Canyons To Arches

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Mountain Bluebird

*Critters we’ve seen on our 2015 trip so far: elk, mule, mule deer, llama, prairie dog, donkey

*Birds we’ve seen on our 2015 trip so far: California condor, Brewer’s blackbird, American kestrel, spotted towhee, magpie, wild turkey, mountain bluebird

*National Parks/Monuments visited on 2015 trip so far: 3

 

It was time to travel back west and north into Utah, still enjoying some beautiful and fascinating scenery along the way like Church Rock pictured here.  This 3-tiered sandstone rock column stands about 200 ft. tall.  There’s a myth that a religious cult hollowed out a 16’ x 24’ opening in the rock to use it for their church (thus its name), but it was actually dynamited by the owner back in the 1940s to store feed for his cattle.

 

We were headed for Moab, UT, and hopefully a campsite at Goose Island Campground (BLM-GooseIsland).  Run by the Bureau of Land Management, it’s located on the Colorado River, has 19 sites, and is conveniently located for reaching Canyonlands National Park (29 miles away) and Arches

  National Park (4 miles away) and this campground offers spectacular views of the park’s red rock cliffs.  We arrived about 10:30 AM, and though half the campground was closed for weed abatement spraying, we were lucky enough to snag the last open site that just happened to be big enough for our rig and car!

 

Though we didn’t have a riverfront site, we still had great views of the surrounding cliffs plus front row seats to watch the Rod Run.  Every year since 1992, Moab has hosted the April Action Car Show which brings hundreds of hot rods, muscle cars, and other classic cars to town (though any kind of car is

   accepted).  The event averages about 400 cars per year, and the Rod Run starts off the festivities with a group of some of the cars make the scenic drive up Hwy. 128 right past the campground (this is just a sampling).

That evening we also got to witness a bit of the Sound & Light Show put on by one of the local tour companies.  After a dinner and once it's dark, folks are loaded onto a boat and head up river on the Colorado with a guide.  Out on Hwy. 128 a truck begins illuminating the canyon walls with 40,000 watts of light which not
only highlights various aspects of the canyon walls but also creates interesting shadows to enhance the guides stories and history of the area.  Evidently there’s music onboard to help with the narration, but we couldn’t hear it in the campground.  Unfortunately I couldn’t get any decent pictures but you get the idea.

 

Of course our main purpose here was to once again visit the national parks.  We decided to start with Canyonlands and are we glad we did.  Just look at the line waiting to get into Arches!   Canyonlands National Park (www.nps.gov/cany/) was established in 1964 and preserves the canyons, mesas, and
   buttes created by the Colorado and Green Rivers within a 527 sq. mi. area.  We once again visited the Island in the Sky section, one of three distinct sections and the most easily accessible. There are no roads within the park that link the three sections or that cross the Colorado or Green Rivers.  After a
brief stop at the Visitor Center, we headed out to Grand View Point Overlook (elevation 6,080 ft.).  Russ has commented before that if you had never been to the Grand Canyon, and someone brought you to Canyonlands and told you it was the Grand Canyon, there’d be no reason you wouldn’t believe him.

 

Since we’d visited the park a couple of times before and we could see a storm forming in the distance, we only visited a few spots including Green River Overlook.  On a previous visit Russ had made an interesting
     discovery.  The overlook’s fence is composed of logs and layers of stones. On one of the cap stones Russ had noticed what looked like leaves spray painted on top, and he had asked a nearby ranger
     about them. The ranger said he had never noticed them before, but they were indeed plant fossils…very cool!

 

        We also stopped at Orange Cliffs and Buck Canyon Overlooks, both with varying views of the canyons (though the twisted tree at Orange Cliffs caught my eye more so than the canyon!)  There were no hikes
   this time around especially with the impending storm.  We simply enjoyed the magnificent scenery and marveled at what Mother Nature has created.  Canyonlands is truly a remarkable place with lots of history and geology.

 

The rain did come and later that afternoon there were some beautiful waterfalls coming from the red rock cliffs surrounding the campground.
 

     A couple of days later we visited Arches National Park (www.nps.gov/arch) and there were no long lines …timing is everything!  After a quick stop at the visitor center, we began the climb to the heart of the park along several switchbacks which offer a great view of Moab Canyon.

 

Arches was originally named a national monument in 1929 and became a national park in 1971.  Within its 119 sq. mi. are over 2,000 stone arches of varying size (the greatest density of natural arches in the world) as well as hundreds of pinnacles, fins, balanced rocks, and so much
  more.  This red rock wonderland appears sort of like what our perception was as we grew up of what Mars would look like.  Many of the formations have been given names like the Three Gossips (at left) which as you can see is
     appropriately named as is Balanced Rock which stands about 128 ft. high with the top rock about the size of 3 school buses and weighing 3,500 tons.  There’s a loop trail around its base of about 3/10 mile and is the only “hike” taken this day.

