HOOK

42 HOOK MAGAZINE | 2024 on the sacred hun5ng grounds (turkey and mule deer) of the Paiute Na5ve Americans. We have just belayed the Huntress, a slot canyon surrounded inside with curvy forms, colors and lines that can only be accessed with ropes and gear. The white mountain ahead is the Goddess of the Hun5ng Ground, a women reclined. Her orignal Paiute name was lost, but now is "Diana's Throne". There are two other slot canyons, the Hunted and Hunter, of which Diana stands guardian. Mil- lions of years ago everything here was sand dunes, then the ocean came in and flooded the landscape as currents, winds and storms changed direc5ons — coming and going pushing up the dunes on top of each other in different ways, called cross-bedding. You can see the lines in the petrified dunes. Then, to- gether with the weight of the water brought in by the ocean, it solidified. Canyoneering with my guide, keziah Palmer in the region's red rock is just one of the outdoor venues to explore in kanab. Abundant are the Ponderosa Pines, its ester element gives it a sweet smell, and out in the dry desert its amazingly deligh4ul! It is the iron oxide that gives the sand and rocks a red color which it absorbs giving the tree its reddish/orange 5nt. In order to reproduce it has to have an excess amount of nitrogen and its best source is lightning — it takes in the iron to a6ract lightning, and with enough nitrogen released into the seed to become fer5le. Also prolific are the Juniper trees whose light blue berries are used to make gin and when you split it open there is a very strong, beau5ful smell like you are in a cabin up in the mountains. Their light blue berries have a thin coa5ng of yeast on them, so if you grab one and you rub it, it will turn green as you rub the yeast off. This blue film is a natural yeast used to make bread; they call it Cow- boy Bread, for obvious reasons. By collec5ng them and pu7ng into water, shaking it up re- ally good, then le7ng it sit, and all the yeast comes to the top up of which you use it to make bread. As well, inside the berry is the Ghost Berry pit and when it falls, ants, birds and other creatures dig a hole to eat the in- side, so it is half drilled. Na5ve Americans would drill through again to make ceremonial bracelets and other things, my guide, keziah Palmer, is actually making bracelets from them. The juniper tree has root systems that can spread up to 100 feet from the trunk of the tree, grounding itself into the sandy soil. Another desert plant is the manzanita, whose berries are edible and full of an5oxidants, al- though very bi6er and their waxy leaves help retain its moisture in the desert. The leaves and the roots (more powerful) have a natural anesthe5c, a numbing agent which you can grind and make ointments and teas. It is what the Na5ve Americans used for anything they needed and also to soothe sore throats. kanab is centrally located to many of Utah's most outstanding sites and land- scapes, from Zion Na5onal Park, Bryce Canyon, Grand Staircase-Escalante Na5onal Monument, Lake Powell, to the Grand Canyon's North Rim. All within 17 minutes to an hour and forty minutes. The Grand Staircase-Escalante Na5onal Monument is 1,880,461 acres of protected land with a series of gargantuan, immense, awe-evoking plateaus of rock layers that stretch south from Bryce Canyon Na5onal Yee Haw ... this is a totally different demographic and culture. I am canyoneering with a skilled guide, in the enormity of the red rocks in Southern Utah

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