Many of my early memories from childhood are of doing nothing. I could go outside on a sunny summer day and spend several minutes just looking at a tree. I'd observe the light flickering through the wafting green leaves and the shadows dancing on the ground. I'd watch a bird land on a twig, sing for a while and then fly off to another tree. I'd get up close to examine the patterns in the bark and follow ants climbing up the trunk. I'd feel the coolness of the shade and be content spending time with my silent, sturdy companion.

I could do the same thing today, though the act would feel forced. It's more difficult to focus my attention for any prolonged period of time. I am now an active member of a society of people who shun stillness and silence, of people who need special apps to save themselves from their phone addictions because they no longer have the willpower to control their cravings. Thankfully, we have television or movies or music or podcasts or the World Wide Web to turn to for consolation. There's always something else to click on.

We're drowning out our inner voice by flooding our minds with outside voices. We've ceded our time for reflection, our time for staring at trees. Though we suppress our concern, it's clear we've lost something. We've lost our ability to do nothing.

Where can we reclaim our nothing? The desert seems like a good place to start. So we take a trip into nature, say to Canyonlands National Park, in an attempt to shake free from technology's grip and remove ourselves from the noise. With a warm breeze blowing through the open windows of our cars we pass by grazing cattle on the arid open range and roll through the entrance to the Island in the Sky. We drive along the narrow mesa that rises between the Colorado River to the east and the Green River to the west, facing south where at some point not too far in the distance the two great waterways converge to form one. We stop at an overlook, turn off our vehicles, walk to the cliff's edge and face our own personal intervention.

Gazing out over the infinite void of canyons within canyons, our jaws are agape but we produce no sound. Stunned by the stillness, the majesty and the desolation of the boundless desert before us, we forget to breathe. We forget ourselves.

“Stay here. You need this,” says the soul, and so we linger for a while.

“You're right,” we reply. “I'm sorry. I'll stay.”

Author Terry Tempest Williams grew up in Utah and makes her home near Arches and Canyonlands. In her latest book “The Hour of Land: A Personal Typography of America's National Parks,” she eloquently writes:

There's as much awe to be felt in what's absent in Canyonlands as what's present. It's startling to see so much nothing. There's no meadow of grass, no forest of trees to conceal what's below. The skin is peeled back; all is laid out in the open. This is where the earth bares its bones.

As a native of the fertile plains of the Midwest, it was jarring to behold a land this raw. Are we meant to see the earth so weathered and worn, so stripped and exposed? Is it our place to peek behind the veil?

But I soon felt an innate reverence for this wounded land. It is an honest place that doesn't conceal its treachery but unfurls it as far as the eye can see. It doesn't trick us into thinking it will provide comfort or aid, yet somehow it does. Maybe that is its trick.

I visited all five of southern Utah's remarkable national parks in May of 2017, making my first contact with the red rocks at Canyonlands. Containing four distinct districts—the Island in the Sky, the Needles, the Maze, and the combined rivers—it is both the largest and least visited of the lot. At 337,598 acres, Canyonlands covers more than four times the area of Arches National Park. Its entrance to Island in the Sky is a mere 30 minutes away from the entrance to Arches, yet Canyonlands' 2017 attendance was less than half of its more popular neighbor's.

I can't decide whether to scold those who see Arches and skip Canyonlands or to thank them. Though its name makes it sound like some sort of desert theme park, Canyonlands hasn't turned into that just yet. Unlike Arches, Bryce, Zion and the Grand Canyon's South Rim, it's relatively easy to escape the crowds here. You can find a place to yourself, close your eyes and feel the desert's pulse.

No one visits Canyonlands without becoming acutely aware of the element of time. It's never felt as tactile to me as it does here. Weaving between the prehistoric pinnacles of the Needles, tucked into every crevice of the labyrinthine Maze and wafting over the great abyss that surrounds the Island in the Sky is the residue of the hundreds of millions of years that went into forming this astonishing terrain. Our own time on earth seems so utterly insignificant in comparison.

Edward Abbey became a preeminent voice on Utah's Canyon Country after the publication of “Desert Solitaire” in 1968. The book covers his time spent as a park ranger at what was then known as Arches National Monument and includes an account of his descent into Canyonlands' remote Maze district.

Abbey was entranced by the desert and came to find it holds secrets it will never tell. It is a landscape “completely passive, acted upon but never acting. … Motionless and silent it evokes in us an elusive hint of something unknown, unknowable, about to be revealed. Since the desert does not act it seems to be waiting—but waiting for what?”

