Colorado Plateau
Friday, June 2nd, 2023: 2023 Trips, Colorado Plateau, Indigenous Cultures, Regions, Road Trips, Society.
I woke well-rested in my beautiful campsite, as more UTV riders passed up and down the remote canyon in early morning. The plan for the day was to head north, stopping briefly to check out a couple of modest but better known sites near the highway before making a longer drive into unfamiliar backcountry, hoping for another good campsite in preparation for a canyon hike the next day.
The first stop was a pictograph site located near a popular state park designed for off-roaders of all kinds. They were all naturally avoiding the pictographs and unloading their UTVs, ATVs, and dirt bikes to raise dust and sand in a roar of engines.
This small panel in the ancient “Barrier Canyon” style has severely decayed due to natural erosion. It was lunchtime so I made a sandwich before heading north again.
Not long after, I joined the westbound interstate for about three miles, signalling far in advance and carefully making an abrupt right turn onto a gravel road with big rigs barreling past me at 80 mph. This road leads into a spectacular narrow canyon with towering walls where I abruptly came upon a big family group of adults and kids who’d arrived on dirt bikes and UTVs and were noisily climbing around in the shade of a huge, shaded stone alcove where water oozed out of the base of the cliff in a profusion of ferns. There was one kid tottering around in bike helmet and full body armor who couldn’t have been older than three.
It turned out that this was not the pictograph site, so I parked and walked a short distance to the next bend, where I saw a pictograph panel under a smaller overhang, at the base of a tall sunlit cliff. All these publicized sites had fences to prevent vehicle access, but the fences had trails leading behind them for a closer look on foot.
This site was called the Black Dragon, but I couldn’t see what the name referred to. Maybe it was farther down the canyon and I missed it? Still, these paintings in the heart of the Barrier Canyon “stylistic region” were done in a completely different, seemingly abstract style – much more like what we have in the Mojave. In any event there were too many people there today – other vehicles passed me several times.
I rejoined the interstate and headed west across the “Swell”, past constantly changing canyons and formations, and finally down the other side, where I took an unfamiliar shortcut on my way north. There were high snow-draped mountains in the western distance, and this road started by following one of the creeks that drain that range, all of which are raging torrents now, gray with sediment.
The back road I wanted led east from a small farming town – I stopped there for gas and motor oil to top up my engine. Here I found the core of the UTV culture that’s taking over the rural west. The extra-wide streets had been repurposed for UTVs, speed limits were set to 25 and UTVs had the right of way, so if you wanted to drive through town, you had to creep behind them as the drivers waved to each other and defiantly ignored you. They kept their cars and trucks parked at home, reserved for highway driving.
I’d printed complicated directions on backcountry roads to the edge of the remote canyon which “should be better known for its high quality petroglyph panels”. These directions led me past heavily irrigated alfalfa fields, grazing cattle, and dilapidated or outright ruined Mormon farmhouses – the poorest I’d ever seen. The gravel road climbed a plateau, then descended through a maze of gray canyons, eventually emerging onto a red clay plateau to a crossroads. All along the way, big roadside clearings were occupied by parked pickup trucks with empty UTV trailers, and at one point I met a group of teenagers on dirt bikes.
I came to a Y junction and took the left branch, which had been rained on and driven while the clay was wet, leaving deep crisscrossing ruts in a rock-hard surface which went on for a couple of miles.
Cattle were grazing along the clay road, fifteen miles from any ranch. I came to another Y and climbed another plateau, finally reaching a wooden fence and the rim of the 600 foot deep canyon.
I followed the rim, on a fairly rough and hazardous clay and bedrock road, to the trailhead, and past, where campsites had been promised. There turned out to be only one, totally exposed on the very rim of the canyon. I unpacked and set up my shower bag to warm in the sun. A wind came up, and got steadily stronger, becoming a full gale across the rim.
As an experiment, I tried spreading and anchoring my tarp, but even with a continuous line of heavy rocks it still ballooned out in the middle. I tried to warm up leftovers for dinner, but had to enclose my stove in the back of the vehicle and wait over a half hour for the pot to warm in the crazy wind.
I had about 20 minutes of sunlight left when I finally gave up, after two hours in this ridiculous campsite. I drove six miles back on the road and found another site on an exposed ledge below bluffs. This site had no wind, and I quickly took a cool shower just as the sun set. Tomorrow I would drive back to the canyon rim and hike down into it looking for more petroglyphs.
Monday, June 5th, 2023: 2023 Trips, Colorado Plateau, Indigenous Cultures, Regions, Road Trips, Society.
