Lessons Learned From the Wild Women of the Paria Canyon

by Sarah Bella Ortiz

“We can have wilderness without freedom; we can have wilderness without human life at all, but we cannot have freedom without wilderness.” -Edward Abbey

The first time I listened to these words was in December of 2020. I was sitting in the passenger seat of an old Honda Civic gazing out of the rear view mirror as the town of Kanab, Utah faded into the snowy, desert landscape. An audiobook of Abbey’s Desert Solitaire played in the background.

I was leaving my first seasonal job in the outdoor industry; a short stint at a wilderness therapy company that had left me utterly exhausted. I drove east for three days, ready to put the desert as far behind me as possible, doubting that I would ever return. But in early October of 2022, I sat on a plane bound once again for the Utah desert. This time, I was on my way to meet Sunny Stroer, the founder and primary expedition leader for AWExpeditions. I was one of 7 women to receive a Summit Scholarship that year, allowing me to hike the Paria Canyon on an all-female team.

As I sat on the plane, gazing out at the landscape below, I found myself thinking about one of Edward Abbey’s assertions from Desert Solitaire, the idea that there can be no freedom without wilderness. I think this sentiment is true for women in a way that Abbey could not have understood.

Growing up as girls, we are taught to view ourselves through the eyes of others. We learn to value our bodies for the way they are perceived rather than for what they can do for us. We are held hostage by so called self care rituals that serve no other purpose than to make our form more palatable to the gaze of the onlooker.

So who do we become when we enter the desert wilderness? Who are we when we sit alone by the river, hidden by the towering sandstone walls of the Paria Canyon? Can we finally take a deep breath in, puff out our stomachs, and rest; free from the eyes of the world? Can we care for ourselves, free from our own judgment and ridicule? These were questions I hoped to answer as I prepared to walk into the wilderness, for the first time in my life, surrounded by only other women.

I met Sunny that evening, while sitting on the patio of one of the more upscale Kanab hotels. Her name matched her demeanor perfectly. Sunny introduced herself to the team in a bright, sparkly, tone and then invited us to do the same. I listened intently as the women around me began to speak.

Accompanying me on the trip were Claire and Beth, two sisters, excited to hike alongside their daughters, Shannon and Natalie, and their close friend, Teanna. From AWE expeditions, along with Sunny, there was Nathalie, our co-guid and Shea, one of AWE’s newest employees.

The AWE x Paria team (R-L): Nathalie, Shannon, Sarah, Shea, Sunny, Teanna, Claire, Beth, Nathalie

After these brief introductions, we strolled to a local restaurant. The world was tinted orange with sunset, sand, and warm laughter. We arrived and ordered drinks from a wonderfully endless menu of specialty cocktails. As the colorful beverages began to arrive, Sunny requested our attention.

“For our first ice breaker,” she began, in a beautifully sing songy German accent, “I would like us to go around the table and say first, what we are most excited about, and then, what worries us most, as we prepare to embark on our 5 day Paria backpacking adventure.”

All day I had been doing my best to focus on my excitement, but this mention of fear sent lingering doubts flooding into the forefront of my mind. What if I did not prepare well enough? What if I am not the competent hiker and backpacker I claimed to be in my scholarship application? Will everyone find out that I don’t belong here?

Sunny began the icebreaker and by the time it was my turn to speak, my worries had dissipated. Many of the women at the table had expressed similar fears to mine. We were all scared that we hadn’t trained sufficiently, that we would hold the others back, and that we didn’t belong. We were two generations of women, spanning likely 4 or 5 decades, all afraid that we weren’t enough. I think this is one of the reasons that experiences in the outdoors for exclusively women are so important. That night I fell asleep thinking about our dinner. I decided that the person I was that day was exactly the person that I needed to be for the upcoming expedition.

The next day we woke up early, packed our bags, and we were off, into the Paria. We started our hike with a quick visit to a slot canyon. The sun reflecting off of the narrow walls illuminated us as we stretched our arms out, attempting to touch both sides of the canyon at once. It felt nice to be big in a small space.

Despite the novel company, being back in the Utah desert brought with it memories of working in wilderness therapy. For this job, I had led backpacking trips for teenage girls in mental health crises, but with limited training and support, I felt like I was powerless to provide them with the care they needed; like a tiny grain of sand in a vast desert of woe. Maybe this memory was why, the night before, my mind had been filled with thoughts of my impending inadequacy.

After the slot canyon, the journey was all sun and sweat. River crossings provided some cooling relief, but our cheeks began to turn rosy with sunburn just a few hours into the day. Sunny, noticing our rapidly reddening faces, stopped knee deep in the river. “You know,” she called back to us, “Paria mud is some of the best sunscreen I’ve ever used.” She then reached into the water and smeared her face with a few dollops of brown, clay like, dirt. Gasps from my fellow hikers echoed my own surprise at this gesture. We all looked down at the mud hesitantly.

Finally, Claire reached into the river, and with a palmful of mud, painted her face with a beaming smile. I looked down at the mud and then up at the flashing cameras of the other hikers. I decided I’d risk a sunburn if it meant looking glamorous in the social media posts of my new companions.

While working in wilderness therapy, I remember the women and girls I hiked with, students and staff alike, often sacrificed well being in order to keep up a semblance of appearances. We would wash our faces each morning, despite our limited water supply and we would rub sage leaves on our skin to mask the smell of sweat, despite the leaves producing rashes in sensitive armpits.

