If I fall I am dead. If I fall, I drop nearly 1000 feet and will certainly break my neck, my legs, and definitely my arms. I would be done for. So I tighten my grip on the handle bars and hold a deep breath in in attempts to maybe stabilize me upon the high rocks. I move forward inch by inch and try my hardest not to look down. But it was so beautiful, so breath taking, it was so hard to avoid. I look again and feel the breath I held so tightly onto slip away with the light breeze that was keeping me from over heating. The fall was terrifying, to say the least, but the view was worth the jump it put in my heart.

You’d think you would see wildlife here, but that is something that this rocky landscape lacks. There may be a bird above or a lizard about the ground, but almost never in view. They hide in the heat and hunt by the rivers and spaces that are more forgiving, more shaded, and more wet and thriving. Out here, there is nothing but drops, rocks, and sand for miles and miles and miles around.

I suck in my breath again. That gust just now was a little too strong and it reoriented me. I remembered that I was teetering on the edge of death, looking at the trail that took me up the side of a sandstone that curved at a sixty degree angle. Somehow I had make it up that while also trying not to dive off the side of what seemed the world.

Again, I gather air and forgot about the deathly fall to my side. I must go on, I must not seek the edge.