After the fiasco on the canyon rim, Day Five’s second and final campsite started out warm at sundown, but the temperature plunged throughout the night, so that I had to keep getting up and adding clothes. The one positive was my vision – I’d had bad double vision the previous night, but now I could focus well on both moon and stars. Presumably these constant changes are due to the cataracts.
It was still dark when I woke up freezing in my warm-weather bag, and turning my head eastward saw the faint light of approaching dawn. I knew I couldn’t sleep anymore, so I waited, huddled in the fetal position to conserve body heat, until the sun hit the bluffs to my west.
Then I got up, went to the vehicle and dug out the remainder of my winter clothes. All bundled up with thermal cap, hood, and gloves, I estimated it was well below 40 here at the end of May, at about 5,600 feet elevation. The sun soon reached my campsite, where I made coffee, had breakfast, and began shedding clothes.
I put on my boots and started to pack up for the drive back to the canyon rim, but immediately felt a sharp pain above the outside of my right ankle, so bad I could barely walk and had to remove the boots. These boots have extra ankle support, and I rarely but occasionally get these ankle pains that seem to represent some kind of pressure point. I normally address it with a felt pad over the ankle while hiking, and the pain disappears completely when I put on regular shoes that don’t contact the sensitive area. But this pain was higher up than usual – on the tendon that runs upward from the ankle on the outside of the calf. I wouldn’t be able to hike at all with this kind of pain!
But I changed into sneakers and drove back to the rim, hoping to find a solution once I got there.
At the rim, I first tried adding a felt pad, but that didn’t help at all. Then I tried lacing the boot a couple hooks lower, but that made little difference. So I dug out my Ace bandage. wrapped that around my lower calf, shouldered my pack and started down the trail, but I only made it a hundred yards before having to turn back.
Could I hike in sneakers? Many people do, but the chronic inflammation in my left foot requires extra support. Still, I figured it was worth a try – my sneakers are “stability shoes” with supportive soles, and they have custom orthotics like my hiking boots. I limped back up to the vehicle and switched to the sneakers. But in sneakers, carrying my heavy pack with four liters of water, I only made it a few yards down the steep trail before I realized this wouldn’t work.
I had one last chance. I’d brought my waterproof winter boots in case I had to ford streams, and they have more padding and more hooks for fine-tuning the lacing. When laced all the way up, they caused the same pain, but when I laced the right one as low as possible, so the area around the ankle was free, the pain was much reduced. It still hurt, but I was damned if I would give up.
The trail follows an old road down a steep white clay slope into a network of gullies, which eventually lead to a red clay ledge, where the road ends at an old campsite on a point overlooking the canyon. This whole area is federally designated wilderness, so I’d finally reached a place where no vehicles could bother me!
From the point, you have to find your way down a very steep series of bare rock faces and narrow ledges, sometimes marked by the tracks of many other recent hikers, sometimes marked only by cairns. In places there are several parallel routes, but they all eventually converge. The rocks along the way are fantastic!
Finally I reached the canyon bottom, where the rim trail joins the canyon trail and the surface turns to soft powder sand. I’d seen from above that the canyon was flooded upstream, and now I found out why – a beaver dam!
My ankle pain had completely disappeared, and never returned! It’s got to be a nerve-related pressure point responding to contact with the ankle support built into the boot. It’s a real drag, because these boots are otherwise perfect for me.
The flowers were spectacular down here. I’d brought topo maps for the whole canyon, showing that it looped repeatedly back and forth like a snake for about ten miles northward to the river. Plus I’d brought a much less detailed map printed off the Web, showing roughly where the petroglyphs could be found, with directions. The petroglyph map and directions weren’t very detailed – which of course helps deter vandals – so I missed the first panel completely and overshot by a few hundred yards, crossing the stream a couple of times, before realizing I must’ve missed it.
Returning to the first stream crossing, I still couldn’t seen the petroglyphs from the trail, but noticed a patinated face a hundred and fifty feet above that looked promising, so I began climbing, and was eventually able to make them out.
The online directions said this canyon deserves to be better known for its rock art, which is why I was here in the first place. And this series of panels turned out to be very large and complex. The only problem was weathering – most of the images had become so faint they were hard to see and almost impossible to photograph, especially in the bright light of midday.
One of my readers surprised me by erroneously assuming I haven’t been enhancing these images to make them more readable. I actually do enhance all my petroglyph and pictograph images, but primarily to make them look the way I actually saw them, since I’m almost never able to photograph them in good light, and I’m not proficient enough with cameras to adjust exposure on the spot.
