Constantly Changing Priorities

I am fortunate to be employed doing something that I am passionate about and that I love doing, however the constant shifting from one problem to the next can get frustrating. Today was one of those days where every five minutes a different "crisis" erupted that I had to deal with. I started listing all of the things that occurred today and realized why it is so difficult to stay focused and concentrate on one thing in this job. So here is the list from today.

-I just got back from two days in the wilderness packing 200 lbs. of food into a volunteer group and trail crew doing trail work. I left Monday morning at 5 AM and got back Tuesday night at 8 PM. One of the horses started having problems with a leg so we were trying to get him into a vet to take a look at him. I also found a new illegal OHV trail in the wilderness that I need to go back to and deal with.

-Started this morning trying to download GPS data on new tamarisk trees we found in the wilderness and photos of OHV damage.

- First phone call of the day was from a local game warden who said that bears had broken into out weather station and had bitten into a line containing antifreeze (which causes kidney failure in animals) and that we needed to remedy the problem. Problem is that it is not our weather station it is run by a different agency but is located on the forest, So I started trying to track down the person responsible for maintenence.

-Found out several volunteer agreements for Campground Hosts were filled out incorrectly and need to be changed before we can pay them.

-The Health Dept. calls saying some of our water samples were bad for two of our campground water systems and that we needed to shut them down and retest.

- Campers called mad that they could not get the gas stove working in cabin at Warner Lake.

- Two letters requesting a permit to conduct a non-commercial "Mountain Man Rendevouz" and a Stake Girls Camp come in.

- Public calls wanting to know the best place to backpack in the La Sals

- Tried to work on an Environmental Assesment that I have to get done to designate roads and trails in seven different areas on the La Sals.

- Campground host comes in to the office to tell me he has turned off the gas to the cabin at Warner Lake, mystery solved.

- Call wanting to know if the road over Geyser Pass is open and where is the best place to take 12 high school kids.

- One of our permitted outfitters (who leads New Age backpack trips) called wanting to add several trips to thier permit and wanting to know where they can go to avoid cattle. Apparently cattle are not conducive to New Age Vision Quests or something.

- Tourism Board calls wanting a permit to film mountain bikers on the mountain for an ad campaign.

- 4 hour Staff Meeting to discuss numerous topics including next weeks orientation/BBQ for the seasonal employees, quarters, NEPA, planning, etc..

-After meeting, try and return phone calls and work on Environmental Assesment but get stuck approving Travel Vouchers and responding to other mundane emails.

-County calls to say that several large trees are down on a trail and needs to be cut out, add it to the list.

- Scout Camp emails wanting to know if they can gravel a road into their permitted camp.

-Supervisors Office in Price calls with questions on a design for a new campground that we may get stimulus money for in Colorado (a small portion of District is actually in Colorado)

- Give up working on Environmental Assesment and have still not downloaded GPS data

-Go home

If I could concentrate on one thing I might actually be able to get something done, but I am not complaining and I still love my job.

Guardian

Yesterday I hiked into a ruin in an amazing part of the forest (location undisclosed). The ruin is in a spectacular setting and aside from being an incredible ruin it also has some local history. The structures were built by Anasazi, then Utes came into the area (many years later) and created historic rock art at the site (mainly horses and riders) and lastly a local looted the sight back in the 1980's. The looting of sites, unfortunatley is not uncommon. The difference with this looting is the guy was actually caught. You can read about the case here. I love it when the bad guys get caught. He eventually died of cancer after serving a lengthy prison term.

This is a petroglyph located on the wall behind the main ruin. I had to manipulate the light but you can see that it is a snake and a human. I thought little of it, until I reached down to examine a pot shard sitting on top of one of the ruin walls and saw this (see below)

Respect the Ancient Ones or pay the price, sometimes in the form of prison time, cancer or a bite from a guardian rattlesnake.

I went out to day with BLM to look at a trail that comes off of BLM lands onto the Forest. We hiked along the rim of Arch and Texas Canyon and had some pretty incredible views looking down into the depths.

We hiked up Courthouse Wash the other night. When the Colorado gets high it backs way up into Courthouse and creates a big slough full of fish, frogs, beavers and herons.