 

In the Windows section of the park, we briefly stopped to view the North and South Windows and Turret Arch (didn’t get all 3 in a picture), and on the other side of the parking lot we checked out the Double Arch.  It actually has three major openings that began as one
     pothole arch, eventually eroding into what we see today, and they are still continuing to slowly enlarge.  At present the largest opening is about 148 ft. with a height of 112 ft.

 

   Of course no trip to Arches would be complete without a stop at Delicate Arch, the most famous of the arches and the state symbol displayed on Utah license plates.  This free-standing sandstone formation stands 45 ft. high and 33 ft. wide, and no, my photo isn’t crooked, it actually slants downhill.

 

Over the centuries many arches and formations have been destroyed through erosion and weather but many new ones have formed as well.  Nature continues to slowly alter this magnificent landscape creating an almost other
      worldly look and feel.  The beauty and starkness of this park is astounding and continues to be one of the top destinations in America.

Climbing Into History

[Click on any photo to enlarge.]

*Critters we’ve seen on our 2015 trip so far: elk, mule, mule deer, llama, prairie dog, donkey

*Birds we’ve seen on our 2015 trip so far: California condor, Brewer’s blackbird, American kestrel, spotted towhee

*National Parks/Monuments visited on 2015 trip so far: 3
 

As mentioned in the last post, only the Balcony House was available for ranger guided tours and is considered the most adventurous of the three tours, rated as strenuous.  Located at 7,000 ft., it’s a 1 hour tour that involves climbing a 32 ft. wooden ladder, crawling through a 12 ft. long 18 in. wide tunnel, and climbing up a
60 ft. exposed face cliff by way of two 10 ft. ladders and a series of stone steps.  Piece of cake, right?  It did sound a little nerve wracking and part of me wasn’t sure I wanted to attempt it (neither was Russ), but when we found out the price (only $4 per person), I decided I had to go for it.  Tickets are purchased at the visitor center with various times throughout the day, and after seeing the mockup of the tunnel which didn’t look so bad, we got two for noon the following day.

We met up with Ranger Abby shortly before noon, and it looked like there’d be about 15 of us.  Then just as we were about ready to head for the metal stairs that would take us down to one of the ledges, a bus pulled up with about 25 third graders!  We had hoped for a small tour group but oh well.

 

The house was built in the late 1200s and consisted of about 40 rooms.  One needs to be extremely careful not only because of the ladders and tight openings, but there are no guard rails (though most of the time you’re not that close to the edge).  We made stops in a couple of places so Abby could
describe the area, the house, and the life of the people who lived there (and probably so everyone could rest!).  Some retrofitting had been done in years past so occasionally we'd see steel pieces or obvious repairs, but the park service now tries to keep refurbishments as close to natural as possible.

 

One of our stops was at one of the kivas with a great view of the canyon as she explained how they worked.  Kiva is a Hopi word meaning “ceremonial room” though no one is certain what word was used back then.  It seems that kivas were important to the Ancestral Puebloans as gathering places for religious and social events, and sometimes even just a
place to sleep.  These circular pits were located underground accessed by a ladder through an opening in the roof and consisting of a fire pit, a small hole in the floor representing the place where they believed that humans first emerged called a sipapu, a ventilation shaft that brought in fresh air, a deflector consisting of a short wall between the firepit and the ventilation shaft that deflected the air from putting out the fire, and small ledges.  The heated air leaving the kiva through the opening in the roof drew the fresh air in through the shaft.  Quite an
ingenious system used by our ancient ancestors!

 

I had taken my smaller, older camera with me so as not to damage the newer (heavier) one, and this shot at left shows you just how narrow that opening was that we had to crawl through! However, you didn’t really have to crawl through the entire length because in the middle the space was about 6 ft. high so you could stay for a few feet and then crawl out.

 

The tour actually lasted almost 1-1/2 hours (Abby made it more like a classroom setting with lots of Q & A), and we survived this most adventurous tour.  I’m really glad we did it and wish at least one of the others had been open for a tour, too.

 

A storm was moving in and could be seen across the valley as we made our way back down the mountain headed to the visitor center.  We were heading back there since we were leaving early the next morning so I could get pick up my 21st Junior Ranger Badge which I had earned on this trip.

Exploring The Mesa

[Click on any photo to enlarge.]

*Critters we’ve seen on our 2015 trip so far: elk, mule, mule deer, llama, prairie dog, donkey

*Birds we’ve seen on our 2015 trip so far: California condor, Brewer’s blackbird, American kestrel, spotted towhee

*National Parks/Monuments visited on 2015 trip so far: 3
 

Several times over the past few years when putting together our plans for heading out west, Mesa Verde National Park (www.nps.gov/meve) was always on the list, but it also always ended up being cut because it was a couple hundred miles out of the way.  This year we finally made it, and this place was amazing!  Having wanted to be an archaeologist at one point in my life, its history and preservation were exciting to see (though I wonder if I might have eventually gravitated to anthropology or geology since I have come to find them fascinating too!)