Perhaps Mr. Abbey was being a bit presumptuous with this query. I find it rather likely there is nothing the desert is waiting for. We consider the desert to be waiting because it sits there passively while it is shaped by the forces around it. But this isn't waiting; this is being. This simple state of being is what is unknowable to us because we struggle so mightily to live in the present without expectations of the future.

Thinking back on my time in Canyonlands, I see the desert as a teacher—the ultimate zen master. It was my guide and companion as I sat on a rocky outcropping in the warm spring air looking out over the rugged but peaceful terrain. It tried to show me the way to being, though I didn't give it enough time. Who has enough time?

Naturalist Paul Gruchow wrote about the value of underappreciated lands in “The Necessity of Empty Places.” In the book, he explains the discipline required to open one's self to nature's influence:

Abbey called Canyonlands “the most weird, wonderful, magical place on earth—there is nothing else like it anywhere.” It is a landscape that takes you to another world and allows you to get as lost in it as you'd like. Of Utah's Mighty Five, Canyonlands stands in my mind as the mightiest.

I spent a peaceful evening camping in the middle of what could've been an old western movie set location next to a solitary juniper tree and surrounded by burnt red dirt, dried-up cow pies, sagebrush and distant mesas in every direction. Set up on BLM land just outside the Needles district, the closest camper to my site was about three football fields away. Overcast skies meant there was no stunning sunset for evening entertainment, so I turned in early to prepare for a full day of hiking.

It takes a two-hour drive outside the park to travel between Island in the Sky and the Needles. There's no road between the two within Canyonlands due to the extremely rugged terrain. Closer to Moab and Interstate 70 and with more accessible attractions, Island in the Sky is far more popular than the Needles to the south, but the latter offers some of the best desert hiking to be found anywhere in America. Task a dreaming mind with devising the perfect desert hiking paradise and it would fail to spawn anything as impressive as this.

I began a gray morning in the Needles with a short 0.6-mile stroll around Cave Spring Trail to get my blood flowing before heading into the heart of the Needles. A historic cowboy camp protected by an old wooden fence is nestled under an overhang near the start of the trail which meanders around and on top of a rocky plateau. A wooden ladder leads up the formation, where you can do some light scrambling on the reddish-tan and white rocks and see if there's any water from recent rains in the many small potholes scattered about. It isn't very far off the ground, but from up here you can get a panoramic view of the desert landscape for dozens of miles in every direction. It's a good way to get acquainted with the park, but doesn't compare to what lies ahead.

After about an hour I headed back to my car and drove off to Elephant Hill Trailhead to make my way into the Needles. A dirt road leads to an absurdly scenic parking area surrounded on three sides by large rises of eroded Cedar Mesa Sandstone that declare you have arrived.

I walked behind a young German couple up the trail and, after some intense scrambling on slanted rock faces, we noticed we weren't on a trail at all. We hiked back a short distance, realized we'd missed a turn and laughed at our immediate navigational failing.

If it weren't for the hundreds of cairns to point the way, Canyonlands would be an incredibly difficult place to hike. Dirt paths frequently lead onto slickrock and over jumbles of giant boulders where you'd have no idea which direction to go if it weren't for the numerous tiny rock piles. It's tempting to break off the trail and scramble up an interesting rock formation, and there's nothing other than your physical limitations to prevent you from doing so. Though everyone follows the same routes (the Needles offers more than 60 miles of trails), it feels like there's a great deal of freedom while wandering this wilderness.

I hiked to Chesler Park on the recommendation of a park ranger, who said the trail provided some of the best views of the pinnacles. Not far into the hike you pass between two tall rocks that frame your first stunning view of the spires that stand beyond an open clearing of red dirt and sagebrush. The towers are striped with red and white bands and rise up to 400 feet from the earth. The trail leads toward them and away from any trace of present day.

After squeezing through a narrow fissure between two blackened rock walls and passing some incredible backcountry campsites that rest beneath a huge wall of red sandstone, I found myself surrounded by giants in every direction. The foreground was filled with tightly-packed pedestal and mushroom-shaped rocks. In the distance, hundreds of pinnacles of immense heights formed an imposing ring around me. It was like being encircled by a herd of sleeping stegosauruses.

I sit watching the shadows and sunlight change the colors of the pinnacles in the Needles district.

A raven waits nearby hoping for a morsel of food.

The view of a bend in the canyon from Big Spring Canyon Overlook.

A couple hikes with their child back to Elephant Hill Trailhead in the Needles district.

From Pothole Point, a butte is seen rising in the distance.

Petroglyphs up to 2,000 years old are visible on Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument, located just outside the Needles district.

