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I followed the two of them as they navigated around trees that seemed strange in this mountain landscape. Instead of dense maples and scrub oak, this little ridgeline was scattered with flora that looked drier than the rest of the vegetation in the basin. I recognized the soft, peeling bark of junipers, more common in the Utah deserts than in the Wasatch, but couldn’t name the other tree.

“Baqui, what kind of tree is this?”

“Greasewood. Well, that’s what we call them at least. Their bark burns black.”

Dry, golden grass brushed our ankles and calves as we stepped over the crumbling dirt trail. Our destination was an outcrop, a place where bedrock is exposed. Outcrops aren’t covered by soil and vegetation, making them easy features for geologists to examine without having to excavate. When we look at outcrops, we see the bones of a landscape.

This outcrop is where my father’s family had “weenie roasts” every summer and fall. Though he admitted the official name might be something else, my grandpa called it Rattlesnake Ridge.