Cottonwoods and Kivas

We made it back down to Cedar Mesa for a fall trip. We went down Shieks Canyon and hiked up Grand Gulch to the Kane Gulch Ranger Station. This part of the Colorado Plateau continues to amaze me.

Toad hanging out on the front porch of the Lion Track House, so named for its pair of mountain lion track petroglyphs

Kiva and Cottonwoods at Junction House

Junction House, an original ladder is hanging out on the far left. I cannot imagine how they were able to haul tons of rock, mortar and timber up these faces to make thier homes.

4 hour old Bear tracks

Seems a bear wandered about 20 feet from our camp Sunday night

800 hundred year old bear track at Turkey Pen House. Seems that the Corn Eaters had bear on their minds as well.

Communing with the Basketmakers and Corn Eaters

First view of the inaccesible portion of Turkey Pen Ruin
Two anthropomorphs hanging out in an overhang

Tyler looking for a way down from the Thumb Ruins

Sunset in the canyons

The famous Green Mask. This site is significant for a number of reasons. The first being that a full face scalp painted exactly like this pictograph was found in northeast Arizona, second Wetherill found the "Princess" here beneath this mask. The Princess was a female Basketmaker burial, her body was painted red and her face yellow, hair intact, buried with two turkey feather blankets (one containing bluebird feathers the other yellow feathers) and several large baskets on her head. Evidence of cannibalism was also found at this site. It is details of everyday life and the rituals of these people that intrigue me. I really want to know what life was like living in these alcoves.

Ghosts of Horses

On Prarie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor was describing his memories of fall and what things he associated with the season. As usual he was right on.

He said something to the effect that "Fall smells like wet grass, woodsmoke, apples and horses. Even when horses aren't around you can smell them in the Fall. The ghosts of horses from your youth"

Me and Padre smelling like horses in the Fall

Fall Light

It is not only the leaves that change this time of year, the lighting changes pretty dramatically as well. It is not so harsh and direct, much more slanted and richer.

Today as I was driving off the mountain through Castle Valley I timed it perfectly and was able to experience some incredible fall light on Castleton Tower and the Preist and the Nuns. The light was coming in underneath an approaching storm and just over the Porcupine Rim. It took me awhile to get home as I had to keep stopping and taking pictures.

5/8 Moon

Last Friday I took horses back into Dark Canyon to meet up with our District Archeologists and volunteers who are continuing the inventory of the Wilderness. My Dad and Carl came in with me this time and it was great to have them along. The weather was perfect warm days and cold nights. We went up several side canyons I had not been into before and visted some new ruins.

The vehicle driving the supplies to the trailhead got stuck and ended up being four hours late, which meant we did not get back to our camp (after packing thier supplies in) until about midnight. It was nice to see the canyon in the moonlight. It always amazes me how well horses do in the night, picking the trail up even when it is pitch dark.

I was glad my Dad got to see some of the places where I work. He is a pretty resiliant guy, it is hard for him to get around sometimes but he never complains and is always up for any adventure, even a midnight ride through rough country. As we rode through the night he said he was glad we had a 5/8 moon to ride under. Only my Dad who has spent his life with a tape measure would measure the moon in 1/8ths.

Dad and Carl getting ready to leave camp

Last light in Horse Pasture Canyon




Exposed ruins, watch your step when you go fetch the corn

Heading up Horse Pasture Canyon

Fall and Big Fish

For some reason Fall aways seems to be the season that appears so abruptly. One day it is over a hundred degrees and the next the aspens are golden and the elk are bugling. Fall seems to slowly meld into full fledged winter and then winter slowly gives way to Spring which gradually warms into Summer, but Fall pounces out of nowhere. It surprises me every year.

I took the boys up to Oowah tonight to revel in the Fall and fish. I ended up only catching one little brookie, but I thought I caught a monster for a minute. I had just gotten the canoe into optimum casting postion and my line started being ripped out of my reel faster than I had ever seen, it was so strong it pulled my canoe out into the middle of the lake, it actually scaird me to imagine the size of the fish that had to be on the end of my line and then the great beast surfaced and instead of the silver finned rainbow I was expecting the dark hairy body of Castor Canadenis (Beaver) rose up out of the depths all tangled up in my fly line. Luckliy he was not hooked just tangled in my line. When I lived in Montana I actually caught a bat with my fly rod, but this is the first beaver I have caught.

solo River

Trying to land some beaver

Chokecherries

The beggining of Fall always brings out the hunter/gatherer in me (more gatherer than hunter these days). So a couple of weeks ago we went up on the mountain to pick chokecherries for jelly. It takes a lot of chokecherries to make jelly, so we ended up making syrup instead. The boys love it.

Chokecherries in your face

Alina the wood elf

Canyoneering Bears

This was on the front page of the paper here today. Apparently this black bear got herself stuck in a keeper pothole over the weekend, with no way out until some hikers found her and threw some logs down in for a ladder.

Last Chance Rapid stolen from the Newtons

I had to steal a meat photo from Newtys blog. The more species the merrier.

3rd Annual Meat Fest and Dirt Burgers

The 3rd Annual Westwater Meat Fest occured this past weekend. At leat four species made it on to the grill this year including wapiti. My camera battery died about an hour into the trip so no photos of the meat made it on the blog this year. After the Westwater float we woke up early Sunday morning and drove to the Loop Road and rode the Kokopelli Trail, UPS, LPS and the Sand Flats Road. Todd was the only one to eat a dirt burger on the way down. We also made it in to the Cowboy Jacuzzi for some swimming, a couple of short hikes into Arches and the last hour of the Classical Music Concert at Old City Park. I am looking forward to going to work so I can rest for a minute.

