Solstice Petroglyphs

River, a few friends, and I, went up to a Solstice Panel at sunrise the morning after Solstice. We found out about the site last year but had not been able to find it. The petroglyph panel is in a remote part of Arches NP and seems to have figures that are aligned with both the Summer and Winter Solstices and both Equinoxes. Several large circles (suns?) align perfectly with the shadow cast by a nearby rock. As the shadow moves it highlights different portions of the panel. There are many such sites around the the Southwest (and World). Many, like the Great Houses and Kivas in Chaco Canyon, are very elaboratley aligned with numerous celestial occurrances. I love the fact that ancient peoples were in tune enough with their surroundings that they observed subtle changes and pattens in their environment and celebrated them. We need to be more in tune with what is going on around us. Turn your TV off and go outside and notice the stars, where they are and how they move in relation to where you live.


The first photo (above) shows one of the large circles as it sits perfectly in a small indentation in the shadow.



About an hour later the circle on the bottom lines up with the shadow.











At one point the two large bighorn are perfectly standing on the shadow line and appear to be walking up the shadow. Some of the other bighorn in the upper left corner of the photo line up with the shadow on the Summer Solstice. On the Spring Equinox a spot of light comes through a gap in the rocks and points right at several of the figures on the panel. Nobody will ever know what the panel means of how it was used but it appears to be more than coincidence that so much of it is coordinated with the Solstice and Equinox.

Climbing Wall Street

The boys get out half day on Mondays, and I am taking some time off for the Holidays, so I spent half the day buiding shelves for the new closet and then when the boys got out of school we went down the Potash road to "Wall Street" to climb. It always amazes me how natural climbing comes to kids, they scramble right up cracks and ledges like monkeys. One of these days I'll have to start to practice some of the more traditional sports with the boys so they at least know the difference between a football and a basketball. Like River said "I don't really like sports with balls".

First Turns of the Season

I added John Muir to the quotes board today. John Muir, another visionary and wilderness saint. He lived a very interesting life, born in Scotland, came to America, invented lots of crazy contraptions, lost sight in an eye from a machinery accident, walked across America, fell in love with the Sierra Nevada, hiked with Teddy Roosevelt and dedicated his life to protecting wild places. His ideas were ahead of his time. One thing that I loved about John is that he would climb into trees during storms so he could feel the storms power. Not a reccomended practice.


Winter is officially started (even though we are a few days before Solstice) now that the first turns of the year were made high in the Sierra La Sal. I got out with the avalanche forecasters today to check snow stability and look for any recent avalanche activity after our last round of storms. We skiied up Laurel Ridge and down in to Gold Basin in perfect snow conditions just as the sun was setting in the far West behind the Henrys. The sunset was incredible as there was somewhat of an inversion in the valley, and only the tallest of the sandstone pinnacles were poking through the clouds. I think it is hard to find a place with better sunsets than the La Sals.

Slickrock Shadows

This is one of our favorite places to go hiking when we have only an hour or so of daylight left. We usually pick a different fin of Navajo Sandstone every time we go here and see how far along it's spine we can walk. We have never seen anybody in this part of the desert, which is always nice. On this hike last week we were on a fin just as the sun was going down and it cast our shadows onto the next fin over, so the boys of course had to put on a show.

more November

I thought I would throw a little scripture on the quotes board, (it being the Sabbath). Another important lesson from the scriptures.



When everyone came down for the Folk Festival we also climbed Elephant Butte (which Alina and Ty already posted on their blogs). It was a fun, easy climb. The scariest part of the climb was the kit fox we accidentally trapped on the top of the climb that almost ran over Creed's head. The fox actually ran straight down the cliff in the background of the photo that we rappelled down. Sorry fox. There were a lot of interesting names written in the summit register (a lot of local old timers), and the views were amazing of the entire Moab area.


Every place we have lived as soon as they find out I work for the BLM or Forest Service they throw me into the Scout program. If you know me, you know how I feel about Scouts (the uniforms are a bit militaristic and most Scout groups practice outdoor skills that are about 50 years out of date i.e. cutting down live trees, burning garbage, killing everything that moves, etc...). But I do enjoy getting the boys out into the wild and having them get around on their own two feet, away from cell phones and X boxes. Moab is a great place to be Scoutmaster (actually assistant to the Regional Scoutmaster), with unlimited places to get Scouts into fatal situations. We took them out in November and rode the entire Slickrock trail (12 miles). There is a shorter Practice Loop but the boys were determined that we take them on the long trail. We had several near death experiences and a little blood but everyone survived. Lesson learned: make sure kids know how to use hand brakes before heading out on a bike with 1000+ foot drops. The photo shows a couple of scouts above the Colorado River.


I really like this photo of the Porcupine Rim. I took it one day while doing fieldwork, surveying an illegal trail. The rim starts in the La Sals and runs all the way down to the River. The little burg of Castle Valley can be seen in the distance at the base of the cliffs.

