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82 Walking Down and Backwards in Walnut Canyon After the switchbacks, early in the easy slope to the bottom, you can risk jumping onto the terrace below, then backtrack through transition growth, a mix of juniper, pine, cactus and agave. The scent of wet limestone wraps you in the great, shaded funnel where you find yourself, under a shelf, squatting next to the groove cut by fast, tumbling water. Empty pools are within hand’s reach, and fish bones if you scratch into the waterless shore. Simply look across the canyon, at eye level, and there’s a dark shelter, with the wall of uniform stones and its doorway: neighbors across the water that isn’t there. Now you’ll want to straighten up, move that branch from the way you came. But don’t, because then it will be a path, and the wrong one because it was all different then, and that is all I’m going to tell you. J.C. ...

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