desert magic
November 30th, 2025
Last you witnessed me, I had been prophesied by some old korean guy to travel west and make my fortune. Since then, I have heeded his advice and my life has been a whirlwind of change. My first stressful event of this long month was my single pitch instructor exam, which I had to pass in order to become a rock climbing guide. The first day was not spectacular, as I was put on the spot to do an unweighted belay takeover, which despite weeks of practice and scouring the textbook cover to cover, I had completely missed? I went home that day unsure if I even wanted to attend day two, thinking I failed for sure. Luckily, the next day I had a smooth, flawless belayed rappel, the hardest system to master. My only mistake was tripping on some wet leaves, yeeting my nalgene so far off the top of bridge buttress that it almost landed in the river. Thank god no one saw this embarrassing misshap, and after a few minutes of bushwacking I was able to retrieve my intact water bottle. Despite my mistake on the first day, me and all the other students in the exam passed! TBH, I think I would have passed no matter what, just because the instructor was so bemused by my small stature. Being the only examinee who wasn't a middle aged white guy, I had non-stop comments made about my body, how tiny and petite I am, etc. I may have been graded with a penis instead of a pen, but at the end of the day I'm just happy to pass and be able to work in the guiding industry. Now finding a job... that's a whole 'nother problem I'll deal with later.
My exam ended with a record breaking cold front, as the next morning I awoke to an absalute fat dump of snow. I spent that monday playing luggage tetris, as I tried to cram everything I owned into the body of a 2004 Toyota Highlander. Several questions arose from me to myself: Why do I own a boat? Why do I have so much useless crap??? Despite my attempts at a nomadic car life, I am dragged down by my inexplicable emotional attatchment to random pieces of trash. With a bit of work, everything fit, and the next day I was on the road to my very first trip to Indian Creek, Utah! Indian Creek is a crack climber's paradise, desert towers of wingate sandstone sliced into pieces like a birthday cake, creating perfect splitter cracks. Since I started climbing and fell in love with crack, it's been my number one place to visit. Gerry, the climbing steward, had posted on his instagram about a BIPOC meetup, and I found the dates sandwiched perfectly between my SPI exam and the start date of my new job in Estes Park. So, with all my life belongings shoved into in my shitty car, I headed west!
It took three days to get to Utah, the second day being a twelve hour sludge through Kansas, the most boring state ever. Around midnight, I stopped at a random, dilapidated gas station that happened to be the only one in the world with a vast collection of one hundred taxidermed deer heads hanging on the wall, gazing upon me with their dark eyes as I walked through the door. Spooky! I ended that day in a hostel in Denver, where I was dissapointed by their advertised hot tub, not nearly hot enough, and ran into my freshmen year situationship on Tinder. The next day I headed to Moab, jaw dropping at the amazing mountain views along I-70 out of Colorado. In town I met an instagram mutual, Dan, for thai food. We didn't click at first, us being at opposite ends of the extrovert-introvert spectrum, but things got better as we filled up our tanks, grabbed last minute groceries, and headed into the desert.
To preface, I haven't traveled much in my life, and rarely leave my room. But legitimately, Indian Creek is the most beautiful place I've ever been. As I hiked up to the base of Cat Wall on my first day, I was mesmorized by the rock texture, smooth shades of black and red that weave into each other like the waves of a river. Looking out into the desert, I saw miles more of sandstone castles, a fading gradient of blue as they stretched into the horizon. On my first climb, a finger crack called Cat Woman, I was suprised by the round firmness of the rock. Every jam was bomber, and I soon became accustomed to the easy swimming style of Creek climbing. I ended out the day toproping King Cat in the dark, a beautiful arching splitter that gets progressively wider, curling like a cat's paw to an overhanging roof.
The next day I joined some new friends to put up some fun hand cracks, ending the day with a lovely swim up a very long hand/fist crack called 3AM, bomber jam after bomber jam into the sky. This thing was tall! I had the thought that perhaps this might be the closest a land mammel like me can get to flying.
But the high of the onsight was inturupted by an overcammed blue #3 cam, which took me two nut tools and a lot of swishing and spitting to get out. It was a frusterating thing, as I snapped my nut tool in half, and banged my head against the rock until I saw a series of white flashes, and decided not to do that. As the sun set, the cam gave way, looking a little wonky.