 

Located in Colorado covering 81.4 sq. mi. and established in 1906, the park protects over 4,500 known archaeological sites including 600 cliff dwellings.  It provides a look into the lives of the Ancestral Pueblo people (also known as the Anasazi) that lived there for over 700 years from AD 600 to 1300.  The sites are some of the best preserved in the U.S. like Sunset House pictured here which was built on two levels consisting of 33 rooms.

 

We stayed at the Morefield Camp-ground within the park which from mid to late April has only one loop open, is first come first serve, and has no hookups or water.  As we went around the campground loop, we noticed that there was basically only one site that was going to be big enough to fit us and that was
   just barely!  (Website said that there were sites big enough, but they must have been in the closed loops.)  However we did have some very entertaining mule deer in the campground at some point nearly everyday, grazing, running, playing.  Though the campground
   is only 4 miles from the park entrance, you make your way up the mountain along narrow, winding switchbacks.  (This view at left is actually looking back down the mountain and that’s the visitor center about midway down all the way to the right!)

 

Elevations in the park range from 6,900 ft. to 8,572 ft. with the visitor center being at the base near the park entrance.  This relatively new and modern energy efficient building is also a research facility.  Out front is a cast bronze sculpture by Edward Fraughton titled "Ancient Ones" standing 20' 2" tall.  It depicts an Ancestral  
Puebloan carrying a basket of corn climbing a Cliffside as he would have back in his day. The place doesn’t have many exhibits, and we kept looking for where the orientation film would be shown.  Finally asked and discovered that it’s actually at the Chapin Mesa Archeological Museum, 22 miles from the visitor center in the park, so that was our destination one day.

 

During the summer there are two mesas (Chapin and Wetherill) with archaeological sites, but the rest of the year only Chapin Mesa is open.  From the outside the museum seems like a small log cabin, but it actually has several rooms filled with dioramas, artifacts, and exhibits.  We watched the 25 min. film that gave an overview of Mesa
Verde’s history and then wandered through looking at many of the exhibits.  One of the most fascinating to me was this pottery that was discovered in the floor of a small cave in 1955 filled with corn dating back to the 1200s.  The corn kernels are those actually found in that jar which had been buried up to its neck with the small bowl turned upside down as a lid keeping out insects and vermin.  The corn weighs 31 lbs. 4 oz. and measures about 22 quarts.

 

Out back is the Spruce Tree House, the park’s best preserved cliff dwelling.  These types of homes were built in shallow caves and under the canyon’s rock overhangs during the last 75 to 100 years of occupation in the region.  Spruce Tree, built sometime between AD 1211 and 1278, contains roughly
   130 rooms, and one can take a self-guided tour though some areas are off limits (two rangers are located at the site to answer questions).  To reach it involves walking down a paved winding path about a 100 ft. below the museum for a 1/2 mile round trip.  Russ decided to wait up top for me
while I made the descent down to the site (view from the House looking back up is at right).  The construction is quite remarkable especially when you consider when it was built (90% is original), though there is varying degrees of decay as would be expected.  The roof on one of the kivas has been
   restored by the park service, and there is a ladder that descends 6 feet down into the chamber.  I started to take a picture when I suddenly saw a hand on one of the rungs which surprised me as I had assumed you couldn’t go down there.  Well, of course, I had to go down and check it out.  These
round underground chambers were probably used for religious and/or social purposes with a roof made of log, mud, and stone (more on them later).  I was glad that I had made the walk down to Spruce Tree House to see this incredible archaeological site up close.

 

   Prior to cliff dwellings, the Ancestral Pueblo people lived mainly on top of the mesas in pit houses generally gathered together in small villages eventually building above ground pole and mud houses.  The population flourished as they farmed, hunted, and
   became proficient at making pottery and baskets.  There are many stops and loop roads along the Chapin Mesa road where you can view some of the remains of these surface sites dating back to AD 600, some with only the dug out ground and others partially still standing above ground.  Some of
these are found at the Far View Sites Complex where nearly 50 villages have been identified within a half square mile area.  It’s believed that people were living here about 200 years before they began building the cliff dwellings.  At left is just one of the houses of the few we saw.

 

Of course the big draw and fascination are the cliff dwellings, and there are plenty of them easily seen from the road or the overlooks, much more so than at Canyon de Chelly.  The largest and most famous of the cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde is Cliff Palace consisting of 150 rooms and 23 kivas.  It is 1 of 3 dwellings that
can only be visited on a guided ranger tour, but this spring it was closed to tours because of some preservation work the park service was doing on it.  We did have a great view of it from across the canyon (that’s what I’m motioning to in the photo), then I zoomed in with the camera so you can have a better look.

 

Another of the tour dwellings is Long House, but it’s on the road that’s only open during the summer.  And last but not least is Balcony House, considered the most adventurous of the cliff dwelling tours…but more on that in the next post!