So the images often end up overexposed. Fortunately I’m much more experienced with Photoshop than I am with a camera, so I add contrast and/or saturation afterward as needed to make the photos look the way I saw them. I hate the digital effects used by some rock art photographers to enhance the readability of the images; I only want them to look the way I saw them, in their natural setting.
After leaving the first site I recrossed the creek, working my way around the next bend on a much-trodden trail. But when I approached the third bend and the trail began climbing, I realized that most hikers are using this canyon to access the backpacking trail to the high point of the Swell, about six miles east. The route down the canyon is less used, so there’s no single trail, just a variety of lesser-used routes through dense vegetation that often disappear or become a dead end at a cliff edge.
The next petroglyph panel was supposed to be on the north side of a “rincon”. I’d heard the word but not its meaning; when I came to a huge cove west of the stream with a prominent stone butte in the middle of it, I assumed the butte was the rincon. Getting there wasn’t easy; the stream entered a narrow, sheer-sided stone gap where it was too deep to ford. I had to find a ford upstream, then climb steep banks of loose rubble and sandstone ledges high above the stream to get around the gap. That brought me to the north side of the butte, and a slope which was covered with biological soil crust. I carefully meandered across it on old cattle trails, finding no rock faces suitable for petroglyphs.
Re-checking the directions, I discovered I was supposed to be working my way up a “plain”. I immediately saw the plain below on my right, and when I made my way down there, noticed a small patinated surface at the base of the 300-foot-tall red sandstone cliff.
This had a single panel, featuring bison and a horned figure on horseback, but the left side had exfoliated. Another check of my notes showed that this was that last panel in the canyon, but further back in the big cove I saw cliffs that looked promising and decided to explore that way. I later learned that “rincon” means hidden valley – the whole cove was the rincon.
I did find two sheep petroglyphs back there which the author of the web page had missed. Finally I was discovering something new by myself! But that was it for today – I figured I’d only gone about three miles but it was already mid-afternoon. I didn’t want to spend another night in this area, and to keep my options open I needed to head back to the vehicle now.
Since the directions to the second site had started from the creek below the narrow gap, I went straight down the plain to the creek, and crossed there on steppingstones. I found a trail up the opposite bank, which led to the ledge high above the gap across from where I’d climbed earlier. But the trail ended there at the edge of a cliff. The tracks showed lots of hikers had come up to this dead end – I was the latest.
I had to work my way back down, back across the creek, and through dense, trackless riparian vegetation to get up the opposite ledge and down the other side. The rest was straightforward, just returning the way I’d come.
I’d been dreading the climb out of the canyon, up those tilted ledges of white sandstone under full sun, but that turned out to be the best part of the hike.
I had to drive to the highway the same way I’d come in, so I waited until then to decide where to go next. I was due in California, at the big lake on the Colorado River, in two days. That would be 7-1/2 hours from here by the interstate through Las Vegas, which was the last way I wanted to go. Since I had two days to get there I decided to drive north an hour tonight, to a small town I was familiar with that had a cheap but comfortable motel. The town had little in the way of restaurants but I had plenty to eat in my room.
Next: Days Seven Through Eleven
Birthday Trip 2023: Days Seven Through Eleven
Tuesday, June 6th, 2023: 2023 Trips, Colorado Plateau, Great Basin, Mojave Desert, Regions, Road Trips.
Day Seven
I woke Wednesday from a blissful dream, there in my motel bed. It was time to start heading southwest toward the California desert, but after nearly a week in the hinterlands I had some chores to take care of in town: a little shopping, and washing my clothes and vehicle, which was coated with powder sand inside and out. I had a two-day drive ahead of me, following a familiar route. The next night would be spent in another cheap motel in an even smaller town, where there was a laundromat but no car wash. So this morning I decided to make use of the guest laundry here and a car wash nearby.
Afterwards, departing through the old downtown around lunchtime, I remembered there was a Greek restaurant on a block I’d just passed, so I did a quick U-turn, and there it was. So I had an unexpected giro plate to fortify me for the long drive into Nevada.
Ninety minutes south on a two-lane, where I had a choice between a 6-1/2 hour drive on back roads or a 5-1/2 hour drive with the first half on interstate. I knew the back roads would be beautiful, but the interstate would actually be pretty too, and saving an hour was worth it.
While driving, I pondered my trip planning so far. Why do I focus these trips on prehistoric rock writing and paintings? When I resumed my Utah trips in 2008, it was nostalgic, to pick up a thread Katie and I had started in the mid-80s. We used petroglyph images on our band posters, and we both made art either based on petroglyphs or inspired by them.
