Images of The Wave at Vermilion Cliffs National Monument – Northern Arizona, taken in May 2021.

It is one of the toughest ‘tickets’ in the national park system; The Wave, located in the Coyote Buttes North wilderness of Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. To protect the delicate sandstone formation, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) holds lotteries and allows only sixty-four people a day into the area. So, in early 2021 when I contracted with Dreamland Tours to try to get into The Wave, they made it very clear to me that the chances were very slim that I would reach my goal. Knowing that less than four percent of applicants actually land a permit I was resolved to simply take a chance knowing full well I would more than likely be visiting some other destination on that particular day.

Then, upon arriving in Page Arizona I got the call, my tour group of five had miraculously gotten permits; I was going to The Wave! It was a tough, for me at least, 6.4-mile round-trip hike. Luckily the temperature was in the low 80s but my knees screamed at me the entire way and considering this was the first strenuous hike I had taken in over a year the rest of my body was also voicing its discontent! Our guide Robert, who actually hiked most of the way barefoot, worked diligently to pace the group to keep me from falling behind and personally guided me over the last few miles back to the parking area. If this would have been a reality show the rest of the group would have surely voted me off of the ‘island’!

As exhausting as the experience was the payoff was spectacular! The Wave is a relatively small area but it is poetry in motion, only it is flowing Navajo Sandstone frozen in time; a beautiful graceful work of layered sandstone art which only nature could take the eons to produce. It is awe inspiring; almost as awe inspiring as the luck it took to get me there to see it!