That night, everyone gathered around the campfire as Cody enthralled us with tales of the Skinwalker, a Diné cryptid.
On the third day, I joined a group who were projecting the finger crack Go Sparky Go, which has a heartbreaking final move, a dynamic throw from an insecure horizontal crack to a ledge. Satisfied, we cleaned our routes and arrived back at the parking lot just as it began to storm. Things could have not been more perfect. As the raging wind and rain drove all the employed people home, onward for their Monday morning jobs, me and a few other dirtbags stuck around. We took shelter in a stove-warmed yurt. At one point in the evening, we looked around and realized we were all rock guides. The next morning, we had breakfast before saying our tearful goodbyes, and I quickly scurried back east on I-70, to Estes Park, Colorado. Before I left, I took a peek at a local petroglyph in Indian Creek called Newspaper Rock. It was a message board for the Ute people, carvings of deer, people, bugs, and a LOT of feet. How does it feel to have your life and art preserved by the magic of the desert, seemingly flattening time and space, as I read their message the same way it's been read? I did a bit of research into the feet they drew, noticing many of the feet had six toes intead of five. A mistake, or stylistic choice? Turns out many of the skeletons found in the area had polydactyly, the condition of having an extra toe or finger.
Leaving the magic and community of the desert for the freezing, suffocating, and lonely YMCA of the Rockies campus, it was a very hard adjustment, one I'm still working on being okay with. Ever since I've arrived here, I've been terribly sick. The sun is set by the time I get off work at 5:30, there are no lights in the dorm parking lots and the wind blows cold and violent, so it took me weeks to finally find the time to unpack my stuff. I've always been bad with change, and the stress of this move has caused me to shut down socially, not that there's many people on campus to talk to anyways. On the bright side, I love my new job at the craft center. We have tie dye, which has permenantly stained my fingers green and right foot red, ceramic painting, bead art, silk painting, jewlery making, glass fusion, etc. It's suprisingly advanced for a family resort, and I've enjoyed partaking in my own little projects. When it's not a holiday, it's a very chill position, and I've had time to dig into my book backlog. Currently I've been reading The Song of Achilles, which I am not really seeing the intense hype around. Suprisingly, I've enjoyed working with kids. They are so strange and awkward, presenting themselves as they are instead of hiding behind layers of pretense, like adults do. Does that make sense? I will also say the lodging is very cozy, and it has been incredible to eat at the employee buffet three times a day, as cooking is a huge hassle for me. This place is worth it just for the food! A struggle I think I will have is finding things to do. There's no gym, scarce activities, and it is too cold for hiking or climbing.
After a week straight of 9 to 5 work, I had my first free day on Tuesday. I decided to take advantage of the Gold Ski Pass that employees of the Y can borrow, and drove over to the Winter Park Resort. I met up with a friend from Werk the Red, Spencer, who rented me a snowboard. As a Texan, a poor Texan, I had never had the oppurtunity to experience a ski resort, and I was shocked by how fancy everything was. I took the gondala up to my snowboarding class, where I mastered the art of turns and stops (but only after crashing into two instructors). I was burning up that bunny hill, taking the magic carpet elevator up again and again, as my thighs burnt from the effort. Unfortunately, I am utterly in love with snowboarding! I think I might spend every free day of my time here in Colorado on the slopes, carving through fresh powder. Another expensive hobby for Zia! Ah, I can feel the money draining from my pockets as we speak...
As of today I sit in bed, still very sick. Looks like my winter will be one where I spend a lot of time with myself, and of course I am happy with that. Although the mere minutes of sunlight and chilling winds of higher elevation Colorado have got me feeling not the best, it beats another year at my parents house in Charlottesville. After I had returned home in August to see my mother had written nonsense all over the walls and cups in some sort of schizophrenic fugue state, I've promised myself that I've left that house for good. Even if things are a little weird right now, I have a warm place to stay, food to eat, a job. Can't ask for more. As the climbing season is over, I think my blog is over too, at least until I get a new job and go on more adventures. Next year, I am determind to be Yosemite bound! Catch you when the snow melts!