It鈥檚 storming out in the sprawling grasslands. Everyone has hunkered down, weary bodies flung against the ground, their heavy packs the only shelter from the pelting hail and gusting winds. The storm has come after many days of walking in the middle of an eight-week journey over mountains and across sweeping plains.

That鈥檚 what鈥檚 happening in the story I鈥檓 hearing through my earbuds. What I鈥檓 seeing are the familiar streets and paths of my Austin, Texas, neighborhood. What I鈥檓 feeling is my feet hitting pavement, the steady rhythm of my breath, the already-humid early morning air on my skin.

I鈥檓 running while聽listening to an audiobook ( by Diane Cook). Throughout the pandemic, books have been my constant running companion, almost completely eclipsing music and podcasts. I listened to almost 50 in 2021 and about 40 in 2020. This pairing of stories and movement has saved me repeatedly.

I came to running at the age of 30. I鈥檇 been a devoted gym-goer for years聽and I鈥檇 dabbled in yoga. But I鈥檇 always found running boring and hard鈥攗ntil I moved to a small town in Colorado that had no gym and no yoga studio. What it did have were quiet streets, wide open spaces, and views of the West Elk Mountains. One day after work, as I watched my housemate lace up her running shoes, I said, 鈥淚 should try that one of these days.鈥� Why not right now, with me? she suggested.

I couldn鈥檛 think of a good reason not to. I made it roughly three miles without stopping鈥攏ot actually the best way to ease into running, I鈥檝e since learned. But it showed me that I, dreader of 鈥渢he mile鈥� in high school and hater of the treadmill鈥檚 monotony, could maybe do this.

Soon I was running on my own, sometimes in the evenings or more often first thing in the morning. Rarely more than three or four miles and never very fast, but I was doing it and liking it. My early thirties held a lot of surprises (a career shift, a new relationship, multiple cross-country relocations), but enjoying running remains up there in the pantheon of the unexpected.

Early on, I sought out music with a driving beat. Songs that would more or less match the cadence of my footfalls and, I hoped, propel me forward. This worked OK, but it didn鈥檛 give my mind anything to hold onto. There is something to be said for zoning out while running, but over the last couple years, amid the ongoing uncertainty of the pandemic, I have wanted to fill that time with stories. At first I missed the rhythm and swell of music, but I quickly found that the pleasure of following an engrossing plot more than made up for the loss.

During a period when few things have progressed in predictable ways, when days at home have blurred together and steps forward are often followed by zig-zagging steps back, running and audiobooks have been twin comforts. Together they offer a reliable way to feel time moving, to feel myself moving through space. And the outcome is nearly always positive: feeling good in my body throughout the day聽and feeding my mind with someone else鈥檚 well-crafted words.

Diving into books as an escape is nothing new, and it鈥檚 no surprise that being mostly homebound for so long made such temporary departures from my own life聽especially appealing. But listening to a book offers a unique kind of immersion: the immediacy, even intimacy, of having another person鈥檚 perspective piped directly into your ears. (The running-friendly earbuds I use, incidentally, were an Outside rec.) Not to mention you can easily do it with your hands free and your eyes safely on the path ahead.

The more invested I am in the book I鈥檓 listening to, the more the story becomes a thread woven through my day, from morning runs to evening dish-doing. And at a time when I haven鈥檛 always had the focus necessary to sit with a print book, audiobooks have fulfilled my compulsion to read. They鈥檝e also given me a way to be alone, sort of, in the home I share with my partner. We’ve managed not to get sick of each other even during the most stir-crazy months, a success I credit, in part, to the amount of time we鈥檙e content to spend inside our own headphoned worlds.

Still, running is my favorite time to listen to books, the physical and narrative momentum braiding together in a wonderfully satisfying way. So satisfying that I鈥檓 now running marathons! Just kidding. I鈥檓 not a goal-oriented runner鈥擨鈥檝e never signed up for a race, and a 40-minute run at an easy pace usually hits the spot鈥攂ut enveloping myself in a compelling story gives me something to move toward.

