While Visiting the Moab Pile, Kokopelli is Energized by the Moab Xstream Race

On April 14, 2012, I headed toward Moab, Utah on U.S. Highway 191 South. By the time I picked up Kokopelli at Canyonlands Field, it was mid afternoon. As we approached the Moab Pile, I turned right on to the Potash Road and then a quick left into a dirt parking area. From there, we could look down on the Moab UMTRA toxic cleanup site.

Since my last visit to the UMTRA site, federal stimulus funding had run out. Now the Moab Rail removal process was running only part time. In addition, flooding in 2011 had wiped out the bicycle path along the Colorado River. As I viewed the toxic and radioactive waste site, there was no human activity at all. Seeing that lack of activity was disheartening, but expected under current economic conditions.

Turning my attention to the Potash Road, I spotted a variety of bicyclists heading downhill towards Highway 191. With numbers affixed to their chests, they appeared to be near the end of an extreme athletic adventure. Two men with the number 227 across their chests were waiting there for a team member who had faltered on the racecourse. Talking with them, I learned that all of the bicyclists were part of the Moab 2012 Adventure Xstream Race.

After watching a lone rider’s slow descent of the Potash Road, I noticed a couple who had stopped nearby. From the 227 team, I had learned that an individual, a team or a couple could enter this race. All in one day, the race includes paddling a kayak down the Colorado River, a cross-country run, a rope-assisted climb up a rock face and then a repel down another steep slope. After all that, participants ride their bicycles many miles back to the finishing line near Moab.

Stopping for only a brief rest, the couple looked in good shape to complete the race. As I spoke with them, Kokopelli got restless while sitting in the truck. Soon he started glowing more different colors than the old Atlas Uranium Mill, below. Not wanting to risk his blowing a flux capacitor, I invited Kokopelli out to meet the race participants. With his unique personality, Kokopelli and the female racer bonded immediately.

In order to document the scene, I asked the man to hold my old Moab sign while the woman gave Kokopelli a squeeze. Just as I snapped the picture, a flood of new energy light came down from the sky above the Moab Rim. Such plasma flows are common in and around Moab, but this was the first time I had seen new energy light anywhere near the Moab Pile. Unless you count the phosphorescent purple dust devil I had seen the year before, I believe this was the first such documented event.

After getting his picture taken with the race participants, Kokopelli calmed down and dropped to a lower energy state. It had been a light snow season in and around Moab the previous winter. Even so, an early spring storm had just dropped a fresh white frosting on the nearby La Sal Range. As plush Kokopelli and I headed toward our campsite at the Moab Rim Campark, he snapped the picture of the La Sal Mountains that you see here.

The following day, Kokopelli and I planned to visit Behind the Rocks, looking for evidence of environmental degradation at that site. I will save that story for my next article.