As we drive the dark road east, I look up where stars dot a narrow path through the morning. I feel the press of hundreds of feet of sheer canyon walls more than see them. Ahead of us the dawn unwinds its hours, slowly unveiling the skyline—a jagged, ancient silhouette stretching for miles.

Today our goals are lofty but we are under the press of time: drive a total of 680 miles; find an undisclosed creek and catch one rare fish discovered in only a one mile section; who knows how many miles to walk; see incredible sites, ranging from redrock sandstone to alpine meadows. And 17 hours to get it done.

Details gradually emerge as time peels away the dark: layer upon layer of vermilions, ecrus, ash, blues. Sand and mud pressed by the weight of one another wait out time, who solidifies them. Thrusts them up. Weathers them down.

The dirt road takes us over the streambed which is surprisingly dry. Do we go up the mountain, where the water may still run, or has it percolated down only to rise again as a trout-bearing creek below us? We go up.

Stands of aspen, scrub oak litter and pine duff, fill the ravine a mile further up. The ravine is steep. An old fence cuts through it marking the forest boundary. An old skull lashed to a wooden post mocks us as it overlooks the bone-dry creekbed. Dan hikes up the far side and into the next, also empty, creekbed, then returns.

How does such a creek support a rare fish? How long does this bed hold water and how often? If there were fish here, where are they now?

A couple of miles further up, after driving an ATV track cut through dense trees in a pickup truck, we hike a mile through healthy, white aspen. Thick-boled, they grow in gentle arcs, this way and that, giving a motion to the trees, as if they are dancing, keeping time for the seasons.

Small seeps feed nearly imperceptible trickles. Taking their time to build to anything substantial, and only two miles above the last dry place, we’re fooled into thinking we’re in the wrong place.

Time to cut our losses, we pack up and head down the mountain, shaking our heads.