Peekaboo Springs (the Needles district, Canyonlands NP)

There are glorious views 360 degrees around you on the Peekaboo Springs trail.

“This is so beautiful it almost makes me cry.” These words escaped my lips as Tara and I crested one canyon wall and perched on the brim looking to yet another vast horizon of red rock, of green wash, of bluest sky. I needed time to simply stop and absorb the wonder of it all — to feel it on a deep level rather than see only with my eyes.

In the Needles district on a cumulus-clouded day, the dancing light illuminates one pinnacle while shadowing the next; I could sit watchfully in one spot for an entire morning and not grow bored. It is one of my favorite places to explore in all of North America. Peekaboo Springs is clearly one of those hikes that can move me to tears.

Almost as an afterthought at the trailhead I had grabbed my binoculars, and was now scanning the canyon below for evidence of ancestral Puebloan culture. We had already found at least five granaries when something on a far wall came into focus. Wordlessly I handed the glasses to Tara, and her incredulous subdued “Oh, wow” matched my impression.

A round white shield with a flared cross-shaped center, unlike anything either of us have ever seen, stood alone on a sandstone wall. Farther along was a plumb-bob shape and concentric circles out of the same brilliant white paint that looked anything but a thousand years old. We instantly knew we had to make a return trip equipped with good maps and a way to get down there to investigate and photograph this rock art. Here’s the happiest part: there weren’t any trails or even footprints passing by them.

And when the day comes that we get back there to personally explore, our feet also will leave no trace.

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For twelve additional photos of this hike, click on this Facebook album.