After 2008 I learned more about the “Fremont” culture to which much of the work is attributed. I came to admire them and my Utah trips became a way to learn more and get closer to that culture.
But the only sites I could learn about remotely – mainly online – were located near or on roads. I’d already visited all the well-known sites, so to find new sites I was forced to spend more and more time driving slowly on bad back roads, competing with other off-road vehicle traffic, and ending up in overgrazed ranchland where campsites were generally poor and I didn’t want to linger.
Throughout this trip my body had craved more hiking, but there were few if any trails or suitable terrain near the prehistoric sites. I finally realized that this “rock art” exploration is just one more complication I need to shrug off as my already overcomplicated life hurtles toward its end. Near the beginning of this trip I’d passed a high plateau with federally designated wilderness which offers a whole network of interesting hikes – that should be my focus in the future. Drive to a wilderness area with good trails, camp there, and start exploring on foot.
Some wet weather was developing ahead as I joined a second interstate and turned south. Finally I reached the turnoff for the back road that led west to Nevada. That’s when things in the sky really got interesting! I drove under a storm that, once I emerged on the other side, produced the most spectacular cloud formation I’ve ever seen.
In the little railroad town where I stopped for the night, I was trying out a newly restored motel that had opened since my last visit. The lady owner had a big placard on the counter with a quote from Reagan on the sanctity of gun ownership, but she was nice, and the small room had the best bed I’ve ever found in any hotel or motel anywhere – even in expensive resorts.
Day Eight
My friend in California had promised a campsite for the next night, and the Nevada town has a wonderful grocery store, so I grabbed a few more things I thought I might need. There were two Harley riders about my age outside, and one asked me if I was heading out into the hills. We had a brief, friendly conversation, wished each other well, and as I was pulling away I heard him say to his companion, “That’s the kind of guy I like – he doesn’t talk your ear off when you try to be friendly.”
I continued south through familiar, spectacular Great Basin country, deciding to avoid the interstate again by way of Lake Mead. This is one of the world’s most spectacular landscapes – as amazing as the Grand Canyon or Yosemite, but off most people’s radar since it’s labeled with the name of a reservoir. Normally you have to pay the park entrance fee to use this “interstate bypass” route, but the toll booths were closed and I traversed it scott free.
Midway through the recreation area I realized I was probably running late. And the last part of my drive was the hottest and featured long steep grades, where my vehicle is underpowered even without the A/C on. So I had to drive at high revs in lower gear, burning gas like crazy, for the last hour and a half down the eastern edge of California, to save time while staying cool.
I pulled up outside our meeting place, the tribe’s new resort hotel, at exactly the same time as my friend. We had a delicious supper, then he guided me to some nearby campsites which should be secluded and pleasant.
They involved driving across a broad wash in soft sand, so I switched into 4wd. I found the first site, on the lake, but as soon as I turned off the engine and got out, I heard buzzing overhead – a drone, flying circles above me. Then it took off north, and I walked toward the water’s edge, rounding a corner in dense vegetation and revealing an old guy with a long gray beard, sitting in a folding chair next to his side-by-side. “That’s not your drone, is it?” I asked.
“Sure is,” he said, nodding. So much for this campsite.
My friend’s second choice was above, on fingers of the mesa that overlooked the lake. I drove back and found a maze of off-road tracks leading up there, also in soft sand. I was afraid of getting bogged down, but the sun had set and I needed a shower, so I bounced upward, and followed a track outward to a point which would’ve made a good campsite, if it hadn’t directly overlooked the old guy with the drone.
So I turned back and drove inland, higher up the mesa, until I found a sort of hollow with enough level ground to set up camp. I laid out my tarp, pad, and sleeping bag and took a quick shower. The moon was now at three-quarters full and Venus was still up in the west, and the lights of the city across the lake twinkled like the campfires of a barbarian horde. I thought I would be okay here, but it was still hot, so I sat for a while enjoying the view.
Finally I laid down on top of my bag. Bugs started to land on me, so I got up and grabbed a flashlight. They were nothing to worry about, but they were annoying.
Then I heard some small dogs barking farther down the mesa. They got closer. And closer, until they were a hundred feet or less away. They were barking at me, but I still couldn’t see them.
I got up and found a stick. I didn’t feel comfortable lying down while surrounded by wild dogs, but I didn’t want to be driven off by them either.
Then headlights flashed out below me, and a four-seater side-by-side bounced up on the mesa, full of shouting, laughing teenagers. It was 10:30 pm, but I knew this was graduation time. The teenagers drove around me in a semi-circle, unaware I was even there, stopping and yelling at various points in the creosote brush. This was the last straw.