Ty, Tiff, and Ashley floating down to Upper Cougar Camp



Creed and the interesting texture of the Precambrian schist that makes up the inner gorge of Westwater Canyon

River and the black and red canyon

Some Euro dude named Bruno, we ran into wearing womens clothing under his drytop

Todd riding the steep stuff prior to eating some dirt

Green Table

We have been trying to get over to Mesa Verde for awhile now and it has never worked out, but we finally made it over this weekend. I like visting remote backcountry ruins much more than the heavily visited stabilized ones in the National Parks, but if you are interested in the Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) you have to make the trek to Mesa Verde. With some of the biggest and densest sites in the Anaszi world it is a pretty amazing and sacred place.

Climbing out of Balcony House

The orignal route in and out of Balcony House that you still crawl through to exit. It is a pretty defensible entrance. Your enemies are fairly vulnerable to getting thier heads smashed in when they crawl through if you don't want them around.

Balcony House

Ridge hanging out on the balcony with the entrance ladder down below

Starting up the big entrance ladder to Balcony House

Green Table II

River waiting to go into Cliff Palace
Pondering the hole between the 3rd and 4th Worlds

The main tower at Cliff Palace. Four stories tall, the corner had fallen out when it was first viewed by Wetherill in the 1890s. Pretty amazing structure

Mesa top ruins. I am always telling my boys to stay off the walls when we visit backcountry ruins, so it was nice to visit some stabilized ones that they could go into and explore

Mesa Verde residents coming out to feed in the evening

Looking for a Peaceful Sunday Drive

After the requisite 3 hour church meetings (we really need to work on cutting that back to an hour, tops). We headed up to find some peace and quiet in my other place of worship. We drove up to Medicine Lake with the idea of walking through some of the alpine meadows and throwing a few flies at trout. La Sal Pass is one of my favorite places in the La Sals, high alpine peaks all around and views clear over to the San Juans and Ute Mountain in Colorado.

Then I remembered why it can be so frustrating trying to recreate on the mountain I work on as well. On the way up we saw two women on OHV's, one carrying a small child with no helmet (both dangerous and illegal) but I thought to myself "today I am not going to worry about it I am not working and they are on a legal road". So we drove up to the lake, as I was putting my fly rod together and untangling the kids poles I noticed a new OHV track cutting right through the middle of the large meadow at the pass. Once again, I am not opposed to responsible motorized recreation, but some days it seems that I see less and less of the responsible variety and more and more of the "It is my right to drive where ever and when ever I want" variety. The new track really irritated me, so I took a mental note that I would send someone back up on Monday to sign and try to rehab the illegal trail, so much for relaxing.

As I went to make my first cast, here comes the OHVs driving right into and across the meadow. Now I am beyond mad and all thoughts of fish rising to a caddis are gone. I handed my rod to my nearest son and took off on foot to "bust some perps". I finally caught the OHV riders and flagged them over. Two teenage girls and the same little kid. I asked them if they thought they were on a road? They both answered no. I asked them if they thought what they were doing was acceptable? They both said no. Then I explained that they could both receive tickets for driving off road and not wearing helmets, gave them Travel Maps and a list of rules for motorized use and told them to drive over to their parents and explain what I had just told them and if they had questions I would be down at the lake trying to catch some fish.

There are 1000 miles of open roads and motorized trails on the Moab/Monticello Ranger District alone, why can't people stay on them? I read today that there are 70,000 miles of open roads on public lands in Utah ( I have not checked the accuracy of this total, but it sounds about right). There are plenty of legal and appropriate places for motorized recreation, despite what "Take Back Utah" says. There is no excuse for driving off road across an alpine meadow. Use your legs, let your feet come in contact with the actual Earth once in a while, it will do you good.

There was an interesting opinion piece from an OHV rider in the Tribune today about the "Take Back Utah" rally from a fellow OHV user. Read it here. I love when somebody rational and thoughtful gets involved. We need more of that and less yelling and demonizing of those you don't agree with.

Meadow with new tracks

Boys on a log with Tuk in the background

Medicine Lake

End of Summer River Excursions

Summer is getting ready to come to a close (at least for Alina and the kids who have to go back to school because of new school construction) and we have been making a few late summer river excursions. Last Tuesday I took my trail crew down Westwater on the "Centennial Moustache Ride", so called because it was Erin's (Max's wife) 100th trip down Westwater and all of the trail crew shaved thier facial hair into porn/pirate/burt reynolds moustaches, rather disturbing but we may have to make it a tradition. I somehow got completly thrown out of the seat in Sock and To Me and was not able to make one oar stroke to avoid the "Magnetic Wall", but we still did not even come close to hitting it. I guess that is the secret, just jump in the back of the boat and let it ride.

Today me and the boys took the canoe out on the Daily and made it down without mishap.

Rio in the River

Take-out

I spent yesterday hiking into some of the more remote portions of the forest with the District Archeologist and the Lone Peak Hot Shot crew to do some fuel reduction around some of our more vulnerable cliff dwellings that contain a large of amount wood. One of the fires that is currently burning could potentially threaten the ruins if it moved in the right direction, so we went in an made a premptive strike and thinned out some of the vegetation around them to give them a better chance, just in case.

As a side note, this little excursion proves that we don't remove Anasazi ruins from within designated wilderness as inferred by the "Take Back Utah" group, we actually go to great lengths to protect them.

A full rainbow directly over the canyon and fire

Turkey track petroglyphs and some of the ruins that we were trying to protect.