In 2008, I devised a pioneering route through the labyrinthine core of Southern Utah’s Capitol Reef National Park. The park superintendent and rangers told me the terrain was so rugged and remote, and the required navigation so daunting, no backcountry permit had ever been issued for the area throughout the park’s seventy-one-year history.
In order to climb into the high country, expedition buddy Ted Greenwald and I (pictured) first had to cross the desolate Lower South Desert. We had to carry five gallons of water, as there would be none along the entire route I had planned.
Ted studies a topographic map at an overlook (altitude 7,100 feet) along our cross-country route through the mazelike core of Capitol Reef National Park.
At the end of our trailblazing traverse, Ted and I each had only one quart of water left to drink. We needed to find a way down sheer cliffs—several hundred feet high—lining this canyon, in order to get to lifesaving water.
Ted Greenwald (shown) and I (narrating) backpack cross-country in the most remote area in the lower 48 states. (Hint: it’s in the Moab Desert.) At the end of the video, we encounter sheer cliffs blocking our descent into a canyon we hoped would hold desperately needed water. I did what any person in this dangerous situation would do: test the acoustics to see if the canyon would produce an echo!
My buddy Ted Greenwald (shown) and I take a break while climbing out of a remote canyon in the Moab Desert. Each of us was hauling a backpack weighing sixty-five pounds, including the five gallons of water we would depend on to sustain us through rugged, waterless wilderness over the following three days.
Ted Greenwald (bottom right) and I backpacked down this remote unnamed canyon from a high basin in the Colorado Desert. Based on what a ranger told me, it was highly likely no one else in recorded history had descended the canyon before us (which was partly our motivation for taking a crack at it). The going was so rough, we nicknamed the mile-long defile “Short Motherf**king Canyon.”
While crossing Death Valley, Ted Greenwald (pictured) and I stumbled upon an exploded bomb.
On expedition in the Sonoran Desert, Ted Greenwald and I climbed this rocky outcrop for the view. The remnant tracks of the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach service, which last carried passengers and US mail in 1861, clearly show as a horizontal line traversing the base of a pyramidal hill in the photo’s left middle ground.
During my first expedition in the Colorado Desert, Tony Morel (L) and I found the bullet-riddled cab of a truck miles from the nearest road and trail. The doors, seats and dash were long gone. Using my camera’s timer, we posed as sightseeing tourists leisurely motoring through the area, my right hand perched on a phantom steering wheel.
More coming soon!
Michael Cooper Adventurer
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