Markers

I used to snub cairns, until my life depended upon them.

Since Dave and I hike on trails, I didn’t value stacked rocks left by previous hikers. On well-worn paths, cairns aren’t needed, and instead of serving as trail markers, the rock mounds point to a tourist mentality. Stack stones to mark you’ve been there.

But that attitude changed when we hiked the Peekaboo Trail in Canyonlands National Park, Utah.

We had pitched our tent in the Needles Campground and read a brochure with paragraph descriptions about nearby trails. The Peekabo Trail sounded like a doable adventure. Ten miles round trip. Five to six hours.

It began as a sandy path that wound toward Squaw Canyon, but we quickly ascended long steep granite slopes. We hiked up and down the rocky passes of Lost Canyon and the high slick rock benches of Salt Creek Canyon. We stood on cliff edges and squeezed through a keyhole on the highest crest of a granite wall. There was no clear easy path.

Cairns, set up by park rangers and previous hikers, guided us.

With the temperature one hundred and ten degrees, we joked about watching for vultures above us. We never saw other hikers. The vastness swallowed us.

The Peekaboo Trail ended at a prehistoric rock panel edged with ancient paintings, or pictographs. In more recent history, pioneers on wagon trains crossing Wyoming carved their names on limestone now called Register Cliffs, near Guernsey.

Most pictographs and carvings are found on massive rock cliffs, solid stone sure to outlast a human lifespan. Sometimes the human soul yearns to leave a mark.

With each birthday, I wonder what marks did I leave the past year? Kindness? Generosity? I want to age with grace.

The last two hours of our hike, demanded grit and determination. Our water bottles were empty. Sweat drenched, we trudged. I later discovered edges of my clothing permanently salt-bleached. As we pushed through a long difficult stretch in desert heat, up and down deep canyons, the cairns became markers of encouragement. They pointed us back to camp. Home.

Without those mounds of stones, we would have become lost.

This week we hiked a well defined trail in the Rocky Mountains, and as we passed “unnecessary” cairns, I gave thanks for the marks others have left behind. And I prayed that each day I will leave markers of God’s wild, lavish grace.