And again the river came to Devil's Canyon.

It whispered in the shallowest gully, chuckling fingers of water playing soft across holly and stone. It hissed and sounded like dull chimes in tiny fallings, gathering in surprising pools, dancing along the path with me, its face shining as if too shy to ask, "Which way, Mike? Which way, today?"

The river gathered itself from the highest snow-kissed peaks, as three days of sleet and snow caught the first light and were transformed.

After over 1500 vertical feet of travel, the river leaped and foamed around the talus of the Javelina Basin, its many-voiced song rising to me where I sat, coiling my rope, feet dangling into the void at the top of a long, loose aid crack I'd been working the week before. The sun felt good on my face after the chill of the hike in.

Rain and storms had brought the first touches of spring, but the early morning heat of summer was still a couple months away. Already. I shook my head, wondering where the days went. Between my determination to do more climbing and hiking, the schedule of a job that takes me all over the country, and weekends consumed by the production of some concert or another, the new millenium had come, and the old one had passed, almost without notice and certainly without pause.

Another winter, and the beginning of another year. I listened to the call of the river and looked back through time, to the first winter I had been here, three years past.

The river had been in full cry in 1997. The months of December and January had produced several unusually long periods of rain, downpours lasting two or three days. The desert was lush with the promise of new life, and I had just stumbled across a secret hidden in plain sight for over 10 years.

Previous exploration had led me to follow a faint, deteriorating road that seemed to head toward the center of the mystery. I had delayed actual progress into the canyon, bouldering in the vast plain of high-test, star-quality volcanic debris that surrounds most of Devil's Canyon, which has made this area the logical location for the Phoenix Bouldering/Toprope Competition. That day, with the rain clearing, and blustery winds pushing my little vehicle all over the road, I was determined to begin serious exploration of the interior.

My vehicle easily climbed up through the carved hills, following the gravel road through three miles of cholla, holly, manzanita, and cat's claw. A single gaunt coyote eyed me from the verge. The course climbed 1000 feet, from the road to the SRP power station supplying untold amounts of voltage to the Arizona Grid. Parking just beyond the gate, I climbed from the still-running vehicle, yawned, stretched and froze.

High above, winging through the gale, an enormous hawk circled. It's piercing challenge cut through the wind, and underscored another sound. I swiftly bent and killed the ignition, listening. There.

"The desert was lush with the promise of new life, and I had just stumbled across a secret hidden in plain sight for over 10 years."

The hawk circled and circled again, heading off into the south as I donned jacket and cap and gloves in a blur, casting glances at the locks, contents of the vehicle, and the still-tumbling sky. Checking my daypack for water, snacks, knife, matches, compass...all there. All right. Twenty-five minutes of hiking and backtracking in the fog and low-lying clouds brought me to the top of a rim-perched spire that would later be "Born Cross-eyed," one of the premier routes of the Canyon. The wind tore at me fitfully as rain, then sleet came in brief flurries, like a fading fighter's blows. Somewhere, far, far below, the river was roaring, singing, chuckling and shouting, shaking the stones with its voice.