Northern Lights

Beautiful days, and good humans at Indian Creek - By: Steph Davis

By KAVU

January 21^st, 2025

October’s finally here, the month of magic in southeast Utah—I look forward to it all year! October also means my seasonal gathering of crack-minded climbing folk at Indian Creek. This season we had several friends returning from previous Indian Creek Crack Clinics, and some new folks joining in, along with my own crew of longtime desert devotees.

Every Indian Creek Clinic has something unique, that makes it a memorable time. In the weeks and days leading up to this October’s clinic, I was getting nervous that we’d all be much, much too hot in the desert this year. Temps were reaching 90 degrees every day all through September, and I was starting to wonder if we were permanently stuck in August?!

Funny enough, by the first week of October came around, we were stilling hitting 90 every day, but the combination of longer nights and crisper mornings with unseasonably warm days actually made for some of the nicest shady climbing and camping conditions we’ve ever had at an October clinic. Who knew? I felt very lucky after all!

We got to do all the things we love to do at these events—taping hands up, jamming hands and feet and other parts into cracks, turning face climbers into crack climbers!, eating good food, playing music around a fire…and then, coming totally out of nowhere as far as I was concerned…. we got to see the aurora borealis!!!!

The northern lights are generally seen in the north, hence the name. Being so far south, I never expected to get to see them here! On our second night around the campfire, someone noticed some streaks in the sky to the north, someone else remembered having seen something in the news about the northern lights being visible in Salt Lake at this time, and as we wandered a bit away from the fire to look, we realized we were actually seeing the northern lights in southeast Utah!

Strangely enough, the lights were best viewed by taking a photo, and they were red and purple (rather than the more typical green and blue). The colors were incredibly beautiful, framing the big dipper that sparkled behind them, and very vivid for about 15 minutes. Then the colors slowly faded away, leaving the constellations and the Milky Way shining bright against the night sky.

For me, that was truly a once in a lifetime experience, and I would have missed it completely had we not been camping out together at Indian Creek. Just another reminder of how small we are, and how magical the universe is.