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As I entered this arena the sun finally broke through and splashed across the red spires that now contrasted against a light blue sky which held feathery white clouds. I took my seat next to a hungry raven on a warming rock and scanned an astounding setting I knew I'd return to many times in the future when I close my eyes seeking an escape.

Chesler Park itself is an unexpected sight. Rising out of the circle of rugged pinnacles you come upon the flat expanse of a sandy desert grassland speckled with shrubs. The contrast between the intermingling terrains is striking and gorgeous. Prior to the establishment of Canyonlands National Park in 1964, this area was used for cattle grazing by the Dugout Ranch. I've never wanted to be a cowboy, but I also never considered that they tended their herds in such an idyllic setting.

As I made my way through the pinnacles back to the trailhead, sweating now under the hot sun, the trepidation I had felt about hiking alone in the desert was gone. I was a kid again, admiring rock spires now instead of trees. There was nothing on my mind but the world around me and a desire to return again soon to further explore this extraordinary setting.

From my perch on high the world is split horizontally into two equal parts. The brown dry earth reflects the bareness of the clear blue sky. It wouldn't seem so outrageous if the two should flip and a sea appear at my feet.

But I'm thankful for the view I have. Below are the backs of soaring birds and above the clouds are just barely out of reach. One thousand feet down, their dark shadows creep over the flat and barren bench of the canyon that stretches for miles before the earth falls out once more.

I stared at this view through the breathtaking frame of Mesa Arch just after a hoard of photographers shooting the sunrise scattered from the scene. I saw it again after hiking to Murphy Point, where wind gusts up to 35 miles per hour battered the fabric of a lone yellow tent weighed down by rocks just a few feet from a deathly drop. I saw it again over a lizard's shoulder while gazing out at Candlestick Tower. I saw it again at Grand View Point Overlook, where sandstone spires 300 feet tall look like toothpicks rising from the depths of Monument Basin. I saw it one last time at Green River Overlook, where down in the depths of the canyon a sliver of a snaking river slowly excavates more earth under the watchful eye of grand buttes and orange cliffs.

Two photographers admire the early morning view through Mesa Arch.

A man stands at the cliff's edge near Mesa Arch as the sun rises over Canyonlands.

The sun illuminates the bottom of Mesa Arch in the early morning hours.

A lizard soaks up the sun at Murphy Point with Candlestick Tower visible in the distance.

Sandstone spires rise from the bottom of Monument Basin.

A park ranger gives a talk to tourists at Grand View Point Overlook. The Abajo Mountains are clearly visible 35 miles away.

Hikers make their way over the slickrock near the rim of Upheaval Dome.

A father and daughter take in the scene at Green River Overlook.

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I could have taken in this view a dozen more times and not grown tired of it. The muck in my mind is absorbed by the arid earth and evaporates into nothing. In its place is clarity, peace and perspective. This is how the desert renews.

Gobsmacked by all I had already seen, Canyonlands presented me with a final confounding mystery before I continued my journey west. A road to the northwest section of Island in the Sky ends at a parking area below a bizarre landmark known as Upheaval Dome. A hike up to an overlook reveals something completely unexpected—a red-rimmed crater nearly three miles across filled with a whitish dome of older rock layers have been thrust up from below the newer layers.

“No way,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

It's uncertain how this crater came to be, but the prevailing theory is that a meteorite one-third of a mile in diameter crashed here roughly 60 million years ago and vaporized on impact. The theory posits that the unstable crater partially collapsed and underground rock layers were heaved upward to fill the void left by the impact. Shocked quartz, which has a deformed crystalline structure caused by intense pressure, was found here a decade ago and supports the meteorite theory.

I hiked the trail over slanted slickrock around the crater's east edge, fighting a strong wind to keep my balance on the way to a second vantage point to try to better understand what I was seeing. It didn't help, but the view of the crater and surrounding desert was worth the extra mile of walking.

The Green River Overlook was my final stop before departing, my last chance to lose myself in the canyons of Canyonlands. It may be the barest view yet, with the canyon shelf sprawling far and wide around a winding inner canyon where the river runs. A couple of families with teenagers stood nearby. Everyone was resting their elbows on the wooden railings with their necks craned forward to drink in the scene like parched wildlife gathered at a watering hole. I took my fill among the herd and departed in search of the next source.

Island in the Sky is a place of veneration. It's a unique setting where anyone can experience a peaceful calm without a long hike into the wilderness. Small crowds gather at the easily accessible overlooks, but the talking is minimal. There is standing and staring. There is stillness. There is an unspoken understanding that this is a place where the silence is necessary, so together we listen to nothing because nothing is what we've been missing.