Valley of Fire

The last time that I can remember being hopelessly lost was absconding from the scene of a police-crashed bush party. That's another story from my youth though, this one takes place while hiking through the Valley of Fire in the Nevada desert.

This misbegotten adventure began when I met Lothar, a German photographer. He was raving about a relatively unknown arch, the Ephemeral Arch, found quite far off the beaten path. Intrigued I asked how to find it, naively assuming that he could point it out on the complementary park map that had the resolution of brown crayon and napkin. His instructions detailed every stop, direction, pass, path and landmark on the route in what I can only assume is perfectly understandable and grammatically correct German, enhanced brilliantly by grainy, greyscale photos of red rocks (highly distinguishable in a valley full of red rocks) . Looking at the encrypted treasure map, the pictures and my perfect-for-hiking-slip-on office shoes, I probably should have bailed.