Letter from an Expatriate

As a contributing editor for WildernessUtah.com, it's my “job” to engage in the pursuit of outdoor adventure in the great Beehive state. I don’t exactly get “paid,” but the right to sarcastically put quotes around things is my salary. I am supposed write about my activities, throw in a few witticisms and kernels of advice, maybe a photograph or two, and post it for the world to read. This arrangement was never overly onerous, as outdoor undertakings are a common activity in my life. Writing about them was an easy step. (The chief editor of this site might disagree that getting me to write was in any way easy).

However, the glory days of exploring the backcountry on my trusty horse with reins in one hand and camera in the other have come to an end. I am currently 1700 miles away from the Utah, sitting beneath the stained glass and gothic arches of the reading room at the University of Michigan Law School. Instead of scrub oak and sagebrush, I have the Lawyers Edition of the United States Supreme Court Reports (Annotated) on one side, and a thickly highlighted copy of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on the other. While both law school and the state of Utah are very dry, the similarities end there.

I hesitate to revisit the thought process that led me to my relocation to the geological pancake of the upper mid-west. I already spend enough time second guessing it. I have never yet been able to verbally evaluate my decision without sounding ungrateful. If one MUST go to law school, U of M isn’t a bad place (99.1% of last year's grads are employed). Surely someone who spent his childhood breaking wild mustangs and spending hours in the hot sun building barbed wire fences can wrangle a little law, especially when stacked up against a bunch of sissified east coast prep-schoolers.

My point in writing this article is to simply say this: Enjoy Utah. Michigan does have natural beauty, but it is of a very different kind. By different I mean that thousands of years ago, the retreating ice shelf took most Michigan’s scenic beauty with it. They teach us tolerance and diversity here. Everything has value. But the fact is that Michigan can’t hold a candle to Utah. The drama of the Uintas, the red rocks of Dixie, and the compact and versatile ecosystems that every canyon and crevasse of Utah contains are not to be found in the sprawling suburbs and soporific farmlands of Michigan.

A few weeks before I left, the contributing editors of this site visited a sweet little cave burrowing deep into a towering mountain. It was near a great trail, not far from some legendary climbing areas, and on public land. It was also 200 yards from a subdivision and less than a mile from downtown Provo.

Southeastern Michigan is heavily populated. Earnest seekers of recreation must go far to find it. Public land is usually packed with city-dwellers seeking refuge. Back home along the Wasatch Front, following any east-west street will take you either to the mountains or to the desert. It was a brilliant bit of urban planning on Brother Brigham’s part to select a spot where the urban area was sixty miles long and five miles wide.

Now Michigan isn’t all bad. In fact, I learned that the number one most visited tourist attraction in the state is the Cabela’s in Dundee. People there will tell you Michigan is an outdoorsman’s paradise and there is some evidence to that effect. But I’ve been in law school long enough to know that the case of Michigan v. Utah is open and shut.