Falling!

April 22 -- I left Torrey, Utah, headed south, on Utah’s Highway 12. It’s noted as an All-American Road.

I went up,

and I went down. In each case, more than once. First gear got a good solid workout today, just as I’d anticipated.

The intended destination for the day was Calf Creek. My source mentioned size was an issue, but it seems that our Scamp is certainly smaller than many rigs. None the less, I didn’t fit in the campground!

That didn’t stop me from being a pig in the parking lot since I got there before it filled. The parking was a double loaded driveway, but without any extra length spaces.  At 10 a.m. I was able to do a U-turn and take several spaces at the end of the row. It would have been a real challenge if I’d arrived at 1 p.m. when this picture was taken.

No camping here for me, but there was a hike. Three miles each way, and a fair bit of it was deep sand. In places the trail was getting wide as people tried to stay to the firmer edges, just making matters worse.

Part of the trail was in the shade which I appreciated.

There was a very nice printed trail guide, along with numbered posts to help you know when to look for something. In this case there were supposed to be granaries, plural. I was only able to spot one,

but it was a beauty! Once again, I sure couldn’t figure out the route a person takes to get the groceries.

A little further on, also on the far side of the canyon, were three large pictograph figures. There’s a fourth figure to the right of the obvious three, and there may be something else in the top left corner of the photograph. (As always, click to enlarge.)

This day, my goal wasn’t ruins or pictographs. The goal was the Lower Calf Creek falls. The first view through the trees was tantalizing.

At the falls itself, it was delightfully cool. A nice spot to stop for a bite to eat and watch the water… falling.

It’s a very popular hike. I didn’t see many on the trail going in, but met several in the last ¼ mile that were just starting back. After 30 minutes at the falls, I met about 20 people headed in as I was headed out.

By the way, they’re looking for a campground host for June and July. Comes with a full hook-up site and not a glimmer of connectivity.

$5 for parking or a National Lands Access Pass.

Home for the night wasn’t where I thought I’d be. I ended up in the “overflow” (aka Arch group site) at Kodachrome State Park since I was way too cheap to pay $28 so that I could plug in. $19 was bad enough! All the nice known boondock places between the two were high elevation or already taken.

This post was uploaded and scheduled thanks to the Wifi at Mickey D's in Kanab, Utah.

Great Gallery

April 20 - Most people going where I was going tent camp at the trailhead, but I didn’t want to take the trailer in there, so instead, I was on the road as the sun started thinking about showing itself.

The sign said it was 32 miles to Horseshoe Canyon, at least to the trailhead. Although the sky looked like it last night, it never got around to raining, so I was good to go. Even better, the overnight temps were in the high 40’s so it was going to be good hiking temps.

The road is dirt that turns to mud when it’s wet. It runs through open range, and the cattle like to use the road for a path. The end result is that much of the surface, especially for the first ten miles, is rough thanks to the hoof marks in the road that have hardened as it dries out.

No two references give the same information about this hike. On a Canyonlands bulletin board at the intersection where I headed to the trailhead, it says it is a 6.5 mile round trip, but Kelsey puts it at 8 miles. It wasn’t the miles that concerned me as much as the 750 feet to climb back out of the canyon. If you haven't figured out, I lean towards lazy.

There are four major panels in this section of Horseshoe Canyon along Barrier Creek. The vast majority of it is pictographs, some considered to be possibly the finest examples in the world. There is a bit of petroglyph additions and some vandalism… This is the “High Gallery”.

A close-up of the “High Gallery.” As always, you can click on a picture to get a larger version.

I tried to do panorama shots of the other three panels since they were so large. This is the “Horseshoe Shelter” panel.

Here’s a tighter shot of part of the panel. In every case, the more you looked, the more detail you’d see. While the large designs dominate, there are other designs smaller than a human hand interwoven into the art.

The “Alcove Gallery” is now very close to the ground because of a rock fall. The end result is that it was difficult to photograph and it had suffered lots of vandalism over the past 100 years.

It looked like the pigment on this panel was originally thick and much of it was now gone, leaving the images fainter than some of the other panels. The Park Service had erected a fence around each panel in an effort to keep honest, caring citizens from touching the panels.