November

I can't believe November is behind us already (and how little snow we have on the mountain). You've probably noticed how fancy I am getting with the new "Wild Quotes" sidebar on the blog. I was going to put a bunch of my favorite wild oriented quotes on, but I think I will just put them on one at a time (I don't want to overwhelm my vast audience). The first quote is from one of my favorite writers and thinkers, Aldo Leopold, from his book "A Sand County Almanac" (one of the holiest in the canon of wilderness scripture). If you have not read it you need to. Aldo was one of the first to really outline the idea of including the Earth and it's communities into our idea of ethics. Aldo was a true visionary and I like that he did not always fit the mold of the tree-hugging environmentalist. He was an avid hunter and understood the connection between predator and prey, death and rebirth. I also like that he changed his thinking over the course of his life from killing wolves (just because that was the thing to do back then), to realizing their importance in the overall system. More on Aldo to come.


I had to make one last trip up to our Warner Lake Campground this month to close everything up and take some photos of some of the facilities needing repairs. I took this photo from the cabin looking out across the lake to the central part of the La Sal Range.



On Veterans Day I drove up the Sand Flats Road behind the house, and hiked up Mill Creek. I found Otho Natural Bridge (actually an Arch) up one of the side canyons. I only saw one other person in the canyon, it was nice to be alone.

When I spoke to Todd on the phone over Thanksgiving he made me promise to keep the "Turkey Freeze Out" tradition alive. So Tyler and I headed down to the desert to freeze in memory of our tropics bound brother. We went into Horseshoe Canyon and Blue John (see Ty's blog for more photos). I had never been into the Great Gallery in Horsehoe Canyon and was very impressed. The whole panel is maybe 100 yards long and most of the figures are 6 to 7 feet tall. I really like this particular figure because he was drawn alongside the existing crack/corner on the rock wall and he has two animals inside him that are obviously talking to each other. These particular pictographs are estimated to be 2 to 8 thousand years old. Amazing to think these figures were put on this rock face possibly 6 thousand years before Christ was born.

The whole family came down to the annual Moab Folk Fest at the first of the month and we got to experience some great music. The festival is in its fifth year and keeps getting bigger. We got to see one of my all time favorites, Peter Rowan, sing and yodel "Land of the Navajo". We also got out and did some hiking. I took my Dad and Tyler up to an old Indian/stock trail I found in an unnamed canyon that cuts across a cliff face and accesses some very old pictographs. This photo is of Tyler and Dad traversing the ledge/trail on the way back down. My Dad can still pretty much get anywhere as long as he has his ski pole and a shoulder.

The last day of November we drove up to Geyser Pass and cut down a Christmas tree.

October

This Fall has been long and glorious on the Colorado Plateau. The incredible weather allowed us to get out a lot. The last weekend on October, River and I did a long backpack trip into the Needles District of Canyonlands NP. This trip was too long for the whole family so just the two of us went. One of my greatest joys is watching my boys enjoy being in remote wild areas. I have been taking them with me since before they could walk and they are all becoming quite comfortable in the backcountry. River is packing most of his own gear now. The plan is that he will pack all my stuff by the time he is 16. This is Druid Arch in Elephant Canyon.

Old Grandpa Cottonwood in Lost Canyon. When it's my time to leave this Earth, I hope it is under a Cottonwood Tree.

Mid October we got one more river journey in. We floated Catatract Canyon, which I had never done. It was a great trip, good water level and no mishaps (aside from the groover). I finally got to see where the two Big Rivers come together. Thanks to the Newtons for showing us the runs. The photo above is our last camp at Imperial Rapid.

I started off the month by taking a short packtrip into the Dark Canyon Wilderness on our District. This was a work trip and I went in with horses to pick up my trail crew who had been in the wilderness for a week long trip finishing up some trail work and a campsite and exotic weed inventory that we completed for the entire wilderness this summer. While the majority of my time is spent in an office writing environmental analysis, attending public meetings, being confronted at public meetings, preparing budgets, planning, and other highly exciting tasks, I actually do get to get out in the field to see the areas we mange on a fairly regular basis. I also maintain a wilderness blog about the Dark Canyon Wilderness at wilderness.net , which is an amazing website on wilderness if you are interested. The photo is of my camp in Cherry Canyon.

Bloggin it up

Yes it is true, I have a blog. I figured that I make fun of everybody else's blogs, so it really wasn't fair unless I had one of my own that people could read and make fun of as well, so here you go. Besides, I am married to the blogging Queen and she set all of this up for me, so I have to make use of it. I always tell Alina that blogging seems like it is just one more opportunity to offend your family and friends, so here we go!

How do these things usually start? Something like, "This blog is dedicated to discussing post modern theology and how it affects the current global political atmosphere" (or something else to make me sound intelligent), or "This blog is dedicated to discussing all of the reasons that I am right and you are wrong" that sounds a little better, but I think this blog will focus on wilderness. Mainly my trips (and family trips) into it. Hopefully it does not turn into the "Hey look how cool I am am blog" but you never know. Also, it is a good way for fellow wilderness pilgrims (mainly my brothers) to get photos of past excursions. I also want to use it to document my employment of working with public wild lands (currently with the US Forest Service on the Moab/Monticello Ranger Districts), as most people have no clue as to what I really do (and probably don't really care). I will try and stay away from too many political rants that I often make, as I don't want anybody to have any future ammunition against me. So let the blogging begin.