Journeys: Lucin Sun Tunnels, Utah - Day Trip

Monday, January 9, 2006

Lucin Sun Tunnels, Utah - Day Trip

Tim and I decided that a boring Sunday afternoon needed to be spiced up with an adventure .. somewhere. We decided to find "Sun Tunnels" way out in the West Desert. "Sun Tunnels" is a work of art done by Nancy Holt 1973-1976 in the middle of nowhere. It consists of 4 large concrete tubes lined up with the summer and winter solstice sunrises and sunsets.

Armed with one very large truck, two GPS units, a map, and two cell phones we headed west towards Wendover. Near Wendover where we planned to turn north, Tim inquired at a gas station what the best way to get to Lucin, Utah was (the nearest place on the GPS to the tunnels). The flamboyant gas station attendant seemed confused but pointed us north along a dirt road. We just assumed once we got to Lucin there would be signs to the Sun Tunnels .. or we could just ask someone in town.

I wasn't expecting much from Lucin, Utah but I was still a bit shocked to discover that upon arrival, the town of Lucin was actually a place. The place where the dirt road crossed some railroad tracks. No buildings. Not one. No people. No signs. And a nasty little snow squall made for very bad visibility - no way to see the tunnels that were supposed to be visible by now. Desperate phone calls to Mandy and Jake for internet access and directions. Suddenly the snow squall clears and we see the tunnels right in front of us...

west desert

all the maps in the world and still no clue where we are

hey there they are!

me at "Sun Tunnels"

cold and desolate

tim

looking through the tunnels

nerds at work measuring angles

"One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am – a reluctant enthusiast….a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards"

-- Edward Abbey

"The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls. "

-- John Muir

"To be whole. To be complete. Wildness reminds us what it means to be human, what we are connected to rather than what we are separate from."

-- Terry Tempest Williams

"There may be people who feel no need for nature. They are fortunate, perhaps. But for those of us who feel otherwise, who feel something is missing unless we can hike across land disturbed only by our footsteps or see creatures roaming freely as they have always done, we are sure there should be wilderness. Species other than man have rights, too. Having finished all the requisites of our proud, materialistic civilization, our neon-lit society, does nature, which is the basis for our existence, have the right to live on? Do we have enough reverence for life to concede to wilderness this right?"

-- Margaret E. Murie

"I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. Why muck and conceal one's true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover oneself?"

-- Everett Ruess