Of course, not all books can be enjoyed equally in audio form. For me, the sweet spot is ten hours or shorter and most of the time fiction or narrative nonfiction. Heavily plotted books are best, stories that keep me wanting to know what鈥檚 going to happen. Mysteries and thrillers are great. (I鈥檓 a recovering book snob, and when I made the leap from Literature to genre fiction, my gateway drug was Tana French like so many snobs before me.) I鈥檝e lately been drawn to dystopian tales and climate fiction of all kinds (Migrations, Weather, Fever Dream, Future Home of the Living God). I鈥檝e learned, too, that the narrating voice can make or break a listening experience. I even have a few favorite readers at this point: Marin Ireland (Nothing to See Here, We Run the Tides) and Xe Sands (A Children鈥檚 Bible, The Vanishers) come immediately to mind.

And while I believe that listening to a book is a form of reading, it is not the same as curling up on the couch and poring over pages, taking time to savor the most resonant sentences. With an audiobook, I am OK with not catching every single detail. I accept that occasionally my mind will wander or I鈥檒l be distracted by something in the real world (a traffic light, a handsome dog). Sometimes I鈥檒l fish my phone out of my running belt and set the book back a few minutes to catch what I missed; sometimes I won鈥檛. But I love both ways of reading, and as long as I won鈥檛 be subject to a pop quiz after finishing, the distinction doesn鈥檛 matter much to me.

I no longer know whether running fuels my love of audiobooks or vice versa. But the two have become intertwined, so that at night, when I鈥檓 setting my alarm for an early run, I have two ways of reminding myself it鈥檚 worth it: I actually enjoy running, and I鈥檒l get to hear what happens next.

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Imagine you鈥檝e just stepped off an air-conditioned tour bus. Maybe you came from Las Vegas, so you鈥檝e been on the road more than four hours, napping on the plush seats and watching the desert zip by. Now you and your 50 or so tour companions have arrived at the packed parking lot for Horseshoe Bend, about ten minutes from Page, Arizona. You鈥檙e eager to take in the sweeping view you鈥檝e seen in countless photos, excited for the chance to gaze down the 1,000-foot cliff to where the Colorado River turns a dramatic 270 degrees around a sandstone escarpment.

Maybe it鈥檚 July, a busy time here, and the 115-degree heat begins to hit you. But it鈥檚 only three-quarters of a mile to the canyon rim. Surely you don鈥檛 need water. Surely you can make it in your flip-flops.

Or maybe not. Craig Janicki, a supervisory park ranger, has personally responded to dozens of emergency service calls at Horseshoe Bend Overlook, most for heat stress or heat stroke鈥攖he result of people not drinking enough water, overexerting for their abilities, or both鈥攁s well as a few trips and short falls. When people step off those buses, he says, 鈥渢he level of preparedness is probably not what it should be.鈥�

Roughly five miles south of Glen Canyon Dam and just off the area鈥檚 only highway, the spot is both stunning and irresistibly easy to reach. 鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to put a finger on exactly when it became discovered,鈥� says William Shott, superintendent of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. As recently as five years ago, Horseshoe Bend was still somewhat of a local secret. With visitation in the thousands over the course of a year, it was still possible for visitors to get lucky and have the rim completely to themselves. But National Park Service staff noticed a drastic spike in 2015 and early 2016. In 2017鈥攖he first year visitation was officially tracked鈥攖he trail drew more than 1.3 million people鈥攃lose to 4,000 a day.

Like many beautiful and Instagrammable natural attractions, Horseshoe Bend has become so popular that it鈥檚 at risk of being loved to death, as . Because of its rapid growth in visitors in such a concentrated geographic area, Shott says, Horseshoe Bend has become 鈥渁 little microcosm of what we鈥檙e seeing throughout a lot of, if not all of, the National Park Service.鈥� Namely: bigger crowds of less experienced, less prepared visitors, combined with strained resources, making for more emergencies.

