Sleeping on Slickrock

I left my camp at the mouth of Steep Creek at 7a yesterday, headed for Water Canyon. Unfortunately, in the morning stillness, I neglected to consider the effect of the day's wind on my tent. What a rookie. Is it ever windy on a hot, sunny afternoon in southern Utah? On my way back down the Gulch later in the afternoon, the gusts were working me over and I started to worry about my camp. Rightfully so. The wind had picked the tent out of the little slickrock alcove in which I'd left it, rolled it across the cliff wall, and dropped it into a garden of prickly pear.

Now, hopefully you've never personally encountered a prickly pear, because it has more than a few two-inch spines as sharp as needles and as strong as nails. When I got the tent free, the inside of it looked like the mouth of a piranha. I spent a long time picking prickly pear spines from the tent and getting it ready to use again. Sleeping without it was impossible because the gnats were bad. Finally, I managed to contain the damage, pile some rocks on the tent, and make some dinner.

When I went to bed, I noticed that the slickrock felt a little harder than usual, so I put a couple of extra puffs of air into the Therma-Rest. After a while, I started feeling a rock against my back again, so I turned over and ran my hand down the pad. There it was: A prickly pear spine the size of finishing nail driven straight through the Therma-Rest. The pad had been in the tent when the tent set sail and must have landed directly on the thorn. Sleeping on slickrock is great when you have a pad; sleeping on slickrock when your pad has been punctured is like, well, sleeping on slickrock. Or, rather, it is like laying awake on slickrock until it is time to start the coffee.