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Up The Fins

Up The Fins

Friends-

Going up to the fins in Sand Flats last Sunday was a much needed escape for Bob and me. The weather is finally warmer and the Moab crowds have not yet arrived. We needed the escape badly because of all we have been doing this year – making posters, marching, attending meetings, making phone calls, writing letters, lobbying -- that is time consuming and unlike anything I ever anticipated for my retirement years. All of it is necessary, but sometimes everything seems near impossible.

Thus, taking a walk on the sandstone fins was just what was needed. I remember the first time I hiked up and down on a Sand Flat fin; I was so thrilled by the magic of it all. On this type of high-friction surface I can go up and down slopes at steep angles and with exposure that I would never attempt on any other type of surface. The term 'fins' is an excellent name for these rock structures which protrude out of the sand in formations that are thin and tall and curvy – much like the fins on some aquatic animal. Because of the sand-paper-like friction, with nothing more than sturdy hiking boots I can scale the impossible.

So you can see how hiking the fins here in Moab is very much a metaphor for the times. It might seem impossible, but it is not. Si se puede.

'Up the Fins' is also available as a gift to you for a good donation to a worthwhile non-profit – something like Doctors Without Borders, or Southern Poverty Law, perhaps? We can talk.

Enjoy spring. It really is here.

margie lopez read