The rock walls comforted me as I continued up the narrow passage. I hadn’t seen anything like this before: barren rock with only the light in front of me to keep me going. It was an odd feeling of solitude, but I can’t say I hated it. In fact, I almost liked it, the sensation of being alone without anyone to tell me it was time to turn back, and I certainly wasn’t going to let myself talk me out of this now. I was much too close.

I heard that the view at the top of this bluff was unlike anything in the human world. If conditions were right, the sky would look like you could reach out and touch the never ending expanse of stars.

The gap in the rock in front of me looked to be so close, but I had to put into perspective how close it looked when I had begun this trek and how long ago that had been. Two hours. And in that time, nothing much had changed. The rock walls had become friendlier during that time. I had been able to get to know them.

After another hour of hiking, I had become so comfortable with the slant of the stone under my feet, I closed my eyes to hear all around me. I could just make out the muffled song of birds which flew about my head, although I couldn’t see them. The smell of the musty rock reminded me of an old book story, wise and safe. The sound of my footsteps bounced off the walls again and again, making me feel as though I was walking in an old cathedral.

I opened my eyes again. There it was. Sunlight. Coming through the misleadingly large gap that would present me with the view of a life time.

My feet wanted to give up, to let gravity do the work to get back down, but I refused to listen to them. Finally, I stepped through the natural stone gate. This was it. The top of the bluff that had been my challenge for the past 3 hours.

The sun was caught by the clouds, making the sky become grey. The rain water that had stayed on the bluff was still blue, as if it didn’t need anything to reflect to be beautiful.

There were lines of red mixed in with the slick-rock, reminding me of an American flag. Red streaks, white rock, blue pools. I noticed that the rock was slanted, just like the climb up. All the puddles, at one point, converged to make one spectacular line of waving blue that eventually rolled right off the cliff.

Carefully, I made my way to the edge, making sure not to disturb the stream of water. I sat down on the corner between earth and air, watching the water fall hundreds of feet below me, flailing and dancing in the air, until it disappeared before it reached the ground.

Even though I was stationary, I felt like I was flying through the wind like the water.

For hours, I sat up there, watching the people below gaze up at the source of the water and at the bottom of my shoes. They we probably wondering how someone got so high up. I laughed at them, because I was part of the sky for a moment in the history of Earth.

The sun began to fall, and I felt the evening breeze slightly move the path of the falling water.

Slowly, I stood up, not wanting to leave this place, but knowing that if I didn’t leave now, it would be practically impossible for me to get down. With a certain kind of solemn respect for the sky, rock, and water, I left the top of the plateau. The dark tunnel of stone surrounded me, but I wasn’t scared. I knew that there was beauty above me, and now, nothing frightened me. If the bluff was something of mystery, something hardly anyone had every seen, then the how can the unknown be frightening?

How could I be scared of something that could be beautiful?