The hike itself was beautiful, and worth doing even without the pictographs. I included this picture to give a sense of scale. I was carrying my camera in my day pack, but stopped to get it out when I turned this corner, realizing that art was visible from that distance. There’s a large image and several somewhat smaller just to the right of the tree.

Here's a tighter view. Between the four figures on the left, and the two figures on the right, there is a series of big horn petroglyphs that were added at a much later date.

Under the tree was some stones stacked for benches which made a wonderful spot to stop and contemplate.

I wish I’d paced it off to get an estimate of the length of the main panel of the “Great Gallery” It’s huge! I wasn’t happy with my attempts at a panoramic shot of this panel. This photo excludes some on both the left and the right ends.

While these larger than life sized images are what the panel is known for,

I kept coming back to the smaller figures in the lower left side of this picture,

and the detail in some of the figures towards the right side of the panel.

A super big thanks to my buddy, Shari, and her amTopo for the excellent topo map which helped me tremendously. I met two groups on the trail that had no idea where they were going. One thought they needed to cross the canyon and go up the other side, the other group had managed to totally miss the first panel in spite of cairns stacked 6-8 stones high.

I was surprised to complete the hike as quickly as I did – 5.5 hours from the truck until I was back to it. Kelsey said plan 6-8 hours. I was blessed by blue skies and mid-70's temperatures for my return out of the canyon. In addition to the hike, there was also nearly 3 hours of driving round trip from the highway. Home for the night was the same as last night - a boondock on Temple Mountain road just west of where the road to Goblin Valley State Park intersects.

This post was uploaded and scheduled using wifi at my site at Sand Creek RV Park in Torrey, Utah.

More Nosing Around

April 18 - I was getting a bit smarter – I stayed at the trailer until mid-morning when the temperature climbed into the 50’s. I’d planned to visit more ruins in the Butler Wash area but there were already 5 cars at the trailhead so I kept going.

I went for a hike, looking for a petroglyph panel that I’d heard about, (without success), but I did spot some interesting water or wind-worn rock

and a survey marker on a pipe with a 1919 date that I digitally enhanced to hide the township and range numbers.

Not so terribly far from there, I was able to spot a set of ruins in another draw. They certainly looked impressive from a distance,

and even more so, up close. Two of the structures still have roof beams in place.

It was a delight to be able to get close enough to see the detail of the construction around the upper window. A stone sill with multiple branches to form the lintel – that seems reversed to my mind, but it has certainly stood the test of time.

There were a few petroglyphs in the alcove,

most of them quite faint.

In fact, these above the metate grooves, were only given away by the visible texture.

I was delighted to see a few handprint pictographs – the first that I’ve found on this trip.

All of this exploration was made much easier with a quality topo map from amTopo. This visit, in addition to the previous three posts, as well as the post from April 17th, were all done while boondocking at Comb Wash.

It's time to head west, looking for bridges and more pictographs.

This post was uploaded and scheduled on wifi from my site at Sand Creek RV Park in Torrey, Utah.

Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum

April 15th -- I stopped by the Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum in Blanding. It’s another place we’ve bypassed for years as we hurry to Moab for our Green River trips. The Museum (and Repository) are built immediately adjacent to an archeological site.

I was very impressed with some of the pots that were on display in glass cases in the lobby. Not only did they have these incredible pots, they also had the stories of discovery by the people who found the pots.

Turns out, pots are a major component of their collection. They built a portion of their repository with glass walls so that even a portion of the stored collection can be viewed.

Throughout the building, the walls were painted with replicas of rock art. At the front desk, they loaned each visitor a book explaining the style and the assumed meaning of each panel.

On the second floor, in addition to more pottery, there was a collection of arrow heads,

and a series of photographs of rock art panels that had been taken expressly as documentation of these panels. The artistry of these panels was exquisite. They’d even tell you where they were located, if the name of the county and the state were enough information!

Outside, part of the site has been restored, resulting in a very nice interpretive ruin.

Although it is a State Park, it does not include any camping facility since it is located in a residential neighborhood. Don’t let that scare you off – the streets are very wide. The parking lot is striped primarily for autos, but they do provide some RV parking as well.

This post was uploaded and scheduled thanks to the Blanding Visitor Center on my 2^nd visit!