Desert Daze - A southwest Adventure (V)

Part Five: Hoodoo Redux Two - Dali's Dream

(Scroll down to start with Part One)

It's like coming home, I’ve dreamed about getting back here ever since I stumbled upon it years ago. So surreal, it’s like being inside a Salvatore Dali painting – the impossible hoodoos, melting rocks, smooth patina and intense colors all contribute to the unreality of the place. I call it ‘Dali’s Dream’ – surely, he would have been proud to sculpt something like this. But Mother Nature’s not through yet, it’s still a work-in-progress - I tread lightly.

Hidden high up in a hanging canyon, you’d never know it was here. I’ve seen nary another footprint on either visit - I wonder if anyone else knows about it? If not, that’s even better - what nature lover doesn’t fantasize of finding their very own ‘secret garden’?

I stumbled upon Dali’s Dream while trying to find a way up a cliff to get closer to some toadstool hoodoos I’d seen sitting high atop a wall near here. Driven by my desire to commune with the magic mushrooms, I paid no attention to how I wound up in Dali’s Dream and soon found darkness closing in around me with no escape plan. Nearly froze to death in paradise.

What a fitting end that would’ve been – like I always say, if I die while adventuring, I died doing what I love. They say that in the final stages of hypothermia, the victim no longer feels any pain; in fact, it’s reported that one often experiences intense feelings of well-being, contentedness and bliss, sometimes paradoxically shedding their clothes just before they lay down to begin their next big adventure.

Obviously, I did find a way down but I’ve longed to come back ever since. I’ve wanted to see if this fantastical place would give me the same extraordinary feelings of being inside a dream it did the first time – and the answer is an emphatic ‘yes.’

Alas, when you have found Shangri-la, you never want to leave. But I must, I have permits to explore two more unreal places the next two days and it’s getting late. Déjà vu. Except this time I know my way out…

Next – Troughs, Tables and Technology