Porcupine Rim Singletrack

Toad and myself celebrated Veterans Day by riding the Porcupine Rim trail to the river. It may be awhile before I do that section of trail again. Biking is a great way to get in shape and riding smooth singletrack or oceans of slickrock is very fun, but Porcupine Rim is neither of those. It is 12 miles of loose rocks and ledges, but the views are worth it.

The smooth singletrack of LPS before the ledgey hell of the Porcupine Rim Jeep Trail

Above the River in Jackass Canyon

Folk Fest Weekend

The entire Murdock Clan came down this past weekend for the annual Moab Folk Festival. We took advantage of the continuing fall weather biked, hiked, climbed and listened to Pete Rowan and his Bluegrass Band.

The entire Clan at that rock on everybodies licence plate, with Tuk framed perfectly in the arch

Rowan climbing the shadow of the aspens up Brumley Creek


Riding the geology of Bartlett Wash

Heading towards the end of the mesa

Halloween

If you can get the obscure cultural reference that Creed is dressed as you are super hip (notice his pants are on backwards)
Scary Pirates, Rowan was pretty excited to have a goatee and did not want to take it off

Nobody (including Tyler) knew what Ty was dressed up as, maybe K-Fed?

Extra credit if you can guess all of the characters in the Communist Party

We tried to make it back into Hammond Canyon agian last week but got snowed out so we ended up going further south to escape the storm.

Above is the satellite photo of where we rode, the color and form are pretty amazing so I thought I would post it.

Any guesses on where this is?

Life on a Ledge

This sky city is the most amazing setting of any Ancestral Puebloan structure I have ever visited. It was rarely visited but is becoming more popular with people publishing its location on websites, which I will not be doing. If you do find it treat it with respect, do not walk on the roof of the kiva, I am afraid it will not take many more people standing on it.

This is an ideal spot, it has only one way in and a fairly permanent water source on the ledge. The site is so exposed that it makes you a little uncomfortable even being there, but people lived thier lives out there in this little village on the edge of the great abyss.

Beautiful intact kiva, all pilasters and roof in place and much of the stucco still sticking to the walls. One wall has fallen into the canyon.I hope the Ancients don't mind me taking a picture of their sacred places, or maybe we just project our ideas of sacred onto these places and they were much more utilitarian to those that spent cold winters on this ledge.

The view out the kiva, which is perched right on the edge of an amazing cliff

Ty walking the sidewalk


Hanging out on the front porch

The kiva site

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