Lesson Learned: Adventure on the Uncompahgre Plateau

Back in the days when cell phones were newish and GPS systems were but a figment of everyday travelers' imaginations, I took a trip. A trip where cell phone coverage and GPS systems would have come in quite handy.

When I first moved to Utah, I didn't take a car with me, but when I realized how freaking far away from anything where I lived was, it quickly became evident that a car was a vital necessity, so I hopped a plane back to South Carolina to pick up my reliable Honda Accord. Not trusting my solo driving skills for a jaunt across the country, my parents commissioned their favorite good boy, Stewart, to make the trek with me. They pushed a cell phone into my hands, gave me kisses and hugs, and sent us on our way. After taking Stewie around the Grand Canyon and showing him where I laid my head in the desert, I drove him to the airport in Denver, which was still about 7 hours from my digs in Utah. But I had to drive through Crested Butte, CO on the way back to check out places to live for the winter, so it wasn't that much out of my way. Well, the way there wasn't but my drive back ended up taking about 7 hours longer than it should have.

Why? Well, since I had just come off a semester-long course with Outward Bound, I thought I had some stellar map-reading skills, and I thought I could cut my trip by a couple of hours if I went off the beaten always taken path of well-established highways. Being the intelligent clueless map reader that I was, I didn't stop to consider what the different lines for the roads meant. Note to self: lines which indicate highways and regular roads are far different from those that indicate non-maintained roads or "other" roads or foot paths or boundaries. Oh yes. Outward Bound taught me to read topographic maps. NOT road maps.

Armed with ignorance, when I got to the spot in Montrose, CO where I should have stayed on Highway 50 and continued to Interstate 70 in Grand Junction, I chose the path less taken. (Thanks Robert Frost.) And, let me tell you something about Honda Accords: they aren't for those kinds of paths. At all. But, there I went. Farther and farther. Making turns off of each "path" I was on. And by path, I mean ravines, washed out, washboard dirt and rock boulder pits with cows milling about. Paths with steep inclines. Paths that kept turning into each other. Paths that over-looked massive cliffs. Paths where no one in their right mind would drive. I somehow ended up on what I now know to be the Uncompahgre Plateau. Folks, while it might be stunningly beautiful and scenic and all that, when you are scared out of your mind, it's not pretty. It looks like dehydration and starvation and animal mauling and fiery crashes to one's death. Even the cows looked frightening. They morphed from sweet mooing farm creatures into vicious, sharp-teethed attackers in an instant.

Luckily, I had my cell phone, right? Wrong. Signals aren't good out there now; 14 years ago, they were practically non-existent. When I finally got a signal, I called my parents and my mother answered the phone. I frantically told her my predicament before my phone dropped the call. Great. For her it was worse, because she's already a lunatic about her kids' safety, and I promised not to do anything stupid. Ha! I kept trying to call and anytime I'd get through for a second, I'd hear my mom's terrified voice calling my name right before the phone would cut out. I will pay for this in spades with my own kids, I know.

When I got into the wilderness area, it was daylight, and I had a full tank of gas. I thought that I'd eventually find my way out. Well, since the road wasn't a road and because the cows were all over the path, hours kept passing by and I kept going farther and farther into nowhwere. Eventually, the sun turned out the lights and I couldn't see anything at all. I didn't know where the road was. I didn't know if the hill I was driving up would continue to have the path or if the path would end and I would end up falling 600 feet to my death, and I wasn't in the mood for any of that Thelma and Louise crap. Especially since I didn't have a Louise with me.

Somehow, somehow, somehow, several hours after spinning in circles on that damn plateau, I found a more established path without cows, which, thank God, led to an even more established road, which led me right back to where I started in Montrose. Really, I couldn't even find myself closer to Grand Junction after all that mess? I called my mom immediately, who by that point was about to call the police, the National Park Service, and the National Guard to find me, and she looked up a hotel in the area for me to rest my weary head for the night.

I feel pretty lucky to have made it out of there alive. I mean, seriously, I could have flown off the plateau in the car. I don't know how I didn't bust all of my tires on the sharp rocks and find myself stranded out there. So many things could have happened, and I know how lucky I am for them not to have. Talk about a lesson learned. And here's what I know about that now: NEVER, Ella and Summit, will you EVER do anything like that. Wherever you go, I go. I know too much.