Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park: Fugitive Vision from the Subconscious of Salvador Dali

We drive non-stop from Boise, Idaho to Cedar City, Utah. At dawn, at a gas station in Cedar City, we question a cashier. She is local. She will know the way.

“Can you tell us how to get to Coral Pink Sand Dunes State park?” Kevin asks her.

Her eyes bulge. She shakes her head. Slowly, she mutters, “I don’t know what that is.”

“Can you tell us how to get to highway 14?”

She traces elaborate twists and turns into the air all around her and says, “You just go out here and turn right and go down to a light and turn right and kind of curve around toward the onramp and go straight until you have to veer left, but don’t veer left, and you’ll end up right on it.”

We begin to drive. We are quickly ensnared by a university campus. Highway 14 is nowhere to be found. There are no signs, no arrows.

“Cedar City is on Highway 14,” I say, squinting over a map of Utah.

Disoriented by bad directions and a lack of informational road signs, we get on Interstate 15 going north. North is the wrong way. We turn around and go south again.

Taking Exit 59 onto Highway 56 East, we pass through Cedar City, taking a chance turn onto Main Street. By accident, we discover the sign we’ve been searching for. It points to the left, to Highway 14 East.

The road twists and winds. Canyons split the horizon. Cliffs pile up in pink and white layers. They form intricate pillars and towers. They form huge imposing slabs.

“They look like castles,” I say. “Or the birthday cakes of dinosaurs.”

Pine trees shoot up from folds of rock. Gradually, the cliffs smooth into rolling hills. Silvery Aspens materialize between the thickening pines. Meadows expand amid the trees as the hills flatten. Creeks curve through the grass. A quaint log village flies by. It was made especially for tourists. Million dollar cabins loom up sporadically. They are empty. It is not summer. Dilapidated shacks and houses with many old cars in their yards begin to cluster against the highway. They are a town called Orderville, Utah. Orderville has an excessive number of rock shops.

“I think you’d do well in Orderville,” Kevin says to me.

“Yes. I think you’re right.”

“I’ll just drop you off. You can work at one of these rock shops.”

“No. I don’t want to sell rocks. I want to hunt rocks. I’ll go out in the wild and lasso them and bring them in. Someone’s got to do it.”

Many gargantuan tour buses lumber by. They are coming from the Grand Canyon.

“What are all these buses doing in Orderville?” Kevin asks.

“They’re going to the rock shops. The passengers need something to take home with them.”

A sign jumps out of some bushes. It points to right. We swerve off 89 south and onto a one-lane ribbon of asphalt with crumbling edges. It leads to a big sign that says Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park.

Inside the visitor’s center a girl gets out a map and spins it hither and thither on the countertop, trying to figure out which way it goes and where we are on it. She hands it to us and points into the distance and says, “There’s a trail off that parking lot over there.”

A snake-like sidewalk leads onto a platform with silver bleachers. It’s a lookout. Kevin and I stare out at the sand. Shadows spring across the pink-orange slopes. Their razor-sharp crests glint in blazing noonday sun. Prehistoric silence suffuses the landscape. A cool wind augments the emptiness. The scene strikes an eerie and beautiful note like a fugitive vision from the subconscious of Salvador Dali.

Kevin and I traipse up the side of the tallest dune, punching a line of footprints into its sharp crest. From the top, we watch the swells rise and fall. The sand is impeccably soft. It is the color of human skin. The many dunes coalesce into a single body, forming a voluptuous naked woman. I stand on her hip as she lounges in the sun.

“I wonder,” Kevin says from a few steps back, “If we don’t come back, will it occur to that park ranger to send out a search party?”

“No,” I say. “She couldn’t even read the map she gave us. She can’t locate the visitor station on it, much less lost hikers. I’m pretty sure she didn’t know what it was a map of.”

Back on the wavy sidewalk Kevin and I stop and pour eleven pounds of sand out of each of our shoes. We drive back to highway 89 and go south toward Kanab, Utah. The drive is short and easy. Halfway through, we pass a sign that says Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. It’s a back entrance of some kind.

“Hey!” I yell. “That’s the same park from another angle! It’s a whole other perspective!”

“I can’t believe no one told us,” Kevin says.

In Kanab, we stop for a breakfast sandwich and look at the town. It has the air of a boomtown that’s lost its luster and must now survive by tourism. In winter, it is empty. In summer, it is flooded with trinket-buyers. The locals are wary of the tourists. The tourists can sense this. It makes them nervous, but they still want to buy something that proves they were here. They move in packs around the souvenir shops and restaurants. The locals smile. The tourists smile. They accept each other reluctantly. It’s a fascinating dynamic.

“Forget highway 14,” Kevin says. “You can’t navigate Cedar City. It would be best to go from St. George to Kanab and then take 89 to the dunes.”

“Absolutely. Cedar City is nonsense. It has no signs and the locals don’t know where they are.”

-May 28, 2008

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