YOU MIGHT MISTAKE MOAB FOR MARS
With a surface like a red planet, Moab’s rust-colored cliffs ascend and drop with dramatic suddenness. Red earth. Blue sky. Standing before the empty, open landscape, there is a remoteness that feels like another planet—as if your eyes were the first to see this strange and distant land. A place is untouched by known civilization and perhaps the home of a mystery about to be unraveled. Were a spaceship to cut a line of vapor across the sky, you wouldn’t be surprised. Yet somehow, strangely, you get the feeling you’ve been here before. And you could be easily
forgiven if, on striking the Colorado River, you feel as though you’ve suddenly been transported into the heart of Apache country. See there— where the water cuts through the canyons, the banks level, and the green foliage springs up from the sediment? That’s where the wagons ford. A place of a possible ambush. No, you didn’t live in the Old West, and yet … you’ve seen this place before. You’ve been here. Stared down the country from horseback.
With dust in the air and the hot sun on your neck, your eyes squint. You remember pioneer trails and desperate cavalry battles, echoing gunfire through the canyons. There is something to that feeling that’s more than déjà vu. A truth: You’ve been to Moab many times before in film. An actor in his own right, Moab has worn the masks of many worlds. But when you visit Moab, Utah, you not only see those worlds, you begin an adventure of your own.