Falls in Courthouse Wash
Reflection of cliff walls and flying heron in the backed up wash

Spring Fishing

We just opened the road to Oowah a week or so ago so we drove up there yesterday to see if any fish were hungry after their long winter under the ice. River caught one on his first cast and I did not even get my rod together because I was undoing tangles and snags and unhooking fish the whole time. Oowah attracts an interesting crowd on the weekends. I was the only guy up there wearing a shirt, pretty classy.

North face of Mellenthin

Rowan waiting for a fish to bite with his batman pole.

The reason I did not get my rod out of it's case, four kids in a canoe with fishing poles.

Elk Ridge

I was back down on Elk Ridge on Wednesday, scouting out another trail for maintenence and checking on a youth crew we had down there working on the Brushy Knoll trail. I usually try to spend the night when I do any work in the area because it is so far out, but I made it into a long day trip this time.

Elk shed on Elk Ridge

Confluence of Woodenshoe and Cherry Canyon


More bear tracks on Elk Ridge

Aerial photo of the canyon complex we hiked into on Tuesday. I had been to this canyon several times ( I actually used to guide trips into this canyon a long time ago for Seldom Seen Smith) but had never been up any of it's forks. We went up the first fork this time and I was surprised at how lush it was. It is one of the prettiest canyons around Moab, full of cottonwoods and box elder. We followed deer and turkey tracks in the wet sand all the way to where the canyon ends in a large dryfall.

Can you tell where it is without looking at Google Earth?

Spring walks

Yesterday we hiked up on "Johnson Up On Top" a mesa just south of town. One of the original Moab families (the Johnsons) homesteaded on top, and now you know how the mesa was named. The cacti were starting to bloom.

Tonight we took a little jaunt up to the forks of Mill Creek. Everything was blooming and the air smelled so good, perfect temperature and the gnats are not out yet, good time to be out.

The beavers have been busy over the winter and built several very large dams on the creek. It will be interesting to see how long they last with high water. The dams were full of little trout surfacing and eating something that was hatching, we threw a tent caterpillar in and it became dinner pretty quick, which River was not too happy about. I might have to go up with the fly rod this week, just to say I caught a fish in Mill Creek.

Everett

I still can't believe that Ruess's body has been found on Comb Ridge.

Radio West did an interesting show on the discovery of his body and on his life today.

After reading his journals and other books written about him it seems like he was very comfortable being who he was and that he had a pretty good idea on what he wanted from this life. I hope I feel the same way when I leave.

"Music has been in my heart all the time, and poetry in my thoughts. Alone on the open desert, I have made up songs of wild, poignant rejoicing and transcendent melancholy. The world has seemed more beautiful to me than ever before. I have loved the red rocks, the twisted trees, the red sand blowing in the wind, the slow, sunny clouds crossing the sky, the shafts of moonlight on my bed at night. I have seemed to be at one with the world. I have rejoiced to set out, to be going somewhere, and I have felt a still sublimity, looking deep into the coals of my campfires, and seeing far beyond them. I have been happy in my work, and I have exulted in my play. I have really lived."

La Sal Spring

The backside of the La Sals, you can still see all of the red sand on the snow that blew in with the "Hell Storm". It pretty much ruined the spring skiing on the mountain.

The bears are out and fattening up, I saw this big track in La Sal Creek today

Socialism Bad, Torture OK

I do not claim affiliation with any political party but I love people who see the Obama administration as a sign of the last days with socialism at our doorsteps, but who apparently had no problem when the last administration got us into a unjustified war, wire tapped citizens and justified torture in the name of national security. So I really enjoyed this editorial from the Trib.

"An overheard conversation among several women at a local deli: "I can't believe this country elected Obama as president; it must be a sign of the end times when the Constitution will hang by a thread." The irony of this uniquely Utah political thread about church elders saving the Constitution might have shocked the lunch bunch had they read The Dark Side by Jane Mayer (Doubleday, 2008).

Reading Mayer's disturbing book is likely to lead to the conclusion that the Constitution is more imperiled than ever; but it also reveals the troubling fingerprints of several of my fellow Mormons whose handiwork, not the Obama election, did so much to create the present crisis.

Although the decisions which put us in the grim business of torture, body-snatching, extraordinary renditions, making people disappear, indefinite confinement without charges and warrantless wiretapping were made by the president and vice president, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints served as helpful enablers. Not only did they provide the legal architecture, they provided the "scientific" patina for the plunge into the barbaric business of torture."

