We pick our way through the tamarisk near our camp. It's so thick there's no passage in most directions. I can hear my husband, Matt, somewhere behind me fighting his way through. We sink in the red mud at the bottom of the wash and try to find breaks in the branches that will get us closer to the other side. 

Finally we emerge scratched and dirty. We’re grateful to climb onto slickrock and breathe easier. We’re on the back slope of Comb Ridge, a huge uplift of sandstone that slopes up steeply and then dives a thousand feet into Comb Wash. 

Water and time have worn cracks and canyons into the rock. This erosion has created a maze of giant alcoves, narrows and seeps where life can live here in the desert. Trees, cactus, flowers, and grasses thrive here along with the many animals who come seeking water.

It’s a warm November day as we make our way into one of these canyons. It narrows and we scramble over boulders and log jams to continue. We come to a wide pouroff and skirt around the edge until we reach the lip.

We turn to look back down canyon from where we came. An ancient golden cottonwood rises up below us, illuminated in the sunlight. The leaves shimmer in the breeze as the warmth of the sun bakes the stone and creates an updraft. It’s silent but for the rattling cottonwood leaves. 

The bright gold flashes in my eyes and makes the shadows beneath seem black as if the pouroff falls into an abyss. The deep green of junipers and piñon trees makes the gold even brighter. The sunlit wall behind the cottonwood is painted orange and black and the bright blue sky makes arcs overhead. The beauty is stark here. The lines are crisp.  Dark fades into light quickly. As I look at the scene, what at first looks like a mass of gold turns into thousands of individual leaves, each with a stem and the teeth along their edges. It is like looking at the night sky and at first seeing the ribbon of the Milky Way only for it to evolve into millions of individual stars, galaxies, and nebulae. The detail is infinite.

We listen to the leaves for a moment longer and then turn to continue up the canyon, heading for the ridge.