhelm. Rarely do the constellations stand out to me. But I know they are there. I've always known they are out there.

A childhood fear returns to me. One summer night, my father lugged out the old telescope and pointed it to the heavens. We all took turns looking through it and what I saw frightened me. One of my brothe…