Read the rest of the Editorial here

Trail Canyon

We hiked into Trail Canyon in the Dark canyon wilderness the last two days to lay out a project that we will be doing in June with Wilderness Volunteers. I had not been down Trail Canyon yet into the wilderness. The trail down is an old stock trail that has been blasted out of the slickrock and winds around ledges and drop offs. I don't think I would take a horse down it right now. Just getting to our trailheads can be an adventure this time of year. We ended up sawing out a huge Pondersoa that had fallen into the road and busting through a few snowdrifts. Once you get down into the canyon it feels like you are really out there, which is the best place to be.

I think the elk must use Trail Canyon to access Dark Canyon to winter there as there was sign of elk everywhere.

Back to the Gothic Nightmare

Toad, Ash and Kell came down this weekend and we went up and explored some unamed canyons that I had not been into yet. The hike makes a loop by climbing out of one canyon into a namphitheatre with some of the most amazingly bizarre towers around, and back down another slot. The towers are so big and narrow and fragile looking that they don't look possible.

Toad hiking through an unnamed canyon in the Cutler Formation

Curtains of fluted mud

Short rappel to get down another canyon. I move so fast the camera can't catch the action.

Climbing out of the canyon on the fixed line

NEMO Found?

The May edition of "National Geographic Adventurer "(which I stopped my subscrpition to several years ago as more than half the pages are glossy marketing ads, outdoor gear marketing is still marketing and I can't stand it in any form, but I digress) contains a story by Dave Roberts where he calims to have found the remains of the patron saint of the Red Rock Wilderness, Everett Ruess.

Through a series of Navajo stories passed down through a family the reamains of a young anglo male were found in a crevice burial high on Comb Ridge, 90 miles from Davis Gulch in the Escalante country where searchers claimed to have found his last camp in 1934.

At first I thought the claim was pretty far fetched and blew it off as nothing but hype for "Adventurers" 10th Anniversary Edition, but after reading it they make a pretty good case. The bones and other artifacts show it was approximatley a 20 year old 5' 8" anglo killed around the time Everett disapeared. DNA results are still pending, which makes me wonder why they published the article before getting them back?

I think more than anything I just don't want Everett to be found, I think of him out there wandering still, maybe someday I will run into him.

Wilderness Song

I have been one who loved the wilderness:
Swaggered and softly crept between the mountain peaks;

I listened long to the seas brave music;

I sang my songs above the shriek of desert winds.

On canyon trails when warm night winds were blowing,

Blowing, and sighing gently through the star-tipped pines,

Musing, I walked behind my placid burro,

While water rushed and broke on pointed rocks below.

I have known a green seas heaving ; I have loved
Red rocks and twisted trees and cloudless turquiose skies,

Slow sunny clouds, and red sand blowing

I have felt the rain and slept behind the waterfall.

In cool sweet grasses I have lain and heard

The ghostly murmur of regretful winds

In aspen glades, where rustling silver leaves

Whisper wild sorrows to the green-gold solitudes

I have watched the shadowed clouds pile high;

Singing I rode to meet the spendid, shouting storm

And fought its fury till the hidden sun

Foundered in darkness, and lightning heard my song

Say that I starved; that I was lost and weary;

that I was burned and blinded by the desert sun;

Footsore, thirsty, sick with strange diseases;

Lonely and wet and cold, but that I kept my dream!

Always I shall be one who loves the wilderness:

Swaggers and softly creeps between the mountain peaks;

I shall listen long to the seas brave music;

I shall sing my song above the shriek of desert winds.

-Everett Ruess

First Trip Down the River

Mom and Dad and Nate and Miranda drove through the snow to come down for the weekend. Nate brought his boat down, and I pulled big blue out and dusted it off and we went down the river with the kids. The water is still pretty cold but the air temps are getting warm down here, not swimming weather yet but plenty of warm for a float. I put River on the oars for some of the rapids and he did a good job keeping us off the rocks.

After church we took the kids out to the big dune across from Arches with the "sand" sleds. My Mom bought all of the boys sleds for Christmas but they don't really slide on snow, strangley enough they work great on sand.

Rowan going down face first and full bore as usual

Ridge, just before eating a sand sandwich