Squaw Peak Hike

Fall is amazing.

The colors, the temperatures, the brilliant sunsets across the cloud-shrouded mountains...

A few weeks ago I was riding home from work with a buddy when I looked up and noticed the deep, rust-red trees on Squaw Peak. It was inviting, and the weather was going to be perfect for hiking, so this last Saturday I talked some friends into hiking up there with me.

It was fantastic. Provo from that vantage point looks pretty cool, I guess, but the sun effects with the clouds as the sun starts to set are brilliant. The trees were a brilliant red...oddly enough, the same red as the dirt up there. I guess rocks up there are ferrous...and tan. We paused at the top to get some pictures--one is a fledgling pro photographer--and take a rest.

Those of you that know me know that I'm easily bored. Thus was the case this day, especially as the peak isn't exactly shaded from the sun, so I wandered off a bit.

Now you're not going to believe this bit--heh, you probably shouldn't--but as I wandered through a particularly reddish patch of sand, there was a kind of metallic groaning and suddenly everything was motion, sand, dust, and THUNK I was sprawled across the ground, half covered in dirt and rocks.

Right. Sinkholes. This happens out here in the desert, I've been told, and so I resolved to set to scrabbling up the sides and shouting for some help.

Well, I must have bumped my head, 'cuz all my "scrabbling" put out was a sort of demented groan. As I slowly recovered my oh-so-coordinated faculties I realized a few things.

One. I was covered in dust.

Two. There was sunlight. Huh. Must've fallen in through there.

Three. The ground was exceedingly flat and hard.

Then I rolled over and, as I got on my hands and knees, realized the ground was smooth.

Whaaa--? Sinkholes don't have--

So I sat up and looked around. From the sunlight and sky-light coming in from the hole I had made, I could tell that the roof of the cavity was about 18' up, the chamber was square, and...there were doors in the walls.

A bit of a shock, that. I'd read enough Andre Norton to think of ancient aliens right off, but I'd been alive long enough to suffer severe psychological dissonance with that idea. Could be Amerindian. Must be.

While my brain was sorting that out, I noticed shouting from outside--I must have made some sort of obnoxious noise as I was falling. Might as well help them find me, so I started shouting responses. "Hey!" "Down here!" "Helloooo!" They were terribly inventive. I know. I came up with them.

After a while a head interrupted the outline of the sky. "Hey, stand back, looks like it's a sinkhole! Kunkee, you OK?"

My head was clear enough by this point that I could get more than a grunt out, so I called back, reassuring them I was alright ("Yeah").

Wait. My friend is calling down through a hole in a roof of an alien room and all I can say is "Yeah?" Woof. By now the head had disappeared, so I shouted "You guys will want to see this!" and started really looking around. Two doorways were blocked with metal panels that didn't budge when I pushed on them. The doorframes were definitely metal, ruling out the ancient American origin theory. Well, my tired psyche sighed, might as well play with the alien hypothesis. (Oh wait! secret government agency!)

The third doorway wasn't blocked, so I got out my cell phone and started walking down the hall into its wan illumination. At first I tested every step, fearing that another collapse could leave me injured and further isolated from help, but the floorstuff was solid and I was soon distracted by other sights. Conduits and pipes ran along the top of the corridor I had entered, and dark, closed doorways appeared periodically in the walls. Each door was marked in runes--I say runes, but they were nothing like I'd seen before.

After a hundred feet or so I found myself in a larger room than my little phone could illuminate, so I started examining the walls at the entrance. Surely whoever built this knew what a lightswitch was.

Then there was a *clang* and the room was suddenly lit. (Apparently contactors were still in vogue when this place was built...) Turning from my avid inspection of blank wall, any thoughts of ancient Indians or secret government construction disappeared. A blue, ethereal head (well, they looked like eyes!) was staring at me from a above a waist-height dais across the room.