The phenomenon of Instagram and other social media driving up visitation is happening on public lands nationwide, in national parks like Grand Teton and Denali, and even in some difficult-to-reach spots like Colorado鈥檚 . That trend is especially pronounced at Horseshoe Bend, which, in this time of selfies and filters, has become a must-see for tour buses and families tracing a Southwest road trip route promoted as the . 鈥淓veryone wants to tag these places,鈥� Shott says. The iconic view also pops up constantly in marketing materials鈥攊ncluding, as Pam Rice, assistant superintendent at Glen Canyon, points out, in . 鈥淭hey must not realize Horseshoe Bend is in Arizona,鈥� she quips. (It appears to have since been removed from the site.)

Particularly because of its accessible location, the area now faces a slew of predictable problems: trash, improper disposal of human waste, resource damage from off-trail wanderings. But particularly troubling is the upsurge in emergency medical calls. According to the Park Service, in 2012 and 2013, there were no EMS incidents at Horseshoe Bend Overlook. In 2014, there were seven, and there were 17 in 2015. By 2016, when visitation soared and record-high summer temperatures persisted for weeks, that number spiked to 56.

The increase in medical emergencies was alarming but not surprising. 鈥淢ore people, more incidents are going to happen,鈥� as Janicki puts it. And it鈥檚 roughly in keeping with national statistics. In 2013, the Park Service counted 34 emergency calls per million visitors. What鈥檚 striking, though, is that the number of calls rose so swiftly in a relatively small and accessible geographic area, as opposed to the more remote backcountry areas, where the risk of emergency is typically higher. It鈥檚 a statistic that says less about the danger of the area and more about the people who visit it.

To accommodate the flood of Horseshoe visitors and make the rim trail safer and more accessible, the Park Service and the city of Page are working together to build a new trail, complete with an American Disabilities Act鈥揷ompliant safety railing, at the rim, as well as two shaded structures where people can stop and cool down along the way. (Half the trail lies within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, while the other half belongs to the city.)

Shott describes the existing route as 鈥渒ind of a mar on the landscape.鈥� It鈥檚 20- to 30-feet wide, created by droves of visitors making a beeline straight over a hill to the overlook. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like walking on an uphill sandy beach,鈥� Shott says. The new trail, in addition to being sturdier and narrower, will go around the hill and be far less steep. At a time of tight budgets, the city and the Park Service worked to fast-track this construction, getting from planning and public input to groundbreaking in about a year. The construction, which began last fall, is expected to be completed by July 2018.

In the meantime, the Park Service has already made some changes to make the area safer. It has increased Park Service presence and set up flashing marquees to remind visitors to carry water and wear appropriate footwear. Those two small adjustments seem to be making a difference. Last year, the number of medical emergencies went down by half, to 28. (There was one fatality during this time span鈥攁 suicide.) But the seeming ease of traipsing down a short trail right off the highway still entices many of the unprepared. Mary Plumb, the recreation area鈥檚 public information officer, recently saw a woman set out in a pair of open-toed high heels. 鈥淲e still have people all the time who don鈥檛 manage their own behavior and get in trouble.鈥�

Not everyone appreciates the updates. Some people call this modernization the end of Horseshoe Bend Overlook. Yet the reality, Shott points out, is that the wilderness experience at Horseshoe Bend disappeared a long time ago. Adventurous visitors could easily visit a dozen other spots at least as spectacular as the one right off the highway. 鈥淚f you want a wilderness experience聽where you can look down on a 鈥榟orseshoe bend鈥� and get that feeling that we all love, that you鈥檙e the first one to see it,鈥� Shott says, 鈥渃ome to me and I鈥檒l show you a few places on the map.鈥�

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