I packed up and drove back across the rez to the hotel. My friend had reserved a room for me the following night, but I was able to check in early, and finally got to sleep by midnight. So much for my camping trip!
Day Nine
One problem with a true hotel, as opposed to a true motel, is that they don’t have fridges or microwaves in the rooms. You’re supposed to eat in the restaurant. And rooms are accessed inside, a long walk from your vehicle. I carry my breakfast stuff and the huge variety of personal care items I need every day, in several containers including a cooler, for easy access from the vehicle or in camp. When I check into a motel, I park in front of my room and it’s easy to transfer those things inside.
The tribal hotel room was really nice, but I had to make three long trips to and from my vehicle to get everything I needed to stay there. And for breakfast, I had to make the complicated journey to and from the vehicle to get and return yogurt and fruit from the cooler, since there was no place to keep it cool in the room.
The outside temperature at the lake today was forecast to reach 97, with tomorrow hitting 100. According to experts, the inside of a car can reach over 140 degrees at times like this. There were some things in my vehicle that were going to get ruined – no way around it. I had two bags of organic chips – the unopened one was turned rancid by the heat, while the other was fine. For future hot-weather trips, I should probably move some packaged foods, oils, skin creams, etc. to the cooler. And bring an extra bag to carry stuff into hotels!
The tribal festival was scheduled to start today, but when I drove past the park there was no one there yet. My friend called later, and we met at the empty park, where he introduced me to his son and nephew. The three of us had a great afternoon visit at a shaded picnic table there on the lakeshore. My friend’s son found a devil’s claw seedpod under a palm tree, and showed me how to extract the edible seeds, like sunflower but nuttier.
Day Ten
I felt like undeserving royalty staying in that fancy hotel. My friend came and picked me up the next morning for a tour around the reservation, talking about projects he’d accomplished or was planning. The festival had started and the park was packed, but when he drove in, there was a Highway Patrol SUV blocking the entrance and an ambulance flashing its lights inside. So he turned around, and we had a last lunch at the hotel.
I wanted to get an early start and make it to Flagstaff tonight, to shorten my drive home tomorrow. That meant hours on the interstate. But from Kingman east, the federal highway surface had deteriorated worse than any paved road I’ve ever driven on. There were irregular patches of pavement missing, to a depth of three or four inches, in the right lane, and everyone including big rigs was driving on the left, which was marginally better. These mega-potholes were big enough to cause an accident, to blow a tire or break your suspension! Fortunately my vehicle is rugged, but the stiff springs meant I got constantly bashed and slammed whenever I had to pull into the right lane.
It was like that all the way to Flagstaff, and beyond, the next day.
Day Eleven
A couple more errands to run in Flagstaff, then I was on my way east again by late morning. Winslow has an old Harvey House that’s been restored and turned into a hotel, so I decided to stop there for lunch. It was a fantastic place, but mostly empty at midday on Sunday.
And Winslow, where I’ve only stopped briefly before, is full of old Route 66 motels which have been turned into small apartment complexes. Who lives there?
Mercifully, I was able to leave the interstate soon, at Holbrook, and head southeast through some of my favorite country – a high, rolling sagebrush plateau where I was able to let my thoughts wander back over the trip again.
I mentioned in my canyon campsite that I relish being able to sleep outdoors. But on this trip like on most others, I had a hard time finding suitable campsites, and once settled, encountered serious problems. Heat, cold, wind, insects, intrusive strangers, their pets and devices. In the past the list included rain, snow, flies, mosquitos, and flooding. On this trip I noticed a few flies and mosquitos, but thankfully they hadn’t been a problem.
I’ve researched and considered solutions to some of those challenges but haven’t fully succeeded. One recurring problem is how to find secluded campsites for someone who sleeps on the ground. The only real solution is advance scouting, which is hard when you live a day or two’s drive away!
Other challenges are the distances between stops, towns, and campsites, and the condition of roads. It’s no fun to set up camp and try to cook dinner after you’ve driven six hours or more.
I’m always friendly & curious with local people, but I never stay long enough or immerse myself in local society enough to get to know the people I might need if I get in trouble. That feels insensitive, and limits the amount of local knowledge I get – for example about little-known prehistoric sites. Finding stuff online, or even in books, is really no substitute for local knowledge.
More weather was developing over the Southwest. I drove through light storms all the way, and actually drove into a dust devil west of town – it felt like the whole car was being twisted by a wrench.
Finally, a few miles from home, I was welcomed by a double rainbow, and it started raining just as I pulled in the driveway, turned off the vehicle and got out.