I admired Claire as she gleefully painted her face with mud, her laughter echoing through the canyon. This act of self love came naturally to her. She understood that sometimes allowing yourself to be dirty is, in fact, the kindest thing you can do for your body. For the rest of us, this lesson would take time to learn.

Good company made the miles pass quickly and before I knew it, we were sitting at camp preparing for a moonlit dinner. Sunny boiled water for our dehydrated meals while we exchanged congratulatory remarks after a day of hard work.

Chicken larb in a bag never tasted so good. I burned my tongue on a spoonful of rice and cabbage, too impatient to let the boiling mixture cool down before digging in. Even with this excitement, I still glanced at the calorie count on the back of the package, and by the conversations I heard around me, I could tell others had looked as well.

By the end of the night, Sunny was walking around camp helping us finish our backpacking meals. All leftovers would have to be carried on our backs over the remaining miles. According to Sunny, this was not uncommon. In fact, she often had to coerce AWE Expedition hikers into finishing their meals on the first night, telling them that this food was the fuel they needed to reach camp the next day.

I couldn’t help but compare this story to my own experience as a guide. I remember one particular morning entering a girls group mid trip. It was breakfast time, so I was expecting to smell warm oatmeal or cinnamon bread cooking over a fire, but as I approached camp I was met with no such aroma. Instead the girls sat in front of their backpacks sipping water, their food bags and cooking equipment still packed away from the night before.

I asked why no one was eating, and learned that another staff member had told them about the supposedly magic effects of intermittent fasting. Many of the girls were in the program due to eating disorders and had struggled to resist the lure of this calorie restricting suggestion. I spent the rest of the shift attempting to help the girls to see food as nourishment and as self care. I remember this being difficult, especially because these were ideas that I struggled to accept for myself.

I then compared this experience to the first time I took my partner backpacking. During our first dinner he ate half of the meals he had packed for the three day trip. He had little concern for our limited food supply let alone nutrition labels and calorie counts. He ate because he was hungry.

Back in the Paria I forced myself to finish my entire chicken larb meal. When I was done I proudly showed Sunny the empty package. Despite feeling uncomfortably full in my sleeping bag, I was happy I had finished the whole thing. I knew it would prove beneficial for the following day of hiking. The next morning I woke up to a full stomach, and the sting of a sunburn on my cheeks; the lessons of the previous day made manifest on my skin and in my belly.

As the week passed, the rhythm of life in the canyon began to feel natural, but the wonders of the landscape never ceased to amaze me. Every day, I was inspired by the ways in which the freedom of the Paria influenced my fellow hikers. I awoke to angelic singing echoing off of sandstone walls. I witnessed women bathing in the water, their demeanors relaxed and flowing like the river itself.

One day, Sunny asked us each to share a moment from our lives that we would wish to return to if we could. We took turns recounting our stories. Some women had heartwarming memories of love, family, and adventure. Others struggled to find a moment they wanted to revisit, instead desiring to forage onward.

We spoke amidst a backdrop of Paiute petroglyphs, our own personal histories juxtaposed against those of the people who lived here thousands of years ago. We all walked the canyon together, merely a few millennia apart.

By the final day of the hike everyone had learned to laugh at the ridiculous calorie counts on the packages of energy gels and gummies we consumed by the handful. Our faces were smeared with mud, some intentionally and some happy accidents. Finally, what had begun as hesitant steps through the sand, had become confident leaps over rocks and into the river.

As we began to near the exit of the canyon, Shannon pulled some mascara and lipstick out of her pack. We all gazed longingly at this luxury we had gone without for the past week. Shannon applied the makeup liberally, adding a gorgeous splash of color to her face.

I loved the juxtaposition of her pink lipstick against the sun and orange sand she carried on her skin. I think this combination was so wonderful to me because it represented all the freedom we have as women in the wilderness. We have the freedom to represent ourselves in a hundred different ways all at once. We can, in one instant, push our bodies to the limit, accomplishing feats of superhuman strength. Then, in the next instant, we can adorn ourselves with makeup and glittering jewelry. We can be as tough or as soft as we desire. There are endless ways to feel confident, beautiful, and accepted.

By late afternoon, I found myself once again in a car, watching the Paria fade away into the desert landscape. As we neared Kanab, Sunny told us that, at 68 years old, Claire had been the oldest woman to hike the Paria Canyon with AWE Expeditions. To add to this amazing accomplishment, this had been Claire’s first ever backpacking trip. I was in awe. After watching the comfort and ease with which she navigated life in the canyon, I would have thought she had been doing this for a long time.

As we drove, I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror. My face was covered in dirt and the tip of my nose was peeling from sunburn, but I felt more beautiful than I had in a while. Most of all, I felt content.

It is comforting to me, knowing that the wilderness waits for women; ever present, and old as the world itself. Some of us find it young and fall in love, while others find it later in life. The wilderness teaches us who we are when no one is watching. It teaches us how tough we can be when we have to rely on our own strength and grit, and it teaches us how gentle we can be, through the unique ways it requires us to care for ourselves. It offers us a type of freedom wholly different from that of our daily lives.

Everytime I enter the wilderness I learn something new. This time, the lessons came not from the landscape but from the other women I walked with. Through their self love and acceptance I learned to love myself a little more.

The next morning, as we said our goodbyes in the hotel parking lot, Shannon told me that I shouldn’t feel afraid to be big and take up space. As I enter 2023, I will walk the earth like I am as tall as the towering Paria Canyon and as infinite as the flowing Paria River.